RETROSPECT

OF

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART IN 1875.

LITERATURE.

THE number of new books published in Great Britain this year, exclusive of American importations and new editions, was 3,573; being an increase of 222 on the number published in 1874, and ten more than the amount for 1873. The increase is chiefly in the departments of Theology, Fiction, History, the Arts.

and

The life of Sir Roderick Murchison by his friend and brother geologist, Professor Geikie, is one of the most interesting biographies that have appeared this year; and few literary executors have been more amply provided with materials for their task than the biographer. Mr. Geikie's chief labour must have been to carry out judiciously the principle of selection, for Sir Roderick Murchison had carefully kept by him every letter which he had ever received, and copies of every letter which he had ever written, never destroying even an invitation to a dinner or an evening party. But besides a memoir of the great geologist's life Mr. Geikie has given an admirable sketch of the science of geology as it existed when young Murchison forsook fox-hunting for philosophy, and brought upon himself the good-natured taunt of that noted Nimrod, Lord Darlington, that he had "turned himself into an earthstopper." Born at Tarradale, in Easter Ross, on the 19th of February, 1792-among those rocks which it was the last great achievement of his scientific life correctly to interpret-there was little in the circumstances of his nurture or parentage to justify in him a forecast of scientific reputation, or of a genius for the observation of nature. It was evident that book-learning was not the bent of young Murchison, and this peculiarity was more or less discernible throughout his life. But when the time arrived when it was necessary for him to choose a profession of some sort, the delights of a military career began to shape themselves distinctly in his young mind. Encouraged at length by his uncle, General Mackenzie, of Fairburn, he finally resolved to follow the profession of arms, and in the year 1805 he was taken to the Military College of Great Marlow. Twelve months later he was Gazetted ensign in the 36th Regiment of Infantry; and in 1808 he embarked for Portugal with the expeditionary force under Sir Arthur Wellesley. Professor Geikie gives us the details of Sir Roderick's six months of the Peninsular War--how he landed in Mondego Bay-how he carried the colours of his regiment at the battle of Vimiera-how he sustained the reputation of his race for personal courage, determination, and energy-how he took part in the interminable and disastrous manœuvres that culminated in the retreat from Corunna-and, finally, landed once more in England in January 1809. After exchanging into the Enniskillen Dragoons he eventually retired from the army in 1814. But in the meantime there had

occurred the incident which we agree with Professor Geikie in considering the turning-point of his career:-"His mother, like other English residents in France, had deemed it prudent to quit that country after Napoleon's return, and had settled for a time at Ryde, in the Isle of Wight. Thither her son went to visit her, and there, through the introduction of Miss Maria Porter, he made the acquaintance of General and Mrs Hugonin, of Nursted House, Hampshire, and their daughter Charlotte. The young lady was, to use his own words, 'attractive, piquant, clever, highly educated, and about three years my senior.' He first met her early in the summer of 1815, and on the 29th of the following August, in the romantic little church of Buriton, in Hampshire, they were married."

It is quite a new revelation on the part of Murchison's biographer that, on looking around for a calling, the ex-captain of dragoons seriously thought of becoming a clergyman, jotting down a goodly list of books in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, under the head of "religion, eloquence, history, belles lettres, &c.," and consulting friends as to the feasibility of taking a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. His notions of a clerical lot form a capital illustration of what was then thought of taking orders:-"I saw that my wife had been brought up to look after the poor, was a good botanist, enjoyed a garden, and liked tranquillity; and as parsons then enjoyed a little hunting, shooting, and fishing without being railed at, I thought that I might slide into that sort of comfortable domestic life." His wife's better genius suggested the idea of a year or two of foreign travel, and the sight of the Alps and glaciers of Savoy and Switzerland, with the contact of men like Pictet and De Candolle, first kindled the flame of physical research which burnt in Murchison's nature through life. At the same time a run through the chief galleries of the Continent awakened in him a love and appreciation of art. Two years thus spent in Italy were followed by five years of ardent fox-hunting at Melton. A note written forty years later tells us that a day's sport in company with Davy, ending in the promise of getting him early into the Royal Society, was the means of finally weaning his mind from this waste of life, and deciding him to follow up the observations he had already made upon the Alps and Apennines. Murchison had henceforth a calling wherein his love of out-door life, combined with his energy of intellect and his sense both of the scientific and aesthetic aspects of nature, found unlimited scope.

