THE HESPERIAN.
LITERARY.
"Every one is as God made him, and oftentimes a great
deal worse." Cervantes.
"The first king of France was Pharamond, and imaginary
being who had never existed. He was succeeded by his
son." Drury's History of France.
When Education announced that the November number
would be devoted to philology, we expected something good.
This was not because the magazine makes a practice of issu
ing good numbers, for we "would not be justifiable in making
so rash an assertion; but, with such a subject and so many
competent and enthusiastic writers, we thought that even Ed
ucation might furnish us with a good discusson. Barring the
first paper, our expectation is more than fulfilled. "How
the Germans Study Philology," is certainly a good subject
for the opening of the discussion, but we have carefully ex
amined the nine pages devoted to the theme without gaining
the slightest insight into German methods. The paper re
minds us of Artemus Ward's celebrated lecture on "Africa,"
in which thesucject was mentioned just once, and then inci
dentally. Professor Merrill begins by naming three German
works on philology; then he branches off into a definition of
the term, and from that he continues to brarich until the end,
going farther from his subject with each paragraph. Hid
eously botched Greek and German are not the least notic
able features of the paper, but as this botching occurs in al
most every foreign sentence throughout the number, we can
not blame the author. For the remaining articles, we have
nothing to offer but words of praise, and we would notice es
pecially "The Literary Value of Classical Study" and Pro
fessor Fisher's paper on "The Teaching of Latin," which
latter is full of good ideas tersely and forcibly expressed. In
conclusion we would make two suggestions. We would say
to Professor Merrill, "Try it again," and to Education, "Be
fore you attempt another philological number, please rent a
proof-reader who has some knowledge of Greek and Latin,
at least."
The revived Scribnerys is worthy of its honored name.
From the first number it has seemed well suited to be the fa
vorite of American magazines, and the character of the con
tents is ever improving. The December number, as is usual
with magazines, is especially good. In this instance wc fail
to find a bad, or even a moderately good piece ot work, liter
ary or artistic, from the frontispiece to the last tail-piece,
all is of the first merit. It would indeed be dcfiicult, among
the many excellent writers the great present affords, to sclsct
a list more widely and favorably known than those here set
before us. The firsi number is a poem by Robert Louis Stev
enson which is vague and suggestive enough to be a favorite
with Poe, were he living to enjoy the reading of it. It is
long since an equal to "Tioonderog" has appeared. Mr.
William Hole, in his intetpretation of
"Out of the night and the other world
Came in to him the dead,"
has produced an illustration that Dore might be proud of.
In May of last year a party of biologists sailed to Green
Turtle Key in the Bahamas for the purpose of making ob
scrvations on the life of the sea. Fortunately for the great
majority who think the study of mankind of more importance
than learning the domestic relations of the coral animals, one
representing this great majority, but still a biologist, accom
panied the expedition. This man is Dr. T. Wesley Mills,
and to him we give our thanks for the very interesting paper
which heads the contents of The American Naturalist for Oc
tober. Green Turtle Key, with an area of icss than one fourth
of a square mile, is the home of some six hundred persons,
black, white, and of every shade between the two. The
forefathers of the picscnt inhabitants have dwelt on this same
little island for generations past, and the number of tmmi
grants and emigrants is very small. Consequently the com
munity is in a state of physical, mental and moral degreda
tion. The Doctor, as an M. D.,is deeply interested in search
ing after the precise causes which have brought about this
condition, and well he may be. We hope he will not neglect
to supplement the paper under consideration with another,
giving .is a detailed account of the customs and mental traits
of Green Turtle Key society. The study of this isolated
ocean community would be little less interesting than that of
the Pitcairn Islanders, about whom volumes have been writ
ten and read with interest If we had the facts before us we
would be willing to do our own speculating as to the causes,
although wc are pleased to have the opinion of so eminent a
man as Dr. Mills.
It would be hard to find a more beautiful expression of
sorrow and faith than the Latin prayer written by Mary Stu
art not long before her execution. It is to literature what
the Mater Dolorosa is to art. As it is difficult to obtain, we
think it well to give it, together with Swinburne's transla
tion, which, although much inferior to the original, is as good
as a translation could be. We have seen neither the original
nor the English version for months, but wc think they are
given correctly.
O domine deus, speravi in te ;
O care mi Jesu, nunc libera me;
In dura catena, in miscra paina, desidcro te;
Langucndo, gemendo, et genuflcctendo,
Adoro, imploro, ut libcrcs me .
And here is the translation:
O Lord, my God, I have trusted in thee;
O Jesus, my dearest one, now set me free;
In prison's oppression, in sorrow's obsession,
I weary for-thee:
With sighing and crying,
Bowed down as in dying,
I adore thee, I implore thee,
Set me free.
The prevalent idea of a genius is a person by nature especi
ally set apart from the rest of his kind through superior
mental endowments in some particular line. Wc add the last
phrase because wc hope the idea of universal genius is for
ever dead. Universal talent may possibly exist in very rare
cases, but universal genus is an absurd contradiction in
terms. Now two minds of exactly the same trend would be
about as strange a coincidence as the universe could offer.
Each has its own peculiarities of combination It would
seem that the Creator is, and has been for thousands of years,
engaged in an unsuccessful search for the precise mental
formula after which the mind of the ideal man shall be com
pounded, which of the numberless elements to employ,
and in what proportions to combine those chosen. Thus each
individual so far created is an experiment, has his own per
sonality, and is, in a sense, a genius. So if you have con
cluded that you arc a genius, and even if your friends agree
with you, don't for one moment imagine that your intellect
is anything phenomenal. You just happen to differ from
those around you, and naturally, each differs from you, and
probably has better reason to be proud. Now let us suppose