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Since Shakespeare there has been no greater writer of fiction in any of its departments. And since Shakespeare we have had not one mind that has exhausted with such mastery so many fields of thought, and subsidized them all for her main purpose of mimicking human life. The student of literary history finds in her Romola the most careful and discriminating studies of the whole Italian literature of the Renaissance, studies which leave Roscoe and his compeers out of sight, and are only rivalled by Symonds and Burkhardt. The physician discovers in the allusions in Middlemarch the most accurate acquaintance with his own especial branch of study. Again, nowhere in English literature has the rise of the Evangelical party been so vividly portrayed as in her Scenes of Clerical Life. Yet again, in Daniel Deronda, her studies of modern Jewish life and character, while often idealized, are unequaled by anything to be found even in the many brilliant writers whom modern Judaism has given to the world. And all these were but the parerga of this wonderful woman's activity. Her main business was the study of modern society, not on its conventional side. merely, as with Anthony Trollope, but on all sides, that she might indicate the lines of social reformation upon which the best thought may impel the world. In this sense, we place her Middlemarch at the head of all her books, because of its great breadth of social interest, in spite of its want of the gracious traits that bring us again and again to the study of the Scenes of Clerical Life. And lowest of all we place The Mill on the Floss, as the book most unworthy of her pen.

Of her personal history we shall not speak here, for the simple reason that we do not know, with accuracy, its external facts, and still less her own view of it. We have to do with her books only, until a clearer light is cast upon the story than any we possess, and its true lineaments are disentangled from the contradictory versions of it furnished by our newsmongers. And as to her books, he would be a keen critic, indeed, who would find in them anything which was not calculated to refine and purify, or which was of a nature to favor lower views of life and duty than the great body of her countrymen profess to live by. This we know, that she enjoyed the unreserved confidence of many of the best people of her time,people who knew her story much more intimatly than it is known. to the public, but who never found in it any reason for renouncing

her friendship. A woman whom Frederick Maurice and Elizabeth Browning included in their list of friends, is entitled to at least a suspension of judgment as regards facts which seem to call for explanation.

THE Anti-Jewish agitation in Germany, which came to a head with the opening of the Imperial Parliament, is generally misunderstood in this country, from want of information as to the principles and motives of those who are engaged in it. Chaplain Stöcker is at the head of the Christian-Socialist party in Germany,—a party which has gained great strength during the past few years, especially among the workingmen of the cities. In the view of this party, the serious evils attending the existing organization of society, the preponderance of corporations and of the money power, are not matters to be left to the slow redress of time. They call for two species of remedy. The first is the awakening of an active Christian spirit, in opposition to the spirit of greed, and the consequent reduction of the bitterness of commercial competition and industrial warfare. The second is the passage of legislation of a kind which would be likely to counteract, instead of intensifying, the dominant tendencies of the industrial world. When looked at from this platform, the whole business life of our days is found worthy of condemnation, and the necessity for reform is most urgent. And it is not the Jews only who have been subjected to the criticisms of the new party, or who are contemplated in its reforms. It is their prominence in two directions which has made the Jews the especial objects of attack. The first is that the newspapers they control, especially in Berlin, are hostile to Christianity, and show that hostility in the most unworthy style of attack. In the view of the Christian Socialists, the whole influence of modern Judaism in Germany, and especially in Berlin, is in the way of any revival of Christian earnestness and Christian principle, such as they believe indispensable to the industrial reform of society. The second is that the Jews of Germany so seldom engage in productive industry of any kind. They are speculators, brokers, employers of labor, but rarely, if ever, do they add anything to the wealth of which they manage to secure a considerable share. To other students of social movement, this is a matter of indifference. They say "It is none of our business," and pass on. But a Socialist

of any type cannot be expected to take this ground. He regards these matters as fairly open to government regulation. And so the Christian Socialists demand that the Jews shall place themselves upon an equality with other people, and take their fair share of the drudgery of the earth.

We do not wish to be understood as approving of the programme of this party, exept in agreeing with them that a revival of Christian earnestness and Christian principle is needed for a reform of many social evils, and that such articles as appear in the Börsen-Zeitung and other Jewish papers of Berlin deserve the severest reprobation. We have no faith in Socialistic reforms of any sort. But it is due to this party to point out that they are making an impartial assault upon a whole system, of which the Jews are merely the more prominent part.

