bald and of a rich cobalt hue, crossed by of scars all round their middle, several lines of black velvety feathers." compare it with the preference of hen Well, why did not development of the pheasants for the "elliptic ornaments plumage most pleasing to these little crea- and the "ball-and-socket" plumage, we tures bring out instead something as ugly must admit at once that the hen-pheasants as the British matron's orange turban, have a far finer sense of beauty than the Now, we also know surmounting a rich salmon-coloured silk Australian males. dress? Mr. Darwin accounts most ingen- that in reference to quite other cases, the iously for the wonderful development of animal instincts are superseded in man by rich plumage, if he only gave us any a general development of reason, which, equally adequate account of the wonderful for the special purposes of instinct, is, at development of animal taste. How did first at all events, a vastly inferior instruthe preferences of the various tribes of ment. No human reason would suffice to creatures happen to select harmonies so effect what the beaver, and the ant, and perfect, when the rudimentary tastes of the bee effect by instinct alone. The bee's partially civilized human beings seem to power of building perfectly hexagonal select ornament so hideous? Surely the cells may, as Mr. Darwin has shown, be a developed instinct, since certain wild bees problem remains as difficult as ever, namely, to account for the sure selection build cells of much ruder kind; but no of exquisite harmonies of form and colour, one supposes that even the hexagonal cells instead of the most atrocious discords. are built on strictly geometrical principles, Put the mind of the average English bar- by true bee engineers who have studied maid into the hen-pheasants, and instead the trigonometry of the subject. And yet of distinguishing by their preference the men who have, would be puzzled to build variations tending towards such ball-and- cells one-hundredth part as perfect as the socket ocelli, they would have distin- bees. Does not this seem to show that as guished by their preference variations of reason begins to supersede instinct, we the "fulvous" tinge tending in the direc- gain a far higher and wider power, tion of coarse cap-string streaks of yellow, the power of laying the intellectual basis at the expense of a And while the appearance of a few red bows in of our own rules, the neigbourhood would have caused a great specific loss of practical skill? perfect enthusiasm. And instead of the may not something of the same kind be elegant "ear-tufts" of certain humming- true of the sense of beauty? If Mr. birds, such as Mr. Darwin describes, they Darwin is right as to the principle which would have influenced the development in stimulates the elaboration of beauty by the direction of heavy ear-drops adapted the lower animals, does not the Creator expressly to distort the shape of the ear. give the lower order of animals an instinct The exquisite harmony and graduation of of beauty ready-made, which we lose aз the various bird-plumage would certainly we become competent to apprehend its never have been produced by the selective laws, and which we only recover by maspreferences of the lowest order of human tering consciously those laws of harmony beings. How, then, if Mr. Darwin's which the bird and even the fish appreaccount of the cause of the development hend instinctively? Yet if this be a true of beauty be admitted, are we to account account of the matter, this instinctive sefor the sure artistic animal taste which de-lection of the beautiful leads to a theologitermined its progress and direction?

cal inference a good way beyond that warWe will offer a suggestion. Granting ranted by the selection of the useful. Of that Mr. Darwin is right in his explanation course, with regard to the natural selecof the gradual growth and accumulation tion of modifications useful to the creature of beautiful colours and forms in the which undergoes those modifications, it plumage of birds, through the preference may be said that they are merely the surfor those birds which are the more beauti-vivors of thousands of modifications, which But with ful, and the relative neglect of those which are lost out of sight merely because they are less so, it must be plainly conceded, were injurious or indifferent. we think, that some of the lowest animal regard to the selection of the beautiful, orders possess a far finer artistic sense this cannot be said. If there were any than does uncultivated man even in an ad-race of birds which really preferred pure there might and must be a vanced stage of civilization. When we ugliness, Hence, consider the frightful as well as barbaric natural selection of ugliness of which ornamentation which Sir John Lubbock we suppose there is no trace. tells us that savage women are compelled the instinctive taste for beauty in the to undergo, as, for instance, great seams bird, which is so much greater than

