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bloody tragedy of June 10, 1903. Such were the methods employed by Pan-Slavism to annihilate the Obrenovitch dynasty, which had always shown a tendency to coquet with Austria.

With such an historical precedent can one say definitely that Russia would not egg on Servia to any project, should it suit her scheme? The annals of Servia are too full of the bizarre and the seemingly impossible to lay down a hard and fast rule on ordinary premisses. In no other European country would the prophecies 1 of a clairvoyant peasant be carefully included in secret State Papers; would a foreign government, remembering that the ruling dynasty had been unlucky in its amours, encourage the king's passion for a well-known woman from the people; or would the representative of that government watch from the windows of his Legation, until the bodies of the King and Queen had been hurled into the garden by the regicides ?

He would be a bold man indeed who would declare that the success of the allies points to a final decision of the Near Eastern question. On the contrary, it would surprise few of the people who can read between the lines to-day if there were not at least two wars, owing their origin to the present struggle, within three years of the conclusion of peace.

Any determination of Servia to hold the Sandjak or to seize Salonika must infallibly bring her into collision with Austria. A Servian Sandjak would be the first step towards the incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; it would mean the creation of one vast continuous block of Slavonic nationalities pressing against Austria from the south. If Austria allows that, she is playing into her enemies' hands, and adjusting the noose round her own neck. Her mobilisation of two army corps near Sarajevo proves that she is fully alive to the danger, while the fact that from Semlin she could destroy Belgrade within two hours should convince Servia of the futility of pitting itself against a Great Power. Such considerations, however, will have little weight as long as the officers are convinced that they are in charge of an irresistible

1 Reference is here made to the prophecies of the peasant Meta of Kremna, whose visions were tabulated by the Prefect of Ujitza. Meta not only in 1868 foretold the advent of the telephone, but he had a clairvoyant vision of Michael Obrenovitch's murder, he prophesied the main details of Milan's and of Alexander's reigns, Peter Karageorgevitch's succession, his disappearance, the occupation of Servia by a foreign army and the rise of a hero, who was in some way connected with the Obrenovitch dynasty' as if an oak tree which had been felled had thrown out a shoot close by.'

army and that the mass of Holy invincible Russia is behind them.

The second danger lies in the east. To many it may seem rash at the very moment while they are united in a successful and victorious alliance, when they have amicably agreed upon the division of the spoils, to predict that before much water will have flowed beneath the bridges Servia will be at war with her friend and ally. Even now, signs and indications are not wanting. With the defeat of the Turk has disappeared the one common feeling that linked these ill-assorted allies-fear of a common enemy. Save between Serb and Montenegrin-and the latter has all the contempt for his Slav cousin that a freeborn highlander can nourish for his lowland neighbour who has submitted tamely for many centuries to a foreign yoke-there is no racial or national bond.

The Bulgarian has not forgotten that he brought Servia to her knees in the fortnight's campaign of November 1885; that the Servian infantry after the first or second day's fighting retreated in panic as soon as they heard the strains of the 'Shumi Maritza,' the Bulgarian war march, and that it was only the intervention of Austria which prevented the raw peasant levies of Bulgaria entering Belgrade in triumph. The whole history of the comitadjis in Macedonia has shown that the Bulgarian, who is not a natural Slav but a Slavicised Aryan, is the most robust and virile race in the Peninsula to-day, and since the success of this campaign has awakened the slumbering ambitions in both Serb and Bulgar of a revival of their ancient empires, it is obvious that there is not room for both to be realised. As to which will go to the wall, there can be little doubt. If Servia is allowed to take possession of what was known as the Kossovo vilayet or Old Servia, she may find out that there is some truth in the old Greek proverb, 'The gifts of enemies are no gifts.' The number of Arnauts, or Albanian Moslems, in that region is given by reliable authorities as 200,000 as compared with 60,000 orthodox Serbs. These Arnauts have, even under Turkish rule, always nourished a healthy distaste for tax-paying or any such civilised amenities. Under the Servian domination, there will be the additional stimulus of religious hatred, and since the Servians, regrettably enough, throughout the campaign, have adopted the old Spanish method of colonisation and have preferred annihilation to reconciliation, it is obvious that they will be confronted with a bitter guerilla war in the inhospitable mountains of Macedonia for many a long month. Numerically and

financially they are quite unequal to such a drain upon their resources; and by prosecuting such a campaign they are playing into Bulgaria's hands.

It is easy enough to divide up into three or four parts a wedge of territory which for the moment belongs to a mutual enemy; but once that enemy has been obliged to relinquish his grasp of that land, the old partners will find that each is casting a suspicious. glance on his neighbour's share. Europe has already been vouchsafed a sinister lesson over the anticipatory division of Macedonia. By the Mürzsteg programme it was understood that Macedonia should be split up into spheres of interest. At once the various races interested in this division organised bands who set about extending their respective zones of interest by a gospel of terrorism and forcible proselytism. Whole villages changed their religion and their nationality every day of the week.

