CURRENT LITERATURE.

The Reformation of the Church England. By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A. (Rivington.)—The date which Mr. Blunt subjoins to his title sufficiently explains the animus with which he writes. A.D. 15141547 is the period which includes the real Reformation. After that, he would have us think, there came nothing better than revolt against truth and disorderly change. Yet among the works of this revolt and disorder are the Liturgy which he uses and the Articles which he has subscribed. A book based on so monstrous a perversion of fact, not to say principle, can have no value except as a curiosity of perverse ingenuity. Mr. Blunt does not indeed go every length with his party, for he approves of the rejection of Papal authority. He even allows that there were doctrinal abuses to be reformed. Purgatory had usurped the place of Hall in the popular creed, and the Eucharist was administered in one kind. Wo can only say that if there was nothing more than this to be altered, there never was a more needless and inexcusable schism. Mr. Blunt seems to want every quality of an historian except industry. Ho is wholly incapable of judging evidence. Ho rejects, for instance, the last words of Wolsey, supported as they are by so unexceptionable a witness as Cavendish, because some ono said something like them before. Ho has no sympathy for anything noble or great that does not exactly fit his own narrow standards. He can say nothing more of Wickliffe than that he had "disorderly political principles." Of Tyndall, one of the purest and most single-hearted of mon, ho cannot speak with the commonest charity. And though he forces himself to use the conventional terms of reprobation about persecution, he makes it evident that he has not even ordinary compassion for those who suffered. One word of advice we would give him ; before he publishes again on this subject, let him make himself in some degree acquainted with the history of the English Bible. And one question we would ask. When he wrote, without limitation, that "The Institution of a Christian Man " was "the great dogmatical document of the Reformation," had he ever heard of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which, though not compiled before 1547, have surely some claim to that title ?

From the same author and publisher we have A Key to the Holy Bible, a summary of information about the authorship, purpose, &c., of the various books, which would not have called for particular notice, had we not read the larger work, and of which we will only say that it indicates in a less offensive form some of the same tendencies.

Springdale Abbey. Extracts from the Diary and Letters of an English Preacher. Edited by Joseph Parker, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.)— Dr. Parker manages his case with considerable ingenuity. He dresses himself up, so to speak, in the sheep's clothing of a Church of England clergyman, and contrives, for a Nonconformist wolf, to walk not at all unnaturally. This sham clergyman is generally represented as a man of fair intelligence and sense. There is nothing very striking or deep aboutwhat he says, but that is not Dr. Parker's fault, who, we willingly acknowledge, does his best for him. But when he comes to argue about Church Establishments and Nonconformity, he becomes at once the most fatuous and empty of articulately speaking men, and falls a ludicrously easy prey to the polemics of the intelligent Dissenter, Mr. Washington. How bad must be the cause, we of course conclude, for which a good and clever man can find nothing but such hopeless rubbish to say. It is a common enough practice for the writers of controversial dialogues. to set up ninepins for themselves to knock down, but there is a certain novelty about Dr. Parker's method of practising the artifice which it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge.

Studies in Early French Poetry. By Walter Besant, M.A. (Macmillan.)—We cannot affect to share Mr. Besant's surprise at the ignorance on the subject of French literature which prevails even among those who can read the language with ease and pleasure. Our literature does not fare any better. To nineteen out of twenty liberally educated young people Chaucer is nothing but a name, and Lydgate and Gower not even that. Nor is it obvious what remedy is to be applied in either case. We can hardly expect from the taught a culture which the teachers do not possess. It is true, indeed, that a little more judgment in the selection of French masters, whose qualifications might be readily ascertained by those who will take the trouble, would effect a change for the bettor in the study of French. Meanwhile, we heartily welcome Mr. Besant's work. Industry, the insight of a scholar, and a genuine enthusiasm for his subject combine to make it of very considerable value. In his introduction he sketches the progress of French poetry up to the end of the fourteenth century. From that time he gives more detailed accounts of the principal writers-, as Alain Chartier, Charles of Orleans, the semi-mythical Basselin de Vire, Martial do Paris, down to Clement Marot (died 1540), who closes his list. A final chapter discusses the claims of Clothilde de Surville to an authentic existence, claims which Mr. Bosant cannot admit, though he is very unwilling wholly to reject them. We give our readers one or two stanzas by which they may judge for themselves. They are from the poem to her first-born ; the spelling is slightly modernized :— " Dors, mon entantelet, mon souci, mon idols! Dors stir mon rein, Is vein qul t'a portd!

