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guilty of these then venial errors, his work as a naturalist should obtain for him full forgiveness.

Dean Hole's Then and Now (Hutchinson) is ostensibly another book of personal reminiscences, but the contrast between the past and present is illustrated rather by the sayings and doings of others than by those of the Dean himself. Possibly he may have thought that in his former work, "Memories," he had already told us enough about his wellspent life, but his readers may think otherwise. The late Mr. W. J. Stillman's Autobiography of a Journalist (Grant Richards) records the adventures in many lands of an American who began life as an art student and as an ardent Liberal. He studied in the United States, England and Paris, made friends everywhere, resided in famous cities and was newspaper correspondent wherever nations were fighting for liberty. With such materials and a facile pen, his recollections are full of interest, but they are not autobiographical except in the conventional sense. Mr. G. S. Layard's object in publishing Mrs. Lynn Linton's Life, Letters and Opinions (Methuen) was doubtless laudable, as it was as well that she should be known as others saw her, as well as she saw herself. She was a distinctly lovable woman, with strong sympathies and antipathies, living more for others than for herself; but the life of a journalist or even an author, and Mrs. Lynn Linton was both, is not always of public interest. The supplementary volumes to Lady Granville's letters, which appeared some years ago, has been edited by her grand-daughter, Mrs. Oldfield, under the title of Some Records of the later Life of Harriet Countess Granville (Longmans). Although the brightness of life passed away after she became a widow and serious thoughts took the place of "society" chit-chat, there is much in this volume which will amuse, and more that will instruct the reader. Mary Boyle, Her Book (Murray) is a more gossiping but very attractive autobiography of a lady who lived "in society" and noted its foibles with ready perception but with kindly forbearance. She lived through a period in which men and women of society held a more important place in the world—a place now occupied by newspapers. Mary Boyle mixed with these makers of history and teaches us to know them. Sir Edward Malet's wish to add his own to the numerous volumes of reminiscences which have appeared in recent years is at least justified by the result, for in his Shifting Scenes (Murray) he is able to give some fresh though superficial views of the sights that he saw and of the people whom he met. The most valuable part of his work refers to his service in Egypt in the days of the Khedive Tewfik-and he has some interesting memories of Bismarck and the Franco-Prussian war. From the other side of the Atlantic we have in A Sailor's Log (Smith, Elder & Co.) the lively recollections of Rear-Admiral Robley D. Evans of the United States Navy, who has a graphic way of telling the important part played by himself in various parts of the world during forty years, including his share in the late war with Spain. Sir M. E. Grant-Duff has published two more volumes of Notes from a Diary (Murray), extending from 1889-91. It is obviously too soon to speak with freedom of persons and events after so short a lapse of time, and it is equally premature to judge fairly of the results of foreign and domestic policy.

The only apparent use of such a publication is to enshrine the sayings of those who at the time held a position in the world, and to preserve, if needed in the future, some record of their personality. Mrs. Charles Bagot's Links with the Past (Edward Arnold) certainly fulfils its title, for the writer, a daughter of Admiral Josceline Percy, recounts how she danced with old Lord Huntly, who in his early life had danced with Marie Antoinette. Apparently Mrs. Bagot previous to her marriage had kept a journal, which she destroyed. The freshness of her memory, however, enables her to tell some excellent and, what is more, several new anecdotes of the past century and its leading personages in town and country. The Conversations with James Northcote, RA (Methuen & Co.), edited by Ernest Fletcher, took place chiefly with James Ward, an artist of some local celebrity, but not to be confounded with James (or "Bull") Ward, R.A. They contain some interesting criticisms upon the painters of the day, and this volume, coming as a sort of supplement to Hazlitt's life, will give a higher idea of Northcote's capacities as a talker than his pictures convey of his abilities as a painter; being thus the absolute opposite to Reynold's, who was a wretched conversationalist. Reynolds' remark that anything would do for a diploma work is certainly borne out by the contents of the Gallery, which now contains two hundred specimens of Academicians' work.

Mr. Francis H. Skrine has done well to keep alive the memory of an Anglo-Indian official who in his administrative career and still more by his literary work did more than any man "to obtain a hearing for India." The Life of Sir William W. Hunter (Longmans) is a book which shows that few men have grasped more clearly the needs of India or understood better how the Empire should be administered in the interests of the rulers and the ruled.

