Mystica Vannus. By J. W. SHERER, C.S.I. Religion, The, of Mithra. By J. A. FARRER Reformers and Anti-Jacobins. By H. R. FOX BOURNE 352 559 436 Rosicrucian Brotherhood, The. By A. E. WAITE 521 598 Science Notes. By W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, F.R.A.S.: Disease and Microbia-Sparrow Slaying-Borates in the Dis- Explosions of Natural Gas-Ship Resistance 380 329 224 545 Changes in Drinking Water-Extract of Whale-Variations of The Jubilee Rejoicings-A Model Jubilee Accomplishment English Actors Abroad-Modern Writers on their Predecessors A Commission on Modern Spiritualism-Three Claimants for a Realism in Art-Mr. Irving and M. Coquelin-Two Opposite Twelve Days, The Season of the. By J. THEODORE BENT Up in the Morning Early. By ALEX. H. JAPP, LL.D. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. JULY 1887. CANDIDE AT THE JUBILEE. "L ET us go this year to England," said Candide to his old friend and fellow-adventurer, Martin. "There, if anywhere, shall we see human happiness at its height, for it is not every year that a whole nation celebrates a Jubilee and gives itself up to delight and enjoyment." "By all means let us go," replied the philosopher, with his sad dissentient smile; "but I have heard that the English are not habitually a happy people." "All the more reason for their being happy this year, you incorri. gible old Manichæan," said Candide. "Possibly," said Martin. The first impressions of London fully confirmed Candide in the absolute correctness of his anticipations. The streets, bright in the warm sunlight, the brisk traffic, the rush of life, all seemed to betoken a joy-intoxicated population. There was no doubt about the Jubilee, for the whole English language seemed to be reduced to that one word. In the shop windows, everything, from diamond tiaras to scrubbing brushes, was ticketed Jubilee. Candide was in ecstasies. "What more delightful proof," he said, "of the happiness of this sublime people? Or do you still doubt in the possibility of human happiness with all this ocular demonstration of its reality?" "I simply reserve my judgment," replied Martin: an answer given with such imperturbable philosophy that it provoked Candide highly, causing the discussion to become louder and louder as they advanced down Piccadilly, to the consternation of all orderly citizens and the strong disapproval of the police, who, taking them for foreign Socialists of a dangerous type, marched them straight off to VOL. CCLXIII, NO. 1879. B prison on the charge of obstructing the traffic of the Queen's highways. This first taste of the sweets of English liberty they found no pleasant experience, but it led them indirectly to the acquisition of some curious knowledge and some useful insight into English customs. "I had always understood," said Candide to an English gentleman, whose acquaintance they made soon after their restoration to liberty, "that no one could be imprisoned in England without a fair trial at the hands of a jury of his peers." The gentleman smiled at his innocence, and replied: "That is true for some offences. But there is also our summary jurisdiction, which any magistrate can apply as despotically as any Turkish pasha. Besides, the law, always assuming a man to be guilty until he is proved innocent, condemns a man suspected of crime, if he is too poor to give bail, to rot for months in a pestilential prison, where he is as badly fed as he is foully kept, till the assizes come on, when of course, if innocent, he is acquitted." "After being punished with several months' imprisonment for a crime he never committed !" exclaimed Candide. "Oh! free and happy people!" ejaculated Martin. "Is it true," asked Candide," that there is to be a general release of prisoners this year in honour of the Jubilee? Truly there could be no fitter recognition of the people's loyalty than the proclamation by the Crown of a general amnesty." "General fiddlesticks!" replied the Englishman, with contempt. "You might as well talk of an amnesty to all the tigers and snakes in the Zoological Gardens because of the Jubilee." "But if in India, why not in England?" asked Candide in his simplicity. "Because England is a free country," said the Englishman, “and India is a subject dependency. That makes all the difference." "Oh! marvellous liberty! Oh, thrice-blessed British freedom!" exclaimed Martin. Soon afterwards they parted with that Englishman, and saw him no more. The Jubilee was now at its height. Illuminations and fireworks turned night into day; oxen were roasted whole; seas of beer and wine were drunk by all classes; and the military paraded in all directions, looking vastly important and making a never-ending din. Candide and Martin received invitations to a State Ball at Buckingham Palace, where they were introduced to, among other celebrities, a distinguished general, to whom Candide thus spoke in winged words : "This Jubilee must be a time