press surprise at being asked whether he had American except by the United Statesese
paid for admission to a Mexican fandango term of "greaser." There is, moreover, a fine
"when he had his six-shooter on." Four self-reliance in the "boys, a determination to
nephews of the author of Tom Brown's School- make the best of everything, a resolve never
days sought their fortune in that State as to look back, and even to believe after being
sheep-men," and, though they have not yet a few hours in New York that it is bound
found it, their enterprise, steadiness, and con- in time to "lick London all to nothing."
tagious energy bid fair to land them among All of this is very entertaining. At the
the "prominent citizens" of San Antonio. same time the intending immigrant will learn
In a Preface, penned with characteristic man- from the "boys" far more honestly than
liness, Mr. Hughes relates the circumstances he can from the gaudy covered, but ex-
under which "his boys" embarked on this tremely mendacious, pamphlets which the
enterprise, and leaves them to tell their own agents of land and railway companies scatter
story in the letters written to him and to their broadcast throughout Europe what kind of
father and sister, assuring us that, except for life he may reckon on, what work he must
the connecting notes added here and there, do, what fare he will receive, and what
the SS. have been printed just as they were wages he can or cannot earn. There is
received. This editorial statement was scarcely little, except their own occasional misfortunes,
requisite, for every page of the book bears concealed. We hear when the fence was
the impress of a boyish hand. Whether it is completed, how the new thatch is working,
"Willy," "Chico,"
"Doctor," or "Tim" that the well has run dry, how the bread-
who is writing, we have before us a high- baking experiment turned out, what they got
spirited, fine-principled lad, full of life and for the scrub in San Antonio, and that the
hope, and fresh from the atmosphere of Marl- collie had pupped-mother and family doing
borough, Cheltenham, or Westminster. It is as well as could be expected. The picture
often a mistaken kindness to publish such they paint is not an idyllic one. It is a
boyish effusions, for, like the poems with rough, hard life, among rough men, to extract
which so many of us began the life literary, a fortune out of soil which costs £20 the
they are regarded by the time middle age is 648 acres, and one not to be lightly adopted by
reached as youthful follies, which are sedu- a lad who longs for the flesh-pots of London.
lously hidden behind the more presentable Mr. Hughes-we note has little to say about
volumes on the library shelves. The young Rugby in this volume. Chaucer and some
Hugheses and their cousin have, however, no romantic sort of mixture of public school
reason to be ashamed of their bookish co-traditions, with the prosaic struggle to raise
partnery. It is not a high-class work; but it
is not intended to be anything more than a
description of how they fared in first facing
the world, and is not unworthy of the name
they bear. It is just such a book as those
situated as they were six years ago will
gladly welcome, for there are no after-thoughts
in it. Everything is set down as it occurred;
and, though we might have been better
pleased had they been less chary of the
family feelings by concealing some of their
failures, the motive is so good that one can-
not but admire the cheery disposition which
runs through this narrative of how four
English boys carved out independence for
themselves with the aid of less capital than
a year at Oxford is supposed to demand.
Like Mr. Aldridge, they were graziers on a
ranch-with a final e-but, unlike him, they
devoted themselves to the humbler speciality
of sheep, and, on the whole, were fairly pros-
perous. Their book is indeed the evolution
of a ranchman. Beginning with letters
home in which everything is new to the
inexperienced travellers, and when their
vocabulary smacks of the public school boy,
it is amusing to notice how gradually the
argot of Marlborough and Westminster is
replaced by that of the region in which they
are settled. Fowls become "chickens,
treacle "molasses," aristocratic "high toned,"
and by Jove "great Scott." The young
ranchmen cease to think-they ́ 66
"mighty'
is the favourite adjective; and
instead of getting the advantage in a "trade"
they congratulate themselves on having "the
bulge" on the other party to the bargain.
They do not shoot, but "lead" an animal;
do not meet with luck, but "strike" it; and
though Cousin Willie does talk of "learning
Mexican"-by which, of course, he means
Spanish-he

bread out of the cold soil of a Tennesseean
plateau, proved incompatible. Yet, after all,
it is questionable whether it is not better to
toil in the sun and lie on clay floors for the
pleasure of being able to pen this sentence-
at p. 187 of "Chico's " progress :-
"I spend all my spare time now looking out of
the windows in the new house. It gives the
country quite a new aspect, somehow, looking
at it through a window, and makes one feel
respectable, not to say grand. I must really
invest in a top hat now, to be in keeping with

the ranche."

