SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1881. No. 488, New Series. THE EDITOR cannot undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscript. It is particularly requested that all business letters regarding the supply of the paper, &c., may be addressed to the PUBLISHER, and not to the EDITOR. LITERATURE. Seventy Sonnets of Camoens. Portuguese Text and Translation. With Original Poems. By J. J. Aubertin. (C. Kegan Paul & Co.) THE language and literature of Portugal are but little known, and even less appreciated, in England. Portuguese is popularly denied an independent existence, and is regarded as a mere patois, or dialect-a corrupt form of Spanish; while Archbishop Trench speaks of "that noble Castilian language, not eviscerated like the Portuguese," and Sismondi ventures to assert that "the reign of the Portuguese language is about to terminate in Europe"! Even fairly educated Englishmen know nothing of its literature, or have only some faint impression of Camões and the Lusiads. Of course there are exceptions, for commercial men find the language useful, if not essential, in their relations with Portugal, Brazil, the Portuguese colonies in Africa, and the old viceroyalty of Goa; and in the Life of Lord Clive it is said to have been his only medium of communication with the native princes. A few of our writers, it is true, have given us translations of the great epic, and of some of the sonnets; but still, the rich field of Lusitanian literature, with its infinite variety, is almost an unknown land to the majority of English students. Some words of explanation may therefore be of interest previously to discussing the merits of the volume before us. Portuguese is one of the daughters of Latin, a sister of Spanish, but no more a corruption than is Italian. With the Roman stock, words from Greek, Celtic, and Gothic have been incorporated; and in the eighth century the Moors, or rather the Arabs, introduced many Oriental terms and idioms. Maritime discovery and commerce enriched the language more than three centuries ago, and our own times have Inade large additions from other tongues, especially from French. Still, the basis is unquestionably Latin; and therefore the classical scholar will find a few months' study of a good grammar, under a competent tutor, sufficient to give him a fair knowledge of this interesting branch of the European family. Many words are nearer the Roman original than their equivalents in Spanish or Italian, some being positively identical, as sol, terra, hora, lingua, altar, &c.; while others undergo a very slight change, most Latin ablatives becoming Portuguese nominatives, as gente, anno, &c. The verbs, too, are highly deserving of the philologist's attention, being distinguished by a declined infinitive and numerous subtle tenses. The Quillinan, 1853; Mitchell, 1854; Musgrave, 1856; Mickle's by Hodges, 1877; an able one in Spenserian verse by R. F. Duff, 1880; and The Lusiads of Camoens, Portuguese text with translation, by J. J. Aubertin, in two volumes, unquestionably the best of the The first and second Portuguese editions were published in small quarto in 1572 (one I have seen in the British Museum); the last (now before me), on June 10, 1880 (the Tercentenary), of which 30,000 copies were distributed. "Camoniana" is a word in common use in Portugal to designate a collection of editions and commentaries. One was formed by the late Mr. Norton, of Oporto, in 116 volumes; but the most extensive is in the library of Rio Janeiro, of 233 works in 446 volumes. The Manual Bibliographico Portuguez, by Mattos and Castello Branco (1878), devotes thirty pages to Camões, his editors, commentators, and translators. Another most valuable book is the Bibliographia Camoniana, by Theophilo Braga, published at Lisbon (1880) to commemorate the Tercentenary-chap. i. giving a list of all the editions; ii., catalogue of commentaries, criticisms, studies, and poems in Portugal relating to Camões; iii., titles of translations of the Lusiads into modern languages; while iv. refers to monographs and foreign literary fragments. pleasing fluency and harmonious softness of Portuguese, when well spoken, are not more injured by the nasal sound than Spanish is by the guttural; though both characteristics are offensive in the pronunciation of the vulgar. Portuguese literature flourished in the twelfth century, much earlier than the neigh-series. bouring Castilian, if the popular songs of Hermiguez and Moniz may be regarded as specimens. King Diniz, in the thirteenth century, was (like the present king) not only a patron of poets, but a poet himself. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a rapid development by Ribeyro, Falcão, Saa de Miranda, Gil Vicente, Ferreira, and others, culminating in Camões. Other writers of the sixteenth century were Vasconcellos, de Castro, Soropita, Lobo, Sotomayor, Barros ("the Portuguese Livy"), Rebello, Caminha, Bernardes, Cortereal, and many others, forming a brilliant and unbroken chain, of which it must not be imagined that we have reached the last link. There are at least thirty names of authors still living, or recently dead, whose works will bear comparison with those of any other European nation-such as Garrett, Herculano, Castillo, Passos, Leal, Chagas, Castello Branco, Coelho, &c. Of Herculano it may be said that he is the most philosophical poet, the most conscientious historian, the most profound thinker, that Portugal has possessed in this century-a writer whose style combines the beauties of Gibbon, Scott, and Macaulay, and yet whose very name has not reached the