Books of the Month

Biography. General Gordon : the Christian Hero. (Crowell.) This is a sketch of Gordon’s life, intended apparently for young people, though it is rarely condescending. The title, we suspect, is to catch readers. It will naturally repel some who dislike to see Christianity made a catchpenny. Curiously, the writer has omitted almost entirely those vagaries, as some would call them, those deep religious exercises, according to others, which are identified with Gordon’s name. — Lives of Greek Statesmen, Solon — Themistokles, by the Rev. Sir George W. Cox. (Harpers.) The author, noting the strong mark of individuality in Greek history, has undertaken to give the main lines of that history in a series of biographic sketches. This volume carries the history down to the close of the war with Persia. The fullness of the author’s knowledge and his insight render the book one of value and suggestiveness— Victor Hugo and his Time, by Alfred Barbou, illustrated with 120 drawings by various artists, and many by Hugo himself. Translated by Ellen E. Frewer. (Harpers.) One of the Franklin Square Library numbers, full of entertaining bricabrac about Hugo, and with abominably printed pictures. — The third volume of Leslie Stephen’s Dictionary of National Biography (Macmillan) has fewer noticeable articles than the previous volumes. It has, however, among others, a striking and somewhat eulogistic sketch of Richard Baxter, by A. B. Grosart, an interesting account of Baskerville, and one on Isaac Barrow. In general, we find the treatment fresh and unhackneyed. There is a disposition to go beyond the strictly biographic facts, and to make estimates more or less full. We do not quarrel with this when a fair-minded editor is at the helm. The value of biographic sketches is largely in the suggestion which they give of the impression made by the character on the time in which the biographer writes. — The Life and Letters of Emery Upton has been prepared by Peter S. Michie, of West Point (Appletons), and gives a good view of a man whose name is known chiefly by his Tactics, by his command at West Point, and by his military observations in Europe. The circumstances of his death made a painful impression upon people at the time, but the explanation given in this volume only heightens the respect and admiration which one has of a noble soldier. The book is written in full sympathy with General Upton’s religious nature, and the character of the man as brought out in the work is one which the nation may well be glad to have on record. — The volume of Charles T. Brooks’s remains (Roberts) has its chief value in the long and very readable biographic sketch by Charles W. Wendte. Mr. Brooks was so shy and secluded a man that the biographer has done well in making his sketch largely illustrative of his delightful manners and of the society which he chose for himself. Indeed, we suspect that the volume will be valued in after years for its very agreeable glimpses of refined life in New England. The selection of poems, made by W. P. Andrews, gives a cross-section of Mr. Brooks’s intellect. — The Life and Times of John Kelly, Tribune of the People, by J. Fairfax McLaughlin, A. M. With portraits in artotype, taken at thirty-five, fifty,and fifty-eight years of age. (American News Co.) This delicious title-page has also a noble quotation from the lips of the late Alexander H. Stephens: “ I regard John Kelly as the ablest, purest, and truest statesman that I have ever met with from New York.” We have been so fascinated by this title-page and the portrait facing it, with its motto, " Accept for yourself my esteem and affection, Yours truly, John Kelly,” that we have found it difficult to get farther with the book. The “Times” of John Kelly! What high old times they were! “ Tribune of the People!” Wouldn’t Lictor have been just as Roman and more lifelike ? Then what a fine lot of New York acquaintances Mr. Stephens must have enjoyed! The book is almost as interesting as the title-page. There is a splendid Tammany rage in its rhetoric. “ Then Kelly rose with fire in his eye, and hurled back the charge in such manner as to satisfy the whole House, and Marshall in particular, that the barbaric passion for war, however held in subjection at other times, now glowed in the bosom of the New York member with irresistible fierceness.” There is ever so much more just as good.

