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descriptions which, although exceedingly clever, and of the highest interest to all who are acquainted with what is now going on in Russia, will prove tedious to the general reader who wishes only to be excited or amused. Russian novels very seldom have anything like a complicated plot, and Smoke is not an exception to the rule. The hero of the story is a young Russian of the proprietor class, Gregory Litvinof, who, in the year 1850, was studying at the University of Moscow. At that time he unfortunately fell in love with a princess, Irina Osinine, one of those puzzling women whom M. Turguenief delights in describing, and whom no one describes better. Underneath a cold exterior she conceals a passionate and fiery nature, which drives her every now and then to perform the most unexpected actions. On the other hand, with all her tendency to be led by impulse and swayed by passion, she has not only sufficient strength of will to control her feelings, but she has also that keen sense of her own interests which generally accompanies a colder disposition, and the power of stopping short, even in what scems to be her most impassioned career, whenever that sense conveys to her its sud den warning. A strange compound of ice and fire, it is impossible to say at any given moment which of the two ingredients of her nature will next make its influence felt. Her whole life is a series of enigmas, the only explanation of which seems to lie in her supreme selfishness. She may waver from it at times, but in the end she returns to her old allegiance. But however dubious may be the cause of her strange behaviour, there is no doubt about the evil results which spring from it, so withering is the effect she produces upon the hearts of those who become fascinated by her. She was only seventeen when Litvinof fell in love with her, but even at that age she had already learnt how to make herself feared and obeyed. For a long time she seemed to treat him with a disdainful indifference that almost drove him to despair. Then suddenly she changed her whole manner towards him, as if a long-restrained love had carried away all the barriers erected by prudence to stop it. She grew a model of kindness and amiability, she accepted his offer of marriage, and she seemed to be about to become the best of wives, when suddenly a second and equally unexpected change came over her. One evening she went to a court ball, and beA rich and came the centre of attraction. influential relative thereupon offered to adopt her, and bring her out in the society of St. Petersburg. Her parents hailed the offer with delight, and she herself, though

not without a severe mental struggle, and the shedding of many tears, accepted it and went away from Moscow, leaving the man whom she really loved to recover as he best could from the effect of her desertion. After some time, she married a General Ratmirof and became a leading member of fashionable society. As for Litvinof, he imagined his heart was broken, and, indeed, he suffered greatly at first. For a considerable time he could not think of her without intense suf fering, but he was young, and of a vigorous constitution, so he survived the shock; his wound gradually healed, and after he had passed some years abroad, studying chemis try and farming, and all else that was likely to be of use to him in turning his estates to the best account, he determined to return home and settle down quietly as an agricul turist. It is on his way home that we find him when the story commences, at Baden, where he is awaiting the arrival of his young cousin, Tatiana and her aunt, Capitolina. He has long known his cousin intimately, and, as he thoroughly liked and esteemed her, he has asked her to marry him, and she has consented, and the two young people are looking forward to a quiet and loving country life. When we first see him, he is sit ting by himself, regarding the gay scene be fore him with a calm and contented look. Life seems to lie open before him, his destiny to unroll itself at his feet, and he feels that he may well delight in and be proud of that destiny, as being to a great extent the work of his own hands.

A few days pass by, but his betrothed One evening when he redoes not arrive. turns to his hotel, wearied with the ceaseless wrangling of some of his compatriots whose acquaintance he has lately made, he finds that an unknown lady has sent him a bouquet of heliotropes. He wonders a little, and then thinks no more about it, but all night long the peculiar scent of the flowers troubles him, he cannot tell why. At last he suddenly re members his having given a similar bouquet to the Princess Irina on the night of that ball which proved so fatal to his first love. A kind of instinct tells him that she to whom he was once so passionately devoted is not far away.

