REMARKS ON THE MAGAZINES.
THERE is nothing especially attractive in the magazines of this month, though there are many good papers. The most readable in our judgment is Dr. Jessopp's "A Swain of Arcady" in the Nineteenth Century, though we are not sure that every one will equally appreciate the mixture of humour, pathos, piety, and cynicism which gives it its peculiar and most enjoyable flavour. It is only an account of " Loafing Ben," a kind of savage in the narrator's parish, who lived without a home, slept where he could, usually in the open, sometimes in a pigsty, which he thought deliciously comfortable, did a splendid day's work when he wanted beer, and was always the same non-criminal, con- tented, loitering " Caliban without malignity." He did not even poach, though he never lost his interest in "the creatures." "As for the pheasants and partridges, he would watch them by the hour ; and an old hare' he would no more harm than he would a baby. I like them old hares,' he says, innocently, and I
wish there was more on 'em." He always knew the news, would read out stories in any beerhouse, and had his own religious views. He had learnt the Church Catechism. "Some folks thought it hurt 'em," but as far as his observation extended, "Them as the Church Catechism had hurted 'd a been hurted w'rout that." Ben is the greatest original in the magazines this month, if it be not his describer, who, taken in his parish to be a parson of the old school, displays every month in his essays a wealth of quiet humour such as is too often wanting in the magazines of to-day. We are all getting so serious that even a gentlemanly literary chuckle is becoming rare and precious.
The most important paper is, of course, "Local Gavernment," in the Fortnightly, said to be inspired by Mr. Chamberlain ; but we noticed that last week. The ideas it shadows forth are those of a Federalist, and if applied fully would completely change the external aspect of English politics. Mr. Trail gives us an appreciative estimate of Mr. Lowell, who he seems to think was regarded in England too much as a humonrist ; and the odd American novelist, Mr. F. Marion Crawford, gives us an account of modern "Roman Life" which is unusually sympa- thetic. He evidently likes everything in the Roman—too proud to be untruthful, too indifferent to be bad-tempered--except a certain inertness not so innate in any other citizen, and the result, probably, of centuries during which all careers, except the ecclesiastical, have been closed. Mr. Crawford has formed an indifferent opinion of Parliamentary Government in Italy, de- claring that the Chamber is in the hands of lobbyists, and that "the jobbery would do credit to any Republic in the world." Is it worse than it was in England fifty years ago ? Mr. Mackar- mess sends a paper on "The Future of South. Africa," the drift of which is that to govern South Africa well, the Imperial Government must annex up to the Zambesi, and so ring-in the Transvaal with protected Colonies. Then, and only then, will the Boers be content with their own lands. This is pretty clearly Sir C. Warren's policy ; but to carry it out thoroughly we need a Viceroy and 5,000 troops stationed in South Africa. Will the country permanently sanction that expense, and will the Dutch settlers bear such a death-blow to their hopes ? The author of the essays on "The Radical Programme" sends this month a seventh which is briefly an argument for "a direct progressive tax on income and property as the lever to which we shall have to look for the social reforms of the future." He would, moreover, take off all taxes on food, including tea, coffee, and tobacco, the taxation of which latter article he condemns as too heavy on the poor man. The paper is valuable as showing the drift of opinion in a certain party ; but we must not forget that the Americans found an income-tax intolerable, and distinctly prefer indirect to direct taxation.
Mr. E. Dicey in the Nineteenth Century fights stoutly for Tewfik as the only possible Khedive, alleging that Halim Pasha is hopelessly inefficient, and that Ismail ruined Egypt. That is all true ; but is the present system to go on, and how is it to be changed with a Khedive on the throne, who, if we quit Egypt,
cannot govern P Mr. Dicey, like so many others, thinks every- thing will go well if we can get Egyptian finance straight, which means, of coarse, if the Bondholders are contented. There is plenty of money for everybody else. Mr. Mivart writes on "Modern Catholics and Scientific Freedom " in a tone which, if we understand the Catholic system, is almost heretical. He wants evidence for new dogma, and says distinctly that if Infallibility decided that death came into the world with Adams fall, he should disbelieve it. As that matter, being an interpreta- tion of Scripture, is clearly within the function of the Church, is not this to maintain the right of private judgment, that is, Pro- testantism? Mr. Mivart, of course, adds that there is no such decision, but seems to think the Papacy will shortly be severely pressed to decide against evolution. We doubt it much, and remember that the Papacy has survived a good many pressures. Woods Pasha, in an article on the Turkish Army, says that in the event of war with Russia we could raise most valuable bodies of Turkish troops, officering them for our- selves. That is certainly true, if, as he says, we could secure 300,000 Albanians, who are among the bravest and most military of mankind. But would not the money so expended, if added directly to the pay of the British private, give us men enough and to spare ? We have done very little that is effective with any mercenaries, even the Sikhs, who are our own subjects, and cannot, on English principles, use Asiatics, except on con- dition of a rigid discipline to which Albanians are most loth to submit. If we must have auxiliaries, we had much rather trust Sikhs and Ghoorkas ; but we ought to do our own work for our- selves. Woods Pasha is anxious to identify England with Turkey ; but what would he think of an Anglo-Turkish massacre of Battik? The account of "Transylvanian Superstitions" is in- teresting, more especially those of the Saxons in the province. They hold, like the peasantry of East Anglia, that when the master of the house dies, some one should tell the bees, otherwise there will be a new misfortune. That is one of the most puzzling of superstitions, unless in some long past time the bees were regarded as a kind of fairies, who would take the absence of information as a slight. The belief that he "who eats mouldy bread will be rich and. longlived " is not a superstition, but a jesting saying, intended to inculcate thrift. The superstition of the Wehrwolf is current in Transylvania as in India; but this is poetical. "In many places two openings, corresponding to the ears of the deceased, are cut out in the wood of the coffin to enable him to hear the songs of mourning which are sung on either side of him as he is carried to the grave." This notion, that the dead retain a limited consciousness, is to be found everywhere, and is probably instinctive. At least, all men without teaching whisper in presence of a corpse. Mr. H. 0. Arnold-Forster reiterates his old assertion that the Navy is far below necessary strength, and urges that, instead of voting millions in a panic, we should permanently and largely increase our naval expenditure. The experience of the country, we fear, is that we do not get more power in return for more money; but certainly there are departments, especially that of guns, in which economy seems to have been sought injudiciously.
