Veda, the Zendavesta, the Buddhistic writings, which are known to most readers, if at all, only vaguely and by their names.

The second volume, on mythology, customs, and sundry kindred topics, contains, in one or two elaborate essays, a statement full enough to give the ordinary scholar a key to the new interpretation of the classical fables; which interpretation strange and arbitrary as it looks at first, and wearily as it seems to harp on a little round of simple natural phenomena decked in so fantastic guise- we may consider to be fairly proved, at least as regards some of the more familiar and striking myths. In England, through the pleasant little volumes of Mr. Cox and others, this new interpretation is already entering into the popular or school exposition of mythology; and it surely ought, as soon as possible, to be included in our text-books here. The symbolic or ethical interpretation, so much in vogue a generation or two ago, may be considered to have given way completely before the simple, poetic, physical interpretation, which makes a myth to have its primitive germ in a natural fact vividly seen and poetically conceived, and the record of it preserved in a phrase of which the literal meaning afterwards disappeared, leaving it to be wrought out in a sort of nursery-tale or religious fable. If we conceive such a way of telling of the full moon rising opposite the setting sun, as to say, "Selene (the moon), in the cave of Latmos (night), looks tenderly on Endymion (the Setting One)," we have all the germ wanted for the poetic fable, as soon as, anywhere, the names have ceased from their familiar use, and come to stand as special proper names. Latmos becomes a mountain in Caria, and Endymion a shepherd prince. After all, the wealth and fantastic variety of fable is small beside the wealth and fantastic variety of terrestrial scenes and glories of the sky. Mythology has no more a special religious meaning than the fairy tales of our "Dream Children." And Mr. Müller has rendered one service in his essays, by making us understand better the limitless variety, the perfect freedom, and the very intelligible sense, of this department of ancient thought.

Of the remaining essays, those on "Manners and Customs" and on "Caste" are the most valuable, for their independent thought and fresh suggestion. Two further volumes are announced; and, now that the twenty-years' task of the publication of the Vedas in the original tongue is completed, the same indefatigable scholar announces a translation of the most ancient and important portion, the Rig-Veda, which will bring the subject within far nearer reach of the ordinary mind. For, as he shows especially in his essays on Caste and Custom, the

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wildest errors and most cruel superstitions have been perpetuated in the East by the falsifying or else the mistranslating of these most holy documents; so that their new interpretation promises to be scarcely less a service to humanity than to letters.

J. H. A.

MATTHEW ARNOLD'S Lectures on Celtic Literature * have the charm of intelligence, style, and half-light half-serious play with his subject, that all his critical writings have. It is by the channel of his personal interest called into play by the somewhat weary and forced celebrations in which Welsh enthusiasts seek to keep up the popular attachment to an all-but-forgotten past that he wins his hearer to the exposition of Celtic genius, and the discussion of the qualities and history of the Celtic tongues. The lectures are not erudite, scarce even critical, in their treatment of the language and literature they interest and help the reader, without tiring him of the matter. By far the most attractive part of the volume is where the writer diverges into a discourse of the Celtic character and style of genius, how it has affected the mind and literature of England; assigning to it a far deeper and stronger influence than has generally, or perhaps ever before, been claimed for it. The English genius, seen on its better side, is characterized by "energy with honesty;" differing from the slower Saxon or German genius, which is "patience with honesty," having its fruit and reward in science; from the Latinized Norman, characterized by clear decision and aptness for command, running to a certain implacable hardness; and from the Celtic, which is sentimental, "re-acting against the despotism of fact," having deep sympathy with nature, but passionate, wayward, unpractical, helpless, doomed to continual defeat. To what is Celtic in the English tradition and blood, Mr. Arnold ascribes, with some confidence, the sense of style which distinguishes English literature in particular from German; with more confidence, the undertone of passion and melancholy to be found in it; and with great certainty the "natural magic," of which he cites some exquisite examples from Celtic sources, that might be paralleled to almost any extent from writers such as Tennyson, who has reproduced so much of the ancient British or Welsh tradition. In this portion of the volume, it is an original as well as charming contribution to our knowledge of the sources and resources of the English tongue.

