artiality, does not feel bound to occupy self with the black sheep. Nevertheless give a cordial welcome to this result of ly years of patient and intelligent labour. doubt the worst, and more than the st, has been said about the clergy of the storation period often enough; and it is asant to have their apology presented with e and authority. Occasionally, indeed, Overton's zeal and perhaps some slight ciency of general historical information d him into inconsistencies, as when at end of his book he states that the Indeidents excepted the Church from tolera1, and at the beginning of his book nits that Church principles were mainned in Cromwell's own family; that many the country clergy still held their livings; it Usher preached within a stone's throw Whitehall; and that Churchmen could rry on the repairs of Salisbury Cathedral thout molestation. We fear, too, that a Onconformist minister, or even a passions historian, would have to apply one or more epithets to Sheldon than have peared necessary to Mr. Overton; while ong those who happen to have studied th Ward's letters to the archbishop, conned in the Sheldon MSS. in the Bodleian, mile will be raised at the doubts Mr. Over1 more than once suggests as to the truth the charge against that masterful prelate harshness towards Dissenters. The short sketch of the Cambridge Plaists will be found extremely interesting, 1 might well have been longer. Mr. erton explains its brevity on the ground at their lives were not lives of typical urchmen. The limitation, indeed, which uses in his definition of "Churchman" somewhat arbitrary. It is all very well some clerical meeting to emphasize the stinction between Conformists and Churchn; to describe the Cambridge Platonists "wholly exceptional"; to refuse a place his list to Ormond, perhaps the most vious name he could have suggested to present the old Church and King men, d to Pepys, the equally obvious type of bourgeois Church philistine. But, as a itter of fact, these were in the plain meanof the word Churchmen as much as re Bishop Ken and Robert Nelson. The pical Churchman would appear to be a rson who thinks as Mr. Overton thinks. Of the greater number of those whose mes appear in his long list Mr. Overton eaks with thoughtful and temperate appreation. But again his readers will wish he id been somewhat more generous of space. ey might have expected that so important work as Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness Separation' would not have escaped ention; while half a page of discursive iticism of Swift is worse than useless. r. Overton admits that, as "one who ishes to bring out the good points of the ergy," he finds it difficult to do justice to ilbert Burnet, the great stumbling-block writers with High Church sympathies. ustice, however, he has gallantly tried to o, with more than ordinary success. It is ot astonishing that he fails to appreciate he immense service that Burnet's breadth f view, tolerance of temper, remarkable alents, and indefatigable energy, combined ortunately with considerable influence upon William and Mary, did to the country at a

time when all the foundations were out of course, and when the crowd of High Church clergy were clamouring against the only conditions upon which a peaceful settlement could be hoped for.

Mr. Overton's criticisms upon the great preachers of the time are often tasteful and suggestive, and in the chapter on "Devotional and Practical Works" he successfully plays the part of Old Mortality to a good many forgotten reputations. His style is almost always simple and pleasing; occasionally, however, he is betrayed into lapses which he will doubtless avoid in succeeding editions. Thus, when he says of Elizabeth Burnet, "As one would expect from the wife of Bishop Burnet, she writes from a Low Church point of view," the remark is legitimate and appropriate. But when he goes on to add, "but, as one would not expect from that relationship, she writes with the most unaffected diffidence," we feel that the attempt at smartness is beneath the dignity of the general design. The punctuation and the idiom of the following remarkable sentence, too, would seem to require an explanatory note: "Perhaps there was some ground for it [dislike of the clergy] in the demeanour, especially of some of the younger divines, who could not carry corn.'

