Exhibition of Old Masters at Burlington House. The prospectus of this serial for 1882 promises contributions from several galleries not yet touched. These are Hampton Court, Apsley House, Blenheim, Panshanger, Cardiff Castle, and the Duke of Devonshire's gallery at Chiswick. An early part will contain miniatures of the fifth Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and their children, all by Cosway, from the collections of the Queen, the Duke of Sutherland, and Lady Taunton. MR. MARSHALL, the American engraver, whose plates of Washington and Lincoln are recognised as the highest achievements of the art which America has yet produced, has just finished a portrait of Mr. Longfellow, which will be published by Mr. George Barrie, of Philadelphia. The characteristic of Mr. Marshall's art, apart from his technical skill with the burin, is that he works neither from the picture of another nor from the life, but from his own rough oil-painting and modelling in clay. The portrait is his own accomplishment, no less than the plate. The Longfellow, of which the publisher has sent us a reduced photographic reproduction, is on the scale of twenty-three by thirty-one inches, and the head is surrounded with a series of vignettes, representing familiar scenes from the poems. AN important serial publication is announced by the well-known art-publishing firm of Adolf Gutbier, of Dresden, with the support of the Saxon Government. It is entitled Kupferstiche nach Werken neuerer Meister in der Königlichen Gemälde Gallerie zu Dresden. Each part will contain three engravings, with a descriptive text by Dr. Wilhelm Rossmann. For the first part are promised A. Calame's Der Waldstrom, engraved by L. Friedrich; F. Pauwels' Im Hospital, by Th. Lauger; and G. A. Kuntz's Gruss aus der Welt, by E. Büchel. THE "livre d'étrennes" that M. A. Quantin announces for this season is entitled L Art à travers les Mours, by M. Henry Havard, with illustrations by M. Ch. Goutzwiller. It will be divided into two parts, the one giving a general history of art, the other a history of French art. M. Henry Havard, who is already favourably known for his Merveilles de l'Art hollandais been engaged upon the present work for the and his La Faïence de Delft, is said to have past twelve years. The illustrations will include forty plates and more than 250 wood cuts. WE understand that the Queen has become the purchaser of a picture entitled Sunflowers, by Miss Emily Stones, a young lady artist, niece of Sir Sydney Waterlow, M.P. UNDER the title of Les Catacombes de Rome, the firm of MM. V. Morel et Cie., of Paris, gravure process. century representing famous heroes and scenes THE STAGE. Recently published, price 68. By WILLIAM WILKINS. "Of our living poets who have risen out of the crowd of taneous and rich a gift of song, so graceful a diction, such London: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & Co., 1, Paternoster-square. SEA to the WEST of GREENLAND. W. PERCY SLADEN, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c. THE re-opening of the Haymarket has not been A LAKE-SIDE BY THE HOME. EDITOR OF "ARROWS OF THE CHACE." THE ART JOURNAL of NOVEMBER and DECEMBER contains Two Illustrated Papers under the above heading, The Illustrations are as follows: PORTRAIT OF MR. RUSKIN. 26, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW. LOGICAL INSTITUTE of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND. Now ready, with Nine Coloured and Nine Blank Maps, 4to, cloth, 3. a seuse it is from Lolotte; but there was so THE Vaudeville Theatre has strengthened its MACDONELL. By A. H. Is admirab y adapted to its purpose. Now ready, fcap. 8vo, cloth, 3s. QUESTIONS London, 1844-1881. the Matriculation Examinations of the University of Collected and Arrauged by F. W. LEVA, London: H. K. LEWIS, 136, Gower-street, W.C. FR.A.S., Assistant-Master in University College school, Lordon, on HISTORY and GEO Just published, fcap. 9vo, 2s. 6d. and of a musical after piece-Marriage Bells of the QUESTIONS in SCOTTISH RECORD PUBLICATIONS. at the Princess's, such as it is it is thoroughly CALENDAR of DOCUMENTS relating to preserved in the Public Record Office, London, VƏLİ, A.D. 1008-1272. Edited by JOSEPH BAIN, F.S.A. Scot., &c. Published b authority of the Lords Commissioners of H.M. Treasury, under the directi of the Deputy Clerk Register of Scotland. Edinburgh: A. & C. BLACK; DOUGLAS & FOULIS. London: LONGMANS & Co.; TRUBNER & Co. Oxford: PARKER & Co. Cambridge: MACMILLAN & Co. Dublin: A. THOM & CO. announce an important work upon the history deserved. Mr. Sims's people are not generally SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1881. No. 501, New Series. THE EDITOR cannot undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscript. It