did for him was to enable him to recover himself honestly after his worst falls. It is impossible to follow here all the turns of Mr. Burn's life. Two or three times he opened a shop on his own account; but insufficient capital (and that borrowed) brought him quickly to ruin, and his want of business capacity always accelerated the catastrophe. As often he experimented in tavern-keeping, and it need hardly be said with results even more signally disastrous. He plunged into political agitation in connexion with the Chartist movement, and before long was branded as a renegade for denouncing the measures of the People's Parliament. He became a lecturer on Odd-Fellowship, and was swindled out of thirty pounds advanced to meet the expenses of a society's dinner. At every turn he is disappointed in fortune and in himself, but he rises from every blow full of new faith in the excellence of life and the goodness of human nature. After the most crushing catastrophe of all, which comes when he is near his fiftieth year, and at a time when a trade revolution has destroyed the value of his old-fashioned skill, he writes that he has learnt to regard this seeming misfortune as in reality the best piece of good fortune that ever came to him. Certainly after this crisis he is occasionally connected with affairs more congenial to his tastes than tavern-keeping could be, but in point of material prosperity it is difficult to discover much improvement. To the end of the book he is the sport of circumstances and of his own imprudence. We hear of him at different times as having to do with various publishing enterprises, never of a first-class kind and always coming to an unprofitable conclusion; he was obliged to go back several times to hat making in spite of his disadvantages, and once he crossed the Atlantic and tried his fortune in America. How he fared there is best told by the following paragraph and the fact that he came home after three years with an empty pocket: "Seven dollars was the reward of my second week's labour [as a hatter once more], or rather the produce of my work; for if I had received seventy dollars my sufferings would not have been paid for. The process of adaptation is both more slow and painful in a man who is up in years [he was past sixty at this time] than it is to one who has youth on his side. For a period of more than three months I suffered continually from a severe pain in my back, which was not alleviated by a cessation from labour. In consequence of my bodily suffering and a continual feeling of anxiety pressing upon my mind, my rest at night was disturbed by a species of nightmare, and when I was in this condition, which lasted at least six weeks, I was subject to nervous starts and twitchings," &c. The sale of a book written during his sojourn in the United States brought him a sum of twenty pounds, and not long afterwards a friend got him a temporary place as messenger-clerk to the Salmon Fisheries Office. It would have been pleasant to leave him in this comfortable berth, but after eighteen months the place ceased to exist, and the last glimpses Mr. Burn gives us of his life show him "trimming porcelain lamps" and earning five shillings a week by writing letters to a provincial newspaper. To the end, however, he keeps his tone of content; and this being so, the pain which it is impossible not to experience in reviewing this long series of unpropitious events is felt less on his account than for the many who, similarly situated and not similarly endowed, must inevitably sink in the struggle. The book is full of instruction for those who wish to know the truth about the difficulties that beset an average human being who starts in life with no favour from fortune; and it will probably be useful to many novelists wanting material for plots and characters. But for reading purposes it is a good deal spoilt by lengthy disquisitions on social and political matters, which, though exceedingly sensible, are not quite original enough to justify the interruption of the more interesting personal narrative. A Tour in Greece. By R. R. Farrer and Lord Windsor. (Blackwood & Sons.) This book will strike every one at first sight as beautifully printed and elegantly bound. There is also a large and excellent map of Greece at the end of the volume. A further merit is that the authors have honestly travelled through most of Greece, and have set down their itinerary in such a way as may guide others who attempt the same journey. Their appendix on the various routes to Greece is also practical. Let us add that in the writing of the book there is a certain gaiety of heart and enjoyment of youth, which cannot but attract those who are more weary of life, and who are obliged to enjoy by proxy the real delights of careless physical energy. But here praise must end. The authors are so ignorant of the enormous literature on modern Greece that they regret in their preface the paucity of visitors and of descriptions since 1820. If they had studied some of the many recent books of travel in Greece-English, French, or German-they might have found much to say in addition to what they culled from their guide-book or "looked up" in Pausanias or Pindar. This sort of knowledge, too, though they have taken considerable pains, is not without curious mistakes. The monument of Lysicrates was not built in 355 B.c. (p. 45); nor should a modern Greek pronouncing his own language, or Homer's either, be set down as making a mass of false quantities." The at Athens does not deserve to be called most beautiful of old Byzantine churches "a funny little church." The Greek poets do speak of Arcadia as the home of Pan and of satyrs and nymphs, though they do not admire it for sylvan beauty. It is, moreover, quite new and rather astonishing to hear that Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great were buried at Olympia. 