6d.); "Appropriation Accounts of Civil Services and Revenue Departments" (price 48.); "Reports from H.M.'s Consuls on the Manufactures, &c., of their Districts," part i. (price 18. 7d.); "Emigration to Brazil, Report on the Colony of Cananea" (price 2d.); "Correspondence respecting the Outrage on Mr. Magee, British Vice-Consul at SanJosé, Guatemala" (price 63d.); "Final Report of Commissioners on Master and Servants Act, Criminal Amendment Act, &c." (price 4d.); "Report of the Expedition sent by the Government of Natal to instal Cetywayo as King of the Zulus, in succession to Panda" (price 4d.); "Observations on the Report of Mrs. Senior to the Local Government Board on Girls at Pauper Schools," by E. C. Tufnell, Esq., late Inspector (price 3d.); Further Correspondence respecting the Capture of the Virginius" (price 1d.); "Twenty-second Report of Charity Commissioners," "Annual Report of Railway Commissioners," "Returns, &c., relating to Charitable Funds, Duchy of Lancaster, Navy, Civil Contingencies, Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, Duchy of Cornwall, Paupers, &c."; "Reports on the Silk Industry in India, and on the Supply of Timber in the Burmah Markets" (price 18, 4d); "Langalibalele and the Amahlubi Tribe," by the Bishop of Natal (price 18. 10d.); "Further Papers relative to a proposal to substitute Gas for Oil in Lighthouses' (price 8d.); "First Annual Report by the Accountant to the Board of Education for Scotland" (price 7d.); "Ninth Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Marriages, Births, and Deaths in Ireland, 1872" (price 9d.).

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

WE have already mentioned that the results of Lieutenant Payer's Arctic expedition are about to receive illustration in this country, by the publication of a series of twelve photographs from his very effective sketches. They will be published by Mr. Frederick Bruckman, of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and will consist of the following subjects, with descriptive letterpress:-1. The Separation of the Tegethoff and the Isbjorn; 2. The Attempts to save Provisions and Boats; 3. Sunrise between Novaya Zemlya and Francis Joseph Land on February 16, 1873; 4. The Tegethoff drifting with Ice; 5. Snowstorm on the Ice during the Polar Night; Seizure of a Dog by a Bear; 6. Burial of Engineer Krisch on Wilczek Island; 7. Payer's Journey by Sledge; 8. Most Northern Point reached by Payer; 9. Halt near the Open Sea; 10. Abandoning the Tegethoff; 11. Boats among Broken Ice; 12. Rescue of the Party by a Russian Vessel.

THE untimely check to the Yunan Expedition, the despatch of which we announced some weeks ago, is much to be regretted on every account. We also have to deplore the murder of Mr. Margary, of the Chinese Consular Service, a gallant and accomplished young explorer, who had traversed the whole width of China from Shanghae to Bhamo, in order to join the expedition. The murderer, Lee See Hie, is half Burmese and half Chinese, and it is possible that the Chinese Government will succeed in evading responsibility for his crime. But there can be no doubt that steps must be taken to give him and his savage followers a severe lesson. The expedition had no political aim whatever, and was despatched entirely for exploring purposes, and as a pioneer to commerce. It is, however, much to be regretted that Mr. Ney Elias was not placed in command, instead of being relegated to the second place. If his knowledge and other qualifications were indispensable, they would clearly have been made more useful had he been placed in a position to use them to the best advantage. But jobbery seems to be the inevitable accompaniment of any enterprise that is organised by a

Mandalay should be adopted. It passes through the territory of a chief who defies the authority of the king of Burma, but who is friendly to the English, and hence the opposition of that potentate to its adoption. That opposition would have been overcome by a firm negotiator; and the present disaster would never have occurred. There is strong reason to suspect the King of Burma of guilty complicity, or at least of a guilty knowledge, of the intended attack.

THE Débats observes that a taste for travel and

exploration, scientific or commercial, appears to be on the increase in France. MM. Marche and their travels in equatorial Africa, are preparing to de Compiègne, who have only just returned from return and to penetrate through the country of Ogowé to the Congo; M. Duveyrier is taking up the schotts of Algeria; Dr. Harmand is at Marseilles waiting to embark for Cochin China, whence he will visit the Kmer country; M. Largeau is already in the Sahara. Another member of the Geographical Society of Paris, M. Levallois, is preparing to visit a point in the Dutch Indies hitherto almost unknown from the industrial, agricultural, and scientific point of view.

Im Neuen Reich draws attention in a recent number to a curious circumstance which has recently occurred in Tunis, and which very forcibly recalls to mind the altered political and social status of the North African maritime powers since the days when Algerine corsairs and Tunisian pirates were the scourge and terror of Christian seafarers. It would appear from the statement of the Arabic paper published at Constantinople, under the name of El-Djeraïb, that Tunis has fallen into such a hopeless state of pecuniary embarrassment and administrative disorganisation, that a sale has been effected there-without the knowledge of the chief authorities-of a large number of old European cannon and firearms of various kinds, which had been preserved for ages in the crumbling forts and dismantled watch-towers of the Tunisian territory. These trophies of the victories of the Infidels over the fleets of Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, and other neighbouring States, which are of great historical interest, and were in many instances artistically valuable from the beauty and special character of their workmanship and mode of construction, were sold for less than the crude value of the metal; and it is a matter for regret that an opportunity was not afforded to the Governments of civilized Europe of redeeming these curious relics of a bygone age of maritime adventure. Unfortunately, however, the purchase of these pieces of ordnance was effected by private individuals, who had no other object in view than to obtain the metal of which that they succeeded so admirably in this respect they were composed as a bargain, and it is said that they purchased the entire number at 1 fr. 50 c. the kilogramme.

