-

next week be something to say in these columns. It has of course nothing whatever in common with La Périchole, which may well be separately Jacques Offenbach's opera bouffe spoken of. has for its heroine a street singer a goodnatured young woman who is greatly attached to her habitual companion, one Piquillo, another street singer. Like most of the heroes and heroines of opera bouffe, they live in an ideal world, with which morals have nothing to do-and it is quite without offence that in a world that makes no pretension to resemble ours, La Périchole should have omitted the ceremony of marriage, in consequence of its exceeding costliness. The Viceroy sees her and is enamoured of her-this is in Peru, but the eye of faith must still discern some world other than our

own-and he desires to bring her to his palace, but etiquette forbids the presence of spinsters there. So she must find an official husband for the Viceroy's convenience, and she chooses Paquillo himself. In this way they are to be married, and a hungry couple get a good meal at the wicked Viceroy's expense, and afterwards the Viceroy's plans

are to be thwarted and the faithful Périchole live happily for ever, with the faithful Paquillo. All this is done-except indeed the living happily for ever-to the accompaniment of Offenbach's best music. If the piece is trivial in subject, the performance is excellent. There is a good orchestra, though a small one, and there is an efficient chorus, and the scenery and appointments are suitable and bright, and the minor parts are well done. So much for the various accessories, all of which are, however, of much importance to success. A word about the leading performers. Mr. Sullivan is very droll as the Viceroy, and Mr. Fisher very satisfactory as the faithful lover. Mdme. Dolaro is La Périchole, and the best Périchole to be met with. To those who are not great admirers of Schneider it is not much to say that Mdme. Dolaro's representation is better than Schneider's. It is, in truth, very much better; for while very spirited, it is refined and graceful. Of course the drunken-song is a difficulty in the way, but it is pretty well overcome, while for Mdme. Dolaro's rendering of the famous "letter-song" and of the Spanish quasinational melody, there can be nothing but praise. Mdme. Dolaro has rapidly taken her place as the best, because at once the most complete and versatile, of English actresses in opera bouffe.

THE comedy of Home, duly noticed above, does not comprise more than half the programme at the Haymarket Theatre, where the piece is preceded by A Fair Encounter, which is a graceful little trifle from the French, played by Miss Dietz and Miss M. Harris, and is succeeded by the Serious Family, in which Mr. Buckstone's performance, as Aminadab Sleek, calls forth as much laughter as it has called forth at any time these many years. But neither piece calls for any considerable discussion.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is to be succeeded, at the Gaiety, by A Midsummer Night's Dream, it is said.

THE Ash Wednesday question has been revived this year, and Mr. John Hollingshead has written the following letter to the Lord Chamberlain :"My Lord,-I beg to forward your lordship a printed erpy of a paper signed by the members of my companies protesting against the compulsory closing of certain theatres on Ash Wednesday, and I also enclose copies of a few letters received by me which show the absurd exemptions to the Ash Wednesday rule existing in different parts of the country. Imitating your lordship's example on a recent occasion, when you issued a printed circular to theatrical managers, I have sent this correspondence to the press, so that the public may be in a position to judge between us. This question will probably be brought before Parliament early in the session, in connexion with an attempt

which will be made to remove the illegality of morning performances at concert rooms and entertainment galleries. The moment that brilliant sample of antique legislation (the 25th Geo. II. cap. 36) is brought before the House of Commons to be patched and

66

We, the undersigned members of the dramatic profession and of Mr. John Hollingshead's theatrical companies, beg most emphatically to protest against the law, custom, whim, and prejudice which compel us to remain idle, and to earn nothing on Ash Wednesday, while the three millions of people, more or less, in London, not being members of the dramatic profession, and the twenty-seven millions of people, more or less, in the suburbs and throughout the country, whether members of the dramatic profession or not, are at liberty to work on that mysterious day, in any moral or immoral, active or passive way, in which they are accustomed to work throughout the year."

Among the chief members of the profession (belonging at present to Mr. Hollingshead's companies, and so signing the protest) are Mr. Phelps, Mr. Hermann Vezin, and Mr. and Mrs. Kendal.

any one else.

the authorities who did at last tardily "decorate" Samson, wished the decoration to be made the occasion of a promise by him that he would never again appear upon the boards. "Jamais!" he answered, indignantly, "je n'acheterai un honneur au prix d'une lâcheté, et je ne renierai pas toute ma vie sous prétexte d'en décorer la fin!" His pride, as we know well, was not only personal pride, or pride in his profession and his triumph in it; it was also pride in his country. He was always intensely patriotic, and M. Legouvé might have added, what he must well have knownthat he died not so much of old age or disease as of torture at his fatherland over-run and humiliated. He retired, we know, to Blois. In time, the Prussians got there, and that finished what other troubles had begun. The proud and sensitive old man died of the effects of that shock.

MUSIC.

CRYSTAL PALACE-BEETHOVEN'S MASS IN C.

