14 JULY 1866, Page 22

hes been in working his way up to these roots,

in connecting them with he sticks to wino parties and flirtations, but when he attempts to report an instinct that he acknowledges has been lost, he has departed from the talk of first-class men and, after the prevailing fashion of third-rate saientific method, and has merely assumed something that there are novelists, to arbitrate upon the questions of the day, he becomes ridieu- no means of proving. On the other band, those who uphold the Ions. Nothing is more irritating than to find a man laying down the law mimetic theory have these two considerations in their favour, that it on theology or politics about which he knows nothing, simply because he is the only one that connects the present with the past, and that it can describe a croquet party or a cricket match, matters in which he has- undeniably accounts for the formation of a portion of language such taken an interest all his life. How a man gets to think himself quell- as interjections (distinguished from interjectional cries), and words that fled to sneer at philosophers and to patronize professors because he has areadmitted to owe their origin to onomatopoeia. We have only space a talent for reporting, is to us a greater mystery than any that are un- left to say that the remaining articles on "Brigandage," the "Legendary folded in this volume.

Lore of Iceland," and- " Chaucer " are readable, without calling for special German-English and English-German Dictionary. By Rev. W. L_ remark, that there is a, studiously criticalnotiee of Felix Bell, and that in Blackley, M.A., and C. M. Friedlander, M.D., Ph.D. (Longmans.)—Th* the department of contemporary literature will be found two slashing objects that have been keptin view by the editors in. preparing-this new attacks which will delight the enemies of Mr. Wilkie Collins and Pro- practical dictionary are conciseness of style, facility of reference, dis- fesser Kingsley. The novelists of the present day have borrowed an tinetion of meaning, and accuracy of idiom. To secure these results idea from the menagerie showman, and rely upon an ugly beast for they have (1), whilst introducing a great number of new words and their attraction. Mr. Collins in his last book has set up a big black phrases, excluded such as are not found in ordinary conversation or Mara.: baboon which-beats all Miss Braddon's big black baboons put together. ture ; (2) arranged the words under heads instead of roots; (3), classified, 0! the other writer, it is said that "once Christians were put into the the meanings, calling attention to the changes effected by- composition, skins of wild beasts, but now Professor Kingsley puts. wild beasts into and (4) taken unusual pains to translate phrases and idioms by their

the skins of Christians." proper equivalents. They have thus produced a volume of handy size,