Ne m'esjouit encore Is son de to parole,

Bien ton 8011119 cent fois m'aye enchants.

Etend yes brasselets ; s'epand war lui le somme:

Sc cleat son cell: plus ne bongo . . . it s'cndort . .

Arelait ee teint fieuri des eouleurs de la pomme, he le diriez dans lee bras de la most?

It certainly requires a good deal of faith to take in these two last lines, or this, which, as Mr. Besant justly remarks, smacks terribly of the eighteenth century,—

L'Eternel d'un regard brize enfin mile obstacles."

Mr. Bosant's readers will find him a very entertaining writer, as well as an acute critic.

The Author's Daughter. 8 vols. (Bentley.)—In this novel, some very various scenes of life, in the Australian Bush, for instance, and in wealthy English houses, are described with considerable vividness and skill. The dialogue is easy and natural ; character is presented if not with remarkable power, yet with a skill that seems to bring before us real men and women, and that possesses much shrewdness, if not much insight. The heroine is a most interesting young person, blessed with very numerous and various suitors, in whose fortunes, those of an elderly English peer, and a young Australian farmer especially, we follow with a pleased attention. The result is that which every novelreader will conjecture, and satisfies the laws of romantic justice better than it would suit the actual conditions of life. Might we suggest to the author to tell us at some future time about the married life of a heroine who has so much culture, and a hero who has so little ? We ought not to forget to mention that one bold experiment has been tried with remarkable success. A young lady—not a queen, to whom such a step is allowed and even necessary—proposes to the man whom she loves, and neither he nor we respect her the less for it.

Political Sketches of the State of Europe from 1814-1867. By George Herbert, Count Munster. (Edmonston and Douglas.)—There is nothing of particular interest or novelty in what Count Munster writes, but it is worth attention. He belongs to an important Hanoverian family, and probably represents a considerable class. Though regretting the fate of

his country, he is anything but a frantic separatist. Any such step as inviting or using foreign help to throw off the Prussian yoke would meet with no favour from him. On the contrary, he would remind his countrymen " that they have ceased to be Hanoverians, in order that they may become Germans." Some historical interest attaches to a series of documents which the author has included in his volume. These are the despatches written by his father, Count Ernst Munster, who represented the Prince Regent on behalf of the Hanoverian kingdom at the Conferences of Paris, and subsequently at the Congress of Vienna. The mere statecraft as opposed to statesmanship of that assembly is peculiarly evident when we follow the manmuvres, not of some great power that was playing for kingdoms, but of some petty state struggling to add to itself another fifty or hundred thousand "souls." No one seems even to have imagined for a moment that the souls had any care about the matter.

The Young Shetlander, being the Life and Letters of Thomas Edmonston. Edited by his Mother. (Nimmo.)—A very pathetic and interesting narrative, told with simplicity and good taste. Various pictures of Shetland life and scenery, very vivid, and wholly free from effort or affectation, are mingled with the personal history of a young man of singular promise, most unhappily frustrated. Thomas Edmonston had made himself a reputation as a botanist before he had passed out of the yearn of boyhood ; he was actually a professor at an age when most men are only just beginning to be students. He was preparing his first course of lectures in the Andersonian College at Glasgow, when an offer reached him of the post of naturalist to an expedition then fitting out for the coast of South America. In the summer of 1845 he sailed in H.M.S. Herald; and in the January of the following year, being then a few months short of twenty-one, was killed by the accidental discharge of a rifle on the coast of Peru. He seems to have been of a peculiarly bright and genial temper, and there is something exceedingly touching in the story of his career.

