NEW EnrrroNs. — Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. By Piazzi
Smyth. (Isbister.)—This is a second and enlarged edition of a work which many of our readers will remember as having appeared about ten years ago. They will recollect how the great coffer which the ignorant have taken for the sarcophagus of Cheops was really a measure, holding what we call four quarters of wheat (the word "pyramid," it must be understood, comes not from "fire," but from vvinh, wheat); how the measurements of the pyramid (it is quite amazing to read how even capable observers have blundered over these same measurements) are mysteriously connected with the length of the earth's axis and the year ; how even Christianity finds symbols signi- ficant of itself in the chambers of this marvellous construction. Mr. Piazzi Smyth has Enlarged his work, including " all the most important discoveries up to the present time." Anyone who has a strong head, with no disposition to insanity, may read this book with interest, and possibly with profit.—Dr. T. Nicholas publishes a fourth edition, enlarged and revised, of his Pedigree of the English People (Longman). We notice that the preface to the third edition is dated " Christmas, 1873," and we are glad to see that Dr. Nicholas's work has achieved the success which it so well deserves. That the English people "are vastly less Teutonic' than their language," to use Professor Huxley's words, is a very important fact, which Dr. Nicholas should be thanked for at least helping to establish.—We have also to notice a second edition of The Great Con& and the Period of the Fronde, 2 vols., by Walter Fitz- Patrick (Chatto and Windus).—Canon Robertson's valuable History of the Christian Church from the Apostolic Age to the Reformation (Murray)
X is republished in the convenient form of eight small octavo volumes.
We have received new editions of Lyrics from a Country Lane, by John L. Owen (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.); Stokes on Memory (Houlston); Cassy, by Hesba Stretton (Henry S. King and Co.)—A very pretty little volume, containing Sir A. Helps's Oulita the Serf(Strahan), calls for B. special word of commendation.—Mr. R. Carew Hazlitt republishes with certain changes and additions Dodsley's Old English Plays (Reeves and Turner).---We have also to notice a reprint, but without any preface, editor's name, or date, of The Chase, a Poem, by William Somerville (Tegg). To some of our readers, Somerville's verse will probably be a novelty, and we shall take the liberty of offering them a specimen :— " Cambria's proud kings (though with reluctance) paid
Their tributary wolves ; head after head, In full account, till the woods yield no more, And all the rav'nous race exstinct is lost.
In fertile pastures more securely grazed The social troops, and soon their large increase With curling fleeces whitened all the plains.
But yet, alas l the wily fox remitkid, A subtle, pilfering foe, prowling around In midnight shades, and wakeful to destroy.
In the full fold, the poor defenceless lamb, Seized by his guileful arts, with sweet warm blood Supplies a rich repast. The mournful ewe, Her dearest treasure lost, thro' the dim night Wanders perplexed, and darkling bleats in vain: While in the adjacent bush, poor Philomel (Herself a parent once, till wanton churls Despoird her nest,) joins in her loud laments, With sweeter note, and more melodious woe.
For these nocturnal thieves, huntsman, prepare Thy sharpest vengeance."
A modern bard of the " chase " would give a very different rationale of fox-hunting. If we may judge from this specimen, in which we have to correct "dim nigh" into "dim night," the reprint might have been more correctly made.
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