SOME OF THE MAGAZINES, THE Magazines are full of notices

of George Eliot, all more or less appreciative,—Blackwood recounts the history of her first appearance in literature ; the Cornhill publishes a most keen and, as we think, clear-sighted sketch of her surpassing merit

as a writer of prose idylls ; but none of them add much to our positive knowledge of her, unless it be a writer in the Contem- porary. The author of the reminiscences there recorded—which are, for the most part, only criticisms—claims to have known her subject well, and affirms very strongly that George Eliot's disbelief in Deity was absolute :- " We regret the attempts made by some of the admirers of this noble woman to conceal, from themselves or others, the vacuum at

the centre of her faith. There is this excuse for such confusion, that her works, more than any others of our day, though it is true of so many, embody the morality that centres in the faith of Christ, apart

from this centre. She once said to the writer that in conversation with the narrowest and least cultivated Evangelical she could feel more sympathy than divergence ; and it was impossible to doubt the fullness of meaning in her words. But there is no reason that those who reverenced her should try to veil or dilute her convictions. She made no secret of them, though the glow of feelings, always hitherto associated with their opposites, may have confused their outline to many of her disciples. She was, we believe, the greatest opponent to all belief in the true source of strength and elevation for the lowly that literature ever elicited, but among the multitude of her admirers there were many (as a critic in the Edinburgh Review has well shown) who never penetrated into the region where this opposition was mani- fest, and there was nothing wanting to her appreciation of the faith .of the humble and the poor but a sense of its reasonableness. At least that was her account of the matter, and doubtless it was as true of her as it is of any one. Deism,' she once said, seems to me the most incoherent of all systems, but to Christianity I feel no objection but its want of evidence.' " Her own description of her own hope for the future was, the writer declares, revealed:in this sentence from her lips :--" 'What I look to,' she once said, ' is a time when the impulse to help our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresistible as that which I feel to grasp something firm if I am falling ;' and the eloquent gesture with which she grasped the mantelpiece as she spoke, remains in the memory as the expression of a sort of transmuted prayer." That is surely a melancholy faith, involving, as it does, though George Eliot did not see it, a descent for man. His altruism is to become perfect, but to

become automatic also, the very essence of any virtue, free-will, pro tank) disappearing. Why hope for man a loss of conscious-

ness on such a subject P None of the writers seem to us to touch, nor is it likely they will touch for many years, the point which is now of interest about George Eliot,—her 'character as a human being, apart from her grand powers and more than considerable works. Probably no one but herself really knew her ; but her letters, if they are ever published, will

at least give us some glimpses. We have noticed elsewhere the Duke of Argyll's paper, and would call attention to Colonel W. F. Butler's fine and persuasive, though exceedingly one- sided, history of the Boers in the Transvaal. He is penetrated with the feeling that they have been unjustly treated, and makes no reference to the Boer reason for desiring freedom, —the anxiety to govern their natives on their own prin- ciples, and not those of Christianity and civilisation. There is a most instructive account, too, of the " Socialists of the Chair," by Mr. Rae, giving the ideas of the German professors who, while repudiating violence and even the suppression of individualism, would induce society to do far more than it does to give the working-classes their share of the produce of industry and the advantages of modern progress.

Schmoller, who most perfectly, perhaps, formulates their ideas, would have the State control industry as it controls politics, and insist that the workman shall not suffer wrong, even voluntarily.

It must prevent the injustice which now reigns in the distribu- tion of profits. " The State does not stand to industry like a watchman who guards from the outside property in which he has himself no personal concern. It has a positive industrial office. It is, says Sehmoller, the great educational institute of the human race, and there is no sense in suspiciously seeking to reduce its action in industrial affairs to a minimum," These ideas are making way in Germany, as is evident from the present action of Prince Bismarck, and deserve to be attentively studied. For the rest, the number is a little dull ; and we regret the disappearance of M. G. Monod's periodical accounts of literature and politics in France. They were the most dis- tinctive, and in some regards the most valuable contributions to our magazine literature.