majority of English scholars, though he died but in 1877. It does not even appear in Sismondi's work in "Bohn's Library" now before me, professedly brought down to the year of his death; in fact, of the thirty or forty eminent writers of the last half-century, not one is mentioned in a volume devoted to the history of Portuguese literature. After this hurried introduction, rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case, we turn to our great poet. The immortal Camões ("Camoens" is old-fashioned) was born at Lisbon in 1524 or 1525 of a noble family, and educated at Coimbra. In 1553 he sailed for India; he composed his great poem at Macao and on the voyage; and, after a life of poverty, died in a hospital in 1579 or 1580, about fifty-five years of age. He was born at the height of Portuguese power, and he lived to witness its decline. The contemporaries of his early life were Charles V., Wolsey, Luther, Loyola; and, later, Queen Elizabeth. Shakspere was fifteen, Bacon eighteen, and Spenser twenty-six at the time. of Camões's death. Tasso was then thirtyfive; but his Jerusalem Delivered was not published till 1580. Os Lusíadas-i.e., The Lusiads or Lusitanians-is the title of the great work of Camões, the first modern who succeeded in producing a serious epic poem, but one not to be judged by the Homeric standard. this wonderful national epopoeia translations have appeared in many languages-four in Spanish, six in Italian, eight in French, a splendid one at Paris, in folio, by Botelho, in 1817; even in German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Danish, Swedish, &c. Our English versions are those by Fanshawe, 1656; Mickle, 1776; Camões was not the author of the Lusiads only, but of three dramas, seventeen canções (songs), twelve odes, twenty-one elegies, many eclogues, sextinas, estancias, redondilhas, and, above all, 362 sonnets (this is the number in the recently published collection of the Visconde de Juromenha) in imitation of Petrarch's. To these, as translated by Aubertin, we now ask the attention of the reader. The trite observation, that everything suffers by translation, seems, for once at least, not to hold good; for Mr. Aubertin has fulfilled in the most remarkable manner a task of no ordinary difficulty. A perfect translation demands an exact rendering, not simply of the language, but of the spirit of the original; and this, too, in a form as closely as possible resembling that of the author's composition. A careful comparison of any one of these seventy sonnets in Portuguese with the English version on the opposite page ought to satisfy anyone possessing a knowledge of both languages that nothing could be more felicitous than Mr. Aubertin's execution of this labour of love. A single illustration from sonnet xiii. will justify these remarks :— "N'hum jardim adornado de verdura, Que esmaltarvam por cima várias flôres, Entrou hum dia a deosa dos amores, Com a deosa da caça e da espessura.' "Into a garden all adorned with green, Whereof bright flowers bedecked the enamelled face, The goddess fair of Love to come was seen, Linked with the goddess of the wood and chase." Our translator has, as we have already stated, set himself the extremely difficult task, in English, of following the order of the rhymes in the Portuguese sonnet. No one familiar with the facilities for rhyming in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian will consider it very hard to produce an imitation of the famous sonnets of Petrarch in these three languages, at least so far as the music of the words is concerned. But in English, despite the aid of the rhyming dictionary to which Byron was indebted, there is no such ease, from the very nature of our speech, in securing that wealth of rhyme which the three daughters of the Latin tongue so liberally afford. Yet, in this most arduous part of his work Mr. Aubertin is marvellously successful, as will be abundantly proved by quoting a complete sonnet (xviii.), with the translation, which may be a fitting conclusion to our notice of this most interesting volume:"Doces lembranças da passada gloria, Que me tiron Fortuna roubadora, Deste passado bem, que nunca fôra ; De quem sempre devêra ser lembrado, Grant me to call one hour of peace mine own, For conquest over me is small to gain. My soul large story doth impressed retain Of this past good which never should have shone, Or, having shone, ne'er fled; but, being flown, Naught but my recollections can remain. I live in memories; being forgotten die, By her whose memory should have held me fast, Had she those pleasing hours remembered still. Oh! that a new life were my destiny, Well had I known to enjoy the good that's past, Had I but known to test the present ill." ALEXANDER J. D. D'ORSEY. Ecclesiastes; or, The Preacher. With Notes and Introduction. By E. H. Plumptre, D.D. "The Cambridge Bible for Schools." (Cambridge University Press.) No one can say that the Old Testament is a dull or worn-out subject after reading this singularly attractive and also instructive commentary. Its wealth of literary and historical illustration surpasses anything to which we can point in English exegesis of the Old Testament; indeed, even Delitzsch, whose pride it is to leave no source of illustration unexplored, is far inferior on this head to Dr. Plumptre. Both Introduction and commentary well deserve to be attached to a better translation than that of the Authorised Version. For schools, it may be desirable to keep up the custom of reading the Old Testament in the version of 1611; but Dr. Plumptre's work offers very much more than can be expected