CURRENT LITERATURE.

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Westminster Review, April. (Triibner and Co.)—The most noticeable articles in this number are the two which deal with important social topics,—" The Work of Women as Poor-Law Guardians," and "The Judicial Separation of Mother and Child." What women can do, and, indeed, have done, in improving workhouse management, is set forth in an interesting way. We are inclined to agree with the suggestion that the property qualification should be abolished, at least as far as women are concerned. It limits the choice very materially, and excludes some of the most eligible. The other articles are "The Ottoman Turks in Europe," very good as far as it goes, "Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs," "Dr. Temple on Religion and Science" (Dr. Temple, as might have been expected, does not convert the Westminster), " Petrarch," " Karoline Bauer," a disagreeable subject, but, perhaps, necessary to be treated, as Leopold I. and the Baron von Stockmar were somewhat of the " wind-bag " order, and "Private Bill Legislation."

The World of Proverb and Parable. By Edwin Paxton Hood. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—It is very difficult to criticise, or even to describe, this volume. Materially, it is an octavo of the largest size, containing between four hundred and five hundred pages. When we have said that the reader will not think these dimensions excessive in view of the value of the contents, we shall not have given Mr. Hood's work too high praise. It is, in fact, the commonplace book of a diligent and wide-reading student skilfully arranged, ingeniously linked together, and supplemented, we may conjecture, by not a little exercise of the anther's own wit and wisdom. An introductory essay deals with the subject of "The Unity of the Popular Tale : in Myth, Parable, and Proverb ;" and illustrates it with a number of interesting and well-chosen examples. Then comes an essay with the title" Concerning the City of Proverb," and this is followed again by one "Concerning the Garden of Parable ;" and so Mr. Hood goes on till he has given forty-one of these entertaining and instructive collections. We may guess that their first appearance before the world was in the character of lectures, an article for which Mr. Hood has acquired a well-deserved reputation ; but they are not the less readable for that. In fact, the colloquial style of the lecture is excellently suited to the subject which the writer has chosen.

The Black Calendar of Scotland : Records of Notable Scottish Trials. By A. H. Millar. (Long and Co., Dundee and London.)—Mr. Millar tells us in his Preface that "accuracy and completeness have been sought after rather than elegance of literary style," in telling the story of these trials. We have no complaint to make of the absence of elegance,—elegance, indeed, would be out of place. What we want is a simple narrative, with no ornament and no superfluity. Mr. Millar has avoided ornament, but not superfluity. In the "Boswell Murder Trial," for instance, he begins at' ovo with a vengeance, quotes Caesar

and Tacitns, " Gundebald, Bing of the Burgundians," and "Frothing, the Dane." Part I. is devoted, in fact, to an account of duelling ;

Part II. to a description of Sir Alexander Boswell; in short, out of the thirty pages devoted to this story, at least twenty might have been retrenched. We dwell on this defect in a book which has certainly merits of its own, because it bears on its title-page "Pint Series." Any successor should be amended in this respect.

College v. Oppidans a Reminiscence of Eton Life. By an Old Etonian. (R. Ingalton Drake, Eton.) —This is an excellent little story of school-life. A certain "ne'er-do-well," nomine Sickling, or, we should rather say, one Asheton, who has the said Sickling for one of his fags, is the hero of it. What scrapes Sickling got into, and how Asheton reformed him, is capitally told. A pertinent question is put in the coarse of it. "If the Eton authorities want to keep the boys from going to Windsor Fair, why don't they guard the bridge ?" We

would add another. "If the Oxford authorities want to make the undergraduates wear academical dress, why do not the Colleges forbid any one to go out after dusk in beaver ?"

The Visitor's Guide to Siena and San Gimigiano. By J. L. Bevir, M.A. (E. Stanford.)—This is very different from the ordinary guidebook. Mr. Bevir has studied his subject thoroughly, and what he writes is the outcome of a prolonged personal experience. A visitor to Siena who takes this volume as his companion will really learn something.—The Tourist's Handbook to Switzerland, by Robert Allbut (Nelson and Sons), gives the usual information about routes, hotels, notable objects in nature and art, and brings that information down to a recent date.

THEOLOGY.—Some Heretics of Yesterday. By S. E. Herrick, D.D. (Sampson Low and Co.)—Dr. Herrick begins his series with Tauler and finishes it with Wesley. The ten names that intervene are all worthy of their place, excepting, we are inclined to say, Cranmer, not because we think as badly of him as it is now the fashion to do, but because he was not, as all the others were, a man of original powers. The name of William Brewster will probably be unfamiliar to most readers on this side of the Atlantic. He stands as the representative of the Pilgrim Fathers. Dr. Herrick writes in a vigorous and picturesque style, and is both discriminating and just in his heroworship, taking occasion, for instance, to recognise the real greatness of Wolsey when he estimates the nobler character of Latimer.

