constituted 70 per cent. of the exports. France showed a more favorable percentage on the side of the imports than Germany, namely 90 per cent. of food stuffs and raw materials. In the item of exports, the manufactured goods represented only 54 per cent. Other data go to show the rapid advance of Germany toward becoming an industrial nation. In 1878 she was next to Great Britain and the United States, the third nation in the production of pig-iron and steel, furnishing 15.21 per cent. of the world's total production of the former, and 18.88 per cent. of the latter. In the number of cotton-spindles she was surpassed in 1880 only by England; in the linen industry only by Great Britain, France, and Austria-Hungary; in the manufactory of woolen goods only by France, Great Britain, and the United States; in silk industry Germany stands next to France.

Germany was, during the Bismarck era, an industrial nation of the first rank, and it was a mistake to check this development by the enactment of the Agrarian Tariff Laws; and the tariff for the purpose of fostering industries was entirely useless. Bad tariffs could only hinder the development of the industries. Of course it was Bismarck's idea that German manufacturers did not need the world's markets, and it was the purpose of the tariff to secure for them the German market; but this was a singular piece of folly for a country which even at that time was producing fully a milliard marks' worth of goods more in its factories that the State could use. His policy looked upon the inland market as a Procrustean bed; but for this bed the farming and agrarian department remained too small, and the industrial manufactures became too large. German industries have all along steadily increased their foreign exports and have constantly sought larger foreign markets. In general, the economic status and policy of Germany has steadily approached that of Great Britain. In 1889, the manufactured goods constituted as high as 75 per cent. of the entire exports of Germany, being surpassed only by Great Britain with 91.9 per cent., while France had only 56.8 per cent. The entire foreign trade of Germany in 1889 amounted to 7,153,000,000 marks, surpassed only by England with 13,530,000,000 marks, while France in 1889, had decreased her export trade to 6,416,000,000 marks, and had thus lost her rank, as the second industrial nation of Europe, to Germany. The export trade of Germany in 1889 was 3,164,000,000 marks; of Great Britain, 4,978,000,000; of France, 2,963,000,000. Looked at from the side of exports alone, Germany has approached Great Britain even more closely. Germany has thus become an industrial nation of the first rank, and must remain such 'or perish. This, Count von Caprivi has been shrewd enough to recognize. These facts show what policy Germany must pursue. She must follow the paths of England in the policy of free trade.

TH

THE MAKING OF A MANDARIN.

London Quarterly, January.

HE political theory of China has been handed down from the days of the Sages, and a most excellent theory it is. The unit of morals is the cultivation and rectifying of the individual; from the individual to the household, from the household to the State, in ever-widening circle, the influence of the life of the "superior man is to spread. The volumes containing the lessons of morals and the science of government are the recognized classics conned over, and treasured up today, word for word, in the memory of every official in the land. Ancient China possessing these maxims and rules, had next to invent a system for procuring men who would carry them out. Thus it came about that twelve hundred years ago, there flashed on an emperor's mind the splendid idea, that, in place of his own haphazard selection of men, there should be instituted an examination, and that he who showed the most intimate knowledge of the golden themes of government would

be the most likely to carry them into practice. Hence sprang the Civil Service Examinations of China, the pioneer, by more than a thousand years of the civilization of the West.

A competitive system such as this is the heir of splendid hopes, which, with all faults of imperfection and abuse, are on the whole realized. There are drawbacks; yet, on the whole merit is undoubtedly recognized and the ablest men selected. In theory there is in China no barrier between the poorest boy and the highest office. The clever boy is trained in the village school. Year by year the Government examinations take place over all the Empire, and if he be of the one per cent., or so, who satisfy the district and county examination test, he is decorated with the title of "budding talent." His district officials and gentry now subscribe to help him pursue his studies; in all the larger towns there are colleges with scholarships in the form of prizes on bi-monthly examinations, and with this, and other help readily offered to deserving talent, together with his own earnings from teaching or writing, the student is able to present himself for the triennial examinations. In the province of Hueph, of which the writer has the most knowledge, out of fifteen thousand candidates, sixtysix obtain the second degree" Deserving of Promotion." The survival of such an ordeal may well be thus described; the whole province rings with his name, his village is honored, and his reflected glory at once raises his family to a proud preëminence over his neighbors.

