notably certain fossil corals, as their names testify, are compressed into angular and even into perfectly hexagonal forms. A block of Lithostrotion basaltiforme, from the mountain limestone, could easily be manipulated into an excellent model of the Giant's Causeway or of Staffa's Cave. Economy of space, conducing to economy of wax, is the apparent design on the part of the bee, which, whether consciously or unconsciously exercised, is doubtless a habit advantageous to the species. And in the same way an economy of carbonate of lime, certainly unconsciously exercised by the zoophyte, would give to

But

those corals, of whose mode of growth it is characteristic, an advantage over others in an element in which carbonate of lime is but scantily supplied. apart from the philosophy of the matter, the plain fact is worthy of note, that circumscribed space does avail to produce analogous modifications of form in so many unconnected instances. For the final result differs little, if at all, whether illustrated by the skeleton of the brilliant zoophyte, by the structure of the moorland Tor, by the wave-washed basaltic cavern, or by the exquisite fabric of the bee.-Belgravia Magazine.

Each

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. By Henry Cabot Lodge. New York: Harper & Brothers. Mr. Lodge's book is based upon a course of lectures which he delivered at the Lowell Institute of Boston, and which grew upon his hands as he extended the range of his inquiries until the result is a volume of considerable size. Its aim is to describe the condition of the various colonies in and about the year 1765-the year of the Stamp-Act Congress-to show "who and what the people were who fought the war for Independence and founded the United States-what was their life, what their habits, thoughts, and manners." colony is dealt with in a chapter by itself, except the four New England colonies, which were substantially identical in race, language, religious belief, manners, customs, and habits of mind and thought, and which consequently can be dealt with as a whole. Prefixed to the descriptive chapter on each colony or group, is a chapter giving a condensed outline of the political history of the colony from the date of its settlement up to the year 1765; and three concluding chapters summarize the events from 1765 to 1776 which ushered in the Revolution, describe briefly the war for Independence, and state the circumstances of the peace secured in 1782.

These historical chapters are merely supplementary to the main purpose of the book, which is to describe the various colonies in and about the year 1765; and by thus subordinating the historical and political aspect of his subject, Mr. Lodge has found a distinctive place for his work, and has avoided treading in the beaten tracks of his numerous predecessors, for whom the Colonial period appears to

have possessed a fascination not possessed in equal degree by any other portion of the national history. The events, the incidents, the occurrences, of the Colonial era have been recorded over and over again, until no future writer can hope to add materially to our knowledge of them; but there is no other work which tells so clearly and picturesquely as Mr. Lodge's who and what the people were who fought the War of Independence and founded the nation. Mr. Lodge, in fact, has achieved the difficult feat of producing a work which really fills a gap in American history.

ANTHROPOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF MAN AND CIVILIZATION. By Edward B. Tylor, D.C.L., F.R.S. With Illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Man being the proper study of mankind, the science which deals with man must be assigned a foremost place among the subjects that demand the earnest attention of students; and Dr. Tylor has rendered a most valuable service in bringing its elementary principles and facts within such easy reach. His book is a model of its kind systematic in arrangement, thorough in treatment, comprehensive in scope, and lucid in style, yet attempting nothing which cannot be readily accomplished within the limits of a modest - sized volume. He has not attempted, as he explains, to furnish a summary of all that Anthropology teaches, or to deal exhaustively with the facts upon which it is based his book is, strictly speaking, an introduction to the science, complete and trustworthy so far as it goes, but leaving the more advanced work to special students who may be induced by it to carry their researches further. "It does not deal

with strictly technical matter, out of the reach of readers who have received, or are receiving the ordinary higher English education."

