FOOTNOTES:

'Putting aside the iced air of the difficult mountain tops of epic, tragedy, or psalm, there are some simple pieces which may serve as an unerring test of a healthy or vicious taste for imaginative work. If the "Cid," the "Vita Nuova," the "Canterbury Tales," Shakspeare's "Sonnets," and "Lycidas" pall on a man; if he care not for Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" and the "Red Cross Knight"; if he thinks "Crusoe" and the "Vicar" books for the young; if he thrill not with the "Ode to the West Wind" and the "Ode to a Grecian Urn"; if he have no stomach for "Christabelle," or the lines written on "The Wye above Tintern," he should fall on his knees and pray for a cleanlier and quieter spirit.'

Now we believe that there is many a humble aspirant to literary taste on whom the above paragraph will produce an effect similar to that of 'iced air and mountain tops' by taking his breath away. Literary palates are mercifully endowed with tastes and appreciations as varied as mere bodily palates, andwe must protest against any such Procrustean method of ascertaining whether a man's 'spirit be cleanly and quiet,' or, which is terrible to contemplate, the reverse. On another page Mr. Harrison himself loudly deprecates and disclaims any narrow or sectarian view; he is nothing if not Catholic in his tastes. 'I protest that I am devoted to no school in particular; I condemn no school; I reject none. I am for the school of all the great men; and I am against the school of the smaller men.'

All taste must be founded on knowledge, and between the hard, dry teaching of the Board School or the Examination Room on the one hand, and the ætherial atmosphere of Desultory Reading and the purest literary discernment on the other, there lies an intermediate region, a 'penumbral zone,' which differs from the first in that it is entered voluntarily, and from the second in that it is attainable by all who care to enter it. The way through this region, though pleasant is laborious; system, accuracy, and discipline are essential to him who would traverse it. To be a desultory reader, in the sense defined by Lord Iddesleigh, a man must first have been a student; and not to every student is given the temperament, capacity, and opportunity, to become a desultory reader—still less can every student aspire to that refined literary taste, which Mr. Harrison possesses in so large a measure, and which, in its characteristics, he describes so well.

So far as modern literature is concerned, it may be said, that the Reviewers are, by their skill and experience, qualified to direct, and ever ready to aid the wayfarer; and in theory this is true. But, putting aside the few leading journals and periodicals, daily and weekly—of which we would only speak with the greatest respect—we fear that the reviewer's art is at a low ebb in these days. Often the side breezes of controversy, of private jealousy, or of personal interest, intervene to divert straightforward criticism; still more often does absolute incompetence render these guides worthless. A score of books may be seen, huddled together in an unbroken column of so-called criticism, with no other bond of union than their publication in course of the same week. The interested author, wading through this disconnected mass, suddenly stumbles on a few words extracted—possibly perverted—from his own preface, to which a line of commonplace commendation is affixed; and he then suddenly encounters a subject as far removed from his own as the 'Republic' of Plato is distant from 'Called Back.'

Among all these discordant voices, who shall help us todetect the true ring? Thrice happy are those privileged few who enjoy the loving care and supervision of some wise mentor to guide their choice and to watch their progress; but for the multitude, to whom such a privilege is denied, a good classified list, not excluding recent works, carefully sifted and added to by the most prominent men of the day, would be of inestimable value.

In the first place, a connected chain of histories, from the earliest times to the present day, with a selected list of contemporary memoirs and biographies, would throw a guiding gleam of light on thousands who are wandering, dark and aimless, in a labyrinth of 'masterpieces.' In this enquiry system is essential. Of desultory comments, charming and instructive in themselves and valuable in the formation of taste, we have abundant store. Who that has read Emerson's 'Essay on Books,' or Charles Lamb's 'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading,' or Isaac Disraeli's 'Curiosities of Literature' and 'Literary Character,' or Byron's brilliant and impulsive criticisms on books and authors, can be without some kindling of enthusiasm and of desire to know more fully the great works thus passed in critical review? But the essential characteristics of such commentaries as these are snares to the student. The temptation to pass from one subject to another is inseparable from treatment of this kind, and so becomes a hindrance to more earnest application.

Dibdin's 'Library Companion' in some respects fulfils the requirements we have mentioned; but apart from the fact, that the information it contains is now in a great measure obsolete, too much space is devoted to the description and value of choice and rare editions. It is a book-buyer's rather than a reader's guide. Perkins's 'The Best Reading' is too bald a catalogue, and requires a vast amount of sifting, and the addition of a few words of running comment to render it serviceable. It lacks, in short, the characteristics of acatalogue raisonnée.