He is now eligible for office, but, as he is naturally desirous of higher academic distinction, all his acquaintances are expected to subscribe toward his journey to Peking for the contest of the metropolitan degree. Here the picked graduates of the eighteen provinces compete, and a small percentage gain the next step of the " Scholar Entering on Office." From these again are selected a small number by the Emperor himself for. the "Forest of Pencils," or Imperial Academy.

The road thus marked out from the village to the Academy is clear and open. There are whispers of bribery, but collusion in the bestowal of a degree is a capital offense, and, as a general rule, the various tests are applied without fear or favor. Yet, even thus, we see, that as in the West, a good deal of money is needed at the various stages, while the actual entrance into office, as distinct from degree, is always blocked by obstacles, similar but more serious. The members of the Academy are all occupied in the capital with literary undertakings of the State, whence they emerge, should they wish it, as higher officials. Ordinarily the possessors of the second and third degrees either become proctors or professors in the management of the literary curriculum of the Empire, or they enter the rank of expectant officials. State registers are kept in Peking, on which the names of all eligible, and waiting for office, are (for a good fee) recorded. Each man is assigned to a particular province, and sent to await his turn for a magistracy. It is significant of a knowledge of human nature that in a land where clan-feeling is so strong, nobody is allowed to take office in his own province, and relationship is not allowed between the high mandarins. The golden gates of office are, however, by no means open yet; the great difficulties are still to come. The hero of a hundred competitions now finds himself one of a great company, perhaps two or three thousand in number, all impotent, and awaiting the moving of the water in the official pool. Examination is not the only road to office. Poverty of the Imperial exchequer has, from time to time, led to the institution of a system of purchase of degrees and office; a sad flaw in the ideal system. On a rough estimate of every ten who actually take office, four win their rank by services in clerkships, four by purchase, and two by examinations. Before the T'ai Ping Rebellion, the price of a district magistracy was $12,500, since then it has been reduced to $3,000.

The expectant, on his arrival at his provincial capital, reports himself to the higher authorities, on whom depend

all his hopes. Odds and ends of duties enable him to eke out a living, but he may wait years, a lifetime in fact, before the coveted office becomes his own-before he can hang out his tablet. Meantime he has possibly contracted some debts but after entering an office he sees that he is not expected to live on his salary. To put the fact in plain English, the Chinese Government forces its Mandarins to be dishonest. Rather let us say, that in place of sufficient income, a system of perquisites is instituted, most pernicious to the Government and the official, suggesting direct dishonesty; but that these perquisites are so regularly recognized, that the man who is moderate in the use of them is honest.

Nevertheless the experiment pays. To be a Mandarin is the dream of every Chinese boy's life, and although district magistrates may find it hard to make both ends meet, the higher offices are the means of great wealth.

THE TAX ON BARBARISM.

GEORGE H. HUBBARD.

New Englander and Yale Review, New Haven, March.

To speak of War as an appreciable cause of Poverty in Ꭲ

America may seem absurd to many. Not a few of our commercial men and large speculators look with undisguised satisfaction and hope upon every war-cloud that rises. They fancy that such a commotion will be a real blessing to our commerce and a stimulus to our industries. For this reason the spirit and practice of war find no slight encouragement in the popular opinions of the day. They are stimulated by the public press and kept alive by the Government as an essentia' element of national life.

Now, all such ideas are wholly out of keeping with the progress of our age. It is time they were exploded. War is no more essential to the preservation of national honor than is duelling to the preservation of individual honor. In any of its forms, it is a relic of barbarism, and the most expensive. So long as we permit this remant of barbarism to exist, we must pay a heavy tax for its maintenance, and that tax will fall most heavily upon the poor. Take a few figures. The late Civil War cost this Nation the immense sum of $6,189,929,908, to which must be added the Southern debt of $2,000,000,000. This was the immediate outlay-over eight billion dollars. Besides this, we pay annually in pensions and interest over $150,000,000. These figures tell, however, only a small part of the story. Figures can never express the weight of terrible burdens which the war laid upon the shoulders of the people— the precious lives wasted, the waste of labor, the waste of the results of many years of work-these are beyond computation. These are not all the evils to be traced to this one source. Vice ever follows in the train of war. A generation has passed since the war swept over our land, but its scars of sins are yet unhealed. Many of the murders, suicides, lawless outbreaks, bold robberies, and scenes of violence and crime, are but the echoes of war. A vast army of tramps, lazy and lawless, wander over every State. Great accessions have been made to the ranks of pauperism. For many of these evils we find the war.

one common cause,

If we could trace the history of every case of poverty that exists in our land at the present time, very often we should be led directly to the Civil War. Scarcely a hamlet in our land in which we cannot find at least one home where poverty reigns as a direct result of the war.

