MR. GODKIN'S REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS.* "THE articles in this volume

have appeared in the Nation during the last thirty years, and are reprinted almost in

chronological order There is, of course, always a question whether any collection of this sort can have per- manent value. This I must leave the reader to answer for himself. I confess that the publishers' estimate of the articles has had more to do with their reproduction than my own."

Mr. Godkin's candour at once disarms all criticism. His implied judgment on himself is probably the true one, that the volume will not form any permanent addition to the world's literature. It is not likely to interest any others than members of the English-speaking races. But whilst there are in such races those whose memories cover the period indicated by him, it may be pleasant, as well as instructive, for many of them to read what has been said by a well- educated, thoughtful, kindly, just-minded man on "the principal non-political topics, both grave and gay, which during that period have attracted the attention of the American public." There is nothing formally didactic about the essays, nothing authoritative; it is simply the talk of a judicious friend.

It may indeed be a question whether much of the book may not provel,more interesting on this aide of the Atlantic than an the other, through the glimpses which it gives of and into certain peculiarities of American feeling. We may care very little at this time of day to read one word more about the

• Reflections and Comments, 1865-95. By Edwin Lawrence Godkin. London Archibald Constable and Co. New York : Charles Schreiber and Bons.

Beecher-Tilton scandal. But when the writer tells as that "keeping a mistress would probably, anywhere in the United States, damage a man's reputation far more seriously than fraudulent bankruptcy," we learn that which enables us better

to understand more than one Transatlantic puzzle,—the leniency shown by public opinion to certain acknowledged

tricksters and rascals, the freedom of intercourse between the youth of both sexes, and the horrible cruelty displayed, almost without check, in the punishment of certain offences, at least when committed by offenders with negro blood in their veins.

In quite another direction, we feel the difference between American and English feeling when Mr. Godkin claims for the dress-suit with the swallow tailed coat that "nothing can be more democratic," on the ground that-

" It has been found of late years a matter of convenience, especially to hard worked men and men of moderate means, to have a costume in which one can appear on any festive occasion, great or small, which all, gentle or simple, are alike expected to wear, which is neither rich nor gaudy, and in which every man may feel sure that he is properly dressed ; and the dress fixed on for this purpose now throughout the civilised world is the plain suit of black, with the swallow-tailed coat, commonly called evening dress."

Now on the one hand, not only was there a time when every English working man would have designated evening dress as aristocratic (and probably a majority of them would do so still), but on the other, the costume is not one which among ourselves would be worn "on any festive occasion." There are many such occasions—some of them perhaps the most festive of any—in which evening dress would be for us a com- plete solecism; the occasions, in fact, being very rare in which it can be worn before the actual evening. Fancy, for instance, a horticultural fete with all the males in dress-coats and white chokers ! It would simply kill the festivity. The thing would be impossible even in France, the parent country of the habit, as distinct from the English redingote (riding.

coat).

Again, the account of the growth of the American watering- place (which, Mr. Godkin tells us, "now seems to be as much regulated by law as the growth of asparagus or straw- berries ") from a first discovery by artists or families of small means, coming to board with some neighbouring farmer, will, finding the taking of summer boarders "an excellent thing," is perhaps emboldened to advertise the place, and "get hold ef some editors or ministers whose names he can use as references, and who will talk it up," may find here and there a parallel in the Old Country to its first stage (though hardly as to puffing by ministers). But the story departs widely from our own experience in the next stage by the substitution of the "cottager" for the speculative builder, who with us soon becomes monarch of all he surveys—the " cottager " being a fearsome American wild-fowl who begins by erecting "shanties" or " log-huts " for mere shelter, until be pro- ceeds to rear up the "marine villa," and "everything that the name implies." Nor have we anything in English experience answering to the subdivision of the genus " boarder " (itself but poorly represented within the British seas, as compared with its gigantic American developments) into " mealers,"—i.e., persons eating in the hotel where they lodge, and "haul-mealers," persons "collected and brought to their food in waggons." (It must, indeed, be observed that Mr. Godkin uses the preterite in his descrip- tion, "some were," "others were," as if the sub-genera were dying out.) Perhaps the most amusing essay is that on "The Manners and Morals of the Kitchen." Very seriously does Mr. Godkin arraign the female sex for culinary incapacity. "Women are not naturally good cooks. They have had the cookery of the world in their hands for several thousand years, and yet all the marked advances in the art, and indeed all that can be called the cultivation of it, have been the work of men." Worse still, "The art of cooking among women has declined at any given time or place—in the Northern States of the Union, for instance—pari passu with the growth of female independence." Hence Irish Bridget "has undertaken the task of cooking for the American nation, not of her own motion, but simply and solely because the American nation could find nobody else to do it No country before has ever refused to do its own chores,' and called in an army of foreigners for the purpose." If Bridget's "sense of the obligation of contracts is feeble her spirit about contracts is really that of the entire community in which she lives." If she is fond of change, "her master, in nine cases out of ten," sets her "an example of dislike to steady in- dustry and slow gains." Mr. Godkin goes so far as to say : "Those who have ever tried the experiment of late years of employing a native American as a servant have, we believe, before it was over come to look on Bridget as the personifica- tion of repose, if not of comfort."

Historically speaking, the really valuable essays in the volume are the dated ones, such as the one on "The South After the War "(September 8th, 1877). Here, for instance, we

come upon the remarkable fact that at that date a plantation on which before the war there were about one hundred and fifty slaves of all ages was now worked as a cattle farm with twelve hired men, and yielded "a snug income," so that the

owner laughed if you asked him if he regretted slavery. If

all the essays had been dated like this one the worth of the volume would have been much greater. (It is, in fact, simply aggravating to be told in a dateless essay, "Miring the last ten years," "During the past forty years," "It is only within the last fifteen years," "Of late, that is perhaps twenty years," &c.) It need hardly be said that there is no spread-eagleism in the volume. No Englishman would have dared to say of his kinsmen beyond the Atlantic what Mr. Godkin tells them, that "If the secrets of American hearts could be revealed, we fear it would be found that the materials for about a million of each order of nobility, from Dukes down, exist among us under quiet Republican exteriors, and that if a Court circle were set up among us no earthly power could prevent its assuming unnatural and un- manageable proportions."

But it must not be thought that there are not higher things in the volume than those which have been here dwelt on. There is in the essays on "Professor Haxley's Lectures," "Tyndall and the Theologians," "The Church and Science," "The Church and Good Conduct," much suggestive and now and then lofty thought, as when Mr. Godkin says of scientific men that whilst "they have during the last eighty years made an enormous addition" to the sum of our knowledge of the material universe, "they have not since Democritus taken away one hair's-breadth from the Mystery which lies beyond," or says of our Lord, in words which may fitly .conclude this notice :—

" The Christian Church cannot be held together as a great social force by his [Christ's] teaching or example as a moral philosopher. A Church organised on this theory soon becomes a lecture association or a philanthropic club, of about as much aid to conduct as Freemasonry. Christ's sermons need the touch of supernatural authority to make them impressive enough for the work of social regeneration."