66 ... liquor dealer's greatest argument. It is strangely forcible. It is an influential object lesson. He has secured through an advertisement what he would not have dared to ask as an editorial concession. Addison, nearly two hundred years ago, indicated that there was calculating method in such business acumen : Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. . . A man that is by no means big enough for the gazette may easily creep into the advertisements, by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador." There is no class of business that receives through advertising so much for its money as the liquor business. In addition to the advantages which accrue to all businesses, it succeeds in paralyzing the editorial pen, which otherwise might insist on exercising its vaunted freedom for the destruction of the world's greatest wrong. There are certain lines of business which reputable journals refuse to display for any money consideration. The rum traffic must be relegated to that class before we can hope to see any vigor in the editorial treatment of this deadly foe. We are willing that every consideration shall be banished from this discussion except that which was voiced by Terence before the Christian era: "I am a man, and I have an interest in everything that concerns humanity." But in what is humanity interested more vitally than in the problem as to how long the destruction of boys and men, of girls and women, is to continue? If, when craven Athens every ninth year sent its shipload of seven boys and seven girls to be destroyed by the monstrous minotaur in a Cretan labyrinth, every citizen had not denounced the inhuman shame the very stones would have reproached them. In the presence of such thorough devastation there is no time to prate of party and politics. Eradicate this poisonous weed; then argue the question as to what shall be done with the reclaimed soil. The nation applauded President Cleveland as he said to Debs, "First call off your strike; then I shall appoint a commission to treat with you.' If there be these philanthropic and humane demands that the newspapers should vigorously denounce the one cause of most of our overwhelming woes we do not see how, in view of their assumptions of power and influence, they can longer be silent. Let it be recorded to the honor of the newspaper corps that in every other danger its voluntary and effectual assistance may be expected. If the great Northwest be ravaged by lurid flames columns are written suggesting the necessity for preventing a recurrence of the calamity. If the baneful shades of epidemic are detected voyaging on westward tides the danger is immediately heralded, with intelligent suggestions in reference to such precautionary sanitary measures as are desirable, and the press demands, with equal emphasis, that the very coast be locked and barred against the relentless destroyer. Then why not a similar interest in the overthrow of an evil before which all physical calamities pale into unsubstantial shadows? Here is the old, wicked, and vicious minotaur, growing fat on blood; and, while a unanimous, or even nearly unanimous, expression of righteous indignation concerning him and his deadly work would, within a few years, be his certain executioner, that word for some reason is yet unspoken, and the shameful destruction goes on. Let the press speak. Let it denounce this dark-visaged giant. Let it arraign him for his ruin of the bodies and property and happiness, and even the souls, of the American people, which it should be the highest prerogative of the government to protect. Let it point to the blood on this giant's red hands and charge upon him the death of the thousands slain. Let it span the wide space which separates a sacred home from a paltry office; and an outraged people, as under the spell of Mark Antony's eloquence, will rise and, from the instinct of self-preservation, will bury this crying shame. There can be no doubt that, when a unanimous press shall unite in a conscientious effort to develop and encourage public sentiment against this impudent, covetous, and murderous monster, it will fall paralyzed, dying, dead. M. H. Ramsay. ART. VI.-THE POETRY OF WILHELM MULLER. THOSE who cherish Müller's poetry, and believe that it is destined to find more and more a place in the hearts of men, have seen with pleasure the many tributes of appreciation which have recently been paid him in all parts of Germany and in Greece, in connection with the hundredth anniversary of his birth-the seventh of last October. Were it not for certain assignable causes, it would seem beyond belief that he is so nearly unknown among English-speaking people. Our popular encyclopedias, even the Britannica, do not mention him, and the hospitable columns of the various volumes of Poole's Index have no entry under his name. Longfellow, with that fine poetic insight which did him honor, early recognized the value of Müller's lyrical gifts. In the second book of Hyperion he characterizes him with just appreciation,* and his translations of two of Müller's lyrics, under the titles "Whither?" and "The Bird and the Ship," have appeared in his works since 1839. Baskerville published three other translations. From the musical point of view, Franz Schubert showed his sympathetic estimate of Müller's work by his setting of the songcycles "Die schöne Müllerin " and "Die Winterreise." These songs, so well known to English and American lovers of music, doubtless served Tennyson as a model in