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own, and æsthetic joy of which the modern world knows nothing, they are content to let both die with them rather than attempt to teach them to men of a wholly different outlook upon life.'

The element of extravaganza is more strongly marked in the plot of 'The Search Party,' which deals with the kidnapping of a number of innocent people by an anti-militant anarchist who has set up a factory of explosives in the neighbourhood of Ballymoy. J. J.' does not appear in propria persona, but most of his traits are to be found in Dr O'Grady, an intelligent but happy-go-lucky young doctor. The most attractive person in the story, however, is Lord Manton, a genially cynical peer with highly original views on local government and the advantages of unpopularity. Thus when he did not want Patsy Devlin, the drunken smith, to be elected inspector of sheepdipping, he strongly supported his candidature for the following reasons:

'There's a lot of stupid talk nowadays about the landlords having lost all their power in the country. It's not a bit true. They have plenty of power, more than they ever had, if they only knew how to use it. All I have to do if I want a particular man not to be appointed to anything is to write a strong letter in his favour to the Board of Guardians or the County Council, or whatever body is doing the particular job that happens to be on hand at the time. The League comes down on my man at once, and he hasn't the ghost of a chance.'

Other of the dramatis persona verge on caricature, but the story has many exhilarating moments.

Exhilarating, too, is 'The Major's Niece,' which is founded on an extremely improbable imbroglio. So precise and businesslike a man as Major Kent was not likely to make a mistake of seven or eight years in the age of a visitor especially when the visitor happened to be his own sister's child. However, the initial improbability may be readily condoned in view of the entertaining sequel. J. J.' reappears in his best form, Marjorie is a most engaging tomboy, and the fun never flags for an instant. But much as we love 'J. J.,' we reluctantly recognise in 'The Simpkins Plot' that you can have too much of a good thing, and that a man who would be a nuisance as a neighbour in real

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life is in danger of becoming a bore in a novel. That Simpkins should have been unpopular was only natural. He could not help being a land agent, but might have known better than to set up as a reformer of minor abuses dear to the Irish. In short, he had 'a busy and vigorous mind of a sort not uncommon among incompetent people.' J. J.' was unconvinced of his iniquities until he heard that he had been bothering the rector about the heating of the church. Whereupon 'J. J.'immediately resolved to marry off Simpkins to a lady whom he believed to be a murderess. Of course, she was not really; it was a case of mistaken identity; but it taxes Canon Hannay's powers to the utmost to reconcile us to the rather cruel practical joking to which ‘J. J.' resorts in his campaign against the unfortunate Simpkins.

As a set-off, however, the digressions and irrelevancies are as good as ever. It is pleasant to be reminded of such facts as that wedding cake is invariably eaten by the Irish post-office officials, or to listen to Doctor O'Donoghue on the nutrition of infants:

'You can rear a child, whether it has the whooping cough or not, on pretty near anything, so long as you give it enough of whatever it is you do give it.'

Of Canon Hannay's later novels two demand special attention and for widely different reasons. In 'The Red Hand of Ulster,' reverting to politics-politics, moreover, of the most explosive kind-he achieved the well-nigh impossible in at once doing full justice to the dour sincerity of the Orange North and yet conciliating Nationalist susceptibilities. In 'The Inviolable Sanctuary' he has shown that a first-rate public-school athlete, whose skill in pastime is confined to ball games, cuts a sorry figure alongside of a chit of a girl who can handle a boat. This salutary if humiliating truth is enforced not from any desire to further Feminist principles, for Canon Hannay's attitude towards women betrays no belief in the equality of the sexes, but because he cannot be bothered with the sentimentality of conventional lovemaking. It may be on this account that he more than once assigns a leading rôle to an ingenuous young Amazon into whose ken the planet of Love will not swim for another four or five years.

