ancy of the Italian Renaissance nor the acute genius of an Erasmus. He remained from first to last a conscientious Protestant and a laborious reader, gifted with a powerful memory, a fair faculty of judgment, and a complete command of the two learned languages.

After laying down this volume, in which the Rector of Lincoln College has traced, with unwavering firmness and with a mental energy in every line apparent, the life of one whom Joseph Scaliger named the first Grecian of the age, and whom Grotius admired for "piety, honesty, and candour, not less remarkable than vast all-embracing erudition," there is left upon our minds a deep sense of final disappointment in the man. The work actually accomplished by this great scholar was out of all proportion to the preparations which he made. The learning he so laboriously accumulated was nearly wasted, so far as posterity is concerned. The exercitations on Baronius, which killed him, are an incomplete fragment, ill-arranged, and directed against a most unworthy antagonist. The edition of Athenaeus, which he did not love, remains by far the most solid of his achievements. His work again owes nothing to its form, or his thonght to its originality, Though he wrote Greek and Latin with equal facility, and though his preference for these dead languages made him use his native tongue like a peasant, yet his Latin style was commonplace and tame. It was only the soundness of his scholarship, the extent and reality of his knowledge, his modesty and paramount good-sense, that saved Casaubon from being a mere Dryasdust; in the same way his manliness of bearing and the solidity of his character prevent our regarding him as the pedantic and querulous bookworm which the Ephemerides reveal. We cannot but feel that, allowing for altered circumstances and an artist's licence, George Eliot in Mr. Casanbon of Middlemarch has produced what might pass for a clever caricature of Isaac Casaubon. Public men may recognise themselves in the portraits, manufactured by the aid of a carte de visite and a gravy spoon, which adorn Vanity Fair. If Isaac Casaubon could return to life, he would grimly smile at the likeness of his own lineaments thrown back from the distorting mirror of a novelist's imagination. It may be that the frigid force of George Eliot's psychology, and the merciless use made of Casaubon's name in that analysis of an abortive life of study, preoccupy the attention unduly and divert the judgment. Yet even if Casaubon's patronymic occurs by accident in Middlemarch, it is not improbable that an association, deriving its sting from George Eliot's genius, will continue for a while to prejudice the minds of many against a man who, judged by the intellectual standards of his century, was worthy of all respect. Which will last the longer and prevail-Isaac Casaubon, or Dorothea's husband? That is a matter for even betting. Habent sua fata libelli. J. A. SYMONDS.

Statement exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India during the Year 1872-73. By Clements R. Markham. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, June 2, 1874.

(First Notice.)

As far as the happiness of the human race is dependent on its material prosperity and the beneficent intention of its rulers, the student of history would probably turn to the epoch of the Roman Empire under its good Emperors as the golden age of the world. The correspondence of Trajan and Pliny survives to exhibit the spirit of the Roman rule over its dependencies in its best days, and affords a delightful picture of a philanthropic ruler of a province consulting with the irresponsible master of the world on every detail of administration affecting the welfare of the people. The construction of an aqueduct, the repairs of a public bath, the drainage of an inland sea, the remedy for a polluted river, with questions that concern the rights of the Emperor and the privileges of the subjects, are disposed of by Trajan in a spirit that commands our admiration for his common sense and our respect for his innate justice. The Empire of India, which has fallen to England almost despite its own wishes, certainly without any premeditated design of conquest, is the largest that has ever been held as a foreign dependency since the golden days of Rome; and, whatever may have been their mistakes and shortcomings, it may be fairly said that her rulers have been actuated by the spirit of a Trajan.

In the papers whose title heads this article, Mr. Markham has produced a compendious account of what has been effected to the present time, especially in the material progress of the country. The subject is not generally interesting. India is the dinnerbell of the House of Commons, and unless roused by the news of a rebellion or a famine, Englishmen are content to take on trust the fact that their countrymen in the East are not neglecting their duty, while the fondness of Anglo-Indian writers for unknown terms and Oriental technicalities adds to the general distaste for a discussion of Indian topics. To those readers of the ACADEMY who may not be deterred by this feeling, I have to thank the Editor for an opportunity of presenting a summary of the results of our Indian rule, though to do so in a brief article is like cutting a map of the world upon a cherry-stone.

