CURRENT LITERATURE.
Piccadilly : a Fragment of Contemporary Biography. By Lawrence Oliphant. (Blackwood.)—" Personally," says Mr. Oliphant of his book, "I can be in no way affected by its fate, nor is it likely that I shall ever see or hear the criticism of which it may be the subject." That is to say, he has loaded a blunderbuss, levelled it against society, and provided for its being fired off after he has himself got out of hearing. It is the " upper ten " at which he more directly aims, his more murderous slugs, &c., being intended for that section of them which he calls " the worldly- holy," as opposed to the "wholly-worldly." We have little sympathy with the victims. Vile damnum si interierint. But we doubt whether Mr. Oliphant is the right man to be trusted with their fate. His wrath is too indiscriminate and fierce,—incesto addidit integrum. Why should he sneer, for instance, at a young man of the " lower middles " because he is paid some four or five hundred a year for going as a missionary? We presume that a missionary must live, like other men, and that if it is worth while to send him out at all, it is necessary to pay him. After all, missionaries, whatever their defects in intelligence and culture, are certainly above the average of men in devotion and disinterestedness. It is very telling, of course, to scoff at the idea of a man who "gives up- all for the heathen " living in a comfortable house rent-free with a fair salary. Let him go without a shilling in his pocket and live in a hovel, and he will probably die in six months. Just, however, or unjust, Mr. Oliphant's satire is hero and elsewhere vigorous ; his sketches of character are sharply drawn (the illustrations, by the way, are curiously like those which Thackeray used to draw). The thread of the story on which the sketches are hung is not very clear, but the book is of course worth reading, as, indeed, what Mr. Oliphant writes could scarcely fail to be.
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