THE Saturday Concerts at the Crystal Palace are so uniformly good that one can hardly venture to use with reference to any one of them the phrase "of more than usual interest." Nevertheless, I feel almost tempted to say this of last week's concert, because it gave amateurs an opportunity of hearing one of Beethoven's greatest masterpieces, which is but seldom performed on a scale at all adapted to its adequate presentation. This was the mass in C, the first of the two with which the composer of Fidelio enriched the music of the Catholic church. The work is not infrequently to be heard with orchestral accompaniments on festival days in our Roman Catholic churches; but with a necessarily small band and chorus, such as is available on these occasions, much of the effect, especially in the more massive portions of the music, is inevitably sacrificed. It was therefore a great treat to hear a performance of the mass with such a band and chorus as those over which Mr. Manns presides. It had been once previously given at the Crystal Palace, on November 5, 1870. It has also been occasionally produced by the Sacred Harmonic Society, but the enormous vocal and instrumental force engaged at the concerts of this society is as much too large as an ordinary church choir is too small; the proper balance of tone is destroyed altogether, and many of the more delicate effects are indistinguishable.

The Mass in C was composed in the year 1807, shortly after the pianoforte concerto in G, and the

THE second part of M. Legouvé's conférence on Samson and his pupils was even more interesting than the first, of which we gave a few notes last Saturday. In the second part, the author of Adrienne Lecouvreur spoke of Samson's relations with Rachel. Rachel repaid him his pains, more than any one else, and she got from him more than At the end of her career, just as much as at the beginning, she depended on advice as to how she should play each character; and Samson's counsel was of the utmost use to her from the time when she began, to the time when the two became estranged. He recognised from the first her power; but her power was not so much of conceiving a whole character as of finding, at isolated passages, cries and expressions of amazing significance and genius. She knew this herself, and when they quarrelled once or twice before their final rupture, she said-so says M. Legouvé "J'ai tout perdu en perdant M. Samson. J'en mourrai! Je veux quitter le théâtre. Je ne puis rien sans lui." When it was objected to that, that she should rely on her own genius, she answered, "Oui: je me sens née pour aller très haut. Mais je ne peux pas m'élever seule. Je trouve bien des effets isolés, des mots de passion, des accents de vérité, mais l'ensemble d'un rôle m'épouvante." And afterwards she said that Samson alone guided her. "He gave me ideas, which in their turn gave me other ideas." And anyone who has any serious knowledge of the art of acting will understand that expression of hers "l'ensemble d'un rôle m'épouvante," and will not draw from it the inference that Rachel was less great than she has been considered to be. "Very blind and very ungrateful would those be," M. Legouvé justly adds, "who should see in this marvellous artist only the echo of her master. Samson did not create Rachel. He evoked her." Samson, it None of Beethoven's works are more representais further related, had all the traditional reverence tive of what is commonly known as his "second for Corneille and Racine. Once, when Théophile style" than the present mass. From the first bar Gautier had confided to him one of the most im- to the last it bears the strongly-marked impress portant dramatic feuilletons in Paris, he spoke of his originality. Nothing can be more unlike slightingly of these two French classics. Samson an average mass by Mozart and Haydn than could not restrain his rage at what he considered the mass in C. The very first movement, the almost blasphemy. It did not matter if he offended "Kyrie," shows the difference at once. Gautier-he rather willingly embroiled himself Haydn's six grand masses, written for the same with him. "Il se précipita," says M. Legouvé, Prince Esterhazy, for whom this work was comavec l'impétuosité d'un fidèle qui défend ses posed, the prayer "Lord have mercy upon us," is dieux." And if Samson loved all the old tradi- generally set to extremely lively music, which tions of the French Theatre, he was very jealous offers the flattest contradiction to the sense of the of its good fame. He felt very keenly how much words, and which can only be explained by esprit de corps was wanting in his profession, and Haydn's own remark that the thought of God's it was he, along with Baron Taylor, who esta-goodness filled him with such joy that he believed blished the Society of Dramatic Artists. Union, he could not help setting even a 66 Miserere" in which had done so much for the clergy, for the tempo allegro. Beethoven, on the contrary, treats bar, for the profession of medicine and the pro- his "Kyrie" in a strictly devotional spirit, as it is fession of literature, should do something for also treated by Cherubini and Schubert in their actors too. Only after Samson retired, in his old age, did he receive the decoration of the Legion of Honour. Official France does not always share the views common in French society, and

46

overture to Coriolan. It was written for Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, the patron of Haydn, and, on the authority of Herr C. F. Pohl, of Vienna (quoted by "G." in last Saturday's programme), was first performed in the Prince's chapel at Eisenstadt on September 13 of the above-named year. It was not, however, published until 1812.

masses.

