Ralph Wilton's Weird. By the Author of "The Wooing o't." (London: Bentley & Son, 1875.)

Huddleston,

(London:

(London:

Bluebell. By Mrs. G. C. (London: S. Tinsley, 1875.) Felicia. By M. Betham-Edwards. Hurst & Blackett, 1875.) His Queen. By Alice Fisher. H. S. King & Co., 1875.) Edith Dewar. By Colin Rae-Brown. (London: Sampson Low & Co., 1875.) ONE of the sharpest thorns in the cushion of the discreet novel-reader is the fatal frequency with which, to use Mr. Swiveller's figurative language, his gazelles marry market gardeners. One would imagine that the knack of novel-writing had something of the nature of fairy-money about it, so odd is the uncertainty of its appearance and disappearance. Some half-a-dozen times in every season we come across a first book which without showing startling genius seems to possess some talent, and to have at any rate a little of that peculiarity of savour without which there is nothing good in literature. Then we wait for the second book with a dreary and depressing foreknowledge of what that second book will most probably be. Of what it too often is we may see an example in Ralph Wilton's Weird. The Wooing o't was not a great novel, but it had some interest and something of its own. Mrs. Alexander's present book is as utterly commonplace in character and incident as anything we ever read. Its characters, besides some dummies, are three. There is an angelic governess of democratic principles, who is induced at last to incline to an adoring lover, because he "for once rose above the conventional gentleman into a natural true man." There is a good cousin who is the hero, and who is caressingly styled by the author "our patrician soldier." There is a wicked cousin, who profanely suggests of the angelic governess that she would be a "delightful travelling companion." This annoys the good cousin very much, which is natural, but, perhaps, unreasonable, as, according to his biographer, who ought to know, "it must not be asserted that the possibility of some tie less galling and oppressive than matrimony had never presented itself to his mind." However, the wickedness of the wicked cousin does no

harm, and the goodness of the good cousin leads him to the heroic resolve to do as he wishes, and marry the angelic governess. His course of true love is only interrupted by one prodigious difficulty; his beloved has changed her address, and he has to ask the postman where she lives. Having by the aid of that useful officer surmounted this huge obstacle, he marries her, and is re

warded for this virtuous act with a large

fortune.

Bluebell can be recommended to all those readers who are not too proud to take what they can get, and who can overlook a rather slangy exuberance of diction and occasional carelessness of writing, as a decidedly lively and amusing book. The first two volumes give a pleasant picture of that Paradise of artless flirtation, Canada. The flirtation is very artless indeed, and by no means up to the standard which an exacting proficient in the mystery might demand. But the benevolent philosopher may be mildly amused at beholding the portraiture of a state of things in which all creation is regarded as so much "cover "behind which kissing (our author would call it osculation) may or may not be effected. The English scenes of the

third volume are not at all bad. But we

should really be obliged to Mrs. Huddleston if she would, in consideration of our nerves, kindly spare us such sentences as the following:- "He had just thrown 'Peep-ofDay' at his nurse's head, which had been unwisely offered to him as a substitute for his favourite trumpet." If Canadian nurses are really subject to such unutterable barbarities, we hope it is handsomely "considered in their wages." Perhaps a worse fault, indicating as it does not merely carelessness of writing but confusion of thought, is the way in which the names and circumstances of to-day are used in speaking of the time before the Crimean war. But the book is readable, and for this now rare mercy one cannot be too thankful.

It is unnecessary to describe the agonies of reviewing Felicia, because Shelley has kindly done the description ready to our hand in Peter Bell the Third. Like the reviewers there mentioned, we were "gaping and torpid" by the time we reached the end. Whether the book, judged by measure and balance, be actually longer than its fellows we cannot say, and nothing would induce us to take it up again for the purposes of calculation. But its utter dullness makes it appear endless. It is impossible to describe the plot, for there is none, or the characters, for they are like Mr. Pope's "most women." There is certainly a hero; we can say thankfully that we never met such a hero before, and hope fervently that we may never meet such a one again. Alexander Smith once happily and tersely summed up the characteristics of the class to which this hero belongs in the words "a ginger-beer bottle burst." But this bottle has not even strength of mind or body enough to burst him. The man-his name is the Reverend Mr. Strickland-divides his time between quarrelling with his bread and butter and lamenting his hard fate at being left breadless and butterless. Every thing and person that is brought into contact with him the Thirty-nine Articles which he can't stomach, the six hundred a-year which he gives up because of this squeamishness, the school-boys he has to teach, the young women whom he can't make up his mind to marry when they are willing, and who very sensibly change their minds by the time he has made up his own-all serve as occasions for endless moaning and groaning, while the remaining characters of the book (including five other clerical gentlemen) chiefly stand round him exclaiming "Poor

dear man, how he is tried!" As a sort of secondary subject we have German music. mania, which is not much more deftly or amusingly treated than the reverend hero's woes. Miss Edwards has chosen to invent the impossible word actoórns, which she is pleased to tell us is, when placed on a tombstone, a "meekest inscription i A lady is not bound to know Greek, still less to use it; but if she does use it, it might just as well be correct. As it happens, déamoros, which we suppose she means, would be a singularly arrogant epitaph.

