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LITERATURE

BOOKS ON AFRICA.

to

authorized his travelling along the wellworn routes of his numerous predecessors, and his progress in the interior consequently resolved itself into a continuous struggle with the native men in power, who placed all kinds of obstacles in his way. His own 755 servants, at the same time, were a most 755 unpromising set, who considered that 756 plunder an infidel traveller was to perform a meritorious act." Yet in spite of these difficulties he contrived not only to visit the coast towns and the capital, of which he furnishes excellent descriptions, but also to cross the main range of the Atlas in four places, and to climb one of its loftiest summits, the Jebel Ogdimt, rising to a height of 12,734 ft. Standing upon that altitude, the highest as yet attained by any European in Northern Africa, he says: "The most varied and magnificent view presented along the entire range of the Atlas lay spread out before me. Immediately around the metamorphic rocks which run from the central mass of the range were cut into a wild series of gorges and glens, divided by sharp mountain spurs and ridges, here and there rising into snow-streaked peaks. Everywhere was desolation, barrenness, and preternatural stillness. Hardly a patch of green gave variety to the monotonous drifts of shaly débris and the jagged ribs of rock which protruded above the surface. It was only in the middle zone that dark masses of Callitris and stunted trees of the ever

763-768

768-769 769-770

Travels in the Atlas and Southern Morocco. By Joseph Thomson. Maps and Illustrations. (Philip & Son.)

The History of a Slave. By H. H. Johnston. Illustrated. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.) 4u Soudan Français: Souvenirs de Guerre et de Mission. Par le Capitaine É. Péroz. (Paris, Calmann Lévy.)

Flimpses of Feverland; or, a Cruise in West African Waters. By A. P. Crouch. (Sampson Low & Co.)

VHо can tell what would have happened f Portugal, instead of frittering away her esources upon the discovery of an ocean igh-road to India and the building up of n ephemeral colonial empire of colossal imensions, had in the fifteenth century oncentrated her efforts upon a conquest f Morocco, which lay at her very doors? he king who rules on the banks of he Tagus would not then have won the itle of "Lord of Guinea," but he might ustly bear that of ruler of the "Two Algarves," which at the present day only ecords a pious aspiration of the age of 'hivalry. It is, indeed, curious that Morocco, whose history is so closely conRected with that of Southern Europe, and yhich, at all events, could at one time boast f a certain degree of civilization, should ave sunk back into a state of barbarism, he like of which, Mr. Thomson tells us, is lot to be met with among the most barbarous races of Central Africa.

Lying within a week's sail of England, nd quite accessible as respects its coast owns, Morocco holds out great inducement o a tourist desirous of wandering from the eaten tracks; and Mr. Thomson proves hat it still yields substantial rewards to he scientific explorer who, discarding the omparative comforts of the coast, penetrates he wild recesses of the Atlas, and ventures mong the semi-independent Berber tribes ho people them. Considering that both Ir. Thomson and his young companion, ieut. Crichton-Browne, travelled openly as Europeans, their success has been something

boast of. But then Mr. Thomson is a raveller of experience, full of resource and etermination, and generally successful in ending to his will the most stubborn lements. The firman from the Sultan only

"Nothing strikes the stranger more forcibly than the evidences of grinding oppression under which the inhabitants groan. The half-starved, weather beaten, and scantily clad Arabs, living in squalid, conical thatched huts, are but little better than slaves, whilst the governors, though living for a time on the fat of the land, with well-stocked harems, and surrounded by numerous slaves and soldiers, their stables filled with fine horses and mules, their pastures rich in flocks and herds, are neither more nor less than human leeches, who for a brief season are allowed to suck the life-blood of the country, till, themselves full to bursting, they are drained by a more powerful blood sucker."

That the position of a despised race like the Jews should be the reverse of comfortable is only what might be expected. Mr. Thomson contrasts the " snow-white dresses and well-washed persons of the Moors" with the "brazen-faced and repulsively dirty women," ," the " greasy clothes, and indescribable filth of the Jewish quarters, where 66 we look in vain for one redeeming feature, one object on which our eyes may rest with some sense of pleasure." Judaism in Morocco, he tells us, has become petrified, and the Jew will break almost any of the ten commandments "without exception, rather than violate a ceremonial observance."

