now such that a prosecution would probably involve an amount of litigation and scandal that would make the cure worse than the disease. This is not the first time that a warning has been issued and nothing more done, and meantime such things have got worse and worse.

"What really means nothing in Bengal may be read and copied by others in other parts of India, in whose hands and before whose eyes such matters would really be highly inflammatory and dangerous. The Government cannot allow Bengalee schoolboys to write seditious fustian without running great risk, and more risk of the spreading of such things. All the boys in Calcutta may read and not rebel, but what would a frontier Pathan think if he reads a translation of such things, and finds that such things are published with impunity?

"The Lieutenant-Governor requests that his strong opinion may be submitted to his Excellency in Council, that there should be a law to punish summarily and severely, without all the eclat of a long prosecution for sedition, those who write and publish mischievous and seditious libels on the Government, and to shut up newspapers which are the vehicles of this language."

It will be observed that Sir George Campbell's recommendations seem to point to a much severer law than the one finally passed five years later; but very probably this was only because he had not thought out all those mitigating clauses and checks which ultimately took the sting out of the measure. The law was in substance suggested by him, and may not unfairly be designated as "Sir George Campbell's Act." Lord Northbrook, whilst declining to sanction the immediate introduction of fresh legislation, agreed with Sir George Campbell about the unsatisfactory state of the existing law. His Lordship ventured to suggest that the high officers of Government might "be able by the exercise of the influence which belongs to their position, to discourage and very considerably to prevent native journalists from abusing the freedom of discussion which they possess under the British Government." But Sir George Campbell, in a reply dated 9th September, 1873, warmly disclaimed the "power of thus influencing the Native Press. .He had rather not put himself in the position of threatening what he cannot do." About two years later, a Bengali paper* alluded in the most seditious language to Lord Northbrook's policy in the Baroda case, in a manner tending to justify the attempt to poison Colonel Phayre. Lord Northbrook, in a despatch dated 5th September, 1875, noticed, with reference to the state of the law, that it appeared "by no means certain how the Act would be construed in Court ;" and concluded by saying, "The questions of the tone of the Native Press, of the condition of the law, and of the propriety of altering it, present very grave difficulties, and we propose to take another occasion of expressing our views upon them." Lord Northbrook's speedy retirement unfortunately prevented the fulfilment of this pledge; but the subject of it had now become too burning a question to admit of the possibility of being long shelved. In August, 1876, Sir Arthur Hobhouse wrote an able minute, in which he recommended that the

...

*This very same paper appears to have felt that its responsibilities under the new law were likely to prove too heavy for it; immediately after the Act was passed, it appeared in an entirely English dress, thereby removing itself from the operation of the law.

existing law should be tried in "a well-selected case;" he declared "if such a prosecution succeeded, it would be a salutary lesson; if it failed either from the insufficiency of the law or from the bias of the jury, it would afford sound ground for fresh legislation." Every Indian authority, however, who was consulted on this point, thought that the risk of failure was so great as to make the adoption of Sir Arthur Hobhouse's suggestion imprudent. And finally the fresh legislation, without this preliminary trial, was pressed on the acceptance of the Government of India, by the absolute unanimity (as shown by the Blue-book) of the whole official hierarchy of Eastern, Northern, Western, and Central India; wherein, every local Government, every Lieutenant-Governor, every Chief Commissioner, all those in fact whose experience or position entitled them to offer an opinion on such a subject, declared it to be necessary. The law, as summarised above, was passed by the unanimous vote of the Legislative Council of India, a body of the most eminent men in the country, English and Native, official and non-official; the non-official element being composed of men of the highest distinction at the Bar, in commerce, and in the various open professions.

That the time will come-and that at no very distant date-when all (even the most benevolent) special legislation for the Press will be as uncalled for in India as it is in England, I doubt not. The "razor" which Sir Charles Metcalfe was wrongly supposed to have put as a plaything into the hands of an infant Press, will become the natural right of a mature one; and the Vernacular Press of India is now showing every healthful sign of a rapidly approaching maturity. Meanwhile, the policy of the Government has been, as it seems to me, to restrain the mischievous and the reckless by preventive rather than punitive legislation; and to foster the further development and independence of the Native Press, by providing means of information about public measures and events, accessible to all without fear or favour, and as freely open to the poorest Native editor as to the richest and most popular of his English competitors.

ROPER LETHBRIDGE.

HELLENIC AND CHRISTIAN VIEWS OF

BEAUTY.

U

NDESIGNED coincidences between men of great capacity have special value in an age of conferences and addresses like the present. Great meetings are excellent for conventional statements, public amenities, and formal manifestoes, and it is just as well that opponents, however determined, should practise good manners, and perhaps learn mutual respect, by meeting each other personally, and exchanging circumlocutions and generalities which at best express their willingness to let each other alone. But on such occasions nobody says all he means, even if he means all he says; and by mutual amnesty men avoid seeing the real drift of each other's state

It is far more important for the progress of truth and knowledge when two persons of proved powers and unquestionable honour are drawn to the same subject without the least reference to each other, and work out real agreement of thought on different data and methods. The late and deeply-lamented Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford, and the first Slade Professor of Fine Art, have of late, and one for many years, and in ever-varying form, given us highly original views on Natural Beauty; and any notable agreement in principle between men so different in habits of thought, must be well worth our examination.

