bridal, Angus Graeme sets out for a walk among the hills, and is found next morning lying dead. This part of the story is told with great power and effect. As was said above, the plot is simple, but giving all the more scope for the skill of the writer to make the story one of intense interest. We have barely outlined the incidents, scarcely touching the side issues which the novelist must always bring along with him in the course of his narrative. As a story of Scotch provincial life we would rank it very high, nor would we be inclined, as some have done, to consider as being overdrawn the relationship between the Rev. Mr. Pilrigg and his elders. That reverend gentleman latterly decamps, leaving the fair Miss Janet Macrae to single blessedness and the bitter gibes of her elder sister, far enough removed from such follies as to be able to shoot darts into the wounded affections of her sister.

L'Evangéliste. By ALPHONSE Daudet. 1883.

Paris: E. Dentu,

An unfeeling, inflexible woman, beautiful, but cold as a statue, unsexed by religious fanaticism, with no trace of passion but the all-absorbing pride of the self-appointed apostle, such is, Madame Autheman, the Evangelist, the chief actor in the domestic drama which M. Daudet has so ably and so powerfully worked out in this his latest and, by general consent, his best novel. Brought up by an old aunt, in the narrowest and most exaggerated Protestantism,' Jeanne Châtelus looks upon herself as the woman destined to save the world lost through a woman. To secure wealth and influence she does not hesitate to marry, or at least to go through the marriage-service with Autheman, the Jewish banker, fabulously rich, but hideously disfigured by an hereditary and incurable disease. With the gold of the Authemans at her disposal, Jeanne begins the work of evangelization. Her head-quarters are at Port-Salvation, the model evangelical home to which she entices the refuse of society with the baits of food, clothing, and money. To recruit 'workers' for her missions at home and abroad all means are good. The wife is torn from her husband, the mother from her little ones, the daughter from her parents, without scruple or remorse, for the glory of God and his self-elected partner in the work of salvation. By the side of the Evangelist, there is the Evangelized, if we may risk the expression, the proselyte, the victim, gentle, tender, loving Eline Ebsen. Parisian born, but of Danish extraction, Eline is a teacher of languages, the support of her widowed mother, and, till just before the opening of the novel, of her grandmother also. When grandmother died, beside her grave, in the long, lingering embrace in which she seemed to transfer to her mother her love for the dear dead one, Eline swore never to leave her home. But the Evangelist appears. Eline is a linguist, her talent is known and appreciated at Port-Salvation, and she is employed to translate a book of

prayers composed by the woman who is to save the world.

Horrified at

the sentiments expressed in these fanatical outbursts, the young girl is on the point of refusing. But each of the six hundred prayers is to be paid three half-pence, a consideration in the Ebsen household. The work is done, is praised, is paid for; and whilst drawing out the cheque for the amount, the Evangelist makes reference to the poor grandmother's sudden death. Abruptly, unfeelingly, sharpening the glance of her keen steelblue eyes, and looking Eline straight in the face- Did she, at least, know the Saviour before she died?' she asks; then, interpreting Eline's confusion-'Where art thou now, poor soul? How thou art cursing those who left thee without help.' Eline may go; the seed is sown. Shortly after, curiosity—is it curiosity merely ?-leads her to one of the prayermeetings. There she is unexpectedly called upon by the Evangelist to translate the 'testimony' of Watson, an English worker,' who has left her husband and her family to labour in the vineyard. Half unconsciously she obeys, and her mother, looking on, is proud of her daughter's ready fluency. The next step takes Eline to Port-Salvation, where she is to give three days in the week to the schools. The sequel is soon told. At Port-Salvation, her 'conversion' is undertaken in earnest. Even drugs are brought to bear upon her, 'hyoxyanine, atropine, strychine.' One evening Eline does not return home. The mother's efforts to discover where she is, to obtain help from friends, are vain. The Authemans are too powerful. Only one has the courage to brave the Evangelist. The Dean of the Protestant Faculty denounces her from the pulpit, refuses her the sacred cup at the altar, and her vengeance drives him from his post. But Eline was not lost; the old man was in his dotage, the mother mad, an alienist testifies to it. Eline re-appears to act her part in the horrible deception. For several weeks she stays with her mother, cold, unfeeling as the Evangelist herself. Then the two women part. The daughter does not bend at the window as she is driving off; the mother does not raise her blind to wave a last farewell. The carriage turns the corner of the street, and is lost amongst a thousand other vehicles in the tumult of Paris. They never meet again. Such is the bare plot, if plot it can be called, of the Evangelist, and it is significantly dedicated to the physician of the Salpétrière. In truth, it is less a novel than a merciless psychological dissection. But a few weeks ago, words which almost seemed an echo of Mme. Ebsen's cry appeared in the Times, in a pathetic denunciation written by the sorrowing parent of an Eline in real life. Messrs. Chatto & Windus have published an excellent translation of this remarkable novel. As 'Port-Salvation' it deserves to obtain all the popularity which it already enjoys, both in France and in Germany, as the 'Evangelist.'

