CURRENT LITERATURE.

The Quarterly Review. January. This number contains no article treating distinctively of party politics, which, indeed, to borrow a phrase from a great Latin historian, must now to a Tory review be a subjectmatter neither "fertile nor secure." Bat political questions crop up nevertheless in many of the essays, questions familiar for the most part to our readers, and which they will not care to have discussed again. The subject of the Naval administration of the Conservatives may well be postponed to a time when it may be considered " with the candour and impartiality of history." These qualities, again, we are not likely to find in the pages of the Quarterly when Mr. Gladstone's autobiography has to be discussed, though it is only fair to say that we discern no traces of an unkindly or ungenerous spirit. Mr. Trench's "Realities of Irish Life" is of coarse reviewed in a sense entirely opposed to the opinion which was recently expressed in this journal. A. writer whose testimony would go to prove that nothing but revolution will satisfy the Irish people is welcomed by the opponents of Reform. The reviewer of Mr. Yonge's "Lord Liverpool " takes us into the safer "historical ground." It is evident that he is thoroughly well versed in the subject of the Georgian statesmen, and he forms an estimate which, though favourable, is not exaggerated, of the merits of his hero. Lord Liverpool may be described as the last Tory premier who died in the odour of party sanctity ; but he passed away before the great questions which still agitate us had assumed a definite shape, and we may already judge him with something of the impartiality of posterity. A very considerable part of the number is occupied by a notice of the "Lives of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham, by Lord Campbell ;" the work, it is evident, of one who is well acquainted with his subject, has known many of the men whom he mentions, and can supplement and, as may be readily believed by those who know the character of Lord Campbell's writings, often correct the narrative of his author. His attempt to vindicate the consistency of Lord Lyndhurst must, indeed, be pronounced a failure. There is no want of charity in saying that that great man took up his political position without a vestige of conviction. He was, like Dagaid Dalgatty, ready to fight for the side that secured him ; and, when once secured, obstinately faithful to his party, and that under circumstances which must have tried him far more than they tried the more obtuse intelligence of those with whom he acted. The present generation remembers him in his serene and dignified old ago, an old age more singularly felicitous and ennobling, when we compare it with his earlier career, than any which we can recall. But if the writer takes, as we must think, a view in some respects too favourable of Lord Lyndhurst, he is particularly fair in dealing with Lord Brougham, whose character and ability he appreciates very justly. The article is thoroughly interesting. If anything could be hoped from exposing the ignorance and audacity of the Ritualists, we should also recommend the article on that subject. It singles out, we observe, two arch offenders, on whom we have already expressed our opinion pretty freely, Dr. Littledale and Mr. Blenkinsopp ; noting, in particular, that Mr. Bien kinsopp imagines Anselm (died 1109) to have been contemporary with Innocent III. (born 1160).

Comprehension of Dissenters. By the Rev. J. Crompton, M.A. (W. Macintosh.)—This is a letter addressed by Mr. Crompton, who calls himself a " Dissenter against my will," to an association intended to promote unity "on the basis of National Church." No one, we should think) could read without being interested and touched ; some, we hope, will even be convinced. Mr. Crompton tells us that he is descended, on both sides, from ministers ejected in 1662 ; that he feels that the protest which was then made has done its work, that he wishes to return from exile to the Church iu which he believes that his true home is to be found. He finds a stumblingblock in the Athanasian Creed; not in its doctrine, for he has relinquished the Unitarian views in which he was brought up, and which he himself preached for some years, but in the damnatory clauses. He brings together with considerable effect the various explanations which Liberal Churchmen have given of these sentences, and points out how utterly unsatisfactory they are. But the strongest point which ho makes is his argument from the admission of the American Bishops to the Anglican Conference at Lambeth. The American Church has struck the Athanasian Creed out of its prayer-book ; yet they are allowed not only casually to officiate, but to take part with equal voice in a Synod. Why should not the same liberty be extended to Englishmen ? We see no answer to this. As to Mr. Crompton's scruples, which, of course, derive their force from his wishing to continue his clerical office, we respect them without, however,, fully acknowledging their validity, at least for clergymen who are already in the Church. The form of the document, a statement, not the absolute "I believe " of the other creeds, is practically a sort of relief. It enables men, in a way, to take refugeaSte historical method." We feel that we are reading a passage

of Ch 'story. It can hardly be hoped that Mr. Crompton will set much value on this reasoning, which he will probably class with other well-meant attempts at explanation. But we can at least assure him that he commands the sympathy of a party that is daily increasing in numbers and power. Surely our Church, which, to use a Gospel simile, should be like a net, is but ill made when it keeps such good fish out !