From The Pall Mall Gazette.
MOVABLE MORALS.

that of half-educated human beings, and | Church and to die for the right of spiritual which is only painfully recovered through freedom is one thing; for a clergyman of the laborious study of Nature by educated the Establishment to expand received intelligences, must come from a fountain formulas is another: and though we do of infinite love of beauty, and cannot by not burn our modern Husses we punish any possibility be the mere result of a them in another way, and hang them in competitive struggle for existence among their own ropes. Then we hear grand animals quite unconscious whither the things about simplicity; how Cincinnatus issue of that struggle tends. went back to his plough, and how the Lacedemonians ate black broth and so on; but in the world we find that luxury is an essential part of a man's credentials, and that those who cannot make a good show need not look for the suffrages of society. Perhaps no one has been held up more It is worth considering whether it would frequently to ridicule than the modern not be as well to reconstruct the code of Cincinnatus, Garibaldi, whose finest virmorals taught in the school-room into tues fail to impress those on whom not his something more in accordance with what smallest foibles pass unnoted. All for the pupils will find practised in the world love, too, is a moral archaism utterly out when they enter it. It seems so much of place at the present time; and not the time lost in misdirection to teach them best man but the longest purse carries that patriotism, self-sacrifice, persistent the day with maidens as with mammas. endeavour against heavy odds, truth, and What would all for love do, with the simplicity are qualities to be admired, world lost, as it would be? What would when they will find themselves ridiculed an honest man's affection count, in comand probably ruined if they put them into parison with the opera box and the pair action. Speak of these things in the past of bays, the town mansion and the country and they are virtues which crowned men place? All for love in modern thought with glory; practise them in the present, means a few months' rapture in a fool's and they are follies, if not worse, which paradise, and a life of repining as the bill cover them with shame. Take certain of to be paid for the enjoyment. And, looked the heroes and patriots of old, those men at in this light, a balance at the banker's of far-off history who organized a hopeless is more to the purpose than that stirring resistance against an impregnable despot- of the senses the rash young call love. ism, and died gallantly in the attempt: For self-respect, too, substitute what will they are quoted for admiration, and the pay. What enthusiast used to talk of after-advantages of what was at the time Noblesse oblige? Nobility has now no more a foredoomed endeavour are elaborately duties than have the common folk. To proved. But when men at the present get a shilling's-worth for elevenpence day do substantially the same thing, they three-farthings, to traffic in jobs, and not are incendiaries or self-seekers, fanatics or to be squeamish about that bucket of fools, and our young students of compara- pitch at the side, are modes of action not tive history find that to be a Greek or a by any means foreign to our modern repRoman changes the significance of patri- resentatives of Sir Galahad and the Chevaotic or political action, and that a hero in lier Bayard. In fact, the morals of the a toga is a very different thing from a day mean simply success and what will commissioner in a frock-coat. So when pay. All that we have learned about rightmen and women went to the stake rather eousness for righteousness' sake, about than deny the truth that was in them, we abstract virtue, self-respect, and the thing hear much about the blood of the martyrs which is good in the sight of God and our being the seed of the Church, and of the own souls before all else, is simple moongratitude which we owe to those who shine, so far as its translation into active devoted themselves for the gain of our life is concerned - morals that won't spiritual liberty. But if one among our- wash, that don't pay, and that will land selves goes a step beyond those liberties one on the lowest step instead of the tophe is bowled over with no more mercy most round, if persisted in. If your counthan his predecessors, and we think him try is invaded, cry Peccavi and knuckle an undoubted fool for troubling his own under before striking a blow or proving conscience and his hearers over what is your comparative weakness. If the mass settled and done with. For a medieval of the community are basely indifferent Huss to preach against the bondage of the 'to national integrity, respect their cow

