interest from the simplicity of his career. In the end it stands out adequately from the crowded canvas, and we see the real proportions and relations of those under its influence. Vain, coquettish Kate was a poor ideal for such a man, but even she is the better at last for having been idealized. The crosspurposes of life have often been more graphically dealt with, but seldom in a more thoughtful spirit; and we feel that if our author has a keen perception of the mistakes and weaknesses of human nature, she has also a just view of the tardy compensations of the world. While in its main purpose the book is a wholesome and suggestive one, its execution indicates the possession of some literary ability. We have noticed certain of its defects-an exaggeration of the sound principle of carefulness in detail, leading to occasional tediousness and the undue prominence of trifles,—an excessive multiplicity of actors, whose parts, though never absurd, are often trivial, and a lack of vigour of style and eloquence of expression; but it contains not a few passages showing descriptive power, and nowhere is it marred by bad taste or vulgarity. The discovery of Dick Baxter's body in the garden turret by the unusual activity of the birds about the open window, and the scene in which the elder Baxter is acquainted with the news of this other son's miserable end, are instances of ability. We are confident that there are good hopes of Mrs. Hooper, and have, therefore, been at some pains to be candid in pointing out her defects.

Lady Verney gives us in her volume a picturesque tale of Welsh rural life at the beginning of the century. Coming into such close juxtaposition with Mr. Black's novel, it provokes comparisons which are rather trying, in regard to descriptions of wild scenery and of the life of a simple population. In these points we may fairly say that Lady Verney's work is good, even tried by so high a standard. The other features of the tale are so dissimilar as not to admit of such comparison. The farmer of Llanaly, a hill farm on an island promontory jutting out into a stormy bit of the Atlantic, with his household of natural and adopted relations, is settled on the ancestral acres, which have belonged to the family time out of mind, and which, joined to his old blood and comparative prosperity, render him an object of affectionate admiration among his simple-minded neighbours. Owen is a Welshman of the better type: warm-hearted, honest, and hospitable; prejudiced, of course, against the Saessenag, his experience of whom is certainly unfavourable; and litigious on principle, regarding his feud with David Hughes about the Quillet, an infinitesimal piece of waste land, to which he clings with the true Celtic attachment to the soil, as a sacred trust bequeathed him by his forefathers, the due fulfilment of which is his central point of honour, more valuable to him than life itself. His family consists of his maiden sister, Bridget, a shrewd managing housewife, whose one anxiety is her brother's hobby of the lawsuit; Grace, her niece, a gentlewoman in her simple courtesy and kindliness of heart; Gwen, the handmaid; and Winifred Caladine, an English orphan girl, to whom the good Welsh farmer has constituted himself guardian and protector. When poor John Caladine was cast up drowned on the Llanaly reef, and

Owen learned the tale of his widow's wrongs and desolation, he promised at her death to be a father to the girl. Winifred, accordingly, much against her will, is brought from the northern town in which she was exposed to some danger at the hands of those who had ruined her parents' worldly prosperity, and takes up her abode in a place which she regards as the acme of desolation, and among people upon whom she looks down with the contempt of ignorance for the novelty of their speech and manners. She has not outgrown this girlish shallowness when Piers, her host's cousin from Liverpool, a master mariner, and a man who has seen the world, comes to break the monotony of life at the sequestered farm. Piers is at first rather repelled, then curiously attracted by Winifred, whose angularities are more piquant to him than the steady excellence of his loving cousin, Grace; so they spar and quarrel, interesting one another, and teaching unconsciously a good many lessons to each other. Before he goes to sea, Piers brings things to a climax, and is considerably crushed by a refusal. Winifred has been playing at love already, and thinks she left her heart in the Black Country, in the keeping of one Fred Harrison, son of the old wharfinger, who foreclosed and ruined her parents. A strange fate brings him to Llanaly on the very day she has rejected Piers. On seeing him again her eyes are opened. His brisk vulgarity is out of place among the mountains; and she discovers, too, the purely commercial nature of the bargain he proposes for her acceptance. There are, in fact, awkwardnesses in the pecuniary relations between the Harrison firm and the orphan, which make it worth his while to recollect the old love passages. So Piers is rejected for Harrison, and Harrison for Piers. The true lover departs on a long voyage with bitterness in his heart, and Winifred remains to learn at leisure the real sentiments of her own. The process is well described, and is the leading motive of the remainder of the story, which is diversified also by the wreck and hardships of poor Piers (sent to Valparaiso in a coffin, heavily insured); the changed fortunes of Owen, who loses his lawsuit; and the visit of Winifred to the enemy's camp, the home of her relations, the Hugheses. These curious specimens of the Principality are in every respect a great contrast to her earlier friends; Mrs. Hughes, with her high English and robes of state, and her nephew, David, the "widowman," who is "creat for the chapel," both do their best to keep Winifred among them, and the wooing of the latter is highly amusing. In the end, of course, all things turn out well. Piers returns; certain documents of importance to Winifred's fortunes are discovered by Owen in a wrecker's cottage, where they had lain since her father was washed up on that shore; and, but for the disappointment of Grace, who is worth a hundred of Winifred, the story closes happily. Among many excellent descriptive scenes, we may mention the Crossing of the Herds (i.e., the swimming of the cattle across the straits before the bridge was built); the narrow escape of Piers from being engulphed in the sands of the same estuary; and the interview of Owen with the old Welsh crone about the deeds. The two latter incidents, remind us a little of similar ones in Redgauntlet' and The Antiquary.' 'The Antiquary.' On the whole, this novel On the whole, this novel