In

The final "Dona nobis" is a similar instance of the attention paid to the spirit of the words. It was the custom with Haydn and Mozart to conclude their masses with a brilliant

chorus, suggestive rather of a feeling of relief at getting out of church than of a prayer for peace. Beethoven ends his mass with a reminiscence of the opening movement, his music dies away in an impressive pianissimo. Space forbids entering in detail into all the numbers of this great work; nor can I do more than mention the exquisite beauty of such slow movements as the "Qui tollis" and the "Et incarnatus," or the grand effect of the "inverted pedal" (the upper G held by the treble voices against the moving harmonies of the other parts) in the great fugue which concludes the "Gloria." But a word or two should be said of the fugal writing; and the more so because it is frequently asserted that this was Beethoven's weak point. It is true that in his works strict fugues are seldom, if ever, to be met with; but this is because with him the fugue is a means of expression, not the end-not what Dr. Bülow, speaking of Bach's fugues, has so happily described as the " Selbstzweck-Fuge." Such movements as the "Cum Sancto Spiritu" and the "Et vitam” prove clearly enough Beethoven's mastery of counterpoint; and the very licences which he here allows himself are the results of design, not of incapacity. The rules of the school were his servants, . not his masters.

The performance of the mass on Saturday was in many respects admirable. Mr. Manns's "reading was very judicious, though I could not but think that he took the "Kyrie" perceptibly slower than Beethoven designed it. The pace of the other movements left little or nothing to desire. Again must special praise and congratulation be given to the Crystal Palace choir, who fully realized the expectations raised by their excellent performance at previous concerts this season. The chorus parts are by no means easy, and they were, with one or two very trifling exceptions, most admirably rendered, not only as regards precision, but still more in respect to the observance of the nuances. The piano singing in the "Qui tollis," "Benedictus," and elsewhere was all that could be wished. Of the orchestra it is superfluous to speak; their share of the work was simply perfect. The solo parts were on the whole less satisfactory. Miss Blanche Cole, who sang the soprano part, is much more at home in operatic (in which, as is well known, she excels), than in sacred music; nor did Miss Julia Elton appear very comfortable with the alto solos. On the other hand, Mr. Vernon Rigby and Mr. Lewis Thomas (though the last-named gentleman was suffering from indisposition) were both heard to advantage.

Beethoven's Mass was not the only specialty of the afternoon. True to their principle of giving, if possible, some absolute novelty at each concert, the programme included Reinecke's arrangement for orchestra of Schumann's six pianoforte duets entitled "Bilder aus Osten." The work in this form is only just published, and was announced on the present occasion as for "the first time in England." In their original shape the "Bilder aus Osten" are well known to pianists; and from their construction and the comparatively very small amount of mere 66 passage-writing" which they contain, they for the most part adapt themselves admirably to the orchestra. The first, fourth, and fifth numbers are especially successful

in their new dress. In addition to Sullivan's "In Memoriam" overture and various vocal solos,

the concert brought to a hearing, for the third time at Sydenham, Brahms's fine variations on a Theme by Haydn. It was certainly an error of judgment to put this elaborate piece at the end of a long programme. It was impossible that an audience, who had already been listening for nearly two hours, could properly enjoy a composition requiring such close attention for its full appreciation.

To-day Herr Joachim will make his first appearance this season in a concerto of Spohr's, and a new notturno of his own.

EBENEZER PROUT.

By the lamented death of Sir William Sterndale Bennett, which occurred on Monday last, the 1st inst., English music has lost its most distinguished representative. It is but rarely that any English composer succeeds in gaining a continental reputation ; but it is hardly too much to say that the name of Bennett was as well known in the musical centres of Germany as in London. He was born in 1816, in Sheffield, his father being an organist of some distinction in that town. He lost both parents at a very early age; but his musical talent being recognised by friends he was sent, in 1824, to King's College, Cambridge, as a chorister in the chapel. Thence he proceeded to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied under Dr. Crotch, at that time principal of that institution, and Cipriani Potter. At this period he produced some of his best works, among others his pianoforte concertos in C minor and F minor, and his overtures to Die Naiaden and Die Waldnymphe. In 1836 he visited Germany, and was fortunate enough to gain the friendship of Mendelssohn and Schumann. The former introduced his chief works at the celebrated Gewandhaus concerts at Leipzig, of which he was then conductor; while the latter, at that time editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, lost no opportunity of calling his readers' attention to the merits of the young Englishman. Under these circumstances Bennett's music was, as it deserved, most favourably received. On his return from Germany he resumed his professional work in London, and was equally esteemed as a pianist and as a teacher. In 1856 he was appointed Professor of Music in the University of Cambridge, and in the same year became conductor of the Philharmonic Society, which post he held for twelve years. In 1858 he composed his cantata The May Queen for the Leeds Festival held during that year. In 1862 he was selected to compose a work representative of English music for the opening of the International Exhibition, the poem being written for the occasion by TennyIn 1867 he composed for the Birmingham Festival his oratorio The Woman of Samaria. In 1868 he succeeded Mr. Charles Lucas as Principal of the Royal Academy, a position which he continued to hold til his death. He received the honour of knighthood in 1871. As a composer Sir Sterndale Bennett belonged to the school of Mendelssohn. His works resemble those of that great master, not only in the nature of their ideas, but in the beauty of their artistic finish. Like a true musician, he never wrote down to the popular taste. His most recent compositions, the symphony in G minor (lately performed at the Crystal Palace), and the pianoforte sonata "The Maid of Orleans," show the same purity of style and delicacy of workmanship which elicited the praises of Schumann and Mendelssohn nearly forty years since. Of Bennett's ultimate position among composers it would be premature to express an opinion; of his beneficial influence on music in this country there can be no doubt. In his personal relations he was esteemed and respected by all who knew him.

son.

