speeches are generally miracles of common sense, and testify to one of the strongest logical digestions in the country. But Lord Stanley does not appeal to the popular heart. And his ability is not superior to that of many men on the other side of the House. In one single session, Mr. Stuart Mill, adding a parliamentary reputation to his previous fame, has taken a position as a logical speaker fully equal to that of Lord Stanley; while in wit, in a certain learned elegance and refinement, and occasionally a delicate fire of originality aud genius, just clear of the line of Parliamentary eccentricity, Mr. Mill is vastly Lord Stanley's superior. Mr. Hardy need alarm no one on the liberal side. He is a stout useful parliamentary cob. Lord Cranbourne during the last two sessions has visibly declined in parliamentary prestige. When he speaks he is listened to with decreasing attention, in spite of the singular weight of his manner and the agreeable flippancy of his matter. Mr. Walpole, high-minded, courteous, popular with liberals as well as with conservatives, corresponding in many ways to Sir George Grey on the liberal side, belongs rather to the past, and is not likely, we think, to take a prominent position in a Cabinet including Lord Cranbourne and Lord Stanley. His relation to these younger statesmen corresponds very much to that which would subsist between a high and dry rector of the old school, and a virulent Puseyite and heretical broadchurchman. What position Mr. Henley will be in, we are at a loss to conceive? If he separates himself from Mr. Disraeli, how will he be able to coalesce with the ultraDisraelian liberality which alone will render a Tory Government even possible? Sir John Pakington makes an excellent Dryasdust. Sir Hugh Cairns is a formidable adversary, and take it all in all for practical purposes, the best debater on the conservative side. His possible removal to the House of Lords would cause a gap in the conservative ranks which certainly no lawyer, and we believe no other politician, could fill up. The difference between him and Sir Roundell Palmer appears to be that Sir Roundell pierces with a sword, the former knocks you down with a sledge hammer. Lord John Manners represents most admirably the curious and very valuable old china of our British constitution. But for weight of political character and for plain unadorned power combined, Mr. Forster's honest clay is worth a thousand times more to the country than Lord John Manners' china. Man for man, the leading statesmen on the liberal side are neither overshadowed nor overweighted by any single conservative. The liberals have two men to their one. But if we look to the rank and file of both parties, after we

have ticked off some ten men on the conservative side, what have they left? men who represent one idea, and one idea only -land! Whereas the whole variety of national interests, all the opinions not connected with land, have naturally and ex necessitate rei found their representatives on the opposite side. We do not say the conservatives are stupid, we do not deny the compactness and strength of their party-we deny them the same variety of ability and the same national popularity. In both these particulars they are, and they know that they are, hopelessly overmatched. Under these circumstances, they cannot long, we think, retain power. Not until reform is carried to the satisfaction of the country, not until every religious question is settled and every vestige of religious intolerance swept away, not until free trade in commerce is extended to free trade in land, not until Ireland is loyal and well affected, can a great conservative party have any chance of a prolonged existence. But when these events have taken place, English conservatism will have passed into a new phase and be separated from the old by a gulf. The old conservative party will have passed away and be remembered only in name.

In conclusion we beg to repeat, what we have already repeated more than once, that we repudiate with our might and main, the charge brought against the friends of the present Reform Bill of favouring a tendency to democracy and the rule of numbers. Nothing that Mr. Lowe could say-not even his brilliant and piercing eloquence-could express all the devotion we feel to the cause of constitutional free self-government in this country, the abhorrence with which we regard even the bare possibility of a many-headed tyranny and the despotism of the million. But we hold the rule of numbers in this country to be an impossibility. We believe the best safeguard against even the semblance of such a despotism to be the extension, and not the limitation, of the principle of free self-government. We hold it most expedient, most safe, most constitutional, to extend the foundations of our representation to their furthest convenient limits-expedient, because the representation of the people is bound up with the political education of the country at large; safe, because political representation is the soul of political safety; constitutional, because according to the best spirit of our constitution, labour is as much entitled to be heard in the House of Commons-heard directly and authoritatively-as either trade or land. And we have defended the Government against the hostility of the House of Commons, because we can conceive no undertaking more truly constitutional

no undertaking more truly patriotic-no undertaking more truly statesmanlike on the part of any Government, than to aspire to lead the House, even against its own secret fears, secret ill-will, and secret apathy, even at the expense of narrowly contested and dearly bought victories, to do that which will injure no one, degrade no one, undermine no single interest in the state, but, under Providence, lead to the greater strength and prosperity of the whole community more firmly knitted together in the bonds of constitutional peace, constitutional harmony, and constitutional welfare.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVELS.

