SOME OF THE MAGAZINES.

THE best contribution to the Magazines this month is Mrs. Oliphant's " Old Lady Mary, a Story of the Seen and Unseen," in Blackwood. No one but Mrs. Oliphant would have dared to take a ghost for her heroine ; and in the fact that she has done this, and has not made herself ridiculous, is sufficient evidence of power. The old lady has committed an act, in pure careless- ness, which has the effect of gross injustice ; and after her death the desire to repair her fault is so keen that she is permitted to return to earth, only to find that, except to a child and a dog, she is invisible, impalpable, and non-existent. She can do nothing, and effect nothing, her new body obeying laws which are not those of our sphere. That seems a bare and poor story, but it is wonderfully told, with a special skill in avoiding all that is usual in ghost-stories. Mrs. Oliphant, of course, offers no solution of the hundred difficulties which surround the question of apparitions ; but she succeeds, some- how, in leaving an impression that the antecedent improbability of such occurrences has been exaggerated. The Bishop of Carlisle, on the contrary, in the Contemporary, does offer a theory which, if accepted, solves one problem. He thinks that, amidst endless lying, imposture, and illusion, enough evidence of the occasional and, as he admits, singularly capricious appearance of the dead remains to justify belief in the occur- rence as a fact. He tries, therefore, to explain its method, and suggests that if man is double, material and spiritual, the spirit of a dead man may conceivably communicate with the spirit of a living one, and that " the spiritual communication would transform itself into a brain action by the reverse of the process according to which brain action normally transforms itself into a spiritual communication, and that so the effect would be the production of a persuasion in the mind of the living man that he actually saw with his eyes his absent friend." Generally, "the mind sits upon its throne with the senses as its ministers ; but sometimes it asserts its essential royalty and supremacy, and communicates with the senses, instead of permitting the senses to take the initiative." Necessarily, therefore, the living would see his friend as he imagined him, that is with the appearance he had in the flesh, and with his clothes on, thus getting rid at once of the minor but real objection that the ghosts of clothes cannot be. The Bishop, it should be noted, does not affirm this, retaining throughout the fitting attitude of uncertainty, but propounds it as a conceivable explanation of stories too numerous and well attested not to contain some truth inside them. The remarkable person who calls herself " Vernon

Lee " sends a paper on the " Outdoor Poetry of the Middle Ages " —really a paper upon the " country " in the middle ages, and a poem by Lorenzo the Magnificent, which is noteworthy, if only because it is so different from most magazine articles. The best of them are apt to be gold-leaf ; this is a little, solid nugget, polished. The paper is positively choked with thought, the Writer trying to compress into her space more than it will hold. Her theme is the old aspect of the Italian " country," and the rural people, so different from the brutalised peasantry of France and Ger- many, often devil-worshippers, and at once hated and dreaded by the urban populations. The Italian peasantry never passed under the feudal yoke, and lived so freely with the citizens that Lorenzo the Magnificent described them and their loves, and the scenes amidst which they lived, in poems essentially nature-loving, and therefore modern. In treating this, Vernon Lee utilises her great reading till the least attentive reader realises the separateness of Italy, and understands what must have been the many-sidedness of the poet whom his countrymen thought so splendid, and who was perhaps the nearest approach in his age to a universal genius, yet a tyrant and a sensualist besides. Vernon Lee's paper would make the number rich, even if the other contributions were poor ; but Lord Carnarvon, who arranged federation in Canada, gives us his thoughts on federa- tion in Australia, where it must be much looser ; Sir S. W. Baker repeats his experience of the Soudan, which he believes might become a granary of wheat and cotton ; Mr. F. Peek sends his view of the way to civilise East London—a really remark- able paper, as the wildest outburst of philanthropic fanaticism yet recorded in English, ending in a suggested Act of Par- liament which would cause an insurrection, by making children an intolerable burden to the poor ; and the Dean of Wells and Professor Godet two most outspoken articles, one for and one against the admission of women. into the Ministry. The latter believes that God forbids women to preach, and that if the command is disobeyed, the ultimate evil will outweigh the present good ; the former holds that the Apostle's order was a temporary one, and would admit women, with the Bishops' licence, to be Deacons. As no law prevents women from preach- ing irregularly, we see no objection to their fervour being regularised, though we expect from it little result. Women have studied music, theology, and politics as carefully as men, but have originated nothing in any of these three departments of effort ; and it is a natural inference that they will not. That is no reason why they should be debarred from trying.

