Will any one be puzzled with the sweet little envoi which Mr. Allingham has substituted for the prose Note?

"These little Songs

Found here and there,
Floating in air

By forest and lea,
Or hill-side heather,
In houses and throngs,
Or down by the sea,-
Have come together,
How, I can't tell :
But I know full well,
No witty goose-wing

Or an inkstand begot 'em ;

A word, a line,

You may say are mine;

But the best in the songs,
Whatever it be,

To you and to me,

And to no one belongs."

Could anything be more gracefully said?

And the poet's claim is a true one.

Sweeter and more wholesome work no poet ever produced.

Though there is considerable complexity in the background of thought and feeling to several of Mr. Allingham's poems, his treatment is uniformly simple. Poems like that which, in former editions, was entitled "Therania" (the name is gone now), the Eolian Harp poems, "George Hildebrand," its companion-poem "Emily," and "The Girl's Lamentation," touch the deepest springs of our tears, and "Emily" and "Hildebrand" are full of subtlety. But the effect is invariably produced by short, easy touches of picture and music. If there is any reader of modern poetry who is disposed to think of Mr. Allingham as a mere warbler, we would ask him to read "George Hildebrand."

It is greatly to be regretted that the volume should stand in need of so long a list of errata. As some of the poems are deliberately altered (not for the best, we think-we prefer the old opening to "The Wayside Well," for instance), we are not always sure whether we have before us the author's exact intention or not. For example, in the second line of "In the Dusk" we missed at once the old " are between "waterfall" and "toning," but could not decide whether the omission was accidental or not. It may seem trivial to say that we don't like the gilt edges-or the paper; but it will be excused if we add that we miss with much regret the pictures by Mr. A. Hughes, Mr. D. G. Rossetti, and Mr. Millais. Still, none of these things can avail with any but old friends of Mr. Allingham's lovely poems. May they now make new friends by thousands !

W

A SCHOOL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.*

E are told that this work is divided into three periods, and is especially adapted for use in schools, as well as for students reading special portions of history, for local and other examinations. The periods are these:Period I.-Mediaval Monarchy. The departure of the Romans, to Richard III. From A.D. 1449 to A.D. 1485.

Period II. Personal Monarchy. Henry VII. to James II. From A.D. 1485 to

A.D. 1688.

*

English History for the use of Public Schools. By the Rev. J. Franck Bright, M.A., Fellow of University College, and Historical Lecturer in Balliol, New, and University Colleges, Oxford; late Master of the Modern School in Marlborough College. With Maps and Plates. Rivingtons: London, Oxford, and Cambridge. 1877.

Period III.-Constitutional Monarchy. William and Mary to the present time. From A.D. 1688 to A.D. 1837.

The present volume deals with the last of the three periods, and constitutes a good, solid, comprehensive history, a book to be recommended cordially. It is well and abundantly supplied with maps and plans. Beside the plans here and there inserted amid the text in order to illustrate some battle, there are the following large maps placed separately at the end of the volume:-I. Countries to the north of France. II. North America. III. Spain. IV. Portugal. V. Europe. VI. India. VII. English Possessions in India. The list of authorities, or rather books for reference, is very full. Mr. Bright, with his large special experience, must know better than we do what growing lads and young ladies (?) are supposed to require nowadays in the way of information and comment; and he must also be entitled to speak with some authority upon the question of the best way of presenting both to young minds. When we use the phrase "supposed to require," we refer simply to what is, under existing conditions and in relation to the whole of our later schemes of education, congruous and likely to be of use. But, of course, after this arises another, a more general, and for the moment a less "practical" question. But we confess a passage like this makes us pause and consider :

Like his great rival he [Fox] closed his life in the midst of the unutterable sadness caused by the complete frustration of those plans on which, according to his views, the welfare of his country rested, with this additional bitterness in his cup that upon him was forced the conviction, not only that circumstances were too strong for him, but that the optimism which had been the very breath of his political life rested upon no solid ground, and that the work to which he had devoted himself, and the maintenance of which had perpetually debarred him from a share in the government of the country, had been wholly misdirected. That destruction of illusions, which comes to most men in their youth, fell upon him when he was already breaking with age and disease, and when he must have been conscious that no time was left him to correct the errors into which he had been led. It is difficult to conceive a sadder close to a noble political career than that which fell upon the Minister as he discovered too late that the practical logic of facts contradicted all those high aspirations which had throughout guided his conduct." May it not well be that comments of this kind are at once too general and too particular "for schools," and that the data from which a mature mind fetches them are so utterly beyond the competence of the young that the latter ought not to be asked either to accept or reject them? If we are laying the finger upon a fault, Mr. Bright, as we all know, commits it in very good company. All we shall add about it is that our criticism is not answered by saying that the young must read many things they do not understand, and take many things upon trust. That is true. But in writing expressly intended for their use, both these classes of things should appear as little as possible. The general principle is that the young should not be asked to take upon trust from their instructors anything but matters absolutely essential for the conduct of life, and matters universally accepted as constituting the raw material or the forms of knowledge common to us all. Now the sentences we have just quoted about Fox are one mass of disputable matter, and hopelessly beyond any young person's capacity. We presume it will be considered very fastidious to object to writing like this, which relates to Caroline of Brunswick and George IV. :

