FEB. 13, 1875.]

to know why an Englishman having to mention an Italian should call him "Pic de la Mirandole"?

Antony Brade is scarcely a novel, being merely a tale of American school life. When one has succeeded in attuning one's mind to the proper key, and in getting one's teeth off edge (if the expression be allowable), it is discovered to be a rather pleasantly and genially written book of its kind; but if the American boy be what he is here represented, he is certainly a most curious "sport"

in the botanical sense.

“When a poor widow left with five little ones, and only the resources of a poor enough brain to which to turn for their support, buys-as the Saturday so funnily wrote her inkbottle' and sets to work to write, she should, provided that she gives forth to the easily-pleased few who read her books no harmful words, be protected, and that by the might of the law, from injury.” Such are the ideas of the author of Greed's Labour Lost on the subject of criticism. It is certainly fortunate for us that this new jus quinque liberorum is not yet recognised, for we must say that the possession of five little ones, a poor brain, and an inkbottle does not seem to us a sufficient excuse for spoiling the taste, wasting the time, and weakening the brains of the easily-pleased few, or rather many, who look to novels for almost their only intellectual food; and still less does it seem to us (to drop the moral view) a sufficient excuse for the undisturbed production of what is intrinsically and artistically bad. But there really is nothing in Greed's Labour Lost to require all this protesting on the part of the author against the "dread artillery of criticism." The book is not specially silly, or vulgar, or extravagant. The heroine in the first volume behaves

rather badly to her uncle; in the second she marries her cousin and behaves rather badly to him; in the third (the unfortunate cousin being well disposed of) she becomes the guardian angel of her family, and marries somebody else. The dénouement reminds one of the immense advance which we have made on our fathers and grandfathers in this matter. They-good souls-used to put a young lady or a young gentleman in difficulties as to whom they should choose; but when the choice was made, it was made. Now we are all of us alive to the great conveniences of second

marriages. The only thing we find to wonder at is, that the indulgence is usually limited to two. We all know cases in which young ladies are engaged to three or four persons in a twelvemonth, and marry some one else six months after. Only think of the delightful intricacies of plot which might be indulged in, if a heroine had to bless and dispose of four or five happy and moribund beings in succession! Let us respectfully offer this to the author of Greed's Labour Lost as a ground-plan for her next novel, and so endeavour to make

amends for the woes which she has evidently

suffered at the hands of former critics. Mrs. Cashel Hoey is another instance of a novelist succumbing to the temptation of making three people happy. But as the hero of The Blossoming of an Aloe allows some fifteen or twenty years to pass between his two marriages, the sternest censor can

has now devolved upon the Rev. A. B. Grosart, who has been selected as editor by the family. Among the prose works but little known, or absolutely unknown to students of the poet in the present generation, we may mention An Apology for the French Revolution: By a Republican, now first published; tract on the Convention of Cintra, so scarce that a copy has sold for ten guineas; a letter, now first printed, transmitting the Letter to Sir Charles W. Pasley, K.C.B.; Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland, 1818, very scarce; various Letters and Speeches on Education; A Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, 1818, very scarce; two Essays on Epitaphs, from unpublished MSS.; A Guide through the District of the Lakes, and The Kendal and Windermere Railway, with which Mr. Ruskin must find himself in the fullest sympathy; the whole of the I. F. MSS. in their entirety, as written down to the dictation of Wordsworth by Miss Fenwick, "delightfully chatty and infornial," and hitherto but very imperfectly published. The book will include a number of original letters, and accurate reprints of those already published, and a collection of conversations and personal reminiscences of Wordsworth. This edition of the Prose Works of Wordsworth, which bids fair to be a contribution of the first importance to English literature, will be published by Messrs. Moxon, in three volumes demy octavo, at the price of two guineas. It will be dedicated, by express permission, to the Queen, and with the dedication will be printed a hitherto unpublished poem by Wordsworth, addressed to the Queen on the occasion of sending a gift copy of his Poems to the Royal Library at Windsor.

A NEW series of English Classics, edited with Introductions and notes, is about to be issued under the direction of Mr. Forrest, Head Master of the High School, Surat, and Mr. J. W. Hales. Among the editors are Professor Dowden, Mr. Thomas Arnold, Dr. Morris, Dr. Abbott, Mr. Furnivall, Professor Ten Brink of Strassburg, Professor Wagner of Hamburg, Professor Henry Morley, &c.

It is to be called the London Series, and to be published by Messrs. Longmans and Co.

The Children of the World will be published in future by Messrs. Henry S. King & Co., who have at press a new work by the same author, entitled The Children of Religion.

MR. JOHN NOBLE has in the press a volume of more than 300 pages on national finance, reviewing the policy of the last two Parliaments, and the results of modern fiscal legislation.

MR. SPEDDING is preparing a paper for the New Shakspere Society, giving the results of his comparison of all the differences between the first Quarto and the Folio of Richard III. Curiously enough, he finds that the reviser of the first Quarto does not carry his work of revising beyond the beginning of the third scene of act v. 1.

