The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. By the Rev. Gilbert White, M.A. Thoroughly revised, with additional Notes, by James Edmund Harting, F.L.S., F.Z.S. (London: Bickers & Son, 1875.) To Gilbert White is due the credit of having been the first to render natural history a popular and attractive study, nor is it easy to over-estimate the debt which science owes to his most delightful letters. Of them it may be truly said that "they are not dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them, to be active as that soul whose progeny they are." They have probably made as many naturalists as Robinson Crusoe has made sailors, and, in spite of our advance in knowledge, they neither are nor are likely to become at all out of date. Their style alone would preserve them, even if they contained far worse heresies than those which search has detected. He knows Selborne by compassion for a neglected wife, without support or counsel, and anxious to shield her from the vengeance of the Cardinal, and to avoid the scandal of exposing the culpability of one of so exalted rank, is supposed intended domiciliary visit to the abbess of to have privately given information of the the convent, so that when Séguier and the Archbishop of Paris arrived to seize the papers, nothing was found to compromise the Queen. When afterwards interrogated by the Chancellor, Anne acknowledged the intercepted letters (which are now in the National Library), but neither fear of the question nor of the terrors of the Bastille could elicit anything from La Porte, for he was well prepared. Faithful friends had made known to him to what extent the the information had been conveyed savours Queen had confessed. The manner in which more of the romance of fiction than of the truth of history, but it is so related in his memoirs: "Le chevalier de Jars, qui venait d'échapper à l'échafaud, était aussi prisonnier à quatre étages au-dessus de La Porte. Mdlle. de Hautefort vint le voir déguisée en soubrette, et lui remit inférieur, qui en fit autant, et d'étage en étage la l'état exact des aveux de la reine; de Jars perça son plancher, passa l'avis au prisonnier de l'étage lettre parvint au valet de chambre de la reine. Il n'y avait plus à hésiter. Dès lors, comme épou vanté devant l'appareil de la question, il fit exactement le même aveu que la reine, ce qui n'était pas trop compromettant. Le cardinal fut confondu, et la paix signée entre Anne et Louis XIII., qui their author held on the hibernation of swallows or the origin of honey-dew. No matter whether he is detailing with scientific precision his observations on the habits of some familiar insect, or recounting with graze where wild ducks and snipe used boyish enthusiasm the acquisition of some to find shelter, he would rejoice that new specimen, he is always alike delightful. Wolmer Forest, which eighty years ago was He talks of "my bat" or of "my newly-extent," is now partly enclosed, and planted "without one standing tree on the whole discovered migrators" as thongh they were members of his family or his welcome with oak, larch, and Scotch fir. guests; and, mingled with acute remarks, there are constantly to be found little playful touches, reminding us of Charles Lamb and suggesting how the Londoner might have written had he been trained in the unfavourably with the engravings by C. T. n'avait pas trouvé dans ces papiers la conspiration country and a dweller in Selborne. Take, for instance, the following account of "the old family tortoise: "— "Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 'Much too wise to walk into a well;' and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha; but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun: because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, 'scald with safety.' He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage leaf, or amid the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall; and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray." The same spirit of research which Gilbert White displayed in collecting the facts of Natural History, rendered him a most competent antiquary. And, we may add, the Antiquities of Selborne, beside being a valuable contribution to topographical literature, form a model of parochial history not beyond the power of many a country clergyman to imitate. Hampshire is still without any county history worthy of the name; are there no successors of White within its limits able to supply the want? Mr. Harting has edited the letters relating to Natural History in a very judicious way. He has not overwhelmed the text with notes, as his predecessor, Mr. Bennett, did; nor has he passed over unnoticed the errors in White's conclusions which subsequent re the present edition are much to our taste. Thompson, which add so greatly to the volumes. CHARLES J. ROBINSON. Le Chancelier Pierre Séguier, Second Protecteur The new Chancellor began his career with épouvantable dont l'avait menacé Richelieu." In all this affair Séguier appeared in