traced elsewhere, it does not appear to have influenced all the early Cistercian church builders. Jerpoint and Baltinglas show no trace of it, and may be pronounced AngloNorman; and in a few years later we find the Cistercian builders using the pure First Pointed, or Early English style. To the elucidation of this style and its developments Mr. Brash promises to return, and we wish him all success in his labours. That this work is a valuable contribution to the study of a little-known subject we gladly acknowledge; its defects of arrangement are indeed considerable, but they are such as necessarily resulted from the serial form of its original appearance in the pages of the Irish Builder. Should it reach a second edition, which we trust may be the case, its author will no doubt reduce some of the chapters to their proper places, and it is to be hoped that many of the illustrations will be improved. The details of the glorious doorway of Kelleshin Church, for example, give no real knowledge of the sculptures they profess to represent, and the examples of early Christian masonry which illustrate the eleventh chapter afford but a poor idea of the originals. Many of the plates are, however, admirably executed, and the volume does great credit to the enterprising Dublin publishers by whom it is brought out. JAMES GRAVES. The Chinese Reader's Manual: a Handbook of Biographical, Historical, Mythological, and General Literary Reference. By William Frederick Mayers, Chinese Secretary to the British Legation at Peking. (Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. London: Trübner & Co., 1874.) EUROPEAN students of Chinese will find their labour much lightened by the use of this book, which opens up to view Chinese biography, history, and mythology in a manner clear, brief, and trustworthy. Its publication is another step towards rendering accessible to Englishmen the treasures of Chinese literature. It gives a brief account of all the celebrated characters in the past of that people. Yao and Shun at the dawn of history, B.C. 2357, and 2258, are the two models of imperial wisdom to whom the scholars and people of China have ever since looked up with reverence. They were followed by the three founders of the Hia, Shang, and Chow dynasties, Yü, T'ang and Si peh, all of whom were celebrated as wise kings. These, with Chow Kung and Confucius, who died B.C. 1105 and B.C. 479 respectively, constitute the sages to whom the men of later times have ascribed the origin of the national polity, and the moral and social system, and the brightest intuition of the good and true ever given to mankind. With them in the old days were connected a cloud of other personages, some historical, and some legendary. Among them Fuhhi, who dates 500 years earlier than Yao, taught his countrymen hunting, fishing and pastur age, together with writing and music. An account is given in alphabetical order favour of this building having been erected for a similar purpose. in Mr. Mayers' first part of all such personages. But among the 974 articles, biographical, archaeological, and mythological, the most are modern. During 4,000 years of history, and a long antecedent period of fable, the number of distinguished names is inevitably great. Only a part are included in the 292 pages devoted to this subject. But it will be found that so many of the most noteworthy names are included that the book cannot fail to become a vade mecum with Chinese students. History has been in China, as in Greece and Rome, in great part biographical. In all the Chinese histories from the time of Sze ma t'sien biography has been the form in which most of the history has been taught. That this eminent man should be called by his countrymen, by way of distinction, "the great historian," and that his work should consist mainly of biography, is a suggestive fact. He has been called the Herodotus of China, but he is in this respect more like its Plutarch. The Chinese mind is more concentrative than reflective. Their idea of history is complete when they have an annual chronicle, a biography of distinguished persons, and an account of the administration of government. Hence in this little book a continuous history of China can be picked out with ease, because in the native biographies from which they are translated the history is already in that form. The Chinese, through the action of their conservative spirit, like to keep with care every ancient story, however wildly monstrous, if written or transmitted by a noted man. They know that legends are valuable as relics of old times. To us they are still more valuable as illustrative of the ancient religion and modes of thinking of the people. Here we find many of them. A great interest attaches to tales of loyalty and filial piety, as exemplifying the action of the moral nature in men. They abound in Chinese literature, and Mr. Mayers has made a selection of them. Then there are literary women from Pan chao, who completed her brother Pan