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It is difficult to see how this sets forth or illustrates the scene it refers to.

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It is not till he comes down to the last half-century, beginning with the publication of the Christian Year, that the editor finds any copious sources from which to draw the poetic material which exactly suits his purpose; and a large number of the names which appear in his pages are those of writers still living, or but lately dead. Amongst them there are few who are in the first rank among the poets. Tennyson is unfortunately absent, because the editor could not obtain permission to print the stanzas on Mary and Lazarus, from In Memoriam,' and those on Stephen, in The Two Voices,' to which might have been added the tragically pathetic song of the little maid, in 'Guinivere,' "Late, late, so late!" We have Mrs. Browning's 'The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus;' the three fine sonnets on St. Peter's Betrayal; and the exquisite one which the editor has chosen to entitle, 'The Unchanging Christ,' instead of 'Comfort,' which is its title in the original. Robert Browning's wonderfully subtle study, 'Karshish, the Arab Physician,' appears in the Appendix, in company with two pieces translated from Jacopone da Todi, by Mr. J. A. Symonds, which also "travel a little beyond the limits of the sacred story." The great bulk of the poems which make up the volume are works, not of genius and the highest literary art, but of fine poetic faculty, religious feeling and insight finding utterance in expressive verse which has often much beauty and artistic quality. The names of Keble, Newman, Trench, Alford and MacDonald, Lynch, Moultrie and Mansell, are all, to some extent, representative names among the writers of sacred poetry; and another poet and divine, whose name appears frequently in this volume-Dean Plumptre-will certainly hold a conspicuous place among those who have contributed to the store of poetical illustration and interpretation of Scripture. Mr. Horder has been fortunate in having at his disposal Dr. Plumptre's collection of unpub. lished poems on the 'Gospels and Epistles;' and the pieces he has chosen from it are among the most striking specimens the volume contains, showing the touch of a skilled religious artist and thoughtful interpreter. We shall look with much interest for the appearance of the complete series. Almost as new to the majority of readers will be Dr. George MacDonald's series of poems on the Gospel women. The volume in which they were published some eighteen years ago has been, we believe, for some time out of print, and while placing them at Mr. Horder's disposal, the author has almost rewritten them. We think that Dr. MacDonald's literary power is most conspicuous in his best prose works; but many of these short poems are marked by a true poetic feeling and spiritual insight, which entitle them to a distinguished place in this collection.

The chief point in which we should be inclined to question the editor's discretion is the inclusion of a good many pieces which are somewhat weak and diffuse in expression-pretty rather than beautiful. A poetical version of a Scripture scene is apt, except in the most skilful

hands, to be a weaker expansion of the original text, taking its essential beauty and truth, and thinning and spreading it out over a certain number of verses. Such pieces as those of Mr. N. P. Willis, for instance, while they have an undeniable grace and delicacy of expression, have a prevailing element of diffuse pictorial fancy which distracts the attention from the central significance of the scene he describes, and directs it too much to accessories and multifarious details, many of which indeed are purely imaginary. We could have spared, too, some of the poems, which are mainly didactic, consisting chiefly in an 'application" of the chosen text, and doing little in the way of actual illustration and interpretation of the original. Probably if the collection had been reduced by about one-fifth, the remainder would have made a more complete and harmonious whole. But as it is, it is full of interest and religious value, and the editor has thus far executed his pleasant task so successfully, that he has every encouragement to complete it in the volume which is to deal with the Old Testament.

MR. MORLEY'S ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE REIGN OF VICTORIA.'*

