CURRENT LITERATURE.
Speeches and Addresses of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, 1863-1888. Edited by James Macaulay, M.A. (John Murray.)—It would be -a foolish flattery, at which no one would be more annoyed than the Prince himself, to pretend that the speeches here collected are remarkable for literary or oratorical merit. But they are genuine, —there is no " ghost " that haunts the speaker's study, and does his work for him, as the work of some more or less famous persons
is said to be done for them. They are grammatical,—more than can always be said for the speeches which are put into the mouth of a higher personage than the Prince. They are to the point, make no blunders or mistakes in tact, and say nothing that is ma/ d propos ; and they are brief. It is a thing that is peculiarly becoming to the Prince's position as the heir of the English Crown, that the longest and generally most important of these speeches is one delivered at the meeting of the British and Foreign Anti- Slavery Society at the Guildhall in 1884. The meeting was held to celebrate the Jubilee of Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies; and the Prince gave an excellent summary of the progress of the cause. The whole volume, indeed, is an interesting illustration of the position which the Heir-Apparent holds in the Commonwealth. He is the first Prince who has kept himself absolutely aloof from politics. His few active appearances in the Lords have been confined to occasions when questions of social interest were being debated and decided. But he has taken up a role almost if not entirely new. To be present at all kinds of functions, publie dinners for charitable objects, speech-days of schools, openings of exhibitions, presentations of medals, consecrations of churches, and other affairs too varied to classify, has been, so to speak, the business of his life for the last twenty-five years. There are con- siderably more than a hundred such occasions recorded in this volume, and the proportion belonging to the last four years is very large, nearly a third of the whole. It is easy enough to sneer at these celebrations and festivities, but they have a really important part in our complex social order ; and it is well that they should have all the distinction that can be given. Not the least element in their success, and the success of the enterprises which they represent, is the presence of a great personage who can be trusted to say the right thing, and say it in a genial and hearty way.
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