CURRENT LITERAT URE.
The National Church. By Rev. D. Mountfield, M.A. (Longmans.)— "We deny," the writer says, "that there is any divinely appointed form of Church polity from which Christians are never to depart." Taking this point of departure, he gives us a moderate, sensible account of "the history and principles of Church polity in England." No forms of sacerdotalism find any favour with him. High Churchmen will certainly accuse him of being a thorough Erastian. Wo have generally found that reproach addressed to views which would secure for the Church the most genuine freedom, and iu that conviction nro, as Mr. Mountflold probably will be, quite content with it. To his theoretical views our author adds some observations on practical matters. Ho admits the existence of abuses, but is satisfied, on the whole, with things as they are. Here, we think, ho fails to deal satisfactorily with one groat question. Describing himself as a "vicar," he has probably found the system of patronage not wholly unsatisfactory. But surely a system under which there is no systematized recognition of merit needs alteration? It is notorious, for instance, that not one lay presentation in twenty is givou for any but personal reasons. It is not our business to propound an alternative scheme, but it was Mr. Mountfield's. Not unfrequently we come across things very well put ; this, for instance, is shrewd :—" When the laity are willing to bo like the laity who lived under the Apostles, then the clergy may be reduced to the poverty of their predecessors in Apostolic times."
The Dean's English. By G. Washington Moon. (flatchard.)—This book has reached, we observe, a seventh edition. We cannot agree with an enthusiastic contemporary who considers it to be " one of the most masterly pieces of literary criticism in the language," but we can see that it has merit. The title is impertinent indeed, but decidedly felicitous; and some of Mr. Moon's blows at his antagonist certainly roach home. It was, indeed, in an unlucky hour that Doan Alford undertook to teach Englishmen how to write their language. Again and again he gives his assailant the opportunity of an easy victory. But sometimes in the ardour of pursuit the enemy exposes himself to a check. The Dean, for instance,was quite correct in saying that "looks nice" is right and "looks nicely" is wrong, nor did he break his own rule by using the expression "it appears plainly." The impersonal use of "it appears " makes all the difference. Let Mr. Moon turn the two phrases into Latin, always a good test, by reason of the almost unfailing exactitude of Latin constructions. " Pulchra videtur " and "manifests apparel " are equally correct. Again, why are we told that the word "female " is slang? Is "male" slang? Mr. Moon is vehemently wroth with the phrase. "Some of the European rulers are females." Would he object to the phrase, "Three-fifths of the emigrants are females "? Or are we allowed to use the word about emigrants and not about rulers ? But Mr. Moon makes his worst mistake when he shows us what fine English he himself can write. We will quote one passage, and leave it to the criticism of our readers, merely noting by italics one very curious phrase :—"In this temple [the temple of the English language] the Anglo-Saxon mosaic of the sacred words of truth will be the solid and enduring pavement ; the dreams of poets will fill the rich tracery of its windows with the many-coloured hues of thought ; and the works of lofty philosophic minds will be the stately columns supporting the lofty roof, whence shall hang, sculptured, the rich fruit of the tree of know= ledge, precious as "apples of gold," "the words of the wise."
Harry Egerton ; or the Younger Son of the Day. By G. L. Tottenham. 3 vole. (Chapman and Hall.)—Certainly Mr. Tottenham has contrived to raise himself into a sort of fame. Writers who show, we will be bold to say, ten times the power sigh in vain for the detailed notice which these weak and empty novels seem to command. He is in troth great in the quality of confidence. Charlie Villars, a feeble caricature, which, as we pointed out at the time, contained the strangest mistakes in points of detail, professed to be a picture of University life, and imposed even upon some critics who are generally well informed. The writer has now, we suppose, passed into the world, and ho gives us a picture of that. The work, we willingly acknowledge, is superior to its predecessor. London, indeed, is scarcely better drawn than Cambridge was ; but then the course of events takes Mr. Tottenham for a time into Ireland, where he seems to be at home, and where he can describe things with some spirit. What really puts us out of patience with the book is its morality. Mr. Tottenham aims at being great as a moralist. He is very severe on various doers of social wrongs, on purse-proud young nobles, girls of the period, intriguing mothers, and the like, but his own hero, in whom we naturally expect to find a relief to this general darkness, is as worthless a person as any of the whole tribe of characters. He is selfish, indolent, and unprincipled. The crisis of his fate is that he loses a great deal more money at betting than he had any hopes of paying ; and then comes in the deus ex machind. By a device worn by this time more than threadbare, the "younger son of the day" is turned into an eldest son, and we leave him in possession of a handsome fortune and the beat and most beautiful of wives. Very likely Mr. Tottenham does not mean to hold him up for admiration and imitation. Very likely the gist of the whole is that everything is vanity, and that younger sons are just as much vanity as anything else. All that we can say is that we do not taro for this kind of preaching, which we do not believe to be true, and which we are sure is not edifying.