THE interesting discussion, or rather contest, which has been going on for some time between Professor Adler of Berlin, and Dr. Sepp of Munich, with regard to the true architectural origin and history of Omar's Mosque at Jerusalem, seems to have been brought to an end-for the present, at all events-by the decision of the Society of Architects and Civil Engineers at Berlin, to which an appeal had been made by both parties. According to the verdict of this tribunal, Dr. Sepp has demonstrated to apparent certainty that we first hear of a church of St. Sophia on Solomon's Mount under the Emperor Justinian; and that this edifice, which according to the testimony of Anthony of Placentia, enclosed a rock within its walls in the year 570, is not merely the prototype, but the identical building, which is now, after its assumed founder, known as the Mosque of Omar, and which encloses a mass of rock more than 60 feet in length and nearly many feet in breadth. According to Dr. government department. Mr. Ney Elias strongly Sepp, this church is spoken of in the Koran as the temple of the rock of David, and must

recommended that the land route direct from

as

have been known to Omar through the description of the prophet, when he visited it after the The Order of the taking of Jerusalem in 637. Knights Templars took its origin from this building, and held in veneration the stone-altar, known as David's, on which, according to tradition, Abraham had prepared to sacrifice Isaac: and on this account it was regarded with the highest esteem both by Moslems and Christians. Abd-el-Medschid, of the Omajades, and other Khalifs, added the Alsa and different parts to the original church; but it would appear from Dr. Sepp's researches that the central and main building enclosing the rock is of far higher antiquity than the period of its earliest use by the followers of the Prophet.

A RECENT Consular report from Christiania contains an edifying account of an improved kind of harpoon used in the whale fishery. It consists, we are told, of a harpoon with two moveable barbs like the claws of an anchor, one on each side, and is projected from a swivel gun fixed on the bows of the vessel. The claws or barbs lie flat against the harpoon while in the gun, and during its progress through the air and entrance into the body of the fish; should, however, the line attached be hauled, or the fish take a start, the barbs expand and become fixed at an angle of 45°. In addition to this, a capsule containing an explosive substance is concealed in the harpoon, which by some inge nious contrivance explodes and causes instant death. The patentee of this most valuable instru ment is one Mr. Foyn, of Tonsberg, who is said to have caught fifty "fish" with its aid last year, the estimated value of each being about 150.

OFFICIAL accounts from the island of Key West, Florida, allude to a project now on foot for connecting the island with the mainland by a railway across the line of reefs. Engineers pronounce practicable, and should it be carried out it will vastly increase the importance of the place by making it the chief outlet for American produce to the West India Islands and South America. The harbour of Key West is considered one of the best within the limits of the United States to the south of the Chesapeake. Cigar-making was begun here six or seven years ago, and now forms the principal industry; there are seventeen manufactories, and about 1,200 men, women, and children employed in them, among whom the best workmen earn as much as nine dollars a day.

SIR ARTHUR HELPS.

SIR ARTHUR HELPS, who died last Sunday, was one of the small number of men who come very near the perfection of themselves; it may be said, what most of us are apt to think an imperfection too, that what came so near perfection in him was in ourselves. In the most characteristic series of his works, of which Friends in Council is the centre, he is persistently occupied with a rationale of things which most think it a gain not to think about; how to do things that most do well or ill, and are done with; how to mitigate the surprises and avoid the regrets which meet us by the way, for which most think callousness the only remedy and the best. Throughout, the vein of his specu lation is coloured by a view that if we would but take up the little difficulties of life and deal with them, the great ones would melt away. He did not treat the weariness of detail and the reluctance to spend thought in articulating statements that border upon truisms as facts to be reckoned with, but as mistakes to be corrected, as, indeed, the sensitive eagerness of his mind, however it was disciplined into patience, always led him to see much more clearly that in life which is modifiable, than that which is fixed. But within its range, his perception was singularly clear and accurate, and there can be little doubt that it was heightened by his keen disinterested sensibility to all concrete discomfort. Perhaps his great talent for the con

crete did something to keep his mind in the byways of thought and affairs; the highways of both are paved with abstractions. There is a certain change to be noted in his attitude towards larger questions; in Essays written in the Intervals of Business, and in Companions of my Solitude he is urgent to have large questions thought, out in the earlier scenes of Friends in Council the discussion continually stops short on the threshold of them; in his later works there are signs of a certain distaste for them, as if they called us away from the more pressing and more manageable questions that grow out of the daily needs of human fellowship. There is hardly any other substantial change in his work: the ideas are always of the same order, though the vehicle and ornaments may vary. In Essays written in the Intervals of Business we have something of the quaintness and gravity of Bacon; in Companions of my Solitude, most of the ornament comes from a delicate appreciation of external nature, in the later works he depends more upon a diffuse ingenious playful way of setting forth how the views he enforces with such wistful

earnestness will strike fair samples of the cultivated public; latterly a pessimist was included among these. The whole of the series is written in the pure, lucid, flexible English which is rapidly becoming a dead language. His knowledge of affairs makes itself felt in two ways in his

largest and not least considerable work, The History of the Spanish Conquest of America. It gives a curious actuality to the parts which in most histories are slight or dull, and it prevents him from exaggerating, as most historians do, the responsibility of Cortes and Pizarro for the sufferings of the Indians; he knew too well how much goes wrong in the hands of officials without their fault. The history is not complete; it omits all the internal economy of the Spanish settlements; but it deals in a masterly way with the course of the conquest and the successful efforts of the Spanish Government to save the continental Indians from the settlers. His poem of Oulita the Serf is an imaginative expression of what seemed to him the most pathetic in life; his later prose fictions Realmah and Casimir Maremma, were in the main the expression of his hopes-he sets himself in both to think what could be done for a young society by good direction, though the scene of one is laid in "the stone age," that of the others in the nineteenth century. In Ivan de Biron the chief interest is to be found in the generous defence of the grotesque and beneficent Empress Elizabeth.

