shadow among shadows, solitary, disconsolate and ineffectual.

The deplorable result of the romantic movement in our political literature was to disconnect that literature, for the first time in our history, from the general life of the nation. Shakespeare and Milton wrote for the commonalty, and Wordsworth, who held in this also to old tradition, attempted, at least, to do so. They tried to kindle the imagination, enrich the mind and touch the heart of the common people. To this end they made legend, history, politics, religion and even philosophy the matter of poetry, and they kept that poetry simple, sensuous and passionate, so that it might come home to men's business and bosoms. Hence their work was distinguished by that profound application of ideas to life which compelled the admiration of the leader of the great French movement of enlightenment in the eighteenth century. And with all this it remained poetry of the supreme order. It was popular, and yet it was wanting neither in exquisiteness and beauty of execution, nor in largeness and sublimity of conception. It moved the peasant almost as powerfully as the sacred Book which he regarded as the very handiwork of God, and it filled with wonder and delight the amateur of the delicacies of fine literature.

The poetry of the romantic school, on the other hand, far from having any connection with the general life of the nation, was a kind of charm that deadened one's sense of that general life. The new writers were merchants of the incantations and faery visions that come between a man and the deeds of his hand and the hopes of his heart:

If there were dreams to sell.

What would you buy?

Some cost a passing-bell,

And some a sigh,

That shakes from life's fresh crown Only a rose-leaf down.

If there were dreams to sell.
What would you buy?

That was the burden of their songs. The sick, languid and discontented spirits of their age came to them and purchased dreams of demoniac power, dreams of earthly love and heavenly, dreams of beauty and sorrow, dreams of social reform, dreams of everything; and then passed out too from the storm and sunshine of actual existence into the hollow Lotus-land. Addressed to a little circle of over-cultivated and idle people who liked to refine upon their feelings, English poetry was perverted from a sweetening, ennobling and general influence in life, into an enervating, distracting and narrow influence in life. It became something that the people could not understand: something that was fashioned as a means of escape from the world which they loved, and which they labored to make more pleasant, and more beautiful for their children. The art of Marlowe, Shakespeare and Milton fell into common disrepute. The London 'prentices were no longer moved to rapture by ideas of chivalry and heroism, as were the lads who followed Ralph in "The Knight of the Burning Pestle." They turned instead for recreation to the realism of the music-hall and regarded the romantic poets, not without some justification, as the proper objects of vulgar ridicule. In vain did some of the men of the later school of romanticism try to touch the popular mind by other means than poetry: by painting, by the revival of craftsmanship, by fiction and criticism. Having grow weary, as Tennyson and Matthew Arnold had done, of the loneliness and the eerieness of their artificial paradise, they did not, like Tennyson and Arnold, abandon it, and come down to the world and work there cheerfully and without anodynes. Art to them was still a refuge from the misery of human life, and they wanted

to lead the English people into the place of shelter which they had found. The English people wisely declined to follow them, as, I think, the Irish people will decline to follow their disciples who are now working to the same end in Ireland.

The English romantic movement that Coleridge and Byron, Shelley and Keats began, and Rossetti and BurneJones, William Morris and Pater developed, was not only ineffectual, it, was disastrous. It impaired the great traditions of English literature, and it impaired even the genius of the men who succeeded in freeing themselves from its conventions. None of them was equal to his task: the task of doing The Academy.

in the age of Victoria that which Shakespeare had accomplished in the age of Elizabeth, and Milton in the age of Cromwell. In my opinion, there is immeasurably more of the stuff and spirit of great poetry in the formless prose of Walt Whitman than in all the delicate verse of the writers of the romantic school. He, in a brave attempt to glorify with light and warmth and beauty the sombre and immense new world of modern thought,

Perished in the chariot of the sun:

they, in a vain endeavor to forget the existence of that world, became merely the idle singers of an empty day.

Edward Wright.

Mr. Punch approached the door of the tent.

"The Captain of the Commons, I presume?" he said, as he raised his hat.

"Well," said the Captain, "what's your business?"

"Observe the white flag," said Mr. Punch, taking out his handkerchief. "This is, in fact, purely a friendly visit. I am come to interview you on behalf of my readers." Here he referred for a moment to his note-book. he continued, "are your views with regard to the coming contest?"

"What,"

"Ah, my dear Sir," said the Captain, "I did not recognize you for the moment. Pray sit down. Very cold the weather is. Yes. The contest? Ah, yes. Well, roughly speaking, the struggle will be one of Birth v. Brains. I need hardly say that Brains will win in the end."

