pattern of such Christian worthies as these that thousands of good men tried to fashion their lives.

This will account in some measure for the similarity of incident and language with which mediaeval hagiology abounds. Through chronicle and legend and hymn every occurrence in the past history of the saints was familiar to the monastic mind. Hence repetitions in those to whom repetition was delightful. It is not in Scotland only that the same influences are observable. All religion is essentially imitative. Monasticism was so within a narrower circle.

In Ninian, Columba, and Kentigern we have the flower of the early missionaries in the north. They were plain, rough men, half sailors, half landsmen, fitted exactly for the wild tribes among whom they went in and out. They all clung, it will be observed, to the West coast, a testimony to the sympathy and influence of the neighbouring Christianity of Ireland. The places which they chose for their homes mark not only the character of the missionaries but the perils which were near. Iona is seagirt; Whithorne, the white house, overlooking the Solway, was probably whitened by art to be a seamark during the day, while it bore a watchfire by night; Glasgow is the most inland of the three, but the great city on the Clyde has through its noble river a swift access to the ocean. Sites like these were suited for safety as well as asceticism. The sea, too, was the highway along which these missionaries usually journeyed. Their little boats were always ready in the nearest cove, and in them they sailed in every direction. With every nook and cranny on the Cumbrian coast they were familiar; they braved the stormswept slip of sea which separated them from the Isle of Saints; they knew every passage and current among the Hebrides; they sailed as far north as Iceland. With few wants and a noble spirit of devotion, they did a work which men more delicately trained could never have achieved. From their stations on the sea they pierced the main land in every direction, leaving permanent traces of their presence among men as simple-minded as themselves, and retreating from the face of danger as silently and as suddenly as they came.

The presence, or the influence, of these early missionaries may, no doubt, be traced by the dedication of many a village church, or chapel, or well, along the western coast of Scotland and England. Of these the Bishop of Brechin has wisely given us a list." The number may be increased by the mention of others, which are in the middle of Yorkshire. The church of Topcliffe on the Swale has Columba for its patron, and in the neighbouring minster of Ripon there used to be preserved in great honour the staff which the same saint gave to Kentigern. At Copgrave there is a well dedicated to St. Mungo, to which, even in modern times, popular belief has ascribed those healing virtues with which the name of Mungo, or Kentigern, has always been connected. The country, also, in this part of Yorkshire is full of ancient sculptured remains, among which are one or two examples of the mysterious 66 spectacle ornament," which has hitherto been supposed to be peculiar to

Pictland. How did such memorials of the early Christianity of the North find their way into Yorkshire? Why should not Kentigern and Columba have visited that county themselves? The British See of York was in their day defunct, and the Saxon archiepiscopate had not yet been established. In coming so far South, they were intruding into the province of no other hierarchy. What more probable than that they visited Yorkshire at a time when it had no missionaries at all? If Wilfrid, when he won back for the Northern archiepiscopate the sites of the old British churches, had revived their old dedications, we should, no doubt, have had much stronger evidence of the presence of Columba and Kentigern. But it was against his principle to do honour to the British Calendar, and so a new streams of saints flowed from Rome into Yorkshire.

But it is not in England only that Ninian and Columba and Kentigern are forgotten. Their own country practically knows them not.

fronds ; the broad buckler fern is alter. nately "majestic," "magnificent" and "lovely," and as to the words "grand," "grandeur" and "grandly," it is scarcely too much to say that they are to be found upon nearly every page of the book. Mr. Heath is exuberantly enthusiastic in the praises of his favourite plant, and has fallen into the common error of thinking that word-painting is within the compass of any one who is susceptible to the charms of Nature and has an English dictionary at command. Lest our readers should suppose that our criticism is too severe, we subjoin an early example of our author's picturesque style of description, which is neither better nor worse than much that follows it :

"Peer at low tide into yon dark and dripping cavern which yawns upon the sea! The bright sunshine that dances upon the rippling waves pauses at the cavern's mouth, as if not daring to penetrate its gloomy depths. But just one tiny gleam of light has ventured to cross the threshold, and sparkling on the dripping water, it flashes through the opaque blackness a kind of electric light. As the water falls, drip! drip! into the pool below, the light increases, and then

glorious sight!-you see at the side and on the roof of this lonesome sea-cave the beautiful sea-spleenwort (Asplenium marinum), hiding its roots in the cavern-walls, and spreading out its bright green and shining fronds, that they may luxuriate in the dark humidity of its chosen

retreat."

