SOME OF THE MAGAZINES.

To us, the interesting article in this month's Magazines is the Duke of Argyll's account in Fraser of American landscape as it strikes a stranger. It is so difficult and so important to one's impressions to get an account of the look of anything previously unknown. We do not say that the Duke contrives completely to convey the impression in his own mind, but he certainly tries to do it, and knowing exactly the kind of ignorance he has to encounter, he in an unusual measure succeeds. His main im- pression evidently was of the unusual kind and degree of woodedness that he found. He expected to see districts full of "clearings," or full of the primeval forest ; and instead, he found. on the settled lands districts which had been cleared, but in which, wherever actual cultivation had not been attempted, the forest had grown again. The result is a delightful quantity of trees, self-grown, naturally situated, and most abundant, but all, by comparison, young :—

"It is not worth while to cultivate any land but the best. Every acre which is of inferior quality, or in an inconvenient situation, every rooky knoll too hard, every bank and brae too steep to plough, the sides of every stream, the banks of every dell, and frequent tracts on every hill-aide, are left in a state of nature. But throughout the' Eastern States and Provinces, the soil being full of the seeds of trees, the state of nature is a state of woodedness. Even where the whole- face of the country has been burnt by forest fires, and the settler. has appropriated whatever portion of it was best and most easily worked, the after-growth which has sprung up is a beautiful tangle. of birch and oak, and elm and maple ; and those tangles, wholly nn- cared for, are left to flourish as they may. To a largo extent, these woods are of no value for any economical purpose, except firewood and fencing. The flno trees have disappeared with the original forest, and there has been no time, so young are even the oldest settled countries of America, for the new growth to attain any size."

That account, which appears to be true of every place in which the ancient forest has not remained untouched, will be new to most of our readers, as will the statement that the Americans,. so careless about trees elsewhere, carefully cultivate them in their cities ;—

"Planting, superfluous, and therefore neglected elsewhere in the New World, has been carefully attended to in the cities. Their' streets are almost all avenues of handsome trees, the boughs meeting over the ample roadway, their foliage everywhere conspicuous among. the houses, and often giving a comfortable rural aspect even to the most crowded seats of industry. The view of Albany from a dis- tance on the railway is very striking; the State House, like most of the public buildings in America, being large and handsome, and seen rising out of a most picturesque intermixture of tiles and leaves."

That really separate and most beautiful feature in the external aspect of American cities must have often been recorded, but we venture to say it has escaped the attention of nine readers out of ten. This peculiarity extends to the Canadian cities, or at all events to Montreal :—

"As we approach Montreal, the steep hill from which it derives its- name rises finely above the river, which rushes swiftly round pleasant islands, and past the handsome quays and public buildings of the city. Built along the slope of the hill, and rising along that slope to a very- considerable elevation, the houses much mixed with trees, and the- top of the hill richly clothed with wood, full of the towers and spires of handsome churches, the city of Montreal occupies a position of con- spicuous beauty ; nor do its attractions diminish on a closer inspec- tion. Long lines of handsome streets, with comfortable and sub- stantial houses or villas, and generally shaded by double rows of trees, lead us up to the higher levels, where gardens and shrubberies are pleasantly intermixed. Under the hospitable guidance of Dr. Camp- bell, an old and hereditary friend, we were driven round 'the mountain,' which has been secured by the municipality as a public park. From the whole of this fine bill the prospect is magnificent. For many miles above, and for many miles below, the course of the noble river- is to be seen, which is here more than a mile wide, and which, up to Montreal, is navigable for vessels of a large size. The vast extent of country over which the eye ranges in every direction has the same general character as that seen from the heights of Queenstown. It is everywhere richly wooded, and although the mountains which vary- this landscape are not broken or picturesque in surface, they have fine and flowing outlines, with long and habitable slopes."

We have no space for further extracts, but the whole article is a long description of external scenery, to us exceedingly attractive because new, the only defect being the absence of an account of the roadside view. Will the Duke tell us exactly what an ordinary roadside in the district he saw is like P It differs, of course, at every mile, and so it does in England ; but still there must be a general impression, which, for a reasonably limited district, it would be possible to render. There is nothing else quite so interesting in Fraser ; but there is a most instructive- paper on Eton, perhaps a trifle too favourable, and the entire- number has more stuff in it than the two which have preceded it under the new management.

