ploughman; the princess and the swineherd, determined by chance association. A girl, &c. And the fathers who stand out against too, has more character to come out than the ruin of their girls by means of estimable she has shown in her girlhood. Though she men of inferior condition, and with not sets sooner than men, she does not set unalenough to live on, are stony-hearted and terably, and marriage and maternity bring cruel, while the daughters who take to cold out the depths of her nature as nothing else poison in the back-garden, if they cannot can. It is only common sense, then, to compass a secret honeymoon or an open flight, have all the sympathy and none of the censure. The cruel parent is the favourite whipping-boy of poetry and fiction; and yet which is likely to be the better guide reason or passion? experience or ignorance? calculation or impulse? the maturity which can judge, or the youth which can only feel? There would be no hesitation in any other case than that of love, but the love instinct is generally considered to be superior to every other consideration, and to be obeyed as a divine voice, no matter at what cost or consequence. The ideal of life, according to some, is founded on early marriages. But men are slower in the final setting of their character than women, and one never knows how a young fellow of twenty or so will turn out. marry her to a man whose character is already somewhat formed, rather than to one who is still fluid and floating. It is all very well to talk of fighting the battle of life together, and welding together by time. Many a man has been ruined by these detestable metaphors. The theory, partly true and partly pretty, is good enough in its degree; and, so far as the welding goes, we weld together in almost all things by time. We wear our shoe till we wear it into shape and it ceases to pinch us; but in the process we go through a vast deal of pain, and are liable to make corns that will last long after the shoe itself fits easily. We do not advocate the French system of marrying off our girls according to our own ideas of suitableness, and without consulting them; but we do not the less think that, of If he is devout now, he may be an infidel at all fatal social mistakes, mésalliances are forty; if, under home influences, he is tem- the most fatal, and, in the case of women, perate and pure, when these are withdrawn to be avoided and prevented at any cost he may become a rake of the fastest kind. short of a broken heart or a premature His temper, morals, business power, ability death. And even death sometimes would to resist temptation, all are as yet inchoate be better than the life-long misery, the enand undefined; nothing is sure; and the girl's fancy that makes him perfect in proportion to his good looks, is a mere instinct VOICES run in families quite as much as do eyes, mouths, noses, chins, tempers, capacities, complexions, hands, feet, and legs. Resemblance of thorax is transmitted from sire to son, with other congenital likenesses, and notably with the constitution that bespeaks average length of life. Sorrowful experience will often connect the well-remembered quality of "a voice that is still" with the visible signs of declining health. The music of the tone, like the flush on the cheek, was mortal; the very life of the voice, the clear, bell-like ring, was the ring of death. There is now and then a strange witching in these doomed voices; and it is very painful to think that the mirth-moving accents of professed drolls have often owed their irresistible fun to disease. A certain French comedian may be said actually to have died of his comic voice. The physicians told him that the exertion of speaking would certainly hasten the climax of his malady; but to the very last he persisted in saying, "I can't help it; you really must let me go on acting; the people laugh more and during shame and humiliation, of certain mésalliances. more every night." And so they did, until Manager Death gave their favourite an engagement which took him a long way from Paris. MANY are the good things reported to have been said by the late Lord Alvanley, but I don't remember to have seen in print the following. Crockford, on retiring from the management of the Club in St. James's Street, where gambling was carried on openly for many years and large sums lost nightly, gave a farewell dinner to his patrons, at which he took the opportunity of expatiating on the good use which he had made of the wealth which he had accumulated at their expense. He told them that he had considered it as a trust. "Often had he fed the hungry (his suppers free to all the habitués were unexceptionable), "many were the naked whom he had clothed;" then he paused for an instant, and Lord Alvanley finished the sentence for him, "and the rich he sent empty away." From The Saturday Review. MR. BRIGHT. prophecies which, as many of his adversaries were aware, involved only questions of time. It was as certain that the conMR. BRIGHT'S speeches, a collection of stituency would sooner or later