Time was when their names were great throughout the length and breadth of Scotland, and relics of all kinds traditionally Scotland, and relics of all kinds traditionally-oh connected with its great Evangelisers were looked upon with veneration. Visit Whithorne now, and the white house of old is not even a beacon to the mariner on that rough coast. Iona at the present day is nothing better than the plaything of scampering tourists. At Glasgow only is there The first five chapters of the book are occuany sign of stirring life, but here the old pied with descriptions of scenery similar religious associations of the place have been to the foregoing; and about fifty-three almost swallowed up and lost in the multi-pages-nearly a fifth of the whole volumetudinous growth and expansion of a great are either absolutely blank or have only such headings as Down a Green Lane!" modern city. Still, with all honour be it spoken, the church in which the successors of Kentigern worshipped, and which was erected in his honour, is the only great temple in Scotland that was spared during

the reforming crusade of the sixteenth century. And more than this; the men of Glasgow have shown by their judicious restoration and adorning of the shrine of Kentigern that modern intolerance, which is rampant enough around them, has not closed their hearts to the just claims of their old founder upon their thankful_remembrance.

JAMES RAINE.

The Fern Paradise: a Plea for the Culture of Ferns. By Francis George Heath, Hon. Sec. of the Park Preservation Society, &c. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1875.)

IT has often been disputed what was the language of Paradise, but if Mr. Heath has caught its echoes aright it must have been high-flown and rather slipshod English. The author seems to have thought that he could make the most of a small subject by employing in its treatment the biggest words he could find, and accordingly we have sesquipedalian epithets applied to plants a foot or two high, and an amount of "tall talk" which would be less out of place in describing the Andes than in recording the beauties of a Devonshire lane. The ladyfern is declared to embody "the majesty of gracefulness;" the common polypody "is positively refreshing and invigorating to look at" with "its glorious wealth of magnificent

or "What is a Fern?" on them.

The latter portion of the volume treats of various English species of ferns. fern culture, and gives some account of the This is fairly well done and contains some really useful matter, but throughout it is infected casional error-such as Asplenium viridi (four with the same taint of verbosity, and an oc times repeated)-rather shakes our confi. dence in the author's knowledge of his subject. Mr. Heath has written so well upon English peasant life, that his previous success compels us to judge him by a standard different from that which would be applied to a beginner, and, while giving him credit for the best intentions, to pronounce his performance a failure. The truth is, the book is not wanted. All the information which an ordinary collector and cultivator of ferns needs is already to be found in the cheaper manuals in common use; and the best fea tures in Mr. Heath's book-viz., its paper, type, and binding—are just those which ne the reach of those for whom especially it cessarily add to its cost and place it beyond purports to be written.

CHARLES J. ROBINSON.

A Brief Memoir of the Lady Elizabeth Fitz gerald, known as the Fair Geraldine. By the Rev. James Graves, A.B., &c. (Dub lin: Printed at the University Press, by M. H. Gill, 1874.)

THE meaning of the sixteenth-century sonneteers is one of the most difficult questions in our literature. Are they in earnest, or are

they making believe? Are they literal, or are they metaphorical? Is their life in their work, or are they merely showing off their fine phrases and cadences? Perhaps as many wild and foolish and absurd things have been said about Shakspere's Sonnets as on any literary subject. The first, chronologically, of this mysterious race-Wyatt's sonnets, the earliest written in our language, raise no such difficulties-is Surrey. What was his relation to his Geraldine? Was he really the captive of her beauty, or did he merely amuse himself with protesting he was so?

One thing is certain: Geraldine existed. No ingenuity can dissolve her into a myth. Critics may prove to their own satisfaction that Laura was only a name, and Beatrice a mere phantom; that Stella lived only in the land of ideas; that Shakspere's brunette was the Church," black but comely." We may mention, in passing, our wonder that no one has discovered that Mrs. Wordsworth was a

purely mythic creature, since her husband, whose evidence surely is valuable, explicitly

speaks of

"Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight's too her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From Maytime and the cheerful dawn."

66

Surely this Mary is Eos herself? Helen of Troy is quite grossly substantial by the side of her. But to return: we say, whatever may be done with those other ladies, the Fair Geraldine cannot be disposed of in this manner. For, in fact, as Mr. Graves notices in the volume before us, Surrey's 'Description and Praise of his Love Geraldine records nearly all we know, beyond a few dates, of her early life." Mr. Graves does not mean that the famous sonnet is the only record of her early life; but that it summarises what is known of it —that her family was of Tuscan descent (so that her family was of Tuscan descent (so it was believed), that she was born in Ireland, "her dame of Princes' blood," that from tender years she was brought up in England, that at various times she inhabited or visited Hunsdon, Hampton, and Windsor. Nothing can be more definite; nothing more accurate. In fact, the exactness is something excessive, if one regards the sonnet from a poetical point of view. It would have satisfied a Tyrwhitt or a Nicolas. But, her existence necessarily allowed, it has been urged that she was a mere child when Surrey penned his worship of her, and so there could be nothing in it-a view that does not bear investigation. It is a fact that she was married to Sir Anthony Browne in 1543, four years before the poet's untimely end, she being then sixteen years old. Mr. Graves considers, quite rightly we think, that the above-mentioned sonnet was written just after her marriage. Again, we are reminded that Surrey was himself married in 1535, four years before he first saw the Lady Elizabeth, and this brings us to the central difficulty. Is the married poet to sing of no other beauty than that of his wife? Must he, like Araphill" Habington, laud and praise nothing else? Is he unfaithful, if he recognises what is fair and bright elsewhere? Certainly, if so, poets' wives are of all women most unfortunate. But one who understands the case would

