In the summer of 1851 Lord Bloomfield, who had succeeded to the title some years previously, was sent to Berlin. At the breaking out of the Crimean war feeling at Berlin set strongly against England, and the position of the Bloomfields was both arduous and uncomfortable. The King was civil, but the Queen was positively rude. She almost cut Lady Bloomfield, and showed on many occasions how hostile she was. Only after the marriage between the Princess Royal and the heir apparent to the throne of Prussia did a more cordial feeling spring up. "At the first reception," says Lady Bloomfield concerning the arrival of the royal bride,

"the Princess Royal made a most favourable impression. Her manner was quiet, dignified, and self-possessed, but she found a kind word to say to every one. After the presentations, which were very numerous, Her Royal Highness polonaised with twenty-two princes. She looked remarkably well, and her dress was very becoming. I did not see much of Her Royal Highness, as the feeling of jealousy ran so high it was not considered advisable, and we studiously avoided giving any cause of offence."

Many readers will remember the malicious rumours that were circulated about the domestic misery which attended upon this marriage-reports as true as the rest of malevolent gossip. "We dined the other day at Prince Frederick William's," writes our author,

"and I had a pleasant chat with him after dinner. He laughed at the reports which have been circulated of his marriage being unhappy and of his ill-treating his wife, and certainly it would not be possible to see a happier couple."

After a stay of nine years at Berlin, Lord Bloomfield was sent to Vienna, the mission at that capital having been converted into an embassy. "You are fully entitled to that distinction," wrote Lord John Russell to him, "and it will be a fit climax to your diplomatic career." Shortly after her arrival Lady Bloomfield had to go through the solemn ceremony of receiving the society of Vienna, which must have been somewhat of a confusing ordeal :

"I sat in full court dress upon a sofa in the middle of the drawing-room at the Embassy, and the person of highest rank present, after being introduced, sat down next to me till a lady of still higher rank arrived, when she immediately still higher rank arrived, when she immediately got up and gave up her place. This went on till all the society had been introduced to me, and lasted for three evenings; every one being in court dress. One of the chamberlains presented the gentlemen, and after my receptions were over, I was expected to return the visits."

The fatigues undergone by crowned heads are greater, however, than those suffered by meaner mortals. Lord Bloomfield writes

after the coronation at Pesth in 1867 :—

"I have just had my audience of the Emperor King, and was most pleased to see him so well. He told me he had no headache yesterday, which he expected to have, and altogether he seemed as well as could be expected under the

circumstances."

And in the same year, when the Garter was sent to the Emperor, he writes :

"I have been discussing with Prince Constantin Hohenlohe the great question of the Emperor's dress when he will be invested with the Garter; and Beust and I were arguing the subject last night, when he said that he had been telling the Emperor that after all there is

no costume so neat as knee-breeches, and that

he does not despair of bringing him round to

the idea. I suppose his Majesty is practising civil clothes, for he would have to wear them at Paris, so the question of breeches will not be so outrageous a one to press on his consideration."

As has been hinted, the value of this book from a political point of view is slight. It is noteworthy that, unless these volumes do him an injustice, the British Ambassador at Vienna had as little suspicion that the Prussians would be victorious in 1866 as any reader of the daily papers in

London.

On some Ancient Battle-fields in Lancashire and their Historical, Legendary, and Esthetic Associations. By Charles Hardwick. (Manchester, Heywood.)

MR. HARDWICK's book contains little that is new, but it is pleasant reading and instructive for all that. The battle-fields of Lancashire have on more than one occasion been the scene whence a new departure has been taken in our history, and they are worth contemplating from the point of view of the imagination as well as from that of scientific history. We do not know all about a man when every authentic detail of his life is tabulated; we still require to know how his personality affected his contemporaries, and this we best gather from the legend and folk-lore that surround his Our notions of the emperor Charlemagne would be more imperfect than they even now are if the dreams of his admirers were lost or forgotten. The fact that succeeding ages worshipped him as a saint in

name.

