has proved himself to be a stout champion of all sound Indian claims, had a hard task to fulfil in introducing the Budget from the Bench where the Secretary of State previously sat, and immediately after his chief had made a very important pronouncement in the House of Lords.

Nevertheless, he acquitted himself to the satisfaction of both sides, and made an exceedingly interesting and valuable statement.

In all respects, save as regards sedition and unrest, he could give a satisfactory account to the House, in which, if ears were open to argument, and if prejudice left any place for fact, no more would be heard of the poorest country on earth, grinding taxation, abject and universal poverty, and so forth, and so on.

Mr. Buchanan had, indeed, good reason for saying that the economic condition of India was fairly satisfactory as judged by any ordinary test. About one-sixth of one per cent. of the inhabitants were in receipt of outdoor relief, as compared with about one and a half per cent. in England, where we do not say that famine prevails when an occasional death occurs from starvation. As to plague, the mortality was about one-fiftieth of that resulting from malaria, an old established disease, which no "friend of India" as yet has had the hardihood to describe as an invention of the British Government.

Conciliatory in demeanour, moderate in statement, the Under Secretary of State believed the majority of the inhabitants of India recognised the advantages of our rule, and the disaster which would befall with its removal, nor did he offer much encouragement to the extremists, sentimentalists, and socialists who occupy themselves with Indian affairs.

Lord Morley and Lords MacDonnell, Ampthill and Lamington, ex-Governors in India, were present throughout the greater part of the debate in the Peers' Gallery, and the House was full, as Houses go, for an Indian day.

Lord Percy's criticisms were of a friendly and statesmanlike character, and he chiefly devoted himself, as I did in moving the only amendment on which a vote could be taken, to the all important question of education.

In the absence of Sir Louis McIver, my amendment to the effect that the reforms proposed by the Government of India were satisfactory, but that the educational system stood in urgent need of reform, was seconded by Sir Henry Craik, who had spent a winter in India, and had written an admirable little book upon what he saw and learnt. Having been in charge of education in Scotland, he was especially qualified to deal with educational systems elsewhere. It seemed to me very necessary to mark

the non-party character of Indian affairs by having an amendment, which the accident of the ballot gave to the Liberal side, seconded by a member of the Opposition.

Mr. Keir Hardie took the opportunity to disclaim the speeches, which he was credited with having made during his visit to India, and his disclaimer appeared to be received with acclamation in many quarters of the House. It would, however, be more satisfactory if such had coincided with the use of more loyal language, than a description of the National Anthem as a "piece of ghastly doggerel," unless that, too, be due to an erroneous report in the Press. There is some discrepancy in such cases in the language used within and without the House, and even in this speech Mr. Hardie said that if the Hindus had one fault greater than another it was their submissive loyalty! On the whole, however, the speech he made must be considered moderate from one holding his political views, and as he then held up the native State of Mysore as an example to British India, it will be interesting to learn whether his approval embraces the recent drastic, but highly satisfactory, Press legislation passed by that advanced and well governed State.

The nett result of my amendment and of a long debate was that it was negatived fortunately without a division, that the main question was put and agreed to, and that the resolution was reported to the House.

Then on November 1st came the stately Imperial message from the King-Emperor to the princes and peoples of India, surveying the labours of the past half century with clear gaze and good conscience, recognising the courage and capacity of the servants of the Crown, eulogising the success of their administration, rebuking the vain folly of such as pretend that our occupation is of a temporary character, and promising a prudent extension of the principle of representation. If such extension follow upon the lines of the reforms sketched by Lord Minto, and now with all the opinions of all the local Governments, under Lord Morley's consideration, it will meet with general approval, but it were waste of time to indulge in conjecture, in view of the promise that the measures framed will speedily be made known.

Later in the month followed the happily abortive attempt to assassinate the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, the murder of an Inspector of Police in Calcutta, and other outrages which will not tend to strengthen the hands of those who see in concession and conciliation the cure for present ills. J. D. REES.

THE TERCENTENARY OF JOHN MILTON.

(1608-1908.)

WHEN Shakespeare had been dead some fourteen years or so, and it was proposed to erect a marble memorial to his memory, among the numerous verses excited by the occasion was "An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespear," written in 1630, by a young Cambridge graduate and printed without signature along with other tributary verses in the Second Folio of 1632.

What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones,
The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid

Under a star-y pointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a live-long monument:

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art

Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,

That Kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

Although in the surpassing beauty and boldness of their imagery these lines remain the most immortal monument that ever was or can be erected to the fame of Shakespeare (his own works and Ben's noted tribute alone excepted), as being the homage of one greatness to another, contemporary readers of them may be pardoned if they failed, as some leading critics of to-day have failed, to recognise their amazing grandeur and importance, or to realise that the writer of them, John Milton, aged twenty-two was destined to rank side by side in literary eminence with the poet to whose supreme excellence he thus sets his glorious seal.

