The Westminster Review. January, 1865. (Triibner and Co.)—The Westminster does
good service this quarter by a thoroughly well-rea- soned paper in favour of the purchase of the railways by the State, which ought to remove much of the prejudice by which the subject is- surrounded. There is also a clever paper on circumstantial evidence, and another analyzing M. Taine's criticism of Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Carlyle, and Macaulay. M. Table finds fault with our literature as inartistic. We sacrifice beauty and even truth to some practical object, moral or political. On the other hand, it may fairly be answered that the French writers constantly sacrifice morality to art. Perhaps each nation might learn from the other—we treatment from the French, they how to choose subjects from us. For the rest the West- minster is, as usual, solid. A long paper on Hamlet contains nothing new—not even a paradox.
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