THE almost inexhaustible richness of the réper

toire of Haydn's eighty-three quartetts was proved at the last Monday Popular Concert by

the introduction for the "first time at these concerts" of one of the finest of the series-that in B flat, Op. 71, No. 1. It might have been supposed that all the best quartetts would, ere this,

have been heard at the more than five hundred concerts already given; but there seems no limit to the supply of fresh beauties to be found in Haydn's chamber music. Space will not allow a detailed notice of the quartett, which was admirably played by Mdme. Norman-Nóruda, and Messrs. Ries, Zerbini and Piatti. The pianist was Dr. Bülow, who introduced as a novelty Raff's very clever and interesting Suite for piano solo in E minor, two movements from which he recently played at one of his recitals. The other concerted pieces were Beethoven's sonata in A, Op. 30, No. 1, and

Spohr's trio in A minor, both of which had been previously given at these concerts. Miss Alice Fairman was the vocalist, and Sir Julius Benedict the conductor. On Monday next, Herr Joachim will make his first appearance at St. James's Hall for the present season.

HERR WILHELMJ was again heard on Tuesday night at the Royal Albert Hall; when, in a new concerto, composed expressly for him by F. Hégar, he again showed himself one of the first living performers on the violin. The work is of considerable interest and much novelty of form, The programme also included Mendelssohn's "Italian " overtures to Der symphony, the Freischütz and "In Memoriam," which last was also played at the Crystal Palace last Saturday, and the March from the Prophète. The vocalists were Mdlle. Levier and Mr. W. H. Cummings,

MR. KUHE's annual Musical Festival at Brighton is to commence on Tuesday next, and will be continued until the 22nd inst. The chief works announced for performance are: Bach's Passion according to Matthew, Costa's Naaman, Macfarren's St. John the Baptist, Gounod's Gallia, the Creation, the Messiah, Barnett's Lay of the Last Minstrel, Sullivan's " Ouvertura di Ballo," and Benedict's overture to The Tempest. The list of soloists engaged is excellent; and the band and chorus will be complete in every department.

VERDI is said to be engaged upon a new opera, the subject of which is taken from Shakspere's King Lear.

THE Musikalisches Wochenblatt announces that Offenbach is writing a mass, which is to be performed at a family festival. If the statement be correct, the work will doubtless be looked for with much curiosity.

DR. SLOMAN'S Cantata, Supplication and Praise, Albert Hall, London, will be shortly performed, which was performed in June last at the Royal with orchestral accompaniments, by the Melbourne Choral Society, Derby.

The Communistic Societies of the United States, from Personal Visit and Observation: including detailed accounts of the Economists, Zoarites, Shakers, the Amana, Oneida, Bethel, Aurora, Icarian, and other existing Societies, their Religious Creeds, Social Practices, Numbers, Industries, and Present Condition. By Charles Nordhoff, Author of "Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands; "California, for Health, Pleasure, and Residence," &c., &c., &c. With Illustrations. (London: John Murray, 1875.)

MANY portions of Mr. Nordhoff's subject are not new to the English reader. Through Mr. Hepworth Dixon's works and others, the peculiarities of the Shakers and Economists, of the Perfectionists of Oneida, are pretty well known to us already. The value of Mr. Nordhoff's volume consists in its more comprehensive scope, comprising, it would seem, all the communistic societies (outside of Romish monachism) now existing in the United States; in the utter absence from its pages of sensationalism and pruriency; and in the interesting generalisations contained in the " Comparative View with

which the volume terminates.

It need hardly be said that the bodies to which Mr. Nordhoff's book refers represent communism in the older sense of the word, as implying community of property, and not in the political sense impressed upon it by the Paris" communards" as having reference to the organisation and independence of the commune. In the former sense, the term is applied to eight principal societies, all of which were personally visited by the author, and which comprise together seventy-two communes, besides two small bodies, very recently founded, which are described at second hand. There is also an account of a body which has ceased to exist in a communistic form, and of a few "colonies" which are not communistic. Of the eight chief societies, which contained in 1874 "about 5,000 persons" (Mr. Nordhoff's figures added up give over 5,200), the oldest dates from 1794, the youngest from 1852, so that they represent an experience of from twenty-two to eighty years.