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The next day he happens to go up to the company Old Castle, and there, in the number of extremely fashionable Russians, he finds the Princess Irina, and is gladly recognised by her. He is touched by her kindness, and he finds her looking even more lovely than before, but the conversation of her com coldpanions, a set of "young generals," hearted and empty-headed hangers-on at Court, thoroughly disgusts him, and as he goes

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away he feels sorry for Irina. He thinks of
her as one condemned to live in uncongenial
air, and then the image of his Tatiana rises
before him, so good, so gentle, so pure-"O
Tania, Tania !" he cries" you only are my good
angel; it is you only that I love and shall
love forever. And as to her I will not go
near her. Good fortune be with her! Let
her amuse herself with her generals!"
The next day Irina sends for him, and
after some hesitation he goes to her. From
that moment dates the loss of his hard-

earned peace of mind. Gradually Irina
regains over him the influence she used to
exercise in the old Moscow days. It is in
vain that he struggles against her fascination,
in vain that he tries to shake off her spell.
He feels that he is acting madly, dishonour-
ably; he thinks of his past life, of the future
from which he had hoped so much, of the
gentle and trusting girl to whom he is be-
trothed; but it is of no use-he is in the
toils, and the hand of a pitiless woman is
drawing the cords daily tighter. Returning
home one evening from a party given by
Irina, he sits for some time without moving,
his face hidden by his hands. At last he
gets up and takes out of its case a photo-
graph of Tatiana.

there is something amiss. (And here we may remark how refreshing it is to turn to her from Irina,-for the character of the Prin cess is one which is little in accordance with English tastes and feelings.) The scene in which Litvinof comes to an explanation with Tatiana is admirably described, especially that part of it in which she, with an air of calm but sad dignity, frees him from his obligation to her. Just before she leaves Baden she asks him to post a letter for her.

"Litvinof raised his eyes. Before him indeed there stood his judge. Tatiana's form seemed taller than usual, more rigidly erect. Her face was more than ordinarily beautiful, but in its stony majesty it resembled that of a statue. Her breast did not heave; her dress, to which its singleness of tint and the absence of undulation in the outlines gave something of the air of ancient drapery, fell to her feet, which it hid from sight, in long, straight folds, like those of marble robes. Tatiana looked straight before her, without taking any notice even of Litvinof, and her gaze too was calm and cold as that of a statue. In it he read his sentence; he bent his head, took the letter him, and silently went away.... Litvinof dropped the letter into the box, and felt as if, with that little piece of paper, he had dropped all his past, all his life, into the grave. Then he went out of the town and wandered long among the vineyards, following the narrow footpaths. He could not rid himself of a constant sensation of contempt for himself, importunate as the buzzing of a fly in summer. There could be no doubt that in this last interview he had played a very unenviable part."

"Litvinof's betrothed was a girl of the regular Russian type, fair-haired, of somewhat too full a figure, and with features a shade too heavy, but with a singularly good and frank expression in her intelligent hazel eyes, and with a soft white forehead, on which a ray of sunlight always seemed to rest. For a long time Litvinof did not raise his eyes from the portrait, then he quietly put it away, and again hid his face in his hands. All is over,' he whispered at last-'Irina, Irina.'

"Then only, only at that moment, did he understand that he loved her madly and irrevocably, that he had loved her from the day of his first interview with her at the old castle, that he had never ceased loving her. And yet, how he would have marvelled, how incredulous he would have been, how he would have laughed even, if any one had said so to him a few hours before. 'But Tania, Tania! oh my God! Tania, Tania!' he repeated with anguish. And the image of Irina floated before him, in her black, as it were, funereal robe, the calm light of victory dwelling on the marble whiteness of her face."

from the motionless hand extended towards

Tatiana leaves Baden, and a few days later Litvinof also hurries away thence, having been a second time thrown over by the incomprehensible woman whose love has cost him so dear. As he sits in the railway carriage which is taking him away from her, he long gazes unconsciously at the clouds of steam and smoke which come flying past the window from the engine, perpetually chang ing their forms, trailing along the grass, clinging to the bushes, melting away in the distance, but always keeping up the same monotonous kind of play. At length the idea to which the story owes its name comes into his head. As he thinks of all he has lately been witnessing, all his own hopes and A little longer and her victory is indeed efforts, all the ideas enunciated in his prescomplete. Litvinof lies in her power, morence by the two sets of Russians at Baden, ally bound hand and foot. "He was con--the aristocratic retrogrades who declaimed quered, unexpectedly conquered, and what had become of his honour?" That question passes through his mind repeatedly as he stands on the platform waiting for Tatiana's arrival. She comes, and he tries in vain to speak to her in a natural tone, to look at her without constraint. She soon feels that

