Present State of Things in America. 463 stand the Book Catalogue, therefore, this circumstance must be borne in mind. Thus 42c., which occurs very frequently, is the nearest approximation to 413c., or half-a-crown N.E. We have gone over pages 10, 15-305, taking every fifth page, and, omitting prices which are common to the decimal and the non-decimal system, we find the ratio of non-decimal prices (or prices expressible by exact numbers of shillings and sixpences) to decimal prices to be 117 to 40. In other words, there are three times as many prices expressed in shillings as in cents proper; and this, too, spite of the more extensive choice of decimal places. The space of half a century has, then, hardly sufficed to clear away one-fourth of the old habits of speaking and thinking in shillings. At this rate, much of that habit will survive to the year 2000. We will exhibit the argument in another form. The decimalists have already commenced their approaches, and are sapping our system by the introduction of the florin as the substitute for the half-crown. We will try to conjecture the interval which must elapse between the periods when the half-crown shall cease to be a coin, and when it shall cease to be a price. We e are not sure that any existing New Yorker can remember his half-crown. There is no such coin-for aught we know there never was one-and so, says the decimalist, there is an end of the matter. Softly, we entreat. Let him enter the stores of Broadway, and the phrase "two-and-sixpence" will greet his ears often enough. The people have not abandoned the language of their old currency. We have the authority of the Director of the U. S. Mint, Mr Snowden, for stating, that "the custom still obtains in many, if not most, of the older states of the Union, of expressing small prices colloquially in shillings and pence." But the decimalist would like us, perhaps, to consult the Book Catalogue. Well, we have no objection. The half-crown occurs often enough there, at any rate. And in such a questionable shape: 31 cents! Why, it is so near 30-three dimes, three coins which do exist-that even an anti-decimalist would hardly anticipate that the ghost of a half-crown should have a chance with its tangible rival. But how often does it occur? By a careful examination of the first 50 pages, we find that it occurs thereon 41 times, whilst its decimal neighbour 30 occurs only 22 times. The deceased half-crown beats its living successor two to one. Let those who are so industriously labouring to destroy our half-crown, complete the solution of this little problem: If an imaginary coin loses one-third of its being in 50 years, how long will it take to destroy a real one? We have instanced the half-crown, not because it is the strongest example, but because it furnishes matter for present consideration. Is it possible to supplant the English half-crown? Ought the attempt to be persevered in? Let the half-crown and the florin be allowed to struggle together, and we will answer for the result. The fourth of the half-sovereign against the fifth the latter has no chance. Does it seem necessary to offer proof? Hardly necessary; but we will condescend on one. There is a gentleman at this moment in Britain, on some diplomatic errand relative to the coinage-Mr J. H. Alexander of Baltimore, U. S. His authority is unquestionable, and, as he is a thorough decimalist, can be open to no suspicion. It happened that Mr Quincey Adams had stated that the Americans have halves, quarters, etc., and might have fifths of a dollar. Lest the latter portion of this sentence should convey a wrong impression, Mr Alexander writes thus:-"The facts are, that they [the fifths] did exist. I myself have handled many hundreds of them; and they only went out of use because of their liability to be confused with the fourths, just as now a florin and a new Victoria half-crown are rather confusing to a stranger." The weaker went to the wall: and the weaker, even in a country where the decimal system is in full operation, is the decimal coin-the fifth. Another example. A glance at the catalogue will show that 3s. N.Y., or 38 cents, is a very popular price. It will be found fourteen times on page 5. But where is its decimal neighbour 40? It does not occur on the page at all; and, on the succeeding fourteen pages, taken together, it does not occur fourteen times-only eight. We conclude: If the old coinage prices have maintained their ground in America, both because they were once on the ground, and because of the facilities they afford for binary division-if they keep their ground against a system which is the glory of the very men who partially abandon it: what dire confusion will the historian of the British coinage have to record, should our legislators determine on the introduction of a decimal system, which is neither suited to the wants, nor demanded by the wishes, of the people? There are other matters connected with the question before us, which we have not space to discuss. For example, the bearing of the decimalisation of the coinage on that of the weights and measures. At present the division of the shilling tallies completely, and that of the pound partially, with the combined binary and ternary division of our weights and measures. Ought we to preserve this connection? Unanimous as are the advocates of the pound and mil scheme on other points, they are completely divided on this. One thinks decimalisation should commence with the coinage; another, that it should com mence with the weights and measures; a third, that it should take effect simultaneously in the two. Those who anticipate that the dealings of the people will, to any extent, spontaneously accommodate themselves to the coinage, for instance, that wine will cease to be sold by the dozen, and come to be sold by the ten, labour under a delusion. From the Atlantic to the Mississippi, dozens retain the position they occupy in this country. For our own parts, we are disposed to advocate some reform in the system of weights and measures. The numerous and alto gether irreconcileable variations which occur in different localities, afford a ground for interference which has not the faintest parallel in the case of the coinage. And should the decimalisation of weights and measures be carried out, and take a firm hold of the people, the question of reforming the monetary system would then present a new and far more favourable aspect than at present. In the meantime, we trust the Government will adhere to the judicious position laid down by Mr Gladstone, when Chancellor of the Exchequer :-"The present arrangement of the currency. . . is so wound up in the habits of the people, that it would not be desirable to have recourse to any change in it, unless we had clear evidence that it was one the people themselves required and understood." In parting, we may be allowed to express our unfeigned respect for the talents, and admiration of the disinterested zeal of such men as Professor De Morgan. Actuated by a simple desire for the public good, they have laboured hard for years, with a devotedness scarcely exceeded in cases where a personal end is the guiding principle. The present is the only one of their pursuits in which we do not heartily wish them success. 