66 These are antiquarian mistakes. It is a far more serious, and indeed a mischievous, blunder to give as an instance of the insecurity of the Greek frontier the capture of Col. Synge. He was captured far from the frontier, and on Turkish ground. But this is only one of many direct or indirect charges against the Greek nation for lying, knavery, and general worthlessness, which make the book almost offensive to read. The authors are indeed kindlier than their theory implies, and mention cases of friendliness to them-often undeserved-on the part of the natives. But when they give it as their parting advice never to believe one word that a Greek says, they not only make out a good deal of their own book untrust worthy, but give advice which would make it both useless and impossible to travel anywhere. Of course, when the simple but acute mountaineers saw these young "lords" pulling out pistols to shoot any one who would not obey their often absurd directions, they "took the measure of them." They were only worth plundering, and not worth instructing. Any traveller who proclaims his incredulity offensively is sure to be repaid. in suitable coin. The right way to travel in Greece (or anywhere else) is not to swagger, not to carry pistols, not to threaten to shoot people-idle threats of that kind at once breed contempt -not to disbelieve everybody, and not to assume one's own superiority. It is the violation of these simple rules which has made English travellers detested in many parts of Europe. The facts stated by these young men about the safety of the Morea as compared with the frontier and the thrift of the people show that the Greeks have in them good qualities, and can improve the country which they are allowed to occupy without disturbance. The illustrations with which the book abounds are mediocre. Most of them might suit any country view in a mountainous district. Thus a drawing of the great fort at Eleuthera, if compared with old Dodwell's view (in his 'Pelasgic Remains'), shows how inferior is the modern hand. Still worse are the temples. The artist has not even observed how the Greeks laid their architrave on the pillars, and so produces terrible travesties of these incomparable buildings. If he had learnt to photograph or had taken a photographer with him he might have done really useful work in reproducing scenes which are as yet but little known. But we return, in conclusion, to the main point. No travellers so unsympathetic could ever truly observe or truly report anything of real moment. Let them learn to respect the Greeks-we had almost said to respect themselves-before they offer their opinions on the subject. Folk-Etymology: a Dictionary of Words perverted in Form or Meaning by False Derivation or Mistaken Analogy. By the Rev. A. Smythe Palmer. (Bell & Sons.) MR. PALMER has in this volume opened up a subject which cannot fail to be of the greatest interest to many besides philologists and folk-lorists. The instances which he has here brought together from a variety of sources of the modifications of words or their meanings, arising from an association with a false etymology, are exceedingly valuable and interesting, not only for the quaintness of the changes, but also as bringing clearly before us an example of the influences which have tended to bring about the actual condition of language. Folk-etymology he defines as the influence exercised upon words, both as to their form and meaning, by the popular use and misuse of them; and in a special sense he intends it to denote the corruption which words undergo, owing either to false ideas about their derivation or to a mistaken analogy with other words to which they are supposed to be related. The predisposing causes of this corruption Mr. Palmer believes to be, firstly, the reluct ance generally felt to acknowledge one's ignorance, and, secondly, that instinctive dislike which most men feel for everything untried and unfamiliar. To these we may add a hankering after etymologies with which many, if not most, are afflicted. Man is, as Mr. Palmer says, an etymologizing animal, and abhors an unmeaning word. If he does not know or cannot find out the source of a word, he is seldom at a loss to invent it. Hence we have such ludicrous suggestions as devil from do-evil, mastiff from mase-thief, needle from ne-idle, and rogue from erro, "by putting a g to it." For summary simplicity nothing