survive more than one year or so that such is actually the case may be seen daily. That the out-buildings should be made to form part of the kitchen garden fence is important in another respect, as their walls will be exceedingly useful for training vines upon, and large quantities of fine grapes may be grown upon walls or fences from twelve to fifteen feet in height. In case buildings are used for this purpose, a gutter along the eaves will be necessary to carry off surplus water which would be injurious to the plants. But the greatest advantage of all is having the manure close to the garden. In the course of a year the saving by this means is very considerable indeed in the item of labour; and gardening, moreover, never will pay without plentiful manuring. Be careful to eradicate weeds in the kitchen garden as soon as they spring up, as nothing tends more to impoverish the soil at the expense of the main crops. I would have every one remember that, while a well kept garden is both a pleasure and a profit to the owner, a badly kept one is neither one nor the other. Cottage gardens, if not too large, will be found here, as in England, to be a great advantage to the labourer, who can work them usually in addition to his other labour. And this is the case especially in a country like New Zealand, where we are not pent up within such narrow limits as the people in England, who find it a matter of difficulty to obtain a scrap of ground on which to make a garden. Those who have not ground enough to make a good kitchen garden may yet find room for a few flowers, and the pleasure afforded by these will amply counterbalance the trouble which their cultivation entails. ARCHIMEDES. FROM SCHILLER. To Archimedes once a scholar came, "Teach me," he said, "the Art that won thy fame— E. B. LYTTON. D. HAY. MONTHLY LITERARY REVIEW. It is at all times a pleasant task to notice any new work of even average ability and value that issues from our colonial press. We welcome, with perhaps an excusable degree of partiality, any work which adds another volume to our colonial library, without, by its character, being rather a disgrace to it than otherwise. It is by no means a full meed of praise to "Mahoe Leaves" to say this of it. We might, with perfectly impartial justice, go farther, and say that it was a little book to adorn, by its solid worth, if not by its external appearance, the bookshelves of everyone anxious to possess a colonial library. The work is not a large one, and it owes none of its charms to a unity of design even throughout its small compass; it is, in fact, only a series of short sketches illustrative of the state of the native population of New Zealand at the present time. The vigour of the sketches is undeniable, and of their truthfulness personal observation has amply convinced us. We can, in short, give them this praise, and we know of no higher at present, that they form a not unworthy supplement, either in fidelity or in execution, to "Old New Zealand." We do not say that the reader will find the same overflowing spirit of fun in these pages as sparkles in that really remarkable book; but he will find, imparted in a simple yet a humourous manner, an amount of valuable information on the present condition of the Maori race, and not a few observations of great practical wisdom as to the manner in which they have been and ought to be treated. The book abounds in curious sketches of habits, fancies, and customs still observed and in full force amongst the natives, and yet unknown to the mass of the settlers. Our space will allow of but one extract; it is a description of what is termed Makutu. The pa where the author was staying had been troubled with a good deal of sickness, and recourse was had to a Maori prophet to remove the evil. The following is a description of his proceedings : "Some days after receiving intelligence of the arrival of the poropiti, I was out near the pa, when I suddenly came upon a group of individuals promenading in a circle, apparently engaged in the search for something, and arranged so that if the first man missed it, the next, being close to his heels, might have a chance of finding it. It was Beelzebub and Malachi, and a number of people at work at lizard hunting. If lizards are vermin, and their object was simply to get rid of them, I have heard of a simpler plan than I am about to describe, which, while I remember, I may as well quote : Och! Antrim hill is very high, and so is the hill of Howth, too; But St. Patrick was a saint, whereas Beelzebub is exactly the reverse, hence their systems differ. But to my tale. The circular promenade continued for some time, when suddenly they came to a dead stop, and Beelzebub pounced like a tom-cat on something in the fern! This was unfortunate lizard number one. The procession continued gradually contracting the limits of the circle, and by the time they had finished, Beelzebub had caught two more. All this time the greatest solemnity was observed. The poropiti then kindled a fire, and