66

Another stage of respectability is marked by
one of them" shaving every week;" but even
Cousin Tim, long before he has attained that
distinction, and is working as
""
hired man
to another rancher, is able to write that "it's
considerably harder than driving a quill in
Mark Lane, but I wouldn't exchange lives
for a good deal." This is the key-note to the
entire correspondence, which Mr. Hughes has
rendered a service to his countrymen by pub-
lishing; though we may regret that neither he
nor his nephews can find room for their enter-
prise within the wide-stretching colonies of
Great Britain.

ROBERT BROWN.

The Institutes of the Law of Nations: a Trea-
tise of the Jural Relations of Separate
Political Communities. By James Lorimer.
""
guess; In 2 vols. (Blackwood.)

"I CANNOT doubt," says Prof. Lorimer, giving
kindly yet, as we hope, vain encouragement
to Englishmen,

"that a generation of jurists who have had the
courage to abandon the long-cherished distinc-
tion between law and equity will find their
way by the ordinary means of subjective and
objective induction back to the path of ethical
scorns to refer to the Hispano-consciousness-what we in Scotland call 'Com-

mon Sense-by which the rest of mankind have been led to the fountain of nature." He has himself laboured hard to bring us back to nature. Rather more than ten years ago he wrote his Institutes of Law to demonstrate the inseparable relation between jurisprudence and ethics. The principles then laid down he now applies to the law of nations, which he defines and expounds as the law of nature realised in the relations of separate nations. In his opinion, jurists since the time of Vattel have, with a few recent exceptions, been drifting farther and farther away from truth. They have divorced law from ethics. They have abandoned all absolute and necessary standards. They even speak with disrespect of the general scheme of the universe. While recognising that the empirical method (by which he means the historical method) has a legitimate function in helping us to discover natural laws, Prof. Lorimer seeks to restore to his science something of its ancient dignity, and, by finding for it a deeper foundation than comity or convention, to place it once more in advance of, instead of behind, the age.

There is a peculiar difficulty in dealing with his work. Unless his general conception of law be accepted as true, one is excited to opposition in every chapter, and is apt to undervalue the independent thought and the wide knowledge which it displays. There are, indeed, some resting-places where he comes from the clouds; and to many readers, dazed by the law of nature, these will seem the best parts of the book. After a chapter on treaties, in which we are told "that there is no such thing as a purely conventional law, and a treaty can no more create a right than it can create a man," there is a sense of relief in coming to an interesting account of the literature of legation and of the history of the consular office. Some amusing extracts from Callière's Manière de négocier avec les Souverains give the reader fresh strength to face Prof. Lorimer's contemptuous treatment of jurists who view the extradition of criminals as a matter of comity, not of right, and who do not treat private international law as a branch of the science of nature. A certain vehemence which characterises his style gives refreshing colour to what would otherwise be a dreary picture, but leads him to speak of his opponents in terms neither discriminating nor tolerant. It is hard to believe that he Las understood them when he tells us that their refusal to treat State recognition as a matter of absolute right and duty is a proof of deficiency in scientific insight or in precision of thought or language. Such are the hard words used by one who speaks of the general scheme of the universe. Some years ago Prof. Lorimer regretted that an Adam Smith had not appeared to place politics and jurisprudence on a scientific basis. But had he appeared he would have discussed with the temperate reason of the great economist the opinions of those from whom he differed.