will be read with pleasure by all who can ap preciate an unha ckneyed subject and a graphi pen.

With characteristic audacity Mr. Mortimer Collins has struck out a new line, and enlarged the field of fiction to a degree which should be highly acceptable to embarrassed novelists. Hitherto death or matrimony has been the recognized end at which all writers aim, and when either goal has been attained, the pleasure or the toil of both the author and his readers is supposed to be complete. Mr. Collins disdains such limits, and, killing his hero and heroine at the end of the first volume, gives us in the second the hero's experience of another world, and in the third brings him back to earth, on Pythagorean principles, to be united happily to his early love, who re-appears as her own grand-daughter! As the planet Mars, to which Sir Edward Ellesmere retires during his season of obscurity, is a festive place, a good deal like earth, without the ordinary difficulties of existence, we experience no thrills of awe or misgiving as to the profanity of thus transcending the ordinary limits of experience, the only drawback to the enjoyment of the excellent company we meet in that rendezvous of poets and bons vivants being, that we do not quite escape the influence of modern slang, which sits somewhat strangely upon Homeric gods and heroes, and seems out of place in windy-streeted Troy. As there is a thread of plot running through this curious medley of extravagance, we may observe that the autobiographer whose history is unfolded to us begins his strange career as a man of fashion in the reign of George the Third, and that the opening volume contains a narrative of his adventures during the primary stage of his existence. In the first scene of the triptych, if we may so call it, though it contains a great deal of the balderdash and swagger for which our author is notorious, his better side comes out in stronger relief than usual. In the next volume Mr. Collins gets rid of his body, which is always a little too much for him, and, stimulated by the company of all the creative geniuses of the past, runs riot in the wildest freaks of fancy. If anything further is required for aliment in Mars than the feast of reason and the flow of soul, it is found in the admirable pills of that planet, which contain one or two oxen boiled down in each, and in the marvellous pyrogenic water, a draught of which contains all the properties of all the hock, champagne, claret, burgundy, and beer which poets have swilled, in fact or fancy, since the creation of our world. How great a gain to the continuity of the narrative is involved in this provision, Mr. Collins's readers may imagine. In other respects, as we have hinted, there is a strong family likeness between Mars and Earth. Its pleasures consist chiefly in an open-air life and cheerful conversation, much freedom of manners, and an absence of anything like toil or trouble. It is not, perhaps, the highest conceivable Paradise, but is clearly adapted to the author's taste. Three remarkable peculiarities are to be noted. In the first place, there is no Saturday Review—an exemption which, if we mistake not, Mr. Spurgeon has also regarded as a desirable probability. Next, there is no curiosity in Mars; analytical philosophers have, therefore, no place in that Valhalla, and mechanical inventions are but little esteemed. Lastly, ingratitude is impos

sible, for every wish being immediately gratified, and money being unknown, there is nothing to be grateful for. During Ellesmere's planetary existence, he is gratified with a sort of delirious dissolving-view of past ages and countries, and holds interviews with the most incongruous groups of heroic and poetical worthies. He talks Lempriere with Paris, hendecasyllables with Catullus, prophecy with Cassandra, mysticism with Epimenides and Merlin. We cannot say that we gain much from their utterances, or that the information they bestow transcends in value that of similar great spirits at a modern séance. Indeed, like the familiars of the tea-table, they are occasionally inaccurate, as in the confusion about Achilles. However, they are genial spirits, and the scenery of their present abodes delicious in the extreme. It is not our purpose to enter in detail into the third phase of our hero's transmigration. Catching sight of earth one day he wishes himself back, and instantly finds himself an infant, and, as he has the benefit of former experience, he avoids his former follies, and benefits by having already passed a lifetime on earth.

