neighbour who gave her shelter. As in these Here we must bring our notice to a close, merely adding that both the books of which we have been speaking reflect the utmost credit on the scholars to whose enthusiastic industry they are due. No similar work is being better done in any part of the world at the present day than in Russia. This is all the more fortunate, inasmuch as scarcely anywhere else can so rich a field be found for the ethnologist and mythologist to explore. THE MONASTICON OF SCOTLAND. Scoti-Monasticon: the Ancient Church of Scot land; a History of the Cathedrals, Conventual Foundations, Collegiate Churches, and Hospitals of Scotland. By Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, B.D. (Virtue, Spalding & Daldy.) SCOTLAND has long needed a Dodsworth, a Dugdale, a Ware, or an Archdale, who should employ his leisure hours in the preparation of her Monasticon; and this deficiency appears now at length likely to be in a great measure made up by the 'Scoti-Monasticon' of Præcentor Walcott, who has, of a verity, found an enormous mass, a rudis indigestaque moles of literary material in manuscript and print, ready to his hand, whether in the shape of general Histories and Chronicles, like the works of Maidment, Balfour, Billings, Buchanan, Chalmers, Dempster, Keith, Fordun, and Theiner; of accounts relating to particular places, like the productions of Carr, Muir, Robertson, Hunter, Mylne, Neale, Raine, and Stuart, not forgetting the extensive Series issued from time to time under the generous auspices of the Spalding, Maitland, Bannatyne, and Abbotsford Clubs; of lists of houses and minor local information, such as that afforded by Spotiswood, Gough, Cardonnel, and Turnbull; or of collections, such as those of Hutton, Hay, Gordon and a host of monographs and separate articles upon a variety of points in Scottish religious history. : The difficulty of the task has been increased, | not so much by the paucity of matter, a more general occurrence, as by the quantity which, unwieldy of itself, is frequently contradictory or incorrect, and so doubly hazardous to the patient wanderer through the valleys of literary dry-bones. Hence Scotland has good reason to be proud of her latest champion and aspirant to antiquarian fame, for the pleasant reading, not unmixed with historical accuracy, and the careful discrimination of causes and effects, which the reverend author has managed to extract from the materials existing in a voluminous and scattered form upon so apparently uninviting a subject. At the same time, the compression of such a variable expanse of history, reaching from the fourth to the sixteenth century, the entire epoch of the middle ages, into a single quarto volume of 450 pages, has rendered necessary the omission of so great a quantity of evidence, in the way of extracts, charters, pièces justificatives, and, above all, references, that we hope the author will find leisure to cast the book into the form of an enlarged edition, which will then, and not till then, become the standard Monasticon of Scotland; the work being yet a desideratum that shall be fitted to rank side by side with the stupendous monument of human perseverance erected to their lasting honour by Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, the editors of the new Dugdale. Some of the authorities, too, which have been consulted by the author, require further examination, as we shall presently show; and not a few of the assigned dates demand revision, as well as references, to indicate the origin and principle of their assumption. It would, indeed, have made room for more text if the voluminous lists of parishes, &c., in each diocese had been set up in small type at the end of the volume, instead of being spaced out at intervals in the body of the book. We may mention, too, en passant, that the beautiful steel engravings of Allom's drawings, already well known to the literary world, are in some instances quite foreign to the places which their insertion is supposed to illustrate. Alas for Scotland! Her church was fairly well settled long before England had awakened to religious life. Her cathedrals and monasteries were as well or better endowed, as beautifully and carefully constructed; her services as richly carried out. She was not troubled by the internal difficulties with which England had to contend in the fifteenth, or external pressure, such as that brought to bear upon English monastic establishments by a Royal Reformer in the sixteenth century. But the universal destruction of all that was grand in her domestic, politico-monastic, and architectural developments, all that was instructive in her religious arts and sciences, was reserved for annihilation at the ruthless hand of Knox and the party of Iconoclasts of which he was the archpriest. Men who hesitated at no crime, provided they "kirkified" the abbeys and cathedrals, and drove out the Regulars literally with fire and sword. At the same time, it is not to be denied that, as in the case of England, so also in Scotland, there were abuses rampant within the pale of the church, and unscrupulous men ever ready to shelter themselves behind the power she exercised, so soon to be broken, and behind the pale of the Roman fold, so soon to be invaded. elements Yet the elimination of these The monasteries fared no better than the cathedrals, all that was left of the finest and best of them at the end of the sixteenth century being blackened walls, and roofless houses stained with blood and fire, the baptismal mark of the new and purified kirk which was to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old embodiments of those spirits, whose work breathes