Mr. Thomson denies that this moral and physical degradation of the Jews is due to the "oppression of to-day ":

"They are, take them altogether, much better provided with this world's goods than the Moors, who have their streets clean and their houses

wholesome and healthy. In Demnat they are not even confined in a Mellah, and are under no restrictions about the removal of filth. The only explanation is that work the Jews will not except to bring in money. And yet they wonder why God punishes them-His chosen peoplewith every possible ophthalmic disease, while their hated neighbours, whom surely He has doomed to everlasting perdition, are free from similar troubles."

Mr. Thomson allows that the Jews dwelling in the Atlas are "as much deserving of commiseration as ever they were," and takes care to state that these unfavourable descriptions only apply to the Jews in the Mellahs of Moorish towns, and not to the "European" Jews, between whom and their less fortunate co-religionists"there is nothing in common except their religion and their thirst for gold."

In power of description and humour this book ranks high above Mr. Thomson's previous publications; and its numerous illustrations of scenery, architecture, and native types form a most attractive and instructive feature.

'The History of a Slave' is a work of fiction based upon every-day occurrences in the Dark Continent, and well ealculated to bring home to the reader the social condition of heathen and Mohammedan Africa, and the horrors of the domestic slave trade. The hero of the story belongs to a tribe on the Upper Calabar river. He was captured by Fulbe, and passed from hand to hand until he finally reached the coast of the Mediterranean, where the author made his acquaintance. What strikes us most in this story is the almost entire absence of true and abiding affection, the utter callousness in the presence of human suffering, and the disregard of human life, whether among pagans or Mohammedans. It is a dismal story, which brings home to us the utter degradation of the black race more forcibly than do detached incidents in an ordinary book of travel.

The progress made by the French in Senegambia has attracted but little notice in France, and still less in this country; yet the foundations for a colonial empire are supposed to have been laid there. French posts have been established on the Upper Niger; Khayes, the new capital of this "Soudan Français," has grown into a large town; and the native rulers of the territories lying at the back of the Gambia and of Sierra Leone have placed themselves under the protection of the French, thus shutting out our possessions from all direct communication with the interior of the country. A similar fate appears to threaten our settlements on the Gold Coast. Capt. E. Péroz, who took an active share in the "glorious battles" and negotiations which laid the foundations of this empire noir, tells his story in the volume whose title we give above. His book is worth perusing. It is thoroughly honest, by no means chauvinistic, and introduces the reader into a part of Africa which, though largely laid open by British explorers, has of late years been permitted almost to sink into oblivion.

ut Mr. Lumby's article, in his glossary to Higden, is certainly wrong. Cp. Adam Muriauth of Edward III. dictus antonomatice loriosus,' though Hog (p. 225) alters the text to autonomatice.'

We need not deny that there has here been confusion between the two spellings, both n the manuscripts and in the printed texts; ut the point of interest is, what did the Ford really mean? Antonomasia (we quote quintilian's noun) is the use of an epithet or a proper name, as when one says "the onqueror of Carthage" for "Scipio "; and I may be admitted that this sense will suit 1e usage of the medieval adverb in many ises, for example, when Otto of Freisingen ys "autonomasice Paulum solemus vocare postolum" (De Gest. Frid.,' i. 53). But hn of Salisbury, however he spelled the ord, seems to have understood it as deved from aut-, not ant-. "Aristoteles," he tys, "......antonomatice, id est, excellenter, hilosophus appellatur "(Metalog.,' ii. 16). hen further arises the question, Why does r. Thomas cite Dr. Lumby's glossary? Why did he not go to Ducange, where he ight have read, "Illustrissime domine rex lus......regnans authonomatice et imperans uiete"? However derived, it seems clear at medieval writers took the word to ean "in a special sense or "in a peculiar egree," very nearly equivalent to KaT' Foxv, or, as John of Salisbury said, "exllenter." But even if we were to arrive a different conclusion as to the spelling nd derivation of the word, we should by means be justified in stating that very | ne else was (( certainly wrong.' The explanatory notes are sometimes of is type:"Bononiam] Bologna was one of he great universities of the middle ages." ut many, as has been said, give evidence a good deal of industry, though Mr. homas's zeal is commonly not equal to his iscretion, nor his knowledge to his zeal; or when a passage in § 95 clamours for an xplanation from St. Gregory's 'Moralia,' ae editor entirely fails us. He_verifies ishop Bury's quotations in the Vulgate, nd then gives the reference with the Vulate numbers and the English names. For istance, his "1 Kings xvii. 40" means the julgate 1 Reg. xvii. 40, but the English Sam. xvii. 40. This is hard upon the eneral reader, who ought surely to have een informed that as "1 Kings" does ot mean what we call 1 Kings, so "Ps. xxix. 18" does not mean what we call 's. xxxix. 18, but Ps. xl. 17.

