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ago, and at that time incurred much censure and opposition, was this year republished in three octavo volumes, with not much addition or alteration. The Dean's preface is an important expression of opinion in regard to the theological controversies of the day; and we cannot better illustrate the position which the work is now likely to take than by quoting a passage from it:-"The views adopted by the author in early days he still conscientiously maintains. Those views, more free, it was then thought, and bolder than common, he dares not say irreverent, have been his safeguard during a long and not unreflective life against the difficulties arising out of the philosophical and historical researches of our time; and from such views many, very many, of the best and wisest men whom it has been his blessing to know with greater or less intimacy, have felt relief from pressing doubts, and found that peace which is attainable only through perfect freedom of mind. Others may have the happiness (a happiness he envies not) to close their eyes against, to evade, or to elude their difficulties. Such is not the temper of his mind. With these views he has been able to follow out all the marvellous discoveries of science, and all those marvellous, if less certain, conclusions of historical, ethnological, linguistic criticisms, in the serene confidence that they are utterly irrelevant to the truth of Christianity, to the truth of the Old Testament, as far as its distinct and perpetual authority, and its indubitable meaning."

Towards the close of the year a translation appeared of the celebrated "Vie de Jesus," by M. Renan. This work is said to have had a sale of 11,000 on the first day of its appearance, and it rapidly spread throughout the whole of Europe. Perhaps no book of our time has produced a stronger "sensation," to use a word borrowed from France, which has lately become naturalized amongst us. Whether for good or for evil, the "Vie de Jesus" must be pronounced to be the great European literary phenomenon of the year 1863. A perfect library of answers has grown up in France. In England a very large sale of the original work took place immediately after its first appearance, and it formed a leading topic in all the reviews and journals. Of a book so well known little need be said in the way of description. Whether it be destined to take a permanent place amongst European classics remains to be seen. The beauty of its style is admitted on all hands; but so far as this country is concerned, it may be said that, although eagerly read, the novel views which it presents of a history with which all are familiar have not found much favour even amongst those who do not reject them with absolute reprobation.

In connexion with the two preceding works, another important biblical publication is to be mentioned, namely, Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," which has been brought to a conclusion. It is the joint production of nearly seventy scholars, including many high dignitaries of the Church, and clergymen and laymen eminent for their acquaintance with special branches of research. "The scope and object of the work," says the preface, "may be briefly defined. It is a dictionary of the Bible and not of Theology. It is intended to elucidate the antiquities, biography, geography, and natural history of the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocrypha; but not to explain systems of theology, or discuss points of controversial divinity. It has seemed, however, necessary, in a Dictionary of the Bible, to give a full account of the book, both as a whole and in its separate parts. Accordingly, articles are inserted not only upon the general subject, such as Bible,' 'Apocrypha,' and 'Canons,' and upon the chief ancient versions, as 'Septuagint' and 'Vulgate,' but also upon the separate

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books. These articles are naturally some of the most important in the work, and occupy considerable space; as will be seen by referring to 'Genesis,' "Isaiah,' and 'Job.'" "No other dictionary has yet attempted to give a complete list of the proper names occurring in the Old and New Testaments, to say nothing of those in the Apocrypha." In a work proceeding from the pens of so many writers diversity of views necessarily appears, and the whole represents the motley state of transition in which the mind of the educated public at present hangs in relation to vexed questions of theology. It marks clearly the large amount of attention which is now bestowed on biblical research, and its utility in bringing together in a most accessible form an immense mass of materials for the systematic pursuit of this study cannot be doubted. The work appears destined to be for a long time an acknowledged standard of reference on all points of biblical criticism.

A second volume of Mendelssohn's Correspondence, translated by Lady Wallace, is a charming sequel to the first, published in 1862. It is devoted, however, more to musical matters than its predecessor; and the opinions of Mendelssohn upon subjects connected with his art have the highest interest for every musician. Apart from this, there is much in the present volume of the same attractive and love-compelling character which distinguished the first. The letters of Mendelssohn justify completely the instinct which made him when alive the idol of the English public, and the affection which still clings to his memory.

The "Life of William Blake," the painter, by the late Alexander Gilchrist, barrister-at-law, is an addition to biographical literature of some importance. The general public certainly knows very little either of Blake or his works, which are scarce and expensive. Mr. Gilchrist's volumes contain impressions from some of the original plates engraved by Blake, and twenty-one photo-lithographs from his designs in illustration of the book of Job. The contemporaries of this extraordinary man accounted him insane; and his wonderfully inventive genius seems indeed to have been ever at least upon the border of insanity. However, he passed a long life of unwearying industry, reverenced almost as one inspired by a few friends, and leaving behind him a number of poetical works, writings upon art, &c., and above all, a mass of designs illustrative of various works, such as Young's Night Thoughts, Blair's Grave, &c., upon which his fame rests. A detailed account of this singular, but highly-gifted man, and his works, was a desideratum which Mr. Gilchrist's work supplies.