THE LITERATURE OF RUSSIA
IN 1873.

SOME of the Russian journals are doing a very useful thing in the way of literary statistics, by publishing not only the number of their subscriptions, but the residences of the subscribers, and thus enabling us to learn something of the comparative enlightenment and the tendencies of inhabitants of various districts. I have passed through whole provinces of Russia where the chief newspaper taken was the St. Petersburg Gazette, through others where rarely anything could be found except the Son of the Fatherland. The Messenger of Europe, by far the best monthly journal, for the present year issued 6,958 copies of each number, of which 131 were sent abroad. In 1872 the issue was 8,003 copies, with 102 sent abroad. The cause of the falling off is that the journal has now received two warnings, and that people are afraid to subscribe for fear another warning should be given which would stop it, and they should thus lose their journal and their money. The Russian Past, an historical monthly, on the contrary, has constantly increased in circulation since it started. In 1870 its circulation was 2,600 copies; in 1871, 3,500; in 1872, 4,252; and in the present year 4,920 copies. The comparatively great subscription-list of this journal, as well as of the Russian Archives and the numerous publications of the various historical societies, are proofs of the increase of a taste for history. On the 6th of December, at the unveiling of the statue of Catherine the Second, a decree of the Emperor was issued to the Cesarevitch, as President of the Russian Historical Society, thanking him for his services, and authorizing the Society to add to its name the title ". 'Imperial." On the same day the Society published the eleventh and twelfth volumes of its Proceedings, the former containing letters of Peter the Great, and the latter containing the first part of the despatches from the British ambassadors during the reign of Catherine the Second, from 1762 to 1769, to which reference has already been made in the Athenæum. The despatches are

printed in both English and Russian, and as pictures of court life and court intrigue, they are of the highest interest. It is easy, however, to see that the ambassadors knew nothing of Russia outside of the Court circle. Another book called out by the same occasion is the collection of letters of Catherine preserved in the Imperial Public Library, published by Bytchkoff. Unfortunately for literature, there are many collectors of historical materials, but few writers of history. The time has not yet come in Russia to write even the history of the last century, to say nothing of this. But the materials are becoming accessible to the student. Such are the fifth volume of the Vorontsoff Archives,' relating to the time of Elizabeth; the Archives of South-West Russia'; Prof. Gerye's 'Collection of Letters and Papers of Leibnitz relating to Russia and Peter the Great'; the memoirs of General Mayefsky, entitled 'My Time'; and those of Prof. Berg, relating to the Polish insurrections. The monograph of Zabielin on the history of Kuntsovo, though interesting reading, must be considered as material; the second volume of his ' Essays' is better as literature. The twenty-third volume of Solovief's History of Russia,' though it perhaps fulfils its end in giving us something to read in the way of a chronicle of the reign of Elizabeth, from 1749 to 1755, is hardly more than a transcript of materials. We must read it because we have nothing else; and yet we had almost rather remain in ignorance, so dry and disagreeable is Solovief's style. Kostomarof, on the contrary, writes history that can be read with pleasure, and we welcome his new book, 'Russian History in the Lives of its Chief Actors,' as a great boon. The first part covers from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries, in twelve vivid sketches. Kostomarof writes for general readers, and gives no place to theories or discussions, but, in a simple and flowing style, tells the early history of Russia as his severe studies and earlier investigations have made him understand it. He very sensibly begins with Vladimir, and leaves entirely out of sight the untrustworthy traditions of Rurik. Prof. Kostomarof's pen is never idle, and during the year, besides other things, he has also published an excellent monograph on the Traditions of the Earliest Russian Chronicle.' Among other historical works, we may mention the second volume of the History of the Academy of Sciences,' by the late Mr. of the Academy of Sciences,' by the late Mr. Pekarsky, containing interesting biographies of Tredyakofsky and Lomonossof; the History of the Reunion of the West-Russian Uniates in Old Times,' by the well-known archæologist Koyalovitch, chiefly from unpublished manuscripts; the monograph of D. Y. Samokvasof on 'Ancient Russian Cities,' an attempt to investigate the origin of the Russian "town," in which the author's zeal for his subject seems to outrun his discretion; the studies on the 'Posen Poles in 1848,' and on Galicia, published in the European Messenger, and the valuable 'Russian Genealogies,' destined to fill in part the omissions in the imperfect work of Prince Dolgoruky. Another book of great use to the historian and student is the 'Index to the Names of Persons and Places occurring in the Collection of Russian Laws from 1649 to 1825.'

