dividing lines to be drawn between first class and second, second class and third. Very few men indeed get a first, let us say, in Philosophy, and a third in History. Meanwhile the value of a general study of ancient civilisation has been inestimable, and the habits of mental discipline involved in the preparation for such a test have been found to be most helpful in a future career. It is a great thing to turn a man out well equipped. Let him, after he has gained his degree, choose his line. To make him choose before his degree may make him a narrow, abstract, one-sided pedant.

It

It is a somewhat significant fact that in the latest authoritative edition of the Examination Statutes, the regulations relating to Science occupy forty-four pages out of one hundred and fifty-nearly one-third of the whole volume. For Science is the type to which all education is to be forced to conform. Perhaps the letters M.Ch. form a novelty for some readers, as indicative of an Oxford degree. means a Master of Surgery, and the degree can be taken by a Bachelor of Surgery or a Bachelor of Medicine in the twenty-seventh term from matriculation, after passing a special examination in Surgical Operations and Surgical Anatomy. The advance of Science in Oxford in recent years has been extraordinary, both in material resources and mental discipline. Very large sums have been expended on the erection and furnishing of Laboratories, and the handsome building for Physiological study, and the hideous barn for Anthropological collections are the latest architectural achievements in the University. The aim of the Scientist has been two-fold. He de

sires, in the first place (sharing the aspirations of the advanced school of reformers generally in this respect), to get rid of much of that necessity for residence which was thought so valuable a part of the old Oxford training; and in the second place, he labours without ceasing to enable the scientific student to get through his academic

course without learning an ancient language. Some modern substituteeither French or German-is to be found for Latin and Greek, so that a man who intends to take a scientific degree need waste no time over the unprofitable study of the uses of av or the meaning of qui with the subjunctive. He has not as yet gained his point; but he is not without hopes of ultimate success; and the Scientist is a pushing creature.

Far be it from us to deny the advantages, or even the necessities, of a scientific education, which has now so largely found its way into the curriculum of public schools. The arguments hitherto adopted have not, it is true, been peculiarly dignified, for they have been based chiefly on the example of Cambridge. Cambridge makes it easier for scientific men to pass through its course of training; Cambridge has a larger number of scientific students on its books; therefore, by all means, let Oxford follow. Perhaps this is only brotherly rivalry; perhaps it is an unbecoming mimicry. Yet, after all, despite its efforts, Science in Oxford is not so successfully taught as in the American scientific schools, and the natural deduction to be drawn is not that it ought in consequence to have larger opportunities allowed it in comparison with the classical education, but rather that the Oxford soil is not wholly congenial to this modern growth. If it were not too paradoxical an assertion to make in this modern age, we should feel sometimes tempted to declare that Science can have its Nottingham, its Leeds, its Manchester, its Liverpool, its London, if it will only leave Oxford alone. Is this too illiberal and reactionary? In one sense it is, for scientific teaching has gone hand in hand with that extension of the University teaching throughout England and that system of affiliated colleges, which have formed one of the best and most hopeful signs of modern education. If such an admirable mode of "making our Universities useful"

sums

really involves a large development of Science, we can only resign ourselves to the necessity, and grant our scientific professors the enormous which they often so unblushingly demand. Yet an old weather-beaten system of classical culture is so precious a relic of time and scholarly habit, Oxford, "whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age," has so powerful a hold on the imagination, that we would fain not see the ancient edifice roughly and discourteously treated. It is not easy to build up a new system, and it is very easy to destroy an old one. Has the University no mission in the present day unless it includes Science in its training? Surely a more important duty than ever, the more imperative need there is for some corrective to modern tendencies. Never, we might say, has there been so great need for the old preaching of modesty and harmony (ápμovía) and selfcultivation, which in some wonderful way the ancient Classics can impart, as in the days in which Science is always striving and crying, and Practical

Utility lifting up its voice in our streets. The old gifts of taste and literary culture would indeed be a boon to some of the modern reformers. There is a story which is very likely apocryphal, but which is, unfortunately, so characteristic that it may be held to be ben trovato. When the new Physiological Laboratory was built, the question arose as to the decorative emblems to be placed on its walls. The old Oxford motto, Dominus Illuminatio Mea, was deliberately rejected in order that some motto more indicative of modern discipline might be substituted. So curious a want of historic feeling and literary taste is no very lovable sign of the times. The scientists may, we suppose, do what they like with their own, and, if they please, write Scientia et Vivisectio sua on their walls. But it makes one wonder whether, in the modern barter of old lamps for new ones, there may disappear along with the ancient vessel the subtle power of evoking the ancient Genius.