NEW YORK LETTER.

G. A. SIMCOX.

New York: February 1875.

We can match the dispute that is going on in your art world over the pictures of Mr. John Linnell, Sen., with one that has just ended here over a pretended original repetition by Henri Regnault of his Salomé (which shared with Zamacois's Education of a Prince the honours of the Paris Salon of 1870). There has been for a long time carried on in this city a regular manufacture of forged pictures, the victims being always painters of our own time, mostly Frenchmen, though a few Düsseldorf and other German artists are to be included. The men who support this enterprise with their money, and give their time to its management, are, I am sorry to say, people who call themselves respectable, and who would be by no means pleased if one were to deny them the name of gentlemen. But I think it would puzzle a wise head to draw a line between them and the ordinary forger. They keep a number of poor hack artists busy in copying the work of popular painters, they then forge the signature of the original as skilfully as they can, and as each batch is finished it is taken to a wellknown shop in Liberty Street, where the copies are sold by auction as originals. Generally, one of the most respectable-looking of the gang-a grey-haired but youngish-looking old beau

is

among the buyers, and keeps things stirring with his connoisseurish comments and notes of admiration; but since he was exposed lately by name in one of the newspapers, and his tricks and his manners described, he has "taken his leave for a little space," as the old Prologue has it.

As a rule, this notable firm flies at small game, but about a month ago they announced a sale of pictures, and in the lot the original Salomé of Regnault! This was a daub of a copy, a little more than a quarter the size of the true original (which was the size of life), and apparently painted over a photograph thrown up on the The Daily Graphic, of this city, was the first to canvas from the photograph published by Goupil. detect and expose the trick attempted to be played upon the public. But two leading journals, one a daily newspaper, the other a weekly journal, both making great pretentions to culture, were grossly fooled, and described this very poor copy of a famous picture in terms that could only have been justified by the original. On the morning of the sale, however, the Tribune declared that the picture was "an impudent forgery," and the result of its warning was that the auctioneer, after furiously blackguarding the newspaper for its truth-telling, withdrew the picture from the sale, at the same time declaring, in spite of the printed catalogue, that it had never been pretended

that this was the original picture. Here the matter would have ended if some one had not raked up and sent to the Tribune a criticism in no less a

journal than the Zeitschrift für Bildende KunstI think it was in May, 1872-of a replica of the Salomé, purporting to have been found in the studio of Regnault after his death, and then on exhibition at Karfunkel's Gemälde-Gallerie in Berlin. This criticism was a match for the New York newspaper articles, for the writer, who confessed he had never seen the original, went into aesthetic ecstacies over the variations from the

original with the true zeal of an amateur. No sooner was this discovery announced by the Tribune correspondent than the auctioneer rushed into print with a letter declaring his replica and Karfunkel's were one and the same, and that he had written to Paris for evidence to prove it. But the Tribune had also written letters to Paris, and a few days ago it published the answers it had received. Two of these letters, one from M. DurandRuel, the other from M. George Clairin, declare positively that Regnault made no preliminary study for the Salomé, "nor any copy of it whatsoever;" that consequently there was no such copy found in his studio after his death, and of course Karfunkel's "masterpiece of the first rank," for so the Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst described it, was a copy of some one else than Regnault. Best of all was a letter from Karfunkel himself, written to a dealer in this city, and declaring that he still held the "masterpiece," and would be glad .to sell it, or to send it to be sold on commission. So that unless a miracle has been wrought, our New York auctioneer can never prove his assertion that his picture and Karfunkel's are the same. A point to note in M. Clairin's letter is, that Regnault's pictures are all the time being forged. M. Clairin has even been offered the original sketches for the Prim and the Execution in Granada, though Regnault, he declares, made no sketches at all for either picture. The Tribune has deserved well of the public for the persevering energy with which it has hunted down these rascals and exposed their game.

The Intercollegiate competition which culminated at the Academy of Music in New York recently, has fulfilled, I believe, the expectations of its promoters, who consider it a good and encouraging beginning at least. Those of your readers interested in such matters have doubtless ere this

learned the particulars of the Academy's proceed ings. It should be understood that this is part of a general movement for the combination of our colleges with reference to examinations-the ultimate aim being a system of intercollegiate exa

minations at New York year by year, and of intercollegiate fellowships based on the result of these. The scheme was suggested to Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the author of the magazine article out of which the movement grew, by his observation of the good results in England of the University examinations for " scholarships," and the test brought to bear through this means on the great English schools. The scheme has, indeed, been objected to on the ground of its being English. The preliminary competition in elocution and English composition was deliberately planned as easiest to begin with. Next year examinations in Greek and mathematics are to be added, and after that they will probably be yet further extended. Outsiders, without convictions and in search of knowledge, point questioningly to the fact that neither Harvard nor Yale has joined the association, and ask, "Why have so many colleges kept out?" To this the friends of competition reply, "Better ask why so many came in! Beginnings are not seldom small. Eleven colleges belong to the association, and these include, observe, the best second-best colleges in the country. After Yale there are none of higher rank than Princeton and Cornell, and each of these surpasses Harvard and Yale at some points. These two colleges have by no means the degree and Cambridge in England." Whether or not the of comparative importance that attaches to Oxford system of intercollegiate competition is wise, it is not for me to discuss here. There can be no

doubt, however, that the minds of scholars are more and more occupied with the subject of the higher education; and there is more than one practical scheme on foot looking in this direction; notably in Baltimore, where President Gilman, of California, has been invited to carry out his peculiar views.

