of Timothy Cole, the artist, and of J. D. Cooper, the engraver, both of whom bravely, in America and in England, with the world falling about them under the competition of the new process blocks, kept their flag flying with work which none of these moderns as yet have nearly approached.

The contributions of foreign scholars to the study of British archæological history (or to any other department of research) are ever welcome, and therefore we are happy to receive from Prof. R. E. Zachrisson of Upsala his pamphlet on 'Romans, Kelts and Saxons in Ancient Britain,' in which he has summarised with excellent lucidity the results of the more recent studies of the two dark centuries of English History-A.D. 400 to 600. Brief as is the compass of his pages, it comprises many aspects of interest. The general conclusion he comes to is that the earlier Celtic settlers in these islands were neither exterminated nor allowed to remain in their hill-top refuges, but were absorbed by, and amalgamated with, their Anglo-Saxon conquerors. He emphasises the fact that the successful Teutonic invasion of England was slow, gradual and stubbornly contested; and accepts the theory that King Arthur, the champion of the Britons, was a true historical personage, though not possessed of the gigantic proportions in which the poets and hero-makers have robed him.

Dr Leon Roth is concerned over the truth that whereas the physical sciences have advanced and are advancing by leaps and bounds, moral science is at a standstill; and therefore he has written the Essay in Method, 'The Science of Morals' (Benn) in order to clear the ground for a further advance in the study of Ethics and the ending of the stagnation which at present exists. But is it possible to bring any aspect of Psychology, with its limitless provinces, into a condition comparable with that of the so-called exact sciences? The one set of inquiries may generally be supported by demonstrable and pretty finite evidence; the other set-the spheres of the mind, the heart, whatever you call it at the best are merely impressionist,' and the personal equation in every case is incurably variable. The book is a gallant, as well as a very reasonable, endeavour; but it is doubtful whether the arguments of many lifetimes

would ever make it possible to grasp the infinite; and that appears to be what the more ardent psychologists are ever endeavouring to achieve. We are informed on the wrapper of Mr T. J. Faithfull's 'Bi-Sexuality' (Bale, Sons and Danielson) that it is an essay to read not once, nor twice, but again and again'; which certainly is true, if this small book is to have any influence at all upon the normal heads of a household; for the terms used in it, although commonplace to the man of science, are very like jargon to the laity. That in every one of us, woman or man, there are masculine as well as feminine elements, is a circumstance recognised by every thoughtful observer of life and character; but how to achieve the desire of Mr Faithfull towards securing 'homologous monosexuality' in individuals is not sufficiently clear from this volume.

With brush and pen Major A. Radclyffe Dugmore pictures sympathetically and cleverly not merely the externals of African Jungle Life' (Macmillan) but the inward feelings, the workings of the intelligence, as well as the fears and other perturbations, of the more powerful animals of the wild. Generally it has been the weakness of imaginative writers detailing the lives of the great untamed to give them thoughts and sentimentalities like our own. Major Dugmore avoids that mistake, and brings out clearly the haunting cares and anxieties, the pains and difficulties, of the wild things of the jungle and the African plains. His Tembo, the elephant; Simba, the black-maned lion; and Mbogo, the buffalo, are fine fellows; while even of Kifaru, the rhinoceros, he makes a sympathetic figure. And why not? Because she is hideously ugly-as appalling as a prehistoric dreamand apt to be angry when annoyed, is she to be regarded as utterly bad? Yet when has a rhino not been thought of but as a thoroughly unpleasant beast? The happiest feature in this attractive book is the author's pleas for sportsmanship and fair play for the animals.

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Though, doubtless, it would be well to read seriatim the whole of the four volumes of the Lady Murasaki's prose epic, The Tale of the Genji,' yet its translator, Mr Arthur Waley, with his footnotes and connecting links, makes any one of the volumes sufficient to itself, and his concluding instalment, 'Blue Trousers' (Allen

and Unwin)-formal mourning trousers among the older Japanese-is self-contained and enjoyable. It carries us as with a magic flight to the days of the mystical Empire, when almost every act and duty was governed by ritual essentially poetical and lovely. Genji was a prince of the blood royal, a man of heartiness in body and mind, whose amours were free, ambitious and full of consequences. In these pages we visit a feudal system gone. The Samurai lived with their chivalry: the horrid breath of modern commerce had not yet blighted the immeasurable beauties of ancient Japan, and-for the well-born and the fortunate-it was bliss to be alive. The great attractiveness of this story comes from the vital difference of its atmosphere from that we breathe to-day. Although we are restored to the age when Japanese knighthood was in flower, it is an exotic flower that we are shown, rich with the luxury and blazing brilliance of the East. Sometimes, though rarely, Mr Waley falls from the heights of choice and poetic diction appropriate to his theme: but generally his words rightly frame the brave picture. Some passages, such as those leading to the death of Murasaki, are touching in their reverence and beauty.

