as probably an inherited failing, and remarks in passing that his sister, who lives in literature as Sister Dora, in Miss Lonsdale's book -"romance," Pattison calls it showed the same tendency." She spent a faculty of invention" he remarks, a little viciously, "which would have placed her in the first rank as a novelist, in embellishing the every-day occurrences of her own life." It is more to the point to observe that his own mental and physical awk wardness, largely the result of his isolation followed by a sudden plunge into the world, gave way not before resolution, but before the gradual command which he acquired of himself under the discipline of a will set doggedly to attain the result for which he had been sent to Oxford. Again and again he fails to secure a Fellowship and the reader is disposed to think that this period of failure was really a more determining one in Pattison's mental and moral development than the autobiographer recognizes.

man.

The whole book impresses upon one the power which this university life has to absorb the thought of a really strong In looking back upon his earlier days, Pattison is stirred by the recollection of the academic battles. It is true that he writes from within the walls which he had never left, but he writes after an enlargement of mind through contact with great religious movements, with scholarship, and with literature, which would seem sure to correct a too narrow and parochial view. How moved he was by his final success in securing a Fellowship appears when he writes:

"I had seen with the despair of an excluded Peri all the gates of all the colleges shut against me, and here in the most unlikely quarter of Oxford, I had really got the thing I had so eagerly desired. I was quite off my head for two or three days, and must have exhibited myself as a jeune étourdi in the eyes of the Rector and Fellows of Lincoln." It

is noticeable, however, that the attainment of his wishes, so far from making him merely complacent, was really the means of a further development of his powers, for it was not long before he was heartily engaged in effecting reforms in the management of the college. So completely did he identify himself with Lincoln that when his failure to be chosen Rector resulted in a reactionary movement, he became almost paralyzed in his will, secluded himself, and led for a long time a half torpid existence. Again his defeat opened the way for a larger, wider interest, and he took part in the general movement of university reform. He was finally chosen to the office which he had lost, and the tenor of his life thenceforward moved on without much disturbance.

We have omitted to dwell upon the religious side of Pattison's character, though it forms an interesting, and to some justifying, portion of his autobiography, because we desired chiefly to call attention to the picture which his life presents of a scholar's career, with special reference to the bearing it has on the literary life. The doggedness with which Pattison overcame difficulties, the half-blind manner in which he pushed forward in his studies, and the final breadth and accuracy of his learning might have been repeated in other forms had he been thrown upon the open world of London; but it is clear that the half-monastic life which he led was singularly adapted to shape a character so divided in weakness and strength as his was, and to occasion at last the literary productions which certainly would not have proceeded from him under other conditions.

The university, however, is not the only English organization which fosters. literature and makes a vantage-ground for the man of letters. As it is demon strably more efficient in this respect than its American congener, so the civil service of England has offered a more

convenient shelter for the littérateur than the same service in America. Our government, indeed, has not been slow to recognize authors, but it has been chiefly in the way of rewards in the diplomatic service for those who have already won a certain distinction. Now and then, notably in the case of the New York Custom House, government offices have served as means of support to hard-working literary men, but the general insecurity which has hitherto attached to this employment, and the peril to one's self-respect in seeking appointments, have hindered such men from counting upon this resource. One of the probable results of a service organized upon the merit system is the attraction to it of men capable of clerkly labor, but chiefly ambitious of literary fame. The freedom from concern which enables one to lay aside his business mind, like an office coat, when the clock strikes three, and don the literary habit, is especially necessary to the calm and cheerful pursuit of literature. Such a state of things exists in London to-day, and may be confidently predicted of Washington, New York, and other cities, in the near future.

The memoirs of Sir Henry Taylor1 do not precisely illustrate this, for his connection with the civil service was rather the result of a tradition holding in the higher ranks of the service, by which men of education easily found their way into positions less strictly clerical. His career nevertheless points the moral which we have been drawing, for it illustrates the ease with which one may lead a divided life, giving his formal half to government service, and enjoying, without detriment, a poet's occupation and fame. The division is not an uncommon one in England, and in Sir Henry Taylor's case there was not only a delightful literary life, but a very

1 Autobiography of Henry Taylor, 1800-1875. In two volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1885.

serviceable official one. If he had not written Philip Van Artevelde, Taylor would yet have had an honorable place in the administration of government, for though his position by his own choice. was a subordinate one, he rendered very effective service in the Colonial office, and brought high principle and intelligent thought to bear upon administrative economy.

