Gaskell. There are many sketches of disagreeable families and schools, and of schools and families not so disagreeable. On the whole we wish novelists would keep in mind that it is to "make us forget" that kind of life that "God gave the poot his song." Novelists are not poets, but they might remember and apply to their own work this maxim of Mr. Arnold's. The tale is written with care, and without faults of taste; the characters are natural, and "the sentiments are just,' as Dr. Johnson says of one of Shakespeare's plays; but only personal regard for the heroine could make any reader plod through the narrative. When we made John Dorrien's acquaintance, as he sat, a thin, nervous, eager child, by the fireside, our heart sank within us. That little nuisance Paul Dombey seemed to be before us again, in one of his avatars, which are more numerous than those of Indra, or of Vautrin. But John grew up to immense vigour, of mind and body, and justified the saying that genius means great natural powers accidentally directed. He was the son of a widow who made a scanty, the lover of art can hardly say an honest, livelihood by colouring photographs. He went to a French school at St. Ives, and all we hear of him there is that he began to blossom into a poet. But some supposed wealthy Dorriens offered him a place in their house, which dealt in fancy stationery, paid its debts by selling family diamonds, and collected them revolver in hand. These unbusiness-like ways John Dorrien reduced to order, and was going to marry the niece of the head of the house, who is a Mr. Dombey on the verge of insolvency. But a friend, one Oliver Black, corrupts the young lady's mind by whispering soft nothings out of Hegel and Comte, and, aided by a wicked gambling Creole aunt, nearly ruins the tottering firm. Just as things are getting more and more uninteresting, the girl turns out to have been changed at nurse or somewhere. Mr. Dorrien dies, Oliver Black withdraws, the wicked aunt goes to Monaco -too good a fate for her-and John marries the charming changeling. The vicious but vague philosophy of Mr. Black is confronted and confuted by the Truth, in the mouth of an orthodox lady housekeeper, and the most timid mother may safely place John Dorrien in the hands of the most feebleminded daughter. The only danger is that its perusal might crush a nascent taste for reading in the young. It is not always very easy to be in sympathy with MM. Erckmann-Chatrian's virtuous Alsatians. We know them too well by this time their honesty, their industry, their peaceful character, their perfect appreciation of kirsch, sansage, blonde girls, and domestic comfort. It is a sad irony that has placed a nation so admirably fitted to enjoy a quiet life, in the cockpit of Europe. They are born into a vale, as Mrs. Gamp says, and they are greatly to be pitied. But one fails to see what particular good can come of a tale like Brigadier Frederic, with its pathetic story of families broken up, and of Prussian barbarities to women, such as we hope were rare, though they are only too probable. No foreigner can pretend to believe that a French invasion of Germany would have been nearly so lenient. It is to be regretted that the Alsatians are set between the fiery race of France and the stubborn peoples of Germany, and once we have regretted it we are disinclined to be harassed by a series of novelettes on the dismal theme. Some one in Homer observes that men soon have their fill of bitter lamentations. We hope that MM. Erckmann-Chatrian have now had theirs, and that their next story may be more cheerful and original than this painful business of the woes of Brigadier Frederic. Her Idol has the name of being a novel, but perhaps we ought rather to call it a parable. The usual runaway horse occurs, there are two cricket matches, and an elaborate account of the almost prehistoric diversion of croquet. The plot admits of being told briefly. Margaret Lisle lived at Shanklin, and as a rule disliked curates, but made an exception in favour of Hugh Treherne, a muscular divine of ungoverned passions. Captain Darrel also made love to Margaret Lisle; Hugh died of typhoid fever; Captain Darrel flirted with a Miss Northey whose betrothed shot himself in despair; a friend of Hugh's, failing to succeed him in Miss Lisle's affections, was drowned in a shipwreck, and an elderly clergyman persuaded the heroine that she had made "an idol" of Hugh, and that she had better take to good works. Now here are all the materials of a novel love, jealousy, despair, taking to good works, and the rest of it; but somehow the reader feels that a novel has not resulted from the combination. We hope the people of the Isle of Wight, and especially the clergy of Bonchurch, may enjoy being dragged before the public that reads silly stories. Out of the rather limited area of Bonchurch the book can excite no interest. A. LANG. An Introduction to the Study of Early English History. By John Pym Yeatman, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. (London: Longmans & Co., 1874.) 66 A GREAT part of this work has already encountered the "slander and abuse of 'anonymous scribblers" as an introduction to the author's recently published History of the Common Law. Far from being crushed by this treatment, Mr. Yeatman triumphantly informs his critics that in attacking him they were attacking the great Dr. "William " Whitaker, a writer whom Gibbon himself called " ingenious,"and, we may add, whom everybody but Mr. Yeatman calls "John." Mr. Yeatman has, in fact, since the publication of his former work, made a discovery. He said in his haste-and in the plainest terms-that all English histories were lies, including works of which he boasts that he has not read a line. He now admits one bright exception to this rule in Whitaker's History of Manchester, the reason, of course, being that he has found there theories of early British history only less paradoxical than his own. By the light of this " grand work," the true measure of which has been long ago taken, he has recast and elaborated his arguments in a volume which is indeed, though hardly in the sense