ten it; and it is a wonder that it survived its infancy when we reflect how mauvais sujets, like Pope and Defoe, set out in the spirit of Shakespearean forgers to queer the pitch, and to obscure their tracks by means of all the devices of the cuttle-fish. In two centuries, however, in spite of formal opposition, culminating in the prohibitions of Thackeray and Mrs. Gaskell, and Arnold's denunciation of chatter about Harriet, English biography has risen to be a more or less 'brilliant second' to English fiction, and has carried the world by storm. Its two greatest achievements, both unique, are characteristic creatures of compromise. The lover of antithesis might discern the citadel of our great moralist upheld by a buffoon, the flag of the great romantic upborne by a journalist. At one stroke these books by Boswell and Lockhart redeem our literary history from dreariness and our intellectuals from being intolerable. Horace Walpole notwithstanding, we have no memoirs to compare with the French, but English biography is going to redress the balance.

First favorites among men of letters are Johnson and Scott. The less one reads of them the more one reads about them. Better liked by many and better known by some are Goldsmith, Shelley, and Lamb. The reason for the preeminence may be summed up in the genius and devotion of their respective biographers. No monarchs have been better served by their attendants than our writers; Bolt Court outshines Versailles and Lamb Building is more responsive than the Tuileries: our English biographers have created lives that we all want to live over, and our professional writers have seen to it that their own craft does not suffer by comparison in the process. The most interesting and the most intimate of our lives are all those of

authors; the third biography after Johnson and Scott is the full length and grisly, lifelike, Carlyle by Froude. Then there are Trevelyan's Macaulay, Mrs. Gaskell's Charlotte Brontë, Farnham's Life of Francis Parkman, Colvin's Keats, and a whole constellation of Lives of Shelley.

Of the small band of heaven-born biographers this world has not perhaps seen the equal of Thomas Carlyle. But he refused to subordinate the material to the laws of justesse and form, and we have, as an anti-climax, John Forster as the foremost of our professional biographers until the advent of Leslie Stephen. As the vivid biographer of his brother Fitzjames Stephen, as the projector of the new Kippis, and as an instrumentalist on the short memoir, following in the dazzling wake of Izaak Walton and Robert Southey, Stephen, who is hardly entitled to a lasting place as thinker, bookman, or critic, will probably live, as he would have aspired to, as a biographer. It is the harder to gain this title inasmuch as Everyman is essentially a biographer, beginning with the club bore.

There is, of course, a market in biography, and the English among whom have been born some of the most poetic and many of the most prosaic of souls, have not been the people to overlook it. There are big money prizes under some of the old masks, such as Napoleon, Nelson, Wellington, Marlborough, Pitt, Fox, Disraeli, Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Lincoln, Bismarck, Shelley, Burns, Byron, Swift, Shakespeare, Dickens, Newman, Gladstone, Cromwell. Some of the least pretentious in this style are the most efficacious, such as Southey's Nelson, Morley's Walpole, Corbett's small Drake, Herbert Fisher's Napoleon. Extraordinarily good work has gone to the confection of some of the

most artificial of these set-pieces, such as Belloc's Marie Antoinette, Firth's Cromwell, Moore's Byron, MonyByron, Monypenny's Disraeli, Dowden's Shelley. In some, though the vocation be purely journalistic, there is a good deal more than extraordinarily good work, there is a fine spontaneity and an affinity. amounting at moments to intellectual identity. Such qualities are seen in Angellier's Burns, Chesterton's Dickens, and Lucas's Lamb. There are biographies rapidly mounting in number which show how well adapted the lives of men of science are (Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, Pasteur, and so right back to Murchison, Edwards, and Dick) to the craft of the biographic Rodin.

Benvenuto Cellini is one of the rarest of autobiographers; but it is remarkable, on the whole, how few are the vital lives of artists. Short lives, if popular, can be handed about like torches bearing fire and life. Renan was one of the first among so many to depict Christ in his own image, and he surely set about a notable work. Short lives of Renan and Taine would stir the spirit of a multitude, and one has coveted a flashlight in this form on such adventures as those of Raleigh, Wren, and Zola. The biographer is the compiler in excelsis. He cannot often be a creator. His art is generally the creature of compromise. The propaganda Life, or the Life with a purpose is one of the banes of the profession. Ruskin goes so far as to say that Lives in which the public are interested are scarcely ever worth writing. History deforms biography, but a Life intended to subserve an historic theory, such as Carlyle's Friedrich or Mommsen's Cæsar, may prove a dangerous havocworker. Macaulay, who might have been a superb biographer, subordinated the art to his historical prepossessions.

