cable:

"Hans Breitmann gife a barty;

prose will be caught by the poetry. Germanizing English ones. Here is a pasShakespeare, Milton, Dante, Coleridge, sage from "Hans Breitmann's Barty," Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, and Tenny- which will illustrate these peculiarities arities of son are excellent authorities on the subjects idiom; and the reader will notice how makof death, the sorrow which follows death, ing one's self " at home" comes out as and the hopes which soothe the heart and making one's self " to house" - a confusion draw the eyes of sorrow towards the in both languages which is scarcely expli" blessed home." The pieces of the minor poets are full of good feeling; but justice requires it to be said that some of them are poor, and could be profitably replaced by much finer verses-finer, we mean, in the essence of poetry, and in poetic execution, not better in moral or spiritual sincerity. Altogether, however, the volume is carefully compiled, and is admirably adapted to the purpose of the editor. One of the verses quoted is from Tennyson's fine poem "The Grandmother" -a verse conveying in simple touches a profound conception of the comparativeness, if not the perfect oneness of time and space:

"So Willie has gone, my beauty, my eldest born, my flower;

But how can I weep for Willie, he has gone but for an hour,

Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next;

I, too, shall be gone in a minute. What time have I to be vext?"

From The London Review.

HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY.*

Dere all vas Souse and Brouse,
Ven de sooper comed in, de gompany

Did make demselfs to house;
Dey ate das Brot and Gensy broost,
De Bratwurst and Braten vine,
Und vash der Abendessen down

Mit four parrels of Neckarwein.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty;

Ve all cot troonck ash bigs.
I poot mine mout' to a parrel of bier
Und emptied it oop mit a schwigs.

Und den I gissed Madilda Yane
Und she shlog me on de kop,

Und de gompany vighted mit daple-lecks
Dill de coonshtable made oos shtop.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty.
Vhere ish dat barty now?
Vhere ish de lofely golden cloud
Dat float on de moundain's prow?
Vhere ish de himmelstrahlende Stern -

De shter of de sphirit's light?
All goned afay mit de Lager Beer-
Afay in de ewigkeit!"

Hans Breitmann goes to fight the rebels. He encounters a colonel of cavalry, and a tremendous hand-to-hand fight takes place. Breitmann disarms his enemy, and, as the latter lies prostrate on the ground, Breitmann offers to spare his life if he will believe in moral ideas. The conquered foe knows nothing about moral ideas; he confesses that he is "ignoranter ash de nigs for dey takes de Tribune;" and, in the course of his reply, he reveals the fact that he is Breitmann's son. Breitmann exclaims:

AMERICA has been busy of late years in sending us humorists and prime donne; and among the former, Mr. C. G. Leland certainly claims a well-merited place. The odd, quaint little ballads collected in this tiny volume are really very amusing; and although it is obvious that much of their fun consists in the jumbled English-German of the writing, there are still to be found bits of humour as sly and as apparently unconscious as those of Mr. James Russell Lowell; while the grave burlesque of certain ""Und vas dy fader Breitmann? Bist du his other passages is quite as good as much of kit und kin? the late Artemus Ward. Hans Breitmann Den is an American Hudibras, who goes forth to the wars. His adventures are related in his Der own peculiar diction - the mixture of mongrel German, bad English, and Yankeeisms which the ruder kind of German emigrant sometimes acquires in America. No one can properly appreciate the fun of these ballads unless his acquaintance with German enables him to recognize the oddities produced by Anglicizing German words and

know dat ich der Breitmann dein lieber

Vater bin!

Breitmann pooled his hand-shoe off und
shooked him py de hand;
hafe some trinks on strengt' of dis
else may I pe tam'd!'

Ve'll

Breitmann said;

or

'Oh! fader, how I shlog your kop,' der younger 'I'd den dimes sooner had it coom right down on Oh, never mind dat soon dry oop- - I shticks him mit a blaster;

mine own headt!'

