The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-25 00:00:00

ThE SUN, LONDoN, MONDAY EVENING, JUNE 5, 1866.

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1866.

The interval between the division of last Monday
and the Ministerial explanations this evening has
been spent by the Reformers of Manchester in orga-
nising a Reform Conference. It was held at the
Free-Trade Hall, Manchester, and was very numer-
ously attended, delegates from some GO or 70 towns
and districts being present ; and these did not repre-
sent alone the feeling of the immediate vicinity, but
came from the neighbouring counties, and even
from the Principality. Mr. GEORGE WILSON, the
veteran Reformer, presided over the Conference, as
also over the public meeting which followed it, as the
most suitable occupant for the post. The speeches
delivered on both occasions were very much of the
ordinary style which we have heard for a good many
years, and which we fail, after submitting them to
the test of practical experience, to put much faith in.
It is so easy to abuse the Tories, to declaim about
the virtues and successes of the great Republic of the
West, to declare that the working classes are
maligned by the papers that circulate among
the governing classes, that the aristocracy
are tyrannical, the middle classes selfish, I
and, in short, every one is wilfully wrong ex-
cept the speakers and their immediate audience,
and everything badly managed in any old-fashioned
country, while America and Australia rejoice in
political perfection. Unfortunately we have heard
all this a good many times before, and the language
does not fit so well to the present times as it did of
old. When we find Mr. JACOB BRIGHT, for in-
stance, descanting on the " overwhelming claim of
fitness" for the franchise, we cannot help remem-
bering that he and his party refused to support
Mr. CLAY'S Educational Franchise, which gives a
vote to every man who can read or write. Is it be-
cause they fear that if the Reformers of Manchester
are ready readers they will extend their knowledge
of foreign affairs, and so refuse to accept their
Bnreirr doctrines unreservedly? Again, when we
are told by Mr. JEFFERY of Liverpool that " Eng-
land's Tories are England's BISMARKS," and that a
Conservative Government would involve the country
in a foreign war in a month, we are reminded
that we have to thank Earl RUSSELL and his
friendship for Prussia for the whole European
embroilment which threatens eventually to draw us
in. Conservative Government might possibly
have done the same, but Earl RUSSELL cannot boast
that he has preserved peace. " The beginning of
strife is like the letting eut of water,,, °.a3% the Wise
man of old, and the beginning of this
European
commotion has the tacit permission
given to the
German Powers to dismember Denmark. If We
are to accept the Honourable Mr. STANLEY
as the spokesman of his party, we find
him putting forward the ingenious excuse of the
American war for the delay in introducing a Reform
Bill. " Our whole interests were bound up in that
momentous struggle, which was far more important
to the cause of freedom in England than any mere
local agitation about a £6 or £lO rental or rating."
Really we cannot see what the American war had
to do with English freedom, except so far as to
show our people that civil liberty cannot always be

safely trusted in the hands of professing demo—
crats. But Mr. STANLEY goes further In
his American views. He considers that 'the
" forbearance and generosity" of the United St aces
in their victory have shown the humanising and
ennobling effect of democratic institutions ! The
Americans, whatever their political virtues or fail-
ings, certainly do not want for " cuteness" or
common sense, and would be the first to smile at
such an elegant tribute, especially if they had just
been hearing a discourse of Mr. TIIADDEUS
STEVENs. Why, " the forbearance and gene-
rosity" so highly praised is, however, con-
genial to the feelings of the majority of
American citizens, the work politically of
one man against whom the Radical party in the
States have exhausted every effort of abuse,
calumny, and intrigue. If Mr. STANLEY had
favoured the Manchester audience with a few selec-
tions from recent debates in Congress they might
have thought that " the reformation of home insti-
tutions" might with advantage be conducted on a
different plan. As for Mr. STANLEY'S Canadian and
Australian proclivities we advise him to turn over
a few pages of colonial history before he holds
up the management of the Australian land
question as a model to Englishmen. As for
his advocacy of the rights of Dissenters, which we
have always been the first to acknowledge, we would
remind him that it is no part of English justice to
give one man the right to control another man's
property, and that if Dissenters are to manage
Church funds, Churchmen with equal right may
claim to meddle with Dissenting institutions and
endowments, a quid pro quo which, we think, few
Nonconformists would relish ? But the speaker's
name unfortunately reminds us that the "people's
friends," as represented by the Whigs and Radicals
combined, have been in office during the last six or
seven years, and that Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY
has been a member of a good many successive Cabi-
nets, without any marvellous results for the public
good ! We have had quite enough of this party
declamation on the hustings, and this dolce far
niente when in power. It is not necessary
to denounce every man who opposes us as a
traitor and a tyrant. Let us have all parties, all
creeds, all ranks, all interests, fully and fairly re-
presented in the English Parliament. The agricul-
turists have a right to be heard as well as the towns-
men ; the interests of the professional man should
be consulted as well as the interest of the merchant
and manufacturer. Let us not bind ourselves to
general principles, or rather prejudices, or to any in-
dividual policy. We may, indeed, hesitate to plunge
the country into war lightly or wantonly ; but for
Englishmen to declare that they want nothing but
peace, regardless of the interests of humanity or
freedom, is alike unworthy of their past and of their
future.

