Recent Literature

THERE is something in Mr. Bret Harte’s poetical work which goes over or under, or at least past, the critical sense, and reaches the humanity of his reader by direct course; and the oddest part of this is that the reader who most keenly feels the good in his performance is most annoyed by the bad in it. Since he began to be widely known, we should say that Mr. Harte’s workmanship — we will not call it his art, for it must be that his art is still good — has grown worse. His verse is more slovenly and seems more wantonly careless, slighting the niceties of rhyme and accent, and as to the matter of it, we have again and again the same great-hearted blackguards and heroic topers; the same old mine keeps caving in and crushing its habitual victim ; here is that unhappy lady in men’s clothes for the third or fourth time; here are the dying agonies of persons who have loved and lost, or played and lost, in Mr. Harte’s poetry any time this last five years. They talk that cockueyfied Yankee Pike of which he seems to have the patent, with a lift now and then into a literary strain worthy of the poet’s corner; and when they do not perish untimely by violence or unaccountable sickness, they leave the poems in which they are celebrated so subtle of sense that one gives it up in despair after a certain number of guesses; — or perhaps tins ought to he said rather of those difficult .Spaniards of cither sex who masquerade in Mr. Harte’s verse. Here also as in former books are frank copies or flying suggestions of divers modern poets, including Mr. Harte himself, whom, one beholds travestied, as it were, in some of the pieces, after a fashion peculiarly bewildering.

What remains? Simply that Mr. Harte’s work still abounds in that something which may be Called charm, for want of another word ; without which the virtues are dead, but having which other matters are trifles in the way of your pleasure. There is a certain warmth, a nameless stir and pulse, in it all, before which you cannot continue unmoved. Somehow you are coaxed into enjoyment against which your criterions and principles severally and collectively protest; and while you lament that this genius should not be better ruled, you feel that it is genius, and yield yourself to it. It may not be of equal force for another generation; we think it will not; but it is potent now ; and we own that with all his lapses and trespasses, each new book of his is a new pleasure for us. We make sure of much real humor along with the false; there is wit nearly always; if we are sky of the pathos, we are still often touched by it; in the very heart of the theatricality are springs of genuine drama. We amuse ourselves moreover with the notion that Mr. Harte knows that now and then a poem in this volume, like Truthful James to the Editor, or I The Ghost that Jim Saw, or Guild’s Signal, is pure self-parody, or open commonplace, or solicited emotion, as well as we know it; and that when he tries to give an air of familiar ease to the situation by speaking of

he understands better than any one can tell him the worth of his attempt. Apparently, he chooses to chance it with the republication of these things; or he may be yielding to the necessity of making out a certain number of pages, a case which shall be sacred from our reproach.

There are several poems in this last book which merit no reproach. Grandmother Tenterden would be one of these, but for the too great vagueness of the close, in which the reader is vexed with diverse conjecture whether it was the living or the dead son come back to upbraid the mother, or whether living or dead he meant to upbraid her; and we have nothing but liking for the truly fine poem with which the book opens. The reader of The Atlantic will recall the beautiful story of Concepcion de Arguello, and how tenderly Mr. Harte has told it. There was matter in it for a much longer poem, which we should be disposed to quarrel with him for not making, if we were not so well content with the touching ballad as it is. The story is that of the daughter of the Spanish Comandante at San Francisco and of the Russian count who once came to look at California with a view to buying it for his master the Czar. The young people promise themselves to each other, and the count, going to get his master’s approval, never returns, while his faithful, despairing Concepcion passes out of the world into a convent, and is an old woman when one day she learns that her lover was killed by falling from his horse on his way to St, Petersburg. We believe the tale is true; if it is not a fact, still Mr. Harte has made it true in telling it. The most poetic part of the poem is that descriptive passage by help of which the sense of Concepcion’s long waiting is conveyed : —

The unchangingness of the scenes here described embodies all the monotony of longing, hopeless waiting, as nothing else could. There is a mighty fine Spanish feeling in that line which portrays the hills " that whitened in their dusty leathern cloaks,” and so makes old Castilians of them; and the winterless Californian year was never, and can never he more perfectly said than it is in the verse, —

In fact, this line is the highest point of achievement in the poem. What follows next is also as good as need be of its kind: nothing could be sweeter, or more paternally helpless in the case than tho Comandante’s efforts, when he

And the sympathetic reader will find the effect only the more touching from the charming irrelevance of several of the consoling adages. All this part of the poem is very tenderly and delicately managed ; and in continuing the same strain of narration there is another descriptive passage almost as fine as that we have quoted, in which the old, dull, dead Spanish California lives again : —

The climax of the poem is good, though a trifle too expected, perhaps ; but it seems as if Mr. Harte might have given us lines less commonplace than

This is a really small matter, however, and they were doubtless meant to be just as prosaic as they are upon some theory.

