THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES. WE have dealt elsewhere with M. Barine's article on M. Cruppi's analysis of Press trials. The place of honour in the first number is given to an article by the Duc de Broglie, entitled "Twenty-Five Years After (1870-1896).” In this article the Duc examines the trend of French foreign policy during those eventful twenty-five years which have elapsed since the Franco-German war, more particularly in regard to the Egyptian question and the understanding with Russia. He evidently thinks that France is over-taxing her strength with her gigantic military preparations at home and her vigorous colonial policy abroad, and that the understanding with Russia is not sufficiently definite to serve as a complete counterpoise to the Triple Alliance.

HELMHOLTZ.

M. Gueroult contributes an interesting study of the life and work of Hermann von Helmholtz, the great German savant. He was a man of curiously mixed blood, being pure German on his father's side, while his mother was an Englishwoman and his maternal grandmother was French. It is interesting to note that as a child Von Helmholtz had a bad memory, especially for isolated words, irregular grammatical forms, and idioms of language. But he got on better with poetry, and best of all with the best poets, a circumstance which he himself attributed to the unconscious logical harmony which is an essential condition of the beautiful. He even in his youth wrote poetry, which was of course bad enough, but was an excellent discipline in forming his style and giving him the power of expression.

THE KHALIFA.

M. Deherain's article on the Khalifa Abdullah is an excellent piece of work, full of interest at this time when all eyes are turned towards the Soudan. M. Deherain begins at the beginning. He shows us the great Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed, the conqueror of the Soudan, appearing every day at the hour of prayer in the midst of his faithful followers. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence which this practice, continued perseveringly throughout his career, had upon the consolidation of his strange theocracy. At length, one day in June, 1885, the people of Omdurman are alarmed by a report that the Mahdi has not appeared in public as usual, and that he is dangerously ill. It is true. Lying in one of the slightly raised beds, which in the Soudan are called angarebs, the dying Mahdi, that pretended envoy of God, whose design had been to conquer not only the Soudan but Egypt and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, shook off for a moment the fell typhus which had him in his grip that he might nominate a successor to carry out his schemes. This he did in the memorable words: "The Khalifa Abdullah is marked out by providence to be my successor. You have followed me and obeyed my orders: do the same with him. May God have pity on me!" The authority thus strangely conferred on him has been firmly defended by Abdullah, and for the past eleven years the territory, which extends from Dongola to Lake Nô on the Upper Nile, and from Darfour to the River Atbara, has remained under his dominion, whatever the Dongola expedition may have in store for him in the way of a diminution of his power.

FRENCH VIEW OF ENGLISH RULERS AND WRITERS. The rest of M. Deherain's article consists almost entirely of an able summary of Slatin Pasha's recent book on his experiences as a captive of the Khalifa in the Soudan, though M. Deherain has all the Frenchman's

suspicion of one who is so friendly to the English power in Egypt. Perhaps suspicion is too weak a word, for at the end of his article M. Deherain denounces England in the usual fervid style for her vaulting colonial ambition concealed by a specious hypocritical philanthropy, her real determination to stay in Egypt, and her crowning act of duplicity in sending out the Dongola expedition.

M. Lafenestre deals with the sculpture exhibited at the Salons of 1896, M. Valbert reviews a recent work of Paulhan's on "Intellectual Types," and M. de Wyzewa notices "Weir of Hermiston" in an article which is a curious proof of the extent to which the Stevenson culte has spread among Frenchmen of literary tastes.

M. Texte also contributes an interesting study of the Wordsworth culte as seen through French glasses. He is fully persuaded that Wordsworth, though one of the great poets of the century, nevertheless remains practically unread in France, in spite of the efforts of some distinguished French critics.

A SWEDISH ZOLA.

M. de Heidenstam continues his papers on the Swedish novel with a study of Augustus Strindberg. Strindberg introduced what is called "Naturalism" into Sweden; but he is only half a realist, in that he is diverted from the naturalistic formula by his taste for abstract ideas in preference to physical phenomena. His characters speak and act in his name, when they are not Strindberg himself. He is an iconoclast, a reformer of the universe, yet pessimistic and sceptical, and in the last resort an aristocrat according to the ideas of Nietzsche. His literary output is enormous, consisting of stories, novels, poems, plays, literary criticism, various essays, actually including an essay on agriculture in France. In his novel, "Son of the Servant," Strindberg gives us his autobiography. All his stories reveal a profound contempt and even hatred for women, whose influence he considers deplorable, and opposed alike to natural laws and the interests of society. M. de Heidenstam evidently thinks Strindberg is mad.