THE final cession of Dulcigno to the republic of Czernagora has removed that question for the present from the field of European politics, and leaves only the Greek and the Armenian questions for immediate adjustment. Greece seems bent upon a struggle with Turkey for the Janina frontier voted her by the Belgian Conference, and declines to reopen negotiations with the Pashas on the subject. The Great Powers can hardly be surprised at this, with their own experience as regards the cession of Dulcigno fresh in their memories. Turkish diplomacy is like Sheridan's negotiations with his creditors. It is merely a means to secure delay, without any purpose of doing anything. But Greece has a mere fragment of an army, while Turkey has a fleet which could lay in ashes Navarino and other Greek seaports, and might inflict irreparable injuries upon this plucky little nation. Unless Europe unite in insisting that the war shall be confined to operations by land, we do not see how Greece could persist in it for more than a month.

THE brief session of Congress, which precedes the Christmas holidays, has been, as is usual, all but wasted on mere beginnings, most of which will lead to nothing. The greatest waste of time has been over the joint resolution for the count of the electoral vote, which passed the Senate last session, and which the Democrats mean to force through the House as soon as they can muster

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a sufficient vote. Thus far they have been foiled by Republican filibustering; and it will be well for them if they will use their vacation to reflect how much they may lose by passing a measure which enables one branch of the legislature to cast out the presidential vote of a state, or of any number of states. If they had carried the November elections, and had a fair chance of controlling both branches or either branch of Congress for years to come, the measure might have something to commend it to the more violent partisans of their number. But as matters now stand, there is no motive, except party obstinacy, to excuse their support of a plan which may be used to prevent a Democratic president-elect from taking his seat. Beside this, the measure is open to more general objections. We might apply to it what Burke said of the Royal Marriage Bill:-"Laws have till now been passed for the purpose of explaining doubts; but this is a law made to create them."

THE Funding Bill reported by the Committee of Ways and Means, contemplates the conversion during the coming year of some seven hundred and fifty millions of bonds. Unfortunately, it does not give the Secretary of the Treasury any discretion as to the rate of these bonds. It does not allow him to offer three-anda-half or four per cent. interest. It ties him down to an offer of three per cent. for a subscription at par. A very large body of mercantile opinion is opposed to this restriction, on the ground that bonds at this rate cannot be sold at par. It is argued that they will not be remunerative even as the basis of the circulation of the National Banks, and that, sooner than accept them for that purpose, the banks will give up their circulation. In a few instances this has been done by banks who preferred to sell their bonds of higher rates for the premium they would bring, rather than count on the uncertain profits of circulation. For the same reason many of the banks have exchanged their four per cents. for fives and sixes, which, although for a higher rate, are worth less as being liable to conversion at an early date. The Tribune makes a suggestion that the banks be relieved of taxation to the extent of their investment in the new three per cents. We object

to this as a part of that compensation and rebate system, by which our financial system has been too much complicated to the popu

lar understanding already. Better give Mr. Sherman or his successor the discretion to accept the best terms the money-market can offer him, and leave the taxation as it is, or, if that be wiser, abolish it entirely.

Some people begin to look ahead to the time when the extinction of our national debt will make it no longer possible to base our bank-currency upon national bonds, and when we shall either be obliged to replace it with Treasury-notes, or fall back upon some other basis for security of the bank-note. When this contingency arises, the Greenback party will have their great opportunity; and if they will prepare for it by abandoning extravagant theories, and by moderating their tone, they will get a good many accessions from quarters where they do not expect any. We do not say this as rejoicing in their possible success. On the contrary, as disciples of Henry C. Carey, we look forward with great apprehension to a change which will destroy all local sources of issue and concentrate all at a single point. An exclusively governmental system of money cannot but prove a calamity, unless some system is devised of securing its issue for the benefit of local governments, rather than of the National Government. Let our Greenback friends try their ingenuity in devising some arrangement for the benefit of townships and counties, by which each of them shall be furnished by the Treasury with a quantity of paper money bearing a certain ratio to the value of its total assessed property, (after deducting for local debt,) and shall secure the same by bonds. deposited with the Treasury, and recoverable in the United States Courts.

Failing that arrangement, we must fall back upon some system of State-Banking, and varying with each State's view of its own. necessities. As a half-way step towards that arrangement, we might have an arrangement for the deposit of other securities than those of the nation as the basis of banking issues. This might include all those already privileged as investments, together with such others as competent judges would pronounce worthy of this confidence. We are aware that this would be a difficult and dangerous matter, but not, we think, incapable of adjustment.

If we must have State-banking pure and simple, we must expect

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