CURRENT LITERATURE.
In every sense the best article in the May number of the _English Illustrated Magazine is Mr. Albert Fleming's on Albert Diirer. It is an excellent piece of writing, admirably illustrated. Mr. Fleming speaks of Diirer in contrast to Holbein as "a Teuton always, with stubborn Gothic elements, ever struggling against the spirit of the Renaissance. Alike in his beautiful personality and in his art, he expresses the old Northern delight in the grotesque, its instant sacrifice of grace to truth, its love of pure craftsmanship, and its quaint mingling of austerity and playful- ness." After showing how far Darer submits to the Renaissance and how far he resists it, Mr. Fleming's paper deals in detail with the works of a singularly beautiful and complete life. "For the Cause" is one of Mr. Stanley J. Weyman's bright and successful little essays in historical fiction ; he reproduces the insouciance, the shrewdness, and the courage of Henry of Navarre with great skill. Lord Lytton brings to a close his "Ring of Amasis :" it is a rather loosely constructed story, streaked with genuine clever- ness. Mr. Runciman is seen at his best—that is to say, he is quietly realistic—in "Some School-Board Children." Sir Julian Goldsmid tells us nothing that is notable, and but little that is new, in a paper which is only too felicitously styled "Transatlantic Trifles." Surely it is unnecessary to tell us at this time of day that "American men are principally devoted to business, and the best among them do not go into politics. Politics have become a trade, and, lam afraid, not a trade of the highest class. Nor do the men most distinguished for ability and intelligence care for politics."
Were it illustrated, the Atlantic Monthly would run hard the most formidable of its rivals, even on the other side of the Atlantic. The articles invariably attain a high standard of excellence ; in the May number, that standard is very high indeed. Miss (or Mrs.) Agnes Repplier contributes a very suggestive and outspoken—we had almost said manly—article on "Literary Shibboleths." The key-note of it may be found in this sentence : "It is not very encouraging to see a bright little girl of ten making-believe she enjoys Miss Austen's novels, and to hear her mother's complacent comments thereon, when we realise how exclusively the fine, thin perfection of Miss Austen's work appeals to the mature observa- tion of men and women, and how utterly out of harmony it must be with the crude judgment and expansive ideality of a child." Almost equally good in its way is an article on "Some Recent Volumes of French Criticism." "The Funeral of Mary Queen of Scots" is an original piece of historical narrative,—original, at all events, in the materials on which the narrative is based. Of the stories, the simple tragedy of " Rudolph " deserves a special word of praise. The Journal of Education continues to sustain its reputation for sensible comments on educational matters, good reviews, and abundance and variety of information. Was it necessary, how- ever, in the May number to devote quite so much space to the Cheltenham Conference of the Teachers' Guild ?
The May Sunday at Home is full of interesting and carefully written papers, while the fiction in it is decidedly above the magazine average. In Evelyn Everett Green's story of "Fig- Tree Farm," there are at least two very good female portraits ; and "A Peep Behind the Purdah," which is the autobiography of a Mahommeglan lady, is of genuine sociological value, though rather monotonous in style. Of the miscellaneous articles, one on "The Gaboon River," which lies on the Equator and the verge of Gorilla Land, and two by Mr. Heath, on Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna, deserve special notice.
St. Nicholas for May is almost too good for the special con- stituency to which it nominally appeals. We have a strong suspicion, for example, that the humour of "The Passing of General Bacon "—the General Bacon who in 1676 led a rebellion against Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia—will be missed by many even of those who understand the peculiar English—or Americanese—in which it is written. What is true of this paper is true of several others. They seem to be the work of folks who have striven their hardest to bring themselves down to the level of children, but who somehow remain in the clouds all the same. On the whole, the best of the contents of Si. Nicholas for May, are what, in the slang of the day, may be termed " practical " papers, such as "In the Lumber Woods" and "Six Years in the Wilds of Central Africa."
The only fault to be found with the new number of the Scottish Review is that too many of the articles in it deal with subjects of out-of-the-way or antiquarian interest. Some of these, however, are very valuable, such as Professor John Rhys's "The Early Ethnology of the British Isles," "The University of Finland," and "The Stewarts in Orkney." "The Nile and its Work" contains a large amount of information which ought to be of con- siderable value, even at the present time. The writer of an article on "The Limits of Scottish Home-rule "condemns the setting-up of anything in the shape of a National Assembly or independent Parliament in Scotland, although he would give more political power to Scotch Members and other individuals and bodies repre- sentative more or less of Scotland than they at present possess. The high standard of literary excellence attained in the summaries of foreign reviews and notices of books, under the head of "Con- temporary Literature," continues to be maintained.
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