THE HE REV. H. MUSGRAVE WILKINS, M.A., Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, has prepared for the press a new Progressive Greek Reading-Book, to be entitled Anthologia Græca. This volume, constructed on a plan proposed by Dr. Kennedy, and approved by the masters of many of the chief schools, consists of a skeleton of the Odyssey, of excerpts from the Elegiac and Lyric Poets [excepting Pindar], and of portions of the easier plays of Euripides. It is intended to succeed the Greek Delectus, in which none but Attic Greek is given, and to introduce the young scholar to some of the chief dialectic varieties. A few illustrative Notes are given, apart from the Text, briefly explaining real difficulties of sense or construction, with short notices of the various authors and of the subjects of the poems. It has been thought better not to connect the notes exclusively or even preferentially with any one elementary grammar. But reference is occasionally made to Bishop Wordsworth's and Dr. Kennedy's grammars, one or the other of which is used at most schools. Prose extracts have been avoided, because available editions exist of the easier prose authors; and because the middle-class examinations, which influence the majority of schools, encourage the study of continuous portions of those authors, as soon as the delectus stage is passed, rather than the use of books containing extracts from them. VO new works on Mineralogy and Geology BRISTOW, F.G.S., and of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. The first, which is nearly ready, is entitled A Glossary of Mineralogy, and embraces the physical characters and chemical composition of the metalliferous and earthy minerals, with a popular account of their history and application. In the execution of this work, the Author has not attempted to produce a systematic treatise, but rather to prepare a book which may be used by any traveller or other person unacquainted with the science, who may desire to know something of the properties, uses, and characters of the minerals with which he may meet. The Author's object is to afford, in a concise form, an account of the external and physical characters of minerals and of their chemical composition. For this purpose, woodcuts of the most common crystalline forms of the principal minerals will be presented, in connexion with their chemical analyses. An account will be added of their history, of their application and uses in the arts and manufactures, of the countries and localities whence they are chiefly procured, and of the derivation of their names.-Mr. BRISTOW'S second work, to be entitled A Glossary of Rocks, explanatory of their Structure and Composition, is founded chiefly on a translation of Cotta's Gesteinlehre, and is also intended for general and popular use. In this work the Author will furnish a detailed account of the various kinds of rocks describing in familiar lan. guage the appearances they present, the materials of which they are composed, and the means of identi. fying them; while their chemical composition will also be explained. : 119 THE Body of Christ; or, Human Society and Christianity, is one of three Lectures on Man and Christianity, delivered to a colonial audience by the Rev. J. H. ABRAHALL, M.A., formerly Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and now Incumbent of Combe Longa, near Woodstock, Oxon. This lecture [8vo. price 1s.] treats of the social reformation wrought by Christianity, of the striking difference, in a social point of view, between pre-Christian and Christianised civilisation, and of the duties of the "member of Christ." A Dictionary of Chemistry, founded on that of the late Dr. URE is now preparing for publication, purposing to give, so far as its limits will allow, a full representation of the present state of Chemical Science ; with especial reference to the elucidation of general principles, to the explanation of processes used in the Arts, and to the description of analytical methods, both qualitative and quantitative; by HENRY WATTS, B.A., F.C.S., Editor of the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society. It is intended to issue the work in monthly parts, uniform with the New Edition of Dr. URE's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, just completed. A new Practical Guide for Learning the Hebrew Language, by M. M. KALISCH, M.A., Ph.D., containing, in systematic arrangement, the Rules of Hebrew Grammar; with copious Exercises for Translation from Hebrew into English and from English into Hebrew, is preparing for publication in 1 vol. post 8vo. The object of this work is to provide an elementary aid to the systematic study of the Hebrew language. With this view the rules are stated with the utmost simplicity, and a strictly progressive arrangement is adopted throughout; so that the student, while gradually advancing in the knowledge of Hebrew, may pari passu gain an insight into its structure and idioms. In order to induce both a familiar and an accurate acquaintance with the genius of the Hebrew tongue, copious exercises of every variety, both for translation and retranslation, are introduced. The examples are taken almost exclusively from the Old Testament; but all passages involving in their interpretation points of doctrinal controversy have been rejected, in