History. The History of the Christian Church during the Middle Ages, with a summary of the Reformation, by Philip Smith (Harpers), is one of the well-known Student’s Series; and while it is a judicial and intentionally unbiased history, intended not for theological students, but for all who wish to follow its important lines, it will serve the best purpose as a convenient book of reference. — An Inglorious Columbus, or Evidence that Hui Shan and a party of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the Fifth Century, A. D., by Edward P. Vining. (Appleton.) Mr. Vining has made a big book out of material which hitherto has been used either for little books or for chapters. He has thus made his argument more weighty. The conclusion he reaches is not impossible, but the Chinese language always seems of the most elastic character, capable of meaning anything or nothing. It reminds one of the oldfashioned language of flowers, which was exceedingly expressive—to those who used it.—The Creoles of History and the Creoles of Romance is a lecture delivered by Hon. Charles Gayarré (Armand & Hawkins, New Orleans), and devoted mainly to an angry attack on Mr. Cable’s Grandissimes.—Francis Bacon, An Account of his Life and Works, by Edwin A. Abbott (Macmillan & Co.), is an admirable summing up of the public and private career of the author of the Novum Organum. — Estes & Lauriat have brought out a neat popular edition of Rambaud’s History of Russia, translated by L. B. Lang and edited and enlarged by N. H. Dole, who contributes an enteresting chapter on the Turko-Russian War of 187778. Until now this work in English has been unattainable, except in a very expensive form. — Porter & Coates, of Philadelphia, have issued a new edition of Col. George Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking. As the time for the facts has not yet come off, there is no later intelligence in this edition.

Fiction. The Bar-Sinister, a social study (Cassell): a novel, the scenes of which are laid chiefly in Salt Lake City. The author has a superficial cleverness, but he has turned a perplexing and revolting problem into a mere occasion for telling a storv. The story itself is in its essence no more instructive than any other story of marital infidelity ; the Mormon ism merely changes the form of the evil. The book is not even a tract against Monnonism, as the author appears to think. — The Maurice Mystery, by John Eaten Cooke. (Appleton.) Pistols in the first chapter. Mr. Cooke evidently does not mean that his readers shall go to sleep when they begin his book, and he winds in and out of his mystery with a dexterity which reminds one that the novelist is an old hand at this business of keeping the denouement till he is ready for it. — Struck Down, by Hawley Smart(Appleton.) Pistols in the second chapter, and the conclusion of the trial as usual in the last. Captain Smart is a somewhat more modern novelist than Mr. Cooke, and he has an English swagger in his style which our American with his courtesy lacks. — A Nemesis, or Tinted Vapors, by J. Maclaren Cobban (Appleton), is a tale of an unconscious countess, a curate in Lancashire, mystery, and love. — An Old Maid’s Paradise, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Houghton), is a piece of sprightliness, with an occasional lapse into serious impressions of a summer in a half-solitary seashore house. The old maid, who makes an improvised home on the sands, is not too old for so much folly as goes toward a prankish assertion of her independence.—Recent numbers of Harper’s Handy Series are Uncle Jack and other stories, by Walter Besant; John Needham’s Double, by Joseph Hatton ; The Waters of Hercules; and She’s All the World to Me, by Hall Caine, who is making a reputation for himself, though it is founded somewhat upon a quicksand. — A Millionaire’s Cousin, by Emily Lawless (Holt), is a lively story, most of the scenes of which are laid in Algiers. There is a briskness about the telling which takes the place of the otherwise necessary humor. — The Story of a Short Life will be read with special interest as the latest published work of a writer, Mrs. Juliana H. Ewing, who was beginning to reap a harvest of praise. Like Jackanapes, and other of her little books, this is a condensed novel, having for its special hero a boy, and carrying a substantial moral. It has the animation, the fine feeling, the occasionally dangerous excess of sentiment, and the earnestness under a cloak of fun of this clever writer. The illustrations are not so good as those in her other books. (S. P. C. K., E. & J. B. Young A Co., New York.) — Kaméhaméha, the Conquering King : the mystery of his birth, loves, and conquests : a romance of Hawáii, by C. M. Newell. (Putnams.) Mr. Newell, in making a high cockolormn romance of the King of the Sandwich Islands, repeats in literature the feat of the English commissioners, when they sent out a crown with which to give dignity to the head of the “ Emperor ” Powhatan.