ku's celebrated history after his death in the first century of the Christian era, downwards. There are the poets, such as Li-tai-pe, said to be the planet Venus in human shape, and Tufu whom some think a better poet than Li-tai-pe, thongh he did not pass through so many romantic adventures. These men lived in the eighth century. Their influence on the later literature of China has been most remarkable. By the law of the land every aspirant to civil office must be a poet before he can pass the examinations. If he cannot make verses in the metres of the eighth century he will not be allowed to become a magistrate. There are the alchemists who flourished in the two centuries before and the three centuries after the Christian era, an interesting class of men who worked on the edge of scientific discovery and failed to grasp truth because they were misled by bad theories.* There are the Tauists, Some of them rise to the are the Tauists, of whom the alchemists firmit of philosophers. Others were slavish Mr. Mayers gives it as his opinion (p. 202) that it is probable that the Arabs derived alchemy from a Chinese source, as first suggested by the writer of this review nineteen years ago. copyists of the translated Hindú literature and mythology. Others were men whom legend loves to surround with fantastic fables, and who are thought much more of by posterity than by their contemporaries. The critics of the classical books are a nu merous school, if not rather three schools, viz., the Han B.C. 200 to A.D. 200, the Sung A.D. 1000 to 1200, and that of the present dynasty A.D. 1644 to the present time. The military writers, the warriors, the statesmen, the rebel chiefs of all dynasties, find in this book a brief record, and deserve to have made known in Europe at least a few dates and facts to introduce them. The philosophers also have a few facts given respecting them, but there is not in this work any full critical estimate of the development of Chinese philosophy. Yet the history of Chinese philosophy is most instructive. The Chinese began with the numerical philosophy, which arranged all the objects of thought and the elements of the ancient civilisation in numerical categories, many of which are given by our author in his second part. In the age of Confucius and Mencius there was a conflict of systems. The orthodox was moral and intuitive. The heterodox, as in the instance of Lao tsze, sought purity in rest, or, as in Chwang tsze, proceeded to identify man with the universe. In Yang chu heterodoxy was boid enough to maintain that self-gratification should be the ground of human action. In Siün K'wang the moral sense in man was traced to education. In Meh ti undistinguishing love to all was upheld as the true morality. About the beginning of the Christian era the orthodox system and that of Laou tsze were the two most in favour. The students of the Classics ranged themselves under the banner of Confucius. The alchemists reve renced Laou-tsze as their founder. Some tried to combine two opposite systems, as Yang Hiung, who taught that human nature is originally both good and evil. seems There to be a little inaccuracy in our author's account of this philosopher, when, after stating this fact, he adds that he con tended that human character in the individual depends wholly on education, and is not in any sense innate. The spread of Buddhism after the Han dynasty had the effect of silencing the voice of philosophy till the days of Han-yü in the eighth and ninth centuries. In regard to the moral nature of man, he maintained that human nature is divided into three classes, the innately good, the innately bad, and that which is both good and bad. He was a determined foe of Buddhism. In the Sung period the Confucian philosophy took heart again, and for two centuries a brilliant sories of great names adorned the literary annals of the time. These men, among whom the greatest was Chu-hi, attempted to restore orthodoxy, but they lacked the critical spirit, and were too much tied by the nation chose to adopt their views. For system. They gained great influence, and the narrowness of the Chinese mind fare that time these philosophers extent responsible. The superficial character of their system of nature, the dulness of their thinking, and the fact that they were are to a large satisfied with the principle that all things originated in the Great Extreme and with the map which usually accompanies it, are not very creditable to them. After becoming acquainted with Hindú idealism, they might have elaborated something more aspiring. If our author could have devoted more space to this subject, it would have been perhaps desirable. In Buddhism he has omitted any notice of Hinen-tsang, the celebrated pilgrim to India, and of the Hindús who translated into Chinese the Buddhist books from their Sanskrit originals. He has limited his information on the subject of this religious system on account of the recent appearance of Dr. Eitel's Handbook of