"Tue world," remarks the Atheneum, "owes something to Napoleon Ill. During Victor Hugo's exile in the island of Guernsey, he wrote the greater part of the magnificent play of forquemada,' which is now for the first time reviewed, 'The production is said to be in the great French post's finest style, and to be a marvellous feat of imagination and of analysis of character. 'The plot of the' drama is to the following effect. forqnemade, a single-minded enthusiast who burns and tortures people out of pure love sending their bodies to the flames in order to save both their souls and bodies from the flames of hell,—was first a wandering and half-crazy' monk. He had been buried alive for refusing to recant certain fanatical doctrines, and his cries for assistance attracted the attention of two lovers, who were sporting amid the shrubs and flowers that grew near tomb. The youth, horror-stricken sound, seized an iron cross from another part of the cemetery, and using it like a crowbar, managed to raise the huge slab that covered the mouth of the vault, Torquemada overwhelmed his deliverers with gratitude, and swore he would repay their goodness, He did so. Some time atti wards, he heard by accident that the lovers had effected his deliverance by means of an iron or was sacrilege—unpardonable, damnable sacrilege. The two must be burnt for it; for ti the only way to wave them from th ial consequences of their sin! in which this frightfal situation are depicted are too terrible, says the Athenewn, for legitimate art. And yet all the art of the poet is employed in working up to this grand crisis, and in intensifying the horrors presenta 2 mind of the reader. This of course is the great motif of the drama, There is, however, much power displayed in scenes which are very beautiful and graceful." It need hardly be said," writes the reviewer, "that the play is crowded with beauties of music, of colour, and of sontimen The scene in the cemetery where the lovers play, the one at catching butterflies and the other at catching kisses, could have been written by no other man." 'The 'Athencum also reviews Professor Ward's "Dickens," to which the new number of Mr. John Morley's 'English Men of Let-tors' series is devoted. It is very much cut up, being condemned as colourless and vague; not, apparently, such an essay as would be written by & man who thoroughly appreciated and understood his author. Under the heading of 'Travel and Adventure' we have a review of Mr. W. G. Dixon's 'Land of the Morning,' which is decidedly favourable. "A four years' residence in Japan must be a delightful change from the monotony of Buropean life," aays the reviewer—and we heartily agree; "not, indeed, iv the classrooms at Tokiyo. but in the out-of the-way towns and villages, where th people are still Japanese in life and manners, and where the bright and lively nature peculiar to them has not been driven out by the dull routine of the achoolrooms and lecture-halls." The following anecdote does not throw a very favour ai light upon the influence of Western intercourse on Japanese commercial morality young Japanese," he tells us, "who had gone to America for a commercial education, was one day ing an American lady, when there happened aleo to call an American merchant who bad spent several years "The conve naturally turning latter country, the merchant, much to of the Indy, began to boast of he had there through taking juoranee of the native had left the young Japanese turn to the lady and asked her to oblige him with address of this gentleman, as he should to cultivate his acquaintance, Her answer regretted very much that he should have met a man of so little principle, and that it would be much better for himself if he did not pursue the acquaintance further, 'Ely, but,' he said, ' that is the very kind of man'L want to know, My object in ce Before leaving the Athencum we must not forget to notice the sudden death of Mr. James Thomson, who wrote 'The City of Dreadful Night.' Me. Philip B. Marston writes his obituary, concluding with this verse No tears of mine shall fall upon thy face Whatever city thou hast reached at last, Better it is than that where thy fect passed So many times, euch weary nights and da: Phy jourusying feot knew all its inmost ways, shadows of dread song of anguish rai Thou would at have left that city of gr Yet travelled its dark mazes all in vai Bat one way leads from it, which found aright, Who quitteth it shall not come back again.