can exceed the manner in which an old writer demonstrates to his own complete satisfaction the process by which modirwort (motherwort) became mugwort: "They corrupt the o into u, and d into g, smite away i and r, and say mugwort"! Yet these, ludicrous as they are, are, philologically speaking, no worse than many "etymologies suggested in the present day, as indeed Mr. Palmer shows by a quotation from a book lately published, in which mulier is stated to be from mollior, as if the softer sex. There is an evil spirit of etymologizing abroad which will not be laid by the labours of Prof. Skeat, admirably supplemented as they are by the present work. The volume is divided into five parts, the first treating of corrupted English words, the second of corrupted foreign words, the third of corrupted proper names, the fourth of corruptions due to the coalescence of the article, and the fifth of corruptions arising from mistakes about the numbers of words. And here we may at once express our regret that Mr. Palmer has not thought it necessary to complete his work by the addition of an index, the preparation of which would have involved but little labour, while its absence will be greatly felt, not only because there are six distinct sets of words (including the chapter of additions and corrections), but also from the fact that in some cases, as, for instance, under "Tureen," more than one word is treated under a single heading. The first chapter or part will be found the most interesting to the majority of readers. In it the author demolishes most of those fanciful etymologies which are commonly received, while the numerous even yet instances he has collected of the perverse twistings and transformations which words have undergone, in order that they may resemble others with which some family relation or connexion is imagined, will, we are confident, be new to all but a very few. Thus most people will be surprised to hear that court-card has nothing whatever to do with court, the true form being coat-card, a name given from the long dresses in which the figures are depicted, and corrupted into court-card from the association with the titles of king and queen applied to them. Similarly hanger, a short curved sword, has no connexion with the verb to hang, nor humble-pie with humble, nor greyhound with grey. Cutlet is not, as might readily be imagined, a diminutive of cut; nor has train-oil anything to do with trains, so far as etymology is concerned. With the corrupted spelling aglogue for eclgue, as though the word were in some way connected with goats, it is interesting to compare the entry in the Catholicon Anglicum,' where we find "gayte [goat] speche" glossed by corruptions due to the tendency of the article with Mr. Palmer's suggested etymologies N° 2878, DEC. 23, '82 Ireland forty years ago has a pleasant after mess was brought into the mess-room flavour of Charles Lever, notably the story of his (General Maxwell's) horse, which and made to take a standing leap over the dinner-table. Here and there, too, are to be found several amusing Irish military stories. For example, when the 88th was that every horse in the division was to have in Bulgaria in 1854, an order was issued straying its owner might be ascertained:some identifying mark, so that in case of Arthur Maule, gave orders to his batman to General Maxwell once had an Irish soldier mind.'" the British officer who, at an Anglo- Some other stories are less comical. It is "They stated that the man had been trying resented this very much, which attracted their to get Nan to go with him, and that she had notice, and then they recognized the colonel's With the Connaught Rangers, in Quarters, On the prisoner. Not one of us understood a word the sahib. When they arrived at the civilian's tent, native and hand him over to the magistrate man said, so I desired the soldiers to take the proceed on some duty, so the order was given the magistrate was just mounting his horse to to have the thief placed in some safe place till the official's return. I thought no more of the affair, as it was out of my hands, and old Nan was reposing close to my tent. Next morning marching off in the morning he had seen my forming me that when the Camel Corps was I received an indignant letter from Ross, in goat straying away, and that he had desired one of his coolies to take it to the 88th camp and give it to the colonel sahib. The native, as I described, had been taken prisoner; but the very sad part of the story has to come. The magistrate had not believed the coolie's story, and had ordered him to be flogged and turned out of camp. Naturally Col. Ross was much displeased, and I was equally distressed; but I explained matters, and sent the poor man a good present of rupees, and I received a letter saying that the coolie was quite pleased and would willingly be flogged every day for the same amount." In another instance a mistake very nearly had a tragical ending. An officer of the 88th had a servant named Paul, who was addicted to liquor: men and women with sinew and backbone. They speak a fair measure of sense, enough badinage to save them from priggishness, with little nonsense or mere prolixity; and the drama which they enact is really worth looking at. It follows from this that the author, whose style is in itself unexceptionable, has written a good story, which will raise her reputation as a novelist, and give almost unalloyed satisfaction to her readers. 