The keystone of the subject is Finance. England could not afford to govern India if the latter did not pay its own expenses, and the real difficulty of the problem to be solved by her rulers is to curtail philanthropic expenditure within due bounds, and not to purchase material improvements at the cost of a deficiency in the yearly Budget, or the odions alternative of the necessary imposition of taxes foreign to the spirit of the people. Most fortunately for the prosperity of our rule, the mainstay of Indian Finance, the Land Revenue, amounting to 21,000,000l., is no tax at all, but the rental of the land received either in whole or part by the Government which in England belongs to private proprietors. Nine millions more

are raised on opium, as a contribution from the Chinese consumers of the drug. Six millions are raised on salt by a real tax on the people, which is paid without a murmur, having been levied from time immemorial by every ruler of the country. Customs and excise, the next most important items, are indirect forms of taxation that never yet have created discontent; stamps, as at present collected, are little more than a fair fee for the cost of law and justice; and the income tax, the most unpopular tax ever levied in India, has for the present ceased, I trust not to be re-imposed except on some such vital need as that which compelled its introduction.

The taxation of a foreign dependency is a question of peculiar difficulty, where the taxpayers have no voice in the matter; and it is the duty of alien rulers to avoid every novelty, and especially all direct forms of taxation. It is better to sin against every law of political economy rather than to rouse a rebellion; it is better to levy objectionable custom duties, in preference to alienating the wealthy classes by an income tax; it is better to forego material improvements rather than to incur debt, hamper the finances, and draw on the possibilities of the future for the liabilities of the present.

There is a school of Indian reformers who

advocate the treatment of India as an encumbered and neglected estate, on which an energetic owner may spend any amount of capital, with the certainty of obtaining an enormous profit upon any outlay. When the finances of India were on a less satisfactory footing than they are at present, every quack was ready with his nostrum to cure the unfortunate patient, and the be lievers in hydropathy were the loudest in their assertions, and possibly the most earnest in their belief in the efficacy of their professed cure. Only spend enough money on irrigation and water communication, cried these enthusiasts, and all money difficulties will soon cease. Three hundred per cent. was talked of as a moderate return for capital spent on irrigation works, and the cheap transit of heavy goods by water was to increase a hundredfold the productive powers of the country. Sir Arthur Cotton, the author of several most successful irrigation works, of which any engineer might be justly proud, was the great apostle of this school, and carried his enthusiasm so far as to inveigh against the construction of railways as utterly unsuitable to India, and as a lamentable waste of money, diverting so much capital from irrigation works.

"Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit Deus: Ridetque si mortalis ultra Fas trepidat." The main system of Indian railways, according to this most able man so utterly unsuited to the country, was, at the date of Mr. Markham's report, nearly completed. Calcutta, Multan, Bombay, and Madras are connected by first-class lines-5,872 miles are open their construction has cost a little upwards of a hundred millions, having been probably carried out in a needlessly expensive fashion, and on the system of guaranteed interest, which, though perhaps unavoidable at first, was attended with the greatest cost. In

spite of these errors, these magnificent works-the mightiest boon that English civilisation has bestowed on India-cast on the revenues a charge for guaranteed interest of less than 1 per cent. on their cost, with a fair prospect of their receipts covering their expenditure in course of time. Should this anticipation not be realised, the political gain to the Government, and the impulse given to every producing interest in the country, is cheaply purchased at the outlay.

The section of Mr. Markham's paper on Irrigation is evidently drawn up by an enthusiast; but it contains materials by which any careful reader can check the somewhat unguarded statements of the compiler on this subject. The fallacy into which the advocates of enormous irrigation works as the panacea for every evil in India fell, and which is endorsed by Mr. Markham, is that their necessity is in proportion to the want of rainfall in the different tracts of country. It may sound like a paradox, but experience has shown that such is essentially not the case. On the east coast of Madras, with a rainfall of from 50 to 60 inches a year, irrigation is absolutely necessary, because the poverty of the soil renders what is called in India dry cultivation unprofitable. In the Ceded Districts of the same presidency, with a yearly rainfall not exceeding 30 inches, the rich black soil of the plains requires only moderate showers at certain seasons to produce an ample harvest. The whole mode of cultivation in these tracts is totally different from that of rice, and more resembles the European system of agriculture. Here the farmers have been accustomed for generations to raise in rotation crops of various kinds of millet, pulses, hemps, cotton, and oil seeds. They use heavy cattle in their ploughs, in which they take as much pride as an English farmer in a fine team of horses. Offer them an unlimited supply of water for irrigation, and they do not know what to do with it. To introduce rice cultivation they must change all their system as completely as it would be necessary for a Norfolk corn grower to do if you turned his fields into Italian water meadows. They must get rid of their heavy ploughing cattle, and buy buffaloes to wade in the swamps; above all, they must make a large outlay of capital and labour to make their fields fit for the new mode of agriculture. One peasant with his own plough, helped by his own family, can farm profitably ten acres of dry cultivation: he cannot cultivate more than two acres of rice. It is idle to expect a complete and immediate revolution in the agriculture of a district, because it has pleased the Government to construct a huge work of irrigation. It is a fact, that under such circumstances, even in India, the sudden bestowal of an unlimited supply of water may be looked upon, not as a boon, but for a time as a positive evil. Lord Salisbury, in his recent speech at Manchester, treated this matter with his usual common sense, and Mr. Markham's statement contains facts that amply bear out the truth of his strictures.

