21 JULY 1883, Page 25

medical man, an antiquarian, and a geologist ; and even

as the author of "The Philosophy of Apparitions" and "History of the Foundations of Manchester," he deserved something in the shape of a biographical notice. But a brief and modest memoir, telling the story of an honourable but uneventful career, would have been far more to the point than the bulky volume, swollen out with but slightly interesting letters, which is due to the affection and perhaps also to the cacoethes scribendi of his daughter-in-law, who, as she is careful to inform us, is "the youngest daughter of the late Duncan Stewart, Esq., author of 'A Practical Arabic Grammar,' published by Parker, of London." Mrs. Ware means well, however, and tells us some interesting things in the coarse of her narrative. We have found the first chapters of this book, relating to the Manchester of a hundred years ago, the most curious. A cook could then be had for 25 a year, and the annual rent paid for his dwelling-house by Titus Hibbert, a well-to-do man of business, was 220. Verily, tempora mutantur !