were kinder to Eleanor Pierce Dawnay. It was her cousin who first told her of the Colonel's love for Jessie, and who consented to let her forward the marriage, to help him save the last rag of honour' he had left. But he went away to travel in the East on Jessie's wedding day, and returned a free man by the death of the Countess Tolomei, only just in time to prevent Eleanor from finding refuge in a convent from the weariness of a disappointing world. Tender-hearted with all his outward cynicism, Mr. Ames cherished an ugly little monkey, by name Malvolio, a clever study of animal life, who meets us at the outset of the story on the terrace of the Villa Mortelli, and furnishes Mr. Ames with an illustration of his philosophy on the very last page. Space fails us to do more than mention one or two of the minor characters-the formal, sensible, kind-hearted doctor, the faded, depressed Cecilia Farrell, Colonel Enderby's old love, and her terrible mother, whose vulgarity is perhaps a trifle overdrawn. One fault there is, and it is the more to be regretted that it is likely to grow upon the author. The course of the narrative is too frequently interrupted by moral reflections and invocations to the reader. Sometimes a well-turned thought, or a beautiful description, redeems and excuses these digressions, but the reader resents having his attention withdrawn from the drama unfolding before him, while he is compelled to listen to a long dissertation on British sentiment or the frailty of good resolutions. But these faults are trifling blots on a novel of real power and interest.

The Laird's Secret. By JANE H. JAMIESON. (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Co.) A second and cheaper edition of a novel of Scottish life which we very highly commended on its first appearance.

Bootle's Baby. A Story of the Scarlet Lancers. By J. S. WINTER. (Frederick Warne.) A clever story of a foundling thrown upon the generosity of Bootle, an officer in a cavalry barracks. Mr. Winter's pictures of military life are always excellent.

Poor Papa. By MAY W. PORTER. (Hodder and Stoughton). An American story of a motherless girl and her artist father, who takes her from New York to Europe and Italy, and whose awkward embarrassments at her daring unmanageableness are full of grotesquerie, and of an underlying philosophy also. It is worthy to stand by the side of 'Helen's Babies.' Lanherst: A Story of Sixty Years Ago. By MRS. ENSELL, Authoress of 'Meta's Letters,' The Pastor's Family.' (Elliot Stock.) This is a pleasant story, well conceived, a little weighted perhaps with moralizings and with religious teaching, but pure and beautiful. The chief interest in it is the love story of Flo, the daughter of the Vicar of Lanherst; and all that pertains to this is touched with delicacy and grace. The sketches we have of the people of the village are very good, especially of Uncle Sam and the Tonkins, in whose history we really get interested. As a gift-book to a young lady, we have recently had few more fitting volumes, and this we say. in spite of a touch of churchness.

Spanish Legendary Tales. Collected by Mrs. S. G. C. MIDDLEmore, Author of Round a Posada Fire.' (Chatto and Windus.) Mrs. Middlemore, with the utmost taste and discrimination, has here

supplemented her former volume. These tales, unlike many popular specimens of superstition and folk-lore, are marked by a grace and dignity which render them specially attractive and interesting. Mrs. Middlemore, in her preface, accounts for this by saying, that in Spain the wide gap between the educated and uneducated does not in certain respects ex st; and, though ordinary education is not yet widely diffused, nor is likely to be so speedily, Spain cannot quite escape some of the influences now at work, which go to render the preservation of such tales in their purity, less and less probable for any length of time. She has therefore done well to collect and to translate this series, and shows no little tact and art in her style of doing So. We have read with especial pleasure 'The Legend of the Jessamine, 'The Smuggler's Daughter,' and 'The Christ of Burgos Valley'tales contrasted in their character, and yet all manifesting true Spanish traits.

MISCELLANEOUS.

A

Fernshaw. Sketches in Prose and Verse. By A. PALETETT MARTIN. (Griffith, Farran, and Co.) The sketches gathered in this volume were originally contributed to the Colonial newspaper press. Their author was born in Victoria, and expresses his judgments on English matters. visit to England does not deter him from thus collecting and publishing them. They certainly have a reflex interest, as showing how we look in the eyes of Colonials. The verses are fluent and melodious. The sketches or critical notices include Cardinal Newman, Carlyle, Ruskin, President Garfield, R. L. Stevenson, Tennyson and Swinburne, Wallis, Bagehot, &c. They are for the most part brief, the only one making the pretension to the length of an essay being that on Carlyle. They indicate a fine literary faculty, quick perception, keen discrimination, and exact and artistic expression. Slight as the pieces are, they are well worthy of being collected.

