Comment on New Books

Literature and Criticism. Walter Savage Landor, a Critical Study, by E. W. Evans, Jr. (Putnams.) An unusual piece of work when regarded as the product of an undergraduate ; for while it has the solemnity of serious undergraduate work, it has also the marks of a discriminating and mature judgment. What Mr. Evans has to say of Landor’s personality in connection with his work is excellent ; and though he does not quite solve the problem of Landor’s failure to make himself a force in literature, it may well be that critics have gone too far about for their solution. The book deserves a complete reading by all who care for Landor, and it will probably receive it from such as are not deterred by a certain magniloquence in the opening pages, — a manner, we can assure them, which is left behind by the writer shortly. — Novalis, his Life, Thoughts, and Works, edited and translated by M. J. Hope. (McClurg.) A neat little volume, containing a biographical sketch, the tale of Heinrich von Osterdingen, and a collection of thoughts, among which is his famous ‘‘ Philosophy cannot bake bread, but it can reveal God, freedom, and eternity.”—From the Books of Laurence Hutton. (Harpers.) A revised collection of half a dozen rambling essays upon topics of interest to one who loves books for themselves as well as for what they contain. Thus, Mr. Hutton discourses of book-plates, Grangerism, poetical dedications, poetical inscriptions, portrait inscriptions, and of the Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots. He draws not only from sources accessible to all book-lovers, hut from many private domains not open to the public even on half-holidays. — The Hell of Dante, edited, with Translation and Notes, by Arthur John Butler. (Macmillan.) This volume completes Mr. Butler’s version, in English prose, of the Divina Commedia, of which he published the other parts about a decade ago. His work is distinguished by vivid comprehension and energetic scholarship. In availing himself of the recent additions to Dante literature, Mr. Butler discriminates excellently between the earlier methods of criticism admitting “amiable conjecture ” and the modern opposite tendency to “ negative dogmatism.” His translation is highly conscientious, with a flavor of originality, while it does not equal the elect charm of the idiom of Professor Norton’s work. The text is fully annotated, with possibly a little too much of grammatical minuteness. Mr. Butler makes the admirable suggestion that a number of students should combine to read (among them) all that Dante can have read, and make themselves as familiar as he was with the events, great and small, of his age. From this coöperation might be expected an adequate edition of Dante’s works. — The Odes and Epodes of Horace, translated into English Verse, with an Introduction and Notes and Latin Text, by John B. Hague. (Putnams.) Horace is the hope and despair of scholars. His lyrics fascinate by their beauty and by the difficulty of rendering them. Dr. Hague has chosen simple forms in which to render complex measures ; and though his work is smooth and sometimes elegant, he misses that linking of phrase which makes one of Horace’s lyrics a whole oblivious of the stanza divisions in which it is printed. The notes are to the point, though we think Dr. Hague takes too much pains to establish Horace’s good character, and assumes too readily that the persons to whom the lyrics are addressed sail under the colors named in the headings. It is a great convenience to the reader to have the Latin text given. — A Companion to the Iliad for English Readers, by Walter Leaf. (Macmillan.) Mr. Leaf, in connection with Mr. Lang and Mr. Myers, published, several years ago, a prose version of the Iliad. This book is in effect a full body of notes to that work ; and inasmuch as his version supposed little or no knowledge of the Greek language on the part of the reader, so this is concerned with the Iliad as a work of art and an exponent of Greek life. It is most admirably conceived and executed. — Messrs. Roberts Brothers have completed their attractive edition of Jane Austen’s works by the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, and of two supplementary volumes: one containing Mr. Austen - Leigh’s admirable memoir, upon which all later works of the kind have been based, Lady Susan and The Watsons; the other, edited by Miss Woolsey, giving a selection from the letters contained in Lord Brabourne’s compilation. The selection has been judiciously made, but the reader misses the original editor’s introduction and running comments. As a memorandum for Errata in this volume, we would call attention to the fact that Miss Austen’s favorite niece was not Lady Edward Knatchbull, — an impossible title, since no Lord Edward Knatchbull ever existed,— and also that leg-of-mutton sleeves were never worn by our novelist’s heroines till they had reached middle age. The latter blunder is the more apparent in view of the accuracy with which the costume of their youth is reproduced in the illustrations. This edition is so satisfactory in nearly every respect that one is disturbed by even the most trivial blemishes.—Tributes to Shakespeare, collected and arranged by Mary R. Silsby. (Harpers.) It was a happy thought to bring together the most worthy poetical tributes to the greatest of poets, and this volume is welcome if only for the reason that it gives the general reader, in an easily accessible form, the principal seventeenth-century tributes, and may thus assist in weakening the robust popular fallacy that Shakespeare was but poorly, if at all, appreciated by his contemporaries and their children. It would hardly do to inquire too curiously as to the wide knowledge of even Ben Jonson’s noble eulogy, save of the lines that have become familiar quotations. We wish the editor, in dealing with recent verse, had been more rigidly exclusive. The omission of a few of the later poems would have added greatly to the permanent value of the book. The Brief Tributes, too, might well be spared, at least those in prose, as the collection must necessarily be so incomplete. — Browning’s Criticism of Life, by William