THESE three books are very fairly characteristic of the present position of comparative philology. The first is a reprint of the first seven chapters of Prof. Whitney's well-known work on the science of language, and has been admirably edited by Dr. Morris with notes and introduction, with special reference to a scientific study of English. The second is just what it professes to be, extracts from a commonplace book on the etymology of various words, and it illustrates very well the influence exercised by a comparative treatment of language upon what used to be the pastime of literary dilettanti, Mr. Palmer's derivations have been traced with full regard to the scientific method, and besides being accompanied by a wealth of quotations, rest for the most part on a secure foundation. “The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race,” again, is one of those books which a few years back would have teemed with the wildest vagaries; the author, it is plain, has little critical judgment, but a diligent study of works like those of Zeuss or Max Müller has kept him in the right path, and though he startles us now and then with such assertions as that the Aryan is “the primeval language of man,” or that “there had been only seventeen letters in Greek at the earliest period,” his views are in general just and sound. We may doubt whether his theory of the Pagan origin of the Round Towers will be widely accepted, and complain of his prolixity, but the book is a striking example of the extent to which a knowledge of Comparative Philology has spread, and the wholesome influence its principles have exerted. Language and its Study. By Prof. Whitney; edited by Dr. R. Morris. (London: Trübner and Co., 1876.) Leaves from a Word-hunter's Note-book. By the Rev. A. S. Palmer. (London: Trübner and Co., 5876.) The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language. By the Very Rev. U. J. Bourke (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1875.)