the

Urbs Aquensis, urbs regalis,
Regni sedes principalis,
Prima regum curia,

is evidence of his own strongly marked personality and of the need which the age felt for such a deliverer from mere rapine and chaos. So is it with our legendary Arthur ; we none of us can do more than guess whether he was once a living hero or is but the picture of the aspirations of a subject people gathering round more ancient legends which it is possible may have had a solar origin. For Mr. Hardwick to quote Whitaker, the Manchester historian, is waste of time. Whitaker's mind was of a character which rendered him as incapable of weigh ing evidence where mythology was a part of it as Geoffrey of Monmouth himself. Mr. Daniel H. Haigh's testimony as to Arthur is more valuable. He was an accurate scholar and knew how to sift evidence, and comprehended that though there could be no degrees of certainty there were many of probability. He held that a substratum of history might be found under the Arthurian legends. If he were right, Lancashire may lay claim to have been the scene of some of the hero's battles. It must be borne in mind Cornwall, and Brittany are all able to put in that Scotland, Cumberland, Wales, Somerset,

claims for much that Arthur did.

Mr. Hardwick has some sensible remarks on heraldry, the only fault of which is that they are far too short. The "science of blazon" has been so corrupted by foolish and selfish persons, and has been so constantly used as a symbol of a very noxious sort of vanity, that few very given to its early history the careful study persons have that it deserves. It may be true—indeed, we

believe that it is little short of certain—that formal heraldry originated at about the time of the Crusades, but personal symbolism is far earlier. Men reasoned, some of them logic was written to give instruction in the acutely enough, before the first book of art, and so we may be sure that persons, families, and races had signs to distinguish them before the science of the thing was heard of, or the curiously obscure language invented by which its symbolism is expressed. The horse, the raven, and the dragon were familiar here as badges before the Crusades were dreamt of, and, as Mr. Hardwick points out, races widely separated from ours have animal and vegetable badges. The tribes of Australia are distinguished by such things, which serve as a crest or kobong. Mr. Hardwick might have pointed out that so late as the sixteenth century country folk who could not write were accustomed to use their sheep marks as a signature. Many of these sheep marks are identical with what are called the ordinaries in heraldry.

It is not reasonable to object to a book of this sort on the ground of its discursiveness. There are many passages in it which stimulate thought. For example, on Walton Flats is a mound planted with trees. It is regarded by the country folk as the grave of some of the Scotchmen who fell in the great battles of 1648, though it must be really of far earlier date, for in 1855 Mr. Harland found there evidences of Roman occupation. Faith in the modern legend is, however, so strong that a workman who had found a bronze

coin there said that it was a halfpenny with a Scotchman on it in place of Britannia. It was a second brass Roman coin, the soldier on the reverse suggesting to the uninstructed workman who found it a kilted Highlander.

Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergy

man of the Eighteenth Century. (Murray.) A PIOUS wish to preserve for a time the memory of a relative who, in his own day, was a person of repute, has induced Mr. Richard Twining, the well-known tea merchant and banker in the Strand, to publish some extracts from the correspondence of his great-uncle, the Rev. Thomas Twining, The book, though modest and pleasant enough in its way, is of little interest to the public. The reader who may turn to it, hoping to find even such a meagre picture of a country parsonage as is given by Mr. Austen Leigh in his memoir of Jane Austen, will be entirely disappointed. Of parochial gossip or incidents of ordinary provincial life Mr. Twining's letters, or at least those here published, contain absolutely nothing. The editor has, perhaps, been too anxious to exhibit the merits of his great-uncle or to show how intimate he was with one or two persons of note. But nothing from these pages, save that the whatever the cause may be, we learn Rev. Thomas Twining was a musician of great enthusiasm and some proficiency, a good classical scholar, and a person of excellent taste in English literature. He was

born in 1735 and died in 1804. He was some time a fellow of Sidney College, Cambridge, curate in charge of Fordham, near Church in the latter town. He corresponded Colchester, and finally rector of St. Mary's on terms of intimate friendship with Dr.

