Recent Literature

AMONGST the works of fiction printed, in the English language this year, there can hardly he any so remarkable in some aspects as the idyllic story which Mr. Boyesen tells us. It is not only remarkable for being a good story, which is distinction enough, but it ought to be known to every one who takes it up as an achievement almost singular in letters. It is not a translation from the Norwegian, as one might guess, but is the English of a Norwegian, thinking and expressing himself in our tongue with a grace, simplicity, and force, and a sense of its colors and harmonies, which we should heartily praise in one native to it. Mr. Boyesen has proved his genius both for literature and for language. The example of the Italian Ruffini, who writes charming novels in English, and the case of the Italian Gallenga, whose work is a model of journalistic writing in our language, are the only instances worthy to be compared with the present; and we believe that these authors have lived a long time in England; whereas Mr. Boyesen’s citizenship is as new as the last election.

But it is not on his phenomenal side that we care mostly to regard him, and if his English were not joined with poetic instinct and a rare artistic power, it might remain for the gratification solely of persons of “ culture.” We like his Gunnar because it is the work of a poet, and announces its origin in all characteristics. It is of that good school of which Björnstjerne Björnson is the head, and to which we have nothing answering, of English root. It is an idyllic sort of story which regards simple things naturally, but at the same time poetically. As our readers know, the scene is almost entirely among the Norwegian peasants; the plot is the love of a houseman’s (or tenant’s) son for the daughter of a rich peasant landowner, and relates to Gunnar’s growth from a dreamy boyhood to the manhood of a young painter, who comes back from Christiania crowned with academic glories, and weds his faithful Ragnhild. To this end much doubt and anxiety are of course accessory ; and Gunnar does not fail to stab his rival, like a true Norseman; but his rival gets well, and there is no distress in the book which we do not confidently accept as temporary. In other words, Gunnar is not that sort of fiction in which the reader’s interest is made to depend upon his uncertainty as to how it is all going to come out. It concerns itself with the development of an artistic mind as it gropes darkly upward through the narrow conditions of a peasant’s life, half-consciously reaching to the light and air ; and this study is made dramatically, not analytically, so that it is a work of fine art.

If we were to say what was the best thing in the book, we should name that pretty Stev which Gunnar and Ragnhild sang, one answering the other, at the “ Wild-Duck’s ” wedding; it has a charming movement, and it is so fresh and sweet and authentic that it might have been made when song was new, rather than in our sad, old, rhyme-worn world. The chapter in which this Stev comes is also as much above the others as the Stev is better than the other poems in the book. The worst you can say of other chapters is that they do not advance the story, but seem to have been done more for the author’s than the reader’s pleasure; they indulge poetic fancies, and reveries about his material, and do not actively shape it. But the chapter to which we refer paints boldly a very striking Scene full of strong, original figures, and has humor, which is a quality that Mr. Boyesen’s lyrical genius does not often show. The skee-race is a good scene, too, and all the passages about the free saeter-life are good. The landscapes and customs of Norway are constantly sketched, and the glamour of the folk-lore is softly shed over all from a memory stored full of the wild superstitions of the North. Some of the characters strike us as particularly well done. Thor, Gunnar’s father, is excellent, and so is Gunnar’s grandmother. Ingeborg, Ragnhild’s mother, is admirable in the early parts of the story, but her character is not so well sustained throughout. What is more important is that the lovers are always good — Ragnhild the woman is especially very sweetly and truly evoked from Ragnhild the child. Other personages, and some of the situations, show the faltering of a youthful touch, for Gunnar is the first fiction of a romancer still far on the sunny side of the thirties, and if it is somewhat conventionally Norse in certain traits, it is so novel in most things that it is like a fresh draught from a clear spring, after many effervescent summer-drinks that our own shoppy fountains serve us. And it is so good to have quite a new poet to rejoice over that we would rather not find out all his faults at once.