order that the work may be used by students of all denominations. The compiler has aimed at producing a work sufficiently elementary and easy to suit the capacity of the youngest learner, but also adapted to meet the wants, as well of students of Hebrew in colleges and universities, as of clergymen and other persons who in maturer years may be desirous to improve their knowledge of the sacred tongue. The Practical Guide will fully prepare the student to enter into the philological part of the Author's Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old Testament; and a KEY will be published, containing, besides translations of the exercises, additional critical rules and a body of references for the use of teachers and selfinstructors. GRADUATED SERIES OF ENGLISH READING-BOOKS. In course of publication, in 5 vols. fcp. 8vo. price 10s. cloth, each of which Volumes 'may be had separately as below, ADAPTED, AS A PROGRESSIVE COURSE OF READING, FOR ALL CLASSES OF ENGLISH SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES: FIRST BOOK, comprising 192 Pages SECOND BOOK, comprising 256 Pages. THIS is an entirely new series of English Reading-Lesson Books, each Book arranged in progressive sections, on a plan which is consistently maintained throughout the whole. The difficulty of the exercises is graduated chiefly with reference to the mental capacity requisite to comprehend and grasp the information conveyed; and also, as far as possible, with reference to the peculiarities of grammatical construction. The object of the Series is no less to facilitate the acquisition of the art of reading than to form a pupil's taste for pure literature, and to tempt him, by awakening his interest and enlisting his sympathies, to pursue his studies voluntarily. The first four Books of this series have been fully described in Notes on Books. The arrangement of the FIFTH BOOK, now in the press and to appear shortly, corresponds with that of Book IV. embracing the same departments of knowledge, but, of course, from a more advanced point of view. The Miscellaneous section presents, in ample variety, typical specimens of our best writers from the Johnsonian era to the present day. The Descriptive Travel has reference to those portions of the globe which, in accordance with the general plan, the preceding volumes have left untouched; and its chief aim is to direct attention to the results of scientific inquiry with regard to cosmical phenomena in general. The section on Natural History has been restricted to the more interesting examples of feræ naturæ. The History continues the thread where it is broken off in Book IV,, viz. from 1688 to the present time, and it necessarily dwells largely on the events which attended the administration or the acquisition of our chief foreign possessions. The chapters on the English Constitution, with which this section closes, presents a general tableau of leading points of interest and importance. To the division on Natural Science a series of valuable chapters on the prominent questions connected with Social Science is appended. The Five Books of this series are arranged, each in corresponding sections, on a serial and uniform scheme of progressive, yet constantly varied, selections. BOOK the FIRST is adapted to the comprehension of children. who have mastered the first steps in reading. BOOK the SECOND contains miscellanies, tales of adventure, imaginative and real, anecdotes in natural history, and ballad poetry, all preliminary to the Third Book. BOOK the THIRD Comprises literary selections in prose and verse, descriptive travel, natural history (with reference to the previous sec tion), and narratives of English history. Book the FOURTH, to which the Third Book is introductory, is a further extension of the same general plan, with the addition of a division on the more popular branches of Natural Science and Physics, sequentially arranged. BOOK the FIFTH, which will complete the Course, forms a further advance and a completion of the general plan, and aims at answering the practical purposes of a Class-Book of later English Literature. PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE, LONDON. THE object of this periodical is to enable Book-buyers readily to obtain such general information regarding the various Works published by Messrs. LONGMAN and Co., as is usually afforded by tables of contents and explanatory prefaces, or may be acquired by an inspection of the books themselves. With this view, each article is confined to an ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS of the work referred to: Opinions of the press and laudatory notices are not inserted. Copies are forwarded free by post to all Secretaries, Members of Book Clubs and Reading Societies, Heads of Colleges and Schools, and Private Persons, who will transmit their addresses to Messrs. LONGMAN and Co., 39 Paternoster Row, London, for this purpose. Literary Intelligence of Works preparing for publication will be found at pages 142 to 148. Great Britain and her Colonies: the question of its advantage; the methods of improving and strengthening it. At the same time, statesmen and writers of much ability-Charles Buller, Sir William Molesworth, Colonel Torrens, and, above all, Edward Gibbon Wakefield-were devoting their attention to the problem of making