Chapter XIII: Part 13

Ambrose Bonwicke, whose father was a non-juror, the ejected Head Master of Merchant Taylors' School, was a student at Cambridge in the beginning of the last century, and died of hemorrhage on the lungs at twenty-three. He was what would now be called an Anglican of the purest water, and we cannot help a feeling of regret and pity at the ritual forms which his piety took; but the piety itself was very beautiful. Ambrose was a model of gentleness, goodness, and self-denial; a saintly youth, reminding one more of the old ascetic monks than of a young English gentleman. The memoir throws a little light, but not much, upon the manners and customs of Cambridge a century and a-half ago. Incidentally we learn that the students had to write Latin verses in eulogy of Dr. Gower on the very day that he died, and that college chums sometimes slept in the same bed.

The notes, which make up almost half the volume, are rather in excess of their occasion, but they are instructive and amusing. Mr. Mayor is an indefatigable and learned antiquary.

_Scrambles Among the Alps, in the Years 1860-1869._ By EDWARD WHYMPER. John Murray.

Mr. Whymper has written the history of the conquest of the Matterhorn _quorum pars magna fuit_, and his book is a worthy record of a great achievement. Making a not unreasonable allowance for the difficulties of a writer who is the hero of his own story, and for the necessary conflict between his modesty and his fidelity, and with the single remark that the former is not unduly sacrificed to the latter, we may commend to our readers a most interesting and exciting narrative, written with lucidity and skill, terseness and pertinence, and illustrated by Mr. Whymper himself, whose pencil, he tells us, has been employed upon the work for the greater part of the last six years. The illustrations are very numerous and effective, and, generally speaking, all of a high artistic quality; with the letterpress, they make a really sumptuous Alpine volume. From the very nature of some of the subjects, some little has been supplied by the imagination. For instance, the flying fragments in the 'Cannonade on the Matterhorn' are not all of them in the line of any conceivable projectile force; and certainly the 'Fall of Reynaud,' as represented p. 229, could have had, for him, but one issue, and that not of a kind to produce 'roars of laughter' from his companions. Had Mr. Whymper fallen, as pictorially represented p. 120, he would never have written his book save, indeed, with the assistance of Mr. Home. His survival is, indeed, a miracle. He fell, he tells us, 200 feet 'in seven or eight bounds--ten feet more would have taken me, in one gigantic leap of 800 feet, on to the glacier below.' He describes his sensations as by no means unpleasant, and thinks that death by a fall from a great height is painless. Hardly, again, should we have fancied the suicidal position of Croz cutting away the cornice on the summit of the Monning Pass. Photographs, had such been possible, would, we imagine, have presented some striking divergencies from these imaginary positions. But, making allowance for pictorial effect in these two or three instances, the illustrations appear to have been done with great care, as well as with great spirit. Some excellent maps are also furnished; two are transferred from the plates of the Dufour Map; two, a map of the chain of Mont Blanc, based upon the Government maps of France and Switzerland, and the survey of Mr. Reilly, and a map of the Matterhorn and its glaciers, being an enlargement, with corrections, from the Dufour Map, are original. The fifth is a general route map.

Mr. Whymper's first escalade in the Alps was the ascent of Mont Pelvoux in Dauphiné, the account of which is reprinted from 'Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers.' Sundry other subordinate, and yet novel and arduous ascents are recounted; with interspersed dissertations on Alpine climbing, on glaciers, on mountain lakes, &c., with criticisms on the erosion theories of Professors Tyndall and Ramsay. But the book, as we have said, is a history of the conquest of the Matterhorn. Between the years 1861-1865, Mr. Whymper made seven unsuccessful attempts to ascend the Matterhorn--four or five attempts having also been made by others; two by Professor Tyndall in 1860 and 1862, who, on the latter occasion, reached within 600 feet of the summit. These attempts were made on the south-west ridge. Mr. Whymper's successful attempt was made on the east face, which, from the Gorner Grat, is so familiar to tourists, and looks like the side of an obelisk; its profile, however, shows the angle to be less than 45°, and the ascent is comparatively easy. Some of the most experienced guides had given up the Matterhorn as inaccessible. Almer decidedly declined it. 'Anything but the Matterhorn,' said he, thinking it hopeless. The two Cassels proved treacherous, and finessed with Mr. Whymper, while completing arrangements with Signor Giordano, who started up the south-west side from Breil, on July 11, 1865. On the 12th, Mr. Whymper crossed the St. Theodule, for Zermatt, having been joined by Lord Francis Douglas and Peter Taugwalder the younger; at Zermatt he found Michael Croz, who had been engaged by the Rev. Charles Hudson and his friend, Mr. Hadow, to attempt the Matterhorn. The two parties united, and started on the 13th at half-past five, four tourists and four guides; by twelve o'clock they had easily ascended 11,000 feet; they halted for the day, and pitched their tent. At 9.55 on the 14th they had reached the height of 14,000 feet, at the base of what, from the Riffell, seems the overhanging summit. They then crossed the ridge to the northern side, the general slope of the mountain being less than 40°. Only one part, of about 400 feet, was really difficult; it was surmounted, and 200 feet of easy snow brought them to the summit at 1.40. The party from Breil had been four days on the mountain; they were seen at an immense distance below; the shouts of Mr. Whymper's party, and some stones which they rolled down to attract attention, frightened them. 'The Italians turned and fled,' but whether from superstition, as Mr. Whymper implies, or from fear of the stone avalanche, so ominously directed upon them, we are not told. The fatal accident on the descent, when five out of the eight perished--three travellers and two guides--seems, like the accident on the Col du Géant two or three years before, to have been caused by no special difficulty. Mr. Hadow's foot slipped; he fell against one of the guides, and knocked him down; the party was roped together, and but for the providential breaking of the rope the three who were saved must have been precipitated with the rest 4,000 feet, down to the Matterhorngletscher. Some sixteen ascents of the Matterhorn have been subsequently made, but it must ever be an arduous and perilous expedition, save to the best trained and most experienced cragsmen.