Miss Alice Fisher has apparently set her heart upon composing a novel which shall be as unlike as possible to the well-known "disappointing little book," by being ex ceedingly bitter to the taste at first, and afterwards decidedly sweet. She has selected her means for the accomplishment of the first part of this end with great care and judgment, by writing the work throughout in the present tense. In our idler moments we have often speculated on the possible motives which may incite persons of presumably sound mind to the commission of this too common atrocity. It must, unlike most other sins, give its perpetrators a great deal of trouble, and it is difficult to imagine even the most depraved taste deriving any satisfaction from the result. In the second place, Miss Fisher has written the first hun. dred pages of her book in the most extraordinary patchwork of jargon that we have ever read. If we suppose a quartette composed of Ouida, Mr. Mortimer Collins, an undergraduate in his second term, and an earnest young curate with some abilities, to be desirous of giving us an English Croix de Berny, some idea of the opening chapters of His Queen may be obtained. But at about the hundredth page the author begins to relent, and her real ability, of which she evidently has plenty, begins to assert itself, nor have we from that point anything to complain of except the abominable present tense and an occasional relapse into undue archness and jauntiness of style. Miss Fisher's power imagining character is very considerable, and she has used it to good purpose, as far at least as the chief hero and heroine-the "he" and the " queen of the title-are concerned. The hero is perhaps the less probable and successful of the two, certainly he is the less original, as there are numerous touches about him reminding one of the late Mr. Kingsley's earlier characters, espe cially Paul Tregarva. But the heroine is admirably conceived and very far from badly drawn. She is neither the ordinary commonplace woman, nor the equally ordinary white devil of innumerable plays and novels. Her perfect selfishness, a selfishness not at all greater than that of most people, but of such a clear and simple kind that it does not need or care to check or disguise itself, or, indeed, to pay any attention to itself at all, is excellently natural. None of her faults is in the least degree repulsive; one can see that they are all committed purely because of the circumstances in which she is placed. In these circumstances she does the best for herself to the best of her judgment, and, when she fails, as we all do and must fail often, one

of

for

taste and wealth of scholarship which make the editions of the Electra and Ajar in the "Catena Classicorum" books which form an epoch in a boy's studies. But we have a useful and tolerably accurate edition which explains most difficulties, and removes obstacles to learning the lesson. The notes seem to be sometimes too technical, and generally deficient in the inculcation of grammatical facts, which are enforced with much greater spirit as an observation on the texts than when they are culled from the hortus siccus of a grammar. We have not space many criticisms. Kayaivovo' in line 20 is surely rather Anouç Kooiç refers rather to the enfolding em"darkening" than "heaving," and the wayRoivois brace of the landlocked bay than to the "vale" of Eleusis, where there is, properly speaking, no vale at all. But our chief quarrel is with the translations. They apparently aim at that combination of literalness and elegance which results in English prose gone mad, in expressions utterly unintelligible without the Greek text, and utterances which could be found nowhere, except perhaps in the Anglo-Indian prize tragedy of a laureate Baboo. Antigone, for instance, remarks of her brother that he is "to the vultures a sweet treasure, as they eye him for the gratification of food;" that "man is wonderful and irrepressible alike in legislation and in the defiance of law." As the plot thickens and the dénouement apVoice of his child "touches" Creon "with recogproaches, the English becomes more wild. The nition," Haemon "panting hard cast on the pale cheek" of Antigone "a sharp breath of gory dewdrops;" and Creon, while the bier is before him on the stage, in his broken utterances of woe, exclaims to the sound of plaintive music, "The slaughter of my wife is heaped upon previous slaughter." Would it not be better to throw elegance to the winds, and copy the translations

is heartily sorry for her. When the man who loves her best in the world, and whom in a way she loves, has told her that in case of his death, which is very probable, he has left her the whole of his fortune, she goes to church and sits looking affectionately at him, and thinking how happy she will be with some one else when he is dead. Why should she not? She desires the end, and is far too logical not to desire the means. We do not know that Miss Fisher quite understands and appreciates her own creation, and this (with the present tense) rather mars our enjoyment of the book. But it is a book of extraordinary promise, of very great interest, and of unquestionable power, and were the faults we have mentioned (which lie only on the surface) removed, would be a most distinguished success. It is, we think, Mr. Robert Buchanan who suggests, for the better prevention of the crime of criticism, that every critic should| be compelled to publish a statement of his tastes and qualifications. Specimens are given, if we remember, which read like a cross between a census return and a leaf from one of those odd little " 'Like and Dislike" books with which very young ladies used to afflict their friends some ten or twelve years ago. For ourselves the plan has no terrors, but we conceive that it might with immense benefit be "passed on,' in the schoolboy sense, to novelists. In default of this, we have applied a careful process of analysis to the discovery of Mr. Rae-Brown's qualifications and tastes, with the following results. Mr. Rae-Brown's ideal poet is apparently Sheridan Knowles, with copious extracts from whose beauties he enriches his work; his ideal historian would seem to be Blind Harry, and his ideal sensual pleasure is confessedly heavy tea on board a steamboat. He thinks that Ulsters were teacher. in 1857, that Calvin was a native of Switzerland, and that Professor Huxley is responsible for the statement that the Scots were of Irish extraction. Lastly, he thinks that a girl of eighteen, having just fallen in love, would be likely to soliloquise thus:

worn

"His delivery so resembles my papa's, and yet is so much more like that of one who thoroughly believes every word he utters. I am certain I would stake my life-he is as good and gentle and kind as he is eloquent. How happy his mother and aunt must be in the constant society of such a man!" After the exquisite absurdity of this last sentence, it is probably unnecessary to say that Edith Dewar is quite worthless as a novel. We are afraid that its disquisitions on Sheridan Knowles, on various obscure theological celebrities, and on the between Glasgow and Oban, do not suffice to give it much value as anything else. GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

SCHOOL BOOKS.

