The Literary World. will be when Roberts Bros.' new edition of his BOSTON, JANUARY 8, 1887. Entered at the Post Office at Boston, Mass., as second-class matter. It is not so very many years since Cooper died, works gets fairly before the public, as we shall "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," regarded in London (so the reporters say) as the most significant production in the newly published volume of poems by Lord Tennyson, and yet the boatmen and loungers about the lake appeared last week in an obviously imperfect had only the faintest impression of the man- there form in the Independent, to which journal it was was a writer by that name, one of them said, and sent by cable. Opinions seem to differ very some of his family lived near the house of the great decidedly as to the merit of the composition. man already referred to. The magician who created In technique it certainly leads to melancholy Cooperstown sleeps in the old English-looking churchyard of the Episcopal church, in the midst comparisons with the work of the Alfred Tennyof the graves of his relations, and there is a well- son of other days; but its spirit is frankly worn path to his head-stone. Whatever the com-Tennysonian in spite of the embittered tone with mon people of the town may think, it is that grave that draws most pilgrims to the village. - CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, in Their Pilgrimage. which it is permeated. To us it seems like the And some fair day's Italian blue, Should be fulfilled, Where all the livelong day and night A music stirs, The summer wind should find thy home, An ageless forest dell, which knows And there the thrushes, calm, supreme, Whose glorious kingly golden throats Frye's Island, N. B., Canada. BLISS CARMAN. CORRESPONDENCE. The Literary World enters on its Eighteenth Volume with the prestige of a successful past, the encouragement of a substantial present, and the inspiration of a promising future. As in the past so for the future we prefer not to boast of what has been done, or to talk of what is to be done, but simply to do, and to leave the doing to speak for itself. The work of the paper will continue along the lines upon which it has won its position; and its editorial resources, never so ample as they have been the past year, will be steadily enlarged and strength-As we read we recall to mind a couplet from the tinually forced upon our selecting committees in ened as rapidly as the growth of its material resources will allow. We have no aim but to make an honest, fearless, trustworthy journal of literary criticism, a friend to all good books, and a foe to all bad ones. Absolutely independ ent, meaning to be truthful, aiming to be fair, the Literary World invites the increasing cooperation of all friends of genuine literature. Our present issue is largely occupied with reviews of the later publications of 1886, many of which were crowded one side by the mass of Holiday Books and by the Annual Review of the World's Literature. These two incidents of the year's work, coming close together at the busiest point of all the year, made, as they always make, large demands upon our space; but we believe no apology therefor will be required by our readers. Perhaps they will accept it as clothing some matter a little old with a garb of freshness that we present them, as we have the pleasure of doing, this number of the Literary World in a new suit of type. After giving a single lecture in Boston Mr. Henry M. Stanley has returned to Europe, in prompt obedience to a sudden summons of the King of the Belgians, prompted by difficulties on the Congo; but Mr. Justin McCarthy remains, and beside agreeable appearances in private and a political address or two, discoursed last week Monday evening in the Boston Tremont Temple on Modern Fiction Real and Ideal." Mr. McCarthy spoke wholly without notes, and to the gratification of his hearers. The point of his remarks seemed to be that in fiction the most effectively realistic was the most truthfully idealized. His condemnation of Zolaism was severe; his commendation of Howells and Bret Harte generous. Trollope, too, he justly extolled; and specified George Meredith, Blackmore, and William Black, as the coming English novelists of the day. Meredith is not as well known here as he ought to be, and as he Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of art. first ballad of "Locksley Hall: " Knowledge,comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden rest. [Original Poetry.] SHELLEY. One heart of all the hearts of men, Plunged for a moment in the fire O rebel captive, fallen soul, To thee was given half to mould It held the rapture of the hills The purple shadows of the ocean Thine was a love that strives and calls, Burning to free the soul of man Of changeless Rome! More soft, I deem, from