CURRENT LITERATURE.
A Visit to Ceylon. By Ernest Haeckel. Translated by Clara Bell. (Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.)—Professor Haeckel's volume may be read with unmixed pleasure by the scientific and the unscientific, the evolutionist and the non-evolutionist alike. It is a masterpiece of description. Even the beauty of Ceylon, one of the loveliest spots in the world, receives an adequate treatment at his hands. And he describes man, as well as nature. The gift of humour, with which his countrymen are not commonly credited, is abundantly present. To this he often gives a peculiar point by a delicate raillery of his own scientific pursuits, or even his own theories. Thus, he tells us that his cook, Babua,— "Seemed to fancy that I, as a zoologist, must take an equal interest in every class of animal life, and that, therefore, the end and purpose of curry must be an important natural problem. So, if on Monday the vertebrate were represented by some delicate fish in my curry, ou Tuesday this was replaced by some noble prawns and shrimps, or by small crabs, as representing the Crustacete, on Wednesday, cuttle-fish (sepia, or loligo) would appear, the most highly organised of the Molluscs ; while on Thursday we condescended to some edible univalve, or to baked oysters. On Friday, the worthy race of Radiate were represented by starfish or echinodermata, the eggs of the sea-urchin or the gelatinous texture of a holothuria (trepans). On Saturday, I fully expected to come down to the Zoophytes, and to find medusm or corals, sponges or actinia3, in my bowl of curry. My cook, however, clinging to an antiquated system, evidently regarded Zoophytes as plants, and supplied their place with some winged creature, bats or birds, or sometimes the fleshy body of a horned beetle."
So, again, he thinks that when Balms tried to make him eat shark's flesh, " he reckoned on the philogenetic interest attaching to these primeval forms—the survivors of the common progenitors of the higher Vertebrate, including man himself." (" Sharks, and bays," in this passage, should surely be " sharks and rays.") He is mach amused to find himself presiding within a very short interval at a Buddhist festival and a Wesleyan Mission festival, and he remarks, with admirable gravity, d propos of the astonishment with which the Cinghalese regarded his dredging operations, that while the majority
believed him to be a magician concocting philtres of mysterious power, "the more judicious regarded him simply as an European madman." Humorous, too, in another way, is his generalisation about hotels. The "dynastic," such, that is; as have the "Czar of Russia," "Prince Carl," &c., for their signs, are bad and dear; while the " Zoologico-botanical," named after the " Golden Lion," " Golden Vine," dro., are good and cheap. But the crowning stroke of humour is when he constrasts German moderation in eating with English voracity. Our travelled fellow-countrymen will regard this comparison with stupefaction, till they recognise its true character. We may conclude with a sincere tribute of praise, which all will read with satisfaction :—" The opportunities afforded me during my journey of observing the English colonial system raised it infinitely in my estimation." The translation seems to be well execnted.
A Peeress of 1882, and other Stories. By Mrs. Alexander Fraser. 3 vols. (F. White and Co.)—The novelettes which Mrs. Fraser has collected in these volumes are certainly not edifying reading. "Omnia vincit amor " is the motto and a heart the emblem with which she adorns her covers ; but the love is not the heavenly Aphrodite, and the heart, if not " desperately wicked," not a little way removed from innocence. Yet we may suppose that she means well, and is even fully persuaded that she is a persuasive advocate of goodness and purity. If it is so, we would suggest that she should reconsider the wisdom of her methods. Warnings against the song of the Sirens or the wiles of Calypso may be so given as to do more harm than good.
