robbery practised by the women of the country:

"The culprits-the brigands-are in this case young women, who set out on plundering pursuits, in order to turn a dishonest penny. A troop of fair bandits take up a station at the river, there particularly to wait for the arrival of the doomed traveller. As soon as the vedettes announce his approach, the fair troop starts off to meet him, welcoming him with dances, and with fiery glances of irresistible power. He is compelled to stop, as a matter of course, and the fair maids then politely request him to alight from his horse. No sooner has the bewildered victim, unconscious of his fate, put his foot on the ground than he finds himself at close quarters with the whole troop. Immediately he is stripped of all he has on his back, and is left in that primitive state in which Adam was at one time.' In spite of this unfavourable trait in their characters, Major Milligan, nevertheless, speaks very highly of the Koordish women. They have a freedom of action which would probably satisfy the highest aspiration of Mr. Mill. She is the equal mate of her husband, and often the very life and soul of any political action he enjoys. When he first saw the Koordish lasses he owned that their easy and simple bearing, their fine forms and blooming countenances, produced a powerful effect upon him. Henceforward he devoted himself with great energy to the investigation of the subject of the fair sex.

He saw

one houri, but is, unhappily, compelled to lay down his pen in despair of doing justice to her beauty. "What I can say is, that her complexion gave one an idea of what must have been the bloom of the forbidden apple of the terrestrial paradise.' We are glad to find that the young lady found all the demonstrative admiration too much for her, and rapidly 'skedaddled,' 'leaving our hearts in a state of profound emotion.' Major Milligan devotes many pages to the quasi devil-worship of the Yesids. seems, in fact, to be a kind of Mani

It

We proceed now to two books which may appear to be oddly bracketed, but which are both related, not remotely, to these questions of travelling which we have been discussing. Nathaniel Hawthorne's Note-book is, in point of fact, a book of home travel; Sir John Lubbock's is, in one point of view, a book of travel in savage countries. The American tells us all about his English experiences; the Englishman has gone through the library of distant travel, and tells us everything about savage countries. Mr. Hawthorne's book will be useful to those who, during the war, prefer to stay at home; Sir John's to those who will now take a wider range, and will visit unfrequented regions. Mr. Hawthorne's book is just such a one as Elihu Burritt writes. He treads indeed such frequented ground that we wonder whether it is worth while to traverse it after him; but perhaps it is good for us to look at our own landscapes through foreign eyes, and it is worth while to know a little about such a man as Mr. Hawthorne was. Foreigners may also permit themselves to talk about living personages in a way in which we may not speak of our own distinguished men. With all our admiration for the author of the 'Scarlet Letter,' there is something cynical, unpleasing, and exceedingly self-conscious about him. Whenever he is in a mixed company, he imagines himself the

observed of all observers. 'Leaving out the illustrious Jenny Lind, I suspect that I was myself the great lion of the evening,' is a not uncommon form of expression. Mr. Hawthorne denies altogether that American ladies are less healthy than English ladies; but we think that the weight of American testimony is against him. But Mr. Hawthorne does not at all understand England. Here is a curious view of Oxford life: Byand-by two or three young men came in, in wide-awake hats, and loose, blouse-like, summerish garments; and from their talk I found them to be students of the university, although their topics of conversation were almost entirely horses and boats. One of them sat down to cold beef and a tankard of ale together, and went away without paying for it, rather to the waiter's discontent. Students are very much alike, all the world over, and, I suppose, in all time; but I doubt whether many of my fellows at college would have gone off without paying for the beer.' Mr. Hawthorne might have made his mind easy. I doubt not but the waiter was not so unhappy as he seemed. I expect he was paid after all, and that there was no dissatisfaction on the matter. His notices of Newstead Abbey, under the tenancy of Colonel Wildman, are very interesting.

The

colonel, to his own infinite loss, made Newstead the great show house which we have described, very different to the bare, desolate Newstead of Byron's time. The abbey which Byron describes in 'Don Juan' is not his own abbey, but Colonel Wildman's. The colonel informed him of all his alterations, and had Byron ever returned to England, his first visit was to have been to Newstead. Here is a note respecting Charles Dickens, which will be of interest just now: 'A gentleman, in instance of Charles Dickens' unwearibility, said that during some theatrical performances in Liverpool, he acted in play and farce, spent the rest of the night making speeches, feasting and drinking at table, and ended at

seven o'clock in the morning by jumping leap-frog over the backs of the whole company.' We have a curious story on the authority of the last Duke of Somerset that the father of John and Charles Kemble had made all possible research into the events of Shakespeare's life, and that he had found reason to believe that Shakespeare attended a certain revel at Stratford, and, indulging too much in the conviviality of the occasion, he tumbled into a ditch on his way home and died there! Now and then we find some forcible expression, which reminds us of the clever American author, as when during his consulate he speaks of the New Testaments used by witnesses as 'greasy with perjuries.'

