II.—ESSAYS, NOVELS, POETRY, &c.

"The key to the theology of the Apostolic age is its relation to the Messianic expectation among the Jews. The central point in the teaching of the Apostles is the fact that with the coming of Christ was inaugurated the Messianic reign. It was the universal teaching of the Jewish doctors—a teaching fully adopted and endorsed by the Apostles—that this reign was to be characterized by righteousness.... The means by which this state of righteousness is brought about is naturally that by which the believer obtains admission into the Messianic kingdom,—in other words, Faith. Righteousness is the Messianiccondition, Faith is the Messianicconviction. But by Faith is meant, not merely an acceptance of the Messiahship of Jesus, but that intense and living adhesion which such acceptance inspired, and which the life and death of Jesus were eminently qualified to call out."

In accordance with this view, Mr. Sanday, in his analysis of the Epistle, terms it "A treatise on the Christian scheme as a divinely-appointed means for producing righteousness in man, and so realizing the Messianic reign."

The simple view thus indicated, which is also borne out by the "Excursus on Faith, Righteousness and Imputation," is somewhat impaired by another Excursus (D), in which Sacrifice is regarded as the infliction of a penalty. In the notes also this view exercises a weakening influence, and, combined with some other similar features, produces a sense of indistinctness. Otherwise, the notes are written with great care, impartiality, and freedom. There is a devout sense of the greatness of the subject, and much modesty in the treatment of it, while at the same time the commentator does not hesitate to treat all the latter part of Gal. ii. as St. Paul's afterthoughts or comments upon his own words (a suggestion which has a wide application to other passages both in the Gospels and in the Epistles); or to speak of words such as those of Gal. v. 10: "I would that they were even cut off that trouble you," as "momentary ebullitions" which "are among the very few flaws ina truly noble and generous character." As regards the curious question suggested by the MS. discrepancies in the last three chapters of the Epistle to the Romans—namely, whether the Epistle was sent to the Romans alone—Mr. Sanday follows Dr. Lightfoot in believing that its original form was such as we now have it, with the exception of the last three verses, and that these formed an appendix, added on at the end of chapter xiv., when, during his captivity at Rome, St. Paul converted the earlier part into a circular epistle. The interesting view of M. Renan, who believes it to have been originally a circular epistle, and takes the four endings (xv. 33, and xvi. 20, 24 and 27) as the endings of the copies addressed respectively to the Churches of Rome, Asia, Macedonia, and some other unknown, is rather too curtly discussed with the remark that it fails when applied in detail. There is one more serious omission in this part of the commentary. Though honourable mention is made of the commentaries of Dr. Vaughan and Dr. Lightfoot, of Meyer and Wieseler, Alford and Wordsworth, not a single allusion is made to that of Professor Jowett. We can hardly believe that the old theological prejudice against the author has blinded the present commentator to the great exegetical and philosophical value of Professor Jowett's labours. But we cannot account for this strange omission of a work to which all English students of St. Paul's Epistles are so much indebted.

The two Epistles to the Corinthians are commented on respectively by Mr. Teignmouth Shore and Professor Plumptre. It is hardly possible that anything new or striking should be written on these Epistles, which in our day have not only passed through the hands of writers like Alford and Wordsworth, but have been a specially congenial field for the genius of F. W. Robertson and of Stanley. But Mr. Shore and Dr. Plumptre have well represented to English readers the sense and spirit of these Epistles and the Church-life which they reveal to us. Mr. Shore's judgment is, perhaps, at fault in a few special instances; he still believes not only in a non-extant Epistle to the Corinthians, but in an unrecorded visit of St. Paul to them; in which Professor Plumptre differs from him (conf. p. 285 with note on 2 Cor. xii. 14 and xiv. 1); he attributes the words, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman" (1 Cor. vii. 1) to St. Paul, not to those who wrote to him; and he thinks the history of the Last Supper was revealed to the Apostle directly in a trance—as to which he might be corrected by Professor Plumptre's explanation of St. Paul's "going up to Jerusalem by revelation" in the note on Acts xv. 2. But these are comparatively small blots, if they be blots, in an exposition which is well worthy to take its place in this most useful of modern Commentaries on the New Testament.

We are glad to hear that Professor Plumptre's "Commentary on the Acts" has been reprinted for the use of schools, and we hope that the other parts of the Commentary may be similarly treated.

The translation of Professor Cremer's "Biblico-Theological Lexicon," from the German, by Mr. Urwick (Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek, by Hermann Cremer, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Griefswald. Translated by W. Urwick, M.A. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark), supplies a great want in our helps to the study of the New Testament. Parkhurst is out of date and limited in his range of reference. Winer is a Grammar, not a Lexicon. Archbishop Trench's Synonyms, with all their value, do not cover the whole ground. The student turns, therefore, with eagerness to such a book as that of Professor Cremer. And he will not be disappointed. The book is what it professes to be. The author speaks modestly and truly of his work: "The work which, after a labour of nine years, I have now brought to completion is certainly an attempt only, and effort to do, not a result accomplished; it simply prepares the way for a cleverer hand than mine." He writes as an earnest believer, a pupil of Tholuck's, whose commentaries he singles out as alone fully investigating the great conceptions embodied in particular words of the New Testament Greek. He seems to have been fired by an expression of Schleiermacher's, which might be taken as the motto for his work: "A collection of all the various elements in which the language-moulding power of Christianity manifests itself would be an adumbration of New Testament doctrine and ethics." Like so many of Tholuck's pupils, he has tested his theology by the practical work of the ministry, not, however, neglecting the student's part, which after many years' toil has issued in the important work which has won him his professorship. The work has reached a second edition, and it is from this second edition (which contains an addition of 120 words) that the present translation is made.

Some words will, we may hope, be added in future editions. Such a word, for instance, as θρησκεἱα (James i.), which is used for religion itself; or, again, such a word as πηροω, with its compounds, which St. Paul makes the vehicle of so much teachingin Rom. xi.; or αρἑσκω, a word which may be said to have been converted by the language-forming power of Christianity, and others of equal or greater importance, have as yet no part in this Lexicon. The classical use of the words is fully noticed; it is, he says, in many cases "a vessel prepared to receive the Christian thought." The use of Greek words in the Septuagint is also worked out, though the author laments that the helps for this are so few. Of the Rabbinical or Post-Biblical writings use is also made, and of some of the earlier Fathers of the Church. But we miss the wide range of varied illustration from mediæval and modern literature which charms us in the work of Archbishop Trench. One source of illustration is deliberately put aside. "The works of Philo and Josephus," he says, "afford little help, because of their endeavour to import Greek ideas and Greek philosophy into Judaistic thought." Most students will be surprised to find that, even in reference to the conception of the Λὁγος, Professor Cremer considers that Philo's use of the word has no bearing on its use by St. John, which he considers to be simply an adaptation of the "Word of the Lord," as commonly used in the Old Testament and the Rabbinical writers. The object of the work is to discover the conceptions or ideas of the New Testament (or, as the writer expresses it with Rothe, "the language of the Holy Ghost"), by bringing together the passages in which the words are used. Whether he has always succeeded in this, or whether, as in the case of αιὡν (where he says that Ο αἱων μἑλλων is even in Matt. xiii. and xxiv. the new age of the world inaugurated by the resurrection of the dead and the second coming of Christ), or as in the case of σὡμα (where he does not even refer to the apparent use of the word by St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv. and otherwise elsewhere as implying hardly more than personality), he has not at times been dominated by conventional views, each reader must judge. But every student will find in the careful enumeration of passages, and the discriminating and decided but not dogmatic judgment pronounced upon them, materials which will assist him in working out (as each man must do) his own theological conceptions.

An edition of the Septuagint, with a literal translation into English (The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament; with an English Translation, and with various Readings and Critical Notes: Samuel Bagster and Sons), is a work attempted by no one, we believe, before Mr. Bagster, and will be welcomed by the increasing number of thoughtful students of the Bible. There is a short introduction, stating all that is known of the origin of the Septuagint; the Greek text and English translations are given in parallel columns, in neat and small type, which enables the whole work to be comprised in a moderate quarto volume; and short notes are added which notice variations of readings, alternative translations, and the additions made by the Hebrew original, and direct attention to the passages quoted from the Septuagint in the New Testament. There is also an Appendix noticing a very few words as to which some difficulty arises, and a few passages which are supplied from the Alexandrine text. No mention is made of the Apocrypha.

