6

than those who honour our Queen for her years; but this is not a fact that causes him
many public and private virtues to raise a uneasiness, for the inquiry has been carried
warning voice against everything like personal on after the manner of Aristotle and the
influence and personal rule on her part. If schools,' while its secrets can only be made to
the influences alleged in these letters are once yield to rigid analysis.' We should not have
allowed to enter into the government of Eng-fancied that Aristotle was entirely ignorant
land, they will do more to undermine constitu- of rigid analysis,' but 'Mr. Poor classes to-
tional monarchy than all the attacks of all the gether as equally misleading those three
demagogues put together; for it will then be sources of all errors and evils in matters
clear that that form of government is no longer economical-Aristotle, the schoolmen, and
a safeguard against the mischievous thing the economists. What, then, are the princi-
called personal rule.' When Baron Stock-ples which he has discovered and applied,
mar said, 'The desire to keep the name of the and which cast shame upon all the past,
Queen out of public discussions is a device of whether in ancient times or in modern ?
the Whigs for extinguishing royalty,' he did After a diligent search we have been able to
but prove himself to be one of the most dan- find none, but instead we find a dogma laid
gerous advisers who ever, in recent times, got down as an absolute truth which is not a
the ear of an English monarch. Were the truth at all. The lever by which Mr. Poor
sovereign's name to be dragged into, instead would revolutionize political economy, and
of being kept out of, public discussions, it enlighten a world lying in the darkness of
would do more than anything else to 'ex- ignorance, is that gold and silver have an
tinguish royalty.' For then the sovereign intrinsic value wholly apart from their uses;
would soon be only the head of a party, and or, as he puts it, the value of the precious
as such would become the object of party metals is absolute, for they are always in de-
attack and violence, of party suspicion and mand at the cost of their production. Con-
hatred. Nothing could be more fatal to roy- sequently, on this theory, gold and silver
alty in England. Her limited monarchy do not merely represent wealth, they consti-
would become changed into something only tute it, and ought to be the most precious of
too much like the Bonapartistic device of per- all the forms in which wealth is embodied.
sonal government, in which the ruler is sup- That they are not so is however notorious.
posed to be the personification of the nation's Neither in their representative not in their
will and dignity. We know to what goal constitutive character do they contain more
Bonapartistic rule and theories have led wealth than many other things. A one thou-
France; we know too how France has repudi- sand pound Bank of England note and the
ated them. All then who love constitutional Koh-i-noor diamond represent or constitute
monarchy, in which the sovereign acts only and to their owner a greater value than consider-
wholly through the advice of ministers re- able amounts of fine gold. But the absurdity
sponsible to Parliament for the advice given of Mr. Poor's dogma can be further illustrated.
and followed, should declare that they will If the value of gold and silver were absolute,
consent to no transformation of England's owing to their intrinsic qualities and the ex-
free institutions into that pernicious thing istence of a universal instinct in mankind to
called 'personal rule.'
possess them, they ought to regulate all other
values, and be the fixed and absolute standard
of worth. It is notorious, however, that the
value of gold and silver fluctuates just as that
of other commodities fluctuates, and that the
same amount commands different quantities
of labour at different times. There are hun-
dreds of other facts which might be adduced
to prove that Mr. Poor is wrong-that gold
and silver are articles of commerce, which,
through their rarity, attractiveness, and dura-
bility, have become the money of civilization,
but that they have value only relatively to the
demands and necessities of men, and cannot
be put in a category by themselves, apart from
all other commodities. His foundation being
wrong, of course his superstructure is not very
stable, although—not being a logical thinker
-Mr. Poor does not carry out his peculiar
view into all its absurd consequences. His
book has no value as a statement of principles
or of the theory of money, and his attacks
upon the economists are frequently ludicrous
enough. Still the work has a value of its
own, from the multitude of facts illustrating
the history of the subject which have been
here gathered together, especially those
affecting American finance. All who desire
to familiarize their minds with United States

Money and its Laws: embracing a History of
Monetary Theories and a History of the Cur-
rencies of the United States. By HENRY
V. POOR. C. Kegan Paul and Co.

