SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

[Under this heading ire notice sack Books of the teak as hare not been reserved for 'reties in other forms.] National Life and Character in the Mirror of English Literature. By Edmund Dale, D.Litt. (Cambridge University Press. 8s. net.) —In five chapters Dr. Dale sketches the history of the English nation from the Conquest (meaning, of course, the conquest of Britain) down to the end of the fourteenth century. From the literary point of view, he begins with Beowulf and the " AngloSaxon Chronicle," and concludes with "The Canterbury Pilgrims." The result is a very illuminating book. "The method employed," writes the author, "will be, aa far as it is possible, to permit the Englishman to speak for himself, while we use his words as selfrevelations of his life and thought and character." At one time we have Beowulf giving us unintentionally a glimpse into national life and manners ; at another the chronicler, fully conscious of what he is doing, describes the horrors of Stephen's reign. The two are characteristic examples of widely differing kinds of evidence, the latter being obviously the less interesting. The thoughts of the time, the religious feeling, and other matters are also illustrated in the some way. This should be a most helpful volume to the student of history.

Letters of One. By Charles Hare Plunkett. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 5s. net.)—Mr. Plunkett has achieved a great literary success in this volume. To say what is practically the same thing over and over again, and this without wearying the reader, is a very considerable achievement. The "One" who writes these forty-four letters is a not very successful author, poor, and in uncertain health, who loves and is loved by a wealthy woman. What he says to her comes to this "I love you very much ; I can conceive no greater happiness than to be with you ; and if you bid me, I will give up everything and come to you ; but my conviction is that I ought to prefer my work in life to you, and I implore you, much against my will, not to make me untrue to my better

judgment." This is always the substance of the letters, though the "accidents," so to speak, of illustration, &c., vary. In nearly two hundred " One " repeats this without obviously repeating himself, and with but the rarest lapses into paradox,—possibly.a more difficult thing to avoid. Once he says: "I would not willingly marry any one whom I loved." That is absurd, but it is an almost solitary exception. A very clever book this.

"H. IC.": his Realities and Visions. By Nehemiah Curnock. (Charles H. Kelly. Ss. 6d.)—This volume contains twenty-odd sketches republished from the Methodist Recorder and the Wesleyan Methodist Magasine under the nom de guerre given in the title. Religious e,ubjects are illustrated in them, and always with much instructive suggestion, from Nature and. life and literature. "H. K." tells us that all his pictures are drawn from real persons, and we can readily believe it. They have the stamp of the real on them. The mingling of grave and gay is excellent. The reader should look for examples in "Following," where the meaning and. spirit of some familiar hymns are drawn out for us, and then to the papers," As a Child," and some that follow, where our author discourses very pleasantly about a child's dolls. One of the most attractive of these studies is that of the "Pastor," a delightful little idyll of Swiss .life. The contents of the volume are well worth preserving for a longer existence than that which commonly awaits the newspaper or magazine.

Papers of a Pariah. By Robert Hugh Benson. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 58. net.)—How unequally the favours of fortune are distributed! Here is Father Benson, the master of a very skilful pen, gifted with an uncommon power of work, and specially bent, we imagine, on commending to the world the Church to which he has given his allegiance. His aims, his capacities, his opportunities, stand, it would seem, in the happiest relation to each other. And see what happens to him. He meets in a railway carriage the person who is most exactly suited to his wants. The man has been an Anglican, he is strongly inclined to become an agnostic, he has conceived a great respect for the " Catholic " Church. And he has written a number of essays, written them, too—for nothing has been left out in this amazing combination of favourable circumstances—in a style which is very like Tether Benson's. These essays, when we come to examine them, chow us a mind drawn almost in spike of itself to the very conclusions which Father Benson especially desires to commend to this generation. Why does not some convinced Anglican meet with the same happy combination of circumstances ? Perhaps there is no one who deserves to do so. For, after all, what we call luelc is only the effect of a number of unobserved causes. There is no need to commend the "Pariah's Papers" to our readers. When we have said that they are written very much in the way that Father Benson is wont to write, we have said enough. Nor do we intend to criticise them in detail. To do an would be something like crxia}Laxia, "fighting with a shadow." One thing, however, we most say,—the sceptical spirit which haunts the reader of many books suggests it. If this is a literary device—and we seem to have heard of such things—is not this sentence somewhat questionable ? "It was not till within a week of his somewhat unexpected death that I felt myself justified in receiving him into the Catholic Church." The detail adds something to the force of the situation the struggling soul just finding peace at the last—we are proceeding on the "literary device" theory—but is such a fiction in such a subject permissible ?

