value and interest for the side-lights it throws on constitutional questions in the present day. It is written with full knowledge; the style is compact and scholarly, and the book is well fitted for popular use.

Women of Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. By Mrs. NAPIER HIGGINS. Two Vols. Hurst and Blackett.

Mrs. Napier Higgins has adventured on a wide field. The present contribution is but an instalment; and it is questionable whether she could complete the work in another six volumes of the same size, if she dealt with each subject on the same scale, and allowed herself to trace back beyond the exact line of history the various influences which went to prepare the way, or to form the character of her central figure, as she has done in these two volumes. Notwithstanding that Mrs. Higgins is of opinion that the bulk of the introductory matter for the whole work is presented in these two volumes, she will find, as she proceeds, that occasions will constantly arise for explanation and retrospect in order to a full understanding; and this the more that the lives will doubtless be found to interlace each other in a still greater degree than was the case with several of the groups in these two volumes. Mrs. Napier Higgins writes in her preface that these two volumes contain the biographies of women connected with Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; with Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, and with Hungary and Germany, during the first half of the fifteenth century. These countries have been taken first as a mere matter of convenience, after many other arrangements had been rejected.' She hopes without much delay to add another volume, containing biographies of women belonging to countries of Southern Europe, during the same period; after which she proposes to deal with England, France, and the Netherlands. Much thus remains to be done to complete the plan with which the author has started. Mrs. Napier Higgins is quite right in claiming that such a work is much wanted to fill a void in the records of humanity.' If there was anything in Heine's half-jocular remark to the effect that when he heard of any great feat in history, he was always anxious to know something of the woman who lay hidden as an inspiring cause behind it, then it is evident that history has lost through not looking with more of penetrating eyes to the records of the female sex. Here and there,' as Mrs. Higgins writes, a queen regnant, or some other lady of exalted rank, forces herself on the notice of historians by virtue of an exceptional position; but-unless in such cases -any woman who occupies a conspicuous place in their writings is more often a king's mistress, or other person of doubtful reputation, than a worthy representative of the sex; and this state of things has a detrimental influence on morals, because it tends to a low and unjust estimate of women.' Mrs. Higgins has done a little to supply a great void, and she has chosen a very striking period-a period of sudden transitions, rapid growth, and great discoveries. Her researches have

been very extensive, as her list of authorities sufficiently shows, though she does not profess to have been able to gain access to the vast accumulations of manuscripts. Though she does not affect a picturesque style, and is sometimes dry, she uniformly writes with simplicity and clearness. She is wise in not affecting to know more than she really does, and is worthy of praise for her frankness in confessing that there is now no possibility of fixing the exact dates of many of the most important events in the lives of some of her subjects. Clearly, she has left no stone unturned to obtain reliable data. She has dipped into German dryasdusts, pored over monkish chronicles with their Medieval Latin, made herself familiar with wearisome family genealogies, and studied to good purpose no end of family-trees and court memorials; with the result that if we do not have a great book, we have at least a laborious and useful one-a work which must heighten one's sense of the influence for the good and pure which women have exerted even in times and in circumstances which were especially rough and sensual. The chapters on Philippa of Lancaster and of Anna of Masoria in the first volume, and of Barbara of Cilly and Elizabeth of Luxembourg in the second, are marked at once by exactitude and fulness. Mrs. Higgins is thorough in her work, and does not often waste words in vague generalizations, though some of her summaries of the leading traits of her subjects show not a little insight and some power of characterization, Above all, she is cautious in weighing evidence and in drawing inferences from widely scattered facts. Her book is exactly what it claims to be, and is at once an ambitious and a serious and solid performance-a weighty contribution to the history of the period, which in many of its features is dim to us, in spite of the vast accumulations of facts. Though too coldly rigorous, scholarly, and systematic ever to become a popular book in the wider sense, it will no doubt gradually win its way with the classes for whom it was intended.

The Mahdi, Past and
College of France.

Present.

By JAMES DARMESTETER. T. Fisher Unwin.

