modifying influence, and either increase or diminish the period during which life can be sustained in the absence of food. Other things being equal, a stont person has a chance of living longer than a thin one, inasmuch as he possesses a larger store of combustible material which will serve him as fuel. Exposure to cold in conjunction with starvation always accelerates death, while a moderately high temperature aids in prolonging life. The presence of moisture in the atmosphere has a similarly favorable effect, inasmuch as it diminishes the exhalation of fluid from the body. It is probably owing to warmth and moisture that persons buried in mines or confined in some similar manner have had their lives preserved beyond the ordinary period. Dr. Tanner's success was, no doubt, favored by the summer heat of New York. In the case of some miners, four men and a boy, who were imprisoned in a portion of a mine for eight days without food, but within reach of water, all were rescued alive and well. The warmth and dampness of the compressed air were, doubtless, favorable circumstances. In another case, recorded by Foderé, some workmen were extricated alive after fourteen days' confinement in a damp vault, in which they had been buried under a ruin. Dr. Sloan has given an account of a still more remarkable instance in which a healthy man, aged sixtyfive, was found alive after having been shut up in a coal-mine for twenty-three days, during the first ten of which he was able to get at a little water.

He was,

however, much exhausted, and died three days afterward, although very carefully treated. In morbid states of the nervous system, life may be prolonged in the most extraordinary manner in the absence of food. In a remarkable case, recorded by Dr. Willan, of a young gentleman who starved himself under the influence of a religious delusion, life was prolonged for sixty days, during the whole of which time nothing but a little orange juice was

taken.

Somewhat analogous to the cases just mentioned are those in which all food is abstained from while the person is in a state of trance or partially suspended animation. This state may be prolonged for many days or even for weeks, provided that the body be kept sufficiently warm. The most remarkable instances of this

character have been furnished by certain. Indian fakirs, who are able to reduce themselves to a state resembling profound collapse, in which all vital operations are brought almost to a standstill. In one case, the man was buried in an underground cell for six weeks, and carefully watched; in another, the man was buried for ten days in a grave lined with masonry, and covered with large slabs of stone. When the bodies were disinterred they resembled corpses and no pulsation could be detected at the heart or in the arteries. Vitality was restored by warmth and friction. It is probable that the fakirs, before submitting to the ordeal, stupefied themselves with bhang (Indian hemp), the effects of which would last for some time, and the warmth of the atmosphere and soil would prevent any serious loss of heat, such as would soon occur in a colder climate, when the processes by which it is generated are made to cease.

The most prominent symptoms of starvation, as noticed in the human subject, are due first, to the special sensations produced by the absence of food and fluid, and, secondly, to the decline in the physical and mental power. At first there is great uneasiness or severe pain in the region of the stomach; this is relieved by pressure, and subsides after a day or two, but is followed by a feeling of weakness and sirking in the same region, accompanied by intolerable thirst, which, if water be withheld, becomes the chief source of distress. The skin over the whole body is withered or shrivelled, and has lost its elasticity; the countenance becomes pale and cadaverous; the sufferer has a wild look; he loses flesh and strength more or less rapidly; he totters in walking and becomes less and less capable of exertion. The mental power likewise fails; at first there is usually a state of torpidity, which may advance to imbecility; in some cases delirium comes on before death, in others the patient is attacked by convulsions which speedily bring the scene to a close. After death the state of the body, as regards wasting, resembles that of animals: the fat has almost entirely disappeared, the blood is reduced to three-fourths of its normal amount, and the muscles are extensively wasted; the brain and nerves alone have suffered slight decrease in weight. If a little water has been procurable, the quantity of blood

may be comparatively normal, though the quality is seriously changed.

If we compare this general description with that presented by Signor Succi after three parts of his fast had been completed it may appear not a little exaggerated. Succi was pale, thin, and wasted, but the change was nothing like so great as one would expect. Many a patient, convalescent from typhoid fever, has an aspect of greater emaciation and weakness, and certainly could not write a few words with the same degree of firmness. The temperature of Succi's apartment was decidedly high, and the air charged with moisture, both of which conditions are favorable. He appeared to take no exercise beyond that involved in passing from his bed to his chair, and in sitting up for several hours daily. Besides water (pure and mineral), of which he took about a pint daily, he swallowed a few drops of a so-called "elixir," the composition of which was kept a secret. If it did not contain morphine its effects were probably similar to those of that drug. It was said to allay pain and discomfort in the stomach.