_At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies._ By CHARLES KINGSLEY. Macmillan and Co.

Readers of 'Westward Ho!' will remember the singular vividness with which Mr. Kingsley described West Indian scenery. It was difficult to believe that he had not seen it, and that his minute and glowing pictures were productions of the artistic and pictorial imagination purely. 'At last,' he has actually visited the region about which he has read and dreamed and written for forty years, and the result is a book of luxuriant and gorgeous description, such as nobody but Mr. Kingsley could have written, and no one can read without catching something of his enthusiasm. He fairly revels in West Indian fauna and flora. Wherever he goes he sees some insect, or shell, or plant, or flower, or forest-tree, or geological phenomenon worth noting. His knowledge as a naturalist--his imagination as a poet--his skill as a literary artist--all combine to produce a book which is a naturalistic romance, gorgeous with colour, and riotous with enthusiasm on every page. It would be difficult to find a stronger illustration of the difference between 'Eyes and no eyes,' or of the wealth of beauty and æsthetic and devout stimulus that an instructed eye can command. Mr. Kingsley discovers nature for us as well as interprets it, and clothes the earth with a glory that duller eyes only dimly observe. It is difficult to imagine a better preparation for such a journey, or a finer combination of qualifications for describing it. Mr. Hugh Macmillan has great gifts of this character, but he must yield the palm to Mr. Kingsley. Every footstep is on fairyland. His touch opens our eyes, and we see mountain and forest, cliff and glade, shore and sea, full of the chariots and horses of God. If the book is for criticism at all, it is to be criticised as we criticise a picture. From the first departure from Hurst Castle to the return to it, Mr. Kingsley has some unthought-of thing to say, or some undiscovered beauty to point out in common things; the phosphorescent sea suffices for the prelude to his grand prose poem, and the gorgeous vegetation of the West Indian islands furnishes inexhaustible material for its substance. The book is not without its details of personal incident, its snatches of historical reminiscence and of superstitious legend, its sketches of negro life and of romantic adventure, its touches of social and political disquisition; these are skilfully woven together as only Mr. Kingsley could weave them, but they are entirely subordinate to the visions and revels of the rapturous naturalist, his pictures of tropical forests, pitch lakes, mangrove swamps, volcanic mountains, and cultured gardens. Mr. Kingsley spent seven weeks in the island of Trinidad, only glancing at other West Indian islands as the touches of the steamer enabled. His descriptions are therefore almost limited to that island. We are sorely tempted to cull some of the racy anecdotes that Mr. Kingsley tells, and to reproduce some of the superb pictures that he has painted, but we must forbear. We will say only that his science is simply the framework of popular descriptions, that his book is for the multitude, and not so much for natural philosophers, and that from beginning to end it is simply a gorgeous series of pictures, a fairyland of colour and form and wonderful adaptation, a psalm not of life but of nature, a prolonged 'Benedicite,' a companion-book to 'Glaucus,' and to the 'Essay in a Chalk Pit;' only richer in detail, more novel in phenomena, and more gorgeous in colour. The world was as beautiful when he found it, but he has made it more beautiful to our apprehension. His book has excited our enthusiasm almost as much as the scenes which it describes excited his.

_To Sinai and Syene and back, in 1860-61._ By WILLIAM BEAUMONT, Esq. Smith and Elder.

A very fairly written narrative of the author's journey, having the drawback that the writer is slightly given to bad jokes--thus, 'Suli-_man_, the boy of our party,' 'the cam-els are coming,' &c.

The route to Sinai from the wells of Moses was the more eastern one, taken by Robinson, whereby the writer missed the fine Wady Feiran, the Bedouin Paradise, which, however, he afterwards visited on his return. He was admitted to the convent of Sinai by the looped chain; more fortunate than the writer of this notice, who, arriving after sunset, had to sleep at the door in the open air, the archbishop's letter notwithstanding, but was afterwards admitted at sunrise through the postern. Surely Mr. Beaumont is wrong in saying that Tischendorf found his famous Codex at Cairo, and not at Sinai.

We can only say concerning Mr. Beaumont's book, that it is one of those painstaking records of travel which gather together round each locality, most of the important things done, and interesting things said concerning it. It has not grown, it has been made; but it is written with intelligence and commendable accuracy.

_Peeps at the Far East: a Familiar Account of a Visit to India._ By NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D. Strahan and Co.

India is almost as well travelled as Palestine, and a cursory traveller must have great gifts of suggestive imagination and of description to interest us in a book about it. Dr. Macleod does interest us: in addition to the gifts we have named, he has an unfailing geniality and an indomitable optimism, which give a glow of kindly interest to his pages. He went to India on official business in connection with the Missions of the Church of Scotland. Elsewhere he has reported concerning them. In this volume he only incidentally refers to them, chiefly in relation to the genial brotherhood of Christian Ministers and members of all Churches which he experienced. It is a melancholy reflection upon our home religious life that such a sensation of relief and enjoyment in this particular is realized by the traveller in America or India. We hardly know in what a bitter sectarian element we live until we get out of it. Dr. Macleod's broad, healthy, human soul heartily rejoiced in deliverance from it.