W. L. COURTNEY,

EVEN a casual traveller passing through Spain, and more especially Andalusia, cannot fail to notice the strange quavering chant which, with little variation in tune, and constant variation in words, is for ever on the lips of the people. The muleteer driving his team across the Sierra, the cigarette-girl in the factory, the beggar on the street,— all have the same love of singing, and all appear to possess in a greater or less degree the remarkable aptitude of improvising words for their songs.

Although many of the verses thus improvised melt away the moment they fall from the singer's lips, and are forgotten with the occasion that called them forth, there are moments of inspiration in which some singer, more gifted than his fellows, may turn a couplet so aptly rhymed, so witty, or so pathetic, that it impresses itself on the memory of its author, who sings it again and again, till his companions also have learned to sing it; and till, passed from mouth to mouth, it travels so far that all trace of its authorship is forgotten, and it becomes the traditional property of the people. By this process of survival of the fittest a vast literature of popular lyric poetry has been formed a literature which time changes as rapidly as it does the seashore, daily washing up fresh deposits, and daily washing the old away.

It would be strange if a phenomenon so remarkable as this had passed by unobserved in this age of observation and travel. There have been many attempts during the present century to collect this traditional poetry in Spain; and among those who have turned their attention to the work, are names as eminent in literature as Lafuente, and "Fernan Caballero," that lady who has painted the Spanish peasantry with such art and sympathy in her well-known romances. But it

was not till the year 1882 that anything like an exhaustive collection was made, when Don Rodriguez Marin, himself a poet of considerable talent, undertook the task of systematically collecting the whole of this traditional poetry from the lips of the people themselves.

The peculiar characteristic of popular Spanish poetry is that it consists entirely of detached stanzas, each containing in itself a complete poetical sentiment; and although a number of these may be sung in rapid succession without any alteration of tune, they have no bearing on each other, the singer selecting at random such. as Occur to him at the moment. Those stanzas generally take one of two forms, the couplet, copla, or the seguidilla. The couplet consists of four octosyllabic lines, the second and fourth of which rhyme. The seguidilla is a couplet with other three lines called the estrevillo tacked on to the end of it.

Although the couplet is the simplest form of verse, the seguidilla is said to be the oldest. According to tradition it was invented in La Mancha in the sixteenth century, and Cervantes alludes to it in Don Quixote.' The seguidillas, like the old "ballads," were originally meant as accompaniments to dancing, and as such they are still used in Spain. The poetry of the Spanish people is so closely wedded to the national dances, that in order to fully appreciate it, one must see a gala night among the peasantry in some country village where old traditions still remain unpolluted. It is the evening of a wedding-day, or a feast-day perhaps, and a company of merry-makers has assembled in one of those low-roofed rooms whose scanty furniture and walls, bare except for a few prints

of saints, give it the appearance of being far larger than it actually is. The spectators have seated themselves round the walls; the guitar-player, cigarette in mouth, has taken up a prominent position; and the best voices have been told off to sing the seguidillas. It is then that a young man and woman, dressed in the picturesque costume that is so fast disappearing now, step into the centre of the room and take up positions facing each other at a couple of yards distance. The music strikes up, and after

short prelude on the guitar the singing and dancing commence. The dance is free from all violent movements. It consists rather of a graceful swaying of the body and arms than of complicated steps. So small a part do the feet play that the dancers seem scarcely to lift them from the ground, and never quit the spot where they first took up their position except twice in each figure; once in the middle, when by a graceful step they change places; and again towards the end, when they resume their former positions. The time is well marked, and the dancers generally accompany themselves with castanets. The audience also mark time with castanets, or by clapping their hands. At the end of each figure, music, dancing, and castanets come to a sudden stop. For a moment dead silence reigns; and the two dancers, thrown into strikingly graceful postures, remain immovable, as though some magic spell had at once silenced the music and transformed the dancers to marble. A graceful stop, bien parado, is the crucial test of a bolero dancer, and when successfully accomplished the audience will break into loud applause, and repeated cries of Olle! Olle! will greet the performers.

Such is the dance to which those verses are sung as accompaniments. Most of them have for their theme the old story of tender or unrequited love; and if they do not always tell it with depth of feeling, they seldom want some trace of that ready wit

which Spaniards even of the humblest class can always command.

Par las cinco ventanas

De mis sentidas

Te entrastes en mi pecho
Sin ser sentido :

Pero has de advertir
Que sin sin sentir no puedes
Volver á salir.

