"At least for the next century it may confidently be predicted that biological science will do little more than work upon Mr. Darwin's line. If 'The Origin of Species' had never been written, if there had been no 'Darwinian hypothesis,' the actual work he did would have been enough to gain him a reputation among the highest. His books on the voyage of the 'Beagle,' on minute vegetable anatomy......and lastly, that marvellous book on earthworms, form a host that would of themselves

MACQUOID, Author of Patty,' Diane,' &c. 3 vols.

"The difference between English and French customs in the matter of marriage is a favourite topic with lady novelists. Mrs. Macquoid has hit upon a method of illustrating it which has some claims to originality."-Athenæum.

In A Faithful Lover' Mrs. Macquoid has hit on a comparatively unworked lode in fiction. The story is very gracefully and pleasantly told. The chief merit of the book consists in the character of Esau Runswick, the recluse."-Academy.

Mrs. Macquoid's name is a guarantee for careful literary workmanship, and for skilful character-creation in any novel from her pen. These qualities emphatically belong to A Faithful Lover.' Ésau Runswick, the central figure of the story, is delineated with great power and fidelity."-Scotsman.

DONOVAN. By Edna Lyall, Author

of Won by Waiting.' 3 vols.

"Donovan' is a good story of its kind. Donovan's character is developed with patience, and the reader will find in him a good deal to like. Athenæum.

A novel of sterling merit, healthy in tone and interesting in detail. Miss Lyall tells her story with vigour and intelligence. It is well written throughout."—Academy.

This novel is thoroughly well written. It is full of scenes which prove the author's powers of observation and description. It contains variety of incident and has much real merit."-Morning Post.

IRIS. By Mrs. Randolph, Author of

'Gentianella,' &c. 3 vols.

"Mrs. Randolph's Iris has all the pleasant characteristics which are peculiar to the writer. As usual, the story is refined, agreeable, and interesting throughout."-John Bull.

A BROKEN LILY. By Mrs. Mor

TIMER COLLINS. 3 vols.

"A Broken Lily is not without considerable cleverness. It is brightly written and fairly interesting."-Graphic.

By the AUTHOR of 'JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.'

EMOTIONS in MEN and ANIMALS. 128.

INSECTIVOROUS

PLANTS. 148.

MY LORD AND MY LADY.

By Mrs. FORRESTER,

Author of Viva,'' Mignon,' &c.

"This novel will take a high place among the successes of the season.

HABITS of CLIMBING PLANTS. 68.

The EFFECTS of CROSS and

SELF-FERTILIZATION in the VEGETABLE
KINGDOM. 128.

true, as full of novelty of presentment as it is of close study and observation of life."- World.

A very capital novel. The great charm about it is that Mrs. Forrester is quite at home in the society which she describes. It is a book to read."-Standard.

Sophy' is the clever and original work of a clever woman. merits are of a strikingly unusual kind. It is charged throughout with the strongest human interest. It is, in a word, a novel that will make its mark."-World.

This novel is as amusing, piquant, droll, and suggestive as it can be. It overflows with humour, nor are there wanting touches of genuine feeling. To considerable imaginative power the writer joins keen observation."-Daily News.

STRICTLY TIED UP.

By the Right Hon. A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE, M.P. "A clever story. In 'Strictly Tied Up' we have vigorous sketches of life in very different circumstances and conditions.... We have a novel, besides, which may be read with profit as well as pleasure."-Times.

Strictly Tied Up' is entertaining. It is in every sense a novel conceived in a light and happy vein The scheme of the story is well proportioned and worked out in all its complications with much care and skill."-Atheneum.

HURST & BLACKETT, 13, Great Marlborough-street.

his most useful friends in the west of Ireland he mentions by name as a really good, but also really stupid man." In short, there can be few among those whose hospitality he 14-17 enjoyed who will feel elated at the which their illustrious guest appraised their value. Now and then, it is true, Carlyle mentions no name, but the anonymous person is always some inferior creature:

SCIENCE-SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ON ANTS; ASTRONOMICAL NOTES; SOCIETIES; MEETINGS; GOSSIP

17

18-20

FINE ARTS-MR. DOLLMAN ON ST. MARY OVERIE; NEW
PRINTS; SALES; NOTES FROM ROME; GOSSIP
MUSIC-WEEK; JOACHIM RAFF; GOSSIP
DRAMA-WEEK

...