The Solace of a Solitaire. By Mary Ann Kelty. (Triibner.)—The first sentence in this book runs thus :—" I think it is Voltaire who, in his epigrammatic way, observes that ' solitude is delightful ; but it is desirable to have some one at hand to sympathize in the pleasure it affords you,'—a curious "flattening-down" of the real epigram. And the book is exceedingly flat throughout ; the work, it would seem, of a kindly, possibly clever old lady, whose reminiscences of men and things (she lived at Cambridge in her youth) would very likely be entertaining, but who in print is sorely trying. She finds her "solace " in "recording facts and feelings," and among them is one passage of autobiography to which it probably would not be easy to find a parallel, a most circumstantial account of how she was jilted by an undergraduate. The History of Canada, from its First Discovery to the Present Time. By John MacMullen, Esq. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This is a volume which, without possessing much literary value, is a meritorious and useful work. It is a collection of a great number of facts which have probably never been put together before, some of them very difficult of access, most of them, it is no exaggeration to say, wholly unknown to ordinary readers. Few Englishmen know anything about the history of Canada in the days when it was a French province, yet it possesses an interest and importance which are not by any means obsolete. The average amount of knowledge, again, concerning the campaigns of 1813-14 reaches to little beyond the combat between the Shannon and Chesapeake, yet there was some bard fighting on land which deserves not to be forgotten. We mean no dispraise of Mr. MacMullen when we say that he is intensely colonial. On the contrary, seeing that in most of what we read on these subjects the imperial point of view is taken, this gives a special value to his work. He seems to set a certain value on the British connection, but to have a much stronger feeling against annexation by the United States. He displays, indeed, to his neighbours what Tacitus describes and accounts for by his wonderful phrase, " Uno amne discretis connexwn odium." The St. Lawrence, it seems, is not broad enough to create the civility of strangers. We think that the author might have advantageously stopped short of the period to which he has brought down his work. Contemporary history is always a very difficult task, and it is not made more easy to one who writes in the midst of the pettier interests and more bitter animosities of a small community. The last sentence of this history, compared with what we have been reading during the last six months, is a warning against the attempt to record events which are not completed. "The great project of confederation was at length finally and happily settled, and the morning voice of a new people was heard among the nations of the earth."

A Story of Two Cousins. By Lady Emily Ponsonby. 1 vol. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)—This is the story of an inheritance, told with some skill, but painful and, we think, almost morbid in tone. The title-page bears the motto, "Lead us not into temptation ;" the tale is meant to illustrate it, and to enforce the lesson of how good resolves should be made. One of the two heroes makes such good resolves. " They were made," we are told, " with the fear of God before his oyes." We take it that they could not be mado under better conditions, and we do not understand the author when she blames them because "the resolves were resolves, not prayers." Purposes formed "with the fear of God before their eyes " have surely in them all that is of the essence of prayer. The end of it is that the hero is made to fall before a temptation which, we should say, a man of ordinary honour, not supported by any strong religious feeling, would have resisted. What this temptation was we shall, for fear of spoiling the interest, leave the reader to discover for himself. If he finds a difficulty in getting through the story, which we scarcely anticipate, ho will bo consoled by finding that there is but one volume.

The Metaphors of St. Paul. By John S. Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester. (Strahan.)—This little book may be reckoned among the recreations of a divine who has done a great deal of serious work in the way of Biblical study, and has done it very well. Dr. Howson takes four subjects, " Roman Soldiers," "Classical Architecture," "Ancient Agriculture," and "Greek Games," and shows how they suggest some of St. Paul's most striking metaphors. The four are treated in as many chapters, and of these the first and the fourth strike us as being particularly good. St. Paul borrows, it is true, many illustrations from agricultural and architectural matters; but these hardly possess the picturesqueness of those which he takes from military affairs, and from the national games of Greece ; nor is there any passage connected with the former which can be altogether ranked with the two famous appeals which begin, "Put ye on the whole armour of God," and "Know ye not that they which run in a race " The most common fault of a book of this kind is a tendency to put a meaning into passages which is not really there. Dr. Howson seems wholly free from it. His applications are ingenious, to many readers they will be novel, but they are never strained or far-fetched. He is probably right, for instance, in suggesting that "the pulling down of strongholds4" in 2 Cor. x. 3-6, refers to the destruction of the Cilician hill forts, of which ho must have heard from his relatives in Tarsus. Dr. Howson is sometimes didactic, always with plenty of good sense and good taste ; sometimes he takes opportunity of giving interpretations which are of great worth. We would specially express our gratitude for what he says of two very difficult passages (2 Tim. ii. 20-21, and Rom. ix. 21-23), which bear on the subject of predestination. Once or twice, indeed, we feel constrained to differ from him. The words "Sown in corruption," &c., in 1. Cor. xv., surely refer not to the putting of a seed into the ground, which would be but an accidental resemblance, but to the processes of human birth. On another matter, we think that he is scarcely correct. Rome was certainly a great military monarchy, but it can scarcely be correct that, as Dr. Howson suggests, the sight of soldiers was anything like as common in the provincial towns as it is now on the Continent. All the Roman provinces were held by a force which was not equal to the present French Army. St. Paul, however, had personally sufficient experience of soldiers to make military metaphors very ready to his use.