We may admire and respect the American people
and rejoice in their successes, but to attempt to
fashion our political institutions upon theirs would
be simply preposterous. If it were even possible to
transport Washington to Westminster Englishmen
would not tolerate the system a single day. We
have good reason to prize our constitution, and be-
cause some matters of detail may need reform we
must not believe that others are more ex-
cellent. An old house may need repair, but
he would not be a wise mau who would pull it
down so as to build a new one on its ruins. It is
this sort of language that alarms the timorous and
disgusts the moderate, so that in the end it is pre-
judicial to the interests it would advocate. The
Reformers have good right to denounce the Liberal
party wbo have failed to fulfil their pledges, but
their conduct serves the more to prove
to us that we must not trust in names and
byewords, bat judge men by their acts. Whether
Earl RUSSELL'S Ministry resign or retain office
is a matter of comparatively little moment. The
gtuar, point to be understood is that the people
expect a Reform Bill, and will look to the merits of
the measure rather than to the men who bring it
forward. They wish for no violent changes, no
social convulsions ; they only ask that Parliament,
which professes to represent our ever-growing and
varying community, should expand with its require-
ments, that its increasing intelligence and its rival
interests shall be fairly represented, and that some
security shall be provided not only that the votes
of the member shall represent the constituency,
but that the votes of the elector shall represent his
own political opinions, not his pecuniary necessi-
ties nor his personal apprehensions. Neither Whig
nor Tory has yet offered such a bill, but the
present erisis may teach them that it will have to
be done before any new Reform Bill will receive
cordial and general support.

The news from the Continent which reached Lon-
don yesterday is very important, but not at all satis-
factory in some respects. A great battle was in
progress yesterday between the Austrians and the
Italians, near Verona, and both wings of the Italian
army had been repulsed. So far this looks favour-
able for the Austrians, and we hope that their good
fortune did not desert them. It is indeed high time
that some decisive advantage should be gained by
the Austrians to set off against the many successes
of the Prussian; and the Italians deserve a defeat,
for they had no right to interfere in a dispute that
did not affect their interests, and there was something
very mean in their manifestdesire to take advantage
of their enemy's difficulties. Such tactics are un-
worthy of success ; and the Italian policy had
another great drawback to its consistency, inas-
much as it was in union with Prussia, who is the
sworn foe of all freedom, domestic and foreign, just
now. It would have been bad enough had the
Italians combined with the army of a free country
to attack the Austrians, but to side with a Govern-
mfoofernatiltstlhactonrehesaktdilteustsi incurred the just censure of Europe
onaai rightspowerbuseofwas in
adnededviaolation
des-
picable act, and all defeat and disaster
that may accrue to them will be their just portion.
There was no particular came for dispute between
Austria and Italy until the differences between the
two great German Powers assumed a serious aspect,
and therefore the course pursued by Italy is the
more remarkable and the more reprehensible.
The Austrian course of proceeding may indeed
puzzle the most astute, and bewilder the most clear-
headed. Much valuable time is being lost by their
extraordinary dilatoriness, which the Prussians are
making the most of in all kinds of ways. The last
news concerning the Ilanoverian'forces is most vexa-
tious. It is stated that they had capitulated with
the Prussians. The officers are to be permitted to
withdraw with all the honours of war, together with
their arms and horses, and a free choice of a future
residence
of ceto be left to the KING and CROW E N PRINC
of Ranover. What right the officers have to the
war we are quite at a loss to perceive,
and so will
any one be who has studied the affair.
The only
consolation is that such forces cannot be
of much avail to any one, but still of course it is
a loss to the Austrians for the Prussians to have
succeeded in cutting off
h
these troops with those of
thete Fjetdinereatilenasrmyof.
Why, it may well be asked, in the name of common
sense, did not the Hanoverian forces make more
haste to join their allies? They should have gone
on at once, without waiting for anything, and if

they had failed after all, at least we might have paid
a tribute to their skill and enterprise. As it is, it
really looks as if they did not care much about the
matter one way or the other. This tame conclusion
to the affair is very inconsistent with the grand
declarations that were made the other day relative
to the independence of Hanover. If no better
stand than this could have been made, or was
intended to have been made, it would have been
better not to have made any demonstration at all.
Unless the Austrians subsequently come to the
rescue, they will be in a far worse position than if
they had decided upon acquiescence to the Prussian
proposals. Nothing great or decisive would now
take place in war if soldiers followed the example of
these troops of Hanover.
The movements and plans of Marshal BENEDEK
are quite unknown to us, and it really seems
idle to conjecture why they can be, for
he bas left the enemy to take one advan-
tage after another. If the Austrians were not
more prepared than this, they should not have been
in such haste to make their proposal in the Diet that
the Federal army be mobilized ; it was a grave error
on their part,which will cost them a deal to retrieve.
It has precipitated matters, and forced the Prussians
to proceed, or, at any rate, has furnished them with
a capital excuse for doing so, while it has placed the
im nor states in a most awkward predicament. Having
once taken this decisive step, they should have set to
work in earnest, and at all hazards have come to the
relief of their allies. Prussia should not have been
allowed to occupy so large a portion of territory as
she has done, and the States of Saxony and Hano-
ver should have been communicated with, so as to
avoid all risks of interference. We may presume
that by this time the Prussians have had
enough of having the field to themselves,
as they are provoking them to attack now
in two or three directions. They are advancing
into Austrian territory, having passed across the
heights of Nolledorf. They are also proceeding into
Silesia. Surely the Austrians must soon come forward
in some direction or another, for their delay is quite
inexplicable.
If it were possible to believe that the Prussian
Government could be ashamed of themselves, we
might fairly conclude such to be the case from the
report of the official Maatsaizzeiger relative
to the transactions of Prussia in Electoral
Hesse. Had the Elector accepted the terms
of the alliance offered by the Prussian Minister, his
throne and his sovereign right would have been
guaranteed to him. Judging from the accounts
given of these terms, however, it would seem that
he was wise in refusing them. Here, again, is an
instance of the folly of the Austrians. Why did
they not prevent this usurpation of the Prussians
and 'protect the Elector ? Nothing official is
known of the communications made by the
French Ambassador to Count MENSDORFF ;
but it is said he has declared that them
is no sort of agreement between France and
Prussia or Italy whereby France could be compelled
to participate in the war. The only event that
might change these tactics would be if Austria
encroached on Italian soil. France will do her best
to bring about a settlement between Austria and
Italy, when the war is concluded, it is further stated,
provided that the present limits of Italy are re-
spected. Of course all these arrangements cannot
be considered conclusive, and must depend upon
the state of affairs as the war progresses. Russia
has also professed a strict neutrality during the war.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, Sunday Evening.
The Emperor held a Cabinet Council yesterday
at the Tuileries, but there is no indication of im-
portance to be drawn from this fact, Cabinet
Councils having been held regularly on Saturdays
for some time part, and frevtoritly on Tnurst
also.

