sub judice lis est is perhaps the safest way to pronounce on it at present. Among the other curiosities which the author has gathered together may be named the fact that he once heard a frog croak inside a snake after it had been swallowed by its foe. These glimpses at British snakes are sufficient to enable us cordially to recominend Dr. Leighton's book to all who would take up a new subject in the British fauna. It is an interesting study in itself, and by its thoroughness and the careful manner in which he has worked out his subject forms an excellent specimen of the exactitude required by modern science. Little has been said of the division of serpents throughout the different districts of England, of the scheme suitable for a student to use in registering the snakes he discovers, and especially of the excellent and most useful woodcuts, taken, most of them, from the author's own photographs. "British Serpents" is on the whole a striking book, and we close it with the conviction that much good work in zoology will in the future be carried out by Dr. Leighton.

M. G. WATKINS.

LOVE.

ELL me, my heart! my heart of flame !

TELL

What is pure love-this word of charm ?—

'Tis but a thought; two souls' dear shame-
Hearts that, once joined, there may nothing harm.

Tell me, whence is this love made ours?—
Love.. love is! And its reason ?—None!
Tell me, then, whence come loveless hours?—
Love was not born an he be gone.

Tell me what-like is, then, this love?--

That which breathes in the other's soul!

And the true love which there may nothing move ?—
Hath ocean's depth, but not ocean's roll!

Whence hath true love his wealth untold?-

Just by giving to all who come!

And his speech, who-saith one—as wine makes bold ?—Silence of love doth all speech out-roam !

FROM THE ANON. FRENCH BY JOHN SWAFFHAM.

GL

TABLE TALK.

THE FUTURE OF LIBRARIES.

In

LANCING over the latest volume, the sixteenth, of "Book Prices Current"-a work which, besides being constantly in hand for purposes of reference, is often studied by me for pleasure— I took note of a few significant passages in the Introduction. these Mr. J. H. Slater, the compiler, maintains that "the old private collections, which carry with their possession a responsibility proportionate to their value," are gradually disappearing. In a few years accordingly, Mr. Slater holds, "an important sale which is not 'miscellaneous' in its character will be exceptional." I recognise the trend of circumstances. The great libraries ranking with the private picture galleries in size and importance have been until recent days in the hands of our great noblemen. We have but to think of the Spencer, the Roxburghe, the Sunderland, and other libraries more or less recently sold or dispersed. These are all disappearing, the prices brought by bibliographical rarities holding out an irresistible lure to the descendants of past collectors. Before another generation has passed there will be no more great ancestral libraries, and public institutions will preserve the books previously in private hands. Against this democratisation of books I have nothing to urge. I am, on the contrary, in its favour, as long as due care is taken of the treasures. Housed as it is, the famous Althorp Library is safe. It is, moreover, far more generally accessible than it was, seeing that, however liberal might be the princely owner, he could not permit general access, and there are many students who would hesitate before applying to see a book in a private library, daunted as much by the distance probably to be travelled as by the formalities to be observed and the sense of obligation to be expressed. Omnivorous collectors, from a Heber to a Huth, there will always be. These, however, will have to face a growing difficulty in the way of obtaining old works, and the great public libraries of the future may well be municipal institutions. Let us hope that these will vie with each other in the perfection of their libraries.

Elliot Stock.

A MODERN UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

OMETHING like a literary revolution begins with the appear.

of the first volume of the "Cambridge Modern History."

A change such as is now being effected had long been inevitable. Since the earliest times historians have been men of wealth and leisure, and Thucydides, Tacitus, and Livy were the direct precursors of the De Thous, Clarendons, Burnets, Gibbons, Sismondis, Niebuhrs, Macaulays, and Grotes of more recent generations. Now that the province of history is widely enlarged, and that the publication of national records renders it no longer imperative for the writer to make prolonged researches in Venice or Simancas, it is expedient that the compilation of history shall become a part of ordinary literary activity. Schools of history are now founded at our great Universities, and it is in connection with one of the most famous of these that the present undertaking is begun. So far as it is new, the scheme of the "Cambridge Modern History" originated with the late Lord Acton, who until his death took the highest interest in it, and on whose initiative it was begun. It is now being carried out under the direction of Dr. A. W. Ward, Master of Peterhouse and formerly Professor of History in the Owens College; Dr. G. W. Prothero, formerly Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh; and Mr. Stanley Leathes, Lecturer in History to Trinity College.

SCOPE OF THE MODERN UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

HE avowed aim of the series, which is to be in twelve volumes,

is to supply, by means of a series of monographs by writers of acknowledged authority, a Universal Modern History which is not to consist of a mere string of episodes, but to display a continuous development. The idea is not altogether fresh. We have but to suppose the monographs issued in separate volumes to find both ancient and modern precedents. It would be easy to supply in Germany many instances of combined work analogous in kind. Of Universal Histories issued in France by what is called "Une Société de Gens de Lettres," one published between 1742 and 1792 reachea forty-five volumes; while an enlarged re-issue in 1779–1789, in which the work is said to be English in origin, reached 126 octavo volumes. Of societies thus named, no fewer than sixty may be traced in the "Supercheries Littéraires Devoilées" of J. M. Quérard, enlarged by Gustave Brunet and Pierre Jannet. If not higher in aim, the work now before me is superior in accomplishment to anything that has previously been seen. It is written throughout by the best men ' Cambridge University Press.

of the day, and, besides constituting a standard work of referenceassuming it to end on the same plane as that on which it beginswill supply a scientific and philosophical account of the history of Europe and its colonies from the discovery of the New World to the present time. The first volume deals with the period of The Renaissance. Succeeding volumes will consist of The Reformation; The Wars of Religion; The Thirty Years' War; Bourbons and Stuarts in Eighteenth Century; The United States; The French Revolution; Napoleon; Restoration and Reaction; The Growth of Nationalities; and The Latest Age.

A

COLLECTIVE AGAINST INDIVIDUAL HISTORIES.

T this early stage of progress it is difficult to decide the question how far monographs such as is contemplated and in part executed replace the works of the great historians. In consequence of the restrictions that have been placed on the scheme with a view to keeping it within moderate dimensions, the first volume offers fewer opportunities of forming a judgment than will be afforded by succeeding volumes. In popular estimation the Renaissance is erroneously regarded as almost wholly occupied with pictorial, plastic, and decorative art. With these aspects the writers, for adequate reasons, do not concern themselves. In an introductory note the late Dr. Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London, maintains that an ordered series of monographs constitutes the only practicable scheme for a general History of Modern Times. Himself a historian of tested capacity, he is better entitled to a hearing than most, and the views he expresses as to the difficulties which beset the most conscientious and competent historian who brings to his task his own judgment and necessarily his own prejudices command our respect. But the difficulties which beset a man "striving to express the multifarious experiences of mankind in categories of its own creation" are, in the case of monographs, so far as I can see, divided among the many, and do not cease to exist. At any rate, even though the accuracy and independence of history may be increased, something of its charm is likely to be lost. I would rather, if a continuance of the old system were possible, have history as it reaches us through Tacitus and Gibbon than at the hands of the most cultivated Academicians or gens de lettres. My intention is not, however, as I have indicated, to attack a spirited and necessary undertaking, from which the highest results may be expected, but to express a regret that individualism may possibly expire under the influence of collective effort.

SYLVANUS URBAN.