F. Revell. (Macmillan.) Mr. Revell believes that Browning reached substantially his main beliefs at an early age, and that his poetry repeated these beliefs from first to last. Hence he sets about a discovery of what the great lines of his doctrine of life were by an examination of his verse. This method enables him to dismiss any notion of development of belief ; and when one considers the eagerness of Browning’s search into the heart of man all through his life, one is constrained to think this a perilous method. However, Mr. Revell goes to work industriously, and essays to try out the religious thought, the ethical and the scientific conception, in Browning’s poetry. He says some commonplace things, but the reader learns to respect his sincerity and his painstaking desire to restate the whole matter clearly and with discrimination. The book will furnish a clue to some puzzled readers of Browning. — Poet-Lore, a Monthly Magazine, devoted to Shakespeare, Browning, and the Comparative Study of Literature. (Poet-Lore Co., Boston.) The third volume of this work was issued just before the removal of the magazine from Philadelphia to Boston, and a survey of it gives a better idea than single numbers can of the scope intended by the editors. It is a most excellent indication of the genuine love of high literature that the editors have been able to bring together so many distinct contributions of a suggestive and critical character. There is a freshness about the work which is inspiriting, and the study is of that which is worth while, not the tiresome praise of the second-rate. — The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors, 1741-1850, by Albert H. Smyth. (Robert M. Lindsay, Philadelphia.) The primary place which Philadelphia occupied in our literary history is justification for this little volume, which collects a great deal of curious bibliographical information, and sets forth well the poverty and fecundity of our early magazine literature. — The Idealist, by Henry T. King. (Lippincott.) A collection of more than a hundred essays, some less than a page in length, which contain the writer’s reflections on a variety of topics, expressed in more or less epigrammatic terms. The golden milestone of his journeyings appears to be himself. — Essays on German Literature, by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen. (Scribners.) Mr. Boyesen takes for his themes the great constructive names and periods. To Goethe he gives six chapters, to Schiller one, to the German novel three, and to the Romantic School in Germany three. The equipment which he brings to his task is important, for he writes, not as an exclusive student of German literature, but as a comprehensive student of current tendencies in literature ; so that his work is throughout illustrated by a wide range of examples, and his criticism becomes a study in comparative literature.

Fiction. It Came to Pass, by Mary Farley Sanborn. No. 19 of Good Company series. (Lee & Shepard.) She thought she did not love the young man number one, though she was engaged to him, for she had seen number two. So number one went away, and came back, thirty-nine pages before the end of the book, and married her. She never really loved number two, who was a villain. We seem to have heard this story before, but this particular variation is cleverly told, and some of the minor incidents and characters are capital. The book is an odd mixture of the domestic and sensational. — Confessions of a Publisher, by John Strange Winter. (The Waverly Co., New York.) A careless, idle story, in which the assumption of character by the story-teller intended for irony is all that lifts the tale above cheap commonplace. — Columbus and Beatrix, by Constance Goddard Du Bois. (McClurg.) With the “Columbian year” we have much Columbian fiction. The author tells us that this book has for its object the reparation of an injustice which history has done to Beatrix Enriquez, popularly supposed to be the mistress of Columbus. The defense of the close relations of this pair at first, and the breaking of these ties later, is based on the idea that Columbus, always drawn to the religious life, married Beatriz ; but later, on his great voyage, being in danger of shipwreck, he vowed, if preserved, to forsake his wife and his all that he might more truly dedicate himself to the service of God. This theory is ingeniously worked out. The book is old-fashioned in form, and not very vividly interesting, although a picturesque account of the times of Columbus. — Out of the Fashion, by L. T. Meade. (Cassell.) A story of four sisters who, losing their fortune through their father’s defalcation, are enabled, through the aid of a benevolent and practical maiden lady, to turn their London mansion into a boarding-house. This ideal abode is, of course, a marvelous success, persons of distinction being only too glad to lodge in the back attic of a house where everybody dresses for dinner, and “ all the comforts of a refined home are to be had at a nominal price.” Although the characters are supposed to be English, their habits of life and speech are very American. The story is commonplace and ill written, but perfectly harmless. — Colonel Starbottle’s Client and Some Other People, by Bret Harte. (Houghton.) Nine stories, short, one might almost think, to show the skill with which this writer can turn his carriage round on a ten-cent piece. — Ground Arms! the Story of a Life, by Bertha von Suttner ; translated from the German by Alice Asbury Abbott. (McClurg.) A novel in autobiographic form, recounting the change of attitude toward militarism by an Austrian lady of rank. Her experience begins with Solferino, and ends with the defeat of the French by the Prussians, so that something of modern military history is reviewed. In addition there is a good deal of discussion over Darwin and modern philosophy, and an earnest plea for the abandonment of the military system. The book has made a strong impression among the author’s countrvnien, where the tension produced by impending war is tremendous, but the writer requires an audience. She has failed, we think, to make her book impressive to unmilitary people. Certainly it can hardly be named with Tolstóy’s War and Peace.