Reminiscences of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. By Elise Polko.

Translated by Lady Wallace. (Longmans.)—This is the merest sentimental froth, and reading it will not cause any one either pleasure or profit. It is long since we have been so much disappointed with a book from which we expected so much. Wo learn literally nothing about Mendelssohn from it, there are hardly more than two or three anecdotes that have either point or novelty in them ; and tho descriptions of Mendelssohn's works are too vague to convey any idea, save that the writer feels an unreasoning rapture. The few original letters given by Lady Wallace at the end of the book are more valuable than all the rest of the contents, but that is not saying much ; nor are they sufficiently important to demand a detailed examination.

On the Brink. A Novel. By Sir Francis Vincent, Bart. 3 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)—The stamp of this novel is respectable mediocrity. It belongs to what Mr. Lewes calls the "cheap cotton goods of literature," and must be estimated by the wants of ordinary novelreaders rather than from a critical standing-point. The best feature of the tale is a moderation of tone throughout. The author is not in any sense of the word an artist, his work is simply a manufacture, but the parts are welded together with skill, and the characters move and speak with a certain freedom and consistency. The title of the story is more sensational than the story itself. We have not a moment's fear that Lady Tenby, who is linked to a bad husband, and loves the friend of her childhood, Sir Arthur Compton, will overstep the bounds of virtue; or that the knight who has loved her from her childhood, and is represented as a paragon of goodness and sound sense, will be the man to lead her astray. Even Lord Tenby himself, from whom his wife is legally separated, but not divorced, expresses a perfect confidence in Sir Arthur, and it is not until this erratic lord is proved guilty of bigamy, and tho marriage becomes void, that he shows the first symptom of jealousy. But if the novel will be read without excitement, it will not be read without a considerable degree of interest. The plot moves slowly, but it does not halt, and it may at least be said that On the Brink is as good as the average novels which enjoy a brief circulation at Mudie's, and then depart no one knows whither.

The Sling and the Stone. Vol. III. For the year 1868. By Charles Voysey, B.A. (Triibuer.)—Our readers probably know by this time what manner of book The Sling and the Stone is, and wo may pass by this volume with a very brief notice. It is idle to argue with Mr. Voysey. He evidently thinks that thoro is something edifying in the spectacle of a priest reading the sacred books of his religion in one part of his church, and then passing to another to characterize their contents by such epithets as false, barbarous, and spiteful. Nor can he conceive that there are circumstances under which it may become dishonourable to proclaim convictions that are honestly held. We shall make ono remark only, viz., that Mr. Voysey wholly ignores any theology but the grossest forms of popular belief. If he " challenges " them, well, let him fight the battle ; if he maintains that there is not a genuine Christian belief which wholl, repudiates these dogmas, he has strangely forgotten teaching which h once respected. It is more pleasant to say that there is much in th' volume which may be road not only without offence, but with gre

and that Mr. Voysey's style is, as usual, singularly pure a, lucid.

The Rector and his Friends. Dialogues on Some of the Lcadi Religious Questions of' the Day. (Bell and Daldy.)—The author dc not manage his dialogue very skilfully. It is particularly cumbrov in the few passages where it has a colloquial character; argume naturally takes a more bookish form, and can bo more easily give But then it must be allowed that the discussion is conducted w14. studious fairness. Every one has as good an innings as the writer can give him, and if he fails does not fail from want of good-will in the puller of the strings. The interlocutors are, for the most part, Chester, a young well-educated squire; Wilford and Preston, both country parsons, the former a High Churchman, the latter a Moderate ; and Courtenay, a London barrister, somewhat given to rationalism. Courtonay is, perhaps, the weakest of the four. Possibly the writer never really sympathizes with him, whereas he does from time to time with one or other of his antagonists ; with Wilford, for instance, about tho increase of the Episcopate, and with Preston about the Real Presence. There is plenty of sound sense in the book, if there is nothing very striking, but to us the form is peculiarly irritating. It is provoking to find the talkers saying foolish things and passing unrebukod. In the first dialogue, on "Ritualism," for instance, the Ritualist, Mr. Stockbridge (who appears there for one occasion only with an Evangelical, Mr. Stirling, and is dismissed as unmanageable), is not properly trounced for saying that the Catholic mind recognizes an Eucharistic sentiment in the cloak, pc0.6”), left by St. Paul at Treas. Again, in the dialogue on the "Reel Presence," Wilford says, "the wicked eat the body and blood of Christ," and escapes being confronted with the title of the Twenty-Ninth Article " Of the wicked, which oat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper."

