CHAPTER XXVIII.

Fourth Journey to Berlin--Unfortunate Circumstances--Help--Study of

Kant's Writings--Characteristic of my own Works.

When I came to Berlin, Mendelssohn was no longer in life,[61] and my

former friends were determined to know nothing more of me. I did not

know therefore what to do. In the greatest distress I received a visit

from Herr Bendavid, who told me that he had heard of my unfortunate

circumstances, and had collected a small sum of about thirty thalers,

which he gave to me. Besides, he introduced me to a Herr Jojard, an

enlightened and high-minded man, who received me in a very friendly

manner, and made some provision for my support. A certain professor,

indeed, tried to do me an ill turn with this worthy man by denouncing me

as an atheist; but in spite of this I gradually got on so well, that I

was able to hire a lodging in a garret from an old woman.

I had now resolved to study Kant's _Kritik of Pure Reason_, of which I

had often heard but which I had never seen yet.[62] The method, in which

I studied this work, was quite peculiar. On the first perusal I

obtained a vague idea of each section. This I endeavoured afterwards to

make distinct by my own reflection, and thus to penetrate into the

author's meaning. Such is properly the process which is called _thinking

oneself into a system_. But as I had already mastered in this way the

systems of Spinoza, Hume and Leibnitz, I was naturally led to think of a

coalition-system. This in fact I found, and I put it gradually in

writing in the form of explanatory observations on the _Kritik of Pure

Reason_, just as this system unfolded itself to my mind. Such was the

origin of my _Transcendental Philosophy_. Consequently this book must be

difficult to understand for the man who, owing to the inflexible

character of his thinking, has made himself at home merely in one of

these systems without regard to any other. Here the important problem,

_Quid juris?_ with the solution of which the _Kritik_ is occupied, is

wrought out in a much wider sense than that in which it is taken by

Kant; and by this means there is plenty of scope left for Hume's

scepticism in its full force. But on the other side the complete

solution of this problem leads either to Spinozistic or to Leibnitzian

dogmatism.

When I had finished this work, I showed it to Marcus Herz.[63] He

acknowledged that he was reckoned among the most eminent disciples of

Kant, and that he had given the most assiduous application while

attending Kant's philosophical lectures, as may indeed be seen from his

writings, but that yet he was not in a position to pass a judgment on

the _Kritik_ itself or on any other work relating to it. He advised me,

however, to send my manuscript directly to Kant himself, and submit it

to his judgment, while he promised to accompany it with a letter to the

great philosopher. Accordingly I wrote to Kant, sending him my work, and

enclosing the letter from Herz. A good while passed, however, before an

answer came. At length Herz received a reply, in which, among other

things, Kant said:--

"But what were you thinking about, my dear friend, when you sent me a

big packet containing the most subtle researches, not only to read

through, but to think out thoroughly, while I am still, in my

sixty-sixth year, burdened with a vast amount of labour in completion of

my plan! Part of this labour is to furnish the last part of the

_Kritik_,--that, namely, on the Faculty of Judgment,--which is soon to

appear; part is to work out my system of the Metaphysic of Nature, as

well as the Metaphysic of Ethics, in accordance with the requirements of

the _Kritik_. Moreover, I am kept incessantly busy with a multitude of

letters requiring special explanations on particular points; and, in

addition to all this, my health is frail. I had already made up my mind

to send back the manuscript with an excuse so well justified on all

these grounds; but a glance at it soon enabled me to recognise its

merits, and to show, not only that none of my opponents had understood

me and the main problem so well, but that very few could claim so much

penetration as Herr Maimon in profound inquiries of this sort. This

induced me...," and so on.

In another passage of the letter Kant says:--"Herr Maimon's work

contains moreover so many acute observations, that he cannot give it to

the public without its producing an impression strongly in his favour."

In a letter to myself he said:--"Your esteemed request I have

endeavoured to comply with as far as was possible for me; and if I have

not gone the length of passing a judgment on the whole of your treatise,

you will gather the reason from my letter to Herr Herz. Certainly it

arises from no feeling of disparagement, which I entertain for no

earnest effort in rational inquiries that interest mankind, and least of

all for such an effort as yours, which, in point of fact, betrays no

common talent for the profounder sciences."

It may easily be imagined how important and agreeable to me the

approbation of this great thinker must have been, and especially his

testimony that I had understood him well. For there are some arrogant

Kantians, who believe themselves to be sole proprietors of the Critical

Philosophy, and therefore dispose of every objection, even though

intended, not exactly as a refutation, but as a fuller elaboration of

this philosophy, by the mere assertion without proof, that the author

has failed to understand Kant. Now these gentlemen were no longer in a

position to bring this charge against my book, inasmuch as, by the

testimony of the founder himself of the Critical Philosophy, I have a

better right than they to make use of this argument.

At this time I was living in Potsdam with a gentleman who was a

leather-manufacturer. When Kant's letters arrived, I went to Berlin, and

devoted my time to the publication of my _Transcendental Philosophy_. As

a native of Poland I dedicated this work to the king, and carried a copy

to the Polish Resident; but it was never sent, and I was put off from

time to time with various excuses. _Sapienti sat!_

A copy of the work was also sent, as is usually done, to the editor of

the _Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung_. After waiting a good while without

any notice appearing, I wrote to the editor, and received the following

answer:--"You know yourself how small is the number of those who are

competent to understand and judge philosophical works. Three of the best

speculative thinkers have declined to undertake the review of your book,

because they are unable to penetrate into the depths of your researches.

An application has been made to a fourth, from whom a favourable reply

was expected; but a review from him has not yet been received."

I also began to work at this time for the _Journal für Aufklärung_. My

first article was on _Truth_, and was in the form of a letter to a

friend[64] in Berlin. The article was occasioned by a letter which I had

received from this friend during my stay in Potsdam, and in which he

wrote to me in a humorous vein, that philosophy was no longer a

marketable commodity, and that therefore I ought to take advantage of

the opportunity which I was enjoying to learn tanning. I replied, that

philosophy is not a coinage subject to the vicissitudes of the exchange;

and this proposition I afterwards developed in my article. Another

article in the same periodical was on _Tropes_, in which I show that

these imply the transference of a word not from one object to another

that is analogous, but from a relative to its correlate. I wrote also an

article on _Bacon and Kant_, in which I institute a comparison between

these two reformers of philosophy. _The Soul of the World_ was the

subject of another discussion in this journal, in which I endeavoured to

make out, that the doctrine of one universal soul common to all animated

beings has not only as much in its favour as the opposite doctrine, but

that the arguments for it outweigh those on the other side. My last

article in the journal referred to the plan of my _Transcendental

Philosophy_; and I explain in it that, while I hold the Kantian

philosophy to be irrefutable from the side of the Dogmatist, on the

other hand I believe that it is exposed to all attacks from the side of

the Scepticism of Hume.

A number of young Jews from all parts of Germany had, during

Mendelssohn's lifetime, united to form a society under the designation,

Society _for Research into the Hebrew Language_. They observed with

truth, that the evil condition of our people, morally as well as

politically, has its source in their religious prejudices, in their want

of a rational exposition of the Holy Scriptures, and in the arbitrary

exposition to which the rabbis are led by their ignorance of the Hebrew

language. Accordingly the object of their society was to remove these

deficiencies, to study the Hebrew language in its sources, and by that

means to introduce a rational exegesis. For this purpose they resolved

to publish a monthly periodical in Hebrew under the title of [Hebrew:**

], _The Collector_, which was to give expositions of difficult passages

in Scripture, Hebrew poems, prose essays, translations from useful

works, etc.

The intention of all this was certainly good; but that the end would

scarcely be reached by any such means, I saw from the very beginning. I

was too familiar with the principles of the rabbis and their style of

thought to believe that such means would bring about any change. The

Jewish nation is, without reference to accidental modifications, a

perpetual aristocracy under the appearance of a theocracy. The learned

men, who form the nobility in the nation, have been able, for many

centuries, to maintain their position as the legislative body with so

much authority among the common people, that they can do with them

whatever they please. This high authority is a natural tribute which

weakness owes to strength. For since the nation is divided into such

unequal classes as the common people and the learned, and since the

former, owing to the unfortunate political condition of the nation, are

profoundly ignorant, not only of all useful arts and sciences, but even

of the laws of their religion, on which their eternal welfare is

supposed to depend, it follows that the exposition of Scripture, the

deduction of religious laws from it, and the application of these to

particular cases, must be surrendered wholly to the learned class which

the other undertakes the cost of maintaining. The learned class seek to

make up for their want of linguistic science and rational exegetics by

their own ingenuity, wit and acuteness. To form an idea of the degree in

which these talents are displayed, it is necessary to read the Talmud

along with the commentary called _Tosaphoth_, that is, the additions to

the first commentary of Rabbi Solomon Isaac.[65]

The productions of the mind are valued by them, not in proportion to

their utility, but in proportion to the talent which they imply. A man

who understands Hebrew, who is well versed in the Holy Scriptures, who

even carries in his head the whole of the Jewish _Corpus Juris_,--and

that is no trifle,--is by them but slightly esteemed. The greatest

praise that they give to such a man is _Chamor Nose Sepharim_, that is,

_An ass loaded with books_. But if a man is able, by his own ingenuity,

to deduce new laws from those already known, to draw fine distinctions,

and to detect hidden contradictions, he is almost idolised. And to tell

the truth, this judgment is well founded, so far as it concerns the

treatment of subjects that have no ulterior end in view.

It may therefore be easily imagined, that people of this sort will

scarcely accord a hearing to an institute which aims merely at the

cultivation of taste, the study of language, or any similar object,

which to them appears mere trifling. Yet these are not the few educated

men, scattered here and there,--the steersmen of this ship which is

driven about in all seas. All men of enlightened minds, it does not

matter how much taste or knowledge they possess, are treated by them as

imbeciles. And why? Simply because they have not studied the Talmud to

that extent, and in the manner, which they require. Mendelssohn was in

some measure esteemed by them on this account, because in point of fact

he was a good Talmudist.

I was therefore neither for, nor against, this monthly periodical; I

even contributed to it at times Hebrew articles. Among these I will

mention merely one,--an exposition of an obscure passage in the

commentary of Maimonides on the Mishnah, which I interpreted by the

Kantian philosophy. The article was afterwards translated into German,

and inserted in the _Berlinische Monatsschrift_.

Some time after this I received from this society, which now calls

itself the _Society for the Promotion of all that is Noble and Good_, a

commission to write a Hebrew commentary on the celebrated work of

Maimonides, _Moreh Nebhochim_. This commission I undertook with

pleasure, and the work was soon done. So far, however, only a part of

the commentary has as yet appeared. The preface to the work may be

considered as a brief history of philosophy.

I had been an adherent of all philosophical systems in succession,

Peripatetic, Spinozist, Leibnitzian, Kantian, and finally Sceptic; and I

was always devoted to that system, which for the time I regarded as

alone true. At last I observed that all these systems contain something

true, and are in certain respects equally useful. But, as the difference

of philosophical systems depends on the ideas which lie at their

foundation in regard to the objects of nature, their properties and

modifications, which cannot, like the ideas of mathematics, be defined

in the same way by all men, and presented _a priori_, I determined to

publish for my own use, as well as for the advantage of others, a

philosophical dictionary, in which all philosophical ideas should be

defined in a somewhat free method, that is, without attachment to any

particular system, but either by an explanation common to all, or by

several explanations from the point of view of each. Of this work also

only the first part has as yet appeared.

