of Chichester's (Dr. Hook's) "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," at a period, too, far more interesting to most readers than any previous time, to wit, the Reformation period. For many of the previous centuries, as he is indeed the chief witness, so must the antiquary be considered as the chief student; to him remote and fragmentary facts of early Saxons or later Normans have the charm of a novel, and the delight of successful research in special training, too, gives him the right to speak glibly of names and matters, which are as little the food of the universal world as are the special names of the ropes in a man-of-war to persons of what is called "respectable" education. When, however, we come down to the Reformation days-to the story of the great fight, then as men gladly hoped, completely won, but which the practices of our most modern times lead us to think must be fought once again, the red-hot iron of religious controversy being used as a brand, where before it was often little more than a stimulant, every reader, be he Catholic or Protestant, must have an undying interest, either to upset the presumed heresies it has begotten, or to wave again before the nations the "Semper Eadem," the banner of that glorious Princess, who, with all her faults, or, if you will, her feminine weaknesses, has done more than any one else to promote and to establish the moral no less than the intellectual renown of England.

Surely we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that many of the great questions our fathers too hastily deemed to have been settled once and for ever at the Reformation, are again, after a torpor of three hundred years, awakened suddenly among us. For do we not see around and before and behind us, advocates of theories and doctrines we thought we had got rid of the necessity of confession, the celibacy of the clergy, the maiming, for the laity at least, of the great Sacrament of the Eucharist, to say nothing of the proposed dismemberment of a National Church by suppression of the English Church in Ireland a measure which, if it could be proved to be an act of justice to the smaller island, logically implies the destruction of the National Church in the big island no less than in the little. Hence it is that this portion of Dr. Hook's long story is so much the more interesting, as it is also so much the more important, involving as it does the necessity, that, if treated at all, it should be treated by a man armed at all points; above all by one accustomed to weigh evidence and to state results. It is, therefore, with great pleasure we state that, in these two last volumes, the Dean has shown himself thoroughly equal to the occasion. The lives of Archbishops Warham and Cranmer are naturally the two round which the whole story of the Reformation revolves. It is pleasant, therefore, to see the good sense with which Dr. Hook writes of each of them, not indeed without a certain dry humour which is his characteristic at all times. What men who peruse these volumes may most chiefly and usefully learn from them is, that the Church of England is not the modern creation the Romanists and other sectarians are so glad to aver; and further, that many of the practices, the section among us, who are never tired of talking of the Church being in fetters to the State, would remove by a separation of Church and State, have always existed in this land, sometimes with even more of apparent authority than is pleaded for them at present. Thus the supremacy of the Crown, as Professor Brewer has ably shown in his Preface to the "Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.," had continued from times immemorial, as a right, if not always as a fact; and any usurpations of this right were resisted and modified by the energy and will of the Sovereign. Again, it is an

entire mistake to suppose that, antecedently to the Reformation, Convocation could pass a single canon without the King's consent, still less that a Bull or an Ecclesiastical Constitution could be published in any part of this realm without the King's express concurrence. Bishoprics were in those times filled up by the Crown, as gifts, before it granted to the several chapters the modified right conferred by the Congé d'Élire. Even under the Congé d'Élire we know that the King constantly made his selection directly, as in the memorable case of Bishop Tunstall. Men seem to forget the troubles which embittered the relations between Rome and this country during centuries preceding the Reformation; and, more than this, that, though the Pope never failed in his efforts to obtain the recognition of his claim to be the fountain-head of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, this claim was never admitted, but, by God's grace, always in the long run successfully resisted. The Dean well points out that the only time in history when there was any real fear of failure of these great principles was during a short period after the Reformation had become an admitted fact; for, says he, we must admit that "the distinction between the royal and the sacerdotal powers was totally disregarded by Thomas Cromwell and the unprincipled men who formed the Government of Edward VI.” . . . . and that "much injury was done to the cause of the Church through the mistaken policy of our leading ecclesiastics under the unfortunate dynasty of the Stuarts. To strengthen their position against the Romish Nonconformists on the one hand, and the Puritan Nonconformists on the other, they exaggerated the Royal prerogative."

3. MISCELLANEA.

Among the more interesting works on general literature issued during the year 1868, we cannot omit noticing "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands, from 1848 to 1861, &c., &c.," by Her Majesty the Queen—a work which it is not too much to say could only have been published by an English Queen, and addressed to an English audience. In this remarkable book the Queen has spoken, and not in vain, to the domestic sympathies of her people. Its claim to the universal notice and appreciation it must surely obtain, being the genuine simplicity with which the story of the private life of the Royal family is told. We learn from it, what those who have been admitted within that charmed circle have ever told us was the case, that the first lady in this land loves, whenever she can withdraw herself from the serious duties of her position, to pursue the simple tastes and amusements of a woman's life. Thus we find her watching the progress of her children as they grow up from day to day, showing herself familiar with all the details of the lives of even her servants, sharing with intense pleasure the pursuits, the sports, the tastes of her husband, and recording from day to day these jottings in her journal, never with the view of their reaching any eye but her own, and, even now, only permitting them to appear in the garish light of day, that the world may learn from her unadorned and contemporaneous narrative, how great the loss she and England have suffered by the death of so able and so good a man as Prince Albert. As was well remarked shortly after the volume appeared, its lightness and elegance proved an universal passport. Laying no claim to the dignity of history or the gravity of literature, its merits are precisely those which graver historians and more practised writers often fail to attain. To say simple and common things well is not an easy task, still less to say them in such a way that they may im.