"Since this Introduction was in type, Mr. E. Maunde Thompson has called my attention to a remarkable account of De Bury in a passage of Adam Murimuth, which has never yet been printed and has been overlooked by all the Bishop's biographers. If it is to be accepted, it not only confirms the doubt I have suggested as to the establishment of the contemplated Oxford library, but supports the view that De Bury did not himself write the 'Philobiblon,' and may indeed seriously modify our estimate of his character."

Now we have a clear recollection of having titled Was Richard de Bury an Impostor?' once seen a privately printed pamphlet, enresting upon precisely the same evidence as that described above as having come to hand after the introduction was printed, and bearing Mr. Thomas's signature and the date "May, 1888." It is hard to explain how sheets dated October should be in type before sheets dated May. However this may be, we cannot but express our surprise that Mr. Thomas should attach to the new evidence the importance which he does. Surely there was scandal current in the fourteenth century. What should we say Sir Robert Morier who should take his to a biographer of Prince Bismarck or of Review or the Kölnische Zeitung? leading evidence from the Contemporary

DANTE LITERATURE.

The Textual Criticism of the Divina Commedia. By E. Moore, D.D. (Cambridge, University Press.)

The Banquet (il Convito) of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Katharine Hillard. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.)

Dante: a Dramatic Poem. By Héloïse Durant. (Same publishers.)

THE year 1289 was, as all students of Dante know, an important one in the history of his life, and specially important in the impression which its events seem to have made on his mind, and which in due course left its trace on many passages of his poem. The year in which the six centuries from that date are completed looks as if it were to be no less of a landmark in the history of the study of his works. It has given us the first complete concordance of his great poem, the first really scholarly attempt at establishing the text of it on a scientific principle, and the first adequate English translation of his most important prose work. The last, of course, is mainly of interest to English-speaking people; but the works of Dr. Fay and Dr. Moore will henceforth be indispensable parts of the student's equipment whatever may be his mother tongue; and English-speaking people—those, at least, for whom the masterpieces of literature have any significance-may feel proud that such important aids to the comprehension of one of the greatest of the masterpieces have been produced by scholars of their blood and speech. Of Dr. Fay's book we spoke some weeks ago. Dr. Moore's has been kept too long waiting; but a book of the kind is not read in a day, nor, indeed, in a good many days. It is a volume for the student to have at his elbow and consult as he goes along; not one to be estimated on either a desultory perusal or a chance sampling. The reviewer, however, unless he is to defer all notice of the work until he has had time to edit Dante with its aid, must

rely on one or other of these methods, or thus we may first give some little account a judicious mixture of both. Proceeding of the structure of the book.

It begins with forty-six pages of "Prolegomena, in which are discussed general questions of the laws governing textual criticism, the causes which have tended to produce variants, and so forth. Among the more interesting results of Dr. Moore's investigations the following may be noted. "Corruption of the text began at a point tary, and probably took place in the first anterior to any existing MS. or commencopies of ? from] the autograph itself." "No existing MS. or group of MSS. stands out as possessing pre-eminent or indisputable authority." "The character and relationship of a MS. differ in different parts of the poem." Nobody who has looked at many MSS. of Dante can have, we should have thought, any doubt on the last point. The reason we take to be not so much that "a scribe copied different canti or cantiche from different exemplars," but that in many cases several scribes were set to work on one copy, perhaps as several compositors now work on one book. This, of course, would render that division of MSS. into families, of which Witte and Scartazzini have dreamt, impossible for any practical purpose of estimating their respective. authority.