A letter from Berlin, dated June 20, in the Siecle,
says :—" Fifty thousand Prussians will shortly be
ready for operations in Hanover and Electoral
Hesse. In Saxony there is no longer a single Saxon
soldier. The Prussian authorities govern there in
the name of the King of Prussia. Up to this time
the hostilities have been limited to firing upon
patrols or the guard on their rounds. At Kline-
bentel, on the route from Toppau to Ratibor, the
Austrians crossed the frontier. Prussia has placed
in the hands of the advance posts a declaration of
war similar in terms to the declaration of war from
Austria. The dadvancePrussian posts occupy in
Saxony the frontiers of Bohemia."

The Government has at length turned its atten-
tion to the many fabrications manufactured every
day to represent news. The Moniteur says---" Cer-
tain persons seek to affect public credit at one time
by circulating false news respecting the war, at
another by giving false reports of the imminent
failure of societies of industry and credit. Some
journals do not hesitate to give circulation to these
rumours without verifying them. The Government
has its eyes upon such acts, and will not hesitate
to order the prosecution of the propagators of
false news." Were the matter not so serious these
fabrications would be ludicrous. One day the
telegraph gives a statement ; the next day it flashes
the contradiction. For instance, for several days
the account was given that the King of Prussia
and M. Bismarck had left for the army ; next day
a telegram from Berlin said, "The King and M. Bis-
mark have not yet left Berlin." The following, from
the Moniteur, is in further elucidation of the fabri-
cation system:.--" One cannot be too much upon
one's guard against the rumours without consistency
which the telegraph itself continues to propagate.
Thus it is that we continue ' under all reserve' to
publish the information which reaches us. Some
days must elapse before the armies of the two par-
ties can be regularly in presence before each other
in Germany. It is, therefore, not probable that a
battle of any importance can takeplace immediately.
The Prussians, who have taken with remarkable
energy the initiative of strategic operations, are oc-
cupied in insuring the formation in a compact
mass of all the countries in the line which they
have conquered since the commencement. The
delay of three days has expired, and the telegraphic
communications presage the immediate com-
mencement of hostilities. At his head-quarters
at Cremona the King of Italy, commanding
in person his principal army, is opposite
the Mincio, which separates the Itali an possessions
from the country occupied by Austria. The line of
the Mincio is defended by the celebrated Quadrila-
teral, which forins the fortresses of Peschiera and
Alantua in front, and of Verona and Legnano in
the rear. The attack in front, which the King of
Italy will attempt upon a point between Mantua
and Peschiera, will coincide with one not less daring
of the corps (Cornice of Cialdini, posted at Ferrara.
Quadrilateral
This will be to force the passage of the Po, and
throw
himselfth into the
P towardse s e o f R°
Padua.v i g o ,
omarching
below
the
north the free corps of Garibaldi will make a diver-
sion, evadng the Quadrilateral
by the mountains.
If the general movements of the Italians should suc-
ceed, the march of Garibaldi •
may give some uneasi-
ness to the Bavarians, threatened with being taken
in their rear by the corps emerging from the Tyrol.
The co-operation of Garibaldi may become,
under certain hypotheses, very valuable for the
Prussians, but this eventuality is distant. The
Prussians retire from the advanced position which
they had taken to the south towards' Zittau. The
Austrians follow them closely, and appear to have
had the advantage in some combats which they
provoked. Benedek's army
comprises 300,000 men."
The Bourse is still not materially affected by the
grave position of affairs. Indeed, at the opening
on Saturday, there was a slight rise iu prices. At
the close of business, however, there was a decline

of 25c., both in the 3 per Cents. and the 41.. The
last price of the former was 62f. 90e. ; of tin latter,
92f. 25c.

No importance was attached to the eTents in
Spain, particularly as the Moniteur annoureed that
the insurgents had been completely checked. There
was,' however, a report that General Prim was
coming back to Spain to reorganise the insuirection,
which at present is confined to a portior of the
troops in the garrison at Madrid.

An ordonnance of Police permits the use d horse-
flesh for human food under certain corditions.
Restaurateurs and eating house-keepers who pro-
vide horse-flesh must exhibit a notice to th?ir cus-
tomers. Every precaution will be taken to exclude
the use of the flesh of horses which were diseased.

During last week some boats large enough to
contain 12 persons manwuvered on one of the lakes
of the Bois de Boulogne, and attracted much atten-
tion, the motive power being electricity. This, I
believe, is the first instance of the application of the
principle to purposes of navigation. These boats
have paddle-wheels. The experiment is considered
to be quite successful. There is one great advantage
in the use of this motive power, there is no danger
of explosion.
The heat is still on the increase. Reaumur's ther-
mometer reached, at two o'clock, two degrees higher
than it has yet attained. The temperature was
above 90 deg. of Fahrenheit in the shade. There
was a printer's error in the figures I gave the other
day. To-day's range of the thermometer will en-
able your readers to judge of the heat in Paris.

M. Daubree has made an interesting communi-
cation to the Academy of Science relative to some
meteorites which fell on the 30th of May, near St.
Mesmin, in the department of the Aube. The sky
was very cloudy, and at half-past four in the morn-
ing a luminous light was seen. The loud detona-
tions like the report of cannon were heard. Then
a rumbling noise wss heard like that made by a
shell striking the ground. The surface of the spot
was removed, and a black stone was found in a
hole which its entrance had formed. This stone
weighs about eight pounds and a half. Not far from
the same spot another meteorite was found, which
weighed about eight pounds. A third was also
discovered weighing more than three pounds. Some
aerolites have since fallen near Calais.
The trial of the sailors for the murders on board
the Fcederis Arca is concluded. The jury found
Lenard, Oillic, Thiipaut, and Carbuccia guilty, and
they were sentenced to death. The jury acquitted
Pierre, Tessier, Leclerc, and Chicot. The sentence
directs that the convicted men shall be executed at
Brest. Chicot was seen at the theatre in the
evening.

