We have been taught to neglect it by the atmosphere impregnated with the probtendency of general thought and political lems which that fiction presented in a change, by the temptation of a cheap stim- solid form; they were prepared to recogulus to attention, and lastly, by the teach- nize them by innumerable hints and alluing of a great genius. The narratives sions; they could not take up a magazine, which have combined the interest of dra- and hardly a newspaper, without being matic creation and eloquent preaching, reminded that these were the issues disthe works which have been cited from the puted between thinkers; and when they pulpit and hailed as a new Bible by those found these problems, which to a certain who wished to discard the old, have been extent were familiar, apparently settled in modelled more and more on the new rev- an interesting fiction, the fiction, without erence for physical science. The change losing its own peculiar interest, gained is strikingly apparent when we compare that of philosophy. All this is true only George Eliot with George Sand; and one for a generation. We cannot point to character which we cannot help fancy- any romance of the past as prefiguring ing that the great Englishwoman took what "Daniel Deronda" and "Middlefrom the great Frenchwoman, and in march" may be for the readers of the which, therefore, we can compare the two twentieth century, because the ideal on methods of treatment - brings it out very which they are moulded is entirely new. strikingly. Tito Melema, as the incar- But we may safely predict that when nate principle of the Renaissance, is the George Eliot's productions come to be creation of George Eliot; but as the faith- read by our grandchildren, her readers less, frivolous, luxury-loving admirer of will turn most eagerly to those which enRomola, he reminds us of Angiolo, the ter on ground where expression is conVenetian singer, who has a similar rela- fessedly incomplete always, rather than to tion towards Consuelo. But we know those which change of time can rob of a Tito as a patient in a hospital; Angiolo completeness apparently attempted by as a personage in a drama. We follow their author. Nothing exhaustive, we the downfall of the perfidious Greek with firmly believe, can ever be perennial. the interest with which we study a re- It may be objected that when we have markable case in pathology; while the perfidious Venetian is known to us as a passing acquaintance is, and leaves us without any feeling that we have before us the complete analysis of his condition. We know him, that is, from a literary, not a scientific, point of view.

settled how much detail a writer of fiction had better invent, that does not help to decide how much fact a biographer had better reveal. The objection, however plausible it sound, is a part of the very heresy against which our whole polemic is directed. The aim of biography is to "Well," it may be objected, "that, so reveal a character. The character is not far as it goes, is all on the side of the to be invented. But the biographer should scientific ideal of fiction, for George Eli-feel his task just as much one of selection ot's creation is a more powerful one than as the writer of fiction does. Only very George Sand's." To the countrymen of rarely will he reveal the character he seeks George Eliot, and at the very time of to reveal by telling everything he knows. publication it certainly is. Beyond this The most popular biography in the lanlimit of time and space we doubt. We guage is an example of just such a fortuhave a profound faith in the conser-nate chance as this. Boswell could not vative influence of pure literature, and have painted a character that needed sesome distrust of instantaneous impres- lective treatment; Johnson could not have siveness. The contrast seems to us for- been so vividly known to us by any one cibly exhibited in the earlier and later who had aimed at selective treatment. style of George Eliot herself. "Adam Another popular biography - Stanley's Bede was a study of moral aspects, not "Life of Arnold" - seems to us to have an analysis of moral conditions; and it carried the principle of selection too far, had not so large an audience as its suc- and to lose interest with its lack of shadcessors had; perhaps it was not read ow. But the most erroneous specimens with the same keen interest as they were, of the kind of biography which embody for the author's power of description and the aim of revealing a character as a difcreation remained undimmed, and to these ferent endeavor from that of describing a attractions was afterwards added that of thing, seem to us to do more ultimately a kind of mental stimulus peculiarly flat to further true views of mankind than the tering to the ordinary intellect. The read-most elaborate attempts which ignore this ers of Daniel Deronda" breathed an difference, and suppose that what the bi

I

ographer has to do is to empty his wallet, longs to the literary spirit, that even here of information. The biographer who forgets his kindred to the poet, and enters into partnership with the student of physiology, starts from an assumption more false than any that could be put into a narrative form. Only he who creates can fully reveal, and he who remembers that truth will reveal least inadequately.

it seems to us the muse of history descends from her pedestal when she would approach closely to science; nor should we desire a better illustration of this truth than the two historic works of the great man from whose biography we took our start. The history written in his youth is an original and vivid picture of human life; the history written in his age is an exhaustive account of the greatness of a military nation, which that nation finds itself obliged to study as the best source of accurate information, and we feel no more doubt as to which of these works will be best known to posterity, than we do as to its verdict on the contrast between the purport of his teaching and the

The case in which the scientific ideal is least hurtful to literature is one in which the exception proves the rule, for as memory is a bridge between the regions of sense and imagination, so is history be tween those of science and literature. Here, no doubt, the two ideals must blend. And yet so intimate, so indissoluble is the connection between the truth of human life, and that selective feeling which be-disclosures of his biography.

