FOOTNOTES:

Yes, to the Jews the world is indebted for its God and His word. They rescued the Bible from the bankruptcy of the Roman empire, and preserved the precious volume intact during all the wild tumults of the migration of races, until Protestantism came to seek it and translated it into the language of the land and spread it broadcast over the whole world. This extensive circulation of the Bible has produced the most beneficent fruits, and continues to do so to this very day. The propaganda of the Bible Society have fulfilled a providential mission, which will bring forth quite different results from those anticipated by the pious gentlemen of the British Christian Missionary Society. They expect to elevate a petty, narrow dogma to supremacy, and to monopolise heaven as they do the sea, making it a British Church domain—and see, without knowing it, they are demanding the overthrow of all Protestant sects; for, as they all draw their life from the Bible, when the knowledge of the Bible becomes universal, all sectarian distinctions will be obliterated.

While by tricks of trade, smuggling, and commerce the British gain footholds in many lands, with them they bring the Bible, that grand democracy wherein each man shall not only be king in his own house, but also bishop. They are demanding, they are founding, the great kingdom of the spirit, the kingdom of the religious emotions, and the love of humanity, of purity, of true morality, which cannot be taught by dogmatic formulas, but by parable and example, such as are contained in that beautiful, sacred, educational book for young and old—the Bible.

To the observant thinker it is a wonderful spectacle to view the countries where the Bible, since the Reformation, has been exerting its elevating influence on the inhabitants, and has impressed on them the customs, modes of thought, and temperaments which formerly prevailed in Palestine, as portrayed both in the Old and in the New Testament. In the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sections of Europe and America, especially among the Germanic races, and also to a certain extent in Celtic countries, the customs of Palestine have been reproduced in so marked a degree that we seem to be in the midst of the ancient Judean life. Take, for example, the Scotch Protestants: are not they Hebrews, whose names even are biblical, whose very cant smacks of the Phariseeism of ancient Jerusalem, and whose religion is naught else than a pork-eating Judaism? It is the same in Denmark and in certain provinces of North Germany, not to mention the majority of the new sects of the United States, among whom the life depicted in the Old Testament is pedantically aped. In the latter, that life appears as if daguerreotyped: the outlines are studiously correct, but all is depicted in sad, sombre colours; the golden tints and harmonising colours of the promised land are lacking. But the caricature will disappear sooner or later. The zeal, the imperishable and the true—that is to say, the morality—of ancient Judaism will in those countries bloom forth just as acceptably to God as in the old time it blossomed on the banks of Jordan and on the heights of Lebanon. One needs neither palm-trees nor camels to be good; and goodness is better than beauty.

The readiness with which these races have adopted the Judaic life, customs, and modes of thought is, perhaps, not entirely attributable to their susceptibility of culture. The cause of this phenomenon is, perhaps, to be sought in thecharacter of the Jewish people, which always had a marked elective affinity with the character of the Germanic, and also to a certain extent with that of the Celtic races. Judea has always seemed to me like a fragment of the Occident misplaced in the Orient. In fact, with its spiritual faith, its severe, chaste, even ascetic customs,—in short, with its abstract inner life,—this land and its people always offered the most marked contrasts to the population of neighbouring countries, who, with their luxuriantly varied and fervent nature of worship, passed their existence in a Bacchantic dance of the senses.

