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238

that of the solemn organ-tones of Lucretius. If we may
draw a comparison between the music of ancient and
modern poets, the long-sounding roll of the Lucretian
hexameter reminds us of the deep and continuous har-
mony of Milton, or rather, perhaps, from its monotony
and want of complexity, of the must solemn passages in
the " Excursion ; ' while Catullus, in that beautiful poem
which restores one page of old epic legend, by the simple
yet stately and tranquil march of his rhythm, in which
the music of each single line is often complete in itself,
and yet blends harmoniously with the whole effect, brings
to our mind the calm finished simplicity and mellow ca-
dences of the " Morte d'Arthur " (a fragment, like the
poem of Catullus, rescued from old romance ), of
" Ulysses," the " Princess," and the beautiful idylls of
our great living poet. The music of Virgil hardly equals
that of Lucretius in solemnity and in solid massive power,
while it is superior (and in this respect more like that of
Milton) in variety and complexity. The lines in the
grandest passages of Lucretius seem to follow one another
with a swelling and cumulative force : we seem to hear in
them echoes from the " Magnis amfractibus iequor," as it
breaks on the shore, lonely, solemn, and monotonous, yet
rising from time to time in some majestic TFix.up.ia with
snore sonorous and awful music.
This essay has undoubtedly earned the
first place in the volume. The second is by
Mr. J. A. Froude, late of Exeter College, on
the " Best Means of Teaching English
History." This species of study has not long
been admitted into the schools, but its ad-
mission has been a real benefit to the students.
A complaint was often made before this inno-
vation that young men coming from Oxford
knew more about the Constitution of Rome
than about that of England : as Mr. Fronde
says, " Pericles is better understood at Oxford
" than Lord Burleigh, and we can quite as
" accurately realise the impression which an
" interview would make upon us with Isaiah
" or Ezekiel as with John Knox or John
" Milton." But at present there is a modern
history school at Oxford, and we may see that
the study of history is made a more important
feature than it was formerly by the appoint-
ment of most able professors. Mr. Fronde
recommends the study of the statute book, as
being far more likely to impart a real know-
ledge of the life of our forefathers than end-
less analyses of Lingard, Hume, and Sharon
Turner. We have not space to follow out his
arguments, which are certainly ably put, and
seconded by sundry examples drawn from the
earliest times of English history. The great
benefit that will accrue from such a study
would be that we should no longer have to
rely on such historians as Macaulay, whose
writings are clever enough to impose fictions
upon their readers in the place of facts, and to
colour facts so artfully as to give them an
opposite signification. In defence of Oxford
as a school of education, Mr. Fronde says
Oxford has done well what she has done ; and she may
appeal proudly and justly to the experience of life to bear
witness for her. When the men whom she and Cambridge
have educated pass out into the arena of the world, in
spite of all that has been said, they maintain there an
easy supremacy. They have gained at the universities
not perhaps information, but what lies at the bottom of all
power to gain information for any useful purpose—a
power of active insight into common things, which the
more showy education of rival systems is something less
successful in conferring.
Mr. Henry J. S. Smith, of Balliol, contri-
butes an essay on the " Plurality of Worlds,"
taking as his text Dr. Whewell's essay, and Sir
David Brewster's " More Worlds than One."
Mr. Smith considers the essay on the " Plurality
of Worlds" brilliant and suggestive, but uncon-
vincing, that the essayist has imposed upon
himself by his powers of lucid statement, and
his copious command of illustration, which
have led him to attribute more value to his
arguments than they really possess. "He has
" mistaken the perfection of the form in which
" he has clothed them for an indication of their
" substantial truth." At the same time, Mr.
Smith states that Sir David Brewster s reply is
quite unequal to the essay :
In his knowledge of physical facts, Sir David is, no
doubt, a full match for his opponent ; but he has no chance
against him when it comes to questions of a moral or re-
ligious bearing. He is wholly wanting in that peculiar
kind of subtlety so essential in such discussions, which
consists in clearly seeing the consequences of the by e assertionscareful
we undertake to defend, and guarding oursel
limitations against the most inconvenient of them. In
the present controversy, Sir David possesses neither mode-
' of affecting it ; and he is, consequently,
'4' open to attack. We regret to
deficient in common courtesy,
and angry feelings to mingle
is too remote from all meaner
sullied. There is something
. which is, we own, provoking ;
think the stars and planets have a

