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would, in fact, offer suggestions enough, and quotations enough, for a very long article. Ünder its slightness there are often wise remarks, as, for example, when at Florence Mr. James hits upon the real central truth about art, that it is not a thing to be preached about or scolded about in the "angry governess" style, but to be freely and happily enjoyed.

"Art is the one corner of human life in which we may take our ease... In other places our passions are conditioned and embarrassed. . . . Art means an escape from all this. Wherever her brilliant standard floats, the need for apologies and exonerations is over; there it is enough simply that we please, or that we are pleased. There the tree is judged only by its fruits. If these are sweet, one is welcome to pluck them. . . . As for Mr. Ruskin's world of art being a place where we may take life easily, woe to the luckless mortal who enters it with any such disposition. Instead of a garden of delight, he finds a sort of assize court, in perpetual session. Instead of a place in which human susceptibilities are lightened and suspended, he finds a region governed by a kind of Draconic legislation. His responsibilities, indeed, are tenfold increased; the gulf between truth and error is for ever yawning at his feet; the pains and penalties of this same error are advertised in apocalyptic terminology upon a thousand sign-posts; and the poor wanderer soon begins to look back with infinite longing to the lost paradise of the artless." This is truly and very forcibly stated. The best quality of the artist, as Prof. Seeley has pointed out, is to possess a higher power of enjoyment than others, so that he may be a minister of enjoyment to them; and it might easily be shown that the highest function of the critic is not to attack works of art, but simply to take pleasure in good ones, and get them well preserved and well cared for, and estimated at their proper value. It is by no means a frivolous or an unnecessary function, in a time of hurried and often destructive industry, to be the friend and defender of

the beautiful.

P. G. HAMERTON.

Lessons from the Rise and Fall of the English Commonwealth. Six Lectures by J. Allanson Picton. (Alexander & Shepheard.) THE biographer of Oliver Cromwell has turned to account his great knowledge of the heroic period in the seventeenth century by delivering a series of lectures in which he has endeavoured to show what political lessons we may derive from a study of the English Commonwealth. Mr. Picton is, we believe, considered to belong to the more advanced section of the Liberal party. There are many passages in these Lectures which seem evidence of the fact, and yet he has given us one of the most conservative books we have ever read. We are, of course, using the word in a somewhat different sense to that in which it is employed when the party politics of the day are spoken of. It is a great mistake to read into the great struggle between a "divine right" king and a people determined to develop their inherited freedom any of the exciting cries which have stirred the public mind during the present generation. Mr. Picton does not do this. He leaves it to ignorant and violent people to tell us how the methods which were found effective in a past age might be useful

in this or that part of the empire at present. His object is, rather, to show that violence was even then a great evil, only to be encountered when no other means of deliverance from despotism could be devised; and he points out in eloquent words that all the reasonable wants of Englishmen may now be attained by the slow but sure means of educating the masses until they really desire them, and are, as a consequence, worthy of them. Mr. Picton's idea of what England may become is a very noble one, though too slight to be criticised in detail. It is certainly very widely different from that unorganised and stupid democracy which some people tell us is the future to which we are drifting. 'Liberty," he tells us,

66

“requires mutual concession, nay, mutual subordination; and equality implies something more than the sentiment of citizenship-it implies reverence for humanity in every form, when disguised by conventional rank as well as when marred and begrimed by toil." This is, of course, true; and it is a kind of truth which requires insisting on when violent people, whether progressive or reactionary, talk nonsense in political speeches. We think, however, that Mr. Picton has failed to tell the whole truth. He has denounced the game-laws and the land-laws, as they deserve, perhaps, even with a somewhat one-sided energy; but he has not so clearly pointed out that, before his ideal of a free commonwealth can come within measurable distance of attainment, there must be many reforms in social feelings and in the minor morals. The present generation of English people would be as unable to preserve such a state of things as he dreams of from corruption and decay as the great and good men who succeeded Oliver Cromwell were to hinder the restoration of the man whom Mr. Picton rightly calls a "drunken, debauched adventurer."

We wish Mr. Picton would continue his lectures, and give us some of the lessons to be drawn from the reign of Charles II. To us it seems that that foul time, when the

Court harlots seem to have been the most

decent people among the gang that surrounded the King, has lessons as well worth study as that which preceded it. Shaftesbury and Titus Oates, Lady Castlemaine and Nell Gwin, are not such pleasant objects of contemplation as the men and women who struggled, suffered, and died for the idea of freedom in the former age. As we may trace much of the present liberty to the latter, so we believe much of the foulness, vice, and wanton disregard for the rights of others which shocks every well-ordered mind is directly due to the herd of swine which ruled us from the period of the Restoration to the Revolution. EDWARD PEACOCK.

Town Life in Australia. By R. E. N. Twopeny. (Elliot Stock.)

THIS interesting and amusing book was originally written in letters, each of which now makes a convenient chapter. Mr. Twopeny is observant, and describes graphically what he sees. If anyone desires to know what the Australians are like, and what their every-day life is, he cannot do better than send for Town Life in Australia. It is refreshing to read a book on some of our great colonies free

from the exaggeration so tempting to writers who, having to make the most of their travels and experiences, delight in impressing on us how much we are left behind in the race by our children. Mr. Twopeny not only describes well, but with a considerable sense of humour. After giving a general account of Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, he proceeds to tell us how their inhabitants live, what their houses are like, and how furnished; what they eat, and how they dress. He gives a laughable description of Australian servants, babies, and school-boys (these last, most objectionable individuals), and then proceeds to the more serious subjects of education, morals, religion, politics, and literature.

