... * CAPTAIN COLVILE is apparently one of that numerous and rather useful class of Guardsmen who utilize their tolerably frequent leave by exploring all sorts of out-of-the-way countries, not without a view to other things besides sport and adventure. The country in which the expedition recorded in this volume took place is a very out-of-the-way one, though it is not much farther from London than ...

... FRA NCZS DEA K. * THERE is a certain propriety in the fact that the first formal biography that is something more than brochure, panegyric, or newspaper article of the Hurgarian statesman Francis Deak appears in England from an English pen. Various historical causes which have often been referred to have produced striking and real analogies between English and Hungarian constitutionalism ...

... c INDIA N FAIR Y TALES. * -IN more respects than one this is a very remarkable and interesting little book. Without any knowledge of the circumstances under which it was produced, any one at all familiar with the subject would perceive almost at a glance that he had before him a genuine and unsophisticated con- -tribution to the literature of what is now generally known as folk- lore. This ...

... * As a novel Mary Anerley is dull. As a book, as the literary outcome of a very humorous and original mind, it is readable and even interesting. Time was when Mr. Blackmore's stories were primarily attractive in their capacity as works of fiction. In the Maid of Sker, in the history of Girt Jan Ridd, and lovely Lorna Doone, in Clara Vaughan, the main interest is romantic, ...

... 1 Round Europe with the Crowd. By J. Maggs. (London: W. H. Allen and Co.) This is a harmless book. The writer has been quite successful in his purpose, which apparently was to show busin ss people who mope at home what fun it is to travel, how instructive also travellin7 may occasionally become, and what openings it affords, when you are tired of seeing the comic side of things, for moral ...

... * TniE value of Professor Jebb's little book must be measured in the inverse ratio to its size. It conveys, indeed, in a small compass a surprising amount of interesting and vivid knowledge in the pleasantest way conceivable. It is at once a book of history, a book of travels, and a book of contemporary social study as applied to Greece. It is needless to say that the historical portion is ...

... FRENCH FAIR Y TALES. f A riew years ago the collectors and comparers of fairy tales found but few published in French. There were, of course, the Contes of Perrault and ,of Madame d'Aulnoy, and the vast collection of the Cabinet des 16es. But all these stories had been subjected to literary treatment. They were not directly taken from the lips of the people, and, save for -one or two legends ...

... KOSSUIH'S MEMOIRS. WHEN the Hungarian statesman Francis Dedk exhorted his countrymen to love their country more than they hated its enemies, and to throw a veil over the past, the winged word went forth through the length and breadth of the land that the coarsest horse-cloth that could be found would not be too thick for the purpose. On the whole, the Hungarian nation in this, as on most ...

... % VIDA is written in excellent Scotch, and in careful, sober, and expressive -English. It abounds in a certain grave and earnest sweetness, a certain serious charm. It contains many touches of portraiture of uncommon force and excellence. Moreover, every page of it is proof that the author is not only blameless of vulgarity but has the quality of real distinction, both of sentiment and ...

... ENGLISH LETTLrPS.* A CRITIC is supposed, if only by etymological courtesy, to be a judge; and a judge ought to be entirely unprejudiced in his decisions by any pleasure or benefit which he receives from the case under his consideration. Fortu- nately, however, the mere fact that a book can give pleasure to its readers is sufficient ground for speaking well of it; and this ground exists in ...

... THE BRAIN AS AN ORGAN OF HIND.* AMONG the scientific problems of the hour those of nervous physiology have a special interest for the general reader. This seems to be clearly illustrated in the fact that men of science not engaged in this branch of inquiry are now and again tempted for the sake of popular effect to enlarge on the subjects belonging to it. To discourse learnedly on the ...

... TYWENTY-TWO BALLADES.* THERE is a sufficiently hackneyed comparison of literature to a banquet spread out before the reader. Perhaps the comparison might without too much fancifulness be carried out in detail a little further, and then the English guest at the feast of his country's letters might, if he were of a grumbling turn, as guests frequently are, complain of some deficiencies. The ...