At a time when, in the temples of Babylon, Nineveh, Sidon, and Tyre, bloody and unchaste rites were celebrated, the description of which, even now, makes our hair stand on end, Israel sat under its fig-trees, piously chanting the praises of the invisible God, and exercised virtue and righteousness. When we think of these surroundings we cannot sufficiently admire the early greatness of Israel. Of Israel's love of liberty, at a time when not only in its immediate vicinity, but also among all the nations of antiquity, even among the philosophical Greeks, the practice of slavery was justified and in full sway,—of this I will not speak, for fear of compromising the Bible in the eyes of the powers that be. No Socialist was more of a terrorist than our Lord and Saviour. Even Moses was such a Socialist; although, like a practical man, he attempted only to reform existing usages concerning property. Instead of striving to effect the impossible, and rashly decreeing the abolition of private property, he only sought for its moralisation by bringing the rights of property into harmony with the laws of morality and reason. This he accomplished by instituting the jubilee, at which period every alienated heritage, which among an agricultural people always consistedof land, would revert to the original owner, no matter in what manner it had been alienated. This institution offers the most marked contrast to the Roman statute of limitations, by which, after the expiration of a certain period, the actual holder of an estate could no longer be compelled to restore the estate to the true owner, unless the latter should be able to show that within the prescribed time he had, with all the prescribed formalities, demanded restitution. This last condition opened wide the door for chicanery, particularly in a state where despotism and jurisprudence were at their zenith, and where the unjust possessor had at command all means of intimidation, especially against the poor who might be unable to defray the expense of litigation. The Roman was both soldier and lawyer, and that which he conquered with the strong arm he knew how to defend by the tricks of law. Only a nation of robbers and casuists could have invented the law of prescription, the statute of limitations, and consecrated it in that detestable book which may be called the bible of the Devil—I mean the codex of Roman civil law, which, unfortunately, still holds sway.

I have spoken of the affinity which exists between the Jews and the Germans, whom I once designated as the two pre-eminently moral nations. While on this subject, I desire to direct attention to the ethical disapprobation with which the ancient German law stigmatises the statute of limitations: this I consider a noteworthy fact. To this very day the Saxon peasant uses the beautiful and touching aphorism, "A hundred years of wrong do not make a single year of right."

The Mosaic law, through the institution of the jubilee year, protests still more decidedly. Moses did not seek to abolish the right of property; on the contrary, it washis wish that everyone should possess property, so that no one might be tempted by poverty to become a bondsman and thus acquire slavish propensities. Liberty was always the great emancipator's leading thought, and it breathes and glows in all his statutes concerning pauperism. Slavery itself he bitterly, almost fiercely, hated; but even this barbarous institution he could not entirely destroy. It was rooted so deeply in the customs of that ancient time that he was compelled to confine his efforts to ameliorating by law the condition of the slaves, rendering self-purchase by the bondsman less difficult, and shortening the period of bondage.

But if a slave thus eventually freed by process of law declined to depart from the house of bondage, then, according to the command of Moses, the incorrigibly servile, worthless scamp was to be nailed by the ear to the gate of his master's house, and after being thus publicly exposed in this disgraceful manner, he was condemned to life-long slavery. Oh, Moses! our teacher, Rabbi Moses! exalted foe of all slavishness! give me hammer and nails that I may nail to the gate of Brandenburg our complacent, long-eared slaves in liveries of black-red-and-gold.

I leave the ocean of universal religious, moral, and historical reflections, and modestly guide my bark of thought back again into the quiet inland waters of autobiography, in which the author's features are so faithfully reflected.

In the preceding pages I have mentioned how Protestant voices from home, in very indiscreet questions, have taken for granted that with the reawakening in me of the religious feeling my sympathy for the Church had also grown stronger. I know not how clearly I have shown that I am not particularly enthusiastic for any dogma or for any creed; and in this respect I have remained the same thatI always was. I repeat this statement in order to remove an error in regard to my present views, into which several of my friends who are zealous Catholics have fallen. How strange! at the same time that in Germany Protestantism bestowed on me the undeserved honour of crediting me with a conversion to the evangelic faith, another report was circulating that I had gone over to Catholicism. Some good souls went so far as to assert that this latter conversion had occurred many years ago, and they supported this statement by definitely naming time and place. They even mentioned the exact date; they designated by name the church in which I had abjured the heresy of Protestantism, and adopted the only true and saving faith, that of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. The only detail that was lacking was how many peals of the bell had been sounded at this ceremony.