receive which has just been edited by Professor overwhelming additions, as that the AssyrRogers, would well deserve republication ian hordes swarming round the Northern as specimens of eloquent composition, even desert would overflow into Samaria and if they were not also part of the history of Judæa; but the prophet who has distinctly the time. In a period of incessant change, announced the coming event may not untending always in the same direction, a reasonably remind his disciples of his just great orator profoundly convinced of the prognostications. It was a more thankless, truth of the doctrines which are from day though sometimes a not less patriotic, task to day passing into practice occupies an to oppose, with the statesmen of Lord Palenviable position. Although no politician merston's school, an inert resistance to can be less liable than Mr. Bright to the doubtful changes. In almost all his later imputation of wishing to swim with the speeches Mr. Bright good-humouredly rallies stream, he has from the beginning of his his opponents on the beneficial or harmless career, with rare interruptions of casual ed- results of measures which they had formerly dies, enjoyed the advantage of moving with resisted. The truth is that since the repeal an irresistible current. The Corn-law was of the Corn-law, which was only by accident already doomed when he began to assail it, a political transaction, no organic legislaand it has long been evident that the pres- tion will have taken effect until the Reform ent generation would witness a democratic Bill comes into operation. The transfer change in the Constitution. The ulterior of the Indian Government from the Com pany to the Crown has produced few of the good or evil results which were respectively foretold by Mr. Bright and by the supporters of the old system. The projects of alterations in landed tenure, and in Irish and Indian administration, which are contained in the two volumes of collected speeches, have scarcely been taken into consideration by Parliament. measures which Mr. Bright has long advocated will probably be adopted in rapid succession by Parliaments which are more likely to escape from the control of their leader than to oppose an obstinate resistance to his demands for progress. With the solitary exception of the Crimean war no political event has for twenty years brought Mr. Bright's political course into collision with any popular prejudices. It is an element of his singular felicity that he has had one opportunity, and no more, of exhibiting his self-relying independence. Not exempt from the violence and harshness of the demagogue, he may at least boast that he has not shrunk from denouncing general enthusiasm when it seemed to him to be founded on error. At other times he has had the multitude at his back, although he has often been one of a small minority in the House of Commons. A chief virtue inherent in the outgoing Constitution was the balance of forces which existed between Mr. Bright has sometimes regretted, al It would be difficult to overpraise the literary and rhetorical merits of Mr. Bright's speeches. Without exception they are models of clear and persuasive statement, and, unlike the desultory arguments of ordinary speakers, they are invariably cast in a single and symmetrical mould. The uniform care bestowed on the perorations, though it almost tends to mannerism, adds greatly to the effect on the understanding and on the ear of orations which always rise to a climax. The want of training in the study of the ancient languages which customary or official authority and reserved though it must have deprived a congenial physical force. It has been Mr. Bright's mind of much intellectual pleasure, has function during the greater part of his life not impaired the classical purity of his to advocate, in a Parliament representing the educated and middle classes, the supposed interests and wishes of the bulk of the population. No living man has done so much to accelerate the admission of his clients to the direct exercise of political power. Among many claims to the confidence of his followers, Mr. Bright may urge undeviating consistency in the prosecution of definite purposes which are even now not fully attained. Like a Hebrew seer, he may also cite the fulfilment of style. His happy quotations, his oссаsional use of quaint archaic phrases, and, above all, the graceful vigour of his ordinary language, prove that Mr. Bright has mastered the resources of his mother tongue. His reading, whether it has been extensive or limited, has been that of a scholar; and an orator who knows English as Demosthenes knew Greek has little reason to covet, for purposes of expression, the superfluous accomplishments of more versatile students. As in other pursuits, oratorical success tends to reproduce and extend it-sionate economists as a chimera. His most self by the conscious freedom which belongs considerable achievement has been the reto the finished artists, and also by the defer- form of the representative system, to which ence which