Would those who advocate a return to this policy, so long and so meekly carried out by the Dutch, be prepared to accept like results? And if not, upon what do they found a hope that they would be better or different now? We need not pursue the parallel in Canton, the facts are even better known. Though the East India Company were so thoroughly imbued with the policy of unlimited submission to the native powers, that provided they could get cargoes of tea on any terms, their factors had the most stringent orders not to offer any resistance to wrong or violence, nothing but the monopoly the Company enjoyed in England saved it from a loss on the trade with China; so grievous were the exactions and so destructive of all fair dealing were the restrictions of the Governors of Canton. Taking this lengthened experience of two centuries for our guide, with a peace-at-any-price policy in full operation under more favourable conditions than can ever be secured again, it is surely waste of time to discuss the fallacies of such a system. Assuming that in the present state of the world no country can possibly succeed in a system of absolute seclusion, there remains but one question-how is this inevitable intercourse to be regulated? By the caprice and will of so many half-savage and Eastern potentates, or by certain established laws based on broad principles of justice and expediency? If European nations want trade and desire peaceable intercourse with the Eastern world, these are only to be attained by imposing equitable conditions which must, in the last resort, be supported by force, if they are to be maintained at all. There may be men who object to any employment of force or compulsion either for the purposes of civilisation or commerce; and to them we would say, if you maintain this opinion and are willing to adhere to it consistently, you must accept the consequence, which is non-intercourse, and the cessation of regularised trade in these countries. But do not insist upon trade and abstinence from the only means by which it can either be established in the first instance, or maintained subsequently with nations who do not desire it, and ignore all the principles of International Law. The history of all our treaties and intercourse with Eastern nations demonstrates the necessity of treaties and political relations if we would have any commercial intercourse with them--because without the former, and the guarantees they provide, the latter is inevitably destroyed by robbery and wrong. Chinese and Japanese statesmen think, naturally enough, that when concessions have been extorted by force of arms, they are doing no more than they have a right to do in casting them to the winds whenever the force that imposed them is wanting. The necessary conditions of European intercourse and commerce with Eastern races are yet subjects of discussion. And the permanent establishment of our relations with the Chinese and Japanese Empires on a securer basis of peace and mutual good understanding, is still a problem to be solved. But the field of discussion has been greatly narrowed within the last few years. Even superiority in arms and the power to impose by superior force a treaty or compact upon a nation, becomes of little use without a central authority, a government with which to treat and one capable of binding the nation by its acts. The worst danger with which European Powers have been menaced of late years, both in China and Japan, has been that of anarchy in those countries,-a process of disorganisation and decentralisation, pushed to an extent that would deprive Treaty Powers of all guarantee for the security of their subjects, or means of holding one central authority responsible for serious infractions of treaty. ART. VIII. Atalanta in Calydon: a Tragedy. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. London: 1865. IT By T is now some years since, in a review of the history and objects of the Society of Dilettanti,' we described and lamented the decline of classical taste and sentiment in the upper classes of Europe. Since that time a singular state of opinion on this subject has manifested itself in this country. The inquiry into the condition of our Universities, and the executive commission that grew out of it, elicited and expressed the dominant feeling that classical study must remain the basis of the education of the English gentleman. The same tone has pervaded the investigation into the systems of our Public Schools. Eton stands firm in the ancient ways; and although the other great seminaries do not utterly reject any admixture of scientific or linguistic culture, yet there is no slackening of interest in the traditional occupations, and as much pride as ever in the victories of classical competition, whether at the school or the university. Lord Stanhope, it is true, has made an attack in the House of Lords on the construction of Greek Iambics, but, on the other hand, Lord Derby has translated the Iliad. To judge from the discussions and conversations on the subject, it is difficult not to suppose that these earnest advocates of classical culture at least occasionally revert to the literature which has occupied so large a portion of their youth, and on which they desire that the most impressionable years of their children should be expended, and we may anticipate at least such a show of interest in these matters as may recall the days when a neat Latin epigram was the becoming test of the claims of a gentleman of quality.' The appearance, therefore, of a new poet in the character of a classical