Turning from history to law, we find what

is, perhaps, the capital book of the year, and which should speedily find a French or German translator, 'Consuls and Consular Jurisdiction in the East,' by F. Martens, Professor of International Law in the University of St. Petersburg. It is an historical treatise on the origin and history of the consular institution, and the powers which by custom and treaty have been given to consuls in the East. Mr. Martens criticizes the judicial reforms in Turkey and Egypt, and endeavours to answer the question as to what should be the necessary powers of a consul in the East at present. At a time when the Egyptian Government is using all its efforts to have the consular jurisdiction abolished, such a book as this of Mr. Martens is invaluable. Mr. Znamensky, in a thick book published at Kazan, on The Parish Clergy in Russia since the Reform of Peter,' shows the gradual decline of the system of leaving the election of the clergy to the parish, and treats of the radical reforms of the last years, which go back nearly to the first principles of Russian church government.

In general literature the year just past has been poorer than any for a long time. None of the great writers has published anything-at least, worthy of himself-and we have had only the productions of authors of the second or third class, and of some new men whose rank in literature is yet to be determined. The preference is, perhaps, to be given to Soltykof, who writes under the pseudonym of Stchedrin. He is a satirist of the first order, but it is to be regretted that his talents are entirely at the service of a certain party or school, which prevents him from taking broad enough views to write a really great work. His 'Tashkentians' struck a vein, and had a great success. The Tashkent of Stchedrin has nothing to do with Central Asia, but lies everywhere, and his Tashkentian is a synonym for a diffuser of enlightenment without education or basis, a civilizer for the personal and practical advantages to be obtained by the work. Curiously enough, Tashkentians in this sense are as numerous in America as in Russia, though there they are called "mere sound on the main question." "Fompadours" are, however, rarely to be found out of Russia. This is another of the terms invented by Stchedrin, which immediately hit the popular sense, and forms the theme of his last book. It is impossible to translate it, but a short journey in the interior, with proper introductions to the authorities, would soon enable one to comprehend its meaning. Count Salhias is a new writer, but his two tales, "The Deserters' and 'Germans and Countrymen,' forming a single romance of the times of the rebel Pugatcheff, show that he has considerable talent in the style of Count Leo Tolstoi and Flanbert. His name will doubtless be heard again. The tendency toward taking the scenes of novels from low or middle life has nearly run its course, and Markevitch, in his Marina,' comes back again to the nobility. His story, though good, is not equal to his last. Karazin, in his ' Hunt for Luck,' brings in some of the same characters as in his previous novel, 'On the Distant Frontiers,' though the faults of that book are exaggerated in the present. Karazin is a man of undoubted talent, though he is an artist rather than a novelist or a dramatist. Consequently, his books are a series of excellent

·

When I reflect upon a phase of things
So full of care, disquiet, and turmoil,

Of deeds that canse one's very blood to boil,

Of griefs that pierce the heart with cureless stings, &c. On the whole, this last seems rather a favourable specimen, and we can conscientiously recommend the book, with its 228 pages, to all, who are satisfied with verses of the same calibre. The list of "Corrigenda" is sadly large, and not particularly creditable to author or to printer.

Mr. Farrar is also one of those writers whom we prefer to judge out of their own mouths. Here are some stanzas from a piece headed (most appropriately) "Suggestive Lines":

But when they neared the British Isles,
A dreadful storm came on,
And in a moment, so to speak,
Their mighty fleet was gone.
They knew not that beneath our seas,
Such dreaded armies slept,

As those on which their boasted ships,
By sudden storm were swept.

(Please observe the use of the comma.)

They stoved their sides, and quickly sank
Into a watery grave,

Long ere our noble countrymen,

Could lend a hand to save.

If you but train your mind aright,
You very soon will learn,

In meanest scenes of every day,
True merit to discern.

We fear it would take a great deal of training to make us discern any in Mr. Farrar's poems.

We hardly know what to say of 'The Shepherd's Garden.' It does not profess to be more than a close imitation of the purely artificial style of the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. As such it is exceedingly successful, and many of the shorter pieces would have a charming effect set to music by Mr. Sullivan or Signor Pinsuti, and sung by Mr. Leslie's choir. But it is only poetry in the sense in which a Latin or Greek prize poem may be so called, for even if its language be nearer akin to our own than that of Sophocles or Virgil, it has no touch of

was

nature like those which make all true poetry akin in all ages. How far the "pastoral style' ever a real exponent of the existing lines of thought or imagination is hard to say; but it certainly has no place in the nineteenth century.