In the series of "College Monographs" (J. M. Dent and Co., 2s. net per vol.) we have Magdalen College, Oxford, by T. Herbert Warren, and St. John's College, Cambridge, by R. F. Scott. Both writers are in the best position to know their subject, for Mr. Warren is the President, Mr. Scott the Senior Bursar, of his College. Magdalen has the advantage in seniority, in beauty of exterior—on the whole, it surpasses all rivals in the two Universities—and, we imagine, in wealth. On the other hand, it ' has gone through a period of eclipse. It was dark in Gibbon's time, though the President says all that can be said on the other side; then there was a certain lighting up when George Horne VMS Head ; and a darkening again in the period covered by the long reign of Dr. Routh. Routh himself was a man of genuine learning, and he used his College patronage well, appointing demies by merit; but the patronage system, as a whole, was grossly abused, and all the arrangements of the place seemed made to aggravate the evil. There was the rotation of offices, for instance. What could be more absurd than a system which brought up Charles Reade from London to fill for a year the office of Vice-President? And what, to look at another side of the subject, more monstrous than that the only undergraduate residents (in 1840) should have been five demies, four clerks, and four

gentlemen-commoners, the revenue being some £45,000? However, the dead past may be left alone. The College has its list of worthies in the past, and it may well accumulate a yet longer list in .the future. Anyhow, the Gibbon that is to be will not have to complain of the ignorance and idleness of his contemporaries, or of their "deep and dull potations." Mr.' Warren has given us a most interesting account of his College. Passing to Mr. Scott's account of St. John's, we find again an excellent piece of work. St. John's has had its vicissitudes ; but it has never been eclipsed. Possibly; if the work of its members could be averaged, it would take the premier place 'in its University.' Mr. Scott's narrative is admirably told, and his descriptions are all that could be desired. The growth of the College, for instance, and of the Library is specially well treated. Here is perhaps the most precious item from the latter. It is Adisins'e MS. note :."1841,1iily 8. Formed a design in the beginning of' this week, of investigating, as soon as possible after taking my degree, the irregularities in the motion of Uranus 'which are yet Unaccounted for; in order to find whether they may be attributed to the action of an undiscovered planet beyond it."

The Sepal Tour in India. By Stanley Reed. (Bennett, Coleman, and Co., Bombey.)—Mr. Stanley Reed accompanied the Prince and Princess of Wales in their Indian tour, acting as correspondent for the Times of India. He seems to have understood his duties rightly,—to represent the places visited, the scenes, the populations, the notable personages connected with the progress. Of course, if there had been indications of public hostility or ill-content, it would have been his duty to mention them. Happily, no such duty was laid upon him. But he did not conceive it to be his business to discuss great and difficult political questions connected with the British rule in India. Whatever value we may put on the records of a Court chronicler, they are taleast more valuable than the irrelevant utterances of persons who are pleased to pose as independent. This is a very handsome Volume, with some quite admirable illustrations ; a worthy record of a very important event.

Days in Comma By C. Lewis Hind. (Methuen and Co. Cs.)— Mr. Lewis Hind is quite an entertaining companion with whom to ramble through Cornwall, and he has brought some of its atmosphere into his. chatty book. His descriptions and rambles are interspersed with some considerable gleanings from history, mediaeval and modern. People who know the more familiar Cornish resorts and sections of coast will find their recollections agreeably stimulated by acquiring a great deal more knowledge-about their favourite haunts, and those who go outside the beaten track will have an equal satisfaction in finding that Mr. Hind has been before them. Cornwall is the painter's country, and we would recommend amateurs of the brush, who have heard so much of Its sunshine and colour, to glance through some such book as this before making their first visit to the most picturesque, scenically speaking, of English counties. But let them recollect that Mr. Hind has not in any way prepared them for the beauty of the Cornish churches, or the fact that half the days in the year are rainy. Some of Mr. Pascoe's drawings are very happy, others are not.

Devon. By S. Baring-Gould. (Methuen and Co. 25. 6d. net.) —This is one of the "Little Guides," and is of a very handy size for the pocket. We think Mr. Baring:Gould might have been a little less chary of praise. Reasons of space forbid the expenditure of much enthusiasm; nevertheless, many pretty spots would be unvisited if a stranger ignored such places as are merely mentioned. A guide-maker need never mind repeating himself. The alphabetical arrangement, convenient for some purposes, has its disadvantages for the wanderer on the spot' who wishes to connect with other places. It prevents the grouping of architectural periods and physical features, though, to be sure, Devon churches belong largely to one period. Mr. Baring-Gould's notes on climate, history, industries, are excellent. It would not be easy to find a more trustworthy authority for the county than Mr. Baring-Gould, and the reader may rest assured that he has his Devon in as compact and lucid a form as can be contrived. It is an excellent representative of a most useful series.

