CURRENT LITERATURE.
THE MINOR MAGAZINES.
The July Macmillan is an average number, but nothing more. The most readable paper is the Baroness Martinengo-Cesaresco's " Conversations with Gonnod." It is lively, and we learn from it that in Gounod's opinion " what is difficult in art is not what we give forth, but what we hold back." " On Irish Greens" is breezy and may be found enjoyable at this season of holidays and golf. Professor Newton is aggressively eulogistic in "Gilbert White and his Recent Editors," and there is genuine pathos in Miss Sobrabji's " Behind the Purdah."—The new number of Cassell's Magazine, which, by the way, is now holding its own with such rivals as the Strand and the Windsor, is quite a holiday one; in other words, it is full of stories. Of these perhaps the best is "The 'Queen's Ring," by Mr. James Workman, who is a valuable recruit to the ranks of our historical romancists. But there are some excellent and informing miscellaneous articles, such as " Her Majesty's Ambassadors " and "The Central London Rail- way."—The most notable, or at least most genuinely literary, article in the Sunday Magazine is the Bishop of Ripon's—the seventh of a series—on " The Religious Element in the Poets." The criticism which it contains of Marlowe has at least the merit of novelty. Mr. Joseph Spurgeon's article on "The Christian Endeavour Convention " is seasonable and well illustrated. The ordinary religious papers are rather deficient in " grit.'—The " Christian Endeavour Convention " occupies the leading place in the Puritan as well as in the Sunday Magazine. But the most interesting paper in this number is " Lewis Carroll as a Preacher "; it presents the great humourist in a new, or at all events little known, light. " An Evangelist in Clay "is an excellent description of the art of George Tinworth, and, among stories, " The Revolt of the Villagers" is notable as illustrating at once the power of a revivalist preacher, and the disciplinary influence or domestic sorrow and happiness.—The July number of the Sunday at Home contains no outstanding article, but several papers that are readable and interesting, such as " Napoleon at St. Helena," "The Bible in Africa," and "The New York Confer- ence on Foreign Missions." "An Australian Preacher's Bush Quarters," which comes to an end in this number, reveals a con- siderable command of pathos on the part of the author.—The Girl's Realm now differs but very slightly, except perhaps in the quality of its illustrations, from the old and familiar magazines for girls ; even the names of the writers, such as Evelyn Everett- Green, Agnes Giberne, and S. Baring-Gould, are quite familiar.
" Four Girls at the well Exhibition_" is lively. The literary criticism might well be improved. A study of Robert Louis Stevenson is almost infantile in its simplicity.—Perhaps no magazine—certainly none for boys—that has recently been started has reached a higher level of excellence than the Captain. Two really admirable serial stories, " The Three Scouts," by Fred Whishaw, and " Acton's Feud," by Fred Swainson, are running in it. The secret of the plot in the second is so cleverly kept that it is impossible as yet to see how the scoundrel is to be exposed and punished. Boys' athletic interests are looked after most carefully;. "The Free Wheel" in the July number is well worth reading.—The existence of a vigorous periodical like the Columbia University Quarterly may be taken as one of many evidences of College activity on the American Continent. We learn from one of the articles in the July number that the particular function of such an institution as Columbia is to "make scholars and specialists, including in the latter term men of all the professions." Of this we have abundant evidence in such expert articles as "The School of Architecture." —Among magazines, widely different in character, which agree in maintaining a good level of literary excellence and of varied interest, are the Journal of Education, Knowledge, and the Expository Times. The lively and sarcastic " Democrat in Litera- ture," by Geraldine Hodgson; "American Indians," by R. Lydekker ; and " A Rhetorical Figare in the Old Testament," by Professor Hemmen, of Munich, may be cited from the latest numbers of these magazines as examples of their different styles and virtues.—We are glad to give our usual welcome to an ex- cellent magazine, still holding its own among many rivals, Little Folks (Cassell and Co.) The readers of this volume will be the inmates of happy homes.
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