SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1881. No. 478, 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. The Imperial Gazetteer of India. By W. W. Hunter, C.I.E., LL.D., Director-General of Statistics to the Government of India. First six vols. (Trübner.) THE completion of The Imperial Gazetteer of India will supply, for the first time, a compact body of information, arranged and classified on correct principles, respecting England's great dependency. Dr. Hunter, in 1869, nost truly said that "nothing is more costly to a Government than ignorance." He might have added that nothing is more prevalent. The misery, destruction, and waste caused by the ignorance of well-intentioned, incapable men quite equal the consequences of devastating wars and pestilences, while the evil results of ignorance are more lasting. Records of the efforts to meet and overcome this evil on the part of the higher class of administrators, who come into power at far distant intervals, are to be met with in the history of every country. More especially do we encounter the story of such efforts, and of their comparative failure, in the annals of nations that have acquired great colonial dependencies, -of Spain and Portugal, of Holland and England. The evil has been felt, deeply felt; and earnest efforts, often broadly conceived and comprehensive, have been made to meet it; but they have always practically failed from the want of two essential elements of success. Continuity and instructed central supervision have invariably been absent; so that the masses of collected information have remained without adequate treatment, and unused. There are few sadder sights than the rooms and cellars of a public office full of such precious materials, representing the labour of years and the brain-work of scores of able men, unused, unindexed, unknown, and rotting. Sadder still when ignorant clerks are let loose among these treasures to "weed" and destroy without knowledge and without care. Such things have not only happened in other lands and during past centuries, but also within twenty miles of London Stone and within the memory of living men. All failures and all mistakes are to be traced to an absence of continuity and of central control on a fixed plan. Without such requisites, the most laborious attempts will end in failure, and ignorance will continue to work its havoc. mind to marshal and arrange them. The bricks and other materials were laboriously heaped up, and what time has left of them still lie in smaller heaps; but there has been no builder and no edifice which adequately utilised and represented the raw material. The Spanish Council of the Indies instituted a thorough statistical investigation throughout the vast dominions of Spain in America; and the accumulation of materials was large and sufficient. The History of Antonio y Herrera, nominally based on these materials, is quite inadequate, and can in no way be looked upon as even an abstract of them; while the praiseworthy but meagre Gazetteer of Alcedo only serves to mark the total absence of any systematic control or working plan for collecting information when he wrote. While the Dutch were powerful in India, they also diligently collected information; and, indeed, the Hortus Malabaricus of Hendrik van Rheede is on eenduring monum nt of their labours. But more important records of statistical and historical facts, besides those published by De Laet, remain inedited and in MS. among the Dutch archives at the Hague, some of which would throw light upon questions still in controversy. Like the Spaniards, the Dutch failed to secure the worker who could shape their materials into a useful and enduring form. The loss to Holland is a far greater loss to India. In later times, after England acquired dominion in the East, the very same story has, until now, had to be told. There were spasmodic orders to collect information, and more rarely there were attempts to utilise such materials as escaped destruction during the longer intervals of neglect. In Bengal there was an effort to collect statistical information as long ago as 1769. In Madras a series of two hundred MS. folios, known as the Orme collection, was compiled between 1740 and 1770. But, with the exception of portions utilised in Orme's two volumes, they remain inedited to this day. Warren Hastings and Lord Cornwallis both caused valuable Reports to be drawn up, based on original information, but these researches are also inedited and unprinted. There have since been other isolated efforts, resulting in great waste of money and labour, with no practical result. The absence of any comprehensive system of collecting facts in India inevitably led to the performance of indifferent work in this country. Walter Hamilton's East India Gazetteer, published in 1828, was, like the work of Alcedo on Spanish America, a creditable performance, but nothing more. Thornton's Gazetteer, which appeared in 1854, was not based on a systematic survey, but was merely a compilation from official Reports and from the chance topography of tourists and other writers. While the industry of the author