an odious light in the eyes of the public, who accused him of servile compliance to the Cardinal, but it is evident the Queen thought differently, and showed him, throughout her life, the most lively gratitude for his timely warning. Again, in the trial of Cinq-Mars, Séguier did his utmost to moderate the violence of Richelieu. He would not allow Gaston of Orleans to be confronted with the accused, declaring the jurisprudence of the kingdom did not allow such an indignity to be inflicted upon a "fils de France; " and when Cinq-Mars had made a full confession of his crime, and had been sentenced with De Thou to be beheaded-the one for the conspiracy he had made, the other for having known it and not discovered it-Séguier did all in his power to save the young Thou, and would probably have succeeded had not an adherent of Richelieu brought forward an ordinance of Louis XI. which declared that he who had the knowledge of a conspiracy and did not reveal it, was subject to the same penalties as the author himself. De The death of the Cardinal three months after these executions was soon followed by that of the King. His will was set aside, and Anne of Austria declared sole regent of the kingdom. The Chancellor remained in office, and during this, the second period of his public life, Séguier showed his distinctive characteristic-an absolute and obstinate devotion to the royal authority. He persuaded the Queen to remain firm in her conflict with the Parliament, contrary to the advice of Mazarin, who desired to yield. The disturbances of Paris were soon taking the form of a civil war, and Mazarin, to pacify the Fronde, deprived Séguier of the chancellorship. He supported his disgrace with dignity, being sure that the Queen had only assented to his dismissal from reasons of state. He retired to Rosny, having been some weeks previously elevated to the dignity of duke and peer, and passed his time in the pursuits of literature and with the members of the French Academy. Profoundly learned himself, and speaking with elegance and facility, Séguier delighted in letters and the society of literary men. His correspondence forms forty-four volumes in the National Library. His collection of books was his chief amusement. In his letters to his librarian Blaize, during his retreat at Rosny, he styles his library his "bien aimée." He writes: "Je vous recommande d'avoir soing de ma bien aymée, je veux dire ma bibliothèque, c'est ma passion." And again: "Vous debvés prendre pour marque de l'assurance que j'ay de vostre vertu, la confiance que j'ay en la garde de ce que j'ayme le mieux." And once more, not to multiply quotations: "Monsieur Blaize, je ne doubte point du soing que vous avés de ma bibliothèque; mais un amoureux a toujours de l'inquiétude pour ce qu'il chérit. Je ne me suis pas mortifié jusques à ce point que de quitter l'affection de mes livres, elle augmente par l'absence." In 1656, Séguier was recalled a third time from his peaceful retirement to take the seals. The French Academy, through Pellisson, made him a congratulatory address on the occasion. In 1661, Cardinal Mazarin died, leaving the King his universal heir. Louis, now only twenty-three years of age, was at the highest point of his prosperity. The peace use in France." In all these counsels, Séguier took his share, but especially in the conferences relating to the reformation of justice. In drawing up the famous ordinance of 1669-70, known under the name of the "Code Louis," which was the basis of public right in France for 130 years, Séguier, though in declining health, took an active part. The publication of the criminal ordinances, in which were observable the same order, simplicity, and unity as in the civil code, was the last important act of his long ministerial career. He died, January 1672, at the age of eighty-four, at the age of eighty-four, "avec beaucoup de piété et de connoissance." His seals of office had been previously delivered to the king, who held them in person till April 18, when Aligre was appointed Chancellor, Louis also desired to succeed Séguier as protector of the French Academy, whose sittings were transferred from the Hôtel Séguier to the Louvre. Such was the career of the most illustrious of the Séguier family. M. Kerviler has well acquitted himself of his task, and Ségaier appears in a totally different light from that in which he is represented by his vindictive contemporaries. M. Kerviler shows us the causes of the animosity against him. In becoming the servant of the Crown, he devoted himself entirely to the maintenance of royal authority, and he attached himself to Richelieu and Mazarin because these two ministers appeared to him to have best understood the principle. As he says, in conclusion: The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 until his Death. Continued by a Narrative of his Last Moments and Sufferings obtained from his faithful Servants Chuma and Susi. By Horace Waller, F.R.G.S., Rector of Tugwell, Northampton. In Two Volumes. With Portrait, Maps, and