self for cutting a grind on Plato in order to spend an evening on half a dozen books from "King Solomon's Mines," through a volume of Lecky, to La Terre, a pipe, and Sporting Life.

In the articles on Gibbon, Freeman, and Froude we have a complement to Mr. Harrison's essay "On the Meaning of History," for here are studies of the two greatest recent historical writers, and a careful estimate of the personality of Gibbon. Of course no one can for a moment believe that Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Spenser, were otherwise than delightful men, as great in life as in works; but a contemplation of Gibbon's life reconciles us somewhat to the lack of positive information for fear of a bare possibility otherwise. This man, the wielder of style as stately as the imperial theme he chose, the laborious scholar, the sympathetic appreciator of Rome, Athens, and Byzantium, thought men like Grey who could dream of reform liable to cause trouble; he regarded a seat in Parliament as a piece of property; his estimate of the French Revolution was about as accurate as Burke's; and he knew less about Washington and America than did Dr. Johnson himself. To be sure, with all this, Gibbon was a cheerful companion, a faithful friend, and a self-sacrificing son.

Mr. Harrison sees as clearly as the newest Ph. D. in history the essential error of the historical method of a man who like Froude always holds a brief, yet he thinks emphatically that this history of England has a reason for its existence. Froude was disingenuous, careless, and it seems at times absolutely untruthful in the means he chose in trying to attain his three objects—the rehabilitation of Henry VIII., the glorification of the English Reformation, and the indictment of Elizabeth as a ruler-yet on none of these three points has he reversed the verdict of historians. What he has done is to arouse an interest in the past-one of the great functions of history-and to give us wonderful pictures and narratives deserving to live. The petty men of the school in which Prof. Freeman was a great historical writer will more

than offset with their laborious facts and criticism Froude's mistakes in judgment; his style they cannot approximate. Freeman's method is almost as mistaken as Froude's, though in an entirely different way. Tireless in his pursuit of truth, with a wonderful control of the most minute facts, and having no great power of condensation, he has produced a work to be read only by special students. Both of these men have done valuable work in history, and both are faulty, the one for his lack of scrupulous love for truth, and the other for his presumption that others are as capacious of detail and as unwearied as he himself is―i. e., for his lack of imagination.

The Symonds, the Lamb and Keats, and the Mill essays are the least interesting portions of the book; and those on Tennyson, Ruskin, and Arnold are the most inviting. However far one may be from Positivism, or how entirely an admirer of these three men, at whose defects Mr. Harrison looks with quite open eyes, it is impossible to lay this volume aside without an increased respect for its author's judgment and acumen. This feeling comes to us especially in reading the estimates of Arnold and Ruskin, both of whom during their lives poured out the vials of wrath on the devoted head of the great follower of Comte. There is neither bitterness nor effusion, but a calm statement of facts, with a willingness to authenticate them in the strongest way. His opinions on Ruskin as a prophet are set forth in a dialogue between two men out for a walk over the Sussex downs on a glorious September day. The younger man is a painter established at Florence, full of an appreciation of the art of himself and his contemporaries, and with a thoroughly condescending view of Ruskin's ideas; and the older man a contemporary of Ruskin's, who saw in him a guide and a seer. The latter regards Ruskin as the real source of the sounder feeling for the beautiful that exists in England to-day, as against the hideous ideas prevalent in the early third of the nineteenth century. It is very likely," says he, "that Carlyle was the inspiration of that book ['Mod

ern Painters'], as Carlyle was the master of Ruskin through life. But Carlyle could no more have done the poetic and artistic work of Ruskin himself than Samson could have composed the Psalms of David." For to Mr. Harrison, besides being a stimulator of men's thoughts, Ruskin is such a master of the difficult and subtle instrument of sonorous prose as was not even Milton or Jeremy Taylor. But Ruskin is always in such a tumult of sympathy, admiration, or warning that he can never clothe his mind in unimpassioned prose. It is this alone, that he does not "prune his words and control the thoughts that o'er him throng," that keeps him from being in achievement as he is in potentiality, the supreme master of English prose. Ruskin could have gained this control had he not lived for something more real to him.

