a subtle merit of its own? is neither witty nor ingenious; Or take another specimen, and, though a paradox may which will doubtless be hailed still dazzle the unaccustomed as a masterpiece of ingenuity, eye of the weary radical, it is "A good bush needs no wine.' time Mr Chesterton put away It is nonsense, but the proverb his damp squibs, which have a stands upon its head, and that trick of spluttering and not is enough for Mr Chesterton. going off. To make verbal paradoxes is a mechanical trick which a monkey might learn in a week. It is not worth learning, because a paradox ceases to be a paradox when it is expected. To construct a paradoxical argument requires a slightly higher intelligence. And in this enterprise also Mr Chesterton excels. He has read that Mr Kipling is a patriotic Englishman, that he is ready to serve his country at all hazards and on all fields. And so it follows naturally that Mr Chesterton should denounce him as a cosmopolitan. "Mr Kipling," says he, "is a philanderer of the nations." That there is not a single word in the works of Mr Kipling to justify this assertion does not matter to Mr Chesterton. He has got his effect, and that is all he wants. But the effect is not brilliant enough to excuse misrepresentation, and if he cannot understand Mr Kipling's writings it is quite easy for him to leave them alone. So, with this same mad desire to be original at all costs, Mr Chesterton belabours Omar Khayyam, on the ground that his "wine-bibbing is medicinal." Again he is chattering without his book; again he is stumbling on a clumsy error,-on an error, too, that He is a blunderer always, and he touches few subjects which he does not confuse. If we may gather any opinions from his book, we may take it that he disapproves of the present age, and especially of the present state of England. Thus he declares, after his dogmatic fashion, that there never was a time "when men untutored were less brave than to-day. It is not his habit to produce any proofs of the statements which he makes, and he declares his belief in the decay of courage merely because it chimes with his humour. An elementary study of history might assure him that mankind has changed very little with the passage of the centuries,-that cowards were cowards and brave men brave in ancient Athens as in medieval England, in the France of Louis XIV. as in the Germany of Frederick the Great. ever, hasty generalisations are as pleasant to his soul as forced paradoxes, and so he rattles on from false premisses to insecure conclusions, with the air of a man who has accomplished a noble and useful task. hundred years ago," says he, "our affairs for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. Now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men." Leaving How "A on one side the unsupported others, different in temperacharge of "muddling," we cannot but ask, Who were the rhetoricians of a hundred years ago? Was Pitt the younger a rhetorician, or Castlereagh, or Liverpool, or Bathurst? And so far from the rulers of today being "silent," it would be more accurate to say that at no time in the world's history has there been so much talk. The extension of the franchise has made public meetings inevitable. Orators on either side go to their constituents and chatter: they chatter in Parliament; they chatter in their clubs; and the real reason why the House of Commons begins to be a bore is, that the fashion of fluent speech set in the middle of the nineteenth century, and encouraged above all by Mr Gladstone, has been monstrously overdone. But what are facts to Mr Chesterton? He is quite ready to dismiss Pitt and Canning as sentimentalists, and to set back the age of rhetoric by a century. Then, with the same air of omniscience, he informs us that Englishmen boast of being "simple and direct." Do they? When was the boast made, and by whom? If Mr Chesterton had a little more modesty, or a little more patience, he would not thus carelessly sum up the peculiarities of this nation or that. Again, he tells us that the ideal of modern England is self-repression, and that the ideal is not English; but there are more ways than one of expressing emotions, and in this matter Englishmen are, as the ment and enthusiasm. As a sign of the prevailing repression Mr Chesterton deplores inappositely that men have ceased to kiss one another. "Sydney," says he, "would have thought nothing of kissing Spenser." We don't pretend to know who Sydney is, and perhaps Mr Chesterton has some knowledge of his relations with Spenser which is hidden from the rest of the world. But the conclusion of the argument is still more absurd than the beginning. "I willingly concede," he goes on, "that Mr Brodrick would not be likely to kiss Mr Arnold-Forster, if that be any proof of the increased manliness and military greatness of England.” We also would willingly concede that Mr Chesterton is not likely to kiss his publisher, and that Mr Cadbury refrains from the cheek of Mr Massingham. But we draw no inference from this "repression" as to the future of English literature and journalism. Mr Chesterton does not set a high value upon the amenities of life. Good taste, he says in his hearty, democratic way, "is the last and vilest of human superstitions.' He need not have been at pains to tell us this. what he cannot stand a gentleman. A gentleman rouses his anger to the highest pitch. He reminds us of a member of Parliament who once thanked God in the House of Commons that there wasn't a gentleman in his constituency. The member of But is Parliament happened to be a gentleman, and to have a sense of humour: he also offended the vast mass of his constituents. But Mr Chesterton's tirade is in no sense humorous; it is delivered with even more than his usual gravity; and he most improperly appeals for support to Charles Dickens, "the greatest of whose glories," says he, 66 was that he could not describe a gentleman." What that means we do not pretend to know. Even if a gentleman be a monster of iniquity, why is it glorious not to be able to describe him? Would it have proved some secret sympathy for the hated thing if the novelist had described him? The novelist did describe many a hypocrite and scoundrel. But perhaps Mr Chesterton believes that a gentleman is a worse thing than Fagin or Pecksniff, than Squeers or Uriah Heap. Or maybe, and this is more probable, he believes nothing at all, and is merely thumping his tub, in the hope that his antics will call the attention of the passer-by. Mr Chesterton is not important for himself. He is deplorable as the type of a class which delights in hazardous statements and futile generalisations. Whence he collects his information we do not know, unless it be from the columns of 'The Daily News.' For instance, he refers superfluously to the late W. E. Henley, whom he calls "that clever and unhappy