SOME RECENT BOOKS.

William Blake-Life in the Stars-Natural Man-Korea -Japan and China-Shakespeare and CrashawFlaubert-Florence and Torquemada-Are We Overpopulated?-John Smith-Slavery-France and America -The Balearics - Religion - Topsy Turvy-Trollope

once more.

THE recent centenary of the death of William Blake, whose radiant and militant spirit surely could never die, was an opportunity, well used, for emphasising the truth that he is one of the master-beings of our race. The celebrations were wide-spread, sincere, and a convincing testimony to his hold on the love and conscience of those who think in English. Prophet and warrior, poet, artist and seer, his work and personality must endure and be an influence for lasting and increasing good; although his books of prophecy are a lost wisdom, meaning next to nothing, for the reason that if once there was a sufficient key to their mysteries that key is lost. Greater than the prophecies, however, are the poems, of innocence, experience, simplicity, inspiration, humanity; and greater even than the poetry was the personality of the manthe little man with the blazing eyes, concentered sanity, restless energy, infinite vision, and fighting spirit, whose activities and ideas doubtless fogged, perplexed, and sometimes angered the fools of his time, but who yet was a true builder of practicable ideals which will make our England greater spiritually, and therefore more potent, among the nations than she was, or could have been, without him.

We have received from Messrs Dent three volumes, which appropriately and happily mark the centenary. They are edited and introduced by Mr Max Plowman, whose thoughtful suggestions tend to the justification of Blake and prove himself to be an authority. They are a facsimile edition, as close as colour-processes can make it, of 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,' showing how, with Blake, the poet and the artist worked as one; the graver helping the pen and the pen inspiring the graver; the most complete collection, at a cheap price, yet extant of 'The Poems and Prophecies,' an addition to the

wonderful 'Everyman' series; and Mr Plowman's own volume, 'An Introduction to the Study of Blake,' and the three works provide an excellent survey of the compass and rich quality of his powers. Hard as the conditions of Blake's life must have been, and no man of British genius, not even Burns, was more driven by the sharpnesses of anxious poverty, he was a happy man; sure in his visions of the ultimate triumph of the angels and himself, rejoicing in his works as they sprang from the eagerness of his hands, mind, and heart. Of all his achievements none was so fortunate as his choice of a wife. But that is an old story; though to omit the fact from any recognition of the victories and glory of Blake would be to play 'Hamlet' without Ophelia, the Gravedigger, and the Ghost together. Let us be thankful for the birth, life, and creative inspirations of William Blake, and for the truth that through his ideals and songs, Jerusalem is being builded in this green and pleasant land in spite of the pessimists.

Of all people, living or once alive, none would more have appreciated Sir Francis Younghusband's book on 'Life in the Stars' (Murray) than William Blake; for therein are touched questions of supreme spiritual, as well as physical, value, and very bold essay is made as to the human constituents of stars which even the telescopic-camera or the spectroscope can barely discern. Of course, pretty well all that Sir Francis suggests and imagines is purest conjecture; but is not all progress in scientific truth merely one more advance into regions of conjecture? He puts forward an inspiring proposition, and it is easily seen that such super-mystery as the origin of life on our modest yet amazing planet is in all probability a part of the universal scheme, and that our life is possibly linked with life elsewhere among the multitudinous worlds. It may be that in some of his details Sir Francis is dangerously precise. That if one in a million, of the five thousand million suns with which the firmament is studded, has human life commensurate with ours, then five thousand worlds must be similarly endowed; and that if it be so, it is not too much to assume that five of those exceptional planets may have life higher than ours, a humanity which compared with that of the Earth may even be angelic

of quality? No: it is too precise. Let us be content with welcoming this book because of the beauty, the sublimity, of its suggestion. Everything is possible in God's immeasurable universe. So why not a communion of life as close as this we live on the world, yet so vast in its compass as to comprise spiritual relations with the ultimate stars? A mighty and infinite theory, as the universe is mighty and infinite with diversity and wonder.

Such bright interest of life, human and otherwise, in our world is brought out brilliantly in Dr Charles Hose's study of the tribes and village communities of Borneo, entitled Natural Man' (Macmillan). The author has given to this study the experience of twenty-five official years spent there; and during that time he was able to make careful research, using not only his trained faculties as a man of science, but his rich humanity, his sense of artistic values, and his humour. This work is at once revealing and fascinating; for those Bornean people, the unusual Punans, the Kayans, and the Kenyahs, with all their differences and distinctions, have personal charm which, largely through the spell of Robert Louis Stevenson, had hitherto been regarded as the monopoly of the lotus-eaters of the Pacific. Not only does Dr Hose point the attractiveness of these Asiatics; but also he shows how it has been brought about. It is a triumph for civilisation. Seventy or so years ago these natives of Borneo were absolute savages, fierce, tumultuous, guilty of all manner of treacheries and brutalities, and possibly even of cannibalism; whereas now they are law-abiding, prosperous, happy, content in their industry and government, and an example of what can be done when considerate insight and true liberty have play. Much of this success is due to the Brookes of Sarawak.

