or five other photogravure illustrations from drawings by Miss Nelly Erichsen and Miss Adelaide Marchi.

Among some Ibsen letters recently published in Germany is one which was written to the King in 1866 soon after the publication of "Brand." The letter is a frank appeal for aid. The author tells the King that "Brand" has aroused great interest outside the borders of his fatherland, but, he adds, "I cannot live on the expressions of thanks I have received," and he pleads for a special grant of four hundred thalers in order "to afford me the possibility of living my life as a poet." He continues in this wise: "I am not fighting for a future free from care, but for my life's work, which, I firmly believe and know, God has provided for me, a work which seems to me the most important and needful for Norway-to awaken the people and to teach them to think largely. It rests with your majesty if I must quit the battlefield, where, as I know, the weapons have been granted to me for the conflict, and this would be the hardest of all for me, for until this day I have never left the field."

The publication of the Oxford University Press collotype facsimile of the autograph manuscript of Keats's "Hyperion" was postponed until January, in order to allow other manuscripts which have only recently come to light to be included in the volume. The chief new discovery contains the altered version of the same poem which the poet composed in the autumn of 1819, under the title of "The Fall of Hyperion: A Vision," a copy of which came into the possession of the late Lord Houghton, who appears to have recopied it for the printer when he

first published the poem in the "Philobiblon" in 1856. No autograph of "The Fall of Hyperion" is known to exist, and the present manuscript was lost for many years, but was lately found by the Earl of Crewe, who has given permission for its publication. It contains twenty-one hitherto unpublished lines, and supplies many important corrections of the printed text. It is now printed in full, with an introduction by Mr. de Sélincourt, throwing light on the relation of the two poems, "Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion."

The Nobel prize for Literature has again been carried off by a Frenchman. On the first occasion, M. SullyPrudhomme was the winner. In the recent award, it goes to M. Mistral. M. Mistral is a native of Maillane (Bouches-du-Rhône), where he was born in September, 1830. He has decided to devote the sum he receives to the purchase of the old Palais d'Arles, which is to receive the Provençal Museum he himself founded there. Another Nobel laureate is Don José Echegaray, the eminent Spanish mathematician and dramatic author. Don Echegaray, who was born in Madrid in 1835, is generally regarded as the greatest living dramatist in Spain. Three of his plays were translated into English about ten years ago; two "the Great Galeoto" and "Folly or Saintliness"-were rendered in prose by the late Hannah Lynch and published together (1895), while in the same year was published Mr. James Graham's translation of Echegaray's three-act drama, "The Son of Don Juan." The latter book, which included a very useful biographical sketch of the poet, formed one of the well-known Cameo Series.

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

The greatest excitement has prevailed in Russia for the last few weeks since it became known that representatives of the Zemstvos of thirty-four provinces of the Empire were going to meet at St. Petersburg in order to discuss the necessary reforms in the general political organization of the country. The very fact that such an authorization had been granted was equivalent to an invitation to discuss a scheme of a Constitution; and so it was understood everywhere. When the Zemstvo delegates were leaving their respective provincial towns they were sent off by groups of enthusiastic friends, whose parting words were: "Return with a Constitution!"

Their original intention was to make of their conference a solemn official gathering which would speak to the Government in its official capacity, but at the last moment the Minister of the Interior refused to grant the necessary authorization; and as the Zemstvo delegates declared that they were decided to meet nevertheless, they

were informed that they could do sơ only in private, and that their conference would be treated as a private gathering, but that their resolutions could be handed by a few delegates to the Minister of the Interior, and through his intermediacy to the Emperor. This is how this Conference, which surely will become an important historical date, took place on the 19th, 20th, and 21st of November at St. Petersburg.

The decisions of the Conference were expressed in eleven resolutions, which, as will be seen presently, are now becoming the programme of an agitation which is gradually spreading all over Russia. Moreover, in contrast with all the petitions addressed to the Tsar on previous occasions by certain Zemstvos, the present memorandum is couched in far more dignified language and in definite terms. It begins by mentioning "the abnormal character of State government which has developed since the beginning of the eighties [1881], and consists in a complete es

trangement of the Government from. the people, and the absence of that mutual confidence which is necessary for the life of the State" (Section 1). "The present relations between the Government and the people"-they say further on-"are based on a fear of the people's self-administration, and on the exclusion of the people from the management of State affairs" (Section 2). The result of it is that while the bureaucracy separates the Supreme Power [read The Emperor] from the nation, it thus creates the very conditions for an entire lawlessness in the administration, in which the personal will of every functionary takes the place of law (Section 3). This destroys confidence in the Government and hampers the development of the State (Sections 3 and 4). Consequently, the Zemstvos express the following desiderata, which deserve to be given in full, because in such history-making documents as this the wording is almost as important as the general idea:

(5) In order to put an end to this lawlessness of the Administration, the inviolability of the individual and the private dwelling must be proclaimed and thoroughly carried out in life. Nobody can have a punishment or any restriction of his rights inflicted upon him without a sentence having been pronounced to this effect by an independent magistrate. For this purpose it is moreover necessary to establish such a responsibility of the members of the Administration as would allow of their being legally prosecuted for each breach of the law, in order thus to secure legality in the actions of the functionaries.

