which society is deeply interested. And, turning to the writings of the greatest master, save Shakespeare, which this or any other age has produced, we should like to know what opinion the public would have formed of Scott had he anticipated the socialist views of Mr Kingsley. Evan Dhu Maccombich, in Waverley, is, allowing for the difference of the time and race, a finer fellow than Tregarva. What would we have said had Flora MacIvor fallen desperately in love with her brother's henchman? Gurth, the swineherd, in Iranhoe, is a capital specimen of his race, and really worth twenty Tregarvas how, if the Lady Rowena had bestowed her affections upon the superintendent of the porkers at Rotherwood? Mr Kingsley, we observe, has got a bad habit of accusing the present age of want of chivalry-has he ever seriously considered what chivalry means? It meant this in the days of old, that a man, whatever was his degree, might give his earthly worship to a woman superior to him in rank, and needed not to despair of winning her by such deeds as were then considered the marks of enterprise, valour, and determination. He might struggle on from page to squire, from squire to knight, with one sole image as his lodestar; and after he had gained the chaplet of his fame, he laid it in humbleness and in fear at his lady's feet. Mr Kingsley's method saves all trouble. Jeames the footman, with Jewish lips and Celtic curls, and a superabundance of unnecessary calves, turns out to be a serious young man, of the Methodistical persuasion, who is very kind to his poorer brethren, behaves well to his relations-has a notion that neither squire, nor parson, nor anybody on the face of the wide world, except himself, has a panacea for existing social evils, though his own panacea is as yet admittedly imperfect-and, incontinently, one or other of the young ladies of the house must fall in love with him, and perish of a spinecomplaint, brought on by undeclared affection, because her papa has discovered that Jeames has a turn for satirical poetry, and discharges him for having lampooned his master. It is our duty, while dealing with such

works as Yeast, to explain their tendency:-can any one who has read the book accuse us of a harsh judgment in this particular?

We shall say little of the other views set forth or indicated in this volume, except that they are altogether unsatisfactory, and tend to no conclusion, whether they apply to social, religious, or political considerations. In fact, Mr Kingsley is a mere gleaner of incertitude in the wake of Mr Thomas Carlyle. To find fault with existing institutions, whether in Church or State, is the easiest thing in the world; because no human framework is perfect or immutable, and wisdom may be easily counterfeited by an assault upon existing errors or abuses. But does that constitute wisdom, or entitle us to repose confidence in the assaulter? Alas, no! Any number of men may get up to inveigh against prostitution and drunkenness

against close crowding of families in towns-against the general godlessness of the operative population. We may assume these as facts; but we desire to know what plan Mr Kingsley has to propose for the reconstitution of society, even according to his indicated views. He is planless. He can object, and carp, and denounce, and unsettle faith, but he has not given a single indication of his power to suggest a better system in lieu of that which he visits with his censure. We are not ashamed to confess that we feel very little sympathy with theorists of this indefinite class. To unsettle opinions, without providing or indicating a clear way to a better course of action, is, to borrow a favourite phrase of Mr Kingsley's, "the devil's work;" for it is a direct invitation to anarchy, without any prevision of the means by which such anarchy may resolve itself into order. It is the mere echo of the old cry of the iconoclasts-" Down with whatever is, and we shall establish our future hereafter."

That there is much brilliant and some startling writing in Yeast we freely admit, and it may be that among the views propounded there are some which are worthy of attention. That remark, however, will apply to almost any work written by a clever man, which professes to treat

of social economy and of the many problems connected with it. Of late years, many such books have issued from the press, both in this country and in France, but we cannot say that any which we have encountered are satisfactory, or even likely to produce a beneficial result on the mind of the public; whilst some of them-and Yeast is of the number-are so disfigured by the constant introduction of false sentiment and extravagant opinion, that their influence must necessarily be prejudicial. Turn we now to Hypatia, Mr Kingsley's Alexandrian romance.