press the memory and touch the heart. Contrast the lives of Louis XIV. or of George IV. with that of Prince Albert and his Queen. The lives of those men were in their day deemed the highest types of refinement and majesty, yet, infected with the vulgarity of vice, they lived a purely artificial life, the coarseness and meanness of their nature being ever ready to show itself through the tinsel of their outward glory. But the Highland life of Prince Albert's court was but the simple life of any house in the Highlands. It would be difficult to design a more pleasing accurate picture of life and character in any one of them than the Queen has given us from Balmoral. Mr. Helps, the wise editor of this excellent book, justly remarks, in his unassuming preface, that the notes the Queen has thought fit to affix to the names of her personal attendants with the object of describing their relation to herself, and even their past history in her service, illustrate in a striking manner the patriarchal feeling (if one may apply such a word as 'patriarchal' to a lady) which is so strong in the present occupant of the throne." We conceive the appearance of, and the reception that it has met with from the public at large, and, as we have reason to know, its appreciation by the poorer classes, for whose benefit the Queen has, with her usual consideration, permitted a cheap reprint, is a manifest proof that the rubbish of ecstatic novels and of sensational dramas has not yet sapped the sound foundations of English feeling and morality.

The School Inquiry Commission has published during the last year some very important papers, and among them "A Report of the System of Education for the Middle and Upper Classes in France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland,” by M. Arnold, Esq., the collected materials of which will be interesting to those who have leisure to wade through the pièces justificatives, which form by far the most important part of his volume. The work, however, to our notions, is much marred by the spirit in which it is written, and by the strange ignorance which meets us every where as to the changes which have been made in English Education during the last twenty years. Thus, in cases where Mr. Arnold has to compare French teaching with English teaching, he has, apparently, no alternative but to fall back on what he may chance to recollect of the stories of Winchester or Rugby when he was himself a boy. He evidently does not, as a rule, know where to look for flaws in any given system; hence, he too often takes the official programme as the representative of something like perfection. Nor does he appear to have made much preparation for the seven months spent abroad at the expense of the country. He is always, during these travels, in a restless state of astonishment, and his report, therefore, too often reminds the reader of a traveller's tale of an unexplored country. Last of all, there are, during these supposed researches, but slight traces of his own personal experience; his visits are often timed just when the schools are shut for vacation, while, we cannot help thinking, that a report so meagre might with ease have been drawn up by any clear-headed dealer in statistics from the various French and other official programmes without sending Mr. Arnold away on this Continental tour of inspection. Another thing we must be allowed to enter our protest against, and that is, the constant abuse with which Mr. Arnold speaks of every thing English. It is one thing to adopt the supposed national habit of thinking every thing done by other than Englishmen bad, or weak, or useless; another to run down every thing English, and to cry up every thing foreign. Mr. Arnold's Report is one continued grumble from the first page to the last; every thing foreign is good, every thing English is bad. One foreign school he imagines

just like another; if he has not seen the Polytechnicum at Zürich, he has at least seen the Polytechnicum at Stuttgard, and these are all very good. In poor benighted England the schools are bad, the masters bad, the boys badly prepared -too much crammed-probably, too, examined at a wrong age; even their games (hear this, ye cricketers of Eton and Harrow!) are not so good as the foreign gymnastics! Lastly, the nation is wholly past redemption, because so few members of it have read-still less thoroughly digested-Mr. Arnold's "Report on Primary Education," though it has been before the world so long a period as seven years! Mr. Arnold's report on France is the fullest, and was, at the same time, the first accomplished; it, therefore, bears the strongest marks of his idiosyncrasies.

