any, but as to his ethical programme. Among certain sections of the classes among whom his early lot was cast, one might occasionally hear, upon the premature withdrawal of a good man from this world, the comment that it was "a mercy," for it spared him pain which he could not have escaped if he had lived. We think there is an overwhelming case for the theory that Hinton had come to a parting of the ways— knew it-and then sank under burdens which otherwise he might have borne. It seems to us that a more pathetic story was hardly ever told. The outside world knows little of the interior tragedy of the restless lives of those who are preeminently investigators and enthusiasts for truth. Of course it would be unwise, even if it were very practicable, to show here the ways in which Mr. Hinton, at about the time of his death, may have begun to feel that he must either make a "return" upon himself, or go out into the wilderness once more. Besides, the secret is in our opinion an open one to eyes that are open. "A short and popular account of all the principal socialistic schemes, from the Reformation to the present day [in fact], a short history of Socialism, regarded as a consecutive movement.... adapting itself to prevailing social conditions, and passing successively through the imaginative, the critical, and scientific stages of an evolutionary process." This is a summary of the author's own account of a book entitled, Utopias; or, Schemes of Social Improvement, from Sir Thomas More to Karl Marx, by the Rev. M. Kaufmann, M. A., Author of "Socialism: Its Nature, its Dangers, and its Remedies Considered" (C. Kegan Paul & Co.), and the volume is undoubtedly a useful one. More's "Utopia," Bacon's "New Atlantis," Campanella's " City of the Sun," Fourier, Cabot, Owen, Proudhon, Lassalle, and Karl Marx-these titles and names will convey some notion of the contents of the volume, though not at all a complete one. Of course there is a limit to what can be got into 270 pages, and it is impossible to please everybody, but some of us would have been glad to spare a few of the author's general observations, and to receive in their place information a little fuller and more picturesque. Mr. Kaufmann's general conclusion is, that "the proper attitude towards Socialism is to regard it as a movement of mankind towards progress, which requires to be checked, and to be conducted into safe channels." This is a very safe and amiable conclusion, but the writer of this paragraph holds that it is utterly futile. Any "scientific" attempt at the reconstruction of society upon socialistic principles must, by inevitable logic, end in man himself as the only providence of man-and so in atheism; and, in spite of all this cant (for cant it is) about loving one another, it cannot, by any possibility, leave a corner for love. It must end in a piggery of plenty and pleasantness, in which the State or the community is all. No "scientific" socialistic scheme has succeeded in evading the population problem-nay, rather, every socialistic thinker, not to say every scientific socialist-sees, at a glance, that there, and there only, is the crux, and so he flies at the throat of the problem to begin with. Mr. Kaufmann utters one sentence about Fourier's views of the "gradual improvement in the position of women," and then rides off euphemistically with, "But we cannot here enter upon this question." Of course, he is fully entitled to limit his own scope in the present work; but those who see no middle faith between Individualism and Socialism, and who look with hatred and disgust upon every form of the latter, cannot be expected to relish his way of handling the subject. 66 It is too obvious to require arguing that Individualism and Theism on the one hand, and Socialism and Atheism on the other, stand or fall together. We do not find them always united in fact, but in logic they are inseparable. Proudhon maintained, and unanswerably, that "the hypothesis of a God" was essential to him as an "economist ;" that the " God-idea" was pre-eminently social," and then went on to explain that his "God-idea" was a necessary dialectical tool." Very necessary indeed, we might reply, with irony. To every form of Socialism or Communism it might be said, "Whosoever shall fall upon this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." 66 From Messrs. Trübner & Co. came to us, not long ago, Mental Travels in Imagined Lands, by Henry Wright. The purely critical portion of this little book contains some hits, but when we arrive at last at the utopia of Nomunniburgh, we have to fall back pretty often upon our sense of humour, if we are to read on. There are theatres in the city, but in the plays represented, half-shades of good and bad are not allowed to bewilder the minds of the audience;" the Government stamps out such "half-shades." Men and women fall in love, just as they do here and 66 now, and yet "family ties are not considered more close or binding than the ties of citizenship, and the proverb 'blood is thicker than water' does not apply there." How this result is to be reached if men and women are to love each other, is not explained. Still more oddly and inconsistently, if any breach of the received social order in a certain particular occurs at Nomunniburgh, the woman is simply told to go and sin no more, while "all punishment, both social and legal, is visited on the stronger." There is something approaching broad burlesque in this crude reminiscence of old-world chivalry flung pell mell into the social conditions of Nomunniburgh. In fact, to read through these " Mental Travels" with a wakeful eye, is to glance in small compass at most of the inevitable inconsistencies of all such schemes-schemes in which the motive power is dispensed with-the walls of resistance, which send the ball back, thrown down-and then everything goes on as before, the