On the Study of Celtic Literature. By MATTHEW ARNOLD. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 8vo, pp. 181.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THERE is no need of fine writing about the Cretan struggle, and no exhibition of rhetoric in the various publications it is calling forth. Unaided, almost friendless, a little handful, destitute even of food, unable to make any stand in the open field, prevented from deserting the island by Turkish cruisers, denied refuge on board American government vessels, obliged to see whole villages burning beneath their eyes, tortured with the possibility of perishing before they tire out their Infidel oppressors, hearing at times the howl of women made maniac by brutal outrage, Mr. Skinner shows, in his several months' campaigning, that the Cretans deserve the independence they are determined to win. Through this exterminating warfare, the ancient rite of hospitality is sacredly observed. Even while so many are starving, property is respected; children being suffered, by insurgent soldiers, to drive away the cattle of which they had charge. The strife seems to be realized as for the great interests of humanity. The holy fires of patriotism throw an abiding glory over this desperate, guerilla strife.

In the days of its glory, under Christian rule, Crete had a million of inhabitants. Now, there are not a quarter of that number; and they hide among melancholy ruins, fed from day to day by the charity of friends, houseless but not hopeless, repeatedly defeated but incapable of despair. Not more than fifteen thousand Christian soldiers can be mustered, against almost three times as many Turks, nor can they be kept together in the field for want of food. Yet, ragged and starving, wretchedly armed, and fortified only by the rocky fastnesses of their native isle, they keep the Turk at bay, and are more likely to perish of famine than to be trodden down by Moslem foot again. Ever since Greece herself was freed, they have been chafing under a yoke which brought them nothing but degradation, which every youth educated at Athens felt to be worse than death, which was attended by constant insults from the myrmidons of a power proverbial for lordly insolence. As Turkey is rapidly approaching financial collapse, as liberation from such uneasy colonies would strengthen the Ottoman Porte against the designs of Russia, as the civilized world has had overwhelming assurance that this exterminating warfare can be of no possible benefit to anybody, is it not time that the great powers spoke at least a word for perishing humanity?

*Roughing it in Crete in 1867. By J. E. HILARY SKINNER. London: Bentley. 1868.

Besides lifelike pictures of the great chiefs Koroneos, Korakas, and Petropoulaki, Mr. Skinner's escape, through the blockading squadron, to Cerigotto, is exceedingly interesting.

F. W. H.

NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

The Life of the Saviour. By Henry Ware, Jr. Sixth edition. 18mo, pp. 271; Lives of the Twelve Apostles, to which is prefixed a Life of John the Baptist; also, Sermons to Children. (New edition). By F. W. C. Greenwood. Boston: American Unitarian Association.

Autobiography of Elder Jacob Knapp. With an Introductory Essay by R. Jeffrey. New York: Sheldon & Co. pp. 271. (Mr. Knapp's portrait stands in the front of this volume, a face of narrow and commonplace intelligence, but belonging to a brave, sincere, and earnest man. The inconceivable narrowness and pettiness of his argumentative expositions, contrasted with the manly testimony it records on such dangerous matters as temperance and slavery, makes it a very curious and suggestive memorial of the strong and weak points of the popular religion. The amount of service which such a man renders, measured by hours of work, or visible results, contrast as curiously with the scantiness of pay; and makes a record which he presents before the public with a pardonable pride. Mr. Knapp is understood to be at present, at the age of nearly seventy, working with undiminished vigor in California, one of the heroic pioneers of a Christian civilization which may some day, we trust, take a wider and more intelligent type.)

The Ground and Object of Hope for Mankind: Four Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, in November, 1867, by the Rev. F. D. Maurice. Boston: William V. Spencer. pp. 84. (These sermons treat of the Hope of the Missionary, of the Patriot, of the Churchman, and of the Man. Too brief and general to be of much value, in comparison with what Mr. Maurice has said elsewhere, they are interesting illustrations of his habit of finding, in Scripture, Creed, or Ritual, types of human experience And of pure ethical thought, - a little overgrown by the pulpit conventionalism of the preacher.)