THE PRESS.

right to resent the scientific persiflage which he has di-
rected against them. But what is Sir David to the stars,
that he should take up their quarrel as if it was his own?
We have but a brief space left wherein to
treat of the other essays. Mr. Phillips's essay
on the " Neighbourhood of Oxford and its
Geology " is far too much filled with scientific
words to be comprehended by any but a goo-
logian. This fault is not to be found in any
of the other essays, which, even when treating
of classical subjects, are sparing of technical
terms. Mr. Palgrave's essay on " Alfred de
'gusset" is hardly as light as the subject
requires. It seems as if Mr. Palgrave natu-
rally entered into the spirit of the author
whom he criticises, but that he refrains from
writing of him in the light tone that befits a
light subject, by some thoughts of the dignity
to be kept up by an Oxford fellow. Mr.
Cowell's essay on " Persian Literature " shows
great knowledge of the chief poets whom
Moore must have drawn upon for the learning
contained in " Lalla Rookh." His account of
Sufeyism is well worth reading, while the
specimens of the fables and mystical poetry of
the Sufis contain many poetical thoughts and
much beauty of imagery and language. Mr.
Thomson's essay on " Crime and its Excuses"
grapples with the subject in an able manner,
the author producing many cases of crime
which the law has decided in an inconsistent
spirit, and remarking on them that since, ac-
cording to Hesiod, Dike weeps before the
throne of Zeus whenever the earthly judge
decides wrongly, ingenious sculptors have
fitly represented her with bound eyes : she
has gone weeping-blind. Mr. Pattison's essay
Oxford Studies" extends to a length that
precludes us from giving any summary of its
propositions, but we would recommend all who
wish for a knowledge of what men learn at Ox-
ford to peruse it carefully. We believe the
publication of this volume will do much
towards raising the character of Oxford, and
that many who before had a foolish horror of
sending their sons there, will send them now,
their eyes being opened to the importance of
academical education by the favorable speci-
mens it presents of the wealth of Alma Mater.

The Official Handbook of Church and State
New Edition. London : Murray.
NUMEROUS as have been the native and foreign
jurists who have taken for their theme our
English Constitution, it is wonderful how
much ignorance of the machinery of our ex-
ecutive prevails, not only in foreign countries,
but even at home. Our continental neigh-
bours, no doubt, have been somewhat lin-
proving in that branch of knowledge since
Napoleon asked Erskine whether, being Lord
Chancellor, he " had ever been Lord Mayor? "
but yet one can hardly take up a work relating
even remotely to our domestic government
without finding how deeply the author is
bewildered by the miscellaneous collection of
departments and great offices, the creations of
different ages and various necessities, and
which constitute at length a whole that, like
many of our old mansions, derives whatever
beauty it has from the various dates and
styles of its architecture. The convenience of
despotism nobody ever doubted. It multi-
plies only hands, but free Governments ought
to multiply, not hands only, but heads—not
mere acting machines, but thinking men. On
this principle our English liberty has been
raised ; and the praise of any party in the
State is most truly due when it can find in its
ranks Ministers who yield, not a blind
obedience, but a free, intelligent aid to the
general working of one mighty engine of
government, neither martinets nor dilletanti,
men, in a word, who understand the genius of
the British Constitution, and do their duty
from principle and not from apprehension of
loss of place, who have higher and nobler
aspirations than the glorious goal of escaping
a mischievous demagogue or a " select com-
mittee." To the Abbe Sieyes, or the late Mr.
Jeremy Bentham, a Constitution upon paper
was a matter "as easy as their garter." To
M. Proudhon, or M. Louis Blanc, the classifi-
cation of mankind was as simple as the
classification of beetles, birds, or beasts to a
curator of the British Museum. They did
not even, like him, get occasionally posed by

