Books of the Month

Fiction. Found, yet Lost, by E. P. Roe. (Dodd, Mead & Co.)—The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte. (Houghton.) North Liberty is a Connecticut village, and the Argonauts are certain of its inhabitants who flee to California to complete the drama begun in the eastern village. Mr. Harte has seldom made such ducks and drakes of his coin as in this story, where the use of character and incident is willful and in violent opposition to naturalness and truth. — Olivia Delaplaine, by Edgar Fawcett. (Tioknor.) This novel is more in Mr. Fawcett’s vein than the temperance story which we have mentioned. The shadings of character in New York society offer a truer field for his intellectual industry.— Perrault’s Popular Tales, edited from the original editions, with Introduction, etc., by Andrew Lang. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) Mr. Lang has done us a service in giving us these famous little stories in the text of 1697. They have a new charm with their old-fashion punctuation, orthography, and capitalization. The editor’s painstaking notes and, above all, his delightful essay on Perrault, place us very deeply in his debt. — A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (Harpers) is an anonymous story of romantic adventure somewhat in the Haggard mood. The plot is not without ingenuity. — The latest addition to Miss Wormeley’s admirable series of translations from Balzac is the Magic Skin — La Peau de Chagrin in the original. Mr. George Frederic Parsons enriches the volume by contributing a strikingly acute and interesting study of this story, which is one of Balzac’s briefer masterpieces. (Roberts Bros.) —The lovers of stories that have beginning, middle, and end, will heartily welcome The Black Arrow, a Tale of the Two Roses, by Robert Louis Stevenson. (Scribners.)

Poetry and the Drama. Metrical Translations and Poems, by Frederic H. Hedge and Annis Lee Wister. (Houghton.) Dr. Hedge’s contribution of translations is mainly from the great Germans, Goethe, Schiller, Uhland, Rückert, and shows his nervous, forcible diction ; he contributes also the original poems of the volume, which are mainly occasional verses and hymns. Mrs. Winter’s choice lies among less-known writers and poems, but in both eases there is a scholarly mark and a resolution of literary power. — Poems of the Plains and Songs of the Solitudes, together with the Rhyme of the Border War is the full title of Mr. Thomas Brower Peacock’s volume of poems, which is introduced with a biographical sketch and critical study by Professor Thomas Danleigh Suplée. A. M., Ph. D., F. R. S. (Putnams.) Seldom does a volume of poetry come under such a military escort as this, for besides the procession in front, headed by Mr. Peacock’s portrait and autograph, there is a brass band of comments, criticism, etc., to bring up the rear. Footnotes freely scattered through the book represent the mob of boys, and curiosity is heightened to get a look at the Escorted. We open at random and come upon this stanza: —

One of the small hoys at the foot of the page sings out that this is Jesse James. We turn the leaf : —