In the popular German monthly already mentioned, the _Berlinische

Monatsschrift_, various articles of mine were inserted, on Deceit, on

the Power of Foreseeing, on Theodicy, and other subjects. On Empirical

Psychology also I contributed various articles, and at last became

associated with Herr Hofrath Moritz in the editorship of the

periodical.[66]

So much with regard to the events which have occurred in my life, and

the communication of which, I thought, might be not without use. I have

not yet reached the haven of rest; but--

/p

"Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamur."

p/

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

The closing words of the Autobiography themselves awaken the desire to

know the sequel of the author's life, and it seems therefore appropriate

to finish the narrative by the sketch of a few facts derived mainly from

the little volume of _Maimoniana_, to which reference has been made in

the preface.

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to state that Maimon's life to the very

end continued to retain the stamp it bore throughout the whole period

described in the preceding chapters. That stamp had apparently been

impressed on it even before he left Poland; and the Western influences,

under which he came in Germany, never altered essentially the character

he brought with him from home.

Even in its external features his life enjoyed no permanent improvement.

Fate had indeed been somewhat hard upon a man of so much genuine culture

and sensibility. Still the chronic poverty, which filled the largest cup

of suffering in his life, was due not wholly to circumstances: it was

partly his own nature or habits that kept him a pauper. This is all the

more remarkable, that there is perhaps no work of moral or religious

instruction which attaches more importance than the Talmud to industrial

pursuits.[67] Saturated as his mind was with Talmudic lore, and

disciplined as his early years had been by Talmudic training, Maimon

could not be ignorant of the advantage which the spiritual life derives

from financial independence on others; and it might therefore have been

expected of him that, like many of the great rabbis, and Spinoza and

Mendelssohn too, he would have devoted himself to some remunerative

occupation, however humble. This would not have been impossible even in

Poland, where the Jews were subject to no disability excluding them from

the common industries of the country; and from the Autobiography it

appears that, even at an early period of his life, he was more than half

aware that his poverty was due, not wholly to the imperious demands of a

higher culture, but to a somewhat selfish indolence.[68] In Germany,

with its more advanced civilisation, it would have been much less

difficult for him to make a tolerable living at some employment. The

Autobiography shows that he was very generously received by a large

circle of influential friends, who took a great deal of pains to secure

for him a position of independence, and that they abandoned their effort

only when they found it in vain. From the _Maimoniana_ also it appears

that some of the most eminent men of his time continued to tender their

friendly services. Among others, Plattner, Schultze (Aenesidemus), and

even Goethe, made advances towards Maimon in a way that was not only

very flattering, but might have been very helpful, if he had so

chosen.[69] But he never got rid of the habit, which he had acquired in

Poland, of depending on others; and the low standard of comfort, to

which he had accustomed himself, left him without sufficient stimulus to

seek an escape from his pauperised condition.

His condition, therefore, never improved. He continued during his later

years to work at various literary employments; but the remuneration he

obtained for these was never sufficient for his subsistence. His works

appealed to a very limited public. He had consequently often to go

a-begging for a publisher, and to content himself with what slight

honorarium the reluctant publishers chose to give.[70] The literary

hack-work, of which he was obliged to do a good deal, brought him no

better return. That sort of labour was probably as poorly paid in Berlin

at the time as in the Grub Street of last century. He was therefore at

times reduced to utter beggary. Many of his earlier friends, as appears

from the Autobiography, had lost patience with him; and some, who had

helped him before, when he was forced by sheer starvation to apply to

them afterwards, treated him as a common beggar, dismissing him with a

copper in charity (_Zehrpfennig_), and at times with unnecessarily cold,

even insulting language.[71] If we add to this the fact, that his

irregular habits often made him the victim of unscrupulous men,[72] it

will not seem surprising that he sometimes fell into a bitter tone and

harsh judgments about his friends,[73] or that he was apt occasionally

to burst out into pretty strong language of general misanthropy.[74]

Perhaps Maimon might have risen out of the chronic destitution, to which

he seemed doomed, if he had cultivated in any degree the virtue of

thrift. But thriftlessness, as the Autobiography shows, had been an

hereditary vice in his family, at least for two generations before him;

and though he gives vivid pictures of its pitiable results in the

households of his grandfather and father, he never made any effort to

rise above it himself. Whenever he obtained any remuneration for his

work, instead of husbanding it economically till he obtained more, he

usually squandered it at once in extravagancies, often of a useless,

sometimes of a reprehensible kind.[75] He points out in his first

chapter, that his grandfather might have been a rich man if he had kept

accounts of income and expenditure. But his friend Wolff, has to confess

that, good mathematician as Maimon was, he never seemed to think of the

difference between _plus_ and _minus_ in money-matters.[76] With such a

character one of Maimon's friends was not far from the truth, when on a

fresh application for assistance, he dismissed him, too harshly perhaps,

with the blunt remark, "People like you there is no use in trying to

help."[77] Certainly help was not to be found in Maimon himself, and it

is difficult to see how he could have avoided the chance of a miserable

death by actual starvation, had it not been that a generous home was at

last opened to him, where he closed his days in comfort and peace.

A character like that of Maimon implied a general irregularity of

life,--an absence of that regulation by fixed rules of conduct, which is

essential to wellbeing. He was not indeed unaware of the importance of

such regularity. "I require of every man of sound mind," he said one

day, "that he should lay out for himself a plan of action." No wonder

that this requirement leads his friend to remark, that it seemed to him

as if Maimon's only plan of life had been to live without any plan at

all.[78]

The irregularity of his habits is strikingly seen in his want of method

even at his literary work. Notwithstanding the technical culture he gave

himself in early life in drawing, he seems never to have reached any

degree of muscular expertness. Wolff remarked his awkwardness in

handling his pen, and his inability to fold a letter with tolerable

neatness.[79] In other respects also he was careless about those

mechanical conveniences by which mental work is usually facilitated. He

was commonly to be seen working at a very unsteady desk, one leg of

which was supported by a folio volume.[80] He did not even confine

himself to any particular place for work. Apparently he spent more of

his day in public taverns than in his private lodging, and he might

often be seen amid the distraction of such surroundings writing or

revising proofs, while, as a consequence, his papers sometimes were

mislaid and lost, and his work had all to be done over again. It was

said of the Autobiography itself that it had been written on an alehouse

bench.[81] He could never understand how any man could do intellectual

work by rule; and therefore, though he had to make his living as best he

could by literature, he never formed the habit of reserving one part of

the day for work. He commonly worked in the morning, at least in _his_

morning, and that, his friend acknowledges, was not very early;[82] but

this itself was evidently no fixed rule. Probably for the same reason he

never adopted the plan, which authors find so serviceable, of first

sketching an outline of a work before it is written out in detail. "I

have," he said one day, "given up, with good result, the habit of making

a draught beforehand. You are not, by a long way, so careful about your

work when you know that you are going to write it over again; you

neglect many a thought, do not write it down, because you believe that

it will occur to you again in copying out, which frequently does not

happen."[83] It is clear, however, that, his opinion to the contrary

notwithstanding, his writings suffered from his unmethodical habits.

"The fact," says the most competent of judges on this subject, "that

Maimon is far from having attained the recognition which his importance

deserves, may be accounted for by the defective condition of his

writings. His extraordinary acuteness was designed, but was not

sufficiently cultivated, to give to his investigations the light and the

force of methodical exposition. He wrote with most pleasure in his

Talmudic fashion, commenting and disputing, without proper sifting and

arrangement of his materials. To these defects must be added the faults

of his style. It is surprising that he learned to write German as he

did. In his writings there are passages in which the thought bursts out

with really resplendent power, and actually forces the language, even

plays with it, in turns of expression that take you by surprise. But a

German author he never became; and as a philosophical author he wanted a

certain sense of order that is indispensable for exposition. He can

sometimes formulate very well, but cannot systematise, and hence his

most important opinions, in which the whole meaning of his position

rests, are often in the course of his writings found in passages the

least lucid and the least prominent."[84]

It is perhaps only saying the same thing of Maimon in another form, that

he had no mechanical memory, that consequently he was apt to forget the

names of persons and of places, sometimes could not remember the name of

the street where he lived, or the day or even the month; and it is not

therefore surprising that he often injured himself by neglecting all

sort of engagements.[85] It may be readily inferred that he was

particularly negligent about all engagements and regulations bearing

upon the mere externals of life. That a man of his condition and

character must have been unusually careless about his personal

appearance, follows as a matter of course, and therefore we may pass

over the references of Wolff to peculiarities of Maimon's dress. He was

usually to be seen out of doors clad in an overcoat which had evidently

not been made for himself, and which, we may suspect, was intended as a

convenient covering for the defects of under-garments, his boots bearing

the weather-stains of many days, and his beard often showing that for a

good while he had forgotten his engagement with his barber. In the

latter years of his life he abandoned the use of a wig, as well as of

powder in his hair, at a time when these changes must have been regarded

as rather daring innovations on prevalent fashion. But in all his

surroundings he showed what, for a man of his intellectual attainments,

seems a most astonishing disregard of sanitary cleanliness and the

comfortable decencies of life. The state of his lodging must have raised

a shudder in any one sensitive to disorder or uncleanliness. He

acknowledged that he was constantly at war with the housemaid on this

subject, as he could never bear to have his room swept and dusted, and

he complained of the perpetual annoyance to which he was exposed in

Amsterdam from the excessive scruples of the people in regard to

tidiness.[86] It may fairly be suspected that the annoyance was

considerably greater, as it was more justifiable, on the other side. His

habits in this respect clung to him to the last, and it was evidently

difficult to keep his surroundings tolerable even in the comparatively

sumptuous home in which he closed his days.

