of the classics of of MSS. of the Holy Scriptures. The first glance that showed a Church Service-book (if it did not happen to be a Lectionary) was doubtless in scores of instances followed by the immediate replacing of the volume on the shelf. We may hope for better times; and when, not travellers and plunderers from the West, but the native clergy begin to take an interest in the subject, we may confidently look for important results. Bryennius cannot long stand quite alone, or leave no successor.

may notice one or two other points. I fancy few
persons can read in the recital of the Institu-
tion, as it now appears in the Liturgy of St.
Chrysostom, the words Tŷ VUKTi Tapedídoro,
μâXXov dè eavтòv Taрpedidov without feeling
that the four concluding words, thus added,
as one might at first sight think, by way of
emendation, ill accord in this position with
the solemn devotional formula in which
they occur.
And on
a reference to the
Barberini MS. we find the words ran simply
τῇ νυκτὶ ᾗ παρεδίδου ἑαυτόν ; nor does the Pauline
form appear in the Rossano MS. of Chrysostom,
but we find it and the carlier liturgical form
combined, as at present, in the eleventh
century MS. of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
We might have fancied that the scriptural form
was first in the Liturgies and the others
subsequently added; but facts, as shown in
the Barberini Basil and Barberini Chrysostom,
so far as our present information goes, make
the other way. It is no doubt conceivable that
the liturgist's correction of the words of St.
Paul came, in the type represented by this MS.,
to be substituted for them; but, if so, it took
place before the curtain lifts upon the formed
Liturgies. This last supposition will find
support if we can accept the text of the
Liturgy of St. James, as we possess it in its
earliest form, as the basis upon which St.
Basil worked. The willingness of the Saviour's
death is there emphasised.

Dr. Swainson's handsome volume contains (1) The Liturgy of Alexandria, exhibiting, in four parallel columns, the text of the Cod. Rossanensis (saec. xi.); a Vatican Roll (saec. xiii.); and in parts the Canon Universalis Aethiopum, Coptic St. Basil, and Coptic St. Cyril, printed in the Latin of Renaudot, together with fragments from the Messina Roll (saec. xii.). And here we may refer to the fact that there is an Appendix with the Coptic text of the Ordinary Canon from two Magdala MSS. (of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) in the British Museum, edited and translated by Dr. Bezold. (2) The Liturgy of St. Basil from the Barberini MS. (saec. viii.) and a Roll in the British Museum (saec. xii.). (3) The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom from the Barberini and Rossano MSS. (4) The Liturgy of the Presanctified from the same MSS. (5) The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom from an eleventh-century MS. the property of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and the same from the printed text of Ducas (1526). (6) The Liturgy of St. Basil from the Burdett-Coutts MS. and the text of Ducas. (7) The Liturgy of the Presanctified according to the authorities last named. (8) The Liturgy of St. Peter from the Rossano MS., with variant readings from a Paris MS. (saec. xiv.) (9) As an introduction to the Liturgy of St. James Dr. Swainson prints, perhaps unnecessarily in a volume not intended for beginners, the well-known chapters on the Eucharistic service in Justin Martyr's First Apology, and familiar passages from St. Cyrils κατηχήσεις μυσταγωγικαί. (10) The Liturgy of St. James from the Messina Roll, the Rossano Codex, and two fourteenth-century Paris MSS. (11) Syriac St. James from Renaudot. Nor should we omit to mention that Dr. Swainson has printed the chapters on baptism and the Eucharist from Bryennius's recently published Aidan Twv åπоσтóλv (to- The Lord Advocates of Scotland. By George gether with corresponding passages from the seventh book of the Apostolic Constitutions). But profoundly interesting as are these early notices of the Church's worship, they contribute nothing, or next to nothing, towards the illustration of the elaborate liturgical offices of a later age.