writing "The Window," and, perhaps, were not without influence upon "The Miller's Daughter" and "Maud." Unfortunately, the English translations which accompany Schubert's music, like nearly all translations of German songs, fail to give an adequate impres sion of the poetic quality of their originals. Professor Max Müller's Chips from a German Workshop contains an English translation of his Preface to the latest German edition of his father's poems-a most graceful tribute of filial piety. It should also be said that Dr. C. A. Buchheim has added to his many It is, perhaps, worthy of remark, in regard to Longfellow's quotation of the stanza from Müller's little song where the maiden bids the moon good evening," that it is not the maiden, but the apprentice, who greets the moon, and that a closer translation would be: This song is a wanderer's simple lay, Which he sang in the full moon's flooding ray; Cannot understand the song aright, But 'tis easy to a child. other services to German literature in England that of having called specific attention to the value of Müller's poetry. This list practically concludes what has been done in English for our poet. Foremost among Müller's qualities is his lively dramatic power, that highest form of literary expression, which, in some sense, reconciles the variant spheres of poetry and the depicting arts-Lessing's Handlungen and Körper. It is chiefly in his lyric cycles that our poet must be reckoned as a pioneer and creator of poetical form. No poet in any language has so happily carried out this strictly lyric treatment through a series of loosely connected songs, which at the same time show a defi nite progress in clearly marked action. German literature has not, it is true, been devoid of poems in which an indefinite Er holds more or less protracted discourse with an equally nebulous Sie. Uhland's Wanderlieder are older and, doubtless, exercised influence on Müller; but such works are not to be compared in respect of personification and action. Neither can we compare Browning's extended monologues. A near relative in English is, perhaps, to be found in Tennyson's "Maud; but the latter, with its analytical introspection and the complexity of highly organized social life which it exhibits, is far enough removed from the pathetic simplicity of "The Winter Journey" or "The Rhenish Apprentice." Here, as in almost every interesting movement in newer German literature, we can trace the fecundating influence of Goethe. In the series of four ballads beginning with Der Edelknabe und die Müllerin Goethe tried his hand at a new form-that of lyric conversations, the idea of which came to him upon his Swiss journey of 1797. Writing to Schiller, he says that they must make use of it in the future. "There are pretty things of the sort," says he, "in a certain older German period, and much can be expressed in this form. . . . I have begun such a conversation between a lad, who is in love with a Müllerin, and the mill brook, and hope to send it soon." The "certain older German" source is, without doubt, the mediæval Volkslied, which often suggests both the spirit and dainty melody which give charm to these dialogues. Goethe, doubtless, planned that all the four which were conceived at this time should form a connected romance; but this plan was confused, in its working out, by a distracting one of having the songs represent four distinct sources-Old English, German, French, and Spanish. The resultant series is disconnected and partly contradictory; yet it is easy to understand why Schiller's wife said, "I hope you will let the pretty miller's daughter and the brooks say a good deal more!" What Goethe indicated Müller performed, starting with a more thorough knowledge of the Volkslied than was accessible to Goethe. The most complete cycle, the tragi-comedy "Die schöne Müllerin," is in twenty-three songs, of which twenty have been set to music by Schubert. Its prologue breathes the odors and suggests the sounds and sights of spring which are to pervade the whole-the pure air, far from the narrow walls of the city, the woods, fields, valleys, and heights, the clattering mill, the rushing brook, the merry hunter, and the wandering apprentice. Then comes a splendid song, full of the bounding, exultant joy of being "on the road," vibrant with the merry whirl and whirring of the wheel and the stones and the tumbling of the noisy water. "O, Wand'ring is the Miller's Joy" is itself enough to make the poet's memory dear to his people. The following song, "Whither?" is discussed by Longfellow in Hyperion, where he gives a remarkably faithful and melodious version, which fails only in translating the pretty word-play, Du hast, mit deinem Rauschen, Following this come the other members of the cycle, in most charming metrical variety, for, of the entire twenty-three songs, only four are in the same meter, which is the light ballad form that Heine so often uses; and this variety is no mere conceit, but offers the vehicle for the fullest musical expression of every emotional phase of the little drama. Müller is a musical poet, in the deepest sense of the word, as Sidney Lanier was musical; and this is indicated by his recognition by many composers. I do not refer merely to the melodic flow of his diction, nor to the smooth and varied rhythms, but to his art in composition, to his development of motive and theme, to Stimmungen, color, and tone. He points toward that day when music and literature, no longer underestimating one another, |