he means it, beyond criticism. Its theories are so fantastic and its language so reckless, that to make use of formal arguments in dealing with it would be sheer waste of labour: a few samples of matter and style will be more amusing and equally effective. Broadly stated, Mr. Yeatman's object is to prove the Celtic origin of the English people, a pet theory of a certain school, but never before so reduced ad absurdum. He rejects the Teutonic element altogether, with infinite scorn for the "bastard English" who credit its existence. To use his own words: "The truth is that 'Saxon' was a term of reproach, and not the name of any nationality; and though it was applied by contemporaries to some of the natives of this country, it mainly was intended to designate them as assassins, people who carried short swords for piratical purposes." They The Angles, on the contrary, were a nationality, but of Celts; for Dr. Whitaker's derivation-An-gael, the Gaul-is "absolutely faultless," and one "which no scholar can doubt." They were, however, Celts and something more. were "the people who called themselves Llogrians; "and these "English" Llogrians again are plainly to be identified with the Ligurians of North Italy, "the evidence of the name of Liguria" being "simply irresistible, permeating through the whole of England," chiefly, it seems, in the form of "endless Leighs." It results from this, that "English is the tongue of ancient Liguria," a fact of which Mr. Yeatman is as certain as he is that "it was the language of the natives and of their conquerors, the Romans, in the first five centuries after Christ," or, to go further back still, that "centuries before the Romans gained a footing in this country, the inhabitants were a polished and intellectual people, with a sys tem of jurisprudence [he means our present common law] superior even to the law of Rome." 66 66 All this, however, is plain sober sense compared with Mr. Yeatman's treatment of the so-called Anglo-Saxon language, literature, and history. Not content with classing Saxon with modern German in par ticular as "gibberish," and with the Teutonic and Indian languages generally as no more worthy of study than 'the lingo of the Christy Minstrels," he declares that it depends upon "wretched forgeries" for its very existence; that the Saxons, being in no sense a nation, but a fortuitous concourse of atoms from various tribes," had "no tradi tions, no history, no language of their own, and no laws or liberty;" and that, in short, "the whole body of Saxon literature appears to the writer to be one huge lie," a forgery from beginning to end! Further than this, he has even laid his hand upon one, at least, of the forgers; for we are gravely asked to believe that the concoction of those "shock. ing impositions," the Saxon Chronicle, and Asser's Life of Alfred, as well as of other works in the same "lingo," was the amusement of the leisure hours of a mischievous "young Irishman," none other than Marianus Scotus, the chronicler. Having thus "safely" conIcluded that everything written in Saxoncodes, charters, poems, Gospels, and all-is apocryphal, Mr. Yeatman is not likely to find 66 much difficulty in disposing of the evidence against his theories which is to be found in the Latin works of Nennius, Gildas and, above all, Bede. So far as they can be made to support his own views, these writers are of course eminently worthy of credit; the misfortune is that "their books have come down to us stuffed, like fillets of veal, with Saxon garbage." 'Very little consideration satisfies Mr. Yeatman that "every notice of the Saxons which appears in Bede is a forgery;" and that, if we are to get at the real Historia Ecclesiastica, all the passages relating to them "should be incontinently rejected" as "morbid tumours and excrescences due to those very industrious rogues, the "manipulators of Saxon lies." Such are a few of the theories advanced with arrogant dogmatism in this astonishing volume; and they are not a whit more preposterous than the rest. Here, however, we must stop. We have neither space nor inclination to discuss the condition of England in the days of Tubal and Mesheck, or the management of the Record Office in our own, or any other of the various questions, more or less relevant to his subject, on which Mr. Yeatman exercises his talent for paradox and invective. We can afford, too, to pass over with a smile his rabid attack upon the "sickening baleful sprout" of Protestantism, and his assertion (interesting when read by the light of recent discussions) that the head of his own Church is still "the great arbiter of right and wrong," as when in the person of Alexander III. he blessed the expedition of William the Norman against a free and unoffending nation. To conclude, as Mr. Yeatman is fond of plain speaking, we feel no scruple in expressing our candid opinion that his work is a farrago of unmitigated nonsense. For the sake of those who seek his professional services, we fervently hope that he is, as he says, better versed in law than in history. GEO. F. WArner. SOME TRACTS ON EDUCATION. University Development in Scotland. (Reprinted It of course, desire a material increase in the must be admitted that he fortifies some of his 66 appointment of abundant class teachers and tutors to do all the rough work of drilling the younger students, so that the time of the Professor may be devoted to the cultivation of originality both in himself and his students; the latter should be relieved of all drudgery of whatever kind, free to extend his own fame, add to the éclat of his university, and widen the bounds of knowledge by means of original research." He would introduce also from Germany the system of the privat-docent, and recommends that selves to the prosecution of original work in "graduates should be encouraged to apply themliterature, science, or the arts, by the provision of liberally-endowed fellowships, which might enable them inter alia to pursue their studies in other countries." He concludes with some severe strictures upon the method by which professors are at present selected for the Scotch chairs, and