Is not the duty of forbearance peculiarly incumbent on the a priori jurist, seeing that he cannot be met with argument? To show that his theory is unreasonable would be useless, for it claims a deeper foundation than reason itself. Belief in the law of nature is really a matter of temperament. Prof. Lorimer himself, both here and in his former

66

work, treats the basis of law as a thing
beyond discussion. "Law," he said, with
the prudence and the solemnity of a theo-
logian, comes out of mystery just as it goes
into mystery." Precluded from argument,
one can only wonder that anyone who has
the courage to assume the law of nature
should make so little use of it. When Prof.
Lorimer comes out of mystery, and deals
specifically with the rules of international
law, if we allow for an inevitable difference
in phraseology, we find that his tests and
results are practically those of writers (Mr.
Hall, for instance) who think that the law
of nature has nothing to do with the subject.
The duty of recognition, he tells us, is deter-
mined by the interests of the recognising
State, and the recognising State is the judge
of what its own interests are. On the same
principle are determined the duties of inter-
vention and of neutrality; and these three
doctrines-recognition, intervention, and neu-
trality-constitute, he says, the corpus juris
inter gentes. What has the law of nature
done but introduce the word duty? But the
Professor goes farther, and says that juris-
prudence is concerned not only with discover-
ing the principles of law, but with explaining
how laws can be improved. The uncertain
nature of international law does undoubtedly
place the jurist in this peculiar position, that
in order to determine the existence of an
international rule of conduct he will often
have to enquire into its efficacy. For its
efficacy or inefficacy will be strong proof that
it is or is not a rule of international law.
When he goes beyond this, and preaches
better laws, he speaks no longer as a jurist.
He is like an historian using his historical
knowledge to advocate a republic, or like a
political economist denouncing the Factory
Acts. Therefore, whenever Prof. Lorimer DR. HUEFFER's new volume is another example
speaks as a reformer, when he condemns the of the modern abuse of reprinting magazine
Foreign Enlistment Acts, when he closes his articles in book-form. The author himself,
treatise with a reprint of his essay on the for- in the Preface, not only admits the abuse, and
mation of an international parliament, inter- deplores it, but resigns himself to it, declaring
esting and welcome as the essay is, he has that." books, in the proper sense of the word
quitted his subject, and is only a witness, —that is, organisms developed from a central
whose legal training gives value to his evi-idea-are in consequence becoming rarer and
dence. In strictness, his subject is limited
to a statement of existing usages, and an
estimate of the strength of public opinion
which enforces them. The jurist, as jurist,
must take Lady Teazle's advice, and leave
honour out of the argument.

which is also confessedly "at variance both after fact, with no critical observation, and
with dogma and usage," that the author can apparently with the sole object of chatting,
make no distinction between munitions of of giving either short descriptions or bio-
war and ordinary commodities. Strangely graphical sketches of eminent persons, of
enough, he promises a fuller discussion both telling enough anecdotes to fill a month's
of blockade and of contraband, and, so far as literary gossip in a dozen weeklies-and
we can see, forgets to give it. He makes some nothing more. Thus, when he speaks of
amends, however, by setting out in an Ap- Carducci, we would require more knowledge
pendix, which occupies half the second of his poems and of his position in our con-
volume, a number of useful Acts and docu- temporary literature, and less twaddle about
ments-among others the United States' in- what the Queen of Italy thinks of him.
structions for armies in the field, a report of Again, in the Troubadour article, we would
the Brussels Conference of 1874, the Geneva do away with Arnaut Daniel's Life, thrust in
Convention of 1864, and some documents of with the excuse that he is considered the
the Institute of International Law. Un-inventor of the "sestina" (which, as a Life,
fortunately, he has entrusted the drawing up is far less interesting than those of many
of a list of writers on international law to other Troubadours: Bertrand de Born, Peire
M. Ernest Nys, who has not done it very Vidal, &c.), and learn something more about
well. Though the list seems intended to be the question whether certain metrical forms of
fairly complete, there are omitted the names the South are of Provençal or Italian origin-
of Bar, Calvo, Field, Hall, Laurent, Philli- which still causes much discussion among our
more, Stowell, Twiss, and Westlake; and yet Italian Professors of Provençal Literature, who,
Cousin finds a place.
by-the-by, are numerous, notwithstanding the
author's assertion that Mussafia (a Dalmatian)
is the only "Italian writer of eminence who
could be cited." We omit many other
instances where useless gossip occupies the
place of healthy criticism, and come to the
opening article, on "The Poets of Young
Italy," which by its position, and its having
contributed to give the title to the book, ought
to be the most important.