Next follow a few pages on the "mechanical" difficulties, as they may be called, of collation, arising from the fact that two scribes may in many cases have written the same letters when they intended different words, and vice versa; then the whole of the first Cantica with a statement of the various readings met with in the collation of all the MSS., nineteen in number, at Oxford and Cambridge, and notes thereon. We do not quite understand why Dr. Moore has taken Witte's text as a standard, and recorded variations from it, instead of constructing his own text. Witte's text is a good one, no doubt, but being based on a very few MSS. it has no sort of claim (which, indeed, its learned compiler never put forward on its account) to finality. The result of this is that we more than once find a reading given in the text and discarded in the notes, after the somewhat perplexing fashion of the early commentators. For example, no one can have the least doubt that in 'Inf.,' v. 64, 65, 67, vedi is the right reading, the lines forming part of Virgil's words. Without this the change of structure in the whole passage would be very clumsy. Dr. Moore, too, says in his note: "I am strongly inclined to prefer vedi "; but for all that, the reader sees the feeble vidi installed in the place of honour. Here, it appears to us, is clearly one of those cases where "the superior elegance or taste of a reading......bears upon the question of its originality". cases which some will venture to think occur rather oftener than Dr. Moore is inclined to allow. It would be almost as safe for us or our descendants to fix the reading of a passage in Browning by the aid of a pupil-teacher's paraphrase, or to emend Victor Hugo after a schoolgirl's dictation, as to rely on the bare evidence of fourteenth or fifteenth century copyists and commentators for the text of a locus salebrosus in Dante. The argument, or illus

66

tration, from Bentley's treatment of Milton cuts both ways; indeed, it is not quite clear which way Dr. Moore means it to cut. We should be inclined to say that those worthy persons were often the Bentleys, without Bentley's equipment of learning, who altered the text to suit their own fancy; and that the modern textual critic is in a great measure bound to maintain that the reading selected on critical grounds as probably original is the best possible on literary and artistic grounds," or at any rate to hesitate long before admitting on critical grounds any reading which does not fulfil the latter condition, so long as there is any which does fulfil it, and which the ductus litterarum will in any reasonable degree support. Dante may trip sometimes, but on the whole we can trust his artistic instinct much further than the intelligence or the taste of his early admirers.

The text of the 'Inferno' with the various readings occupies about two hundred and fifty pages of Dr. Moore's book. The next division, exceeding it in bulk by a few pages, is occupied by a collation and discussion of nearly two hundred passages selected from the entire poem; and this is the part which will probably attract most readers. Passages in which there is an important variation in the reading are naturally apt to involve also some obscurity of meaning or some grammatical peculiarity. In order, therefore, to treat effectively of the text it is necessary to go pretty fully into questions of interpretation; and thus the portion of Dr. Moore's book of which we are now speaking forms a most valuable commentary on nearly all the more difficult passages of the poem (it is to be regretted that he has said nothing about Par.' xxiii. 67 and xxvii. 100, two places where the light of intelligent criticism is eminently required). As specimens of careful work, and good examples of the clearness and fulness of Dr. Moore's exposition, we may call attention to the notes on 'Inf.' v. 102, 'Purg.' xxi. 61, 'Par.' ii. 141.

Of course, in a commentary on a manysided author like Dante it will be impossible for the most acute and astute commentator to keep all his readers at all times in agreement with him, and there are several points which we should like to argue with Dr. Moore, if this were the time and place. Where, however, he especially shows his quality is in the rarity-unsurpassed, so far as we know, by any of his predecessors-of those lapses into actual inaccuracy from which no fallible mortal can hope to be wholly free. Perhaps the principal one which we have noted—and that merely verbal—is on p. xvi, "The......use of parte ='forthwith." This, of course, should be "meanwhile," as in 'Inf.' xxix. 16, in sundry places in Petrarch, and elsewhere. On p. 467 "tonda" is several times written by mistake for lunga, which, it need not be said, is the real alternative to altra in the passages under discussion. On p. 678 there is, if we mistake not, an error in the decipherment of a MS. note in one of the codices, referring to its expurgation as required by the Spanish Index' the the common fate of all copies of the poem which found their way into Spanish territory during the seventeenth century. To judge from a copy of the Padua edition of 1629 which has been subjected to similar treat

