ALFRED DE MUSSET.* WE are glad to receive this volume, edited as it is by perhaps the most capable of the scholars who are busy helping us to enjoy half-forgotten...

LONDON : DECEMBER 6, 1890.

his little book is an attempt to relate in a short, concise, and simple form, the main outlines of England's economic and industrial history, and meant to serve as an...

book-maker by profession, and he is proud of his vocation. In a passage, curious alike for its egotism, confusion of thought, and doubtful English, the writer says :- " If I...

MR. CARLYLE, in his Heroes and Hero-Worship, finds the solution of that " greatest practical problem," the maintenance of the brotherhood of all the English peoples, to be in...

IT can hardly be that the supply of fairy-tales is running short. There is the Oriental field, for instance, the harvest from which has scarcely been touched, not to speak of...

series of Messrs. Cassell promises to be one of the best and most interesting. Wherever we may locate the first home of the human race, • The Picturesque Mediterranean. Vol. I....

WE have included this volume under the denomination of " Gift-Books," but we must warn our readers that it is not milk for babes, but, on the contrary, very strong meat indeed....

Low, Marston, and Co.)—Though this story is not as mirth- compelling, we might say, as convulsing a book as "Rudder Grange," it is very entertaining. The teller of the story...

candidly avows that the purpose with which her book is written is to rouse the feeling of English readers against the " Catholio Revival." Perhaps, from her point of view, it...

Rev. F. T. Bramston. (W. Skeffington and Son.)—The picture of the clergy- man of Ardslow is a very attractive one, and would make almost any story readable. Mr. Bramston's plot...

GIFT-BOOKS. Fresh from the Fens. By E. Ward. (Seeley and Co.)—This is a pleasant, thoroughly wholesome tale. The " three Lincolnshire lasses" whose story it tells are the...

Sons.)—Little Lady Betty is a very charming child, the orphan daughter of a certain Lord Estridge. She comes down, after her father's death, to the family house, under the...

and Co.)—This is a book which will both entertain and instruct young readers who have a mechanical turn. The first section deals with "Railways." First among these is the Trans-...

and Co.)—Doubtless it is well that the author of this " story for elder girls " should have had the courage to represent a heroine without the usual attractions. Whatever they...

is one of Mrs. Meade's happiest efforts. Hope and Jocelyn are twin- sisters who early choose different paths in life, Jocelyn walking in the way of luxury and selfishness, Hope...

"True Incidents in the Lives of the Great and Good," appropriately illustrated with nearly twice as many pictures. A Moravian missionary in the Nicobar Island, John Knox, Robert...

—Mr. Ker has seen a good deal of the world, and can describe what he has seen with a very graphic pen. This tale has the look of being devised as a string, so to speak, on which...

G. Kingston's version of the Swiss Family Robinson (G. Routledge and Sons). There are ninety-five illustrations, all good in their degree, the coloured being, we think, a...

and Co.)—This is a volume of "somewhat free trans- lation " from the French of M. Arthur Good. The speciality of the book is its quasi-scientific character, and, as a rule, the...

an abundance of entertaining reading. Perhaps we might say that their " fictionists " (a hideous but not inconvenient word) are slightly sensational, as their humorists are...

Rockafellar is seized with a longing to go to sea, and persuades his father and mother to let him take a voyage. Accordingly, he is entered as a "midshipman" on board a...

Faulkner.)—This is a volume of poetical extracts, bearing on summer and harvest. Thomson, Longfellow, and Crabbe are the chief names among the poets laid under contribu- tion....

one who had the supreme good-fortune to possess such a child as Rosebud need despair, however great the troubles into which he might be plunged. She is a most delightful little...

Paul and Co.)—The "Four Schoolmistresses," according to this, their joint production, enjoyed themselves thoroughly, and they had a seventeen days' walking-tour for less than £4...

Walker, D.Sc. (Macmillan and Co.)—An exposition such as this is, by Professor Ostwald, of the standing of physical chemistry at the present day, is just the sort of treatment...

Co.)—This is a somewhat melancholy story—melan- choly stories seem to us somewhat out of place in the peculiar kind of literature which we are now reviewing—but written with...

Society.)—In a series of chapters devoted to the innumerable pre- cautions necessary to ensure a long life, Dr. Schofield carries the reader along between the physical and...

Havers and G. P. Jacomb Hood. (Hildesheimer and Faulkner.)—It is not by any means the first time that this " old love-tale " has been told. It might, indeed, have been as well...

Co.)—A lady has in this little volume recorded her six months , experience of " up-country " life in Brazil, on one of the branches of the Uruguay. She joined her brother, who...