yet a little longer in the misshapen fragments which old Time, not so ruthless as a Covenanter, spares us for our edification. The weird and rugged scenery of Scotland, the untamed spirit of the elements, the lashing sea, and rocky coast lines lent some strains of their free and hardy nature to the minds of the first evangelizers of the land. St. Columba, St. Rule, St. Ninian, St. Adamnan, and many another holy man of that ancient army of martyrs, seem, if traditions be true, to have taken more pleasure in their sea-girt caves than in well-appointed edifices; and these again in their turn possess in many instances a rugged aspect, whether of position, architectural style, or peculiar solidity of work, which both the locality and the mental culture of the designers helped to foster. Not that Scotland fails to show architectural productions of Benedictines, Cistercians, Dominicans, and Cluniacs, as finely conceived and as full of grandeur as any that England can boast; nor are the shattered ruins of Melrose, Elgin, St. Andrew's, Kelso, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, Balmerino, Cross-raguel, Pluscardine, Cambuskenneth, Holyrood, Inch-Colm, Lincluden, and many a score of other Religious Foundations wanting in comparison with those of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and our southern counties. The Fasti of the Bishoprics of Scotland appear in some cases to be in an unsatisfactory condition, and it certainly would have conduced more to the benefit of the student had the author contrasted the variations of names and dates apportioned to the same prelate by different authorities. The list, for example, of the Bishops of the Isles, whose see was at Iona or Icolmkill, that is, the Island of St. Columba, "the first of the island lamps set up by the Apostle of Scotland to kindle the darkness of its western seas," and the "burialplace of forty-eight Scottish kings," varies very much from that contained in Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy's valuable edition of Le Neve's Fasti,' as well as from that lately compiled by the Rev. Mr. Stubbs, in his Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum.' The history of the prelates who sat as Episcopi Sodorenses is in a very unsatisfactory state, and anything like an adjustment of the statements contained in old evidences regarding them is simply impos|sible. At the same time, the author ought to give us his reasons for accepting one statement rather than another. When we come to the details which Præcentor Walcott has placed on record concerning the minor houses of Observantines, Trinitarians, Clares, Templars, Præposituræ or Provostries, Gilbertines, Carmelites, hospitals and Maisons Dieu, collegiate churches and hermitages, we are struck at once with the almost universal want of anything like positive historical information regarding them. Of the majority, it may be literally said that nothing but their names remain. The author has barely added any facts to those collected by Keith, Turnbull, and Cardonnel; indeed, in some instances he has overlooked interesting historical and architectural information. For instance, of the Collegiate Church of Caral, or Carail, in the county of Fife, his account omits Turnbull's statement that the church contained no less than seven altars, dedicated to SS. Katharine, Michael, James, John the Baptist, Stephen, John the Evangelist, and Nicholas. The same authority mentions a certain "Schir Thomas Myrtoun, Archdeacon of Aberdene," who was Provost there, probably some relative of the co-founder, Sir William Myreton. There must have been some previous establishment, at least as old as the thirteenth century, at Caral, for William, Dean of Caral, occurs in a charter, circa 1250, printed in Dr. J. Stuart's 'Records of the Priory of the Isle of May,' p. 35, in the time of John, Prior of May, who occurs in 1248. In similar style, the history of the priory of this Isle of May is dismissed in some twenty lines, and with a meagre list of five priors. In order to show the absolute necessity of reading and working over his authorities again, we give a list here of those heads of the cell that may be gleaned from Dr. Stuart's book, mentioned above, those in italics being the only names mentioned by Mr. Walcott:Achardus, before A.D. 1154; Baldwin, before 1154; Robert, before 1165; Hugh de Mortimer, 1166-1213; Ivo, about 1200; John, 1206; William, before 1214; Hugh de Mortun, before 1214; John, before 1210, 1215; Adam (of Pittenweem), 1221; Richard (of May), 1222; N—, 1226; Ralph, 1233; John, 1248, made Abbot of Balmerino in 1251; Hugh, died 1269; William, elected 1269; Martin, 1313, 1340; Lawrence, son of Lord Oli phant Walter Davidsone (of Pittenween), 1479; Andrew Forman, 1498, an extensive pluralist, died 1522; Robert Forman, Dean of Glasgow, 1522; John Rowle, elected 1526; James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrew's, 1552; Sir James Balfour, 1567; James Halyburton, 1574; William Stewart, Captain of the King's Guard; Frederic Stuart, his son, by whom the lands were transmuted into a temporal lordship, 1606. The book itself is very nicely printed and got up, although we recommend the publishers to reprint the title-page, and substitute the word ingentibus for ingentiens in a quotation, from Pliny's letters, which catches the eye on opening the first page, and mars the beauty of what is really a very valuable book, upon a subject that will not fail to find a host of readers, a host of admirers, and probably not a few detractors: the latter class we would fain remind of the enormous difficulties besetting the preparation of such a work, and plead to them as Horace