BO OK S. THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA.* NiEVER will the world be tired of memoirs which are partly, and still better mainly, autobiographic. Personal detail is dear to the human mind,...

The Clergy Directory for 1SS9. (Johnson.)-This most con- venient and terse of the Clergy Directories has been brought up to date, not only as regards personal, but official...

The February number of Good Words is an excellent one, even although "Edna Lyall " is not seen quite at her best in " A Hardy Norseman;" and Mr. William Black appears to be in...

I The Last Voyage. By Lady Brassey. (Longmans.)-The readers who know the name of Lady Brassey, and have followed with something like a personal interest the story of her...

CURRENT LITERATURE. The most readable paper in a rather too elaborately diversified I number of the Century is the first,-on G6rime, the artist. It is brightly written, and...

I The February number of the Sividay at Home, although it has not an air of literary distinction, contains some interesting and readable papers, of which " Philip Melanchthon "...

What are popularly rather than accurately termed the mis- I cellaneous articles in Temple Bar are, on the whole, better than the instalments of serial novels, even although...

The English Church Union Directory (35 Wellington Street) gives a list of members and associate members (the 'Union numbers, we see, between twenty and thirty thousand...

I Old and New Astronomy, by the late Richard A. Proctor (Long- mans and Co.), which is being published in half-crown parts, is almost a model of clear yet popular exposition,...

I The Torch and Colonial Book Circular. (Colonial Booksellers' Ageney.)-This is a publication which should be of considerable utility to the large class of readers of books,...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. THE APOTHEOSIS OF HUMBUG. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-On Saturday last I assisted at the Liberal Union dinner in Dublin, as one of the...

FATHER MACFADDEN. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-When I called your attention last summer to the strange proceedings of Father MlacFadden, of Gweedore, I expressed a...

TENNYSON'S UNDERTONES. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.'] SIR,-YoUr very interesting article on "Tennyson's Undertones," confirms me in thinking him the greatest of our...

THE BISHOPRIC OF ST. ASAPH. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-Will the writer of the article on " The Episcopal Vacancy in Wales " kindly inquire into the condition of...

ORIGIN OF THE TERM "BROAD" CHURCH. FTO THIE EDITOR OF TIIE " SPECTATOR."] SiR,-Two letters which recently appeared in the Spectator trace the origin of the term " Broad "...

A CO-OPERATIVE DWELLINGS ASSOCIATION. rTO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,-Those who read the letter in your issue of February 2nd on a Co-operative Builders' Association,...

[TO THE: EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-In connection with the very interesting article in your issue of February 2nd, there occurs a passage in Tennyson's Cambridge prize...

We regret to see that the Coimcil proposes to work throuhi Executive Committees, as the Metropolitan Board did and the School Board does. The effect of that system is that...

I The expenditure of the London School Board creeps up, in spite of the efforts of the economists. The estimate of money to be raised for the year ending March 30th, 1889, is...

I The Radicals have not acted unfairly in the election of . Aldermen to the London Council, but they have acted ungenerously. Having benefited greatly by the Conservative...

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, speaking on Wednesday to the I Clifton Conservative Working Men's Association, treated the new " Clerkenwell-cum-Limehouse " programme as a virtual...

Mr. Courtney warned his audience that if once the proposals I of 1886, or anything like them, pass into law, it is the idlest imagination to suppose that the so-called...

Lord Selborne and Ml'r. Leonard Courtney (the Chairman I of Committees in the House of Commons), addressed a Unionist meeting at Oxford on Tuesday. Lord Selborne pointed out...

Thc struggle of parties in Roumania begins to attract attention outside her frontiers. The Russian party there is the old aristocratic or Conservative one, who have secured a...

Mr. Morley attaeked vehemently Lord Wolseley's remarks on the advantages of universal military training, asserting that the civil training which artisans get in their workshops...

I The Samoan difficulty is in a fair way of being settled. Prince Bismarck is too wise a man in the present situation of the Continent to make or to accept a quarrel with...

TOWN AND COUNTRY. IN the very pleasing verses sent us this week by the author of " Reuben Sachs," Miss Levy explains in two lines of packed meaning one of the forgotten...

GROSVENOR GALLERY. [A SECOND SERIES OF A CENTURY OF BRITISH ART, FROM | 1737 TO 1837.] THERE is no falling short in the Grosvenor standard of the present exhibition, which...