John Pringle, Printer and Heretic. Paisley and London: Alex. Gardner, 1883.

Scotch Theology has fallen upon 'evil times of late. 'Et tu brute!' it might have exclaimed when Norman Macleod published his inimitable story, The Starling, and since then it has received some very sore buffets, none much sorer than in the keenly satirical sketch before us of the treatment experienced by John Pringle at the hands of the Minister and KirkSession of Brigton. This sketch we cannot but think in some measure exaggerated, though we are bound to admit the whole tone of the book is suggestive of writing from experience. Surely, however, it would be impossible, in even the most fanatical Kirk-Session in Scotland, that a John Pringle could be struck off the communion roll, while a Roderick Mackenzie was honourably acquitted? Still it is perhaps well, on the whole, that even by a reductio ad absurdam should be shown what sort of tone and temper may be engendered by that hard theology which has often worked sore havoc with religion in Scotland. On one point we have little doubt, and that is what fate would await both writer and publisher of John Pringle as well as sundry other people we could name, if the old method of dealing with offending church members were not among the number of the lost arts. The publication of such satirical sketches as John Pringle has a significance which will not be lost on students of history who remember the tone of the burlesques, satires, and lampoons, aimed at church and priesthood, and freely circulated towards the dawn of the Reformation. We need only remark, further, that John Pringle abounds in amusing scenes, sententious sayings, and excellent instances of the dry humour which is so essentially a Scotch characteristic. There is, however, compressed into the book a good deal more than a hundred pages can hold; which fact we take to in licate either an inexperienced or a hurried mind. More practice, or more leisure, would unquestionably enable the writer to produce very powerful satirical sketches.

Trecce Nere. Stories from the Abruzzi. By J. Ciampoli. Milan : Treves Brothers, 1882. These stories depict the landscapes and inhabitants of the Abruzzi in a very pleasing manner. As several stories by the same author have been already translated into German, it would appear that they are appreciated not in Italy alone.-La Giustizia a Roma dal 1674 al 1737 e dal 1796 al 1840. By A. Ademollo. Roma, 1882.-In this very curious book we have biographical notices of all those condemned to death in Rome during the periods mentioned in the title. For the first period an abate named Ghezzi furnished the notices, and for the last the executioner himself. Those mentioned are not only criminals, but also martyrs of the pen, such as Revarola and Count Trivelli, who were the journalists of their time.-Novelle Rusticani. Giovanni Verga. Turin: Casanova, 1883. This series of short sketches of Sicilian rustic life has the humour and

also the sadness that always seem connected with realistic pictures of an ignorant population, still superstitious, yet capable of noble sacrifices, priest-ridden and vicious, yet good hearted, and driven into crime more by misery than from disposition.

When and Where: A Book of Family Events.

Edited by

DOUGLAS and SOPHIE VEITCH. Paisley and London:
Alexander Gardner, 1882.

From those days of our innocent childhood, when we laboriously traced in our copy books, 'A stitch in time saves nine,' or 'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves,' on to the days when, on the occurrence of some sore disaster, our sympathising friends assure us that, had we only attended to the matter in time, no harm would have come of it, but that now it is too late; by precept and by experience, the importance of little things is being constantly impressed upon us, and apparently to wonderfully little purpose. When and Where is another attempt to drive home this valuable lesson. If every family,' say the editors, 'possessed such a note book, containing entries extending backwards over a few generations, it is not too much to assert that many a celebrated law suit would have been nipped in the bud.' This we should say is very probable. We can at least assert, on our own knowledge, that a law suit has been gained solely by a child's diary, produced in court, proving a certain required date.

SUMMARIES OF FOREIGN REVIEWS.