upon the universal jobbery which appears to exist in that part of the United Kingdom; and on this subject he displays such intimate knowledge of all the circumstances, and so much irritation of feeling, as to suggest irresistibly that the author of this pamphlet has been himself at one time an unsuccessful candidate. variety of resource and on sleepless industry, even more than on a theoretical knowledge of what are called the laws of mind. On the whole these lectures are worthy of the author's high repute and standing as a schoolmaster, and are among the soundest and most valuable of recent contributions to educational controversy. THE Hon. Dudley Campbell has reprinted from the Contemporary Review his thoughtful paper on Mixed Education of Boys and Girls in England and America (Rivingtons). It is a brief résumé system of instruction, not only in schools for boys of the main arguments in favour of the conjoint and girls, but in colleges and places of advanced instruction. These arguments are enforced by some very striking facts derived from the author's own observation at Antioch, Oberlin, and other high schools in the United States, in which the experiment of mixed education has been successfully tried. We do not regard this evidence as conclusive, since the social conditions of America differ much from our own, and since even in that country the plan is far from universal, and has not yet received the sanction of the best authorities. But Mr. Campbell's arguments are urged with candour and ability, and well deserve careful perusal. MR. JOSEPH PAYNE continues his useful efforts importance of closer attention to the history and to enforce upon schoolmasters and mistresses the philosophy of their professional work. His latest pamphlet, Fröbel and the Kindergarten System (H. S. King & Co.), appears to us to have higher practical value than any of his recent writings on educational subjects. An interesting account of Fröbel's life and doings is followed by a careful analysis of the principles on which his methods were founded, and by a description of the Kindergarten method itself. By watching children at play; by noticing how their activities, their eager observation, their powers of invention and construction were called forth spontaneously, Fröbel came to believe that access to the hearts of chiltheir play, to transform it into work, and so to dren was to be gained by endeavouring to organise lay, in harmony with Nature's own teaching, the foundation of a true education, both of the senses and the intellect. Hence the pretty devices which under the name of the Kindergarten have been so largely employed in the infant schools of our own United States. Mr. Payne describes these devices country, and especially in Switzerland and the in detail, and in a clear and attractive manner, and argues with much force in favour of a more general recognition of the truth of Fröbel's principles in the early education of children. DR. JAMES DONALDSON, Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, has republished his Lectures on the History of Education in Prussia and England, and on Kindred Topics. (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black.) So much is often vaguely asserted as to the superiority of the Prussian system of education, and so little are its details understood, that this concise and accurate account of its general purpose, and the historical summary of its development and progress down to the Falk administration and the Regulativen of 1872, possess special value at this moment. Dr. Donaldson has also studied with evident care and fairness the long series of documents, official and otherwise, in which is embodied the history of our English school-system. His fourth lecture, on the Relation of the Universities to the Working-classes, though suggestive, is disappointing. He argues admirably as to the relation of literary culture to the practical work of life, both in its lower and higher aspects. But he fails altogether to show by what methods a university, while fulfilling its first work, of cultivating the higher forms of learning and research within its own walls, can make its influence actually and directly felt on the operative class. In the lecture on the Science of Education the author is on surer ground, and draws from a wide and very varied experience. In an earnest plea for the establishment of professorships of didactics, or the science of education, at the Universities, he seeks to show how much a knowledge of the philosophy of mind would economize the powers of teachers, and facilitate and ennoble their work. The lecture has the merit-rare among enthusiastic writers on this subject-of honestly admitting that a tendency to regard psychological analysis as the basis of educational success may often prove a grave mistake; and that, after all, teaching, though a science, is very largely an empirical art, depending which are now being made to modernise and imon quick insight, on sympathy with learners, on County Education: a Contribution of Experiments, Estimates, and Suggestions, by the Rev. J. Brereton (Bickers and Son), is mainly occupied by details of Mr. Brereton's very successful efforts in the foundation, first of a cheap boarding school for farmers' sons at West Buckland, in Devonshire, and afterwards of a proprietary school on a larger scale in Norfolk, which we observe was publicly opened amid many tokens of local sympathy and much promise of usefulness some days ago. Many of the plans, estimates, and practical suggestions as to school building and school economics generally are of considerable value, and may be consulted with advantage by managers and teachers of middle schools. The general views of Mr. Brereton on the mode in which the problem of secondary education for the lower middle class can best be solved appear to us to be of far less value. He thinks that great county associations of shareholders, each maintaining one or two large schools, are preferable to existing bodies of local trustees; and herein his view is certainly not confirmed by experience. He prefers the boardingschool to the day-school, even when