of unalloyed satisfaction to you men-of-arms, when you recall all your victorious campaigns, and all the territories you have added to your Queen's dominions during the last fifty years." "Satisfaction!" cried the general, almost as if he had been shot. "Do you call it a satisfaction to have lived to see the decline of the country from a first-rate to a fourth-rate power; to see the services starved, the army reduced to a mob of boys, the purchase of commissions abolished, the Royal Artillery cut down; a satisfaction to see a coaling-station, like Port Hamilton, tamely surrendered, to see New Guinea, or the best part of it, annexed by Germany, and the country afraid to have it out, once for all, with France and Russia? No, sir, I assure you I never rise from my bed without a burning sense of shame, nor spend a day without a fit of indignation. We may talk of Jubilees, sir, and play at Jubilees, but you may take my word for it, that the universal feeling of the services is one of unmitigated disgust, mingled with most serious apprehensions for the safety of our shores in the contingency-the almost certain contingency—of foreign invasion." “That,” said Martin, "is precisely what they say in France." "And I can vouch," said Candide, "for their language not being very different in Germany." But the general had worked himself up into such a state of passion that it seemed as if all his blood-vessels were about to burst, which rendered further conversation with him impossible, and our two foreigners were only too glad to find close to them a famous author whom they knew a little. But his looks certainly belied him, if his heart was more jubilant than that of the general, whom, as a military man, despondency of course became as black becomes a mute at a funeral. "Literature," said the man of letters, "has almost ceased to exist. Books of any sort are out of fashion, and the rich vie with one another as much now in selling their libraries as their ancestors did in collecting them. Our only writers of account are those who pander to the morbid tastes of the multitude, or tickle their fancy with childish and impossible romances." "But surely," observed Candide, "your own success and popularity militates against the absolute accuracy of your theory?" "I do not aim at absolute accuracy," said the writer. "And, indeed, you are right," said Martin; "for truth in this world I hold to be as unattainable as felicity." "At all events," said the man of letters, "it counts for nothing in contemporary literature; it is, as we say, below par. The preference of the reading world for fiction has caused the latter to invade and occupy the world of fact and history. Unreality, in short, in all its forms, is one of the causes and symptoms of our national decline." "National decline!" exclaimed Candide. "You talk of national decline in the very year of your Jubilee !" "My dear sir," answered the oracle, "I have talked of nothing else for the last forty years, nor do I see any feature in the Jubilee calculated to make me talk differently. It does not put an end to parliamentary government, nor confer upon us our only chance of salvation-namely, the government of a single capable ruler. England is honeycombed with sedition and socialism. And why? Because of our political institutions, which cause our policy to be the sport of rival parties, and therefore as unstable and uncertain as the weathercock." "Well!" said Candide afterwards to Martin. "These English are truly a marvellous folk! If there was one thing more than another wherein I assumed that all Englishmen were agreed to be happy, it was in the freedom of their political institutions.” "You did not know the English," said Martin; getting to know them." now you are "Perhaps so," said Candide; "but it was this very parliamentary government that, having been once the despair, and latterly the model, of all other countries under the sun, now threatens to invade Asia itself." "Possibly," said the philosopher of the pessimist persuasion, "only don't suppose it will make Asia any happier than it has made Europe. Are wars fewer, or the danger of them less in Europe, or are taxes lighter, under the representative than they were under the monarchical régime? Depend upon it, evil will always be uppermost in the affairs of mortals, and you only crush it in one direction to make it crop up more vigorously in another." "But the moral of your doctrine," said Candide indignantly, "is quiescence, despair, stagnation." "I have nothing to do with morals," quoth Martin. "My only concern is with facts." "If only Pangloss were here," replied Candide," he would prove, in spite of appearances, that all was for the best." "And the moral of that belief," quoth Martin, "would be quiescence, contentment, stagnation. Surely the daily life of the world is answer enough to that. A fig for your Pangloss!" Meantime the Jubilee progressed apace. It tended to become |