THE ORIGIN of Silk. - If we put any trust India, and was at last brought to Europe. The in tradition, says an English journal, there is a soldiers of Crassus, B.C. 56, saw silken standlegend that Tchin, the eldest son of Japhet, ards among the Parthians, and a few years father of the Asiatic race, taught his children later an immense velarium of silk protected the art of preparing silk, as well as the arts of the spectators in the Roman circus from the painting and sculpture. Be this as it may, it rays of the sun. From this time the Romans is certain that about three thousand years were always provided with the beautiful textbefore the Christian era a Chinese book, ures which were the admiration of their the Chou-King, described silken cords, which legions. Yet silk was still the privileged poswere stretched upon a musical instrument in- session of the rich, and in the time of Aurevented by the emperor Fo-Hi. One of his lian, who flourished in the third century, was successors, Chin Nong, reputed inventor of worth about forty times its present value. the plough, explained to his contemporaries This enormous price, when considered with what beautiful stuffs could be obtained by cul- the fact that there was at that time no comtivation of the mulberry tree, and about the merce between Rome and the Orient, goes far year B.C. 2600 an empress, to whom a grateful towards explaining the great hoarding of treasposterity assigned a place in a celestial con- ure and jewellery which has since that time stellation, perfected the art of unravelling the gone on in India. There is a dispute between Cocoon and weaving. From that time silk tradition and history as to the period when the culture had its principal seat near the northern genuine cocoon was brought from China to portion of the Yellow River, in the province Europe. How was the vigilance of the Ceof Chan-Tong. There was produced silk for lestials thwarted, since exportation of the silkthe royal household. Yellow was the chosen worm from the flowery kingdom was forbidden color for the emperor, empress, and prince under the severest penalties? One account imperial; violets for the other wives of the states that in A.D. 552 two monks sent to Koemperor, blue for distinguished officers, red than by Justinian succeeded in bearing away for those less conspicuous, and black for every their booty concealed in a stalk of bamboo. one else. In the book of rites, Li-Ki, the cer- The legend says that once upon a time, when emonies performed at the harvest are carefully Kothan did not yet possess the precious bomdescribed. Even the empress did not disdain byx, the king of one of the provinces sought to gather the leaves of the mulberry with her and obtained a daughter of the Chinese emown dainty fingers, and watched over the rear-peror in marriage. Before quitting her native ing of the busy toilers of the cocoon. For a long time this invaluable industry remained the exclusive property of the Chinese Empire, but about the third century before the Christian era a military expedition from China bore the results of its civilization to the startled Occident. Silk became known in Persia and

land she hid seeds of the mulberry and silkworms' eggs in her hair, where it would escape the vigilance of the customs officers on the frontier. When she reached her new home she planted the seeds of the mulberry in order that suitable nourishment might be provided in the leaf for the worms.

Fifth Series, Volume XLIX.

}

No. 2123.-February 28, 1885.

From Beginning,
Vol. CLXIV.

CONTENTS.

I. SECRET Papers of the SECOND EMPIRE, . Edinburgh Review,

II. A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITself. By

Chambers' Journal,

Macmillan's Magazine,

Good Words,

V. COLERIDGE AS A SPIRITUAL Thinker, VI. LIFE IN A Druse VILLAGE. Part II.,. VII. MY IRISH CORRESPONDENTS,

Fortnightly Review,

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From The Edinburgh Review. SECRET PAPERS OF THE SECOND

EMPIRE.

By a decree published in the Journal Officiel of the French Republic on September 7, 1870, the minister of the interior appointed a commission charged with the collection, classification, and publication of the papers and correspondence of the imperial family which had been seized at the Tuileries on the overthrow of the empire, three days before. The president of this commission was M. André Laver tujon, who, on October 12, addressed a report to M. Jules Favre, then interim minister of the interior, indicating the progress made up to that date by the commission, and suggesting the appointment of M. Taxile Delord, Laurent-Pichat, and Ludovic Lalaune, to replace MM. de Kératry, Estancelin, and André Cochut,

who had been called to the exercise of

submitted to the control of the government of the national defence. After publication the original documents, carefully catalogued, were deposited in the national archives.

Such is the account, given with all the dry precision of an official report, of a publication of a more startling nature than often comes within the purview of the historian. Amid the portentous echoes of the time, when the ears of men were stunned by such tidings as those of the capitulation of Sedan, the collapse of the empire, the siege of Paris, and the deathstruggle of France, it might well be the case that items of what might almost be called personal gossip, which in less tempestuous times would have rung through Europe, would appear dwarfed to undue proportions by the terrible news of each day. We are not prepared to say that any effort was made by those who were other functions, the first-named of the most compromised by the papers in questhree being made prefect of police. This tion to collect and to destroy the published report, approved and countersigned by copies. But the rarity of the volumeM. Jules Favre, states that on September only one other copy than the one before 24, the first fasciculus of the papers in us having met our eyes, and that on the question had been published; that fascic- table of an ambassador - certainly tends uli, composed each of two octavo leaves, to confirm that not unnatural supposition. had succeeded nearly every other day; At all events it will be, as the commission and that the contents of a volume of five has said, "in the interest of truth" to adhundred pages had been already passed duce a few of the proofs thus unexpect. through the press. Copies of each num-edly furnished of what the second empire ber, as they appeared, had been sent to cost France. the public prints; and not only had most It is difficult to approach an enquiry of of the documents been republished by the kind without a strong sense of the them in entirety, but counterfeits had been grim humor of the event. The ink will circulated among the public, with which hardly run from the pen without leaving the commission had not regarded it as traces of a certain amount of malice, using any part of their duty to interfere. The the word in its French, and not in its Encommission insist, in a brief preface, that glish, sense. That those very documents the publication of these papers has an which, by reason of their intimately priabsolutely official and impersonal charac- vate nature, should be entrusted to no ter, the work having been undertaken in minister, secretary, or archivist, but kept the sole interest of the truth. The com in the personal custody of the sovereign mission, according to the preface, did not himself, should be thus collected, kept, judge it simply drew up an inventory; and at last made public for the special it attempted no polemical work, but im- service and delectation of King Mob, is a partially prepared the materials of history. new incident of the drama of la Répub The documents, copied under the respon- lique dans les carrosses du Roi.* The sibility of the secretaries to the commission, were examined by the president, and

• Papiers et Correspondance de la Famille Impériale. Paris: 1870.

A similar incident had, however, twice before occurred in the course of the French Revolution, when the mob broke into the Tuileries, and pillaged the private papers of the sovereign. The documents found