is particularly requested that all business letters regarding the supply of the paper, &c., may be addressed to the PUBLISHER, and not to the EDITOR. LITERATURE. Mary Stuart: a Tragedy. By A. C. Swinburne. (Chatto & Windus.) NOTHING is less welcome to any lover of literature than to suspect or to chronicle any failure of power in one of our leading writers. The pain, for instance, with which parts of Daniel Deronda were perused was largely due to this cause; with what sorrow, again, must Castle Dangerous have been read by the lovers of Old Mortality! And if something of this feeling has come upon the present writer in reading Mary Stuart, he can only say that it is with reluctance he has yielded to a conviction from which he would rejoice to be dislodged. But at present Mary Stuart does appear, on the whole, inferior to both its predecessors in the trilogy-Chaste lard and Bothwell. It has not that white heat of passion that made Chastelard such fascinating, if not exactly pleasant, reading. It has not the "climbing ardour" and energy of Bothwell-that overmastering fervour which made Darnley's wretched self poetical. and Bothwell the eloquent impersonation of ambition-which made us almost hear John Knox thunder against the Queen, and almost stand with her by the shore of the Solway and see her "depart From this distempered and unnatural earth That casts me out unmothered, and go forth On this grey sterile bitter gleaming sea With neither tears nor laughter, but a heart That from the softest temper of its blood Is turned to fire and iron." piece; and it is impossible not to recognise the true tragic nexus in Mary Beaton's situation as the constant attendant, even unto the end, of her who gave Chastelard to death that Chastelard whom passion for the fickle Queen made blind and deaf to the lifelong devotion of Mary Beaton. The finest passage, on the whole, in this drama is that where she tells, in soliloquy, this bitter and undying sorrow (act II., sc. ii., p. 77) just before the Queen's final trial. "MARY B. Here looms on me the landmark of my life That I have looked for now some score of years From that day forth when even these eyes beheld tions. Thence we return to Chartley, and finally to Tyburn, and the execution of Babington and his conspirators. The speech of one of them -Chidiock Tichborne-will be read with interest (pp. 88–90). The third act, "Burghley," represents the trial of Mary before Burghley, Bromley, and the other Commissioners at Fotheringay, and ends with her appeal for a hearing before the Queen herself, or Parliament. All through this act the historical charges against Mary are closely followed; but it possesses little poetical interest, though it is, perhaps, better adapted to the stage than any other part of the drama. The fourth act, "Elizabeth," contains the debate as to Mary's doom between Walsingham and Davison, and Elizabeth's dismissal of Belliévre and Châteauneuf, the French ambassadors, for presuming to warn, and even to threaten her with the vengeance of France if Mary be harmed. This scene is very spirited; and Elizabeth's final refusal (p. 138) to take any advice that savours of compulsion, Than love on earth had been to him. Chastelard-whether from friend or foe, gives the reader a I have not had the name upon my lips This is the character and history of Mary Beaton complete, as the poet has seen it, in one half-page. I cannot recal any passage of his writings where pity and sorrow has been more simply and truly expressed. ton, leader of the conspiracy against Elizabeth, The first act, named after Anthony Babingconsists of three scenes: the first, the meeting of the conspirators in Babington's house; the second, Mary's confinement at Chartley, in the care of Sir Amyas Paulet; the third, her treacherous removal to Tixall by the secret mission of Sir Thomas Gorges. The first scene, albeit somewhat over-long, is managed with great skill; the true conspirator's tone-the mutual suspicion, the bragging of the leader, the general desire to find another person to "bell the cat," the sauve-qui-peut at the end, are given with vivid force. With vivid idea of "her Majesty's marvellous wellhung tongue." This is her final admonition to her advisers (p. 140): "If I should say unto you that I mean To grant not your petition, by my faith Yet will I pray God lighten my dark mind luded to. The fifth and last act lies entirely at Fotheringay, and describes the arrival of the warrant, Mary's preparations for death, and the execution as witnessed by Mary Beaton and Barbara Mowbray from the gallery of the hall. Throughout, the poet follows If there be in Mary Stuart anything of equal regard to scene ii., one may suppose it to be history closely; yet he glorifies the tragic