old data of social dynamics being smuggled in, one by one, under cover of phrases which mean nothing. Upon the life of the city of Nomunniburgh as it stands drawn here we do not pretend to look with, much favour, but if the author will come forward with a treatise, informing those who live in a Nomunniburgh of another kind, how they can nevertheless acquire "all things richly to enjoy," we shall gladly attend to him. 66 66 Opening Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe, by Edmund W. Gosse, Author of "On Viol and Flute," and "King Erik," with a frontispiece designed and etched by L. Alma Tadema, A.R.A. (C. Kegan Paul & Co.), and turning to the preface (we always read prefaces, and with religious care) we came, the very first thing, upon this sentence :- There would be little instruction to be found in the study of foreign poetry, if it did not throw side-lights upon our own poetic history." Does this sentence express what the accomplished author intended to say? Laying whatever stress may be necessary upon the word history, and upon the word instruction (as distinguished from stimulation or elevation for example), we fail to make anything of it; because, for one thing, we cannot conceive any foreign poetry however alien which should not throw some side-light upon our own poetic history"-side-light being a very large word. Suppose we were to come upon a poetic literature new to us in some obscure Polynesian island, there might be no personal links between the "foreign" poets and ours; but yet if the poetry had a history, as it must have, how could we escape catching "side-lights upon our own poetic history ?" But, in the second place, supposing we could, why would there be "little instruction" in the study of the foreign poetry? Begging pardon for our captiousness in putting these questions, we are entirely at one with Mr. Gosse in his view of the value of the plan of looking at these foreign poets in a European, and not a (merely) local light. It is interesting, at all events, to have the Dutch Vondel and the English Milton placed side by side, in order that we may examine their treatment of the same sort of theme: and so in other cases. For the miscellaneous character of the contents of this volume Mr. Gosse offers an apology, or at least, gives a reason. He has taken up poetic figures and poetic works which specially interested himself, and relies, not without good grounds, upon their interesting others. The book, indeed, is one to be thankful for, and, on the whole, delightful. Readers who wish to "follow connecting links" and "glance over the historical plan," Mr. Gosse refers to his sketch of the literature of Denmark, in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the forthcoming articles in the same work upon the literatures of Norway and Sweden. This is satisfactory in itself, but perhaps a severe taste would have excluded some chips in porridge which hardly even historical or biographical "links" that have to be sought can make much of:-e.g., "In the same year Hooft and his wife paid the Krombalghs a visit at their house in Corn Street, Alkmaar, and when they returned brought Tesselschade back with them to Minden, while her husband effected a change of house into a better locality in Long Street." What was the rent ? how many rooms were there ? and how about the little tiff that Hooft's wife had with the Krombalghs? Passing over these weighty matters, we gladly go on to observe that to give these "Studies in Northern Literature" to the world of general readers, including those who are not without some special knowledge of their own in such topics, was a good work. Björnson, Ibsen, Paludan-Müller were familiar names; and the "Oera Linda Boak," Tesselschade, and Vondel were not altogether strange. Nor were Holberg's Comedies. The account of the Danish Theatre is very charming, and we almost forgive the gentle violence by which the sketch of the "Lofoden Islands" is wedged in among the purely literary papers. Mr. Gosse translates a large portion of the poetry he criticises or describes, and presents us in an Appendix, reaching forty pages, with the original text of whatever he has rendered into English. Remembering the fetters of strict "imitation" (as to form) with which Mr. Gosse has bound himself, the reader who possesses the version of " Arne," published by Mr. Strahan in 1866, may profitably compare Mr. Gosse's rendering of Björnson's lyric, "I Skogen Smaagutten gik Dagen lang," with the much freer and more musical and affecting translation in the former volume. In the judgment of the present writer this lyric is one of utterly unsurpassable beauty. Compare with it, however, some of the finest lines Mr. Robert Buchanan has produced-" London Poems," 1866, p. 191, beginning and ending "And too late comes the revelation" "A pipe whereon to play" We can promise that no one who takes the trouble to make these references will regret the labour. It is impossible to read either the Björnson or Buchanan lines without tears, and though the thought is not the same in both, the kinship of the root idea is both subtle and strong. However pleasant this book is, we are entitled to speak with severity of the extreme poverty, not to say slovenliness, of its Contents, and the total want of an Index. A good Table of Contents would have doubled the value of the essays and sketches, and it would have been no great stretch of good nature towards the reader if the extracts in the Appendix had referred him back to the pages on which the translations occurred. 