Clicquot from old gooseberry, or ever handed his card to a Belgravian lacquey, nevertheless tries to be thought an authority on little dinners, and professes to scorn anybody who is not in society, because such is now the humour of the thing; and light literature, weary of putting on the ways of the ruffian, has taken to imitating the manner and jargon of the footman." "Modern Leaders" is one of Mr. McCarthy's most interesting volumes, but it is almost unknown in England, having been written for Americans, and published only in New York. It is a collection of sketches written for the Galaxy during the period in which Mr. McCarthy worked upon that magazine. As magazine articles they are bright, clever, interesting; as a volume of essays they form pleasant reading. They are principally biographical, and sometimes there is a touch of that kind of sparkling personality which is more amusing to other people than to the subject of the article; that close delineation of individuals, which Americans so dearly love, is not altogether absent from these pages. Yet they bear the impress of being simply truthful rather than scandalous, and some of the notices of living authors are well worth reading. They reveal to us more of the author's mind than can be found in his novels. In these biographical sketches we appreciate the novelist's descriptive power. His description of George Eliot, written to bring her individuality before American readers, is a very charming tribute from one novelist to another.

"Her literary career began as a translator and an essayist. Her tastes seemed then to lead her wholly into the somewhat barren field where German metaphysics endeavour to come to the relief or confusion of German theology. . . . She is an accomplished linguist, a brilliant talker, a musician of extraordinary skill. She has a musical sense so delicate and exquisite that there are tender, simple, true ballad melodies which fill her with a pathetic pain almost too keen to bear; and yet she has the firm, strong command of tone and touch, without which a really scientific musician cannot be made. I do not think this exceeding sensibility of nature is often to be found in combination with a genuine mastery of the practical science of music. But Mrs. Lewes has mastered many sciences as well as literatures. Probably no novel writer, since novel writing became a business, ever possessed one tithe of her scientific knowledge. Indeed, hardly anything is rarer than the union of the scientific and the literary or artistic temperaments. So rare is it that the exceptional, the almost solitary, instance of Goethe comes up at once, distinct and striking, to the mind. English novelists are even less likely to have anything of a scientific taste than French or German. Dickens knows nothing of science, and has, indeed, as little knowledge of any kind, save that which is derived from observation, as any respectable Englishman could well have. Thackeray was a man of varied reading, versed in the lighter literature of several languages, and strongly imbued

with artistic tastes; but he had no care for science, and knew nothing of it but just what everyone has to learn at school. Lord Lytton's science is a mere sham. Charlotte Bronté was all genius and ignorance. Mrs. Lewes is all genius and culture. Had she never written a page of fiction, nay, had she never written a line of poetry or prose, she must have been regarded with wonder and admiration by all who knew her as a woman of vast and varied knowledge; a woman who could think deeply and talk brilliantly, who could play high and severe classical music like a professional performer, and could bring forth the most delicate and tender aroma of nature and poetry lying deep in the heart of some simple, old-fashioned Scotch or English ballad." This is but one instance of Mr. McCarthy's capacity for depicting a contemporary portrait with grace, tenderness, almost enthusiasm, and yet truthfulness. Moreover, his biographic sketches merge perpetually into criticism and critical comparison, where the subjects are literary; where they are of political importance, into interesting and vigorous political essays. Here is a piece of literary criticism from an article on George Sand, which appeared in the Galaxy after the article on George Eliot :

"I expressed my conviction that on the whole she (the authoress of Romola') is entitled to higher rank as a novelist, than even the authoress of Consuelo.' Many, very many men and women, for whose judgment I have the highest respect, differed from me in this opinion. I still hold it, nevertheless; but I freely admit that George Eliot has nothing like the dramatic insight which enables George Sand to enter into the feelings and experiences of a man. I go so far as to say that, having some knowledge of the literature of fiction in most countries, I am not aware of the existence of any woman but this one who could draw a real, living, struggling, passion-tortured man."

Mr. McCarthy's newest work, the "History of our own Times," commences with the death of William IV., with whom "ended the reign of personal government in England." The volumes are full of interest, being written with a very pleasant brightness. There is no reason why history should not be infinitely more charming than any novel of such writers as Wilkie Collins or Charles Reade, being full at every turn of plot, situation, excitement, and mystery. It does but need a clear and brilliant mind to touch it, and the marvellous medley of human passion, emotion and intrigue, which make up the history of any epoch, must inevitably be full of a fascination all its own. As we have before said, Mr. McCarthy brings to this task just the education and the gifts which it demands. He has also the invaluable quality of impartiality; he is well known to have definite views of his own, yet it would be hard by only reading these volumes to guess to what party he belongs. Thus he may touch the confused images of past events, and bring them into order