No footnote here, and we are left to conjecture whether Corolinda is an historic or imagined creature. Mr. Peacock takes himself much too seriously, and we may add in passing that he takes the Saturday Review in its comments on his poem too seriously, though we admit that the jocularity of our English brother is very successfully smothered. — Cloudrifts at Twilight, by William Batebelder Greene. (Putnams.) It is true there is some doubt whether the next day is to he fair or not, but on the whole we should say that the chances are it will be rather dull and cheerless. — Iona: a lay of Ancient Greece, by Payne Erskine. (Cupples & Hurd.) The work of a writer who has a thought which she chooses to express in terms of verse : the writing is free and unconstrained, and there is a certain simplicity and purity of diction winch wins respect, but though the poem is Greek so far as this goes, there is no such decision of form and directness of tale as the subject demands. The writer has command of language, but in handling words as in handling troops power is shown in making a small number do effective work, not in marching long lines up a hill and then down again. — Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death, by the late George Frederick Cameron, edited by his brother, Charles J. Cameron. (Alexander Moore, Boston.) Mr. Cameron was a Canadian writer and journalist of earnestness and feeling. He was young and ardent, and had not learned to separate his function as a journalist from his gifts as a poet. Thus some of his fervid poems are editorials in verse, but this cannot be said of all. It may be said, however, that the journalistic facility seems to have got into his poetry, and his lyrics impress one rather as poured freely and without stint from a nervous nature than subjected to the discipline of obedience to art. — Poems, by Rose Terry Cooke. (Gottsberger, New York.) Wo are a little surprised at the bulk of Mrs. Cooke’s poetical work, but we have no right to be when we consider how much of a range her prose takes. This volume shows her also as a nice observer, a generous lover, and a woman of spiritual insight, and force. — Andiatorocté; or the Eve of Lady Day on Lake George, and other Poems, hymns, and meditations in verse, by the Rev. Clarence A. Walworth. (Putnams.) An interesting book, if for no other reason than that it represents both the devotional and the literary side of a Roman Catholic writer who writes, not as a foreigner, but as an American. It is noticeable that the religious element has less hagiography about it than is common with the work of Roman Catholic writers in Roman Catholic countries.— Legends and Records of the Church and the Empire, by Aubrey De Vere. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London.) Mr. De Vere, in his interesting preface, points out the characteristics of that period which preceded the Middle Ages, and his poems are reflections of that time and spirit. His poetry has thus an intellectual origin, and will be read, we think, rather as a poetical comment on early Christians than for its own charm; but it is always a man of fine taste and pure mysticism who writes. — Mary Tudor, an historical drama, by the late Sir Aubrey De Vere. (George Bell & Sons, London.) There was a poetic power in the earlier De Vere which seems more native and genuine. This drama contains little of the lyric element, but is a forcible presentation in dramatic form of the view taken of Mary by a patriotic Englishman who also was a Romanist. — The Triumph of Music and other Lyrics, by Madison J. Cawein. (John P. Morton & Co., Louisville, Ky.) Mr. Cawein has drunk deep of the overflow of the Pierian spring which runs through Swinburne’s fields, and after reading a number of these lyrics and hearing their sound we find ourselves driven to wonder somewhat where the sense is. — Plays by Charles Gildehaus. (John L. Boland Book and Stationery Co., St, Louis.) Two of these dramas, Æneas and Telemachus, are drawn from antiquity ; one, Sibyl, is drawn from contemporary life, and all are curiously taken from the leftoff language of Shakespeare. We advise readers who want fresh literature to buy this book. — Rebecca the Witch, and other tales in metre, by David Skaats Foster. (Putnams.) The poetry of a writer who relies for his effects upon simple, natural sentiment, or very palpable humor. — Along the Shore, by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. (Ticknor.) Mrs. Lathrop has a delicate perception of subtleties of color, form, and movement; she perceives nuances where others would find blank intermissions, and thus her poetry abounds in felicitous phrases and single bits of effect, though it would be hard to find the full, rounded, poetic form which takes no account of the reader’s mood. — Smith, Elder & Co. are issuing a uniform edition of Browning’s poems in sixteen volumes, the first three of which are now ready. The books are very neat in typography and binding, but the proof sheets seem to have been carelessly read. On the opening page of Strafford, for example, the omission of a period at the end of a line and the dropping of the second letter in the line immediately following make sad work for the general reader. Mr. Browning’s text is none too lucid even when it is correctly printed. In this respect the London edition falls short of the American, which, by the way, is the first complete collection ever made of Browning’s poetical works.

Theology, Ethics, and Religion. The Heart of the Creeds, historical religion in the light of modern thought, by Arthur Wentworth Eaton. (Putnams.) An attempt at popularizing what may be termed, for want of a more exact epithet, Broad Church theology in the Episcopal Church. The book is not especially forcible, but it has good temper. — Manual of Christian Evidences, by George Park Fisher. (Scribners.) A compact volume, in which Professor Fisher, with his sound judgment and lucid method, seeks to furnish students with a convenient means of considering the evidences of Christianity as now ordinarily presented. — The Faith that Makes Faithful, by William C. Gannett and Jenkin Lloyd Jones. (C. H. Kerr & Co., Chicago.) A little volume of eight homely talks on religion and character, with many energetic words. — Show us the Father. (C. H. Kerr & Co., Chicago.) A half dozen addresses or sermons by Unitarian clergymen who represent the aggressive Western radical section. The writers tackle large subjects in a half hour, with results necessarily general, vague, and somewhat unprofitable. A little humility, by the way, would do these iconoclasts no harm. One may be provincial in thought even in Chicago. — The Anointed Seraph, by G. H. Pollock. (John F. Sheiry, Washington.) This is a thin volume one, of which a nebulous volume two is to contain, as it were, the answers to the conundrums now propounded. “ Two men were walking around Boston Common, and had already made the circuit, when the clock in Park Street steeple reminded them that there was but an hour yet to midnight, and it was time for them to turn homeward.” So the book begins. Nothing could be more encouraging, more genuinely realistic. Now here is the last sentence in the book : “ Ishmael and Israel may stand as another expression for, or illustration of, the two principles in the natural world. They may also represent the two parts of the broken Tetragrammaton. But more than all, they may stand for the two keys embodied in the Anointed Cherub and the Anointed Son: the key of nature, and the key by means of which the mystery of God shall be solved.” When two men walk round Boston Common discussing anointed cherubs, tetragrammata, keys embodied, Ishmael and Israel, we wonder that they should go to bed so early as eleven o’clock.

