volume-his farewell to the Church of England, unlike so many of the same sort, has in it nothing acrimonious, nothing of the odium theologicum; the statement of the shortcomings of the English Church, which is put forth in vindication of leaving her, is not merely courteous in language, but considerate for those whom he leaves. We recommend its perusal as a study of mental biography of an uncommon kind; the record of an endeavour to maintain mental allegiance, till fairly driven away in virtue of assumed needs, and first principles of reasoning, to demand restraints of thought, as the only solution of self-imposed difficulties.

Manual of the Geology of Ireland. By J. H. Kinahan, M.R.I.A., &c. London Kegan Paul. 1878.

That the author was engaged in the Irish Geological Survey is a credential for his book; but no one who goes through it with attention will need other voucher than itself. There are, as may be expected, some points on which two opinions are perfectly permissible, e.g., the author's classification includes the old red sandstone in the carboniferous rocks; his own recorded minute examination perhaps gives him a better right to class quartz rock among the eruptive rocks, though usually assigned to the metamorphic. These and some other similar variations from received opinions may or may not be open to question; but, be that as it may, the geology of Ireland has never before been set forth in a single volume so completely or so clearly.

It is at once popular and scientific. Nor is it only "The Geology" in the bare meaning of the word; section v., "On Economical Products," is a valuable account of the geological productions of the island, and of their applications - its marbles, its china clay, its gold, its mineral manures, and its water supply. The peat bogs is another subject. We all remember the general present low level of Ireland, and that as to more than one-third it is less than 250ft. above the level of the sea, so that, were the sea to rise 500ft., the greater part of the whole island would be submerged. At pp. 270-1 we are told, in the chapter upon Peat Bogs, that "in the mountain bogs the prevailing timber seems to be deal, and some of the sticks are of lengths to which the fir rarely attains in this country at the present day. The absence of remains of the oak seems to suggest that it could not flourish above a certain altitude-about the 400ft. ordnance contour line," thus offering a suggestive inference as to the present depression of the land as compared with past ages.

This chapter on the Peats of Ireland is very instructive; we regret, however, that the Dartmoor peat, a formation in a far higher state of natural compression, has not been spoken of; the contrast of that with the bog peat of Ireland, and of both with the peats of Scotland, raising the inference of its progressive history as a geological product, and of the present stage of each, is an illustration the one of the other. The pre-historic remains of Ireland-for instance, the "crannogs," as the lake dwellings there are now called-is a section of high general interest. Those lacustrine habitations, built in part upon piles, with the kitchenmiddens and the other records of ancient man, afford a most valuable addition to what is known upon

that subject. It is, perhaps, because only incidental to his own special geological research that Mr. Kinahan has not here availed himself of any reference to M. Troyon's well-known researches and the analogies they bring out.

The book has a good index, and also a glossary, with a map of Ireland geologically coloured, and properly folding out, so as to be of use with every page for reference by its side. The glossary extends to Keltic words, and shows many Irish mining terms to be the same as the Cornish; but it might be more explanatory in such words as, e.g., " dolerite" and "diorite," and the like. We also miss a fuller account of the basalt and the columnar structure in the dolerite at the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Antrim, and again at Doon Point; nor is any mention made of the probable junction in past time with the Staffa and Portrush range. With a second edition of this valuable book we may hope to see a few addenda.

The Ingoldsby Letters. By the Rev. James Hildyard, B.D., Rector of Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire. 2 vols. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. 1879.

We confess to having been so little acquainted with the subjectmatter of these handsome volumes that on seeing them we were weak enough to indulge in a hope that a great discovery had been made of interesting correspondence from the pen of the author of the "Ingoldsby Legends." This, in sad forgetfulness of the fact that the earliest batch of letters were noticed in the old series of our magazine about twenty years ago; and that there appear to have been several such batches published. Alas, we found, instead of anything of "Thomas Ingoldsby," a sort of complete letter writer of religious controversy as it appears in London

and provincial papers. The good author has been writing these letters for all these years, and, to judge by the portraits which he prefixes presenting him as he was in 1858 and as he was in December last, he seems to have grown robust upon such exercise. His hair has grown grey in the interval, he says, but that must surely be due rather to his sixty years than to these letters. In fact, the sturdy-looking, well-bearded head of the later picture so far surpasses the physiognomy of the dapper, legal-looking, and keen-featured divine of 1858, that we feel we can confidently recommend "Liturgical Warfare" as an excellent tonicmuch better than either politics, speculation, or Holloway's pills.

