discussion of the legal questions contained in the orations, the editors have mainly followed Mr. C. R. Kennedy, who has, indeed, left little to be done by others in this department. We hope that this edition may lead the way to a more general study of these speeches in schools than has hitherto been possible; but the notes are so full that we should recommend schoolmasters to avail themselves of the opportunity given them of placing the Teubner text in the hands of their scholars for practical use in school. The index is extremely complete, and of great service to learners.

Mr. Watson, of Brasenose, has reprinted the Epistles of Cicero, of which the Clarendon Press has already published a large edition with notes. The one book can be of little use without the other, because the letters of Cicero cannot be

understood without a great deal of explanation; at the same time the price of the larger work would preclude its being placed in the hands of school-boys. The epistles are well selected, and range from A.U.c. 689 when Cicero was forty-two years of age, to A.U.C. 711, the year of his death. Their subjects refer rather to public than private events, and were, we imagine, arranged with especial view to Oxford examinations in Ancient History. The printing and arrangement of the book are excellent, and it is well furnished with tables and indexes.

Messrs. Bagster have published an Analytical Greek Testament, and a small Greek grammar by William Penn, How to Learn to Read the Greek Testament. These books would seem to be of great use to those who, not having had a classical education, are anxious to read the New Testament in the original, and they would serve as excellent introductions to any adult into the study of Greek. In the first book the page is divided into two columns, the first containing the text, and the next each Greek word fully parsed. The second book consists of a New Testament Greek grammar arranged something after the plan of Ollendorf or Ahn. It is thoroughly scholarlike and correct, recognises sound philological principles from the first, and would in many respects compare favourably with the smaller grammars used in our large schools. Mr. Allen's Elementary Latin Grammar, published by the Clarendon Press, does not in many respects strike us so favourably. The author tells us in his preface that "in the treatment of Latin accidence the beaten tracks pointed out by immemorial usage have been generally adhered to." We do not think that any satisfactory grammar can be written which does not from the very first take account of the revolution which has taken place in the whole aspect of the subject, since the study of comparative grammar has become general What is called comparative philology both in Greek and Latin should not be taught as a mere accessory after a false method and false results have been drilled into the mind, but should inform and direct the study of language from the earliest years, and we are sorry that the University of Oxford should lend its authority to a Latin grammar composed on a different plan. The syntax is drawn up in the form of a catechism, which we suppose implies that it is to be learnt by heart, a form of useless and deadening torture which we trusted was rapidly becoming extinct. The appendix contains a great deal of useful information and is the best part of the book. A First Latin Reader, by the Rev. T. J. Nunns (Oxford: Clarendon Press), is what in old days would have been called a delectus, and is apparently well calculated to its purpose. It is printed in clear and large type, which is important for children, and the explanations are very simple and good. The book gains additional value from having been written under the direction of so experienced a teacher as Mr. Cowley Powles. Messrs. Calvert and Saward, of Shrewsbury School, have issued Selections from Livy, books viii.-ix. (Rivingtons). It is one of a class of books which took their origin from Rugby under Dr. Temple, and which

answer

The

might with advantage be indefinitely multiplied. We mean a short book of extracts containing enough Latin and Greek to last for one or two terms' work, furnished with notes and maps and explanations, and suitable for lower forms. By mutual arrangement between the schools, such books could be issued at a very low price, and the best talent of the teaching profession might be secured for them, while at the same time they could be made to range over a large extent of classical literature. The present work seems adequate to its purpose, but no book of this kind can have more than an ephemeral value. Mr. Millington's Latin Exercises on Barbarism for Junior Students (Longmans) contains in the modest form of a paper-covered pamphlet much useful information. Its twenty exercises could be quickly worked through by boys with interest and amusement, and they would not be likely to forget the lessons thus given to them. Dr. White's LatinEnglish Dictionary for Middle Class Schools (Longmans) appears to be good as far as it goes, and announces itself as cheap, but we have no means of ascertaining how far this is warranted. The same editor has also issued St. John's Gospel in the Grammar School Texts (Longmans). Greek of the text is well printed, and the vocabulary is so composed as to form a very efficient introduction to the Greek language to those who are previously ignorant of it. It also contains much information etymological and exegetical in a small space. Mr. Lupton, in Test and Competitive Geography (Longmans), gives us for one shilling a book which is a bitter satire on our system of competitive examinations. It consists of forty-two pages of geography papers set in the Army, Navy, and Civil Service Examinations, and fifteen pages of introduction. The student is told in the preface that if he will carefully get up the first fifteen pages of this little book, he will be able to answer the accompanying papers with the assistance of any of the ordinary text-books on geography. For the credit of the examiners we may say that we do not think that this promise would be justified by the result, unless the "ordinary Text Books" contained very full information. But a system must be wrong which can allow such promises to be made, and which can offer distinction and marks to the hasty cramming of undigested and in many cases useless knowledge equal to what may be gained by long and careful study of language and literature. "An anonymous writer from Glasgow" urges the importance of teaching the "laws and constitution" of our country "in schools." We agree with his conclusions, but we do not think that his arguments will convince any one who is of a different opinion. We must conclude with two little books on Greek and Roman History: A Catechism of Grecian History, by E. M. Sewell (Longmans), and Outlines of Roman History, by Rev. B. G. Johns (Lockwoods): we cannot imagine under what circumstances it is desirable to teach history by a catechism. Such a system of instruction only commands general approbation where it is necessary to impart formularies or doctrines, every word of which is important. This cannot be the case with history, since in the ordinary manuals the statements are quite as often false as true. Miss Sewell's book is no exception to this rule, although she has avoided glaring absurdities. Mr. Johns's Roman History is as bad as it can be. It is painful to think that such trash should find a sale, or that any author so grossly ignorant of his subject should be editor of a School Library. Yet he tells us in the preface that "the work has been written and arranged on the most approved system of modern instruction for the young;" and that "facts dug out from the brain's quarry by the exercise of thought and memory are of double value."