— It is a very agreeable volume that Mr. Stephen has made by collecting a number of his essays on literary subjects ; they are all critical, and all treat of matters of great importance to those who take any interest in books and writers. These are the titles of the different essays: De Foe’s Novels, Richardson’s Novels, Pope as a Moralist, Mr. Elwin’s Edition of Pope, Some Words about Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Balzac’s Novels, De Quincey. Mr. Stephen has the advantage over many critics that he has no special theory to uphold, like Taine, for example, and he is able to address himself to the matter he is discussing with so much more chance of freedom from prejudice. He belongs to no school of criticism, or, in other words, he does not seek to hit any one over the head of the man he is writing about; he is content to point out what seems to him good in an author, and what bad, with the reasons for his opinions, without indulging either in clever epigram that shall please the ear for a time, but do no more, or in vague philosophizing. The essays are noticeably like the conversation of an intelligent man, which is after all the best, as it is the final criticism. It is often clever, and always temperate. The reader will continually come across remarks with which he cannot agree, as is only natural, but in general he will agree with Mr. Stephen’s intelligence, wit, and good sense. For ourselves we should say that it might be easy to fall foul of him most readily with regard to what he says of Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe. We would not dissent from all that he says about the priggishness of Sir Charles Grandison, but is it quite fair to speak of Clarissa’s having undue respect for paternal authority ? He compares her with one of George Sand’s heroines, and with Maggie Tulliver, as if Richardson were a contemporary of the two great female novelists, and as if the different position of woman in the last hundred years were not to be taken into account. In the last century it is tolerably certain that one of George Sand’s heroines would have had all the immorality they rejoice in at present, and none of the unsatisfied aspirations; these would seem to have come into fashion with the romantic school. Nowadays parents get off well if they are argued with; formerly their word was law. In fact, the whole essay on Richardson seems rather too light in its tone.

In his essay on Pope as a Moralist, Mr. Stephen hardly meets the objection of those who deny Pope’s poetical abilities; but he has written an admirable chapter on this writer, about whom the last word has not yet been said, In the next essay he goes on in the same way, defending him from the foolish criticisms of his last editor, Mr. Elwin, and expounding some of his poems. He calls Pope a great poet and sets out to show us the grounds on which his reputation rests ; it all would seem to show, however, that Pope was “ the incarnation of the literary spirit,” with his wit, and keenness of mind, and that while every quality that his admirers claim for him may be acknowledged to exist, yet that a poet does not come within the definition. But these are turbid waters, and we forbear.

There may be something fantastical in the essay on Hawthorne, where the connection between him and the witch-burners is traced, but every one will agree with what is said of the possibility that Hawthorne might have been overborne by the romantic wealth of Europe, had that been his home. There is no undue stress laid on this supposition, however ; it is merely given for what it is worth.

One of the best of the essays is that on De Quincey, which forms, to our thinking, the best summary of the powers of that strange man, who is still so frequently the object of a slavish adoration from many people. He is not denounced, but many of his follies, which have made some people deny him the qualities that he really has, are set in plain sight ; especially good is the little exposition of De Quincey’s wonderful logic.

— Dr. Coues’s book is not a mere manual of taxidermy, as we at first supposed. Its briefer title truly indicates its real character, in that it is mainly adapted to the out-door use of our young ornithologists, whose wants are very different from the wants of ornithologists a generation ago. One great merit of this work consists in the careful directions given to insure the scientific value of birds after they are shot; and it is filled with useful hints which prove, the long practical experience of the writer, and contains sound and sensible advice throughout. Beyond question, it is the best thing of the sort yet published, and every boy showing a passion for birds should accept this work for his daily guide ; it will carry him at once into the open air, for its pages breathe of the woods and fields, and the directions for out-door life are full and explicit, from those which speak of the care of a gun to those which concern the haunts of birds and the use and abuse of stimulants. It is written by an enthusiast, one who would gladly undergo any hardship to gain his end; we always imagined naturalists to be differently constructed from other men, holding in ill-concealed contempt the fleshly frailties of less favored classes, but here we have a frank confession : “ I have my opinion of those who like the world before it is aired ; I think it served the worm right for getting up when caught by the early bird ; nevertheless I go shooting betimes in the morning, and would walk all night to find a rare bird at daylight.”

The book, we said, breathes of the woods and fields; notice the following passage, which one would scarcely anticipate in a work of this nature: Birds “ come about your doorstep to tell their stories unasked. Others spring up before you as you stroll in the field, like the flowers that enticed the feet of Proserpine. Birds flit by as you measure the tired roadside, lending a tithe of their life to quicken your dusty steps They disport overhead at hide-and-seek with the foliage as you loiter in the shade of the forest, and their music now answers the sigh of the tree-tops, now ripples an echo to the voice of the brook. But you will not always so pluck a thornless rose. Birds hedge themselves about with a bristling girdle of brier and bramble you cannot break; they build their tiny castles in the air surrounded by impassable moats, and the draw-bridges are never down. They crown the mountain-top you may lose your breath to climb; they sprinkle the desert where your parched lips may find no cooling draught; they fleck the snow-wreath where the nipping blast may make you turn your back ; they breathe unharmed the pestilent vapors of the swamp that mean disease if not death for you ; they outride the storm at sea that sends strong men to their last account. Where now will you look for birds?”

