a

precede the dinners and if too long for range of models, and his kings are the patience of the diners, they are anything but regal, his few nobles are howled down, the speakers retiring plebeian. Such an artist, howsoever sumeekly, and the dinner being served perb his work, risks neglect from those with swiftness. This is the result of whom he has neglected, and although the diners' conviction that they are re- Jordaens was in his life time known ceiving only their due, for when the and esteemed beyond the borders of his giver ceases to feel that he is sacrific- own land, he was half forgotten in the ing self the receiver instantly abandons eighteenth century, and nothing but the gratitude. Scrooge very rightly prophe- new gospel of good work regardless of sies that the new Dickens will not come subject brought him into prominence for a long time. The volume is il- in the nineteenth. Good work is lustrated by excellent emblematic pic- everywhere in his pictures. The montures, and has a rubricated title page arch in "The King Drinks" may be a and a cover upon which the title and bulbous nosed old person, suggesting the author's name form a cross of novel "the plump head waiter at the Cock," proportions. The Houghton Mifflin Co. rather than any wearer of a crown:

the Virgin in "The Adoration of the Max Rooses, the author of "Jacob Shepherds," in the Stockholm Museum, Jordaens, his Life and Works,” prophe- may be at least fifty years of age and sies an increase in the interest in him may have a retreating chin and the which has for some years been stead- hands of a charwoman; nevertheless ily growing, and surely his beautiful the king's glass glitters even in a phobook will be a powerful influence in togravure, and the ugliness of Our causing such result. The last Lady is as solid as marble. In "The twenty years have been productive in il- Four Evangelists," one of his best lustrated biographies of great painters, works, there is nothing elevated, no but none has been more superbly com. sign that these are they to whom a memorated than the subject of this great work has been entrusted, but the great quarto with its sixteen photo- modelling of their faces is a marvel. gravures and equal number of other Thus it is in nearly all his work; it full-page pictures and its 250 text il- inspires the craftsman, it arouses emulustrations giving details of large pic- lation in the true artist, but it leaves tures, and complete small pictures. If ordinary beholders not interested in art Jordaens be less well-known outside for art's sake quite cold. The literhis own country than his great con- ary form of the book is simple and untemporaries, Rubens and Van Dyck, it ornamented, but it abounds in good critis because he was so deeply Flemish icism, for the author, the Conservator in feeling and in spirit. As the au- of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, is thor says, he preferred to paint only deeply learned in art, and both imparthose things which he knew, and far tial and discerning, and a thoroughly from attempting to broaden his mind agreeable writer. Only a limited ediby considering other countries, other tion, 400, of the work has been times, other customs, he deliberately printed, and these will hardly supply enclosed himself in a Flemish world. che demand of Art Museums and LiHe painted innumerable Holy Families braries, and such copies of this first and Adorations, and in no one of them edition as may remain after they are is there a Semitic countenance or a Se supplied will be the prey of the bibliomitic trait. Moreover, even in Flan- phile and the speculator. E. P. Dotders, he confined himself to a narrow ton & Co.

SEVENTH SERIES
VOLUME XLI.

}

No. 3364 December 26, 1908.

FROM BEGINNING

Vol. CCLIX.

1.

11.

III.

iv.

V. VI.

CONTENTS
Sketches of Persia in Transition. BLACKWOOD's MAGAZINE 771
Literature in Drama. By E. A. Baughan FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 781
Hardy-on-the-Hill. Chapter VIII. By M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis
Blundell). (To be continued.)

TIMES 787
From a Poor Man's House. By Stephen Reynolds. (Concluded.)

ALBANY REVIEW 792 Dorothea Beale. By Lady Robert Cecil CORNHILL MAGAZINE 799 The Angel of Olass. By Rachel Swete Macnamara

PALL MALL MAGAZINE 803 The New Reign in China.

EOONOMIST 810 The New Definition of Naval Power.

NATION 812 Discursions : The Letter.

Punca 815 A Transatlantic Telephone. By F. Sarorgnan Di Brazzà

OUTLOOK 816 Singing Stars, By Katharine Tynan .

818

VII. VIII.

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SKETCHES OF PERSIA IN TRANSITION.

[This unvarnished history is given iron, and Naib Ali was his ferash bashi.' neither to pique the imagination of In the first place, the Naib controlled the morbid nor to disgust the suscepti- the water. Now everybody knows that bilities of the sensitive, but to enable

Tabriz draws its water-supply from arthe readers of “Maga" to realize some

tificial bore-holes in the neighboring thing of the passions, lusts, selfishness,

hills. The duct for the Akhrab quarand immature morality of the Persian people. From Kermanshab in the ter belonged to the Naib, so that really West to the Afghan border in the the people lay in the hollow of his East the whole country writhes under hand. If they displeased him, there the terrors of unbridled Moslemism.)

was no water. If the Mullahs but Tabriz, September 2, 1908.

hinted at unrighteousness in his ac

tions, there was still no water. If the THE NEMESIS OF NAIB MAHAMED.