Reader, were you ever stricken with fever? If so, you cannot fail to remember the hideous, bizarre, and grotesque shapes which haunted you during the hours of delirium, with a distinctness and pertinacity positively appalling. Never can we forget the monstrous old hag who nightly glided into our apartment, saluted us with a low mocking laugh, and then kept us spellbound for hours by the fascination of her glittering eye. Then came the HAVEREL, in the shape of an ancient and garrulous gentleman, who persisted in telling us everything that we knew before, with a prolixity which nothing could check, and a monotony that sounded like the eternal ticking of a clock. At length, he made way for a fanciful figure, a sort of compound between a howling derveesh and Jim Crow, who went through a series of unnatural gyrations and contortions to the music of some unknown instrument more frightfully ear-piercing than a cat-call. Anon we were lifted into the air by an unseen genie, and plunged into a hot-bath, which, by some ingenious mechanism, was so constructed as to surround the council-chamber of our native city; and therein we were compelled to swim slowly round, listening all the while to a protracted debate on the weary subject of the Annuity-tax. Suddenly we were transported far away into central Africa, over Saharas, and among burning sand-drifts, and whirling pillars, from whose approach redmaned lions galloped, with an appalling roar, to an ancient temple in the City of the Sun, at the gate of which we were met by a courteous griffin, who laid his claws upon his heart,

assured us of a cordial welcome, and requested our attendance at a banquet of fricasseed Arimaspians. Presently, in strode Odin, armed with the hammer of Thor, and with one tremendous blow reduced our friend the griffin to pulp, and possibly might have done the same execution on ourselves, had not Freya interfered, and desired us to pledge her in a draught of mead out of a skull, marked and numbered after the lively fashion of the phrenologists. Then there was heard a loud whirr of wings above, and with a shrill shriek the Scandinavian deities dispersed in fetid smoke; for the roof opened above our head, and down came swooping Jupiter horsed upon his eagle. Right jovial was his air as he politely desired us not to discompose ourselves, for he merely intended to amuse himself for an hour or so by looking on at a dance of the demigods and heroes. Instantly the scene was changed. The temple was transformed into a modern ballroom, splendidly lit up, with an orchestra in which Apollo, who looked remarkably like Monsieur Jullien, presided; and in a trice, amidst the unextinguishable laughter of the gods,

for the whole hierarchy of Olympus was there-Hercules, Achilles, Julius Cæsar, and Napoleon, dashed like maniacs into the intricacies of the reel of Houlakin. Then there was a call for a song from Homer; but no sooner had the fine old bard uplifted his voice, than the two peacocks which stood on each side of Juno, set up such a scraighing, that every god, goddess, and demigod bolted with their fingers in their ears, and we, in our attempt to escape, fell plump down a draw-well, and landed on the back of a crocodile.

Those who never have experienced the sensations of fever, may, to a certain extent, realise the morbid state of imagination which it creates, by giving themselves up unreservedly to a perusal of Hypatia. It is about the

wildest book that ever was written -not because the subject required heightening, but because the author, dealing with society in a very wild and perturbed period, has thought fit to apply his whole faculties to exagge ration, and, out of what were undoubtedly chaotic and conflicting elements,

to create a perfect Bedlam. Mr Kingsley, who is passionately fond of Scandinavian lore, and who is always talking about Alruna maidens, must excuse us if we liken his Egeria rather to the Mara or nightmare, than to any other spirit that can influence the thoughts of men. He is, in his way, quite as fantastic as either Callot or Hoffmann, and that probably without intending it. Some other novelists, who select a particular period of history for illustration, fail in giving to their fictions that interest which the stirring nature of the time requires. Give them the sack of Rome, or the siege of Constantinople to work upon, and they are tame and spiritless. They cannot write up to history, and the pictures which they present to the reader are less vivid and distinct than those which he has previously formed for himself, or at least do not satisfy his estimate of what is actually required for the motion of the historical puppets. Mr Kingsley, on the other hand, systematically overworks his materials. He is not contented with what he finds, but he must add to that everything which his imagination can devise. He frequently quotes the apothegm, that fact is more strange than fiction; but he is quite unable to see the difference between fiction and fact. Put a fact into his hands, and he immediately proceeds to dress it up, and bedizen it, and paint it, and lacquer it, until it has utterly lost all semblance of its former self; and yet he will introduce it to the notice of the world with the utmost confidence, as a perfect semblance of what has been. No matter how loudly we exclaim-"O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! Thou art translated! Mr Kingsley cannot see the transformation, but apprehends, in so far as the critics are concerned, that "this is a knavery of them, to make me afeard."

We must admit that the time and place which Mr Kingsley has chosen to illustrate in Hypatia, give ample scope for the imagination of the writer. The period is that when Christianity had gained the ascendancy in the Roman empire, and extinguished the older mythology; when the power which bishops exercised in the pro

vinces was sometimes greater than that of the Imperial governors; and when the early persecutions of the Christians began to be retaliated. That, too, was the period when the mighty wave of the Gothic inundation rolled over Italy; for Cyril became Bishop of Alexandria just three years after Alaric plundered Rome, and the empire was everywhere tottering. The scene is Alexandria, where the Greek philosophy was still openly taught in opposition to the Christian doctrines, and where the hatred between Christian and Jew was most violent and undisguised. Selecting this period, and choosing this arena, Mr Kingsley has produced a work more utterly opposed to credulity than any Christmas pantomime.

