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turbed shelves which furnish a refuge for what Lamb about the details of the copious literary work which calls the "books that are not books."

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It is the misfortune of Southey that, though he was unquestionably a poet, there is in his verse a curious lack of the mystic flavor and aroma of poetry -his muse seldom soars, and his poetry never "sings itself." It is always respectable, and has in its best estate a certain austere dignity and elevation; but the posterity to whose verdict he so confidently appealed appears to be, if possible, less appreciative than the contemporaries whose neglect ultimately dried up the overflowing fountain of his song. "Thalaba" and "Roderick are still read by the curious (and read, we may add, with pleasure); but the praise of Landor and of Byron was sweeter to the author than any that has been accorded them since would have been. Even in prose, of which Southey was a truly great master, his work has suffered because of his never having associated it with a theme or subject worthy of its exquisite clearness, felicity, and grace. If he had been enabled to finish the "History of Portugal," for which such portentous accumulations of material had been made, it would probably have taken permanent rank among the great historical works of our language; but, unfortunately, Southey had to devote himself to what the public and the booksellers wanted rather than to what his own tastes and inclinations would have led him to, and his work partakes throughout of the sort of commonplaceness which seems inseparable from literature written to order and to meet the material needs of the hour. The History of Brazil" made as much as could possibly be made out of so barren a theme; but it is, after all, a melancholy monument of misdirected industry and talent, and the apathy with which it was received discouraged the author from the prosecution of that greater work which might have consolidated and secured his fame.

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It has been often and truly said, however, that Southey was much greater as a man than as an author; and, with this in view, Professor Dowden has done well in his little monograph on Southey* to direct his efforts chiefly to making us acquainted with the man whose personality lies behind the books that bore his name. "In such a memoir as the present," says Professor Dowden, "to glance over the contents of a hundred volumes, dealing with matters widely remote, would be to wander upon a vast circumference when we ought to strike for the center. If the reader come to know Southey as he read and wrote in his library, as he rejoiced and sorrowed among his children, as he held hands with good old friends, as he walked by the lake-side, or lingered to muse near some mountain-stream, as he hoped and feared for England, as he thought of life and death and a future beyond the grave, the end of this small book will have been attained."

This main purpose is consistently adhered to by Professor Dowden, and, though we learn very little

* English Men of Letters. Edited by John Morley. Robert Southey. By Edward Dowden. New York: Harper & Brothers. 12mo, pp. 197.

extended over forty-five years-about the reception accorded particular books, or the relative estimate in which they were held at the time, or the causes of that sort of twilight obscurity into which they gradually passed-we get an excellent and really touching portrait of the man Southey in his various relations as husband, father, friend, and citizen. Such a life and such work as Southey's appeal but slightly to the popular imagination, and perhaps more slightly still to popular sympathy and regard; and it is no slight feat to have surrounded the austere figure of the shy and solitude-loving literary worker with that sentiment of respect and interest and affectionate regret from which no reader of Professor Dowden's memoir will ever quite free himself. It is impossible to withhold, nor does one wish to withhold, the profoundest homage of respect for the uncomplaining, unboastful, calm, and resolute self-abnegation with which Southey took upon himself the burden not only of his own family, but of the family of that erratic brother-in-law, S. T. Coleridge, whose sense of moral responsibility was in inverse ratio to the subtilty of his intellect and the brilliancy of his imagination; and a feeling of indignant pity which Southey himself never felt comes over us when we learn that, though he worked as author never worked before, and denied himself and his family in every possible way, it was not until late in life that he ever knew what it was to have a year's income in advance. But when we read further that touching letter in which, having heard that his friend John May had lost his fortune and was in distress, he promptly directed the transfer to him of six hundred and twenty-five pounds in consols (his all, and the slow savings of half a lifetime)-when we read this, the sentiment of pity gives place to a sentiment of quite another kind; for we feel that the man who could do this, and do it so cordially, only regretting that it was not more, has escaped the worst and only really ignoble effects of that "hard, mechanic toil" which is so apt to sear the affections and wither the generous, impulses of the heart. A better testimony to the elevation and worth of his character could not be had than the fact that when we read of the incident we know at once that Southey took a keener satisfaction in this noble act of generosity than he could have done in the acquisition or possession of any riches, however great.