Only three articles in the National Review have really in- terested us. One, on "The Late Crisis," is a savage attack on the Liberals for resigning, written by some one who clearly believes that the Tories have received a great blow ; and the second is an account of "The Conservative Provincial Press," by a writer who admits that the Liberals' newspapers are not only the most numerous, but the best. He suggests one or two subsidiary causes for this state of affairs, but confesses with a sigh that the ultimate reasons are insufficient capital and over-close con- trol. He would have the leaders, when they want a paper, raise sufficient money for a gallant struggle of three years, under an editor pledged to nothing except a generally Conservative policy. That is sound advice ; bat why is it necessary ? How does it happen that Conservative newspapers are not started like Liberal newspapers, by independent men caring nothing about leaders and going their on way ? We believe the true reason is that, with a few marked exceptions, the men who make successful journals are by nature and habit of mind Liberals ; but we do not expect a Tory journalist to accept that theory. The essay is penetrated with an odd, and to us inexplicable, sense of hopelessness. The third article is Mr..Traill's, on "Public Opinion," written to prove that public opinion as an effective force does not exist. Mr. Trail's evidence or that startling proposition is that public opinion, if alive, must have punished Mr. Gladstone for surrenders which it did not
approve. The argument is, as usual with Mr. Traill, exceedingly well worked oat, but is inherently too feeble to bear examina- tion. Where is the evidence that "this igod," Public Opinion, had not arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Gladstone was to be trusted, and therefore let alone We should have thought this was precisely what the " god " had decided, as, curiously enough, he decides with reference to foreign politics in all countries. At least, we do not know of one in which public opinion seriously resists, or attempts to resist, the foreign action of a popular Government.
Mr. Goldwin Smith, in the Contemporary Review, reiterates his well-known views upon Ireland, which are that the Irish form not a nation, but a tribe caring for its leaders and not for policy; that if Ireland were separated from England it would be permanently hostile ; and that the maintenance of the Union ought to be accepted by both parties as a cardinal and permanent political decision. Principal Fairbairn pursues his analysis of the position of Catholicism, coming to the conclusion that of all Christian Churches the Catholic, which, as an organisation, he greatly admires, has "a fundamental incompatibility with true supernaturalism." He explains, of course, what he means, which is that Catholicism is constituted in the interests of the Church rather than of religion or humanity; but the sentence is rather a perversion of words. Dr. Fairbairn, whose ability in controversy we have repeatedly acknowledged, might almost as well say that architecture is fundamentally incompatible with art, because its main object is the construction of buildings. Surely the devotion of a naval engineer to his engine is no proof that his mind is indifferent to the voyage. He may lose sight of the voyage in his care for his engine, but he and his engine exist all the same for the voyage alone. Mr. J. G. Frazer heaps together evidence that the idea of the dead returning to life—the idea of the ghost—is nearly universal, and that all people have always dreaded and tried to prevent it, and that this is the origin of almost all practices—and especially superstitious practices—connected with burial. The article is full of curious facts, but not otherwise of interest. M. Gabriel Monod, in his sketch of "Contemporary Life and Thought in France," is, for the first time, a little feeble, and leaves on his reader an impression that he has written in an accidental hurry, by no means the usual effect of his writing.
There is a valuable paper in Macmillan called "An Australian Appeal to the English Democracy," in which the writer, Mr. Bernhard Wise, states with force some sides of the Australian question which are little noticed here. He is against the annexation of the Pacific Islands, against any federal union with England, and in favour of an independent Australia as an ultimate ideal. Until that time, however, he would leave coast defence to the Imperial Navy, declaring that the separate Colonies would, whenever they were in danger, break up the Australian Fleet to defend each its own harbours. Surely he unduly depreciates the common-sense of his country- men. Local feeling is strong, no doubt, but it can hardly be strong enough to induce men, whose fleet united could defeat any enemy, to break it up out of panic into comparatively power- less particles. There is an account also of "A Walking Tour in the Landes," which seems to us almost the perfection of that kind of writing ; the atmosphere of the gloomy, sultry, isolated district is so clearly brought before you, with its sands, and its pine-forests, and its reserved and suspicious but industrious and straightforward people. Mr. Morley's "Review of the Month" is remarkable for its clear acknowledgment of Mr. Gladstone's dictatorship, and his insistence that Mr. Gladstone, so far from overstraining his influence, does not use it enough. Those things are true ; but Mr. Morley should reckon in the adverse influence of the extraordinary, to us the inexplicable, personal hate which Mr. Gladstone develops in his foes.
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