630 



The Reviews Reviewed. 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 



Amidst a number of fine papers there are few of 

 commanding interest. Three have been separately 

 noticed. The younger Pitt, is held by Mr. C. Grant 

 Robertson to have won the right to stand higher in our 

 estimation to-day as a man, but as a statesman he 

 " failed in the highest and indispensable qualities of 

 statesmanship. His place is with the Castlereaghs and 

 Mctternichs, not with the Chathams and Cavours." 

 Mr. J. A. K. Marriott contributes an appreciation of 

 Cavour and his work in the making of Italy. 



Mr. J. C. Bailey treats of Thackeray, whose books 

 he thinks are written too much from the point of view 

 of one who watches the world from club windows. In 

 his " Second Funeral of Napoleon " Thackeray chose 

 what the reviewer calls the Devil's method of writing 

 history. The spirit that dwelt in Thackeray never 

 denied goodness, but greatness. The great fact remains 

 that "Vanity P'air," though written in 1847, "may 

 still come to be the greatest novel ever written." 



Beau Nash and his kingship at Bath are described in 

 a most entertaining paper which brings before us the 

 life and humours of Bath in the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century. 



The wonderful ad\entures of Dr. Cook, who claimed 

 to discover the North Pole, are set forth, with the con- 

 clusion that his mental equilibrium was disturbed, and 

 he was not in a fit state to know where he was. 



Mr. Henry Vivian reviews the development of 

 Garden Cities, Housing, and Town-Planning. 



The Rev. Professor Bonney reproduces with criticism 

 Dr. Eduard Suess's view of the puckering up of the 

 face of the world as an explanation^ of geological 

 phenomena. 



There is a paper on the Church in Wales, which is a 

 perfect Armageddon of statistics. 



THE DUBLIN REVIEW. 



The April number covers a wide range of interest. 

 The articles on Newman, China, and Darwin have been 

 noticed elsewhere. There is a poem by the late Francis 

 Thompson, entitled " Holy Ground," in which the poet 

 addresses Woman as the keeper of the sacrosanct key 

 of the Holy Places. 



Monsignor G. S. Barnes traces the Christian edifices 

 before Constantine to private oratories, of which the 

 origin is found in a Roman house, the oecus being the 

 place for the officiating clergy, and the peristyle pro- 

 ^•iding accommodation for the worshippers. This is 

 the germ of the later church. 



Mr. James F. Hope, M.P., discusses Home Rule for 

 Ireland from the Unionist point of \iew, and urges that 

 a Grand Committee, such as the .Scottish members 

 enjoy, with the Referendum, besides the dispropor- 

 tionately large number of representatives at West- 

 minster, ought to satisfy the Irish demands. 



Miss Alice Meynell defines her own de\otion to 



Dickens as being chiefly admiration of his humour, his 

 dramatic tragedy, and his watchfulness over inanimate 

 things and landscape. 



Mr. William Barry treats of Milner and his Age ; and 

 Mr. Edwin Burton supplies an interesting survey of the 

 English Cardinals since the Reformation. 



THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, 



A SPECIAL notice in the April Edinburgh Rtview 

 announces that the next number will appear under the 

 control of a new editor, who is none other than Mr. 

 Harold Cox, the seventh in succession to Francis 

 Jeffrey. The succeeding editors were Macvey Napier, 

 VVilliam Empson, George Cornewall Lewis, Henry 

 Reeve, and Arthur Elliot. The proprietors announce 

 that Mr. Cox will consistently maintain the traditions 

 of the Edinburgh, which have been to inculcate a sane 

 and individuahst hberalism, and will be as strongly 

 opposed to democratic tyranny and democratic cor- 

 ruption as formerly to the tj-ranny and corruption of 

 an aristocracy. It will defend the unity of the kingdom 

 and will disseminate sound economic doctrine. The 

 April number is full of interest. Several papers have 

 been separately noticed. 



The point of the article on Home Rule is to insist 

 that Home Rule ultimately means separation, and it 

 demands the maintenance of the actual and undisputed 

 sovereignty of the people of the United Kingdom over 

 every part of the British Isles. It is the old argument 

 of suspicion reasserted. 



The writer of a paper on " Great Britain, Germany, 

 and Limited War " thus concludes his article as to 

 the German Na\'y : — 



By a process of climinalion we are led to conclude that a 

 navy which can neiilier command the sea nor protect its own 

 commerce ; whose rciA- in attacking our oversea trade is sub- 

 sidiary to that of its commerce destroyers; and which is un- 

 necessary to prevent inv.ision of ils own home country, can only 

 have been created at t;reat sacrifice in order to make possible 

 invasion of these islands. That is to say, that the German navy 

 has no place in modern war except in a war of aggression 

 against England. As Admiral Mahan tells us, "the power to 

 control Germany does not exist in Europe except in the Brilinh 

 navy." 



An historical article on " The Court of Star Chamber" 

 urges that undue attention has been given to its later 

 development when it was associated with a tyrannical 

 exercise of the Royal prerogative : — 



The excellent work of the Court at its inception in restoring 

 law and order throughout England, so that presently the ancient 

 Courts of the Realm were renewed in vigour, has on the contrary 

 been, in some degree, overlooked. But if we take an impartial 

 survey of the rise and fall of this institution, it becomes evident 

 that, interesting though it may be, in the legal history of England 

 it is of greater importance for its influence on the political and 

 social welfare of the people in the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries. \ 



A very fascinating sketch is given of the House of 

 Herod in Historv and .\rt. 



