January 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNO^ATLEDGE ♦ 



69 



together with six new illustrations, have been iidJed. This 

 little volume addresses everybody who is ever likely to 

 suffer from an accident or to be present when one happens ; 

 and its careful study may save many a precious life. 



BOOKS FOR BOYS. 

 Charlii' Luchen at School and CoUeije. By Rev. H. C. 

 Adams. (Hodder &, Stoughton.) — The incidents of this 

 story of school life aie laid in the early part of the 

 present century, the ugly social troubles of which are 

 vividly portrayed. Apart from these, there is abundant 

 excitement in the nan a live to ensure it a welcome among 

 books for Christmas holiday reading, while the name of 

 the author is guarantee fur the absence of mawkishness and 

 the presence of wholesome tone. 



^i Flood that led on to Fortune. By Old Boojieraxg. 

 (Hodder it Stoughton.) — This is a stirring story of the 

 battle of man agaiust nature in the great rainfall of 18G1 by 

 a writer who has long held the tield as a graphic narrator of 

 life among the Australian squatters. Both works are well 

 illustrated and attractively bound. The same commendation 

 as to their get-up applies to the books of the season issued 

 by Messrs. Blackie k. Son, who are in their accustomed 

 front place witli a batch of axpital stories. Among these 

 we may give prominent welcome to Mr. Henty's Wiiti Wolfe 

 in Canada, which, witli one Jim Walshman, smuggler, 

 sailor, and soldier, as the hero, tells the story of our 

 victorious struggle — charged with momentous is.sues — 

 against the French for supremacy in the Xew World. 

 lieeffr and Fifleman, by J. Percy Groves, is a tale of 

 the two services in the early years of this century, with 

 plenty of adventure in humorous setting. Tales of CaplicUi/ 

 and F.cile is concerned with the more sombre bat interesting 

 record, from antiquity to modern times, of the imprisonment 

 or exile of men, good and bad alike, who had the courage 

 of their convictions, and suffered accordingly. The same 

 publishers have issued handsome reprints of Mr. George 

 Macdonald's At the Back of the Xorth Wind and Ranald 

 Bannermans Boyhood, while for the children who have 

 found delight in these standard favourites a feast of good 

 things is provided in ^liss Alice Corkran's Dovn the Snoir 

 Stairs. These lead to Dreamland, where — as in the Persian 

 Avesta, the soul of the good man is confronted by a fair 

 maiden, who reveals herself as his good thoughts and deeds 

 in life ; or, as in the fabled hell, the vices of men pursue 

 them like Nemesis — Kitty, the heroine, meets troops of 

 children to whom is meted that which they measured out 

 to dumb and weaker things, till Love sets them free. But 

 the moral is never obtruded to the obscuring of the story, 

 the charm of which is increased by Mr. Gordon Browne's 

 fantastic illustrations. 



Turning from fiction to sober history, we may commend 

 Triie Stories from Fnf/lish Ilistori/ (Griffith tt Farran), 

 selected from writers of all schools — tlie Venerable Bedc, 

 Froi.ssart, Macaulay, and Thackei'ay— by INIr. Oscar Brown- 

 ing, himself an historical student of no mean repute. In 

 Oitilines (if Jeirisli Ifisfori/ (Longmans) Lady Magnus tells 

 the history of her people from Bible times to the present 

 day, and we are glad to have the momentous events stretch- 

 ing from the period of the Exile to the period of modern 

 toleration grouped in convenient compass and piesented in 

 agreeable style. Such compression of vast material is more 

 laborio\is than its exjiansion, and Lady Magnus has done 

 her ta.«k extremely well. The outline sketch of Spinoza is 

 admirable, and the significance of his philosophy on all 

 subsequent thought pointed out. 



The Slori/ of the Nations. — Carthage. By Professor A. J. 