Illustrations. (London: John Murray, 1874.) THESE Journals are the best work that we have ever had from Livingstone's pen, but it is impossible to condemn too severely the careless, vulgar, and ignorant way in which Mr. Waller has edited them. Nothing can exceed the bad taste of his preface, and of the remarks, within brackets, which he constantly obtrudes between the paragraphs of Livingstone's diary. His habitual reference to Dr. Livingstone as "the Doctor" is, perhaps, a sufficient sign of the mental condition in which Mr. Waller set himself to the task he has so incompetently discharged. His principal offence is an utter want of delicacy, and of reverence for Livingstone's memory, in publishing the many ejaculations of fervent piety and the simple touching prayers scattered throughout Livingstone's diaries. It must be borne in mind that Livingstone never meant his diaries to be seen in their original form by any eyes but his own, or, in the event of his death, by his children. He always hoped to edit them himself, as he had done his Missionary Travels; and Mr. Waller, in preparing the diaries for the press, should have asked himself whether Livingstone, had he lived, would have published these hallowed utterances of the deepest feelings of his nature when alone with his work in the hidden heart of Africa. Livingstone's answer is of the Pyrenees had made him the arbiter ennemis, rendent un hommage éclatant à sa vaste given in vol. ii. p. 156 of the Last Jour of Europe, and he works during this period of peace at the internal organisation of his kingdom. He assembles his ministers, and announces to them that he has called them together to tell them that though hitherto he had left the government of affairs to the Cardinal, he now intends to rule alone, and they will assist him with their advice when he asks for it." The ministers soon found they had a master. necessary. The death of Mazarin made no difference in the position of Séguier. Louis XIV. knew and appreciated his merits. The trial of Fouquet which now devolved upon him was just and The history of his arrest has been too often told in history and in romance to need repetition. Colbert had in his hands the proofs of Fouquet's financial malversations. Séguier took an active part in the proceedings, though he was now seventy-five years old, and the infirmities of age were fast creeping upon him. Fouquet's life was spared, but he was condemned by the King to a rigorous imprisonment for the rest of his life in the fortress of Pignerol. Colbert now occupied himself in the reform of all the branches of administration, -finance, police, commerce, manufactures, justice, &c.—which marked a new era in the internal organisation of France. He reinstituted the ancient Chamber of Commerce, desiring, as he said, "to place the kingdom in a condition to dispense with having recourse to foreigners for things necessary for "Nous n'avons pas caché les faiblesses du chancelier, mais comment ne pas les pardonner en songeant que ses adversaires eux-mêmes n'ont pu s'empêcher de manifester leur étonnement et leur admiration en apprenant que quarante années de ministère ne l'avaient point enrichi? Tous, amis et érudition, à sa prudence dans le cabinet, à sa connaissance approfondie de toutes les affaires publiques, à son éloquence au pied du trône. Son nom se trouve malheureusement attaché à l'histoire de trois procès célèbres, dont les coupables ont réussi à exciter la pitié de la postérité; mais ni l'abandon de la reine, ni la jeunesse de CinqMars, ni les élégies de La Fontaine, les plaidoyers de Fellisso, et les lettres de Mdme. de Sévigné en faveur du troisième, ne peuvent absoudre les crimes d'Etat, les projets d'assassinat, ou la dilapidation des deniers publics dont ils furent convaincus." To this may be added that Séguier had the rare merit of being true to his party. He never sought personal aggrandisement when the opportunity was before him of attaining the first post in the kingdom, but remained a faithful subject, a devoted servant of the Crown, in the midst of temptations to which most men would have yielded. Voltaire, La Bruyère, and Mascaron have all paid their tribute to his merits. In the midst of the turmoil of political life he protected the learned of all professions, and the title of Maecenas has never been given to a more eminent patron of arts, science, and letters than the Chancellor Pierre Séguier. F. BURY PALLISER. DR. INGLEBY is preparing a third edition of his Still Lion, a diatribe against Shakspere emendators, with explanations and justifications of readings that have been supposed to be corrupt. nals, where, with reference to his timely deliverance by Stanley, at Ujiji in 1871, he writes: : "I am not of a demonstrative turn-as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to bebut this disinterested kindness of Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, was really overwhelming. I really do feel very grateful, but at the same time a little ashamed of not being more worthy of the generosity." Livingstone's