scenery

THE Clarendon Press Series is publishing the separate plays of Sophocles, as edited by Mr. Campbell for university study, and adapted for schools by Mr. Abbott (Sophocles, Antigone, Clarendon Press, 1874). Unless Mr. Jebb will deign to finish the school editions of Sophocles of which he has given us so small but so valuable an instalment, we can wish for nothing better. It is true that we have not here that perfection of

of the baldest volume in Bohn's series, than to lead boys to imagine that the greatest Greek tragedies were written in a language which veils under a false poetry of sound and form vague, unintelligible, and aimless nonsense. The last mentioned faults are entirely avoided in Mr. Sidgwick's edition of the Bacchae (Rivingtons, 1874).

work of a finished scholar and a consummate Mr. Sidgwick has condensed the Bacchae into 729 lines, just enough for a boy to read in one term. The play is divided into scenes, with headings which make the action intelligible, while stage directions introduced with admirable tact and taste enliven the reader, and make the dullest boy understand that the play was really acted before a more crowded audience than ever fills our theatres; and perhaps moved an Athenian mob to admiration by the studied The notes are gestures of the perfect actor. short and exactly to the point; the product of a clear mind, which knows precisely what is wanted, and how it should best be given. The play thus edited is babes'-meat for the young scholar whose digestion would revolt from the longdrawn prolixities of the original work. Mr. Sidgwick has edited four other plays of Euripides and four of Aristophanes, and they deserve to be in constant use in all places of secondary education. A grammatical index adds greatly to the practical value of the play before us.

Messrs. Parker, of London and Oxford, have published among their " Greek Texts with Notes" an edition of Xenophon's Memorabilia. The book appears to be carefully edited, and to contain enough elucidation for the understanding of the text. Each book is preceded by a carefully drawn up argument which offers a guide through the intricacies of the dialogue, and if carefully followed might succeed in making the Memorabilia a little less tedious than we fear it is generally found. There is a good Greek index, and one of proper names. Short Exercises in Latin Prose Composition, by the Rev. Henry Belcher (Macmillan and Co.), seems to be very well suited to its purpose of teaching the rudiments of Latin to beginners.

The rules are those of the Public School Primer, and the exercises are composed after the manner of Ollendorff. It is, perhaps, better in these cases that the words of the exercise should be comparatively meaningless, than that they should consist of neatly turned epigrams as the Eton Nuces. We have heard of a Hebrew Ollendorff which consisted of such examples as these: "Three Jews hung up ten harps on five willow trees; ""My father-inlaw's heart is inditing of a good matter." But no such absurdity is possible in a Latin book, where we are inured to Balbus and his wall. The book contains also useful examination papers and a vocabulary. Messrs. Longmans send us some editions of classical texts, bound uniformly, and apparently destined for University local examinations. Herodotus, Book VI., by the Rev. H. Lovell, is one of these, and does not appear to us a very satisfactory production. The text is well and clearly printed, and each chapter has a heading which epitomises its contents; but the Introduction is dull and pompous, and would be but little intelligible to boys. The notes seem to be correct as far as they go, but it is sometimes difficult to discover their precise raison d'étre, and why there should be so many or why no more; and although the book contains the history of the battle of Marathon, there are no maps or plans. The Prometheus Vinctus, with notes by the Rev. North Pinder, is a much more satisfactory book. The notes are good and adequate. Their chief fault lies in this, that the action of the play is not sufficiently followed or explained, and there is an absence of those remarks on the art and the

taste of the drama which make the school editions of Wecklein so admirable. The preface is well written and interesting. Livy, Book XXI., with notes by Thomas Nash, M.A., is a most excellent piece of workmanship. The text is printed in clear and large type, while side-notes afford an abstract of the history and fix the attention of the learner. The notes are adequate in scholarship, and the history and antiquities are treated with fulness, interest, and completeness. Some of the general remarks on grammar and constructions are perhaps a little too obvious. The book concludes with a vocabulary of names of persons and places which is of the greatest service for easy reference. The First Book of the Cyropaedia of Xenophon is edited with the well-known skill of Mr. H. M. Wilkins. It contains an introduction and a running analysis. The notes are of a very businesslike character, and are concerned either with the elucidation of the text or with grammatical questions. The scholarship of the notes is perfectly accurate and satisfactory, but we should have thought that it was hardly necessary to give so much assistance. Boys preparing for middle-class examinations might be expected to be able to parse of themselves such common words as aide

ro, ¿dhxon or non. Homer's Odyssey, Book II., with notes by the Rev. William Almack, appears to be a very hasty production, got up for the middle-class local examinations in 1875. The notes are meagre and unsatisfactory, and not always correct. The book seems to us such a one

as could be knocked off in a few hours with the

help of a Hayman and a Liddell and Scott. St. Luke's Gospel makes its appearance in White's "Grammar School Texts." It is well printed, and contains a very useful vocabulary. Sallust's Catiline War forms part of the same series, and is edited on the same plan. The practice of using special dictionaries or vocabularies is common enough in Germany, and is a useful plan to save boys from the bewilderment of looking through a maze of words in a large lexicon. Aristophanes' The Acharnians, with notes by Herbert Hailstone (Cambridge: E. Johnson), is a neat and scholarlike edition of the famous play. A full and elaborate argument takes the place of stage directions. The notes are short and concise, and good as far as they go; but we doubt whether sufficient help has been given in them, and whether the quotations and allusions in Latin