spring to spring, Where this far western headland lies A bay so beauteous islanded You well might dream the world were new; MECHANIC'S INSTITUTE, PARIS, ONTARIO, 9th Dec., 1886. To the Editor of the Literary World: We require for our Circulating Library about $500 worth of books per annum, and the question of procuring works strongly bound is con consequence of the condition in which the ordinary book is found after even a few weeks' service. At this writing we have two large cases sent from a publisher on approval, and quite a number of the books would suit, were the binding up to the mark. Can you not recommend to us some way of overcoming the difficulty? We have about 4,500 volumes in our library, and some of the older volumes, as for instance, Johnson's Poets and the Dramas of the Last Century, which are bound in leather, are in splendid order, although they have been in use here and elsewhere for nearly a century. Would it be possible for us to purchase works unbound so that we can have good binding done to order? N JOHN ALLEN. TWO POETS' HOMES. BY CHARLES BURR Todd. JEWCASTLE ISLAND is that large, irregularly outlined mass lying at the mouth of the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire, separated from the quaint old town of Portsmouth by two or three "harbors" and the narrow sinuosities of Sagamore Creek. On the northeast is a huge backbone of trap, washed by the Piscataqua on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Here two genial poets, Edmund C. Stedman and John Albee, have their homes, lured primarily by the sea, I think, and in no little measure by the beauty of the island's lanes and beaches, and its wealth of historic and romantic associations. The first is Mr. Stedman's. As one goes down the rustic lane leading from Newcastle road to Jaffrey Point, he sees it on the left, behind two acres of lawn; a modest dwelling, whose shingled roofs and wide low porch suggest one of those Queen Anne cottages that cover out of them upon the sea, musing his Lady Wentworth ballad. Once Mrs. Stowe stooped and chimney pile, and many other poets and through the attic to wonder at the huge beams pretty beach of shingle and pebble; inland bay-romancers have passed in and out the house, berry, sweet fern, and juniper cover the site of adding modern memories to its ancient archive. the first fortifications thrown up by Captain And now on the adjoining shore a poet has Walter Neale for the defence of the infant come to abide and enrich this seat of olden local renown with his wide and living fame. colony. The surf here is ever fine- best if there has been a storm far out at sea to send We may add that the house was built prior to the great surges rolling in slowly and with 1680, by George Jaffrey, sometime Treasurer to grandeur. It is here, I think, because it per- the Province of New Hampshire. Soon after fectly mirrors the scene, that our poet's "Surf," | Cranfield came in with his oppressive adminisone of the best sea poems in the language, tration, seized upon the cottage, ejecting the must have been written, two stanzas of which I lawful owner, and made it the Gubernatorial repeat by way of description: Splendors of morning the billow crests brighten, Each with his froth gilded mane flowing free, every eligible site on our Atlantic coast. Crossing beaches of the island. Jaffrey Point is his The poet's study is a small upper chamber in the tower, with deep, casemated windows looking every way but to landward. Eastward is the ocean with its white-maned coursers rolling in, and the eternal plaint of the smitten crags. The Piscataqua flows beneath, at flood or ebb smooth as a mill-pond, at half tide a mill-race foaming, swirling, boiling, roaring through the deep gorge between sharp crags that forms its bed. Beyond the river is the storied land of Kittery and York in Maine, and over the crags on the northwest one can see the top hamper of the historic frigate "Constitution," moored at the Portsmouth navy yard. The view from the west window takes in the craggy, winding south shore, the vista being closed by the ruinous Martello tower on Jourdan's Rocks, and the deserted walls of Fort Constitution. Up in this eyrie the gulls and sandpipers are company. When the sky lowers and the sea roars, Mother Carey's chickens fly in with news of the coming storm; and when the gale breaks, an August northeaster perhaps, the breakers whiten the black crags, and the foam flecks leap the low parapet between lawn and crag, and cover the grass like a midsummer snowfall. Bearing thy riches, O beautiful sea! Strong with the striving of yesterday's surges, Fearlessly those that are fleeing before. Palm weed and pearls for my darling and me. Mansion. It served the colony as state house too. In the great parlor for several years the legislators of New Hampshire met to shape