contrary process is not uncommon. But this is a flaw which was not likely to strike Miss Whately, who is necessarily theological in her aim, and has no notion of writing a book We are accus position entirely his own. tomed to the species of literature-if such it is-which is contemptuously associated with the use of scissors and paste, but we are not without a moral. It is not, however, for the ing about in the garden, even in the most delight- accustomed to open avowal of the process. story that 'Scenes from Life in Cairo' will be read, nor, probably, was the story Miss Whately's prime consideration. Every one will enjoy the pretty pictures of Egyptian life which abound in her little book. The town house of Zohrab Bey and the customs and regulations of the hareem in which his beautiful wife Ain el Hayat is learning to read, and becomes converted to Christianity by a perusal of the book of Genesis, are pleasantly described; and the country house, with its characteristic surroundings, gives another opportunity for description, and even for a panegyric of the creak of the sákiyeh, or water - wheel, which, instead of being the plague most travellers never tire of abusing, means coolness and fresh water, fertility to the land, refreshing the parched garden, slaking of thirst to man and beast; and in its own way it is music to the Egyptian ear on the hot summer day." Miss Whately's picture of hareem life, even in the exceptionally favourable circumstances of Zohrab Bey's household, is very depressing. Mentally the ladies of Egypt are (only too truly) described as ignorant beyond European conception, and their whole existence is monotonous and enervating to a disastrous extent. "The life of hareem ladies can hardly be favourable to good health, even under the happiest circumstances. They rarely take exercise, properly so called; in these days, indeed, many are permitted to drive out, but only in shut-up carriages; but even that poor kind of exercise is not partaken of by a large number, who are accustomed to the old-fashioned style of living. Some pass years without crossing their own threshold. A lady (a native Christian, but one whose family kept up the old habits of seclusion which the Moslems seem to have introduced when they came into possession centuries ago) actually lived within a mile and a half of the great river Nile, and had attained middle age without having ever seen it, nor, as she expressed no particular wish to do so, is it likely that she ever beheld those waters on which her country depends for its fertility, but probably died without quitting her voluntary prison-for in her case it was not compulsory. Most of the wealthier establishments have some sort of garden, certainly, and not a few have very good gardens, even in the heart of the town; but the languid habits of their life are such that the ladies rarely walk; they prefer to sit in the verandah and 'smell the air,' as they say, and the gardener brings roses, jasmine, and other flowers tied in somewhat stiff bouquets, and hands to the slaves to present to them. The delight of strolling about to gather flowers for oneself, or picking oranges from the bough, though hanging in rich profusion within reach, hardly to occur to them; and some have been much seems diverted and amazed at hearing that English ladies not only gather flowers for themselves, but even like to cultivate them and to pull up weeds, rake beds, and cut off dead blossoms with their own hands. Labour of any sort is looked upon by these caged birds of women as a thing for those compelled to it by poverty or dire necessity of some kind, never voluntary thing, still less as one which sweetens the life of man, when not in excess, more than all the luxuries of idleness and wealth. Slavery has, no doubt, much to do with this contempt for work, but the languor of inactive and purposeless existence perhaps does more. They wander listlessly from room to room, or an as a sit for hours smoking, till the head must become more or less stupefied by the fumes of the tobacco -though it is certainly a lighter kind than that in use in Europe-and never seem to think of roamful weather...... What do you do all day long?' an English lady once asked a friend in a hareem a person of more than average intelligence, be it said-who often complained of headache, and was stouter than was natural at her age, for she was then at most only two or three and thirty. Why,' she answered, 'I go and sit on that divan yonder, and then come here and sit upon this one awhile,'-shrugging her shoulders as she spoke." In such a dreary existence one can understand the exciting diversion produced by the book of Genesis. It would be better to lead the hard, toiling life of Mr. O'Donovan's lady friends at Merv than to drone through one's years "behind the curtain." There is nothing new, of course, in all that Miss Whately describes-it is wellworn ground that she treads afresh; but just as Prof. Ebers's novels of ancient Egypt bring the society of the Pharaohs home to us as no "Records of the Past or hieroglyphic monograph can do, so Miss Whately's tale of modern Egyptian life will enable