With the inaugural address at Cambridge the volume closes. His subject, 'History, a Teacher of Politics,' promises much, and we are inclined to envy those who are in the way of hearing the discourses to which this one is preamble and preface. May they profit by them as much as we think we should, and our children reap the fruits in the wiser legislation of the coming generation of statesmen! Somewhere lately, we have seen the doctrine put forth, with marvellous confidence, that 'the history of the past cannot give wisdom for the future, inasmuch as Society is ever progressing, and no past state therefore can ever be exactly reproduced.' It would be as sensible to say that a legal education is of no good, because laws are ever being altered (ought we to say mended?); or a medical training, because no two human constitutions are exactly alike. 'Men are of like passions' with their forefathers, and masses of men are moved by impulses similar to those which stirred the men of old. So we believe in 'History as the Teacher of Politics,' and are glad indeed that our young politicians at Cambridge have so learned, and faithful, and courageous a guide. May they have the graces to profit by their privileges, and give their countrymen the benefit hereafter, and so disappoint the somewhat disheartening forebodings of the exordium of this discourse! _The Mutineers of the 'Bounty' and their Descendants in Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands._ By Lady BELCHER. John Murray. Lady Belcher, having obtained possession of a variety of private documents, and having from private sources gathered a variety of details, has, in this volume, told over again the romantic story of the Pitcairn Islanders. Lady Belcher herself is the step-daughter of Captain Heywood, a midshipman of the 'Bounty' at the time of the mutiny--she naturally, therefore, feels a personal interest in the subject. She is not very skilled in book-making; her narrative is desultory and overlaid with documents; but she has told the story with a fulness of detail to which the volume of Sir John Barrow, written for 'The Family Library' thirty years ago, makes no pretension. The diary of Morrison, a petty officer of the ship, gives for the first time the details of the voyage, and of the tyrannous conduct of the commander of the 'Bounty,' Lieutenant Bligh, prior to the mutiny. Clearly, Fletcher Christian was maddened by insults and overbearing tyranny. Bligh's conduct indeed seems to have been that of a madman rather than of a sane person. After the mutiny the narrative divides itself into three independent branches. First, a history of Bligh and his companions, who were sent adrift in the boat; next, of Christian and those who remained in the 'Bounty,' some involuntarily, having taken no part in the mutiny, simply because the boat in which Bligh was sent off could contain no more--among these was Peter Heywood, the midshipman. This section of the crew of the