allusion remained inexplicable, it would be reasonable to fix the date of the Philopatris' between 626 and 628 A.D., and hence in the reign of Heraclius.

Two German scholars, Gutschmid and Crampe, however, by an ingenious combination of the mention by George of Pisidia, the laureate of Heraclius, of maritime expeditions by the Avars, then pressing the Empire from the north, with the Syrian Presbyter Thomas's testimony to a Slavonic expedition against Crete in 623, appear to have removed the difficulty. Crampe, whose Philopatris ein heidnisches Konventikel' (Halle, 1894), is now the standard authority on the subject, would place this invasion in 621, to suit his own views as to the exact date of the composition of the Philopatris,' which we cannot but deem mistaken. Guided by indications which appear to us fallacious, he refers this to the winter of 622 or the spring of 623. It cannot be the winter, for, as we have seen, the tidings of victory are received while the nightingale is in full song. The campaign of 623 did not open until April, which scarcely allows time for the news of Heraclius's successes to reach Constantinople at the period required. Nor, important as they were, did these victories include the capture of any of the chief cities of Persia. The fall of illustrious Susa could not yet have been proclaimed without extravagant hyperbole. The successful termination of the war in 628, however, would justify the exultation of the writer, and fulfil every chronological requisite. The death of the vanquished King of Persia took place on February 28, 628, and we are expressly informed that the news reached Constantinople on May 15, when the nightingale would be singing, and the nights short, as required by another passage in the dialogue. This, therefore, is the especial incident to which we suppose the writer to allude, and the date which we should assign for the composition of his piece. It must be stated, however, that the latest investigator of the subject, Rohde, in an essay in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift,' vol. 5, adheres to Niebuhr's view. Perceiving, nevertheless, the necessity of finding some important victory to correspond with the fall of Susa proclaimed at the end of the dialogue, he identifies this with the capture of Antioch in A.D. 969. In so doing he overlooks two considerations. The capture did not occur in spring, as the dialogue requires, but, according to Zonaras, in the depth of winter. In the second place, singularly enough, it was so far from being a subject of unmixed congratulation that it actually

excited the displeasure of the person to whom the writer of the dialogue professes himself chiefly devoted, the Emperor himself. Alarmed by a prophecy that he would not long survive the taking of Antioch (nor did he), Nicephorus had forbidden his general to assault the city. A subordinate officer, finding a vulnerable point in the defences, seized upon it, and demanded support from his commander, which could not be refused. The advantage was followed up, and the city was taken contrary to the Emperor's orders, and so much to his dissatisfaction that he imprisoned the over-zealous subaltern in his own house.

If the document really belongs to the age of Heraclius, few results of modern research are more striking than this exhumation of a Pagan secret society in the seventh century, a generation after Augustine had begun the conversion of England. It would be most interesting could we gain access to these last representatives of an expiring creed through a more sympathetic channel, and learn from themselves how the world of their day appeared to them, and how they could imagine that the old order of things stood any chance of restoration in the time of Heraclius. A mere revival of classic ideals such as long afterwards inspired the Renaissance cannot have been in their minds. They must have contemplated the restoration of temples and sacrifices. This may seem sheer lunacy; it certainly was not sanity. Yet, some mitigating circumstances deserve to be taken into consideration. Degenerate as these Byzantines may have been, their connection with classical antiquity was far closer than any which we can attain to. What we can only realise by an effort of the imagination was a part of their daily life. They spoke the language, they possessed the literature, they enjoyed the climate, they were surrounded by the sculptures of Athens. To become Hellenes, we must turn the whole structure of our life upside down; they, as they deemed, had merely to get rid of some modern excrescences. The circumstances of their time must also be taken into account. The seventh century was perhaps the most miserable period in the history of mankind. Never since the invention of writing had the lamps of knowledge and culture burned so low; never had European civilisation been in more imminent peril of extinction. Men might well think that some change was needed; and, unable as most are to look forward. what wonder if some looked back? But another and less creditable reason had probably more weight than all the rest. Man

yearns for dealings with the incomprehensible, and the incomprehensible, which for the higher class of minds means the problems of philosophy or science, for the lower class means magic. It is to the honour of Christianity to have proscribed magical arts, but in so doing it impaired its influence over a large portion of mankind. The condemnation, moreover, was more adapted to promote than to discourage the pursuit of magic, being based upon moral, not intellectual, grounds. Christians did not forbid sorcery because they disbelieved in it, but because they believed. Men naturally resented being debarred from a study whose importance was admitted, and the believer in spells and incantations inevitably gravitated towards the heathenism which tolerated rather than the Christianity which forbade. Most of the conspicuous opponents of Christianity after Constantine were more or less addicted to magic, and there are clear traces of it in the mysterious synod described in the 'Philopatris.'