There didst thou grope thy way through thy long pai Hast thou outside fouud avy world of light 'The Saturday contains a very able article headed 'The Privathood and the Land League,' in which it is shown, with excellent logic, that all the mischievous and seditious ecclesiastics who are inciting their parishioners to rebelliva are actually themselves in rebellion to the Church. Cardinal McCabe has, from first to last, openly, frankly, and persistently denounced the League and all its works. The Pope has marked his approval ut the Cardinal's course by bestowing on him the highest honour in hi power to give. "The adple thus set by the most romiuent member of the Irish Roman catholic hierarchy, and ¢ amended by the oficial sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff, only brings out into bolder relief the very opposite hue pursued by the great majority of his colleagues in the ministry. Bishops, priests, monks, ey have come forward again and again, in' season and out of sean, not to endorse, but to con-tradier and repudiate, almost in so many words, the teaching of the Primate and the Pope." Of course the Saturday is down upon 'Thought Reading.' It is however too much given to ridiculing what it fails to explain, 'There is a novel praised in the very highest terms in the present Saturday, 80 our novel-reading friends had better make a note of it at once if they have not already read it. Its name is 'Traseaden Hall,' by Major-General Hamley. It is not often we meet with such unstinted praise in this review. We have not half exhausted the Saturday, but must forbear. 'The Spectator fastens on the 'Thought-Read Brain Waves' controversy with characte istic avidity. Such a subject is "nuts" for the philosophical editor of that excellent paper. There is also a great discussion going on respecting Exercise and Health. A Correspondent, quoting Dr. Jaeger, who is said to be a German counterpart of the well-known Dr. Richardson, mentions the following rather curious facts The Doctor has a theory that woollen acts asa sort of disinfectant. If you put a piece of linen and a piece of flannel on your breast for afew days, he says, the linen will have aut odour, while the flannel will smell as sweetly as at first. For this reason, woollen garments do not require to be washed, and, a a matter of fact they are not washed. But with strange inconsistency, people, albeit they have their cotton shirte frequently washed, never the colour of clothing great importance. Uni; and among colours, indigo-blue black materials are most conducive to the preservation of health, What does the Doctor mean by saying that as a matter of fact woollen garments are never washed? It reminds one of the even more dreadful remark attributed to Ida Pfeiffer. Mr. Ruskin's 'Arrows of the Chaco' (Vol. I) is very well reviewed. We select one letter included in the volume, originally addressed to the Daily Tsleyraph, in which, as the reviewer aptly says, we have Mr. Ruskin in a nutshell. Cho document speaks for itself CASTLES AND KENNELS, "$in,—L was astonished the other day by your article on Ta but never yet in was so much astonished by anything it as by your to-day's article on Castles, Lama castle-lover of the truest sort. Ido not suppose any man alive has felt anything the aorrow and anger with whicl L have watched the woderu destruction, by railroad ware, helped by the wicked imof half the over a railway stati Inamed it in my letter of last October la Fors Clavigera,' as a type of the architect tural treasures of this England of ours, known, to me, and beloved from childhood to this hour, But, Sir, Lam at this hour endeavour-to find Work and food for a boy of seven teen, ove of eight people—two married couples, a woman and her daughter, and thi his sister—who all together square, in the heart upon me for a to rebuild Warwick Tam an old and thorough-bred Tory, and as auch say, 'U6 a noble fami conant rebuild own castle, in Tet the the nearest ditch till live i The following items are taken from the Literary Gossip of the Athenaeum Next week probably we shall publish some interesting letters from Emerson to Carlyle. It is understood that Miss Ellen Emerson will at once print the correspondence of hor father with Carlyle, the mass of the letters on both sides, through a period of forty years, having for some time been her hauds.—The death of Garibaldi calling forth a number of memoirs of the deceased hero, Mr. Bent is bringing out a new edition of his book, in which the text has been modified in' several places and the narrative brought down to Garibaldi's death, M. Barbéra, of Florence, tells us that he will publish in a few days a biography, by Giuseppe Guerzoni, in two volumes. Che work has been about three years in preparation.—Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench and Ca. have in the press a new work by De. Davidson on Christian eschatology, or the doctrine of last things compared with the notions of the Jews and and the statements of Church creeds on the same subject.—Donations from his many friends and admirers in America will be invited to purchase the field in front of Craigie House, which Me. Longfellow bought in order to secure his view of Charles river. It is proposed to convert it into a memorial garden and place a statue of the poet in the centre. The cost is estimated at 20,0001,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.