"His distaste [the distaste of the Prince for Caroline] had been exhibited at their very first meeting, and he could only force himself to assume a gracious demeanour by having recourse to wine or spirits. The people saw a

Ministry, many of whose severest and most unpopular measures had been based on the specious ground of the desire to maintain morality, forcing into public notice scandalous details which the papers spread to every corner of the country, for the satisfaction of prurient curiosity; and they saw the Sovereign having recourse to all the foul and mean resources of the private inquiry office, which fill right-minded men with disgust-even in the case of private individuals."

But all this might unquestionably have been better put for young readers. The keynote is that of the newspaper article, and it was surely not necessary to refer to the celebrated glass of brandy.

MR.

R. MAHAFFY'S delightful book-full of delicate accomplishment, broad common-sense, and sane ethical suggestion-is now in its third edition, and has passed, as to its substance, far beyond the outer courts of criticism. In the new preface the author generously acknowledges the help he has received from certain sources, public and private; expresses a guarded opinion about the great discoveries of Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ; introduces one correction of the present text; and remarks that "the student who will read in connection with the present volume the Old Greek Life' in Mr. Green's Historical Series (Macmillan & Co.), and the Rambles and Studies in Greece"" (both these works being by Mr. Mahaffy), will probably obtain "a true," and certainly "a consistent view of the merits and faults of the most celebrated nation in history." This remark is fully justified or confirmed by the careful judgments of competent critics of Mr. Mahaffy's volume. The least erudite reader can, meanwhile, estimate the success with which the author has carried out his general design and "enforced homely and common-sense views, while arriving at many results opposed to what he considers sentimentalism and pedantry." In the particulars last indicated we think Mr. Mahaffy an admirable guide. The new chapter on Greek art is an excellent illustration.

There is, however, one drawback upon the great pleasure which we receive from Mr. Mahaffy's volume. Very often the writing rises to the height of the topicof course, it is never grandiose, nor should it be so-but it is too often a little negligent. On page 5 of the Introduction we find this sentence:

"However unsatisfactory, these earlier chapters seem necessary in an historical work, where the later stages cannot be regarded as born in full armour, like the goddess Athene, but as growing insensibly from long-sown seed and in long-prepared soil."

Here we have a "stage;" then "birth" is denied of the "stage," as well it might be; and, in the third place, we find it "growing" from a "seed." In another place-we forget the page-Mr. Mahaffy speaks of the attempts to "transfuse" an "attitude" (of mind). We should like to study the process. On page 355, in reference to "the Old Hebrew Scriptures," we have the following:"Manifest immoralities are daily read, and are glozed over by our moral attitude in such a way that they actually fail to do the harm which might have been expected. There are cases of dishonesty in the very highest characters of the history, which somehow are passed over without making an impression on the moral reader. There are lessons in cruelty, which lose their effect by being considered Divine punishments, and special commands of the Author of our being." If it is hypercritical to object to the proposition that "immoralities" are “read,” it is surely a long way from hypercritical to ask how an immoral story can be "glozed over" by an "attitude." The clause, " which somehow are passed over without making an impression on the moral reader," is both inexplicit and inelegant; may we not even maintain that the transition from one voice to another -from "are passed over to "making "-is incorrect? The last sentence about the "lessons in cruelty" is very shaky. On page 378, in speaking of the Mysteries, Mr. Mahaffy gives us the following sentence:

"For all we know, justification by faith may have been a standard doctrine in these mysteries, just as atonement by human sacrifice lasted down into historical times, and caused scenes painful and shocking to such as did not embrace the dogma, and blind their humanity by keeping the eye of faith fixed upon its efficacy."

