This new British publication is but a moderate straw, which indicates the blowing of no very violent wind. It is not an organized assault upon any citadel of received doctrine; its pro- moters do not appear to be troubled about creeds. Nor have they any desire to be unkind; their only direct polemic state- ment is that "the religion of our forefathers has not only ceased for us personally, but in no longer in any vital and general sense a sovereign power in the realm." It is a thing of the past, these young gentlemen think, and as such hardly worthy of more words; "it is stull fruitful of vast good." Disdaining to slay the slain, they are concerned with the inauguration of "a new epoch," which "is indeed in many respects already begun." The chief feature of this new epoch appears to be the deliverance of Woman from feudal and conventional bonds. (As for Man, he is perhaps in this regard tolerably free already; but Woman is not.) Those concerned will please notice that "the long half- acknowledged, half-denied duel between Man and Woman is to cease." Not that these reformers wish "to disintegrate, degrade, abolish marriage;" on the contrary, they "would fain see that sexual union become the flower of human life. But first the rubbish must be cleared away."

Lest this programme should appear too precise, the "Foreword" goes on to say that "these remarks should not be taken too liter- ally" as indicating the character of the new periodical, which is to be "purely literary, no philosophical, partisan, or propagand- ist;" i.e., it is not a review at all, but a magazine with a bias. It is to be "a mouthpiece of the new pagan sentiment of the younger generation." And what is this sentiment? Here at last we get something definite. "The supreme interest of Man is —Woman; and the most profound and fascinating problem to Woman is Man." Therefore "literature dominated by the vari- ous forms of the sexual question should prevail." True, the French have sometimes gone too far, and there are minor mat- ters which deserve attention in their degree. Matthew Arnold said that Conduct was three-fourths of Life—not the whole of it. "The Pagan Review" (in substance) accepts this dictum, substi- tuting for "Conduct" "the Sexual Emotion."

The contents of the first number carry out the profes- sions of the "Foreward." Feelings and relations supposed to exist between men and women furnish the inspiring theme. But Zolaesque realism—and realism of any kind, indeed—is happily absent. The ardor is imaginative, dreamy, romantic. One of the stories goes back to a prehistoric (or undated) barba- rism for its theme; another is called "The Rape of the Sabines;" a third has its scene in "an upland glade among the Hima- layas;" only the worse and feeblest of the lot comes as near home as Paris. The prose pieces are no less poetical than those which essay meter and rhyme.

It is not necessary to take these young writers as seriously as they take themselves. Their effort is not so much to be wicked as to be free—from bonds which they could not easily describe. They are tolerably honest, very restless, and extremely eager for they don't know what—except that it is to get into the depths of "Life," and meantime, lacking experience of what it is, to depict what they fancy it might be. Their work smacks of unoccupied energies and too much leisure. It is not as new as they suppose; we had far too much of this sort of thing before. One or two of them show ability, but not enough to set the Thames on fire. Mr. Swinburne (whom they do not mention) is far and away their master.

No one need lose sleep through fear of the harm the "Pagan Review" is going to do. As the editor proudly says, "We aim at thoroughgoing unpopularity;" and this aim is pretty safe to compass.