Venice. By Beryl de Seincourt and May Sturge-Henderson. Illustrated by R. Barrett (Ciliate and Windus. 10s. 6d. net.) We Inuit own that we' have found the highly poetical prose in which this volume is written just a little tiresome. "Venice herself is poetry and creates a poet out of the dullest clay" is the quotation with which the first chapter begins—oddly enough, Venice never had a poet, unless we are to allow that title to Goldoni. It may be so, but the result is not satisfactory. "Flue

Tamale memories of the sunset cloud," the " goblet brimming • . . with a liquor that seems a drink of death "—columns might be filled with such gorgeous phrases—do not really satisfy. Mr. Darratt's pictures are not in this style ; we ought to have had Turner in his most mystic or misty manner ; and we should have preferred something more matter-of-fact in the description. We can see quite plainly that our authors, had they chosen, could have given what we want. They know their subject, and when they condescend to anything like plain speech leave an impression of competency. The drawings are very pleasing and informing.

In the "Told to the Children" Series (T. C. and E. C. Jack, Is. 6d. net) we have Stories from the Iliad ; or, The Siege of Troy. Told by Jeanie Lang. Miss Lang tells the stories with her usual skill. Perhaps it would have been as well to omit the post Homeric "Judgment of Paris" story. The fair Helen who is shown to us in the frontispiece is as unlike as possible to the stately dame whom Homer calls up before our thoughts.

Christabel. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. (Henry Frowde. 215. net.)—Mr. E. H. Coleridge gives us the "History of the Poem" in two parts. In Part I. the circumstances of the genesis of the poem are given in most interesting detaiL (The date of the first part seems to have been given wrongly by the poet. He says 1797, whereas it should have been 1798.) In Part II. the publication is narrated, and the question of the supposed conclusion is discussed. Then we have a facsimile of the MS. of the poem, and finally the text of the poem, with annotations. Altogether, this is a worthy reproduction of one of the greatest treasures of English literature.

We have received from Messrs. Nelson three volumes of their reprints of recent novels which are quite admirable in their get-up. They are tasteful in appearance, clearly printed on good paper, perfectly well bound—the pages lie absolutely open—and the price, sevenpence net, is almost incredibly low. The three specimens before us are The Intrusions of Peggy, by Anthony Hope ; No. 5 John Street, by Richard Wiliteing ; and The Marriage of William Ashe, by Mrs. Humphry Ward. These novels appeal to various tastes, but their quality is of undeniable excellence. They are to be followed, we are glad to see, by others of the same class. We congratulate Messrs. Nelson on the inauguration of what will, we feel sure, prove a series most acceptable to all lovers of modern fiction.

NEW Enrrions.—In the " Prose Works of Jonathan Swift.," Edited by Temple Scott (G. Bell and Sons, 6s.), we have Vol. XI., Literary Essays. The volume contains twenty-seven pieces in all, of which "A. Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation" and "Directions to Servants" are the most important. It is scarcely necessary to say that there is much in it that is admirable, but some of the wit has lost its flavour,—witness "Stella's " tons-mole; and some of the satire is absolutely amazing,—"The Second Solomon," an account of Dr. Sheridan, is an example. Sheridan was an intimate friend, for whom a special room at the Deanery was reserved. What Swift said of Sheridan himself is bad enough, but his abuse of Sheridan's wife goes far beyond. "Positive, insolent, an ignorant, prating, overweening fool, a lover of the dirtiest, meanest company," &c. Mr. Temple Scott thinks it "should never have been published." But why had he "no alternative but to reprint it"? Is there a necessity to reprint all the unworthy things that great men write ? —Literary Celebrities of the English Lake District. By Frederick Sessions. (Elliot Stock. 2s. 6d.)—.--.A Guide to the [Chinese] Dictionary. By Thomas Jenner. (Luzac and Co.)—The Modern Cyclopaedia, Edited by Charles Annandale' (The Gresham Publishing Company, 6s. net per vol.), of which we have had occasion to speak with praise on the appearance of successive volumes, is now completed by the issue of Vol. VII. ("Pot—Ska") and Vol. VIII (" Ske--Zym"). We have here a very compact and useful book of reference.

[... EBRATIM—The name of the publishers of The Right Honourable Sir James Stephen was incorrectly printed W. Shafter and Sons, Cambridge, instead of W. Heifer and Sons, Cambridge,

in the notice in our last issue.]