whole his manner before fellow-men was the outward and visible expression of the thought and feeling manifested in this passage, and the publication of his straightforward, guileless prayers by Mr. Waller is a really, unpardonable outrage. They were, indeed, "stones of help""Ebenezers"-which Livingstone "set up by the way,' through his diaries; and had he lived to edit them, when he came to these "memorials," they would have recalled the awe and hope and sense of blessing which inspired them; and he would have probably given enlarged expression to them as a man writing for men: but he never would have published them as they were uttered. These journals are a most interesting and invaluable contribution towards our knowledge of Inner Africa. They form an almost unbroken record of Livingstone's seven years' wanderings in the interior of the continent from the date of his leaving the coast on April 7, 1866, to his death on the southern margin of Lake Bangweolo, in Ilala of the Wabisa, on May Day, 1873. His first entry, indeed, is dated at Zanzibar, January 28, 1866, and the last on April 27, 1873. The first part of his journey, from the sea to Lake Nyassa, occupied four months, from April to August, 1866. From Nyassa he laid his course across the Chambezé for Lake Tanganyika, the southern end of which he reached April 1, 1867. Leaving the lake, he struck due west to Lake Moero, formed by the Lualaba, and thence southwards to Lake Bangweolo, formed by the Chambezé, from which the Lualaba issues, and which he discovered July 18, 1868. Altogether Livingstone was engaged for nearly two years-from January, 1867, to October, 1868-in exploring the basin of the Chambezé and Lualaba, and lakes Moero and Bangweolo. Returning during the autumn of 1868 and beginning of 1869 to Lake Tanganyika and Ujiji, he again, in July, 1869, struck off westward to explore the Manyuema country, and after twentyseven months' wanderings returned to Ujiji, where he was discovered in his distress and exhaustion by Stanley, on October 28, 1871. He took Stanley on a sort of pleasure excursion to the head of Lake Tanganyika, and accompanied him on his return to the coast as far as Unyanyembe, from whence, in spite of all Stanley's entreaties, after receiving fresh supplies from Zanzibar, he set off on his ill-fated second expedition to Lake Bangweolo on August 25, 1872, and there eight months later he died. The geographical results of these seven trying years are of the utmost importance. Livingstone's last march from the coast to Lake Nyassa was by a route entirely new to Europeans, although commonly used by the Arabs. He was practically the discoverer of lakes Moero and Bangweolo, although the basin of the Chambezé and the Lualaba had repeatedly been traversed by the Portuguese before him. Until he explored it the Manyuema country was utterly unknown to scientific geography; and his persevering examination of the Tanganyika lake completes our knowledge of it, corroborating the discoveries of Burton and Speke, while his own discoveries have been confirmed by the recent scientific survey of its intricate shores by Lieutenant Cameron. Unfortunately it is in the exposition of the scientific results of Livingstone's expedition that Mr. Waller most conspicuously fails. He throws no light on the objects which Livingstone had in view in undertaking the expedition; or on the considerations which directed his different excursions. He makes no attempt to harmonise his discoveries with those of other travellers, or to point out where Livingstone had been anticipated by others, and where a discovery is entirely his own. And worst of all, where Livingstone has unwittingly done palpable injustice, as in his criticism on Mr. Cooley's account of the hydrography of the Chambezé, Mr. Waller has simply cast an insult at the victim of Livingstone's inadvertence, and passed on. stone's notes just as he found them-a jungle He has virtually left Livingwithout sign-post or tracks, more bewildering to the general reader than the wilds and desolate wastes through which Livingstone himself passed. As examples of Mr. Wal- "We see the thread by which he still draws His keen enjoyment in noticing the habits of In vol. ii. p. 282, Livingstone's remark And it may be as It is difficult to make any quotations of general interest from a mass of detached notes such as these volumes present. In volume ii.