AMONG JULY MAGAZINES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 10

AMONG JULY MAGAZINES.

THE QUIET ANSWER.

As a young and unknown man., I went down to a certain Sessions Court on the Oxford Circuit to prosecute for the Crown in a case of extensive robbery from a goods shed of the London; and North-Western Railway. Some ten or twelve of us, all members of the Circuit, had accepted the invitation of a very good fellow—also an Oxford Circuit man-—to drive out that evening and dine with him at Manor. My .case had duly come on, and I had secured verdict of “guilty” during the afternoon. Having changed into evening, dress, I took my place in a private bus, together with my fellow-guests, for the five-miles’ drive out. About half-way there —I, as a newcomer, not having, apparently, been noticed by the rest (the inside of the vehicle was as dark as Erebus) a certain; Mr T. , a great talker, asked in loud tones: “Who was the young idiot who prosecuted to-day in that railway case ?” “1 was,” I promptly rejoined from my obscure corner; and I never knew a man relapse so quickly into silence before or since.—(Fox Russell, in The Pall Mall Magazine.) LORD GRIMTHORPE’S “ASTRONOMY FOR HOUSEMAIDS.” If I had to pick one out of all his productions, as being that which was most worth preservation, I should have no hesitation in • naming “Astronomy Without Mathematics,” although I ought to qualify this preference with the admission that I have rid pretension whatever to independent scientific knowledge. It is just worth while to give his own account to me of how he came to write this admirable took. Mrs Vaughan, the wife of the late Dean of Llandaff, who was a great friend of his, and a most benevolent and energetic worker for the good of her sex, asked him one day if, to oblige her, he would write a treatise on astronomy for housemaids. He was too little versed in the philosophy of handmaidens to undertake so highly specialised a task, but he said he would write something upon astronomy which it would need no mathematics to understand, and Mrs Vaughan naturally' accepted his offer. The volume -which he produced must have been both clear and simple, for T think I understood it all. It is riot true, however, to say that it is--altoget her “without mathematics,” for .as ho gets on«to the more abstruse parts of his subject he slides into the use of a cer-tain-number of or mu lae, and of a good many technical terms.

But this speaks wonders for it; although it was the work of an amateur no professional, so far as I know, has ever seriously attacked it; and it is to be hoped that it will never be allowed to die out for want of judicious re-editing from time to time.-—(E. H. Pember, K.C., in the Cornhill Magazine.) THE JEFFREYS OF SCOTLAND. But these portraits pale, into insignificance in comparison with that of a far more commanding personality, “the giant of the Bench,” Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield, who passed away in 1799. “Strongly built and dark, with rough eyebrows, powerful eyes, threatening lips, and a low, growling voice, he was like a formidable blacksmith.” His massive intellect, his coarseness, his brutahity, his domineering manners, and his harshness toward the wretched criminals before him, go far to justify Lord Cockbum’s epithet of “the Jeffreys of Scotland.” But Cockburn was a stanch Wig, and can never forgive Braxfield for what he calls his “indelible iniquity” in the political trials of 1793. He assumed the guilt of these unhappy prisoners, overruled all arguments in. their favour, browbeat the witnesses, and harangued the Court in the spirit of a Lauderdale or a Dalzell. “Come awa’, Maister Horner,” he whispered to a juryman who passed behind his chair, “come awa’, and help us to hang ane a’ thae damned scoondrils.”

In recent years Louis Stevenson has resuscitated the “Hanging Judge l ” for us in his “Weir of Hermiston”—the last and most powerful of all his works. “The Immortal Braxfield” —so he tells Mr J. M. Barrie in one of his letters from Vailima—is to be his grand premier, and in some respects his portrait is undoubtedly truer to life than Lord Cockburn’s, for he gives us the redeeming points of Braxfield’s character—his sturdy independence,. his honesty of purpose, and his firm belief in himself as a wielder of the sword of justice and the instrument of the law’s vengearice upon traitors and the refuse of society.—(From Auld Reekie, in Blackwood’s Magazine.) A PAGAN SURVIVAL. There is little doubt that the custom of lighting fires on Midsummer Eve is of Eastern origin. Those who watch the Irish peasants driving their cattle between two blazing piles, or see the young men leaping over the glowing ember®, as the bonfires sink lower and the brief darkness of the midsummer night gives place to the rose flush of dawn, can hardly fail to be reminded of that “passing through the fire of Moloch,” so strictly forbidden to the Hebrews. Whole families pass solemnly between the two fires, or spring backward and forward over the flames. True, the simple country folk imagine they are performing these mystic rites in honour of St. John the Baptist, for early missionaries finding it impossible to prevent their converts keeping the pagan festivals, transferred them to the saints, and midsummer was assigned to St. John —“the light to* lighten the Gentiles” —instead of to Baldur or Baal, and the bonfires were called “Teine hheil Eion” (John’s fires). Some say that tne fires were transferred from May Day or “Beltane”another important festival held by the Irish. Scots, and British Celts in honour of Baal, or Belus—to midsummer ; others, with more probability, assert that the two festivals were quite distinct. However, this may be, May Day is still called’ “Bealtaine” or “Beltane” in both Ireland and Scotland. Sometimes a hone is laid in the heart of the blaze —doubtless it’represents the original human sacrifice; in fact; some derive the word “bonfire” from this practice, others say it is not bone, but boon, bene, or the French bon, because great virtues were accerdited to the midsummer fires. -In the West of England, where they lingered till recently, they were known as “blessing fire®,” and in almost every part of Europe they were supposed to bring good luck, an abundant harvest and freedom from disease both to man and beast' —an idea which is not yet extinct in Ireland. —(Longman’s Magazine.) A GLIMPSE OF THE! GRAND LAMA. From the native, standpoint the distinction enjoyed by Urga—or, to give its native name, Ta Kuren or Bogdo Kuren, meaning the sacred encampment —lies, in the fact that it is the earthly abode of their Ever-living God or Kutukhtu. To Mongols, Urga ranks next to Lhasa in sacred character, as containing the third figure in the Tibetan patriarchate. In the doctrine of the Lamas, as is well known these earthly impersonations of God can never die. but are reincarnated by the passing of their souls after death into the new-born infants. At the time of the writer’s visit the Ever-living God was represented by a young man whose age was* not yet thirty. °He lived in a replica of the Russian consulate, from whose representative, possibly, his abode was a votive offering. Any personification of the Deity was said to be confined to public life. “ In private it was whispered he was of the world, worldly. Possessing not a few traits which it might be thought must discredit his God-like attributes in the eyes of the Buddhist faithful, this extraordinary being yet remains the spiritual God of millions. . - It was

tk day of good luck which afforded the writer the chance of studying in the flesh such a remarkable entity as one of the spiritual head® of the Buddhist religion. . . Above a half-throne, halx-louno-e, upon which reclined the god himself, was hung an enormous embrella of the same rich material. Un the throne were piled silk cushions ox the same gorgeous colour, while within, on either side, ether seats sheltered by more umbrellas offered places for the most distinguished followers.—(Pu-Lu-Ssu, in Blackwood’s Magazine.)