As yet, the native-born Australian is in a minority; the majority of adults are Englishborn colonists. The author enquires what modification the middle-class Englishman undergoes in Australia.

"In some ways a deterioration; in others, an itself in an increased love of dram, and espeamelioration. The deteriorating tendency shows cially spirit, drinking; in apparel and general carelessness; and in a roughening of manner and an increase of selfishness. The improvement lies chiefly in greater independence of manner and thought, in a greater amount of thought, and in enlarged and more tolerant kindness of heart, and in views, in less reserve and morgue, in additional a more complete realisation of the great fact of human brotherhood. In Australia a man feels himself a unit in the community, a somebody; in England he is one among twenty-seven millions, a nobody. This feeling brings with it a greater sense of self-respect and responsibility. Altogether, then, it may be said that the balance of improvement rather than of deterioration. The the modification is generally on the side of Englishman in Australia improves more than he deteriorates; and this is the more true the lower you descend in the social scale. It may be doubted whether the really well-educated man-the gentleman,' in short, to use the word in its technical sense of a man well born, well bred, and well educated—generally improves in the colonies. As a rule, I should say

he deteriorates.'

The chapters on servants and food are especially amusing. We have all heard of the difficulty of getting decent servants in the colonies. Very few native-born Australians will take to domestic service; and, though there are constant shipments of servants from home, they probably consist of not even second-rate ones. From Mr. Twopeny's account of the accommodation (or, rather, want of accommodation) for them in most of the better class of Australian houses, it is easy see that even large wages would not make As such service tolerable to good servants. to good cooks, they are not to be found in Australia, nor, indeed, do the rich Australians feel the want of them; and, as no one keeps a kitchen-maid, there are no young servants to be trained up as cooks. The style of living of all classes is abundant indeed, but of the simplest kind.

to

"Of course, meat is the staple of Australian life. A working-man whose whole family did not eat meat three times a day would indeed be a phenomenon. High and low, rich and poor, all eat meat to an incredible extent, even in the hottest weather. Not that they know how to prepare it in any delicate way, for, to the working and middle, as well as to most of the wealthy, classes, cooking is an unknown art

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The meat is roast or boiled, hot or cold, sometimes fried or hashed. It is not helped in mere slices, but in good substantial hunks. In You everything the colonist likes quantity. can hardly realise the delight of 'tucking in ' to a dish of fruit at a dinner party. I once heard a colonist say, I don't like your nasty little English slices of meat; we want something that we can put our teeth into.'. . . I have not yet described the food of any but the working-class; and if they live ten times better than their fellows at home, it is equally true that the middle, and especially the upper, class live ten times worse. But, as victualling is as necessary a condition of existence here as any where else, I must do my best to enlighten you as to our situation in this respect. May you never have practical experience thereof! If it be true that, while the French eat, the English only feed, we may fairly add that the Australians grub. Nor could it be otherwise under the circumstances. It is not merely because it is difficult to entice a good cook to come out here. If he really wants a thing, the wealthy colonist will not spare money to get it; but how can you expect a man who, for the greater part of his life, has been eating mutton and damper, and drinking parboiled tea three times a day, to understand the art of good living? Even if he does, he finds it unappreciated by those around him."

The ordinary cook is not even capable of sending up a simple meal properly; the meat, potatoes, and plain pudding are all ill-cooked. Nobody minds if only he has enough.

The book contains some very interesting observations on trade and business. As in England two hundred years ago, land is the safest investment that offers itself in Australia. The interest on mortgages is from six and a-half to eight per cent., and nine-tenths of the house-property of Australia is mortgaged up to two-thirds of its value. The heavy protectionist tariff of Victoria has produced an almost universal practice of presenting the Customs with false invoices so skilfully concted as to make detection impossible. The arbor states that within his knowledge this tice has been resorted to by firms of the hest standing. The maxim of caveat aptor is pushed in Australia to its farthest Of all foreign manufacturers the Americans are the most to be relied on, the French the least. Of all professions, medicine ertainly is the best remunerated in Australia; The clergy, who are the hardest worked, are worst paid. Mr. Twopeny tells us that he is now in New Zealand. We trust he may be getting Materials for a book on that colony as enterthing as the present one, which we can ommend with confidence to our readers.

⚫xtreme.

WILLIAM WICKHAM.

4 Plain_Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. By F. H. A. Scrivener. Third Edition. (Bell.)

Car monumental labours of Westcott and Hot and the revision of the English New Istament have drawn fresh attention to xtual studies not only in Great Britain, but upon the Continent and in America, so Dr. Scrivener's valuable Introduction receive even a warmer welcome upon its third issue than when it was presly offered to the world of scholars. The new pages indicate at once the large tions made, and a careful examination of

the work reveals many changes. It would
be useless to attempt a reference to all the
modifications of this new edition; and it must
suffice to name, as the sections which have
been especially enlarged, the description of
the Greek cursive MSS., of the Latin MSS.,
and of recent views in criticism, and the
application of the materials to certain textual
questions.