-by far the more entertaining of the two-Livingstone describes the flowers of the Babisa country, pp. 264-265: "There are many flowers in the forest-marigolds, a white jonquil-looking flower without smell; many orchids; white, yellow, and pink Asclepias; clematis, Methonica superba (Gloriosa superba), gladiolus, and blue and deep purple polygalas, grasses with white starry seed-vessels, and spikelets of brownish red and yellow. Bebulbs, and new flowers of pretty delicate form and sides these, there are beautiful blue-flowering but little scent. To this last may be added balsams, compositae of blood-red colour and of purple; other flowers of liver colour, bright canary yellow, pink orchids on spikes thickly covered all round, and of three inches in length; spiderworts of fine blue, or yellow, or even pink. Different coloured asclepiads; beautiful yellow and red wild parsnips; pretty flowering aloes, yellow and and umbelliferous flowering plants; dill and red in one whorl of blossoms, peas, and many other flowering plants, which I do not know. Very few birds or any kind of game. people are Babisa, who have fled from the west." birds: At page 189 he describes some Wydah The pur purea) come to the pomegranate tree in our yard. death." those who cavil and carp at the efforts made by To this class we turn for help. With others 246 :— Master: the very genius of His religion. A ness." There is much wisdom also in the following remarks, which have a wider application than Livingstone perhaps intended, p. 256:— "The pugnacious spirit is one of the necesit, they are subjected to indignity and loss. My sities of life. When people have little or none of own men walk into houses where we pass the night without asking any leave, and steal cassava without shame. I have to threaten and thrash to keep them honest, while if we are at a village where the natives are a little pugnacious they are indignity and wrong. I give little presents to as meek as sucking doves. The peace plan involves the headmen, and to some extent heal their hurt sensibilities. This is indeed much appreciated, and produces profound hand-clapping.' Mr. Waller throughout these two volumes entirely ignores the name of Sir Roderick Murchison, to whom Livingstone owed so much, and to whom he was so sincerely attached. This is Livingstone's comment on the death of his venerable and revered friend :"Alas! alas! this is the only time in my life I ever felt inclined to use the word, and it bespeaks a sore heart: the best friend I ever had-true, warm, and abiding he loved me more than I deserved; he looks down on me still. I must feel resigned to the loss by the Divine Will, but still I regret and mourn." One of the last entries before his death, when entangled in the spring-floods of the Bangweolo, notes the remarkable cry of the Sea-Eagle of that lake "as if calling someone to the other world.” The narrative of Livingstone's last sufferings and death, and of the transport of his body to Zanzibar, collected from his faithful servants Chuma and Susi, and Jacob Wainwright, has been admirably elaborated by Mr. Waller. He tells in fitting language the story of a deed equally to the credit of the African race and of our missions in the East; and every reader of it will heartily re-echo Mr. Waller's hope that none of those who assisted Livingstone, whether white or black, will be overlooked in England. Susi, Chuma, Wainwright, and the negress Halima, if the Missionary Societies cannot provide for them, should be supported by the British Government for the rest of their days. Of Halima Livingstone has recorded in his diary, May 29, 1872: "She is the best spoke in the wheel. . . . I shall free her and buy her a house and garden at Zanzibar, when I get there." She followed his body to Zanzibar, but her long services to him have remained entirely unrequited. The illustrations of these volumes are very poor, and the likeness of Livingstone trashy and theatrical. The map has been most carefully drawn, and is of great service, although already obsolete, owing to the recovery of Livingstone's route map from the coast to Nyassa, by Cameron. The sheets of Cameron's survey of Tanganyika have now been received in this country, and it is to be hoped that this part of Mr. Waller's map will also be recast from them in any future edition of the Journals, in the preparation of which Mr. Waller should seek the assistance of some geographer. GEORGE BIRD WOOD. The History of India from the Earliest Ages. By J. Talboys Wheeler. Vol. III. Hindu, Buddhist, Brahmanical Revival. (London: Trübner & Co., 1874.) MR. TALBOYS WHEELER recommends himself to the reading public as a new historian of India by official and literary experience of some years. He possesses, moreover, a clearness and terseness of style which can hardly fail to secure him a favourable first impression. And although he goes over ground which for the greater part has been trodden by previous writers, whether historians, philosophers, or philologists, he shows a confidence in his own powers, as well as his own knowledge and research, which is not simply an excusable feature in his handiwork, but rather an essential warrant of fitness for the duty he has undertaken. With such a task before him, we do not envy the man who does not feel strong to execute and able to discriminate. Of course there will always be a difference of opinion as to the method pursued in enlightening and guiding the attention of the reader, when treating of a period of years countable by thousands; a period which comprises quite as much of religious and ethical development as of matter-of-fact reigns or dynasties. But the genuineness of the