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In the Life of the late George Petrie, LL.D., by his old friend Dr. Stokes, every one interested in Irish antiquities will find a real treat. Seldom have we met with a labour of love so carefully, so reverently, and at the same time so judiciously carried out. Few men, as is indeed well known, have laboured so zealously as did Dr. Petrie for the preservation of every document, however fragmentary, which could bear at all on early Irish history. Beginning so long since as 1816, in the Dublin Examiner of that year, and following up his views in the Dublin Penny Journal, with Monasterboice for his subject, he used all his influence to arouse the attention of his countrymen to the elucidation of the genuine antiquities of Ireland. What had been done, or attempted, ere he took up the subject, let the pages of Vallancey, Betham, O'Brien, cum multis aliis, tell, and tell deplorably. With Petrie the reign of common sense began, and true learning took the place of fancies and extravagancies of the wildest nature. To Petrie Ireland owes the discovery of the second part of the "Annals of the Four Masters," the purchase of the Southwell Collection of MSS., and that of the Chevalier O'Gorman, not forgetting those of Sir W. Betham, and of Messrs. Hodges and Smith. From 1833 to 1846 Petrie laboured diligently on the Ordnance Topographical Survey of Ireland, during the same period giving to the world his " Antiquities of Tara," and the Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland." We may add that his account of the Round Towers of Ireland has hitherto satisfied all reasoning students, and that we can hardly hope for a more sensible explanation of them. It may not be generally known that Dr. Petrie was by birth a Scotchman, and that for many years of his early life he supported himself by his drawings and engravings. He was a pupil of L. Danby, in the Drawing School of the Dublin Society.

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'Hallamshire; its History and Topography," by the late Joseph Hunter, newly edited by the Rev. Alfred Gatty, is a book the original of which was published half a century ago. At Mr. Hunter's death, in 1861, his own annotated copy was sold for 607., and was subsequently placed in the hands of the present editor. We consider that Mr. Gatty has well fulfilled the duty imposed upon him, and has added with a loving hand, and with a wise discrimination, a mass of new matter to Mr. Hunter's original work.

"Researches in the Highlands of Turkey," by the Rev. H. F. Tozer, is a book as different, probably, from the one we have thus noticed as can be well imagined; yet it is deserving of nearly equal praise. Mr. Tozer's work is the result of hard scholastic labour in his own University, his words being, as it were, a supplement to his previous studies; and we thank him for an admirable work, carried out by a scholar and a gentleman.

The Rev. Greville Chester, who has recently issued a volume entitled “Transatlantic Sketches in the West Indies, South America, Canada, and the United States," is well known for his attention to archæological objects in every place he has visited during his long and widely-extended tours; but, so far as we know, this is the first book he has published, and we are inclined to think it may as well be his last, unless he changes alike the tone and the language in which he has written his present work. The fact is, one tires at last of hearing the same form of abuse repeated in each separate page. The round man in the square hole, and the square man in the round, did very well for one season, less well for the second; for the very truth of the adage was wearying, and the lover of excitement longed for a new image; so when Mr. Chester tells us, as he does in every other page of this volume, that the unfailing habit of Englishmen in all places,

and in all climates, is to perpetrate blunders, where their far-sighted neighbours would have done the reverse; we may admit his facts, but sicken over his illustrations. It is the old, old story (we hope that this may not be the actual state of the writer), and Horace puts the case as concisely as any one of his imitators, Cœlum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt."

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Some, however, of the illustrations of his theme are amusing, and are, too, probably borne out by the facts. Thus, at Barbadoes, he remarks that "Let ill alone," is the rule of Church and State, while his statement of the culminatory result of English stupidity, the West Indian Mail-Ship Station at St. Thomas's, is, or rather would be, singularly forcible, only that this station has ceased to exist for more than two years. We must confess we agree with a critic who has written somewhere else that "a traveller who frets and fumes about foreign customs which he finds strange, is a bore; but one who constantly and pertinaciously abuses his own country is considerably worse." We notice the same tempered mind wherever this author goes. In the States, he does find some things done worse than they would have been done by the British; but then the inhabitants of these lands vary much in the North, South, East, and West, and agree in one only common peculiarity, their " Extreme Englishness," whatever this phrase may mean. Lastly, as a crumb of comfort, we may notice that in Canada he finds refinement he can discover nowhere else, thanks to what he is pleased to call their " French element;" while, on the other hand, his judgment of the morality of the New England States tends to show that-in his opinion, at least the descendants of the "God-fearing Puritans" are practically a "Goddenying population." We cannot think that books like this one are of any value to the present generation, for they tell us nothing we did not know before, while the tone in which they are composed, and the feelings they are supposed to give vent to, are just the very ones most alien to all true Christianity. Had Mr. Chester's object been, what we are far from thinking that it was, to show how sadly English people have degenerated by settling in and colonizing far distant lands, his remarks, supposing them what they are not, the matured and grave judgment of a far-seeing student of mankind, might have had a certain value.