For pretty well twenty years Korea has become almost as completely forgotten by the gossips and wiseacres of Europe as it was in the days when it was called the Hermit Kingdom; and this renewed condition is due to the good government of Japan. Happy the country which has no history, is an adage generally applicable to this ancient state of Chosen. In 'The New Korea' (Dutton, New York), a volume written by Mr Alleyne

Ireland, the facts of the regeneration of Korea under Japanese guidance and influence are lucidly and judiciously put. It is a plain statement made without any literary embroideries. Those who wish to apprehend the personal side of the Korean people, country, and history, must still go back to Mrs Bishop's authoritative volume; but for an honest account of rational facts and prospects in Korea we commend Mr Ireland. An important little book on 'Contemporary Thought of Japan and China' (Williams and Norgate) has been written, and excellently written, in English by Mr Kyoson Tsuchida. It seems to be the first briefly comprehensive endeavour yet published to estimate the general philosophy of those ancient peoples of Asia, who yet must be considered as probably still young in comparison with the future that is opening to their renewed energies of mind and physical effort. Inevitably on reading this book one's thoughts revert to the writings of the late Okakura Kakuzo, who emphasised the assertion that in Asia thought was one; that despite differences of race and circumstance there was in the East an inherent and inevitable unity of philosophy and outlook. Well, that is not so now, as Mr Tsuchida proves. The progress of industrialism and of science, with the spiritual, rather than the material, havoc of the Great War, have shaken the foundations of Asia as well as of the rest of the world, so that Matthew Arnold's vision in Obermann Once More' of the Asiatic falling to sleep again after the thunder of the legions was past is no longer true. The East is awake, and this volume proves it.

In a manner characteristic of the frank American spirit, Mr Elmer Edgar Stoll in his 'Shakespeare Studies' (Macmillan) has examined certain aspects of the supreme dramatic genius of the British race. He takes a commonsense view of things, and in so doing is conspicuously helpful; for so much of sentimental and imaginative, as well as of destructive, bosh has been written about Shakespeare, that it is well to come to plain facts and possibilities. The playwright studied in these numerous and compact pages is shown as the man of his age and day, penning his scenes and portraits without a pose and with no idea that hundreds of years afterwards his writings would be a hunting-ground for commentators,

and his personality the dummy for a deal of absurd conjecture. Instead he was concerned to please his audiences and to give them the entertainment wanted. Sometimes, of course, his genius ran away with his pen; and we had those passages which lift the reader to the golden heights. If he had possessed the gift for 'blotting,' the absence of which Ben Jonson deplored, he would almost certainly have deleted those passages, because the groundlings would rather have had in their place such dismal humours as the back-chat of the Dromios or the fopperies of Osric. In keeping with that view the Shylock whom Shakespeare portrayed is shown as not the pathetic figure which many modern actors have represented, but plain vengeful villain, through his absolute discomfiture made a mockery to the Gratianos of the pit. This volume holds much interest for students of Shakespeare. The analysis of the villains, children of Machiavelli; the frank revelation of the true character of Falstaff, a different mass of mummy' from him portrayed by Prof. A. C. Bradley in his 'Oxford Lectures,' are instances of the insight of the book. It is a little ruthless of Mr Stoll to bracket O. Henry with Wainwright, the murderer, as among the criminals with genius; for there was a world of difference in the seriousness of their offences; and how is it that eager students of Shakespeare are so often blind to his clearest words? Mr Stoll asks, 'Why in "King Lear" should the Fool vanish with the tempest, nevermore to be thought of or mentioned by Lear or by Cordelia?' when as clear as print Lear says in the last scene, And my poor fool is hanged.' The reference is, of course, to the brave boy who helped the King with his wit and chidings, and to no one else, although sometimes the too-clever have said that it referred to Cordelia. Let us add to this appreciation of a Shakesperean book a note that among the newcomers to the Everyman Series (Dent) is an excellent reprint of 'Holinshed's Chronicle as used in Shakespeare's Plays.'

The Clarendon Press again has justified itself by issuing a definitive and handsome edition of the 'Poems, English, Latin and Greek,' of Richard Crashaw. Sympathetically introduced by Mr L. C. Martin, a permanent addition is hereby made to the shelves of lovers of