From the newspapers and letters that reach me I learn how widely this report has won credence; and I fall into a painful embarrassment when I think of the sincere, loving joy which is so touchingly expressed in some of these epistles. Travellers tell me that the salvation of my soul has even furnished a theme for pulpit eloquence. Young Catholic priests seek permission to dedicate to me the first fruits of their pen. I am regarded as a shining light—that is to be—of the Church. This pious folly is so well meant and sincere that I cannot laugh at it. Whatever may be said of the zealots of Catholicism, one thing is certain: they are no egotists; they take a warm interest in their fellow-men—alas! often a little too warm an interest. I cannot ascribe that false report to malice, but only to mistake. The innocent facts were in this case surely distorted by accident only. The statement of time and place is quite correct. I was really in the designatedchurch on the designated day, and I did there undergo a religious ceremony; but this ceremony was no hateful abjuration, but a very innocent conjugation. In short, after being married according to the civil law, I also invoked the sanction of the Church, because my wife, who is a strict Catholic, would not have considered herself properly married in the eyes of God without such a ceremony; and for no consideration would I shake this dear being's belief in the religion which she has inherited.

It is well, moreover, that women should have a positive religion. Whether there is more fidelity among wives of the evangelic faith, I shall not attempt to discuss. But the Catholicism of the wife certainly saves the husband from many annoyances. When Catholic women have committed a fault, they do not secretly brood over it, but confess to the priest, and as soon as they have received absolution they are again as merry and light-hearted as before. This is much pleasanter than spoiling the husband's good spirits or his soup by downcast looks or grieving over a sin for which they hold themselves in duty bound to atone during their whole lives by shrewish prudery and quarrelsome excess of virtue. The confessional is likewise useful in another respect. The sinner does not keep her terrible secret preying on her mind; and since women are sure, sooner or later, to babble all they know, it is better that they should confide certain matters to their confessor than that they should, in some moment of overpowering tenderness, talkativeness, or remorse, blurt out to the poor husband the fatal confession.

Scepticism is certainly dangerous in the married state, and, although I myself was a free-thinker, I permitted no word derogatory to religion to be spoken in my house. In the midst of Paris I lived like a steady, commonplacetownsman; and therefore when I married I desired to be wedded under the sanction of the Church, although in this country the civil marriage is fully recognised by society. My free-thinking friends were vexed at me for this, and overwhelmed me with reproaches, claiming that I had made too great concessions to the clergy. Their chagrin at my weakness would have been still greater had they known the other concessions that I had made to the hated priesthood. As I was a Protestant wedding a Catholic, in order to have the ceremony performed by a Catholic priest it was necessary to obtain a special dispensation from the archbishop, who in these cases exacts from the husband a written pledge that the offspring of the marriage shall be educated in the religion of the mother. But, between ourselves, I could sign this pledge with the lighter conscience since I knew the rearing of children is not my specialty, and as I laid down my pen the words of the beautiful Ninon de L'Enclos came into my mind—"O, le beau billet qu' a Lechastre!"

...I will crown my confessions by admitting that, if at that time it had been necessary in order to obtain the dispensation of the archbishop, I would have bound over not only the children but myself. But the ogre of Rome, who, like the monster in the fairy tales, stipulates that he shall have for his services the future births, was content with the poor children who were never born. And so I remained a Protestant, as before—a protesting Protestant; and I protest against reports which, without being intended to be defamatory, may yet be magnified so as to injure my good name.

...There is not a particle of unkindly feeling in my breast against the poor ogre of Rome. I have long since abandoned all feuds with Catholicism, and the sword which I once drew in the service of an idea, and not from privategrudge, has long rested in its scabbard. In that contest I resembled a soldier of fortune, who fights bravely, but after the battle bears no malice either against the defeated cause or against its champions.