At the second day's races at Montauban, the Prix
de la Societe was won by Orelie ; the principal prize
by Radamah, and the Railway Prize by Auburn.
Jokes are sometimes perpetrated at the Paris
police offices as well as in those of London. A pick-
pocket, asked for his defence by the President of the
Police Correctional, said he was innocent. The
judge told him that two witnesses had seen him
take :the purse out of the complainant's pocket.
" That is a very small proportion out of 40 millions
of Frenchmen," replied the prisoner.
The General Omnibus Company of Paris are
about to introduce a plan which will save trouble
and delay in taking change during the journey.
Tickets will be delivered either by the dozen or
hundred, at the usual price, to be used according to
convenience. This arrangement is useful, but not
novel. It was adopted by the omnibus propietors
at Liverpool some fifteen years ago, and may pro-
bably be in effect at the present time.

LA TEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

GREAT BATTLE NEAR VERONA.

VERONA, June 23, 10 p.m.

At two this afternoon the Austrian Pulz brigade
reached the outlying forts of Verona without loss,
having been pushed back by a greatly superior
force of Italian cavalry, which, however, did not
charge.
The Italians advancing upon both banks of the
Mincio towards Pcschiera were repulsed by a short
cannonade from the outer forts of that stronghold.
Judging from tho proparations upon the Lower
Po, Cialdini will throw bridges across to-night
near Polesella.

VERONA, June 24, 2 p.m.
A great battle has been in progress since the
morning, between the Italians and Austrians.
Both wings of the Italian army have already been
repulsed.

The battle still continues.
ITALIAN HEADQUARTERS, Juno
24 (Evening).

A desperate engagement has just taken place in
front of Verona, lasting almost the whole day. The
first army corps, which was intended to occupy
positions between Peschiera and Verona, did not
succeed in the attack.

The second and third army corps were unable to
deliver the first corps from the assault it had to
sustain against an overwhelming force.
The two latter corps are almost intact.
BRESCIA, June 25.
The Ist Italian Army Corps attacked the Aus-
trian positions near Peschiera yesterday.
The Cerale division suffered very heavy losses.
General Cerale was wounded.

The engagement was prolonged, and the defini-
tive result not unfavourable, the Italian corps
having maintained their positions.
Prince Amadeus was slightly wounded, and has
arrived at Brescia. -

LITERATURE.

George Eliot's New Work.

Felix Holt, The Radical. By the Author of
Adam Bede. Three Volumes. Blackwood & Sons.
As Xavier de Maistre somewhere remarks that at
the mere act of cutting a lemon, one's mouth waters
with an anticipative relish of the acid—so may it be
asserted quite as truthfully that upon the mere an-
nouncement of a new story from the pen of George
Eliot, one has a foretaste of a very rare intellectual
enjoyment. A very eminent position among our
novelists she has long since assumed—this whole-
somer Georges Sand of our imaginative literature
here in England. A foremost place, indeed, not only
among our Novelists, but better still among our Ilu-
morists—among our happiest delineators of the
middle and lower classes of society (as those classes
actually arc) of the men and women and children of
this our own time, in this 'our own insular fatherland.
Neither Bullier Lytton nor Charles Dickens but
would admit and recognise, we may rest perfectly
well assured, George Eliot's right to assume to herself
a place in their immediate neighbourhood upon
our modern bookshelves. The creator of Mr. Pick-
wick and Mrs. Gamp, of Tom Pinch and Dick Swi-
yeller, of Mrs. Lirriper and Doctor Marigold, could
not but acknowledge a thoroughly congenial contem-
porary, one gifted with the very rarest powers of hu-
morous delineation, in the creator of Mrs. Poyser, of
Tom and Maggy Tulliver, of the Gleigs and the Dob-
sons—that delightfully original tale-teller, to whose
radiant dreamings we are indebted for the Rev.
Amos Barton's Sad Fortunes, for Mr. Gilfil's Love
Story, for Janet's Repentance, for Adam Bede, for
the Mill on the Floss, for Silas Marner, for Romola,
and, last not least, for this new story of hers, but just
now published, the tale here told with all her wonted
skill, power, drollery, tenderness, subtlety, and
pathos about " Felix Holt the Radical," and about
those others (those all but living and breathing
fellow- creatures of Felix) peopling, in company with
him, the old familiar scenery of "Adam Bede"—the
market town, the rural homestead, the sylvan
parks, the grimy collieries, the high places and the
back slums of George Eliot's favourite haunts down
in Loamshire. Happily, here, in her latest fiction,
we are back again in the Midland Counties of
England nowadays—not spirited away, as in
Romola, as far back from this nineteenth
century as the fifteenth, to the unfami-
liar streets of Florence, at the time when
those streets were trodden by the sandals of
Savonorola. Sketching-in her English landscapes,
here, with the same radiant colouring as of old,
George Eliot can hardly be said to have equalled, to
our thinking et least she can certainly not be said to
have in any one particular surpassed, what we must
still regard as her incomparable masterpiece, the
story of Adam Bede. Having said thus much, as
we feel in a manner constrained to do, in distinct
deprecation of any direct comparison whatever,
being invidiously attempted to be drawn between
what we cannot but regard as the rare and peculiar
merits appertaining respectively to cash of her three
principal fictions, to " Adam Bede," the "Mill on
the Floss," and " Felix Holt"— [for we set " Romola"
apart as in an eccentric region, while we set apart as
upon a lesser level than any one of those three chief
fictions of our novelist, but just now particularised,
both " Silas Marner," and the earliest of all George
Eliot's books, the three " Scenes from Clerical
Life," already specified by name, in our foregoing
observations] —we ,s ould here make a clean breast of
it, at once, in regard to whatever we have to say in
the way of fault-finding in our consideration of
" Felix Holt" as a work of art emanating from one
whose productions admit (by reason of their intrinsic
excellence, in spite of all the blemishes that may be
detected in them) almost, we might say, a
scrutiny as severe in its way as an examina-
tion under the lens of the oxyhydrogen mi-
croscope. Frankly, then, let us say at once
that the chief incident of the story is utterly abhor-
rent to us, as one of the most repulsive surely that
ever entered into the imagination of a writer of fic-
tion. That incident, we mean, through which
Harold Transome, the comely squire of Transome
Court, first discovers who his father is—immediately
after he has struck over the mouth with his riding-
whip the detestedJermyn, and while yet he (Harold)
is glaring with a look of the deadliest hatred upon that
sleek attorney of Treby Magna. Nothing, as it ap-
pears to us, could ever justify the mere imagination
of an incident so utterly revolting inits character any
more than aught that might be urged in its favour
or extenuation could ever justify a certain detest-
able incident branding as with an outrage upon all
humanity one of the latest scenes described in Field-
ing's masterpiece of " Tom Jones." The equivocal
position of Mrs.Transome,Harold's mother, becomes,
moreover, thereupon too odious for us to contem-
plate without a repugnance estranging her alto-
gether from our sympathies. Lesser flaws of art
than these are discernible, to our thinking, in one
or two of the other incidents of " Felix Holt." For
example, nothing whatever of the smallest import
ever comes of that most elaborate, but most con-
fusedly-arranged, account of Mr. Christian's shuf-
fling and dodging exchange of placards with Tommy
Trounsem, the half-witted bill-sticker—the whole
being simply, we are left to conjecture, a clumsy
device on the part of the author to bring about a
confabulation of some sort between Tommy Troun-
sem and Maurice Christian. Again, there is—what
we cannot but regard as thoroughly inartistic—that
(to ourselves at least) utterly incomprehensible
jumbling together of—
" Hopes and fears that cherished hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes, long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long"—

