Biographical Sketches. By Augustus J. C. Hare. (George Allen.)—Mr. Hare
republishes in a somewhat enlarged form an article on Dean Stanley which appeared not long after the Dean's death in Macmillan's Magazine. Larger biographies have, of course, their function and use, but these short memoirs are what most readers practically want. This is peculiarly applicable to the next paper in Mr. Hare's volume, "Henry Alford." Dean Alford did not fill so large a place in the world as did Arthur Stanley, but his life was one of which some record is wanted. He had a remarkably versatile intellect, and a singularly fine moral nature, and he did some good work in the world. His Greek Testament is not by any means obsolete. It was, in fact, when it was published, before its time, and the forty years that have passed since its completion, have brought opinion up to its level quite as much, to say the least, as they have taken it beyond it. There is an account of Mrs. Duncan Stewart, a lady well known in London society between 1870 and 1884. Mr. Hare gives us a brilliant saying of hers about an eminent statesman whom it will not be necessary to name. An election failure had just happened to him, and some one expressed the hope that it would be as good as a dose of physic to him. "No," she replied, "it would be a dose of castor oil administered to a marble statue." Curiously enough the medicine has been given again, and with the same effect or want of effect. The con- cluding paper describes Panty le Monial and the life of Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, founder of the Devotion of the Sacred Heart.
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