LITERATURE, BRITISH, IN 1885. 



539 



the United States in the past two years are as 

 follow : 



UTERATIJRE, BRITISH, IN 1885. The even 

 tenor of the literary history of the year was 

 hardly broken by an event of major impor- 

 tance, so far as Great Britain was concerned. No 

 author of acknowledged repute in any depart- 

 ment produced a work destined to exercise any 

 grave or prolonged influence over mankind; 

 .and if minor lights loomed suggestively above 

 the literary horizon, their brilliance proved to 

 be but a transient flicker, and not a sustained 

 illumination. Probably the most important 

 work was in the direction of investigation and 

 research into the lives of eminent persons, or in 

 unknown or little-known lands. Neither his- 

 tory, poetry, science, nor art developed any 

 production of vital interest, while in the re- 

 maining branches of authorship there is ap- 

 parent, rather than any original conception, a 

 filling up of vacant spaces, a clearing away of 

 error and confusion, valuable, no doubt, but 

 offering nothing startling in the way of real 

 progress. 



Fine Arts. Several important translations 

 were published, among which may be men- 

 tioned that portion of the great undertaking 

 of MM. Perrot and Ohipiez which treats of 

 Phoenicia. The Oassels have added to their se- 

 ries of hand-books Duval's "Artistic Anatomy/' 

 Wauter's "Flemish School," and Chesman's 

 " English School " ; and Mr. L. M. Solon has 

 brought out a valuable work on the " Art of 

 the Old English Potter." Mr. Hamerton, who 

 is always suggestive and instructive, without 

 being too didactic, has published a clever study 

 of " Landscape," and Mr. Gilbert has treated 

 the same subject as it appears in " Art before 

 Claude and Salvator." The third edition of 

 Poynter's " Ten Lectures on Art " has been 

 issued, and a new edition of Sir George C. M. 

 Birdwood's " Industrial Arts of India." The 

 English translation from the French of Eugene 

 Muntz of "Raphael: his Life, Works, and 

 Times," should also be mentioned. 



History. The " Chronicles of the Reigns of 

 Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I," have been 

 prepared under the editorship of Mr. Hew- 



lett, from the Stowe, Lambeth, and Cotton 

 MSS., for the publication of what is known 

 as the " Rolls Series " ; Powell and Mackay's 

 "History of England" appeared in Part J, 

 and Gairdner's " Letters and Papers, Foreign 

 and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII," 

 reached its eighth volume. "Royalty Re- 

 stored" presents London under Charles II, 

 and is by Mr. Molloy. Mr. W. Harris has pre- 

 pared and published a history of " The Radi- 

 cal Party in Parliament"; Mr. James Bass 

 Mullinger has issued his " History of the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge," as far as to the acces- 

 sion of Charles I ; and three writers Dowell, 

 Hall, and Chester, respectively have made 

 public their views on the subject of " Taxation 

 in England," in three separate works. Gind- 

 ely's " History of the Thirty Years' War " has 

 been translated, as has also Dr. Conrad's " His- 

 tory of the German. Universities for the Last 

 Fifty Years." Ancient history is represented 

 in Church's " Roman Life in the Days of Cice- 

 ro," Del Mar's " History of Money in Ancient 

 Countries," and Oman's "Art of War in the 

 Middle Ages." More recent history is pre- 

 sented in Lady Bellair's account of "The 

 Transvaal War," and Nixon's " Complete Sto- 

 ry " of the same episode, J. G. Scott's narra- 

 tive of the " France and Tongking Campaign," 

 Greswell's "England's South African Em- 

 pire," and Jean's " England Supreme " ; and 

 we have Probyn's history of Italy " From the 

 Fall of Napoleon," and Hodgkins, in his " Italy 

 and her Invaders," vols. iii and iv. 



Essays. In this pleasant class of literary 

 work, the charming collection produced under 

 the title " Obiter Dicta," and anonymously, is 

 quite the best of the year. Then there were 

 Dr. E. A. Abbott's "Flatland"; Richard Jef- 

 feries's " Wild England," a glance into the 

 future on the basis of Macaulay's celebrated 

 " New-Zealander " ; J. H. Ingrain's book on the 

 history and literature of Poe's " Raven," Ver- 

 rall's " Studies in Horace," Lady Martin's (Hel- 

 en Faucit) papers on " Some of Shakespeare's 

 Female Characters," George Edmundson's es- 

 say on " Milton and Vondel," Mrs. Orr's 

 " Hand-book to the Works of Robert Brown- 

 ing," Saintsbury's " Specimens of English 

 Prose Style," Coupland's analysis of "The 

 Spirit of Goethe's Faust," and last, not least 

 : Matthew Arnold's " Discourses in America." 



Biography. The department of biography 

 and autobiography was fully covered during 

 1885, the number of works produced being 

 large, and including many of a manifestly im- 

 portant character. The " Life and Letters " 

 of George Eliot was received with general ap- 

 probation and great public interest, and called 

 forth a large number of brochures by authors, 

 known and unknown, who considered features 

 of the life of this remarkable woman and dis- 

 tinguished writer. Mrs. Garden's life of her 

 father, "theEttrick Shepherd," was published 

 under the title " Memorials of James Hogg" ; 

 Mr. Reid's memoir of SyJney Smith, Dr. Ed- 