in the love scene that takes place between Felix and
Esther, as that love scene may be found described
in chapter thirty-two. The time in which the story
is placed, by the way, is thus happily hit off at
its very outset by our authoress where she says—

In those days there were pocket boroughs, a Birmingham
unrepresented in Parliament and compelled to make strong
representations out of it, unrepealed corn-laws, three-and-
sixpenny letters, a brawny and many-breeding pauperism,
and other departed evils ; but there were some pleasant
things too, which have also leparted. Non omnia grandior
Was gate fugiamus habet, says the wise goddess : you have
not the best of it in all things, 0 youngsters ! the elderly
man has his enviable memories, and not the least of them
is the memory of a long journey in mid-spring or
autumn on the outside of a stage-coach. Posterity may be
shot, like a bullet through a tube, by atmospheric pressure
from Winchester to Newcastle; that is a fine result to have
among our hopes ; but the slow old-fashioned way of get-
ting from one end of our country to the other is the better
thing to have in the memory. The tube-journey can never
lend much to picture and narrative ; it is as barren as an
exclamatory 0 ! Whereas the happy outside passenger
seated on the box from the dawn to the gloaming gathered
enough stories of English life, enough of English labours
in town and country, enough aspects of earth and sky, to
make episodes for a modern Odyssey.

As for the delicious colouring still recognizable in
George Eliot's descriptions of rustic scenery, the
subjoined might almost of itself suffice as a
most charming illustration—where she is de-
picting " the neat or handsome parsonage and
grey church set in the midst—There was the
pleasant tinkle of the blacksmith's anvil, the
patient cart-horses waiting at his door ; the basket-
maker peeling his willow wands in the sunshine ;
the wheelwright putting the last touch to ablue cart
with red wheels ; here and there a cottage with
bright transparent windows showing pots full of
blooming balsams or geraniums, and little gardens
in front all double daisies or dark wallflowers; at the
well, clean and comely women carrying yoked
buckets, and towards the free school small Britons
dawdling on and handling their marbles in the
pockets of unpatched corduroys adorned with brass
buttons," Here, as a match to the foregoing let us
give our novelist's luxuriant delineation of that dis-
tinguishing and characteristic glory of an English
landscape, our hedgerows 1
Everywhere the bushy hedgerows wasted the land with
their straggling beauty, shrouded the grassy borders of the
pastures with cat lined hazels, and tossed their long black-
berry branches on the corn-fields. Perhaps they were
white with May, or starred with pale pink dog-roses ;
perhaps the urchins were already nutting amongst them,
or gathering the plenteous crabs. It was worth the
journey only to see those hedgerows, the liberal homes
of unmarkeablo beauty of the purple-blossomed
ruby-berried nightshade, of the wild convolvulus
climbing and spreading in tendrilled strength till
it made a great curtain of pale-green hearts and white ,

trumpets, of the many-tubed honeysuckle which in its
most delicate fragrance, hid a charm more subtle and pene-
trating than beauty. Even if it were winter the hedge-
rows showed their coral, the scarlet haws, the deep-crim-
son hips, with lingering brown leaves to make a resting-
place for the jewels of the hoar-frost. Such hedgerows
were often as tall as the labourers' cottages dotted along
the lanes, or clustered into a small hamlet, their little
dingy windows telling, like thick-filmed eyes, of nothing
but the darkness within.