Buddhism. There seems to be a deficiency in notices of mathematical and philological writers, and of the gods in the modern Tauist pantheon. On account of the great variety and extent of Chinese anecdote and legend, the names of fabulous animals, places remarkable in legend, and expressions in which the student is likely to be puzzled by an allusion to ancient anecdotes, require in many cases to be explained. A considerable number of names and phrases which call for historical elucidation have been examined and ex- To Students would find it advantageous to have this list expanded into a volume. But, in the meantime, Mr. Mayers has done very much to deserve their gratitude. The Third Part places before the student chronological tables, such as are found in Morrison's Philological View of China, and in the arrangement by Dr. S. W. Williams. These new tables are, however, more complete. JOSEPH EDKINS. La Vie d'un Patricien de Venise au Seizième Ir is always interesting to trace the process provides us in the present case with all necessary information. He was travelling, he tells us, in Italy, and paid a visit from Venice to a charming villa at Masera, near Trevigi. This villa, unknown to most arttravellers, contained some very fine decorative frescoes by Paul Veronese; it had been built by Palladio, and was adorned with sculptures by Alessandro Vittoria. The Venetian noble whose name was graven on the inscription above the doorway was Marco Antonio Barbaro. M. Yriarte was greatly struck with the villa, and began to wonder what sort of man Marco Antonio Barbaro might have been. He accordingly wrote an account of the villa to the Revue des Deux Mondes, and set to work to find out all he could about Barbaro. The more he pursued his subject the more it delighted him. For two years he worked at it, and round the questions raised by the notices he was enabled to find of Barbaro's life many points of Venetian history gradually grouped themselves. M. Yriarte felt the pleasures of "research with all the enthusiasm of a novice. He had begun his work as a littérateur; he found himself gradually rising to the dignity of an historian. His joy reached its climax when he discovered a portrait of Barbaro, by Paul Veronese, in the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna. His eye was caught by the face of a portrait: "un pressentiment, que comprendront ceux qui ont vécu dans la contemplation d'une idée fixe, nous porta à solliciter du directeur l'autorisation de descendre la toile.” On examination an inscription was found, which proved to M. Yriarte the justice of his presentiment. A more commonplace man would have looked at his catalogue, where he would have found the name of the portrait given at length (No. 29, Ed. of 1865) and also a copy of the inscription, which differs from that of M. Yriarte, and which we sadly suspect to be more accurate. In this enthusiastic way he laboured on, "cherchant notre personnage aux quatre coins de l'Europe," endeavouring to reproduce his times and all that concerned him. But he was not, at the same time, without a lofty moral purpose in his work. The disasters of France showed too clearly the evils of individualism, and the need of those virtues which Venice embodied, "la renonciation de l'individu au profit de l'Etat, la subordination de l'intérêt privé à l'intérêt public." This was the example which he wished to set before his countrymen. This sketch of the book's origin and progress shows at once its merits and its faults. It has the merits of freshness and enthusiasm; it is eminently readable on a subject where it is very easy for a writer to become dull; its pedantry, wherever it occurs, is so simple and innocent that it becomes amusing. The book is the result of honest work, and brings together in a pleasant form much interesting information on a most interesting subject. But, on the other hand, the form of the book is an impossible one. We wish, as we read it, that M. Yriarte had been content to be a littérateur, and had not aspired to become an historian. If the book had been a series of essays on Venice in the sixteenth century, it would have given M. Yriarte greater play. As it is, its hero is a mere phantom. His name can be traced, it is true, through the Venetian archives as holding successively most of the great offices of state; but this serves only to give him a fictitious reality. About himself, his character or his private life, we know nothing. The book is, therefore, a series of digres sions. Barbaro was born a patrician of Venice-we must therefore know how the patriciate grew up: he married a wife—so we must hear about Venetian ladies generally: he entered the Great Council and the Senate-then follows an account of the Venetian Government: he went as ambassador to France and Constantinople-and this leads to the general question of Venetian diplomacy: he was appointed overseer of the University of Padua-and this calls for an account of that institution. But in all this we