CURRENT LITERATURE.

With Hicks Pasha in the Soudan. By Colonel the Hon. J. Colborne. (Smith and Elder.)—Colonel Colborne tells in this volume the story of the early part of the war which ended in the' disaster of Obeid. Happily for himself he was invalided before the Kordofan expedition, and is therefore, with only two other survivors, De Cotitlogon Pasha and Major Marlin, alive to tell the tale of what he saw and shared-in. It is the Senaar Campaign of which he writes. He takes us to places to which now an interest only too intense attaohes,—to Berber, for instance, and to Khartoum. Of the latter city, especially, his descriptions are particularly full. It is a simply-told, soldierly narrative that we read in these pages, easy to read, and not without instruction, not the less valuable because it was written before the events of the last few weeks. We do not gather from it that Egyptian Government is a blessing, or that peace would have been otherwise than dearly purchased by Turkish intervention.

The Queen of the Moor. By Frederic Adye. 3 vols. (J. and R. Maxwell.)—Mr. Adye lays his scene on Dartmoor, which he

describes with the genuine admiration of one who knows it and loves it ; the time being the close of the great war with Napoleon, when the prison of Princetown was crowded with French and American prisoners of war. He makes out of these circumstances a very effective story. His heroine is the lady of Torroyal, who has newly come into her sovereignty by the death of her father. She is wooed by a certain Frank Foster ; but her heart is given, almost at firstsight, to a French officer, one of the inmates of Princetown. Here, it is evident, is a very pretty complication, which is still further entangled when Master Frank, rejected by his lady-love, pays court to a beautiful fisher-girl, quarrels with, and, as he thinks, kills her lover, and so enlists. An escape from the prison is vividly described. Indeed, we do not remember anything of the kind better done than this. Then there is a description of the of Waterloo from the soldier's point of view. The heroine, Cecil Calmady, with her frank, fearless bearing, is a most picturesque character ; and her love-story is told with much forceand tenderness. Among other well-drawn figures, is the reverend master of foxhounds, the " jack Russell " of an earlier generation, and the fisher-girl, Tomasin Jackman. We mast give a word of praise to the feeling of artistic fitness which has suggested to Mr. Adye the right way of winding-up this part of the story. We would remind thewriter, whose style is for the most part not only correct; but spirited and vigorous, that to say "the foxes, as well as birds, are genuine fern nature;," is a solecism. Some animals are said to be fern naturce,—i.e., of a wild nature,—the words being genitives. In no other way do they admit of being construed.

The Life and Adventures of Peg Woffington. By J. Fitzgerald Molloy. (Hurst and Blackett.)—This is as arrant a piece of book-making as ever was pat together. Not even the conscience-salving addition tothe title of " with pictures of the period in which she lived," can excise thesecond volume, in which there is not a single mention of PegWoffington or her affairs from page 57 to 181, and then she is disposed of in a sentence or two, not to be heard of again for another sixty-seven pages. The fact is, Peg Woffington's life, with a good deal of expansion, might have been made to fill one of these volumes, but no ingenuity of mortal pen could stretch it out longer. But though the padding is pure, unmixed, undisguised padding, it is good of its kind. After all, Garrick is, perhaps, more interesting than Peg Woffington ; while the pages devoted to collecting Foote's jokes are some of the best in the book, even though Foote's wit, like that of the Greeks, partook somewhat too strongly of the mere pun. Still,-the puns are good. For instance, "You see," said the Duke of Cumberland to him, "I always swallow your good things "; "Do you ?" said Foote, " Why then I congratulate your Royal Highness on your digestion, for you never threw one of them np in your life." It is a little strong, however, to introduce Dr. Johnson and old old stories about him and Oliver Goldsmith and Reynolds ; and then we have the Gunnings and Savage, and divers other notabilities who have about as much to do with Peg Woffington as a City Company has to do with a trade. Mr. Molloy has little that is new to tell us in the story of Peg herself ; but the story is amusingly told how the little Dublin washerwoman's girl was taken-up by Madame Violante, the French dancer, and brought out as a dancing-girl; how soon she was promoted to perform in the children's " Beggars' Opera " (so that even the children's " Patience " is no stage novelty), until at last she came forward as Ophelia, on the sadden illness of the actress playing the part, and took the Irish world by storm. She then left Ireland with a young gentleman for her lover, and came to the greater world of London, the introduction to which again ousts poor Peg for a whole chapter of five-and-twenty pages. The next chapter is the best in the book, telling how Peg's lover proved faith. less, and how she was enabled by her skill in playing the parts of a young man of fashion to have her revenge by making love to her lover's fiancee, and then revealing his faithlessness. How afterwards she fell in love with Garrick and he with her, and how she thought to be married to him, and how he meanly backed-out of it when it came to the point, and still more meanly, when returning the presents she had given him, kept the most valuable, some diamond shoelonckles; all these incidents are dramatically told by Mr. Molloy, including her subsequent trials and triumphs with Sheridan in Dublin and in London till her tragic ending as an actress, when stricken down, apparently by heart-disease, while as Rosalind she was reciting the epilogue to "As You Like It," to die three years afterwards in complete privacy at Paddington. It is a . tragic story ; and Peggy, the leading actress, must have sometimes regretted that she had ever become the public favourite, for her. affectionate nature was more fitted to adorn private and domestic life, than to cope with the heaitless license of the fashionable playgoer or the fashionable players.