The frank confessions of the Autobiography reveal the fact, that the

irregularity, which characterised the life of Maimon, sometimes led to a

breach of the weightier matters of the law. The habit, which he began in

Poland, of seeking relief from external discomfort and internal

wretchedness in alcoholic stimulation, grew upon him afterwards; and as

his health began to fail, he used to treat his various complaints by a

liberal allowance of various wines and beers which he supposed adapted

to their cure.[87] The liberal allowance was very apt, especially in the

evenings, to exceed all reasonable moderation; and the sleepy

inhabitants of Berlin were not infrequently disturbed by the half-tipsy

philosopher, as he wended his way unsteadily homewards at unseasonable

hours, discoursing on all sorts of speculative themes in disagreeably

loud tones that were occasionally interrupted by the expostulations of a

night-watchman.[88]

The peculiarly undisciplined manners of Maimon were occasionally shown

in violent outbursts of various feelings. Too frequently it was an

irritable temper that gave way. The slightest provocation, even the loss

of a game at chess,[89] was apt to cause a painful explosion; and then

his language was certainly far from being restrained by those usages

which are found essential to the pleasantness of social intercourse.[90]

The uncontrollable violence of these outbursts was amusingly exhibited

in the fact, that sometimes he could not command the intellectual calm

requisite for thinking and expressing himself in his acquired German,

and, even though it might be a Gentile with whom he quarrelled, he fell

back on his Judæo-Polish mother tongue, which came to him as if by

natural instinct.[91] It is but fair, however, to add that these

outbursts were often merely the unusually forcible, but not altogether

unjustifiable, utterances of an honest indignation at wrong.[92]

For this strangely educated man, who in his outward manners seemed to

remain a somewhat rude child of nature, was after all ready to yield,

not only to an unkindly irritability, but also to the more genial

emotions. It is pleasing, for example, to know that he had a particular

fondness for animals; and his pets were allowed in his lodging liberties

which, however objectionable to a tidy housemaid, showed at least the

essential gentleness of his heart. Tutored as he was himself in the

severest school of poverty, it is also pleasing to know that he

cherished a kindly sympathy for the poor, and was ever ready to help

them as he could, sometimes at the cost of no small sacrifice to

himself.[93] The finer sensibilities of his nature were also easily

touched by music. Though he had no musical culture, and used to regret

that he had had none, an old Hebrew melody, long after he had broken off

all connection with the Jews, could move him so deeply that he was

obliged, even in company, to seek relief in tears.[94] For in the

uncontrolled simplicity of his nature he allowed his feelings to find

their natural vent without much restraint from circumstances; and

therefore he was seen at times in the theatre excited to loud sobbing by

a tragedy, or to boisterous laughter over a comedy.[95]

Nor is it to be regarded as an unpleasant feature of his character, but

rather as an indication of a wholesome check on the general irregularity

of his life, that, even after he had thrown off all the peculiar

restraints of his national religion, he clung with evident fondness to

many of those rabbinical habits which he had cultivated in his earlier

years. From Fischer's account of the style of Maimon's works we have

seen how his intellectual work was affected by his Talmudic studies. The

criticism is evidently just. Maimon himself had met with it, and

acknowledged its justice. He protested indeed that it did not affect the

truth of his speculations, though he evidently felt its disadvantages,

and laboured at times to acquire a more methodical style.[96]

The rabbinical habits of Maimon, however, were most quaintly seen in

peculiarities of outward manner. Gesticulations customary in the study

of the Talmud he was seen to adopt not infrequently when he forgot

himself in the earnestness of conversation, or when in a company he fell

into a brown study, or even in the studies of his retirement. Thus in

reading Euler's mathematical works or any other book which required

great attention, he would fall into the Talmudic singsong and rhythmical

swing of the body.[97]

It is noteworthy also, that, with all the unrestrained rudeness which

often characterised his manners, Maimon was not without a certain

dignified courtesy; and when the occasion demanded it, he could turn a

polite phrase as prettily as the most accomplished gentleman.[98] There

was, moreover, in Maimon an intrinsic shyness which must have gone a

long way to soften the less amiable side of his social character.[99]

Then it is evident that his conversation, in his better moods at least,

had a charm which made him a welcome guest in any company. Thus, amid

all that may have been repulsive at times, there must have been in

Maimon's character a good deal to attract the friendly companionship of

others. The Autobiography itself, as well as Wolff's little book, shows

that Maimon enjoyed as much as he desired of the cultured society of his

time. Being naturally shy, indeed, he rather shrank from company in

which intercourse is regulated by a somewhat rigid social code; and the

desire of freedom from such restriction often drove him into company of

a much more objectionable kind. He also seems to have entertained a

strong dislike to any excessively demonstrative affection. He himself

was rather curt in his expressions of courtesy or friendliness towards

others, contenting himself generally, on meeting them, with a familiar

nod. The lifting of the hat appeared to him meaningless, and a

deliberate embrace "in cold blood" was intolerable.[100] Yet in many

instances the attachment of his friends was marked with an unusual

degree of warmth, and brought many an hour of sunshine to a life which

otherwise would have been shadowed with insufferable gloom.

Among all Maimon's friends, the most conspicuous place must be given to

the man by whose generous hospitality he was able to close his

chequered life amid the comforts of a luxurious home. While he was

living in a miserable lodging in one of the suburbs of Berlin, he

learned from one of his friends that a Silesian nobleman, Graf

Kalkreuth, who had formed a high opinion of his writings, was anxious to

make his personal acquaintance. After a good deal of delay, Maimon was

at last induced to call upon the Graf at his residence in Berlin.

Fortunately he was very favourably impressed with the character of his

noble friend; and the friendship thus begun led before long to his

taking up his abode permanently with the Graf.[101] The generous

consideration which the host displayed for all the eccentricities of his

guest, made this arrangement one of the happiest for the poor

philosopher, who since his childhood had seldom enjoyed the comforts of

a home.

But it is evident that the hardships of his life had at an early period

begun to tell upon his constitution, and that this was further shattered

by irregular habits in his later years. Symptoms of serious trouble in

the lungs excited his alarm in the winter of 1795, and he was induced to

seek medical advice. Partly from an unwise scepticism in regard to

medicine, partly from his usual failure to adhere to any fixed rule in

his conduct, the services of his physicians commonly ended with the

consultation; he seldom or never acted on their advice.[102] He lived

in indifferent health for five or six years more. When his last illness

overtook him, he was living in the house of Graf Kalkreuth at

Siegersdorf near Freistadt, in Lower Silesia. The only account of him at

this crisis was written by the pastor of Freistadt, for a monthly

periodical of the time, entitled _Kronos_. It forms the close of Wolff's

little book; and as it is the only account, it may be of some interest

here. The pastor, Herr Tscheggey, had made the acquaintance of Maimon

about the year 1795; but their intercourse had become much closer about

six weeks before Maimon's death, when he used to visit the pastor two or

three times a week. On hearing that Maimon had been confined for some

days, the good pastor at once went to see him. He found him in a state

of great weakness, unable to leave his room, and besought him earnestly,

but in vain, to take medical advice. A few days afterwards he called

again, and saw that evidently the end was drawing nigh. Curious to know

whether Maimon in this situation would remain true to his principles, he

gave the following turn to the conversation, which he professes to

report word for word.

"I am sorry to find you so ill to-day, dear Maimon," said the pastor.

"There will perhaps be some improvement yet," replied Maimon.

"You look so ill," his friend proceeded, "that I am doubtful about your

recovery."

"What matters it after all?" said Maimon. "When I am dead, I am gone."

"Can you say that, dear friend," rejoined the clergyman, with deep

emotion. "How? Your mind, which amid the most unfavourable circumstances

ever soared to higher attainments, which bore such fair flowers and

fruits--shall it be trodden in the dust along with the poor covering in

which it has been clothed? Do you not feel at this moment that there is

something in you which is not body, not matter, not subject to the

conditions of space and time?"

"Ah!" replied Maimon, "these are beautiful dreams and hopes"----

"Which will surely be fulfilled," his friend broke in; and then, after a

short pause, added, "You maintained not long ago that here we cannot

reach further than to mere _legality_. Let this be admitted; and now

perhaps you are about to pass over soon into a condition, in which you

will rise to the stage of _morality_, since you and all of us have a

natural capacity for it. Why? Should you not wish now to come into the

society of one whom you honoured so much as Mendelssohn?"

The zealous pastor says he gave the conversation this turn on purpose,

in order to touch this side of the philosopher's heart. After a while

the dying man exclaimed, "Ay me! I have been a foolish man, the most

foolish among the most foolish--and how earnestly I wished it

otherwise!"

"This utterance," observed the pastor, "is also a proof that you are not

yet in complete accord with your unbelief. No," he added, taking Maimon

by the hand, "you will not all die; your spirit will surely live on."

"So far as mere faith and hope are concerned, I can go a good way; but

what does that help us?" was Maimon's reply.

"It helps us at least to peace," urged the pastor.

"I am at peace (_Ich bin ruhig_)," said the dying man, completely

exhausted.

Here Tscheggey broke off the conversation, as the sufferer was evidently

unable to continue it. When he rose to leave, Maimon begged him to stay,

or at least to come back again soon. He came back the following morning,

but found the patient unconscious. At ten o'clock on the same

evening--it was the 22nd of November, 1800--this strangely tossed life

had reached its haven.

"He died at peace," says the kindly clergyman, "though I do not venture

to say from what source the peace was derived. When a few days

afterwards I passed the castle of his noble friend, I looked up with

sadness to the window of his former room, and blessed his ashes." It is

to be regretted that the generous piety of the friendly minister was not

universal, and that the ashes of the unfortunate doubter were only with

a grudge allowed to find a decent resting-place.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Vol. iii., p. 370, note.

[2] See the Preface to his _Philosophy of Reflection_, pp. 16-18.

[3] Vol. v., chap. 7.

[4] The volume bears the somewhat quaint title in full:--_Maimoniana,

oder Rhapsodien Zur Charakteristik Salomon Maimon's_. Aus Seinem

Privatleben gesammelt von Sabattia Joseph Wolff, M.D. Berlin, gedruckt

bei G. Hayn, 1813.

[5] The only logical connection is the fact, that the writings of

Maimonides formed the most powerful influence in the intellectual

development of Maimon. In illustration of this he writes:--"My reverence

for this great teacher went so far, that I regarded him as the ideal of

a perfect man, and looked upon his teachings as if they had been

inspired with Divine Wisdom itself. This went so far, that, when my

passions began to grow, and I had sometimes to fear lest they might

seduce me to some action inconsistent with those teachings, I used to

employ, as a proved antidote, the abjuration, 'I swear, by the reverence

which I owe my great teacher, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, not to do this

act.' And this vow, so far as I can remember, was always sufficient to

restrain me." _Lebensgeschichte_, Vol. ii., pp. 3-4.

[6] That is, of course, the seventeenth.--_Trans._

[7] Maimon himself nowhere mentions the date or place of his birth; but

Wolff says that he was born at Nesvij, in Lithuania, about the year 1754

(_Maimoniana, p. 10_). _Trans._

[8] This word is explained below, at the beginning of the next chapter.

[9] The customary Jewish salutation.

[10] The original is "ein Kalamankenes Leibserdak,"--a provincialism

which, I believe, is substantially rendered in this

translation.--_Trans._

[11] Till quite recently it had been almost forgotten that one of the

commonest manifestations of fanaticism against the Jews, especially in

Eastern Europe, was to charge them with the murder of Christian children

for the use of some horrid religious rite, and that scarcely ever was

the dead body of a child found in the neighbourhood of a Jewish

community without some outburst of this cruel suspicion, ending in an

indiscriminate massacre of the Jews by the infuriated mob. It is a

singularly creditable proof of the liberal government of Stephen

Batory,--one of the ablest monarchs who ever sat on the throne of

Poland,--that, so long ago as 1576, he issued an edict prohibiting the

imputation of this crime to the Jews, as being utterly inconsistent with

the principles of their religion. Yet, in spite of this enactment, the

fanatical suspicion continued to display itself at frequent intervals.

Milman supposed it had been finally quelled by the ukase of the Russian

Government in 1835, which went in the same direction as the earlier

prohibition of the Polish king (_History of the Jews_, vol. iii., p.

