to tell us about music, celebrated musicians, others which might be removed in a future The second part of his book is entitled "By the Golden Sea." He discusses the general philosophy and rationale of musical art, the development of music from rough elements of sound, its place among the sister arts, the nature of its influence. He insists strongly on the necessity for the union of the arts, for "insatiable is the soul until perception flows in through all the senses." But we must pass on to the next division of the book, entitled "Cremona." "It would be strange," says our author, "if I had not a good deal to say about the violin." It would indeed be strange, and disappointing too, for, as Lord Beaconsfield once said, "A man was usually interesting in proportion as his talk ran upon what he was familiar with," and Mr. Haweis knows much about the violin, its anatomy, its history, and about fiddlers both of the past and the present. Readers will find this one of the most attractive portions of the book. We next come to the section "The Music of the Future," regarding which the author remarks that the title is now out of date, for the Wagnerian music of the future has become the music of the present. Mr. Haweis is not always very exact; he speaks here of the London season of 1881, "with the Wagnerian cycle of dramas at one house and Nibelungen Ring' [sic] at the other;" a few pages later he speaks of "Nibelung's Ring" at Covent Garden and Wagner's other Operas at Drury Lane in 1880. The German Opera season was at Drury Lane, and the "Ring des Nibelungen" at Her Majesty's Theatre, and both events occurred in neither of the years given, but in 1882. While speaking of incorrect statements, we would mention one or two 66 Colomba," the success of last season. Mr. Carl Rosa is doing great things for English art: we refer not so much to the intrinsic value of the works produced (although in the case of those heard last season this is by no means small) as to the great encouragement given to English composers. If ever we are to have an English Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, or Wagner, it is by giving writers an opportunity of presenting their works, and the public an opportunity Last year Mr. Carl Rosa opened with a novelty, but now he is more prudent, and does not forget that on Easter Monday London is filled with a crowd wholly given to pleasure. In 1883 he commenced with "Esmeralda," but this year with the apparently ever-popular Bohemian Girl." The house was crowdel and the work was received in the usual enthusiastic manner. The principal artists wer Mdme. Georgina Burns, Mr. Joseph Maas, ani Mr. Ludwig. Mr. Haweis has a long description of On Tuesday evening "Carmen" was pro duced, with Mdme. Marie Roze in the title Though here and there in the minor parts som. fault could be found, still on the whole it was a satisfactory performance, and in some respects excellent. In this Opera, the first ques tion one naturally asks is-How was Caring played Mdme. Marie Roze gave an admirake reading of that part-now serious, now gay now nonchalante, now earnest; and from her tist terrible struggle outside the circus with her castappearance among the factory girls down to th off lover, she won the sympathy and applate of the audience. Mr. Barton McGuckin as th was very successful. There was at times certain reserve, but in some of the more exciting scenes he threw this off, and displayed consider able vocal and histrionic ability. Mr. Les Crotty was an exceedingly good Escamil Mr. G. H. Snazelle and Mr. Leumane, the Our author heard "Parsifal" at Bayreuth and of Beethoven ? We had marked several other passages to notice, but must pass on to the last chapter, on Liszt. Mr. Haweis has heard the great virtuoso play, and has talked with him of the times long gone by-of Mendelssohn, Paganini, and Chopin. What Liszt told him about the first of these three is full of interest. But Liszt had, we think, somewhat forgotten past history when he told our author that "it is possible Meyerbeer may have been of some small use to Wagner." If all accounts be true, Meyerbeer was of great use to the young, unknown, and struggling composer of "Rienzi" and "The Flying Dutchman." J. S. SHEDLOCK. chief smuggler and his lieutenant, playe under the able direction of Sig. Randegger. AGENCIES London Agents, Messrs. W. H. SMITH & SON, 186 Strand. Copies of the ACADEMY can also be obtained every Saturday morning in EDINBURGH of Mr. MENZIES; in DUBLIN of Messrs. W. H. SMITH AND SONS; in MANCHESTER of Mr. J. HEYWOOD. Ten days after date of publi cation, in NEW YORK, of Messrs. & P. PUTNAM'S SONS. PARIS. Copies can be obtained in Paris every day morning. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION ΤΟ THE ACADEMY. (PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. CARL ROSA OPERA AT DRURY LANE. If obtained of a Newsvendor or of France, Germany, India, YEARLY. Satur HALF- QLAB YEARLY. TEKIT £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. e S Arm ture "Colomba," the succes Given Carl Rosa is doing great thing en to en des we refer not so much to th the works produced th those heard last season the sing small) as to the great pers English composers. If ever veins. be English Haydn, Mozart, Beech it is by giving writers an of ing their works, and the path h of judging them. Last year Mr. Carl Rosa peri... but now he is more prudent all get that on Easter Morr with a crowd wholly gr 1883 he commenced with "Es this year with the appuraty "Bohemian Girl." The house 7 and the work was received in th siastic manner. The prin Six Centuries of Work and Wages: the History of English Labour. By James E. Thorold Rogers. In 2 vols. (Sonnenschein.) Mome. Georgina Burns, MAN essay on the history of labour and wages Mr. Ludwig. On Tuesday evening "Ca in England is the natural sequel and comluced, with Mome. Mark E. plement to the great work in which Prof. Though here and there in the Rogers investigated the history of agriculture ult could be found, till t and prices for the long period between the satisfactory performance reigns of Henry III. and Queen Elizabeth. audience. Mr. Bartale was very snecessful. I reserve, but in some was an exceedingly H. Snazelle and M. L muggler and his be at did not, perhaps, terror. We must al nd intelligent if not as which became legally practicable as the poorer population had been removed, were ects excellent. In this paThe present work deals with a fresh collection was raised, which in some cases appears promising singing sberg as Frasqu Out on the stage; £ 1. ble direction of SEL AGENCIES ts, Messrs. W. H it scarce, We are not obliged to follow the author in his discussion of the burning questions of the day. One may join in his wish that the diffused opulence of the fifteenth century could be united with the civilisation of our own time, without agreeing with all his theories as to primogeniture and entails, and the taxation of urban ground-rents. The book is written, on the whole, in a kindly spirit, though its language is somewhat exuberant in strength or violence; but it might have been as well to have employed less vivid denunciation of the dead men and women whose descendants are taking part in the labours and reforms of to-day. The Church and aristocracy, the statesmen and the lawyers, are all impartially reprimanded, and perhaps the most severe rebuke is reserved for all the dynasties that have ever ruled in England; our Constitution, we are told, "has been wrested from the several families who have been permitted, from time to time, to be at the head of affairs, and have one and all conspired against the welfare of those who have endured them, till, more frequently than any other people, the English have deposed them and driven them away." The causes which changed the whole system of agriculture must, in any case, have led to a rise in prices, but this would have been of little importance if the increase had been regular and gradual. Prof. Rogers attributes the sudden disturbance of values, which permanently weakened the resources of the labouring class, to the iniquitous debasement of the currency in the reigns of Henry VIII. The price of food rose out of all proportion to the slow advance in It is hardly worthy of the writer's robustwages. While the price of labour was in-ness "to think so brain-sickly of things." We creased by one half, the comparative value turn with pleasure to those parts of the work of meat was tripled and that of corn was where his fervid spirit has enabled him to raised in nearly as high a ratio. picture for us the stirring scenes of mediaeval money, though it lasted only sixteen years, was "The effect of Henry's and Edward's base life. One of the best descriptions deals with the journeys from Oxford to London and back potent enough to dominate in the history of of a bailiff in quest of the best foreign milllabour and wages from the sixteenth century stones. The incidents are taken from the to the present time, so enduring are the causes accounts of the Manor of Cuxham for the which influence the economical history of the summer of 1331. Five gallons of claret are consumed between merchant and customer before the luck-penny is handed over. The goods are brought home by water, the Thames being the most convenient highway for the carriage of all kinds of merchandise. "Dues are claimed for wharfage and murage, tolls for maintaining the banks and the citywall. The vessel with its freight passes up the river through the swans and salmon fisheries and the Forest of Windsor." the old arable farming in common field Two other main sources of pauperism are to the rotation of grass and grain in the found in the destruction of the religious mixed husbandry that enabled them to meet guilds, which, to some extent, fulfilled the the demand. The lords' demesnes had for functions of the modern benefit societies; and the most part lain intermixed with the in the regulation of wages by the justices in scattered strips of the tenantry by whose