proceeded, with the greatest coolness, to roast these wretched reptiles-repeating, in a low mourning tone, an incantation, as the poor lizards slowly frizzled. The lizards nearly calcined, the poropiti shouted something, and the whole crowd at once covered their faces and dropped into the attitude of prayer. I was subsequently given to understand that at this identical juncture the souls of the departed vacated the bodies of the lizards (as well they might). Whether they became stars in the firmament, or entered the bodies of other lizards, I did not inquire. Beelzebub swore hard and fast 'that he saw them go,' so I suppose they did. Anyhow, the tapu' was gone, and no one going over that spot could catch lumbago, colic, or . any other disease. So far the arrangement was satisfactory." This will give the reader some idea of the vein of this book; there is, however, a considerable amount of satire, some broad and some of a subtle character, scattered through these pages. With all the conclusions of the author we do not feel called upon to agree, although admitting that, upon the whole, his grounds are usually very powerful for any assertion that he makes. The book may, we believe, serve a good purpose, however, at this time, as exposing forcibly and unsparingly much that has been absurd—much also that has been injurious to our ideas of native management; and it will hereafter be referred to, we do not doubt, as a strange but a truthful picture of the state of society that preceded the rapid extinction of a race whose name, and it may be a few of whose traditions, alone remain in the country which they once possessed. MAY we be allowed to talk about a book concerning which we are obliged to confess that we have not read it through? We think, however, that we may safely promise not to talk so much nonsense in the small space which we shall occuy with the subject, as is to be found in an equal quantity of the book itself; and we hope our readers will give us credit for being able to fulfil our promise, when we mention that the name of the work under discussion is "The Water Babies." We have tried to imagine the reasons which could have prevailed upon Professor Kingsley to write such a farrago of grotesque absurdity as this book, and we feel ourselves baffled at all points. We were quite prepared to believe that Mr. Kingsley was just the man who would enjoy the task of writing a thoroughly amusing story for children, without any attempt at combining amusement with instruction, but full of humorous incidents and healthy mirth. But this is not the style of "The Water Babies." The tale bears, amidst its profusion of absurdities, too evident marks of some latent philosophy which the writer wishes to inculcate, to allow of the supposition that it was written entirely for children. On the other hand, the whole thing is too ludicrously childish to admit of the idea that the writer ever supposed that it would interest grown persons. It is neither one thing nor the other, and we are almost driven to the conclusion that the author wished to try the experiment how much nonsense the influence of an eminent name might induce a high class periodical to publish, and an eager public to swallow. The thing is too extravagant for any other hypothesis. Professor Kingsley might confidently calculate that his performance would make people stare, wonder, and laugh. He might have produced a similar effect if he had gone into the street and made grimaces, tossed up six balls at once, twisted one leg round his neck, and danced on the other, swinging his academical robe round with a weight in the corner of it to keep the boys out of the ring. Such a tumbling performance would be hardly more remote from the exercises of the " grace-giving Palæstra," than is such a production as "The Water Babies" from the normal and healthy action of the mental faculties. There may be some touches of genuine humour in the work, but the instances of sheer nonsense are much more numerous, and we feel by no means attracted by the frequent specimens which we meet with of buffoonery equal to that of Rabelais, but without his wit. If We have already said that the writer introduces philosophy in his tale, but what it means is occasionally doubtful. In one of the early chapters was a long discussion, written in a ludicrous way, to prove the possibility of the existence of water babies. Now the question which lies at the bottom of this discussion is one of the greatest interest to thinking minds. It is, to what extent is a man of science justified in denying the possibility of such and such things existing in Nature? Professor Kingsley had anything to tell us on this subject, he might have said it much better than in this burlesque of an argument, which is in its form adapted for children, but is in its substance beyond their comprehension, and which for grown persons can have no meaning whatever. But what are we to think of the unredeemed and pure nonsense which meets us at every turn? From the last chapter, the only one