The Historical List which we have proposed should be prefaced by a chronological table, indicating the epochs into which the World's History divides itself, and the periods covered by each of the works recommended. This would give the student a bird's-eye view of the field which he is about to explore, and enable him, at any moment in his exploration, to take his reckonings and verify his position.

Careful distinction should be made between Chroniclers and Historians, between those who have provided the materials and those who have designed and reared the complete structure. Sometimes these chroniclers have furnished merely rough andunhewn stones, useful in themselves, but with no pretence to artistic finish or individuality of character; and these have been absorbed into the building. Other chronicles, again, are perfected in form, and are not merely integral, essential portions of the complicated structure, but become a source of endless pleasure from the merit of their workmanship. Thucydides and Clarendon are universally read, while Hecatæus has all but vanished; and Thomas May's 'History of the Long Parliament,' though pronounced by Lord Chatham to be a 'much honester and more instructive book of the same period than Lord Clarendon's,' is relegated to the shelves of the specialist or the bookworm.

Histories are scarcely less ephemeral than books of science; and the object of the list we are advocating is not to provide an exhaustive catalogue, a task which in these days would overtax the capacity of half-a-dozen Dr. Johnsons, but to select those works which will give the best continuous narrative of the period under discussion, and represent the most recent scholarship; omitting those which have been absorbed or superseded.

Mitford and Gillies have given place to Thirwall and Grote; and even the star of Hallam, outshining De Lolme, is beginning to wane before the searching light which, by the publication of State Papers and other archives, is being brought to bear on the History of England and of Modern Europe. But such materials, though ruthlessly relegating much of what we have hitherto regarded as the 'Pearls of History' to the category of 'Mock Pearls,' cannot immediately be made available for the ordinary student, or become absorbed into the popular histories of the day. We can ill spare from our list the names of those writers, who, from Livy to Lord Macaulay, have added a fascination to the study of history; though in their works most beautiful Mock Pearls abound. But the student should be warned against implicit reliance on their records.

To Clarendon has been ascribed the honor of being the first Englishman who wrote History, as we regard it; his predecessors having been in the main mere chroniclers or annalists. Clarendon elaborated the picture of which these annalists had merely supplied the materials; and the eighteenth century saw the development of this new method in the brilliant triad of contemporaries, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Our own age has witnessed a further advance in the school of philosophical historians, who, without aiming at any connected narrative of events, present to us the profound lessons which history teaches; pointing out the far-reaching causes which have influenced and are influencingevents occurring in widely distant countries; causes and events which to the superficial observer seem totally disconnected. This philosophical category would form one of the most interesting, and in these days, when political empiricism shows a growing tendency to supplant statesmanlike research, not the least important portion of our historical list. If to this main stem of History there be added the due complement of branches and leaves—memoirs and biographies—the Plutarchs and Pepyses, the Walpoles and St. Simons, the Crokers and Grevilles of each generation—we shall have a tree of knowledge which would yield to none in point of interest and utility.

We have dwelt at some length on this part of the subject, first, because of its almost unlimited extent; and secondly, because, owing to this extent, there is such difficulty in making a genuine and trustworthy selection. There is, besides, an apparently constant antagonism in history between the qualities of strict accuracy and literary brilliancy. The two are not incompatible, but the striving after literary merit is as great a snare to the writer as its attainment by the writer is, in too many cases, to the student.

Of voyages and travels, 'I would also have good store, especially the earlier, when the world was fresh and unhackneyed, and men saw things invisible to the modern eye: They are fast-sailing ships to waft away from present troubles to the Fortunate Islands.'[101]Grouped under each quarter of the globe, we should have selections of the works of those travellers, who, from Herodotus to Mr. Stanley, and from Marco Polo or Captain Cook down to Miss Bird, have made us who stay at home familiar with the remotest corners of the earth. Much of the romance of travel has of necessity perished in these matter-of-fact days; but as the writing of history has developed from a mere chronicle of events into a scientific and philosophical method, so the art of travelling is now assuming a political form under pressure of the gigantic problems which are exercising the mind of the civilized world; and a section of political travels, of which Mr. Froude and Baron von Hübner have recently given us examples, should not be omitted.

