CLASSICAL LETTER-WRITERS.* Tins is the first instalment of a series of volumes which promises to be a welcome addition to our bookshelves, even where they are already crowded....

a fine thing," says Pliny, treating of history, "to rescue from oblivion those who have deserved immortality, and thus to advance their fame with our own." That pleasant Roman...

Mx. BRADLEY properly styles these somewhat slight studies of Virginia before and just after the Civil War, "Sketches." The ordinary story-lover may be disappointed with them, or...

which, we may say at once, is in every way worthy of its subject, and of the writer's high reputation, is naturally divided into two parts. In the first he tells the story of...

THE biography of a soldier should be written either for soldiers or for the general public. In the former case, criticism of military operations should furnish strictly •...

F. and M. Wedmore. (Ward, Lock, and Co.)—Of all the books that we have included under the heading of "Gift-Books" there is not one which it should be as great a pleasure to give...

GIFT-BOOKS. Lords of the World : a Story of the Fall of Carthage and Corinth. By the Rev. Alfred J. Church. (Blackie and Son.)—There is no kind of romance more difficult to...

five serial stories, which are perhaps an improvement on two long ones. One is historical, a tale of the wars of Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, and another is a tale of the...

we are told, is "a story for girls of to day," and a very good story it is. Miss Davenport Adams has some- thing distinctive to say, a thing not often to be found in books of...

Eady. (Andrew Melrose.)—This "Public School Story" is good of its kind. To draw a boy who shall neither be melodramatic nor priggish is not easy. The special moral of the story...

This "Story of the Dash to Khartoum" is a skilful combination of varied interests. The campaigning is well told, and the private fortunes of the two heroes, one of them a...

Ferran, and Co.)—The "White Witch " — " witch" is used, in Old English fashion, of a male—was certainly a wonderful person. Kidnapped at the age of two and a half, he did not...

and Mrs. E. E. Green represent fiction in this year's volume. Descriptive papers on Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Chichester, Wells Cathedral, El-Azhar Mosque of Cairo. the Buddhas...

and Co.)—This is a story of the days of Henry Purcell, whose eager and intense face, as Sir Godfrey Kneller pictured it, fur- nishes the frontispiece. Mrs. Marshall has worked...

has our sympathies when she holds up Parson Prince to our admiration. Still, we cannot help suggesting that she makes him accomplish too many successes. One or two reforma-...

whole, this story is cleverly managed. Ivo Palmer is a very romantic lad who finds himself exactly in his element when he is transported, with the rest of his family, to the old...

of to-day are fond of blood—and possibly the taste is a reaction against the softness of our civilisation—here they may gratify their taste to the full. Fdr onitelves, we must...

is one of the romantic stories which Mrs. L. T. Meade delights to tell you. Kitty Malone is the prettiest, the most audacious, and the most charming creature that ever fluttered...

and Co.)—It is needless to praise this "Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks." It keeps its place at the top, whether one considers the quality of the text or of the illus-...

Family Magazine, like the other publications of the firm, contrives to keep up its distinctive character, a character which it is easier to recognise than to describe. The...

catalogue is a formidable one,—Tom and Ralph, twins, aged thirteen ; Paul, aged twelve ; Hal, aged eleven ; Sam and Tim, twins, aged ten. However, they give a good account of...

(Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—A book of fairly good pictures and indifferent letterpress. We cannot say too often that sense may be welcome when it is but of moderate...

certain Giles Brent, temp. Edward IV., saved the life of Sir Gervase Lacy at the battle of Barnet. When Henry VII. came to the throne the Lacies leased a certain domain known as...

situation of the little girl, with a good deal of quicksilver in her limbs, going to stay with some precise old relatives is a familiar one. Mrs. Cartwright makes something...

striking part of this story is the very vivid and lifelike description of Alfred Greylark and his wife Eva. The husband is nineteen and the wife two years younger ; both are...

the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell Scott of Abbotsford. (A. and C. Black.) —These twelve essays exhibit the lady of Abbotsford's usual selective skill and command of materials, and they...

Fisher Unwin.) Mr. Ritchie, who uses the nom de plume of " Christopher Crayon," might have written, if he had pleased, a harmless book, even if he could not have written one of...