The best parts of For the King are the opening stanzas giving the interior of the New Mexican church, with some graphic strokes that our readers cannot have forgotten. It is interesting throughout, and must he numbered among the most successful of Mr. Harte’s non-dialect poems. Of the dialect pieces in this volume, Luke is easily first. In argument it is as thoroughly unreal as Tasso’s Aminta, or any dream of the bell’ eta de I’oro: but the character is forcibly realized, and much of the humor is exquisite. You say, If it were possible that such a delicate, refined girl should have been smitten with that great, burly, ignorant fellow, Luke, it would be a pretty thing to consider; and before the end—such is the authority that anything excellently done carries with it — you find yourself inclining to believe that it might have happened, or to wish that it had, for the charm’s sake.

— At this time, when nothing is so remarkable in poetical literature as a community of ease and grace and general pleasinguess, it is a distinguished achievement on the part of Mr. Trowbridge to have identified a certain kind of dramatic study in verse with his name. It is scarcely a story that he sets about telling, though you find yourself possessed of a story before he has done, in such pieces as The Vagabonds, Dorothy in the Garret, Old Simon Dole, One Day Solitary, and Sheriff Thorne, all of which are as characteristically his as any of the “ dialect ” poems are Mr. Harte’s, while they are more faithfully wrought, and with a livelier artistic conscience. Old Simon Dole, for example, is as honest vernacular as that of Hosea Biglow; and in is interesting to observe the differences in the two kinds of Yankee parlance, Mr. Trowbridge’s being the Yankee of the New Englander who has emigrated and lived a generation in New York State, or the other parts that used to be Out. West; and being none the less genuine for the difference, but more so. However, the good dialect is the least merit of the poem; the character and the situation are as true as that, and we do not know where we should go for a solider bit of tragedy. It is an admirable portraiture of that sordid rustic selfishness which seems more hopelessly besotted than any other sort of Selfishness; the unconsciousness with which Old Simon Dole touches in all the ugly traits of his hard, niggard soul is in high degree artistic. This old wretch (whom it is small relief to call names) is so vivid a presence, that he seems to materialize — if we may borrow a happy phrase from the spiritualists — before our eyes, and we have him in his chair “tipped back agin the sink,” with his grotesque best clothes on, his cheap ready-made frock-coat, his heavy cowhide boots, smelling of the barn-yard, and his horny, trembling old bands holding his hat in his lap, as he tells his sister how he wore the life out of his wife and the love out of his children. Nothing is said of the sister’s character, but you are made to feel that she is as hard as he, and is as far from seeing anything wrong in his history ; but that she will not care to have him make a very long visit.

He tells how he balked all her hopes and plans for the children’s education, and how when one of his daughters married

It is quite in character that this miser should be rather vain of his son’s welleducated iind expensive wife : —

His old overworked wife falls into a decline, and he is told by the neighbors that she ought to have rest and society.

It is a sort of comfort to know from his hints and complaints that when his wife is dead, and his farm is rented, his tenants bully him and his children give him a cold welcome to their homes. This Old Simon Dole is a new creation, or rather an invention; for he had but to be found out. He abounds in rustic life, of which we think the heartless phases have been too little painted. Here once for all they are, though in a picture that cannot be matched in its way. It is as real, as natural, as a stone wall, or a bit of sour meadow-land, and is perhaps the most thoroughly detestable American type there is.

We believe we should place next to it the poem One Day Solitary, in which the newly sentenced convict broods upon his past and future. It is not at all sentimentalized, but is simply the case of the reprobate, not hopelessly hardened, whom his sins have overtaken, and who falls from a boisterous bravado in his soliloquy, through hate and deadly anger to a despair that no comment on the poem can give again. It is a touching and thrilling piece of divination, of which every one must feel the truth, and of which we hope many will perceive the consummate skill. Sheriff Thorne, which is also good, will not compare with these two poems for a satisfactory completeness wrought out from within the characters imagined ; but the differently managed study of old age, in Rachel at the Well, almost persuades us to give it equal praise. It is at any rate a beautiful poem, tenderly and sweetly felt, and most sincerely meditated.

We cannot help thinking The Emigrant’s Story rather long, though there is no want of interest in it, and it is as honest as the rest of the poems. The hexameter, which is preëminently fitted for such stories, is not so well used as it might be. We object to lines ending in the sign of the infinitive verb, or an adjective qualifying a noun that begins the next line; and we think that Mr. Trowbridge has employed the dactyl too sparingly, and has otherwise not sufficiently studied the structure of the verse.

Some pieces of a different sort, perhaps less characteristic, like At my Enemy’s Gate, Trouting, The Missing Leaf, and The Phantom Chapel, please us greatly in this book, which we are on the whole very glad of, and should be well content to see the like of far oftener than we do.