Miss Ballin has done a good service by translating Prof. Darmesteter's lecture on Mahdis-if, indeed, it is ever worth while to translate so universally read a language as French. Of course these sketches of previous pretenders are slight and hurried, and many interesting Mahdis are necessarily omitted. Still, people know next to nothing of the curious Messianic doctrine of Mohammedanism and its strange developments, and they will learn just a little about them from this handy little volume. Prof. Darmesteter is very incredulous of the honesty of Mahdis is general, and does not give them credit for the force of character and power of government which enabled more than one Mahdi to found a wide-ruling dynasty that lasted for centuries. But no doubt most of them were sad hypocrites, and the sneers in which this very brief book abounds are sometimes deserved: they suit the College de France, but we doubt if they would answer with a fanatical crowd of ignorant Berbers or Soudanese,

who want something more robust than Parisian persilage. Prof. Darmesteter is emphatic about the folly of any attempt at British rule in the Soudan, condemnatory of the Government's useless and unnecessary measures,' and strongly in favour of supporting and developing Abyssinia. He knows Persia, but clearly he does not know the present state of Abyssinia. Miss Ballin has improved her original by some notes and supplementary extracts from the Standard' and 'Daily News on the Mahdi and the Siege of Khartoum, and has written a preface in which (among many sensible remarks) she commits herself to the-for one of her name extraordinary doubt whether indeed we can call those [i... Easterns] brothers whose very natures differ so widely from our own." Arabs may need a different method of government from ourselves, but there is surely no reason for denying them their common element of humanity? The great Semitic family which has done such glorious service to the world should not thus be traduced.

Faithful Men; or, Memorials of Bristol Baptist College and Some of its most Distinguished Alumni. BY STEPHEN ALBERT SEVOINE. Alexander and Shepheard.

The general character of this volume is sufficiently indicated by its title-page. Few, however, probably realize how many names distinguished in later English nonconformity have been connected with the Bristol College, although it was founded only in 1770. In turning over the pages we come across the names of Caleb Evans, Benjamin Beddome, John Ryland, John Rippon, John Sutcliffe, Robert Hall, Joseph Kinghorn, Joseph Hughes, James Hinton, and his son John Howard Hinton, Samuel Pearce, William Steadman, and John Foster, F: A. Cox, Joseph Stennett, Joshua Marshman, and others, of whom brief biographical sketches and anecdotes are given. The library possesses some rare copies of the Bible. Except the British Museum, it claims to be richer in old versions of the English Scriptures than any institution in the kingdom. It possesses too some valuable fragments of the Cottonian MS., a MS. copy of Wycliffe's translation of the Gospels presented to Lord Cobham, the Lollard martyr, a copy of Tyndale's New Testament printed at Worms in 1525, the only perfect copy known; copies also of the first and second editions of Coverdale's Bible, published in 1535 and 1537 respectively.

The volume is a most interesting record of one of the most honoured of our theological institutions.

The Reformers. Lectures Delivered in St. James's Church, Paisley, by Ministers of the United Presbyterian Church, Graduates of the University of Glasgow. James Maclehose and Sons.

At length the United Presbyterian Church has followed the example of the Established and Free Churches, and given us a course of lectures in

church history. It is clear that the style has been modeled to some extent on the earlier St. Giles's Lectures; but, happily, the lecturers are scholars and men capable of original research. The result is a very interesting volume. On Luther and Hus and Wycliffe not much that is really new can be said at this time of day; but some things have been presented in fresh lights. On Erasmus, Mr. Meiklejohn has contrived to throw some new light, and his manner of touching off the fiery quarrel between the Rotterdam sage and Luther is particularly good. Dr. Orr is happy in defending Calvin from the charge of coldness, narrowness, and indifference to the beauty of nature, and cites some facts bearing on these points with freshness and effect. Dr. James Brown is vigorous and lively in his treatment of John Knox, and does full justice to his services to other churches than the Scottish one-a point on which a good deal of new matter has recently been collected and of which he has made good use. But perhaps the most original of all is the lecture by Mr. Dickie, of Perth, on The Lollards of Kyle and other precursors of the Scottish Reformation.' Resby and Crawar and the names of the six persons who were tried before James IV. are less familiar to us, but they prepared the way and created an atmosphere for later reformers, by which the path of Knox and Wishart and Hamilton was made plain to them. The poets had brought the church into contempt with the common people, and reform and building up had thus become possible. We have read the lectures with pleasure, and cordially recommend them to those who are interested in church history.