The Hon. Maunsell Bradhurst Field, a gentleman almost as well known abroad as he was in

this country, died in this city after a lingering illness on January 25. Mr. Field was a man of liberal education, and would probably have made a brilliant career if he had not unfortunately been born rich. As it was he spent his days on the outer edge of greatness. He was Secretary of Legation to Hon. John Y. Mason when that gentleman was Minister at the Court of France, and during the last years of his life was judge of the Second Judicial District Court in this city. Mr. Field was a diplomat by nature, and had a large political acquaintance, of which he tells a great deal that is interesting in his Memories of many Men and some Women, published not long since. He first met Louis Napoleon in the library of that distinguished physician, Sir Benjamin Brodie, in London, where the two gentlemen passed some time in pleasant conversation. When they next met Napoleon was Emperor of the French.

On Friday night last Ambroise Thomas's Mignon was sung in New York for the first time in English. The opera was given by the Kellogg English Opera Troupe, Miss Clara Louise Kellogg singing the title role, and I may safely say that it was the most poetic interpretation of that character ever witnessed in this city. She invested the part with a new interest, and sang the music with rare intelligence and refined sentiment. Her Mignon was Goethe's heroine-neither the rollicking gipsy of the French version, nor the lovesick child of the Italian. There was a passion and a tenderness in her singing of the song" Knowest thou the land,” and the prayer in the last act, that was as new as it was beautiful. She sang the the Styrienne in the second act with brilliancy and vivacity; in a word, her conception was original and picturesque, and has been received with marked favour. Kellogg's troupe has been giving the best Italian operas this season, most of which were adapted to the English stage by the prima donna herself. Balfe's Talisman will be sung for the first time in America by this company during the coming week.

Miss

Dion Boucicault has been playing in his new

comedy, The Shaughraun, every night since November 14, at Wallack's Theatre, and there are no present signs of abatement in the public interest. If Mr. Boucicault ever acted with greater delicacy and freshness, I have not happened to meet anyone who remembers it.

I have left myself small space in which to speak of an interesting literary event that took place here last week, when Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister was given by some young people as a public amateur performance. Probably it would never have occurred to any one here to do this, if Mr. Edward Arber's cheap and pretty "Reprints" had not made copies of the play easy to get. This series has been very popular here, and is much used in our better schools and colleges. Udall's comedy proved to be an excellent acting play, witty and wise, the plot well contrived, and carrying the action briskly along. The acting was excellent, but nature and talent were greatly helped by the thorough drilling the players underwent at the hands of Mr. Calvert Vaux, and the result was a performance that passed off with delightful ease and smoothness.

SELECTED BOOKS. General Literature.

J. L. GILDER.

CLERY, C. Minor Tactics. King. 168.
JAHRBUCH der deutschen Shakespearegesellschaft. Hrsg. durch
Carl Elze. 10. Jahrgang. Weimar: Huschke. 9 M.
MYERS, P. V. N. Remains of Lost Empires. Low & Co. 163.

Of the outside Mr. Fergusson is pleased so far to approve that he does not think he can mend it except in one way, of which more anon. The inside, however, does not suit him at all. Nothing is right in it, and he is especially offended at the presence of an attic over the principal order, and at the nave arches encroaching on the space which the entablature of the same order would, if continued, have occupied. Mr. Fergusson's arguments against the attic are anything but conclusive. The ather fault may be more real, but, granting that it is so, the remedy proposed is a good deal worse than the disease. The want of scale, which is the chief architectural defect of the interior, is due more to the great size of the principal order than to anything else, and it certainly would not be lessened by the suggested cutting away of the present order and substitution of one ten or twelve feet higher. The strictures on the disproportion in width between the dome-space and the choir would be just, if Wren had intended that they should form parts of one apartment, as now by the alterations they do; but were of no force so long as his screen stood separating the two, and forming the termination of the first apartment and the entrance to the second. Similarly the present inconvenience of the building is no fault of Wren's. He suited the requirements of his own time, and now that new requirements have risen he is not to blame because they have been badly provided for. That the new requirements exist is not to be disputed, and the need of

128. SHADWELL, Major-General. Mountain Warfare, illustrated by the Campaign of 1799 in Switzerland. King. 16s. History.

ATKINSON, J. C. History of Cleveland, Ancient and Modern.
Vol. I. Barrow-in-Furness: Richardson.
BLACK BOOK, The, of the Admiralty. Appendix, Part III.
Edited by Sir Travers Twiss. Vol. III. Rolls Series. 108.

DEVIC, Cl., et J. VAIS-ETTE. Histoire générale du Languedoc, avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. T. 1er, 2me partie.

Paris Picard.

MARSHALL, E. Supplement to the History of Woodstock Manor and its Environs. Parker.

Physical Science and Philosophy.

COTTA, B. v. Rocks classified and described. Ed. P. H. Lawrence. Longmans. 14s.

DUPONT, A. E., et BOUQUET DE LA GRYE. Les bois indigènes
et étrangers. Paris: Rothschild. 9 fr.
HELMHOLTZ, H. Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects.

Trans. E. Atkinson. With Introduction by Prof. Tyndall.
Longmans. 12s. 6d.

SACCARDO, P. A. Mycotheca Veneta sistens fungos Veneto:
exsiccatos. Centuria 2. et 3. Berlin Friedlander. 14 M.
SCHELLEN, H. Spectrum Analysis. Trans. J. and C. Lussell.
Ed. W. Huggins. Longmans. 288.