Still, when all deductions are made, Prof. Lorimer's work is welcome. If it has not the scientific character which it claims, it is, at any rate, an interesting treatise on international conduct, from the pen of an able writer, who has wide interests, decided opinions, and a command of vigorous language. He regrets that men of first-rate ability have not applied themselves consistently to international law; and his readers will regret that, led away by an old and barren verbal philosophy, he himself has served it less well than he could have done.

G. P. MACDONELL.

Italian and other Studies. By Francis
Hueffer. (Elliot Stock.)

rarer in our literature, and collections of
essays take their place." In that case les
livres s'en vont would be, alas! too true, and
the prospect of a literature almost exclusively
composed of books in the style of the one we
are reviewing would be sad beyond words.
However, let us be less pessimistic, and con-
sole ourselves with the existence of many
excellent books in which essays, though they
may have appeared at odd times in different
magazines, have been yet thought out as so
many links of a plan, and, if not as different
exemplifications of some particular theory, at
least with a leading thought running through
them all, and stringing them together.

Unfortunately, this is not the case; and it strikes an Italian as the work of a man who is not thoroughly acquainted with the language (or else he could not find Praga's verse less harmonious than Carducci's), and who is badly informed about the relative merit and position of our contemporary poets. Thus he has not understood the real importance of Emilio Praga's poems, and seems to consider him as a fellow-worker, and not as the precursor, of Stecchetti. Praga belonged to that literary bohéme in Milan which, about the sixties, proposed to present the new nation with a new poetry-not only modernly realistic in thought, but also in form. He and Boito and Cammerana and others wrote serious lyrics in popular language-viz., as it is spoken-in opposition to the conventional style which has been for centuries one of the banes of Italian poetry. Now, Stecchetti, belonging to the same school, found the way paved before him; and, appearing about fifteen years later with a finer lyrical flow and a greater perfection of form, received not only more attention, but also much of the applause due to that earlier Milanese movement which is partly misunderstood by Dr. Hueffer. Again, he has not in the least understood Carducci's importance, and says he does not "in any way differ from the style of Monti and Manzoni." This shows how the author merely considers their common use of classical subjects, without observing the great difference which lies between the pseudo-classic feeling of all Italian poetry from the Renaissance till our day and the new poetry of Carducci, where the true classical spirit and a clever imitation of the real Latin form are blended with much modern thought and artistic realism-a difference parallel to the one which separates Rossetti from Walter Scott,

Of particular topics there is not room to speak. Suffice it to say that the author repudiates, as he has done ever since he wrote his Constitutionalism of the Future, the doctrine of the equality of States-a repudiation perfectly just, if to suggest new law be part of the jurist's business; that he accepts the principle of exterritoriality, and applies it even to merchant vessels; that he holds, confessedly in defiance both of authority and Dr. Hueffer is essentially a clever journalist, usage, that war can be jurally waged only especially pleasant and almost instructive between States in their corporate capacity; when treating of music-as, for instance, in and that he reconciles this latter doctrine his excellent accounts of concerts and of with the right of capture of private property. operas in the Times, which are often equal There are some curious omissions in the book. to Herr Hanslick's delightful feuilletons in No account is given of how a State may acquire the Neue Freie Presse. But when he transfers rights of property over territory; yet in to the pages of a serious Review or of a colonisation important territorial questions volume the same journalistic style, we have are constantly being raised. The law of the right to demand of him something better, blockade is only casually referred to; and as more serious, and deeper. We cannot be satis-or any mediaevalist of to-day from any romanfied with his habit of merely stating fact ticist of the first quarter of the century,

to contraband, there is only the statement,

with regard to the real spirit and form of the poetry of the Middle Ages. Dr. Hueffer seems astonished at the feeling for nature which fills Praga's poems. "He is a real lover of nature," he declares,