But apart from its importance as contemporary evidence to the reputation of Shakespeare, this epitaph is equally valuable for the testimony it bears to its great author. It serves as the happiest introduction to the young Milton, revealing him to us on his arrival at man's estate, as the reverent and enthusiastic

disciple of the great dramatist, whom, as a child, he may have seen passing to and fro from his favourite tavern, only a few steps from the house in Bread Street, where Milton in December, 1608, was born. This poem may further be regarded as the very hinge and pivot of Milton's career, or, to take another aspect, as a finger-post, indicating alike the source of his inspiration and the far-extended horizon of his aims. This passionate declaration for Shakespeare was indeed highly significant of his own ambitions, since, from an early period of his life, he had been drawn to the service of the Muse of Poetry.

Feeling the stir of unusual powers within him, burning with the spirit of emulation, and inspired by the example of his master, Milton determined to achieve-if on different lines-a not inferior reputation.

Except perhaps in the case of Mozart, it is difficult to recall a similar instance of a child deliberately bred and confidently selfdedicated, as Milton was, to assured greatness. Jansen has depicted him for us at the age of eight as a beautiful, eager boy, his face animated with an almost leaping spirit of intelligence, balanced with a suggestion of strenuous, intellectual endeavour that must have made him the delight of teachers such as Young and Alexander Gill, and equally, perhaps, an object of suspicious dislike to any pompous college tutor whose learning was challenged by so brilliant a pupil.

A glance at Milton in what may be called the first period of his life-his college days and his five years at his father's countryhouse at Horton (1632-1638)-calls up one of the most delightful pictures imaginable. There is no suspicion of "pose" or of priggishness about the "wondrous youth," as his friend Diodati calls him, who penned the classic orations, delivered by request before the assembled audience of tutors and fellow-students at Christ's, Cambridge. Reciting these, his face lighted from without by the torch of learning and his eyes shining from the fire of imagination that burned within, he must have appeared to his contemporaries as one, not merely illumined, but wholly transcended by his glorious genius. All his letters of this period prove how he was bent on studious retirement, and that in his poetic seclusion he was meditating some literary expression of the great poetic impulses stirring within him.

His Latin Elegies and some other verses having served as so many preliminary trials, and his whole soul-to use a quotation he applied to another-"instinct with the fire of Apollo," on Christmas morning, 1629, at daybreak, he burst into the rapture of his matchless Ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.” This was followed by other shorter pieces, and a few years later,

at Horton, by the exquisite lyrics, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, The Masque of Comus, and, last of all, Lycidas.

Perusing Milton's letters in connection with the glamour of these lovely verses, the sympathetic reader will doubtless decide with the writer that a nature so richly endowed could not have wholly escaped the assault of temptations to which all sensuous and poetic temperaments are peculiarly subject. His passion for nature, for art, for music, the attractions of noble drama, the charm of beautiful women, all appealed forcibly, as his letters (both from college and afterwards) testify. Thus in 1626 from London (to quote Professor Masson's translation) he writes :

Very often here, as stars breathing forth mild flames, you may see troops of maidens pass by. . . . Ah! how often have I seen eyes surpassing all gems and whatever lights revolved round either pole; and necks twice whiter than the arms of living Pelops and than the way which flows tinged with pure nectar; and the exquisite grace of the forehead; and the trembling hair which cheating Love spreads as his golden nets; and the inviting cheeks compared with which hyacinthine purple is poor, and the very blush, Adonis, of thy own flower!

Again, in his Seventh Elegy, dated 1628, he celebrates an incident that befel him, also in London, where

A frequent crowd-in appearance, as it might seem, a crowd of goddesses— is going and coming splendidly along the middle of the ways. . . . I do not austerely shun those agreeable sights but am whirled along wherever my youthful impulse carries me. Too imprudent I let my eyes meet their eyes, and am unable to master them. One by chance I beheld pre-eminent over the rest, and that glance was the beginning of my malady. . . . not far off was the sly god (Cupid) himself lurking, his many arrows and the great weight of his torch hanging from his back. And without delay he clings first to the maiden's eyebrows and then to her mouth; now he nestles in her lips and then he settles on her cheeks; and whatever parts the nimble archer wanders over he wounds my unarmed heart, alas! in a thousand places. . . Being in love I inly burn; I am all one flame. Meanwhile she who alone pleased me was snatched away from my eyes, never to return. . . . Now truly is thy bow formidable to me, O goddess born, and its darts nothing less powerful than fire. . . . But take away, at length, and yet take not away my pains: I know not why, but every lover is sweetly miserable. But do thou kindly grant that if ever hereafter I and my love meet, one arrow may transfix the two and make us lovers.

That Milton was throughout his life attractive to women and attracted by them is not open to doubt. His many verses upon them attest it-whether we choose his exquisite "Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester" or his sonnets to the Lady Margaret Ley and other women-who won his admiration. Yet, though beautiful as the youthful Goethe, and as susceptible to impressions of female beauty, Milton never betrayed a woman, or sullied his manhood by descending to any base forms of riot