Philology.

VOGUE, le Comte de. Stèle de Yehawmelck, roi de Gébal. Paris: Baudry. 3 fr. 50 c.

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. JAMES FERGUSSON AND ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. Westminster: March 8, 1875.

The future historian of St. Paul's Cathedral will have no easy task in the chapter which relates to the twenty years beginning with 1858. Beside the alterations and re-alterations which have been made, he will have to chronicle the controversies, not to say quarrels, which have raged over many of them, and to record the proposals for alterations which have not been carried

out. One of these last is far too curious as an illustration of the chaotic state of architectural thought at the present time to be allowed to fall into oblivion. It is that proposed by Mr. James Fergusson in a printed letter accompanied by plans and sections, and addressed to the Dean, a copy of which letter now lies before me.

Mr. Fergusson divides his letter into three parts. The first contains his opinions about Wren's building, and the proposals which have been made by others with respect to it, mixed up with a good deal of talk about himself; in the second he describes the alterations which he would have made; and the third is devoted to an attempt to justify these alterations, and to show that if Wren were now living he would approve of them.

son.

He glances at a scheme proposed by Mr. Somers Clarke and myself, whereby the old choir would be put back to its original state, and the dome space separately furnished. Though what he means by saying that the choir would be "used as a Lady chapel," I know not. We never proposed anything so foolish, and I never heard of anybody else doing so. But let that pass. Next he condemns, more suo, a plan on the principle suggested by Mr. Street, and accepted by Mr. Burges; and then, after some rather characteristic abuse of the latter gentleman, he passes on to the description of his own design.

proposes

same

"to re

This, at least, has the quality of boldness, though whence inspired may be questioned. Putting it in his own words, he move the four piers of the choir, and the roofs they support, and to replace the latter by a dome 90 feet in diameter and 140 feet high, internally resting on octagonal pendentives." That is to say, he takes away the whole of Wren's choir from the great dome to the apse, and substitutes for it a new building of his own designing. The outer walls, indeed, he leaves standing, but pierces new windows in them, and inserts into them pilasters of polished red granite at the angles of his new octagon. The new dome is somewhat flat, and has small windows at its base; a sort of engine-turned ceiling, and a large skylight, glazed with ground glass in the middle. Mr. Fergusson is fond of ground glass; somewhere he suggests that it should have cut ornaments upon it. The apse, although allowed to stand, is disguised internally, to correspond with the new work. In front of its pilasters are placed ten granite pillars, ranging with the principal order, and carrying nothing but pieces of entablature and statues of the moderate height of twelve feet. The drawings indicate wall-decorations of various sorts, amongst which are open books scaling four feet across, and shields of arms five feet high. Externally the new dome would appear as a sort of hump east of the great dome, and it is this notable addition which, according to Mr. Fergusson, is all that is required to make the exterior of the church perfect. One does not like to be severe on the work of an amateur, and I will therefore leave the description without comment, although Mr. Fergusson's treatment of such as disagree with him is not such as to entitle him to much mercy. But it is rather amusing to notice that the end of all the destruction and alteration

is to leave the great dome still unused, and to produce in the new work a reduced reproduction of the arrangement, which, when proposed to be placed under the great dome without altering a line of the original design, Mr. Fergusson passes over as scarcely worthy of notice.

The point of the third part of the letter is this. Wren made several designs and carried out one of them, but not that which he liked best. Mr. Fergusson thinks he sees points in common between his own proposal and Wren's favourite scheme; therefore he claims to be carrying out Wren's intentions. I will venture to put the same argument in rather a homely way. Suppose Mr. Fergusson wanted a blue coat, but force of circumstances compelled him to have a green one instead, would he consider it a carrying out of his original intention if some one were to remove one of the laps of his green coat and sew on a blue one in its place?

Mr. Fergusson's proposal has just one good quality, which is that it is so outrageously extravagant that there is not the least chance of its ever being entertained; and his name is so prevented from going down the stream of time linked with those of Herostratus and Jonathan Martin. J. T. MICKLETHWAITE.

"I wish I could tell where that volume is now. But as to its possessor in Beloe's time, he was, without much doubt, Alexander Russell, M.D. (from 1742 to 1753 resident at Aleppo, apparently as physician to the British Consulate there), who after his return published in 1756 The Natural History of Aleppo and Parts Adjacent, 4to (Millar, Strand, 1756), giving an account of the district, the people, and their diseases, and the fauna and flora of the neighbourhood—a still interesting book, of which I have a copy."

SHAKSPERIAN VERSE-TESTS.

Trinity College, Dublin: March 5, 1875. In his letter on Metrical Tests for Shakspere in the last ACADEMY, Mr. Fleay says that I have fallen into error in my application of the weakending test to Pericles, "from having used one of the wretchedly arranged modern editions." Will you allow me to say that the text of Pericles which I used, and on which my conclusion respecting that play is founded, is Mr. Fleay's own, as printed in vol. i. of the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society? JOHN K. INGRAM.

OUR OLDEST MS. AND WHO MUTILATED IT.
Oxford: Feb. 9, 1875.

As my paper was written in ignorance of what Dr. Maassen had said on its subject, and as I saw no reason for altering it after consulting him, I was not bound to refer to him in any way. In one sense I assent to his work being characterised as a “great work," for ponderous it is; and so far as "the mass of evidence which it contains" is concerned, it is a boon to literature. Otherwise, his arrangement is anything but lucid; and his inferences now and then, in my opinion at least, anything but trustworthy. On the MS. to which my paper refers I consider he has thrown much more shade than light; but as this is a point which concerns its intrinsic merits rather than its excised leaves, I shall only repeat that my paper

deals solely with the volume which has been so treated; and this, in spite of the retort made by Mr. Renouf "that the three volumes were originally one." It has escaped my learned opponent that the volume containing the letter of Dionysius is shown by the numberings to be the last of the three; that it contains no canons at all; nor is any part of it supposed to be by the author of the Prisca Versio. That it is written in the same character I admit; that it was written by the same scribe, or at the same time, as the excised volume, I deny. That it is heterogeneous to both this and the other, its subject-matter alone proves. Numbers of MSS., its parent the Theatine included, exhibit the same phenomena.