did of old :— "Other countries have suppressed the monastic orders, but Scotland came little short of destroying every vestige of her ancient sacred architecture, and houses of God, when there was a general demolition of all preceding ceremonial, institutions, teaching, and government, when good and bad were alike regarded as polluted and full of blemish, and the touchstone of their quality lay in the measure of their opposition or approxima tion to what hitherto had been in use.' "We shall note," says the author, in another passage, "the foundation of collegiate churches, never, in many cases, to be completed, in lieu of [those of] a conventual character, some of which were converted into hospitals, a most significant sign immediately preceding the decline and fall of the ancient rule. And then, last scene of all, the evil day of overweening wealth and prosperity, despite the feeble, fitful attempts at purification of abuses, the revival of learning, the promotion of education, the late enforcement of discipline.... Scotland, instead of making a renovation and revival, destroyed and obliterated; instead of accomplishing a divine work, fell a prey to revolutionary innovation, disdain of unity, contempt for ancient order, and destructive negation, the spirit of which is working still towards its full end." And here we take leave of the book, regretting that space will not allow us to descant more fully upon the many points of transcendent interest that it embraces, treating them for the most part in a style worthy of the themes which have inspired the labourer with what was to him at least an evident labour of love. The History of the Parish of Kirkham, in the County of Lancaster. By Henry Fishwick. (Printed for the Chetham Society.) IN the thirty-first year of its useful existence, the Chetham Society puts forth its ninetysecond volume. Three volumes yearly constitute good work. The workers have been equal to their task, and the Chetham is "Nulli Secundus" in the excellent way in which its editors have accomplished all that was required of them,-namely, preparing for publication historical and literary remains connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester. In this history of the Lancashire parish of Kirkham there is not much, it is true, of general interest. But such records always yield some instructive or amusing illustrations of a by-gone life and its manners. One of the first that arrests attention in these humble chronicles curiously illustrates Kirkham life and manners in 1682. In that year the Court Leet jury resolved "that John Wade should not harbour the wife of Robert Fisher after the 9th day inst.; and for every night that he shall keep her after the 9th, he shall pay 38. 4d." Those who are curious in Christian names will make a note of Stephen Exuperius Wentworth, one of the Head Masters of the Free Grammar School, and "a man of singular ability and a great wit." We should have welcomed samples of both, especially of the latter, as the market at present is very shabbily furnished. In the olden time, religious and political feuds raged violently in this out-o'-the-way locality. One of the examples refers to a Papist lady, of great parentage, a Mrs. Haughton, who had such a hatred of all Roundheads that she protested she would rather bear a child without a head More than one likely to become a Puritan. over, "in derision of Mr. Prynne and others, she cut off the cat's eares, and called it by his name!" What followed tended, we are told, to the glory of God, though we cannot see it. The lady became the mother of a child whom no one would have greeted with " Welcome, little stranger!" The horrible details are signed by the pastor of the parish, and by W. Gattaker, midwife, formerly wife to Mr. Gattaker, sometime vicar of this parish." It would seem that the vicars were occasionally nominated by the "thirty sworn men," a select committee who had charge of the affairs of the parish, and claimed the right of nomination of the clergyman as one of their privileges. Among the decrees of these rural Thirty Tyranni, we read," 1627, Feb. 24. Ordered by the 30 men that each 30 man should give notice to his neighbour to withold their halfpence and farthings which usually they paid at Easter for twitching (?) money until further orders." While the 30 men claimed to nominate vicars, one at least of the latter, Fleetwood, in 1636, claimed to nominate, and command, and to have in subjection under him, the whole " 30" Fleetwood drew up rules, which he insisted should be obeyed; one of them has a facetious ring about it," If there be any turbulent or fascitious person" (in the church) "that the rest of the company shall joyne with the vicar and turn him oute." The Thirty were, of course, too many for aspiring pastors, whom they looked upon as anything but masters, and they carried things with a high hand. This perhaps led to confusion and a consequent deterioration of morals, such as we trace in an entry of 1662, to this effect: "Wm. Eccleston, of Cornah Row, ordered to be sued if he did not return the Book of Martyrs he had taken from the church." The popular book was recovered, but it needed re-binding. In the course of a century it was altogether read and thumbed into nothing; and in 1778 we read: "Fox's new Book of Martyrs bought, cost 17. 13s." cost 17. 