ardice rather than urge them on to the fight for honour's sake, and make the braver minority to pass under the harrow rather than stimulate the backward to a common self-defence. If your soul is tormented with doubts, bury them in the basket of loaves and fishes, and do not quarrel with your bread and butter because you are not certain of the genuineness of the dairy. What is truth? A phantom, a mere matter of relative proportion; and it is better to preach well, what you are not quite sure of- than unsettle the faith of simple folk. The idea of sacrificing a comfortable position for what you are pleased to term conscience, honesty, honour, is too absurd; and, moreover, you cannot prove your position, and really one vagueness is quite as good as another. Absolute martyrdom is rococo; and we have done our best to make our mild version of it ridiculous. There is no doubt however about one thing, which is, that morals are, as we say, movable; that words have lost their old significance and things their former value, that virtue counts for nothing, and success and what will pay for all. The aspirations of men which do not lead to present immediate good are so much wasted force; and the present penny is of more value in our eyes than the future pound. No one works for posterity, or for sake of the Best, irrespective of success. Just as the modern landowner plants larch rather than oak, because of its quicker growth and consequent earlier returns, so do we care for the qualities which bring us immediate personal reward, and especially for common sense, that much misused euphemism by which we mean servility, acquiescence in dishonour, if it pays; selfaggrandizement, by shady means if necessary, but self-aggrandizement at all events, and the abnegation of all those generous impulses which would lead to the damage of body or estate for the mere sake of upholding a principle.

seen.

when attacked on account of national peculiarities was due to the nearly unbroken character of English political prosperity. As a matter of fact, however, Scotchmen, with all their proud history in the distant past and great prosperity in the immediate past, are exceptionally sensitive to attacks on their nationality; and so are the Spaniards, who if they have fallen in the world, certainly do not know it; while the French before their disasters, with their marvellous history, were morbidly sensitive to criticism even from themselves, denouncing the latter as unpatriotic. Nor do we find that nations who have made history and great history cease therefore to be sensitive. The Americans when they emerged from their great war were almost at the top of the world, drove out Napoleon from Mexico, and alarmed Great Britain, but still they could not get over the way the English papers had "belittled" them. They had become, one would think, almost case-hardened to newspapers, and had nothing to do but to point to their achievements as a sufficient answer to everybody; but still they could not be comfortable till Englishmen acknowledged that they had fought through the biggest war, trampled out the biggest rebellion, and generally become the biggest people that ever were It actually seemed for a time as if the raw would never heal, and England and the Union would have to fight because the Times was decidedly Southern in its sympathies and Punch slightly brutal in its jokes. And now here is Germany, at the very head of the world, with her cup full of success, and of success won by the exhibition of the qualities nations most exult in, courage, discipline, brain, power in war of every kind, from the solidest endurance to the most refined strategy,- and yet Germany is almost as sensitive as ever. A Glasgow shopkeeker last week exhibited a caricature implying that France was hardly used, whereupon three gentlemen, said to be Prussians, walked in, asked for the caricature, paid for it punctually, and tore it up, threatening the shopman with worse if the picture were replaced. The German Press is almost as weak, and with all its aspirations gratified is so wild because other nations think it might have Ir is very hard to discover either the | been less hard in gratifying them, that it limits or the final causes of national sen- descends to the most amusing arguments. sitivenesses, or rather of the sensitive- England claims £10,000 for the murder of Desses which men betray about their Mr. Llyod at Marathon. A German solnationality. The old theory used to be dier is as good as a British engineer. Conthat people belonging to nations without sequently Great Britain ought to approve a history are the most sensitive, that the if Germany asks £10,000 for every Gerexceptionally thick skin of the Englishman' man soldier killed in fair fighting, in which

From The Spectator.
NATIONAL SENSITIVENESSES.

fighting his nation was victorious. Why, on that showing, is not the Frenchman who is killed to be paid for, too, by the nation which killed him? American statesmen are pretty well hardened to criticism; but great statesmen in Germany, even when they have won, when their deeds are answers to all attacks, still seem to feel sore because their political conduct is matter of sharp discussion. Like Frederick the Great, they complain that the flogged soldier should be afraid of them, and think, "You ought to love me, sirrah." Even during the occupation of Paris a caricature would have put that Army which had showed so miraculous a constancy in the siege out of the very patience in which itself quite justly exulted, and Count Bismarck complains every day because the Indépendance Belge is so French in sympathy.

or vexed by truthful reprimand, but the notion that their nation was hurt would never enter their minds.