If I had shplit you like a fish, dat vere a vorse tisasder.'

south. So far, then, there was evidence | visible when the open water which it indithat the sea on which the fields had formed cates is as yet forty or fifty miles off, or was both wide and deep. It also became even further. Therefore, the northern clear that this sea extends much further to boundary of Parry's ice-field must have

the north than Parry had been able to get, because it is obvious that the ice on which he and his party stood when they had attained their highest northerly latitude must

lain far away to the north; and adding the distance thus indicated to the southerly drift of the field, it will be seen that the open water which lay beyond the ice-field must

have been much further towards the north extend within two or three hundred miles a few days before - since it had been float- of the North Pole, if not nearer. This, be ing continually southwards during that it remarked, is certain; the open sea probtime. But still, it was not clear from ably extends much further north; since Parry's voyage that the northern seas are there is every reason for supposing that ever navigable in those high latitudes. For Parry's ice-field had been floating about in anything which appeared, it might be a those northern seas for weeks before he part of the economy of the Arctic regions began to traverse it. Thus we learn from that a vast icefield extending in a solid Parry's experience, combined with that mass right across the North Atlantic, in gleaned by Professor Nordenskiold, that the latitudes higher than any yet reached, open sea route towards the Pole only reshould float each year bodily southwards. requires to be boldly and perseveringly There was, indeed, no reason for supposing pursued in a well-fitted and strongly-built that Parry's experience was exceptional; steamer, to reward the Arctic voyager with nor did it appear at all unlikely that what a much closer approach towards the North happened to the north of Spitbergen might Pole than has ever yet been attained-if indicate that a similar process was taking not even with success in reaching the Pole place right across those northern seas. itself. One circumstance, however, seems But Professor Nordenskiold's voyage in to merit attention. Captain Koldewey, it

the Sofia has shown that in the very latitude to which Parry found that the great ice-field extended northwards in an unbroken mass there is open water communication further west. If a process resembling that observed by Parry was going on during the present year, then it must be assumed that the Sofia was outside the western border of the great ice-field. Now, if we imagine the case of a more powerful steamer thus situated, at so early a season as to permit of a more protracted struggle

will be remembered, tried to make the shore of Greenland in latitude 76°, and afterwards bore away to the east. The Swedish expedition also traversed the eastern part of the North Atlantic. Now, it seems to us that Dr. Kane's discovery of an open tidal sea to the north of Kennedy's Channel indicates that the true course for an Arctic explorer, when once the eightieth parallel has been reached, is to bear off towards the north-west. For it is certain that the tidal waves of the Atlantic find

with the difficulties presented by the ice- their way in that direction. It is equally encumbered seas, we shall see that there certain, also, that the warm waters of the would be a very fair prospect of the Pole, Gulf Stream pour round the unknown northor at least a very high latitude, being ern shores of Greenland to Kane's sea, since reached. For the great ice-field which car- the observed temperature of that sea indiried Parry southwards must have been float-cated in a very obvious manner the action ing freely. Therefore, a ship placed on its of the enormous volume of water carried border could have found a channel around northwards by the Gulf Stream. Besides,

it; and, further, since the motion of the field was towards the south, the open water around it must have been widening on its northern border. So that the further north the ship was pushed the clearer would her

by adopting a north-westerly course a ship would increase her chance of escaping from the outlying arms of the enormous ice-fields which float about to the north of Spitbergen. An attempt to reach Kane's sea from

course become. Again, we have already Spitzbergen is worth making. Success in remarked that the most northerly point such an attempt would be fully as imporreached by Parry must have been much tant as success in reaching the Pole; but nearer the Pole a few days before Parry in all probability the latter exploit would turned his face southwards. But this is be a sequel to the former, since there is not all. Parry saw towards the north good reason for believing that the sea on no sign of open water. The experienced whose shores Dr. Kane and his party found Arctic traveller can detect the neighbour- the limit on their northward progress is the hood of an open sea long before the water true Polar ocean, and is navigable throughbecomes actually visible to the eye. The out the summer months right up to and bephenomenon termed the "water-sky" is yond the Pole.

From The Spectator, 7 Nov.

