REVIEW.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5504, 16 November 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

REVIEW.

The Nineteenth Century. September, 1878. 'i'he '• Nineteenth Ceutury" may now be considered the first of our monthlies. Now andagaia the " Fortnightly" runs it very hard. The same may be said of. its closet-rival the " Contemporary." But on the whole, having regard to fitness, diversity, and ability, the palm most be given to tho " Nineteenth." Doubtless the name and fame of the editor— Mr. KDOwles—have had a good deal to do with this manifest and continued support. Hi* long connection with the " Contemporary" ha? given him the immense advantage of knowing where to find his ablest contributors. His difficulty no* is not tho obtaining but tho selection of his papers. He has more offered than he can aocept. By a printed slip in the present (September) number tho editor acknowledges the receipt of many MS3., with tho writers of which he regrets'that it is not in his pow«r to correspond individually. In tb-i present number there are no fewer than twelve articles, the plane of honor beins; given to a papar on " Tlio Foreign Policy of Great Britaio," which is from the able and eloquent pen of Mr. W. R. Gregg. All rewlera of Mr. Gregg will expect severe s : mplicity combined with solid strength. In this, as in former articles, ho impresses iw with his keen penetration and logical power. His theme is the opposite and hostile schools of foreign policy prevalent in England. Theso are based on quite distinct principles, breathe a different temper, and aim at irreconcilable results. They may be distinguished as the imperial and the parochul: the axiom of the one being intervention, with, in some caw, its consequent annexation; the axiom of tho other being non-intervention, with its equally inevitable isolation. An Imperial policy was forced upon us in the wars which were closed by the peace of 1815. Ileaction came, aud from 1830 to 1875 the new ideas of peace, reform, aud retrenchment got their innings. '• The spirit of the policy ha* now come uppermost ortoo more." In a masterly way tho writer cuuV.w and justifies this wider, nobler lino of action. Our police must bo Imperial in its character and range bo long as the Empire is a* large and diversified as it is. Those who wish England's policy to be parochial, and her Government a vestry, must surely first restrict her territories to the dimensions of a homo estate. But while Mr. Gregg i-ees so cleirly and holds s<> firmly the wisdom of pursuing an Imperial policy, ho nevertheless shrinks from the late particular application of it. He is not ho sura that it, bin beeu altogether wise for Kngland b» assume the protectorate »f Asiatics Turkey. Ho fears. .that it will commit Ungland to fur more than she will be prepared to meet. "Could,' ho asks in conclusion, "tho opponents of an Imperial policy by possibility point to a complication of occurrences so aptly illustrative of every objection they have set forth j" There arc threo othor political articles, two of thorn nearly covering the same ground as that traversed by Mr. Gregg. First in merit, though last in order, comes Mr. Gladstone's paper on " England's Mission." Each of tho parties already indicated by Mr. Gregg believes that England baa a work and mission In tho

world. The aim of the one is homo improvement and the extension of those great principles of libeity aud self-reliance which have made Kngland what she is today. Britain ought to be able to do this without burdening herself with new and questionable responsibilities by territorial acquisition. Sue has more than she can properly manage now. '* We have undertaken in the matter of government far more than ever in the history ot tho world has been previously attempted by the children of men. None of the great continuous empires of ancient or modern times ever grappled with such a task. The nearest approach to our case was perhaps that of the Macedonian coui|U»rur, to whose organising power posterity has not alwaye done justice." Mr. Gladstone is accordingly very angry with the " materialists of politics, whose faith is in acres and in leagues, in sounding titles and long lists of territories ; whose eyes travel with satisfaction over the wide space covered by the huge ice-bound deserts of North America, or the unpenetrated wastss of Australasia, but which rest with mortification on the narrow bounds of latitude and longitude marked out by nature for the United Kingdom." Allowing for some natural irritation at the splendid —perhaps temporary —success of the Imperialists, the ex-Premier's words certainly raise an auxions feeling as to our increased responsibilities. Nearly three hundred mil lions of the human race are now under our direct control ; but, so far, has not that control been on the whole beneficial ? Aud may we not reasonably hope that through the sagacity and integrity of present and future statesmen Englaud will go on fulfilling her mission with credit to herself and with advantage to the world ?