It is impossible to exaggerate the blessing to India of suitable irrigation works in suit

able localities. The most remunerative are probably the restoration of old works of this

kind that have fallen into decay. A better example can hardly be adduced than the work performed by Major Minchin, in the native state of Bhawalpur. He assumed charge of the country in 1867, during the minority of the Nawab, when it had a nominal revenue of 120,000l. a-year, chiefly levied in grain. He borrowed 15,000l., and commencing with that sum, restored those ruined canals which were most easily taken in hand, developing his schemes of restoration from the profits of the undertaking. In this way, within four years, he raised the revenue of the state to 190,000l. paid in cash, and converted the lawless, half starving population of an almost desert tract into a thriving agricultural community. (Statement, pp. 52-3.)

It is impossible to gather from Mr. Markham's paper any definite account of the sums spent by the Indian Government on irrigation works, or generally the profit on each. The largest of such works in existence, the Ganges Canal, gave a net profit of not quite 74,000l. in the year 1872-3,or 2.75 per cent, on the capital sunk. This work, therefore, as a pecuniary speculation, is less profitable than the railways. The canals in the North West Provinces represent about the same capital, and return a profit of 3·46 In the cent. per Madras presidency alone do there appear to be extensive works of irrigation that can be considered largely remunerative. Such, unquestionably, were the improvement of native works on the Kaveri and Kolerún, carried out by Sir A. Cotton, and the original ones in the Godaveri Delta, on which he may fairly rest his fame as a benefactor to mankind. No trustworthy data exist on which the money profit of these works can be fairly estimated, and Mr. Markham wisely avoids entering on this much disputed question. The Delta works on the Kistna and Ponnair rivers in the Madras presidency are equally useful, but not so profitable, pecuniarily, as the above.

The complete failure of the great works constructed at Midnapúr and Orissa in Bengal, and Kurnool in Madras, as honestly detailed in Mr. Markham's paper, shows the absurdity of offering vast stores of water to people who do not want it, and the lamentable waste of money that can be effected in the operation.

The Orissa scheme is peculiarly instructive. It was designed to save the province from the recurrence of famine, and was taken up in 1862 by private enterprise, on unguaranteed capital, and, I trust, on purely philanthropic principles. The chief engineer was a favourite assistant of Sir A. Cotton on the Godaveri, and, as usual with that school, framed an estimate for the works not half sufficient for the purpose. In 1868 the company had spent all their money, and the Government came to their rescue by purchasing their works for upwards of a million. In 1871-72 these works, which it had been anticipated would finally irrigate one and a half million of acres, did irrigate 14,740. But, as Mr. Markham quotes :

and howling mobs followed the canal officials "The assessments were disputed at every step, representing their grievances. There is indeed a story that the ryots were charged for water-rates when banks burst, and the inundation damaged

their crops. Demand after demand had to be abandoned, and finally the net income in Orissa on account of irrigation for 1871-72 was only 1,7721." (Statement, p. 67.)