'The Sacred Fire' (Watts) by Mr Theodore Sydmont is a curious novel, being at once full of interest for certain minds, and written with crudeness. It endeavours to do too many things. Had the author possessed more experience as a novelist he would have done the work better, or would not have done it at all. He blends a purposeless modern tale with the legend of Appolonius of Tyana, whom he identifies with Jesus, who is also Barabbas! Think of it! He asserts that such phenomena as have been called supernatural were due to physical causes, an electro-chemical "hormon" of certain nonseminiferous interstitial cells'; and, in following the story of Jesus Barabbas,' not too ingeniously or ingenuously, elaborately explains away the miracles. The turning of the water into wine at Cana was a practical joke; the walking on the Sea of Galilee was due to the disciples not having seen that Jesus was standing on a dinghy before he alighted on their sailing-boat; the cures, and the apparent raising of the dead, were due to hypnotic suggestion or to faith-healing. Much of the

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book is needless and even preposterous; but its honesty and breadth of purpose are unquestionable.

No greater compliment can be paid to a seer or prophet than is shown in the endeavour to explain him; and here is Miss Florence G. Fidler in The Bird that is Blue' (Selwyn and Blount) offering such tribute to M. Maeterlinck. What precisely, is meant by his Blue Bird? Is it a symbol of happiness? And what is the significance of this, that and the other purpose, remark or action, in his plays, 'The Blue Bird' and the 'Betrothal'? The author has such earnestness that she does not disdain, as on p. 22, the very trivial; and, doubtless, is able generally to suggest what the Master was driving at. But to make a consistent whole out of these scenes or actions of the stage is impossible; for Maeterlinck appears never to have bothered over inconsistencies. In 'The Blue Bird,' for instance, we are taught by the scene at the Grandparent's Cottage that those we love only die when we cease to remember them; whereas the graveyard scene assures us that There is no death.' It may as well be frankly recognised that these plays were written for enjoyment in the Theatre; and as such they succeed. Let us, therefore, be content with that sufficiency.

Messrs Dent have completed their two volume 'History of English Literature,' of which the first part, written by M. Emile Legouis, was published a year ago. M. Louis Cazamian, who has been responsible for the second part, now issued, seems to be less successful than was his collaborator, possibly because the period at his disposal, ranging from Dryden to these moderns,' is by far the more difficult. The endeavour is really too wide for any one man to accomplish successfully. Think of the periods, the schools, the movements, the actions and reactions, in the last two hundred and seventy years of English literary history! In view of the vast range and intricacy of the subject and the difficulties, M. Cazamian has done rather well. But there are slips. Several of the obvious geese among present-day writers are listed as swans; and why does he label Sir James Frazer as an ' eminent historian of religions'? Certainly that might have been expressed differently.

Art. 1.-THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SPIRIT.

SURROUNDED by the restless tentacles of an ever-widening Democracy the great Public Schools of England are becoming more and more lonely and in danger of being pulled from the special place which they have hitherto occupied. They are old, sometimes venerable with age; they began for the most part when teaching was in the hands of the Church, when through the study of Latin and Greek the end of all education was in the words of Milton 'to know God aright and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him and to be like him.' They are strong in tradition, and their claim to maintain their present position lies in that strength. They make no show (greater than that of other schools) in the strain of modern scholarship; yet in spite of this, or is it rather because of this, hard-headed men of business are known to prefer their product to the scientifically educated output of the very efficient technical schools, and equally scientifically educated foreigners do us the honour of pilgrimages in the hope that they may learn the secret of that fine but elusive esprit de corps which lives in these schools, and be able to carry something of it back to their own land.

This spirit is the very soul of these old schools, perhaps it is partly indigenous to their origin, and partly the result of their long history. Perhaps it was created by the teaching of the monks who would inspire into their pupils' minds that to be rather than to know was the true educational ideal; but if so, intervening centuries have added to their work. England is great and has Vol. 251.-No. 498.