continued here. The story of the Tempest, taken from Lamb's tales from Shakespeare, is appropriately inserted here. The Old World stories at the end are the Lotus Eaters and Ió and Prometheus. An instructive story, illustrating political economy occurs at the end of the book. The arithmetical exercises are copious, and have been selected with judgment. A good feature in this book is the etymological exercises. Without a knowledge of etymology, a person must always remain but indifferently acquainted with the English language.

The Sixth Standard Reading Book.-This work contains 320 pp., is strongly bound in cloth boards, and costs 1s. 6d. The pieces which it contains, are mostly taken from standard authors. Amongst them we may mention Kingsley, Lamb, Leigh Hunt, R. Browning, Macaulay, Coleridge, Hemans, Wordsworth, De Quincey, Tennyson, Longfellow, Goldsmith, Scott, and Irving. This is as it should be. The more one becomes acquainted with great writers, the more one loathes the tawdry foppery, and painful labouring after effect which is adopted by sensational writers. So long, however, as the mass of the English people are unacquainted with English literature, so long will they prefer this kind of writing, under the impression that it is eloquent and sublime. We are therefore glad to see here the great writers displayed in a favourable manner. Some compilers of books for children are fond of inserting some of Shakespeare's soliloquies, and Milton's morning and evening hymn. This is not displaying the great writers in a favourable manner. Children grow up with the idea that Shakespeare and Milton are the dullest writers in the world. As a rule, blank verse should not be introduced into a child's reading until he is fourteen or fifteen years old. In blank verse a child sees no poetry, and wonders why the same sentiments might not have been placed in the prose style. We are glad to see here Macaulay's verses on the Spanish Armada, an abridgement of the Ancient Mariner (which we should have been delighted to have seen entire), an extract from the Vicar of Wakefield, The Merchant of Venice, from Lamb's tales, Poe's Raven, Black-Eyed Susan, and Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. The compiler has not fallen into the blunder of the Irish Commissioners, who imagined that at this stage, a scholar could digest the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms, and learn the history and chronology of all the nations en the face of the earth. To some the tales in this book might appear too trivial, such as The Ugly Duckling, and Mother Greenwater's Ten Workmen. The few of this class that appear are interesting, and have nothing exclusively childish about them. The Apologue is as popular with adults as it is with children. There are many stories of adventures and travels in this book, a life of Flaxman, and an account of the burning of Moscow. The Old World story is the Castle of Helios. In the ap

pendix is a collection of pieces for dictation, an admirable selection of arithmetical questions, a vocabulary showing the pronunciation of difficult names, three pages of notes on difficult passages in the lessons, and a vocabulary of Greek and Latin Roots.

Chambers' Select Poetry.-This book is designed as a companion to The Fifth Standard Reader. It contains 200 pp., and costs one shilling. The selection is admirable. Of the first twenty pieces the following sixteen are really excellent, and will commend themselves to all lovers of true poetry:-The Children in the Wood, My Mother, The Chameleon, The Man of Ross, Llewellyn and the Greyhound, The Butterfly's Ball, The Happy Life, Alexander Selkirk, The Spacious Firmanent (now stated to have been erroneously ascribed to Addison), The Camel (by M. Howitt), John Gilpin, Gray's Elegy, The Sluggard (by Dr. Watts), The Nettle King (by Mary Howitt), and an anonymous piece entitled The Shepherd and the Philosopher. These will convey to the reader the class of poetry which this book contains. We can confidently recommend it as a good selection.

Chambers' Readings in English Literature.-This work contains 474 pp., and is published at 3s. 6d., strongly bound in cloth. It should be procured by the managers of schools to put into the hands of pupil teachers. It would also make a valuable and useful school prize. The prose part contains selections from all the great writers of our language. Beginning with Cadmon, we pass Sir T. More, Milton, Cowley, Dryden, Addison, Swift, Smollett, Johnson, Scott, Dickens, and many other writers. About three or four pages are devoted to each. The poetical selections are also good. The compiler, however, we are sure, does not imply that a perusal of this book is sufficient to make one acquainted with English literature. Its object is to whet the appetite for the perusal of standard literature of this kind, which is now, we are glad to see, issued at a rate low enough to be procured by the poorest peasant in the land.

The Moral Class Book.-This work contains 208 pp., and costs ls. 6d. It consists of a good selection of Moral Stories. It is well adapted for private schools, and general reading.

Lecture-Room Notes.

SHAKESPEARE'S 'MERCHANT OF VENICE.'

Act V., Sc. 1.-Troilus.]-Calchas, a Trojan soothsayer, foreseeing the destruction of Troy, deserted to the Greeks, leaving his daughter, Cressid, behind. Troilus, the youngest son of Priam, king of Troy, fell in love with her, and by the assistance of her uncle,

Pandarus, won her heart. An exchange of prisoners, however, having been arranged, Cressid was conveyed to the Grecian camp, after pledging herself to Troilus to find some means of escape and return to Troy within ten days. But Diomede, who escorted her to the camp, endeavoured meanwhile to supplant Troilus in her affection, and succeeded so far as to induce her to delay her flight. Troilus having taken from Diomede, in a skirmish, a brooch which he had given to Cressid, is convinced of her infidelity, and rushes on death in the battle-field. Such is the story as told by Chaucer in his Troilus and Cryseyde. The earliest source to which the story can be traced, (for it is not found in any classical author), is a prose chronicle in Latin, of the 13th century, by Guido de Colonna, who probably took it from some metrical romance extant in his time. But, though Chaucer may have had access to this, he was indebted for the framework of his narrative, and for many of the sentiments, to the Filostrato of Boccaccio. In Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, the lovestory is stript of its tender romance, and also plays quite a subordinate part in the action of the drama. Thisbe.]-The story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which is first found in