Without pretending to enumerate all the departments which our catalogue should comprise—and most of them are too obvious to require enumeration—we would suggest a good selection of the best translations and editions of the Greek and Roman Classics. In mentioning translations we, of course, disclaim any recommendation of the common 'crib,' but refer to those scholarlyworks which have brought the classical masterpieces to the very doors of the general public; such, for example, as Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' or Prof. Jowett's 'Plato and Thucydides;' as Lord Derby's 'Iliad,' Gifford's 'Juvenal,' or Conington's 'Virgil:' nor is the crib more widely removed from such works as these, than, in the matter of editions, is Anthon's 'Virgil,' for example, from Munro's 'Lucretius.' In the opinion of Mr. Harrison, this 'is the age of accurate translation. The present generation has produced a complete library of versions of the great Classics, chiefly in prose, partly in verse, more faithful, true, and scholarly than anything ever produced before.' Mr. Harrison's own essay on the 'Poets of the Old World,' goes far to supply one at least of the branches of this section. Last, but by no means least, do we plead for a guide to 'Children's Books.' We run some risk in these days of competitive examinations and 'higher education,' of placing instruction too prominently in the front, to the exclusion of pure amusement; forgetting that it is through the imagination that the interest of a child is most readily aroused, and that, unless the interest be aroused, our educational labours will be worthless. A child can live in an atmosphere of genial fiction, and appreciate it, without the danger which lurks in a misrepresentation of what passes around him in his daily experience. It is exaggeration, not fiction, that is liable to injure the mind of a child.

On the vital question, 'how to read,' the student has received matter for careful and deliberate consideration, alike from Lord Iddesleigh and Mr. Goschen, from Mr. Harrison and Mr. Lowell. The burden of their advice is the same, though the forms differ; they all unite in deprecating and deploring the hurry, the want of application, the want of restraint which prevail in the present day. The hurrying reader, on the one hand, and the indolent reader, on the other, are the types to be avoided with the most scrupulous care. We suffer from an excess of opportunities, and require to be constantly reminded that 'it is impossible to give any method to our reading till we get nerve enough to reject.'

If we look through the long list of English literary celebrities, we cannot but be struck with the large proportion of those who have received little or no regular education in their early days, and whose opportunities of study have been of the scantiest. Ben Jonson working as a bricklayer with his book in his pocket: Wm. Cobbett reading his hard-earned 'Tale of a Tub' under the haystack, or mastering his grammar when he was a private soldier on the pay of 6d. a day; when 'the edge of my berth or that of my guard-bed was my seat to study in; myknapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing table, and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life:' Gifford, as a cobbler's apprentice, working out his problems on scraps of waste leather; or Bunyan, confined for twelve years in Bedford jail with only his Bible and 'Foxe's Book of Martyrs,' are but a few among scores of instances which will immediately suggest themselves.

There are many persons who are possessed with a strange and unaccountable conviction, that to read a book and to write a book are processes which require little, if any, previous training or preparation. The one error is sufficiently obvious to all who pay any attention to the great mass of cheap literature which is pouring from our printing-presses; the other is less easy of detection. 'The first lesson in reading is that which teaches us to distinguish between literature and merely printed matter,' is the admirable maxim laid down by Mr. Lowell, and this is one of the essential points in which the personal influence of an experienced friend is of inestimable value. As the latent beauties of some great masterpiece of art unfold themselves to our eye under the guidance of a Kugler or a Ruskin, and we are thus enabled to detect their presence or their absence in the works of other hands and other schools, so in the masterpieces of literature the realization of the points, wherein the chief merits of each lie, places us in a position to form a standard—to possess a talisman, which shall enable us unerringly to detect the true from the false. Mrs. Knowles said of Dr. Johnson, 'He knows how to read better than any one; he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears the heart out of it.' This faculty, which was exhibited in a marvellous degree also in Southey and Macaulay, is as rare as it is enviable; but there are not a few who erroneously suppose themselves to be possessed of it. The hurried, careless, method of reading is one of the chief dangers a student should guard against. In studying a work of biography, for example—but above all in studying the classics—the first requisite, and one which is, as we have said, sadly overlooked in public school teaching, is the acquisition of a simple, general outline of the period to which the work relates. In the fashionable phrase of the day, the books so read are frequently not in correspondence with their environment. To him whose views of Roman history are but a shapeless mist, if not an absolute void, Virgil and Horace are sealed books; nor can any one who is ignorant of Scotland and her traditions penetrate beyond the husk of 'Waverley' or 'Old Mortality.' To the young beginner a few judicious words of explanation at the commencement of a book may serve toawaken that interest without which reading is useless, and to make darkness light; and, similarly, a few words of discussion, when the book is completed, will have the effect of consolidating the floating ideas to which the perusal has given rise. The habit of casting aside a book as soon as the last page is read, without pondering over its contents and recalling the argument and refreshing the memory where it has failed, or allowing the 'frenzied current of the eye to be stopped for many moments of calm reflection or thought,' is apt to render worthless all the previous effort. Lord Erskine, we are told, was in the habit of making long extracts from Burke, and Lord Eldon is said to have copied out 'Coke upon Littleton' twice with his own hand. 'Writing an analysis,' says Archibishop Whately,[102]'or table of contents, or index, or notes, is very important for the study, properly so called, of any subject. And so also is the practice of previously conversing or writing on the subject you are about to study.' Reading can produce a beneficial result only in proportion to the extent and accuracy of information previously stored in the mind of the reader. Such information is like the roots of some flourishing oak; every fresh fact is, as it were, a new fibre confirming and strengthening the growth of the tree, and attracting nourishment from new soil.