From

47 of that scene to the end, the variations betions, but misprints, almost all copied from the late Quartos, and all wrong but one.

tween the Folio and first Quarto are not correc

THE death of Alderman Wilkinson, of Burnley, is a serious loss for Lancashire archaeology. Thomas Turner Wilkinson was born March 17, 1815, near Blackburn, his father being a farmer averse to "larning." The feeling was fortunately not hereditary, the son devoting himself to mathematical studies with great energy. As early as 1839 he contributed to the mathematical section in the York Courant, and since then his papers on this branch of science have been very numerous. He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and was a member of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, the Manchester Literary and Philosophical, and Geological Societies, and of the Manchester Literary Club, to which association his last book was dedicated. He was a working member of all these

societies, and the list of his contributions to their Transactions is long and varied, ranging from "Problems on Contact" to "Spenser and the East Lancashire Dialect." In conjunction with the late Mr. Harland, he wrote the two works by which he is best known to the general reader. Lancashire Folk Lore (1867), and its sequel, Lancashire Legends and Traditions (1873), take high rank among books of this class. He died on February 6, and the funeral, which took place on the 10th, was attended by representatives of the societies named, of the corporation, and of most of the public institutions of Burnley. As a mathematician, bibliographer, and antiquary, he had a more than English reputation, and his genial disposition and readiness to impart information will make him greatly missed by his numerous literary friends. His MSS., it is understood, have been left to the Chetham Library at Manchester. His last literary work was published only last month, being a revised and enlarged edition of the Ballads and Lyrics of Lancashire, issued some years back by Mr. Harland.

A SUM of 1,050 fr. was given last week in Paris for a receipt signed in Rome, in 1548, by François

Rabelais.

As the English public will not give its Early English Text Society money to enable it to print quickly enough the manuscripts which contain the early history of our language and our social state, Germany is coming to the rescue, as she did long ago in the case of French manuscripts. Professor Carl Horstmann, of Magdeburg, has just published at Paderborn (F. Schöningh), a most valuable selection of Early English Legends, the Childhood and Birth of Jesus, Barlaam and Josaphat, and St. Patrick's Purgatory, and means to follow it up by another volume containing the legend of Gregorius (from a unique MS. in the Bodleian, of the time and style of King Horn, early thirteenth century), the Miracles of our Lady, and the Legend of Pope Celestine. In his present volume Professor Horstmann gives "The Childhood of Jesus" from the early thirteenth century Laud MS. 108 (believed to be unique); "The Birth of Jesus" in parallel texts from the early fourteenth century MSS., Ashmole 43 and Egerton 1993, with the long continuation from the Egerton MS. alone; "Barlaam and Josaphat "from the fourteenth century MS., Bodley 779; and "St. Patrick's Purgatory, from the Ashmole MS. 43, the Egerton 1993, and the Laud 108. In Appendixes he adds "A Dispution bitwene chi(1)d Jhesu & Maistres of be lawe of Jewes" from the grand Vernon MS. in the Bodleian, before A.D. 1400; and two more versions of "Barlaam & Josaphat," the first from the Vernon MS. in the Southern dialect, and the second from Harleian MS. 4196 in the Northern dialect. A full preface on the Early English Legend-manuscripts, giving lists of the Lives in all the British Museum and Bodleian MSS., with comments, a list of exceptional rhymes and the assonances in his texts, &c., complete this volume, which is a credit to its editor and a welcome help

to all Early English scholars and students.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN have in the press a Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye, by R. Brudenell Carter, F.R.C.S., ophthalmic surgeon to St. George's Hospital. The work will be copiously illustrated by lithographs and woodcuts, and is intended to be a familiar exposition of the present doctrines and modes of treatment of Engfish ophthalmic surgeons, adapted to the wants of both practitioners and students.

WE have received a corrected reprint of a very admirable address delivered by Mr. James Parker of Oxford, on January 27, to the members of the Reading Archaeological and Architectural Society. Passing in review the chief points of interest in the early history of the ancient borough, its conflict with the Danes in the ninth century and its mention in the Norman Survey, Mr. Parker enlarged upon the grandeur of the Abbey, and the

similarity in the structure and dimensions of its church to the Cathedral of Canterbury at the time of Thomas Becket, who came down to Reading to consecrate the Abbey. The chapel corresponding to the scene of the archbishop's murder at Canterbury is now, he complained, used as a coal-hole by the Roman Catholic priest whose house is adjacent. We hope the new Reading Society may

prosper.

M. MICHEL CHEVALIER has published the opening lecture of his course of Political Economy for the present session in the College of France, under the title Des Moyens pour un Etat de refaire ses Finances. This subject has, of course, more importance for France at the present moment than for most other countries, but M. Chevalier's lecture discusses it on principles of general application. The emancipation of production and trade from all restriction is the method of financial reform he advocates. We had thought it hardly possible to say anything new on the point, but M. Chevalier bas succeeded in giving freshness and novelty to its exposition. We are glad, too, to observe that, uncompromising free-trader in the widest sense though he is, he does not go the length, with Mr. Bright, of regarding adulteration as a form of competition with which the State ought not to interfere. Nor does he oppose the intervention of the State in assisting the construction of railways in countries where private enterprise is unequal to the task. But he appears to overrate the extent of competition between railway companies in land, where the constant tendency for some time has been towards amalgamation or combination, and consequent monopoly. We can recommend M. Chevalier's instructive lecture to experts as well as beginners in political economy; but, on the subject of English railways, we think those who can read German would do well also to study the remarkable work of Dr. Gustav Cohn, lately published at Leipzig.

good portrait. We would suggest that the time had fully come for another reprint of Dr. Dasent's translation of Asbjörnsen's and Moe's Tales from the Norse, which has long been unattainable.

A NEW monthly journal of philosophy and science is to appear at Naples, under the direction of Professors Francesco Fiorentino and C. M.

Tallango, entitled Giornale napoletano di filosofia

e lettere, scienze morali e politiche.

