LITERATURE.
There is an undoubted temptation in reviewing the Literature of 1914 to consider it from two obvious points of view: that published, or already in the Press, before the declaration of war with Germany, and that issued afterwards. But, although the outbreak of war caused a momentary pause in the operations of many publishers, it did not affect the flow of volumes already announced, though it has doubtless seriously reduced future commitments.
In dealing with the first half of the year, our attention is drawn to a more than usually numerous list of important works of mental and artistic culture. The students of History, too, relax nothing of their strenuous ardour, and writers upon Theological questions abound. It will be obvious therefore that in the present brief survey only a certain portion of all the multitudinous literary activities of the year can be noticed.
To begin with an appealing human interest,—many books of Biography have been issued, showing how unabated is the world's concern in the life-stories of great men and women. Much critical attention has been given to the celebration of the Roger Bacon sept-centenary on June 10 at Oxford, and the contributory papers of British and Foreign savants are accordingly printed by Mr. Milford. The Life and Works of the "Admirable Doctor" as given by Mr. J. D. Bridges, is also edited by Mr. H. Gordon Jones (Williams & Norgate). In connexion with the notice of the famous Schoolman it is interesting to note that another distinguished Oxonian, Mr. Allen, the well-known editor of the "Letters of Erasmus," has published his Lectures on that great antagonist of the later Schoolmen, under the title of The Age of Erasmus (Oxford, Clarendon Press; London, Milford). This is conveniently supplemented by Father Hartmann Grisar's Luther (Kegan Paul), and by a study of Calvin, by H. Y. Reyburn, B.D. (Hodder & Stoughton). Here too might be mentioned the work of another distinguished Roman ecclesiastic—the Rev. Horace Mann, D.D., whose Lives of the Popes has arrived at its tenth volume, carrying their history up to 1198 (Kegan Paul). Other famous Ecclesiastics dealt with in sympathetic vein are Saint Augustin, by Louis Bertrand (Constable), translated by Vincent O'Sullivan; and two authors deal with the famous "Clement of Alexandria"—first the Rev. R. B. Tollinton, B.D., Rector of Tendring (Williams & Norgate); also Dr. John Patrick, in The Croall Lectures for 1899-1900 (Blackwood). Messrs. Lee Warner continue the edition of Vasari's Lives which is edited and translated by Mr. Gaston du C. de Vere, now in its seventh volume, and a Study of Boccaccio by M. H. Hauvette, one of the leading writers on that great medieval master, is published by M. M. Armand Colin (Paris).
Turning to a later period, we get the late Paul Janet's important work on Fénelon, translated and edited by Victor Leuliette (Sir Isaac Pitman), and the joint-lives of John and Sarah, Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), by S. J. Reid (Murray). Suitably following this, comes The Life of Charles, Third Earl Stanhope, begun by his great-great-granddaughter, Miss Ghita Stanhope, and continued by Mr. G. P. Gooch (Longmans). Coming to studies and lives of eminent statesmen of modern times, we have The House of Cecil, by G. Ravenscroft Dennis (Constable), a Life of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), by H. G. Hutchinson (Murray), a few brief monographs on Mr. Joseph Chamberlain,—one of these contributed by Lord Milner and others,—and, above all, we have the brilliant continuation, by Mr. Buckle, of the late Mr. Monypenny's Life of Benjamin D'Israeli (Murray). Mr. Henry James's Notes of a Son and Brother (Macmillan) has naturally attracted attention, and there have been two books on Tolstoy, one, which is authoritative, by his son, Count Ilya Tolstoy, translated by J. Calderon (Chapman & Hall). Mr. Francis Gribble has attempted the Life of the aged Austrian Emperor (Nash), and to balance the interest we are drawn to a sketch of another great Ruler, the Tsar Nicholas II., translated from the Russian, and issued by Mr. Hugh Rees. We are never weary of books on the great French Masters, so that a study of two of them,—Balzac and Flaubert, by another eminent Frenchman, M. Emile Faguet (Constable), is welcome. Two authors have also been attracted to the writings of Paul Verlaine: Mr. Stefan Zweig, translated by O. F. Theis (Boston, Luce & Co.; Dublin and London, Maunsell), and a small monograph is offered by Mr. Wilfred Thorley (Constable). In Italian Literature we notice the continuation of the Crispi Memoirs (published in their translated form, by Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton), and a volume on Cavour and the Making of Modern Italy (Putnam), 1816-61, by Pietro Orsi. Coming nearer home we welcome the Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, by himself (Methuen), which, as might be expected, are excellent reading, and we also note various unauthoritative monographs and sketches of prominent modern Generals and Statesmen, such as brief Lives of Lord Kitchener, Sir John French, President Poincaré, General Joffre, and several of Lord Roberts. Perhaps the greatest Biographical sensation of the year has been provided by Mrs. Parnell's Life of her husband, Charles Stewart Parnell (Cassell). Among studies of celebrated women there are notices of the Brontës, of Lady Hester Stanhope, and a valuable work on The Life and Times of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, by A. E. P. B. Weigall, Inspector-General of Antiquities for the Government of Egypt (Blackwood). Colonel Haggard's Remarkable Women of France, is also a fascinating volume (Stanley Paul).