The story of the Kurnool scheme in the Madras presidency is little different. This was a favourite project of Sir A. Cotton's to divert the water of the Toongabudra river through the Kurnool district into the Pennair valley, to irrigate a great portion of the Bellary district, and to construct reservoirs in the higher portions of the Toongaboodra, to feed the river and canals during the cold season, and make them navigable to the sea. For this purpose a company was formed in 1860, with a capital of one million, to which the Government, as in the case of railway construction, guaranteed to pay interest of 5 per cent. It is needless to dwell on all the details of this failure. After 600,000l. had been spent in addition to the guaranteed million, the main canal and works for the Kurnool district alone were supposed to have been completed by July 1871. In the year 1872-73, about eleven thousand acres were irrigated, for which 5,000l. water rate was paid. The town of Kurnool was also supplied with water during the hot months. As a counterpoise to these advantages, much valuable land was submerged by the peculiar construction of the canal with a single bank for the sake of economy, creating huge lakes on the lower levels, the whole of which land under agreement the Government had to make over to the company without cost, having to purchase the same from the owners. The gross receipts from the canal in 1872-73 were 9,750l., the expenditure, 21,1977., so that although the loss is not so large as on the Orissa scheme, the result must be a terrible disappointment to the believers in the large profits universally obtainable from irrigation works.

For thirteen years Government has paid the guaranteed interest on the capital million of this company, and must continue to do so until it buys back their works; add the sums spent on this project, and in Orissa to the cost of the Ganges Canal, and of those in the Upper Provinces, and compare them with what has been spent up to this period on the whole railways of India. As a mere pecuniary speculation the latter are the more successful, and it is doubtful to any but fanatics on the subject whether huge schemes of irrigation can ever be made to pay.

Paradoxical as it seems in a country where the rivers are dry for some months in every year, the water prophets declared that not only irrigation, but water communications, were the remedy for every evil in India. Sir Arthur Cotton can advance any quantity of statistics to support this theory, but the facts are against him. Except in the rainy tracts in Bengal, and along the western coast, all attempts to keep canals open throughout the year have proved illusory, and a vast scheme for making the Godavery river navigable, after ten years' persevering efforts and an enormous penditure, which Mr. Markham does not state exactly, but which must have exceeded a million, was finally abandoned as impracticable with reasonable outlay. any

JAMES INNES MINCHIN.

ex

Lives of English Popular Leaders in the Middle Ages-Tyler, Ball, and Oldcastle. By C. Edmund Maurice. (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875.)

THE volume before us is the second of a work on English popular leaders in the Middle Ages, and it treats of three such characters belonging to nearly the same epoch. With regard to the two first, the author confesses that materials fail him for a life of either; but if the book in this respect is not quite what it professes to be, there is a unity in the contents of the present volume which three distinct biographies would not have possessed. For a study of what history says about Wat Tyler, John Ball, and Sir John Oldcastle is in the nature of things neither more nor less than a history of Lollardy and the popular movements connected with it.

It is also true, as Mr. Maurice points out, that a right treatment of these subjects involves a good deal of enquiry into the condition of the English peasantry in those days and into the history of serfdom. But we cannot think it was necessary to have devoted half the contents of the volume to a mere preliminary disquisition on these topics from the time when Pope Gregory saw British slaves for sale in the Roman market-place. Such a sketch must from the nature of the case be flimsy and imperfect; and Mr. Maurice would have done much better if he had concentrated his study a little more upon the period which he has here undertaken to illustrate. A volume quite as large could have been easily devoted to Wat Tyler's rebellion alone; and another of the same size would not have been superfluous labour on the subject of Sir John Oldcastle. We do not, however, complain that Mr. Maurice has chosen to write on a less extended scale; only, having done so, we think he ought to have confined himself, as much as possible, to the real subject of his book.

We must own, moreover, that we are not entirely satisfied in other respects with Mr. Maurice's mode of treatment. The volume is written from certain pre-conceived ideas which we cannot but think would have been considerably modified by a more careful study of original authorities. The theory that the Reformation began with Wycliffe is no doubt common enough. How far there is any truth in it we shall not attempt to discuss. But Mr. Maurice holds that the movement "really received its bent and character in the fourteenth century," and that all that Henry VIII did was to spoil it, as far as lay within his power. He is accordingly anxious. to discover in the heroes of the earlier move

ment a strong, pure-minded love of freedom, for which their contemporaries certainly did not give them credit.