...

LITERATURE

20-23 23-25 25

Reminiscences of my Irish Journey in 1849. By Thomas Carlyle. With a Preface by J. A. Froude. (Sampson Low & Co.) MR. FROUDE is only in part responsible for the appearance of this diary. It is the property of Messrs. Sampson Low & Co., who consulted Mr. Froude as to the propriety of giving it to the world, and he saw no objection as the "remarks, rough and hasty as they are, cannot be injurious, and may possibly be useful." As the book would very likely have been printed in any case, and as Mr. Froude alters nothing and suppresses nothing, and confines himself to correcting the press, it is rather an imprimatur than an editorship which he contributes.

But it is not so certain that the book cannot be injurious, at least to Carlyle's own reputation. Of all accounts of Ireland we have ever seen, this is the hardest and least genial. The attitude throughout is unsympathetic and contemptuous, and occasionally there are outbursts of the coarsest insolence. It must always have been dangerous to have been thrown in Carlyle's way, except at moments when his digestion was especially in order, and during this Irish tour he appears to have been out of health and out of temper. He was in Ireland for little more than a month-the July of 1849; and when on his return he threw these reminiscences together, he summed all with up "ugly spectacle; sad health, sad humour; a thing unjoyful to look upon. The whole country figures in my mind like a ragged coat, one huge beggar's gaberdine, not patched or patchable any longer; far from a joyful or beautiful spectacle." Never apparently was the distressful country so distressful, never the melancholy ocean so melancholy, as during this tour. People were kind and hospitable to him, as Irish people always are; but he has few good words for them. He mentions them all, and

grumbles sometimes at his dinner, sometimes at his bed, sometimes at his hosts themselves. For Lord George Hill alone he appears to have had a real liking, but hardly a single other person entirely escapes. OccaOccasionally his entertainer may be damned with faint praise, but oftener with expressions of a stronger character. He speaks of his hostess at one house by name as "foolish 22 and " a dim Glasgow lady" (whatever that may mean), and of his

way

"To Mr. Something, a retired merchant of full purse, our intended host's father-in-law. Showy, newish house and grounds, overhanging the sea near by; retired merchant not at home; his wife (poor Mrs. Sterling's dialect and manner were recalled to me), greatly flattered by Lord G.'s call, will give lunch, &c., will do all things but speak a little less.'

One instance of this sort of insolent sneering is probably enough, but there are others equally bad. The only excuse is that Carlyle may have written down his notes for mere reference and never intended to publish them, but even this cannot justify the supercilious tone with which he speaks of those

who had been kind to him.

And now let us see what he says of Ireland itself. As the book is without any shadow of index or table of contents, it is somewhat difficult to refer to any particular part of the tour. However, Carlyle seems to have seen the most characteristic parts of the country-Dublin, Cork, Killarney, Galway, Sligo, and part of Donegal-and found all barren. Scarcely anything interested and scarcely anything pleased him. The streets in Dublin are "vapid-inane-looking the Vice-Regal Lodge is "decidedly dull Glendalough is the "grimmest spot in my memory"; Killarney is "well enough; but don't bother me with audibly admiring it: Oh! if you but wouldn't!" and so throughout this unhappy journey goes on a constant growl of sullen discontent.

"Kildare Railway; big blockhead, sitting with his dirty feet on seat opposite, not stirring them for me, who wanted to sit there. 'One thing we 're all agreed on,' said he, 'we 're very ill governed; Whig, Tory, Radical, Repealer, all admit we're very ill governed !" I thought to myself, Yes, indeed: you govern yourself. He that would govern you well, would probably surprise you much, my friend,-laying a heavy horsewhip over that back of yours."" Westport:Here is a description of the workhouse at

