previous experience, but he draws no dis- ister with genuine kindness pressed the tinction between one man and another, request, the Minister of the Interior gave and makes not the slightest effort to dis- his permission for an infraction of the law, criminate or even to define character. It and the body was actually burnt at the is the good-natured chatter of a well-extreme point of the Cascine, or public pleased lad, without mental power, but with park, on the Arno, with all the regular a great capacity for being moderately inter- ceremonial, and the ashes collected in a ested, and a great readiness to applaud or porcelain vase, to be hereafter thrown into reward anybody who amuses him. There the sacred river, none looking on but the is not an ill-natured sentence in the entire municipal guards, and "the party, after diary, but then, also, there is not an acute having carefully gathered the remaining one; not a single line of vivid description ashes, cleaned and washed all round the or one which indicates acute pleasure, ex- ground, and, collecting them in a kind of cept, indeed, when he is describing fire- sheet, brought it into the middle of the works, an illumination, or a garden scene river to be shaken into the current: which impresses him he does not know making afterwards, with the mud of the why, though he knows and records that Arno, the form of a heart in the centre of he "liked it very much." The only sen- the space occupied by the pile, they buried tence recorded of him which has any intel- some small vases containing raw and lectual force at all is not contained in the boiled rice and peas, sandalwood and betel, diary, but in a letter, and tells that travel surmounted by small yellow banners; had shown him how insignificant a person they also scattered copiously on the a Rajah of Kolhapore was in the world, a meadow a quantity of rice and peas, fact recorded without annoyance, but offered, according to the rite, to the dewith the gentle surprise of an amiable ceased kinsman's soul, which they believe child who is slowly, by repeated tentatives, to continue wandering for some days near finding his place in the universe. It was the place where the body was burnt. of course natural that such a man should After repeated rubbing with water colbe beloved by native followers, to whom lected in the palm of the hand, they he was at once a sovereign, a semi-sacred closed in a circle in the middle of the being, and a pet, and their love for him meadow, muttering as the custom of nashowed itself finally in one of the strangest tives is, and bursting all out into a flood scenes ever enacted in Europe, a scene of tears, chanting some kind of funeral which, as described by the chief of police songs interrupted by clamours and lamenin Florence, reads like a chapter from the tations. Rising again after a moment, "Moonstone," or a forgotten bit of the they took up the urn containing their "Arabian Nights." The poor little Rajah master's remains," and so returned whence had been touched with the cold in Eng- they came, with their caste unbroken, and land, and died on the 30th November at a melancholy recollection of the gentle, Florence, and his followers besought per- childlike noble whom they had served so mission to burn the corpse after the rites well. He had died childless, but a boy handed down from a creed older than Hin- of eight, of the strain of Sivajee, was dooism itself. The authorities at first placed in his wife's lap, and so adopted, would not hear of a ceremonial once so and is now being trained to occupy the well known in Italy, but the British Min- throne. STEEL IN NEW ZEALAND.It seems [the "Times"] that the iron-sand, as taken from the beach, is mixed with an equal quantity of clay and of the ordinary sea-sand, which contains a large admixture of shell; these materials are worked up into bricks, which are hardened in a kiln, broken up into regular pieces, and smelted in an ordinary cupola furnace. The product of this simple process is cast steel of the finest possible texture, from which some beautiful specimens of the finest cutlery have been manufac tured. These experiments were conducted by a mechanic in the government employ, who was restricted to an expenditure of 1007., and was, therefore, only able to erect a furnace of the most temporary description; he, however, suc ceeded in producing, at the first and only trial, 5 cwt. of steel in the manner described above, and his success seems likely to lead to further and more extensive efforts to utilise the almost inexhaustible deposits of this ore which exist at Taranaki and elsewhere. No. 1459.-May 25, 1872. CONTENTS. 