I notice, as interesting, that in the words of Institution in the Barberini (eighth century) Chrysostom we read Toût éσTìν Tò σwμá μov, Tò vèp vμŵr (without kλóμevov), as in the text adopted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers; but Kλuevov appears in the eleventh-century MS. Again, even allowing for the general Eastern tendency to amplification and redundancy, it is scarcely possible to believe that there is no artificial multiplication of words in the opening of the "Preface" to the Triumphal Hymn in the modern Greek Liturgy; and on turning to the Barberini Chrysostom we find a simpler form, and our conjecture verified. One could multiply further examples indefinitely. A fruitful harvest may, I believe, be reaped when students have had Dr. Swainson's volume before them sufficiently long to allow a careful examination of its contents.

W. T.

Douglas.)

JOHN DOWDEN.

Omond. (Edinburgh: David

THE singularity of the title of Lord Advocate, and the presence of its holder in London during the parliamentary session, give an interest to the subject of this work which From the description now given it will be matters peculiarly Scottish do not always seen that Dr. Swainson has done here a have for English readers. Two special cirvaluable piece of work. It is true we seem cumstances one English, the other Scottish still a long way off from being able to deter-make its publication well timed. The inmine the successive stages in the history of convenience of prosecutions by private persons, the Church's forms of worship in her younger and the inadequacy of the experiment of days, but yet much that is of value and the Director of Public Prosecutions to interest may be derived from a comparison remedy this inconvenience, have suggested to even of the earlier and later forms of the some English statesmen and lawyers that it Liturgies as exhibited in the work before us. might be worth while to examine the workDr. Swainson, in his Introduction, notices ing of the organised office for criminal prosecusome interesting examples of accretion, tions which has for a long time existed in formerly regarded as conjecturally probable, Scotland. How recent is this discovery is now shown as matters of fact to be such. I shown by the fact that Sir J. Stephen's

elaborate History of English Criminal Law, while contrasting it with the Roman, German, and French systems, makes only a casual, and that a misleading, reference to the criminal procedure of a country under the same Crown and within a day's journey of London. Yet it may be safely anticipated that if England adopts a system of public prosecu tion it will be, not, indeed, the same, but more like the Irish or the Scottish than either the German or the French plans; and the former would have been more fruitful subjects of comparison. The other circumstance to which we allude is the recent movement in Scotland for a fuller representation of its interests in Parliament and the Government. The discussion to which this movement has given rise has neces sarily led to an examination of the political functions of the Lord Advocates-a subject imperfectly understood from the absence of accurate historical information. On both topics Mr. Omond's work throws much light. In a series of well-written Lives of the Lord Advocate-from Ross of Montgrennan, who first held the office in the fifteenth century, to Jeffrey, the Edinburgh Reviewer-it shows how the criminal law has been practically administered, and what part the Lord Advo cate has taken in the general government of Scotland.

The precise origin of the office has not been clearly traced, but Mr. Omond adopts the no doubt correct conjecture of former writers that its title proves it to have come from France. That country had an Avocat du Roi as early as Philip the Bel, in 1301, as England, a few years later, had an Attorney of the King, though, as the King's Serjeant for long took precedence, the Attorney, perhaps, at first more nearly resembled the Procureur du Roi, or Agent, than his Counsel, or Advocate. Mediaeval Scotland was gener ally more than a century behind the larger kingdom in the development of its institutions; and it is not till 1483, in a summons for treason against John Duke of Albany, that the title of King's Advocate first appears. The existence of such an office was a necessary consequence of the Courts becoming sedentary and their practice settled, a change attempted by the first four Jameses, but only finally accomplished by James V., so stout was the resistance of the feudal barons and clergy. Advocate are marked by his being made a The steps in the progress of the King's Judge at the institution of the Court of Session in 1532; one of the Officers of State (the King's Ministry) in Prosecutor for Crimes, although the partics be silent," along with the Treasurer, in 1587; and dignified by the title of Lord in 1598. Between the personal and real Union his position altered little, but the prevalence of State trials for treason gave an ill-omened prominence to the criminal and inquisitorial department of his office. After the Union his importance was increased by the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council in 1709, by the final abolition of the Secretary of State for Scotland in 1746, and reached its culminating point in 1782, when Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, was entrusted with the whole administration and patronage of Scotland. No Lord Advocate has been quite so independent, and certainly none