which we have now before us, we select the following, which is meant, we suppose, as a satire on those who seek a royal road to the objects of human desire : "Only tell us the great backstairs' secret, and we will be your slaves: we will make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, archbishop, pope, if you like-only tell us the secret of the backstairs. For thousands of years we have been paying, and petting, and obeying, and worshipping quacks who told us they had the key of the backstairs, and could smuggle us up them; and, in spite of all our disappointments, we will honour, and glorify, and adore, and beatify, and translate, and apotheosize you likewise, on the chance of your knowing something about the backstairs, that we may all go on pilgrimage to it, and, even if we cannot get up it, lie at the foot of it and cry-'Oh, backstairs, precious backstairs, invaluable b, requisite b, necessary b, good-natured b, cosmopolitan b, comprehensive b, accommodating b, well-bred b, comfortable b, humane b, reasonable b, long-sought b, coveted b, aristocratic b, respectable b, gentleman-like b, lady-like b, commercial b, economical b, practical b, logical b, deductive b, orthodox b, probable b, credible b, demonstrable b, irrefragable b, potent b, all-but-omnipotent b, &c., save us from the consequences of our own actions, and the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid!'" In the latter part of this extract, can any of our readers detect wit, or humour, or anything but intellectual buffoonery? As a tale for children, "The Water Babies" is, we think, inferior to "Cinderella" or "Puss in Boots." Grown persons may be seduced into a laugh, but the laugh will be largely flavoured with contempt. Yet whilst we speak in terms of decided censure of a Professor in a learned University who exhibits such intellectual antics as are displayed in this extravagant piece of nonsense, we cannot help feeling some regretful tenderness when we recollect some of the exquisite and unrivalled sketches of scenery and natural objects which we met with, shining like gems amid the rubbish which surrounded them. Surely the pen which depicted the range of limestone hills over which little Tom journeyed, and which formerly delighted us in that charming little work, "Glaucus," will again be employed to fascinate and instruct us, without the simultaneous infliction of the most outrageous jumble of rubbish and absurdity ever produced by a man of genius. THE month is exceedingly barren of good books in any walk of literature. It is very rare, indeed, that the reviewer is condemned to turn over so many new works only to find them all so devoid of interest as in the present case. There is no book, either in history, biography, travel, or fiction, this month, which bears the name of any well-known and popular author, if we except, in fiction, the names of the late Eugene Sue and Mrs. Gaskell-and in history, that of William Howitt. The work to which we have referred as written by Eugene Sue, was left unfinished by him at his death, and is consequently only a fragment. Of this fragment, however, the French publishers have made no less than nine volumes, and even in the highly condensed form in which it finds its way into the hands of English readers, it is large beyond the ordinary standard of novels. The experiment of cutting down and Anglicising the work of an author so essentially French in the whole structure of his mind as Eugene Sue, was one of no ordinary amount of risk, it must be confessed, and we should certainly have condemned the attempt as a blunder, without any hesitation. We should have been wrong, however: the "Rival Races," as the book in its English dress is called, is really an uncommon book, both in its execution-which might perhaps have been expected to be somewhat remarkable from the well-known ability of the author-and also in the comparative freedom from those blemishes which rendered the other works of the author so objectionable in the eyes of the English public. How far this is owing to the skill and discernment of the translator and abridger, or how far to any change in the style and feeling of the author, we are unable to say; but at all events, the "Rival Races" is, in its English form, a work of unusual power and dramatic interest, without anything to render it objectionable, or to deter English readers from its perusal and enjoyment. From Mrs. Gaskell the reading public always expect something powerful and remarkable in this we do not think they have been in danger of being disappointed in either of that lady's lately-published works "Sylvia's Lovers," and "A Dark Night's Work." The first, which we have not hitherto had any opportunity of examining critically, is in every way a book worthy of the author of " Mary Barton." It has not, perhaps, the intense interest of that very remarkable work, but in its keen appreciation and representation of the peculiar phases of life in the North of England, it does not, even while treating of a totally dif |