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against the liberty of the press and the freedom of the peasants, and the political and social reformers who used to worry him by their incessant and fruitless declamation, he exclaims—

"Smoke, smoke . . . steam and smoke.' And suddenly everything seemed to him to be

mere smoke his own life, Russian life-every- [ fore her. That she had not expected, and she thing human, especially everything Russian. knew not what to do, what to say. Tears All is smoke and vapour, he thought; all seems started into her eyes. She was frightened, but to be constantly changing, everywhere new all her face grew bright with joy. Gregory forms appear, one semblance follows close upon Mikhailovich! why do you do that, Gregory another, but in reality all is just the same. Mikhailovich?' she said, but he continued kissEverything falls headlong-hastens away some- ing the hem of her garment... while he rewhere or other-and everything disappears, membered with emotion how he had knelt behaving achieved nothing, leaving no trace be- fore her in a similar manner at Baden. But hind. Another wind blows, and everything then-and now!" flies over to the opposite side, and there once more begins the same untiring, restless, and unprofitable game."

Soon after his return home his father dies, and he finds himself engaged at once in the difficult task of managing the estate, which has fallen into great disorder. The period at which he returns is thus described:

"The new order of things met with a bad reception; the old had lost all influence. Ignorance and dishonesty went hand in hand together. Shaken to its very foundations, the whole social order of things quaked like a vast peat-moss; only the one grand word 'Freedom' moved like the Spirit of God over the face of the waters."

There is need, above all, of patience-and that not a passive but an active patience and at first Litvinof finds it hard of acquisition. He cares but little for life now; he feels still less inclined for exertion. But two years pass by, and the difficulties he has to contend with begin to diminish. The great idea of emancipation has begun to realize itself, and a change for the better has already made itself generally felt. Litvinof has succeeded in putting his affairs on a better footing, and his mind has gradually recovered somewhat of its former tone. He is still very sad, and he secludes himself from all society; but the deadly indifference to all human interests from which he used to suffer has left him, and he moves and acts now like a living man among living people. All that occurred at Baden seems like a dream to him now; and as for Irina her image appears to him only as something vaguely suggestive of dread, closely shrouded in surrounding mist.

At length one day he receives a visit from a relation who has been lately staying at Tatiana's country-house, and who talks to him a good deal about her. Soon after the visitor's departure Litvinof writes to Tatiana, and a few days later he finds himself driving rapidly up to her house. He rushes up the steps, through the dining-room, and into the drawing-room.

"Before him Tatiana stood blushing. She looked at him with her honest, loving eyes (she had grown a little thinner, but that became her well), and held out her hand to him. But he did not take her hand; he fell on his knees be

We had intended to enter into an investi

gation of those questions respecting the future of Russia, especially in its relations with Western Europe, to which so much prominence is given in the pages of Smoke. But our space is exhausted, and we can do no more than simply allude to them before closing this sketch of M. Turguenief's writings, of too many of which we have been unable to take any notice. We have said nothing of his comedies, although they are numerous enough to fill a large volume by themselves, nor have we even touched upon such of his works as the essay on Hamlet and Don Quixote, having preferred to confine ourselves to his tales and novels. On the novel which he has most recently written, under the title of Neschastnaya (The Unhappy One), it is as yet impossible to pass judgment, as its publication in the magazine called the Russian Messenger has not long been commenced; but we may fairly proph esy that it will prove of no small interest. On the whole, we have utterly ignored much that is excellent, and we have not been able to do more than sketch a most hasty outline of many of the stories to which we have referred, but we hope that we have succeeded in at least giving some idea of the worth of M. Turguenief's writings, and in calling at tention to the most characteristic merits of his works which have gained him the first place among the novelists of Russia.

