sign for peace. The two together, one in heart, in aspiration, in duty, desired that the happy life which the nation's gift supported should be such in every detail that the whole nation might look on it if it would, and recognise royalty only by its graciousness, and elevation by its repose. It was their hope gradually to make Claremont a rallying point, not of rank or fashion merely, but of what-' ever was best and highest in every direction, invoking the arts and graces of life,—music especially, for which the Prince himself had so true a gift,—to make a society that should be delightful without false excitement, a stately but simple home. The Duke would instance his sister's assemblies at Kensington Palace as a type of the gatherings at which he wished to aim. And in certain graver matters of social governance in which the last appeal lies sometimes to royalty alone, he would dwell with admiration on the judgment and firmness which his eldest brother had shown in many cases where the heads of an aristocratic society may, by their potent intervention at critical moments, largely determine the welfare of cther lives.

How much of influence might in time have come to him we cannot know; but we may be sure that whatever had come to him would in this temper have been exerted well. For just as learning and wealth and beauty are odious or beneficent, according as their possessors have realised aright that their learning was not given them for pride, nor their wealth for luxury, nor their beauty for adulation; so also may royal rank become an unmixed source of happiness when they who hold it have learnt to account themselves not as the depositaries of privilege, but as the channels of honour. For it is not the orator only who "receives from the multitude in a vapour what he returns to them in a flood," but the great House with which our English nation has identified her name and fortunes receives the convergent rays of a world-wide and immemorial affection, which it is the royal task to focus in a steady glow, directing back on what is best and worthiest in all our empire the warmth and light which were derived diffusedly from every heart within that empire's bound. The Duke of Albany felt this to the utmost,—and he felt, too, with almost painful vividness the generous abundance of the recognition which England gave to his efforts for her good. It was his nature to think that any other man in his position would have worked harder and done better than he; and he was often depressed at the thought of his insufficiency to repay the confidence of such a multitude of men.

For, indeed, he hardly recognised the strength of the attachment which his own character and presence inspired. He was always afraid that his friends would grow tired of him; that they would become absorbed in other interests; that they would marry and come and see him no more. At the height of his popularity his

manner kept a certain wistfulness, as if he were asking for an affection on which he had no right to rely. He did not know how dear to others was his soft laugh of sympathy, his steady gaze of affection, the sound of his gentle speech,—the ȧyavoppoovvn—the lovingkindness-which his friends may now seek far and mournfully, and whose remembrance fills their eyes with tears.

And then, too, how high was our hope! What years of usefulness and honour seemed opening before him we loved! The last time that I was at Claremont Mr. Ruskin was there also; and I saw again, in fuller maturity, the contact of the elder and the younger mind. Who could help thinking of Plato's great conception, where the spirit which once has looked on truth in the wake of some divinity in the ideal world seeks out on earth the awakening intelligence most apt to follow, and fashions that young life to greatness, "after the likeness of his tutelary god"? It seemed as though that teacher—who, if any man, has "gazed in clear radiance on visions innocent and fair,"-had found a "royal soul" to whom to prophesy, and from whose answering fervour virtue and blessing might be born.

But it was not best that this should be. Not in this world of shows, but in the world of realities, was the next lesson to be taught to that advancing soul. The earthly bliss dissolved in a moment, the earthly promise vanished like a dream. Only in the vistas of that beechen woodland, and in that vale of rhododendrons, and by that still water's edge where the gigantic forest-trees "high overarched imbower," pictures from the past will live imprinted on one woman's heart; pictures enduring beneath their apparent transiency, and indissoluble by any touch of change. It is not the ebb and flow of common hours which traces the limit of our being, but the floodtide on which the soul has once swept forward leaves the wave-mark which she can reach for evermore.

The last talk which I ever had with Prince Leopold has returned since to my mind with strange significance. We were speaking of a singular experience which some say that they have known-as it were a shifting of the centre of consciousness, a sensible transportation of the spirit into some distant scene, whose features flash in what seems reality before the waking eye. Once," said the Prince, "I myself had that experience." It was at Cannes, he said, in boyhood; he was standing on the beach, awake and in daylight, when suddenly the beach at Cannes became the beach at Osborne, and every well-known detail was reproduced with exactness, even to the presence of two labourers, a father and son, whom he had sometimes seen on the rocks of the English shore. The scene, he said, was not dreamlike, but real; but even as he stepped forward to accost the labourers it melted away. When the news of his

death reached England, I could not but recall these words, and think how again that southern scene had vanished from his eyes, and revealed, not in transitory glimpse but in steadfast vision, the likeness not of the earthly but of the eternal home.1

Those who believe, not in word only, but in deed and in truth, in the great destiny of enfranchised souls, will not need to compassionate any true and upright spirit which is called away, however suddenly, from a life however sweet. He may leave wife, and child, and fame, and fortune, but duty and virtue are with him still, and that peremptory call is an upward summons, a step in his high career. With the survivors of the well-beloved son, brother, husband, the whole world will mourn. Yet such a death is a stingless sorrow. No parting can sever the spiritual bond which the strong heart chooses to maintain; what love has lost in joy it has gained in consecration; it is uplifted at one stroke among flawless and eternal things. Thus shall even his nearest and dearest feel as the years roll by; thus too let others feel who from a distance share and reverence their sorrow; others—for whom also the falling of that handful of light earth into the flower-strewn vault marked the earthly close of an irreplaceable, a unique affection-the conversion of one of life's best delights into a memory and an anticipation—nay, the transference of a part of the very heart itself from the visible into that ideal world where such as he are more than princes, and where all high hopes find their goal.

