THE MAGAZINES.

THE Fortnightly has many good papers this month, but nothing of very exciting interest One of the best, perhaps, is the account of Russian expansion, contributed by Mr. D. Mackenzie Wallace. He believes the cause of this expansion has been mainly self- defence, self-defence against the exhaustion of the soil, im- poverished by an imperfect though necessary system of agriculture, and self-defence against enemies on all sides. Towards the north-east, the Russian spread absorbing the Finnish aborigines ; but towards the south, he found it necessary to extirpate the nomads, who continually attacked him, because his cultiva- tion diminished their needful pasturage. This process, of course, has almost ceased in Europe, but in Asia, the Russian's dominion still extends, because he finds it easier to subjugate the wild tribes on his borders than to bear the constant injuries they indict. Mr. Wallace believes this course will lead her on till she meets some Power which, like England, can hold her subjects in order, and doubts whether such meeting would be the signal for collision :— " As to the complications which inevitably arise between contiguous nations, I think they are fewer and less dangerous than those which arise between nations separated by a small state incapable of making its neu- trality respected, and kept alive simply by the mutual jealousy of its neigh- bours. Germany does not periodically go to war with Holland or Russia, though separated from them by a mere artificial frontier ; and France has never been prevented from going to war with Austria, though separated from her by a broad intervening territory. The old theory that the great Powers may be prevented from going to war by interposing small inde- pendent States between them is long since exploded ; and even if it were true, it would be inapplicable in the ease under consideration, for there is nothing worthy to be called a State between Russian territory and British India."

Mr. Wallace thinks Russia may be tempted to expand further

towards China, the temptation to annex being greatly in- creased by the fact that Chinese provinces can pay taxes, and uninhabited deserts cannot. Mr. Louis Jennings sends a thoughtful essay on the "Unsettled Problems of American Politics," but he rather states the difficulties than indicates any prospect of a solution. He evidently thinks that the Democrats will carry the Union this year, and as evidently doubts whether the Debt is safe, but he makes a statement upon this point which inclines us to distrust his judgment :—

" The people of the United States are constantly acquiring a more direct interest in the wise management of the Debt than ever they had before. Although the West holds very little, if any, of it, and the South not one cent, and the total amount held in the whole Union is small compared with what is held abroad, still the aggregate sum invested is yearly growing larger. Banks, insurance companies, and other corporations now keep the greater part of their reserves in United States' Bonds. Private capitalists have been driven to the same field of investment by the recent break-down of many commercial enterprises, by the doubt hanging over several important railroads, and by the great fall in the value of real estate, amounting in New York city to from 25 to 50 per cent."

Is it true that greatly more than half the American Debt is held abroad? We should have said that 100 or 150 millions was the outside amount, and that the Debt was mainly held by small investors, especially in the Eastern States, and large Ameri-

can capitalists everywhere. And what ground has Mr. Jennings for supposing that Free-trade has or speedily will become a popular cry ? He says the American shipping trade is dying of it, and he says truly ; but will the average American yeoman be able to see that? The "sentiments of mer- chants and business men in the great cities" may be quite correct, but how many votes do they carry ? Mr. Crompton, in "Mr. Cross and the Magistracy," expresses a hope that Mr. Cross will yet bring in a large measure for the reform of the Magistracy, apparently through some plan for securing that the Justices shall be effi- cient, which has become necessary from the vast extension of their summary jurisdiction. They tried, in 1874, 622,174 cases, in 486,786 of which there were convictions ; and Mr. Cross ad- mitted in Parliament that they sent 140,000 persons annually to prison, of whom 40,000 were sent because they were unable to pay fines. Mr. Crompton would, as a provisional measure, transfer the selection of the magistrates to the Home Secretary ; but he should state much more clearly than he has done what line reform ought to take. Would he subject all magistrates to a pass-examination, or institute a stricter system of selec- tion, or only widen the area within which selection may be made ? Our philosophical readers will be attracted by the account of Hartmann, and his philosophy of the Unconscious, that force or inevitability of action which the teacher has borrowed from science in order to explain metaphysics, the existence of the world, and even the origin of pain and evil. In preaching his doctrine, which we cannot enter upon in a notice like this, Hart- mann has become something of a power in Germany, offering, as he does, a solution of the great mystery which, while it solves nothing, attracts all those who think the solution must be at hand :—