It is not, however, until we come to the last chapter, "The Church and other Religious Bodies," that we have any serious difference as to matters of fact with Mr. Overton. In this chapter, however, which was scarcely necessary to the design of the book, he is brought face to face not so much with hagiology as with history, and the result is somewhat unfortunate. Mr. Overton more than once assumes that the persecution of the Nonconformists by the Church was undertaken mainly as a measure of retaliation, and the assumption affords him the opportunity of expressing very creditable sentiments. But if one thing is more clear than another about this matter it is that the Church refused to offer comprehension to the Dissenters not in the first instance with the object of retaliation, but because she believed that the existence of a strong, combatant, self-assertive, and defiant Church, with its strength unimpaired by the admission of men not informed by the same spirit, was the best safeguard against Popery. Another assumption, that the persecution of the Presbyterians by the Church, and the persecution of the Church Church, and the persecution of the Church by Presbyterians in former years, were founded on the same reasons, seems still less justifiable. When, again, Mr. Overton says that the Presbyterians would not have consented to what he calls a "happy family" arrangement, meaning, we imagine, toleration, and when he illustrates his doctrine by pointing out that they repudiated the "Declaration of Indulgence, he forgets that their reason, not for repudiating-they never did repudiate it--but for declining at once to avail themselves of the Declaration, was that if they had accepted it they would have recognized for their private ends a gross breach of the constitution which, as they well knew, had been intended for the advantage of the Catholics-a spirit which they evinced still more clearly when they refused to oppose the Test Act in the following year. Mr. Overton goes on to say that persecution was only retaliation, omitting to

notice that the Anglican clergy when ejected had had an allowance made them out of their benefices, while in the great outrage of St. Bartholomew's Day no circumstance of flippant cruelty was spared the Presbyterians. He then proceeds to acquit the Church of the spirit of persecution, on the ground that "when the Churchman [Sancroft] took the place of the statesman [Sheldon] at the helm this spirit was arrested, and as a rule it was those who were Conformists rather than Churchmen who were most cruel." The Church, in fact, did not persecute-such is Mr. Overton's argument-since the people who persecuted, though bishops and archbishops of that Church, were not Churchmen! We have curious instances," resumes Mr. Overton, "of the feeling of bitterness against Nonconformists in the diaries of such men as Pepys and Sir J. Reresby." We will make him a present of one passage, at least, in Pepys which is a curious commentary upon this sentence. After watching some poor wretches, who had been caught at a conventicle, being dragged through the streets to gaol, he says (we quote from memory), "They go like lambs......I wish to God they would conform, or else be more wise, and not be catcht."

66

We have mentioned what appear to be the blemishes of Mr. Overton's book, because they can, without in the slightest degree affecting his design, be so easily removed. We desire in all earnestness to recognize the permanent value that will attach to a work which is the result of untiring research and excessive labour, and which has been dictated by a filial love towards the Church of which he is a not undistinguished member.

Greek Folk-Songs from the Turkish Provinces of Greece. Literal and Metrical Translations by Lucy M. J. Garnett. Classified, revised, and edited with an Historical Introduction by J. S. S. Glennie, M.A. (Stock.)

THIS book is an honest piece of work. Both authors have resolved to do their best, and the result is likely to add to the number of those persons who take a lively interest in Greece and know something of her history and language.

Miss Garnett has executed her part in a most satisfactory manner. Her aim has been to give a literal translation either in the original metre of the poem or in one closely resembling it. The difficulties which she has had to encounter are great. The popular dialects of Greece abound in strange grammatical forms and constructions, and contain a large number of words which are not to be found in any dictionary, some of them corruptions of classical Greek, and others borrowed from Italian, Albanian, and Turkish. An adequate knowledge of these can be acquired only by living for some time in the districts or from those who have been long resident in the localities. Miss Garnett has grappled with these difficulties most successfully, and there are only a few passages in which she has mistaken the meaning. Most of these errors seem to have arisen in consequence of the plan adopted by the authors in the division of their labour. Miss Garnett's sole task was to produce an accurate version

of the poems. Mr. Glennie undertook to annotate. But the translator is generally best able to annotate because he has felt the perplexities of the passages, and, moreover, by having the work of annotation assigned him he is kept more alive to the connexion of the ideas. We shall take two instances

from Miss Garnett's work.

In song for Vaia or Palm Sunday occur the following lines:

Ηρθε κι ὁ γιὸς τῆς Παναγίας
Μάρτα χαίρεται, προϋπαντάει
Σκύβει, χαιρετάει καὶ προσκυνάει.
Φέντ ̓ ὁ Λάζαρος ἐμὲς ἐχάθη

Καὶ μὲ τοὺς νεκροὺς στὴ γῆς ἐβάλθη Λυπήσου μὲ τὴν λυπημένη, Σπλαχνίζου μὲ τὴν σπλαχνισμένη Κι' ἀνάστησόν μου τὸν ἀδελφό μου. We may remark by the way that all the words in this song are Greek. Some of them are greatly changed, as pe for 0, yiós for viós, pé for perá, stý for eis Tv, and σkýße for KUTTEL. One of the words, orlaɣviçoμa, is borrowed from the Greek of the New Testament, and one, pévt', “sir, master," is a corruption of av0évrys, and the same as effendi.