Dr. Macleod tells us about Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta--places that we have heard about as often as about Jerusalem. He describes peculiarities of Hindoo life, features of Indian scenery, and the ordinary incidents of Eastern travel; but with an observation so alert, a geniality so bright, a humour so rich, and descriptive powers so lively, that his book has a very pleasant charm; the reader's interest never flags. Bombay is less eastern than Cairo, which Dr. Macleod justly thinks is the most picturesquely oriental of all cities. European insolence to natives, which has borne such bitter fruits, is greatly diminished in India; the Mussulman is, in moral virtue and general tone, superior to the Hindoo; Hindoo villages surpass in poverty and squalor the worst specimens of Irish; English education is doing great things for India--Dr. Macleod was frequently surprised by the familiarity of the natives with our English literature; the Brahmo Somaj lacks an objective basis, and can never, therefore, firmly cohere, or make real progress. A genuine reform movement it must ever be, changing and breaking up, gaining, and losing what it gains; it wants the positive cohesive power which Christianity would give it. Dr. Macleod recounts again, with great power of description and pathos, the story of the Mutiny. In short, this book, which is elegantly got up and profusely illustrated, is full of the manifold charms of high intelligence, generous sympathy, and easy, yet brilliant description. A pleasanter book has not often fallen into our hands.

_The Nile without a Dragoman._ By FREDERICK EDEN. Henry S. King and Co.

Egypt is by no means an economical country to travel in for Europeans, and a Nile dahabeah, which costs from £100 to £200 per month, is an expensive luxury. Dragomans covenant to supply travellers with everything at so much _per diem_, according to numbers. We have known £4 paid, and we have travelled for £1 10s. Mr. Eden determined to dispense with a dragoman, hire a dahabeah of a friend, paying, however, the advertised price demanded, and he accomplished a pleasant voyage of more than four months at a cost of £60 per month. This bright and clever little book tells us how he did it. It does not deal much in antiquities or descriptions, it chiefly narrates experiences; tells us the things that Murray does not tell us. A dragoman is a very pleasant luxury, relieving the traveller of all care and many difficulties, which Mr. Eden had to overcome; but this is the final cause of difficulties, which Mr. Eden proved, although he evinces his utter ignorance of the customs and prejudices of his motley crew. For his racy descriptions of his very pleasant life, and for innumerable touches and impressions of Nile life, we must refer our readers to the volume; it is enough to say, that it scarcely suffers by comparison with that of Lady Duff Gordon.

POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND ART.

_Pauperism: Its Causes and Remedies._ By HENRY FAWCETT, Fellow of Trinity Hall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. Macmillan and Co.

In this very timely book Mr. Fawcett commences the discussion of his subject by depicting, in somewhat gloomy colours, the pauperized state of a large class of our population. This debased condition, he believes, is not a dismal necessity which admits of no remedy, but the fruit of unwise legislation, which has produced and still encourages a disregard of those social virtues of prudence and self-restraint which can alone permanently raise and maintain the social condition of any class in the community. He proceeds to show how powerful was the influence upon our population exerted by the old Poor-law, which was in operation until 1834. The evil results which flow from bad legislation, at that time reached a height which threatened the dissolution of society, and this was averted only by the new Poor-law, which yet has failed to provide a perfect remedy, and in some of its provisions has even a tendency to discourage in our people those qualities from which we may hope for the extinction of pauperism. The practice of outdoor relief to able-bodied paupers is shown to be pernicious, and indeed ruinous in its tendency; and a very shrewd suggestion is made, or rather hinted at, for its abatement. The relief of the poor is now, it is well known, a common charge upon a union of parishes which is under the charge of a board of guardians. Permit this to continue in the case of indoor relief, but provide that outdoor relief should be a charge upon the parish in which the pauper resides. This would no doubt soon lessen the amount of outdoor relief, and would secure its administration only in cases of real and pressing necessity. Against the modern practice of boarding out pauper children, which has been recommended by many kindly and philanthropic persons, a very heavy indictment is drawn, and grave doubt is shown to exist as to its practical operation. Broadly, it may be said, that Mr. Fawcett judges of the administration of relief to the poor mainly according to its ultimate moral effects upon the class to which they belong; because he holds that the existence of a high standard of prudence and self-restraint is the only means by which any class can attain and keep a high social and physical condition. If the working classes of England are taught by the Poor-law and by misdirected charity to abandon providence and self-restraint, no power on earth can permanently improve their position, and every temporary amelioration must be soon lost in a still larger class depressed to the low level existing before the benefit was received. If, on the other hand, the virtues of providence and self-restraint be but sufficiently cultivated, it is difficult to say how high may be the standard of comfort reached by the working classes of our country.

The views we have thus slightly sketched are expanded and enforced with great clearness in the first three chapters of this book, and in the postscript, on the boarding out of pauper children. We should be glad indeed if all our legislators could be compelled to pass an examination in the first half of Mr. Fawcett's little volume, and should hope for the best results from their study of his vigorous and thoughtful sentences. In the remaining four chapters the probable effects upon the condition of the working classes of national education, co-partnership, and co-operation, and an improved land tenure, are carefully examined, and many valuable suggestions are made; but it must be obvious, on Mr. Fawcett's own principles, that except these remedial measures have a direct tendency to produce prudence and self-restraint, they can only afford temporary relief, to be followed by a depression to the previous low condition. This is the great lesson taught by the learned professor, and taught with abundant illustration and convincing argument; and we hold that it is a lesson which our people greatly need to learn.