Imagination may easily transform the shadows of this longforgotten group into mortals, and an imagination endowed with the reconstructive power of the author of a 'Last Days of Pompeii' or a 'Quo Vadis' might find material for a brilliant historical picture. In the pages of such a writer we should encounter the sage wedded to the lore of the past; the fanatic avenger of the desecrated altars of antiquity; the romantic youth allured by the vision of a revived Hellas; the patriot loathing the barbarism and misery of the time; the magician and his dupes, longing to carry on dark practices under the ægis of a restored heathenism; woman inspired as priestess or enthusiastic as daughter or lover; in the background the Persian agent and the Imperial spy; at the dénouement, the martial figure of Heraclius, the Alexander of his age, returning like Cœur de Lion to set all right. Scott hardly wielded such resources when he undertook his own Byzantine romance. Should any deem this Pagan conventicle thus depicted, even though historical, too palpably and absurdly impotent to awaken a serious interest, they might be reminded that the seventh century, if one of the most deplorable ages in human history, was also one of the most fertile in dramatic surprises, and one of those which have most convincingly proved that the weak things of the world may be chosen to confound the mighty. They themselves, if shown the contemporary figures of the objects of the derision of the Pseudo-Lucian and of a barefooted Arab steering his camels amid the drought of the desert-and if assured VOL. X.-NO, 59, N,S, 27

that the fate of the East lay in the hands of one of the two, and invited to determine which might probably have reposed their anticipations upon the conclave of Constantinople rather tha upon the camel-driver of Mecca.

When the apparent disproportion of his means to his achieve ments is considered, this Arabian camel-driver may well appe the greatest conqueror that the earth has ever known. It is not always remembered what efficient though unconscious allies be had among the potentates of the earth. The strife of Heraclius and Chosroes cleared the way for him. By immoderately depress ing Persia Heraclius made the country an easy prey Saracens, and in giving them Persia he gave them Syria, Egypt, and Africa, and Spain. The fault was not his: he had repeatedly offered honourable terms of peace, rejected by Persian pride. But the ultimate results of the victory acclaimed by our author with such natural exultation were probably more disastrous to Christendom than those of any defeat it ever sustained. Пloa μορφαὶ τῶν δαιμονίων.

to the and

AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENTS IN THE TRANSVAAL AND ORANGE RIVER COLONIES

AFTER the events of the last two years Englishmen have no excuse if they do not know things in South Africa as they really are.' Of all the many unwelcome and unexpected truths which have been burnt into the mind of England by the war, perhaps the most unwelcome is the fact that the enemy has received more or less open assistance from the country population wherever he went, with the exception of the immediate neighbourhood of the few considerable towns. This has been the case not merely in the territory of the late Republics; it was the same in Northern Natal and in the greater part of the Cape Colony. The circumstance was the more surprising in view of the small numerical superiority possessed by the Franco-Dutch population over the British colonists. Taking the European population as it was before the war broke out, we shall not be far wrong in assuming that there were then in South Africa 450,000 Dutch, 400,000 English, and 50,000 foreigners. How was it that with this small numerical superiority the Dutch inhabitants of South Africa were able, after placing 50,000 or 60,000 men in the field against the British forces, to render practically the whole of the immense area covered by the war as hostile as France or German territory would have been in the event of a British invasion? The answer is as simple as it is significant. Owing to economic and political conditions, arising in some cases out of events more than two centuries old, the Dutch population is to be found spread over karoo, veldt, and uplands, while the British is concentrated at the ports or on the mines. As the result of this distribution the Dutch have obtained a grip of the country far firmer than their mere numbers would warrant.

The material separation of the two nationalities has been accompanied by an equally marked moral separation. The natural antipathy of tastes and pursuits which distinguishes the countryman and the townsman has deepened and emphasised the original divergences of character which tended to separate the two nationalities, and prevented the amalgamation which might otherwise have taken place. Of course something has