only a dowager-duchess, and, I am afraid, a poor deluded creature at best.

2. Lady Grove says that she has seen "a countess of irreproachable breeding eating cheese with her knife."

In all the writer's experience he has never seen any one eat his cheese with anything else, but for one exception. He once saw a duke help himself with a tablespoon, and tear the cheese to pieces with his fingers. But he always thought it a very disgusting habit. 3. Lady Grove once saw a marchioness drinking tea out of a

saucer."

66

The writer can only exclaim "Shame!" He can truthfully say that in all his experience he has never known a duchess do such a thing. He could quote the melancholy fate of the Duchess of Q, who died of diphtheria produced by pouring scalding tea down her throat.

4. One must speak of a "shift," not a "chemise."

The writer hesitates to speak of either. But his zeal for inquiry led him to ask for a "shift" at the shop of a milliner who, to his knowledge, provides underclothing to four princesses—a German highness and three duchesses. The milliner declared that he did not know what was meant.

5. "Gentlemanlike," not "gentlemanly."

It is to be hoped that no one who has the slightest reverence for the English language will use either of these words. The former implies that a man is like a gentleman but is not one, and before Lady Grove uses the word "genteel" again, may the writer beseech her to read the Case of General Ople (George Meredith). And, speaking of literature, there are one or two volumes which may be recommended-Les Precieuses Ridicules, Les femmes savantes, and the records of the Hotel Rambouillet,

6. "You must not sit in the middle of a hansom cab."

The last person the writer saw indulging in this vulgarity was an ex-Premier of England.

7. "Dimond," "aint," "wantin'," and "Seymer" are permissible and even aristocratic.

The best criticism is to be found in Lady Grove's article: "A fine ear, a delicate enunciation, and a refined spirit is necessary to the proper appreciation of the beauties of so subtle a language." Echo answers "Aint it just ?"

But of

It is to be hoped that we do not appear hypercritical. Lady Grove's test, we should say that the majority are tests, not of aristocracy, but of an ordinary knowledge of English. Others are entirely debateable: and the remainder are simply absurd. The fact is that we all know (though we may have different ideas on the subject) what is a gentleman and what is the reverse. He is not the sum total of a number of particularities of diction and costume.

In short, he is, he does not consist. He is an abstract entity, not a collection of capricious atoms. Ladies are unable to grasp abstract ideas of any kind. On the other hand, they have an infinite genius for minutiæ and the microscope. They apply the only tests they are able to employ. Let them cling to their kingdom of Lilliput. It is to be regretted that they can see only the parts, but are unable to recognise the whole. But by all means let the parts be correct. Let no man be dubbed aristocratic because he says "aint" or "dimond," or plebeian because he pronounces "Calais" as if it was French, and "Cayenne" as if it was English. And, above all, may men be gifted with the power of distinguishing between "gentlemen" " and "cads," while "the upper ten thousand," the "upper circles," or the "aristocracy" are relegated to their proper sphere in the kitchen.

OGIER RYSDEN.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY.

WE recently had the pleasure of calling attention to Dr. Hastie's translation of Urbild der Menschheit (The Ideal of Humanity) by Karl Chr. Fr. Krause, which we understand was the first attempt to introduce the writings of this philosopher to English readers. Those who have been interested in Dr. Hastie's book will, perhaps, be glad to know that a collection of Krause's miscellaneous writings, in one volume, is procurable from Messrs. Williams and Norgate, under the title of Der Menschheitbund.1 Krause was a prolific writer, as the bibliography included in the present volume shows; and though in no little measure indebted to Schelling, he displays a striking originality. The book will repay perusal, though the awkward language occasionally employed may increase the difficulties of the English reader. It should interest the followers of Anguste Comte, although Krause recognises another god than the "Menschheit." Der Menschheitbund is an ideal not to be coldly set aside, but, like other ideals, worth striving after, even if it can never be wholly attained. If all nations could be gathered into one Federation, as Krause dreamed, international jealousies and wars would cease, and the millennium might then not be far off. We have in the book the author's thoughts on many interesting questions, telling us what our conduct in his ideal Bund should be; and on the whole he manifests a very broad and tolerant spirit. Especially interesting is the author's Creed or Menschheitspruch in imitation of that of Athanasius, as also his modification of the Lord's Prayer. It seems like the irony of fate that a man with such a large heart, ready to embrace all the world the Founder, as he calls himself, of the Menschheitbund-should for so many years have led such an unhappy existence.

We have more than once welcomed contributions to philosophy issued by the enterprising firm of Fr. Frommau, and we have pleasure in calling attention to a recent publication, Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam, by T. J. de Boer.2 The course of Moslem

1 Der Menschheitbund. Nebst Anhang und Nachträgen aus dem handschriftlichen Nachlasse von Karl Chr. Fr. Krause. Edited by Richard Vetter. London: Williams & Norgate.