Parr, Dr. Burney, and Dr. Hey, then Norrisian Professor at Cambridge. Most of his letters here collected are addressed to Dr. Burney or to his half-brother, who was carrying on the business in the Strand. They are written with great spirit and vivacity. "I consider your brother," said Dr. Parr in a letter to Richard Twining in 1816,

"as possessing a talent for epistolary writing certainly not surpassed by any of his contemporaries; wit, learning, languages ancient and modern, the best principles of criticism and the most exquisite feelings of taste, all united their various force and various beauty." The letters, no doubt, were most agreeable to receive, but are of a kind which does not improve by keeping. We should be glad to hear of Fordham and Colchester and Cambridge for their own sakes, but little or nothing is said of these places. Events important enough to the history of England and of the world were taking place elsewhere, but Mr. Twining knows them only by hearsay. The Wilkes trial, the Lord George Gordon riots, the French Revolution, and the great French war are mentioned only casually in the correspondence. The sole detail which it adds to our knowledge of these events is that in the winter of 1802

a French invasion was so certainly expected that Mr. Twining fled from Colchester to Cambridge. Even the musical gossip, of which there is great abundance, is not particularly interesting. We learn, indeed, that Mr. Twining bought a piano as early as 1774, that Emanuel Bach and Jomelli were favourite composers among English amateurs, that Haydn was received with rapture, and that even persons of taste would not stir out of doors to hear an opera of Cherubini; but these matters can occasion little surprise or delight, and the rest of the musical talk is absolutely dull. It is of more importance to note that there was a country clergyman who in 1784 read Chaucer and Milton's prose works with appreciation, and protested vehemently against the Johnsonese language and the Johnsonian criticism of poetry. Indeed, in all his literary judgments Mr. Twining gives proofs of a taste which for his time was truly admirable. He stands up boldly for Swift, and frequently quotes Fielding; he depreciates Warton and Pope, and is loud in his praises of Gray. Opinions of this sort were real contributions to a great literary movement, and do more to give Mr. Twining a claim on the notice of posterity than his translation of Aristotle's Poetics' or his theory of Greek

choral music.

Wanderings in Balochistan. By MajorGeneral Sir C. M. MacGregor, K.C.B. (Allen & Co.)

No better criterion could be desired of Sir Charles MacGregor's capacity to write than this book. His readers had followed him with interest in his lively and spirited description of a tour through the varied scenes of Northern Persia, but in the present case his lot was cast in a different region. For sterility and monotony the deserts of Balochistan are unrivalled, except, perhaps, by the sandy wastes east of Lob Nor. Yet about an uninviting subject like this Sir C. MacGregor has succeeded in compiling a book which will steadily

retain the reader's attention. And the cause of this is not far to seek. It is certainly not the real subject-matter of the book, for that is topographical details of the driest description-in more senses than one. It lies more in the elastic spirits of the author; the energy with which he grapples with his task (for this journey partook of the character of an official mission); the common sense and large-heartedness of his views; his good humour even at the occasional expense of his own nationality, for whom, nevertheless, he has the natural pride of a Scot; the touching references here and there to the tenderest home associations; and the daring which carried him triumphantly through many an ugly crisis in a land of notorious robbers. journey seems to have had its origin in a Col. MacGregor's casual remark made by the author to Lord Salisbury (then Secretary of State for India) that Mekran and the country inwards would be a fitting field for exploration. Although the object of the expedition is thus vaguely in stating that, so far as we know, its main described, we conceive there can be no harm aim was to determine the practicability of landing troops on the Mekran coast in case of necessity, and utilizing the inland Western Afghanistan. Supported by the route thence as a line of advance upon Council of India, Lord Salisbury had no scruple in consenting to the project, and in September, 1876, Sir C. M. (then Colonel) MacGregor, accompanied by Capt. Richard Lockwood of the Punjab Cavalry, set out on his enterprise.

quated construction, fit only for a museum, coupled with powder which never went off without a preliminary "fizz," and bullets that were any shape but spherical. However, this force acquitted itself very well on the whole-a significant proof of the old truth that much may be done with the rawest and most indifferent material provided only it be efficiently led. And of Sir C. MacGregor's capacity for leading Asiatics and for acting promptly in moments of danger the readers of this book can have but one opinion. As he explains, calamities like the loss of his shaving brush fill him with despair, but the sudden appearance in the tent of a robber with a loaded pistol and the revolt of Mahmud Khan, the most powerful and influential of the bodyguard, who announced his intention of helping himself to certain goods of the Englishmen by force, only served to inspire Col. MacGregor with the calm of determination. The way in which he behaved in these two critical moments was admirable, and as the story would only be spoilt by curtailment we heartily recommend readers to peruse it for themselves.

