of Burns applies with greater force to himself: he has "lost Life's chart." He has strayed from the center that gives command of life. In striking language he gives expression to the desolation of the spirit that admits dependence upon Nature only and seeks support only in her:

Oftentimes he feels

The intolerable vastness bow him down,

The awful homeless spaces scare his soul.

Even Nature fails; over Nature falls "The Raven's Shadow" of agnosticism.

Strange the world about me lies,

Never yet familiar grown

Still disturbs me with surprise,

Haunts me like a face half known.

In this house with starry dome,

Floored with gemlike plains and seas,
Shall I never feel at home,

Never wholly be at ease?

On from room to room I stray,
Yet my Host can ne'er espy,
And I know not to this day

Whether guest or captive I.

So, between the starry dome

And the floor of plains and seas,

I have never felt at home,

Never wholly been at ease.

Hence the jar in his personality vividly described in a sonnet, The Mock Self,-a remarkable bit of psychology; hence the torment of the difference between the ideal and the actual, which is one of his most painful and frequently repeated emotions; hence his sickness of mind and body: one of the sweetest outbursts of feeling in the volume is his celebration of his escape from mental eclipse (would that he had taken its lesson to heart!); hence, finally, his desultory inspiration:

Not mine the rich and showering hand, that strews

The facile largess of a stintless Muse.

A fitful presence, seldom tarrying long,

Capriciously she touches me to song

Then leaves me to lament her flight in vain,

And wonder will she ever come again.

The Spencerian Unknowable is bad for poetry. Mr.

Watson is a poet, but he has not originality; he has cut himself off from its source. His verse stores up the last oozings of the Clough-Arnold tradition; whatever seems new in it is owing to the new age in which it is composed. In his doubt of the immortality of the soul he clings desperately to the (Positivistic) doctrine of the immortality of poetry; nothing is of more frequent repetition in his verse. But Tenny

son would administer cold comfort:

Take wings of foresight, lighten through
The secular abyss to come,

And lo! thy deepest lays are dumb
Before the mouldering of a yew;
And if the matin songs, that woke

The darkness of our planet, last,
Thine own shall wither in the vast
Ere half the lifetime of an oak.

Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain;

And what are they when these remain
The ruined shells of hollow towers?

Mr. Watson is mistaken: agnosticism is not a working theory of life. It is strange that his profound depression of spirits should not have instructed him ere now as to his mistake; for it is the inevitable and benificent penalty for separation from the source of being, which is the harmony of the universe. The God that made man is not so different and so estranged from man as he supposes; nothing but a man's will keeps Him from entering into his life.

By a happy inconsistency, our poet seems ever and again to yield to the conviction that there is a moral order in the world; at the end of "The Father of the Forest," the Hymn to the Sea," and his " Apologia," which is the end of the book, he seems to admit the light, and to profess faith in a "golden end," which is that

far-off, divine event

To which the whole creation moves.

If he follows the gleam, we may expect more and better poems from him. If he is false to it, we shall hear from

him no more; for his voice, though he should speak, will not be heard. GREENOUGH White.

REVIEWS.

SLAVERY AND FOUR YEARS OF WAR.

A POLITICAL HISTORY OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. By Joseph Warren Keifer, Brevet Major General of Volunteers; Ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, U. S. A.; and Major General of Volunteers, Spanish War. Illustrated. Vol. I., 1861-63; pp. x, 324. Vol. II., 1863– 65; pp. iv, 352. 8vo. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900.

Gen. Keifer's military and political experience has afforded him unusual facilities for writing history, and the volumes before us have all the freshness of a memoir; but they do not possess the originality one would be inclined to expect. All that is said, moreover, might have been compressed within just half the space. There are numerous illustrations, including four of Gen. Keifer himself, and there is also a carefully prepared index; but, despite the fact that our author writes a history of the civil war, his work does not contain many maps.