Who "Horatio E. Maddeling" may be "when he is at home," we do not know; but, from his style and matter, we are inclined to connect him closely with the author of a volume of verses called 'Sick Rhymes for Sad Times,' or something of that kind, which we reviewed some three years ago. Of 'Hints of Horace' we can only say that, as far as we can get any idea out of its exceeding obscurity, it seems to consist chiefly of personal and scurrilous attacks on the Bishops, from which we infer that its author is a Ritualist. The last piece of doggerel in the book, having reference to a bishop lately deceased, is in the most execrable taste, made none the less so by the absence of the buffoonery which characterizes the rest of the book, and which in this is replaced by an appearance of seriousness. Unhappily, gentlemanly feeling has almost disappeared from the humorous productions of the only ecclesiastical party which still has any humour left in it; nor is their wit ever so scurrilous as when directed against those whom all their principles should lead them to reverence, the Bishops. There is very little of the "vafer Flaccus" about the pseudonymous lampooner who takes his name.

Mr. Bolton's religious poetry is such as might naturally be written by a clergyman possessed of a turn for metre. We have no fault to find with it, unless it be that it shows rather too strongly the influence of the late Father Faber, whose somewhat mawkish sentimentality has, for a certain class of minds, and that no exceptional one, an attraction which is far from healthy, and which we do not desire to see extended. Number 17 of the volume before us shows this influence in a very marked manner; and in others the author himself seems to be conscious of it. A smaller matter, but one which we hope he will look to in future, is the abominable Americanism of writing "labor," "Savior," and so forth. If we must put up with this in American books, we will at least

do what little we can to keep it from becoming interest with which the reader will follow Bill in naturalized here. his artistic efforts, and his sister Bessie in her unExcept Mr. Howells's little volume, Miss Blag-pretending genuine self-denial, will not flag. The den's are the only other poems in our present batch poor old hard-working mother, whose virtues are the printing of which we do not consider lost the foundation of the success of her children, labour. On the whole, though she seems to have though she would rather have seen them like herbeen to some extent a follower of Mrs. Browning, self, when no book would ever have been written the bent of her mind must have resembled a about them, is quite as interesting to the reader as good deal more that of Mr. Clough. There is the children who so much perplex her. More the same intense love of natural beauty, especially work might have been put into the tale with adthe beauty of Italy, together with the same un- vantage. It is too slight and unfinished to carry willing uncertainty of religious belief; evidently out the design to its full effect. in both minds the centre about which all feeling revolved. Mr. Alfred Austin prefaces the book with a short memoir of the authoress, which bears out to a great extent the impression which would be formed from her poems. We may add that Mr. Austin has discharged his task gracefully, and we are glad to find that electioneering does not take up all his spare time. For his information, we may also mention that Gray, not Gay, is responsible for the statement that favourite has no friends."

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN.

a

The Little People; and other Tales. By Lady Pollock, W. K. Clifford, and Walter Herries Pollock. With Illustrations by John Collier. (Chapman & Hall.) These are lively fantastic nonsense stories, intended quite as much for the grown-up persons of the authors' acquaintance as for the little people of the nursery. The "little people" in the book are fairies, and they go about and talk and think very much like human beings seen under the glass of good-natured ridicule. It seems as though we had read something like the "Ball" amongst the "Flowers in the Conservatory" in one of Hans Andersen's stories long ago. The peculiar delicate quaint breath of raillery, which he has caught and echoed like a note of music, cannot be imitated with advantage. Those who try to reproduce it always indulge in exaggeration, which results in a touch of vulgarity intended to be comic, and fairy tales ought not to take any mortal mixture into their delicate fabric. The

story by Lady Pollock, called 'Twitterings at the Fountain,' is the prettiest in the book.

The Stories they Tell Me; or, Sue and I. By Mrs. Robert O'Reilly. (Gardner.) A thoroughly delightful book, full of sound wisdom as well as fun. The book contains the story of the childhood and girlhood of two sisters, told as recollections, by the elder one, to her own children in after years the different little histories being recalled to memory by the sight of some object with which the incidents were associated, such as the "Kettle," "Violets," "Sixpences," and "Cowslips." Almost everything has some connexion with long-ago events which happened in youth, and which now shine with a fairy brightness from the domains of tender memory, the real and only fairy land of life.