power with the last speeches of Mary in Bothwell, or Bothwell's soliloquy (act II., sc. xviii.), "The time is breathless," &c., or Knox's sermon, it has not been given to the present writer's eyes to detect it. In Mary Stuart we seem, like Mephistopheles on the Brocken, "all at once to have grown very old"-the wine of life is on the lees; the sense seems of captivity, failure, and imminent death, which could not tame the Queen, has to some extent tamed the poet, till his drama more like an eloquent reading of history than (to adopt a phrase of his own) a breath or pulse of the thing called poetry." It may be that the capacity of the subject, rather than that of the poet, gave out at this final stage. There is, perhaps, not matter for full trilogy in the character of Mary Stuart; one feels instinctively that of this last period Elizabeth should be the true "protagonist." And yet this was impossible to one who took, 18 Mr. Swinburne has done, the constant, hough hostile, devotion of Mary Beaton to he Queen of Scots as the key-note of his too late to object to Mr. Swinburne's treatment of such a subject as Elizabeth's alleged It is possible amours with her courtiers. that her rival, having received such reports, might have dwelt on them with the malicious gusto here represented. We all know that Mr. Swinburne has his prejudices against the "feuille de vigne à coller à sa phrase," scene with simple pathos, as where Mary has sent for Gorion, her French physician, and remains a moment alone "Time wears thin; They should not now play laggard; nay, he comes, The last that ever speaks alone with me Before my soul shall speak alone with God." And the final doom as here described has all head with which it is idle to argue. But, apart the power of Mr. Froude's account of it from all moral questions, poetry is not to be found in the linked ugliness, long drawn without his vindictiveness (pp. 202-3)out, of these imputations against Elizabeth's "BARB. And now they lift her veil up from her character. It is possible to say the thing without dwelling and brooding on the thing. Hamlet's grim and outspoken chiding of his mother manages a situation which might well be deemed impossible, with ten times more success than these pages of divorcecourt evidence. She lays between the block and her soft neck He strikes awry: she stirs not, Nay but now the contrary I had killed several, he said It is not, however, merely as a sportsman VOICE BELOW. So perish all found enemies of in the course of his sporting tours he was not the queen! ANOTHER VOICE. Amen. MARY B. I heard that very cry go up Far off long since to God, who answers here." I hardly think there will be two opinions as to the dignity of this "pity and terror," or the noble significance of Mary Beaton's last words. Let me follow Mr. Browning's aphorism "One can always leave off talking when one hears a master play." E. D. A. MORSHEAD. A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa. By Ir may safely be affirmed that since the days courses on the lion, the rhinoceros, and the twenty-two species of antelopes encountered. in the region he hunted over. Notwithstanding what Dutch hunters and others say to the contrary, he maintains that all the lions of South Africa belong to one and the same species; and the arguments with which he supports this view are well marshalled, and appear to be conclusive. His book, as a matter of course, abounds in hunting stories; and, as these are well told, spoils. His experience, however, had to be content with visiting the now hackneyed 66 tions such as these, to which Englishmen are "By bringing a better class of guns, powder, In consequence of these ill-advised restrictions upon British enterprise, trade in the far interior has almost come to an end, and most of the traders have been ruined. Their places are once more occupied by the Portuguese, respecting whose dealings with the natives Mr. Selous furnishes ample details, which make us shudder as we turn over the pages of his volume. He is no professional philanthropist, nor does he write for that section of the public which devours and blindly credits the narratives of missionaries. He furnishes names and dates, and leaves no room to doubt that persons holding official appointments from the Portuguese authorities carry on slave-hunting with an ardour and an amount of cruelty never surpassed on the Upper Nile or to the west of Tanganyika. To the south of the Zambeze there exist wide tracts of wilderness where the traces of maize-fields and clearings in the forest point to the existence, at some former period, of a considerable population driven away or annihilated by the ruthless Matabili. And now the same process of depopulation is going on to the north of the river, where