CURRENT LITERATURE.
Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. now publish, with the title of Fashions of To-Day, an English edition of the well-known and popular Parisian La Mode Pratique, under the editorship of Madame de Broutelles, of Paris, and Miss Veva Karsland, of London. The second number, which is now before us, will be found specially attractive on account of the coloured illustrations of dress which it contains. These are certainly both beautiful and lifelike, without being in any sense too French. Besides the coloured pictures, the magazine contains a vast number of smaller and
plainer illustrations of dresses as they are actually worn on this or on the other side of the Channel, or as they are in the pre- liminary stage of " design " by "eminent artists." Fashions of To-Day is beyond doubt a very ambitious magazine, and it is evidently quite fitted to cope with periodicals of its own kind, numerous as these are. An improvement might well, however, be made on the padding of the magazine, which is composed, as is usual in such cases, of short stories, sketches, and reviews of books. They have an air of juvenility, and almost of frivolity.
There is much that is worth reading in the Library Review, which has now reached its fourth number, although many of the reviews that it contains have inevitably a belated appearance. Mr. J. Stanley Little concludes his reflective "Aspects and Ten- dencies of Current Fiction." Towards the close, he preaches a little too much, even although he lets fall such neat sentences as, "The only art meet for our plaudits is the art which is the artist's religion ;" and, "Genius is as a finely matured wine of a grand vintage : you cannot convert it into a good serviceable vin ordinaire by diluting it." Mr. R. L. Stevenson, as is evidenced by his "Letter to a young gentleman who proposes to embrace the career of Art," is better at this sort of thing than Mr. Little. "M. Alphonse Daudet and his Literary Methods," by Mr. Percy White, is also an interesting critical paper, although it is rather thin. The most characteristic article, however, in this number of the Library Review is "The Library of an Italian Prince," which gives a very fair account of the Library of the Borghese at Rome, which, being dispersed by sale, is now practically non-existent. It may be suggested to the conductors of the Library Review that they would greatly improve their magazine by giving more original papers and fewer book-criticisms.
The most seasonable paper in the June number of Longinan's Magazine is Mr. Robert H. Scott's "Notes on the Climate of the British Isles." From it, the anxious inquirer as to the best locality in which to pitch his camp during the holiday season, will learn such things as : "In choice of a residence, select a spot with hills lying to windward on the rainy side ; " and, "as regards our own comfort, it is wisest if we can to take our outing before lunch." A very lively paper is "Reminiscences of St. Petersburg Society," by the author of "Baltic Letters." The St. Petersburg whose pleasures, including masked balls, are treated of, is the St. Peters- burg of 1844 and of the Emperor Nicholas, of whom we are told that "a finer specimen of male humanity it was impossible to see. Tall, grandly developed, and on a colossal scale, he towered above all. His head was strictly Grecian, with forehead and nose in one grand line, chin and jawbone strongly pronounced ; his eyes large and blue, with an expression of calmness, dignity, and coldness which awed every one; his mouth smiled, his eyes never." Mr. Lang is exceptionally good—in other words, he is lightly and sarcastically learned—in his "At the Sign of the Ship" this month.
There is nothing specially notable in the letterpress of the June numbers of the Magazine of Art and the Art Journal. The best written and most interesting papers are Mr. Claude Phillips's "Jules Bastien-Lepage " in the one, and Mr. Vernon Blackburn's "Some English Shrines" in the other. The illustrations—such as those accompanying "Sir John Pender's Collection in Arlington Street," in the Art Journal, and Miss Helen Zimmern's paper on " Cracow and its Art Treasures" in the Magazine of Art—are above even the high pictorial average maintained by these journals.
The June number of the Month is notable for the variety and high literary excellence of its contents. But it is too pronouncedly Roman Catholic and polemic for ordinary lay readers, although such will find much to interest them in the editor's "Oxford as Seen by a Frenchman," and a considerable amount of information —rather too drily put—in "The South African Languages." Still, the Protestant who can enjoy close reasoning, in spite of a soupgon of acidity, should read "Walled-up Alive."
In point both of brightness and of variety, the June number of Cassell's Family Magazine is distinctly above the average. Thus, Mr. J. Munro's "The Mystery of the Aurora," is a more than ordinarily good and lucid paper of the scientific hind; and Mr. E. A. Sterns's "Through an Eastern Desert on Foot" possesses the merit—an extraordinary merit for a " travel-paper "—of being fresh. Nor have we read for a long time so good a story of clever and undetected robbery as "A Good Deal Abroad."
All that can be said of the June number of the Sunday Magazine is, that it contains a fair selection of readable papers. The most artistic piece of work in it is Mrs. Molesworth's "Old G-ervais : a Curious Experience," although it is perhaps a trifle too melancholy. In 'The Birthday of English Missionary Enter- prise," Dr. Blaikie gives a clear account of the work of Carey ; and Mr. Guinness Rogers writes sympathetically of the late Dr. Henry Allen.
The new monthly number of the Girl's Own Paper is perhaps most notable for the instalment which it gives of Mr. John Saunders's story of "A Battle with Destiny." The character—and the diary—of Sybil Capella, are quite worthy of this somewhat unequal but powerful writer. Of the miscellaneous papers and stories, "Two Ways of Looking at It" is, all things considered, the most generally readable,—or, at all events, the most distinctly original.
The waters of education are not quite smooth at present, and so there is a fair amount of controversial matter in the editorial and correspondence columns of the Journal of Education. But it is not too acrimonious, even although the writer of a vigorous paper on "Sex in Education" speaks, when dealing with Sir James Crichton-Browne, of "unworthy insinuations," and " libels on honourable men and women—unpardonable if they were not ridiculous." There are, however, several interesting non-polemical papers in the June number of the Journal,—in particular, Mr. Bay- ford Harrison's "Gleanings among the Swedes," and " Fontenay- aux-Roses," a very full and lucid account of a French training college.
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