no

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pronounce a harsh judgment. There is love, and love-love forbidden to the married poet as to all who have vowed to cleave only to some chosen one; and love that is in no discord with the truest marital allegiance. But it is a question of the utmost delicacy, and somewhat intricate; there is no space here to discuss it. We will only quote some remarks of Burns that, though not expressed with sufficient care, are closely pertinent :"Conjugal love," he writes to Thomson (see Letter CCCIII. in the Globe edition of his works), "is a passion which I deeply feel and highly venerate; but somehow it does not make such a figure in poesy as that other species of the passion,

'Where love is liberty, and nature law.'

Musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which the gamut is scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet; while the last has powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the soul."

The value of Mr. Graves's book is irre

spective of the question. It is interesting to have gathered together what can be discovered concerning the lady, though Dr. Nott reaped his field so well that they who ried twice to two widowers-two double come after can only glean. She was marwidowers, i.e. to men in their third widowerhood-to Sir Anthony Browne, as has been mentioned, some forty-four years her senior, in 1543; and to Edward Lord Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln, fifteen years her senior, probably in 1552. She died in 1589, no children surviving by either marriage. Mr. Graves gives an excellent autotype copy the imagination scarcely less, a facsimile of of the portrait at Carton, and, what helps a letter partly in the handwriting of the fair Geraldine herself. It is a triumph of penmanship-one can almost see her shaping so whose dictation it was written, perhaps finely every stroke-but his lordship, at found the pace too slow, as the latter lines are scribbled off by himself in a very different style.

never before been so clearly painted. To these interesting volumes we owe, for example, the truest knowledge we possess of the political effects of French rule as contrasted with that of Prussia in Poland, and of the cause of that singular unpopularity of the latter which the Roman Church is now dexterously using in her present struggle with the State in Posen. To them we are indebted, above all, for the light thrown on those important scenes in the Peninsular War in which Suchet played the chief part. Had the Memoirs never appeared, this section of the great European war drama would have remained unwritten in history except from the semi-official chronicle in which the principal actor relates his own share; and the very fact that the Duc d'Albufera was a Frenchman telling his own exploits would have dimmed their importance in the eyes of the less observant. author's lifetime, for the obvious reason that Brandt's Memoirs were kept back during the hardly have held high place in the Berlin so severe a critic of Prussian policy could official world; but the delay interfered but little with the interest which must attach to the notes of a keen and impartial eyewitness of some of the most remarkable scenes in all modern history. And the general was something more than an observant soldier, gifted

with the faculty of collecting true impressions of the events in which he shared, and the industry to note these down while they were fresh. He had the higher power of generalising from the facts of past history for future lessons; and the " Aphorisms" which form the latter half of the volume before us

are

an interesting testimony to the prescience and professional knowledge of the of hard service under man who combined the practical teaching under Napoleon, and Napoleon's most favoured marshal, with the Berlin military world, which took its subsequent training in that peace school of origin in the lectures of Scharnhorst, and culminated more than forty years after the professor-hero's death in the unrivalled wrote in 1859, "We are achievements of Count Moltke. He who on the turning of the tide of a new era of tactics; and the victory may be adjudged beforehand to the State which grasps this truth and acts in just accordance with it," was evidently no common critic. This aged general who prophesied again at the conclusion of the campaign of 1866 that the next war would find Prussian soldiers opposed to rifles superior to their boasted Zündnadelgewehr, was plainly one of the most penetrating observers among the bestinformed staff in the world, and though rendered unfitted then by his years for field duty, by no means past doing service to his country with his pen. The shrewd reflections on modern tactics which follow such preliminary remarks as these will richly repay the student of military art, and enable him, remembering that the distinguished author died two years before the late war, to judge exactly how far great practical experience and long study of theory could have enabled any one, however gifted, to fully forecast the sort of military revolution which 1870 was to bring in.

