quirements of their individual or specific life. If it were not pleasurable, then flight would be discontinued when it was no longer necessary. But, as a fact, bird life presents innumerable instances of the maintenance of the powers of flight in species to whose existence it is by no means essential. The skylark does not soar from mercenary motives; pigeons, domesticated for generations, fly about all day long, though they need to seek neither food nor shelter. It is not necessary to watch birds on the wing for very long to convince oneself that the act of flight is one of pure enjoyment, that it is cultivated and adorned with the refinements which characterize an "accomplishment. Such is the evolution of the tumbler pigeon, such the more refined and masterly hovering of some birds who possess the power of so balancing themselves on a slanting breeze as to remain motionless with respect to the earth, without apparently moving a wing or a feather, floating all the time, calm and still. This soaring, to accomplish which no doubt requires minute momentary muscular adjustments, must be an acquirement bestowing the keenest pleasure. Not the most enthusiastic yachtsman steering his own cutter in a stiff breeze can derive more pleasure from the motion than can the poised bird, conscious that at any moment it has only to move its wing the fraction of an inch in order to hold its own against a fresh slant of the wind. It is the fine art of flight, acquired perhaps accidentally without any reference to the search for food, and persisted in purely as a pleasurable relaxation or accomplishment for the sake of the mental glory involved in supremacy over the powers of the air. Minor fancies in the method of flight abound in birds. White of Selborne, says:— "There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious-they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish, and when they move from one place to another frequently turn on their falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lese dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner. the center of gravity. Rooks sometimes backs with a loud croak, and seem to be .. Ringdoves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring bang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner." It is a mistake to suppose that animals will continue instinctively forever to toil and work, to exert their muscles and energies without reference to pleasure. They are by no means insensible to the charms of repose, and are naturally lazy, just to the same extent as men are naturally lazy. So long as exertion is necessary to existence or gives them enjoyment, they will exert themselves; when they can exist and enjoy themselves without exertion, they cease to exert themselves. Whenever we see animals habitually performing any act or any movement which involves trouble or exertion, we may be quite certain that, if the act or movement is not essential, it is pleasurable. If it were not accompanied by pleasurable feelings, it would not be continued. The act of collecting honey is apparently accompanied by more trouble than pleasure. So long as it is necessary to existence it is continued by force of what we should call public opinion or municipal law; but transport a hive of bees to a climate where na- | cise, and though we are not yet in a ture provides them with honey all position to appreciate the code of the year round, and in three or four rules which regulate the sports of years they cease to store it. The animals, we can be in no doubt as act is troublesome, and is discontin- to two facts: first, that animals do ued when no longer necessary. The play; and, secondly, that their sports slave-making ants are a still stronger do involve an element of personal example; the Polyergus, having pro- antagonism, and, therefore, that vided itself with slaves who perform they are fitted to contribute mental all the necessary work of life, who enjoyment as well as bodily exercise. provide it with food, and actually Some of the games of animals appear feed it, is now gradually divesting to possess considerable complexity. itself of every instinct, and dies of Some species there are, as the marstarvation if deprived of its assist- mot and bower bird, who, not satisant. fied with the use of their limbs, construct playthings and playgrounds. Others there are who keep pets, organize social gatherings on a large scale, and indulge in a dance with real measured steps and regulated evolutions. It is only reasonable to suppose that these more advanced forms of amusement serve to con. tribute mental delight of a more refined description than that which is associated with the races and sham fights of colts and puppies.-B. CARTILL, in The Nineteenth Century. [TO BE CONCLUDED.] Similar to the pleasure of flight, though not so keen, must be the pleasure accompanying the gallop and other speedier movements of quadrupeds. The horse obviously enjoys its more extended paces, and shares with its rider the delights of a bit of open country. So we can well believe that the best horses (from a racing point of view) of each year take keen pleasure in showing their heels to their field. Foals run races just as boys do, and no doubt with the same kind of enjoyment, which in the horse lasts further into maturity than is the case with man. Here, then, we have the origin of play. In youth, when the nervous centers are over-nourished and un- LITERATURE AND POLITICS. der-worked, there is a natural tendency for the overcharge to seek relief in muscular exercise of any kind. Play of any sort furnishes