894 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



November 1. 1913. 



took away with one hand what it gave 

 with the other. Nevertheless, she con- 

 cealed her anguish, and performed her 

 duties as sovereign in the noblest and 

 most touching manner. 



HEINE ON MUSIC. 



Heine, it is well known, had little 

 understanding or true appreciation of 

 music, but that did not prevent him from 

 making frequent reference to it in his 

 essays and feii'illetons. To the Fort- 

 nightly Review Mr. Franklin Peterson 

 has contributed an interesting article on 

 this subject, giving many quotations on 

 music and musicians from Heine's writ- 

 ings. 



Chopin, it seems, is the only musician 

 about whom Heine has not written an 

 unkind word. Heine called him a genius 

 in the truest sense of the word, not only 

 a virtuoso, but a poet. When Heine 

 talks of music and musicians, large al- 

 lowances must be made, explains Mr. 

 Peterson. For instance, he professed the 

 highest admiration for Rossini's works, 

 and classed this composer with Beeth- 

 oven and Mozaxt. When he refers to 

 Meyerbeer allowance must be made for 

 personal feeling, which underwent con- 

 siderable change between 1840 and 

 1843. He thinks Beethoven carried his 

 spiritual art too far into the material, 

 realising for us even physical agony in 

 tones. The most appreciative passages 

 of Heine relate to Rossini, Donizetti, 

 Bellini, andPaganini, and his description 

 of a Paganini concert, it is stated, gives 

 us one of the best portraits we have of 

 that great executive artist. 



IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 

 De Tijdspiegel has an article on that 

 period of Russian history which fol- 

 lowed the death of Ivan the Terrible. 

 Concerning this tyrant, we are told that, 

 one winter evening in 1584, he stepped 

 forth from the Kremlin and saw a comet 

 with a tail like a cruci&x ; after gazing 

 at it for a long time, he crossed himself 

 three times, and averred that it be- 

 tokened his death. He died a few weeks 

 later, and was succeeded bv his son Feo- 

 dor, a weak ruler ; Feodor was the third 

 son, but there was a fourth, who was not 

 recognised because he was the offspring 

 of Ivan's seventh marriage, ancl the 



Greek Church permitted only four ven- 

 tures of that nature. Then follows a 

 full account of the intrigues of Boris, 

 Feodor's brother-in-law (who afterwards 

 became Tsar) ; the murder of Demetrius, 

 the fourth son ; the apjDearance of a so- 

 called Demetrius in after years, and 

 the attempts in modern times to ascer- 

 tain whether that Demetrius was an im- 

 poster or not. 



A PANEGYRIC POET. 



E. S. Roscoe, in the Edinburgh Re- 

 view, deals with Matthew Prior as Dip- 

 lomatist and Poet. He suggests that 

 " good natured Mat. Prior " would have 

 been amused at the regard paid to his 

 verse, for his primary object in life was 

 to become a successful and well-naid 

 official — or, as Prior himself expressed 

 it, " I had rather be thought a good Eng- 

 lishman than the best poet or greatest 

 scholar that ever wrote." His poverty 

 compelled him to write, and accord- 

 ingly— 



Prior's muse was always at his service, 

 whether to please monarchs or to conciliate 

 noblemen. During the anxious years whicli 

 he passed at the Hague, uncertain of his 

 future, as hardly pressed for cash as the 

 Treasury at home, constantly urging his 

 oflBcial friends at Whitehall to see that his 

 "bills of ext-raordinaries " received atten- 

 tion, he wrote — in 1695 — both the Long Ode 

 on Queen Mary's Death, and the Ballad on 

 the Taking of Xamur. The times had ceased 

 to be suitable for such compositions. Prior 

 w-as consequently the last of the panegyric 

 poets of whom Cartwright was the inovst 

 proline. William III. was too much a man 

 to care for a Carmen Seculare, and Queen 

 Anne was too stupid to appreciate even ful- 

 some compliments in a neatly turned ode. 

 No writer in his senses would have addressed 

 a stanza to any one of the Georges. 



DANIEL DE FOE. 



In the North American Review Edith 

 Wyatt writes on " The Author of 

 Robinson Crusoe." De Foe's life is, if 

 possible, more absorbing than that of 

 his hero, whose adventures were penned 

 by the author at the age of sixty, after 

 passing through more escapades than 

 ever befel the immortal Crusoe. De 

 Foe can claim to be our earliest jour- 

 nalist, as well as the first English novel- 

 ist. His political pamphlet. " The 

 Shortest Way with the Dissenters," 

 brought him to the pillory, and thence 