At the present time, probably, the greatest hindrance to a real improvement in the condition of the working classes is the feeble sentimentality which prevails so widely in modern society, and which finds its natural expression in that maudlin pity which doles out relief alike to idle and industrious, to the vicious and the unfortunate. By this practice, so common both in public and private charity, and which is far more deleterious in systematic and public charity than in private gifts, all the springs of care and prudence are weakened, and even that degree of providence which is admitted as needful to the middle classes, to enable them to maintain their position, is scouted as unnatural and cruel, when urged upon the working classes. Mr. Fawcett is an advanced Liberal, and one of the ablest leaders of the most democratic party in our country. We think it greatly to his honour that he has the courage and honesty so fearlessly to proclaim the true causes of most of the pauperism which exists among us; and we trust his words will be received with all the weight they deserve by that great body of working people who are especially his clients, and whose cause he is ever ready to plead.

Mr. Fawcett's book is written with great clearness and force, and we can hardly fancy any one finding political economy dull in his company. Sometimes, perhaps, the strength of his convictions seems to lead to statements so strong and unqualified as to need some correction, but we fully concur in the main drift of his argument, and recommend his book to the careful study of all interested in the investigation of the causes of pauperism.

_General Outline of the Organization of the Animal Kingdom, and Manual of Comparative Anatomy._ By THOMAS RYMER JONES, F.R.S. John Van Voorst

The fourth edition of Professor T. R. Jones's 'Outline' may be taken as an evidence that his work is still in demand, notwithstanding the formidable rivalry of Professor Rolleston's recent work on the same subject addressed to the same class of readers. Perhaps the less formal and technical style of treatment may be an attraction to some students of comparative anatomy. Men who give themselves to the study of what are called the descriptive sciences, have often had their attention directed to them in the first instance by their pictorial attractions, and they retain a certain license in dealing with these branches of learning which neither instructors nor students of the more exact sciences would permit themselves. Professor R. Jones has taken his full poetical license, and the parts of the work which display it in the highest degree are peculiarly his own. There is no objection to this mode of treatment so long as it does not take off the attention of the learners from the more general and harder parts of the subject. But the comparative anatomy of the whole animal kingdom is so vast that if the author allows himself to run after the descriptions which are of most interest, his presentation of the whole subject is likely to be fragmentary and imperfect.

The previous editions of this work have stood almost alone as popular elementary manuals, and this edition contains very few additions to the former ones--such only, in fact, as have been forced on the author. He has designedly hung in the rearward of the science, and is a collator rather than a critic or an investigator. Thus he cannot resist the claims of the Cælenerata to be ranked as a sub-kingdom, and the adoption of Free and Leuckart's classification has compelled him to transpose the positions of the Anthozoa and Hydrozoa. This, however, is almost his only classificatory innovation. By a convenient conservation he still retains the Cirrepedia as a distinct class, while the Rotifera are placed under the Crustacea. The Brachiopoda are still interposed between the Conchifera and Gasteropoda. The Amphibians are not separated from the Reptilia. These antiquated ideas of classification are to be regretted; but inasmuch as the object of the volume is to describe, rather than to classify, they need not be condemned as erroneous. When treating of the vertebrate classes, the author becomes little more than the interpreter of Professor R. Owen, and we deplore that a theory of the elements of a vertebra which has never been generally adopted by the scientific world should be introduced into a student's book without criticism or comment.

The principal additions which appear in this edition are pictorial, and the new pictures are, for the most part, illustrative of natural history rather than of anatomy. An exception to this is, however, found in the introduction of Mr. Albany Harcock's very instructive delineation of Waldheimia Australis.

An absence of dogmatism in dealing with the natural sciences is, for some reasons, commendable, but all instructional works must be dogmatic. To place two quite contradictory descriptions taken from two authors side by side, without aiding the student to determine in any way which is the truthful one, is quite inexcusable, and yet this is precisely what is done with regard to Dugè's and Dr. Williams's descriptions and theories of the functions of the organs of the earth-worm. Old errors are still retained in this new edition. Thus the description of the generative system of the common snail is repeated word for word from the old edition, although the views there taken are certainly wrong.

We have freely remarked on the shortcomings of the work, but with all its faults it has been long known as a very interesting and popular treatise on a subject which is very difficult to treat as a whole, and we do not doubt it will retain its popularity in its present form.

_Wonders of the Human Body._ From the French of A. Le Pileur. Blackie and Son.

This is a work on human anatomy and physiology so treated as to form an easy, familiar, and interesting book of study for the public of both sexes. It is not of any special 'wonders,' but of the whole structure of the body, _minus_ those parts of anatomy which are unfit for the young, of which the book treats. No doubt the whole body is a world of wonder, and therefore the title is allowable, and was meant to be attractive, but it is a little liable to mislead. This is, indeed, a painstaking and systematic description of the structure and functions of all the anatomical elements and complex organs throughout the body, illustrated by good clear diagrammatic drawings. It is by no means so charming in its style as Professor Huxley's little volume on the same subject, but it is more equable in the attention it bestows on the several parts of the body, and so far is better suited for the kind of general school instruction for which we assume it is intended.

POETRY, FICTION, AND BELLES LETTRES.

_The Coming Race._ William Blackwood and Sons.

The author of 'The Coming Race' treads in the steps of the author of 'Gulliver,' _haud passibus æquis_, indeed, but with an individuality and a power that are altogether his own, and with a geniality in the delicate and subdued irony of his satire that makes his book as pleasant as it is clever. In competent hands, no form of allegory so lends itself to the castigation of the follies of an age, or to the embodiment of previsions and prognostications. It constitutes a little literature of its own, which boasts of some remarkable productions.