66

Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, whose tenure of office marks the greatest height to which it attained. His eminent Parliamentary talents were sufficient to enable him to measure swords with Fox, and his friendship with Pitt led to the whole government and patronage of Scotland being left in his hands. When he retired from the Lord Advocateship, to enter upon a long career of employment in other departments, he continued to exercise a dominant influence on Scotch affairs, which was scarcely interrupted by his impeachment, and which continued in his family, his nephew, the second Robert Dundas, being Lord Advocate from 1789 to 1801, and his son, the second Lord Melville, though holding other offices, having the leading management of Scotch business till his death in 1827. The tenure of the office under the Coalition Ministry in 1783, and again in 1806 under the Ministry of "All the Talents," by Henry Erskine, the most brilliant orator of the Scottish, as his brother was of the English, Bar, was too brief to break the long period of Tory supremacy; and the respectable, but inferior men, who held the post after the promotion of Ilay Campbell to the Bench in 1789-Montgomery, Colquhoun, and Rae-owed it entirely to their party connexion. The last of these, however, devoted himself with assiduity to the criminal department, and was the author of some useful improvements in the forms of procedure.

With the triumph of the Whigs, Jeffrey, the leader of their party in Scotland, both in literature and at the Bar, came into office. With an account of his life Mr. Omond prudently concludes his work. It is well known that Jeffrey did not succeed in politics in a manner to correspond with the expectations derived from his versatile talents or the hopes of his friends. Mr. Omond adopts Lord Cockburn's opinion that this was due to the too great strain put upon the holder of the office into which circumstances had concentrated the management of Scottish business generally, as well as the administration of the criminal department and the function of advising the Government on all questions of Scottish law. Something must, however, be allowed for a constitution which feeling in political life against professional was not robust, and something, also, for the lawyers which has been fostered by professional politicians. When Kennedy of Dunure-who, as Scotch Lord of the Treasury, had assisted Jeffrey-resigned, Cock

burn wrote to him:

"I hope to God that your seat at the Treasury
is to be supplied by some worthy Scotchman,
or at least by some man whose peculiar business
shall be Scotland. Now that our public busi-
ness is all done in London, this is not convenient
alone, but absolutely necessary."
"There can be little doubt," Mr. Omond adds,
"that this opinion was perfectly sound. Since
then the machinery of government has become
more and more complicated, and almost the
whole management of Scottish affairs has been
thrown upon the Lord Advocate. The result
has been that, not by the fault of the Advocates,
but by force of circumstances, these affairs have
been to a great extent neglected."

This represents a view now widely held in
Scotland, but the opposite opinion that little
or no change is required in Scottish adminis-
tration will be found ably stated in the
January number of Blackwood's Magazine. It

would be out of place in a notice intended
merely to direct attention to the historical
facts to express an opinion upon either side of
this controversy. Nor has space allowed more
than an allusion here and there to the lives of
the Lord Advocates. They are told in a brief,
but not too brief, and very interesting manner
in Mr. Omond's volumes. He has skilfully
interwoven his biographies with the thread of
general history, so that his work, which is
based throughout on original research, is not
merely a series of biographies, but also a
valuable contribution to the legal and political
history of Scotland. · E. J. G. MACKAY.

Across the Pampas and the Andes. By Robert
Crawford. Longmans.)