First, we are introduced to a young monk Philammon, the inmate of a Laura, or monastic establishment, situated on the Nile, some three hundred miles above Alexandria. Philammon is very innocent, never having seen a female, and being indeed taught to believe that all of the sex are direct daughters of the devil-a stretch of condemnation which we can hardly believe even the old abbot Pambo would have ventured upon, seeing that he must have had a mother. But Philammon, being sent out one day to gather sticks for the use of the monastery, chances to discover an old Egyptian temple, on the walls of which there are paintings of divers lovely figures, "dancing girls, in transparent robes and golden girdles, tossing their tawny arms wildly among the throng;" and, though convinced that the devil is at the bottom of it, be feels a touch of the old Adam. So, when he returns home, he plumply tells his superior that he is not going to waste his existence longer at a miserable station, where he has nothing to do but to say prayers, gather sticks, and cultivate lentils, but that he will down unto the civilised world, and see what is doing therein. To his amazement the abbot, instead of breaking his head, which he confidently anticipated, lets him go, after having held a consultation with a certain Father Aufugus, the Lansdowne of the establishment, who had once borne the name of Arsenius, and been the tutor of the Emperor Arcadius.

So Philammon gets into a boat of papyrus, and drifts down the Nile towards Alexandria, recommended with a letter to Cyril, and a provision of dates and millet.

Here let us remark, that Philammon differs in no respect from Alton Locke, except that he has fewer clothes, and is slightly tinged with Egyptian ochre. In taste, appetite, thought, and feeling, he is the same; and it is not unpleasant to remark the identity between the neophyte of the Thebaid and the pert Cockney of Seven Dials. Down the stream drifts Philammon for several days, until he comes upon 66 a gaudily painted barge, on board of which armed men, in uncouth and foreign dresses, were chasing, with barbaric shouts, some large object in the water. In the bows stood a man of gigantic stature, brandishing a harpoon in his right hand, and in his left holding the line of a second, the head of which was fixed in the huge purple sides of a hippopotamus, who foamed and wallowed a few yards down the stream." As to the possibility of harpooning hippopotami, we offer no opinion, leaving Mr Kingsley to settle that matter with our friend Mr James Wilson, or with any other naturalist whom he may select. But Philammon wanted to see the fun; and small blame to him if his "curiosity had tempted him to drift down almost abreast of the barges ere he descried, peeping from under a decorated awning in the after-part, some dozen pair of languishing black eyes, turned alternately to the game and to himself. The serpents !-chattering and smiling, with pretty little shrieks, and shaking of glossy curls and gold necklaces, and fluttering of muslin dresses, within a dozen yards of him! Blushing scarlet, he knew not why, he seized his paddle, and tried to back out of the snare

but somehow, his very efforts to escape those sparkling eyes diverted his attention from everything else: the hippopotamus had caught sight of him, and, furious with pain, rushed straight at the unoffending canoe; the harpoon line became entangled round his body, and in a moment he and his frail bark were overturned, and the monster, with his huge white tusks gaping wide,

close on him as he struggled in the stream."

The papyrus boat is capsized, and the young monk hauled into the barge, where he finds himself in extraordinary company.

"Philammon gazed with wonder on his strange hosts, their pale complexions, globular heads and faces, high cheekbones, tall and sturdy figures; their red beards, and yellow hair knotted fantastically above the head; their awkward dresses, half Roman or Egyptian, and half of foreign fur, soiled and stained in many a storm and fight, but tastelessly bedizened with classic jewels, brooches and Roman coins, strung like necklaces. Only the steersman, who had come forward to wonder at the hippopotamus, and to help in dragging the unwieldy brute ornamented the costume of his race, the on board, seemed to keep genuine and unwhite linen leggings, strapped with thongs of deerskin, the quilted leather cuirass, the bear's fur cloak, the only ornaments of which were the fangs and claws of the beast itself, and a fringe of grizzled tufts, which looked but too like human hair. The language which they spoke was utterly unintelligible to Philammon, though it need not be so to us.

"A well-grown lad and a brave one, Wulf the son of Ovida,' said the giant to the old hero of the bearskin cloak; and understands wearing skins, in this furnace-mouth of a climate, rather better than you do.'

"I keep to the dress of my forefathers, Amalric the Amal. What did to sack Rome in, may do to find Asgard in.'