— A Man and a Woman, by Stanley Waterloo. (F. J. Schulte & Co., Chicago.) It is difficult to see what the author gains by introducing himself to the reader. In spite of his explanation, there arc several points in the story which the most intimate friend of a man and his wife must needs imagine, for he would not be told. In a word, the teller is not a necessary part of the story. There is not much of a story. The man is represented as defiling himself with women, and yet a most wonderful husband. We wonder if the writer would have the temerity to reverse the situation, or would believe such a reversal true to life and nature ? The solemnity with which the book opens encourages one to believe that it is the work of a young writer, for it contains enough evidence of cleverness to make one wish to believe this. — Some Children of Adam, by R. M. Manley. (Worthington Co., New York.) One would fancy this tale, on the contrary, to have been written by an old man, who had been bred on fiction of the elaborately fictitious order of fifty years ago. The ingenuity is purely intellectual ; it does not spring from the joy of story-telling, and the people and incidents are only occasionally natural. — Aunt Anne, by Mrs. W. K. Clifford. (Harpers.) Nothing that Mrs. Clifford has hitherto done has prepared her readers for the force, skill, and pathos with which the central figure of this story is depicted. The unusual, and it might he supposed hazardous, experiment made in the choice of a heroine has been amply justified. Aunt Anne, old, worn, and wrinkled, but with the sentiment, sentimentality, and foolishness of a young girl; poor and dependent, yet recklessly extravagant and lavishly generous,— often at the expense of the recipients of her gifts ; with her impressive diction, overweening sense of her own importance, and power of self-deception, is an absolutely living woman, whose story never fails, while she is on the stage, to hold the reader. On one point alone, in this original and admirable delineation, does the writer show the touch of an amateur,—she insists overmuch on personal peculiarities. Aunt Anne’s involuntary wink is so persistently dwelt upon that it becomes a positive annoyance to the reader. Unfortunately for the complete effect of the book, the minor characters are, as a rule, commonplace and conventional, while the most important of them, Aunt Anne’s villainous young husband, is almost a failure. — Helen Brent, M. D. (Cassell.) In this variation of the woman-doctor story, she secretly loves him, in spite of her noble profession ; he marries the other woman ; then she saves his wife’s life, and tries to bring about a right state of feeling between the two ; then the wife runs away with some one else ; then he is brought to his senses, and, on the page after “The End,” she is to be made happy with him. How the genuine womandoctors must loathe these travesties on their real life ! — Onoqua, by Frances C. Sparhawk. (Lee & Shepard.) A story of Indian life, in which is depicted the struggle for ascendency of the new aspirations through a Christian training over the old traditional, isolated, lower-animal existence. — A Golden Gossip, by Mrs, A. D. T. Whitney. (Houghton.) A bright story, full of small but not petty incidents, because they have to do with character and its development. Mrs. Whitney has a way of interpreting the common things of what people call commonplace life, and disclosing their fuller significance ; and if she sometimes plays with her phrases and invents verbal mysteries, there is always actual life showing through the veil she weaves. — The Master of Silence, a Romance, by Irving Bacheller. (C. L. Webster & Co.) Melodramatic situations preserved from scenic terror by the evident desire of the author to introduce a finer element in the spirit of the leading character. His psychical construction, however, of this marvelous person is scarcely equal to his design, so that the reader falls back upon the story at last, and gets what satisfaction he can out of that. — Calmire. (Macmillan.) Seven hundred and fifty pages of fiction are required to bring together at last the young man and young woman who meet in the first chapter. But then the writer had to account for the change in the principle of the young man, and that meant a good deal of grave consideration of questions of faith and no faith. She has written a book of some cleverness in spite of its wholly unnecessary length and its abnormally developed characters. May she live to write a better and shorter talc. — The Goddess of Atvatabar, being the Discovery of the Interior World and Conquest of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw. (J. F. Douthitt, New York.) With so skeptically a named publisher, the reader begins to wonder if Mr. W. R. Bradshaw may not have dropped, casually, a p from between d and s, and if the grave introduction by Mr. Julian Hawthorne may not be all of Mr. Bradshaw’s contribution to this elaborate fooling. Some one, at any rate, has been at a world of trouble to invent another world within our globe, and has disturbed the dreams of certain picturemakers, who appear to have made the profuse illustrations in their sleep. — Colonel Judson of Alabama, or A Southerner’s experience at the North, by F. Bean. (United States Book Co., New York.) The writer of this book must have lived in some noman’s land, for his Southerners and Northerners are each destitute of the characteristics of their respective sections ; and the tedious vulgarity of pretty much every one in the book leads one to ask why on earth the author took the trouble to write it. — Moonblight and Six Feet of Romance, by Dan Beard. With illustrations by the author. (C. L. Webster & Co.) The former tale occupies nearly all the book, and is a fantastic whimsey, in which the author endeavors to give vent to his views regarding the labor problem in the mining regions. His earnestness is unmistakable, but he has entangled his story with such complex conceits that many will abandon the attempt to read the book, and find their satisfaction in the pictures, some of which are clever and effective.