—" Penguin-Land" is the sub-title of the story, and the scene is laid in the Falkland. Islands, which seem a more endurable place of residence than one would have thought....

Mr. Bird has succeeded in making his Geology instructive, and certainly readable. He keeps clear of all argument or discussion on matters where the temptation to raise a...

not seem to us a very likely story. Rollica is too good; Kate Hamilton, who is the black foil to her white, is too bad, and so is her mother. Surely two people could never have...

Tract Society.)—These seven tales of "real life," as the author describes them, are of very considerable merit. It is not easy to read them with a dry eye; but as there is...

Co.) —Of this collection of Mr. Burnand's dispersed members, some are good, some indifferent, some bad. We regret to say that the oldest are the best. " On Board the Amarintha...

at Home (Bradbury, A g new, and Co.), a number of contributions to Punch. Some readers may remember the scheme, never carried into execu- tion, of dra gg in g Boodel's pond....

in the Precinct of the Savoy, Strand, in the County of Middlesex. at 18 Exeter Street, Strand ; and Published by him at the SracTATorc" Office, No. 1 Wellington Street, Strand,...

the murder of Mrs. Hogg and her baby, ended on Wed- nesday in a verdict of " Guilty." The jury were absent only an hour; and the prisoner, when called on to =slier why sentence...

a document of great, though very unscrupulous, ability. Its first sentence gives the key-note. " The integrity and independence of a section of, the Irish Party having been...

an ease.

No. 3,258.] N WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1890. [ RISISTREED AB •IPSICE 6d. NEWSPAPER. By POST. co.

party which can be called Parnellite no longer, being half Parnellite and half something else—Ksay) Sextonite or Healyite. Mr. Parnell has been all the week fighting for his...

L ORD SALISBURY made a speech at Rossendale on Wednesday. It was very able, very satirical, and unsatisfactory only in the absence of any definite guidance to public opinion,...

Monday. Mr. Gladstone denied that the conversation at Hawarden was intended to make known final proposals at all. No single suggestion had been adopted unanimously or...

with any credit. They have declared against Mr. Parnell's leadership at last; but they hesitated and delayed till Mr. Gladstone had forestalled them, and by forestalling, had...

the Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites agreed to accept on Thursday an amendment of Mr. Clancy's appointing a depu- tation of four members of the party, Mr. J. Redmond, Mr. Healy,...

decline to give any pledge of the kind desired. If he were to give it, he would lose a great proportion of his English following. And if he refuses it, he will lose for a time...

extremely stormy one. Mr. Parnell, who was in the chair, used his authority as a sort of mace with which he struck down un- mercifully all those who interrupted his friends, but...

of remarkable energy, in which he has evidently broken abso- lutely with Mr. Gladstone, and after saying, " I know this old gentleman well," has described him as a statesman who...

Mr. Morley that he should accept the Irish Secretaryship under Mr. Gladstone, in case of Mr. Gladstone's return to power, a proposal which he regarded with surprise, as one...

deliberations between himself and Mr. Parnell as to the course to be taken with the present Government's Land Bill, on which they are not perfectly agreed. But its most...

in the Irish caucus occurred on Thursday. Mr. Parnell had been putting forward his demand for an explicit pledge from the Gladstonian Party that Home-rule should include Irish...

arrived, but the Government of Washington has evidently no doubt that a formidable movement is at hand, and is rapidly forwarding all disposable cavalry and much artillery to...

measures he intended to take for relieving the appre- hended distress in the West of Ireland. He acknowledged a serious failure in the potato crop, thereby confirming our...

Government, and recommends fewer changes than Lancashire operatives had hoped. They propose to stop labour on Sundays, but for women and children only, and consider thirty-six...

Congress on December 2nd, and is rather a tedious per- formance. The only remark of interest on foreign affairs is the repetition of a claim to a " property-right " in Behring...

going to create trouble too. The British south Africa Com- pany have received a telegram stating that rich gold-reefs have been struck on the Umfuli River, and that the samples...

M. Pasteur, in particular, pointing out that no cure has yet been effected, and that the lymph is really a " toxic," or poison, of terrible energy and unknown effects. It will...

favour of modern ideas. On Thursday, in a remarkable speech to an Educational Conference over which he presided, he told the assembled educational managers of Prussia that the...

New Consols (24) were on Friday 95i to 96.

THE GREATER CONSEQUENCES OF THE CRISIS. W E are far from affirming that Irish Home-rule has suffered a mortal blow from the events of the last fortnight ; but it has suffered a...

M R. PARNELL'S manifesto and Mr. Gladstone's letter to Mr. Mellor remind us of a contest between a heron and a falcon as to which shall so outsoar the other as to get the chance...

the Irish, having lost all links with their natural aristocracy, and having an instinctive distaste for true democracy, were always electing dictators of their own, to be obeyed...