" Nothing can better show the characteristic, practical skill of Hart- mann than the selection of his principal name, the Unconscious.' With something of an American quickness of scent for what is in the air, he recognises that in science the nature of unconscious nervous pro- cesses which seem to resemble conscious processes in all save this one feature is the growing question of the hour. This idea, detached from that of the nervous movements which alone give it itt meaning, he proceeds with admirable practical insight to erect into a metaphysical principle. The Unconscious,—sablime negation, that seems to suggest vast cavernous regions of a dim spiritual life, and yet after every new inSpection shows itself to be an impalpable inanity, a very nothing, or shall we say, like the Germans' an Unthing I' This conception shows that Hartmann like Sehopenhauer, has a distinct touch of poetic imagination, and, indeed, his Unconscious, in all its curious, mysterious movements, is always striving to become more and more anthropo- morphic. In its power of appealing to the reader's imagination, and even of rousing a deep, vague sentiment of awe, the Unconscious is, perhaps, superior to its kindred negation the Unknowable."

Macmillan opens with a very clear but extremely prejudiced statement of the claims of Hyderabad upon the British Govern- ment, by Mr. Laing-Meason. These claims originate in the arrange- ments made for the payment of the Contingent, the force which the Nizam is bound by treaty to maintain at the service of the

British Government, and which is officered by British officers. This force is the Nizam'a contribution towards the defence and good-order of the Empire, and as he is completely defended from Invasion and guaranteed against insurrection, the charge is in principle perfectly fair, as fair as the similar demand now made by Germany upon Saxony or Bavaria. The payments being irregular and leading to endless difficulties, Lord Dalhousie insisted that certain districts should be assigned to the British Government in lieu of the allowances, and the Nizam, after a determined struggle, submitted to the order of the paramount Power. The districts were ceded for such a time as the Contin- gent should be maintained, and the friends of the Nizam allege that the surplus revenue, if any, belonged to the Nizam. In a very few years of good management, however, the British Government reduced the expense of the Contingent by £120,000 a year, while increasing the revenue of the ceded districts from half a million to a million sterling; but none of the surplus was ever paid back to the Nizam, the contention of course being that the districts were assigned, like a jaghire, for a certain service, which is performed, and that the remainder belongs, by custom, to the Jaghiredar, the British Government. Sir Saler

Jung, according to Mr. Laing-Meason, now wants either that the Contingent should be disbanded and the districts restored, or that

the surplus revenue should be paid over to Hyderabad. The first demand is obviously inadmissible, as the Nizam, as one of the great feudatories or constituent powers of the Empire, must contribute his quota towards its general defence ; and that quota must be either a body of natives officered by Europeans, or if he prefers it, a certain number of European troops, and the second is very difficult to accept. To use the powers and methods of the British Government as machinery for filling the Hyderabad Treasury, which does nothing for the ceded districts, not even secure them from invasion, would be very oppressive and unjust to the people, who ought, if they are to be taxed for the native State, to go back to that State. Never- theless it is true that in native eyes the Nizam is entitled to this money, and the refusal to pay it constitutes what they think a case of oppression. It would seem to be a case for compromise, but the Government, relying on an arrangement concluded in 1860, by which the Raichore Doab was restored to the Nizam, refuse any compromise whatever. The Nizam's friends, however, denounce this arrangement as imposed by force on the Nizam, and therefore not final ; but as every arrangement made with any native Prince is imposed by force on him, it is difficult for the British to allow this argument the weight it would have, if the Nizam were a mere party to a contract. There is also a very interesting, though over-short, paper on "The Brigands of Bul- garian Song," who are painted by their own balladmongers as unmitigated and rather treacherous ruffians ; and an account, at once novel and curious, of the relations between Schiller and the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, who once allowed him 1,000 thalers a year for three years for a holiday. The gift was announced in a letter, of which the following is the more important paragraph :—

