who on the ground of this derogation from Herbert's dignity have denied the possibility of his being the "begetter" of the Sonnets have, perhaps, not always sufficiently considered the impossibility of dedicating them. "To the Right Honorable William, Earle of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlaine to His Majestie, one of his most honorable Privie Counsell, and Knight of the most noble order of the Garter." Had Thorpe ventured upon such a dedication as that, I can conceive the Star Chamber taking action of its own accord.

This could not possibly be better put; and yet Mr. Beeching confesses himself unconvinced. "There is a smug tone," he says, "about the dedication which suggests that while Mr. W. H. was far above Thorpe's own social position, he was yet something less than so magnificent a person as the Earl of Pembroke." The most ardent Pembrokist will scarcely deny that this is delicately and perhaps justly felt. At one point only does Mr. Beeching's sobriety of statement fail him for a moment. He will not countenance any attempt to identify the "Dark Lady." He says:

The number of brunettes in the capital at any time is legion, and the Sonnets supply no possible clue by which the particular person can be identified. The attempt, therefore, to fix upon someone with whom Pembroke is known to have had relations is merely gratuitous; and it rejoices the heart of any sane spectator to learn that this supposed "dark lady," Mistress Mary Fitton, turns out, when her portraits are examined, to have been conspicuously fair.

Now, in this paragraph one cannot but

feel a touch of uncalled-for asperity. If Mary Fitton was "conspicuously fair," her claims to the doubtful honor of having been Shakespeare's "worser spirit" are certainly knocked on the head. But, apart from this damning discrepancy, the case in her favor seems to me exceedingly strong; and I may, perhaps, be pardoned for doubting whether this opinion deserves to be lightly dismissed as "insane." It is manifestly excessive to say that "the Sonnets supply no possible clue" to the identity of the Dark Lady. They supply one very important clue: namely, that she was the mistress of "Mr. W. H." If "Mr. W. H." cannot be identified, the clue, of course, fails. But if, "W. H." meant William Herbert-and Mr. Beeching sees nothing "insane" in that view-then Mary Fitton, Herbert's mistress, surely becomes a "not impossible she" to take the third place in the trio. For a long time the phrase "in act thy bed-vow broke" seemed to rule her out; while there was nothing to show that she had a third lover of the name of William, as Sonnet CXXXV. not obscurely suggested. But when it appeared from the Arbury records that she was persecuted by the attentions of Sir William Knollys, and was actually (by an almost incredible arrangement) regarded as being betrothed to him, then the case in her favor became, in my eyes, almost overwhelming. It crumbles to naught, of course, if Mary Fitton can be proved to have been fair; and the testimony of all who have examined her portraits at Arbury seems to agree, if not that she was "conspicuously fair," at least that she could not be called dark. That granted, one can only say that chance has played us an elaborate practical joke in heaping coincidence upon coincidence to lead us astray. Had her complexion been dark, one could almost have retorted the accusation of-infirmity of judgment-upon anyone who, ac

cepting Pembroke, could still reject the exquisitely dovetailed evidence in favor of Mary Fitton.

"J. M.," the author of Shakespeare Self-Revealed, has a short and simple method of interpretation which relieves us of all further need to discuss Southampton, Pembroke, the Dark Lady, or any other historical question in relation to the Sonnets. In his eyes Shakespeare's "better angel" was the Love of Beauty, and his "worser spirit" the Love of Fame. To these warring tendencies (but why warring?) all the The Speaker.

Sonnets are addressed; and J. M. goes through them one by one, fitting them, not without ingenuity, into his attractive scheme, According to this interpreter, "Mr. W. H." meant "Mr. Will Himself"-a theory at which J. M. arrived quite independently of the learned German who (as he afterwards ascertained) had anticipated him. It is gratifying to find that even in the extraction of sunbeams from cucumbers England can still hold her own with Germany.

William Archer.