ART. III.-REVOLUTIONS IN THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

THE standard language of literature and life is appropriately termed the Queen's English, from having upon it the stamp of national currency and use. It is the medium of oral and written intercourse through the length and breadth of the land, just as the royal currency or coin of the realm is the medium of commercial exchange. The words of the standard vocabulary, like the issues of the royal mint, have on them the image and superscription of national authority, of which the Sovereign is the natural

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head and representative, and hence the apt designation," Queen's English." But, taking a wider view of the matter, there is really more significance in the epithet Queen's, as applied to the language, than that arising from the accidental circumstance of the reigning monarch being a princess rather than a prince. A second reason of its special appropriateness is to be found in the fact that the most important changes in the language, or rather in the vocabulary of the language, have taken place under the three great English queens, Elizabeth, Anne, and Victoria. If we throw out of account Queen Mary, who was hardly English either in character or policy, the reigns of the three English queens are identified with the most influential revolutions in the history of the English language. The Elizabethan age was the era of its fullest spontaneous development; the so-called Augustan age of Anne that of its critical restriction and refinement; while the Victorian age is the era of its reflective expansion, its conscious growth and reinvigoration. Each of these marked periods is heralded by half a century of preparation, in which the influences, literary and political, that helped to produce the change, were gradually acquiring direction, unity, and power.

irregular growth of the nation's corporate life. In almost every department of national activity the working of the same critical impulse may be clearly traced. There is manifestly, on all hands, a strong desire and persistent effort to measure in some way the achievements of the prolific past: to take stock, as it were, of the intellectual wealth the nation had so rapidly accumulated, and estimate according to some rule or principle the resultsof its enormouslyreproductive energies.

Very naturally, however, the working of this critical movement is especially seen in the literature of the time, and the contrast between the two periods in this respect is well illustrated in the early productions of their typical poets. This kind of index is peculiarly significant, because men of genius instinctively reflect, if they do not even anticipate, the foremost intellectual tendencies of their own time. In his early youth, Shakespeare, the representative of the first period, was exercising his fervid poetical imagination, his tender and passionate sensibilities, in the glowing imagery and musical verse of Venus and Adonis. Pope, the typical poet of the second period, while still in his teens, was reading Boileau, and condensing into the smooth couplets of his Essay on Criticism the sagest maxims of accumulated literary wisdom, mingled with the shrewd observations of his own keenly precocious mind. Great original works of imaginative genius were no longer produced. In place of these, critical editions of the great poets were for the first time undertak en, and critical dissertations on their special merits, as well as critical theories of poetry and literature in general, attempted. No doubt these theories were superficial and one-sided, the critical judgments often shallow, and the rule employed for the measurement of the intellectual giants of the previous age sometimes ludicrously inadequate for the purpose. But the important fact remains, that in every sphere of intellectual activity rules and principles of judgment were honestly sought for. Amidst the hard things that are often said against the eighteenth century, it must be remembered that its leading minds, if comparatively cold and unimaginative, were consciously animated by the desire of finding in every department of inquiry a critical or rational basis, and that in some departments, such as those of history, philosophy, and political science, this effort produced results of permanent value.

The first of these periods, that of the Reformation, commencing with the earlier half of the sixteenth century, culminating in the Elizabethan age, and lasting in its characteristic influences till the middle of the seventeenth century, is justly regarded as the great creative period of English literature. It is the period in which the latent genius of the nation was manifested for the first time in all its freshness, strength, and exuberant vitality. But the next considerable epoch, that of the Revolution, which reached some of its most expressive forms during the reign of Queen Anne, has a character of its own, equally marked, though perhaps not so fully recognised. If the era of the Reformation was the creative, the productive epoch of our literature, that of the Revolution, extending over the great er part of the eighteenth century, is characterized by the predominant activity of the regulative, co-ordinating, or legislative faculty. It is pre-eminently a critical age-the age in which criticism appeared for the first time as a modifying power in our national life and literature. The Revolution Settlement itself was a criticism of the Constitution, a resolute and successful effort to reduce to precise terms, fix in definite propositions, and establish on a legal basis the political rights and liberties which had gradually asserted themselves amidst the vigorous but