the latter is accessible to the children of the farmer or the tradesman. And he not only objects to the efforts prove the country grammar schools, but proposes a plan for sweeping all their endowments into a common stock, in order that in each county the great boarding-school or college of his own contrivance may be erected in their stead. His disposition to disparage other forms of educational effort, and his inability to make allowance for the very varied wants, tastes, and local traditions, which are satisfied by the ancient schools of the country, appear to us the most serious defects of a book otherwise full of useful suggestion, and distinguished alike by honourable enthusiasm, and by just views as to the kind of culture which the children of the English farmer most require. NOTES AND NEWS. EDITOR. MR. SWINBURNE is progressing rapidly with his book on the progress of Shakspere's style, and the first instalment will appear in the May number of the Fortnightly Review. He will shortly bring out a volume of his Early Poems, which will consist of the Queen Mother, Rosamund, those of Poems and Ballads which date from college years, and one or two pieces hitherto unprinted. We are glad to learn that Messrs. Chatto and Windus are about to issue a complete edition of the works of Cyril Turner or Tourneur, never before collected. It will be edited by Mr. J. Churton Collins, and will contain, besides The Atheist's Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy, some minor pieces in prose and verse. It has always been understood that Warburton's cook destroyed Tourneur's comedy of Laugh and Lie Down, but Mr. Collins has had the tantalising good luck to discover the work with this delightful title, and to find, at the same time, that it is not a comedy at all, but a prose pamphlet. He has also discovered another tract on a scheme for planting tobacco in England. Tourneur's gnomic poem, The Transformed Metamorphosis, which exists in a unique copy, will also be reproduced, but this proves to be extremely obscure and unlovely. Tourneur's fame still rests wholly on his magnificent tragedies. Ir is understood that the preface to the volume of Mr. Brewer's Calendar of State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., which is now in the press, will contain an exhaustive review of the evidence on the Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, based to a great extent upon documents which have been hitherto unknown. THE third volume of the Paston Letters, edited by Mr. James Gairdner, and completing the work, is expected next month. AN interesting relic of the younger Scaliger is preserved in the Biblical collection in Lincoln College, Oxford. It is a Norwegian Bible, published at Holum in 1584, folio. At the bottom of the engraved title-page is written, probably in the hand of the giver, Viro illustri incomperabili Josepho Scaligero Jul. Cæs. Fil. Geuerhardus Elmenhorst D. D." Elmenhorst, though much | inferior to his friend in power or depth of knowledge, was a laborious scholar-"Vir diligentissimus et diffusissime lectionis." He formed one of the noble band of students who gathered round Scaliger at the then newly founded University of Leyden. MR. SAMUEL ROBINSON has sent forth another of the elegant little volumes containing the result of his Oriental studies. His latest work is "A Century of Ghazels, or a Hundred Odes, selected and translated from the Diwan of Hafiz, a Persian lyrical poet who flourished in the fourteenth century." PROFESSOR MONIER WILLIAMS has been engaged for some time on a new work called Indian Wisdom, or Examples of the Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Doctrines of the Hindus. It will give an historical account of the chief departments of Sanskrit literature, with English transla tions of select passages. The Indian Government has ordered several hundred copies of the work, which will be published at the end of next month. MESSRS. A. J. JOHNSON AND SONS, of New York, are about to publish an Illustrated Universal Cyclopaedia, to be completed in three imperial octavo volumes. It is not to be a mere dictionary of reference, but will also contain essays by distinguished writers on their own special branches of knowledge. The editors in chief are Drs. F. A. P. Barnard and Arnold Guyot, and among the associate editors are the names of Professors Dwight and Asa Gray, and the late Horace Greeley. The list of contributors includes many of the best-known names both in Europe and America, and promises well for the success of the undertaking. FOR the annual address of the President of the Philological Society (the Rev. Dr. Richard Morris), Professor Wagner, of Hamburg, will write the report on Latin, Mr. Davids that on Pali, Mr. Cust that on the Dravidian and modern Indian languages, and Mr. Morfill that on Russian. DURING the visit of Professor W. D. Whitney, of Yale, to England this spring, the Philological Society, of which the Professor is an honorary member, will hold an extra meeting for the purpose of hearing a paper from him. MR. SPEDDING'S paper on the First Quarto and Folio of Shakspere's Richard III., in which he contests and refutes the view of the Cambridge and other editors that the folio was largely altered from the quarto by an inferior hand, will be read at the next meeting of the Society, on Friday, April 9, after Professor Leo's paper. As Mr. Spedding's argument necessarily involves the consideration of many passages and words in the differing texts of the play, his paper will be printed beforehand, and copies will be distributed to members at the meeting. This paper will also be the first in the Transactions of the Society for 1875. MR. W. C. HAZLITT will issue in April, or early in May, a new Shakspere's Library, in five volumes, foolscap octavo, price 30s. It will contain, not only all the Novels, Tales, Poems and Plays contained in Collier's Shakspere Library, and Nichols's Six Old Plays on which Shakspere founded his King Lear, &c., &c., but also several new Plays, Novels, and Stories, and all the Lives in North's Plutarch which Shakspere used, with selected passages from Holinshed