Florida Days. By Margaret Deland. Illustrated by Louis R. Harlow.
(Longmans, Green, and Co.)—Florida is one of the youngest Of the United States (annexed in 1821), but, so far as its connection with Europe is concerned, one of the oldest, having been discovered by Ponce de Leon in 1512. The Spanish con- quistador made a settlement and built a fort on the Atlantic coast, to which he gave the name of St. Augustine. So it comes to pass that St. Augustine is the oldest city which Americans possess, and they are naturally proud of it. Picturesque ruins are scarce in America, and the ruins of the old fort are decidedly picturesque. There are also an ancient Spanish gateway and a few old houses : a cathedral, too, a reproduction of its pre- decessor, which seven years ago was destroyed by fire. But to the travelling Englishman the two most interesting sights in the place are the slave-market, or, more correctly, the mart in which slaves were wont to be sold, and, close to it, a monumental column in memory of the Florida heroes who died in defence of the "peculiar institution." Yet even the slave-mart is somewhat of an imposture, the original building, like the cathedral, having perished in one of the fires which are so frequent in American towns. Hence the only genuine ancient monuments of which St. Augustine can boast are the fort and the Spanish gateway. Before its annexation to the Union, and for forty or fifty years thereafter, St. Augustine was little more than a small port and fishing village ; but it enjoys a superb winter climate, and during the colder months of the year its palatial hotels are crowded with visitors from the North. Picturesque, St. Augustine is not ; the country is flat, and the coast tame ; but the flora is glorious, the country round about well wooded and well watered ; and wearied toilers and languid lovers of repose may while away there a few delightful weeks. Florida Days is devoted to a description of St. Augustine and the St. John's River; and as the descriptions are well done, and the illustrations about as good as they can be, it is a charming book and a desirable possession. The St. John's River, it may be added, is one of the most beautiful streams in the world, and the next best thing to seeing it is to read Miss Deland's book, and study the charming pictures with which it is adorned. But it is in no sense a guide-book. Says the author rather floridly :—" There has been but the desire to bring the remembrance of emotions which were the reader's own ; to spread the yellow sunshine before his dreaming eyes ; to steep his otherwise insistent consciousness in a fog of content; to gather a misty memory of beautiful days,— to strike the key-note of a harmony which each soul may fulfil."
We have received a very elegant edition of the Greek Testament, published by the Clarendon Press. It contains the Received text as it appeared in Bishop Lloyd's edition of 1827. (The Bishop's preface is reprinted.) With this we have the Eusebian harmony of the Gospel, and, by way of appendix, a collation of the text adopted by Doctors Westcott and Hort, and a" Delectus Lectionum Notatu Dignissimarum," collected by Professor Sanday with the help of Messrs. Margoliouth and Arthur C. Headlam. No recension of the text, as the preface puts it, has so succeeded as to win universal approval, and none, we may add, probably will. The opportunity of giving to the world a " received text" occurred in the early days of printing, and one cannot help regretting that it was not better used. Things being so, we cannot perhaps do better than take the text which is actually in use, however small its claims, and supplement it, as has been done in this volume, with an apparatus criticus. In a very small compass the whole question of readings, as far as one need concern oneself with them, is here given.
A welcome addition to " Bohn's Libraries " (Bell and Sons) is the Minor Dialogues of L. Annceus Seneca, together with the Dialogue on Clemency, translated by Aubrey Stewart, M.A. The dialogues, so called, are twelve in number, of which the three on "Anger," and that on "Consolation, are perhaps the best known. Seneca's dialogues are a mine of good things which is far less worked than it might be. The story, for instance, of the death of Kanus, one of the victims of Caligula, is equal to the laudatie antiquontra mortes. Then there are curious little glimpses
into Roman life. In " The Shortness of Life," for instance, we have something about the salutatio. One sees what a trial it must have been to a free-living noble to have to be up early in the morning to receive his callers. Mr. Stewart, who has already given to the English reader a translation of the " De Beneficiis," deserves hearty thanks for introducing him to this equally interesting book.
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