M. Movieau's article on "The Economic Movement" is a study of that return of economic prosperity in France which he prophesied last summer.

M. Houston S. Chamberlain contributes a paper on Richard Wagner, who has lately become rather the fashion in France, which is a pleasant proof that international animosities are not always carried into the serener sphere of art.

Atalanta.

FOR Some months an interesting series of illustrated articles, entitled "Haunts of the Poets," by various writers, has been running in Atalanta. It includes Wordsworth and Westmoreland, Scott and the Scottish Highlands, Shelley and Surrey, Hampstead and Keats, and Shenstone and Warwickshire. In the August number Mr. Aymer Vallance writes on the history of Knives, Spoons, and Forks; Barbara Russell on Home Arts and Industries; Maud Venables Vernon on Bands of Mercy; and Mr. R. O. A. Dawson on the Modern Jews in Europe.

IN the Cosmopolitan for July L. L. Dyche gives an interesting account of a curious race of Arctic Highlanders, as he calls the Eskimo. He speaks of them as a most amiable people.

THE REVUE DE PARIS. ALTHOUGH no article in the July reviews can be said to be worthy of separate notice, F. Schrader's curious and thoughtful analysis of the Chinese or Yellow Race problem, and M. Lavisse's powerful analysis of the political parties which go to make the present and probably the future Italy, are both notable additions to periodical French literature.

DANGER FROM THE YELLOW RACES.

M. Schrader evidently believes, as did the late Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, that the Yellow Races-for he declines to see any substantial difference between the Japanese and Chinese-will soon become a very serious danger to the Old World. He deplores the ignorance with which Europe discusses the problems of the Far East, and points out that the average European has quite as many foolish notions about China and the Chinese, as has John Chinaman about Europe and the Europeans. The strength of China, he declares, lies in her immutability; and quoting the well-known authority, Richthosen, he adds, "It would be easier to bind the ocean with chains than to act on the Chinese nation." Further, he says that China will never be touched by any European missionary system, for the Chinaman is thoroughly satisfied with everything in his country and, above all, with his curious rarefied form of religion; and he is not even swayed by curiosity as to what goes -on outside his own yellow world. On the contrary, ho has a profound contempt for everything " foreign.”

66 ARISTOCRATIC AT HEART."

In the same number are published some curious letters written by the famous revolutionist, Barbès, to George Sand, addressed by him from first one and then another of his many prisons. In a long epistle written in 1866 he foretells the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race. "In twenty-five years they will number a hundred millions, and in a hundred years three hundred millions. Amid such an agglomeration what will become of our poor little France? . . . The Anglo-Saxon in America is like the Anglo-Saxon in England, an aristocrat at heart. He may call himself a Republican, and I know he has just abolished slavery; but Abolitionist or not, the Yankee resembles his father the Englishman inasmuch that he is a being whose whole traditions oblige him to think first for himself and of himself."

Those to whom Petrarch is more than a mere name will find much to charm them in the account, written by the well-known historian and archæologist M. Jusserand, of the poet's old age and stately tomb at Padua.

ITALIAN PROSPECTS.

Under the significant title "Quirinal, Vatican, Republic," the editor of the Revue de Paris gives his views on the Italian situation. As is natural, M. Lavisse is a determined opponent of the Triple Alliance, and he would fain persuade his Italian friends that nothing but evil can result from it. With this object in view he points out that the party represented by King Humbert and Signor Crispi only composes one-third of the Italian nation; the two others, that is the Radical or Republican Party and the Catholic or Vatican Party, being each in their own way extremely powerful, and up to the present time neither having shown the slightest sympathy with Italy's present foreign policy. Although the French writer scarcely touches on the financial side of Italian affairs, he notes significantly the changes which exces

sive taxation and general monetary depression have wrought among the people. Last year 291,000 men women and children emigrated; and though the King is respected, he is no longer loved, as he once was. M. Lavisse evidently believes that slowly but surely many Italians are beginning to see in a Republican régime the only way of securing a measure of financial prosperity at home and peace abroad.

DESJARDINS ON CUBA.