to illustrate Macbeth, Cymbeline, and Henry VIII. M. PAULIN PARIS is correcting the last proofs of the fourth volume of his account of the Arthur Romances, Les Romans de la Table Ronde mis en nouveau Langage. The new volume will be the second of the Romance of Lancelot. DR. KARL GOEDEKE's notions about Shakspere's sonnets were translated by Mr. F. J. Faraday in the Manchester City News of March 5. The tingen doctor holds that the Sonnets were promiscuously thrown together; that some were addressed to Queen Elizabeth; that most were written to his wife, son, and daughter; specially Nos. 36, 29, 44, 45, 50, 51, 52, 110, while 108 is to his boy Hamnet, and 109 to his family; the eighth line of No. 108— 66 THE Senatus Academicus of the University of Strassburg has made known the subject of Lamoy" prize, of 3,000 francs, the next to be awarded in March 1879, and which is set forth as follows:-"What influence has been exercised on human and technical education in the lower and middle classes by modern forms of industrial development; and what light does the result of such enquiries throw on the question of the conflict between the requirements of technical art and its productions on the one hand, and the other hand?" Competition is open to all on those of human and politico-social interests on persons, without respect to age or nationality; and the essays, which must be sent in before January 1, 1878, may be composed in German, French, or Latin. Hindi, is a curious indication of the progress of A GRAMMAR of the Greek language, written in European civilization in India. It is called Yavan bhásháka Vyakarana, a grammar of the Yavan language, Yavan being the name by which the Greeks-the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minorbecame known at a very early time all over the East. This grammar, being published in India, shows that there is among natives, who do not know English, a demand for learning ancient Greek. As far as we know, there is no grammar of Sanskrit for the use of modern Greeks. In a little volume entitled Fra Diplomatiens Hausen, a well-known and staunchly-patriotic Verden (From the World of Diplomacy), Herr J. Danish politician, gives extracts from his daybook which throw a good deal of new light on the difficult passages of intrigue at Paris and at Berlin that preceded the second Danish War. Regret is felt in Copenhagen that the author, who has been a good deal behind the scenes, refrains from confiding to the world his experiences later than 1866. Doubtless these also will follow in good time. 44 WE are indebted to the Manchester City News for the following report of the annual meeting of the Chetham Society, which was held on the 3rd instant in the audit room of the Chetham Hospital; Mr. James Crossley, President, in the Chair:The Chairman read the thirty-second report of the Council, which stated that the first and second of the publications for the year 1874-5, and the 93rd and 94th in the Chetham series, consist of Parts I. and II. of the third and concluding volume of The Admission Register of the Manchester School, with some notices of the more distinguished scholars, by the Rev. Jeremiah Finch Smith, M.A. This volume carries on the Göt-register from the death of Mr. Lawson in 1807 to the resignation of the high mastership by Dr. Jeremiah Smith in 1837. An appendix of Addenda contains new notices of scholars and additions to those previously given. The third work for the year 1874-5, forming No. 95 in the Chetham series, is Christopher Towneley's Abstracts of Lancashire Inquisitions, edited by Mr. William Langton, Part I. With regard to the works in progress, Mr. Crossley said the first in order after Mr. Langton's second volume was the Chetham Miscellanies, the greater part of which would be edited by Canon Raine. He congratulated the Rev. Thomas Corser, who had taken in hand the Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, on the progress he was making. With regard to Worthington's Diary and Correspondence, which the concluding part would soon be ready for the printer. had himself edited, he was happy to say that the The other volumes, which were advancing towards completion, were Contributions to the History of the Parish of Prestbury, county Chester, by Dr. Renaud; The Lancashire Visitation of 1532, edited by Mr. W. Langton; History of the Ancient Chapel of Stretford, in Manchester Parish, together with notices of the more ancient local families, "Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name," Dr. Goedeke thinks must refer to Shakspere having "at the baptismal font sanctified (hallowed) the beautiful heathen name of Hamnet." THE Revue Critique notices an interesting book on Alsace and Strassburg, Curiosités de Voyages en Alsace, tirées d'auteurs français, allemands, suisses et anglais, depuis le XVI jusqu'au XIXe siècle, et annotées par Auguste Stoeber. Starting with the Journal of Montaigne in 1580, and passing over the picture of Strassburg in 1600, from the Memoirs of Henry Duke of Rohan, we come to Bishop Burnet's sketch of Alsace in 1686 side by side with that by the Roman Catholic Bishop Flechier. Later occur those of Dom Ruissart, 1696; edited by Mr. James Croston; Biographical_Collectanea regarding Humphrey Chetham and his Family, by Canon Raine; Documents relating to Edward, third Earl of Derby, and the Pilgrimage of Grace, by Mr. R. C. Christie; A Selection from the Letters of Dr. Dee, with the Introduction of Collectanea relating to his Life and Works, by Mr. Thomas Jones, librarian of Chetham's Library; and the Correspondence of Nathan Walworth and Peter Seddon, of Outwood, and other documents and papers in relation to the building of Ringley Chapel, prepared for the press by the late R. Scarr Sowler, Q.C. The Chairman concluded by expressing his deep sense of the loss which antiquarian literature as well as of scientific biography had sustained by the death of Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, of Burnley, and said that the town of Burnley had done itself credit by the respect shown to his memory. Canon Raine urged the advisability of publishing the history of the