follows upon general recogni- no other politician has contributed so tion. A beginner, however eloquent, could largely. His arguments, while the quesnot safely have attempted to thrill the tion was still unsettled, tended to extreme House of Commons by apostrophizing, in democracy, although it is believed that Mr. the height of the Crimean war, the figura- Disraeli's Bill, as it was finally passed, extive personation of slaughter. "It seems ceeded his wishes as well as his expectaas if the Angel of Death was abroad - I tions. For several years he had reiterated almost hear the beating of his wings." It was perhaps in still bolder reliance on his powers and on his just reputation that he once took the House into his confidence by speaking of the pleasure with which he went the complaint that five or six millions of grown-up men were excluded from the suffrage, as if for the purpose of inferring that the redress of the grievance must be coextensive with the limits of disfranchise home to find "five or six little children ment. It appears to have been Mr. playing on his hearth." Even when he now and then descends to broad vernacular humour Mr. Bright is never coarse. To his associates and rivals in the House of Commons he speaks sometimes in tones of warning, and even of suppressed menace; but more often he appeals to their reason, and to principles which all parties professedly admit. Out of doors, among unanimous and applauding crowds, while he argues far more loosely, and addresses himself more directly to the passions, he is always the teacher and the leader of men, and not their sycophantic flatterer. The dignity of superior intellect has never been compromised in his person. The chief fault of taste which occasionally disfigures his speeches is habit of dilating on the sagacity and foresight which may always be plausibly claimed by the representatives of the winning side. Few of his speeches on re-examination bear the irritating character which has often caused offence when they have been delivered. A pugnacious politician, engaged in controversies of vital importance, could scarcely perhaps have deviated more rarely into angry vituperation. The vehement and bitter partisan who has edited the speeches condenses into half a dozen pages nearly as much passionate injustice to opponents as that which Mr. Bright has spread over two volumes. a Thoroughgoing admirers will, by an easy fallacy, assume that perfect art implies political infallibility; but Mr. Bright's services to his country have been neither in Bright's real opinion that the constituency ought to be increased, but that it should still bear a select and representative character. The declamation which dealt with the suffrage as a natural and universal right can scarcely have been sincere, and it was undoubtedly dangerous. During two or three seasons of agitation Mr. Bright again and again dilated on the unjust distribution of representative power, by which a comparatively small proportion was awarded to populous and wealthy towns. Such, he said, is the number of inhabitants, so enormous is the rateable assessment, such and such amounts are contributed to the Incometax; yet petty boroughs, with few residents, contributing a mere fraction of taxes, enjoy the same Parliamentary power which is awarded to Manchester or Liverpool. It would have been more candid to exclude from consideration every element of the problem except numerical preponderance. If taxation and wealth have any claim to representation, a rich man derives no advantage from the possession of electoral power by his penniless neighbour. The owners of property and the payers of Income-tax in great cities were represented, if at all, by the members for counties and small boroughs, while the nominees of the great constituencies legitimately expressed the wishes of the ten-pound householders or the artisans. It is not, however, an extraordinary slur on the reputation of a great popular leader that he has been sometimes illogical and unfair. It was a graver disputable nor unmixed, and the soundness fault to invoke the aid of the London mob, of his opinions is often questionable. His in 1866, to overcome the hesitation of Parpanacea for Indian grievances, consisting liament. The assemblages which afterin the separation of the the Empire into recip- wards indulged in riot and intimidation, rocally independent provinces, has never under the guidance of Mr. Beales, were been tried, nor has it been approved by any first proposed by Mr. Bright. It is probaauthority on Indian affairs. The scheme ble that no more direct means of effecting of buying up large Irish estates, to resell to his object could have been devised, nor occupying tenants, though unobjectionable have the mob meetings thus far led to foron political grounds, is regarded by dispas-midable excesses; but, in inviting the rabble of the metropolis to dictate the policy | lated wealth, while political power was, as of the House of Commons, Mr. Bright at present, to be vested in that part of the struck a formidable blow at constitutional population which lives by labour. But he will liberty. The Imperial system in France probably not interfere in financial affairs has only been rendered possible by the tri- with Mr. Gladstone, who still adheres to umphs of Parisian Bealeses in 1789, in the orthodox creed of political economy. 