than one American Legislature has recently enacted that all eggs are henceforth to be sold by the pound, and that the average dozen must turn a given weight, on the ground that the present system of selling by mere number, irrespective of size, is unfair to the purchaser, and a permanent discouragement to careful breeding, since no advantage is now gained in the market by the farmer who brings the finest and heaviest eggs for sale over his competitor who looks to quantity alone? Several other questions, social and religious, are settled in the book just as decisively, and with exactly the same amount of intelligent understanding as this one; and we would cheerfully give all the judgments, and the long-winded reasons for their formation, in exchange for a little more life and movement in the somewhat wooden puppets of the tale.

66

Jocelyn's Mistake derives its interest almost wholly from its central figure, which is a very good study of character. Mrs. Spender has not sought to devise novel situations for her plot, and has contented herself with using materials which have served many authors before, but she has employed them better than usual. The main situation in the book, for example, is not very different from that in a once popular story, Emilia Wyndham, yet there is no likeness at all in treatment, so that the sense of triteness does not strike the reader. Mrs. Spender's English is unusually good, and she has learnt the art of working her opinions on men and things into the web of her story, instead of merely intercalating homilies, after the fashion of too many of her sisters, with the certainty of having them skipped by the judicious reader, who desires, in the emphatic language of a schoolboy, uttered in the present critic's hearing, more story and less jaw." The Jocelyn of the book is very skilfully drawn; an impetuous, wilful, passionate, imaginative woman, in whom the perceptive faculties are far more matured than the reflective, who feels but does not reason, and who is from temperament what Frenchmen call tête montée, and Americans "high faluting," in season and out of season. The chief success of the book is the manner in which the author conciliates the sympathies of her readers in favour of the very defective heroine, and makes them understand how she could win and retain the affections of two men of exceptional mark and power, though of different types, and that without her having brain enough, with all her imagination and fluency, to appreciate the best qualities of either. One particularly happy touch, quite true to nature, is that where Jocelyn spoils her application for the post of governess by springing on her hobby at a chance word of her proposed employer, and delivering a lecture then and there on the development of Woman. More, we think, might have been made of the contrast between the fiery and courageous heroine and her vacillating brother; but where it is brought out at all it is well done. Finally, the tone of the book is entirely high and sound, and though it does not belong to the small first rank of novels that will live, it rises in type and diction far above the ephemeral stories of the season.

Out of Society is a commonplace and

rather dull book, written in a style which is alternately fine and slipshod, gorgeous in adjectives and hazy in grammar. It belongs to the school of transpontine melodrama, according to which hardness, selfishness, and vice are habitual characteristics of those who move, or try to move, in refined and wealthy circles; while generosity and virtue must be sought among those who are "out of society." That a life of much ease and little responsibility is unfavourable to loftiness of aim and energy of action is doubtless true enough; but Mrs. Pulleyne must know very little indeed of modern England if she imagines that the line can be drawn as she draws it. The artisans who refuse to associate with labourers, or even to use the same houses of call, the shop-boys who rob tills to pay gambling debts, the workingmen who correct their wives with iron clogs, are on the whole not more admirable citizens than Mrs. Pulleyne's aristocrats, and are real flesh and blood; while her characters, despite of the dedication of her book to a lady of princely rank, are clearly evolved from a not very vivid imagination, and do not by any means convey the impression of being studies from life and personal contact, especially as she has not mastered the somewhat intricate system of English titles of rank.