A VERY touching exchange of presents has just taken place between the Queen and the Empress Eugénie. Her Majesty the Queen sent to the widow of Napoleon III. immediately after her return to Chislehurst from her visit to Windsor Castle, the first volume of Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort; and this week the Empress Eugénie has presented to Queen Victoria a superbly bound copy of the first two volumes of Mr. Blanchard Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III.

IN accordance with the financial reports recently published at Berlin, the German budget is charged with a sum of 923,980 mark. for the Prussian universities, including Münster and Braunsberg. Of this sum 60,000 mark. are assigned to the purposes of augmenting the salaries of teachers, and assisting meritorious students. This falls short by nearly 29,000 mark. of the amount appropriated last year for the same object, owing to the fact that some university chairs have been better endowed in the interval, and no longer need further Eng-supplementation. budget for "assistant teachers" at the universities, A provision is made in the whose position is now for the first time officially recognised by a grant of 54,000 mark. for the payment of their stipends. The University of Berlin, which has been enlarged by the establishment of several new chairs, has now a staff of sixty-three ordinary, and forty-two extraordinary professors, five of each grade belonging to the faculty of Theology, eight

Ir is reported that the late Professor of History at Zürich, Dr. H. H. Vögeli, who died at the close of last year, has left important manuscripts referring to the Transactions of the Oecumenical Council, which will shortly be published. The Swiss Chronicle for 1873, which appeared not long before his death, and in which he had given a most useful summary of the events of the year, will, it is stated, be continued by the publishers, Messrs. Schwabe, of Basle.

THE Royal Scandinavian Society of Literary Antiquities ("Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab") has just celebrated its fifty years' jubilee in Copenhagen. The society was founded on January 28, 1825. The president, the King of Denmark, received the members in the Palace of Amalienborg early in the morning. Vice-president Worsaae opened the meeting with an eloquent address, in which he recapitulated all the society had accomplished since its foundation by C. J. lications, some of which, as the Antiquitates AmeRafn, and enumerated its most important pubricanae, had attracted the attention of the whole learned world to Denmark and to the Society. The accomplished Vice-president then mentioned that several important works were at this moment passing through the Society's press, among others a splendidly illustrated monograph on the remains discovered at Jellinghoj, and a large as well as a small edition of Njálssaga. Before the meeting closed, the names of the King of Greece and of the Czarewitch were added to the list of mem

bers.

A FRENCH translation of Alfred Larsen's Life and Works of P. Chr. Asbjörnsen has been printed in Christiania and circulated privately throughout Europe. It will, without doubt, tend to widen the circle of the personal acquaintance of this great writer. To be so widely known throughout the literary world is an honour that few authors, and still fewer comparative mythologists, attain during their own lifetime. The book is adorned with a

of the former and two of the latter to that of Law; and, while fifteen ordinary and eight extraordinary professors compose the medical staff, the faculty of Philosophy is presided over by as many as thirty-five ordinary and twenty-seven extraordinary professors.

THE last number of Unsere Zeit (February 5) has an article on the present condition of Strassburg, from which it appears that the University and Town Library is rapidly recovering its former prestige. As many as 44,500 volumes have been secured for it during the last year, of which 33,000 were obtained by purchase, and the remainder through private donations, and by these additions. the entire collection has been raised to upwards

of 344,000 volumes in all.

THE Theological Review for January contains an article on Ewald's History of the Hagiocracy in Israel, by Francis R. Conder, which is not quite worthy either of its subject or of the review in which it appears. The author entertains an exaggerated belief in the later Jewish tradition, and takes Ewald to task for extending the principle of development, which rules in all other histories, to the history of Israel. He treats the history of the people of Israel somewhat as uneducated preachers are apt to treat the words of the Bible: to judge by the language he uses, it was brought out in England the other day. His knowledge of Judaism is drawn not from the really great Jewish critics, but from the Abbé Chiarini. And his Semitic scholarship may be measured by his derivation of Bedouin from Midianite, "the change of one servile letter for another turning Medeen into Bedeen."

IN the Fortnightly Review the editor begins a study on Diderot, a subject much worthier of an estimable writer than Voltaire or Rousseau. Professor Cairnes concludes his protest against certain tendencies of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Sociology; but, as Mr. Herbert Spencer reminds us, in a note on Professor Cairnes's article, we must wait till

the Principles of Sociology, in three octavo volumes, are published before we can tell whether criticisms based on a comparatively concise and popular work are premature or not. Mr. Swinburne's unknown poet is a certain Mr. Wells, a contemporary of Keats, who wrote a play on Joseph and his Brethren, with no construction, but much command of the poetical dialect of the Elizabethan age. George Smith, the author of the Cry of the Brickfield Children, has an article on our Canal Population. He has not asked himself whether they are miserable as well as barbarous.

In the Contemporary Review, Professor Lightfoot deals with the series of confusions and misquotations by which the author of Supernatural Religion has bolstered up Volkmar's view, that a plausible and ambiguous statement of Malalas, a very inaccurate author of the sixth century, is to supersede the mass of evidence that Ignatius suffered at Rome. Professor Clifford treats of the postulates of the science of space in somewhat the same spirit as Mr. G. H. Lewes in the Fortnightly Review for August 1874, with a fuller development and illustration, perhaps with less maturity and precision of thought. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen gives an account of the curious penalties to which unpopular thinkers are still legally liable; for instance, Mr. Mill might have lost his place at the India House and been imprisoned. Father Bridgett attempts to rebut Dr. Lyon Playfair's charge that the mediaeval Church proclaimed the Sanctity of Dirt, on the ground that the extreme neglect of their persons by some saints was exceptional, and that, as a rule, the Church did nothing but protest against self-indulgence. This falls short of the truth. The bath was the standing luxury or necessity of southern cities, as the daily pint or dram is the standing luxury of northern cities now. "In cute curanda plus aequo operata juventus" found the pleasant sense of being alive all over which followed the daily bath the best thing the day could give. The Church, rightly or wrongly, thought this pleasure dangerous, as the Mahometans think it now, and for whatever reason, when civilisation began to reconstitute itself in Southern Christendom, the bath did not reappear.