The Violets of Montmartre; and other Stories. By Madame Eugène Bersier. Translated by Mrs. Carey Brock. (Seeley, Jackson & Halliday.) This is a collection of interesting stories, which are excellently translated from the French. It is good and profitable for English girls to vary their interests in reading, and these French stories will show them incidents in the lives of girls under other environments than their own.

A Needle and Thread: a Tale for Girls. By Emma J. Barnes. (Edinburgh, Nimmo.)-Why this should be called especially "a tale for girls it would be difficult to say, except that "girls" are not supposed to be exacting on the score of good sense in their story-books. A Needle and Thread' is a mildly sensational story about a lost child, who goes through many hardships before she is discovered by her sorrowing relatives. It is not a very good tale, and we should be inclined to class it as idle reading, but there is no other harm in it.

Thwarted; or, Ducks' Eggs in a Hen's Nest. By Florence Montgomery. (Bentley & Son.)Thwarted' is a pretty readable story. It will not excite tears nor any painful emotion, but the

The Robin's Nest; and where do you think they Built It? A Truthful Tale, by a Clergyman's Wife. (Griffith & Farran.)-These robins built their nest inside the big Bible in the reading-desk of an old church. A pretty story might have been made of the materials, but the authoress has overlaid her tale with so much rubbish and so much affectation, that we fear all the little children who receive this book will feel as much ill used as if they were to find rules of grammar and questions of geography on the top of a Twelfth Cake! The good lady preaches in season and out of season, and is generally foolish in what she says.

Jackson & Halliday.)- Easydale' is an interestEasydale: a Story. By Edis Searle. (Seeley, ing novelette, with quite as much love and marriage as is good for young people. It is about many other things besides, and it may be useful as well as pleasant to the young girls for whom it seems to have been chiefly written.

With

Sweet Flowers. By Mrs. Mackarness. Coloured Illustrations. (Routledge & Sons.)These are little stories, each one with a flower for its text or title. The last, which bears the portentous name of 'Deadly Nightshade,' is the one we like the best; but Mrs. Mackarness must take care to keep her stories for children clear of all that would take them into the domain of novels.

She has a little tendency to stray in that direction.

Eighty Years Ago. By H. Cave. (Hatchards.) Eighty Years Ago' is a tolerably interesting and a perfectly safe story to give young persons of about fifteen, if, in these days, young people can be found who will read anything sober and unsensational, like this work, with a great deal of good sense in it, and a little bit of fiction, just enough to carry on the reader's interest in the personages. For girls who are at all tempted to be led astray by the attractions of Ritualism and Sisterhoods, this story may prove a counteracting influence. The intention of the work is to warn

girls against the doctrines of Romanism, and the temptation of seeking picturesque-looking work out of the sphere of home and parents, instead of doing the duties assigned to them in that state of life to which they have been born. The arguments against Romanism will seem good, sound and convincing to those who are not Roman Catholics to begin with: we hardly think Roman Catholics will be turned by them to a different way of thinking. There is a slight running thread of allusion to the events of the first French Revolution, but there is not much local colouring to make 'Eighty Years Ago' different from to-day.

LIST OF NEW BOOKS. Theology.

Blackwood's (S. A.) Victory of Faith, cr. 8vo. 2 cl. lp.
Brewer's (J. S.) Endowments, &c. of the Church of England, 2/6
Christian's Penny Magazine, Vol. 1873, cr. 8vo. 1,6 cl.
Hicklin's (J.) Church and State, cr. 8vo. 6, cl.
Nicholson's (M.) Family Prayers, 12mo. 3/6 cl.
Parish Magazine, Vol. 1873, 8vo. 2/ cl.

Taylor's (Rev. C.) Dirge of Coheleth, in Ecclesiastes xii., 8vo. 3
True Catholic (The), Vol. 1873, royal 8vo. 1/2 swd.
Well (The) is Deep, or Scripture Illustrating Scripture, 26 cl.
Law.

Dowell's (S.) Income-Tax Laws, 8vo. 12 6 cl.
Fine Art,

Parker's (J. H.) Archeology of Rome, Vol. 1, 2 pts. 8vo. 21. cl.
Smith's (T. J) Eighteen Etchings of Rural Scenery, 4to, 5 bds.
Wedgwood's Memorials, by E. Meteyard, folio, 63 cl.
Poetry.

Gibbs's (W. A.) Arlon Grange, 8vo. 10,6

Music.

Sacred Songs, Ancient and Modern, ed. by J. Hiles, roy. 8vo. 2 6
Sacred Songs, edited by J. Hiles, royal 8vo. 4/ cl.
Training School Song-Book, edited by A. D. Thomson, new
edit., without Sacred Songs, royal 16mo. 2 cl.