The best paper by far in the Contemporary is, as usual, M. Gabriel Monod's, on "Contemporary Life and Thought in France," which, as a rapid sketch, seems to us to approach per- fection. Perhaps, in the present number, M. Monod lets his own proclivities, which are clearly those of a French Whig, become too manifest; but, as most Englishmen are of his opinion, that will not diminish the reader's enjoyment. "India under Lord Lytton," by Lieutenant-Colonel Osborn, is a powerful but bitter attack upon that Viceroy's administration, whin, as Colonel Osborn be- lieves, has endangered the safety of the Empire. A little more' impartiality in stating the Government idea of its own objects would. have strengthened the paper, but it is difficult to read the account of the opening of the Afghan war without believing that a conquest of Afghanistan had beeu predetermined, and that the negotiations with Shere All were intended to fail. The Hon. Justice Fry writes admirably on the cause of the beauty of flowers, and produces strong evidence that utility is not, at all events, the only cause of the tendency to beauty which he believes to exist. He thinks that beauty enters into the general design of Nature, or its Author,—a theory for which be might have found strong support in some quotations from Charles

Kingsley, with whom that idea was a fixed belief. "Life in Constantinople Fifty Years Ago," by "Au Eastern States- man," contains a vigorous sketch of the extirpation of the Janissaries—there was a better one, though, in Black- mood some years ago, among the "Passages of Turkish History "—and of the gradual decay of the Sultanet under European influences. Mahmoud, says the writer, was the last of the Sultans, his successors having been comparatively feeble

men, with no independent initiative. "Europe has sought to maintain the Empire, but as a feeble and decaying empire." The two sketches of Lord Beaconsfield, by a Tory and a Whig, are neither of them at all good, the Tory believing in his subject so profoundly, that he thinks he has raised the honour of Eng- land; and the Whig treating him as a mere hunter after noto- riety, and his Government an embodied joke. The country will

not be much the wiser for either view ; nor, we think, for Mr. J. Boyd Kinnear's article on miracles. It is very sensible and very thoughtful, but still it evades the question. Mr. Kinnear thinks all 4'

miracles" in the I3ible may be explained by the power of God to affect the inertia of matter, a power which man also possesses, and gives as an illustration the walking on the water :—

"Let us try if this can be made clearer by an example. It has been stated before that if iron were made to swim on water by modi- fication of the law of gravity, it would be creation of a new substance, differing from iron in being of less specific gravity. At the same -time, the original iron of normal specific gravity would have

peered. Those processes of creation and destruction would be so unprecedented, that we should justly call them violations of the ordinary laws of nature. But at least we should then expect that the light iron thus created would be permanently light, and we should call it another breach of the laws of nature if on lifting it from the water we found it heavy. But if we were to hold a magnet of suitable power over the original heavy iron, when at the bottom of the water, we might see it rise and float, although not touched or up- held by any visible substance, and although its specific gravity re- mained constant. In this case it would be moved by a power which .overcomes gravity, but there would be no creation nor destruction of any property, and no natural law would be broken. But if now we substitute for magnetic "Divine ' power, there is still no breach of a natural law, for no property is created or destroyed. In both .cases the acting agent is a power outside the iron; invisible and unknown, except by the effects."

Surely in raising the dead something more is done than affect- ing the inertia of matter, or even than that pins a mental 'operation ? Life, if a spirit can exist at all, which Mr. Kinnear assumes, must be separate both from matter and from mind. We cannot see why, if he thinks God the Creator, be thinks that He cannot dissolve and re-create matter. The paper is, however, worth reading ; as is Mr. Bonamy Price's on rent, a statement of the orthodox doctrine that lent is the surplus profit, after the cost of production and the profit the tenant °seeks are paid ; and Mr. Monier Williams's exhaustive, but rather overloaded account of the tenets of the Jahn, the sub- variety of Buddhists who hold it necessary to conquer the natural self, and therefore very often go naked,—no particular conquest, in the climates they inhabit. The following passage is, so far as we know, quite original, and explains also the Asiatic idea of uncovering the feet in homage ;—

"In connection with this subject I may remark, that what may be called ' foot-worship ' (plidula-ptijii), or the veneration of footprints, seems to be common to Hindus, Buddhists, and Joint's. Even during Me, when a Hindii wishes to show great respect for a person of higher rank or position than himself, he reverentially touches his feet. The idea seems to rest on a kind of a fortiori argument. If -the feet, as the lowest members of the body, are treated with honour, how much more is homage rendered to the whole man. Children honour their parents in this manner. They never kiss the faces of either father or mother. In sorne families, sons prostrate themselves at their fathers' feet. The arms are crossed just above the wrist, 'both feet are touched, and the hands raised to the forehead."