Another biographical work of interest is Mr. Smiles's volume of "Industrial

Biography," devoted to Iron-workers and Tool-makers. "The book," says a reviewer, "is a history of iron in Britain in the most interesting form that such a history can take-a series of the biographies of the men whose brains invented the successive improvements in the treatment of the ore and metal; and the lives are told in the style fitted to them,-plain, vigorous, untricky English, fit for man and boy to read." Many of the lives are perfect romances, those of Maudslay, Nasmyth, and William Fairbairn, for instance; and many real heroes of courage, patience, and perseverance, are brought to light in these pages whose names have been little known except in the limited circles in the midst of which they laboured.

The autobiography of Mr. Charles Knight, the well-known publisher, of which the first volume appeared under the title of "Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century, with a prelude on Early Reminiscences," is another important addition to biographical literature. The name of Mr. Knight is intimately asso

ciated with the literary progress of the last fifty years, and this volume shows what stores of interesting recollections he has treasured up. Beginning life as proprietor and editor of a Windsor paper in 1812, "he has led, during the fifty years which have since elapsed, as author, publisher, and public man, as central a life, in many respects as rich in various experiences and in recollections of contact or of intimacy with the men and things that History likes to talk about, as that of almost any other man now living." This volume contains over a hundred pages devoted to the most entertaining reminiscences of men and life at the commencement of this century. The rest of the volume contains Mr. Knight's memoirs, from 1812 to 1825.

The "Miscellanies," collected and edited by Earl Stanhope, comprise some literary remains of interest: five letters by William Pitt, two by Edmund Burke, and two memoranda by the Duke of Wellington, a defence of Sir Robert Walpole by Sir Robert Peel, and a series of letters from Lord Macaulay, Mr. Hallam, and Sir Robert Peel, on the alleged sacrifices of human victims to Jupiter in the Roman times.

The lives of Bishop Warburton, Bishop Blomfield, Sir Robert Wilson, Sir James Graham, and the Memoirs of Lady Morgan, have been added to the stock of biographies.

Sir Charles Lyell's book on "The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man" marks a turning-point in public opinion upon the much-vexed question of the duration of the human race upon the earth. Within the last few years the attention of geologists has been called to discoveries of flint implements and other vestiges of humanity in strata containing the bones of extinct animals, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, which had long been supposed to belong to an epoch preceding the appearance of man upon the earth. It is many years since these phenomena have been noticed, and individual geologists have drawn conclusions from them attributing a greater antiquity to man than the six thousand years allowed by school-books. Philosophical caution, however, prevented the great body of scientific men from going over to this opinion, until lately, when Mr. Prestwich, an eminent geologist, and Mr. John Evans, a member of the Society of Antiquaries, examined the gravel and sand pits at Abbeville and Amiens, and the collection of M. Boucher de Perthes, which that far-sighted savant had long been forming of objects discovered in those localities. The result was the expression of a conviction that the flint tools found in these pits had been deposited in the gravel beds at their first formation, and not subsequently introduced, and the conclusion followed that man existed previous to the formation of these strata. Many other prior discoveries of human bones and remains in caves in conjunction with those of elephants, hyænas, and other extinct animals, were now reconsidered, and a large body of facts hitherto slighted as inconclusive was brought into view. Sir Charles Lyell's work reviews the facts and considers their bearing, introducing also a discussion of the Darwinian hypothesis, and a summary of the recent controversy on the relation of the brain of man to that of the quadrumana. The tardiness which geologists have shown to embrace results which now seem so firmly established, and the materials for arriving at which have long been at hand, is a remarkable instance of scientific caution, not to call it a strong prepossession in favour of an assumed theory. The question must now be considered as settled, to the extent that a far greater antiquity must be assigned to man than has hitherto been believed. How much greater that antiquity may be than the indications at present discovered show, remains for further inquiry.

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In connexion with the last-named work may be mentioned Professor Huxley's "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature." The three essays of which this work is composed sum up the facts, which have been of late years the subject of so much lively dispute, relative to the anatomical resemblance between man and the anthropoid apes. The third essay is devoted to a discussion of certain human skulls, now become celebrated in science, the one from the caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, the other from the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf. The question of the possible derivation of man, by a slow process of modification and improvement, from a race of apes, has excited more sensation than that of the prolonged duration of man upon the earth. Such views have indeed long ago been suggested, but it is only of late they have been widely canvassed in the scientific world, and great differences of opinion are well known to prevail. The non-scientific public considers itself interested in the matter, and the discussions and controversies which have arisen among the acknowledged leaders of science are watched with attention and anxiety. The state in which he question now rests is thus summarized in a contemporary notice: "Of positive differences in the cerebral conformation of man and the higher apes, there are certainly no traces; there are doubtless differences in the relative proportion of parts, and in the number of convolutions on the surface, but these are differences of degree, and, as our author says, are not so great between man and the apes as between the latter and the lower monkeys. On the whole, then, Professor Huxley is perfectly justified in asserting that the human species stands in closer zoological relationship to the chimpanzee and the gorilla, than the anthropoid apes do to the marmozets and lemurs, which occupy the lower ranks of the quadrumana; and as in this investigation psychological considerations have no weight of themselves, we must, however reluctantly, be content to take the place assigned to us as forming simply a family of the order Primates, with the chimpanzee and gorilla as our next of kin. Nevertheless, the gap between humanity in its most degraded physical condition, and the very highest of the apes is so great, that we may well be excused for asking for a demonstration of some of the intermediate grades, before giving an unconditional assent to the Darwinian proposition that man has originated by the progressive development of ape-like ancestors, a notion to which Professor Huxley gives in his adhesion in plain terms. In those fossil remains of man, the skulls and bones from Engis and the Neanderthal, which form the subject of Professor Huxley's third essay, we have but an uncertain evidence; the former might have belonged to an individual of almost any of the existing races of men; whilst the Neanderthal skull, although exhibiting pithecoid characters, is still admitted by the author to have belonged to a man, and not to an intermediate form."