The Reformers. By Ministers of the United Presbyterian Church. (Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow.)—This volume goes partly over the same ground as that traversed by the one just noticed. Wyclif, Hus, Serener°la, Calvin, and John Knox are the common subjects ; Erasmus, Luther, and various early Scotch reformers are peculiar to this work. In the seventh lecture, which deals with " Tho Lollards of Ryle and other Precursors of the Scotch Reformation," we are introduced to a portion of Church history which is very little studied. Mr. Dickie, in his excellent paper on this subject, gives a most instructive view of the influence which in the fifteenth century, and, indeed, in still earlier times, had been preparing the movement of which Hamilton, Wished, and Knox are the prominent representatives. Among the other essays, we may mention that on Calvin, who naturally finds a prominent place, as in some sort the spiritual father of Scottish Presbyterianism (though not certainly of the Voluntaryism of the United Presbyterian Church). The account given of the relation between the Reformer and Servetus is just and candid. It would be difficult, indeed, to mention any one who in that age could have ventured to throw the first stone at Calvin as a persecutor. The article on Erasmus, whom we are glad to see included in the list, may also be mentioned with special praise. The whole volume is marked by breadth and liberality of thought. With these foregoing may be classed a third volume, The Prophets of Christendom, by the Bishop of Ripon (Hodder and Stoughton), sketches of fifteen preachers of all ages of Christendom, with an introductory essay on Christ as a "Preacher of Righteousness." Three of the fifteen are taken from among the Latin, and as many from the Greek, Fathers ; three, Tauter, Luther, and Herder, represent various phases of Teutonic Christianity ; three, again, are French preachers, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon ; and England, Scotland, and Ireland are represented respectively by Jeremy Taylor, Dr. Chalmers, and Dean Kerwan. The volume has reached a second edition.—Prefitablenese of the Old Testament Scriptures. By W. A. Bartlett, M.A. (Rivingtons.)—Mr. Bartlett's teaching is formed on the generully-accepted lines of orthodoxy. He quotes, for instance, with unquestioning approval, Dr. Wordsworth's dictum, that "as soon as the five books of Moses were written, Almighty God provided an external witness, to assure men of their truth and inspiration." It is very interesting to compare with this the language which the writer uses, or what is, after all, a far more important matter, the development of moral and spiritual ideas, as we trace it in the successive records of the Bible. Here, for instance, is a suggestive passage about the sacrifice of Isaac :—

" Another key to many a difficulty in these early ages, is the entire want of any true idea concerning the individuality of man—of an adequate conception of him as an independent being in himself, whose life and existence was hie own. Man always figures as an appendage to somebody—the subject to the monarch, the son to the father, the wife to the husband, the slave to the master. He is the function or circumstance of somebody else. This defect is apparent in the laws of the Hindus, of the Spartans, of tho Romans. It is, moreover, a defect which must be realised before we can understand such an event as the sacrifice of Isaac. That was a surrender, on the part of Abraham, of one who in the light of those days, was not possessed of individual rights, but was his father's own treasure, upon whom a great promise hung, such boundless hope, such a vast calculation, and who was loved all the more with a father's love because he was the harbinger of the prophet's greatness, the symbol of life's purpose answered. But it required the particular state of ideas in the world at that time, and the defective state of ideas respecting the right of the individual man, for the great not to be bronght out."

Then, again, on the other baud, we find Bishop Marsh's views or types accepted, apparently without hesitation. They are predictions. The ordinance that no bone of the Paschal Lamb should be broken was a prediction that the bones of Christ on the cross should not be broken. We eo not say that these views are actually inconsistent ; but the mind of the writer seems to change its attitude. —Beyond the Shadow; or, the Resurrection of Life, by James Morris W13iton, Ph.D. (J. Clarke and Co.)—Dr. Whiton's view may be beet represented by an extract from his fourth discourse :— "We do not affirm death merely disconnects the spirit from a perishable body, which is dropped and left behind for ever. For the decay and reconstitution of that body there is no such waiting on the creed's fancy, nor for a far-remote and miraculous assumption of a body in the supposed simultaneous and general re-embodiment of all that are in the grave. The perishable body no sooner drops away than the spirit is clothed upon—perhaps, in Chapter ix., we may see reason to think, clothes itself, through the operation of fixed and uniform law—with a body suited to an advanced stage of being. It rises into such a condition of existence as it is fitted to rise into. So it was said of Judas that he went to his own place.' But whether it be 'unto life' or unto judgment' there is no break, no halt, but onward movement ever."

