essive about it. He shows, however, a
certain lack of the true sense of literary proportion in the amount of
space he devotes to the two last writers on our list. Christopher North
was undoubtedly an interesting personality to the Edinburgh of his day,
but he has not left behind him anything of real permanent value. There
was too much noise in his criticism, too little music in his poetry. As
for Professor Shairp, looked on as a critic he was a tragic example of
the unfortunate influence of Wordsworth, for he was always confusing
ethical with aesthetical questions, and never had the slightest idea how
to approach such poets as Shelley and Rossetti whom it was his mission to
interpret to young Oxford in his later years; {189} while, considered as
a poet, he deserves hardly more than a passing reference. Professor
Veitch gravely tells us that one of the descriptions of Kilmahoe is 'not
surpassed in the language for real presence, felicity of epithet, and
purity of reproduction,' and statements of this kind serve to remind us
of the fact that a criticism which is based on patriotism is always
provincial in its result. But it is only fair to add that it is very
rarely that Professor Veitch is so extravagant and so grotesque. His
judgment and taste are, as a rule, excellent, and his book is, on the
whole, a very fascinating and delightful contribution to the history of
literature.

The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry. By John Veitch, Professor of
Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow. (Blackwood and Son.)

LITERARY AND OTHER NOTES--I

(Woman's World, November 1887.)

The Princess Christian's translation of the Memoirs of Wilhelmine,
Margravine of Baireuth, is a most fascinating and delightful book. The
Margravine and her brother, Frederick the Great, were, as the Princess
herself points out in an admirably written introduction, 'among the first
of those questioning minds that strove after spiritual freedom' in the
last century. 'They had studied,' says the Princess, 'the English
philosophers, Newton, Locke, and Shaftesbury, and were roused to
enthusiasm by the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau. Their whole lives
bore the impress of the influence of French thought on the burning
questions of the day. In the eighteenth century began that great
struggle of philosophy against tyranny and worn-out abuses which
culminated in the French Revolution. The noblest minds were engaged in
the stru