CURRENT LITERATURE.
The fifth volume of the new edition of Chambers's Bncyclo- prdia is, in respect of biographies, especially interesting and important. Among these are a careful Life of Goethe by Pro- fessor Dowden—(but is it quite accurate to speak of Goethe's "ardent idealising friendship for Charlotte von Stein" ?)—a judicious sketch of Mr. Gladstone's career by Mr. Justin McCarthy, and a too oppressively brilliant, yet very able and justifiably iconoclastic paper on Victor Hugo, by Mr. W. E. Henley. Mr. Gladstone contributes the paper on Homer, and among the other large articles of a general character may be singled out " Government," by Mr. Elton, M.P. ; "Homoeopathy," by Dr. A. C. Pope; "Glacial Period," by Professor James Geikie ; " Heat," by Professor P. G. Tait ; and " Hospitals," by Florence Nightingale. The smaller scientific articles are of a notably high order of excellence, and for condensation of historical and political facts, it would be hard to beat Mr. Findlay Muirhead's paper on Germany. The editor very wisely gives his contributors free scope for their idiosyncrasies of style. This freedom occasionally, indeed, lends itself to abruptness in characterisation. Thus, the description of Theodore Hook, at the very beginning of a clever and severe article, as " prince of jack- puddings," has a harsh effect. In all respects the fifth volume of this Encyclopaedia is at least the equal of its predecessors.
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