The Fortnightly is varied, but without any conspicuous paper. We have noticed the fifth chapter of '• The Radical Programme," the plea for free schools, elsewhere ; and see little in the two papers on the London Poor. Lady Greville pushes her argu- ment rather far when she urges that "pleasure is a moral duty," and that the capacity to enjoy it should be cultivated " nationally ;" but it is, of course, true that workmen's children would benefit by more recreation, and that well-managed play- grounds are much required. Only nobody either denies those propositions, or sees the way to reduce them to action. Nor do we gain much by being told by " A Working-man " that if poor women obtained " culture," the social problem would be solved. Possibly it would, and possibly it would not; but in either case, what can we do that we are not doing ? Fill Glasgow with three millions of Scotch men and women all educated for two hundred years, and we shall like Glasgow as little as we like London. Mr. Goldwin Smith, in "The Irish Fallacy," argues that Englishmen have done no special wrong to Ireland, her wrongs being those of all Europe, except in passing the Penal Laws, and that they were passed by men who saw Catholics murdering and burning for religion's sake. He forgets that in Ireland we set up the worst of tyrannies, the tyranny of a caste, and that it is only just dying away. The Irish are, no doubt, vindictive ; but remember how the French, who are a great though an irri- tating people, treated their caste, who were not foreigners. We may contrast Sir Lepel Griffin on " Philistia " with Mr S. Laing on "Rational Radicalism." Mr. Laing says the United States have converted him, originally a Peelite, into a Radical; while Sir Lepel Griffin declares that America is "the apotheosis of Philistinism, the perplexity and despair of statesmen, the Mecca to which turns every religious or social charlatan, where the only god worshipped is Mammon, and the highest education is the share list ; where political life, which should be the breath of the nostrils of every freeman, is shunned by an honest man as the plague; where, to enrich jobbers and monopolists and contractors, a nation has emancipated its slaves and enslaved its

freemen ; where the people is gorged and drunk with material- ism, and where wealth has become a curse instead of a blessing." Sir Lepel writes vigorously ; but as he declares that Repub- licanism is everywhere a hideous failure, he does not create

much confidence in his impartiality. Does he think Monarchy would have succeeded in the United States P There is much to be said of the material character of American civilisation, but to say nothing else, is to condemn one's mental eyesight. Mr. ICebbel argues temperately on behalf of Lord Lyndhurst's in- .dependence ; but, after all, his argument is only this,—that a man who dislikes Whiggery has a right to become a Tory, when it is advantageous to him. We do not see the sequitur. Mr.

Lilly's " Life and Death " is one of his most vigorous dialogues

on the Whence and Whither ; but we are not sure that his readers will think that St. George, the champion of intellectual orthodoxy, always has the best of it. This, however, is a fine 'statement of an extreme theory :-

"Then as to evil. It is commonly held that progress must change evil to good, and that it is only relative, only the negation of higher good as yet unattained. But, as I have urged, we must admit free-will upon the supreme testimony of consciousness. I say, therefore, that zif a man submits to the law of moral development, which he may do by choosing and acting aright, he will finally be delivered from all evil. But if he rebels and will not submit to the elevating, the redeeming in- fluences, he thereby falls under those which degrade, stupefy, and materialise. And as he would cease to be a man had he no free-will —actu ref potentia—and moral good must imply moral choice, it seems inevitable that he should remain the slave of the lower life as long as he will not choose to break away from it. And death being a change of state, not of moral condition, what warrant have we for affirming that the progress of degradation will not continue in- definitely ? And science not admitting annihilation—nothing perishes —does not this imply an eternal ab:ding in that from which the soul was meant to pass onward and upward ? By what name, then, shall we call the vision of perfection not realised, nor now to be realised, the consciousness of a life with infinite aspirations unfulfilled, the knowledge of aims endlessly desirable, yet not loved, the thought of action that might have been wide and high as the universe, now ex- pended fruitlessly and thwarted by an evil will."

The Nineteenth Century is very readable this month. The political article is by Sir R. Cross, on the " Homes of the Poor,"

-a subject he understands ; and it comes to this, that the needful reforms can in the main be secured, if we will work the existing laws, but that there is an intermediate stage, during which there will be a quantity of temporary and cheap house-room required.