The translation is for the most part exact and literal, yet made to read fluently, where this was possible—perhaps more fluently than the Greek text. The following passage from Isaiah ix. 1-5, is a good specimen of the translation, and, being well known as the Lesson for Christmas Day, will enable the reader to appreciate the singular discrepancies often existing between the Septuagint and the original text as it stands in our Bible. The passage begins in the English version with the words, "Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation." In the translation of the Septuagint it stands thus—

"Drink this first. Act quickly, O land of Zabulon, land of Niphthalim, and the restinhabitingthe seacoast andthe landbeyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles."O people walking in darkness, behold a great light: ye that dwell in the regionandshadow of death, a light shall shine upon you. The multitude of the people which thou hast brought down in thy joy, they shall even rejoice before thee as they that rejoice in harvest, and as they that divide the spoil. Because the yoke that was laid upon them has been taken away, and the rod that was on their neck; for he has broken the rod of the exacters as in the day of Midian. For they shall compensate for every garment that has been acquired by deceit, andallraiment with restitution; and they shall be willing, even if they were burnt with fire."For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called the Messenger of great counsel; for I will bring peace upon the princes, and health to him."

"Drink this first. Act quickly, O land of Zabulon, land of Niphthalim, and the restinhabitingthe seacoast andthe landbeyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

"O people walking in darkness, behold a great light: ye that dwell in the regionandshadow of death, a light shall shine upon you. The multitude of the people which thou hast brought down in thy joy, they shall even rejoice before thee as they that rejoice in harvest, and as they that divide the spoil. Because the yoke that was laid upon them has been taken away, and the rod that was on their neck; for he has broken the rod of the exacters as in the day of Midian. For they shall compensate for every garment that has been acquired by deceit, andallraiment with restitution; and they shall be willing, even if they were burnt with fire.

"For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called the Messenger of great counsel; for I will bring peace upon the princes, and health to him."

(Under the Direction ofMatthew Browne.)

There is something very winning about Mr. Peter Bayne, who, by-the-by, has just received a Doctor's degree from his University, and read whatever you will of his, you quit the page with respect and liking for the author. You will, indeed, go far to find books or articles which more plainly bear the stamp of manliness, kindliness, intelligence, and wide reading. These are some of the most necessary qualities of a critic, whether of life or literature, and most of them are of especial value in historical criticism.Thathas lately taken up with principles and methods not very favourable to the just appreciation of such a book as Mr. Bayne's last, "The Chief Actors in the Puritan Revolution;" and it struck some of us that the best points in that work were missed by too many of its reviewers. A venture of a very different kind isLessons from my Masters: Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin(James Clarke & Co.). This large volume has grown out of articles which were originally published in theLiterary World, but these have now been much elaborated by Dr. Bayne, and have received considerable additions. The essay on Carlyle is beyond dispute the most valuable of the three studies, but they all belong to a class of writing which is sure of a welcome. We feel quite certain, however, that Dr. Bayne imposed upon himself a little, or more than a little, when he undertook his task. He tells the reader plainly he found, as he went on with it, that he could not maintain the attitude of mere pupil, as he had fancied he might. Of coarse not; and he need not have apologized even indirectly for the freedom of his criticisms, which might well have been much bolder. The real attraction of the work he undertook was, that itwouldgive him scope for widely-ranging comment; and it is the inevitable, by no means inartistic or unhealthy discursiveness of the treatment which makes it difficult to do justice to it. But we will venture upon a point or two nearly at random.

In discussing "Model Prisons," or rather the assumptions of that Latter-day Pamphlet, Mr. Bayne takes a view of our duty to criminals with which we agree, and he quotes the fact that the majority of those who belong to the criminal class are found to have abnormal brains and often diseased bodies. He also treats just in the way we might expect thedictumthat stupidity means badness. The last meaning of that, we almost fear, Mr. Bayne has not quite caught; as John Bunyan meant it, and as Carlyle means it, it is surely true. Again, it seems doubtful if Mr. Bayne, in taking up Kant's complaint that, while there is so much kindness in the world, there is so little justice, has put the complaint in the right place. It is awfull true, and not to be hidden from any honest and acute observer, that the love of justice and truth is very weak in most human beings; while the instinct of kindness is comparatively strong. Again, Dr. Bayne nearly surprises us by adopting the commonplace that great talents bring with them an increase of moral responsibility. Well, we all know the insuperable difficulties of the subject, how they all run up at last into one final problem of which the most plausible-looking solutions turn out to be only paradoxes. But, after all, can it be maintained that there is really any final difference in the degree of moral responsibility to be assigned to a man with a constitution like Byron's or Edgar Poe's, and that which is to be assigned to one of those criminals with abnormal brains? Shelley's grandfather was crazed; the father, Sir Timothy, washalf-crazed; what Shelley was we know. And can we consistently say that his faults (we do not speak of any particular act) were one shade less the natural result of the constitution of his brain than are those of any of Mr. Carlyle's "dog-faced" criminals? Is there any sense in suggesting that the splendid powers of such a man ought to be expected to act as breakwaters against the force of his special temptations? Of course we know how the enlightened British juryman would answer such a question, and equally of course there are rocks ahead answer it as you may; but we must pause a little longer on it than Dr. Bayne does (page 89) over the question "What is justice?"

Passing over other things, we now come to smoother water—the Essay on Tennyson. Here there is, of course, much to say "on both sides." Many of us would have liked a little less poet-worship, and a little more scrutiny. "The Princess" is dismissed with a line or two of apology—but it is far more, for Dr. Bayne's purpose, than "a serio-comic poem,"—it contains, indirectly, a great deal of self-disclosure. There is something very wrong about M. Taine's way of looking at Mr. Tennyson's domestic sweetness, but he has a glimpse of a truth about the poet and his work. Whatever the worshippers of Mr. Tennyson may say, his poetry contains more feeling after human passion if haply he may find it, than of passion itself; and heisconventional. He has never been right out and away into the wilderness. His poetry wants largeness, boldness, and breadth of atmosphere. We find no fault—being profoundly grateful for what this exquisite singer has given us; and knowing better than to expect contradictory qualities from the same harp; and certainly M. Taine has made a great blunder in setting up Alfred de Musset on the other side of his antithesis—but it is a fact that Mr. Tennyson has shown in his writings a tendency (or sub-tendency, if the phrase may pass) to please Mrs. Grundy, as well as the higher Pallas—a tendency which does a little to excuse those who insult the poor old soul without occasion; and who, indeed, are sometimes thought to be grimacing at the Divine Wisdom, when they are only teasing the old lady.

The subject of "Emendations" interests Mr. Bayne more than it does us, and we decidedly disagree with him in his general apology for the digging up of early writings which the writers may be presumed to wish kept dark. The alteration in the words of Iphigenia in the "Dream of Fair Women" is not as good as it might be, and Mr. Bayne most justly condemns "the bright death," but it is quite clear that the lines as they originally stood—

"One drew a sharp knife through my tender throatSlowly—and nothing more—"

did not, grammatically considered, express the poet's meaning; and are certainly open to ridicule on other grounds. The words, "AndI knewno more,"doexpress the meaning.

The alterations and additions in "Maud" appear to us to be about as bad as they could be. Explanatory additions were wanted, but not those flat prosaic lines, though Mr. Bayne appears to like them. On the other hand, the verse—

"I kissed her slender hand,She took the kiss sedately,Maud is not seventeen,But she is tall and stately,"

which our intelligent critic does not like, appears to us perfect—in its place. Sweeter love-poetry than the finest parts of "Maud" is not to be found in the language; the remark being confined to the more superficial kinds of love. For the "tender passion" of the poem is, after all, superficial and thin: the strongest parts being the cynical. It has always been a grief to us that so much exquisite poetry (Cantos XII., XVIII., XXII., in Part I; and IV. in Part II.) should have been framed in what is really nothing but a very poor "sensation" novel, with a moral or lesson which is poorer still. Poetry is not bound to be unintermittingly poetic; there must be flat passages,—but such second-hand phrasing as "a war in defence of the right"—"that an iron tyranny now should bend or cease"—"a cause that I felt to be pure and true"—"a giant liar"—is intolerable in a poem of which the climax is so high-pitched. Better the merest conversational familiarity, than this rhetorical magniloquence.