M. Desjardins discusses at great length the Cubar insurrection, and the part played by America in Cuban affairs during the present century. The writer asserts that it was at one time easily within the power of either Canning or Munroe to make the island a British or American possession; but the two great statesmen, in consort with those then at the head of public affairs in France, decided to leave to Spain "the pearl of the Antilles." Some time later, in 1846, a number of American financiers desired to buy the island, but the plan fell through; and during the several insurrections which took place in the following forty-six years the Government of the United States took no part in the Cuban affairs, not even in 1873, during the course of the Virginius affair.

M. Desjardins attributes the present insurrection greatly to a group of Cuban Revolutionaries living in New York. There were, he says, in the February of 1895 four political parties in Cuba: the Conservatives devoted to the Spanish Government, the Reformers who did not substantially differ from the latter, the Independents or Separatists, and the Autonomists or Home Rulers, who only asked for a local Parliament and a certain measure of self-government, scarcely the elements to keep going a revolution; and the French writer firmly believes that had it not been for the indirect assistance given by the United States, the Cuban insurrection would have come to an end long ago.

FLOWER-CULTURE IN FRANCE.

In the few pages devoted by M. Villard to the many flower-shows which have become a feature of Paris life are told some curious facts, not without interest to flower-lovers. The first flower-show ever held on the Continent took place in 1809, at Gand, and consisted of forty-six plants and flowers; at the show organised in Paris last May by the National French Society of Horticulture the exhibits numbered over fifteen thousand. In France the favourite flower has long been the rose, and during the present century Continental rose-culture has been greatly extended. Under Louis XIV. the royal gardens could only boast of fourteen varieties; now the rose-fancier can pick from six thousand specimens, and no gardener has yet been able to produce a striped red and white rose! During the winter the Riviera is one huge rose-garden; but it is interesting to learn that the finest and most expensive varieties sold in Paris are grown under glass close to the town. Next to the rose the Parisian dearly loves the lilac, notably the white variety, and this blossom was one of the first "forced" or grown with the aid of artificial heat in winter. The carnation or pink has become very fashionable of late years, and is a source of considerable revenue to Southern Spain. As for the prices of flowers, they vary greatly. A fine rose sometimes costs the Parisian buyer as much as 15s.; but this fancy price is due to the fact that at the New Year every Frenchman is expected to present a nosegay of flowers to all those of his women friends who have entertained him at dinners or receptions during the past year.

LA NOUVELLE REVUE. THE Nouvelle Revue is becoming more and more exclusively political and national in its aims and objects. Still poetry and fiction are fairly represented, for the editress has an excellent literary taste, and those who wish to know something of the great Provençal poet Mistral cannot do better than read his "Poem of the Rhone," which, divided into a number of chants," appear in both numbers of the July Revue. Very different in character, but of equal interest to those concerned with Continental literature, is M. Mauclair's attack on the literary personality of Emile Zola. To the author of "Germinal" and "Rome" this temerarious critic would fain deny all talent, and he is specially incensed at the freedom with which M. Zola receives interviewers and takes part in public movements.

HOW LAVIGERIE REACHED LEO XIII.

A nephew of Cardinal Lavigerie gives a striking picture of the famous Churchman, and tells of his career a number of curious anecdotes. On one occasion, according to M. Louis Lavigerie, the Cardinal asked an audience of the Pope in order to throw his personal influence on the side of the French as opposed to a German Chinese Mission. While he was passing through the long galleries of the Vatican, first one and then another of the Italian prelates who form the Papal court attempted to impede his progress. One told him that the Holy Father was ill; another that the Pope had closed his door and would receive no one; a third, throwing himself on his knees, implored the Cardinal's benediction. At last, surrounded by a crowd of chamberlains, papal guards, and other obstructionists, he came within measurable distance of the Pope's private apartments; then, throwing back his head he suddenly exclaimed in the trumpet-like voice familiar to many generations of North Africans, "Holy Father! Holy Father! you are being deceived. I am not allowed to approach you!" There followed an indescribable tumult; then suddenly a silence which made itself felt, a door opened, and the shadow-like white figure of Leo XIII. appeared, whilst a soft voice said calmly," Come in, my dear son." An hour later the French Cardinal, having obtained all he wanted, passed out again, and as he held up his hand in benediction over the bent heads of the youthful Italian monsignori, he smiled in his beard. The tale if not true is certainly ben trovato.