 Church. (Fisher L^nwin.) — The learned author, whose 



familiar renderings of Homer and other ancients place the 

 non-classical reader under no slight obligation to him, 

 remarks that "the stor}' of Carthage is mainly a story of 

 war," and consequently the narrative of her offensive and 

 defensive battles by sea and land, till her final conquest and 

 demolition by Piorae, fill nine-tenths of this book. The 

 remaining tenth tells us what little can be known about the 

 internal history of the city, her institution.s, her commerce, 

 and her art, borrowed, as this was, like that of Phwnicia, 

 from Greece. The work could not have been entrusted to 

 more competent hands, and will take equal rank with its 

 predecessors in this useful series. 



Legends and Fvpulir Tales of the Basque Feople. By 

 Mariana Monteiro. (Fisher Unwin.) — These legends are 

 full enough of the marvellous to make the book, with its 

 weird illustrations, popular ; but from the standpoint of folk- 

 lore it must be pronounced a disappointment. The tales 

 have lost their simplicity of diction, and the spontaneity 

 which is their charm, through recasting into literary form, 

 while the absence of any comparative treatment leaves us in 

 the dark as to their historical relation. The book may, 

 however, be read with advantage as supplemental to the 

 collection of legends of the same unique and interesting 

 peoj)le gathered by the Ecv. Wentworth Webster, and pub- 

 lished in 1877. 



Tlie Ilistorij of the Fortij Vezirs ; or, the Story cf the 

 Forty Jlorns and Evis. Tianslated by E. J. W. Gibb, 

 M.B.A.S. (George Redway.) — The history of this cele- 

 brated Turkish romance has been fully discussed by Mr. 

 Clouston in his " Book of Sindibad," and we await with 

 interest INlessrs. Blackwood's jjublication of that author's 

 forthcoming work on the profoundly interesting subject of 

 the ^Migrations and Transformations of Popular Tales and 

 Fictions. Meantime, we are grateful to Mr. Gibb for the 

 present collection, which has for its well-worn and ungallant 

 theme the weakness and frailties of woman. The frame- 

 work of the story is the unjust accusations of a spiteful 

 queen against her .stepson, whom the king orders to be 

 slain, but who.se death is averted by the wisdom of the 

 king's vezirs. Every night the crafty woman tells the 

 king a .story which incites him to slay the prince, and in 

 the morning, when he is led forth to execution, a vezir tells 

 a story which calms the king's anger. This goes on for 

 " forty morns and eves," when the innocence of the prince 

 is proved, and the queen's deceit exposed. Mr. Gibb's 

 translation is pleasant to read, and an appendix of sup- 

 plemental stories, together with tables of their place in the 

 various texts, make his work a valuable addition to our 

 materials for the study of Oriental romance. 



Lnck or Cunning 1 By Sasiuel Butler. (Triibner 

 ik Co.) — "Op. 8" is, according to its supplemental title, 

 " an attempt to throw additional light upon the late Mr. 

 Charles Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection." It should 

 rather be described as an attempt tD throw additional 

 vitriol on ^Ir. Darwin's reputation as a man of science, 

 and, .still more, as a man of honour. Mr. Butler, as is 

 well known, has an old-standing quarrel with !Mr. Darwin, 

 and with those who speak well of him, the grounds of 

 which have been stated ad nauseam in Ops. ."i to ."i, and in 

 '•Seloiitious from Ops. l-(j." And we are at a loss to under- 

 stand what [mrpose is sei'ved by this wearying reiteration of 

 a charge which it seems to us was disproved in a letter 

 from ^Ir. Darwin himself, published in Mr. Butler's 

 "Op. ."),"" Unconscious Memory." Certain parts of Mr. 

 Butler's " Life and Habit," erratic as were its conclusions, 

 made us expect great things from him, had he submitted his 

 fantastic imagination to the rigidity of biological fact. But 

 he has disappointed us, and we regi-et that so extremely 

 clever a man. whose writings are full of good and true 