OSCAR BROWNING.

Il Progresso is the title of a monthly review published at Genoa. It is devoted to scientific discovery, inventions, and industrial art.

NOTES AND NEWS. PROFESSOR CAIRNES'S Logical Method of Political Economy has long been out of print. A new edition, enlarged and revised, will shortly be published.

WE understand that the novel called The Harbour Bar, recently published by Messrs. Macmillan, is by the wife of the present Professor of Geology at Oxford.

WE are informed that a work which has been long looked for will be in the printer's hands some time during next month. It consists of selections from the minutes and other official writings of Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, Bart., K.C.B., It will be edited sometime Governor of Madras. by Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I. Messrs. Henry S. King & Co. are to be the publishers.

THE literary remains of Wilhelm von Kaulbach are reported to be of great value from an historical, as well as an artistic point of view, and include an extensive correspondence on the subject of his paintings of the Reformation-period, with Ranke, Olfers, Müller, Bethmann-Holweg, and many others celebrated in the ranks of history and literature. One of the most characteristic of these earlier literary remains is the painter's sketchbook-diary of his first impressions of Munich, as seen in 1826.

STRANGE things come to pass in India. A prize was offered by the Elphinstone College for the best poem in Sanskrit on Buddha, the great heretic, whose followers were extirpated in India by the Brahmans to the last man.

Now a young Hindu

pupil, Govinda Wasudeva Kanitkar, writes a panegyric on the great religious reformer in very fair Sanskrit verse, and receives the well-deserved prize. His poem has been printed at Bombay at the Induprakas Press.

SOME time ago a proposal was made to the British and Foreign Bible Society to print a translation of the Bible in the Platt-Deutsch of Schleswig-Holstein. It was doubted at the time whether there was a real demand for such a translation. The Neue Zeitung of February 6, 1875, published at Brecklum, contains a letter from a clergyman who states that one-third of his congregation are unable to understand a sermon in High German, and that he would give anything for a copy of the old Low-German translation of the Bible by Bugenhagen, which was formerly used in Schleswig-Holstein, but is now out of print. Would not the Bible Society feel justified in supplying that want?

IN the just-issued catalogue of the first part of the late M. Guizot's library, the lots on English History run from number 1,690 to number 2,037, both inclusive, and contain a great many presentation copies from authors. Among the rare tracts is that very rare one edited by Lord Aberdeen, of which only ten copies were printed, Négociations de M. le Comte d'Avaux en Irlande, 1689-90.

MR. W. R. S. RALSTON is to lecture on "Popular Tales: their Origin and Meaning," at the Royal Institution on Friday next, the 26th inst.

MR. KINLOCH, of Edinburgh, has allowed a copy of his old Ballad Manuscript to be made, by Mr. William MacMath, for Harvard College Library, U.S., where Professor Child can use it for his new Collection of Ballads. For the same library and purpose a copy is now being made of Mr. William Chappell's digested Index of the Roxburghe, Pepys, Bayford, Wood, Rawlinson, and other collections, which were first indexed for the Ballad Society. The earliest copy of the Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode in the Bodleian is also being copied for the Harvard Library, which will soon be the richest library in the world in copies of collections of MS. ballads.