"Tuesday, 24th July.-Towards post-office; damp-sunny morning letters had come last night; other to-day from 'Inspector of Kilrush'; come, oh, come! Glove shop; Limerick gloves, scarcely any made now; buy a pair of cloth gloves; n.b. have my gutta-percha shoes out soleing with leather, gutta having gone like toasted cheese on the paving in the late hot weather; right glad to have leather shoes again! Breakfast bad; confused inanity of morning, settling, &c.; about noon Duffy goes away for Galway; and I am to follow after a day." The two things on which this tourist lays the greatest stress are his bed and his tea :Sleep sound till six, bemoaned by the ever"Bed at last, but no great shakes lasting main sleep; still remembered with thankfulness" of a sleep"; "I slept and again slept, a heavy "Inn and a cup of hot tea, that is the grand outand so on to the end. He is very particular. look"; "Bread bad, tea luke-warm," &c., At one place he has an "elaborate dinner, no dish of which dare I eat; salmon, veal, lamb, and that is all!" What would he have wished? however, he gets some cold beef. Elsewhere his host tries to please him by ordering for supper "Irish stirabout (a frightful parody of Scotch porridge,' like hot dough), which I would not eat, and even durst not, except in semblance." The idea of Carlyle, the great destroyer of shams, being reduced, like another Jack the Giant-Killer, to swallow stirabout “in semblance delightful.

two of mould, and it is all make-believe; 5 or

W. E. Forster! very blue-nosed, but with news from my wife and with inextinguishable good humour." Then there are picturesque touches scattered here and there through the descriptions of scenery; as how

Eighteenth Century Essays. Selected and Annotated by Austin Dobson. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.)

THE present volume, to which Mr. Caldecott contributes an engaging little frontispiece, is perhaps the pleasantest number of the series-The Parchment Library," as it is called-to which it belongs. It is fortunate in its material and its editor alike. The poet of Beau Brocade' and the exquisite Dead Letter' may be said to know his eighteenth century by heart. He is much more in sympathy with Gay and Prior than with the authors of Chastelard,' and the Earthly Paradise,' and the Ring and the Book'; he has the eighteenth century feeling for Horace, and not a little of the sense of clean-cut form, the subdued elegance of manner, the tact, the measure, the distinction of colour and line, the vigorous lightness of touch, which are distinguishing features in the work of his favourite master and his favourite models. Upon him, therefore, it was natural that the task of selecting and annotating a series of representative examples of the work of the older essayists should devolve. It was natural, too, that the result should be satisfactory. He has done his work with taste and judgment. His text is His text is an example of accuracy and neatness. His notes are apt and pertinent. His introductory essay is clearly and gracefully written, and of information and reflection it contains just as much as it should and no more. Indeed, his little book is a model of its kind. More competent work, as far as it goes, is not often put before the public.

That such a volume was necessary seems

evident enough. Now that it has come, it will certainly be read with pleasure. It contains a lesson, and a good one, but that it will be read with profit is dubious. The British essayists are more talked about than known. It is to be suspected that from the first their reputation has greatly exceeded their popularity; and of late years, in spite of the declamation of Macaulay and the very literary enthusiasm of the author of 'Esmond' and the Virginians,' they have fallen further into the background, and are less than ever studied and appreciated. In theory the age of Anne is still the Augustan age to us; but it is so in theory only, and only to a certain extent. What attracts about it is its outside. We are in love with its houses and its china and its costumes. We are fond of it, not as it was, but as it seems to Mr. Caldecott and Mr. Leslie and Miss Kate Greenaway. We care little for its comedy and nothing at all for its tragedy. Its verse is all that our own is not, and the same may be said of its prose and ours-of the prose of Mr. Swinburne and Mr. George Meredith and the prose of Addison and Swift. Mr. Gladstone is not a bit like Bolingbroke, and between the Times