oracle should be acknowledged, even though, like the Pythian, its prose be preferred to its hexameters. The author presents his third volume as a history "complete in itself." His two first volumes are not essential to its comprehension; and his coming volume will introduce new actors and a new scene. In this light the better way to review its contents will be simply as an account of the rise and progress of the Hindu power in India, the last chapter on the Portuguese being supplementary. The two first chapters are so far introductory that they embrace no really fixed period. They look back upon the Kolarians, or aborigines of India, the Vedic Aryans, the Dravidians; and upon the Nagas, "who were possibly of Dravidian origin; and they show how Brahmanism took root in the double form of priesthood and philosophy; the first as a hereditary institution, the second as a school varying in numbers and intellectual power. They are rather disquisitions than historical narrative; but they are full of interest, and supply remarkably good reading. If there be discerned, among the more didactic paragraphs, somewhat of exuberance in a certain popular and ex cathedra writing, the charge need not be a matter of cavil or surprise. The style is catching; and as it is, moreover, telling, is not so willingly or easily shaken off as may be supposed. If an imitation at all, it is not of an individual, but a class; and the class represents the spirit of the hour. The third chapter is descriptive of the life and writings of Gotama Buddha, otherwise Sâkya Muni, the founder of Buddhism. There is little that is new in this as a narrative; nor indeed is there much of personal incident to relate. The principal figure is interesting and not too highly coloured; but we do not feel sufficiently sure of his personal attributes and individuality to set him side by side, as does our historian, with the Prophet of Islam. In one thing both are alike. The morality which they inculcate is an emanation of human frailty. At its best it is the cry of the fallible philanthropist looking upward. In no case has it the character of the immeasurably higher teaching of Sinlessness. Mr. Wheeler places them in direct contrast when he says: "One was intellectual and spiritual, the other was sentimental and intensely human. The benevolence of Gotama took the form of a passionate yearning to deliver mankind from its hopeless imaccording to the Brahmanical teaching of the time, prisonment in an eternity of transmigrations; and a life of celibacy and mortification was the first and all-essential step in this direction. The pleasures of female society were supposed to be the most powerful obstacles to religious progress; the deadliest of all the sins that enthralled the soul in the universe of the passions. The culture of Mohammed was altogether different. His conception of God was that of deified humanity; merciful and compassionate to all who worshipped him, but wrathful and revengeful towards all those who disobeyed his laws or followed after other gods. The idea that the love of woman was injurious to the soul never crossed the mind of the old Arab prophet. On the contrary, the sympathy and companionship of women were the mainstay of his religion, and thus the Koran and polygamy went on hand in hand." The above fiat may not find very general acceptance in the abstract; nor do we think the distinctive qualities given to the respective systems capable of analysis. The religious culture of Gotama was, we are told, "intellectual and spiritual," that of Muhammad "sentimental and intensely human." May it not be truly said, on the other hand, that a "passionate yearning for the deliverance of mankind from the miseries of existence," combined with the practice of "celibacy and mortification," as means to the end, savours of "sentiment;" and, as argued by a very recent authority,* is there not in the religion of Muhammad that marked spirituality which rejects human intervention between the soul and the Creator, and is especially abhorrent of idols and images? Whether" intensely " be correctly applied or not, we may be permitted to doubt, unless humanity be held sorely restricted in its comprehensiveness. A chapter follows on Greek and Roman India. It is a skilful summary of data derived from popular annals, the truths of which, thongh digested and expounded by earnest students, never seem to have been generally realised. The period is both eventful and interesting when Western classical history blends with the record of Eastern creeds and systems; when Sandrokottos and Megasthenes are found confronted with Brahman and Buddhist monarch or chief; when scenes which seem to have been first displayed to us by a modern incident of conquest and annexation are reviewed in the light of remote antiquity. But the association of the Hindu as we now see him, with the heroes of our school classics as we have heretofore pourtrayed them, is more or less unnatural; and however familiar with the statue of an elderly Governor-general in the scant