66 THE VENICE OF THE EAST."

M. Mury, who holds an important post in the French Colonial Office, contributes two valuable articles on Siam and the Siamese. Bangkok he aptly styles the Venice of the East, and as is natural he recalls with a certain melancholy the fact that the town once belonged to the French; indeed, a fortress built by engineers sent out by Louis XIV. remains one of the most striking features of the city. Bangkok is one of the most wealthy and important commercial centres in the East. The Siamese trades are divided into corporations, and each guild keeps to its quarter. Indeed, the Siamese seem to compare very favourably with the other yellow races by whom they are surrounded. Their only vice, according to their French critic, is gambling. After their money has all disappeared they will gamble away not only their personal liberty, but that of their wives and children. The gambling houses at Bangkok and elsewhere in Siam are nearly always held by prosperous Chinamen, who finally return home with much ill-acquired wealth.

A CITY OF GOLD.

Vast treasures and rare opportunities of loot await the future conqueror of Siam. The royal city, in which

is to be found the palace of the King of Siam, reminds the European visitor of conventional fairyland, or the world of the "Arabian Nights." Everything that in Europe is made of glass or china is there of solid gold. The very pagoda in which the royal family worship, and which is situated in the gardens of the palace, is made of marble studded with gems and the precious metals. A statuette of Buddha cut out of an emerald of fantastic size, said to have once belonged to the Laotians, is in the temple, and is surrounded by bushes of gold and silver, enclosing gold statues six feet high, each statue being clothed in silk garments studded with gems. No stranger has ever penetrated into the king's own private apartments; but, according to the natives, they are decorated in an even more splendid fashion than are the pagoda and the public or State rooms. The present king of Siam, Chula-LongKorn, is an exceptionally enlightened humanitarianthat is to say, he has practically abolished torture, and the ordinary criminal is beheaded instead of being slowly tortured to death as was once customary. The Siamese are a lively people, and greatly enjoy playing games and taking part in popular fêtes. On certain great occasions a sort of regatta takes place, in which the whole population, headed by the king and his children, take part. M. Mury declares that at the present time Great Britain may be said to absorb all the commerce between Siam and the outer world, and for the hundredth time in the Nouvelle Revue, the reader is urged to take up his staff and help to make France a great colonial nation.

"O. K." AND RUSSIAN PRESS LAWS.

Madame de Novikoff in a few eloquent pages discusses the Armenian Question. She lays all the blame of late events on the Cyprus Convention, and the gifted "O. K." also goes out of her way to answer the oft-repeated accusation that the Russian press cannot be considered seriously, given the power of the Censor. According to Madame de Novikoff, the lead pencil or blacking is only used when home politics are in question. All that concerns foreign affairs are discussed as openly in the Russian press as in Russian salons. But she admits that there are not a few articles in the code that might be altered with advantage, and cites her own case, for by some extraordinary mistake a work written by her was for a whole year placed on the Index.

Other articles discuss the telegraphic communication of France and her colonies, (all transmitted by British cables), Unity in Military Action, the reorganisation of the Louvre Galleries, the Budget of 1897, and the late Marquis de Morès.

SOME ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES.

The Woman at Home.

THE chief feature in the Holiday Number of the Woman at Home is a sketch of the Prince of Wales, which is set off with many portraits of his Royal Highness at various stages in his career. The rest of the contents are fiction and the usual gossip. Miss Jano T. Stoddart is daring enough to write a story of a Bishop's bicycle, with illustrations showing the right reverend gentleman-gaiters and all-in the agonies of learning to guide the wheel.

The English Illustrated.

THE English Illustrated Magazine opens with Charles Marquardt's story of his voyage on the doomed ship the Drummond Castle. He tells what took place with a reserve more impressive than the sensational writing that might have been expected on such a theme. Dr. Jean Horowitz gives, with illustrative blocks, an account of the St. Stephen's crown and the other regalia of Hungary. Lovers of the curious will peruse with interest R. S. Loveday's sketch of women's hats, principally during the last century and a half, and will see there plenty of proof of feminine folly and variableness. There is a good and instructive interview with two prison warders, giving, on the whole, rather cheery glimpses of a lot none too pleasant. H. J. Braekstad writes to show that the right way to see Norway is to travel independently, and not in personally conducted droves. The biographic articles are Henniker-Heaton's sketch of Sir Gavan Duffy and Herbert Ward's "Lady Baker in the Soudan."

Pall Mall Magazine.