Mr. Poor has written a big book on money and its laws, which contains a great deal of useful information, but which is devoid of scientific value. In his preface, indeed, he claims to have treated the subject of money as coming within the range of the exact sciences, the conclusions being assumed to be in the nature of demonstrations. It is true they are assumed,' for they certainly are not proved. That Mr. Poor should deem himself a reformer in the science of money is natural, for there is no subject as to which a little learning can so easily be made to go a long way. The mass of men are so indifferent to currency matters, and things of a like nature, that they are ready to accord a welcome to any man who speaks the language of the science with confidence. The claims put forward by Mr. Poor are, however, too extreme to be readily admitted, even by the uninstructed. His conclusions (he tells us) wholly contradict those which are laid down in the books,' and which have been accepted for more than two thousand

financial matters will find useful help in Mr. | the analysis of the causes of the phenomena Poor's massive tome.

Physiography: an Introduction to the Study of
Nature. By T. H. HUXLEY, F.R.S. With
Illustrations and Coloured Maps. Macmil-spectacle of the ebb and flow of the tide un-

than geologists usually allow. His facts, evidently drawn from the large forests of America, seem to show a more rapid growth of peat than Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock have admitted; but with all this he cannot sustain his own position. He cannot prove that the three ages of stone, bronze, and iron did not succeed each other, he only proves that the use of inferior materials and cheaper and ruder tools lingered probably among the poor long after the well-to-do were accustomed to use weapons and tools that were dearer. But perhaps the crucial point of the argument is to be found in the case of the river-gravels the regularity of their stratification, the different levels at which they exist, the condition of the remains found in them, all negative, in the eyes of all true geologists, the possibility of their having been deposited by palæolithic floods.

No doubt the tendency of opinion now is to lessen the enormous age suggested by the early uniformitarians, and the reader of this book may get a useful caution by seeing how much doubt and darkness still hangs over some oft-quoted geologic positions; and, if he does not forget the broader aspects of the question, may obtain both pleasure and profit from this account of the lives and remains of prehistoric man and his contemporaries, the gigantic pleistocene mammalia.

Acadian Geology. By Principal DAWSON, of McGill University, Montreal. Third Edition. Macmillan and Co.

Trias has a large development, but it is not until we reach the Carboniferous, and still older strata, that we get to the characteristic rocks of this region; and we can easily see how mistaken must have been the conclusions of geologists if their early discoveries had been confined to such a country. But of these strata it is not too much to say that we know no portion of the earth's surface in which they are so displayed that the educated geologist may safely run and read. It does not therefore surprise us that this third edition, published ten years after the second, required but little alteration to bring it up to present date, and that the supplement, which especially deals with new discoveries, interesting and valuable as it is, makes so few alterations in the facts and opinions enunciated in the body of the work. The principal discovery appears to be an unexpected development of strata analogous to the Permian of England and Europe, but which here has so Carboniferous a facies that the writer, wisely, we think, calls it Permo-Carboniferous.

We heartily commend this book to those of our readers who are acquainted with geology, as affording a sound and interesting introduction to a region that is likely to play an important part in the future progress of one of the healthiest and most promising of the young communities of our empire.

A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, A.D. 1450-1878. By Eminent Writers, English and Foreign, with Illustrations and Woodcuts. Edited by GEORGE GROVE, D.C.L. Part I. Macmillan and Co.