'A Passion Flower' is, in fact, two stories, the second being a continuation, after a considerable interval, of the history begun in the first. This is a great drawback to the interest of the book. Neither of the tales is satisfactory. The first is naturally incomplete, and the second is brought to a rather "When we marched to Cawnpore after the melancholy end by the retirement to a concapture of Calpee, a great many men of the regi-vent of the girl who forms the link between ment got fever, and among other officers Paul's the two parts. The novel shows infirmity master was very ill. The wretched servant got of purpose. It is not tragical enough for drunk in the bazaar, and was made a prisoner at its conclusion, not historical enough for its least, so it was supposed, for he did not return to his master, and no one knew what had become of occasional connexion with history, not well him. Time went on, and my brother oflicer got enough constructed to be a novel of plot, better, and, pour passer le temps, either drove or and not studied enough to be a novel of rode into the town of Cawnpore to look at the character. place, still stained with the blood of its victims. Either by chance or from a desire to see the sepoy prisoners, my friend arrived at the kotwallie, or guard-house, where these mutineers were incarcerated, and, to his great dismay, he saw among these ironed rebels a wretched little man, who shouted, 'Me Paul! Me poor Paul!' Much surprised, he went to the kotwal and asked why the man was among the rebels, but could get no satisfactory reply. On explaining matters, that most probably Paul had been locked up for drunkenness, and not rebellion, he got him released, as one of the policemen grimly observed, Just in time, for he would have been hanged in to-morrow's batch.' Paul left Cawnpore without much delay." A little care in telling his stories without tautology would render General Maxwell's books more pleasant to read. NOVELS OF THE WEEK. A Story of Carnival. By Mary A. M. Major R. D. Gibney. (Allen & Co.) INNUMERABLE Englishmen and Englishwomen have written about the Carnival at Rome, but Miss Hoppus proves that the thing had not been quite overdone. The purely descriptive parts of her story, whether she writes of the city in its ordinary aspects or of the Carnival in particular, are very fresh and spirited, so that the reader feels no inclination to skip over the pages in which her plot is so pleasantly interrupted. But, after all, the working out of the plot is the most tempting portion of these three volumes. The characters secure our interest at once; they are lifelike, full of vigour, and clothed in a dignity of their own, which makes us realize more forcibly than ever the bald and commonplace nature of too many contemporary novels. The little group of persons English, Italian, German-who move before us on the author's stage are not simple puppets, awkward in shape and action, but 6 Mary St. John' is a simple little story told with unprovoking simplicity. Miss Carey shows a pleasing power of delineating the lighter traits of character, and, perhaps wisely, refrains from trying to depict any very strong passion. Her most able study is that of a beautiful woman, with a natural taste for refinement and luxury, married to a poor hard-working curate in the East-end of London, always revolting against her life and yet sustained in it by her deep love for her husband. The heroine, if not a commonplace character, is, at all events, one that is well known to every novel-reader; and the young men are as much drawn after a recognized model as a Davus or a Scapin. Mr. Rowlatt's well-intentioned story is on the old lines-a scapegrace marriage, a doubtful inheritance of estates and title, and a clearing-up of mysteries by which everybody is satisfied. Of course there is also a marriage, or, at any rate, an engagement to marry, between the rightful heir and a daughter of the rival branch; but a certain amount of originality is introduced into the treatment of the hackneyed plot in some of its later phases. Collateral interest, again, is not wanting, and Mr. Rowlatt is sufficiently lively in his manner of narration, since he alternates conversation with incident in such a way as to cloak dulness even when he is not able to engross his readers. The delineations of character are not very skilful, and they are inadequately sustained, the good people never becoming more than "goody," and the bad ones being either killed off before their parts are played or left to figure at the end of the book almost in an odour of sanctity. A fairly attentive perusal of this story has not revealed any special significance in the title, though, to be sure, there is one dream by which the writer himself seems to be entranced, and from which he would do well to arouse himself. This is