10 FEBRUARY 1883, Page 24

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Except in point of illustration, the February number of Harper's Magazine is rather poor. Mr. Black's story of " Shandon Bells" is becoming, indeed, somewhat more interesting, from the stand-point of human character. Mr. Herbert Tattle gives a readable paper on "German Political Leaders," though to some extent it is a dilation of his old "Brief Biographies." There are some facts in "Maryland' and the Far South in the Colonial Period," by Mr. John Fiske, but they are put in a rather dull way. Mr. Harry Penn's illustrations of "The Wild Welsh Coast" are worth everything else in the magazine,. although the accompanying letterpress of Mr. Wirt Sikes is also good.