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♦ KNOAATLEDGE ♦ 



[November 1, 1886. 



and low ambitions of an artificial state, but of childhood and 

 love, and the death that blights both ; of the fate of men 

 swayed by the gods ; of the intercommunion of all living 

 things ; of nature in storm and calm, seed-time and harvest 

 — all imbedding many an old-world superstition, worn-out 

 custom, or still active belief. Whilst the authoress has pre- 

 .sented her matter with literary skill, she has not permitted 

 this to obscure the historic spirit in which her many felicitous 

 illustrations are interpreted. They are drawn from varied 

 sources— from the far north to the islands of the Pacific — 

 but the larger number are chosen from the rich stores of 

 districts familiar to her, more especially Southern Europe, 

 where the shepherds and the viueyard-dressei'S have not cast 

 aside the reed of Pan. Very touching are the specimens of 

 lullabies and dirges, very pretty the love-songs and popular 

 lyiics of Venice and Sicily and Calabria, but, as combining 

 philosophic treatment with recognition of deep human in- 

 terest, we commend the chajjter on the Idea of Fate in 

 Southern traditions. Altogether a book alike for the 

 specialist in folk-lore and for the general reader. 



Hester's Venture. By the Author of " The Atelier du 

 Lys," &c. (Longmans.) — It would be unreasonable to 

 expect that the high level reached in " Mademoiselle Mori " 

 should be maintained in every sub.sequent book from the 

 skilful hand that gave us that powerful story ; Ijut if the 

 materials of the present tale are more commonplace, the in- 

 vestment of them with an interest that increases as the 

 story advances only witnesses the more to the author's 

 mastery and skill. If there is little to excite, there is 

 enough to attract, in the characters whose friction in the 

 mild intercourse of a Cornish watering-place gives movement 

 to the story. What set of circumstances led to Hester's 

 venture, what was its nature, its strange surroundings and 

 results, must be left to the reader to find out. Both the 

 heroine and her dear old grandmother, the one in her quiet 

 self-dependence, and the other stilled by the patience which 

 is not always the fruit of life's discipline, are attractive 

 enough to keep our sympathies in their fortunes awake, 

 while the contrast presented by the other characters, all life- 

 like in portraiture, from the successful CJerman who vexes 

 the jealous soul of the .squire with his schemes for improving 

 the old town, to the mild villain of the story, and the 

 beautiful actre.ss in her Bohemian home in London, complete 

 the lights and shades of a novel which is far above the 

 average. 



Still higher amongst the author's works rank the Atelier 

 du Lys and In the Olden Time, which Messrs. Longmans 

 have issued in half a crown editions, printed in clear type 

 and stylishly bound. The vivid incidents of the one are set 

 in a graphic description of the state of France under the 

 Revolution of '93, while in the other the revolt of the 

 frightfully oppressed peasantiy of Germany in the early 

 part of the sixteenth century is the framewoi'k of the 

 pathetic story of the concealed Rosilde and the leper Meister- 

 singer. 



The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century in England. By 

 John Ashton. Popular Edition. (T. Fisher Fnwin.) — 

 If Mr. Ashton cannot write history, he can skilfully sift 

 and arrange its materials, and leave on the mind of any 

 intelligent reader a clear impression of the period from 

 which they are gathered. He has in the present work un- 

 earthed from newspapers and other fugitive literature of the 

 early years of this century a mass of curious information 

 concerning the social condition of the people, the rigour of 

 the laws under which they lived, and the burden of taxation 

 imder which they were crushed. If there be any laudator 

 temporis acti among the readers of Knowledge, he may find 

 many a fond delusion dispelled by the facts Mr. Ashton has 



focussed together, and be thankful that his lot was not cast in 

 the years when the quartern loaf stood at 2s. 7'/., the income- 

 tax at '2s. in the pound, and coals at 48*. per ton ; when the 

 New River turned on its water supply three times weekly ; 

 when the streets were paved with kidney-stones and lit with 

 oil lamps, and locomotion had made no advance since the 

 day when Joseph was carried into Egypt ; when a debtor 

 might languish for life in prison, and a man be hanged for 

 stealing a counterpane or a pair of stockings. The daily life 

 of the streets, the diversions of the people in cockpits and 

 gambling-hells, the fashions of the town with its Bond 

 Street mashers and padded old roues — all defile before us in 

 the sketches which make up this entertaining and insti'uctive 

 book. 



Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine. By W. Caeew 

 Hazlitt. (Elliot Stock.) — There is a certain relation 

 between this book and the foregoing, but, although of smaller 

 compass, it covers a wider range in time. Mr. Hazlitt 

 might have cited the relics of hunting feasts in the Reindeer 

 Period of the Ancient Stone Age, in evidence of the 

 high antiquity of cookery ; but he contents himself in 

 his introductory chapter with references to the culinary 

 art in Scripture and the classic writers. We may gather 

 from his pages a clear account of the food of the higher and 

 lower orders of the e;irly English, in whose menu dishes 

 strange and repellent to our palates appear. We have, 

 however, happil}' overcome that prejudice against the hare 

 to which Cfesar refers, and the explanation of which it does 

 not occur to Mr. Hazlitt to assign to a totemic origin. The 

 recipes from old cookery books, which fill several chapters, 

 show that our ancestors were adepts in the art of blending 

 good things together, although Mr. Hazlitt, in admitting 

 how we had to summon foreigners to teach us the projjer 

 treatment of our ample materials, indorses the grave charge 

 of the French satirist — that we have many religions but 

 only one sauce I In referring to the " Liber cure Cocorum," he 

 is probably not aware that this quaint metrical cookery-book 

 has been edited by the Rev. Dr. Morris for the Philological 

 Society, and, when speaking of the recipe for " goose in a 

 hog-pot " as leaving one in doubt as to its adaptability to 

 the modern palate, has he not mistaken " hotch-pot " for 

 " hog-pot " 1 But whether he has or has not done this, he 

 has to be thanked for a book commendable both to the 

 antiquary and the housewife. 



Longman's School Geography. By G. G. Chisholai, 

 M.A., B.Sc. (Longmans.) — Geogi-aphy, to the shame of 

 this empire that holds so much of the world in fee, is about 

 the worst-taught subject in our schools, and the result is 

 manifest in the crass ignorance of nine-tenths of educated (?) 

 people as to the whereabouts and features of places the 

 names of which are familiar enough. We, therefore, give 

 special welcome to the present book, which has for its model 

 the masterly text-books on Erdkunde in use in Germany, 

 where, determining what is possible and what is impossible 

 in school years, the overloading of the mind with minute 

 detail is wisely subordinated to thoroughness in laying the 

 groundwork. Hence, as Mr. Chisholm says, " the present 

 work will perhaps appear more remarkable for what it 

 omits than what it contains," but he has at least retained 

 what it is most important to know. The information, both 

 in the physical and political sections, is posted up to date, 

 and there are some woodcuts good enough of their kind, but 

 in the room of which we should have preferred a series of 

 block maps. The book is certainly one which should forth- 

 with supersede the majority of manuals in current use. 



After London, or Wild England. By Richard Jefferies- 

 (Cassell & Co.) — The undercurrent of melancholy which 

 runs through much of Mr. Jefferies's writings is in full swing 