We can easily dismiss the book as a demonstration of the ease with which literature and officialism are combined, and resort to it for its very agreeable record of reminiscences. Indeed, at this distance we do dismiss, in reading, much of the detail which Taylor the under-secretary indulges in respecting his affairs during office hours, and confine ourselves to what Taylor the poet does and says when he is at liberty. The air of the book throughout is extremely agreeable and well-bred. Possibly recent examples served as warnings to avoid disagreeable personalities; at any rate, the kindly and discriminating author distinctly avoids a censorious judgment of others, and in treating of his own life and affairs maintains a decent reserve. Yet the book is not without its own little confidences. We are a little amused at first at the familiar manner in which the author speaks of his wife as Alice; but if he can do it for his own pleasure, we certainly share that pleasure. One comes to take a most friendly interest also in the old man's fond preference for the society of girls, and there is a light rustle of muslins, especially in the closing chapters, which falls upon the ear with a grateful delight. Here is a little touch which shows that in his interest in girls, he gave as well as received: —

"If my change of air has not done much for me, I have at least had a very pleasant change in other respects, being on a visit here to the Prescotts, with whom I spent some two or three months of last summer, while Alice was at Tun

bridge Wells; people abounding in kindness of all sorts, and hospitable beyond all human hospitality of modern times. They have had with them, since January, the whole of the family of Stephen Spring Rice, his wife and the tuneful nine,' his children, and their gov erness and servants, in ali, seventeen souls; and the house is as 'cheerful as a grove in spring,' and music goes on from morning till night, pianoforte, harp, violin, violoncello, and voices of all kinds, and, I may also say, of all ages; for yesterday I heard a song very beautifully sung by a lady seventy-seven years old. The music all day long, and not the performing only, but even the practicing, suits me, - better than it would you, I dare say, for I have an ignorant fondness for music which is by no means fastidious. And then there is a great deal of girl-life going on, which is alway full of interest for me; and there is one very fine creature of the girl-kind, ingenuous, noble, and free, who, though not of the house, is always in and about it, playing croquet on the lawn by day, or making music in the evenings, and concerning whom a girl I had never seen till last week I was seriously consulted by a man of whom I know almost as little. And when I see the sort of holiday-life that is led at such a place as this, I hardly wonder that so many a man (like Jacob) finds a wife at a watering-place."

In such leisurely fashion the book runs on, the half-serious, half-idle gossip of an old man who, from his corner, looks out on the world in which he has played no unimportant part, while he has all along retained a good portion of his independence and has used well his higher gifts. His amiability does not stand in the way of a shrewd characterization, as well as discriminating judgment of men and affairs. He has almost the air of a champion when speaking of Aubrey de Vere, whom he admires greatly, and his loyalty to

Wordsworth is dignified as well as enthusiastic. How cleverly he can sketch a group of people no easy task-may be seen in an off-hand letter which he writes to Aubrey de Vere from a country-house where he was staying at the time. After rapidly jotting down the men of science and letters, he adds::

"Then comes a good-humored-looking Captain and Mrs. Baring; an Alick Baring; a Mr. Beach; a Lord Giffard, pleasant but sanguinary, for he had killed sixty-five tigers, eleven elephants, and a multitude of bears; a Mr. Gowan, fulfiller of all knowledge, it is said, whose walk into the room was as if he had the knowledge in a bowl between both hands and was afraid of spilling it; or like the walk of a man who knows that he is always on the edge of a precipice; or like the walk of a monthly nurse in a darkened room, who knows not what she may knock against next-only he seemed to be himself the object of his own nursing; he said nothing (except a few words once a day to make silence audible, and to assure us that he was not the ghost of a nurse), and he expected nothing and was in nobody's way; and at the end of his visit his servant wrapped him carefully up and put him into a fly to be taken away. He probably left no impression on many of us; but on me he left rather a peculiar impression of a noiseless and passionless existence; a human being who gave nothing, asked nothing, said nothing, did nothing, felt nothing, and was perfectly contented with himself and everybody else; how cautiously he sat down! weighing his spread vans,' while the nether part gradually lowered itself to within flumping distance, and then flumped; Lord de Mauley, cultivated, refined, and distinguished-looking, and he might have been agreeable, but his favorite son is in the Crimea, and he looked as if the waters of the Black Sea had gone over his soul."

It would be easy to go on picking

out entertaining passages from a book which reflects a generous, lively nature. The best things, as we have hinted, are quite independent of the foreign office, but we suspect that Sir Henry owes much of his genialty to the freedom which his hemispherical life permitted. At any rate, we cannot help recognizing the delightful possibilities which lie for men of letters in such conditions as were his. We are aware that much else than the mere formal condition of a civil service on the merit system determines such literary life either in England or

in America, and we have no wish to plead for a mere repetition of conditions. The literary life is more selfdetermined than to be dependent upon any such conditions, and possibly the difficulties which it is passing through in America are fitting it for a freer, more influential future. Be this as it may, until America offers something better, we must continue to think that in the organization of English life, the Pattisons and Taylors have a capital chance for making the most of themselves.

