prepossession in its favour. In July 1860, a judgment was obtained in Chancery restraining Allman from using improperly the name of Ahn in the title-page or any other part of a book; which was a public testimonial to the popularity of Ahn's method, and the marketableness of books bearing his name. Ahn's manuals are valuable auxiliaries, when used as introductions to the actual speaking and writing of a language; but they can never replace either the study of a regular grammar, or the reading of classic authors.

Principes de la Grammaire Arabe suivis d'un traité de la langue Arabe considérée selon le systême des grammairiens Arabes, etc., par J. B. Glaire.-Essai de Grammaire Japonaise, traduit du Hollandais, par Léon Pagès.-Méthode pour étudier la Langue Sanscrite, d'après les idées d'Eugène Burnouf, etc., par Emile Burnouf et L. Leupol. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris B. Duprat. London: Barthes & Lowell.

THE study of oriental languages has during the last fifty years been carried on in France with an ardour and a success which deserve to be noticed. Besides the various lectureships comprising the école des langues orientales, the Collège de France is likewise provided with a staff of able professors who give instructions in Arabic, German, Turkish, Sanscrit, Chinese, and other cognate idioms, and we need only mention the names of Sylvestre de Sacy, Etienne Quatremère, Eugène Burnouf, and Stanislas Julien, to show that this impulse has been productive of the greatest results. We must add, however, that until lately the elementary works available for French oriental students were very insufficient, and in this particular direction there remained much to be done. The three treatises at present under consideration appear to us therefore most opportune, and calculated to develop still further the taste for a class of studies which is equally important, whether we consider it in its relation to the study of antiquity, or as calculated to extend our present commercial and political transactions with the eastern world. The Arabic grammar we have to notice first is from the pen of a wellknown Roman Catholic divine, late Professor in the Paris Faculté de Théologie, and author of several valuable works, particularly a volume entitled Principes de Grammaire Hébraïque et Chaldaïque, which was favourably reviewed in the Journal de Savants, by M. Sylvestre de Sacy. The verdict passed by so competent a judge decided M. Glaire to write an Arabic grammar on exactly the same plan, and the task was comparatively an easy one, on account of the perfect analogy which exists between the two languages in their syntax and their etymology. M. de Sacy, we may add, has also written a similar work, but it is far too complicated for general use, and its utter want of method cannot fail to strike those who compare it with the volume we are now noticing. M. Glaire gives first the elements of the grammar, and then by way of supplement he adds a kind of recapitulation entitled la langue Arabe considérée selon le systéme des grammairiens Arabes. This section is designed for more

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advanced students, and the constant references it contains to the foregoing division make it exceedingly useful. A table of paradigms of the Arabic verbs completes the work, simplifying the study of what is generally deemed the most difficult part in the whole grammar M. Léon Pagès is a truly ardent and enterprising Japanese scholar his bibliographie Japonaise has only lately appeared, and now he announces the speedy publication of a Japanese dictionary, to be followed, at no distant time, by a history of Japan, in four volumes. The grammar he now presents us with is a translation of the celebrated Dutch work, printed in 1857 at Leyden, and which was the result of the joint labours of Dr. Hoffmann and M. Donker Curtius. M. Pagès deserves the best thanks of students for this undertaking; he has added to it a great many valuable notes of his own, and above all an excellent index, which makes consultation singularly easy. Of MM. Leupol and Burnouf's Sanscrit grammar we shall just say that, as the title sufficiently points out, it is an application of the well-known méthode pour étudier la langue Grecque composed by the late J. L. Burnouf. The authors have not deemed it necessary to dwell upon all the details given in the works of Bopp and Wilson, and the alterations they have introduced affect especially the theory of the verb, which is reduced by them to a few plain easy rules. The Sanscrit words are written throughout this treatise in European characters, but we should recommend, when a second edition is prepared, that the devanagari equivalents be likewise added, if only to facilitate the reading of Sanscrit texts as they are still usually printed.

The First French Book. By Ferdinand E. A. Gasc, M.A., French Master in Brighton College. 1858.

The Second French Book: being a Grammar and Exercise Book. By the Same. 1860.

French Fables for Beginners. By the Same. 1861.

Histoires Amusantes et Instructives; or, Selections of Complete Stories. With English Notes. By the Same. 1859.

Materials for French Prose Composition; or, Selections from the Best English Prose Writers, to e turned into French. By the Same. 1860.

London: Bell and Daldy, Fleet Street.

M. GASC is an exception to the general rule, that Frenchmen don't master English. The thoroughness which characterizes all his books is due, in great measure, to his practical and critical acquaintance with English.