second class in the province of Lancaster, which included Bury, Bolton, Rochdale, and Dean, and extended from 1647 to 1657, which he understood that Mr. J. E. Bailey, whose Life of Fuller was known to them as one of the best religious biographies ever published, was willing to prepare. He believed that the history of the Manchester class was in the possession of the trustees of Cross Street Chapel, and might also be published. Lieutenant-Colonel Fishwick called attention to the valuable nature of the records of the Preston guild, and suggested their publication. "The Chairman said that both suggestions would receive the attention of the Council." THE French Academy has awarded the prize for a poem on Livingstone to M. Guillard. Ar the sale of the Manley Hall library last Saturday, a copy of Redgrave's Century of Painters of the English School, interleaved with 1,156 engravings and numerous portraits of English artists, was sold for 132 guineas. The original two volumes had increased to ten by this means. The Manley Hall library was chiefly remarkable for its large number of modern illustrated books, and books of art reference. THE historical and literary autographs collected by a foreign nobleman, of which we gave a short account three weeks ago, were sold by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge on the 17th inst. The large price of 821. was realised by a letter of Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV., about the time when the latter was besieging Paris, while a letter of Mary Queen of Scots, to the King of Spain, entreating him to succour her, brought 651. Other interesting royal autographs were:-Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I., to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII., dated Richmond, October 25, 1605, which sold for 341.; James I. to Louis XIII., relating to the murder of Henry IV., 221. ; a letter of congratulation on the victory at St. Quentin from Mary, Queen of England, to Charles V.,817.; Catherine of Aragon to the Cardinal of Santa Cruz, mentioning an alliance with the Pope, 437. A second letter of Mary Queen of Scots, addressed to the King of France, went for 571. Among other documents of historical interest were:-A letter of Sir Walter Raleigh to his nephew, Sir John Gilbert, 331.; Cardinal Wolsey to the Pope, proposing Richard, Prior of Drax, as successor to the Bishop of Negropont, dated June 3, 1516, 127. 108.; Thomas Wentworth, the great Earl of Strafford, to his aunt, 25%.; the Young Pretender to Louis XV., from Edinburgh, October 15, 1745, announcing his first success, and urging the King to assist him, 70%.; Lord Nelson to the General of the Malta garrison, dated on board the Victory, August 5, 1803, 137. 10s.; the Duke of Wellington to Talleyrand, June 29, 1815, to the effect that he did not consider the abdication of Napoleon afforded such guarantee to the allied powers as to induce him to stop his operations; but he should consider his object attained if Napoleon were given over to the allies-the French ought to call back Louis XVIII. without any conditions whatever, 117. 108. The remarkable letter of Robert Burns, several pages in length, fetched 607.; one of Addison to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 241.; of Laurence Sterne to M. Foley, the Paris banker, written from York, November 11, 1764, wherein he says, referring to two fresh volumes of Tristram Shandy sent at the same time:-" You will read as odd a Tour thro' France as ever was proposed or executed by traveller or travell writer since the world begun :-'tis a laughing, good tempered satyr against travelling (as puppies travel)," 201. Of James Thomson to David Mallet, from East Barnet, October 12, 1725, wherein he speaks of the dreariness of his present place of sojourn "Flesh and blood can no longer endure to be exposed here, as in the bell-house of a steeple, to the raging elements," 207. 108.; of Sir Christopher Wr Vren, June, 1699, respecting his inability to complete his professional engagements, 107. 58. WE have received Fasting Communion historically investigated, by the Rev. Hollingworth Tully Kingdon, M.A., second edition (Longmans); The Soul, is it, in its own Nature, immortal?—an Essay, by a Layman (Elliot Stock); Les Origines du Texte Masoréthique de l'ancien Testament, par A. Kuenen, traduit du hollandais par A. Carrière (Paris: Leroux); Die Hausthier-Racen, von Dr. Carl Freytag, 1. Bd., Pferde-Racen. 1. Lfg. (Halle: Waisenhaus). In 1745 the squires of North Lincolnshire were most of them either avowed adherents of the exiled Royal house, or, what was a much worse thing, "whitewashed Jacobites," as Sir Walter Scott used to call them; that is, persons who, while taking oaths to and holding office under the betray their trust in favour of the king de jure. king de facto, were prepared at any moment to There is no room for doubt that if the invading force had crossed the Trent at Gainsburgh, as at able body of gentry and yeomen would at once one time many feared and hoped, a considervinced was the High Sheriff of Lincolnshirehave joined Prince Charles's standard. So conWilliam Burrell Massenberd, of Ormsby-that the end of the Whig rule had come, that when he heard that the Pretender was marching on Derby, he called together secretly at Lincoln a meeting of persons whom he could trust-gentry, officers in the county trained band, and othersand proposed to them that they should enter the Chevalier's service. This traitorous counsel was heard gladly, and the High Sheriff himself was requested to repair to Derby with all despatch to "the Prince Regent." Massenberd set off at once, but only reached his destination after retreat had been determined upon. meet themselves to produce all the said Arms on the first Notice given them by the Constable. "That The Constable of each Parish, do immediately cause six Stone Weight of Lead to be run into, Bullets of Proper Size, and to provide ten Pounds of Gunpowder in each Parish and three Hundred Flints, or a greater Quantity. "That A Meeting of the Parishioners in each Parish be immediately call'd in order to take down the Names of all