The Ecole Normale, of which he gives an interesting account, is his cheval de bataille against English schools and English systems. No doubt it is a grand thing to educate yearly 110 pupils at the public expense, all these pupils being selected by a severe competition. But we should remember that the Ecole Normale occupies the place of both our Universities, and that the real representatives in England of the French 110 are the scholars and fellows of Balliol and Oriel, of Trinity and of King's. The Ecole Normale spends 12,3007. on the education and maintenance of these 110 students, who, we have no doubt, are quite deserving of the very best education that can be provided in France; but it should not be forgotten that Oxford alone gives away at least 20,000l. a-year in prizes for learning. Mr. Arnold, however, thinks that the establishment of such a school should be the first step in the improvement of our teaching staff. The Ecole Normale again cannot be considered fairly but as a strict political engine; the lectures and the studies are carefully guarded by the Minister, and if the pupils too warmly applaud a too liberal professor, the school is liable to be broken up, and the career of many inoffensive students thereby ruined. Moreover, it is well known at the English Universities that men who have distinguished themselves in their collegiate course are ever leaving as soon as they can, to fill the posts of head or second masters throughout the great schools of England; not a few of the best newer schools being, at this very moment, under the control of men trained at Rugby or Shrewsbury.

Those who are interested in the discussions relative to Homer and his presumed works, which have now prevailed with more or less vehemence throughout educated Europe for more than a hundred years, will do well to turn their attention to the two most recent publications on this subject during the past year by K. F. Ameis at Leipzig, " Homer's Ilias für den Schulgebrauch erklärt," and F. K. Paley, "On the comparatively late date and composite character of our Iliad and Odyssey." These are, doubtless, small works by the side of the contributions of Wolf, of Heyne, of Welcker, and, in his own peculiar way, of even Mr. Gladstone; but they have their value as handing on the controversy, with many new thoughts and new inferences, to the most recent period. It would be impossible to give in this place any details of the present form of the great inquiry into the unity or the diversity of these famous poems, or into the legendary history of their reputed author. We may, however, remark that the far wider knowledge, at the present time, of the interconnexion between the different languages we call by the one generic name of Indo-European—a knowledge wholly unknown when Wolf wrote his famous "Prolegomena”-enables us to arrive at clearer notions of the agreements and disagreements (and their reasons) between the two principal dialects of the Homeric poems, the Æolic

and the Ionic. With regard to the date of these epics, a tolerably general conclusion has been arrived at, viz. that the Odyssey, as a compilation, is considerably later than the Iliad. Many early customs prevalent in the latter are found to have died out in the former, and this is peculiarly true when we look at the political notices incidentally alluded to. Thus, in the Iliad, we see the primitive constitution-the military commander-the council of elders-the assembly which listens to the chiefs, and obeys or grumbles; in fact much the same subdivisions of power as in Rome, into magistrate, senate, and comitia. In the Odyssey, the popular element of the Agora is already clearly established; it has abundant freedom of speech and action, and is under only a nominal sort of control on the part of the elders. Lastly, the Asiatic type of despotism shadowed forth in the story and character of Priam has no representation any where. With regard to Mr. Paley's particular views, great scholar as he unquestionably is, we must be allowed to say that we think many of them paradoxical in the extreme. Thus he believes that "the compiler of our Homer was an Asiatic living about, but probably later than, the time of Herodotus," and that the only "Homer" known to Pindar, Herodotus, and the Tragedians were the great body of cyclic poems, out of which, in his opinion, our “Iliad” and "Odyssey" were formed. Moreover, he actually goes the extraordinary length of supposing that a certain Antimachus of Colophon was the probable or possible author of the two poems. It would seem that Paley's choice of Antimachus is any thing but fortunate. The poem this man really wrote, the Thebaid, was well known in ancient times, and his treatment of epic subjects was considered by the ancient critics as the very opposite to that of Homer. Thus Plutarch contrasts his stiff and laboured manner with Homer's ease and freedom, and Quinctilian is no less decided in his condemnation.

The "Political Sketches of the State of Europe from 1814 to 1867," by Count Munster, contain a valuable résumé of the history of very important periods of modern Continental transactions, and seem, so far as we can judge, to be most accurate and honest. Certainly the Germany of 1814 was a very different place from the Germany of 1867. The Holy Alliance is gone; three Dynasties and one Free City, Hanover, Hesse Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort, respectively, have ceased to retain any separate independence. Some twenty-five states north of the Maine have been compressed. Ere long the rest will be absorbed, and there will be but one German power from Coblentz to Memel. We may regret the means whereby Bismarck has attained his ends; we may think that Prussia, under his guidance, has shown little compunction in her dealings with the unfortunate Danes and with some other minor States; but we cannot affect to grieve over this change, the more so, that Count Munster, an old Tory, evidently does not wish the old times back again.

"The Records of the Abbots of the Monastery of St. Alban's, compiled by Thomas Walsingham in the reign of Richard the Second," now edited—and extremely well edited-by H. T. Riley. Vol. II., comprising from A.D. 1290 to 1349, is one of those very curious descriptions of medieval life which have been long known to professed antiquaries and black-letter lawyers, but which have only recently been brought out for the intelligent study of other readers, mainly owing to the impulse given in this direction, as we have already stated, by the exertions of the present Master of the Rolls. We must confess that the picture of life at St. Alban's in the beginning of the fourteenth century does not give one much idea of the holiness which many persons imagine