SIR WALTER BESANT'S "WESTMINSTER." A HISTORY of Westminster, of anything like a full and exhaustive character, would be a colossal task, not even to be restrained within the...

LONDON: DECEMBER 7, 1895.

ungrateful feeling towards either the author or the subject of this biography that we begin our remarks upon it by wishing it had been less bulky. We should have liked it better...

partly of earlier volumes by the same writer which are now out of print, and partly of various visits and adventures taken part in by Mr. Chalmers during the last nine...

makes no pretence to literature is to describe their literary shortcomings rather mildly. We have rarely come across a book more ill-constructed and more tiresome to read. It is...

To the student of Helvetic history three questions will naturally suggest themselves,—viz., how did a republic come to exist at so early a period when feudalism was powerful...

THERE are those—and they have the true spirit of a traveller —who can be happy for hours reading a guide-book, or planning journeys with the help of a Continental Bradshaw....

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.* ME Dean of Westminster explains in his preface how his daughter's book differs from Dean Stanley's great work. It is peculiarly the story of the Abbey...

of the chief features of this volume is, of course, Mr. Crockett's stery, "The Men of the Moss-Hags," which we have noticed elsewhere. When we say that it also contains a tale...

title-page, "for Children, for Women, and for Men." For women and for men, we are in- clined to think, rather than for children. The book is full of sentiment, gracious and...

are good names among the writers and artists who contribute to the pages of this useful magazine. We may mention, as instances of the one, Mrs. L. T. Meade and Mrs. 3folesworth...

A very wholesome story is 'this, with a moral that young ladies who despise country life and think it banishment, and who think that refinement as well as excitement must be...

of this story is a somewhat overdrawn type of the reserved, shy man, who knows himself to be a "catch," and is surly, brusque, and harsh in his manner to women, trusting to this...

Sons.)—The plot of The Secret Cave is concerned with the adventures of some fugitives after the defeat of Sedgemoor had destroyed the rising in aid of Monmouth. Joan, the...

published by Messrs. Cassell—viz., Cassell's Family Magazine and Cassell's Saturday Journal. Each maintains the distinctive excellences which we have more than once recognised...

double volume takes in the whole of history,—even, it may be said, as the Siege of Troy appears in it, a little more. However, Homer is duly described as" mythical," and we...

oldest of the art-magazines, continues to deserve the reputation which it acquired many years ago. It would be ungracious to make a comparison when there is so much merit among...

appreciate the weird legends connected with the Gnomes of the Alps will read Dr. Hartmann's fanciful story of adventure in the caverns of the Untersberg with some relish. Mr....

for mention among the contents of this volume a good original etching by Mr. David Law, " Kilchurn Castle." Among the principal plates to which a special interest is given by...

C. 0. Murray. (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.)—Lamb's humorous fancy has found a thoroughly competent exponent in Mr. C. 0. Murray, whose Chinamen are as good as they could be....

and R. Chambers.)—By the " Brotherhood" is meant Buccaneers. But these have not much to do with the story, though they have something to do with the catastrophe. Nigel...

mentioned together as supplying in a satisfactory way the wants of three classes of readers. These are Every Boy's Stories, Every Girl's Stories, and Every Child's Stories. The...

remark- ably cheap reprints, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, an exact reproduction of Stothard's edition, with Stothard's designs (twenty in number) as they were...

interested in the story of " Plucky " Rex, who is recovered as a baby from a wreck, and lives to make himself extremely useful to his parents and others before he is recognised....

is as good as any tale we have had from Edgar Pickering, and the adventures of Claude Oglander and Rupert retain a vivid interest to the last page. They follow the fortunes of...

the four charming fairy-tales that compose Miss Peard's book, we are uncertain to which to award the palm. Youthful lovers of the pathetic will like "The Blue-Haired Ogre ; "...

letterpress and good pictures. Sundry stories by Mrs. Moles- worth, as "That Imp of a Dog" and e Very Ill Indeed." and a series of twelve papers on "The Zoo," by the Rev....

of the Photogram. (Dawbarn and Ward.)—Some fine specimens of the art, both figures and landscape, will be found in this volume, with notices of the photographic exhibitions of...

