JuLv 4, 1 901] 



jVA TURE 



229 



Athenasum, the Literary Society, The Club, &c. ; he was 

 for many years in the House of Commons, has been 

 Under-Secretary for India, Under-Secretary for the 

 Colonies, Governor of Madras, &c. He has thus had 

 great opportunities, of which he has made the most. As 

 was said of Archbishop Williams, he has " read the best, 

 heard the best, conferred with the best ; excribed, com- 

 mitted to memory, disputed ; and had some work 

 continually upon the loom." 



Moreover, he has not only striven, and successfully, to 

 know the ablest statesmen, literary men and men of 

 science in our own country, but abroad also — V. Cousin, 

 Hubner, B. de St. Hilaire, J. Simon, Taine, and many 

 others were among his friends. The diary of such a 

 man could not but be most interesting. 



He has acted on the motto from Renan, which he 

 places at the head of his first volume : " On ne doit 

 jamais ecrire que de ce qu'on aime. L'oubli et le silence 

 sent la punition qu'on inflige a ce qu'on a trouve laid ou 

 commun dans la promenade a travers la vie." 



Several of his reviewers have expressed the opinion 

 that there are parts of the book which might have been 

 spared, but 1 doubt whether they would have agreed 

 which should be left out. The botany has been more 

 than once suggested for omission ; but to that I for one 

 should, of course, demur. Sir Mountstuart has always 

 loved natural history, and as a statesman has rendered 

 valuable services to botany. He quotes with natural 

 pleasure Sir J. Hooker's dedication to him of the 117th 

 vol. of the Botanical Magazine, "as a slight acknowledg- 

 ment of the valuable services which you rendered to 

 botany and horticulture when Under-.Secretary of State, 

 first for India and then for the Colonies, and lately when 

 Governor of the Madras Presidency ; to which I would 

 add, in memory of our long friendship, and our delightful 

 rambles at home and abroad, in pursuit of our favourite 

 science." 



The whole book is full of good stories, of wise and 

 witty sayings, of which, of course, we can only give a 

 very small sample ; for instance, 



" is forty years old, Gladstone is eighty years 



young." 



" Talleyrand remarks that ' Les affections lointaines 

 sont un asile pour la pensee.' " 



" Lady Alwyne Compton ' divided biography into auto- 

 biography, and ought — not to biography.'" 



" Evarts, being asked if he was going to the funeral of 

 a man whom he very much disliked, said, ' No, I shall 

 not attend, but I quite approve of it.' " 



" Woman was made after Man, and has been after 

 him ever since." 



" Two young ladies discussed for some time the colour 

 of the Devil, when at last one said, ' I think you will find 

 that 1 am right, dear.' " 



"As Lady Blennerhassett left the dining-room she 

 asked me, ' Do you like women's votes?' and supplied 

 the answer, ' I like women who de-vote themselves.' " 



" Mrs. Montgomery said of a friend, ' She gives me 

 the impression of having been in the garden of Paradise 

 before the Fall, but, having got a hint of what was about 

 to happen, escaped before the coming of Original Sin.'" 

 While imbued with the scientific spirit, and thoroughly 

 sympathising with the most liberal views of Stanley, 

 Jowett and Renan, Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff has a 

 deep feeling of reverence for the mysteries of existence. 

 We meet again and again evidence of the profound im- 

 NO. 1653, VOL. 64] 



pression made upon him by the rdcit d'une soeur ; he 

 speaks with affectionate veneration of Newman, and he 

 tells us how much he valued the benediction which he 

 sent him when he was starting for his Madras Govern- 

 ment. 



In his view of our religion he seems (though he does 

 not expressly say so) to agree with Renan that 



" II ne sera remplacd que par un ide'al supdrieur ; il 

 est roi pour longtemps encore. Que dis-je ? Sa beaute 

 est eternelle, son regne n'aura pas de fin. L'Eglise a 

 e'te depassee, et s'est depassife elle-mcme ; le Christ n'a 

 pas ^te depasse." 



The diary ends with an admirable address to the girls 

 of the High School, Oxford. He gives them excellent 

 advice : " Remember that to live a great and beautiful 

 life is a far higher achievement than anything that can 

 be done in life save by the very rarest genius." 



He dwells first on what they should not learn— no 

 higher arithmetic, no mathematics — no learning by 

 heart, except some masterpieces, which should be kept 

 up — no English grammar. Latin and Greek only as 

 rewards. 



Next what they should learn — reading, writing, draw- 

 ing, book-keeping, needlework, cooking, enough French 

 and German to read an ordinary book, some short 

 treatise on logic, and enough music to enable them to 

 enjoy the work of others, and some knowledge of the 

 world in which we live. Lastly, he recommends them 

 all to read four books — the " Meditations of Marcus 

 Aurelius," the " De Imitatione," Gracian's " Oraculo 

 Manual," and " Joubert's Pensees." 



No one, I think, will put Sir Mountstuart's book down 

 without a kindly feeling for the author, and a hope that 

 he might have his characteristic wish to " come back 

 every ten years, say for three weeks, just at this season, 

 when the lilac, laburnum and wild hyacinth are out, to 

 see how you are (the world is) getting on." 



AVEBURY. 



FIELD EXPERIMENTS ON WHEAT. 

 Cult lira del Frumento, 1899-1900. xiii An?to di cul- 



iura contiiiua del Frumento e del Granturco. By Prof. 



Italo Giglioli. Pp. XX-M59. (Portici : Premiato Stab. 



Tipografico Vesuviano, 1901.) 

 TN the year 1887 Prof Italo Giglioli, director of the 

 R. Scuola Superiore Agraria di Portici, commenced a 

 series of experiments on the growth of wheat under various 

 manurial conditions at Suessola, in the Province of 

 Caserta. The experiments are maintained by the Nea- 

 politan Association of Landowners and Farmers, assisted, 

 during the last few years, by grants from the Department 

 of Agriculture. 



The experimental field covers nearly two acres, and is 

 divided by paths into 123 plots of about 45 square metres 

 each. In most cases two or more plots (sometimes six or 

 even twelve -plots) receive the same treatment, and in 

 this way the actual number of distinct experiments is 

 reduced to forty-five. The produce of each of the 123 

 plots is, however, separately cut and weighed. 



In the first year of the experiments wheat alone was 

 grown, but owing to very favourable climatic conditions, 

 and the character of the soil, it was subsequently found 