:

Miss Garnett's translation runs thus
Come, too, has he, the Virgin's son so meek;
And March, rejoicing, him goes forth to meet,
He worships, lowly bending at his feet.
It seems but yesterday that Laz'rus slept,
Lying within the cave while sisters wept ;
Grieve ye, and sorrow with the sorrowful,
Show pity, mercy to the merciful.

And raise for me my brother from the grave.

Miss Garnett here renders the word Mápra March. It may be doubted whether she has committed a linguistic mistake in so doing, for Máprys, with vocative Máprn, meaning March, occurs in several of these songs. But the context proves conclusively that she is wrong in so translating, and that Martha, the sister of Lazarus, is intended. This one error leads her into a complete misapprehension of what follows. The sense is: The Son of the all-holy Virgin came. Martha rejoices, goes out to meet Him, bows down, welcomes and worships Him. "Master, Lazarus passed away yesterday and was laid in the earth with the dead. with the grieving and pity with the pitying, and raise up my brother." The punctuation of Passow joins "master" with Lazarus, but it is more likely that pévr' is the vocative and applicable to Christ.

Grieve

The other instance we take is the translation of Aapíto. Miss Garnett renders it "cast the boulder ":

That water may the old men drink, the young men cast the boulder.

66

We should imagine that few readers would recognize in casting the boulder" the Scotch game of "putting the stone," and a single sentence in a note might have supplied this explanation.

or at least stated if he had found it current elsewhere or supposed it to belong to Patra in Thessaly.

We shall take one other instance. Miss Garnett translates a pretty ballad called 'The Sun and the Deer." Mr. Glennie assigns it to Olympus on the authority of Oikonomides. But if he had turned to Fauriel he would have seen that the French scholar attributes it to Southern Acarnania. Fauriel in 1825 says that "it is very popular and already old." His form of it contains two beautiful lines at the commencement, which Oikonomides and Miss Garnett have omitted. Passow edits it in a somewhat different form with various readings from Fauriel, and the extraordinary heading "Carmen compositum est ab Andrea Isco anno 1830." Great judgment and taste are shown in the selection of the poems, and a very good idea can be formed from them of the varied themes, spirit, and character of Greek popular poetry. Many of them have never been translated before, but we suspect that more have been translated than Miss Garnett seems to imagine. We quote one specimen of Miss Garnett's work, her rendering of a ballad which was a great favourite with Goethe:

Why do the mountains darkly lower, and stand brimmed o'er with tear drops?

Is it the wind that fights with them? is it the rain that beats them?

'Tis not the wind that fights with them, nor rain that's on them beating;

But Charon's passing over them, and with the Dead he's passing.

The young men he before him drives, and drags

the old behind him,

And ranged upon the saddle sit with him the young The old men beg and pray of him, the young beand lovely. seech him, kneeling:

My Charon, stop thou in a town, or near cool

Tis only Charon with his dead, that o'er the E
treading.

The young he drives before his path, the
drags behind him;
The children, and the weeping babes, he
saddle bindeth.

Mr. Glennie's share in the book is preface, historical introduction on the survival of paganism, and the notes. In the the reader will find a variety of subjects discussed-the character of the late Gover ment, the connexion of the Celts with th Greeks, an explanation of the origi the utterance "Great Pan is dead," the superiority of paganism to Christianity the nature of the Cabeiri, the religion the Pelasgi, the epochs in the history of th world, the progress of thought in the M Ages, the distinctive features of the Aryan and Semitic mind, and many similar and is similar topics. A criticism of some of ha speculations would be out of place in this journal, and an adequate treatment of the others would make too great demands o our space. Mr. Glennie is distinctly militant. He holds many opinions which have not yet received general acceptance, and he renti lates them dogmatically in the face of the world. At the same time he shows wide research, and great earnestness and power d thought. But it may be doubted whether he has been judicious in attaching his specia tions to a translation of Greek ballads. What we should have desired here was a detailed account of the circumstances in which the songs were written. Mr. Glennie does cortribute much information. He sketches the

fountain tarry,

That water may the old men drink, the young men cast the boulder,

And that the little bairnies all may go the flowers to gather."

fountain tarry;

The mothers would for water come, and recognise

their children;

And know each other man and wife; nor would

there be more parting."

