It must be allowed that the new number of the
New Review is rather a dull one. Carlyle's dreary novel of " Wotton Rein- fred " is brought to a dreary "conclusion,"—if the abrupt termination of the autobiography of what Carlyle terms "the fair Jane" can be said to deserve this name. M. Zola's " Recollec- tions " of three wars are very tame. The best of the contents of this number of the New Review are an elaborate and in parts almost Piercie Shaftonian stu ly, by Mr. Addington Symonds, of the promising poet-clergyman, Edward Cracroft Lefroy, who died at the age of thirty-five, and some hitherto unpublished letters of Mr. Ruskin to his secretary and friend, Mr. Charles HowelL They deal with a period extending only over thirteen months, but they show Mr. Ruskin at his best, —full of pain, but also full of fun, and, in pecuniary matters, the good genius of innumerable people.
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