Taking the subject within the limits traced by Mr. Nordhoff, it must be admitted that its importance lies rather in the future than in the present. 5,000 or 5,200 persons among the many millions in the United States are but a drop in the ocean. Of the eight chief societies, only two, the Inspirationists at Amana, Iowa, and the Shakers, exceed 1,000, the former with 1,450

members, the latter with 2,415; so that these two bodies comprise together more than two-thirds of the whole number of communists in America. The eight societies own together from 150,000 to 180,000 acres is," says Mr. Nordhoff, "for this country, a of land, or thirty-six acres per head, "which comparatively small holding of land;" but it is "probably a low estimate" of their collective wealth to place it "at twelve millions of dollars," or "" over 2,000 dollars per head, counting men, women, and children." And "it is not an exaggeration to say that almost the whole of this wealth has been created by the patient industry and strict economy and honesty of its owners, without a positive or riches, and without painful toil." eager desire on their part to accumulate

But the eight societies in question must be taken only as instances of "the survival of the fittest." Although the history of only one extinct commune is given, a list extracted from Mr. Noyes's History of American Socialisms shows that by 1870 there had been no fewer than forty-seven failures, no less than eighteen of which, it may be observed, testify by the title of "phalanxes" to the extraordinary seductiveness of the Fourierist doctrines. Moreover, none of the communities are stated to be increasing in numbers, except the Inspirationists or Eben-Ezers, and the Perfectionists. In some there is a marked falling off. The Economists have dwindled down to their present 110 from 750, which they were at starting; they are "most of them grey-haired," and seem evidently dying out. The Separatists, though more numerous than at first starting, were double their present number thirty-five years ago. The Shakers have "not in recent years increased," though they expect "large accessions in the course of the next few years." From this it would seem clear that the communes cannot be exercising an increasing influence upon the American people; and this is further shown by the fact that they are mainly composed of foreigners. "In origin the Icarians are French; the Shakers and Perfectionists Americans; the others are Germans; and these outnumber all the American communists." The Shakers themselves came from England; and thus it would appear that American Communism is really, with the sole exception of the Perfectionists, a product of the Old World and not of the New.

Hence, although Mr. Nordhoff's conclusions are, on the whole, extremely favourable to the communistic form of life-although he has "no doubt that the communists are the most long-lived of our population," tells us that they are "usually healthy," that "drunkenness is unknown in all the communes," that "the communist's life is full of devices for personal ease and comfort," that the people are "everywhere cheerful, merry in their quiet way, and with a suffici ent number and variety of healthful interests in life; " that they are "all very cleanly; that the "reputation for honesty and for always selling a good article is worth to the Shakers, the Amana and other communes, at least 10 per cent. over their competitors; that they are "humane and charitable," and uniformly kind to their hired hands, so that it is a privilege to be employed by them, and

66

that even the animals of a commune are always better lodged and more carefully attended to than is usual among its neighbours,"-it is clear that there is as yet for the bulk of mankind something repellent in countervail all its advantages and attractions. the communistic life, which is sufficient to That this something is neither the celibacy of the Shakers and Economists on the one hand, nor the distorted morality of the Perfectionists on the other, is clearly shown by the fact that communes where marriage is in honour, and no restriction is placed upon it, do not appear to increase more than the others.

Much of the newest matter in Mr. Nordhoff's book relates to the Inspirationists of Amana, the second most numerous among the societies examined, but which lives in Iowa in "rigorous seclusion," and entirely conceals itself and "its faith and plan from the general public." The members, all German, own about 25,000 acres of land, on which they live in seven small towns. They derive their name from their claiming to govern themselves by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, speaking through "instruments; holding the work of inspiration to have begun again in the later times about the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. A leader of the name of Christian Metz, a carpenter, brought them over from Germany in 1842, and their present head is a woman, Barbara Heynemann, originally a poor Alsatian servant-maid, altogether untaught. Their "Rules for Daily Life" were drawn up by one of their earlier leaders, "an old mystic, E. L. Gruber." Here are a few out of twenty-one :

"1. To obey, without reasoning, God, and through God our superiors.

2. To study quiet, or serenity, within and with

13. Fly from the society of womankind as much as possible, as a very highly dangerous magnet and magical fire..

Another very interesting account, outside of the author's regular subject, is that of a noncommunistic undertaking, the colony of Vincland, in New Jersey, established by a "longheaded, kind-hearted man," Mr. Charles K. Landis, in a region called "the Barrens," the light soil of which was supposed to be "unfit for profitable agriculture," but upon which, by means of certain simple rules and the exercise of judicious forethought, he managed to gather in twelve years, upon a tract which had "not a single inhabitant in 1861," about 11,000 people, who have built "twenty fine school-houses, ten churches," and kept up 178 miles of road; the poortax in Vineland township amounting to about five cents for each inhabitant per annum, and police expenses to about one-half cent, while these two items in another township of the same state amount to two dollars per head.