We are, however, here concerned rather

with the biographical reminiscences that fill the first part of this volume, scattered through an obituary notice prefixed to the Aphorisms. This notice is due to the care of the great Historical Section of Count Moltke's bureau, in which the author's son, Colonel von Brandt, long laboured; and we can scarcely be wrong, therefore, in assigning to his pen many of the personal particulars here communicated of his father's busy life. But from the father's own notes plainly come such graphic touches as the account given of Poniatowski's forebodings of evil before the fatal day of Leipsic. Brandt was one of the deputation of officers from the regiments of his own country who waited on the gallant Pole to offer the congratulations of the whole corps on his being raised to Marshal's rank. But they found their chief depressed rather than elevated by his new honour; and he answered their greeting with the gloomy words: "Our clock has run down; I hope for nothing more; we are fighting only for honour's sake, and it is well for him who carries it with him to the grave." Three days later the speaker's corpse was found in the muddy waters of the Elster, pierced by the fatal shot that had ended the career of one of the most faithful followers Napoleon ever had, in victory or defeat.

a continuance in this without time for thought or study was apt to leave_soldiers unfitted for the highest posts; and he did not hesitate to press his point. "You are paying me no compliment, certainly," said his superior good-humouredly, "nor Blücher either, who had but that very sort of training throughout his military life." "But then we are not all of us born Scipios," was the ready answer of the Major. And they evidently parted on good terms, for when Gneisenau soon after took the command of four whole corps of the Prussian army, mobilised to watch the frontier during the Polish insurrection against Russia, Brandt appeared on the scene as one of the most trusted of his staff. His portrait of Gneisenau is as interesting as any of the better-known sketches in his Memoirs, and fully justifies the high estimation in which later historians hold that general:

"He may be compared with the chiefest leaders of any age," is Brandt's deliberate judgment, "for the readiness of spirit with which he could grasp situations, decide on the counsel of the day, look at affairs from the practical side, and conduct them with energy. His detractors might say [there is some reference here, no doubt, to certain wellknown criticisms of Muffling's] that there was too great lightness in his view of things; but certain it is that he could execute most happily the particular task of the hour, and so his name will be handed down in connexion with the triumphs of a mighty age. And if it be true, as Greek philosophers have asserted, that the soul has much to do with the corporeal form, the Marshal must have had a very noble soul; for he was a knight of fine presence, with a truly manly countenance, an imposing form, and fine brilliant eye. appearance he outshone all the various marshals In bodily of different nations I have seen, including Soult, Massena, St. Cyr, Suchet, Ney, Diebitsch, and Paskievitch. If some of these surpassed him in certain details of leadership, he was superior to all in nobility of soul and greatness of spirit. And then guided to victory, under the most difficult problems. To have first brought into unity, and conditions, an army intended to play a secondary part, made up of different nationalities, and led by a self-opinionated set of generals, speaks eloquently of his earnest devotion and great circumspection, and of no less knowledge of men than tact in managing them.”

than in this comparatively trifling work, published at first only in the pages of a periodi cal, and long little known outside the profession; it would be a thing much to be regretted that it should be wholly lost to English readers. CHA. C. CHESNEY.

SCHOOL BOOKS.

How to Parse. By the Rev. E. A. Abbott, D.D. (Seeley).-Annotated editions of English classics have of late been more in request than books on English grammar. Useful as such editions are in stimulating literary taste, their value as instruments for teaching the language should not be overestimated. They must often fix the attention on involved constructions and archaic forms, and are therefore fitted chiefly for those who have learnt grammar pretty thoroughly in English or in some other language. It ought to be clearly understood that the study of irregular or antiquated English cannot supply the elementary problems which constitute the disciplinary value of the first steps in learning a dead or a foreign language. We have, therefore, every reason to welcome, from an experienced teacher like Dr. Abbott, an attempt to recast the elementary grammar and analysis which has, as yet, been imperfectly appreciated in higher education, and has hardly been made attractive enough in schools of a lower grade. The book may be divided into three parts-easy parsing, difficult parsing, and the explanation of irregularities. In the earlier part of the book (some six months work, according to Dr. Abbott) we meet with hardly a technical term except subject, object, relative, and antecedent. It is clearly recognised that the mechanical aid of inflexions which makes Latin parsing a half-unconscious process is no longer available in English. Accordingly the discovery of subject and object and the parsing connected forced and illustrated in as many ways as possible. with the relative are not merely indicated, but enAnd the details of parsing are those suggested by common sense. Thus, instead of being asked the gender, number, person, and case of a relative, we have three columns headed antecedent-subject of discussion, the first question asked is, What can it write down an equivalent clause, beginning with be altered into? and the pupil is expected to kind a schoolboy is led to the really difficult parts a relative or a conjunction. By easy steps of this of English parsing, where more subtle distinctions and a larger number of technical terms are required. The directions for parsing an infinitive are by no means simple, but any omission would be fatal to clearness. They are worth quoting, both to show the freedom with which Dr. Abbott treats his subject, and to illustrate the real discipline that can be obtained from it.

a twofold sense, teaching their own country's warlike annals in the tongue that was as familiar to him as his own. "When I have once found out," was his description of his own design, "exactly how much they know, I shall begin to teach them practically from the Seven Years War downwards, combining the matter with the tongue, and accustoming them thoroughly to express their thoughts in French." "You are right,"

was the answer of his superior, the wellknown Valentini. "Do not keep on the old track, but put new blood into the work. There is much that sticks and stands fast with us still, and we cannot be watchful enough;" words which imply that the old spirit of military pedantry, against which Scharnhorst so long vainly struggled, had not been wholly extinguished in the days of his triumph over prejudice and routine.