or utilised by ordinary schoolboys. Moral, religious, and even literary culture are equally provided for in this truly comprehensive work; and an Appendix presents us with a comparison of the anonymous Debater (so Dr. Plumptre interprets Kobeleth) with Shakspere, Tennyson, and Omar Khayyám, the second of whom, in the Vision of Sin, the Palace of Art, and the Two Voices, presents "the most suggestive of all commentaries on Ecclesiastes." It is therefore much to be wished that the title of the series in which this work appears may not repel the cultivated lay-reader with whose tastes and requirements the author is so intimately acquainted. I cannot, indeed, agree with Dr. Plumptre in his high estimate of the Book of Ecclesiastes; much less with M. Renan in L'Antéchrist (quoted by our author) when he styles it "livre charmant, le seul livre aimable qui ait été composé par un juif" (I think it would not be difficult to show that M. Renan's extravagant eulogy was the expression of a pessimistic mood from which he afterwards emerged). Powerful and interesting Ecclesiastes certainly is, but it is neither charming nor loveable. For the time when it was written, it is worthy of high respect. But its despairing spirit, and the crudeness and, above all, the tenuity of its thought, place it far below the book which, I think, most nearly resembles it in the circumstances of its composition-the Meditations of M. Aurelius. It can never become a household friend, an ethical classic. Its chief attraction is, perhaps, its enigmatical character. "It has become almost a proverb," says Dr. Plumptre, "that every interpreter of this book thinks that all previous interpreters have been wrong." I think, indeed, that the author does not convey to the young student a very accurate impression of the real state of opinion. Even to mention the theory that Soloconcession to theological prejudice; and how mon was the author is almost an unnecessary can Dean Milman be an authority on a point of Old Testament criticism? Still, the book is enigmatical, and that from two causesat which it was written; and, next, that there first, that we do not know the precise period is great reason to doubt whether we possess the book in the form in which it was left by its author. As long as scholars are inconsistent enough to grant that the historical books have grown, but to deny that the same process of development is traceable in the other books, there will always be this astonishing diversity in the interpretations of critics. But Dr. Plumptre sets a good example by denying that the epilogue (xii. 9-14) is of the same date as the body of the work, and he has really contributed to make the Book of Ecclesiastes less of a riddle to English readers by assigning it to a definite period. If his theory (which is that of Mr. Thomas Tyler) could only be proved, it would fill up a lacuna not only in the history of Jewish thought, but in that of Greek philosophy. He thinks, in short, that there are in the book traces not to be mistaken of the influence of Stoicism and Epicureanism. This is not, a priori, inconceivable. Stoicism at a somewhat later day exercised a strong fascination on some of the noblest Jews. Philo, the Book of Wisdom, and the socalled Fourth Book of Maccabees abound with allusions to it; and there is a suspicion of the same in the earliest Jewish Sibyl (about 140 B.C.) and in the Targum of Onkelos. Epicureanism, too, must have had considerable influence on some minds, as appears from the aversion which it inspired in the religious teachers-"Epicurean" being, in Rabbianic, a synonym for infidel, or even atheist. The points of contact, however, which Mr. Tyler supposes with Epicureanism are by no means striking. True, "Ecclesiastes," somewhat like the Epicureans, denies any distinction between man and the animals, so far as regards a future life at all worthy of the name, but in so doing he does but carry on the tradition of Jewish conservatism (comp. Job xiv.); and the recommendation of årapagía (to use the Epicurean term), coupled with sensual enjoyment (v. 18-20), is only too natural in one so completely shut off from all fruitful activity. The argument for there being points of contact with Stoicism is of more importance, though, even granting their existence, there will still be the question whether these points are not rather of Western than of Eastern origin. I leave this question, however, only remarking that the date assigned by Dr. Plumptre (viz., somewhere between B.C. 240, the year of the death of Zeno, and B.c. 181, that of the death of Ptolemy Epiphanes) seems to me, although unproved, not in itself altogether improbable. Ecclesiastes is thoroughly un-Judaic, especially when its (probable) later additions have been removed; its sceptical and pessimistic tone is anything rather than characteristic of the most optimistic (Schopenhauer) and the most believing of races. One must at any rate admit that the remark on "making many books," and the caution against reading them in the Epilogue (xii. 12) is most easily explained as a reference to a Greek or Grecising philosophical literature. Dr. Plumptre's Ideal Biography of the author of Ecclesiastes is a most able work. I cannot accept his view of the "three voices" heard in strange alternation, but literary power with which the view of the heartily admire the skill, sympathy, and autobiographical character of Ecclesiastes is worked out. T. K. CHEyne. Eugene Onéguine. By Alexander Pushkin. Translated from the Russian by Lieut.