... * THE science of religion, though in a certain sense coeval with the first attempts to solve the problem of existence, is essentially a product of modern times. The theories, e.g., of Demokritus and Parmenides as to the ultimate cause of being, or of Anaxagoras, rising from the materialistic and pantheistic notions of the Ionians and the Eleatics to a more spiritual conception of the primal ...

... Don Garcia in England. By George Windle Sandys. (Samuel Tinsley and Co.) The author of this volume writes a preface upon the binding, in which he observes that his work is soberly bound in black to signify that its contents are of a solemn and serious character. The black, moreover, is slightly relieved by red to indicate that the book does not deal only with the more serious aspects of ...

... THE autumn season at Her Majesty's Theatre began auspiciously enough on Saturday night with a representation of Verdi's latest and in many respects finest opera, Aida. This thoroughly Egyptian work-based on an Egyptian subject; introducing in some of the scenes Egyptian melodies, in others original melodies played on Egyptian instruments; adorned with characteristic Egyptian scenery; and ...

... * WE desire to call attention to an account lately published in Paris of a Persian embassy to Khwarizrn, or Khiva, in 185 1. It is a translation from the Ambassador's own narrative; but M. Schefer, a good practical Oriental scholar, has put his text into very readable French, and facilitated its general comprehension by an introduction and many sensible notes. Of course there is much in the ...

... The Brook: a Poem. By Sophia Lydia Walters. (C. Kegan Paul and Co.) The author of this strange poem forgets that verse, like prose, should have a meaning, and that the most fantastic freaks of fancy are not inde. pendent of the laws that govern language. The fairy shapes and voices that appear and sing in this volume prefer nonsense to sense; and the nonsense is cast into rhythmical forms ...

... The Marvellous House; or, The Bishop's Enigma. A Story for Children, founded on a Riddle by Bishop Wilberforce. By Henry C. Linstead. With an Introduction by Professor Burrows. (Griffith and Farran.) Bishop Wilberforce's rhyming riddle about the human body is here thrown into the shape of a pretty story for children, which contains such amplifications and episodes as children are likely to ...

... My Life as an Angler. By William Henderson. (Satchel], Peyton, and Co.). When Izaak Walton in the year 1653 brought out that immortal work,_ The Compleat Angler, there were in existence perhaps some half-dozen works on angling. The earliest of all, and of which we have a record, is that of Dame Juliana Bernes, published in the Boke of St. Albans in i496.- Leonard Mascall, Gervase Markham, ...

... APART from concerts of the promenade pattern, which serve as a sort of transition from the operatic performances of summer to the concerts of winter, the first notes of autumn music are usually to be heard at the Crystal Palace; and the twenty-fourth series of the famous Saturday concerts began last week. Of the general scheme no better account can be given than in the words of the ...

... Simple English Poems. English Literature for Junior Classes; in Four Parts. Edited by H. Courthope Bowen, M.A. Parts I. and II. (C. Kegam Paul and Co.) Mr. Bowen is a schoolmaster, and ought perhaps to know better than his critics are likely to do what kind of poetical entertainment and instruction is best fitted for young pupils. The poems gathered here,' he writes, are meant to be ...

... RA YAH BROOKE. * THE love of adventure combined with a high capacity for controlling and . civilizing savage or semi-savage races which distinguishes Englishmen has rarely attained fuller development than in the person of the hero of this imemoir. Brooke was a man to whom some people in this country did persistent injustice, and Mr. Gladstone's strange inability to see more than .one side of a ...

... MID a clamour as of Babel, Speakers weak and speakers able Agitate the mob unstable, Swift to bless or ban. 'Where in all this platform-spouting, Where in this election-touting, Should a Liberal, misdoubting, Seek his party's plan? Hark ! I hear the voice of Baxter She 'd recall us if we axed her, England, for we never taxed her; And we never would, Though the army and the navy, Under stress ...

... THIE PLEA FOR A NA TIONAL THEA TRE. THE British theatre has suddenly become one of the main topics of discussion in the press and on the platform, in the pulpit, and at public meetings. What first began the debate was a series of complaints against the poverty and disorganization of the drama in England. On the one hand, it was said there is a scarcity of plays; and on the other, a lack of ...