This poem the purpose

of

has been often translated. For the first six lines by Sheridan and Prof. of comparison we quote versions

Blackie.

Why are the mountains sad, Their gloomy brows o'ercast? Are they disturb'd by rain,

Or by the tempest's blast? For ages warring storms,

And wildly rattling rain, Could ne'er disturb their sleep,'Tis Death's appalling train. He drives his victims there, Shrouded by rain and wind, Youth in his spectral van,

And ghastly Age behind; While in his fleshless arms The tender infants ride, Upon his pallid horse,

of the difficulties which now remain unexplained, and he certainly might have sup plied the historical poems with historical in troductions. Notwithstanding its omissions however, we recommend the book hearth popular poetry of Greece. to all who wish to form some idea of the

Sunday already referred to he would have seen the words "Carmen cantatum a litterarum studioso Patrensi," and would have excluded it as belonging to the Peloponnesus,

Up Goura's quaking side. Prof. Blackie renders :

is not told from what or to what they were increased, it is impossible to judge of the case. But Mr. Cotterill, with a vague and therefore irritating dogmatism, pronounces that "this season should be regarded as the great out-of-doors recreation season; and it should be distinctly recognized that more hours should then be spent in the open air, and less hours therefore given to indoor study." "More" and "less" than what? Does not Mr. Cotterill see that he is unfairly denouncing a man, presumably of sense and experience, by giving a quite incomplete account of his action? He must be conscious of another side to this question, of the extreme slackness and demoralization often caused by too many unfilled hours at this seductive time of year. Work suffers, play suffers even more, character most of all, by the indolence against which the head master was struggling-whether wisely or not we do not know; but Mr. Cotterill, who constantly appeals to the success of his own methods, should not ignore the success which attended (p. 50, note) the head master's action, at least in his own opinion. But at this point Mr. Cotterill makes a suggestion which we feel inclined to endorse, viz., that the Christmas holidays should be shortened and the Easter prolonged. It is certainly true (p. 51) that boys come back sickly, after their Christmas holidays, to an undue extent. Too little time has been spent in the open air, we suppose, too much in hot rooms and not very abstemious parties.

the drift of much that he has written 1 be misconstrued," as being an attack > schools, instead of a prescription for diseases and defects. But he may cerreassure himself; no candid reader fail to understand his attitude, and we nly regret the somewhat superfluous - searchings he has undergone. He is true, a rather hasty physician, but after all, differs widely from being an y. The evils that he sees are real we only differ from him in thinking matters of common diagnosis and in ting some of his remedies. When he res that, gravely as he indicts public ols for neglect of sanitary and physical ,he would indict society far more gravely, that many of such healthy customs > find their way into society come there the schools, it seems wonderful that he to discern that principles like his must ady have leavened the schools to a conrable extent. In other words, while he tle overrates the power of school rules ure the defects of human nature, he errates the consciousness of these de3, and the efforts to cure them, which rail at most schools. For instance, p. 46 he blames schoolmasters for not king it their duty to control and orgathe bodily exercise of the boys. "Some s," he says oracularly, "injure themes by overdoing it, others by underng it." Is not this discovering the sun 10onday? He proceeds to ask fervently: t how many schools is any serious effort le to consider such a subject as this? At how many schools are such questions these made the subject of serious and stant attention at masters' meetings? which we should humbly, but confidently y; "At every reputable public school, very gathering of public-school masters, England." Again, he thinks that mems of a school rifle corps ought to be told t by joining they declare their willings to serve their country as soldiers, if What else is told them, and whom? He would "suggest that it be de compulsory at all schools for the older 7s to be members of the school rifle corps." e paradox involved in compelling people be volunteers does not strike him. Another It is impossible to print the examination orm which Mr. Cotterill wishes to intro- papers here; and we but express the ce must be spoken of more respectfully, opinion that the examination is not of this he has tried it, and, apparently, with severe kind, but one well fitted for a healthy To cure loafing, the standing and really intelligent boy of eighteen, prosease of boys left at their own disposal vided certain precautions are observed. The ring leisure hours, Mr. Cotterill has real danger is in such boys trying to force stituted a compulsory change of clothes. marks by taking up a great variety of Every boy," unless specially excused, subjects. The actual papers and the set has to change every day into his flannels subjects are not, as a rule, too hard id take a minimum of one hour's active or laboriously long, but we should be glad ercise out of doors, in all weathers." By to see a more definite restriction on the is means sullen and lymphatic boys have number of subjects to be offered by any en stimulated into new life and vigour, individual candidate. A minimum limit, ad physical improvement has brought moral under which no marks are allowed to count, provement with it. The evil is confessed, has been wisely affixed to most subjects. nd the remedy worth trying. But here But this is clearly not sufficient; it prevents, Iso we should say that Mr. Cotterill is over- no doubt, mere mark-hunting, but rather ating his compulsory rule, underrating the encourages that diffuse industry which is ersonal influence that worked this reform. most apt to overstrain the young mind. By The acute comment of his colleague seems a simple reform-leaving a very wide option o bear out this conjecture. of subjects, but limiting the number to be Again, Mr. Cotterill is severe on some actually presented by a candidate-much of head master who tried to obviate some of the evil of which Mr. Cotterill complains che evils of a school summer term by inwould be averted. He rather hints at creasing the hours of work. As the reader statistics than gives them, but such facts as

