WATTS'S LITERARY GRIDE. B E I N G A M O N T H L Y R E C O R D O F L I B E R A L A N D A D V A N C E D P U B L I C A T IO N S .

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No. 86.]

JANUARY 15, 1S93.

[P rice One Penny.

N E W P U B L I C A T IO N S .

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O UR L I B R A R Y S H E L VES.

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Messrs. W atts & Co. will publish on the 25th of next month the first volume of “ The Rationalist’s Handbook.” It will be entitled “ A Concise History of Religion,” and the price will be half-a-crown. The book, which will comprise an account of almost every phase of religion, and which is written in a popular and attractive style, will be simply invaluable to students.

Messrs. Macmillan & Co. have issued, in two volumes, Professor Edward Caird’s Gifford Lectures on “ The Evolution of Religion.” The aim of these lectures is not only to give an account of the evolution of religion, but also to deal with the main questions as to the nature and evidence of religion which have been raised in modern times. In the first course the main stages in the development of preChristian religions are treated, while the whole of the second course is devoted to the development of the Jewish and the Christian religions. Throughout an attempt has been made rather to illustrate a certain method of dealing with the facts of religious history in the light of the idea of development than to exhaust any one application of that method.

Mr. L eslie Stephen’s new volume of essays, entitled “ An Agnostic’s Apology” (10s. 6d.), will be ready on the 26th inst. It will contain several hitherto unpublished papers.

Messrs. Watts & Co. will publish on March 25 th next the first number o f the Liberty Review, a quarterly magazine, devoted to the defence o f freedom and of the right of property. The new quarterly will be conducted by Mr. Frederick Millar, and published at the popular price of sixpence. The contributors will be, in all cases, representative men and women, and writers of high repute.

A second and revised edition of Mr. G. J. Holyoake’s “ Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life ” (21s.) is issued. Later on, probably, a cheap popular edition will be published.

Messrs. Watts & Co. have added to their portraits of celebrities a splendid photograph of Mr. G. J. Holyoake (is. 6d.), taken in December last at a special sitting.

A n ew and revised edition of Mr. Charles Watts’s brochure, “ Evolution and Special Creation ” (3d.), is issued.

Mr. T homas Whittaker’s brochure, “ The Philosophy of History ” (6d.), will be ready in a few days. I t will be found to be one of the ablest contributions to the subject that has yet appeared.

Messrs. W. Stewart & Co. have issued a new pamphlet from the pen of Saladin. It is entitled “ Concerning Hell ” (id .), and is written with all the author’s characteristic verve.

A ny philosophical work penned at the time of the French Revolution must possess an interest borrowed from the excitement of its age. This special interest, and also the charm of a dramatic and ingenious style, belong to Volney’s

“ ruins ;

or, A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires ” (translated from the French; Freethought Publishing C o . ; 227 pp., 2s.). Volney had travelled in Syria and E gyp t ; and these regions, so rich in suggestion to the student of history, had supplied his glowing imagination with the materials for a retrospect of the evolution of mankind, and a prospect of the future. He was a deputy to the National Assembly of 1789 ; and his book, published in 1794, rings with the fervid sentiment of that memorable convention. The “ Ruins” is not what fashion now calls a scholarly treatise. The lightning of eloquence seems to quiver through its periods. The chapters are brief, as if a noble impatience cut them short. Every fact is delivered, not so much by way of information, but as a shaft from a rhetorician’s bow. Yet Volney was a serious thinker, and a diligent reader of the lore of the past. And while some of his statements would not now pass muster among the learned, and his theory of religion is too attractively facile to fit the complex phenomena of the world’s creeds, yet enlightenment and breadth of vision must assuredly accompany a perusal of the “ Ruins.”

The “ ruins ” were those of Palmyra. Sitting by the broken pillars o f the Temple of the Sun, the author meditates among the tombs o f a vanished civilisation. English eighteenth-century meditation among the tombs, such as Hervey’s, generally wound up with a discourse on the Atonement and the Day of Judgment. Volney’s, on the contrary, led him to investigate the political and religious causes of the dissolution of empires. A Genius joins him, and this Genius is not at all a clumsy invention, but a really interesting conversational companion, who manages to utter a great many maxims without being dull. The Apparition shows his willing pupil a distant view of the Western hemisphere, traces the boundaries of the great monarchies of olden days, and answers the question why so many splendid kingdoms had fallen from their high estate. Ignorance and covetousness were the ethical roots of the trouble, and despotism and theology the external' forms which these mental and moral evils assumed. Volney and his Genius become spectators of a war in the Crimea, which is embittered by Moslem bigotry on the one side, and Russian intolerance on the other. After this vivid lesson in the horrors of religious strife, the Genius addresses himself to the remedies. He summons before him the spirits of all nations, who are first divided into Aristocracy and Democracy ; the one class haughtily proclaiming their privileges, the other raising loud cries of complaint. Certain wise men are chosen as “ legislators,” who are to discover and enunciate the true principles of political and religious liberty. They do so in rousing French Revolutionary manner; the tyrants are dismayed, the common folk jubilant. But the