before our minds, without adding a new blur of prejudice. Mr. McCarthy's personal pictures are peculiarly vivid and effective, as, for instance, of Lord Brougham, of Mr. Cobden. He makes the men stand out upon the page. Indeed, they are more remarkable descriptions than those which he produces in his novels; there is all the enthusiasm and fire there is twice the reality. The figure of Mr. Disraeli is introduced with admirable dramatic judgment. He appears at the end of a chapter, and at the apparent close of a debate in the House: "The explanation was over. The House of Commons were left rather to infer than to understand what the Government proposed to do. Lord John Russell entered into some personal explanations relating to his endeavour to form a Ministry, and the causes of its failure. These have not much interest for a later time. It might have seemed that the work of the night was done. It was evident that the ministerial policy could not be discussed then; for in fact it had not been announced. The House knew that the Prime Minister was a convert to the principles of Free Trade; but that was all that anyone could be said to know except those who were in the secrets of the Cabinet. There appeared, therefore, nothing for it but to wait until the time should come for the formal announcement and the full discussion of the Government measures. Suddenly, however, a new and striking figure intervened in the languishing debate, and filled the House of Commons with a fresh life. There is not often to be found in our Parliamentary history an example like this of a sudden turn given to a whole career by a timely speech. The member who rose to comment on the explanation of Sir Robert Peel had been for many years in the House of Commons. This was his tenth session. He had spoken often in each session. He had made many bold attempts to win a name in Parliament, and hitherto his political career had been simply a failure. From the hour when he spoke this speech, it was one long, unbroken, brilliant success." In this picture-in this clearing out the point of a life-is visible the novelist's art. The eye of a man who understands effect is turned upon the actions of that politician who has himself so dearly loved effect, and who has so persistently attitudinised through his long career. Lord Beaconsfield is a brilliant and perplexing character in this true story; but the pages are full of vivid figures. They are bright, too, with illustrative comparisons drawn from literature. We find we have an historian who is not only an historian. He studies the political arena and the events of the day with a mind which is not saturated with blue-books alone, but which is also scholarly and liberal.

The History is not only a record of political or national events; the eminent literary figures of the day are also here enshrined. Posterity will certainly have little need to be ignorant of the life and manners of the great man of this generation, so widespread has been the biographic

rage; and, probably, posterity will marvel at the number of longforgotten names which have this poor immortality. Mr. McCarthy only touches the great central figures, those which have really, by their appearance, changed the colour of the century in one way or another. He makes a somewhat amusing point with regard to that common remark that Mrs. Browning is the greatest poetess since Sappho, by observing that this appears to be greater praise than it is, simply because we know nothing of any great poetess between the two. The gap is indeed a long one!

Mr. McCarthy has written some clever novels, but he is, though a good novelist, not a great one. His novels are thorough, wholesome, and sufficiently fresh; but they have not the touch of fire which means genius in the writer and which leaves a mark, never to be forgotten, upon the reader's mind. He is thorough and brilliant as an essayist; as a biographer he is charming. Yet none of these vocations have held him with that immovable grasp which a real vocation puts upon its slave; perhaps it will be found in the political life which he has now personally entered, and in the record of passing political events. His career, now that he has thus settled himself in England, must be viewed with considerable interest by Americans. He has made himself almost one of them, by his warm interest in, and thorough study of, their political life. Several of his novels are equally divided between the two shores of the Atlantic. He is as much at home in the States as in Great Britain, in New York as in London; and that not merely in the sense in which a traveller is familiar with different cities, but in that of taking a vital interest in the people, and penetrating to their actual sentiments. He has travelled on the European continent and described certain portions of it in his writings; but no pictures are so vivid as those which he has given of America.

The vast amount of work done, by a journalist of Mr. McCarthy's order, and lost to view, in the columns of the daily papers, is something startling to think of. Few persons who have not attempted literature as a profession have any conception of the amount of hard work it involves -work which wins little glory. So little of the steady daily work is reprinted as a rule, that people forget it has been done. We have an instance of the various and different subjects which have interested Mr. McCarthy, in looking over a little volume on the "Prohibitory Legislation in the United States; the results of which are somewhat amusingly described. "I remember one Sunday in Springfield going with a friend, a resident of the city, to look for the door-keeper of some public hall. My friend hunted for him vainly in two or three restaurants or sample rooms' to which he was referred. Coming out of one of these (I had not entered) he remarked that he hated going into these places on a Sunday. I asked him why, and he answered

simply, Because there are so many drunken fellows always there!' He had previously been enlarging to me on the beauty of prohibitory legislation." From the above anecdote it is easy to guess what are Mr. McCarthy's conclusions on the subject. He considers that the repression of liquor selling is impossible in any place larger than a village. Mr. McCarthy's gift of observation, added to his wide reading, lift him quite out of the rank of the mere novelist, even in telling a simple story.

"A London friend of mine," says Mr. McCarthy in one of his best articles, "Science and Orthodoxy in England," "who has had long experience in the editing of high-class periodicals, is in the habit of affirming humorously that the teachers of the public are divided into two classes: those who know something and cannot write, and those who know nothing and can write." Mr. Huxley is cited by Mr. McCarthy as a notable exception to the rule, being one of the few great knowers who cultivate literary expression. Mr. McCarthy has the literary expression and cultivates knowledge. This makes him always interesting. Only one or two of his novels belong to the order of the simple love story. As a rule there is some depiction of modern life, or some singular modern character, carefully worked out. For instance, Mr. McCarthy gives us a very delightful specimen of the Irish M.P. as one of the characters in "A Fair Saxon." Mr. Tyrone does his best to explain to an English lady what his feelings about Ireland really are. Here is some of his explanation:

hundreds of years ago.

"We were conquered, you know . . We don't like the idea even yet. We have never quite got over it. Good-humoured English people, who are winners in most things, can't understand that, and think us sullen and foolish, and impossible to please. . . . . The Celtic nature is not the least in the world like the Anglo-Saxon. With us everything is a sentiment. We can't help it; English people don't understand that; can't understand it. . . . . I am not a lunatic or a criminal; and, believe me, I am deeply attached to England and English people. But I cannot forget that I belong to a people and a family which suffered half a dozen conquests and countless confiscations. Perhaps this is absurd. We cannot help it. . . . . The national fancy which originated the banshee isn't quite the same as that which is represented by the Metropolitan Railway."

"Every Irishman who is not a lacquey or a coward is a conquered rebel and nothing else."

"Wherever you see an Irishman you see a man separated from the English friend who converses with him by the fact that the Irishman always feels himself the representative of a lost cause."

We have no right, of course, to assume that Mr. Tyrone expounds the author's sentiments, or that Mr. McCarthy feels himself a conquered