The First French Book is a grammar and exercise-book combined, no less than the Second, which is a sequel to the First, and begins with the irregular verbs. Both are divided, according to a not very simple plan, into three parts; the first and by far the largest consisting of exercises intermingled with grammatical matter; the second, of a grammatical summary; and the third, which extends over very few pages, of a vocabulary additional to the words prefixed to the several exercises, and indexed at the end of each volume. The First Book is

a less successful performance than the Second, chiefly because the author does not sympathize sufficiently with the juvenile mind; nevertheless, taken together, they leave nothing to be desired in respect of accuracy and completeness.

The wants of the advanced student are thoroughly appreciated and met by M. Gasc in his Materials for French Prose Composition. This work, like his Fables, which are taken from Esop, La Fontaine, and Florian, but not slavishly in respect of style, merits unqualified approbation.

A First German Course; containing the Elements of Grammar, with Exercises, a Selection of Anecdotes, and a Complete Vocabulary. By Falck Lebahn. Second Edition. London: Charles H. Clark.

THERE is a great, and, so far as appears, an objectless want of proportion in the selection of materials for this book: not only are some subjects treated fully and others incompletely, but, what is strange in a book for beginners, the two subjects treated most meagrely are fundamental, viz., the declensions of the German noun, and the conjugations of the German verb. Hence, the very first thing the learner must do, after going through this volume, is to buy a regular grammar, which many will think had better have been done at the beginning.

At pp. 105-9, the German equivalents of shall and will, should and would, are exhibited with such fulness as to give an insight into English no less than into German idioms. On the other hand, and notwithstanding the author's observation, as teacher and examiner (Pref. p. iv.), of the perplexity resulting to the learner from the neglect of grammatical tables at the commencement, he has omitted those lists of common words without which definiteness cannot be given to the rules for the declension of German nouns.

The grammatical tables suffer in effectiveness by being distributed piecemeal, as in Ahn's method, throughout the whole book—an arrangement which not only makes reference difficult, but greatly impairs the opportunity for local memory in learning them. A number of the exercises (pp. 34-41) are needlessly uninteresting, as when the learner is required to translate into German, This time, Of thy calf, His sons, and the like. Youth loves the concrete.

The author's praise is, that the best parts of his book are those in which he enters most fully into his subject.

We have received,—but want of space prevents our noticing at greater length in the present number,-Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essays from the Westminster, North British, and Quarterly Reviews on Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical (London: Manwaring); another of Mr. Page's readable and popular scientific summaries, The Past and Present Life of the Globe, being a sketch in outline of the world's life-system-(Edinburgh: Blackwood); a reprint of De Quincey's Letters on Self Education, and other papers supposed to have an educational bearing, which, however valuable in themselves, do not in the present unedited edition appear at all suitable for educational purposes-(London: Hogg); the third edition of an excellent School and College History of England, by J. C. Curtis, B.A.-(London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.); and of Mr. Davenport's useful

Historical Class-Book, containing 110 daily reading-lessons in Modern History(London: Relfe); a second edition of Mr. T. Morrison's excellent and practical Manual of School Management-(Glasgow: Hamilton); and a third of Mr. Currie's thoroughly philosophical work on the Principles and Practice of Early and Infant School-Education (Edinburgh: Gordon); Outlines of Hebrew Accentua tion, Prose and Poetical, by the Rev. A. B. Davidson, M.A.-(London: Williams & Norgate); a second edition of A Summary of Sacred History, by A. Taylor (Edinburgh: Menzies); and of Mr. Baker's Bible-Class Book, in which neither the poetry nor the illustrations indicate high taste; (London: Wertheim, Macintosh, & Hunt), also Mr. W. R. Groser's Bible Months, and the third edition of his Illustrative Teaching, containing practical hints on the use of illustrations in Bible Classes-(London: Sunday School Union); a new edition of M. A. Havet's French Studies, arranged on the conversational method which he has so successfully developed in his "Household French," and other works-(London: W. Allan); a Key to Dr. M'Culloch's Course of Reading, by James Whitton, which contains, we cannot tell why, a life of Napoleon I, filling half the book-(Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox); an Introduction to the Art of Reading, by J. G. Graham, on which we cannot bestow unqualified praise-(London: Longman); a second edition of Mr. Douglas's judicious Selections for Recitation-(Edinburgh: Black); Mr. Manson's well arranged Progressive Exercises in Arithmetic, for junior and for senior classes(Glasgow: Hamilton); Exercises for the Improvement of the Senses, for Young Children, apparently by the late Horace Grant, from which elementary teachers may gather useful hints-(London: Darton); a Catechism of Latin Grammar, evidently designed either to enable the public to dispense with teachers, or teachers to dispense with learning-(London: Cassell); Dr. Pick On Memory, in which he gives a history of Mnemonics, and explains his own "rational" method of aiding the memory by calling in the principles of association-(London: Trübner); third editions of The English Matron and The English Gentlewoman, containing practical hints for young wives and young ladies-(London: Hogg); Chronological Cards of Eight Centuries, A.D. 1000 to 1800, by A. W. H. J., well arranged and handily got up, which teachers will find very useful to lay before them when giving their oral lessons-(Edinburgh: T. C. Jack): Forty Slip History Papers, adapted to Collier's " History of the British Empire," and intended as a preparation for examinations-(London: Longman); A Schoolroom Map of Europe, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, etc., in which the physical features are boldly marked, and the clearly-printed details are not too numerous for school purposes-(London: Stanford): A First Cheque Book for Latin Verse Makers, by Rev. F. E. Gretton-(London: Bell & Daldy); Symmers's Sol-fa Method of Singing at sight from the common musical notation (Glasgow: Hamilton); Hunter's School Songs for Advanced Classes, an excellent sequel to the "School Songs for Junior Classes," by the same author(Edinburgh Gordon); Sampson's Sacred Harmonies for the Sabbath-school and Family, a good but meagre collection-(London: Jackson & Co.); and specimens of Rooker's Public School Registers-(London: Kent & Co.)