Gen. Keifer adopts the view that slavery bred State rights, which in turn brought about the war of secession, and he prefaces his narrative with a long account of slavery in the United States. This, of course, does not enable him to say much that is new. The introduction of slavery into. the colonies is explained, and the prospects of its gradual extirpation after the war of independence commented upon; but the invention of the cotton gin came just in time to fetter the bonds of the negro more tightly, and to impart fresh vigor to what seemed to be a moribund institution. We do not think, however, that Gen. Keifer sufficiently recognizes the play of economic forces in the matter of slavery, although he is fair enough to perceive that the whole country, rather than any one section, was responsible for this blighting curse, and that the nation had to suffer for its sin.

After explaining the causes of the growth of slavery, Gen. Keifer next proceeds to describe the effect of the fugitive slave laws, during a period when the acquisition of fresh territory had a tendency to foster the spread of sectionalism until one

half the country was arrayed against the other half. It is true various compromises were tried, but they all failed in the end, whilst the Dred Scott decision seemed to point to the nationalization of the evil. But all forces were really making for the destruction of slavery, although the then newly created Republican party disclaimed any intention of interfering with the institution in the States where it already existed. There was a very decided opposition in that organization, however, to its spread; and, as every one knows, the election of Mr. Lincoln was the signal for the secession, first of South Carolina and afterwards of ten other Southern Commonwealths.

In discussing the resignation of various army officers-including Lee and Longstreet-in order to cast in their lot with the ill-starred Confederacy, we do not think that Gen. Keifer observes that conventionality which one soldier ordinarily recognizes in speaking of an enemy; and there are often occasions when he might have said the same thing-if he really wanted to say such things at all-without any trace of bitterness or sectionalism. Slavery and the civil war (or rebellion, if Gen. Keifer insists on calling it so) have passed into history, and one ought to be able to discuss the subject nowadays without the assistance of the "bloody shirt."

Our author details the campaigns in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in many of which he took an active part. The formation of the State of West Virginia is also described, whilst there is an unusually interesting account of the killing of Col. John A. Washington, great-grandson of Washington's brother, in one of the early skirmishes.

At the conclusion of the Gettysburg campaign Gen. Keifer was transferred to the Army of the Potomac, and remained with it until the close of the war. Subsequent chapters describe the draft riots in New York, the assumption by Gen. Grant of control of the Union armies, and the various battles in and around Petersburg, Richmond, and other points in Virginia. There are some interesting personal anecdotes. The following seems quite characteristic.

It describes our author, just recovering from a wound received in the Wilderness, responding to orders from the War Department to report to Gen. Sheridan. We will let Gen. Keifer tell the story himself: "When I reported to Sheridan, he looked at me fiercely, and observed: 'I want fighting men, not cripples! What can I do with you?' I asked him to order me to Gen. Wright for assignment to my old brigade. He seemed to hesitate. I informed him of my familiarity with the Shenandoah Valley, and told him I thought I was able for duty. He gave the desired order reluctantly. Sheridan did not impress me favorably then. He seemed restless, nervous, and petulant. I now think I somewhat misjudged him."

Our author speaks very highly of Gens. Wright and Ricketts. Of Rutherford B. Hayes, then a brigade commander, he has this to say: "He was a man of medium height, strong body, sandy hair, sanguine temperament, and was always self-possessed and gentle in his intercourse with others. He was a most efficient officer, and had the power to inspire his men to heroic deeds. He was twice wounded."

The concluding chapters of Gen. Keifer's work narrate the peace negotiations, including Fernando Wood's correspondence with Lincoln in 1862, and the Niagara conference. There is also a detailed account of the celebrated Hampton Roads conference. Finally the end came with the surrender of Lee's army.

Gen. Keifer refers comparatively little to his personal experiences in politics, and leaves the reconstruction period almost untouched; but he usually refers to his political opponents in courteous language. He left Congress in 1885, and has since remained in private life except during a brief interruption caused by the war with Spain. His style as a writer is not attractive, and there are numerous typographical errors throughout the work; but, in spite of its lack of originality and historical impartiality, there is a personal account of actual contact with great men, which renders some parts of the work very attractive. B. J. R.