CURRENT LITERATURE.
Why England Maintains the Union. A popular rendering of "England's Case against Home-rule." By A. V. Dicey, Vinerian Professor of English Law in the University of Oxford. Prepared by "C. E. S." (John Murray.)—A popular and cheap compression of Professor Dicey'e admirable work was very much wanted. "C. E. S." seems to have done the work with a very fine sense of proportion, and undoubtedly we have the candid admissions of the book,—which are of its very essence,—quite as adequately reproduced in this compression of its sabstauce as are the fatal objections to Home. rule. The Liberal Unionists will do well to circulate this first-rate shilling pamphlet through the length and breadth of the land. The abbreviator of Mr. Dicey's book is an artist who knows what the value of the original really is.
The Rev. A. Lowy, Secretary to the Anglo-Jewish Association, contributes a very startling article to the new number of the Scottish Review on "The Apocryphal Character of the Moabite Stone." He maintains, both on external and internal evidence, that the inscription on the stone is a fraudulent fabrication. The internal evidence must, of course, be judged by experts in this particular department of ;scholarship. The external evidence comes in effect to this,—that "whilst the surface of the stone is pitted and indented, in conse- quence of its exposure to varying influences extending perhaps over thousands of years, tho characters inscribed on the stone have in no instance suffered from similar influences, because the dressed stone is ancient, whereas the inscription itself is modern." One is reassured to learn from a paper on "French Canada," by Mr. J. G. Bourinot, Clerk to the Dominion House of Commons, that "every reason exists to make Its believe that as long as the same wise counsels continue to prevail in Canada that have heretofore governed her and carried her anecesafally through critical periods, the integrity of the Confedera- tion is ensured, and the two races will ever work harmoniously together, united by the ties of a common interest and a common allegiance to the Empire to whose fostering care they already owe so much." Among the other contents of this magazine, a careful and thoughtful paper on "Thomas of Erceldoune " is exceptionally deserving of attention.
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