CURRENT LITERATURE.
IN these days, when everybody wants to know everything with the least possible trouble to oneself, a "Dictionary of Universal Information"5 can hardly fail to be widely acceptable. In one, necessarily bulky, volume is comprised a vast quantity of brief but useful references relating to geo- graphy, history, biography, mythology, Biblical matters, and chronology. Considerable pains have evidently been taken to avoid errors, and if not always successfully, some allowance may fairly be made for the almost in- superable difficulties that beset such a stupendous undertaking. The wood- cuts, however, are unutterably bad, and not only disfigure the page on which they appear, but positively detract from the reliable aspect of the work. It is to be hoped that in a second edition they will be entirely re- moved.
The Transactions of the fifth and latest meeting of the National Associ- ation for the Promotion of Social Science are now published in a collected form, in one stout volume.t The most important papers are given at full length, while a lucid synopsis is presented of those of minor applicability and suggestiveness. A short introductory notice by the able Secretary of the Association tells in a few words what progress has already been made in promoting the material and moral welfare of mankind since the frame- work of human society has been made the subject of scientific investi- gation.
Without pretending to much practical knowledge of rural husbandry, we may be permitted to bear our testimony to the very readable nature of
Beeton's Dictionary of Useful Information. 8.0. Beeton. t Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1861. Edited by G. W. Hastings, L.L.B. J. W. Parker, Son, and Bourn. Mr. Edward Spender's paper on "Agriculture in Italy," contributed to the Journal of the West of England Society.* It is not, indeed, a mere bucolical effusion, but a pleasant and instructive article that would not have been out of place in any magazine devoted to general literature. On the relative merits of various descriptions of farming implements, practical mis- takes in cheesemaking, and the composition of concentrated cattle-food, we decline for the moment to express any opinion. This reticence, however, springs not altogether from ignorance, for who can be wholly ignorant of agricultural operations with Mr. Burn's Lessons of my Farm by his side?-t Indeed, the first impulse after glancing through this very intelligent and comprehensive little work would be to go straightway and hire a small farm, within an easy distance of the Opera, were it not for the warning kindly given in his preface. "The fields of our amateur's farm," he writes, "are somehow or other more remarkable for their absorptive than their productive qualities." He therefore proceeds to show how the annual loss may be diminished, if it cannot be entirely avoided. Even the genuine " agricola" may turn over these pages with advantage.
The fifth part of Professor Ganot's Elementary Treatise on Physicst treats of the reflexion, radiation, and absorption of heat, steam-engines, the sources of heat and cold, the dynamical theory of heat, and the transmission, velocity, and intensity of light. The illustrations are as perfect as can well be imagined.
Small marvel was it that valiant knights in the days of yore fled in affright from matchlock and musquetoon. They feared not to face death in any ordi- nary shape, but gunshot wounds were supposed to be poisonous, and while " cauteries at a white heat were prepared to destroy the infected tissues, deep incisions were made to facilitate the elimination of the poison, for which boiling oil of turpentine was considered an antidote." Happily, a milder treatment is now found to answer the purpose, or heroes would be less plentiful than blackberries. Under the most favourable circumstances, however, the effects of " villtmous saltpetre" are still sufficiently horrible, as the most chivalrous may judge for themselves from a perusal of Dr. Applies well-known work on gunshot wounds, § the surgeon's safest guide, and the patient's surest hope on the battle-field.
The restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and their gathering together from among the Gentiles, were prophesied, it seems, by Zechariah. At least, so it is laid down in the posthumous writings of the late Dr. Ward- lewd' Though not specially distinguished as an expounder of dark say- ings, that highly respectable divine was in the habit of delivering lectures on the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and also on the Apocalypse. His manner of handling these delicate topics was calm and temperate, nor did he ever utter an anathema maranatha against those who differed from him in opinion. As to the accuracy of his own interpretations, that is a question time alone can decide. We commend Dr. Stier's prudent resolu- tion to have nothing to do with any but "holy angels," 5 and even then only "with their sayings to men." There is, he tells us, a deep meaning in the words they were good enough to employ, and "treasures lie beneath the seeming common-place surface." That they made use of language intelligible to mortal men, instead of "speaking in their own peculiar tongues," may, we think, be taken for granted ; but it is not so easy to divine what possible motive they could have had in disguising one-half of what they meant to say, unless it was for the express purpose of exercising Dr. Stier's ingenuity. From an artistic point of view, however, we regret to learn that there is no authority for bestowing wings upon these inte- resting beings. In form and stature they resemble man, nor is there "anything marvellous in their deportment," save their luminous appear- ance. Though sometimes called " Elohim," or the Children of God, it is more proper to regard them simply in their ministerial functions as mes- sengers from neaven to earth, gifted with the power of condensing into a few words what takes Dr. Stier two hundred and fifty pages to express in the human speech of the present day. However, if Mr. Foxton is to be credited,** it is not angels that are wanted just now so much as priests. By a priest, he means "an aged man, who has seen and felt the reality of life, and has the faculty of imparting to others the true results of his experience." A young priest he regards as a "solecism in language and a contradiction in terms." "True priests," he continues, "are the spiritual flowerage and blossom of their age—the poets, the prophets, the seers, and the philoso- phers, who reflect the culture and expound the dominant ideas of their time, and, by a more direct insight into the order of nature, material and moral, than is granted to the vulgar, are able to ' prophesy ' of things that shall be hereafter.' " Not such, according to Mr. Foxton, are the clergy of these realms :
"Nos pretres no sent point ce qu'un vain people pause ; Notre credulite fait tonte lens science."
Instead of being the pioneers of thought and intelligence they are really far behind the age, and have long since been distanced by the laity. Indeed, words fail even this eloquent ex-churchman when denouncing the retrogressive tendencies of sacerdotalism, and the assumptions of the modern priesthood, which "are at once an anachronism and a usurpation." A free press is now the most faithful instructor of mankind, because its teachings are the offspring of the Baconian philosophy. Inductive philo- sophy "once diffused and carried to its legitimate issues will destroy at least the physical supernaturalism of the churches." There will be no decay, however, of reverence for what is worthy to be revered. The increase of knowledge can have no other results than to render the religious instincts of mankind more intelligent, more enlarged, and more tolerant. But as "the existing priesthood is utterly incompetent for the task of directing the present religious movement amongst the nations of the world," Mr. Foxton trusts that "the Eternal Spirit which has inspired us with new hopes and new desires for the spiritual development of humanity, will also, in good time, raise up amongst us a race of seers and evangelists able to entertain and capable of expounding them."
* Journal of the Bath and West of England Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. 1862. J. Ridgway.
t The Lessons of my Farm ; a Book for Amateur Agriculturists. By R. Scott Burn. Lockwood and Co.
Elementary Treatise on Physics, Esperirnental and Applied. By Professor A. Gaunt. Translated by E. Atkinson, Ph.D., F.C.S. H. Baillltre. § The Ambulance Surgeon ; or, Practical Observations on Gunshot Wounds. By P. L. Apple, M.D. Edited by W. T. Nunn and A. M. Edwards, F.R.S.E. A. and C. Black.
II Lectutea on the Prophecies of Zechariah. By the Rev. Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. Edited by his Son, the Rev. J. S. Wardlaw, A.M. A. Fullerton and Co.
IF The Words of the Angels; or, Their Visits to the Earth, and the Messages they deli- vered. By Rudolph Stier, D.D. A. Strahan and Co.
** The Priesthood and the People. By F. J. Foxton, A.B. TrUbner and Co.
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