1 LETTERS AND DISCOVERIES OF SIR CHARLES BELL, Edinburgh Review, 2. STORY OF THE PLEBISCITE. By MM. Erckmann Chatrian. Conclusion, 3. THE POETRY OF MATTHEW ARNOLD, 4. THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON. By William Black, author of "A Daughter of Heth," etc. Part VIII., 5. A MODERN FRENCH GNOSTIC, 6. POSITION OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT, 7. THE RUINS OF ZIMBAOE IN SOUTH AFRICA, RETROSPECT, THE SONG SHE SANG, LOST, Cornhill Magazine, POETRY. NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To subscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS. remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club THE LIVING AGE with another periodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY. SHE sang it, sitting on a stile, At time 'twas doubtful which I heard. And chorused by a heavenly band. Now she is gone; yet that sweet strain, Still gathering charms unknown before, Will make a music in the brain, And haunt my heart for evermore. Chambers' Journal. The sound of bells, the song of birds, With that glad day each sweet sound died, TRUST. REA I HAVE no rule, O Saviour, but Thy will; They have no strength or skill which is not Lo! in Thy light, O Lord, true light I see: FINIS. THE word that cannot be recalled is spoken: Out from the clear, dead brows, so calm and noble, A fine white shimmering radiance sadly beams, And, like the shining nimbus of a blessed saint, Its pallid glory gleams. Down over orbs touched by Death's icy fingers And silence reigns supremely over all. This royal state no thunder-tone shall startle, From The Edinburgh Review. LETTERS AND DISCOVERIES OF SIR CHARLES BELL. THIRTY years have passed since the death of the distinguished physiologist whose letters are published in the volume before us; and the volume itself has been for some time in the hands of readers. We need not, however, offer any apology for devoting a few pages to an analysis of its contents, and of the character, merits, and services of a most accomplished and remarkable man; thinking that it may not be devoid of interest to a new generation to study the career and characteristics of one of the most unobstrusive, but, in our times, one of the greatest benefactors of our race. In these letters we find photographed the inner life and common thoughts of one who united to rare practical genius social graces and tastes which do not always accompany it. The picture is a very pleasing one, and suggests sev eral points of interesting reflection. Sir Charles Bell was the youngest of four brothers, all of whom started in the race of life with few adventitious aids. Their father was an Episcopal clergyman, in the north of Scotland, who brought up his family on the slender emoluments which, in the last century, such a vocation implied. Even now, the clergy of that communion in Scotland are but scantily provided for; but, in those days, they had but precarious and very limited sources of income. Although generally some of the wealthier classes attended their ministra tions, they were still in the rank of Dissenting clergy, with little hold on the body of the people, and with but little means or hope of extending their influence, or of raising their position. The father of these young men came of a Presbyterian house, but had changed his ecclesiastical views at college; and he lived and died in the humble calling he had chosen, and left to his family little but the independent spirit of his example, and the refined and intellectual cast of his character. fortune, affords an instructive lesson to the aspiring spirit of youth. They all made their mark on the world, and were eminent and distinguished in the professions which they adopted. They started in very narrow circumstances, and were sustained by their own self-reliance, and Scotchmen in those days were. by mutual aid. They were a type of what We are not sure that the type remains; but we may see in their history, and read very clearly and graphically portrayed in this stood towards the end of last century. little volume, the national character as it That century had done great things for Scotland. The Union had carried off its carried off with the Parliament a host of Parliament, and among other results had and stifled the energies of the nation. jobbers and intriguers who had repressed the field of intellect, and a desire to gain From that time, rivalry with England in not a local but an imperial position, was the incentive which fired every well-descended Scot. At home, political eminence was all but excluded; but the energies of the race were devoted to two sources of - to the cultivation of their barprogress ren hills and marshy plains, and to those intellectual pursuits which might bring them up to the mark of their richer sister. Before the century had nearly closed, these efforts, pursued amid many disadvantages, had resulted in the formation of a Scottish school of agriculture and of a Scottish school of literature. The golden prizes of the East thrown open to her house, who had left the ancestral castle sons, sent back many a cadet of an ancient penniless, to spend his well-earned rupees