" Your health, injured by all-too-hurried efforts and work, requires, so we are told, perfect rest for a while, if it is to be restored, and tilt: danger averted which now threatens your life ; but your situation, your circumstances, prevent you from giving yourself this rest. Will you allow us the pleasure of aiding you in the enjoyment of this ? We offer you, for this purpose, for three years, an annual present of 1,000 thalers. Accept this offer, noble man ! Do not let the sight of our titles move you to refuse. We know what value to set on them. We only pride ourselves on being men, citizens of the great Republic, whose boundaries embrace more than the life of single generations, more than the bound- aries of one globe. You are only dealing here with men, your brothers, not with haughty grandees, who in making such use of their wealth indulge in a higher kind of pride."

It was a liberal act, but we do not think it quite deserves the eulogy which Professor Max Miiller pours out, with a warmth which suggests that he regrets the days when rich men did not think great poets too highly placed for the receipt of alms. He says the letter, "whenever we read it, fills us with admira-

tion, not only for the generous liberality, but 60 more the ex- alted, noble minds, the refined tact, and the warm love of man shown by these two men." Schiller's reply, in which he says that "to do and be that which he can do and be" is his highest duty, and he therefore accepts a gift which releases his powers from the bondage imposed by the narrowness of his means, strikes us as couched in a far higher tone. It would be difficult to accept alms with more of gratitude or less of obligation. The whole corre-

spondence, now edited for the first time in Macmillan, is well worth study, Schiller, for all the humility of his address, evidently

believing that he gave, even to the Prince, at least as much as he received.

The Contemporary is rather a heavy number this month, though Mr. Peter Bayne concludes his fine sketch of Clarendon, whom

he takes to have been a man of originally lofty nature, deformed by some weaknesses of soul, and rendered positively injurious to the country by some weaknesses of brain, which unfitted him for

the part circumstances had called on him to play, that of first Constitutional Minister of the Crown. He had that great chance under Charles I., and in Mr. Bayne's judgment, it was due to

himself that he lost it. That is not our judgment, as we do not believe any man, whatever his qualities, could have governed Charles, with his deep belief in his own rights and his Italian

perfidy ; but the thesis is well maintained, and without any of the furor biorylphicus. Mr. Bayne is indeed on one point rather too hard

on Clarendon. He thinks his regret at his daughter% marriage to the Duke of York, and his coarse asseveration that he had rather she were the Duke's mistress, mere play-acting. We doubt it. He had imbibed very early in life high notions of the king-

ship and of blood, his residence on the Continent had not lowered them, and he may honestly have thought the marriage shameful,—not to his daughter, whom he only scolded for form's sake, but to the Duke, whom he really condemned, under the form of indignation against Miss Hyde. His coarse remark was not, as Mr. Bayne thinks, an impossible desire of degradation, but an intense ex- pression of his chagrin at the lowering of the Royal Family. Even that last degradation, he implied, would have seemed to him a less evil. The mildness with which he treated his daughter was natural enough. She was not to blame, but the Duke, and he was not insensible to pleasure at the idea that his daughter might be a Queen of England, though he would never, had opposition been in his power, have suffered her to become one. Lord Blachford's essay on "The Reality of Duty," an attack on the utilitarian philo- sophy, as presented by Mr. Mill, is very able and interesting, but does he not press the idea of the average capacity of mankind for perceiving simple moral truths a little too far? He says :— " And first, with regard to self-evident truths in general, I submit an observation. If a herd of animals are seen at a distance, a very long- sighted man can tell us more immediately and more certainly than his neighbour what they are. But if one of the animals is put on the table his advantage ceases, and his neighbour, not being absolutely blind, or delirious, or subject to special delusion, can see as clearly as he can that a dog is a dog. Nor is this equality impaired, even though the long-sighted man may be the first to tell the colour of the dog's eye- lashes, or, being a zoologist, may perplex the neighbour much by cross- examining him as to the exact difference between a dog attda oat. I venture to think that something like this is true of the intellect. In a subtle, or extended, or intrioate question, a man of knowledge and capacity sees his way, before an average thinker has well mastered the meaning of the terms need. But in matters of extreme simplicity (happily for mankind) this difference almost vanishes. Newton's maid- servant could probably see that two and one made three as clearly as the great astronomer himself. It is conceivable that she might even have beaten him in drawing simple conclusions, by use of the four