'The Coming Race' inhabit a subterranean world, into which the author was precipitated while at the bottom of a mine; and in the inhabitants thereof we are led to contemplate the good and evil of certain social theories and scientific speculations realized in actual result. There is no savage castigation of vices, nor cynical delineation of abortions, but a quiet, keen, playful exhibition of possible good and probable evil; of things to be desired and of things to be shunned. The author is too serious for ridicule, and too sly for gravity. His tone is that of a good-natured optimism, with just a touch of banter. Probably, he himself would find it difficult to balance the exact gain or loss of the changes he conceives. It is difficult, indeed, to determine when he is indulging in day-dreams, when in subtle satire. He is a citizen of the American Republic, and as such is in the best subjective condition for appreciating the unconventional. In this also there is a touch of sly satire. He realizes in his pallid world what Brother Jonathan boasts so much about, the actual apotheosis of republican liberalism, social equality, and religious and scientific knowledge. We cannot even indicate the vast variety of problems that in these several departments find their solution. We can only, in a loose way, mention a few of the phenomena of life in the nether world. Deprived of solar light, it is compensated by science, and innumerable lamps constitute perpetual day, but of a pale hue. Its strange flora and fauna are described. Its inhabitants are a giant race, perfected through long processes of natural selection, and advanced to unthought-of possibilities of scientific culture. They have attained to a perfect practical knowledge of mesmeric force or 'vril;' a tube in the hands of a child is charged with an agency so terrible that it would annihilate an army, and yet so delicate and subtle that it soothes a nervous impatience--a force so perfect that it cannot be used in strife. Absolute equality, social harmony, and tranquil happiness are not only the privileges, they are necessary conditions of social existence; leisurely enjoyment, consummate knowledge, virtue cultured into an instinct, are its natural causes. Mechanism has been so perfected that automaton figures render all necessary domestic service, and locomotion is equally facile on the earth, in the water, or through the air. Of course, their laws are perfect; government is a high social duty from which men shrink, save as moral obligation constrains, self-seeking being annihilated. Wise provision against over-population is made by regulations for emigration. The women are bigger and cleverer than the men, having greater power over the mysterious 'vril;' and in love matters have men's privilege of 'speaking first,' love being of more importance to women than to men. Democratic government--the government, that is, of the most ignorant--is denounced as superlative folly--Koom-Posh; and the utmost scorn is poured upon our legislation, war, and social habits, as the absurdities of a barbarous age and people. Learned disquisitions on language, literature, and the arts suffice to show, at any rate, the accomplishments of the writer: and the tender susceptibilities of which the hero was the victim from the Vril-ya women supply a pleasant touch of humanity. The people, in short, have attained a development which is as far ahead of ours, as ours is of our anthropoid ancestors. They have penetrated the chief secrets of nature, and almost got rid of all human ills. Theirs is a paradise of physical, scientific, social, and moral perfection; wealth is disliked, power is shunned, crime is unknown, and force is unnecessary. But somehow the general result is unsatisfactory and melancholy. The book is an able and remarkable one. Much wisdom, as well as much learning, is veiled under its ingenious allegory; the _reductio ad absurdum_ is suggested with exquisite subtlety. It is one of the cleverest satires of its class.

_The Songstresses of Scotland._ By SARAH TYTLER and J. L. WATSON. Strahan and Co.

Notwithstanding some slight tendency in two or three of these sketches to attempt a story when there is no story to tell, this is as charming a book of its class as we remember to have read. A single ballad sometimes gives fame, as, for example, the 'Werena my Heart Licht' of Lady Grisell Baillie; but then all that we care to know about its author may be told in a paragraph. With others, however, it is different. Song-writers like Mrs. Cockburn, Lady Ann Barnard, and the Countess of Nairn, are so much more than song-writers that they amply deserve the separate biography which has already been produced of the latter, and which, we are glad to learn, is being prepared of the former. Scotch ballads, like Scotch whisky, have their own peculiar flavour, and it has a special charm for Englishmen. We should be ashamed to have to confess how many mediocre verses in poetry, and dialogues in novels, delight us simply in virtue of their Scottish dialect. There are Scotch ballads, however, that, in virtue of their intrinsic merits, will live for aye. The biographies which the industry and skill of Miss Tytler and Miss Watson have here supplied are those of Lady Grisell Baillie (1665-1746), author of 'Werena my Heart Licht,' immortal chiefly in virtue of its single refrain, 'And werena my heart licht I wad dee;' Jean Adam (1710-1765), author of 'There is nae Luck about the House,' who was a pedlar; Mrs. Cockburn (1712-1794), author of 'The Flowers of the Forest;' Miss Jean Elliot (1727-1805), author of another 'The Flowers of the Forest;' Miss Susanna Blamire (1747-1794), author of 'What ails this Heart of Mine,' and 'Ye shall walk in silk attire,' &c.; Jean Glover (1758-1801), author of 'O'er the Muir among the Heather;' Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton (1758-1816), author of 'My ain Fireside;' Lady Ann Barnard (1750-1825), author of 'Auld Robin Gray;' Baroness Nairne (1762-1851), author of 'The Land o' the Leal,' 'Caller Herring,' 'The Laird o' Cockpen,' &c.; and Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), author of 'Woo'd and Married and a',' 'Saw ye Johnny Comin,' &c. A more charming miscellany of gentle thought and lyric sweetness it would be difficult to find. As might be expected with woman's songs, there is but little of the national and political fierceness that inspires so many of the Scotch ballads of the other sex. Even the Jacobite songs of Lady Nairne are so gentle and winsome that the stoutest old Hanoverian Whig might easily sing them. But the chief charm of the book is the sketch of the delicious old lady, Mrs. Cockburn, the friend of Allan Ramsay, Burns, and Scott, and surely the most vivacious, witty, and optimist octogenarian that ever lived. She was one of the queens of Edinburgh society, and the authoresses have had access to her letters, which Walter Scott so highly prized, and which for gossiping fulness, vivacious interest, intellectual sparkle, and versatile cleverness, can hardly be surpassed. She was the life and soul of the social life which she helped to mould. We are glad to learn that a biography of this clever and beautiful old lady is in preparation. Meanwhile we commend the 'Songstresses of Scotland' as a delightful book. Everything that Miss Tytler touches she adorns, and she has here hit upon a genial and interesting theme.