As engineer-in-chief of an expedition sent
from England in 1871 to explore and survey
the route of a proposed Transandian railway
on behalf of the Buenos Ayres Government,
Mr. Crawford had abundant opportunities of
studying a region before and since frequently
visited, but always presenting fresh sources
of interest to the careful observer. Hence,
notwithstanding the great delay in publishing
his experiences, the work in which he now
embodies them can hardly be described as out
of date. Much of the information is, in fact,
quite recent, being collected from the latest
official reports, from the periodical press of
Buenos Ayres, and other trustworthy sources.
of the Argentine States, the peaks and passes
These materials, dealing with the geography
of the Cordilleras, and the various trans-
continental railway projects, are thrown into
the form of an Appendix occupying nearly
one-fourth of the whole work, and imparting
to it a curiously composite air of learning and
literature. The learned or scientific part cer-
tainly contains features of considerable value
to political economists, to traders, and specu-
lators in "Argentines." The literary section,
dealing with the incidents of the expedition,
would be improved by the elimination of, say,
one-half of the epithets, by recasting numerous
rambling sentences, and by a general process
of severe condensation. The trivial occur-
rences recorded in a diary might be overlooked
told, thirteen years after the event, that on
in a work published at the time. But to be
one occasion a toad was found in a canteen-
bucket, that on another a deer was shot, or a
"low ridge of sand-hills sighted," and so on,
is apt to try the patience of the most indulgent
reader. Here is a characteristic long-winded
paragraph, referring to "a most forbidding-
looking ruffian," which contains as many as
six finite verbs, besides sundry participial
clauses :-

He had evidently a natural taste for blood-
every possible occasion, and this dangerous
shed, which no doubt had been cultivated on
propensity, it may here be stated, we thought
it prudent to divert into a more harmless channel
than exercising it upon his fellow-men, by
appointing him to be the butcher of the party
when any oxen had to be killed for food, an
office the duties of which he performed not only
with alacrity and skill, but with manifest good-
will and pleasure.”

But, apart from these blemishes of style, the work really contains much valuable information regarding the natural history, social condition, and prospects of the great Argentine Republic. Mr. Crawford has a sensitive eye

for the beauties of nature; and his descriptions, especially of animal and vegetable forms, and of the boundless pampas, rolling away beyond the horizon, with alternating tracts of a soft rich green, or of purple or bright crimson, according as the various shades of the lovely verbena predominate, are often expressed in correct and appropriate language. A specialist could have scarcely given us a better account of the curious little Biscacha (Lagostomus trichodactylus), which in appearance and habits so closely resembles the North American prairie-dog.

The body is about two feet long, and the tail, which measures from ten to twelve inches, ends with a tuft of coarse black hair. The fur

is of an ashy-gray colour upon the back, and pure white on the throat, breast, and under part whiskers decorate each side of the mouth, the of the body; large, coarse, black bristling ears are short, and the eyes large and black. The toes of the hind-foot are three in number, while the fore-foot possesses one more. The biscacha has four very sharp, curved, and beveledged gnawing teeth in the front of its mouth, hollow at the base, and firmly embedded in the jaw to a depth of one inch, while they project They live together in families like rabbits, but an inch and three-quarters above the socket.... in burrows of great size, and frequently on terms of strange intimacy with their lodgers, the little burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia), the one inhabiting the house by day, the other by night, after a somewhat similar arrangement to that of Box and Cox in the play. Biscachas in their rambles, and depositing them around have a singular habit of collecting all the old bones and miscellaneous articles they can find the entrance to their burrows, probably with the desire of gradually raising them above the level of the ground alongside as a protection against inundation during heavy rains " (p. 66). Similar graphic descriptions occur of the Chajà, or crested screamer; of the Tero-tero, ostriche" (Struthea Rhea); of the agouti, or or spur-winged plover; of the so-called Patagonian hare; of the guanaco, and other animals peculiar to these regions.

artistic skill, illustrating the text with several Mr. Crawford turns to good account his striking pictures of South American scenes and scenery. Noteworthy among these are Morros highlands, with guanacos in the foresnowy Tupungato, as seen from the river Lujan; the Straits of Magellan; the Los ground;

and the descent into the Carraizalito loaded mules is seen rolling over and over Valley, where the foremost in a long line of down the almost vertical incline.