first rules of arithmetic. And so it is a matter of frequent experience in practical matters that the clever man misleads himself by his own subtlety, and even obscures what he can understand by the dust which he raises in searching for what he cannot. In elementary matters, therefore, I claim, for men of fair sense, seriousness, and education, the right to place much reliance on their own distinct perceptions, in the face of high authority, and in spite of all that Mr. Mill may point out respecting human liability to error."

Surely there may be intuitions granted to minds of great moral keenness analogous to the clearness given to long sight. The whole world, left to' itself, feels like an intuition the duty of ven- geance, yet the better duty of forgiveness of vengeance seems at all events to have been intuitional with a mind like Gautames. Would Lord Blachford affirm that none of the Christian ethical maxims, far removed as they are from the instinds of the majority of human kind, are intuitional?

The Cornhill, besides a really admirable little story, called "The Rev. Adam Cameron's Visit to London," a story which wants a little more room, a little more detail, but is full at once of pathos and of humour,—or rather, to be perfectly accurate, of suggestions of pathos and of humour, and a most subtly thoughtful criticism of Wordsworth, by Mr. Leslie Stephen, *ho

seems to us, in his "Hours in a Library," to develop a power of criticism of a most attractive, and shall we say, unexpected kind ?— has a bit of humotuistic padding, called " Virginibus Puerisque," which will puzzle a good many readers of the magazine to decide whether the author is writing seriously, or only indulging in a burst of cynical humour. He recommends marriage as a defence against the loss of friends, but argues that at best it is but a poor alternative

"But marriage, if comfortable, is not at all heroic. It certainly nar- rows and damps the spirits Of generous men. In marriage, a man be- comes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. It is not only when Ladgate misallies himself with Rosamond Piney, but when Ladislaw marries above him with Dorothea, that this may be exemplified. The air of the fireside withers out all the fine wildings of the husband's heart. He is so comfortable and happy that he begins to prefer comfort and happiness to everything else on earth, his wife included. Yesterday he would have shared his last shilling ; to-day 'his first duty is to his family,' and is fulfilled in large measure by laying down vintages and husbanding the health of an invaluable parent. Twenty years ago this man was equally capable of crime or 'heroism' now he is fit for neither. His soul is asleep, and you may speak without constraint; you will-not wake him. It isnot fornothing that Don Quixote was a bachelor and Marcus Aurelius married ill. For women, there is lien of this danger. Marriage is of so much use to a woman, opens out to her so muoh more of life, and puts her in the way of so much more freedom and usefulness, that whether she marry ill or well, she can hardly miss some benefit. It is true, however, that some of the merriest and most genuine of women are old maids; and that those old maids, and wives who are unhappily married, have often most of the true motherly touch. And this would seem to show, even for Women, some narrowing influence in comfortable married life. But the rule is none the less certain ; if you wish the pick of men and women, take a good bachelor and a good wife."