The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Globe edition, with biographical introduction by Professor Masson. (Macmillan.)—Thero is not much more to say about this volume than that it is neat, well and clearly printed, and that it contains in a convenient compass all the

works of Goldsmith any one cares to have. Professor Masson's life is fairly succinct, though it is marked by some of his faults of style and irregularities of thought which he mistakes for originalities. Perhaps these characteristics obtrude themselves upon us more forcibly in a short work than in a long one, but they are more safe from criticism. We may well be grateful for such a handy edition of Goldsmith, without scanning tho editor's work too closely.

Ralph the Bailiff, and other Tales. By the Author of Lady Audleys Secret. (Ward, Lock, and Tyler.)—These short stories boar a great family resemblance to Miss Braddon's longer tales, and are not made more attractive by it, just as a child with strongly marked features is seldom very pleasing in appearance. "Ralph the Bailiff" presents the wellknown appearance. We see a young man returning from the funeral of his brother. He is gloomy and absent, and we know at once that there has been foul play. Presently the accomplice and tyrant of the criminal appears in an ever present bailiff. Then comes in a wife, and we watch with anxiety whether she will make another victim. "Lost and Found " is perhaps a better story. Of course there is a murder in it ; but there is this excuse for it, that it saves the hero from committing a bigamy. At all events, we do not get the two crimes together, and that is something. On the whole, Miss Braddon's book is not difficult to read, and that is about as much as she now cares to aim at.

Table Traits, with Something on Them. By Dr. Doran. (Bentley.)— Table Traits deserves the success of a fourth edition, which it appears to have reached. It first appeared many years ago, when the field of anecdote, which its ingenious author has since traversed so diligently, was still a XE//4ZP axipalos, and it contains a great variety of good stories about eating and drinking.

Nsw EDITIONS.—Stories of the Prairie. Selected from the works of James Fennimore Cooper. (Sampson Low and Co.)—This is a companion volume to Stories of the Woods and Stories of the Sea, both selections from the same author. "Leather-Stocking" is by far the best character that Cooper ever conceived ; and these stories, for the most part, concern him. They will be welcome to readers who have not the opportunity of enjoying the original tales. The Heroes, by Charles Kingsley (Macmillan), appears in a new edition with very pretty illustrations, which have a genuinely classical look. We have also new editions of theso books :—Mrs. Jameson's Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns (Routledge). The lives are twelve in number, and range from Semiramis to Catherine IL of Russia; Rome and the Early Christians, by the Rev. W. Ware (Warne), a continuation of the same author's Zenobia, inferior in interest to that book, as indeed it could not fail to be, but well worth reading. The Lances of Lynwood, by the Author of The Heir of Redclyffe ; Peranzabuloe, or the Lost Church Found by the Rev. C. T. Collins Trelawny, M.A. (Rivington), a volume which takes the occasion of antiquarian discovery to maintain with great vigour the independence and antiquity of the English Church ; and The Fundamental Truths of Christianity, translated from the German of Professor C. Luthardt, by Sophia Taylor (T. and T. Clark). We have also received The Poetical Works of Scott, a volume of the Chandos Classics (Warne), containing G40 clearly printed pages, and including all the tuthor's works except three of his dramas and a few short podms ; and I. of Longfellow's Poems, edited and prefaced by Robert Buchanan Minton), containing the narrative poems and ballads.

We have received two volumes, moderate in price and agreeable in appearance, of Low's Copyright Series of American Authors (Sampson Low and Co.) Mr. Holmes' Guardian Angel is too well known to ,all for any criticism, but our readers ought to know that it is accessible .n a very convenient form. Haunted Hearts, by the Author of the Lamplighter, is new to us. It is a story of life in New Jersey, and is well worth reading. The story is well told, and there is much vigour and freshness in the drawing of character. The sketch of the old Puritan widow is fairly conceived. Judging by our somewhat indistinct recollections of the Lamplighter, we note considerable advance in breadth and power. There is genuine dramatic force in the passion of love and horror with which the two women strive to screen the supposed murderer, and much pathos and truth in the story of the last hours of the penitent, reclaimed from sin, but scarcely roused to higher thoughts, who dies in the unwavering faith that she cannot be separated from the dead child for whom she knows that she has felt a pure, genuine love. The episode recalls, but not by anything like imitation, one of the most pathetic passages in lfary Barton, the story of Hester.