In presiding at a lecture delivered at St. Nicholas Parish-
room, Warwick, last Wednesday, on "Palestine Exploration," the Speaker of the House of Commons called the attention of the present generation to two of the most considerable books ever written on journeys in Palestine, the late Mr. Kinglake's " Eothen," and Mr. Carzon's "Monasteries of the Levant." Both are delightful books, books of genius, but the former is, in its kind, a perfectly unique book. Nothing that Mr. Kinglake wrote later, when he became famous, ever rivalled it in fresh- ness and power of vision. It is one of the few books which have ever managed to embody the overflowing buoyancy of youth without any of either its incoherence or irrelevancy of disquisition. We will not say that there was no trace of the insolent good spirits of the young in its pages, but there was only enough of it to give a vivid conception of the personality of the author. And yet, though it was full to overflowing of the English spirit, it was still fuller of that openness to the impressive side of the East which made the book a perfect image of the wonder and the awe with which a sensitive mind was affected by Oriental life and scenery. " Eothen " will be read and loved as long as the English spirit recognises the peculiar greatness of the East, and apprehends the astounding character of the contrast between the land which gave us its faith, and the land which, not without bewilderment, still submits to receive it. Mr. Peel did well to recall attention to the best book of English travel which this century has pro- duced.
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