— When a man sets about any autobiographical work, he ought to remember that he cannot be too personal: egotism then becomes a virtue, as a crime committed against a heretic or an infidel changes its nature. The fault we should find with Mr. Eggleston is that he does not sufficiently recognize this fact in his Rebel’s Recollections. He is at some pains, we fancy, to suppress his own feelings, and to impersonalize his experiences just where we should like him to be most garrulous about himself. Something is to be forgiven to the modesty of a soldier, but modesty should not be excessive in its claims. No doubt it would have been difficult to state, to the sort of audience for which Mr. Eggleston wrote, certain things fully ; and no doubt he felt the burden of this difficulty; as it is, he has dexterously addressed himself to people whose sympathies were all against the cause for which he fought, and has probably not increased the number of its enemies. On the contrary, we incline to believe that he has helped our readers to understand that those opposed to the Union in the late war were as sincere as its friends, and wore moved by a patriotism which differed from ours only in being mistaken. It is hard for us of the North to conceive of Americans who were primarily Virginians or South Carolinians, but it is quite necessary to do so in order to look at the past with a true historical senseWhilst the reader is arriving at this view, he will be very agreeably entertained in Mr. Eggleston’s book, He has added to the papers which appeared in the magazine a chapter on odd characters which is curiously interesting, and there were already some amusing sketches of queer people. His ideas and observations in regard to the rebel leaders have that certain value which always belongs to the testimony of a keen-sighted eye-witness; and his criticisms of tin; feeble and wandering state-craft of the rebel political leaders ought to be consoling to us who at times believed that all the incapacity was on our side.

Mr. Eggleston’s manner is as good as his spirit, and he has given us a book of peculiar interest, one of the pleasures of which is its frank and clear style. One thoroughly likes the author after reading it.

If good taste were more common in the printing and binding of American books, we should not feel it necessary to praise the blameless workmanship of this. As matters are, however, it is a duty to do so.

— The interest of so good a hit of human nature as Mr. De Forest’s Honest John Vane should not pass away with the public interest in the now half-forgotten frauds that first suggested it to the author ; for fortunately, or unfortunately, you have but to change names and dates a very little, and you have the Congressional Washington of 1874-75 as clearly portrayed in the book as that of 1871—72. In this country, at least, there has never been so good a political satire as this; but its excellence as a political satire is only one of many excellences in it. The principal persons, John Vane and his wife, are presented with the sharpness and depth of delineation which one finds in all of Mr. De Forest ’s best work, and which is peculiar to him. The malleable, blubberly good-intention of the hero, who weakens by stress of circumstances into a prosperous rogue, is very keenly appreciated, with all the man’s dim, dull remorse, his simple reverence for better men than himself, his vulgar but efficient cunning With men as bad or worse; you more than half pity him, feeling that if such a soul as his had been properly trained, it would by no means have gone to the devil. Olympia Vane, for some reasons, we should he inclined to think a still better work of art. Her gradual expansion from the vulgar belleship she had enjoyed among her mother’s boarders, from her “ tough flirtations ” with the under-graduates of a university town, into the sort of unhappy social success of her Washington life, is graphically traced. Her sort of rich, midelicate handsomeness affects you like something you have yourself seen; and her unscrupulous vanity, illogical, pitiless, and cowardly, verifies the type throughout. She is to be added to that line of women in the painting of whom Mr. De Forest — never weak in the presentation of character — would he recognized by a more discerning public than ours, as having shown the skill and force of a master. Whether they are pleasant people or not is quite beside the purpose. One feels them to he true, and that is enough ; and if there is a lesson for one sex in the experience of John Vane, Olympia Vane ought to he full of warning and expostulation for quite as numerous a class of the other sex.

Darius Dorm.au is a character which, if forced at times, is nevertheless a vigorous conception, with a touch of fantasticality truly fresh and fascinating. Other people in the book strike us more as caricatures; but this is well enough in a satire.

— M. Gautier, with judicious leisure, begins his Russian winter at Berlin, and occupies some sixty-five out of his three hundred and fifty pages with getting to St. Petersburg; but, once there, he entertains ns as agreeably as in his book about Constantinople, translated in England many years ago. We say “ about,”because Gautier does not write on the countries he has visited: be is eminently a cultivated loiterer, lingers upon the borders of his subject, allows us a glimpse here, a glimpse there, and succeeds, by dint of suggestion, in keeping our appetite alert for local color, till we have obtained a very satisfactory and sufficiently detailed impression of the whole. He displays a pleasant scorn of statistics, but contrives to give to whatever he mentions the air of being the only thing worth noticing at the time. This, Indeed, is an excellent trait, and has its advantages: he himself reminds us that, but for him, we Should never have discovered that at Hamburg they have fleshcolored omnibuses. His mood varies agreeably, however, and he becomes very solid and systematic in his long description of St. Isaac’s, at Petersburg. Still, he is most at his ease when simply occupied in reflecting or transmitting the first and volatile impression from picturesque scenes or objects. Certain passages describing the wintry aspects of the northern capital surpass in pictorial quality anything of the sort which it has been our fortune to meet hitherto. His pages sparkle like a frosted pane. The gleam of gold and silver and the deep glow of gems, so lavishly displayed in church and convent, attract him, and fill his story with their radiance. Here and t here he smiles at his own childish enjoyment of these things, and hints that he is indeed an Asiatic barbarian, a man who experiences wild yearnings after an unfettered life, far away on snowy wastes or deep in dewy forests, among Samoveds or Tzigani. But you know perfectly well that in such a situation he would he miserable; and so, after going through enough artistic description, and visiting with him the house of Zichy (the Russian Dore, and more than Dore), after witnessing his enthusiasm over the Vassili Blagennoi, at Moscow, and there examining at the Museum of Carriages the extraordinary chariots of the Catherines, which contain toilette and card tables and gilded porcelain stoves, your friendly solicitude for this fascinating idler is well satisfied at seeing him transported in a téléja across the frozen plains, seated upon two ropes swung transversely from beam to beam of the two which compose the wagon’s body, and finally deposited by rail in Paris, where he assures us that he was received by old friends and pretty women, at a smoking supper, and his “return was celebrated gavly until the morning.”