Besides a full Index there is a large map

showing the route of the surveying expedi tion, and all the railways already opened or in progress in Chili and the Argentine States. Of the two chief interoceanic projects, the Planchon and Uspallata, the author, who evidently prefers the latter, although it is speaks with great authority on this point, probable that both will ultimately be constructed. The Uspallata crosses the Cordillera at an altitude of 10,568 feet above sea level, with an absolute gradient of one in four between Mendoza, in the Argentine, and Santa Rosa, above Valparaiso, in the Chilian Republic. These two points are already connected by rail with the Atlantic and Pacific respectively, leaving only a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles to complete the interoceanic system of South America.

A. H. KEANE.

the flash of agreement is a flash in the pan
which fails to explode the barrel of contiguity."
Or making fun of Mill's Methods,

"We enquire of Residues' where we are to
begin, and she says, 'I do not know; you had
better ask "Difference.' We anxiously turn
to consider 'Difference,' and are staggered at
once by the distressing extent of the family

likeness."

And so on. Occasionally the gleam of wit

The Principles of Logic. By F. H. Bradley.
(Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.)
THERE is no acknowledged relationship between
Mr. Bradley's Logic and Hegelianism, but
there is an unmistakeable family likeness.
There is the same reversion to the verbal
subtlety of Greek metaphysics, the same con-
trast to the modern inductive utilitarian type.
As even in those passages of Greek phil-
osophy which have lost their interest for most
of us, even among Megarians and Neo-Platon-warms into the glow of poetry, as in a striking
ists, we seldom meet with pure nonsense, and passage at the conclusion, where perhaps we
we wonder how the ancients could have been may detect a secret sense of the insufficiency
at once so wise and so puerile; so in these of metaphysics, a suppressed yearning after
the philosophy of pleasure.
pages, amid much that is incomprehensible to
the uninitiated, there emerge many acute
"It may come from a failure in my meta-
remarks, especially on the questions connected physics, or from a weakness of the flesh which
continues to blind me, but the notion that
with Formal Logic. On the nature of existence could be the same as understanding
Singular Terms, through the haze of the strikes as cold and ghostlike as the dreariest
mysterious doctrine of "thisness,' we may materialism. That the glory of this world in
perhaps discern the view of Dr. Bain that the end is appearance leaves the world more
proper names are general terms with minimum glorious, if we feel it is a show of some fuller
denotation. As to the import of propositions splendour; but the sensuous curtain is a decep-
there are dark sayings, such as
tion and a cheat, if it hides some colourless
"Judgment
proper is the act which refers an ideal content movement of atoms, some spectral woof of
(recognised as such) to a reality beyond the bloodless categories. Though dragged to such
impalpable abstractions, or unearthly ballet of
""All truth, if really true, is true of conclusions, we cannot embrace them. Our
the ultimate non-phenomenal fact." But Mr. principles may be true, but they are not reality.
Bradley is nearly as clear as Mill himself They no more make the whole which commands
our devotion than some shredded dissection of
human tatters is that warm and breathing
beauty of flesh which our hearts found
delightful."

act;

when he refutes the doctrine

་་

that in 'dogs are mammals' no attribute is really affirmed of dogs: the assertion is that the things called dogs are included within the class of mammals; "that "the mammals range over a mental park, and all the dogs are on this side of the paling.'

argu

With reference to the nature of in-
ference, it is shown how inadequate
the syllogism is to account for
ments such as the following:-"A is due
north of B, B due west of C, therefore
A is north-west of C;""A is in tune with
B, and B with C, therefore A with C," and
three-premissed inferences of the same descrip-
tion. We are reminded of the relational logic
which De Morgan formulated, and which he
used to say he would consent to give up as

name

soon as he should find
who could
anyone
offhand "the non-descendants of the non-
ancestors of X."

But, if Mr. Bradley has rarely the advantage of priority over De Morgan and other English writers, he has often an advantage in point of expression. The Attic charm of his style detains the unmetaphysical reader fascinated, though unconvinced. Mr. Bradley is especially brilliant in attack; and he is generally attacking. He showers his gleaming metaphors upon the dazzled adversary. Thus, referring to Prof. Jevons's theory that in "A is north of C," or "B follows D," what we really mean is a relation of equality or identity, he says,

torture of the witness goes to such lengths that the general public is not trusted to behold

it."