tively that he was little to blame for the way his first marriage ended. "S. C." has a learned article on Piero della Francesca, who, it is conjectured, took to mathematics at the age when, according to Vasari, he left off painting, because he lost his eyesight. Vasari's other bit of declamation about the ingratitude of Pacioli in profiting without acknowledgment by Francesca's writings, is refuted by copious acknowledgments in more than one of Pacioli's, from the last of which it appears that Francesca was still alive in 1494.

In the Revue des Deux Mondes for February 1, George Sand begins a novel, the subject of which recalls our "penny dreadfuls." The story is appropriately narrated by a valet de chambre, but still

the ineffaceable distinction of the author is a relief after M. Cherbuliez's recent story, told with inconceivable "impudence" in the etymological sense, of how an English "Miss" threw herself at the head of a moody and handsome French savant, and brought him down at last. M. Othenin d'Haussonville, one of the three recruits from the Right Centre who gave the historian of St. Louis a chance of organising the third republic, concludes his pitiless study of Sainte-Beuve with a ferocious phrase of Cousin's, who said when Mérimée and Sainte-Beuve were being discussed, "Savez-vous la véritable supériorité de Mérimée sur Sainte-Beuve? Je vais vous la dire: Mérimée est gentilhomme, Sainte-Beuve n'est pas gentilhomme." Gaston Boissier has an article on M. Luce's edition of Froissart, which contains an interesting account of the three redactions of his great work, and several ingenious and unforced historical parallels.

THE following Parliamentary Papers have lately been published:-Statement exhibiting the moral and material progress and condition of India, during the year 1872-73, with maps, &c. (price 8s.); a Return of the Provisions made by each School Board for the Religious Teaching of Children (price 9d.); Correspondence between the Admiralty and the Rev. C. M. Ramus on certain Experiments conducted by them, with sketches, &c. (price 38. 8d.); Return of the Population, Number of Electors, &c., of each City, Town, and Borough, returning a Member or Members to Parliament; Appendix to the Fortieth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland (price 38. 6d.); First Report of the Civil Service Enquiry Commissioners, &c., &c.

IN Macmillan Mr. Freeman informs us that most of his examinees at Oxford think Orange is in the Netherlands, along with much other instructive matter about that little Burgundian principality. Professor Munro replies with much WE have received The Report of the Proceedings force, and not a little natural severity, to Mr. at the Dinner of the Cobden Club, July 1, 1874 Kebbel's strictures on recent Latin verse. He (Cassell); Protection from Fire and Thieves, by succeeds in showing that the school to which G. H. Chubb (Macmillan); The Problem of Irish Gilbert Wakefield belongs are not faithful to their Education, by Isaac Butt, M.P. (Longmans); original, and are more or less slovenly in language The Dramatic Works of William Shakspere, edited and thought. Does he succeed in showing that by S. W. Singer, F.S.A., vol. iii. (Bell); A Vision they have not a superficial likeness to Latin, an of Creation, by Cuthbert Collingwood, M.A., appearance of clearness, almost a reality of ease second edition (Edinburgh: Paterson); The Ruand flow which have disappeared in the work of diments of Physical Geography for the use of Indian their successors, who have escaped their faults? Schools, by H. F. Blanford, F.G.S., third edition Is Fraser Professor Newman has an interesting (Macmillan); Theism, an Address, by Brinsley paper on Vegetarianism, chiefly from the econoNixon, Esq. (Longmans); Charles Kingsley, a mical point of view, insisting on the growing Sermon, by A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster difficulty of supplying large towns with an in- (Macmillan). creasing quantity of meat, and on the certainty that a larger area is required to feed a meat-eating than a vegetarian population. F. R. C. has another rabbinical article on the literary history of the word "Messiah," implying that the current argument from prophecy rests mainly on an arbitrary patristic cento from the Targums. Mr. Carlyle's abridgment of Snorro is continued to the death of St. Olaf.

THE most interesting article in the Cornhill, "Have we Two Brains?" is based on BrownSéquard's researches; the writer is inclined to adopt his theories, but to question their practical utility. "Thoughts about Thinking" is a collection of genial and sensible observations on a subject too close at hand to be other than unfamiliar. A writer who has been permitted to use the unpublished materials for Shelley's life, states posi

THE forthcoming Part IV. of Mr. Alexander J. Ellis's great work on Early English Pronuncia

tion

" contains his illustrations from contemporary writers of the pronunciation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an account of received English pronunciation, and the introductory matter to the new collections of English dialects which have been made for his work, in order to register dialectal pronunciation with a completeness hitherto unattained and even unattempted, as a necessary basis for understanding the pronunciation underlying our Early English orthothemselves, which have been already made to a suffigraphy, which was wholly dialectal. These collections cient and by no means scanty extent, will form Part V., to be published in 1875. That part will therefore be devoted to English Dialects. After it is completed, Mr. Ellis contemplates allowing at least two years to elapse before he begins Part the Sixth and last."

