The _Times_, commenting on the slovenly composition of the Queen’s Speeches to Parliament, proposed the cause of the fact as a fit subject for the investigation of our _professional thinkers_. The phrase suggests a delicate reproof to those who assume for themselves the title of _thinker_, implying that any person may engage in this occupation just as he might, if he pleased, become a dentist, or a stock-broker, or a civil engineer. The word _thinker_ is very common as a name of respect in the works of a modern distinguished philosopher. I am afraid, however, that it is employed by him principally as synonymous with a _Comtist_. The _Times_, in advocating the claims of a literary man for a pension, said, “he has _constructed_ several useful school-books.” The word _construct_ suggests with great neatness the nature of the process by which school-books are sometimes evolved, implying the presence of the bricklayer and mason rather than of the architect. [Dr. Todhunter might have added _feature_ to the list of words abusively used by newspaper writers. In one number of a magazine two examples occur: “A _feature_ which had been well _taken up_ by local and other manufacturers was the exhibition of honey in various applied forms.” “A new _feature_ in the social arrangements of the Central Radical Club _took place_ the other evening.”]—_Macmillan’s Magazine._ LITERARY NOTICES. THE DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH HISTORY. Edited by Sidney S. Low, B. A., late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, Lecturer on Modern History, King’s College, London; and F. S. Pulling, M. A., late Professor of Modern History, Yorkshire College, Leeds. New York: _Cassell & Company, Limited_.