the case is different. For that rôle he was eminently unfitted both by temperament and training. Indeed, he was not slow to recognize his lack of the judicial faculty, and on one occasion acknowledges that he is a "creature of extremes." It is, indeed, a little amusing to note from the letters how very slender was the foundation on which he would rear his superstructures. For example, referring to a series of articles in the Kobe Chronicle illustrating the shortcomings of the Japanese Education Department, Hearn remarks that he believes them to be written by a certain Japanese whom he mentions, and on this basis of supposition goes on to discuss the difference between Japanese and European satire. As a matter of fact, the articles were written, not by a Japanese, but by a European, whose random choice of a Japanese pen-name provided Hearn with the necessary proof that in satire the Japanese "have not yet reached the same perception of The Speaker.

sensibility as we have." There is much other evidence, both in his letters and books, that Hearn is neither a trustworthy guide nor a safe critic. His last work, Japan: An Interpretation, is a great improvement on what had gone before, and reflects much painstaking investigation; but even here I believe it will be found that he lays far too much stress on "ghostly" or religious influences in estimating the forces moulding Japanese character or society. But Hearn often succeeds in reaching the heart of things by his faculty of sympathy, in virtue of which alone his books deserve perusal; when he fails it is because of a lack of the unimpassioned judicial faculty, a tendency to subordinate reason to feeling, an inclination to place sympathy in the position of judge rather than guide. His work, indeed, will live rather for its graceful literary form than for its insight into problems of psychology or sociology.

Robert Young.

The disposition shown by certain Powers, of whom Great Britain is one, to raise the question of the limitation of armaments at the approaching Hague Conference, has evoked some objections both at home and abroad, on the ground that such action would be ill-timed, inconvenient, and mischievous. I wish to indicate, as briefly as may be, my reasons for holding these objections to be baseless.

It should be borne in mind that the original Conference at the Hague was convened for the purpose of raising this very question, and in the hope that the Powers might arrive at an

understanding calculated to afford some measure of relief from an excessive and ever-increasing burden. The hope was not fulfilled, nor was it to be expected that agreement on so delicate and complex a matter would be reached at the first attempt; but, on the other hand, I have never heard it suggested that the discussion left behind it any injurious consequences. I submit that it is the business of those who are opposed to the renewal of the attempt, to show that some special and essential change of circumstances has arisen, such as to render unnecessary, inopportune, or positively mischievous, a

course adopted with general approbation in 1898.

Nothing of the kind has, so far as I know, been attempted, and I doubt if it could be undertaken with any hope of success. It was desirable in 1898, to lighten the burden of armaments; but that consummation is not less desirable to-day, when the weight of the burden has been enormously increased. In 1898 it was already perceived that the endless multiplication of the engines of war was futile and self defeating; and the years that have passed have only served to strengthen and intensify that impression. In regard to the struggle for sea power, it was suspected that no limits could be set to the competition, save by a process of economic exhaustion, since the natural checks imposed on military power by frontiers, and considerations of population, have no counterpart upon the seas; and again, we find that the suspicion has grown to something like a certainty to-day.

On the other hand, I am aware of no special circumstances which would make the submission of this question to the Conference a matter of International misgiving. It would surprise me to hear it alleged that the interests of the Powers in any respect impose on them a divergence of standpoint so absolute and irreconcilable that the mere discussion of the limitation of armaments would be fraught with danger. Here, again, it seems to me that we do well to fortify ourselves from recent experience. Since the first Hague Conference was held, the points of disagreement between the Powers have become not more, but less acute; they are confined to a far smaller field; the sentiment in favor of peace, so far as can be judged, has become incomparably stronger and more constant: and the idea of arbitration and the peaceful adjustment of International disputes has attained a practical po

tency, and a moral authority undreamt of in 1898. These are considerations as to which the least that can be said is that they should be allowed their due weight; and in face of them, I suggest that only upon one hypothesis can the submission of this grave matter to the Conference be set down as inadmissi ble: namely, that guarantees of peace, be they what they may, are to be treated as having no practical bearing on the scale and intensity of warlike preparations.

That would be a lame and impotent conclusion, calculated to undermine the moral position of the Conference, and to stultify its proceedings in the eye of the world. It would amount to a declaration that the common interest of peace, proclaimed for the first time by the community of nations assembled at the Hague, and carried forward since then by successive stages, with a rapidity beyond the dreams of the most sanguine, has been confided to the guardianship of the Admiralties and War Offices of the Powers.