look in vain for any features of Barbaro himself: nothing is known about him save names and dates, and despatches, which even M. Yriarte confesses do not stand in the highest rank among the productions of Venetian envoys. Historical biographies are generally used as a means of enlivening the tedium of unmitigated history by the introduction of personal traits and incidents which give reality to the whole. In the present case the general history is pleasant enough, but the hero of the biography appears as a sort of tedious interruption to the easy flow of the essays for which he forms a text.. Barbaro's career is in itself an instructive instance of the laborious life which a Venetian patrician was called upon to lead. Born in 1518, he began at the age of twenty to sit in the Grand Council, and for the next fiftyseven years was never free from the discharge of onerous public duties. For two years he was ambassador in France; for six years he was ambassador at Constantinople, where he was thrown into prison by the Sultan on the outbreak of the war which led to the battle of Lepanto. The Government of Venice, which was the wonder of all the political theorists of the sixteenth century, was certainly not carried on at a small cost. The amount of labour entailed on all its officers was prodigious. Its ambassadors all : over Europe sent despatches every week these despatches were read by the Doge's Council, and a résumé of their contents placed, if necessary, at the disposal of every member of the Senate. No steps of any importance could be taken without many discussions in different small committees before the matter came finally before the Grand Council. Besides the elaborate care taken in obtaining information, and the accurate attention to details which the Venetian Government required from its nobles, we must take into account its great complexity owing to the immense number of checks and counter-checks which were imposed to prevent the growth of any individual to too great power. The process even of electing an official was so lengthy and complicated, with ballots again and again repeated to determine the ultimate selectors, that we are tempted to think that each election must have taken at least six hours. 1 This jealous and suspicious aristocracy sacrificed the freedom of all that it might maintain the privileges of a few. So strong were the chains of the system which had slowly grown up, that few dared attempt to escape from it, and all learned to move with solemn majesty and hide their fetters under magnificent robes. The position of their Doge was but an example of the position of all the rest. An old man who had grown greyheaded in the service of the State, whose name was connected with some great victory or some successful embassy, was chosen to be the symbol of the Republic. He was not allowed to refuse the office, under pain of forfeiture of all his goods: he was attired in splendid robes, he sat on a throne in the Council, when he entered the room all rose and bowed, he was treated as an equal by foreign princes, he was addressed in public as "Serenissimo principe,"-yet in private men were bidden by law to speak of him as "Messer il Duca," and he might not open even a private letter except in the presence of three counsellors. The same dark spirit of suspicion went through the whole of Venetian life. The women were constrained by custom to wear in the streets pattens two feet high, and when a foreign ambassador once said how much more convenient low slippers were found in other cities, an austere senator grimly remarked "Pur tropo commodi! pur tropo." The splendid Venetian women whom Paul Veronese painted, knew little of society, and were rarely seen beyond their own household circle. They had no share in the literary culture of Italy, but spent their time in blanching their masses of hair by wetting it and exposing it to heat-sitting in summer for hours on their balconies in the heat of the sun, with their faces shaded by a broad straw brim without a crown. It was regulated by law what jewels they might wear; only on the rare occasions of such festivals as Paul Veronese delighted to paint might they appear in public in all their wealth of apparel. lishing "pièces justificatives" on other elaborate illustrations set forth for admira tion, and for which we advise our lady readers to substitute nosegays arranged by their own fair hands, according to their own sweet will. The flowers on a lady's table and in her drawing-room ought to be a part of herself, like the coiffure of her hair; and i she should even go so far as to arrange also the fruit for her dessert, and make a living The Modern Householder: A Manual of Do- peaches and nectarines, or of pomegranates vegetable picture of grapes and melons, and mestic Economy. Compiled by Ross and prickly pears, and bananas and rosy Murray. New Edition. (London: Fre-apples, and quinces, medlars and odoriferous derick Warne & Co., 1874.) little Tangerine oranges, she