Promoted now as major on the staff, Brandt was brought into communication with the most eminent of the survivors of the War of Independence, with Marshal Gneisenau especially, to whom Prussia owed so much of the glory generally associated with the name of Blücher. At their first interview he seems to have won the veteran's respect by the frankness with which he expressed his difference of view as to the value of constant practical work in the field. Brandt was always of opinion that too long

With this just and eloquent description of a great countryman we must part from Von Brandt's last writings, merely remarking that the maxims he wrote in his old age on modern tactics and the influence of the rifled weapons upon them, are as clear and fresh as those observations on Spanish guerrilla warfare, or the breakdown of the requisition system in the great march on Moscow, which have made his Memoirs of such deep interest for military men. His one command in the field was against the Polish insurgents of his own native province in 1848, when his capture of the town of Xions, the headquarters of Dombrowski then, as recently of Ultramontane resistance, was conducted with a rapidity, success, and moderate expenditure of life, which caused Prussian writers to declare it a model for the operations of a military commander in civil war. Few men have ever combined to the same extent the qualities of practical soldiership, political knowledge, and skilful portrayal of character. character. And since these are displayed hardly more in his elaborate autobiography

The exercises are written with a good deal of care; they invariably consist of continuous narratives, and do not betray too clearly that they were compiled to illustrate rules. A supplement containing more of them would be welcome. The difficulties and irregularities, in poetry as well as latter part of the book deals with the explanation of in prose. To these explanations Dr. Abbott's second title" an attempt to apply the principles of scholarship to English grammar "—is especially relevant. We cannot do better than quote his own description of his method:

"First, ascertain the regularity from which the irregularity in question has deviated.

it be (1) desire of brevity, (2) confusion of two conSecondly, ascertain the cause of deviation, whether

Was

The explanations of so as to (204), it is rare for a man to starve in this country (402), are good illustrations of the application of these principles. We doubt, by the way, whether Dr. Abbott is right in his treatment of the so-called preposition considering, which he assumes to come simply from its use as a present participle. not considered a participle absolute, like the French excepté, y compris, the original form, converted by a misunderstanding into considering? It should be added that the book contains chapters on Spelling and Punctuation, and a short sketch of the history of the language. It cannot fail to make the study of English more attractive as well as more systematic; it has all the brightness and clearness of an enthusiastic teacher fresh from the

classroom.

M'Leod's Analysis of Sentences (London and Glasgow: Collins) is a careful exposition of the subject, with abundant exercises. Mr. M'Leod claims credit for several improvements on previous books, among others for an arrangement for making children thoroughly understand the various positions that noun sentences may take in complex sentences. That this should be really a novelty in English grammar almost passes our belief; it is familiar enough to every schoolboy who has learnt his Kennedy's Latin Syntax. The strong point of the book is its diffuseness; only one difficulty is approached at a time. On the other hand, the author fails from not perceiving, as Dr. Abbott has done, how parsing and analysis really run into each other; e.g., the real difficulties connected with the relative and the verbal nouns are only slightly touched. So, again, the nominative absolute has only an incidental mention in a note. We regret to see that the author has followed some other writers in an extraordinary use of the term "Indirect Object." He makes it include the italicised words in the following sentences: "He

66

saw the soldiers fighting," "He made a fire of coals," They elected him Emperor." A boy eught not to come away with the impression that these words all played in their respective sentences the same part as me in "He gave me a book."

Humboldt's Natur und Reisebilder, edited by Dr. Buchheim (F. Norgate), contains a number of interesting extracts from two most attractive books, with explanations of the numerous technical terms and allusions. The chief fault of the work is that one finds scattered up and down the notes translations of detached words and phrases, many of which seem to present no difficulty that could not be overcome with a little thought or by reference to the dictionary. It can be of no use to tell a schoolboy who can read Humboldt at all that Jugendalter means youth, üppige Fülle luxuriant abundance, Luftströme currents of air, and so on. If we might venture to lay down for writers of school-books one or two rules as to notes on words as distinguished from notes on the subject-matter, we should say-first, seldom, if ever, give the English equivalent of a word, except in the case of a rare word or technical term; next, if you must give the equivalent, explain how it got its meaning, or say something interesting about it; and, lastly, remember that the ideal note is one which starts a train of thought for a pupil, and leaves him to finish it for himself. We have noticed one or

two oversights: a German mile is taken as equal to four ordinary English miles, not, as is really the case, to four geographical miles, or rather more than four and a half in common measure. Again, Floetz is described in words which are at least unsuggestive, as "a term applied to secondary strata, of which two sides are parallel, and which extend over a large space." A reference to Lyell's Elements would have produced a very interesting But most of the illustrative notes are good and clear, and must have cost much labour; so that, while we protest against the scraps of trans

note.