Ovid's Metamorphoses is also told by Chaucer in his Legende of goode women. They lived in neighbour houses in Babylon and exchanged vows through a chink in a party wall. At length they made a tryst at the tomb of Ninus outside the city. Thisbe was there first, but being startled by a lioness, who after feasting on a beast she had slain, had come to drink at the fountain, fled and dropt her wimple. The lioness tore it with her bloody mouth, and Pyramus coming to the spot later, and concluding that Thisbe had been slain, fell on his sword. Needs any man to be referred to the dainty little drama in the Midsummer Night's Dream?

Dido.]-Æneas, a prince of Troy, in his wanderings over sea after the sack of the city, is driven ashore by a tempest near the spot where Dido was building for herself and her Phoenician colonists a new city, Carthage. She invited him to throw in his lot with her. He half consented, but was warned in a dream that his destiny awaited him on the shores of Italy. Conscious that he had during his stay inspired her with a powerful passion for him, which might lead her forcibly to detain him, he secretly refitted his ships and stole away. Upon this she stabbed herself with his sword. Chaucer commemorates her also in his Legende of goode women, taking the story from Vigil's Eneid.

Medea. According to Ovid, whose narrative in the Heroides Chaucer embodied also in his Legende, Medea was the daughter of Eetes, king of Colchos. When Jason arrived there in quest of the Golden Fleece, Medea, who was skilled in enchantments, taught him how to secure it. He married her and took her back with him to Thessaly. Eson was his father. Ovid knows nothing of the herb-gathering. Gower tells the whole story of it, however, in the fifth book of the Confessio Amantis, whence it is probable that Shakespeare borrowed the hint. Though it is true that Medea did it for the love of Jason, we cannot help feeling that this picture is not quite in keeping with the rest. A night that recals pictures of longing lovers, would hardly suggest itself as as a suitable night for incantations.

4 post.]-Varied as are the meanings of this word, they seem to be all directly traceable to Lat. positum, fixed. In this sense post is a messenger stationed at a certain place for the conveyance of letters.

Expect.]-Wait for, the usual meaning of Lat. expectare.

Patines.]-The small flat plates (Lat. patina) used in the service of

the altar. With lights on the altar, a row of silver patines behind them, and the worshippers in the distance and nearly in the dark, we probably have the conditions that suggested the metaphor. Diana.]-The Roman Diana was the goddess of light. As Dianus (Janus) the god of light, represented the sun, so she represented

the moon.

Orpheus.]-A mythical personage, regarded by the Greeks as the most celebrated of the early poets. He was believed to have lived in Thrace at the period of the Argonauts, and to have accompanied them on their expedition. Presented with a golden lyre by Apollo, and instructed by the Muses in its use, he enchanted not only the wild beasts, but the trees and woods of Olympus. Shakespeare has given what is the usual interpretation of the legend.

Erebus.]-A mythical personage, the son of Chaos, and brother of Night. The name signifies darkness, and was applied to the gloomy space (which was the kingdom of Erebus) under the earth, through which the shades passed to Hades.

Empties itself.]—The same idea is worked out in Salisbury's speech, the last in Act V., Scene 4, of King John.

Respect.]-Attention given to it.

Attended.]-Regarded, listened to.

Endymion.]-A youth renowned in ancient story for his marvellous beauty, and for his perpetual sleep on Mount Latmus, in Caria. As he lay there his beauty warmed the cold heart of Selene (the Moon) who came down to him, kissed him, and lay by his side. Sort all.]-Make all to succeed. Bacon says of a certain experiment that it sorted not.' Also in his Essay on Friendship, he says that the friendship of princes with subjects many times sorteth to inconvenience.' Some derive the word, when used in this sense, from Fr. sortir, to go out, others from Lat. sors, chance. Posy.]-Probably a corruption of poesy. But it must be remembered that many writers of the Elizabethan age, keeping close to the etymology (Gr. poiesis, a making), used the word to express, not the art of versifying, but the power of creating. So the word was used, not only of a motto in verse, but of any short sentence or expression. Udall, in commenting on St. Luke's, calls the inscription on the cross a posy. Cutlers commonly engraved mottoes on swords and knives, and goldsmiths on rings. Compare As You Like It, iii., 2. Respective.]-Heedful, careful. Scrubbed.]-To scrub means to

scrape.

Hence scrubbed will mean

stunted, as if worn down. A scrub, applied as a term of reproach, may have the same sense, though it may also imply a mean fellow who scrapes together. The same word is applied to a stunted copse, though here it may possibly be a mere provincialism for shrub.

Contain.]-We should now use the other compound retain.

Modesty.]-We may still closely connect this word with modus, the mean or due measure, and interpret, what man would so have gone beyond due limits.

Ceremony.]-The word at this time, like the Lat. Cæremonia, implied

a religious observance. Calphurnia's "Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies,' Julius Cæsar, II., 2., means, I never laid much stress on omens and prodigies.

Civil Doctor.]-Doctor of Laws.

Argus.]-Famous in story for his hundred eyes. He was appointed

by Hera guardian of the cow into which Io had been transformed, and by command of Zeus was slain by Hermes.

Wealth.]-Welfare, a sense it still retains in the word Commonwealth. Compare 1 Cor., x., 24.