(6) For the full development of the intellectual forces of the nation, as also

1 The smallest self-administrating unit is now the district ("uyezd"), which embodies from 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants. The next unit below it, the canton ("volost") has also a self-administration, but only for the peasants. The Zemstvo resolution asks for a "self-governed canton," composed of all the inhabitants, while the peasant self-government

the expression of the real wants of society and the free exercise of public opinion, freedom of conscience, religion, speech, and press, as also of meeting and association, must be guaranteed. (7) The personal and political rights of all the citizens of the empire must be equal.

(8) Self-administration being the main condition for the development of the political and economical life of the country, and the main body of the population of Russia belonging to the class of the peasants, these last must be placed in the conditions that are necessary for the development of selfhelp and energy, and this can only be obtained by putting an end to the present subordinate and lawless position of the peasants. Therefore it is necessary; (a) to equalize the rights of the peasants with those of all other classes; (b) to free them from the rule of the Administration in all their personal and social affairs; and (c) to grant them a regular form of justice.

(9) The provincial and the municipal institutions which are the main organs of local life must be placed in such conditions as to render them capable of performing the functions of organs of self-administration, endowed with wide powers. It is necessary for this purpose: (a) that the representation in the Zemstvos should not be based on class principles, and that all forces of the population should be summoned, as far as possible, to take part in that administration; (b) that the Zemstvo institutions should be brought nearer to the people by instituting a smaller selfadministrative unit; (c) that the circle of activity of the Zemstvos and the municipal institutions should include all the local needs; and (d) that these institutions should acquire the necessary stability and independence, without which no regular development of their activity and their relations to the organs of the Government is possible. would be limited to the village community. It must be said that all the peasant self-government, introduced in 1861, had been entirely wrecked under Alexander III. by the introduction of special "land-chiefs," nominated by the Governor of the Province, and endowed with unlimited rights.

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Local self-government must be extended to all the parts of the Empire. (10) For creating and maintaining a close intercourse between the Government and the nation, on the basis of the just-mentioned principles, and for the regular development of the life of the State, it is absolutely necessary that representatives of the nation, constituting a specially elected body, should participate in the legislative power, the establishment of the State's budget, and the control of the Administration. [The minority of the conference, consisting of twenty-seven persons, accepted this paragraph only as far as the words "should participate in the legislative power."]

(11) In view of the gravity and the difficulties of both the internal and external conditions which the nation is now living through, this private conference expresses the hope that the supreme power will call together the representatives of the nation, in order to lead our Fatherland, with their help, on to a new path of national development in the sense of establishing a closer union between the State's authority and the nation.

This memorandum, signed by 102 delegates out of 104-two abstainingwas handed to Prince Sviatopolk Mirsky, and through him to the Emperor. Four more resolutions were taken later on by the same Conference, and they offer a special interest, as they represent a first attempt at legislation upon a definite subject in the form, well known in olden times in this country, of a Royal petition. Three of these resolutions, which concern education, blame the Government for its negative attitude in this matter, and ask full freedom for the Zemstvos to deal with it; while the fourth demands the abrogation of the state-of-siege law and an amnesty in the following terms:

Considering that the Law of the 26th of August 1881, embodying the Measures for the Maintenance of Order in the State [state-of-siege law] is one of the chief causes which favor the

development of lawlessness in the Administration and breed popular discontent, which both stand in the way of mutual confidence and unity between the Government and the population, the Conference finds that the repeal of this law is desirable. Besides, taking into consideration that the system of administratively inflicted penalties, which has been applied lately on a large scale in virtue of that law, has produced a great number of victims of the arbitrary actions of the Administration who are now suffering various penalties and limitations in their legal rights, the Conference considers it its duty to express itself in favor of a complete remission of all penalties inflicted by mere orders of Administration. It expresses at the same time the hope that the Supreme Power will introduce pacification in the country by an act of amnesty for all persons undergoing penalties for political offences.

The Press was not permitted to mention the Zemstvo Conference, or to discuss its resolutions; but the latter were hectographed in thousands of copies at St. Petersburg, reprinted in a more or less clandestine way in many cities, and spread broadcast all over Russia. On the other side, as soon as Sviatopolk Mirsky had made his declarations about the need of "confidence between the Government and the nation"-confirming his declarations by the release of a small number of "administrative" exiles-the Press at once adopted quite a new tone. The need for a new departure, under which the nation would be called to participate in the government of the country, began to be expressed in a very outspoken way. All the main questions concerning the revision of taxation, the necessity of not merely returning to the original law of the Zemstvos (altered in 1890), but of revising it in the sense of an abolition of the present division into "orders"; the necessity of re-establishing the elected Justices of the Peace, and of granting a thorough self-government to all the