Before passing from Tennyson's poems, we cannot help noting a curious example of Dr. Bayne's tendency to excessive praise and admiration. In that very poor poem, "Sea-Dreams," the city clerk's wife induces her husband to forgive the just-dead man who has robbed them of their savings. Upon which Dr. Bayne remarks; "There is not a nobler heroine in literature than this wife of a city clerk, and I see no reason to believe that there are not many such to be found in London." Nor do we—six women out of ten exhibit every week of their lives "heroism" just as "noble." It is perfectly commonplace; and it is the critic's warm-heartedness which betrays him into these extravagancies of language.

The Essay on Ruskin has been nearly all rewritten, and it is a fine specimen of studious candour, and something more. All we will add is, that we hope Mr. Bayne holds, along with Mr. Ruskin—though it hardly looks as if he did—that "the destruction of beauty is a sacrilege and a sin." This is undoubtedly a fair account of what Mr. Ruskin means in certain portions of his writings, and he is not the only one who has suffered "anguish," little short of despair, at certain "works of profanation." Mr. Bayne quotes Mr. Ruskin's passionate words about the befouling and desecration of the "pools and streams" around Carshalton. Now, it would not be easy, perhaps, to prove that God made those "pools and streams," still lovely in their degradation, in a sense in which he didnotmake the human beings who have "insolently defiled" them; but we may at least say that the human will was concerned not only in the "defiling" but in the production of the defilers, while it wasnotconcerned in the production of those "pools and streams." And we may conjecture that if Mr. Ruskin had been asked to decide whether the "pools and streams" should retain their original clearness and beauty, and the human beings remain unproduced, or whether the latter should come into existence and the "poolsand streams" be defiled—he would have stood for the first alternative. But if he afterwards followed out his decision to its consequence, it would make an end of what Mr. Bayne rightly calls the "communistic" element in his writings. It is painfully certain that if Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth had been disgusted by "people from Birthwaite" before the "Excursion" was written, that poem would have been very different here and there.

Mr. John Addington Symonds writes much, and he writes with absorbing pains. When he called his new bookSketches and Studies in Italy(Smith, Elder, & Co.), had he forgotten a previous title of his,Sketches in Italy and Greece? In any case there is a wide difference between the two volumes; in the former we had more of the traveller, in the latter we have more of the scholar, though the traveller is still present; for instance, in the Essay, "Amalfi, Pæstum, Capri," and in the "Lombard Vignettes." In the Essay on the "Orfeo" of Poliziano, and that on the "Popular Italian Poetry of the Renaissance," we are again glad to recognize the author's masterly power in certain kinds of translation; and those the kinds in which the labourers are few, though the harvest is so large. In about seventy pages, close pages it is true, Mr. Symonds presents us with a sketch of Florentine history, the like of which, for compactness and minuteness of information, one knows not where to seek. Mr. Symonds is a striking example of the modern school of "culture"—using that word in its more special sense. Unwearied in the pursuit of detail, it occasionally tires the reader. There is a want of emphasis—not to say a shamefaced avoidance of it; there is the want of grasp which comes of the absence of hearty controlling emotion, or of any purpose beyond what may belong to the monograph before you. There is too much colour, and too little motion—the reader would even be glad of a jolt now and then; almost anything rather than this eternally grave gliding manner, in which the end is like the beginning, the beginning like the middle, and thequorsum hæc?seldom answered with anything like energy. If we take an Essay like that on "Lucretius," we become conscious, indeed, of an effort, but it seems rather an effort to lift a weight, than the effort of a living mind in free movement over a large subject. Inevitably we have much that is true, very much of refinement and accomplishment, and of course a good aperçu now and then; but such interest as there is appears a little forced, as if the author only half-believed in his own points, and too often endeavoured to give an air of breadth to literary stippling by mere largeness of phrase. These hints apply (in our opinion) with peculiar force to the paper on "Lucretius;" but they are not wholly inapplicable to that entitled "Antinous," which does not fall far short of being tedious. But no apology was necessary for reprinting the essays on blank verse, &c., which are contained in the Appendix, though in those also there seems an excessive tendency to make small "points," and force large meanings on trifles. The volume has a finely-executed steel engraving of the Ildefonso group (Antinous) in the museum at Madrid.

There is nothing rude, we trust, in wondering aloud how many readers will know quite off-hand, without glancing lower down, who wrote this exquisite little poem, though scarcely any one will read it without a sob, and none will ever forget it:—

"My little son, who looked from thoughtful eyes,And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,I struck him and dismiss'dWith hard words and unkiss'd,His mother, who was patient, being dead.Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,I visited his bed,But found him slumbering deep,With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yetFrom his late sobbing wet.And I, with moan,Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;For, on a table drawn beside his head,He had put, within his reach,A box of counters and a red-veined stone,A piece of glass abraded by the beach,And six or seven shells,A bottle with bluebells,And two French copper coins ranged there with careful art,To comfort his sad heart.So, when that night I pray'dTo God, I wept and said:Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath,Not vexing Thee in death,And Thou rememberest of what toysWe made our joys,How weakly understoodThy great commanded good,Then, fatherly not lessThan I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,Thou'lt leave Thy wrath and say,'I will be sorry for their childishness.'"

Only we hope the number of those who can readily assign the poem to its author is after all, considerable: for it would be an ill omen if "The Angel in the House," "Faithful for Ever," the "Unknown Eros," and their companion poems did not find a fairly large, as well as a choice public. "The Unknown Eros, and other Odes," was published in 1877. Though it contained the little poem we have just quoted, and a few others of the most pellucid simplicity and the most homely sweetness, these were found in the company of "odes" in which the theme was as high-strung as the title, and a few in which the author's peculiarities were stretched to the utmost. On the whole that volume could hardly be supposed to appeal to any but a few. Several years ago, there was a very cheap edition of "Tamerton Church Tower," and most of the other poems (including the "Angel in the House"), and we should conjecture that it sold well—but it is now out of print, we are told. We have now, published by Messrs. George Bell & Sons, a selection from Mr. Patmore's poems, made by Mr. Richard Garnett (himself a poet) and entitledFlorilegium Amantis. It makes 230 pages in a very handy little volume, and contains some of the most exquisite things Mr. Patmore has printed; along with a few that are new to us. We are not sure that we miss many of the very best (or best-loved) pieces; but judging, as we are at the moment compelled to do, from the earlier editions of the poems, we fancy there has been some "cooking,"—the sort of thing which an affectionate reader who gets his poet by heart always resents a little. The "Wedding Sermon," as we have it here, looks like an extension of Dean Churchill's letter to Frederick in "Faithful for Ever"—though we note some changes in the old familiar lines. Some very charming touches are omitted in "The Rosy Bosom'd Hours;" but we are not surprised, for we had them struck out once by an editor! The first four lines, about the curtained and locked "coupé" in the train, were, we presume, looked upon as sure to set the hogs snorting over any such touch as "the isthmus of your waist." Some portions of "The Victories of Love" seem to have been worked into "Amelia." The piece entitled "Alexander and Lycon" does not strike us as being good enough for its company. But certainly we know of no such "lover's garland" as this, and do not well see how there can be such another. This must not be taken to imply that Mr. Patmore will seem to every thoughtful reader consistent in his presentation of the ethics of his topic. For example, Dean Churchill's Sermon will not hang together with Mrs. Graham's beautiful letter to Frederick upon the difficulties of married life.

