T HE week has been remarkable, as Christmas week usually is, for an almost entire absence of local political incident. Ministers and members have been more pleasantly occupied...

the next of this Series, will commence next meek.

THE MEANING OF THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER. T HE Papacy has thrown away an invaluable weapon. In its vast arsenal of latent powers there was none perhaps so available,.certainly none...

W EDNESDAY and Thursday, the 14th and 15th Decem- ber, were eventful days in the great war on the other side of the Atlantic. On the former day General Sherman's great anabasis,...

I T is very easy to condemn the Government of India for declaring war on Bootan, but it is not altogether just. It is quite true that the expedition will be difficult, the cost...

Peers do not often take to finance, for under the - constitutional system that career is-pretty sure to be snapped in the middle. In !pile of their legal right, and occasional...

I T is not the custom of Englishmen to watch with mach interest the proceedings of the colonial law courts, bit the Canadian judges seem to be determined not to be thus over-...

A/10ST professions have their own peculiar modes of finding an expression for the vindictive passions, just as the various animal constitutions usually provide some biting,...

T HE Times of Wednesday published in the same column two stories, unconnected except by the horror their details excite, but throwing almost a ghastly light upon each other. On...

[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] Petersburg. • The result of the proceedings in Montreal against the St. Alban's robbers and murderers has been received here without much...

[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] Nap'es. THE first experience of a stranger who reached Naples in the old days was that of bribery to the officials at the gate or the landing-...

TRULY it is a great and glorious spot, this stately sanctuary which in its massive pile crowns regally the beetling crag of " Quel monte a cui Cassino e nella costa," and which...

distinct, but there is one aspect of his suggestions which he appears to me to have overlooked. if, as he says, and as I equally believe, the laity have a right to claim "a...

SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN' WATER COLOURS. THERE was great need of something to rescue the name of winter exhibitions from the discredit into which some recent usurpa- tions of the...

South Norwood, December 11, 1864. SIR,—As a layman I protest against the position taken up by Mr. Disraeli, and also by your correspondent Sir Willoughby Jones, that a tight...

LUDWIG UHLAND.* URLAND is not one of Germany's greater poets. Ho occupies probably much the same position in the German literature which Campbell occupies in our own,—that of...

Seam'd with their chasms and valleys, The beautiful hills stand round, Each one girt with a forest girdle, Each with a snow-wreath crown'd. Hurrying out of their purple hollows,...

Tate is a very remarkable book. Its author, Captain C. F. Hall, is evidently a half-educated man, by profession a whaler, who writes very indiffment English, or, as he calls it,...

IT is said that a man is known by his friends. We should be inclined to add as another maxim that he is known by his pre- senta. Nothing throws a more elfish light upon people's...

the brochure of M. de Lescure entitled La Vraie Marie "Intoinette. A far more valuable work has since appeared, the fruits of many years' collecting and com- paring—a number...

Mn. BUCKLE, in his eulogium on Burke, instances it as a special mark of the greatness of the man that he, with his keenly specu- lative intellect and capacity, from the range of...

HEMINGE and Condell, the principal managers of the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres, did more for the honour of Shakespeare in 1623 than any subsequent editor could hope to...

Post Office London Directory for 1865, comprising amongst other in- formation an Official Directory, Street Directory, Commercial Directory, &a. (London : Kelly.)—The Post...

neat, portable edition of a popular work has been thoroughly revised and fresh information added, most of which was contributed by Robert Stephenson, or by old friends of his...

Co.)—Mr. Shipley is known as the editor of two similar volumes of sacred poetry. While engaged in the compilation of those works he had many poems sent to him of which the...

importation, which would deserve considerable praise if it were not founded on a strange mystical theory of affinities which seems to us quite absurd. That a woman can have...

(Holliston and Wright.)—Eleven years ago the author published an interpretation of prophecy which he considers a great success because events have not "falsified" it. There is...

By •Brillat-Savarin, Author of the Physiologic du Goat. Translated by L. F. Simpson. (Longman and Co.)—This is in reality a new edition of Mr. Simpson's book, altered with...

Allen and Co.)—A collection of papers, some of which have appeared previously. The merely descriptive papers, such as "Our Concierge" and "Our Cook Clemence," seem to us much...

is satisfied the reader finds too often that the book has no other interest for him. In this case the favoured class is neither peers nor peasants, nor doctors nor soldiers, nor...

Lea and Co.)—A wildly sensational novel, which has no more to do with the cotton famine than any other.

to 1864. By Charles Augustus Hulbert, M A., Perpetual Curate of.Slaith- waite-cum-Lingards. (Longman and Co.)—Interosting only to the author's parishioners or persons in some...

pleasant and unaffected a little story for young people as we have often read. Only the author looks at children too much from the grown- up person's point of view to write a...

Son, and Marston.)—Whether the author is correct in his notions of bee-keeping we must leave to more competent naturalists to decide, but his book would certainly be a very...

Edited and re-arranged by Henry Wright. (Houlston and Wright.)—This is now in its outward form on of the prettiest gift-books of the season, with- out being extravagant. The...

Dobson. With numerous illustrations. (Longman and (Jo.)—.The word "ox" is used by Mr. Dobson in a generic sena°, and he has given an account 'of his subject which is as...

Jackson. (Trubner and Co.)--Apretty little volume, full of generous and gentle sentiments expressed in smooth and graceful verse. Sometimes, how- ever, they echo a little too...

a steel engraving has now been published, is never tired' of preaching the doctrine that wine and strong drink are destructive of both: It is. not properly one picture, but a...

Martha Braithwaite. (Hamilton, Adams, and Co.)—The development of hymnology is a marked feature of the present religious life in England, and Mrs. Braithwaite has added...

tons).--This last addition to the longlistof monthlies belongs to class which has grown up of late years. Their objett seems to be distinctly to amuse, but to amuse a public...

(John Maxwell and 0o.)—The object of authors, or at least of a good proportion of them, at present seems to be to invent a ladle for their books which shall give no inkling of...

Pitman.)—The first of these two works has obtained an extremely large sale, the second is a new candidate for public favour; and we do not see but that it is as well entitled...

a Memoir of his Life. Edited by the Bishop of Brechin. (Saunders, Otley, and Co.)-- The author of these sermons was a scion of a younger branch; of the family of the Earl of...

Daniel. .(T, Cantley Newby.)—Mrs. Daniel is a writer of novels of the 0 14 school, who will not, we think, ever make a very great hit, but who at least abstains from shocking...

Longman and Co.—The Secret of Ffegel, by James H. Stirling, 2 vols,; Sketches of Dauphine, by T. G. Bonney; Tuscan Sculptors, their Lives, Works, and Times, by C. C. Perkins;...