CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Magazines are usually dull at Christmas, and most of them pub- lish little of special interest this January. Each has, however, one or two articles worth indicating to our readers. They should see, for instance, in the Contemporary, the conclusion of Mr. Llewolyn Davies's paper on Wesleyan Methodism, Mr. H. N. Oxenham's defence of eternal perdition—which is really an able plea for the Catholic doctrine of purgatory—and Mr. R. F. Littledale's trenchant and most severe account of popular Illtramoutane literature.—The Fortnightly commences its History of Home and Foreign Affairs, which is to be continued monthly, and is, we regret to see, a series of leaders, sometimes very spirited. We had hoped it would be an impartial history of the month, with as many facts and as few comments as would be compatible with a decided drift in the paper.—Fraser gives us a very sound, though rather bitter paper about Turkey ; and a valu- able account of the chances of a young man in any of the Indian Services, which reads to us a little rose-coloured, hut is full of information. It wants, however, a table, showing the amount of time which usually elapses in passing from grade to grado.—Bfackwood has a useful paper on "Army Reform," deserving study, if only for the paragraph in which the writer suggests that part of our soldiers at least might be trained, as railway-porters are, without forfeiting their liberty ; and the usual discourse on Public Affairs, the noteworthy point in which is that Bluckwood declares, avowedly in opposition to Lord Derby, that political ascendancy in Egypt must be a cardinal point in English policy.— Macmillan's best paper, as we have before said, is Mr. Freeman's account of Montenegro, which will distinctly add to the immediately-useful in- formation of every reader ; while the Cornhill has, besides a curious account of the Maories of Lake Taupo, just on the boundary of civilisa- tion, a brilliant, though a little high-flown, rhapsody on 2Eschylus.
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