the

not disagree with the idea"; but he had a scheme of his own, and "needless to say, this scheme was entirely futile." When at length the principal adviser of the Ottoman army, with a repeating rifle and a variety of trophies taken from the enemy, fell into the hands of the Greek navy, the treatment he experienced can only be described as admirably generous. The capture was, however, a great advantage to Greek cause, since Sir Ellis was enabled to express his at much length to the King, and his "plan "sentiments in almost all its details met with his Majesty's approval, and in some points his cordial approval.' At Constantinople the author was received with a distinction which, as he points out, is not always accorded to Ambassadors; but although the Sultan "seemed gratified " as was certainly natural, the plau' While was less favourably received than at Athens. "The Battlefields of Thessaly "cannot be said to add to the sum of our political or military knowledge, transparent simplicity and unconscious humour combine to render it distinctly attractive. Unfortunately nothing is quite so simple as the Eastern question and the conduct of military operations appear

66

to Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett.

The second and enlarged edition of Brigadier-General Hart's excellent "Reflections on the Art of War" is a welcome addition to military literature. In breadth of handling, sound common-sense, and wide research, the book supplies a needed antidote to some modern tendencies. There is a school which appears to regard the lessons of the FrancoGerman War as all-suflicing, and seeks to base military teaching upon the academic analysis of selected episodes. Colonel Hart, on the other hand, recognizes fully that the first object should be to inculcate principles, that circumstances never exactly repeat themselves, and that the ancient masters of the art of war have not been dethroned by the adoption of magazine rifles. If Napoleon could learn from Cæsar, Scipio, and Hannibal, so can we, and it might be fairly argued that the conditions under which the British Army is accustomed to make war approximate more closely to those of the old world than to the exigencies upon which German science has been brought to bear. It is, therefore, a philosophy of war which the author endeavours to construct by grouping copious references to the experience of all ages. It results that a sense of scale is introduced in military operations, that history replaces tactical exegesis, and that moral qualities assume the enormous importance to which they are entitled. Colonel Hart even includes an interesting chapter on "The Fortune of War," in which he shows that accident may ruin the best-laid plans of the general and determine the issue of a campaign. Here and there a quotation might perhaps have been qualified with advantage. The general," wrote Lord Wolseley, "who cannot, in his mind's eye, see before him the whole scene that some projected operations will present, who cannot, as it were, picture to himself, in a series of mental dissolving views, all the various and progressive phases of, say, an attack on an enemy's position, lacks a natural quality which no amount of study can supply." It is evident that no general, however brilliant, can possess this " natural quality "except in the most limited degree. Who could possibly have pictured in a series of dissolving views the "phases" of the attack of the positions at Waterloo, Wörth, or Gravelotte? What study will enable the imagination to foresee the tumultuous movements of masses of men spread over miles of country-movements liable to be modified or arrested at any moment by the enemy's action or by that of subordinate commanders? Only in a formal advance, undertaken on a small front in open ground against an enemy who may be counted upon to remain passive, can successive phases be conjured up to form a mental picture. As an introduction to the study of war and a summary of principles which lie at the root of the effective conduct of military operations nothing could be better than these "Reflections."

LAW BOOKS.

(1) Ruling Cases; arranged, annotated, and edited by Robert Campbell, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, and Advocate of the Scotch Bar, assisted by other members of the Bar; with American notes by Irving Browne. Vols. I. to XII. (Abandonment-Indemnity). Price 25s. net per vol. Addenda, Table of Cases, and Index to Vols. I. to X. Price 20s. net. London, Stevens and Sons, Ltd.

(2) The Law of Torts. By Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. 5th Edition. London, Stevens and Sons, Ltd. 1897. Price 25s

(3) Rogers on Elections. Vol. I. Registration, Parliamentary, Municipal, and Local Government, including the Practice in Registration Appeals, with Appendices, &c. 16th Edition. By Maurice Powell, Barrister-at-Law, one of the Revising Barristers on the South-Eastern Circuit. London, Stevens and Sons, Ltd., 1897. Price 21s.