13s." We pass laws at the present period for the preservation of birds, including sparrows, to shoot any number of which, in the outskirts of London, is a regular Sunday observance. We suppose that there are few left in the neighbourhood of Kirkham, where the destruction of sparrows was bargained for, in 1681, at 2d. a dozen,—and dozens on dozens of heads were brought in accordingly. Occasionally, an entry in the account-books marks a singular outlay, as, for instance, in 1706, "Given to a melancholy clergyman, ls.” If all melancholy clergymen could be sent away at the same modest sum, what a Church of universal cheerfulness would embrace us all as joyous members! The Registers of Births, Marriages, and Funerals contain nothing remarkable - -save that they begin in the year 1540. The epitaphs show that all extraordinary epithets had been used up by other epitaph writers, who had left nothing but common-place to the literary men of the tombs. Of mansions in the parish, the most noteworthy is one Mains Hall, where the English Cardinal Allen lay hid in the intervals of his Romish occupation of "disseminating treasonous tracts to aid the Spanish armada." At Mains Hall, too, "it is reported that on more than one occasion the Prince Regent paid visits to Mrs. Fitzherbert, whilst she was there staying with her relatives." The editor tells us that Funeral Sermons are now out of use in Kirkham parish; perhaps survivors did not like the other use-paying a guinea for the preaching of one. "Couldn't you," said a widower to Mr. Shuttleworth, a late vicar, treating about a sermon for his late wife, "make a sermon for half-a-guinea?” — “I could do so," replied Mr. Shuttleworth, "but then the sermon would not be worth hearing!" Taken altogether, the clergy of later times seem to have acted by a higher standard of morals than those of an earlier period. One of the worst of these was a curate of Singleton, against whom, in 1578, many charges were laid, the last of them being that the reverend gentleman "kepte a typlinge hous and a nowty woman in it." The most interesting record in the volume is that which refers to the well-known Cuthbert Harrison, who, after regular ordination, became a Nonconformist, was active in that capacity in many places, and especially in Kirkham parish, for which the vicar, Clegg, got him censured and excommunicated. The following account is partly taken from a narrative by Harrison's son. The period was 1667 "He sometimes repaired to the parish church of Kirkham, particularly on the Lord's day, while he was under the aforesaid censure, and took his place amongst the gentlemen in the chancel. [On one occasion] Mr. Clegg the vicar, who writ his prayers before sermon and all his sermons also in characters [shorthand ?], was got into the pulpit, and looking aside and seeing him come into his place lost the end, and he could not find it again, and he was silent for some time. Then he ordered the churchwardens to put him out, who went to our father and told him what Mr. Clegg had ordered, and desired he would go out. He refused, and said except Mr. Clegg himself would put him out he would not go. Mr. Clegg then required Mr. Christopher Parker (who was a justice of the peace and then in the church and sat within six feet of our father) to put him out, but Mr. Parker refused and said he would not meddle. Then Mr. Clegg went to our father and took him by the sleeve and desired him to go out. He went along with Mr. Clegg and opened the chancel door; and was no sooner out [than he] with a strong voice said, "It is time to go when the devil drives." Thou can scarcely imagine a greater disorder than was reported to be at that time.' From the same letter it appears that shortly after this, vicar Clegg sued Cuthbert Harrison for twenty shillings per month for six months absenting himself from church. The case was tried at Lancaster assizes. The defence was that the defendant was at church once in each of two of the months, for part of the period he was under the church censure, and that when he did go to church he was put out by the plaintiff. The judge, who was hearty,' having summed up the evidence, said to the jury: "There is fiddle to be hanged and fiddle not to be hanged. The defendant was under church censure, which might prevent his going to church; but he goes to church and is put out, and then is sued upon the statute for not going to church. Gentlemen, pray consider it. The jury did consider it, and Mr. Clegg lost his case and had to pay all the cost." a We have selected the most striking examples 'FLORA CHEVIOT' is a dreadfully commonplace book, which will, we fear, be found dull even by the most hardened of novel-readers. But it little matters what we say about the work, inasmuch as in Messrs. Morgan & Hebron's Catalogue we find ourselves made to write approvingly of a novel, "This book is a marvel," when nothing could be stronger than the language in which we exposed its shortcomings. Mr. Sampson is too ambitious. He will have his mystery, and he will also, like the man who keeps several balls in the air at a time, carry on his story in three or four places simultaneously. The result is that he strains the attention of his reader, besides introducing a good deal of business which does not help on the action of his story one bit. Now there are other novels which strain the reader's attention, or contain irrelevant episodes, and which yet have a great reputation; but then that is because the story is skilfully developed, or the style is good, or the characters true to nature, or the episodes humorous or interesting in themselves. None of these alternatives can be appealed to in defence of Mr. Sampson. His style is that which the following expressions will sufficiently indicate to experienced readers:- "Shall I tell you whom my bride shall be?"