4 AUGUST 1888, Page 24

CURRENT LITERATURE.

The July number of the Edinburgh Review has a somewhat cranium gatherum look, but it is all the more rather than all the less interesting on that account. It does not contain a political paper, but we have instead a careful essay, evidently by an expert, on Mr. Dowell's " History of Taxation." The most important article in this number is " A Study of Religion," in which the great theo- logical work of the generation is criticised by a thoughtful writer, who says of Dr. Martineau that he " has long been known as the philosophical champion of theism ; in two closely argued volumes he has maintained the defence of ethics against empiricism and utilitarianism; but in the marriage-feast between Reason and Faith, Science and Religion, he has kept his best wine until now." French history has three papers devoted to it, " Memoirs of M. de Falloux," " English Eye-Witnesses of the French Revolu- tion," and " Memoirs of the Marechal de Villars,"—all interesting, and the first evidently written by one who is personally acquainted with French politics and politicians of a generation ago. Two very different poets, Michael Angelo and William Barnes, have equal justice done them.