CURRENT LITERATURE.
If Scotland gives us only one Christmas number,—the Holyrood Anneal (Gardner), of which the first number has just been issued,— it makes up in point of SiZ3 for all other deficiencies. The ffolyrcod Annual, which is edited by the author of a novel that we recently had occasion to speak of in very high terms, is, indeed, a mammoth of its kind. It contains npwards of 300 closely-printed pages in all, and includes four stories, two of which, "The Smuggler's Bay " and " Ian Roy," are quite as long as any novel ought to be. They are both well told, and are full of incidents without any ghostly or other tour de force. A third, "Left in Pledge," is a very humorous account of a trick played on two rival hotel-keepers in Carlisle by a clever swindler ; the incident is one out of which a stage farce, laughable, without being silly, could be made. Of the miscellaneous papers, we like best " Trout-fishing in Scotland " and " Waiting for the Dot tor." The latter is a very useful sultan[ in parro of advices as to what should be done to help persons who have been suddenly seized with illness or have met with an accident, before a medical man appears on the scene. To many readers the most interesting of the contents of this Annual will be an account, never before published, of the execution of Queen Mary. The editor says it was found among the papers of Lord Eliock, a Scotch Judge, who died in 1793. The manuscript seems to have been written in the early part of the eighteenth century, and, apparently, is the copy of some letter written by an eye-witness of the execution. The narrative has a look of genuineness, and is very matter-of-fact, giving a fall description of the Queen's personal appearance and dress before the was executed. But it is also very touching, especially when it tells of " the little dog, which was crept up under her cloathes, which would not be goteu furth but by force, and afterwards woud not depart from the dead body, but came and lay betwixt her head and shoulders." The Annual contains no illustrations, but the front page gives a very artistic design of Holyrood Abbey. Altogether, this is OW) of the best and most ambitious volumes—for so it must be styled—of thekind, that the season has produced.
In Menzo)ia7,1 : Jantez: Bel,bria Metal, M.A. Edited by Elizabeth Baldwin Brown. (James Clarke and Co.)—This volume is the precursor of the fuller biography which is to follow. It contains a "memorial sketch" of which not the least interesting part is that which refers to the time when Mr. Brown was but little known, and regarded with no little suspicion by the so-called orthodox. The writer of this notice remembers well the appearance of the book,. " The Divine Life in Man," which the biographer describes us having been the turning-point in his career; and, indeed, ho reviewed it in a local periodical. It was the beginning of a series of works which, though not reaching the first rank in theology, were of signal service to religion in this country. Mr. Brown was not a mau to call any man master ; but we shall not be wronging him if we say that one of his highest functions was to interpret Mr. Maurice to his own communion. The memorial sketch is followed by a paper, ' Characteristics,' contributed by a friend. A fac simile of the last words which he wrote— part of an address to his people, on which be was busy nt the moment of the seizure which terminated his life—recalls to the memory his delicate, almost feminine, handwriting. Then follows en account of the funeral ceremony, with a report of the addresses delivered en. that occasion. We have also funeral serwoes, resolutions of condolence,. and obituary notices. The volume is welcome till we have a fuller account of an able, broad-minded, and thoroughly honest and courageous mau.
1;94 ; a Tule of the Terror. From the French of M. Charles d'Hericault. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey. (M. 11. Gill and Son, Dublin.) —This is a vigorous and graphic story of the last days of the Revolution, told by a writer who certainly does not occupy the Revolutionary standpoint. An officer sent back from the Army of the Frontier with despatches to the Government of Paris, cetera the city with feelings of strong enthusiasm in favour of the liberty and order which he believes to have been established by the Revolution. His visit is timed for its very worst period, when Robespierre is piling-up his crimes ; he sees everywhere the vilest of mankind disposing of the lives and liberties of the honest and patriotic, and he is miserably disenchanted. Not the least striking part of the story is the illustration of the famous saying of Juvenal about Domitian : " Sed cot Mit postqusin cei donams CSEC timemlus Iucipit."
When artisans saw their fellows carried in the fatal tumbrils to theguillotine, the end which the massacre of a King, a Queen, and aristocrats without number had not hastened, was at hand. With the main story is interwoven :mother, which turns on the soldier's love for Liso Dubois, the passion which the beautiful creole, Emilie Crassus, feels for him, and the fatal consequences which well-nigh came from the spret, injuria forma-. Pathos is not wanting to the book, nor humour; witness the most entertaining picture of the " virtuous Dubois."
The Prima Donna, by Sarah Williams (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.), is a novel which only justifies its title its the lust chapter but one, when the heroine makes her first and only appearance on the operatic stage. The prima donna has three admirers,—an Eton boy, who dies of over-pressure ; an impossible Italian, revolutionist, dreamer, and Stoic all in one ; and a ci-decant street Arab, who passes with meteoric rapidity from the position of page-in-buttons to that of an exhibitor at the Academy and a distinguished African explorer. The writer crowds her canvas with subsidiary characters, and wipes them out in summary fashion,—by the eating of bad fish, the blowing-down of a heavy iron gate, or by rapid consumption. Her style, though vivacious, is often ungrammatical ; and matters are not improved by the interpolation of a little dubious Italian, plus some extraordinary French and German,—e.g., " Madame In directresse and " Ernst traumte from Per Frieschutz." Amid a medley of incongruities, a just and pointed remark emerges at rare intervals, but not with sufficient frequency to leaven the lump. The following extract might have come from one of Bret Harte's sensation novels condensed, but we believe its humour to be absolutely unconscious. The heroine and her aunt have captured a starving burglar. " How did yer git such a grip ?' he said, with what would have been a smile,.
had not his dry lips been too stiff. Playing the piano, I suppose,' Luigia answered, abstractedly."