389). What would have been his astonishment, had he lived to learn that,

half a century after he thought it extinguished, this ancient delusion

was to revive, that an Hungarian court was to spend thirty one days in

the solemn trial of a Jewish family on the charge of sacrificing a

Christian girl in their synagogue, that a learned professor in the

Imperial and Royal University of Prague was to write in defence of the

charge, and that the trial was to form the subject of an extensive

controversial literature in the language of the most learned nation in

the world! An interesting account of this famous trial at Tisza Eszlar,

as well as of the literature connected with it, will be found in an

article by Dr. Wright, on _The Jews and the Malicious Charge of Human

Sacrifice_ in the _Nineteenth Century_, for November, 1883.--_Trans._

[12] It seems that Maimon gives a euphemistic explanation of this word,

as I am told its real meaning makes much more intelligible its extreme

offensiveness to his mother.--_Trans._

[13] The original runs: "Der Verstand sucht bloss zu _fassen_, die

Einbildungskraft aber zu _umfassen_."--_Tr._

[14] That is, _The Branch_ (or _Offspring_) _of David_. See Jeremiah

xxiii. 5; xxxiii. 15; Isaiah xi. 1.--_Trans._

[15] The Hebrew word for a globe.

[16] This rabbi belonged to a family of eminent linguists. The father,

Joseph Kimchi, was one of the numerous Jews who were obliged to flee

from Spain to escape the cruel persecutions of the Mohades about the

middle of the twelfth century. He left two sons who both followed his

favourite studies. The elder, Moses, has the credit of having educated

his younger and more illustrious brother, David, whose Hebrew grammar

and dictionary continued in general use among scholars for centuries.

Kimchi is said to have been powerfully influenced, not only by

Maimonides, but also by Aben Esra, who preceded him by nearly a century,

and who was one of the most learned scholars, as well as one of the most

versatile authors, of his time. (Jost's _Geschichte des Judenthums_,

vol. ii., pp. 419-423; and vol. iii, pp. 30-31).--_Trans._

[17] That is, about 100 English miles.--_Trans._

[18] See above, p. 14.--_Trans._

[19] Solomon ben Isaac, as he is more correctly named, or Raschi, as he

is also called, was an eminent Talmudic scholar of Troyes in the latter

half of the eleventh century. It was his son-in-law, Meïr, and the three

sons of Meïr, who may be said to have begun the Tosaphoth, referred to

in the text.--_Trans._

[20] As it was at one time throughout all Christendom, and probably

under every civilisation at a certain stage of its history.--_Trans._

[21] This seems to be Job xxvii. 17, which in our Authorised Version

runs:--"He (a wicked man) may prepare it (raiment), but the just shall

put it on." Maimon seems to render it from memory:--"Der Gottlose

schafft sich an, und der Fromme bekleidet sich damit."--_Trans._

[22] Evidently viii., 12, rendered in our Authorised Version, "Thou, O

Solomon, must have a thousand (pieces of silver), and those that keep

the fruit thereof two hundred." Maimon translates apparently from

memory, "Die tausend Gulden sind für dich, Salomo, und die Zweihundert

für die, die seine Früchte bewahren." In my rendering of this the

pronoun "his" must be understood in its old English latitude as either

neuter or masculine.--_Trans._

[23] The bulk of the gift explains its costliness. "The Babylonian

Talmud is about four times as large as that of Jerusalem. Its thirty-six

treatises now cover, in our editions, printed with the most prominent

commentaries (Rashi and Tosafoth), exactly 2947 folio leaves in twelve

folio volumes." (E. Deutsch's _Literary Remains_, p. 41).--_Trans._

[24] Maimon gives merely the initial "R" of this name; but as he has

already (Chap. i.) told us that his prince was Radzivil, there is not

much mystery in this artifice.--_Trans._

[25] This horror of memory tormented Maimon to the end of his days. "He

dreamed often that he was in Poland again, deprived of all his books;

and Lucius metamorphosed into an ass was not in a more pitiable plight.

'From this agony,' said Maimon, 'I was usually aroused by a loud cry,

and my joy was indescribable on finding that it was only a dream.'"

(_Maimoniana_, p. 94). "He once received a visit from his brother, for

whom he was deeply affected. Poor as he was himself, Maimon kept him a

long while, gave him clothing and everything else that he could, besides

procuring from some friends enough money to pay his travelling expenses.

Above all, he told me, he was affected at letting his brother go back

into the wilderness; and if he had not had a wife and children at home,

he would have tried to keep him beside himself." (_Ibid._, p.

175).--_Trans._

[26] It was probably a reminiscence of this labour of deciphering, that

led to the following outburst of sympathy:--"One day Maimon read in an

English work, that the author had only commenced to learn the ABC when

he was eighteen years of age, and that the first book which fell into

his hands was one of Newton's works. His master (for he was a servant)

came upon him at this task, and asked, 'What are you doing with that?

you can't read?' 'O yes,' he replied, 'I have learnt to read, and I

began with the most difficult subjects.' Maimon read this in my presence

with tears in his eyes." (_Maimoniana_, pp. 230-1).--_Trans._

[27] Both of these Cabbalists belonged to the sixteenth century. The

former, as his name implies, belonged to Cordova in Spain; the latter,

to the German community in Jerusalem (_Jost's Geschichte des

Judenthums_, Vol. iii., pp. 137-140).--_Trans._

[28] Rabbi Meïr’s teacher was Elisha ben Abuyah, "the Faust of the

Talmud," as he has been strikingly styled by Mr. Deutsch. The Talmud

preserves a beautiful story illustrative of the devoted affection which

Meïr continued to cherish for his apostate master. Four men, so runs the

legend, entered _Paradise_; that is, according to Talmudic symbolism,

they entered upon the study of that secret science with its bewildering

labyrinth of speculative dreams, through which it is given only to a few

rare spirits to find their way. Of these four, "one beheld and died, one

beheld and lost his senses, one destroyed the young plants, one only

entered in peace and came out in peace." The destroyer of the young

plants was Elisha ben Abuyah. Once he was passing the ruins of the

temple on the great day of atonement, and heard a voice within "moaning

like a dove,"--"All men shall be forgiven this day save Elisha ben

Abuyah who, knowing me, has betrayed me." After his death flames hovered

incessantly over his grave, until his loving disciple threw himself upon

it and swore an oath of devout self-sacrifice, that he would not partake

of the joys of heaven without his master, nor move from the spot until

his master's soul had found forgiveness before the Throne of Grace. See

Emanuel Deutsch's _Literary Remains_, p. 15; and Jost's _Geshichte des

Judenthums_, Vol. ii., pp. 102-4.

[29] _The Gates of Light._--_Trans._

[30] "Thus saith the Lord" in the English version.--_Trans._

[31] About 150 English miles.--_Trans._

[32] Highpriest about the time of Antiochus the Great, that is, the

first half of the third century before Christ.--_Trans._

[33] Also named below Jehudah Hanassi or Hakades, died probably in 219

or 220 A.D.--_Trans._

[34] _Rabbina_ is a contraction for Rabbi Abina and _Rabassi_ for Rabbi

Ashe. Maimon puts Abina first, but he was the younger of the two. They

both belonged to the fifth century.--_Trans._

[35] This seems to be Psalm cxix., 126, rendered in our Authorised

Version:--"It is time for thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void

thy law." See Mendelssohn's _Jerusalem_, Vol. ii., p. iii., (Samuels'

translation).--_Trans._

[36] _Charakteristik der Asiatischen Nationen_, Theil ii., pp. 159-160.

[37] "And Kinah and Dimonah and Adadah" in the English Authorised

Version.--_Trans._

[38] Here apparently Maimon makes a slip. He seems to forget the passage

he had selected for illustration; and his eye, if not his memory,

glances at the last word in verse 30, instead of verse 22.--_Trans._

[39] Probably Isaiah xxxiii., 6.--_Trans._

[40] Psalm, lxxxi., 9.--_Trans._

[41] In the original, "Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten."--_Trans._

[42] In the same way a fool, called Chosek, was going to starve the city

of Lemberg, against which he was enraged; and for this purpose he placed

himself behind the wall, in order to blockade the city with his body.

The result of the blockade, however, was that he nearly died of hunger,

while the city knew nothing whatever of a famine.

[43] In our times, when so much is said both _pro_ and _contra_ about

secret societies, I believe that the history of a particular secret

society, in which I was entangled, though but a short time, should not

be passed over in this sketch of my life.

[44] That is, of course, the 17th century.--_Trans._

[45] _Baalshem_ is one who occupies himself with the practical Cabbalah,

that is, with the conjuration of spirits and the writing of amulets, in

which the names of God and of many sorts of spirits are employed.

[46] As I never attained the rank of a superior in this society, the

exposition of their plan cannot be regarded as a fact verified by

experience, but merely as an inference arrived at by reflection. How far

this inference is well founded, can be determined merely by analogy

according to the rules of probability.

[47] The ingenuity of this interpretation consists in the fact, that in

Hebrew נגן may stand for the infinitive of _play_, as well as

for a _musical instrument_, and that the prefix כ may be

translated either _as_, in the sense of _when_, or _as_, in the sense of

_like_. The superiors of this sect, who _wrenched passages of the Holy

Scriptures from their context_, regarding themselves as merely vehicles

of their teachings, selected accordingly that interpretation of this

passage, which fitted best their principle of _self-annihilation_ before

God.

[48] Maimon in a footnote here refers, by way of a parallel, to the

interpretation by a Catholic theologian of a passage in Ezekiel (xliv.,

1-2) as an allegorical prophecy of the Virgin Mary; but most readers

will probably prefer to leave the exposition of the allegory to the

imagination of those who choose to follow it out.--_Trans._

[49] A trait of these, as of all uncultivated men, is their contempt of

the other sex.

[50] Of this class I became acquainted with one. He was a young man of

twenty-two, of very weak bodily constitution, lean and pale. He

travelled in Poland as a missionary. In his look there was something so

terrible, so commanding, that he ruled men by means of it quite

despotically. Wherever he came he inquired about the constitution of the

congregation, rejected whatever displeased him, and made new regulations

which were punctually followed. The elders of the congregation, for the

most part old respectable men, who far excelled him in learning,

trembled before his face. A great scholar, who would not believe the

infallibility of this superior, was seized with such terror by his

threatening look, that he fell into a violent fever of which he died.

Such extraordinary courage and determination had this man attained

merely through early exercises in Stoicism.

[51] Born 1720; died 1797. See Jost's _Geschichte des Judenthums_, Vol.

iii., pp. 248-250.--_Trans._

[52] _Exodus_, iii., 13, 14.

[53] These names are taken from _Maimoniana_, p. 108.--_Trans._

[54] The method, in which, as before explained, I had learnt to read and

to understand books without any preparatory studies, and to which I had

been driven in Poland by the want of books, grew to such an expertness,

that I felt certain beforehand of being able to understand anything.