With the Poets. By the Rev. F. W. Farrar, D.D. (Suttaby and Co.)—No one will quarrel with the modest conclusion at which Canon Farrar has arrived, as be tells UR in his preface, that be "can at least do no harm by publishing the following selection." It is so much gain, if the favour with which his name is received among a certain circle of readers is made the means of bringing about a wide kuowledge of these masterpieces of the English muse, and a distinct debt of gratitude is due to him for his preface, for his sympathetic criticism of the ballads which he quotes, and for the manly energy with which ho claims for Milton the moral pre-eminence among English poets. There is a tendency now-a-days to disparage the " Puritan poet," and it is well to have a voice raised on behalf of a sounder standard of judgment. The principle of arrangement is to class the poets by the centuries to which they belong, dividing each class into " Poets " and "Minor Poets." (Canon Farrar, by the way, seems to think that the years 14)0, 1700, 1800, were the first years of centuries.) In the series themselves there is necessarily little or nothing that is not familiar to readers of English literature. The volume is handsome in appearance, but not sensibly increased in value, we should say, by the illustrations.
The King : a Book for Boys. By L. G. Gillum. (David Stott.) —This is a history of David, an unpretending little volume, but bearing on every page the evidences of intelligent and sympathetic study. Mrs. Gillum looks at the history in a free and independent spirit, but she has evidently no liking for a destructive criticism. With the subject of her book she deals frankly and candidly. The motto on her title-page, " The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false," expresses her way of looking at David's character. A great life marred by great failures, but, on the whole, faithful to duty, would be something like the impression left by the whole account. And, indeed, any other view is something like an insult to the intelligence of mankind, which has agreed to regard him as one of its heroes. One of the valuable features of the book is the illustration from the Psalms. Such illustration is familiar enough to Biblical students, but ordinary readers are surprisingly ignorant of it. A parent or teacher who wants to interest young people in David's life, and has not the opportunity of study, cannot do better than take The King for a text-book.
German Culture and Christianity. By Joseph Gostwick. (F. Norgate.)—Mr. Gostwick points out in his first chapter the importance of Leasing's attitude, the acceptance of revelation, together with the belief that the revelation of Christianity is not final. He thus indicates his own view. In the second chapter, he begins the orderly discussion of his subject with an account of English Deism ; and in the third, he points out how, by a remarkable movement, which has assuredly had its converse in more recent times, this deism introduced rationalism into Germany. The early Germany rationalists are noticed, Semler and Bahrdt at some length ; then follows a more detailed discussion of the philosophy of Lessing. Separate chapters are allotted to Herder, Jacobi and his friends, Kant, the uncertainty of whose utterances on the connection between ethics and religion is very properly dwelt upon, and Fichte. We would especially commend to the notice of our readers the account of the later philosophy of Fichte, a philosophy, as Mr. Gostwick says, ignored by Carlyle, who did much to popularise his earlier ethical teaching. Carlyle himself forms the subject of the next chapter. The treatment which Mr. Gostwick gives to this great writer is not only fair, but sympathetic ; but he points out forcibly that, however much the world has learnt from his teaching, its conclusions were unsatisfying. Human freedom was the central article of his creed, but he ended by worshipping despotism. And, indeed, it is quite possible that despotism may be the more endurable alternative to a freedom that is not Christian. The connection of much that we find in the following chapters with the main subject is not evident, perhaps we might say not existent. We are not disposed to undervalue Mr. Gostwick's literary judgments, but they seem out of place in this particular volume, and they materially swell its bulk, a result to be much deprecated, when the public is not too favourably disposed to apologetic literature. Still, there is much in the latter part of the book, especially when the writer comes to treat of Schelling, Hoge,. and Schleiermacher, which is both appropriate and valuable. The volume concludes with a chapter on " Christian Evidences," written on the same lines as those followed by Mr. Rowe, though, as the author tells us in his preface, independently. We heartily thank Mr. Gostwiok for a laborious and able contribution to " Christian Defence."
The Bibliography of Thackeray, by Richard Herne Shepherd (Eliot Stock), is an appropriate " companion and supplement to the edition de luxe." Thackeray's greater works most readers know, but there is a large body of contributions to periodical literature much of which is necessarily obscure. Other things there are, too, published in early days, of which few people have heard, the "Fiore et Zephir, Ballet Mytbologique, par Theophile Wagstaff," for instance. Mr. Shepherd has done his work carefully and thoroughly.