By my senses' windows five
Thou crept in one day
Ere I knew it, to my heart
Thou hadst found thy way:

Now 'tis past all doubt
That without my knowing it
Thou shalt not creep out.

Lo mismo que la sombra
Son las mujeres
Huyen del que las sigue,
Al que huye quieren :
Y de aquí nace

Que queden muchas veces
Sin colocarse.

Like unto a shadow
Women seem to be,
They fly you when you follow,
And follow when you flee:

And this the reason why
Some that will not settle
Are just left to fly.

Notwithstanding the enthusiastic assurances of Don Preciso, one of the first collectors of seguidillas, it is difficult to believe that all those included in his collection are of genuinely popular origin. In lowly society all may indeed have circulated, but there are many whose style betrays a noble birth at least.

Es amor en la ausencia
Como la sombra,
Que cuanto más se aleja,
Mas cuerpo toma:

La ausencia es aire,
Que apaga el fuego chico
Y aviva el grande.

Absence is the light, and love
The shadow that it throws,
The further from the light we move
The more the shadow grows:

Absence is the blast that blows,
The feeble flame it quenches ;
The strong still fiercer glows..

Pensamiento que vuelas
Mas que las aves,
Llévale ese suspiro
A quien tu sabes:

✰ dile á mi amor
Que tengo su retrato
En mi corazon.

Thought, that hast wings and can fly
Swift as a bird through the air,
Bear on thy bosom this sigh,
Carry it thou knowest where:
My lady to tell
That her image alone

In my bosom shall dwell.

Moreover the seguidilla is difficult to compose. Apart from the multiplication of rhymes, the unity of thought must be maintained up to the very end, otherwise the estrevillo in time gets detached and lost. Many of those which are complete in the early collections have been found by later collectors circulating amongst the people without any estrevillo. So

much is this the case that the bulk of the seguidillas at present sung to accompany dancing are really coplas ; the place of the estrevillo being supplied by some movable and more or less meaningless chorus, or by a mere repetition of the last three lines.

The four-lined couplet, or copla, is the real vehicle of popular poetry. Its measure is simple, and only the second and fourth lines rhyme-a matter rendered easy both by the richness of the Spanish language, and by the admission of those assonant or vowel rhymes, which characterise the old Spanish romances, and originated in the poetry of the East.

Whenever any incident occurs to break the monotony of his every-day life, the Spaniard will turn a copla to commemorate it. Sometimes the incident is trivial enough. "It is impossible to take a walk through Seville at present," says Señor Machado, "without hearing sung at every turn in all the lanes and courts, as well as in the music-halls and dancing saloons, the unedifying jingle of the corrucos, a sort of novel sweetmeat of peculiar form and confection, which has produced a perfect literary epidemic in the town."

Political events are always fruitful in couplets. Thus

Los zapatos tengo rotos
De subir á la azotea
Por ver si veo pasar
Al valiente Salvochea ;

With climbing to the roof I've worn
The boots from off my feet,
To see if brave Salvochea
Goes passing up the street,

is one of many which contains an allusion to the cantonal movement. If these were collected they would form a faithful chronicle of all the events,

any

political or domestic, serious or trivial, which have at time impressed themselves on the mind of the people. But such a collection could never be made, for the couplets that are engendered by passing events are destined to oblivion as soon as the excitement occasioned by the event has subsided. In a few exceptional cases they may survive. Señor Marin's collection contains one or two which allude to events that took place in the fifteenth century; but these are so rare, and the events alluded to so memorable, that even they have probably been composed in more recent times.

But if the popular poetry does not afford a record of the political history of the Spanish people, it forms a most valuable page in their social history. Señor Marin has collected his materials among all sorts and conditions of men ; not only from the labourers in the barracks, but even from the lips of olive-yards and the soldiers in the the prisoners in their cells. We have thus a complete picture of prisonlife from the most important of all aspects the prisoners' own point of view. Many of the prison couplets are not only interesting as a social study, but of considerable pathos.

A los doce de la noche,
Niña, me llevaron preso,
Y para mayor dolor,

Me ataron con tu pañuelo.

They've dragged me to a prison cell.
At midnight, when they found me,
I wore thy kerchief, love, and ah!
It was with it they bound me.

The Spanish brigand is now almost if not altogether extinct. Yet it is not so long since Jose Maria, of whose dash and gallantry Prospère Merimée gives so graphic an account, was at once the terror and the admiration of