on the slopes and valleys of his native land. Meanwhile the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith, Robertson, and Reid had founded a school not of thought only, but of study. To write as these men had written, so as to command the attention and applause of England, was the one great ambition of the aspiring Scottish student, and the desire infused into the scholastic and academic life an amount of impulse and incentive to thorough work which we fear has in these days much • Memoir and Letters of the late Sir Charles Bell. abated. London: 1870. The four brothers, of whom Sir Charles Bell was the youngest, were very early de- education, but had travelled through Rusprived of their father, who died in 1779. sia and the north of Europe, before he At this time the eldest, Robert, was little commenced his professional career. Beover twenty-one; the second, John, was tween 1786 and 1796, young as he was, he only seventeen; George, only nine, and lectured with great success on surgery in Charles, five. Yet, like more than one Edinburgh, and very early formed for himScottish family the Malcolms, for in- self a high reputation; while as an operastance, to whom Sir John and Sir Pulteney tor his fame became second to none in Eubelonged they all became distinguished. rope, and many resorted to him from EngBut the Malcolms, although only the sons land and all parts of the Continent. He of a substantial Scottish yeoman, had good had many accomplishments. He was a friends and early advantages. The family clever draughtsman, a good classic, and of the poor Episcopal clergyman had no had literary knowledge, as well as literary such aid. Under what difficulties they re- ability, of a high order. After failing ceived their early training may be gathered health had compelled him to travel, he from the fact simply told in a little memoir wrote and illustrated a volume of "Obcompiled by George: "Our circum-servations on Italy," indicating considerastances," he said, "were so narrow, that ble powers of appreciation as well as of my education was much stinted, the rest of the family expenses having gradually increased; so that my schooling, which required no more than five shillings a quarter, could not be continued after I was eleven years old." The rest was accomplished by his own private study, and the efforts of a most affectionate and praiseworthy mother. Such were the founda- favourite in society. His enthusiasm for tions on which, in those days, the energy and aspirations of Scottish youth could build the attainments and cultivation of a gentleman and a scholar. Of the four brothers, Robert, the eldest, on whose exertions probably much of the progress of the family depended, had the least conspicuous career, although he was a man of undoubted ability, kindly disposition, and clear judgment. He adopted the legal profession, and was admitted a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet. He ultimately became Professor of Conveyancing in that body, and was the author of several practical works of standard reputation on various legal subjects. He died in Edinburgh in 1816. The second son, John Bell, was a much more remarkable man, and was gifted with rare powers of very varied and uncommon quality. Devoted, as it was said, by his father, out of gratitude for a successful operation of which he was the subject, to the medical profession, he became one of the most renowned surgeons of his time. Slender as may have been his original advantages, he not only obtained a thorough composition. He died at Rome in 1820. He was a singular, restless, persistent, combative man, inspired with a volatile essence of genius, which made him popular, interesting, and sometimes uncertain. His good taste, refined artistic perception, his love and knowledge of music, and his resources in conversation, rendered him a his profession, and his habits of thorough investigation, brought him to its head, while his ill-concealed scorn of venerable pomposity embroiled him with many combatants. We looked the other day into a volume which contained the letters of "Jonathan Dawplucker," a sobriquet which having been used against John Bell by a professional antagonist, he adopted in a very effective retort. It was a provincial squabble among Edinburgh surgeons; and one cannot help being amused by the power and vigour expended in a conflict, the cause of which no reader of the present day can discover. But the combatants, Barclay, John Bell, and Gregory, were masters of their weapons; and even in total ignorance of the casus belli, it is impossible not to be struck, as well as diverted, by the keenness of John Bell's style, his fertility of illustration, and his wonderful command of picturesque personality. George Joseph Bell, the third son, was eight years younger than John, having been born in 1770. We have already mentioned how scanty were the resources of |