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they guard their children from contamination - through the language and literature of strangers, and the monstrous inhumanity of the punishments inflicted for apostasy. The men are austere, the women sad. Mental isolation, constant terror of excommunication, and obedience to the gross impositions of the Rabbi, lead to spiritual degradation, fatalism, gloom, and despair. The last sketch in the volume, entitled "Nameless Graves," is a most effective picture of some of these Podolian beliefs and customs. When one dies under ban for any sin, the name is not inscribed upon the headstone. This is meant as a punishment, or requital of the evil the man had done while on earth; for the worst anathema known to this people is, His name shall be blotted out." One of these nameless graves is that of a poor shoemaker who had suffered long persecution because he had once given way to doubt and had been heard to utter a Christian prayer. Another is that of a beggar who was found eating a bit of meat on the day of atonement. And another is that of a woman who having lost her children, as a "judgment of God," was herself persecuted to death because of a secret sin. Her sin was the concealment at marriage of her beautiful hair. For no married woman is allowed to wear her own hair, which is always cut short, and sometimes even shaved, before the wedding. For a married woman to wear her own hair, would not merely be regarded as immodest, but as a terrible sin against God."

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The book is calculated to arouse wide and bitter hostility, for it illustrates those repugnant characteristics which "altereth not "" wherever the Jewish race is represented. Its power is of a kind to effect something more than a temporary sensation, and its disclosures should quicken the efforts of the few intelligent Jews who are attempting to bring about reform and to remove the incubus which has so long been weighing down their race. It has already had a remarkable circulation and popularity, having been translated into all the languages of Europe, as well as into Hebrew. An introduction to the American edition by Barnet Phillips discusses intelligently the main motive of the stories and serves to strengthen the convictions which inevitably arise from reading the book.

THE USE OF THE VOICE IN READING AND

SPEAKING. A Manual for Clergymen and Candidates for Holy Orders. By the Rev. Francis T. Russell, M.A. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Next to the lack of true spirituality, there is probably nothing that detracts so much from the efficiency of the minister's work as the lack of a cultivated delivery. Every regular at

tendant upon divine service will readily acknowledge that the number of excellent sermons that are practically spoiled by a feeble and awkward delivery is something quite appalling. The days of belief in inspired crudity in the pulpit are happily passed away, and the necessity of fitting himself properly for his work by careful training in every respect is as incumbent upon the minister as upon the lawyer or the physician. One of the most common lamentations now heard from the pulpit is in regard to the meagre results of earnest and scholarly preaching, and it is not ungenerous to say of many of these who cry out against these people that they do not deserve success, until they have given more careful attention to some of the fundamental qualifications necessary to insure success. They

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are the more chargeable, since most of these qualifications lie easily within their reach, not the least of which is an elementary knowledge of oratorical style. The familiar apology that one has only to become accustomed to the minister's peculiarities to appreciate him, should not be accepted; for mannerisms that are so peculiar as to be offensive to good taste, appealing too often to the sense of the ridiculous, are easily corrected by a little special attention to the matter. The necessity of instruction in elocution at the theological schools is coming to be more generally recognized every year, and the subject will doubtless soon become one of the regular departments of every course of homiletical instruction. fessor Russell has prepared an excellent manual of instruction in voice culture, suitable both for school and private use. The principles are clearly explained and amply illustrated, so that any clergyman, with or without an instructor, can profit by its use. It is the result of a long experience both as clergyman and as instructor in elocution in different theological seminaries, an experience which shows itself in the eminently practical manner in which the subject is treated. It is addressed especially to those entering the Episcopal Church, one part being devoted specifically to the reading of the service, and including long extracts from the Prayer-book; but it will be found equally serviceable to candidates for any order of the ministry. The first chapters of the book are particularly praiseworthy for the detailed and sound advice in regard to articulation, breathing exercises, and the more general and primary conditions of vocal power, such as health, exercise, diet, and proper rest.

A WORD, ONLY A WORD. A Romance. By Georg Ebers. From the German by Mary J. Safford. New York: William S. Gottsberger.