over that

M. DUMAS' reception at the Academy on the 11th inst. was rather like a triumph illustrious body. They are mostly Orleanists; he

insisted on the fidelity of his predecessor, M. Lebrun, to the first Empire: they are staunch conservatives in literature; he reminded them that M. Lebrun was an innovator once: he finished by reminding them that M. Lebrun was anything but a man of genius, as he had begun by reminding them that his own father was not an Academician. The rest of his speech was taken up with a polished and audacious vindication of his own plays, which he obviously hoped would have shocked M. Lebrun as M. Augier's Mariage Olympe had done, and with an explanation dragged in to account for the failure of M. Lebrun's Cid, which was not like Corneille's-of Richelieu's objections to Corneille's first masterpiece. The explanation, though put extravagantly, is not without plausibility: it is that a politician in Richelieu's position might regard the play as a demonstration of the Spanish party, and object to the glorification of the maxim that Love was lord of all. M. d'Haussonville, in his reply, made e very happy point, that two years before M. Lebrun had rebuked 'M. Augier he had recommended the author of La Dame aux Camellias and

Irane de Lys for a prize, never actually awarded, which Napoleon III. meant to give to the most moral young dramatist to be found; he made another less legitimate point by putting the conclusion of Antony, "Elle m'a résistée, je l'ai assassinée," in juxtaposition with the famous "Tue-la." In conclusion, he assured M. Dumas that the Academy was the true republic; that though the world outside might draw invidious distinctions, all Academicians regarded each other as equals, and that M. Lebrun was a very charming old gentle

man.

THE British Scandinavian Society held its first meeting on the 5th instant. Its objects are to increase the intellectual connexion between England and Scandinavia, to afford information of various kinds to persons about to visit the North, and to gather together all the various persons who in one way or another devote themselves to the study of these countries. The Society proposes to publish papers of a philological and critical kind, and to commence a lending library of Scandinavian books and journals.

SOME time ago we noticed the remarkable Cervantes collection presented to the Birmingham Free Library by Mr. William Bragge, F.S.A. A South American paper states that Don Quixote, from its first publication to 1868, had passed through 1,175 editions. Of these 417 were Spanish, 301 English, 169 French, 96 Italian, si Portuguese, 70 German, 13 Swedish, 8 Polish, 6 Danish, 4 Greek, 4 Russian, 2 Rouman, 2 Catalan, 1 Basque, and 1 Latin. In the Cervantes library of M. W. Thebuefsen, of Würtemberg, there are examples of all these editions.

Is the Revista de España, Don Pelayo Alcalá

Galiano notices the life and works of Don José de Mendoza, of Rios, whose discoveries are said by a French writer to have completely changed the bases of nautical astronomy. Mendoza was in London on a scientific mission, when war broke out between England and Spain. Declining to return, he was expelled from the Spanish navy by the government. He had married an English were the occasion of his suicide at Brighton, wife, and it is conjectured that family troubles March 3, 1816. Señor Galiano's article is in part drawn up from inedited material, and corrects the mistakes of some previous biographers.

THE last number of the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, published at Shanghai last year, consists of several interesting articles. One of these-on Chinese Fox Myths, by T. Watters-contains much curious information on the popular belief in the transformation of the fox into the form of a beautiful The modus operandi is as follows:-The fox "goes to a height and bows in reverence to the Tei-tou or Ursa Major, before he attempts the

woman.

feat. And the reason for his doing so is that the Tei-tou is the star which controls life, and its offended power might put an end to his existence at once. Then he proceeds to an old grave, scoops the earth out until he gets a skull, and places this carefully on his head. When he has it properly balanced and can walk without letting it fall, the rest of the process of transformation proceeds with magic speed. The tail is sometimes made to appear as a handmaid, and sometimes it is converted into a petticoat. Rouge, powder, silks, and jewels all come at a wave of the paw, and then she practises a mincing walk and a winning smile and à bashful demeanour, and goes to the lonely places in the country."

THE Deutsche Rundschau seems likely to solve a problem which has hitherto baffled German enterprise, viz., how to create a journal that should have the same position and influence all over Germany which the Revue des Deux Mondes has in France, and which the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews still hold, though by a more and more contested tenure, in England. Germany is rich in special journals, but, owing to the great division of all scientific labour, owing also to the small number of educated persons who combine sufficient means and leisure with scientific or literary interests, journals planned on the model of the leading French and English Reviews have always failed to secure a large public or even a sufficient staff of competent contributors. We pointed out before some excellent contributions in the earlier numbers of the Deutsche Rundschau, and we are delighted to see in the January number not only a most striking and powerfully written novel, the "Geier-Wally," by Wilhelmine von Hillern, but articles by Jacob Bernays, the great Greek scholar; by Bamberger, the well-known political economist; by Karl Hillebrand, the brilliant essayist, himself the editor of a new German journal, the Italia, and others. If German writers once know that there is a journal in which whatever they write will be read by the whole intellectual aristocracy of the country, that new stimulus will soon begin to act, and induce even those to write in an intelligible language who hitherto took a kind of pride in a German style that should be more uncouth than me

diaeval Latin or Rabbinical Hebrew.