°The author proceeds to express his surprise that so many mar- riages are endurably happy, tells boys and girls to seek partners, first of all, with some community of tastes, specially hinting that a woman with am capacity may become a horrid bore—a most useful hint—and then treats his readers to this outburst, which we quote, forthe pleasure of quoting a paragraph which looks wise, and every statement in which we believe to be diametrically the 'opposite of the truth :— "A ship captain is a good man to marry if it is a marriage of love, for absences are a good influence in love, and keep it bright and deli- cate; but he is jast'the worst man if the feeling is more 'pedestrian, as 'habit is too frequently torn open and the solder has never time to set. Men who fish, botanize, work with the turning-lathe, or gather sea- weeds will make admirable husbands; and a little amateur painting in 'water-colour shows the innocent and quiet mind. Those who have a ,few intimates are to be-avoided ; while those who swim loose, who have their hat in their hand all alqng the street, who can number an infinity of acquaintances and are not chargeable with any one friend, promise an easy disposition and no rival to the wife's influence. I will not say they are the best of men, but they are the stuff out of whieh adroit and 'capable women mantifacture the best of husbands. It is to be noticed' that those who have loved once or twice already are so much the better educated to a woman's hand ; the bright boy of fiction is an odd and most uncomfortable mixture of shyness and coarseness, and needs a deal of civilising. Lastly (and this is, perhaps, the golden rule), no woman thould marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this ignoble tabagie,' as Michelet calls it spreads over all the world. Miohelob rails against it because it renders you happy apart from thought or work ; to provident women this will seem no evil influence in married life. Whatever keeps a man in the front garden, -whatever checks 'wandering fancy and all inordinate ambition, what- ever makes for lounging and contentment, makes just so surely for domestic happiness."

We should say a love-match with a sailor was seldom happy, though a marriage of affection often is ; that the man of the turning-lathe was apt to be that worst of all bores to women, a " finnick ;" that the man with an infinity of semi-friends should be married only by some one seeking a comfortable home ; that the man of many love-affairs has seldom any real affection ; that the tobacco-smoking, wine-enjoying lover is often the most un- safe of husbands, the husband Moore was to Bessy ; and that the man who is full of lounging and contentment, besides weary- ing out his wife's patience, is sure to have children who are apathetic clods.

Fraser attends more to the East than any Other magazine of August, and Mr. Arthur Arnold's paper on Russia and Dr. Humphry Sandwith's on European Turkey are both worth study, though the former, we think, generalises a little too sharply from his observations. He will have it that the Russian soil is poor, even in the South, poorer than that of any European sountry, and relies upon the absence of trees and the presence of white sand as his evidences. He would not find many trees in 'the Punjab, whioh can grow wheat without limit, and he would find whole districts covered With sand bordering upon lands where, water being plentiftil, the soil is of magnificent fertility. A country which can feed itself and England, can hardly be described as infertile, without reservations which Mr. Arnold has not made. Dr. Saudwith's ride through European Turkey seems to have been taken in 1874, but even then the

Circassians settled in Bulgaria bore but a bad repute among their Christian neighbours :—

"Once in Bulgaria, the exiles were better off, for the Bulgarians were forced to build them cottages, and to support them until they could support themselves. These Gireassians, like the Tatars, were strategically placed amongst the Christians, but in free Circassia they had not learned to be peaceful agriculturists; on the contrary, fighting from generation to generation against-their Christian 'invaders, it is -not to be wondered at if they did not prove to be very -pleasant neighbours to the Christians. Everywhere I heard that the Circassian immigrants were robbers, but some are disposed to think their sins have been exaggerated, and that they have played the part of the eat in the honsehold, for if ever a crime is committed in Bulgaria it is ascribed to the Oirostesians, until it is brought home to-some one else."

The most interesting paper in the number ill, perhaps, the acoount, by " A. F.," of the astounding series of crimes, poisonings, and assassinations by -which, in the last days of the Roman

Republic, Oppianious tabled himself to 'wealth in Latino; 'but the best is the account of "Ulster and its 'People," and their contributions to the greatness of the Empire. It is an extraordinary record, full of the names of men distin- guished in every walk of life, except—and the exception is signifi- cant—poetry, painting, music, or, we may add, sculpture, for P. M'Dowell is not enough to break the general rule. Their main distinction, however, is the number of men capable of governing whom they have produced, from Canning, the son of a Derry gentleman, to the following list of men who have distinguished themselves in Indian warfare or administration :—

