CURRENT LITERATURE.
A History of English Literature for Secondary Schools. By J. Logie Robertson, M.A. (W. Blackwood and Sons.)—Mr. Robertson states that this History has been written, in the first instance, for his own classes "in their preparation for the Leaving Certificate, the University Local, and other Public Examinations." In less than four hundred pages, the book reviews the "entire extent" of English literature from 449 to 1394, and gives some notice also of American authors. It is obvious, therefore, that it is a volume less likely to be read than to be consulted by young men and women cramming for examinations. The labour bestowed upon the com- pilation must have been great ; and we can well believe, as Mr. Robertson says, that it has demanded a considerable amount of reading and of study. That many of his criticisms lack freshness, and that others are of doubtful value, will surprise no one, con- sidering the enormous range the writer undertakes to cover. Mr. Robertson always tries to be impartial; but he has not the space, and possibly not the knowledge, which would enable him fairly to estimate the position of so vast a number of writers ; and on the whole we venture to think that his dates and facts will be of more service to the student than his judgments. Several of these judgments are useless, if not distinctly misleading. What estimate, for example, can a student form of the genius of Jane Austen (who is dismissed in six lines) upon being told that she " wrote in a simple, clear, and regular style of middle-class life her skill being especially marked in the discrimination of character" ? Mr. Robertson attempts too much. To write in 372 pages a history of English literature, which begins with Ctedmon and may be said to end with the recent and lamented death of Mr. Roden Noel, passes the wit of man.
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