CURRENT LITERATURE.
The manager of the Contentporary Review has introduced a new feature, short articles in smaller type on minor topics. Such a feature is always useful in the conduct of a magazine, as it enables its con- ductors to cover much ground which otherwise must be neglected for want of space. The best articles in the present number are Miss Cobbe's paper on the Vivisection Act, a fair, and from her point of view, moderate answer to Mr. Lowe; a sketch of Henrietta Maria, the unhappy daughter of Henri IV., and wife of Charles L, by Mr. Peter Bayne, which Is really admirable, in its vivid portraiture of a woman who was much more of a per- sonage in England than popular historians are wont to allow; and a paper by Mr. Holbeach on "Transcendentalism in England, New England, and India," who, however, passes far too favourable a judgment on Mr. Frothingham's feeble work. Mr. Dowden gushes a great deal too much for our taste over "Daniel Deronda," declaring, among other things, that" every atom of Mirah'a being is bright with coherent energy," which we should say is the least accurate description of a heroine of fiction ever written. Dr. Buck urn's essay on "Habitual Drunkenness" is worth reading, its author being one of those who hold that the quicker drunkards drink themselves to death the better, but who is opposed to any State action for their preservation. He thinks the American Asylums for Inebriates utter failures. The patients get drink.
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