Everyman

In Trevelyan's admirable Garibaldi books, biography is subordinated to historic narrative. Writers like Masson build costly mausoleums for their heroes. Much of the best and truest biography of the speculative kind is imbedded in fiction. What could be better than Scott's portraits of Cromwell and James I? His Elizabeth, though a mere sketch, is the best pastel we have of the great queen, and his Louis XI is a study not unworthy of comparison with Shakespeare's Richard II.

The one type of biography that is inherently false is the family and official compilation. There may be exceptions-a Lyttelton and a Redesdale-but, taken as a whole, these kinsmen chroniclers, forgetting Shakespeare's mirror, seem to think that we do not know what the human qualities are or how irresponsibly the human life is lived. We may, nay, we do, wish homage to the personalities of the men to whom we owe great causes, great systems, great thoughts, and great characters. Vivid characters of such men transmit public virtue from one age to another. But we cannot forthwith assume that biography must be written of the good, by the good, and for the good. Our sympathies with the unco' guid are lamentably imperfect. We are on our guard at once against the biography of an advocate. Hence the delight that the studied detraction of Mr. Lytton Strachey has evoked in the most improbable quarters. It is nothing to us that he invented the circumstance that Thomas Arnold had short legs. We are delighted by his skeptical pigments which revive the drooping colors of biography as Gibbon's did those of history. We look forward with a renewed hope to the marriage of biography and truth, which will portend a new heaven and a new earth.

GERMAN OVERSEAS BANKS

BY DR. ADOLF ROEDER

THE German overseas banks have been very seriously affected by the influences of the war. In many cases a flourishing business, laboriously built up, has been ruthlessly destroyed, and it has frequently happened that the relations of our pioneers in overseas countries with the business establishments there have been so interrupted that their restoration will cost much time and money. The connections between the head establishments and their overseas branches ceased completely either at once or very soon after the outbreak of the war. Business reports from overseas have reached Germany but seldom and these in so fragmentary a form that all idea of drawing up balance sheets had to be abandoned. It was found necessary to sanction the postponement of the statement of accounts and, thus, for example, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, with a capital of seven and a half million Shanghai taels, while it declared dividends of seven per cent and five per cent in 1913 and 1914 respectively, has published no accounts since.

In September, 1916, its Japanese branches were forbidden to do any business at all, and the Chinese branches were closed in August, 1917, after a state of war between China and Germany had been declared.

Mention may also be made of the Handelsbank für Ostafrika, with a capital of three million marks, half paid up, of the Deutsche Afrika Bank, with a capital of two million marks, and of the Deutsch-Westafrikanische

Bank, with a capital of one million marks, one-quarter paid up, all of which declared dividends last in 1913, and since then have published no business reports or accounts. The Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank, with a capital of two million marks, which was the only German bank in Africa authorized to issue notes, has also been unable to furnish accounts for the four years of war. It did, it is true, pay a dividend in 1914, viz., one of five per cent, as against seven and a half per cent in the previous year, although no complete data for furnishing accounts were forthcoming. It justified its procedure by stating that it was a mistake on the part of a Note Bank to pay no dividends.

The Kolonial Bank, with a capital of one million marks, was also cut off from its overseas clients, but was able, as a leading bank in the colonial securities market, to devote its energies to current banking and Stock Exchange business within certain limits. In 1914 it showed a loss, in 1915 and 1916 a surplus, and in 1917 it declared a dividend of six per cent. The Deutsche Antioquia-bank, with a capital of three million marks, last declared a dividend, nine per cent, in 1916. The Deutsche Orientbank, with a capital of thirty-two million marks, twenty million marks paid up, had even before the outbreak of war liquidated its interests in Morocco by the sale in 1913 of its branches in that country. They were sold to the Société Générale pour favoriser, etc., there being but scanty business possibilities for a German establishment since the country was becoming more and more a French colony. The institution was

able, it is true, to develop some activity in Eastern countries, but as early as 1914 it had to postpone its statement of accounts. It is well known that the A. Schaffhausen Banking Association left the Orientbank in 1916, while the Deutsche Bank, the Oesterreichische Kreditanstalt and the Ungarische Allgemeine Kreditbank joined it.