the vain idea that whenever he comes to a syntactical deadlock he can reinstate himself and renew the vigour of his sentence by the simple expedient of using the words "and which." On the whole, how ever, the composition is careful, and the story is decidedly entertaining. Miss Edwards's collection of tales is marked by a good deal of versatility and pathos. Exchange no Robbery' is the somewhat fanciful story of the arrangement between two German maidens, whereby the "gnädige Fräulein" marries the village doctor, and the farmer's educated. daughter becomes a grandduchess in apparency. It is well told, if a little farcical. The "Japanese bride," whose jealous fury expends itself on her sculptorhusband's masterpiece, excites our pity much more than the superior person who married her only for her beauty and never forgives her for shocking his self-esteem. Fernande' is another tale of the petulance of artists. 'Priest and Maiden' and 'Dés illusionné' have each a more didactic purpose, and both afford much food for reflection. The Three B.A.s,' 'Two Winter Days by the Sea,' and 'A Christmas Cabful' are of a slighter calibre, but up to the mark of such magazine trifles. 'Earnest Madement' is a fairly creditable venture in literature for one whose accustomed weapon has clearly not been the pen. It is written with a single-hearted desire of supporting the total abstinence movement; and, besides describing the death of Madement's mother through grief and poverty, and of his selfish and snobbish father through drink, deals in a plain, soldierly fashion with many topics connected with the army, and incidentally gives an eye-witness's account of some of our campaigns. Most people will read these matters with more pleasure than the doctrinaire portion of the book, but a certain amount of local knowledge imparts a colour to the peaceful side of life, and the characters of the Warminster people are not badly drawn. CHRISTMAS BOOKS. Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise. By Mrs. The Boys and I. By Mrs. Molesworth. (Routledge & Sons.) The Heroes of African Discovery and Adventure. By C. E. Bourne. 2 vols. (Sonnenschein & Co.) Dinglefield. By Mrs. O'Reilly. (Routledge & By H. A. H. Illus trated by N. H. (Macmillan & Co.) Evenings at Home; or, the Juvenile Budget Opened. By Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld. Corrected and revised by Cecil Hartley, M. A. (Routledge & Sons.) Jeannette: a Story of the Huguenots. By Frances By Louise Creighton. (Rivingtons.) MRS. CLIFFORD's stories stand quite apart from the ordinary run of Christmas books. The writer possesses an originality that will be sought for in vain in the many volumes, some of them clever and some of them silly, which we have reviewed during the last few weeks. The reader will be charined, and sometimes startled, by the unexpected turns of thought with which he will delicacy and subtlety of the writer's fancy. In frequently meet in these stories, and by the fact, a number of remarks at once beautiful and true might easily be culled from her pages, any one of which is quite beyond the reach of a merely clever story-teller. At the same time it may be doubted whether these stories will please children. Their appeal is essentially to those who have lived and reflected, and a profound melancholy pervades them with which a healthy child will not sympathize. That the pleasures of life are less than its pains, that our best endeavours often end in failure - such is the moral of this book. We shall not quote from the stories, but from a lullaby, the last of three little poems that are included in the volume. Despite an occasionally prosaic line and awkward phrase or two that augur want of practice, Mrs. Clifford's verses have a lightness of touch that is worthy of Praed; and besides, her verse is more joyous than her prose : The flowers for sleep are sighing, The bird is in its nest, The daylight is all hidden With sunshine in the west. * * And, hark! the cricket singing May think your cheeks so fair You'll find them resting there. "The Prince of the Hundred Soups' is the popular title of the Doge of Bobbio, given to him in view of his obligation to eat a hundred plates of soup during his hundred days of office. And the story that "Vernon Lee" has taken from an old German MS. tells how, when Pantalone Busdrago became doge, his disappointed rival caused the soups to be made so nasty that it was impossible for the poor man to do his duty; whence came frightful troubles. The book is exquisitely got up, and its pretty cover alone will ensure its being coveted as a Christmas present. It is not, however, a book to be given indiscriminately to children. will fascinate here and there the clever boy or girl of a clever household, but to the general of nursery palates it will be caviare. It is a book one must be educated up to, if not by a study of the Italian mask comedy such as 66 Vernon Lee" herself has made, at least by an appreciative reading of the preface, in which she describes her childish observation of the eccentric old man whose manuscripts came later into her possession. It 'The Boys and I' is delightful. It