Fanatical enmity towards the Catholic Church cannot be charged against me, for there was always lacking in me the self-conceit which is necessary to sustain such an animosity. I know too well my own intellectual calibre not to be aware that with my most furious onslaughts I could inflict but little injury on a colossus such as the Church of St. Peter. I could only be a humble worker at the slow removal of its foundation stones, a task which may yet require centuries. I was too familiar with history not to recognise the gigantic nature of that granite structure. Call it, if you will, the bastile of intellect; assert, if you choose, that it is now defended only by invalids; but it is therefore not the less true that the bastile is not to be easily captured, and many a young recruit will break his head against its walls.

As a thinker and as a metaphysician, I was always forced to pay the homage of my admiration to the logical consistency of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and I may also take credit to myself that I have never by witticism or ridicule attacked its dogmas or its public worship. Too much and too little honour has been vouchsafed me in calling me an intellectual kinsman of Voltaire. I was always a poet; and hence the poesy which blossoms and glows in the symbolism of Catholic dogma and culture must have revealed itself more profoundly to me than to ordinary observers, and in my youthful days I was often touched by the infinite sweetness, the mysterious, blissful ecstasy and awe-inspiring grandeur of that poetry. There was a time when I went into raptures over the blessedQueen of Heaven, and in dainty verse told the story of her grace and goodness. My first collection of poems shows traces of this beautiful Madonna period, which in later editions I weeded out with laughable anxiety.

The time for vanity has passed, and everyone is at liberty to smile at this confession.

It will be unnecessary for me to say that, as no blind hate against the Catholic Church exists in me, so also no petty spite against its priests rankles in my heart. Whoever knows my satirical vein will surely bear witness that I was always lenient and forbearing in speaking of the human weaknesses of the clergy, although by their attacks they often provoked in me a spirit of retaliation. But even at the height of my wrath I was always respectful to the true priesthood; for, looking back into the past, I remembered benefits which they had once rendered me; for it is Catholic priests whom I must thank for my first instruction; it was they who guided the first steps of my intellect.

Pedagogy was the specialty of the Jesuits, and although they sought to pursue it in the interest of their order, yet sometimes the passion for pedagogy itself, the only human passion that was left in them, gained the mastery; they forgot their aim, the repression of reason and the exaltation of faith, and, instead of reducing men to a state of childhood, as was their purpose, out of the children they involuntarily made men by their instruction. The greatest men of the Revolution were educated in Jesuit schools. Without the training there acquired, that great intellectual agitation would perhaps not have broken out till a century later.

Poor Jesuit fathers! You have been the bugbear and the scapegoat of the liberals. The danger that was in you was understood, but not your merits. I could never join in the denunciations of my comrades, who at the mere mention ofLoyola's name would always become furious, like bulls when a red cloth is held before them. It is certainly noteworthy, and may perhaps at the assizes in the valley of Jehoshaphat be set down as an extenuating circumstance, that even as a lad I was permitted to attend lectures on philosophy. This unusual favour was exceptional in my case, because the rector Schallmeyer was a particular friend of our family. This venerable man often consulted with my mother in regard to my education and future career, and once advised her, as she afterwards related to me, to devote me to the service of the Catholic Church, and send me to Rome to study theology. He assured her that through his influential friends in Rome he could advance me to an important position in the Church. But at that time my mother dreamed of the highest worldly honours for me. Moreover, she was a disciple of Rousseau, and a strict deist. Besides, she did not like the thought of her son being robed in one of those long black cassocks, such as are worn by Catholic priests, and in which they look so plump and awkward. She knew not how differently, how gracefully, a Romanabbatewears such a cassock, and how jauntily he flings over his shoulders the black silk mantle, which in Rome, the ever-beautiful, is the uniform of gallantry and wit.