many to realize what native society is in Cairo who have neither the time nor the inclination to study more systematic and detailed accounts. Her remarks on the terrible effects of the lack of women's education (which she has herself done something to remedy)-in consequence of which the mind "gets mouldy and deteriorates as the being advances in years, which is perhaps the reason that in Egypt a child is often charming, a young girl sprightly and amusing, a middle-aged woman generally dull and tiresome, and an old woman odious, should be borne in mind just now, when we have the power to do something for education in Egypt. There is nothing more vital in the reform of the East than the education of the mother-the rest follows. Miss Whately's style is easy and conversational rather than strictly grammatical. Her knowledge of Cairo saves her from serious errors; but we cannot understand how she came to describe the Lesser Festival as immediately preceding Ramadan, when every one knows that it follows the fast, and in that lies half its joviality. The expression that a person "is Islam "" is meaningless; and the Fathah," or first chapter of the Koran, should not be confused with the "Kelimeh," or profession of faith, as it is on p. 272. Any Christian could conscientiously repeat the "Fathah," which is merely a brief prayer: a brief prayer: "Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds, the compassionate, the merciful, King of the day of judgment! Thee we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. Thou art gracious to, not of those upon Guide us in the right way, the way of those whom is Thy wrath, nor of the erring." Zohrab Bey might honestly repeat this after his conversion; but the "Kelimeh" ("There is no god but God, and Mohammed is His prophet") is a different affair. We must add erroneously, extols the Copts at the expense that though Miss Whately naturally, but of the Muslims, her portraits of the Mohammedan characters in her story are remarkably fair and written in a kindly and tolerant spirit. Baron de Malortie has a method of com employed. The Baron's volume is mainly composed of other people's remarks; but to each statement a foot-note is duly attached showing where the phrase, or substance of the phrase, comes from. By this method two advantages are secured-honesty by the writer and cyclopaedic utility by the reader. It is extremely useful to be able to turn to any phase of the "Egyptian Question" described in this book, and find references to perhaps fifty other works on the subject. Baron de Malortie has a genius for foot-notes, and, indeed, it is difficult to imagine how he manages to arrange and attach them. It is true they do not always appear very relevant, as when "the pearl of the Ottoman dominions" evokes a note on Napoleon's invasion of Egypt; nor always quite precise, as when any statement about the Mohammedan religion calls forth the reference "vide Koran." Nevertheless, those who want to know what books have been written about Egypt from the middle of last century to the middle of last October may find ample references, full titles, and numerous extracts in Baron de Malortie's compendium. Beyond this bibliographical value, however, we cannot discover much virtue in the work. The style is that of a smart journalist, who cares for effect rather than precision, and who is, perhaps, rather better acquainted with French than English, to judge from such phrases as "to contest him all original initiative," "substituted himself to the Moultezims," and the Government "demurs at the introduction of European judges." The facts, as we have said, are mainly borrowed from other books, with more than sufficient acknowledgment. It can hardly be necessary, for instance, to give nine foot-notes to nine lines of text, or attach a number and a reference to every epithet applied to the ex-Khedive. The fact that there are nearly nine hundred foot - notes in three hundred pages gives no idea of the amplitude of these references, which sometimes reach the total of fifty in a single page. This prodigality of acknowledgment detracts somewhat from the style and also the appearance of originality. Nevertheless, there are some excellent extracts from the author's own diary which contain interesting and novel information, especially speeches of the late and former viceroys, some of which are decidedly amusing. It is curious to learn that Abbâs Pasha's theory of government was to refuse raki but allow hashish to the fellahîn, because the former excited them, them amenable to management. The probut hashish stupefied them and rendered portion of original matter is, however, exceedingly small, and the book will be chiefly used as an index to other books. Baron de Yet it must not be supposed that because the volume is made up of quotations the Malortie holds decided opinions on all the author has not views of his own. chief points of modern Egyptian history. The only difference between him and other writers is that he modestly prefers to express his views in other people's language. His text gives us one aspect of Egyptian politics, but his foot-notes supply