We are glad to see that this standard work has reached a third edition, and still maintains its old position of one of the best and most We call attention to this first part of what complete monographs of the strata and remains promises to be a joint-stock dictionary of of a very interesting, geologically considered, great interest and importance. Constructed portion of the earth's surface. Acadia, the on the principle of Murray's well-known dicold native and now the poetical name of the tionaries, it professes to be a cyclopædia of Atlantic provinces of the Dominion of Canada, musical information, and to tell us all that may is remarkable for the development of the be known concerning musical persons and palæolithic rocks, and it is not too much to musical things. Perhaps a severe classificasay that any study of the Triassic, Carbonifer- tion might demand that biographies and serous, Devonian, Silurian, Cambrian, and Lau-entific technicalities should be kept separate, rentian rocks of the world would be most incomplete without examination and consideration of the strata of this region. Principal Dawson, in this work, has largely followed the lines laid down by his friend and master, Sir Roderick Murchison, in Siluria,' and has made his own a country that illustrates English Siluria as much as the latter has thrown light upon Acadia. One cannot help feeling as we read these pages how fortunate it has been for geology that so much of its early work has been done in England, which really is an epitome on a small scale of the rocks of the world. The strata that are household words with us, the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene, have no representatives in Canada. The whole of the Secondary, the Cretaceous, and Jurassic are equally absent, and the Triassic are also wanting in Canada proper. Indeed, over the whole of this enormous district there is an absolute break between strata of recent and Pleistocene times and those of the Paleolithic period. In Acadia proper the

but inasmuch as both can be included in a moderate-sized work, it will, we think, be found practically convenient to have all our musical information conveyed by it. The first number seems singularly complete, although no doubt experts will discover errors in it, and those not experts will find reasons why things in it should have been omitted, and things omitted should have been here. The musical learning of Dr. Grove is a guarantee (as this number is in earnest) that nothing will be wanting to make it perfect.

BELLES LETTRES, POETRY, AND FICTION.

French Poets and Novelists. By HENRY JAMES,
Jun. Macmillan and Co.

This galaxy of distinguished writers is a fairly representative one as regards a certain

:

section of French literature, though the ab- | man's supreme use in the world is to master sence of some names a little surprises us. his intellectual instrument and play it to perfec Further than this, Mr. James varies in his tion.' Without assenting to this statement in methods for example, his treatment of Al- the exact language in which it is couched, we fred de Musset and Georges Sand, whether we may at once admit that the words are justified agree with his judgments or not, is to a con- in the case of Gautier. What his hand found siderable degree full and exhaustive; but the to do—and he found exactly what his hand same cannot be said of the short paper upon was best fitted to do—he did with all his might. Baudelaire. As a critic, Mr. James is not But Gautier would have been a greater man if profound, nor has he the incisiveness of a he had not lacked faith. The sceptic and the Saint-Beuve; but he has qualities of his own pagan are not the most robust specimens of which make him very readable. There is humanity. The man without faith feels nanow and then just a little too much straining ture and humanity weighing down upon his after saying clever things, which is somewhat spirit as a kind of incubus; there are to him disappointing, but on the whole this series of no rifts through which can penetrate rays essays deserves praise for the many true and from the unseen Light. With Gautier, as Mr. happy things which it contains. There is no James says, the world he left was the sum better paper than the opening one, on Alfred of the universe for him, and upon any other de Musset. Mr. James, while doing full jus- his writings throw but the dimmest lighttice to the high poetic qualities of that ill- project, indeed, that contrasted darkness starred genius, does not exalt him too greatly. which surrounds the edges of a luminous surThere are few careers in literature at once so face. The beauty and variety of our present sad and so interesting as de Musset's. As our earth, and the insatiability of our earthly temauthor says, his superfine organization, his ex-perament, were his theme, and we doubt altation and weaknesses, his pangs and tears, his passions and debaucheries, his intemperance and idleness, his years of unproductiveness, his innumerable mistresses (with whatever pangs and miseries it may seem proper to attribute to them), his quarrel with a woman of genius, and the scandals, exposures, and recriminations that are so ungracefully bound up with it-all this was necessary in order that we should have the two or three little volumes into which his best could be compressed. It takes certainly a great deal of life to make a little art. In this case, however, we must remember that little is exquisite.' M. Taine has praised de Musset's spontaneity at the expense of Mr. Tennyson; but though there may be a tendency in some quarters amongst us to exaggerate the quality of Mr. Tennyson's genius, we should prefer it to de Musset's, and must hold that it is equally spontaneous. It is the erratic nature of de Musset's life, and his wanderings from the natural orbit, which have much to do with fostering the critical views of him entertained by M. Taine and others. Mr. Swinburne was a little rough in his epithet when he spoke of de Musset as Byron's attendant dwarf;' but it is perfectly true, nevertheless, that in many respects the French poet is only a pocket edi- History of English Humour. By the Rev. A. tion of the English. Now and again there are divine and beautiful gleams of thought in de Musset, ecstasies to which Byron was a stranger; but he is not one of the great poets, though many have traced in him the highest type of the singer: it is his life that has tinged the judgment of the critics. Certainly the Nuit de Mai' and the Lettre à Lamartine' are noble and splendid poems, and were it but for these alone Alfred de Musset would be worthy of his immortality. Théophile Gautier receives high praise at the hands of Mr. James for being a perfect poet in his own way, complete upon his own scale. If there are sermons in stones, there are profitable reflections to be made even on Théophile Gautier; notably this one-that a