We have also received a number of educational pamphlets. A Burgh Schoolmaster's Letter to the Lord Advocate for Scotland on Scholastic Emancipation, contains many truthful remarks, strongly stated-(Edinburgh: T. C. Jack). With most of the views advanced in The Common Sense of Competition, a Plea for an open Civil Service, we heartily sympathize-(London: Ridgway). We can safely recommend Mr. Fraser's excellent lecture on The Educational Equipment of the Trained Teacher to all who are preparing to enter the scholastic profession(Edinburgh Gordon.) Mr. D. Nasmith's Lecture on Education delivered before the London Association of Schoolmasters, abounds in valuable practical hints, the results of long and wide experience-(London: Philip & Son). We have in conclusion, to thank their authors for copies of An English Education, what it means and how it may be carried out, by Rev. G. Iliff-(London: Bell and Daldy); The Church and the Sunday School, by Charles Reed (London: Jackson & Co.); Popular Education, what it is and what it is not, by M.A. B.—(London : Bell and Daldy); and a Lecture on the Life, Genius, and Poetry, of William Couper, by Dr. J. M. Pollock-(London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co.)

XIV. CURRENT LITERATURE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the appearance of completeness which a copious index gives to the posthumous volume of Lord Macaulay's "History of England,"* that great work stands as a broken pillar, to indicate at once the grandeur and the unattainable magnitude of its author's design. The fragment on the death of William of Orange-the mere rough sketch of the author's conception though it be-helps to round off the Revolution period, and almost entitles the work to be called a history of that great event: still there is a serious hiatus of some sixteen months at the close of William's reign, which deprives the work even of this approximate completeness. Commencing with the controversy on standing armies which followed the conclusion of the Treaty of Ryswick in the end of 1697, the volume continues the narrative to the struggle between the Lords and the Commons on the Irish Forfeitures Bill early in 1700. Though thus covering a period of little more than two years, these supplementary chapters contain many characteristic features, and not a few of those brilliant passages into which Lord Macaulay's narrative at artistic intervals spontaneously rose. Such are the admirable descriptions of Peter the Great's visit to London, and of Portland's embassy to France; the masterly portraits of Montague and Duncombe and Somers, of Charles II. and his minister Portocarrero; and the bold exposition and defence of the Partition Treaties which preceded the wars of the Spanish Succession. come the death of the exiled Stuart king, and the unexpected recognition of his son by Louis XIV.; and on the indignation which this act excited in England the curtain falls, only to rise again for a brief space, and reveal to us the deathbed of the man who had carried England safely through her troubles. Brilliancy, as of the hard and clearcut diamond, is the quality which we most naturally associate with Macaulay's style, and it is undeniable that, as a historian, he never threw off the character of essayist and advocate; but that would be an unfair and too partial estimate of his character which gave him credit for no more than brilliant partisanship, overlooking the liberality of his sentiments, the loftiness of his aim, the clearness of his perception of character, and the laborious research which he devoted to the elucidation of the great crisis in the modern History of England.

Then

We congratulate Mr. Helps on the completion of his calm and eminently impartial "History of the Spanish Conquest in America," and we thank him for a work which, in its thoughtful remark, its striking illustrations, and its strong common-sense view of national questions, reminds one of the felicities of "Friends in Council." This volume continues the History from 1533 to 1556. The first of the five books

The History of England from the Accession of James II. By Lord Macaulay. Vol. V. Edited by his Sister, Lady Trevelyan. London: Longman & Co. 1861. + The Spanish Conquest in America, and its relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of the Colonies. By Arthur Helps. Vol. IV. London: Parker, Son, & Bourn. 1861.