the means of checking it by a hundred other views. The book has been too hastily put together, and abounds in misprints, like Spitter Bey, S. W. Gregory, S. C. McCoan, &c., and worse. The compiler evidently knows nothing of Mohammedan law or character, or he would not speak of a divorced wife as entirely destitute, when her late husband is bound to support her for a time, or call students at the Azhar (not Ahzar) "young sheikhs," when sheikh means an old man; Here is a poet who (as we gather from the introduction) "lisps his numbers lies on his back suffering the agonies of an as he to the relation of the suggestive power of incident to the poetic and to the unpoetic mind. To the poet Nature and human life are infinite in symbol. Of such well-worn stories as Picciola' and the Iron Shroud an entirely new and fresh use can be made if the poet's mind is original, or if the conditions under which he writes are new. There is in the lines quoted a directness of speech due partly to the situation of the writer and partly to the rare gift which, above all others, makes a man a poet-a gift of truthful and and his knowledge of history may be gauged incurable spinal disease, which not only sincere utterance. We have quoted from by the extraordinary theory that the Sultans of Turkey "gradually wrested the Khalifate from the Grand Sherifs of Mekka. The brilliant qualities he attributes to that "shining meteor " Ibrahim, the father of the ex-Khedive, are certainly open to debate. Those who knew Ibrahim regarded him more as the cruel and relentless devastator of Syria than as the "rescuer from a reign of terror and barbarism" in that province. There are plenty of mistakes like these, which considerably diminish the usefulness of the book; and, in spite of some really interesting and sound writing, we can recommend nothing in it so strongly as its references. By paralyzes his limbs and prevents him from There was a captive once at Fenestrèl, * This book is all a plant of prison growth, Not by steel shackles, riveted by men, What work I do, I do with numbed, chained hand, Beyond control. * The whole is prison work: the human shapes * * Scratched on that prison stone-work you will find Oh, would my prison were of solid stone But 'tis not such. The New Medusa, and other Poems. Eugene Lee-Hamilton. (Stock.) POETRY is an art, yet it has a message, and if any writer's verse embodies a message true, direct, and pathetic, we cannot stay to inquire too curiously about the degree of artistic perfection with which it is delivered. The most truly passionate nature, and, perhaps, the greatest soul, that in our time has expressed itself in English verse, is Mrs. Browning's. At least, it is certain that with the single exception of Hood in the 'Song of the Shirt,' no other writer of the century has really touched our hearts with a hand so powerful. And she does this notwithstanding violations of poetic form and defective rhymes such as would appal some of our contemporary versifiers "who lisp in numbers " because the numbers (and nothing else) come. This is not to say that poetry as an art is not of great importance, but that the message of poetry is of greater importance still. In artistic requirements Mr. Lee-Hamilton's volume is often defective enough. Yet, with all its shortcomings-its irritating introduction of a prose word into a powerful passage when it would have been so easy to find a poetic one should have to go to great names among contemporary poets before we found a volume of verse with a message so clear and so touching. Of the writer's sorrows we know Floor, walls, and roof. He's sure the roof 's less high: nothing save what the volume discloses. But then the volume discloses that here is a writer who does really learn in suffering what he teaches in song. Poetic woes (the woes of unsatisfied vanity and ambition) do not get much sympathy from any one. who has suffered himself or who has seen real suffering. But it would be a hard nature that could read the following sonnet without being touched : TO THE MUSE. Oh, were it not for thee, the dull, dead weight The third day breaks. He sees-he wildly calls All day he fights, unarmed and all alone, the more personal parts of the book because we have been greatly touched by them. But it is on the dramatic power displayed in such poems as The Raft' that the writer's posi tion will have to rest. These show a fine imagination, but one which has been rendered gloomy and unhealthy by misfortune. What Mr. Lee-Hamilton has to avoid in the future is the too frequent use of words which, though pictorial, or else dramatic, have a prose suggestion, and are consequently unfit for poetic art. Since Landor's famous image of the murmuring sea-shell many have dallied with it; but it was reserved for Mr. LeeHamilton to give it an application so new that the reader forgets the illustration is old : SEA-SHELL MURMURS, The hollow sea-shell which for years hath stood No competent judge who reads the book will Fair and Free. By the Author of A Modern Greek Heroine.' 3 vols. (Smith, Elder & Co.) A Golden Shaft. By Charles Gibbon, 3 vols. (Chatto & Windus.) The Bankers of St. Hubert, and other Tales, By Sylvanus Ward. 2 vols. (Remington & Co.) 