quarter sessions, which was not finally co-operative labours the open fields were abolished before the year 1824. It is probcultivated; but the new system involved the able, however, as Prof. Rogers has pointed necessity of throwing the parcels of demesne out, that this system of assessment would together and of fencing them in separate have been as ineffectual as the old Statute inclosures. Great hardships must have re- of Labourers, if it had not been preceded by At Maidenhead the boat pays a second murage, sulted from the haste with which existing the violent legislation of Henry VIII. and perhaps because the jurisdiction of the City tenancies were closed, and from the refusal accompanied by the mischievous restrictions over the Thames extended to this neighbourto make new grants for lives or for years of the old Poor Law and the rules of hood. Then it passed along the horse-shoe of upon estates where the tenants had a reason- parochial settlement. The evils of the the Thames as far as Henley, beyond which able expectation of renewal; and much legislation which permitted the distinction it is probable that the navigation of the river bitterness of feeling was undoubtedly caused between the over-rated" open parishes "did not at that time reach, at least in summer. by the constant inclosures of waste lands and the "close parishes," from which the Here the stones are bored for the use of the mills, and two are carried in hired carts to Cuxham. Another good description is that of "the great and famous fair of Stourbridge," which was held in a field near the Monastery of Barnwell, about a mile from Cambridge. We are told that this fair was as celebrated in its day as those of Novgorod or Leipzig. Here were assembled the merchants of the East and the West, the Easterlings from the Hansetowns, the traders of the Levant, Venetians and Genoese and Spaniards with jennets and warhorses and iron from "the Crane of Seville." "There were few households possessed of any wealth which did not send a purchaser or give a commission for Stourbridge Fair." The story of the coming of the Black Death, in which a third of the people perished, is worked out with great clearness and power; and we are shown how vain were the efforts to stay by legislation the necessary rise in the value of labour and the inevitable enfranchisement of the peasantry. The insurrection under Wat Tyler in 1381 was the consequence of an ill-judged attempt to restore the obligation to work upon the lords' lands, which had been commuted for a fixed rent over the greater part of the country. All this is very well explained by Prof. Rogers, who is unsurpassed in his knowledge of the conditions of life during the period of three centuries which is covered by his personal researches into the history of values and prices. In such a mass of details as is here presented to us, it is impossible that there should be no errors or omissions. The authority of Fitzherbert might be quoted against the too general statement that the lord's demesne was inclosed and occupied in severalty at the date of the earliest court-rolls; and the conclusion that there is not a manor-roll in existence which dates earlier than the last ten or twelve years of Henry III., though perhaps technically exact, does not allow sufficient authority to such records as the statement of the customs of Hales-Owen, in the reign of John, and the transcripts of rolls beginning in 1221, which are noticed in the Custumal of Bleadon in Somerset. But in spite of any deductions, which each reader may make for himself as to political matters, or as to the minuter details of the law, there cannot be any doubt that this is a very interesting and important contribution to the study of English history. CHARLES I. ELTON. English Verse. In 5 vols. I. "Chaucer to Burns." II. "Translations." III. "Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century." IV. "Dramatic Scenes and Characters." V. "Ballads and Romances." Edited by W. J. Linton and R. H. Stoddard. (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.) ONLY one of these five volumes of selections from English Verse strikes us as having any special interest as a representative compilation; and that is the third of the series, the one containing the selections from lyrics of the nineteenth century. The editors-two veteran American men of letters-nowhere tell us what their purpose was in making the compilation, and in a case of the kind the purpose must count for a good deal in fixing the standard of the reviewer's judgment. If the volumes are intended for the casual reader 66 to open at random on the chance of finding study-such an Introduction would have been something to entertain or delight, or elevate, in place. We could then have complained or serve whatever function he expects poetry only of its inadequacy; as it is, it is both to discharge, it must be acknowledged that inadequate and irrelevant. The Introduction they form a very good anthology, excellent to the "Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century" value for the price charged. The bias of the is a commonplace lament about the poetic editors apparently is towards moral energy, darkness of the eighteenth, illustrating nothing pathos, and quaintness of thought, but their but the saying that "the darkest hour is just taste is sufficiently catholic and enlightened to before day." It may be remarked by the way recognise good things in many other veins. that Mr. Stoddard puts this aphorism with They are obviously most at home in the poetry curious caution-"It is so in nature, we are of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, told, and it is sometimes so in art and and of our own century. It is in dealing with letters." Surely one who has such hard the minor poets of their own generation that things to say about the conventionality of the their powers of selection are seen at their eighteenth century ought to have verified this best. Their choice from Richard Hengist natural phenomenon for himself, and not have Horne, Gerald Griffin, and W. J. Cory might rested content with a we are told" as the alone be put forward as credentials for the fit basis for a figure of speech. In this Introperformance of the task of making an an- duction to the "Lyrics of the Nineteenth thology from the works of their contemporaries. Century" the editor discusses the prose Whether their taste is equally unerring in fiction of the eighteenth, dismissing it with a dealing with works of more recent publica- confession that "it was not worthy of the tion might be made a question, but at least genius of the English people"! When the nothing is included that is unworthy of "origins" of nineteenth-century poetry come perusal, or of the reputation of any of the to be seriously studied, it may be found that writers. The volume of "Translations this same prose fiction thus ignominiously gathers together many pieces not generally slighted had more influence than any other known, and of interest in themselves, apart factor-certainly much more than the French from their felicity as translations. From the Revolution, which commonly gets all the point of view of the casual reader, intent only credit-in breaking the bonds of classicism. upon spending half-an-hour pleasantly, the and opening up a free course for imaginative only failure in the series is the volume of genius in verse. Mr. Stoddard's Introduction "Dramatic Scenes and Characters." to the volume "From Chaucer to Burns" covers most historical ground, and is very much open to criticism at both ends of the history. It is written in the dithyrambie style peculiar to sketches of poetical history when the proseman tries to write in a poetical manner worthy of his subject. This is how it concludes, after an eloquent description of what "the seventeenth-century lyric" had to suffer from the Commonwealth and the Restoration: But if the anthology is intended as a representative anthology, it is of very unequal merit, full and satisfactory for certain periods, thin and scrappy for others; and, as we have said, only one of the five volumes would pass muster as a whole. One would infer, from the age of the editors and the character of their work, that they began to take an interest in literature about the time when the revolt against the critical judgments of the eighteenth century had passed across the Atlantic and fairly established itself; and that, going with the tide set in motion by Coleridge and Lamb, they became ardent students of pre-Miltonic English literature, but did not carry their studies farther back than Tottel's Miscellany, while they absolutely neglected the poetry of the eighteenth century. Of Johnson Mr. Stoddard, who writes the Introductions to the several volumes, speaks with the extravagant conventional contempt of his epoch; and the poetry of the eighteenth century is far from adequately represented in the forty pages devoted to it in one of the volumes. These Introductions justify us in treating the anthology as if it were intended to be representative. They had much better have been omitted. They are in no sense introductory; and, while they profess to be historical studies of literary "origins," both facts and opinions are obviously often second-hand and generally questionable. For example, the Introduction to the volume of "Translations," which, with the exception of a passage from Chapman's Homer, are taken from nineteenthcentury translators, is a rambling dissertation on Surrey and Chapman and Dryden and Pope considered, not as translators, but simply as literary celebrities about whom and their lives there is a good deal to be said. If the volume had been intended to illustrate the history of translation into English verse-a by no means uninteresting subject of dilettante "All this the lyric survived; for, though its jubilant tones were hushed, it was still a voice in English Verse - a clear, sweet voice in Sedley; a low, plaintive voice in Rochester: 3 womanly voice in Aphra Behn. An immortal