The Japanese have finally succeeded in the first, and perhaps greatest, of the many feats of arms in which they must succeed before they can completely triumph over their mighty enemy. Aided by the formation of the ground, and by the genius of an engineer who has in some mysterious way missed his due meed of fame, the Russians had constructed at the eastern tip of the Liao-tung Peninsula a fortress which they intended to be their base for great conquests in the Northern Pacific, which they believed to be impregnable, and which great experts declare would have been impregnable to any besiegers but the Japanese. It was a system of forts, three lines of them, rather than a fortress, which had to be taken. No other generals, even if commanding German or French or British troops, would have ventured to expend so many trained men on such an effort, or would have been so uninfluenced by the fear that the hideous slaughter which marked every repulse and every partial victory might demoralize their soldiery, or so appal their people at home that a continuance of

the policy of attack would become impossible. The place, remember, was not defended by Chinese or by natives of India, but by Russians, who tehind fortifications are among the best troops in the world, who were provided with artillery at least as good and as plentiful as that of their assailants, who had a hero to command them, who had risen to the temper in which death seems a mere occurrence in life, and who believed almost to the last that relief either by land or sea was certain to arrive. The Power which could carry across sea an army capable of such an achievement, of such a siege of eight months, of making a series of storming assaults, few of which completely succeeded, without discouragement, and of carrying it all through to a triumphant conclusion, as a mere incident in a greater campaign, has proved herself, whatever her future history, to be one of the Great Powers. There is no State in existence whose soldiers would encounter the victors of Port Arthur in equal numbers with any certainty of victory. Indeed, there have been incidents in the siege, like

the storm of Nanshan or of 203-Mètre Hill, which have compelled experienced soldiers to doubt whether the Japanese are not the finest fighters in the world, and whether Kuropatkin is not right in demanding a grand superiority in numbers as the first, indeed the essential, condition for any victory by the troops under his command. It will be a more necessary condition than ever now, for the news cannot be long concealed from the troops on the Sha-ho; and little as the Russian soldier is demoralized by suffering, it is inconceivable that the spirits of the men, and especially of the officers, should not be depressed by a defeat which they have been taught to consider impossible, at least while the hero of Russian imaginations remained to conduct the defence.

This, the rise of Japan into the posi tion of a successful fighting Power, as strong in all the elements of strength as any Power in the world, is, we conceive, the first and greatest result of the surrender of Port Arthur. It will make the Island Empire the object of universal international attention, of a hundred hopes and fears, which will develop into elaborate combinations and intrigues, and will for the moment directly, perhaps painfully, affect the relations of the European Powers to each other. The owners of the Philippines, of Indo-China, or Kiao-chow, of Java, perhaps even the owners of India and Australia, will recognize with a more perfect certainty that a new and most powerful State has been born into the world. They knew that before, it will be said, and it is true; but the knowledge was impaired in completeness by an element of uncertainty, by a doubt whether the great fortress might not after all be relieved by Admiral Rozhdestvensky, or delivered by a victorious march of General Kuropatkin. We have noticed the doubt even in England; and on the Conti

nent, where the belief in the invincibility of Russia is stronger than in this country, it has affected every expression of opinion. The difference between the fact, and the fear or hope of the fact, is often very wide, and it will, we think, prove to be so in this case. The world discounts most things, but it cannot discount a thunderbolt or an earthquake, or even an assassination. Mankind in general will first shudder, as at some event of the greatest moment which the majority had never foreseen, and then begin discussing its immediate consequences. there be peace, it will be asked, and what will be the effect upon the prospects of revolution in Russia?

Will

It is impossible to answer either question with complete confidence, because the replies depend upon two unknown quantities, the inner character of the Russian Czar, and the silent opinion of the huge mass of the Russian peasantry. We should say ourselves that it was next to impossible for a Government like the Russian, which rests for internal affairs firstly upon the army, and secondly upon the prestige of the Czar among his own people, to make peace until General Kuropatkin has made his grand effort, and either been defeated, or what is quite as possible, has been so weakened by a series of sanguinary battles that his army has ceased to be a factor in the problem. The rulers of Russia have been aware for some time that Port Arthur must fall, and regard its surrender as part of the defeat of a Navy which they have not been accustomed to consider a prime element in their own greatness. They will think it safer to risk an army, which they can replace, than to admit that this army cannot defeat an Asiatic people, and that they themselves do not know how to organize victory by land. Their repute with the Army would be gone, as much gone as the repute of

an officer who declined a challenge; and without repute with the Army they would never be safe against insurrection, or those Palace revolts which at one time so frequently marked the history of Russia. It is perfectly true that the war is most unpopular even with sections of the Army, and that peace would be an immense relief to most important classes; but to welcome peace or to crave for peace, and to rejoice in it after a great defeat, are two widely different things. A keen wound to national pride is rarely forgiven by any race, and among the great races of the world the Slav is certainly not the most devoid of sensitive national pride. He has trusted always in his Czar in confidence of victory, and after his greatest defeat the Czar of the moment passed away and his whole social system was reorganized. The chances of peace, too, depend upon the terms of peace, and the terms of peace as yet adumbrated by the representatives of Japan are not favorable to speedy pacification. Russia may recede from Manchuria, as she has repeatedly receded from Constantinople, and will hardly feel the cession of Saghalien; but the Japanese insist on an indemnity, and an indemnity, besides irritating Imperial pride, will rouse in the governing group the feeling that it will be cheaper to fight on. What are the lives of moujiks to a great Russian compared with a humiliation?

