SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1875. No. 150, New Series.

THE EDITOR cannot undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscript.

It is particularly requested that all business letters regarding the supply of the paper, &c., may be addressed to the PUBLISHER, and not to the EDITOR.

LITERATURE.

MASSON'S EDITION OF MILTON.

The Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited,

with Introductions, Notes, and an Essay on Milton's English, by David Masson, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. In Three Volumes. ("Golden Treasury edition of the same. In Two Volumes.) (London: Macmillan & Co., 1874.)

THE high expectation raised by the announcement that Professor Masson would edit the poems of Milton has not been disappointed by these volumes. They are replete with information, often new and nearly always newly arranged. The results of the editor's research are usually set forth with spirit and vivacity, though we occasionally meet with those repetitions and exuberances, that over-familiar dallying with a favourite theme, which deface some of Professor Masson's best work; but by far the greater part of these notes and introductions are pleasant (if rather diffuse) reading; and when we find here garnered up all available authentic information as to Milton and his works, we may well bear with the tender garrulity of an affectionate enthusiasm. In an essay on Milton's English, the peculiarities of the poet's vocabulary, spelling, syntax, and punctuation are fully discussed. Professor Masson has given abundant proof of the uselessness of reproducing the (socalled) original spelling and pointing of the early editions. He modernises boldly. He will not bow to the bidding of Landor and other fanatical admirers of the chaotic Seventeenth-century printing; therein differing toto coelo from Mr. Hales, in his edition of the Areopagitica, who reproduces all the capitals and italics and oddities of the original—“mortalle," "suttlety," "shouldiership." Some editors have so far temporised as to preserve the old forms "vanquisht," "lookt," &c.; but the Professor solidly says, "Surely the most sensible plan is to conform to present usage, and to print uniformly ed in this category of praeterites, unless where, as does happen sometime, the t form recommends itself by a subtle twitch of fitness at the moment, e.g. P. L., vi. 580." He treats the parallel-passage annotation a little too scornfully, though the profusion of such notes gives its chief charm to Warton's edition of the Minor Poems, an edition whose worth he fully recognises. He is observant even of minute differences in the early copies, when these differences are at all important. To this vigilance one-possibly a solitary-exception

"I should have forced thee soon with other arms,"

which Mr. Keightley explained by a note, stands thus, as in nearly all modern reprints. The early copies have wish.

and

may be noted. The line (Samson Agonistes, approve Satan's choice of residence. The 1096), rank and file of the angels are poor creatures beneath their celestial panoply, dull punsters, cringing courtiers, meanly (if piously) triumphing over fallen foes whom they have failed to conquer, sniggering over the calamity of the men of Babel. They are rather sorry at the Fall of Man, but they would have speedily forgotten their "dim sadness," even had no gospel of mercy been heard on high. Of course this is not the way to look at the poem. But such considerations show us how the whole optical effect of the exhibition depends on our rigidly maintaining the attitude in which Milton puts us. His intention dominates all. Nothing is but as his thinking makes it. Apart from his personal drift, a steady gaze at his work fills us with astonishment at the mental power that could secure the cohesion of such jarring elements even for a moment. The native

The reader of these volumes will find that the ponderous absurdities of Todd, and the eccentricities which here and there flecked the scholarly and earnest work of Keightley have vanished from this edition, reared with patient loving labour, a fitting shrine for the relics of Milton. The smaller version, in the "Golden Treasury Series," has, prefixed to the poems, a memoir modestly called "A Map or Chronology of the Life as a whole." Among other matter which will be new to many readers is a discovery of Professor Masson's own making. The name of Milton's mother, hitherto variously given as Caston or Bradshaw, turns out to have been Jeffreys or Jeffray. Here and there the writer has been carried away by his enthusiasm. The judgment of a critic is less discernible than the partiality of a biographer in the statement (p. xxix.) that "between 1640 and 1660 there was almost a total cessation of Pure Literature in England, in consequence of the drafting of the literary intellect of the country into the service of the current controversies." When so writing, Professor Masson must have forgotten that during those years the Hesperides, Lucasta, the Steps to the Temple, and several of Cowley's works enriched our store of poetry; Walton published his Angler, and Fuller finished his Church History; Jeremy Taylor produced (beside other volumes) his Golden Grove, Baxter his Saint's Rest; and in the intervals of practice at Norwich, Dr. Browne was bringing out Religio Medici, Vulgar Errors, and Urn Burial. The list carries our thoughts away from "the troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes" to a region calm of pure and serene air." This current of quiet thought flowed on silently, and the better spirits (such, for instance, as Evelyn) were thereby refreshed and sustained during the fever of the Restoration.