and the Tatler, between the Spectator and the Fortnightly Review, there is a difference of close upon two centuries and of a dozen revolutions-political, social, scientific, and aesthetic. We may babble as we please about the "sweetness" of Steele and the "humour" of Sir Roger de Coverley, but in our hearts we care for them a great deal less than we ought, and, in fact, Mr. Mudie's subscribers do not hesitate to prefer the "sweetness of Mr. Black and the "humour" of Mr. James Payn. Their love is not for the essentials of the time, but only for its accidents and oddities; and they express it in pictures and poems and achievements in architecture, and by the purchase of cabinets with "a good deal of the Chippendale feeling." That this is, after all, but natural is tolerably obvious. It is questionable, however, whether we might not with advantage increase our interest, and carry our imitation a little deeper and further. The Essayists, for instance, are often dull, but they write like scholars and gentlemen. They refrain from personalities; they let scandal alone, and do not dabble in eavesdropping; they never go out of their way in search of affectation or prurience or melancholy, but are content to be merely wise and cheerful and humane. Above all, they do their work as well as they can. They seem to write, not for bread nor for a place in society, but for the pleasure of writing and of writing well. In these hysterical times the reverse is the case. Life is so full, so much is asked and so much has to be given, that tranquil writing and carefu workmanship are impossible. Mr. Dobson has bewailed the change in a charming rondeau, perhaps the best he has ever produced. He is melancholy when he reflects upon the fact that of old the world was wont to write "with slower pen than now:

More swiftly now the hours take flight! What's read at morn is dead at night; Scant space have we for art's delays, Whose breathless thought so briefly stays, We may not work-ah! would we might, With slower pen!

sketches of Dick Estcourt and the Trumpet Club, by his 'Recollections of Childhood,' by his note on Sir Roger de Coverley's Ancestors,' and by his pleasant account of a ramble in town. The selection from Addison includes the portraits of Tom Folio, Will Wimble, Ned Softly, the Tory Foxhunter, and the Political Upholsterer; with the Meditations in Westminster Abbey,' the "Citizen's" and the "Fine Lady's" journals, the 'Adventures of a Shilling,' the Exercise of the Fan,' and the fancy of the Frozen Voices.' Johnson has been drawn upon for his sketch of Dick Minim; Reynolds, for his gentle squib upon the art critic of the period; Chesterfield, for his account of a club of scholars and drunkards; Mackenzie, for his portrait of a country dowager; Cowper, for his pleasant little etching of a country congregation; and Goldsmith, for his 'Man in Black' and his delicious account of Beau Tibbs and family. Mr. Dobson's "Dedication to an Illustrious Personage "-Mrs. Richmond Thackeray Ritchie to wit-would be a perfect little pasticcio (as he might say) of eighteenth century English but for an unhappy burst of adjectives at the end of it. To drop metaphor, he is so ill-starred as to speak of the pure and unaffected pathos of the writer responsible for Amelia and Helen Pendennis, and the "keen yet kindly satire" of the author of Barnes Newcome and Mrs. Mackenzie, of Barry Lyndon' and the Book of Snobs.' That no eighteenth century writer could have employed these epithets we do not need to point out; nor do we need to note that the expressions, remarkable as a mistake in style, are even more remarkable as a mistake in criticism. It must be admitted, too, that Mr. Dobson is not always so impartial as he might be. Thus in his note upon Addison's 'Meditations in Westminster Abbey' he quotes Raleigh's magnificent apostrophe to eloquent, just, and mighty Death," and is ingenious enough, after acknowledging its superiority to the subject of his note, to remark that "unfortunately the History of the World' is not entirely of a piece with it. To be fair he should have added that there are many pages of Addison "not entirely of a piece" with the Meditations.'

66

Unexplored Baluchistan. By Ernest Ayscoghe Floyer. With Map and 12 Illustrations. (Griffith & Farran.)

It must be owned that his melancholy is anything but groundless. The trick of amenity and good breeding has been lost; the charms of an excellence that is unobtrusive are charms no more. We write as men paint for the exhibitions: with the consciousness that we must pass without notice if we do not give way to excesses in the matter of colour and subject and tone. The need MR. FLOYER's successful journey takes away exists, and the world bows to it. This little to some extent the reproach to geographers volume of Eighteenth Century Essays' might (if not, as Sir F. Goldsmid in his introduction easily be described as a protest against the hints, to the British Government) implied necessity and the submission. It contains in the title of this book, and his able and ample proof that it is possible to be eloquent amusing narrative sufficiently explains the without adjectives, and elegant without causes of his success. A service of some years affectation; that to be brilliant you need in the Telegraph Department had made him not necessarily be extravagant and conceited; familiar with the Persian and Baluch lanthat without being maudlin and sentimental guages; and his acquaintance with the it is possible to be pathetic; and that once character of both peoples, and strong symupon a time a writer, to prove himself a pathy at all events with the latter, were humourist, had no occasion to be a jack-hardly less valuable in many an emerpudding likewise.