the affairs of the colony. At times their shapes in full bottomed wig and crimson waistcoat, velvet breeches, and silken hose, appear to haunt the -peer out of window on the sea, quaff the generous punch at the buffet, which still occupies its corner, or with arm on the ancient mantle, stand benevolently regarding one. room To this house came Mr. Albee in 1864, with his beautiful young wife, driven forth by I know not what spirit. Perhaps the same that In charming contrast to Mr. Stedman's "Kelp called Thoreau to the Walden woods and wastes Rock" is Jaffrey Cottage, the home of John of Cape Cod. He had already achieved a Albee, transcendentalist poet, lecturer, and his- career. Educated at Harvard as a theologue, torian. It is but a stone's throw away, by a he entered the ministry, and was ordained to an well-worn footpath through the lawn, across Orthodox pulpit. But soon becoming a disciple the rustic lane which ends here, and into a of Emerson and Channing, and too honest to farm-yard whose velvety green sward suggests | preach against his conviction, he resigned his the sun and showers of two centuries. The pastorate, and came up to this farm of thirty cottage, facing the sea, with an orchard “fruited deep on the left, and green meadows stretching away in the rear, is all that a poet's home should be. Long rear roof, dormer windows, mossy shingles, and woodbine covered front, speak of the date, 1677, when George Jaffrey's fisher carpenters gave it the finishing touches. Everybody in Newcastle knows it. The poet owner in his History of Newcastle has given a charming description of it and its associations: acres, where he has resided ever since, tilling the soil with his own hands, studying, dreaming, writing a little prose and more poetry, lecturing before the Concord School of Philosophy, and finding time amid it all for a leisurely tour of Europe, and frequent visits to the great cities. If his desultory literary work has not brought him fame, it is perhaps because he has never coveted it enough to make eager tilt for it. He has sung simply, naturally, like the robins in his hedgerows, songs that can only delight every The same Jaffrey parlor was used as the meeting place of the Provincial Assembly in 1682-83, lover of simple, natural music. His History of when Cranfield was Lieutenant-Governor of New Newcastle is a prose poem steeped in the quaint Hampshire. This parlor (or hall as sometimes atmosphere of the town, one of the finest things called) forms a large and incongruous portion of of the kind I have ever read. His thin volthe cottage, and was used for various public purposes in former times, not the least curious ume of poems, published by the Putnams in of which were "small-pox" parties, in days 1883, has had few readers, I presume, chiefly when people retired from the world to be inocu- because it has never been brought to the attenlated. It was not very serious business, and young folks made a holiday of it, and were said tion of that constituency which would delight in to do considerable courting on such occasions. it. Probably a hasty critic would stamp most of I fancy some names scratched on the window it as Emersonian. There are, however, many panes of the Jaffrey parlor still visible, are mepoems on the history and romance of the island, mentos of that time of tenderness and sore and others of chiefly local interest. Some of arms. The cottage has always been a favorite resort of lovers, than whom there are no human the gems of the collection, of which there are beings more easy or pleasant to entertain; satis- many, are found among them. As for instance in the benevolence of the rosy illusion, and fied with themselves and each other, you share these: your hospitality seeks to be unrestricted. such times the small, sea-moated farm flows with milk and honey, and never too much; for I find, contrary to common observation, that lovers have, whether from the saline situation, or in compliment to the unworthy host, the Some of the best work of the poet in recent most extraordinary appetites. The sequel of years has been done in this little room alone these little histories has often been celebrated in with sea and sky. In New York his literary course, also, in seven generations of dwellers, the great parlor in numberless marriages. Of work is done after nine o'clock at night; here the feet of them that carry out the dead have he devotes his mornings to it. The afternoon is often been heard at the door. It lends a kind reserved for social pleasures, boating and fishing, of sanctity to the old house to think how many souls have lived and died here, how many rides into the storied lands about him, strolls strangers too, now dust, have looked out of its through the romantic lanes and along the sound-windows. Once Longfellow peered pensively At Bos'n Hill. The