In his present Part IV., "thanks to the labours of the great Teutonic linguist Schmeller, Mr. Ellis has also been able to show the variations which interpenetrate one great branch of the High German dialects, the Bavarian (pp. 13571368); and, thanks to the extraordinary collection made by Winkler, just published in Dutch, to give English readers a general view of the present state of those Low German and Friesian dialects to which our own Anglo-Saxon language belongs, as they have developed under merely native influences, without the introduction of any strange element, like Celtic, Norman French, and Old Danish (pp. 1378-1428). These modern dialectal forms are invaluable for a study of our Early English dialectal forms, for, although chronologically contemporaneous with the English of the nineteenth century, they are linguistically several hundred years older. And they enable us to appreciate the state of our own English dialects, which are in fact merely a branch of the same, left untouched by Winkler, because, like our own, these Low German is a literary form of provincial Hollandish), have dialects (with the exception of modern Dutch, which developed entirely without the control of the gram

marian, the schoolmaster, and the author."

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

THE very able and interesting paper on the subject of the Arctic Expedition, read by Admiral Richards at the meeting of the Geographical Society last Monday, conveyed some information respecting the instructions to its commander. There cannot be any doubt as to what the instructions to Captain Nares ought to be, and what the people of this country desire they should be namely, to use his own discretion in carrying out the exploration of as large an area of the unknown region as possible, according to circumstances which cannot be foreseen. But it appears that he is to be trammelled by restrictions; he is not to go beyond the Pole; he is not to go east or west of certain meridians; but to advance due north towards the North Pole, as if he was some Alpine climber trying to reach a maiden peak. Nothing can be worse than the spirit which could conceive restrictions of this kind. They prove that there is no comprehension in high places either of the real character of the work that is required to be done, or of the best means of performing it. If Captain Nares is fit to command an Arctic expedition, he is fit to be trusted fully and unreservedly; and the country will not endure that he should be tied by foolish restrictions.

THE names of the Arctic exploring ships have now been decided upon. That of the Alert will not be altered. The Bloodhound will henceforward be the Discovery, a good old name formerly borne by Baffin's ship when he discovered Smith Sound, and by Captain Cook's second ship in his third voyage. Captain Nares has not yet decided which of the two ships shall be the advance and which the depôt vessel; but all the work connected with strengthening and fitting is progressing rapidly and satisfactorily.

WE understand that Professor Newton, of Cambridge, has undertaken the Ornithological section of the Arctic Manual. It certainly could not be in better hands; and complete information as to all that is known of the birds of the far north will be specially valuable and interesting to the officers of the expedition.

THE despatch of the Arctic Expedition has stimulated the adventurous spirit of amateurs. Mr. Rickaby is a young sportsman who went up Baffin's Bay in the Eric in 1873, the same year in which Commander Markham made his voyage in the Arctic. In 1874 Mr. Rickaby hired the yacht Sampson, and visited Spitzbergen; and this year it is his intention to get a vessel and again to make a voyage up Baffin's Bay, in the direction of Smith Sound.

WE hear that Lieutenant Payer, the intrepid Austrian Arctic explorer, is making enquiries and preparations with a view to crossing the continental glacier of Greenland, from east to west.

The attempt has been made several times from the western side, but it has always been found impossible to penetrate further than from thirty to fifty miles. A success, or even a partial success, would lead to most valuable results in the elucidation of the important phenomena in physical geography connected with the formation of continertal ice in the present and in past ages. Certainly a desperate adventure could not be undertaken under better auspices; for Julius Payer is one of the most renowned Alpine climbers in the AustroHungarian Empire.

THE collection of dried plants from the banks of Lake Tanganyika, made and sent home by Lieutenant Cameron, is now in the hands of Dr. Hooker. Unfortunately the specimens were injured on the way down to the coast, but they have been sufficiently preserved to be of use. The journal has also arrived, as well as the observations during Cameron's cruise round the lake, and a series of sketches. The carefully-prepared map of the lake, or rather of that portion south of Ujiji, is now in the hands of the Royal Geographical Society, and will shortly be published in the Proceedings of that body. It is as good and careful a piece of geographical work as has ever come from the interior of Africa.

Morgenbladet states that the German Polar Society in Kristvigen seems to be in a depressed state. The two newest, best, and most seaworthy of its ships have just been sold. It will be deplorable if this institution should fall into decay after the expenditure of so much money and thought.

A CURIOUS geographical problem is suggested by the appearance at the mouth of the Seine, near Havre, in the course of the present month, of one of the hermetically-sealed bottles in wooden cases which were thrown overboard during Prince Napoleon's North-Polar Expedition in 1860. Wooden-covered bottles of this kind were thrown into the sea daily in the month of June of that year from the Prince's ship, in the expectation that the course taken by them would lead to the elucidation of the direction of the greater oceanic currents, but during the fourteen and a half years that have intervened since then, none of these bottles have been seen till the present one was washed ashore. Its appearance at the mouth of the Seine seems to indicate that a polar current must be borne into the German Ocean, and must be carried thence through the Channel to the western coasts of France.

THE botanical products of the Queensland North-East Coast Expedition, the report of which we have recently received, are more important from an economic point of view than from any great novelties or peculiarities that they present. The discovery of extensive districts the soil of which cannot be surpassed in quality, and supports a truly tropical vegetation, including the bamboo, tara, and banana, is of more importance than new gold-fields. In some places, too, the timber trees were very fine, particularly of Calophyllum Inophyllum, Eugenia grandis, Terminalia melanocarpa, Hernandia ovigera, Cardwellia, Cedrela, Alstonia, Castanospermum, &c., &c. The rapid rise of Cooktown, on the Endeavour River, though not owing to the agricultural capabilities of the surrounding country, can only be maintained by its proximity to a district rejoicing in a fertile soil. Indeed, the settlement of this coast depends greatly upon this point, and the explorations thus far have resulted very satisfactorily, though barren wastes alternate with river valleys and alluvial lands.