the representatives of a Christian State, which, on an evil day for African humanity, took possession of terri tories too vast for its feeble grasp, rival the atrocities of slave-hunting Dongolawi and Wangwuana. E. Whymper and Miss A. B. Selous are The illustrations by Messrs. J. Smit and genuine and to the point, but the map leaves much to be desired. E. G. RAVENSTEIN. The History of Wallingford, in the County of IF the author of these two handsomely out of the ivory which he carried away as his I am proud to rank myself as one of that little formation, much of it of great value, and all body of English and Scotch men who, as traders of more or less interest, which may gratify and elephant-hunters in Central South Africa, the taste of severer students of history, while have certainly, whatever may be their feelings it will not so generally appeal to the symin other respects, kept up the name of English-pathies of ordinary readers of topographical men among the natives for all that is upright works. Mr. Hedges has evidently written In the words of Buckle, we are for the few, and not for the many. From the and honest. Howmass of material thus collected a popular and neither monks nor saints, but only men. ever, a Kafir who is owed money by one Englishman, perhaps the wages for a year's work, will extremely interesting history of Wallingtake a letter without a murmur to another ford might be written; and the present Englishman hundreds of miles away if he is told author has probably contented himself by his master that, upon delivering the letter, with providing this material, which may he will receive his payment. This fact speaks be manipulated hereafter by others. volumes to anyone who knows the crafty, sus- one who carefully examines his pages can There are, doubt that his labours have been earnest and picious character of the natives. you like; perhaps, a few Boer hunters in the interior to conscientious, and apparently thorough and whose word the Kafirs would trust, but very exhaustive, or refuse entire commendation of few; whereas on the Lower Zambeze, near Zumbo, you cannot get a native who has been in the his zeal and enthusiasm. His discussion of habit of dealing with the Portuguese to stir hand disputed points relating to the Roman period or foot in your service unless you pay him all is always fair and generous; and, if his conor a part of his wages in advance." clusions are not always instantly accepted, his "When I told the King that his elephants had not driven me out of the country, but that on N proofs and arguments will not fail to carry great weight. His own opinion is that Wallingford is identical with "Calleva Atrebatum" of the Roman Itineraries; and in support of this theory he presents an array of facts and suggestions which, if they do not absolutely compel conviction, at least force the reader to admit the strong probability that he is right, and it is perhaps only because learned antiquaries who have preceded him have held a contrary opinion that there will be hesitation in at once agreeing with him. It is neither necessary nor convenient to enter into the details of this discussion, and this portion of the work should be carefully studied in order to its full comprehension. Leaving the Roman Period, which occupies a considerable portion of the first volume, we get upon safer ground. Wallingford under the Saxons and Danes occupies only a few pages; and the remainder of this volume, upwards of 200 pages, covers the period from Edward the Confessor to the end of Edward II. There is much of interest, local and personal, during this period, detailed in charters and other records, of each of which, when not printed in full, Mr. Hedges gives a careful précis. These throw great light, not only upon the manners and customs of the period, but also upon the character of the inhabitants and peculiar institutions of the town, and afford ample themes for future writers of history, biography, and even fiction. The larger portion of the second volume continues the running history from the time of Edward III. to the present reign, perhaps the most interesting of which is that relating specially to Wallingford Castle, concerning which the author appears to have collected all existing records from every accessible source. Lists of the constables of the castle, and of members of Parliament, mayors, high stewards, and town clerks of the borough also appear in this part of the work, which ends with an account of the various charities still in operation. The second part, comprising less than 150 pages, is devoted to a general description of the various churches of Wallingford and their ancient history, and is excellent so far as it goes, which is probably as far as the author intended; but