'The moment you have a definite aim, attention is quickened, the mother of memory; and all that you acquire groups and arranges itself in an order that is lucid, because everywhere and always it is in intelligent relation to a central object of constant and growing interest.'[103]Bearing this in mind, we would urge the student to investigate every unfamiliar allusion which may occur in the course of his reading or conversation. A fact or subject thus sought out fixes itself more firmly in the memory than most of those which are merely passed in the ordinary course of reading.

The use of odd moments should not be overlooked. 'Blockheads,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'can never find out how folks cleverer than themselves came by their information. They never know what is done at dressing-time, meal-time even, or in how few minutes they can get at the sense of many pages.' It is not possible always to have a book at hand, but any one who will take the trouble to copy out, from time to time, passages which have attracted his attention, and carry them about with him to learn by heart at odd moments, may perhaps be astonished to find how much may be acquired in this manner.

There are some books which by their nature lend themselves to a snatchy method of perusal, and a few minutes may often be well employed in reading an ode of Horace, or the disjointed conversations of Dr. Johnson, but such moments should as a rule be devoted to books which are already more or less familiar. The habit of frivolously taking up, and as frivolously casting aside, a book is, however, one which should be guarded against with the utmost care. It was a strict rule in the family of Goethe the elder, that any book once commenced should be read through to the end. Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, considered a rule of this kind 'strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep them for life.'

A snare, which did not exist in the time of Goethe or of Dr. Johnson, presents itself in these days to the reader, in the ever-increasing mass of periodical literature. But the busy man, who has not time to turn aside from his own work to the thorough investigation of the topic of the hour, may sometimes, in the pages of a magazine, find the case stated tersely by distinguished advocates on both sides; and he may thus at least discern the main positions of assailant and assailed. An exhaustive and genuine review of a book is occasionally afforded by periodical literature, more rarely perhaps than is generally believed; but such essays to have any value, should be read only after the work to which they relate, a condition that is, we fear, seldom fulfilled.

The 'desultory reader' has now been defined and elevated. We can hardly be mistaken in considering that by reason of Lord Iddesleigh's admirable remarks the expression has acquired a new signification; at least a large number of those who may have fondly imagined themselves to be desultory readers have now been effectually eliminated from the category.

We live in days of 'specialism,' and the book-making specialist of our generation probably yields to none of his predecessors in the literary roll in respect of industry, skill, and accuracy; but his subject, as a rule, is his business, his breadwinner. The desultory reader regards literature as his pastime and recreation. Happy is he who has the time, the opportunity, and the education, to become a desultory reader, in Lord Iddlesleigh's sense of the word.

But admitting that Desultory Dilettanteism may under certain favourable conditions be both profitable and a fascinating attainment, and claiming as we do a very high value for good guidance in the choice of books, we must not lose sight of the fact, that the basis on which the main practical question ofthe selection and proper use of books rests, is not what is good in general, or in special literature, but what is fitted for each individual man. And to discover this the man himself, or his immediate ancestor, the youth or boy, must be examined. The foundation of success in any sphere of life is physical and mental, nervous and moral aptitude; and those who have to direct, or to decide for, or to advise the young respecting their career in life, should make the personal condition of their protégés their careful study. From the ascertained condition the capacity of each may be discerned, and his future capabilities may be, to some extent, foreseen. These capabilities are the indicators of the course of reading first required; by them the youth's career should chiefly be selected and decided on. Unfortunately in most cases careful forethought is neglected. Qualities that actually make the man are, in a decision that affects his hopes and happiness for life, too often overlooked; and some mere transient incident, esteemed perhaps a stroke of fortune, is accepted, without any hesitating thought about the suitability of its results, as a sufficient introduction to the business of the world. The consequence of this neglect is obvious enough. In every social and commercial sphere we find men drudging on in hopeless slavery, or ruined by the natural revolt of sensibilities that could not be controlled, against the influence of circumstances wholly inappropriate, and for which these sensibilities, most useful in their proper sphere, were not of course designed.