new colonies pay, through a high price to be put on waste land, for the transport of emigrants to their shores. The Author was consequently induced to discuss in these Lectures, besides the general subjects of political and economical inquiry connected with the colonies, the particular topics of the relation of capital to labour in new countries; and the various methods through which the latter had been supplied in different A instances of colonization. During most of the period which has since elapsed, he has had opportunities of closely observing the practical development of the great questions which were thus raised twenty years ago. He has consequently been led to adapt his Lectures to the requirements of the present times, by adding to them the account of the results of the experiments which were then contemplated or in progress. He has in this manner traced the history of the former slave colonies of England since their emancipation, and discussed the economical questions raised by their present condition. He has described the variations, and the ultimate break-up, of the series of experiments attempted by Great Britain in her convict colonies. He has endeavoured to show the effects produced by the "Wakefield system" of land disposal on the progress of the Australian colonies, and its respective adaptation to their several circumstances. He has taken under review the various political problems which are raised by the present state of the connexion of Great Britain with the various members of our vast colonial empire; their sin. gularly various forms of government; their greater or less degree of independence; the causes now in action which may affect that connexion, or which may affect for good or for evil their own social advance. And he has endeavoured to afford at least materials for the impartial discussion of questions respecting the real cost and real value, present and prospective, of the foundation of new colonies, and of dominion, such as still subsists, over those of older date. FTER more than two of rigid A separation from all foreign interesure, the empire of Japan is, not without reluctance, again taking its place in the commonwealth of nations. The events which preceded and brought about this seclusion, impart no common interest to all subjects connected with the history and the present social and political condition of Japan. No other country has exhibited so signal and striking a change in its foreign policy; no other nation has so strangely contradicted its own principles of religious toleration, in a single instance, while in other respects it has continued to preserve those principles intact. In the sixteenth century no people could have been found more ready to welcome foreigners, more eager to do them honour. The land was open to them for permanent settlement or commercial dealing. They were admitted at once into friendly relations with the Imperial Government; their religion was suffered without let or hindrance to add a thirty-sixth to the thirty-five forms of faith and practice which peaceably existed side by side in Japan. Japanese princes set out to express the gratitude and friendship of their countrymen for the Spiritual Chief of their European teachers. In the following century these teachers were proscribed; their converts, numbering hundreds of thousands, were hunted down with implacable zeal; the profession of Christianity was forbidden, and no Christian suffered to live, with the exception of a few families who were doomed to fill the office of hereditary spies. From that day the Japanese Government has succeeded in keeping out Christianity from Japan even more effectually than the Inquisition has succeeded in extirpating Protestantism from Spain; and their relation with foreigners has not been willingly extended beyond the aid which mere humanity demands for ships in need of provisions or repairs. The author of the present volume, while he describes in the form of a narrative his own visit to that country in the course of the past year, and the impressions made on his mind by his daily intercourse with the people, has given special attention to the previous history as well as to the present condition of Japan. He has endeavoured to analyse the motives which led to that marvellous persecution which alone has succeeded in rooting out Christianity after permanently taking root in a country, and to assign to each of the actors his own share of right and wrong in that terrible tragedy. The complicity of the Dutch in the extermination of the native converts, and their previous intrigues against their Portuguese fellow Christians, lead at once to an examination of the laws and government of Japan. The author points out the connexion of the Dutch with the strong political feelings of the Daimios or great feudal fords, who practically have usurped the supreme power. These princes, united under a bond of scarcely more than nominal vassalage to the Tycoon or Secular Emperor, are the great impediments in the way of a liberal policy now, as they were then the prime movers of persecution and massacre. The writer points out the dualism pervading the whole Japanese political system, which has for its result universal fear and distrust, while yet it preserves in no ordinary degree the peace of the state and the security of