- "without you desire I should detest you"-"some fair incognito"-"going with auntie and I"-"the confidence of presumptive humanity." As to truth to nature, we have an old Frenchman who talks to his daughter in conventional French-English, and an educated lady who says, "That's a capital book; you should read it: it's by Racine." book"! It is not usual either, we fancy, to Fancy 'Athalie' being called "a capital meet with gentlemen who, writing to ladies for the first time, sign themselves "Jack So and So":-nor is "Hôtel Albergo" a common name for Italian inns. We will not say anything about Mr. Sampson's spelling of Indian words, except that it usually differs from any other method that we have ever seen; but the tion may possibly be an open one, and he may have authority for "hoena," and "shirkaree." This kind of book gives little opportunity for any but minute criticism; you cannot criticize as a whole that which has no plan or purpose to give it unity: so we will only call Mr. Sampson's attention to his own words: "Novel writers will have something to answer for in return for the time they cause to be worse than wasted over maudlin sentiments, and impossible saints and sinners," and point out to him that the habit of preaching and declaiming which all his people have is not ques inaptly suggested by the "maudlin sentiment" which he reprobates, while their actions go far towards placing them in the category of impossibilities, whether as saints or sinners we care not. Had the "Dominie" been a trifle better educated, he might have saved himself both trouble and trial by adopting some honest handicraft and remaining at home. The public would also have been spared the infliction of a most wearisome book. Scotchmen, in particular, might have retained a conviction that Sydney Smith's famous dictum was the mere exaggeration of a peevish nationality. But anything more typical of the humorous shortcomings of the Northern genius, when weighted by the self-consciousness of imperfect education, can scarcely be imagined than the lucubrations of the "Dominie." His most elaborate playfulness reminds us of Æsop's donkey. His most facetious passages are either coarse or dull. His experiences of foreign travel are the merest commonplace. Though we can well believe that his professional powers transcend his literary taste, our feeling for both pupils and readers is one of unmitigated pity. If E. C. P. be a new writer, we can welcome her more cordially than usual. 'One Only' is a thoughtful story as far as it goes, and not ungracefully told. Though Charles Fenwick is a trifle morbid, constancy to a pure passion on a man's part is sufficiently unusual to make the book worth something in an ideal point of view, while the happy delineation of a number of very various characters proves the author to be a keen observer of actual life. Pretty, shallow Rose Camden, though quite unworthy of her best admirers, John Atherley, the straightforward, resolute man of business; and the poetic and refined Charles Fenwick, whom she jilts so cruelly,-is just the sort of charmer to set men of sense by the ears, and just the woman to condemn herself, by a fit of caprice, to remorse and drudgery for life. Her shiftless, peevish husband, too, is quite the man in early life to fascinate an ill-judging and light-headed girl, and to visit upon her afterwards the consequences of his selfish fancy. But it is not with these darker traits of human nature that the author delights to deal. There is a healthy vitality about John and Meg and Mary, members of the sterling Atherley family, an edge of cynicism about the sketchy figure of Miss Danoers, a happy unselfishness about Harry Dupuis, who is the compensating result of Rose's unfortunate marriage, which go far to outweigh the more sombre elements of the tale. The details are as carefully worked out as the conception of the plot, and the result is a readable and suggestive story. Mrs. Despard's "Wandering Fires" are veritable Wills-o'-the-Wisp. Erick Græme, "my Erick," is the chief luminary. Esthetic, poetic, egotistic, ravishingly handsome, and fabulously rich, he is Pelham and Sidonia rolled into one. Such a hero must attract heroines like a magnet. History records but two of his victims Miss Gordon, who goes near to satisfying his lower nature; Ethel Crampton, who is destined to complete his matured perfections. These two struggle for him, as his good and evil genius, and actively or passively contribute to the erratic movements of the tale. Ethel is troubled with warm imagination and a sordid, unap preciative parent. When her ill-conditioned father slaps her face, she takes the first boat to the Continent, and makes acquaintance on board with another wandering fire, a Parisian Greek, compounded of the klepht and the petit crevé, From this questionable companion she is rescued by "my Erick," who is accidentally travelling by the same packet to the Continent. Erick places her and her younger sister under false colours with a Frenchwoman, a reduced lady of fashion and good Lo! where the pouted earth hides sulkily, We look on, in hopes of an improvement, and come Widely the golden sandals of the day, Walking through space, rouse things ere they are passed. We shut the book, and wish the author a speedy cure. The two dramatic authors whose works we have before us belong to very different schools. Mr. Lockwood & Brainard Company),-The Winter of birth, with whom the girls spend two years in Warren Adams aspires to historical tragedy of the for the Use of Students, by E. B. Aveling (Hamilton seclusion. have not attempted to take the usual steps for their recovery, they are full of indignation when their retreat is discovered. As society takes a perverse interest in putting the worst construction on this escapade, the girls resume their wanderings abroad. They fall in again with the corsair, and a kind