its doctrines, many ancient heathen legends of southern and eastern, of Germanic and Keltic origin.

In a far lesser degree this can be averred of Scandinavian mythology. Some Christian interpolations there are for instance, in the Prose Edda, in reference to the creation of the world. But these interpolations are in gross contradiction with other passages giving the real Germanic cosmogony. Such forgery is easily detected. In the same way, a monk's hand inserted in Josephus' work on Jewish Antiquity-as is universally acknowledged now by the most orthodox theologians—a passage about Christianity, which is now given up as a manifest forgery.

It is not the place here to enter into Professor Bugge's general views about Northern mythology—views full of strange exaggerations. My object only My object only was to show in what arbitrary way attempts are made to set aside the best ascertained facts -apparently for the sole purpose of cutting, on the domain of heroic and legendary lore, the connection between the AngloSaxous and their nearest kinsmen, the Teutons. Having myself always upheld the matchless service and merit of the Scandinavian, North Germanic race in the matter of the preservation of the ancient creed and poetry of our common stock, I may truly say that I am judging without undue bias. Though the Norsemen have not a finished Nibelungen Epic as we have, I have always contended that the Eddic lays concerning the Siegfried tale are full of the most signal epic and dramatic power-all the more so because in them the unalloyed spirit of Germanic heathendom is maintained.

To every one his due! But when an endeavour is made to divide the Anglo-Saxon from the German, or even to convert an ancient heroic figure of the Rhinelands into a Finn, we must say, in Goethe's words, which Simrock has prefixed to his 'Handbook of German Mythology, including that of the North':

Dies ist unser; so lasst uns sagen, und so es behaupten!

KARL BLIND.

по

ever.

ART. IV. THE LITERARY INSPIRATION OF IMPERIALISM.

10 treat in a non-partisan spirit of the most burning of all present-day public questions in the pages of a non-political magazine is to execute an egg dance of no common difficulty. The war in South Africa is not yet over; perhaps the end is not yet in sight. The controversy over the events which caused the precipitation of hostilities is being waged as fiercely as The names of Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Kruger evoke as passionate demonstrations as they did six months ago. The mere idea of a 'pro-Boer' meeting still suggests the possibility—which, indeed, ought not to have been forgotten by any reader of previous passionate episodes in British history—that free hissing is not necessarily opposed to, but is rather a phase of free speech. The author of The Areopagitica was the greatest champion of freedom of speech that the world has produced, but being also the greatest of pamphleteers, he claimed and exercised to the full his right to hiss, groan, and cat-call his chief opponents, such as Salmasius, out of existence.

But we have reached a period in the South African struggle when we can think of and even have glimpses of the divinity that has been shaping our ends, regardless of our rough hewing. The stage of self-preservation has passed; the stage of philosophic and deliberate 'settlement' will ere long be entered upon. We e can now stand erect on the summit of the South African kopje without any apprehension of a rain of bullets from Boer political Mausers; we can from it, as from a Pisgah, survey the Promised Land. For we are all Imperialists now,' much more truly than according to Sir William Harcourt, we are all Socialists now.' The differences between 'Liberal Imperialism,' Sane Imperialism,' Common-Sense Imperialism,' and 'Jingo Imperialism may not be quite unreal or academic. If they savour of hairsplitting, they tend also to party-splitting. But Imperialism transcends our political distinctions and distractions. It is an idea, a passion, a worship, a fascinating siren, such as inspired

6

that poet who surpassed even Keats in his sensitiveness to Beauty :

'Ligeia! Ligeia !

My beautiful one,
Whose harshest idea

Will to melody run.'

When we think of the uprising of the British nation after that black week which witnessed the disasters-as they then seemed of Magersfontein, Stormberg, and the Tugela, and when we look at the rush of Australians and Canadians to meet, live, and even die together on the South African veldt, we cannot help feeling dimly conscious that we are in the presence of one of those gregarious ideas through whose dominance death is swallowed up of victory, that caused the best blood in Europe to be spent in the Crusades, and sent the best brains in England to seek Empire and plunder on the Spanish Main.

Like everything else which has stimulated men and altered the careers of nations, Imperialism has its feet of clay as well as its head of gold. Like Cromwell, whose worship it has served in such a remarkable manner to revive, it is a compound of realism and mysticism. It is the function of literature, according to that great critic whose place, now that he has passed, not softly but swiftly, into the silent land,' has not been filled, to apply ideas to life. How has Literature discharged this idea towards Imperialism? To what extent is it responsible for recent and passing events? And in this connection we must think both of the feet of clay and of the head of gold. In the first instance, what is Imperialism as a historical fact? In the second place, what is Imperialism as a sentiment-divine or diabolic-which carries strong nations, as passion carries strong men, off their feet?