garb of a Proconsul, few AngloIndians have, probably, thought seriously of Porus as of a Rajput Rája, whose interview with Alexander might aptly be likened to that of Ranjit Singh with Lord Ellenborough. Stranger still is it to conceive that another Porus should have sent to Augustus Caesar an embassy of high-easte natives, one of whom, as cited by Mr. Wheeler, performed an act of self-immolation at Athens. In these days of extended intercommunication-when the Hindu and Indian Muhammadan are freely moving in the salons of London fashion, or lecturing to British Societies on British soil; when the Parsi finds his way to European courts, not excluding the Kremlin or the Vaticanbut looking back upon past ages, unconwe should scarcely wonder at these things: * Mr. Bosworth Smith. See Review of Muhammad and Muhammadanism in the ACADEMY of June 6 and June 20, 1874. scious of steam or rail, we cannot believe it possible that Sappho could have known Sakya Muni, or, many centuries later, Macbeth have met Mahmud of Ghazni! Yet it may reasonably be supposed that these incongruous couples were contemporary, each individual with each individual respectively. Mr. Wheeler endeavours to explain the apparent anomaly of the marriage of a Hindu Rája to a Greek princess, by the circumstance that Sandrokottos may have been a convert to Buddhism, and consequently not unwilling to prove to his Hindu subjects that he had thrown off the trammels of caste. And he alludes to a vexata quaestio which subsequently engaged the attention of Hindus, " as to whether the son of a Rája by a Sudra Queen could inherit the throne?' Can he be aware that the Pandits of Benares were consulted on this very point by a gentleman who, in the early part of the present century, enjoyed the reputation of Oriental scholarship; their unanimous opinion being, that in the time of Sandrokottos (Chandragupta) the "Yavanas," or foreigners, were held in general respect; but that, as regards this particular monarch, he was himself a Sudra, or of the lowest class? * Or, bearing in mind the forgeries practised on the contributors to "Asiatic Researches by the Pandits of those days, has he taken the opinion of men more learned in the ways of Western civilisation, and better acquainted than their predecessors with the objects of Western research, and found it trustworthy? Inasmuch as nearly seven centuries are disposed of in little more than a page (pp. 239-40), and three particular epochs only in a thousand years are made the standing-points of narration or discussion, the contents of Chapter V. might have been appropriately designated, "Buddhist India in the Days of Asoka, and the Chinese Travellers Fah-Hian and Hiouen-Thsang." Chapter VI. might be detached from the book and transferred to the pages of a Quarterly, without so much as a change of cal thread, and reintroducing dates, though in very round numbers. But, without the Muhammadan element, the thousand years of which it nominally treats present but a circumscribed field to the Indian historian. No wonder, then, that between forty and fifty pages are here filled up with a résumé of Hindu mythology, and passages from the travels of Marco Polo and Mr. Ralph Fitch. Chapter IX. completes the volume with an interesting if not an exhaustive account of Portuguese India. Many extracts might be made in proof of what we have said on the literary merits of this volume. Passages readily offer themselves in every chapter to refute the notion that habitual official composition hampers the more general descriptive power. For ourselves, we detect little of the secretariat summaries of the author in the present case; and we happen to know something of them. Viewing the work in its isolated character, it is instructive and entertaining. Of its historical value we are sure in one sense: it reconnoitres, and affords a good incipient comprehension of the ground to be traversed. It indicates notable epochs, and gives a significance to particular chasms in a dim retrospect, even if it does little to supply the immense blanks in an important chronicle of ages. It is, at least, a welcome accession to the information already recorded on a subject well worth the expenditure of time and labour. Had we, on closing the book, to specify the more palpable defect suggested to us in the course of perusal, we might record the impression that Rajputána would have borne further elaboration; and that a study of the State of Jesalmér alone would have shed a new light on the Jain temples and Jain people. F. J. GOLDSMID. NEW NOVELS. The Italians. By Frances Elliot. (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1875.) Fair in the Fearless Old Fashion. By Charles Farmlet. (London: Samuel Tinsley, 1875.) Antony Brade. By Robert Lowell. (Boston: Roberts Brothers. London: Sampson Low & Co., 1874.) title or other modification than the formal insertion of the latest editions of Sakuntala, the Mrichchakati, Mudrá Rákshasá, and other Sanskrit plays prepared for the British public by Professors Monier Williams or Wilson. And Chapter VII. offers little more than a few excerpta from two substantial volumes on Rajputána published more than forty years ago, the undoubted value of which work would be greatly enhanced by rearrangement and revision. But it should, in justice to the author, be admitted that, considered as parts of a history of India, or in any shape, the two first of the above three chapters are very acceptable contributions to literature. The story of the "Toy-book of its kind than The Italians. Whether cart" is especially well told. Chapter VIII., or "The Brahmanical Revival," is practical in resuming the histori * Lt.