Do you ask: Whence come the poor of America? We answer unhesitatingly: Many of these are the offspring of our

war.

and if a single war could cause so heavy a drain upon national and individual wealth, what must be the sum total of the impoverishment arising from the many wars constantly waged in different parts of the world; yet men are slow to learn the blessedness of peace. We call this an age of peace and of enlightenment; but we are paying enormous sums every year as a tax on barbarism. The standing army of the United States small as it is, requires an annual expenditure of $54,000,000.

Our own outlay in this direction is a mere bagatelle when compared with that of other nations. Europe spends $3,867,500,000 every year on her armies and navies, while about 4,000,ooo men are held in constant idleness, or engaged in unpro. ductive, nay, worse, in destructive labor. Our statesmen point to the poverty of European peasants, and lay it at the door of free trade or protection, as the case may be. Our social reformers declare it to be the result of a false system of landtenure or what not. But Mr. Evarts expresses the truth of the matter in a single sentence when he says: "The difference between the German and American farmer is not so much in hard work or high prices as in the fact that every German workingman carries a soldier on his back."

The nations of the world are daily becoming more closely knit together in their interests. Neutrals suffer more in modern than in ancient wars. Every nation feels the pain when one is wounded. Not Europe alone, but the whole world is several billions of dollars poorer every year because of the immense standing armies maintained "to keep the peace." Never was a greater fallacy than the notion that American workingmen are better off because of the idleness of so many men in Europe. The nations are one in this matter. This enormous expenditure is draining the treasury of the world, and America suffers with Europe. If we could increase the producing force of the world by seven millions of intelligent, able-bodied men, while at the same time we saved as many billions of dollars worth of waste or useless expenditure, would not all men the world over be enriched by the process? The answer is self-evident.

We repeat, then, war is a relic of barbarism; it is an unmitigated evil; it causes a large draught upon the prosperity of all nations; it destroys the vital resources of the world; it wastes material wealth; it paralyzes all legitimate industry, and blocks the wheels of economic progress. Every honest laborer, every friend of industry, ought to be a peace man. We should rejoice in every movement in the interest of peace, and deprecate every utterance that tends to excite a warlike spirit. The Peace Societies deserve a high place among the friends of the poor and the workingman. As their principles prevail and their work advances a great burden will be lifted from the world, and direct relief will be brought to every struggling laborer in the world.

Nord und Süd, Breslau, February. TTENTION has justly been drawn to the fact that the decadence in art is characterized by the representation of the monstrous and the horrible. While calm, cheerful. grandeur characterized art in its flourishing period in Greece; while, in the Pericleian period, physical suffering was treated

the Hellenic or Alexandrian period. The artist sought out material which afforded him the opportunity of displaying his power of delineating human suffering, This is most clearly

illustrated in the colossal marble group of the Toro Farnese (the Farnesian Bull) in the National Museum at Naples, a work attributed to Apollonius and Tauriskus in the second century, B. C.

We see in this group, two noble youths in the act of fastening Dirke, the wife of the Theban King, Lykos, on a raging bull. The slighter, Amphion, distinguished by his lyre, holds the ferocious animal by the horns, while the sturdier and more muscular Zethus binds the bands. In despairing, deadly anguish, the unhappy woman, from whom the outer garment has fallen off, exposing her wanton loveliness, grasps with her left arm the leg of Amphion to hold him back, while the right is stretched upward with a look of horror towards the steer which in another moment will be trampling her lovely body with his hoofs. In the background is seen a noble female figure; it is Antiope, the mother of the two youths, who looks with lofty calm upon the terrible scene.

There is scarcely a monument of antiquity that has such an imposing effect, or that betrays such boldness of execution as the Farnesian Bull; the symmetry of form is admirable, and the marble is handled with incredible force. Nevertheless, it is impossible to look at the group with perfect satisfaction, it is too horrible for thorough enjoyment.