"which is not saying little of an Italian poet, for the resplendent scenery of the South has curiously enough left slight traces in the poetry of Southern nations; the Troubadours of Pro

vence refer to blue skies and spring blossoms in the most conventional manner, and the great Italian poets of the Middle Ages were not, at least par excellence, lovers of nature, any more than Raphael and Leonardo were landscape painters.

But whoever expected to find the very modern sentiment of nature for nature's sake in any poetry of the Middle Ages? And, by remarking its absence in Southern verse, does Dr. Hueffer mean to imply that it is to be found in the mediaeval poetry of other nations, or that it is superior to those exquisite pictures of which the Canzoniere and the Divina Commedia are full? But we are led to suspect that he is not very familiar with our mediaeval poetry by reading the second article, on the literary friendship of Petrarch and Boccaccio, in which, speaking of Petrarch's "intentional ignorance of Dante's chief work through fear of unconsciously becoming an imitator," he forgets to mention the Trionfi, where our great sonneteer proved the contrary, not only by imitating the Divine Comedy, but by naming Dante first among all the modern poets he meets in his "Vision of Love."

flavour to Heine's and Börne's prose. The
lecture on "Musical Criticism" is the best
thing in the book, by far the most thought out
and complete-interesting, too, because it gives
us the opinions of one of the leading musical
critics of the day on his own profession, and
amusing for the brilliant way in which he
speaks of modern singers, audiences, critics,
and all that is concerned with the musical life

of the time. The closing article is especially
interesting to a foreigner on account of the
glimpses of the history of English music,
while the general reader is attracted by the
pleasing figure of Mr. Pepys as a musician.

As we close the book, the impression left
is that of having been chatting with a clever
friend who thought us too dull to understand
thoroughly the subject he was talking about,
and who contented himself with giving us
a superficial account of it, mingled with
much talk about private episodes of great
artists, in order to amuse us-just the
sort of companion that a fashionable woman
likes to have to tea in order to obtain
from him a smattering on some serious
question of the day, while the last number
of the World or the last new society novel
lies on her lap.

CARLO PLACCI.

THE PROLEGOMENA TO TISCHENDORF'S NEW
TESTAMENT.

Novum Testamentum Graece ad antiquissimos
testes denuo recensuit apparatum criticum
apposuit Constantinus Tischendorf. Editio
octava critica major. Volumen III. Prole-
gomena scripsit Casparus Renatus Gregory.
Additis curis Ezrae Abbot. Pars prior.
(Leipzig: Hinrichs; London: Williams &
Norgate.)

The volume concludes with a descriptive catalogue of the uncial MSS., under which head Dr. Gregory does not fail to notice the suspicions of the Sinaitic suggested by Prof. Donaldson in an article in the Theological Review for January 1877. What further evidence, he asks, could Tischendorf have given of the genuineness of his discovery? He gave a minute account of all the particulars connected with the finding and removal of the MS., with the names of the persons concerned; and as to its history from 1844 to 1859, there is none to tell, seeing it lay quietly during those years, as it had lain for so many years previously, in a monk's bed-chamber. In short, Dr. Gregory is able to say that, having had the most ample opportunities of examining Tischendorf's letters and papers, he never found the slightest trace of bad faith. What, however, about the relative age of the Sinaitic as compared with the Vatican? It must suffice to say here that this writer considers the attempt of Dean Burgon to prove that the Sinaitic is fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred years later has been demonstrated by the late Prof. Abbot to rest on no foundation.