The many readers who have made the acquaintance of Professor Ebers through his

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famous Egyptian romances, "An Egyptian Princess and " Uarda,' will find the same fascinating qualities of historical romance in this story. He possesses to a marked degree the historical imagination, by which the scenes of past ages are presented with the vivid reality of an experience of yesterday. The material for the present romance is drawn from the history of the social life of Germany in the sixteenth century, when the memories of the Bundschuh were still alive among the peasants, when Jews were hunted with hounds, when profligate priests robbed the people of the best fruits of their labor, and when princes made war their common sport. A part of the scene is in the Netherlands during the Spanish struggle for supremacy. The hero is the son of an humble smith, but receives a kind of inspiration from the instruction of a wise and Christian spiritual Jew, whose daughter is his playmate and finally his wife. He is followed through many and exciting adventures, from youth to manhood, always guided by a kind of talismanic word, which is perpetually changing and disappointing his aspirations. At one time it is fame, fortune, power; but these prove only deceptions. Then he finds art, becomes a distinguished painter, and believes he has found the word. But not until Love is found does he possess the true word. Having found this he no longer wanders or seeks in doubt. It is a pretty conceit prettily worked out, in a setting of genuine history. The air of the whole tale is as breezy and wholesome as that of the forest covered hills and rocky glens of the Black Forest country which it so pleasantly describes.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES. "DANIEL DERONDA" is being published in French in the Moniteur Egyptien at Cairo as a feuilleton.

A TRANSLATION of "Hiawatha" into Greek verse has recently been published at Leipzig by M. Pervanoglou.

M. ROLIN-JAEQUEMYNS, Belgian Minister of the Interior, has been appointed directeur of the Académie royale de Belgique for the current year.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co. will publish shortly a new volume of essays by the late Prof. Stanley Jevons under the title Methods of Social Reform, and other Papers."

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PROF. GARDTHAUSEN, of Leipzig, has ready his catalogue of the Greek manuscripts to be found in the convent at Sinai, which he made during his stay of nearly six months on the spot.

MR. FROUDE is now passing through the press the "Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle," which Carlyle had himself prepared for publication. The work will fill three

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volumes.

M. FERDINAND BRUNETIÈRE has collected into a volume (Hachette) the essays upon subjects connected with the history of French literature which have been appearing in the Revue des Deux-Mondes.

MR. E. A. FREEMAN has collected into a volume some of his papers on English architecture as illustrating English history, which will shortly be published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co., with illustrations.

THE German Spelling Reform Association have just issued their Kalender for the present year. It is printed in a reformed spelling, and, in addition to the usual information, contains several interesting stories, anecdotes, and poetical compositions.

THE Sixth Congress of the International Literary Association is to be held at Amsterdam in September. The Association offers a prize for an essay on liberty of thought and speech in Holland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

DON PASCUAL DE GAYANGOS has completed the second part of the fourth volume of his "Calendar of Spanish State Papers relating to England," preserved at Simancas, Vienna, and elsewhere. It relates entirely to events during the years 1531, 1532, and 1533.

A COLLECTED edition of the poems of the late Dr. Robert Chambers is about to be issued in Edinburgh. The edition will be limited to 140 copies, will contain a new portrait of the author, and to the early poems numerous pieces written in later life have been added.

MADAME RUTE, who is probably better known by the name of her first husband, Rattazzi, is about to found a weekly paper in Madrid. This periodical will deal with litera. ture and politics, and is likely to number many men of eminence among its contributors. Emilio Castelar has, it is said, promised his assistance.

THE new edition of Prof. Max Müller's "Introduction to the Science of Religion," to be issued shortly by Messrs. Longmans, has been revised throughout, and contains a large amount of new matter. Notes have been added at the end, in length equivalent to articles, upon the Emperor Akbar, the Languages of Africa, Polynesian Mythology, the Chinese Name for God, etc., all intended to throw light on certain obscure questions referred to in the body of the book. A very full Index has also been appended.

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THE new edition of Messrs. Gostwick and Harrison's "Outlines of German Literature" which is announced, is intended to be a considerable improvement on the edition of 1873. A new chapter is added on the general literature of the decennium 1873-83; another on the philosophy and religion of the same period; while a concluding survey of "literary Germany" shows how large a territory that term embraces. Some passages of criticism contained in the old edition have been omitted to make room for many new and original translations of poetry.

THE publication of Mr. H. Buxton Forman's long-expected edition of Keats may, perhaps, be a little further delayed in consequence of the editor's having been sent to Egypt upon business connected with the Post-Office. The despatch and return of proofs over so considerable a distance is naturally precarious; but it is still hoped that the four volumes, of which the third is now passing through the press, will be ready by August or September. Even up to the day before his departure Mr. Forman has gone on recovering documents that tend to modify the arrangement of contents more or less; and the collection of letters forming

the bulk of the third and fourth volumes will probably amount to nearly two hundred.

