Last year Professor Gubernatis of Florence published the first volume of a work entitled La Mythologie des Plantes, in which he traced the connexion which at an carly stage of civilisation has always existed between religious observances and a reverence for trees, plants, and especially for forests. In the Revue des deux Mendes for the Ist April, the Princess Dora @'stria has reproduced in s popular and entertaining form the most important results reached by the Florentine professor. Driven for the most part, though not completely, from Europe, Baumkultus, as the Germans call it, is found in full vigour among the tribes of Central Africa.
Birds have always been in repute for occult wisdom. This they owe to their frequentation of forests where dwell the invisible elemental beings of popular mythology. What was likely to strike most forcibly a primeval man just beginning to reflect on the aspects of nature, was the fecundity of trees. Hence the legends of s tree of life which are intertwined with the earlicat religious traditions alike of Brahmins, Jews, Buddhists and even North American Indians. Hence, too, the origin of the belief in the virtues of the divining rod, by whose mysterious influence treasures are drawn from the earth and water from the rock, while demons fly before it when it is wielded byasaintlyhand. The healing and magical virtues of plants, and the celestial conjunetions and oppositions which must be respected in order to render them effective, still linger in popular belief. To the miraculous qualities of the Indian Soma and Persian Homo, many if not all of these con-celts are to be traced. Philtres cunningly distilled from herbs for the purpose of swaying or directing hatred and affection, owed and still owe the importance attached to them to lingering remnants of Oriental superstitions, Even the Christmas tree, dear to childhood, has, when examined historically, 9 magical or antimagical taint about it, to which indeed it is probable that it in part owes its manifold charms. But Mme. Dora d'Istria's article is one to be read, not summarised. It overflows with a wealth of illustration, no part of which should be lost.
The influence of the clergy is just now deeply exercising the literary world. in France. However the proposed. restrictions on religious bodies as teachers may be received by the nation, the mere fact of the question of restriction being raised makes historical sketches of the clergy and their doings unusually interesting at the moment. M. Maury, in the same number of the Revue, continues his account of the convocations held in Franco in the days before the Revolution. The picture he draws is not flattering. He introduces us scenes of marvellous license and disorder, and dwells on the tyranny exercised by the members of the clerical body over their flocks, the haughtiness with which the Crown was treated in times of political difficulty, and the subservience of the same high ecclesiastics whenever the King was in a position to enforce his demands for pecuniary aid out of the Church treasury. The author incidentally throws much light on the character of Richelieu, hia alternate struggles with the French Church and oppression of it, his attempts at corrupting its leading men, his duplicity towards the Pope, and, in a word, upon the secret history of the period, which even when unskilfully told reads like a romance, and in fact is, in the strictest sense, a romance of real life, This same burning question of education has probably likewise inspired M. Duruy's article on the statistics of higher education in France. From it we learn that in virtue of the law of 1875 the Catholic faculties have in Paris alone drawn 2,000 students to their benches. Catholicism is not dead, nor even dying, in France, and itis probable that religious motives prompt many parents to place their children by preference under the educational charge of the clergy. Besides this, however, the personal interest which the professors in Catholic seminaries display for each individual student, ensures, or tends to ensure, greater proficiency than is likely to be attained by students working without any such minute supervision, There can be little doubt that the arbitrary measure proposed, by which members of religious Orders "not recognised by the State" would be excluded from the work of teaching, will be rejected, while the examinations for degrees will probably, a3 is clearly right, be placed exclusively in the hands of a body or bodies strictly responsible to Government.
In thoughtful article by M. ©. do Varigny, the "manifest destiny" of Canada to be absorbed by the United States is discussed in the light of the early and recent political history of the North and South. With unsparing impartiality the author shows how all the " patriotism" on one side of the Atlantic and all the "philanthropy" on the other, which en circled and clouded the working out of the nogto question, took their rise in the most pronounced selfishness. The history of the Southern Confederacy is sketched in a masterly.manner within the. space of a few pages, of which every paragraph goes to prove and illustrate the proposition that "principle" had nothing to do with the coalition formed against the North. do Varigny makes an opportunity for con tresting the powers of the English and French nations as colonisers. His conclusion is that however successful England is in imparting the initial impulse to her colonies, she soon loses their affection, while her colonists with 1 rapidity diverge from the social type of the mother country. In this view there is clearly much exaggeration. But it cannot be denied that wherever Franco has borne away, there her influence remains. imprinted on men's thoughts, tastes, manners and language, and this in spite of all serta of adverse external circumstances. Louisiena and lower, Canada are cases in point, An article on proposed designs for improving the port of Bordeaux is not of general interest.—Woe are sorry that we can do no more than refer. to M. Val-bert's lively castigation of Dr. Klee' First Bismark und unsore Zeit, opportunity for a fling at the blood-andiron Prince's petulance, audacity, and economical heresies, was too good to be lott,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.