Delineations of Insanity; The Rural Life of Shakspere; Shakspere's Garden; The Ornithology of Shakspere; The Insects mentioned by Shakspere; and such like. Conjectural inquiry, which attempts to determine whether Shakspere was an attorney's clerk or whether he was a soldier, whether Shakspere was ever in Italy, or whether he was in Germany, or whether he was in Scotland,-inquiry such as this may lead to no very certain result with respect to the particular matter in question. But one thing which such special critical studies as these establish is the enormous receptivity of the poet. This vast and varied mass of information he assimilated and made his own. And such store of information came to Shakspere only by the way, as an addition to the more important possession of knowledge about human character and human life which forms the proper body of fact needful for dramatic art. In proportion as an animal is of great size, the masses of nutriment which he procures are large. "The Arctic whale gulps in whole shoals of acephala and molluscs."

But it was not alone or chiefly through mass of acquisition that Shakspere became great. He was not merely a centre for the drifting capital of knowledge. Each faculty expanded and became more energetic, while at the same time the structural arrangement of the man's whole nature became more complex and involved. His power of thought increased steadily as years went by, both in sure grasp of the known, and in brooding intensity of gaze upon the unknown. His emotions, instead of losing their energy and subtlety as youth deepened into manhood, instead of becoming dulled and crusted over by contact with the world, became (as is the case with all the greatest men and women) by contact with the world swifter and of more ample volume. As Shakspere penetrated farther and farther into the actual facts of our life, he found in those facts more to rouse and kindle and sustain the heart; he discovered more awful and mysterious darkness, and also more intense and lovelier light. And it is clearly ascertainable from his plays and poems that Shakspere's will grew with advancing age, beyond measure, calmer and more strong. Each formidable temptation he succeeded, before he was done with it, in subduing, at least so far as to preclude a fatal result. In the end he obtained a serene and indefeasible possession of himself. He still remained, indeed, baffled before the mystery of life and death; but he

had gained vigour to cope with fate; and could "accept all things not understood." And during these years, while each faculty was augmenting its proper life, the vital play of one faculty into and through the other became more swift, subtle, and penetrating. In Shakspere's earlier writings we can observe him setting his wit to work, or his fancy to work; now he is clever and intellectual, and again he is tender and enthusiastic. But in his latter style imagination and thought, wisdom, and mirth, and charity, experience and surmise, play into and through one another, until frequently the significance of a passage becomes obscured by its manifold vitality. The murmur of an embryo thought or feeling already obscurely mingles with the murmurs of the parent life in which it is enveloped.

Now what does this extraordinary growth imply? It implies capacity for obtaining the materials of growth; in this case materials for the growth of intellect, of imagination, of the will, of the emotions.

It means, therefore, capacity of seeing many facts, of meditating, of feeling deeply, and of controlling such feeling. It implies the avoidance of injuries which interfere with growth, escape from the enemies which bring life to a sudden end, and therefore strength, and skill, and prudence in dealing with the world. It implies a power in the organism of fitting its movements to meet the numerous external co-existences and sequences. In a word, we are brought back once again to Shakspere's resolute fidelity to fact. By virtue of this his life became a success, as far as success is permitted to such a creature as man in such a world as the present.

THE SINGER.

"That was the thrush's last good-night," I thought,

And heard the soft descent of summer rain
In the drooped garden leaves; but hush! again
Odours of violets dim in woodland ways,
The perfect iterance,-freer than unsought
Deeper than coiled waters laid a-dream

Below mossed ledges of a shadowy stream,
And faultless as blown roses in June days.
Full-throated singer! art thou thus anew
Voiceful to hear how round thyself alone
The enriched silence drops for thy delight
More soft than snow, more sweet than honey-dew?
Now cease: the last faint western streak is gone,
Stir not the blissful quiet of the night.