A young man's very desultory reading will perhaps be one of the most useful means for finding what his life's career should be. Knowing himself, or being known, as has been said, by those directing him, and by his own discursive reading having learnt what work for his peculiar abilities is open for him in the world, he probably will judge quite readily what line of study he should at first pursue, and following out this clue, at first by the aid of judicious external guidance, he will, with ever-increasing self-reliance and discrimination, proceed to fulfil the requirements of education and the inclination of his own mental disposition. This method of development is the natural order by which intellectual growth, by means of books, or any other means, proceeds. To make a choice of certain hundred books for any man's perusal, in his youth or afterwards, is but a feat of cleverness, arousing curiosity or wonder, but evolving nothing—ending in the choice. A man may be possessed of any number of good books; and possibly a thousand books might be selected, all of which would be by general consent called excellent, and worth possessing; and perhaps he would be nonethe better for them all. Young men do not require a hundred books at once. Indeed the fewer well-selected books a youth has to begin with, the more safe he is against excessive loss of time. His most important question is not, what shall I read? but, what need I read? The student's care should be to read as little, and to think as much as possible. Thus, he will find what thing it is that he at any time immediately requires to know, and he will make this pressing need the object of his next acquirement in books. This method tends to education; it develops mental power, and makes a cultivated man. A hundred books procured and read without appropriate sympathy, and interest, and thought, will merely make an animated bookcase of the man.

Not only should the student's books be few, but as he reads he should be constantly upon his guard. Most readers read to be informed or to be entertained; and books of information are absorbed as if all printed statements must of course be true, or even if not true must, as a record, be worth knowing. This omnivorous, careless style of reading is a grievous waste of life and energy. Were books read with critical, enquiring thought, the time misspent in reading would be wholesomely reduced, and readers would increase in mental power in due proportion to their increased information.

In books of entertainment, and especially of fiction, corresponding carefulness is necessary. There are books among the best which are, in various degrees and ways, of evil influence, and should be read with caution and reserve. To yield one's self to the enjoyment of an entertaining book may be as foolish as to give one's self into the hands of an untried agreeable companion. Ability to please is to these incautious subjects of it a most dangerous influence; and books as well as men when most attractive should be treated warily. In Rabelais and Swift, in Fielding and Smollett, coarse manners must be reprobated. In George Eliot's novels, with exceptions, and in 'Jane Eyre,' there is a subtle taint that is unwholesome to the unguarded reader. Thackeray too frequently compels us to associate with evil company; and, while admiring the writer's skill, the reader should keep well outside of almost every group in Thackeray's novels.

Distinct alike from the progressive student and the discriminating reader, is an abundant class who, without individuality, and mere omnivorous devotees of books, chiefly reading the lighter literature of the day. These people, through excess and self-indulgence, become feeble-minded, intellectually dissipated, and incapable of serious study. In every rank of life the book-devouringvice abounds; but chiefly among women, girls, and boys; men finding in the newspapers their daily pabulum. This thoughtless, fragmentary, reading has debilitated the contemporary mental fibre of the nation; and has so absorbed the time, we cannot say the attention, of the immense majority of the reading public, that many of them are ignorant even of the existence of the standard works of literature. The late discussion, therefore, about books has been of use; it has made known to the great community of people, who now can read, the fact, that there are certain books, a hundred more or less, far more worth reading than the popular and periodical literature of the day. If this discovery could be impressed upon the public mind with practical effect, the result would be a beneficial change in their condition. The abundant tattle and affected interest about names and things of mean and transient notoriety, and the discursive dinner-table gossip of the world would then perhaps subside; and English conversation would become a constant and a beneficial intellectual enjoyment.

FOOTNOTES:[99]Croker's 'Boswell,' pp. 767, 8vo. ed.[100]'The Choice of Books,' p. 37.[101]Mr Lowell's Address at the dedication of the Free Public Library, Chelsea, Massachusetts.[102]Notes to Bacon's 'Essays.'[103]Mr. Lowel.

[99]Croker's 'Boswell,' pp. 767, 8vo. ed.

[100]'The Choice of Books,' p. 37.

[101]Mr Lowell's Address at the dedication of the Free Public Library, Chelsea, Massachusetts.

[102]Notes to Bacon's 'Essays.'

[103]Mr. Lowel.