Mr. Campbell's RULING CASES (1) is one of the most ambitious and ought to be, when it is complete, one of the most generally useful legal works which the present century has produced. The leading case method of exhibiting the theory and practice of the law has always been a popular one with the legal profession and with legal authors both in this country and in America. But with the exceptions of Comyns' Digest, the last edition of which was published in 1822, and, to some slight extent, Saunders' Reports, of which the latest edition appeared in 1845, no one has attempted to Cover the vast field of English law quite on the lines on which Mr. Campbell is working. Most of his forerunners have confined their attention to special departments of law. This is the characteristic, for example, of such well-known standard treatises as Smith, White and Tudor, and Finch. Again, the general practice has been to take one leading case after another, without regard to the alphabetical arrangement of their subject matter. In respect of each of these points, Mr. Campbell's work is justified by an important difference. He applies the leading case method to the whole domain, not only of English, but also-with the competent aid of Mr. Irving Browne-of American law; and he imparts cohesion to the entire publication by treating the heads of law, coming within its purview, in strictly alphabetical order. The advantages of this latter part of the plan are not inconsiderable. It is logical; it prevents any subject that deserves discussion from being overlooked; and it makes information as to all the great heads of law readily accessible without troubling the reader to ransack his memory for the names of the "ruling relating to them-a point on which not a little divergence of opinion might exist-or to consult an index, always an irksome task, even when it is such an excellent one as Mr. Manson has prepared for the first ten volumes of the series.

cases

over.

as

9966

on

66

case

And if the conception of Ruling Cases is good, the same must be said for most of the matter contained in it. No better work of the kind will be found anywhere in English legal literature than the notes on "Administration," Agency, Carrier,' "Contingent Remainders," Idealt with under "Estate," (by Mr. A. E. Randall), "Distress," "Domicil," "Ease"Evidence,' ments, Highway" (by Mr. Austin F. Jenkin), and Husband and Wife. At first sight. the bound which the work takes in vol. XII. from "Executor to "Indemnity strikes one as rather precipitate. But a reference to Mr. Manson's Index, which not only deals with the ground covered by vols. I.-X., but indicates the headings in subsequent volumes where matter not yet disposed of will be treated, has satisfied us that, so far, no subject of importance has been passed Mr. Irving Browne's notes the American law are in general excellent. Those appended to The Queen v. Tolson (vol. VIII., pp. 41-60) are particularly valuable a statement of the American law as to mens rea. There is, however, discernible here and there in Ruling Cases, an element of hasty and inaccurate workmanship which ought to be eliminated. The most generous allowance must be made for the difficulty of editing such a work as this, and no critic would lay stress on incidental shortcomings, errors, ɔr omissions. But it is rather startling to find such a familiar case as Manzoni v. Douglas figuring as Mangone v. Douglas, both in the text (vol. I., p. 205) and in the index (p. 158), and the case of The Tabernacle Permanent Building Society v. Knight cited (vol. III., p. 427) without a word of allusion to the provisions in the Building Societies Act, 1894, which get rid of it, so far as incorporated building societies are concerned. Moreover, it is difficult to justify the failure of the author of the notes on contractual capacity (see vol. VI., p. 74) to allude to the question whether, in view of Lord Esher's judgment in The Imperial Loan Company v. Stone (1892] 1 Q.B. 599, and duly noted in vol. VI. at p. 74) the distinction drawn by Molton v. Camroux--which is selected as the "ruling case "between executory and executed contracts, when the capacity to contract is in issue can any longer be maintained. Still less excuse is there for the statement (vol. VIII., p. 41) that the views expressed by the Judges (in Macnaughton's case), "establish that the responsibility of an insane person must depend upon his power to distinguish between right and wrong. A note of this kind is worse than useless. In the first place, the few critical words in the test of responsibility prescribed by the Judges in the case in question are terms of art. They

cannot be paraphrased, and they ought not to be cited without reference to the controversies as to their meaning, authority, and scope, in which the late Mr. Justice Stephen took so prominent a part. In the second place, the criterion which makes the criminal responsibility of the insane depend upon "the power to distinguish right and wrong,' was laid down by Sir James Mansfield on the trial of Bellingham, in 1812, for the murder of Mr. Perceval, and was in reality set aside by the "views" which are alleged in the note to have established it, and which substituted for it the sounder modern test-viz., did the prisoner know the "nature and quality" of the particular act with which he was charged? We call attention to these matters in no spirit of captious criticism, but from a sincere desire that the utility of a most valuable work should not be marred by blemishes which could be avoided. It only remains to be added that the printing and binding of Ruling Cases are as excellent as its plan and its general execution.