A. Bengalee, wishing to express the deepest respect, says, "I serve your feet."

Mr. Frederic Harrison has a fine, although rather hotly ex- pressed, appeal in the Fortnightly against the martial law we

are exercising in Cubul, where we are establishing a terror, under

pretext of punishing a rebellion. Oddly enough, Mr. Harrison clinches his argument by the remark that "such things "--i.e.,

military terrorism concealed by suppression of correspondence

.—" may delight newspapers on the moral level of the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, but are utterly dishonouring to

a nation such as England." Mr. Harrison has a perfect right

to abuse the Spectator, and even to affront it, if he pleases, by a comparison with the Daily Telegraph, but he should previously read it. If he had read it, he would have known that on the subject of Afghanistan the Spectator is, for once, in accord with lir. Frederic Harrison. It would, for instance, endorse nearly

every word of this particular article. Perfect accord with in- effable wisdom is, of course, not given to finite beings, but still even the struggle after perfection should be treated with respect. M. Emile de Laveleye sends a thoughtful article, the meaning of which is, that Austria must be the heir of the Turk, the Balkan States being too feeble to stand alone; and Mr. E. A. Freeman rescues the word " loyalty " from its rather degrading association with Courts, and shows how true loyalty is possible to a commonwealth. The word means essentially obedience to the law, and is only debased when it is transmuted into reverential feeling towards a prince be- cause of his rank. Incidentally, Mr. Freeman points out that, "People seem utterly to have forgotten the difference which, on any theory of kingship, exists between the king himself and any subject, oven though that subject be his own child. A king's son is not the chief of the State ; he is not the personal lord of his father's subjects ; least of all is ho the Lord's Anointed. He is simply a subject of the highest rank, who may perhaps some day become all these things, but who is none of them as yet. Yet we constantly hear members of the Royal Family spoken of in words which any intelligible theory of loyalty would reserve for the Sovereign only." That is quite true as regards loyalty, hut to make the statement completely true, it requires one rider. English law does raise the Heir-Apparent out of the position of a mere subject, by surrounding him with some of the immunities of royalty. To compass his death, for instance, is not murder only, but treason also. Dr. Humphry Sandwith's account of his journey from Belgrade to Samakov is, as usual, most instructive, though he only records the experiences of each day. His most interesting fact perhaps is the great popularity of the Servian Government, even among Bulgarians, owing to the light taxation, and a certain energy in protecting life and property. The Serviaus, with their self- government, have certainly attained one of the objects of civili- sation.

Mr. O'Connor Power's paper on the Irish land agitation, in the Nineteenth Century, wordy and vague though it is, is worth

reading, because it does contain something of definite proposal and argument. He wants the State to expropriate all waste laud, reclaim it, divide it into farms, and sell it to the people, at a price to be paid in instalments extending over thirty years. He thinks there would then be three farms instead of one, a teeming popu- lation, and plenty of food for everybody ; but he does not tell us how much culturable waste land there is in Ireland, what it would coat, or what security there would be for the payment of instalments. Are defaulters to be evicted, or is a State bailiff to distrain upon the pigs and potatoes P Mr. O'Connor Power thinks evictions would be possible because rents would be fair, but are evictions for non-payment of fair rents never considered tyrannical. If so, fixity of tenure without further State intervention would settle the whole question. There would remain the danger of excessive subdivision, and upon this point Mr. Power is not quite clear. He says :—

"It is supposed that the large tenant proprietors would buy up the small ones, and then, finding that they had more land than they could cultivate themselves, let it to tenants, and so renew all the evils of the existing system. There need be no fear of such a result, because the forces operating in favour of aggregation on the one hand, and subdivision on the other, would neutralise each other. At the end of a hundred years the changes in the relative sizes of peasant properties would not be appreciable."

That is final, if it is only true, but where is the evidence of it, in a country where population tends to increase, and everybody born on the land wants to keep on the land P Miss Bevington finishes her argument with Mr.

Mallock, in a paper much weaker than her former ono. Her main contention is that the temptation to be virtuous for the sake of humanity is a strong one, as strong as a religion, and will become stronger, those who feel it having social quali- ties which will ensure their survival. Can Miss Bevington produce any proof that it is so I' Has not the least social of races, the Jew, been the most enduring, and the most selfish of races, the Roman, the most successful P She must not she must remember, quote Christianity in support of her theory, for the Christians have become strong, relatively to non- Christians, while inspired by the religious conviction with which she would dispense. Their success is no proof that, uninspired by that feeling, they would have succeeded. The "Domesday Book of Bengal" cells attention to that mar-

vellous repertory of statistical facts, Dr. Hunter's Statistical Account of Bengal, in twenty volumes, which scarcely any one -will read, but which is a mine of authentic facts ; and Sir James Paget gives us an accurate, though dry, history of the use of arunsthetics. The papers, however, which will be most attractive are Mr. Payn's, on the "Literary Calling," noticed elsewhere ; "Irish Politics and English Parties," by Mr. E. D. J. Wilson,— a protest against any Liberal alliance with Rome-rulers; Mr. Stebbing's brilliant, but over-compressed sketch of the Eighteenth Century, as the " watershed " of modern English life, the century in which old systems can be seen receding and new advancing; and the Abb6 Martin's most interesting account of the French Church, with its 51,100 secular clergy, 18,500 "religious "—that is, monks—and 86,300 nuns. The reader may note in it the signs of readiness to accept the Republic, provided only the Republic does not persecute, or revive Napoleon I.'s 4' organic laws."