Pax papers to haud by this mail present a good average of interesting articles. Many of them are suggested by the crisis in Egypt, though they do not bear immediately upon it. Among these we may mention an instructive and popularly written essay on Alexandria in the Saturday Review; but the writer does not give so complete an account of this city as he did in dealing with Cairo a few weeks ayo. Still the article is well worth re Alexandria has undergone more vicissitudes than the great majority of cities in the world. Once it was the seat of the world's learning. A comparatively few years ago it was "a village existing by fishing and the sponge-trade, cut off from the interior by arid sands and fetid marshes, almost waterless, and shrunk into a narrow corner among the ruins of Greek magnificence." The sites of its ancient glories are now beyond identification, and the only building it actually possesses with any pretensions to solidity wglish church. So flimsily, indeed, that the noise of the bombardment will by itself have shaken down some of the most imposing structures in the city and there are no fine houses to regret—no palaces or guildhalls." The subject of bombardments leads us to the consideration of a very clever article of the "speculative' order, in the Spectator, on' Possible improvements in. The writer points out that in point of fact the only improvement we have made since Agincourt has been to throw more dangerous missiles a very much longer distance. We have learned to use projectiles scienti-tically, and projectiles of very fatal effect. But nothing more has been done; nor does it appear probable at present that we shall make very much more progress, Still, people may "dream" of far greater improvements than we have hitherto arrived at, and many things that were "dreams" a century of even a quarter of a century ago are realities to day; though The only two directions in which even Areamers can see a probability of much change are the use of electricity or the use of baltes id of either the prospect is very slight, We can do a great deal with the lightning, but we cannot throw it, nor is it easy to conceive how it could be darted, except through a conductor. Mr. Urquhart's dream of the quiet it who fought ists? army without weapon:
but was only adream, The had mastered the worl shot from particle of hich has lo mechaniciai able diamond, at thing could be dom that the very ribs into molten ways & po bility that immense electric force may be trated in such a small apace that a supported in by baho could be guided at will if that were Then there is a very just and well-coned Article on the Salvation Army and Canon Farrar's sermon about it. The writer points out with great clearness that all the shouting, dancing, haudkerchiefwaving, flag-fying, shouts of laughter, volley-fung, etc., are not calculated to produce the inner life of individual religion in the hearts of those who indulge in them.
After all, put it how you will, you cannot be contrite, you cannot be pushing down towards something deeper, while you are screaming at the top of your voice and waving flags or pocket-iaudkerchiefs."—Unless all these elements change, unless those who now belong to the Army get sick of its pantomime and give up their places to those who have not yet Tearned that Christianity is inward and not a beating of big drams, it cannot possibly end in making those who join it true Christians while it may very likely and in making them false actors." "To our mind the Salvation Army is good only for recruits from the Damnation Army, and to them only while they remain raw recruits." Among the reviews in this paper we accord first place to that dealing with Mr. Nicholson's translation of Ber-natd Auerbach's 'Spinoza.' The trai tion itself we judge from examples given to be horribly bad, as bad perhaps as a recent translation of Dr. Faber's 'Mind of Mencei " but the book itself is of absorbing interest and the highest value. The Saturday goes into raptures over Mr. Ans-toy's admirable fooling in 'Vice Vers.' Such a review as the one before us ought send the book through half-a-dozen editions in no time. We have already given sketch of its motif, s0 need say no more about it now. 'Curiosities of Law and Lawyers' is the John Timbs-ish title of a book also noticed, though not very favourably, in the present number, Inside the book is tobe founda mighty medley of queer things. No old ragshop could show a greater variety of odds a Fact ends, and fiction, all time and all spi been laid under contribution to turn contents. Nothing to be refused admission. Phryno before the Areopagus and Judge Bridlegoose from Rabelais are jumbled in along with the famous trial-scone from Pickwick. The judgments of Sancho Panza... are asaooiated with the story of the Maid and the Magpie; Voltaire's © Zadig ' and Bacon's "Apophthegms' are impartially drawn upon." But these are unimportant, The best review in any of the mail's papers is that in the Atheneum on Swinburne's "Tristram of Lyonesse and other Poems,' We regret that the extracts given and the remarks of the reviewer are both too copious to admit of more than a very passing notice, The love-passages, though nearly overpassing the border-line modern erotic poetry, are nevertheless 0 beautiful that it is impossible, ho wish them unwritten. Especially the case with the exquisite lines beginning 'There wasa bower beyond man'
Than ever summer dews and sunn Fed full with and radiance till the boughs Had wrought a roof as for a holier hous Than aught eave love might breathe in; fairer fi ey the darkling hours, and keep amorous alternation of aw rife ti There is much temptation to reproduce other portions, but we must forbear. Here something of different ring altogether, 'The Earliest Known Printed English Ballad?' A Ballade of the Scottysshe Kynge,
to King Henry VIII. Reproduced mitten by Jobo Skelton, Poet Laure by John Ashtov. The follow Kynge Samy Jomy your. Jove is all go Ye commoned our kpuge why ayde ys 40 To you no thug it clyde accorde To common our kynge you souerayue Lorde. A kynge " sornner it is wonder Knowe ye not saite and sugar asunder In your somuynge ye were to malaperte And your harold no thynge experte Ye thought yo clyde in fall valyauntolye But not worth thre skppes of " pye.
Our readers probably do not covet more. The remainder of our jottings are taken
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.