Mr. Dobson has wisely avoided the severer parts of his material, and his selection "is mainly confined to sketches of character and manners and those chiefly of the humorous kind." Steele is represented by the two immortal papers which tell how 'Mr. Bickerstaff visits a Friend,' by his

gency.

From the various characteristic scenes and conversations described, the reader can hardly fail to form a high opinion of this race. The Makrani is, and considers himself, the Baluch par excellence, comparing favourably, the author says, even with our allies of Eastern Baluchistan :

“Baluchis are the best fellow-travellers in the world. In times of difficulty they get excited, shout, and work like demons. In camp they were always merry, and their conversation cleaner than any similar set of men I ever heard. They have a strong appreciation of the ridiculous, and inexhaustible good nature.

11

Their sense of fun and humour is always showing itself, every little adventure or difficulty becoming the cause for endless "chaff" and satire, while every new experience seems to strike them from the ludicrous side. The author gives many amusing instances of this, and of pointed satire and repartee, especially directed against the Persians, whom, though the ruling race, they do not hold in much respect.

On descending into the vast sandy desert of Persia, "I overheard Brahim ironically thanking God that we had at last arrived at

the land of rose bowers and nightingales."

Later on, meeting some Persians,

"the leader, riding up to the first man he saw (by chance Tajoo), called out to him in a bullying authoritative manner to bring him a light, and quite unnecessarily swearing at him to make haste. Tajoo had never been spoken to in that tone before, and seemed to feel only contempt for the man who could use it. He looked him quietly up and down, and then turned round to us with his most whimsical face and said, 'Now this, indeed, is an excellent Persian man. If they're all like this, we shall have some extraordinary enjoyment.'...Brahim offered him the wished for light, and I heard him say, sneeringly, 'I suppose the Sahib has enormous quantities of money: all these boxes are full of it, eh?' 'No,' said Brahim gravely, 'these are all full of sand, which the Sahib has brought as a present for the Governor of Kirman, whose country hasn't got any."

There is no pleasanter feature in the book than the daily life and doings of the party. At first a wild and untrained set, his followers became, when once disciplined by the author's tact and firmness, a most trustworthy band, and well deserving the regard he felt for them. The point of honour is strong with them. Though none of them had ever seen snow or ice, and they felt the cold of the mountains severely, they preferred camping in the open to sleeping like jackals" in a cave. On another occa

sion,

"the cold weather was intense. The thermometer marked 21° in the morning, and Brahim, disgusted at the complaints of one or two of the men, gave them every rag he had and slept in a thin cotton shirt sooner than the Baluch reputation for hardihood should suffer at their hands. In fulfilling a trust, absolute honesty seems with these benighted savages to be a matter of course.

Many of the author's other portraits are also well and characteristically sketched among them the jovial, honest muleteer Haji, a model travelling companion and guide, and Mahmud Bey, a chivalrous chivalrous Turcoman, to whose devotion at a critical moment the author probably owed his life. Hussein, one of his Persian guides, was "apparently about seventeen years old; he was nearly six feet high, immensely broad, with huge fleshy limbs, and a round pink and white face, as of a somewhat dishonest cherub...... His speech was absurdly flowery. I was never less than a majesty of exalted place,' and even the men were all 'exalted places,' a thing they chuckled grimly over. When, however, they tried to assume this lofty position with regard to

fied manner :

Their

66 our guide the cherub, whom we had not seen since arrival at Raiun, was not to the fore. He lay dying, we were told, the result of his imbecility in fasting during a hard day's march, and then gorging quarts of water, raw turnips, dates, and any stuff he could lay hands upon. These soidisant Muslimeen of Persia have no business to

fast on the day's march, and the Kuran is sufficiently explicit on the subject, if they would ciently explicit on the subject, if they would only take the trouble to read it, instead of so much Hafiz, Sheikh Saadi, and other obscene authors. Seeing that, after having been paid to guide us, he had invariably been at the rear of the caravan, I sternly refused all appeal for bakshish, even to defray his funeral expenses."

