Many Thoughts of Many Minds. By Henry Southgate. Second Series.
(Griffin.)—Mr. Southgate finds in the success of his first series an ample justification for the publication of a second. There are numbers of readers whose time and means compel them to have their library within a very small compass ; to such, a book of extracts, if only made with decent care, is really valuable and interesting. Mr. Southgate has done his work with care. We can mark an improvement, as far as an exami- nation necessarily brief and imperfect can justify in expressing an opinion, in the selection of authors, as it has been made in this series, over what we remember to have been the case in the first. Tho "groat unknown" have been loss drawn upon. Personally we should prefer in a book of extracts something of a principle that would more fully justify the compiler's statement (which we find on the title-page) that the selec- tions have been "compiled and analytically arranged." The alphabetical arrangement which has been actually followed is not consistent with anything really analytical, though under each separate item something of the kind has been attempted. The other plan, however, we are ready to confess, would be far more difficult of execution, would excite more criticism, and would run more risk of failure. As it is, Mr. Southgate has given us in a volume of stately size and handsome exterior a well- assorted common-place book.
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