and Greek would always be intelligible to the young learner, or would fitly take the place of explanations in English. The Modern Elocutionist, by Comstock and Main, is a book which at first sight would be sure to raise a smile, but which is worth a more attentive consideration at the hands of schoolmasters than it is likely to receive. The culture of recitation is common enough in our public schools, but nothing can be more dreary or lifeless than the manner in which it is performed. The object seems to be not to rouse, or animate, or impress the audience, but to avoid the possible raising of a laugh. The tradition of oratorical delivery is kept up on the other side of the Atlantic. from which this book originally comes, and is also preserved in English Roman Catholic schools. We have seen in one of the latter a little boy of twelve years old nearly move an audience to tears by the pathos of his voice and gesture. In the volume before us very full and painstaking directions for delivery and action, given perhaps in a dry and pedantic way, are followed by extracts of a very varied character, some of which we have never heard delivered at a school. Michod on Training should, we suppose, certainly be reckoned nowadays as a school book, when gymnastics is asserting its old right to be placed on an equality with literary culture. A young athlete of our acquaintance assures us that it is the most sensible book he has read on the subject, and we are sure that it will do good if it tends to modify the false and exaggerated notions of training which now prevail among our schoolboys. It is a pity that with compulsory teaching of science, compulsory study of health is so neglected among us, and that the fierce race in athletic competition should, although begun in the pursuit of health and vigour, tend so often to life-long weakness or early death.

OSCAR BROWNING.

NOTES AND NEWS. PROFESSOR HUXLEY is about to proceed to Edinburgh to undertake for the next three months the courses of lectures which Dr. Victor Carus has hitherto been giving, in the place of Professor Wyville Thompson, the Scientific Director of the Challenger Expedition. We regret to hear that the reason of this substitution is the failure of Dr. Carus' health.

M. MAXIME KOVALEVSKY, a Russian pupil of the distinguished Berlin publicist, Dr. Gneist, has come to England with the view of studying from our statutes and other sources the institution of

justices of the peace. It is curious that we leave the study of the history of our domestic institutions so largely to foreigners; although, in default of British students, we ought to cherish a lively gratitude to such men as the Prussian Historian of the British Constitution, for sending forth scholars trained by himself to do our work for us.

MR. JAMES HINTON is meditating, we hear, a new philosophical work, which is to run in the same lines as Mr. Lewes' Problems of Life and Mind, and to form a kind of supplement to it.

CHIEF JUSTICE SIR EDWARD CREASY has in the press, to be published by Mr. Van Voorst, a new book entitled First Platform of International

Law.

Cosmo de' Medici, an historical tragedy, by R. H. Horne, author of Orion, &c., is now going through the press. This new edition is remodelled throughout, and three new tragic scenes have been introduced. "Other Poems" will also

be included in this volume, which will be pub

lished towards the end of next month.

UNDER the title of The Royal Academy Album, Messrs. L. Reeve and Co., in conjunction with the Fine Art Publishing Company, are preparing a volume to consist of a series of photographs of some of the most important works in the present exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. The

series will include specimens from Ansdell, Calderon, Elmore, Frith, Leslie, Marks, Orchardson, Pettie, Paynter, and many other well-known artists. It will be ready, it is hoped, about the end of May.

MR. HENRY SWEET has in preparation a short Anglo-Saxon Reader, with Grammar, Vocabulary and Notes, forming part of the Clarendon Press Series, and ranging with the "Specimens" of Dr. Morris and Mr. Skeat. The texts are so arranged as to give a clear view of the history both of the literature and the language, the prose extracts being selected as much as possible from original works, while those in verse represent all the principal varieties of the poetical literature. A considerable portion of the texts has been already printed, and the whole work will be ready for publication in the course of the present year.

MESSRS. BLACKWOOD AND SONS have in preparation Legends and Traditions of the Eskimo, with an Appendix on their habits, religion, language, &c., consisting of a selection translated from the Danish of Dr. H. Rink, and revised and edited by Dr. Robert Brown. Dr. Rink, it may be added, has resided on, or been travelling about the shores of Davis Straits, from Cape Farewell up to 73° N., for sixteen winters and twenty-two summers, first as a scientific explorer, and afterwards as Royal Inspector or Superintendent of the Southern Danish establishments in Greenland. His work is founded partly upon the verbal narratives, partly upon manuscripts, of about fifty natives from all the principal parts of Greenland, and in the case of a few, from Labrador. In the English edition the materials of both sections of the original have been condensed and arranged under the direct superintendence of the author and according to his plan, with the object of omitting all that seems to be only of mere local interest in relation to the Danish settlement on the Greenland coast, and of adapting the selection more especially to readers engaged in archaeological and ethnological studies, as well as to those who may be interested in the truthful and vivid pictures of Arctic life pourtrayed in most of the tales. The book will be illustrated by woodcuts drawn and engraved by natives of Greenland, the original blocks having been acquired by the publishers of the English edition.

MESSRS. A. AND C. BLACK Will very shortly publish the fifth edition of Professor J. H. Balfour's Manual of Botany. The second volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is nearly ready.

AMONG Messrs. Chatto and Windus's announcements are: Number Seventeen, a new novel by Henry Kingsley; a collected edition of Dr. Westland Marston's Dramatic and Poetical Works; an exact reproduction in reduced facsimile by a photographic process of the first folio Shakspere; and a new edition, with additional notes by John Hewitt, of Stothard's Monumental Effigies of Great Britain.

THE death is announced of Mr. Winwood Reade, author of The Story of the Ashantee Campaign, and of the Introduction to Dr. Rohlfs' Adventures in Morocco, both published last year.