Of the latest Work on the Characteristics of Democracy we are precluded from speaking, as Sir Henry Maine's valuable Essays first appeared in the pages of this Review. But we desire on the present occasion to call attention to some writers on the subject, who are almost unknown to a younger generation, or known only by occasional references made tothem by those who were well acquainted with the writers and their works. And among these half-forgotten names few perhaps will recur more frequently in the recollections of the best-informed men of from forty-five to sixty, or more surprise those who have entered on life since their owners left it, than those of Alexis de Tocqueville, Nassau William Senior, and Walter Bagehot. Among the statesmen of the last generation, few who will fill so small a space in history are so often or so reverently quoted by those who remember Lord Palmerston's Government, the Crimean War, and the Indian Mutiny, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Most men under forty will hear with surprise that in the City, at least, he was deemed a sounder and safer financier than Mr. Gladstone; honoured as the Chancellor of the Exchequer who first redeemed the financial reputation of the Whigs from the discredit that had clung to the party of retrenchment and reform for a whole generation. Of the small minority who know him as the founder of the English school of historical sceptics, how many have heard of his multifarious literary and political works, or his shrewd, genial, two-edged, criticisms on public and social life? It seems too probable that our grandchildren will retain nothing of his save the characteristic saying, that 'life would be very tolerable but for its pleasures;' andthat, probably, will be assigned to some more famous and far less wisecauseuror phrasemaker, losing half its force in the transfer. Even Mill is known to the passing and the rising generation by different works and diverse characteristics. To the one he is little more than the greatest, most original, and most heretical of English economists; a standard author on logic and metaphysics. The other prefers to remember him by his later and lesser writings; those sexagenarian and posthumous Essays, in which the riper wisdom of a mind, very slow to learn the lessons of practical life, was gathered, and the wilder errors of his earlier theories modified or corrected. Much of that which is really best in his thought and teaching, set forth in these last writings, bears a close analogy to the views of Tocqueville Senior, and Bagehot, and shows that a tardy, hardly-acquired, unwillingly accepted, knowledge of men and women, of the real and ineradicable tendencies of human nature, brought the giant of the closet into nearer accord with the practical philosophy of a man like Sir George Cornewall Lewis, wise, calm, and judicial, by natural temper, wiser yet by the closet-study which had analysed the experiences of the literary, business, and political, world, of administration, Parliament, and the Cabinet.

One common and very striking feature characterizes thepolitical thought of all these men—all of them Liberals in more than mere nominal profession or party connection. All regarded the triumph of Democracy as near and inevitable, and all, from different points of view, regarded it with a mixture of resignation and distrust, strangely significant in men of such different views, of such diverse character, mental training, and personal experience. None of them were fatalists, much less pessimists; none inclinedà priorito that political superstition which recognizes, in the tendencies of a thing so uncertain and changeful as the spirit of the age, the hand of Providence, or the indication of 'manifest destiny.' All were men of more than average independence of temper, an independence which, in one or two, approached nearly to that which practical politicians call impracticability. None of them were disposed to be silent when the many-headed Cæsar had spoken. Mill's most striking, and—to the credit of Democracy be it spoken—most popular characteristic, was a stern and almost pardoxical defiance alike of personal consequences and of public opinion. On the verge of his entrance into public life he affronted the working-classes by telling them, with more than Carlylese directness and exaggeration, that they were 'mostly liars.' If ever there were a man sure to protest to the last against false doctrines and mischievous tendencies, to protest the more fiercely the more certain their victory seemed, it was John Stuart Mill.

Tocqueville, conscious of no common political and administrative capacity—a statesman whose strong popular sympathies, practical wisdom, contempt of popular catchwords, knowledge of and respect for concrete facts; above all, whose signal freedom from the characteristic weaknesses and vices of French statesmanship, rendered him the fittest of all men to direct the destiny of France, whose counsels and guidance would have saved her from all the worst mistakes and most signal disasters—was content to spend a lifetime first in opposition, afterwards in absolute exile from public life, rather than go 'the way that was not his way for an inch.' An Orleanist, an enthusiastic lover of Parliamentary institutions, he would not stoop with Guizot and Thiers to serve a King whose power was founded on corruption. A minister of the President, he held aloof as sternly from the despotism of the Empire as from the factions of the Republican Assembly. He never designed to conceal or soften the expressions of the most unpopular sentiments or convictions.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis was an eminently English statesman, fully aware of the necessity of mutual concession—more willing than most to be guided as a Minister by the tradition of his office, to leave the administration for which hemust answer in Parliament to the practical experience of his permanent subordinates—but one whom, assuredly, no one ever accused of undue pliancy, or excessive deference to party or popular feeling.

Mr. Bagehot alone of the three was a man likely,cœteris paribus,to prefer the winning side; to believe that the belief of the many was likely to be right; looking, however, to the opinion of the many educated and thoughtful rather than of the many ignorant and over-occupied. Yet all agree at once in treating the coming rule of numbers almost as a law of nature, which it were folly to criticize and madness to resist; and in anticipating its advent with doubt and distrust, with deep and sometimes gloomy apprehension. Their constant, thoughtful concurrence in both convictions, their equal assurance that pure Democracy was dangerous and that it was inevitable, deserves a profound significance from their utterly distinct points of view; from the utter unlikeness of their tempers, their experience, and their natural bias.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis, as a Liberal politician, was decidedly distrustful of electoral reform, and accepted it only as a party necessity. His personal delight in the exposure of popular errors, his insistence on the value of authority, and the immense extent of the sphere in which the thought and conduct of the many are necessarily controlled by the authority of the few, the spirit of such books as his 'Essay on the Government of Dependencies' are those of a mind wholly adverse to democratic theories, and intensely mistrustful of popular judgments. He was not fascinated by what he describes as 'the splendidvisionof a community bound together by the ties of fraternity, liberty, and equality, exempt from hereditary privilege, giving all things to merit, and presided over by a government in which all the national interests are faithfully represented.' He put these words into the mouth of the advocate of Democracy in his 'Dialogue on the best form of Government,' which he published shortly before his death. In this work his own views are expressed in the person of Crito.