" tale of the Shenandoah Valley" takes us back to the early days of the American Civil War. The sym- pathies of the writer would seem to be with the South. At least, a Southern...

(Cassell and Co.)—The publishers have done in this volume what they have already accomplished for many parts of the Old and the New World,—i.e., bad it well illustrated by...

and Co.)—These are rollicking yarns that a sailor of Mandeville's day might have envied, so full are they of ab- surdities and extraordinary adventures. But they are whole-....

and Sons.)—It may be hoped that the difficulties which the Reverend Leslie Rice encountered in the parish where he had his first curacy are things of the past. However this...

Co.)— There is plenty of action and vigour in Mr. Parry's tale of the adventures of Harry Paget in the wars of the last century. Young Paget, who has been educated in France,...

story of two Italian children, left orphans by their father's death, and fallin g into the hands of an uncle who ex- ploits the services of the children as acrobats. The wron g...

The second title, "Fi g htin g the Sioux," indicates the scene of this story. The time, we ima g ine, is recent. Mr. Ellis has woven his incidents to g ether into a g ood plot,...

74-76 Great Queen Street, Wel; and Published by J ouR JAMES BAKER, of No. 1 Wellington Street, in the Precinct of the Savoy, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, at the "...

the polls by gifts from their constituencies or political admirers. At Newcastle Mr. John Morley received a chiming clock and an oaken library-chair carved out of the wood of a...

of the capital, Sena, have been officially declared unfounded by the Sultan's Government. They have, however, been con- firmed in every detail by letters from Aden, which is...

case.

T HE Sultan still i efuses to issue the firman permitting an increase of the guardships in the Bosphorus, and the Powers still hesitate to inform him that, in the event of...

Week, at Cwsarea, where Sixty Armenians were killed on a false rumour that they intended to rise. Quiet is reported from Anatolia, and quiet, of a kind, undoubtedly exists in...

Monday, of which the most remarkable passage was the cordial support which he gave to Lord Salisbury's foreign policy at the very moment at which even Unionists are fretting...

this Turkish question, that from first to last no Government has published any Consular statement about the massacres. Yet Consuls of several nations must have watched them....

.• • ,) No. 3,519.] FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1895. [ REGISTERED All A Pain NEWSPAPER. j BY POST, 6}d.

in Madagascar. He is a Protestant, and will therefore, it is imagined, protect the Protestant Eng- lish missionaries. We have no reason to believe be will not, but it is a...

Dublin, and a very admirable representative he will be. The poll was declared yesterday, when it appeared that he had received 750 votes in advance of Mr. Wright. It was a mis-...

of Ireland) made a speech at Oxford on Saturday to the members of the Palmerston Club, at Balliol College, which will hardly please the Irish party in the House of Commons. The...

against the Social Democrats. The Austrian Gevernment seems disposed to adopt a different policy. It has, indeed, dissolved the Vienna Municipality because it had fallen into...

a sentence passed on Dr. F5rster on a charge of lese.inajeste. Dr. Forster, as editor of an ethical magazine, had, in most temperate language, and, without personal allusion to...

a joint meeting at Oxford, at which Sir Frank Lockwood presided, while Mr. Haldane was the guest of the evening. Mr. Haldane said that, to use a commercial metaphor, Liberal...

speech from the Throne, which was, in the main, only of local importance. The Emperor, however, approved the "intelligent moderation" of the Japanese, and the resolve of all the...

December 3rd, and is principally devoted to finance. Mr. Cleveland regards the national paper currency as a serious burden and danger to the State. It amounts in the aggregate...

Gallery with a splendid gift, fifteen oil portraits and two drawings. These include his noble pictures of some of the most eminent men of our day,—Carlyle, Browning, Matthew...

New Consols (2!) were on Friday, 10611.

of Carlyle's birth was a very able and thoughtful one. He said that the last term he should choose to apply to Carlyle was the term Sage; Wordsworth, Goethe, and Emerson were...