Evidently our author does not write at second-hand; he has been in the woods himself; yet he says : “ I have never walked in the woods without learning something pleasant that I did not know before ; ” we should prize the companionship of such a man in nature’s solitudes ; they would be no solitudes to him. And when we see this professional bird-hunter writing in the following vein,— “ Never shoot a bird you do not fully intend to preserve or to utilize in some proper way. Bird-life is too beautiful a thing to destroy to no purpose ; too sacred a thing, like all life, to be sacrificed, unless the tribute is hallowed by worthiness of motive ; ” — or, when telling you how to kill most quickly a wounded bird, he adds : “ I assure you, it will make you wince the first few times; you had better habitually hold the poor creature behind yon,” — we are at once sure that we have found one in whom familiarity with suffering does not breed callousness of heart.

The check-list is of course but a reflection of the author’s larger work, the key, already noticed, and to which this book is an accompaniment. It is unfortunate, that, owing partly to the author’s absence during printing, there are no less than a dozen pages of additions and corrections. This in no way reflects upon the Salem Press ; the typography is good, and the difficult check-list remarkably correct.

— Mr. E. Vila Blake’s volume, Arctic Experiences, gives us a full record of the various mishaps that befell the Polaris expedition, and it is with a very mixed feeling that the reader will lay down the book. There are so many proofs given of the incongruity of the men composing the expedition, of culpable breaches of discipline, of indifference to its object, of want of sympathy with the commander, and of lack of authority on his part, that one may well be excused for a certain amount of despondency; but a brighter view will be taken as one thinks over the record of Captain Tyson’s drift of fifteen hundred miles on an ice-floe during an Arctic winter. The public will remember the preparations made to insure the success of the Polaris expedition, which started with as good promise as any that ever set sail. Prominent among its superior advantages was the full corps of scientific men on board, but before the ship had reached Greenland discord had broken out, apparently between the scientific men and the captain, which, coupled with Captain Hall’s death, brought about the failure of the expedition. Mr. Blake tells us that the reason why Captain Hall was willing to overlook the first breaking out of discord was his intense desire to make his way to the far north. And it would be hard to deny that he acted wisely. It was the 3d of July when he set sail from New London, and owing to various delays he did not reach Upernavik until the 18th of August. If he had sent back the disaffected men at that time, he would have been short-handed ; and if he had returned with them, the expedition might probably have been indefinitely postponed. He preferred to go on, and yet Captain Tyson has recorded in his diary under the date of August 10th, “ There are two parties already, if not three, aboard. All the foreigners hang together, and expressions are freely made that Hall shall not get any credit out of this expedition.” September 13th they went into winterquarters in lat. 81° 38ߡ N., long. 61° 45ߡ W. November 8th Captain Hall died; the fears of his having met his death by foul means may be considered as being wholly dispelled. The command then fell into the hands of Captain Buddington, an officer who had been of no service in maintaining discipline on board of the ship, and who was much more anxious to return home than to try to make any farther advance northward. The next summer sledge-journeys were undertaken, but without getting farther north than lat. 81° 57ߡ 26“. On the 15th of October the alarm arose which caused about half of the ship’s company to get upon the ice, while the others were engaged in throwing out provisions and clothing, for they all expected that the Polaris would soon sink. The ice broke, the ship was free, and Tyson, with nine men, two Esquimaux, Joe and Hans, their two wives and four children, was adrift in Baffin’s Bay. Captain Tyson’s journal gives a most interesting account of their sufferings during that winter. Discipline was slack, for many of the men were sailors, unfamiliar with the English language, spoiled by the lax discipline of the Polaris, and deceived by Mr. Meyers, one of the scientific men with them, who led them with delusive hopes of reaching the coast of Greenland. It was not until April 30th that they were rescued, and that the party should have endured the cold, hunger, and squalor which they did for so long a time, seems really incredible. It would be hard to praise too highly Captain Tyson’s heroism. The remainder of the book is not without interest. Those left on board the Polaris had supplies enough to live in comfort, and after spending one season in winter-quarters, they, as is well known, managed to reach civilization. The only death was that of the unhappy Captain Hall; we may be sure that if his life had been spared there would have been a very different story to record. The expedition was not wholly without results, though these were in a great measure of a negative character, for the inaccuracy of previous charts was clearly shown, and Dr. Kane’s open sea was not found where it was thought to be. Like many Arctic expeditions, this was of service as showing us rather what is to be avoided in such undertakings than the unfailing way of securing success.