THE great critical edition of St. Bonaventura, upon which the Franciscan Fathers have been so long engaged, is at length ready for the press. Preparations were begun under the direct superintendence of the General of the Order more than twelve years ago. A systematic search was instituted throughout Europe for MSS. and early editions, and an immense amount of material was thus accumulated. The scope and plan of the projected edition were elaborately described as far back as 1874 by the chief editor, Father de Fauna; but the progress of the undertaking was delayed by his death, and it is only recently that the first volume, to be followed by three others, of Bonaventura's Commentary on the sentences has appeared. The publication of the remaining works will be carried on regularly. In appearance, as well as in scholarly editing, the Franciscan " Bonaventura" will be a worthy rival to the sumptuous Thomas Aquinas" now being brought out at Rome, under the special patronage of the Pope, the first volume of which has already been issued from the Propaganda

Press.

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SCIENCE AND ART.

TIDAL MACHINERY.-La Nature states that, on the French coast in the Channel, where the tide has a mean range of about 37 feet (in some

cases it amounts to 56 feet), tidal mills are used at various places. They are favored not only by the range of tide, but also by the long estuaries of irregular border at the mouths of the unimportant water-courses (which have no proper current). The dams are small and badly built. The motors are generally water-wheels, which are immersed at high tide, and begin work when the tide is half-way down; none of them are arranged to work with the flow of the tide. The principal work done by the mills is the grinding of wheat; some drive small saw-mills, or manufactories of artificial cement. The useful effect hardly reaches 30 per cent. It seems that the system might be greatly improved. The writer in La Nature calls attention to the topography of the port of Saint Jean, which is about midway in one of those estuaries, and where there is a large natural reservoir, capable of storing, every twelve hours, sixteen million cubic mètres of water. Vessels might be allowed passage during three hours at full tide. Six hours' tidal work might be had easily. A turbine, which would work when immersed, and both in ebb and flow, would appear to be most suitable. At present the idea is of little advantage, owing to small use for the force in that region; but, with improved electric trans. port of force, it is thought a tide-mill at Saint Jean might be of great service to neighboring towns, such as Dinan, Saint Malo, Dinard,

etc.

A NEW AIR-PUMP.-A double-action mercury air-pump, invented by Signor Serravalle, who was awarded a gold medal for it at a recent exhibition in Messina, is described in the Rivista Scientifico-Industriale. By a simple mechanical method two similar vessels are raised and lowered alternately with each other on opposite sides of a vertical support. A long caoutchouc tube connecting their bottoms lets mercury pass from one to the other. Each has at top a threeway cock; one port of which in a certain position leads into a small open vessel to receive any excess of mercury, and another is connected by means of a caoutchouc tube with a spherical piece fixed laterally about the middle of the vertical support. This piece has three passages, communicating together; two of them are opposite each other, and lead into the tubes from the mercury vessels; the other is connected by tubing to the vessel to be exhausted of air. The three-way cocks at the tops of the vessels are mechanically shifted at the top and bottom of their course by means of a toothed sector and rack in the one case, and a pin and projecting piece in the other.

SIMPLE METHOD OF MEASURING REFRACTION.-M. Piltschikoff describes an arrangement for measuring the refractive index of

liquids of which one has but small quantities. A hollow lens is filled with the liquid, and with the aid of a graduated scale and a microscope, one measures exactly the focal distance of a monochromatic flame placed at a given distance from the lens. The author gives a simple formula for calculating the index of the liquid, when the constants of the apparatus have been determined once for all. In one set of experiments, the index of glycerine was found = 1'47298, with a probable error estimated at

0'00001.

MISCELLANY.

EDITORIAL WORK IN NEWSPAPER OFFICES.Soon after six in the evening the sub-editors arrive, and begin to work upon the piles of manuscript and printed matter which await them there. The printer is pressing them for 64 copy," for his hands are waiting; but they must proceed cautiously, or they will choke space which will be sorely wanted later on. Now the reporters in Parliament and out of doors begin to send up their first manuscripts; and if these, and those reports as to which there is no option do not suffice to keep the printers going, a column or two of literary reviews may be given to them, since these last, if found in excess when the paper is made up, can be held over.