In

adding, however, that he dares not call eòs a corruption. In 1 Tim. vi. 7 he seems to support &λov, although he would "have liked to see" the evidence "a little stronger." Philem. 12 he seems to be uncertain how far to follow the latest editors. In Rev. xv. 6 he prefers Aívov (Aoûv); and in Rev. xviii. 3, TÉTTWKE, or possibly TÉTOкav. It will be seen that there has been no change of moment in the For the Latin MSS. the author has been author's position with respect to the so-called so fortunate as to secure the aid of Prof. "textus receptus; " he continues to maintain John Wordsworth, whose preparations for a that many important alterations are necessary critical edition of the Vulgate have given in that text. It will nevertheless not astonish him an exceptional command of the subject; anyone that Dr. Scrivener, in discussing recent and this serves to make up for the compara- views, combats at some length-unsuccesstive neglect in the second edition of the epoch-fully, it is true-the critical theories of Westmaking article "Vulgate " in Smith's Diction-cott and Hort, much as he praises their learnary of the Bible. It is worthy of note that quite ing and zeal. a number of the new MSS. have been already collated by Prof. Wordsworth or by some one of the band of scholars who are assisting him. Importance has always been attached to Dr. Scrivener's descriptions of the Greek cursive MSS., and it will surprise no one to find that this part of his work has been much extended. The author, together with his son, the Rev. F. G. Scrivener, of Lakenheath, has been occupied for some time past in examining and collating the MSS. of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and the fruits of this appear in many a note scattered here and there. Moreover, it has been possible for the Vicar of Hendon to assure himself by personal inspection of various points in reference to MSS. not easily accessible to him while he was at St. Gerrans. His efficient lieutenant in former years has outdone himself in his zeal for the present edition. Everyone will remember Dean Burgon's valuable notes upon British and foreign MSS. in last year's Guardian; but, not satisfied with that, he has since obtained a large list of MSS. in foreign libraries. Unfortunately, these came too late to be assigned to their due position in the body of the book, and the author has placed them after the Preface. We are glad also to learn that the Dean and his nephew, the Rev. W. F. Rose, have been collating several MSS., and that the results will soon be published. The one great meeting-point of all New Testament scholars, whatever their theories and predilections may be, is that they desire to know what the MSS. say. Every collation either adds to our knowledge of the history of the text or serves to clear the ground by enabling us to assign the MS. examined to its proper place. It is much to be hoped that the renewed interest in critical questions may direct the attention of many a young scholar to this department. We may add that the author emphasises the need of workers not only in the field of the New Testament, but also in the patristic branch of text-criticism. We trust that his words will be heeded.

In the application of the materials to particular texts, the following points may be noticed. In Mark vi. 20, where the second edition accepted rope, the third returns to eroic, not because of any change in the evidence, but because the latter reading now appears to Dr. Scrivener "to afford an excellent sense.' In 1 Cor. xi. 29 he seems inclined to give up avagios and Toù Kupíov as glosses. In 1 Thess. ii. 7 he rejects výroL. In 1 Tim. iii. 16 he accepts os as before,

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We are unable to follow Dr. Scrivener (p. 26) in supposing that the reed pen was given up in the East when papyrus went out of use, that only a few of the existing MSS. were written with reeds, and that the impression of the letters in the parchment is due to the heavy stroke of an iron stylus; we cannot even imagine the use of a fluid with a stylus. It is probably a mere inadvertence in the sentence which makes it seem (p. 27) as if the sheets of folio MSS. were furnished with signatures at intervals of four leaves. On the same page, in note 2, it would be better to unite the separately named parts of the Lyons Pentateuch. It is difficult to understand what is meant on p. 41 by "the unformed character of the writing" in the Oxford Plato. In referring to the orixo, on p. 51, the author seems totally unaware of the discussions of the last forty years, from Ritschl in 1838 to Graux and Birt; indeed, Gardthausen's Griechische Paläographie of 1879 appears altogether to have escaped his notice. With reference to p. 71, it may be observed that the proper name of a Gospel lesson-book seems to be simply evayyetov, and of the lesson-book from the Acts and Epistles simply άróστodos. P. 88, note 1: Brugsch's fragment is not from the Codex Sinaiticus. Pp. 124, 125: is it not possible that the corrections by the original scribe in many MSS. are dim simply because the scribe, in wishing to turn over, put sand upon the brief correction? P. 134: there are no scholia in Mevv, but only notes of the church lessons. P. 135: Dr. Scrivener does not mention Duchesne's edition of the Patmos Nev On p. 142 he carries his persistent neglect of modern literature to excess when he fails to observe that Bishop Lightfoot, in the former edition of the volume before us, places Ts in the office Clarendon Press-compare p. 394; correct also the Index for T on p. 676, col. 2. Mat the beginning of the penultimate paragraph on p. 162 should read Gb. On p. 172 Dr. Scrivener mentions but fourteen out of the thirty-one leaves of Haul, and neglects. Duchesne's edition of the Athos H.