Oh, what a happy mortal is such a Romanabbate! He serves not only the Church of Christ, but also Apollo and the Muses, whose favourite he is. The Graces hold his inkstand for him when he indites the sonnets which, with such delicate cadences, he reads in the Accademia degli Arcadi. He is a connoisseur of art, and needs only to taste the lips of a young songstress in order to be able to foretell whether she will some day be a celeberrima cantatrice, a diva, a world-renowned prima-donna. He understands antiquities, and will write a treatise in the choicestCiceronian Latin concerning some newly-unearthed torso of a Grecian Bacchante, reverentially dedicating it to the supreme head of Christendom, to the Pontifex Maximus, for so he addresses him. And what a judge of painting is the SignorAbbate, who visits the painters in their ateliers and directs their attention to the fine points of their female models! The writer of these pages had in him just the material for such anabbate, and was just suited for strolling in delightfuldolce far nientethrough the libraries, art galleries, churches, and ruins of the Eternal City, studying among pleasures, and seeking pleasure while studying. I would have read mass before the most select audiences, and during Holy Week I would have mounted the pulpit as a preacher of strict morality,—of course even then never degenerating into ascetic rudeness. The Roman ladies, in particular, would have been greatly edified, and through their favour and my own merit I would, perhaps, have risen eventually to high rank in the hierarchy of the Church. I would, perhaps, have become a monsignore, a violet-stocking; perhaps even a cardinal's red hat might have fallen on my head. The proverb says—

"There is no priestling, how small soe'er he be,That does not wish himself a Pope to be."

And so it might have come to pass that I should attain the most exalted position of all, for, although I am not naturally ambitious, I would yet not have refused the nomination for Pope, had the choice of the conclave fallen on me. It is, at all events, a very respectable office, and has a good income attached to it; and I do not doubt that I could have discharged the duties of my position with the requisite address. I would have seated myself composedly on the throne of St. Peter, presenting my toe for the kissesof all good Christians, the priests as well as the laity. With a becoming dignity I would have let myself be carried in triumph through the pillared halls of the great basilica, and only when it tottered very threateningly would I have clung to the arms of the golden throne, which is borne on the shoulders of six stalwart camerieri in crimson uniform. By their side walk bald-headed monks of the Capuchin order, carrying burning torches. Then follow lackeys in gala dress, bearing aloft immense fans of peacocks' feathers, with which they gently fan the Prince of the Church. It is all just like Horace Vernet's beautiful painting of such a procession. With a like imperturbable sacerdotal gravity—for I can be very serious if it be absolutely necessary—from the lofty Lateran I would have pronounced the annual benediction over all Christendom. Here, standing on the balcony,in pontificalibusand with the triple crown upon my head, surrounded by my scarlet-hatted cardinals and mitred bishops, priests in suits of gold brocade and monks of every hue, I would have presented my holiness to the view of the swarming multitudes below, who, kneeling and with bowed heads, extended farther than the eye could reach; and I could composedly have stretched out my hands and blessed the city and the world.

But, as thou well knowest, gentle reader, I have not become a Pope, nor a cardinal, nor even a papal nuncio. In the spiritual as well as in the worldly hierarchy I have attained neither office nor rank; I have accomplished nothing in this beautiful world; nothing has become of me—nothing but a poet.

But no, I will not feign a hypocritical humility, I will not depreciate that name. It is much to be a poet, especially to be a great lyric poet, in Germany, among a people who in two things—in philosophy and in poetry—have surpassedall other nations. I will not with a sham modesty—the invention of worthless vagabonds—depreciate my fame as a poet. None of my countrymen have won the laurel at so early an age; and if my colleague, Wolfgang Goethe, complacently writes that "the Chinese with trembling hand paints Werther and Lotte on porcelain," I can, if boasting is to be in order, match his Chinese fame with one still more legendary, for I have recently learned that my poems have been translated into the Japanese language.