lation, and hope to see them replaced in another edition by something more zweckmäszig, we cordially recommend the book to schoolmasters in search of an entertaining and improving readingbook for the middle or higher forms.

several of their French series. WE have received from Messrs. Hachette M. Roulier's Charterhouse First Book of French Composition is intended for beginners who know a little accidence, and have not begun to work systematically at syntax, and contains an ample supply of exercises on some of the commonest difficulties they encounter in the attempt to turn English into French. The author has wisely preferred simple continuous pieces to detached sentences, and has at the same time avoided attacking more than one difficulty at once. To each written exercise he has appended a viva voce exercise bearing on the same points. We should be inclined in practice to invert the order, and make the viva voce exercise serve as an introduction to the other. Mdme. de Witt's Derrière les Haies, edited by P. Bussy, is a charming story of the war in La Vendée, which is sure to be popular. The notes, excepting a few historical ones, are very poor-en serrant les poings, clenching his fists; ivres de joie, mad with joy; tricotait, was knitting; leur reconnaissance, their gratitude; generait, would impede, and so on-correct, but unnecessary. The Children's Own French Book, by P. H. Brette and G. Masson, is an excellent selection of easy stories, with a full vocabulary. Many of these are from Berquin, author of a famous collection of children's stories called L'Ami des Enfants. The only doubt we feel as to the utility of a book of the kind arises from the fact that stories written for French children are sure to be idiomatic, and therefore hard to English ones. We wish the accomplished editors had taken the liberty of rewriting some of them in what we might call a transition style.

A French Grammar at Sight, by D'Oursy and Marshall), is based upon the principle that in most Feillet (Clifton: Baker. London: Simpkin & of the difficulties met with in French grammar, there are two, and only two, courses open to one. The idea is ingeniously worked out, and the book might be used with advantage to supplement an ordinary grammar. But it requires careful revision. It is stated, for example, that adjectives ending in in change it into igne for the feminine entirely ignoring voisin, divin, latin, in fact all that come from the Latin inus. Again, in the formation of the plural of compound nouns, it is said that in words formed of two substantives both take s, no notice being taken of the fact that it is only true when they are in apposition. Under the same head nouns compounded of a substantive and a verb are set down as taking s at the end of the noun, a statement which applies only to words which, like passe-port, porte-feuille, have to be used as a single noun, and not to a word like abat-jour. The concord is discussed of the past participle of reflective verbs, without any reference to the case of the governed reflective pronoun. The subjunctive, again, is very inadequately treated.

FRENCH conversation books seem to be as popular as ever: De Fivas' New Guide (Lock wood) has reached its twenty-sixth edition, and Grandineau's Le Petit Précepteur (Hodder & Stoughton) its forty-fifth; while Contanseau's Middle Class Series (Longmans) adds another to the list, and Messrs. Masson and Brette have revised. Richard and Quétin's New Dialogues (Hachette). De Fivas has the advantage of indicating the liaisons, and giving other helps to pronunciation. H. W. EVE.

NOTES AND NEWS.

IN the present day when Russian works to be translated are many, and Russian translators are scarce, an English version of Colonel Prijevalsky's Mongolia and the Country of the Tanguts, being the

result of three years' travel in Eastern High Asia, will be received with great interest. Such a volume, it may be two such volumes, are in progress for the coming autumn season. The translator is Mr. Delmar Morgan, a gentleman of high attainments as a Russian scholar; and the attractions of the work will, in all probability, be greatly enhanced by Colonel Yule's annotations, together with some interesting illustrations of Urga and the neighbourhood, and of Mongolian types never before published.

THE second volume of Professor Corssen's work on the Language of the Etruscans will be published shortly.

MR. D. K. CLARK, C.E., has undertaken for Messrs. Lockwood and Co. a new edition of Simms' standard work on Tunnelling, which has long been out of print. He proposes to give an account, with illustrations, of recent great works of the kind, including, among others, the Mont Cénis and the St. Gothard tunnels; with the new methods of boring, new machinery, &c.

PROFESSOR MADVIG has collected in one volume, which will appear at Leipzig in the course of the present month, his minor philological writings, originally published as Programmes of the University of Copenhagen and hitherto almost wholly unknown out of Denmark. They are said to form a general system of the philosophy of language.

MR. J. E. H. GORDON, of Caius College, Cambridge, is writing one of the Indian Science School Series books for Messrs. H. S. King and Co.

THE Early French Text Society means, we are glad to hear, to publish a Bulletin with full descriptions of the best French MSS., and the different texts (and their dialects) of the same work. We have long wanted such a thing for our English MSS., but our official men of the type of Paul Meyer and Gaston Paris-who are the only ones that can do the work-have hitherto kept their knowledge out of type.