voice, for when, slumbering and murmuring in its dreams, it awoke at last in the next century, it was with a start and a cry-a sweet wild cry, a deep loud shout-the long triumphant song of the Master Singer-Burns." In plain prose, and for the student of "origins," in which character Mr. Stoddard here appears, the advent of Burns was not quite so startling as this would imply; the lark, in fact, had left his watery nest before the Master Singer awoke from his slumbers. The first half of the Introduction is a sketch of "the progress of English Verse from its religious and historic origins to Chancer," containing many evidences that the sketch is not made from first-hand knowledge. It was not necessary for the enjoyment of the extracts, and it is not easy to see why the editor should have considered it incumbent upon him to furnish such a sketch. It abounds in errors, large and small. It is a large error to dismiss French influence on Chaucer with the incidental remark that “his first models were French poets, but from the first he was independent of his models," when fifteen pages in an Introduction consisting altogether of forty-one are occupied with an account of works and writers that had no influence on Chaucer. "It is in Wace and Geoffrey of Monmouth that we first find Sabrina and Gorboduc, and Lear, and that noblest of all kingly figures-Arthur; and it was from these and the Latin poet, Walter Map, that the whole cycle of the Arthurian epic grew. And seven hundred years before Dante, and a thousand years before Milton, the genius of the groom, or monk, Layamon, had penetrated the circles of Hell.” Layamon is evidently a slip of the pen for Cadmon, but such a slip allowed to pass through the press is significant. Not till he reaches the Elizabethans is Mr. Stoddard on firm ground; and it would seem, both from what he says and from the selections made, that it is the lyric poetry that he is specially acquainted with. The anthology as a whole would have been more valuable if it had been less in bulk, and if it had not pretended to representative historical completeness. Of smaller leaving the theorising and application to others, he might have broken through his rule in certain cases-as, e.g., where he gives, without comment, half a dozen different explanations of a term or a name; for the conclusions to which his experience or philological knowledge must have led him would not be without weight. The favourite native mode of deriving a name seems to be the combination of two others-Tutuila from Tutu and his wife Ila, Savaii from Sa and Vaila, &c. and, though often fanciful, is no doubt suggested readily from being so consonant with the genius of the language. Dr. Turner is of course familiar with, though he does not allude to, the identification of the name Savaii with the Hawaii or Hawaiki of the other Polynesian groups, the term being used to denote their Hades, or the ancestral home in the West, which has been plausibly identified with Java, or even, by one ingenious writer, with Saba in Arabia! That in Samoa and the neighbouring groups the term is not used (being replaced here by Bulotu) is one of the many arguments which have been adduced to prove that Samoa was the starting-point of at all events the latest emigration which peopled the groups to the eastward. The simplicity of the versions given by Dr. Turner of various myths, such as those of the origin of fire, of the regulation of the sun's course, and of the lifting up of the heavens from the earth, compared with the fuller Rarotongan, Maori, and Hawaiian versions, may also be taken as indicating the direction in which they travelled; but these comparisons are beyond the limits which the author has laid down for himself. W. MINTO. Samoa. By George Turner. With a Preface by E. B. Tylor. (Macmillan.) In a former work, published more than twenty years ago, Dr. Turner recorded his experience of nineteen years' missionary labour in the Pacific. From the volume before us all personal and professional narrative has been eliminated, and its pages are filled instead with notes on every subject connected with the people, their traditions and beliefs, customs and amusements, wars, manufactures, social and political order. To the comparative ethnologist the value of such notes from a competent hand is evident. Dr. Tylor, indeed, affirms that "in several passages this book illustrates more forcibly than any other certain important historical points of belief and custom." The criticism will even, we think, bear extending; for a perusal of the book not only leads to a singularly clear perception of the mental attitude of the Samoans, but enables the reader to picture accurately for himself the general character and extent of the strange civilisation, or culture, which the race had attained. Here and there, owing, no doubt, to a laudable desire to be succinct, the author fails to make his meaning quite clear, but such condensation is a fault on the right side. Indeed, the only instance of redundance