'MR. ISAACS' is a work of unusual ability. The author has obviously started with considerable experience of life and a great stock of miscellaneous knowledge. The varied information and the taste for philosophy, which in a way adorn its style, stand in the way of the complete success of the study, and it must be owned that the book begins heavily. There is a self Then waits in silence, noting the degrees doubt Till those inexorable walls shall squeeze His strong soul out. These lines are an excellent illustration of what we have often said in these columns as and it is not until the author shakes this off that his ability is fully shown. 'Mr. Isaacs is a tale of modern India, and the hero, instead of being (as might be guessed) a Jew with a friend in the City, is a 9 Persian millionaire, whose real name had been shortened for convenience of intercourse with English people in India, and because the abbreviation had an attractive Semitic twang" that suited the owner's occupation of a dealer in precious stones. It is not with this part of his life that the story deals. It is a story of the sudden and strange passion of a sensitive, highly educated Mohammedan for an English girl, lovely, but by no means clever, who learns to return his love. The hero is all that a hero of romance could be-perfect in beauty of face and figure, generous, accomplished, brave, rich, and a little mysterious. But he is the one character in the book who makes the reader feel not in sympathy with the author. He is not quite real. The conversion of an Oriental to English views about women is a bold stroke, and the author has made it with both delicacy and power; but the impression left is that the hero was really only an Englishman with a dash of the Oriental in his way of thinking. His appearance and manners, of course, go for nothing in a story; one can only judge by what he says and does; and the truth is that the reader is entitled to make the mistake which the imaginary narrator made on first meeting the hero, and to put him down as a slightly cynical Italian with a cosmopolitan air. But whatever faults may be found with the conception of such a character, the author has, at all events, succeeded in telling the story of the hero's love and adventures in a way which holds the reader under a spell. In the account of the hero's liberation of Shere Ali in the winter of 1879, the effect of a very vigorous bit of description of rapid action is heightened by the introduction of an historical personage. 'Mr. Isaacs' fully deserves the notice that it is sure to attract. 'My Connaught Cousins' is less finished than the admirable stories by which Miss Jay first became known as a delineator of Irish life and character, but it is not less marked by knowledge of her subject. Perhaps it is as a relief from the sombre tragedy of the "Priest's Blessing' that the author has chosen a lighter setting for the present book, the adventures of a young Englishman among his Irish relations naturally being on the whole of a cheerful cast. But besides anecdotes of the sport of the West, and charming and pathetic tales such as that of "How Andy Beg became a Fairy," which is as prettily told as anything in the book, there is an element of sad reality, inseparable, as it seems, from any book on Ireland at the present time. The value of these interesting volumes is rightly estimated in the introduction by Mr. Robert Buchanan. It can hardly be said that the author of 'Fair and Free' has made a very great advance on 'A Modern Greek Heroine.' The reservation does not of necessity amount to dispraise, for there was in the earlier story a good deal of skilful work, if it was not possible to speak very highly of that work as a whole. Its conception was unequal, and the execution was frequently below the level of the conception. The same disappointments await the reader of 'Fair and Free,' which has many excellent features, whilst it is far from being a thoroughly satisfactory work of art. The first few chapters are by no means agree able. A high-spirited girl, with even It is pleasant to meet with a work by Mr. writes himself M.P., and is a thorn in Ellie's side till in chagrin he marries a young woman who takes him for what he is worth. Mr. Sylvanus Ward had a moral purpose in writing his story of The Bankers of St. Hubert,' which he duly explains in a short preface. His plot is taken from "real life," and illustrates "the low standard of morality which regulated the commercial business at St. Hubert in the earlier years of the present century"; and the author hopes to be instrumental in bringing about a revision of the more obnoxious peculiarities of the law in the Channel Islands, and in "thus removing one of the chief impediments to the moral and material advancement" of those islands. From which it is manifest that Mr. Ward, although he has gone back more than half a century for his facts. is not unwilling that his strictures should be taken to have a present application. The thin disguise of the title becomes more than transparent in the first