But the book must be read to appreciate

"Salaam aleikum.' It took at once. self-respect and politeness were both touched. Their intense curiosity had led them into a serious breach of good manners, for even the commonest Baluchis will exchange salutations in a most punctilious manner. The one false step I could assume, I pursued my advantage and was irretrievable, and with the loftiest politeness 'Peace be 'You are 'Are you

went through the entire salutation. with you.' 'And on you be peace.' welcome.' 'May you be in safety.' well?' 'Is all your house well?' 'By God's I have kindness all is well.' 'Give news. none; and am interested only in your good health.' We were just beginning all over again, for it is impolite to be the first to stop, when the caravan hove in sight. As camel after camel came round the corner, each led by one of our jaunty devil-may-care fellows fully armed, the faces of my two heroes went through a series of dissolving views, and I heard one say to the

author combines a description of the appearance of the country and its resources, the difficulties and adventures of the route, and the characteristic interviews with people of various classes, great and small, the whole being enlivened by the shrewd and humorous remarks of his men, to whom much that they saw was entirely novel. Mr. Floyer is, by his own account, an adept at the art-more necessary in Persia than elsewhere-of self-assertion. The circumstances to justify him, though the necessity was, under which he practised it certainly appear to justify him, though the necessity was, as he admits, sometimes due to the impolitic habit of being very shabbily dressed. However, the result seems to have been always successful. He was, moreover, very plain-spoken when moved by a display of meanness or wickedness. At Kahnu there was a poor slave who, having been maltreated and then abandoned by his master, seemed to be dying of starvation.

"No one would employ him, for he was still Ahmed Khan's slave, and no one would give him food without work......I said, 'Do you mean to say that this boy is dying quietly before every one, and not one will give him a piece of bread? Verily, and by God, you are Muslims every one of you, and if you don't get to heaven and enjoy its fullest delights, then there is neither faith in God nor His prophet.' I shouted to my men, who by this time had loaded the camels and stood around, each one at his camel's head waiting for the route. 'Oh Baluchis,' I said, 'now we have indeed left behind us our own country, and entered that of the noble and powerful Gajars. Last night you saw the chief of this country as drunk as a female pig, and now you see a son of man starving in the midst of strong fat men because he is too ill to work.' 'Ah, miskin bichāra [Ah, poor, helpless creature], I've got some bread,' said two or three immediately, But the producing their food for the route. fed him with alternate sips of tea from my road poor fellow couldn't eat bread, so Ghulamshah bottle and bites of a hard-boiled egg. In five minutes Brahim was holding him on in front of him on his camel, and we marched out of Kahnu.”

The Baluch prides himself specially on his politeness, and, as with the Arabs, a long string of salutations must be exchanged between passing travellers, at a serious sacrifice of time. fice of time. Mr. Floyer being one day surrounded, at a distance from his party, by armed men, who began pressing on him unpleasantly with questions, adroitly turned the tables by waiting until there was a

I've lived nearly 3,000 years, and I've travelled over the whole of Baluchistan, but I never saw a man with so much property as that in all my life!'"

Mr. Floyer has a theory about the shrines, which consist of heaps of stones by the roadside, to which every passer-by contributes something

They suggest the idea that they are crude attempts at road-clearing, and the natives all say that the Mullas have given out that it behoves all true believers passing along the road to cast at least one stone on each

heap, to make the road easier to the holy pilgrims, thereby becoming part sharers in the latter's sanctity. The custom has been introduced into Baluchistan, where it is certainly particularly wanted, while the reason for it is not realized by such splendid hill walkers as the Baluchis, who always aver that each heap marks the burial place of some saint. Often, when ahead of the caravan in Baluchistan, I have made a heap of stones by the side of the tract, and, when the men got near, have ostentatiously thrown a stone on to it, and my example was always unhesitatingly followed." But this will hardly explain the Highland cairn. We have left unnoticed many points of interest in the book, including the long journey through Persia by the northern route from Ispahan, through Daulatabad, to Bagdad; but we should mention that, while still leaving certain points unsettled, the author has carefully recorded the natural features of the country, and determined various positions, in parts hitherto unvisited. It only remains, then, to congratulate him on the use to which he put a well-earned holiday, and on this very satisfactory record of it.