Robert Forrester is the work of a very inexperienced hand, and the best counsel for the author is to attempt a play, and to put the manuscript into the hands of some the manuscript into the hands of some practised manager or actor, in order to see how much and what would be cut out. Curiously enough, there is a chapter in the book wherein the heroine by her frank criticisms induces a lady friend to give up novel-writing, as not possessing the necessary faculty, and being unable to see what is expedient in a book meant to win public approval. The actual story in Robert Forrester scarcely occupies one-fifth of the volume, and the remainder is entirely taken up with digressions, sometimes on scenery, and more often on what the characters could, should, might, ought, or would have thought or done, while their actual doings are compressible into a very small bulk indeed. Thus, in one chapter of the book, two persons engaged to two other persons, meet for an avowal of their preference for one another; and nearly twelve pages are given to a chapter which immediately follows this, whose whole contents consist of the fact that their conversation was overheard by one of the other pair, and that she did not like it. Ten words in the chapter which describes the meeting would have been enough, and this is just the place where an experienced manager would have ruthlessly cut down the copy were it a play. Nor are the descriptions of scenery vivid enough to be worth the space they occupy. We have three living novelists who can write of scenery so as to delight their readers: Mr. Black perhaps first, Mr. Blackmore a good second, and Mr. George MacDonald third, though if his admirable poetical vignettes of landscape be taken into account, he might be assigned the highest place. If Miss Thompson will read any of these writers, and endeavour to analyse their method in comparison with her own, she will probably see the cause of her failure. Her conversa

tions, too, are often wordy and uncolloquial, running sometimes into monologue, so that compression is the chief literary acquirement for which she must strive if she is to win a fair place as a writer; and compression will wholesomely diminish gush, of which there is a little too much. The chronology, also, is rather baffling. Early in the story an M.P. is blamed for his vote on the Public Worship Act of last summer; much later on one of the characters is wounded in an Indian skirmish-and as Serjeant Ballantine is the only person who has gone to India to fight since 1874, there is a difficulty here too-and the last chapter is entitled "After Many Days," to imply the lapse of a long period. At the earliest the book projects itself into 1878, which is its only prospect of living till then. By that time Miss Thompson may, let us hope, have gained experience enough to write a better book than this one. R. F. LITTLEDALE.

Briefe und Acten zur Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges in den Zeiten des vorwaltenden Einflusses der Wittelsbacher. Zweiter Band. Die Union und Heinrich IV. 1607-1609, bearbeitet von Ritter. (München: Rieger'sche Universitäts-buchhandlung, 1874.)

Or late years there have appeared several publications of original documents of the highest value for the understanding of the diplomacy of the period preceding and following the commencement of the Thirty Years' War. To these is now added a new collection of the same kind which is much superior to those which have preceded it, and the title of which we have placed at the head of this article. The second volume of this work has recently appeared. The contents of the first volume were of importance, but those of the second are of still greater interest, as they relate to the period 1607–9, the time when the great plans of Henry IV. for making war upon the House of Habsburg were matured, and the struggle between the Emperor Rudolf II. and his brother Matthias broke out. Herr Ritter's collection is the first to throw light on several hitherto unsolved historical problems, and to give order and consistency to a number of negotiations and incidents of which we had hitherto had only a confused perception. If we were to attempt to point out everything which is new, important, and interesting in this work, our notice would attain the dimensions of a book, for the art of compression, which is Herr Ritter's special characteristic, has enabled him to present us in a single volume with a mass of original material which might easily have been made to fill five or six similar volumes. Herr Ritter, in fact, has taken far more pains than he need have employed if he had contented himself with printing all his materials in extenso. The most important documents alone have been so dealt with; of others, only a short epitome has been given, or a remarkable passage extracted. Nor has Herr Ritter neglected similar publications which have preceded his own; he has compared the documents published in them with his own recension, and he takes care to draw the reader's attention to the changes which have

resulted from this comparison. In this way his remarks are of the greatest service to the true comprehension of the history. In particular, he has doubled the value of the documents which relate to the Union. He opens to us original sources of information, and adds to them a critical history of the occurrences to which they testify.

To descend to particulars, we may first select for remark the light thrown upon the relations of the Prince of Anhalt with Venice. Anhalt, who adopted as the work of his life the maintenance of the struggle against the House of Habsburg and the Catholic Church, endeavoured in the first instance to bring into existence a widely reaching alliance which might support the conflict with some hope of success. Venice was a link in this chain, and to Venice he despatched Christopher von Dohna, a man of approved dexterity in diplomacy. He was not merely to investigate the state of politics in Venice, but also to try to discover whether anything could be there effected to favour the spread of the Reformation. The conferences which Dohna with this view held with Sarpi exhibit the Venetian as the incarnate foe of the Popes, whose hatred to them was more deeply rooted than has been hitherto supposed, and who was bent on assailing not merely the Papal rule, but even the doctrines and very essence of the Catholic Church. This correspondence of Dohna, which abounds in piquant illustrations and remarks, was discovered by Herr Ritter in the Archives of Schlobitten, whither a fortunate star directed his steps. The Prince of Anhalt, strengthened in his hopes by the information brought to him by Dohna, wished to enter the Venetian service as general, and besought Henry IV. for his aid and countenance. The plan failed for many reasons, which are accurately detailed in this work, and which are of essential importance for the comprehension of the leading political characters in France and Germany.