wind blows wild on Bos'n Hill, Far off is heard the ocean's rote, The village sailors hear the call, Lips pale and eyes grow dim; He pipes the dead up from their graves, But sailors know when next they sail There's one amongst them shall not fail In "Miss Tipty Toes," I think I recognize Miss Laura, the five-year-old granddaughter of his neighbor poet: A Miss Tipty Toes. She darts from room to room Who can catch Miss Tipty Toes? Here she comes, there she flies, Now she laughs, and now she cries; Is my sweet Miss Tipty Toes. Gibble gabble, how she talks! She's never still, never walks, Now your whiskers she will tug, Then around your neck must hug- She's a thousand things more dear, Yet most tender just at eve, When all playthings she must leave, Still by day, and still by night, He must love dear Tipty Toes. And no more small Tipty Toes. PROFESSOR DIMAN'S MEMOIR.* MERICAN historical scholarship lost in Prof. Diman of Brown University (deceased in 1881) one of its finest minds, distinguished for the breadth of his culture and his fascinating eloquence. The broad church of America had reason to sorrow for a preacher in many respects of the first order, who, ministering to Congregational churches, was on terms of friendship with Episcopalian and Unitarian alike, and gave up his ministry to become the foremost professor in a Baptist college. Miss Hazard's memoir of his uneventful life is written with a love not destitute of discretion. It is obliged to go much into minor details, many of which we should have preferred to take for granted had their room been filled with such matter as the introductory lecture on history here given. Prof. Diman's first appearance in the pulpit was as a little golden-haired boy in response to a text "calling" Jeremiah! He was too independent for the orthodoxy of his recent day, declaring that "there is no warrant whatever for erecting the bold, naked, literal dogma of everlasting punishment into an article of Christian faith," and holding such views of the atonement that the council called to settle him at Brookline, Mass., was the scene of hot controversy. His position he well stated in his diary in Germany as a young man : While Christ was the ideal man, so it is ever to be the aim of every one in the same manner Memoir of the Rev. J. Lewis Diman, D.D. By Caroline Hazard. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $2.00. to realize the ideal man, and thus be also a NOMI Bay, and finally to the White Mountains and the Berkshire Hills. But let Mr. Warner's own words introduce the reader to some of these scenes: At Newport. It happened to be a day when the blue of the sea was that of the Mediterranean, and the sky and sea melted into each other, so that a distant sail-boat seemed to be climbing into the heavens. The waves rolled in blue on the white sand beach, and broke in silver. Three young girls At Bar Harbor. proved of this laxity, and when a couple of whirled round the room together, with brieryoung fellows in striped array one evening wood pipes in their mouths, she was scandalized. At the White Sulphur. "What do you think of a place," he wrote Miss Lamont the girl read me a portion of his lively letter that summer at Saratoga- into which you come by a belated train at half-past eleven at night, find friends waiting up for you in evening costume, are taken to a champagne and have your baggage delivered to you at two supper at twelve, get to your quarters at one, o'clock in the morning? THEIR PILGRIMAGE.* OMINALLY this "pilgrimage" was that of a pleasure party to various American watering places from Cape May to the Thousand Islands; really it was that of a humorous literarian and a dexterous artist in search of the picturesque character-school, whose standard was the court in the Mrs. Montrose, a stately dame of the old istics of American summer life. The book days of Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, disapis a sort of emulsion; a mixture not merely of wood-cuts and letterpress, but of frank description and covert criticism, of reality and romance, of hotel experiences and observations vivified and at the same time softened by a love story. There is much in Mr. Warner's writing to remind of some of Mr. Howells's earlier work, but his materials are more diverse and his aim more desultory than in the case of anything similar of Mr. Howells's. This is not a "wedding journey," but a lovers' journey. One effect of the book, including its pictures, is When the steamer approaches, a band of to recall the "Porte Crayon" of a former young ladies in military ranks, clad in light generation, whose pleasant sketches of Vir-marching costume, each with a broom in place of a musket, descend to the landing -- and deginia life enriched the pages of the same light the spectators with their warlike manoeumagazine (Harper's) in which