&Hoot AND CLASS Boors.—Readings from English History. Selected and edited
by John Richard Green, M.A. (Macmillan.)—In three parts Mr. Green brings down his readers to the battle of Balaklava, the description of which he borrows from the graphic pen of Dr. Russell. This idea of bringing before the young the most import- ant scenes and personages of English history, as these have been described by the most trustworthy and the most graphic writers, is in itself a good one, and has been successfully carried out by the editor. Not the least striking of the extracts are those which we owe to Mr. Green's own pen.—We have also to acknowledge, in " Blackie's Comprehensive School Series," Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, by E. M. Berens ; The Biographical Reader, for various standards and readers (Blackie) ; A. First Geographical Reader, for Standard II. (labiate* Moffatt's Explanatory Reader (Moffatt and Paige), and The Battersea Readers, for Boys (Stanford). —Mar/otoe's Edward II., edited by Osborne W. Tancock, M.A. (the Clarendon Press, Oxford), is one of the "Select Plays of the Old English Drama." Apart from the interest that attaches to all that belongs to the age of Shakespeare (Marlowe was by some years Shakespeare's senior), King Edward II., it seems to us, has not much interest. Even Shakespeare finds his lowest point in some of the historial plays (witness Richard IIL, not to speak of those of doubtful authorship). Professor Ward, indeed, from whom it is cer- tainly rash to differ, has a higher opinion of the merits of the play. However this may be, there is no doubt that Mr. Tancock has pro- duced an excellent edition of it. Any student who will read it carefully, digesting, at the same time, his notes, will have got no little insight into the English history of the time.—Of Editions of English Classics, we have received Gray's Elegy and Select Odes, by J. S. Lawrie (Central School Depot) ; Cowper's Task, Book I., The Sofa, and Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, in the series of "Annotated Poems of English Authors," edited by the Rev. E. T. Stevens and the Rev. D. Morris (Longmans) ; Cowper's Simple Poems, with Life of the Author and Notes, by Francis Storr, M.A. (Rivington) ; and, from the same author and publisher, Gray's Poems, with Johnson's Life and Selec- tions from the Letters ; Pope's Essay on Man, edited, with Annotations, by the Rev. John Hunter, M.A. (Longmans) ; Bacon's Essays (Text and Index), by Edwin A. Abbott, D.D. (Longmans); Johnson : Select Works, by Alfred Milner, B.A. (Lives of Dryden and Pope, and Ras- selas), (the Clarendon Press). Publishers and editor deserve thanks for an excellent edition of a writer whose strong and manly sense deserve a wider recognition than it commonly receives.—The fea- ture of the Primer of the Industrial Geography of Great Britain and Ireland, by G. Phillips Bevan, F.G.S. (Sonnenschein and Allen), is that it is devoted to a subject which commonly receives in text-books of geography an inadequate amount of attention. The bare statement that Newcastle exports coals and that Macclesfield is the seat of a silk manufacture, produces very little impression, and is of very little use. But a systematic account of the industries of the country is a very different and much more useful thing. It is probably not perfect in its details. The account of the very important industry of malt- ing, for instance, is too cursorily passed over. The considerable trade in ironstone that has lately sprung up in Lincolnshire is not men- tioned. One or two towns are credited with industries that have now practically decayed. But on the whole, we have here an excellent text-book.—The Civil Service Geography, by the late L. M. D. Spence, completed and edited by Thomas Gray (Crosby Lockwood and Co.), appears in a sixth edition, which has been "revised and corrected to the present date."—John Heywood's British Empire Atlas (Heywood) deserves notice for another speciality. It gives the dependencies and colonies of Great Britain in greater detail than we commonly find.