If there is any real defect in this nosegay, it is, perhaps, that we do not see a little more of Lady Clitheroe, with her ever-delightful humour. But perhaps Mr. Garnett—or Mr. Patmore, looking over his shoulder—remembered Mr. Shandy's advice to my Uncle Toby, to eschew mirth while paying his addresses to Widow Wadman. We, however, are under no restraint in this respect, and recommend everybody who takes up Mr. Patmore to make the most of Lady Clitheroe, and not to pass thoughtlessly over her most playful sayings; for they are usually quite as wise and good as the serious passage which we now extract from her letter to a newly-married couple:—

"Age has romance almost as sweet,And much more generous than thisOf your's and John's. With all the blissOf the evenings when you coo'd with him,And upset home for your sole whim,You might have envied, were you wise,The tears within your mother's eyesWhich, I dare say you did not see.But let that pass! Yours yet will beI hope, as happy, kind, and trueAs lives which now seem void to you.Have you not seen shop-painters pasteTheir gold in sheets, then rub to wasteFull half, and, lo, you read the name?Well, Time, my dear, does much the sameWith this unmeaning glare of love."

These are the last words of the book, and, having read them, the worst enemy of lovers' garlands will not accuse Mr. Patmore of "putting stuff and nonsense into people's heads" about love and marriage.

Two more slight but perhaps not uninteresting remarks. It may be from our ignorance, but we have never been able perfectly to enjoy the lines—

"It was as if a harpwith wires,Was traversed by the breath I drew."

The force of the "harp" suggestion is plain, and it is good, but why "a harpwith wires?" The other small matter is amusing. The piece in praise of England (p. 76), reproduced from "Faithful for Ever," is dated 1856, and this is the only date given in the volume. What does it mean? We conjecture that Mr. Patmore has an almost savage wish to make it clear that since what he has elsewhere called "the year of the great crime, when the false English nobles, with their Jew, slew their trust," he thinks this beautiful description has become inapplicable to his country:—

"Remnant of Honour, brooding in the dark,Over your bitter cark,Staring, as Rizpah stared, astonied seven days,Upon the corpses of so many sonsWho loved her once,Dead in the dim and lion-haunted ways,Who could have dreamtThat times should come like these?"

Those are a few of the bitter lines about England which abound in "The Unknown Eros, and other Odes."

Among books to possess—books to be bought, begged, or stolen, pleasant to look at, pleasant to dip into, and useful to refer to, we give a place in the front rank toPoems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, by William Barnes (C. Kegan Paul & Co.), and nobody will dispute this award. Many of these poems are familiar upon the tongue, or laid up silent-sweet in the memory of hundreds of world-weary Cockneys, who never set eyes on a Dorset vale, and probably never will. Mr. Barnes writes a modest and characteristic preface explaining that two of these three Collections of rural poems had long been out of print (we are glad to hear it), and also calling attention to the glossary at the end of the volume, "with some hints on Dorset word-shapes." Mr. Barnes is past reviewing, and we will only add that this complete collection (467 pages) forms a handsome and well-printed volume, and is altogether a thing to be delightedly thankful for.

Titles often prove misleading things, and it is not often that the outside of any book gives the faintest hint of its quality, unless it tells you, or nearly tells you, the publisher's name, for of course there are publishers who very rarely issue bad, or even weak books.Memories: a Life's Epilogue. New Edition. With a Lament for Princess Alice.This is so very unpromising a title-page that if it had not been for the names, Longmans, Green & Co. at the foot of it, we might well have begun to turn over the leaves with some prejudice against the anonymous author. But a very casual glance informs the reader, in this case, that he has to deal with a highly intelligent man of the old school, with plenty of caustic humour in him. The author appears to be a gentleman advanced in years, and the "Memoirs" consist of recollections of incidents in his father's life and his own, going back at least as far as the days of Cribb and Molyneux, and taking in some pleasant scenes of Continental travel. There is something exceedingly quaint, almost ludicrous, in the author's way of employing the Spenserian stanza, and as it is not always clear that he is conscious of the humour there is in it, the reader's attention is kept on the alert in the very last way that would commend itself to a critic:—

"The matron of the house obliginglyLed him to two large rooms on the first floor,Where he would have more light and liberty,With a good walk along the corridor;Besides which, they expected one or moreNice gentlemen to-morrow afternoon.The gentleman who left the day before—Poor man! he had a cough would kill him soon—Ten months he had been with them on the twelfth of June."

This is certainly odd, and the puzzle is that though the author, as we have said, has true and biting humour in him, he never drives his stanza with the consciousliltthat you find in, for example, Byron's use of a substantially kindred measure in "Beppo," or "Morgante Maggiore." Take the first lines that occur to one's mind in the latter:—

"There being a want of water in the place,Orlando, like a trusty brother, said,Morgante, I could wish you in this caseTo go for water. You shall be obeyed," &c.

Here Byron is making the flat prose of the metre (so to speak), a source of humour in itself: but we cannot find that the author of these "Memories" intends anything of the kind. We agree with some of our brethren in finding the occasional lyrics good, and the opening lines of the seventh canto contain hints of genuine poetic quality. Altogether the book is a noticeable budget of gossip in verse, with not a few strong, pointed passages to relieve the effect of the flat or weak pages; which latter are, to speak the truth, too numerous. We should guess the author to be a very "clubable man."

This is a very pleasant title, at all events,A Nook in the Appennines, or a Summer Beneath the Chestnuts, by Leader Scott, author of "The Painter's Ordeal," &c., &c. With twenty-seven Illustrations, chiefly from Original Sketches (C. Kegan Paul & Co.), and the book is pleasant too. Finding the heat at Florence, on the 11th of June—notlastJune—too much for them, it being 96° in the shade, an English family flee to a nook in the mountains, where an old villa has been got ready for them; and there they sit, "at the receipt of coolness," like Lamb's "gentle giantess," till September. The villa on the Apennines is 2220 feet above the level of the sea, and the thermometer stands only at 70° in the open air. Now 70° is ordinary agreeable summer heat for England; though it is many degrees higher than anything we have seen (up to the middle of July) in England this dreadful year. The illustrations are helpful, and, without being obtrusively antiquarian, have most of them a retrospective or historical interest, as well as the more obvious one which is common to illustrations. The forty short chapters of which the book consists are filled with sketches of the life our English friends lived in the mountain nook, and of the manners and daily lives of the peasantry by whom they were surrounded—and these will be more instructive to a reader who knows a little about the Etruscans than to one who knows nothing of them. The interest of the narrative is never strong, but it is strong enough to carry the attention equably forward to the end, and there is no affectation; but it is a great mistake, and an unkindness to the reader, to omit, in a case of this sort, giving a sufficiently full, complete, and picturesque account of the travelling party themselves. We ought to be told how many there were, their ages, relationships, &c., and something of their previous travelling experience, if any.

Of course it is a good thing when a first-rate French, German, or Scandinavian novel is translated into English, and this is pretty sure to happen, when it does happen, through the agency of high-class publishers. But it is a very different thing when translations of foreign novels are thrown at our heads by the score, by writers or publishers whose chief object is to pander to certain questionable tastes. We fear that this evil is upon us, or not far off. But a word of pleasant, if qualified, welcome is due toA Distinguished Man: a Humorous Romance, by A. Von Winterfeld, translated by W. Laird-Clowes, (C. Kegan Paul & Co. 3 vols.). The chief thing toqualifythe welcome is the fact that the author is too fond of hinting at the skeleton in the cupboard of what people call "modern thought." But apart from this, the book is amusing, and often more than amusing. It belongs to a type which is very rare in English literature—a sort of child-like farce, that is exceedingly difficult to describe; but it must be a very saturnine reader that can help a good laugh at some of the wild adventures of the German schoolmaster and German doctor upon English ground. These two men are rivals in love, and have both sought the hand of a German butcher's daughter. In the fulfilment of a certain ordeal, or test, which he imposes, they have to travel by way of Ostend to London, and thence to Edinburgh; the one who is first at certain marked points in a given route, to be the winner of the fair prize. Make up your mind that you are going to read some nonsense, and you will enjoy the book. The accuracy of the German in guide-book matters, in spelling, and in just those matters in which a French author always fails, is very striking. But we fear he is a little off the line once or twice. Is there in London any teacher of mathematics who keeps a man-servant, and covers his floor with carpets of velvet pile?