Miss Stokes, it will be known, has a hereditary right to deal with Celtic archæology. Her father, who finds a place in vol. iii., attained, as we have said, great distinction as an Irish scholar; and his daughter has worthily pursued the same path of study. Her chief work is Early Christian Architecture in Ireland. This is a remarkably able book. It is written in a clear and pleasant style; the facts are skilfully grouped, and the authoress shows a complete mastery of her subject. Miss Stokes has also edited Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language.]

THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND. (FROM "EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.”) Pugin has observed in his essay on the "Revival of Christian Architecture" that "the history of architecture is the history of the world;" therefore in tracing the origin and growth of new forms in this art, we may expect to find a parallel stream in the course of events which mark the career of the race to whom it belongs. Where any decided innovation occurs in the architecture of any country, it seems probable that some revolution in its history may be found to account for the phenomenon. Hitherto the churches of Ireland, in their humble proportions and symmetrical simplicity, were the natural offspring, not only, as Dr. Petrie has beautifully expressed it, "of a religion not made for the rich, but for the poor and lowly;" they were also the result of choice and adherence to a primitive national system. Even after the introduction of the ornamental style termed Irish Romanesque, we find that there was no material departure from the simple ground-plan and small dimensions of the earlier churches of the horizontal lintel. The church-system of Ireland continued to be, as it had always been, one that entailed the erection of a num

When the group of humble dwellings which formed the monasteries and schools of Ireland is seen at the foot of the lofty tower whose masonry rarely seems to correspond in date with the buildings that surround it, and which does not, as elsewhere, seem a component and accessory part of the whole pile that formed the feudal abbey, we cannot but feel that some new condition in the history of the Irish Church must have arisen to account for the apparition of these bold and lofty structures. And here we may take up the thread of the history where we left it, at the close of the period of steady progress from the fifth to the end of the eighth century, when the language of Ireland was being developed and her schools were the most frequented in Northern Europe. In the beginning of the ninth century a new state of things was ushered in, and a change took place in the hitherto unmolested condition of the Church. Ireland became the battlefield of the first struggle between paganism and Christianity in Western Europe; and the result of the effort then made in defence of her faith is marked in the ecclesiastical architecture of the country by the apparently simultaneous erection of a number of lofty towers, rising in strength of "defence and faithfulness of watch" before the doorways of those churches most liable to be attacked. For seven centuries Christianity had steadily advanced in Western Europe. At first silent and unseen, we feel how wondrously it grew, until, in the reign of Charlemagne, it became an instrument in the hands of one whose mission was to strengthen his borders against the heathen, and to establish a Christian monarchy.

Dense as is the obscurity in which the cause of the wanderings and ravages of the Scandinavian Vikings is enveloped, yet the result of the investigations hitherto made upon the subject is, that they were in a great measure consequent on the conquests of Charlemagne in the north of Germany, and on the barrier which he thereby-as well as by the introduc

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We read that he laid waste their temples, and their idols were broken in pieces. "He built monasteries and churches, founded bishoprics, and filled Saxony with priests and missionaries. For some years previously the countries between the Elbe, Upper Saxony, the German Ocean, and the Baltic, had been devastated by the Frankish army, the population flying into Denmark and the north, and the war of Charlemagne," writes Mr. Haliday, 'was now a crusade. Its object was alike to conquer and convert. The military and religious habits were united in his camp, which was the scene of martial exercises, solemn processions, and public prayers; and the clergy who crowded round his standard participated in the objects and results of his victories." The war thus entered upon leads us to that point in the history of the Western Church when the religion of Christ is first met by a mighty revulsion arising in the mingled grandeur and gloom of all that is great and all that is false in the spirit of ancient heathenism, when the flood, driven backwards into the northern seas, first heaved its mighty volume of resistant waters, and broke in a great wave upon the Irish shore.

