CURRENT LITERATURE.
The History o/ I-ndia. By J. C. Marshman. Abridged. (Black- wood.)—We reviewed the larger edition of this history on its appearance at considerable length, and with decided appreciation. This abridg- ment, prepared, like the larger work, for the Indian Universities, appears to have been moat patiently and carefully done, and will attract people who are not students. There is, as far as we know, no book of the size which gives in so pleasant a manner an outline of that general history of India, Hindoo period, Mohammedan period, and English period—which so many Englishmen desire to know, and shrink from studying because of the great labour involved. Any one can master this volume, abridged from a work which was the result of the studies and labour of a life, in a week, and when he has done it, will know the salient facts of Indian history as completely as he knows those of any other country, and may be sure of this,—that he knows them as they are as yet understood by the best-informed. Whether even the best-informed know much of the true history of either Hindoo or Mohammedan India, which has never yet been fairly subjected to modern dissolvent criticism, may be doubted, but what they have accumulated Mr. Marshinan has used, with the judgment of a man who has lived years among the people whose annals so interest him. The abridgment is supplied with a care- ful index, marginal dates, and a list of all the proper names which it is now the mode in India to write in the transliteral form. We do not appreciate the wisdom of writing Miani for Meeanee, or Puri for Pooree, or Kalat for Khelat, or Khaibar for Khyber, or Chanar for Chnnar, holding it nearly as sensible for an Englishman to write Pares for Paris or Wien for Vienna, but that is no doubt ultra-conservatism; but still this method is coming into use, and Mr. Marshman's glossary will help those who have to study Indian gazettes.
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