FREDERIC W. H. MYERS.

(1) The last time I saw him to speak to," writes a friend from Cannes, March 30, "being two days before he died, he would talk to me about death, and said he would like a military funeral, and in fact I had great difficulty in getting off this melancholy subject. Finally I asked, 'Why, sir, do you talk in this morose manner?' As he was about to answer he was called away, and said, 'I'll tell you later.' I never saw him to speak to again, but he finished his answer to me to another lady, and said, 'For two nights now Princess Alice has appeared to me in my dreams, and says she is quite happy, and that she wants me to come and join her. That's what makes me so thoughtful.'"

LORD RIPON'S INDIAN LAND LEGISLATION.

THE existence in England of a public opinion upon Indian affairs has lately become manifest in the discussion of what has been called "Lerd Ripon's Policy." Such a public opinion is not a new thing or a thing of sudden growth. It was strongly aroused by the discussions which took place at the time (in 1858) when the direct government of India was taken into the hands of the Crown, and has been making gradual progress ever since.

Many causes have within this period contributed to enhance the interest taken, in this country, in the welfare and future of our fellow subjects of Her Majesty in India. The spirit in which we approach Indian questions has been largely influenced by recent investigations upon language, religion, and ancient institutions of the East, proving that the language and mythology, and the types of communal or village organisation which belong to the more advanced races of India have a common origin with those of Europe. Such works as those of Professor Max Müller and Sir Henry Maine have both advanced the bounds of knowledge upon this subject, and made the subject popular, and, further, have stimulated the inquiries of others who have had the best opportunities of observing and recording the fast vanishing traits of ancient Indian institutions. In the works of Mr. W. W. Hunter, Sir Alfred Lyall, and Sir John Phear we have the results of acute observation responding to this suggestive influence, and adding valuable suggestions and conclusions of their own. But it is still more through biography and personal narrative that we have become accustomed to regard Indian affairs from a not merely English point of view. Perhaps no biography of its time has given a more delightful impression of character than that of Sir Henry Lawrence, by Herbert Edwardes; and none has been read with a more widely human interest than the life of Lord Lawrence, by Mr. Bosworth Smith. The interest in each case centres in the profound sympathy of its subject with the natives of India, the one exceeding in the individual sympathy which produced the more quickly responsive personal affection, the other exceeding in the more restrained emotion of sympathy for the millions, which will produce the larger effect in the retrospect of years.

It is through these and similar influences that English public opinion has become prepared to view with favour certain lines of policy, and a certain spirit of Indian administration, in their essentials belonging to all our best Indian administrators, which have lately become associated with the name of Lord Ripon. Though in

no sense their originator, Lord Ripon has indeed imparted to these lines of policy a touch and impress of his own.

Lord Ripon's policy, as understood by persons conversant with Indian affairs in the latter part of the year 1882, was regarded (omitting minor matters, such as the encouragement of private enterprise) as consisting of two great measures, or sets of measures, one for the development of local self-government; the other, and by much the more difficult task, for the settlement of questions relating to land tenure, and especially for the protection of the cultivators of the soil.

The interest properly belonging to these two great subjects was for a time overshadowed-in the popular view-by the discussion upon what has been called the "Ilbert Bill." That discussion is now closed, and for the purpose of this paper the subject may be briefly dismissed. The bill was merely an administrative incident in carrying out a settled policy of the Government in regard to the natives-a policy inherited from the traditions of the old Company, and deliberately pursued by successive administrations in the face of the unofficial European community and their counter traditions. There stood on the Indian Statute-book a clause embodying what has been called the compromise of 1872, disqualifying natives, whatever may be their position in the service, from exercising criminal jurisdiction over Europeans in the country districts. In 1872, admittedly, the clause was merely prospective in its operation, no native having then obtained the high position in the service which would have otherwise qualified him. In 1882 this was no longer the case, and in the opinion of several high authorities, the clause of 1872 fettered the hands of the Government in a manner injurious to good faith with their native employés. This was the "anomaly," as it was called originally by Sir Ashley Eden, which called for the measure. The Bill as finally passed into an Act, embodies an important concession made by Lord Ripon, in December last, to the feeling of the Anglo-Indian community. The merits or necessity of this concession it would be out of place here to discuss; what is relevant is to point out, as will appear on a careful perusal of the proceedings of the Legislative Council, that the concession was made, not to outside agitation, but to the legitimate expression of the feeling by able advocacy in the Council itself.

Lord Ripon's measures relating to local self-government have already been discussed in this Review. It may be recalled that their object is to develop an already existing system of local boards or committees of various types, established during the viceroyalty of Lord Northbrook in 1873, and owing their origin to suggestions and resolutions from Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo.

The main features of these measures are: First, To re-arrange

the