The Albert N'yanza. Great Basin of the Nile and Explorations of the Nile Sources. By SAMUEL WHITE BAKER, M.A., F.R.G.S., Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society. With Maps, Illustrations, and Portraits. 2 vols. London: Macmillan and Co.

. In its combination of the characteristics that make a good book of travels we have no hesitation in pronouncing Mr. Baker's the best that for some years has come into our hands. He has travelled in unknown countries; he has made great discoveries which both gratify the curiosity, and solve the problems of centuries; he has undergone greater hardships, and met with more exciting adventure than any previous African traveller, Bruce perhaps excepted; the romance of his own adventures is enhanced by the companionship of a brave-hearted wife; and he has told his story with consummate literary art. His book is as interesting as Herodotus, as exciting as a sensation novel, and as skilfully, if not as eloquently, written as Macaulay's Essays. The materials are admirably worked up; the journal is sparingly quoted, and the more important incidents are told with an effect that is quite dramatic. At the same time the reader cannot for a moment doubt that he is reading the narrative of a manly, straightforward, and honest explorer, whose estimate of his competitors in discovery is as generous as the account of his own achievements is modest. With the characteristic pluck and pertinacity of Englishmen, the great African mystery has been persistently attacked, and, within a few years, extorted. All that now remains is to perfect the detail of the great geographical facts established. To our own countrymen the honour of the discovery belongs; and we are justly proud of their achievement. No people, no literature, in the

Contemporary Literature.

231

history of the world, can, within the same space of time, boast such contributions to geographical knowledge, as the works of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Grant, and Baker. Nor should we omit the illustrious President of the Geographical Society, whose sagacious scientific hypotheses have contributed as much to African discovery as the actual travels of any one of its explorers. Each claims his own share of the glory, and it is no more necessary to institute invidious comparison than, happily, it is to decide rival claims, or appease personal jealousies. It is enough to say that Livingstone has achieved the unique enterprise of crossing equatorial Africa, and of exploring the great Zambesi and the Shire, south of the Nile sources; and that he has been anticipated in the discovery of the latter only because he could not do every thing He conjectured their locality and general nature, and intended to put his conjecture to a positive test. Burton also surmised the existence of the great equatorial lakes whence the Nile springs, and began the search for them. Speke and Grant discovered the Victoria N'yanza, the highest source or reservoir of the Nile, and Baker has discovered the Albert N'yanza, in which vast body of water all the separate sources of the Nile are gathered, and from which they issue in the mighty volume of the White Nile.

at once.

It is not our purpose to give a précis of Mr. Baker's fascinating narrative; this would be scarcely fair to the author, whose book claims the perusal of every one for whom heroic enterprise and thrilling adventure have any claim; nor would it be fair to the reader inasmuch as it might blunt the edge of his curiosity, while it could not fully satisfy it. We will refer our readers to the volumes themselves, confident that their perusal will amply justify the eulogy upon them that we feel constrained to pronounce.