Annals of the Disruption. With Extracts from the Narratives of Ministers who left the Scottish Establishment in 1843. By the Rev. THOMAS BROWN, F.R.S.E. Edinburgh : Macniven and Wallace.

There is in human nature an insatiable desire to look behind the scenes, to know something of the inner feeling and more private circumstances of the men who have figured in great historical movements. On the history of the Scottish disruption many able men have discoursed, from Hugh Miller to Dr. James Hamilton, from Dr. Begg to Dr. Peter Bayne. Nevertheless, curiosity remains unsatisfied, and Mr. Thomas Brown has here done not a little to satisfy it. He has gathered from many sources the records of private feelings, the stories of hardship and suffering bravely borne for conscience's sake, and has strung them together with little bits of narrative which enable the reader to pass along smoothly, and to gather as he goes a very good idea of the whole issue at stake. Since that memorable '43 a new generation has sprung up, which must learn the details about the Disruption from books, as their predecessors learned it from eloquent lips and from the pages of the newspapers. Towards this end Mr. Brown has effectually contributed. His chapters on The Sustentation Fund,' and on 'The Trials of the Ministers' and 'The Trials of the People,' may well be recommended to the consideration of those who

fear that all the life and enterprise of a church must perish when it ceases to be connected with the State. Facts such as those cited here abundantly go to prove that spiritual life and the capability of self-denial in many forms then gain full strength, and ‘impossibilities 'become possible. The book is well written and has been compiled with care, and must in many ways be found useful. The engravings of the principal scenes, places, and personages connected with the movement add much to the interest; and the appendix, with full list of Disruption ministers, surviving and dead, will be perused with a pathetically joyous emotion by not a few.

Studies in Russia. By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, Author of 'Walks in Rome,' 'Cities of Northern and Central Italy,' 'Wanderings in Spain,' &c. Smith, Elder, and Co.

Mr. Hare did not spend in Russia the two years which the Russians declare is absolutely needful in order for any foreigner to understand it; nor is he, like Mr. Mackenzie Wallace or Mr. Ralston, an expert in the Russian language; but, notwithstanding, he has written such a book as will, we venture to say, be found a sine quâ non for future English visitors to the kingdom of the Czar. He has supplied with great tact and skill an element which was wanting in former handbooks. On this point, Mr. Hare himself says in his preface: Few English travellers know Russian enough to enable them to ask questions or to understand verbal information; the meagre existing handbooks give a useful catalogue of the sights in the principal towns, but scarcely any information as to their meaning or history; and much thus passes unobserved or misunderstood which might lend charm to the usual monotony of a Russian tour. This book does not profess to contain many original observations, but it is a gathering up of such information as its author has been able to obtain from the lips or writings of those better informed than himself, and for which he would have been thankful before his own visit to Russia.' This is precisely what the book is. Mr. Hare selects well from the mass of information he has collected, and arranges it with skill, throwing in the most apt enlightening quotations-some of them, indeed, out-of-the-way and unexpected from all manner of authorities. And though he does not claim any merit for original observations, his descriptions of many of the most noted places and monuments in Russia are at oncę graceful and succinct. In an introduction he deals with the internal condition of Russia, its social and political position, notes the spread of Nihilism, and tries to estimate its future effects on the development of the peoples. He does justice to the great and liberal reforms of the Czar Alexander I., and notes that he too, like Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette, paid the penalty for the sins of his predecessors. In its general aspects no European country has changed so little with modern times as Russia: and this opinion will certainly be confirmed by every page of Mr. Hare's volume. He has been especially happy in his pictures of Moscow, and some pages on the white clergy' are especially enlighten