The appearance of this edition, summing up the results of previous studies, may afford a starting point for such fresh investigation as may be needed or possible. But it is difficult to see (unless in the unearthing of fresh documents bearing on the poet's life) what further Miltonic worlds are left to conquer. As to criticism, it is not easy to say anything new and true of an author whose sense is single, and who carries the imagination captive at his will through regions and circumstances of which we can have no other conception than the very definite one he himself affords us. We cannot quarry into him as into the solid Shakespeare. We cannot see his universe from any other than his personal point of view. His man and woman, where they are not wholly exceptional, are wholly generalities. His devils resemble humanity so closely that we are told by himself what we are to think of them when, without that monition, we might forget their diabolic nature. Indeed, were we at liberty to think freely on the representation he gives us of Heaven and Hell, it is not certain that we should dis

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force which alone could cope with such a theme had been early trained to the hardest task-work of "slow endeavouring art." The vast Cosmos of Milton, compared with which, Dante's universe might go into a nutshell," bears out the view that our poet's art lay in seeming to overcome, rather than in really overcoming the difficulties of his subject. Professor Masson has thoroughly worked out the cosmography, and presents us with diagrams illustrative thereof. It is definite enough, certainly, this Cosmos; but is a dead framework, an infinitely extended unspiritual world. Every step of Dante's journey is on ground hallowed to God's justice, mercy, or praise, and though the outward semblances of things are sharply defined, the spiritual meaning informs the whole with a mystery of which we find no counterpart in Milton. Of Dante's spiritworld we may say, as Lamb did of Spenser's, "We know not the laws of that country."

Milton's own culture and belief added to the intrinsic difficulties of his undertaking. The traditions of Olympus were familiar to him, and he had early loved to linger and listen "to what unshorn Apollo sings." But he also shared the Puritan notion that culture and art really spring from the corruption of man's nature, and that the old gods of the nations were fallen spirits, The proceedings of the council in Pandemonium are duly held in accordance with Homeric precedent. In the pure empyrean we are still haunted by memories of Zeus and Poseidon, however blended with Apocalyptic hints. But all spirit and life has been left in the lower region. Beelzebub may well address his peers as "Synod of Gods!" We might have supposed his chief's sarcasms against the state of Heaven to be "calumnious art of counterfeited truth," but that our experience of the angelic natures bears him out. Their service is anything but perfect freedom, "the minstrelsy of Heaven." And the observation might take a wider range. What can the Divine Persons of a Christian poem say? Milton suppresses his own invention absolutely, and " keeps close to the words of the Bible (iii. 156). True: but with what poetic effect? The mysterious dialogue is degraded into a carte and tierce of Scripture phrases, and the Deity appears incapable of

other utterances than those familiar to the readers of the Authorised Version. Not only has Milton's character rightly absolved him from all suspicion of irreverence, but his name and fame have prevented this absurdity from being assigned to its true cause. He might easily have left out of view, in a poem which claims our dogmatic, not merely our poetic belief, those things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. The demons might have been modelled on degraded humanity, but "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." The fact is, we have here one instance among many of the singular obtuseness of Milton to impressions ordinary and obvious to men of far less intellectual sensibility. For other examples in his domestic history we need not look far. His atter incapacity to comprehend the signs of his times was shown in a position exceptionally well suited for observing them. A far lesser man, not in constant communication with the ruling powers, might well have perceived that on the eve of the Restoration, no way to establish a Free Commonwealth was "ready"

or

easy." Milton failed to appreciate the complexity of life, "not condescending to little things." All temptations to him were on the model of the first-a simple choice between plain right and evident wrong. The actual difficulties of decision between contending claims and duties-difficulties at least as rife in his time as in any-he never recognised. In Paradise Regained, the force of the temptation is almost annihilated by the Divine discernment of the Tempted One, and (save in the last trial) is turned aside rather by a supernatural faculty than by a moral resistance. Satan once known as Satan, it is comparatively easy to reject his counsels. Bunyan saw deeper when he made his Christian combat diabolic suggestions which seemed to spring from his own mind.