However it may appear from ancient authorities that for some centuries before the Scandinavians had occasionally infested the southern shores of Europe, yet in the added light that is cast by the Irish annals upon the subject we perceive that from this date their piratical incursions afford evidence not before met with of preconcerted plan and insistent energy; and these events in the reign of Charlemagne may lead us to discover what was the strong impulse that thus tended in some measure to condense and concentrate their desultory warfare. Impelled by some strong, overmastering passion, these hordes of northern warriors held on from year to year their avenging

But when all has been said that can be for the invigorating influence of their energy and the enkindling spark they are held to have borne with them of a free social existence, in which men might have a voice in their government and in the enactment of their laws, it must still be borne in mind that at the period when Ireland was the scene of this struggle, and indeed for two centuries later, the faith of these Northmen was idolatry, and there is no proof that they possessed the knowledge of letters. In contemplating the history of a period which left, as it did, such important traces in the ecclesiastical architecture of North-western Europe, we may pause to consider the two forms of faith that now met face to face in battle. In both these systems we find belief in the immortality of the soul, but the latter is merely based on faith in the potency for good or ill of the embodied forces of nature. "The primary characteristic of this old northland mythology," says Carlyle, is the "impersonation" and "earnest simple recognition of the workings of physical nature, as a thing wholly miraculous, stupendous, and divine”—the recognition of such forces as personal agencies, gods and demons; and in this faith the main result attained was the belief in an inexorable and inflexible destiny which it is useless trying to bend or soften, and that the one thing needful for a man was to be brave. Odin stands the central figure of this Scandinavian religion; Frigga, Faeya, and Thor attend with a number of minor deities, and throughout the whole mythology vestiges of ancient and general tradition are to be found. Oracles, divinations, auspices, presages, and lots formed parts of their system. The Christianity by

Justin McCarthy was born in Cork in November, 1830. He had the advantage of an excellent education. In 1853 he went to Liverpool, which was then-perhaps owing to the fact that an Irishman was the owner of a leading paper in the city-a favourite huntingground of Irish journalists, and retained his connection with one of the newspapers till 1860. In that year he obtained a London engagement, being employed by the Morning Star as a member of its reporting staff. In the autumn of the same year he obtained another and more congenial situation on the same journal, being appointed foreign editor; and in 1864 he received further and well-merited recognition of his talents by being raised to the position of chief editor. In 1868 he resigned this post, and went to the United States. Here he found a public ready to welcome him; for he was well known, both through his own writings and as the conductor of a journal that had been unswerving in its friendship to the United States. His pen was eagerly sought for; but though he wrote a good deal, he chiefly employed himself in lecturing, and performed the remarkable feat of visiting nearly every town in the Union.

VOL. IV.

It will be seen from this sketch that Mr. McCarthy has had a sufficiently active life as a mere journalist; but he has found time besides to write a number of works which have made his name familiar throughout the whole English world. His first novel, The Waterdale Neighbours, was published in 1867. To this have succeeded My Enemy's Daughter (1869); Lady Judith (1871); A Fair Saxon (1873)—a work in which, we may mention en passant, the Anglo-Irish difficulty is discussed in a very good-tempered, and, indeed, it may be said, charming fashion, for the disputants are a beautiful Englishwoman and an Irish lover; Linley Rochford (1874); Dear Lady Disdain, (1875); Miss Misanthrope (1877); and Donna Quixote (1880). The qualities which distinguish all those works are a graceful, elegant, transparent style; keen insight into character, especially female character; and a satire which, though it can occasionally be sharp, is never absolutely cruel.

Mr. McCarthy's most successful work is in a different line from any of its predecessors. It is A History of our own Times (4 vols. 1879). Those volumes-written in lucid and vigorous English, free from party spirit, and abounding in picturesque description and striking portraits-have been eagerly read by all parties; and have passed through a large number of editions in a very short time. Mr. McCarthy is also the author of a volume of essays entitled Con Amore. Having, at the general election in 1874, refused two offers to stand for Irish con

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