Science and Semi-Science. In The Handbook of Physiognomy, by Rosa Baughan (Redway, London), one may read in brief and calm sentences the prescriptions by which the attentive man may turn all the people whom he meets inside out. The work would not be a bad one to use as a primer in the future school for the education of novelists. — Cholera, its nature, symptoms, history, cause, and prevention, with an outline review of the germ theory of disease, by J. B. McConnell, M. D. (Robert Miller, Son & Co., Montreal), is a lecture of forty pages, which does not profess to do more than sum up the generally accepted views on the subject discussed. — Ocean and Air Currents, by Thomas D. Smellie (John Smith & Son, Glasgow), is a pamphlet which undertakes to set forth the correspondence of these two currents. — The fiftieth volume of the International Scientific Series is The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences, by the late William Kingdom Clifford. So the title-page states, but the preface explains more at length the state in which Clifford left the book, and ia what the editing consisted. The editor, K. P., gives sufficient clue to the initiated to identify him, but we think he would have acted more in accordance with Clifford’s nature if he had printed his name in full.

Travel and Nature. The Angler’s Guide-Book and Tourist’s Gazetteer of the Fishing Waters of the United States and Canada, 1885. Compiled and edited by William C. Harris. (The American Angler, New York.) There is no rest for the fishes now. Here is a directory to some 7000 angling waters, with particulars as to the kind of game to be found in each. It tells how to reach the point, the best months for fishing, the bait to be used, and sundry other particulars, all methodically set down. — The Land of Rip Van Winkle, by A. P. Searing (Putnams), is a cheaper edition of the handsome holiday book published last year. It is a pleasant, familiar description of a tour through the romantic parts of the Catskills, with its legends and traditions. The panorama and other illustrations are interesting and often helpful.—A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, a narrative of travel and exploration, from 1878 to 1883, by Henry O. Forbes. (Harpers.) Mr. Forbes had a comparatively fresh field to occupy in some of the islands which he visited, especially the Timor-laut Islands and Timor, and since he traveled as a naturalist his book is more than a mere record of adventures. It is well printed, with maps and illustrations, and if lacking in literary merit has the more important qualities, in appearance, of truthfulness and simplicity.

Literature. The second author in Mr. Bullen’s superb series of The English Dramatists (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is Thomas Middleton, whose complete works will be comprised in eight volumes, the first four of which are now published. This edition embraces several interesting pieces not to be found in Dyce’s collection of Middleton’s writings. Mr, Bullen, whose careful editing is obvious on every page of the present work, contributes a very valuable introduction.— Discourses in America by Matthew Arnold (Macmillan & Co.) embraces the three memorable lectures recently delivered by the author in this country — Numbers, or the Majority and the Remnant; Literature and Science, and Emerson. The volume, which is uniform with Macmillan’s very neat edition of Arnold’s Works, contains a preface written in a vein that makes its brevity tantalizing.

Domestic Economy. Virginia Cookery-Book, compiled by Mary Stuart Smith. (Harpers.) This volume, which is modestly heralded by the compiler, is intended to preserve the traditions of good cooking as held in a comfortable Virginia family. It has the appearance of being reasonable, and is, we are glad to see, free from any remarks on etiquette. It does not even provide the ambitious hostess with a menu for a dinnerparty. It is a plain, honest cookery-book. — The Chemistry of Cookery, by Mattieu Williams. (Appleton.) Herein the diligent housewife will understand the reason why of much of her work, and add to her knowledge patience, and to patience a satisfaction in making her work not only one of the fine arts, but a scientific process. The book really is readable and free from pedantry.

Bibliography. Stevens’s Historical Nuggets (Henry Stevens & Son, London) begins its third volume with a descriptive account of the collection of books relating to America which belong to the firm. The first number, consisting of eighty pages, carries the list to “American Continental Congress.” The prices are marked, but the list is much more than a mere bookseller’s catalogue.

Poetry. The Earl of Lytton’s Glenaveril, or the Metamorphoses, is now complete in its six books. (Appleton.) — Mr Edwin Arnold has done a real favor to English-speaking people by giving a metrical translation of the Bhagavad-gîtâ. The Song Celestial is the title of the volume (Roberts), and it will help to popularize what already was accessible in a prose form. A literature, like a nation, gains by the naturalization of foreigners.