whether these things have ever been placed
in a more flattering light. He brought to his
task a sort of pagan bonhomie which makes
most of the descriptive and pictorial poets
seem by contrast a group of shivering ascetics
or muddled metaphysicians.' Gautier was, in
fact, emphatically a poet for Frenchmen.
We suspect that the attitude of insouciance
which he assumed towards everything had
much in it of the sham element. His practi-
cal atheism, his enjoyment of life, and his
complete ignoring of its larger issues, made
this man of really fine, if circumscribed geni-
us, exceedingly popular.
Mr. James says
some excellent things of Balzac and George
Sand. People may like George Sand or not,
but they can hardly deny that she is the great
improvisatrice of literature, the writer who
best answers to Shelley's description of the
skylark singing "in profuse strains of unpre-
meditated art." No writer has produced
such great effects with an equal absence of
premeditation.' We could have lingered over
other essays in this book, but must leave them
to the reader. Mr. James has one merit which
belongs to the true critic-that of suggestive-

ness.

G. L'ESTRANGE. Two Vols. Hurst and
Blackett.

Mr. L'Estrange has chosen a subject of the most attractive kind. He shows large reading, a distinct liking for the older English literature, and has certainly produced a readable book. But we must say that he fails in arrangement, in compactness, and in that delicate penetration without which such a book can hardly be successfully written. Nowhere do we have-pace lengthened quotations at the end of the work from various æsthetic writers, Mr. Dallas amongst them-a clear and efficient distinction between wit and humour, which, we think, ought to have been preliminary and final. The need for it asserts itself over and over again, for we find that Mr.

Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne, in the years 1819 and 1820, and now given from the original manuscript, with Introduction and Notes. By HARRY BUXTON FORMAN. Reeves and Turner.

The propriety of publishing such letters as these in any circumstances-letters written under the promptings of passion, and laying the heart bare alike in its weakness and rapturous joys and jealousies-may well be questioned. Mr. Buxton Forman by his untiring industry and his thoroughness has, however, laid us under such deep obligations to him, that we would fain find excuses for him in this instance. He tells us that the lady to