chapter, and little or no care is taken to mask the writer's intention throughout. The story is interesting in itself, though it is not much else than a narrative of callous and sordid dishonesty. The affection of two young and innocent persons, somewhat baldly described, serves to relieve the darkness of this picture. They suffer through the roguery of the fraudulent bankers, as well as from the inequitable island law; but the rectitude of the hero secures for them a happy consummation of their hopes, and thus the author is enabled to point his moral in a twofold sense. Mr. Ward's style is not very easy or graceful, and his perpetual italics have the effect of weakening rather than of strengthening it, but The Bankers of St. Hubert' and the three tales which follow it are sufficiently entertaining to justify their appearance in | print. CHRISTMAS BOOKS. Stories of Olden Times drawn from History. By and for those who Love Children. By Johanna Doll Stories. By Lucie Cobbe. (Same pub- Turo Life-Stories. By Alice Weber. (Walter Garnered Sheaves: a Tale for Boys. By Mrs. (Boston, U.S., Osgood & Co.) The Ball of Fortune. By Charles Pearce. Fairy Fancy: What she Saw and What she Heard. By Mrs The New House that Jack Built. Good Stories. Series LVI. (Wells Gardner, Darton & Co.) By N. By Gregson Hubert D'Arcy, the Young Crusader. THE 'Stories of Olden Times' are remarkable for a certain aimlessness and general want of point. They profess to be adapted for young children; but surely to be definite and clear is one of the first duties of the writer for the young. One can imagine a stern little critic, after wading through one of these stories, despairingly exclaiming, "But what is it all about?" There is a constant tendency, too, to put the cart before the horse, and so to implant in the minds of the unhappy children who imbibe their first notions of history from this book hopelessly wrong views as to the order of time. Perhaps the author, endeavouring, as she tells us in the preface, to avoid all "terrifying or revolting incidents," settles down on an unobjectionable historical personage, and rambles on, telling one after another the various unobjectionable anecdotes connected with that personage, in whatsoever order they occur to her mind. The story of Prince Edward's wife illustrates this unhappy mode of dealing with history. A great contrast is presented by another of Messrs. Sonnenschein publish also a charming. story for children and for those who love children" in 'Heidi's Early Experiences.' There is an idyllic charm about the life of little Heidi and her grandfather in the lonely mountain hut, and there is pathos in the unbending of the stern old man towards the sweet little girl. 'Doll Stories' is a collection of quaint little fanciful tales for tiny children. 'Two Life-Stories' are two novelettes, somewhat affected in tone, but not without merit. The first story is of two sisters, Phyllis and Marjorie, who have a purpose in life. "We have sworn," says Phyllis, "to carry out our natural talents, you and I, have we not?-you, your painting, and I, my love of teaching." They struggle, like good girls, to carry out their purpose; but Marjorie forsakes her calling to marry her cousin, while to poor Phyllis there comes one of those consummate prigs so well known in the pages of lady novelists, who wins her love and then, with sublime unconsciousness, says to her, "Keep......sacredly your devotion to that work which you have chosen as yours so heroically. I say 'heroically,' because most women, nearly all women, make married life the aim and end of all things; you, most wisely, have fitted, which, if you were to allow personal interests to creep in, would deteriorate, and those 'others' of whom you are always thinking and Phyllis for whom you work would suffer. follows out these exhortations and lives a useful life, stronger "in her own might" than the heroine of the second story, Stella, who, being forsaken by a false and reverend lover, dies of grief and consumption. There is a general atmosphere in these two life-stories of faded Turkey carpets, sage-green mantel-piece borders, with daffodils, old china plates, crewel work, and subdued shades of colour. 'Garnered Sheaves' is rather an appalling that it is not only based on facts, but that those facts were well attested by competent contemporaries in the reign of King John. book. Ormond Lee, a well-to-do young man, "irreproachable in conduct and principles," devotes his energies to Sunday-school teaching, although he says he grants "the work is not respectable." Mr. Gow endeavours to present some of the His line of life alienates him in great measure shreds of wit and wisdom which have come down from his family. "There is a certain lowness to us from ancient times in the guise of fables about common Sunday-school teaching," says his......showing that the observations on life and sister Alice," which does not become you, Or- character of the keen-eyed Grecian sages are as mond Lee-you, with your position and expecta- applicable now as then." His book contains tions." The worldly Alice and the unworldly some fairly told tales, of