"The giant, who was decked out with helmet, cuirass, and senatorial boots, in a sort of mongrel mixture of the Roman military and civil dress, his neck wreathed with a dozen gold chains, and every finger sparkling with jewels, turned away with an impatient sneer.

66 6 Asgard-Asgard? If you are in such a hurry to get to Asgard up this ditch in the sand, you had better ask the fellow how far it is thither.'

"Wulf took him quietly at his word, and addressed a question to the young monk, which he could only answer by a shake of the head.

"Ask him in Greek, man.' "Greek is a slave's tongue. Make a slave talk to him in it, not me.'

"Here-some of you girls! Pelagia ! you understand this fellow's talk. Ask him how far it is to Asgard.'

"You must ask me more civilly, my rough hero,' replied a soft voice from un

derneath the awning. 'Beauty must be sued, and not commanded.'

666

Come, then, my olive tree, my gazelle, my lotus-flower, my-what was the last nonsense you taught me ?-and ask this wild man of the sands how far it is

from these accursed endless rabbit-burrows to Asgard.'

"The awning was raised, and lying luxuriously on a soft mattress, fanned with peacocks' feathers, and glittering with rubies and topazes, appeared such a vision as Philammon had never seen before.

"A woman of some two-and-twenty summers, formed in the most voluptuous mould of Grecian beauty, whose complexion showed every violet vein through its vein of luscious brown. Her little

bare feet, as they dimpled the cushions, were more perfect than Aphrodite's, softer than a swan's bosom. Every swell of her bust and arms showed through the thin gauze robe, while her lower limbs were wrapt in a shawl of orange silk, embroidered with wreaths of shells and roses. Her dark hair lay carefully spread out upon the pillow, in a thousand ringlets entwined with gold and jewels; her languishing eyes blazed like diamonds from a cavern, under eyelids darkened and deepened with black antimony; her lips pouted of themselves, by habit or by nature, into a perpetual kiss; slowly she raised one little lazy hand; slowly the ripe lips opened; and in most pure and melodious Attic, she lisped her huge lover's question to the monk, and repeated it before the boy could shake off the spell, and answer

"Asgard? What is Asgard?' "The beauty looked at the giant for

further instructions.

"The City of the immortal Gods,' interposed the old warrior, hastily and sternly, to the lady.

"The city of God is in heaven,' said Philammon to the interpreter, turning his head away from those gleaming, luscious, searching glances."

The gentlemen with the red beards and globular heads are a party of Goths, who, separating from their comrades in Europe, have determined to do a little business in the piratical line for themselves, and also, if possible, to discover Asgard, the ancient city of Odin, which they rationally suppose to be situated somewhere near the sources of the Nile. They have been successful in so far as plunder goes, and have now established themves in a handsome palace in Alexand have taken to themselves

not wives, but concubines of the profession of Lais and Phryne. For this household stuff they appear to have contracted with a certain old Jewess, called Miriam, who is a bawd, sorgia, whom we have seen taking an ceress, and political intriguante. Pelaairing in the barge, is a Greek slave belonging to this detestable old harridan, and has passed through a good many hands before she became the mistress of Amalric. This by way of explanation. As Philammon is not able to tell the Goths anything about Asgard, they propose to flay him alive, or to carve him into the blood-eagle; however, he is rescued by the interwith an oar, and compelled to assist ference of Pelagia, accommodated in rowing the party back to Alexandria, the quest after Asgard being adjourned sine die. Arriving at Alexandria, we are introduced to Hypatia, the female philosopher, a young lady whose hair was "such as Athene herself might have envied for tint and mass and ripple;" while "her features, arms, and hands, were of the severest and grandest type of old Greek beauty, at once showing everywhere the high development of the bones, and covering them with that firm, round, ripe outline, and waxy morbidezza of skin, which the old Greeks owed to their continual use, not only of the bath and muscular exercise, but also of daily unguents." This agreeable young lady has a hankering after the ancient gods, and daily delivers lectures to crowded benches of students. Then comes Orestes, the prefect, an indolent voluptuary, who has a penchant for Hypatia, and mortally detests Cyril, the bishop-and a certain Raphael AbenEzra, who is intended to be a mystery, affects nonchalance, walks about Alexandria with a British mastiff-bitch at his heels, declares himself to be utterly used up, and is rather richer than Rothschild. We have met with this personage before in Coningsby and Tancred. He is therein denominated Sidona. Then we have Cyril, the shrewd, politic, worldly-minded bishop, full of prejudice as an egg is of meat, and determined to extirpate the Jews, and sweep heretics and unbelievers from the face of the earth. Between him and the professorial Hypatia