will not have derogated very far from her house-mistressly dignity. THE English language is seriously deficient in providing no word analogous to Hausfrau or Hausmutter, to signify the woman who at once rules the house as mistress, and technically "keeps it. The term "housekeeper" is always understood to signify the domestic servant to whom the lady of the house delegates her office, unless by some involution of phrase the speaker manages to convey the fact that (in the language of the servants' hall) "the lady is her own housekeeper." Nevertheless, though we have not the word, we English have the thing, and in much greater perfection than our German cousins who possess the word, but with whom (except in the very highest station of society) the housekeeping mostly swallows up the whole woman, and leaves little for either the "frau" or the "mutter." If English girls were educated practically, as they are theoretically, to become good wives and mothers, and not merely to attract lovers, this housekeeping business would be an invariable element in their education, instead of being left to be learned, on the principle of solvitur ambulando, after a thousand costly mistakes, when they are married. Two or three years ago an excellent little tract on this subject, by Mrs. Shaen, explained how readily an experienced mother, governess, or schoolmistress might direct her pupils' attention to the numberless household matters which every mistress of a house ought to understand, but which not M. Yriarte's work will certainly give full one in twenty is ever taught to the nature materials for judgment to anyone who and principle, for example, of stoves and wishes to find out the price paid for the cooking apparatus; of gas pipes, drainage, gravity, the magnificence, the calm and the cisterns, and water supply; how to choose decorum for which Venice was famous. Its good and solid furniture; the qualities of painters rejoiced in outward splendour, for linen, the freshness of meat, fish, and vegelittle else that was lovely was suggested to tables, and twenty similar matters. The them by the life around. But it went ill present handsome volume, with its 5,700 rewith them if they gave too free scope to their ferences and receipts, might serve very well fancy even for splendour. Paul Veronese either for an encyclopaedia to instruct the was brought before the tribunal of the In- teachers of such exceptionally" useful knowquisition for having painted too many acces-ledge," or to supplement the lack of such sory figures in his picture of the Last Supper at the Church of San Giovanni-e-Paolo. It was useless that he urged his principle of art, "When I have a little space left in a picture I adorn it with imaginary figures." The tribunal administered a reprimand, and ordered him to amend his picture within three months. oral instruction-so far as a printed volume can be a substitute for actual lessons given by a clear-headed person with the things to be learned before the pupil's eyes. We should not, perhaps, for our own part, have opened the brief introduction to a book on Housekeeping by one of those references to "modern science" which seem to have beThe account of the painter's cross-exa- come the preliminary de rigueur just now mination by the inquisitors is extremely to the discussion of every subject under the interesting. It was extracted from the sun, from theology to cookery; nor should Venetian Archives by M. Armand Baschet, we have thought it needful to terminate our and communicated by him to the Gazette des address by a quotation from the Psalms. Beaux-Arts in 1867. It is characteristic of These details, however, are matters of taste, M. Yriarte's notions of research that, while like the somewhat artificial bouquets (too feeling himself above the necessity of pub-suggestive of the florist's shop) which the There are a series of useful things in The Modern Householder beside these details. There is, to begin with, some sound advice and information about choosing and hiring houses (which the author thinks should not exceed in cost one-eighth of the owner's income), and a good many hints about furnishing; the glass and china needed for houses of different pretensions; and the best mode of lighting with lamps, gas, and candles. Then follow many learned pages respecting the elements contained in different kinds of food, which may possibly be very instructive from the point of view of "modern science," but which will hardly, we imagine, be directly serviceable to the lady housekeeper, whose choice of a pound of rump-steak for a family luncheon will scarcely be determined by the knowledge that it will contain 8 ounces of water, 1 ounce 62 grains of gelatine, 1 ounce 122 grains of fibrin and albumen, 4 ounces 340 grains of fat, and 350 grains of mineral matter. She may, however, be mercifully deterred, to the great benefit of her family and friends, from ordering Dutch butter for kitchen purposes by the alarming story (p. 138), that suet or fat of dead dogs melted down with oils and chemically prepared," and also the slimy sewage of the Thames, are sent to Holland, and from thence imported back to the London markets as Dutch butter. 