And this leads us to the remark that it is the character or personality revealed in it that must give interest to any record of Southey's life; for the life itself is curiously destitute of events and incidents, and presents nowhere any splendor or picturesqueness of circumstance. "Of some lives," says Professor Dowden, “the virtue is distilled, as it were, into a few exquisite moments-moments of rapture, of vision, of sudden and shining achievement; all the days and years seem to exist only for the sake of such faultless moments, and it matters little whether such a life, of whose very essence it is to break the bounds of time and space, be long or short as measured by the falling of sand-grains or the creeping of a shadow. Southey's life was not one of these; its

excellence was constant, uniform, perhaps somewhat too evenly distributed. He wrought in his place day after day, season after season. He submitted to the good laws of use and wont. He grew stronger, calmer, more full-fraught with stores of knowledge, richer in treasure of the heart. Time laid its hand upon him gently and unfalteringly: the bounding step became less light and swift; the ringing voice lapsed into sadder fits of silence; the raven hair changed to a snowy white; only still the indefatigable eye ran down the long folio columns, and the indefatigable hand still held the pen—until all true life had ceased. When it has been said that Southey was appointed Pye's successor in the laureateship, that he received an honorary degree from his university, that now and again he visited the Continent, that children were born to him from among whom death made choice of the dearest; and, when we add that he wrote and published books, the leading facts of Southey's life have been told. Had he been a worse or a weaker man, we might look to find mysteries, picturesque vices, or engaging follies; as it is, everything is plain, straightforward, substantial. What makes the life of Southey eminent and singular is its unity of purpose, its persistent devotion to a chosen object, its simplicity, purity, loyalty, fortitude, kindliness, truth."

The opening passage of the memoir will appropriately supplement the above, and complete Professor Dowden's view of Southey's life and work: "No one of his generation lived so completely in and for literature as did Southey. He is,' said Byron, 'the only existing entire man of letters.' With him literature served the needs of the material life and of the life of the intellect and imagination; it was his means of earning daily bread, and also the means of satisfying all his highest ambitions and desires. This, which was true of Southey at five-andtwenty years of age, was equally true at forty, fifty, sixty. During all that time he was actively at work accumulating, arranging, and distributing knowledge; no one among his contemporaries gathered so large a store from the records of the past; no one toiled with such steadfast devotion to enrich his age; no one occupied so honorable a place in so many provinces of literature. There is not, perhaps, any single work of Southey's the loss of which would be felt by us as a capital misfortune. But the more we consider his total work, its mass, its variety, its high excellence, the more we come to regard it as a memorable, an extraordinary achievement."

DESIGNED originally for a volume in the "International Scientific Series," Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay's treatise on "Mind in the Lower Animals in Health and Disease" grew to such dimensions on his hands that he was constrained to abandon the original in

* Mind in the Lower Animals in Health and Disease. By W. Lauder Lindsay, M. D., F. R. S. E., F. L. S. Vol. I. Mind in Health. Vol. II. Mind in Disease. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. xvii.-543, 571.

tention and present it as an independent and much larger work, treating comprehensively and systematically of the varied phases or phenomena on the one hand of healthy, and on the other of diseased, mind. From the view-point of popularity and immediate effect there can be no doubt that this change of plan was unfortunate, both for author and reader. A compendious volume of three or four hundred pages, stating concisely the author's conclusions, and fortifying them with the most pertinent and striking results of observation and experiment, would have been far more efficient in securing public attention for the startling and profoundly important questions which he raises than is likely to be accomplished by the present voluminous and learned treatise; yet it is easy to understand the author's reluctance to discard so large a portion as this would have involved of those vast accumulations of material which he had brought together for his work. As it now stands, the work is a complete and exhaustive digest; not only of all the opinions that have been expressed on the subject of mind in the lower animals by competent thinkers and observers, but also of those multitudinous anecdotes which it has always been the delight of naturalists to bring together in illustration of animal traits and intelligence. The mere Index to the work fills nearly a hundred closely printed pages; and even this conveys but an imperfect idea of the copiousness and variety of the materials that have been employed in its preparation. It is the profusion of these materials, indeed, that has expanded the work to its present dimensions; for the author relies for the force of his argument much more upon facts than upon reasoning, and his method consists mainly in the concise statement of a proposition and its resultant corollaries, and the citation of evidence in support of it.