1793, and in 1848. If the future Parlia- The social measure which Mr. Bright ment proves strong enough to repress simi- deems most desirable is the assimilation of lar demonstrations of force, household suffrage will have gone far towards justifying itself. the law of inheritance of real property to the rule which provides for the succession to personality. The experiment will probably be unsuccessful if it stand alone, but in itself it is not obviously unreasonable. It is doubtful whether Mr. Bright will at any future time care to attract the confidence of the classes and parties to which he has long been bitterly opposed; but when revolutionary measures are proposed, he is not incapable of being influenced by an imaginative reverence for historical institutions. To England, "the mother of Parliaments," "the august mother of free institutions," "the country which he loves so well," he cherishes genuine devotion, which is not exclusively It is desirable, as well as inevitable, that Mr. Bright should become a member of the next Cabinet, although it may be difficult to find a department in which he will not have pledged himself to doubtful or impracticable innovations. The vast power which he wields ought to be used in the direct business of administration, and not in opposing or controlling a Government from outside. Official responsibility may perhaps lead him to reconsider some of the doctrines which he has at different times propagated, to the alarm of moderate politicians and of owners of property. Ten contingent on the destruction of all the years ago he insisted that taxation should habits and modes of thought that have hithbe almost exclusively imposed on accumu-erto been characteristic of the country. MR. DICKENS announces in the current num- | work than we shall possess in those ten years of ber of All the Year Round that the present se- All the Year Round. One announcement, how ries of that journal will be brought to a close with the number for the 28th of November, and that on the 5th of December he will publish No. I. of a new series, with the old writers, and as many fresh recruits as time may bring him. All the Year Round has now been going on for nearly ten years (it began in April, 1859), and on the day appointed for the extinction of its first series it will have completed its twentieth volume. Of Household Words there were eighteen vol ever, many will read with regret. The Christmas Extra Number is to be given up, though "at the highest tide of its success;" Mr. Dickens fearing that, after so many repetitions and imitations, it runs great danger of becoming tiresome. Certainly the main idea has been worked rather threadbare; but we have been accustomed for so many years to associate Mr. Dickens with Christmas that the season will seem strange without him. Mr. Dickens says he himself re umes, extending from 1850 to 1859. The con-grets his own decision, and we are sure his readductors of All the Year Round have wisely ers will regret it still more. come to the conclusion that new subscribers are WHICH is correct - learning by heart, or learning by art? The former is the usual expression; but it is by no means clear that it conveys the intended meaning. He who impresses words or sentences or aught else upon his brain by rote, as it is called, uses some acquired or instinctive trick of mnemonics for the purpose. Schoolboys, actors, singers, and their likes, have various artifices for committing matters to memory, and their learning is by art; the heart has nothing to do with it. If learning by heart means anything at all, it certainly signifies a principle the very opposite of that it is used to designate - the profound acquirement of know not likely to begin taking in a periodical which drags such a heavy weight of back numbers behind it. Experience shows that most publications of the miscellany order fall off in sale after a certain number of years, and that nothing can galvanize them back to their original vitality. It is therefore very good policy to start afresh, and we think Mr. Dickens would have acted even more judiciously in setting up an entirely new periodical, with a distinct name. We perceive that he talks of changes in the size of the page, and improvements in the printing, paper, &c. To alter the size of the page seems to us a mistake, as it will prevent the new series ranging with the old; and as to the printing and paper, we hope Mr. Dickens is not going to give in to the fashionable affectation of sham old type and "toned" or tinted paper. At the conclusion of the first series a general index to the ledge, the understanding of facts and experiences whole twenty volumes will be published, and it without regard to the symbols by which they are would be difficult