a certain class of readers and students who gladly welcome this class of books to their library shelves will be disappointed on finding that these otherwise praiseworthy volumes make no provision for their special wants. Lists of the incumbents of the various churches are given, it is true; but not one monumental inscription, and but one extract from the parish registers, appears anywhere throughout the entire 800 pages; nor are there any accounts of even the principal families of the town. These are omissions greatly to be regretted, as it is not likely that another History of Wallingford will make its appearance at least during the present But, as has been said before, the author probably intended to confine himself to the general history of the town, avoiding personal details, and the result of his labours in this direction may be commended without reserve. generation. JOSEPH LEMUEL CHESTER. The Bird of Truth, and other Fairy Tales. By Fernan Caballero. (Sonnenschein & Co.) THIS volume is made up of tales selected from the posthumous volume of F. Caballero, and from the Cuentos y Poesias populares Andaluces of the same author. To these are added two legends from Trueba's "Popular Stories." this as Caballero, and is far inferior as an artist. There is, however, one story narrated by him as true in his Capítulos de un Libro (Madrid, 1865) concerning "El Fuerte de Ocháran," a Herculean athlete, with whose family Trueba is challenged to a trial of strength in throwing himself connected. This strong Biscayan was he absented himself, and deputed his daughter the bar by a Navarrese. Doubting of victory, She in 1847, I read this same story, told in the to test the powers of the stranger. easily defeated him. Now, at Edinburgh, professed autobiography of a Border sporting man, as having occurred with a Scotchman, the same result. This, and another similar his daughter, and a Northumbrian, and with case told me as within their own knowledge by two independent and trustworthy narrators, suggests the question whether some of the simpler incidents of these tales may not really than once, have occurred, and that more this volume may not the incident in "Fair and in widely different places. So, too, in Flower," which occurs so often in Spanish, Portuguese, and Celtic tales, of a corpse lying unburied at the church-door till the debts of the defunct are paid, relate to some widespread historical custom ? be a favourite with children, and may amuse To return, this collection will, we are sure, the poetical charm and piquant originality of some older readers, who will delight to trace the lamented narrator. WENTWORTH WEBSTER. speeches, lamented that he had been born in The late Lord Derby, in one of his last a prae-scientific age. A like avowal would doubtless have been made by Fernan Caballero had she been aware of the amount of scientific study now given to these "Cuentos Infantiles," for the publication of which she thought it necessary to apologise. Fernan Caballero did not, like Tennyson, believe that it would cramp the use" of a fairy tale "to hook it to some useful end." On the contrary, the charm for adult readers in this collection will mainly consist in observing with what gentle feminine malice she contrives to acu-puncturate the objects of her special dislike through In fact, in these nursery stories. her last volume, F. Caballero comes near to being spiteful and bitter as it was in her nature to be. In her earlier works, as in Lagrimas, she draws amusing caricatures of Liberal deputies; and we feel as we read that these are meant to be caricatures. But in these versions of fairy tales she seriously sets herself to train up the young idea from its earliest growth to a detestation of all that she herself hates. It is the veiled allusions to contemporary political and social heresies which make this volume so peculiarly difficult to translate, especially when, as in the present case, the translator deprives himself of the assistance of notes. If these THIS little volume deserves notice. It conallusions are omitted, nearly all the origin-tains eleven short sermons preached in the ality and much of the fun of Caballero's chapel, it may be presumed, of Keble College; versions are lost; if they are inserted without and to these is added an interesting and notes, they are altogether outside the world suggestive paper chiefly concerned with some of an English child. Thus the victorious of the present relations of science and religion. liar in "A Tale of Taradiddles," instead of being rewarded, as in the genuine fairy tale, is perpetually issuing from the British press, with the hand of the princess, is appointed one does not often come across sermons of the by Caballero editor of the Gazette, in order