The November number of the Gentleman'8 Magazine (Chatto and Winans)
is a remarkably readable one, presenting that happy combin- ation of fact and fancy which has marked it since it entered upon its new career. There is, perhaps, a trifle too much astronomy in it. Not only does Mr. R. A. Proctor contribute a vigorous paper on "Star-clouds and Star-mist," but "the Comet," and its treatment by the Sun, so much apprehended, are dealt with, both in the "Science Notes" of Mr. Mattieu Williams and in the "Table Talk" of Syl- vanes Urban. As Mr. Williams has no fear that it will do us injury, and Mr. Proctor seems to be resigned to the belief that it is not this comet, at any rate, that is to destroy our poor planet, both it and we may surely be allowed to sleep for a little. "Winter Angling," by " Redspinner," and "Birds of Beauty and of Song," by Mr. Phil. Robinson, are worth reading, if only for the evidences they give that the writers literally revel in the subjects they treat. A paper by Mr. Gordon Cumming on "Egyptian Dervishes" is bright and informing ; its author makes one more addition to the great cloud of witnesses to the altogether unique wretchedness of the Fellahoon. Under the title of "A Gift from Emerson," Mr. A. H. Japp introduces us to Sampson Reed, a con.
temporary of Emerson, while he was Unitarian pastor, and to a book by him, bearing the rather common-place title of "Observations on the Growth of the Mind." There were evidently germs of the riper thinker and richer artist in Reed ; he was, in fact, what Emerson himself would call one of his "assessors."
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