Even in the domain of his art, Milton's intense effort, ever urging him onwards to the completion of his task, seems to have precluded much contemplation of it as it proceeded. He pauses, indeed, now and again to contemplate himself. "Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed." We owe Paradise Lost quite as much to this sustained, eager narrowness of mind as to the oft-lauded "sublimity" of his inspiration. Milton's egotism is "a revelation of spirit," as has been well said, and it characterises the Paradise Lost as much as the tender, persistent humility of Dante marks the Divine Comedy. The current of his life determined that of his poetry, according to his own opinion that one who would write well in laudable things should himself be a true poem. His growth in Puritanism may be traced in the Paradise Lost. After the Titanic battle in Book VI. we have more and more of the Hebrew Scriptures, and less of the Renaissance eclecticism. For richness and variety the earlier books are as conspicuous as are the later for severe simplicity-even to baldness. As God Almighty rather than the Almighty Good was the object of Puritan worship, it was natural that Milton should regard power as something indefeasibly holy. We have an example of the same bias in one of our greatest living writers. It was remarkable that one who had been in the van of the attack on all existing insti

tations-who had shown no mercy to power that pleaded other sanctions, as law, prescription, tradition-should reserve his admiration for the power sanctioned by itself only, the bare force that supported the "strongest" government which that generation had known. This characteristic of Milton was so well appreciated by his contemporaries that they forgot the rest of his character. They imagined that he would acquiesce in the downfall of public virtue as easily as he had pardoned the overthrow of public liberty. In a copy of verses I have read-nowise remarkable, save as recording the current opinion-Paradise Lost is regarded as a recantation, is said to have made amends for his prose writings, and to have been "his Paradise Regained."

The tone of these remarks may, to a reader fresh from the warm encomiums of Professor Masson, seem almost that of disparagement. But even he expressly allows that much of the interest of Paradise Lost lies in its presenting us with "a study of a great English mind of the seventeenth century." We may say, then, that Milton's work, intrinsically precious as it is, is chiefly valuable to us for Milton's sake. We hear in it the music of the varying moods of his constant, noble mind. His Mirth was the daughter of the breeze and the dawn-his Melancholy was the "divinest." I, for one, am not ashamed to own that from the splendours and terrors of Paradise Lost, from the "brooks of Eden mazily murmuring," I turn with ever-fresh delight to the musings whence all that is purest and loveliest in the great poem had their source--to the incomparable "Allegro" and "Penseroso."

R. C. BROWNE.

EGYPT AND THE HOLY LAND.

Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines. By Viscountess Strangford. New Edition. (London: Macmillan & Co, 1874.) Histoire d'Egypte, dès les Premiers Temps de son Existence. Par H. Brugsch-Bey. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1875.) Neue Wandkarte von Palaestina. Von Heinrich Kiepert. (Berlin: Reimer, 1874.) "Or making many books," says an eminent authority, "there is no end," and of no class of works is this so true as of books of travel in the Holy Land. Lady Strangford, however, has earned for herself the right to be heard on this subject, and must by no means be classed with the herd of tourists who, after a few months' experience of the East, studied through the medium of a dragoman or contracting excursionist, feel it incumbent upon themselves to rush into print and set up for geographers. There is always a freshness and a truthfulness about her writings which make them pleasant as well as instructive reading. The present new edition of Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines will be welcomed by travellers as a supplement to Murray, while the ordinary reader may derive from it either amusement or instruction, according to his bent. The style is delightful, and although it must be confessed that the information conveyed is neither unique nor startling, yet the facts may be for the most part per fectly relied upon. We should perhaps make

a slight exception in the case of the general statement concerning the topography of Jerusalem itself. Lady Strangford has in this followed Signor Pierotti rather too im plicitly; but, as is now well known, the subsequent researches of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem and the Palestine Exploration Fund have cast grave suspicions upon the conclusions or speculations of that author. Otherwise the book is unexceptionable for accuracy and graphic description.

Brugsch-Bey has taken the early history of Egypt out of the domain of fable and speculation, and has given us instead, on the authority of hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri, almost as clear, circumstantial, and authentic an account as we possess of the history of any European State. The present brochure contains the first twelve chapters of the French edition of the work, and comprises the disquisitions upon the origin of the ancient Egyptians, their neighbours, with the chronology of the times of the Pharaohs, and an account of the earlier dynasties until the time of Joseph. The author combats the notion that the ancient civilisation of Egypt was due to Ethiopia, but contends that it was indigenous, and points out that the oldest monuments exist in the north, at the summit of the Delta and of Lower Egypt, and that they follow a regular chronological order, gradually losing the stamp of antiquity as we approach the cataracts of Ethiopia.

Brugsch-Bey possesses an enthusiastic love for his subject, which, though leading to painstaking and laborious research, and consequently to accuracy of detail, is nevertheless scarcely conducive to that impartiality which should distinguish the historian. Thus, for instance, when he implies (p. 17) that the subjects of the Pharaohs more than rivalled Christianity in their moral code, supplied all the divine sentiment of justice which pervades the Mosaic laws, and antici pated the policy of modern educational reform, we must take his statement with rather large grain of salt.