-Col. Spalding. (Macmillan.) Ir is strange that no one before Col. Spalding should have introduced to English readers "the chief poetical work of Russia's greatest poet," especially as it is one which is specially suited for their appreciation. A novelette in verse, told in an easy and graphic style, and interspersed with reflections on men and manners, containing bright pictures of scenery sufficiently foreign to be strange and not strange enough to be unfamiliar, always alive and various as life itself, this poem of the Russian Byron would have been sure of a welcome in England at any time since it was written, even if it had not found quite so skilful a translator and versifier as Col. Spalding. From beginning to end of this clever and delightful story Pushkin never loses an opportunity of showing his admiration for Byron; and it is clear that from him alone, and from Don Juan in particular, he has caught all the charming tricks of nonchalance, the easy turn from grave to gay, the use of wit to brighten cynicism, and the value of cynicism to sharpen wit. He is not, however, a thoroughgoing cynic, but still believes, if against experience, in the nobleness of human nature-even in women. In this respect he is unlike Byron; and Eugene Onéguine has this additional attraction for English readers, that it shows that Byron's influence upon one of his most distinguished contemporaries was almost wholly beneficial, mobilising his poetic faculty to an extent otherwise impossible, without infecting him with any of those specially Byronic maladies which, painful enough in Byron himself, are unbearable in his imitators. But Byron is not the only great English writer of whom we are reminded in reading Eugene Onéguine; and we do not think that we could say anything about this volume which would be a stronger assertion of its originality than that it recals George Eliot as much, if not more, than Byron. It is difficult to imagine a heroine more after George Eliot's heart than Tattiana, the shy and beautiful maid, the "child devoid of childishness," whose young life was all in "contemplativeness" and "imagination," who loved terrible tales in the dark, and, when she grew older, fed her soul upon romances, till, when she sees Onéguine, she feels her hour has come, her hero arrived, and, "trusting the ideal she wrought," pens him "an inconsiderate scroll, wherein love innocently pines." Onéguine, the blasé libertine, whose attitude towards the sex is thus described: "Though beauty he no more adored, He still made love in a queer way; is no less a study which would have pleased George Eliot. Touched by her innocence and trust, he behaves like a gentleman, shows her what a bad husband he would be, and gives her sensible advice as to her conduct. His idle flirtation at a ball with her sister Olga produces a challenge from the young poet Lenski, Olga's lover and his own friend. The man, full of hope and love and noble purpose, who has been injured and seeks revenge is killed by the man tired of existence, who feels himself in the wrong. With Lenski's death perishes any hope that remained to Tattiana; but years afterwards, when she has married an old Prince, Onéguine conceives for her a violent passion, and now the tables are turned. Tattiana, true to herself, does not conceal that she still loves him; true to her husband, rejects his suit with scorn. So here in this book we have love and fury all in the wrong place; young affections running to waste; noble aspirations leading to nothing; iron duty and convention cramping everything in their moulds; all the pretty designs of Nature smudged by the hand of Fate, just as George Eliot might have shown us years afterwards. The intellectual care bestowed upon the scenery and accessories of the stage upon which his actors play, and the graphic pictures of country life and character, are equally modern and equally suggestive of George Eliot. Pushkin's genius seems to have been one which naturally assimilated all that was best in his reading and experience. From his own country he drew his characters and scenery, which derive therefrom a natural power, not to be gained from purely imaginative creation; from England he learnt freedom and skill in the use of his poetic faculty, and probably from the French his art in telling his story. In this respect, as pointed out by Col. Spalding, he was far the superior of Byron. Of his lyrical faculty the present volume gives but two specimens-one a translation in French, and the other in English. The first is "Mon Portrait," at the age of fifteen, which fitly prefaces the book. Of this charmingly bright and frank miniature we can only quote the last verse: "Vrai démon, par l'espiéglerie, Beaucoup et trop d'étourderie- up the volume before us, four, he frankly admits, were not written by Wyclif, although they breathe his spirit and his teaching; while the authorship of ten more is, to say the least, open to question. In one respect this volume is of value as enabling us still more clearly to understand how bitter must have been the enmity which Wyclif evoked towards the close of his career. His English tracts were certainly all penned in the last five or six years of his life; and, as specimens of unmeasured invective, beneath which our fourteenth-century English Of the latter we must find space for the at times gives signs of almost breaking down, whole : It "THE MAIDENS' SONG. may be true of Pushkin as of Byron that he loses less than most poets by translation; but certainly, if this has lost much, the original must be very captivating. For the literalness of the translation as a whole we are willing to take Col. Spalding's word; as to its spirit and beauty, none but