of the Court of Francis I. be seen than in Cellini's pages. The huge train-he states it at 12,000 horsemen—which attended the monarch, and the straits to which so vast a retinue was at times reduced; the reckless extravagance of the French King, who conferred on one occasion an abbey worth 7,000 crowns a year on the Cardinal d'Este in return for a gilt vase and basin; the haughty imperiousness with which the Duchesse d'Etampes imposed her commands upon her royal lover; the energy and the impatience, the dissolute life and the proud independence of the author-are all sketched with masterly realism. One day, surrounded with a brilliant suite, Francis set out after dinner to visit Cellini's studio. In his train were his sister, Margaret of Valois, and her royal husband, the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Duchesse d'Etampes, the Dauphin and his young wife, Catharine de' Medici, then in her twenty-first year. Arrived at Cellini's gate, the King, on hearing the sound of so many hammers, bade his retinue be silent and entered the workshop quite unexpectedly. As

he came in

'the first object he perceived was myself with a large piece of plate in my hand, which I had not yet placed, and which was to make the body of Jupiter; another was employed on the head, another again on the legs, so that the shop resounded with the beating of hammers. Whilst I was at work, as I had a little French boy in the shop who had some way or other offended me, I gave him a kick, which drove him above four cubits forward towards the door, so that when the King entered the boy fell against him. The good monarch laughed heartily and I was in the utmost confusion. His Majesty began to ask me what I was about, and expressed a desire that I should proceed with my work, telling me that he should be much better pleased if I would never harass myself with my business, but take as many men as I thought proper into my service, for it was his desire I should take care of my health, that I might be the longer able to serve him' (Roscoe, p. 317).

We are tempted to linger over other incidents which crowd the narrative and maintain its unflagging interest. Many a passing glimpse reveals to those who have eyes to see a whole world of inner life. At this stirring time Cellini executed some masterpieces in goldsmith's work and in bronze, and was in the full flood of apparent prosperity, when he suddenly determined to return to Florence. The reason he alleged for this resolution-namely, his desire to provide for his sister and her family-seems hardly adequate to the vast sacrifice he was making. Had he any ground for apprehending that he might be called to account for the sums he

had received from the royal treasury? He was open-handed, expensive in taste, dissolute in life, and, despite large and profitable patronage, he had apparently gathered but a moderate fortune. To accusations that followed him he professed to be able to furnish a complete refutation, and a passing whim was motive enough to one of his erratic temperament. He himself calls God solemnly to witness that he was solely influenced by a longing to assist 'six poor unfortunate maidens and their mother.'

The story of Cellini's life in Florence, and especially the varying fortunes of his great achievement-the Perseus of the Loggia-occupy the remainder of the autobiography to its abrupt conclusion. If we do not dwell upon this part of the narrative it is not because it yields in interest to what has gone before, but because we have a serious question to handle before our task is done. Life in Italy during the stormy days in which Cellini's lot was cast was stained by foul immorality and licentiousness, and the artist's record is defiled by obscene allusions and by filthy details which are utterly unfit for reproduction in an English dress and for English readers. Such at least was the manly and modest verdict of early translators. Mr. Roscoe spares us the pain and shame of passages which Cellini obtrudes with revolting coarseness, and permits us the unalloyed enjoyment of his picturesque and vivid story. Why have the dictates of common decency and the established etiquette of modern social life been violated by the reinstatement of suppressed passages? On what ground has it been thought expedient to thrust before the public these nasty items of debauchery and this reeking foulness cf the stews? There are passages in the autobiography which are simply bestial and brutal, unredeemed by a single spark of human feeling, hateful in all the naked deformity of ruffianly outrage and lust, and yet in this nineteenth century these forgotten abominations are dragged forth from their dark retreat and thrust upon the unsuspecting reader.

We are of course aware of the plea upon which such action is defended. It is said that only by acquaintance with the entire work of such a writer can the student obtain full acquaintance with the times in which Cellini lived. This pretext has been ably exposed and refuted in a recent number of Macmillan's Magazine. No person worthy the name of student could read Roscoe's translation without forming a tolerably accurate estimation of this 'topping goldsmith.' However able in the practice of his art, however fascinating from the 1 'The Practice of Letters,' in Macmillan's Magazine, January 1889.

dashing vigour of his style, however interesting from the variety of his experience and the historical importance of those with whom he had to do, Cellini is palpably and pre-eminently a ruffian, with the qualities of the ape and the tiger close to the surface and ever ready to burst forth. When such a man, in the sad shamelessness begotten in large measure of the evil days in which his lot had fallen, shocks every law of decency, can we not turn away without having every prurient passage offensively held up before our eyes?

We feel bound to speak thus plainly upon a most disagreeable subject; the signs of the times are such as would make our silence criminal. The appetite for garbage grows upon that on which it feeds, and only a large demand for impure literature can explain the risk which publishers are found ready to incur in providing much of the filthy trash which deluges the market. The evil is not ccnfined to one class, nor does it spring only from one source. It is in part the outcome of a superficial infidelity, in part the consequence of that spreading want of self-restraint which corrupts even the naturally healthy passion for knowledge into a morbid intrusion into the forbidden. It is fostered in some degree by a godless æstheticism, which makes art pander to lubricity. Its taint, wherever it occurs, is deadly. A thousand times rather let us have Roscoe's translationhowever occasionally imperfect-than any other, however accurate, which includes paragraphs that are an insult to the refinement of gentle manners and an outrage on the comeliness of Christian modesty.

SHORT NOTICES.