Now of course Mr. Maurice has a right to differ from his authorities on a matter of opinion like this; but he should tell us why. John Ball is regarded by all the writers of his own day as a fanatic, and his rhyming letters, which Mr. Maurice transcribes out of Knighton and Walsingham, rather go to confirm their verdict. Mr. Maurice, however, looks upon him as a great moral reformer who incurred odium and misrepresentation by attacking

this rebellion. Mr. Maurice apologises in his preface for not having alluded to this work in the course of his book; but he regards it as a "strange scream" of little historical value. It would doubtless have had much more importance in his eyes if it had been a diatribe against tyranny written by one of Tyler's followers.

the vices of the age. The only ground we can discover for this opinion is an account of his preaching given by Walsingham, in which he is said to have declared that no one was fit for the kingdom of heaven who was not born in matrimony! Mr. Maurice apparently suspects this testimony in so far as it fits the character of a fanatic, but accepts it, nevertheless, as evidence of his hero's strong In short, it is only too evident that Mr. desire to promote public morality. This is Maurice's view of this epoch of history has scarcely fair dealing with authorities. If been formed without reference to his authotheir testimony is considered honest, even rities, and that he has studied the writers though exaggerated, still let it be taken in of the period only to find confirmation of a the sense in which it was given; if it be preconceived idea. He has never attempted suspicious, let us beware of trusting it at all. truly to weigh the testimony of contempo But to quote a writer as evidence of the rary writers and to form his judgment of thing which he did not say, and which no- the facts from them. He writes like a man body else says, disregarding at the same of cultivation imbued with that laudable time that which he actually does say, is desire which is now so prevalent, to dip beagainst all rules of sound historical criti-neath the surface of history and explore its under-currents. His work, we have no doubt, was prompted by generous sympa thies, and by a hatred of all forms of tyranny and oppression; but we cannot honestly say that he has shown in it the critical judgment of an historian.

cism.

Certainly, the high character given to Ball alike for wisdom and virtue does not seem justified by the fruits of his teaching. Mr. Maurice knows quite well that the disciples of this moral reformer, including Wat Tyler himself (whose followers Mr. Maurice commends for their orderly conduct when they first entered London), broke into the Tower, insulted the King's mother in her own chamber, and murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Treasurer Hales, not to mention a host of less distinguished persons. And yet, forsooth, the "popular leaders" are to be regarded as great moral reformers! Mr. Maurice in vain attempts to soften the character of these enormities by suggesting that they were exaggerated. He cannot deny the murder of Archbishop Sudbury and Sir John Hales, and he cannot find the slightest evidence that any moral reformer protested against the acts. Moreover, however exaggerated may have been the impression of those enormities, he is certainly not justified in treating with incredulity the stories of wholesale atrocities. in connexion with this rebellion. The in

surgents, according to Walsingham, beheaded every lawyer they could find, and dragged men out of churches and sanctuaries to be head them in the public streets. These things, which are spoken of by contemporary authorities as facts, Mr. Maurice only mentions as rumours "which went before the insurgents in their march to London; omitting altogether to observe that the worst scenes are recorded as having taken place in London itself. He then adds

66

"Most of the rumours were, no doubt, the mere inventions of the excited imaginations of the chroniclers or their informants. The orderly conduct of the army of Tyler when it was first admitted into London, and the definiteness of the demands which formed the basis of the charter granted by Richard, make the atrocities and absurdities of these acts alike improbable. Isolated acts of violence there must no doubt have been, and I shall have occasion to allude to some of them; but these vague and general charges, made by the excited enemies of the insurgents, we may fairly reject."

At this rate it is easy to set aside any testimony whatever. Among "the excited enemies of the insurgents "Mr. Maurice reckons (and, we may admit, not untruly) the poet Gower, whose curious Latin poem called "Vox Clamantis" was occasioned by

Mr. Maurice will not think these remarks unfriendly. In the object of his work he has our fullest sympathy. To investigate the social condition of England in remote times is a task every way worthy of a son of Professor Maurice, who has inherited the historic taste and warm love of the people which so strongly characterised his lamented father. His book in these things does him honour; and if, as we think, his sympathies have been to some extent mistaken, we have no doubt he will himself feel, as we have done, that justice alike to him and to his subject required us to state our objections without reserve.

JAMES GAIRDNER.

