conspicuous figures, the studious and very unusual silence maintained by Franklin suggests to the editor that he must have had some political plans in view. Mr. Hale notes the interesting fact that only a year or two before Franklin's visit, Adam Smith had formed that personal acquaintance with Quesnay to which we are undoubtedly indebted for "The Wealth of Nations." Mr. Hale brings down the story of Franklin's life in France to the close of 1781, the year of Yorktown. A question of particular interest relates to the extent of Franklin's prevision of the French Revolution, which was to begin only eight years later. We have found no proof in the letters printed in this volume that he foresaw the dissolution of the Bourbon monarchy. We encounter no criticism, even of a friendly kind, on the shocking fiscal blunders of the Ancien Régime, to which we might have expected a man of Franklin's business aptitudes to be specially alive. When Marie Antoinette herself was partner in a faro bank, it might have been supposed that Franklin would have been impressed by some of the thousand indications that the state was drifting fast toward bankruptcy. The general effect produced on the mind by this correspondence is that, while Franklin's cordial reception by the philosophers was of service to his country, and made him an efficient agent for the immediate end in view, yet his observations were confined to superficial phenomena, and there was absolutely nothing of the prophet in him.

39.66

Although Mr. Laurence Oliphant is an Englishman, his letters* descriptive of life in modern Palestine may, from one point of view, be considered to belong to American literature, since they were first published in the New York Sun, and are now only accessible in a collective form to the readers of the volume edited by Mr. Charles A. Dana. The observations here recorded are those, not of a visitor, but of a resident, of a man, too, who can interpret the present by the past, because, without professing to be a professional archæologist or philologist, he is thoroughly conversant with the results of recent archæological and philological research. Mr. Oliphant speaks from a full mind, and his pen moves with the vivacity and the exactitude of a long-practiced writer. The reader will thank us for directing his attention to the topics of peculiar interest discussed in chapters on "the Sea of Galilee in the Time of Christ," The Scene of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," "Capernaum and Chorazin,” and “Traditional Sites at Jerusalem." But, perhaps, we cannot better illustrate in this passing notice the charm and value of the combined results of patient personal inspection and of extensive scholarship, than by marking some of the data brought out in two chapters on the "Sacred Samaritan Records" and "The Ten Lost Tribes," How few of the persons, who suppose themselves tolerably well informed about the history and the present state of Palestine, are aware that at Nablous lingers to this day a remnant of the Samaritans, though it now numbers no more than one hundred and sixty souls. The author may well pronounce this remarkable community, considered as an ethnological survival of antiquity, the most interesting group of people extant. In their synagogue, Mr. Oliphant was allowed to see their ancient Thorah, or book of the law, which, as these Samaritans believe, preserves the most authentic text of the Mosaic injunctions, as they were expounded and obeyed when the whole nation of the Israelites still worshiped on Mount Gerizim. Of the three other sacred books known to be in the possession of the Samaritans, the author points out that one, the Samaritan book of Joshua, fills a notable lacuna in the Judaic book of the same name, and furnishes an account of the conquest of Samaria, which, it will be remembered, is lacking in the record transmitted in the Hebrew Bible. We should add that in Haifa, or Life in Modern Palestine, edited with introduction by Charles A. Dana. Harper and Brothers.

the second of the two chapters now under our eye, Mr. Oliphant gives cogent reasons for believing that the Samaritans of the times of Christ and of Josephus were the lineal representatives of the ten tribes mistakenly described as "lost." There is, indeed, an inherent probability in Mr. Oliphant's suggestion that Sargon's treatment of the conquered Israelites would correspond to Nebuchadnezzar's subsequent treatment of Judah and Benjamin ; that is to say, he would carry off the rich and influential families, and leave behind the poorer classes, who were not worth deportation. It appears, too, that, according to a Samaritan tradition, not less than three hundred thousand exiles, belonging to the ten tribes, and representing their sacerdotal and social aristocracy, returned under Sanballat to Gerizim at the same time when the descendants of the captives, who had been thought worthy of conveyance to Babylon, repaired, under Zerubbabel, to Jerusalem.

Of the five volumes* edited by Messrs. Matthews and Hutton, three, at all events, may be classed with propriety under American literature, since the authors of the several biographies contained in them are, as a rule, Americans, and since the subjects, for the most part, spent the largest, or at least the most successful part of.their professional careers on the American stage. When we mention that the sketch of the elder Booth was drawn by his celebrated son, that the memoirs of Edwin Booth himself, of Edwin Forrest, and of Macready, were penned by Mr. Lawrence Barrett, and that the lives of James W. and Lester Wallack and of John McCullough are depicted by Mr. William Winter, we have said enough to indicate the care taken by the editors to secure not only competent, but sympathetic delineation. Among the scores of contributions from well nigh as many hands which make up these five volumes, there is not one which is not readable, or which fails to give the precise sort of information which the reader of the book expects. But we should not omit, in the most cursory notice, to recognize the high literary level reached by the articles on Frances Kemble, on Mr. Lawrence Barrett, on Mr. Joseph Jefferson, and upon Miss Ellen Terry.

Although Mr. Heilprin's portrayal of the past and present dissemination of animalst is not, of course, a contribution to literature, it is an American contribution to science, and, therefore, may claim notice here. Besides, in the application of technical acquirements to the special end in view, the author has exhibited the literary qualities of well-ordered arrangement and lucidity, and has, therefore, carried out the popularizing purpose of the series to which his volume appertains. There are books, no doubt, like that of Mr. Wallace, which deal efficiently with the geographical distribution of living species, and there are other books which offer a tolerably exhaustive conspectus of paleontological data. The specific merit of this work is the collocation of both classes of facts, which, of course, powerfully help to interpret one another. By way of exemplifying the light cast by the study of fossils on the evolution and characters of existing types, we would particularly draw the reader's attention to Mr. Heilprin's account of the horse, the dog, the cat, and the higher varieties of anthropoid apes, which are collectively known as troglodytes. The author has no occasion within the limits of his inquiry to declare his opinion regarding the descent of man, and his reticence upon the subject will expand rather than contract the field of his essay's usefulness in our schools and colleges.

*Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States. Edited by Brander Matthews and Laurence Hutton. 5 vols. Cassell & Co.

+ The Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals, by Angelo Heilprin. International Scientific Series. D. Appleton & Co.

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