tial agents employed by Anhalt in these negotiations, whose accounts, all of them valuable, are laid before us by Herr Ritter. One of these agents was Theophilus Richius, whom the Prince sent to the Archbishop of Salzburg in order to restrain the latter from taking any part in favour of the House of Habsburg. We extract the following remarkable passage from the account given by Richius of his conferences with the Archbishop. The latter, having declared himself favourably disposed to the request of the ambassador, thus expressed himself concerning the Jesuits :—

"But the Jesuits who meddled in politics were such pernicious persons, that he reckoned them with their scholastic principles worse than the greatest heretics; for which reason he would not admit them into schools. Such princes as received them would discover some time what they had got in them. He had as yet admitted none, and he had no intention of doing so, for they were quite intolerable, and wished to prescribe and lay quite intolerable, and wished to prescribe and lay down the law in political matters. The old Archduke Ferdinand, with whom he lived on most familiar terms, had once said to him, 'the Jesuits would be a convenient set of people if they were not so spoiled with looking after little sins that he would have nothing to do with them.'” We acknowledge that this condemnatory verdict of the Archbishop respecting the Jesuits somewhat surprised us. We may say that up to this period (until 1608) their zeal had been only conspicuous in checking the decay of learning among the Catholics, and in drawing in steadfast adherents to the Church in their schools. They had done wonders in this respect, and had thereby gained an influence over the course of politics. But that this influence should have called for so decided a condemnation from a Catholic prelate, who owed his position mainly to it, surprises us and leads us to conjecture that the activity of the Jesuits even so long ago as 1608 was pushed further than documents have hitherto led us to believe.

On turning over a few more pages, our The attitude assumed by Anhalt at the attention is arrested by the documents conbeginning of the contest between Rudolf cerning the Juliers succession, and a closer and Matthias is sufliciently known already examination shows that full light is here for by means of various researches; it is also the first time thrown upon the changeful certain that bis impatience for the establish- phases of the contest to which the dispute, ment of the Union had direct reference to then commencing, gave rise. We learn the strife commencing between the brothers. from the documents how by degrees the While the present collection serves to es- most important interests became associated tablish upon documentary evidence such with this contest, and how Henry IV. had a phases of the contest as were previously design of making it the starting-point of his known, it no less furnishes us with many great plan of attack upon the House of entirely new details relative to Anhalt Habsburg. The two great politicians of and his alliance with the Austrian party- their age, Henry IV. and Anhalt, met here leaders, by means of which future historians with similar designs and wishes, though the will be enabled to give a far more vivid latter could not rid himself of all distrust representation of that troublous period than regarding his royal confederate, and in the has been hitherto possible. We may see, question of the Juliers' contest did not wholly step by step, from the correspondence laid place himself on the side of Brandenburg. We before us, how Anhalt was unwilling, for the see that as soon as the question of the Juliers sake of any advantage to himself, to allow succession came to be agitated, Henry adMatthias to gain the victory; how he after-dressed himself with greater energy than wards made the attempt (which did little honour to his insight or perspicacity) to manoeuvre the lost territories back into the hands. of the Emperor Rudolf, and how he even conceived the idea of acquiring for himself the lordship over part of the Austrian countries, perhaps over Bohemia.

One is amazed at the number of confiden

ever to the strengthening of his alliance with the Duke of Savoy, and that the Duke met him half-way. By means of this alliance France was to be put in possession of Savoy, while the Duke, in compensation, was to receive Milan. Both powers wished to wrest the latter from Spain. We learn also what was the attitude assumed by Holland at this

time, and how she was always ready to offer her assistance in the matter of a league against Habsburg.

