CURRENT LITERATURE.

Chess Eccentricities. By Major G. H. Verney. (Longmans.)— There is said to be a gentleman in America who has 3,000 books about chess. Here is another for him, as curious as most of his. Major Verney has been an enthusiast for many years on the special game called "four-handed ' or " doable " chess. Many have taken the infection from him ; among others was the late Duke of Albany, to whose widow this pretty little book is, by permission, dedicated. It is no secret that a " four-handed " club is about being started in London, and it ought to be successful ; undoubtedly this game is a much more " clubbable " one than the single game. Major Verney's book is by no means confined to the game he is famous for. It is full of all sorts and conditions of chessmen, boards, and games, including one stupendous game in which eight players engage, and which would assuredly have to be finished in Bedlam. There are a good many "cuts," as old books have it, in this little volume, and much pleasant and quaint reading, and it is tastefully got-up. It may be well "to shelve" it till the summer is over ; but when candles and fireside come in once more, there will be few more welcome "handbooks" than this.

Rebilius Cruso : Robinson Crusoe, in Latin. By Francis William Newman. (Triibner and Co.)—Professor Newman has not so much translated "Robinson Crusoe," as written a new story on the lines of the old. He hopes that he need not "apologise for taking only the general idea from Defoe." His hope is to popularise Latin by making the teaching lees scientific. Failing practice in talking, we had bettor call in the help of modern Latin. Hence, Rebilius Crass —a work, we may say at once, of great ingenuity—shines especially in dealing with the description of mechanical contrivances and of other things in the immortal story, for which it would be impossible to find any classical equivalents. Here is a specimen of Professor Newman's Latin :—

" Duodecimo mane, ut re:nigo ex portu ratem pone trahens, Eludes asperior aliquantum aquae in cymbam immisit. Exhaurire simul atque remigare non poteram ; si remos inhiberem, verebar ne deflexa cures cymba lane undis ohjiceret. In portnm, ut potine, statim redeo ; ibi roborandam suscipio oymbam. Altiorem facio proram, additis tabulis, qua° ferreis virgis firmatae, aliquantum asperginis possint rejicere. Non longi laboris erat illad ; sed nimins yentas me terrebat, igitur reliqaum diem scaphae addixi. Iliad consideraveram. Naufragiam plena lane passi eramus ipsis in Kalendis Septemtribus. Ad pleni lanium item= intumescente Oceano posse credebam sublevari scapham ; grande momentum servareturne an prorsus confringeretur."

We doubt whether" duodecimo mane" is admissible.

The Diary of a Civilian's iVife in India, 1877-1882. By Mrs. Robert Moss King. 2 vols. (Bentley and Son.)—These are two very pleasant volumes, abounding with observations of men and things. It is difficult to choose from among this variety ; but we may notice especially some interesting particulars about education in Vol. II. It is carious to bear of a missionary rejoicing in having left-off "paying the girls to come to school." The process of founding a school in India, or at least in some parts (this was near Naini Tall), is first to pay the children for coming, then to teach them for nothing, then to get a small school-fee from them. It must be allowed that, however induced to come, the children surpass English boys in their answers. Here are some specimens :—" The provisions of the Test Act were dogs, cats, and other animals, and lasted forty days." "The second Great Charter of English liberties was the Five Miles' Act, by which anybody dangerously ill was not allowed to come within five miles of the king's dominions." "In time of war, for all them that were killed a cart was brought, and the corpse was put in ; this was the Habeas Corpus Act." We are sorry to see that Mrs. King has a bad opinion of native Christians. She seems to think that their having to give-np the native dress and take to European garments, as weakening their self-respect, may have something to do with it. In the South, where there are large Christian communities, this, we presume, does not take place. The comparison of a Christian with a Eindoo or Mahometan community would be interesting. Observations of individual oases are delusive. Mrs. King thinks as badly as everybody else seems to do of the government of Kashmir. The last famine, she hears, was due to the officials delaying to give leave for the cutting of the crops.

Letters to Guy. By Lady Barker (Lady Broome). (Macrillan.) —Here we have a series of nineteen letters addressed by the writer to a son left at school in England, and describing somewhat more than a year of life in Australia. The author leaves Mauritius in May, 1883, and reaches Adelaide the same month. From Adelaide, she makes her way to Perth, in Western Australia, of which colony her husband is Governor. This is the principal subject of the book, which possesses all the writer's well-known charm of style. Very readable it is, and very much does it tempt one, or would have tempted one, calida juventa, to make trial of this Southern paradise. The country has, perhaps, some drawbacks; the climate is not quite perfect, being vexed especially with a hot wind; but the people, it seems, are all that they should be. There are some curious things in the book about the natives, who are evidently not very easy to deal with. How should such a case as the following be dealt with ?—" One gentle, inoffensive-looking young man was pointed out to me as a murderer. His mother had died lately, and the remedy proposed and insisted upon by his relatives as a care for the unusual degree of grief her death caused the youth was to go and murder a woman of the same age of another tribe. He did so, and was quite surprised that his own sorrow for his mother was not lessened. Me just same Cry-um.'" The Life of Samuel Seabury, D.D. By E. Edward Beardsley, D.D. (John Hodges.)—Dr. Seabury was the first Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, holding the See of Connecticut. He was born in Connecticut in 1729. Of coarse, in the War of Independence he was a Loyalist, and, together with his brethren, suffered accordingly. After the end of the war, an effort was made to obtain episcopal consecration in England, but difficulties intervened. These difficulties seemed to have been the State oaths in the form of Consecration. The Bishops did not feel able to omit them. Application was subsequently made to the Scotch Bishops, after a notion had been entertained,—but, happily, not approved,—of applying to one Cartwright, a so-called bishop of the non-juring succession. The application in Scotland was successful, though not till some opposition, which proceeded from America, had been overcome. On November 14th, 1784, the Rev. Samuel Seabury was consecrated by Robert Kilgour, Bishop of Aberdeen and Primus ; Bishop Skinner, his coadjutor; and Mr. Petrie,Bishop of Ross and Moray. Bishop Seabary survived his consecration twelve years, dying on February 25th, 1796.—With this work may be mentioned A Short History of the Episcopal Church in America, by the Rev. W. Benham, B.D. (Griffith and Ferran.) The Agricola of Tacitus. A Translation. (Kagan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—This translation has merits, but it has also faults. Sometimes it is stiff, and sometimes too free. Occasionally the meaning of the original is not fully given. In the famous last chapter we find no account taken of the epithet in "non cum corpore extinguuntur magnse anims3." It is doubtful whether any philosophers maintained generally "that the soul does not perish with the body." It was the great souls, they thought, who survived. Farther on the translator seems to have followed a vicious reading when he writes "Let our homage rather be in admiration, in never-ceasing praise, and, if nature grant us the strength, in growing like to you." Orelli reads, "admiratione potins quam temporalibus landibus." The last sentence of the chapter is good :—" For while oblivion falls on many of old, mingling them with the ignoble and obscure, Agricola, preserved to after ages in tale and history, will still have a place among the living." "Many of old" is not very happy; "many of the heroes of old" may be better. "Greek ease" and "provincial straitness"' give no idea of Graeca comitas and parsimonia provincialis ; "refinement " and "frugality" would be better. It is a cumbrous tramlation, again, of Taeitus's remark that Agricola by his modesty, "extra invidiam nee extra gloriam fait," to wit, "this modest bearing did no injury to his fame, while robbing it of power to make him enemies." Surely it has been better translated "he escaped jealousy without losing distinction."