deserves all praise, the work was unsatisfactory, and quite inadequate to the purpose for which it was intended. Spain, with her vast colonial empire, and The necessity for correct information conher noble attempts to govern wisely and tinued to be acutely felt by administrators in with knowledge, offers one example of failure India, and the local Governments organised in her efforts to collect information. Facts plans for supplying a want for which no prowere gathered together in vast masses, but vision was made by the central authority. there was no continuity of purpose, no master-Thus the compilation of district manuals was commenced in 1862 in Madras; and similar arrangements were made in Bengal and the Central Provinces. Still there was no uniform system, and no central supervision; and there was the moral certainty that these unguided labours would involve great expense without fully securing the desired result. To Dr. Hunter belongs the honour of having, by his rare gifts of luminous arrangement, administrative ability, and unflagging perseverance, supplied that essential qualification the want of which had invariably led to failure. We have seen that repeated and successful efforts have been made to collect information. But there has never been that systematic and continuous treatment of the collected facts without which all else is labour in vain. A thorough survey must not stand alone. It must precede the preparation and marshalling of the facts it supplies, but both the survey and utilisation must be conducted on one plan, by one head. We shall then at length obtain what Indian rulers have so long needed. Dr. Hunter submitted his plan in 1869. It clearly defined the objects of the undertaking, and discussed the system through which those objects might best be secured. A series of questions was prepared, the answers to which would illustrate the topographical, ethnical, agricultural, industrial, administrative, and medical aspects of an Indian district. Provincial compilers were then appointed, and the series of questions served as a basis for each compiler's local survey. The accounts of the districts were brought together by an editor in each province, on a uniform plan, who prepared the gazetteer of the province, the whole being under the supervision of Dr. Hunter, as Director-General of Statistics to the Government of India. Thus, in the space of twelve years, an elaborate account of the 240 districts into which British India is divided was completed, and formed the statistical survey. Such a work, intended as it is to furnish full information to administrators, must be at once comprehensive and minute. Hence the provincial gazetteers or accounts occupy about a hundred printed volumes, aggregating 36,000 pages. A gigantic task has been completed at last, such as had hitherto baffled the efforts of all former Governments. At length, that central supervision and that methodical arrangement were brought to bear for the want of which so much able nd conscientious work had, on former occasions, become labour in vain. But Dr. Hunter's services did not end here. Although the hundred volumes of information on all that relates to British India were by no means too elaborate for administrative requirements, they were not calculated for general use, and it was necessary to condense their information into an Imperial Gazetteer for the use of the public. The first six volumes of this great work, in which the voluminous records of the Statistical Survey have been reduced to a practicable size for general reference, have now been published. The whole will consist of nine volumes. In The Imperial Gazetteer of India great pains have been taken to secure uniformity and due proportion as well as completeness. It was necessary that every place which de served mention should be recorded; while it was almost equally desirable that each place should receive neither less nor more space than its relative importance demanded. On this principle about eight thousand places were selected from the Statistical Survey for treatment in the Imperial Gazetteer. Dr. Hunter then drew up model articles, showing the exact order of subject and method of treatment; and thus, although there were several contributors, complete uniformity was secured alike in the preparation of the Gazetteer and in the method of preparing the Survey. A careful examination of several articles, including all the most important, will justify the conclusion that the literary skill and ability with which the work has been prepared is equal to the excellence of the plan upon which its lines have been built. The principal feature of the six volumes that have now been published is the article on India, which occupies 515 pages, and is a complete work in itself. The arrangement of this admirable treatise is made in accordance with sound principles. The three bases of all statistics are space, number, and time. Space is the abstract of all relations of co-existence, number of all relations of comparison, time of all relations of sequence. Under the first head Dr. Hunter gives a masterly and most interesting sketch of the geography