is intended for children, and professes to be written by a child, a girl of fourteen, who records all that happened five years ago, when her father and mother went to China, and she and her brothers were left in charge of "Uncle Geoff," a bachelor physician living in London. Mrs. Molesworth has succeeded admirably in making the children as thoroughly wretched as children are pretty sure to be in the beginning of such an arrangement, without harrowing the feelings of her readers by subjecting them to any real cruelty or unkindness. Their policy is to band themselves together against their uncle and Mrs. Partridge, his rather grim housekeeper; but in carrying it out they quarrel among themselves, and are comically unhappy to find how cross they are growing. Young people are likely to be attracted by the bright illustrations which accompany Mr. Bourne's narrative. The bulk of the volumes is taken up by abstracts from the works of travel published by Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, Baker, Cameron, and Rohlfs, with a few notes on Schweinfurth, Du Chaillu, Serpa Pinto, Thomson, and Holub, and an introduction described as a "brief sketch of the progress of African discovery from the earliest times." The abstracts given are very readable and are sure to please. The selection of representative travellers, however, is open to criticism, and the historical introduction poor. It is somewhat presumptuous in an author who supposes "Covilham to have reached Sofala, and credits Bruce with being the discoverer of the source of the Blue Nile, to refer contemptuously to a famous collector of travels, to whom all writers on the subject owe a debt of gratitude, as "worthy, if not always veracious, old Hakluyt." Surely historical books intended for the young ought to be accurate as to facts, differing from works of a larger calibre only in the selection of subject-matter and treatment. 'Dinglefield' is a pleasant and thoroughly wholesome book for girls. Mrs. Field, an old lady "with a fancy for other folks' children," gathers under her roof no less than four girls, of whom only one is any kin to her. And these four girls, of different ages and characters, are brought up together like sisters. We particularly like the chapter in which the girls pay a round of visits with Mrs. Field, and we quite sympathize with the author's wish that it was the fashion nowadays for everybody on going into society to "put on, metaphorically, my grandmother's 'pardessus de soie noire moirée à la duchesse, a garment almost important enough to be classed among the personages of the book. 'Mrs. Gander's Story' is simple and unambitious, and is well suited to very young children. It is impossible to praise the illustrations. In these days of introspection and morbid self-consciousness it is a pleasure and a refreshment to come upon the good old books of a century ago. It was about the year 1792 that Evenings at Home.' Dr. Aikin published the first volume of his Since the days of Dr. Aikin many generations of children have delighted in the Budget of Beechgrove Hall,' and now Messrs. Routledge put before us, to quote the preface, "a new, revised, and improved edition." To revise and improve a book written for young people nearly a century ago is no easy thing, nor can we think that the attempt has been very successful. It is best to leave the book to stand on its own merits, which are great, merely excising what has become obsolete this merely ends in incongruity. It would be or unintelligible; any attempt to do more than as easy to modernize Evelina' or to rewrite 'Clarissa Harlowe' in the style of Miss Braddon. We welcome a reprint of 'Evenings at Home,' but we are not much impressed by its revisions and improvements, and we could gladly have done without the very modern illustrations, especially the coloured ones. Messrs. Routledge also send us 'Jeannette,' an interesting and well-told tale of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the Huguenot persecution. There is a great flitting from France of all who can effect an escape: one little Huguenot maiden is carried away from danger in a barrel of apples; the ship Trois Soeurs takes her, with many adventures, across the Channel, and we have a picture of life in a Devonshire village two hundred years ago. 'St. Aubyn's Laddie' is a pathetic story of two little cousins-Cyril, or Laddie, the cripple, and Alan, the bold little would-be soldier. The relations between the two boys are tender and touching, but the story is almost too sad. Other People: a Story of Modern Chivalry,' is a strange, dreamy, sad book. The author meets us at the outset with an apology, or "Reflection." She says: "At the risk of being told that 'qui s'excuse s'accuse,' I preface this story with a few words. I anticipate the objection that Ray's ideas, thoughts, and feelings are too unlike those of boys of his age in general to have any claim on the reader's credulity. As a rule, perhaps, they would be; but I have imagined an intensely sympathetic, sensitive, highly-strung nature, reared in a hothouse, which forced each of these characteristics into undue