Theology, Ecclesiology, and Ethics. Humanity in its Origin and Early Growth, by E. Colbert. (The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago.) Mr. Colbert’s astronomical studies have blended with his archæological, and, in his eagerness to account for humanity upon strictly mundane principles, he translates all worship into reverence for planets. His book is a slap-dash, dogmatic interpretation of human history before the time of records, and with all its cleverness betrays an undue haste in reasoning whenever the reasoning militates against received notions born of the Christian education which so offends him. He is one of the sensible men who smile at the Christian superstitions. — The Incarnation of the Son of God, by Charles Gore. (Scribners.) These Bampton Lectures for 1891 are among the most notable of the recent lectures on this foundation, not merely in themselves, but as significant of the movement of thought in the English Church. The lecturer, representing what would be regarded as the most conservative school in the Church, boldly takes his stand with the men of other sciences, and undertakes to apply the inductive method to the profonndest article in the creed of the Church. One of the most successful passages is that in which he turns the tables upon those who oppose the higher Biblical criticism, using one of their favorite proof texts, and showing clearly how utterly it fails them when subjected to close analysis, and how completely it sanctions the higher criticism. The whole argument of the book is masterly. — The Plan of the Ages. A Vindication of the Divine Character and Government ; showing, by a Recognition and Harmonizing of all the Scriptures, that the Permission of Evil, past and present, is Educational and Preparatory to the Ushering of Mankind into the Golden Age of Prophecy, in which all the Families of the Earth will he blessed with a Full Knowledge of God and a Full Opportunity for attaining Everlasting Life through the Redeemer, who then will be the great Restorer and Life-Giver. Acts 3 : 19—21. (Saalfield & Fitch, New York.) After reading this title-page, and gazing at the wonderful folding chart of the ages which confronts it, and turning the leaf to dwell upon the extraordinary dedication to the King of kings and Lord of lords, one begins to ask to whom God has thus entrusted the vindication of his character. Who art thou, O man? — Old Wine, New Bottles, Some Elemental Doctrines in Modern Form, by Amory H. Bradford. (Fords, Howard & Hulbert, New York.) Four Discourses, on The Living God, The Holy Trinity, What is Left of the Bible, The Immortal Life, by a vigorous divine who, like others, is striving to translate the great truths of religion into terms of current thought. —The Soteriology of the New Testament, by W. P. Du Bose. (Macmillan.) A very interesting study of the problem of sin and the delivery from it as lying in the nature of things and defined in the New Testament. The writer, though theologically definite, is honest, clear, and reasonable, and his book is refreshingly free from assumptions and professional language. There is a certain quaintness even in the style which gives it a flavor of originality, and a human interest which gives body to arguments and illustrations drawn from the great facts of life.—Glimpses of Heaven. Discourses concerning the Way of Life and the House not made with Hands, Instructing Sinners to Enter by the Open Door and Encouraging Saints to Walk with Christ Evermore. Stenographically Reported as Delivered under the Power of the Holy Spirit. By Rev. W. H. Munhill, Louisville, Ky. (John Y. Huber Co., Philadelphia.) There is a portrait of the preacher fronting the book. Some people like colloquialism in religions discourses, and the free-and-easy handling of sacred themes, and the cocksure affirmations of the man who rushes in.— The Sources of Consolation in Human Life, by William Rounseville Alger. (Roberts Bros.) Mr. Alger, dissatisfied with the fragmentary or professional consolations to be found in anthologies and religious treatises, has essayed a more consecutive and comprehensive study of the fundamental resources available for the care of human suffering. He ploughs deep, and is satisfied with nothing short of a philosophic view which takes account of real experience, and assumes to produce a higher good expulsive of every evil. The book is a thoughtful one, and informed with a persistently high purpose. If it seem to some mystical, it is because of the subtlety of pain which can be cured, not by any sharp caustic, but by the exaltation of a mood, the pervasiveness of a spiritual temper.— The Life Beyond, by George Hepworth. (Randolph.) Under the guise of colloquies between a master and his doubting, inquiring pupil, a variety of analogies and illustrations is employed to set forth the probability of personal immortality.