The realm of Philosophy in the publications of the year is, as usual, largely dominated by distinguished foreigners. Every writer is haunted by recollections of Bergson, who, it must be confessed, has won a large and serious audience in this country. Dr. G. R. Dodson writes on Bergson and the Modern Spirit (Lindsay Press); Mr. Bertrand Russell and Mr. H. Wildon Carr publish their discussion of The Philosophy of Bergson (Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes); Miss Stebbing, however, in her Pragmatism and French Voluntarism takes up the Professor's gage (Cambridge University Press) and questions his conclusions. We welcome a volume from yet another distinguished Frenchman, Professor Boutroux's Natural Law in Science and Philosophy, in the authorised translation by F. Rothwell (Nutt). Then there are translations of famous German philosophers, Kant, by Lord Redesdale (Lane), Essays on Nietzsche by that distinguished scholar and critic, Georges Brandes (Heinemann), and Mr. Meyrick Booth's translation of Eucken's Essays (Fisher Unwin). From Italy we are delighted to have Professor Aliotta's work, The Idealistic Reaction against Science, as translated for us by Agnes McCaskill (Macmillan), and The Greek Problems of Professor Bernardino Varisco, translated by R. C. Lodge (Allen). Professor Burnet of St. Andrews likewise turns to the study of the Ancients, in his Greek Philosophy, from Thales to Plato in this first issue (Macmillan), as also does Mr. Carritt in his Theory of Beauty (Methuen). From the Cambridge University Press we have Mr. C. D. Broad's Perception, Physics and Reality. Sir Bampfylde Fuller publishes his Life and Human Nature with Mr. Murray, and Messrs. Longmans issue an important work by Dr. Coffey, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Maynooth College, entitled Ontology, or the Theory of Being. The fourth and last volume of his History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century is offered by Mr. Merz (Blackwood).
The students of Psychology have no doubt been excited by Sir Oliver Lodge's grave and ex cathedra assertion of proofs of Life after (so-called) Death. Other minds seem to move in the same direction, and Dr. Mooney debates the subject of Re-incarnation from the medically scientific point of view that many, who would be sceptical of other attitudes, could accept. How You Live Again is the book's title (Manchester, The Pons Press). The Proceedings of the Society for Psychological Research are published by Mr. MacLehose of Glasgow.
In Sociology we get so much that is useful that it is quite impossible to follow the list of publications. Among those which, however, call for notice is the work of a distinguished French contemporary, La Formation de l'Anglais Moderne, by Paul Decamps (Armand Colin). Another brilliant foreign writer, Signor Guglielmo Ferrero, offers us a comparative study of Ancient Rome and Modern America (Putnam). Social Work in London (1869-1912), being a History of the Charity Organisation Society, is edited by Dr. Helen Bosanquet (Murray). Jewish Life in Modern Times is also worth mention (Methuen).
The reference to Jewish life carries us very naturally to the East and, to Bible Literature. Mr. Claude Montefiore's Judaism and St. Paul (Max Goschen) seems to offer a link between the Old Testament and the New, and is a most valuable—if not absolutely convincing—contribution to the Pauline problem. New Testament Criticism: its History and Results, by J. A. M'Clymont, D.D. (The Baird Lectures for 1910-11) (Hodder and Stoughton), is but one of a host of Theological publications of importance. On the same subject we also get The New Testament in the Twentieth Century, by the Rev. Maurice Jones, B.D. (Macmillan). The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures has now published its third volume of New Testament text. This sustains the high level of Scholarship which we have come to expect from its learned editor, the Rev. Cuthbert Lattey, S.J. It is published by Messrs. Longmans.
Among the notable Theological volumes of the year it is only possible to notice one here and there, and among these must be included one or two issues of Texts, such as The Epistles of St. Paul from the Codex Laudianus, by E. S. Buchanan (Sacred Latin Texts) (Heath, Cranton & Ouseley). The history of this valuable MS., which dates from the ninth century, is briefly that it was stolen from Wurzburg when it was sacked by the Swedes in 1631, and was purchased by Archbishop Laud, who gave it into the keeping of the Bodleian Library. Irenæus of Lugdunum is presented to us by F. P. Montgomery Hitchcock, with Foreword by Professor Swete (Cambridge University Press). The Religious Philosophy of Plotinus and Some Modern Philosophies of Religion, by the Dean of St. Paul's (The Lindsay Press), is a book few thoughtful readers will care to miss, also not a few will like to read the late Father Benson's impressions of Lourdes (Lond., Herder). Dr. Skinner, Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge, publishes a learned work on the controversy concerning The Divine Name in Genesis (Hodder and Stoughton), and Dr. H. J. Wicks traces The Doctrine of God, in the Jewish Apocryphal and Apocalyptic Literature during the two centuries before Christ and the first century A.D. (Hunter & Longhurst); Dr. Oesterley, Warden of the Society of the Apocrypha, London Diocese, also edits The Books of the Apocrypha (R. Scott). One of the things not to be overlooked is the printing of a Lecture on The Spiritual Message of Dante, delivered in Harvard University (1904), by Dr. Boyd Carpenter (Williams & Norgate). The Canticles of the Christian Church, Eastern and Western, in Early Medieval Times, by J. Mearns (Cambridge University Press), is attractive to those who care for literary antiquities and survivals. Much of the year's output has again been devoted to the discussion of Mysticism, but exigencies of space will not permit individual reference to books or writers.