Sir

Sir John Lubbock manifests an extraordinarily large acquaintance with all the details of savage life. Of course he is chiefly concerned to prove his scientific theory; but the whole literature of travel, both recent and remote, is brought under contribution for illustration. We must limit ourselves to the curious subject of marriage. John argues that communal marriage was succeeded by marriage founded on capture, and this led to exogamy, that is, of marrying out of the tribe. He shows that in savage life marriage is generally accompanied by a mock resistance on the part of the relatives, and the wife is wooed by force rather than persuasion. Exogamy made actual capture necessary; but in progress of time this became merely a mock form, though still reckoned essential to the marriage ceremony. Another curious trait of savage life is that relationship is usually reckoned through the father and not through the mother. He fully admits the charms of savage life,' and there are well-known travellers who regularly lay themselves out' for flirting with pretty savages. The number of such tourists will now probably receive some accession. The points which Sir John argues are threefold. (a) That existing savages are not the descendants of civilized ancestors. (b) That the primitive condition of

man was one of utter scepticism. (c) That from this condition several races have independently raised themselves. The contrary argument to this, derived from language and ethnology, would even affiliate the Brahmin to the race Adamique. This scientific argument is one of the most interesting and important conceivable; and Sir John has given us a vast induction of cases of great importance to the argument, without, we think, demonstrating his case. His best opponent is the Duke of Argyll, whose essays on Primeval Man are as good as his 'Reign of Law.' The Duke actually refutes Mr. Disraeli's assertion that our aristocracy are not intellectual; a perfect mob of them refute it. We will only say that when we compare the England of Mr. Hawthorne with the savage life of Sir John Lubbock, we feel that we cannot bridge that mighty difference by the explanation which Sir John has given us.

ROSES.*

I trust all my readers are true zosarians, a better company than that brotherhood of the Rosy Cross of whom we have sometimes read. I can believe anything ill of the man or woman who does not love roses.

Let not such a one be loved! I can conceive nothing happier and pleasanter in the summer months than wandering in abundant rosegardens, attended perchance by some 'queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.' There is almost a human interest about the rose. It recals the pride, the beauty, the pathos of life. As holy Herbert

sang

'Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash passer wipe his eye, Thy root is ever in the grave,

And thou must die."

or, as Mr. Hole quotes him,

'What is sweeter than a rose?

What is fairer ?"

But the reader will find a hundred charming things in Mr. Hole's book about roses. All imaginative lite

A Book about Roses. How to Grow and Show them.' By S. Reynolds Hole, Author of A Little Tour in Ireland.' Blackwood.

rature is full of such allusions, down to Mr. Disraeli's pretty touch, 'I have been into Corisande's garden, and she has given me a rose.' Mr. Hole speaks with the highest degree of authority on his charming subject. He has loved and studied roses for some twenty years; he has won some thirty cups open to all England, and he was the originator of the first national rose show. This last circumstance brought him into an intimacy with the late John Leech; and Mr. Hole had the enviable privilege of receiving some two hundred letters from his illustrious friend. His book, indeed, has some most charming touches of egotism, that kind of egotism which is so delightful from an author's pen, and is so wearisome from an author's lips. The great literary charm of the book will be patent to all who read it, while the oldest rose fancier may gather some useful hints, and the youngest tyro will enthusiastically dream of growing roses by the acre.

Mr. Hole thinks that you may commence your rose-planting operations on the slender foundation of a five-pound note, or let us allow a margin, and say eight pounds. In consideration of a sum, for which you could hardly give a nice little dinner at Greenwich or Richmond, you may indulge in the permanent gratification of the finest and most elevated pursuit. While he gives a genial welcome to foreign roses, he is sure that nine-tenths of the most perfect roses which have been grown and shown have been cut from the British briar,' a fact full of encouragement to the intending rose-grower. But he will have plenty of arduous work to encounter. Mr. Hole gives a list of all the roses which he ought to have, and emphatically underlines those which he must have. He has actually travelled a thousand miles in order to perfect his catalogue. We are glad to see that he strongly objects to the absurd title of a cabbage rose, so long applied to the beautiful rose of Provence. He tells the ardent disciple to plant five hundred sticks from buds of his own in November. 'Give your order-and any labourer

will soon learn to bring you what you want-towards the end of October. I have myself a peculiar but unfailing intimation when it is time to get in my briers-my brier-man comes to church. He comes to morning service on the Sunday. If I make no sign during the week, he appears next Sunday at the evening also. If I remain mute he comes on week days. I know then that the case is urgent, and that we must come to terms. Were I to fancy the Manetti instead of the brier, my impression is that he would go over to Rome.' It will be seen that Mr. Hole is a clergyman; and there is something in the best sense clerical in the cheerful, kindly, simple, unaffected manner in which he writes on roses and all the pleasant subjects which roses suggest. He says of the judge of a rose show that 'he should regard his office as a sacred duty, not only because justice and honour are sacred things, but because there seems to be a special sanctity in such beautiful handiwork of God; and to be untruthful and dishonest in such a presence and purity should be profane in his sight as though he lied to an angel.' The varying emotions of the candidates for prizes are very prettily sketched.

The

rose has always smiled on him, 'but what will papa say, i. e., the judge? When next the suitor sees his sweetheart, will she bring with her the written approbation of his suit, even as Miss Wilson returned from the one Professor, her father,

to the other Professor, Aytoun, her lover, having a slip of paper pinned upon her dress, and upon that paper the happy words "with the author's compliments." Mr. Hole justly ridicules the judge of roses who is appointed because he once won a prize for cucumbers, or because the mayor knows his uncle. Competent knowledge and perfect integrity are demanded by the true rosists from their arbitrators.

At this season the flower shows are multitudinously held all over the country. In all of them the rose is pre-eminent, and some shows are for the rose alone. Surely it is among the happiest signs of the amelioration of our times that in our towns the love of music, and in the country the love of gardening, is more and more becoming a passion for the populace. Mr. Hole mentions that in Nottingham alone there are some twenty or thirty thousand people who take an interest in gardening, and have some share in the allotments of garden lands. He points out the gentle and ennobling effect which this last has upon the poor, and gives an example of the happiest kind of democracy, in showing how these poor men, in their love of nature, become in the best sense gentles and nobles. We trust that we have put in a timely word, and that before the autumn months set in many of our readers will be making preparations for commencing a rosary in October or November, the one good time for planting.