....

A good deal of Darwin reads to me like an ingenious dream.'

Mr. Robert Buchanan's edition of 'Audubon's Life '* brings before us a scientific biography full of personal and adventurous interest. The rambles of this great ornithologist and ornithological painter are romantic in the extreme. Mr. Buchanan's book is partly made up of plentiful quotations from Audubon's own manuscripts, and partly with the story with which these manuscripts have supplied him. Audubon has certainly met no Boswell. Mr. Robert Buchanan possesses the critical faculty, which he promptly exercises at the expense of his subject. Audubon was very handsome and correspondingly vain; he especially admired the curve of his nose and the longitude of his hair; he was reckless, inconsiderate, and self-opinionated-all which imperfections Mr.

Robert Buchanan does not fail to set forth with the candid impartiality of true friendship. But Audubon had good health, a good wife, and a good heart, and through an immense variety of ups and downs he survived to a good old age. He was a born genius, in the way of artist, naturalist, and vagabond. The lighthearted way in which he ghthearted would leave his wife and children to get their own living as they could while he was off to the woods, is, in our over-civilized state of society, a matter of much admiration. His life is crowded with enough adventures to set up any number of adventurers. At one time he could not keep his journal because he had no money wherewith to buy a book of blank paper, and had to maintain himself by giving lessons in drawing and dancing. He came over to England, with what introductions he could, in order to get subscribers for his great work. Here he was received with much kindness, and Professor Wilson wrote an article about him in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' by which

*The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist.' Edited from Materials supplied by his Widow, by Robert Buchanan. Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.

he has chiefly been made known to Englishmen. At Edinburgh he made the acquaintance of all the celebrities-Sir Walter Scott, Basil Hall, Lord Jeffrey, Mr. M'Culloch, and others. 'Jeffrey is a little man, with a serious face, and a dignified air. He looks both shrewd and cunning, and talks with so much volubility he is rather displeasing. In the course of the evening Jeffrey seemed to discover that if he was Jeffrey I was Audubon.' The sensitive naturalist was full of gratitude for the kindness showed him by Lord and Lady Morton, and highly indignant at the treatment he received from the daughters of Lady Mansfield. He showed them his collection of drawings to amuse them, and was soon afterwards cut by them at a public assembly as if unworthy of their notice. We have an amusing instance of his simplicity in his account of a dinner at Sir James Riddell's. 'The style here far surpassed even Lord Morton's; fine gentlemen waited on us at table, and two of them put my cloak about my shoulders notwithstanding my remonstrances.' London was very considerable, but he was for a time almost heartbroken at the London distress which was revealed to him. He passed over to Paris, where he saw a good deal of Baron Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. He found that he could get more subscribers in Manchester than in Paris. Then he got back to America after this successful transatlantic foray, and his position was much helped in America by his European success.

His success in

To see Audubon in his glory we should observe him in that forest life which he loved so well, and with descriptions of which this book abounds. He is spending days in the forest, with Daniel Boone, or some old hunter, living on the trout of the stream, and the venison or bear's flesh which their rifles have procured. Sometimes he is venturing on encounters with alligators in swamps or by rivers when he wants a specimen for drawings. Then we have some fearful story which came within his experience or knowledge, of being nearly tomahawked by Indians or lost in a forest. Once amid pools, swamps, and rank grass, he alights on a small island covered with wild orange trees over which the humming birds are flut tering. Then again we have his adventures with the wreckers of the Floridas and the turtlers of the Tortugas. Then again he visits bleak, inhospitable coasts of Labrador, but, nevertheless, knee-deep in mosses, and with the downy eider ducks nestling under the scraggy boughs of the fir trees. Then he is out at sea amid the whalers and in the cod-fisheries. Then there are adventures with snakes and wolves, and human beings more subtle and more cruel than either. Wherever there was the unusual phase of nature or of human nature to be seen, thither was Audubon led by an irresistible attraction. Birds we find mentioned passim, for to this pursuit he dedicated his life, and, in return, this pursuit gave him his great fame and a modest competence. It was quite in his old age that he made his last and grandest journey into the far wilderness of the west. The incidents related in this work might well furnish forth a dozen ordinary volumes of travel. He was seventy years old when he went into the prairies of the west, and after a quiet sweet rest of a few years his mind utterly failed him. But on the day he died, 'one of the sons said, "Minnie, father's eyes have now their natural expression;" and the departing man reached out his arms, took his wife's and children's hands between his own, and passed peacefully away.'