and physical aspects of British India; under the second he furnishes details of the population; and under the third he history up a condensed of the people of India, divided into clearly marked periods, from that of the early non-Aryan races to the days of British rule. The value of this excellent historical summary is very much enhanced by the insertion, in foot-notes, of lists of the principal authorities for each period and each reign. But it is not so much as a source of information and reference, or as a gazetteer article, that this historical section should be studied. In it will be found, we believe for the first time, a brief but complete history of India from the original sources-Sanskrit, Muhammadan, and Hindu; in which the growth of the Hindu people is made clear and intelligible, and the significance of caste and of the Hindu religion is distinctly revealed. For its literary merit alone, this historical section will well repay perusal. It concludes with an excellent review of the existing system of British administration in India. has drawn shipping, with the stately, painted mansions of Garden Reach on the margin in the foreground, the bank higher up, and the domes, steeples, the fort rising from the great plain (maidán) on and noble public buildings of Calcutta beyond, gradually unfold their beauties in a long panorama. The traveller really feels that he is approaching a city of palaces. The river by which he has reached the capital furnishes one of the greatest triumphs of engineering skill in the contest of man with nature." But since 1877, when all instructed super- Throughout the work Dr. Hunter has fol- The reader will be very agreeably surprised, if he opens the volumes of The Imperial Gazetteer with the idea that he will find only correct and detailed, but dry, statistical facts. Its pages are most interesting, and are full of picturesque descriptions which charm the imagination while they inform and satisfy the mind. As an example, the article on the River Húglí may be mentioned, in which are described the sudden changes in the channels of the Nadiyá rivers, the great engineering task of supervising and keeping them open, the changes since the time of the Portuguese, the navigation of the lower course, the estuary, and the scenery on the banks. In the following extract the scenery on the banks of the Húglí and the approach to Calcutta are described : The three bases of statistics are naturally followed by economic statistics of production "The scenery varies greatly. The sea approach and distribution; and, in the important section is disappointing. For many miles nothing but on agriculture and products, Dr. Hunter dis-sand-banks can be seen. These are succeeded cusses the questions of improved husbandry, of irrigration, and of famines. Then follow sections on commerce and trade, arts and manufactures, mines and minerals, and on vital statistics, the whole being illustrated by a series of tables. It is very desirable that the scientific method upon which this article on India is framed should not be lost sight of. At one time the same principles were recognised, and the same method formed a guide for the preparation of the Reports presented to Parliament which are supposed to review the moral and material progress of India for each year. by mean-looking mud formations covered with Another extract will show the way in which the architectural beauties of Indian cities are described. It is taken from the article on the 6 "The Taj Mahal, with its beautiful domes, ' a Arjamand Benu Begam, wife of the Emperor a sphere, and tapers at its extremity into Beneath it an enclosure of marble trellis work surrounds the tombs of the Princess, and of her husband, the Emperor. Each corner of the mausoleum is covered by a similar, though much smaller, dome, erected on a pediment pierced with graceful Saracenic arches. Light is admitted into the interior through a double screen of pierced marble, which tempers the glare of an Indian sky, while its whiteness prevents the mellow effect from degenerating into gloom. The internal decorations consist of inlaid work in precious stones, such as agate salient point in the architecture is richly fretted. and jasper, with which every spandril or other Brown and violet marble is also freely employed in wreaths, scrolls, and lintels, to relieve the monotony of the white walls. In regard to colour and design, the interior of the Taj may rank first in the world for purely decorative workmanship; while the perfect symmetry of its exterior, once seen, can never be forgotten, nor the aerial grace of its domes, rising like marble bubbles into the clear sky." The Imperial Gazetteer is the crowning work which brings the results of the great Statistical Survey within reach of the general public. It represents twelve years of incessant labour, demanding many high qualities for its efficient execution, and natural gifts such as are rarely combined in one man. Learning, experience, and scholarly research were no less essential than habits of accurate thought, administrative talent, and orderly, methodical arrangement. Above all, imagination was