It is all self-conceit? Well, then, selfconceit is very useful; but it is curious that the American or Spaniard, who on the score of his nationality is incarnate self-conceit, should be so touchy under depreciation; that the Frenchman, who is certainly not devoid of the foible, should be so restive under criticism — he does not mind caricature, as that appeals to his best intellectual quality, his love of humour-and that the Prussian, who certainly is not the humblest of mankind, should be stung into an explosion by a picture sold by a shopman who probably did not even know its meaning. There must be some other explanation, and as we do not find it in the bad qualities or circumstances of different nations, supIf the feeling were universal we could pose we seek it in the good. Is it not the understand it, but one race, and perhaps | fact that most peoples are sensitive to attwo, seem absolutely devoid of it. Italians tack on the side on which they keep up a seem to mind ridicule but little, and no- high ideal, to which they would like to body can think of a caricature which attain? A German always thinks of himwould seriously annoy an Englishman self, for instance, as endowed with a sort from the side of his nationality. The of kindly goodness, showing itself in variFrench did their best in that way for ous ways, especially in the more sentimenyears, and Englishmen strolling along the tal forms and in his love of justice, and Boulevards criticised their performances though he may not attain his ideal as fully with the most immovable good-temper, as he thinks, he cannot bear to be depreasked who had been taken for models of ciated on that side. Whether he contheir Volunteers who were ridiculed in quered the world or not may be a subject a spirit of genuine bitterness-laughed for argument, but that if he did he was a over representations of the English "mees- good fellow too, not given to harshness or ses" not by any means polite, and asked cruelty, is certainty, and must not be deeach other if they really did pronounce nied. If anybody says he took too much French in that extraordinary way. [By money in the Treaty, that is abuse, not the way, it is a very curious fact that the comment, and ought, he thinks, to make popular caricature of a foreigner's mispro- him irritable. The ideal of himself, though nunciation is seldom or never like his real by no means yet realized, is a good one blunders, except in certain broad charac- to have, and may, in the long run, materiteristics, is apparently a tradition of the ally soften a nation whose bad quality is blunders he used to make, but has aban- the hardness of which it dislikes to hear. doned.] Praise of their nation sometimes So is the American's ideal, which is a kind gives Englishmen unreasonable pleasure, of polished self-dependent dignity to as, for example, Marshal Bugeaud's sen- which he does not attain, but which he has tence about the British infantry; but if always in his mind, and resents any accuevery General on earth accused our sol- sation that he lacks. It would be much diery of habitual cowardice, the majority better to strive towards it more earnestly, of Englishmen would only think they were and care less whether foreigners think he talking nonsense for a purpose. Mr. Haw- has attained it; but the existence of the thorne's curious bursts of dislike worry ideal in his own fancy is a good thing for us just as little as M. Assolant's sneers or him. The Frenchman's ideal, again, that Victor Hugo's attacks on our unequalled of the elegant and brave, the Bayard, has selfishness. We have tried in vain, in fact, had a distinct influence on his character, to think of the form of ridicule with pen and is revealed in his morbid sensitiveness or pencil which would give Englishmen, to the charge either of cowardice, awkwardwho are of the same race as both Germans ness, or thickwittedness. You may call a and Americans, five minutes' annoyance. Frenchman anything rather than a camel. They might be irritated by individual libel A certain grandezza is to the Spaniard what

chivalry is to the Frenchman, and any insituation that he is contemptible hurts him infinitely more than the assertion that he is a blood-thirsty bigot. People do not despise blood-thirsty bigots. It is because he is unimaginative, because he so seldom gives himself an ideal, that the Englishman is thick-skinned, till he hardly comprehends, even in his own secret mind, how it is that other people can be so hurt by satire, or rebuke, or hasty criticism. He has no self other than himself to protect from injury, to be forever sensitive about, and so lampoon, and caricature, and abuse excite in him only a faint sense of amusement that he should be so entirely misunderstood.