Of Sir Frederick Pollock's treatise on THE LAW OF TORTS (2), which has run through four editions in ten years, and is now entering on a fifth, it is superfluous to say anything by way of general criticism, save that it is not only incomparably the best work that has been written on the subject, but also a contribution of permanent value to the history, the philosophy, and the practice of English law. In the present edition all the current leading decisions relative to torts have been noticed down to and including those reported in August; and Chapter First-dealing with the nature of tort in general-has been recast in a simpler form. This is a change which will be welcomed not by those students alone who approach the book for the first time. In the earlier editions Sir Frederick Pollock elaborated his definition-or rather "normal idea "-of a tort by a process of negative exhaustion. The method was strictly scientific, and its application, one need scarcely say, was illustrated and fortified by a skilful use of the wealth of bistoric learning which Sir Frederick Pollock has at his command. But the train of reasoning could not be perfectly followed without a degree of concentration of thought which taxed the ordinary professional reader's energies and time somewhat severely. In the new edition the leading conceptions are stated more directly and simply and the reader has the advantage of commencing his study of the chapter with a general view of the field covered by the law of torts before him.

In spite of the somewhat unconnected manner in which new editions of its several volumes appear, and, it may be added, of a certain want of system in the arrangement of the whole work, ROGERS ON ELECTIONS (3) is deservedly recognized as the standard authority on all questions of election law. How emphatic its approval by the legal profession has been is demonstrated by the fact that Vols. 2 and 3, which are edited by Mr. S. H. Day, and which are a complete treatise on the law of elections and of election petitions. have respectively reached a 17th edition ; while the 16th edition of the first volume, for which Mr. Maurice Powell is responsible, and which is concerned solely with the registration of voters. now lies before us. Since the publication of the last edition of this volume, the Local Government Act, 1894, has passed creating a new class of parochial voters, who now elect guardians and the members of the parish council, and, in the Metropolis, the vestrymen and auditors, and, except in boroughs, the members of the district council. The present volume includes the law as to the registration of these electors. Several other changes of importance have been made. The decisions of the old election committees, which are useless as precedents and have been largely superseded by judgments of the superior Courts, have been omitted. On the other hand space has been found for Irish andScotch decisions, to which the EnglishCourts in administering the registration law now attach very considerable weight. Some new forms have been added-it would be an improvement, by the way, to subsequent editions if the headings in the appendix of forms were set out seriatim in the table of contents. And last, but not least, the dates of all cases referred to are given either in the text or in the foot-notes. edition of this volume is a piece of thoroughly good workmanship.

Obituary.

THE LATE DEAN OF LLANDAFF.

The new

The death of Dean Vaughan removes not so much a great figure from the world of literature as a living example of the practical value, whether to the individual character or to society at large, of the liberal and balanced judgment which is