_Arber's English. Reprints._--_Tottel's Miscellany, 1550_; _Thomas Lever's Sermons, 1550_; _William Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, 1587_; _The First Printed English New Testament_. Translated by WILLIAM TYNDALE. Photo-lithographed from the Unique Fragment now in the Grenville Collection, British Museum. London: 5 Queen-square, Bloomsbury.

Mr. Arber continues his munificent and inestimable work with increasing efficiency, and we infer with increasing encouragement. Certainly no attempt to bring the curiosities and treasures of our early English literature within the reach of the very poorest student and the common reader is at all comparable to it. For a shilling may be purchased copies of precious treasures which wealth could not buy.

'Tottel's Miscellany' is the first known collection of English verse, the progenitor of the countless volumes which now load our drawing-room tables, and defy criticism. Tottel's collection includes poems by the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Nicholas Grimald, and ninety-five by 'uncertain authors.' Either our forefathers three centuries ago had very contracted ideas about literature, or it was more affluent than we suppose--for we find William Webbe, in his 'Discourse of English Poetrie,' thus complaining of a tribulation which we thought was peculiar to modern reviewers. 'Among the innumerable sortes of Englyshe bookes, and infinite fardles of printed pamphlets, wherewith thys Countrey is pestered, all shoppes stuffed, and euery study furnished; the greatest part, I thinke in any one kinde, are such as are either meere Poeticall, or which tende in some respecte (as either in matter or forme) to Poetry.' Mr. Arber has the genuine bibliophilist's afflatus: the patience with which he picks up bits of bibliographical information, and the caution and skill with which he uses it, are perfect. 'Tottel's Miscellany' was very popular in its day.

Lever was Fellow, Preacher, and Master of St. John's College, Cambridge; Pastor in exile of the English Church at Aarau; Prebend of Durham Cathedral, and Master of Sherburn Hospital. He was, as Mr. Arber terms him, one of the 'spiritual children' of the Reformation, the associate of Latimer, Bradford, and Knox. These three sermons, after the manner of the times, deal with public and passing topics, manners, and customs, and are valuable not only as part of the religious but as part of the domestic history of their day. Lever was a man of Latimer's type--superlatively faithful and fearless.

Webbe's 'Discourse of English Poetrie' is a reprint of a very rare book, only two copies of it being known to exist. Webbe was a Cambridge graduate, and a very accomplished, modest, and able man. Singularly his critique on English poetry was almost synchronous with the greater work of Puttenham, on 'the Arte of English Poesie,' which Mr. Arber has already reprinted in this series. Webbe's discourse contains a good deal of shrewd penetrating criticism. He was well acquainted with the classical poets, and made experiments in translation, with a view of naturalizing classical feet.

The facsimile of the fragment of Tyndale's 'First Printed English New Testament' is a great literary, as well as religious curiosity. Well may Mr. Arber speak of the reverence, almost the awe, with which he offers the 'photographic likeness of a priceless gem in English literature,' the progenitor of the millions of English Scriptures. Mr. Arber accompanies the work with a very extensive and multifarious bibliography, giving an account of Tyndale and Roy, and of the first two editions of the English New Testament; and discussing the question whether Tyndale's quarto was a translation of Luther's German version. It is a perfect luxury to read the scholarly, modest, and painstaking bibliography of Mr. Arber. We earnestly direct attention to his invaluable labours.

_The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century._ By WILLIAM FORSYTH, M.A., Q.C. John Murray.

Mr. Forsyth's book hardly falls within the scope of criticism. Gossip is scarcely amenable to the laws of art, and Mr. Forsyth's research is not wide enough, nor are his reflections profound enough to deserve any other description. It is, however, very pleasant gossip, and will both amuse and instruct, even if it amuses rather more than it instructs. The eighteenth century has now passed into the region of history, and we study it with the same merely historical interest with which we study the fifteenth. We read the books of the eighteenth century as we read the classics--not as we read the authors who reflect our own ideas, and manners. Fielding is perhaps now less read than at any other time, and chiefly by literary men in the way of their profession, or by historical students. We would forgive Mr. Forsyth the admitted defects of his book, if it did anything to arrest the progress of this classical oblivion. That, however, does not seem to be Mr. Forsyth's intention. He seems to have been a good deal surprised when he found, in the course of his studies, that he had got into such disreputable company, and was correspondingly disgusted. Much of the book is accordingly occupied with criticism, in which the author is very hard on the immoral novelists, who only aimed at describing the times as they were. Mr. Forsyth does not maintain that they were unfaithful to the reality, and therefore criticises the age rather than the books which mirrored it. But that kind of criticism belongs to an almost extinct school.