[55] Here there seems in the original an evident misprint of

_Vereinigung_ for _Verneinung_.--_Trans._

[56] The incident referred to was the following. Lavater had translated

into German a work, which had a great reputation in its day, by the

eminent Swiss scientific writer, Bonnet, on the evidences of

Christianity. Out of respect for Mendelssohn, Lavater dedicated the

translation to him, requiring him, however, either to refute the work,

or to do "what policy, love of truth, and probity demand,--what Socrates

would doubtless have done, had _he_ read the work, and found it

unanswerable." Mendelssohn was thus placed in an awkward dilemma. He

could not well let the challenge pass unacknowledged; and yet, owing to

the disabilities under which the Jews laboured all over the world, he

would have seriously imperilled their interests by appearing even to

impugn the evidences of Christianity. He had, moreover, resolved never

to enter into religious controversy. Under the circumstances his reply

was masterly as it was dignified and candid. Lavater saw his mistake;

and it is but due to him to say, that he publicly apologised for it in

the fullest and frankest manner.--_Trans._

[57] This "hiatus _haud_ valde deflendus" is in the original.--_Trans._

[58] This name is taken from _Maimoniana_.--_Trans._

[59] The love of life, that is, the instinct of self-preservation, seems

rather to increase than to decrease with the diminution or uncertainty

of the means of living, inasmuch as man is thereby spurred to greater

_activity_, which developes a stronger _consciousness of life_. Only

this want must not have reached its maximum; for the necessary result of

that is _despair_, that is a conviction of the impossibility of

preserving life, and consequently a desire to put an end to it. Thus

every passion, and therefore also the love of life, is increased by the

obstacles which come in the way of its gratification: only these

obstacles must not make the gratification of the passions _impossible_,

else despair is the result.

[60] "Afterwards when he spoke of Poland, he used to be deeply affected

in thinking of his wife, from whom he was obliged to separate. He was

really very much devoted to her, and her fate went home to his very

heart. It was easy when the subject came up in conversation, to read in

his face the deep sorrow which he felt; his liveliness then sensibly

faded away, he became by and by perfectly silent, was usually incapable

of further entertainment, and went earlier than usual home."

_Maimoniana_, p. 177. He seems, however, at a later period, to have at

least spoken to his friends about marrying a second time; but the

project was never carried out. _Ibid._, p. 248.--_Trans._

[61] He died 4th Jan., 1786.--_Trans._

[62] Kant's work must still have been quite new, as it appeared in

1781.--_Trans._

[63] The name is left blank by Maimon, but is known to be that which I

have inserted. See Fischer's _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, Vol.

v., p. 131.--_Trans._

[64] Samuel Levi, according to _Maimoniana_, p. 78.--_Trans._

[65] See above, p. 41--_Trans._

[66] The last few pages have been condensed from the original; in which

the author gives detailed information, which seems no longer of any

special interest, about the articles he contributed to periodicals.--

_Trans._

[67] By the kindness of my friend, the Rev. Meldola de Sola, of the

Portuguese Synagogue in Montreal, I am enabled to make an interesting

note on this subject. Among the Talmudic passages enjoining industry are

the following:--"Rather skin a carcase for pay in the public streets,

than be idly dependent on charity," "Rather perform the meanest labour

than beg." As a further evidence of the estimation in which labour was

held by the sages of the Talmud, it may be mentioned that Hillel, before

being admitted to the Great College, earned his livelihood as a

wood-cutter; that Rabbi Joshua was a pinmaker; Rabbi Nehemiah Halsador,

a potter; Rabbi Judah, a tailor; Rabbi Joshua Hasandler, a shoemaker;

and Rabbi Judah Hanechtan, a baker. "Of all things," says Mr. Deutsch,

"the most hated were idleness and asceticism; piety and learning

themselves only received their proper estimation when joined to healthy,

bodily work. 'It is well to add a trade to your studies; you will then

be free from sin,' 'The tradesman at his work need not rise before the

greatest doctor,' 'Greater is he who derives his livelihood from work

than he who fears God'--are some of the most common dicta of the

period." (_Literary Remains_, p. 25, where there are some striking

stories in condemnation of asceticism). Mr. Deutsch elsewhere quotes,

"Rather live on your Sabbath as you would on a week day than be

dependent on others," (_Ibid._, p. 30).--_Trans._

[68] See above, pp. 140-1.

[69] _Maimoniana_, pp. 196-200.

[70] _Ibid._, p. 80.

[71] _Ibid._, pp. 80, 83-4.

[72] _Ibid._, p. 95, note.

[73] _Ibid._, pp. 82-3.

[74] _Ibid._, pp. 154, 157.

[75] _Ibid._, pp. 80, 95, 104.

[76] _Ibid._, p. 84.

[77] _Ibid._, p. 105.

[78] _Ibid._, p. 159.

[79] _Ibid._, pp. 231-2.

[80] _Ibid._, p. 96.

[81] _Ibid._, p. 140.

[82] _Ibid._, p. 96.

[83] _Ibid._, p. 97.

[84] Fischer's _Geschichte der neuern Philosophie_, vol. v., pp. 133-4.

[85] _Maimoniana_, pp. 190-6.

[86] _Ibid._, pp. 90-1.

[87] _Ibid._, pp. 183-8.

[88] _Ibid._, pp. 101-4.

[89] _Ibid._, p. 217.

[90] _Ibid._, pp. 109-112, 208, 212-3.

[91] _Ibid._, p. 87.

[92] _Ibid._, p. 213.

[93] _Ibid._, p. 249.

[94] _Ibid._, p. 88.

[95] _Ibid._, p. 230.

[96] _Ibid._, pp. 86-7.

[97] _Ibid._, p. 89.

[98] See, for example, _Ibid._, pp. 112, 115, 209, 250-1.

[99] _Ibid._, p.

[100] _Ibid._, pp. 165-6.

[101] _Ibid._, pp. 201-210.

[102] _Ibid._, pp. 183-8.

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"And of this tendency towards pure character-painting and everyday

incident Miss Sophie Veitch promises to be the best exponent. In the two

volumes which contain the story of episodes in the life of James

Hepburn, each character is carefully studied and presented as a finished

masterpiece.... The book is a drama palpitating with intense and real

life, whose author should have a grand professional future."--_Whitehall

Review._

"The book deserves the highest praise. Hepburn's relations with Lady

Ellinor--his pure and noble love for her--are fitly crowned by his

splendid self-sacrifice.... The descriptive part of this fine and often

brilliant novel is admirably done."--_London Figaro._

"No one who begins this story will pause till he has seen the hero

through his troubles, and we are sure no one who has done so will think

he has spent his time badly."--_The British Weekly._

_James Hepburn_ is a story of very unusual power, promise, and

desert.... The story of Lady Elinor is exceedingly pathetic; and all her

moods, as she gradually progresses along a path of peril, are described

with a hand at once sure and delicate.--_Academy._

Seldom do we meet with a novel by a comparatively unknown author which

can afford such unalloyed pleasure.... It is not every writer who can,

like Mrs. Oliphant, throw a glamour over the sordid details of

_bourgeois_ life. Amongst the few who can do so Miss Veitch may now

claim to rank; her novel is a remarkable one, and if it does not attain

to considerable popularity the fault will not be with the author....

There is intense pathos in the loyal struggle of the beautiful young

wife who believes herself to be unsympathised with.... We had marked

more than one passage for quotation, but space warns us that the

pleasure must be forgone. We must, however, draw special attention to

Lady Ellinor's withering summary of Radicalism (vol. ii. p. 242). The

novel is one of the very few that follows Mr. Weller's recipe, and makes

us "wish that there was more of it."--_Pictorial World._

"A SUCCESSFUL SCOTCH NOVEL.--It is long since a Scottish novel met with

such a demand or created such a genuine sensation as has attended the

publication of 'James Hepburn, Free Church Minister,' which was issued a

few weeks ago by Mr. Gardner, of Paisley, and which we noticed in the

week of its publication. We hear that already Mr. Mudie has ordered four

separate supplies, the latest being for a large number of copies, so

great is the demand for the story on the part of the subscribers to his

library. Miss Sophie Veitch, the authoress, had already made her mark by

her fine novel of 'Angus Graeme, Gamekeeper.'"--_Daily Mail._

"'James Hepburn,' by Miss Veitch, is a _clever and strong_ novel.... Its

power and literary skill are undeniable."--_World._

"Novel-readers who may think there is not much promise of entertainment

in the title which Sophie F. Veitch has chosen for her new story, will

commit the common blunder of forming an erroneous judgment from

superficial appearances. A more interesting or vigorously-written tale

we have not met with for some time back."--_The Scottish Leader._

"A cleverly written story here includes both interesting incident and

well-drawn character."--_The Queen._

_SUPPLEMENT TO JAMIESON'S SCOTTISH DICTIONARY._ By DAVID DONALDSON. Now

Ready, Price 25s.; Large Paper, 42s.

"The work, taken as a whole, entitles Mr. Donaldson to the gratitude of

all interested in the study of philology, for having performed so

thoroughly and so well a difficult and laborious task."--_Scotsman._

"The soundness of the judgment which he has applied to this portion of

his herculean task is only equalled by the fulness of his knowledge of

those works which cover the whole period of Scottish history, during

which the vernacular was written and spoken by all classes of society. A

very large number of the words in the Supplement are recorded by Mr.

Donaldson for the first time, at least as Scottish words, and of many of

them the explanation will be found nowhere else.... Of Mr. Donaldson's

work, it may safely be said that it is the most complete and scholarly

endeavour that has thus far been made to accomplish a very difficult

task."--_Mail._

"On every page we find evidence that Mr. Donaldson has mastered all the

works that cover the entire period of Scottish history during which the

vernacular was written and spoken by all classes of society. He has,

furthermore, utilised an extensive personal knowledge derived from the

living speech of the people; and alike in the definitions and

illustrations he displays unfailing soundness of judgment, shown

sometimes as much in what he has omitted as in that which is given. An

excellent memoir of Dr. Jamieson, admirable both for the fullness of its

information and the generous warmth of its spirit, adds to the value of

a work without which, we may safely affirm, no Scottish library can

henceforth be regarded as complete."--_Leader._

_IDYLL OF THE CAPTIVE KING; and Other Pieces._ With Etchings. By JAMES

SHARP. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"The author gives undoubted evidence of his right to be heard, and our

perusal of this volume enables us to commend his wide reading and

knowledge of the world, both in its physical and ethical aspects. It is

needless to add that Mr. Gardner has done his part admirably."--_The

Kelso Chronicle._

"Whether Mr. Sharp's poetry be regarded in the abstract, or as the

product of the hours of leisure of a man of business, much of it is

commendable, and much is genuine and sound in feeling."--_The Scottish

News._

Mr. James Sharp does not miss the occasion in his volume of poems, _The

Captive King_ (Alexander Gardner). His Jubilee Ode, like those of

better-known bards, scarcely represents his poetic powers, as the

following couplet may show:--

/p

Much as we love the Prince of Wales, the Princess fair, serene,

We want no other sovereign! We want no other Queen!

p/

"Tullibardine's Bride," though a little diffuse, is a readable narrative

poem based on a Perthshire legend. In other lyrical pieces Mr. Sharp

sustains a patriotic vein with fervour.--_Saturday Review._

Mr. Sharp's lyrics and shorter pieces, are always pleasing in sentiment,

and are often sweet in expression.--_Scotsman._

The book of poems which we introduce to our readers to-day has, we

think, amply justified its issue in the beautiful form in which it is

presented to the public.... This delightful book will do something to

modify that conception, and to show that mercantile pursuits and the

exalted, if traditionally prosaic, dignity of Bailieship are not

incompatible with a successful cultivation of the Muses. In depicting

one of the most tragic chapters in our national annals, Mr. Sharp has

attained charming results in his use of those heroic measures which the

genius of Scott and of Edmonstone Aytoun has made classic, and through

which these masters have made the dim shadows that erewhile flitted

across the stage of Scottish history to stand forth as living men.... We

have directed the attention of our readers to these poems because of

their intrinsic merits.--_Strathearn Herald._

If it be the poet's task to feel pleasure in life and discern beauty in

nature, to praise virtue and rejoice in love, and make his readers do

the same, then Mr. Sharp has succeeded admirably in effecting his

purpose.--_Dundee Advertiser._

Mr. Sharp is seen at his best in his shorter poems. In these, as a rule,

healthy sentiment is expressed in unpretentious verse.--_Academy._

SECOND AND ENLARGED EDITION.