to find a more entertaining | presented to the mind. THE NEW EXPEDITIONS TO THE NORTH rests for choosing another way and other POLE. TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES. SINCE steam has opened a way for itself through mountains and seas, and iron roads have furrowed the surface of the globe, people imagine willingly that man has taken possession of his domain, that he knows all its devious ways. At intervals, however, some great exploring project recalls to us what remains to be done. The interior of two continents is still enveloped in mystery, the extremities of the world, the two poles where night and day divide the year into two equal portions, are not yet unveiled for human eyes. There, problems exist of which the solution will not probably be obtained but at the price of great efforts and of great sacrifices. The question here is not to discover gold mines, not to conquer fertile countries; it is to fight the unknown, to render the entire globe subject to man. Is not this an object worthy of tempting the courage of the boldest, an aim proposed to the emulation of all peoples? The attempts which have been made to reach the poles are numerous. We shall not repeat the names of all the navigators who have perished in these frozen parts, or who have been obliged to return, arrested by insurmountable obstacles. What it behooves us to indicate is the incontestable progress which is to be remarked in the results of the successive expeditions, a progress which allows us to conceive the possibility of a complete success. Thus Cook returned from the austral seas with the conviction that no ship would ever go beyond the latitude of 71°; Weddell reached the 74th, and Ross penetrated through icebergs into the open sea where he attained the parallel of 78° of south latitude, even without the help of steam. At the North Pole, the discoveries of Parry, of Kane, of Hayes, have sensibly extended the limits of the known, and justified the hope that in a future not far off the arctic regions will have no more mystery for us. Several projects of polar expeditions have been seriously proposed and discussed in these last years. The readers of the Revue still remember the exposition which M. Charles Martins has given of the English project, of which Captain Sherard Osborn was the principal promoter, and of that of the learned German geographer A. Petermann, which has just obtained a commencement of execution. We shall confine ourselves to giving a brief summary of them before exposing the considerations on which M. Gustave Lambert LIVING AGE. VOL. XI. 440 means. For Captain Osborn, the North Pole is an immense cap of ice broken here and there by accidental crevasses which close completely at the approach of the great colds. The vast sheets of open water which Morton and Hayes have met with in the North-west, the polar sea which Admiral Wrangel has discovered at the north of Siberia, would exist then only at certain epochs, and there would be no other serious chance of reaching the pole besides that which would be offered by an expedition in sledges tried during the winter season. Starting from an English port with two ships and a crew of a hundred and twenty men, Captain Osborn would leave one of his ships and twenty-five sailors at Cape Isabel, while with the others he would gain Cape Parry. Assured thus of a refuge in case of disaster, he would choose the most courageous and most tried of his companions to set out on his journey towards the middle of February. The space which separates Cape Parry from the pole is five hundred miles, which makes about a thousand miles going and returning; this long distance Captain Osborn pretends to accomplish in sixty days in stages of ten miles a day. This project, at first favorably received by the English admiralty, lost many partizans from the day that Doctor Petermann attacked it by opposing to it a second project, based on the probable existence of a free sea around the pole. Without this intervention, which had for its result the dividing the English sailors into two camps, the project of Sherard Osborn would have been perhaps put into execution. M. Petermann, as we have said, believes in a polar sea. According to him, the idea of going to the pole in a sledge must be completely set aside; such an expedition would always have the fate of that which Parry attempted in 1827; it may be remembered that the ice glided away under him and carried him back to the south while with great difficulty he advanced in the direction of the north. M. Petermann is then of the opinion that the pole can only be reached by sea, at the moment of the breaking up of the ice. By following the direction of the gulf-stream, the current of warm water which passes round the north of Europe, he would have the vessels of the expedition launched between the floating icebergs of Spitzbergen and Nova-Zembla, because on this side the danger is less great that at Smith's Strait. On this route, one would be certain, he says, to find the sea free above 83° and 84°. In support of this |