Dr. Whiten candidly recognises that the language of St. Paul is not in all places consistent with this theory ; but he suggests that the Apostle's thought may have been " in a process of transition from a Jewish to a Christian way of thinking." We must be content with saying that he discusses the whole subject in a thoughtful and reverent way, and that his book cannot fail to be instructive, whether or not we accept his conclusions.—Progress in Religion. Sermons and Selections from the MSS. of William Bathgate, D.D. (Maclehose and Sons.)—Dr. Bathgate was a Congregationalist of the liberal type,— so liberal, indeed, that he was expelled from the Theological Academy of that body (in Scotland) on account of his "departure from the moderate Calvinism which he had professed on his admission as a student." But though be had ceased to be a Calvinist, he had not in the least relinquished his hold on the cardinal doctrines of Christianity. His sermons, of which there are in this volume twenty-eight, and his expositions, of which there are two specimens, show this plainly enough. There is necessarily something fragmentary about these remains, for Dr. Bathgate had not prepared them for publication ; but they show a pure and fervid spirit, gifted with a special power of realising. to itself the spiritual realities.—Baleam : an Exposition and a Study. By Samuel Cox, D.D. (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.) —This is a reprint, with some slight modifications, of papers which first appeared in the Expositor, and of which we haie already expressed our warm appreciation. We may take this opportunity of again commending them to the attention of our readers.—First Words in Australia. By Alfred Barry, D.D. (Macmillan.)—This volume contains fifteen sermons preached at. Sidney,—preached during the first two months of the Bishop's arrival in Australia. The most noticeable of these discourses is, perhaps, the last, preached at Sidney on occasion of a" public thanksgiving for rain."—The Reality of Faith. By Newman Smyth. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—Mr. Newman Smyth is one of the most able representatives cl liberal orthodoxy, and these sermons are worthy of him.

We have also received What is the Church ? by "A. C." (London Literary Society).—Memorials of a Dit.senting Chapel, by Sir Thomas Baker (Simpkin and Marshall, London ; Johnson and Rawson, Manchester), being an account of the Chapel in Cross Street, Manchester. — Short Practical Sermons, by the Rev. F. Case(Williams and Norgate). —My Sermon Notes, Genesis—Proverbs, by C. H. Spurgeon (Pass. more and Alabaster).—The Story of Joseph : a Popular Exposition, by Alex. Macleod Symington, D.D. (Religions Tract Society).—Duty and Faith, by Julius Lloyd, M.A. (John Heywood, Manchester).— Scenes from the Life of Jeers, Lectures by E. Lehmann, translated by Sophia Taylor (T. and T. Clark).— The Antiquity and Genuineness of the Gospels (W. H. Allen and Co.) —The Gospel History for the Young, by William F. Skene, Vol. 3 (D. Douglas, Edinbargh).—We have also to acknowledge the two volumes of the second issue for 1884 of Messrs. T. and T. Clark's most valuable series of the "Foreign Theological Library." These two are Revelation : its Nature and Record, by Heinrich Ewald, translated by the Rev. Thomas Goodby, and the first volume of Dr. J. Y. Ribiger's Encyclopedia of Theology, translated, with additions, by the Rev. John Macpherson. We especially welcome Ewald's book. The

position of this great theologian is not recognised adequately in this country, and cannot fail to be appreciated better through the publication of this volume. We may quote what Mr. Goodby says in his Preface :—" His doctrinal system is imperfect, and falls short of the fullness devout faith demands, but it harmonises with the philosophical and scientific tendencies of our time, and saves some of the main positions of Evangelicalism which the experience of centuries have verified. Conscientious conviction, especially on such subjects as the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, may carry us to conclusions

beyond those which Ewald states ; but it will be a great gain to modern religious thought if, working upon the line which Ewald lays down, it is carried by the methods of historical and critical inquiry as far as Ewald ventures."

POETRY.—Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic. By Evelyn Douglas (Triibner and Co.)—The reader will soon see that this volume con.

tains something that rises very decidedly above the average level of the minor poet. There are crudities in it, and, now and then, things that are worse than crudities ; but still there is the "root of the matter" in the writer. He can think, and he can say out what he thinks with vigour. Sometimes, indeed, he chooses to be unintelligible. "Eucharistica Mystics," for instance, with which he unfortunately commences his volume, wraps up its meaning in folds far too perplexed for any ordinary patience to undo. The poem that follows this, a "Hymn to Eros," is very much clearer, and, in our judgment, proportionately better. Here are the concluding stanzas :—

"Thou breakest through the sleep, the sloth,

Thou touchest with thy fire the tongue, And toils the arm to labour loth By thy divine contrition stung; And sings the dull of brain and heart Once in his life a poet's note ; The coward lays hie fears apart To smite as heroes never smote. Praise be thine arrows and thy bows, That make weak men as god', Eros !

