Silvio Pellico, &c. There was a great charm about his conversation; the rich and varied stores of his learning, the refined taste of his criticisms, and still more the gift he had of stimulating thought, made the hours which his friends passed in his humble room fly quickly, and yet leave impressions which did not pass away. They called him the Philosopher of Caramagna (his birth-place), for with him philosophy was not only the favourite subject of his thoughts, it was the practice of his whole life. He held that "the serious study of philosophy demanded a virtuous and religious life: how could any one be in earnest in the search of truth unless he love it, and how can he love it if he finds in it his condemnation ?" Before the revolution of 1821, Ornato held an office in the Accademia delle Scienze, at Turin; this he gave up to share the exile of his friend Santa Rosa; and the next eleven years he spent in Paris. While there, he earned what was needed for his simple wants, by correcting the proofs of an edition of Latin and Greek classics; but the work strained his eye-sight, and when, in 1832, he returned to Sardinia, he was almost blind, and his health quite broken down. He passed the remaining ten years of his life at Caramagna, occasionally visiting Turin. He died October 22, 1842. It was a matter of grief to his friends that he never gave to the public any work worthy of his powers: his not doing so may be accounted for by the diffi culties of his life, by the absence in him of personal ambition, and a fastidiousness of taste which made him a severe judge of all he wrote himself. His translation of Marcus Aurelius was finished by his friend G. Picchioni, and published in 1853. His letters derive their chief interest from the personal element in them; they are "moins une production de l'intelligence, qu'un sentiment, un rapport intime, quelque chose qui fait partie de la personne, les fragments d'une vie brisée." GERRIT SMITH.*-Except as a psychological study this biography by Mr. Frothingham will have no great interest in England. The biographer is careful to supply details of a kind which are too frequently omitted by the narrator, though looked for by the student; but the background of intimate feeling is of course wanting in the English reader, and the imagination struggles in vain with a mass of half-familiar topics and allusions. Some blame-if blame be the right word-must also be laid upon Mr. Frothingham's impartiality, which is now and then all-but irritating. A little more flushing of the face, a little more quickening of the pulse, a little more kindling of the utterance here and there, would have been welcome, even at the cost of a onesided blow or two. But impartiality and clearsightedness like Mr. Frothingham's are so rare that we say this with reluctanceand should even be glad to fancy that some of the fault was our own. In no Unluckily, the central point of interest in the story of Gerrit Smith's life is his connection with John Brown and the Harper's Ferry enterprise. possible way could this be told satisfactorily, and it is morally certain that the biographer, in order to make the nearest approach to satisfactoriness, has sacrificed much which would have made his book more living and more powerful. True, it is particularly in this portion of the volume that we recognize his entire impartiality of design and method; but this does not right the balance; and though we have under his guidance made the acquaintance of a very fine figure, we have not been warmed by it as much as we wish we could be. 66 Gerrit Smith, judging from the memoirs and the portrait, was a rare and high specimen of a not uncommon type of man. His distinction lay in force and largeness rather than in his " qualities." It would be harsh to call him vulgar; but a few lines less of height and breadth, a pulse or two less per hour, might have made him so. Indeed, it is rarely that a broad and fullblooded humanity like his escapes the charge. A very busy senator and man of commerce, who at home kept open house with a freedom which even his biographer calls tavernous"-who sat down to dinner day after day with company from "the highways and hedges," in utter though orderly and friendly promiscuity, and who fairly drove his way through nearly every question that came before him-was not a man to cultivate the graces. We read that there was not a single classic, ancient or modern, in his library, and only one picture (apparently an heirloom) on his walls. He had the headpiece of a lawyer; keenness, readiness, and driving power were its most obvious characteristics. And yet, after no very flattering experience of life, we find him loving and • Gerrit Smith. A Biography. By Octavius Brooks Frothingham. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. London: Sampson Low & Co. 66 trusting mankind to the last; Horace Greeley saying with a smile, upon his nomination for the governorship of New York, that if it were the governorship of the New Jerusalem, Gerrit Smith was the man. The place of refinement was filled by love and reverence. He had by nature the enthusiasm of humanity, and revered his fellow man. The type is not by any means a common one, in its extreme or exemplary degree of development; and Gerrit Smith's was a highly exemplary case. The instinct which dominates the character in a man like him is not amenable to logic; it aims right at its mark, but sometimes overshoots itself. For instance, Gerrit Smith was an intensely domestic man. When his wife entered the breakfast room he would say, "Here comes heaven!" Of course he would have acknowledged if pressed that the happiness of the home was to be his first care, and that, amiable and necessary a thing as hospitality might be, it was not to make his wife and other intimates uncomfortable. But the hospitality of his house at Peterborough was, to repeat the word, "tavernous." A strange woman marches up to the door one night, and is let in as a guest. Her travelling trunk tumbles to pieces on the stairs. Next morning it turns out that she is a "Spiritist," and