The chapter on "La Pré-histoire d'Egypte" contains some clear and important details on the mythology of the people, and its origin; while that on the Chronology is treated in an exhaustive, scholar-like, and eminently common-sense manner. With the fifth chapter we commence the history of the first Pharaoh Mena, and of the ancient empire. It would be beyond the scope of a notice like the present to give so much as a résumé of the events of this or the succeeding reigns; suffice it to say that even a cursory perusal of this part of the work will give a new interest to the hieroglyphic monuments, not only to those who are fortunate enough to be able to study them on the spot, but even to the ordinary visitor to our museums, where so many are preserved. The question of the origin and use of the Pyramids was conclusively settled by Sir Henry James on "the Great Pyramid," in which he com pletely disposed of the astronomical theory about which so much learned nonsense has been written. It is satisfactory to find his conclusions confirmed by so high an authority as the author of this work, who not only demonstrates the fact that these huge piles were constructed as

tombs for their royal owners, but points out that an exact proportion exists between their size and the duration of the builders' reigns. It appears that they were commenced by placing a small and perfectly shaped pyramid over a sepulchral chamber, and that each this erection was covered year with a fresh coating of stones, so that the longer the Pharaoh lived the larger the pyramid became.

But the portion of the book which will be read with the greatest eagerness by most people is that which relates to the domination of the so-called Hycsos dynasty, and the history of Joseph and the seven years' famine in Egypt. Herr Brugsch shows that

the Biblical narrative of these events is sub

stantially confirmed by the testimony of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. We shall look with great interest for the forthcoming part, in which the subject of the persecution and exodus of the Israelites is treated, as upon the former and upon the earlier part at least of the journey of Moses and his followers, Herr Brugsch can, perhaps, give us better information than any other writer.

Dr. Kiepert's map of Palestine is one of the best extant cartographical accounts of the Holy Land. It embodies the most accurate geographical information obtainable pending the publication of the Palestine Exploration Fund's survey. This information is well digested, the map boldly executed, and the features of the country delineated with due regard to technical detail, but at the same time so clearly as to be intelligible even to a child. There are a few slips in the work, but not important ones. For instance, Dr. Robinson, on totally insufficient grounds, conjectured that the ruins of El Aujeh, in the Tîh, were identical with Ebodah, an ancient Roman fort marked in the Peutinger tables. The late Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake and I, in the course of our wanderings through the unexplored part of the wilderness, found a site not only exactly corresponding in position with that of the old Roman station, forming one of a Line of forts on the old Roman road, but actually bearing among the 'Azazimeh (an isolated mountain tribe) the name of 'Abdeh, which is literally identical with Ebodah. Dr. Kiepert, while giving our 'Abdeh from Our published map, yet retains the name Ebodah as an equivalent of El 'Aujeh; but as it is not pretended that there were two Ebodahs, I imagine the latter must be an oversight. The map is in eight sheets, which can either be used separately, or mounted together as one entire chart for the wall. The biblical teacher or student will find it an invaluable help in his labours.

E. H. PALMER.

A History of England, principally in the Seventeenth Century. By Leopold von Ranke. In Six Volumes. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1875.)

Nor very long ago there was a story current in Germany to the effect that at the time when M. Thiers was careering through Europe in search of allies for his endangered country, he met Professor Ranke at an hotel in Vienna. The conversation soon passed from literary topics to the stirring political

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events of the day, till the Frenchman put the pointed question, "Against whom are you fighting now that the Emperor is deposed?" C'est Louis XIV.," was the prompt reply. Whether the anecdote be true or not, it is at least characteristic of the great historian. "C'est Louis XIV." be given as the reason for the greater may part of his life's work. Starting with the

contrast between the Romance and German nationalities, with a sketch of the Ottoman and Spanish monarchies, and of the Papal domination, he pointed out that at the opening of the sixteenth century the southern opening of the sixteenth century the southern nations were predominant in Europe. The triumphant march of the Spanish and Ottoman armies, the all-pervading spirit of the Italian Papacy and the Italian Renaissance, found nothing in the North to resist their progress. The History of Germany in the Time of the Reformation tells how Luther came to break the spell, and to roll back the tide from north to south. It breaks off at the Peace of Augsburg, in 1555. The writer, it would seem, could never nerve himself to tell the continuous story of his country's suffering. He has given us fragments, the essays on the times of Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II., on the Diets of the Empire, and on the biography of Wallenstein; and then he plunged forward to seize upon the origin of the Prussian kingdom, with its new basis for that unity which was the dream of the historian's youth and the glory of his age. Why is his vision of his country's past so broken? "C'est Louis XIV." That figure triumphant for a moment seems the outcome of all that the Renaissance and the Reformation had done for Europe. It is he who gathers all the spoils of greater men to deck the splendours of the Court of Versailles. In his French History, Ranke challenges the enemy of his country in his own domain. Through two centuries of greatness the vigour of French Protestantism, the splendid bravery of the French aristocracy, the mighty genius of Richelieu, all led up to the hollow grandeur of Louis XIV. Then the idol was shattered, and corruption and all foul abominations spread over the earth from the place where he had been.