66 The lives of musicians are nearly always pleasant reading, in spite of the nambypamby extravagances of those who write them. It is not everybody who has the free, bold touch of Mr. Haweis, or who can strengthen by reference to general principles passages which would otherwise be weak. There was a great deal of truth in the words of one of Chopin's critics, when he called the young musician's gift"un talent de chambre de malade;" but the fascination and the power are undeniable; though the power is, to quote a great immortal, a power girt about with weakness," and the head of the tone-poet, like that of the master in word-music, is "bound with pansies overblown." We have before us Frederic Chopin, his Life, Letters, and Works, by Moritz Karosowski. With a portrait of Chopin, and fac-simile of the Original Draught of his Prelude in E minor, op. 28, No. 4. Translated by Emily Hill. (William Reeves); only the "fac-simile of the prelude in E minor" is wanting in our copy. The portrait of this astonishing young Polish composer is very characteristic and full of instruction. Whether his character has more weakness or strength in it would be too nice a question for casual discussion; but he was assuredly not a manly man. There was no true force in his breaking chairs when enraged with his pupils, and there was something intensely mean in his allowing George Sand to write to his mother the letter he was bound to write himself. His character is painted with painful truthfulness in " Lucrezia Floriani," and however puzzling it may be to partizan friends of Chopin, impartial thinkers will not accept their angry reading of his relations with the great writer. When a man or woman of genius pats an actual likeness into a book, it is usually done under a sort of spell; the left hand does not know what the right hand does. Of course; however, this does not apply to mere squib-portraits like Disraeli's Croker. Wise men will conclude that George Sand did a good thing for him, when, at her age and with children of her own, she refused to marry him-even apart from all question of her own avowed principles of action. There is, indeed, but little use in discussing such matters; for the whole of the story is, in the nature of things, inaccessible. But a word of caution was necessary, as this memoir takes, indeed parades, a highly sentimental partizan view of the matter. George Sand was a lady "of a certain age," but still handsome, very strong, and of unusual firmness, steadiness, and simplicity of character; with another faith and code, she might have been Lady Fanshawe or Lucy Hutchinson-the Bass rock did not stand firmer. Chopin was a very delicate man-almost boy-who would (it is frankly admitted) break chairs when in a passion, and take offence at a shadow. Besides, he was a Roman Catholic, and never gave up the moral code of that faith. He was always ill, and full of superstitious fancies; while George Sand, a very healthy woman, was a resolute Bohemian. Poor Chopin loved civilized luxury, loved it even to effeminacy and morbidity; while George Sand's dying words (about her own grave) were "Laissez la verdure." Chopin would run away and hide at the sight of a dirty face; George Sand would, with her own hand, nurse the foulest wretch in a lazar-house. What does common sense say to all that? One can see little to attract hasty readers in the volume, but there must be a considerable public of studious and thoughtful persons, to whom we are safe in commending The Poetical Works of Robert Stephen Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow, Cornwall, now first collected and arranged, with a prefatory notice by J. G. Godwin, (C. Kegan Paul & Co.) There is an "experience" known to every quick-sighted reviewer, which it is not easy to indicate in five words. A packet of books comes to him for examination, including probably some volumes of verse. Perhaps he looks first of all at these, and forms rough estimates of them all, but lays them aside for " the morning's reflection," or rather for the freshness and rested calmness of the morning's impression. About half a dozen of these volumes are verse. He feels pretty sure they are of the sort that had better be left to sink or swim by themselves; about two or three he is in doubt; about one, we will suppose, he instantly decides that the work is individual, and shows signs of high culture, though there is not much to say about it. On looking carefully, in the morning, at the five or six volumes that promised pretty well, he finds in nearly every case that his first judgment was too easy, and that they are worthless. But the decided impression about the one peculiar volume remains, and something induces him to put the book on the shelves, with a sort of feeling that he will know more about the author and his writings one of these days. That is exactly what took place with regard to a former and smaller collection of poems, by the Vicar of Morwenstow, which reached the hands of the present writer many years ago; he put the book by in a corner, and the world has lately heard more than was necessary about its author. There was in the former volume, as there is in this, a frank, quaint, mediæval something or other, which blended so curiously with the results of modern culture, and a taste evidently formed largely on Byron-Moore models, that the curiosity of the reader was piqued-one wanted to know something about the man himself, especially as an almost childish love of praise disclosed itself here and there, and some of the writing was really good. In the present enlarged collection, with a fine portrait, the same frank love of praise is exhibited. "It would cheer me," wrote Mr. Hawker, late in life, "if my poems could be made tangible, for my little ones to be able to say, 'This my father wrote. These thoughts were his. He had good images once in his mind."" Well, Mr. Hawker had "good images once in his mind." Some of the ballads and the "Quest of the Sangraal" show gifts of an order not much cultivated nowadays, but genuine; and the strong human feeling of the man, with his intense simplicity of faith, would alone make the book interesting, even to those who had not glanced at the queer biographical