1 SEPTEMBER 1888, Page 25

The Talisman. By Sir Walter Scott. Abridged for use in

schools. (Bell and Sons.)—We wonder whether Sir Walter ever supposed that the lines of Horace,- " Hoe (moque to menet, nt poems elements docentem Omnapet extremie in viols baba seneotne," would be as partly true in his own case as in the author's of the lines. The novel has been abridged; but we have an interesting continuous story in the words of Scott, so that he must be the veriest dullard who can go through these reading lessons without interest. There is a list of words needing explanation at the end of the book.—Another volume of the same series is The Life of Columbus, a well-written and interesting account of the chief events in the lives of the great Spanish discoverers of the sixteenth century.