kind we have here. They are not eloquent to explain the Spanish saying, "You lie worse displays; they are not specimens of closely than the Gazette." "The Bird of Truth" is concatenated reasoning; they are meditative turned into a moral tale, to show the wide-addresses, warm with an underlying ardour, spreading corruption of French Socialist ideas. But this part of the story is either altered or omitted in the translation, being considered, we suppose, as a specimen of "the remarkable way in which equivocal themes are treated in the original, and that in stories avowedly infantile." " 66 It may be difficult to do otherwise, but in the tale as here given we think an intelligent child will wonder why the swallow blushes or faints away at all. A more decided mistake of the translator occurs in the conclusion of "The Girl who (to the Horror of her Father) wanted Three Husbands," but who was eventually restored to life by the joint exertions of her three suitors. Her first exclamation is not " You see, father, that I must marry all three," but " You see, father, that I had need of all three "; "Cómo los necessitaba á los tres "-a much prettier specimen of girlish delight at having the last word and proving oneself to be right after all. Trueba, as a scientific recorder of folklore, is almost as untrustworthy as Fernan Sermons Preached in a College Chapel. With an Appendix. By J. R. Illingworth. (Macmillan.) In the mass of homiletical literature that and illuminated at frequent points by a rare and exquisite truthfulness of portraiture both of thought and feeling. This last feature, so extremely rare in discourses from the pulpit, gives a penetrative directness to the preacher's words, and marks them with a characteristic signature. Death is a commonplace of the pulpit, as it is of human history. It would be easy to find more elaborate descriptions of the last scene, but I cannot recal any instance of the treatment of this much-handled theme that will touch us more closely than the following: "There must come a moment, sooner or later, when the commonplace We must all die' will, in the language of our great novelist, transform I must die, and soon.' And I will ask you for itself suddenly into the concrete consciousness, a few minutes to forestall that transformation to-night. Picture yourselves, each one of you, lying in his own death-chamber, with the attendants moving softly, and your watch ticking out the minutes, and the food and medicine, now useless, put away from your bedside, and as the shadows close around you, and the walls of your very being seem to fall in upon themselves, and you sink alone Intot he nothingness, where no human eye can follow you, no human voice can penetrate, no numan love can protect you-ask yourselves, my brethren, what it is that will be ending there. Three things will be ending-life, and thought, and love. All the bright physical life of flashing eye, and flushing cheek, and pulsing blood, and its exuberance and energy and joy are failing, fainting, fading into pasture for the worm. All the wide range and versatility of intellect, that has so often done more than compensate the loss of bodily capacity by the delirious intoxication of what has seemed to be omnipotence, is narrowing into impotence, imbecility, and nothingness. And, last of all, the very love that has shed its lustre over life and thought, and seemed only to gather strength and purity as they successively declined-love, too, will be passing from you as you swoon into the darkness and your nearest and your dearest press their lips to you in vain. Life will have ended, thought will have ended, love will have ended. Aristotle did not exaggerate when he said, Death is of all things the most terrible, for it is the end."" It will be seen throughout the volume that the preacher is effective, not by the force of his blows, but by the skill with which he makes his sharp blade pierce. The sermons on the "Consequences of Sin" and on "Penitence" are illustrations of what I mean. Certainly the more grave and solemn aspects of duty and religion predominate throughout these sermons. This is not mentioned as though I considered it a fault. Indeed, I suspect that whatever elements of truth underlay the cheery boyishness (I am reluctant to say manliness, though it is the favourite term in this connexion) of the Muscular Christianity school have by this time received their ample recognition from the young. The truth is, there is little need at Oxford, or elsewhere, to urge young Englishmen not to be over-introspective or allow their consciences to trouble them too much. But in Mr. Illingworth's seriousness and severity there is nothing of a despairing tone. Of this we have an illustration in the following passage: ་ sance. 