Charles George Gordon. By COLONEL SIR W. F. BUTLER.
(London: Macmillan and Co., 1889.)

THE story of General Gordon's life is told by one who very highly appreciates, although at times he seems not quite fully to understand, the remarkable man of whom it treats. He appears occasionally to long for a more dramatic hero than the one he has to deal with, and to shrink from the penalty of neglect which such men as General Gordon have ever to pay for their honourable and absolutely essential independence. He regrets, while yet he elsewhere rightly explains it, that he was not more valued by official persons and the

world at large, to whom of necessity his character was simply a mystery. He writes at p. 89 of 'the pity of the fate that let this "captain of good leading" waste his life in the deserts of Africa.' And at p. 180 he writes of his sojourn in Mauritius as 'this waste of a great life.' And at length he writes at p. 199 :—

'The hour had at last struck. No more was this great soul to be permitted to bury itself in unseen wildernesses. He is to go forth indeed into a remote region, but he will draw after him the eyes of all men; and ere this year, 1884, which has dawned in such complication of purpose, shall have closed, there will be seen, as though raised aloft upon a colossal pedestal, the figure of this grand centurion, with all the effort of his life, and the honesty of his heart and the faith of his soul, made visible to the four points of the earth, written in letters of flame amid the darkness of disaster.'

To us this dramatic description seems out of harmony with General Gordon's character and life, to have a taint of idolatry about it from which Gordon would have shrunk, and to express that against which Gordon's life was a firm and constant protest. How many such protests he has left us, in his letters to his sister, as for instance :-'I remember that God has at all times worked by weak and small means. All history shows this to be His mode, and so, I believe, if He will, He may work by me.' And of that sojourn in Mauritius, which he speaks of as Patmos, his own estimate was, 'I believe the pilgrimage to Mauritius will be blessed to me,' &c. And 'you must be more or less in the desert to use the scales of the sanctuary, to see and weigh the true value of things and sayings. Getting quiet does one good; it is impossible to hear God's voice in a whirl of visits.' This so-called 'waste of life' was General Gordon's training, and he well knew it to be so, and gratefully owned it. Sensational writing simply puts such a man in a false position, and obscures a character of masculine simplicity and humility, in which there was no element of an actor, no thought of an admiring audience.

We do not mean that Sir W. Butler does not frequently describe admirably and truly the real General Gordon, but that, having to write a popular biography, he occasionally plays to the gallery level, and distorts his subject. He gives at p. 163 a very instructive explanation of the neglect which he regrets, but cannot quite bring himself to regard as a matter of course :

'Men like to think of their hero beloved and honoured during the brief span of his life on earth; they are apt to forget that the very singleness of purpose which made his name appear so wonderful after death, and was the real secret of the success they so much admire, was also the cause of isolation in life and of opposition to fellow-men, which must ever be two of the most potent factors against popularity. "The praise and blame of the world," Gordon had often said, "are equally indifferent to me; you may write of me as if I were dead." The contemporary world does not like to be told this, however much its children and grandchildren may admire it later on; and the contemporary world has many methods of showing its dislike.'

And there follows more to the same effect.

In

Gordon well knew that society will only generally accept such as himself in a last necessity, when matters are critical and dangerous, when the individual must be trusted if he is to be of any use. the Journals edited by Mr. Hake, General Gordon expresses in a humorous and happy way, at p. 59, his sense of his not being an easy instrument in official hands.

'I own to having been very insubordinate to her Majesty's Government and its officials; but it is my nature, and I cannot help it. I fear I have not even tried to play battledore and shuttlecock with them. I know if I was chief I would never employ myself, for I am incorrigible. To men like Dilke, who weigh every word, I must be perfect poison.

His qualities were of a kind which men of the world will only accept under compulsion. The absolute rule which God,' as he held, 'has over all events, good or evil,' does not suit their views. 'It is so very hurtful to our pride to have Him intruded into our affairs.' We make such criticisms upon a few passages in Sir William Butler's biography because its merits will ensure for this book a large and doubtless an enduring sale. But it just fails of giving a consistent account of General Gordon's profoundly religious character, and of emphasizing the effort which it cost him to perfect that which made the real difference between him and other men.

Beginning with the Crimea, the life is continued through his Chinese campaign against the Taiping rebels, his work at Gravesend, his first mission to the Soudan, his visit to Palestine, and to its ending at Khartoum.

The details of his achievements in China with the 'Ever Victorious Army' will be almost new to many readers. And the same may be said of his first mission to the Soudan in 1874, in the account of which much interesting information is given by Colonel Butler as to the Nile, its nature and ways, the climate of the 'country of the blacks' into which the slave-trader has not yet penetrated, and the African slave-trade generally.

'Sooner or later' (he puts it, p. 94) 'the great fact will be known that interior Africa has one lasting article of export, and only one. Ivory and ostrich feathers soon disappear: gum-arabic does not grow in the true country of the blacks: cassava and plantain are but the cabbages and potatoes of the people: men, women, and children still form the one sure and certain export, just as they formed it three hundred years ago, when the Elizabethan captain of war, Hawkins, carried the first cargo of slaves from Africa to America.'

It is with the Soudan and Egypt that General Gordon's name will be ever chiefly associated by his countrymen. His first mission as governor-general of the Equator is described largely in General Gordon's own words. The welfare of the tribes and the confusion of the slavers was its object, and to gain the confidence of the natives was his first care. A dream of a Central African empire possessed his mind until experience showed him its hopelessness as soon as the novelty had worn off. He then writes of the country, at p. 99: 'No one can conceive the utter misery of these lands-heat and mos