his imprisonment in Mazas; the wanton assaults upon the press; the instructions of the Prefects to prosecute all offenders, couched in terms so general as to cover the entire Opposition party-'falsehood,' to be interpreted at pleasure, is one of the of fences; and the deliberate system of insulting language used by Ministers and their representatives in the press. They have failed to drive the party of M. Gambetta into extremes, and that is what chiefly galls the reactionists. The only thing that can possibly turn the scale in favor of De Brog: lie is some excess or intemperance of language from the leaders of the Left; the latter are quite aware of that, and, however difficult it may be to manage the masses of their party, their motto will be 'moderation,' at least until the elections are over, and their triumph secured, as it will doubtless be, in spite of all the fraud and terrorism M. Fourton will most unscrupulously employ. The stratagem of putting forward McMahon as the figure-head, and threatening that he would resign and restore the reign of chaos, will also be futile. To speak of the probable defeat of the President, and to alarm the people with the inevitable results of that event, is the best possible argument against the usurpation of May. What business had he to put himself in a position where he was liable to defeat? Whose fault is it that his name will be invoked at the polls by one party, and introduced with anything but respect by the other? His own. The personal appeal, however, will be of little avail at the ballot box; since the issue will not be between McMahon and Gambetta, but McMahon and Thiers-the President who settled the war, paid the indemnity, and restored order by the suppression of the Commune. His services have not been forgotten by the mass of the French people, and when, to the hatred of the May coup d' etat, is added their attachment to an old and tried public servant, the issue of the elections cannot be doubtful, notwithstanding the powerful machinery in the hands of the Government. The Senate has, of course, been prevailed on, without difficulty, to grant a dissolution of the Chamber. Obviously, when the latter, by a vote of 365 to 153, repudiated De Broglie and his set, there was nothing left for it, if ministers were to enjoy even three months' peace, but an attempt to see what

the chapter of accidents might have in store for the party. Meanwhile the continued presence of the Duke Decazes at the Foreign office, and the excessive protestations of the President and his other Ministers, have not blinded Germany to the serious peril involved in the seizure of power by the most bigoted of the Ultramontane party.

The reception of Gen. Grant in England is, no doubt, as flattering to himself as it is evidently gratifying to his countrymen ; but he is hardly a 'lion' in the strict sense of the term, and to all, save Americans themselves, no proof was needed of English cordiality and goodwill to the United States. The ex-President has certainly acquitted himself creditably, and if our American cousin is put in a better humour by the English demonstrations over him, so much the better, if the fit lasts long enough. It is to be feared that it will hardly endure until the Canadian fisheries are appraised and paid for, or that all the expressions of satisfaction over Grant's reception will add a dollar to the price they will be willing to pay for what they used without leave, or purchased upon credit.

The Eastern question remains, so far as diplomacy is concerned, in statu quo ante bellum. There are from time to time newspaper reports of negotiations, alliances, ruptures, and reconciliations, which are not worth the paper on which they are printed. Austria is not going to aid Turkey, because to do so would be to commit suicide, or at least to shiver her heterogeneous empire into fifty fragments. England, considering that Russia has scarcely moved a step in the direction of Constantinople since Mr. Cross gave a solemn assurance that peace should be preserved between her and Russia, is not on the eve of proving Lord Beaconsfield's representative a deceiver, or the published blue-books and despatches elaborate falsehoods. The fact is, that, in the delay in active warfare, which seems intolerable after the Italian war, the Austro-German six weeks' contest, and the Franco-German duel of 1870, journalists do not know what to do with themselves. They are at their wit's end for something to pen concerning a war which persists in hanging fire most inconsiderately. The pro-Turkish papers have gone so far afield as to have hit upon

an annexation of Egypt to the British empire -a most advisable step, if only in mercy to the oppressed Egyptians, but sounding strange when trumpeted forth by the party which has been driven almost rabid by any proposal looking to a disintegration of the rotten Turkish empire, whether it took the form of a free Christian government north of the Balkans, or the annexation of Eastern Armenia to Russia by way of war indemnity. The victory remains with Mr. Gladstone and the sound heart of England, and the bondholders, who have only themselves to blame, with their allies, the men of the clubs, may as well surrender at discretion. It is unnecessary to make any guesses at the position of affairs in Asia Minor. The Turks, we now know, have not retaken Ardahan, and we may be perfectly sure they have not re-possessed themselves of Bayazid. Lying is necessary

just now at Constantinople, where matters have come to so wretched a pass that, every now and again, it is a question whether Russia will shake the Turk to pieces by external violence, or whether he will perish by spontaneous combustion or explosion within. The Russians, it may now be considered, have crossed the Danube on their extreme left. The advanced guard passed over at Ibraila into the Dobrudscha, seized the heights above Matchin after a brief skirmish with the Bashi-bazouks, and thus forced the evacuation of that town, which they immediately occupied. There are rumours of crossing also to the west, at Hirsova and Leni, but these are not confirmed, and we still wait patiently for the next act in the tragic drama, upon which the curtain is slowly rising.

June 23rd, 1877.

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall). An Autobiographical Fragment and Biographical Notes, with Personal Sketches of Contemporaries, unpublished Lyrics, and Letters of Literary Friends. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877; Toronto: Hart and Rawlinson.

This title, which we have purposely quoted in full, is rich in promise to the lovers of literary gossip who are aware of the wide circle of Mr. Procter's acquaintance among the most celebrated of two generations of writers. Those who need to be told of it, will find at an early stage in this little volume, 'a limited selection from the list,' which contains over eighty names, of which, as he cannot quote all, we will quote none. It must suffice to say that it includes almost every name which rose into fame in English literature during the eighty-seven years of Mr. Procter's life. His reminiscences, therefore, formed a mine of interest which it is all the more deeply to be regretted he did not work to a far greater extent, when we see the quality of the few rich nuggets which he did bring up. It was not until his seventy-ninth year that he commenced the fragmentary sketches which are here

given, numbering in all about twenty-three besides a short account of the 'London Magazine' and its brilliant staff. Mr. Coventry Patmore, who, aided by Mrs. Procter, has edited this volume, tells us that they form 'but a small portion of the portrait gallery' which it seems to have been Mr. Procter's long-cherished intention to paint, and they are evidently nothing more than very rough draughts; the MS. having many double readings, notes to the effect of 'correct this,' etc. Nevertheless, these 'Recollections,' in connection with the 'Letters from Literary Friends,' form undoubtedly the most interesting and valuable portion of the present volume.

There are few pleasures in a literary way surpassing that of having names, which we know and love as little more than names, clothed for us, as these are here, with distinctive personality. Procter's style is so simple and direct, that there is at first a temtation to call it unfinished; but its naïve abruptness wins upon us, and very soon we find ourselves in the hands of a master. When we close the book, the impression on our minds of each individuality is clear and firm, if broken and incomplete. Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt, among all his friends, were

most intimate with Procter personally, and exerted most influence over his literary character. The great Edinburgh reviewer, Lord Jeffrey, in a very appreciative and kindly estimate of his poems, says, 'the natural bent of his genius is more like that of Leigh Hunt than any other author. . . But he has better taste and better judgment; or, what is perhaps but saying the same thing, he has less affectation and far less conceit.' Procter could not but see this fault in his friend, but he softens blame of it almost into praise, saying that Leigh Hunt 'had no vanity, in the usually accepted meaning of the word. I mean that he had not that exclusive vanity which rejects almost all things beyond self. He gave as well as received; no one more willingly. He accepted praise less as a mark of respect from others, than as a delight of which we are entitled to partake, such as spring weather, the scent of flowers, or the flavor of wine.' Procter's admiration for Hazlitt was great and unswerving, and late in his life we find him writing to James W. Fields: 'I despair of the age that has forgotten to read Hazlitt.'

He grows

a little indignant over the biographical essay in which De Quincey disparaged Hazlitt; but, apparently, the amenities of literature were thrown overboard on both sides by those writers. Mr. De Quincey and Hazlitt thought poorly of each other. Hazlitt pronounced verbally that the other would be good only "whilst the opium was trickling from his mouth," but he never published anything derogatory to the other's genius. De Quincey, on the other hand, seems to have forced opportunities for sneering at Hazlitt.' For De Quincey, Procter has but scant praise, and, in our opinion, allows a little prejudice to influence him in dwelling almost altogether on his faults. But it is not the prejudice of ignorance, and what injustice there is in his view is shown, not in the fault-finding, but in a seeming blindness to much of De Quincey's merit. He doubts whether De Quincey knew Lamb as intimately as he professes to have done in his 'three straggling essays' on that writer. During a close friendship, from 1818 to Lamb's death in 1834, Proctor avers that he never heard him refer to De Quincey 'or mention his name upon any single occasion.' We are tempted to dwell at much greater length upon this part of the book, and upon the letters; but our space is limited, and what little we have remaining must be devoted to some account of the other portions, and of the lovable man around whom all its interest centres.

The autobiographical fragments, which, interspersed with biographical notes by the editor, occupy the first section of the book, are very scanty; and it is characteristic of Procter, that the sketch which is called autobiographical deals more with others than with himself. Patmore says of him as a man, that he was a

'simple, sincere, shy, and delicate soul;' that his conversation 'had little decision or "point," in the ordinary sense, and often dwelt on truths which a novelty-loving society banishes from its repertory as truisms,' but that this 'never disturbed the effect, in any assemblage, of his real distinction. His silence seemed wiser, his simplicity subtler, his shyness more courageous, than the wit, philosophy, and assurance of others.'

The few events of his life are soon told, and have little interest but what they gain from his naïve and simple relation of them. His father, beginning life in a merchant's counting-house, was soon placed in a position of well-to-do independence by some bequest, and Procter was born at a comfortable distance from both extremes of worldly circumstances. He dwells with almost amusing insistence on the absence of anything remarkable, either in his life or in his own character and abilities. says of himself: 'Nothing particularly marked my childhood. I was found to be much as boys usually are . . . It seemed my destiny to float along from the cradle to the grave on the happy stream of mediocrity. My tastes, even as I recollect, were common enough. My senses were indeed attracted by the scent of the violet, the April grass and flowers; I heard music in the winds, and running river;

He

Such I was, when very young (almost too young), sent to a small boardingschool near London.' He was at this time only about five years old. Leaving the subject from which he takes every opportunity of departing,-himself, he gives at this point a loving and pathetic sketch of his old French master at this school, an emigré named Monsieur Molière, whom fortune had left only 'the ability to labor and endure; perhaps these were nearly all his poor possessions.' Charles Lamb might have written such delicate lines as those in which Procter describes this man ; but to attempt to convey their charm in an extract would be as wise as to cut a sample strip from a water-colour.

At about thirteen Procter was sent to Harrow, where he remained four years. Among his school-fellows were the future Sir Robert Peel and Lord Byron. He was fond of relating how Peel once undertook to write for him an imposition of Latin verse for a consideration of half-a-crown; but whether the future great financier ever got paid, was more than Mr. Procter could undertake to remember.' In his 'Recollections,' he says of Lord Byron, 'I had not seen him since about 1800, when he was a scholar in Dr. Drury's house, with an iron cramp on one of his feet, with loose corduroy trousers plentifully relieved by ink, and with finger-nails bitten to the quick.'

The profession for which Procter was intended was the law, and at first there seemed

every likelihood of his being added to the long list of those who have deserted it entirely for literature. Instead of reading law, he read hard at English poetry, from Chaucer to Burns, and then took to writing it. He produced most between the years 1815 and 1823, at which latter date his 'Flood of Thessaly, and Other Poems' saw the light; but the work to which he chiefly owes his place in our literature, his 'English Songs,' appeared in 1832; and his 'Essays and Tales in Prose,' in 1853. The lyrics published for the first time in the present volume are not likely to add to his laurels, with the possible exception of the last one, entitled 'Exhumo.' After his marriage, in 1824, he did as very few of those have done who have taken his first step, from law to literature; turning once more to his profession, and welcoming the hard and rather monotonous work of a conveyancer with a zest that may fairly be called surprising, after his indulgence of almost antipodal tastes. There are very many who have 'penned a sonnet while they should engross,' but by no means many who, having met with such success as Barry Cornwall's, in verse, have left it to go back to the prosiest of prose. In 1831 he was called to the bar, and in 1832 was appointed a Commissioner of Lunacy. His long and peaceful life came to an end in 1874. Mr. Patmore has appropriately closed his biographical notes by the insertion of the beautiful poem by Swinburne, which appeared on the death of 'Barry Cornwall' :

'Beloved of men, whose words on our lips were honey,

Whose name in our ears and our fathers' ears was sweet.'

There can be no question as to the enjoyment which is to be derived from this volume as a whole. But its very fragmentary character spoils it for steady perusal, making progress through it very jerky. Its flavor is best obtained by dipping into it here and there at random.

PHYSIOLOGICAL ESTHETICS. By Grant Allen, B.A. London: Henry T. King & Co. 1877.

The most cursory reader of the philosophy of the day must be aware how closely the investigation into the relations of mental phenomena with the material organism, or as many prefer to put it, their origin from it, is pursued by some of the most profound thinkers of the age. What we term æsthetic feelings and pleasures have hitherto been comparatively neglected in this investigation. Even the Germans, as Prof. Bain recently remarked, have been accustomed to consider them subjectively, as purely mental phenomena, rather than as effects from physical causes. But relentless science has begun to seize now even on these more ethereal emotions, and will not allow us any longer to simply enjoy a beautiful land

scape, a noble statue, or an exquisite poem, without telling us exactly how our enjoyment arises from the effect produced on our nervous organization by the forces of the external world.

It is doubly satisfactory to a Canadian critic, in noticing an able and suggestive work on this subject, to recognize the fact that it is written by a Canadian-Mr. Grant Allen, son of Mr. J. A. Allen, of Kingston. No one who has read Mr. Grant Allen's contributions to the CANADIAN MONTHLY will be surprised to find that he has produced a book, of which an eminent authority in England speaks as 'valuable contribution to analytical philosophy,' or to note in his treatment of such a subject, clear and distinct thought and expression, acute and delicate observation, careful and subtle analysis, and a poetical as well a philosophical view when the subject admits of it. To start with, Mr. Allen thus defines æsthetic pleasures and pains: 'By the aesthetic pleasures and pains we mean those which result from the contemplation of the beautiful or the ugly, in art or nature, alike in the actuality and in the idea. So that, speaking properly, the subject-matter of our investigation will be the feelings aroused in man by the beautiful in nature, and in the arts of architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and poetry; special attention being paid throughout to the component factors of the last.' In the outset of his investigation, he first examines the nature of pleasures and pains generally, differentiating afterwards the feeling we call æsthetic. By a very ingenious and aptly illustrated process of investigation, he arrives at the conclusion that 'pain is the subjective concomitant of destructive action or insufficient nutrition in any sentient tissue. Pleasure is the subjective concomitant of the normal amount of function in any such tissue.'

From this position, he goes on to discuss the pleasures and pains of what are more especially called the 'æsthetic' senses, in regard to which he makes the following suggestive remark In the lower senses, almost every activity has a direct bearing upon life-giving functions. But in the higher and specially æsthetic senses, sight and hearing, no activity bears directly upon these functions, and comparatively few indirectly. And it is just because the eye and ear are so little connected with vitality, that theirs are specially the æsthetic senses. It is the business of Art to combine as many as possible of their pleasurable sensations, and to exclude, so far as lies in its power, all their painful ones; thus producing that synthetic result which we know as the æsthetic thrill.' Esthetic feelings he thus differentiates :-The aesthetically beautitiful is that which affords the Maximum of Stimulation with the Minimum of Fatigue or Waste, in processes not directly connected

with vital functions. The æsthetically ugly is that which conspicuously fails to do so; which gives little stimulation, or makes excessive or wasteful demands upon certain portions of the organs. But as in either case the emotional element is weak, it is mainly cognized as an intellectual discrimination. And so we get the idea of the Esthetic Feelings as something noble and elevated because they are not distinctly traceable to any life-serving function.' The manner in which he applies this principle to the sense of sight, in the particular of colour, will sufficiently illustrate its use:

'If we have in one place a patch of red, the portion of the retina which is receiving light from it will have its red-perceiving fibres strongly excited, and, as a necessary consequence, fatigued. If, next, it is directed upon a neighbouring patch of green, the red-perceiving fibres will be at rest, and undergo repair, while the fresh and vigorous green-perceiving structures will receive normal stimulation. Hence, such interchange of colours will be pleasurable. So that all colour-harmony consist in such an arrangement of tints as will give the various portions of the retina stimulation in the least fatiguing order, and all colourdiscord in the opposite.'

We should like to quote more fully from a book containing so much careful thought and interesting matter, and to discuss more fully its positions, but space limits forbid a more lengthened review. We could not, certainly, go along with the author, were he to insist on reducing the subjective sense of beauty and the ideal to mere physiological processes; but, if Mr. Allen's positions are correct, the analysis is ultimate so far as the physiological side of the question is concerned. The very springs and sources of our æsthetic sense-emotions are laid bare, and what has long been believed to be inexplicable, -to be ultimate principles beyond which we could not go—is shown to have a deeper foundation still-is at once explicable and explained. And to explain why a thing of beauty is a joy forever,' and why the green fields and the bubbling fountain, the blue bending heavens, the petals of the rose, and the lily's fragrant bell are lovely and precious to the aesthetic sense, is not the least interesting subject of investigation in the interesting field of our complex organization,lifting the veil, to a very considerable degree, from the mystery of our likes and dislikes. The chapters on Poetry and the Imitative Arts will, perhaps, most interest non-scientific readers, though these will find in the other portions of the book, much food for thought and much interesting information. That on Poetry, in particular, is at once a piece of able analysis and poetical appreciation, containing passages of much literary beauty, of which we are tempted to give the following specimen, containing

much picturesqueness of description combined with melody of expression :

'Mountain glens, hemmed in with beetling rocks, through which white foaming streams rave ceaslessly; woods and valleys, pastures and meadows dappled with daisies, sweet with the breath of kine, vocal with the song of birds; an Italian lake, bathed in sunset glory, its overhanging terraces rich with autumn tints, while a rainbow spans the tiny cataract that plashes musically into its unruffled bosom, and the soft sound of the vesper bell steals over it from some surrounding campanile, half hidden amid chestnut and orange blossom, far above whose green heads the roar of the thunder and the flash of the lightning play awfully around the pinacles of eternal ice-these are a few of the great concrete wholes with which Poetry deals, whose elements can be sifted and referred to their proper place as we read them over, but which would scarcely repay the toil of a minute and deliberate classification.'

The chapters on the 'Intervention of the Intellect' and the Ideal' will also interest general readers, though we think that the most searching analysis must necessarily fail in those mysterious regions where purely sensuous pleasure seems blended with feelings which we instinctively recognize as of a higher and purer order, the mysteries of immaterial mind. As the very word æsthetic' is derived from a sense, and that one of the lower ones, we may thoroughly admit the truth of the author's position, that, 'every Esthetic Feeling, though it may incidentally contain intellectual and complex emotional factors, has necessarily for its ultimate and principal component, pleasures of sense, ideal or actual, either as tastes, smells, touches, sounds, forms, or colours.'

RoSINE. By J. G. Whyte Melville. Montreal: Lovell, Adam, Wesson & Co.

The historical novel, which seemed out of favour for a time, seems to have again revived. 'Rosine is a vivid story, in Mr. Whyte Melville's rapid, lively style, of the terrible days immediately preceding the French Revolution; days of plot and counterplot, intrigue and counter-intrigue, when no man's life was safe, and no man knew where the next bolt might fall; when democrat was plotting against aristocrat, and aristocrat again against his fellow aristocrat; when the vices and follies of a haughty and voluptuous aristocracy had driven an oppressed people into a state of excitement and disorganization, rapidly tottering into the grand earthquake, which has in a manner faded from men's minds now, but which will ever remain one of the deepest blood-stains on the pages of history.

For one of the foremost figures in the pre