---A Manual of Method for Pupil-Teachers and Assistant-Masters, by Alexander Park (Blackie and Sons), contains a great variety of useful hints and suggestions. School managers would do well to make a present of it to young teachers who are studying for their profession, and who often stand in need of some such guide. Along with this, we may mention The Teacher : Hints on School Management, by J. R. Blakiston (Macmillan).—We have also re- ceived Modern Studies in Indexing and Précis of Correspondence, by the Rev. John Hunter (Longmans), a volume intended for the use of Civil Service candidates ; A Short English Grammar, by C. D. Yonge, M.A. (Longmans) ; A Brief History of the English Language, by James Hadley, LL.D. (Bell and Sons) ; English Grammar for Beginners, by H. Courthope Bowen, M.A. (C. Kegan Paul) ; English Grammar and Exercises, by Rev. R. Morris, M.A., and H. C. Bowen, M.A. (Macmillan); A Grammar of the Irish Language, for the Use of Schools, by P. W. Joyce, LL.D. (M. H. Gill and Son) ; English Sounds and English Spelling, by F. G. Fleay, M.A. (Collins, Son, and Co.) ; An Etymological Glossary of English Words Derived from the Greek, by Edward Jacob Boyce, M.A. (Bell and Sons), is a careful and scholarly production. Nearly two thousand five hundred words are given, and there is an ex- cellent introduction, giving a sketch of sound-changes, &c. Analysis of English History, based on Green's " Short History of the English People," by C. W. A. Tait, M.A. (Macmillan).—Of "Manuals of the Science and Art of Teaching" (the National Society), we have,—How to Teach Mechanics, How to Teach Domestic Economy, How to Teach English Literature.—Of French and German class-books, we have,—Voltaire Histoire du &Me de Louis XIV., Part II., Chaps. xiv.-xxiv., edited by Gustave Masson and G. W. Prothero, M.A. (the University Press, Cambridge) ; and from the same publishers, Le Verre d'Eau, a Comedy by Scribe, edited by C. Colbeck, M.A. ; Moliere's Le Malade Irnaginaire, by F. Tarver, M.A. (Macmillan) ; Primer of French Philology, by the Rev. A. C. Clapin (Bell and Sons) ; Specimens of Modern German Prose and Poetry, by Dr. M. M. Fische] (Trfibner) ; German Poetry for Repeti- tion, edited by C. A. Bnchheim, Ph.D. (Longmans); and Schmid's Tales, with complete vocabulary, by T. Matthay, third edition (Dulau).— Of Manuals for the acquisition of Languages not commonly included in the curriculum of education, we have A Handbook to Modern Greek, by Edgar Vincent and J. G. Dickson, with a preface by Pro- fessor Blackie, and some very interesting extracts from contemporary Greek writers ; How to Learn Russian, by Henry Mole, with a preface by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A. (Trubner), with a Key, and a Graduated Russian Reader from the same authors and publisher ; A Manual of the C'haldee Languages, D. MeG. Turpie, M.A. (Williams and Norgate) ; and An Icelandic Prose Reader, with notes, grammar, and glossary, by Dr. Gudbrand Vigfusson, and F.
York Powell, M.A. ('1 he Clarendon Press.)—Of Mathematical
and Scientific Class Books, we have Lectures on Practical Astronomy and Astronomical Instruments, by the Rev. James Challis (Deighton and Bell ; Bell and Son) ; Mathematical Drawing Instruments, and How to Use Them, by F. Edward Hahne (Triibner) ; The Amateur Mechanic's Practical Handbook, by Arthur A. G. Hobson (Longmans) ; The Study of the Rocks, by Frank Raley, F.G.S., one of the series of " Text-Books of Science" (Longmans); Solutions to the Mathematical Examination Papers set in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, by D. Tierney, B.A., and H. Sparate, B.A. ; Mechanics, by Professor R. S. Bull (Longmans) ; Eeclid for Beginners, Books I. and IL, by B. Harvey, B.A. (Longmans) ; Marcus Ward's Arithmetic, by J. W. Marshall, M.A. ; Perspective for Schools, by the Rev. A. Clapin (Bell and Sons).
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