Naib wanted money to pay a debt, Naib Mahamed Khan was a virtuous there was no water until the money man, His brother Naib Ali also laid

was found. Then it is said that the claim to similar perfections.

No one

Naib agreed with no man. If one could in the Akhrab quarter of the town ever be found courageous enough to argue dreamed of taking any step that af- with him, the Naib would maintain fected the quarter without first con- that the sky was red or that Mabamed sulting Naib Mabamed. There were was a Babii. In his protestations he two reasons why the people thus leaned feared nor God nor man. upon the Naib. The first was that

Thus it was, when the Shah granted Naib Mahamed was a very short-tem- a Constitution to the people of Persia, pered man; and the second, that he

that the Naib showed displeasure at the never gave advice gratuitously, and action of those reform enthusiasts who had ten armed retainers. So no one

rushed headlong into politics and esdoubted the virtue of the Naib, and

tablished seditious debating societies Ali basked in the light of his brother's

throughout the town. All the quarters good deeds.

of Tabriz, except Akhrab, established Now the Naib was not as other men.

their local assemblies. The leading He avoided the housetop, and he had

gray-beard of Akhrab approached Naib beaten such as he suspected of syco- Mahamed Khan on the subject. The phaney. The Naib, although he was Naib was puffing at his silver-mounted fifty, had only married one wife. Even hubble-bubble. He was seated, crossthough she bore him no child he never legged, under one of the trees of the favored another. And when he re

avenue down the main street of the turned from the great pilgrimage, he

quarter, and gave the graybeard curt broke through all the customs which

answerthe Mullahs maintained to be orthodox.

“What does Akhrab want with an That is, he abused the elders of the Anjuman? It has water; that is sufquarter who came out on the Mianeh

ficient!" Road to salute him, and he had all

The hint about the water was concallers who came to ask of his health

vincing enough, and throughout all the laid by the heels and beaten, bidding Tabriz troubles the quarter known as his servants to tell them that his health

Akhrab alone abstained from politics. or ill-health was none of their business.

Sattar Khan and Baghir Khan led time came when the Central Revoluthe people against the Government and tionary Committee in the town began the Mujtehid.The Naib would have to levy a poll-tax upon the rich mernothing to do with the movement. He chants. A fight for freedom and the refused support, either in men or in people's rights costs money. The money, to both parties. Akhrab re- names were proscribed, and a moiety mained a peaceful faction, apart from fell upon certain refugees in the Naib's the general movement. But when quarter. Sattar Khan sent his messenRakhim Khan came to Tabriz to do the gers to collect the due. The messenShah's bidding, and when his brigands gers were brought before the Naib's from the Karadagh hills began to pil. brother, who called them "sons of lage the town, the Naib put the quarter dogs” and had them thrust out beyond of Akhrab into a state of defence. He the new gates. Now the average Persent for the quarter's architect, and sian merchant is a miser before he is a selected designs for loopholed gates. patriot, and the news that Naib MaThe architect estimated that it would hamed Khan was protecting merchants cost two hundred tomans' to build the from subscribing to the Revolutionary gates. The Naib immediately had him Committee's funds brought a horde of cast upon his belly and bastinadoed. patriots into his quarter. "To think that the quarter of Akhrab, This brought a further remonstrance controlled by Naib Mahamed Khan, from Sattar Khan. Naib Ali, surshould be satisfied with such paltry rounded by a batch of newly-arrived gates."

merchant refugees, cocked his kula, Under the blows of the rod the esti- and had the revolutionary messengers mate for the gates rose to a thousand laid by the heels and bastinadoed. tomans. The money was at once col- "So much for the sons of dogs, who lected, for the water was turned off do not respect Naib Mahamed Khan until the last kban had been paid, and and Naib Ali, his ferash bashi !" the gates were made. It was credibly Not content with this, Naib Ali stated outside Akhrab be it said that seized an unfortunate newsboy who the money paid to the carpenters and was selling revolutionary pamphlets on masons employed on this public work the highway. The shrieking wretch did not exceed 112 tomans; but then was flogged until his weak, little life what was 1000 tomans compared with left his emaciated form. the blessings of peace.

"Son of a she-dog, thou, at least, But though there was no flaw in the shalt never be the father of dogs, as is Naib's hardness of heart, yet there was thy master!" laughed the Naib's ferash a weakness in his wisdom. This weak- bushi, as they flung the battered body ness lay in the confidence he placed in into the roadway. Naib Ali his brother. Naib Ali also had hardness, and he was devoid of

Naib Mahamed Khan, lying on the wisdom. The quarter, during the civil flat mud roof of his house, turned unwar in the town, was har enough in easily in his sleep. There was not a its armed neutrality. It was so happy breath of air. The heavy atmosphere that timid merchants from the other seemed to hang upon him like a weight. quarters took refuge in it. The Vaib The sand-flies, bred of his own waterwas glad to receive them at the small courses, worried him. He longed for price of 30 tomans per head. But the dawn, and wondered vaguely why the 3 Spiritual father - chief Mullah.