General Sir A. Clarke evidently thinks there is ;something " | in the report of fortifications for London, for he writes a letter published in Monday's Times, entirely...

The interest of the week in the Parnell Commission has been the evidence of an Englislhman who deliberately turned Fenian in order to give notice to the English authorities of...

Dr. Eudes, a military surgeon, belonging to the 90th Rei-I ment, hearing that his mother was dying in Alsace, applied to the German Embassy in Paris for permission to visit...

This day week, a testimonial was presented to the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies on his departure from Christ Church, St. Marylebone, conveying sincere gratitude for his teaching and...

The American Congress has passed a Bill sanctioning the I project of cutting a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama by the Nicaragua route. That is a new and most terrible...

A good appointment has been made to the Bishopric of St. Asaph, if it be true, as we believe it is, that Archdeaeon Watkins, one of the right-hand men of the present Bishop of...

THOMAS POOLE AND HIS FRIENDS.* THOMAS POOLE, of Nether Stowey, had many friends,friends, too, whom one would hardly expect to find associated with a tanner in a small...

THE MAGAZINES. THE sensation article of the month appears in the Contemnporary Reviewv, and is entitled " The Bismarek Dynasty." It appears to have been written by some devotee...

ART. A NOTE ON FRANK ROLL AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. PERHAPS the present exhibition of Frank Holl's portraits may turn out, after all, to be a mistake. Certainly it will not...

POETRY. THE VILLAGE GARDE . TO E. M. S. HERE, where your garden fenced about and still is, Here, where the unmoved summer air is sweet With mixed delight of lavender and...

The French Chamber has appointed its Committete to consider the Bill for abolishing s-rilti (lC lisle, and it is by seven to four in favour of that measure. It is by no means...

General Boulanger has withdrawn himself from the public I view for a time, probably to avoid any demonstration which might give the Government an excuse for arresting him. It...

Mr. Morley spoke to his constituents at Newcastle on Monday, after a long interview on Saturday with a deputation who pressed him to advocate an Eight-Hours Bill for English...

Father MacFadden, whoili Mr. Morley wishes to convert into a friend of order and government, peace and law, by doing exactly what he and his party demand, was the occasion of a...

NEWS OF THE WEEK. T HE Crown Prince Rudolph was buried on Tuesday, | in the usual burial-place of his family, the crypt of the ! Capuchin Church in Vienna, with full religious...

Thorn's Official Directory for GCrcat Britain and Ireland. (Alex. Thom, Dublin.)-This is the - forty-sixth annual publication " of a directory which, it will be remembered,...

CONCERNING IRISH '-BULLS.' IF it be true, as the outgoing American Minister audaciously remarked at the recent farewell banquet in his honour, that ' the man who never makes...

TOPICS OF THE DAY. SELFISH SURRENDERS. MR. JOHN MORLEY, in speaking at Newcastle on M Monday, found his audience disposed,-greatly to their discredit,-to laugh at the murder...

PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON AGNOSTICISM. PROFESSOR HUXLEY states in his paper on Agnosticisni P in the Nineteenth Century, that he is very well aware " that the process of breaking...

SEVEN-DAY JOURNALISM. | THE appearance of a London edition of the Newv York T Herald would have attracted no particular notice bad it been published as other daily papers...

THE MEANING OF THE ITALIAN DEFICIT. BY far the most ominous sign of the hour is the B announcement of a deficit in the Italian Budget which would be serious even in this...

" REMEMIBER GWEEDORE! " THE savagery with which the Irish peasantry carry T out the advice to resist the police so persistently given them by the Nationalist leaders, received...

, THE COMING VOTE FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE. ONE condition being granted, we have not much fear 0 of the coming debate on an increased vote for national defences. It is, of course,...

THE NEW TENDERNESS FOR CRIME. WTE are accustomed to see certain organs of the Press launch out into hysterical and lachrymose protests against the rigid punishment of ordinary...

PROFESSOR DOWDEN'S " TRANSCRIPTS AND STUDIES." * UNDER the above title, Professor Dowden has republished in one volume a number of critical studies that have already appeared...

THREE NOVELS.* MANY a phenomenon that seems at first sight supernatural, is subsequently found capable of explanation by natural causes; and mesmerism and hereditary mental...

SHAKESPEARE'S HEROINES.* OUR readers will remember the gallery of ' Shakespeare Heroines" for which the proprietors of the Graph ic newspaper gave commissions some little time...