-Messrs. Cassell announce a monthly issue of their 'Red Library' at a price almost ludicrous in its cheapness. The first volume which is before us is Dickens's 'Old Curiosity Shop,' containing more than four hundred well-printed pages for one shilling.—Carlyle, Personally and in his Writings. Two Edinburgh Lectures. By DAVID MASSON. (Macmillan and Co.) The first lecture deals with Carlyle's personal characteristics, and has some very severe strictures upon Mr. Froude's partial and repulsive portraiture of him. The second deals with Carlyle's opinions and teachings. We have seen nothing yet more penetrating, sympathetic, and yet uncompromising. It is a criticism of a very high order, which commends itself by its justness and its philosophy. We cannot touch any of the points raised by it. It will be read with much avidity by all who are interested in Carlyle, and have come under his influence. It only makes us regret that Professor Masson was not entrusted with Carlyle's literary remains and reputation. Classics for Children. L The Lady of the Lake. By WALTER SCOTT. Edited by EDWIN GINN. Tales from Shakespeare. By CHARLES and MARY LAMB. Swiss Family Robinson. Edited for the

Use of Schools. (Boston, U.S.A. Ginn, Heath, and Co.) We quite agree with the editor that better reading for children of from nine to fifteen cannot be found than such as may be selected from our classical English writers. Nor can we think the delicate work demanded of an editor in necessary excisions very formidable. Much in Scott's novels, for instance, interesting enough for adults, but unsuitable enough for children, may be omitted without injurious mutilation, and must be omitted if only on the ground of bulk. Young minds are susceptible to the fascination of genius, and will unconsciously imbibe from works like Quentin Durward' and 'Ivanhoe' much more than from prosaic lesson-books. These volumes are a successful beginning of an enterprise that we heartily commend.- -Gordon Anecdotes. By DR. MACAULAY. Wesley Anecdotes. By JOHN TELFORD, B.A. (Religious Tract Society.) Two little volumes of gleanings concerning these two remarkable men, gathered from all available sources, full of interest and inspiration.— Allegories, Discourses, Dissertations, Disquisitions, Epistles, Legends, Parables, Problems, and Proverbs on Fact and Fiction, Past and Present, in the World. By BEN. CHARLES JONES (Capt.) First Series. (Williams and Norgate). This is a somewhat formidable title, which whets the expectation, and yet, when one begins a process of analysis, it does not commit the author to anything very definite. It looks rather like the Saracen's head, grim and grand, that may be seen stuck over the door of a very miserable little wayside inn, where everything is in a muddle and no great entertainment to be had in a quiet, comfortable way. Captain Jones is a deist, as he con fesses; but he is also somewhat of a dangerous propagandist, as he does not openly confess. He is possessed of not a little out-of-the-way learning, which he brings to bear on present-day matters in a very surprising and sometimes unexpected manner; and it would seem that he has declared war to the knife against Mr. Gladstone and all his worksat any rate in Egypt-and has remonstrated with him in season and out of season on his doings, and has received generally courteous answers. Captain Jones is not only a political reformer, but is fain to correct religious lapses also discovering in our common ritual and customs no end of elements that are pagan; and he lectures religious people with a delightful sense of superior acquirement and knowledge, which no doubt he has attained. His book gives one the impression of a quick but overstrained mind that is not likely to be balked by trifles; a restless spirit of inquiry, that hardly consists well with the dogmatic attitude that he occasionally assumes, and gives the impression of more knowledge than mature reflection. On the whole, we have read the volume with interest, that passed ever and anon into amusement at the mixture of perverted ingenuousness and audacity. If Captain Jones improves in these things as he goes on, his second series will be a greater treat than the first.Thoughts at Fourscore and Earlier. By THOMAS COGPER. (Hodder and Stoughton). The writer calls his book a medley, and he certainly gives us his 'thoughts' on a great variety of topics, so that he has a chance of pleas

ing readers of very opposite tastes. If he could succeed in preventing some of that misuse of language in conversation, which is the subject of one of his papers, he would deserve that a monument should be erected to him; but that is not likely to happen. We should like to see this matter treated of not merely in reference to style and grammar, but as being, what it is, most dangerously misleading in a philosophical point of view. Of Mr. Cooper's other papers perhaps we prefer The Greatest Science,' and his 'Letters to Young Working Men;' but there is this to be said in favour of all of them, whether we agree with or differ from the opinions expressed, they not only set forth the thoughts of the writer but are also calculated to awake reflection on the part of the reader.

THEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, AND PHILOLOGY.

The Hibbert Lectures, 1885. Lectures on the Influence of the Apostle Paul on the Development of Christianity, delivered in London and Oxford. By OTTO PFLEiderer, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Berlin. Translated by J. FREDERICK SMITH. Williams and Norgate.

Professor Pfleiderer's Lectures have somewhat disappointed our expectations in respect of intellectual power. They are the production of a man of learning and intelligence; their idea is distinct, and it is carried out with ability. But they do not produce that feeling of mastery that we recognize in many men of his school; nor are they rich in those resources of thought which suggest and quicken even in those who differ from the conclusions of the writer. Professor Pfleiderer's standpoint is not ours. In opposing old forms of orthodoxy he goes to lengths of rationalistic interpretation that we think fatal to much that is precious in Christianity. In rejecting these, we do not assume as alternatives the positions of unintelligent dogmatic orthodoxy. It is precisely this admixture of truth and error in Professor Pfleiderer's principles and positions that makes it impossible in a short notice to deal critically with his book. It would be essential before doing so to determine fundamental principles respecting the character and authority of the New Testament writers. Professor Pfleiderer would deny to them any inspiration save that of moral goodness, religious sympathy, adequate knowledge, and moral sincerity. Thus he regards the writers of the Gospels as largely presenting their ideas of Jesus in imaginative forms; for instance-Luke's account of the childhood, and Mark's narrative of the transfiguration, and the -Gospel narratives of the resurrection and ascension. The conclusion that he comes to is that these, as well as dogmas taught by the apostles, 'can no longer be appropriated by us in their literal meaning,' and are to be ‘interpreted and applied as valuable symbols of religious and moral truths.' This, we suppose, enables him fully to recognize the testimony which the

sacred writers bear to the Divine character of Christ. Their large expressions concerning His power and glory are but symbols of the exalted character of His human goodness. Clearly discussion is impossible until questions such as these are settled. Even Paul's conversion is a mere subjective spiritual process. It must suffice, then, to say that Professor Pfleiderer discusses Paulinism-meaning thereby Paul's conception of the spiritual and catholic character of Christianity, as opposed to Judaizing theories of it. Some parts of his exposition of this fundamental controversy of the Early Church are able and suggestive. Our general feeling is that it is unduly magnified, and is made to interpret phenomena that belong rather to general religious character. Thus, the Apocalypse-written not by the Apostle John, but by some one of the Judaic party-is largely a polemic against Paulinism. Mark, who is Paul's disciple, not Peter's, rejoins in his Pauline Gospel. Matthew replies in a strong anti-Pauline polemic. Luke follows him on the Pauline side. Paulinism, it would seem, was the all-pervading thought of the Early Church, and inspired not only the Epistles, but the Evangelists with many of the sayings, if not some of the parables, which they put into the lips of Jesus. And so nearly all the apostolic writings— with the exception of John's Gospel, which is never mentioned-with the Epistle of Barnabas, and other post-apostolic writings, are put in evidence in this great controversy.

We can only say that we think there is great exaggeration in all this-some truth, but a good deal of imagination; the effect of which is to reduce great general religious truths to little more than mere polemics and Christianity itself in some of its greatest world-aspects and purposes to a mere accident of controversy. For those who can use the book it will be suggestive, but it is not a strong book in any sense. Its polemic is as unsatisfactory as its history and criticism.

Prolegomena to the History of Israel. With a reprint of the article Israel' from the Encyclopædia Britannica.' By JULIUS WELLHAUSEN, Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Marburg. Translated from the German, under the Author's supervision, by J. SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A., and ALLAN MENZIES, B.D. With Preface by Professor W. ROBERTSON SMITH. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.

Ever since Professor Robertson Smith popularized and endeavoured to Christianize Wellhausen's theory of the history of Israel an English edition of that writer's work has been eagerly expected, and now that the present authorized and able translation has appeared it will doubtless be read with keen interest. The theory advocated by Wellhausen will not suffer for want of skilful handling, for his book is a model of elaborate analysis and acute criticism methodically arranged and clearly and attractively expressed. The so-called 'Grafian hypothesis' has been