Mr. H. T. Riley has gone on with the excellent work of which he has already completed two volumes, and in volume the third of the "Chronica Monasterii S. Albani, Gesta Abbatum," &c., has given abundant evidence of his skill, knowledge, and judgment as an editor-talents greatly required by any one who shall devote himself to the study and the explanation of so quaint an author as Thomas Walsingham. The period comprehended in this volume is from A.D. 1349— A.D. 1411, and in it will be found admirable pictures of many once famous, but now nearly forgotten, personages. Of these, perhaps the most remarkable is that of Alice Perers, the favourite of the old king, Edward III., whose father, Sir Richard Perers, was, during some part of this period, in the Bishop's Gaol, at Bishop's Stortford, under the accusation of more than one deliberate act of theft. Another matter of much interest is the incidental notice of the famous portrait of Richard II. in the Jerusalem Chamber, of which, we venture to think, Mr. George Scharf was scarcely aware when he published his well known and excellent description of it. Mr. Riley thinks that this portrait was painted in commemoration of two leading events in that king's reign: the sitting of Richard's second Parliament in Old Palace-yard, Westminster, and the swearing of the Lords

spiritual and temporal before the shrine of Edward the Confessor that they would observe the statutes passed in that Parliament. Richard is said to have sat in this Parliament on a lofty throne with the crown on his head and the sceptre in his hand. Mr. Riley states his belief "that the life-like portrait of that king seated in state, with crown and sceptre, upon what, from its construction (the height of its pinnacles, and the fact of its being raised on a step or steps), may certainly be called a lofty throne" was painted in remembrance of this event. Certain it is that this portrait once hung in the choir of the Abbey of St. Alban's, having, perhaps, been painted, as suggested by Mr. Riley, for the then abbot, William of Colchester. What became of it after this is by no means clear, but it is not unlikely, as this writer imagines, that on the abbot's disgrace, and to protect it from the hostility of the Bolingbroke party, "it was removed from the abbot's palace to the interior of the abbey, where no one could molest it under penalties of sacrilege." The rest of the history of this celebrated picture is well given, as we have already had occasion to remark, in Mr. Scharf's account of its restoration under the superintendence of Mr. Richmond. With this volume Mr. Riley brings to a conclusion the "Gesta Abbatum." The "Chronica" are to follow, together with the work of John of Amundesham, which is also to be edited by him. We wish him equal success in future volumes with that he has already achieved.

Other works of interest, which, however, our space forbids us from noticing in any detail here, are the following:

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'The Travels of a Hindoo to Various Parts, Bengal, and Upper India,” by Bhotenauth Chunder, has its value as showing the extent in which European ideas and European influences have influenced the mind of the younger race of the natives of India.

The "General Tendency of Russian Literature," by N. Strachoff.

"American Fish-Culture, embracing all the Details of Artificial Breeding and Rearing of Trout, &c.," by Thaddeus Norris.

"The Worthies of Cumberland. The Right Hon. Sir James Graham, Bart.,” by Henry Lonsdale, M.D.

"The Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," by W. F. Hook, D.D., Dean of Chichester. An excellent work, well begun, and well continued; perhaps most interesting in that it shows that Cardinal Pole was more responsible for the evil deeds of the period than most people think-perhaps are ready to believe. Most valuable, too, is the humane and charitable judgment passed on the Queen and on Pole by the author, as persons believing to the fullest in their inmost hearts that every step they took for the eradication of what they believed to be heresy, was a direct gain to the Church, and, through the Church, to Christianity. 'The History of the Norman Conquest of England; its Causes and Results," by Edward Freeman. Vol. III. A continuation of a very able, but very onesided view of this great question. Moreover, a somewhat elaborate volume, considering that it treats of one year only, viz. the reign of Harold and the inter

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Travels and Adventures in South and Central America," by Don Ramon

Paez.

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The Feudal Castles of France," by the author of "Flemish Interiors." A work of considerable merit, and, on the whole, well worthy perusal.

The "Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral," by, we regret to say, the late Dean of Paul's (Dr. Milman), is a volume which will challenge comparison with almost

any other work of the same or kindred character. Far better is it, in our judgment, than Dean Stanley's "Memorials of Westminster" in this respect, especially, that it is far less crowded with miscellaneous details, and that the general progress of the story is much more evenly told and more readily comprehensible. No one will, we presume, question the ability of Dean Stanley, but somehow his story lacks clearness, while it rests often on references which it is not easy to follow.

"My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and his Letters to Me," by Edward Deoriert, fill a void we have often felt in the life of this-the greatest of modern musical geniuses. His public life we know well enough, but this account supplies what we all wanted-details of him in his own home and in his home circle.