FOOTNOTES:[1]Captain C. A. G. Bridge, R.N.: "The Revival of the Warlike Power of China,"Fraser's Magazine, June, 1879.[2]SeeBlackwood's Magazine, July, 1879, pp. 120, 121.[3]Apropos of these remarks it is worth while quoting here a memorial by the ex-Ambassador Kwo Sung-t'ao, published in theLondon and China Telegraphof 7th July, 1879, as the first presented to the Throne on his return to China, and in which the best that he can say of England, notwithstanding his cordial reception and marvellous experiences, seems to be that he was "excessively cast down in a strange country," where, "had he been put into a ditch, there would have been nobody to cover him with earth." The very name of the place to which he was accredited appears to have been beneath mention to his august master. ThePeking Gazetteof the 3rd moon, 3rd day, contains the following memorial from Kwo Sung-t'ao, late Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, to the Emperor:—"Your servant," he writes, "has suffered from many bodily infirmities. Relying upon the heavenly (i.e., your Majesty's) grace, I was appointed to go abroad on service of heavy responsibility. I am now feeble with age, having served at so great a distance; I also deplore my stupidity, and am extremely apprehensive of my inability in performing the functions devolving upon me. Since the sixth or seventh moon of the year before last I have suffered from insomnia. A year ago my spirits became daily moreabattu. In the second month of last year I suddenly experienced phlegm rising in my mouth, and vomited fresh red blood, without being able to stop it, so that in a trice a basin would get quite full. I consider that my life has been marked by increasing afflictions; my respiration is impeded; I am agitated and nervous; already I have contracted an asthma, and this I certainly had not formerly. Excessively cast down, in a strange country several tens of thousands of li away, I thought that if I were put in a ditch there would be nobody to cover me with earth. Fortunately, by virtue of the heavenly (i.e., Imperial) compassion, having been graciously permitted to give up my office, all that remains of me, protractedly wearing out my failing breath, is due to the overflowing grace of the Holy Lord (the Emperor). During the two years I have been abroad I have passed under the hands of foreign doctors not a few, who felt my pulse and administered medicine in a manner very different from native practitioners. In relieving my indigestion and removing the torpor [of my liver] they occasionally produced some little effect; but my constitution became weaker every day, and there was no restoring it. After casting about this way and that, there seemed but one resource left to me—to take advantage of a steamer bound for Fu (i.e., Shanghai), and then to return by way of the Yangtsze River to my native place and put myself under medical advice. Prostrate I implore the Heavenly Compassion to grant me three months' leave of absence, in order to establish a complete cure, so that perhaps I may not contract disease that will prove incurable. After your servant has got home it will be his duty to report early the day of his arrival, and he earnestly desires that he may be restored to health. Then I will return to the capital to resume my functions, and implore that some trifling post may be given me that I may testify my gratitude by strenuous exertions, like a dog or a horse. Wherefore I, your humble servant, now beg for leave of absence on account of my ill-health, and respectfully present the petition in which my request is lucidly set forth, entreating with reverence that the sacred glance may rest upon it."[4]Contemporary Review, May, 1879, p. 261.[5]L. c.p. 262.[6]"A classification of any large portion of the field of Nature, in conformity to the foregoing principles, has hitherto been found practicable only in one great instance, that of animals."—Logic, third edition, 1851, vol. i., chap. viii. § 5, page 279.[7]Contemporary Review, July, 1879, pp. 716 and 717.[8]L. c.p. 717.[9]Contemporary Review, July, 1879: "What are Living Beings?"[10]Very small deer, commonly called in error musk-deer.[11]The European beavers have abandoned the dam-building habit. They retained it, however, as late as the thirteenth century.[12]By the Author in a Paper read before the Zoological Society in Nov. 1864. See also his "Man and Apes," Hardwicke, 1873; and the article "Ape" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," vol. ii. p. 148.[13]"Histoire Naturelle," tome xiv. p. 61, 1766.[14]For an explanation of the zoological system of nomenclature which has been adopted since the time of Linnæus, seeContemporary Reviewfor May, page 262.[15]See ante, p. 14.[16]SeeContemporary Reviewfor July, p. 710.[17]SeeContemporary Review, July, p. 710.[18]For a summary of our knowledge respecting this group, see the "Linnean Society's Journal," Vol. xiv. (Zoology), p. 136.[19]A "spore" is a minute reproductive particle.[20]SeeContemporary Reviewfor July, 1879, p. 714.[21]Some botanists think that yeast is no true and definite kind of plant, but that it is only a conglomeration of fungoid spores of divers sorts.[22]This motion is that referred to at the bottom of page 696, in theContemporary Reviewfor July, 1879, asCyclosis.[23]Some readers may be startled at the mode here adopted of primarily dividing the Phanerogams, and may object to it as opposed to usage; but reasons will be given later for the mode of division here adopted.[24]The above-named plants may for our purpose be thus conveniently grouped together, according to the older fashion of botanists. Strictly speaking, however, they should be divided amongst several orders—e.g., hazel and hornbeam (Corylaceæ), the oak, beech, and chestnut (Capuliferæ), the birches (Betulaceæ), the willows (Salicaceæ), &c.[25]Containing upwards of 2500 species.[26]"Comte and Positivism," p. 140.[27]"The Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine," p. 28.[28]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 419. I quote from the translation.[29]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 71.[30]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 218.[31]Ibid. iii. p. 365.[32]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 348.[33]Ibid. iii. p. 383.[34]Ibid. iii. p. 376.[35]Ibid. iii. p. 283.[36]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 78.[37]Ibid. iii. p. 346.[38]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 346.[39]Ibid. i. p. 562.[40]Pol. Pos. i. p. 106. In my first article (Contemporary Reviewfor May, p. 211) I inadvertently spoke of the hierarchical arrangement of society as extending to the proletariate. This is inaccurate, for Comte rather dwells on their "homogeneity," and seeks to obliterate all distinctions of rank among them, only allowing to the engineers a kind of "fraternal ascendancy." Pol. Pos. iv. p. 307.[41]Pol. Pos. iv. p. 294.[42]Pol. Pos. iv. p. 292.[43]It seems to me not improbable that the level was determined by simply flooding (though to a very small depth only, of course) the entire area to be levelled—not only the pavement level, but higher levels as the pyramid was raised layer by layer. By completing the outside of each layer first, an enclosed space capable of receiving the water would be formed (the flooding being required once only for each layer), and when the level had been taken the water could be allowed to run off by the interior passages to the well which Piazzi Smyth considers to be symbolical of the bottomless pit.[44]The irregular descending passage long known as the well, which communicates between the ascending passage and the underground chamber, enables us to ascertain how high the rock rises into the pyramid at this particular part of the base. We thus learn that the rock rises in this place, at any rate, thirty or forty feet above the basal plane.[45]There is a statement perfectly startling in its inaccuracy, in a chapter of Blake's "Astronomical Myths," derived from Mr. Haliburton's researches, asserting that in the year 2170B.C. the Pleiades were "exactly at that height that they could be seen in the direction of the Southward-pointing passage of the pyramid." The italics are not mine. As this passage pointed 33-2/3°, or thereabouts, below (that is south of) the equator, and the Pleiades were then some 3-2/3° north of the equator, the passage certainly did not then point to the Pleiades. Nor has there been any time since the world began when the Pleiades were anywhere near the direction of the southward pointing passage. In fact they have never been more than 20° south of the equator. The statement follows immediately after another to the surprising effect that in the year 2170B.C."the Pleiadesreallycommenced the spring by their midnight culmination." The only comment an astronomer can make on this startling assertion is to repeat with emphasis the word italicized by Mr. Haliburton (or Mr. Blake?). The Pleiades being then in conjunction with what is now called the first point of Aries, culminated at noon, not at midnight, at the time of the vernal equinox.