himself can have any doubt. COSMO MONKHOUSE. The English Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted. Edited by F. D. Matthew. (Early-English Text Society.) THE valuable edition of Wyclif's English Works published at the Clarendon Press some ten years ago was an important contribution to our knowledge of the great Reformer; and the present volume, although issuing from a different quarter, may be regarded as supplementary to Mr. Thomas Arnold's labours. The reasons which led him to omit the treatises here contained from his collection were various. With respect to more than one he had not been able to arrive at a definite conclusion. The discourse on Faith, Hope, and Charity appeared to him a remarkably dull composition, containing "not a single new idea." As regarded the Tractatus de pseudo Freris, he had been unable to find any evidence that served to throw light on its date and authorship. It is certainly easy to understand that, after editing so much fierce vituperation against corporate bodies which have long ago ceased to trouble Englishmen, Mr. Arnold should have become somewhat weary of his task, and preferred to leave what was of doubtful authenticity unprinted rather than inflict on his readers, vexatos toties, further proofs of the friars' and priests' demerits or of Wyclif's power to castigate them. Mr. Matthew, coming fresh to the task, inclines in the opposite direction. Out of the twenty-eight pieces which make But they are unrivalled. To the well beneficed priors and pluralists of his day, the Rector of Lutterworth must, we cannot but think, have appeared one of the most abusive old gentlemen they had ever known. A certain energy in attack is, doubtless, essential in a reformer of Wyclif's stamp. A little strong language and even some exaggeration are necessary to bring home facts to the average order of intelligence. Wyclif went a little too far; and it is probable that his want of self-restraint, which, as Mr. Matthew takes occasion to note, he himself recognised as his besetting sin, did much to weaken his legitimate influence. With the exception of Knighton's honest admission of his unrivalled ability as a schoolman, we cannot recal a single favourable tribute to his character or services in contemporary writers. When we find him (p. 352) denouncing the friars as heretics because they differed from him in their scholastic interpretation of the doctrine of the Eucharist, it is difficult not to surmise that this unscrupulous denunciation may have had something to do with the statute de Haeretico comburendo and the fate of Sautree. Nor are we altogether re-assured by the somewhat subtle distinction which he proceeds to draw between loving the sinner and hating the sin. It is well known that the Spanish inquisitor, when he sent his victim to the stake, always professed himself actuated by the most affectionate concern for his spiritual welfare. Students of this period of our history will be thankful to Mr. Matthew for his clear and concise Introduction, in which he touches on the main points of interest upon which recent research has thrown additional light. The Chronicon Angliae, by a monk of St. Albans, which Mr. Thompson edited for the Rolls series, is a later publication than any work of much importance relating to Wyclif, and of this Mr. Matthew has not failed to make use. On some points it offers material corrections of Walsingham; and there can be no doubt that, had Prof. Shirley lived to see its publication, he would have reconsidered his decision with respect to the question (now finally set at rest) of Wyclif's tenure of the wardenship of Canterbury Hall at Oxford. There are two other questions in relation to which Mr. Matthew gives us some useful criticism. The first relates to Wyclif's summons to Rome; and here he is at issue with Dr. Lechler. He admits, indeed, that the document printed in the Fasciculi Zizaniorum (341) is not a letter to the Pope; but he argues, very forcibly, that it proves that Netter of Walden believed that Wyclif had received a summons, and that the document 66 itself is designed as a justification of disobedience to the Pope's mandate, written for circulation in England." The second question, one of considerable importance, is that as to the actual duration of Wyclif's controversy with the Mendicants. If it did not commence before 1381, as Dr. Lechler contends, the whole series of the English Tracts was written within the brief period of three years-a supposition which, in itself improbable, is rendered still more so by Wyclif's advanced age. Mr. Matthew, however, advances good reasons for a different conclusion. The tract de Officio Pastorali, he points out, contains heavy censure of the friars, while the internal evidence (pp. 40557) proves it to have been written not later than 1378. "When and how," he observes, "his earlier good opinion was changed into dislike can only be a matter of conjecture, but such an effect may well have been produced by his experience as a parish priest. Nothing can have been more trying to a parson who was doing his best to keep alive the flame of religion in his flock than the visit of one of these vagrant friars, preaching a catchpenny sermon, shriving men of sins which they were ashamed to confess to their own pastor, and generally encouraging the belief that a few easy benefactions to the convent would take the place of penitence and good life." Of the different treatises here contained, the de Officio Pastorali strikes us as at once the most interesting and the most characteristic. This, it is true, is already known to scholars in the Latin