of the

The cursive MSS. open a field too wide for discussion here. Every scholar will be glad to see the large additions to the list. It is not strange that Dr. Scrivener should still have missed here and there a MS. upon the Continent-as, for instance, the one given to the royal library at Munich by a former King of Greece; it is more remarkable that several British MSS. have escaped his notice-for

example, the one received at Dean Burgon's college, Oriel, some time before the Bodleian MS. named on p. xxiii. reached Oxford; and it is singular that two of the four MSS. at Holkham should be omitted-one of these, a dated one, was mentioned by the present writer a few months ago in the ACADEMY. It may be observed that the Isaac H. Hull on p. 327, note 1, p. 485, note 1, and p. 546, note 4, is Prof. Hall, formerly in the American College at Beirut, and now connected with the Sunday School Times in Philadelphia. We understand that he intends to publish at least a part of the Syriac MS. in question. The account of Beza's editions of the Greek New Testament (for we are here concerned only with the Greek) is hopelessly entangled. Reuss's book of 1872 explained the matter, Ezra Abbot re-explained it in 1873, and the present writer re-stated it in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, and forwarded a copy to Dr. Scrivener; and yet the author, on p. 440, misinterprets Beza's words, charges to Beza's old age a mistake which Beza did not make, and suggests that Reuss arbitrarily opposes Beza's own view. All that need be said is that Reuss's statement is correct, and is acknowledged to be so.

But we must not find fault with so useful a book. In congratulating the veteran author upon the successful completion of this new edition we wish him health and strength, and therewith, amid the duties of his large parish, the leisure to complete the other works he

has in hand for which scholars are waiting.

Blake.

CASPAR RENÉ GREGORY.

RECENT VERSE.

more

is written, no amount of excellence of technique
is of itself enough. Style is much, very much,
but imagination is more; and the writer who
cannot project some purely imaginative phan-
tasy has little chance of being known. More-
have something to do with life: much of the
over, the imagination of a modern poet must
imagination of the lesser poets of our time is
in the position of Mahomet's coffin, in being
neither in the heavens above nor on the earth
beneath. "The Dew-fall" in Mr. Home's
book has real beauty:-

"I heard the word of the Dew-fall
As it gathered itself to a pearl,
And lay on the leaf of the Lily,
Like a tear on the cheek of a girl.
'Cold, cold, O Lily,'

The Dewdrop said to the leaf;
'Thy leaf, O Lily, is cold and chilly,
And pale as a wordless grief.'
"There arose a breeze at the nightfall,
And blew the rushes apart;
The Lily shook, and the Dewdrop
Slipt inward, and lay at her heart.
Cold, cold, O Lily,'

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Said the Dewdrop unto the flower;
Thy heart, O Lily, is cold and chilly,
And dark as a wintry shower.'

"And the night went by with its starlight,
And the sun came up in its might;
And the Dewdrop arose from the Lily,
And melted to mist in his light.
'Cold, cold, was the Lily.'

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cent of Blanco White in its opening lines, is original and good; and there is a description of Evening which is still better. The latter has. indeed, some of the drowsy charm of Gray him self. A description of Dawn is marred by a truth, there are odd passages in the one book little excess in poetic personification. But, in which we have read that have very remarkable merit indeed. remainder of the volume, and do not doubt but We have glanced over the that, if we had the patience of the men who stood before Metz, we could extract from this 'Ninefold Praise of Love" a body of detached lines that would establish for Mr. Pitchford the name of poet. The greater part of the work, however, is occupied with subjects that have no more to do with poetry than with politics. For example, the book called "The Song of Sorrow discusses the mystery of pain, the difficulty of harmonising this mystery with Divine benevolence, the explanation of Revelation, and so on. When will it be recognised that the first necessity of a poem is that its subject should be poetic? It is not enough that its treatment should be so. Mr. Pitchford has dealt with themes that require an entirely different vehicle. His themes dishonour his vehicle, and his vehicle dishonours his themes. There is a clear divorce proclaimed between them. Passages here and there of Mr, Pitchford's big book are poetic in subject and poetic in execution, but odd passages of picturesque blank verse will not carry off a laborious philo

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Said the Dew with a sigh of desire; 'At the daylight's close I will sleep with the sophical treatise of nearly 12,000 lines. A Rose,

For the Rose has a heart of fire." "

If any reasonable proportion of the poets of
Life Thoughts. (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.)
our time would take to heart Goethe's well-
known advice, and write only the poems which
he called "Gelegenheitsgedichte," poems aris-
ing out of actual events, the labours of the
critic would be sensibly reduced. There are
offer any clear idea of the value of verse which
few things in criticism more difficult than to
comes out of nothing except a passing mood,
unless it be to say that such verse usually
fair to the writer of a book like Life Thoughts
resolves itself into nothing. It would be un-
to allege that it is destitute of a certain quality
of "subjective" beauty; but this "subjectivity"
amounts to very little. The reader perceives
Highland," and in "Dawn," "The Two Paths,'
evidences of descriptive power in " From the
"In Memory," and in some of the sonnets there
are quiet and not unhealthy moods of feeling;
but, when he has closed the book, he does not
find that anything has remained with him. He
wants emotions more definite; passions broader,
deeper, and more general.

