The Westminster Review. April, 1864. (Trubner and Co.)—This review really
seems to get heavier with every successive number. The lightest of the seven articles which make up the number is a summary of the Histoire de la Littdrature Anglaise, by M. Taine—a volume of really brilliant criticism, but occasionally showing that utter inability to comprehend a particular author which is the pitfall that no writer surveying a foreign literature can ever avoid. " Hudibras is filled with abortive satires and gross caricatures, is devoid of art, measure, and taste, and is written in a puritanical style transformed into an absurd gibberish." The criticism of Swift, on the other hand, is both just and brilliant. Like most Continental writers, M. Taine estimates Byron far more highly than is the fashion in this country. Next in order of levity comes a long paper on the Nile, in which Captain Speke will find some remake of a not too eulogistic kind. Strikes, New Zealand, capital punishments, and Roger Bacon, with the paper on "Contemporary Literature," make up the budget.
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