The Days of Knox. By the Author of The Dark Year of Dundee. (Nelsen.)—These two titles taken together will show the reader what sort of book ho may expect. Tales that deal with the perilous subject of controversy or tell the story of days of persecution are not to our taste. The theme, if not absolutely unfit for art, requires such skill as few hands are competent to bring to the task. We would not have it supposed that we find the writer lacking in moderation or candour. She evidently does her best to be accurate and truthful, sees the highest good in her own communion, but seeks to recognize the traces of it elsewhere, and tells her story pleasantly and not without pathos.
Cape Cod and all Along Shore. By Charles Nordhoff. (Harper and Brothers ; Sampson Low and Co.)—This volume is a collection of stories which have already appeared in American magazines, but will probably be new to English readers. They deal chiefly with the habits and thoughts of the fishing population which inhabits the neighbourhood of Cape Cod. How they live at home, how they fare when they are about their work, what sort of fortune this one of them or that may meet when he is taken away to some wholly different scene, is here set forth not without is oortain force and pleasantness of style. We may mention as particularly good "Captain Tom : a Resurrection." There are men, the writer says, who are insensibly dead. " I meet such frequently in Broadway and Wall Street, in which last place they exhibit a degree of movement which is horrid enough to me, who know their case." Captain Tom, whose prosperous career is admirably described, falls into and rises out of such a death of jealousy and hatred. Throughout this tale, and indeed throughout all, there are some capital little teaches. This is good :—" I have noticed that your thoroughly lucky man, who rushes on through the world, conquering and to conquer, mastering every opposing circumstance, winning every point on which he sets his mind, scarcely ever gains the woman's heart he loves. For women have an instinctive horror of worldliness, an instinctive jealousy which closes their heart against the man who may in after life care less for wife and babies than for bank stock." And this, too, is smart :—" Did you ever hear one of these returned Americans utter the word canaille t It is true, they do not often pronounce it anything else than cannel; but the air with which they mispronounce it is absolutely perfect ; it shows that the heart is all right, though the tongue may halt."
The Philosophy of Eating and How not to be Sick, by Albert J. Bellows, M.D. (Sampson Low and Co.), are two works by an American physician, of which the object is sufficiently declared by the title. The former of the two has reached a fourth edition. Much of Dr. Bellows' advice and criticism applies especially to habits of life in the United States, where the food of at least a large portion of the population appears to be as injudiciously selected and swallowed in as trying a way to the stomach as can be imagined. It is not uncommon, for instance, we believe, for children of six or seven to live habitually on rich dishes, which in England a boy of sixteen never tastes except by accident. But there is a great deal which all persons, except the few, growing fewer, we believe, every day, who are not conscious that they have a stomach, may find interesting and useful. We cannot profess to accept all the writer's theories, but they seem generally at least to deserve examination. He is certainly right when he denounces the use of superfine flour ; probably so, when he says that both butter and sugar are very wasteful articles of food. We could, indeed, easily fill a column with words of advice, &c. Those who use their brains ought to eat much fish, for fish contains large quantities of phosphorus. " The physical and mental activity imparted by food is in exact proportion to the activity of the animal." Hence the trout is better than the eel, though eels can be pretty active too, as any one who has had the misfortune to catch one with a fishing line must have learnt. Children of mothers whose food is deficient in limo, potash, phosphorus, and silox cannot have good teeth. Dr. Bellows, we may remark, is a homompathist, and apparently an opponent of alcohol.
Jerome Lock. 1 vol. (Freeman.)—There is not a little cleverness in this book ; if it is, as we suppose it to be, a first work, it shows promise. Many parts of the story are good ; the whole strikes us as being inartistic and incomplete. The reader is amused with the sketches of Jerome's childhood, but they are not wanted• in the book ; that is, there is no traceable connection between Jerome the child and Jerome the man. The hero himself is a rather feeble and hysterical creature. Doubtless it was a dreadful thing for an artist to lose his right hand, but men have triumphed over worse obstacles than this, and, as the reader of the story will see, there could not be a man with greater helps to so triumphing than Jerome had. We own to liking his friend Robert, who did not care about serious things, but, on the other hand, never went near breaking anybody's heart, ten times better. The writer may be congratulated on inventing an incident which, as far as our reading has gone, is absolutely novel. A man runs away from home in incipient fever, and on recovering forgets that he is married. He does not, it is true, go beyond some very harmless love-making. But what a hint is here for the writers who cannot construct a novel without a bigamy !
True to the L. 3 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)—The preface assures us that the adventures of the hero, Perth Preston, are, for the most part, "true to the life." They certainly tax our powers of belief, but then we are used to being taxed pretty severely, and do not absolutely rebel. Perth Preston is a gardener's boy, who learns by dint of great resolution a number of things, and among them Arabic, which he picks up from an old schoolmaster whom he serves, and who makes his fortune by going oat to Egypt with the expedition under Sir Ralph Abercromby. If the author would have been content to give us Perth's adventures by themselves, we should have had a tolerably readable book ; but the padding that is needed to make up the three volumes is wearisome stuff. Leah's love-story is meaninglessly painful ; and the whole episode of Lady Bab and her maid, which we are glad to see the preface does not require us to believe, is exceedingly absurd.
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