66 "the After this scientific" information, fol lows a large collection of cooking recipes, a few of which having been submitted by us to competent domestic authority, have been pronounced worthy of acceptance. They are in some cases illustrated by pretty little pictures, whose brilliant reds and greens will, we fear, drive the culinary soul to despair, or provoke it to have recourse to certain necromantic tricks for producing those hues scarcely less nefarious than the Black Art of the Middle Ages. Another de partment of this all-containing book relates to Feeding the Family, and concerns the or dering of meals. The author ought not to have quoted without caution Dr. Kitchener's advice, which presumes an exploded order of things. In none of our large towns at the present day is it expedient, even if it be possible, for a servant belonging to a family of the upper class to go to market, as is still the custom on the Continent; and as to the old gentleman's proposal to eat the same things the same day of the week all the year round, we denounce it with indignation as an abominable invasion of the natural liberty of man. It is true that a certain connexion between the Sabbath and roast beef and plum pudding for the servants' dinner does prevail in most families belonging to the Church of England, and that a similar occult relationship between the same sacred day and roast veal and apple pie is noticeable in houses where Dissent has seemingly severed the venerable orthodox tradition. 66 These mysterious and filmy webs of thought and taste are no doubt allied in some manner- could we but trace the connexion, to that still more remarkable difference between High Churchmen and Evangelicals, signalised by the butler who enquired respectfully from his master the opinions of his intended guests. Because, Sir, if they're 'igh, Sir, they drinks; and if they're Low, why then, Sir, they heats." Though the author of the chapter on dinner parties overawes us by telling of the "house of a nobleman with whom we occasionally dine," we venture to differ from him as regards the inordinate quantity of sweets in proportion to the dinner which he is prepared to order. Where a French cook would have two, and an Italian a simple "dolce" (a paragon of art, by the way), he recommends three, four, or five costly and troublesome dishes, for which none but aldermen's wives and misses in their teens (who have no business at a dinner party at all) could possibly find appetite. This exorbitant proportion of sweets is a sure token that the mistress of the house has obtained her ideas of splendour from the lower stratum of English society, and not from more refined tables at home or abroad. as a very The History of India, from the earliest Times to the present Day. By L. J. Trotter. Published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. (London: Society's Depositories. New York: Pott, Young & Co., 1874.) THE writer who has engaged to produce a full history of India has great difficulties to contend with at the outset of his work. Old Sanskrit authors are not practical chroniclers; their genius is mythological and imaginative, and their heroes are of the same stamp. By the aid of contemporary records, Greece and Rome have been handed down to us in their periods of rise, zenith, and decline, respectively; and amid the great events of Western classical history, however remote, we find individual portraits and individual types of monarch, sage, and citizen. But while it is certain that something of Homer and the Greek tragic writers, with whom we become familiar in school life, is common to the poets of ancient India, the lessons of primaeval literature in the far East have been rather of morals than of men: nothing is taught of actual history; and we are left to deplore the want of a Hindú Herodotus. On the other hand, when the writer or compiler has disposed of his two or three thousand years of mythology and fable; of Vedas, and thought before the Vedas; of early Brahmanism, Buddhism, and revived Brahmanism of Aryan invasion and infusion, together with separation or absorption of aboriginal elements; when he reaches, in fact, the Muhammadan period, he is in far better case. And later on, when Muhammadanism has had time to spread and progress, he has his native Froissarts and Monstrelets in suprising number. the midst of riches. It is true that selection We have exhausted our space and have only skimmed half through The Modern Householder. Suffice it to say that the allaccomplished lady who will take the book to her heart and make it a "part of her inner consciousness for ever," will thenceforth know innumerable things either "not geneBut the English historian's difficulties rally known" or very imperfectly under- have not wholly ceased on the change of stood by the majority of mankind. She circumstances. If his materials have aug. will have learned how to make presents-mented he is not without embarrassment in (fancy receiving a gift labelled " small token of regard," from a lady on whose table one had just seen The Modern Householder!)