39 66

With whatever care it may be limited, however, the Science of Man covers and includes extremely multifarious subjects, "ranging," as Dr. Tylor says, from body to mind, from language to music, from fire-making to morals." Among the topics to which special chapters are assigned are " Man, Ancient and Modern" (discussing the antiquity of man), "Man and Other Animals" (defining man's place in nature). "Races of Mankind," "Language, Language and Race,' Writing," "Arts of Life" (these furnishing the subject of no less than four closely compacted chapters), "Arts of Pleasure," "Science," "The Spirit World," "History and Mythology," and “Society.” The subjects dealt with are much more various than even this summary of contents would indicate; yet, as the author remarks," they are all matters to whose nature and history every well-informed person ought to give some thought."

The illustrations, especially those portraying racial types, are remarkably fine; and the treatise should find a place in even the most modest collcetion of books relating to modern science.

Jefferies. London and New York: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.

To the American public Mr. Jefferies is best known as the author of "Wild Life in a Southern County," and "The Gamekeeper at Home" - descriptions of English rural life which remind one of White of Selborne and old Izaak Walton. The present work is different from either of its predecessors, and is the subject of an appreciative notice by Prof. Grant Allen in the London Academy, from which we make the following extracts : It is only a delicate, fanciful, fantastic, and beautiful apologue, full of exquisite description, strung upon a slender thread of narrative, and couched in pure, rich, and dainty English... To give a compte-rendu of such a light and graceful phantasy as this would be coldblooded, and, moreover, it would be impossible. The book must be read; it cannot be dissected. Mr. Jefferies' style remains much the same as ever, only it has gained in polish and lost nothing in that peculiar power over the rural vocabulary which is one of its author's strongest points. It would be mere impertinence to write at the present time that Mr. Jefferies has a wonderful faculty for close observation of nature, for the interptetation of small hints and suggestions, for the realization of animal and plant life. All that need not now be said. But, to some extent, in Wood

Magic' he has taken a fresh departure. There is a story, a fabulous, marvellous, curious story, with a charming little boy for its hero, and birds and moles and rats and weasels for its dramatis personœ. Sir Bevis, the little boy in question, wanders about among the insects and creeping things of the wood, with the best intentions in the world, after a childish fashion, but manages, nevertheless, to do rather more harm than good in the long run. His portrait is sketched with a minute fidelity and an evidently loving touch, which constrains one to identify him with the Harold to whom the book is inscribed. Sir Bevis, indeed, is the backbone of the story—as mischievous and as genuine a child as one could wish to come across on a summer's morning. Beside him there flits by a long phantasmagoria of talking beasts and birds, whose history centres round the exploits of King Kapchack, the successful magpie, and the Emperor Choo Hoo, the celebrated rebel. But the animals are not at all like the Reynard or the King Stork of our classical fables; they are real living wild creatures, rather than mere lay figures for the display of cardinal virtues and vices. Mr. Jefferies throws an amount of life and reality into his fable to which we are quite unaccustomed.

And yet it is in many respects a saddening book. Whether the author means it or notand it is difficult to say what his underlving intention may really be-this naturalistic picture of life in the woods, with all its frank struggle of brute force and cunning, and with its queer side-satire on human action, has a terrible moral of its own. The animals hate and fear one another, eat the weaker and are eaten by the stronger, exactly after the cruel fashion of nature herself. That "nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal," seems, indeed, at times to be the central thought of the book. Mr. Jefferies lends no countenance to the hypothesis of a beneficent Providence overruling all the evil of the world for good. His universe is like the real one, a perpetual conflict of selfish aims. Even his human beings are built upon the same egoistic pattern. There is a terrible, too realistic episode of a wounded keeper lying helpless in the covert through a long day and stormy night, while his wife does not seek him, because, when once she had looked for him in great alarm, she found him drunk at the alehouse, and he beat her for her trouble; and a laborer, slouching by with a wire in his pocket, will not go into the copse at his call, lest it should turn out to be a mere ruse for catching a poacher. Even little Bevis himself is a strange compound of childish temper with good impulses. All this side of the bock is powerful and strongly written, but it is almost painful in its