these chapters vres. The march in the broom drill is two steps forward and one step back, a mode of progresfirst appeared. sion that conveys the notion of a pleasing indecision of purpose, which is foreign to the character of these handsome Amazons, who are This act of war in fancy dress, with its two quite able to hold the wharf against all comers. steps forward and one back, and the singing of line peace of mind in the whole history of cara song, is one of the most fatal to the mascu nage. At Lake George. Richfield Springs. "English, you Know." American life and character as seen at the mountains and the beaches from June to September constitute a world by itself, with abundant capabilities for employing pen and pencil, and a visit to it in a good-natured mood is the chief function of Mr. Warner's book. It is a kind of observation car into which he invites the reader, for a ride all Of course the raison d'être of being here is along shore and occasionally into the in- the sulphur spring. There is no doubt of its efficacy. I suppose it is as unpleasant as any in terior. The love story is incidental, and the country. Everybody smells it, and a great never distracts attention from the kaleido-many drink it. The artist said that after using scopic scenes and ever varying incidents it a week the blind walk, the lame see, and the dumb swear. which attend our progress. We begin with the Hygeia Hotel and Fortress Monroe, as exemplifying the "duty of a paternal gov-here," King said, by way of being agreeable. "Your great English poet is very much read ernment to place its military and naval sta- "So we have heard," replied Mrs. Stubbs. tions close to the fashionable resorts." We "Mr. Stubbs reads Tennyson beautifully. He has thought of giving some readings while we pass on to Cape May, and then over a long are here. We have been told that the Americircuit by rail through the Jersey sands cans are very fond of readings." "Yes," said to Atlantic City. "The handsome Jersey readings by Englishmen in their native tongue. "they are devoted to them, especially King, people were not traveling that day." From There is a great rage now for everything the "jig-saw architecture" of Atlantic City English; at Newport hardly anything else is we escape to the natural grandeur of the if this might be an American joke. spoken.' Catskills, and so on by long strides to Narragansett Pier with its domestic simplicities and Newport with its luxurious frivolities, to Martha's Vineyard and Plymouth, to the Isles of Shoals and Mount Desert, to Virginia's Natural Bridge and Sulphur Springs, to Long Branch aud Ocean Grove, to Saratoga and Lake George, to Richfield Springs, and Cooperstown, to Niagara and Alexandria 66 *Their Pilgrimage. By Charles Dudley Warner. trated by C. S. Reinhart. Harper & Bros. His good-nature is contagious. His companion artist is in sympathy with him, and though the latter's drawings are of uneven merit, the playful ones are never coarse, and the best are delicate and sincere and almost as good as Du Maurier's. They who have visited the localities included in this merrygo-round will refresh their recollections by means of it with hearty relish, and they who have not may experience in a positive way one of the pleasures of the imagination. We may add that the book is beautifully made, with gilt top, uncut front edges, and a binding of distinction in library style. BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. manly lad. The beginning of his story dates well matched by his moral courage and fidelity is A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Pas-living, and she never writes without a purpose. sages in the Life of an Only Son. By Juliana Nearly all of these stories belong to the better Horatia Ewing. [Roberts Bros. $1.00.] Not class, and the first on the list, which is the simas attractive as some of the stories of this plest, is one of her best. Not much teaching in lamented author, and not as pathetic as others; "When I was a Little Girl," but a winsome yet with pleasing qualities. The little narrative, little narrative it is about a small matter, which the author says grew from other incidents made delightful in the telling. Sally Gibson's after the purchase of the Flat Iron, is autobio- Spunk" and "Girl Noblesse" have good lesgraphic in form; and Oakford, with its one long sons for girls. Other sketches are for the bensteep street "very clean, pebbled, and pictur- efit of boys especially. "Buttered Crusts" has esque," and the shops in houses with over- morsels of wisdom, but why, O dear and honhanging stories, is a remembrance of the au- ored author, will you write such puzzling parathor's own childhood. There is a comfortable, graphs as this? admirable Nurse Bundle, whom at five-and-fifty her dear boy, yet almost a baby, thinks he should house with her