In the Himalayas. By O. F. Gordon Cumming. (Chat° and Windt's.) —Miss Cumming apologises in her preface for the appearance of this book, and certainly an apology was needed. It consists of half a previous book, " From the Hebrides to the Himalayas," which the publishers wisely suppressed some ten or more years ago. The first half of that book was republished at great length under the title of " In the Hebrides," and now the second half reappears with the suppressed portion added, and apparently without any revision or addition to bring it up to date. Consequently, the book is worthless. It is full of vain repetitions. It describes scenes and events, particularly the Taj Mahal, and the Cawnpore massacre, and the relief of Luck. now, which have not only been described ad nauseant, but have seldom been more inadequately described. It is an irritating book, too, as it presupposes an amount of ignorance on the part of the reader which is quite childish. " Sahib," for instance, we are told in a foot-note, means gentleman; and "shikaree" has to .be carefully translated. We are not sure that we are not informed what meal is meant by " tiffin," while the number of times we are told what " dandie " means, is something that would wear-out a Buddhist prayer-wheel. Then the writer is so bent on proving what we do not quite understand, namely, some connection between the Hebrides and the Himalayas, that we can never be left for a chapter without having some striking analogy between Himalayan and Highland .superstitions pointed out which equally exists between every ancient and every semi-savage creed ; and every time anyone walks round anything in the way the bottle passes round a table, we are sure to be reminded that it is Deisul, and even on the five-hundredth repetition the translation "or sunrise" is sure to be appended. If half the book had been cat out, and the other half rewritten, it might not have been a bad publication. As it is, it will not redound to the credit of the authoress or please her readers. The illustrations, by the way, are poor.

Prometheus the Firegieer. By Robert Bridges. (Bell and Sons.)— This is, on the whole, a successful effort to do what it is very difficult to do, and what, when done, will certainly please very few readers ; we mean, to write a play after the manner of the ancient drama. We say on the whole successful, because some of Mr. Bridges' beat passages savour to us somewhat of modernism. Here, for instance, is one :—

"PR. I see the cones And needles of the fir, which by the wind In melancholy places ceaselessly Sighing are strewn upon the tufted floor.

SERV. These took I from a sheltered bank, whereon The sun looks down at noon ; for there is need

The things be dry. These first I spread; thereon

Small sticks that snap r the hand.

Pa. Such are enough To burden the slow flight of labouring rooks, When on the leafless tree-tops in young March Their glossy herds assembling soothe the air With cries of solemn joy and cawinga loud. And such the long-necked herons will bear to mend Their airy platform, when the loving spring Bids them take thought fir their expected young."

Would 2E501511ns, would any Attic dramatist, have made Prometheus -talk thus of the fir-cones ? On the other hand, the classical manner is often admirably caught. The axixoatolia, for instance, are generally very good. Here is a specimen : " Pa. 0 Sire of Argos, Zeus will not relent.

Ix. Yet fire thou sayst is on the earth this day.

Pa. Not of his knowledge nor his gift, 0 king. IN. By kindness of what god then has man fire ?

PR. I say but on the earth unknown to Zeus. Is. how boastest thou to know not of his knowledge? Pa. I boast not he that knowetb not may boast.

Jr. Thy daring words bewilder sense with sound. Pa. I thought to find thee ripe for daring deeds. Is. And what the deed for which I prove unripe ?

Pa. To take of heaven's fire.