During the last thirty years the alleged decadence of Irish humour has been a frequent theme of pessimistic critics. Various causes have been invoked to account for the phenomenon which, when dispassionately considered, amounted to this, that the rollicking novel of incident and adventure had died with Lever. So, for the matter of that, had novels of the 'Frank Fairleigh' type with their authors. The ascendancy of Parnell and the régime of the Land League did not make for gaiety, yet even these influences were powerless to eradicate the inherent absurdities of Irish life, and the authors of the 'R.M.' entered on a career as far back as 1889 which has been a triumphal disproval of this allegation. At their best they have interpreted normal Irishmen and Irishwomen, gentle and simple, with unsurpassed fidelity and sympathy. But to award them the supremacy in this genre both as realists and as writers does not detract from the success won in a different sphere by Canon Hannay. His goal is less ambitious and his aim is less unfaltering, but, as an improviser of whimsical situations and an ironic commentator on the actualities of Irish life, he has invented a new form of literary entertainment, which has the double merit of being at once diverting and instructive.

C. L. GRAVES.

Art. 3.-THE LIFE OF DESCARTES.

1. Euvres de Descartes.

Publiées par Charles Adam et Paul Tannery. 11 vols. Paris: Leopold Cerf, 1897-1912. 2. Vie et ŒŒuvres de Descartes. Étude historique par Charles Adam. Paris: Léopold Cerf, 1910.

THE Completion of a great national undertaking, such as is represented by the eleven quarto volumes of Descartes' works recently published in Paris under the auspices of the Ministère de l'Instruction Publique, is a notable event. This, indeed, is no ordinary undertaking; the work of M. Charles Adam, Rector of the University of Nancy (assisted, to begin with, by the late M. Paul Tannery of mathematical fame), it represents the tribute of a grateful country to one of her most distinguished sons. Three hundred years after Descartes' birth in 1596, it was decided that there could be no more fitting celebration of that event than an edition of his writings, as far as possible complete, in the languages in which they were originally given to the world; and the succeeding decade was devoted to the unremitting toil necessary for the accomplishment of this end.

Possibly no nation has more adequately recognised a distinguished son as its own than France in the case of René Descartes; and La Bruyère's description of him as 'né Français, et mort en Suède,' if it is meant to imply that by living and dying abroad he had lost his birthright, is in the last degree unjust. Above most others Descartes was typically French, despite the fact that he lived the greater part of his life out of his native land. He constantly talks of his 'French blood'; he trusts that his country may 'defeat the efforts of all who endeavour to harm her,' and he even includes in his claim not only the rights of citizenship but those of a son of the Catholic Church. For, notwithstanding his being the 'Father of Modern Philosophy,' and in a great measure the inaugurator of modern scientific methods, Descartes never ceased to be a good son of the Church. One wonders, indeed, whether any man of his time brought up from childhood under the direction of the Jesuit Fathers ever really escaped the influence they brought to bear on him, even though in the world's eyes he might

have broken with their teaching; widely as his path might deviate in later life, there was always a restraining bond that made their former pupil seek to show that the divergence from these great educationists was one of form rather than substance. But Descartes was a Frenchman in other ways than merely by birth and religion. No one who reads his 'Method' can fail to distinguish the 'logic and lucidity' which Matthew Arnold tells us characterise the natives of a country whose sons inherit the culture of generations. The matter and form of the great Essay seem to us, in reading it, to have grown into one; and its careful reasoning is as remarkable as is the charm of its expression.

The twelfth volume of this great work has taken the form of a study of the life and writings of the author. M. Adam's biography is well described as a 'historic study.' It is not a life for the casual seeker for information, nor has it any special claims to literary style. It is a work full of research and accurate to the smallest detail, written perhaps more after the so-called German method than what we are, or at least till recently were, accustomed to look for in the literature of France. Every point that lends itself to investigation has been investigated, and the facts of the life of René Descartes are recorded in the greatest detail; though, as we are told in his preface, the writer's aim is not to deal with the large questions which might be raised in reference to the philosophy or science of the day, the personal relationship of the man to his contemporaries, or even to the history of philosophy. His object is to give the guiding thread which is indispensable if we are to make our way intelligently through the eleven volumes of Descartes' treatises and letters. In spite of the copious notes throughout the work a quantity of material had been collected by the principal editor which had not been adequately utilised. In the words of M. Adam,

'Comme cette édition est à l'usage de ceux que l'histoire de la philosophie intéresse, nous en avons fait un instrument de travail aussi utile que possible, n'hésitant pas à y prodiguer les renseignements sans compter: chaque lecteur saura bien y choisir ce qui lui convient, et laisser là le reste.'

For the student of those days, then, the student of Vol. 219.-No. 436.

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