A PARAGRAPH having appeared in last week's Athenaeum giving an account of certain alleged

discoveries of valuable historical documents at the

India Office, Sir John Kaye, in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette of the 27th ult., rectifies our contemporary's statement in some particulars, throwing doubt upon the supposition that the documents in question were "unknown to the officials of that department." Sir John Kaye concludes his letter by saying

(with copious extracts) the early memorials of the "I have always wished to see properly calendared East India Company. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, when Secretary of State for India, encouraged this undertaking, but it did not meet with any favour from the Council of India, so the scheme fell to the ground. In former days the Company kept

a historiographer, and Mr. Bruce, in that capacity, published in 1810 some bulky volumes, under the title of Annals of the East India Company; but no such funetionary has existed for many years past, and I have not discovered that the early days of the East India Companies are regarded with much lingering interest by those who administer the affairs of her Majesty's Indian Government."

Sir John Kaye will, we are sure, be the first to rejoice that the work which he desiderates has long ago been taken in hand. The original correspondence and other documents in the custody of the India Office have been from time to time lent to the Master of the Rolls, and by his direction a full calendar, with extracts of important passages, has been prepared by Mr. Sainsbury. Two volumes bringing down the history to the year 1621 have long been printed, and one of these, if we are not mistaken, was already issued to the public at the date of Sir John Kaye's conference with Sir Stafford Northcote. One more volume, continuing the Calendar to the close of the reign of James I., is almost completed, and will shortly go to press. It may be added that some documents quoted in Bruce's Annals are now missing, and that whatever may be the truth about the present alleged discovery, it is within the limits of possibility that unknown papers of importance may still be brought to light. A VERY rich collection of autograph letters and documents, formed by Dr. O'Callaghan, will be brought to the hammer at the close of this month. In it will be found a letter of Lucretia Borgia to her father-in-law, the Duke of Ferrara, dated Rome, November 27, 1501, relative to a quarrel she has with the nuns of Viterbo; no other autograph letter of hers is known to exist in any public or private collection in Europe. Signatures of her brother Caesar, and her son Cardinal Hippolito d'Este, the patron and protector of Ariosto, are also here. Among other rarities is what is described as the oldest royal letter in Europe, perfectly preserved and hardly discoloured, that of John, King of France, who was led captive into England by Edward the Black Prince; it is dated from Windsor, November 26 (1356), and addressed to his son the Duke of Normandy; and letters of Rabelais and Rubens. Of more modern interest

is a note from Charles Lamb to his friend P. G. Patmore, April 1831, containing a curious allusion to a well-known publisher of that day, "Nature never wrote KNAVE upon a face more legible than upon that fellow's : Coal-burn him in Beelzebub's deepest pit."

LIEUTENANT STUMM'S book on the Khivan Expedition is to appear chez Messrs. Mittler, at Berlin, before Whitsuntide. An English translation will be published not many months later. The book excites a good deal of curiosity among military and geographical circles in Germany.

IN 1851, while Gawsworth Church, near Macclesfield, was undergoing repairs, the workmen found three very curious mural paintings. Copies of these were fortunately made by Mr. J. F. A. Lynch, and these Messrs. A. Heywood and Son, of Manchester, propose to issue in chromolithography, accompanied by the needful explanatory comments. The paintings represent St. George and the Dragon, St. Christopher, and the Last Judgment. This picture of Doom is specially interesting, showing action in heaven, earth, and hell.

LANCASHIRE is honourably distinguished by the number of Natural History societies existing in the county, members of which belong for the most part to the artisan classes. A recent number of the Manchester Evening News contains a pleasant notice of the annual meeting of a Botanical Association that has been at work for fifty years in that place. The members meet on the Sunday evening at a public house, bringing with them their floral prizes, and the meeting is occupied in conversation regarding them. Sometimes a more elaborate "paper" is laid before them. One of these an unpretending, but interesting notice of a "Botanical Excursion on the Breadalbane Mountains"—has just been

printed by Mr. Thomas Rogers, secretary of the association just named. Another testimony to the love of nature among the Mancesterians is afforded by the report of the Field Naturalist Society of that place, containing pleasantly written sketches of botanical excursions by the members last summer.

M. ROEST has just brought out a Catalogue, in two volumes, of the collection of Hebrew books made by the late L. Rosenthal in Hanover, and now in the possession of his son, a rich banker at Amsterdam. This collection is undoubtedly the richest after those of the Bodleian Library and the British Museum. M. Roest has followed the method of the British Museum Catalogue, drawn up by the late Mr. Zedner, confining himself to the titles, dates, and authors of the works, without entering into biographical details, or attacking biographers and bibliographers, as was unfortunately done by Dr. Steinschneider in his Catalogue of the printed books in the Bodleian Library. The second volume of M. Roest's Catalogue contains valuable biographical and bibliographical notes in Hebrew, made by the learned collector himself. We cannot omit to mention that M. George Rosenthal has published the Catalogue for the benefit of learning, without the wish of gaining profit from it. May this example be imitated by many others who possess important collections, of which, however, little or nothing is now known. We only require the publication of catalogues of Hebrew books, printed in Russia, Poland, the East and Leghorn, to be able, with those of Dr. Steinschneider, Zedner and Roest, to produce a complete list of Hebrew literature.

MESSRS. DENTU have published a little volume entitled A travers la Diplomatie, 1864–1867, by M. J. Hansen, a Dane, who was sent to Paris at the outbreak of the Schleswig-Holstein war to support the cause of Denmark in France. The work is of too purely political a character to be reviewed in these columns, but students of contemporary politics will find that it throws considerable light on French and Prussian diplomacy at the critical period of which it treats.

Trübner's Record announces that Dr. Franz Teufel, one of the Librarians of the Grand-Ducal Library at Carlsruhe, is preparing for publication a critical edition of Hvag'a 'Abd'ul'hầh Hâtifî's Timúrnámah, which will contain the Persian text, based on a collation of all the accessible MSS., the critical apparatus, and a complete glossary, and will be preceded by the life of the poet from the likewise still inedited Biographies of Contemporary Persian Poets by the Prince Sâm Mirzâ.