A SWEDISH translation of Professor Max Muller's Lectures on the Science of Religion has just been published at Stockholm. The title is "Inledning till den Religionsvetenskapen. Fyra Föreläsningar af F. Max Müller, Professor i Strassburg, Utländsk Ledamot af Franska Institutet. Ofversättning af Fredrik Fehr, Pastorsadjunkt vid St. Nikolai i Stockholm, Docent i Hebreiska. 1874."

THE Nation announces that a work on Harvard University, to be published by subscription, is on the eve of making its appearance. A prominent feature is a History of the College, by Samuel Eliot. The Nation also congratulates its readers on the acquisition of Mr. E. G. Squier's collection of American antiquities by the American Museum of Natural History in Central Park, New York.

statement that several autograph letters of Henry Polybiblion quotes from a provincial paper the IV. have been discovered at the Château de regret to see that the same journal has transformed Léran, in the department of the Ariége. We Tristram Shandy into Scistdam Skandy!

WE learn from Polybiblion that Count Riant has had the good fortune to discover the works of Guy du Bazoches, a chronicler of the end of the twelfth century, which have been frequently quoted, but hitherto considered as totally lost. These works consist of a Chronographia, comprising seven books, the last of which contains valuable details on the history of France and England in the twelfth century, and thirty-six letters. M. Riant has proposed to the Minister of Public Instruction to include them in the collection of unpublished documents.

A NEW life of Giovanni Santi, the father of Raphael, will be published shortly in Il Raffaello by the editor, the Count Pompeo Gherardi.

A CHEAP edition of Italian classics is now being published in numbers in Italy. It begins with the Decameron, illustrated by Signor Sanesi.

A GREAT stir has been caused in Copenhagen by a student of twenty, the youngest son of Bishop Grundtvig, the poet and politician, who died in 1872. This young man has published an" Epistle in Rhyme to Grundtvig's Friends," which has made a great commotion, and run already through six editions. The son appeals against the way in which the democratic party quote the name of his father in support of their violent theories, with which, he contends, the old poet thoroughly disagreed. The poem has also provoked an answer from Björnsen in Rome, as undignified and rabid as all that unfortunate demagogue's late oracles have poses as the father of his country, and expresses been. The Norwegian poet, writing from Rome, himself with a patronising air about Denmark that has aroused considerable amusement.

PROFESSOR CEDERSCHIÖLD in Lund has brought out, and dedicated to Mr. G. Vigfússon in Oxford, a text of the Geisli or Olafsdrápa, an Icelandic poem of the twelfth century, written, it would seem, in the year 1154, when Geisli pronounced it in the Cathedral of Nidaros (Throndhjem) at the erection of that see into an independent diocese. Its interest appears to be principally philological.

THE double number of Dit Nittende Aarhundrede for January and February contains an interesting Essay on the Marble Statues of the Emperors of Rome, by the eminent Swedish art-critic, Viktor Rydberg, who writes, be it said, on this occasion in Danish; and an able paper by the editor, Dr. Brandes, on Ferdinand Lassalle. The magazine is a little less literary and less lively than usual.

THE Danes are hurrying on rather too fast in their criticisms of English thought and literature. Their best paper, Dagbladet, remarked the other day that Mr. Herbert Spencer was evidently a very young man, but certainly of Titanic views (!), hoped that time would give him greater courage. and a youth of whom it might reasonably be He was a disciple of Stuart Mill, who undoubtedly had gained confidence with years; and much more of an equally amusing kind. There is something rotten in the erudition of Denmark.

A NEW weekly publication, entitled L'Explorateur, intended to promote the study of comParis. The editor is M. Hertz, of the French mercial geography, has just been established in Geographical Society.

IN our last Paris Letter (February 6), it should have been said that the new edition of La France Protestante would be complete in twelve, instead of in five volumes.

THE following Parliamentary l'apers have lately been published:-Reports to the IIome Secretary on the State of the Law relating to Brutal Assaults, &c. (price 1s. 10d.); Information furnished to the Home Secretary from Edinburgh, respective Improvements and Sanitary Acts Glasgow, and Liverpool, on the Operation of their River (price 18. 8d.); Correspondence relating (price 6d.); Report by the Special Commissioners on the Tweed Fisheries Acts, with a Plan of the to the Queen's Jurisdiction on the Gold Coast, and the Abolition of Slavery within the Protectorate (price 6d.); Correspondence relating to the Affairs of the Gold Coast, with a Sketch (price ls. 9d.); Commercial Reports from H. M. Consuls in China, No. 1 (price 44d.); Correspondence respecting the Cession of Fiji, and the provisional arrangements made for administering the Government, with a map (price 1s. 3d.); Papers, &c. on the Siam Treaty, the Brussels Conference on the Rules of Military Warfare, and the Ottoman Loan of 1862; Report of the Endowed Schools Commissioners (price 4d.) ;

Report on the Administration of the Forest Department in the Provinces of India, 1872-73, by B. H. Baden-Powell (price 9d.); Seventeenth Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue (price 6d.); Annual Report of the Director of the National Gallery, for 1874, &c.