the only true raison d'être of great scholarly attainment. He started in life, it is true, with a natural equipment of the highest order. He derived remarkable intellectual gifts from the family of his father, which contained names of high distinction in medical, legal, and diplomatic life. But no one who would plead the cause of a classical education could point to a more signal instance of a mind strengthened, refined, and tempered by the classics. He went to Rugby when Arnold, appointed to the headmastership but two years before, was undertaking to show for the first time what an English public school should be. His extraordinary list of successes at Cambridge, his University prizes for Greek iambics, Latin essay, Greek ode, Greek and Latin epigrams, and his first place in the Classical Tripes (shared with Lord Lyttelton) present him to us as a classical scholar in the strictest sense, the ripest product of a culture founded on the study of language. It is not unreasonable to regret that he made no permanent contribution to classical learning. Theologians, too, may often have wished that so accomplished a scholar should have taken a more prominent part in religious controversy, critical or philosophical. His scholarship and learning produced little result of this practical kind, but it did what was after all far more important. It coloured his entire life and character. He was an ideal product of the system embodied in Arnold's well-known saying on the headmaster's dais at Rugby"It is not necessary that this should be a school of 300 boys, or of 200 boys, or even of 100 boys. But it is necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen." The same spirit animated Vaughan himself when he undertook the headmastership of Harrow. The boys at Harrow were treated with the same confidence as the boys at Rugby. If their new headmaster had a defect it was his excessive courtesy. Under his rule school life revived at Harrow and many men distinguished in letters or in public life were his immediate pupils. But it was not in education any more than in history or religious speculation that his great intellectual powers found their scope. In one or two of his books, and still more in his work on the Revision Committee, we can recognize the polished critical scholar. But a glance down the list of numerous works marked always by a style pure and eloquent, if sometimes severe-which he published during the last half century, is enough to show that he looked upon pastoral theology as the work of his life. Perhaps it was due to his keen insight and cultured evenness of temper that his position in the Church grew to be one absolutely unique. He has been claimed as a Broad Churchman, and in one sense there is truth in the claim. He was spiritual rather than dogmatic. He never lost sight of the common ground at the base of sectional formulas. No Churchman respected among the Nonconformists of Wales as the late Dean of Llandaff, and yet they had protested against his appointment on the ground that he knew no Welsh, and they were never left in doubt as to his keen advocacy of the Welsh Church. He protested warmly against the dismissal of Temple from the headmastership of Rugby because of his share in the "Essays and Reviews." But he was far from being a Broad Churchman of the type of his lifelong friend Dean Stanley. As Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln said of them when they were bracketed as winners of a college distinction, they were magis pares quam similes. As little can he be reckoned among the divines whose names are connected with the great Anglican movement, the completed record of which in "The Life of Dr. Pusey' was given to the world on the day on which Dean Vaughan's death was announced. Neither Latitudinarianism nor Sacerdotalism could find a congenial home in the mind of one who regarded himself not as a student or a teacher but solely as a minister of the Gospel. It was as a Christian pastor that he voluntarily laboured for so many years in training young men for the ministry. It was no less as a Christian pastor that he undertook the Mastership of the Temple. And in this work the talents of a brilliant scholar, the practical wisdom derived from an exact and profound study of classical learning and literature were undoubtedly put to a worthy use. His influence on his generation was primarily personal and indirect. But in his writings, which mainly consist of sermons and lectures at Harrow, the Temple, and elsewhere, he has left a storehouse of Christian teaching, sane and sincere, rational and yet profoundly spiritual, which will not only be a memorial of a remarkable personality, but a permanent addition of great value to theological literature.

PASCUAL DE GAYÁNGOS.

was

The death, on the 4th inst., of Don Pascual de Gayángos y Arce is a very serious loss to Anglo-Spanish literature and bibliography; and the net result of his life-long labour, as

seen in his published volumes, is such as to secure him a very high place in the literature of his country. He was born at Seville on June 21, 1809, the son of Don José de Gayángos y Nebot, a Spanish officer. When 13 years of age he went to France to complete his education, first at Fontelvoy and afterwards at Paris, where he attended the Oriental lectures of Silvestre de Sacy. When 19 he came to England for a time, and during his stay here married Miss Fanny Revell, of Round Oak, Windsor. After visiting Africa he was, on his return to Madrid, nominated to a post in the Treasury, and in 1833 became interpreter to the Foreign Office, a post which he retained until 1836, when political events and the Carlist War compelled him to return to England. He resided here until 1843, contributing to magazines, reviews (including the Edinburgh), and mixing with the best circles of literary society. He was a frequent visitor to Holland-house, and formed the acquaintanceship of Ticknor, whose "History of Spanish Literature he translated into his own tongue. For the Royal Asiatic Society he translated into English Al Makkarï's "History of the Mahomedan Dynasties in Spain," in two volumes, 1841-43. In March of the latter year he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages, recently created at the University of Madrid, and this post he filled until 1872; in 1881 he became Director of Public Instruction, but held the post only for a short time, the town of Huelva having elected him Senator, which involved the resignation of the Directorship. The great work of his life, which is also, perhaps, the work least known to the literary public, was the continuation of the "Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers," relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives at Simancas and elsewhere. This invaluable work was commenced by Gustav Adolph Bergenroth, whose early death at the wretched village of Simancas in February, 1870, would have indefinitely postponed a very great national undertaking but for Don Gayángos. To this series Gayángos contributed eight volumes, which date from 1873 to 1895, and extend to no less than 7,200 pages imperial octavo, and form a complete history of affairs from 1525 to 1542 also catalogued the Spanish MSS. in the British Museum, of which four volumes, comprising about 3,000 pages of matter, appeared from 1867 to 1893. To Owen Jones's work on "The Alhambra Court," 1854, he contributed an historical notice of the Kings of Granada; for the Hakluyt Society he translated, in 1868, "The Fifth Letter of Cortes to the Emperor Charles V."; and he edited John Foster's "Chronicle of James I., King of Aragon," 1883. The foregoing form the English portion of his life-work. To Spanish literature he was a constant contributor, including, in addition to the translation of Ticknor already mentioned, Memorial del Moro Raris," 1845, Memorial Historico Español, in 19 volumes; to Ariban's great corpus of "Autores Españoles" he contributed three volumes; and to the "Sociedad de Bibliofilos Españoles," of Madrid, he contributed eight more.