which the morals are Ormond, both unnatural and stilted beings, go the same as the best known of Esop's fables, their different ways; but, after all, they are not but they are spread over thrice as many pages of so much account in the eyes of the author as as there are lines in the original. However, Ormond's Sunday scholars. There are eight of they are agreeable reading for the young. them, and their adventures are many and startling. in last century. Amabel and Lucy, English girls "The Foster-Sisters' is a pretty story of the of good family, are brought up in a convent in in Northumberland, stopping on the the south of France, then go to Amabel's home Newcastle and falling in with John Wesley. The style is bright and sparkling, and there is much true local colour about the tale, as those who know the " canny town" will recognize. way The 'Rachel's Share of the Road,' one of Messrs. Osgood's "Round-Robin" series, is an American tale of an earnest-minded girl, Rachel, daughter of Judge Tyndal, "president of the road," the road being a certain railway in the States. high officials of the line flourish while the workand the pity of this is Rachel's trial. men have difficulty in getting their wages, "It was growing to be her share of the road......to meet and know of the troubled anxious ones whom she could not help, and to feel a sense of guilt in the sharp contrasts of her own sheltered, abundant life. There is some powerful writing in the description of the poor workmen driven to their only resources, the strike and the fire. 'Rob and Ralph' is a pretty story, in which two little orphans, oppressed and ill treated by unworthy guardians, run away and find better luck. The theme is not very new, but it is well treated. 'The Ball of Fortune' is a golden cannon ball; many and strange are its adventures, but in the end it is safely fired into a bank. 'Fairy Fancy' and 'Mrs. Wishing-to-be' are two children's books neither better nor worse than hundreds of others. 'Tommy Greedygrab' and 'Wriggletum' announce themselves as fairy tales for children; they are nonsense with a moral. 'Donald and Dorothy' is an American tale with a somewhat wild plot. The two D's are a devoted brother and sister, who were saved from shipwreck in their infancy. In after years arises a doubt as to whether Dorothy is Dorothy after all. Eben Slade, the villain of the book, declares that she is not; but Donald wanders about the world in amateur detective fashion, and finally wins back his sister. The new house that Jack built is in the colonies. There are some spirited descriptions of colonial life, and Margery's school experiences are rather funny. The author of 'The Heir of Redclyffe' gives us in Langley Little Ones' six stories for teachers and taught. The Girls of Flaxby' shows strong traces of Miss Yonge's influence. St. Agnes's Guild' is a actual life. Nat, the youthful naturalist, attracted by the tales of his uncle, a devoted ornithologist, paradise and scarcely less lovely humming birds follows him in his quest after gorgeous birds of through New Guinea and the Eastern Archipelago. Here he meets with thrilling advendenizens of the forest play their part. The late tures, in which natives, snakes, and other Lord Palmerston used to say that one use of war was to teach geography: such books as this teach it in a more harmless and cheaper way. OUR LIBRARY TABLE. AN anthology comprised in one volume of three hundred pages or so could hardly supply an adequate idea of the great poetical activity of our day, and the handsomely printed volume, Living English Poets, sent to us by Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co., would scarcely provoke criticism were it not for the pretentious preface. When, however, the reader is told that "the editors, then, having desired to include, pieces from all the verse-writers who may really to the best of their judgment, representative be called in any high and lasting sense poets, have been gratified to find that the names have for the most part arranged themselves by a quantitative test in an order which approximately is that in which the public voice has classed the names selected," he feels curious to see how "the editors," who apparently model their style upon that of the Mathematical Society's papers, have done their work. He will first find that, while some exceedingly minor bards are "called in a high and lasting sense poets," the excluded herd of verse-writers comprises Mr. Allingham, Miss Blind, Miss Ingelow, Mr. F. Locker, Mr. George Meredith, Mr. John Payne, Mr. W. B. Scott, and Mr. W. Sharp. Nor if he comes to look at the pieces selected will he be less surprised. Turning to Mr. Tennyson, he will find that the editors have usually picked out the Laureate's secondrate work. They have, indeed, given 'Rizpah and 'The Northern Farmer' and Tithonus,' but the other selections are singularly unhappy. For instance, instead of the perfect lyric" Home they brought her warrior dead," the rhetorical "Of old sat Freedom on the heights" is chosen. Nor is the selection from the younger poets more happy. Mr. Lang is curiously misrepresented, and Mr. Gosse