THE Comte de Paris has nearly completed the fourth volume of his Histoire de la Guerre Civile des Etats-Unis. It is, in the author's opinion, the most important portion of his work, dealing, as it does, with the turning-point of the war, the events that immediately followed Sherman's famous march. The volume will be published in the autumn. It has been stated that a translation of the Comte de Paris' work was about to be issued by a London firm. Negotiations were, it is true, entered into with a view to such an arrangement, but at the eleventh hour the French

author announced that he would rather his his

tory should be translated and published by Ame

ricans.

SOME of the simple sociable habits of Talfourd's and Bulwer Lytton's days still prevail in French literary circles. Thus last week there assembled in Victor Hugo's library some thirty of the leading writers and artists of Paris, and the poet declaimed a selection of the pieces that are to form the second instalment of the Légende des Siècles. This general title, it will be remembered, as M. Hugo announced many years ago, is to cover a trilogy, whereof "La Fin de Satan" is the dénouement, and "Dieu" the beginning. Both these poems are now ready for publication; therefore we

suppose the Légende des Siècles may be regarded as complete.

MISS DE LA RAMÉE has returned from Florence and brought with her a new novel nearly ready for publication. It is a story of Florentine life-a subject "Ouida" has had ample opportunities for studying.

ONE of the most colossal works the next generation will probably see is M. Thiers' Memoirs, which he is bringing down to the present time with wonderful activity. Sixteen has been mentioned as the number of volumes necessary to tell the story of the eminent statesman's life. M. Thiers is also engaged on a History of Art, of which we believe only the Italian portion is completed.

M. HETZEL publishes this week in Paris two curious volumes of the Correspondence of André Marie and Jean Jacques Ampère, the mathematician and the essayist and historian. The letters recal nearly all the famous Frenchmen of this lanche, to Thiers, Sainte-Beuve and Mérimée. century, from Chateaubriand, Lamartine and Bal

LEO LESPÈS, who died last week almost a pauper at the charitable institution La Maison Dubois, was in literature about what Thérésa was in music; and his popularity was not at all unlike, in extent and quality, that of the brawny diva who "created" the Femme à Barbe. M. Léo his side the famous Petit Lespès created on

one sou.

Journal, the first newspaper sold in France for For many years Timothée Trimm was regarded as a model journalist that is to say, a being closely resembling the embodiment of a familiar and superficial encyclopaedia. He rivalled M. de Girardin. If the founder of the Liberté had one idea a day," M. Léo Lespès did more: he succeeded in writing one article a day without conceiving more than one idea a month. And very naturally the composition of those daily articles, treating of every subject, from postage stamps to hippophagy, during four or five phenomenon in journalism. The journalist was consecutive years, was regarded as a veritable paid like a phenomenon, and spent his money like a prodigal prince. The Petit Journal is now the most popular journal in France. Its circulation was 200,000 when M. Lespès left it. Timothée Trimm-whose real name was Napoléon Lespèsbegan life in 1832 as a conscript in a line regiment. He employed his leisure moments in writing humorous verses, which he signed "Fusilier," and when his term of service had expired he drifted quite naturally from the barrack-room into the offices of third-class newspapers. The title of his first work will give a good idea of the kind of literature M. Lespès admired; it was called The Gre Green Eyes of the Morgue! He wrote afterwards Les Mystères du Grand Opéra, Les Soirées Républicaines, Paris dans un Fauteuil, Les Quatre Coins de Paris, Les Filles de Barabas, &c., which are nearly all collections of desultory chroniques and tales contributed to journals exclusively patronised by the corporations of concierges and cabmen. Since the war M. Lespès had fallen into complete obscurity; he was admitted into a free hospital about a fortnight ago, and died last week at the age of sixty-four. Some of M. Lespès' articles in the old Figaro show real talent of a delicate and lively kind.

ON April 17 the bones of the Emperor Lothaire, the son of Lewis the Pious (died A.D. 855), which have been for many years preserved in the sacristy of the parish church of Prühm, were deposited, together with the various documents attesting their genuineness, within the magnificent black marble sarcophagus prepared for their reception. Considerable interest was excited among the scientific men present by the colossal dimensions of the bones, the breadth and length of which fully confirmed the historical and traditionary report of the Emperor's exceptionally large stature. The monument, which rests on

To this is appended a record in German that "the monument has been renewed in 1874 under the rule of King Wilhelm of Prussia."

WE learn that the eminent German ethnologist, Professor A. Bastian, has been commissioned by the Imperial Government at Berlin to proceed to Central America with the view of examining on the spot several large collections serving to illustrate anthropological and ethnological enquiry, which have been offered for sale.

PROFESSOR KARL SIMROCK has completed a second and greatly enlarged edition of his modernised German version of Hartmann von Aue's Der Arme Heinrich, which he first brought within the reach of the reading public in 1830. Dr. Simrock has enriched this edition with a disserta

tion on the various compositions bearing on the myth of "Poor Henry," and all more or less closely connected with the subject of Leprosy and its cures.

THE Allgemeine Zeitung announces that Herr Hallberger, of Stuttgart, the editor of Ueber Land und Meer, intends to publish an English periodical in that city, to be entitled Hallberger's Illustrated Magazine, which will appear at intervals of three weeks, and is to be edited by F. Freiligrath.