REVUE DE L'HISTOIRE DES RELIGIONS, (Novembre-Decembre, 1882.)-The first place in this number is given to M. E. Beauvois, who continues, and here completes, a series of studies, three in all, on the magical practices, ancient and modern, among the Finns. The first of these papers appeared in the May-June number of this Revue of 1881, and the second, in that of January-February of 1882. What occasioned them was the publication in 1880 of a collection of the magical chants and formulæ in use in the early ages of the history of this people, gathered by Dr. Elias Loennrot in the course of his travels in Finnland, and his researches into their literary traditions. This scholar, though not the first to discover and call the attention of the literary world to the poetic wealth of this singular race (to Dr. Zacharias Topelius belongs this honour) was yet the most successful in gathering together from the lips of the peasantry and others in that country, their rich store of ancient songs and sagas. It struck him very early in his researches that they belonged for the most part to one great epic. The runes were all in one measure, and their burden was the adventures of one and the same group of heroes. He put them together and published an edition of them first in 1835, and a larger edition in 1842. In their completed form they have been compared to the Iliad of Homer, and Professor Max Müller has praised them as little, if at all, inferior to that immortal work. The Kalevala or Kalewala, as this Finnland epic is named, did not exhaust Dr. Loennrot's

store of poetic wealth, gathered by him and such scholars as A. Castrén and Ahlqvist from peasant and other sources. A vast collection of verses so recovered was seen to belong to the practice of magic, to which the Finns were formerly much addicted, and from which they are not yet free. Dr. Loennrot grouped these together under the various heads to which they seemed to belong, and published them now nearly three years ago. M. Beauvois took advantage of their appearance to give in these pages a sketch of the history of Dr. Loennrot's discoveries, a sketch of the ancient magical rites of the Finns, and of their ancient and modern sorcerers and medicine-men; and now in this number of the Revue he translates and analyses a large selection of the chants and formulæ themselves. For the student interested in the history of Religions, in tracing the growth of many of our modern institutions connected with religion back to their early, if not most primitive forms, these studies of M. Beauvois are full of most valuable information; while the digest of charms and incantations given in this closing one of Dr. Loennrot's published collections, will be found of great service to the reader of that learned scholar's work.M. J. A. Hild gives a third and last paper on the Legend of Eneas, tracing here its fortunes in Rome, or among the Latins, up to its treatment by Virgil.

In

One of the most attractive features of this Revue is its admirable critical 'Bulletins' of the most recent literature, bearing upon the various religions or groups of religions of the world. These are undertaken by scholars who have devoted special attention to this or that religion, and have won already by their published writings a title to speak with authority on works treating of it. this number the Editor, M. Maurice Vernes, passes in review such works bearing on the Jewish Religion as Reuss' Geschichte der Heiligen Schriften des Alten Testaments, Dr. F. Lenormant's Origines de l'histoire d'après la Bible et les traditions des peuples orientaux, (tome 2me); M. J. Derenbourg, contributions to the Revue des Etudes juives on Ecclesiastes' and 'Job;' Renan's 'Ecclesiastes' and Bruston's Le prétendu épicurisme de l'Ecclésiaste. In a short article, which follows this, he handles somewhat severely a recent writer, Frank d'Arvert, or 'M. Frank,' as he designates him, who has been airing some pretentious notions of his own as to the place which should be given to the teaching of scientific theology in the University Faculties. The controversy is of some interest in view of the proposed legislation as to our Scotch Universities, but our space does not permit us to do more than mention the article.

The 'Summaries' of Reviews are as usual helpful to readers who wish to know what is appearing in them, and to select what bears on any particular subject in which they take a special interest; and the Chronique keeps us informed of what is being done in France to promote the historical study of religious phenomena.

LE LIVRE (10th February).-M. Champfleury has strung together Heine's remarks on Hoffmann and his Tales. The article, though not strikingly original, is not wanting in interest.-M. Arsène Houssaye gives the first instalment of a biographical sketch of Gérard de Nerval. It is rather disjointed, but eminently readable; it has the merit of toning down poor Gérard's madness, and of making it appear in the milder form of the wildest Bohemianism. The reproduction in chromo-lithography of the medallion by Jehan Du Seigneur is admirable.-Le Cabinet du Roy de France is a curious book published during the reign of Henry III., in 1582. It is a history, and at the same time a satirical picture of the towns and provinces, of the corrupt morals of the priests and monks of the age. M. Benjamin Gastineau makes this quaint work the subject of a short sketch in which he somewhat exaggerates the boldness of the writer in daring to level his satire against the clergy.-The Chronique_contains some interesting letters addressed by Sue and Balzac to the silver-smith FromentMeurice. The Gazette Bibliographique contains another Shakespearian item. From documents lately discovered, it appears that in 1603, the poet's share in the Blackfriars theatre was worth £1,433-about £7000 of our money-and that his income for 1608 reached £1,500.

LE LIVRE (10th March).-This number opens with an article which the