EARTHQUAKES AND ENGLISH CHAR-
ACTER.

IF England were ever to become the centre of a region of active earthquakes like Peru and Ecuador, - earthquakes not like that of October, 1863, and yesterday week, which alarmed a few nervous people, but such as turn cities into lakes, substitute active volcanoes for fertile farms, and throw up new mountains, what would become of the English character? It is not impossible; or if it is, it is an impossibility which we have no means of knowing, for it seems pretty certain that the surface of the earth is but a thin crust confining the wildest and

which risk much and rashly for immediate gains, at the expense of those slowly cumulative energies which sow early in the faith that they shall reap late, but certainly.

Yet it might seem that earthquakes are sent especially and providentially to aid in the realization of that attitude of mind which Roman Catholics call "detachment," -for no other phenomenon, natural or supernatural, so completely snaps all the ties between man and every physical and earthly object of attachment. Pestilence may kill us, but if it does not, it may leave us infinitely richer by the death of others; from famine, or flood, or drought, or volcanic eruption we may escape to other lands; we may ensure ourselves against fire or wreck,

most destructive forces, which are always or almost any other physical danger; but if striving to break out, and succeed when- the earth itself gives way beneath us, if the ever a cracking of that crust, owing to any "real" estate vanishes, if there is no footsudden cooling or overheating of the sur-ing beneath us on which to flee away, if the face, enables them to do so. Though it city is swallowed up at our feet as it was at seems probable that we have a thicker crust those of Lord Carnarvon's friend in Peru, between us and the earthquake-forces in if the insurers disappear, and the whole

England than either South America or Cal-
abria, we have no assurance that any in-
ward disturbance of the interior force may
not cause some new rift that might lay us
open to the same terrible dangers. If that
were ever to happen, should we verify Mr.
Buckle's theory of the degrading effect pro-
duced on the minds of all the races of men
by any destructive forces of overpowering
and overwhelming magnitude, in the pres-
ence of which man is almost helpless, and
paralyzed even where he is not helpless?
Supposing a slight earthquake a day were
the ordinary rule, as it is in some parts of
South America, and a terribly destructive
shock at intervals of a few years, should we
remain what we now mean by true "Brit-
ons" for another generation? Would not
the great external change soon work its
effect on our characters, - impress on us
the uncertainty of life and property in a
sense in which our religious teachers have
entirely failed to engrave it on our minds,
-and yet instead of spiritualizing us,
deaden us more effectually than ever to all
truly spiritual impressions? We think it is
scarcely possible to doubt that so it would
be. And if so, it is
curious lesson to
those teachers who are always trying to
persuade us that the thought of death should
be ever present with us, that wherever Na-
ture herself succeeds in stamping this indel-
ibly on men's minds, the result is not to
refine the grosser, and strengthen the spir-
itual, affections of human nature, but only
to diminish the total force of human charac-
ter altogether, and perhaps even to foster
the impatient and gambling dispositions

a

property which is the basis of insurance sinks into the yawning gulf, if there is left no room for ascetic self-denial because nothing earthly to cling to, - then, indeed, one would suppose that we should try what we could manage in the way of clinging by our consciences and spirits to the spiritual Will, which is the only reality left to us. Yet, as a matter of fact, it is nearly certain that if all our habits of trust in what, though we may call it earthly, has ever been the foundation of our ordinary life and duties, were to be rudely broken at once, men would find it not more, but much less easy, to trust implicitly the Divine Spirit itself. "Detachment," in the Catholic sense, cannot be reached by merely breaking earthly and human ties, but only by cultivating the spiritual. To be physically detached from all objects of earthly desire is not a step towards, but a step away from, life in God,for the essence of that, is trust, acquiescence in His will because it is His will, - and the essence of this is nakedness, the sudden sense of emptiness, and helplessness, and fear, and want, and impotence, all of them emotions in the last degree opposed to those at which the religious spirit spirit aims. The first physical (or is it moral?) effect of an earthquake seems to be to strip men of all their sense of moral relation to the universe altogether, to reduce them to the sickness of absolute isolation, and this even before the shock has worked its destructive effects. A gentleman who was in one of the worst earthquakes at Copiapo said, "Before we hear the sound, or at least are fully conscious of hearing it, we are made sensible, I know not how, that something uncommon "Peel's Act" and cash payments be susis going to happen; everything seems to pended, but all need for cash payments change colour; our thoughts are chained abruptly abolished, - that not only the immovably down; the whole world appears small boroughs might prove "rotten," but to be in disorder; all nature looks different the very largest, - that the Irish Churches from what it was wont to do; and we feel might be "disestablished" without the vote quite subdued and overwhelmed by some of either House of Parliament, and the teninvisible power beyond human control or ure of the Throne itself "dangerously