By Canon Knox-Little. (Isbister and Co.)—eanon Knox-Little had evidently taken so much pains in preparation for these lectures, by reading both the original authorities and the...

—Mr. Cardew, after writing novels for some fourteen years or so, finds that publishers look askance at his work, and literary agents decline the attempt to " place " it. That is...

There is a strange sort of pessimism about this tale. It is a story of the ironies of fate. So much we can see, though we must own that there is much that we do not...

Co.)—This book is full of good sense and practical wisdom. We regard education from a somewhat different point of view from that of Professor Miall, but are glad to hail him as...

" Kailyard" literature, of at least average quality. The Scoteh is a little difficult. Here are some specimens which might serve for a critical paper in the Orford Literature...

Bird.)—We do not think that the fame of Walt Whitman is altogether served by this memoir of him. Mr. Donaldson describes a number of absolutely trifling habits of the man,—how...

a good tale of its kind ; incidents abound ; character is strongly marked ; there is a sufficiency of suspense and surprise. We must own that we have not been able to see how it...

a great feud between the Mintos and the Iuglises, the first family having gone down in the world owing, they think, to the machinations of the second. The "Bonnie Lady"...

Hamilton Bryce, LL.D. (Bell and Sons.)—We have no clear remembrance of Smart's translation, "carefully revised by an Oxonian," which used to figure in " Bohn's Classical Library...

Co., Cardiff.)—This volume is a curious medley of good and bad. We are given to understand that Mr. Patterson has been a sailor, and in his principal poem he uses his sea...

is a really brilliant book. (Why disfigured by so peculiarly hideous a cover ?) "The Newmarket folk are only human beings complicated by the horse," says the Professor who gives...

and Sons, Glasgow.) — It is refreshing to turn from the rhetoric and rhodomontade which are so plentiful on Burns Anniversaries and the like to a careful and instructive study...

Co.)—Mr Phil Robinson is as entertaining as usual. He goes on watching birds as closely as ever, and is always discovering new things about them. One of the things which we...

Therese Batbedat. (Macqueen.)—Many of our readers, it is probable, have read this story in the original, for it has reached, we are told, the hundred and seventy-sixth edition....

W. F. Moulton and the Rev. A. S. Geden. (T. and T. Clark.)—The speciality of this Concordance is that it is constructed for the critical texts of the New Testament (Westoott and...

(Elliot Stock.)—Mr. Cooper does well to add " N.W. Canada" to the name of the river which distinguishes the region of his labours. It may be further identified as the north-east...

rather a matter for regret that Mr. Lindsay should have chosen the word " idylls " as a title for this volume of carefully executed studies in character and spirituality. It...

come to associate Mr. Guy Boothby with Dr. Nikola,' if not also with Dr. Nikola's ' familiar, the black cat. That very stagey familiar might well have been dispensed with; but...

clever, in parts very powerful, but by no means pleasant, American story. One fears, indeed, at the beginning that the book is to be nothing but a series of pictures of "Bowery"...

is a gruesome, but, on the whole, well-constructed and powerful story of an unfortunate Anglo-Indian girl who, thanks to a peculiar ring, is under a curse, which she tragically...

Brothers.)—Mrs. Francis Blundell, who prefers to be known by the name under which she wrote "In a North-Country Village," shows wisdom in preferring the" short and simple annals...

readers of this story, especially boys of the sort whose ideal author is Jules Verne, will enjoy the adventures, the hairbreadth escapes, and the marvellous triumphs attained by...

Edited by John Farmer. (Cassell and Co.)—Here we have a hundred songs divided between the Navy and the Army (why not keep the right precedence?) And this is the order which the...

of a little volume published in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Its title at length is "The History of the Conversion and Death of the Most Illustrious Lord,...

T HE demands made by Germany upon Pekin as satisfaction for the murder of two Catholic missionaries in Shantung are of an unexpectedly " drastic " character. According to a...

THE STRUGGLE IN THE HAPSBURG DOMINION. T HEprospect before the Hapsburgs is not a cheerful one. The note of their house for ages has been a singular power of surviving heavy...