version, as edited by Dr. Lechler; but in its English form it presents some material differences, and more especially in the passages relating to the Mendicants, which are perceptibly more violent in tone. It would be difficult to find in the whole history of religious thought a more remarkable study than that which Wyclif affords in his latter years. We see the accomplished scholar, the dreaded disputant in the schools, the member of Parliament, the friend and adviser of royalty, breaking alike with the traditions of his learning, his order, and his party, and turning to the homely vernacular of those among whom he lived and laboured in his country parsonage, to find therein a new weapon wherewith to assail with unprecedented effect classes and institutions girt about with all the prestige that belongs to superstitious reverence, to wealth, and vast social influence. Here, too, we have perhaps his earliest plea for an English translation of the Gospels. Of the Southern Gospels (often truer English than his own) he would seem never to have heard. The friars, he argues, had taught the people the Paternoster in English, why should they not teach them the whole gospel?" siben be paternoster is part of matheus gospel, as clerkis knowen, why may not al be turnyd to engli3sch trewely, as is bis part?" Certainly, whatever exceptions may be taken to Wyclif's discretion and moderation, it is impossible not to admire the strongly sagacious spirit of the man. Strangely interesting too is it, as we listen, at an interval of five centuries, to the voice of the Rector of Lutterworth as of one crying in the wilderness, to think how the task to which he urged on his own age is at the present time being carried to its more perfect accomplishment, by Ir is difficult to say whether M. Lenormant or the public is most to be congratulated on the fact that his History of the ancient East has reached a ninth edition. The fact is encouraging to those who have at heart the interests of Oriental learning, while at the same time it bears testimony to the author's clearness of exposition and his power of throwing a charm over the most abstruse of subjects. Readers of the ACADEMY have no need of being told what they will find in the volume immense stores of learning, indefatigable industry, scientific candour, and brilliant combinations. These qualities, indeed, distinguish it in a high degree, and it is satisfactory to find that they have been so thoroughly appreciated by the public. The new edition of the work has not only been revised throughout, and so brought up to the level of our present knowledge, but has also been enriched with numerous additions and valuable illustrative plates. Among other additions may be particularly mentioned the substance of what M. Lenormant has recently told us in a special volume on the relation between the earlier chapters of Genesis and the legends of ancient Babylonia which recent research has brought to light. A long and elaborate chapter is devoted to the question of the origin and development of speech; and the latest views on the nature and classification of the languages of the world are set forth at length. Nor has M. Lenormant been unmindful of the revelations which post-Tertiary geology and prehistoric archaeology have made of late years. Everything bearing on the subject has been laid under contribution; and the chief results obtained in this field of study are described with the happy power of illustration which the author possesses. Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book is the last, on the history of writing. This is a subject which M. Lenormant has made peculiarly his own, and he therefore writes upon it with all the grasp and authority of a master. In the Preface he pays a graceful tribute to M. Maspero's well-known work, which covers much the same ground as his own. But he states, with justice, that there is plenty of room for both. The two writers start from different points of view, and proceed upon different plans. While M. Maspero regards the past as a series of great epochs, M. Lenormant deals with each separate people of ancient history singly, and in detail. The one, in fact, supplements and complements the other. As a devout but liberal-minded theologian, M. Lenormant appeals to that large class which refuses to be shocked by denials of what Christendon has long agreed in accepting, while, at the same time, it wishes to know the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, which is told us by modern science. The most honourable characteristic of M. Lenormant's writings is fairness and readiness to resign an opinion as soon as it has been proved to be wrong; and this characteristic he preserves in dealing not only with questions which bear on popular religion, but alsowhere, perhaps, it is still harder to maintain -in matters of scientific opinion. A. H. SAYCE. Languages of Further India. By the late Capt. C. J. F. S. Forbes. (W. H. Allen & Co.) SOME people travel to see, others go forth to kill; and neither class are content nowadays unless their wanderings are shared by the public, and their experiences printed for general delectation. The author of this book, however, is of a different and, I would say, of a higher stamp. He was one among the band of Indian officials who quietly rule an empire of a magnitude great as that of old Rome, and who not only administer, but observe. Capt. Forbes enjoyed unusual opportunities of observation. Gifted with linguistic ability, the circumstances of his home-life gave him an insight into the inner thoughts and habits of the people which is possessed by few, and opened for him channels of information and communication closed to the ordinary English observer. He had married a Burmese lady, and made his home among the "Myamma." He was not only among them but of them, and his previous work on British Burma and its People was the valuable result of his sympathetic observation. The work now before us is a posthumous one. We cannot, therefore, say that the essays contained therein might not have assumed other shape had their author lived to revise his work; but even in their existing form they are a valuable contribution to contemporary ethnology, not perhaps from a high scientific point of view, but as part of the material from which the savant of the future may evolve an edifice of learning, or throw light perchance on the vexed question of human genesis :-for this country of which Capt. Forbes writes, this "Further India," is the veriest nidus of primaeval nationalities. It is as it were the backwater or eddy made by the meeting of the two great streams of humanity, the Aryan and Turanian, which, coming the one from the east the other from the west, here meet, overwhelming or pushing aside elder tribes and nationalities, and shelv ing them among mountain gorges and turbulent hill-streams. branches of the same The book treats of the races and languages belonging to the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and shows their connexion either with each other or with other family beyond those limits, more especially, however, having reference to the inhabitants of that part of the region which is under British rule, and which, as the author was in the Burmese Commission, came more directly under his own immediate observation. First, strangely enough, is found among the hill tribes an old tradition of a mighty deluge or flood, after which the great waters did not recede to their present position, but occupied a much higher level. In the centuries before the Christian era, or, roughly speaking, some 3,000 years ago, the great alluvial plains now forming the sea-board of Burmah and Siam were beneath the waters of the sea; the Gulf of Martaban covered the plains of Pegu and Sittoung, rolling its waves far inland, and sweeping with salt estuaries the flanks of the great mountain ranges which now form the backbone of the country. Here the first gleam of history lights on a low, perhaps the lowest, race in the world-Negritos-having no arts, no implements, barely able to make fire, ignorant of cookery, destitute of clothing. The descendants of this race are to be found now in the coast islands, such as the Andamans and the like, but little changed from their progenitors. These ape-like creatures fled before a stronger race, the Mons. Now where these Mons came from is a moot point. Sir Arthur Phayre and Mr. Mason, the two highest living authorities on the subject, hold that the Mons come from Hindostan, and are of Kolarian extraction, springing, that is to say, from the ancient autochthonous race of India antecedent to the appearance of the Dravidian type. The Kols of Central India are the living representatives of this stock; and the resemblances in structure and roots of the Mon and Kol languages certainly confirm this theory, which, however, is traversed by Capt. Forbes with all the impetuosity of youth, and its characteristic disregard of authority. But he does not clear up the problem himself, although he may be held to have picked out in many places weak points in the chain of induction. Our earliest information (about the year B.C. 603) shows us the wild and barbarous Mons, split up into petty tribes and clans, dwelling on the sea-shore of Pegu. A trading colony of Dravidians, from the other side of the Bay of Bengal, arrived on the coast, and, marrying among the Mons, they or their offspring founded the city of Thatone. Around this city the comparative civilisation of the Dravidian founders gradually extended itself, expanding by degrees into a Mon kingdom. The Mons are called also Talaings, from Telingana, the city whence these Dravidian traders originally eame. With the exception of this name, no Dravidian affinities are found among the people or their language. From these beginnings sprang what Capt. Forbes calls the Mon-Anam stock: that is, from the Mons arose the Peguang, the Anamese (inhabitants of Cochin China), and the Cambodians. In regard to their advent, Capt. Forbes thinks it probable that "the Mon-Anam races in their exodus from their homes in High Asia passed through the upper valley of the Ganges, and, crossing the Naga hills south of Assam, struck the headwaters of the Kyendwen River. Thence they passed down the valley of the Irawadi to the sea-coast of Pegu, where the Mons settledtheir companions, the Cambodians, Anamese, and other smaller and perhaps ruder tribes, spreading out to the eastward." The next wave of immigration is the Tibeto-Burman. This stock comprises the present Burmese nation and all the cognate bill tribes which inhabit the mountainous country lying between Bengal and Burma generally--tribes stretching in endless ramification from the Irawadi, past the headwaters of the Brahmaputra to the Gandak River in Nipal, and so reaching the Central Himalayan region, where our knowledge at present stops. This peninsula, and with it the Pali alphabet, the languages of the different races do not appear to have been materially affected. The alphabet has been constrained to fit into narrower limits, and the polysyllabic Pali words, when used to express religious ideas, have been clipped to suit the simpler standard. Sir Arthur Phayre places the original