NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18153, 16 August 1924, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

CHURCH HISTORY. The third and concluding volume of the English edition of th© Abbe IXichesne's "-Early History of tho Christian Church" has now reached Christohurch. Tho first volume, it will be remembered, carried the story to the end of the third century. '.Hie second was the story of the fourth century. This is the story of the melancholy fifth century—a "century of ruin and'of tottering to ;v fall." It is useless to pretend that when the world l>eeame nominally Christian it w-as (Christian also 'in fact. Everyone knows that in the Christianity of the fifth century there was much from which the modern mind recoils with alarm and disgust, but tho most melancholy fact of all was tho bitterness with which the different schools of believers, attacked and reviled one another. Yet the fifth century is the century of St. Augustine, of Chrysostom, Cyril and Theodoret; it is the century of prolific writers and profound scholars, of un-wearying-research and almost unbelievable acuteness in controversy. Paganism is dead, and the Empire dying, but the Church, treed from assaults from without, is fiercely active in disputes of doctrine the echoes of which have not died yet.

For this English edition Professor Claude Jenkins Lambeth librarian, ia responsible, and the Abbe Duchesne having died shortly after the third volnme was finislied, the translator has added his own index. (Jolm Murray, through "Wnitoombe and Tombs.)

A UNIQUE ALBUM. Reference has been made more than once in this column to t!*o album compiled in aid of Earl Haig's appeal for ex-sorvico men of all tho British Armies. Now we have the volume itself—a production unlike anything ever "before produced in English, or wo should think in any language. For it is not merely a haphazard collection of signatures or any kind q£ collection and nothing else. In his manuscript foreword Earl Haig says that every signature is "an acknowledgment of the simplest and grandest of human virtues —the love or liberty and fair dealing among men, courage, patriotism Mid-self-sacrifice," and argues very justly that the record as a whole stands therefore for the personal tribute of the greatest in place, and genius, of many nations "to tlie greatness of eout of those learned and unlearned millions who knew and dnred enough to strike a blow for Right and Justice upon earth." Many of those who have con"tributed have broken a life-long rule in order to do so, and it is certain that 'the result will be far in advance of the "first hopes of the authors. (London: Cassell and Co. Christehurch: Whitcombe and Tombs.)

N.Z. HANDBOOKS. Messrs "Whitcombe and Tombs have added two more volumes to their useful "New Zealand Practical Handbooks" series—both very short and simple and direct. "Farmers' Foes" is a brief account by Dr. Hilgendorf, Lecturer in Biology at Lincoln College, of the commonest insect, worm ana other parasitical pests which hamper the efforts of the man on the land. TJr. Hilgendorf is the author already of a text-book rn Agricultural Zoology, and this shorter handbook is a reprint for men w'ho are not students of the more popular and immediately practical portions. The chapters are copiously aiid clearly illustrated. "Rock' Gardening" is a volume for the happy amateur. The author is Mr David Tannook, F.R.H.S., Superintendent of Gardens and Reserves, Dunedin, and in this volume, as in the preceding one, the aim has been to eliminate everything that might prow "too technical and tedious for the practical person who wants to know merely what to do and how to do it. Hock j gardening is a hobby tliat is becoming more popular, and Mr Tannock is ©no of the moot experienced and! competent guides in the Dominion. (Both vol-1 umes direct from the publishers.)

INTERESTING REPRINTS. The uniform English edition of Pierre Loti has advanced now to eleven volumes, the last ''The Iceland Fisherman." In French Loti is a somewhat tough not j to crack, his extreme fastidiousness, I even when he ia not precious, being a weariness to anyone who wishes to get more than the sense. But this English translation by W. P. Baines supplies everything but the original bloom—the sensitiveness, the melancholy, the eye for a picture, much even of the feeling for words. Loti gives you everything that a man can give yon whose pen is directed by an acute sensibility instead of by a master mind, and it is not true yet that ho. has had hiß day. The sentimentalists are no doubt dono with him, but he has a good deal of significance still in the poetic-pictorial schooL (London: T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.) From Loti to, Bose Macaulay is from the lonely, haunted mysterious silence of the seas to the, bustling man-mado market-place. It is a journey not merely from one language to another, and from one sex to another, bnt from one world to another —a revolution in manner and in manners, in thought, in feeling, in purpose, method, everything. One makes you see and feel, and remember wistfully afterwards; the other makes you think, and laugh, and then laugh again in an hour or two —at yourself for being heavy and a fool." "What Not" is dedicated to "Civil Servants I Have Known," and is described by Miss Maeanlay herself as a prophetic comedy. The prophecy does not matter but the comedy does—even if you live in a country that has never had a Ministry of Brains. (London: John Long.)

Tardy justice is being done to De Maupassant by the issne of English translations of his novels in a form ■which a self-respecting library can include. It was high time that his best •work' was made available to English readers in some better shape than those miserably translated and execrably printed versions issued in coarse paper. Messrs Werner Laurie have begun to produce this talented writer's -works in admirable translations, beautifully printed and bound. The first volumes issued' are "Bel Ami" and "A Life."

The world has moved far, and times have greatly changed, since the day. when almost the best-known of Australian writers was A. B. Paterson. "Banjo's" iverses had an enormous popularity.}; probably no Australian writer before him was bo widely read, and certainlV no Australian writer of the future is in the least likely to win half his popularity. We do not suppose he is much read nowadays, and this is a pity, because much of his work is sound and graphic stuff. Those who need to cherish his work will be glad to eee it reissued in a cheap edition. Four volumes have reached us: "Rio Grande and other verses," "The Man From Snowy River," "Saltbusfa Bill J.P." and "An Outback Marriage." The generation which has grown up since the palmy days, twentyfire years ago, of the "Bulletin," in which "Banjo" made his name, will ! find these little volumes reery pleasant (Continued at foot of next cotama.)