Of imagination, as his biographer candidly admits, Murchison had little or nothing. His was not the philosophic spirit which evolves broad principles or ultimate laws in science. He wanted the power to deal with far-reaching questions of theory, and even held them in suspicion or dislike. For the advancing views of the evolutionists he felt anything but sympathy, strangely enough seeing in Darwinism a principle utterly incompatible with the fundamental facts of his system. With glacialists like Forbes or Agassiz he had little in common, shutting his eyes against the rapidly-gathering proofs of the range and intensity of ice-action upon the globe, though he certainly felt staggered at the notion of Von Buch, that the granite boulders on the tops of the Jura had been shot across the valley of Geneva by the power of subterranean explosive forces. To the convulsionist side, with Elie de Beaumont, he clung tenaciously to the last, against the influence of Lyell and the wellnigh unanimous band of English men of science, his natural incapacity for coherent logical argument having been aggravated by the want of early training in habits of accurate scientific reasoning. But among his contemporaries there was no observer more keen-eyed, more careful, or more correct. Having the shrewdness, too, to know where his strength lay, he seldom ventured beyond

that domain of fact in which his earliest successes were won, and in which through life he worked so faithfully and so well. In that domain he had few equals, and the list of his published writings and memoirs testifies to the energy and industry with which he worked at the labours of his choice. In the official duties which devolved upon him for the last fifteen years of his life, and which might have been a sore burden to one reared in liberty and more used to out-of-door research than to the routine of office or desk-work, he was unflagging, and even zealous, to a degree that would be occasionally galling to functionaries set in high places over him. Always busy, and feeling an interest in intellectual progress which grew in intensity with the multiplicity of truths or aspects which discovery brought to light in nature, he found the means of efficiently ruling and organizing the Geological Survey, whilst doing the honours and sustaining the dignity of his much-loved chair at the Geographical Society, and holding a place of prominence and usefulness in the highest circles of society. That he had faults of manner and of temper no less than of intellect his biographer does not seek to deny. But under these defects, which after all were on the surface of his character, there lay a generous warmth, a sense of honour, and a love of truth which should make the name of Sir Roderick Murchison dear to his age and country. And in making good his claim, both as a geologist and as in the highest sense a gentleman, to the respect and affection of the English public, Professor Geikie has thoroughly established his own fitness to chronicle and to carry on the work of his laborious life.

Another prominent biography, leading us to contemplate a very different department from that of science, is the "Reminiscences of Macready" the actor, edited by Sir Frederick Pollock. Students of the dramatic art may find abundant interest and instruction in Macready's minute and repeated analyses both of his principal characters and of the means by which they are to be most effectively represented. Long after he had attained the front rank in his profession he watched with unceasing anxiety the degree of perfection with which be had rendered his own conception in each successive performance. There is something touching in the self-reproach with which he records the unsatisfactory results of occasional negligence, or of the disturbance of his equanimity by casual annoyances; and he seems scarcely to have made allowance for the influence which the ordinary variations of health and spirits exercise on all intellectual efforts, and especially on the sensitive temperament of actors. It was the misfortune of Macready to be discontented with his position, while he loved and appreciated his art. Although born and bred in the midst of theatrical associations, he never reconciled himself to the sordid circumstances and to the pervading vulgarity by which he was constantly surrounded. From the first he was a thoughtful and laborious student of his art; and after forty years of practice he sometimes believed that he had discovered new capabilities in an accustomed part. In his youth it was his rule "to make what profit I could out of a bad house, and before the most meagre audiences ever assembled it has been my invariable practice to strive my best, using the opportunity as a lesson." It may be doubted whether any existing work contains so many delicate criticisms and instructive remarks on the acted drama. Some of Macready's most valuable observations are contained in his letters to Sir Frederick and Lady Pollock, written long after his retirement from the stage. He says that he had been taught to imitate in gesture the action which he was relating, and that he was made sensible of the absurdity of the practice, partly by his own observation of actual life, and afterwards "by remarking how sparingly, and therefore how effectively, Mrs. Siddons had recourse to gesticu

lation; and a line in the opening of one of the Cantos of Dante-I do not immediately remember it-made a deep impression on me in suggesting the dignity of repose; and so a theory became gradually formed in my mind, which was practically demonstrated to me to be a correct one when I saw Talma act, whose every movement was a change of subject for the sculptor's or the painter's study." Adapting his practice to his new conviction, he adopted all the modes which he could devise for combining the wildest emotions with perfect bodily stillness. "I would lie down on the floor, or stand straight against the wall, or get my arms within a bandage, and so pinioned and confined repeat the most violent passages of 'Othello,' 'Lear,'' Hamlet,' or 'Macbeth,' or whatever would require most energy and emotion; I would speak the most passionate bursts of rage under the supposed constraint of whispering them in the ear of him or her to whom they were addressed."