'Say not then, therefore, what is the Here and there I have been reminded of the manner of the present Dean of St. Paul's, Shropshire Word-Book: a Glossary of Archaic a [DEC. 10, 1881.-No. 501. NEW NOVELS. Dick Netherby. By L. B. Walford. (Black- Two Men and a Maid. The Bride's Pass. By Sarah Tytler. (Chatto My Red Cross Knight. (Cornish.) Joyce Morrell's Harvest. By Emily Sarah THE concluding part of Miss Jackson's Shropshire Glossary fully bears out the high estimate we had formed of it from the earlier THE author of Mr. Smith has in Dick instalments. It is certainly one of the most Netherby-a comfortable one-volume work— amusing dictionaries in existence. We have often thought, when wearily turning over the Scottish life that have appeared for many given us one of the best studies of humble pages of some of our great authorities, that, years. It reminds me of Wilson's Lights and if they had had some slight sense of humour, Shadows more than of any late sketches of the examples with which we are furnished would have been chosen with more skill. characters are everything. the same kind. The plot is nothing; the Miss Jackson; the examples light up the phil- Netherby, a high-spirited young gamekeeper, It is simply a This complaint can never be made against chapter in the moral discipline of Dick ology like one of Leech's wood-cuts, and are, the son of the " many of them, equally charming. A writer Lord Galt's home farm on the Border, who grieve," or manager, of in a contemporary some few years ago ex- is nearly brought to ruin by the schemes pressed astonishment bordering on incredulity of his mother. Marion Netherby, who had that the common people should have such originally been an English lady's maid, full of racy ideas and quaint modes of thought as paltry affectations and ambitions, and whose were revealed by a Glossary of an Eastern vanities unfortunately survive her husband's shire. His scepticism will, we hope, be cured death, would be perfect as a portrait but for on reading Miss Jackson's pages. He will the palpable Scottish "malice" which every find that the humour of the folk who live feature is allowed to disclose. The author's by hand-labour is not confined to washed county, or even to the limits of the tock, the resolute and shrewd Scotsmansea- heart is evidently more with Robin McClinDanelagh. There are many useful things sort of Dandie Dinmont developed into an recorded in Miss Jackson's pages which do elder of the Kirk - who succeeds John not naturally fall within dictionary limits as Netherby as "grieve," and who frustrates the word is commonly understood. instance, we have a very full catalogue of the characters are carefully drawn-plain, For Marion's match-making designs. But all waggoners' words for horses. Some persons but genuine, Meg McClintock; manly, oldthink this trivial. We do not, for we fashioned Lord Galt; Nancy Irvine, who hold it to be highly probable that they are throws over her lover when he comes to her among the oldest words in European speech."in drink," but returns to him when he is The words addressed to animals are much penitent and lame; and poor, hot-headed, alike in widely separated places. A Lincoln- badly nurtured Dick himself. The Scottish shire farmer, who has had occasion to attend dialect is of the best quality, and is shown to cattle markets in the Netherlands, tells us that the words which he hears drovers use great advantage in Mrs. McClintock's descripthere and at home are identical. There is a tions of Marion. list of place-names at the end which may useful to others besides antiquaries and students of language. The light of nature will not always tell what place is meant when we are listening to the conversation of a person who uses the colloquial not the book names for places. That Auberton is Albrighton is easy of comprehension, but we should not think anyone preternaturally stupid who failed to see that Lynea must be Lyneal, or Oosasson, Woolstaston. may be "There is a tendency in every age to make the thinking, and the last three centuries have only developed what was contained in the Renais EDWARD PEACOCK. "The sicht o' her prancin' up to the door an woman come it was mair than I could weel thole." a We regret that we have not a good word to say of Miss Jay's new story. It is evident that she is succumbing to the temptation that besets the promising novelist, and is writing too much and too rapidly. Richard Glamorgan, the hero of Two Men and Maid, is a gloomy maniac who, after he has won the heart of the "maid" of the story, tells her how he had been ruined by a mistress, and how he is a very terrible and tragic fellow indeed. He is as good as his word, for he permits her to believe that he has been murdered in "the China Seas"-a |