We have already mentioned Sir W. Smith’s smaller histories of Greece and Rome. Plutarch’s _Lives of Greeks and Romans_—made easier in _Plutarch for Boys and Girls_, translated extracts by Professor J. S. White—will offer an interesting biographical way of learning history. Macmillan’s _History Primers_ published at one shilling each are most useful. You might begin by C. A. Fyffe’s _Greece_, or Mahaffy’s _Old Greek Life_ in this series, and work gradually downwards. The “Story of the Nations” Series, published at five shillings by T. Fisher Unwin, consists of a number of volumes, each about a different nation. Your wisest course, indeed, if you cannot command time for the reading of long histories (such as Grote’s _Greece_, which, in ten volumes, is invaluable to the student), is to obtain from any bookseller a full list of Macmillan’s “History Primers,” or Unwin’s “Story of the Nations” Series, and select what you like, always remembering that to get some connected idea of the history of the world is essential to the enjoyment of the literature of the world. For advanced students a most interesting volume is Walter Bagehot’s _Physics and Politics_, treating of the causes that influence progress. Mahaffy’s _Twelve Lectures on Primitive Civilisations_, and Froude’s _Short Studies on Great Subjects_, or Carlyle’s posthumous volume of _Historical Sketches_ will be found valuable. With regard to English history you should read _The Making of England_, by J. R. Green, and his _Short History of the English People_; also Freeman’s _History of the Norman Conquest_. A series called _Epochs of English History_, written by eminent authors, can be highly recommended. Each part costs only ninepence. In fact, helps to the study of history are so abundant and cheap that it is superfluous in these days of booksellers’ catalogues to enumerate them further. Only, if you can read nothing else, read primers, so as to obtain some distinct notion of where you stand in the “long result of Time.” Although you should not rely for your facts on plays and novels only, it is very desirable, if possible, to read Shakespeare’s plays, or some good historical novel, side by side with the history of the period of which they treat. Thus the dry bones of fact are clothed, as it were, with flesh and blood, and become living. We must not be understood as saying that everything in the historical novels mentioned below is suitable for girls of every age. Children should not read them; but these articles are not intended for children. Adults who are in the habit of choosing what they shall read must discriminate among them, always remembering that they should be taken side by side with more “solid reading.” LILY WATSON. (_To be continued._) FOOTNOTES: [1] “Value and Influence of Works of Fiction.” Prize Essay, Oxford, 1862. [Illustration] THE HEAD-DRESS OF THE LADIES OF HOLLAND.