CURRENT LITERATURE.
A very distinct improvement has lately been shown in the Gentleman's Magazine ; it is much more readable than it was a
year ago or so, and its contents are much more varied. The May number, in particular, is one of exceptional excellence. There is not one unreadable paper in it, and only one that is disappointing, the Rev. E. J. Hardy's "Beau Brummell." It is too anecdotal, and not sufficiently photographic. Mr. Arthur Gaye contributes a delightful paper on "Greek Islands and Highlands ;" and Mr. Archibald Forbes has been moved by the death, in February last, of the Hon. Peter Lalor, formerly Speaker of the Victorian Legisla- tive Assembly, to tell, under the title of "A Forgotten Rebellion," how this typical Irishman, "swarthy of feature, lips full, chin indicative of some power, with a bright moist eye, and a countenance whose general expression was of unctuous con- tentment and sly humour," was in 1854 commander-in-chief of an armed rising. Miss Amy Levy's short story of "Cohen of Trinity," a sort of half-maniac, half-Bohemian, who commits suicide apparently because he has been too successful, is, in spite of a certain air of unreality, altogether worthy of her now very high reputation.
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