FROM .A NORTHERN WINDOW.*
MOST of these twelve papers are published for the first time, though Ian Maclaren's "Books and Bookmen," "Humour," " Burns, the Voice of the Scottish People," and " The Waverley - Novels " were originally lectures delivered to audiences in the United States. "Books and Bookmen," one is disposed to say, comes first in merit as in order, and is, as might be expected, a' delightful 'bit of literary gossip. Few things are more delightful than to follow a good writer as be muses on what others'have written. - What an excellent story is that of the squatter who, having made some money, sent home for some books. His friend despatched some cheats of the beat he could find, and after a while received this letter : "Have been working over the books, and if anything new has been written by William Shakespeare or John Milton, please send. it out." His knowledge of literary history left something to be desired,: but clearly he had the root of the matter in him. Another excellent essay is an appreciation of George Macdonald 1.iy Robert Macdonald. It is described as "a personal note," and it connects throughout the man with his work. The more we see of this connection, the better pleased we are. George Macdonald was absolutely remote from the great authors whom we admire more the less we see of their personalities. 111Story is touched in three papers, two of which concern its ecclesiastical aspect. Lord Guthrie writes on "Scots Re. formers and Covenanters " in a broad-minded way, quits 'worthy of an ancestor who some two hundred years ago got into trouble with his Presbytery because, being a Presbyterian minister, he subscribed a guinea to the building of an Epi- -soopal meeting-house. But might we suggest that to see Wolsey ,redivirous in the late Cardinal Vaughan is not a compliment to the modern divine ? Wolsey was one of the Churchmen of the -very worst type. Miss Florence MacCann gives us a pie- tumque little story of the experiences of James Melville and the Scotch ministers who were his colleagues when they were attending the Hampton Court Conference. Mr. Duncan Warrand, in his account of the " Culloden. Papers," tells us about Duncan Forbes of Inverness and his family (1626-1750). Especially interesting is the glimpse we get of the activities of • From a Northern Window ; Papers, Critical, Historical and Imaginative. Laudon: Jamed Niabetalid-Co. (641.] the anti-Jacobite. Scotsmen at the time of the "Forty-five." - After these we may turn by way of a change to Sir Herbert Maxwell's "Possibilities of Scottish. Angling." It is not all relief, indeed, for we are moved to wrath when we read of the foolish supineness which has suffered :so many of our home. country streams to be ruined by the pohionous outflow from the mills. Sir Herbert leaves Scotland for a while to make ' his protest. If the Thames, flowing through the largest city in the world, has been brought back to' something like whole. someness, why could not they ?.
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