By ten the editor and his assistants will be at their posts, and now a serious consultation is held, for the topics of the principal leaders must be decided on without delay. Such a choice has been deferred until the latest possible moment for good reasons. Had it been made before all the data which foreign and domestic telegrams, private notes from "Whips," confidential intimations from political friends, and the explorations of trusted social agents could yield had been realized, it might be liable to reversal when all the arrangements based on it were in operation. As it is, the late delivery of a Blue-book, the publication of an Extraordinary Gazette, or a telegram announcing that a favorite regiment has lost heavily in South Africa, will upset the operations of the editor's room just when such disturbance is most inconvenient. Sometimes those operations must commence before all the material necessary for them is in hand. An eminent statesman is speaking at Edinburgh, Liverpool, or Manchester, and in London, his speech is being delivered by the telegraph boys by instalments. In such a case the leader-writer will be busy on the earlier part of the speech while the orator is constructing his later sentences. By a quarter-past ten o'clock the leader-writers will have addressed themselves to their tasks, and before

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they have nearly finished their articles the earlier paragraphs will have been handed to them in proof for correction. By about eleven the chief printer makes his appearance in the editor's room with his "statement, "9 a schedule of the titles and length in columns of the articles he has received, showing the foreseen result that the paper is overcrowded. Proofs are now coming down very fast and must be dealt with rapidly and returned. By half-past twelve the fourth page, that which is at the reader's lefthand, when he opens the paper out, must be closed up, locked in its iron frame, and sent into the foundry to be stereotyped. The fifth page is the second to be sent to the foundry, and the inner pages are kept open longest. By about two the last paragraph is dropped into the last open column, and such as it has been made, with its merits and defects, the morning's paper must go before the world.

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Leisure Hour.

BANTING OUTDONE.-A somewhat novel plan of reducing corpulency to graceful dimensions has been devised by a German medical writer. The author, in a small pamphlet (" Corpulency and its Cure, according to Physiological Principles," by Dr. W. Ebstein, Wiesbaden, second edition, 1882), points out defects in the various treatments in vogue-Banting's and the mineral water system. The curious thing, however, is his own method, which, he says, has the venerable authority of Hippocrates. In the author's opinion, corpulency is caused by too great a quantity of albuminoids and of sweets; and

the cure is to diminish these and to increase the quantity of fat in the food. He gives an example of the success of his dietetics. A healthy man, forty-four years of age, who from his twenty-fifth year had begun to grow very stout, owing to a sedentary life, and to the dietetic use of an excess of alcohol, of albuminoids, and of sweets, lost twenty pounds in six months of the prescribed diet. It may be added that, though the proportion on fatty matters was large, the diet altogether was little better than starvation fare.

POVERTY.

IN days of old she lived a worshipped saint,
Her humble, lowly mien by all adored.
Men loved the maid for following their Lord.
And though their love, perchance, was cold and faint,
Not like the passions of more human birth,

It was a pure and sacred flame, they said.
And she was one whom good men vowed to wed
And thus abjure the luring snares of earth.
Alas! as time went on such love grew rare,

And with men's favor went her honored name, Till sneers and cold contempt became her share And she was fain to hide her head for shame. At length, when left by all, Crime sought her hand, And now his sons and hers infest the land.

I. M. ELTON.

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IN the controversy which Swift's life and character have provoked, it has been extremely difficult hitherto to arrive at any quite satisfactory conclusion. Biographical criticism, like biblical, is a progressive science. The critical method, which we have brought to comparative perfection, was almost unknown to our forefathers. Johnson's Lives of the English Poets" is one of the best books of the time, for his arbitrary dogmatism was controlled and informed by an admirable common-sense; but even Johnson often misleads. We do not speak of his criticism of poetry, for the canon of taste has changed since his day as it may change again; but, the genuine spirit of inquiry is conspicuous by its absence. Even the lives of the men who might almost be called contemporary are treated as if the gossip of the club and the tittle-tattle of the coffee-house were the only available sources of information. Thus, until Walter Scott's memoirs were published,

NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXVII., No. 5

the real Swift was almost unknown. The growth of the Swift legend was indeed unusually rapid; and if an exacter criticism had not been brought to bear upon it in time, there is no saying to what proportions it might not have attained. The great Dean of St. Patrick's was becoming a grotesque and gigantic shadow. Scott was not a critic in the modern sense of the word; but his judgment, upon the whole, was sound and just, and his large humanity enabled him to read into the story much that a stricter scrutiny has since approved. The creative sympathy of genius is seldom at fault; for it works in obedience to the larger laws which govern human conduct, and if its methods are sometimes unscientific, its conclusions are generally reliable.

Scott has been followed by diligent students, and the researches of Mr. Mason, Mr. Forster, and Mr. Henry Craik may be considered exhaustive. All the documents that have any real bearing upon the controversy have been

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