THE MAGAZINES.
THE Nineteenth Century for January is even fuller than usual of readable papers. The editor's reminiscences of Tennyson, for example, are by far the most interesting yet published, though we fancy he attributes to single sentences more force than belonged to them. We have said a word elsewhere about Tennyson's theology, bat these judgments on poets, coming from him, have more than critical interest:- " He used to say Keats, if he had lived, would have been the greatest of all of us ; ' he considered Goethe the greatest artist of the nineteenth century, and Scott its greatest man of letters ; ' and he said of Swinburne, 'He's a tube through which all things blow into music.' He said ' Wordsworth would have been much finer if he had written much less; and he told Browning in my presence that ' if he got rid of two-thirds, the remaining third would be much finer.' After saying that, and when Browning had left us, he enlarged on the imperative necessity of restraint in art. It is ;ecessary to respect the limits,' he said ; an artist is one who recognises bounds to his work as a necessity, and does not overflow illimitably to all extent about a matter. I soon found that if I meant to make any mark at all it must be by shortness, for all the men before me had been so diffuse, and all the big things had been done. To get the workmanship as nearly perfect as possible is the best chance for going down the stream of time. A small vessel on fine lines is likely to float further than a great ift."
—Next in interest to these "Aspects of Tennyson," are the two papers, " False Democracy," by W. S. Lilly, and " Sham Education," by Professor Mahaffy. The first is, as might be expected, a vigorous protest against the doctrine that a single class, though the most numerous, constitutes the Democracy ; and a pessimistic prediction that this class, now sovereign, will attack the security of property in England, probably by indirect legislation, such as in Ireland has been already fatal to property in land. We prefer, however, to quote the newest argument in the paper,—the idea that ochlo- cracy will be fatal to party government :— " No doubt one result in this country of the adoption of the ochlocratic doctrine will be the disappearance of the system of party government, which is even now crumbling away. The two traditional factions of English public life were once truly repre- sentative of principles. They have long ceased to be so. Even the now democratic creed of the right divine of mobs to govern wrong will not suffice as a bond of cohesion to Mr. Gladstone's followers. The odour of what a keen-witted Frenchman called ' la pourriture politique ' is in the air. And as the old Parlia- mentary parties are decaying, new are arising with a true meaning and a real significance. This return to fact we may assuredly welcome. In the Liberal Unionists we have a group who have, at all events, shown that they care for something higher than office. The same may be said for the two Irish factions, whatever may be said against them. And who can be blind to the significance of the newest and smallest of our Parliamentary sections P In the Labour Members, whom we can count on our fingers, there is the beginning of a party which must rapidly increase as the masses realise what they have become in the public order. This is the 'little cloud like a man's hand' which will in time blacken all the heavens."
It is curious to note after reading that paragraph that ochlocracy in America has intensified party government.— Professor Mahaffy's essay, though apparently directed against competition, is in truth a sledge-hammer blow directed against the master-evil of the new system,—the excessive number of subjects which the young are either directed to learn or paid for learning. The many under this system learn nothing thoroughly, while of the few a caste is pro- duced for which the Professor predicts no pleasant future :— " Is it a good bargain to have a boy or a girl highly instructed and eminently successful in the competition of life, but shattered in health, and resulting in a splendid failure? Let it be remem- bered that there may be innumerable cases not so signal, and yet of the same kind—young people damaged in sight, still more damaged in insight, entering the world weary and dull of mind, with all their vigour and elasticity gone. They may get their school scholarships at fourteen, their college scholarships at nine- teen, a brilliant degree at twenty-two ; and then they sink into the rank of some profession, having gained no useful habit but to drudge at books. Is this the way to build up the great English race, called to direct the fortunes of a world-empire P Is this the way to preserve that splendid type which foreigners criticise and ridicule, only because they envy it? Or do wo indeed desire the next generation to pose as second-hand Germans P " There is too much truth in that, but Professor Mahaffy underrates the immense defensive power of the young, who, even when naturally as quick as Irishmen, have a wondrous power of protecting themselves against any demand for hard work.—Mr. Davitt, in his paper on " The Priest in Politics," repeats very closely, though with too much bitterness, the arguments used in the Spectator to define the line between the fair and unfair use of spiritual influence. He objects to its use, but declares the priest a citizen who has been specially irri- tated by his long struggle against the Penal Laws, for Catholic Emancipation, against the imposition of tithes, and for freedom of education. There is truth in that, and truth in the further statement that the priests owe much of their influence in Ireland to their adhesion to each popular demand as it arose; but Mr. Davitt omits a truth greater than all these. The priest as teacher is specially bound to resist his congregation when its cry is clearly contrary to the moral law as defined by his own Church. It is on this point that the serious failure of the Irish priesthood has occurred, and because of this failure that we dread their influence under a, Home-rule Government. Mr. Davitt thinks that they will, in the new era, if it comes, retire from politics ; but he gives no reason beyond an implied assertion, which we doubt, that they have so retired in America.—The bit of poetic prose called " Urmi, a Poisoned Queen," by Cornelia Sorabji, is not par- ticularly good, and hardly at all local. Any woman who thought there was a plot to poison her and her child might utter the same ideas which, after all, are nearly confined to fears for her child and love for her husband. We could wish the Indians, if they are to take a place in our literature, should be more separate and original.—Sir G. Chesney fights for a system fixing the value of the rupee in India in its relation to gold,—that is, in fact, for a gold standard with the rupee used as currency at a token-value. To secure this, he would sell all State bills on India at a fixed rate, and shut the mints till the rate rose to that level. That is a proposal too large to discuss here, more especially while the beat experts declare such a fixing of the value of coinage impos-
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