in a most legitimate field. I hate women's rights, wrongs, emancipation, and the rest of it,' she writes to me in a letter which I received only yesterday. This utterance of one of the most accomplished women in Europe may perhaps be commended to certain of her'strong-minded' sisters in this country, who apparently imagine that the interests of their sex will be best advanced by unsexing it, as far as possible.

Lady Blennerhassett's book is designed by her as a contribution of German literature to the centenary of 1789. I do not hesitate to say, after attentive perusal of her three volumes, that I know of no work, in any language, from which an intelligent reader may derive so comprehensive and so just a view of the great movement associated with that year. I am well aware that this is a strong thing to say. But I speak advisedly. Compare Lady Blennerhassett's Frau von Staël, for example, with what is unquestionably the greatest French work on the Revolution: I mean M. Taine's Origines. I am not likely to undervalue the merits of that masterpiece. What intelligent student can be insensible to the unsparing labour with which M. Taine has collected his facts, the skill with which he has classified them, the care with which he has weighed. them? I know of no writer who surpasses him in historic objectivity, in power of seeing clearly. And he paints, as clearly as he sees, with large bold strokes, producing effects which entitle him to rank as a literary Rubens. I remember the fear and rage with which contemporary Jacobins were filled when M. Taine was somewhat advanced in his vast task, and had begun to exhibit the Revolutionary heroes in their true colours. Il détruit la légende, was their cry. It was warranted. M. Taine has pretty well destroyed the Jacobin legend. It will hardly be possible for any future writer to rehabilitate Danton or St. Just, Marat or Robespierre. But against M. Taine's vast merits must be set off one great defect. He is largely the slave of his own formulas. His work is informed by a philosophy of mechanism and fatality. He hardly recognises what Shakespeare calls, in Troilus and Cressida, those 'moral laws of nature and of nations,' without which history, as it appears to me, is a mere 'tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' In Lady Blennerhassett's book, although the ethical view of history is never obtruded, it is never absent. The currents of thought and opinion, which really are the chief factors in the affairs of men, are estimated by her with large knowledge and with singular correctness. Her intellectual wealth is displayed by the number and precision of her points of view. She not only exhibits, very clearly, the phenomena, but points to the elemental, spiritual forces of which they are the expression. And here she is the fitting representative of the higher thought of her country. What Germany has done for the world, in these latter days, has been to reassert, in the language proper to the times, the idea of perfection, as an inward condition of mind and spirit, in

opposition to the base sensualistic philosophy by which the French intellect seems hopelessly poisoned; to vindicate the great truth which underlies all really rational philosophy, that the vast mechanism of the universe implies something beyond itself, that it exists for the realisation of moral worth, worth in character and in conduct. The Teutonic conception of civilisation is ethical; the French is mechanical. Lady Blennerhassett has well brought out this difference in an admirable chapter in the third volume of her work. There is one page in particular to which I would refer, as giving in brief compass the gist of the whole matter. It is the sixty-first, and is headed 'Gegensatz der deutschen zur französischen Weltanschauung.' It is worthy of repeated perusal. The whole secret of the difference between contemporary Germany and contemporary France is there.

6

Of course, Lady Blennerhassett's book is not a professed history of the French Revolution. It is an account of 'Madame de Staël, her Friends and her Significance' (Bedeutung is really an untranslatable word) in Literature and Politics.' But to understand Madame de Staël is largely to understand her age. On the other hand, without understanding her age, it is impossible to understand Madame de Staël. Lady Blennerhassett has, with great skill, blended her account of her heroine with a narrative of the events which filled those memorable times. Thus, in relating the youth of Madame de Staël, she gives us an admirable sketch of Necker's two ministries; the account of the young ambassadress's early married life furnishes an opportunity for a full and excellent delineation of Parisian society on the eve of the Revolution, in which the character and influence of Rousseau's philosophy are luminously discussed. And throughout the three volumes the same plan is followed, so that we have in them a gallery of portraits and a description of most important historical events. Among Lady Blennerhassett's sketches of notable persons, those of Madame Roland, Talleyrand, and Lafayette are of great excellence. But perhaps the best of all is the one of Mirabeau. It is curious how the magnetic influence of that strong personality still affects almost every one who has to write of him. Among the intellectual mediocrities and the spiritual nullities still venerated in France as 'the men of '89,' this giant stands out like a Colossus. I remember a distinguished French critic once remarking to me that ‘Mirabeau alone discerned the verity and the nudity of his age.' That is true; he had the gift of seeing, which Talleyrand esteemed the whole art of politics, and in which, indeed, whatever be the province wherein it is exercised, genius really consists. From this point of view, unsurpassed as was his personal mendacity, he was the truest man in a generation of sophists, swallowing the stupid formulas (c'est un avaleur de formules) about which they ranted. Lady Blennerhassett seems to think that he might have preserved the French monarchy had not his life been so prematurely cut short. I confess I doubt it.