comprehension." That is almost a prose account of what Dr. Newman paints in verse as his conception of the detachment of death itself:

"I am no more; for now it comes again,
That sense of ruin which is worse than pain,
That masterful negation and collapse

Of all that makes me man, as though I bent
Over the dizzy brink,

Of some sheer infinite descent;

Or worse, as though

Down, down for ever I was falling through
The solid framework of created things,
And needs must sink and sink

Into the vast abyss. And crueller still,
A fierce and restless fright begins to fill
The mansion of my soul."

And since even a Catholic does not regard
the detachment of death as a moral dis-
cipline for any one who has not cultivated
spiritual life before the crash comes,

so

the moral effects of the earthquake, which are the next thing to death, the sinking away of all physical stays, the abandonment of man to the absolutely "unknown and unknowable" as regards all earthly life, cannot be supposed to be a moral discipline, except to him who has really learned to live a hidden life which no convulsions of this sort even threatens.

Its

touched" without any conspiracy either Roman Catholic or Fenian? Suppose a British Parliament deliberating under such conditions as these or anything remotely approaching them, - under fears such as would be reasonable in Quito and not unnatural at Lima, and what would British "good sense," and British tenacity of purpose, and that British courage which does not seem to know when it is beaten, become? We suspect that no character would show less brilliantly than the British under such circumstances as these. strength consists very much in a slow but deeply graven, imagination, which takes a profound impression from all those transactions to which it is well accustomed, and is very obtuse to all others, so obtuse as not to admit any disturbance from considerations which seem to be irrelevant to the ordinary course of its daily work. Let once this practical line of expectation and confidence be rudely shaken, and it is almost impossible to say what form British character would take. It would scarcely show the strenuousness of ants, which go to work at once to repair all the mischief done to their nest, and this as often as the injury is repeated; for British confidence seems to be easily disheartened, witness the prolonged panic caused by the evidence of speculative and ill-managed companies in the last few years. Let only Nature treat the Englishman as badly as the speculative trader has recently treated him, and all would soon be either at a stand-still, or else there would be a great rush towards immediate enjoyment by way of seizing on the only certainty; more probably, perhaps, the former; for the speculative and gambling spirit in Englishmen is caused more by narrow and overweening self-confidence than by anything like desperateness; and though Englishmen would not create if the fear of sudden destruction was strong upon them, it is not perhaps very like them to throw away recklessly anything they have. We suspect that a deep physical distrust of Nature would operate on Englishmen very like their recent deep moral distrust of commercial enterprise, that it would simply paralyze and narrow their active powers, but in no way contrib

And the Briton is the last man who can be supposed to have learned this at all. The good in him mainly consists in the tenacity with which he lives in a narrow set of visible relations, and the punctuality with which he fulfils the duties which so arise to him. What would a British Parliament be like if deliberating under the fixed impression that all they did one year might be undone the next, that some morning the new Embankment might turn out to be at the top of a new chain of hills, and the stones of the Houses of Parliament themselves associated with it, -'that the Docks at Devonport might any night be left by the sea some three miles inland, that the City and Westminster might be shuffled, and the Marquis of Westminster suddenly beggared by the fall of all his houses and the death of most of his tenants, - that the bullion at the Bank of England might disappear without what is called a flow," without being exported, and not only ute to enlarge their spiritual life.