PROFESSOR STENGEL, of Marburg, has obtained funds from the German Government to found a

seminary for the Romanic and English philology, and a special library for it at Marburg. He is procuring the necessary English books for the purpose. He and other professors of the Romanic and Teutonic languages jointly, hope that all the other German universities will soon follow the example of Strassburg, and separate the two branches of learning. Either Romanic or Teutonic is by itself quite enough for one man to do justice to, and strive to attain eminence in.

THE Hunterian Club promise the issue of their overdue books next month.

THE Ballad Society has nearly ready the Sixth Part of Mr. William Chappell's edition of the Roxburghe Ballads.

THE seventh report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland has just been issued. The most noticeable transfer of documents from the custody of Sir J. Bernard Burke, Keeper of State Papers, into the Public Record Office, was that of the Minutes of Proceedings of Trustees for the Encouragement of the Linen minutes are contained in 139 folio volumes, and, Manufactures in Ireland, from 1711 to 1828. The considering the great share which this manufacture has had in the development of the country, public authority for its regulation and improvesuch records of the first systematic steps taken by rian and economist. ment should possess a high interest for the histo

AMONG recent acquisitions for the Egerton Library of Manuscripts in the British Museum the following are most noteworthy :-Yates's History of St. Edmund's Bury, printed with MS. additions by John Bowyer Nichols, including original letters. Schemes of Nativity, principally of English noblemen and distinguished persons, partly by John Partridge, the almanac maker;

Minutes of Proceedings of the Royal Society and Society of Antiquaries, by E. Mendez da Costa, 1757-1762, &c.; Catalogue of works in the Cotton Library connected with English topography; Professor Ward's Notes on Horsley's Britannia, copied by Richard Gough; Papers relating to the Company of Leather-sellers of London, 1685-1696; A Letter of G. Vertue to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, on the picture by Holbein of the family of Sir Thomas More, and notes on the Life and Works of Holbein; Original Letters of C. Niebuhr, Raff. Morghen, F. von Gentz, F. P. G. Guizot, A. Canova, and F. Rückert, 1774-1839; Lists and Genealogies of the Nobility of England, by J. Benard, dedicated to Charles IX. of France, 1569, with paintings and in original binding; Papers from the Office of Trade and Plantations relating to the English Settlements in America and the West Indies, 1627-1699; a transcript of "The suddaine Turne of Fortune's Wheel; or a conference betwixt the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of Spaine," by John Taylor (the water-poet), 1631; Visions, &c., of Joanna Southcott, 17941813.

view. It is, no doubt, desirable that the public should learn the general effects produced by the rejuvenescent activity infused into the Universities by the Commissions of 1850 and the reforms of 1854; and it is also possible that the report of the late Commission may be misunderstood by outsiders, ignorant of the vast amount of educational work at present achieved at Oxford and Cambridge. To this task of narration and exposition Mr. Brodrick has devoted himself, and the Oxford reformer of a past generation appears in the popular character of an optimist. The unfavourable features of the Commissioners' Report of last year are dexterously concealed, and an intimate knowledge of the University is used to develop into undue prominence the more progressive aspects of the educational system. After laying various unctions to his soul, Mr. Brodrick becomes more conservative than his friends;

declares in favour of the retention of headships and fellowships pretty much as they now exist; has no suggestion to offer by which the Universities may maintain, or rather regain, their position in the vanguard of learning and research; and concludes that both the management of the

romance of Bevis of Hampton from all its MSS., with an account of its French original-if M. Firmin Didot will allow it to be seen for more than two hours-and its versions in Icelandic and other European languages.

60,000 specie R.D. for the augmentation of the THE Norwegian Storthing has made a grant of salaries of the national school teachers a measure

which coincides with the liberal spirit expressed in the public addresses delivered at the recent meeting of the Scandinavian Universities at Upsala, when Archbishop Sundberg, in his inaugural speech, drew attention to the importance standard of the requirements demanded of them. of raising the status of teachers as well as the The meeting at Upsala, which took place on June 4, was attended by upwards of 1,000 alumni of the Scandinavian universities, who had come from Denmark and Finland, as well as from various parts of Sweden and Norway.

wooden cover in which it was bound, black with age and polished by use, still remains attached to its pages. From century to century the book has been handed down enclosed in a leathern wallet, once apparently highly ornamented, and furnished with straps to sling over the priests' shoulders. This wallet is still preserved, though time and service have frayed the straps, and nearly obliterated the lines with which its sides were adorned.

M. PAUL MEYER, editor of Romania, and Professor of Romance Philology at the Ecole des Chartes, has been nominated by the Collége de France to the Professorship of the Languages and Literature of the South of Europe, vacant by the death of M. Edgar Quinet.

DR. H. BREYMANN, Lecturer on the French Language and Literature in the Owens College, Manchester, has been appointed to the newlyfounded chair of Modern Philology in the University of Munich.