Nor is the Nineteenth Century very bright. Sir Bartle Frere states ably and temperately the reasons for annexing the Transvaal, among which he places the strong probability that it would have become a German colony ; but he does not give us much light as to what we ought to do now, beyond a suggestion that we should, after order has been re-established, ask Mr. Sprigg's advice, and not send. out any cut-and-dry constitu- tion for the Transvaal. Mr. J. Herman Merivale and Colonel Shakespear both make suggestions for preventing explosions in collieries, which may be valuable if they are practicable ; but then, only experts can decide on their prac- ticability. Mr. Merivale would prevent them altogether by inventing a light without heat, or practically, a working electric light on Mr. Swan's principle ; while Colonel Shakespear would let off the really formidable gas, the gas which forms " blowers," by "tapping the seams by boring, to let the compressed gas escape gradually." That seems practicable, but experts may know it to be ruinously expensive. The paper on the " Laud Monopoly," by the Marquis of Blandford, does not strike us as specially valuable, but it is curious to see ideas so very radical advocated by the heir of the Churchills. The Marquis would, for example, diffuse wealth by interfering, in part at least, with the freedom of bequest, would com- pletely enfranchise the soil as saleable property, would. forbid incumbrances beyond a certain number of years' value, and would allow leases of one hundred years,—the last a mode of settling the tenant-right dispute that we think would not work. Perpetual leases might, but sale out-and-out is far pre- ferable. The article on "La Rochefoucauld " is well written, and as far as the subject is concerned, a learned paper ; but we con- fess to little interest in its main thesis. What does it signify if La Rochefoucauld repented of his own maxims about the amount of self-love in man, and removed them from his book, if he originally wrote them ? He is not of such intellectual rank that one cares, except as matter of passing curiosity, to watch, or to know the varying phases of his mind. Mr. Lucien Wolf pours very little white light upon the " Anti-Jewish Agita- tion." He is in a furious rage, and tries to prove that the whole matter is unimportant, vulgar, and common-place, a revival, in fact, of the old persecuting hatred of the Jews. It is certainly not that, being much more like an explosion of the Havenots against the Haves, or an insurrection against a new aris- tocracy ; and Mr. Wolf would have done better service

to his clansmen if he had explained their own view of their relations to the Lerman people. It is foolish to say they are not separate. He should show, as might, we

think, be done, that though separate, the great accumulating

and distributing faculty of the Jews makes their residence beneficial to Germany. Of their intellectual gifts to that country there can be no question, nor do sensible Germans question them. What they say, put briefly, is that Jews are usurers, and that usurers are mischievous. Neither proposition is un- assailable, the last in particular being open, under well under.

stood limitations, to more or less complete disproof. An able economist might prove that Germany had gained greatly by the Jews, and had gained, moreover, because their tacit coparcenary enables them to undertake tasks from which individuals would shrink. Mr. R. Wallace puts the philosophy of Liberalism in a very clear style, but he does not cover one particular ground. Ho omits altogether the argument that the people may have a right to govern themselves and you, even though you justly distrust them. Has not a nation something of a property-right in its own affairs P In the Fortnightly, Mr. A. C. Swinburne, on " Tennyson and Musset," will attract many a reader, and, we suppose, delight some. There are people who love rant, and they must be pleased with Mr. Swinburne, for never was rant more artistically pre- pared for them than in the savage criticism which, with a funny affectation of admiration for his melody, and with an occasional flash of genuine appreciation, he pours upon the Laureate. Tennyson's lovers, says Mr. Swinburue, scold and whine :-

" It cannot respectfully be supposed that Mr. Tennyson is unaware of the paltry currishness and mean-spirited malice displayed in verse too dainty for such base uses by the plaintively spiteful manikins, with the thinnest whey of sour milk in their poor fretful veins, whom he brings forward to vent upon some fickle or too discerning mistress the vain and languid venom of their contemptible contempt. But why on earth a man of high genius and high spirit, a poet and a patriot, should be so fond of harping on such an untuneful string as this, is a question which will always vex the souls and discomfit the sympathies of his readers."

Mr. Swinburne hates King Arthur, in particular, with a vigour which at least suggests that Tennyson has made his King Arthur real. The whole paper will, we think, be preserved, and quoted in some future biography as evidence at once of its author's prose style—worse than Milton's when in a rage—and of his artistic hatred towards the recognised poet of his time. Fifty years hence, it will be considered most interesting, though read, perhaps, with a smile which Mr. Swinburne would not approve. Mr. Rathbone's very sensible paper on " Reform in Parlia- mentary Business" reads coldly, during the present crisis, and he depends a little too much upon Sir Erskine May ; but it is worth reading, and his suggestion that the Government ought to establish a regular Drafting Department, as part of the staff of the House of Commons, for the preparation and improvement of Bills, is a most timely one :—

