the many admirers of this genial-hearted essayist, and many more will be led to their first acquaintance with dear "Rab and his Friends." The present volume consists mainly of the more purely professional papers, of which the author expressed the fear that they might not be "medical enough for the doctors, and too medical for their patients." But it was impossible to Dr. Brown's broad and radiant nature, even when writing of physic and surgery, to forget his unprofessional friends. This happy faculty of instructing and pleasing all is well illustrated in the initial essay of this vol

THE BOY'S PERCY: Being old Ballads of War, Adventure, and Love, from Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Edited for boys, with an introduction by Sidney Lanier. With fifty illustrations from original designs by E. B. Bensell. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

It is not easy to over-estimate the debt of gratitude which the boys of America owe to the late Sidney Lanier for the new world of instruction and delight which he has discovered for them. His abridgments from the old heroic literature of England are wholesome substitutes for the toneless stories that were once

doled out to young people. "The Boy's Froissart," "The Boy's King Arthur," and "The Boy's Mabinogion," have already found their thousands of interested readers, and this last volume, containing the best of the grand old songs in " Percy's Reliques," is calculated to become even more popular than any of its predecessors. Had the editor never done anything else in literature to command the admiration of old and young, these carefully edited boys' classics would long serve to keep his memory green. It was a labor of love, dedicated to his young friends with almost his dying breath.

Nothing better could be selected than these old ballads for stimulating the boy's imagination and coloring his historic knowledge with a little useful idealism; for the tendency, already too prevalent, to restrain young minds with the bald realism of fact and of scientific exactitude is at least questionable from an educational point of view. We could well assume the responsibility of correcting the false views of life that might be found, if the doughty Douglas, the bold King Estmere, the Nut-brown Maid, and Clym of Clough, and fourscore more of those golden figures of ro

mance were made to stand out "like rich tapestry work wrought large as life" upon the arras with which the common living-room of young people is hung. Some of the lessons that will be learned from them are suggested in the closing lines of Mr. Lanier's excellent introduction. "I know," he says, "that he who walks in the way these following ballads point, will be manful in necessary fight, fair in trade, loyal in love, generous to the poor, tender in the household, prudent in living, plain in speech, merry upon occasion, simple in behavior, and honest in all things.' The ballads here presented are thirty-five in number, and are chosen with careful regard to the purpose in view. Bishop Percy's original notes are appended to each ballad, with frequent additions by the editor. The designs by Bensell are conceived with much spirit and truthfulness, and are beautifully executed. No gift more charming and appropriate could be selected for the holidays.

THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. By Heinrich Heine. Translated by S. L. Fleishman. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

This remarkable essay was originally written and published in France in 1833, as a kind of sequel to Madame de Staël's De l'Allemagne," which had long been the chief source of information as to the literary life of Germany that was accessible to the French. Thus being written primarily for the instruction of foreigners, and possessing acknowledged merits of a high order as a history of an important literary epoch, the absence of a complete translation of this essay has often been remarked upon with surprise. Mr. Fleishman has admirably supplied this need, and he is to be especially thanked for having presented Heine this time just as he is;" for hitherto Heine's prose writings have been given to English readers only in snips and patches. Prudence and good taste have doubtless dictated such a method of translation, but in this essay the usual excuse for pruning does not exist; at least, the translator has ventured to allow Heine for once to offer his own vindication, if any be needed. The value of this work as literary history and criticism is great; and in genuine interest, and often in poetic beauty-for Heine could never write without being poetical, it stands next to the "Reisebilder." It contains some of the best of Heine's wit and wisdom. It professedly deals with that intellectual movement which had for its object the revival of mediæval mysticism in German art and poetry, of which the Schlegels were the chief apostles, and Goethe the chief apostate; but it is in reality much broader in its view, looking back in a rapid glance to the very springs of German poetry. It abounds in

illustrative wealth, and reveals in almost every page a keen critical lance that was wont to cut deep when applied to an enemy. Heine has been censured for his famous lashing of the Schlegels and some of their followers, but it is remarkable, as Mr. Fleishman suggests, that "his literary judgments have been essentially endorsed by posterity." He took a malicious delight in pricking the bubbles of these pompous preachers of reform. But he could be generous and just, in spite of a naturally jealous temperament, when dealing with true merit. "I frankly confess that I was envious of Goethe," he says, and then follow passages of the most clear, beautiful, and instructive criticism of the Goethean masterpieces that is to be found in any language.