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Lay Canticles, and other Poems. By F. Wyville Home. (Pickering.) Five years ago Mr. Home published his first volume, Songs of a Wayfarer, a title previously employed by a true poet, Mr. William Davies. The two books had not a great deal more than the name in common. Mr. Davies's songs had much of the moral sunshine that we associate with the poetry of Herrick; Mr. Home's had much of the moral shadow that we associate with the poetry of Both poets proved themselves to be skilful workmen. Perhaps there was maturity in Mr. Davies's work, and there was a wider range of thought and feeling; but Mr. Home was not less devoutly a worshipper of nature, and a few of his sonnets and certain of his Songs in Season were worthy to go forth under the title chosen by Mr. Davies for a volume that had long been valued by dis- (Elliot Stock.) This is undoubtedly one of the The Morning Song. By J. W. Pitchford. cerning readers. Mr. Home's new book does most extraordinary poetic products of our time. not seem to us a notable advance on his previous The critic may venture upon such a statement one. It has the same picturesqueness and the same who goes no farther than the book's exterior. felicity of diction; it is characterised by the It is a philosophical poem sub-titled "A Ninesame flavour of fine feeling, but it does not add fold Praise of Love." It has all the external any quality to these qualities that would serve arrangement of an epic, having an "argument" to distinguish it. Five years ago, Mr. Home to each of its subdivisions. It is longer than was in the position of a young writer having "Paradise Lost,' and half as long again just so much merit that none would have been as the "Excursion." It covers 372 quarto surprised to find that after a few years he had pages of solid type. discovered a great deal more. It is printed and We do not say bound most luxuriously. Nor is the subthat Lay Canticles disappoints expectations stance of the book less remarkable than its raised by its predecessor. It has fully all the form. We will not pretend that we have read excellences of the former book; but just as the Mr. Pitchford's poem. Life is not long enough reader felt respecting the earlier work, so he to admit of so lavish an expenditure of time as feels respecting the later one-that, with much the perusal of a poem like this requires. We culture, much sweetness of temper, it lacks have, however, read one of its nine books, and essential substance to make itself felt and can honestly say that we have found enjoyment remembered. A poet should not be conte it to in much of it. The book we have read is called write harmonious stanzas, or to convey the idea" The Song of Earth's Beauty." hat he is abreast of the many moods of his many passages of striking description. There is It contains time. In days like these, when so much poetry a description of Night which, though reminis

work like this does not bear you along with it
as you read. Full as it is of the clear evidences
the case, Mr. Pitchford should not take it amiss
creature could read it through. Such being
of poetic power, we doubt if any human
if we say that it is almost a melancholy spec-
tacle. It represents, perhaps, the labour of a
lifetime, and, with merit in many places, amounts,
we fear, to no more than a gigantic dead letter.

Paul, Trench, & Co.) This is an unpretentious
Ione, and other Poems. By W. H. Seal. (Kegan
and, on the whole, an adequate performance.
There are evidences of the influence of Moore in
Grave" has pathos, but the subject has been
its best things. "The Unknown Soldier's
handled by a great poet, Dobell. A sort of
panoramic series of views entitled "Pilgrims of
Fame" is not without beauty.
most touching of the poems is the simplest
Perhaps the
that on the two little things who were found
hand in hand in death after the memorable
disaster in Sunderland.

Old Year Leaves. By H. T. Mackenzie Bell.
(Elliot Stock.) We have here a volume of verse
chiefly collected from former volumes of the
better for the pains bestowed upon them. The
same author. The poems appear to have under-
gone some careful revision, and they are the
introductory sonnet, on
much the best thing in the book :-
"Old Year Leaves," is
"The leaves which in the autumn of the years
Fall auburn-tinted from their parent trees,
Swept from dismembered boughs by ruthless
Through winter's weary reign of wants and fears
breeze,
Will lie in drifts: and when the snowdrop cheers—
Frail firstling of the flowers-they still are
there;

And budding boughs proclaim that Spring ap-
There still, although the balmy southern air

pears.

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So lost hopes severed by the stress of life
Unburied lie before our wistful eyes,
And ever amid the stir of worldly strife,
Though none but we regard their fell decay;
Fresh aims and fuller purposes arise
Between the faded hopes of yesterday."

sonnet like this, which, whatever its technical
It is a matter for surprise that the writer of a
imperfections (and they are few), has the merit

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of realising an adequate idea adequately, should also have written some of the weak verses that accompany it. "The Keeping of the Vow" is, however, a stirring reproduction of the story of Bruce sending his heart to the Holy Land. The sonnet on visiting Rossetti's grave appeared in the American Literary World. It is not without a quality of beauty. It speaks of the grave as "all monumentless yet." Mr. Mackenzie Bell prefaces his volume with a short dissertation on the kinds and uses of minor poetry. The little essay is certainly amusing, and is refreshing as affording proof that there exists at least one minor poet who has not mistaken his function. What Mr. Bell says of the inevitable oblivion which awaits a large proportion of the poetry produced in our day is, we fear, only too true. We see that Mr. Bell intends to produce a monograph on Charles Whitehead. This is, at least, a more hopeful task than the production of volumes of minor verse. The author of Richard Savage was a genius of a high order, and yet he is almost unknown to our own generation.

Like nearly all rustic poets, Mr. Logan is un-thing to remove the reproach attaching to
equal; but his best things have genuine merits. American poetry of being largely indifferent to
The poems are all pitched in a low key, and are American subjects. This volume contains at
the better for their modesty of aim. There least one poem that could only have been written
is the lilt of the singer in "A Blithe by an American. "Ralph" is a story of the Civil
Scottish Song." The verses are in the War told with a good deal of pathos and general
Scottish dialect throughout. They are com- beauty. The poem that gives the title to the
mendable for the prominence they give to book is, of course, a sort of allegory, and is not
the worthier side of rustic life. Dialect poets, so real and forcible as the poems written on more
Scotch and English, have too often laboured substantial subjects.
under the idea that the only material proper to
rustic poetry pertains to the ale-guzzling side
of peasant life. There is broad humour in
"Macallister's Bonnet"
;":-

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He'd use't for his brose but it winna haud in!" Echoes of the City. By Edwin C. Smales.