Social Life in Greece. From Homer to Menander. By the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, M.A., Author of "Prolegomena to Ancient History," " "Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers,” “Rambles and Studies in Greece." Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged, with a new Chapter on Greek Art. London: Macmillan & Co.

But we utterly fail to catch the connecting or continuing force of the words "just as"-how do they link together the first and second clauses of the sentence?

We will not push this matter any further, but certainly the first impression produced upon our mind by the book was an uneasy one, and it was not without some pains that we were able to trace our uneasiness to its true source in the fact that the author's manner occasionally falls below his matter. This, in a work which is substantially a most valuable addition to the library, is not a trifling matter.

There is one other small point. We by no means object to Mr. Mahaffy's humorous touches, but he sometimes leaves us in doubt whether he is joking or in earnest. On page 223 he says, with apparently entire gravity, "The anecdote about Alcibiades' dog. proves the man, to my mind, not to have been a gentleman.” Now, as all the world knows, Alcibiades cut his dog's tail off. "Sir! (spoken with indignation) I shall drop your acquaintance. You cut your dog's tail off—you are no gentleman."

...

On page 429 we are told that many of "the finer boys at Eton and Harrow are strikingly beautiful and well formed." Mr. Mahaffy does not say Eton and Harrow for instance. Are we to infer that fine boys are a spécialité of Eton and Harrow?

The chapter on Greek Art in its social aspects is new, and in our opinion presents what is on the whole a sound view of that subject. An exception occurs in the following passage however:

"The really vital point was the public nature of the work demanded; it was not done to please private and peculiar taste, it was not intended for the criticism of a small clique of partial admirers, but it was set up or performed for all the city together; for the fastidious, for the vulgar, for the learned, and for the ignorant. It seems to me that this necessity, and the consequent broad intention of the Greek artist, is the main reason why its effect upon the world has never diminished, and why its lessons are eternal. All that was special and momentary and transitory was avoided, and the large enduring features are rendered with calm and majestic dignity."

This can hardly be a complete, or even, we fear, a primarily true account of the matter. Not complete, for we have no doubt that the absence of forms of expres sion which would have violated certain laws of symmetry was due in part to imperfect command of certain resources in the plastic arts. And for the rest, can the "broad intention" be made out? Nay, would the "necessity" in question tend to generate "broad intention ?" One cannot dogmatize upon such a point; it is very debateable. We entirely agree with Mr. Mahaffy that the fact that "so many men of genius arose in Greece" must rest unexplained, but the explanation of that fact, and the explanation of the "broad" symmetry of Greek art, are, we believe, bound up together.

We are not sure whether one fact has been as much noticed as it deserves to be. There is a certain type of brow which is correlated with the artistic genius. The root of the nose is wide and prominent; the eyes are set well apart; and the orbital ridges are strongly marked. In Greek art, this type in its very strongest form occurs with nearly unbroken persistence.

This chapter closes with a brief but powerful and suggestive inquiry—what should we have thought of the art, morals, and religion of the Italian Republics of the middle ages, had their art-products and the cognate products alone remained to us, with no key to the "dark vices and bad passions of artists, kings, and bishops?" But we will not anticipate the pleasure which is in store for the reader of this chapter.

THE LABOUR WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.

A

MERICANS appear to be satisfied, and we think they have reason to be satisfied, with the manner in which the Labour War has been treated by the English Press. As a rule, the right view has been taken of these events, and there have been no unjust reflections on the political institutions of the United States. Still, in some quarters, political inferences have been drawn; and we can hardly doubt that a sinister effect will be produced in France, where the fear of industrial anarchy is the stalking horse of reaction, and where a little weight may now turn the wavering balance and give a fatal issue to a struggle on which the destinies of European society depend far more than on that which is raging, in a form more outwardly impressive, upon the battle-fields of the East.

A quarrel between employer and employed in a particular industry, of a kind not peculiar to the United States, has there broken into flame, and has set fire to a quantity of other combustible matter which lay around, and which was so far from being peculiar to the United States, that a great part, and probably the worst part of it, was entirely foreign both to the country and its institutions; such we believe to be a fair general description of the events which have been filling with grief and shame every friend of labour as well as every friend of the Republic.

That quarrels between employer and employed are not peculiar to the United States, and that it is not in that country alone that they have at times assumed the form of violence, we need be at no pains to prove. From the times of the Jacquerie, the insurrection of Wat Tyler, and the Peasants' War, downwards, the industrial history of Europe is full of these convulsions. Englishmen hardly past fifty remember disturbances almost as serious as those in the United States; they remember the wild outrages of the Luddites;