Mr. Baker is not like Dr. Livingstone, a missionary, nor is he like Burton, Speke, and Grant, a soldier. He is a private gentleman, apparently of ample means, who prefers the excitement and enterprise of African travel, that he may do his part in fulfilling those duties by which the earth's history is carried on,' to the enjoyment of clubs and Parliamentary honours, and country life at home. He does not formally describe his personal qualifications as an African explorer, but his book abundantly indicates them; these are so many and so great that he must be a kind of admirable Crichton among travellers. In the first place he is physically strong, so that he can stretch a refractory Arab senseless with as much ease and skill as Tom Sayers could have shown; and survive as many African fevers as Dr. Livingstone, although without quinine for months. He possesses undaunted courage; with imperturb able calmness he waits the charge of an infuriated elephant, or the spring of a tiger, when his only chances for life are the certainty of his aim, and the infallibility of his rifle; trusting to his tact and pluck, and to what may turn up, he follows an inimical trading party into the desert, although they have sworn to murder him, and although he knows that his own men have conspired to desert him and to aid them. He quells a mutiny by his fist, rolling the leader over in a heap, and resists an attack of armed Arabs by thrusting his umbrella down the throat of one of them. He is, moreover, very determined; no danger nor difficulty can divert him from his purpose; his enthusiasm is fired by it, and his patience waits upon his enthusiasm. His resolute will, combined with his inflexible justice, gave him an extraordinary ascendency over the Arabs, so that friends and foes came to regard him as a kind of demi-god. He is, moreover, a man fertile in resources, a self-helping

man, ready to do himself every thing that others will not do for him; and unfailing in the ingenuity with which he can overcome difficulties. He is a sportsman of the first water-hippopotami, crocodiles, elephants, hartebeestes, nothing comes him amiss; he speaks of his rifles as if they were his children, and very affectionately they served him. He had, moreover, the advantage of singleness of council; his noble wife, in every way as brave and patient and wise as himself, being his only European companion. Her companionship gives a touch of beautiful romance and tenderness to the narrative. In more than one crisis Mrs. Baker's womanly tact saved the expedition. When we add to all this a very high degree of literary art-simplicity and beauty of language, power, reticence, and suggestiveness of descriptions, with a dramatic skill of so putting things, as that they produce the effect of a tableau or of a surprise, as the case may be, we get the conception of a heavenborn traveller-nascitur non fit-born not only to supply the materials of books, but to write them.

To Speke and Grant the honour of discovering the source of the Nile belongs. Starting from Zanzibar 7° S. latitude, and proceeding N.W. they discovered the Victoria N'yanza, stretching from 2° S. latitude to the equator, and from 32° to 35° E. longitude. This is the eastern side of the great basin of the Nile sources. Out of the north end of this lake the White Nile issues. It was traced by Speke in a N.W. direction to the Karuma Falls, 2° 15' north of the equator, where it made a sudden bend to the W.; but hostilities among the tribes prevented him from tracing it further. He was told by the natives, of a little lake, the Luta N'zigé, to the west, into which the river ran; he was compelled, however, to proceed north, and struck the Nile again at Miani's tree, 3° 32'; the farthest point south reached by the Venetian whose name it bears, 450 miles from the Victoria N'yanza, and 60 or 70 miles from Gondokoro. At Gondokoro he met Mr. and Mrs. Baker on their way to his assistance; a very graphic account of the interview is given by Mr. Baker. Captain Speke told Mr. Baker what he had done, and what remained to be done, generously gave him maps, and all the instruction and assistance that he could. Mr. Baker proceeded to the Karuma Falls, thence in a south-westerly direction until he came upon the Albert N'yanza at Vacovia, in latitude 1° N.; he found that instead of a little lake' it was far larger than the Victoria, and probably the largest lake in the world. He ascertained that it extended from 3° N. latitude to 2° S. latitude, between which it was well known to the natives; that in the south it then turned to the west, and its further extent was unknown. Its breadth at Vacovia was 60 or 70 miles. From Vacovia Mr. Baker coasted northward in canoes for thirteen days until he reached Magungo, the mouth of the river which Speke had traced from the Victoria Lake to the Karuma Falls; the continuity of which he verified by ascending it as far as the falls; from Magungo he clearly saw the exit of the entire volume of the Nile at the northern end of the lake. He thus demonstrated that the Victoria N'yanza discovered by Speke, was a high reservoir on the eastern side of the Nile Basin, that the river which flowed from it,-the Victoria Nile or Somerset River, flowed into the Albert N'yanza, to which it falls, by a succession of cataracts, many hundreds of feet, and that the Albert N'yanza was therefore the grand reservoir into which all the waters which form the White Nile proper were collected; many affluents, doubtless, contributing to it, some of them probably of equal volume with the Victoria Nile. It receives, in fact, the drainage of the entire country. In