WE have received Cremation of the Dead; its History and Bearings upon Public Health, by W. Eassie, C.E. (Smith, Elder & Co.); Sursum Corda, by the Rev. W. Guise Tucker (Elliot Stock); Common Sense about Government Offices, by S. (Stanford); Journal of the National Indian Association, No. 50 (H. S. King & Co.); The Pathological Significance of Nematode Haematozoa, by T. R. Lewis, M.B. (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing); A Report of Microscopical and Physiological Researches into the Nature of the Agent or Agents producing Cholera, second series, by T. R. Lewis, M.B., and D. D. Cunningham, M.B. (ditto); The Year Book of Women's Work, edited by L. M. H. (Labour News Publishing Offices); A Manual of Veterinary Sanitary Science and Police (Chapman & Hall); Diseases of the Kidney, by W. H. Dickinson, M.D., Part I. (Longmans); De Pronominibus Arabicis Dissertatio Etymologica, scripsit Carolus Eneburg (Helsingforsiae: typis Frenckellianis).

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

MUCH of the success of the expedition from Mandalay to Yunan, under Colonel Horace Browne and Mr. Ney Elias, the despatch of which we recently announced, will probably depend on active co-operation on the side of China. We are glad, therefore, to have received intelligence that Mr. Augustus Raymond Margary, of the Consular Service, was some 150 miles above Hangkow, on the Yang-tsze, on October 27 last, proceeding to Yunan. It is important that Mr. Margary, whose adventurous journey certainly merits success, should reach Tali, the former capital of the Yunan rebel kingdom, so as to meet Colonel Browne. Most valuable results may be expected from their joint efforts.

THE United States government, after having surveyed several other routes for a ship canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, has now resolved to make a close examination of the line from Panama to near Aspinwall. The surveying officers arrived at the latter port on the 14th of last month, under the command of Captain Lull, U.S.N. He will commence the survey at a point midway between Panama and Aspinwall, dividing his party so that one may work towards the Pacific and the other to the Atlantic. This is the sixth expedition sent by the United States to report upon the various

pends a note of salutary warning which cannot have too great publicity in these days of adventurous climbing:

"Now that the peaks and passes tempting to ambitious climbers can be counted on the fingers, it is natural that every foot of ground over 10,000 feet should be examined with interest, and every possible passage attempted. But there is some reason to fear that, in the present disposition to try everything, one of the most essential rules of mountaineering may be disregarded. In former days a good guide could scarcely be induced to undertake an expedition which involved venturing for any length of time upon ground habitually swept by avalanches or stonefalls. The instinct which led him to recognise and avoid such places was valued as an important part of his professional skill. Should climbing enthusiasm ever overcome this instinct, and lead guides and their companions frequently to expose themselves to the danger of being swept away, we must be prepared for a succession of terrible accidents. Mountaineering, properly pursued, is, for the most part, a game of skill, and it ought not to be turned into mere gambling with fate. incurs some responsibility, and this seems the proper The Alpine Club, by encouraging new expeditions,' place to suggest a caution, the need of which is strongly felt by many of its members. It is better to offer a warning in season than to draw a moral from

an irretrievable disaster."

H. B. G. gives a short and genial account of the Festival of the Swiss Alpine Club, held last year at Sion. The "Jahrbuch" of the Swiss Club is well known to most Alpine travellers, but the following Alpine note may be of interest to some readers: :

"The Italian Alpine Club is now publishing a monthly journal under the title of L'Alpinista. The annual subscription for England is 5 fr. 50 c., and orders should be sent to G. Candeletti, 3 Via Rossini, Turin. The German Alpine Club will commence this year publishing a journal appearing six times a year. The subscription, not including postage, will be 5 fr. yearly. Orders will be received at Zimmer's Library, Frankfort-on-the-Main."

ACCORDING to recent letters from Adelaide, Mr. Giles had started on December 1 for Port Lin

coln, whence he intended to push his way by Port Eucla in a northerly direction, through hitherto unexplored districts, to the Musgrave and Tomkinson Mountains, on the slopes of which it is believed that good pasture-land is to be found. The explorer hopes to be able to complete this work in three months, at the end of which time he is to be met by Mr. John Ross with the supplies necessary for venturing upon a new attempt to penetrate to the West Australian coast-line between 28° and 30° lat. Mr. Ross is to start from Beltana and carry with him a number of camels from the cattle-run of Mr. Elder, who has more than 600 of these animals on his lands, and has not only supplied the necessary number for this expe

surpasses the results of all previous fairs, not excepting that of 1872, which was a very prosperous year. There were very few failures, and these confined to tea merchants, while silver being plentiful the rate of exchange was easy throughout.