This volume also contains translations of "The Suabian Mirror," a review of some of the minor poets of Germany, in Heine's characteristically brilliant, witty, and caustic style, and of the introduction to "Don Quixote," which contains many passages that happily illustrate his charming prose poetry.

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We are very glad to have this little volume, giving as it does some of the best things in the Koran, so arranged as to be more intelligible and more mutually coherent than they are commonly found to be. Mr. Lane-Poole divides the "speeches" into four periods, to which he gives names descriptive of the changing attitude of mind in the speaker. These four are the "Poetic," the "Rhetorical," the Argumentative," and the " Period of Harangue"-names which indicate a certain declension of fervor in the Prophet's mind. An interesting introduction is prefixed, most of which we may assent to without assenting to the whole estimate of Mohammed's character. Whatever the teacher may have been, there was, it seems to us, a fatal flaw in the character of the ruler which forbids us to speak of him as an enthusiast. The "Table Talk" contains not a few notable things. Here is an Oriental form of the "hoc habui quodcunque dedi: ”—“The people of the Prophet's house killed a goat, and the Prophet said, 'What remaineth of it?' They said, 'Nothing but the shoulder; for they have sent the whole to the poor and neighbors, except a shoulder, which remaineth.' The Prophet said, 'Nay, it is the whole goat that remaineth except its shoulder; that remaineth which they have given away, the reward of which will be eternal, and what remaineth in the house is fleeting.'"-Pall Mall Gazette.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

A FRENCH Saturday Review is now appearing in Paris, which deals with the whole field of literature, science, politics, etc.

THE third and concluding volume of Prof. Villari's historical work, "Machiavelli and his Time," has just been published by Hoepli, of Milan.

MESSRS. SMITH AND ELDER announce for speedy publication a new work by Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole (Keeper of the Coins in the British Museum), entitled "Cities of Egypt."

MR. BROWNING has finished enough fresh minor poems to form a thin volume like the two last that he has published; but it is probable that he will keep them back till he has completed a longer poem to come out with

them.

SOME unpublished works of Ferdinand Freiligrath will shortly be issued by Göschen, of Stuttgart, under the title Nachgelassenes. The volume contains two pieces of the poets youth

Der Eggesterstein," and a translation of Byron's "Mazeppa."

CONSIDERABLE literary activity seems to exist in Little Russia. Goethe's Faust has lately been translated into this dialect by Ivan Franke, and it is stated that the poet Pantelejmou Kulisz is engaged upon a complete version of Shakespeare.

THE veteran poet, Mr. Richard Hengist Horne, who must now have passed his eightieth year, has written a new work, and also prepared a fourth edition of his "Cosmo de Medici," which first appeared in 1875. Both books will be published shortly by Mr. George Redway.

IN proof of the general diffusion of the name "Hamlet" in England in Shakespeare's time, Mr. Furnivall tells us that, in glancing through part of the first volume of the Indexes to the Wills in the Gloucester Probate Court lately, he saw, under 1594, "Johannes Hamlett" and 'Margeria Hamlett."

We understand that Mr. Robert Brown, Jr., the indefatigable author of "The Great Dionysiak Myth," is now working at the origin of the extra-zodiacal constellations. He hopes to be able to publish early next year a monograph Eridanus, River and Constellation' continuation of his "Law of Cosmic Order."

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MESSRS. KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH AND Co. will shortly publish a work by Mr. John Nicholas Murphy, author of "Terra Incognita," entitled "The Chair of Peter; or, the Papacy considered in its Institution, Development, and Organization, and in the Benefits which for over Eighteen Centuries it has conferred on Mankind."

MR. GLADSTONE will shortly complete fifty years of public life, having been first returned to the House of Commons, as member for Newark, on December 13, 1832. In commemoration of this event, a 'jubilee edition " of Mr. G. Barnett Smith's "Life of Gladstone" will be issued immediately by Messrs. Cassell, Petter, Galpin and Co., at the price of one shilling, with a portrait, and several new chapters bringing the biography down to the present date.