-Colonel Wilford, quoted in Maurice's Hindustan (vol. i. part i. page 35), a work which bears high testimony to the abilities and research of the author, and merits the close attention of all students of Indian history. The Rev. Thomas Maurice, Assistant Keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, died in his apartments at that institution on March 30, 1824. His legacy of labour, notwithstanding the lapse of half a century, should not be forgotten, either in reviewing India from the death of Alexander, or in an exposition of the Hindu mythology. Greed's Labour Lost. By the Author of WE have seldom read a more satisfactory that kind is of the highest, or indeed is high at all, is perhaps rather a different question. It is hardly a book that any one would care to read twice; but on the other hand it is a book that one reads through with decided interest and pleasure, and that one lays down with a feeling of satisfaction, not by any means because the reading is over, but because the time occupied has been pleasantly occupied. Only in the third volume does the interest flag a little, chiefly because the situation becomes for a time more tragic and more complicated than suits the general light and easy tone of the book. The writer has managed the picture of Lucca and its interiors, which fills the first hundred pages, with great skill, so that its photographic minuteness is not in the least wearisome. The ancient Cavaliere Trenta, moreover, is a capital sketch. The "Red Count " Marescotti, who unites piety, poetry, and communism, strikes us as somewhat overdrawn; at any rate, if he is a fair type of any portion of Young Italy, March hares may be looked upon as sane and sober in comparison with these young persons. It would be easy, too, to find fault on reflection with many of the other personages, but the merit (if it be a merit) of the book is, that it has sufficient "go" to carry one through a first reading without attracting much attention to these deficiencies. Whenever we are getting a little tired of the characters, the author artfully inserts a little bit of description of place or person which puts us in good humour again. A tendency to rather theatrical soliloquy, and here and there a religious or political sneer which is not in the best taste, are faults which it is more difficult to pardon; but still the book is one which is far more easy to find fault with than to dislike or to drop when one has once begun it. Mr. Charles Farmlet has, it appears, an "enthusiastic admiration" for Mr. Swinburne, which is certainly creditable, and it would seem to have occurred to him that it would be a good way of expressing that admiration to write a novel, dedicate it to the poet, christen it by a phrase from "Dolores," and prefix mottoes from the Poems and Ballads to nearly every chapter. We do not know that there is any positive ob jection to this proceeding, except that the result would be rather terrible if the example were generally followed, and if everybody who has a favourite English poet were to write a novel in two volumes in order to apprise the public of the fact. But unluckily Fair in the Fearless Old Fashion, despite very loyal efforts on the part of its author, does not at all carry out the promise of its title and its mottoes. We cannot conceive anything less like Mr. Swinburne's goddess-heroine than Mr. Farmlet's Ame rican widow, who falls in love at first sight with a good-looking noodle, makes such unskilful use of her personal charms that she cannot entice him away from his betrothed, tries to ruin his reputation in order to get him in her power, spoils everything by interfering with her own plot before it is ripe, and finally poisons herself in the most horribly commonplace manner. But the book is rather unsuccessful than positively bad; there is really a certain amount of interest about it, and it is decently written. If Mr. Farmlet should wish to exhibit his admira tion for somebody else in the same way, he should take a friendly suggestion, and " vey," in the language of the wise, his situations a little less openly. The well-known conservatory scene in Guy Livingstone is worked in twice, and the plot against the hero is discovered in exactly the same manner as the plot against the beloved friend of our youth, Peter Simple, not to mention suspicions of similar utilisation in almost every chapter. Also, we should like con |