But scientific biography has its lighter as well as its severer side. This is in some degree brought out in a recent work on English Engineers,* a work which contains many pleasant, sketchy chapters. The author has shown much skill in steering clear of Mr. Smiles. Of course there is a tragic side even here, and there are those of our

* Personal Recollections of English Engineers, and of the Introduction of the Railway System into the United Kingdom.' By a Civil Engineer, author of the Trinity of Italy. Hodder and Stoughton.

engineers who have worked themselves to death. There is an immense amount of floating anecdote extant respecting the introduction of railways into the country, a portion of which is successfully caught and fixed in this volume, but there is a large amount of ana very well worth collecting which has hitherto eluded our writers. Macadamizing had hitherto been the highest triumph of English road-engineering. Mr. Macadam was an old Scottish gentleman, who, living in a neighbourhood of detestable roads, hit upon the happy idea that if you would only cover a road with a quantity of small stones you will keep it dry and prevent ruts. He also economically resolved that the necessary process of gradual comminution should be carried out, not by the constructors of the road but by the carriage wheels of those that used it. People laughed at the foible of the old gentleman, but before he died he was making ten thousand a year by his superintendence of the various mail road trusts on his system. Coachmen were, of course, very slow to believe the railways could improve upon the macadamized road. They were very angry with the unreasonable public. 'They will want,' said an honest coachman, 'to leave London at nine o'clock and get to Oxford at five minutes before nine.' The author remarks: ''The honest coachman little thought that he was a prophet. We do not yet travel at that imaginary rate, but our electric messages do.'

The first railway approach to London was from Camden Town to Euston Square, anticipating all the future difficulties of metropolitan railways. Those memorable publichouses to which the 'busses run had then a strictly bucolic character. The Swiss Cottage and the Eyre Arms then stood amid shaded fields, the green country being interposed between them and the City. The dwellers in Mornington Crescent would find people clambering over their walls and making holes in their summer-houses. There was a great deal of roystering fun and adventure in those days for engineers, especially in their dealings

with those who had unwillingly to learn the inquisitorial powers of an Act of Parliament. Our Engineer' 'is especially fond of talking about Brunel. One day, on the opening of a line, Brunel went to a great breakfast given by a director. The director was a Quaker and a teetotaller, and though he gave them pines and grapes, he would give them nothing else but coffee. Brunel said that at that hour he must have a pint of beer. The host was inexorable, and so Brunel, followed by several gentlemen, left the house and repaired to the nearest 'public,' and then returned to finish their costly feed. He relates a good anecdote of Stephenson. One day he got into a great rage with one of the contractors. 'So-and-so, you are a great scoundrel.' 'Well, sir,' meekly replied the delinquent, 'I know I am.' Stephenson was demolished by this candid admission. But Brunel he knew best, and Brunel is his favourite, and the author of the broad gauge was eminently a great man. He gave to English travelling its speed and luxury, and made the narrow-gauge people substitute the long six-wheeled engine for the jumping four-wheel. The personal character of the great engineer, perhaps imperious and arbitrary, is full of interest, and mellowed beautifully towards its close.