At the very beginning of his treatise Dr. Lindsay warns the reader that he has studied the subject of mind in other animals as compared with that of man simply as a physician-naturalist. "Regarding the whole subject of mind in animals from a medical and natural history point of view, I have studied it from first to last without any preconceived ideas— with no theory to defend, support, or illustrate-and ready throughout, without effort or regret, to renounce any belief which fact or truth might show to be scientifically untenable." As we have not the space to follow the exposition through its several phases or stages, we will show at once what are the results of such study by quoting the summary prefixed by Dr. Lindsay to his section on "Practical Conclusions":

The lower animals, or, at least, certain of them-1. Possess both feelings and ideas akin to our own; 2. Are highly sensitive, not to physical only, but also to moral influences; 3. Are as capable as we are of the sensations of pleasure and pain, mental as well as bodily; 4. Are subject to the same kind of diseases produced by the same kind of causes; and, in especial-5. Are liable to mental disorders of the same character as those of man, and generally described as insanity; 6. Are subject, moreover, to bodily ailments of various kinds, resulting from purely moral or mental causes; 7. Possess moral as well as in

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It is much more easy to discover the points of resemblance than to define those of difference. The differences between the human and animal mind are sometimes scarcely or not at all perceptible, or they are in favor of the lower animals, not of man. Much, if not everything, depends on the character of the men and animals that are the subjects of comparison. If we compare the most intelligent, virtuous, good-tempered, best trained, or most thoroughly bred animals-such as the dog-with the highest types of man, it is impossible for man to excel the lower animal in the practice of many of the highest virtues, on whose possession man so prides himself. If we compare such dogs or other animals with countless thousands of degraded men, in civilized as well as in savage life, the former manifest indubitable superiority both in morals and intellect. But, if, on the other hand, we contrast the highest type of man with the average, or with the lowest, type of other animals, there can be no question as to the inferiority of the latter in many points of morals and intellect, on which inferiority metaphysicians construct a defense of man's supremacy. We may sum up by saying that in certain respects, as to mental and moral endowments, certain animals are the equals of certain men, while they are the superiors or inferiors of certain others. The human infant or child, at particular stages of its growth, is psychically on a par with some of the lower animals; whole races of savage man never attain the moral or mental development of certain dogs, while man of the highest culture is facile princeps

of the moral and intellectual world here below.

After reading this, the reader will not be surprised to learn that, though he uses it himself for convenience, Dr. Lindsay decidedly objects to the term "lower" as applied by man to other animals. "No doubt," he says, "on the whole or as a group, other animals are zoologically and psychically, as well as structurally, lower than man. But it is not true that all animals are necessarily lower than all men; for the converse is true, that many individual animals-dogs, horses, elephants, parrots are both morally and intellectually higher than thousands of men even in the very centers of Western and modern civilization." Even as regards religion, he maintains that there is no difference in kind between the feeling of man toward God and of other animals toward their masters (who are their gods); and he affirms that the dog is decidedly a more religious animal than many of the savage races of mankind. "I believe," he says, "that, could they only be induced to bestow them, the patient efforts of our missionaries in this direction-on our anthropoid 'poor relations' instead of on their fellow creatures and countrymen, the negro-might produce results of a

startling character-results that might put an end, once for all, to current sneers as to the psychical connection between men and monkeys." Not even at animals would Dr. Lindsay draw the line of demarkation; for he asserts categorically that "consciousness occurs not only among the lowest animals, but even among plants."

