into long poems of epic character. He loves to express philosophical ideas in the form of gigantic poetical allegories, his genius enables him to conceive and carry out grand ideas.

Sometimes the pruning process might be employed with advantage, both in cases of lengthiness and of inæsthetic excesses, sometimes his tints remind one of the commonplace oleograph; but his faults are those of an exuberant nature, reflecting the rich luxuriance of the south, and his poems, with all their faults, show the true poet, and contain so many beautiful passages and noble ideas that one is content to overlook some defects for their sake.

We will not speak of his translation of Lucretius, as that is not a product of modern thought. His two great original poems, "Lucifero" and "Giobbe," resemble each other in subject and mode of treatment; they are both huge allegories, representing one the Spirit of Reason, the other the Human Soul in search of truth.

"Lucifero" describes the emancipation of Reason (Lucifer) from the yoke of superstition-the popular struggle in Italy, in short-in a long narrative poem full of episodes, many of which are interesting and beautiful, gorgeous in colouring-presenting abstract ideas in brilliant symbolic garb. Lucifero rebels and wages war against the popular conceptions of the Christian religion as it is presented to the masses in Italy, with its "Presepio" or Crèche at Christmas, its array of images and tutelary saints, its Biblical ox and ass, on the lines of the quaint conceptions of medieval art or of the old Miracle Plays. Against this whole array of legendary and saintly lore Lucifer, Angel of Light and Enlightenment, so long darkened and enchained, rebels. In a conversation with Prometheus he relates how he fell from heaven (a beautiful passage in the original), how in heaven "cradled in a sea of ease and flowers, whilst the angels considered themselves blessed, I alone, restless spirit, indifferent to that eternal spring-time, to that eternal banquet . . . felt a vast solitude around, within me. Heaven seemed but a small thing-eternity a miserable life. . . . One day I dared confront the countenance of God and question Him: 'Who has made me thus? . . . If Thou art Truth, reveal Thyself.' He thundered, the angels trembled. I fell, but without fighting, for I felt my fall was greater than God's anger."

Then follows at great length the description of how human reason was enslaved, and the various attempts at revolt during the dark ages, touching with a few clever strokes such events as the Arian heresy, the invention of printing, the Reformation, the revolutions in England and France, all intellectual movements down to the emancipation of women and Darwinism in our day, all the events

which tended to develop Reason.

After this Lucifero in his wander

ings finds Hebe, the lovely goddess of nature and youth; their love episode is a beautiful idyll.

As a specimen of the poet's versatility, after reading the love poem of Lucifer and Hebe, take the ballad of the French people dancing round Louis XVI.-the contemptuous familiar irony of the maddened populace is so well rendered-in ballad style.

"Balliam, balliam, buon re," it begins.

"Dance with us, good King! True, we are not princes clad in purple and gold, but our rags have helped to make thy mantle and our hearts' blood has dyed it ;" and at the end, "We give thee our affection, and thou, oh! good King, thou shalt give us-thy head!"

"Lucifero" ends with a grand final day of judgment, in which he is victorious, the powers of heaven are dethroned, Reason and Light reign over all. It must be said that Rapisardi treats the popular conception of heaven with scant respect; he describes it in fact very much on the lines of Offenbach's parodies of Olympus (one is irresistibly reminded of "Orphée aux Enfers "); still, this grand medley of the beautiful, the ludicrous, and the grotesque has a raison d'être in the philosophical basis which sustains it throughout. It is serious work, and work written with a purpose. Naturally, it is condemned and tabooed by the orthodox as a book worthy of the flames. The poem caused a veritable panic when it first appeared. Some of it was issued in parts before the whole was published, and great efforts were made by the ecclesiastical party to prevent its publication as a whole, but in vain. "Lucifero," the entire poem, was given to the world in 1877

"Giobbe" (Job), published in 1884, embraces vaster and more abstract philosophical questions than "Lucifero." He (Job) typifies humanity-the eternal wanderer-in search of truth, beating the confines of the universe in his search. The poem has been compared to Goethe's "Faust," both works representing something of the same idea. À propos of this comparison, however, a communication of Mario Rapisardi himself on the subject was published in 1891. He says: "The psychological moment of Faust does in fact appear in my trilogy, in which I meant to represent the principal phases of human thought and sentiment in their perpetual battle with the problems of existence; but my work is in substance and in form different from the Goethian conception-the end of my work is diametrically opposed to that (not Epicurean, but bourgeois and vulgar), calming-down and adaptation, which is the real ideal of the German poet and his hero." Job, instead of resigning himself to

the world as it is (the poet explains further), and although acknowedging the uselessness of it, rebels against science and nature; his heart rebels, and "he challenges the Infinite with his perpetual Why?... Reason and sentiment are, and probably will continue to be, the two poles between which the poor human soul will oscillate until it be consumed."

