CURRENT LITERATURE.

ONE of the most curious phenomena of the times is the passion for ghost stories. Although no department of fiction is more monotonous or devoid of originality than the supernatural, there is none more eagerly sought after at the present moment. In an age pre-eminently distinguished for its progress in the exact sciences, we -find the most childish credulity flourishing beneath the shadow of a sensuous and unreasoning materialism. Not only do the vulgar herd believe in warnings, apparitions, and 'spiritual manifestations," but men of the highest intellectual order devote themselves, with an air of conviction, to the elaboration of plots and incidents hardly worthy of the dark ages. The folly is growing apace, and unless promptly checked by "the police of the press," threatens to become a dangerous and abominable nuisance. It is the privilege of genius to impart a certain de-. gree of fascination, even to that which shocks the understanding, and the most censorious may be compelled to accept, with scarce a protest, the brilliant extravagances of a fantastic imagination. But in the hands of inferior artists, the horrible becomes simply ludicrous, and instead of the cold

creeping sensation of awe, the reader experiences nothing more than an "exposition of sleep." Some such effect as this is produced by a perusal of Miss E. M. Stewart's English Fireside Story,* in which spectres and visions of the night alternate with murders and highway robbery. The talent wasted on this dreary specimen of ghostly literature would, if properly directed, have fashioned a graceful and agreeable tale—a genuine recreation, and not a mere soporific. In a very different style is A Tale of Country Life, by the Author of "Amy Herbert,"t now republished in a single volume. This is a novel of the didactic and semi-religious school, so dear to female writers. For con-. venience' sake, all womankind may be divided into classes—the fast and the slow. The former delight in manly costume and customs, and are subject to the "scarlet fever" and its attendant improvidence ; while the latter are prone to the manufacture of good books and Bible-makers, and marry pale-faced curates with small means but large views for the amelioration of the human race. Deducting this matrimonial amentia Miss Sewell belongs to the second category, and being debarred the use Of the pulpit, has recourse to fiction for the inculcation of truth. The chief defect in her writings is one incidental to her sex. When not indulging in spasmodic movement, her characters are incessantly talking, and nine times out of ten are engaged in analyzing their own progress towards the acceptance of religious principles, as the ever-present guide of their motives and conduct. Like the disciples of Buddha, they pass their lives in self-contemplation, in the hope of ultimate absorption, occasionally diversified, indeed, by outbursts of energy on a par with the frenzied gyrations of a dancing dervish. It must be admitted, however, that Ursula is written with considerable vigour, that its tone is pure and healthy, and that the personages who strut their brief hour upon the stage are clearly and cleverly delineated.

The absurdity of the prevailing mania for republishing in a collected form stray contributions to periodical miscellanies is strikingly exemplified in a volume just issued by the Messrs. Rivingtons.t A Mr. Richard Perry has taken the trouble to string together various papers of very mediocre merit contributed some years ago to an amateur magazine called "The Bouquet," established by certain young ladies and gentlemen, "some of whom were of high rank," residing in Regent's Park, "with a view to improve themselves in the composition of prose and verse, in all languages." Now, almost the only readable portion of these detached papers consists of extracts from the letters and journals of a lady resident in Australia, and which cannot, therefore, be placed to Mr. Perry's credit. Even these are not worthy of republication, however acceptable they may have been to the lettered youth of the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Perry himself is sufficiently egotistical, and kindly introduces his family for four generations to an inquisitive but unsympathetic public. Having, at the age of thirteen, carried off a school prize in the form of Junius's Letters—which he "did not part with till recently, on purchasing Woodfall's edition"—he became acquainted with that "author's style, and thought that (he) recognized it in Grattan's composition." Following up this track, he has discovered that the veritable Junius was Henry Grattan, and that his amanuensis was probably Sir Philip Francis. It is almost needless to add that the evidence adduced would satisfy no one who had not already arrived at a foregone conclusion. With regard to Mr. Perry's rhythmical effusions, it may be conceded that they bear witness to a cultured mind and not untuneful ear. Would that as much could be said in favour of Baal, and other Poems.§ Emboldened, apparently, by the fugitive notoriety achieved by Mr. Austin's prurient Retire entitled "The Season," an anonymous rhymester, who describes himself as "a man of fifty and used to have his say," has absolutely taken the trouble to compose eight hundred stanzas with the intention of satirizing the vices and follies of the day. That he should have selected "The Lord of Flies" to give a name to the fruits of his industrious idleness indicates a better sense of the fitness of things than would be surmised from the general character of his elaborate trifling. One or two extracts, however, will furnish a more correct idea of the depth of folly, expressed in inharmonious rhyme, to which the human mind can descend, than could be given by a lengthened and laboured criticism : "The bigot hap his self-sufficient sin, Nor leaves his tether wheresoe'er 11:3 walks, The dullest clown that works, in folly's gin, He evenmore in stubborn circle talks, His paradise he enters with his little corps, His apotheosis he chants and locks the door."