But if we now consider the inclination of the German Union, of the House of Branden. burg, France, Savoy, and the States-General, &c., to a combined attack upon the House of Habsburg, as it appears from all the despatches of 1608-9, remembering at the same time the weakness and even powerlessness of that house, we cannot but wonder that the attack was continually postponed, and that there was perpetual recourse to fresh negotiations, in which, after all, no more was effected than by the former plans. The explanation of this somewhat puzzling state of affairs is fully given in the present work. The cause of the long delay is to be sought in Henry IV., who, with every desire to make the attack, was withheld by powerful influences and considerations. In the first place, in his Council of State, Villeroy skilfully opposed the anti-Spanish policy of Sully, thereby making a great impression upon Henry himself. In the next place, Ubaldini, the papal nuncio at Paris, lost no opportunity of disposing the King towards a policy which should unite the interests of France and Spain, and it was difficult for Henry to disregard the representations of the nuncio. Finally, what was of most weight, the Queen, Mary de Medicis, took the side of Spain. According to some highly valuable documents she seems to have become apprehensive lest the legitimate title of her children to the succession to the throne might some day be contested, and it therefore became her prime care that her son and daughter should marry a Spanish princess and prince, since such a marriage would obviate any defect in her children's title in the future. Her entreaties and tears were not without effect upon the King, and to this circumstance, as well as to the influence of Villeroy and Ubaldini above referred to, we specially ascribe the tedious and often interrupted course of the negotiations about the alliance with the anti-Spanish powers.

Notwithstanding all this, matters took a new turn towards the end of 1609, and Henry IV. sought with all his energy to set his great military designs in operation, while as a preliminary he concluded a treaty of mar riage with Savoy in which he betrothed his daughter to the Prince of Piedmont. The question now arises, what were the means by which this change was effected? The publication of Herr Ritter solves this prob lem also. It was the rage with which the flight of the Prince of Condé and his wife inspired the King which now urged him headlong against Spain, which he suspected of having favoured the flight. Many pas sages in these despatches prove the King to have lost all moderation after the flight of the Princess, and that his policy was influenced by his thirst for vengeance. Even Sully allows this to be seen in a conversation with the Dutch ambassador, though he does not venture to express himself plainly.

And now, in conclusion, let us refer to a few words which help us to understand the character of Pope Paul IV., which we borrow from a letter of Breves, the French ambassador at Rome. It is notorious that the Pope sought to enrich his own family in

every possible way, and was in consequence liable to be charged with avarice. M. de Breves happily expresses his conviction of the justness of this charge in a letter to Henry IV., contradicting the rumour that the Pope had sent 500,000 thalers to the Archduke Leopold in support of the maintenance of the claims of the latter to Juliers: "Unless I err," writes Breves, "his Holiness would sooner lose all Christendom than disburse such a sum."

The above remarks may suffice to place the value of Herr Ritter's publication in its true light. No one who attempts to write the history of any of the greater European countries can afford to pass it by, as it alone offers a complete solution of some of the greatest problems of the age with which it A. GINDELY.

deals.

NOTES AND NEWS. ANOTHER portion of the long-lost originals of the Paston letters has been discovered-those printed by Fenn in his third and fourth volumes. They were found together with a number of MSS., both of that date, and of more recent periods, which are undoubtedly part of the Paston Collection, in the house of Mr. Frere, of Roydon Hall, near Diss, in Norfolk. This find is just barely in time to be of some use to Mr. Gairdner before completing his third and final volume.

MR. HORWOOD has undertaken to edit for the Camden Society Milton's Commonplace Book, which was discovered last year in the library of Sir Frederick Graham, of Netherby.

WE are glad to learn that Captain Hoffmeyer, Director of the Royal Danish Meteorological Institute at Copenhagen, intends to continue the publication of his daily synoptic meteorological

verses from one author or from several authors so as to give each passage an entirely distinct sense from that which it bore in its original context. Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, and others have all afforded sport to the cento-mongers, and M. Delepierre gives examples from the literature of all periods, from the book of Jonah down to the year 1817. His book cannot fail to be amusing, if scarcely profitable, reading.