Outlines of Primitive Belief among the IndoBy Charles Francis European Races. Keary. (Longmans & Co.) MR. KEARY has written an interesting book on an attractive subject. The first chapter may, it is to be feared, prove deterrent to some readers, for it deals with questions which can scarcely be rendered generally entertaining. Indeed, the author advises "those who have no relish for psychological problems" to pass it by. Something of the same kind may be said of the second chapter, which deals with fetichism, nature worship, and anthropomorphism. But the rest of the volume, devoted mainly to poetic myths, legends, and tales, can be recommended to

all who care for the fair divinities of old religions and the forms in which popular fancy has embodied nature forces or moral ideas.

Mr. Keary has evidently bestowed upon his subject much conscientious labour, and he has, as a general rule, treated it in a style deserving of high praise. Fortunately he is not run away with by any particular hobby. He has no wish, he says in his preface, "to establish any new theory of the origin of belief among mankind," and he does not use his artistic implements as weapons to be hurled against any theological adversaries. Towards the "solar" method of explanation he sometimes displays marked leanings, but he does not render it ridiculous by indiscreet employment. Here and there, it is true, he speaks of mere hypotheses as if they were established truths. Such a passage as the following is irritatingly dogmatic:

"The Cyclops is a personification of the stormy sky; his one eye is the sun looking red

and angry through the clouds, as we so often see it at the end of a tempestuous day. The Chimæra is herself the cloud which drops rain as the goat drops milk. The Furies (Erinyes) are descended from the Vedic Saranyū, the dawn. Beings like these are the first fruits of man's poetic faculty in its commerce with nature."

Now and then also Mr. Keary puts forward an explanation which it would have been better to keep modestly in reserve,

such as this:

"The sober truth about Marsyas' skin was, I suspect, that it was a sheepskin placed in a certain river in Asia Minor in such a way that the water running through it gave it a tuneful sound; not less, however, is Marsyas the typical river god, who sets up his earthly music in despite of the airs of heaven.”

The following passage also seems to be of doubtful accuracy, so far as "the Aryan Indian" is concerned :

"All through the history of belief we shall find one or both of these two gods-the god of

love or the god of wine-possessing a mighty power. For one class of people and for one climate the one indulgence, for other sorts the other. Aphroditê for the southern Greek and the Greeks of the islands, and for the Asiatic people of warm Semitic blood. Dionysus for Thrace and the shepherds of the north, and chiefly, too, for the Aryan Indian and Persian. Wine for the German, love for the Celt. For beauty and amorousness, the sons of Gaedhil.'” The statement about "the Aryan Indian" is supported by a foot-note to the effect that "the place which is occupied in the Vedic ritual by the intoxicating plant Soma is a sufficient proof of this."

The best part of Mr. Keary's book, we are inclined to think, is that which is devoted to the heathen beliefs of the north of Europe. He is thoroughly well read in German and Scandinavian literature, and he has turned his studies to good account. The four chapters on "The Gods of the Mark," "The Gods of the Homestead," "The Shadow of Death," and "Ragnarök' are full of sound knowledge and poetic description. No one can fail to read them with pleasure as well as with advantage. The following passage, extracted from the chapter on "The Beliefs of Heathen Germany," may be taken as a fair specimen of Mr. Keary's style:

"The greater part of the forests of Northern Europe are black forests-that is to say, composed of pine trees—and in such the coming of the

storm is made the more wonderful from the silence which has reigned there just before. Who that has known it does not remember this strange stillness of the pine forest? Anon the quiet is broken by a distant sound, so like the sound of the sea that we can fancy we distinctly hear the waves drawing backwards over a pebbly beach. As it comes nearer the sound increases As it comes nearer the sound increases to a roar; it is the rush of the wind among the boughs. Such was the coming of Odhinn. And now see! far overhead with the wind are riding the clouds. These are the misty beings, born of the river or the sea, whom we have already encountered in so many different mythologies. In India they were Apsaras (formless ones) or Gandharvas; in Greece they were nymphs, nereids, Muses, Aphroditês, Tritogeneias. In the Teutonic creeds they are the warlike, fierce Valkyriur."