_The Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini._ Vol. VI. Critical and Literary. Smith, Elder, and Co.

The critical and literary writings of Mr. Mazzini are not purely literary, and their criticism is not disinterested. The prophetic function and the critical are not quite compatible, and Mr. Mazzini is a prophet of the Old Testament order, though unhappily with the fate of Cassandra. The political passion burns too hotly in him to admit of the coexistence of that pure critical instinct which has no enthusiasms, and which maintains its impartiality by holding aloof from affairs. Accordingly the objects of his admiration belong to the militant class in literature; he subordinates Homer to Dante, Goethe to Byron, and, we suppose, Fielding to George Sand. If he would not exactly define genius as the spirit of revolt, he would say that sympathy with the active movements of humanity is an essential constituent of it. An organ for apprehending thought as such, ideas apart from their application, he does not seem to possess. The purely spiritual side of life, the purely metaphysical side of thought, are blanks to him; yet in even the most imperfect state of society, and the most urgently needing reformation, these will always form a large part of the total life of humanity. He is, in short, the high-priest of the revolution, and grants absolution only to votaries at that shrine. The essays in the present volume are conceived in this spirit, and are less criticisms than impassioned orations, delivered with crusading fervour. That on George Sand is a discourse on the 'life of Genius,' its sorrows, aspirations, and ineradicable melancholy. That on Goethe is a denunciation of political inaction and the worship of indifference; while the greatness of Lamennais is recognised only when he ceased to be a thinker, and took to abortive action. Putting aside their absence of critical disinterestedness, and therefore of critical value, these essays are full of eloquence and genuine enthusiasm. They may be called the evangel of that section of the party of action which aspires to a great democracy of the future--a transformation that shall be more than political, more than social, that shall be almost theocratic.

_The Orations of Cicero against Catiline; with Notes, &c._ Translated from the German of Karl Halm, with many additions. By A. S. WILKINS, M.A. Macmillan and Co. 1871.

_A Complete Dictionary to Cæsar's Gallic War._ By A. CREAK, M.A. Hodder and Stoughton. 1870.

The first-mentioned of these works is, we think, the best school-book that has ever come under our notice. The excellence of the original is sufficiently guaranteed, by its appearing in Haupt and Sauppe's series, and its practical usefulness fully established by the sale of seven editions in the course of a few years. But we do not hesitate to affirm that the English edition is rendered far superior to the original by the extensive additions of Professor Wilkins, which bear ample testimony, not simply to his varied critical and literary acquirements, but also to the correctness of his judgment respecting the difficulties and wants of the generality of students. There is scarcely a note in the original to which important additions have not been made by the editor. Among the most valuable helps to the English student are the constant reference to 'Mommsen's History,' 'Ramsay's Antiquities,' and 'Madvig's Grammar.' The etymological notes by the translator often contain, within a narrow compass, the substance of the views of Curtius, Schleicher, or Corsen on the subject. More advanced students are directed for further information to the works of Bekker, Drumann, Nägelsbach, Arnold, Niebuhr, Merivale, and Forsyth. In fact, no source of illustration has escaped the editor, not even essays in the _Rheinisches Museum_ and the _Fortnightly Review_. Not the least valuable contribution is the excellent analysis of the four orations, enabling the student to follow the argument at every step. We cannot speak too highly of this little volume. It is our candid opinion that here the junior student will lack nothing, and that the mature scholar may learn much. We have the greatest satisfaction in recommending it to all in search of an efficient help in studying the Catiline Orations.

The second book is quite an elementary work, somewhat on the plan of our Teutonic neighbours. The author's aim is twofold; to provide the youthful learner with a better dictionary for the reading of Cæsar, by delivering him from the bewilderment of a large one and the meagreness of a small one, and to secure from the very commencement idiomatic modes of translation. The latter is kept in view all through the work, and is the sole object of the two appendices, the first of which contains 116 idiomatic phrases, with their English equivalents; and the second, hints on translation into English. Mr. Creak very rightly maintains that a lesson in Latin translation should also be one in English composition. This work, though small and elementary, is not unimportant. It aims at correcting one great defect of most of the current school-books, and exhibits the ability of a scholar, combined with the experience of a teacher. We heartily wish the author success in his effort to shorten the tedious and cumbrous modes of instruction prevalent in our best institutions.

_Homer--Odyssey._ Books I--XII. By W. W. MERRY, M.A. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

School-books, in almost every department of literature, seem to be making their appearance in battalions. There are at present several rival series, which travel over exactly the same classical ground. The volume before us belongs to the Clarendon Press series, and is the precursor of a larger work on the same subject. This will probably account for the disappointing brevity of the notes and illustrations. The materials for a good edition of the 'Odyssey' are abundant, consisting of elaborate works treating of every topic connected with this ancient poem, as well as of excellent commentaries. The notes given by Mr. Merry are so brief and elementary as to convey but little idea of the labours of his predecessors. We do not believe in a school-book being overladen with explanatory matter or piled up with references to authorities, which the schoolboy will be probably unable and certainly unwilling to consult; but we do think that every annotated classical book should contain ample references to our best elementary books on grammar, antiquities, and history; the absence of which is in our opinion a serious drawback to the present edition. Mr. Merry has followed in the main the text of La Roche. The brief but excellent introduction is adapted from the pamphlet of Thomaszewski. The illustrated matter contains a sketch of the principal Homeric forms, the metre of Homer, Homeric syntax, and notes for which the commentaries of Nitzsch, Ameis, and Crusius have been consulted. The notes, as far as they go, are clear, precise, pertinent, judicious, and seem to be on the same plan, and scarcely more extensive than those on the first six books of the Iliad, in the 'Annotated Oxford Pocket Classics.'