WHEN the historian of literature renders his account of the scientific writings of the nineteenth century, he will have an interesting chapter on the semiscientific books which were devoted to the task of reconciling the old mythologies to modern learning. No part of his task will be more charming than that which sets forth the many efforts to determine the seat of paradise, that fair cradle of the golden youth of man, whence he was driven to the toil and woe of the rude outer world. It will be interesting for the student of after times to trace how the early writers at first approached this problem with easy minds; how in the days of Hudibras, the scholar

"Knew the seat of paradise,

Could tell us in what degree it lies;
And, as he was disposed, could prove it
Below the moon or else above it."

Coming to the day when scientific methods were more critical, he will see that the question of the geographical seat of paradise became involved with the

1 Paradise Found: The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole. A Study of the Prehistoric World. By WILLIAM F. WARREN, S. T.

problem of the origin of the genus homo. Suppositions became gradually more and more complicated by known facts; one by one all possible seats of paradise were tried and found wanting. Doubtless, the end of it all will be the conviction that there was no paradise of place, or paradise of condition for man; that for the golden age he must look to the future, and if the garden of Eden is to be found, it will be in the time to come and with an ever improving man.

Dr. Warren's very interesting work1 will probably come near the end of this series of paradise books, for unless we go "above the moon," as Hudibras suggests that his ingenious explorer Burnet could do, there is no place in the world for further searching. It is a conspicuous merit of our author that he effectively demolishes all the other possible suppositions, showing that, if it was anywhere in the world, the seat of paradise must have been at the north pole; and if at any time in the earth's history, it must have been during the age, late

D., LL. D., etc., President of Boston University. Pages xxiv., 505. 12mo. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1885.

in a geological sense, but vastly remote in terms of human history, when about the north pole there was, for a while, a temperature much higher than that which now prevails there, and a geography very different from that of today. If the paradise people are dislodged from these nearly inaccessible grounds, we may hope that they will never more trouble the busy world with their tedious though beautiful speculations.

The reader will find that the book is divided into two sections. The second treats of the ethnic traditions which seem to refer the origin of man to the extreme north; the first, of the geological facts which support the hypothesis that man originated about the north pole, and that while dwelling in that region he acquired a rather high degree of culture, and had many facts impressed upon his mind which clung in his religious memories long after the change of climate had expelled him from his earliest home. The second part of the treatise concerns a field in which the training of the author admirably fits him for his task. It seems to the present writer that if this part of the argument had been presented at the outset, the book would have gained in strength by the change. There can be no question that the selected traditions bearing on this point, which are presented by Dr. Warren, seem at first sight to warrant the hypothesis that the ancient peoples of Asia had once dwelt in very high latitudes. The array of authorities is strong, and the form of presentation extremely good. If this part of the work is to be definitely overthrown, it will have to be accomplished by an expenditure of scholarly labor not less than that which the author has given to its construction. Without undertaking this impossible task, the wary reader will see grave reasons to doubt the value of this array of evidence, reasons which he will draw from other experiences with

the same sort of evidence used for similar ends. He will remember the charming episode in modern semi-science made by the curious researches of Taylor, Piazzi, Smyth, and others of their sect, into the history of the great pyramid. There only a part of the facts are of the traditional sort; the remainder are as hard as Egyptian syenite and as sharp as the clean angles of perfect masonry. Yet even there a well-trained man of science, who mixed faith with his maththematics, and allowed a little conjecture to cloud his equations, converted an astrologist's observatory and a tomb into a record of supernatural knowledge and a prophecy of things to be. An even better sign of the danger that lies in such proof is found in the fact that the very myths which seem to agree in assigning hyperborean regions for the cradle of the human race equally agree in the statement that man was suddenly created from the earth by the direct exercise of the divine will. There are now few educated men who would attach any value, as fact, to this ancient and universal idea of a sudden miraculous creation of the human race. Yet if the consensus of statement is to be taken as evidence that the race originated about the north pole, it should be accepted as of equal value as to the origin of the species. Accepting the evidence which the learned author so well sets forth to show that ancient peoples had a vague notion that they came originally from the high north, and giving him his claim that their traditions describe an aspect of the heavens and a succession of day and night in their race's cradle which are fairly reconcilable with the conditions of circumpolar regions, we may still explain these facts without encountering those inseparable difficulties which our author has to face in his effort to plant the primitive man within the arctic circle, leaving him there until he had developed his arts, his civilization, and a sublime religious belief.