The main object of this vast correspondence is the revision of the Book of Common Prayer; and the Church which holds to that ancient collection appears to be regarded as a wealthy corporate hierarchy, which even "Ingoldsby's" pleasant banter cannot charm, or his sweetened potions move in the direction of a radical cure of its own disorganised condition.

For those who do not think controversy tiresome, or the clash of mimic battle tedious, these volumes form an excellent vade-mecum. There is an index of five and thirty full pages, from which the young aspirant to controversial spurs can surely find some points with which to tickle an adversary; and he may learn how far he may decorously go with opprobrious epithets: as, for instance, that it is customary to avoid calling an opponent "mad," while he may safely be stigmatised as "anything but

lucid."

In the system of Nature there is no doubt a valuable function fulfilled by these easily-heated purveyors of controversial sparks : they act the part of gadfly to the

great animal who represents Establishment, which has too great a tendency to bask in the sun rather than to drag the plough in a straight furrow. Perhaps, however, the gadfly when it stings, even though it may arouse the torpid bulk of its prey, may only cause it to swerve a hair's breadth, and so make a crooked furrow. The following, which is one of Mr. Hildyard's quotations (his quotations and footnotes are varied and sometimes valuable) is from Archdeacon Paley, and will set the position of the stinging office in a more sober light: "As the man who attacks a flourishing Establishment writes with a halter round his neck, few will ever be found to attempt alterations but men of more spirit than prudence, of more sincerity than caution, of warm, eager, and impetuous tempers. consequently, we are to wait for improvement till the cool, the calm, the discreet part of mankind begin it; till Church governors solicit, or ministers of state propose it, I will venture to pronounce that without His interposition with whom nothing is impossible, we may remain as we are till the renovation of all things." In this view of things, Mr. Hildyard ought not to regret that he has not been made a bishop; he would be metamorphosed from a working bee to one without a sting.

If,

each other a great many times, and whether they finally meet in earth or heaven, is not clear. At any rate, they come to a happy end. There is no twaddle in the book, and as to construction, the sonnets fulfil the numerous requirements pretty well. Mr. Barlow thinks, but is not therefore of necessity a poet. We fear that of him must be said what Hazlitt remarked of a greater, that his verses poetry," chiefly because no line or syllable of them reads like prose."

are

Bjorn and Bera: A Norse Legend. By B. Montgomerie Ranking. London: Remington and Co.

This is a legend of true love and of evil magic, of a gallant prince, and of spells that condemn him to the form of a bear during daylight, after the manner of the tales of the were-wolf. The story, as a story, is interesting from the vividness with which its incidents are depicted. The language is easy, with occasional passages showing considerable powers of artistic composition. The master whom Mr. Ranking would most love to own, we take to be William Morris. But though Mr. Ranking's language is generally well considered and free from rude and eccentric blemishes, he occasionally errs and strays from the good example set by the author of "The Earthly Paradise." For instance, however grammatically correct may be the line,

"No more!"-and still his yearning

a form at once romantic and unrhymed.

Alcestis: a Dramatic Poem. By John Todhunter. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co.

This is a powerful little drama, a Greek form enclosing modern mind, but of a kind that a philosopher all the world over might have sympathised with. Dr. Todhunter seems to have taken lessons from Shakespeare in language, and from Robert Browning in mystical thought. But we are somehow not made conscious of any anachronism in the play, even though it mix so strangely old names and new speculations. The following is one of the principal soliloquies of King Admetus. His wife has sacrificed herself to save his life, which, according to the oracle's warning, were forfeit otherwise:

No, no-it cannot be! It cannot be, That these transcendent spirits, whose pure flame

Informs our lives with splendour, whose great thoughts

Measure the spaces of infinity,

Should be blown out like bubbles! Yet the flower

Dies in the act of seeding, in the flame

And victory of its passion ;-why not she? Leaves she not seed behind which keeps her life?

