CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Contemporary Review, for June. (Strahan.)—The article of the number is, of course, Mr. Gladstone's, on "The Courses of Religious, Thought," mentioned elsewhere ; but there is a most interesting sketch of the present condition of Persia, by Mr. Arthur Arnold,—a sketch, wa need hardly say, written in the blackest of ink ; a strong argument by Sir J. Lubbock on the necessity of making the curriculum in English elementary schools more practical, by the introduction of lessons in physics ; and a continuation of Mr. Fairbairn's sketch of Strauss, which is, to us, rather spoiled by excessive compression and rapidity of state- ment. There is room for a monograph on Strauss on Mr. Fairbairn's lines, but it should extend, to be either readable or instructive, over at least three hundred pages. Dr. Abbott answers Mr. Spedding's rather bitter criticism of his theory of Bacon's character by an equally' bitter rejoinder, in which he certainly shows that Mr. Spedding, con- sciously or unconsciously, has misstated some part of his adversary's representations, and defends some special points in his own argument, especially on Bacon's relations with Essex, with great force. For the general reader, however, the article, apart from Mr. Gladstone's, is Mr. Arthur Arnold's.
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