And were I ripe

What should I dare, be_eech you ? PR. The wrath of Zeus. Msdman, pretending in one band to hold The wrath of god and in the other fire. Pa. Thou meanest rather holding both in one Is. Both impious art thou and incredible."

Here, too, is a fine passage, truly classical in spirit, though informed with the broader tendencies of modern thought :

"Is. 0 deem not a man's children are but those Out of his loins engendered—our spirit's love Rath such prol.fic coweeitence, that Virtue Cornett' of ancestry more pure than Mold, And counts her seed as sand upon the shore. Happy is he whose body's sons proclaim Their father's honour, but more ble t to whom The world is dutiful, whose children spring Cut of all nations, and whose pride the proud Rise to regenerate when'they call him sire."

Mr. Bridges needs to make his blank verse more uniformly powerful. He has fine passages ; but they are seldom continued for long without some blemish.

East and West. By Henry W. Lucy. 2 vols. (Bentley and Son.) —We remember to have seen a part of the contents of these volumes in the columns of a contemporary. No hint is given of this fact, an omission to be regretted, if for no other reason, because the best apology for a certain effort to be amusing, which is traceable in these chapters, is to be found in the manner of their first appearance. The author of a book of travels Can afford to be sometimes solid, not to say dull ; a newspaper article must be always amusing. We gladly acknowledge that Mr. Lucy is commonly successful. His volumes, indeed, are remarkably entertaining; and they are distinguished by good-sense, as well as by liveliness. The book is about equally divided between the three -subjects of the United States of America, Japan, and British India. Mr. Lucy, of course, went to Salt Lake City, and found the Mormon women plain and dall of aspect. Seeing one day a throng of welldressed people, among whom out of every twenty women there were at least six pretty ones, and who generally looked " as if they were glad to be alive," and thinking that he would have to modify his former opinion, he found that these were Gentiles coming out of a Gentile theatre. He found the States very dear to travel in. Loosely speaking, a dollar (4s.) is about equivalent to a shilling in purchasing-power. Here is a list of prices which would make an English housekeeper's hair stand on end, even iu these " dark latter days" :—" A French or Scandinavian cook is worth £84; a general servant, 272." "A firm boldly advertises for a hundred general servants, offering wages from £60 to 272 a year." Here is's, little bit about Protection :—" A fellow-passenger on the ' Britannia' brought with him for a relative, a well-known Senator and stout champion of Protection, six pairs of boots, for which he had paid the fancy price of £2 108. a pair. To this was added a Customs impost of one-third ; and yet the Senator found it worth while to buy his boots in London, and, comfortably and stoutly shod, will, in the coming Presidential campaign, angrily denounce Free-Traders, and eloquently plead. for the protection of American manufactures." It is satisfactory to know that Mr. Lucy found one civil railway official in the States. This was the station-master at Kansas City. The account of Japan is not quite so interesting as that of the States ; and that of India, perhaps, less attractive than the description of Japan. Yet these, also, are eminently readable, and instructive withal. The book, as a whole, may be unhesitatingly commended.

Messrs. Sprat and Pretor have published a companion book to Exercises in Translation at Sight, i.e., Vol II., The English Version. (Rivingtons.) —There are a hundred Greek and as many Latin pieces, these again being equally divided between poetry and prose. In 57 we doubt whether Mr. Pretor quite knows the meaning of the technical term "bill of sale" he uses. The Latin is "rev dole malo mancipio accepisse," which Mr. Pretor renders "fraudulently receiving by a bill of sale." But a " bill of sale " is a mortgage, so to speak, on moveable property. The defendant was accused of purchasing property knowingly from a person who had wrongfully acquired it. In 85, " postremo vetita versura " can hardly mean " the practice [of lending on interestl was forbidden altogether; " versura must mean "compound interest." The translations, on the whole, are meritorius, but not ideally perfect.