In "Giobbe," at the beginning, Satan presents himself before God as in the Biblical narrative, but he is the undignified, diabolical figure, half ludicrous, half weird, of the middle ages. (This scene, and, it must be confessed, several others in "Giobbe," are in questionable taste.) Then follows at great length and with a superabundance of imaginary episode the story of Job's riches and of his misfortunes, after which begin his wanderings in search of Truth. He seeks it in Asceticism, in Love (Satan conjures up Venus, and an episode similar to that in "Lucifero" is thrown in), then in Study, finally in Nature. He implores Heaven to give his spirit peace. "Let me know all, or ignore all !" is his cry, but he only finds that the whole human race is, like himself, trying to find peace—in vain. Isis, the goddess who knows the secrets of all things, now comes to assist him in his search; the two wander through space. She reproaches his futile questionings :

"Unhappy one! Wilt thou ever run after Truth? Wilt overstep the dread limits of things, and the circle in which an iron law and my wisdom has bound thee?" Yet he still begs to know more. Isis replies that she can never reach the farthest shores of Beingthe limits of creation.

The epilogue concludes thus:

Iis. Stop, the end of our journey is here.

Job. Farther on, farther. . . . Give me peace at least, if I may know no more. . . . Where is peace? In the sea? in the stars? on earth? or in the cold tomb?

Isis. Perhaps. . . . I can do all except conquer myself and break the high necessity which rules me. I am, I am, I am, I am-this is the eternal story of my being.

Job. In this immense shadow in which I live,

I hear nothing save my own vain questioning.

This is the pessimist conclusion and key-note of the poem: the utility of human aspirations after Truth, the impossibility of reconciling human desires with the inexorable laws of Being.

MARY HARGRAVE.

CLEANSING THE BLACK RIVER.

N°

O longer is it profitable to produce fresh butter from the Thames mud. Time was, and that not so very long ago, when half a dozen men found it worth their while to hang around the Barking beach and collect grease from the water by means of mats hung over their boat's sides. The grease was boiled, or to employ the more technical term, "rendered," and was used—so believes Mr. Thudichum, the resident chemist of the County Council at Barking--for making inferior soap, the butter being perhaps a fanciful exaggeration.

Nevertheless, the purified grease having been gained, it would be difficult to say what was its ultimate destiny in days before Margarine Acts and so forth were passed. At all events, it is a fact that several persons did gain a living by collecting and dealing with grease which found its way down the sewers to the filthy Thames.

But that is a thing of the past. The old black boat which used to collect such a queer cargo reposes on the white beach of Barking, and her owner, his occupation quite gone, has by pleasing poetical justice been engaged at the sewage works themselves.

Instead of the old black boat, there is now a fleet of powerful steamships anchored off the works or moored at their pier, and capable of taking a thousand tons of sewage sludge out to sea each voyage. The old order has changed and wonderfully for the better. Instead of a black and filthy Thames, an offensive foreshore, and an evil-smelling river, we have an approximately clean and purified stream.

Ten years or so ago we remember steaming down the Thames one summer afternoon, and the royal river was, in fact, disgusting. Last summer-that of 1892-the improvement was most satisfactory and most marked. Old Father Thames had not only had his face washed, but, if we may be permitted the expression, nearly all his loathsome and offensive sores were healed. But for the effluvia from certain works, the air was fresh and delightful and there was no bad odour. The bright sun glinted and sparkled on clean, sea-looking water, the foreshores frequently showed up white in the fresh summer

light, and all the mats in creation would not apparently have collected a pennyworth of grease from the river. In the evening air we could even catch the scent of sea-weed on Barking beach, while the chemists of the Council assure us that during the summer the river has enjoyed fifty per cent. of oxygen, an excellent chemical test of its purity.

What has wrought this change? Briefly, the new system of dealing with London sewage, which only came fully into operation in the summer of 1892, and which may be epitomised into a sentence as the deodorisation and precipitation of the sewage, and the carrying of the precipitate or "sludge" out to sea. The effluent, or the comparatively clear liquid left after precipitation, is run out to the river as usual at ebb tide.

This system, which has had such remarkably satisfactory results, has quite a little history of its own. It has been about nine years coming into full operation. As it is always darkest before dawn, so the almost pestilential state of the river aroused the public and the Metropolitan Board of Works to the decisive opinion that "something must be done." The question was—What?

Now, into the varying methods of the treatment of sewage we do not propose to enter. No doubt the ideal system would be to use it upon the land; but until some Great One shall arise to explain how this shall be done with profit, we are afraid it will not be realised any more than a scheme for extracting the silver from the Thames as it flows past Southend Pier.

The Metropolitan Board had to face a serious difficulty, and this is how they did it: they sought the advice of their chemist, Mr. W. J. Dibdin, F.C.S., and of their engineer, the late Sir Joseph Bazalgette. These gentlemen called in the assistance of a third, Dr. Dupré, and as a result of experiments they recommended, in essence, the present plan. The Board submitted this scheme to other gentlemen, one of whom was Sir Frederick Abel, who gave a favourable verdict.

The scheme was bold and far reaching. It was none other than the treatment of the whole of the sewage of London with lime and sulphate of iron to cause deodorisation and precipitation, and the conveyance of the precipitate far out to sea by steamers.

At that time the whole of the sewage used to be run out usually untreated, i.e. in a crude state, into the river at ebb tide, and we do not wonder if the idea of conveying the offensive part by "mud barges" received stern criticism. Bold enterprises usually do

receive such treatment.

But something had to be done, and forth went the order from the Metropolitan Board to set the scheme in motion. They began VOL. CCLXXIV. NO. 1946.

N