THREE French expeditions propose to traverse various portions of Western Africa during the ensuing year. M. Largeau is reconnoitring with a view to reach Salah, capital of the oasis of Touat, an intermediary mart between Timbuctoo and the Mediterranean coast. This journey is attended with considerable danger, owing to the hatred which the inhabitants of the Sahara entertain for Europeans. Through the aid of the French Consul at Mogador commercial relations have been opened up with Timbuctoo from the side of Morocco. A trusty native named Mardochee will be despatched shortly to strengthen these bonds, and there is every probability of a successful result, some of the Mussulman chiefs about the Upper Niger having already made advances of friendship towards France. M. le Marquis de Compiègne intends, should his health permit, to journey into the interior from the Gulf of Guinea, and M. Bonnat is endeavouring to establish trading stations along the course of the Voltá.

SOME apprehension has been raised in Russia that the proposed draining of the vast marshes near Pinsk, in the west of the empire, will diminish the flow of water in the Dnieper, and thence occasion unforeseen mischief. The Golos effectually answers this by the remark that the Dnieper has been abnormally low for some time, and the preliminary levelling for draining the marshes is not yet finished, therefore it is clearly impossible for the one to be the result of the other. But, as a matter of fact, the restricting of the present mass of stagnant water to properly constructed channels will really increase the flow of the Pripet and Beresina. The Golos is very strongly convinced that the real reason of the lowness of the Dnieper is the for some years past. In Smolensk the acreage of land profligate deforestation which has been going on covered with timber has diminished forty per cent. since the year 1850, in Chernigof thirty-one per cent., and proportionately in many other provinces. It is most necessary that the economic importance of forest conservancy should receive that attention in Russia which nearly all European states have for some time bestowed on it.

the people of Panama that the final decision may be in their favour. But a second expedition, under Lieutenant Collins, U.S.N., proceeds to the river Atrato, to make a further examination of the alternative Darien route.

THE current number of the Alpine Journal (vol. vii., No. 47) contains an account by Mr. Gardiner of his ascent of Elbruz, in the Caucasus, from which it appears that the party reached a different summit from that ascended by Mr. Freshfield's party in 1868. This conclusion Mr. Freshfield endorses in a note. Mr. Brooksbank describes

his passage of the Laquin and Rossboden passes, and other explorations in the Simplon district, a portion of the Alps which, considering its accessibility and its various attractions, seems to have been singularly neglected by mountaineers. Mr. Coolidge continues his narrative of Explorations in Dauphiné, a district which, notwithstanding the previous explorations of Messrs. Tucker, Whymper, and others, he has almost made his own. The summary of new expeditions shows from its array of unfamiliar names how completely the more familiar parts of the Alps have been worked out. At the conclusion of this section the editor ap

pecuniary responsibility of it. The same route will be followed which Mr. Ross attempted without success last spring, and which involves a journey of 600 miles through lands never yet trodden by the foot of a white man; but the explorers are sanguine that with the means now at their disposal they will be able to effect their object, and to reach the inhabited settlements of Western Australia by the proposed route.

THE official Turkestan Gazette announces that the preliminary works for a canal across the Hunger Steppe have been commenced. The canal will be fed by the waters of the Syr Daria, and derive therefrom 1,200 cubic feet of water per second for irrigation purposes. This will be a great boon to the inhabitants in the neighbour hood of Khojend and Jizak, as owing to the dearth of water arable land is there very scarce.

FROM the reports furnished to the Minister of the Interior at St. Petersburg, it appears that the Nijni-Novgorod fair of 1874 was very successful, merchandise to the value of 180,000,000 roubles having been brought together, and business to the amount of 165,000,000 having been done. This