There is no doubt that the inhabitants of the Baloch deserts are not an agreeable set. Pottinger writes thus of them: "Bound by no laws and restrained by no feelings of humanity, the Namis are the most savage and predatory of Baloches." Accordingly when Col. MacGregor's party came across a posse of these worthies the situation was not without its anxieties, but his plan with all such

individuals was to address them as if he took it for granted that they would not only obey but be willing to obey any of his orders.

He therefore accosted the chief after this wise:

the present book, most of the confidential matter has, however, been eliminated, and what objection there could have been to its earlier production we know not. However, better late than never; and though the general public will find the pages as fresh geographers may have been balked, the as if penned during the present year.

Much interest cannot attach to the purely geographical portion of the narrative. Of study the topography of the route, but in course it was Col. MacGregor's province to the first place the country had been already partly traversed by Major Beresford Lovett, and in the next the strategical importance of the Mekran routes has greatly waned since the construction of the railway from Jacobabad towards the Bolan Pass, by which Afghanistan has been made much more accessible to India. From Gwadur on the coast to Panjgur, a distance of about two hundred miles, the country calls for little notice. At the latter place a guard of some thirty natives was enlisted as a protection for the Englishmen in their journey into the deserts northward, which stretch away to the Helmand river and the frontiers of Afghanistan. This bodyguard contained some fellows of very ruffian-like aspect, and probably not more respectable than the lawless sons of the desert whom they were to keep at a distance. They were armed with matchlocks of the most anti

I never doubted that.' I then told him I should be very much obliged if he would send me some sheep and supply me with a guide to Zirreh.' Both these he agreed to furnish at once, and, as the narrative shows, became a good friend.

The Ultima Thule of Col. MacGregor's wanderings was a place called Shah-Godar, close to where the Afghan, Baluch, and Persian boundaries unite. To the natives Col. MacGregor's desire to reach this point was not wholly intelligible, and small wonder, we can hardly help remarking, when we reflect on the terrible deserts lying between, and the fact that Shah-Godar itself appears to be nothing but a heap of ruins. However, the perils of the sands were happily overcome, though there can be no doubt that the party were in real danger more than once, owing to the want of water. One gigantic process of desiccation would appear to be steadily at work in these Asiatic deserts and the regions contiguous. What the causes may be is a question for physical geographers; but whether due to the reckless felling of forest timber or increased irrigation, it cannot be denied that the sandy wastes are year by year encroaching more and more on the river basins. The Helmand, for instance, used formerly to inundate a large area, and in old maps there will be seen situated at its embouchure a huge lake similar in shape to the analemma which mys

if we were all mad together. Then we are talking and reciting and dancing and smiling, in hot little drawing-rooms, and knowing all the time that the lights will go out, and the darkness come, and that we must go away and die alone, ......and I think of all there is to see in the world, of lovely sunsets and sunrises, and skies, and seas, and hills, while we are all huddled together, and too busy to take any notice."

There is much method in this madness, and we wish it were catching. Both Lauriston and Rachel would have been the better for some slight share of common sense, such as is possessed by cousin Dick, who in his way is as honourable as Lauriston, without his pretensions. The sadly vexed question of duty in such cases as Rachel's is well

stated in this book.

A Pennsylvanian farmhouse is the scene of a pleasant new story by the author of "Saint Simon's Niece.' The farmhouse is the property of the heroine, P. French, as she styles herself-a remarkably pretty young woman, with a brave and heroic temperament, which is thoroughly put to the proof. She takes into her house a lackadaisical young lady from New York, Miss Georgia Grosvenor, who has broken down at the close of a lively season, and comes to the Wachuset farm in order to recover her tone. The two girls fall in love with each other at first sight; and indeed they are both sufficiently charming to justify any one in falling in love with them. That is the opinion of a trio of young men, all of them very good fellows in their way. One of these is a neighbouring farmer; another is a New York gentleman, a recognized suitor of Georgia's, who follows her down to Wachuset; and the third is Georgia's brother. Amongst them there is some delightful play of nature and fancy, which carries the reader easily along to the end of the third volume. Mr. Benedict's style is bright, fluent, and, on the whole, attractively fresh. The book is full of conversation, brisk and pointed, in the New England fashion, but at the same time there is quite enough of incident to save it from the peril of monotony. Such exaggeration and efflorescence as this novel contains-and both are conspicuous-become less obtrusive as the plot unfolds itself. In the earlier chapters they are at times rather annoying in their approximation to mere silliness; but as the narrative proceeds it gains in gravity, so that in the last volume the subject is more worthily treated than in the first. The impression left on the reader's mind when the story has been told is decidedly favourable to the author, who has assembled excellent materials and has used them very skilfully. The course of true love at Wachuset is difficult, and disturbed by many currents; but it finds its way at last into a peaceful haven. It will be worth anybody's while to read for himself how this happy goal is arrived at.