MR. E. W. ASH BEE, F.S.A., is about to issue facsimile reproductions, by the lithographic process, of a selection of early printed plays and interludes, and of short tracts principally illustrative of Shakspere and the Drama. Among the books to be thus reproduced are: The Taming of a Shrew, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, three Interludes from unique copies in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, Kemps Nine Daies Wonder, Tarlton's Jests, Kind-Hart's Dreame, and Maroccus Extaticus. The impression is intended for private circulation only, and will be limited to one hundred copies.

supreme function of study, and tend to exaggerate yet more the present evil of over-teaching and over-examination which has already distorted the normal development of academical life. In short, Mr. Brodrick has managed to put himself in complete harmony with that reactionary feeling which is now in vogue; but as a contribution to the work of reform, which he himself recognises to be close at hand, this article will not be of much value.

THE French papers announce that Prince Richard von Metternich is preparing his father's Memoirs for publication.

THE second volume of Karl Biedermann's

Germany in the Eighteenth Century has just appeared, and contains an extremely valuable account of the life and mental development of Lessing from the early days when the first tokens of his genius as a reformer appeared in the dramas entitled The Jew and The Freethinker, till the period of his latest effort when he produced Nathan the Wise, to the merit and splendid results of which work a German critic pays the following just testimony:

"The influence of this piece on our religious opinion has become incalculable. In the first place, the emancipation of the Jews in Germany is attributable to it. That which Lessing established as

desirable in confidential conversation with his friend Moses Mendelssohn, was prepared in Germany by the herald Nathan, and has after a hundred years' interval become the law of the land." Lessing is too little known in England. The pioneers of intellectual freedom here might well take some hints from the policy of

MR. PETR BOBORYKINE, a Russian novelist and journalist, and the author of an interesting article on "Nihilism in Russia" which appeared in the Fortnightly Review for August, 1868, has reprinted at Florence, from the Rivista Europea, an essay entitled "Del Criticismo Russo."" It contains a great deal of useful information about the school of literary criticism founded by Bielinsky, and carried on by Dobroliubof and Pisaref-all writers who died young, before they had time to complete their work-as well as about the other Russian critics of various parties, the "Nihilistic" movement, and the present state of the critical element in Russian journalism. As an author Boborykine writes at times with some little who has been not unfrequently attacked, Mr. marked by moderation and good sense. asperity, but as a general rule his statements are

Supernatural Religion has now reached a sixth edition, and the author takes advantage of it to revise the work "throughout," to "examine a great many of the references," and to add an extremely able preface in answer to recent criticisms. Dr. Lightfoot naturally gets the chief share of his attention, and it must be confessed that the tables are successfully turned upon the Cambridge divine. The author complains that the object of his work has been misapprehended, his point having been to show that the exceptional evidence required to overcome the antecedent improbability of the New Testament miracles is not to be obtained. Merely probable references, therefore, to the four Gospels cannot come into court, nor even the admitted existence of earlier Gospels, since we know nothing of their them. Nothing is said, however, of the evidence of the Pauline Epistles; and since the same critical method which would reject the witness of the Gospels would equally oblige us to accept St. Paul's testimony to the historical character of the Resurrection, orthodox Christianity need not disquiet itself overmuch. The most glaring errors of scholarship have been corrected in the present scholar is not equal to his excellence as a theoloedition, but enough remain to convince the gian and critic. The charge brought against him of copying lists of references without verification is shown to be groundless, and Dr. Lightfoot's ingenious advocacy of the pseudo-Ignatian Epistles is well disposed of. After the clear statement of the case in the preface, most readers will feel con

prize to M. Alphonse Daudet for his novel entitled Fromont jeune et Risler ainé (ACADEMY, December 5, 1874). This prize, which is now awarded for the first time, was founded "to crown

the best study of Parisian manners published within the year." The Academy of Inscriptions has awarded the Gobert prize to M. Lecoy de la Marche for his work on Le Roi René (ACADEMY, February 6, 1875).

C. Brodrick's article in the current number WE omitted last week to notice Mr. George of the Contemporary Review, entitled "The Universities and the Nation." The writer is acquainted from personal experience with the course of academical reform at Oxford during the past twenty years, and he treats his subject from the historical rather than the speculative point of

eighteenth century who, goaded to madness by the oppression to which their race was subjected throughout Germany, have in a great measure succeeded in melting down the then apparently solid rock of Christian orthodoxy by the solvent of

their acrimonious wit.

THE New Shakspere Society hopes to issue next

week Mr. P. A. Daniel's revised edition of Romeo

Quarto and Folio of Henry V. Dr. Nicholson's and Juliet, and Dr. Nicholson's reprint of the lamented illness from overwork has stopped the progress of his Parallel-Text edition of the Henry V. Quarto and Folio, with full collations

and notes.

DR. E. KÖLBING, of Breslau, has undertaken to re-edit for the Early-English Text Society the

careful reader that the author's excellence as a