2 G VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII. ART. VII.-1. The Ogilvies: A Novel. Cheap Edition. Revised. Chapman and Hall. 1855. 2. Olive: A Novel. By the Author of "The Ogilvies." Cheap Edition. Revised. Chapman and Hall. 1857. 3. The Head of the Family. By the Author of "Olive, “The Ogilvies." Cheap Edition. Chapman and Hall. 1858. 4. Agatha's Husband. By the Author of "Olive," "The Ogilvies," "The Head of the Family." Cheap Edition. Chapman and Hall. 1858. 5. John Halifax, Gentleman, 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett. By the Author of "The Head of the Family," etc. 1856. 6. Nothing New. Tales by the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman, 2 vols. Hurst and Blackett. 7. A Woman's Thoughts about Women. By the Author of "John Halifax." Hurst and Blackett. 1858. IT is clear that, hitherto at least, feminine ability has found for itself a far more suitable sphere in novel-writing than in any other branch of literature. Among English or American authoresses we doubt if any, with perhaps one exception, have achieved for themselves a permanent place in the history of English literature, who are not novel-writers; and even the failures belong chiefly to the same class, though some few of the latter have been made in the field of poetry. Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen; Mrs Inchbald, Mrs Radcliffe; Miss Martineau, Mrs Marsh, Mrs Gaskell, Miss Bronte, Miss Muloch; Miss Sewell, Lady Georgiana Fullarton, Miss Yonge; Miss Sedgwick, Miss Mitford, and Mrs Stowe, are most of them remembered exclusively-all of them, even Miss Martineau, mainly-by their fictions. Even Mrs Browning's greatest work, Aurora Leigh, though full of poetic power, has been termed, with great truth, a "modern novel in verse," so full is it of that circumstantial descriptiveness-so to say-in dealing with mood, scene, and incident, which properly constitutes the novel as distinguished from the poem. Still, if we except Mrs Browning, and as some will think, Joanna Baillie and Mrs Hemans, there remains, we believe, not a single woman's name of distinction in the field of 1 We ought to add to this group the less generally known writers, the Baroness Tautphæus, the lively and skilful English authoress of "The Initials," "Quits," etc.; also the authoress of "Lena," "Kingscope," etc.; and, lastly, the authoress of "A Lost Love," published under the pseudonym of Ashford Owen. The imagination that gave birth to Lena, Kingscope, etc., has a vein of light humour, and a power of individualising the superficies of character not surpassed by any writer but Miss Austen, though her fictions skim only the surface of life. The last mentioned writer has written but one short tale; but yet a tale of rarely-equalled beauty, pathos, and power. The Imaginations of Men and Women. 467 English literature, which is not mainly associated with the novel. The reason is perhaps not very recondite. The purely human interests of life, the daily incidents, the circumstantial joys and sorrows, occupy largely the thoughts of women; and what occupies the thoughts works in the imagination. If, at any moment, the reveries of all the men and all the women in England could be laid bare to us, there can be little doubt that the latter would be found filled, for the most part, with pictures, memories, or hopes of visible human life,-men, women, or children, in actual or possible costume, with faces sad or happy, in the midst of daily wants or luxury, in the crisis of some great or little emergency, or the enjoyment of some long-desired blessing. But not so with the men: in their minds a curious mêlée of interests half abstract, and where they were not abstract, often at least less about persons than about things. You would find in them queer visions of books, ballot-boxes, 3 per cents, bank-reserves, railway regulations, cotton bales, rights of electors, race-courses, courts of chancery, points of evidence, and again, considerations about kings, and wars, and statesmen, past and present, telegraph-cables, attractions of gravitation, planetary orbits, laws of metre, laws of thought, and laws of harmony. And, as are the common thoughts of men and women, so are their imaginative powers. The former have more power to conceive anything, we will not say merely abstract, but that requires some withdrawal of the imagination from the human dress and circumstance of life; while the latter have more skill in elaborating fresh combinations of human incidents-that flow of event which is one of the greatest necessities of the writer of fiction. It is for this reason we conceive that women have not yet succeeded as poets. Poetry is concerned, it is true, mainly with the creation of living and breathing life, yet it certainly requires a power akin to the power of abstraction. The poet must penetrate and battle for a time, nay even live, far beneath the surface of life, in order to create fine poetry. Not that he can neglect any visible expression of deeper wisdom that is written on the surface of the universe, but that he must decypher and interpret it. It requires an effort, something of a spiritual mood, to plunge into the pure beauty of true poetry. And though women have usually finer spiritual sympathies than men, they have not the same power of concentrating their minds in these alone, and living apart in them for a time, without being disturbed by the intrusive superficialities of actual life and circumstances. Their imagination is not separable, as it were, in anything like the same degree, from the visible surface and form of human existence; and hence, such poetry as they do usually write, is apt to be mere personal sentiment without any token of true imaginative power at all. |