"Its parent the Theatine," do I say? Its grandchild rather I am here borrowing from Mr. Renouf. The Theatine, I should say, in spite of his positive assurances to the contrary, was not to be named in the same breath with the Justel. I am, indeed, so unfortunate as never to have seen it "proved," I won't say "to demonstration," bat within an ace of probability, that the "socalled Prisca Versio of the Nicene canons is no version at all, but a compilation of two more ancient texts," viz., those named in the next sentence. Further, I never asserted that the Sardican canons, as they stand in the Justel MS., had been translated from the Greek. I simply said their position there gave colour to the opinion that they had been. But, then, "the whole of this rests upon exploded error.' Thus, it seems, I am to consider myself exploded, whether I hold or dissent from that opinion. This is hardly sound logic. Again, have we sound logic in what follows? I had called this MS. "the oldest MS. of the oldest collection of canons in Latin known." This is denied. "The collection to which it belongs is not the oldest known, or even the oldest but one." How is this last proved? There are two Latin versions of the Nicene decrees known, which are older. Be it so, for the moment; but what follows? As one swallow does not make spring, so neither do the decrees of one council form a collection. But to go back to the Nicene decrees. I should like particularly to see the Latin "version sent by Atticus to the African church," though I have no doubt at all about there having been another older than that: for the decrees were recited in some shape or other by the Africans, before Atticus was even applied to. But where is either version extant in any reliable form? When I said “known," I meant extant, of course, not "known of." As to the collection of the Theatine MS., to talk of its being the parent of the Prisca sounds to my mind pure nonsense. The two MSS., as I have said before, to my mind hardly admit of comparison. The Justel MS. is in uncials throughout: the Theatine is not even in Lombardic throughout, and characterum Lombardicorum forma satis saeculum viii. prodit" is what Thiel says of it. The collection of canons in the Justel contains only canons supposed to be genuine, and none later than A.D. 450: the Theatine contains, I believe, many documents of a much later date, and some confessedly spurious. But its earliest part includes canons that were not in existence before A.D. 499. As to its version of the Nicene decrees, I described this in my paper a bolder gloss on the Prisca, than the Prisca is itself on the original:" and from that judgment I see no cause to recede. The Ballerini, no doubt, in more than one place speak of its version of these decrees as earlier than that of the Prisca, but as they have been so good as to supply me with the means of collating both collections, and of comparing them with the Dionysian, they have put it into my power to qualify their conclusions. So that while I can bear them out in maintaining the version of the Justel MS. to be the actual one revised and called "Prisca" by Dionysius, I can show against them that the version of the Theatine MS., so far as it deals with the same canons, is simply that of the Prisca throughout, altered in places by glosses or clerical errors. There was

as

66

abundance of time for the Prisca to have been glossed upon, or altered otherwise by scribes, between the fifth and eighth centuries.

As to the Theatine combination of the Sardican canons in consecutive numbers with the Nicene, I think I may safely challenge Mr. Renouf to exhibit any MS. earlier than the eighth or ninth centuries where this arrangement is followed, seeing that neither De Marca nor the Ballerini could. It was to supply this desideratum, which he had already confessed indispensable to his hypothesis, that the former risked mis-describing an unpublished MS., and the latter availed themselves of his mis-description in one place, though they

took him to task for it in another.

It is morally certain that he refers to the same MS. in both the passages I have quoted from him. He has characterised it as "antiquissimus " in one, and "vetustissimus" in the other. Neither Justellus, his contemporary, nor the Ballerini, his critics, entertained any doubts about this MS. being meant by him in both. It was the celebrated unique Justel MS. so familiar to all the collectors of councils from Labbe to Mansi, and church-historians to Gieseler; and, in fact, the whole pith of his misrepresentation lay in the "consequentibus numeris sub antiquo titulo." It was this one inaccuracy that impeached his honesty; there was no other that need have been dwelt upon had this been away. It was perfectly true that this MS. contained twenty-seven canons of Chalcedon, though not last of all. It was perfectly true that the Sardican canons followed the Nicene there, and together made with them just forty-one. What was culpably false was, that they followed them in consecutive numbers, and under their ancient title. As I said in my paper, it was he, not Justellus the younger, who would have been damaged by the publication of the Sardican canons unmutilated and entire, just as they stood in this MS. He, not Justellus the younger, forcibly stayed its publication, till he could compel its being published on terms dictated by himself, and could likewise silence explanations from every mouth but his own. Just on two points he was baffled, and only two: 1. He had decreed that the two excised leaves that were to be printed should be printed in fronte collectionis. The editors in all probability did this by the first copy-the sole copy that is without them in their proper place and this page, having served its purpose, was omitted or lost by the binder. Two leaves have been abstracted from the duplicate copy now before me, since binding, at the very same point. The editors contrived that all the other copies should exhibit the excised leaves in their proper place. 2. The editors secured their MS. against any further harm by sending it over to this country with two more of the excised leaves that had not been destroyed, yet had not been printed. Mr. Renouf has hazarded the conjecture that the MS. may have been imperfect before Justellus became possessed of it. This may apply to other parts of it. As regards these, we possess ocular proof. Anybody who cares may see for himself that all the missing leaves of the Sardican canons must have been abstracted at the same time, and in the same

way.