Is is true that the antique artist was restrained by a certain reserve and moderation. In contradistinction to modern naturalists who would have selected the most repulsive phase, he does not portray the bull in the act of trampling out his victim's life, but selects the moment before that terrible scene, for his composition. Even then the repulsiveness of the scene, although tempered, is not subdued, the more so that there is nothing to suggest the connection between the punishment and the offense. The fable tells us, it is true, that Zethus and Amphion imposed this terrible punishment upon Dirke, because she had doomed their own mother, Antiope, to a similar fate. It appears, therefore, to be a representation of filial love, but this is not to be gathered from the group without an extensive commentary. In especial, Antiope, regarding the horrible scene calmly, appears to us unnatural. Some archæologists are even of opinion that the addition of her figure was an afterthought; but be that as it may, its absence would not enable us to look on the composition with complete satisfaction. Nothing can divert us from the simple fact that a helpless woman is being bound to a raging steer by two powerful men and, thus, doomed to a horrible death.

The subjeet was, however, a favorite one for representation in later Greek and Roman times. We find the punishment of Dirke on the coins of Thyatyra, it is found again in a gem in the Vienna cabinet and on a sarcophagus. It is depicted, too, in the temple which Attalus II. of Pergamos erected at Kyzikos in honor of his mother, along with Dionysius and Semele, Telephus and the Eye, and other examples of filial love.

How is it, then, it may well be asked, that a subject never treated in ancient Grecian art, should all at once be so abundantly represented? The answer is simple. Euripides popularized it in his drama "Antiope," and thus gave the impulse to the reproduction of the salient scene. Such was the view entertained, while we knew little more of the drama than the name, and this view is confirmed by the recent interesting discovery of a fragment of the drama itself in an Egyptian tomb of the third century.

This discovery confirms the view previously entertained that the fable, as it had previously come down to us through a Latin channel, is only a scanty extract from the Grecian drama, or perhaps a Latin version of it. By its aid, however, we are enabled to ascribe the newly found fragment to its proper place, and complete the missing portion, at least as regards its contents. The fable, thus restored, runs as follows: Zeus had approached Antiope, the daughter of the King of Boeotia, amorously, and the maiden, fearing punishment, fled; and concealed herself in the valley of Kithareon, where

she bore twins. These were exposed, and found, and brought up by a shepherd. Antiope subsequently was taken to wife by Epopeus, a Sikyonian. Nykleus, however, had not forgiven his daughter's imprudence and flight, and on his deathbed he made his brother, Sykos, swear to punish her; scarcely had Sykos succeeded to the throne when he undertook an expedition against Sikyon; Epopeus was killed, and Antiope borne away in chains to the Theban home. Here arose a tormentor in the person of Dirke, the wife of Sykos, and to escape her ill-treatment Antiope fled again to the vale of Kithareon. Here she accidentally discovered her sons now grown to manhood. The milder, Amphion, felt himself inexplicably drawn to his mother, but the sterner, Zethus, drove her again into the wilderness. It happened that Dirke came to the same neighborhood to celebrate a holy day, and discovered Antiope's hiding-place, and Sykos determines to recapture her by means of the two young shepherds. Sykos accompanies them; Antiope is again secured, and is condemned to be bound to a wild steer and trampled to death. The preparations are made, and Zethus and Amphion are just about to put the fearful decree in execution, when the old shepherd, who had supported them in infancy, appears on the scene, tells them the secret of their birth, and informs them that Antiope is their own mother. The young men's wrath is now raised against their mother's tormentor, and Dirke is subjected to the dread fate she had prescribed for Antiope.

Sykos is next seized, and the brothers are about to submit him to a similar death, when a Deus ex machina appears in the person of Hermes, who bids them stay their hands and listen to Heaven's decree, which is that Sykos is deposed from the: throne of Cadmus in favor of Amphion, who is gifted at. the same time with a mastery of music that shall make the very stones cry out. Sykos gets his instructions as to the burning and disposition of the ashes of Dirke, and Zethus, too, is promised success against his enemies.

Like all other works of art intended to illustrate dramatic scenes, a thorough knowledge of the story is necessary to its full interpretation. Even thus the scene presents itself to us as an act of brutality. This was not so with Euripides and his contemporaries; for them the scene recalled only the pious. reflection: "Slow follows retribution,

I

Yet o'ertakes the offender surely."