The Loves of Vandyck. By J. W. Gilbart-(Manchester: Alley.) Mr. Smales reminds us
Smith. (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.) If Mr. that "To the thoughtful man the play of
human passion is always a spectacle of intense
Gilbart-Smith had told the story of Vandyck's interest, and nowhere has he better scope for
loves in prose he would doubtless have pro-
duced an interesting narrative. To say that such observation than in a crowded city."
the story is well told in verse would be mean-
This is certainly true; and, if Mr. Smales could
ingless flattery of a kind from which Mr. have given his generalisation some concrete
Smith has, apparently, already suffered enough. shapes, the result would have been a volume of
There is always ease and freedom in this poetry. There is material for the poet in the
writer's rhyme, and occasionally there is a great life of the city; but it does not lie among
certain Byronic force.
Mr. Smith is at his facetious oystermen, showmen, and the like.
best in the description of external nature;
Mr. Smales book is best in what he calls its
when he imitates the jauntiness of
66 Don
graver" passages; its "lighter portions" are
Juan" he produces verses like these:-
often sorry stuff indeed.
"Poor widowed bride! full well I trow,
She truthfully could tell,

-

If heaven made her marriage-vow,

The keeping it was hell!

The bridal blossoms on her brow,

If weeds, were scarce more fell;
Sooth! never half the widows now

Are widowed half so well!"

The Last David. (Elliot Stock.) The best that we can find in this volume is its picturesqueess The anonymous author is a lover and ator of Shelley, and has at least caught of the master's passion for cloud and sea. the "Songs of the Wayside" contain many the bits; but the sonnets are perhaps the te things as units, the sonnet on Stoke Pogis bing tenderly felt and rendered.

The Story of St. Stephen, and other Poems. By John Collet. (Longmans.) The poems in is volume are chiefly of a devotional nature. Ly are manly and unaffected, and are often penetrated by real feeling. That they have any stazuishing literary merit is more than we ay. They are meant to cheer and succour as are in the shadowed valley, and this, within certain limits, they are well calculated to The author is obviously a man of much stness of personal character, with a wide age of sympathy.

Cuthullin. By Greville J. Chester. (Marcus a) Mr. Chester writes with feeling and *agonally with taste, but his poems have no guishing qualities of style. The subjects for the most part homely ones, derived from y life. amarera: a Fantasy. By Cornelia Wallace. Lenschein.) This pretty trifle seems to grown out of Moore's note to "Lalla th," saying that in the Malay tongue there t one word for woman and flower. The a raggested by this fact is sweetly worked

" verses not otherwise remarkable. Lays o' Hame an' Country. By Alexander Lean. (Edinburgh: Oliphant.) There is a good of freshness in these songs and ballads.

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Songs of Fair Weather. By Maurice Thompson. (Boston, U.S.: Osgood; London: Trübner.) This volume bears a strong external resemblance to Mr. Bell Scott's charming Harvest Home, and the internal resemblance is not inconsiderable. There is the same glad note of a happy spirit amid happy circumstances, the same sweetness of poetic temper, the same suggestion as of the poems having been written in the open air on the warm days of a genial spring and summer.

Mr. Scott has more

depth than Mr. Thompson. It is for want of a fundamental groundwork that some of the poems in this volume are not so good as at first sight they seem to be. The poet who chooses to treat simple themes simply must, nowadays, if he is writing for grown people, have some of Ballads, or his work will not be so much disthe purposes of the author of the Lyrical tinguished for simplicity as for simpleness. A poem such as "The Flight Shot" in this volume scarcely escapes the latter denomination. In "Between the Poppy and the Rose" the aim is different, and probably an underlying significance sometimes mars a poem that is intended to derive its beauty merely from its simplicity.

Rhymes of a Barrister. By Melville M. Bigelow. (Boston, U.S.: Little, Brown, & Co.) This is quite the most English volume of verse that has recently come to us from America. The sonnets it contains are obviously modelled on the best examples, and have a commendable freedom from excess, either of thought or phrase. We could wish to have more like the one entitled "Jackson's Falls." The book, as a whole, is enjoyable from its moderation, and from the atmosphere of unobtrusive culture that pervades it.

The City of Success, and other Poems. By Henry Abbey. (New York: Appleton.) It is a matter for surprise that so much excellent material for poetry as the late Civil War in America must afford has hitherto been so little utilised by American poets. We understand that in a previous volume Mr. Abbey did some

The Blind Canary. By II. F. Macdermott. (New York: Putnam.) Mr. Macdermott appears

as an

to have attained to some distinction American poet, and his distinction is not undeserved. He is a lesser poet who does not pretend to be one of the greater poets, although, indeed, he permit himself to print a laudatory sonnet in v. nich he is spoken of in terms that might aply with some degree of appropriateness to, say, Milton. The race of poets in America rast be more tractable than we find them in England if this sort of eulogy is a commor interchange of daily courtesy. The "Stora King" in this volume has merit, and, of a different kind, so also has "The Cobbler."