That Dr. Gregory is well qualified to act as Tischendorf's successor and representative, this work is sufficient to prove; his knowledge of MSS. is understood to be extensive and minute, and the present work has been broken off in order to give him the opportunity of examining some more of the cursives. The volume now printed begins with a short sketch of the critic's life, and a list of his works occupying more than fourteen pages, and showing an enormous amount of labour. Then follows the dissertation, in which Tischendorf's words are used when they are available; otherwise, his sense and spirit are adhered to. A note at the beginning explains that pp. 33-68 give Tischendorf's very words; but here seems to be some mistake, since, though Tischendorf's words can be recognised, he is spoken of throughout these pages in the third person. In a work containing so many minute references some errata may be well excused; but that there should be a necessity for more than two closely printed pages of

The two next contributions are reproductions of passing articles from the Times, unluckily not on musical topics. As to the one on Rossetti's pictures, which could only have an interest at the time of the exhibition, NEW TESTAMENT students will welcome the we cannot see the necessity of its being reProlegomena to Tischendorf's eighth edition, published when we have such a satisfying the first part of which is now published; and, account from the pen of Mr. Sharp, unless it though the whole work is well worthy of be to impress upon us a view (which is not careful study, they will, no doubt, turn with new) on the development of Rossetti from a dramatic painter to a painter of beauty. In special interest, in the first place, to any "Music and Musicians" Dr. Hueffer finds passages bearing on points which may still be considered as, to some extent, under discushimself more at home; and, as this is a sion. The principles followed by Tischendorf review of Grove's Dictionary of Music, he is in the construction of his text, or the succesnot obliged to stick to one particular subject, sive editions of his text, are pretty generally and can ramble pleasantly from one part understood. They are here set forth in conto the other of the Dictionary, and indulge siderable detail, partly in his own words, with in many biographical sketches and in much many instructive examples; and the result, telling of anecdotes. "The Literary Aspects I think, must be to establish their general of Schopenhauer's Work" is a rather novel soundness. No doubt the best critical texts subject, and shows us Dr. Hueffer in his still present numerous variations, as is evident popularising mood when preparing for the from the collation here given of Tischendorf common palate some abstruse or not easily with Tregelles, and with Westcott and Hort. accessible works, such as Oper und Drama But these are of little importance compared or Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, with the points on which they agree; and the or simply poems of Troubadours and Latin reader will have no difficulty in assenting to letters of Petrarch. In this article he discloses the judgment of Dr. Gregory as to the frequent to us a less-known side of the philosopher of agreement of the text of Westcott and Hort Frankfort. To many who judge Schopenhauer with that of Tischendorf - an agreement only by his reputation, and class him with which, he remarks, would be greater had the Kant, Hegel, or any other great thinker of latter given his marginal readings. Nearly abstruse questions in abstruse form, the well ten years have passed since Tischendorf's picked out bits which Dr. Hueffer translates death, and in the meantime New Testament from the Parerga und Paralipomena will be a criticism has not stood still. It would cerrevelation, as they show Schopenhauer in a tainly be interesting to know how the eminent comparatively new light-viz, that of an critic would regard the labours in his own original causeur-a sort of combination of the field of our Euglish scholars were he still last-century English essay with that Parisian alive; but, if Dr. Gregory may be understood Iwit and clever paradox which, intermixed to speak for him, there can be no doubt that Viola Fanshawe. By Mabel Collins. In 2 with German gravity, gives such a delicious his recognition would be ample. That this

"addenda et emendanda is a circumstance to be regretted. ROBERT B. DRUMMOND.

NEW NOVELS.

In 3

The Wizard's Son. By Mrs. Oliphant.
vols. (Macmillan.)
Keep Troth. By Walter L. Bicknell. In 3
vols. (Hurst & Blackett.)

vols. (White.)

Goddess Fortune. By Thomas Sinclair. In 3 she is a failure. Of the female characters
vols. (Trübner.)
Julia Herbert, the clever Sloebury adven-
Three Sisters. By Anon. In 2 vols. (Samp-indeed; whereas Oona Forrester, whom
turess, is the best. She is quite a worldling,
son Low.)

Mrs. Willoughby's Octave. By Emma Marshall. (Seeley.)