From The Spectator.

THE SITUATION IN SPAIN.

a member of the Government, and indeed a Cabinet Minister. Does "the Savoyard," as with malicious pleasantry an opponent nicknames Amadeo, look to the nobility of Spain to give his Court that prestige of aristocracy which is of the very essence of kingship? He must content himself with such nobility as was to be found in the salons of the Man of December, or among the tradespeople who profit by his custom, and ape the incongruous graces of a citizen-king in a country where Royalty must be either sacred or despised. Meantime, the equipages of the haughtiest grandees keep rolling with rebellious ostentation to the prison of San Francisco, where a number of young officers who have refused the oath of allegiance are confined by the Government, and as a consequence have won the enthusiastic sympathies of all the sangre azul for a hundred miles around. When Amadeo comes to the theatre, he is either received with the chilling inattention of the best circles, or finds that count, and marquis, and duke THE recent elections to the Provincial have left at his approach. Some MinisteDeputations of Spain have greatly alarmed rial prints had indulged the pleasing anticithe new Government, and seem to indicate pation that the Duke de Montpensier that the leading hope of the friends of would acknowledge the nominee of Prim. Spain after the death of Prim the hope Within the past few days, however, the that parties would regard him as the scape- question has been decided, as all but the goat for all that occurred during the inter- editors and readers of Ministerial prints regnum- will be disappointed. His death might have told, and the Orleanist candiapparently has diminished the ascendancy date for the Crown of the Catholic Soverof the King over the Army, without in any eigns is now a source of torturing perdegree ameliorating the hatreds of the plexity as a prisoner on parole in the hands great parties to the new form of Govern- of the son of Victor Emmanuel. It was to ment. That Government is still weak, be expected that Carlists, Alfonsists, and still protected mainly by the dread of the Republicans would remain irreconcilable anarchy which might supervene upon any with the new Monarchy. It was thought very great change, still unable to attract that they would remain irreconcilable with to itself the support of the body of the themselves. It certainly did not enter the people. The new King is not yet master apprehension of many that so strange a of the situation, if he ever will be, and coalition would be formed, and would be possibly from no fault of his own, is far found to work, as that which is now befrom generally popular, while his Ministers yond a doubt, the coalition, namely, of are almost as much disliked as Prim was. Republicans and Carlists. Acting on the On every side the new Government of instruction of their three great leaders, Spain sees itself unable to form a union Pi y Margall, Figueras, and gifted Castelwith a single one of the opposing forces. lar, the Republican voters, during the Does it attempt to disarm the Church by recent elections to the Provincial Deputainditing handsome phrases about the Pa- tions, the Spanish Landtags, have, everypacy in circulars from the Foreign Office, where that the Carlists were in the maby proffering to the clergy payment of all jority compared to them, given their votes arrears of stipends, by subscribing to the to aid the success of the Carlist candidates, repair or the erection of religious edifices, and have everywhere in corresponding cirby patronizing pious lotteries? The utility cumstances received a correponding supof the condescension is seen in the nomina- port from Carlist minorities. The journals tion of Señor Monescillo, the distinguished of Carlist and Republican alike are filled Bishop of Jaen, as the Carlist candidate for Cuidad-Real, in opposition to the Ministerial candidate, Don Moret y Prendergast,

with addresses in this sense, and both unite in proclaiming that the expulsion of the foreigner is a duty of patriotism which