"'Brains,'" said Mr. Punch, writing rapidly in his note-book. "That's you, I suppose?"

"Of course. At present we are not

quite sure what nickname we shall adopt for the contest, but probably it will be "The Brainy Ones.' I myself," he added proudly, "am known as "The People's Will.' "

"The People's Will," wrote Mr. Punch. "And are you adopting the 23-2 formation or the 3-2-3?"

"Neither. The 'all-talking-at-once formation' has always been ours."

"I see. Now I think my readers would like from you a few words on the moral aspect of the struggle."

me.

"Well, it's like this. I am "The People's Will,' and the Lords have defied And they attacked and brutally ill-treated 'Education' Bill, one of our strongest and most popular Forwards. And to make matters worse they have just shown that they are too cowardly to tackle "Trade Disputes' Bill."

"But you can't have it both ways," argued Mr. Punch. "You can't make it first a cause of offence that they mangled one Bill, and then a cause of offence that they didn't mangle another. If-”

"Excuse me," said the Captain coldly, "but didn't you say you came here to interview me?" "Yes, but-___››

"Then why are you doing all the talking? As I was saying-who are the Lords that they should oppose "The People's Will'? They are representative of nothing but their own incompetence."

"Representative of nothing but their own incompetence," wrote Mr. Punch. "Is that really your own? It sounds more like "The People's David.' And when will the contest begin?" he went on hastily.

"Well, I can't say exactly. The position is this. We have defied them to do their worst, and they are doing it. But we still defy them. So now it is their move again."

"I see. I suppose it is useless to suggest arbitration?"

"Quite. . . . Oh, must you be going? Well, tell your readers that my final message is, 'May the best boat win!' Which is us," he added, after a pause.

Mr. Punch found his way out of the camp; and went up the hill and down again the other side into the enemy's camp.

"The Captain of the Lords, I presume?" he said, as he raised his hat. "Hallo," said the Captain. "What is

it?"

"Observe the white flag," said Mr. Punch. "This is a friendly visit. I am come to interview you on behalf of my readers. "What," he had it off by heart this time-"what are your views with regard to the coming contest?"

"Roughly." said the Captain, "that it's been a jolly long time coming." "But when it does come?"

"Then it will be one of Gas v. Brains. I need hardly say that Brains will win in the end."

""Brains.'" said Mr. Punch, writing rapidly in his note-book. "That's you, I suppose?"

"Of course. We are known as "The Brainy Ones,' you know. At least you might tell your readers so."

"Certainly. And what formation are you adopting?"

"The sit-tight-formation has always been ours. It has carried every scrum so far."

"Ah yes. Now I think my readers would like from you a few words on the moral aspect of the struggle."

"Moral'?" said the Captain. "I don't know about moral, but the common sense of it is this. The People don't know what's good for them."

"And you?"

All

"That's what we're here for. this rot about interpreting the People's Will-is all-well, rot. That's not where we come in. The Commons do that. At least they think they do. We are here to protect the People against themselves. Like a father with his children. That sort of idea."

"Yes, that's all very well," said Mr. Punch; "but how is it that it's always one particular party you're protecting against itself, and never the other?"

"Excuse me," said the Captain coldly, "but didn't you say you came here to interview me?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then why are you doing all the talking?"

Mr. Punch apologized.

"But give me," he said, "a final message to take to my readers." "Well," said the Captain, "all I can say is, 'May the best boat win!'" "Which is you?" suggested the Sage. "Oh, well, if you say so." laughed the Captain. "Good-bye. Come again next year and see us. We shall still be here."

When Mr. Punch was on neutral ground again he took out his notebook, and read it carefully.

"Arbitration no good," he repeated

to himself. "I wonder." Suddenly a brilliant idea occurred to him. He snapped his pocket-book, replaced it, and began once more to climb the hill. Punch.

At the top, in full view of both camps, he ostentatiously opened, for purposes of common consultation, his one hundred and thirty-first volume.

The first volume of Zola's letters will be published early this year.

The December number of The Gentleman's Magazine is the last to appear under the editorship of Mr. A. H. Bullen. Short as has been Mr. Bullen's connection with the magazine, it has served to raise it to a high position in restoring to it a pleasantly archæological flavor.

