German principalities. Now that it flies the imperial black, red, and white, it is a danger to the peace of Europe. Seeing that the aim of the Pan-Germans in Austria is confessedly the annihilation of this state and its absorption in one 'Great Germany' from the North Sea to the Adriatic, their proceedings have ceased to be a mere incident of Austria's internal policy, and have become a question of European importance. The fall of a state of Austria's rank, extent, and geographical position cannot be a matter of indifference to other European states; it would infallibly give rise to the most serious complications, even to a European war. If the PanGermans, in the blindness of their megalomania, imagine that Europe would sit still and tamely look on while the German Empire was being extended to the Adriatic at Austria's expense, they are very greatly mistaken. Neither Russia, nor England, nor France, would agree to that; and the fourteen million of Slavs who at present inhabit Austria would be the last to consent. It is difficult to believe that that mighty Pan-Germany, stretching from the North Sea to the Adriatic, will ever be anything but what it is a dream. We cannot leave this subject without briefly considering one other striking phenomenon which is closely connected with Pan-Germanism, and which has special interest for English readers; we allude to the pro-Boer agitation. This agitation, it is true, has not been confined to Germany and the German parts of Austria, but has extended over the whole continent. It has flourished in Lisbon and St Petersburg, in Rome and Paris, as well as in Vienna and Berlin. Consequently, it cannot be regarded as by any means the product of Pan-Germanism; but the PanGermans have adopted the movement in order to use it for their own ends, and have infused into it a peculiar malice. It is natural, therefore, to call attention to it in this place, so far as Pan-Germanism is concerned in its propagation. That the Boers should have found sympathy all over the Continent is not unnatural; the mere disproportion of numbers and of force would alone be sufficient to account for this. Sympathy with the weaker party was further strengthened, on the one hand, by the astonishing courage and resolution which the Boers displayed in their struggle with a vast empire; and, on the other, by the 'splendid isolation' of Great Britain, which possessed no single assured political friend on the Continent, but, on the contrary, was encompassed by populations almost uniformly hostile. But it was in Germany that British defeats were received with the loudest shouts of triumph, in Germany that British commanders were made the butt of the most violent abuse, in Germany that the grossest caricatures were displayed-caricatures which did not spare the revered and aged Queen herself. Not even in Holland did the Press display such bitter animosity. This circumstance requires explanation; and several explanations may be given. But, to pass over other causes, one thing is clear, namely, that the Pan-Germans found in the pro-Boer campaign an opportunity too good to lose. Pan-Germanism regarded, or affected to regard, the war against the Boers as an insult and a challenge to the German nation. That the Dutch in Holland so regarded the war is no matter of surprise. But in the mouth of a German such a declaration is ridiculous, and only shows to what extravagant ambitions and absurd confusions of thought Pan-Germanism can lead; for, after all, the Boer is no German, whatever Herr Fritz Bley may say. He is, indeed, no nearer to the German than to the Englishman. But, if Holland is to become German, if the Rhine, from source to mouth, is to be a German river, and Rotterdam a German port, then no doubt the Germans become the natural protectors of the Boers-in the higher interests of Germany, be it understood, as we have already seen (p. 164) in dealing with German designs on Holland. Hence the peculiar venom of the German attacks on England, for the establishment of British influence in South Africa puts a spoke in the Pan-German wheel, and deprives Germany of a very lucrative 'sphere of influence,' to use the mildest term, to which the 'connection' with Holland would have given her-had the Dutch republics not been conquered-a prior claim. But, supposing that Herr Fritz Bley were right, and the Boers were related to the Germans, as he supposes, how comes it that Pan-Germanism looks the other way when Germans are overridden in the Baltic Provinces? And these Germans are own brothers to the Germans in Ger many, whereas the Boers are at most a sort of cousins. The reason is not far to seek. To befriend the Germans on the Baltic would bring the Pan-Germans to grips with Russia-a very different matter from insulting England. Russia is the Colossus whose friendship, or at least neutrality, is indispensable to Germany; England is the colonial and industrial rival, to whose empire good PanGermans hope one day to succeed. But this is far from being the only striking