We wonder what will be the character of our next great industrial achievement. For ourselves we have little doubt but it will be the establishment of a highway with France and the Continent, whether by a tunnel, or by steamfloats, or by an embankment, or by a viaduct. We may then, when the Euphrates line is complete, travel all the way to India by railway. We are always trembling on the verge of great discoveries. When that problem which was always before the mind of Goodsir -what is the physiological law in organisms which corresponds to the law of gravity in matter? is discovered and turned to profitable use; when the naturalist has unravelled fresh healing secrets of plant and herb; when medical

science has promoted the curability of disease, and the arts and sciences have multiplied the conveniences and luxuries of life; when the span of our days is lengthened and rendered infinitely more tolerable, the inquiry arises, What is the final cause, the great end of all this? Why is it that in our day discovery has been so potent, and the forces of the sun stored up for years beneath the soil are ready for our service in abridging all the processes of labour and speeding mutual intercourse, and barriers changing into highways, and man is everywhere drawn into closer contact with his brother man, save that the benevolent intention of the Great Ruler is revealed, that the great boon of Leisure, in a sabbatic prelude, is given to his creatures through all these infinite savings of their strength, that they may grow more in thought, in knowledge, in soul, in worth, if only our greed does not cause us to sacrifice all higher good into the passion for accumulation, and turn our very blessings to a curse?

THE TALK OF THE CLUBS.

He

Some time ago a friend was showing me some old letters, unpublished, which he had received from William Mackworth Praed. was a man of great gifts, always regarded as a very promising young man, one of those who are always very promising young men to the end of the chapter. The letters related to political matters, and I may mention, since the times have now become historical, that Praed said he could make himself useful at the clubs 'by spreading rumours,' &c. It may be very desirable to ascertain the floating opinions of the clubs, but to my mind such a sentence fully explains what puzzled so many people at the time, why Macaulay should succeed so well and Praed comparatively fail. We cannot fancy that Macaulay would ever make it his business to spread any kinds of rumours. On the whole, we don't believe in the epigrammatic sparkle, the wit and wisdom of clubs. You hear scandal there, and some good stories, and get some of the earliest items of political intelligence, which certainly oozes out in a curious way. Occasionally, too, you may hear some real pathos and eloquence if your club has procured some remarkably good wine or secured a peculiarly gifted cook.

The difficulty in regard to the floating converse of the hour is to separate the frivolous and transitory subjects from those which possess a real and perhaps an abiding interest. The stray facts of our time may become hist history; the stray thoughts portions of systematized truths. Among the subjects that have been eagerly discussed of late, there are certainly not a few that possess a supreme interest, and are well worthy of all the ventilation which the wits of clubs, or other's wits-for clubs certainly possess no monopolycan bestow. Mr. Gladstone's great speech in bringing forward the Irish Church Bill gave the quidnuncs as much to do as they could possibly manage. The effort was a magnificent one, a near approximation to that series of budget speeches which are now things of the past. Lord Salisbury's gathering at Hatfield certainly seems to be bearing much fruit in the conspicuous moderation of the measure. It is confiscation and it is even revolution in the judgment of many people; but did ever confiscation or revolution come in so mild a form? That long panse of many months which Mr. Gladstone made before enunciating his principle of what should be done with the money has resulted in an idea of that simplicity and effectiveness well worth long incubation. Revenues given up to the afflicted and distressed are still devoted to most sacred uses; and if the Premier adheres to the principle of his measure, we shall not have a deprivation but a redistribution of church property. And if the clubs discuss Mr. Gladstone's most humane provisions, I think the clubs may take a most necessary lesson home to themselves, for the way in which various of them have

persistently refused to promote their own local charities, and have drawn broader and sharper the lines of demarcation between rich and poor, which every civilized state should seek to obliterate as far as possible, reflects little credit on their collective benevolence and patriotism.

