CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Edinburgh Review. July. (Longmans and Co )—This is a highly interesting number, one which should go a good way towards showing that the old quarterlies are not so much out of the race as some people think. Home politics are represented by an article headed "Public Opinion and South Africa," for, indeed, South African affairs have made themselves very much at home here during the last year and a half. The writer holds strong views about Mr. Rhodes and the Raid, and, in our judgment, amply justifies them. What a world of significance there is in the fact (which has, surely, not been made enough of) that Dr. Jameson kept the famous "rescue the women and children "letter for a month and more. It was handed to him undated in November, and he obeyed its "urgent summons" on December 29th. Another side of Imperial politics is dealt with in " The Native States of India." The essay is not less interesting and valuable because it is informing rather than controversial. "Prosperity and Polities in Italy" is not cheerful reading. The writer sees gleams of light, but the financial prospect is gloomy; a costly army, wholly disproportionate to the needs of the country, can neither be supported nor got rid of. Of the non-political articles, perhaps the most interesting is that on "Two Recent Astronomers," with Its almost dramatic contrast between Airy and Adams. The story of the discovery of Neptune has never been told more plainly. Unfortunately, Adams, who had made a memorandum about the perturbations of Uranus as far back as July, 1841, when he had just completed his second undergraduate year, is the only English astronomer who comes out of it with unmixed credit. (Leverrier's paper was presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences five years later.) There is an excellent review of Captain Mahan's "Life of Nelson." The other subjects are
"Modem Mountaineering," "The Commons and Common Fields of England," "The Duke of Brunswick" (a General who has certainly received less than his proper meed of fame), '• Instinct in the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms," and," Origins and Inter- pretations of Primitive Religions."
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