We

ing series" of pleasure will not weigh much
with anyone who is capable of considering that
they are equally applicable to the sums of
energy as of pleasure; and that it would be
equally possible by a parity of Hegelian reason-
ing to quibble away the first principles of
Physics or of Morals. It is not to be expected
that logical speculations can all be brought
to the touchstone of physical science. But it
may be strongly suspected-and examples from
Greek and German metaphysics corroborate
the presumption that he who is conspicuously
deficient in what Pascal calls netteté d'esprit
in dealing with subjects admitting of precision,
will be much more egregiously incompetent
to analyse the blurred phenomena of the
inner world. It would therefore be no matter
of surprise if the prolonged polemic against
the Association theory were merely a strife of
words. What if the Experience school does
not attach importance to the point which
Mr. Bradley fastens on and labours at-that
"particular images are recalled by, and unite
with, particular images;
are recalled according to these laws are par-
units of association.”
ticular existences.

It is thus that at another point he seeks to win a cheap triumph over the Inductive Logic by attacking a position which nobody is concerned to defend that "its processes, exact as the strictest syllogism, surrender themselves to the direction of Canons reputed no less severe than Barbara." That such is not the accredited interpretation of Mill's methods is sufficiently evidenced by the able exposition of Mr. Alfred Sidgwick. That the methods are not cut and dry "their author himself," as Mr. Sidgwick says, "expended labour in showing." Mr. Bradley has expended labour in fighting with shadows.

To conclude, if talking about words and thinking about thought is the end of life, this is indeed a golden volume. But if use and a reference to happiness should direct even our studies, if transcendental metaphysics are to be valued as a sort of poetry, then this work will rank, not high among contributions to science, not low in that species of literature which is dear to the utilitarian "both for its grace and for its mystery."

F. Y. EDGEWORTH.

NEW NOVELS.

These intellectual virtues are overbalanced by great defects-petulance in controversy, a "cocksureness" inappropriate to the subject, a constant bias towards the unmeaning, a positive aversion to the useful. may safely leave to the reader the amusing task of verifying our first imputation. As to the second point, in addition to what we have to say under another heading, we may instance the writer's ruling, in the matter of disjunctive propositions, that the alternatives are rigidly exclusive, and his dictum that hypotheticals cannot be reduced to categoricals. In support of the sweeping condemnation contained in our last counts, we will adduce our author's treatment of Probabilities. He himself provokes comparison with an eminent English logician who has recently handled the same subject. We venture to predict that the comparison will redound to the honour of the Material Logic in the opinion of anyone who has studied the subject. He who reads Mr. Venn after the older authorities will find, not, of course, the mathematical physics of a Laplace, yet something of the grain and fibre of the solid sciences, something tangible which can be seized by the imagination and built into the memory and become the basis of action. But he who has apprehended Laplace and Mr. Venn will find in Mr. Bradley nothing, absolutely nothing, to lay hold upon Everything melts away, except, indeed, what all the text-books have copied from Laplace or what has been originally observed by Mr. Venn. Mr. Bradley on the Petersburgh problem and the implicated conception of infinity may remind us of Hegel's memorable criticism of the Newtonian astronomy. Yet it is MR. SAUNDERS is a practised and vigorous this notion of infinity, the "spurious infinite" writer, whose books it is a pleasure to read. as, if we indulged in retaliation, we should Miss Vandeleur introduces us to personages term it, that the writer has elsewhere opposed with some character in them, if the plot is to the principle of maximum utility. Cer- not very striking or intricate. The hero is tainly his difficulties about "realising a perish- the scion of a noble house. Through a dis

her powers of recovery that we are glad to
find "the breeze from the garden soon fanned
a cheek as rounded as Hebe's." This is a most
astonishing book. Let Mr. Curzon console
himself with this admission when he hears the
works of George Eliot and others praised for
qualities different from his own.