If Ranke had not lived to write more than this, his collected works, save for what hope could be got out of the early years of Frederick II., would have formed the gloomiest of tragedies. If we compare the preface of the English History with the work itself, it is plain what an influence the contemplation of the defeat of Louis XIV. exercised on his mind. The original title of the book was English History in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The word "Sixteenth is now dropped out. All the Reformation struggle is hurried over in less than a single volume; but as he approaches the times of Louis XIV., his work becomes fuller and more complete. "England," he says, after speaking of the Revolution of 1688 (Pref., ix.) :—

"England thus reorganised now set itself to contest the political superiority of France in a long and bloody war, which consequently became a struggle between two rival forms of polity; and while the first of these bore sway over the rest of Europe, the other attained to complete realisation

in its island-home, and called forth at a later time manifold imitations on the Continent also when the Continent was torn by civil strife. Between these differing tendencies, these opposite poles, the life of Europe has ever since vibrated from side to side."

These words form the key-note of the most valuable book which eight members of the University of Oxford have now given us in an English form, with the aid of the Clarendon Press, which will, it is to be hoped, be stimulated by the reception of this work to increased usefulness. It was not alone to the pertinacity of William or the genius of Marlborough that the overweening pride of the French despot owed its fall. The nation which took the leading part in the conflict had received impress from Coke and Eliot, from Hampden and Milton and Cromwell, till its form of life had become the very opposite to that form of life which found favour in France. To study the development of that life in the seventeenth century is the object of the book.

It is needless to say that the author brings with him a fund of knowledge of the diplomatic and political State papers of the time which is absolutely unrivalled, and that he was the first to make use of the Venetian despatches, which are invaluable for this period. The principal feature of the book is its sublime and serene impartiality. What are Whigs and Tories that a writer whose eye takes in all forms of political life in Europe at a glance should trouble himself to launch disdainful epithets at one or the other? He at least is under no temptation to forget that each party was but the outcome of thoughts and principles which had sprung into life in a former generation, and that if the leaders of the Commons stood upon the precedents of the House of Lancaster, the King stood upon the precedents of the House of Tudor, or that if the result of the change was to shift "the centre of public authority in England," the Crown and the Cabinet which came to take to a great extent the place of the Crown, gathered up as much as it was right to gather up of the fragments of the shattered authority, so as to justify the vanquished from the charge of being wholly in the wrong.

A history of England in the seventeenth century coming from such a hand is doubly welcome at the present moment. The period of the Stuart kings is, so far as politics are concerned, the least valuable part of Mr. Green's admirable book; and when a book has acquired well-deserved popularity, it is a thankless task to remind the world that "Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile." In Ranke we have the corrective of Mr. Green's ultra-Parliamentarianism. The triumph of Parliament is the main burthen of his narrative, but he sees that James, and Charles, and Cromwell too, had a principle to maintain, and that it was neither consonant with their nature or their position to act much otherwise than they did. We may be quite sure even before we open the book that we shall not find the gloomy period between the session of 1629 and the session of 1640

nicknamed The Tyranny.

The strength of Professor Ranke's book lies in his grasp of the interdependence of events happening contemporaneously in dif

ferent parts of Europe, and of events happening consecutively in point of time, as well as in his power of seeing how men of various characters were affected by these events as they passed by. His main weakness is his want of sympathy with those religious and moral movements which counted for more in the seventeenth century than at any other period of our history. Of course he does not neglect them. The force of Paritanism or Anglicanism must be counted with by every historian at his peril. But he knows them only from the skin outward. If Mr. Green leaves something to be desired in this respect, he is, at least, immeasurably superior to Professor Ranke. Take, for instance, Mr. Green's picture of Elizabethan literature, and then turn to the larger work (book v. chap. vi.). How poor and tame it is. Professor Ranke seems to think that when he has told how the writers of the day dealt with political matters he has said enough. Of Shakespeare's plays the historical or quasi-historical dramas are alone mentioned, while the very of Spenser and Hooker are entirely omitted. In the same way, Mr. Green's elaborate account of Puritanism finds no counterpart in the works of the German historian.

