CURRENT LITERATURE.
Papers on Palmistry. By Rosa Banghan. (Field.)—This brief treatise on the imaginary science of Chiromancy or Palmistry—the telling a person's fortune by elucidating the attributes which apper- tain to the lines that appear on the palms of the hand—will furnish amusement for an idle hour. It is traced back to the "Kabbala," that is, to a traditional and mysterious doctrine among the ancient Jews. Christian and other peoples have, however, retained certain portions or fragments, and debased them to magical purposes exclusively, chiromancy, with its strong touch of the preternatural, having a separate existence. The writer claims attention to her brochure by reminding the reader that palmistry was a subject which attracted the serious attention of Aristotle, amongst other writers of bygone days, and in recent times has received the serious consideration of such men as Herder, Balzac, and Desbarolles, among thinking men ; but she perhaps diminishes the value of what she says on the historical view, by her own dis- position to credit some of its assertions. The book is published in a pleasing form for the library-table, though the illustrative plates, we may here remark, are too roughly sketched.
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