I doubt if any one could possibly have saved the honest incapacity of Louis the Sixteenth.

6

As I put down these volumes I wonder whether they will induce many people to read Madame de Staël. I suppose, in most libraries, she has reposed peacefully on remote shelves for many years. And yet, in her day, she thrilled the hearts and dimmed the eyes of cultivated men and women throughout Europe. Herr Kraus, in his paper in the Deutsche Rundschau, confesses that he never takes up Corinne without shedding the tear that of kindly pity is engendered.' I confess I am not myself so potently affected by that romance. Its sentiment seems to me-how shall I express it?—a little too sentimental. Very likely the fault is my own. We live in an age of criticism; and La Bruyère has truly remarked 'Le plaisir de la critique ôte celui d'être vivement touché de très belles choses.' And there are 'de très belles choses' in Corinne. Take the following short passage for example:

L'homme le plus vulgaire, lorsqu'il prie, lorsqu'il souffre, et qu'il espère dans le ciel, cet homme, dans ce moment, a quelque chose en lui qui s'exprimerait comme Milton, comme Homère ou comme le Tasse, si l'éducation lui avait appris à revêtir de paroles ses pensées. Il n'y a que deux classes d'hommes distinctes sur la terre: celle qui sent l'enthousiasme, et celle qui le méprise; toutes les autres différences sont le travail de la société. Celui-là n'a pas de mots pour ses sentiments; celui-ci sait ce qu'il faut dire pour cacher le vide de son cœur. Mais la source qui jaillit du rocher même, à la voix du ciel, cette source est le vrai talent, la vraie religion, le véritable

amour.

sou

That is fine, and true. It was worth saying, and it could hardly have been said better. The same may be affirmed concerning her remark—in a very different vein-about Rienzi, Crescentius, and Arnold of Brescia: 'ces amis de la liberté romaine, qui ont pris vent les souvenirs pour des espérances.' Yes. Any reader of mine, who wants to pass pleasantly a wet afternoon in a country house, might do worse than go into the library and take down Corinne.

W. S. LILLY.

3.

MICAH CLARKE,1

Ir is not unreasonable that a prejudice should exist against historical novels. Their composition resembles the acrobatic accomplishment of 1 Micah Clarke. By A. Conan Doyle. London: Longmans. 1889.

riding two horses at once, and the evident difficulty of the author's feat renders the task of the reader equally difficult. But there are exceptions to every rule, and Micah Clarke is the exception which proves the general truth. Throw aside prejudice, and read Micah Clarke. To class the book 'among the most popular productions of the day' would be no distinction; does not this category admit of 365 'popular productions' every twelve months and one extra in leap-year? To say that it is 'above the ordinary run' is a vague eulogy which is scarcely less indefinite than the 'general reader,' and implies the same degraded standard. But Micah Clarke is a noticeable book, because it carries the reader out of the beaten track; it makes him now and then hold his breath with excitement; it presents a series of vivid pictures and paints two capital portraits; and it leaves upon the mind the impression of well-rounded symmetry and completeness.