W E could wish that Lord Salisbury had used his great opportunity, when he spoke on Wednesday in Rossendale, to make a graver, and, if we may be allowed the adjective, a heavier...

the United States appear to be threatened, may involve a vast amount of human misery, but can hardly be of any political importance. The Sioux, or Dacotas, who will form the...

M R. BALFOUR is on the eve of his first blunder. Unless the Unionist Party, and especially the Liberal Unionists, intervene to prevent the inclusion in the Purchase Bill of the...

imagine, have a secret liking to be praised for virtues they do not possess : and this is probably the explanation of the singular eulogy passed by Mr. Osborne Morgan on his...

Hall on Saturday last, Mr. Stopford Brooke stated that " Robert Elemere " " bad done what a host of philosophical and ethical treatises had failed to do,—namely, given to...

T HERE has never, we believe, been any real doubt in any one's mind as to the Kentish Town murder. There might be some hesitation as to the amount of legal proof obtainable, but...

A S the first snow fell this year gently, steadily, and by day, instead of rushing upon us in a midnight storm, the sheep, not waiting until it pleased the snow-demon either to...

A CORRECTION OF THE CHURCH CONGRESS REPORT. [To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") you allow me to set right in your columns a mis- take in the official report of the late...

[To TEE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR. ") Sin,—The executive sub-committee of the Cardinal Newman Memorial Fund, having learnt that some misunderstanding exists in certain quarters...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—The condition and management of our• voluntary hospitals has lately been brought prominently before the public, and attention has been,...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " STECTE/011 Sia,—I have a copy of the " second edition, with some addi- tions," of " IX. Poems by V.," 1841. " Youth and Age" (Part IL) begins at p. 33....

I To ran Rums or THE "specuros.1 SIR, —Last year I fed the tomtits with a cocoanut suspended on a stick outside my window, and they came greedily. This year forgot all about it,...

IRELAND. IN the wild and lurid desert, in the thunder-travelled ways; 'Neath the night that ever hurries to the dawn that still delays, There she clutches at illusions, and...

SIDNEY LANIER.* THE best poetry of the United States has always seemed to- us more remarkable for refinement and fancy than for either passion or power. We are not, of course,...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "Srscrcros."] SIR,—I have just been shown a notice of my " France " in the Spectator as a new edition it is only just published.—I am, Athenaeum Club, Pall...

smaller, they would make perfect reading for a lazy day. They are more • The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monaton Manes, Ftret Lord Houghton. By T. Weinyas Reid....

TEN years ago we reviewed Major'Clarke's masterly study of The Siege of Plevna, which formed a volume of the Pro- fessional Papers of the Royal Engineer Institute for 1880, and...

THouem this book is the production of one of the most learned of Japanese scholars, it makes no pretension to be a work of scholarship. It is, indeed, in great measure, a com-...

Du. RUSSELL was on the point of starting for Egypt in February, 1889, when chance altered his destination from Cairo to Valparaiso, and he was invited to join Colonel North's...

THIS new volume of Selections from Browning ought to receive a wide welcome. It is the first appearance of what may be called a popular edition of any of his poems, and by the...

William Pole, Major-General Drayson, Robert F. Green, and "Berkeley." (G. Bell and Sons.)—In the "publisher's note," we are told there is still a steady demand for the first...

The Nile : Notes for Travellers in Egypt. By E. A. Wallis Budge. (J. Cook and Sons.)—These notes for travellers in Egypt are a distinct departure from the average guide-book....

(D. Bryce and Sons, Glasgow.)—This little sketch of a three- months' tour gives a good idea of the impressions which the average fairly observant and sensible Britisher might...

(Percival and Co.)—We cannot give high praise to the poem from which this volume takes its name. It has the form of what a former generation used to call a " Pindaric Ode," not...

and Co.)—Dr. Newsholme's "lessons" are of a most simple and elementary nature, and will not, indeed, be unnecessary for that reason. The public nowadays pay more attention to...

National Pocket-Book Diary, Pettitt's Annual .Diary, and other useful calendars. Messrs. Cassell also send us Letts's Pocket Diary and Almanac, in various sizes, Letts's Compact...

number of very pretty Christmas and New Year's Cards, some of them in books illustrating " A Summer Day," " The Haunts of Emerson," ,tc. This last idea, that of making some of...

Miss Braddon's, and Bow Bells, Annuals ; Yule-Tide, Figaro Illustrd, Newberg House Magazine, Atalanta, Monthly Packet, boy's Own Paper, Girl's Own Paper, Sunday Magazine, Good...