National Life and Thought. I Series of Addresses, by Eirikr
Magnusson, Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers, and others. (T. Fisher ITnwin.)—This volume contains twenty-one lectures deli- vered on Sunday afternoons at the South Place Institute, by nearly as many lecturers. Two deal with Germany—" Culture" and "Politics "—and are the work of Mr. Sidney Whitman. Mr. Eirikr Magnusson, again, lectures on "Sweden," and "Denmark and Iceland." All the other lectures have separate authors. We may say at once that it is a remarkably interesting volume. Of course every writer magnifies his subject, and shows its best side ; but then, they mutually correct each other. Then, again, they are somewhat varied in quality. It gives one, for instance, a shock, to read on the first page, from the pen of a gentleman who is anxious to magnify the Armenians, that "Alexander Polykistor, a Greek writer (75 B.C.), affirmed that the Armenians were known as a nation twenty centuries before Christ." But, on the whole, they are decidedly valuable, if somewhat partisan in tone. Among the best, from a literary point of view, is Mrs. Cunninghame Graham's" Spain." We may also mention Mr. Morfill on " Russia" as especially good. Side by side with this should be read Mr. Adam Gielgud on "Poland," and a quite admirable paper on "Jews in their Relation to other Races," by the Rev. S. Singer. Mr. Singer's views on the place which the restoration to Palestine occupies in Jewish thought are noteworthy. It must be confessed that the idea seems somewhat out of keeping with the Jew whom one ordinarily sees, a man of many good qualities, but eminently worldly. Another paper which must not be passed over is Mr. J. C. McCoan's on "Egypt." We do not know why he should call the bondholders "Mr. Goschen's clients ; ' they are much more the clients of successive French Foreign Ministers ; but he is generally fair, and he recognises the advantage of English in- fluence in Egypt, and evidently believes in its permanence. "The Englishman has planted a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and will keep it there until, in turn, the star of our own Empire sets." A paper on "Norway," by Mr. H. L. Brackstad, is interesting from the Home-rule point of view. Sweden and Norway are united as Irishmen wish England and Ireland to be united,—no "supremacy of the Imperial Parliament for them." But Nor- wegian pretensions are clearly irreconcilable with any real union (they claim, for instance, the right to a distinct foreign policy, and so possibly to taking different sidas in a war). It will be a marvel if the arrangement lasts for a century. An excellent paper on " Gipsies " must not be passed over. It is by Mr. F. H. Groome.
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