History.

Curwen's (H.) History of Booksellers, cr. 8vo. 7/6 cl. Espinasse's (F.) Lancashire Worthies, large-paper edit. 7/6 cl.

Geography.

Pelton's Illustrated Guide to Tunbridge Wells, cr. 8vo. 1/ swd.
Post-Office London Directory, 1874, royal 8vo. 36/ cl.
Tinne's (J. E.) Wonderland of the Antipodes, royal 8vo. 16/ cl

Philology.

Hahn's (F) Child's French Book, 3rd edit. royal 16mo. 3 cl. Morrison's (T.) Text-Book of English Composition, 12mo. 1,6 cl. Walker and Webster's English Dictionary, with Key, new edit. 8vo. 4/6 cl.

Science.

Armour's Iron and Heat, 2nd edit. 12mo. 2/6 cl. lp. (Weale's Series)

Garden Oracle, 1874, 12mo. 1/ swd.

Medical Directory, 1874, 8vo. 10/6 cl.

Muter's (Dr. J.) Key to Organic Materia Medica, cr. 8vo. 5/6 cl. Pink and Webster's Course of Analytical Chemistry, 12mo. 2/ cl. swd. (Weale's Series.)

Rankine's Half-Yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences, Vol. 58, cr. 8vo. 6/6 cl.

TO VICTOR HUGO.

He had no children, who for love of men,
Being God, endured of gods such things as thou,
Father; nor on his thunder-beaten brow
Fell such a woe as bows thine head again,
Twice bowed before, though godlike, in man's ken,
And seen too high for any stroke to bow
Save this of some strange god's that bends it now
The third time with such weight as bruised it then.
Fain would grief speak, fain utter for love's sake
Some word; but comfort who might bid thee take?
What god in your own tongue shall talk with thee,
Showing how all souls that look upon the sun
Shall be for thee one spirit and thy son,
And thy soul's child the soul of man to be?

COPYRIGHT IN TITLES.

2nd edit. cr. 8vo. 12/6 cl.

Snaith's Elementary Botany, 18mo. 1, cl. swd.

General Literature.

Argosy, Vol. July to December, 1873, 8vo. 5/ cl.
Bayly's (Mrs.) Long Evenings, cr. 8vo. 4 6 cl.

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M. FRANÇOIS VICTOR HUGO.

Ir is but just that we should notice M. François Victor Hugo, the translator of Shakspeare, who died last week, in the prime of his life, after a prolonged and painful illness. The Hugos have been, indeed, heavily afflicted: Eugène, the poet's younger brother, died in a mad-house, after giving promise of a brilliant future. M. Victor Hugo has lost successively his only remaining brother, his daughter, his wife, and his two sons; so that towards the close of a magnificent career he remains alone amidst the tombs of those he cherished. All will sympathize with his affliction. François Victor Hugo, his last remaining son, was born in 1828. But for the overwhelming burden of his name, he might have taken rank among the most earnest and conscientious writers of his time. His first attempt in literature was in a paper founded by M. Victor Hugo.

François Victor followed his father to Guernsey, and there, during long years of melancholy exile, he devoted himself wholly to a work which will preserve his name to posterity. He was for twelve years engaged on his translation of Shakspeare's complete works; and he at length gave to his countrymen a rendering of our great poet which in all respects surpassed previous attempts, not excluding M. Emile Montégut's translation, which is saying not a little. From 1867 to within two years of his death, he was one of the most thoughtful and effective contributors of the Rappel. So free from all ideas other than those of the highest kind were his pleadings in favour of the Republic, that the Empire could never find a plausible pretext for proceeding against him. Beyond the works we have mentioned, and an interesting history of Jersey and its monuments, his productions are few and of little importance. But this apparent sterility explains itself: to have translated Shakspeare so admirably as François Victor Hugo did is enough to occupy the life of a writer of

merit. It is a noble task, but as arduous and painful as would be that of translating the Comédie Humaine' into English. Few men could carry it out, and François Victor deserves the gratitude of France for the fervent devotion with which he completed the work.

absence of any available register of titles. The letter of "A Novelist," in your number for December 20, only narrates a very common experience. There is, at present, no mode of ascertaining whether a title has been forestalled except the clumsy aud inadequate one of inquiring, amongst the booksellers in the Row, whether they know it or not. The Stationers' Company take our registration-fee and make no return; for their register is so kept as to be absolutely worthless for purposes of reference. The consequence is that authors and publishers are constantly mulcted in heavy sums for their unconscious infringement of copyright and certain firms, of evil repute in the trade, have been accustomed to levy black mail upon all who, however innocently, have had the misfortune to put thamselves within their grasp. Having been myself a sufferer on than one occasion, I venture to suggest the following arrangement as likely to meet the case :

:

more

1. Make the registration of title, at or before the time of publication, necessary to the acquisition of copyright. At present this is left doubtful in the Act itself, and depends upon the construction put upon it by Vice-Chancellor Kindersley.