WE hear that Miss Mathilde Blind's biographical sketch of "George Eliot," which is to be the initial volume of Mr. John H. Ingram's forthcoming series of "Eminent Women," will be chiefly composed of new material. It will give, and for the first time, a faithful account of George Eliot's early life, refer to much of her unknown literary labors, indentify the characters in her novels, and furnish new and interesting correspondence.

THE influential literary society of Vienna, called the Concordia, has passed a resolution favoring the discontinuance of Monday newspapers on the ground that the work for them must be done on Sundays; and this resolution has been vigorously applauded at a mass meeting of Viennese printers. The practice on this point is very irregular. Throughout the Continent nearly all papers are published on every day of the week, Sundays and Mondays included. In England we are not aware of a single daily paper that appears on Sunday; but we have heard of good people in Scotland who decline to read their papers on Monday mornings.

MESSRS. CASSell, Petter, GALPIN and Co. will shortly publish the conclusion of Sir Gavan Duffy's "Young Ireland," under the title of "Four Years of Irish History, 1845-49." It deals with the most memorable incidents in the modern history of Ireland-the Secession, by which the marvellous authority of O'Connell was overthrown; O'Connell's compact with the Whigs; the great famine; and, for the first time, the secret history, minutes of council, and private correspondence connected with the abortive insurrection headed by Smith O'Brien. It is written not only from close personal knowledge, but founded on unpublished documents and the correspondence of nearly every one prominently concerned in these transactions.

MESSRS. CHATTO AND WINDUS have in the press a work on Arabian society in the Middle Ages and to-day, by the late E. W. Lane, the author of the "Modern Egyptians" and the Arabic Lexicon. It is an arrangement of all the more important notes appended to Mr. Lane's translation of the "Thousand-and-one Nights.' Scholars, as well as ordinary readers, have often expressed a wish that the notes could be

obtained in a separate and convenient form ; and, to meet this wish and render the notes more widely serviceable, Mr. Stanley LanePoole has arranged them in a series of chapters, which will form the most complete picture existing in any European language of the manners, beliefs and superstitions, social habits, and literature of the Mohammedans as they were in the days of the Mamluks, and as they are still to a great extent in Cairo and Damascus and Bagdad. The book will be a sort of Moslem encyclopædia.

THE Clarendon Press will publish shortly "The Gospel of St. Mark in Gothic, according to the Translation made by Wulfila in the Fourth Century," edited by Prof. Skeat. This work is intended to. serve as a Gothic primer, and to introduce the beginner to larger works on the subject. The introduction gives all necessary elementary information concerning the MS., the author, and the sources of the alphabet, with some account of the pronunciation, phonology, and grammar. The glossory not only explains all the words occurring in St. Mark's Gospel, but is extended so as to explain all the more important words of the language, especially such as are most required by the student of English etymology, for whom some knowledge of Gothic is absolutely indispensable.

SCIENCE AND ART.

ATROPIA FOR EARACHE.-The most effectual

treatment, and the one which has stood the test of years, says Dr. A. D. Williams, in the American Chemists' and Druggists' Bulletin, is the local application of a solution of the sulphate of atropia. Not a single case but has yielded at once. The solution is to be simply dropped into the painful ear, and allowed to

remain there from ten to fifteen minutes. Then it is made to run out by turning the head over, then being wiped with a dry rag. The solution may be warmed to prevent shock. From three to five drops should be used at a time. The strength of the solution must vary, according to the age of the child. Under three years, one grain to the ounce, and over ten years, four grains to the ounce of water. grown persons almost any strength may be used. All ages will bear a stronger solution in the ear than in the eye. The application should be repeated as often as may be necessary.

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Usually a few applications will stop the pain. In acute suppurative inflammation of the middle ear, and acute inflammation of the external meatus, atropia will only slightly palliate the suffering, but in the recurring nocturnal earaches of children it is practically a specific.