in the volume occurs in the curious statement that "at the birth of a child only the woman and her mother were present.' But a fuller explanation of matters recorded would occasionally have been helpful. Speaking of the island of Fakaofo, in the Tokelau group, the author states that the King (who is also chief priest) and the principal god, who is represented by a sacred stone, are both styled "Tui Tokelau "-i.e., King of Tokelau. This recalls, though it does not precisely parallel, the state of matters in Tonga, where (in former days) the "Tui Tonga" was the head of a family which was reverenced as peculiarly sacred, being probably the descendant of the original dynasty. But though supreme in religious matters (like the former Mikados in Japan) he had no temporal authority. Again, although the expressed intention of the author is to confine himself to the statement of facts, Among the traditions he gives, we are struck by the number of "gods"-i.e., no doubt, successful invaders who are reported to have come from Fiji. This again suggests a migration, after a longer or shorter sojourn in Fiji, of a kindred race from the West, and it marks the period as remote, for a people is not careful to chronicle its recent defeats. The wars with Tonga are said to have ceased more than twenty generations ago; and this synchronises with a period of general movement in the Pacific some seven or eight hundred years back, to which the last great migration to Hawaii may probably be referred. A single instance, taken almost at random, will show the great value of this book, as enabling us to place ourselves at the Samoan's point of view, and to understand the conclusions he arrives at. The word for a white man is "Papalangi "-i.e., "heaven-burster." The idea is that the sky (langi) is joined to the land, or sea, at the extremity of the visible horizon; there is therefore, so to speak, nothing miraculous to the Samoan in the white man's arrival, any more than in such a myth as the raising of the sky from the sea. But we must always remember that, at his present stage of mental development, ideas corresponding to our "natural" and "supernatural" can hardly be said to have a place. The white men, however, were "gods;" and it is not flattering to hear that the nightly prayer offered by the head of the family ran, Defend us against the coming of the sailing gods, lest they bring us discase and death." The peculiar people who are always looking for the "lost tribes" have traced them to Polynesia in the "cities of refuge," said to have existed in more than one of the groups. Dr. Turner mentions a great tree, at the foot of which the criminal was safe from the avenger until enquiry had been made; but his story is that the people, having been some time without a king, had fixed on this tree as a "protecting substitute." A remarkable feature of Samoan life was the almost unrestricted communism with respect to food and other commodities, and they are greatly scandalised at the idea that a white man could possibly be allowed to starve in his own country. There is much that is attractive in the system, but, as Dr. Tylor points out, "they pay dearly for this good in a social state where work is unprofitable and progress is checked because the earnings of the industrious pass into the common property of workers and idlers." It is clear that in such a state of society the institution of tabu is very valuable, as, for instance, in protecting a crop in times of scarcity. The author testifies to "the extent to which it preserved honesty and order among a heathen people," but it is surely rather against their communism than against their heathenism that such protection was needed. It is well to reprobate all "superstitions," but this one is perhaps not more degrading or unhealthy than the sentiment which, in the mind of the London rough, draws tabu round the flowerbeds in Hyde Park. Connected with this indiscriminate generosity is the profuse distribution of presents at a marriage among the families of the bride and bridegroom. The distinct nature of the contributions from each side, as well as certain customs connected with the adoption of children, recall some peculiar Fijian customs, and seem, besides, to point to the former existence of a system of exogamous families; but the author does not say that anything of the kind exists beyond such limitations on marriage as prevail among ourselves. Everyone must decide for himself as to the genuineness of the tradition that the first woman was formed by the insertion into a clay image, by its maker, of a bone (ivi-the author pardonably translates it a rib) taken from his own side. Other Polynesian authorities vouch for the story. We can only allude to the refinement and ingenuity shown in the games described; to the veneration for the memory of saviours who have sacrificed life or dignity in the service of others; and to the pathos and humour of some of their songs and stories. The dance which winds up a house-warming is called "Treading down the beetles." The occurrence of the fable of the "Hare and the Tortoise " (the hare is represented by a fowl, the tortoise by a turtle) is curious; but we are puzzled by a myth in which one of the characters develops horns, seeing that no horned animal existed in the islands. Some information reported at second-hand from other groups is, as might be expected, of less value; and such statements as that "the natives of New Caledonia pray to the gods of other countries than their own" requires explanation. But some curious facts are reported, such as the employment of frigate birds as carriers between the islands, and the construction, in one of the Gilbert group, of fish-ponds -a wise practice known in Hawaii in ancient days, but, we believe, long abandoned. progress. Indirectly the volume illustrates the wide of British manufacturing and commercial differences and equally deep-seated resemblances between the Polynesian and Melanesian races. Many, again, will find proofs of direct ancestral connexion with the continental world, and all must be struck by the similarity of man's adaptations, in all ages and places, to given circumstances. COUTTS TROTTER. Fortunes made in Business: a Series of Original THE sketches comprised in these volumes Regarded from the biographical point of view, they are wanting some more, some less-in both colour and continuity. We get occasional glimpses, often vivid and suggestive, of the personality and social surroundings of the subjects of the sketches. But the most vivid and suggestive of the pictures thus obtained belong to the period of struggle, or preparation. The men themselves become dwarfed and shadowy in proportion as their success and its results grow in magnitude and definiteness. Regarded, on the other hand, as history, the sketches are open to the criticism that the triumphs of inventive skill and industrial or commercial energy described in them are dealt with too much in relation to the individual effort of which they were the immediate result, and the individual opulence of which they were the cause, and too little in relation to the general process of development of which they formed parts. In some instances the effect of comparing one sketch with another is to set up a conflict between individual claims, for the means of deciding which the reader must seek elsewhere. This is notably the case with the respective claims of Mr. Isaac Holden, with his "favourite 'square motion' machine, ," and of Mr. Lister, with whom "nearly all the men who have helped the machine forward in any marked degree have been associated," and who "has been, as it were, the chief controlling power," to the lion's share of the merit of having perfected the wool-combing machine. Again, in "The Fosters, of Queensbury," the reader is distinctly invited to accord to "Mr. John Foster and others "" the Town Council Register, with Additions from Contemporary Annals. By Alexander Maxwell. (Edinburgh: David Douglas.) the fact that it is the work of several hands, seems extraordinary. While more than one In more instances than one popular belief of the sketches display considerable literary as to the personal qualities most conducive to power, and the bulk of them are of average success in business might seem at first sight to merit, some of them are marred by great carebe discredited by the facts narrated in the lessness of diction and provoking discursivesketches. The career of Sir Josiah Mason, for ness, and one-that devoted to the revolution instance, one of the most interesting described in the art of dyeing brought about by the in the book, suggests the necessity of a discoveries of Mr. W. H. Perkins-combines proviso to the ordinary reading of a familiar confusion of thought with incoherence of proverb. Beginning life as an itinerant cake- language to an extent frequently fatal to seller, he became, in turns, costermonger, intelligibility. shoemaker, carpenter, blacksmith, houseJAMES W. FURRELL. painter, carpet-weaver, and manager of a "gilt toy" trade, to say nothing of an interval The History of Old Dundee. Narrated out of of letter-writing, before a happy inspiration led him to embark in the business in which he made a colossal fortune that of a manufacturer of steel pens. The fact is that, while ultimate fixity of purpose is more or less essential to success, far more of existing THIS book is a valuable contribution to the poverty is probably traceable to a timid history of the social and municipal life of adherence to one line of business after it Dundee during the last half of the sixteenth has been fairly tried and found wanting, than and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. to too ready facility for changing one calling The materials which have been supplied by for another. A partnership, again, between the records in the town's archives and by a a country gentleman, a Unitarian minister, transcript of the earliest volumes of the burgh and a solicitor is hardly the kind of com- register have