CURRENT LITERATURE.
Traits of Character and Notes of Incident in Bible Story. By Francis Jacox. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—We trust that many of our readers have studied and duly appreciated Mr. Jacox's "Secular Annotations on Scripture Texts," and will therefore be sufficiently informed of the character of this volume when they are told in the prefatory notice that it " may be described as, in effect, another and enlarged series " of the former work. We can but say of it, as we have said in effect before, that the book is delightful to road, but almost impossible to review. Mr. Jacox is well read in classical and remarkably well read in modern literature, and fairly overpowers us with the multitude and appositeness of his citations. Here and there, of course, one can pick a hole, and a man who finds his own reading almost ludicrously small by the side of Mr. Jacox's magnificent display may have a sinister pleasure in doing so. "You may make a solitude, and call it peace, if you like, some one has shrewdly said," curiously misrepresents the original intention of the famous " Solitddinem faciunt, pacem appellant." But it is not often that Mr. Jacox makes a slip, while, as he could, most certainly, out of his abundant stores, have made his volume ten times bigger than it is, it is sheer impertinence to suggest that he has left oat, for want of knowledge, any illustration that one's own reading may be able to supply.
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