A NEW VEGETABLE STYPTIC. A recent number of the Neue Freie Presse states that during the French expedition to Mexico a plant was discovered, called by the natives by a name which may be rendered as Fowl wort (Tradescantia erecta, Jacq.), which has the property, when chewed or crushed, of stopping any hæmorrhage. A specimen planted in 1867 by the discoverer, in his garden at Versailles, has not only flourished, but flowered and fruited, without having its peculiar properties as yet appreciably diminished. though no exotic, or remarkable for particular beauty of bloom, it, nevertheless, deserves a wider extension on account of its valuable properties, especially as its acclimatization may be regarded as having been fully established. Its action exceeds that of all styptics

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as yet known, as, for example, perchloride of iron, and it can, moreover, be very cheaply procured.—Lancet.

HOW A MAN WALKS.-One of the most remarkable things about a man's walk is the diagonal movement which characterizes it. The reader may imagine the hands and feet to form the four corners of a parallelogram, and the diagonal limbs are of course the right arm and left leg, and the left arm and right leg. By "diagonal movement we therefore intend to convey the fact that the diagonal limbs, during locomotion, always swing in the same direction. A soldier on parade keeps his arms motionless by his sides, and on no account must they be allowed to vibrate. This is not what he would naturally do if left to himself. Watch any one person out of the hundreds walking along the streets, and it will be seen that he invariably swings his arms as he goes along, perhaps to an extreme degree if he be a rustic, and less so if town-bred. The arms swing by the body like a couple of pendula, and with a speed which entirely depends upon the rate at which he may be walking. The athlete, anxious to complete the given number of "laps" in a mile or couple of miles and outstrip his competitors, swings his arms to and fro with a quickness which corresponds with the motion of his swift feet; the business man also swings his arms with a motion which, if not so quick, exactly times with the motion of his legs; and even the idle man about town, lounging along some fashionable quarter, unconsciously gives a slow motion to his arms which corresponds to his tardy legs. Now, if the motion be even carelessly observed, it will be found that the right arm swings forward at the same time as the left leg; and when the right leg is advancing, it is the left arm which accompanies it. This is the natural gait, and, to convince one's self that it is so, it is only requisite to get a friend to walk across the room

in the opposite fashion-i. e., to swing the right arm forward when stepping out with the right leg, and then, in the same manner, when bringing forward the left leg, to accompany it with the left arm. Such a gait is both unnatural and uncomfortable to the person who tries it, and also ludicrous to the observer who watches a first attempt of the kind. The diagonal movement of the limbs is therefore the natural method adopted by man when walking, and it is the first and most apparent fact that one ascertains in studying human locomotion.-Science for All.

A SALT MINE TWO THOUSAND YEARS OLD. A mine has been found in the mountain near Salsburg, Austria, which gives indications of having been occupied and abandoned at least

It contains a large

two thousand years ago. and confused mass of timbers, which were

etc.

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used for support, and a number of miners' implements. The timbers were notched and sharpened, but were subject to an inundation, and left in confused heaps. The implements were mainly wooden shovels, axe-handles, Among the relics, also, was a basket made of untanned raw hide, a piece of cloth woven of coarse wool, the fibre of which is very even, and still in good preservation, and a torch, bound together with flax fibre. probabilities are that the ancient salt-miners were overtaken by the flooding of the mine, as mummified bodies have been discovered also. The find seems to have belonged to the preRoman times, as the axe-handles were evidently used for bronze axes, specimens of which have been found upon the surface of the mountain. The relics are of a high order, the basket being superior even to some that were used in the early historic times.

ARCHEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES at Revel.The Riga Zeitung gives an interesting account of the valuable manuscripts lately discovered at Revel. It was proposed to refit an apartment on the ground floor of the Hôtel de Ville, to serve as an additional receptacle for the city archives. But on examination it was found to be filled almost to the ceiling with manuscripts and books, the bulk of which belonged to the 18th and 17th centuries, while some thousands of them dated from the 16th, very many from the 15th, and some even went back to the 14th century. The most valuable among them was, perhaps, a collection of municipal account-books and similar documents. Hitherto only a few of the old city books of this once famous Hanse town were believed to exist; but about 40 of them, of all kinds, ranging from the 14th to the 16th century, have here been brought to light. Books of all kinds, such as were

kept probably only in the Middle Ages, are here represented-accounts of the municipal lime-kilns, mills, exchange of coins, exchequer receipts, beginning with the year 1432, registers of incoming ships, with abstracts of their bills of lading (from the beginning of the 15th century), port dues, lists of citizens, records of inheritances, ledger of receipts from succession duties, record of letters of convoy, several letter-books (one of which ranges from 1383 to 1425), and others for the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century. Among the other treasures here discovered is the chronicles of Dünamunde, long believed to be lost, and a manuscript belonging to the municipal archives of Lübeck. German mediæval archæologists are looking forward eagerly to a thorough investigation and calendaring of the contents of this precious "find,"

