NEW EDITIONS. — We have received the fourth and concluding volume of
Sir Arthur Helps's Spanish Conquest in America, Edited, with Introduction, Maps, and Notes, by M. Oppenheim (John Lane, 3s. 6d. net). The story begins with the time immediately following the execution of the Inca Atahualpa, and is carried ou to the not distant period when the crimes of the Spanish con- querors were, in part at least, punished by the savage strife which arose about the division of the spoils. A more pleasing subject is dealt with in Book XX., "The Protectors of the Indians : their Efforts and Achievements." Book XXI is devoted to a "General Survey of Spanish Colonization in America."—Vols. III. and IV. of " The Works of Mark Rutherford," Edited by his Friend, Reuben Shapcott (T. Fisher Unwin, Is. net per vol.), contain respectively three Old Testament studies, which will be found full of sug- gestion, The Schooling of Miriam, and Michael Trerannion, a short story of Cornish life, which exhibits the author's literary form at its best (III.), and Catharine Furze (IV.)—In the " Boys' Classics " (Grant Richards, Is. net per vol.), Robinson Crusoe. —The Jumping Frog, by Mark Twain (Harper & Brothers, 2s. net). —In the " Illustrated Pocket Library of Plain and Coloured Books" (Methuen and Co.) we have The Adventures of Johnny Newcome in the Navy, by Alfred Burton, with Illustrations by T. Rowlandson (3s. 6d. net). The first edition was published in 1818, when half-a-century or more of naval warfare was a familiar subject in the British mind. Sea life in peace and in war is described. There is often no little vigour in the verse, doggerel as it is. But we may frankly say that the book had better have been left in oblivion. Manners have changed in the last ninety years, whatever may be the case with morals, and things which it was customary to put into print in our grandfathers' time it is now a distinct offence against decency to revive.
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