It is rumoured that the author of Ye Vampyres! is Mr. J. Smith Latham.

the Corona d'Italia to Dr. Anton Dohrn, the THE King of Italy has presented the Cross of founder and director of the Zoological Station at Naples, in recognition of his eminent services in the cause of science and in the promotion at Naples of a taste for scientific pursuits.

THE Allgemeine Zeitung announces that the Chair of Chemistry, which has been vacant in the Munich University since the death of Baron Liebig, has after prolonged negotiations been accepted by Professor Baeyer, of Strassburg, who has also been appointed to the directorship of the Chemical laboratory, for which liberal grants have been made by the Bavarian Chambers. Professor Baeyer, who is one of the most eminent and efficient chemists of the day, will begin his session. course of lectures at the opening of the winter

Salon in the Moniteur Universel.
COPPÉE is writing the articles on the Paris

HECTOR MALOT's new novel, just begun in the Siècle, is said by some who have seen the manuscript to be among his strongest work. He will deal, in the new book, with a world in which, as an artist, he has always shown himself at home: the world of financiers, intriguers, and parvenus, who did so much for the ruin of the Second Empire.

Ar the first Inter-Collegiate Literary and Oratorical contest, held last winter in the United States, at New York, the Shakspere prizes were

gist. After having conspicuously borrowed the word baby from the English, only modifying it into bébé to suit their own ends, or, at all events, terminations, French savants now mean to ignore the English derivation altogether and rely upon

This for

the Syriac babion. Photius, the author of the Greek Schism, relates indeed in a notice of the philosopher Hermias, that this worthy had an infant son whose mother, Oedesia, used to call him child, he resented while still in arms. babion, a liberty which, being a very precocious midable infant fulfilled his early promise, if mitting suicide at the age of seven years in conPhotius is to be understood literally, by comsequence of the unusual but not unreasonable objection he felt to living in a body. Whether he really gave up the lease of his habitation at the first available period is perhaps doubtful, since the literal translation of the Greek text is "he separated himself from the living; sorrowing parents may have suggested that he and his was too good to dwell in a mortal body, but it is, when seven months old to being called baby, bébé, at all events, clear that a young person who objects or babion, could never make old bones, and is now, doubtless, materialised in the form of a captious etymologist.

CAMILLO GRILLPARZER, brother of the poet, died on the 1st instant at Vienna at the advanced age of 81. The bitter expressions regarding relations to be found in the will of Franz Grillparzer, says the Neue Freie Presse, did not apply to the deceased, but to the children of another brother long since dead. Camillo Grillparzer was always on good terms with the poet, who in his Autobiography, which goes down to 1836, speaks of him in the friendliest manner, especially recalling the amateur theatricals in which they both delighted in early youth. Difference of disposition, however, prevented any real sympathy between the brothers in after life.

A KINDER-GARTEN has been lately established at Cracow, in the girls' seminary, under the direction of Dr. B. Jeblonski. The introduction of

1874. The charts are constructed from every available source for the region embraced, viz.: from about lat. 30°-70°N. and from long. 40° W--40° E. of Paris. The cost of subscription in this country is 12s. 6d. for the three months; but as only a limited number are printed, application should be made at once to R. H. Scott, Esq., Director of the Meteorological Office, 116 Victoria Street, London, S. W.

Corson at Cornell University, namely, Mr. James Fraser Clark, who wrote on "the Clowns of Shakspere," and Mr. George II. Fitch, who wrote on Henry the Fifth. The essays are to be published soon. Among the judges on them were the poet William Cullen Bryant, the Shakspere-editor Richard Grant White, George William Curtis, &c. MESSRS. DÜMMLER, of Berlin, will shortly pub

MR. SAMUEL TINSLEY will publish early in the coming week a pamphlet on the influence of the Court over the community under a constitutional monarch. The same publisher has in the press Roba d'Italia; or, Italian Lights and Shadows, a record of travel, by C. W. Heckethorn, and the following novels-Sir Marmaduke Lorton, by the Hon. A. S. G. Canning; The Shadow of Erksdale, by Miss Marshall; Gold Dust, by John Pomeroy; A Name's Worth, by Mrs. Allen; and Margaret Mortimer's Second Husband, by Mrs. Hills.