History and Biography. Of the making of books about Carlyle there is apparently to be no immediate end, but before a halt is called it is pleasant to welcome so real a contribution to the subject as Sir Charles Gavan Daffy’s Conversations with Carlyle (imported by Scribners), which gives a much more amiable view than the commonly accepted one. Sir C. G. Duffy was twenty years younger than Carlyle, and was an ardent member of the United Ireland party when, in 1845, he made the acquaintance of that perverted man of genius. It is evident in almost every letter of Carlyle to Sir C. G. Duffy that he had a warm affection for the young and enthusiastic Irishman. This, so far from being disagreeable, is a most timely aspect of Carlyle ; but the reader must all the more be on his guard against supposing — as Sir C. G. Duffy apparently supposes — that the " whole and perfect chrysolite ” has been presented, instead of a too seldom seen facet of a most roughly hewn gem. The more familiar surfaces shine, too, in Sir C. G. Duffy’s pages, and whoever likes to read Carlyle at all will like to read his vehement utterances about Ireland, Home Rule, Thackeray, Jeffrey, Landor, Mill, Dickens, and other men and things. The book gives also a pleasant and lively impression of Mrs. Carlyle and of her relations to her husband ; but there is som implied reprobation of Mr. Froude with reference to the publication of the Reminiscences of my Irish Journey in 1849, and to other matters. A letter or two of Mrs. Carlyle’s and reports of her high-keyed savings add to the interest of the book.— Mr. J. P. Mahaffy’s Problems in Greek History (Macmillan) falls far short of the greater part of the author’s work in entertainment, because Mr. Mahaffy will be insisting, with a perseverance which even his variety of expression cannot redeem from monotony, upon his own services to scholarship, his own shrewdness and enlightenment in long ago advancing opinions which are now universally held. We have all along been aware that Home Rule perpetually plays the Head of Charles I. to the Mr. Dick of Mr. Mahaffy, but there has been nothing better in the performance than the comparison here made between the attitude of the free Greek states toward Philip and the attitude of the Irish landlords toward Parnell. But lively interest in current affairs, and a disposition to treat ancient history as if it really happened and might happen again, are not so common amongst academic writers as to make us feel like complaining too querulously over so ardent an Irishman as Mr. Mahaffy. — The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, by Harry Hakes, M. D. (Robert Baur & Son, Wilkesbarre, Penn.) An expanded lecture, in which an attempt is made, not without success, to determine the facts, and to brush away mere speculations. — Henry Boynton Smith, by Lewis F. Stearns. (Houghton.) A volume in the American Religious Leaders series. The type of scholarship illustrated by Professor Smith was a rare one, for he was at once courageous and conservative, acute and broad-minded. His constructive power was very great, and he applied it not only in religious philosophy, but in ecclesiastical order ; and though he stood in his great work as a pacificator and church statesman, there was nothing of the trimmer or halfway man about him. His noble character penetrates his writing, and the able student who wrote this book — his last contribution to theological science — has shown a fine capacity to measure and estimate Smith’s work. — A Footnote to History, Fight Years of Trouble in Samoa, by Robert Louis Stevenson. (Scribners.) It may not be the mark of genius, but it is something very like it, when Mr. Stevenson turns the little tempest in a Polynesian teapot, by the force of his imaginative skill, into a human drama full of interest to his readers. His brilliant touch translates Samoan life into terms intelligible by the Anglo-American audience which he addresses, and his humor constantly flies forth even when he is most in earnest, as he is indeed throughout the book. — Dorothy Wallis, an Autobiography, with Introduction by Walter Besant. (Longmans.) Mr. Besant, in his interesting preface, assures us that this is what it purports to be, a perfectly true history of a girl, a gentlewoman, who, without help from any one, with no money, and with very few friends, endeavors to obtain an honorable position as an actress. Though the slight story that serves as the framework of her adventures is conventional both in incident and characterization, the main narrative, in its vigorous and unadorned realism, at once impresses the reader as a veritable fragment of autobiography. The City house where a crowd of women earn the smallest and most precarious of wages by directing wrappers, the struggle to obtain even an