IN

N publishing, as the two thousandth volume of his English series, Mr. Henry Morley's sketch of our modern literature, Baron Tauchnitz has done a service not only to the readers of the previous one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine volumes, chiefly novels, but to all who can appreciate a very pleasant and readable account of the literary fruits of home growth during the last half-century. To no more thorough expert than Mr. Morley could the task have been committed of sorting out, describing, and appraising our rich and varied gains which have been accumulating since the accession of Queen Victoria; but it remained to be seen whether he could accoraplish it with any satisfaction to himself and his readers within the scanty limits of a Tauchnitz volume. He has succeeded in producing a work of considerable permanent value, and of unmistakable present interest. Avoiding the danger of making his little book the mere catalogue of a long series of works which he has such scanty room to describe or criticise, he has selected for special notice the really important writers, and has managed to tell us enough of most of them to give a personal interest to his sketch, and to make his criticisms intelligible and suggestive. In certain cases, indeed, we think he has been led to devote too much of his limited space to a more detailed biographical account than his scheme required. For instance, Carlyle has twenty-two pages allotted to him, chiefly biographical; and a fifteenth part of the whole extent of Mr. Morley's canvas seems too much to devote to this one

*Of English Literature of the Reign of Victoria. With a Glance at the Past. By HENRY MORLEY, Professor of English Literature at University College, London. Tauchnitz Edition, Volume 2,000. With a Frontispiece. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz. 1881.

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figure, strikingly picturesque as it is. Wordsworth's life, too, which (with Southey's) did not properly belong to the Victorian period, occupies a good many pages; and we would rather have had, in such cases, less narrative and more criticism. There is a disproportion between the three pages and a half given to Thomas Campbell, and the two dozen lines (ten of which are quotation) in which Mr. Ruskin is disposed of. James Montgomery, again, has nearly two pages, while Matthew Arnold is allowed four lines, Dante Rossetti two lines and a-half, and Swinburne still fewer. It is rather surprising that no attempt should have been made to give an estimate of any kind of Tennyson's genius and influence; and that Mr. Swinburne, the founder of a distinct school of poetry, and the centre of a host of imitators, should have been dismissed with the perfunctory remark, that "he has long since taken his place among the poets." No doubt it is difficult to decide what names have a claim to be included in a handbook of this sort, after those which are in the first ranks of our literature; but, considering how many of minor importance are to be found here, some of the omissions are rather strange. There are certainly some who have a slighter claim than Aubrey de Vere, A. H. Clough, Coventry Patmore, Charles Tennyson Turner, W. Bell Scott, Robert Buchanan, among the poets; and in the various departments of prose literature we might have expected to find the names, at least, of Leslie Stephen, Goldwin Smith, W. R. Greg, Max Müller, Adolphus Trollope, J. A. Symonds-to mention only the first half-dozen which occur to us. In the preliminary chapters the author gives a "glance at the past," with a brief account of the leading epochs of our literature, in connection with the course of our national history-a résumé which he is peculiarly qualified to make. The little book is very pleasant reading, from the first page to the last, and it may be cordially recommended to that large circle of readers to whom the chief names in our literature have a familiar sound, but who have a very vague idea, if any, of the personages and the works to which they belong.

MATABELE LAND.

MR. C. G. OATES need not have had the misgivings which he ex

presses in his Preface, as to the advisability of preparing this transcript of the brief opening chapter of his brother's work as a traveller and naturalist-the opening chapter, and, unhappily, the closing one too. The book, in spite of the inevitable loss to the reader in not having the traveller's own completed record of his experiences, has many features of special interest. It is one in which we can read "between the lines;" and we should value it were it only for the introduction it gives us to the fine, manly young fellow-so frank, brave, and open

* Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls. A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Interior of South Africa. From the Letters and Journals of the late FRANK OATES. Edited by C. G. OATES, B. A. London: Kegan Paul. 1881.

hearted, who is self-pictured in the unaffected pages from his letters and diaries. From these his brother has compiled such record as could now be given of the "little trip," as he called it, which was to have put him in training for future explorations beyond what is now the more or less beaten track of twelve hundred miles or so, between Durban and the Zambesi Falls. As far as the accounts of the expedition are concerned, the main interest lies in the impression they give us of the ordinary toils, difficulties, and annoyances, and occasional dangers of travel through the territories of the South African tribes who have been obliged to tolerate our presence, and allow us a right of way. We get a good deal of insight into the manners and customs and general character of the people, both natives and settlers, on whose good will and service the traveller has to rely. In every case of hindrance and threatened mischief, Mr. Oates displays all the best qualities of a plucky Englishman, and by patience, tact, and fair play, makes his way through difficulties that were often disheartening enough. Unhappily, there were various vexatious delays, and there were irresistible temptations to crowd too much into one journey, and to linger in the new fields of interest which opened out to the traveller as he went; and when he arrived, at last, at the goal of his long expedition-the Zambesi Falls-the unhealthy season had set in, and he fell a victim to the fatal malaria—a sadly premature ending of a career that had opened with so much bright promise. He was but thirty-five years of age when he died.

