marginals still smaller disturbing the text; and many will be reminded of an unpleasant elementary schoolbook by Cornelius Nepos which went over much the same ground. Sir George Cox begins with Solon, and takes up in order Peisistratos, Kleisthenes, Polycrates, Aristagoras, Miltiades, Aristeides, Themistocles, Pausanias, and Gelon. These have careful treatment from practised skill; but it is right to say that Sir George is more at home in his favourite field of mythology than in that of biography or biographical history. An able effort to make Themistocles a spotless hero is worthy of more serious attention than the forbidding aspects of the work will probably permit. Land tenure in the days of Solon is one of many subjects which occur by the way in these "lives of individual citizens."-An abridged translation of "The Life and Letters of Adolphe Monod"* gives a somewhat colourless account of an eloquent and pious pastor of the French Protestant Church in Paris. The son of a Swiss clergyman in Copenhagen, he came to study theology at Geneva in 1820 while Rationalism still prevailed there, and in Geneva he met Carlyle's friend, Erskine of Linlathen, who led him to evangelical opinions and exercised an abiding influence over him to the end of a life that seems very perfect within a limited intellectual boundary. Of his travels for health and for the advance of evangelical religion in various countries a good deal appears. In England, and especially in Scotland, he was well known as one of the most important Protestant visitors from the Continent, and his untimely death, in 1856, was the cause of mourning through all circles where simple faith and devout eloquence had recognition. The book, with a suggestive photograph of him, will be welcome to those of like mind. TRAVELS.—Mr. Thomson's "Through Masai Land"† is one of the best books of travels we have read for many a day. The country described has been hitherto almost unknown; the perils the author encountered, and by courage or tact overcame, are varied and often thrilling; the contributions he makes to our geographical and anthro pological knowledge are important, and the whole record is written in an easy, lively, and winning style. He found the country very different from our ideas of the tropics. He calls it park-like. Instead of palms there were trecs of the pine sort, and heath and clover, and herds of cattle; nor are the people the usual Equatorial Africans. They are not negroes; their language is Hamitic, and their cranium is much higher than the negro type. One of Mr. Thomson's most interesting chapters is devoted to a description of their manners and customs, which, by a good idea, he unfolds to us under the form of a history of a Masai male and female from birth to death. Some of their customs are very remarkable. Mr. Thomson's account of their religious ideas seems imperfect, for while he denies that they have any idea of spirit or a future life, he mentions some things that seem inconsistent with this statement. Mr. Spencer's attention, may be called to the fact that the Masai have no theory of dreams, and do not believe the people they see in dreams to be "Life and Letters of Adolphe Monod, Pastor of the Reformed Church of France." By one of his Daughters. Authorized translation; abridged from the Original. London: James Nisbet & Co. +"Through Masai Land; being a narrative of the Royal Geographical Society's Expedition to Mount Kenia and Lake Victoria Nyanz, 1883-1884. By Joseph Thomson, F.R.G.S. London: Sampson Low & Co. real disembodied souls.-Dr. Faulds's "Nine Years in Nipon "* is very good reading. His descriptions are sketchy, but full of interesting facts. As a medical man practising among the people, he had better opportunities than usual for observing their ways, and in some not unimportant particulars he corrects the information supplied by the most recent travellers. Miss Bird, he says, was quite mistaken in asserting that the hara-kiri (not, it seems, hari-kari, as we generally see it spelt) was extinct; the only change that has occurred being a resort to more refined methods of execution. But Dr. Faulds is far from agreeing with those recent accounts which told us that while Japan had made great strides lately in intellectual and economic progress, she remained morally where she was. His experience leads him to the opposite conclusion. "On the whole, the moral elevation of the mass of the people within the last decade has been still more striking and noteworthy. The judges will not now, I am sure, accept a bribe any more than an English magistrate would do; obscene images and pictures are rarely to be seen in public, unless imported from Christian countries; and the women are far more modest in their clothing and outward demeanour than they were a few years ago."