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Poems Antique and Modern. By C. L. Moore. (Philadelphia: Potter.) It is quite beyond our power to convey an idea of the nature of this book if the one word terrific will not express it. Such clashing and splashing, such "storm" and stress," we do not remember to have met with in any other volume of modern poetry. reminds us in its fierceness of Stoddart's "Deathwake; or, Lunacy: a Nicromaunt in Three Chimaeras." We find it quite impossible to give a description of Mr. Moore's book that will properly clear up its character; but, lest we should be labouring under an obtuseness that our readers do not suffer from, we quote the following passage on Edgar Allan Poe as a fair sample of the work

"For he was not of mortal progeny ; Born in the under-world of utter woe, Sad, sombre poet of Persephone,

His home he did forego, And came among our unacquainted meads, Pale, mid all statues of a mortal birth, Pure, mid all images that knew not death. What cared he for day's gaudy, glowing deeds, The fierce-blowing flowers of the earth,

Or the wind's lusty breath?

Still did he long for the black shades and deep, Still for the thickets inextricable, Still for the empty shadows of the gods, Still for the hueless faces of the dead; Still did he wander backward in his sleep, Down the long slopes and intricate of hell," &c. WE have also received Lyre and Star (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.); Life through the Lotos, by R. J. Harris (Cornish); Phantoms of Life, by L. D. Waterman (New York: Putnam); Poems of Barnaval (New York: Appleton); The Ever-Living Life, by G. T. May (New York: G. T. May); &c.

NOTES AND NEWS.

IT is with peculiar pleasure that we announce the grant of a pension on the Civil List to Mr. F. J. Furnivall, on the eve of the publication of the great Dictionary of the Philological Society. Others have borne witness to Mr. Furnivall's disinterested labours as the organiser and mainstay of some half-dozen learned societies. The ACADEMY owes him a special debt for the contributions which he has written for almost every number from soon after its foundation down to the present week.

THE project, which has so often been talked about, of founding an association of men of letters for the protection of their common interests has at last taken definite shape under the name of The Company of Authors." In the front of its programme it puts the obtaining

copyright in the United States, which we agree in thinking by far the most important object that English authors should desire. Second is placed the promotion of a Bill for the registration of titles. The purpose that comes third is undoubtedly the one which gives the real reason for existence of the association. This is "the maintenance of friendly relations between author and publisher," which is further explained to mean the removal of various kinds of ignorance by which inexperienced authors are blinded. At present it would be premature to mention any names in connexion with Company of Authors; " but the public may be assured that it has already received the active support of many whose reputation proves that their advocacy is altogether disinterested.

"The

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WE hear that a sort of answer to Max O'Rell's John Bull and his Island may shortly be expected from the pen of Mr. J. BrinsleyRichards, author of Seven Years at Eton. Mr. Richards, who resided for several years in France, will here give his impressions of the French people.

MRS. PFEIFFER's new poem, entitled The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock and How it Grew, deals, in ballad form, with the tragic relations of Catanach Maclean of Douart and his wife, a daughter of the Argylls; the verse has a setting of prose narrative. It will be published soon after Easter by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench,

& Co.

MESSRS. SONNENSCHEIN & Co. will publish Mr. Charles Marvin's new work, entitled Reconnoitring Central Asia: Adventures and Travels in the Region between Russia and India. It gives, in a popular form, the exploits of the principal explorers, secret agents, and newspaper correspondents who have sought to examine the rival positions of the Russians and English in Central Asia from the time Vambery set out in disguise twenty years ago down to Nazirbegoff's recent secret survey of Merv on behalf of Russia. Particular interest attaches to the sketches of the Russian explorers from the fact that Mr. Marvin is personally acquainted with many of them, and has incorporated a good deal of new information on the Central Asian question, gathered while attending the Czar's coronation and during his journey last autumn to the Caspian region. The book will be copiously illustrated.

MESSRS. TRÜBNER announce an important work, in two volumes, on Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period, by Capt. Robert Grant Watson. It will cover the three centuries from the discovery of the continent down to the British evacuation of the territories of the River Plate in 1807. It is intended to continue the work with a History of the several States of South America since their separation from Spain and Portugal down to the present day.

MR. R. L. STEVENSON's new book, The Silverado Squatters, will be a narrative of his

own experiences in California.

THE new work by Prof. Thorold Rogers, entitled Six Centuries of Work and Wages: the Undercurrent of English History, will very shortly be published by Messrs. W. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., in two octavo volumes. The last sheets are now passing through the press.

MESSRS. CHATTO & WINDUS have in hand a

new work by Mr. J. H. Stoddart, the author of The Village Life and editor of the Glasgow Herald, which will shortly appear under the title of The Seven Sagas of Prehistoric Man. The poem

will be in seven chapters, beginning with the the earliest or Drift man, and continuing the varied phases of prehistoric human life through the Cave man, the Neolithic farmer, the early man of Africa (in Egyptian civilisation), the Aryan migration, the European Crannog builders, and the "last sacrifice,' or disappearance of prehistoric humanity.

THE volume of Greek Folk Songs, translated by Miss Lucy M. J. Garnett, with an Introduction by Mr. J. S. Stuart-Glennie, which has already been announced in the ACADEMY, will include patriotic, love, wedding, pastoral, humorous, and ghost lore songs. The Introduction will describe the geographical features, history, and present condition of the people. The publisher is Mr. Elliot Stock.

PROF. MAX MÜLLER'S Deutsche Liebe: Fragments from the Papers of an Alien, will be issued by Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co. on Monday. It is an elegantly printed, vellumbound book, and is sold at the moderate price of 5s.