Grandmamma Peniworth. By like to marry when he is old enough, an original three successive marriages, in the third of serious, often tender with that real sentiment which was no survivor of the first, herself and which is the farthest possible from the "sentitwo much older step-sisters, both now some mental." Sometimes he shows us the deeps in time married, had been left with no real blood- the human heart, such as we have no knowledge lad, a wise father, and a right sort of rector; and there are such happenings and teachings and good influences as Mrs. Ewing knew so Thankful Holme had been an orphan for five years, living here in a pleasant old country The Sentimental Calendar. Being Twelve Funny Stories. By J. S. of Dale. [Charles Scribner's Sons.] The exterior of this volume in charming taste. The contents are not at all "funny," in spite of the "Major's preface," and his preface is needlessly absurd. That, and the "sentimental," must be taken as pleasing devices on the part of the author, who usually proves to be well how to put into delightful shape-a book tie between them, save a distant cousinship, the of in many writers of short stories. Both sweet which no young reader can fail to like and be helped by. father of Charlotte and Laura Peniworth having Conjuror Dick. By Angelo J. Lewis (Professor Hoffmann). [Frederick Warne & Co. $1.50.] The hero, having become assistant to Children's Stories of American Progress. By a professional exhibitor, tells the story of his Henrietta Christian Wright. [Charles Scribner's travels and adventures, in company with the Sons. $1.50.] A capital book for young people professor and his family, in England and Conwell written, keeping firmly to the proper his tinental Europe; introducing accounts of some of the mysteries shown, and an amusing exposure of certain impostures of spiritism. Curiously, there is a slight suggestion of Charles Dickens in the minutiae of the hero's early life; of Thomas Hughes in the introducing of the interrupted prayer at school and of a fight as resultant therefrom; and of Captain Marryat in the general good fellowship and variety of adventure. The book is written in better English than most juveniles. And its general tone torical perspective, and dealing with eighteen epochs in our national development under such headings as the beginning of Western settlement, the Barbary pirates, the purchase of Louisiana, the first steamboat, the story of slavery, the story of the railroad, the discovery of gold, the Rebellion, the South after the War. The story of the Rebellion fills only twenty-five pages and is a little masterpiece of concise and picturesque narrative. Now and then we find sentences that are rather long for young readers, but this is is not only moral, but deeply, though unobtru- the only point in which the author seems to sively, religious. Through the Wilderness. By Mrs. S. Currier. [T. Whittaker. $1.25.] The story of a young girl and her little brother deserted by their drunken father in a small German settlement in Northern Illinois, and of the heroine's struggles and fidelity to what she believed duty, until at last among the happy results ensuing was the reformation of her father. Religion is very largely interwoven with the tale; and the emotional style common to many feminine writers is carried to extreme. The author might improve her language. Charlie Lucken at School and College. By the Rev. H. C. Adams, M.A. [J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.50.] Charlie Lucken is a brave and have fallen short of her ideal. We cannot ness and nobility are in the sacred feeling of “A First Love Letter," and "Our Consul at Carlsruhe," two pieces of exquisite tenderness and delicacy. Mr. Stinson is a true artist; he leaves his use of words. "Bill Shelby” has a captisomething for the imagination; an artist also in stories, each with a legend for the month, and vating descriptive quality. There are in all twelve each has a vignette heading from drawings by F. G. Attwood. his children the favorite is Katherine, distract speak with much favor of Mr. Davis's illustra-ingly pretty. The son of a Scotch neighbor tions. MINOR FICTION. and nearest friend is mildly in love with Katherine, and the elders have foreordained a marriage, but, unfortunately for the match-makers, a gallant and ardent young English officer, Hyde, A Demigod. [Harper & Brothers. $1.00.] is in town, who has won the little damsel almost In bold originality of conception and in power at first sight, and he wears a bow of orange ribof execution this remarkable romance fairly takes bon she has clandestinely sent him as a lovea place among the notable literary creations of token. The young Scotchman swears he will the last year. It is a tale of modern Greece. shoot it from his breast, challenges him, and the The author's theme is a hero, a