The only fault to be found with An Open
Foe is its extraordinary complexity of interests.
The reader who is determined to master the in-
trigues of the plot, as well as the multiplicity
of the characters and the relations they bear to
each other, had better take a note-book (and we
should recommend that it be not too small),
wherein he could take stock of what has been
done in each division of the work. Otherwise,
we fear that he will not be able to give a
satisfactory account of the narrative when he
comes to the close of the third volume. The
plot is in many respects interesting when
fairly mastered; but many will regard it as
an objection that the real hero does not make
his appearance early enough. It may be,
however, that the author holds a different
opinion from ourselves as to who should be
regarded as the hero. The literary merit of
An Open Foe is much beyond the average, and
affords hope of excellent work from the
writer. With a less crowded canvas, she
will be able to bring into play important
qualities which are here only foreshadowed.

appointment in love he enlists as a private,
and buries in oblivion the fact that he is the
son of an earl, with a direct claim to the in-
heritance himself. He goes through some
rough service in Ireland in connexion with
the Fenian rising and other matters, and
secures promotion by his conspicuous bravery.
But jealousy accomplishes his downfall; a
superior officer purposely goads him into com-
mitting an assault by the use of epithets
which no man can bear unmoved. The court-
martial finds him guilty of striking his superior
officer, and condemns him to fifty lashes and
imprisonment for a year with hard labour.
Although his family discover him in time to
procure a pardon from the Queen, they would
have been too late to save him from the more
ignominious part of his punishment had not
a technical error been discovered in the pro-
ceedings, which vitiates the finding. One of
England's "gilded youth" is said to have
passed through some of these experiences, an
officer of rank having furnished Mr. Saunders
with the details. How the hero comes safely
through his troubles, and how, for love of
Miss Vandeleur, he relinquishes his right to
the earldom, and thus saves the honour of the
family by leaving his foster-brother in posses-
sion, the reader must discover for himself.
Notwithstanding some minor faults of con-
struction, the novel, as a whole, shows to
advantage beside many of its contemporaries.
By-the-way, as the author is apparently a
passionate lover of flowers, and writes with
real eloquence about them, it is a pity that
Rome.
the printer has misspelt the names of the
The glory and the shame of the
only two species of French roses mentioned.
Eternal City in her period of decadence
are drawn with a vivid pencil. Domitian,
"Cease, liars, murderers, or I shall tear out the infamous Emperor, and Domitia, his
your vile tongues by the roots."
voluptuous wife, are portraits as strongly
no more of your damned snivelling, or by the individualised as any we have recently met
thunders of hell I'll cut your throat." These with in fiction. Love, glory, enterprise,
sentences will show that Mr. Curzon has a religion, are the themes which the author
very fair command of what sailors call "lan-handles with power and skill, passing from
guage." The first is spoken by an English one to the other with a masterly rapidity.
baronet, who, when somewhat angry with two The sufferings of the Nazarenes, whose faith
of the villains of the story, intimates also that is espoused by the noble hero of the book,
he should "scatter their brains upon the
are related in a moving manner. Dr. Eckstein's
floor" did he not know that they were mad. style is realistic, without being spasmodic; and
The second sentence is spoken by the rascal- his notes are almost as valuable as they are
in-chief, and when the reader learns how many voluminous. The merit of Mdme. Clara Bell
rascals there are he will understand the dis- a translator is so well known that she
tinction in villainy achieved by the speaker. needs no commendation.
The novel generally is almost beyond criticism,
and certainly reveals more than its fair share

"Give us

"the

of crudity and inexperience. Although the heroine is kept on the stage pretty well all through, there is nothing about her as violinist of the Quartier Latin" until some way into the third volume. She is a remarkable being, however, and might turn “Ouida ” and others speechless with envy. Her real name is Adrienne St. Clair, but she goes out to the East to personate the dead daughter of Sir Arthur Hildyard, Governor of the Straits Settlement. She comes with him to Europe, and in Paris gets engaged to a Russian prince. The reader must learn for himself how the bubble bursts, and she flies from Sir Arthur's home. Besides being the violinist of the Quartier Latin, she writes an opera, and plays the chief character in it herself. At another time we find her as an artist, "putting the finishing touches to a large painting of the interior of San Giovanni Laterano." She had only just before been at death's door from a very serious illness, but so marvellous were