Bereft of thee, how dumb the voice ! How stateliest music faints and fails The flute refuses to rejoice, The pipe withholds her plaintive wails ; The Phrygian note awakes no throb, The Doric march no silent rage; Desire forgets to swoon awl sob In Lydia's vocal va salage ; In more than marble's mute repose The statue waits thy touch, Eros !

Thou slayest and thou makest whole, Thou castest down and Detest high, A smiling god with starry stole, A Fury wreathed with serpentry. In one thy barb a poison breeds, In one lights up dead Virtue's flame ; But every breast with thee that bleeds Knows thee the cause, the one, the same, And on thy mighty shoulder throws His glory or his shame, Eros !

And so with VOICE and Bound of harp,

With bolded brow and banded knee, And agonising sighs more sharp Than all the sighs of all the sea, Bringing the grape-bunch and the peach, Bringing the olive and the corn, And apples blooming out of reach, From tossing bough by tempest torn, We blew, we curse the hour when rose Thy sea-borne source, Eros! Eros!"

It is strange that a writer who can do so well should write such non sense as :—

"Bend o'er one with eyes of peace, Green and great as shaking stars;"

or this :—

"A sheen swims on each darkened casemee, The long canals lie luminous-pale, And soaring spires, from vane to basement. All burn steel-blue like warriors' mail ; And multitudinous over Heaven Swarm little flakes of dappled fleece, Wherein the white disc, swathed and shriven, Of midnight's moon may gloat in peace."

We hope to meet "Evelyn Douglas" again, but rid of these imperfections and weaknesses.—A Heart's Life, Sarpedon, and other Poems. By Ella Sharpe Youngs. (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)— Whatever powers the author may have, she has not, we fear, the power of making her verse readable, or even intelligible. The two chief poems in this volume are very different in kind ; but they are fatally alike in being, to put the matter with brutal plainness, hard to read and understand. Here is a stanza from the former :— " Philosophers and Stoles have their light, And sceptics tilt the scales where Faith and Truth Ihlance Godwards, and show which weight is right To all pure souls ; and beauty lives for Youth. Wisdom and Science have disciples fain To scatter tenets none would seek disprove ; And poet has his task, 'Us fraught with pain, Because he strives for universal lore."

This is obscure and feeble. Is it the sceptics who "show whi weight is right" ? And what is meant by "scattering tenets' = What, again, can be the sense of this ?—

" And through the chinks there blew (On Reason's sober air)

Controlled and patient wonder, And conviction calm and true."

A minor fault is found in the quantities. " " can hardly be made to rhyme with " &baste." Or if that be allowed, what arc we to say to,—

"Aa victors; ere that Greek-born Nicator " ?

Miss Youngs is probably not alone in thinking that the "Venus of Milo" is so called after a famous sculptor,—

" And the sleepy gaze of Venus, Titian's, smiled on Nib's (stone)."

MAGAZINES, ETC.—We have received :—The Art Journal, the frontispiece in which is an etching, by D. Morant, of J. E. Saintin's picture, "The Apple-Seller."—The Magazine of Art.—The English Illustrated Magazine, which contains an interesting character-sketch of Lord Wolseley, and which relates incidents in his career not generally known.—The Month.—Temple Bar.—Time.—The Nautical Magazine.— The Antiquarian Magazine.—The Gentleman's Magazine.—Belgravia. —The Argosy.—The Irish Monthly.—The Hull Quarterly.—The Asclepiad.—The Illustrated Science Monthly.—The Journal of Education.—The Homiletic Magazine.—The Oxford Magazine.—Science Gossip.—The Contemporary Pulpit.—Chambers's Journal, which contains an interesting article on "Choosing Eatables."—Good Words.— The Leisure Hour, in which a new serial story is commeneed.—The Sunday at Home.—The Quiver.—The Sunday Magazine.—The Girl's Own Paper.—The Ladies' Treasury.—No. 1 of the Child's Pictorial, a new magazine for children issued by the S.P.C.K.—Harper's Magazine, the illustrated article in which that will most interest Londoners is one entitled "Through London by Canal."—Harper's Young People. —The Atlantic Monthly,