been carefully examined by bination from which the popular judgment author and condensed into separate articles, would predict success in the development while, in the frequent quotations which are of a business demanding so much special given, the quaint and pithy language of knowledge and skill as the manufacture the original has been generally retained. It of iron. Yet it was such a combination is true that local tradition, which has been which, as the firm of Hird, Dawson, and termed the father of lies, has no place in Hardy, founded the famous Low Moor this book, and that the reader is furnished Iron Works, the progress of which has been with ample evidence for every statement so great that they now work up annually some made by the author. Still the perpetual 60,000 tons of ore, and so steady that after a recurrence in the body of the narrative of lapse of ninety years, during which a succes- long quotations from the old documents is apt sion of immense fortunes have been made, to tire the reader, despite his antiquarian or the representatives of the same three families philological tastes and his love of the ver still comprise the entire proprietary. In nacular. To sift, condense, and frame these this instance, however, it is evident that valuable materials into a continuous historical Dawson, the minister, who was a man of narrative, and to relegate his authorities to large scientific attainments combined with foot-notes or appendices, has formed no part keen business instincts, had mistaken his pro- of the author's plan. His general aim has fession. Thus we are told :been to allow the old writings to tell their ter; his mind was too much occupied in scientific “Mr. Dawson did not make a successful minis-is sure to be, not only to the inhabitants of own story—and a deeply interesting story it speculation and in the promotion of his material the hillside near his chapel, and worked them prosperity. He established some coal mines on with profit. It was averred that his spiritual ministrations and his commercial engagements trenched so closely upon each other that he used frequently to be found paying his colliers their wages on the Sunday morning before service; after which he would slip into the little chapel and read to his handful of hearers a few Dundee, but to all who take an interest in into the social life of the old burghers, but we Scottish history. We not only gain an insight can realise the very important part they played in events of great national concern in those stirring and eventful times. The burghers of Dundee seem, on the whole, to have lived happily under the system of paternal rule which prevailed at a time when "all recognised how needful it was for their safety and strength that the fathers of the burgh should govern with arbitrary sway, and that themselves should render a ready obedience." The magistrates were generally men who commanded the respect of the burgesses. pages a large part of the merit from a sermon-book that had been previously which, in the account of the Salts of Saltaire, placed in readiness in the pulpit. He was a he is no less distinctly asked to concede to farmer as well as a colliery proprietor and Sir Titus Salt alone, of having rendered minister of the Gospel. His hens were penned possible the utilisation of alpaca wool. To in the chapel graveyard, and the fodder for his a great extent, no doubt, these defects cattle was stowed away in a portion of the are inseparable from the plan of the work; chapel itself. It was no wonder that a man while, in extenuation of that last referred to, ministry should find his congregation gradually in the performance of their duties, and who had so many engagements apart from his At times we find that they were remiss it may be urged that the most competent dwindling. jury of experts would, in many cases, find it chapel was sometimes not more than half-a-tempt by The Sunday attendance in the that their authority was treated with con"turbulent and insolent persons." a difficult, if not impossible, task "to appor- dozen, and so matters went on until the Low This insubordination prevailed especially under tion to each inventor his proper share of the Moor enterprise began to occupy his thoughts, the "injudicious and unpolitical rule" of Sir when he relinquished his spiritual charge, and James Scrymgeour, but when he was deposed thenceforth was to all intents and purposes a the burgesses again became law-abiding and man of business." respectful to their rulers. Indeed, the bur gesses had often good reason to be proud of their chief magistrates. Sir James was succeeded by William Duncan, progenitor of the merit of the invention." With these limitations, Fortunes made in Business may be safely commended as furnishing the reader with a large mass of highly interesting and edifying information regarding some of the most important episodes The literary execution of Fortunes Made in Business is marked by an inequality which, after making the most liberal allowance for |