Baron Hübner has written one of the most interesting books of travels of the past }ear, in the volume which records his impressions in this country, and in Japan and China. His intention at starting was merely to observe whatever was new or curious, and to record every evening the principal events of the day. This plan he has carried out with great success; he has omitted all trivialities, but he has forgotten no matters apparently trifling hut which are indications of principles of real importance. In what he writes about this country he notices, among other things, the omnipotence of the hotel-clerk, and the slavish obsequiousness of the traveling public before him; he comments also on the demoralizing effects of family-life in hotels; he mentions once more the fondness Americans have for titles : but if he is keen-sighted, he is never ill-natured. He gives a good deal of space to an account of his stay at Salt Lake City, and to the impressions made upon him by what he saw of Mormonism. He was by no means so favorably impressed by that religion as have been some recent travelers, who seem to regard a strong paternal government as the surest proof of the divine origin of the accompanying religion.

In California he made the usual round of the tourist, and thence he sailed for Japan and China. Descriptions of Japan are certainly not a novelty, but we hardly know one more interesting than this of Baron Hübner’s. In that country not only did he have peculiar opportunities granted to his rank, or more frequently won by his own boldness, to visit unexplored regions, but he also made very good use of those opportunities. He saw that the varnish of Occidental civilization which the Japanese have acquired in many cases is not more than skin-deep, and not even that always. He says, “ In the streets of Yedo one meets people wearing silk hats; others, congress boots; or paletots, which have the advantage of showing the legs naked to the waist. Some of them who are dressed entirely in European fashion have kept their wooden patten-sandals, and their caps of lacquered paper. What disfigures them all, however, is the way they try to do their hair, which, being naturally coarse and hard, will not divide or brush like ours, so that they resort to oiling it. and tying it with a ribbon. . , . Certainly, nothing is more praiseworthy than an ardent desire for progress — a wish to better one’s self and to adopt the inventions of nations more civilized than our own. But I am afraid these good impulses are often badly directed ; and that they may produce great disturbance in men’s minds, and perhaps some day a strong and bloody revolution.” Continually he regrets, as every traveler of taste must, seeing a false European taste driving out what was distinctively Japanese. It is not that he frowns upon the efforts of that race to reach a higher scale of civilization; far from it: it is merely that he distrusts some of the methods employed, fears too hasty a change and too confident belief on the part ol the rulers that by judicious edicts they can alter the whole nature of their people. Almost equally interesting are the pages devoted to China. Indeed, the whole volume will he found to he very entertaining.

The translation is generally good, hut it could have well endured a little more supervision. The foreigner who on arriving in New York looks for the Prevost House, to see if it is really as good a hotel as Baron Hübner says, is doomed to uncertainty. There is obscurity, too, in the remark, “ At seven o’clock we are passing at a foot’s space across the Mississippi, on a bridge of recent and novel construction;” and again, “In these savage regions, those who are by way of representing civilization do not generally shine in point of civilization.” These faults are rare, however.

— Sir Arthur Helps’s latest book differs in style and in substance from all that he has heretofore given to the world. It is biographical in form, but the biographical chapters are far from being its most interesting portion,

The author was but casually acquainted with Mr. Brassey, whose life and labors he describes, and this fact deprives the book of the greatest element of interest. He gives the whole story at second-hand, in the words of thirty or more people who were workers under Mr. Brassey and testified for the purposes of this volume, before a short-hand reporter, concerning their knowledge and opinions. The fact that the book was manufactured in this perfunctory way accounts for another peculiarity — that Mr. Helps so frequently mentions the processes involved in its production. He begins, indeed, by assuring us that be intends to put himself in good relation with us, and that “if he fail in doing this he tails in a most important point.” He next proceeds to establish cordiality between himself and us by saying that he has undertaken a work for which he has no special qualifications.

He then gives us further information about what lie purposes doing and how he intends to do it, all of which strikes us very much as if Miss Cushman were to attempt to interest us in her Lady Macbeth by taking us into the greenroom, and there explaining the means by which efiects were to be produced upon us.

Sir Arthur’s second-hand mode of composition has led him into error, as when he is comparing the Argentine Republic with Russia; he says that the two countries are “ equal in extent,” and that the population of Russia is about 75,000,000 and that of the Argentine Republic is only about 1,000,000. Upon this statement he remarks,

“ How stupidly, or at least how unfortunately, the world has hitherto been peopled ! ” The truth is that the territory of European Russia is a little over 2,000,000 square miles, and its population about 01,000,000, while the Argentine Republic only covers 827,000 square miles, and has a population of 1,500,000. Sir Arthur is quite astray here, in his proportions, and, of course, in his rhetorical deduction.