ment, and is now before us, the word which Dante himself on other points) she moditDr. Moore writes ibiq (?) is really the date this view later. Also she does not seem of the expurgation, probably 1659. In see that the odes or canzoni, on which referring to the same subject on p. xix we 'Convito' purports to be a commentar notice that he has allowed the dates 1519, may have been, and in all probability we 1514, to stand, when the context shows written long before the prose treatises clearly that in each case a hundred years which they serve as text, so that no in later is meant. On one or two occasions ences as to the date of the work can the term "fourteenth century" is used drawn from any points in them. The where a date between 1400 and 1500 is definite facts we have are that certain par meant, a blunder to which students of of it were undoubtedly written before se Italian literature are especially liable. tain parts of the Commedia,' and These small points pretty well exhaust our may be gleaned now and then from aldr criticism in this direction. to contemporary facts and people. Nearly two hundred pages are occupied question of "the nature of Beatrice," ::. by an account of the MSS. which Dr. Moore Miss Hillard shows a tendency to run af has examined or collated. To denote them paradoxical theories, and not to realize t he has had to use up four alphabets and force of the evidence for the plain and t numbers up to 119, besides a few miscel- mon-sense opinion that Beatrice wa laneous symbols-a fact which may give woman whom Dante had loved in his you some idea of the indefatigable way in which She seems to think that Benvenuto, he has worked. Of course De Batines cata- example, must have got all his knowle logued and to some extent described most, of the matter from Boccaccio, quite forg though not all, of these; but he approached ting that Dante was a famous person; the task from the point rather of the biblio- Benvenuto must have seen and talked grapher than of the scholar. It is to be people who had seen and talked to Dan hoped that Dr. Moore may be able to find and knew the whole story of his life, w leisure to complete the collation of the en- in a gossiping city like Florence is 1 tire poem, and that the Syndics of the Cam-likely to have been a secret; and that if h bridge University Press, who have covered let the usual story stand, it was no do themselves with credit by undertaking the because he knew it to be true. It may b publication of the present work, may not added that much cannot be said for the i have their hands too full with editions of stinct of any one who can read cantos I odd books of Cæsar and Xenophon, with and xxxi. of the 'Purgatory,' and still dee 'Lazare Hoches' and 'Karavanes' in usum Beatrice to have been an allegorical pe juventutis, to perform the same office for its sonage, denoting philosophy. successor. It should be added that the book concludes with five appendices on various points, whereof that by Mr. Tozer on the metre of the Divina Commedia' will-though it is not easy wholly to agree with all its statements and conclusions-be probably of most service to the general reader. Dr. Moore's own, on Dante's references to classical authors, is interesting, but deserves to be extended.

The next book on our list we are disposed to welcome rather as a symptom of progress in the "popularization" of Dante than as a very important contribution to the study of his works. That two translations of the Convito' should appear within a few months, both from feminine hands, certainly shows that there must somewhere be a considerable number of students who are working at their Dante seriously; and the great improvement which the second displays as compared with the first is also an encouraging sign. Miss Hillard's translation is, indeed, most creditable. Unlike her predecessor she has in most cases really mastered her author's meaning; and her renderings, if sometimes a little slipshod, usually convey the sense of the original pretty faithfully. In i. 5 she is wrong in her rendering of pronto by "consummate," and the passage which she quotes from the Commedia in illustration of it does not bear her out; nor does the Cruscan dictionary support her in the statement that many old writers use the word in that sense. On the vexed question of the date or dates at which the 'Convito' was written she says a good deal, but hardly shows a she says a good deal, but hardly shows a grasp of the evidence. She seems at one place to think that any opinion which Dante expresses in the Commedia' he must be taken to have held in 1300, the date at which the action of the poem is placed; though (like

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The notes are copious, and at first sight suggest considerable research-a sugges tion, we regret to say, somewhat weakened when we compare them with Giuliani's, and observe in how many cases Miss Hillard bas been led into error by a careless following of that somewhat unsafe guide: thus, iii. 5. "the Greek antichthon, the antipodes." I a previous chapter of the same book passages from Boethius are quoted by both commentators with precisely the same ders. In a note to iii. 15 Giuliani mak an unfounded statement to the effect tis in the Hell' and 'Purgatory' Dante to look at Virgil's eyes; Miss Hillard peats it with perfect confidence. As a ma of fact, Virgil is only once mentioned s turning his eyes on Dante, and that is jus at the end of his mission; and every te who has read the poem carefully must have noticed this curious difference in the meanour of Dante's two guides.