unsalaried position in theatres which are rather euphemistically called “ minor,” the haps and mishaps of “a tour,” the third-rate theatrical life, the gleam of better fortune at the close, — all these are depicted in a manner which, whatever else it may lack, is vividly and sometimes painfully truthful. Dorothy is a girl who will probably in the end secure at least some measure of success ; but her story should serve, as it probably will not, as a strong deterrent to the ordinary stagestruck young woman. — In the series The Stories of the Nations (Putnams), a recent volume is on the Byzantine Empire, by C. W. C. Oman. The history is traced from the founding of Byzantium by the Greeks, B. c. 666, to the fall of Constantinople in A. D. 1453, and the narrative is a plain, unadorned tale, which attracts by its clearness and business-like character rather than by any special charm in the telling.—Serampore Letters, being the Unpublished Correspondence of William Carey and Others with John Williams, 1800-1816, edited by Leighton and Mornay Williams ; with an Introduction by Thomas Wright. (Putnams.) The reader of the more considerable biography of Carey, Marshman, and Ward will be glad of this little book of a hundred and fifty pages which adds to the material there used. The careful reproduction of these letters adds to their value by preserving the quaint flavor of a recent antiquity, and one is struck anew with the single-minded simplicity of these Baptist missionary pioneers. There are several very good illustrations. — History of the Nineteenth Army Corps, by Richard B. Irwin. (Putnams.) The corps was organized at the close of 1862, out of regiments which had been serving in the Department of the Gulf, and placed under command of General Banks. But the history of tire corps begins really with the operations at New Orleans and on the Mississippi, so that almost the entire work becomes a history of the war in the Gulf and the Red River. In June, 1864, the corps was sent to the Potomac and Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek formed part of its experience. The narrative is clear and forcible, and a number of useful maps add to the value of the book. — Warpath and Bivouac ; or, The Conquest of the Sioux. A Narrative of Stirring Personal Experiences and Adventures in the Big Horn and Yellowstone Expeditions of 1876, and in the Campaign on the British Border in 1879. By John F. Finerty. (79 Dearborn St., Chicago.) We have already referred to this book in a regular review (February, 1892), and will only repeat, apropos of a new edition, that it contains a very spirited narrative of Indian warfare. — The final volume of Von Holst’s The Constitutional and Political History of the United States, translated by John J. Lalor, covers the period from Harper’s Ferry to Lincoln’s Inauguration. (Callaghan & Co., Chicago.) It is a disappointment to find that there is no index to the entire work, at the end of the series. — Life of Thomas Paine, with a History of his Literary, Political, and Religious Career in America, France, and England, by Moncure Daniel Conway. To which is added a Sketch of Paine by William Cobbett. In two volumes. (Putnams.) — The First International Railway and the Colonization of New England. Life and Writings of John Alfred Poor, edited by Laura Elizabeth Poor. (Putnams.) The first part of this volume contains a spirited account of the publicminded man who was the soul of railroad movements in Maine, and foresaw the great importance of a system which should connect Maine with the Provinces, Canada, and the West. He was the head and front of the European and North American Railway. The rest of the volume is occupied with his writings on historical and commercial subjects. The book was well worth doing. — The Old South, Essays Social and Political, by Thomas Nelson Page. (Scribners.) A collection of papers and addresses upon several topics relating to the history and social life of the Southern States before the war. They were addressed primarily to Southern readers, for the most part, and breathe the spirit of local patriotism. Not that Mr. Page is merely a laudator temporis acti; on the contrary, he says frankly that the South was not keeping pace with the rest of the civilized world, and he recognizes frankly the fundamental obstacle to her progress. But his effort to set the South right historically is still tinged with the unnecessary implication that the North was the greater sinner ; and of course he has read Mr. George H. Moore with great satisfaction, and stopped his reading at that point. On the whole, we like best his more constructive social studies, as The Old Virginia Lawyer, and still must wait for the Southern historian who shall write history without sectional bias. He will come, — of that we are confident.