Federation was held at Leeds on Wednesday, and Dr. Spence Watson, who took the chair, declared that it was the most numerous meeting of that General Committee which he had ever...

not be even seriously considered for four months yet. They gather from some obiter dicta of Sir M. Hicks-Beach and Mr. W. Long, that there will be a surplus of about four...

appeared to be in. the highest spirits as to the prospects of his anti-liquor crusade. We do not wonder at it so much as we otherwise should, for Sir Wilfrid Lawson is a...

M R. MORLEY at Newcastle followed the lead of Mr. Asquith in his speech at Bristol. He had not, he said, such a thing as a white sheet among his political pro- rties. He had...

LORD SALISBURY IN TURKEY. W E have advised and still advise Unionists not to press Lord Salisbury too hardly in this Turkish affair. No one except the head of the Foreign...

T HEposition of a President of the United States, when sending a Message to Congress, differs radically from that of a British Premier when making a great speech, or. that of a...

writer's birth, in other words at the jubilee, as we may say, of anything like general acquaintance with his writings, for it is not often that his writings become public...

by its advo- cate? It is not the common belief that it does. A man charged with murder would certainly not thank his counsel if he began his address to the jury with a com-...

in Germany are positively distressing to those who, like ourselves, wish well to the Monarchical principle ; they are at once so retrograde and so feeble. A decree, for example,...

W E agree with Mr. John Morley's fine criticism of Matthew Arnold in the Nineteenth Century that the charm of manner which he undoubtedly possessed, and often exercised with...

R EADING the accounts now appearing of Miss Kingsley's adventures in the Cameroonp, the question which all African narratives suggest comes again into the mind, What makes the...

T HE death of Mr. Henry Seebohm last week removes from the list of English ornithologists the most original figure since the days of Macgillivray. He came of an old Quaker...

LORD DE TABLEY. [To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:] SIR,—You say, I venture to think very truly, that Lord De Tabley took a high place among the poeta minores of the day. He...

THE WESLEYANS AND LORD SALISBURY. [To TIM EDITOR 07 TEE " SPECTATOE:] Sut,—In your article in the Spectator of November 30th, on the Wesleyan Memorial to Lord Salisbury with...

a Cornish country parish, in which, though the Church is numerically strong and in possession of the school, the Methodists still form the majority of the minority population, I...

[To TER EDITOR Olr TER " SPECTATOR."' SIR,—In the Spectator of November 30th you say you do not know why Mr. Gace's Catechism is allowed to supersede the Church Catechism in...

[To TER EDITOR Or TIlE "Srscrrroit."1 SIB,—In your article in the Spectator of October 19th on "Animal Mind," you say "very rough men shrink from killing, and still more from...

AN AMERICAN DIPLOMATIST'S REMINISCENCES.* IN his Personal Recollections of Notable People, Mr. Charles K. Tuckerman, who was the First Minister Resident of the United States in...

[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Your interesting notice of Mr. Sully's "Studies of Children," in the Spectator of November 30th, instances the parrot as "the most...

[To TEX EDITOR OP TRH "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I certainly agree with the Spectator, in the issue of November 30th, that it is a very strange paradox to speak of Professor Huxley as...

THE death of Sir John Seeley, which occurred early in this year, though it robbed the University of Cambridge of the distinguished services of her Regius Professor of Modern...

of Chrysostom, set off by some accessory figures by which the author helps his readers to form some conception of the great Bishop's personal character. There is a considerable...

"I AM the professional parent," said a witty schoolmaster not long ago to the present writer. Miss Buss, the schoolmistress whose life has just been brought out by Miss Annie...

THE December number of Blackwood's Magazine is exceedingly bright. "An Uncrowned King" is full of vigorous sketches, both of people and incidents ; and Lady Gregory's reminis-...

shape, and cost as usual, and as nicely adapted to all varieties and magni- tudes of occupations. If your affairs are sufficiently large and important, you can have a book which...

A Family of Quality. By the Author of "On Heather Hills." (Hutchinson and Co.)—This is a story of at least average merit, describing how an unworldly son fared in a worldly...