-how to be abased so far as to "visit the poor," and how to be exalted so far as to be "presented at Court; she will know the art of preserving the skins of hapless birds to decorate herself withal, and how to improve her complexion by flower of sulphur. She will be able to choose her own hunter, to treat him for occasional ailments, and select her own carriage. The cows for her dairy, the fowls for her barn-yard, the birds in her aviary, she will select and manage with unerring skill. And finally, for all the diseases wherewith herself or her children may be afflicted she will possess full information, both as regards the diagnosis of the symptoms and the most successful mode of therapeutic treatment. With such a book, indeed, in her hands, it is hard to see under what contingency of mortal life a lady would not find herself equipped for the full performance of her duties; and, joking apart, we believe there are very few ladies who would not gather very serviceable information from its voluminous and instructive FRANCES POWER COBBE. pages. is a natural part of his duty, whereas invention is to be studiously avoided. Selection, however, from Muhammadan chronicles is no safe or easy matter; and even with the light European investigators and commentators so abundantly shed around him, the conscientious recorder of would-be truths cannot be otherwise than perplexed in setting the seal to each completed section of his book, though the period treated be subsequent to the conquests of Islam. He cannot indeed feel sure of his ground until he has fairly landed his fellow-countrymen on the shores of India, whether in Calcutta, the Carnatic, or Bombay; at which stage of narration he feels independent of purely local authorities. At the same time, the native chronicler should never be despised, for he is invaluable for collation and substantiation. At the request of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Mr. Trotter has just produced a history of India" from the earliest times" to the period of the respective missions of Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Douglas Forsyth. He modestly calls it an "outline;" and in such form we give it a hearty welcome as a fit companion for the best of its predecessors. There is much of power with little pretension, much of intelligent condensation, and a sufficient regard to the salient passages in Oriental chronicles exhibited in this useful volume, to make it popular as an educational medium. The author divides his matter into seven books, of which the first three treat of the days prior to the rule of the Company par excel lence. The opening book, with separate chapters on the Aryan Hindus, Brahmanism re-ascendent, the early history of India and civilisation of Aryan India, is especially well told, notwithstanding the extra dash of colour at the close brought about by a glowing extract from the Ramáyan. From the middle of the fourth book to the end of the volume, each chapter bears the name of the English governor-general or viceroy whose administration it describes. There are a few pleasant and appropriate illustrations scattered among the pages. The necessity of constant compression in a restricted work of the kind must be clear to all critics; and if we complain of occasionally too palpable demonstration of this drawback in the present instance, the author must not be held wholly responsible. But when freely exercised, the summarising process is full of mischief to the cause of historical truth. Events are either too crowded together to stand out with sufficient distinctness for apprehension; or there is forced acceptance of one out of two or three versions of the same general fact, without room for comment or expression of doubt. So in this as in other "outlines" of history, some few passages naturally suggest themselves to an attentive reader, where reconsideration and modification might be beneficial. We confine ourselves to two examples only. It is stated in pages 74, 75 :— "Dehli was saved by Belol Lodi, the Afghan governor of Multan, from falling into the hands of the independent King of Malwa. Ere long, however, Belol himself was laying siege to Dehli, but in vain. Withdrawing to his own provinces, he had not long to wait before Muhammad's death and the helpless condition of his son Ala-ud-din, capital, again brought him with fairer prospects whose sway extended only a few miles round the to the front. Ala-ud-din retired on a pension to Budaon, and in 1450 the grandson of the ennobled Afghan merchant founded a dynasty, which reigned at Dehli for about seventy-six years." We surely miss an explanation of some kind regarding "the grandson of the ennobled Afghan merchant." For