AMERICAN SCHOLARS AND THE "ACADEMY." WE have always tried to keep our readers well informed with regard to anything that seemed to us really important in the literary and scientific staff of correspondents in America than any other weekly journal, but we carefully examine the best American papers, and we have frequently been the first to call attention to the excellent work done by American students in the various departments of art, literature, and science. In doing this, we wish to be considered as reporters only, and we are obliged to leave the responsibility for the statements which we repeat to the American journals themselves. We cannot mix ourselves willing, when we receive any reclamations, to up with their quarrels; but we have always been follow the principle of Audiatur et altera pars, and let each party state its case from its own point of view. Thus we informed our readers colossal statue of Adonis, which was said to in the ACADEMY of November 21 that "the have been discovered in America, and which Professor Schlottmann, at the Congress of Philologists at Innsbruck, declared to be of Phoenician origin, had been proved to be a forgery." We added, that "as the statue is ten feet long, and made of alabaster, the expense of the forgery must have been considerable." Soon after we had inserted this notice, we received a communication,

including a copy of the New Haven Daily Palladium, in which it was stated that, whatever might be thought in England and Germany, there was in America considerable difference of opinion on the subject. In forming our own judgment, we had chiefly relied on the report of a meeting of the Oriental Society. But when we were informed that Dr. White, Professor of Pathology and Microscopy in Yale College, and himself a Member of the American Oriental Society, pronounced the stories (not all the stories) of the recent manufacture of the statue of Adonis in plain Saxon as lies, could we, in common fairness, decline to insert that rejoinder? What our own opinion was, if we had a right to form an opinion by mere authority, we had clearly shown by our first notice, and even in inserting extracts from Mr. MacWhorter's letter, we added: "Everybody imagined the matter was at an end. Would the American Oriental Society allow such a report to be published? Would not some of its members utter a warning, if the confession of the culprit admitted of any doubt? Here were the great scholars of America making merry of the scholars of Germany; and now we are told that, after all, the matter is by no means certain." Here, no doubt, we might have left the controversy, particularly as it had entered a phase in which it was of interest to the criminal lawyer rather than to the scholar; but as on reading through the files of American papers, not excluding the journals of learned societies, we had often been struck by the great freedom which American scholars allow themselves in expressing differences of opinion, we thought we might for once express our surprise at this abuse of guage. In following this one controversy about the Phoenician Adonis, we had culled the following phrases:-"Certain stories of the recent manufacture of the statue are in plain Saxon lies." This language was attributed to a Professor of Yale College, a member of the Oriental Society. Another member of the same society speaks of "that exploded humbug," and adds: "If German scholars have been incautious enough to have been taken in by so gross a cheat, they have no one but themselves to blame for it." First, is that quite true? and, if it was, is it courteous to a scholar like Schlottmann, who may have been taken in as much as a Professor of Microscopy at Yale College, but who as a Semitic scholar has established as good claims at least to respect as any member of the American Oriental Society. When, lastly, we saw that Mr. MacWhorter, who may or may not be a member of the Oriental Society, taunted that Society with having had one of its members hanged, we could not help saying, "When will American scholars learn to speak gently?" Seeing in the same number of the New Haven Palladium from which we took Mr. MacWhorter's letter, the account of a "Lacerated actress attempting to cow-hide an editor," which we thought meant not much more than "an aggrieved actress venturing gently to remonstrate with an editor," we quoted it as a warning against the use of volcanic language, which, as we could prove by abundant evidence, has deposited its slags even in the volumes of learned societies.

(the Latin word is convenient here) to bowl it back over the Atlantic, to the discomfiture of American scholars."

Here also we admire the flight of imagination; but before they again attempt any classical puns, we should recommend to the correspondents of the Nation a little more prosodial accuracy.—EDITOR.

P.S. In the New Haven Palladium of January 28, just received, Mr. Alexander MacWhorter controverts Mr. Trumbull's statements, and calls for a legal investigation of the whole case.

LETTERS OF JOSEPH SPENCE.

WE take the following glimpses of life abroad in the last century from a volume of original letters (recently placed in the British Museum), addressed by the Rev. Joseph Spence-the friend of Pope, the author of Polymetis, and the compiler of the Anecdotes, first published about half a century ago-to his mother. They were written by Spence during his educational tours with two or three young noblemen. The freedom of style and sentiment in some of these compositions, even when the relationship between the parties is considered, will not surprise those to whom other printed epistolary productions of that age are familiar.

"Dijon: March 1 NS., 1731.

We have now confessed all our sins; and now for the punishment inflicted on us by the Nation, an American paper to which Mr. Whitney, Mr. Trumbull, and other members of the American Oriental Society are frequent contributors. We are told that "the ACADEMY has elected to stand as one of the godfathers of the statue of Adonis discovered in America." Our files are open to inspection, and though we shall not speak in plain Saron, yet we feel justified in saying that the statement is inaccurate. Secondly, as we had called the Phoenician statue an apple of discord among American scholars, we are treated to the following witticism:

"Fancy the good Dr. Schlottmann figuring in the attitude of Persica's Columbus-as 'Discordia tetra, poising in air the ponderous malum

"I gave you an account in my last of the place we live in; & of the Governours of this Ark of Noah, into which they have collected Beasts from all Quarters of the world. I am now to tell you who are the good company in it, that dine in ye Cabin that I belong to.