We confess to thinking 'The Laird's Secret' must have been better in its original form. The one incident upon which the plot depends occupies a few chapters at the end of the book, with which the long narrative which precedes them has the slightest possible connexion. To the uninitiated Southron the animus displayed by the loyal daughter of the manse against "Popery," as exemplified in an Episcopalian Ritualist, will

seem odd and overstrained; but there is nothing really exaggerated in the description, nor in the polemic interest of the villagers in the same matter. The book, indeed, is one which could not have been written by an English author, and in that way is remarkable. To those who have no interest in local colour and no perception of subtle national differences most of the early chapters will be simply dull. To more intelligent readers there will be some charm in so genuine a narrative of modern country life and ways of thought. But in no point of view will the story be very exciting. The matrimonial mess which Mr. Scott makes of his affairs, owing to his ignorance of the Scotch marriage law, is sufficiently harrowing in its consequences to the Fitzjames family; but the author is too femininely kind-hearted to leave her friends long in trouble, and so drowns the unlucky first wife with the simplicity of a child. To secure the permanent happiness of the village, Morton, the "Jesuit" factor, is obliged to take his departure, and, what is obviously regarded as an equally signal triumph of virtue, the Episcopal chapel is closed.

Florence Godfrey's father was the head overlooker in a Manchester cotton factory, the proprietors of which were ruined by the American civil war, and the first scenes of Mrs. Pitman's story illustrate the cotton famine of 1863. When the family are thrown out of work by the failure of the cotton supply, Florence's brother "Alf." determines to emigrate to Australia; and before long the rest of them are compelled to follow him.

From this point the tale alternates between the emigrants and a Sunday-school teacher who stays behind in Manchester. Almost everybody whom Mrs. Pitman cares to write about is intensely religious. There is not a villain in her story; her good people are exceedingly pious, and also, it must be confessed, uninteresting. Florence's faith is nothing peculiar to herself; it is the faith of her family, her friends, and her acquaintance the faith of the Manchester Sunday school, rarely rising above the time-honoured texts and songs on which its foundations were originally laid. But it produces good works and honest endeavours; and if Mrs. Pitman has not written an amusing novel, she may be content to think that she has enforced a lesson in piety.

M. Zola's new book contains six short stories, which are altogether inferior to the two collections known as 'Contes à Ninon,' and, with the exception of some sketches of the outskirts of Paris under the title of Aux Champs,' quite unworthy of the author of 'La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret.'

From M. Zola to M. Malot is a vast change indeed, for of all French writers of talent M. Malot produces the healthiest romances. 'La Petite Sour' is, like a dozen of his other books, pretty enough, a trifle goody, and rather spun out towards the end.

CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

Stories from Livy. By the Rev. A. J. Church.
(Seeley, Jackson & Halliday.)
Winning his Spurs: a Tale of the Crusades. By
G. A. Henty. (Sampson Low & Co.)
The Cruise of the Snowbird. By Dr. Gordon
Stables, R. N. (Hodder & Stoughton.)
Daisy Snowflake's Secret: a Story of English
Home Life. By Mrs. G. S. Reaney. (Same
publishers.)

The Diamond Ring. By Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell. (Masters & Co.)

Anna Cavaye; or, the Ugly Princess. By Sarah Doudney. (Hatchards.)

Little Bricks. By Darley Dale. (Nisbet & Co.) Sea-Waif. By Silas K. Hocking. (Warne & Co.)

An Old-fashioned Thanksgiving, and other Stories.
By Louisa M. Alcott. (Sampson Low & Co.)
When Papa comes Home: the Story of Tip, Tap,
Toe. By the Author of 'When I was a Little
Girl.' (Macmillan & Co.)