As to all the countless little touches of realistic
grace, humour, subtlety, lighting up these pages
—just as the give and take of animated conversa-
tion are lit up by momentary freaks of wit and fancy
—what better can we do or say in regard to those
than simply cull a few of the more salient as afford-
ing evidence, at once delightful and conclusive, in
themselves, as to their surpassing excellence ? In-
stance the mention casually made of the rich farmers
met on the highroad "sitting heavily on their well-
groomed horses, or weighing down one side of an
olive green gig." Among the pictures at Transome
Court, the " large Flemish battle-piece, where war
seemed only a picturesque blue and red accident
on a vast sunny expanse of plain and sky."
That charming vignette glimpse of Harold when a
baby, conjured up to the mind's eye of his dejected
mother in her old age, when she sees him once again
in her reverie as—"the little round-limbed crea-
ture that had been leaning against her knees and
stamping tiny feet, and looking up at her with gurgling
laughter." The incidental mention, again,immediately
after this of a mother's love as " an expansion of
the animal existence." Then, too, those delicious
little infinitessimal touches of humour noticeable in
George Eliot's inimitable manner of sketching off
her many whimsical characters. As instance—
Lyddy, the old woman-servant of the Dissenting
Clergyman—Lyddy, who found an answer as she
found a key by pouring out a pocketful of miscellanies"
—Lyddy, who, when accused of having overboiled
the eggs, groans out " there's hearts are harder"—
Lyddy, who, on been accosted jocularly by Esther,
can't help crying out "Dear me, don't you be so
light, miss, we may all be dead before night."
Then, too, there is that wonderfully tedious person
Mrs. Holt, the mother of Felix—a sort of a mixture
of Mrs. Nickleby and of a certain "Weary ful Woman"
familiar to the readers of " The Tales from Black-
wood "—Mrs. Holt, who when enlarging upon the
fulfilment of her own lamentable prophecies about
Felix, treats the sad history " with a preference for
edification above accuracy and for mystery above re-
levance worthy of a commentator upon the
Apocalypse," and whose self-justifying piety
indulges in such ejaculatory remarks as these---
"I've done my duty and more if anybody comes to
that ; for I've gone without my bit of meat to make
broth for a sick neighbour ; and if there's any of the
church members say they've done the same, I'd ask
them if they had the sinking at the stomach as I
have." Then, too, there is Denner—the kind-
hearted old waiting-maid of Mrs. Transome—who
has come to look on life as she does upon her rub-
ber-of-whist of an evening—" I don't enjoy the
game much, but I like to play my cards well, and
sec what will be the end of it." Better still, there
is that sketch of Mr. Chubb, the politic landlord of
the Sugar Loaf at Sproxton, who " was known to
have one fundamental division of all opinion my
idee' and humbug.'" Better even than whom is
Dredge, the collier of that same benighted locality
of Sproxton—Dredge, who in reference to the
" Wednesday Preachins' is reported to have said,
" I've been aforced to give my wife a black eye to
hinder her from going to the preachin'. Lors-a-massy,
she thinks she knows better nor me." As a fair specimen
of the ready fun and spontaneous comicality of the
homelier conversational parts of " Felix Holt," vide
the following humorous account of a conversation
that takes place one evening in the Steward's
Room at Treby Manor, the country mansion of
Sir Maximus Debarry—the interlocutors being,
the great Mr. Scales himself, the House-Steward
and Head Butler ; Mr. Christian, Philip Debarry's
factotum ; Mr. Crowder, a rather dull-headed
tenant on the estate; Brent, the gardener; Sir-
come, the miller ; and Mr. Filmore, the surgeon's
assistant :

4, Why," eeid Mr. Crowder, au nla respeeteble tenant,
though much in arrear as to his rent, who condescended
frequently to drink in the steward's room for the sake of
the conversation ; " why, I suppose they get money so
fast in the East —it's wonderful. Why," he went on, with
a hesitating look towards Mr. Scales, "this Transome has
p'raps got a matter of a hundred thousand."

" A hundred thousand, my dear sir ! fiddle-stick's end of
a hundred thousand," said Mr. Scales, with a contempt
very painful to be borne by a modest man.
"Well," said Mr. Crowder, giving way under torture, as
the all-knowing butler puffed and stared at him, " perhaps
not so much as that."

" Not so much, sir ! I toll you that a hundred thousand
pounds is a bagatelle."
" Well, I know it's a big sum," said Mr. Crowder, de-
precatingly.
Here there was a general laugh. All the other intellects
present were more cultivated than Mr. Crowder's.
"Bagatelle is the French for trifle, my friend," said Mr.
Christian. " Don't talk over people's heads so, Scales. I
shall have hard work to understand you myself
soon."

"Como, that's a good one," said the head gardener, who
was a ready admirer ; " I should like to the hear thing you
don't understand, Christian."
"He's a first-rate hand at sneering," said Mr. Scales,
rather nettled.

" Don't be waspish, man. I'll ring tho bell for lemons,
and make some punch. That's the thing for putting
people up to the unknown tongues," said Mr. Christian,
starting up, and slipping Scales's shoulder as he passed
him.

"What I mean, Mr. Crowder, is this." Hero Mr. Scales
paused to puff, and pull down his waistcoat in a gentle-
manly manner, and drink. Ile was wont in this way to give
his hearers time for meditation.

"Como, then, speak English; I'm not against being
taught," said the reasonable Crowder.
" What I mean is, that in a large way of trade a man
turns his capital over almost as soon as he can turn him-
self. Bless your soul ! 1 know something about these
matters, eh, Brent ?"

" To be sure you do—few mon more," said the gardener,
who was the person appealed to.
"Not that I've had anything to do with commercial
families myself. I've those feelings that I look to other
things besides lucre. But I can't say that I've not been
intimate with parties who have been less nice than lam
myself ; and knowing what I know, I shouldn't wonder if
Transonic, had as much as five hundred, thousand. Bless
your soul, sir! people who get their money out of land are
as long scraping five pounds together as your trading men
are in turning five pounds into a hundred."