a bodily convenience. But youth is not satisfied with the bodily convenience alone, it so adapts the muscular exercise as to furnish to the mind the consciousness of power, and thus play combines mental satisfaction with bodily convenience. All the games of boys involve the element of rivalry as well as of bodily exer Macaulay has left it on record that, in his opinion, the man is mad who, endowed with faculties for achieving distinction alike in literature and politics, selects the latter as the chief sphere for his energy; and surely he was right. At the same time, are not instances of this dual capacity exceedingly rare? It is seldom, I imagine, that the double but indivisible equipment of intellect and temperament that qualifies a man to become eminent | in letters would permit him to be practically successful in politics, as politics are understood in these days, and still less often, I should say, that the talents and disposition which make a man a first-rate politician would enable him to become more than a second or third-rate man of letters. In all probability, however, few men form this discriminating estimate of their own powers, the infirmity of self-love leading people who have succeeded in one walk of life to fancy they would have been equally successful in any other. Why, then, do so many persons nowadays embrace a political career who probably entertain little doubt, and of whom it is thought by their admirers, they might have won distinction in the domain of letters? Are we not to look for the answer to this question in two passions, no doubt not peculiar to this age, but urusually active and dominant in it-the thirst for excitement, and the craving for personal notoriety? To be, like Tostig, "ever in the mouths of men," seems to be regarded not only as a worthy object of ambition, but as the highest of all pursuits; and to live perpetually a whirl of tumult and emotion appears to be considered the condition most conducive to happiness. It is an odd conception either of distinction or of felicity; but few, if any, will deny that it prevails. The House of Commons offers a man notoriety and excitement. The library and the garden offer him neither. Surely, however, he is wise who, whether he be really, or only in his own conceit and the partial estimate of his friends, equal to great achieve ments, whether as the companion of Sir William Harcourt (and even still greater persons), or as the companion of the Muses, elects the society of the latter. There are two reasons, it seems to me, why such a choice is wise and to be commended. In the first place-for let us be tender with the touching foibles of human nature, which pursue a man, like his shadow, even to the deepest and most modest retirement-the man of letters, whether he do or do not win the smile of criticism, can always command, in Shelley's fine phrase, wealth, that content, surpassing The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned;" the "inward glory," for instance, which Wordsworth wore for years before any laurel was offered him by the outer world-the "inward glory" with which, I dare say many other men have crowned themselves, whose indomitable belief in the greatness of their own powers was only a self-flattering delusion. But surely even such imaginary glory as this is better than the cheers and jeers commingled, the mixture of admiration and contempt, that compose the notoriety of a successful politician. The other reason why it is wise for a man, deemed by himself or others adapted equally for a literary or a political life, to select the former, is that in the cultivation of letters a man may hope to be able to do some little good, and can make certain of doing no harm; whereas no politicians, who look before and after," can feel absolutely confident they are not sowing the seeds of public woe and national mischief. Will any really dispassionate person affirm that it is absolutely certain that, for example, the adoption of free-trade, or the passing of our several electoral reform bills, will in the long run prove to have been to the advantage of the realm? But every one who uses language carefully is aware that all of us are in this matter acting only on the probability, not on the certainty, of our views being right and sound. The future may possibly show us to have been as much mistaken as the present, in so many instances, shows the politicians of the past to have been, who were just as conscientious and, to say the least, just as able as ourselves. But the exquisite sonnet, the larklike lyric, the majestic drama, the stately and well-ordered history, these cannot but be right, not now only, but for all time. The secretary of Cromwell may or may not have served his country well and wisely. But the author of Paradise Lost is indubitably, and beyond argument, one of the benefactors of the human race, the dulce decus of every one of us, in a sense and to an extent to which no Maecenas could ever aspire. Though I cannot doubt that literature is both a nobler and a happier vocation than politics, I have always thought, and I venture to urge, that the man of letters is wanting alike in wisdom and in a sense of duty who averts his attention wholly from public affairs. It is not necessary to be in the House of Commons in order to make speeches, or to be in the thick of the political fray to participate in some degree in the business of the nation. Without sacrificing in the faintest degree the allegiance they owe to their own special calling, writers of the most fastidious taste and of the most unquestioned powers may from time to time employ their pens to rebuke an erring statesman, or raise their voices to remind a senate bewildered by party passion that the welfare of the commonwealth is the only justification of public action. ALFRED AUSTIN, in The Specta tor. CURRENT THOUGHT. CRITICISMS UPON MILTON.