as soon as Mr. Smith has said grace, she breaks forth into an "oracle" from the Spirit-world. Smith listens with perfect patience, and does not proceed with his own breakfast till she has done. Probably there were a dozen queer" people at the board besides. When breakfast is over the master goes off to his office or otherwise to his affairs, and leaves the ladies of the household to entertain the guests. It appears that they did occasionally find the duty irksome -as well they might; indeed they must have found it a hindrance to plain duties. We are told of one instance in which a male visitor stayed so long-Mr. Smith kept a good table-that there were beds of justice held on the question of getting rid of him. It was against the law of the house to tell him plainly to depart; but the host one morning put up, in his hearing, a prayer that the guest who was that day taking his departure might be guided on his way, &c.; and the hint was taken. The intense humanity of Gerrit Smith, mingled as it naturally was with an equally intense love of approbation, led him into some inconsistencies both of opinion and conduct. It led him, for example, to merge his original orthodoxy in a sort of humanitarian Christianity, in which all the old authoritativeness was left to shift for itself. Mr. Smith fully recognized (as a letter to Mr. Lloyd Garrison discloses) that in giving up an infallible or authoritative Bible, he had parted, formally, with some of the "certainty" to which he had been accustomed; but he went on using the old phrases-his mind was an "old bottle" which somehow took the "new wine" without bursting. His political and social creed contained serious incongruities. He was opposed to compulsory State education, and attacked it in terms which Mr. Herbert Spencer might have adopted; but he wanted public-houses put down by force of law, and attempted, in a letter to Mr. Mill, to make contradictions hang together. He disapproved of positive proprietorship in land, and nobly acted up to his principles; but he never seems to have thought how the general question of property stood related to that topic. In some particulars he showed the keenest sense of the "solidarity" of races and nations; but he advocated national repudiation of national debts. On the whole, the relation between the conscience and the intellect was, in Mr. Smith's case, not satisfactory. In the matter of his relations with John Brown, the conflict between them clearly drove him mad for a time. Mr. Frothingham treats with great discretion that painful statement drawn up by him to explain away what he must have known the recording angel had got down in his tablets. The curious part of the story, of all such stories, is the self-deception, and the utter blindness to the effect which is all but certain to be produced upon other minds. There is a state of semi-hallucination which seems common to half truthful people who have an intense desire to stand well with others not less than with themselves. In that condition, they represent what they have previously done in forms which they wish to be true, but which everybody else can see are evasiveand they do this with the most bewildering appearance of sincerity. Gerrit Smith had done the State much service; he was a wealthy and popular man; and events wipe each other out very rapidly in America; but he lost more of the confidence of others than he would ever have got back if he had been a younger man and had worked ever so hard. But it was a time of crowding strifes, and his industry had begun to seek shady and quiet places. He died at Christmas, 1874, and was buried with what may well be described as national honours. We must take a man like Gerrit Smith as we find him-for we do not often look upon his like. Both in face and in character he bore considerable resemblance (with great differences of course) to the late Dr. Macleod. Take away some of Macleod's refinement, and add the qualities of the bold philanthropist, politician, and social worker, and the resemblance cannot be denied. His paternal ancestors were Dutch, but there was Scotch blood on the mother's side. He was occasionally the subject of painful illness, but was, of course, a very strong man. He was also handsome and of a dignified presence. We should judge that there was in his father, Peter Smith, a decided "promise and potency" of insanity, and there is a faint hint of the same in the eye of the good and energetic man whose life has been written by Mr. Frothingham. TEXT-BOOKS OF ENGLISH HISTORY.*-Mr. Pearson has carefully studied the social history of England, and has much to say on this subject which is well worth reading; his book opens with an admirable sketch of the social and political condition of the country at the beginning of the period which he has engaged to treat; and, further on, he has combined with great skill the various political and social causes which brought about the terrible Peasants' Insurrection of 1381. Of the ministers of Richard II., and of that king himself, he has formed a very low estimate; and hardly seems to take into account the internecine struggle which was going on at that time all over Europe against monarchical institutions, a struggle of which Richard was probably morbidly conscious, and which induced him to adopt those tyrannical methods which his connection with Italy and France suggested, to secure his throne. While there are several points on which we should disagree with the author, we are glad to recommend his book as a popular and, on the whole, a faithful account of the period, not aiming at display, and not pretending to exhaust all the influences at work. The period from the accession of James I. to the opening of the Revolution in Scotland Mr. Gardiner has made peculiarly his own; and in the first part of "The Puritan Revolution" it is easy to trace the superior power and vigour which an author gains from deep researches on his own account. After this he has had to trust, as he himself tells us, to the researches of others in the compilation of this book ; and his