Mr. Nordhoff's introduction is disfigured by a violent and uncalled-for attack on

trade-unions, which in fact only shows his ignorance of the subject. He will perhaps be surprised not only to hear that co-operative views are very largely entertained by men who are also the most devoted of trade unionists--that co-operative bodies have been in several instances established, and in some instances successfully carried on, by tradeunions--but that some of their leaders have been trained in those communistic views which he seems to consider purely antagonistic to trade-unionism; and I feel certain that, if he will take the trouble to investigate the macrocosm of trade-unionism with anything like the personal care and thoughtful impartiality with which he has investigated the microcosm of Communism, the results of his enquiries will be at least as favourable to the former as to the latter.

no

or

One word also in vindication of a man now dead, of whom Mr. Nordhoff speaks with a harshness strangely contrasting with the tenderness with which he treats a personage like Mr. Noyes, of "complex marriage" notoriety. Etienne Cabet was "vain dreamer," without "grim patience" "steadfast unselfishness." He was a dreamer, but the influence he exercised was precisely owing to his "steadfast unselfishness." The least talented of all Socialist leaders of our day-not eloquent either with tongue or pen-it is by sheer weight and simplicity of character, conjoined with faith in his Icaria, that he drew French working-men to him, never sparing their vices or their follies, always inculcating the strictest morality; a man of so high a courage that, when he had in his absence (according to the atrocious French criminal system) been convicted on a charge of fraud, he came back to France as soon as he had settled his colony, in the darkest days of the Napoleon régime, for the sole purpose of submitting to a second trial, and with a full expectation of being sentenced, on the strength of his name, to several years of imprisonment. A friend of mine, who has since won a high place in literature, saw him on this occasion during his passage through England, and declared that "the old Frenchman of sixtyfive" might fairly stand beside Regulus. As it happened, he was fully acquitted; but considering what French courts of justice are, and especially what they were then, the act was simply heroic.

And finally, to turn to quite a different subject, why, when Mr. Nordhoff appends to his work a bibliography, could he not render his readers the further service of putting some order into it, whether chronological or alphabetical? Even different editions of what appears to be the same work are separated, whilst one entry occurs twice over; compare, for instance, Nos. 2, 45, 46, and 47, or again 21 and 40. Mr. Nordhoff should have employed a Shaker to draw up his bibliography.

J. M. LUDLOW.

Assyrian Discoveries. By George Smith. (London: Sampson Low & Co., 1875.) MR. SMITH'S book is one of great interest for the scholar as well as for the general public, and it can be heartily recommended to both classes of readers. The new ma

terials he has furnished for the reconstruction of the history of the past will not be more acceptable to the one than the record of travels and explorations among the ruins of an ancient empire to the other. Indeed, many of the inscriptions, translations of which form the second half of the volume, are likely to awaken a keen interest in others besides professed students, not only on account of their theological bearings, but yet more of their intrinsic merits.

It will be remembered that Mr. Smith's discovery of the native Chaldean account of the Flood induced the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, with a munificence worthy of imitation, to send him to the site of Nineveh to search among its buried libraries for the missing fragments of the tablets which narrated the story of the Deluge. The expedition was successful, and the present volume contains the first translation yet made of the whole text of this remarkable document. While waiting for the Sultan's firman to authorise his excavations, Mr. Smith floated down the Tigris from Mosul to Bagdad, stopping on his way to examine the mound of Kalah Sherghat, the ancient Asshur or Ellasar, and visited some of the most famous sites of Babylonia. When at last the firman arrived, "I left," he says, "this part of the country with regret, as I was far more desirous of excavating here than in Assyria. Babylonia is the older and richer country, and is a field not worked nearly so much as Assyria; words which every Assyrian student will reecho. Work was begun as soon as possible at Nimrud, Nebbi Yunus, and Kouyunjik, the ancient Calah and Nineveh; and on May 14 the traveller had the satisfaction of finding the clay fragment which exactly fitted into the vacant places of the Delugetablets. His satisfaction, however, was not an unmixed one, as the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, considering the object of the expedition to be accomplished, and that the work they had begun ought to be taken up by the nation, now summoned him home. After continuing the search for antiquities up to the last moment before departure, he closed his trenches, and quitted Mosul on June 9, arriving in England the following month. He had to leave his antiquities behind him, however, as the Turkish officials, with a duplicity and obstructiveness from which Mr. Smith had often to suffer, detained them in the custom-house at Alexandretta, from which they were only released by the exertions of the British consul, Mr. Franck. The constant trouble that the explorer experienced from the representatives of a Power which we once aided at the expense of so much life and treasure is a matter for astonishment and regret.

The Trustees of the British Museum determined to send Mr. Smith on a second expedition to Nineveh before the expiration of the firman, in order that the fragmentary inscriptions in the Museum might be still further supplemented and completed by an exploration of the Library of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik. He accordingly entered Mosul a second time on January 1, 1874, but the annoyances he encountered on this occasion from the authorities of the Turkish government, whose archaeological cupidity had

been aroused by Dr. Schliemann's discovery of gold ornaments at Hissarlik, embittered his stay, and seriously interfered with his excavations. Much, however, was found, and in spite of another seizure of the antiquities near Aleppo, Mr. Smith and his treasures succeeded in reaching England in safety.