...But at this moment I am as indifferent to my Japanese fame as to my renown in Finland. Alas! fame, once sweet as sugared pine-apple and flattery, has for a long time been nauseous to me; it tastes as bitter to me now as wormwood. With Romeo, I can say, "I am the fool of fortune." The bowl stands filled before me, but I lack a spoon. What does it avail me that at banquets my health is pledged in the choicest wines, and drunk from golden goblets, when I, myself, severed from all that makes life pleasant, may only wet my lips with an insipid potion? What does it avail me that enthusiastic youths and maidens crown my marble bust with laurel-wreaths, if meanwhile the shrivelled fingers of an aged nurse press a blister of Spanish flies behind the ears of my actual body. What does it avail me that all the roses of Shiraz so tenderly glow and bloom for me? Alas! Shiraz is two thousand miles away from the Rue d'Amsterdam, where, in the dreary solitude of my sick-room, I have nothing to smell, unless it be the perfume of warmed napkins. Alas! the irony of God weighs heavily upon me! the great Author of the universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, wished to show the petty, earthly, so-called German Aristophanes that his mightiest sarcasms are but feeble banter compared with His, and how immeasurably he excels me in humour and in colossal wit.

Yes, the mockery which the Master has poured out over me is terrible, and horribly cruel is His sport. Humbly do I acknowledge His superiority, and I prostrate myself in the dust before Him. But, although I lack such supreme creative powers, yet in my spirit also the eternal reason flames brightly, and I may summon even the wit of God before its forum, and subject it to a respectful criticism. And here I venture to offer most submissively the suggestion that the sport which the Master has inflicted on the poor pupil is rather too long drawn out: it has already lasted over six years, and after a time becomes monotonous. Moreover, if I may take the liberty to say it, in my humble opinion the jest is not new, and the great Aristophanes of Heaven has already used it on a former occasion, and has, therefore, been guilty of plagiarism on His own exalted self. In order to prove this assertion, I will quote a passage from the Chronicle of Lüneberg. This chronicle is very interesting for those who seek information concerning the manners and customs of Germany during the middle ages. As in a fashion-journal, it describes the wearing-apparel of both sexes which was in vogue at each particular period. It also imparts information concerning the popular ballads of the day, and quotes the opening lines of several of them. Among others, it records that during the year 1480 there were whistled and sung throughout all Germany certain songs, which for sweetness and tenderness surpassed any previously known in German lands. Young and old, and the women in particular, were quite bewitched by these ballads, which might be heard the livelong day. But these songs, so the chronicle goes on to say, were composed by a young priest who was afflicted with leprosy, and lived a forlorn, solitary life, secluded from all the world. You are surely aware, dear reader, what a horrible disease leprosywas during the middle ages, and how the wretched beings afflicted with this incurable malady were driven out from all society and from the abodes of men, and were forbidden to approach any human being. Living corpses, they wandered to and fro, muffled from head to foot, a hood drawn over the face, and carrying in the hand a bell, the Lazarus-bell, as it was called, through which they were to give timely warning of their approach, so that every one could get out of the way in time. The poor priest whose fame as a lyric poet the chronicle praised so highly was such a leper; and while all Germany, shouting and jubilant, sang and whistled his songs, he, a wretched outcast, in the desolation of his misery sat sorrowful and alone.

Oh, that fame was the old, familiar scorn, the cruel jest of God, the same as in my case, although there it appears in the romantic garb of the middle ages. Theblaséking of Judea said rightly, There is no new thing under the sun. Perhaps that sun itself, which now beams so imposingly, is only an old warmed-up jest.

Sometimes among the gloomy phantasms that visit me at night I seem to see before me the poor priest of the Lüneberg Chronicle, my brother in Apollo, and his sorrowful eyes stare strangely out of his hood; but almost at the same moment it vanishes, and, faintly dying away, like the echo of a dream, I hear the jarring tones of the Lazarus-bell.

PrintedbyWALTERSCOTT,Felling, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The Canterbury Poets.