of three-handed duel is fought out between him and Erick, and Erick and Ethel's brother, who has gone mad on hearing his sister lightly spoken of, and makes it the business of his life to assassinate her supposed seducer. Venice is the picturesque scene of the solution of these difficulties, and the author avails herself not unskilfully of her local knowledge. Léon is disappointed of his victim in the very act of an "unholy embrace" (novelistic for kissing), Ethel receives a reminder of propriety in the shape of a stab from her infatuated brother, and Erick receives the reward of his personal advantages in obtaining her hand with the blessing of his long-lost mother, who is discovered in the last act in the character of a Venetian abbess. There is no lack of dash about the story, but it will hardly satisfy anyone who cares for the possibility of a plot. MINOR POETS. Sparks and Sounds from a Colonial Anvil. By highest kind, or rival of Mr. Gilbert. in the choice of his subject. There, however, cur stone. Some Women's Hearts, by L. C. Moulton (Boston, Roberts),-4 Strange Friendship, by C. Evans (Low),-Cook's Tourist's Handbook for Holland, Belgium, and the Rhine (Cook), a -The Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty, by J. Barrow (Tegg),-Spanish Reformers of Two Centuries, by E. Boehmer, Vol. I. (Trübner), E. B. B. Barker (Burns),-County Education, a -The Mendal, a Mode of Oriental Divination, by Contribution of Experiments, Estimates, and Suggestions, by the Rev. J. L. Brereton (Bickers),The Maid of Florence; or, a Woman's Vengeance, Tragedy (Low),-Six Speeches on Financial Reform, by W. Trant (Longmans),—Apparitions, a Narrative of Facts, by the Rev. B. W. Savile, M.A. (Longmans), Out of the Hurly-Burley; or, Life in an Odd Corner, by Max Adeler (Ward & Lock),-Josh Billings's Wit and Humour (RoutMR. PICKERING has published a pretty little ledge),- On Babies and Ladders, by E. Kink edition of the exquisite short poems of William (Hotten),-John's Wife, by M. J. Franc (Low), Blake, including the songs "of Innocence" and Alexander the Great, a Poem, by J. Meade (Figg), "of Experience." The editor, is Mr. R. H. Shep--The Last Day, and other Poems, by J. Battersby herd, who, in his Preface, attacks Mr. Rossetti for alterations made by him in Blake's text. He is, perhaps, right, although he himself alters Blake's spelling, which, like his rhymes, would hardly bear examination. There is nothing in the whole range of poetry which can touch, in their own line, the "Introduction" to the Songs of Innocence, and such songs as "Infant Joy." How easy it seems OUR LIBRARY TABLE. Queen Jane. By C. Warren Adams. (Effingham to write like this, but let our readers try for them- Alos and Estin. (Moxon & Co.) MR. WHITEMAN has collected his poems, mostly humorous, which have appeared from time to time in the Melbourne Punch and in other papers. They are excellent. Those relating to the details of colonial politics would be hardly understood by our readers were we to quote them, and they are the best. Parts of the serious poem called 'Village Memories, Dunchurch, Warwickshire,' are of a high quality, and so is 'The Best Nurse of All.’ We seldom come across a volume of poetry from America that we are not glad to have read. It may be that only the best specimens find their way to this country; but certain it is, that those which do come are rarely, if ever, marked by the faults, both metrical and grammatical, to say nothing of the utter absence of sense, which we too often have to reprehend in the verses of our compatriots. Mr. Hudson is quite equal to the average. His verse flows pleasantly, his subjects are well chosen, and the ugly use of commence " for "begin" is the only fault we have to find with his English. In one poem, headed 'A Conversation,' he rises even above the average, to our mind, in giving expression to certain feelings and perplexities about another life, which have set many a mind pondering. We will not quote him, for his little volume is worth spending a leisure half hour upon. We cannot say so much for the author of 'Mainoc'; so, by parity of reasoning, we will quote his first few lines : We have on our table Technical Training, by T. Twining (Macmillan),-Natural Science, Religious Creeds, and Scripture Truth, what they Teach concerning the Mystery of God, by D. Reid (Blackwood),-The Circle and Straight Line, Parts I. to III., with Supplements, by J. Harris (Montreal, Lovell),-Science and Art Department, Bethnal Green Branch Museum, Catalogue of the Anthropological Collection lent by Col. Lane Fox, Parts I. and II. (Spottiswoode), Health and Long Life; or, How to Live for a Hundred Years, by R. S. Chrystal (Nimmo),-Harvey and His Times, the Harveian Oration for 1874, by C. West (Longmans),-Searches for Summer, showing the AntiWinter Tactics of an Invalid, by C. H. Douglas (Blackwood),-Disjointed Jottings, by N. Naylor (Simpkin),—Emilia's Inheritance, by E. J. Worboise (Clarke),—Perdita, and other Stories, by H. Cassavetti (Town and Country Publishing Company), (Ward & Lock),-Thurid, and other Poems, by G. E. O. (Boston, Lee & Shepard),-The Blacksmith's Daughter, and other Poems, by J. G. Watts (Cassell),-Malcolm and Clara, and other Poems, by Mac (Provost),-Northern Ballads, by E. L. Anderson (New York, Carleton),-Speeches on Missions, by the Right Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, D.D., edited by the Rev. H. Rowley (Gardner),Scripture Readings for Schools and Families, by Charlotte M. Yonge (Macmillan),-The Manuale Clericorum, edited by the Rev. F. G. Lee, D.C.L. (Hogg),-Hints to Church Workers (Gardner),Gedanken über die Socialwissenschaft der Zukunft, by P. L., Part