The 'Saurin v. Starr' case has perhaps been too contemptuously treated by the wits. The mass of circumstances were trivial in the extreme, and it is easy to lament that judge, jury, and counsel were occupied for three weeks over such a case. But I question whether any three weeks of lawsuits have ever been so fertile in broad general results. The Saurins, originally quite humble people, I believe, never contemplated that the trial would have extended to such a length or have occupied so large an amount of public attention. Everybody seems satisfied with the verdict, especially as the damages given were so exceedingly moderate. Miss Saurin was teased to the extent of being tortured, but manifestly she was a very disagreeable kind of young woman to have in a convent. But the blow given to the conventual system will be felt all over the world. Much may be said, on abstract given, both for and against the theory of the convents, but it is just one of those systems which is fitly judged by experience. And, practically, it is found to work exceedingly ill. Indirectly another heavy blow has been struck at the papal power. The pope will be more than ever confirmed in his view that a death shock has been given to the power of the tiara. In countries where it had long been absolute, as in Italy and Spain, political revolution has been the instrument; but in free countries, where Protestantism has long been in the ascendant, and where, from excess of liberality, we were disposed to regard conventual institutions tenderly, this is just the kind of blow which will most effectually add to Roman decadence.

The great political problems in the East and in the West ought to receive the most serious atten

tion from all men of thought and culture, but the sad rule in social circles is that the weightiest matters are considered least. What is to be done with the Asiatic Switzerland, that Affghanistan range of mountains which is fast becoming the sole barrier between British and Russian power in Asia? There was a time when the two nations would be preparing to elude each other in diplomacy and combat each other in war; but surely in this stage of the world's history we may trust a little more to frankness, fairness, and good feeling. May we trust to these influences with the United States? To what may we most rightly attribute the rejection, not ill for us, of the Alabama convention? Is it that they will not have it done under the auspices of the hated President whose last message was a crowning insult to them, or is it that a grievance, which may be a casus belli, is too precious to be adjusted by anti-British sentiment?

RECENT POETRY.

We are very glad to hear, from speculative brethren, that poetry is no longer a mere drug in the market, but that it is 'looking up' in the commercial estimate of publishers. Such a fact as this if we may regard it as fairly ascertained to be a fact-indicates an immense advance. The general average of readers must be greatly improved if they are laying aside sensational novels and betaking themselves to poetry-not alone that highest poetry of Milton and Shelley, but that milder and more human poetry that may educate and lead up to the elder sons of song. Several very interesting volumes of poetry have recently appeared, and, on the principle of place aux dames, we will begin with Poems by Menella Bute Smedley.'

Some of Miss Smedley's poems have obtained much deserved popularity in our contemporaries, 'Good Words, the 'Daily News,' &c. As a whole, these poems are exceedingly good, but we also confess to some little disappointment. We bave higher expectations of Miss

Smedley than she has satisfied by the general level of this volume. There is a strength and tenderness, a lyric boldness, a beauty and energy of phrase about some of her pieces that make us believe Miss Smedley has got to make a higher mark as a poetess than the very considerable mark which she has already attained. In such a poem as 'The Contrast,' where, according to her wont, she is too merciful to an unworthy husband, we have a subtlety and delicacy which can hardly be improved on. This is her best vein. The longest poem in this book is the drama of 'Lady Grace,' aud with this we own we are least satisfied. This drama will be popular, for it is extremely amusing, and might, without much difficulty, be fitted for representation on the stage. Miss Smedley has a keen and most thorough sense of humour, and we enjoy her fun, but she is essentially a poetess in the highest walks to which poetesses attain, and we regret that in a thin volume so much space should have been given to dramas which might have been occupied with such perfect lyrics or picture-poems as 'The Little Fair Soul' or April Shadows.'

،

The 'Story cory of Lady Grace' is worth the telling, and is one more exhibition of the girl of the period.' Lady Grace Aumerle, the young widow of an old man, whom she had married without a spark of love, remorsefully determines to dedicate herself and her substance to her nephew and niece. Visiting her lawyer, in order to carry out her benevolent intentions, she expresses her desire to see the young people, herself being unseen. The lawyer explains that nothing is more easy, and accordingly the young cousins are discerned, abundantly chaffing one another, and the officer teaching the young lady how to smoke cigars. Lady Grace, however, is largehearted, and can make allowances for young people if there is nothing worse in the background. Now it so happens that the lawyer is in love with the young widow, and was so as a school lad, though he has changed his name, and she has quite forgotten him. There is some