The volume is adorned with a fine portrait of Mr. Brassey, which presents us a man of good nature, not careful of details, having a bright, intelligent eye, but not possessing the marks of a man of culture or of a man of “family,” as the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table expressed it.

Turning from the picture of Mr. Brassey to the pages of Sir Arthur, we learn that while Mr. Brassey sprung from a very ancient Cheshire family, in which there was undoubtedly some culture, his early advantages were few, and he was at the age of sixteen articled to a land-surveyor. The celebrated carriage-road from Shrewsbury to Holyhead was the first great work upon which he was employed. He was there associated with the well-known Thomas Telford. The Menai suspension bridge was a portion of this enterprise, and we have no doubt that the genius displayed in its construction, as well as in the building of the entire road, which Mr. Telford considered the chef-d’æuvre of his life, exerted a molding influence upon the young learner. It is pretty safe to conclude that the masterpassion of Mr. Brassey’s life — the determination to be a great contractor, a builder of great national works — dated from his contact with Mr. Telford. In 1834, when the young surveyor was twenty-nine years of age, he met another notable man, John Stephenson, whose influence, in the same direction, was added to that already exerted by Mr. Telford.

We do not care to follow the story told by Sir Arthur’s reporters. It relates to the building of nearly seven thousand miles of public works, mainly railways, under about one hundred and seventy-five contracts, in England, Scotland, France, Spain, Norway, Italy, Moldavia, India, the Crimea, South America, Canada, and Australia. The story tells how these contracts were obtained and honorably carried out, and how some resulted in profit, and some in loss. It gives Brassey’s dealings with sub-contractors, and their management of workmen of many nationalities. It presents comparisons of the working powers and the economic advantages and disadvantages of these laborers.

Sir Arthur describes the ruling passion of Mr. Brassey as a desire “ to win high reputation for skill, integrity, and success in the difficult vocation of a contractor for public works ; to give large employment to his fellow-countrymen; and by means of British labor and British skill to knit together foreign countries, and to promote civilization, according to his view of it, throughout the world.” We hardly think, however, that this ideal was conceived by Mr. Brassey until his labors had become large, and his sphere of operation exteusive.

Throughout the whole there is apparent a patriotic effort to present England in a favorable aspect as an inventive and manufacturing country, but the author is obliged to give America high praise for “ very ingenious and successful modes of facilitating labor by machinery,” and he praises the French for their system of government control of railways— for the superior comfort of their carriages, the excellence of their stations, and the general amenities of railway traveling in their country. In these respects Sir Arthur reluctantly rates America and France above England.

— The subjects Mr. Wilkinson discusses in his volume are George Eliot’s Navels, Mr. Lowell’s Poetry and Prose, Mr. Bryant’s Poetry, the Character and the Literary Influence of Erasmus, and the History of the Christian Commission as a Part of Church History — a list which would seem to show that the author’s lance is freer in the field of letters than in that of life. That he should have given us a book wholly devoted to literary subjects is in itself a claim on our gratitude ; work of this sort is by

no means over-common in this country, and if Mr. Wilkinson does not tell his readers a great deal that is new, he shows interest in some important literary qualities. The most striking of the essays is that in which he picks flaws in Mr. Lowell’s prose writing; this he does sometimes with success, at times with captiousness, and once or twice with willful misunderstanding. That is to say, he has gone over Mr. Lowell’s Among my Books and My Study Window, picking out stray pronouns, unfamiliar words, and phrases which offend strict grammatical propriety, and has made an array of errors which would delight the soul of a proofreader. It cannot be denied that much good may he done by this close verbal criticism, that it tends to save writers from falling into habits of carelessness. But such criticism, to be valuable, must be above quibbling, and it is very one-sided if no credit is given to the value of those utterances which may he violently twisted into examples of false grammar. For example, when Mr. Lowell, in one of the best of his excellent essays, writes of Shakespeare, " In our self-exploiting nineteenth century, with its melancholy liver-complaint, how serene and high he seems! If he had sorrows, he has made them the woof of everlasting consolation to his kind; and if, as poets are wont to whine, the outward world was cool to him, its biting air did but trace itself in loveliest frost-work of fancy on the many windows of that selfcentred and cheerful soul,” such comment as this, which Mr. Wilkinson makes, seems, to put it mildly, singularly inadequate. “We do not think that poets are wont to ‘whine’ that the outward world was cold to Shakespeare. Nor do we think that the world was cold to Shakespeare, or is, or is ever likely to be, to him, or to any of his kind. Shakespeare is of the world, and the world always loves its own. Nor again, to take Mr. Lowell now as he means, and no longer as he says, can it be truly charged against ‘ poets ’ that they ‘ are wont to whine’ of the ‘world’ as cold to them ? Here and there a poet ‘ whines,’ no doubt, often with good reason, too, of the world’s coldness to his claims. But more poets, against good reason, refrain from whining. 1 Whining’ is not characteristic of their class' Whatever may be the truth as to this, it is a disagreeable, a peevish, a morbid note interjected here to speak of the century’s ‘ melancholy liver-complaint,’ and of the poets’ ‘ whine,’ ” etc. Is that all Mr. Wilkinson can find to say ? His remarks probably comply with grammatical laws, but all that is needed for a critic’s education is not to be found between the covers of Lindley Murray. Mr. Wilkinson, however, is not wholly dogmatic contradiction ; he is not without a gay vein of sprightly humor; for example : —