account, though skilfully and carefully written, does not seem to us to throw much additional light on this difficult and intricate episode of our history. On the earlier and more valuable portion of the book we may make some more detailed comments. Mr. Gardiner is remarkable for his very careful though, we must add, occasionally somewhat prosy explanations of political terms, and of those causes which in connection produced the results he is engaged in describing. In consequence his book is very well suited for younger students, and requires less explanation and illustration than some others in this series of "Epochs." Nothing could be more admirable than his account of the relations between Elizabeth and her people, and the changes introduced by the different circumstances and nature of her successor James. It is very characteristic of the present day that the career of Strafford should find some defence at the hands of an avowed sympathizer with the Puritans. The principles of the two great chiefs of the Parliamentary opposition in the third Parliament of Charles are well sketched by Mr. Gardiner, as follows:"Eliot was right in saying that government could not be carried on except in agreement with the representatives of the nation. Wentworth was right in saying that it could not be carried on except by men possessing qualities above those of the average member of the House of Commons. Around this conflict of opinion the course of the coming revolution, so far as it was a political revolution, was to turn. For the present the two great men could work together. The rule of Buckingham was detestable both to the intellect and to the feeling of the nation." Later on our author explains to us how Strafford necessarily fell a victim when it was decided that government was to be not only for the people but also by them. This is very different from the old sentimental defence for the martyr to the cause of Royalty, and it seems to us to be the true ground which should be taken up by men whose love of liberty is liberal enough to allow of their appreciating the motives of others who live and act ever in dread of license. Strafford attempted in England the task which Richelieu accomplished in France; he failed because the elements on which, and the instruments with which, he had to work were so English History in the Fourteenth Century. By C. H. Pearson. Rivingtons. entirely different. He possessed in a very high degree the good and the bad qualities of a great despot. The remarkable impartiality, or we should rather call it the many-sided sympathy, shown in this matter, distinguishes Mr. Gardiner in all the questions which he has to handle. The book is certainly a most valuable addition to Epoch literature. Mr. Hale's "Fall of the Stuarts" is not a book which requires much notice. We fail to discover in it any original ideas or fresh light for this period, which Ranke and Macaulay have both so carefully described. It has, however, merits as a school text-book, for which the author apparently intended it; it describes with considerable freshness and vigour the story of the times with which it deals, and it shows the great crisis of English history as it ought to be shown, encircled by the events of the Continent, of which it was a part. On the other hand, a thoughtful reader will be continually annoyed by a specious clearness which often leaves unexplained the main causes or results of the events narrated. For instance, Mr. Hale very properly gives a short sketch of Colbert's domestic policy, but he omits to develop the results of the great economic changes which were then brought about in France. Again, his description of the Londonderry struggle would have been far more picturesque and comprehensible if he had told how that town had been colonized by the London City companies in the Puritan days. In conclusion, we would remind our author that there was originally but one Parliament, not nine, in France; that each province was ruled by its estates, not its estate; that Marshal Schomberg was not a Dutchman; and that to call the méan evil one" without discussion is to decide somewhat cavalierly tayer system 66 a much-disputed question. 66 66 ANNOTATED ENGLISH POEMS.*-From the commercial point of view, the booklets of this series-little miracles, in their way, of good paper, printing, and cheapness-are likely to be successful; and it is evident that the editors have expended considerable pains over their part of the undertaking, though whether the pains have been well directed throughout is a more uncertain point. We are sorry not to join in the chorus of unanimous praise prefixed to the edition of the "Traveller," in the shape of "Opinions of the Press." The notes are indeed "copious," according to promise-much too copious; we cannot discern the use of many of them, nor for what sort of readers they are intended. The annotations look as if they had been devised with the intention of seeing how much could be written on the text, and, instead of being cut down to bare necessity, swell up to useless and exaggerated dimensions; not that the individual notes are too long, but that hardly "The young student And for whom is it all done? a line escapes annotation. (T. 71); in elementary and second-grade schools, and "youthful students generally." This tepid means lukewarm 66 one historian means strange young person, who has to be told that " that Italy is in south of Europe" (ibid. 106); that who tells a history or story" (D. V. 36), is also expected to appreciate such alliteration,” words as prosopopia or personification," "onomatopoeia," synesis," metonymy;"-it is like Father Tom's catalogue of the Figures of Speech, only why is "hypallage" missing, to give another turn to the rack on which the young is laid? There are instances of this figure in the student "Traveller" (1. 167, 187), and in the "Deserted Village" (1. 361), where it is dismissed -a phrase which applies to other things too, as, for example, a poetic license". geographical inaccuracies (cf. 1. 