THE LITERARY GUIDE

A M O N T H L Y R E C O R D A N D R E V I E IV O R I N T E L L E C T U A L P R O G R E S S

O

No. 1 1 6.]

AUGUST i, 1895.

[Price One Penny.

N E W P U B L I C A T I O N S .

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Saladin’s new work, which bears the significantly bitter title, “ Birds of Pray,” will be ready in a few days. From certain proof-sheets with which we have been favoured we can promise that the new volume will be a special favourite with Saladin’s ever-increasing troops of admirers. Some passages are mordant as aqua-fortis, some aglow with poetic fervour, and others replete with as tender pathos as is the Proem to “ Janet Smith,” with which volume “ Birds of Pray ” will be uniform in external appearance and in price.

Dr. J . Beattie Crozier has in preparation a new volume of his “ Civilisation and Progress ” series. It will treat of the origin, rise, and evolution of Judaism and Christianity, as well as of the Pagan world.

■ Mr. Charles Clement Coe has written an interesting work on “ Nature versus Natural Selection : An Essay on Organic Evolution” (10s. 6d.).

Dr. Henry Smith is issuing an enlarged edition of his “ What Do I Believe ?” (is.). The addition consists of another informing letter to his Agnostic friend.

Messrs. Williams & Norgate have published a large volume dealing with “ The Four Gospels as Historical Records ” (15s.). The book, which is highly spoken of, is reviewed in another column.

Messrs. E yre & Spottiswoode have issued a volume by Mr. W. S. Chad Boscawen, entitled “ The Bible and the Monuments,” and exhibiting primitive Hebrew records in the light of modern research.

Mr. J . W. G. Van Oordt has written a small volume descriptive of “ Plato and the Times he Lived In ” (8s. 6d.).

Mr. Murray is going to print, under the title of “ The Unpublished Works of Edward Gibbon,” the seven autobiographies out of which the autobiography familiar to every educated reader was constructed, as Mr. Harrison explained at the time of the Gibbon commemoration; his journals, written mainly in French, from 1762 to 17 6 4 ; his correspondence with his distinguished contemporaries, his own relatives, and with the family of the first Lord Sheffield. Mr. Murray has acquired the copyright of these most interesting relics of a great man. The present Earl of Sheffield will contribute a preface.

Messrs. Macmillan & Co. are issuing a new edition of Charles Kingsley’s chief works. The first of the scries is “ Hypatia ” ( is . 6d.).

A new edition of the complete works of Descartes has been for some time in preparation, with the help of the State, by a committee of French scholars. They intend to begin printing next year, and to bring their work to a conclusion, if possible, in the year 1900.

Messrs. Routledge & Sons have issued, in Sir John Lubbock’s Hundred Books series, a translation of J . Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s “ The Buddha and His Religion” ( 5 s -)

Mr. J . G. F razer, author of “ The Golden Bough,” has published “ Passages from the Bible, Chosen for their Literary Beauty and Interest” (B lack; 6s.). This prose anthology—annotated to clear up a “ few difficulties which might perplex educated and intelligent readers ”—should interest the Higher Celestials.

O U R L I B R A R Y S H E L V E S .

HUXLEY’S COLLECTED E S S A Y S .- I I . No better models of popular scientific expositiondelicious compounds of information, logic, and humour —can be found than the six lectures to working men (1863) reprinted in the second volume of Huxley’s Collected Essays, entitled

“ darwiniana ”

(Macmillan; 475 pp.; 5s.). The lectures turn on “ Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature." The first address builds up the conception of a unity of plan in the construction of animals, and even hints that “ the whole of the organic world is reducible to one primitive condition of form ” —t.e., the nitrogenous cell. The second gives a rapid review of the geological record. “ That record,” remarks Huxley with characteristic and quaint suddenness, “ is composed of mud ;” and he goes on to describe strata and the occurrence of fossils. The third presents interesting details of experiments in the development of infusoria, and winds up with an account of Pasteur’s demonstration of the omnipresence in the atmosphere of organic “ germ-dust.” The fourth deals with reproduction and modification, with illustrations from plantlife, and examples of heredity, variations, monstrosities, and atavism. We subjoin the curious case of Seth Wright’s sheep:—

“ In that part of Massachusetts where Seth Wright was living, the fields were separated by fences, and the sheep, which were very active and robust, would roam abroad, and without much difficulty jump over these fences into other people’s farms. As a matter of course, this exuberant activity on the part of the sheep constantly gave rise to all sorts of quarrels, bickerings, and contentions among the farmers of the neighbourhood ; so it occurred to Seth Wright, who was, like his successors, more or less ’cute, that, if he could get a stock of sheep like those with the bandy legs, they would not be able to jump over the fences so readily ; and he acted upon that idea. He killed his old ram, and as soon as the young one arrived at maturity he bred altogether from it. [This ram had a very long