“One experiences several successive ‘degrees,’ as the medical men say, of effect from the influence of Mr. Lowell’s company when he is exercising his office of critic. The first degree is a certain bewilderment, Follows a rallying surprise and shock. Then for a while one feels his spirits constantly rising. One could take critical excursions forever with Mr. Lowell. There is such a delightful sense of escape. The attraction of gravitation is abolished, and we are careering away at large on the wings of the wind, in the boundless country of the unconditioned. In fact, we are going up in a balloon. It is glorious. But we grow a little light-headed. We remember Gambetta. Gambetta went up in a balloon. One would not like to resemble Gambetta. Our elation gives way. We pray for a return to the domain of law. We sigh like Ganymede, like Europa, for the solid ground,” etc.

Fortunately there is but little of this levity. Mr. Wilkinson’s usual style is very solemn ; he is grammatical but dull, “faultlessly null.” In the essay on George Eliot’s novels he sometimes buries his meaning under a cloud of words. He says of that remarkable woman, “ She is a prime elemental literary power. . . . She is a great ethical teacher; it may be not an original, but at least a highly charged derivative, moral, living force.” In general, however, what he says is true enough. He praises that great novelist for her admirable style, her keen observation, her analysis of character, her dramatic skill, and all her wonderful power; and the impression of hopeless melancholy her readers get from reading her book he explains by her lack of a personal experience of religion. In his enthusiasm he makes some bold statements ; for instance: “Now George Eliot within her range — and her range, though, unlike Shakespeare’s, it may have definite determinable limits, is still very wide — George Eliot, I say, within her range is every whit as dramatic as Shakespeare.” Again, “ The knowledge of the human heart that George Eliot displays is not an acquired knowledge. It is born with her and in her, It is genius. It is a gift which is Shakespearean in quality — one might, perhaps, as well he frankly true to himself and out with his thought — it is Jiner than Shakespeare. In quantity it is less, but in quality it is more.”

It would seem as if in the ardor of admiration Mr. Wilkinson had been betrayed into rash assertion ; more frequently, however, he keeps in the beaten path. That he is able to lose his head at times can be seen by the reader who will take the trouble to turn to page 287 of this book, where the author asks what was the motive which underlay the Christian Commission, and answers it by saying, “ It was a supernatural love of Christ.” The whole passage deserves reading for the curious light it throws upon the author. In more ways than one he lacks the temper of a critic,

— The modest volume entitled A Theory of the Arts comprises the course of lectures on æsthetics delivered by the late l’rof. Joseph Torrey before the senior class in the University of Vermont. In these days of the (so-called) popularization of art, the accomplished author’s mode of treatment may be thought a trifle formal and oldfashioned, but the lectures exhibit a refinement of taste and comprehensive range of reading and reflection on art-matters, fully worthy of one whose name and work are an honor to American scholarship. Two thirds of the volume will be found occupied by an account of previous theories of the fine arts in general, and a statement of the author’s own theory. In the remainder, Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Oratory, and Poetry are successively examined, and thus arranged in an ascending scale of dignity and importance. Professor Torrey’s views are not particularly original, but they are set forth with clearness and grace, and are well worth the consideration of those who are interested in the metaphysics of art.

— Mr. Hart’s book on German Universities will be received with special favor by the large and rapidly increasing number of young men who look forward to a year or two of study abroad, with great hopefulness and with considerable uncertainty about the experience that awaits them in foreign parts. For information they can be recommended to no better authority than this book. They will find in it not only a complete account of what German universities are, and of the respects in which they differ from American colleges, but also the answers to the thousand little questions which are so apt to puzzle the new-comer and to be overlooked by those who are familiar with the habits of a strange land. Mr. Hart’s method of conveying this information is by means of a very exact record of what he himself saw, thought, felt, and did when studying abroad. The advantage of this frankness is obvious; it satisfies the reader’s curiosity on every point; the author’s thoroughness leaves almost nothing untouched. On the other hand, we occasionally come upon revelations of matters of transitory interest which might well have been omitted ; such, for instance, is the account of the violent cold from which the author suffered in the autumn of 1862. It “ seemed to be satisfied with nothing short of running through the entire system. Every organ was affected more or less, the head, eyes, ears, stomach. By the end of the month, after suffering in every conceivable way and congratulating myself on the prospect of recovery, symptoms of rheumatism showed themselves. I became lame and unable to walk,”etc., etc. This form of illness is common to a very large extent of the earth’s surface. The author’s naive exultation in the getting of his degree is equally noticeable. His tone, indeed, is one of great enthusiasm, whether it is the merits of German scholarship, the difficulties of Roman law, or the discomforts of water on the knee that he is describing. Apart from these objections, however, there is a great deal that is good in the book. Mr. Hart’s method of learning German might well be, or rather must be, followed by all who care to get a thorough knowledge of the language. The short chapter devoted to it deserves to be read and remembered.

