CURRENT LITERATURE.
The ninth volume of the new edition of Chambers's Eneyclo- po3dia, extending from " Round " to " Swansea," is notable chiefly for the extraordinary number of important biographies which it contains. These include " Scott," by Mr. Andrew Lang ; " Sainte- Beuve," by Mr. Hume Brown ; " Shakespeare," by Professor Dowden ; " Sterne," by Mr. H. D. Traill ; " Sir Philip Sidney," by Mr. F. T. Palgrave ; and " Dean Stanley," by Professor Story. Mr. Lang's criticism of Scott as an author will not be universally accepted, but it is exceedingly well put. It comes in effect to this :—" His fame must suffer in some degree from his own wilful- ness, or rather from the incurable defects of a genius which was rich but not rare, abundant but seldom fine. It may suffice for one man to have come nearer than any other mortal to Shake- speare in his fiction, and nearer than any other mortal to Homer in his verse." Dr. Story's estimate of Dean Stanley is sympathetic and judicious, and adequately emphasises that " innate chivalry of spirit which responded to the appeal of every vilified spirit or struggling cause or forlorn-hope, but which was repelled by the self-assertion of the prosperous, the arrogance of the powerful, and the dull self-satisfaction of the conservative traditionalist." There are several notable historico-geographical articles in this volume, such as " Spain," " Scotland," and " Russia." In the last, which is from the pen of Prince Kropot- kine, it is allowed that while "the reign of Alexander III. has been characterised, in contrast to the liberal reforms of the last reign, by numerous reactionary steps," nevertheless " strenuous efforts have been made to put an end to the colossal plundering of State money and appropriation of State lands, common in the last half of the reign of Alexander II." The scientific articles in this volume, as in its predecessors, are characterised by accuracy, point, and " up-to-date "-ness.
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