Their great idea in common is the argument for divine intelligence in creation, which may be drawn from natural beauty, to support that drawn from natural design. Beauty indicates reason as clearly as mechanism does. Let us observe the concert of these statements. Professor Ruskin's first or theoretic definition of Fine Art is, man's expressed delight in God's work. Man, too, sees that it is good; that is to say, in its natural state: he sees in nature a visible quality, like a hand-mark, which shows him that it is good, or of God. He calls that Beauty, and rejoices to imitate it after his fashion and according to

his views.* He may call what we call God's work the work of Nature, the laws of Nature, of elements and forces, of anything which is not an Intelligent Will or Personal God: the "supervening finish "† of beauty, whatever it is, is there and undisputed. Now, says the argument of Professor Mozley,‡ beauty is there; it is seen; and it can only be there by being seen. It is inexplicable. It stands upon the threshold of the mystical world, and excites a curiosity about God; that is to say, about the reason which appeals through beauty to our reason. In seeing it man is conscious of a veil and curtain, which has the secrets of a moral existence behind it. It requires reason to see it it is an appeal to a rational mind, and can only proceed from mind. And, further, the following saying of the Rev. Hugh Macmillan's is almost the burden of his teaching from the external shows of nature: -that their beauty is essentially symbolic; and that it may be said (speaking carefully, and by analogy only, of human feeling, as attributed to God), that this stamp of loveliness and delight is the expression of His rejoicing in His works, the symbolic witness by which He yet pronounces them good. It is remarkable, once more, that what we call Dædalian beauty, or visible excellence and unspeakable ingenuity of contrivance, appeals also to the reason through the eye, and is called beauty by analogy, though it is in fact the argument from intelligent contrivance; corresponding to the comparatively unused argument from the sentiment of natural beauty. Again, Professor Mozley observes, with great subtlety, that contrivance for man's benefit is independent of man's understanding, and will work for him however he may reject its idea, and whether he pays any attention to it or not. "But it is essential to the very sense and meaning of natural beauty that it should be seen by reason's eye. Inasmuch, then, as it is visible to reason alone, we have in the very structure of nature a recognition of reason, and a distinct address to reason, and an indication of a Present Creator appealing to us by His work."

Perhaps the best illustration of this irrepressible re-appearance of natural beauty, under what seem the least favourable circumstances, is that in "Modern Painters," vol. iv. p. 198. It is there pointed out§

This may be extended to beauty of contrivance, adaptation, or mechanism, which we have called Dædalian beauty, as well as to beauty of aspect.

✦ émcycɣvóμevov teλòs, Ar. Eth. Nic., Of happiness supervening on the well-ordered life of the Sophron. Sermon on Nature, p. 145. §"The forms which in other things are produced by slow increase, or gradual abrasion of surface, are in the Aiguilles produced by rough fracture, where rough fracture is to be the law of existence. A rose is rounded by its own soft ways of growth: a reed is bowed into tender curvature by the pressure of the breeze but Nature gives us in these mountains a more clear demonstration of her will. Growth,' she seems to say, 'is not essential to my work, nor concealment, nor softness, but curvature is; and if I must produce my forms by breaking them, the fracture itself shall be in curves. If, instead of dew and sunshine, the only instruments I am to use are the lightning and the frost, then their forked tongues and crystal wedges shall work out my laws of tender line. Devastation instead of nurture may be the task of all my elements, and age after age may only prolong the unrenovated ruin; but the appointments of typical beauty which have been made over all creatures shall not therefore be abandoned; and the rocks shall be ruled, in their perpetual perishing, by the same ordinances that direct the bending of the reed and the blush of the rose.' -Modern Painters, Part V., ch. xiv., vol. iv., p. 198.

awe.

how the continued ruin and disintegration of mountain peaks, effected by various causes and incalculably violent forces, nevertheless place in agreement with laws of fair curvature; so that continued destruction ever renews natural beauty, besides its ministry to human And here we might return to Dr. Mozley's further inquiry into the nature and origin of the emotion called awe or solemnity, and that delight in it which is so popular as to be almost universal; but his most important Sermon on Nature ought to be faithfully studied and cannot be transcribed here. It has additional weight at the present time, because it appeals to the sense of sight, which is the nearest appeal by Spirit to reason through sense. Beauty is as much a phenomenon as oxygen or hydrogen: as good a fact as torpedoes and vivisection, blood-poisoning and river-poisoning, typhoid or grenade shell, or any other product of modern civilization, which may possibly console us for her absence. Faith may be pronounced immoral, hope smitten on the mouth, love analyzed into what is gracefully called natural function; all three are blasphemed and denied by pretty nearly the whole literary generation; but it does not suit culture to deny beauty, or materialism to quarrel with culture. And irrefragable beauty does certainly, to those who concede the possible existence of Spirit, or to any person whenever he does so, seem like a personal appeal for His own and due glory, from the Father of spirits to man. We cannot see why Goethe's view of nature as a manifestation of God should be accused of Pantheism. He does not say the Earth-Spirit is divine; he says his office is to weave for God the vesture man sees him by. And Carlyle adds, in words yet weightier, that nature, which is the TimeVesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish.*

The spirit of art, then, to Theists and upwards in the scale of creed, is the spirit of aspiring or adoring delight in the sight of God's works. And my reason for repeating this definition for the fiftieth time is, that it appears to be altogether forgotten by modern artists and critics; or it has been repeated conventionally till it is worth nothing on the exchange of genuine convictions. And there appears just now the more reason for reproducing this sufficiently great and true idea, because its withdrawal or partial effacement seems to be grievously felt in English art. In French work, as we have it, such absence is not felt, because the spirit of self-expression, and skilful and witty display of human emotion, good, bad, and indifferent, is and always has been the be-all and the end-all of French art. It is highly trained in learning and technics; it is vivid, powerful, logically in accordance with its own rules; it is often noble and aspiring; but it is without God in this world, and strongly preferred by a majority on this side the Channel for that reason.

But we are not here concerned with French art. The object of the

* Sartor Resartus, ch. viii., Bk. III.