The author’s experience was tolerably wide, and his account of German university life is very good. He adds to the record of his own life some chapters of general remarks, in which he makes very clear what is really the merit of a German university, namely, that it “ has one and only one object: to train thinkers,” and that it tends “ to produce theologians rather than pastors, jurists rather than lawyers, theorizers in medicine rather than practitioners, investigators, scholars, speculative thinkers rather than technologists and school-teachers.” The way in which this admirable design is carried out is fully explained. The system by which the Pricat-docenten supplement and rival the professors, tlie great principle of freedom in learning and teaching, the full lists of subjects taught by the professors, make a showing by the side of which English and American universities look incomplete. Although the aim of the German university is not a practical one, it has certainly the most efficient practical aids. It is no place for hoary routine to assume the air of wise and venerable tradition. It is managed on the only true principle, that of giving the best instruction, and it is no wonder that Germany holds so high a position in the field of thought.

In conclusion, Mr. Hart draws a comparison between the German and the English and American universities, respectively. It is singular to notice the way in which those of England have fallen out of the lists, so far as tempting ambitious Americans is concerned. Mr. Hart’s book comes to show that the time for Mr. Bristed’s Five Years in an English University is past. For one student who leaves this shore for England, ten or perhaps twenty leave for Germany. Without decrying the English, it is enough to say that the reason is very plain. One need only look at the list of lectures given at Leipsic, in order to sympathize fully with those who regard scholarship as something more than a step towards writing smooth Latin and Greek verses.

— Professor Whitney’s volume is composed of a series of essays of varying interest. The first two, entitled The British in India, and China and the Chinese, respectively, in no respect differ from hosts of solid review articles ; the republication of the notice of Alford’s Queen’s English seems hardly called for, since time has done more gently the work the critic designed to accomplish by his onslaught, and the book is deservedly forgotten ; but the others are worthy of attention and study. Those fit to judge the paper on the Lunar Zodiac of India, Arabia, and China are few, but they will be grateful for the thorough examination Mr. Whitney has given the subject. The conclusion to which he arrives, at the end of a tolerably long and cautious investigation, is, he says, “almost. purely negative. We have only examined and found untenable every theory yet proposed respecting the derivation of any one of the three forms of the system from either of the others. We have done nothing more than clear the ground; the way is left open to any one to prove, by good and sufficient evidence, that either the Hindus, the Chinese, or the Arabs, or that some fourth people, different from them all, may claim the honor of being inventors of an institution so widely diffused, and forming a cardinal element in the early astronomical science of the most important and cultivated races of Asia. . . . For myself, I have little faith that certainty upon the subject, or eveu confident persuasion, will ever be attained.”

The essay on the Elements of English Pronunciation is of great value. Mr. Whitney first gives his readers a full description of the different sounds of the English language, taking his own pronunciation as a standard, and then determining by a series of interesting experiments the frequency of utterance of each of these sounds. For this purpose lie made a selection of ten passages, five in poetry and five in prose, from ns many authors, of various periods, and separated and counted the individual sounds as met with in each, until the number of 1000 sounds was reached.” This gave him some most interesting results. The proportion of vowels to consonants in English he found to be as 37.3 to 62,7. The percentage of vowels is a trifle less in German, in French over 40, 42 in Sanskrit, 44 in Latin, and 46 in Greek. The average number of syllables to a word he found to be 1.358, that of sounds to a word 3.642. Another curious fact he ascertained was that the percentage of hissing or sibilant sounds is rather larger in French than in English, which is badly enough off with 9.5. In ancient Greek it was over twelve per cent. ; in German it is about six per cent.

In addition to this valuable paper we find an article on the Sanskrit accent; one entitled How Shall we Spell ? the republication of notices of Max Müller’s Chips from a German Workshop, and Mr. G. W. Cox’s Mythology of the Aryan Nations; an essay on the Relation of Vowel and Consonant; another on Bell’s Visible Speech.

There is no safer volume than this both for the regular student and for the many amateur observers of language who stand in special need of a sure guide.