We have received a Second Appendix to the Eton School Lists, with Notes and Index. By H. E. P. Stapylton (R. J. Drake, Eton).---The London Water Supply, by Colonel Sir Francis Bolton (W. Clowee and Sons), one of the handbooks published in connection with the International Health Exhibition.—London and Provincial Water Supplies. By Arthur Silverthorne. (Crosby Lockwood and Co).—
The Gentleman's Magazine Library, edited by George Lawrence Gomme (Elliot Stock), another contribution to that most useful undertaking, " a classified collection of the chief contents of the Gentleman's Magazine from 1731 to 1868." Thia volume deals with the subject of "Popular Superstitions."—French Pottery, by
Paul Gasnault and E. Garnier (Chapman and one of the South Kensington Museum Handbooks.—The Bone Cares of Ojcow (Poland), by Professor Dr. Ferdinand Ramer, translated by John Edward Lee.—Enylish Channel Ports and the Estate of the East and West Indies Dock Company. By W. Clark Russell. (Sampson, Low, and Co.)—A series of sketches, reprinted from the Daily Telegraph, and illustrated with plans, &c.--The Life and Opinions of John Bright, by Francis Watt, M.A. (James Sang ster and Co.) The Children of Issaclaar(G. P. Putnam's Sons.) et Practical Method of Learning Spanish (by General Alejandro Gbarra (Green,. Heath, and Co., Boston, U.S.) ; and from the same publishers, A First Book in Geolog y,by, U. S. Shaler.—Modern Physics, by Ernest Neville, translated from the French by Henry Downton, M.A. (T. and T. Clark).—Thirty Years' Experiences of a Medical Officer in the English Convict Service, by John Campbell, M.D. (Nelson and Sons).—Protection for Young Industries as Applied in the United States, by F. W. Taussig (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York).—The Future Work of Free-trade in English Legislation, by C. C. Troop, S.A. (T. Fisher Unwin), being the " Cobden Prize Essay for 1883."—Music and the Piano, by Madame Viard-Lonis, translated from the French by Mrs. Warrington Smyth (Griffith and Ferrari).— The Dynamo, by S. R. Bottone (W. Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)—Sir Lyon Playfair and Sir Charles Dilke. By William White. (Edward W. Allen).—An anti-vaccination diatribe. As we write we see the report of a case in South Africa, where a hamlet of this ty odd persons was attacked. Every one had small-pox except three who had been vaccinated. Fifteen died ; the three vaccinated nursed all the others and escaped. But Solomon says something about the uselessness even of a mortar in certain cases ; and what can a pen avail ? —Leaves from the Notebook of Thomas Allen Reed. (Pitman).—A book on stenography, with some hints on the duties of a reformer.
MAGAZINES AND SERIAL PUBLICATIONS.—We have received the following for January :—The Art Journal, a good number, the frontispiece to which is an etching of "The Wedding Morning," by
C. 0. Murray, after H. Mosler.—The Magazine of Art, which has for frontispiece a fac-simile coloured portrait of Lady Maria Waldegrave.—The Portfolio.—The English Illustrated Magazine, a capital number.—L'Art.—The London Quarterly Review.—The Illustrated Science Monthly.—The Technical Journal.—Book-Lore.—The Journal of Education.—The Schoolmaster.—The Month, which opens with an article on "Lord Ripon's Indian Administration." —The Monthly Interpreter.—Science Gossip.—The Antiquarian Magazine.—Part 1 of a reissue of Cassell's Popular Educator.—The Gentleman's Magazine, in which Alice O'llanlon commences a new novel.—Merry England. —Belgravia, in which W. Clark Russell and Cecil Power commence new stories, entitled "A Strange Voyage" and "Babylon" respectively.—Temple Bar, containing the first instalment of a new story by Mrs. A. Edwardes.—The Argosy, in which a new serial story is commenced.—Eastward-Ho !—The Army and Nary Magazine.—The Nautical Magazine.—Time.—The Irish Monthly.—The Theatre.—Chambers's Journal.—All the Year Round, and its holiday number.—Cassell's Magazine.—Good Words, in which James Payn and Katherine Saunders commence new serial stories; and to which Mr. Thomas Hughes contributes the first of a series of papers on "Co-operation in England."—The Quiver, and its holiday number.—The Sunday at Home, the Leisure Hour, and the Sunday Magazine, in all of which new serial tales are cornanenced.—Sunday.—No. 1 of Harper's Young People (Sampson Low and Co.)—The Girl's Own Paper.—Little Folks.—The Season.—The Ladies' Treasury.—The Atlantic Monthly.
We have received from the Art-Union of London a proof impression of the plate produced for the subscribers of the current year, " The Attack of the ' Vanguard' on the Spanish Armada," engraved by A. Willmore, from the original by 0. W. Brierly.
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