[46]This date is sometimes given earlier, but when account is taken of the proper motion of these stars we get about the date above mentioned. I cannot understand how Dr. Ball, Astronomer Royal for Ireland, has obtained the date 2248B.C., unless he has taken the proper motion of Alcyone the wrong way. The proper motion of this star during the last 4000 years has been such as to increase the star's distance from the equinoctial colure; and therefore, of course, the actual interval of time since the star was on the colure is less than it would be calculated to be if the proper motion were neglected.[47]Russland unter Alexander II. Leipzig: 1870.[48]"The day and night of the battle passed, and the sufferers received no food or water, and their festering wounds were undressed. The following morning the Russians entered and took possession, and made the day one of rejoicingwith the visit of the Czar and the Imperial Staff; but this celebration of the event, however short it may have seemed to the victors, was a long season of horrible suffering for the wretched, helpless captives who stretched their skeleton hands in vain towards heaven, praying for a bit of bread or a drop of water. Neither friend nor foe was there to alleviate their sufferings, or to give the trifle needed to save them from a painful death, and they died by hundreds; and before the morning of the third day the dead crowded the living in every one of those dirty, dimly-lighted rooms which confined the wounded in a foul and fetid atmosphere of disease and death. It was only on the morning of the third day that these wretched, tortured creatures had been left to their fate, that the Russians began the separation of the living from the dead."—Daily NewsLetter from Plevna.[49]There is a notion in this country that Herzen, at one time, was banished to Siberia, and lived as an exile there. The idea is founded on a book of his, published in German and English, under the title of "My Exile in Siberia." Herzen, however, was never banished to Siberia, but only interned for a time at Perm, which is several hundred miles from the Siberian frontier, and later at Novgorod. There, as a Government official, he had to sign the passport documents of those who were transported to Siberia. He left Russia, and lived abroad in voluntary exile when he wrote his works of Panslavistic propagandism under Socialist colours.[50]The system is thus expounded in the "Laws of Manu," i. 68-86. For its ulterior developments see Wilson, Vishnu-Purāna, pp. 23-26, and 259-271.[51]Theopompus, cited by the author of the treatise "On Isis and Osiris," attributed to Plutarch (c. 47), already pointed out this doctrine as existing among the Persians.[52]Ewald calculates the four ages of the world which he believes he has discerned in the Bible as follows:—1. From the Creation to the Deluge; 2. from the Deluge to Abraham; 3. from Abraham to Moses; 4. from the Promulgation of the Mosaic Law. Such epochs have scarcely any resemblance to the Ages of Hesiod or of the Laws of Manu. And, moreover, it is well to note that wherever we meet simultaneously, as we do with Indians, Iranians, and Greeks, with the existence of the four ages and the tradition of the Deluge, these are completely independent of each other, have no connection whatever, which indicates a difference of origin, from sources having nothing in common. Nowhere does the Deluge coincide with the transition between two of these ages.Nevertheless, there is a point where a certain approximation may be established between the theories of India and those of the Bible. The Laws of Manu say that in the four successive ages of the world the duration of human life goes on decreasing in the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1; in the Bible we have the antediluvian patriarchs, with the exception of Enoch, who was translated to Heaven, living about 900 years. Subsequently Shem lives 600, and his three first descendants between 430 and 460; to the four succeeding generations there is assigned a life of between 200 and 240 years; finally, from the time of Abraham the existence of the patriarchs comes nearer to normal data, and no longer reaches a maximum of 200 years.[53]"Vendidâd," ii. It is also related how Yima preserved the germs of men, animals, and plants from the Deluge. See, too, "Yesht," i. 25-27, ix. 3-12, xv. 15-17. "Bundehesh," xvii.[54]"Yesht," xix. 31-38. "Bundehesh," xxiii. and xxxii. "Sad-der," 94.[55]"Yesht," xix. 46.[56]"Vendidâd," i. 5-8.[57]Demons.[58]It is rather remarkable that the life of Adam, which, according to Genesis, was one of 930 years, should so nearly approach this duration.[59]Genii.[60]In the "Yacna" (xxxii. 8) it is Yima who teaches men to cut meat in pieces and to eat it. Windeschman has rightly compared this with Genesis ix. 3.[61]"Bundehesh," xv.[62]"Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 83. The original text is given in Friedrich Delitzsch's "Assyrische Losestücke," 2nd edition, p. 91.[63]See E. Ledrain: "Histoire d'Israel," vol. i. p. 416.[64]See Rawlinson: "The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World," 2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 7.[65]Botta: "Monuments of Nineveh," vol. ii. p. 150.[66]This image was also employed for the same purpose in the time of the Sassanides, and we can trace the history of the curious vicissitudes which led to its being imitated as a mode of ornamentation, having no particular significance, first among the Arabs, and next in some western edifices of the Roman Period.[67]Layard: "Cultus of Mithra," xvi. No. 4. G. Smith: "Chaldean Account of Genesis." The cylinder is of Babylonish workmanship and great antiquity.[68]This head-dress, frequently represented on monuments, is spoken of as characteristic of the Chaldeans in Ezekiel xxiii. 15.[69]Panofka inclines to give to this couple the names of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the son of Prometheus and daughter of Pandora, progenitors of a postdiluvian human race. We see no objection to this, provided, however, that it be admitted that the monument shows the introduction of a legend similar to that of Adam and Havah, attached to those personages. As the probable theatre of such an introduction, one might be led to think of Iconia in Asia Minor, when the formation of men by Prometheus was, by local tradition, assigned to a period immediately succeeding the deluge of Deucalion, and told with details singularly akin to those given in the Bible.[70]Cesnola: "Cyprus: its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples," p. 101.[71]We must limit ourselves, must not be carried away into exaggerated developments. We will not, therefore, carry these analogies further. But they might be pursued in a direction that shall be briefly pointed at. It is difficult to avoid seeing a similarity between the Tree of Paradise of Asiatic Cosmogonies, and the tree of golden fruit in the garden of the Hesperides, guarded by the serpents which figured monuments invariably represent coiled about its trunk. In that myth of incontestably Phenician origin, according to which Hercules slays the guardian serpent and secures the golden apples, we have the revenge of the luminous or solar god reconquering the tree of life from a dark, jealous, and inimical power, personified by the serpent, which had taken possession of it in the world's early days. In the same way we have in the Indian myth the gods regaining the ambrosia from the Asouras or demons that had stolen it. We may also observe that Hercules, the conqueror of the dragon of the Hesperides, is also the liberator of Prometheus, him who first, despite the divine prohibition, gathered fire, the fruit of the celestial and cosmic tree.[72]"Die Herabkunft des Feuers und die Göttertranks." Berlin, 1859.[73]On the existence among the Babylonians of the idea of the cosmic tree, see C. W. Mansell,Gazette Archéologique, 1878, p. 138.Among the myths borrowed by the philosopher Pherecides, of Syros, from the Phenician mysteries, was that of the winged-oak (ὑποπτερος δρὑς), over which Zeus had spread a magnificent veil representing the constellations, the earth and ocean. Here we manifestly have the cosmic tree again.[74]Mr. Fergusson's work, "Tree and Serpent Worship" (London, 1868), is not quite free from this defect, the learned author having displayed more erudition and ingenuity than critical faculty.[75]"Bundèhesh," xxxi. The serpent's form is also that given to different secondary personifications of the evil principle, different mythological beings created by Angromainyus to ravage the earth, and war with the good, and with the true faith—such as Azhi-Dahâka (the serpent that bites), conquered by Thraetaina, and the dragon Cruvara, slain by the hero Kereçaçpa.[76]SeeContemporary Review, December, 1876.[77]"Histoire de la Civilisation hellénique," 399, 400.