Stray Papers on Education. By "B. H." (Kegan Paul and Co.)— This little book is more than a memorial of one to whom many generations, as generations are reckoned in the life of a school, owed a debt of gratitude. It contains the expression of a ripe and kindly wisdom, which can hardly fail to teach others something, at least, of the secret which made "B. H." a successful teacher, or, rather, for that may be a misleading phrase, an educator in the best sense of the word. " Kindness," "Religious Teaching," "Punishments," " Emotion," "Obstinacy," "Truth," are the titles of six out of the seven Papers on Education. The seventh is " Cricket—its Uses in Education," and shows, taken in conjunction with "Cricket" which is one of the "Scenes from School Life" (papers of a lighter cast, which form the second part of the volume), a quite remarkable power perhaps the most valuable that a teacher can have, of viewing things from a boy's point of view. Cricket, of course, is a thing in which the ordinary master does not find it difficult to sympathise with his pupils; but that a woman should so thoroughly enter into the game is a proof of a vivid sympathy which must have shown itself most strikingly in other things. These "Scenes," of which it is easier to speak in a brief notice than of the more serious essays, are capital. The boys who disown with pathetic humility the charge of having lamed a duck—they could not possibly have bit it, for stone-throwing was a forbidden act—Dot, who wants to be a missionary, rather to. the consternation of his friends, but explains that he "does not mean to have any natives," but to be shipwrecked on a coral island, these and other like passages are very amusing. And here, too, we find that there is nothing that forbids " ridentem dicere vernal."
NOVELS.—The Admiral's Ward. By Mrs. Alexander. 3 vole. (Bentley and Son.)—The merits of Mrs. Alexander's last novel are considerable, but they are to be discerned in what may be called its accidents rather than in its substance. The "Admiral," though he could be spared from the story without any material injury to its development, is more interesting than his ward; and Mrs. Crewe, who fills the humble role of giving a home to the heroine, for a proper consideration in money, is a happier effort of the novelist's art than either. There is something peculiarly life-like in this fussy, kindly old lady. Her portrait is almost worthy of a place in Miss Austen's gallery. Indeed, the painting of a life which seldom passes out of ordinary limits is worked throughout with a skill which reminds us of the author of Pride and Prejudice. As for the story, we must own that it does not set off the characters to much advantage. The heroine is jilted by her lover, who deserts her for a friend, and finds her revenge in bringing him back to his wife, when he is preparing to desert her, by exercising over him a power which circumstances put into her hands. While this is going on, her own happiness is being properly provided for, and the tale ends with a poetically just but not too strict distribution of punishments and rewards.—The Hands of Justice. By F. W. Robinson. 3 vols. (Chatto and Windus.)—There is ability in this story, as there is in all that the author writes, but the effect of the whole is depressing. A feeling of gloom and mystery prevails from the beginning to the end, and the reader is not sensibly relieved by the usual ending of the marriages which, according to the conventional ideas of the novelists, are supposed to secure happiness. It must be allowed that the author keeps the secret on which the plot turns very well. A murder is committed early in the tale, and the criminal is not discovered till nearly the end. The reader meanwhile is kept in the dark success. fully, though he may be inclined to excuse his own want of perspicacity by questioning the probability of the solution. But it is not a great attraction in a novel to keep a dismal secret of this kind perpetually present to the mind. The central figure of the drama is finely conceived. John Woodhatch is a man who has worked his way out of the slough of crime into which be was plunged by the associations of his early life. He devotes himself to the work of rescuing others similarly situated ; his self-sacrifice is admirable, but it is marred by the defect which does often, we fancy, mar such live& that he will have things work themselves out in his own way. " Farm Forlorn," where this strange philanthropist gathers together the scum of prisons and reformatories, is scarcely a possible place, and the record of its history is nnpleasing, bat the figure of its master is, drawn with genuine force.