The reader must pardon the bitterness of our feelings; but we are just smarting from a prolonged perusal of all Mr. Latham’s works, especially the two volumes whose title is given above; and that we may have sympathy, if only in a faint degree, from our friends, we quote a few passages, taken at random, though we cannot possibly thus convey an adequate conception of the infinite dulness of the work.

The following is his elegant introduction:—­

“I follow the Horatian rule, and plunge, at once, in medias res.  I am on the Indus, but not on the Indian portion of it.  I am on the Himalayas, but not on their southern side.  I am on the northwestern ranges, with Tartary on the north, Bokhara on the west, and Hindostan on the south.  I am in a neighborhood where three great religions meet:  Mahometanism, Buddhism.  Brahminism.  I must begin somewhere; and here is my beginning.”—­ Vol. i. p. 1.

The following is his analysis of the beautiful Finnish Kalevala:—­

“Wainamoinen is much of a smith, and more of a harper.  Illmarinen is most of a smith.  Lemminkainen is much of a harper, and little of a smith.  The hand of the daughter of the mistress of Pohjola is what, each and all, the three sons of Kalevala strive to win,—­a hand which the mother of the owner will give to any one who can make for her and for Pohjola Sampo, Wainamoinen will not; but he knows of one who will,—­Illmarinen.  Illmarinen makes it, and gains the mother’s consent thereby.  But the daughter requires another service.  He must hunt down the elk of Tunela.  We now see the way in which the actions of the heroes are, at one and the same time, separate and connected.  Wainamoinen tries; Illmarinen tries (and eventually wins); Lemminkainen tries.  There are alternations of friendship and enmity.  Sampo is made and presented.  It is then wanted back again.

“‘Give us,’ says Wainamoinen, ‘if not the whole, half.’

“‘Sampo,’ says Louki, the mistress of Pohjola,’ cannot be divided.’

“‘Then let us steal it,’ says one of the three.

“‘Agreed,’ say the other two.

“So the rape of Sampo takes place.  It is taken from Pohjola, whilst the owners are sung to sleep by the harp of Lemminkainen; sung to sleep, but not for so long a time as to allow the robbers to escape.  They are sailing Kalevalaward, when Louki comes after them on the wings of the wind, and raises a storm.  Sampo is broken, and thrown into the sea.  Bad days now come.  There is no sun, no moon.  Illmarinen makes them of silver and gold.  He had previously made his second wife (for he lost his first) out of the same metals.  However, Sampo is washed up, and made whole.  Good days come.  The sun and moon shine as before, and the sons of Kalevala possess Sampo.”—­Vol. i., pp. 433, 434.

This, again, is Mr. Latham’s profound and interesting view of Buddhism:—­

“Buddhism is one thing.  Practices out of which Buddhism may be developed are another.  It has been already suggested that the ideas conveyed by the terms Sramanoe and Gymnosophistoe are just as Brahminic as Buddhist, and, vice versa, just as Buddhist as Brahminic.