Education and Textbooks. The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages, by François Gouin ; translated from the French by Howard Swan and Victor Betis. (George Philip & Son, London ; Scribners, New York.) The lively author of this most suggestive work introduces his treatise by an animated account of the difficulties which he met in learning German, when he tried in turn the classical method, the Ollendorf, Jacobot, and others. It was by observing a child in the acquisition of a new set of ideas and the expression of them that he came upon the key to the true method. In its simplest expression this method centres everything about the verb, and sentences are constructed in series which involve a succession of actions. It is not possible, however, to present in a sentence the scheme as laid down by Gouin, but no student of pedagogy should overlook this fresh, anti we may say inspiring book. — Nu English, a Proposed Simplified English Language for Home Use, and for International Commerce and Travel, by Elias Molee. (The Author, Minneapolis, Minn.) A pamphlet containing an enthusiast’s plea for a jargon which should supplant Volapük, and an outline of the reform. For one who knows English already the new speech offers few difficulties. — Business Law, a Manual for Schools and Colleges, for Every-Day Use, by Alonzo R. Weed. (Heath.) A convenient handbook, in which a brief statement, without discussion or reference to cases, is made regarding contracts, partnerships, deeds, negotiable paper, collection laws, insurance, and the like, together with business forms and a series of questions and exercises. As a textbook, it would seem to be of most service in commercial colleges.—Selections from Goethe’s Poetical and Prose Works, by Dr. Wilhelm Bernhardt. (Heath.) The principle of selectiou employed is to include specimens complete in themselves, so far as possible, “and large enough to make the student find the flower of every faculty which that mightiest genius of modern times has developed.” The several selections are accompanied by comments of various writers, German, English, and American, and by a body of notes which are translations of troublesome words and phrases. — Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem, translated from the Heyne-Socin Text, by Jno. Leslie Hall. (Heath.) It is perhaps hardly fair to include this scholarly work in this class ; vet the fact remains that our first epic is still known almost wholly as an example of early English, and not as a piece of literature. — Three Circulars of Information, issued by the Bureau of Education (Government Printing Office), deal respectively with Promotions and Examinations in Graded Schools, by Emerson E. White ; Rise and Growth of the Normal - School Idea in the United States, by J. P. Gordy ; and Biological Teaching in the Colleges of the United States. Dr. White collected information from a large number of schools, and his conclusions happily point to a freedom from too arbitrary methods. Mr. Gordy, who is a professor of pedagogy, gives an interesting sketch of his subject, and contends wisely for the establishment of pedagogical departments in our colleges and universities, since normal schools cannot cover the whole field. Dr. Campbell’s paper is mainly a detailed survey of the opportunities offered in our colleges for the study of biological science, with some general observations. — The first Circular for 1892, from the same Bureau, is the Rev. A. D. Mayo’s monograph on Southern Women in the recent Educational Movement in the South. The work is based on returns from circulars of inquiries, but quite as much upon the author’s observations during twelve years’ constant travel in the South upon educational errands. One of the notable facts brought out is the immense amount of work done in the secondary schools for Southern white girls. In other words, the teaching of teachers has been the work which has engaged the attention of Southern women. It is observable that not a single response to the hundreds of circulars sent out came from a Roman Catholic school. The monograph, though somewhat diffuse, is charged with a fine enthusiasm, and offers interesting as well as suggestive reading. — The Song Patriot, a Collection of National and Other Songs for School and Home, compiled by C. W. Bardeen. (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.) A little book of eighty pages, with a very good collection of patriotic and war songs, national hymns of other lands, songs of sentiment, college songs, sacred songs, and songs of a future life. — Nature Readers, Seaside and Wayside, by Julia McNair Wright. (Heath.) The fourth in this series of readers, which are not made up of selections from other writers, but are written by the author. This number deals with geology, paleontology, and the existing forms which are survivals of earlier types. The manner seems calculated for young pupils, but the style and the matter scarcely agree with this assumption. — A B C of the Swedish System of Educational Gymnastics, a Practical Hand Book for School Teachers and the Home, by Hartvig Nissen. (F. A. Davis, Philadelphia.) Mr. Nissen is instructor of physical training in the Boston schools, and he has made a book very much like that of Baron Nils Posse, already referred to. Mr. Nissen’s catechism is almost childishly simple in its preliminary questions and answers, but its main use, after making teachers smile over these, is to furnish a series of exercises. — French Schools through American Eyes, by James Russell Parsons, Jr. (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.) Mr. Parsons, who had already reported on the Prussian school system, made a similar study of French schools in 1891, and this book is his report to the New York State Department of Public Instruction. It contains a great deal of detailed, specific information, unincumbered by idle speculation, and arranged with a clear sense of order. Mr. Parsons’s observations, when he does make them, are those of a well-trained observer, and appear to be free from whims and parochial prejudice. — English Composition by Practice, by Edward R. Shaw. (Holt.) Mr. Shaw deals less with principles than with examples in his book ; rather, he leaves the teacher and the pupil to educe the principles from the examples ; but he is very ingenious in furnishing suggestions foe reproductions, paraphrases, letters, original essays, stories, and the like, and his book ought to be very serviceable to a teacher even when not vised as a class book.— Modern Punctuation. A Book for Stenographers, Typewriter Operators, and Business Men ; with Hints to Letter Winters, One Hundred Suggestions to Typewriter Operators, a List of Common Abbreviations with Definitions, and a Vocabulary of Business and Technical Terms, with Spaces for Writing in the Shorthand Equivalents. By William Bradford Dickson. (Putnams.) The new occupation of typewriting is collecting a literature, it seems, and this is a handy little book, with such admirable injunctions as the following : “ Always omit a comma rather than put it in the wrong place.”—The Test-Pronouncer. A Companion Volume to “ 7000 Words often Mispronounced ;" containing the Identical List of Words found in the Larger Work, arranged in Groups of ten, without Diacritical Marks, for Convenience in Recitation. By William H. P. Phyfe. (Putnams.) That is to say, this serves as a question book, and the larger work as a key. Here are all the words, but no indication is given as to the way they should be pronounced.