-Temple Bar produces an entertaining paper entitled "Some Curiosities of Criticisms." Not the least noteworthy are the following upon Milton: "Dr. Johnson's extraordinary criticism of Lycidas, Comus, and the Sonnets is evidently the result not only of lack of sympathy and insight, but of the writer's insurmountable dislike of the political and theological principles of the poet. The devoted supporter of monarchy and hierarchy was naturally antagonistic to the tical equality. preacher of republicanism and ecclesiasJohnson, however, does not stand alone in his inability to appreci ate Lycidas. A respected poet and critic of our own time, Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, in his Reminiscences and Opinions, published last year, has confessed to a similar lack of appreciation of the famous elegy. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have remarked, 'Paradise Lost is a fine poem, but what does it prove?'-a question which may, perhaps, as coming from a great mathematician, be forgiven. Pope the great Protector, inviting him to take the crown, and hen, like another Vicar of Bray, congratulated the restored Charles on his recovery of the throne, loading both alike with fulsome flattery, was, however, hardly made of the right stuff to hear aright the majestic harmonies of Milton's epic, or to understand the stern and unbending devotion to principle of its author. The ultra-royalist writers of the Restoration era naturally regarded Milton more as the writer of the Defence of the People of England, than as the author of Paradise Lost, and their abuse of the poet knew no bounds. The following passage from Bates and Skinner's Rise and Progress of the late Troubles in England, published in 1685, is a specimen of this kind of Billingsgate. Speaking of the Roundheads, they say: "They employ the Mercenery Pen of the Son of a certain Scrivener, one Milton, from a musty Pedant, vampt into a new Secretary, whose Talent lying in Satyrs and Libels, and his Tongue being dipt in the blackest and basest venome, might forge an Εικονοκλασίαν or Imagebreaking; and by his livid and malicious Wit publish a Defence of the King's Murder against Salmasius." A COLORED BISHOP.-The African M. E. Church Review contains a biographical sketch, written by several colored clergymen, of Richard Harvey Cain, the lately deceased bishop of the African M. E. Church. He was born in Virginia in 1825. With his parents he went to Ohio. He was converted in 1841; licensed to preach in 1844. Up to 1859, when he was or dained deacon, he ministered as a local preacher, at various places in the west. In 1860 he studied at Wilberforce Univer sity, Ohio. In 1861 he was transferred to the New York Conference, and stationed at Brooklyn; the next year he was ordained elder at Washington; and in 1865 he was stationed at Charleston, S. C. The colored voters in South Carolina greatly outnumbered the whites, and Mr. Cain was elected to the Legislature of that State, and subsequently for two terms a member of the Congress of the United States. Of his Congressional career the Rev. Dr. Embry writes: "His career in Congress presents nothing very noted or remarkable. It was for the most part an eventful and stormy period. His only addresses before the body were made in defence of his people. Nevertheless, as a member and committee-man, he was respected as being active, conscientious, and useful. During his six years of public civil service, Dr. Cain never ceased the practice of sacred oratory in the pulpit, so that at the end of his second term of Congressional service, in 1879, he could reenter the pulpit without the inconvenience of a conscious transition from the one stage of duty to the other." THE LORD'S SUPPER IN CHINA. -Ralph Waldo Emerson gave up his pastorate in Boston, and ultimately the exercise of the ministerial office, because he could not conscientiously perform the function of blessing" the eucharistic bread and wine. The London Sunday Magazine tells of a sacramental difficulty which exists among the Chinese: "Bishop Burdon, writing home from the Kuh Fien Mission in China, dwells upon a difficulty which must be seriously felt by all missionaries in celebrating the ordinance of the Lord's Supper in that great Eastern Empire. In Western Christendom immemorial custom has prescribed the use of bread and wine at the communion service, but in China these are hard to get, and neither is an ordinary article of food-the essential characteristie which gives the rite so much of its meaning for ourselves. If Christians in China have to drink a strange mixture and to eat an unknown substance, usually dry and hard as well, half the beauty of the service must be lost. Rice and tea serve them as bread and wine do us, and Bishop Burdon's wish that the 'Eucharistic Feast may be adapted to the circumstances of the Chinese by substituting a cake made of rice for bread, and tea for wine,' will strike most people as a most sensible suggestion. The change would not be a travesty' but a translation. We have to translate the words, even the most sacred words, in which the Love of Christ is expressed; why may not we translate the symbols too? But the marvel is that the substance of the gospel needs no change; it comes to all with the same force, and all hear its message with gratitude and joy." |