fares as badly. Mr. Gosse has written some elegant sonnets, but the editors have, with strange perversity, chosen his feeblest. The lack of judgment shown in the editing of this volume is rivalled by the tastelessness of the frontispiece. MR. W. SCOTT DOUGLAS may be congratulated on his careful redaction of Lockhart's Life of 'Only a Little Child' is a pretty little story of Burns, the best of Lockhart's biographies. children in a London nursery. The volume of 'Good Stories' before us is a miscellaneous collection of fact and fiction. We begin with Lucy Hutchinson and Madame de Lavalette; we end with Oliver and Rob Branscombe, the good and the bad young men of the Sunday-school world. Mr. Galway's story is well and pleasantly told. It possesses much interest and has a good moral. Its plot is so improbable, if not impossible, that we should regard it as a total fiction were it not for the preface, in which the author assures us Messrs. G. Bell & Sons are the publishers. From Messrs. Bickers come revised editions of Lockhart's Life of Napoleon Buonaparte and Maxwell's Life of Wellington. We doubt the wisdom of reprinting either. Maxwell's especially is full of a vainglorious chauvinism, excusable at the time, but which had better be forgotten now. FROM Messrs. Routledge comes A Thousand and One Gems of Song, a capital selection for popular use, edited by Dr. Charles Mackay.Messrs. Ward & Lock send a cheap edition in one volume of Hallam's Literature of Europe. — From Messrs. A. Heywood & Son, of Manchester, comes Through the Night, the first instalment of an edition of Mrs. Linnæus Banks's popular tales. We have sundry cookery books on our table. Good Plain Cookery, by Mary Hooper, which Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co. send us, is an unambitious and useful book, and gives clear and sensible directions.-The Girl's Own Cookery Book, by Philiis Browne (Girl's Own Paper office), is a still more elementary work, and will be useful to young and inexperienced cooks. — Choice Dishes at Small Cost, by A. G. Payne (Cassell & Co.), is conveniently arranged, and the receipts are concise. It contains a great deal of information in a small space. A NUMBER of annuals are on our table. The most valuable of these is the Almanach de Gotha (Nutt), which is always full of information collected with truly German industry. Tunis, we observe, is now included under France. There are very few mistakes in the volume. We cannot, however, say much for the taste of the frontispiece.-The British Almanac and Companion (Stationers' Company) contains many useful articles. The writer on the architecture of the year makes, however, a great mistake in depreciating the new Law Courts. He also underrates Decimus Burton. -Eason's Almanac for Ireland (W. H. Smith & Son) has deservedly reached its tenth year. It is cheap and useful. -Mr. Fry's Royal Guide to the London Charities (Bogue) has attained its twentieth year. In an interesting preface he points out the bad condi-. tion of the finances of our large unendowed hospitals.-Turning to pocket books, we may congratulate Mr. Pratt, of Sudbury, on the continued prosperity of Fulcher's Ladies' Memorandum Book.-Gilbert's Clergyman's Almanac and Whitaker's Clergyman's Diary still hold their ground successfully. They are issued by the Stationers' Company.-We should hardly think many boys have the patience to carry a pocket book long, but Mr. Frith has catered for them in Every Boy's Pocket Book (Routledge & Sons). CHRISTMAS cards lie on our table in great numbers. On the whole, there is a decided improvement in them. Messrs. De La Rue send us a gorgeous show worthy of their high reputation. They also forward some delicious bookmarkers.—The cards of Messrs. Schipper & Co. are remarkable for elaboration and general good taste. They further send us some menu cards and calendars.-Mr. A. Gray sends us one or two cards in admirable taste. His comic cards are hardly to our liking.-Messrs. Phillipps & Sons send us a number of cards, the majority of which are really admirable.—Messrs. Falkner & Sons send us Patience' and "old style" cards, some of which are passable. LIST OF NEW BOOKS. ENGLISH. Theology. Evolution (The) of Christianity, 8vo. 12 cl. Jubilee Lectures, an Historical Series delivered on the Jubilee Thorold's (A.) The Claim of Christ on the Young, cr. 8vo. 26 Glen's (W. C. and A.) Electric Lighting Act, 1882, 12mo. 5 el. Roberts's (S.) Popular Law for those Interested in Estates in M. LOUIS BLANC. Ir is not probable that, as things and men settle down into their places, the literary importance of Louis Blanc will hold its rank beside that historical importance which he will always possess as an example of a certain school of political thought and a partaker in certain famous historical events. He was, indeed, master of an excellent working style of pure and scholarly French, which is almost indifferently exhibited in all his work. But his style was somewhat lacking in distinction, and was too apt to be diffuse-faults which it shares with the styles of all but a few of his contemporaries in England as well as in France, and which may be said