arkable for any perfection of literary style, they had
the charm of brightness, vivacity, and unconventionality. They revealed
a fascinating personality, and their touches of domesticity made them
classics in many an English household. In all modern movements Lady
Brassey took a keen interest. She gained a first-class certificate in
the South Kensington School of Cookery, scullery department and all; was
one of the most energetic members of the St. John's Ambulance
Association, many branches of which she succeeded in founding; and,
whether at Normanhurst or in Park Lane, always managed to devote some
portion of her day to useful and practical work. It is sad to have to
chronicle in the first number of the Woman's World the death of two of
the most remarkable Englishwomen of our day.

(1) Memoirs of Wilhelmine Margravine of Baireuth. Translated and edited
by Her Royal Highness Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess
of Great Britain and Ireland. (David Stott.)

(2) Women's Voices: An Anthology of the most Characteristic Poems by
English, Scotch, and Irish Women. Selected, edited, and arranged by Mrs.
William Sharp. (Walter Scott.)

(3) A Village Tragedy. By Margaret L. Woods. (Bentley and Son.)

MR. MAHAFFY'S NEW BOOK

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 9, 1887.)

Mr. Mahaffy's new book will be a great disappointment to everybody except
the Paper-Unionists and the members of the Primrose League. His subject,
the history of Greek Life and Thought: from the Age of Alexander to the
Roman Conquest, is extremely interesting, but the manner in which the
subject is treated is quite unworthy of a scholar, nor can there be
anything more depressing than Mr. Mahaffy's continual efforts to degrade
history to the level of the ordinary political pamphlet of contemporary
party warfare. There is, of course, no reason why Mr. Mahaffy should be
called upon to express any sympathy with the aspirations of the old Greek
cities for freedom and autonomy. The personal preferences of modern
historians on these points are matters of no import whatsoever. But in
his attempts to treat the Hellenic world as 'Tipperary writ large,' to
use Alexander the Great as a means of whitewashing Mr. Smith, and to
finish the battle of Chaeronea on the plains of Mitchelstown, Mr. Mahaffy
shows an amount of political bias and literary blindness that is quite
extraordinary. He might have made his book a work of solid and enduring
i