BARON MUELLER, government botanist, Victoria, in his last report gives some interesting details of the results of recent explorations in the Upper Yarra, Hume River, and other districts. As might be expected, although the general physical features and the nature of the flora and fauna of most districts are known, every trip adds

new species to those previously known. In the forest regions of the Upper Yarra and the southern branches of the Goulburn River measurements tus amygdalina var. regnans, the highest being apwere taken of some of the larger trees of Eucalypproximately 400 feet, but it is believed that there are higher specimens, which, however, could not be measured on account of the labour of clearing away the dense jungle to get a base line. The magnificent grass, Festuca dives, first discovered in West Gippsland, was found in the same districts. This grass grows from ten to twelve feet high, or even as much as seventeen feet in the rich soil of entirely new tree, "probably of medicinal value," the fern-tree gullies. In the IIume district an Bertya Finlayi, was discovered. Many Tasmanian

forms were traced northwards into New South

Wales, and many facts observed are of great interest in phyto-geography. A list of additions to the genera of Australian plants during the year numbers fifty, and includes Corynocarpus, Carmichaelia, Ilex, Lagerstroemia, Agrimonia, Embothrium (sect. Oreocallis), Ulmus (sect. Microptelea), Moraea, Areca, Wolffia, and many others equally interesting to the student of the distribution of plants, besides fourteen absolutely new

genera.

Elton, on Mti Sandarusi, or Gum Copal Trees of A SHORT report from Zanzibar, by Captain Dar-es-Salam, has just been printed among the Parliamentary papers. Captain Elton fully endorses Dr. Kirk's Report, published in the Linnean Society's Journal (Botany, vol. xi., paper on "Copal of Zanzibar and the Trachylobium Mossambicense"), for he was astonished at the immense number and size of these trees, far exceeding anything he had before imagined. The height of an average tree is about 60 feet, and the girth at bottom upwards of 4 feet. On stripping off the bark, the gum was found deposited in many places between it and the wood in a liquid form. The trees are suffering greatly from the attacks of swarms of ants and other insects, and are being slowly but surely destroyed, piece after piece, branch after branch. They are all festooned with the long intertwined ropes of the india-rubber Viana, the thickly-matted cords of which, pendant from the main limbs and knotted into a sort of rigging, become an easy means of ascent to the natives looking for the resinous deposits on the branches. This india-rubber was worked rather extensively here at one time, but was soon given up as unprofitable, in consequence of the number of slave-lads carried off by leopards.

THE North Otago Times says that partridges appear to be spreading in that district. A brace have been repeatedly seen on Mr. Murray's land at Hampden recently, and pheasants are also pretty frequently flushed in the neighbourhood of that township. The goldfinches, either some of those liberated four years ago, or their progeny, are also occasionally met with, and that they are breeding is proved by the circumstance that a nest with four eggs was recently taken in mistake for that of a native bird.

Ar Oamaru, New Zealand, says the Southern Mercury, a harbour light was displayed for the first time on December 1 last. It is visible for fifteen miles, and is situated on the point of a bluff above the harbour at an elevation of 160 feet. The lantern is of an octagonal shape, five sides being glazed, so that the light can be seen from N.W. to S.W.

THE same paper says that there is a chance of the vigneron industry being established on the west coast, as 200 two-year-old grape-vines, debeen imported to the Lake Brunner district, to signed to form the nucleus of a vineyard, have the order of an Italian settler, who, it is hardly necessary to add, understands thoroughly, and is fully satisfied that they will their culture flourish well in that locality.

ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND.

annual report shows that there has been an THE January meeting of this Association was held on the 20th ult. at Butler House, Kilkenny. The accession of forty-two members and four fellows this Association are in great request with the during the past year, and that the publications of public. Several objects were presented to the museum, including bronze celts and spear-heads, an oaken paddle found with a single-tree canoe near Inniskillen and an Abyssinian MS. A fine specimen of the archaeological mare's-nest was destroyed by Mr. Hewson, in reference to a silver pin having a coin for a head. The coin had been identified by an eminent numismatist as belonging to a kind called sceattae, of Danish, or at all events Northern origin, and had been consequently engraved in the last number of the Journal. Mr. others in his own collection, and has ascertained that Hewson subsequently compared the coin with it is a comparatively modern East Indian piece. Mr. Prim communicated a description of a stone-roofed

oratory near the Abbey of Louth, which seems to have been hitherto unnoticed. The local legend ascribes its origin to miraculous power. St. Mochta, a contemporary of St. Patrick, while state of ecstatic contemplation, which lasted for walking in the fields near the Abbey, fell into a 100, or, as some versions of the story say, 300 years. On coming to himself he returned to the Abbey, and was, naturally enough, refused admis sion. He accordingly went to sleep in the open air, and in the morning this building was found raised over him. It consists of two storeys, connected by a staircase in the thickness of the wall; and is therefore not so old as the similar structures at Kells, Killaloe, and Glendalough, in which the only means of access to the upper room was by a ladder and a hole in the floor.

