As
for Professor Shairp, looked on as a critic he was a tragic example of
the unfortunate influence of Wordsworth, for he was always confusing
ethical with aesthetical questions, and never had the slightest idea how
to approach such poets as Shelley and Rossetti whom it was his mission to
interpret to young Oxford in his later years; {189} while, considered as
a poet, he deserves hardly more than a passing reference. Professor
Veitch gravely tells us that one of the descriptions of Kilmahoe is 'not
surpassed in the language for real presence, felicity of epithet, and
purity of reproduction,' and statements of this kind serve to remind us
of the fact that a criticism which is based on patriotism is always
provincial in its result. But it is only fair to add that it is very
rarely that Professor Veitch is so extravagant and so grotesque. His
judgment and taste are, as a rule, excellent, and his book is, on the
whole, a very fascinating and delightful contribution to the history of
literature.

The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry. By John Veitch, Professor of
Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow. (Blackwood and Son.)

LITERARY AND OTHER NOTES--I

(Woman's World, November 1887.)

The Princess Christian's translation of the Memoirs of Wilhelmine,
Margravine of Baireuth, is a most fascinating and delightful book. The
Margravine and her brother, Frederick the Great, were, as the Princess
herself points out in an admirably written introduction, 'among the first
of those questioning minds that strove after spiritual freedom' in the
last century. 'They had studied,' says the Princess, 'the English
philosophers, Newton, Locke, and Shaftesbury, and were roused to
enthusiasm by the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau. Their whole lives
bore the impress of the influence of French thought on the burning
questions of the day. In the eighteenth century began that great
struggle of philosophy against tyranny and worn-out abuses which
culminated in the French Revolution. The noblest minds were engaged in
the struggle, and, like most reformers, they pushed their conclusions to
extremes, and too often lost sight of the need of a due proportion in
things. The Margravine's influence on the intellectual development of
her country is untold. She formed at Baireuth a centre of culture and
learning which had before been undreamt of in Germany.'

The historical value of these Memoirs is, of course, well known. Carlyle
speaks of them as being 'by far the best authority' on the early life of
Frederick the Great. But considered merely as the autobiography of a
clever and charming woman, they are no less interesting, and even those
who care nothing for eighteenth-century politics, and look upon history
itself as an unattractive form of fiction, cannot fail to be fascinated
by the Margravine's wit, vivacity and humour, by her keen powers of
observation, and by her brilliant and assertive egotism. Not that her
life was by any means a happy one.