Poesie Albanesi. Di Girolamo de Rada. In Four Volumes. (Corigliano Calabro: Tipografia Albanese, 1873.) THE volumes before us are at least remark able as the first-fruits of literary culture among the Albanians. The great collections of Hahn and Camarda have introduced us to a number of old ballads, and to modern writers who had imitated them. Notable enough is one Neçim Bey, the pure-minded champion of an institution which has been daintily described as Greek chivalry, which, as of old at Sparta, is still a great social force among the Ghegs of Northern Albania. But here we have a far more ambitious attempt: compositions striving at least to mould themselves in classical forms, and instinct with a purpose at once literary and political. And, to give his work a wider field, M. de Rada has added an interpaged translation in an Italian so free-as his brother poet Tommasco, in a commendatory letter, humorously hints-from "classical slang" (gergo accademico) as to be occa sionally as obscure as the Albanian text. In the first volume, Milosao, the warriorson of the chieftain (despota) of Scutari, and a daughter of his people, sing of their mutual love in a series of rhapsodies. They meet, like Jacob and Rachel, beside the well, and under the moonlight he leads her home, "tenderly pushing aside the briars which

might tear her face." lives are one.

From that hour their His eyes seem to smile on her from every star; for him the world is well lost, so her heart be his alone. The delicacy and freshness of the thoughts will be best seen if we give a rhapsody entire. The verse is a trochaic or redondilla line, of seven and eight syllables, with an assonant rhyme :"The blue of heaven is reflected on the smiling face of the sea, and on the hills, the revel-grounds of dancing girls.

The lads, their lovers, are watching them. What have we on earth besides? We have the moon at night, when the sisters of our young heroes gather before my door. I strike the guitar, and they, loosening their flowing trains, dance; joy lights up every face. And fairer still, we have dreams which bring the loved one to her lover's side. The houses are shut, and veiled in night he waits at her door, he sits by her side, she draws from her bosom two nuts, Take them, fair youth.' And he tells her what he has done and where he has been, just to talk to her and watch her. She listens, her eyes wander from star to star, fain would she stay, but she is afraid. 'Love, goodnight: my mother must not hear thee.' 'One kiss?'

She turns aside, but he draws her to him; lightly she leans on his neck, lightly presses him to her breast. Adieu! away.'

'Ard peace go with thee.'

He watches her out of sight, and life for him that day is all one longing." (1. ix.)

Then she is his wife, "transplanted, like a violet from its bank, to pour its sweetness through a palace." A son is born to them, and life is one long gala-day, till death, stealing with muffled step over the winter's snow, leaves the hero wifeless and childless. For so the great leveller rebukes man's pride and grasping

Man, who tames the horse to be his slave; who kills the birds of the air that their gay plumage may deck his helm; and strips whole plains of their leaves that worms may spin him a silken robe. Fain would he inweave in it the very sunbeams."

So freedom, instead of love, must nerve his arm, and Milosao dies as his fathers had died, in battle against the infidels.

In the other three volumes are contained the opening cantos of a great national epic, in which M. de Rada proposes to relate, in some 25,000 lines, the story of the Albanian hero and liberator, George Castriot, best known by his Turkish title, Iskander Bey, or Scanderbeg. The poem opens at Croja, in the year 1418, with the death of Scanderbeg's father, John Castriot, "the hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus, or Albania, between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea." He dies a tributary of the Sultan, to whom he has given his sons as hostages of his fidelity, to be brought up in the Mahometan faith. But, "through the gate which opened to receive his soul into another world there flashed down a ray which bore the promise of liberty and glory to his country.' Scanderbeg's two brothers die in captivity - De Rada retains the suspicion of poison, as meeting better the requirements of an anti-Turkish manifesto, which Gibbon rejected. We cannot guess why he himself, who was sixteen at his father's death, delays for twenty-five years, during which he serves with honour under the Turkish flag, the effort he was pledged to make to free his country and to claim his throne. The twenty cantos already published throw no light on the matter. After the

death of John Castriot they are occupied with the details of Turkish tyranny which called for reprisals from the Albanians, and sowed the seeds of revolt in the land. Then we have the episodes of the lovers Bosdar and Serafina, Astiri and Goneta; and among the characters who pass across the stage are a bishop who returns from the dead, and a witch who preaches Positivism! (iii. 27, 173). We are forced to doubt M. de Rada's capabilities for handling an epic subject, or to shudder at the colossal proportions of his work, when we find that some 8,000 lines of verse are consumed and the eponymous hero of the poem has scarcely yet made his appearance on the scene. But we shall not wish to deny him the praise of a poet when we look at the richness and grace of his imagery, the nobleness of his thoughts, and the chastened enthusiasm with which he treats subjects so dear to him as religion and love. Here and there, too, we get pictures of Albanian life, drawn with something of Homeric freshness-maidens busy over an embroidered swordbelt; youths hurling the quoit; or both together treading the measures of some strange national dance.

