CURRENT LITERATURE.
London Quarterly Review for April.—This is an excellent number, keeping up, we are glad to see, the standard of the "New Series" on which the Review has entered. The article on Mr. Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World," though not taking up an attitude
with regard to the book that quite satisfies us, is a remarkably lucid statement of its design and bearing. The essay on Bishop Martensen introduces its readers to a region which will be unfamiliar to many of them—thought and culture in Denmark. Of these, in their theo- logical and philosophical aspect, Bishop Martensen was a conspicuous exponent; and the article, appearing as it does shortly after his death, is an appropriate tribute to his memory. Among domestic subjects is"East .Anglia," which gives us an interesting account of this part of England. Nowhere—except, perhaps, in the north-western part of our island—is the agricultural population more independent and vigorous, a characteristic which they probably owe to the strong admixture of Danish blood among them ; and all that concerns them has a proportionate importance. We cannot but hope and believe that Dr. Jeesopp has not lighted upon a specially favoured corner of this "Arcadia." The other articles in the number are—" Through Materialism to Idealism "— apropos of Lange's " History of Materialism "— " The Orders of Religious Knights," " Renan's Recollections of his Youth," "The Salutation of the Risen Son," and " Egypt."
Good Words, for April.—Besides many interesting papers by the Editor, Professor Blackie, the Duke of Argyll, and other well-known writers, this number completes the first volume of Miss Linskill's most interesting story, entitled " Between the Heather and the Northern Sea." Miss Linskill is, as we ventured to prophesy some time ago, coming to the front ; here, for instance, we find six scenes in five chapters any one of which would redeem a whole three- volume novel from the charge of powerlessness or want of origin- ality. There is everything that we desire in a novel : interest, in the first place, and originality and a delightful freshness ; there is great power and insight in the delineation of character, and great feeling for the picturesqueness both of nature and incident, and there is vividness of description, and a style pure and lively. Besides all this, which is common, in a greater or less degree, to all original and honest writers, Miss Linskill has a special knowledge of the loCality in which she lays her scenes, and writes, con amore, of the people of the Yorkshire dales and moors and sea-coast, and of the wild and grand scenes in which their simple lives are led ; the grandeur of which moulds their bold and independent characters, while their bareness and soli- tude give the people a seriousness and melancholy peculiar, in more cheerful and ordinary places, only to those who , endure or have passed through much mental or physical suffering. It is difficult to make a natural scene out of a poor girl's pleading to the man she loves for his love in return ; but this is done, and done most admirably ; and we do not know whether to feel most for the good man who will not be weak, or for the beautiful girl so sadly humiliated. The inimitably pathetic scene in which the poor old farmer brings his confused accounts to his daughter in the night, and breaks down in his admission that his mind is going, is one to mark a novel. Altogether, these chapters are full of picturesque description and insight into character, and of interesting situations which keep alive curiosity. We congratulate the editor of Good Words on his good fortune in securing this unique story.
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