No contemporary writer of fiction has such a command over the supernatural and the weirdly spiritual (which is separated from the supernatural by the thinnest of partitions) as Mrs. Oliphant; and there is an abundance of both in The Wizard's Son. As a matter of fact, however, the story would have been all the better without its mysterious "warlock lord," a compound of the ancient alchemist and the Goethean Mephistopheles, who gives sinister advice, dabbles in chemicals, and in the end causes a great conflagration, with no worse result than that of throwing Oona Forrester and Lord Erradeen into each other's arms in the very jaws of death. Mrs. Oliphant's wizard is neither one thing nor another; he should have been more, or he should have been less, of a man. Even at the end of the third volume one cannot be certain that he is not a nightmare-the product of the excited brain or the disorganised digestion of Lord Erradeen. Besides, Mrs. Oliphant had to hand a quite earthly and sufficiently resolute evil genius in Capt. Underwood, the young peer's familiar in the days when he was plain Walter Methven, doing no good, and indeed nothing in particular, in Sloebury. Had she given Underwood rope enough, we might have had a very interesting conflict, of the kind Mrs. Oliphant delights in describing with all her subtlety of detail, between him and Oona Forrester, or, in other words, between the worse and the better elements in Walter Methven's nature. the reader can shut his eyes to the unrealities in The Wizard's Son, he will find it very enjoyable. It has no elaborate plot; and, in consequence, the characters that figure in it are, if possible, more at Mrs. Oliphant's command than the beings of her creation usually

are.

Even she has never given us anything better than her picture of the society of the little town of Sloebury, agitated by the news that the good-for-nothing Walter Methven has suddenly been transformed into a peer. The transitions from Sloebury, all matter-of-fact and gossip, to the Highlands, steeped in simplicity and superstition-from Julia Herbert to Oona Forrester-are managed with great skill. Walter Methven, as Saxon sense brought face to face with Celtic witchcraft, is a very difficult subject to treat, and, but for the power of the artist, would have been a blurred and unsatisfactory portrait. As usual, Mrs. Oliphant's Scotch folk are perfect-Hamish, McAlister, the Highland minister, the Edin burgh lawyer (is not Mr. Milnathort's devotion to a Scotch breakfast that winds up with marmalade rather antiquated?), and, above all, Symington the retainer of the Erradeens, who fastens upon Walter as his property the moment he sees him, and is not to be imposed upon by his master's impatient attempt to get rid of him by the fiction of a "man" whom he professes to have engaged to attend upon him. In Mrs. Oliphant's portrait-gallery there are so many anxious and excellent mothers that when we say Mrs. Methven is rather disappointing we are very far from hinting that

aristocracy, democracy, and Horace's Dea Fortuna, not to speak of fate, free-will, of various persons, especially of one Brend, foreknowledge absolute, put into the mouths Walter Methven ultimately marries, is all member of Parliament and (without knowing magnanimity. But then Oona, like Miss it) heir to an earldom. If Brend was as Milnathort, the lawyer's invalid sister, has much of a bore and a retailer of political and come under the spell of that nuisance of a philosophical crudities in the House of wizard, and, like him, is somewhat of a Commons as he certainly shows himself to phantom. Julia is delightfully real, and, in be in private houses, how delighted his spite of her scheming, which circumstances colleagues must have been at his removal to have forced her into, not absolutely selfish. the Upper Chamber! The plot of Goddess One is positively grateful to Mrs. Oliphant for Fortune such plot as it can be said to | giving her a "jolly" husband at the end of possess-turns, as in Keep Troth, on the the third volume in Major Antrobus. exchanging of children at their birth. But the story drags sadly; and there is no adequate reason for the pseudo Lord Ralford committing suicide and for Miss Maude Grey going mad.

writing, much less in the publication, of
It is difficult to find any object in the
Three Sisters, which is an account of the
experiences of a struggling Irish family in a
German town.
of school-girlish high spirits and comic German-
It is made up almost entirely
English. It is, in fact, a long fit of giggling,
quite innocent, but very silly. There is a
rather sad death in the book, and a "funny"
marriage; but the plot is quite as little
deserving of notice as the humour.