'Even if I were to decide in favour of one of these forms, and against the two others, I should not find myself nearer the solution of the practical problem. A nation does not change the form of its government with the same facility that a man changes his coat. A nation in general only changes the form of its government by means of a violent revolution.... The history of forcible attempts to improve governments is not cheering. Looking back upon the course of revolutionary movements, and upon the character of their consequences, the practical conclusion which I draw is, that it is thepart of wisdom and prudence to acquiesce in any form of government, which is tolerably well administered, and affords tolerable security to person and property. I would not, indeed, yield to apathetic despair or acquiesce in the persuasion that a merely tolerable government is incapable of improvement. I would form an individual model, suitable to the character, disposition, wants, and circumstances of the country, and I would make all exertions, whether by action or by writing, within the limits of the existing law, for ameliorating its existing condition, and bringing it nearer to the model selected for imitation; but I should consider the problem of the best form of government as purely ideal, and as unconnected with practice; and should abstain from taking a ticket in the lottery of revolution, unless there was a well-founded expectation that it would come out a prize.'

The conservatism of Lewis was that of a profoundly sceptical instinct, of practical cautious incredulity. Bagehot's was the conservatism of middle-class English thought and experience. Tocqueville's was that of wide observation and bitter disappointment. Mill was a Conservative only so far as conservatism was forced upon a mind essentially radical and even revolutionary, imbued with a profound faith in abstract principles leading far beyond universal suffrage to, if not across the verge of communism, by the danger which he foresaw to individual liberty and unfettered intellectual freedom from the ascendency of mere numbers. Upon this point he agreed closely with Tocqueville, though upon nearly every other their views were as opposite as their character and experience; and their teaching has been fully confirmed by the actual working of the most successful, the most tolerant, and the most fortunately situated democracy that the world has ever seen.

The tendency of Democracy to naked despotism is obvious enough in the recent history of France; but sanguine democrats ascribe the special experience of France to the intense centralization inherited, as Tocqueville shows, by the Republic, the Constitutional Monarchy and the Empire from theAncien Régime; the absence of any local school of practical discussion, mutual tolerance, and co-operation; the bitterness of factions fighting not for administrative or legislative control, but for fundamentally incompatible forms of Government,—to anything rather than the unfitness of the French nation for Teutonic liberties. Conservative pessimists and democratic optimists can only find a common ground, a test which both will accept, in the experience of the United States. Whatever vices are found in American democracy must be inherent in democracy itself; and it must be granted that, looking on the surface ofpublic life, the larger facts of national history, and the material condition of the people, there is no evidence, obvious to the hasty observer, of interference with personal freedom, of any demoralizing or weakening influence on individual character exercised by political or social equality. It is outside of the proper field of politics, in facts invisible to distant observers, and not visible at a glance to thoughtful travellers, that we must seek for proof of the bearing of democratic institutions and ideas upon personal and social liberty, upon the maintenance of individual and collective rights.