prominence, while it stunted the growth of the more matter-of-fact, if less noble qualities." Whether the study of so abnormal a character be desirable is a question. It is not possible to show much originality in such a book as Mrs. Creighton's. The most that can be done is to tell the tales in good, clear English, which shall be at once easily understood, and to avoid fanciful details. This Mrs. Creighton has done. The stories will be found entertaining by the boys and girls for whom they are intended, and there is no partisanship in them such as might cause parents to hesitate in putting them in their children's way. The illustrations are not fancy sketches, but almost all of them have some relation to the matter in hand. This is a great advance beyond what was common even a very few years ago. The woodcut which illustrates the account of Venerable Bede gives us a representation of Jarrow Church and his chair. Surely there should have been a note here to say that there is really no trustworthy evidence by which to connect that curious relic with the Saxon annalist. The book is very free from errors; we have detected but one statement which is certainly wrong. It is that Oliver Cromwell "lost two battle." The eldest, Robert, died at school before the breaking out of the war. We think also that in writing for young persons it would have been safer not to have affirmed that cottages in the time of Wat Tyler were not furnished with chimneys. It may, perhaps, still be a matter of controversy when chimneys were introduced into ordinary houses, but the opinion of those competent to judge is, we believe, generally opposed to Mrs. Creighton's conclusion. OUR LIBRARY TABLE. sons in UNDER the title of Flotsam and Jetsam (Allen & Co.) Mr. T. G. Bowles has published a collection of thoughts and reflections written down in the course of yachting expeditions from time to time since 1874. They are of the most varied kind and without connexion, amusing and serious, about women and society, the sea and simple nature, and almost everything under the moments than for reading straight through. sun. Naturally they are better suited for odd whether the reader agrees with Mr. Bowles or They show often a good deal of originality, and, not, he must always feel that, at all events, the author has set down his own thoughts and opinions, and not those of other people. He is at his best in speaking about the sea, and readers may regret that he did not give them more about his yachting experiences. MR. LORING BRACE, who has been honourably York, has written, under the title of Gesta distinguished by philanthropic labours in New Christi, a sketch of the progress effected under the influence of Christianity. He has collected a large number of facts, and his book will be subject. Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton are the found interesting as a popular exposition of the publishers. To review at length A Soldier's Life and Work in South Africa, a memoir of the late Col. A. W. Durnford, by Col. E. Durnford, would involve us in the old controversy regarding the disaster of Isandhlwana. There is more novelty in the earlier part of the book, which describes the services of Col. Durnford from his arrival in South Africa in 1872 to the breaking out of the Zulu war. Throughout his career he distinguished himself by his gallantry and his considerate treatment of the natives. Messrs. Sampson Low & Co. are the publishers. THERE is obviously a revival of interest in the novelists who were famous at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present. The subsidence of the romantic movement has, no doubt, much to do with the change, and people are beginning to see that novels depicting a state of society with which the novelist was personally conversant must have more real value than the cleverest of "historical romances." New editions of 'Cecilia' and 'Evelina' have recently appeared, and Mr. Bentley lately pub lished a convenient and tasteful reprint of Miss Ferrier's stories. We have now to thank him for the "Steventon" edition of Miss Austen's novels. It is evidence of the returning popularity of these delightful books that so handsome an edition should be issued; and Miss Austen would have been surprised and gratified could she have foreseen that such a tribute would be paid to her memory. pleasant to see again the frontispieces that were familiar to us in the days of the "Standard Library." Mr. Bentley may be congratulated on the taste he has displayed in this reprint, which may fairly claim to rank as an édition de luxe. It is IN his preface to Common Shorthand, for Ordinary Purposes, and for Moderate Speed (Hart & Co.), Mr. E. Pocknell quotes a remark made in the Athenaeum of August 26th, that "the philosophic investigator of shorthand ought to give his chief attention to examining what each system can do when limited to the use of simple means, such as an ordinary memory could retain after a few lessons, and to styles of spelling not too brief to be easily read." The present is an attempt to adapt the earlier work of the same author, Legible Shorthand,' to the requirements of such a