led

upon.

Mr. Cotterill is unsparing in his denunciation of the Indian Civil Service examination. He thinks it a most dangerous strain to any schoolboy, and one apt to cause a weakness of mind and will, and therefore, of course, in governing power, in the case of the successful; while to the unsuccessful, who have had all the strain, plus the disappointment, it may be ruinous. "It is quite certain," he says,

"that any boy, not possessed of most unusually exceptional capacities, who passes the I.C.S. examination straight from school, has done violence to the principles of education which must prevail at any school where its members are to be robust and healthy. He must have worked his brain to a dangerous excess.'

those on p. 62 must be regarded as largely climatic, not as caused by "brain-competition." Set up what standard you will— moral, physical, or intellectual-so long as more people want to enter the Civil Service than there are vacancies in it, so long will there be a strain which will overwork some. If the world were to return to the genial plan of nomination, i. e. favouritism, the evil would remain-we all know "what hell it is in suing long to bide."

While, however, Mr. Cotterill has underrated the minds of intelligent youths, he rightly denounces the system of entrance scholarships, which produces little intellectual gladiators of twelve years old, engaged in internecine combat for " babyscholarships." Any one who could devise a plan for dealing with these endowments without either jobbing them or examining for them would be a benefactor to England; it is a pity Mr. Cotterill had not given a distinct scheme, for all admit the evil, and ardent thinkers like him should invent the remedy.

As to the question, at once so small and so great, of the “ tuck-shop at schools, Mr. Cotterill's compromise is hardly rational. He evidently would like to abolish it altogether, a course for which (in these days, when it is no longer a byway of escape from semi-starvation) there is much to be said. Failing this, he would forbid it till after dinner, make the head master regulate by his authority the articles of consumption, and "discourage" boys from getting anything at it between meals, except milk, bread, and fresh fruit. To which the reply is that you can govern boys as a man, or as a monk, or as a father, but not as a grandmother.

The last portion of the book is of better quality, more temperate, less whimsical. The remarks on self-help, intellectual and physical, are suggestive. Perhaps the evil of "cribs" is somewhat exaggerated. Their complete expulsion from a school can only be accomplished by pernicious espionage; the master may drive the "crib" into holes and corners, but he will not prevent its use thereby, but only add a sense of furtiveness to it. Yet beyond question Mr. Cotterill is right in denouncing the great amount of help of all kinds which boys receive. They lose the faculty of thinking and arguing out a passage by too much practice of mere listening and reading notes. Best of all is the chapter on "Exclusiveness," in which Mr. Cotterill lays hands vigorously on the peevish taint of social arrogance that infects our public schools. Whatever else they are, they are oligarchical to the core-to the detriment of themselves and the world. "Class schools," he calls them. For our own part, we think that only the development of day schools will cure this evil, and that by slow degrees. Mr. Cotterill hardly gives due weight here to the parental difficulty. We should like to see, as he would, public-school lads mowing their cricket ground, making it, digging as well as rowing, as Mr. Ruskin taught Oxford undergraduates to do, for a while; to see them shoulder to shoulder, in class and in play, with the lads of poorer parents. But it is impossible to disguise the fact that it is just to avoid this contact, these useful necessities, that parents will pay the great expenses of public schools.