needed-that quality without which work cannot be endued with life and movement, but remains dead, a mere receptacle of lifeless facts. It is to the rare combination of literary skill and the imaginative faculty, with the qualifications of an able and energetic administrator, that we owe the completion of this great and difficult task. It is no ordinary service that Dr. Hunter has done to India and to England; and, for his hard and admirably performed achievement, he has earned the gratitude of his countrymen. CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM. By Two Ezzelin: a Dramatic Poem. Brothers. (George Bell & Sons.) Ezzelin, a poem of considerable though uneven merit, is the joint design of two brothers, of whom but one has lived to comFete the task, and generously charges himself with all faults. His explanatory Preface will clear up any possible doubt as to the scope of the drama, which is not to vindicate the persecuting policy of the mediaeval Church, but to portray a phase of the struggle between Rome and the votaries of the new way-the party of mixed motives created and fostered by Luther and his fellows. Ezzelin, the hero, is the ardent, high-minded son of an iron, ambitious Italian Duke, Alonzo; and the complications of the plot turn on the sire's objections to his son's union with Annette, the gentle and retiring daughter of a lesser noble named Arnold-in Alonzo's view too simple to wed with the heir of half a province. To these objections a subtler furtherance is lent by a more masterful character in the play the keen-scented churchman and inquisitor, Dante Colonna, a friend alike of the weak and facile Arnold and of the hard and selfish Alonzo, in whose family Dante had experienced in his worldly days lovepassages destined to terrible repression. This clue will serve to explain his sympathy and innence with Ezzelin's cloistered sister, Lucia, and for a time with the heroine, Annette; but the Dominican is faithfully pictured as a true “hound of the Lord," unswerving in the uprooting of heresy and crime. The scene of the poem, with the exception of a short shift to a castle in the Tyrol, is laid not far from Venice in North Italy. Though smacking too much of melodrama, we cannot deny to its chief incidents, and much of its dialogue, a force, fitness, grace, and strength which form constituent parts of a meritorious dramatic poem for the closet. In the first scene, Arnold, in a room of his castle, speaks the prologue, so to say, to his guest, Dante, in the presence of his daughter, Annette, plunged in fresh grief by Ezzelin's capture by Turkish pirates. Dante worms himself into the confidence of father and daughter, and, though scenting a possible contact with heresy in the young hero's travels, pledges the help of Sebastian (a captain of mercenaries for the Inquisition) towards the rescue of the captive, which is achieved at no greater cost than a wound to Arnold, whose martial ardour rekindles for a brush with the pirates. The first act introduces the reader to the restored Ezzelin, and discloses the secrets of the confessional in the scenes between Dante and the world-loving priest, Uberto, and Ezzelin's sister, Lucia, whom the iron despotism of her sire had forced into he convent, and who incidentally agitates Dante by the mention of his quondam love tion for his daughter than the neighbouring (and victim), Viola, Alonzo's sister. This convent or the husbandship of one Lorenzo brings the two lovers together, without, how-da Fiori, an elderly next-of-kin who sucever, encouraging exuberant hope that the ceeds to the impoverished estate. Previous course of true love is destined to run smooth. to this Ezzelin and Annette's confidences The picture of Annette's dream and Ezzelin's having been interrupted by Dante, who interruption of it, in pp. 39, 40, is lively and thereby satisfied his mind of their taint of natural. heresy, the inquisitor had hastened his visit to Alonzo's castle, and an angry altercation in Dante's presence between father and son ends in the latter's escape from the castle, an unauthenticated voice from a chamber next door to Arnold's convincing the wretched Annette that her true lover has been murdered by his father's emissaries. Priestcraft no doubt was responsible for the lying tidings on faith of which, and out of dread of a worse doom, Annette closes with Lorenzo's offer of marriage. Hence in the third act the posture of affairs in Lorenzo's castle (late Arnold's) is a "cat and dog" life betwixt Lorenzo and his young wife. It is in the opening scene of the second act, in the castle chapel, that Dante, without divulging names, reveals the mystery of his life, and tells how, having loved a girl he could not wed, and having only won fame in war in time to find her sold to a German Duke, he had espoused the Cross, become the ruling spirit of the Inquisition, and found his quondam Viola one of the first heretics whom his office bade him sentence to the rack and stake. Here is a snatch of the confessor's confession : "Yes, yes, I stood beside The stake while she was fastened, and the wood Heap'd up around; but, as the hooded butchers