test; but we cannot pronounce The chathe attempt particularly successful. racters for different letters are too much alike; for instance, the same form, differing only in size and thickness, stands for the six letters y, w, p, f, b, v, and when occurring alone stands for the six words you, without, particular, for, being, very. We believe some highly trained writers can trust themselves to preserve these minute distinctions, but to an ordinary penman they are simply snares. Some of the most elegant devices in the larger work are here rejected for the sake of simplicity, and in their stead an additional feature is introduced in the shape of a small loop to denote any single vowel, and a large loop to denote any double vowel. A VERY charming little volume is the Booklover's Enchiridion, arranged by Philobiblos in a way that shows he is a true lover of literature. His extracts supply some delightful reading. MESSRS. SMITH & ELDER send us a sixpenny edition, very clearly printed, of Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands; and also The Fatal Boots and Cox's Diary, bound together in a sixpenny volume. MESSRS. WARD & Lock send us the first part of their édition de luxe of the Waverley Novels. It contains the clever illustrations of the recent French edition. Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co. have issued the fifth volume of their "Parch ment Library "edition of Skakspere, certainly the pleasantest edition for fireside reading that we know of.-Mr. Murray did wisely in entrusting to Mr. Tozer the task of editing Wordsworth's Greece, Mr. Scharf has revised his excellent chapter on Greek art. This standard work will make an excellent Christmas present. 66 SOME useful and substantial Diaries, well arranged and well bound, have been sent to us by Messrs. T. J. Smith, Son & Co. Both their "Post" and "Scribbling" Diaries deserve praise. They are excellently suited for business purposes, and so are the capital diaries sent to us by Messrs. Partridge & Cooper. Both firms send us Calendars very prettily devised. Of the latter Messrs. C. Goodall & Son have published a great variety, many of them being remarkable for taste and good colouring. Handbook of the Jones Collection in the South Kensington Museum, cr. 8vo. 2/5 cl. Poetry and the Drama. Dillon's (A.) River Songs, and other Poems, illustrated by Durnford (Col. A. W.), Memoir of, a Soldier's Life and Work Geography and Travel. Peeps at Palestine and its People, by Author of 'Little Elsie's Tien's (Rev. A.) Egyptian, Syrian, and North African Handbook, 18mo. 4/ roan. Philology. We have on our table The History of the Year Sophocles, translated into English Verse by R. Whitelaw, 8/6 Smith's (D.) The English Dyer, 8vo. 84/ morocco back. Allen's (G.) Colin Clout's Calendar, the Record of a Summer, Bent's (8. A.) Short Sayings of Great Men, 8vo. 7/6 cl. Clark's (G. E.) Complete Passport to the Civil Service (Lower Czar (The), a Tale of the Time of the First Napoleon, by The London Post Office Directory (Kelly & Co.), of Value, by W. L. Jordan (Bogue). at once the largest and the most satisfactory of annuals, is again on our table. Eighty-two new names of streets have been introduced, while the renaming of eleven and the renumbering of eighteen streets have added to the labours of the editor. The work is, as usual, brought carefully up to date. We have tested it in several instances not important enough to attract the notice of a careless editor, and we have invariably found the proper alterations made. If all the journeyman work of literature, as Mr. Arnold calls it, were as well done, what a change there would be in the feelings which works of reference usually provoke!-Whitaker's Almanack (Whitaker) continues to grow in size and popularity, as it deserves to do, being the best almanac that the general public can buy.-Three agricultural annuals are also on our table. The Live Stock Journal Almanac is one of the best of Messrs. Cassell's publications of this class. Morton's Almanac for Farmers and Landowners LIST OF NEW BOOKS. ENGLISH. Theology. Buxton's (Rev. H. J. Wilmot) The Children's Bread, Short Daily Text-Book (A), gathered from the Writings of Rev. Lowe's (C. M. S.) God's Answers, a Record of Miss Annie Pelliccia's (A. A.) The Polity of the Christian Church, translated by Rev. J. C. Bellett, 8vo. 15/ cl. Stalker's (Rev. J.) The New Song, and other Sermons for the Law. Poley (A. P.) and Dethridge's (F.) Handbook on the Electric Lighting Act, 1882, cr. 8vo. 2/ cl. Fitzgerald's (Mrs. S. L.) Equally Yoked, cr. 8vo. 2/ cl. Leslie's (Mrs. M.) The Household Angel in Disguise, 2/ cl. Lucy's (H. W.) Gideon Fleyce, 3 vols. cr. 8vo. 31/6 cl. "Twixt Shade and Shine, by A. Gray, 3 vols. cr. 8vo. 31/6 cl. Victory of the Vanquished, by Author of Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family," cr. 8vo. 3/6 cl. FOREIGN. Law. Conrat (M.): Das Florentiner Rechtsbuch, 3m. Philosophy. Bergmann (J.): Die Grundprobleme der Logik, 4m. Bastian (A.): Inselgruppen in Oceanien, 7m. 50. Richthofen (F. Frhr. v.): China, Vol. 4, Paläontologischer Philology. Bühler (G.): Leitfaden f. den Elementarcursus d. Sanskrit, |