CURRENT LITERATURE.
The great ornament of the October number of the Fortnightly Review is the exquisite poem by Mr. Morris called "The Two Sides of the River." For the rest, this periodical, which was once intended to be of no school, but to accept signed papers from all schools, is falling more and more into the organ of a party,—politically, the party which depreciates Parliamentary institutions, and prefers something more like the Imperial reyime,—spiritually, the positivist party, who treat Christianity as entirely
worn out,—philosophically, the physiological utilitarians, who regard moral ideas as developed by hereditary accumulations out of germs of self-interest. We have noticed Professor Barn's curious paper on " Mystery" and other fallacies of the "suppressed relative" else- where. The short notices contain a very bitter and poor criticism of
Mr. Maurice on the Conscience," by Mr. J. C. Morison. On the whole, the Fortnight/y, though it has become sectarian, is well written. Mr. John Morley's last paper on "De Maistre " is ably composed, like most of Mr. John Morley's pipers, but the implied assumption running through the whole paper, that to answer De Maistre is to cut away the strongest ground modern Christianity can take, is a thesis which, if treated at all, should rather be demonstrated than insinuated.
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