2. In consideration of the increase of income which would thus accrue to the Stationers' Company, reduce the existing registration-fee, say, to one half.

3. Require the Stationers' Company to keep an alphabetical register of titles, with the date of registration and name of the publisher; such alphabetical register to be open for search on payment of the present shilling fee.

4. To prevent the wholesale, indiscriminate entry of mere phantom titles on the chance of their being used some day, if the book be not published within one year of the date of registration such entry to be null and void.

I have discussed this plan with various publishers and editors, and find that it meets with general approval. A Member of Parliament, who takes a deep interest in literary matters, thinks that such a measure would be likely to gain legislative sanction, and is prepared to submit a bill to this effect in the forthcoming session if supported by an expression of feeling in its favour by the parties interested in it. S. M.

'THE PEOPLE OF INDIA.' December 22, 1873.

No wonder you were filled with astonishment at the mine of errors disclosed in Vols. V. and VI.

of the work so ably reviewed by you in your issue of December 20, more particularly the fifth volume. It is true that the Afghans have a Semitic physiognomy, while the so-called "Kurrals" and "Kharals" have a strong Aryan cast of countenance. A greater blunder was never perpetrated than to assert that the "Kurrals" or "Kharals are an Afghan tribe, and, if it is not corrected, we shall see them in some History of India figuring as Afghans.

Their correct name, as written by themselves, is

sonnet. allusion in the first two lines is to Prometheus':

Our readers will understand that the

are not a frontier tribe, nor an Afghan tribe, nor,

in the most remote degree, connected with the Afghans. They are a Jat () tribe, and a most cantankerous one; and are located in the Gugariah district of the Panjab, between the Rawi and the Sutlaj. There was no one better able to tell the writer, or writers, who and what the Khar'ls are, and where located, than Sir Robert Montgomery, K.C.B., G.C.S.I., Member of the Council of India.

The "nominal," or any other capital of the Dooranee (Durání) empire was never either Sarmacand or any other cand, and can only exist in the writer's imagination; and “the dynasty, commonly called the Stavelings," is equally imaginary. The Abdalis take their name from their great ancestor, Malik Abdal, who lived centuries before Aḥmad Shah. Early in the sixteenth century the chief town of the Abdalis was Shahr-i-Saffa; and early in the seventeenth century Hirat was their capital, and they held it till ousted by Nadir Shah. H. G. RAVERTY, Major,

Bombay Army (retired).

UNSUSPECTED CORRUPTIONS OF SHAKSPEARE'S TEXT.

UNLIKE the 'Venus and Adonis' and the unsophisticated manuscript, and passed through 'Lucrece,' which were evidently printed from the press with tolerable accuracy, the Sonnets carry all the appearance of having been put in type from copy much damaged, and in many places illegible. This would be the natural condition of writings which had been copied and re-copied for a dozen years, as we know these were, perhaps by a hundred scribes, for distribution among the author's private friends. At the same time, they do not appear to have been sent to press without examination by a qualified person. The metrical arrangement is remarkably free from error, and it would seem as if the editor had taken some pains to supply the deficiencies of the manuscript in other respects, although the endeavour, in most cases, ends in giving a mistaken or enfeebled meaning. The character of the misprints, indeed, points to their origin. They are seldom utterly nonsensical, or absolutely unintelligible, like the blunders of a stupid or negligent typographer, but the true expression, or what we may suppose to have been so, is superseded by another, more or less resembling it in form, but carrying a widely different signification.

The earliest Sonnets are devoted to the purpose of persuading the poet's friend to marry. The theme, infinitely diversified in expression, being that which Venus expatiates on to Adonis :-

Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed ?
By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thon thyself art dead.
The eighth of them is as follows:-

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee, "thou single wilt prove none.'
Here the line

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst b appears to me manifestly wrong. The poet is comparing the harmonious oneness of a wellordered family to the exquisite unison of a welltuned concert, and upbraids his friend for destroying this concentual music, by selfishly retaining parts which were intended to be distributed. Few, I apprehend, can doubt that we should read :

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst share.
Sonnet xxi.-

So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse;
Making a couplement of proud compare,