M. OCTAVE DELEPIERRE has just completed a work dealing with one of the curiosities, or rather trivialities, of literary history, under the title of Littérature du Centon. The object of the Cento, we need scarcely remind our readers, is to combine

mar and Lexicology. It deals for the most part with the Coptic period of the Egyptian language. In it the author professes to define the meaning of a certain number of words, his avowed object being to investigate, by means of the languagetest, the notions prevalent in ancient Egypt about Right and Wrong. Following up to their original source the history of the words explained, he probe derived from certain primary roots, and, as the ceeds to investigate how their meaning came to rational intellect developed, gradually assumed their ultimate and more suitable form. From the

author's point of view Grammar is not a mere exposition of a few abstract notions of time, space, relationship, &c. It includes the concrete ideas contained in the Dictionary as well, and, showing them to be intimately connected with grammatical forms and notions, he attempts to prove the latter to have been created for the better expression of the former. Dr. Abel professes to have separated the Egyptian active and passive verbs, so long confounded, to have discovered several new species of passives, and traced the origin and gradual growth of all passives, and to have proved the force of vowels to change the meaning of a word, whereas vowels have hitherto been regarded as almost absolutely insignificant in the Egyptian tongue.

Ir "a man who says he prefers dry to sweet champagne will say anything," so will an etymolo

into this city proves that the Poles are beginning to appreciate the good results of German culture, and to desire a share in its advantages.

A WRITER in the Allgemeine Zeitung of the 3rd from the most authentic sources, quotes documents instant, who has evidently derived his information which seem to clearly disprove the identity of the mysterious Kasper Hauser with the infant son of the Grand-Duke Karl of Baden and his Duchess Stephanie, born on September 30, 1812. The evidence brought forward is of a very circumstantial character, and proves conclusively the death of the infant prince on October 16. The solution of the mystery which enfolds "the foundling of Nüremberg" must evidently be sought elsewhere.

TESTS have been abolished for the degree of Doctor of Laws in the University of Breslau.

THE Deutsche Rundschau for May opens with a short tale by Auerbach, called "Nannchen von Mainz,” a Rhenish story. Nan was her father's

pride, and since her mother's death dearer than in any case grieve him, but when his consent was ever to him. To give her away in marriage would asked for her marriage with a young Prussian who had courted her secretly, a tremendous storm was the consequence. A genial, generous Rheinlander to see his daughter wed a Prussian! But Nan bide her time. In a little the young Prussian is was firm, and yet for her father's sake willing to called out to serve in the Danish war, is severely

wounded and invalided home. The father hears with astonishment of bravery or anything praiseworthy in a Prussian, and by degrees some impression is made on him in favour of the lover. Still there was indignation enough left to make a violent scene one day when Nan announced that she was going to visit her betrothed at his

mother's home, if not with her father's consent, without it. He could not, whatever his feelings were, see her go alone, and so both started on a journey from which he at any rate came back with changed feelings. He had learned to respect the Prussians, of whom, as a race, he heard it said "that their only friend was hard work." There was no more obstacle to the marriage. Probably this hatred of the Prussians existed, if not chiefly, at least in the highest degree, among Rheinlanders of lower occupation. Nan's father was a porter employed in loading and unloading the Rhine steamers. She herself, before the marriage, was a laundress on a tolerable scale. The young Prussian was a carpenter by trade. "Shipwreck," a short narrative in the same number of the Rundschau, is simple and touching, besides having some small interest in reference to European life in Japan. From an article on the attitude of the Revue des Deux Mondes towards Prussia and Germany for some years before the late war, it is clear, among other things, that the Germans greatly miss the recognition, if not homage, which was there constantly being paid to their services in science and philosophy. Ferdinand Lassalle is the subject of an article of some length, in which the precise nature of his theory of the rights of property is described, followed by a statement of his political views regarding the reconstitution of a German Empire which, now that this has been accomplished, will be read with peculiar interest, and with admiration of his foresight.