A NEW work by Miss Iza Duffus Hardy, entitled Between Two Oceans; or, Sketches of American Life, will shortly be published by Messrs. Hurst & Blackett.

MESSRS. THACKER SPINK, of Calcutta, have nearly ready a collection of Poems by Mr. W. Trego Webb, author of Martial for English Readers, which will treat in the form of sonnets and lyrical pieces various phases of AngloIndian life.

MESSRS. WILSON & M'CORMICK, of Glasgow, will shortly publish How Glasgow Ceased to Flourish: a Tale of 1890. They also have in the press Geology and the Deluge, by the Duke of Argyll; and a Turkish romance, translated into English by Mr. E. J. W. Gibb, entitled The Story of Jewūd, which will be published by subscription in a limited edition. CARD. MANNING contributes to the forthcoming number of Merry England an essay on Consistency," illustrated with allusions to the careers of contemporary statesmen and others.

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THE Yorkshire Illustrated Monthly for February will contain an illustrated article by Mr. Theodore Wood on Insects;' "the first of a series of papers, with original engravings, entitled "Round Yorkshire with a Donkeycart; " and a portrait of Mr. T. Wemyss Reid. MR. LESLIE STEPHEN, the recently appointed Clark Lecturer at Cambridge, will lecture this term, three days a-week, on ture," beginning on Monday next, January 28. PROF. SEELEY purposes to lecture this term at Cambridge on International History from the Sixteenth Century," and also to have a conversational class at his own house.

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lectures, with March's Anglo-Saxon Reader as his text-book; (2) of twelve lectures on "Chaucer's Prologue."

THE Early-English Text Society enters this year on its twenty-first year of existence, having been founded by Mr. Furnivall in March 1864. We hope to greet it in full vigour when it closes its second score of years. Its publications for this year will probably be in the Original Series, Dr. Einenkel's edition of the Life of St. Katherine (circ. 1230), and the completing part of Prof. Skeat's fine edition of Piers Plowman; and, in the Extra Series, part iii. of Lord Berners' englished Huon of Bourdeaux, edited by Mr. Sidney L. Lee, and the second part of Bishop Fisher's Works, edited by Mr. Ronald Bayne. Last year's work was a little behindhand. But the Original Series texts, Mr. Henry Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Orosius, part i., with its Latin original on opposite pages, and his edition of the facsimile of the Epinal MS, of the for three weeks; the first book of the Extra eighth century have been in members' hands Series for 1883-Lord Berners' Huon, part ii., with the first engraved portrait of the englisher, after Holbein has been delivered this week, but the second book, Mr. Furnivall's edition of Hoccleve's Minor Poems, will not be ready till April. Of its "reprints" of its early publications, the society issued in 1883 the first two parts of Sir David Lyndesay's Works, edited by Mr. J. Small, the Edinburgh University librarian; and for 1884 it has in hand a reedition of Mr. Cockayne's Hali Meidenhad (cire, 1230), by Mr. P. Z. Round, and a re-edition of Mr. Cockayne's Saint Marharete, three Lives of that saint, by Dr. Kluge, of Strassburg, who is nominated for the English Professorship at

Jena.

THE next two numbers of Anglia will appear together. One, edited by Prof. Wülcker, will contain three English articles, two of them by Dr. MacLean and Prof. Wells; the other, editel by Prof. Trautmann, will contain reviews and a bibliography for 1883, and an essay by Prof. Wülcker on 66 Bulwer's Weeds and Wildflowers."

LIRRARY JOTTINGS.

Ar a special meeting of the Council of the
Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society on the
January 17, the following resolution was passed
unanimously:-

"The Council of the Royal Medical and Chirur English Litera-gical Society of London desire to express their their late excellent resident librarian, Mr. Bensorrow at the sudden and unexpected death of jamin Robert Wheatley, and their sympathy with surviving members of his family.

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EARLY-ENGLISH JOTTINGS. THE fourth edition of Mr. Sweet's AngloSaxon Reader is nearly ready. Many of the texts have been revised with the MSS., and two charters, some extracts from the laws, and some charms have been added so as to make the book thoroughly representative of every branch of Old-English literature. The words in the Glossary have also been thrown into a strictly alphabetical order so as to facilitate reference. In the fifth edition it is hoped that the Grammatical Introduction and notes will be put into

a permanent form,

PROF. SKEAT purposes to give two courses of lectures this term at Cambridge-(1) of ten

"The Council also wish to record their deep sense of the value of his services to the society during the last forty years, and their due appreciation of his constancy and fidelity in the disWe understand that it is contemplated to estabcharge of his important duties." lish a memorial of the society's sense of the unsurpassed devotion which Mr. Wheatley applied the conduct of its affairs.

The

THE sale is announced of two important libraries in the provinces. On Tuesday, February 5, Messrs. Chapman will sell at Edin Wales, including several rare sixteenth-century burgh a small but curious collection from books, seventeenth-century tracts, &c. other sale is that of the library of the late Alderman Booth, of Manchester, which number about ten thousand volumes, collected princi pally by Dr. Benjamin Booth, of Swinton. I is especially rich in historical books and pam phlets of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen turies, topographical works, and scarce moder

books. It will be sold at Manchester on Mon day, February 18, and the five following days by Messrs. Capes, Dunn, & Pilcher,

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