The table of Arctic chronology at the end of the volume is valuable; we notice, however, that Lord Dufferin’s yacht-vovage is put down under the year 1867; it took place ten years earlier. The introductory voyage, containing a brief synopsis of what had been done in northern waters, is an important and useful abridgment.

— What we are, we are! Fear not, gentle reader, we are only thus beginning to give you a brief account of The Anæsthetic Revelation, a privately printed pamphlet which its author has sent us. What we are, we are, whether we be aware of it or not! The Stuff of which we and our universe are made cannot be helped by knowledge. Her use is to forestall contingencies; but in Being nothing is contingent. It shall be what it always was ; whether for weal or woe its inmost equality or meaning is already, nor can all our complacent recognition confirm or clinch it, “ or all our tears wash out a word of it.” This utterance of practical sense has helped to bring the metaphysical craving into disrepute, as being a morbid overgrowth of intellectual activity ; whilst more subtle reasons still are making some minds condemn it as an essentially hopeless passion. Among these latter stands Mr. Blood, who, however, frees himself from philosophy only as many others have done, by wading deeply through, and thereby exposing himself to the scornful eyes of the soundminded and practical crew as one of the other visionary sort. More indeed than visionary, — crack-brained, will be the verdict of most readers, when they hear that he has found a mystical substitute for the answer which philosophy seeks ; and that this substitute is the sort of ontological intuition, beyond the power of words to tell of, which one experiences while taking nitrous oxide gas and other anæsthetics. “ After experiments ranging over nearly fourteen years, I affirm what any man may prove at will, that there is an invariable and reliable condition (or uncondition) ensuing about the instant of recall from anæsthetic stupor to sensible observation, or ‘ coming to,’in which the genius of being is revealed ; but because it cannot be remembered in the normal condition, it is lost altogether through the infrequency of anæsthetic treatment in any individual’s case ordinarily, and buried amid the hum of returning common-sense, under that epitaph of all illumination, This is a queer world! . . . To minds of sanguine imagination, there will be a sadness in the tenor of the mystery, as if the key-note of the, universe were low, — for no poetry, no emotion known to the normal sanity of man, can furnish a hint of its primeval prestige and its all but appalling solemnity ; but for such as have felt sadly the instability of temporal things, there is a comfort of serenity and ancient peace ; while for the resolved and imperious spirit there are majesty and supremacy unspeakable.” So glorious does this solution of the world’s mystery seem to him, that he rises to this flight of rhetoric, which will seem grand or funny according to the disposition of the reader : “ My worldly tribulation reclines on its divine composure ; and though not in haste to die, I care not to be dead, but look into the future with serene and changeless cheer. This world is no more that alien terror which was taught me. Spurning the cloud-grimed and still sultry battlements whence so lately Jehovan thunders boomed, my gray gull lifts her wing against the night-fall and takes the dim leagues with a fearless eye.”

Now, although we are more than skeptical of the importance of Mr. Blood’s socalled discovery, we shall not howl with the wolves or join the multitude in jeering at it. Nirwana, whether called by that name or not, has been conceived and represented as the consummation of life too often not to have some meaning ; and the state without discrimination, the “ informal consciousness,”the “ being in a meaning prior to and deeper than manifestation in form ” of our author seems to be the same as nirwana. Every one has felt the proverb, “In vino veritas,” to have a deeper meaning than the common interpretation, that the mask falls from the drinker’s character. Ontological emotion, however stumbled on, has something authoritative for the individual who feels it. But the worst of all mystical or simply personal knowledge is its incommunicability. To the mere affirmation, “ I know that this is truth, therefore believe it ! ” the still more simple reply, “ I won’t!” is legitimate and conclusive for the time. The intellect, with its classifications and roundabout substitutions, must after all be clung to as the only organ of agreement between men. But when a man comes forward with a mystical experience of his own, the duty of the intellect towards it is not suppression but interpretation. Interpretation of the phenomenon Mr. Blood describes is yet deficient. But we may be sure of one thing now : that even on the hypothesis of its containing all the “ revelation ” he asserts, laughing-gas intoxication would not be the final way of getting at that revelation. What blunts the mind and weakens the will is no full channel for truth, even if it assist us to a view of a certain aspect of it; and mysticism versus mysticism, the faith that comes of willing, the intoxication of moral volition, has a million times better credentials.