3031, Nov. 28, '85

of their best exponent. 'Garvock' is of interest and incident, and is more of nance than nine-tenths of our common -telling. is unfortunate for Darley Dale's novel it begins with a misquotation on the page and a misprint in the first parah. Slips of this kind, though not imint in themselves, lead the reader to et carelessness in greater matters; and r Katherine' is not written with much or vigour. It is, no doubt, a respectstart for an unambitious author; but ackneyed subject of a fickle lover transng his worship from one sister to anr who is younger and more beautiful is ted without any redeeming power or inality. There is little shrewdness in drawing of character, and little skill in dling details. The main troubles of the oes and heroines of this story spring n their lack of candour; but the author not taken pains to show that they e characteristically uncandid folk. Their it of frankness is evidently based upon author's needs and motives, and not any sense upon the natural dispositions his personages. On those principles, of rse, it is easy for him to make everything a out well in the end. The easy style of book prevents it from being unreadable. Andromeda' is a story full of languid timent, which George Fleming now and n tries to heat into passion by means of oath or two added to the language of e of her characters. But the energy is obviously forced, and the men who perOs are meant to play Perseus and the nster remain mere reflections of Musset, ugh they do not appear even to have n enfants du siècle. The book is a tame ce of work, not, however, quite without ne pretty touches, and the author commits dreary sin of reciting the early history the characters, about which the reader is lifferent. Though it is natural to suppose it there cannot be an Andromeda without Perseus and without a monster, the story

guileless nature upon a guilty and harassed one is excellently illustrated in the relations which spring up between Lucy Wildsmith -the real heroine of the story, and a very gracious type of English girlhood-and Miss Montizambart. The curate himself, a figure destitute of romance, yet not wanting in simple dignity, affords the writer scope for the exercise of her gift of investing commonplace objects with a homely charm. In fine, Miss Montizambart' is a clever novel, containing some excellent genre painting and acute analysis of character, but overweighted by the oppressiveness of the central figure.

CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

The Vanished Diamond: a Tale of South Africa.
By Jules Verne. (Sampson Low & Co.)
The Rover of the Andes. By R. M. Ballantyne.
(Nisbet & Co.)

(Same author and pub

The Island Queen. lishers.) Ned in the Blockhouse. (Cassell & Co.) Camp-fire and Wigwam. publishers.)

By Edward S. Ellis.

(Same author and

In Perils Oft. By W. H. Davenport Adams. (Hogg.) Perils of the Deep. By E. N. Hoare. With

Map. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.)

A Bunch of Berries and the Diversions Thereof. By Leader Scott. (Griffith, Farran & Co.) True Stories of the Reign of Queen Victoria.

By

Cornelius Brown. (Same publishers.) For James or George, 1745. By the Rev. H. C. Adams. (Hodder & Stoughton.)

'THE VANISHED DIAMOND,' in the author's most sensational manner and profusely illustrated with the most thrilling pictures, is sure to be a favourite. The enterprising young French engineer who constructs a diamond of size and appearance far surpassing any natural gem has to pass through wondrous adventures with lions, elephants, giraffes, and Kaffirs, to say nothing of white ruffians of all nations, before the discovery of the missing diamond in the maw of an ostrich reconciles him to his niggardly father-in-law and secures to him the

heroine's hand.

'The Rover of the Andes,' in which the veteran author gives the result of careful study in his description of life in Peru and the Pampas, will not be less pleasing to youth because the usual friendly Indian and a disguised young lady, supposed by the hero at once to be a descendant of the Incas, make up the party of which the mysterious Rover is the head and an excellent negro, Quashy, what may be called

the tail.