Lighted the pile, she gazed upon my face And knew me. O those straining eyes, they pierced My writhing heart, but then the smoke leap'd I heard her call my name) to where on high In pitying indignation on my face: Then I could see no longer, and my head Of ashes. That was all. Amid those cinders When, later on, the inquisitor's myrmidons have hemmed in the ill-fated Ezzelin and Annette, both tainted with heresy, and both more or less privy to a murder, we learn from a passing dialogue that the "hooded butchers," spoken of in the above passage have more heart than their principals. "2ND OFFICER. Hast ever seen a woman burned, Sebastian? SEBASTIAN. Yes, scores of times; I never like to see it. I think there's something tender in my nature: A woman seems to me a woman still Though thrice a heretic. I always damp The straw when females suffer. 2ND OFFICER. Soon ends their sufferings. SEBASTIAN. And the smoke Yes, oft they die Before the flame has even scorched them. Comrade, Whate'er the Church ordains must needs be right, Nor may we question aught that she requires; Yet still 'tis strange when the gray flame curls up Around some writhing girl, whose piercing screams Ring through the torture chamber, to behold It is fair to say that all the dialogue does not, like this, savour of the Chamber of Horrors, and that, barring Dante and Alonzo, none of the dramatis personae are actively disagreeable. Count Arnold dies, ere long, of his wound in the fray with pirates, and with no better por Anon it leaks out that Ezzelin is not dead, And when the sudden murder of Alonzo in his but confined to his sire's castle in the Tyrol. Italian castle seems to open a way for Dante, who attends to shrive him, to hunt out the captive and deal with him according as he shows frowardness or obedience toward Holy Church, we find that Ezzelin has burst his prison bars and come post-haste to Lorenzo's castle, only to learn she is the wretched wife of an old miser, and to concert schemes, to which it seems to us Annette consents too readily, for summarily terminating a hateful union by her" base husband's" murder. This consummated, they will fly to Germany. But the hounds of the Inquisition follow quick on their track, and run down the fugitives in the ducal castle of North Italy, both a prey to remorse, haunted by the scent of blood, and lacking spirit and vigour again to escape the clutches of Dante, who will wreak vengeance on them for heresy, even if he fail of proof as to the murder. The fevered Annette collapses first; and, when the door is forced, Ezzelin lies stretched on the floor bereft of reason. After a characteristic fulmination against the "thrice-damned apostate Luther," Dante calls in Ezzelin's sister, the nun Lucia, to win her dying brother to the sign of the Cross; and, after his death ambiguously encourages her to hope that, in answer to her ceaseless prayer, "All, all may be forgiven; and thy brother JAMES DAVIES. James Smithson and his Bequest. By William J. Rhees. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution.) THIS volume, being No. 330 of the "Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections," is bound up with No. 27, which contains Smithson's "Scientific Writings," reprinted from the Transactions of the Royal Society, and is intended as a memorial of the man whose extraordinary bequest, some half-a-century ago, was the origin of the celebrated American institution which very properly bears his name. Of the latter portion of the volume very little 1765, and hence Mr. Rhees has made him That son's mother was a Hungerford, and technically The question whether Smithson's mother But need be said. Prof. Baird asserts, in a prefatory note, that "these writings of Smithson prove conclusively his scientific character and his claim to distinction as a contributor to knowledge". But it may safely be assumed that of themselves they would do but little to perpetuate his memory; and that future We do not dispute the statement that he generations will remember him only as the was a natural son of the first Duke of Northeccentric Englishman who, under a certain umberland-i.e., of the last creation. Mr. contingency-viz., the failure of issue, "le- Rhees appears to be painfully unconscious of gitimate or illegitimate," to his nephew, the fact that there was a Duke of Norththe illegitimate son of his own illegitimate umberland as early as 1551, and that no half-brother-bequeathed his entire estate less than six others came after him. He "to the United States of America, to found has, however, heard of "a previous Duke of at Washington, under the name of the Northumberland, who died in 1716," and, Smithsonian Institution, an establishment not knowing exactly what to do with him, for the increase and diffusion of knowledge quietly disposes of him in a line and a-quarter among men." Curiously enough, the con- of a foot-note. There is abundant evidence tingency named arose, although probably not of Smithson's paternity, but how is Mr. anticipated by Smithson himself; and in due Rhees able to declare so positively that his time, after the estate had become somewhat mother was "a