— Palestine in the time of Christ, by Edmond Stapfer, translated by Annie Harwood Holmden. (Armstrong.) A series of studies on the social and religious life of the Jews in the first century, based upon an examination, mainly, of the New Testament, Josephus, and the Talmuds. The author is a French Protestant, and while the book has nothing, probably, which is not accessible to the English student, the subject is presented in an orderly, clear manner; nor does one feel that the author has in mind an audience already affected by Renan. — The Realities of Heaven, eight lectures, by the Rev. T. F. Wright. (W. H. Alden, Philadelphia.) From the standpoint of Swedenborgianism, with more criticism of other doctrines than is usually indulged in by writers of this society.

— The Field-Ingersoll Discussion. (North American Review, New York.) A reprint of a series of articles, by R. G. Ingersoll and H. M. Field, upon faith or agnosticism. There is a great hurtling of missiles in this book, but when the field is cleared, there appear to be no dead or wounded.

Text-Books and Education. Principle and Practice of Morality, or Ethical Principles Discussed and Applied, by E. G. Robinson. (Silver, Rogers & Co., Boston.) President Robinson, of Brown University, follows his great predecessor, Dr. Wayland, in producing a text-book on moral science, but whereas Wayland confined himself mainly to practical morality, Dr. Robinson gives his strength to the prevenient principles. By so doing he more nearly meets the demand of colleges. There is an interesting chapter on the origin of the conscience, in which the theory of evolution is considered in its bearing on the subject. — Composition and Rhetoric, by practice, with exercises adapted for use in high schools and colleges, by William Williams. (Heath.) A convenient book for teachers in search of examples, but we should hesitate about giving so many more examples to correct than models of excellence. — The Sanitary Conditions and Necessities of Schoolhouses and School Life is a prize essay, by D. F. Lincoln, issued by the American Public Health Association. (Concord, N. H.) It deals with site, plan and arrangement, ventilation and heating, hygiene of the eye, schooldesks and gymnastics, affections of the nervous system and supervision. — Nature Readers is the general title of two little books, written by Julia McNair Wright. (Heath.) The plan of the books is to give beginners in reading an acquaintance with simple facts in nature. We have no criticism upon the facts in the book, but object to giving children reading-matter instead of literature for reading. These books have no style whatever, and surely style in literature is of the first importance. — Education in Bavaria, by Sir Philip Magnus. (Industrial Education Association, New York.) A pamphlet devoted especially to stating the opportunities for manual training under the system prevailing in Bavaria, which is compared chiefly with the English methods. — Atalanta’s Race and other tales, from The Earthly Paradise, by William Morris; edited by O. F. Adams, with the cooperation of W. J. Rolfe. (Ticknor.) It was a capital idea to take these stories for use in reading, and the notes are interesting and helpful. — Variant edition of Shakespeare’s A Midsommer Night’s Dreame, with introduction and notes, by Henry Johnson. (Houghton.) This is a valuable contribution to the academic study of Shakespeare, since it offers a fac-simile reprint of the text of the first folio, 1623, with foot-notes giving every variant in spelling and punctuation occurring in the two quartos of 1600. It is valuable, we say, because it will enable teachers and students to take up the text of Shakespeare as one might take up the text of a Greek classic. — Plea for an American Language, or Germanic-English, showing the necessity of systematic spelling and of making our words pure, self-developed, and self-explaining according to Greek, German, and Irish models, with a grammar, reader, and vocabulary of the proposed American language ; appeal to Germans, Irishmen and Skandinavians as well as the Americans in behalf of an expressive tongue ; the present English proven to be a national misfortune. By Elias Molee. (John Anderson & Co., Chicago.) We print the entire title-page, that any one who wishes a language ragoût may know where to find it. —Warman’s Practical Orthoepy and Critique, by E. B. Warman. (W. H. Harrison, Jr., Chicago.) The main portion of the book is taken up with a list of words often mispronounced. The author seems to show good judgment in his decisions. — The Child and Nature, or Geography Teaching with sand modeling, by Alexander E. Frye. (Bay State Publishing Co., Boston.) A book of suggestions to a teacher, but it is unfortunately too ambitious for use by any but a trained teacher. Its author shows himself to be a vigorous student in the field. — Chemical Problems, by J. P. Grabfield and P. S. Burns (Heath), has also a number of examination papers, apparently from those used at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. — Exercises in English ; accidence, syntax, and style, carefully selected and classified for criticism or correction. By H. I. Shaug. (Heath.) An English practice-book for teachers’ use.