controversies about him. As for the quaintness and the simplicity, let the following abbreviated footnote to one of the poems speak for itself :-"I recommend the slanderers of God's servants to read, carefully and thoroughly, the works of Gretser, published in Latin, in seventeen folio volumes, at Ratisbon, 1734-41. R. S. H., Vicar of Morwenstow, Shrove Tuesday, 1849.” Mr. Hawker's likeness is an interesting study to the physiognomist, and above all to the cranioscopist. Such a head is rarely seen in any religious communion but the Romish or the very "high" Anglican. His grandfather was Dr. Robert Hawker the Calvinist-author of a book which was once held precious as rubies in thousands of serious households, which still sells largely in the provinces, and may still be found here and there. treasured as a classic by the side of "Hervey's Meditations," or (to take a leap from fifth-rate to first-rate books of the sort) “Baxter's Saints' Rest," or "Howe's Living Temple." Mr. R. S. Hawker is one more illustration of that tendency of the High Calvinist type to become High Church within a generation or two, which the curious in such matters may have noticed. He died in the Romish communion. The reasons are not far to seek, but the fact is noteworthy. With much regret that this REVIEW could not spare the space for the whole of any one of Mr. Hawker's longer poems, we quote a verse or two of a fox-huning ballad : "On the ninth of November, in the year fifty-two, When Monday was come, right early at morn, Each heard the glad summons and came at the call. They heard it with pleasure, but Webb was first dressed, Bold Bob and the Briton, they hastened down stairs It was generally thought they neglected their prayers. They pricked it along to Becket and Thorn, And there the old dogs they set out, I'll be sworn; "Twas Ringwood and Rally, with capital scent, Bold Princess and Madcap-good God how they went!" One Mark John was a jester, or professional fool, and Mr. Hawker adds this very simple-hearted note concerning him : : "The last of the Jesters. He lived with the hounds, and ran with the hounds, and rare was the run when John was not in at the death. His office it was by many a practical joke to amuse Mr. Arscott's guests; among them swallowing live mice and sparrow-mumbling had frequent place. "There they go," shouted John, when the fox was found, and the dogs went off in full cry——“there they go, like our madam at home!” The man who wrote this hunting song believed most devoutly that no unbaptised creature could ever have the beatific vision, and wrote sacred ballads for cottagers, to remind them of their duties to their babies in this regard! Mr. Godwin's prefatory memoir represents him as a benefactor to Morwenstow, and altogether he must have been a most original fellow. If he had lived ages ago, and been a Druid converted to Christianity, he would have been very conservative of Druidic rites and customs, and would have reverted on his death-bed to the ancient pagan faith. About his superstitiousness-which appears to have been extreme-there was something decidedly heathenish. There are some dramas among recently-published books, and a few of them are too good to be passed over, though none are of commanding merit. Mr. Merivale wrote to the Times a few months ago a letter about dramatic literature, in which, as we remember him, he complained of the difficulty there was in getting plays read as literature. It was not the old complaint of what happens to plays submitted to managers by outsiders, but another matter. Mr. Merivale had, one time, sent a drama to a London publisher, favourably disposed towards him, and it had been returned by the publisher with the remark that he was no judge of theatrical matters (this, we think, was the substance of the passage). But, wrote Mr. Merivale, what he wanted was to get the play read as literature-and that was the difficulty. Now it is quite true, we suspect, that both publishers and reviewers are apt to turn away from dramatic writing, and the reasons are, some of them at least, all but obvious. In reading a drama for the first time the mind has to fill up so many gaps that the perusal is a work of much labour, demanding time, quiet, and concentrated application. These are not always at one's service. If, indeed, a drama be of high and commanding quality, it is all but sure to get read-though even to this rule there are strong exceptions. However, Kingsley's "Saints' Tragedy," Taylor's "Philip Van Artevelde," and even dramatic poems of lower rank, like Helps's "Oulita the Serf," are works of a sort that at once arrest the attention. We may say that three things especially are necessary, if a play is to get read. The story must be easy to take into the mind. The historic or other background must be such that the reader can immediately set up in his brain the necessary theatre and scenery, and the dialogue must at once bite. These conditions are not easily satisfied, even by a writer who has a strong and over-mastering dramatic faculty. Among the dramatic pieces before us, two have attracted us for more than a passing glance. The first is Brian Boru, a Tragedy, by J. T. K. (Longmans); the second is Martin Luther, a Tragedy, in five acts, by George Moore, author of "Flowers of Passion," and Bernard Lopez, collaborateur de Scribe, Mary Auguste Lefranc, Théophile Gautier, Alexander Dumas père, &c. (Remington and Co.) "Brian Boru" attracts us by the modesty and brevity of the preface; "Martin Luther," by the length and splashiness of the preface, which (we speak of the latter case) consists of a long correspondence between Mr. Bernard Lopez and Mr. George Moore. In both cases the story is told with considerable vivacity, and the “situations" are good. In both, too, there is effective writing; and in Brian Boru" there are hints here and there of things worth doing-for example : |