Hymn and Tune Book for the Church and the Home; also, Services for Congregational Worship. Boston: American Unitarian Association. Large 16mo, pp. 329, 215. (We can bear personal testimony to the extraordinary fidelity with which this Hymn and Tune Book has been compiled and edited; and for ordinary use, as meeting the wants of the whole range of minds usually found in our congregations, have no hesitation in calling it superior to any collection within our reach. Like all such collections, it offends most individual tastes by what it includes, more than by what it rejects: a halfdozen omissions are all we have observed to regret; a good many insertions, both of hymns and tunes, might well be spared. Still, it is not unduly bulky. As a collection of hymn-tunes, in particular, we think it will be found very much the best, both in quality and variety, to be found anywhere in a single book. The bar of copyright has been taken off, within these last five years, from much of the finest material of the sort to be found anywhere; while in other cases the privilege of using has been liberally pur

chased. Of hymns, there are four of Henry Ware's-of Sickness, Penitence, the Pilgrims, and Easter-that ought to have been inserted in preference to those given of his; and of tunes, two or three more Methodist melodies might have been added, with "Eaton" certainly, and perhaps Swan's "China," whose quaint and pathetic sweetness ought not to be missing from so full and rich a gathering. Other omissions will be regretted by different persons; but they are a small detraction from the unusual excellence of the compilation.

As to the "Services for Worship," they should be judged by an exceedingly moderate standard of availability for the use of congregations, where it is found desirable to continue the forms of worship in the absence of any competent leader. To such we hope it will prove a real help, to break the ice of reserve, or to strengthen the cord of pious association. Also, many of the selections for occasional use are excellent. But we do not see how any minister who has once enjoyed the freedom of congregational worship can seek in liturgical forms any thing more than brief and occasional help, for which use the "Chapel Liturgy" or Dr. Sadler's is greatly superior to this; or how any one, with the Common Version within reach, can consent to this far inferior rendering of the Hebrew Psalms. Even if it were superior, yet the associations of many generations with a particular form of sacred words are, in the strictest sense, not transferable." Doctrinally, all these efforts at a modernized liturgy seem to us a painful and awkward compromise, without the dignity of the ancient ritual, or the healthy and glad freedom of the newer faith. What devotional mood or thought of our congregations can possibly be met by such phrases as the following: "Neither take thou vengeance of our sins; but spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed through thy dear Son" (p. 19); "whom thou hast redeemed through his most precious blood" (p. 39); "who hast given thine only begotten Son to take our nature upon him and to be born of a virgin" (p. 85).

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MISCELLANEOUS.

The Great Exhibition: with Continental Sketches, Practical and Humorous. By Howard Payson Arnold. New York: Hurd & Houghton. pp. 486. (This book has the merits of an entertaining newspaper correspondent, and something more; a pretty wide experience of travel, abundant miscellaneous information, indomitable good humor, some real wit, and the improvement of excellent opportunities, a few of which had to do with "the great exhibition" itself. It is good for diversion, but too uniformly amusing: for an idle half-hour, nothing could be better: of "useful information" what it gives is but scanty, and as it were with apology and by stealth.)

Human Life in Shakespeare. By Henry Giles. Boston: Lee & Shepard. pp. 286. (This beautiful little volume is embellished with an excellent photograph portrait of the eloquent writer and lecturer, whose touching words of preface remind the reader of his hopeless malady, and of his approaching end. It is full of some of the best, highest, wisest things that Mr. Giles has written, on a topic which he has treated with as fresh and eager appreciation as any other; and its sale, for the writer's benefit, we trust will be as wide as its own brilliancy as his well-won reputation deserve for it.)

On the Heights: a Novel. By Berthold Auerbach. Translated by Fanny Elizabeth Burnett. (From the Leipsig edition.) Boston: Roberts Brothers. 16mo, pp. 544. (The Messrs. Roberts have had unusual taste, skill, and good fortune in the selection of their publications, which include the poems and tales of Jean Ingelow, Robert Buchanan's charming narrative in verse, the free and brilliant rhymed chronicle of Mr. Morris's "Jason,"