Various tests were adopted in order to measure the changes that took place in Succi's bodily system, as the result of his prolonged fast. The loss of weight is, of course, easily ascertained. At the beginning of the experiment Succi's weight was about 126 lb. His decrease in thirty days amounted to 28 lb. 13 oz., or just 2 oz. more than he lost during his last fast, of thirty days, at Brussels. A loss beyond one-fourth of the bodily weight is scarcely compatible with life, but this limit may be reached. He had not, however, the advantage of a large proportion of fat when he began his fast; it has been estimated that a very fat man has about 33 lb. of fat at his disposal, and that this quantity would last him for fifty days. Dr. Tanner, during his fast, is said to have lost 32 lb. only. In a prolonged fast, such as we are now considering, the daily loss becomes comparatively very slight during the last three weeks. Succi, for instance, on the thirtieth day, lost only 6 oz., whereas, under normal circumstances, a healthy adult loses 2 lb. of solid matters daily.

Besides losing flesh, a fasting man loses to some extent the power of generating heat, and his temperature therefore falls.

The normal temperature of the body is about 98, and its source is the food taken into the stomach and the oxygen of the air absorbed by the lungs during respiration. Succi's temperature on the thirtieth day, for example, was about two degrees below the normal, a difference not to be wondered at when we remember that he lost only 6 oz. in weight in the twenty-four hours, and that all his disposable stock of fat had probably been consumed. Small as the loss may appear to be, the accompanying temperature, if discovered in a sick person, would be regarded as that of collapse; and if the thermometer marked only 95 there would certainly be extreme danger.

A marked proof of the diminution in bulk is afforded by the instrument called the spirometer, which enables us to measure the capacity of the lungs. This latter, in Succi's case, if we again take the thirtieth day, was reported to be 1,450 cubic centimetres, or 88 cubic inches. These numbers represent the volume of air expelled from the chest by the deepest expiration following the deepest inspiration. The instrument itself consists of a tube, furnished at one end with a mouthpiece, and at the other connected with a gasometer of registered and graduated capacity, into which the person breathes. Now, in health, an adult 5 ft. 8 in. in height, after taking a deep breath, can expel from his chest about 238 cubic inches of air. Succi's chest capacity was at first 2,000 cubic centimetres, and it had, therefore, been much reduced; but a portion of the difference was doubtless due to the lessening of his muscular power.

Succi's loss of strength, as shown by the dynamometer, was comparatively small. This instrument consists of a ring of steel, to the inner face of which is attached a brass semicircular dial, graduated with two rows of figures representing pounds or kilogrammes. When the steel ring is compressed by the hand, its short diameter is lessened and, by means of rack-work, an index moves to and fro on the scale. The power of the muscles of the hand and arm vary with the strength of the person experimented upon, and the dynamometer enables us accurately to ascertain the variations. It must be admitted that persons using the dynamometer daily become more expert in concen

trating their strength upon the spring, and a little allowance must be made on this account. Succi's amount of strength, as recorded by the dynamometer, was some

what exaggerated, but when all allowance is made for increased expertness, the change was very small indeed.-New Review.

THE present age is commonly glorified as an age of science and invention; though we must say, in justice to our own modesty, that such laudations are often coupled with the expression of confident hope that our immediate posterity will far surpass

us.

And the hope seeins reasonable.

It is true that genius cannot be commanded, and we still do not know how long aerial navigation may have to wait for its Stephenson. But the ideas put forth by the great discoverers and inventors of the early part of this century are so far from being yet worked out that our children and grandchildren will have their hands full in any case; unless, indeed, some revolution in social economy should bring about a relatively stationary condition of invention and industry by destroying our existing motives of enterprise. Either way, it is quite possible that the Englishspeaking world of the twentieth century will look back to these present days chiefly as the golden days of modern English poetry. Their engineers will be a degenerate offspring if they do not leave our greatest works far behind. But who shall say what their poets will be? Those of us who know anything of the history of English letters know that in the century succeeding the French Revolution poetry has flowered with a new life unmatched in volume and splendor, not only in our own tongue but in any other, since our own happier Revolution was accomplished a full century earlier. Not every one of those who know this has reflected on the exceptional and almost accidental character of golden ages in literature. They have generally been short, and, so far as one can judge, they are a delicate product of complex and precarious conditions. No criticism has yet explained why they should occur at all, or why, since they do occur, there should be so few of them. And how should we expect a full explanation? Can the gardener or the forester always tell us why this tree makes a vigorous shoot, and its neighbor,