About two-thirds of the first volume are occupied with Macready's own autobiography, which he brought to a close at the end of the year 1826. His diaries, which are continued to the close of 1851, the year of his retirement from the stage, and a rather meagre collection of letters, complete a work which cannot fail to enhance the reputation of Macready as an actor and as a man of honour. As an actor Macready was conscientious and intelligent. He himself laments that he was brought up in a bad school, and acknowledges that he found it difficult in after-life to get rid of a certain "stageyness" of manner and a tendency to rant. Some persons think that he never quite succeeded in conquering these defects. But his standard of perfection was a high one, and he never relaxed in his endeavours to attain it. After he had secured his position as the reading tragedian of the day, he studied as hard as when he was a young man fighting for his spurs at Birmingham or Newcastle-probably harder. He was not satisfied to make striking hits, to be famous for his passionate or pathetic declamation in a particular scene. Some of his comments on his own performances are very amusing. "Acted Werner very unsatisfactorily." "Played with grace, truth, and energy." "Acted tolerably well the intolerable Virginius." "Very much dissatisfied with my own performance of Othello; very much indeed." "Acted Hamlet in a very, very superior manner." "Acted indifferently, violent and indiscriminative." As a manager Macready deserves the highest praise. He was the first to exclude from the London theatres persons whose authorized presence gave just cause of scandal to respectable playgoers and supplied an ever-ready argument to the objectors to dramatic representation. He never wished to shine at the expense of his subordinates. He drilled and taught them to act not only "up to him," but with him. If he did not always, or, indeed, often, succeed in making them measure things by his own high standard, it was doubtless because he had dull or stubborn material to work upon, or because actors not in the foremost rank felt with the man into whom, as Macready tells us, Barry vainly attempted to infuse some of his own enthusiasm: "Look at me, sir; speak it in this way-To ransom home, revolted Mortimer!'-that's the way to speak it, sir." "I know that, sir-that is the way; but you'll please to remember you get 1001. a week for doing it in your way. I only get 30s. for doing it in mine. And I'm not going to do for 11. 108. what you get 100%. for." On February 26, 1851, Macready took his farewell of the stage at Covent Garden, in the part of Macbeth. The enthusiasm of the audience was beyond anything that he had ever witnessed. On March 1 a farewell dinner was given to him at the London Tavern. Men illustrious by birth, amous in letters, and renowned in the Senate were eager to write their names

on the list of stewards of a feast given in honour of a person who had done more to elevate and purify the English stage than any actor or manager who had gone before him. Macready did well to quit the stage when he did. He was still in the full vigour of mind and body, he was in possession of a handsome competency, and he had a right to look forward to many years of well-earned repose. He was happy in his domestic relations, and he had too active a mind to depend on compulsory work for occupation. He devoted himself with heart, soul, and purse to the cause of education at Sherborne, especially to the education of the poor, and was as happy among his books and his country neighbours, living in useful obscurity, as ever he had been in London, where his appearance on the stage was the signal for such storms of applause as greet great actors and beloved princes. But this unalloyed happiness did not last. His wife, whom he had begun by scolding when, as a child of nine years old, she acted with him in the "Hunter of the Alps" and did not know her part, and whom he married when she was nineteen, died before they had been long settled in their Dorsetshire home. It was during his residence at Sherborne and at Cheltenham, to which he moved in 1860, after the death of his first wife, that he wrote the interesting letters to two intimate friends which form the concluding part of the present publication. His later years were saddened by the deaths, not only of his first wife, but of several of his children; and, though he attained the age of eighty, he grew old early.

"Recollections and Suggestions, 1813-1873." By Earl Russell.-The titlepage of the book bears two quotations, one of which, from Horace, we spare the reader; the other, from Dryden, runs thus:

"Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been has been, and I have had my hour."

The earlier part of the book has been published before; and the remainder consists of desultory remarks neither connected by any logical sequence nor arranged in the natural order of time. An attack on Mr. Lowe is followed by a statement that Edmund Burke was born in 1730, and Henry Grattan in a later year, and that both were illustrious Irishmen. A part of the history of the Reform Bill is told more than once; and a dissertation on Irish land tenure is followed by an invective against Ritualism. It is no small thing to have been eminent in public life for nearly sixty years, leader of the Liberal party for thirty years, and Prime Minister in two separate terms of office for seven years. Lord Russell displayed high administrative ability as Secretary of the Home Department, and afterwards of the Colonies, and was for several years Foreign Secretary. Although his devotion to party was hardly consistent with a claim to the highest rank as a statesman, his career has been on the whole honourable and patriotic. He candidly admits some of the errors of judgment which he has committed, as in his dismissal of Lord Palmerston in 1851. Baron Stockmar, adopting the view of the Court, thought that the Prime Minister was timid and dilatory in repressing the insubordination of his powerful colleague. Lord Russell more justly blames himself for precipitation in completing the rupture without a preliminary conversation in which he might perhaps have persuaded Lord Palmerston to acquiesce in the proposed relations with the Crown. Only a few months before Lord John Russell had boasted to an applauding House of Commons that Lord Palmerston was not the Minister of Austria, nor the Minister of Russia, but the Minister of England. He afterwards made the conduct which he had defended in Parliament the ground of official remon