554 



LITERATURE, BRITISH, IN 1879. 



several eminent medical and scientific men in 

 London, including "Exercise and Training," 

 " Alcohol," " The House and its Surroundings," 

 " Premature Death," " Personal Appearances 

 in Health and Disease," " Baths and Bathing," 

 and " The Skin." Benjamin Ward Richardson's 

 "A Ministry of Health," and other addresses, 

 are earnest appeals in the interest of sanitary 

 progress. 



A number of books of Travel of unusual in- 

 terest have been published. The Rev. R. W. 

 Dale's " Impressions of America " (D. Appletou 

 & Co.'s " Handy-Volume Series") is a highly 

 appreciative account of American institutions 

 and society. " Our Autumn Holidays on French 

 Rivers," by J. L. Molloy, is a lively narrative 

 of a boating excursion, recounted in a re- 

 freshing tone of youthful frolic and enjoyment 

 of outdoor life (Boston, Roberts Brothers). 

 "Through Asiatic Turkey," by Grattan Geary 

 (London, Sampson Low, Marston & Co.), con- 

 tains the views of an intelligent and judicious 

 observer of the Turkish question, formed no 

 the spot by the aid of a knowledge of the lan- 

 guage and customs of the country. A more 

 studious and systematic work on Asiatic Tur- 

 key is McCoan's "Our New Protectorate" 

 (London, Chapman & Hall), in wbich is gath- 

 ered a mass of economical, geographical, social, 

 ethnic, political, and religious information upon 

 the Turkish provinces. " Six Months in As- 

 cension," by Mrs. Gill, is a most interesting 

 record of experiences and observations of an 

 English lady who accompanied her husband to 

 the lonely island in the middle of the South 

 Atlantic Ocean on the expedition for the de- 

 termination of the sun's parallax. Mosely's 

 " Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger " is 

 an agreeable recital of experiences and obser- 

 vations on the famous scientific voyage, a pop- 

 ular narrative which touches on the scientific 

 purposes and results of the expedition only 

 where they are of interest to the reading pub- 

 lic (Macmillan & Co.). " Wanderings in Pata- 

 gonia," by Julius Beerbohm, is one of Henry 

 Holt & Co.'s u Leisure - Hour Series." "A 

 Few Months in New Guinea " is an account of 

 a residence in that little-known land by Octa- 

 vius C. Stone (Harper & Brothers). 



In the department of History, several im- 

 portant works have appeared in the branch of 

 historical sociology which deals with the origin 

 of civilization, in which such fruitful results 

 have been obtained through the application of 

 the methods inaugurated by the comparative 

 philologists. Pezzi's " Aryan Philology," trans- 

 lated by E. S. Roberts (London, Triibner & 

 Co.), is a compendium of the science of com- 

 parative philology itself in its present condi- 

 tion. Professor W. E. Hearn of Melbourne, 

 in " The Aryan Household " (London, Long- 

 mans, Green & Co.), groups together the re- 

 searches into the constitution of early society 

 for the purpose of constructing a picture of 

 the life of the primitive Indo-European race. 

 A translation of Duncker's " History of An- 



tiquity," by Evelyn Abbot, is being published 

 by R. Bentley & Son of London ; it is from a 

 revised edition, and gives the .latest results of 

 Biblical research and hieroglyphic and cunei- 

 form interpretations. A compendium of the 

 researches in Aryan antiquities and the prehis- 

 toric condition of society, under the title of 

 "The Dawn of History " (Charles Scribner's 

 Sons), has been compiled in a form adapted for 

 easy popular reading by C. F. Keary. The sub- 

 ject of comparative mythology is ably and ex- 

 haustively treated by the Rev. Sir George W. 

 Cox in "The Mythology of the Aryan Na- 

 tions " (London, C. Keegan Paul & Co.) ; he 

 goes farther than his predecessors in tracing 

 affiliations between the legends of the different 

 nations, and affirms that all the Aryan national 

 epics had their source and groundwork in the 

 same original pantheistic interpretation of the 

 phenomena of nature. "Fairy Tales, their 

 Origin and Meaning," is a popular account of 

 the historical origin of legends by John Thack- 

 ray Bunce, forming the twenty - fifth volume 

 of Appletons' " New Handy-Volume Series." 

 In " Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Re- 

 ligion " (Charles Scribner's Sons), Max Muller 

 has at last broached a subject in which he is no 

 longer a mere popularizer of otber men's dis- 

 coveries and retailer of others' thoughts. In 

 his life-long philological studies the subject of 

 comparative religion was so attractive to his 

 cast of mind that in this he has hammered out 

 ideas of his own. Spencer Walpole has exe- 

 cuted his contemporary history of England, 

 "A History of England from the Conclusion 

 of the Great War in 1815" (London, Long- 

 mans, Green & Co.), with a bold and steady 

 hand; it is a sagacious inspection into the 

 politics and a luminous review of the social 

 and literary development of England in the 

 recent period. Justin McCarthy's "History 

 of Our Own Times" (Charles Scribner's Sons) 

 is an extremely graphic and entertaining as 

 well as a judicious and impartial survey of re- 

 cent British history, commencing at the acces- 

 sion of Queen Victoria. " The French Revo- 

 lutionary Epoch " (D. Appleton & Co.) is a 

 history of France from the French Revolution 

 to the close of the German war by the able 

 translator of Taine, Henri Van Laun. In " The 

 Renaissance in Italy " (New York, Henry 

 Holt & Co.) John Addington Symonds has 

 given a philosophical study of one of the most 

 interesting revolutions of ideas and manners 

 in the history of European civilization. The 

 able history of the luxuriant development of 

 art and the attendant revolution in thought 

 and manners in France under the invigorating 

 influence of the humanistic and classical re- 

 vival, entitled "The Renaissance of Art in 

 France," by Mrs. Mark Pattison (London, O. 

 Keegan Paul & Co.), is a fitting supplement to 

 the exhaustive study of the movement at its 

 fountain-head by Mr. Symonds. George Fin- 

 lay's "History of Greece," revised by H. F. 

 Tozer (Oxford, Clarendon Press), is the ripe and 