The Spectator.

The second question, the effect of the surrender upon revolution in Russia, is more perplexing still. Western Europe, misled in part by its own experience, is attaching great importance to a Constitutional movement which it sees is in progress in Russia. All the educated, it says, desire the introduction of a representative system. That is in the main true, and if Russia were as Great Britain, France, or even Germany, there could be little doubt of the result. But there is no proof that in Russia the educated lead the people, and it is quite certain that by themselves-that is, without support either from the soldiers or the peasants-the educated are powerless against the bureaucracy, which dreads a Constitution. It is quite true that the peas. antry are just now distressed by economic causes, harassed by taxation, and more or less indignant at the demand on the Reservists; but for all that the West knows they may be looking for redress to that very autocratic power which the educated are so anxious to suppress. A jacquerie is at least as probable in Russia as a revolution. That great changes will follow a great defeat in the Far East is, we think, certain; but to calculate the direction of those changes, we must wait till we know whether General Kuropatkin is, as a result of sanguinary battles, to march into Korea or retreat on Kharbin.

The first literary fruit of the Tibetan expedition is a small book by Mr. Powell Millington, "To Lhassa at Last."

The Messrs. Methuen are to publish a book on "The English Buccaneers"

by Mr. John Masefield. If it is one half as stirring as his ballads it will not lack for readers.

Hereafter the "Mercure de France" will be published, as is usual with French reviews, once a fortnight in

stead of monthly. Since its foundation in January, 1890, the Mercure has increased in size from 32 to 300 pages, and in price from 40 centimes to 1fr. 25. It has thriven, in spite of its unique devotion to literature. The last hundred and thirty or so pages of each number are devoted to a "Revue du Mois," or "encyclopédie au jour le jour du mouvement universel des idées," in which the current literature of all Europe is reviewed, briefly and competently.

The word "Temple" has come to be a synonym for a volume alluring as literature and dainty in typography. As applied to the new series of "Temple Topographies," published in London by J. M. Dent & Co. and in this country by E. P. Dutton & Co., it retains the full significance which it has come to have in other connections. It is the aim of these volumes to present the history, the scenery, the architecture, the ancient traditions and the presentday aspects of English towns and hamlets. In one of the volumes before us Mr. Edmund H. New describes and pictures Evesham and its famous abbey. Of the second the parish of Broadway, in Worcester county, from whose hill one may look into thirteen English counties, is the subject. Mr. New is again the illustrator, but the text is written, and very delightfully written, by Mr. Algernon Gissing.

E. B. Treat & Co. publish a new and enlarged edition of the volume entitled "Makers of the American Republic," which contains a series of historical lectures upon the early colonists,-the Virginians, Pilgrims, Hollanders, Puritans, Quakers, Scotch and Huguenots. Most of these lectures, sixteen in all, were delivered by the Rev. David Gregg.

D.D., either to the congregation of which he was pastor, or upon historic and patriotic anniversaries and occasions; but there are added lectures on The Bench and Bar by Justice W. W. Goodrich of the New York Supreme Court, and on Some Medical Men in the Revolution, by Dr. Sidney H. Carney, Jr., Secretary of the New York Historical Society. The lectures group effectively and present vividly some interesting phases of early American history, and their defects are those incident to the popular pulpit and platform style.

"The Letters Which Never Reached Him," though they do not rival in fascination a certain series whose name they recall, are attracting considerable attention in England, and American readers will welcome the edition which E. P. Dutton & Co. publish. The writer of the letters is a German lady of talent and charm, who shares the journeyings of a brother in the diplomatic service, and who is leaving Peking with him for New York, in the fall of 1899; and the man whom they never reached, seen in the mirror of her admiration-and, later, love is an ethnologist and explorer of brilliant achievement. Covering a period of a year only, but dated from Vancouver to Berlin, they give vivid travel sketches, and daring comment on social life. But the central interest is always in Peking, and the range of emotions from uneasiness to anxiety, despair, hope, and despair again is strikingly portrayed. In spite of the disclosure of the title, the plot piques curiosity, but the book makes its chief impression by other than dramatic effects. As yet, no guesses have identified the author.