2 Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam. T. J. de Boer. Stuttgart: Fr. Frommau.

philosophy, as the writer remarks, is more a process of digestion than production, no important progressive thoughts being discovered therein; but it is of value in so far as it was the first attempt to assimilate the results of Greek thought more largely and with greater freedom than had been done in the Altchristlichen Dogmatik. The volume, like the first above noticed, is well printed in Roman type.

&

The second volume of the History of the English Church 1 (to be completed in seven volumes), of which the Very Rev. the Dean of Winchester and the Rev. W. Hunt are the general editors, is written by the Dean (W. R. W. Stephens) himself, and deals with the period from the Norman Conquest to the Accession of Edward I. This period is the most important in the "making of England"; in it the foundations of our institutions in Church and State were laid; it was an age of birth and growth, of vigour and progress-intellectual, religious and political. Mr. Stephens fully enters into the spirit of the time, and fitly tells the story of its stirring events. Great men like Lanfranc, Anselm, Becket, Stephen Langton, and Robert Grosseteste are vividly depicted, and their deeds related with appropriate and picturesque energy. Church and State grew together, and the qualities of churchmen and statesmen were generally combined. Religion and politics were not always the same thing, but they were almost inseparable; so the story of the Church is the story of England during this period. The author, however, does not confine himself to the political aspect of Church history, but describes the life and character of the clergy, the monastic orders, popular religion and learning, and other matters relating to the nation at large. The story of the period has never been better told, or perhaps so well in so small a compass. Summaries of principal events, &c., useful for reference, are given in Appendices.

We

Mr. Benjamin Walker is a bold man, or he would not have ventured to entitle his common-sense philosophy Mr. Epictetus, Jun.,2 thus provoking unavoidable comparisons with the great Stoic. admit Mr. Walker's common-sense, but regret his lack of style, for his little book is essentially disjointed and scrappy. We sympathise to a great extent with his dissatisfaction with formal philosophy and conventional religion, and agree that Stoicism properly understood offers a better refuge for the human mind. Mr. Walker's philosophy is not pure stoicism, as it is modified by Christian Theism, and the combination is productive of a cheerful optimism. The author says many sensible things, but few if any that are original. The book ought to be popular, and we wish it success.

1 The English Church from the Norman Conquest to the Accession of Edward I. (1066-1272). By the Very Rev. W. R. W. Stephens, B.D., F.S.A. London and New York: Macmillan. 1901.

2 Mr. Epictetus, Junr., His Book.

Wherein is set forth a Common-sense Philosophy for the Conduct of Life. By Benjamin Walker. London and Manchester: John Heywood. 1901.

SOCIOLOGY, POLITICS, AND JURISPRUDENCE.

A Century of Law Reform,1 as its sub-title informs us, consists of Twelve Lectures on the Changes in the Law of England during the Nineteenth Century. These lectures were delivered at the request of the Council of Legal Education, in the Old Hall of Lincoln's Inn; and the Council is to be highly commended, not only for its conception of the idea, but also for its choice of instruments for carrying into effect an idea so calculated to stimulate interest in the theory and practice of law. The lecturers are all men standing in the front rank, either as practitioners in the courts, like Mr. Montague Lush, or as a jurist, like Dr. T. A. Castor, or as men combining both characters, like Dr. Blake Odgers, K.C., and Mr. Augustine Birrell, K.C. What better exponent of changes in the criminal law could one ask for than Sir Harry B. Poland, K.C., Treasurer of the Inner Temple? Dr. Blake Odgers is responsible for three lectures, Dr. Castor and Mr. Birrell for one apiece only. Both the latter are humorists of a high order, and both have keen political insight, examining and weighing the law not only from a legal standpoint, but from a social and political one as well. Much of the matter is necessarily elementary, but in these reactionary days of smug complacency it is just as well that the average man should be reminded of the vast changes which have taken place during the last century, changes carried out by men of progressive thought in the teeth of exactly the same opposition that is offered to-day by the conservative mind to every proposed alteration for the amelioration of society and the removal of injustice.

The

Our Public Schools: Their Influence on English History,2 by Mr. J. G. Cotton Minchin, will appeal to every public school man whether he belongs to those schools which are treated of here or not. schools forming the subject of this volume are Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Merchant Taylors', Rugby, St. Paul's, Westminster, and Winchester. Shrewsbury the author has purposely omitted, as its history was being written by the late Mr. G. W. Fisher at the time he was engaged upon the present. If we may venture to make a suggestion, Mr. Minchin might include this famous school, together with many others, such as Tonbridge, Manchester, Uppingham, Repton, Hailebury, Epsom, and Leamington in a second volume, which, although perhaps lacking in such a wealth of historical inci

1 A Century of Law Reform. Twelve Lectures on the Changes in the Law of England during the Nineteenth Century. Delivered at the request of the Council of Legal Education, in the Old Hall, Lincoln's Inn, during Michaelmas Term, 1900, and Hilary Term, 1901. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1901.

2 Our Public Schools: Their Influence on English History. By J. G. Cotton Minchin. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd. 1901.