man." Who told him that Henley was unhappy? Where did he pick up this piece of false gossip? From some column of inane tittle-tattle, or from the chatter of some foolish club? Those who are fortunate enough to have known Henley, recognise that he had a genius for happiness which nothing could daunt. However, Mr Chesterton is a specimen of the rising generation, and we must take him as we find him. The worst of him is that he knows not the gaiety of youth. His exuberant frivolity is but a mask which covers a portentous solemnity. He makes a great pretence at feeling the joy of life, yet it is clear that all the arts are distasteful to him, and that his proper place is the pulpit. And along with Mr Chesterton's 'Heretics' there comes to us from Paris a new quarterly entitled 'Vers et Prose,' which proves that in the French capital there are still left a few poets who esteem the practice of their art of greater importance than the inculcation of a trite morality. Now, the new quarterly is in one of its aspects a manifesto of the Symbolists- a school which came into being some twenty years ago, and acknowledged the mastership of Stéphane Mallarmé. During the twenty years since they first published their verses, and preached their doctrines in reviews, which the world refused to read, many things have happened in the world of French literature. School has succeeded school; heresy has faded into gospel; and now it seems as though the revolution were complete. The Naturistes, whose youthful leader, M. St Georges de Bonhélier, set out, like Mr Chesterton, to reform the world, is already forgotten, and the Intégralistes have followed him into the night of oblivion. Who, then, should take the lead? The Paris of the Poets is a loyal monarchy. It must bow the knee to a prince; it must acknowledge a peerage; and, as the new schools of the last five years have not proved their aristocracy, the Symbolists have once more assumed the sceptre in the teeth of a double opposition. On the one hand stands the old guard of pedantry, intent upon opposing all that is not in harmony with the ideas of the École Normale. On the other is the new band of poets, who prefer nature to art, and who, like Mr Chesterton, detect a kind of crime in any doctrine of æstheticism. But the Symbolists have not lost the courage of their convictions, and they are prepared once more by practice and theory to vindicate their position. They are still young, despite the passage of time, and if anything was needed to prove that they are in the great tradition of French literature, Vers et Prose' is here to prove it. There is no hint in its pages of eccentricity or affectation. All is dignified and mature. M. Moréas, already a classic, shows in his" Prologue d'Ajax" that he has not studied the masters in vain, and we can only hope that he will some day give us a version of the whole play. Here, also, are the verses of MM. de Régnier and Verhaeren, who have no other preoccupation than to be poets, and who long ago proved their right to wear the bays. And here are a few pages of exquisite prose, the last that we shall ever read from the hand of Marcel Schwob, as beautiful in form and ingenious in thought as all that he wrote. But especially we value 'Vers et Prose' because it once more vindicates the right of literature to exist for its own sake, and to look for no other end than its own beauty. In England such a quarterly would be impossible, because Englishmen are too eager to find a hint of politics or doctrine in imaginative literature. Nor can we on this side the Channel fight for a theory of style, or champion a purely intellectual cause. But the poets of Paris are valiant and single-minded. "A zealot of Socialism," says M. Moréas, "or a fanatic of any party whatever, might well compose a beautiful poem. It is not impossible. The poetic genius of Lucretius showed itself through what Ronsard called the frenzies of sects. But Virgil is better, who listened only to the Muses." That is the true spirit of poetry. And as we look out from our stern, practical London we cannot but envy the good fortune of Paris, which, as Oxford is the home of lost causes, is still the home of living and striving schools. EDUCATION? FOR the second time Mr Balfour's Government has introduced a Scotch Education Bill, and for the second time all men speak well of the measure. It would be a reflection on the capacity of the House of Commons to be of practical use to the country were the Bill again to appear in the list of "slaughtered innocents." Yet such seems likely to be its fate. There is no serious opposition to the measure. It will, of course, increase the sums that the ratepayers have to disburse, and that in two ways: First, because it creates new bodies who, judging by past experience, will consider that they must justify their existence by increased expenditure; and second, because it takes money which has been used by town or county councils to relieve the rates generally, and has earmarked it for education only. Economists will have something to say, therefore, but as no new principle is involved their opposition is not likely to be dangerous. The Radicals, however, in their endeavour to deprive a Unionist Government of the credit of passing a measure which satisfies Scottish educational authorities, to say the least of it, are trying to tack on to the measure clauses which would enable, if not compel, the school boards to feed the children at the expense of the ratepayers. These new "free fooders" desire to wreck the Bill; for however much the personnel of the Government may have been leavened by the advent of Liberal Unionists, the party is still in the main composed of Conservatives whose Socialism is not of the kind which would destroy the family, and the free food proposals will not be accepted by the Government. Sir John Gorst claims that the children of the state must be protected by the state-from their parents! Grant his claim if you will. The state does interfere where parents are cruel, the principle is not in question. But that does not prove that Sir John Gorst's method is the best. To diminish parental responsibility is not the way to make better parents. If children are sent to school hungry, it is not the hard-working ratepayer who should be punished, but the parent. The tendency of sentimental legislation is not to compel people to fulfil their own duties and responsibilities, but to put these responsibilities on the shoulders of somebody else a paid official for choice. The abolition of child insurance would do more to improve the physique of the children of the lowest class than will further interference with the natural law by which even the beasts are governed-that creatures shall provide for their own young. The Radical bid, supported as it will be by the member for Cambridge University, whom some consider an educational |