I. (Mitau, Behre),-Pianti ed Affetti alla cara Memoria di Isabella Spanò Bolani, de Blasio, de Baroni di Palizzi e Petrapannata (Reggio, Siclari),—and Les Discours de M. Le Prince De Bismarck, Vol. V. (Dulau). Among New Editions we have Supernatural Religion, 2 vols. (Longmans),-Scripture History from the Creation to the Birth of Christ, by A. Thomson, edited by C. M. Money (Bagster), Physical, a Part of Theological Science, by C. W. Boase (Simpkin),-An Introduction to the Science of Heat, by T. A. Orme (Groombridge), Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, M.A., by the Right Hon. Sir J. T. Coleridge, D.C.L. (Parker),-The Life and Labours of the Apostle Paul, by C. Michie, M.A. (Blackwood), Blossomings in the Apple Country, by J. Willis (Hodder & Stoughton), A The Beautiful Miss Barrington, by H. Lee (Smith & Elder), Mistress Judith, by C. C. Fraser-Tytler (Low), The Changed Cross, by the Hon. Mrs. Charles Hobart (Gardner), -The Sacred Anthology, edited by M. D. Conway (Trübner),— Footsteps in the Way of Life, by A. A. Salaman (Trübner), La Prusse et la France devant 'Histoire (Paris, Amyot), and L'Art du DixHuitième Siècle, by E. and J. De Goncourt, 2 vols. (Paris, Rapilly). Also the following Pamphlets: Materials for the History of the Athenian Democracy, by T. Case, M.A. (Parker),-Eclectic Medi cine, No. I., Electricity, its Uses and Abuses, by P. J. Molony, B.A., M.D (Cambridge, Spalding), -At the Royal Academy, by W. C. Monkhouse (Virtue),-Railways: their Financial Position and Prospects, by T. P. Gaskell (Wilson),―The Truth about Sewage in a few Words, by A. Fenwick (Isbister),-Simon de Montfort and the Battle of Evesham, by H. New (Simpkin),-The Question of Questions! How to Extinguish Pauperism and Crime, by Dr. W. Brett (Fox),—On Certain Moral and Esthetic Deficiencies in the Education of the Present Day, by Madame Ronniger (Hodgson), The Working Classes, by C. Lamport (Trübner),-A Letter to a Friend on the Standards of the New Code of the Education Department, by J. Menet, M.A. (Rivingtons),-The Game Laws, by G. Shaw Lefevre, M.P. (Ridgway),-Affiliation of Local Colleges in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, by J. B. Mayor, M.A. (Bell),-Mr. Fitzjames Stephen and Cardinal Bellarmine, by W. Humphrey (King),-Fifty of the Protestant Ballads, and the Anti-Ritualistic Directorium of M. F. Tupper, D.C.L. (Ridgway),—Resurgens, by the Author of Ich Dien' (Moxon),-Rhymes for the Times, by R. H. (Pickering),-Songs of the Stock Exchange, by a Stock Dove (Simpkin), Speeches on the Second Reading of the Church Patronage (Scotland) Bill, by The Duke of Argyll (King), Sacramental Confession, by the Rev. C. F. Lowder, M.A. (Rivingtons),-A Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of London, by P. C. Claughton, D.D. (Rivingtons),-Scripture Interpreted on Scripture Principles, by the Rev. H. Moule, M.A. (Macintosh),-Christ or Cæsar: a Letter to the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, by the Rev. A. D. Wagner, M.A. (Rivingtons), -Church Arrangement and Congregational Worship, Lecture I., by W. White (Gardner), —The Nature and the Need of Externals in Public Worship, the Witness of Humanity, by W. White (Gardner),-Gabriello il Consolatore Racconto (Firenze, Tipografia Cooperativa),-La Torre Garisenda, by A. G. Di Domenico (Bologna, Sigonio), and Mittheilungen aus Französischen Handschriften, by E. Stengel (Williams & Norgate). Dickens's Works, Illustrated Library Edition, 'Martin Chuzzlewit, Vol. 1,' 8vo. 10/ cl. Eden (An) in England, by A. L. O. E., 12mo. 3/ cl. Goody Two Shoes' Picture-Book, 4to. 5/ cl. 23rd edit. cr. 8vo. 6/ cl. Routledge's Every Boy's Annual, 1875, roy. 8vo. 6/ cl. HERR SCHLIEMANN. WE have received another letter from Prof. Comnòs, in which he repeats his charges against Herr Schliemann. "Hafret-Pasha has," he says, "absolutely refused to receive a money indemnity for half the objects, but demands the objects themselves, and is given photographs instead, the objects not being now to be discovered any where." PETRARCH'S BONES. La Battaglia, near Padua, August 22, 1874. Ir may please those who have read my friend, Dr. J. Barnard Davis, in your issue of the 15th inst., to learn that there is no possibility, privately, at least, of "resurrecting" the great Laureate. His tomb is a massive sarcophagus, with pent-roof and corner ears, supported upon four stumpy cubes acting as pillars, not "in the churchyard," as "Murray" says, but on the open and public terrace, north of and adjoining the church of Santa Maria, in Arquà di Sotto. Like the fane, the tomb lies, roughly oriented, east and west; and at the western short end a metal plate shows, according to the villagers, where the arm-bone was extracted-of course by an Englishman. (Par parenthèse, one of that singular race was lately carried up in a chair to see the house.) Near the south-west angle of the long side there is also a metal cramp, to contract an ugly split in the sarcophagus, which is of coarse "rosso di Verona," apparently painted or varnished. The general Rosenkranz's (Dr. K.) Hegel as the National Philosopher of aspect of the monument somewhat reminded me of Germany, royal 8vo. 6/ swd. LIST OF NEW BOOKS. Theology. Brown's (J. B.) Higher Life, 2nd edit. cr. 8vo. 7/6 cl. Grant's (J.) Our Heavenly Home, 10th edit. 12mo. 3/6 cl. Law. Baxter's (W. E.) Law and Practice of the Supreme Court of Judicature, cr. 8vo. 10/ cl. Lely and Foulkes's Licensing Acts, 2nd edit. 8/ cl. Fine Art. that which bears the name of Hiram's Tomb, near Tyre, and which, to judge from the architectural and mortuary remains about Safet, is probably the last resting-place of some forgotten Talmudist. "Petrarch's