It is not unlikely that Europe will shortly witness a similar phenomenon. By skilful diplomacy Servia has obtained in the anticipatory division a larger share of the spoils than is warranted by her racial pretensions or by her military assistance. Bulgaria has not forgotten this diplomatic victory, and has no intention of waiving her ambition.

An Oriental fable relates that a lion once engaged a fox, a hyaena and a jackal to hunt down a fat stag. The three animals did so and brought the carcass to the lion, who at once cut it in four sections. The Lion said, Four of us have agreed to kill this stag, and before us are four portions of the spoil. The first bit I will take as being the senior partner in the alliance; the second I will take as I gave you the idea; the third I will take as being the strongest; and if you want to fight for the fourth, I'm ready to take you on.'

The philosopher who wrote that fable must have foreseen the Balkan Confederation.

B. AUSTIN.

JAMES BERESFORD ATLAY.

It is true of most men that their weight among their fellows rests upon what they have done. Such influence as they enjoy in the world in which they move rests upon their work; either upon its sheer excellence, or upon their power in these days of specialism to do with egregious skill that which is indifferent. But here and there is met a man, who, even though his work rise above the ordinary, and be marked by a degree both of excellence in itself and of skill in the doing, is yet by the verdict of his fellows held to be greater than his work. He impresses, not by his reputation but by his personal force. Those who are thrown into touch with him own that here is a man, not because he has achieved but because they are conscious that he is capable of achievement, because they see in him a character which marks him out from the common flock.

Such a man has lately passed from us in the person of James Beresford Atlay, whose death at the age of fifty-two is a loss to the world of letters which it is not unfitting to note and measure in the pages of this magazine. Not only was he a contributor to the CORNHILL, but his advice was frequently employed in the preparation of its contents; and during a period of years few articles appeared between its covers which had not passed under his eye.

He was born at Leeds in 1860, the eldest son of Dr. Atlay, at that time vicar of Leeds and afterwards for more than a quarter of a century Bishop of Hereford. Atlay was eight years old when the family removed to the Palace at Hereford which henceforth for a long period was his home. His school was Wellington, which throughout his life he held in affection, constantly repairing to it on those special occasions which occur in the life of such foundations. There he rose to be Head, and won the Queen's Medal: and thence, although the family connexion was with Cambridge (where his father had been Fellow, Tutor, and Select Preacher), he passed with an Open Scholarship to Oriel. Possibly Atlay would have gone forthe in the surroundings in which he found himself at Oriel had his bent been towards pure scholarship: possibly, also, with his strong turn for historical study he would have done more under other auspices. In the result, though he gained a First Class in the School of Modern

History he failed to gain that which at the time was his object, a Fellowship at All Souls.

It is probable that this failure was a matter of lasting regret to him. He knew that he was fitted to make the most of the leisure and of the opportunities for historical research which those Fellowships afford, and that free from care and the calls of multifarious employments he might have planned, and at an age much earlier than that at which he died might have executed, a magnum opus worthy of his powers. The loss was not his only.

No one, however, who knew Atlay well could be ignorant that it was not in the main to school or college that he owed the influences which made him what he was. From his boyhood onwards for twenty years he met at Hereford under his father's roof-hospitable as a Bishop's should be and seldom fails to be-a crowd of persons of note not only in the Church and in politics but in many walks of life. To him, as the eldest of a large family, fell the privilege of entertaining this long procession of guests; and in the use of that privilege he learned the secret, withheld from so many, of social ease and social enjoyment. In a sense he was formed at his father's table. There he listened to many discussions on questions of Church and State, heard the latest heresy or the latest crisis. treated, noted the patience of a statesman or the prejudice of a divine, and was trained to practise the jest that eases a difference. There, too, he learned the art of quotation, which never in his hands sank to pedantry; and last not least, it was there he began to garner the store of anecdote and illustration on which he drew so liberally in later years. And possibly it was at Hereford in intercourse with his father and his father's guests that he caught the almost Johnsonian spirit of an older time, took on himself the guise of one of a past generation, and weighty and urbane, full of knowledge and of reading, the guide and the dictionary of lesser men, seemed, even in his most genial and informing moments, no modern, but a charming survival of learning and manners. Nor was it inconsistent with this view of him, that he cared little for sport or games. There too he belonged to the eighteenth century. Seated in a boat he has been known to watch men fish: it is doubtful if he ever threw a line himself.

But this is to anticipate. On leaving the University, Atlay was called to the Bar and joined the Oxford circuit, on which he already had a host of friends. He practised for a number of years, and it is hard to say why he did not speedily make his way he had

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