THE German papers announce the death on April 17 of Dr. Ilildebrand of Halle, who was well known in Germany as one of the best living exponents of the Old Icelandic, the "Norraena Tunga" of the Northmen. Dr. Hildebrand had been long engaged in preparing a new edition of the Eddas, and we regret to learn that this work, to which he intended to append numerous notes and glosses, has been left incomplete, and was only half printed at the time of his death.

MR. S. R. GARDINER writes to us that Mr. Furnival is entirely mistaken in his statement that Mr. Irving, the late Classical Professor of the University of Melbourne, resigned his post in consequence of a sudden resolve of the Council to give the whole staff notice that their posts are vacant, and that they must apply for reelection." Mr. Gardiner states, from personal knowledge, that Mr. Irving resigned simply because a position was offered to him which he preferred to that which he held at the University.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

MR. J. A. SKERTCHLEY, author of Dahomey as It Is, is about to proceed to Western Africa, accompanied by a civil engineer and one or two scientific gentlemen, with the intention of investigating the feasibility of creating an inland sea in the vast depression which lies to the south of the Empire of Morocco. That this project is not a wild one is apparent to those who have examined the desert of El Joof, as it is termed, and who bear positive testimony to the fact of the sea having receded from that part at a recent date. The project is a much more hopeful one than the French scheme of a like nature with regard to the chotts of Algeria, as in the more southern region there is an important trade to be done, while Timbuctoo, which would thus be on the verge of the new ocean, would be brought within fourteen days' sail of the British Isles. The only obstacle

to be cut through is a narrow belt of land opposite the Canary Isles, and to examine this will be one of the principal aims of the present expedition. Mr. Skertchley is an old African traveller, and his experiences during a journey made in the year 1868 deserve record. In the course of that year he explored the Gabun river, and crossing from thence to the Ogowai, ascended the last-named river and travelled for a considerable distance along the equator into the interior. About 14° E. longitude he crossed a large river about a mile in width, which flows due south. His furthest point was as near as possible 15° E.; and seven days' journey beyond that to the east he was told that there lay a large lake, the waves of which when agitated by wind were gigantic. This may or may not have any connexion with the lake reservoirs of the northern Lualaba, but it is extremely probable that the large river crossed is a northern feeder of the Congo, a tributary of which the ex

istence has long been suspected. Mr. Skertchley also informs us that Arabs stated that they could pass up the river Ogowai, and from thence to the Congo by boat.

CAPTAIN ALLEN YOUNG proposes, in his approaching Arctic trip in the Pandora, to steam up Baffin's Bay, through Lancaster Sound, and down Prince Regent's Inlet; after which, should circumstances prove favourable, he will endeavour to make his way along the north coast of America as far as Behring's Straits, by way of the east coast of King William's Land, the scene of Sir John Franklin's disastrous end. Admiral Collin son, in 1851-2, found but little difficulty in making his way along the Arctic coast of North America, progress in shore being much facilitated by the action of large rivers which discharge themselves into the Frozen Sea. There is no doubt that, with the aid of steam, navigation under such circumstances would be greatly facilitated and expedited, and we sincerely hope that Captain Young may be enabled to achieve his project.

HERR WEYPRECHT, the leader of the AustroHungarian Polar Expedition, describes the auroral and magnetic phenomena of the region between Novaya Zemlya and Francis Joseph Land as very remarkable. He says, no pen or pencil can give any idea of the beauty of the northern lights at their greatest intensity. In February, 1874, the auroral discharge made a broad powerful stream of fire from west to east across the zenith, varied by continuous and intense swift-moving waves of rainbow-coloured light from one side of the horizon to the other. The lights also danced up from the southern horizon to the magnetic pole, making altogether the most splendid firework nature could display. He considers the region above mentioned to be one of maximum auroral manifestation. Three kinds of aurora were noticed: one a quiet regular arch, stretching upwards from the southern horizon over the zenith, and growing pale on the northern horizon. Another, consisting in more distant light bands continually changing their position and shape, and composed either of distinct rays, or different light; and lastly, the appearance of a corona, with rays streaming from, or towards, the magnetic pole. This is usually white with a slight tinge of green, and in cases of great intensity and motion, rays of prismatic colours, often very bright, shoot forth.

He detected the well-known green line by using a spectroscope; but his instrument was feeble, and the observations not to be compared with those of the Swedish expedition.

With regard to the supposed connexion between the northern lights and the weather, he found strong flaming exhibitions usually followed by storms. Magnetic disturbances were closely associated with the phenomena. He caused 3,000 readings of magnetic instruments to be made, and these have still to be reduced; the principal results are, however, as follows:-Magnetic storms are of extraordinary magnitude and frequency in that

region. They stand in the closest relation to the auroral discharges, and the disturbances are greater as the motions of the light streams become more lively, and the prismatic colours become more intense. Quiet regular arches, or ray motions, have scarcely any action upon the needle. In all disturbances the declination needle moved towards the east. Further details will be found in Petermann's Geographische Mittheilungen and Der Naturforscher for April 10, 1875.

1,400 members and 500 honorary members. At THE French Geographical Society now numbers its last meeting gold medals were awarded to l'abbé Armand David, for his travels in China and Mongolia, 1864-74; to Dr. Schweinfurth; and to the late Captain Hall, of the Polaris. medals were awarded to l'abbé Emile Petitot, for his thirteen years' travels in North-West America; and to MM. Alfred Marche and Victor de

Silver

Compiègne, jointly, for their travels in the Gabun

country, 1872-4.