is a remarkable proof of the breadth and domicile of the Burman race in the South-liberality of the new religion, which is brought west provinces of China, and thinks they notably into relief by contrast with one parprobably came into the valley of the Irawadi ticular instance of a like nature in reference by the trade route between China and to the other and rival faith of Hinduism. Burma via Yunan and Bamo. But, whatever The Ahoms, an offshoot of the great Tai race, course or courses their original progenitors about A.D. 1228, under their chief, Chukuphu, may have taken, it is clear, from physical and made themselves masters of the great province linguistic affinities of the clearest and most of Assam. They at that time followed the unmistakeable nature, that the modern Burman Buddhist religion; but, about A.D. 1554, their is a direct relative of the modern Tibetan. chief became a convert to Hinduism, and from According to local tradition, the tribes which that period the Ahoms have gradually abannow form the Burmese nation arrived in their doned all distinction of race, religion, language, present seats from the westward about six and customs, and are now to all intents and centuries before the Christian era. They purposes thorough Hindus. Here is plainly pressed before them the Mons, and drove seen the difference in spirit between the two them to the extreme Southern and coast religions-the one kindly and tolerant; the regions. other bigoted, severe, and proselytising. Last we have the Tai race, comprising the existing offshoots-Laos, Shans, Ahoms, Khamtis, Siamese. They came from the South-eastern provinces of China south of the Yang-tse-Kiang, driven southward by the Chinese, and entered Further India by the valleys of the Salween and Mekong. The formation of the various principalities of the Tai race in this region, Capt. Forbes informs us, seems to have taken place in the period between the third century of our era and the fall of the Thung dynasty in China. The Tai race are not so strong as the precedent Tibeto-Burman stock; and we find at the present day that not only have they displaced none of the latter tribes, but that everywhere, except in Siam, they are subject to some other Power. The latter part of Capt. Forbes' book is occupied chiefly by comparative analysis of the Mon-Anam languages as exemplified in the modern Talaing and Cambodian speech, with which he was well acquainted. His remarks as to the imperfection of all known systems of transliteration, as applied to the languages of Further India, are well founded. It is impossible to represent at the same time both the written and spoken word, simply because the power of the letters does not give the accepted sound in pronunciation. The same thing holds good in Tibetan, where in nearly every word will be found a silent letter or letters, which, although orthographically useful (remnants from a bygone period when perhaps they were pronounced), are now phonetically useless. The concluding sketch of the life of Gautama, the Buddha of the East, contributes nothing new to the history of Buddhism or to our knowledge of its founder. Capt. Forbes' book, however, is as a whole worth reading; and, had its author lived to revise and amplify it, we should have obtained a valuable addition to Oriental literature. T. H. LEWIN. RECENT VERSE. The earliest form of religion 'among the races of Further India was doubtless the ancient nature-worship, such as still exists, under different forms, among all the hill tribes-a worship of the spirits of mountain and stream, complicated by ideas of an evil power to be propitiated, but apparently with no conception of a supreme Creator. Traces of serpent-worship are found among the Talaings and Cambodians; and at some later date Hinduism was introduced to a partial extent, as at Thatone and Pagan, where representations of Vishnu and Bible Tragedies. By R. H. Horne. (Newman.) Siva are found among the bygone splendours Mr. Horne's idea of representing Biblical subof old temples. The introduction of Bud-jects dramatically in what may be called the dhism took place about A.D. 400, when a Mystery-form seems at first sight hazardous, Buddhist teacher, known as Buddhaghosa, the superiority of this form for the purpose as but will hardly startle anyone who knows came from Magadha, in Behar, and, after a matter of actual literary history. "John the visiting Ceylon (whither he went to collate Baptist may be called a poetical Mystery, and revise existing sacred writings with the "Judas Iscariot " a prose Mystery. The third older copies extant there), became the apostle piece" Rahman" (Job's wife) is not in draof Buddhism in the countries east of the Bay matic form at all, but written in chapter and of Bengal. From the Talaings the religion verse with a command of Elizabethan English was transmitted to the inland tribes, and which, if not universally maintained, is at its which, under different modifications, has old mastery over rhythm. with it also the written Pali character, best remarkable. Some of the choruses of "John the Baptist" exhibit all Mr. Horne's been adopted by the inland tribes of Burmese, Siamese, Laos, and Khamtis. The Annamese came early under Chinese influence, and from this source have borrowed their literature and religion. But although Buddhism thus overspread the Indo-Chinese Songs of Study. By William Wilkins. (C. Kegan Paul and Co.) Mr. Wilkins is the most promising minor bard we have met for a considerable time. He is a Scholar of Trinity College, Dublin; and his book is occupied in part with poetical laments (often very touching) |