_LAW LYRICS._ Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

"The anonymous author of the 'Lyrics'--is he not to be met with among

the sheriffs?--plays his tunes for session and vacation on the

'goose-quill of the law,' and he manages to produce from that ancient

instrument a considerable variety of expression.... His pronounced

national tastes are admirably shown in 'Oatmeal,' etc.; in lyrics like

'Stornoway Bay,' there is the true lyrical gush; while in such poems as

'A Still Lake,' there is revealed an exquisite power of

word-painting...."--_Scotsman._

"For neatness and aptness of expression, it is equal to anything we have

seen."--_Scots Law Review._

"A very agreeable little book for an idle hour. The author shows himself

equally at home in the serious as in the comic."--_Graphic._

"They are exceedingly clever, and brimming over with fun and humour. The

author has earned a right to be called the Laureate of the Law, for

certain it is that he invests the most prosaic of all professions with

quite a halo of poetical interest."--_Nonconformist._

"Unkempt enthusiasm and rollicking good humour are the chief features of

this little volume."--_Academy._

"A charming little book. We should seek the author on the bench, not at

the bar."--_Glasgow Daily Mail._

"Will please not only those 'gentlemen of the long robe' to whom the

tiny volume is dedicated, but a far larger circle. It is a delightful

book of verses daintily got up."--_Glasgow Herald._

"These lyrics will bear comparison with the best work that has been done

in this particular line. Will rival some of the best of Outram's lyrics

in common sense and humour."--_Scottish News._

"The lyrics are written for the most part with sprightliness and ease.

The more serious and imaginative pieces disclose a rich vein of poetic

fancy. There are many who will procure the second edition from a

recollection of the pleasure which the first gave them."--_Journal of

Jurisprudence._

"Will bear comparison with Outram's, Neave's, and Aytoun's. Faultless in

rhythm, and remarkable for rhyme."--_Evening News._

"The picture seems to us exquisite. Altogether, the work proves the

writer to be a true poet."--_Stirling Advertiser._

"The verses are inspirited and inspiring, expressive of the feelings of

many in these golden days of summer. To the second edition the author

has added some sixty pages brimful of the delightful verses which are

found so attractive in the first edition."--_Weekly Citizen._

"One of the two strongest and purest writers in the Scottish vernacular

that have been added to the choir of Northern minstrels during the

present century."--_Christian Leader._

"The admirable _Law Lyrics_ ... bright with strokes of pawky humour, and

abounding in verses each of which contains a picture, the volume is one

which will become a lasting favourite with its readers."--_The Bailie._

"Strongly incentive to hearty honest laughter which makes the heart grow

brighter, while to staid and grave and reverend seigniors the sweet

lark-song-like verses relating to nature, no less form subjects for

reflection."--_Ayrshire Weekly News._

"The little volume is interesting from the first page to the

last."--_Inverness Courier._

"Some of the verses exhibit a power of picturesque description which it

would be difficult to match, except out of the masters of song. Reveal

in attractive style the patriotism which animates the poet, and

establishes a claim additional to that of his undoubted genius, to a

large and appreciative Scotch audience."--_Greenock Telegraph._

"Such pieces as 'Scotch Porridge, etc." are amongst the most felicitous

examples of Scotch poetry we have seen in recent years."--_Brechin

Advertiser._

"Strong common sense pervades the whole, and the views of the author are

expressed with a directness, force, clearness, and simplicity, which

leaves nothing to be desired."--_North British Advertiser._

"Of a highly captivating nature, the author being possessed of a keen

sense of the humourous."--_Stirling Observer._

"Equal to anything of their kind known to us after Burns. A very genial

and enjoyable volume."--_Aberdeen Gazette._

"He expresses himself with a felicity and pawky humour that equal Lord

Neaves and Outram at their best, and in several poems the natural grace

and pith of expression remind one more of Burns than any other writer.

This may seem pitching it very high, but in our opinion, the poems will

bear out the assertion. We recommend it to all in the profession of its

author, and to everyone who can appreciate true humour and good

poetry."--_The People's Friend._

"Many of the lyrics which celebrate the charms of rural life and scenery

are extremely fine, displaying as they do rare observing powers, a rich

fancy, and flowing tasteful language."--_Dumfries Standard._

"He is a follower of Robert Burns and finds in the Court, and in the

Temple, an inspiration which the great Scotch poet found in the fields

of Ayrshire."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

"He possesses the power of writing simple flowing verse in an eminent

degree."--_Literary World._

_THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST AND THE SALVATION OF THE FEW._ A Criticism

of _Natural Law in the Spiritual World_. By Rev. A. WILSON. Crown 8vo,

cloth, 2s. 6d. Post free.

"In a former number of this _Review_ we drew attention to two or three

of the main fallacies of Professor Drummond's shallow but attractive

book. We are glad to see that Mr. Alexander Wilson has, with a

scientific knowledge equal to Professor Drummond's, and with a logical

faculty far superior, subjected it to a far more systematic and

exhaustive analysis. Those who were interested in the dazzling pages of

_Natural Law in the Spiritual World_, but not blinded by their glitter,

will welcome this justification of their doubts in the solid form of

facts and arguments, and those who were fascinated by the Professor's

brilliant rhetoric and imagery will have a rather painful awakening.

They will see the idol shattered which they had to fall down and worship

as a condition of attaining to an intellectual standpoint from which

they might see all known facts in their harmony and continuity. It is,

no doubt, very fascinating to be able to harmonize and to systematize;

but suppose your theory of law, identical in the natural and in the

spiritual worlds, results in the necessity of assuming that man is

nothing more than a part of material nature until he is "converted," and

of believing that the survival of the fittest means the salvation of the

few (according to the analogy of the seeds of an orchid, of about one

person in a generation), would a God who has made men so be the object

of religious feeling, or this spiritual world, with its rare and lonely

tenants, be worth arguing for? It is probable that few readers of this

new "analogy" drew such inferences, but were merely interested in

Professor Drummond's spiritual and scientific gymnastics; but for the

thoughtful few who may have been disturbed by them it is well that he

has been answered by one so capable, both from a Christian and

scientific point of view, as Mr. Wilson."--_Saturday Review._

"It is this fallacy, the presumption that the laws of matter are

continuous through the spiritual universe, that Mr. Wilson finds himself

first called on to meet; and he does so by contending that the principle

of continuity applies only if the spiritual universe be itself material,

and not necessarily even them, inasmuch as there are in the material

universe imponderable bodies to which the law of gravitation, for

example, does not extend.... Mr. Wilson has written a very able, acute,

and temperate criticism, in a thoroughly religious spirit, with perfect

courtesy to his opponent; and we should be glad to think that his work

would be widely read."--_Scotsman._

"... The critique is interesting, clever, earnest, and, we may add,

respectful to Professor Drummond.... Here, we think, Mr. Wilson occupies

a very strong--indeed, an invulnerable position. This is not, however,

so much the critic's own position as that of other writers, but, he

appears to us, in great measure, to recognise and accept it. His own

words farther on are: 'The identification of the natural and spiritual

laws, if taken absolutely, would lead to the confounding together of

mind and body, God and Nature.' ... We are much interested in the

author's criticism of the Professor's arguments touching the subject

which gives the book its title. It forms an earnest and powerful

chapter...."--_Literary World._

"An answer to Professor Drummond, a work of some importance has just

made its appearance. It is certain that Mr. Wilson's able examination of

'Natural Law in the Spiritual World' will attract a good deal of

attention and controversy."--_London Figaro._

"Mr. Wilson, with great vigour and intrepidity, criticises the

Professor's conclusions.... The great question raised by Professor

Drummond's work is that of the relation of the natural law of the

survival of the fittest to the doctrine of election. His critic combats

this conclusion with much acuteness and ability."--_Glasgow Herald._

WITH PORTRAIT AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.

_DAVID KENNEDY, The Scottish Singer: Reminiscences of his Life and

Work._ By MARJORY KENNEDY. And _SINGING ROUND THE WORLD: A Narrative of

his Colonial and Indian Tours_. By DAVID KENNEDY, Junr. Demy 8vo, 480

pages, cloth extra, 7s. 6d. Post free.

"These unique musical tours were from time to time described by the

chief musician's son David in different books having reference to the

Colonies, to India, and to the Cape. They have now found a graceful and

appropriate preliminary chapter in the form of a memoir of David Kennedy

himself.... The memoir has been prepared by Miss Marjory Kennedy with

much taste and judgment, and will be read with interest, not only for

the sake of her father's characteristic letters and stories of early

life, but as recalling in various other ways pleasant memories

associated with a family of rare gifts and graces."--_Glasgow Herald._

_LIFE IN SHETLAND._ By JOHN RUSSELL. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d. Post

free.

"Contains a great quantity of very interesting information about

Shetland and its people. By a happy instinct, Mr. Russell has been led

to write about those things which he knows thoroughly--namely, his own

doings and experiences.... There follows the story of the strange

minister at the 'second diet' of a Presbytery meeting who wanted to

propose a toast, but was informed by the horrified moderator that 'God's

people in that part of the country were not in the habit of drinking

toasts.' The rebuked stranger quietly rejoined that he 'had never before

seen God's people drink so much toddy.' Much, both edifying and

entertaining, might be quoted from this unique volume, but enough may

have been said to gain for it the public attention it

deserves."--_Scotsman._

"We owe much to men like Mr. Russell, who, without any pretence, note

down what comes under their observation of an interesting nature

regarding curious customs, habits of life, and folk-lore, among the

people with whom they come into contact.... He is never entirely dull,

and we prefer such volumes which bring us into actual contact with a

poor but unsophisticated people to many pretentious stories. We follow

the minister as he goes out and in among the people, suffering hardship,

visiting, catechising, getting up a stock of fifty sermons, relating odd

anecdotes, and noting down peculiarities. We recommend this book to all

who are interested in the subject. It makes luminous to us the obscure

lives and labours of an interesting people."--_Pen and Pencil._

"An interesting and thoroughly realistic picture of life in Shetland is

presented to us in this volume by Mr. Russell, whose sojourn in those

Northern islands gave him good opportunity of observing the place and

the people.... Good stories, and brief observations and remarks on the

geology, natural history, and antiquities of the islands, and the

peculiar manners and customs of the people, ever and anon crop out in

the narrative.... It contains, however, a faithfully accurate and very

reliable description of _Ultima Thule_. And as the reader closes the

volume he will find that he has made acquaintance at once with a

singular country, and a pleasant guide to its chief points of

interest."--_Aberdeen Free Press._

"A bright and entertaining volume, and a valuable volume withal, anent

Shetland and the Shetlanders.... I know no book on Shetland equal to

this of Mr. Russell's. Its style is pointed and racy; the author talks

about what he knows and what he knows intimately. To put the matter in a

word, there isn't a dull page in 'Three Years in Shetland,' from the

title to the sentence at the close in which Mr. Russell expresses the

wish that 'all good things may attend' the islanders among whom he spent

three delightful years."--_Bailie._

"A very readable book about a very interesting people.... A minister, of

course, enjoys altogether exceptional opportunities, and Mr. Russell

seems to have made good use of them. He writes frankly about things as

he found them, which he is perhaps all the better able to do for his

change to the position of an outsider."--_Glasgow Herald._

"It contains some of the best clerical stories--though not always of the

most dignified nature, nor such as will tend to exalt the cloth in the

estimation of rude and irreverent laics--that we have come across, and

it gives very interesting, and for the most part accurate, details of

the everyday life of the people."--_Elgin Courant and Courier._

UNIFORM WITH "BENDERLOCH."