such Persons as are willing to exert their Endeavours with the rest of the Country, for the Defence of the Isle of Axholm, the Town of Gainsbrough, and the Trent-Bank, as far as it extends itself along this County. Sign'd in the Sessions Hall at Gainsbrough, December the Third Day 1745. Here follows the Names of those Gentleman that sign'd the above Resolutions. To wit, To the Constable of Parts and County aforesaid. "You are hereby required to observe the above Resolutions, and to obey such Parts thereof as far as they are directed to you, as you will answer the contrary at your Peril. Given under Hand and Seal this One at Day of Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty-five." THE following curious account of a dramatic performance at the Charterhouse, at a time when such diversions are generally supposed to have been prohibited, is contained in a document preserved among the State Papers of the Commonwealth. No other paper of about the same date has any reference to the subject, so the cause of its presence in such a collection is somewhat obscure. It is to be observed, too, that the last paragraph which we quote relates to a totally distinct matter. The document is endorsed "Junii 1656, Sr Wm Davenant's Opera," and runs literally thus: : "The Bills for Sr Will: Davenants Opera are thus Intitled: "The Entertainment by Musick and Declamations "Upon friday the 23 of May 1656 These foresaid Declarations began att the Charterhouse, and 5′ a head for the entrance. The expectation was of 400 The rome was narrow, at the end of which was a persons, but there appeered not above 150 auditors. stage, and on ether side two places railed in, Purpled and guilt, the Curtayne also that drew before them was of cloth of gold and Purple. "After the Prologue (wch told them this was but the narrow passage to the Elizium theire opera) Vp came Diogenes and Aristophanes, the first against the opera, the other for it. Then came up A Citizen of Paris speaking broken English, and a Citizen of London, and reproached one another with the defects of Diet, &c. And in fine the Londoner had the better each Citty in theire Buildings, Manners, Customs, of itt, who concluded that hee had seene two Crocheteurs in Paris both wth heavy burdens on theire backs stand complementing for ye way wth, ceste a vous Mons: Mons vous vous Mocquies de Moy &c., which lasted till they both fell down under theire burden. 66 The Musick was above in a hole railed about and covered wth sarcenetts to conceale them, before each speech was consort Musick. At the end were songs relating to the Victor (the Protector). The last Song ended wth deriding Paris and the french, and concluded "And though a shipp her scutchen bee Yet Paris hath noe shipp at sea.' "The first song was made by Hen. Lawes, y other by Dr Coleman who were the composers. The singers were Capt Cooke, Ned Coleman and his wife, another wooman and other inconsiderable voyces. It lasted an houre and a haulfe & is to continue for 10 dayes by web time other Declamations will be ready. There was lately held at Marchand tailors Hall ye Cockney feast of the better sort of Citizens borne wthin ye walls at 5a a man club, it prooved so great a feast by y care of ye Citty Cookes and cutteres y the like hath not bine seene in ye Citty, there dined 1000 in one rome, and 300 in another." NOTES OF TRAVEL. WE regret to learn from the German papers that the distinguished traveller, Dr. Nachtigal, is suffering severely from the effects of the fatigue and privations which he underwent during his six years' explorations in Africa. He is reported to have gone to stay at the sulphur baths near Cairo; and according to recent communications from Egypt, the Khedive, who had been informed that pecuniary embarrassments were added to Dr. Nachtigal's other difficulties, has with his usual munificence come forward to relieve him from all further anxiety on that head, and has even offered him the post of governor of the newly acquired province of Darfur, with the title of Pasha, provided his health should be sufficiently restored to admit of his entering upon the duties of the office. A PAPER was recently read before the Bohemian Academy of Sciences on the travels of Dr. Emil Golub, a young scientific traveller, who in 1872 visited the diamond fields of the Vaal river with the object of adapting himself to the climate of South Africa, and preparing for a grand journey northward across the Zambesi to the equator. He furnishes a great deal of geographical information which modifies the existing maps of Griqua West Land and the Orange Free State to a considerable extent. He gives a descriptive list of eleven hitherto unnoticed tributaries of the Vaal river, which he crossed on his return to Dutoitspan, his head-quarters, from whence he proposes to start on his northward journey. 20 dols. (3l. to 4.). The shells of this class are not SOME interesting facts about the wood-carving palissandre" or rosewood, mahogany, cedar, &c. Side by side with the wood-carving industry, but greatly surpassing it in pecuniary results, is the manufacture of parquets, which is of still more recent introduction. This trade is carried on in eighteen out of the twenty-two cantons of Switzerland, and is now in the most flourishing condition. As nearly as can be ascertained, the annual production of the twenty odd establishments which carry it on reaches the value of 8,000,000 francs (320,000l.). Scarcely a Swiss house with any pretension to comfort is now built without a parquet in at least one of its rooms. In the last number of the Overland Monthly, a magazine published in San Francisco, some interesting Notes of a Naturalist at Mazatlan" are given from the unpublished papers of the late Andrew J. Grayson. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it appears, the Spaniards IN reporting to the Foreign Office on the forest carried on the pearl-fishery in the Gulf of Caliland of Cuba, Mr. Graham Dunlop notes that, in fornia systematically until the supply of pearl-proportion as the forests (especially in the plains oysters failed. About 800 divers were regularly and lower uplands) have been destroyed and cleared employed, and the value of pearls exported was on an average 60,000 dollars annually. A scientific away, the rains have diminished from the want of study of the fauna of this sea, however, only dates influence on the clouds in the tropics; and, in from the early part of the present century, one of many places the winding rivulets and sluggish streams, which were often dry near dense forests, the first and most extensive conchological collections made being that of a Belgian gentleman at have become fuller where the largest fellings took Mazatlan, M. Reigen, which at his death was place, the roots of the trees having absorbed the divided, part being sent to Havre and part to waters in their drainage from the springs to the Liverpool. Dr. Philip P. Carpenter, in a catastreams. Some check from the Spanish authorities on the indiscriminate fellings of timber which logue of the species obtained from Mazatlan, go on there is much called for. says: The very few that fell into my possession proved to be a little museum in themselves, each specimen so abounding in parasites, within and without, that I have described upwards of a hundred entirely new forms of molluscan life derived from this source alone, besides about 250 others which had not been personally investigated, or which are not yet determined-a variety of annelida, crustaceans, zoophytes, sponges, protozoa, protophytes, and algae-which are yet awaiting the attention of naturalists acquainted with these special departments." After a description of some of the varieties of the limpet found on the beaches about Mazatlan, of which one (Patella Mexicana) is sometimes a foot in length and large enough to serve as a basin, a paragraph is devoted to the shells which produce a rich purple dye much sought after by the Indians. These shells are found further to the south. Mr. Grayson says: "I have seen them collecting this dye in the Bay of Banderas, below San Blas, from the shells as they clung to the rock. It is done by disturbing the shell, when the colouring substance is ejected by the animal, and caught in small cups by the collectors. This beautiful purple dye is held in high estimation by the natives, and is used to a considerable extent by the Zapoteca Indians in Tehuantepec for dyeing the cotton cloths of their own manufacture. Six yards of this Siton stuff, or enough to make a skirt for a woman, dyed with this peculiar dye, sell for 16 dols. or chona is being introduced. China grass has been planted. Borax is imported from Ladakh. Wool is brought in large quantities from the sheep which graze over the pasture grounds of Kulu, Lahul, and Spiti; and woollen blankets of the finest description are manufactured by the inhabitants of those parts, who, however, have hitherto been unable to obtain any good market for their textures." Notwithstanding its very favourable position in this neighbourhood, the Palampur fair has not yet proved so successful as was anticipated, but in concluding his report on that held at the end of last year, Colonel E. H. Paske advocates its maintenance on the ground that 66 even as a local fair it is of some use, and within the next two or three years, when Mr. Forsyth's mission has accomplished its work, it will be seen whether a commercial treaty will bring down the trade from Central Asia to Palampur." It is highly probable that the unsatisfactory condition of this fair is, in some measure due, as Mr. P. S. Melvill suggests, to its being "held at a most inconvenient time for the agriculturists of the Kangra district," for they are then "busy harvesting their crops, notably rice, and in preparing the land for the rabbi sowings." The same volume contains Reports by Dr. Cayley and Major Montgomerie on Trade Routes to Eastern Turkistan; papers relating to our trade with Tibet; and Major Clarke's Report on the Sudys Fair, held in 1873. PARIS LETTER. Paris I told you in my last letter that works on philosophy had for some time been regaining favour in France. Let me now describe more at length the different directions French philosophy has been taking of late, and the books it has recently produced. The imperious supremacy which M. Cousin exercised for a long period over philoso phical study in France is well known. While doing good service in the field of philosophical history, he did his utmost to kill all speculation and free enquiry by making the adoption of the creed of official spiritualism compulsory not only in all the Lycées, but also in the different Faculties, and even at the Académie des Sciences Morales. It is necessary to know something of the excessive centralisation of our public institutions, and of the exaggerated influence acquired by certain members of our Academies, in order to be able to understand the authority M. Cousin exercised, first as Minister, and afterwards as a simple member_of_the_Institut. M. Vacherot, who in In reporting on the trade of Hiogo and Osaka, his book La Métaphysique de la Science had Mr. Consul Gower mentions a curious fact: "A large portion of the bronze exported," he says, "has been furnished by the Buddhist temples. The discouragement given to that sect by the Government -anxious to favour and foster Shintoism, the ancient national religion-and the appropriation to Imperial purposes of the revenues of many In his Report on the first fair held at Palampur, 'the Kangra district abounds in varied and valuable given forcible expression to idealistic theories M. Cousin grew old, then died, and philosophy, long regarded with suspicion and persecuted during the first years of the Empire in every conceivable manner, was restored to honour by M. Duruy, who re-established it as a subject of acade mical study, and a movement of a serious character began which drew the minds of students in the most different directions. The French philosophers of the present day may, it seems to me, be divided into three distinct classes: the disciples and direct successors of the spiritualistic school of M. Cousin; the disciples of M. Ravaisson or those who, like him, recognise that it is impossible for spiritualism to maintain its |