CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Edinburgh Review, July. (Longmans.)—This seems to us a cumber of more than ordinary value and interest, except for its strange deficiency in politics. The first article, " Don John of Austria," is nominally a review of a work by the late Sir William Stirling Maxwell, really an original essay on the subject, and gives with mach force and liveliness of writing a compendious view of a
striking career. It is not unworthy to be ranked with the historical articles of tho Review's best days. Another historical article, "Charles VII.," sticks more closely to its text, the Marquis do Beaucourt's " Histoire do Charles VII." With these may be ranked an excellent review of M. Glasson's " History of English Law." Science is represented by an article on serpents ; the belles lettres by essays on the "Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Stage," the conclusion of which on the morality of the stage is expressed with admirable force and gravity ; by " The Angler's Library," and " Pedigrees and Peerages." Some very valuable information is given about the social and economical condition of the rural population of Italy. The terrible incubus of a vast military expenditure weighs upon Italy more heavily than on any other Continental country, and the peasantry seem to be, for this and for other reasons, worse off. The political writer of the Review, wearied, he tolls us, of English politics,—and probably not very loyal to Liberalism,—turns to the Far East, and reviews the proceedings of the French in Anam and Tonquin.
Previous page