Essays on the Progress of Nations. By Ezra C. Seaman. Second Series. (Sampson Low and Co.)—A writer who devotes oven as much as 600 pages to the gigantic task of reviewing the condition of the -human race can scarcely hope to produce a satisfactory result; he is certain to be superficial, and, though ho is brief, oven because ho is brief ho is very likely to be tedious. If, for instance, he cannot give more than half a page to the subject of the monastic life, he had better leave it alone. Nothing is gained by saying that monasteries " aro impediments to national progress, because they withdraw a great number of labourers, and a great amount of capital, from the active walks of life." What a self-satisfied ignorance of history and human nature is hero ! Yet where Mr. Seaman deals with subjects with which he has become acquainted otherwise than through books, and on which he has been impelled to think for himself, as, for instance, on the social and political questions of America, he writes what is worth reading. He gives us the idea of being a Southerner who has been half converted by the sword. Slavery he reprobates, indeed, but he is inclined to think that there are conditions, a tropical climate, for instance, which justify forced labour. On the importance of climate he insists with a pertinacity that becomes almost ludicrous, going nearly as far as to say that the Commandments must be abrogated south of a certain degree of latitude. Naturally he is no negrophilist ; on the contrary, he protests with vehemence against the political action which would force negro suffrage on the recalcitrant Southern States. But though he has a mean opinion of the capacity, and oven, it would seem, of the capabilities of the Black race, ho does not speak unkindly of them, or without appreciation of them. Of "miscegenation," hideous but convenient word, he is an enthusiastic advocate. It would, he thinks, " produce a higher typo of religious people than the world has yet seen," and he denounces the laws of those Northern States which forbid it. They were invented, he says, by the Puritans to protect their sons and daughters against the attractions of the coloured young people. But what can ho mean when he says that the laws press less harshly on the whites than on the blacks, because few of the whites could get coloured companions, but nearly all the blacks could get white companions by their amiability and attractions? We cannot see how the blacks are to get white companions without the whites getting black.

Buried Alone. By a New Writer. 1 vol. (Tinsley.)—This story has the characteristic which one notices so often in books of this kind. Some scene has really taken hold of the writer's fancy, and is accordingly well described. When the exigencies of the plot take us away from that we pass into utter nothingness and dreariness. Here the scene is a French provincial town ; that, with the little household, father and daughter and faithful servant, makes a really good picture ; but all the rest of the story, made up as it is of the stock improbabilities, with little attempt at anything like drawing of character, is of but very small value. The title, " Buried Alone," is absurd. Are titles becoming scarce that novelists are driven to such strange inventions? A young man dies abroad and desires to be buried in some spot that has struck his fancy, so he is buried alone ; that is all. The incident has nothing whatever to do with the plot.

Nathan the Wise. A dramatic poem. By G. E. Leasing. Translated from the German. (Trubner.) Nathan the IVise. Translated by Ellen Frothingham. (New York : Leopold and Holt.) Nathan the Wise. Translated by W. Taylor. (Tauchnitz.)—The first two translations on our list are prefaced by a biographical sketch of Leasing, including an outline of his literary labours, and especially of his groat poem. He challenged the hostile criticism of the theologians of his age, not without the usual disagreeable results. Nor was the literary public quick to appreciate his merits. Posterity, indeed, has recognized his claims to distinction as having inaugurated an epoch in German literature, and the almost simultaneous appearance of three English translations of the Nathan, all of them meritorious performances, testifies to an increasing popularity. Of those versions the first and second may be said to possess equal merit as faithful renderings of the original ; but a careful comparison of the poetical dress of each inclines the balance in favour of the American translation. We give a specimen from the " Parable of the Throe Rings," where the judge dismisses the claimants for the three rings. The following linos seem to be given with unusual felicity:—

" Let each ono • To Ills unbought impartial love aspire, Each with the other vie to bring to light The virtues of the stone within his ring; Let gentleness, a hearty love of peace, Beneficence, and perfect trust in (loci Come to its help. Then it the jewel's power Among your children's children be revealed, I bid you in a thousand thousand years Again before the bar: a wiser man Than I shall occupy this seat and speak."