_LOCH CRERAN. Notes from the West Highlands._ By W. ANDERSON SMITH.

Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. Post free.

"Readers of Mr. W. Anderson Smith's _Benderloch_ will welcome from the

same pen a second instalment of notes of natural history in the Western

Highlands entitled _Loch Creran_.... The influences of free moorland air

and buoyant water, of a spacious heaven and wide horizon, are with us,

and give zest to the study of fish and fowl and flower that are

liberally displayed. Whether it is the flight of a solitary bunting, or

the habitat of the pipe-fish (_Sygnathus_), the progress of _Myæ_ in the

refluent tide or a nested robin domiciled among strange perils, the

scenic suggestion cannot fail to persuade the senses. A large and

distinctive portion of Mr. Smith's book is devoted to the investigation

of the rich spoil of the dredger, as might be anticipated of so

enthusiastic a student of fish culture, and many of the most interesting

pages describe excursions on the waters of Etive and Creran and

Benderloch, or among the rocky pools and stretches of sand exposed by

the ebbing sea. By sea or land, on the wild hills or among the flowers

and insects of his garden, Mr. Smith has ever something to say that is

worth hearing, and he says it with admirable clearness and

force."--_Saturday Review._

"These charming notes from the Western Highlands are truly fascinating.

Entering into the very spirit of the life and scenery by which he is

surrounded, Mr. Smith gives his readers the benefit of the vast and

out-of-the-way stores of information he has gathered in all branches of

natural history. Each month, as it passes, has a chapter devoted to all

its manifold changes and doings, and we get many glimpses of charming

excursions, not unmixed with danger, when overtaken by those sudden

climatic changes to which that grand wild mountainous coast is often

exposed. An enthusiastic naturalist, the writer does not ride his hobby

to death, but, like a true lover of Nature, his sketches are bright and

fresh, and full of vivid descriptions, interspersed with many curious

anecdotes and facts relating to both the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

No better or more instructive guide to the fauna and flora of the

Western Highlands could be had than Mr. Anderson Smith's most pleasant

book."--_Literary World._

"They will be well rewarded who follow Mr. Anderson Smith along the

sea-shore, the hill-side, or the trouting stream; they will find how

much a quiet and attentive eye can glean from a loving study of the

denizens of earth, air, and water. The book is provided with a good

index, and those who have not leisure or patience to read it through at

a sitting may dip where they please. Like Mr. Smith's dredge, they

hardly ever fail to bring up something of interest."--_Scotsman._

"Students of natural history who read _Benderloch_, by Mr. W. A. Smith,

will give a cordial welcome to _Loch Creran_, another and even more

attractive work by the same observant author. With the exception,

perhaps, of Mr. Jefferson, no living naturalist is gifted with a more

picturesque manner of depicting the habits of birds, beasts, and fishes

than is Mr. Smith.... Then what a vast fund of entertaining instruction

is gathered in these excursions; a royal road to natural history is laid

down by Mr. Smith, and the student follows it leisurely, culling

charming bits of zoological lore here and there. One never knows what a

new day may bring forth when accompanying Mr. Smith on his rambles....

There is, indeed, no end to the curious things observed by Mr. Smith. He

seems only to sleep at home, for, with his waterproof handy, he roams

about all day in the open air, and comes home at night with a

well-filled note-book.... The wealth of interesting matter in this

delightful volume is, however, tempting us beyond our space, and we

think we have collated enough to make all who love the country, its

sights and sounds, and health-giving breezes read the work

itself."--_Dundee Advertiser._

"To those who are familiar with Mr. Anderson Smith's _Benderloch_, no

introduction or recommendation will be necessary on behalf of his new

book, _Loch Creran_. The work is, in fact, as the preface explains,

simply a continuation of the natural history sketches of which

_Benderloch_ is composed.... With what a happy combination of vivacity

and patience, insight and enthusiasm, Mr. Anderson Smith scans the open

pages of that great tome of nature.... Treasure-trove of this kind,

along with notes of a more strictly scientific character, is freely

scattered through Mr. Anderson Smith's pages; and so it will have a

charm for every reader with healthy natural tastes."--_Scottish Leader._

"There are few books in the language more delightful than White's

_Selborne_, and in Mr. W. Anderson Smith that earnest Hampshire

naturalist has a distinguished successor. His most recent volume is

worthy of the author of _Benderloch_, a book which, it may be hoped, is

already familiar to our readers.... The variety of his researches on

land and water prevent monotony. The author has much to tell, and he

explains what he has seen and done without waste of

words."--_Illustrated London News._

"Mr. Anderson Smith's observations extend over 1881-2, and refer mainly

to the natural history of the district, but he deals also with other

aspects of Nature, and his book is well worth reading."--_Times._

"There can be no hesitation in assuring lovers of Nature that in _Loch

Creran_ they will find a work after their own heart.... The charm of the

volume before us is that it is not the hasty outcome of the bookmaker

feverishly eager to piece together into a volume odds and ends of

information. There is an air of leisureliness about _Loch Creran_. Month

by month are given the results of two years' close intercourse with loch

and sea, field and wood. The work is one to be enjoyed by those who

share the writer's tastes and spirit, and not to be rushed by the

heedless."--_Graphic._

"Every page has its charm, something at once to instruct the mind and to

tickle and amuse the fancy. It is not a book to be read through at one

sitting, but one to dip into occasionally and to ruminate over in

pleased contentment. Perhaps its worth will be best appreciated by those

taking a holiday in the country, or, above all, at the seaside. And it

will serve as a very efficient guide to persons beginning the study of

natural history, directing them what and how to observe. Many a capital

story he gives illustrating the remarkable intelligence of the lower

animals. Some of these border upon the marvellous."--_Perthshire

Constitutional and Journal._

"Chatty and discursive, rather than elaborate, the interest in 'Loch

Creran' is well maintained throughout, and the book appeals to the

general reader, by whom it will doubtless be perused with greater

pleasure than a more highly scientific disquisition."--_Pall Mall

Gazette._

"He is a charming companion. His descriptions are vivid and true to

nature--whether he makes us shiver and feel glad of the shelter of the

house, as he tells us of winter's storms and floods, or whether he fills

our hearts with a longing for the freshness and gladness of spring as he

notes the signs of its advent on the shores of Loch Creran."--_Glasgow

Herald._

_OLD CHURCH LIFE IN SCOTLAND: Lectures on Kirk-Session and Presbytery

Records._ _Second Series._ By ANDREW EDGAR, D.D. Demy 8vo, cloth, 7s.

6d. Post free.

"Antiquaries may welcome the minister of Mauchline as an elder brother

of their craft. We have not seen the first series of lectures, but

certainly these contain much that is queer and quaint. Odd people, these

Scotch folks; but there is a homeliness and a reverence about them which

we greatly value. Our author is evidently of the Established Church, and

knows most about the old customs of that body, of which he writes with a

twinkle in his eye which causes our eye to twinkle also. The grim want

of humour in some of the proceedings is about the same thing as the

presence of humour: you may laugh till you cry, and cry till you laugh;

between the tremendously solemn and the ridiculous there is but a step.

We have been so interested with the lectures that we must get the former

volume. What times those must have been when guests at a funeral began

to meet at ten in the morning, though the body might not be moved till

three or four! Five or six hours! How did they spin them out? No marvel

that the Kirk-Session had to hear charges of drunkenness. Such books as

these are the best of history, leading us indeed into byways and lone

paths which the general historian never traces."--=C. H. Spurgeon.=

_MY COLLEGE DAYS: The Autobiography of an Old Student._ Edited by R.

MENZIES FERGUSSON, M.A., Author of "Rambles in the Far North," &c. 8vo,

cloth, 5s. Post free.

"Mr. Fergusson, either as author or as editor, has well earned our

gratitude by giving us a volume which all may read with enjoyment and

pleasure.... Space and its limits will not allow us to dwell on many

other points of interest to be found in this entertaining volume; but we

cannot pass without mentioning the worthy dame who said, in praise of

her preacher: 'There's ae thing aboot yon man--he's a grand roarer.' Nor

must we forget the careful landlady who was always anxious to know if

her student-lodger was as yet an unengaged man, or, to use her own

graphic phrase, was 'a bund sack set by.'..."--_Literary World._

"We own to a suspicion that in this instance Mr. Fergusson has been his

own literary executor. Whether this be the case or not, he has no

reason to be ashamed of the bequest. The sketches have a pleasant grace

of literary style, and a good deal of power in description of

character-sketching, while there is in the writer a subtle under-strain

of pawky humour, and he has brought together and put permanently on

record a number of traditions of University life in Edinburgh and St.

Andrews that are well worth preservation.... Our old student's

reminiscences of St. Andrews, where he took the theological course after

graduating in arts at Edinburgh, are not less lively or interesting than

those he sets down respecting his Alma Mater; and his book is likely to

take a place both on the shelves and in the enduring regard of many

readers who have had similar experiences and tasted similar pleasures. A

word of praise is due to the excellence of its typography and

get-up."--_Scottish Leader._

"We think the verdict will be that Mr. Fergusson has done well in

publishing this thoughtful book. It abounds in vigorous, and, in many

cases, eloquent delineations of University life; it is sympathetic in

its spirit and catholic in its tone, especially when dealing with such

subjects as the stage, so frequently abused. Its author was a student of

the Universities of Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and Oxford, his

reminiscences of which are often humorous, and always interesting. Some

of the anecdotes recorded in this volume regarding the Edinburgh

Professors are exceedingly entertaining.... We venture to predict for

this autobiography a wide circulation."--_Dundee Advertiser._

"The book is eminently readable, very quiet for the most part, but not

without a few touches of gaiety and sprightly humour; and it betokens no

little culture together with a strong poetic tendency. The contents are

almost entirely confined to sketches of life at Scottish Universities,

with some playful personal satire, of which various Professors, some

mentioned by name and others denoted by initials, are the objects in

chief, although the peculiarities of certain landladies whose province

it is, or was, to let lodgings to students at Edinburgh or elsewhere,

come in for their share of more or less satirical delineation. But there

is nothing spiteful, nothing bitter, nothing cynical in the mode of

treatment. Two chapters are devoted to a sketch, brief but graphic and

sympathetic, of academic Oxford, whither the author went to sojourn and

to study for two months."--_Illustrated London News._

"This is a delightful book, calculated to afford much pleasurable

amusement of a quiet kind. It is written in a light sparkling style....