The Story of a Shell: a Romance of the Sea. By
J. R. Macduff, D.D. (Nisbet & Co.)
A Little Pilgrim in the Unseen. (Macmillan
& Co.)
Fairleigh Hall: a Tale of Oxfordshire during the
Fairleigh Hall: a Tale of Oxfordshire during the
Great Rebellion. By the Rev. A. D. Crake.
(Mowbray & Co.)

PROF. CHURCH'S Christmas book this year
differs from its predecessors in this, that it
classical original.
is not nearly so close a translation from the
The massive periodic style
of Livy is not easily reduced to the simple
narrative which Prof. Church affects, and he
has therefore been compelled to omit at
every turn some dependent sentence or sub-
sidiary clause which in Latin is admirably
terse and effective, but which could hardly be
rendered in English at all without either clogging
undue importance. These omissions, however,
the principal sentence or acquiring for itself
are almost the only alterations which Prof.
Church has allowed himself to make in Livy's
language. The tales of ancient Rome as here
presented are, in all essential details, translated
almost word for word from the Roman historian.
They comprise all the famous and magnificent
legends that describe the growth of the Eternal
City from the birth of Romulus down to the
tragedy of the Caudine Forks. The stories of
Tarquin and Brutus, Coriolanus and Cincinnatus,
Camillus and Manlius, and the rest, are here
repeated and lose nothing in the telling. It is
needless to say year after year with what grace
Prof. Church has performed his part. He is by
this time hors concours in his art, and those who
have read his earlier books will know what to
We need only mention
expect in his last.
further that the illustrations to the present
volume are taken from designs by the same
Pinelli whose drawings were used in the previous
Stories from Virgil.'

Mr. Henty's "Tale of the Crusades" is after Ivanhoe.' What relation the Earl of Evesham bears to Thomas de Multon, Cnut to Gurth, and the outlaws to Robin Hood and his merry men, grown-up readers will decide. As the coming race is as ignorant of Scott as of Defoe, these authors may furnish forth hundreds of purveyors of diluted romance for many a year to come. But the vraisemblance of old is gone. Scott would not have named a Norman Sir Rudolph, nor created an Earl of Evesham by patent temp. Ric. I.

'The Cruise of the Snowbird' is prettily illustrated. The luxuries of the yacht are almost too elaborate, and the Highland part of the book is somewhat stagey, nor are we satisfied with the attempts at Welsh and Irish brogue, praiseworthy as they are. But the Arctic adventures, including the extraordinary encounter tion of Seth, the Yankee trapper, in such latiwith a pirate and the equally curious interventudes, will satisfy the cravings of ingenuous youth.

In 'Daisy Snowflake's Secret' a teetotal moral is applied in the most uncompromising fashion. Every other person in the book is a sot. The rector's wife is a confirmed drunkard; so is her charwoman, corrupted by her example. The doctor orders alcohol to his patients with a view to increasing his practice; the grocer smuggles

brandy into households, wrapped up with tea and starch and "put down" as general grocery. The publican's wife drives a roaring trade of her

own, sending out her husband's goods as "medicine. Drunkenness is a great evil, no doubt; but Mrs. Reaney is not content with pointing this moral, for she frankly adopts the doctrine which maintains that moderation in the use of alcohol is quite as heinous as excess. There will be many who will not readily follow Mrs. Reaney's teaching, and others will hesitate to adopt the view that it is desirable for young girls of eighteen to conduct religious services among men and women of the roughest type," praying, singing, and preaching, until, like poor Daisy, they are wrought up to a most unhealthy state of religious excitement. What with its rabid teetotalism and its sensational religion, the book leaves an unpleasant impression, although it is well meant. Mrs. Reaney's books are apparently popular in certain quarters; it is perhaps unfortunate, therefore, that they are not written in better English.

'The Diamond Ring' is a "do-me-good" tale for girls church restoration and parish work play a conspicuous part in it. Four girls compete for the diamond ring left "to the most worthie" by their grandmother. Their adventures during the year of trial form the tale. Florence's escapade is rather ridiculous, and the hackneyed part of the mysterious stranger is not particularly well played by Gerald Fairfax.

