sentence Dame Eleanor Davies the Never so mad a ladie, the laugh which followed completely destroyed her illusions. The poor lady was probably too disturbed to be able to retort that lawyers were sly ware-but they stand self-condemned by their title. Whilst upon the subject of proper names that have been converted by anagrams into some sentence more or less descriptive of the person, it will be opportune to remember one based upon the name of John Abernethy. This famous physician was notoriously severe upon those lady patients whose symptoms betokened the evil effects of tight lacing and over-feeding. Perhaps it was some offended damsel who sought a revenge by evolving for him the title of Johnny the Bear! Equally apt was the anagram Lo! Men's Herald, based upon the name of Randle Holmes, who once wrote a very notable book upon the subject of heraldry. Again Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757) earned by his operations at Porto Bello in 1739 the renown which his name contains, and Sir Thomas Wiat's humor entitled him to be regarded as a wit. It will be observed in the first of these instances the letters "w" and "v" are again used as identical. Of the poet Waller, some brother poet has said: Yes, Car's Crashawe, he Car: 'tis Love alone Which melts two hearts, of both composing one. Two more anagrams upon persons' names, out of several that deserve mention but for exigencies of space, must suffice. The first relates to the famous electrician Siemens and the cable-ship Faraday. The difficulties to be overcome in many of the operations conducted by the vessel and its owner justify the anagrams upon their namesMeans, I fear, days. The best has been left to the last. It is the extremely clever one upon the notorious claimant. Within the words Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne, Baronet, are all the letters, save one, to form the sentence, You horrid butcher Orton, biggest rascal here. It is quite remarkable the number of anagrams to be found within the letters forming the title of a contemporary-Notes and Queries. This periodical is interested in preserving many of the oddities and quiddities of literature, and is an acknowledged source for information on almost every recondite subject. This being the case its boast that it Enquires on Dates, if only correspondents will Send quite reason, is fully justified. Its title further con tains the invitation O send in a request, an offer directed to a question sender. Its good offices are open to all; perhaps the editor would be willing to say-No end as I request. Finally its allegiance is given to Queens and Tories, and from cover to cover "it tires no sad Queen;" in fact royalties dispute as to who shall read it first, and the settlement of this dispute "ends a Queen's riot." Our contemporary the Saturday Review does not come off so well, for its title betrays that it contains Heavy wit treasured. George Herbert has discovered in Roma no less than six other Latin words, viz.: Oram (shore), Maro (Virgil), Ramo, (branch), Armo (I arm), Mora, (delay), and Amor (love). Turn Was Car then Crashawe or was Crashawe ing now to a more unconnected series of anagrams, we shall see that they are For instance, Since both within one name combined are? none the less apposite. Car, astronomers, in spite of their derivative meaning, are certainly "moon-starers," and in communicating their labors to one another they will assuredly find the telegraph to be a "great help." It is not very likely that even in the remote future they will be able to claim that they have "no more stars" to examine. Let us turn from science to society. Frenchmen wrote that liberté was "belitre;" while unquestionably the French Revolution was "Violence run forth." Ireland was the country of the great Daniel R. O'Connor, a fact well known to every Erin lad; perhaps some folks would say that her present would-be potentates could no more govern her than "ten tea-pots." Doubtless this is not the opinion of Democratics, but they represent such "comic trades" that their opinion does not count for much. Moreover they believe in all sorts of Radical Reforms, such others clearly see are "rare mad frolics." Even ladies are now advocating some form or other of universal suffrage which their husbands, perhaps, would “guess a fearful ruin." If such ladies were placed in a penitentiary there might be a large number who would sincerely recant and say "Nay, repent it," but for the sake of discipline they should not be released before receiving for punishment, "nine thumps." A merciful matron would be willing, doubtless, to dismiss them with such an excellent breakfast, as would make "fat bakers," and thereby impress upon them the necessity of carefully protecting all the customers of Old England, our "Golden Land." as I Great Britain's promising offspring Tasmania is much to be commiserated. She is said to have forsaken her old name of Van Diemen's Land, as it sounded somewhat diabolical in origiu. It is clear, however, that his infernal majesty will not lightly yield his dominion, for in Tasmania we find the startling announcement, "I am Satan." The above form a very representative -collection of these forms of word-spinning. As to the value of such trifles in the present high pressure of life, it is nil; but we must never forget that a few years back the French Court was provided with its official poet. It may be that in a short time the latter will become as extinct as the former. The diminution of the dignity and impor. tance of the office indicates a general trend of opinion in that direction. Useless as they undoubtedly are, the manufacture of anagrams calls for far more intellectual effort than the "missing word" competitions so popular a year or two back. The French have ever favored anagrams possibly, as was once said, because they are so akin to the national character, so brilliant and at the same time so absolutely impractical. In England we are not likely to meet a counterpart to the French lover who presented his bride with thirty-six anagrams on her name, nor