The book itself is an enjoyable one, and perhaps none will read it with

greater relish than the old fogies who see in it much of what they

themselves passed through, and who, by the perusal are led to recall,

with mingled feelings, the aspirations, the freshness, and the frolic of

their own College days."--_Perthshire Constitutional._

"By those who have passed through the Universities it will be read with

considerable pleasure, affording as it does such happy reminiscences of

'College days,' with their grave, plodding seriousness, or that more

boisterous playfulness which is supposed to be the characteristic of

students as a class. Those, again, who are simply outsiders, and have

had no College days whatever, will be charmed by the recital here given

of the doings of the students, and the customs associated with the

respective Universities, the pen-portraits of the several professors,

the opinions expressed regarding men and things, the poetry, original

and selected, and the hundred and one subjects here treated of by a man

of observant nature possessing facility of expression, besides a keen

sense and appreciation of the humorous...."--_Stirling Observer._

"Many a 'varsity man, who has won his decree in the modest 'little city,

worn and grey,' will welcome the appearance of Mr. R. M. Fergusson's

_College Days_. Redolent every page of it, of the class-room, and the

wild Bohemianism of student life, and bristling with the 'classic'

ditties which have so often made the halls of St. Salvator's resound,

here is material for a mental revel in the past."--_Northern Chronicle._

"This series of autobiographical notes deserve recognition, if only

because the style is perfectly natural and perfectly good-natured....

The book contains several capital anecdotes and some excellent

verse."--_London Figaro._

"But after all the charm of the volume lies in the whole life of a

student which is presented to us, for his joys and his troubles, his

amusements and his hard reading, are here written of by one who has

evidently experienced all. Scattered throughout these pages are numerous

verses, some original, some well-known students' songs. The original

verses are very good...."--_Stirling Journal._

"The volume contains some very excellent poems which are worthy of

finding, and doubtless will find, a place as verses to future songs.

There is not a chapter in the book which is not thoroughly

entertaining."--_The Tribune._

"The 'Old Student' has to speak of Scotch Universities, Edinburgh, to

wit, and St. Andrews, while he gives some impressions, gained as an

outsider, of Oxford.... There is much that is interesting and

entertaining, some good stories, and generally a pleasant picture of a

happy and busy life."--_Spectator._

"The writer is always entertaining and kindly, is wise in season, and

also _desipit in loco_, and tells some good stories--professors being

naturally his chief subjects."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

"It is, to say the least, eminently probable that Mr. Fergusson relates

his own experiences in Edinburgh and St. Andrews. He does so in a

sufficiently lively and 'freshman' style.... _My College Days_ is, on

the whole, as readable as any book of the kind that has recently been

published."--_The Academy._

"Mr. R. Menzies Fergusson paints life as he thinks he saw it as a young

man at St. Andrews and Edinburgh, in _My College Days_. This

'autobiography of an old student' contains much interesting

reminiscence, and Mr. Fergusson has perhaps not erred in introducing

into his text specimens of the verse into which some of his Caledonian

student contemporaries were in the habit of dropping occasionally. Mr.

Fergusson's little book should find many a sympathetic reader among

former _alumni_ of the Scottish Universities, for he writes without

affectation."--_Graphic._

'Seldom have we had more pleasure than in the perusal of these

reminiscences of College days. No one who has gone through the

curriculum of a Scotch University can fail to attest the fidelity with

which his experience here finds expression.... 'An Old Student' was

privileged to have more than one _alma mater_. He could boast the

fostering care of Edinburgh, of St. Andrews, and of Oxford, and of all

these he has most pleasant reminiscences. Our author's experiences at

Oxford will repay perusal. The whole book, written in a most happy,

though thoughtful and affectionate strain, must incite the most cordial

sympathy of all whose student days have not been forgotten, while the

general public will peruse it with responsive hearts and a regretful

feeling that they have missed the experiences of which it

treats.'--_Brechin Advertiser._

'The minister of Logie, who made a decided hit with _Rambles in the Far

North_, has attempted a very difficult bit of work in _My College Days_.

This purports to be the MS. legacy of a College friend who died young

after some experience of student life in Edinburgh, St. Andrews, and

Oxford. The fiction will impose upon nobody, although it may shield the

editor from some blame, for while there is mirth and vigour and kindly

reminiscence, there is also some very sharp criticism, and much

reference to Academic dignitaries who are still in the flesh, and may be

sensitive and inclined to sting when they find some of their class jokes

not merely in print but bound in a book.... If certain Edinburgh divines

beguile a leisure hour over these pages, they will for once see

themselves as the keen-witted see them, and be amazed at the impudence

of the rising generation. Everybody who knows Edinburgh will recognise

the portrait of the preacher who is likened to Dr. Andrew Thomson in one

thing--'There's ae thing about yon man, he's a grand roarer.' The St.

Andrews part is full and cleverly done, and will have a charm for most

_alumni_ of the 'College of the scarlet gown,' because it contains a

large number of the songs, original and selected, with which the lobby

of the Natural Philosophy class-room was wont to resound."--_Elgin

Courant._

"The style is lively, and the descriptions of scenes of student life are

graphic. The account of the election of Rector at Edinburgh will

doubtless interest many, and the chapter dealing with landladies, their

varieties and idiosyncracies, is humorous."--_Morning Post._

"To recent students of our two greatest Scottish Universities--Edinburgh

and St. Andrews--_My College Days_ is charged with intense interest,

though its racy humour and chatty discursiveness will render it

attractive reading to those uninitiated in academic mysteries and

innocent of student frivolities. The life of an Edinburgh student, in

college and out of college, in the class-room, the debating society, the

theatre, and the church, is described with untiring vivacity.... Whether

author or merely editor, Mr. Menzies Fergusson is to be sincerely

congratulated upon his success. Reminiscence is a species of literature

not always instructive, not always even entertaining; in Mr. Fergusson's

hands it becomes both."--_Fifeshire Journal._

"We think the verdict of every impartial reader will be that Mr.

Ferguson has done well in publishing this book. It abounds in vigorous,

and, in many instances, impressive descriptions of University life; it

is enlivened at judicious intervals with original verses, which evince

lyrical power; its style is admirably condensed and clear; it is

sympathetic in its spirit and catholic in its tone, especially when

dealing with such subjects as the stage and its modern exponents by

narrow-minded writers so frequently abused."--_Ayr Observer._

"It is pleasantly written, is full of the fun of student life, full,

too, of its hardships, abounds with excellent stories, is very

discriminating in professional criticism, while scattered throughout the

racy pages are many snatches of jovial college songs recorded nowhere

else.... Altogether the volume is very readable, and no student, at all

events, can find a dull page in it."--_Kelso Chronicle._

_THE TRAGEDY OF GOWRIE HOUSE._ An Historical Study. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ.

Fcap. 4to, 6s.

In this new work on the interesting and mysterious episode of Scottish

History, usually known as the Gowrie Conspiracy, the author has not only

submitted the old materials to a close examination, but also thrown new

light on the subject by the help of letters to be found in the Record

Office, but overlooked or suppressed by former historians, of documents

recently discovered by the Commission on Historical MSS., and also of

important papers preserved in the French Archives.

"_A treasure of almost priceless thought and criticism._"--_Contemporary

Review._

In the press. Second Edition, Thoroughly Revised. Cr. 8vo, 338 pp., 7s.

6d.

WIT, WISDOM, AND PATHOS,

FROM THE PROSE OF HEINRICH HEINE.

_WITH A FEW PIECES FROM THE "BOOK OF SONGS."_

SELECTED AND TRANSLATED BY J. SNODGRASS.

"Mr. Snodgrass has produced a book in which lazy people will find a

great deal to please them. They can take it up at any moment, and open

it on any page with the certainty of finding some bright epigram; they

need not turn down the page on shutting up the volume, as it matters

little where they resume. There is nothing jarring in the whole

book."--_Athenæum, April 19, 1877._

"No Englishman of culture who is unacquainted with Heine can fail to

derive a new intellectual pleasure from Mr. Snodgrass's

pages."--_Contemporary Review, September 1880._

"Mr. Snodgrass would appear to have saturated himself with Heine

literature, to have so caught Heine's mode of thought and his turns of

expression--quaint, droll, swift, and scathing by turns--that the

translator would appear to have had no more difficulty in presenting

Heine as he was to the reader than he would have in presenting his own

thoughts."--_Glasgow Herald, March 31, 1879._

"Mr. Snodgrass, in his 'Wit,' &c., has dime a great service in this

respect, presenting as it were a full-length miniature of the man, clear

and effective, wherein his characteristic expression is faithfully

caught and where, if we look carefully, we can see him as he really was,

for he is made to paint his own portrait."--_British Quarterly Review,

October 1881._

"Mr. Snodgrass has certainly done great service to English literature in

presenting us with a compact little volume like that before

us."--_Spectator._

"A word of cordial praise is due to the translator, Mr. J. Snodgrass,

for his admirable performance of a very difficult task. His book is one

to welcome and to keep as a treasure of almost priceless thought and

criticism."--_Contemporary Review, February 1881._

"Mr. Snodgrass is to be thanked for a very seasonable bit of

work."--_Examiner, April 26, 1879._

"We are bound to say that Mr. Snodgrass has done his work exceptionally

well."--_The Literary World, May 9, 1879._

"Mr. Snodgrass has made a valuable addition to English literature in

this volume, and has given us a most attractive and efficient

introduction to the study of Heine."--_The Nonconformist, August 20,

1879._

"He has performed his task with skill, tact, and judgment; and it is

easy to perceive that he has a thorough acquaintance with his author and

sympathy for his matter."--_Notes and Queries, April 19, 1879._

"The result of Mr. Snodgrass's attempt has been the production of a

volume which, for variety and interest, may be pronounced one of the

most successful books of the season."--_Aberdeen Journal, March 26,

1879._

"In Heine, whose prose writings in German fill well on to a score of

volumes, we find in remarkable combination the best qualities of German

thought, along with the sparkle and brilliancy of an accomplished

Frenchman's style."--_Aberdeen Daily Free Press, April 21, 1879._

"Mr. Snodgrass has done his selection and translation admirably well and

we owe him thanks for a volume which has in it mere wit of the highest

sort, and more political insight, than any book that has lately been

given to the public."--_Vanity Fair, November 8, 1879._

"The compiler of this interesting little volume, Mr. J. Snodgrass is

perfectly right in saying that Heine is chiefly known to English readers

as the author of the 'Book of Songs.'"--_The Week, April 19, 1879._

"The 'English Fragments' have a special interest for the English reader;

but the selection from Heine's prose works in general, most judiciously

made and excellently translated by Mr. Snodgrass, gives a much completer

view of the qualities of the writer's mind."--_Saturday Review._

"Mr. Snodgrass has not essayed to give at all an exhaustive collection

of Heine's witty, wise, and pathetic sayings; but he has selected, in

the order in which they occur in the complete German edition, such

extracts as have specially commended themselves to himself. He has

produced a very enjoyable volume, exactly adapted to the taste of lazy

and luxurious persons, who can just take up the book for five minutes to

read a delightful passage, complete in itself, and not long enough to

fatigue the most fastidious attention."--_Academy, May 31, 1879._

ALEX. GARDNER, PAISLEY AND LONDON.