SATURDAY,

the occurrence of a social ornithorynchus.
But, unfortunately, all the code-makers find
themselves in the condition of Fuseli when
his model the guardsman could not stretch
his limbs half a yard farther than anatomy
would permit, though they were not candid
enough to make the painter's reflection—
" Curse Nature ! she puts me out !"
These speculations the history of our Con-
stitution alone, amongst those of all existing
nations, disproves. That a principle of freedom
once found is to pervade all departments of
the Govemment--that a controlling power
shall be exercised by the intelligence and
wealth of the nation, by its representatives,
whether those that are hereditary legislators
representing the chivalry or learning of pre-
ceding ages, or those that are elective reflect.
ing the temper of the time—these are the
strict and binding conditions of such a system
as the English, so greatly lauded by those
who do understand it or do not. How far the
balance of this power has gone wrong, and
with what results, it is not fit here to inquire;
the whole administrative system over which it
is supposed to exercise the least control is set
out in this handbook under its appropriate
heads, and the consideration of those heads is
full of much more than passing interest,
suggesting more curious considerations than
the supposed duties of this or that officer, his
emoluments or his rank.
The decay of the royal power in its legisla-
tive character dates from the earlier Parlia-
ments of Elizabeth, when Wentworth and Bell,
though " straitly questioned " by the Queen
for freedom of speech, nevertheless spoke
very broadly what has been often echoed
since—that Elizabeth " disliked religion."
Still the exact amount of the prerogative and
the extent of its exercise is one of the most
common subjects of error ; and the Czar who
asked Queen Anne to cut off the head of the
Sheriff of London mistook it not much more
widely than the Austrian Minister who de-
manded the condign punishment of Messrs.
Barclay and Perkins's draymen, and provoked
the present Premier's " wit that loves to play,
" not wound," when he said that Marshal
Haynau might come back and give evidence
before the grand jury at the Old Bailey.
A résumé of the constitutional law relating
to the Crown is very clearly given by Mr.
Redgrave in this handbook. Those who read
the paragraph headed " Queen's Civil List"
will come to a pretty clear notion of the value
of the outcry against over-taxation and " ex-
travagance " that rose some time ago in the
North, but has dwindled so sadly now that we
see before us the effects of " financial reform"
on the army at Sebastopol. Even they could
hardly have cavilled at the 1,2001. per annum
allotted to " persons who have j Ist claims on
" the royal beneficence, or who, by their per-
" sonal services to the Crown, by the perform-
" anca of duties to the public, or by their
" useful discoveries in science and attainments
" in literature and the arts, have merited the
" gracious consideration of their sovereign and
" the gratitude of their country ;" nor at the
precautions taken that Parliament shall have
a strict account when the annual 315,0001.
a be exceeded to the extent of 15,0001-
a year.
A curious field of inquiry is opened by the
chapters of the handbook on the " Officers of
the Household," from the days when the care
of the Chamberlain was to look to the supply
of rushes for carpets down to his nominal
office of appointing tradesmen. Those great
officials whose places and dignities are
hereditary were never numerous in England,
and they now, if we mistake not, consist of the
joint Lords Great Chamberlains (the Lord
Willoughby d'Eresby and t Mauis of
Cholmondeley), the Earl Mahershal (Duke of
Norfolk), the Hereditary Grand Almoner and
the Hereditary Grand Falconer (Duke of
Albans), whose office is not noticed in this
handbook. The court of the Earl Marshal
charged itself with two very important func-
tions, which even yet might be somewhere
used without much evil to the commonwealth—
" To give relief to such of the nobility as
think themselves aggrieved in matters of
" honour, and to keep up the distinctions of
" the degrees of quality." Doubtless, if the
Earl Marshal's court had still survived we

11 I ration nor the art of affecting
continually laying himself of
add that he is frequently di
and has allowed his temper s
in a discussion which surely
interests to deserve to be so I
in the irony of the essayist 1
end, in particular, we thin