to be generally characteristic of an age of journalism, if not almost necessary and in Gardiner's (B. M.) French Revolution, 1789-1795, 18mo. 2/6 separable accidents of the journalistic faculty. el. (Epochs of Modern History.) Jervise's (A.) History and Traditions of the Land of the Lind- Rev. A. P. Stanley, cr. 8vo. 6/ cl. Bovet's (F.) Egypt, Palestine, and Phoenicia, a Visit to Sacred Lands, translated by W. H. Lyttelton, cr. 8vo. 9 cl. Burton (R. F.) and Cameron's (V. L.) To the Gold Coast for Gold, 2 vols. cr. 8vo. 21/ cl. To this defect-if defect it must be called-of mere style, there had to be added, in the case of a writer who was always (at least in intention) arguing, a certain want of argumentative faculty. Other Frenchmen of Louis Blanc's day-Michelet is a notorious example-were quite as deeply com mitted to a parti pris as he. But the man of the first order of literary genius always contrives that the individual subject shall, in appearance at least, give a new illustration of his creed, and as it were force that creed on himself and his readers. Louis Blanc reversed the process, and, unconsciously no doubt, made the reader feel that his creed was ready and had only to be applied to the subject somehow or other. This peculiarity, like his more purely literary qualities, was constant. His work, however, may be divided into three Millington's (R. M.) Introduction to Latin Prose Composi- subjects. The first will contain the two great parts, differentiated to a certain extent by their Cumming's (C. F. G.) Fire Fountains, the Kingdom of Pidgeon's (D.) An Engineer's Holiday, cheaper ed., 7 6 cl. Wilkinson's (H.) Sunny Lands and Seas, a Voyage in the tion, cr. 8vo. 3,6 cl. Science. Bigg's (R. H.) Spinal Curvature, 8vo. 36 cl. in the Treatment of Functional Disorders, &c., 8vo. 5, cl. General Literature. Baseley's (Mrs.) Millicent's Children, 3 vols., cr. 8vo. 31,6 cl. Chamberlin's (K.) Brookdale, a Story, cr. 8vo. 3,6 cl. histories, the Dix Ans' and the 'Révolution.' Both were eloquent and vigorous, and the impression made by the first and the early volumes of the last at such a time as 1848 is quite intelligible even now. In both, however, the obvious parti pris (which is, be it remembered, as much a literary fault as a political or philosophical) injures the general effect considerably, while the style, excellent as it is of its kind, is scarcely sufficient to carry off the defect. The second class is made up of such directly De Witt's (Madame) Stories from Life, or Pictures of Past political or politico-philosophical books as the Times, translated from the French, cr. 8vo. 2,6 el. Fenn's (G. M.) The Parson o' Dumford, a Story of Lincoln Foik, 12mo. 2/ bds. Gallwey's (Sir R. P.) The Fowler in Ireland, 8vo. 21/ el. Gaume's (Monsignor) Catechism of Perseverance Abridged, 18mo. 2 cl. Grosse's (E. W.) Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe, cheaper edition, cr. 8vo. 6 cl. Hawthorne's (N.) Dr. Grimshawe's Secret, cr. 8vo. 6/ cl. Upton's (W. C.) Uncle Pat's Cabin, cr. 8vo. 6 el. 'Appel aux Honnêtes Gens,' the 'Organisation du Travail,' the 'Droit au Travail,' and all the miscellaneous work included under the general title Questions d'Aujourd'hui et de Demain,' and republished under that title very shortly before M. Blanc's death. Here the author's goodness of heart, his ingenuity in logic so long as he was allowed (to parody a well-known saying) to start from no premises except those which he chose, and come to no conclusions except those which he liked, were evident. But his want of practical grasp and theoretical width of view are equally apparent. Of the third division the most remarkable constituents are his well-known and extremely interesting letters Whitworth's (W. A.) The Churchman's Almanac for Eight from and on England, reprinted not long ago Centuries (1201-2000), folio, 2/6 bds. as Dix Ans de l'Histoire d'Angleterre.' A foreigner in London between 1860 and 1870 had an abundance of interesting subjects, and M. Louis Blanc's performance of the part of London correspondent is a really remarkable contribution-indeed, one of the most remarkable extant -to what may be called of deliberate purpose the "literature" of journalism. He is still thoroughly preoccupied, but it is a preoccupation which is positively useful to the journalist, be cause it gives him a steady and decided point of Schiller (H.): Geschichte der Römischen Kaiserzeit, Vol. 1, view. Much of the description is extremely Part 1, 9m. Philology. Antonini d. Imp. Marci Commentarii, ed. J. Stich, Im. 80. Bahder (K. v.): Die Deutsche Philologie, 6m. Schwartze (T.): Katechismus der Elektrotechnik, 4m. 50. Zalın (W. v.): Untersuchungen üb. Contactelektricität, 2m. lively; the interspersed argument vigorous and spirited, if not always convincing; the accuracy and impartiality (in so strong a partisan) are most exemplary; and the composition and sketching power shown in dealing with complicated circumstances very striking. It may seem a paradox, but we are disposed to think that these will papers, fugitive as they were originally, prove Louis Blanc's best title to permanent literary fame. |