Biographical Essays. By F. Max Mfiller. (Longmans.)—This might be described
as a volume of funeral sermons, having for their subjects such different men as Rtjah Rammohun Boy, Keshub Chunder See, Colebrooke, Mohl, Bunsen, and Kingsley. As the balk of what Professor Max Muller has here said has been given to the public in the form either of essay or of spoken address, it has come within the range of criticism ; as, moreover, Professor Max Mfiller's views on such sobjuots as German Liberalism, English Broad-Chnrchism, and Hindoo philosophy and theology are perfectly well known, we need only say now that this volume gives good examples of the author's style—its excellences and its faults, its well-known grace, and its at least equally well-known unctuosity. From the purely literary stand- point, we regard the essays on Bunsen (reprinted from " Chips from a German Workshop ") and "Rajah Rammohnn Roy " as the beet in this book. It is a matter of regret, in our opinion, that Professor Max Mfiller did not re-cast, or at least reduce, his paper on Kingsley before republishing it. Most of us love—indeed, cannot help loving—Kingsley, of whom it may be said, as Heine wished it to be said of himself, that he was a soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity. Yet there is too much of the funeral ser- mon, done into Daily Telegraphese, in this :—" Whoever can watch a beautiful sun, setting in the west after a glorious course, and illu- minating by its refracted rays the whole sky with its mountains and valleys, will delight in watching the glorious course and the beautiful setting of a human soul which in life has warmed, nourished, strengthened, and gladdened many a heart," Asc.
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