The last line is perfectly sublime. The "apotheosis" which our bard covets for himself is perpetual celibacy. It is thus he chants the praises of single blessedness :

" B7 home untethered or domestic pegs,

'1h' unmarried man at liberty may range: Why then the youthful looseness of thy legs For padlocks vile and apron-strings exchange ?"

Why, indeed? But surely if woman's love be worthless, there is yet some compensation to be found in manly friendships ? Alas ! it is not so, for "The worth of friendship would you truly learn, From friend a guinea ask, or five-pound note, And soon his icy nose he will upturn, As if you were a snake or stinking stoat !

If on his sympathies you further claims obtrude'

The workhouse he will name in accents cold and rude."

Noscitur is goals.

In a simpler and purer strain the Rev. Alexander Wallace muses on the wonders of Egypt, and embodies in blank verse his harmless meditations on the ancient Pyramids and the mysterious Sphinx. His verse may not be very sonorous, or his reflections very profound, but it is easy to perceive that they are the outpourings of a well-balanced and well-educated mind. There is more fire, however, in his poem on "The Tragedy of Cabal," the more recent and more human subject, affording a more genial inspiration. Is it quite fair, however, to the memory of the ill-fated Burnes, to change his name to Burgess? The laws of rhythm are, no doubt, very stringent and severe, but at least they should respect the only property a man possesses after death—his ancestral name. With

• Rosedale; or, the Deserted Manor House: an English Fireside Story. By Miss E. M. Stewart. Bernard Douglas. t Ursula : a Tale of Country Life. By the Author of "Amy Herbert." Longman and Co.

Contributions to an Amateur Magazine, in Pram and 'Verse. By Richard Perry, M.A. Rivingtons.

§

Boat; or, Sketches of Social Evils : a Poem in Ten Flights. William Freeman. Poems and Sketches. By the Rev. Alexander Wallace. James Maclehose, Glasgow.

equal justice that enterprising traveller might have been shortened into Burns, and some future commentator thereby puzzled to account for the presence of the Scottish bard at Cabal.

As everybody now-a-days reads the newspapers, it is assumed—erroneously, we think—that everybody wishes to understand what everybody reads. The fruition of knowledge, however, strictly belongs' to a higher order of beings. As the world wags, ignorance is cousin-german to bliss. What would have become of the maid-servant's admiration of an oft-cited sermon had she fully comprehended the meaning of the word "Mesopotamia ?" Had she been aware that it merely signified so many thousand square miles, like England or Ireland, would it have seemed to her to "come in beautifully?" It is the same in all things. There must be allowed some play for the imagination. Beauty unadorned may be all very well, but nobody cares for beauty nude. What would Isis have been without her veil ? What hold would religion have upon mankind if deprived of its mysteries? Ask the opponents of the "Essayists and Reviews"—hinc illw lachrymal. And yet here* is a well-intentioned, painstaking individual giving himself infinite trouble in order that we should "know, you know," an infinity of things that don't conduce in the slightest degree to our comfort, prosperity, and happiness. Besides, the information he imparts is somewhat meagre. For instance, he describes the Pie-Poudre Court as being an ancient court of record in England, incident to every fair or market, but omits to give the derivation of the name, and in like manner with the "Trial of the Fix," and many similar cases. He is also occasionally inaccurate, as where he speaks of "Nabob" as being "the title of the governor of a province, or commander of an army in India," and of "Rajah" as being "the name of princes who govern the various provinces of Hindostan ;" the fact being that the two words signify one and the same thing—a "prince" or "ruler," only that the former is applied to the Mahommedan.s, and the latter to the Hindus. However, Mr. Shelton deserves well of those who really wish to understind what they read, regardless of the additional trouble they will thereby cause to those who are doomed to write.