—Mongrels. By T. Wilton. 3 vols. (Hurst and Blackett.)—The first and third volumes of this story display, though in different ways, marked literary power. The descriptions of the early part, and the development of the tale in the later chapters, deserve high praise, praise which is the more significant if, as the blank title-page seems to show, this is a first effort. The lonely childhood life of Toni Wilton, spent with the savage old miller and his wife, is a fine picture of the gloomier sort ; while, on the other hand, we have seldom seen anything dramatically finer than the scene of Marjory's death. The catastrophe is happily contrived, because the reader, upon whom it comes, of course as a surprise, yet owns that the author has been leading up to it. At the same time, he feels that a very difficult personage is conveniently removed. As for the working-out of the scene itself, the pathos of the girl's last hours is very effective indeed. Our only adverse criticism on this part of the story concerns the lost letter. Men do not allow letters of transcendent importance to slip into the linings of old coats. It is quite impossible that the hero should not have remembered, in such case, that he had not actually posted the letter. Between the beginning and the end, the story sinks to a level which is really surprisingly low, considering the power displayed elsewhere. If this part could have been,—the episode of Clara, which is neither entertaining nor instructive, beiug, for instance, omitted, Mongrels would have been a more striking success than it is.—Society Novelettes. By F. C. Barnand, H. Savile Clark, and others. 2 vols. (Vizitelly and Co.)—A number of clever novelists have combined to produce these two volumes, and have not achieved a noteworthy success. A dish of scraps is seldom very good, and Society Novelettes is no exception to the rule. Of course, Mr. Burnand is bound to be amusing, and the author of " A French Heiress in her Own Chiltean " to write a good story, but neither they nor their collaborateurs, all of them, we fancy, more or less practised in literature, show to much advantage. The best story is, we think, the second, " An Entr'acte." The subject is a single incident, the straggle in an ambitions woman's mind between love and fame. It does not, therefore, suffer from compression. Most readers will feel that it is powerfully given. For the most part, s somewhat bewildering effect is produced by the rapid succession of the personages introduced to us. Like other books of the season, these -volumes must be read continuously, and the consequence is that they tire. —The New Mistress. 3 vols. (Tinsley Brothers)—The young lady who, under pressure of family misfortune, takes up the occupation of a national schoolmistress, seems likely to become a favourite heroine. The author of The New Mistress does not commit the mistake of making Hazel Thorne pass per saltunt from a drawingroom to a school-house. She knows what she is writing about, as -she proves both in this and in other matters, and provides that her heroine goes duly through a training college. But there is little more -to be said in praise of her tale. Hazel is provided with an overwhelming number of lovers. There are two who survive from the previous state of existence, both of whom come down to annoy her, and to make the village talk. And there are four who belong to the sew life, to wit, the master of the boys' school, the vicar, (why not, for the sake of completeness, have added the parish clerk P) the neighbouring squire, and a wealthy ex-butcher, the chief supporter of the school. The poor girl has other troubles. The maiden ladies of 'the parish naturally hate her. Her brother robs his employers, and .ber mother, who is, perhaps, the silliest person that we ever have seen in fiction—for even Miss Nickleby had lucid intervals— appropriates the school pence. The complication of these troubles is too great to be borne, and as there seems to be no way out of them except by Hazel marrying the ex-butcher, whom the writer 'Las been ridiculing throughout, typhoid fever is called in to -cat the knot, and the tale ends with a dismal surprise.