Mrs. Elizabeth Macie;" and wasted by legal and other expenses, the what does he mean by saying that she was United States authorities found themselves in" of an old family in Wiltshire of the name of possession of the then considerable sum of Hungerford"? Does he mean that her upwards of half-a-million dollars, the produce maiden name was Hungerford, and that, she of nearly 105,000 English sovereigns, which was the wife of a Mr. Macie? If so, where had been transmitted from England and re- are his proofs? It is impossible that a coined into American money. What has been question which has hitherto baffled all the done with this money the scientific world genealogists in England can be settled in especially, and the whole world generally, this peremptory manner. The probability is well know; and it is unnecessary here to that he has no proofs, but assumes, sound the praises of an institution whose because Smithson at one period of his affairs have always been admirably ad- life passed under the name of Macie, ministered, with corresponding admirable that this was his mother's name. The results. assumption is both dangerous and unwarrantable. The only knowledge we have of her is derived from the opening clause of Smithson's will, in which he thus somewhat fulsomely parades his origin :-"I, James We have said enough to show that Prof. Smithson, son to Hugh, first Duke of North- Baird was in error in asserting that the umberland, and Elizabeth, heiress of the resources had been exhausted when Mr. Hungerfords of Studley, and niece of Charles Rhees wrote his biography of Smithson, and, the Proud Duke of Somerset," &c. Not a judging from the character of the entire word about Macie here, and the only fair work, it seems incredible that any researches inference from his language is that she was a at all were made in England, either by Mr. Miss Hungerford. It is a serious question Rhees himself or by any competent investigawhether Smithson was telling the truth, and, tor here. After an incubation of forty years, indeed, whether he really knew who his the Smithsonian Institution certainly ought mother was. His father, the newly ennobled to have produced something more worthy of Duke of Northumberland, had so many mis- the man to whom, however undesignedly on tresses that it would be very difficult to his part, it owes its existence. The work determine the maternity of his numerous ought to have been done, and to have been left-handed progeny. A half-brother of well done; but it is evident that it should Smithson passed under the name of Dickin- have been done outside the Institution, and James Smithson was born in England about son, which is believed not to have been the by someone sufficiently acquainted with the year 1754, the precise date and place of his name of his mother; and two half-sisters, English history, and with at least the names nativity being unknown. He was a natural by still another mother, were buried in of distinguished Englishmen of the last son of Hugh Smithson, first Duke of North-Westminster Abbey, both under the name generation, to be able to avoid the laughable umberland, his mother being a Mrs. Elizabeth of Percy. That the heiress of the Hun- blunder on p. 28,, where the late well-known Macie, of an old family in Wiltshire of the name gerfords of Studley, more distinctly Mr. Nassau William Senior appears as "Mr. of Hungerford. Nothing has been learned of defined as niece of the "Proud Duke Nassau William, Sen." In its legitimate her history." of Somerset," could, even admitting her undertakings the Smithsonian Institution liaison with the Duke of Northumberland, is always safe and trustworthy. Let us have dropped so completely out of the his- recommend to it Lord Palmerston's favourite torical records of the family as to leave no quotation, Ne sutor ultra crepidam. traces of her existence, carefully as they have been sought, is a genealogical marvel that has occupied the serious attention of more than one English expert. To Mr. Rhees, however, the mystery presents no difficulties. He coolly transforms Miss Hungerford into Mrs. Macie, and there is an end of the matter. This is convenient, certainly; but we submit that it is not authentic history. That Smithson deserved some memorial like the one before us is certain, and we think that he deserved a far better one. Prof. Baird, the distinguished secretary of the Institution, states that the materials for his biography are "exceedingly scanty," that efforts have several times been made to procure facts and incidents, and that during last year "unusual efforts were put forth for this purpose," but that nothing new has been elicited, and that Mr. Rhees, the chief clerk of the Institution, having "collected all the information likely to be obtained," now "presents it, for the first time, as an authentic account of the distinguished man." Is this so? Has all the information that could be obtained been collected, and is Mr. Rhees's account authentic? His opening paragraph shall be given in full:. 