House" in Arquà di Sopra is sug Rimmer's (A.) Architectural Drawing Studies, imp. 4to. 2/6 bds. gestive, even without the "miccia," or cut, which Music. Ten Little Soldiers, with Music, 4to. 1/ swd. Poetry. Leigh's (H. S.) Carols of Cockayne, 3rd edit. cr. 8vo. 5/ cl. Ashantee War, by the Daily News Special Correspondent, 6/ cl. Philology. Gaillard's (J. D.) French Language by Association of Ideas, 3/ Gaillard's (J. D.) French Orthoëpy, 3rd edit. cr. 8vo. 4/cl. Gaillard's (J. D.) New Practical Course of the French Language, cr. 8vo. 3/6 cl. Science. Chambers's Tables for Calculating the Values of Interest, Newman's (E.) Illustrated Natural History of British Moths, 20/ Stewart and Brandis's Forest Flora of North-West and Central India, 8vo. 18/ half calf. remarkably resembles a ferret, the poet's press, his arm-chair, and other curios. It is not chosen for its size, convenience, nor prospect. The only pretty bit of view is from the south-eastern windows, where the blue-green lowlands about the Po appear through a portal of Euganean hill. To the left is the lumpy saddle-back Montericio, now a misnomer; while to the right, abruptly rising from a white base of limestone and tertiary marl, stand the two remarkably regular cones, Monti Serro and the Serrarola, the former crowned by a bit of ruin. But we can easily understand how this mountain-village and its half-bandit people, connected with the world of men till late years only by a goat-path, commended itself to the tired spoilt child of Genius, Fame, and Fortune, who, says local tradition, chose to die sitting in a cabinet hardly six feet square. They laid his bones in Arqua (1), where he died. Pity 'tis that our poets do not mind their quantities more. Southey spoils a fine line thus :- A feeble scion of Guarani race, when all the world pronounces Guărăni. And I need hardly say how hideous the first verse would become were "Arqua" written and pronounced, as it should be, "Arquà " (= Arqua). RICHARD F. BURTON, F.R.G.S. **We have also received an interesting letter on the subject from Dr. Malý, the distinguished Tchek Professor of Laws in the University of Prague, who is an Italian scholar of note. He refers our readers to the work published by the city of Padua. LAURA'S GRAVE. So far from being surprised that Dr. Barlow should challenge the reference to Petrarch's bones, I wonder that he and others have not also impeached the allusions to Laura's grave. With respect to the former, I ought to have qualified my lamentations over the relics by reminding you that I did not visit Arqua, but that I was repeating what I heard from several professed "Petrarchists" at Vaucluse, one of whom, indeed, showed me something resembling ivory, which he said was from the Italian tomb. Paying no attention to that, I did listen with interest to not a few discussions on the chances of these remains having really escaped through a course of five hundred years, during much of which Arqua disappeared altogether from historical light, and of the sacrilege of 1630 having been the only one perpetrated; so that the sentence quoted by Dr. Barlow should have represented one of the opinions thus expressed, and not my own. I say, indeed, accepting the judgment of the Borolenta Academy, recorded last December, "his ashes lie in Arqua." But the Vaucluse journals are not very confident in their assertions on the subject; and one, a Republican print, exclaims, "as though Arqua could afford to surrender her shrine!" Concerning the last resting-place of Laura, it might have been thought that no doubt was possible; yet there is a controversy on the subject. The tomb discovered in 1533, two centuries after her death, and contained-to employ the language of local was an ancient possession of her husband's family, criticism-a sonnet, written on parchment, and "attributed to Petrarch," though "it might have been composed by one of his friends." At all events, Francis I. made a pilgrimage and wrote some verses in honour of it, and certain Englishmen inscribed an epitaph of Laura on a funeral urn, formerly in a chapel of the Jesuits at Avignon, but now in the garden of the museum in that city: This inscription is partly in Latin, partly in Italian. Not, however, to expatiate, I may add church in which Laura was buried stood in the that two or three opinions are held that the Street of the Cordeliers; that it stood in the Street of the Dyers; that it occupied the site of an old cabaret long known as "The White Horse"; and that the sacred spot is close to where Petrarch saw his idol for the first time, in the Church of S. Claire, now replaced by a private dwelling. Reverting to the Petrarch relics, Prof. Canestrini's essay might be adapted to the theory that they are, or that they are not, intact, with the excep tions admitted, at Arqua. H. J. "MUCKLE-MOUTHED MEG." WITH reference to Sir Walter Scott's descent from Scott of Harden and Margaret Murray, called Muckle-mouthed Meg, it appears to me that it is your Correspondent, C. W. E., and not your reviewer, who is in error. Sir Thomas Lauder probably derived his information in this respect from a statement made in the Ashestiel Memoir (edit. 1845, p. 1), which I quote for your Correspondent's benefit, and which seems to set the matter beyond doubt:-"My father's grandfather (writes Sir Walter) was Walter Scott, well known in Teviotdale by the surname of Beardie. He was the second son of Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn, who was third son of Sir William Scott, and the grandson of Walter Scott, commonly called in tradition Auld Wat of Harden." The Sir William Scott mentioned above was the husband of Muckle-mouthed Meg (Lockhart's 'Life,' |