THE REFORM OF GYMNASTICS.
ANGELO Mosso.

Nuova Antologia, Rome, January 16.

ASKED one of the most celebrated physicians in Italy what he thought of gymnastics. He answered that several of the best gymnasts he ever knew had died of consumption. This goes to show that robustness and strength of muscle are two distinct things.

Galen, the greatest physiologist of antiquity, treated the subject of gymnastics in one of his books, more than sixteen ceńturies ago. Since he was the physician of the school of gladiators and especially at Rome, where he was the most famous physician towards the end of the second century, he had opportunities to observe the effect of athletic gymnastics, such as no other person ever had. In a paragraph, speaking of the maladies of athletes, in order to show that the great development of the muscles attained by constant exercise does not constitute a sign of health, Galen says: Gimnastica ad sanitatem periculosa est.

To any one who is not a physician it is likely to seem strange that an athlete, with the appearance of extreme robustness, indicated by a great development of the muscular system, is not for that reason more healthy than others, and that thus his great strength becomes a cause of weakness for himself. Professor Birsch Hirschfeld has pointed out that keeping up the muscular system in athletes puts in a state of tension all

the other organs of the body, which, in order to nourish the muscles and provide for them motive action, end by being easily exhausted and thus less able to resist causes of disease. Every physician knows many persons much more agile and stronger than himself, acrobats, famous gymnasts, with whom he would not exchange either lungs or digestive system, or any organ of his body. Here is a pretty thing, some readers will say, after hearing and reading so much said in praise of gymnastics, to find some one who decries that form of exercise! I do not say that gymnastics ought to be done away with, I desire simply to criticise gymnastics from a physiological point of view, in the hope of bringing about a change to a more rational and more efficacious method of exercising the body than the one now used.

The gymnastics used by the citizens of ancient Rome were not military; but simply civil and for recreation. Of this we have proof in the Latin writers. That the ancient Romans had no passion for gymnastics is shown by the fact that nearly all their athletes were foreigners. These the Romans admired, paid, and applauded, but did not hold in high consideration.

With exercise, muscular force increases rapidly and continuously. He who studies the effects of gymnastics without being a physiologist and a physician falls into error, if he believes that, with this rapid improvement of the muscles, there is a corresponding improvement in the other organs of the body. I have studied with care the changes that exercises on the trapeze and parallel bars produce in the heart during the exercise. The disturbance in the rhythm of the cardiac beats is evident. During a prolonged exercise of the muscles we see how the veins swell in the neck, and the congestion of the blood in the countenance, with the purple color of its skin. The reason is that we cannot isolate the nervous action on a single group of muscles, when we make an extraordinary effort of strength. Drawing together, as it were, all the muscles of the body, and especially those of the thorax, we render the venous circulation difficult, and we feel exhausted, and have to stop our effort, more on account of the disturbance in our circulation and respiration than through having exhausted the force of the muscles.

Some persons consider the increase of the chest a point in favor of gymnastics, claiming that this enlargement of the muscles of the thorax facilitates ordinary respiration. The increase of the thoracic circumference, however, is not of itself capable of improving the condition of the organism.

The ordinary gymnastics now in use in schools have the defect of localizing fatigue in some groups of muscles. The general fatigue which results from free games, from marches, from rowing, from wrestling, from swimming, is certainly more useful for the organism, and is physiologically the true fatigue, to which we ought to accustom ourselves in order to become robust.

The errors that are prevalent about gymnastics are many and truly singular. In the preface to a work on gymnastics, printed in Italy, may be read this eulogy: "One half-hour of exercise, according to this system of gymnastics, is equivalent to four or five hours of walking. What an immense benefit for city life, in which there is never the necessary amount of bodily exercise!"

In a medical journal of New York, I have seen announced another book, which explains how, by means of cumulative exercise, practiced acccording to a specified method of gymnastics for ten minutes every day, you can do without any other exercise of the body.

Unfortunately, gymnastics do not serve for the intensive culture of youth, and are not sufficient to render anyone robust. The first rule of physiology is to follow the laws of nature, and give to the organism the time necessary to develop itself. The movement must be gradual; impetuous forces are no benefit at all. I understand that a business man or a student, who cannot absolutely withdraw from the pressing

duties of his occupations, does well to practice gymnastics in his chamber; but it is absolutel" necessary for such persons to be prudent.