Actual overseas business on a large scale was carried on by banks of which some mention must be made, among them being the Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank (closely connected with the Deutsche Bank), with a capital of thirty million marks, which has branches in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Spain. It was able to maintain its dividend at six per cent in 1914, 1915, and 1916, but has published no accounts for 1917, for which year the directors at the time held out no hope that the business would be better than in the previous year. The long duration of the war and the attempts of the enemy to destroy German trade in overseas countries were expected to restrict and damage the business of its branch establishments. Similar views were held by persons competent to judge with regard to the Brasilianische Bank für Deutschland, with a capital of fifteen million marks, and the Bank für Chile und Deutschland, with a capital of ten million marks, half paid up. The Brasilianische Bank, which had branches in Rio de Janeiro, San Paulo, Santos, Porta Allegro, and Bahia, was able for a long time to take advantage of the strict neutrality of the Brazilian Government so that its business suffered no considerable losses; it paid dividends of eight per cent in each year from 1914-15 to 1916-17. In March, 1917, the Oesterreichische Kreditanstalt and the Ungarische Allgemeine Kreditbank, con

sidering that in order to obtain raw materials after the war it would be advisable to establish intimate relations between the Dual Monarchy and South America, concluded agreements with the Diskonto-Gesellschaft and the Norddeutsche Bank which aimed at establishing close connections with the banks founded by the two latter establishments, viz., the Brasilianische Bank and the Bank für Chile, which were strengthened by the inclusion of representatives of the Austro-Hungarian banks in the board of directors.

At the beginning of the war it was reported that the Bank für Chile und Deutschland, which has branches in Valparaiso, Santiago, Concepcion, Temuco, Antofagasta, Victoria, and Valdivia, had experienced a serious decline in its business and was also affected by the fall in the Chilian rate of exchange. Accordingly, in 1914, no dividend was paid, in 1915 the situation improved, but again there was no declaration of a dividend, and it was not until 1916 that a dividend, viz., of six per cent, was again distributed. No figures are as yet available for 1917. The DeutschSüdamerikanische Bank, with a capital of twenty million marks, in which several large Berlin banks and also the Dresden Bank are interested, and which has branches in Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico, has paid no dividends during the war, its business being seriously affected by it. Its last accounts were published in 1915. The activities of the Deutsch-Südamerikanische Bank, the Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank, and the Brasilianische Bank für Deutschland came to an abrupt conclusion when, as was recently announced, the liquidation of German banks in that country was commenced.

Some mention may be made, en passant, of the China Export-Import

GERMAN OVERSEAS BANKS

BY DR. ADOLF ROEDER

THE German overseas banks have been very seriously affected by the influences of the war. In many cases a flourishing business, laboriously built up, has been ruthlessly destroyed, and it has frequently happened that the relations of our pioneers in overseas countries with the business establishments there have been so interrupted that their restoration will cost much time and money. The connections between the head establishments and their overseas branches ceased completely either at once or very soon after the outbreak of the war. Business reports from overseas have reached Germany but seldom and these in so fragmentary a form that all idea of drawing up balance sheets had to be abandoned. It was found necessary to sanction the postponement of the statement of accounts and, thus, for example, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, with a capital of seven and a half million Shanghai taels, while it declared dividends of seven per cent and five per cent in 1913 and 1914 respectively, has published no accounts since.

In September, 1916, its Japanese branches were forbidden to do any business at all, and the Chinese branches were closed in August, 1917, after a state of war between China and Germany had been declared.

Mention may also be made of the Handelsbank für Ostafrika, with a capital of three million marks, half paid up, of the Deutsche Afrika Bank, with a capital of two million marks, and of the Deutsch-Westafrikanische

Bank, with a capital of one million marks, one-quarter paid up, all of which declared dividends last in 1913, and since then have published no business reports or accounts. The Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Bank, with a capital of two million marks, which was the only German bank in Africa authorized to issue notes, has also been unable to furnish accounts for the four years of war. It did, it is true, pay a dividend in 1914, viz., one of five per cent, as against seven and a half per cent in the previous year, although no complete data for furnishing accounts were forthcoming. It justified its procedure by stating that it was a mistake on the part of a Note Bank to pay no dividends.

The Kolonial Bank, with a capital of one million marks, was also cut off from its overseas clients, but was able, as a leading bank in the colonial securities market, to devote its energies to current banking and Stock Exchange business within certain limits. In 1914 it showed a loss, in 1915 and 1916 a surplus, and in 1917 it declared a dividend of six per cent. The Deutsche Antioquia-bank, with a capital of three million marks, last declared a dividend, nine per cent, in 1916. The Deutsche Orientbank, with a capital of thirty-two million marks, twenty million marks paid up, had even before the outbreak of war liquidated its interests in Morocco by the sale in 1913 of its branches in that country. They were sold to the Société Générale pour favoriser, etc., there being but scanty business possibilities for a German establishment since the country was becoming more and more a French colony. The institution was