The graphic pen of Dr. Eckstein never showed to greater advantage than in his romance of Imperial Quintus Claudius, a

as

Fashionable American life at Newport may

not deeply interest English readers, but Mr.
Lathrop's book has some excellent situations,
which are well managed. It also contains a
tragic love-story with certain novel elements
in ita thing praiseworthy in itself, con-
sidering the paucity of new incidents in
fiction nowadays. Altogether, the reader is
tolerably certain to feel drawn towards at
least three of the characters in Mr. Lathrop's
latest composition.

monious formalist, who was in the habit of
hailing the Almighty as if He were a cab
or an omnibus." When she discovers Ouida's
Two Flags among her stepson's books, she
writes angrily to him, "I have read it, and
consider it a most dangerous book; I have
therefore burnt it." It is, perhaps, not sur
prising that the young man does not take
kindly to the religion of his home when he
is prayed for as "a worm," "a lost pearl,"
and other epithets which prove his hardened
and reprobate condition.
tainly possesses vivacity, and after his trial
efforts he should produce something unusually
good.

Mr. Pember cer

The Leavenworth Case is an exciting story of a murder of which any one of four persons may be suspected from the outset. The secret is kept well in hand, except, perhaps, in one place, which almost led us on the right track, but the writer recovered herself and deepened the mystery. The only objection to the book from the point of view of narrative is that it is concerned wholly with a crime and its deter tion. It would have been better to give the reader something more by way of a relief. The scene of the murder is laid in New York, and the author's American phrases are objectionable now and then. More than once the word as is used when that is intended-"I do not know as I was greatly surprised," &c.

G. BARNETT SMITH.

RECENT VERSE.

Some of them have

Poems. By John Sibree. (Trübner.) This
little volume is apparently a reprint, with
some additions, of poems that appeared in
two lesser volumes published a year or two
ago. What we said of the poems then is fully
applicable to them now.
merit, and in thought and imagination ther
are superior to much minor poetry. Fancy'
genius-is, perhaps, the best thing in the book.
-a quasi-mystical embodiment of the poetic
If it suffers from a defect it is inaccuracy in
philosophy. Fancy is the mystic lady whe
alone represents the genius of poetry. Imagina-
tion is unrecognised, save as synonymous with
made so much of the radical distinction between
Fancy. The critics of eighty years ago who
these two would also have made short work of
Mr. Sibree's classification of the authors of

Faustus" and "Childe Harold," "The Skylark" and " Endymion and "The Ancient Mariner." "Unto One of the Least" is a quasi-mystical embodiment of the principle of charity. It lacks definiteness and conclusiveness, but is otherwise somewhat beautiful, being pathetic where it is realistic. "Ellen Carew," described as a legend of the West, is a story of a supernatural appearance interwoven with disappointed love. This also lacks definiteness. In short, Mr. Sibree seems not to have realised the limitations of his power. He has the fancy which he apotheosises, but he lacks imagination of that higher order which is The writer of Alter Ego exhibits a capacity essential to the invention of symbol and to for both humour and pathos. The only tales resting on supernatural machinery. He danger is lest his humour should degenerate has a philosophical poem entitled "To the into flippancy. The life of the hero of the Age." We have no love of a poem of which present sketch is exceedingly well depicted; clusively poetic. Each of the arts has somethe subject itself is not peculiarly and exhe is just one of those erring mortals, more thing that it can do better than its sister arts, sinned against than sinning, dear to the heart though every art may borrow from all the of Thackeray. The surface moralists of the others. In the same way, each of the departworld misunderstand them, and cannot trace ments of literature has its special function, the noble aspiration and charity which move though it may, without offence, sometimes them. Some of the characters are amusingly trespass upon the functions of its neighbours. sketched, notably the Vicar's wife, a sancti-Mr. Sibree wishes to defend optimistic views,