The three chapters devoted to Greek mythology may also be highly commended. One of them traces the history of the Hellenic deities through a series of changes corresponding to various phases of religious growth. Another discusses the Mysteries, the wanderings of Dêmêtêr, and the abduction of Persephonê. The third deals with the Odyssey and "the Sea of Death." They are very pleasant to read, and they testify, like the rest of the work, to careful and earnest study on the part of their author. Some idea of their nature may be conveyed by the following extract from the chapter on "Zeus, Apollo, Athênê ":

kind.

In one of these he discusses the survival of pagan influences in medieval pictures of a terrestrial place of future happiness-a home of sensuous ease, free from carking care and the cold shadow of death, a region in which, apart from mortal turmoil, Arthur might continue to rule among his knights and Charlemagne among his paladins. In the other he attempts to discover "what strain of heathenism still lingered in the Christianity of the Middle Ages, and how far the life and thought of the men of those days was a legacy from the past life and thought of the heathen days which had been before them." The subject, as he says, is too large to be duly dealt with in a single chapter; but what he has written about it is so eloquently expressed that it may be perused with pleasure even by readers who do not entirely agree with the arguments of which he makes use.

Altavona: Fact and Fiction from my Life in the Highlands. By John Stuart Blackie. (Edinburgh, Douglas.)

WHATEVER view may be taken of his political remedies, Prof. Blackie certainly has a good knowledge of the evils he seeks to cure. The interest of his book to

addressed the words of Patroclus to Achilles

thoughts.

Grey ocean bore thee, and the lofty rocks: for cruel are thy But when Apollo and Athênê had taken their place beside Zeus men saw the sun rise in a milder majesty, and the airs grew calmer, and the hills were clothed with purple brightness. From the bare mountains of Thrace, from windy heights and perilous seas, the Greeks had passed to the Egean, to its safe harbours and its thousand laughing islands; they had exchanged the lonely life of shepherds for the security of streets, for commerce, and for luxury. Apollo was a lover of nature, but not in her most terrible aspects; the high watches pleased him and the far-reaching mountain-tops, and the rivers that run into the deep, and the shores stretching down to the sea, and the sea's harbours.' Wherever on the Asiatic coast some promontory extended commanding awide horizon temple to the sun-god. From such places, from those high watches, men saw him as he rose, and prayed to him when he sank into the waters. He went, they deemed, to an unseen divine land whither the dead heroes had gone before. And before he quite descended he seemed to stand as a messenger between men and that future world. heaven of the gods to which he was going, as to It was not so much the far-off the happy land of the blessed set apart for mortals; and the two worlds between which he stood were both human habitations, though one was the world of the living and the other of the dead. Therefore Apollo was always the friend of man and accessible to human prayer."

there was sure to have stood from old times a

The last two chapters of Mr. Keary's book deal with "The Earthly Paradise and with "Heathenism in the Middle Ages."

land gentleman, who may be fairly taken to expound the sentiments of the author, consisting of Toryism, Radicalism, and Presbyterianism in equal proportions, mingled with the anti-commercial and military spirit of the genuine Celt; his cousin or niece, who represents the point of view of old Highland Catholicism, and is the principal authority for the poetry and traditional lore; Bücherblume, a German professor, who brings to the study of a new subject

His

an amount of minute information on collateral topics which contrasts with the complete ignorance of an English "Episcopo-Oxonian.' This gentleman, except in affability and good will, contributes nothing to the discussion, until he becomes interested in the ecclesiastical antiquities ecclesiasticism of the Free Kirk in the of Iona and Oronsay and the modern North. Mr. Church is certainly an unflattering, though hardly an exaggerated specimen of the average Englishman of culture when placed amid foreign surroundings. good-humoured acknowledgment of utter ignorance of the history and feelings of his Highland friends is amusingly characteristic. One would think, however, that there must be few Englishmen who literally do not know who their grandmothers were, and surely most even of Oxford dons must have read of the "brim battle of the Harlaw." A fifth interlocutor is provided in Hilarius, the school inspector, a thinly veiled personality, whose special subject is the geological conformation of the country.

The party, with the occasional assistance of native boatmen and others, spend a summer holiday in picnics and discussion, in the course of which the sports, antiquities, and agricultural condition of the Highlands diffusely treated, while the scenery is celebrated in the strains of

are