Politics, Sociology, and Economics. A Dictionary of Political Economy (Macmillan) has been begun, of which Part One is before us, covering the words “ Abatement-Bede.” It is edited by R. H. Inglis Palgrave, and is to contain articles on the subjects usually dealt with by economic writers, with explanations of legal and business terms, and short notices of deceased English, American, and foreign economists, and their chief contributions to economic literature. The term " dictionary " is to be taken in a pretty literal sense, for the articles are very brief, and the authors plainly perceive this, since " the limits of space forbid ” is a frequent formula. There is, however, a good bibliographical statement appended where the subject calls for a fuller explanation.— American Citizenship, and the Right of Suffrage in the United States, by Taliesin Evans. (Tribune Print, Oakland, Cal.) An examination of national and state laws affecting citizenship, together with a citation of such decisions of courts as bear upon the subject. The author undertakes the study with a view to inquiring how far our system imposes restrictions on the suffrage. Although he does not anywhere make a summary of his deductions, it is evident that he regards the system loose and weak on this point. Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum, by J. W. Sullivan. (Twentieth Century Publishing Co., New York.) After a full though concise statement of the working of the Referendum in Switzerland, Mr. Sullivan turns to the application of the principle in the United States. He finds this much more general than a superficial observation would suppose, and he thinks it might be extended to advantage. Yet many will demur to a political theory which practically makes the Constitution a somewhat unwieldy statute-book. — The Scriptures of Benjamin the Giant-Killer. (Journal Publishing Co., Detroit.) A political fable couched in Old restament style, with elaborately distorted names, the whole designed to show how President Harrison withstood the attempt made by Great Britain to force its free-trade doctrines upon the United States. Who Pays Your Taxes ? A Consideration of the Question of Taxation, by David A. Wells, George H. Andrews, Thomas G. Shearman, Julien T. Davies, Joseph Dana Miller, Bolton Hall, and others ; edited by Bolton Hall, and issued by authority of the New York Tax Reform Association. (Putnams.) This is not, as might be supposed from the title-page, a collection of essays by many hands, but Mr. Hall has drawn upon the writings of a large number of persons to enforce the principles involved in the platform of the association, which is, in brief, that taxes should be laid mainly upon real estate.— Direct Legislation by the People, by Nathan Cree. (McClurg.) Another study in a direction which plainly lies along the line of thought taken by many students of political science. The Swiss Referendum is the suggestion, and the practical end aimed at is to increase the number of acts directly referred to the people. We are constantly employing this method in such questions as License or No License ; the principle is admitted, and the question is as to the extension of its application. Mr. Cree does not confine himself to discussion ; he brings forward practical forms and methods. --The Tariff, What it is and What it does, by S. E. Moffett. (Potomac Publishing Co., Washington.) A keen discussion of the practical working of the tariff by a Californian. He derives many of his illustrations from trade on the Pacific coast. The book is a pamphlet of a hundred pages. — The Teaching of Humanity, a treatise throwing some Light on Certain Movements of the Day, by C. W. Rosenfeld. (The Author, 89 Leman St., London, E.) A pamphlet of a hundred pages, in which a Jew, struggling through translators who, he pathetically declares, cannot understand him (and surely the English is something wonderful), discourses upon “ the promotion of humanity among the Jews.” With much help from the Talmud, he seems bent on demonstrating that Jews ought to he sprinkled over the world, and not massed in one spot. Thus doing, he says, “ it will not alone be good for the Jews, but for the Christians as well ; for the Jews are like spice, — a little of it gives great flavor to the food ; put too much of it in the food, and the result is the food is spoilt.” — The Free Trade Struggle in England, by M. M. Trumbull. (The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago.) A revised edition of a work first published ten years ago. The author has stuck pretty closely to his text ; but, as he is an American, and writes the book for American readers, he uses American legislation to illustrate his subject, claiming somewhat preposterously that all American utterances in favor of protection are simply the repetition of English arguments used before free trade had opened the eyes of Englishmen. It is unscientific to treat free trade and protection as if they were doctrines only, to be applied like nostrums.