inconsistency in the Pan-German pro-Boer campaign. These loud invectives against the injustice and brutality of Great Britain sound strangely, and would sound strangely even if the reproach were just, in the mouth of a nation which brought the forces of two huge states against the tiny Denmark; which then, by absorbing the common conquest, forced its former ally into a fatal war; and which, finally, by studied provocation, drove its western neighbour into ruin. We do not discuss the question how far great and laudable ends, such as the making of the German Empire, may justify means in themselves highly reprehensible; but we do say that a nation which has risen to power by such means must have a short memory, or think that other nations have none at all, before it can regard itself as justified in preaching political morality to others. By what right did Prussia deprive the King of Hanover of his throne? By what right is a war of annihilation now carried on against the Polish nationality in Posen a war in which children are flogged for praying in their native language, and mothers thrown into prison for endeavouring their defence? In the face of facts like these, it requires a high degree of effrontery in the organs and the leaders of Pan-Germanism to cast reproaches on the score of cruelty and injustice in the teeth of England. But universal history is full of similar ironies. Art. IX.-A FORGOTTEN POET: GEORGE DARLEY. 1. The Errors of Ecstasie. Whittaker: London, 1822. 2. The Labours of Idleness. John Taylor: London, 1826. 3. Sylvia, or the May Queen. John Taylor: London, 1827. 4. Another edition. Dent and Co.: London, 1892. 5. Nepenthe. [Privately printed]: London, 1836. 6. Another edition. Elkin Mathews: London, 1897. 7. Poems. [Privately printed]: Liverpool, 1890. 8. Thomas à Becket. E. Moxon: London, 1840. 9. Ethelstan. E. Moxon: London, 1841. SOME time ago Mr Leslie Stephen fluttered the bibliographical dovecotes by complaining of the longevity of books, observing, in that strain of half-humorous Philistinism of which he has the secret, that the world would be none the poorer if every book ever printed had disappeared after an existence of a hundred years. Collectors of Caxtons could hardly be expected to listen patiently to such treasonable sentiments; but Mr Stephen's views would certainly be endorsed by the librarians of the British Museum, to whom the problem of housing the rubbish which accumulates upon their shelves becomes every year more acute. There is a good deal, too, to be said in support of Mr Stephen's desires from the literary point of view. Very few really valuable books have lain for a hundred years without being reprinted. Among the poets there are certainly some who have suffered a century's eclipse-Herrick, Vaughan, and Campion, for instance. But, even if Mr Stephen's law had been in force in their time, we should not have lost them wholly. Some of their works-and probably the best of them— would have survived in anthologies. As a rule one may safely say that what the world forgets for a hundred years had better remain forgotten. Perhaps it would be dangerous hastily to assume the truth of the converse; but when a man's poems are reprinted fifty years after his death, it will generally be found worth while to see what sort of stuff they are made of. Unquestionably it is so in the case of George Darley. It is more than a hundred years since Darley was born, and more than fifty since he died. Even during his lifetime he was never popular. Five-and-twenty years after his death one would have supposed him completely forgotten; and yet, within the last few years, no less than three reprints of various works of his have appeared. In anthologies, too, he is steadily winning his way. It is true that the latest edition of the 'Golden Treasury knows him not, but for many years one of his most charming lyrics figured anonymously, and not unworthily, by the side of Carew in that historic collection. Where Mr Palgrave discovered it we know not, for we can find no trace of its having been printed during Darley's lifetime. However, Darley's it undoubtedly is; and it duly appears in Canon Livingstone's reprint of his kinsman's lyrical poems. The following are a few stanzas from it : 'It is not beauty I demand, A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Tell me not of your starry eyes, Your lips that seem on roses fed, Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies, A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, Than summer winds a-wooing flowers; These are but gauds: nay, what are lips? And what are cheeks, but ensigns oft Mr Palgrave need not have been ashamed of mistaking this for the work of one of the cavalier poets; but when he discovered that the author was a nineteenth-century lyrist, he banished the poem from his pages, though he stultified himself by retaining in the section devoted to seventeenth-century poetry, Scott's Thy hue, dear pledge,' which is as poor an imitation of the work of Vol. 196.-No. 391, N 6 |