names

The truth is, that Professor Ranke does not care to track out the windings of religious thought, or to measure the pulsation of religious fervour. It is worth while to notice how his knowledge, and the instinct which springs from knowledge, guides him rightly upon very insufficient evidence in his account of the political events of the Session of 1628, while he fails to grasp in any thoroughly satisfactory way, the significance of the religious movement of the Sessions of 1629 and 1640-41. The course of the history presents itself to him as gradually settling down into a mutual understanding between the Crown and the Parliament, based upon the acknowledgment of the preponderance of the latter. Politically, William III. appears as the great reconciler, the man who succeeded when James and Charles and Cromwell had alike failed:

"In theory (v. 302) it would have been impossible to bring the ideas of 1640 into harmony with those of 1660; they remained in perpetual antagonism; but William III. knew how to unite the supporters of both in political action, which harmonised with the true interests of the country. He reminds us of Cromwell; but yet how different were the two men! In Cromwell all was dim impulse, great political instinct, and masterful will; he never succeeded in even coming to an understanding with the popular assemblies, and yet he could not do without them. In William all is reflection, circumspection, forethought, conscious insight into the situation of affairs.”

Perhaps we may repeat once more, "C'est Louis XIV." The harmony between King and Parliament which made the successful conflict possible has evidently the strongest attraction for the historian. The Toleration Act and the abolition of the censorship of the press are shuffled over in a few brief sentences. Yet it may be fairly urged that the establishment of Parliamentary supremacy was only possible under these conditions; and that unless an historian of the seventeenth century keeps clearly before his eyes these two great measures as the beacon by which he is to guide his steps, he will

hardly be likely to pass a fair judgment on the men whose actions he describes. It was the declaration of the House of Commons against a free press and a free pulpit in 1629 which justified Charles in his own eyes in ruling without Parliament altogether. It was Charles's determination to follow in the steps of the Commons, though from the other side, which justified the Long Parliament in its own eyes in abolishing episcopacy and royalty. When this is remembered, we are able to look upon the deeds of these men without praising over much or blaming over much. The men were combating evils for which the remedy had not yet been found. Infinite pity is the true attitude in which to regard those who erred in the struggle as long as their hand was conscientiously, if ignorantly, raised on the side of that which seemed to them to be right. With more justice than the historian of the French Revolution may the Englishman look back with pride to the "Egregias animas qui sanguine nobis Hanc Patriam peperere suo." Hampden and Falkland stand side by side in St. Stephen's Hall. Would that Eliot and Wentworth stood there too.

One would be almost ashamed, however, of pointing out these deficiencies, if it were not that it is needless to call attention to the merits of so great a work. At all events, the deficiencies are not such as to do much harm in England. Our ordinary histories teem with blunders of quite a different kind. It is not merely because we have no general history of the Stuart period that the Oxford University eight, to use a phrase familiar in another region, have wisely placed this book in our hands. It is because its thoughts move in a higher and more elevated sphere than that into which popular English writers have succeeded in penetrating. It will be a happy day for English historical study if it is clearly understood that not to have read and digested this book deprives a writer of any claim to be heard on the period of which it treats. It would be impossible to give any idea of its high merits by any selection of extracts. It must be studied as a whole, and it would be as idle to attempt to convey an idea of the whole by a paragraph as it would be to convey an idea of Mont Blanc by showing a pebble picked up at its foot. The characters of James and Charles, and of scores of others among the leading personages, form a study by themselves; but they must be studied amid the surroundings in which they have been placed by the writer, who, take him all in all, is undeniably the first historian of the day.

It is understood that the Errata have been accidentally omitted, and therefore I may have been anticipated in pointing out that the translator of the first volume would have done well to correct errors about names of which Professor Ranke is sometimes guilty. At p. 377 we have the curious form of Charles Darnley for the brother of Mary Stuart's husband; at p. 479 Effingham is introduced as if it were the surname of the Earl of Nottingham; at p. 504 Lord Digby is termed Sir John in 1621; and at p. 512 we hear of the Duke of Buckingham in 1622. At p. 504 the Scottish title of Lindsay is given, instead of the English title of Lindsey, to

the commander of the expedition which sailed to Rochelle after the death of Buck. ingham. On the other hand, the attack upon Ellesmere's legal dignity by describing him (p. 384) as Keeper of the Privy Seals not warranted by the word Siegelbewahrer in the original.