The account of his journeyings and adventures, his discoveries and difficulties, is told with unaffected simplicity, and some of the passages of the book remind one of the charming freshness of early travellers. It is prefaced by a brief history of cuneiform decipherment, and a list of the chief works upon the subject, among which, however, we miss any notice of Mr. Smith's own publications. But the main characteristic of the volume, which will give it an abiding value, is the translations of the most important and interesting of the inscriptions he has found. For the first time the palaces of ancient Nineveh were investigated by one who knew what to look for and what to pass by, and who was able at once to appreciate, as few else can, the importance of the relics he unearthed. Foremost among translated inscriptions comes a fairly complete text of the Deluge-tablet, together with other por tions of the "Izdubar" series of legends, the oldest epic of which we know. I find myself, however, unable to agree with Mr. Smith's conclusion that the theory started by Sir H. Rawlinson that these legends describe the passage of the sun through the Zodiac "is contradicted by their plain narra tive;" it seems to me, on the contrary, that the additional matter supplied by Mr. Smith furnishes further proof of the theory in question. Thus the sixth tablet records the love and vengeance of Ishtar, corresponding to the name of the sixth Zodiacal sign, while the ninth month of "clouds "and the tenth month" of the eastern sea

answer to the visit of "Izdubar" to cloudland, where the giants, like Atlas, "guard the rising sun, their crown at the lattice of heaven, under hell their feet," and his journey to the sea to seek Sisuthrus. Next in point of interest to these old legends are the tablets which contain hymns to the gods, instructions to rulers, and astronomical details; but the chronologist and historian will find plenty to attract them in the large mass of new or supplementary data which Mr. Smith has brought home. An ancient Babylonian inscription throws light on the early con dition of that country, a new text of Sargon's refers to his conquest of Judaea in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, which has been mixed up by the Jewish writers with the campaign of Sennacherib ten years later, and the fragmentary annals of TiglathPileser, so important to the Biblical student, are for the first time given in full. Tablets from Babylon, again, fix the date of the revolt of Arsakes from the Seleukidae and the foundation of the Parthian monarchy, and thus settle what has long been a disputed question of chronology.

Besides his strictly "Assyriological" discoveries, Mr. Smith came across much else of considerable interest. To say nothing of bilingual inscriptions in Assyrian and Phoe nician, or of the famous Bagdad lion, one of the few remains of the Hyksos in Egypt, he saw at Aleppo a new inscription written in

the so-called Hamath hieroglyphics, and found in the palace of Assur-bani-pal at Kouyunjik several objects from Kyprus, one of them stamped with three Kypriote characters. The existence of this curious syllabary in the seventh century B.C. is thus proved, and may be recommended to the notice of those who are at present engaged upon the subject.

Where there is so much fresh material and healthy narrative appealing to different classes of readers, it is impossible to pick out special passages for quotation without exceeding the limits of a review. The reader may put perfect confidence in the statements of the author. Every Cuneiform scholar will guarantee the substantial accuracy of Mr. Smith's translations, while his extraordinary skill as a decipherer is too well known to need remark. He is distinguished, too, by common sense and care not to go beyond his facts. Once or twice, however, he has forgotten his wonted caution, as when he says that Nineveh was built by Nimrod, or that the god Sukamuna was a Babylonian king. The Babylonian royal family, indeed, traced its descent from Sukamuna, just as Hekataeus counted a deity among his ancestors, but it never transformed Sukamuna into an earthly monarch. A similar disregard of the boundary between the mythical and the historical has led him also to claim a place for "Izdubar" among the personages of history. This is the more to be regretted, as Assyriologues have already incurred the jast suspicions of historians and critics by the readiness of their historical belief. The "Niebuhrian method" has yet to be applied to the study of the Assyrian inscriptions. Apart from these microscopic blemishes, however, Mr. Smith's book is a thoroughly good one, simple and straightforward and, in fact, just what it professes to be. It is emphatically a record of discoveries, and at the same time a monument of patient perseverance and conquest over difficulties.

A. H. SAYCE.

MAURER'S HISTORY OF ICELAND.

Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergange des Freistaats. Von Konrad Maurer. (München.)

Ir is strange enough that not from any of the scholars of Scandinavia, but from a German, we receive the first really important contribution to Icelandic history produced since, and in consequence of, the ThousandYears' Feast. The learned author states in his preface that he has even hurried his work somewhat that it might be published at the very time of the Jubilee, in order to prove to his Icelandic friends that though circumstances prevented him from being personally present, he was still in full sympathy with them in the moment of their triumph, and to show the German world of readers what a unique place in the history of culture has been held by the inhabitants of the remote and barren island to which Denmark has just granted a long-wished-for Constitution. So delicate a compliment as this cannot fail to delight the Icelandic people, who will ask, and not without ground, why it did not occur to any of the great scholars of Norway or Denmark to exert themselves in a similar