It should be said, however, in conclusion, that the book does not consist entirely or even mainly of startling and paradoxical propositions. It contains the classified results of an incredible number of observations and experiments; and no one can deny that it tends to establish certain new claims on the

part of the lower animals upon man's consideration and kindness.

THERE must be something essentially and intrinsically attractive about a sea-voyage, for in no other way can we explain the inferiority in interest of Mrs. Brassey's "Sunshine and Storm in the East"* to her previously published "Voyage around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam." The latter work is fuller and more varied in incident than the earlier one; it contains a more distinct flavor of the dangerous and adventurous; and it records visits to places of ancient renown and of present importance in the great drama of European politics; yet the interest of it is not nearly so sustained and unflagging as in the narrative of the voyage around the world, nor is the impression which it leaves upon the mind of the reader so piquant and enduring. We do not mean, however, to intimate by this that the present work is deficient in readableness. On the contrary, it is a charming record of some very pleasing observations and experiences, and among recent books of travel it will take a high, if not the highest, place.

The volume is divided into two nearly equal parts, one of which describes a yachting cruise made in 1874 to Sicily, Athens, the Ionian Islands, and Constantinople; and the other a similar cruise in 1878 over nearly the same ground, including a visit to Cyprus, then just passed under the scepter of England, and a second visit to Constantinople. In both divisions the larger portion of the space is devoted to the ever-fascinating capital of the East; and, even did the descriptions possess no other elements of interest, they would be profoundly interesting for the vividness with which they portray the catastrophic nature of the changes produced in TurMelancholy inkey by the Russo-Turkish war. deed," says Mrs. Brassey, "seemed the change in the Turkish capital during the four years since our last visit-a change from all that was bright and glittering to all that was dull and miserable and wretched."

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The narrative of the first voyage is to our mind the fresher and more inviting of the two, and from it we shall take the few quotations for which we must

*Sunshine and Storm in the East; or, Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople. By Mrs. Brassey. With upward of One Hundred Illustrations. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 8vo, pp. 448.

make room in order to indicate the quality of the work. Here is part of an entry in the journal under date of October 16, 1874, when they were cruising in the Grecian Archipelago :

The wind was blowing strong, and exactly in our teeth, so that the Sunbeam's head was pointed for Scyros instead of the Dardanelles. Mount Athos was visible, rising grandly from the sea, six thousand feet above Cape Santo. On the summit there is the strictest monastery in the world. Not a female animal of any kind is allowed within miles, so that the monks have to do without milk, or fresh eggs even, and travelers are not allowed to carry even dead hens on their saddles for provision. A few years ago two English ladies landed here from a yacht. As most of the men here wear petticoats, and the women trousers, and the monks have not a chance of much experience in such matters, they did not discover the sacrilege that had been committed for some time; and then you may imagine their horror and disgust, and the penances they had to perform-poor things!

The all-pervasive dogs of Constantinople have often been commented on by visitors; yet the following details are not without novelty:

When we landed the first day in the arsenal, poor little Félise [a pet dog] was immediately set upon by about twenty fierce dogs, looking like wolves. Strange to say, in a few days they learned to know her, and came to the conclusion that she did not wish to settle among them or take away their food, but simply to get quietly by; so they allowed her to pass through them without molestation. These fierce dogs abound in every part of the three cities, and, as they are the natural scavengers of the place, they are never interfered with, but are regularly fed by the inhabitants. They all have their own quarters, perhaps a dozen to half a street, and woe betide the unhappy dog who comes from another quarter in search of food! He is immediately set upon and devoured, unless he lies down on his back and puts up his paws in token of surrender. Then, in the thickest of the fight, his assailants stop and content themselves with walking round him and growling, and seeing him safely back to his own quarter. The puppies are innumerable, and, when there are too many to be supported in one quarter, the parents desert their offspring, and fight their own way somewhere else, in order to leave them enough to eat. If you once throw one a bit of bread in passing, he never forgets you, but looks out every day to fawn upon you as you go by. These facts I have heard from many long residents here; so that, in spite of their illfavored, mangy appearance, there is a good deal to be

said for the intelligence of these animals, and their scav

enging services are most necessary, for refuse of every

kind is thrown outside the door.