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From the brief memoir of Mr. Frank Oates which his brother has prefixed to the volume, we get a clear and strong impression of his character. "There was something singularly winning about him," wrote a friend, upon his death; "that peculiar combination of courage and gentleness, which is one of the finest traits of character." His name," the Dean of Christ-Church wrote, "must be added to the list of those devoted and enterprising Englishmen, who 'scorn delights and live laborious days,' who, by their frank love of truth and justice have made our name respected from one hemisphere to another." That our name is, among the tribes we undertake to civilise and govern, always respected for those particular qualities we may indeed, with some shame, confess to be doubtful. And we can only say that if among our ex plorers, settlers, and governors, there were more men of the stamp of Frank Oates, we should have better reason to pride ourselves on our national repute. There are few readers of the pages which show so clearly what he was, and make us think regretfully of what he might have accomplished, who will not, with Dean Liddell, "grieve to think that so much manly spirit has so soon been quenched."

We have not room for any mo re detailed account of Mr. Oates's journey and its fruits. His letters and diaries are simple, unstudied memoranda of his daily experiences, which would no doubt have been largely supplemented by his own recollections if he had prepared his work for the press. What we especially miss is any adequate account of his natural history observations. Indeed, this main object of his journey

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occupies but a small proportion of his pages, and the copious detailed catalogue of the scientific results of the expedition, in a rich collection of birds, insects, and botanical specimens, comes upon us almost as a surprise at the end. The hundred pages of Appendix, in which this is contained, is the part of the book which will have the most permanent value. Dr. George Rolleston has done the Ethnology, Mr. Bowdler Sharpe the Ornithology, Professor Westwood the Entomology, and Professor Oliver the Botany. The birds and insects are especially commended as being excellent representative collections; and the reader cannot help regretting that such a diligent collector and accurate observer had not enriched his journals with more systematic accounts of this part of his work. The book is illustrated with numerous wood engravings, and some copies, in chromo-lithography, of water-colour drawings done on the spot. These latter give an idea of the kind of scenery which the traveller in those regions makes acquaintance with,not often, it would seem, very striking, or even interesting, and not seldom dull and ugly. Mr. Oates had been on his way for eight months before he came to the spot where he could at last "fancy that South Africa may have much fine scenery."

MR.

FOREIGN CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS.

R. SIME'S account of the life and writings of Schiller* forms one of the most acceptable and satisfactory of the volumes yet published in the series of Foreign Classics.' The successive periods of the poet's literary activity are clearly characterised, and there is a sufficient description of his chief works to give the English reader a very good idea of their quality. The chapters that treat of the plays which the young student of German generally makes his first acquaintance with as an exercise in translation and parsing, may be strongly recommended as an antidote to the dry grammatical treatment to which they must be subjected; and the whole forms an excellent introduction to the study of Schiller, the use of which will certainly not be limited to those " 'English readers," for whose benefit the series is primarily intended. In describing the Prose works, Mr. Sime makes the very safe remark that "they are generally acknowledged to have sterling merits," and that the author's endeavours" to make ordinary readers feel the charm of history' were attended by considerable success." He does, however, subsequently criticise and discriminate; and when he comes to the prose writings which are of the most permanent value-the essays and letters in philosophy and literary criticism-he gives a careful and instructive estimate of them. The little book shows throughout what good work a biographer and critic, who really knows his subject, can do, even when "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," within the limits of a hand-book.

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Schiller. By JAMES SIME, M.A., Author of 'Lessing: his Life and Writings.' Edinburgh and London: Blackwood. 1882.

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