What is true of the literature during these two periods is equally true of the language. The epoch of the Reformation was the great period of the language as well as of the literature-the age in which its latent

stores of phrase and diction were for the first time brought out, and rendered available for the higher purposes of literature by current use. Then, too, the various tributary streams, Celtic and Scandinavian, Romance and Classical, that at different times have enriched our native tongue, may be said to have flowed together, and poured their currents into the broad and deepening river of our recognised and central English speech. But these secondary elements of copious and expressive diction, left as a heritage by races that had helped to give dignity and grace to the robust English character, were by no means the most important contributions made during this era to the standard national vocabulary. The scattered wealth of neglected words belonging to the root-elements of the language, the forcible and idiomatic Angle and Saxon terms, hitherto almost restricted to local use, were now, under the working of an irresistible influence, collected from their provincial sources, and poured into the national exchequer of words through a multitude of obscure and unnoticed channels. The powerful influence which thus developed for the first time the resources of the mother tongue was that of awakened nationality, of which the Reformation itself, in its early stages, may be regarded as the concentrated and energetic expression. The working of this national spirit, and its effect both on the language, and the literature, is indeed clearly traceable as early as the fourteenth century. By the middle of that century the brillant foreign wars and successful reign of Edward III. had very much effaced the bitter antipathies of rank and race produced by the Conquest, impressed on the national mind an exulting sense of unity and power, and diffused amongst all classes the proud glow of genuine patriotism. The effect of this awakened spirit on the language is seen in its immediate recall to the courts of justice, and other positions of dignity and honour, from which for three centuries it had been banished, while its intellectual reflex may be traced in the noble early literature of which Chaucer, Gower, and Wycliffe are the foremost representatives. In the fifteenth century the gallant but disastrous wars of Henry v. dissipated the vain dream of extended foreign empire which had so long dazzled the imagination of the nation, and helped to fix its attention on domestic interests, while the Wars of the Roses indirectly advanced the cause of the people by destroying the most offensive incidents of the feudal system and relieving the nation at large from the incubus of a turbulent and ambitious feudal aristocracy. During the long, prudent, and successful

reign of Henry VII., the growing elements of national unity and power consolidated themselves; and under favourable condi tions of peace and public security the country steadily advanced in social comfort, political strength, and material prosperity. When Henry VIII. ascended the throne, he had to lead a high-spirited and self-reliant people, proud of a European position gained by past achievement in arms, confident of its future progress, and resolved, if need were, to secure the conditions of that progress at the point of the sword. The very subserviency the early Parliaments showed on home affairs arose indeed, in part, from the strong feeling in favour of an energetic foreign policy, and the resolve of the nation to maintain at all hazards its position in Europe. The Reformation was just the movement to stimulate that resolve, as it appealed directly on its political side to the independent spirit of the people. In its early stages, indeed, as far as the people at large, or rather the town populations-the mercantile, trading and professional classes, who alone took an active interest in public affairs, were concerned, the English Re formation was a national and political, much more than a religious or ecclesiastical movement. It was a national revolt against the authority of a foreign potentate, whose arrogant pretensions, haughty bearing, and arbitrary exactions of tribute had come to be regarded as alike insulting and oppressive, As the area of the conflict enlarged and its issues expanded, the great interest at stake stirred the heart of the nation to its very depths, and roused all its nobler elements of character to a pitch of intense and sustained enthusiasm. This enthusiasm reached its highest point in the tremendous struggle with Spain as the armed champion of Roman domination in Europe, the ruthless military representative of the despotic principle both in Church and State.

On the eve of that gallant struggle against such overwhelming odds, Queen Elizabeth, with the sure instinct of political genius, struck the key-note of the excited national mind in her stirring address to the army:— "Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my own recreation and disport, but having resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all-to lay down, for God and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and

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