personal property. He has also traced the several changes in the form of government, from the original sovereignty of the Micado or Spiritual Emperor, to the usurpation of co-ordinate power by the Tycoon, who had hitherto answered to the Merovingian Mayor of the Palace. Of this authority, which was consolidated by Tyco Sama, the exterminator of Xavier's converts, the writer traces the gradual weakening by the increased ascendancy of the Daimios, who answer closely to the great chiefs of European feudalism. He has also examined the more important phases of religious belief in Japan, which are presented in the Buddhist system, as well as in the older religion of Sinto which it supplanted, and in the Sooto or Confucian philosophy on which is grounded the practical atheism of a smaller portion of the higher and more educated classes. The influence of the priesthood, and of the several forms of belief, on the daily life of the people; the physical character and features of the country; the social state and material prosperity of the Japanese; their occupations and amusements, with the working of the local governments are all examined as subjects of general interest in the determination of the policy which should be pursued by Europeans and Americans in their dealings with this isolated people. After a stay of five weeks in a Buddhist monastery at Nagasaki, the author proceeded on a voyage of 700 miles eastwards to Yeddo, of which imperial city, together with the new ports of Kanagawa and Yokuhama, he gives a full description. He has also noticed the real nature of the dependence of the Loochoo Islands on Japan. A letter of great ethnological interest respecting the early connexion between Japan and the coast of North-West America, from an officer of the United States Navy, closes the volume. Wild Life on the Fjelds of Norway. By FRANCIS M. WYNDHAM. Post 8vo. pp. 290, with 4 Illustrations in Chromo-lithography, 5 Woodcuts, and 2 coloured Maps, price 10s. 6d. cloth. [May 6, 1861. A VISIT of seven weeks to Norway furnished the materials for this book, from the title of which it may at once be inferred that the tour which the author undertook differed in character from those of the generality of Norwegian travellers. Embarking at Hull, Mr. Wyndham crossed to Bergen, whence, after a short stay, he proceeded by steamer and rowing-boat to a small hamlet on the Hardanger Fjord. At Björnebol, before entering the mountain district, the author obtained a first glimpse of peasant life at a general bearhunt, to which all the inhabitants of the surrounding country were summoned. Two days' sail in an open boat, partly during a violent storm, brought him to the head of the Hardanger Fjord; and thence, in hopes of escaping from bad weather, he travelled northwards, in the rough conveyances of the country, to the Sogne Fjord; where he again took a row-boat, and landed at a village on the Fjord, on a visit to the house of a Norwegian country-gentleman. Having proceeded thence to the head of the Lyster Fjord, he struck off into the mountains. After three days' travelling with pack-horsesthe first of which was occupied in crossing the Sogne Fjeld for a distance of about twentyfive miles at the level of the snow-line, amongst scenery which he describes as being unrivalled in sublime grandeur and variety of romantic beauty, - he arrived at Lom, on the shores of the Otta Lake. Here a halt was made for a few days, while ponies were being procured for an expedition of three weeks into the heart of the highest mountains of Norway. Far from all permanent habitations the author was during this excursion frequently dependent for shelter upon the hospitality of the dairyfolk at the sæters (châlets); occasions which furnished him with abundant materials for graphic and entertaining descriptions of rural life in these remote pasture-fields. About ten days were spent in the small hut of a reindeer-hunter, by the shores of a mountain-lake, where the rod and gun were the sole means by which a supply of food could be obtained. Fine trout were numerous in the lake, and the hills abounded in willowgrouse. From this point the author made excursions, almost every day, to the higher parts of the mountains, or fjelds, and amongst the glaciers, in search of reindeer; and the rugged features of the savage and desolate landscape scenery into which this pursuit led him, it is one of his objects in the present volume to describe. Quitting the mountains towards the middle of September, when snow was already beginning to fall, he made his way down to the high-road from Trondhjem to Christiania; and then, abandoning his pack horses, completed the remainder of the journey to Christiania by carriole, steamer, and railroad. The more characteristic peculiarities of the Norwegian scenery amongst which Mr. Wyndham rambled, are set before the reader in a series of woodcuts and chromo-lithographs, engraved from sketches made by the author. Two Maps likewise accompany the volume: one a sketch-map of Southern Norway, showing the Author's route, reduced from the large Kart over Norge of Professor Munch; the other, the Gjendin Lake and the surrounding Mountains, copied from one of the sheets of the Norwegian Amts Karte, or Ordnance Maps, the scale of which has been retained. With a view to increase the usefulness of his |