"Retrospect and Prospects of Indian Policy," by Major Evans Bell, late of the Madras Staff Corps. A good and valuable treatise for those who care to know the results and the working of recent legislation with regard to the army in India. "The Life of Mary Russell Mitford," by the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange.

"Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan, &c.," by Douglas W. Freshfield. An admirable geographical memoir worthy of men who have already achieved renown in the Alpine regions of Europe.

"Albert Dürer; his Life and Works," by W. B. Scott, and "The History of the Life of Albrecht Dürer, of Nuremberg," by Mrs. Charles Heaton. Both excellent descriptions of the daily life and habits and genius of one of the greatest of the artists of Germany when that land was just emerging from the darkness of the Middle Ages, telling much we are glad to learn of the "Evangelist of Arts," and recalling to our minds with singular force the truth and justice of the transatlantic poet, who, years ago, said of him, in most touching lines,

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"Emigravit" is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies--
Dead he is not, but departed, for the artist never dies."

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"A Reply to Cobbett's History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland,'" by C. H. Collette. A good attempt, but feebly carried out. It must, however, be remembered that Cobbett was essentially a controversialist, and unsparing for right or wrong. We cannot, therefore, wholly blame those who are not convinced by his sarcasms from replying too much after his own fashion.

"Ancient and Modern India," by Mrs. Manning. An excellent book of its class, and full of well-assorted and varied information.

"Life and Letters of Faraday," by Dr. Bence Jones. An admirable account of one of the greatest philosophers whom the world has known, treated with that gentleness and humility which those who knew him well are so well also satisfied was his true character.

"Hugh Latimer; a Biography," by the Rev. R. Demans, M.A. "Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-Law," by W. H. Woolrych. Both biographical sketches of a certain interest, but hardly, we deem, worthy of a separate notice under our heading of "Biography."

"Over the Alleghanies and across the Prairies," by J. L. Peyton.

"Colorado; its Resources, Parks, and Progress, as a New Field for Emigration," by W. Blackmore.

"British Expedition to Abyssinia," by Capt. H. M. Hozier. An excellent account by a well-practised pen, as every student of military strategy knows,

which, however, we forbear to notice here, as we have already commented at some length on other Abyssinian memorialists.

The present year has not been rich in poetical contributions, but we have at last before us the completion of Robert Browning's poem, "The Ring and the Book," and are enabled to form some judgment of the manner in which he has treated his whole subject; and sure we are that we do not speak too enthusiastically when we say that it is one of the greatest works in the English language. It is hard, indeed, to describe what is so very diverse, and which, in fact, reminds us of nothing so much as Dryden's famous description of Achitophel,

"A man so various that he seemed to be,

Not one, but all mankind's epitome."

So is it with Robert Browning's poem. It seems to contain every thing-the buried wisdom of the ancient world, and the bright but evanescent brilliancy of the intellectual world of the present day, and the whole clothed in language of such exquisite beauty that it is all but impossible to make any selection without doing an injustice to the portions not selected.

"Walpole; or, Every Man has his Price; a Comedy in Rhyme," by Lord Lytton, will naturally arrest attention, not only as the performance of a veteran man of letters, and without forgetting his shorter and more recent, yet not less brilliant, talents as a statesman and an orator, but for the novelty which its title represents. One is not prepared for a well-constructed, entertaining play in anapastic metre; yet such is Lord Lytton's last work, and it is a surprise and at the same time a most pleasant one. Whether it will act is another matter; but that it can and will be adapted to the stage we can have no doubt. Walpole is naturally the central figure around whom the rest of the characters are grouped, but Sir Sydney Bellairs, the smart "man about town," his lovely and delicate sister Lucy, and Selden Blount, are each pictures in themselves, and such as, probably, no living writer excepting Lord Lytton could have sketched. How gracefully and how happily he makes his self-chosen metre act as he requires, the following description of Walpole soliloquizing will well attest,

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66 I wonder what lies the historians will tell

When they babble of one Robert Walpole! Well, well;
Let them sneer at his blunders, declaim on his vices,

Cite the rogues whom he purchased, and rail at the prices :
They shall own that all lust for revenge he withstood;

And, if lavish of gold, he was sparing of blood;

And when England was threatened by France and by Rome,

He forced Peace from abroad and encamped her at home;

And the freedom he left, rooted firm in fair laws,

May o'ershadow the faults of deeds done in her cause!"

while one noble line follows, which expresses the national dislike the whole English race have to cruelty

"No Briton likes blood in the air that he breathes,"

and which honourably distinguishes our people from even the French.

Lord Kinloch's "Faith's Jewels presented in Verse; with other Devout Verses," is a small collection of poems, which, for their exquisite tone of high and holy

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