The greater part of the pamphlet, in which he ratiocinatively explains the gist of all philosophy to be its own insufficiency to comprehend or in any way state the All, is marked by acuteness of thought and often great felicity of style ; though it sins by obscurity through a quaint density of expression, and by such verbal monsters as spacical instead of spatial. We can enter into it no further than to say that the common run of believers in the “ relativity ” of knowledge, who feel as if the imbecility of the latter were due to its bounds and not to its essence (which is to duplicate Being in an Other, namely, Thought), will find here the view argued interestingly that the trouble all comes of a gratuitous guest; that the mystery we feel challenged to resolve, and baffled at not resolving, is no mystery if we decline the challenge; in other words, that fullness of life (unreflected on) forestalls the need of philosophy by being in itself “ what we must confess as practical somewhere, namely, an apodal sufficiency; to which sufficiency a wonder or fear of why it is sufficient cannot pertain, and could be attributed to it only as an impossible disease or lack.” The secret of Being, in short, is not in the dark immensity beyond knowledge, but at home, this side, beneath the feet, and overlooked by knowledge. We sincerely advise real students of philosophy to write for the pamphlet to its author. It is by no means as important as he probably believes it, but still thoroughly original and very suggestive.

— Dr. Marvin says he has had a good deal of intercourse with “ Spiritualistic ” mediums and the phenomena they exhibit. Of these he says one half are spurious, the other half — surely a large allowance— genuine. This latter half he subdivides into those more or less explicable by physical and pathological laws, and those as yet wholly inexplicable, He quotes with approbation the Report of the London Dialectical Society, which testifies to tables having been moved without contact, and goes on to say that while the phenomena are one thing, the hypothesis that Spiritualists endeavor to build on them is altogether another thing. The religion of Spiritualism seems to him “ the most mournful calamity that has ever happened to the human race; it is a revival of the dark ages in the noonday of the nineteenth century.” Accordingly his first lecture is philosophical, and intended to show that the so-called Spiritualism is materialism, and would prove the immortality of the old clothes that apparitions wear quite as well as that of the forms within them. In the second lecture he describes the pathological condition, called by him mediomania, with which, no doubt, a majority of the trance and other mediums who infest our cities are afflicted. “ Hysteria or mediomania in the first generation may become chorea or melancholia in the second, open insanity in the third, and idiocy in the fourth : the merciful laws of nature usually forbid that there should be a fifth generation.” One of the characteristics of these unfortunates is the tendency to automatic imitation. Hence the danger of the creed, which spreads like any other virulent epidemic, and degrades alike the body and the mind of its hierophants. A number of cases are described of the usual mournful-comic order. “ Moses ” communicated with Dr, Marvin once through a medium. On his objecting that the soi-disant lawgiver wrote sham Hebrew, he got the following message in English: “Moses wants a drink. Moses + his mark.” Some final remarks on the connection of religious emotion with the sexual system are no doubt true enough pathology, but rather unpleasantly marked by the vulgar joy of trampling on other people’s idols.

On the whole, we doubt if Dr. Marvin’s lectures will do much good. Their own philosophy is vague ; their rhetoric, though clever, is somewhat shrill; and their facts, though true, are not of a sort to alarm the benighted multitudes who habitually worship in “ seances,” follow spirits’ advice in practical affairs, and read no other literature than what the Spiritualist papers supply. Besides, his candid admission that there remains something in the phenomena which he does “ not pretend to understand ” weakens his position logically, and deprives his book of any value for those readers who are in no danger of becoming Spiritualists, but who wish to have the whole matter sifted to the bottom.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS.

Harper and Brothers, New York : The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland ; with a View of the Primary Causes and Movements of the Thirty Years’ War. By John Lothrop Motley. In two vols. with illustrations. — History, Essays, Orations, and other Documents of the Sixth General Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, held in New York, October 2-12, 1873. Edited by Rev. Philip Schaaf, D. D., and Rev. S. Irenæus Prime, D. D. — The Nimrod of the Sea; or, The American Whaleman. By William M. Davis. — Some Leading Principles of Political Economy newly Expounded. By. J. E. Cairnes, M.A. — Old Wells Dug Out: being a Third Series of Sermons. By T. De Witt Talmage. — Hydrophobia: Means of Avoiding its Perils and Preventing their Spread, as discussed at one of the Scientific Soirées of the Sorbonne. By H. Bouley. Translated by A. Liautard. — Antonina; or, The Fall of Rome. By Wilkie Collins. — Dr. Thorne. A Novel. By Anthony Trollope. — The Living Link. A Novel. By James De Mille.

J. R. Osgood & Co., Boston : Homes, and How to Make Them. By E. C. Gardner. Illustrated. — The Indian Question. By Francis A. Walker. — The Middle States : A Handbook for Travelers. With Seven Maps and Fifteen Plans. — History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. By Henry Wilson. Vol. II. — The Prophet: A Tragedy. By Bayard Taylor. — Little Classics. Edited by Rossiter Johnson. Exile.

Porter and Coates, Philadelphia ; Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow. A Novel. By Mrs. M. C, Despard.

E. P. Dutton & Co., New York: Swallow Flights. (Poems.) By Harriet McEwen Kimball.

Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York : Bric-à-Brac Series. Anecdote Biographies of Thackeray and Dickens. Edited by R. H. Stoddard. — Meridiana : The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa. By Jules Verne.— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth. By Jules Verne. — Epochs of History. The Crusades. By George W. Cox, M. A. With a Map. The Era of the Protestant Revolution. By Frederic Seebohm. With numerous Maps.

Dodd and Mead, New York : The Winter of the Heart, and other Poems, By Zavarr Wilmshurst.

Hurd and Houghton, New York : Poems. By Celia Thaxter.

Roberts Brothers, Boston : In His Name. A Story of the Waldenses Seven Hundred Years Ago. By E. E. Hale. — Scrope ; or, The Lost Library. A Novel of New York and Hartford. By Frederic B. Perkins.

Lee and Shepard, Boston : The Columbian Speaker. Consisting of Choice and Animated Pieces for Declamation and Reading. Selected and Adapted by Loomis J. Campbell and Orin Root, Jr. — The Reading Club and Handy Speaker. Selections in Prose and Poetry, for Readings and Recitations. Edited by George M. Baker. No. I. — Atherstone Priory. A Novel. By L. N. Comyn.

Henry Holt & Co., New York : Alcestis. A Novel. — The Notary’s Nose. Translated from the French of Edmond About, by Henry Holt. — The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8. By Wm. J. Stillman, late U. S. Consul in Crete.

D. Appleton & Co., New York: Health and Education. By Rev. Charles Kingsley. — Brockley Moor. A Novel. By J. W. L. — Uncle John. A Novel. By G. J. WhiteMelville.

J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia: Hulda the Deliverer. A Romance. After the German of F. Lewald. By Mrs, A. L. Wistar. — Ancient Classies for English Readers. The Greek Anthology. By Lord Neaves.—History of the German Emperors and their Contemporaries. Translated from the German and compiled from Authentic Sources. By Elizabeth Peake.— History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain. By Wm. H. Prescott, New and Revised Edition. With the Author’s latest Corrections and Additions, By John Foster Kirk. — Charteris. A Romance. By Mary M. Meline.

Estes and Lauriat, Boston : Guizot’s Popular History of France. With 300 Illustrations, by A. De Neuville, and 40 fine Steel Engravings. Parts 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. — Life of Thomas, first Lord Denman, formerly Lord Chief Justice of England. By Sir Joseph Arnold. In two volumes. —Memories of Westminster Hall. A Collection of interesting Incidents, Anecdotes, and Historical Sketches. With an Historical Introduction. By Edward Foss, E. R. S. In two volumes. — The Rhine; A Tour from Paris to Mayence, by the Way of Aix-la-Chapelle. By Victor Hugo. Translated by D. M. Aird.

Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia : Thoughts on the Decalogue. By Rev. Howard Crosby.

Turnbull Brothers, Baltimore : The Chronicles of Baltimore ; being a Complete History of “ Baltimore Town ” and Baltimore City from the English Period to the Present Times. By Col. J. Thomas Scharf.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia : A History of New Sweden ; or, The Settlements on the Delaware River. By Israel Acrelius. Translated from the Swedish, by Wm. M. Reynolds, D. D.

T. B. Peterson and Bros., Philadelphia: The Autobiography of Edward Wortley Montagu. With a Preface by B. Shelton Mackenzie.

George Macdonald & Co., Chicago : The Great Presbyterian Conflict. Patton vs. Swing. With Portraits of Profs. Patton and Swing.

G. W. Carleton & Co., New York : Maurice. A Novel. Translated from the French of Frédéric Béchard, by Mrs. Josephine Douglas.

Woolworth and Graham, New York: The Brooklyn Council of 1874.

H. L. Hinton, New York: Scottish ChapBooks. By John Fraser. Part II. — My Comrades. Adventures in the Highlands and Legends of the Neutral Ground. By Hd. H.

Rev. Henry Morgan, Boston : Shadowy Hand; or, Life-Struggles. A Story of Real Life. By the Author of Ned Nevins; or, Street life in Boston.

The Trow City Directory Company: Trow’s New York City Directory. Vol. LXXXVIII. For the year ending May 1, 1875.

FRENCH AND GERMAN.²

Madame Carey has edited a new edition of an interesting book, Madame d’Aulnoy’s Relation du Voyage d'Espagne, which is full of very entertaining chat, such as goes through the mind of a historian to come out dry detail, or to be quietly referred to in a modest foot-note. Madame d’Aulnoy is remembered now as a writer of fairy tales, and in this volume there is a great deal of proof that she was not averse to practicing her gift of invention, even when she was chronicling the ordinary incidents of her journey. The editor, however, has taken the precaution to set in quotationmarks those episodes — which are always romantic stories — that are to be distinguished from unimpeachable truth. They could hardly deceive any one ; it is only fair to say their subject and the manner of treatment are sufficiently marked to show that they were intended for nothing but an agreeable diversion in the letters. The space they occupy is small; much more room is given to more important narration.

The Countess d’Aulnoy entered Spain nearly two hundred years ago — to be exact, in the year 1679 — and it is curious to observe how closely a great deal of her description applies to what may now he observed in that country. It is true that time has had considerable effect in softening the ways and manners of the Spanish people, but Spain still remains, as it then was, the least civilized of the old countries of Europe. She enters the country from France at Irun, where the railroad to Madrid now connects with that from Paris, and her misadventures begin at once. Her rascally banker admires her watch and asks to see it; she hands it to him and he slips it into his pocket, pretending to think it is a gift. She is naturally vexed, but she reflects that if she were to anger him he could revenge himself in a thousand ways that would be very annoying to her, and she decides to let him keep it. This is the beginning of her troubles, but she is of a very cheery disposition, and although she sees through very many gross attempts at imposition, she is able to resign herself without grumbling to what is unavoidable. At Burgos she was shown, with her child and maid-servant, into a chamber full of beds; she told them it was ridiculous to give her thirty when she only wanted three, but they said they could do nothing better, and left her. In a few minutes the landlady made her appearance again, followed by a large crowd of people, and Madame d’Aulnoy was obliged to pay for all the rest of the beds to keep the room to herself. The next day she was amused to find out that these pretended travelers were merely neighbors brought in for the purpose of extorting money from the countess. At the customhouse they told her a passport from the King of Spain was of no service, unless the king accompanied it to guarantee its genuineness, and that the Spaniard had to thrive on the ignorance of the foreigner. She describes very vividly the discomforts of the inns, with the bedclothes no larger than towels, and the towels no larger than small pocket-handkerchiefs; with almost nothing to eat, for the mutton was fried in oil, and the pigeons burned to a crisp, etc., etc. Those who have traveled in Spain outside of the beaten paths will think they are reading some modern book of travels. She bore up wonderfully well amid all these privations and inconveniences, always making the best of everything, and enjoying the scenery and the architecture very keenly. She has put down all the stories told her of the magical powers of the various shrines, but with very skeptical comments. Such are the anecdotes of the tomb of the Castilian knight, whence proceeded groans and lamentations before the death of one of his family, and of the bell at Villilla which, her informant assured her, rang of itself before the death of Charles V., Philip II., and many others.

There is an account of Charles II., whose portrait by Carreño is among the pictures in the Spanish collection in this city. That most melancholy man had most delicate health from his birth. At the age of ten he had hardly set foot to the ground, and he had been so often reproved for trifling faults by the women who brought him up, that when older he always kept out of their way. But he fell very romantically in love with the picture of Marie Louise of Orléans. All the peculiarities of the court are set before us by Madame d’Aulnoy. The women dressed abominably, in her opinion. They rouged themselves to excess ; their eyebrows, ears, cheeks, chin, lips, shoulders, arms, hands, and back were redder, according to our informant, than any boiled lobster. One can see in some of the Spanish pictures how this fashion affected the painters’ representation of angels. The women ate Moorish fashion, sitting on the ground, a method which the countess could not acquire, but from which she was rescued by some considerate friends who saw her uneasiness, which her hostess had failed to detect, for she imagined it was also the French fashion. The countess had her revenge, however, when that lady tried to sit in a chair, for she confessed she had never even thought of sitting in one before. The Spanish women lived in great seclusion, having with them as companions young girls of good family, who busied themselves with needle-work. “ But,” the countess says, “ if they are left to follow their own devices, they work very little and chatter a great deal.” She mentions their curious fancy for dwarfs, so many of which appear in Velasquez’ pictures. They were hideous creatures, extravagantly dressed, in the confidence of their mistresses and so all-powerful in the household. The women were intelligent, she says, in spite of the way they lived, reading so little, and with nothing to make them think. Much of their time they spent in eating sweetmeats and drinking chocolate. They had, too, a singular fashion of eating clay, which made their skin yellow, besides disfiguring them otherwise; they thought it a safeguard against poison. Their lovers they saw only by stealth. Both men and women wore spectacles, not for use, but to appear dignified ; and the Marquis of Astorga, when Viceroy of Naples, has his bust carved in marble, spectacles and all. The higher one’s birth, the larger the glasses. “ A man or woman of quality would rather die than bargain about the price of any goods, or than take their change; they give it to the shopkeeper to recompense him for his trouble in selling them for ten pistoles what is not worth five.” These men led idle, dissipated lives; when young they were not compelled to study anything except a certain quantity of mathematics, riding, and fencing. The young men spent their whole time in idly walking up and down, and in making love. They were brave soldiers, as is well known, but in time of peace their only thought was about their numerous mistresses. One singular example of affectation becoming etiquette is the case of the embevicedos, the name given to the men so distraught with love that they willfully kept on their hats in the presence of the king and queen, as if in ignorance of the impoliteness they were committing. It was pardoned in them, as it would have been in an irresponsible man.

The description is given of the preparations to receive Mademoiselle d’Orléans, the wife of Charles II. She says they generally had an auto-da-fé at a coronation, and now they were preparing one against the marriage of the king. A complicated theatre was arranged, with seats for the council of the Inquisition and for the royal party, and with an appropriate place for the criminals. Balconies and scaffoldings were put up for the court and the populace. The ceremony was to begin with a procession to start from one of the churches. This was to consist of an armed guard carrying the wood for the stakes at which the criminals were to be burned. Then were to come the Dominican monks. Then followed the Duke of Medinaceli, carrying by hereditary privilege the banner of the Inquisition. This was of red damask, on one side a drawn sword with a laurel wreath, on the other the arms of Spain. Then was to come a green cross folded in black crape, and inquisitors and guards. This procession was to go to the place of execution, where the banner and the cross were to be set up ; the Dominican monks were to pass the night in religious exercises. The next day the sentences were to be read and the criminals executed. Whether this took place or not is not stated ; the implication is, however, that it did.

There is a good deal of amusing gossip about the rigid etiquette of the Spanish court. This had arranged, for instance, that the Queen of Spain was to go to bed at ten in summer and at nine in winter. When the queen arrived she had a notion that this was a matter she would arrange herself, according to her drowsiness, but very often, oven while she was at her supper, her maids of honor would begin to take down her hair, and to prepare her for her night’s rest. The exact date was also fixed at which the king was to go to his different palaces; every preparation was made, the carriage brought to the door, and he had to go, without any regard to his wishes; when the day came for him to go back, go he must. Indeed, it is curious to trace the influence in Spanish manners of the Moorish dominion, as well as to observe how little some of the Spanish peculiarities have altered in the last two centuries. The history of the country is a painful one, but from such aids as this book and others of the sort, one may get a very good idea of it at certain periods. At this time Spain was in an era of decline; it had not sunk so low as it has since; there was a brighter gilding about the glories of the country, but in fact there was but little to rejoice the heart. We have only pointed out the merit of this volume, without by any means exhausting its richness as a store-house of gossipy anecdotes; it deserves to be read. The countess has a Very easy pen, and when she becomes statistical she has the art to put the facts and figures in the mouths of Spaniards whom she meets. The gossiping she does herself.