CURRENT LITERATURE.
Seventeenth Century Studies : a Contribution to the History of English Poetry. By Edmund Gosse, M.A. (W. Heinemann.)—The first edition of this volume having been reviewed in the Spectator, it might suffice to announce without comment the publication of a third. But the student of English poetry may be reminded that the modest statement on the title-page is amply fulfilled, and that these " Studies " are a genuine and delightful ceeltribution to literary history. The ten essays, though not of equal value, are all of sufficient interest to allure the reader, but the author's treatment of Webster and Herrick, of Crashaw, Cowley, and " the matchless Orinda," is especially attractive, and shows the art with which Mr. Geese blends biography with criticism. The chapter on Thomas Lodge, too, proves how carefully the subject has been studied; and there is scarcely a page in the volume that is without suggestiveness and charm. In the" Village Library" (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.) we have Pig-Keeping for Profit, by W. J. Malden. We do not doubt the extent and accuracy of Mr. Malden's knowledge, but we wish that he would be a little more definite. The people who will buy his book are not farmers, big or little—not one farmer in a. hundred reads a book on any subject connected with his occu- pation—but dwellers in the country who want to make a little profit out of pigs. Such people do not want to know about a dozon different breeds, but to be told definitely what is the best breed for them to buy. They want practical instructions as to how much barley-meal should be used to supplement wash, and other like questions. And they want balance-sheets. Mr. Malden, we see, puts the price obtainable for pigs at 8s. per stone. At present it is more like 7s.
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