InSHILLINGMonthly Volumes, Square 8vo. Well printed on fine toned paper, with Red-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. Each Volume contains from 300 to 350 pages. With Introductory Notices byWILLIAM SHARP,MATHILDE BLIND,WALTER LEWIN,JOHN HOGBEN,A. J. SYMINGTON,JOSEPH SKIPSEY,EVA HOPE,JOHN RICHMOND,ERNEST RHYS,PERCY E. PINKERTON,MRS. GARDEN,DEAN CARRINGTON,DR. J. BRADSHAW,FREDERICK COOPER,HON. RODEN NOEL,J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS,G. WILLIS COOKE,ERIC MACKAY,ERIC S. ROBERTSON,WILLIAM TIREBUCK,STUART J. REID,MRS. FREILIGRATH KROEKER,J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A.SAMUEL WADDINGTON,etc., etc.

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SHELLEY'S ESSAYS AND LETTERS. Edited by Ernest Rhys.

PROSE WRITINGS OF SWIFT. Edited by W. Lewin.

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Edited by Professor E. S. ROBERTSON.

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LIFE OF LONGFELLOW.BY PROFESSORERIC S. ROBERTSON.

"The story of the poet's life is well told.... The remarks on Longfellow as a translator are excellent."—Saturday Review."No better life of Longfellow has been published."—Glasgow Herald.

"The story of the poet's life is well told.... The remarks on Longfellow as a translator are excellent."—Saturday Review.

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LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By HALL CAINE.

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LIFE OF DICKENS.BYFRANK T. MARZIALS.

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LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.BYJOSEPH KNIGHT.

LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.BYCOL. F. GRANT.

LIFE OF DARWIN.BYG. T. BETTANY.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË. By AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.

LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE.BYRICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.

LIFE OF ADAM SMITH.BYR. B. HALDANE, M.P.

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LIFE OF KEATS.BYW. M. ROSSETTI.

To be followed on October 25th by

LIFE OF SHELLEY. BY WILLIAM SHARP.

Volumes in preparation byAUSTIN DOBSON,CANON VENABLES,JAMES SIME,EDMUND GOSSE,PROFESSOR KNIGHT, etc.

LIBRARY EDITION OF "GREAT WRITERS."

An Issue of all the Volumes in this Series will be published, printed on large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d. per volume.

Now Ready, Part I., Price 6d.; by Post, 7d.

THE NATURALISTS' MONTHLY:

A Journal for Nature-Lovers and Nature-Thinkers.

EDITED BY DR. J. W. WILLIAMS, M.A.

CONTENTS.

Pathology of the Celandine.—Rev. Hilderic Friend, M.A., F.L.S.The Evolution of the Fishing-Hook from the Flint-Hook ofPrehistoric Man to the Salmon-Hook of the Present Day.—EdwardLovett.A Study in My Garden (Rose-Aphis).—H. W. S. Worsley-Benison,F.L.S.Binary Suns.—Herbert Sadler, F.R.A.S.Charles Robert Darwin (with a photograph).—B. MiddletonBatchelor.Shell Collecting in Guernsey and Hern.—J. R. BrocktonTomlin, B.A.A Chapter on the Centipedes and Millipedes.—T. D. Gibson-Carmichael,M.A., F.L.S.The Snails and Slugs of My Garden.—George Roberts.The Origin of our Fresh-water Faunas.—H. E. Quilter.Reviews. General Notes and Gleanings. Reports of theLearned Societies.

"A sound journal, the monthly advent of which will be awaited with feelings of satisfaction and pleasure."—Bath Chronicle."To the student of nature who has had few opportunities of study, just such a magazine as this supplies a felt want. We trust that an appreciative public will ensure the success of this new magazine."—Midlothian Journal."This neatly got-up magazine seems to supply a vacant place in the ranks of serial literature, and to supply it well."—Nottingham Guardian.

"A sound journal, the monthly advent of which will be awaited with feelings of satisfaction and pleasure."—Bath Chronicle.

"To the student of nature who has had few opportunities of study, just such a magazine as this supplies a felt want. We trust that an appreciative public will ensure the success of this new magazine."—Midlothian Journal.

"This neatly got-up magazine seems to supply a vacant place in the ranks of serial literature, and to supply it well."—Nottingham Guardian.