man evolved, in English officer receives wounds that are nearly the popular scientific language of the present mortal. Katherine is secretly married to him, day, by a careful process of artificial selection and the next spring steals away from her father's continued during several generations, whose house and goes with him to England. Hyde great size and magnificent physical powers are proves unworthy of her trust, but repents, and they return to America to live about the time of including the electric light, electro-chemistry much that is morally admirable in Confucianism the breaking out of the war, when he and the and metallurgy, electro-motors, telegraph, tele- and Buddhism, even in Taoism, but the abVan Humskirks engage on the "rebel" side. phone, phonograph, etc. About half the book surdities and follies of these systems receive by The Hydes become important people, founders is given to these "practical applications." far the larger share of his attention, and he does of a distinguished family which still keeps as a Those who are looking for a full, scientific not justify his contrast to a famous poem of our talisman the bow of orange ribbon. This is the account of electricity in its theory, history, and day in heading a chapter, "Buddha the Night scant outline filled in with the Dutch household applications, will find it in this volume. Occa of Asia." The description of the curious manlife, the pastoral days of Katherine in the Eng- sionally its explanations are technical and misty. ner in which the three religions just named are lish ancestral home, and excellent portraitures The full index fails to lead us to the places dovetailed in China is yet very spirited, and of English, Scotch, and Dutch, to say nothing of where the various electrical units are explained, there is a mass of detail given about the actual the old sort of love making which seems so fresh and, strangely enough, they are nowhere in the working of these faiths in the China of today, in these days of so much vivisection of one's feel-book well and clearly defined. The authors do quite fully illustrated, which makes his work of ings and motives. As in all Mrs. Barr's stories, not mention the remarkable discoveries of no small value to the student of comparative rethere are women who dignify womanhood; Lys- Henry, by which the invention of the telegraph ligion, while the ordinary reader will find here bet is wise and noble, and Katharine grows in became possible. These and some other similar much entertainment and instruction. mental and moral stature when the test of trial oversights, however, are minor defects in a work of general excellence. It is to be regretted that the translators omitted the portraits and biographies of emiment electricians found in the original German edition. comes. in the "wilderness Agnes Surriage. By Edwin Lassetter Bynner. [Ticknor & Co. $1.50.] The Agnes Surriage who figures in this story was an historical character. She was the daughter of humble fisher folk of Marblehead, and was possessed of remarkable beauty, and an intellectual range far above her condition. She was discovered by Sir Harry Frankland, who, about the middle of the eigtheenth century, served as collector of the port of Boston. Frankland brought her to Boston, had her educated under the supervision of Madame Shirley, the governor's wife, and later made her his mistress. Ostracized by society, the youthful pair retired to Hopkinton - then where Frankland built a comfortable mansion. Later, Frankland sought a diplomatic mission, and the two lived for a time in London, and afterwards in Lisbon, where they were at the time of the great earthquake, with an account of which the book concludes. This is the material employed by Mr. Bynner, and he has used it to excellent purpose. The manners and customs of those early days are admirably depicted, and all the characters are endowed with life and individuality. The author has evidently been tireless in his collection of historical data, which he has treated with romantic freedom, and yet with a fidelity to the spirit of the times not often to be found in historical romances. The account of the courtship of Elder Hawkins and the Widow Ruck, which forms a legitimate episode in the narrative, is conceived with delicious humor. Mr. Bynner has acquitted himself honorably of his task in producing a novel of very exceptional merit. But we wish that he had chosen a less objectionable theme for the exercise of his fine and discerning talent. MINOR NOTICES. Lectures and Essays. By the late W. K. Clifford. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock. Second Edition. [Macmillan & Co. $2.50.] From this second edition of Clifford's essays, two papers, "rather mathematical than philosophical," have been omitted, being included in the volume of mathematical papers published in 1882. The volume has now a unity of thought which the first edition lacked. Mr. Pollock has revised the admirable introduction, which remains one of the best biographical sketches in the language. As they now stand in this compact volume these essays are accessible to a larger public than could purchase them in the first edition, the early product of a rare philosophical genius, who, unhappily, did not live long enough to outgrow certain crudities in his speculations on morals and religion, but whose work, as a whole, no student of later scientific thought can neglect. The Family. An Historical and Social Study. By Chas. F. Thwing and Carrie F. B. Thwing. [Lee & Shepard. $2.00.] Rev. Mr. Thwing and Mrs. Thwing, now of Minneapolis, have illustrated in their authorship of this work the position of entire equality in the marriage relation which they maintain. No sign appears that one deserves more credit than the other for this valuable compilation of trustworthy information concerning the history of the family in all the historic ages, and this well-proportioned exposition of its place and function in modern society. Under the head of "The Family Destroyed" the alarming statistics of divorce in the last generation are presented; to check the evil tendency to laxity, the authors advocate judicial separation for minor offences, while full divorce should be granted only "for adultery, attempt on life, very grave cruelty, and long continued desertion." In respect to property rights under marriage the anomaly of favoring the wife more than the husband is condemned, and the abolition of dower and curtesy recommended. A second edition, in four volumes, of the praiseworthy English translation of Lanfrey's A Primer of Michigan History. Compiled by History of Napoleon, calls for no special comWilliam J. Cox. [Lansing: H. R. Pattengill.] ment, except a word of commendation with This little book has grown out of the exregard to the tasteful manner of its publication. perience of Supt. William J. Cox of Hancock, Lanfrey's work was at once recognized on its Mich., who has found the usual text-book on first appearance as indispensable to the student United States history deficient in the special of the Napoleonic career, and time has only history of the individual States. It is designed emphasized the verdict. The author was the for the pupils of the public schools, and for first to make use of the vast mine of material private students, but will prove interesting to to be found in Napoleon's correspondence, and any one who may desire to know anything of the his account may therefore rightly be regarded as history and resources of Michigan. It contains “the first essay toward a serious estimate" of an introduction and five chapters, respectively the life and character of the Emperor. Other on the French Period-1634 to 1760; the Eng- materials of importance have come to light since lish, 1760 to 1796; the Territorial, 1796 to 1837; the pen was struck by death from the hand of on Michigan as a State - 1837 to 1886; and A Lanfrey, but they seem to confirm rather than to Brief Sketch of the Material Resources. A list weaken his opinions, which, in their discriminatof one hundred and fifty questions and an index complete this little book of 102 square 12m0 pages. The Dragon, Image, and Demon; or, The ing severity, have had so much influence in transforming the popular conception of Napoleon as a ruler and as a man. [Macmillan & Co. $9.00.] Rosalie Kaufman has made a serviceable abridgment of Agnes Strickland's warm defence of The Life of Mary Stuart, following the original closely, and omitting only passages of secondary importance. In spite of Mignet and Froude Mary Stuart remains and will remain a Electricity in the Service of Man: A Popular and Practical Treatise on the Applications of Electricity in Modern Life. From the German of Dr. Urbanitzky. Edited, with Copious Additions, by R. Wormen, D.Sc., with an Introduction by John Perry, M.E., F.R.S. [Cassell & Co.] A finely printed octavo of nearly 900 pages, with 850 excellent and often full-page illustrations, divided into "Principles of Electrical Science" and "Technology of Electric-ber of ordinary missionaries who can see noth-romantic figure, and those who wish the imity," the latter comprising about three-fourths ing good in "heathen" religions, nor to that of the whole. Part Second has also two divisions, Generation and Conduction of Electricity, embracing electric machines, dynamos, batteries, etc., and Practical Applications of Electricity, smaller band of men, like Dr. Legge and Spence aginative view, may follow Strickland with confidence that they will see only the most favorable side of the evidence. It is a book that can be read with pleasure, and its eloquent plea in be half of the unhappy queen moves to sympathy |