Anna Cavaye is a poor little incomprise, and her story is the peg on which hangs a somewhat complicated arrangement of lovers long severed and finally brought together. The little ugly princess" is by far the most interesting personage, and there is a haunting charm in "the poor little sulky face, hopelessly and pathetically plain.'

The doings of "the little bricks" are strange and wonderful. All the children seem to be free from the fetters with which inconsiderate elders are wont to bind the young. Two of them run away, encamp in a boat at Hammersmith, and spend their days sightseeing in London by way of avoiding recapture. Roughing it does not suit poor May; she dies from the effects of the exposure, and her death, of course, reclaims the naughty brother. The frontispiece of this tale is ghastly. 'Sea-Waif' is another of Mr. Hocking's tales of boyish adventure. It is quite as good as its predecessors.

Miss Alcott's books are so well known that they need no recommendation. The lovers of 'Little Men' and 'Little Women' will hail with joy the Old-fashioned Thanksgiving' and accompanying stories.

When Papa comes Home: the Story of Tip, Tap, Toe,' is apparently written for the amusement of very young children; it is well fitted for this purpose.

The Story of a Shell' is a popular exposition of the natural history of the sea, well fitted to attract boys and girls who have a turn for natural history.

The accomplished author of A Little Pilgrim' almost disarms criticism in a preface which is also an apology: "The sympathetic reader will easily understand that the following pages were never meant to be connected with any author's name. They sprang out of those thoughts that arise in the heart when the door of the unseen has been suddenly opened close by us, and are little more than a wistful attempt to follow a gentle soul which never knew doubt into the new world, and to catch a glimpse of something of its glory through her simple and childlike eyes.' is a graceful plea, but it can scarcely be accepted as an adequate justification of work which, if it is taken seriously at all, must be considered as an 'Purgatorio' and a 'Théodicée.' attempt both at a day is past for such performances, but in any Perhaps the case they are themes hardly fitted for any but a great poet or a great philosopher. readers, few of whom nowadays To adult can claim never

This

a

to have known doubt, A Little Pilgrim' will seem too childlike, while for children, who will read it simply as a tale, it is surely over-sentimental and not particularly attractive. But really criticism is wholly at fault in such a case. Sympathetic readers will like the book and scorn the critic; for unsympathetic readers it is not written. The latter class is likely to be the larger perhaps, but the former is the one to which the author appeals.

kind to Fairleigh Hall,' and relating to earlier Mr. Crake has written several tales of a similar periods of the national history. He has some power as a story-teller, but it is cramped by having to describe a time that is unfamiliar. Oxfordshire and the counties that adjoin it seem to be well known to him, as he describes several of the places he has occasion to mention as if he had really seen them. This is an advantage, but it hardly makes up for a blunder of such magnitude as that of thinking that Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsey, who died in the service of the king from wounds received at Edgehill, was called Lord Lindsay." Not content with this, he shows the fulness of his misconception by indicating that he thinks Lindsay to have been the family name. This he does by telling his readers that one of his fictitious characters, Sir William Lindsay," was "of the family of the noble lord who fell at Edgehill." Blunders in family history, confounding Scotchmen and may be forgiven, for though grotesque they do Englishmen, Lincolnshire and the Lowlands, not much distort our views of history; but surely it is impossible to pardon a gentleman who teaches us that after the battle of Worcester subordinate officers could catch fugitive royalists and put them to death, by a process which he may imagine to have been a court-martial, but which it is certain that the authorities in London-the Parliament and the Lord-General alike would have considered murder. England will, but at no time was authority, civil or was then in a state of war, revolution if you military, so far relaxed that men's lives were at the absolute mercy of their captors. Many will be quite new to the students of seventeenth other strange things are to be met with which cipated that nearly every Puritan would have a century history. It was, of course, to be antiScriptural name or some fancy imitation of one; represented as teaching his flock that it was an but we did not expect to find a Puritan minister of England who used her Prayer Book, and clung impossibility that any member of the Church to her devotional system, could be saved." What said we would not presume to guess, but we some half-mad fanatic then or now may have pointed minister, whether Presbyterian or Indethink it extremely unlikely that any duly appendent, can be proved to have made such an assertion.

SCHOOL-BOOKS.