Let me in conclusion say a word as to the part of Great Britain. We have already given earnest of our sincerity by the considerable reductions that have been effected in our naval and military expenditure, as well as by the undertaking that we are prepared to go further, if we find a similar disposition in other quarters. Our delegates, therefore, will not go into the Conference empty-handed. It has, however, been suggested that our example will count for nothing, because our preponderant naval position will still remain unimpaired. I do not believe it. The sea power of this country implies no challenge to any single State or group of States. I am persuaded that throughout the world that power is recognized as non-aggressive. and innocent of designs against the independence, the commercial freedom, and the legitimate development of other States, and that

it is, therefore, a mistake to imagine that the naval Powers will be disposed to regard our position on the sea as a bar to any proposal for the arrest of armaments, or to the calling of a temporary truce. The truth appears to me to lie in the opposite direction. Our known adhesion to those two dominant principles-the independence of

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nationalities and the freedom of trade -entitles us of itself to claim that if our fleets be invulnerable, they carry with them no menace across the waters of the world, but a message of the most cordial goodwill, based on a belief in the community of interests between the nations.

Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

Sir, The Wednesday of this week, February 27th, sees a century completed since the birth of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I do not know whether the date will be publicly noticed in the United States; in this country few who understand the charming character of the poet, true lover of domestic quiet and the private joys of friendship, could have wished that it should have any loud and elaborate honor paid it. But surely of the countless readers and lovers of his verse (not to speak of his prose) many possess the instinct for anniversaries, and will pay him at this time a special homage in their hearts. True, in a recent review of him, a rather pretentious and "superior" example of patronizing "appreciation," I find that he "is chiefly read and valued to-day by children, and by the men and women who have never passed their mental childhood." Whether this is so or not, I must confess, for my part, to a recent access of delight in his thought and diction, during a short time of enforced leisure, and of that sort of fatigue which asks for literature at once charming in form and gentle with the gentleness which comes not of the weakness, but the sweetness, of the mind. I went over much of his verse long familiar, some of it familiar through my whole life, and also over certain poems, "The Hanging of the Crane" among them, which I had not happened to know before. The tranquil but penetrating charm, quite of its own kind,

laid a new hold on me. He "found me" in the very spirit of his own beautiful poem of long ago, "The Day is done." And continually I was struck, not only with the sweet fulness of the poetry, but with its frequent brilliancy and perfection of diction. The reviewer referred to above is pitiless on the hexameters of "Evangeline," which "can hardly be read by any one with an ear." I ought to be humiliated in finding that to me the metre seems to be handled by Longfellow quite as well as by Goethe; both write it in a style no doubt totally different from the magic of Latin and of Virgil; but with both it is the living vehicle of perfect narrative and reflection. Only a true master of verse could have written the "Atchafalaya" scene and the last few pages. And then, what a man he must have been,-son, husband, father, friend, and helper of the helpless! Take the poet and the poems together, and I do not know where to look in the English literature of the whole nineteenth century for quite so beautiful an ensemble.-I am, Sir, &c.,

Auckland Castle.

Handley Dunelm.

[It is a great pleasure to publish the Bishop of Durham's appreciation of Longfellow. Though there is a monotony of cadence in the "Evangeline" hexameters, which, in our opinion, places them metrically below those of Clough and of Kingsley, they have

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Thomas Hardy.

Translations of Professor Harnack's new series of New Testament studies will appear in Messrs. Williams and Norgate's Crown Theological Library. The first of the three volumes, "St. Luke," the German original of which appeared recently, will be ready in its English version next month. The second volume will be devoted to "The Sayings of Jesus." An earlier translation to appear in the Crown Theological Library will be the volume of "Essays on the Social Gospel," two of the essays of which are contributed by Pro

fessor Harnack, and the third by Professor W. Hermann.

The Rev. P. H. Ditchfield has written a book entitled "The Old Parish Clerk," published by the Methuens, in which are numerous stories concerning a race of men who did good service in their generation and had a high estimation of the dignity of their office. Descriptions of old-time services and of the eccentricities of both clergy and clerks, the biographies of worthies of the profession, and chapters on the history of the office, their guilds and miracle plays, will appeal to all lovers of old English country life, and render the book valuable as a permanent record of a phase of ecclesiastical manners which has passed away.

In a forthcoming work on the China and Japan of to-day and to-morrow, entitled "Signs and Portents in the Far East," Mr. Everard Cotes has brought together the sum of his observations of men and things during a prolonged tour in Manchuria and the East. He examines the capabilities of the new Chinese army and the limits imposed by race characteristics upon the situation which has arisen since the Russo-Japanese War, and handles his subjects with a pleasant simplicity and pictorial directness which carry the reader with entertainment over Hapeh