Part II. Ready September 26th. Annual Subscription—Seven Shillings. Post free.

London:WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

FOOTNOTES:[1]There are three German biographies of Heine, those of Strodtmann, Karpeles, and Proelss; a new edition of his works in six volumes, with a biography and notes by Dr. Elster, has lately been announced. Mr. Matthew Arnold, by his well-known essay and poem, has done much to stimulate English interest in Heine. A careful critical estimate by Mr. Charles Grant (Contemporary, Sept. 1880) may be mentioned with praise.[2]He lodged at 32, Craven Street, Strand.[3]"C'est le Bible, plus que tout autre livre," a distinguished French critic wrote lately, "qui a façonné le génie poétique de Heine, en lui donnant sa forme et sa couleur. Ses véritables maîtres, ses vrais inspirateurs sont les glorieux inconnus qui ont écrit l'Ecclesiaste et les Proverbes, le Cantique des cantiques, le livre de Job et ce chez d'œuvre d'ironie discrète intitulé: le livre du prophète Jonas. Celui qui s'appelait un rossignol Allemand niché dans la perruque de Voltaire fut à la fois le moins évangélique des hommes et le plus vraiment biblique des poètes modernes."[4]He committed suicide.—Ed.[5]Or in English.[6]Heine at this period was never tired of laughing at Göttingen, and here couples it with six particularly insignificant towns.—Ed.[7]Dummin German means stupid.[8]In the French edition Heine rightly substituted "The Emperor Maximilian."[9]i.e.Ariosto.—Ed.[10]Michel corresponds to John Bull.—Ed.[11]This is a common error. Faust the printer is quite a distinct person.—Ed.[12]It must be remembered that Heine visited England in 1827.[13]This is said to have been the response of Princess Borghese to a friend who asked her how she had felt when sitting as a model to Canova.—Ed.[14]Heine only quotes the first part of the passage from theReisebilder, which has here been given in full.—Ed.[15]Heine here alludes toAtta Troll.—Ed.

[1]There are three German biographies of Heine, those of Strodtmann, Karpeles, and Proelss; a new edition of his works in six volumes, with a biography and notes by Dr. Elster, has lately been announced. Mr. Matthew Arnold, by his well-known essay and poem, has done much to stimulate English interest in Heine. A careful critical estimate by Mr. Charles Grant (Contemporary, Sept. 1880) may be mentioned with praise.

[2]He lodged at 32, Craven Street, Strand.

[3]"C'est le Bible, plus que tout autre livre," a distinguished French critic wrote lately, "qui a façonné le génie poétique de Heine, en lui donnant sa forme et sa couleur. Ses véritables maîtres, ses vrais inspirateurs sont les glorieux inconnus qui ont écrit l'Ecclesiaste et les Proverbes, le Cantique des cantiques, le livre de Job et ce chez d'œuvre d'ironie discrète intitulé: le livre du prophète Jonas. Celui qui s'appelait un rossignol Allemand niché dans la perruque de Voltaire fut à la fois le moins évangélique des hommes et le plus vraiment biblique des poètes modernes."

[4]He committed suicide.—Ed.

[5]Or in English.

[6]Heine at this period was never tired of laughing at Göttingen, and here couples it with six particularly insignificant towns.—Ed.

[7]Dummin German means stupid.

[8]In the French edition Heine rightly substituted "The Emperor Maximilian."

[9]i.e.Ariosto.—Ed.

[10]Michel corresponds to John Bull.—Ed.

[11]This is a common error. Faust the printer is quite a distinct person.—Ed.

[12]It must be remembered that Heine visited England in 1827.

[13]This is said to have been the response of Princess Borghese to a friend who asked her how she had felt when sitting as a model to Canova.—Ed.

[14]Heine only quotes the first part of the passage from theReisebilder, which has here been given in full.—Ed.

[15]Heine here alludes toAtta Troll.—Ed.

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