Of pamphlets and miscellaneous publications an appalling accumulation rises before us, like a Tower of Babel, menacing their despairing reviewer with premature imbecility.

"Non, mihi si linguse centum sint, oraque centum, Ferree vox, omnes scelerum comprenclere formes, Omuia pcenarum percurrere nomina, possim."

Let it suffice, then, to record the titles of a few, with the names of their publishers. Messrs. Triibner and Co. give to the world a History of ShortHand Writing, by Matthias Levy, from its earliest invention down to the present time. From Mr. Murray we have received the first and second Parts of Dr. W. Smith's learned and universally useful Dictionary of the Bible, comprising antiquities, biography, geography, and natural history, arranged in alphabetical order ; while Messrs. Longman and Co. place on our table Lieutenant Saxby's ingenious treatise on Foretelling Weather, being a Description of a newly discovered Lunar Weather System. The December Part of Once a Week, from Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, fully sustains the justly acquired reputation of that popular periodical. The Popular Science Review, No. II., edited by Mr. Samuelson, and published by Mr. Hardwicke, is a happy idea happily realized; but in spite of gallantry, critical candour forbids us to say asimuch for Messrs. Kent and Co.'s Englishwoman's Journal, which is simply unreadable. Boston's Christmas Annual, Boston's Illuminated Family Bible, Boston's Book of Garden Management and Rural Economy, Boston's Book of Home Pets, fill up so many "obvious voids," and probably satisfy the class of readers for whom they are chiefly designed. The Family Treasury of Sabbath Reading (Thomas Nelson and Son), edited by the Rev. Andrew Cameron, is a new candidate for popular favour, and a formidable rival to the publican and the gin-palace. Older, but ever fresh and vigorous, is Dr. Norman Macleod's well-selected miscellany, entitled Good. Words (A. Strahan and Co.), rightly described as a "magazine for all the week." Weldon's Register (Walter Weldon and Co.) is less known than it deserves to be. With such writers on its staff as G. A. Sala, Dutton Cook, J. liolingshead, Wm. Rossetti, Percy Gregg, and Moy Thomas, it can never fail to contain many papers of a high order of merit, and that the thoughts and views of such men should be at the command of every one possessed of a spare sixpence in the month is certainly not the least gratifying token as well as assurance of the gradual improvement of literary taste throughout all classes of the British population. That same population is kindly instructed by Mr. H. Cholmondeley Pennel as to the properties of Spinning Tackle : what is is and what it ought to be (Harrison), and with equal consideration a Bavius or Mcevius has woven a sand-rope of doggrel rhymes, apparently intended as a satire upon the vexatious delay and costliness of law. Mr. Effingham Wilson is the publisher of this laborious trifle, which bears the name of Chancery Lane; or, the Glass Case. Sated and exhausted, we finally turn with a sense of relief to A Book of Family Prayer, principally derived from the devotions of Jeremy Taylor (Longman and Co.).

Poems. By A. Painter. (William Blackwood and Sons.) Philo-Socratea Part III. Among the Teachers. By William Ellis. (Smith, Elder, and Co.) Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum Described By Samuel Sharpe. (John Russell Smith.) Eighty Years' Progress of the United States. By Eminent Literary Men. (Triihner and Co.) Works by the Late Horace Hayman Wilson, M.A., tkc. VoL I. (Trillmer and Co.) Poems. By the late Marie J. E. Fotherby. Edited by her Finsband. (Arthur Hall Virtue, and Co.) A Facsimile of the Original Autograph Manuscript of Gray's Elegy. (Sampson Low, Son • and Co.) P. Virgil:1 Marones Btscolica, Georgica, et "'Emit. With English Notes. By C. D. l'onge. (Richard Bentley.) Olive Blake's Good Work: a None!. By John Cordy Jeaffreson. In three volumes. (Chapman and Hall.) The Common Sights in the Heavens, and how to See and Know Them. By Captain A. W. Drayson, RA. (Chapman and Hall.) A Popular History of the Discovery of America from Columbus to Franklin. By J. G. Kohl. In two volumes. (Chapman and Hall.)

SERIALS.

Journal of the Workhouse Visiting Society.

The Intellectual Observer. A Dictionary of the Bible. The North British Review.

• The Historical Finger-Post a Handy Book of Terra, Phrases, Epithets, Cognomens. Allusions, Sr., in Connexion with Universal History. By Edward Shelton. Lockwood

and Co.