355); so why not let us have "hypallage" to keep company with the other big words? And then, what may be called the aesthetic and critical directions—“ His (the poet's) statement must be received with con"These ;""He (the poet) is wrong here;" "No. 185 (of the Spectator), siderable reservation;" This may be taken almost literally;' an essay well worth reading;" This is, of course, poetical exaggeralines are highly poetical and beautiful;" The following lines are retion;" "This is good poetry, but bad philosophy;" Could any style markably beautiful;" and so on-what are we to think of this? of notes be devised better calculated to numb "a young student's" zeal and imagination, and rob his study of the native literature of all proper zest? 66 as 66 46 66 66 66 66 66 66 95 66 * Annotated Poems of English Authors. Edited by Rev. E. T. Stevens, M.A., and Rev. D. Morris B.A. London: Longmans, Green, & Co.: 1. Goldsmith's Traveller. 2. Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 3. Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 4. Milton's Lycidas. 5. Milton's Il Penseroso. London Series of English Classics. Edited by F. W. Hales, and C. S. Jerram. London: Longmans, Milton's Faradise Regained. Edited by Charles S. Jerram. Where an explanatory or critical note might appropriately be found, we sometimes miss it; for example, the utter fallacy of the simile in the "Deserted Village" (287 ff.) is passed by unnoticed; and, indeed, in all that concerns the matter as distinguished from the language of Goldsmith's two poems the notes are very inadequate. If this defect proceeded from a design to leave the reader, young or elder, to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" for himself, we should esteem it no defect at all, but a virtue. No such design, however, is apparent in the bulk of the notes, rather the contrary; and this is the ground of our chief quarrel with them. These little books are fully symbolical of much that is worst, as well as of some of what is best, in the methods of education now in vogue among us : the return or recourse to our native literature is a sound and admirable feature in schools at the present day : but a good deal in the method of teaching or studying English literature is very bad. The spontaneity, the free choice, the poetry of knowledge, are being ruthlessly trodden out in "young students," by technicalities, prescriptions, "cram," and "tips." These little books reek of the examinationchamber. Goldsmith is a singularly simple and lucid writer; why should he be so thickly overlaid with glosses and verbal interpretations? There is a great deal of information in the notes-which, however, is an incumbrance, not an aid, to "the young student "-if it is Goldsmith he wishes to come at. If the notes were considerably reduced in number, and placed at the end of the text, where a few longer notes already stand, this series of English Authors would be very useful; and if the editors would wholly abstain from dogmatic directions as to what is beautiful or to be admired, and leave to their young friends the pleasure of discovering that for themselves, we should not be found among those who accuse them of corrupting youth. Mr. Jerram's is a book of quite another stamp, and on the whole the best small edition of "Paradise Regained." A good text (though it is much to be wished that the old spelling had been retained, especially as it presents no difficulties to the beginner), a careful though somewhat lengthy introduction, and useful notes, render it an excellent book for upper forms. The theological position of Milton is well indicated, and the versification, a most interesting study in this poem, treated in a few clearly written pages. Mr. Jerram has gleaned his notes from the best authorities, and those he has added himself are by no means the worst. We venture to disagree with him on one point. Surely the "Mount of Alabaster top't with golden spires" is not Milton's "gothick fancy" but his vision of the fair golden spikes and dazzling whiteness of that Temple which has been so lovingly described by Josephus. The book might be with advantage compressed for the second edition, and a heading specifying the number of the book should be placed over the text. CHURCH'S STORIES FROM HOMER.*-This little book is one which will please the scholar and critic as much as the youthful readers for whom it is more espe cially intended. It gives the story of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" in simple and vigorous English, reminding us sometimes of Kingsley's "Heroes," sometimes of Malory's "Morte d'Arthur;" many of the more striking passages are translated word for word from the original. Twenty-four illustrations, borrowed from the designs of Flaxman, and coloured in tints authorized by the Etruscan vases, add to the completeness of this charming volume. A STRUGGLE FOR ROME.+-Some months ago we heard the "Kampf um Rom" praised by a countryman of the author, as the best of all historical novels; and we must confess, that though inclined at first to treat this as a mere piece of German spread-eagleism, now that we have read it we should find it difficult to fix upon any which we could unhesitatingly place above it. The crown of romance, as of arms, seems to have passed to the fatherland of Freytag, Ebers, and Dahn. What is especially noticeable in the two last is the combination of profound learning with warmth and freshness of feeling and the highest vigour of the imagination. There are passages in the "Kampf um Rom "which are thrilling enough for the most sensational of French novels, but while the inspiring principle of the latter is too often the demon of lust and hate, breathing the atmosphere of the hospital or the charnel-house, in the former we seem borne up by strong wings of purity and sympathy, and never quite lose the consciousness of • Stories from Homer. By the Rev. A. J. Church, M.A., Head Master of King Edward's School, Retford. London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday. ✦ A Struggle for Rome. By Felix Dahn. Translated by Lily Wolffsohn. 3 vols. London: Bentley. |