-"Above the Snow Line," by the Vice-President of the Alpine Club, is a book that should have a charm for the ordinary reader not less than for the specialist. Mr. Clinton Dent narrates some of his adventures on the Saas-Fée, Zermatt and Chamouni Alps, but the interest centres in his repeated attempts upon the Aiguille du Dru, which only yielded at the nineteenth assault. The author's humour is most excellent; his chief fault is that he is so absolutely restless in his desire to amuse that he makes the effort almost always evident; and "even the least critical of our race" (to quote Mr. Dent's own words) "feel irresistibly disposed to cavil at anything they are told they must admire." Nothing, again, is more wearisome than to meet a simile, though of the most apposite, for every conceivable event; nor is anything more surfeiting than a foolish repetition of the trite figure of speech by which people are described as inflated with success and limonade gazeuse. But with these reservations the book is in every sense readable: the Fragment, the Sentimental Journey, and Early Attempts on the Aiguille, contain some supremely funny passages. There is a delightful honesty, too, about the way in which the writer exposes the common tricks of mountaineering literature, even so far as to admit that one of his flights of panoramic description does not represent so much his observations at the time, as what he gathered subsequently from a study of the map. MISCELLANEOUS.-Under the title of the "Universe of Suns," Mr. R. A. Proctor has added to his "Science Gleanings" another volume of the lucidly popular type. The most important essay contains chiefly a cursory exposition of Sir William Herschel's theories of starsystems; besides numerous astronomical papers, including a chapter on the planet Mars considered as an eligible sphere of habitation. There are articles of general interest, in which the lime-light of * "Nine Years in Nipon: Sketches of Japanese Life and Manners." By Henr Faulds, Surgeon of Tsukiji Hospital, Tokio. London: Alexander Gardner. +"Above the Snow Line." By Clinton Dent. London: Longmans, Green & Co. "The Universe of Suns, and other Science Gleanings." By Richard A. Proctor. London: Chatto & Windus. : science is made to illuminate at once the dark questions of earthshakings and the game of poker, of pitch-and-toss and the equality of the sexes. The chapter on "Strange Coincidences" is so carelessly constructed of casual articles that the join is quite noticeable at least, the writer on one page gives a detailed account of some railroad incident, and on the very next is pleased to recapitulate the whole with the pointless introduction: "It may be remembered that I have elsewhere described how," &c. But the paper on the "Principles of Poker is very commendable.-Mr. Mark Thornhill,* late of the Bengal Civil Service gives us a personal narrative of those scenes of the Indian Mutiny which had the district of Muttra and Agra for their locale. Parts of the book, in particular the chapters about the defeat of the Indore mutineers, and the traditional ghosts and treasures of Agra, are very entertaining; the writer is on occasion even humorous. But the trivialities, the personal details, and the needless digressions, incline to tediousness; very scant pains, too, seem to have been taken about the composition of the sentences, which have all the disjointedness of a journal-entry. The treatment of the subject, however, shows thought and in his remarks, for instance, upon the mismanagement at Agra, the writer would appear to be furnishing an impartial, not to say generous, criticism. Military tactics are described in military fashion, though the rudimentary details of the firing of a gun—“I was standing close by one of the cannon when there came a deafening roar and jet of flame, and a puff of smoke"-seem unnecessarily to savour of the civilian.-The new edition of the Works of Marlowe† now before us is the first instalment of a handsome and critical series of the English Dramatists which Mr. Nimmo purposes publishing in due course. It is edited by Mr. A. H. Bullen, who, although he has made generous use of the labours of previous editors, such as Dyce and Cunningham, exhibits in his own notes much care and considerable critical judgment. The introduction is ably written and full of literary interest Mr. Bullen relates the little that is known of Marlowe's life with much care, leaving all that he tells us of him beyond the region of doubt; for with great pains he has succeeded in verifying his statements. In the earlier portion of these volumes there seems to have been some carelessness manifested in reading the proof-sheets; but a small slip containing the errata has in some measure corrected this editorial oversight. There is, however, one important error which has been overlooked: it occurs in the fifth act of the First Part of Tamburlaine the Great. The commencement of scene ii. has not been noted-a fault which will cause annoyance to the inexpert reader. The book is beautifully printed.Mr. Shepherd is indefatigable in his task of saving the "unconsidered trifles" which their writers would have willingly let die, and he now publishes a collection of the plays and poems of Charles Dickens. Some of the poems are already very well known, but the plays and the "The Indian Mutiny." By Mark Thornhill. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. some +"The Works of Christopher Marlowe." Edited by A. H. Bullen, B.A. In three volumes. London: John C. Nimmo. "The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens, with a few Miscellanies in Prose." Now first collected. Edited, prefaced, and annotated by Richard Herne Shepherd In two vols. London: W. H. Allen & Co. miscellaneous prose pieces, such as the pamphlet on Sunday Observance, the " Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood," and the article on "Fechter's Acting," will be new even to Dickens's admirers in the present generation, and read by them with great interest. Mr. Shepherd has added a very complete and valuable bibliography of Dickens. -Mrs. Cashel Hoey translates for us a very interesting book on Cats from the French of M. Champfleury. The cat is looked at in every possible aspect, from that of a divinity to that of a social companion, and we are told all about its friends and its enemies, its habits, and language, and character. M. Champfleury loves cats, and writes of his favourites with as much knowledge as enthusiasm.-Sir Edward Sullivan's "Stray Shots +" are aimed at such casual marks as Gladstoneism, the Land Act, Short Service, Cosmopolitanism, Free Trade, the Liquor Traffic, Official Ignorance, and the Tyranny of Priggism. Though posing as a cross-bencher, the author writes in a strong Tory spirit of Nationalism. His motto is Stephen Decatur's immortal toast-" Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our Country-right or wrong ! The chief fault of the book lies in the vast amount of repetition it contains; this applies not only to the subject-matter, but to many of the individual metaphors and epigrammatic expressions : "balm in Gilead," "men of ni foi, ni roi, ni loi," "free trade's frugifera navis," "disputes about the shadow of an ass "-these are examples of phrases that the author is not content to use once only. In point of style the book is very racy and readable, though its tone is highly sententious.-" Greater London" is a continuation of Mr. Walford's "Old and New London," treating of the suburbs within fifteen miles around-the area of the Metropolitan Police-with the same fulness of topographical and historical detail that marked the earlier work. It is one of the best works of the kind we know. It is of course a compilation, but a compilation by a competent writer, whose knowledge is varied, and who exercises a careful and critical judgment. The result is a trustworthy, interesting and serviceable book.-" Obiter Dicta" is the modest title of a few fresh and thoughtful essays in literary or social criticism. The chapter on "Truth-hunting" is particularly striking, but all are marked by a certain individuality of treatment, and by a felicitous and easy literary style.-Mr. Waugh is now well known as one of the best of our religious writers for the young. He has not merely a command of happy illustration, but, what is much rarer, a distinct gift of sympathy that looks at things almost with the eyes and feelings of children. His new book, "The Children's Hour,"|| consists of a series of short and very fresh addresses on selected texts of Scripture, and it may be warmly commended to the notice of all who want Sunday reading that will at once interest and improve their children. "The Cat, Past and Present." From the French of M. Champfleury. With Supplementary Notes. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey. London: George Bell & Son. + London: Longmans, Green & Co. "Greater London: A Narrative of its History, its People, and its Places." By Edward Walford, M.A. London: Cassell & Co. London: E. Stock. By the Rev. Benjamin Waugh. London Wm. Isbister. A COMMENT ON CHRISTMAS. IT T is a long time since I quoted Bishop Wilson, but he is full of excellent things, and one of his apophthegms came into my mind the other day as I read an angry and unreasonable expostulation addressed to myself. Bishop Wilson's apophthegm is this: Truth provokes those whom it does not convert. Miracles," I was angrily reproached for saying, "do not happen, and more and more of us are becoming convinced that they do not happen; nevertheless, what is really best and most valuable in the Bible is independent of miracles. For the sake of this I constantly read the Bible myself, and I advise others to read it also." One would have thought that at a time when the French newspapers are attributing all our failures and misfortunes to our habit of reading the Bible, and when our own Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal is protesting that the golden rule is a delusion and a snare for practical men, the friends of the old religion of Christendom would have had a kindly feeling towards any one-whether he admitted miracles or not-who maintained that the root of the matter for all of us was in the Bible, and that to the use of the Bible we should still cling. But no; Truth provokes those whom it does not convert; so angry are some good people at being told that miracles do not happen, that if we say this, they cannot bear to have us using the Bible at all, or recommending the Bible. Either take it and recommend it with its miracles, they say, or else leave it alone, and let its enemies find confronting them none but orthodox defenders of it like ourselves! The success of these orthodox champions is not commensurate with their zeal; and so, in spite of all rebuke, I find myself, as a lover of the Bible, perpetually tempted to substitute for their line of defence a different method, however it may provoke them. Christmas |