Tho Tauchnitz translator does not attain equal excellence. He sacrifices ease and grace of expression to terseness, or what is meant for terseness. His style is abrupt, and sometimes worse than abrupt. To "heir the ring" is a very doubtful expression ; " that the Templar should ho choused" is not doubtful at all.

The aown of a Life. By the Author of Agnes Tremorne, d:c. 3 vole. (Hurst and Blackett.)—This story is written with some cleverness, showing itself in the style and in an occasional sentence that indicates thought and culture, rather• than in the construction of the plot or in the drawing of the characters. Lucian Carr, for• instance, Is a personage who is represented with but moderate power, but there is something fine about a passage which contrasts his look as it appeared in his youth, "a look such as I have seen in the sculptured face of a Greek god, unmoral, not immoral, undisciplined, irresponsible," with what it had changed to " when life had taught its lessons of patience and selfrestraint, and the Pagan man-god wore something of the air of the God-Man." The author reminds us, perhaps, too strongly of the manner of other writers. The diary of Venda, with its frank conL'ssions, recalls the machinery with which Mr. Wilkie Collins elaborates the mystery of his plots. Count Thurncr, with his plots, his necessities, and his unscrupulous ability, strongly resembles Lord Lytton's Count di Peschiera; and the scone at a necromantic seance, whore we are told that as the guests "raised their faces, white in the luminous smoke that filled every part of the room, the trace of a gigantic foot cleaving every part of this cloud was all that every man saw," is a very close imitation of the well-known passage in the same author's Strange Story, where we are introduced to the Eye and the Foot.

The Lives of the Tudor Princesses of England. By Agnes Strickland. (Longmans.)—Miss Strickland's ingenuity and industry continue to find now branches, or at least new combinations, of her favourite subject, the biography of royal or quasi-royal ladies. This volume begins with the life of Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, and ends with that of Arabella Stuart. This is ground with which many readers will be familiar ; and Lady Jano Grey is an historical personage about whom it would not be easy to say anything now. A loss hackneyed subject is found in the lives of Lady Jane's unfortunate sisters, Lady Katharine and Lady Mary, of whom Elizabeth showed a jealous fear, which it seems impossible to account for. Mary, Queen of Scots, had the strength of all Catholic Europe behind her, which, if it could only have dropped its jealousies, might easily have become overwhelming ; but what party supported the heiresses of the house of Suffolk ? The remaining biography, also of considerable interest, is that of Lady Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby, daughter of Mary Tudor's second daughter, Eleanor. Miss Strickland's qualifications as an historian are probably known to our readers. If she is not philosophical or profound, she is at least industrious and painstaking. Her style ia somewhat slipshod, but she is not dull. And in a work like the present, where she treads for the most part byways of history, she shows her powers to the best advantage.

Beet en's Dictionary of Geography. Edited by S. 0. Becton. (Ward, Lock, and Tyler.)—This volume certainly contains a vast amount of information in a small compass ; yet, considering that the preface is dated "Christmas, 1868," it scarcely satisfies us. We find no mention of the division of Virginia into two States, Eastern and Western. Tho name of Alaska, given to what was Russian America, does not appear ; nor is the more extended signification of Canada, as including the provinces of the new Confederation, noticed. The absorption of Hanover into Prussia is not recorded ; nor do we learn anything more recent about Paraguay than that its independence was recognized by the Argentine Confederation in 1852. Exception, too, may be taken to some of the phonetic representations of pronunciation, such, for instance, as Maw-rish'-e-ns for Mauritius, and Too-lawng-soor-mair for Toulonsur-Mer.