dramatist may be opportune; and, when we are able to add that he has invested an old Greek story with much modern interest, and exhibited a brilliancy of poetic diction and a power of melody of a very high order, we may fairly bespeak for this volume a serious, attentive, and benevolent criticism. Mr. Swinburne is of the ancient Northumbrian stock in whose genealogy is found the romantic story of the child carried off to France in its infancy-there left forgotten in the confusion of the great Civil War, and who would have ended his days in some obscure monastery instead of transmitting an English baronetcy through a long line of energetic countrygentlemen, but for the accidental recognition of his family features by a stranger, who brought him home and established him in his patrimonial inheritance. Of this line, too, came the traveller Henry Swinburne, who, so to say, opened Spain to the British public, and who remained, up to the days of Ford, the most trustworthy of the describers of that country. Not the least remarkable and interesting pages of this volume are those to which the author has consigned a tribute of veneration to the memory of Walter Savage Landor, in two compositions of Greek elegiac verse. The first is a dedication addressed to Landor while living, in the form of a valediction, on the occasion of his last return to Italy; the second, much the longer of the two, an elegy on his death. No one who has felt how the spirit of the Eschylean tragedy breathes through the English poem, will have been surprised to find-rather, every such reader would have been disappointed if he had not found that Mr. Swinburne's thoughts move with scarcely less ease and freedom on a modern theme (if indeed Landor may be properly said to belong to his own age so much as to that of Pericles and Augustus) in the language and measures of Callinus and Mimmermus than in his native speech. the Greek we will only say that it is not that of a Cambridge prize ode, but something much better-even if more open to minute criticism-than the best of such; not in the least like a cento of dainty classical phrases, but the fresh original Of gushing of a true poetical vein, nourished by a mastery of the foreign language, like that which Landor himself shows in his Latin poems. Few, probably, even among the admirers of that extraordinary man, would adopt Mr. Swinburne's estimate of his intellectual position as the highest of contemporary names,' Fewer still would recognise a gift of true divination in the prediction, that this pre-eminence will last through all time to come. But this exaggeration may be misinterpreted, and viewed in a false light. It ought not to be considered as an error of judgment, or an extravagance of opinion. It evidently springs from a different source; not from the mind, but from the heart. It is the overflow of a deep affection, which does honour to both parties. To those who have known Landor only by his writings, or through glimpses of a superficial personal acquaintance, or from reports of his eccentricities and impetuosities, his absolutism and dogmatism, it will be a pleasing surprise to discover that he could be the object of so warm a devotion, so tender a reverence, as that which glows and thrills in Mr. Swinburne's elegy. The story is the post-Homeric version of the Calydonian Hunt which left its image on the coins of Ætolia-the St. George and the Dragon of the early world. Out of what poetic invention or combination of religious thoughts came these additions to the rescue of a panic-stricken people by individual courage, who can tell? But somehow the simple incident grew up, interpolated with incidents of terror and tenderness, into the legend which Mr. Swinburne, with a graceful quaintness, gives as the Argument of his poem. We would rather let the drama speak for itself. The dawn is breaking over the Etolian hills, and the chief Huntsman invokes the Goddess whose wrath has sent this calamity on the land to aid the Heroes who are about to risk their lives to stay it, sustained as they are by the presence of her own Priestess, Arcadian Atalanta, snowy-souled, Fair as the snow and footed as the wind.' The ringing salutation of the Chorus which follows should be read aloud to be fully felt. 'Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamour of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendour and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing. 'For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The light that loses, the night that wins; Blossom by blossom the spring begins. 'The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.' The festivity of this imagery and the gaiety of the metre are evidently intended to contrast with the coming of Althea, the impersonation of the sad and terrible destiny of Mankind. Now all early legend abounds with the pathos of the willing victim, but the poor human creature, as Mr. Swinburne with all the vigour of his genius pourtrays him, is nothing more than the mere sport of the caprice and malice of the gods, which, however, by some incomprehensible energy of his own, he is able to denounce and to defy to the last. As this notion developes itself in the piece, we shall examine it more closely, and here will only remark that to our feelings no amount of pity for the sufferer, or indignation against the divine oppressor, can compensate for the loss of free-will as an element of tragic interest. Althæa tells in noble verses the story of the birth of Meleager and how there 'Came in Three weaving women, and span each a thread, |