naked exhibition of the world we live in. Is it not the fact that man-cultivated man, at least -has now grown too ethical for the planet in which his lot is cast, and shrinks from contemplating the horrible life-and-death struggle which goes on half-unsuspected in beautiful nature around him? At any rate, it is a relief to turn from the darkest passages to the fresh and breezy bits that intervene, and, above all, to the last chapter, where Bevis makes friends with the wind, and learns from it the secret of a happy life. This, the final moral, impressed upon him beside the grave of a prehistoric chieftain, appears to be something after a simple fashion: Oh, let us all go and be dolichocephalic savages! Not a bad moral either in a country which has four millions of people cooped up in a breathless, barren London, not to mention sundry stray half-millions cooped up here and there in still more breathless and barren Glasgows, Liverpools, and Manchesters. Mr. Jefferies' antidote for pessimism appears to be a healthy open-air life. That, we imagine, is the last word of this curious, beautiful, and enticing, but somewhat mystic parable."

LITERARY STYLE AND OTHER ESSAYS. By William Mathews, LL.D. Chicago: S. C. Griggs&Co.

The author has here brought together a budget of newspaper and magazine essays, which, admirably adapted for their original purpose, hardly possess the specific gravity that would indicate the need of preserving them in book form. It may be said, however, that Dr. Mathews has met with surprising success in similar ventures, and it is probable therefore that he has an audience who find in

his homely teachings, direct simplicity of style, and copiousness of illustrative quotation, the sort of mental food and stimulus that they require; and if such is the case the present volume will be as likely to prove acceptable as any of its predecessors. It contains twentyone essays, of which the more noteworthy, besides the one which gives the book its title, "The Duty of Praise," Periodical Literature, 'The Blues' and their Remedy," "The Ideal and the Real" (not at all an abstract disquisition, as its title might imply), "Memory and its Marvels," Angling,' "The Secret of Longevity,' "Who are Gentlemen ?" and "Americanisms."

are

66 6

99 66

44

Originality," Office-seeking,"

This list gives a tolerably fair idea of the miscellaneous character of the contents, and there is no subject probably within the range of ordinary human interest about which Dr. Mathews would not find something to say himself, or something pertinent which somebody else had already said. The extent of reading

which his work reveals redeems even the simplest of his essays from mere commonplaceness, and is apt to provide the reader on every page with something for his note-book or his memory.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

THE "Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat have reached an eighteenth edition in Paris. An industrious person has already begun to compile a concordance to the revised New Testament. The book will be published as

soon as possible.

A NUMBER of unpublished letters written by Cardinal Richelieu will be shortly published under the auspices of the French Ministry of Public Instruction.

IT is stated that Marshal Macmahon has been putting together his papers with a view to the preparation of an autobiographical memoir, entitled “Histoire de ma Présidence,” to be edited by one of his former aides-de-camp.

A MUSEUM of palæography has been established at Venice, under the charge of Profs. Crechetti and Predrelli, in which will be collected inscriptions, MSS., charters, and all that bears upon the early history of writing.

MME. MICHELET is engaged in preparing for publication an abridgement of her husband's "History of France," written entirely in his own words. It will consist of three volumes, of which the third, treating of the Revolution, will appear first, as being essential for the right understanding of the other two.

AN amusing instance of Carlyle's plain speaking is reported by a hearer of it. An acquaintance, with strong opinions of his own, had supported them pertinaciously one evening against Carlyle's views, and was thus taken leave of at the door: "Good night, sir! And let me tell you that you have capabilities for becoming one of the greatest bores in England."

A WORK on marriage ceremonies, particularly those of Russia, by N. F. Sumtsof, has just appeared at Kharkhov. Besides a description of the marriage ceremonies prevalent in many parts of Russia, it contains the nuptial songs which form an interesting feature on such occasions. The marriage customs of the ancient Slavs and Germans are also compared with the modern survivals in order to explain the symbolic significance of the latter.

WE understand that Messrs. Macmillan will bring out a new translation of Kant's "Critik der reiner Vernunft" in honor of the centenary of that work. It will be the first English translation of the original text (Riga, 1781),

and the changes and additions of the later editions will be given in the form of supplements. The translation has been intrusted to Prof. Max Müller, and there will be an historical Introduction by Prof. Noiré.