But Miss Hillard is, we fear, not capable of making her own blunders. T she speaks of a well-known German mentator, who surely was far from all volutionary activity, as Louis Blanc: & gives Ecclesiasticus and omits the F in naming the books of the Bible fr which Dante "drew so much of his inspira tion"; and in a note to iv. 29 she contrive in less than three lines to misstate two fa and draw one wrong inference. “Dante, she says, "puts him [Juvenal] in the Past Limbo of Purgatory, as the bearer of afe tionate messages from Statius to which shows that he was ignorant of t survival of Juvenal." The truth appears be that she has started with an exaggera idea of the advantages to be obtained "several years' residence in Italy and int course with intelligent Italians."

Ital

intelligence is no doubt great, but it is long since it has been exercised in the direction of accurate scholarship; nor would several years' residence in Italy do much more for a student of Dante than would several years' residence in Kent for a student of Chaucer. The study of Aristotle and Aquinas, and of what Miss Hillard calls "the essays of Plato and Cicero," is more to the purpose, and for that we fancy Oxford offers greater Facilities than Florence. However, this transation deserves commendation as a gallant ttempt; and if it helps to make people ealize that Dante was no less the first great rose-writer than the first great poet of nodern Europe, it will not be without its

eward.

Miss Durant's work is also an attempt, out one which it is not quite possible to view vith the same approval. Of course she is prompted by a laudable motive, that of onouring Dante by making him the hero of dramatic poem; but we cannot help feeling hat a kind of profanity is committed when a great man is used in this way. If it be not Forofane to say so, the writer who puts anguage of his own into the mouth of a Shakspeare, a Dante, or a Milton seems to be in danger of incurring the judgment Sronounced in the last chapter of the Apocaypse against those who add to the words of this book." Possibly in Boston, Massahusetts, they hold that the canon is not et closed. For the rest it may be said that Miss Durant knows her Dante fairly well though we hardly think that Dante could have been called "a lion among the learned" st the time of the battle of Campaldino); that he is orthodox on the Beatrice question; hat she thinks Gemma was probably better han later times have supposed; that she is follower of the late Dean of Westminster n holding that Alfred founded Oxford Jniversity, and of the present Dean of Vells in believing that Dante visited it; and hat she takes Mr. Browning rather than he Elizabethans as her model for dramatic omposition. Many people will probably ead her drama with pleasure.

NOVELS OF THE WEEK.

Prince Roderick. By James BrinsleyRichards. 3 vols. (Bentley & Son.) With Everything against Her. By Col. Cuthbert Larking. 3 vols. (Hurst & Blackett.) The Search for Basil Lyndhurst. Ry Rosa Nouchette Carey. 3 vols. (Bentley & Son.)

MR. BRINSLEY-RICHARDS, who now assumes 'he responsibilities of authorship in conhexion with The Duke's Marriage,' has roduced in 'Prince Roderick' perhaps not 50 good a novel, but undoubtedly an even nore entertaining and vivacious romance han his first venture in the domain of iction. The romantic and tragic episodes n the lives of certain foreign potentates during the last decade have obviously Furnished him with much of his material, but he has so adroitly shuffled and dovetailed he real with the imaginary that, except In the case of a few minor figures, he is in no danger of coming under the condemnation which so often justly applies to workers in "portrait" fiction. Moral-hunters will be disconcerted by 'Prince Roderick,' for while perfectly unobjectionable it is emi

nently non-moral; but pleasure-seekers will find their reward in its pages, which are full of sparkle and life. There is abundance of satire in Mr. Brinsley-Richards's novel, but it is of that tolerant kind which suggests a lurking sympathy for the object satirized. He tilts at everybody in a spirit of impartial, but cheerful cynicism, from the prince who never could see any harm in what he did down to his secretary's soldier servant addicted to the use of hair dye. He is sincerely fond of his heroine, but he scruples not to describe her as reduced to a state of imbecility by her love for a weak and eccentric Hamlet of the nineteenth century. Mr. Brinsley-Richards is no respecter of persons. All ranks and creeds and races are ridiculed alike. The canvas is perhaps overcrowded with figures, and few are drawn without a touch of caricature. The author's sole aim has probably been to amuse, and in this he has been signally successful, though such success cannot be attained without prejudice to the verisimilitude of the story. Life is not altogether made up of the unforeseen, and the constant and kaleidoscopic mutability of the characters in Prince Roderick,' coupled with the strongly farcical nature of several of the incidents therein recorded, gives the whole book a fantastic and unreal colouring. This is most notable in the case of the truly chameleonic prince who gives his name to the romance, and about whom it is difficult to avoid the surmise that the author has shifted his ground in the course of the story. There is certainly nothing in the whole course of the narrative to prepare us for the cowardice which he is represented as displaying in the last scene, or for the disconcerting suspicion which the author there implants in the minds of his readers that he was after all implicated in the strange and mysterious murder on which the plot so largely depends. It is almost as though Mr. Brinsley-Richards had fallen back on this as a justification for the tragic episode in which the story ends, and which would then illustrate in the case of the heroine the truth of the maxim "Those whom the gods love die young." Although the prevailing tone of the story is comic, or even farcical, the few serious incidents which occur are handled with sincerity and force, though, as a rule, the author prefers to extricate his characters from their difficulties by a ludicrous rather than a tragic exit. This tendency is markedly exhibited in the case of the narrator, whose irrepressible capacity for flirtation, arising from his

