CURRENT LITERATURE.
The North British Review. March. (Edmonston and Douglas ,—The present number of the North British is not as good as vaml. The subjects are not in themselves attractive, and their treatment is some- what stiff and laboured. Ireland, trade unions the finamial relations of England and India, popular philosophy in its relation to life, and the atomic theory of Lucretius need power in handling and novelty of view to recommend them, and the Queen's Journal has been so syste- matically reviewed by every publication, that we have ceased to expect either power or novelty in any fresh account of it. We admit that the article on Lucretius is able, and that the one on Ireland reasons out the questions involved with some completeness. However, as it tells us that " the Spectator, though the most thoughtful of all our public instructors is sadly apt to fancy it can make thought do the work of knowledge, and to construct facts as well as theories out of the depths of its own moral consciousness," it can hardly expect us to agree with its conclusions The best articles in the number are those on Renan, Montalembert, and Forma Caballero, and these we recommend heartily. The last writer indeed should not tell so well known a story as that of the poet whom Harley advised to learn Spanish in order that he might read Don Quixote in the original, as having happened to "a tiresome place-hunter " in the time of our grandfathers. But the article itself makes amends for this little slip of the memory, and such papers as the three we have placed last go far to redeem the number from the charge of heaviness.
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