Plot is the strong point, satire run to farcicality is the pervading weakness, of Keep Troth. The central incident of the story, the stealing of the child of well-to-do parents, is, indeed, as commonplace as it well can be. But Mr. Bicknell shows no little skill in devising new situations for both the stolen and the substituted child, and in bringing them together at last under tragic circumstances. Stanton, whose real name is Arnold, and Jean, whose real name is Stanton, make very good foils and rivals; and so do Dora Betterton, who loves the true and marries the false Stanton, and Molly Magaire, who loves both, is "under the protection" of both, and yet, in her own expressive rather than elegant language, "keeps straight." Were Mrs. Marshall has given an affected title it not, too, for Mr. Bicknell's unfortunate to her new "tale," for "Mrs. Willoughby's tendency to caricature, his Neoptolemus octave" simply means Mrs. Willoughby's Tudge, the kindly proprietor of a travelling family. It is, in reality, a rather pleasant Diorama, would have been very effective story of domestic life. Devoid of passion, as a kind of male Mrs. Jarley. But this tendency spoils the whole book. Mr. Bicknell is plainly under the impression that he has a satirical vein, and gives pictures of missionary enterprise in London, of a fashionable school, and of a sensational trial which are not of the nature of comedy, but only of burlesque. There is far too much coarse and unpleasant dialogue -unnecessarily coarse and unpleasant-in Keep Troth. Thus it is bad enough that, when Jean meets Molly Magaire, whom he knew in the days when, as a boy, he sold matches and newspapers, he should ask her if she is "living in sin," but it is still worse that she should reply that she "is in clover." Mr. Bicknell has much to learn; possibly also some capacity for learning.

Viola Fanshawe is an atrociously vulgar story-valgar in sentiment, vulgar in language. It would be difficult to say which of the persons who figure in it is the most odious. A Mrs. Vane, who indulges in slang and champagne, and talks about "fellers" and "being mashed," and "playing propriety," and "lugging volumes of Zola," is not worse than Viola Fanshawe herself, an adulteress in intent, who is ready to desert her child and her "star" actor husband for a selfish scoundrel, and whom that scoundrel finds " at the dinner table, her liqueur glass held in her lovely hand, her mouth fragrant with sweetmeats, his diamonds gleaming on her neck." The less said about such a book as this the better.

Mr. Thomas Sinclair should have termed his Goddess Fortune a new way to reproduce old essays and addresses. These three volumes are really a collection of fearful and wonderful treatises on such subjects as

and almost devoid of plot, it has been written with a purpose, and a religious purpose; but that is not thrust upon the reader. Each member of the "octave" is carefully sketched. David Willoughby the unselfish, George Burnley the self-indulgent, and Frieda, who unites and holds the balance between the two, stand out from the characters around them as good portraits. Mrs. Marshall indicates in Lady Katherine, Frieda's wellintentioned tyrant, that she might achieve some success as a quiet humorist if she were to allow her powers free play.

WILLIAM WALLACE.

CURRENT LITERATURE. THOUGH the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning are neither so voluminous nor so expensive as those of her husband, yet they have never been collected into a cheap edition. It is now nearly twenty years since a selection from them was formed by Mr. Browning, which was followed later by a second; but the price of each series was fixed as high as 78. 6d. At last Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co. have issued at the price of 3s. 6d. each, uniform with Mr. Browning's selections from himself. As we said in noticing those, if anyone must be content with one of the volumes only, let him take the first, even though it does not contain the "Vision of Poets." "Aurora Leigh" must, of course, be sought in a volume by itself; but otherwise these two volumes will probably be accepted-by all except students of literatureas an adequate representation of Mrs. Browning's genius.

a new edition of these two volumes of selections

Quotations, from the Earliest Ages to the
Day's Collacon: an Encyclopaedia of Prose
Present Time. Compiled and Arranged by