Passing over Mr. Duff'spaperonthe "Echoes or the late Debate," wliioh js remarkable ouly for his ingenious comparison between the Athenian and the British democracy, aud Mr. Dioey'a paper on Nubar Pasha and our Asian Protectorate, in which a very hopeful view is taken of our work in the East, we come to Mr. Ralston's capital essay on Henri Greville's sketches of Russian lifo. Heuri Greville, like George Sand and onr own George Eliot, is a woman, and at the present time tho best woman novelist of France. Sheisreally Mdmo.Durand, the daughter of one French professor at St. Petersburg, and now the wife of another. When Madame Durand first tried her fortune with a well-known Freuch review, she was repulsed. The novel, when presented by her husband, was not only refused, but the editor added, " Never, never, will newspaper or review accept any of your wife's writings: if ever she obtains tho slightest success in Paris, come aud toll me I was mistaken." The editor was mistaken. In less than two years this adverse verdict was decisively and completely reversed by the novel-reading public of Paris. In the year 1876 Bix novels (which had been written long before) were published, >and met with full success. Last year four more appeared with a similar result. Enough of this new writer's work is now before the world for a true judgment to be formed of her powers in the field which she ha 3 chosen for herself. Her best novels are all concerned with Russian life, of which she has a real aud ■intimate knowledge. Mr. Kalston—himself the best informed man as to Kussiau life and thought—says that though Henri Greville has not the weird force and strength of Toiirgueneff, yet she has far more energy and reality tliau many of the best novelists of the day. Though she has-not the crowning gifts which are necessary to place her in the first rank of novelists, she has qualities which mike her easily first in tho second. "Noforeign author has ever before drawn so generally correct a series of Russian female portraits ; no one has made so cleir to foreign eyes the inner life of Russian homes." With what artistic skill and delicacy these picture* have been drawn and colored, all readers of Henri Greville's works will be able to judge and see for themselves. Professor W. Knight has a very thoughtful and liberal paper on" " Ethical Philosophy and Evolution." Ho thinks that the philosopher and the theologian alike may give a welcome to the doctrine of development so far as it is proved and is provable. " Theism has nothing to fear, but much to gain, from a scientific doctrine of evolution. Behind the proof of the development of life lies the question of its origin and its evolver ; and so long as evolution cannot give a material answer to the question— Whence came the force that gave to matter its first impulse towards the development of organic life, it is powerless to suggest, far less to establish, auy atheistic doctrine. On the other hand, the evolutions of orgauic life is the grandest conceivable illustration of the working of the divine agency, noLdetached from, but inseparably up-bound with tin life of the universe. Those who explain the preseut cosmical order and all the varieties of existing orgauisati m by development, virtually see in it the disclosure or reve'■■ti >u of soveral divine attributes, while they affirm that their

Faith is lar?e in time And that which shapes it to a perfect end.

!'!ra< the truth of the principle of evolution, is showing the procession and unfolding of material forms, may be conceded without any peril to the truth either of philos iphy or of theology. The fact that the mental and moral consciousuess of the race have grown or have been expanded from much lower and disimilar states must be as frankly conceded as the rise •>nd development of material organisation is conceded by all competeut thinkers. The facts which prove and exemplify this process of growth form a most interesting chapter in the history of human civilisation. One of the most interesting papers is that by Sir Walter Midhnrst on " The Chinese as Emigrants" Sir Walter thinks, and writes far more favorably of these übiquitous people than we or tho Americans are accustomed to do. We must not, ho says, judge of the people at large by the usual specimens. On this principle we ourselves would often cut a sorry figure. "Ifclannishness,patriotism,persistence in habits and ideas to which one has been brought up, frugality, tho desire to acquire money in order to lay it out at home, and a settled determination to lay one's bones on native soil, can be characterised as crimes or objectionable traits, then many are the Englishmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, and Americans who cannot afford to throw stones at that "heathen Chinee." Tho writer thinks the Chinese incapable of exercisiug the elective franchise. Wherever they are they should be dealt with as a subject people. The Dutch plan of appointing Chinese magistrates to settle their own affairs, and eommunicate with the authorities, which is adopted in Java, might, .the writer thinks, he well adopted everywhere.

Mr. Malleck's, " A Familiar Coloquy on Recent Art," which appeared in the Augmt number of the magazine, comes in for dignified rebuke from tho Eav. R. S. J. Tyrwhit.t, who thinks the paper reckless, crude, and ill-'cmsidered in its adverse criticisms. There is. a want of accurate knowledge, and still more a want of becoming reserve all through Mr. Mai look's contribution. Mr. 'JJyrwhitt is a faithful follower of John Buskin, and like his master, has a lofty conception of the oflice and tho influeuco of the true art critic. The following sentences will convey some idea of the style and the drift of the article, which could well have been much longer than it is :—" The intellectual rough of tho colloquy be ins by saying he is not interested in technical excellence as such, and goe3 on to compare it to good bricklaying, as, for example, that of a gin-shop. This is rather insolent, and in fact just the right way to shut up an anathematised artist. But it involves the assertion that painting has no more intellect in it than bricklayiug, and if that be the case, the painter ought not to be attacked about int -llect and morals. But tho truth is, as all art-students know, that their skill ami moral heolth are very closely related. The act of painting affects the moral character of tho painter aud the picture."

"Kecent Literature" is not quite tme to its title, for it deals only with 'J'eunyson as a dramatist. Professor Morley makes out a good case for " Harold" and " Queen Mary." " The former is a complete tragedy, aud needs only proper actors to secure success upon tho stage." The latter his been tried at the Lyceum, but not in such a way as to give it a fair chance of success. Many passages in it are iuteusely dramatic. " One character is common to both, they are intensely Unglish, and each takes its story from a period in our history in which the heat of contending interests and passions went to the shaping of a mighty change. One has for its theme the Norman C'inq lest, the event which helped to form tho future of tho English people ; and tho other Bhowg tho years of fiery trial th it produced the reformation of the SOnglisli Church. Each play therefore has greatness in its theme. In each' thore is clear unity of purpose, with r ira skill in reproducing the diversity of interests and passions out of whoso wildly contending forces come at last a settled and quiet strength. In each play also the characters are manly, but there is not one without distinctive features, and tho jnoro important are developod into natural proportions, with firm outline and variety of light and shade. Tho charm of style, tho sense of literature in tho: whole texture of thought, is, of course, inseparable from

a true poet's work, and could not be wanting in either of the plays before us" What more could be said of some of the plays of Shakspere ?