"Next me (to use Cardinal Wolsey's stile) is seated my good L Lincoln; and then, a wild Irishman. The next in ye circle is a young, plump. rosy cheek'd marquis; his Title is Marquis of Leghorn. You know I have a great knack in finding out the likeness of some Beast in the features, sometimes, of a very honest man. One day I happen'd to whisper that this marquis was like a Sucking-Pigg, & I believe he will carry that name to his grave. He is attended by a sensiblelooking, well-behav'd Roman Abbé. Then setts a thin-jaw'd black marquis, from Sardinia; they call him the Sarde; which as it is a very common name for a Horse here, and as his Features have a very near resemblance to that animal, we always talk of him together under that character. If he comes brisk into a room, 'tis, see how the Marquis prances; & if he sneezes, we say he neighs. By the help of a bad countenance he has pass'd himself so absolutely upon me for a Horse, that I don't care to slide between him & the wall at any time; for fear he sd kick up behind: tho' the creature is very gentle & goodnatur'd especially over his Provender. The next is a Gentleman from Poland, whose house is on the

farthest borders of that country, within a dozen mile of the Turks. He's of a square make & meek disposition; extremely devout & very obliging; untalkative; tolerably read and a great dealer in Relicks. His Governour comes from Prussia; & if Eating & Drinking were acts of Religion, wou'd be more religious than his master. He has a tongue that runs very glib after meals; but all dinner time the man has something else to do than to talk. 'Twou'd do you good to see how feelingly he eyes a fat capon; & with what perseverance he continues drawing at a Bumper. He has a most lasting breath: & after dinner his Belly what with eating & what with drinking, is as hard as a Rock. It rounds out in a semi-circle before him; & wou'd look stately, were he not of so short & squat figure; somewhat (if I may use such a Similie to an ancient Lady) resembling that most necessary utinsel (sic) commonly call'd

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Within a yard and a half of his chair, (for the juttings out of his make wont let any body come nearer to it) sits a modest, simpering Doctor of the University here; & after him, a jolly, laughable, gentleman-like Earl of this country. Did you ever read Bishop Burnet's Travels? He says when he was in Switzerland, the chief man in that country was one Mr D'Erlack; & he gives him a very fine character. The present heir of this family is the next man at our table-a young Gentleman of about 17; a sensible genteel pretty person, & extremely well-behaved; he is a captain in this king's service, tho' he has so much sweetness in look & temper, & does his exercises as well as any body in the Academy. Then follows a perfect German Earl, that talks so fast and stares so about him, & is so full of tittering and uncertainty in his carriage, that one wou'd think he had not been in the world above two or three hours; & indeed, say the truth, he is but just come from His Governour is a tall raw-bon'd College. man from Bohemia; with a green coat as old been a twin brother of his coat, & born with it someat least as himself (for he is not above sixtyseven years old), and a hat that may possibly have where about the plague year, or the Fire of London. He & the Horse from Sardinia, seem to have the most humour of any of ye company. As to myself, I shall leave that to some more able historian to give it you."

to

We are next introduced to the future associate and betrayer of Wilkes, or political "Jemmy Twitcher."

"Turin: Jan. 20, 1740.

"We expect Lord Sandwich every day. Lord Sandwich is one that I had an offer of travelling with; but as I was not in a travelling humour, I excused myself as civilly as I cou'd. 'Twas well I did, for if I had went with him, what frights from time to time must you have been in? I don't mean anything rude against his L'ship; for he is a very agreeable, sensible, worthy man. But the spirit of travelling grew so strong upon him that he was not contented with Italy; and when at Naples (which you know is the end of my travels), he hired a ship, and went with my old friend Mr. Finlick, who is his Governour, to Constantinople. He returned thence to Italy, but his eagerness of seeing distant realms wou'd not let him rest there. He hir'd another ship and went to the Holy Land; travel'd all over that & Egypt, where they were when the war broke out between us & Spain. By good luck, at Alexandria they met with an English man of war, with which they set out for Italy, & arriv'd safe off Leghorn, the 23rd of last month. As they come from the East, which is generally infested with the plague, they are oblig'd to perform Quarantine in an Island near Leghorn; and as soon as that is over, they are to sett out for this place, to stay here some time. Their company must be agreeable enough to us that have never, and probably never shall see the places they have been at, for besides what I have mention'd, they have been at Troy, & all over Greece."

"Feb. 17, 1740.

“By what good luck, or by what impertinence of my own, I wont determine, but by one or the other, I had much the largest share of his Lordship's company of any body here: and am rather better acquainted with him than I was even with Stephen Duck [the thresher poet] the three first days he was at Winchester.

"As my good L may be the subject of two or three of my letters to you, 'tis fit I shou'd let you know in the first place who he is. He is the great-grandson of the witty Earl of Rochester, whom you must have