A better illustration of the essential rottenness and depravity of the Turkish absolutist system of government could hardly be found than is afforded by the following piquant anecdotes:

The Grand Vizier's salary is thirty thousand pounds a year, that of the minister of finance fifteen thousand; and, as these officials are changed on the slightest caprice of the Sultan, their great temptation is to fill their own pockets during the short time they may be in office. Their elevation is equally curious. The last Grand Vizier was a common chaouch, or sergeant in a line regiment. Another chaouch was presented with five hun

dred pounds and made colonel of a regiment, simply because the servant of a friend of ours happened to give him a pair of Aylesbury goslings, which in time grew up and had a family of their own. The Sultan, who is passionately fond of all animals, saw and admired them at the guard-house, and wished to buy them. The sergeant refused to name a price, but begged the Sultan to accept them, and accordingly was rewarded by promotion. The command of one of the largest ironclads was given to a common sailor because he had a very pretty cat, to which he had taught all sorts of tricks. He presented it to the Sultan, and was told to name his own reward. These stories sound like romances, but they are, I believe, really undoubted facts.

These, and such as these, it is true, are the purple patches in a fabric of a much more sober hue; but, as a dinner should not be all pudding, so a record of a yachting cruise should not be expected to be all novelty and excitement. The dull minutiæ which form so many entries in the journal are necessary to give relief and perspective to the more striking incidents, and in fact it is these which give its air of perfect trustworthiness and verisimilitude to Mrs. Brassey's narrative. A more artistic and selfconfident writer might have made a different use of the materials at command; but Mrs. Brassey has aimed to give an exact idea of what yachting is, and in this she has perfectly succeeded-even furnishing in an appendix the data for computing the precise cost of such voyages.

The volume is profusely and admirably illustrated, and contains a map of the Mediterranean sea and coasts, and another of the Island of Cyprus.

It is a curious example either of the secularization of religion or of the growing tendency to sanctify human attributes that so reverent a writer as Mr. Tom Hughes should select for a serious work such a title as "The Manliness of Christ ";* and the surprise which the title causes is not diminished when we find the author declaring that he admits, "frankly and at once, that if the life of Christ will not stand the test [of manliness] throughout, in every separate action and detail, the Christian hypothesis breaks down." Of course, in applying such a test to such a subject, the vital point is as to the criterion moral standing of both the book and its title is vinof manliness adopted by the author; and here the dicated. In Mr. Hughes's view the essential tests of manliness are courage, loyalty to truth, and patience (or self-control); and as a matter of course he has no difficulty in showing that for all these qualities Christ was the most supreme model and exemplar that the world has known. We are not far wrong, perhaps, in saying that the true raison d'être of the little book is that Mr. Hughes, whose earlier writings contributed so largely to that admiration for physical vigor and "pluck" which is so characteristic of contemporary Englishmen, now that he has

The Manliness of Christ. By Thomas Hughes, Author of "Tom Brown's School-Days," etc. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. 16m0, pp. 160.

reached a more serious and reflective period of life, feels it incumbent upon him, as it were, to show that there is a moral manliness which is of a far purer and loftier type than mere animal manliness-that the so much admired "courage" and "pluck" are a very animal-like attribute in comparison with those serener heights of manliness which it is given to man only to scale. The only objection to the attempt is that many good people will be repelled by the seeming irreverence of associating such distinctively secular qualities with a figure so sacred as that of Christ; but even these will admit that certain aspects of Christ's character and career are presented by Mr. Hughes in a novel and suggestive light.