COMMENTARIES, Exc.—The Psalter Translated by Richard Rolle, of Hampole. Edited, from Manuscripts, by the Rev. H. R. Bromley, M.A. (The Clarendon Press.)—Richard Rolle, who was born near Pickering, iu Yorkshire, some time about the close of the thirteenth century, was a man of a strongly ascetic temperament. As we read what is recorded of him, we are forcibly reminded of the Eastern hermits, It is not often that England has produced each perfect specimens of the type. He seems to have been a voluminous writer. His beat-known work is the "Ayenbite of Inwyt," or "Prick of Conscience," which was edited some twenty years ago for the Philological Society. The volume before us contains a translation and commentary, mainly devotional, of the Psalter from the Vulgate. We may give, as a specimen of the English, a few verses of the nineteenth (in this numeration, eighteenth) Psalm :—" Hevens tillis the joy of God ; and the werkis of his hand shewis the firmament. Day fir day rates words ; and nyglit til uygbt shewis conynge. Na epechis ere no na wordes : of the witilko the voices of thaim be noght herd." Later on in the. Psalm, the verse, "More to be desired are they than, gold," Sm., appears as, " Desiderabile abonen gold and precious° stone ; and swelter abouen hurry and hunykombe." The voluthe contains a similar commentary on other OldTestament canticles ; and the editor has added, besides his introduction, a glossarial index.—We have received another volume of the Student's Commentary on the Holy Bible, Founded on the "Speaker's Commentary." Abridged and edited by J. M. Fuller, M.A. (.T. Murray.)—This volume is the first of the New Testament, and contains the Gospels and the Acts. The qualities of the " Speaker's Commentary" are too well known to need any remarks; and we need only say that the editor of this serviceable abridgment does his work in a painstaking way.—The Gospel according to St. Mark. With Notes Critical and Practical by the Rev. J. M. Sadler. (Bell and Sous.)—We prefer Mr.' Sadler's practical. to his critical notes, these latter not always dealing adequately, we think, with the difficulties presented by the narrative. Such an expression, for instance, as when "Jesus knew that virtue had come out of him," wants explanation. Not that there is not much to be learnt from Mr. Sadler's exposition. We may specify ix., 49, as a. good example.—Footprints of the Son of Man as Traced by St. Nark. By Herbert Mortimer Lackock, D.D. 2 vols. (Rivingtons.)— These volumes contain expository discourses, dealing in detail with St. Mark's Gospel, and furnish what, without committing ourselves unreservedly to the theology which they set forth, may be described as excellent specimens of a very useful kind of sermon. Constant

listening to hortatory sermons may, as the Bishop of Ely rightly says in his Introduction, tend to defeat its own object; and an occasional change to sermons like these, which supply an exposition broad in outline, is said to be profitable.—The last volume of the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press) that has come before us is "Hosea," with Notes and In troduction by the Rev. T. R. Cheyne. Interesting as the book is (and in its personal interest this prophecy at least equals any other in the Old Testament), it is hardly one to be read with a class of boys. As for the excellence of the explanations and commentary, Dr. Cheyne's name is a sufficient guarantee.—We have also received An Historical Account of the Scottish Communion Office. By John Dowden, D.D. (R. Grant and Son, Edinburgh.) — The Bible for Beginners. Compiled and arranged by John Page Hoppe. The Old Testament (Williams and Norgate) contains " closely-connected selections " that " fully set forth the letter and the spirit of each separate Book." It has been long felt that the well-ittentioned persons who read "straight through" the Bible find a good deal that is not edifying ; and Mr. Hoppe makes here a neeful effort to meet the needs of the times, a time when, as he puts it in the opening words of his Preface,—" Few of our young people read the Bible for choice, and few parents care to force it upon them."

Boosts RECEIVED.—In " Triibner's Oriental Series" (Triibner and Co.), we have to acknowledge Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Samuel Beal, B.A. The " Western World" of these records is

India; the writers who record their impressions of it are Buddhist missionaries. Professor Beal begins by giving us in his Introduction an account of the earliest of these travellers, Shih Fa-Hian, and a translation of his work, and of "The mission of Sang-Yon and Hwei.

Sang" (the object of the mission being to obtain Buddhist books in the West). The respective dates are A.D. 400 and A.D. 578. The

bulk of the two volumes is occupied with the travels of Hanen Teiang (A.D. 629), a writer who, to use the expression of the eloquent ChangYneh, "swallowed the lake Meng," i.e., was a marvel of erudition.

