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The Review of Reviews. 



his early appreciation and love for America. The 

 remainder of his visit, however, Dickens found more ' 

 to his liking. He grew fond of Americans, found the 

 women beautiful and the men chivalrous, but their 

 expectorating habit aroused his wonderment. Dickens 

 was unknown in America until after the first four 

 monthly parts of " Pickwick " had been published in 

 England, but on his first visit to America, although he 

 came as a private person, he was treated practically 

 as " the literary guest of the nation." On his second 

 tour he came announced as a public reader and enter- 

 tainer. That this tour was not in one sense so 

 triumphal as the former was due to the fact that he 

 was ill almost all the time. His readings from his 

 novels were the most successful of the kind ever 

 given in America. He carried with him a staff of 

 half a dozen men. He gave in all seventy-six readings ; 

 the tickets were usually sold out a fortnight before 

 the readings were given. The receipts of the tour 

 were ^.£^5 7,000, of which Dickens took ;^38,ooo. 



Origin" OF " Boz." 

 In the Treasury Mr. T. Hannan gives a very concise 

 story of the novelist's life. He thus explains the 

 origin of the name " Boz " :— 



"Boz" was a nom de plume, conceived quite in the 

 characteristic vein of the humour of Dickens. He had a brother 

 who was called " Moses"— princip.illy because that was not his 

 name. Pronounced with a cold "id the head," it became 

 " Boses " ; and that was shortened into "Boz." And that is the 

 genesis of the name under which were published, chiefly in the 

 Evening Chronicle, those sketches which formed the beginning 

 of a wonderful career. Macrone published the " Sketches " in 

 book form and gave Dickens ;f 150 for the copyright — which 

 Dickens and his publishers. Chapman and Hall, afterwards 

 bought back for j^2,ooo. 



The February Strand reports that the Dickens 

 Centenary Fund which it inaugurated has attained 

 such proportions as to place the five granddaughters 

 of the author of " David Copperfield," for whom the 

 appeal was made, for ever out of the reach of want. 

 The portraits are given of the five ladies in question, 

 whose names are : Miss Mary Angela Dickens, Miss 

 Evelyn Dickens, Miss Ethel Dickens, Miss Dorothy 

 Dickens, Miss Cecil Mary Dickens. 



else, the same unfortunate influences still being operative. 

 .Some other form of Government seems to .be required, but 

 what ? At the moment there is in effect a condominium of 

 Russia and Great Britain, and it is just possible that it may 

 subsist until Persia is nursed into strength. At all events, that 

 is what Great Britain would desire to see accomplished. 



THE PERSIAN TROUBLE. 



Mr. Robert Machrav contriliutes to the Fort- 

 nig/itiy Revinu for February a narrative of recent events 

 in Persia, which brings out very clearly the absurdity 

 of assuming that all the troubles in that distressful 

 country have arisen from the Anglo-Russian Agree- 

 ment. He points out that Russia practically domi- 

 nated Northern Persia ten years ago, and the fact that 

 her troops are in occupation in certain towns in the 

 North is paralleled by the fact that our troops are in 

 occupation in certain districts in the South : — 



In both cises the presence of these soldiers has been caused 

 by the weakness, and, it may be .iddcd, the folly of the central 

 Persian Government. The experiment of a constitutional r,'gime 

 has produced chaos so far, and there is no good rea.son for 

 supposing that for a long time to come it will produce anything 



JAPANESE AND ENGLISH POETRY COMPARED. 



By a Japanese Poet. 

 In the Taiyo for January, Mr. Yone Noguchi, who 

 says, " I pass as a poet," contrasts Japanese with 

 English poets. He says : — 



The English poets w.iste too much energy in " words, words 

 and words," and make, doubtless with all good intentions, 

 their inner meaning frustrate, at least less distinguished, simply 

 from the reason that its full liberty to appear naked is denied. 

 It is the poets more than the novelists who not only misinterpret 

 their own meaning, but often deceive their own souls, and cry 

 to their hearts too affectedly so that their timid eyes look aside ; 

 it is almost unbelievable how the English-speaking people with 

 their pronounced reserve and good sense can turn at once to 

 " poetry " so reckless and eloquent. 



■ Japanese poetry, at least the old Japanese poetry, is different 

 from Western poetry in the same way as silence is difterent 

 from a voice, night from day ; while avoiding the too close 

 discussion of their relative merits, I can say that the latter 

 always fails, naturally enough, through being too active to 

 properly value inaction, restfulness, or death, to speak shortly, 

 the passive phase of Life and the World. Oh, our Japanese 

 life of dream and silence I The Japanese poetry is that of the 

 moon, stars and flowers, that of a bird and waterfall for the 

 noisiest ; when we do not sing so much of the life and world 

 it is not from the reason that we think their value negative, 

 but from our thought that it would be better, in most cases, 

 to leave them alone ; and not to sing of them is the proof of 

 our reverence toward them. Beside, the stars and flowers in 

 Japan mean to sing Life, since we human beings are not merely 

 a part of nature but Nature itself. When our Japanese poetry . 

 is best, it is, let me say, a searchlight or flash of thought or 

 passion cast on a moment of Life or Nature, which, by the 

 virtue of its intensity, leads us to the conception of the whole ; 

 it is swift, discontinuous, an isolated piece itself. 



ANGLO-GERMAN RELATIONS, 



How To Square Germany. 



In the Dub/in Revi(7u Mr. Edwin De Lisle boldly 

 outlines a policy which he thinks would dissipate the 

 war cloud that hangs over our present relations with 

 Germany. He says : — 



Why then should England wish to prevent Germany from 

 acquiring an Asiatic Empire, let us say West of the Persian 

 Gulf, and East of the Mediterranean Sea? It is unfriendly ; it 

 is impolitic. In fact, it is impossible. The Turk must wane, 

 the German wax ! • 



The alternative seems to him absurd : — 



Will England be mad enough to compel Germany to encroach 

 on the French Republic rather than on the Ottoman Empire ? 

 To exp.ind in Europe on her French, Dutch, Swiss an i Italian 

 boundaries, instead of over the seas, say in Morocco and 

 Mesopotamia? Why should England fear? Why should 

 France olijoct ? Why should Russia fume ? . . . The true 

 solution of the difficulty is to make a friend of Germany instead 

 of an enemy, and to regard her j;rowing fleet as a possible ally. 

 If we abandoned our present policy of thwarting every German 

 move, as in the railway schemes for Salonika and Bagdad, and 

 the East and West transcontinental .African Railway, we should 

 lose nothing, and Germany would gain her desires, and there 

 would be no need to continue this ruinotis neck and neck race 

 in shipbuilding. 