It

THE first spring boat from Iceland to Copenhagen brings news of a volcanic outbreak in that island for which the recent ash-storms in Norway had prepared the minds of men of science. It will be remembered that an eruption of the Vatnajökul took place in the winter of 1872-73, and that it was supposed to have taken place at a point on the northern side of that vast region. That outbreak was not of great importance, and since then Mr. Watts has made an attempt to reach the volcano from the south side of the Vatnajökul, but in vain. Towards the end of last December, a trembling of the earth began to be felt in the north and east of the island, accompanied by loud rumblings, and at last from Myvatnssveit, the nearest hamlet to the Vatnajökul, a great glare began to be seen in the south, which appeared, however, to be emitted by a different crater from that in activity in 1867 and 1872. This eruption is believed to have commenced a week before Christmas, and to have ceased towards the end of February; but about the same time as the first ceased, a new volcano and several days' journey from the Vatnajökul burst out on a tableland lying east of Myvatn, crater. In the village of Myvatn the eminent politician, Jón Sigurdsson, lives, and, owing to his energetic efforts, the mild weather was used in exploring both volcanoes from that point. was discovered that the first-mentioned volcano Djungjufjeld, and that it is an entirely new was not in the Vatnajökul at all, but in the crater. The only accurate information yet received is contained in two letters from Jón Sigurdsson to Nordanfari, and one from an anonythat on February 16 the expedition reached the mous correspondent to Isafold. The latter announces eastern edge of the Djungjufjeld. The explorers look down upon the new volcano, which is on the climbed a ridge from which they were able to south-east side of the mountain, and which is merely an opening on a flat table-land. It had formed no new lava around it, except just a lavaring round the aperture of the crater, which appeared to be about 100 feet in diameter. About 180 feet west of the crater, a sinking of the terrain in shape of a horse-shoe had been formed. the southern edge of this sinking was another At little crater, which vomited even than the first, though not so powerfully; from more rapidly the south-west, side by side with a stream of this a little stream of lava was flowing towards pure water, which by and by left it, and, flowing between the rocks on the north-west side, formed a lake there. Ash-storms continue to fall all over the eastern part of the interior of the island, and it is feared that they may seriously injure the pasture-lands.

THE LATE PROFESSOR SELWYN.

ANOTHER severe loss has been sustained by the Cambridge Professoriate in the death of Canon Selwyn, the Lady Margaret's Reader in Theology.

William Selwyn, son of the late W. Selwyn, Q.C., of Richmond, Surrey, was born in 1806, and was the eldest of the three sons, his younger brothers being the present Bishop of Lichfield and the late Sir Jasper Selwyn, Lord Justice of Appeal. He entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, obtained the Chancellor's Classical medal in 1828, and in the same year graduated in both classical and mathematical honours, taking the high degree of Senior Classic and Sixth Wrangler, and ultimately proceeded to the D.D. in 1864. In April 1829 he was elected to the Fellowship at St. John's College just vacated by Sir John Herschel, and on resigning it upon his marriage, in 1833, was himself succeeded by his brother, the Bishop of Lichfield. He was ordained in 1829, instituted to the rectory of Branstone, Leicestershire, in 1831; and after passing through rapid and successive grades of ecclesiastical preferment, became Resident Canon of Ely in 1833, Lady Margaret's Reader in Theology at Cambridge in 1855, and was appointed Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen in 1859. These offices he held until his lamented death, which took place at his residence at Cambridge, on Saturday, the 24th ult., in the sixty-ninth year of his age. Professor Selwyn was not only admired for his brilliant scholarship and earnest devotion to his work, but beloved for his wit, his genial and public-spirited liberality. When Ranke the social qualities, and above all for his munificent historian visited Cambridge and dined in one of the College halls, he desired to have Professor Selwyn pointed out to him, and contemplated with divided admiration the noble and intellectual presence of the Lady Margaret's Reader, and the large stipend which he was told was attached to the professorial chair. "1,8001. a year," he said; "I should be glad to come to Cambridge for that." "But," asked his informant, "do you know that be gives 7001. a year of his income to a brother professor ?" "You English are so droll," replied Ranke; "you must not ask me to believe that." It was true, nevertheless, for so long as the present Bishop of Winchester held the Norrisian professorship, Canon Selwyn voluntarily his colleague's stipend; and when the latter regave up 7001. per annum to the augmentation of signed his post to become Bishop of Ely, he still set apart the same munificent sum to form an accumulative fund (now amounting to 10,0001), to found a Divinity School at Cambridge. He was an energetic member of the Company for the revi sion of the Old Testament, where, as well as at Cambridge, his place will be hard to fill. His death, in the full possession of his great intellec tual powers, and in the midst of his useful work -he was revising proofs the day before he diedhere, and as a national loss elsewhere. Among his is felt as a personal bereavement by his colleagues works are:-Principles of Cathedral Reform; Horde Hebraicae on Isaiah IX.; Two Charts of Prophecy Notes on the Revision of the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures; Notae Criticae in Versionem Septuagintaviralem (Exodus, i.-xxiv., Numeri, 1857, Deuteronomium, 1858; Conversations between an M.P. and a Canon on Ecclesiastical Legislation; Reasons for not signing the Oxford Declaration; Winfrid; Waterloo (with Plans); Errors of Commission-all published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy; a critical edition of Origen against Celsus; and various other theological and E. H. PALMER.

classical works.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

THE Account of the Income and Expenditure of the British Museum for the Financial Year ended March 31, 1875, has just been issued. It includes a statement of the progress made in the arrange ment of the collections, and of the most important objects added to the Museum. Among the additions to the Department of Printed Books, Mr. W. B. Rye mentions:

"Two very rare Shakespearian tracts, purchased

at Sir William Tite's sale, viz. :"(1.) The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie,