WE have received The Evergreen ; or, the Book of Autumn, A Northern Seasonal (published by Messrs. Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, of the Lawn- market, Edinburgh, and by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of Paternoster Square, E.C.).— The work is tastefully got up, being bound in embossed leather, and superbly printed on fine paper, with rough sides, while tbe illus- trations are of a remarkably bold and unconventional character.    This issue of the "Evergreen" is, we gather, particularly concerned with the Celtic Renas- cence, now incipient in literature as well as art, and the revival and development of the old Continental sym-· pathies of England. It joins also in the rallying call of a "Return to Nature," and seeks to link the Autumn of our age with an approaching spring, so passing through Decadence towards Renascence.    In the chapter on the "Biology of Autumn," J. Arthur Thompson, the following fine passage, among others, occurs:—    "But in the very midst of death, one is impressed with the abundance of life. It is the time of seed- scattering. The cotton-grass has unfurled its white sails on the moor, clouds of thistledown and ragwort nutlets, with equally dainty parachutes, are swept over the waste ; the hooked fruits of burdock, houndstongue, and how many more, cling to our clothes and to the sheep's fleece ; all sorts of pods and capsules have opened, and gusts of wind—how much more the equi- noctial gales—have scattered the seeds.   The pro- digality is as unmeasurable as it is providential."    In the essay, too, on the "Sociology of Autumn," by My. Patrick Geddes, there is some clever writing, as the following brief extract will show :—    "Again, then, as of old the child shall know how the earth and sun determine the seasons; these the plant and animal life; and thus also, indirectly as well as directly, our own essential life and labour. Into this simple chain, henceforward unbroken, all minor specialisms, their loose facts woven firmly into chains of causation, shall be securely linked. To develop this simple lesson, this House the Sun Built, all our specialists are needed, astronomer and meteorologist, zoologist and botanist, economist, writer. and critic. And (as in the educative initiations of the ancient mysteries) the lore or the seasons furnishes the central thread.    Our glorious autumn of harvest and woodland, her pathos of fall and decay, have indeed been familiar from that very dawn of art and poetry, which her wealth and wine, her joy and sorrow, have done perhaps most of all the seasons to awaken."    As a gift-book, or for placing on the drawing-room table, the "Evergreen" is, we opine, eminently suit- able in all respects.