13

The translators have exercised a wise dis cretion in abstaining from pointing out such errors of fact as that (p. 498) that Bacon was the author of the Paradoxes, or which (p. 515) appeals to a letter printed in the Cabala as the Archbishop of York's, as if it had not been long ago proved by Mr. Forster to be a forgery, originally appearing in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I be a corrector of Professor Ranke it w be necessary to have something approaching 16 to his knowledge. SAMUEL R. GARDINER

attention and respect. With regard to Shak spere particularly, to whose highest interpretation Germans have already contributed so nobly, one cannot but receive with especial interest any fresh offering of German scholarship. It is easy to laugh at certain features in their criticism, and occasionally to wish for an explanation of their explana tions; but it is not easy to over-estimat our obligations to them for raising the ral tone of Shaksperian study, and help to rescue us from a danger that seems eng imminent in England of forgetting the spr in the letter. Textualism, and verbiage a archaeology are pursuits whose importar none would deny; but we want continua reminding that for the real comprehens of Shakspere these, taken altogether, d constitute the end, but are only the meas or rather some of the means, to the Certainly, whatever mistakes the Ge may make concerning our great poet, whatever mists he may seem to ent him—

“ ἐκάλυψε δ' ἄρ' ἠέρι πολλῇ," as the bewildered Briton SO com cries however impossible may be r exegeses in the vulgar opinion, he d not commit the fatal blunder of treat the plays as mere mortua corpora, ignoring the living soul that burns w greater or less intensity in every one them. And this fact is at last gainin full recognition. Also we are beginn to see that the German school is not tagonistic to the English, but supplement to it, and to value more fairly efforts a achievements in a line of investigation have ourselves too much neglected.

The more these two great schools und stand each other, the better must be result. Undoubtedly each has something

learn from the other. Perhaps the work, or instalment of the work, whose appearance we have to notice in this paper may be taken as a sign that Germany is purposed not to neglect the methods hitherto more particularly followed in this country and the United States. Dr. Schmidt's work in the first place aims at being a complete concordance. But it does more than the excellent works of Mrs. Cowden Clarke and Mrs. Howard Furness: it classifies the occurrences of each word according to the sense, so that it is, in short, a concordance and a glossary combined. Assuredly no work could be less liable to the charge of nebulosity. It may be well or ill executed; but there is no mysticism about it. It is as matter of fact as the multiplication table, or one of Mr. Walt Whitman's catalogues. We are glad to say that the work is execated with great care and accuracy. It is no wonder if the English is not always quite faultless-e.g., s.v. Catercousins, Dr. Schmidt speaks of persons who peaceably feed together "--but even in this respect one cannot complain, but may rather admire. The definitions are expressed with clearness and without pretence. The arrangement is satisfactory. The type is all that could be wished. On the whole, the work is a very valuable help to thorough Shaksperian study. We quote one or two specimens, that our readers may judge for themselves Cockney, as it seems, a person who knows only the life and manners of the town, and is consequently well-acquainted with affected phrases, but a stranger to what every child else knows: this great lubber, the world, will prove a c., Tw. IV. 1, 15. Cry to it, as the c. did to the eels when she put emi the paste alive, Lr. II. 4, 123."

:

"Eke, adv. also (used only by Pistol, the Host, and Flute), Wiv. I. 3, 105; II. 3, 77. Mids. III. 1,97."

Eysell, vinegar: I will drink potions of e. gainst my strong infection, Sonn. 111, 10 (vinegar being esteemed efficacious in preventing the communication of the plague and other contagious distempers). Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself? Woot drink up e.? eut a crocodile? Hml. V. 1, 299 (Qq. esill, Ff. esile in italics; Keightley Yssel, Hanmer Nile, Capell Nilus. About to drink up to drink; see Drink and Up. Hamlet's questions are apparently ludicrous, and drinking vinegar, in order to exhibit deep grief by a wry face, seems much more to the purpose than drinking up rivers. As for the crocodile, it must perhaps be remembered that it is a mournful animal; cf. H6B III., 1, 226,

and Oth. IV. 1, 257).”

The idea that the feats Hamlet volunteers should be pertinent to the occasion has, perhaps, not been considered enough by those who have dealt with this vexed passage.