Nay, this is true in figure, not in fact.
Creation is a stair of many steps,

Life feeding life, and life being piled on life,

In stones, weeds, reptiles, insects, beasts, and men,

What frames the organs by which life is life

But our own soul, or a dark something else Yet we go

Which yet is soul-or what? out, Like candles puffed, not willingly. We die,

And go-ah! where? Some say they have seen the dead,

And talked with them-tales, tales! We have no proof

That we live on, that we shall live again. This mocks the reach of reason.

Afterwards his spirit grows firmer :

What then, can she be dead? Alcestis dead!

That mind, which thought, which loved, which spoke but now,

No more than some frail quiverings of the flesh,

And ceasing with their ceasing; or at best A weak, sad, cowering, joyless, growthless shade

On Charon's coast-an echo of the past,
A withered leaf of life? Nay, that's a tale
Too paltry. If we die, we wholly die,
Will, feeling-all that delicate knot of
force,

Conscious of power, we call ourself. It may be :

The gods themselves know not their origin, And fear their end. If so, this life of

ours,

With all its longings, strivings, hopes, and fears,

Is a poor puppet-show for each of us; Though for the race come some trium

phant joy

Which our blind pangs prepare. But if

we live,

O we shall live indeed! Ha! what is this, This glow, this hope; this reaching out of

faith,

Like babes to the breast they know not but through need;

This ardour of desire, which, Pallas-like, Through the tough sutures of cold reason's head

Leaps armed in warmer wisdom-beckon. ing me

From the bare known to a surmised beyond ?

Do I begin to hear thy echoes, dear?

There are many enjoyable and humorous bits in the play. The voluble steward Enanthus is a character; when Hercules asks whither the body of Alcestis has been borne, he replies:

Why, to her grave. Should the palace be polluted all night with a body? But thou may'st see her to-morrow-all in fine white linen, and a posy of flowers in her bosom-she will not be sealed up in marble for a two days' space-a most lovely ladylike corpse.

In Hercules, full of the jollity of health and strength, able to do great toil, and immensely hungry for wassail afterwards, we have a not unpoetic hero. Mighty though he is; from his wrestle with Death for Alcestis, whom he restores to her husband, he returns strained in sinews and weak as a child. That this combat is not itself Dr. dramatically presented by Todhunter, we are inclined to regard as the flaw of his book.

MAUREEN BHAN.

I sit all day and weep,

A poor forlorn man;
A-crying till my heart is broke,
For Maureen Bhan!

Across the ocean blue,

I look with longing eyes,

And see in dreams, dear Ireland's streams,

And Ireland's sunny skies.
I see, too, her who holds

In thrall the singing man-
Ill luck is mine, I weep and pine,
For Maureen Bhan!

The dames of Galway's halls

Have stately step and mien ;
With jewels rare-but my girl fair,
Is beauty's wondrous queen!
She's comely as the dawn,

And I'm her singing man--
Ill luck is mine, I weep and pine,
For Maureen Bhan!

Were I a mighty king,

Or knowledge-man; my dear Should wear a crown, despite the

frown

Of envy, slight and fear.
She yet shall wear royal wreaths!
Crown'd by the singing man-
Ill-luck is mine, I weep and pine,
For Maureen Bhan!

I sit all day and weep,

A poor forlorn man ;

A-crying till my heart is broke,
For Maureen Bhan!

In the following stanza we may note an old use of the reflective verb that is not without beauty. An instance of the same use will be remembered in one of the collects in the Liturgy of the English Church, "that we may deavour-ourselves to follow," &c. :

Care his brow had girt;
Leavened with the earth,

He'd drank him earth's grey wine.
So his soul was filled with scorn;
He'd drank him earth's grey wine,
His life of joy to stain,

en

And darksome things took shape and form

-.

To pall his singing brain We heartily echo the following: With the Orange in my heart, And Ireland in my soul!