And what is it that De Marca himself tells the Pope? "The Sardican canons I knew had been cut out of this MS. by Justellus the elder, with the leaves, however, removed to the end of the volume." But what follows? "I desisted not, till partly by threats and partly by prayers, the Sardican canons were restored in the printed copy to their proper place after the Nicene, as they stood in the MS." Does he not stand convicted on his own showing? Was this the honest way of describing what had really been done? Could any Pope have divined that "the Sardican canons were represented in the printed copy by the miserable fragments that are made to do duty for them; and contrary to, be it observed, and not in conformity with, the express bidding of the Archbishop, in the place occupied by them in the MS.? Or could Alexander VII. have reconciled the

epitaph composed for the rest, vetustate perierunt, with what he was assured had been done by them? Wiser than truthful in his generation, the Archbishop took good care that his own treatise mis-describing this MS. should not appear so long as he had any control over it. In an evil hour for his posthumous fame, but in stern justice to truth, it was published.

Mr. Renouf, I am certain, would not, for a thousand archbishoprics, countenance such miserable tamperings with truth, as he, with chivalrous generosity, does his utmost to prevent being brought home to a renowned dignitary of his church, and one whose learned works must always command respect. EDMUND S. FFOULKES.

March 3, 1875.

The amount of work which has accumulated upon my hands during the compulsory idleness occasioned by some days' illness prevents my entering very minutely into Mr. Ffoulkes' reply to my last letter.

His judgment on Dr. Maassen's great work is sufficient to explain our relative positions towards each other in the present controversy. In Germany the history of ecclesiastical law is the study, not of amateurs as in England, but of men who apply to it a rigour of method which in this country is rarely met with except in works on physical science. Dr. Maassen's book represents the most advanced stage of the science; and I follow the most eminent scholars in Germany, beginning with Savigny, in looking upon its arrangement not only as perfectly lucid, but as the only suitable one for such a work. In contending with Mr. Ffoulkes, I have generally to deal with arguments which have long since been obsolete.

I. Mr. Ffoulkes now denies my assertion that the three volumes of the Justel MS. were written by the same hand. In his article (p. 140) he had described the first and second as "transcribed in the same character and probably by the same hand as the contents of the second volume." The fact to which he now calls my attention as inconsistent with this had not escaped me, for I had meant to quote it against him. How can the "heterogeneous" character of certain portions of this collection be an argument against its unity, when, as he very justly observes, "numbers of MSS. .... the Theatine included, exhibit the same phenomena "? Maassen has shown that four ancient Italian collections (of which the Justel is one), perfectly independent of each other but nearly akin to each other, are characterised by a similarity of plan which leads one to infer, not only that the "heterogeneous" contents belong to it, but that a series of decretals were formerly to be found at the end of vol. iii.

II. "I should," says Mr. Ffoulkes, "particularly like to see the Latin version sent by Atticus to the African Church,' though I have no doubt at all about there having been another older than that. . . . But where is either version extant?" I will tell Mr. Ffoulkes. On looking at p. 903 of his Maassen, he will find the version of Caecilianus of Carthage critically edited from MSS. Of the Latin version made by the presbyters Philo and Evarestus, and sent by Atticus of Constantinople, there are two texts; one corrupt, which is contained in Hardouin (i. p. 1245) and Mansi (i. p. 407, ed. 1760), and another published by Gonzalez from much purer MSS. in the Madrid edition of the Collectio Canonum Ecclesiae Hispanae (tom. i., col. 169). The latter book is not, I believe, common in this country, but it is reprinted in Migne's Collection, tom. lxxxiv.

III. Mr. Ffoulkes "has never seen it proved" to his satisfaction (and he speaks as if he had never heard) that "the so-called Prisca Versio of the Nicene decrees is no version at all, but a mere compilation of two more ancient texts." The demonstration of this fact could not be given without exhibiting three distinct and complete texts of the Nicene canons; but anyone who will take the trouble to make the comparison of

one.

these texts will see that my assertion is a correct Three texts-A, B, and C-are given, the problem being to determine the relation of A to B.

66

The history of C is perfectly well known. It is found that A and B are in general exactly alike, except where B borrows from C. It is surely manifest that A is the earlier text, and B a compilation from A and C. Such is the case of the so-called Prisca Versio of the Nicene decrees. So far is the Codex Theatinus from giving bolder gloss on the Prisca than the Prisca is on the original," that the "Prisca," as a rule, differs in no respect from the Theatine text except when it borrows from the version of Philo and Evaristus. What Mr. Ffoulkes considers a gloss is simply the original Latin text.

a

The passage quoted from the Ballerini, to the effect that the Theatine MS. "non totam Priscam editionem continet," &c., is not accurate. The Theatine MS. contains the whole of the "Prisca." This term, I repeat, involves an exploded hypothesis of Justel, adopted by De Marca and

others.

rous generosity" in taking up arms for a renowned archbishop of my Church. There are two things at least much more important to me than the reputation of De Marca-namely, scientific method and historical truth. If any "archbishop of my Church" wilfully sins against these, I shall, far from taking up arms in his defence, feel the utmost delight at his falling into the hands of the Philistines. P. LE PAGE RENOUF.

[This controversy must end here.--EDITOR.]

The EDITOR will be glad if the Secretaries of Institutions, and other persons concerned, will lend their aid in making this Calendar as complete as possible.

APPOINTMENTS FOR NEXT WEEK. SATURDAY, March 13,3 p.m. Royal Institution: Professor Clifford on The General Features of the History of Science." Crystal Palace Concert (Joachim). Saturday Popular Concert, St. James's Hall (Bülow). Royal Botanic.