... Though it contains nothing quite so striking and pungent as the chapter of "Portraits" which opened the work, the second volume of Madame de Rémusat's Memoirs* shows no falling off in either interest for the reader or value for the historian. The truth is, that a character so many-sided and complex as that of Napoleon can not be depicted -it can not even be outlined adequately—in a general summary of a few pages; and the vast aggregate of details to which every successive chapter of Madame de Rémusat's makes its contribution, must be weighed and considered as a whole, before one can be sure that he has caught the more delicate gradations of light and shade in a portrait which is the more fascinating the more carefully and minutely it is drawn. The present volume covers the period between 1804 and 1807, during which the Empire was founded and consolidated, and in which occurred the splendid episode of the campaign of Ulm and Austerlitz, which raised Napoleon to the zenith of his renown and power. Particularly interesting are the chapters on the organization and etiquette of the Emperor's Court, on his household and its expenses, on the great military, civil, and ecclesiastical authorities of the new state, on the routine of palace life, and on the literature and art of the period. The discussion of these latter shows a keenness of insight and a literary skill on the part of Madame de Rémusat for which the reader was hardly prepared by what went before; and there are more of the piquant personal details about the Empress Josephine and other members of the Bonaparte circle.

. . . Paraphrasing an oft-repeated quotation, it may be said that while bad began in Zola's earlier novels, worse remained behind in "Nana," the sequel to "L'Assommoir." In it M. Zola has depicted the life of a public woman, and of the pimps, par

* Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat, 1802-1808. Translated from the French by Mrs. Cashel Hoey and John Lillie. In three volumes. Vol. II. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 238.

↑ Nana. A Sequel to L'Assommoir. By Emile Zola. Translated by John Stirling. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson Brothers. Part I. 16m0, pp. 185.

asites, and men of the town who hang about her, with a minuteness of detail and an audacity of language that must astonish even those who are familiar with his previous performances. If to excite disgust and repulsion in every reader of any refinement suffices, as the author claims, to justify such art, then it must be conceded that "Nana" is an entirely moral work. But it can not be justified on any such ground. "Nana" arouses at once commiseration and contempt; yet it soils the imagination with conceptions and thoughts which eat into the fibers of moral purpose as gangrene eats into a wound. No doubt the reader of Zola's novels has learned to know man- and woman-kind better; but the knowledge is of that sort which the wisest of the Greeks has said we may well pray the gods to keep us ignorant of. The paragraphs contributed to the Boston "Evening Transcript" by Causeur (it is an open secret, we believe, that Causeur is Mr. Hovey, the editor of the paper) are certainly far above the average of journalistic writing; but, when gathered into a book, they challenge comparisons which make them appear somewhat light and tenuous. Nevertheless, the little book is very readable-dipped into now and then, at odd moments. As a relater of stories, Causeur is remarkably felicitous, and among his Causerie are some of the freshest and best-told stories that we have encountered for a long time. Almost equally felicitous are the touches of personal portraiture and the passing thrusts at certain social foibles; but more serious topics for reflection are sometimes suggested. Whatever may be his subject, Causeur never loses his light and graceful touch; and he brings to it a freshness of view and a geniality of feeling which please even when they do not amuse.

*

.... A lecture on "The Origin of the Homeric Poems," which was delivered in Vienna in 1860 by Dr. Hermann Bonitz, and which has since passed through four editions in Germany, has been translated by an American scholar, who gives as his reason for doing so the fact that it is the best brief and compact statement of the reasons that have led so many German scholars to doubt the unity of authorship of the poems attributed to Homer, and to conclude that if there ever was any such person as Homer. he certainly did not write the Iliad and the Odyssey in the form in which we now have them. Nearly half the little volume is occupied by notes on the lecture, and these notes contain a very valuable bibliography which would be of great service to any one who desired to study the Homeric problem.

*Causerie. From the Boston Evening Transcript. Boston: Robert Brothers. 18m0, pp. 203.

The Origin of the Homeric Poems. A Lecture. By Dr. Hermann Bonitz. Translated from the fourth German edition by Louis R. Packard. New York: Harper & Brothers. 18mo, pp. 119.

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