Such is the general character of this work. Anything of the kind so exhaustive has never before been attempted. The labour involved is obviously prodigious; but Dr. Schmidt has faced it boldly. Sudavit et alsit. He has certainly won the honour to which he aspires. "Der Verfasser hat keiner grössern Ehrgeiz -wenn es einem Lexicographen erlaubt ist Ehrgeiz zu hegen—als den, auch eingebornen Engländern nützlich sein zu können." Having thus expressed our high opinion of this work, we may now, without any danger of misleading, point out respects in which we think it improveable.

has not been admitted into the list of the plays. There can be little doubt that that play has just as good a right to be assigned to Shakspere as The Taming of the Shrew, Henry VIII., Pericles, and perhaps Parts II. and III. of Henry VI.; and probably a much better right than The First Part of Henry VI. and Titus Andronicus. If it is to be excluded because it contains some passages by another hand, then Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens, and perhaps Richard III., should be excluded. The statement of the titlepage of the first edition-that it was written by the memorable Worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakspeare, Gent.-is supported by the metrical and the aesthetic evidence (see Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, Part I. pp. 25* -64*). When as good a case is made out for Edward III., by all means let that drama too find a proper welcome. Meanwhile, surely, The Two Noble Kinsmen ought no longer to be left out of any edition of Shakspere's works that professes to be complete, or ignored in any volume that handles those works in their entirety. To turn to a few details, out of several that present themselves:

"Catercousin, quatre cousin, remote relation, misapplied by Gobbo to persons who peaceably feed together: his master and he are scarce -8 Merch. II. 2, 139."

No doubt cater suggests quatre, and editors have perpetually yielded to the suggestion; but, as there is no such phrase in French as quatre cousin, so far as is known,

the result is not of much value. It is a case of "ignotum per ignotius ; " for, whatever be the derivation, there was, and is, such a phrase as cater cousin in English; it is still in use in the provinces; see Halliwell's Dict. of Prov. and Archaic Words. Is it impossible that the cater is connected with cate or cake, cater, acater, caterer, &c., and that the word means simply messfellow ? This explanation has been offered before; but it may still require confirmation.

In the valuable article on it we are told in section 4, that it is "used for the def. article in the language of little children: go to it grandam, child; it grandam will give it a plum, John II. 160, 161." What exactly is meant? Surely it here is either simply the archaic form, which was in Shakspere's age in the course of supersession

by its; or else, the context considered, it is meant to be a piece of broken languageof nursery English-of child's talk.

We are told that interest in Macbeth i. 2. 64:

"No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest."

terested, and gives as an equivalent "to found a claim"! "M. Edd.," i.e. Modern Editors, "preposterously interess'd." Why "preposterously"? J. W. HALES.

Joseph Mazzini. A Memoir by E. A. V. With Two Essays by Mazzini: "Thoughts on Democracy,' and "The Duties of Man." With Two Autotype Portraits. (London: H. S. King & Co., 1875.) THE Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini, published in six volumes a few years ago by Messrs. Smith and Elder, formed a whole too bulky, too disconnected, too little relieved by editorial arrangement or explanation, to be very inviting, even to those who might be sincerely desirous to make acquaintance at first hand with the doctrines and adventures of the great agitator. The present memoir does not, perhaps, give the less faithful representation of its hero because it is the work of an enthusiastic friend and devout admirer. One of the most noticeable of Mazzini's characteristics was the power of inspiring those who knew him with feelings of the strongest personal attachment, and a biographer writing under the influence of such feeling, though unable to save the reader from the labour of criticism, is almost certain to succeed in showing the man as he was content to be seen by his friends. We are only inclined seriously to complain of the writer's zeal when it leads her to publish deliberately charges (generally of "treachery," "betrayal," and the like) against almost every other Italian politician or patriot except Mazzini, from Cavour and Garibaldi downwards, which Mazzini himself was careful to abstain from formulating even when his disappointment at finding their ends and purposes different from those most passionately desired by himself made. him at the time regard the refusal of cooperation as desertion and positive breach of faith. He was too single-minded to waste resentment on individuals who had simply failed him as partisans, and it is an indif ferent compliment to his memory to represent all that has been done for the liberty and unity of Italy, by men with whom he would have been willing to work if they would have worked in his way, as done against his will and in the face of his remonstrance.

Mazzini was born at Genoa in 1805; he was a very delicate and precocious child; as a boy he adopted the habit, which he never abandoned, of dressing always in black, fancying himself, as he says, in mourning for his country. His first aspirations were after literary eminence, and he speaks of his renunciation of the literary career as "his first great sacrifice." To please his family he began to practise as an advocate, and, we can well believe, was highly popular with the poor clients whose causes are, for two years, pleaded gratis by beginners in the profession. He joined the Carbonari, though and dagger ceremonies of affiliation," and being dissatisfied with the absence of any positive aim in the programme of the association. Soon after 1830 he was arrested for complicity in some of their plots and imprisoned in the fortress of Savona; his