way, and so to save their countrymen from the extraordinary indifference and ignorance that they show in all matters concerning the island to which they owe so much. It was not until the end of the eighth century that Iceland first became known. Its earliest discoverers and visitors were the Celts, who were at that time in undisputed possession of the islands on the north and west coasts of Scotland, and the few anchorites who had already ventured as far as Shetland and the Faroe Islands, and who now, in search of penitential solitude, fled further still from the haunts of man. An Irish monk, Dicuilus, in a work written in the year 825, describes a visit a friend of his had made thirty years previously to an island far north of Scotland, which he considered to be the Thule mentioned by Pliny and others. It was not, however, until seventy years later still that Iceland was discovered by the Northmen. A Norwegian discovered by the Northmen. A Norwegian viking, Naddoor by name, sailed thither, and called it Snæland, because it was covered with snow. Slightly later a Swede, Garðar Svavarson, eircumnavigated Iceland, and named it Garðarsholmr, after himself. Its present title is owing to the third Northman who visited it, a Norwegian, Flóki Vilgerdarson; his exploration is considered to have taken place about the year 870, and from this moment an enormous emigration to Iceland from the mainland of Scandinavia took place, the main stream of which, headed by Ingólfr Arnarson, reached it in 874, and it was the anniversary of the landing of the colonists close to the spot at present occupied by the capital of Iceland Reykjavík-that has just been so joyously celebrated. After a brief account of this stream of emigration, and its causes, the author proceeds to discuss the nature of the island itself, its climate and resources, in those early days, and then the nature and qualities of the remarkable race that took possession of it. It will be remembered that the main cause of so many of the very best families in Norway leaving their fatherland was the impossibility of bearing the tyranny of Harald Fairhair, when he made himself King of all Norway, so that the Jubilee of Norwegian Unification in 1872 was the natural precursor and forerunner of the Icelandic Jubilee of 1874.

Professor Maurer then starts upon the main theme of his book, the history of the Icelandic Republic. He sketches the chaotic condition in which the settlers first found themselves plunged; the sudden determination in self-defence to create laws and a civilised political constitution, and then the inestimable benefit which accrued to the infant state from the possession of a great legal genius in Úlfljót, whose laws became the basis of the Icelandic Commonwealth. He then passes to the introduction of Christianity, and traces the progress of the new religion as far as the foundation of the bishopric of Skálholt, and the full establishment of the Icelandic church. In due course he passes to the consideration of the fall of the Republic. The golden age of Icelandic freedom lies between the beginning of the eleventh and the end of the twelfth centuries. All the chaotic elements that had troubled the earlier settlers were completely at rest;

arts and sciences were flourishing, and the national literature was at the full blossom of its best period. Professor Maurer, in answering the natural question, how it was that this brilliant period came so rapidly to an end, attributes its decline mainly to internal reasons, to the unique conditions of the communities called "goðorð," the chiefs of which held priestly power in pre-Christian times, and till the end of the Commonwealth retained a large share in the national government, and also to the no less unique relation of the Church to the State. The rivalry between the goðar and the priests created an ecclesiastical opposition that gravitated towards Norway. It is to the eternal disgrace of the great poet and historian, Snorri Sturluson, perhaps the first imaginative genius that Iceland has produced, that it was through his active intervention that the Republic ultimately fell, and that Iceland passed into the hands of Hákon, King of Norway.

The second division of Professor Maurer's work is no less able and weighty, but deals with matters of less general interest. First he discusses the internal construction of the Icelandic Commonwealth, its civil and criminal laws, its parliamentary constitution, its development and gradual perfection, and finally its division and decay. He then passes to the church, analysing in full its organisation, its oscillation between the archiepiscopal sees of Bremen-Hamburg and Lund, the creation of a bishopric of Skálholt and later on of Hólar, and of the peculiar nature of the jurisdiction of the bishops. He then gives a minute description of the priestly order, and of the functions and privileges of its members; describes the cloister-life as we know it from the early Christian literature, and finally draws a sketch of the ecclesiastical life generally in Iceland during the later years of the Commonwealth.

It would be impossible in these columns to follow the distinguished Professor through all the divisions of his subject. He says himself that had he worked out to the full the treasuries of Icelandic history and law that thirty years of indefatigable study have gathered around him, not one volume, but thirty would be needed to present only an analysis of the whole. One cannot, however, but admire the consummate skill with which the present volume has been put together. In every page one is conscious that one listens to a teacher who speaks with authority, and though it is in some respects a book of a popular nature, there is also conspicuous everywhere the sensitive and scrupulous hand of a writer who will not hazard the smallest dictum without being' certain of his authorities. More than this one dare not say. A man must be profoundly learned or ridiculously arrogant who would venture to praise such a scholar as Konrad Maurer! EDMUND W. GOSSE.

SIGNOR GINO CAPPONI's Storia della Repubblica de Firenze has been received with such favour in Florence that a subscription is already on foot for the purpose of erecting a bust of the anthor. The Italian papers announce the speedy appearance of the letters of Alessandro Manzoni, collected and edited by Giovanni Sforza (Pisa).