The Letters of John Richard Green (Macmillan), edited by Mr. Leslie Stephen, throw a pleasant light upon a life which was known only to a few intimate friends. The author of the "Short History of the English People," which has taken its place among the "Classics,” was generally imagined to be a student who manfully fought against the disease to which he at last succumbed. These letters reveal him as the sympathetic friend, ever bright and genial, encouraging others and never desponding of himself, and from Mr. Leslie Stephen's slight details which connect the letters we learn that his conversation was as bright and as fascinating as his letters.

The Memoirs and Letters of Sir James Paget (Longmans) is also a pleasant record of the career of a man who raised himself to distinction by character as much as by ability in his profession. He was a man of singular simplicity of mind and feeling, and it is no wonder that he attracted the friendship of the most worthy and notable men and women of his time. Mr. Stephen Paget contributes a modest memoir of his father's long and happy life.

The Life of Sir R. Murdoch Smith (Blackwood), by his son-in-law, Mr. W. K. Dickson, recounts the varied and useful career of an officer in the Royal Engineers who accompanied Sir Charles Newton to Halicarnassus and Cnidus, and subsequently laid the European telegraph across Persia, thus establishing direct communication with India.

Latterly he was director of the Science and Art Museum at Edinburgh, a post for which his taste and knowledge well qualified him, as may be gathered from the magnificent collection of Persian ware and metal work which he made for the South Kensington Museum during his stay in that country.

Other Indian soldiers and administrators have received attention from biographers. Colonel R. H. Vetch has dealt with The Life, Letters and Diaries of Lieutenant-General Sir Gerald Graham, V.C., K.C.B. (Blackwood), whose career in India, China, and the Soudan was brilliant and successful; and Captain L. Trotter has come forward to refute once more the charges brought against Hodson of Hodson's Horse. In his A Leader of Light Horse (Blackwood) Captain Trotter sketches the career of one of the most adventurous and apparently the most attractive of men, who won the regard of his superiors as well as the devotion of his followers. The Autobiography of LieutenantGeneral Sir Harry Smith, G.C.B. (Murray), is the record of a longer and more successful career, which began before the Peninsula and extended until Natal was added to the British Empire and our hold upon South Africa firmly established. Sir Harry Smith served in all parts of the King's and Queen's dominions, and sometimes outside them, and the personal incidents which befel him furnish abundant material for an autobiography in which modesty plays a prominent part.

The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honourable H. C. E. Childers (Murray), by his son, Colonel Spencer Childers, recounts at some length the varied career of a man who occupied a prominent place as an administrator and a financier. His colonial experiences, to which justice is scarcely done, would have fitted him especially for the Colonial Office, but it was at the Admiralty, in the War Office, the Home Office and the Exchequer that his abilities were employed in successive Liberal Administrations. He left behind him the reputation in all departments of a hard-working, capable man, but his name will be chiefly associated with the introduction of the territorial system of regiments into the Army.

Mr. Herbert W. Paul's Life of William Ewart Gladstone (Smith, Elder & Co.), whilst it does not aim at being exhaustive or in rivalry to any more official life, practically gives all the information respecting the public life of the great Liberal leader that it is necessary for ordinary folk to know. The volume is something more than a mere expansion of Mr. Herbert Paul's article on the same subject in the "Dictionary of National Biography." Mr. Sydney Buxton's Mr. Gladstone (Murray) deals only with the statesman as a financier, whom he places by the side of Walpole, Pitt and Peel, assigning him a high place in the quartet. Mrs. Fawcett endeavours to revive interest in the Right Honourable Sir William Molesworth (Macmillan), who for some years was Colonial Secretary in more than one Whig Administration and often differed from his colleagues on questions of colonial government. He was an interesting type of the timid Imperialist, and in future times will probably be more remembered by Lady Molesworth's social qualities than by his own political abilities. Parliamentary blue books at best are dry materials for a biographer.

The third supplementary volume of the Dictionary of National Biography (Smith, Elder & Co.) completes, at least for the present, the monumental work for which the country is indebted to the late Mr. George Smith and his two able editors, Mr. Leslie Stephen and Mr. Sidney Lee. The most important article in the concluding volume is aptly enough that of the Queen under whose reign the work was undertaken and brought to a conclusion. The completion of Mr. Rowland Prothero's edition of Byron's Letters and Journals (Murray) gives to the world the most authentic version of the poet's life, and adds much to what was already known of his wayward character. It cannot, however, be accepted as the last word which has to be spoken on this subject, and time alone will remove all the barriers which prevent the publication of all that is known. Meanwhile we are grateful to Mr. Prothero for having effectually put a stop to some slanders and thrown light into some dark corners.

GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL.

In this second volume on the Dawn of Modern Geography (Murray) Mr. Beazley deals with the period extending from A.D. 900 to 1260-of which the early story is to be sought chiefly in the records of pilgrimages to the Holy Land. At a later date we come to the more exciting efforts of the Norse whale-fishers to reach Greenland and even America. But the attempts of the adventurers into Western Asia deal so largely in the marvellous that one is tempted to think that the spirit of the "Arabian Nights" pervaded the Eastern world and infected all who ventured within its portals. The Italians of Genoa and Venice were foremost among the pioneers of travel, but there were many other cities which sent out adventurers.

The Relations of Geography and History, by Mr. H. B. George (Clarendon Press), is a useful handbook to all who wish to understand the contradictions which at first sight underlie so many international questions. The natural boundaries of a State are not necessarily determined on ethnical grounds, and however convenient it might be for each country to have "natural" frontiers, there have been and still are many causes which prevent this theory being put in practice. Mr. George's lucid marshalling of these causes throws much light upon the wars which during the last three or four hundred years have altered from time to time the map of Europe.

To the Hakluyt Society we are indebted for The Voyage of Robert Dudley, son of the Earl of Leicester, who in 1594-5 visited the West Indies in company with Captain Wyatt and Master Abram Kendall. All three gave their accounts of their voyage, which was chiefly in search of gold, of which some specimens were obtained at Trinidad and Guiana, but not apparently in sufficient quantities to encourage subsequent adventurers The volume is carefully edited by Mr. George F. Warner. The Historical Society almost simultaneously produced under the editorship of Mr. C. H. Firth the Narrative of General Venables, whose campaign in San Domingo and Jamaica had not up to the present time found a chronicler.

Mr. A. B. Wylde's Modern Abyssinia (Methuen) is a storehouse of valuable information respecting the present condition and possible development of a little known country, with which we are likely to be brought more in contact since our settlement in Egypt promises to become permanent. Mr. Wylde, from his position in the Consular service, has been able to form a very clear idea of the rival chances of France and Italy of establishing a dominant influence in the territory of the Negus.

If the substitution of Russian for Chinese influence in Tibet be confirmed we shall probably ere long get authentic accounts of its people and their ways. Meanwhile such a glimpse of them as is given by Mr. Archibald Little in his diary to Mount Omi and beyond (Heinemann) is of the greatest interest. Mr. Little has already won fame as an intrepid explorer and a trustworthy guide, and this volume dealing with the sacred shrines of Buddha, perched on a mountain ever 10,000 feet in height, is full of fresh interest. Captain H. H. P. Deasy is another enterprising traveller who has for some years been endeavouring to get within the closely guarded frontiers of the same country. In Tibet and Chinese Turkestan (Fisher Unwin) Captain Deasy records his efforts extending over four years, and although he failed to enter the mysterious city of Lhasa, he obtained a very accurate knowledge of the surrounding countries, and throws out some useful hints as to the relative positions of British and Russian representatives in Central Asia.

Mr. Rider Haggard's Winter Pilgrimage to Italy, Cyprus and the Holy Land (Longmans) is especially interesting as the record of impressions left upon the mind of an author who has hitherto drawn upon his imagination for the setting of his stories. At the same time it is the author's speculations which interest us more than his descriptions. In Cyprus they turn chiefly upon what might be done if our Government were to take in hand more methodically the development of the island. There is sufficient evidence to show that at one time it was capable of the highest cultivation, and the source of wealth to those who raised the monuments of which only the ruins now remain. In the Holy Land he is impressed mostly by the absence of bright, joyous faces-even among the children. It seems to him "the place of pilgrimage of those whose interests and ambitions have ceased to be occupied with the anticipation of what good fortunes may befal them during the unspent days of their earthly sojourning."

The South Polar Seas are now occupying the attention of geographers, and consequently Commander C. E. Borchgrevinck's First on the Antarctic Continent (Newnes) is a book which will deservedly take its place among the records of pioneering adventure. The expedition, which owes its existence to the public-spirited liberality of a private person, started in August 1898. After much labour it reached the farthest point-lat. 78° 59 m.-ever attained, Mr. Borchgrevinck and his companions having passed one winter in South Victoria Land and shown the possibility of scaling the great ice barrier behind which the secret of the pole lies concealed.

It is somewhat difficult to classify Mr. F. Marion Crawford's work

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