gullible faith in woman,' ," is illustrated half a dozen times over with great humour. The history of his attachment to the Princess Dorothea and the picture of that captivating, but heartless damsel are admirably done. Mr. Brinsley-Richards has the trick of investing his characters with a whimsical and airy caprice which renders them attractive in spite of their lack of all solid qualities and virtues. The book is full of good sayings. Here is one of a Lady Churchbury, a woman mad upon charities: "She would have sold her own husband into slavery for the mere pleasure of raising a subscription to buy him back." The minor personages Montenegrins, Bulgarians, German students and opera-singers, court chaplains, and party politicians are drawn

with a vigour and skill only possible to one who has seen a good deal of continental life and studied it in a sympathetic spirit.

Col. Larking is a well-intentioned chronicler, but he is ungrammatical in several languages, and there is not enough in his plot to redeem him from the charge of being more than a little commonplace. It is obvious to the least experienced novel-reader that the hero is not intended to be slain in the desert, and the reader is not surprised that he should turn up at Suakim, having slipped through the hands of the Mahdi, Osman Digma, and the rest. Our author writes well enough on this branch of his subject, though the artifice employed is anything but original; and the several married couples are left at the close of three volumes in the enjoyment of every felicity.

6 The

In the character of Olga Leigh, a young dreamer of dreams who is a centre of attraction and affection to all her friends, and who narrates the principal part of Search for Basil Lyndhurst, Miss Carey has made for herself an altera ego, through whom she speaks much that is gentle and womanly and refined. Olga is almost too bright and good for human nature's daily food; she is everybody's confidante; she helps and charms everybody; she could marry every single young man if she were so minded. But she is moderate, and draws the line. Basil Lyndhurst is the son of one of her friends, who, not long after her marriage to a handsome rascal, flees from him in desperation, and-the weakest point in the story-deserts her infant. Basil's father disposes of the boy, and subsequently dies, leaving no clue behind him. The search is renewed; and by the time that Basil is found he has made an unfortunate marriage on his own account. All these matters are told in detail, with many a happy and delicate touch. The gist of the novel remains behind; Basil's disappearance is only an incident. For any one who loves the exceeding sweet in fiction, with a mere pretence of gall, Miss Carey's three volumes may furnish a decided treat.

THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

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Epochs of Church History.-Wycliffe and Movements for Reform. By Reginald Lane Poole, M.A. (Longmans & Co.)-Very few words ought to be requisite to recommend to the attention of readers-and especially of students-the work which Mr. Reginald Lane Poole has contributed to the "Epochs of Church History." Mr. Poole, though he disclaims original treatment in all the other parts of his subject, is well known as a most careful student of Wycliffe's life and writings, and editor for the Wyclif Society of the treatise 'De Dominio Civili.' If, therefore, we look upon Wycliffe as the central movements for reform figure in a series of during the Middle Ages, no man is better qualified to interpret for us the cardinal doctrine which that leading Reformer was most anxious to enforce. The question, however, may very well arise, after a diligent perusal of all that Mr. Poole has got to tell us, whether this is a true view of Wycliffe's position after all. As a thinker he seems hardly equal to Ockham; less, according to Mr. Poole's showing, can he be placed on the same level with Marsiglio of Padua, whose successor he more strictly was. He lived in an age of debased scholasticism, and his logic was dry, tedious, and unsatisfactory. He used it, Mr. Poole himself remarks, as the buttress of his arguments, not as their

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