THE subject of an international copyright between China and Japan is now under consideration. Chinese authors complain that their works are not only printed in Japan, but that cheap editions of them are imported into China and sold to their detriment. It is worthy of note that Chinese authors have perpetual copyright in their productions, and that any infringer of an author's rights is punished by receiving a hundred blows and being transported for three years.

THE Common Prayer, translated into the Mohawk language for the use of the Indians in the vicinity of New York, and printed at New York in 1715, is one of the rarest books in the class of American linguistics. When the third edition was published in 1787, it was stated that very few copies had survived the War of Independence, in which the Mohawk tribes, having joined the Royal cause against that of the States, suffered severely, and were expatriated to Canada. It was therefore an event of some bibliographical importance when a copy turned up in a recent sale at Puttick and Simpson's auction-rooms. Mr. Quaritch was the purchaser.

We are informed that Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps has just discovered in Warwickshire a valuable collection of documents throwing considerable light on the social position and history of Shakespeare's connections in that county. Among other matters of interest, it seems that, throughout the poet's youth, his uncle Henry rented a considerable quantity of land under Bartholomew Hales at Snitterfield, and, by a chain of curious evidence, the exact site of his farm has been ascertained. It was situated on the brow of the hill near the church, skirting the road to Luscombe. As Snitterfield is within an easy walk of Stratford-on-Avon, the youthful Shakespeare must have been very familiar with the locality.

THE English Spelling Reform Association have addressed through their president, Mr. A. H. Sayce, a memorial to the Educational Committee of the Privy Council, praying that certain changes may be made in the present code, and, also offering to lay their views persunally before the committee by means of a deputation. The special complaint of the spelling reformers is that the present code does not allow children, when examined in Standards I. and II., to offer any other system of spelling than that commonly in use. It is suggested that, as school-books have now been

printed according to more than one of the improved systems, such new systems might now be permitted as alternatives by the school inspectors in both writing and dictation.

A GREEK manuscript, which it is not unlikely may prove of considerable historical interest, has recently been discovered by Prof. Vassilyevsky in the Synodal Library at Moscow. The last and most interesting portion of the Ms. is, as it appears, a contemporary account of the Greek wars and the Bulgarian insurrection of 1040. The unknown writer describes the Bulgarian movement in considerable detail, and assigns its commencement to the Valachs. The geographical situation of these last is defined. They are spoken of as a branch of the Bessi who dwelt along the Danube and Save, chiefly in hardly accessible regions, whence they ravaged the surrounding lands. They are, moreover, characterized as insincere and treacherous, an account of them which tallies with that of Strabo.

AN interesting story is connected with the recovery by the Bibliotheca Palatina, at Heifrom it about 260 years ago. They are three delberg, of three manuscripts which were taken Greek codices which in the sixteenth century were spoken of by the philologist Sylburg, and were supposed by him to have been lost. Lately the librarian of the University of Halle has discovered them among his treasures and established their identity. In 1862 they were taken from Wittenberg to Halle along with others. A certain Professor Erasmus Schmidt, who lived at Wittenberg in the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, took these manuscripts from Heidelberg and deposited them in the library of Wittenberg for safe keeping Subsequently they were all carried off to Rome, where, however, only the acknowledgment of their receipt remains, which was published in 1844. As soon as the librarian at Halle made his discovery known, the University of Hedelberg demanded back its lost treasure, and the Prussian Minister of Education directed that it should be returned.

SCIENCE AND ART.

HEARING THE GROWTH OF PLANTS.-It is now possible to hear plants growing. At a recent meeting of the Silesian Botanical Society, an apparatus was shown, in which the growing plant is connected with a disc, having in its centre an indicator which moves visibly and regularly, and thus on a scale, fifty times magnified, denotes the progress of growth. Both disc and indicator are metal, and when brought in contact with an electric hammer, the electric current being interrupted at each of the dividing interstices of the disc, the