The scene of Micah Clarke is laid during Monmouth's rebellion. The subject is artistically chosen. The episode admits of detached and isolated treatment; it is concentrated within a brief space of time, surrounded by the romantic halo of a lost cause, rich in the elements of dignity and of pathos which belong to a warlike ebullition of religious zeal, and leading rapidly through stirring incidents to an inevitable and tragic catastrophe. And the treatment is as successful as the choice of the subject. The story exists for its own sake, and not for the sake of the accessories. Mr. Doyle waives his opportunity to be tiresome by following Boileau's advice-Soyez vif et pressé.' Pedantic in detail and ambitious of display, historical novelists, when astride of their antiquarian Pegasus, generally embarrass the reader much as the sporting-tailor on a hard-mouthed brute encumbers the hunting-field. Each bit of learning is so precious, that it must be brought in by hook or by crook. But Mr. Doyle scarcely ever introduces irrelevant touches of historic detail, or invites admiration of the antiquity of his furniture. Almost always he writes of the past as unconsciously as he would of contemporary life, and the appropriate colouring seems to suggest itself so spontaneously that his mind is never distracted from the rapid progress of his narrative. There is nothing excessive or obtrusive in the sixteenth-century accessories; they are so disposed that there is no appearance of crowding or of design in the arrangement; they are met with, as it were, incidentally. The period is quite sufficiently indicated to produce that suspension of the critical faculties which constitutes imaginative belief. The facts are not too solid to arouse incredulity of the fiction, nor the fiction so wild that it fosters suspicion of the facts. Thus Mr. Doyle escapes the great peril of the historical novelist. Science, history, and theology generally look as awkward in fiction as policemen in plain clothes. But the first and strongest impression which Micah

Clarke creates is that it is an excellent story excellently told. Subsequent reflection shows that it is also an admirable piece of imitative art, a tour de force of correctness and vigour, a faithful yet dramatic picture of an historical episode.

Micah Clarke is full of incident. In subject it may be called sensational, if we remember that whatever depreciatory meaning attaches to that epithet belongs only to the treatment. Mr. Doyle never strains after impressions beyond his power. He does not stud his pages with volcanic phrases; he is not feverishly intent upon extracting from his incidents the maximum of horror; he revels in no nightmare effects. His villains are not moral Calibans. He interpolates quiet intervals of repose, employs sober tints for his backgrounds instead of splashing on lurid colours by the pailful, avoids the spasmodic style or the gorgeous treatment of simple incident, and never mistakes exaggeration for force. His method is that of Scott rather than of Bulwer. The latter centres his interest on the well-known historical figures of Rienzi, Harold, or the King-maker. But Mr. Doyle, like Scott, seeks his chief actors in subordinate and imaginary characters. Monmouth, Ferguson, Jeffreys move across the stage at intervals, but the true heroes are Micah Clarke, the Hampshire yeoman, Decimus Saxon, the soldier of fortune, Sir Gervas Jervoise, the broken-down but imperturbably courageous baronet. The portraits of the two last personages could hardly be better painted; Saxon is an English Dugald Dalgetty, and Sir Gervas is true to the life. Besides these leading figures, there are a crowd of minor actors distinguished from one another by strongly marked individualities, not merely assembled on the principle on which Falstaff filled his company-Mortal men, mortal men-they'll fill a pit as well as better.'

The novel with which Micah Clarke challenges comparison is Lorna Doone; and as a work of art we may well consider it to be superior. It is, in the first place, very much shorter. Length is to the novelist what flesh is to the pedestrian; he cannot stay the disstance.' But the comparative brevity of Micah Clarke enables Mr. Doyle to maintain the same rapid pace throughout with unflagging vigour and undiminished speed. In the second place, though Micah Clarke is a Hampshire Jan Ridd in bravery, straightforward honesty, and herculean strength, he is morally elevated above his Devonshire rival by the strong puritan element in his character. A sweet refined gentlewoman like Lorna Doone, with her delicacy, culture, and aristocratic feeling, might have married Micah; she could never have been happy with the horny-handed plodding yeoman who was her husband. But enough of ungrateful comparisons between two admirable novels. I end as I began. Forget your prejudices against historical fiction, and read Micah Clarke.

R. E. PROTHERO.