His records are a mine of curious facts. The names of places, un fortunately, cannot always be identified. Whore, for instance, was Hilo, where men twelve centuries ago paid a gold piece to see the skull-bone of Tathhgata, and where, though the "charges are heavy," as the prudent Chinese observed, the worshippers were numerous ? Professor Beal has furnished his translation

throughout with explanatory notes.—The Life of the Buddha,

translated from Tibetan works by W. Woodville Rockhill.—The Scinkhya Aphorism of Kapila, translated by James R. Ballan tyne, LL.D., " a third edition."—A Sketch of the Modern Languages of Africa, by Robert Needham Cast, 2 vols. Mr. Cost accompanies his work, a monument of laborious industry to which we would gladly give a notice adequate to its merits, by a language-map constructed by Mr. E. G. Ravenbill. The map is in two parts, relating to the northern and southern parts of the Continent respectively, the dividing line being somewhere near the Equator. Mr. Ravenhill finds six divisions, two of which he calls "families," the Semitic and the Nate ; and four "groups," the Hamitic, Naba-Fulah, Negro, and Hottentot-BushMan. In Northern Africa the Semitic, Hamitic, and Negro chiefly prevail, the last of these three being much dotted about with the Nuba-Fulab, which has its chief seat in the Nyam-Nyam country, and in the region of the Kwafi and Masai. The 13tiutu family occupies by far the larger proportion of the southern diviiion of the Continent, the Hottentot Bushman having the south-western portion, with some outlying settle.

meats, one of these being as far north as the Equator, viz., the Pygmies, who live near Stanley Falls.—We have also received The Englishman's Bible, Part I., Genesis-Deuterdnomy. By Thomas

Newberry. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—Biblical Thesaurus, by the Right Rev. J. Hellmuth ; Genesis (Hodder and Stoughton), described as " a literal translation and critical analysis of every word in the original language of the Old Testament, with explanatory notes." A gigantic work, Genesis alone occupying nearly four hundred pages of the largest octavo size.—Mind in Matter: a Short Argument on Theism. By the Rev. Jae. Tait. (Griffin and Co.)—The Origin of C'ultirated Plants. By Alphonse de Candolle. (C. K. Paul and Co.)—Plants are divided according as they are cultivated for roots, &o., stems or leaves, flowers or organs developing them, fruit or seeds, and the results are summed-up in a most interesting table. We owe, it seems, the peach and the apricot to China, the olive to Syria, and wheat to the region of the Euphrates. The origin of the garden-pea is doubtful, as, indeed, is the origin of many other plants. The volume belongs to the "International Scientific Series."—The Discoveries of America. By Arthur James Weise, M.A. (Bentley and Son.) What to Do with Our Girls, by A. T. Vanderbilt (Houlston and Sons), a " complete and authentic handbook of all employments,. obtained from Government, official, and other sources."—Bars to British Unity. By T. D. Wanliss. (W. Paterson, Edinburgh.)— The Field of Honor, by Major Ben C. Truman (F. Ford, Howard, and Hulvert, New York), "a complete and comprehensive ac

count of duelling in all countries."—On Mammalian Descent : the Hunterian Lectures for 1884. By W. Kitchen Parker, F.R.S. (Griffin and Co.)—Manitat of Diseases of the Ear. By Thomas Barr, M.D. (Maelehose, Glasgow.)--Tert-book of Zoology. By Dr. C. Claus, translated and edited by Adam Sedgwick, M.A., with the assistance of F. G. Heathoote, B.A. (W. Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)—The True Theory of the Sun. By Thomas Barnett. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.) —Metaphysica Nova : a Return to Dualism. By Scotus Novanticus. (Williams and Norgate.)— Ravignan's Last Retreat. Translated from the French. By F. M`Donoth Mahony. (Barns and Oates.)—Are Pastoria. By F. Parnell. A third edition. (Rivingtons.)-:--Of new editions there are :—Gurney's Shorthand (Butterworths) ; First Principles of Natural Philosophy, by William Myna Lyons (J. Van" Voorst) ; India, the Land of the People, by Sir James Caird (Cassell and Co.) ; The Prayer-book, with Scripture Proofs and .Historical Notes, by Theodore Worgman, M.A. (Bemrose and Sons) ;

Been a-Gipsying, by George Smith, of Coalville (T. Fisher Unwin) ; Olasforgil, the Princess of Brefney ; a Historical Romance of 1152-1172, by the Author of "The Last Earl of Desmond," &c. (Longmans).—We have also to mention "the fourth English edition, newly translated from the fifteenth German edition, of Force and Matter. By Professor Ludwig Buchner, M.D.

(Asher and Co.) • We have received from the Fine Art Society a portrait of Professor Huxley, by Mr. John Collier, etched by Flameng,—a portrait of which it is not easy to speak too highly. It is Professor Huxley himself, and in his most interesting aspect. The skull which he is handling is intended, we suppose, to be the snbject of his meditations; but for our own parts we should have supposed, from the expression on hisface, that his mind had taken flight to a higher region than that of the brain.