THE FIRE-FLASHING PLANT.-The fraxinella

is the subject of a tradition that is probably founded on fact. It is said that in hot weather the plant emits flashes of fire. Linnæus believed it; and Alphonse Karr, in his delightful "Tour Round My Garden,' makes several references to the great Swedish botanist and his descriptions of the fraxinella fireworks. In Turton's Linné," now before us, we find in vol. v., p. 678, a note on the plant in these words, emitting inflammable odorous effiuvia." Karr records in all seriousness that he

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many times endeavored to obtain flashes by passing a lighted candle over the plant, but had no success. In "Maund's Botanic Garden,' "edited by the late Mr. J. C. Niven, a record to the same effect will be found in vol. ii., p. 108. Mr. Niven says: "Another of the well-known qualities belonging to it is the inflammability of the exhalation from the little resinous glands with which it is covered. very dry warm weather this will be seen to take fire, on bringing a candle near to it; but the best method of showing this properly is to gather a portion of the plant in dry weather and hold it near to a small candle, in a room that is otherwise dark. This statement, though tested on many occasions, has never been verified by us; doubtless the special oil contained in the glands is extremely volatile." We also can say that though tested on many occasions the statement has never been verified by us. It is but too likely that our summers are never hot enough to develop to their highest possible degree the properties of the plant on which its inflammability depends. It is some satisfaction to know that Karr failed to obtain from it the traditional flashes of fire; or, at all events, did not see them.-Gardeners' Magazine.

ASIATIC RUG-MAKING.-When an American buyer arrives in the heart of the rug-making country in Asia, he selects the best agent he can find, and gives him an order for, say, 100 rugs, of about the colors and sizes of certain samples which he may find in the bazaars. The Turkish agent then employs natives of the villages where the kind of rugs selected are wanted, giving to each a bag of gold and instructions to order four rugs. The sub-agent

then goes among the families, and talks rugs with them, drinking many cups of coffee, and discussing the price for days at a time. When a bargain is concluded some money is furnished the family for wool, dyes, and food, and the agent goes away, sure that in the course of a few months the rug will be ready. Upon a carpet measuring 8 feet by 12 feet, a whole family will work for months. The cotton or woollen threads which form the groundwork or warp of the fabric are stretched upon a huge frame the width of the rug, and the family, or such members of it as are able to work, sit on the floor and tie knots in the warp threads with the colored wool tufts, tightening the finished fabric now and then with a rough comb. Each worker takes about 27 inches of the rug and works along this strip. From 2 inches to 4 inches a day is the speed at which the rug advances, if the family is large enough for the whole width of the rug to advance at the same time. A rug 8 or 9 feet wide reThe finishing of the rug, smoothing, clipping, quires four persons, who work side by side.

etc., is a work requiring skill and judgment. The wages are very small, and the payment is according to the number of square feet. The workers know certain patterns by heart, and dye their own wools. The old dyes have in. some instances been supplanted by aniline colors, which do not keep their tones, and fade without giving to the rug the softness of tint which is the chief glory of a fine Eastern rug. So many merchants have refused to buy the carpets in which aniline dyes have been used that the use of them may eventually be stopped. The rug makers as a class are poor in money, very ignorant, and very religious, but live comfortably. Especially around the borders of the Caspian Sea, in the country watered by the rivers from the Caucasian Mountains, are the people in comfortable circumstances, although about three centuries behind the rest of the Wine is still brought into Tiflis in ox world. hides holding a hogshead of wine, and is sold for about 15 cents a gallon. The rugs and carpets are brought in from Persia and the neighboring districts on camels' backs, the arrivals of camel trains being one of the curious sights of the town.-Draper.