IN the June number of the same periodical is a very interesting article on Heine, containing also several hitherto unpublished letters of his, beside some poems, parts of poems, corrections and alterations, which introduce the reader, as it were, into Heine's workshop, if only just over the threshold. But interesting as the article is throughout, it ends, or rather culminates, in a statement which for a moment puts all the rest in the shade. Who does not know the beautiful touching ballad

"Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht,” to which Heine added the remark that it was a real popular ballad which he had heard on the Rhine? In spite of this, the authorities on ballad poetry have declined to accept it, believing it to be purely a creation of Heine's. But they are wrong, and we must either take literally the statement of his having heard it on the Rhine; or, which is more likely under the circumstances, assume that he had read the version of it in the Rheinische Flora, January 25, 1825, signed Wilh. v. Waldbrühl, with the note that it had been written down from the lips of the people. There the first three stanzas are the same as in Heine's version; the fourth bears strongly the mark of his hand. Wilh. v. Waldbrühl was the signature of Anton von Zuccalmaglio, whose splendid services in recovering and preserving the ballad poetry of Germany have been fully recognised. Heine published his version in 1829, and his connexion with the Rheinische Flora makes it all but impossible that he did not see the original publication of the ballad by Zuccalmaglio. After all it is one of those ballads so perfect in their kind, that perhaps the very last enquiry that would be made about them is as to their authorship. They contrast with other forms of poetry much as flowers contrast with animals in this respect, that no one asks their pedigree.

THE Review of the Life and Speeches of the Prince Consort, by "Etonensis," in the Contemporary, is so diplomatically moderate and guarded in tone that it would have been passed over as insignificant but for the uncontradicted report which ascribes its authorship to a statesman who could only write on so delicate a subject diplomatically, and therefore must be supposed to mean very earnestly indeed whatever fragments of assertion can be extracted from the mass of decorous ver

biage. After all there is nothing very startling in the discovery that Mr. Gladstone thinks the

the

history of the "Bedchamber question " has not been written yet, that Prince Albert was too near the person of the Queen to be safely entrusted with command-in-chief of the army, that Her Majesty discharges the business of her office with perfect competence and industry; that the personal influence of the Sovereign on public affairs depends greatly on "close presence at the seat of government," and that "the social and moral tone of the upper classes of this country has deteriorated of late years, since the Court itself has lost the character impressed on it, partly, it may be assumed, by the Prince Consort, during the married life of the Queen; but it is true that few ex-Prime Ministers would choose to make public their sentiments on the two last heads. Lord Lyttelton writes on the Poor Laws, advocating a strict application of the Workhouse test; M. Milsand on Religion and Politics in France, advocating nothing in particular, but accusing the secular liberalism, which is the only rival of the clerico-legitimist tradition, of establishing "the lawless sway of the impulses," to the exclusion of any abiding organic growth or progress.

THE Revue des Deux Mondes for June 1 has two articles on "La Météorologie Forestière" and "L'Assistance publique dans les Campagnes," which furnish an indirect comment on the two previously mentioned. The institution of "bureaux de bienfaisance," which languished under the Empire, is recommended as likely to conciliate the rural districts, and as affording machinery for carrying out a much needed reform, or rather development, of the medical profession in country districts, some of the most thinly populated departments being at present provided with qualified practitioners at the rate of one to from six to ten thousand inhabitants. The effect of forests on climate, temperature, and rainfall is proved to be considerable, but M. Clavé admits that full and detailed observations are needed as a base for

further speculation, though the practical usefulness of the Meteorological Commission is established by a single instance: it is observed that a wet summer does comparatively little to feed the water springs, and that a dry winter will be followed by a dearth of water, even though the summer rains were abundant; and accordingly when the rainfall in the Département de l'Oise was found, between November 1873 and April 1874, to be much below the average, the farmers were officially warned to expect a scarcity of water and had time to provide steam power instead.