66 We take issue at once with Mr. Rhees on the very first line of his first paragraph, and with Prof. Baird on his statement already quoted. Knowing that Smithson was educated at Oxford, if the matriculation register of that university had been consulted it would have been found that he matriculated, as James-Lewis Macie, from Pembroke College on May 7, 1782, at the age of seventeen, and that he was a native of London. As the age of the last birthday was always required, it follows that he was born between May 7, 1764, and May 7, It is, of course, quite possible that Smith JOSEPH LEMUEL CHESTER. Our Own Country. (Cassell, Petter Galpin & Co.) A CERTAIN air of mystery hangs around the origin and meaning of this handsome work. In the first place, it has no date. Therefore we are unable to guess whether it is old or new, a reprint or an original production. Moreover, in the course of our reading, we come across a tantalising reference to the preceding volume," and again to some subject already noted in an earlier volume of this work," where a foot-note refers us to vol. i., p. 118. We turn to the title-page and cover, but get no inkling that any other volumes have preceded or are to follow the present one. Only these stray allusions suggest the notion that it forms part of a series. An advertisement now to be found in the leading literary journals affords us incidentally the additional information that Messrs. Cassell have at present for sale vol. iii. of a work bearing the same title as this; but in the absence of date or number it is difficult to decide whether we have the actual vol. iii. in question now before us or otherwise. Surely this way of publishing is very unworkmanlike, and ought to be avoided by a great firm all the more so as the book itself is not a bad one, and deserves to be put forth decently and in order. For our own part, not recollecting to have seen the previous instalments, we were inclined at first to regard an account of Our Own Country, which jumped about from Norwich to Aberdeen, and from Merioneth to the New Forest, as a trifle fragmentary, until we learned that such intermediate spots as London, Cambridge, and Liverpool might possibly be included in the unseen parts. Even so, it is a little puzzling to be whisked away incontinently from the upper lake at Killarney to the new schools at Oxford, and from the new schools again to the hotel at Loch Maree. The book, in fact, consists of several disconnected sketches and articles, each taking in a small district, such as the Wye, the North Devon coast, and the Severn from Worcester to Bridgenorth, and all thrown together loosely, without any attempt at geographical arrangement. A little editing would have made it much more readable and far handier for reference. But as the volume is mainly of the sort intended to do duty for literature and art upon a certain type of middle-class drawing-room tables, these matters of detail do not really greatly signify after all. Bating such critical objections, and taking the book for what it is meant to be, it is, on the whole, a tolerably good performance. The letterpress has been well compiled, and is mostly free from the historical absurdities and incongruities so often to be found in local guide-books; though the author or authors certainly seem, as a rule, a trifle vague about English affairs before the Norman Conquest. They express mild doubts as to King illustrations, which form the backbone and vering in business, respectful to their seniors raison d'être of the whole work. These are, and dutiful to their parents, polite in their on the whole, satisfactory. There are many intercourse with each other, law-loving, and good, some indifferent, and only a few easily governed with firmness." which can be called bad. The Cistercian It is because they possess all these good monk on p. 38 has really no sufficient qualities-in other words, because of their excuse to give for his existence; and the morality and not of their immorality—that scene in the fish-market at Aberdeen on their opponents in Australia and America p. 48 is a gratuitous insult to a great and condemn them. Sordid self-interest whets sensitive people; but the views on the the edge of these men's scruples; and the Cornish coast, in the Highlands, and at sooner this is publicly recognised the better it Killarney are, in many cases, excellent and will be for the colonies, and even for the white characteristic. Kynance Cove, however, is men themselves, who are at present too idle dwarfed by being sketched at too great a and improvident to compete in a fair field distance; its big rocks need to be seen from with the Celestials. very close in order to produce their full effect, as Mr. Brett well knows. Nor is there any good reason why, when we come to Oxford, a view of Merton Tower should be confined to two of the brand-new pinnacles, seen dimly through a blank wall of trees, as though the grand old chapel were incomprehensibly ashamed of itself since its recent restoration. If we can only have eleven views of Oxford, as against fourteen of Manchester, it is right, of course, that they should include the garden front of New College and the Founder's Tower at Magdalen; but why the interior of Trinity Chapel? Harlech, our only castle