THE Pall Mall Magazine having tried the experiment of 1s. 6d., is going to return to 1s. The August number contains a poem, illustrated in colours, on "The Fan," which is somewhat tastefully produced. There is a carefully written, copiously illustrated article describing Hardwick Hall, the writer of which, Mr. A. H. Malan, took the photographs by which it is illustrated. The paper on the Cambridge Amateur Dramatic Club has a good deal of piquant interest on account of the illustrations which it contains of many well-known clergymen in their make-up as ladies when they played in the college theatricals. There is the Earl of Ellesmere, Earl Carrington, Lord Battersea, the Marquis of Lorne, the Bishop of Richmond, Professor Jebb, and the Dean of Hereford all got up in female attire. The effect is very quaint. Mr. G. W. Forrest describes the "Kingdom of Kerry." Mrs. Parr's paper on "The Follies of Fashion" is devoted to balloons. Two ladies, the Duchess of Somerset and Mrs. Kelly, begin a series of articles on "The Country and Towns of the Dart"-the Devonshire Dart, not that of Kent. There is an interesting illustrated article on astrology by Mr. F. Legge, which contains the horoscopes of many members of the Royal Family. There is a brief unpublished poem by Wordsworth, dated Leamington, All Saints' Day, 1844, and was written on the fly-leaf of a volume of his works presented by him to the daughter of Colonel Taylor, of Leamington:

Not loth to thank each moment for its boon
Of pure delight, come whencesoe'er it may,
Peace let us seek, to steadfast things attune
Calm expectations, leaving, to the gay
And volatile, their love of transient bowers.
The House that cannot pass away be ours!

Strand.

THE Strand for July is fuller than usual of entertaining and curious reading. Lord Charles Beresford is the subject of an illustrated interview by Mr. William G. FitzGerald, and the escapades and exploits of the hero are set forth in attractive guise. A second instalment of the heroes of the Albert Medal suggests more imitable if less notorious forms of human valour. This series promises to be a sort of "lives of the saints" of a humanitarian not ecclesiastical turn, and to be of good service in teaching heroism by examples. The popular passion for "blood and thunder" is gratified, but is saved from debasement by the nobility of the chief actor. Mr. Andrée's balloon voyage to the North Pole, as forecast by A. T. Story, is perhaps the leading feature this month. Much curious information is given of the balloon, its house, its navigators, and their projected route. C. S. Pelham recounts how dogs are trained as smugglers from the free port of Gibraltar to the Spanish territory. The centenary paper on Burns is by Alex. Cargill, and is plentifully illustrated.

The Ludgate.

THE Ludgate Monthly contains an article describing the way in which the elephants are caught and tamed in Siam. A special commissioner describes and photographs scenes in "Lowest London." "The Portraits of all the Dukes and Duchesses of Marlborough " run from the first Duke to the ninth. An article on the "Cost of Criminal Relics" deals with the Chamber of Horrors. An article entitled "A Quiet Art" describes how an old gentleman of three score and ten, living at Llandudno, has found amusement in his old age, after his eyes have failed him, in the construction of models of castles, towers, and ancient gateways:

They are models arranged upon a table about four and twenty inches square, which stands in the recess of a large window. The front base-line is about twenty-two inches. The materials from which they are constructed are moss, lichen, and so on, put in place with most elaborate care upon a built-up foundation. The sky in the background is oil-painted, grey and white; the distant hills are flat, but the middle distance and foreground are full round models. The framework of the larger parts of the models is wood, and on these is laid Paris plaster to help make out the forms, the plaster being modelled while still wet. Cardboard is requisite for the slates, hemper tow for the thatch. The artist has grown his own trees from seaweed, infinite care going into the hanging of the "weed" on a skeleton tree with wire branches. He has arranged his foreground, the broken ground effects of which are got by laying finely cut seaweed and moss on a coat of thick glue while wet, and over this is sifted still more finely cut seaweed and moss, together with sand and turf mull. These materials are also used for roughening roofs and walls. The figures are flat, sketched with pen and ink on cardboard and cut out. The atmospheric effects are got by taking away the models of the middle distance and the hills when the exposure of the negative in the camera is only partly made. When the exposure is continued after the removal of the hills and middle distance, the sky that was behind them acts on those parts of the negative that were before acted on by the hills and middle distance. It need hardly be stated that the models, when completed, need to be photographed with practised judgment and the negative subjected to a degree of perceptive finish which is as delicate as it is rare, the work on the negative occupying from ten to twentyfour hours. Nor will it be doubted that a great deal of careful work has to be done before the time for taking the photograph is reached. As a matter of fact the time occupied from the initial stages of making the models to the finished. negatives varies from twenty to as much as eighty hours.