Upon such a point the remarks of a leisurely, thoughtful, cultivated writer, like Richard Grant White, a man who had enjoyed exceptional opportunities of comparing the effect upon daily life of English aristocracy and American democracy, are more instructive than the elaborate treatises of political theorists or the generalizations of historians. The testimony of such writers bears out the inference which careful students might draw from English history, that the influence of a local and landed aristocracy is far more favourable, than that even of a landed democracy, to the jealous and resolute assertion of legal rights, to a strenuous and successful resistance to the encroachments of power, social or political, upon the property, the comfort, the liberty, and the privileges, of individuals or communities. The moral of Mr. Grant White's sketches of English and American life is, that the English peasant or tradesman is far safer from practical oppression or injustice than the American farmer or citizen; that an Englishman, whatever his rank, is far more free to speak his mind, and far more likely to have a mind worth speaking, than one of the same position in France, or even in Massachusetts. The lively interest in, the diffused knowledge of, politics and public matters, found among educated, and even half-educated men and women throughout the upper and middle classes of England, evidently impressed Mr. White by the contrast it presented to the indifference of American 'Society' to State and Federal politics. He notes particularly the higher tone, the wider knowledge, the freedom from petty class and personal concerns, the broader range of thought, the familiarity with subjects of general human interest, which characterize the conversation of an English dinner-table or drawing-room, as compared with that of American clubs and parlours. He speaks, with the bitterness of a man often and deeply bored, of the limited range of American table-talk, the prominence of the 'shop,' the professional interests of each chance assemblage; the price of stocks and railway shares, and the chances and changes of Wall Street; the inferior tone ofthought among men and women alike, in the best or at least the wealthiest society of New York and Philadelphia. In this he is incidentally confirmed by so observant and candid a social critic as Laurence Oliphant. There is an American society of higher cultivation and loftier interests; but that society, except in Boston, is necessarily scattered and somewhat exclusive; and, standing wholly aloof from politics, lacks the knowledge of history, of legislation, of social and economic interests, of current opinion, of foreign affairs—which is in itself a sort of liberal, if necessarily superficial, education. American ladies, and even gentlemen, hardly know who are the Senators for their State, much less who is the representative of their district; care nothing for, and know little of, the debates in Congress, still less in the State Legislature, deeply as these may affect the well-being of the community, the laws under which they and their children are to live.

But this lack of interest in public affairs has a deeper and far more reaching consequence. Everybody's business is nobody's business. In a community really democratic there are no natural leaders; none bound by rank, station, and recognized primacy, to originate resistance; none too strong to be crushed by the animosity of a Fiske or a Gould, or grievously wronged by a corrupt corporation like that of New York, a dishonest political organization like Tammany Hall, or a powerful Tramway or Railway Company. The consequence is, that not only the individual citizen, but a whole community submits to high-handed oppression, to administrative and judicial corruption, to impudent usurpation and flagrant illegalities, such as the greatest of English corporations would never dream of attempting. Perhaps the most oppressive and insolent exactions, to which living Englishmen have as yet submitted, are those of the Water Companies of London; but the offenders have repeatedly been resisted and brought to justice; and it is in London alone, the one English city which lacks natural leaders and protectors, which is too large for any citizen or body of citizens—save that great City Corporation which English Radicalism has marked for destruction—to speak and act in its name, that the Water Companies would have been endured for five years. Even in London, no such high-handed interference with the rights of property and the comfort of families, as the Elevated Railways of New York, with their uncompensated destruction of individual privacy and comfort throughout many of the wealthiest streets of the first city in the Union, would have been obviously and utterly impossible.

The tolerance of Democracy for what seem to English ideasthe grossest form of oppression—oppression systematic and legal, arbitrary power and class privilege, formally embodied in the law and made a fundamental principle of government—is illustrated by that clause of the Code Napoleon, which exempts the whole bureaucracy of France from civil or criminal liability. No official can be prosecuted, no redress sought at law for the abuse of powers the most extensive, affecting every man's daily life—powers which enable their holder to harass and almost ruin individuals and communities at his pleasure—save by permission of the Council of State, a body of officials inclined of course to believe and to shield its subordinates. This law has been sustained by each successive Government that has seized the reins of centralized power; nor are we aware that any serious effort has been made to repeal it.

The tyranny of democracy is, as Mill insists, the most formidable, searching, and irresistible of all. Under an autocracy or oligarchy, public opinion is the protector of the injured, and imposes limits on arbitrary power. Assassination is the resort of the victim driven to frenzy by individual oppression, and tempers the sternest despotism; but Demos wields opinion and defies the dagger. By general confession life is far less free, individual taste, caprice or eccentricity is kept under far sharper restraint by fashion and feeling, in America than in aristocratic England. At every epoch of American history, the freedom of opinion has been curtailed at certain points within strict if ill-defined limits. The patriots of Virginia proclaimed in 1775 that any who dared 'by speech or writing to maintain' Royalist or Constitutional views should be treated as an enemy of his country. A similar ban was put some fifty years ago upon the Abolitionists of Illinois and Connecticut. A time came when it was almost equally dangerous to maintain the constitutional doctrines which the Abolitionists had assailed. Nowadays, of actual persecution there is little, because there is little need; because the repression acts, save with the most independent, original and contradictious tempers, upon thought rather than expression. No human intellect or character can resist the universal, insensible, unconscious, pressure of the atmosphere which surrounds it from the cradle. Upon certain political, social, and ethical dogmas, wherever national pride and democratic prejudice are touched, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that the 'unanimous opinion' of the North and West has demoralized or extinguished thought itself.

Demos is not only tyrant but Pope. He feels, and his courtiers venture openly to claim for him, not only the royalty which can do no wrong, but the infallibility which can defineright and wrong themselves. He resents, we are told upon democratic authority, all pretension to special knowledge.

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