This Sir Richard would have the benevolent provide, or failing them—and they will fail—the parochial authorities. His article is very sensible and moderate, and we shall hope that he will sup- port Sir Charles Dilke, who is about to do very much what he has recommended. Sir Gavan Duffy finishes his account of the better side of the British administration of Ireland, "ungrateful Ire- land," in a fine burst of eloquence, but he adheres to his convic- tion that Ireland must govern herself. Are we, however, wrong

in supposing that he sees a modus vivendi in the treatment of Ireland in all respects as we treat England, an ideal certainly not yet attained ? Earl Cowper's little sketch of " Lord Mel- bourne" does not add much to our knowledge of his subject; but it is pleasant reading, it confirms the general impres-

sion of the man, and it suggests that much of what seems obscure in him was the result of a passion for paradox. He really loved to say in a single strong sentence all that could be -said for the other side of his own conviction, which other side, it should be added, he saw with painful clearness. The most readable article to us, however, is Dr. Jessopp's account of " the daily life of a mediwval monastery." He certainly proves that the monks were not idle, but most exact, precise, and even fussy men of business, with a keen love for litigation. Indeed, Dr. Jessopp, while maintaining from the minute records before him

that the monks were good men, decidedly above those around them in their way of living, holds that a true indictment could be laid against them as lawyers. They constantly supple- mented evidence by forging deeds, grants, and charters. Dr. Jessopp thinks that esprit de corps coscarried to fanatic extremes

was their grand fault, and though he offers this opinion with the reserve that experts greater than himself are not certain, that the majority of monks came from the small gentry, as the Fellows of Colleges did. An ignorant monk was certainly a rarity, and an unlettered one an impossibility. Bits of this paper, notably page 112, are as charming morsels of description as we have recently seen. We note with a certain shiver that Mr. Wilkinson, the Liberal agent for York, who entirely approves of the Anti-Bribery Act, and believes that it will greatly relieve Members and improve constituencies, adds this bit of personal testimony:—

"Notwithstanding the increased penalties, bribery prevailed at the recent election in York to a considerable extent. It is believed that very little money was paid for votes, but it is known that corrupt promises, to be fulfilled after the election, were numerous. In spite of the new law, treating also was practised, and there were probably not less than twenty cases of personation, although the penalty is imprisonment with hard labour for a term not exceeding two years, or a fine of £200. Whilst, however, it is admitted that corrupt prac- tices were less open, flagrant, and widespread than on former ocoa- aions, the improvement was only in a very slight degree due to increased penalties, but almost wholly the result of the other provi- sions of the new Act."

Personation will, we suspect, be the great danger, for it will be practised by non-electors, who do not fear the penalty. They would risk five years for stealing a man's watch worth to them £3, and will, therefore, risk two years for personating him for a

bribe of £5 for every ten votes.

The number of the National Review is a good one, though we are not greatly interested in Sir Stafford Northcote on finance: He will have plenty of opportunities in the House of making his adversaries attend to his statement that, on the whole, there is

not much to choose financially between the two Governments ; but there is a passage which is novel, and may be quoted with advantage. Sir Stafford Northcote distinctly objects to a Standing Committee of Supply, believing that it will weaken Ministerial responsibility, and " that in any controversy between a Department desiring to incur expenditure and the Treasury objecting to it, there would be a great temptation to make a sort of provisional agreement that the item should be admitted upon the Estimates, and that it should be left to the Standing Committee to decide whether it should be retained or not." Mr.

Mallock maintains that the test of good government is " that it secures the means to all of leading a life consistent with health and self-respect," and that consequently Toryism and Socialism have much in common. Socialism insists on this principle, and so does Toryism :—" Conservatism doubtless means more than the material well-being of the people; but it means the material well-being of the people first, and every- thing else afterwards." That is bold, when the Conservatives adhered with all their might to the tax on corn, and flung out Sir Robert Peel for taking it off. For Mr. Mallock's idea that Conservatives can make social changes more readily than Radicals, because they will be under less pressure to go too far, there is much to be said ; but then, will they go far enough?

The instinctive doubt of Englishmen is whether they will, and Mr. Mallock will find it hard to persuade his Socialist Wesleys and Loyolas to enter the Conservative Church. Sporting papers do not interest us, but there is keen observation in Mr. A. E. Gathorne-Hardy's " Fallow Deer at Home," much love of Nature, and considerable sense of humour. He ought to do something better than killing stags or putting pea-shot through the wild turkeys he is trying to acclimatise.