28 NOVEMBER 1896, Page 25

Captain Cook's Voyages Round the World. With an Introductory Life

by M. B. Synge. (Nelson and Sons.)—The three voyages of Cook occupied altogether about eleven years (1168-1779), of which time a little more than two years were spent at home. The journals have been copied with some abridgment ; a few details are unsuitable for general reading, and these have been properly omitted. But the narrative is given with its detail, often unexciting, but always worth reading. Such a. diet as this plain, unpretending narrative of a man who was really heroic in his conception and carrying-out of duty should be a wholesome alterative to the exciting reading to which young people are now treated in so much abundance. The editor supplies an appre- ciative memoir of the great discoverer.