" Our legislation might be very much improved by a better system of drafting and revising amendments, and of revising Bills after they have been amended. Great improvements in the drafting of Bills have been introduced by Sir Henry Thring and others, but, even in this respect, much requires to be done. In Sir Henry Thring the Govern- ment have had for many years a man apparently made of oast-steel, whose enthusiasm for his work no amount of over-work or discour- agement can extinguish. He has been ably seconded by his assistants, but three or four Sir Henry Thrings would be required to do efficiently the work which he has, or ought to have, to do ; and to obtain the ser- vice of such men they ought, in dignity, position, and emolument, to be placed at least on a level with the Judges who have to adminster the laws of which the draftsmen are the artificers. The kind of ability necessary to enable a man to draft laws as Sir H. Thring drafts them is far rarer than the capacity required to qualify an ordinary Judge to administer them. Tho staff of the Drafting Department should be sufficiently strong to enable it to revise amendments proposed, and Bills when amended, so that they shall not become, as they too often do, utter nonsense, or, still worse, increase the evils they are intended to abate. To draft a Bill, or amendments in it, properly, it is neces- sary to consider, not only the context of the Bill itself, but also the rest of the law, whether contained in statutes or in cases, which bears upon the subject."

There is nothing in the Fortnightly of acute interest, but we have ourselves been exceedingly pleased with the instructive and temperate account of the small-farm system in south- western France, where the vietayer system still holds its own against freehold :—

"The landlord builds the house, stables, and all necessary outbuild- ing, he supplies the stock and implements rent-free to the tenant. The mdtayer covenants to cultivate and keep the land in good order ; he engages to keep up the fences, drains, dm. ; he is not allowed to sell any manure off the farm ; and if he give up the farm, it must be in the same condition with regard to crops and stock as when he took it. He is generally left full liberty as to cropping and modes of cultivation, and he divides the whole produce in equal moieties with the landlord. It is obvious at once that the mdtayer, even with all fairness must get the best of the division. There are almost always little things that are not halved, the produce of the garden, or the fallen fruit, and other odds and ends which can be consumed by the family of the mdtayer, but which hardly have a market value. But it is just as obvious that the system opens a way to a good deal of fraud. It is not very easy, even with good intentions, to strike a fair division ; it is much easier to strike an unfair one, and the witaver can always contrive to get the best of the transaction. Ho can always make away with certain portions of the crop without giving an account. On the other hand, if the landlord be too rigorous in exacting every ounce of his pound of flesh, the half forms too high a rent."

The people, both in France and Italy, seem to like this scheme, but it ends in the landlord getting a very low rent, and could hardly be worked without careful personal supervision. Mr. Webster states, what is to us a new fact, that in this division of France the surplus population emigrates, going either to the towns or Spanish America:---" There seems, too, to be, from this emigration, a certain tendency, not very marked, but constantly increasing, towards lessening the number of peasant-pro-

prietors. As yet this is felt only in the neighbourhood of the towns, The life of a peasant-proprietor is a very hard one in many respects. The whole family must both work hard and

live hard, to make it pay even under favourable circumstances. It requires a minute knowledge of all the details of local agri- culture, a looking-after every penny of expenditure, to make it really answer." The writer gives a definite opinion, founded on twenty years' experience, that the soil in this part of France is richer than in England, in the proportion of three to two, Pea- sant ownership, therefore, has not produced exhaustion.

There is nothing particular in Blackwood, except the paper on George Eliot mentioned above, and a curious bit of skilfully unpleasant word-painting, called " Mr. Cox's ProtOge ;" or in Macmillan, except the charming sketch of Mr. Frank Buckland, quoted elsewhere ; or in °anthill, except, again, the criticism on George Eliot, and some capital padding, " Oxford Honours " and " The Origin of London;" the latter a striking though unsatisfac- tory paper. Can the writer give us no hint as to the origin of the word " London P" " Don," he says, is " dune" a hill or fort, but what is "Lon P" This will amuse our younger readers :— " One fact we do know with certainty, that at some time or other a band of English pirates, belonging to the Saxon tribe, settled down around London, and that from their settlement the surrounding country has ever since borne the name of Middlesex. We can even trace the actual clans or families which made themselves home- steads in the neighbouring lands. The Poadings settled at Padding- ton, the Konsings at Kensington, the Billings at Billingsgate, tho Ealings at Ealing, the Railings at Harlington, the Islings at Islington, the Trodings at Teddington, the Wappings at Wapping, and the Nottings at Notting Hill. Just south of the river, too, ou the Surrey shore, we find traces of the Kennings at Kennington, and the Niwings at Newington. Thus the City is girt round on every side by obvious colonies of English pirates."