The judgment passed on Arnold is calm and discerning. The critical work is rapidly falling below the poetical in importance for the reason that the criticism is so sound that it has ceased to be questioned and is now a recognized part of our common literary knowledge. In poetry Mr. Harrison compares Arnold with Theognis, the Gnomic poet of Greece, whose thoughts on destiny and life are condensed into poetical aphorisms. Arnold's poetry is serious, full of thought, and, save for defects due to a bad ear, virtually faultless; but to be faultless is not enough. The truly great poet has not only polish like Theognis but passion like Sappho. When he comes to Arnold's theology, naturally the Positivist finds it hard to understand the devotional sympathy with the Psalms, and the beautiful enthusiasm for the "secret of Jesus" manifested by this man who regarded the personality of God and celestial immortality as without even probable evidence. Indeed, many who are not Positivists and who do not proclaim with so much pride as does Mr. Harrison their allegiance to the Philistines, are unable to grasp Arnold's position.

To us the most valuable essay in the book is the one on Tennyson, because here,, after the endless driveling praise

-66

that a 66 study" on Tennyson has been synonymous with, we have at last a man speaking straight from a thinking mind. Mr. Harrison in his endeavor to be quite fair points out the good before he shows what adverse criticism he has to make. In this present essay, the statement at the beginning that Tennyson's superiority to all poets of the latter half century is above question or doubt is surely itself not above question or doubt. Only rarely is it worth while to discuss the rank of poets so near in time to us as Browning and Tennyson, but with all the latter's exquisite art and with all the former's turgid style, we have found more passion and virility in one page of "Pippa Passes" than in the entire Idylls." The great popular appeal not only of "In Memoriam" but indeed of all Tennyson's work is due to the fact that his poetry is the expression in exquisite verse of the essentially commonplace beliefs of the larger part of his reading public. Now a great poet is not a translator but a seer. However much one may think Tennyson's influence purer than that of Byron, for instance, it is right always to remember that Byron had an intellectual insight that Tennyson had not. The former brought into the world mind-stirring ideas, the latter touched the hearts of a doubting and sentimental generation. The only national and social causes, says Mr. Harrison, into which Tennyson ever threw his whole soul were the modern fad of imperialism and the glorification of the British arms-causes which go not well with a peer of Milton, but with the Sunday newspaper and a brass band. The characterization of "Lancelot" as a sort of Sir Charles Grandison in plate armor, and the statement that the whole fierce lusty epic of Sir Thomas has been emasculated as if it were to be performed in a drawing room by an academy of young ladies, is not less than felicitous. This comes, too, from a man who has not stinted praise for an ease and music in which Tennyson has been surpassed only by MilG. C. EDWARDS.

ton.

NOTES.

We wish to call special, if belated, attention to the delightful volume of biographical essays collected by Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, under the title of "Contemporaries." (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) Col. Higginson is always interesting, and his writing has an epigrammatic quality that is much to our taste; but we think that he has rarely given us better work than in this volume. This is partly because he is dealing in the main with that long-vanished New England of the prime of which, with Prof. Charles Eliot Norton and Rev. Edward Everett Hale, he is an honored survivor. His essays on Emerson, on Theodore Parker, on Lydia Maria Child, on John Holmes (brother of the "Autocrat"), and many others, ought to be read by all who are interested in our country's literature and history. The paper on Grant seems to us to have distinct historical value; while that on Sidney Lanier, if somewhat unbalanced in its praise, will serve, for Southern readers, to set off any unpleasant impressions derived from the perusal of the paper describing Col. Higginson's interesting visit to the family of John Brown immediately after the latter's execution. We may notice, by the way, that this volume gives clear proof of the fact that time is softening the prejudices that once alienated the citizens of North and South.

The Macmillan Company has published in the handy and beautiful Temple Series the initial volumes of an Encyclopedia made up of "primers," on various subjects, from South Africa to Dante.. The intention is to furnish in an easily accessible form the information usually to be found only in bulky and expensive works of reference. The volumes are forty cents each, and, of course, are sold separately. The paper and binding are good, and the type is clear, though the margins are too narrow for comfort.