[1]Captain C. A. G. Bridge, R.N.: "The Revival of the Warlike Power of China,"Fraser's Magazine, June, 1879.

[2]SeeBlackwood's Magazine, July, 1879, pp. 120, 121.

[3]Apropos of these remarks it is worth while quoting here a memorial by the ex-Ambassador Kwo Sung-t'ao, published in theLondon and China Telegraphof 7th July, 1879, as the first presented to the Throne on his return to China, and in which the best that he can say of England, notwithstanding his cordial reception and marvellous experiences, seems to be that he was "excessively cast down in a strange country," where, "had he been put into a ditch, there would have been nobody to cover him with earth." The very name of the place to which he was accredited appears to have been beneath mention to his august master. ThePeking Gazetteof the 3rd moon, 3rd day, contains the following memorial from Kwo Sung-t'ao, late Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, to the Emperor:—"Your servant," he writes, "has suffered from many bodily infirmities. Relying upon the heavenly (i.e., your Majesty's) grace, I was appointed to go abroad on service of heavy responsibility. I am now feeble with age, having served at so great a distance; I also deplore my stupidity, and am extremely apprehensive of my inability in performing the functions devolving upon me. Since the sixth or seventh moon of the year before last I have suffered from insomnia. A year ago my spirits became daily moreabattu. In the second month of last year I suddenly experienced phlegm rising in my mouth, and vomited fresh red blood, without being able to stop it, so that in a trice a basin would get quite full. I consider that my life has been marked by increasing afflictions; my respiration is impeded; I am agitated and nervous; already I have contracted an asthma, and this I certainly had not formerly. Excessively cast down, in a strange country several tens of thousands of li away, I thought that if I were put in a ditch there would be nobody to cover me with earth. Fortunately, by virtue of the heavenly (i.e., Imperial) compassion, having been graciously permitted to give up my office, all that remains of me, protractedly wearing out my failing breath, is due to the overflowing grace of the Holy Lord (the Emperor). During the two years I have been abroad I have passed under the hands of foreign doctors not a few, who felt my pulse and administered medicine in a manner very different from native practitioners. In relieving my indigestion and removing the torpor [of my liver] they occasionally produced some little effect; but my constitution became weaker every day, and there was no restoring it. After casting about this way and that, there seemed but one resource left to me—to take advantage of a steamer bound for Fu (i.e., Shanghai), and then to return by way of the Yangtsze River to my native place and put myself under medical advice. Prostrate I implore the Heavenly Compassion to grant me three months' leave of absence, in order to establish a complete cure, so that perhaps I may not contract disease that will prove incurable. After your servant has got home it will be his duty to report early the day of his arrival, and he earnestly desires that he may be restored to health. Then I will return to the capital to resume my functions, and implore that some trifling post may be given me that I may testify my gratitude by strenuous exertions, like a dog or a horse. Wherefore I, your humble servant, now beg for leave of absence on account of my ill-health, and respectfully present the petition in which my request is lucidly set forth, entreating with reverence that the sacred glance may rest upon it."

[4]Contemporary Review, May, 1879, p. 261.

[5]L. c.p. 262.

[6]"A classification of any large portion of the field of Nature, in conformity to the foregoing principles, has hitherto been found practicable only in one great instance, that of animals."—Logic, third edition, 1851, vol. i., chap. viii. § 5, page 279.

[7]Contemporary Review, July, 1879, pp. 716 and 717.

[8]L. c.p. 717.

[9]Contemporary Review, July, 1879: "What are Living Beings?"

[10]Very small deer, commonly called in error musk-deer.

[11]The European beavers have abandoned the dam-building habit. They retained it, however, as late as the thirteenth century.

[12]By the Author in a Paper read before the Zoological Society in Nov. 1864. See also his "Man and Apes," Hardwicke, 1873; and the article "Ape" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," vol. ii. p. 148.

[13]"Histoire Naturelle," tome xiv. p. 61, 1766.

[14]For an explanation of the zoological system of nomenclature which has been adopted since the time of Linnæus, seeContemporary Reviewfor May, page 262.

[15]See ante, p. 14.

[16]SeeContemporary Reviewfor July, p. 710.

[17]SeeContemporary Review, July, p. 710.

[18]For a summary of our knowledge respecting this group, see the "Linnean Society's Journal," Vol. xiv. (Zoology), p. 136.

[19]A "spore" is a minute reproductive particle.

[20]SeeContemporary Reviewfor July, 1879, p. 714.

[21]Some botanists think that yeast is no true and definite kind of plant, but that it is only a conglomeration of fungoid spores of divers sorts.

[22]This motion is that referred to at the bottom of page 696, in theContemporary Reviewfor July, 1879, asCyclosis.

[23]Some readers may be startled at the mode here adopted of primarily dividing the Phanerogams, and may object to it as opposed to usage; but reasons will be given later for the mode of division here adopted.

[24]The above-named plants may for our purpose be thus conveniently grouped together, according to the older fashion of botanists. Strictly speaking, however, they should be divided amongst several orders—e.g., hazel and hornbeam (Corylaceæ), the oak, beech, and chestnut (Capuliferæ), the birches (Betulaceæ), the willows (Salicaceæ), &c.

[25]Containing upwards of 2500 species.

[26]"Comte and Positivism," p. 140.

[27]"The Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine," p. 28.

[28]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 419. I quote from the translation.

[29]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 71.

[30]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 218.

[31]Ibid. iii. p. 365.

[32]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 348.

[33]Ibid. iii. p. 383.

[34]Ibid. iii. p. 376.

[35]Ibid. iii. p. 283.

[36]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 78.

[37]Ibid. iii. p. 346.

[38]Pol. Pos. iii. p. 346.

[39]Ibid. i. p. 562.

[40]Pol. Pos. i. p. 106. In my first article (Contemporary Reviewfor May, p. 211) I inadvertently spoke of the hierarchical arrangement of society as extending to the proletariate. This is inaccurate, for Comte rather dwells on their "homogeneity," and seeks to obliterate all distinctions of rank among them, only allowing to the engineers a kind of "fraternal ascendancy." Pol. Pos. iv. p. 307.

[41]Pol. Pos. iv. p. 294.

[42]Pol. Pos. iv. p. 292.

[43]It seems to me not improbable that the level was determined by simply flooding (though to a very small depth only, of course) the entire area to be levelled—not only the pavement level, but higher levels as the pyramid was raised layer by layer. By completing the outside of each layer first, an enclosed space capable of receiving the water would be formed (the flooding being required once only for each layer), and when the level had been taken the water could be allowed to run off by the interior passages to the well which Piazzi Smyth considers to be symbolical of the bottomless pit.

[44]The irregular descending passage long known as the well, which communicates between the ascending passage and the underground chamber, enables us to ascertain how high the rock rises into the pyramid at this particular part of the base. We thus learn that the rock rises in this place, at any rate, thirty or forty feet above the basal plane.

[45]There is a statement perfectly startling in its inaccuracy, in a chapter of Blake's "Astronomical Myths," derived from Mr. Haliburton's researches, asserting that in the year 2170B.C. the Pleiades were "exactly at that height that they could be seen in the direction of the Southward-pointing passage of the pyramid." The italics are not mine. As this passage pointed 33-2/3°, or thereabouts, below (that is south of) the equator, and the Pleiades were then some 3-2/3° north of the equator, the passage certainly did not then point to the Pleiades. Nor has there been any time since the world began when the Pleiades were anywhere near the direction of the southward pointing passage. In fact they have never been more than 20° south of the equator. The statement follows immediately after another to the surprising effect that in the year 2170B.C."the Pleiadesreallycommenced the spring by their midnight culmination." The only comment an astronomer can make on this startling assertion is to repeat with emphasis the word italicized by Mr. Haliburton (or Mr. Blake?). The Pleiades being then in conjunction with what is now called the first point of Aries, culminated at noon, not at midnight, at the time of the vernal equinox.

[46]This date is sometimes given earlier, but when account is taken of the proper motion of these stars we get about the date above mentioned. I cannot understand how Dr. Ball, Astronomer Royal for Ireland, has obtained the date 2248B.C., unless he has taken the proper motion of Alcyone the wrong way. The proper motion of this star during the last 4000 years has been such as to increase the star's distance from the equinoctial colure; and therefore, of course, the actual interval of time since the star was on the colure is less than it would be calculated to be if the proper motion were neglected.

[47]Russland unter Alexander II. Leipzig: 1870.