_The Georgics of Virgil._ Translated by P. D. BLACKMORE, M.A. Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.

Mr. Blackmore is not only one of the best of novelists and gardeners, he is also a complete scholar and a charming poet. This translation of the 'Georgics' is a most remarkable achievement; the full significance of Virgil's words is almost always perceptible in the rendering, notwithstanding the exigencies of rhyme. We are by no means of opinion that the decasyllabic couplet is a fit metre for Virgil; that elegant Roman was as nearly as possible a Tennyson, and his tricks of versification can be admirably echoed in Tennysonian blank verse. Mr. Blackmore has more force and a stronger idiosyncrasy than Virgil had; hence, in the translation we think more of the English than of the Roman poet. To such a style of translation we do not object; we read our Virgil with a difference, with a new flavour, in fact. Just in the same way did Dryden turn Horace into a nobler form when he wrote,

'Not heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been has been, and I have had my hour.'

If we mistake not, Mr. Blackmore himself remarks somewhere, that the meaning of the New Testament comes out better in English than it possibly could in Greek; similarly, we prefer Blackmore's 'Georgics' to Virgil's. As we have here no space for anything like critical discussion, we prefer to quote the beautiful lines with which the translator apologises for his temerity.

'Indulgence have ye for a gardener's dream
(A man with native melody unblest)!
How patient toil and love that does its best,
Clouds though they be, may follow the sunbeam.

'And in this waning of poetic day,
With all so misty, moonlit, and grotesque,
'Tis sweet to quit that medley picturesque,
And chase the sunset of a clearer ray.

'Too well I know, by fruitless error taught,
How latent beauty hath fallacious clues,
How difficult to catch, how quick to lose
The mirage of imaginative thought.

'And harder still to make that vision bear
The loose refraction of a modern tongue,
To render sight to hearing, old to young,
And fix my purview on an English ear.

'Too well I know, by gardener's hopes misled,
How cheap are things which long have cost me dear;
And though I fail to graft the poet here,
No wilding branches may I flaunt instead.

'But yonder, lo, my amethysts and gold,
So please you--grapes and apricots--constrain
These more accustomed hands; unless ye deign
To tend with me the kine and beeves of old.'

The pregnant felicity of this prelude will show better than any criticism Mr. Blackmore's poetic capacity.

_Ancient Classics for English Readers. The Commentaries of Cæsar._ By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. _Horace._ By THEODORE MARTIN. _Æschylus._ By REGINALD S. COPLESTON. _Xenophon._ By Sir ALEXANDER GRANT. Edited by Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. Blackwood and Sons.

This is a brilliant idea of Mr. Collins; and his collaborateurs have well discharged their duty. It is not only the English reader who will be thankful to Messrs. Trollope, Martin, Swayne, Grant, and Collins, but all young students, who may now grapple with portions of those great classics with more zest and profit after thus obtaining a comprehensive view of the whole works which they are compelled often to nibble at in sublime unconsciousness of their general purport or spirit. Mr. Trollope has told the wondrous story of Cæsar as far as his Commentaries reveal it, and has illustrated it throughout with geographical exposition, historical parallel, and realistic art. Bright, stirring bits of description, curt despatches, stunning condensations of campaigns into a few pages or sentences, are given in the mighty Cæsar's own words, and the story is told with grace and simplicity in nervous clear English by one of the most popular writers of the day. Mr. Martin has graduated with high honour in the school of Classical Translation before attempting this difficult task. We must confess to great satisfaction with his dainty and delicate work. He has given us a sketch of the career of Horace, and by skilful quotation has made him tell the story of his youth, of his high military career, of his relation to Mæcenas, of his health, and his tastes, of his love-passages, of his friendships, and of his religious ideas. Mr. Martin has gracefully introduced Professor Conington's translations where he preferred them to his own. Lord Lytton has not met with equal favour at his hand, though his criticisms are not unfrequently referred to.

If our readers will try and conceive what 'Hamlet' or the 'Revolt of Islam' would look like if described to some younger civilization in some language of the future, they will have an idea of the difficulty of reproducing the dramas of the ancient tragedians in the shape of a mere account of them in prose. It is not only that the exquisite art of the originals evaporates in the process, but the poetry goes, and only the great conceptions remain; even the beliefs of the ancient world lose their simplicity in transmission. But it was hardly necessary for Mr. Reginald Copleston to be so misleading as to speak of the 'gloomy deities which belong to the sphere of conscience and moral responsibility,' or to find in the Greek mythology such lessons as the 'deep and dreadful responsibility of man, the possibility of restoration from sin to purity, and the overruling providence of a supreme Creator.' Some of these truths are the offspring of Roman law, others are the growth of Christianity, but they are all modern. Aristotle certainly knew nothing of them, and anyone who carried such associations into his reading of the 'Prometheus' would find his ideas of it vitiated by a fundamental misconception. Except that Mr. Copleston's sentences are mostly halting and broken-backed, his account of the plays is otherwise good and accurate.

'Xenophon' is the father of military history, of romance, and of Boswelliana. He is less appreciated than 'Herodotus,' but is equally vivacious and interesting. We do not think, therefore, that his 'chief service to modern readers consists in the amount of information he has preserved.' There is more in his pictures of contemporary life than this. Sir A. Grant has done his work well, and 'Xenophon' ought thereby to be more attractive to English readers than he has been. We could have wished for a somewhat fuller picture of his life and times, but the exigencies of space are imperative.