CURRENT LITERATURE.
Chambers's Encyclopo3dia. Vol. III. (W. and B. Chambers.) —The third volume of this most important work, the special features of which we had occasion recently to mention when noticing the second instalment, extends from " Catarrh " to "Dion." We are not certain that there are quite so many absolutely original articles as there are in its predecessors ; but editorial capacity is abundantly shown in the manner in which old papers have been revised and brought up to date. Of the new articles, we have been much struck with "Colony," " Co-operation," " Darwinian Theory," and " Common Law." The biographies exhibit a remarkable variety of style. There could hardly be imagined a greater contrast than that between Mr. Theodore Watts's thunderous performance on the Swinburnian drum, by way of estimate of Congreve, and the very thin piping which is considered good enough for De Quincey. Mr. Besant's article on Charles Dickens is a generous and admirably written piece of criticism. But what of the details of Dickens's life ? What of his quarrel with his wife ? In a biography such matters surely ought not to be absolutely ignored. In all respects the third volume of Chanibers's Encyclopcedia is equal to the two others. The success of the work as a whole may be regarded as assured.
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