[48]"The day and night of the battle passed, and the sufferers received no food or water, and their festering wounds were undressed. The following morning the Russians entered and took possession, and made the day one of rejoicingwith the visit of the Czar and the Imperial Staff; but this celebration of the event, however short it may have seemed to the victors, was a long season of horrible suffering for the wretched, helpless captives who stretched their skeleton hands in vain towards heaven, praying for a bit of bread or a drop of water. Neither friend nor foe was there to alleviate their sufferings, or to give the trifle needed to save them from a painful death, and they died by hundreds; and before the morning of the third day the dead crowded the living in every one of those dirty, dimly-lighted rooms which confined the wounded in a foul and fetid atmosphere of disease and death. It was only on the morning of the third day that these wretched, tortured creatures had been left to their fate, that the Russians began the separation of the living from the dead."—Daily NewsLetter from Plevna.

[49]There is a notion in this country that Herzen, at one time, was banished to Siberia, and lived as an exile there. The idea is founded on a book of his, published in German and English, under the title of "My Exile in Siberia." Herzen, however, was never banished to Siberia, but only interned for a time at Perm, which is several hundred miles from the Siberian frontier, and later at Novgorod. There, as a Government official, he had to sign the passport documents of those who were transported to Siberia. He left Russia, and lived abroad in voluntary exile when he wrote his works of Panslavistic propagandism under Socialist colours.

[50]The system is thus expounded in the "Laws of Manu," i. 68-86. For its ulterior developments see Wilson, Vishnu-Purāna, pp. 23-26, and 259-271.

[51]Theopompus, cited by the author of the treatise "On Isis and Osiris," attributed to Plutarch (c. 47), already pointed out this doctrine as existing among the Persians.

[52]Ewald calculates the four ages of the world which he believes he has discerned in the Bible as follows:—1. From the Creation to the Deluge; 2. from the Deluge to Abraham; 3. from Abraham to Moses; 4. from the Promulgation of the Mosaic Law. Such epochs have scarcely any resemblance to the Ages of Hesiod or of the Laws of Manu. And, moreover, it is well to note that wherever we meet simultaneously, as we do with Indians, Iranians, and Greeks, with the existence of the four ages and the tradition of the Deluge, these are completely independent of each other, have no connection whatever, which indicates a difference of origin, from sources having nothing in common. Nowhere does the Deluge coincide with the transition between two of these ages.Nevertheless, there is a point where a certain approximation may be established between the theories of India and those of the Bible. The Laws of Manu say that in the four successive ages of the world the duration of human life goes on decreasing in the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1; in the Bible we have the antediluvian patriarchs, with the exception of Enoch, who was translated to Heaven, living about 900 years. Subsequently Shem lives 600, and his three first descendants between 430 and 460; to the four succeeding generations there is assigned a life of between 200 and 240 years; finally, from the time of Abraham the existence of the patriarchs comes nearer to normal data, and no longer reaches a maximum of 200 years.

Nevertheless, there is a point where a certain approximation may be established between the theories of India and those of the Bible. The Laws of Manu say that in the four successive ages of the world the duration of human life goes on decreasing in the proportion of 4, 3, 2, 1; in the Bible we have the antediluvian patriarchs, with the exception of Enoch, who was translated to Heaven, living about 900 years. Subsequently Shem lives 600, and his three first descendants between 430 and 460; to the four succeeding generations there is assigned a life of between 200 and 240 years; finally, from the time of Abraham the existence of the patriarchs comes nearer to normal data, and no longer reaches a maximum of 200 years.

[53]"Vendidâd," ii. It is also related how Yima preserved the germs of men, animals, and plants from the Deluge. See, too, "Yesht," i. 25-27, ix. 3-12, xv. 15-17. "Bundehesh," xvii.

[54]"Yesht," xix. 31-38. "Bundehesh," xxiii. and xxxii. "Sad-der," 94.

[55]"Yesht," xix. 46.

[56]"Vendidâd," i. 5-8.

[57]Demons.

[58]It is rather remarkable that the life of Adam, which, according to Genesis, was one of 930 years, should so nearly approach this duration.

[59]Genii.

[60]In the "Yacna" (xxxii. 8) it is Yima who teaches men to cut meat in pieces and to eat it. Windeschman has rightly compared this with Genesis ix. 3.

[61]"Bundehesh," xv.

[62]"Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 83. The original text is given in Friedrich Delitzsch's "Assyrische Losestücke," 2nd edition, p. 91.

[63]See E. Ledrain: "Histoire d'Israel," vol. i. p. 416.

[64]See Rawlinson: "The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World," 2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 7.

[65]Botta: "Monuments of Nineveh," vol. ii. p. 150.

[66]This image was also employed for the same purpose in the time of the Sassanides, and we can trace the history of the curious vicissitudes which led to its being imitated as a mode of ornamentation, having no particular significance, first among the Arabs, and next in some western edifices of the Roman Period.

[67]Layard: "Cultus of Mithra," xvi. No. 4. G. Smith: "Chaldean Account of Genesis." The cylinder is of Babylonish workmanship and great antiquity.

[68]This head-dress, frequently represented on monuments, is spoken of as characteristic of the Chaldeans in Ezekiel xxiii. 15.

[69]Panofka inclines to give to this couple the names of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the son of Prometheus and daughter of Pandora, progenitors of a postdiluvian human race. We see no objection to this, provided, however, that it be admitted that the monument shows the introduction of a legend similar to that of Adam and Havah, attached to those personages. As the probable theatre of such an introduction, one might be led to think of Iconia in Asia Minor, when the formation of men by Prometheus was, by local tradition, assigned to a period immediately succeeding the deluge of Deucalion, and told with details singularly akin to those given in the Bible.

[70]Cesnola: "Cyprus: its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples," p. 101.

[71]We must limit ourselves, must not be carried away into exaggerated developments. We will not, therefore, carry these analogies further. But they might be pursued in a direction that shall be briefly pointed at. It is difficult to avoid seeing a similarity between the Tree of Paradise of Asiatic Cosmogonies, and the tree of golden fruit in the garden of the Hesperides, guarded by the serpents which figured monuments invariably represent coiled about its trunk. In that myth of incontestably Phenician origin, according to which Hercules slays the guardian serpent and secures the golden apples, we have the revenge of the luminous or solar god reconquering the tree of life from a dark, jealous, and inimical power, personified by the serpent, which had taken possession of it in the world's early days. In the same way we have in the Indian myth the gods regaining the ambrosia from the Asouras or demons that had stolen it. We may also observe that Hercules, the conqueror of the dragon of the Hesperides, is also the liberator of Prometheus, him who first, despite the divine prohibition, gathered fire, the fruit of the celestial and cosmic tree.

[72]"Die Herabkunft des Feuers und die Göttertranks." Berlin, 1859.

[73]On the existence among the Babylonians of the idea of the cosmic tree, see C. W. Mansell,Gazette Archéologique, 1878, p. 138.Among the myths borrowed by the philosopher Pherecides, of Syros, from the Phenician mysteries, was that of the winged-oak (ὑποπτερος δρὑς), over which Zeus had spread a magnificent veil representing the constellations, the earth and ocean. Here we manifestly have the cosmic tree again.

[73]On the existence among the Babylonians of the idea of the cosmic tree, see C. W. Mansell,Gazette Archéologique, 1878, p. 138.

Among the myths borrowed by the philosopher Pherecides, of Syros, from the Phenician mysteries, was that of the winged-oak (ὑποπτερος δρὑς), over which Zeus had spread a magnificent veil representing the constellations, the earth and ocean. Here we manifestly have the cosmic tree again.

[74]Mr. Fergusson's work, "Tree and Serpent Worship" (London, 1868), is not quite free from this defect, the learned author having displayed more erudition and ingenuity than critical faculty.

[75]"Bundèhesh," xxxi. The serpent's form is also that given to different secondary personifications of the evil principle, different mythological beings created by Angromainyus to ravage the earth, and war with the good, and with the true faith—such as Azhi-Dahâka (the serpent that bites), conquered by Thraetaina, and the dragon Cruvara, slain by the hero Kereçaçpa.

[76]SeeContemporary Review, December, 1876.

[77]"Histoire de la Civilisation hellénique," 399, 400.

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