In the Journal of the Association for the past year, there is an account, illustrated by engrav ings from photographs, of the shrine of St. Manchan, which was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1872. This curious relic is preserved in the Roman Catholic chapel at Lemanaghan, and the peasantry in the neighbourhood are accustomed to swear by it, or by the bones of the saint, which are said still to rest there. The shrine is formed of yew boards in the shape of a high-pitched gabled roof, about two feet long. On each side is a Greek cross, of bronze, with bosses at the ends of each limb and in the centre, enriched with interlaced ornaments, the interstices filled in with enamel. The borders are composed of similar work. But the most remarkable feature in this ancient work of art is a row of

bronze figures in high relief, placed in the spaces formed by the arms of the cross. Originally there were, on both sides, about fifty of these figures, but now only ten remain. They wear ornamental kilts and jackets, and hold swords or other weapons in their hands. As representations of the human figure they possess but little merit, and contrast strangely with the beautiful design of the shrine. and workmanship of the more decorative portions identified two similar figures-one in the pos The Rev. James Graves has in private hands as having formerly belonged to session of the Royal Irish Academy, and the other covered. One of these represents a bishop holding the shrine, and hopes that others may yet be disa pastoral staff, while all the figures still in situ are clad in the costume of the laity.

Mr. Wakeman contributes the results of a careful examination of the round tower at Devenish, the model round tower of Ireland. Though not the largest tower in Ireland, being only from all its compeers by the beauty of its ma84 feet 10 inches in height, it is distinguished which underlies the conical roof. This cornice sonry, and especially by the ornamental cornice is decorated partly with a Romanesque scroll and partly with rows of discs, standing out in low relief; and over the four highest windows are four

heads, three with beards interlaced after the fashion so commonly seen in Irish MSS., but the fourth beardless. Mr. Wakeman conjectures that these sculptures represent Saints Patrick, Columba, Molaisse, and Bridget, but gives no reasons for his conjecture. His remarks are illustrated by a view of the tower and by drawings of the cornice and other portions of the building. The Journal contains many other papers of great interest and value, which we have no space to notice here: especially one by Mr. G. M. Atkinson on "Ogham Writing," illustrated by facsimiles from several MS. treatises. Everyone who takes any interest in the Ogham inscriptions (and considering the numberless discussions to which they have given rise, all antiquaries must do so to some extent) will do well to study this paper with care.

RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. FINLAY, MR. FINLAY was of Scotch extraction. I have reason to think that he studied in Germany in his youth. He came out as a volunteer in the Greek Revolution, when he became acquainted with Lord Byron, who said to him, on being introduced, "You are young and enthusiastic, and therefore sure to be the more disappointed when you know the Greeks as well as I do." Mr. Finlay attained the rank of colonel in the course of the war, and, after the establishment of Greek independence, believing in the future of the new-born country, purchased land in Attica, an investment which obliged him constantly to reside at Athens, as the collection of rents, paid under the metairie system in kind, involved that personal surveillance which could not be safely delegated to another. This enforced exile, if not to his own advantage, was turned to good account by him in the interests of literature. After making himself thoroughly acquainted with the modern Greek language and with most of the countries which formed part of the Byzantine Empire, he composed his History of the Greeks from the Macedonian period to the present day, a work which in every page shows not only the ripe learning and conscientious and impartial judgment of the author, but also that minute and far-ranging local knowledge of the countries of which his History treats which could only have been acquired by travel and long residence. One of the most interesting of his tours was one in which he accompanied Karl Ritter in a cruise through the Archipelago.

Mr. Finlay took an active interest in the political affairs of Greece, and the letters which he contributed as Times correspondent for many years show how thoroughly he appreciated the people among whom his exile was passed.

It could hardly be said of his account of Greek politicians that he was to their virtues very kind,

66

and to their faults a little blind." He told the

FÖLDVARY, A. Les Ancêtres d'Attila. Etude historique sur les races scythiques. Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher. HOOK. W. F. The Lives of Grindell, Whitgift, Bancroft, and Abbot. Forming Vol. X. of the "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury." Bentley. 15s. MATTHAEI PARISIENSIS, monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, Edited by H. R. Luard, M.A. Vol. II. Rolls Series. PERRENS, F. T. Etienne Marcel, prévôt des marchands (13541358). Paris: imp. nat. 30 fr.

RECESSE, die, u. andere Akten der Hansetage von 1276-1430. 3. Bd. Leipzig: Duncker u. Humblot. Physical Science.

ETTINGSHAUSEN, C. v., und A. POKORNY. Physiotypia plantarum austriacarum. Prag: Tempsky. 800 M. FISCHER, KUNO. Francis Bacon und seine Nachfolger. Zweite völlig umgearbeitete Auflage. Leipzig: Brockhaus. HUME'S ESSAYS: Moral, Political, and Literary. Edited by T. Green and the Rev. T. H. Grose. Longmans. 288. MANTOVANI, P. Descrizione geologica della Campagna Romana.

Torino Loescher. L.5.

Philology.

HENTSCHEL, J. M. Quaestionum de Lysiae oratione Epicratea (xxvii.) capita duo. Leipzig: Krüger. 90 Pf. OPPERT, J. L'Immortalité de l'âme chez les Chaldéens (suivi d'une traduction de la Descente aux enfers de la déesse Istar Astarté). Paris: Maisonneuve. 1 fr. 50 c. PARISH, W. D. A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect. Lewes : Farncombe. 78. 6d.

Will

CORRESPONDENCE.

IRISH TEXTS.