ves no indication as to which of the men meant to represent either the one or the her; nor is there any trace of a fight tween Phineus and Perseus at the wedng. The heroine, in fact, has the pleasant rtune to be loved by three young men: e, whom she does not much care for, is lled by a fall; the second, a rich Italian arquis, becomes engaged to her, and then obly gives her up to the third on finding here her real preference lies. The plot of Miss Montizambart' has its urce in an act of parricide and a diseditable intrigue, to shelter which a rother adopts his sister's illegitimate son. here is nothing morbid or unwholesome 1 the treatment of this painful theme; but is surprising that a writer who has evilently a strong sense of humour and an ppreciation for the sunny side of life hould have chosen so depressing a means of enforcing her moral. Some pictures of illage life as it existed in the west of England about forty years ago form an agreeable contrast to the sombreness of the 'Camp-fire and Wigwam' introduces the friend main plot. The vicar, a valetudinarian of the palefaces once again; but this time the

'The Island Queen' relates the wreck of a brother and sister upon a convenient island, to which the accession of emigrants from another foundered ship adds a considerable population, of which Pauline Rigonda is made queen with a responsible government. The blowing up of the island by a volcano just when its inhabitants have left it is an original stroke.

'Ned in the Blockhouse' describes the rescue

even in our prosaic and materialistic ninethat" teenth century the Romantic is not very far from our path, and is easily to be found by

those that seek it."

Mr. Hoare's book on sea adventures is one that will rivet the attention of all aspirant bluejackets from ten to fourteen, and engage more seriously the interest of their parents. It is a selection from the misfortunes of the last hundred years-perhaps intended to lead up to some moral, but practically effective in the promotion of adventure only.

'A Bunch of Berries' is a pretty girls' book. Some children, whose ancestors have given them the surname of Berry, take to a natural system of "to-names "—Elderberry, Gooseberry, and the like. They are all as sweet as berries should be, and do a good deal of useful work, from their wholesome humanity, among less favoured girls and boys.

A collection of 'True Stories of the Reign of Queen Victoria' is an excellent idea, though the author's notion of the relative importance of events is hardly ours. Commonplace murders and little bits of ephemeral gossip are set down as fully as important European convulsions. Recent events, even such signal ones as Gordon's death, are related with impassive brevity. The book is none the less suited to its purpose for being impartial. The author is an optimist who believes steam and electricity have somehow We note benefited the moral nature of man. the Americanism "riding in a gig" as somewhat less than classical.

'For James or George,' dedicated to Admiral Robertson Macdonald, great-grandson of the Kinloch-Moidart of the '45, is an excellent boys' story, detailing the adventures of certain scholars at a grammar school in a northern county during that stirring period. The author has studied to much purpose the social habits of the time, and there is much that is interesting in the pictures of manners and institutions presented. The hero is condemned to death as a Jacobite, but is spared through his good fortune in having saved the Duke of Cumberland from highway

men.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

MESSRS. SAMPSON LOW & Co. have sent us The Life and Letters of John Brown, an elaborate biography of the anti-slavery champion by Mr. F. B. Sanborn, obviously compiled with great care, but so minute and full that it is scarcely likely to find readers in this country outside of a small circle of specialists. The same publishers send us Berlin Society, a translation by Miss M. Léonard of the celebrated 'Société de Berlin.'

MR. AINGER has published another volume of his pretty and convenient edition of Lamb's Works (Macmillan), containing Mrs. Leicester's School,' 'The Adventures of Ulysses,' &c. Mr. Ainger has annotated the volume in the same pleasant fashion as its predecessors.-Prof. Morley has added to the "Universal Library" (Routledge) an edition of The Essays of Elia, which is spoilt by the painfully small type employed.A handy reprint of Florio's Montaigne, from the same editor and publishers, suffers, though in a less degree, from the same defect. A useful glossary is appended.

an onslaught of Indians. The usual benevolent savage, Deerfoot the Shawanoe, is the deus ex

WE have received the reports of the followa sketch of the history of the library since its foundation; Bradford, which speaks of continued progress and success; and Swansea, in

absentee, is cleverly sketched, and our sym- Missouri. scene of action is shifted to the west of the pathy is at once enlisted for the household the series of stories, of which Footprints in the The same general features pervade of the hard-working curate in charge. The Forest' is the promised sequel. soothing influence exerted by a pure and

'In Perils Oft' is a fairly good book, showing

new building to accommodate the library and fine-art collections, both of which owe much to Mr. Deffett Francis.

WE have a quantity of Christmas and New Year cards on our table. Those of Messrs. Hildesheimer & Faulkner are notable for originality of design and general good taste.-The "Chromo View Cards" of Messrs. Nelson & Sons are a little harsh in colour, and they necessarily chal