Another prejudice which increases faith in the efficacy of gymnastics is that they serve as a rest for the brain, and may, therefore, be considered a remedy for abuse of the intellect. In my book on fatigue I have demonstrated that by mental labor the muscles also are fatigued. I am convinced that I have furnished scientific proof that gymnastics are not a rest, but fatiguing for the brain. In the computation of school hours, gymnastics ought to be considered as part of the instruction, and not as recreation.

Robustness of the organism is the result of many functions. The skin, the lungs, the heart, the nervous system, and the digestive organs are certainly more important than the muscles. Wherefore, in physical education, the prevalent importance ought not to be attached to exercise of the muscles.

Walks

in the open air, skating, baths, swimming, everything which fatigues one, which consumes our organism and reconstructs it in better atmospheric conditions, in surroundings which arouse the processes of life-all this constitutes the foundation of true and good gymnastics.

THE

SHAKESPEARE ON THE FRENCH STAGE.
JULES GUILLemot.

Revue Bleue, Paris, February 6.

HERE has been a great deal written lately about a translation of "" Macbeth," produced at the Odeon by Mr. George Clerc; a literal translation, too literal assuredly to be agreeable to our ears or even, perhaps, to be intelligible in every part.

For thirty years Shakespeare has held on the French stage a place which many of our famous playwrights might envy, were it not, to use the old saying, that a living Sardou is better than a dead Shakespeare.*

Of the various French adaptations of the English dramatist, some are exact enough; but this exactness can never be more than relative. A work of the master is, as a whole, absolutely untranslatable for the French stage. There are things in him from the translation of which the boldest draw back, and will always draw back.

To begin, Shakespeare is full of obscenities, which it is impossible for us to admit in our theatres. The most reserved personages of his dramas never hesitate about uttering noisome pleasantries. The sweet Miranda, one of the most exquisite heroines of Shakespeare, whom many of those who profess to be admirers of the poet know as much about as they know of the province of Kiang-Sou in China, converses with Prospero and Ferdinand in a way that Zola would not have dared to make Gervaise use with Coupeau.

Moreover, Shakespeare, seductive and marvelous poet though he be, is for our young school a detestable dramatic model. There is at the end of my pen a word, which, at the risk of an outcry, I must use. Shakespeare, despite the lightnings of his genius and his admirable theatrical master-strokes, is, take him all in all, but a mediocre dramatic workman,

It will be objected that I speak like a Frenchman. How should I speak? The misfortune is that we forget too much our native qualities, and particularly that dramatic instinct which characterized our fathers. For all of us Gauls, who are endowed with reason, the theatre of Shakespeare is of a very primitive type, and devoid of equilibrium. The poet gives fifteen pages of development to scenes, which serve to "fill up" only, and which appear to us insignificant, and strangles in a few lines what seems to us the principal situation. Let us take Hamlet," which, without doubt, is Shakes*Shakespeare has a statue in the streets of Paris. Racine and Corneille are yet waiting for theirs; and Molière's would still be lacking, were it not for the fountain of which he is a mere accessory.

peare's masterpiece, if you regard only the marvelous traits of genius which burst out here and there, the astonishing richness of the poetry, the profundity of the thought, Notwithstanding, it is one of the worst constructed dramas that can be found anywhere. Are you acquainted with many conclusions more primitive, I will say more nearly grotesque, than that of Hamlet"? I am speaking of the conclusion, as it stands in Shakespeare, from a translation of which the most of our translators draw back; the deaths heaped together in one scene, and nearly simultaneous, of Laertes, of the King, of the Queen, and of Hamlet.

Let me not be misunderstood. There is nothing in the world which this sublime poet, this powerful thinker has not touched; his mind saw everything, understood everything, embraced everything. It is in this lies the real Shakespeare; it is by this universality of faculties that, in the course of his formless dramas, he excites at every step our astonishment and admiration. Only by this depth of view and thought can be justified the error into which certain Englishmen have fallen of confounding the author of "Hamlet" with that of the Novum Organum."