in the present year of grace are we likely to find a woman who, in the midst of her daily worries, would become soon "calm in heart" as did one Martha Nicholson on finding that her name revealed with almost complete accuracy this state of peacefulness. Nevertheless ingenuity of all kinds appeals to the English mind and awakes a sympathetic response. It would be difficult to find any play upon words more genuinely clever than some of the anagrams mentioned in this article. From The Saturday Review. "THE SEVEN SEAS." A new volume of poems by Mr. Rudyard Kipling is an apparition of very considerable moment. It can hardly be questioned that among English-speaking authors of less than thirty-five years of age he is by a neck and shoulders the most prominent. His vitality and force are so extraordinary that they sweep the goddess of Criticism off her legs. A new book of Mr. Kipling's is received nowadays by a throng of eulogistic reviewers whose unanimity would do credit to a chorus at the opera. There is no doubt that Mr. Kipling, who is as adroit as he is. masterful, encourages and determines this choral burst of praise. We do not for a moment mean to suggest that he leads the claque in any secret way (he is far too big a personage for that), but he very astutely lays down the line which the reviews are to take in discussing his published writings. In the present volume, for instance, the cynical reader will turn to a little group of literary allegories with peculiar pleasure. "The Last Rhyme of True Thomas," "In the Neolithic Age," "The Story of Ung," "The Three-Decker"all excessively.clever and all written to instruct the reviewer what he is to say, to tell him what his attitude must be. He is to insure the creator, the manly maker of music, who "sings of all we fought and feared and felt," against "criticism," by which Mr. Kipling invariably means malignant and envious attack, since no other form of critical analysis seems ever to have occurred to him. The public likes this defiant attitude, and the great majority of the reviewers are abashed by it. The consequence is that Mr. Kipling is now on the verge of finding himself able to put off the English world with anything he likes, however blunt and ragged and undistinguished. "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays," he shouts over and over again. No, dear Mr. Kipling, there is only one way, that which "all your great forefathers used, from Homer down to Ben." (We beg pardon, it is now spelt "'Omer.") You had mastered that way once. How have you unlearned it? Mr. Kipling appreciates a Scriptural reference, and we venture to draw his attention to a dread example of ancient criticism. When the angels of the Seven Churches of Asia were summoned before the Spirit of the Apocalypse, he reviewed them with stringent rectitude. At such a bar even Mr. Kipling would hesitate before he spoke of "the nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays." If we may venture with reverence to push on the parallel, at this lower level, we shall not dream of comparing the poet with Laodicea or with Sardis or even with Thyatira, but we do think that the words spoken to Ephesus might recall him to a sense of his posi tion. He is this and that and the other, he possesses splendid gifts and qualities, but he has "forgotten his first love," his early artist's passion for pure and beautiful writing. His work, as revealed in the new volume, has still great and attractive merits, of which we will now proceed to speak without stint, but the author has "forgotten his first love." If our mission at this moment were to attract a neglectful world to the study of Mr. Kipling's "Seven Seas," it would be an easy and agreeable task to do so. His imperial spirit, embracing the world of English-speaking races, is as wide as ever. The richness of his vocabulary knows no exhaustion; his contempt for conventional tradition in style is buoyant and refreshing; at his best he displays no reduction of the power to pour forth verbal melody of an enchanting kind. Of the Kipling who can write 'Twas nodding grass nu naked sky, Let the organ moan her sorrow to the roof I have told the naked stars the Grief of Let the trumpets snare the foeman to the I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran! My bray ye may not alter nor mistake When I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of But the Song of Lost Endeavor that I Is it hidden in the twanging of the strings? And "The Last Chantey" may be taken as an almost perfect example of success in a species of poem where success seemed unattainable until Mr. Kipling came. But Mr. Kipling's misfortune, and ours, is that he published four or five years ago a volume of verse in which all these qualities were illustrated in greater abundance and with much more purity than they are in "The Seven Seas." To ignore this would be to do less than a critic's duty. "There are nine and sixty ways, of constructing tribal lays," are there? Well, that may be so; but we are now considering Mr. Kipling's one way. It is a question of execution. With Mr. Kipling's theories of style we have no quarrel whatever; that was settled long ago. It was a new thing to have an entirely serious and imaginative Oriental love-poem constructed in Tommy Atkins's language; but "Mandalay" showed, once for all, that this could be done with absolute beauty and distinction. But having given us such examples as "Kabul River" and "Gunga Din,” having sung the inimitable ballad of the "King's Jest," having moved us to terror and pity with "Danny Deaver," Mr. Kipling has burned his ships; he has no longer the right to give us nothing but rough edges and awkward rhythms, extravagant violence of diction and mere pyrotechnics of profanity, on the ground that his themes exclude beautifi treatment. No, no, we reply, your themes were violent and your language rude in 1892, yet you contrived to make exquisite music with them. Why not in 1896? We believe the fault lies more with the public than the poet. When hundreds of thousands of persons praise