this is the first mention of Belol or his grandfather in the book; and the definite article presupposes an acquaintance on the reader's part with these two particular members of the family, which the ordinary student is not likely to possess. A very few words would clear up the mystery, and the solution is readily available in the translation of Farishta by Briggs, vol. i, p. 544, &c. Belol, or Bahlul Lodi, or, as Ferrier calls him, Billal Lúd, is an important figure in Indian history; and some brief notice of his antecedents might have been given, though the whole dynasty of Saiyids is dismissed with ten lines. Again, at page 130: "In 1637 Kandahar, the old appanage of the house of Babar, was surrendered to the Moghuls by its governor, Ali Murdan Khan. Ten years later, however, it fell again into Persian hands, and the bravest efforts of Shah Jahan's officers and men failed, after three sieges, in winning it back." It seems more probable that Kandahar was surrendered to the Uzbeks by Ali Mardan Khan, the governor for Persia, soon after the death of Abbas the Great (1628); and that Jahangir dispossessed the Uzbeks in 1634. We have the authority of the Zubdatu't-tawárikh, quoted by Malcolm, that the Persians retook the place in about 1647, when Abbas II. was a boy of fifteen, or, according to Chardin, not nineteen years of age. We had rather Mr. Trotter had restricted the use of the e and o more than he has done in the transliteration of Indian names, and confess to preferring Muzaffar, Muhammad, Maisur, and Salim, to Mozaffar, Mohammad, Maisor, and Selim. "Alivardi," on the other hand (p. 190), we should write "Aliverdi," because the affixed verb is Turkish, for which language the e is indispensable. In conclusion, it may be added that the u in Burmah hardly illustrates the rule laid down in the Preface for the pronunciation of that letter; and that the authority of works lately transcribed by the Saiyids of Thatah, the most learned scribes of the country they inhabit, omits the final in "Sindh." F. J. GOLDSMID. fishing by Charles Cotton, the fidus Achates reprint of the preceding one; and the fifth The Complete Angler; or, the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing, written by Izaak Walton, and Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a Clear Stream, by Charles Cotton. With Original Memoirs and Notes by Sir Harris Nicolas, K.C.M.G., and Sixty Illustrations from Designs by Stothard and Inskipp. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1875.) IN the hold which the name of Izaak Walton has upon English literature, we have a resemblance faint, certainly, but still a resemblance to that which is retained by the more illustrious names of John Bunyan and William Shakspere. That this hold in the case of Izaak Walton has not become relaxed, is proved by the appearance of a new edition of The Complete Angler. The number of editions of this popular pastoral afloat cannot be exactly determined. In the chronicle of The Compleat Angler, by Thomas Westwood, published in 1864, mention is made of no fewer than fifty-three, imprints and facsimiles included. Five editions, we are informed by Sir Harris Nicolas, had the benefit of the author's personal revision. The original one was published in 1653, but appears to have undergone preparation for the press at least three years previous to that date. It came forth in the form of a small square duodecimo, bound in brown calf, and was embellished with plates representing trout, pike, carp, tench, perch, and barbel. These, with some show of probability, have been ascribed to a celebrated French engraver, Pierre Lombard, at that time resident in England. The price of this edition, which extended to 246 pages, was 18. 6d. Throughout the next edition, that of 1655, a number of important alterations occur. The third issue appeared in 1661; the fourth in 1663, being a mere corrected up The present edition of The Compleat THOMAS TOD STODDART. A Memoir of the Lady Ana de Osorio, Countess of Chinchon and Vice-Queen of Peru (A.D. 1629-39), with a Plea for the Correct Spelling of the Chinchona Genus. By Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S., Commendador da Real Ordem de Christo, Socius Academiae Caesareae Naturae Curiosorum, Cognomen Chinchon. (London: Trübser & Co., 1874.) THE introduction into India, and the successful cultivation upon a large scale in that country, of the most valuable medicinal tree produced on the Continent of South America, is one of those triumphs of enterprise of which the second half of the present century may well feel proud. To place within reach of millions of the inhabitants of that vast country a remedy of unfailing value, and thus to sow broadcast the seeds of life over districts invaded by fever, is a project the realisation of which will form one of the pleasantest episodes in the history of British rule in India. Considerations such as these confer on the tree whose bark is the raw material of quinine an interest |