However, we shall not perhaps greatly err in thinking that it is rather as a patriot than as a poet that M. de Rada appeals to the literary world. In a flysheet distributed with these volumes, he reminds his countrymen that the Albanian colonies in Calabria offer peculiar advantages as a centre for keeping alive the feeling of an Albanian nationality. They have a college of their own; their language is more assiduously and intelligently cultivated than in Albania itself; and the conditions of life in Italy are more favourable to the development of a healthy and judicious public spirit. Scanderbeg then is more than the hero of even the longest epic. His name is the watchword of the efforts which, dying with his death, drove a colony of fugitives to the settlements they still inhabit on the southern shores of Italy. The hero and the efforts are offered again for the emulation of the Albanians of to-day. In the motto on the title-page of each of these volumes, Ajax wishes for his son that in character rather than in fate he may resemble himself; adding, with a touch of sarcasm, "Yet still I see, with envious wonder, that thou feelest not what ills beset thee." The Skipetar, too, The Skipetar, too, must assume a grievance if he has it not.

A federal union of the provinces comprised in the Ottoman empire seems to the present generation of Albanian patriots more desirable than the isolated independence of nationalities wanting at once in strength and experience. We think they are right. By and-by, when Christian statesmen cease to lend their countenance, for their own ends, to the oppressions and corruption of an infidel power, Albanians, and not Albanians only, may reap the reward of their moderation. Meanwhile let them glorify Scanderbeg as they will, so they be careful to guard themselves from the derision and disgust with which Europe has learned to look on the boastful claims of another nation of revenants-the degenerate heirs of the greater names of Leonidas and Pericles.

C. DELAVAL COBHAM.

Shakspere a Critical Study of his Mind and Art. By Edward Dowden, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin, Vice-President of the New Shakspere Society. (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875.)

PROFESSOR DOWDEN's study of the man Shakspere seems to me the best work of the kind that has been written in our language. By examining in chronological order what Shakspere worked at, the Professor goes far to ascertain his course of mental and moral development. To arrive at this end, he has to ascertain the moral and ideal significance of each play or group of plays, and this leads him to comment on the dramas after the manner of Gervinus and Ulrici. He is well prepared for this by a knowledge, I suppose unrivalled in these islands, of the body of German criticism upon Shakspere. This he in turn criticises, rejecting much and adopting much, but not allowing himself to be led astray into the formalism from which perhaps none of the Germans is quite free, which, instead of following the facts, devises in advance a system to control the facts, and often reduces the vital heart of one of the great dramas to an aesthetic maxim, or an idea, or a fragment of political philosophy. Seeking to know the development of Shakpere's mind and heart, and not to make a catalogue of his ideas and opinions, he looks at each play not as a storehouse of such opinions, but as the expression of Shakspere's profound sympathy with an individual soul in its inward conflicts, and with a personal life in its struggles against external pressure. A man is known by his friends; and the great characters which Shakspere successively created were the children of his own

heart and brain.

Professor Dowden's method is this: first, by a wide generalisation, he finds the general character of the Elizabethan age, so as to give a first vague outline of the poet, by describing the soil on which he grew, and the atmosphere which surrounded him. From his era the Professor shows that he had the gift of devotion to fact, and that he then slowly and deliberately worked out his mastery over fact. Coldly copying from models, dispassionately amassing details in his two long poems, experimenting in different directions, not perhaps in Titus Andronicus, but certainly in Henry VI., The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labours Lost, and the Comedy of Errors, Shakspere by degrees acquired a sure handling of his matter. In the two early tragedies over which he long brooded and laboured, the Professor discerns his struggles against passion and idealism—the Romeo and the Hamlet in his nature. this time he was tightening his hold of fact by his realistic studies in the historical plays. In Henry V. the Professor sees the ideal which the poet admired; in Romeo and Hamlet the passion and the idealism which prevented him from making that imperfect ideal his own. After having thus attained by his struggles an equilibrium in his own nature, there came a period of rest and enjoyment, which is mirrored in his great comedies. Then came the protest of this perfected nature against the world as shown in his tragedies and the Roman plays; and

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