SIR PETER LE PAGE RENOUF.

Не

Sir Peter Le Page Renouf, who until 1891 was Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, was of a (ruernsey family. During his Oxford career, in 1842, he joined the Roman Church, and his first work, written at the age of 19, was a book on "The Doctrine of the Catholic Church in England on the Eucharist." "He began, however," to quote The Times of October 18, "to pay special attention to Eastern languages; was in 1855 appointed by Dr. Newman to a professorship in the Catholic University of Ireland; and about the same time he became one of the editors of the Home and Foreign Review. Gradually he came to specialize his studies, and, falling under the influence of Lepsius, he devoted much time and energy to the study of the history and language of Ancient Egypt. His first separate publication in this department of learning was in 1860. Soon afterwards he became one of her Majesty's inspectors of schools, and more than 20 years later, on the death of Dr. Samuel Birch, he was appointed to succeed him as Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum (1885). Before this, in 1879, he had attracted a good deal of attention by his Hibbert Lectures on The Religion of Ancient Egypt (1879). Beside the large amount of administrative work which falls to the lot of a head of a department in a great museum, such a man can generally find time for serious publications, and Mr. Renouf issued in 1890 a splendid facsimile, with an elaborate introduction, of the famous Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum. This important papyrus, illustrated with vignettes which Mr. Renouf described as among the most beautiful and interesting of their kind that are known,' was obtained for the Museum by Mr. Budge."

This First Number contains 32 pages devoted to literary matter, and, in order to meet as far as possible publishers who desired to advertise in the first number, we have extended the advertisement space to an equal number of pages. We regret that we have been compelled to refuse more. Future numbers will contain a larger proportion of literary matter in comparison to advertisements.

The amount of literary matter will depend on the number and importance of books worthy of review. It will naturally be larger during the winter months than the rest of the year.

Authors and publishers are desirous of prompt reviews. They are presumably equally desirous of careful reviews. The two are inconsistent, unless the critic can receive the book some days before publication.

But it is urged by Publishers that it is not an infrequent experience for them to find on secondhand bookstalls almost on the day of publication, or before it, books which they have submitted for review.

The delivery of review copies is an increasing tax upon author and publisher amounting sometimes to 10 per cent. Our entire sympathies are with any attempt to prevent this alleged abuse, and we ask that books sent us may be legibly marked on the title page with the date of publication and the price.

The rest of the paper is filled with reports from Europe, giving details of the movements of armies and the policy of Governments in the face of the great common danger from France. Foreign politics, in fact, were at the moment so urgent that they occupy the first leading article, leaving the victory of Nelson and his death to be dealt with in the second. It is worth noting that there is nothing in the paper to show that the English public took, at any rate at that particular moment, the slightest interest in literature.

Jeffrey was not indeed the founder of the Review with which his name is connected, and which has called into being such a vast number of similar periodicals. He dedicated his collected essays to Sydney Smith as the "the original projector of the Edinburgh Review. Nor was he editor from the first beginning of the Review. It was originally managed" in committee," and if anybody could be called the Editor it was, again, Sydney Smith, who insisted on the conspirators repairing singly and secretly to the office, which was "a dingy room off Willison's printing office in Craig's-close.' But it was found necessary to appoint Jeffrey sole responsible editor in a very short time. Its success was immediate and striking. Published in 1802, its circulation in 1808 was about 9,000, and in 1814 had reached 13,000-a very considerable number for a periodical published in the northern capital 80 years ago and devoted to serious criticism.

The completion of the third volume of the Historical English Dictionary received a fitting recognition at the dinner given at Oxford by the Vice-Chancellor, on the 11th inst. Dr. Murray's account of the inception of the Dictionary from the year 1857, when Dr. Trench first pointed out the necessity of such an undertaking, down to the year 1882, when Dr. Murray himself began the work with the help of the University of Oxford, the Clarendon Press, the Philological Society, a multitude of coadjutors in different parts of the country, and a store of some two million quotations pigeon-holed for use, has already been recorded more or less fully in the daily papers. We join in the congratulations which the public owes to Dr. Murray and Mr. Henry Bradley for the sound judgment and indefatigable industry they have displayed, and in the satisfaction which all scholars must feel at the wisdom of the University which has devoted its funds to so valuable a form of research.