Study Shakespeare in his historical dramas: he is a soldier and a statesman. Weigh every word of the monologue of Hamlet! What moralist, what student of the divine laws, ever rose above these thoughts? Where can you find a nobler disdain of life such as men have made it, of the miseries to which it is condemned? Where can you find better reasons for fleeing from these miseries and quitting this life? Like Molière, Shakespeare has the critical faculty, and is implacable against incapable writers. What a superb disdain of mere makers of phrases is the answer of Hamlet, when asked what there is in the book he is reading: "Words! Words! Words!"

That admirable monologue of Hamlet, which arouses so much thought, is a philosophical page of the first order; but is a philosophical page in its right place on the stage of a theatre? I may be permitted, I trust, to ask the question. Among a host of beautiful things in Shakespeare, which inspire so much admiration and emotion, how many of them are beauties needless for the purposes of the drama in which they appear, outside of, and apart from it, and, theatrically speaking, errors, not to say faults!

From all this the conclusion is easy to draw. If the thinker is unique in the author of "Hamlet," if the poet is admirable in the writer of the "Tempest," live with the thinker, and follow the poet in his astonishing flight. Yet, why go into ecstacies before an unskillful playwright, we who possess a theatre so great and so perfect? Why, especially, this senile imitation of a genius, inimitable in whatever is great in him, bad in everything which can be reproduced and copied ?

Let us, then, become better acquainted with Shakespeare; let us read him more, read him again and again, incessantly; but let us put him on the stage a little less.

none of the great Roman poets less deserved the title of gentleman. All his immediate predecessors in poetry, strictly so-called-we are not speaking of the dramatists—and his contemporaries and successors, were of high, or at least of more than respectable, birth; but Horace was the son of an emancipated slave. Yet, perhaps, never before or since, has such a literary position been won and held with such a complete maintenance of dignity and self-respect. Sir Theodore Martin has pointed to Beranger as another great poet who made no

Je suis

effort to conceal his lowly birth. But Beranger's vilain et tres vilain" is almost as alien from the refined indifference of Horace,

Too proud to care from whence he came,

as is the obsequious coxcombry of Moore, or the petulant selfconsciousness of Pope. Burns has more in common with Horace, but the gentle manliness of the latter's style is as of one to the manner born, and reminds us sometimes of Addison, but oftener of Thackeray. We know of no poem in English, not professedly an imitation, more Horatian in tone than Thackeray's " Age of Wisdom."

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass;

nor has any social satirist come nearer to Horace than Thackeray, in the readiness with which he shows up his own weaknesses and peccadilloes, thus disarming criticism and blunting an obvious retort. It is his boldness and independence of spirit that have made Horace so popular in

The land, where girt with friends or foes,

A man may speak the thing he will.

So popular that Gibbon never traveled without a copy of his poems in his pocket, that Hooker fled with him to the field from the reproaches of a railing wife, that Thackeray is content if the future man of the world, on leaving school, should have enough Latin to quote Horace respectably through life. His manliness of character and complete freedom from sycophancy and snobbishness-in a word, "his good form," as it would now be termed, did not show itself merely in his style. It penetrated his life and influenced his conduct. In his first interview with Mæcenas we do not find a glib and clever adventurer showing off before a powerful patron. His own words were few and hesitating, and the replies of Mæcenas curt and commonplace. They did not meet again for nine months, but thenceforth the intimacy ripened quickly. The position which Horace gained in the friendship of Mecenas excited the wonder and envy of subsequent poets. But the attitude of Horace towards his patron was always one of resolute, but not ostentatious, independence; and this, too, it must be remembered, in an age in which copyright was unknown.

His

This extraordinary man (Mæcenas) certainly had not one of those happy natures with which it is easy to live and difficult to quarrel. On the contrary, he was self-willed and eccentric; he formed and held original views about life and happiness, and acted on them. This descendant of Etruscan kings does not appear to have held any official position or title whatever. He aspired to no higher dignity than his ring denoted. aim was to govern, not to reign; but, though he despised the common-place ambition, it was not because he surpassed his fellow-men in fortitude and strength of mind. He trembled at what many ordinary men can meet without fear. He dreaded death, or rather felt an aversion for it; and what is more singular, he was bold enough to confess what he felt. This strange being, to whom even Seneca-no admirer of his— ascribes a powerful and masculine spirit, has left behind him the most pitiful wail, in which man even owned his desire to grunt and sweat under a weary life";