" That's a wicked thing, though," said Mr. Crowder
meditatively. " However," ho went on, retreating from
this difacult ground, " trade or no trade, the Transomes
have been poor enough this many a long year. I've a
brother a tenant on their estate—l ought to know a Milo
bit about that."

" They've kept up no establishment at all," said Mr.
Scales, with disgust. " They've even let their kitchen
gardens. I suppose it was the eldest sou's gambling. I've
seen something of that. A man who has always lived in
first-rate families is likely to know a thing or two on that
subject."
" Ah, but it wasn't gambling did the first mischief," said
Mr. Qrowiler, with a slight smile, feeling that it was his
turn to have some superiority. "New-comers don't know
what happened in this country twenty and thirty years ago.
I'm turned fifty myself, and my father lived under Sir
Maxum's father. But if anybody from London can tell me
more than I know about this country-side, I'm willing to
listen."

" What was it, then, if it wasn't gambling ?" said Mr.
Scales, with some impatience. "I don't pretend to know."

"It was law—law—that's what it was. Not but what
the Transomes always won."

"And always lost," said the too-ready Scales. "Yes,
yes ; I think we all know the nature of law."
" There was the last suit of all made the most noise, as
I understood," continued Mr. Crowder; "but it wasn't
tried hereabout. They said there was a deal o' false swear-
ing. Some young man pretended to be the true heir—let
me see—l can't justly remember the names—he'd got two.
He swore he was one man, and they swore he was another.
However, Lawyer Jermyn won it—they say he'd win a
game against the Old One himself—and the young fellow
turned out to be a scamp. Stop a bit—his name was
Scaddon—henry Scaddon."
Mr. Christian hero let a lemon slip from his hand into
the punch-bowl with a plash which sent some of the nectar
into the company's faces.
"Hallo ! What a bungler I am !" he said, looking as if
he were quite jarred by this unusual awkwardness of his.
" Go on with your tale, Mr. Crowder—a scamp named
Harry Scaddon."
" Well, that's the tale," said Mr. Crowder. "He was
never seen nothing of any more. It was a deal talked of at
the time—and I've sat by ; and my father used to shake
his head; and always when this Mrs. Transomo was talked
of, ho used to shake his head, and say she carried things
with a high hand once. But, Lord ! it was before the
battle of Waterloo, and I'm a poor hand at tales ; I don't
see much good in 'em myself—but if anybody'll tell me a
cure for the sheep-rot I'll thank him."
Here Mr. Crowder relapsed into smoking and silence, a

littlo.discomfited that the knowledge of which ho had been
delivered had turned out rather a shapeless and insignifi-
cant birth.

" Well, well, bygones should be bygones ; there aro
secrets in most good families," said Mr. Scales, winking,
"and this young Transome, coming back with a fortune
to keep up the establishment, and have things done in a
decent and gentlemanly way—it would all have been right
if he'd not been this sort of Radical madman. But now
he's done for himself. I heard Sir Maximus say at dinner
that he would be excommunicated; and that's a pretty
strong word, I take it."

"What does it mean, Scales?" said Mr. Christian, who
loved tormenting.
"Ay, what's the meaning ?" insisted Mr. Crowder,
encouraged by finding that even Christian was in the
dark.

" Well, it's a law term—speaking in a figurative sort of
way—meaning that a Radical was no gentleman."
" Perhaps it's partly accounted for by his getting his
money so fast, and in foreign countries," said Mr. Crowder,
tentatively. " It's reasonable to think he'd be against the
land and this country—oh, Sircome ?"
Sircome was an eminent miller, who bad considerable
business transactions at the manor, and appreciated Mr.
Scales's merits at a handsome percentage on the yearly
account. Ile was a highly honourable tradesman, but in
this and in other matters submitted to the. institutions of
his country ; for great houses, as he observed, must have
great butlers. Ile replied to his friend Crowder senten-
tiously.
"I say nothing. Before I bring words to market, I
should like to see 'em a bit scarcer. There's the land and
there's trade—l hold with both. I swim with the stream."

" Hey-day, Mr. Sircome ! that's a Radical maxim," said
Mr. Christian, who knew that ➢ir. Sircomo's last sentence
was his favourite formula. " I advise you to give it up,
else it will injure the quality of your flour."
" A Radical maxim !" said Mr. Sircomo in a tone of angry
astonishment " I should like to hear you prove that. It's
as old as my grandfather, anyhow."
" I'll prove it in ono minute," said tho glib Christian.
"Reform has set in by the will of the majority—that's the
rabble, you know ; and the respectability and good sense
of the country, which are in the minority, are afraid of
Reform running on too fast. So the stream must be run-
ning towards Reform and Radicalism ; and if you swim
with it, Mr. Sircome, you're a Reformer and a Radical, and
your flour is objectionable and not full weight—and being
tried by Scales, will be found wanting."
There was a roar of laughter. This pun upon Scales
was highly appreciated by every one except the miller and
the butler. The latter pulled down his waistcoat, and
puffed and stared in rather an excited manner. Mr.
Christian's wit, in general, seemed to him a poor kind of
quibbing.
" What a fellow you aro for fence, Christian," said the
gardener. " Hang me, if I don't think you'ro up to every-
thing."
" That's a compliment you might pay Old Nick, if you
come to that," said Mr. Sircome, who was in the painful
position of a man deprived of his formula.
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Scales ; "I'm no fool myself, and
could parry a thrust if I liked, but I shouldn't like it to be
said of me that I was up to everything. I'll keep a little
principle if you please."
"To be sure," said Christian, ladling out the punch.
" What would justice be without Scales ?"
The laughter was not quite so full-throated as before.
Such excessive cleverness was a little Satanic.