with a romantic situation, gives an opportunity for two pleasing views; Tintern naturally comes in for its usual share of illustration; and many other familiar scenes are prettily and pleasantly rendered. The monstrosities which adorn the grounds of Castle Howard are also faithfully reproduced; and a sacrifice to the Philistine has been gracefully wrapped up in two views of Mosley Street and the Free Trade Hall at Manchester. Altogether, the book is fairly representative, and caters for all tastes with remarkable impartiality. It has even a portrait of the late Earl of Carlisle, and a map of the neighbourhood of Guildford. This is indeed true comprehensiveness. GRANT ALLEN. The Manners and Customs of the Chinese of the Straits Settlements. By J. D. Vaughan. (Singapore.) JUST at the present time when the "Chinese Question" is agitating the politicians of Victoria, the "roughs" of San Francisco, and the labouring population of Western Canada, the appearance of this volume is most opportune. For thirty years Mr. Vaughan has been a resident at Singapore, where, together with the neighbouring settlements, the Chinese form nearly three-fourths of a total population of 370,000. And what is the result of his experience with regard to the conduct of the The emigration of the Chinese to the Straits is conducted under precisely the same conditions as to the other colonies. Very few of their country women accompany them, and the comparative shortness of the voyage to China would naturally encourage rather than otherwise the desire to return to their native land as soon as they had amassed a sufficiency; and yet Mr. Vaughan tells us that for the most part they are residents, and that there is a large population of half-castes and Straits-born Chinamen, known as Babas, growing up in the colony. though they are rapidly giving up the study of the Chinese language, and boast themselves to be British subjects, yet cling with all the persistency of their race to the queue and clothes of their fathers. In this respect they are more Chinese than their China-born compatriots, who, however, with characteristic pride, disdain to exchange any of their more cherished habits for those of the people by whom they are surrounded. These men, On this account Mr. Vaughan has nothing new to tell us of their manners and customs; and the only variation observable in their mode of life is the greater prominence which is given to clubs and societies in response to the greater necessity for such institutions in a foreign land. The primary object of these gatherings is to give help and protection to the natives of the districts represented by them; and in the same way in all the large cities in China clubs are established for the special benefit of visitors from other provinces, who meet to talk over the gossip of their native districts, and to devise help for those of their number who may be in distress. But it is obvious that clannish societies, which are purely social and charitable in time of peace, may readily become dangerous hot-beds of strife when war and danger threaten. They tend also to keep alive the keen rivalry which exists between the natives of the different provinces of Southern China; and at Singapore, on Alfred's connexion with the University of Chinese as opposed to the evils anticipated in several occasions, they have served as "places Oxford, and are gently sceptical as to King Gurgunt's share in the foundation of Norwich. Loose statements often occur of such a kind as that "early in the seventh century the Gospel was preached in this part of England by St. Paulinus, and Manchester became a parish with two churches." The ideal picture of Paulinus establishing the parish of Manchester strikes us as bold and original. But a book of this sort must almost necessarily be derived from town or County annals, and one may rest satisfied if it is fairly free from glaring errors. The text is, of course, a mere vehicle for the Australia and North America from their oriental morality and habits? He says:"But when we turn to the Chinese, what a presented; for the most part they are permanent striking contrast (to the Malays and Klungs) is residents, and identify themselves with the interests of the colony. They are the most active, industrious, and persevering of all. They equal or surpass the Europeans in developing the resources of the colony in particular and the Indian Archipelago in general." And in another place he writes :"The Chinese are sober, industrious, domesticated, methodical, ingenious, honest and perse of arms," from which the members have gone out in marching order to attack the forces of opposition clubs. Such institutions, howalways liable to abuse, and from the social ever good they may be in principle, are clubs of China have grown up the secret societies which have not unfrequently threatened the peace of the empire. Mr. Vaughan gives some interesting details of the ceremonies accompanying the admission of members into some of the more exclusive clubs, together with the principal rules governIn some of ing the conduct of the members. these last it is plain that the desire to protect |