Moncrieffes Second Wife. By "Lobo." (F. V. White and Co.)—Mr. Bruce Moncrieffe marries a second wife, not so much because he loves her, as because he wants some one to look after his daughters. Constance de Vere marries Bruce Moncrieffe not so much becasue she loves him, as because she wants a home. Of course, trouble springs cut of this arrangement, the more readily because one of the daughters has a vile temper, and the other is the most deceitful of womankind. The luckless young stepmother—why did not so dispassionate a wooer as Mr. Moncrieffe look out for a woman of more suitable age ?fights with these wild beasts through a large part of these three volumes. The struggle scarcely makes pleasant reading, but it is certainly well told. " Lobo" writes with an ease that few writers of the ordinary novel attain ; and her characters, if not very profoundly studied, are natural. The deceitful Julia is, perhaps, too unredeemedly bad ; and Mr. McMickie, of Drum, too intolerably disagreeable. On the other hand, the "agreeable rattle" of the story, Sir Eldred, is a very entertaining personage ; and his relation to Constance is touched with a good deal of delicacy and tad. Some fairly good comic business is furnished by the loutish " Josh " de Vere, though the scene in which his cousin makes an electioneering speech in his stead is suited to farce rather than to comedy.—Honest Davie. By Frank Barrett. 3 vole. (Bentley and Son.)—The first volume of this book is very pleasant reading. Mr. Barrett has caught with singular felicity the style of the period to which his story belongs. There is just the touch of formality in it which belongs to the writings of eighty years ago. The resemblance is all the more hard to secure, because the characteristics imitated are not strongly marked. The early scenes, too, between the hero and his Delia are very pleasantly described. Altogether, we thought that we had found a novel far above the average in Honest Davie. Nor, indeed, does Mr. Barrett conspicuously fail in the after-part of his story. But he comes to be entangled, so to speak, in his story, which is not very happily conceived, and much of the charm of the early chapters disappears. Still, this is a good novel, the work evidently of one who knows something of the literary art, has studied good models, and knows how to profit by what he has seen.
We have received IL of A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain, by the late S. H alkett and the late Rev. J. Laing, M.A. (W. Paterson.)— The Book of Koheleth, being the Donnellan Lectures for 1880.81, by the Rev. C. H. Hamilton Wright, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History, Literature, and Worship, by J. Sime, MA., F.R.S.E. (J. Nisbet and Co.)—Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science ; Nottingham Meeting, 1882. (Longmans, Green, and Co.)—Lorimer's Institutes of the Law of Nations. Vol. I. (W. Blackwood and Sons.)—A. translation of Von Reber's History of Ancient Art, by J. T. Clarke. (Sampson Low and Co.) —A third edition of Sir J. F. Stephen's Digest of the Criminal Law. (Macmillan and Co.) —Vol. VII. of the Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, edited by Major R. H. Vetch, R.E. (E. Stanford.) —Hershon's Genesis, with Talmudical Commentary, to which is added an introductory preface by Rev. H. D. M. Spence, M.A. (Bagster and Sons.) —Kasligaria, translated from the Russian of Knropatkin by Major W. E. Gowan. (Thacker, Spink, and Co., Calcutta.)—Bacon's Advancement of Learning, edited for Indian students by F. G. Selby, B.A. (Government Book Depot, Bombay.) —A new edition of the Life of Nicholas Pavillon, with a preface by the Bishop of Lichfield. (Skeffiogton and Son.)—Vol. II. of A Commentary on the New Testament, translated from the German of Schmidt and Holzendorff by F. H. Jones, B.A. (Williams and Norgate.)--An eleventh edition of Goschen's Theory of Foreign Exchanges. (Effingham Wilson.)— Pulpit Prayers, by Eminent Preachers (Hodder and Stoughton), an addition to the " Clerical Library " series.—Cruces Shakespeariance, by B. G. Kinnear. (Bell and Sons.)—A. fifth and revised edition of Hare's Walks in London, in 2 vols., clearly printed and neatly bound. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)—A new and cheaper edition of The Commercial Products of the Sea, by P. L. Simmonds (Griffith and Farran), a book the contents of which will be found especially valuable to those who take an interest in the Fish Supply question, or are connected with the present Fisheries Exhibition. It is a book that should find a place in Board Schools and mechanics' libraries.—Vol. II. of the Religious Encyclopcedia, edited by P. Schaff, D.D., the Rev. S. M. Jackson, and the Rev. D. S. Schaff. (T. and T. Clark.)—A cheap edition of Sturge's Angel of Love, and other Poems. (Provost and Co.)—Nos. 9, 10, 11, and 12 of the Oxford Magazine, containing reports of the " Lectures on the Reformation."—A packet of Standard Authors Readers. (Griffith and Farran.)—Our Choir, by C. G. Bash. (Putnam's Sons, New York.)
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