Of the class of novels known as "sensational," several have appeared during the year, the most notable being Miss Braddon's "Aurora Floyd." This work was naturally brought into comparison with a previous one, by which the authoress had made her reputation, namely, "Lady Audley's Secret," and the voices of the critics seem to preponderate in favour of the latter in point of art and execution, although its predecessor may be considered the more highly seasoned. The "Quarterly," in a severe article on sensation-novels, says, Though the moral teaching of the story is more questionable than that of its predecessor, and the interest on the whole less sustained, the individual characters are drawn with greater skill." Another critic (" Athenæum ") says, "Like 'Lady Audley's Secret,' Aurora Floyd' is a work of interest, and the heroine is again a woman who is guilty of bigamy, and who keeps a dark disgraceful secret gnawing at her

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heart, when, by speaking one word, the difficulty might have been overcome at any moment. In some ways 'Aurora Floyd' is a superior work to 'Lady Audley's Secret,'-the characters are more natural, and the story more probable." Another writer, more enthusiastic, says, "It is rarely indeed that we find combined, as in Aurora Floyd,' such a rush of incidents, such an unchecked, unhalting sweep of plot, with such correct, well-polished phraseology. Since the day when that fragile hand with the massive pen, the hand of Currer Bell, made it an honour to women to write in a strain that would have been deemed strong from the strongest, we have had nothing from the most brilliant lady novelists to equal 'Aurora Floyd.' There is no exaggerated display of erudition and vast research and reading; we are not continually having the fact of her being astonishingly clever and classically learned thrust upon us; and yet we are equally far from feeling her to be inefficient and uncertain on any ground upon which she may please to touch." The dramatic capabilities of the plot of this novel were soon recognized, and pieces embodying it were brought out at several theatres. It even attracted the attention of the manufacturers of drama on the other side of the water, and a piece called "Le Secret de Miss Aurore" is recorded as having been produced at Paris. On the whole, "Aurora Floyd" may be described as something more than the novel of the season, as being a type of a peculiar kind of art, which, whatever its merits or defects may ultimately be adjudged to be, must have a place in the chronicle of English literature. Later in the year was published "Eleanor's Victory," by the same authoress, the story having been carried to a certain point in the serial form. Written for a periodical, and with the grand object of keeping the interest of the reader alive from one number to another perpetually before the writer's eye, the story, though successfully adapted to this purpose, does not seem to have been found an advance upon its predecessors. "John Marchmont's Legacy," published in December, seems to be a work with which greater pains has been taken. We adopt the words of a recent critic ("Reader"): "John Marchmont's Legacy' is almost as great an improvement on 'Aurora Floyd' as that novel was on 'Lady Audley's Secret.' It is curious, as a mere literary study, to watch how, in each succeeding work, Miss Braddon shakes herself more and more clear of the crudeness and exaggeration which marred the beauty of her earlier writings, and how, without losing power, she is acquiring correctness and delicacy of touch. No honest critic who did not consider that he had said all that was to be said on the subject when he had described 'Lady Audley's Secret' as a sensation-novelcould fail to see that the writer had true creative genius. The doubt, which even Miss Braddon's admirers could not disguise from themselves, was whether that genius of hers was accompanied by sufficient power of painstaking labour to produce works of high artistic merit. There are painters every now and then who never dash off a sketch without showing the connoisseur that there is something in them, and who yet never paint a picture that is itself worth possessing. It was possible that Miss Braddon might be in literature what these artists are in painting. Those however who entertained such fears have been agreeably disappointed. Miss Braddon has already taken a high rank among living English novelists, and if her works show as marked an improvement as the one before us, she will rise to a much higher position than that she occupies."

The story of "Romola," by George Eliot, the well-known author of "Adam Bede," appeared in its complete form in July, having been commenced in the "Cornhill Magazine" in the previous year, and continued by monthly instalments. The choice of an Italian subject, by an authoress who had shown a

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