IN the Fortnightly Review Lyulph Stanley gives an account of "The Treatment of Indian Immigrants in Mauritius," based on the Report recently laid before Parliament, which it is to be hoped may help to fix public attention on a most deplorable and discreditable state of things, and one which is not likely to be remedied without

peremptory action on the part of the home Government. Professor Clifford writes à propos of "The Unseen Universe" of human mortality, and Sir William Thomson's hypothesis of a universal, frictionless fluid, in a way that would be more instructive if the work referred to had been one requiring serious refutation. Lewis Carroll refutes some-and reproduces other-" Popular Fallacies on Vivisection."

THE same number contains a short article on "Results of the Examination-System at our Universities," by A. II. Sayce; which deals in a tone more trenchant than is common with the mischievous consequences that are arising from the present abnormal development of the examining machine at Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. Sayce gives no statistics, nor any convincing array of facts, and his criticisms wear somewhat the appearance of the disburdening of an individual mind. Those, however, who are best acquainted with the existing condition of things, though they may not acquiesce entirely in the picture that he has drawn, will attach due weight to the opinions of

one who is so well qualified to represent the higher aspects of academical life.

Christian Evidence Society.

MR. SANDAY'S article on "Marcion's Gospel" is a chapter from his forthcoming reply to Supernatural Religion, which is to be published by the whatever was the motive of Marcion's omissions He shows that, (most of which can fairly be accounted for on dogmatic grounds), the passages omitted must be by the author of those retained, as they are full of examples of his characteristic vocabulary and turns of expression; and that, as Marcion's text is of a "Western" character akin to "D," and the Curetonian Syriac, the complete work of which we have manuscripts and versions both of an "Eastern" and a "Western" type must be considerably older than Marcion in order to give time for these types to differentiate themselves, who regard the "Western" type as decidedly the even if we reject the general judgment of critics later.

IN the Cornhill both the novels come to an end. There is something pathetic in Miss Thackeray's attempt to "see life steadily and see it whole;" but if one cannot deny that the whole is greater than its parts, the issue of the attempt does not weaken our conviction that the parts are or may be better than the whole, if so to represent the whole is a mistake. There is a very interesting account of Lazarillo de Tormes, and a curious article on life past and future in other worlds, which gives the final views of the writer as to Jupiter and Mars: the former of which he thinks is not yet come to a capacity of supporting such life as we know, while the latter is probably past it; if Jupiter ever does come to a capacity of supporting life, the author thinks life will get further on Jupiter than it will ever get here; if Mars ever came to it, he thinks life cannot have got far there.

IN Temple Bar there is a sensible and candid article on Catherine de Medicis and her times, and one on T. W. Robertson and the modern theatre, which has a good deal of biographical interest, though Robertson's dramatic services are ludicrously overrated.

In the Gentleman's Magazine a narrative poem by Mr. Buchanan, in six monthly parts, "of peculiar pathos," is announced for 1876, and concludes a series of short poems by the same "distinguished poet," of which the last instalment, "a peepshow," is among the best; it contains the author's reasons for thinking Hans Andersen a greater theologian than Calvin. There are other puffs preliminary in the preface-of Mr. Francillon's new novel "A Dog and his Shadow"-of the recollections of Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke concerning Dickens, Jerrold, Leigh Hunt, Wordsworth, Hazlitt, &c.

IN Fraser there is a reprint of Hemsterhuys" letter to Princess Galitzin on Atheism, full of refined and sober wisdom, which would have been more impressive if the author had not cherished a bizarre theory of "the moral organ." Karl Blind's paper on "Fire Burial among our German Ancestors" contains the results of a good deal of reading, as well arranged as could be expected from a writer capable of suggesting that Pythagoras means Buddhagoras. Mr. Edersheim proves that F. R. C.'s ingenious applications of the Talmud to the criticism of the Talmud are, to say the least, untrustworthy, as F. R. C. is too eager to be accurate. In Macmillan, the instalment of Mrs. Oliphant's book on the Convent of San Marco is especially interesting, because the writer comes more or less consciously though not willingly into competition with the author of Romola in treating of the execution of Bernardo del Nero and the abortive ordeals. She proves on Savonarola's principles that Bernardo deserved his death, which is enough, at least, to mitigate our judgment of his refusal to strain his enfeebled authority to maintain the legal right of the Mediceans to an appeal to the Great Council. With