our

66

planted in what seem the like soil and shelter, shows but a puny one? Perhaps there was something amiss with the plant. Perhaps there was a subtle difference of soil within a few square yards. Perhaps a stray donkey has been munching the leader." (Suspect us not of allegories, good critics of criticism and reviewers of reviews: we know as well as you do that the Quarterly Review did not kill Keats.) However, no tree is always growing its best, nor yet any literature. Golden ages are rare, so rare that English and French are the only modern languages which can count more than one of them beyond dispute. When we reckon up our poetical wealth of the past century, can we pass on to posterity the same sort of prophetic compliments that we use in matters of natural science and industry; or rather, can we do it with the same assurance that we are not speaking foolishness? There is no obvious reason why the twentieth century should produce better English or French poets than the nineteenth-or as good. France, indeed, may be content. Victor Hugo must long stand alone. would be a world of miracles if a successor were lightly found to the one modern poet who could look schylus and Dante in the face.

It

and

But our concern is with our own speech and our own poets. Let us think what gifts we have had in these last generations, what a company of singers were those whom our grandfathers saw heard. (It is true that many had no ears to hear; but they had the courage to say so.) Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley; Blake,* the morning star of their sun; Byron, a strong man whose force has been as strangely judged and misjudged as he strangely used and abused it; Keats, whose full power was never to be known; these were only the greatest.

Among

*The total omission of Blake from the Golden Treasury is one of the few grave blots on Mr. Palgrave's generally excellent discretion.

them, or close upon them, came others who in any other time would have taken an unquestioned place in the first rank. Such were Southey, an admirable man of letters and a laudable if not a great poet; Walter Scott, famous as a poet long before" Waverley" was heard of; Landor, whose distinction in verse is eclipsed by his own consummate mastery of prose; Henry Taylor, early wise beyond his years, and gerial to the last in the wisdom of his many days. Landor lived to receive the homage of Mr. Swinburne; it seems only the other day that Sir Henry Taylor, "twin-born with our nigh departing age,' received the last honors from the same hand. He leaves a living memory with inany who are still young. It was with these as with the mighty men of David, when it would be told of a man that he lifted up his spear against three hundred and slew them, and yet he attained not unto the first three. Campbell and Rogers passed for great men in their day, and were familiar to our fathers; but Campbell lives only by his patriotic lyrics, and Rogers can barely be said to live at all. As for Crabbe, it is a question, in spite of his undoubted merit, whether he will not be remembered for Fitzgerald's sake more than for his own. In a younger generation there was Matthew Arnold, whose prose will always be consulted by scholars, and whose verse is secure, unless we mistake, of a larger if not a longer renown. George Eliot, though not of those who are born poets, must not be forgotten.

Not the least sign of the greatness of the time is that Mrs. Browning's name stands only as one among equals. Last of all, her husband has followed her, so honored in his life and in his death, after long and strenuous patience, as few of our poets have been. If any one still doubts that Robert Browning's best work, diverse from that of all his peers, has its place lower than none, we shall not argue with him here. Dante Rossetti, painter and poet, was a splendid apparition coming as if from the air of some other planet. He set the Pharisees of art-criticism picking up stones to cast at him-which the shrewder sort, having thought better of it, kept in hand to build his sepulchre. We need hardly speak of the lesser versewriters who are gone. Some were content to aim at what they could achieve; soine aimed at greatness and failed.

Some, like Keble, have flourished by appealing to a large class of readers on grounds independent of their literary merit. Apart from such exceptional cases, most of them have become, or are fast becoming, little more than names.

"Many names and flames

Pass and flash and fall,
Night-begotten names,
And the night reclaims,
As she bare them, all."

One day some future editor of the Golden Treasury will have to pick out their gems; and a century hence, perhaps, the reader who lights on their occasional felicities will wonder that they remained minor poets.

Lord Tennyson is still with us. It would be as impertinent as ill-omened to say any word of one's own motion, save to wish that he may stay with us as lorg as possible. But he has himself spoken in words which, if words have any meaning, are in the nature of a solemn farewell. This, like other farewells of other illustrious persons of the same generation, may turn out to be premature. Let us hope it may be so, for in the work of Lord Tennyson's very latest period we find no abatement of his singular felicity, and gain rather than loss of strength. Meanwhile the question is almost forced upon us whether there is to be found among our younger poets any worthy successor to his crown. We assume that the laureateship, if preserved at all, must continue to be the titular symbol of a real and just poetical primacy; real in the sense of being in fact accepted by the republic of English letters, just in the sense of being confirmed by the weight of opinion among specially competent judges. The problem is a delicate one, and it might seem the readiest way to cut the knot by treating the laureateship as an idle thing, and its bestowal or abolition as a matter touching, perhaps, the dignity of the Crown, but not materially concerning English literature. Certainly, if there were no such office in being, we should not at this time of day be likely to make it. But the office is there, and it has been dignified by worthy holders for three generations. The Pyes and the Blackmores are too completely forgotten to cast any discredit upon it. Three such names Southey, Wordsworth, and Tennyson would have outweighed even a worse

as

able one.

past; and if the choice of the Crown continues to be so exercised as to represent the best judgment of the nation, no one can say that the post is not a truly honorGeneral assertions that it is inexpedient for the State to meddle with affairs of poetry and art will meet with the same amount of consideration in this case as all general objections urged by way of deduction from universal axioms of policy have commonly met with in this country, that is, next to none. Like other and greater British institutions, this one will be judged by results. An infelicitous appointment might gravely weaken it; an excellent one would secure it for a further term in general esteem, and (what is more) would maintain one of the many golden cords, not less real because not reducible to any measure of economic value, by which the English-speaking world is bound together. It may seem fanciful to connect the standing of our name and flag at the antipodes fifty or sixty years hence with the choice of Lord Tennyson's successor. Yet such things are often of wider significance than they appear to be. Nothing is to be deemed a trifle which has any bearing on the imperial and representative character of the English monarchy.

It is therefore not of merely academical interest to consider what are the qualifications of a Laureate, and whether any one besides Lord Tennyson at this moment possesses them in an eminent or sufficient degree. To begin with, he must be at British subject. For that reason we have not entered, and shall not enter, on the merits of living American poets. If there could be a Laureate of the United States, we have no doubt who it ought to be; but we shall not mention his name. Then the Laureate should be not only a poet of real distinction, but a scholar and a man of letters; and moreover his poetry should have a certain catholic extension. The poetry of any particular section or school, however intense in power within its limits, must yield to that which belongs to the world. We may explain our meaning by imaginary examples from the past. In default of Lord Tennyson, Sir Henry Taylor would have been a very possible Poet Laureate. Rossetti was a poet of far higher power, and yet one cannot well conceive him in the place. His lyric intensity was too remote from the common ground of English feeling. He was too

much out of sympathy with too many sides of the world to be a typical English poet. Not that this ground of exception would be decisive unless the competing merits were otherwise approximately on the same level. If we may for illustration's sake suppose Rogers and Rossetti to have been contemporaries, and further suppose that Rossetti could have been appreciated by the critics who applanded Rogers, much stronger reasons would have been required to cause Rogers to be preferred. Again, there may be good, or even great, poets who notoriously hold, as citizens, opinions making it impossible for them to accept with loyalty or self-respect the personal relation to the Crown which is involved in the office of Laureate. There are members of the Society of Friends who have seen as much of war as many soldiers, and have freely exposed themselves to all its dangers in works of humanity and charity, but who could not conscientiously bear the Queen's commission. Such things are to be regretted, but we have to reckon with them.

One of our foremost living poets appears to have wholly excluded himself, in the manner just mentioned, from the field of choice. Ten or twelve years ago we should have named Mr. William Morris as one of the two or three between whom the choice must finally be made. The poet of Jason, of the Earthly Paradise, and above all, of Sigurd the Volsung, would be a formidable competitor for any one save Lord Tennyson himself. But Mr. William Morris has renounced his calling. For several years he has given us no poem of universal interest. He has deprived us of a good poet, and given us in exchange a preacher of Socialist homilies, not even particularly good of their kind. His readings of Sagas, which he could once turn to such noble purpose, have now run to a kind of bastard archaistic prose, which may, for aught we know, be like the Icelandic of some period, but which is certainly not like any known English, ancient or modern. If we look at the matter purely in the interest of English letters, Mr. Morris must be pronounced, we fear, to have become a sad example of the general truth that the poet who takes to preaching is lost. Wordsworth nearly ruined himself by it; Victor Hugo brought himself into many perils with it; Lord Tennyson himself, for all