everything that a young man tosses to them, how is he to preserve his artistic integrity? But somebody must have the candor to recall him to it, or he is lost. We will deal first with the section of "Barrack-room Ballads" in the present volume. There are seventeen of them, as there were twenty in the volume of 1892, and we venture to say that if the thirty-seven were arranged in order of merit, fifteen out of the earlier book would undoubtedly be mentioned before it was the turn of one in the later book. If any reader questions this technical falling-off, let him set "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" Jacket," "Mandalay" against "The against "The Ladies," or "Loot" against "The Men that fought at Minden." The drop in each case is enormous. Of course, if Mr. Kipling's purpose no longer is to write beautiful and penetrating lyrics in dialect, but to indite little tracts in verse for the instruction of the War Office, well and good. "Back to the Army again" and the atrocious piece called "That Day" may be useful reading for the Duke of Devonshire. But. these things must not be spoken of as literature or as poetry. The rest of the new volume is better in every respect than this unfortunate section of "Barrack-room Ballads." Even here, however, it is impossible for an impartial critic to be satisfied with the condition of Mr. Kipling's style. His abuse of technical terminology has been steadily growing upon him. It marred one of the loveliest of his earlier poems, "There's a Whisper down the Field;" it has now reached the proportions of a mental disease, and, unless he checks it in time, it must end in the ruin of his work. That an exacter use of words, a larger vocabulary, was desirable, will easily be conceded, and that Mr. Kipling should extend his terminology was only a wholesome evidence of the persistence with which all vigorous writers hold by the romantic laws of 1798. But to run riot in the jargon of the shops is quite another thing, and Mr. Kipling, in his new volume, passes all bounds of moderation:The crank-throws give the double-bass, And now the main eccentrics start their the feed-pump sobs and heaves. quarrel on the sheaves: Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides, Till-hear that note?-the rod's return whings glimmering through the guides. This is pure Jabberwocky, and if our "main eccentrics" are going to write in this kind of English, we shall have to give up reading them. Why not have "Hospital Hymns" like the following?— The misfortune is that his excessive use of technical language lends only too ready a support to a danger which has always lurked in wait for Mr. Kipling obscurity. He has so regrettable a tendency to turbid expression, to want of a lucid statement of his thought, that he ought to be very careful to use the clearest vocabulary. In the noble poem of his youth, "The English Flag," this quality of hardness, of obscurity arising from excessive conciseness and too rapid allusiveness, interfered with our enjoyment. It would be easy to point to examples of the same error, pushed to a further exaggeration, in the present volume. We do not, however, desire to dwell unduly on this, although we regret it, since a third or fourth careful reading aloud will usually illuminate the poet's meaning, when it is not obscured in his mind, but by his language. To recall Mr. Swinburne's brilliant distinction, it is proper rather to say that he is dark than that he is clouded. Once more, we are constrained to be disagreeable. We regret a tendency to forms of speech which are perfectly artificial, and therefore rococo: When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; An' what he thought 'e might require, 'E went an' took-the same as me! Who is supposed to say this? Tommy Atkins? If so, pray what does he know of Homer and the lyre and early Greek poetry? Or is it Mr. Kipling? If so, why does he not spell "Homer" with all its letters, like a man? Again, we are far indeed from pitting our knowledge of the British army against Mr. Kipling's, but we ask (merely for information) whether common soldiers are in the habit of using the words "hermaphrodite," "cosmopolitan," "procrastinator," and "chrysanthemum"? Nothing is impossible in these days of higher education, and if this is local color it is very interesting. But in that case we regret that these beautiful words should be misspelt "harumfrodite" and "cosmopolouse" and "procrastitute." These quaint forms seem to add nothing to the idea. We will refrain from pouring any more drops of gall into "the cup that the press is holding up in the enchanted Fleet Street forest," as Shelley might say. What, after all, does it matter?for the public have determined that Mr. Kipling is delectable en masse, and will neither pick nor chose. But we have more hope of the poet than of the public. We compare him, not with any other writer, but with himself, and we cannot pretend that the load of 1896 hangs even with that of 1892. We see magnificent force and resonance, indomitable high spirits, extraordinary knowledge, and sympathies of the finest temper, but we cannot disguise from ourselves that the artist has retreated. "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." THE FOUR "SICK MEN" OF THE WORLD. There is very little reason for hoping or fearing that foreign affairs will lose their importance within any reasonable space of time. The dividing question of the West-the right to Alsace-Lorraine -has already lasted for one generation, and may easily last for another, dividing France and Germany through that long space of time. The dread felt by Central Europe of the hosts of Russia is not likely to die away unless Russia splits herself up, and the evidences are that Russia, with her railways, telegraphs, and river fleets tends towards a closer concentration and a more effective unity. The question of predominance in Africa which divides England, France, Germany, and Italy, each having perfectly separate interests and aspirations, is not one which can be settled by any sudden decision, while if it were |