Chronicles of the Abbey of Elstow. By the Rev. P. R. Wigram. (Parker and Co.)—Elstow was a Benedictine Convent, founded by Judith, niece to the Conqueror, in 1078. Its records do not present anything very remarkable; but they present several points of interest. In 1288, for instance, we have an exact valuation of its property. Its revenues were not large, not amounting to more than £70 per annum. (This, however, may be given as "rateable" value.) At its suppression it ranked among the greater monasteries. The pensions granted to the ejected Sisters amounted to £111 6s. 8d., Dame Elizabeth Bozvill receiving £50, the Prioress £4, the ex-Prioress

23 6s. 8d., the " sexton " the same, sixteen nuns 22 13s. 4d. each, and four nuns £2. There is no particular reason to regret its dis

appearance, for a monition issued nine years before by the Bishop of Lincoln does not give a favourable view of its state. Mr. Buckley has added some interesting notes on the architecture of the church, and on some noticeable remains in Elstow village.

Early anti Imperial Rome. By Hodder W. Westropp. (Elliot Stock.)—This volume contains a series of fifteen "promenade lectures," delivered by the author in situ. They are interesting and instructive. We are inclined to wish that they had been published in a shape which would have made it convenient to read them where they were delivered.

The new number of that indispensable annual, The Statesman's Year-Book, supplies abundant evidence of the resolution of its editor, Mr. J. S. %aide, to make it every year worthier of its name. There is in it now scarcely a single error of detail to correct, and it contains twenty-four pages of fresh matter. Several of the special articles in it have been recast,—notably that on Russia. Mr. Keith) has an eye to the special as well as the general wants of the politician and the publicist. His volume contains the fullest and most authorita tive statement that has yet appeared of Egyptian statistics of every kind ; information about the colonial possessions of Germany, about which we were all, like the Colonial Secretary, in a "no-idea'd " con dition a year ago; and figures which enable us to compare our naval strength with that of other countries. Possibly, Mr. Keltie might still further increase the value of his book by reducing the bulk of the historico-political information it contains. We know of almost no other suggestion to make in regard to it.

We presume that Mr. Robert J. Langstaff De llavilland, M.A., author of the three-volume novel Enslaved (S. Low and Co.) would not object to being described as a member of the English realistic school. Certainly there is mach that is very repulsive, and not a little that is disgusting, in his book ; and it ends with the tragic collapse of practically all the characters in it. The heroine breaks the seventh commandment for the sake of a selfish Greek, who thinks of nothing but the gratification of his own desires, and who occa sionally uses language worthy only of Seven Dials ; while her brother,

who avenges her wrongs, is very nearly as bad as she is, as he carries on a most dubious flirtation with an Eastern intrigante. Then there

is in Enslaved a great deal of such stuff as "hot-sweet thoughts" and "one rosy dream of love, with flashes of fiery tongue, a glowing incense sweetly stupefying, burned to the God of Passion." Yet there are signs in Enslaved that Mr. Havilland is acquainted with Cairo and Constantinople, and has some powers of description. It is to be hoped that he may yet put these powers to some good use.

Surrey Bells and London Bell-Founders, by J. C. Stablschmidt (Elliot Stock), is an interesting contribution to the science of "bells."

The first two chapters are devoted to London founders, who arc to be traced back to as early a date as the thirteenth century ; the rest of the book to "Surrey Bells." Out of 388 Surrey churches and chapels, 147 only are of older foundation than the present century (that of itself is a curious fact) ; and out of the 694 bells that these 147 contain, 22 only are of pre-Reformation date. The earliest, Mr.

Stahlsohmidt thinks, is the single bell of Chaldon, not later than 1250; and next to this is the second bell at Bilsay, belonging to the first half of the fourteenth century.

We have received from Messrs. Marcus Ward and Co. (Oriel House, Farringdon Street) a number of pretty Easter Cards,—careftilly painted flowers for the most part,—with poems on the subject of Easter appended to them. There is also a series of folding Easter cards of the same kind.