"A joke's a joke among gentlemen," said the butler,
getting exasperated ; " I think there has been quite liberties
enough taken with my name. But if you must talk about
names, I've heard of a party before now calling himself a
Christian, and being anything but it."
" Come, that's beyond a joke," said the surgeon's assis-
tant, a fast man, whose chief scene of dissipation was the
Manor. "Let it drop, Scales."
" Yes, I daresay it's beyond a joke. I'm not a harlequin
to talk nothing but jokes. I leave that to other Christians,
who are up to everything, and have been everywhere—to
the hulks, for what I know ; and more than that, they
come from nobody knows where, and try to worm them-
selves into gentlemen's confidence, to the prejudice of their
betters."

There was a stricter sequence in Mr. Scales's angry elo-
quence than was apparent—some chief links being con-
fined to his own breast, as is often the case in energetic
discourse. Tho company were in a state of expectation.
There was some behind worth knowing, and something
before them worth seeing. In the general decay of other
fine British pugnacious sports, a quarrel between gentle-
men was all the more exciting, and though no ono would
himself have liked to turn on Scales, no one was sorry for
the chance of seeing him put down. But the amazing
Christian was unmoved. He had taken out his handker-
chief and was rubbing his lips carefully. After a slight
pause, he spoke with perfect coolness. _ _

" I don't intend to quarrel with you, Scales. Such talk
as this is not profitable to either of us. It makes you
purple in the face—you are apoplectic, you know—and it
spoils good company. Better to tell a few fibs about me
bohiad my hack—it will heat you less, and do me more
harm. I'll leave you to it ; I shall go and have a game at
whist with the ladies."

As the door closed behind the questionable Christian,
Mr. Scales was in a state of frustration that prevented
speech. Every ono was rather embarrassed.
" That's a most uncommon sort o' fellow," said Mr.
Crowder, in an under-tone, to his next neighbour, the
gardener. " Why, Mr. Philip picked him up in foreign
parts, didn't he ?"
"He was a courier," said the gardener. "He's had a
deal of experience. And I believe, by what I can make out
—for he's been pretty free with mo sometimes —there was
a time when he was in that rank of life that he fought a
duel."

"Ah ! that makes him such a cool chap," said Mr.
Crowder.

" He's what I call an overbearing fellow," said Mr. Sir-
come, also sotto voce, to his next neighbour, Mr. Elmore,
the surgeon's assistant. "He runs you down with a sort
of talk that's neither here nor there. He's got a deal too
many samples in his pocket for me."
" All I know is, he's a wonderful hand at cards," said
Mr. Filmore, whose whiskers and shirt-pin were quite
above the average. " I wish I could play ecarte as ho does;
it's beautiful to him; he can make a man look pretty blue
—he'll empty his pocket for him in no time."

" That's none to his credit," said Mr. Sircome.

The conversation had in this way broken up into Nte-a-
tete, and the hilarity of the evening might bo considered
a failure. Still the punch was drunk, the accounts were
duly swelled, and, notwithstanding the innovating spirit
of the time, Sir Maximus Debarry's establishment was
kept up in a sound hereditary British manner.

The interlocutors in the foregoing conversation, it
will be readily understood, of course, are all of
them, even Christian, to be regardqd as merely
among the minor characters of the work—the
principal personages in which, besides Felix Holt,
the Radical Hero of it, are, it may well be believed
in regard to any book from the hand of George Eliot,
stamped indelibly upon the reader's recollection,
long before his perusal of the work has come to be
completed. Conspicuous among these are of course,
Harold Transome, the wealthy squire of Tran-
some Court; and his mother, old Mrs. Transome ;
and that sleek sixty-year-old attorney-at-law
among the Trebians, Mr. Jermyn ; and poor
lamenting widowed Mrs. Holt, the " Wearyful
Woman" of Loamshire, as we are fain to dub her
henceforth; and shock-headed, bright-eyed, cravat-
less Felix Holt, her son, by trade a watchmaker, in
opinion a Radical ; and queer little, large-headed, big-
hearted Mr. Rufus Lyon, the Dissenting Minister
of Malthouse Yard—who is almost as wearyful to
us, by the way, as the melancholy, maundering Mrs.
Holt herself ; and that beautiful, bewitchingly,
lady-like Esther, Mr. Lyon's reputed daughter,
who is in reality, however, as the event proves,
heiressof the house of Bycliffe ; and Johnson, again,
Jermyn's eleetioneering Jackall ; and little red-
haired, curly-pated Job Tudge, Felix Holt's adopted
pet. These, with a whole throng of others, quite un-
necessary here to be enumerated, not only people
Treby Magna and its precincts most amusingly, but
lend fresh human interests of an enduring kind to
that goodly portion of the Midland Counties which
is certain to be known henceforth, perennially,
among the lines of geographical demarcation familiaar
to all true lovers of whatever is best in our iinag,l-
- literature, as Loamshire.

Carlyle's Address as Lord Rector of the University of
Edinburgh : with Memoir and Two Portraits•

One Vol. pp. 96. John Camden Hotten.

This is another of those charming little volumes
that Mr. Hotten, of Piccadilly, not only publishes,
but himself compiles, and that he appears to take 3
delight in compiling. A collection not of ,g
unCOn-
sidered trifles," but of carefully and well-selected
anecdotes apropos to some incident of interest that
has recently occurred. Incidents of general inte-
rest are, in fact, the pegs upon which Mr. 'Totten
hangs his lucubrations. Mr. Carlyle's installation as
Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh is just
one of these after the heart of this our late Horne of
Piccadilly. Reprinting the Times' Report of the New
Lord Rector's Inaugural Address—Mr. Rotten has
accompanied that report, thus reprinted, in a read-
able form with a memoir of the author, and one or two
illustrative articles about him. As a sort of doub 0_
frontispiece, there is a page facing
the volume under notice, containing upon it a coup
%
of woodcut sketches of Thomas Carlyle as he Ivo.
the title-page i?,1)
in 1837 and as he is in 1866, the earlier portrait
pencilled in profile I)3T Count Alfred D'OrsaY7