R. SIMPSON.

Stonyford, Ireland: Feb. 8, 1875. Some time since a correspondence relative to the formation of an "Irish Text Society" was commenced in the columns of the Athenaeum. The projected society was to issue, for the use of students, the texts of ancient Celtic MSS.; and that there are practically unlimited materials any one who has read Professor O'Curry's Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History must allow. The projector or projectors of this new society seemed, however, to forget that there was already an organisation in existence for the same purpose, which only wants support to make it able to truth about Greece fearlessly, and with no tinge Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society, whose noble supply Irish texts in abundance. I allude to the of partisanship, and it is to the credit of the nation that they appreciated his impartiality; and all through their many political vicissitudes respected the one foreigner who, living in their midst, had the courage to tell them of their faults. Of Mr. Finlay it may be said that though he passed a lifetime in the Levant, he never became a Levantine. He was every inch an English gentleman from the beginning to the end, and his loss will be deeply felt by all of his countrymen who have had the advantage of enjoying at Athens his genial hospitality and instructive society. C. T. NEWTON.

SELECTED BOOKS. General Literature and Art. CROWNE, JOHN, The Dramatic Works of, with Prefatory Memoir and Notes. Vols. III. and IV. Edinburgh: Paterson.

DIDOT, A. F. Alde Manuce et l'hellénisme à Venise. Paris: Firmin Didot.

MALVEZIN, T. Michel de Montaigne, son origine, sa famille. Bordeaux: Lefebvre.

MANZONI, A., Lettere in gran parte inedite di, pubblicate per cura di Giov. Sforza. Milano: Brigola.

SC HROER, K. J. Die deutsche Dichtung des 19. Jahrhunderts in ihren bedeutenderen Erscheinungen. Leipzig: Vogel.

rank of volumes, the Irish texts edited by O'Donovan, O'Curry, Todd, Reeves, and Whitley Stokes, are before me. I would also call attention to the Irish texts placed within the reach of Celtic students by means of the publications of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, of which I have the honour to be Secretary, Besides several important tracts from the in the quarterly Journal of the Association, I Leabhar na Huidri and Book of Ballymote, printed would allude to the Corpus Inscriptionum Hibernicorum, forming its annual volume, which has been issuing in quarto yearly parts commencing with 1870, and has now reached the second volume. These lapidary texts are amongst the most ancient we possess; and as they are not only printed under the care of the best Irish scholars, but also facsimiled in numerous plates by the accomplished editress, Miss M. Stokes, they may be depended on as very valuable, not only in an artistic point of view-and many of them are exquisite examples of Celtic_art-but also as forming the most trustworthy Irish texts we possess.

JAMES GRAVES, A.B., M.R.I.A.

AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF COLERIDGE.

The following letter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the original of which is in my possession, will, I think, prove interesting to many readers of the ACADEMY. It belongs to a large collection of autograph letters bequeathed by the late John Kenyon to Mr. James Booth, to whose kindness I am indebted for it and many others. It is addressed on the cover, "J. Kenyon, Esq., 9 Argyle Street," and bears Mr. Kenyon's endorsement, "Letter to me from Coleridge, autograph.”

38 Clanricarde Gardens.

R. CHILDERS.

"Nov. 3, 1814. "Mr. B. Morgan's.*

"My dear Sir,-At Binns's, Cheap Street, I found Jer. Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, in the largest and only compleat Edition of his Polemical Tracts. Mr. Binns had no objection to the paragraph + being transcribed any morning or evening at his House: and I put in a piece of paper with the words at which the Transcript should begin and with which end-P. 450, line 5th to P. 451, 1. 31-I believe. But indeed I am ashamed, rather I feel awkward and uncomfortable at obtruding on you so long a task-much longer than I had imagined. I don't like to use any words that might give you any unpleasure, but I cannot help fearing that like a child spoilt by your and Mrs. Kenyon's great Indulgence I may have been betrayed into presuming on it more than I ought.— Indeed, my dear Sir! I do feel very keenly how exceeding kind you & Mrs. K. have been to me-it makes this scrawl of mine look dim in a way, that was less uncommon with me formerly than it has been for the last 8 or 10 years. But to return, or turn off to the good old Bishop. It would be worth your while to read Taylor's letter on original sin, & what follows. It is the masterpiece of Human Eloquence. I compare it to an old Statue of Janus, with one of the Faces, that which looks toward his opponents, the controversial Phiz, in highest Preservation-the face of a mighty one, all Power, all Life!-the Face of a God rushing on to Battle; and in the same moment enjoying at once both Contest and Triumph. The other, that which should have been the Countenance that looks towards his Followers-that with which he substitutes his own Opinion-all weather-eaten, dim, noseless, a Ghost in Marble-such as you may have seen represented in many of Piranesi's astounding Engravings from Rome & the Campus Martius. Jer. Taylor's Discursive Intellect dazzle-darkened his Intuitions: & the principle of becoming all Things to all men if by any means he might save tecting Epidermis of the Tact-nerve of Truth any, with him as with Burke, thickened the prointo something too like a Callus. But take him all in all, such a miraculous Combination of Erudition' broad, deep, and omnigenous, of Logic subtle as well as acute, and as robust as agile; of psychological Insight, so fine yet so secure! of public Prudence and practical Sageness that one ray of creative Faith would have lit up and transfigured into Wisdom; and of genuine Imagination, with its streaming Face unifying all at one moment like that of the setting Sun when thro' one interspace of blue Sky no larger than itself it emerges from the Cloud to sink behind the mountain-but a face seen only at starts, when some Breeze from the higher air scatters for a moment the cloud of Butterfly Fancies, which flutter around him like a moving Garment of ten thousand colors-(now how shall I get out of this sentence? The Tail is too big to be taken up into the Coiler's mouth)—well, as I was saying, I believe, such a complex man hardly shall we meet again.

* Here follows a word which is quite illegible.
The symbol § is used for this word.