W E spoke last week of the preternatural suspicion, as Carlyle called it, which makes every small defeat —as in Tonquin—or scandal—as in the Panama affair— or novel proposal—as,...

S IR WILLIAM HARCOURT'S speech at Kirkcaldy suggests an inquiry of some interest as to the use and function of a leader of Opposition. No one, we suppose, will question Sir...

I N Tuesday's Times Mr. Arnold-Forster brought to an end his very able and suggestive series of letters on the condition of the Army. We do not suppose that he has said the...

TIIHE German Reichstag was opened on Tuesday by the Emperor, who, true to his instinct for making a sensation at all times and seasons, delivered himself of an impromptu oration...

fact upon which the Duke of Devonshire dwelt in his address to the Royal Society on Tuesday, that statesmen have never been men of science, nor men of science statesmen. Of the...

O N the top of a wild Wiltshire down stands a triangular red- brick tower—the eccentric architect thought he would save a fourth of the bricks and yet get all the monumental...

W E wish some one of the many thoughtful observers who are studying social development in Western Europe would deliver a careful lecture, or write a well-weighed paper, upon the...

" C OUNTRY Life," referring to the importation from Spain of a small flock of great bustards, temporarily kept at the Zoo, mentions that one or more pairs of these birds are to...

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE WEST INDIAN DEMAND. [To TER EDITOR Of TRU " SrscrATort:] SIR,—Most people, including the West India Royal Commis- sioners, are not aware that the idea...

ON READING TENNYSON'S LIFE. BUT yesterday there was a hand That touched the harp with high command ; From first to last its faultless strain Was resolutely clear and sane; No...

[To THE EDITOZ OF THE "SPECTATOE."3 Sin,—A lady who is so very sure, as Miss Isabel Fry seems. to be, of her right to call those who differ from her " foolish " and " senseless...

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sta,—In the course of a recent visit to Scotland I was , pleased to find that the vein of unconscious humour which so often enlivened Scotch...

A BUNDLE OF BALLADS" Essex was fretting in Cadiz Bay With the galleons fair in sight ; Howard at last must give him his way, And the word was passed to fight. Never was...

ONCE in a lifetime perhaps, but seldom oftener, we find our. selves in communion with some man or woman who may truly be called great ; one whose mind is ever nobly intent on...

greatest living authority on Roman antiquities, and we may go even farther, and say that no writer on that ever-fascinating theme has done more than be to establish Roman...

SONE biographies derive their interest mainly from their subject; others from the literary skill of the biographer. Both desiderata would have been fulfilled in Pusey's Life if...

THESE two curious works may be read together, as mutually destructive views of much-vexed modern England as she appears to the Oriental. If Wo Chang be really a genuine...

WE do not quite know why those who write of Blackwood's Magazine, as some one does in this month's issue, confine themselves so closely to the first group of writers in it. We...

is the volume:for the half-year ending July 10th,1897. It would be difficult to find anything which the readers of Work are not taught how to make. Organs, fishing-rods, medical...

include "Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, Parts I. and IL," "Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," "Paradise Lost, Part II. (abridged)," " Moore's Irish Melodies,". "Selections from the...

Hall.)—Mr. Lang gives us here, together with a brief, too brief, preface, and a few notes, some fifty ballads, beginning with "Sir Patrick s. Spans," and en di ng with three...

Mr. Elliot Stock publishes a facsimile of the First Edition of the Christian Year. The Bishop of Rochester furnishes a brief preface, and there is a list of emendations that are...

J4 M. Lely, M.A„ (Sweet and Maxwell.) — Some- Account qf the Lord Mayors of the City of London, 1601 - 16.:"5. Compiled by G E. Cockayne. (Phillimore 'and Co.)—Applied...

; THE SUBSCRIPTION NEWS CO., 47 Dey Street, New York, TRASSLATION. and 77 Clark Street, Chicago, U.S.A. ; GAL/OMANI', LIBRARY, 224 Rue de Rivo/i, Paris ; and 'r13:E HAROLD A....

Abernethy (I. 5.), Life and Works of James Abernethy, 8,o (Abbott) 7/6 Alt sander (R.), The Vicar of St. Nicholas', or 8.0 (Digby & Long) 6 0 A.nwyl (E.), A Welsh Grammar for...