L'Estrange does not tend to make it evident | L'Estrange's incident still more striking psyby illustration any more than by definition, chologically. and the book is sometimes tantalizing on account of this defect. Many of his remarks on Swift, on Thackeray, and on Sterne, are, we think, wrong, precisely on this account; and we are simply struck all of a heap '-to use a vulgarism-when we learn that Mr. L'Estrange thinks we miss the humour of Hogarth because the speeches of the characters are not 'written over their heads in balloons, and the explanation added, as in the old caricatures.' We have hitherto regarded it as the special merit of Hogarth that he had lifted caricature into the region of universal meaning, and thus shed around it the light of humour. Burlesque and parody, again, are spoken of as though they were much more nearly identified than they really are, and both are touched on, again and again, in the course of the work, instead of being disposed of once for all. Some of Mr. L'Estrange's quotations from earlier authors are piquant: he has made good use of his library, and has not failed for lack of industry. As a collection, the volumes are admirable. It is the discriminating and class-will not have too much the effect of confirmifying taste that is wanted. As an instance of a very happy parody, he gives the following, which we have often laughed over. Pope

wrote:

'Here shall the spring its earliest sweets bestow, Here the first roses of the year shall blow ;' and Catherine Fanshawe gave this on the Regent's Park, very slightly changing the words :

whom these letters were addressed herself contemplated their publication, and that he has had the consent of her representatives. We cannot help thinking, however, that we are at this date led too close to the heart of the poet, still bare and quivering; and we are not sure that the publication of such letters

ing in the public mind the idea of Keats's nature as being over-sensitive, impressible, and weak. True, the letters do something to interpret the individuality; they reveal the man, and may throw fresh light on his genius and on his biography; but not a few of the passages, when looked at in a cold and critical light, indicate the unhealthy, unstrung, we might almost say hectic, mind of the poet. Mr. Forman has done his work with patient care, sparing no research, no trouble, to render his contribution to Keats's biography so far perfect; but he is sometimes inclined to magnify trifles, as in the pains spent over the exact position of Wentworth Place. Anything connected with so remarkable a genius as that of Keats must, however, be deeply interesting, and these love-letters must be allowed to possess a profound interest, psychological and critical, such an interest as must guarantee a large circle of cultured readers for this most tasteful volume.

The Dickens Dictionary: a Key to the Charac-
ters and Principal Incidents in the Tales of
Charles Dickens. By GILBERT A. PIERCE.
With Additions by WILLIAM A. WHEELER.
Chapman and Hall.

'Here shall the spring its earliest coughs bestow, Here the first noses of the year shall blow.' Mr. L'Estrange is very incorrect in minor matters, and many things which cannot be regarded as mere misprints are most irritating. 'Holms,' instead of Dr. Wendell Holmes, is indeed so puzzling, that had we not known the quotation, we should never have found it out. Mr. L'Estrange writes, illustrative of the almost grotesque working of the humorous faculty: The poet Kleist, who was killed in the battle of Kunersdorf, was seized with a violent fit of laughter just before he expired, when he thought of the extraordinary faces a Cossack, who had been plundering him, made over the prize he had found.' If we remember aright, Kleist was not killed, but only wounded, on the field of This is a book that was really wanted, and Kunersdorf. He died in hospital, it was said is so executed as to prove very useful. The from neglect, which circumstance drew from writings are arranged in the order of time, Lessing, who is often spoken of as cold and beginning with The Sketches by Boz' and self-possessed, one of the most touching let-Pickwick.' The characters in each are given ters ever penned-a letter which, by-the-bye, in a list alphabetically arranged, and the most Mr. James Sime, in his recent 'Life of Less- distinctive traits are noted shortly, and illusing,' did not use as he ought to have done,trative extracts given. Then follows an outsince it exhibits so strikingly Lessing's devo- line of the story, under the heading of 'Printion and depth of affection. Mr. Sime, alas! cipal Incidents. The same process is gone was then more intent on nice points of phi-through with the short tales and sketches as losophy (little important now !) than he need have been, and omitted matters of far more weight for us to-day. We only add that the emphasizing of the fact of Kleist's death from wounds in hospital would have made Mr.

well as with the long ones, and the book is well supplied with indexes. So much in the writings of Dickens has become common property, that current literature teems with references which presume a somewhat familiar ac