6 APRIL 1889, Page 23

BOOKS RECEIVED. — Remarkable Bindings in the British Museum. By Henry B.

Wheatley. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This is a volume which will interest book-lovers. It contains descriptions, illustrated by photographs, of sixty-two book-covers belonging to the British Museum Library, and remarkable for " beauty or historic interest." The Psalter written for the Princess Melissinda, daughter of Baldwin II., stands first on the list, a " Jerome to Damasus " in silver covers is third, and there are specimens of the whole. Biographical Catalogue of the Portraits at Weston, the Seat of the Earl of Bradford. (Elliot Stock.)—This is the last of four catalogues of the kind executed by Miss Mary Boyle. The others are of the portraits at Hinchiabrook, Longleat, and Pamhanger. It is arranged according to the rooms, and is, we need not say, highly interesting.—Napoleon at St. Helena. By Barry Edward O'Meara. 2 vole. (Bentley and Son.)—It is possible that all our readers may not remember that Mr. O'Meara was surgeon to Napoleon in St. Helena, and that after the Emperor's death he published an account of his life in captivity very adverse to Sir Hudson Lowe. Our impression is that it would have been well to leave the book in the oblivion into which it had fallen. It has been thought otherwise. It only re- mains to say that it reappears with every advantage of typography, 8:c., and that from time to time occasion is taken to represent things as they really were. There is the notorious sale of the plate, for instance, made, according to Napoleon's statement, to avoid starvation, but really to bring odium on the English G overn- ment.—In The Pulpit Commentary, edited by the Very Rev. H. D. M. Spence and Rev. Joseph Exell (Began Paul and Co.), we have Luke i.-xii., the exposition being by Dean Spence, the homiletics by the Rev. J. Marshall Lang, and the homilies by the Rev. W. Clarkson and the Rev. R. M. Edgar.—The Biblical Illus- trator, edited by the Rev. Joseph S. Drell (Nisbet and Co.), con- tains in the present volume the Epistle to the Ephesians.—The Manual of Biblical Archeology. By Carl Friedrich Keil. Trans- lated and edited by the Rev. Alex. Cusin, M.A. Vol. II. (T. and T. Clark.)—In this volume, the first part is concluded by an account of the " Cycle of Sabbaths " and the Feasts, both prat-exilic and post-exilic ; and the second part follows with an exhaustive account of the domestic and social life, the occupations, and the institutions, political and judicial, of the Jewish people.—The Rev. M. F. Sadler continues his work of annotating the Bible by publishing The First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians. (Bell and Sons.)—Introduction to the Study of Philosophy. By J. H. W. Stuckenberg, D.D. (Armstrong and Son, New York, U.S.A.)—Studies of the Science of General History. By Dr. G. G. Zerffi. Vol. II., "Mediaeval History." (Hirschfield Brothers.)—The Scientific Papers of the late Thomas Andrews, M.D. With a Memoir by P. G. Tait, MA., and A. Crum Brown, M.D. (Macmillan.)—Ocissell's New German Dictionary. By Elizabeth Weir. (Cassell and Co.)—Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina Commedia. By the Rev. Edward Moore, D.D. (The University Press, Cambridge.)—The Construction of the Wonder- ful Canon of Logarithms. By John Napier. (Blackwood and Sons.) —Genealogical Chronology of the World Before Christ. By Albert Welles. Edited by Katherine Alvert McMurdo. (W. H. Allen and Co.)—A Text-Book of General Astronomy for Colleges and Scientific Schools. By Charles A. Young. (Ginn and Co., Boston, U.S.A.) —It is not exactly " astronomy without mathematics," but it requires "only the most elementary knowledge of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry " for its reading. It is meant, says the author, "to supply that amount of information which may fairly be expected of every 'liberally educated' person." We offer a humble protest on the part of those whose education is literary, but with- out derogating from the proper value of the book, which, indeed, is vouched for by the author's reputation.—Solution of the Examples in a Treatise on Algebra, by Charles Smith, M.A. (Mac- millan) ; and from the same publishers, Key to Lock's Elementary Trigonometry.—The Causation of Disease. By Harry Campbell, M.D. (H. K. Lewis.)—Tactics and Organisation; or, English Military Institutions and the Continental Systems. By Captain F. A. Maude. (Thacker and Co.)