"Ulster can also point with pride to the distinguished career of her sons in India. The Lawrence's, Henry and John—the two men by whom, regarding merely the human instruments employed, India has been preserved, rescued from anarchy, and restored to the position of a peaceful and progressive dependency—were natives of County Derry. Sir Robert Montgomery was born in the city of Derry ; Sir James Emerson Tennant was a native of Belfast; Sir Francis Hineks is a member of an Ulster family remarkable for great variety of talent. While Ulster has given one Viceroy to India, it has given two to Canada, in the persons of Lord Lisgar and Lord Dufferin, Sir Henry Pottinger, who attained celebrity as a diplomatist, and was afterwards appointed Governor-General of song Kong, was a native of Belfast. Beeides the gallant General Nicholson, Ulster has given a Whole gazette- ful of heroes to India. It has always taken a distinguished place in the annals of war. An Ulsterman was with Nelson at Trafalgar, another with Wellington at Waterloo. General 'Rollo Gillespie, Sir Robert Kane, Lord Ttloira, and the Chesneys were all from County Down. Ulstermen have left theirMark on the world's geography as explorers, for they furnished Sir John Franklin with the brave Crozier, from Ban- bridge, his second in command, and then aent an 1Jlaterman, M'Clin- bock, to find his bones, and another Ulsterman, lif‘Clure, to discover the passage Franklin had sought in vain."

The account is, of course, friendly, but the writer is not unaware of the rough manner of the typical Ulstermen, or their want alike of sweetness and imagination. They have humour, though, as the following little story shows :—" A sailor from Down had been all over the world, and after twenty years' absence, visited his native town, a little 'village on the sea-coast. Weal, said he, I hae seen mony toons in my time, and B— is the only toon

I ever saw that's finished.' Twenty years had made no change in its appearance."

Black-wood puzzles us as much as ever as to his views on "The Prospects in the East." Were it not a priori impossible, we

should say the magazine was, on this point, very moderate, ex- ceedingly Liberal, and thoroughly well-informed. At all events,

if its conductors represent any important section of Tory feeling, the Tory Government will encounter resistance in a battle for the Turk of which it never dreamed. is it Blackwood, or is it Mr.

Gladstone, who remarks that interference for Turkey is absolutely impossible, inasmuch as such interference "-would raise a storm of public passion which would sweep the Government that attempted it from office " ; who recommends that the Christian provinces should be made autonomous or independent, and who lays down the following sound doctrine as to cardinal principles?

The integrity of the Turkish Empire means that its territory is not to be scrambled for by the Great Powers of Europe, but it does not necessarily mean that such territory is not to be scrambled for by the different races which inhabit it." We suppose the truth is that Blackwood, which has always made a speciality of Asia, is, on the Eastern Question, in- spired by men who, though Tories, understand Turkey,—which is equivalent to saying, men who at heart desire the substitution of any conceivable rule for the Turkish. At all events, we wel-

come the most Conservative of periodicals as an adtive though discreet friend of the only policy which can pfrmanently succeed,

without permanently destroying Sotith-Eastern Europe. There is nothing else which interests us in Blackwood, except the piquant story, "A Woman-Hater ;" and one or two bits of description, a little too quiet, of Southern English ports, in "Domestic Yachting." Penzance gets justice done it, for the first time in our recollection, as the stupidest and strag- glingest town in England ; and there is an account of Havre, as it really appears to you, which it is a plea- sure to read. The yachtsman who writes is, however, a shade too fearful of being accused of "writing," and we miss a little of the " go " and rush which mark Blacktcood's descrip- tions of natural scenery. "A Run through ICathiawar," the most remarkable and secluded district of Western India, though full of information, is a little tedious and guide-book like, and its author too little impressed with the strange specialities of the land, perhaps the spot in all the world where an imperfect civili- sation has remained longest undisturbed. To this day the natives are jealous of intrusion, and the Foujdar, on this very visit, re- ceived two unexpected European guests with one egg as pro- vision for them both,—a " hint " nearly as unmistakable as the Irishman's flight out of window.