In the new illustrated Keats, published by Messrs. G. Bell and Sons, with an introduction by Mr. Walter Raleigh, we have another specimen of Mr. Anning Bell's peculiar gift of fanciful design employed in the adornment of the printed page. The drawings are full of his usual gracefulness of conception; and they show also an unevenness of execution which has marked much of his illustrative work. Sometimes the drawing is faulty, or there is a want of meaning about the hang of the drapery; and, if the thickness of the line sometimes produces a successful effect peculiar to itself, it more often renders a picture flat and dull. Unequal, however, as the illustrations are, they contain much work of great beauty. The illustrations to the " Rape of the Lock," by Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, were, probably, quite the best drawings he has produced, and they certainly gain rather than lose from their reduction in size in a neat little edition of that poem just issued by Mr. Leonard Smithers.

Among examples of the adornment of the page in a manner less severe than Mr. Anning Bell's, few drawings have lately been published so workmanlike as Miss Alice B. Woodward's illustrations to "Red Apple and Silver Bells," a book of verse by Mr. Hamish Hendry intended for a public somewhat indefinitely defined as "Children of all ages. It is chiefly designed for children of the ages of from three to ten. The successful drawing of an attractive chubby infant has, it is true, become a mere trick; Miss Woodward can do it, but she can do a great deal more besides. Her touch is clean and sure but full of vivacity, and some of the landscape scenes, particularly one of a snowstorm, are excellent. The pictures at any rate in this littlebook will appeal to "children of a larger growth.'

It is probably not generally known that the revived interest in historical portraiture, due to the popularity in its new house of the National Portrait Gallery, has led Mr. Lionel Cust, Director of the Gallery, to take steps towards an universal catalogue of historical portraits in the country. A complete catalogue of these interesting works of art would be a highly valuable publication, and Mr. Cust has prepared a form for an inventory which has been published by the Queen's Printers, with the view of encouraging the possessors of historical portraits about the country to catalogue their treasures. Pending the completion of such a catalogue, much useful information has been collected on the subject by Mr. H. B. Wheatley in his recently-issued volume" Historical Portraits," which belongs. to the Connoisseur Series, published by Messrs. G. Bell and Sons.

In the catalogue of a collection of miscellaneous books. sold recently by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson appeared the following entry :-" King Justa Edovardo King Wangrago, mor. by F. Bedford, Cantabrigiæ, 1638, &c., 6 vols. The first bid received for this apparently innocent "lot " was 1s., but it eventually realized £70, and ought to have brought. more, for Milton's "Obsequies to the Memorie of Mr. Edward King" contains the first edition of "Lycidas," and the book (one of the six catalogued) is extremely rare. Last year a copy sold at Sotheby's for £87 and others have brought.

There is at the present time a great demand for old song-books. That "The Hive," published in four small volumes 1732, only realized at the same sale lõs. is due to the fact that the books had been re-bound. The years that cluster around 1745 were productive of much ungodly glee if the character of the song-books of the period are any evidence. "The Toper's Delight," 1744, is a small book which sells for about £3 38. on the rare occasions on which it appears. As a rule, the Georgian topers thumbed their song-books to rags or soaked their leaves. in sack, sometimes both, and as a consequence very few books of this class are presentable. Such works as "The Linnet," "The Robin," "The Thrush," "The Syren" and "Bacchanalian Songs are worth much money when perfect. In fact,

all old song-books which appeal to the national love of sport or help to fill Ben Jonson's Skull are held in great esteem.

The revival by Mr. Lyttelton of the old question "Shall we go on with Latin verses?" will recall to lovers of Calverley his amusing" Poem on Alexander the Great," which is instinct with the afflatus of the Lower Fifth Form. It began, if we remember rightly, in this vein :

Magnus Alexander, vir clarus, vixit in orbe,

Et multas pugnas pugnavit, robore fortis. And it ended the record of the conqueror's career in a spirit of chastened contemplation, thus :

Sed tandem cecidit, devictus morte tremenda,

Atque homines dicunt, certe mors horrida res est.