66

The Fourth Book of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. A Revised Text, with a Translation and Commentary, and an Appendix on the Relation of the Emperor with Cornelius Fronto, by Hastings Crossley, M.A. (Macmillan & Co.)-It is high praise of Prof. Crossley's translation to say, as we can with truth, that it occasionally improves on Long's apps tрexew optov, § 18, is, of course, "run very appreciative version. For instance, éri Ts right for the goal," not along the line." It is a pity that such good work, evidently produced The prefatory remarks on Roman Stoicism are con amore, should be confined to a single book. the outcome of much study and reflection. When, however, we read that its ethical teaching "has undoubtedly an affinity with the English character," we feel that Prof. Crossley is more familiar with old Rome than modern England. And, at all events, the interesting passage, § 39, on the subjectivity of evil is at variance with the common belief in a

personal author of evil. The rendering before us is a little obscure: "What hurts thee (κακὸν σὸν) has no foundation (ὑφίσταται) in another's mind......Where then can it be? In that part of thee where that which forms the opinion about evils (τὸ περὶ κακῶν VTоλaußárov) has its seat." Rather turn it, "What is evil to thee has no subsistence in another's mind......It subsists where thy faculty for forming conceptions of evils has its seat," § 24, is not "do but few things," but "engage i. e., evil is only a relative term. 'Оλíɣa πрîσσé, in few affairs." 'EvéσTηs, § 14, is not "Thou hast existed in (a whole)," but "Thou didst come into existence," &c. The expression "life is opinion," $3, 41, conveys no definite idea. Here vónis "a series of notions." The few blemishes which we have noticed do not materially detract from the value of the book. The Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown, With

an English Translation, Introduction, Notes, and Indices by Francis P. Simpson, B.A. (Oxford, Thornton.)-We are quite willing to accept Mr. Simpson's statement that his " continuous rendering" is "as close as he could decently make it"; but we venture to say that a "purely commentatorial" version might without indecency, or even indelicacy, be made much more literal, and be at the same time much better finished, than that which Mr. Simpson has been content to publish. For example, to your memory (πоoμvýσкy) with any untoward take at random § 95, we find "when he jogged act (εἴ τι δυσχερές). Again, by rendering ras βλασφημίας " libels,” and συκοφαντίας m lignant fabrications, our translator makes the unlucky orator demonstrate "libels" to be fabrications, first because they are false, and also because if true the orator is blameless-a style of argument which would hardly captivate even a Connemara jury. Then kéуnμaι is "I dealt" for "I have dealt"; while Tŵν κať vμâs

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payμévwv kadŵv tý Tóλe is rendered "of the noble actions performed by the state in your time," without a note on the order. We prefer "of the achievements honourable to the state Lastly, we have, which have been performed in your time." "For each man in his private

life, and a city in her national life, must always strive to conduct their later policy in the light of their noblest precedents." It is a pity that Mr. Simpson did not here conduct his policy in respect to translation in the light of the precefurther on we read "offer themselves to the dent afforded by the late Mr. Holmes. A little perils," which is curious English. In 208 ayabovs årdpas is wrongly annexed to the clause immediately preceding, though sense and rhythm show that it refers to all the ancestors just mentioned.

In § 293 the gerundial use of the participle is confounded with the "trajection" by which the noun is occasionally placed between the article and the participle, when " an attri butive participle is attended by an object or adverbial expression.' This error is also made by Schäfer and Holmes. In a note on the Doric dialect, § 90, a large ignorance is revealed by the phrase a (corresponds) to original 7," for original a to Attic n." Still Mr. Simpson's version shows traces of more reading and greater care than seem available for ordinary "cribs," and his text is probably the best yet published in England; while the index of words and phrases should prove a valuable help to students

and editors.

the history necessary for the understanding of The introduction gives a sketch of the speech, and an account of the trial with an analysis of the speech of Eschines as well as of Demosthenes' famous reply. The volume is very well got up.

With

The Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. Translation, Notes, and Indices by B. H. Kennedy, D.D. (Cambridge, University Press.) This edition contains several interesting emendations and suggestions, some of which are already familiar to scholars, notably the rendering of τὰς συμφορὰς τῶν βουλευμάτων μάλιστα ζώσας,