Several of Ibsen's posthumous works are likely to be published in the near future. A Danish Christmas annual has printed a hitherto lost poem by him, "To my Accomplices," written in 1864 as a bitter greeting to Norway for not helping Denmark in the war with Germany. It disappeared in some mysterious way, and Ibsen himself regarded it as definitely lost, but recently it came to light again.

E. P. Dutton & Co. are publishing "Lord Milner's Work in South Africa," from its commencement in 1897 to the peace of Vereeniging, 1902, containing hitherto unpublished information, by W. Basil Worsfold; "Edinburg under Sir Walter Scott," by W. T. Fyfe; "Sidney Herbert, Lord Herbert of Lea," in two volumes, by Lord Stanmore; "Heidelberg, its Princes and its Palaces," by Elizabeth Godfrey. Among E. P. Dutton & Co.'s forthcoming books is "Dampier's Voyages Round the World," etc., from 1679 to 1691, with maps and illustrations. in two volumes, edited by John Masefield.

Vol. I contains a fac-simile title page from the 6th edition published in 1717.

Messrs. Routledge will publish this month a new edition of Macaulay's History of England, edited by Mr. T. F. Henderson, whose aim has been to bring the work abreast of the most recent information. Macaulay's own notes have been supplemented, many new notes have been added, errors have been corrected, and in regard to those points on which Macaulay has been severely criticized full information has been given. The new edition is to appear in two forms-in one volume in the Library of Historical Literature, and in five volumes in the New Universal Library.

Among the spring books to come from Messrs. Constable is "The Diary of General William Dyott," edited in two volumes by R. W. Jeffery. General William Dyott, who was born in 1761, commanded the 25th Regiment at the capture in Grenada in 1796, and five years later commanded a brigade in the battle which led to the capture of Alexandria and the capitulation of the French army. His last experience of active service was in the luckless Walcheren expedition of 1809. General William Dyott was aide-de-camp to George III. in 1801, and a personal friend of William IV., with whom he first became acquainted in Nova Scotia, at which station the "Sailor King"then Prince William--was commanding the Andromeda frigate.

There is an ambiguity about the Pantheon which must have puzzled many a visitor, and the nature of the fame that it confers is somewhat doubtful too. For the Pantheon is a church without an altar: it is a classic edifice built in memory of a mediæval saint. Its aisles are not veiled in seemly gloom, but are flooded with light, as is natural in a temple designed in the century of Voltaire. On the dome is a painting of St. Geneviève, the prophetess; on a pediment is a bas-relief that represents the Fatherland rewarding its great men. The Parisians saw at once that the Pantheon was no church, and they made it a place of interment for distinguished people. Mirabeau was the first to be buried there, but he was not allowed to stay, and the same fate befell Marat. So, too, it is only the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau that are shown: at the Restoration their ashes were flung into the Seine. Lannes, the hero of Saragossa, was more fortunate. Victor Hugo has been

there for some twenty years. In 1848 the Pantheon became for the second time a church. It is the Campo Santo or the Westminster Abbey of Paris, but with a considerable difference.

The Prix Goncourt for 1906, of the value of 5,000 francs, has been awarded to the brothers Jérôme and Jean Tharaud for their book with the title "Dingley, l'illustre Ecrivain," which at the third ballot obtained six out of ten votes. The prize-winners are natives of Poitou, and their book, which contains only about 150 pages, is described as "une étude de l'impérialisme anglais incarné dans un ro mancier tel que Rudyard Kipling, si l'on veut." From the account which the Academy gives of it, the book is a not very friendly satire. It is a study of an Englishman, whose prototype is perhaps Kipling. In any case, he has won fame at forty; soldiers sing his verses when they set out for a campaign, and he is known for his patriotism and his belief in the mission of the Anglo-Saxon race. But it is the moment of the Boer War, and English pride had been sorely wounded. Dingley wishes to offer some consolation to his country and sketches out a plan for a novel in which a miserable loafer enlists and under the influence of the war develops into a hero. To get the local color he goes to Capetown with his wife and child. Leaving them there, he starts for the veldt. But the child sickens and the father is recalled. A Boer who captures him lets him go and helps him on his way, and he reaches his child in time to kiss it before it dies. The Boer is taken fighting and is condemned to death. Dingley, who might have saved him, refuses to intercede. His novel has an immense sale, and when its incidents are represented by means of a bioscope in a public hall in London, the picture of the execution of the Boer is received with tumultuous applause.