As an apt commentary on the work on his father's life which Lord Tennyson has just completed comes a little work entitled "The Age of Tennyson," published by Messrs. G. Bell and Sons almost simultaneously with the great biography which has raised so much expectation." The Age of Tennyson' is one of the Handbooks of English Literature, edited by Professor Hales, and it has been preceded by similar volumes on Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Wordsworth, or rather on the periods in which each one of those poets was the chief literary figure. Mr. H. Frank Heath has undertaken the age of Alfred, Professor Hales himself that of Chaucer and Shakespeare, and Mr. Thomas Seccombe that of Johnson.

46

Mr. Bernard P. Grenfell, who, in conjunction with Mr. Arthur S. Hunt, discovered the " Sayings of our Lord," has written a report of his excavations at Behnesa, the modern representative of the once famous city Oxyrhyncchus, for the Archeological Report of the Egypt Exploration Fund for 1896-97. Mr. Hunt contributes a collation of four chapters of Thucydides from a papyrus of the First Century. Mr. Froude is the publisher. An interesting account by these authors, "How we found the Logia," appears in the current number of McClure's Magazine.

Messrs. Macmillan have issued a little pamphlet describing the new premises they are taking in St. Martin's-street. The site is an interesting one. Once there stood there an old galleried inn, the Nag's Head. Strype (1720) describes St. Martin's-street as "fronting upon Leicester-fields and falling into Hedge-lane, a handsome open place, with very good buildings for the generality, and well inhabited." It was in a house

on the east side of St. Martin's-street that Sir Isaac Newton lived between the years 1710 and 1725, and in the same house Dr. Burney resided at a later period, and his daughter, Fanny Burney, wrote "Evelina "there.

Mr. H. J. Morgan has long been well known in Canada as an experienced and capable chronicler of lives and of events, and probably no man in the Dominion has done more than he has in the department of biography and bibliography. His "Celebrated Canadians appeared more than a quarter of a century ago. He is now issuing a "Canadian Men and Women of the Time," which should prove a serviceable book of reference both in England and Canada.

Mr. H. M. Stanley, in his few words of preface to a new and cheaper edition of IN DARKEST AFRICA (Sampson Low, 5s.), says his principal object in consenting to this reissue of his fascinating narrative has been to extend knowledge of Equatorial Africa and to enable a wider circle of readers to take an intelligent interest in the developments that are being constantly made there by the Congo State, Great Britain, and Germany, the three Powers that are now in possession of the regions traversed by our expedition." Mr. Stanley does not think the work in its new form can be "remunerative to either author or publishers," but really there does not seem to be any need for such a gloomy and self-denying forecast. On the contrary, the venture ought to pay well, for there must be a large class of readers still unacquainted with "In Darkest Africa, as well as many who read the book at the time of its publication, but will be very glad of the opportunity offered them to possess it. It is unnecessary now to sing the praises of this striking record of a wonderful achievement. All we need do is to mention that it has been subjected to thorough revision and partial re-arrangement, with the result that the interest of the story of Emin Pasha's relief is now sustained even better than when it first appeared seven years ago.

"

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Signor Negri, whose new book of essays is included in our list of publications, is one of the most brilliant of Italian essayists. He has, in addition to his literary reputation, considerable political influence, having for many years been mayor of Milan and a Deputy. He is now a member of the Senate. His essays have recently been placed on the Index in spite of their author's tendency towards clericalism.

Hermaun Bahr, the Austrian critic who has espoused the cause of Maeterlinck, and preached it with much persuasiveness to the German-speaking world, has recently published a volume of critical studies of modern writers under the title of "Renaissance." He represents the progressive moderns, especially those of Vienna, since he appeals in the first place to the literary public of that capital through his weekly journal, Die Zeit, and endeavours to kindle its enthusiasm for his liberal ideas. Some of the most interesting essays in the book are those which deal with E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sacher Masoch, Georg von Ompteda, Laura Marholm, Johanna Ambrosins, and Rikarda Huch.

Readers of German fiction will be interested in a series of stories by Austrian writers entitled "Erzählungen aus Oesterreich " (Leipzig; H. Meyer). The first place among them must be given to Adolf Fichler with "Allerlei Geschichten aus Tirol," and "Jochrauten," which contain very faithful and living descriptions of the Tyrolese.

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The literature of peace has been much scoffed at in Germany, but it is already considerable in that country, and is constantly growing. The last accession to it is a volume entitled "Pax Vobiscum," by H. Newesely and A. Renk (Munich and Leipzig: August Schupp). The little book includes a number of poems.