Imperialism, by whatever adjective, such as 'Sane' or 'Common-sense,' it may be qualified, involves attachment to, or faith in the British Empire. What, in turn, is the British Empire? In this case fas est ab hoste doceri. Mr. Goldwin Smith is well known as a very able man and a very diligent student of British -perhaps it might be more accurate to say English—history,

but he is the last man to be accused of 'Jingoism.' He is a Unionist, but Lord Beaconsfield once styled him a wild professor.' So little of an advocate of Imperialism or Expansion, in the limited or specially British sense, has he been, that he has persistently advocated the annexation to the United States of Canada, which has been his second home. In his latest work, The United Kingdom, he thus pronounces upon Imperialism as an historical fact:

'The British Empire embraces at this day, besides the thirty-nine millions of people in the two islands, three hundred millions in India and twenty millions, more or less, in colonies scattered over the globe. Instead of being sea-girt, England has an open land frontier of four thousand miles, allowing for indentation, in North America, besides the whole northern frontier of Hindostan. To hold this empire she has to maintain a fleet, not only for her own defence and that of her trade, but for her command of all the seas. An empire this vast aggregate of miscellaneous possessions is called. To part of them the name is misapplied, and the misapplication may lead to practical error. Empire is absolute rule, whether the imperial power be a monarchy, like the Persian or the Spanish; an aristocracy, like the Roman or the Venetian; or a commonwealth, like Athens of old and Great Britain at the present day. In the case of the British possessions, the name is properly applicable only to the Indian empire, the crown colonies, and fortresses or naval stations such as Gibraltar and Malta. It is not properly applicable to self-governing colonies such as Canada, Australia, and the Cape, which, though nominally dependent, are in reality independent; do not obey British law; do not contribute to British armaments; and are at liberty even to wage commercial war against the mother-country by levying protective duties on her goods. The word "colony," too, is used in a misleading sense, as if it were synonymous with dependent, or were limited to colonies retaining their political connection with the mother-country. The colonies of England which now form the United States did not cease, on becoming independent, to be English colonies. In the feudal notion of personal fealty, which led the colonist to think that even at the ends of the earth he remained indefeasibly the liegeman of the British King, combined, perhaps, with the notion, also feudal, of the crown as supreme land-owner, we probably see the account of the political tie between the British colonies and the British crown. The Mayflower exiles, in their compact before landing, described themselves as loyal subjects of King James, who had undertaken, for the glory of God, the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honour of their King and country, to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia. Had the exiles of the Mayflower been citizens of a Greek republic, they would have taken the sacred fire from

the hearth of the mother city and gone forth to found a new commonwealth for themselves, owning no relation to its parent but that of filial respect and affection.'

This passage is of value because it demonstrates not only what Imperialism-in so far as it involves attachment to the British Empire-certainly is not in the sense of historical fact, and what it vaguely is in the sense of historical sentiment. It is not absolute rule in the strict and only proper meaning of the phrase the meaning in which we speak of the Roman Empire of the past and of the Russian Empire of to-day. Mr. Smith says that in the case of the British possessions the name is properly applicable only to the Indian Empire, the Crown Colonies, and fortresses or naval stations such as Gibraltar or Malta.' Fortresses may be left out of consideration. They are under military government and exist for military reasons. But the British rule of the Crown Colonies, of India-and it may for the sake of argument be added of Egypt—is characterised by a different Imperialism from the Roman or the Russian. It means government not for the sake of fortune to individuals or even of glory to the nation, but for the sake of civilisation-in other words, for the diffusion of peace and justice over regions where these blessings have hitherto been unknown. Unless we demean ourselves in India, in Egypt, and as the result will no doubt show, in South Africa, as if we were the trustees of civilisation, we shall have failed to accomplish our professed mission and to be unequal to bearing The White Man's Burthen' with dignity and moral profit. Unless indeed Imperialism is an essentially noble ideal-it may be imperfectly understood here, still more imperfectly practised there-it will fail. In the meantime, it is an attempt to give harmony, and, if one may say so in such a connection, the heartiness of a chorus to the otherwise differing sentiments that animate the collocation of self-governing States, Crown Colonies, and ancient Empires over which the British flag flies. Mr. Goldwin Smith has shown how the sentiment of feudalism, of personal fealty, animated the Mayflower settlers when they established themselves on the North American continent. That was quite compatible with the sturdy mainenance of rights and privileges; so indeed the quarrel which