3.45 p.m.

MONDAY, March 15, 1 p.m.

Sale at Christie's of the Collection of Old English Porcelain of H. G. Bohn, Esq.

Asiatic.

3 p.m.

7 p.m.

Entomological.

8 p.m.

If

IV. Mr. Ffoulkes thinks he may safely challenge me to exhibit any MS. earlier than the eighth or ninth centuries, where the Sardican and Nicene canons follow in consecutive numbers. De Marca considered this "desideratum" as indispensable to his hypothesis, it was a very foolish thought, and I am astonished to find it revived at the present day. It is absolutely certain that such MSS. existed in the fifth century, for St. Jerome and his contemporaries never quote from any others. No one now thinks of basing a negative inference on the mere date of a MS. The text which it contains may possess criteria of antiquity quite independent of the time in which it was written. Some cursive and by no means very ancient MSS. of the New Testament are quite equal in value to those written in the most magnificent uncials. They are, in fact, copies of very much older MSS. As regards the question now before us, three perfectly distinct periods are to be recognised: 1. That in which the Sardican and Nicene canons were united under one title; 2. That in which the Sardican were known, in consequence of the African controversy, not to be Nicene, their real origin being left in uncertainty; 3. That in which the Sardican are known and

recognised as such. The publication of the collection of Dionysius Exiguus greatly contributed to the spread of correct views on the subject. But old collections continued to be copied, and the MSS. of which Mr. Ffoulkes thinks so cheaply represent, as far as this question is concerned, the views current before Dionysius.

V. I am loth to add another word to what I have said about De Marca's intervention in the publication of the Justel MS. Those who are acquainted with the science of books will judge whether my theory or that of Mr. Ffoulkes best explains the phenomena of the existing copies of the Bibliotheca Juris Canonici of Voel and Justel. I will only say that the notion of De Marca's having anything to do with the mutilation of the MS. is in flagrant contradiction with the testimony of the truthful Baluze that the manuscript was brought in his presence mutilated to be Marca by the editors, who loudly declared that

the pages which they were forced to publish were no real part of it. The assertion that "the editors secured their MS. against any farther harm by sending it over to this country " is a most unjustifiable piece of romance.

Finally, I disclaim the imputation of "chival

8 p.m. 8.30 p.m.

British Architects. Medical. Monday Popular Concert, St. James's Hall (Malle. Krebs, Joachim).

Civil Engineers. Pathological. Zoological.

The Polarization of Light. By W. Spottiswoode, F.R.S. Nature Series. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1875.) PROBABLY few branches of natural science of equal importance, or of equal interest to the general reader, are so poorly provided with text-books, advanced or elementary, as that of Light. It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we have received this contribution towards filling up the gap. The only treatises so far practically accessible to the English student were Airy's Tract on the Undulatory Theory, and Lloyd's Wave Theory of Light. The latter forms a very excellent history of the science, but is very difficult to the general, and not satisfying to the mathematical, reader; the former is entirely a mathematical treatise, omitting, however, the full development of Fresnel's theory of double refraction. The present little book is eminently suited to supply the want of an elementary text-book on the polarization of light-and it is to be hoped that we shall ere long possess a treatise combining both experimental and theoretical details.

The book had its origin in a series of lectures delivered by the author, and its only serious fault is one to which a book so produced is especially liable, viz. the introduc tion of merely illustrative matter which will catch the attention of an audience, but which in a book is distinctly bad if it diminishes the space available for a full development of important principles.

The author begins by describing some of the methods of polarizing light, and so leads his readers to a clear notion of the polarization of light more easily than would be possible by starting with a formal enunciation. A very complete and lucid account is next given of the colours observed when polarized light is transmitted in parallel rays through crystal plates, and then analysed. The explanation of these phenomena necessitates an account of the wave theory and of the principle of interference. This is not followed into its more intricate consequences, but the explanation of the diminution in the intensity of the colours with increase in thickness of the plates is rendered beautifully simple by the aid of the spectroscope, which is introduced whenever it is capable of rendering manifest the nature of the light under investigation.

This is followed by a really excellent chapter on circular polarization, all the more valuable as being on a branch of the subject which is rather liable to neglect, or at any rate to less attention than its importance deserves, both when considered in its practical applications to the construction of optical instruments, and for the curious relation, discovered by Sir J. Herschel, which holds between the faces of a crystal and the direc tion in which the plane of polarization is turned by it.

is

A portion of the seventh chapter has been devoted to the polarization of the atmosphere, in which the general results of Professor Tyndall's investigations have been given, with a description of some of his beautiful experiments. Why, however, has no mention of the neutral points been made? The discovery, also, made in a recent balloon spoken of by previous aeronauts, was a deascent, that the blackness of the sky, as lusion resulting from physical exhaustion, suggests the importance of examining the polarization at great elevations. The chapter on the phenomena observed when crystal plates are examined in divergent rays good and rich in matter, although from the necessity of condensing so much into one chapter, and also from the inherent difficulty of the subject, it is far the most difficult one. It is, perhaps, fortunate that it does not meet the reader at an early stage as, in addition to what has been just said, several strange words, certainly of great convenience, have been introduced into it, the meaning of which would be clear to an audience witnessing the phenomena, but whose meaning ought to have been more clearly given in the book. Thus "stauroscopic figure" is used to denote the figures consisting of coloured rings with dark or light brushes, and this is said to be "enthysymmetrically divided when it is divided into two similar portions by a straight line. Among other things which are good, about the best portion of the chapter is that relating to the optic axes