John Gregory, boot-maker, with a
refrain of

Up, ye People! or down into your graves!
Cowards ever will be slaves!

is to be sung to the tune of Rule, Britannia! the old melody of The Vicar
of Bray is to accompany the new Ballade of Law and Order--which, however,
is not a ballade at all--and to the air of Here's to the Maiden of
Bashful Fifteen the democracy of the future is to thunder forth one of
Mr. T. D. Sullivan's most powerful and pathetic lyrics. It is clear that
the Socialists intend to carry on the musical education of the people
simultaneously with their education in political science and, here as
elsewhere, they seem to be entirely free from any narrow bias or formal
prejudice. Mendelssohn is followed by Moody and Sankey; the Wacht am
Rhein stands side by side with the Marseillaise; Lillibulero, a chorus
from Norma, John Brown and an air from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony are all
equally delightful to them. They sing the National Anthem in Shelley's
version and chant William Morris's Voice of Toil to the flowing numbers
of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon. Victor Hugo talks somewhere of the
terrible cry of 'Le Tigre Populaire,' but it is evident from Mr.
Carpenter's book that should the Revolution ever break out in England we
shall have no inarticulate roar but, rather, pleasant glees and graceful
part-songs. The change is certainly for the better. Nero fiddled while
Rome was burning--at least, inaccurate historians say he did; but it is
for the building up of an eternal city that the Socialists of our day are
making music, and they have complete confidence in the art instincts of
the people.

They say that the people are brutal--
That their instincts of beauty are dead--
Were it so, shame on those who condemn them
To the desperate struggle for bread.
But they lie in their throats when they say it,
For the people are tender at heart,
And a wellspring of beauty lies hidden
Beneath their life's fever and smart,

is a stanza from one of the poems in this volume, and the feeling
expressed in these words is paramount everywhere. The Reformation gained
much from the use of popular hymn-tunes, and the Socialists seem
determined to gain by similar means a similar hold upon the people.
However, they must not be too sanguine about the result. The walls of
Thebes rose up to the sound of music, and Thebes was a very dull city
indeed.

Chants of Labour: A Song-Book of the People. With Music. Edited by
Edward Carpenter. With Designs by Walter Crane. (Swan Sonnenschein and
Co.)

MR. BRANDER MATTHEWS' ESSAYS

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 27, 1889.)

'If you to have your book criticized favorably, give yourself a good
notice in the Preface!' is the golden rule laid down for the guidance of
authors by Mr. Brander Matthews in an amusing essay on the art of preface-
writing and, true to his own theory, he announces his volume as 'the most
interesting, the most entertaining, and the most instructive book of the
decade.' Entertaining it certainly is in parts. The essay on Poker, for
instance, is very brightly and pleasantly written. Mr. Proctor objected
to Poker on the somewhat trivial ground that it was a form of lying, and
on the more serious ground that it afforded special opportunities for
cheating; and, indeed, he regarded the mere existence of the game outside
gambling dens as 'one of the most portentous phenomena of American
civilisation.' Mr.