— Dr. Bacon’s Genesis of the New England Churches might also be described as a history and a defense of the principle of republicanism in church government. It belongs to the order of “ popular ” histories, being unincumbered by foot-notes, and poorly illustrated. In his preface, indeed, the author distinctly disclaims having had access to any recondite sources of information ; but the book is written with great vigor and ability, and is crowded with interesting information. The scope of the volume is perhaps best indicated by its closing sentences: “ It is a history of tenden-

cies and conflicts which have come to the result that now, every American church forms itself by elective affinity and the principle of Separatism. We shall find that it is the history of Christianity working toward its own emancipation from secular power; and that it is at the same time the history of the state, learning slowly, but at last effectually, that it has no jurisdiction in the sphere of religion, and that its equal duty to all churches is the duty, not of enforcing their censures, but only of protecting their peaceable worship, and their liberty of prophesying.” Dr. Bacon begins by roundly denying the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, and shows with much force and probability that the primitive churches in Jerusalem and Antioch could not, in the nature of things, have had anything like an aristocratic or episcopal constitution; that the bishops of the early time were no more than parish pastors, and the presbyters brethren with an aptitude for exhortation. The practical affairs of those first ecclesiæ, or assemblies, he thinks were administered much like those of the Methodists at the present time. Dr. Bacon confesses himself unable satisfactorily to bridge the chasm between the first century and the year 312, tin: date of' the conversion of Constantine, when hierarchy is found firmly established; but he has ins own theory of differentiation to account for the change, and his dogmatism, be it observed, is not of an offensive order, but rather refreshing in its reminiscence of that still recent time when divines, as a class, were wont to teach “ as those having authority and not as the scribes.”

Passing lightly over the long ages when sacerdotalism reigned supreme, Dr. Bacon shows that it was one Francis Lambert, a fugitive from Avignon, who first, in 1526, prepared for the reformed churches of the principality of Hesse a “ scheme of ecclesiastical order which was almost a purely Congregational platform,” but which never went into operation there. He then traces minutely the history of the English Reformation, and undertakes to show that from the very outset the principle of Separatism, or complete ecclesiastical independence, contended with that of Protestant episcopalianism there. The memorials of the earlier and more obscure martyrs of Separatism, Copping and Thacker, John Greenwood, the polished but impracticable Henry Barrows, and the fiery Welshman, Henry, or Ap Henry, whose beautiful letter of farewell to his wife from prison is given at length, are all fresh and affecting; while the more familiar story of the church in William Brewster’s house, the stately manor of Scrooby, and ultimately the almost incredibly heroic struggle for existence here, are so told as to lose none of their old interest. The distinction between Pilgrims and Puritans is of course strongly insisted on; yet how unessential that distinction really was, is shown plainly enough by the readiness with which Plymouth Pilgrims and Salem Puritans coalesced and came to substantial accord, under the exigencies of their common exile. Nay, in these days of well-marked reaction from what then proved the ascendant spirit, we fancy that the majority, even of Dr. Bacon’s readers, will find their sympathies most strongly enlisted by Mr. Higginson, who, “ when they came to the Land’s End, calling up his children and other passengers unto the stern of the ship to take their last sight of England, said, ‘ We will not say, as the Separatists were wont to say at their leaving of England, Farewell, Babylon ! Farewell, Rome! but we will say, Farewell, dear England : farewell, the church of God in England, and all Christian friends there! We do not go to New England as Separatists from the church of England, though wo cannot but separate from the corruptions in it; hut we go to practice the positive part of church reformation, and propagate the gospel in America.’ ”

In the chapter on The Sojourn at Leyden, copious extracts are made from the Essays or Observations Divine and Moral, of the angelic John Robinson. It would seem a pity that this book should not be made easily accessible in days when the Christian preacher, under whatever polity, must feel that his function and his traditional methods of appeal are so fast becoming discredited.

— Dr. Hurst’s account of life in Germany is very much the sort of book one would expect from a doctor of divinity, with very genuine liking for Germany, and with such knowledge of the country as one gets from a few years of residence. The amount of information collected is not very great, nor is there much in it that is startlingly novel. There is a certain amount of gossiping chat about the universities, or rather about the different theological schools, and the theological professors. Another section of the book is devoted to an account of the literary life in Germany, speaking among other things of the large publishing-houses, and of the rich public libraries. Another part describes briefly the Tyrol. There is nothing in the volume calling for special comment; it reads as if it were a collection of letters home, so unambitious is the book in design, and so not exactly trivial, but unimportant in execution. The author never goes very far into any subject that he chooses for discussion; he always contents himself with the brief record of his impressions. Some of these are of a sort that cannot command universal agreement, as when, for example, in one of his numerous digressions he speaks of seeing at the Paris Exposition of 1867 a building containing “a miniature Jewish tabernacle, and plans of the architecture of all the Bible lands. This was one of the best-prepared and most valuable objects to be seen at the Exposition. . . . The Evangelical Hall was to me, however, by far the most interesting object of the entire Exposition.”

The book reminds us very strongly of the addresses made to awe-stricken Sunday-school scholars by elders just back from Europe. There is the same wonder at things different from what is to he seen in this country, and the same expression of the traveler’s simple tastes.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS.

Harper and Brothers, New York : David, King of Israel : His Life and its Lessons. By the Rev. William M. Taylor, D, D., Minister of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York city. — The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. The First Book and Selections. Edited for Schools and Colleges. By F. A. March, LL. D. With an Introduction by A. Ballard, D. D., Professor of Christian Greek and Latin in Lafayette College; and Explanatory Notes by W. B. Owen, A. M., Adjunct Professor of Christian Greek. — The Treasure Hunters; or, The Search for the Mountain Mine. A Novel. By George Manville Fenn, Author of Ship Ahoy, etc. — Jack’s Sister; or, True to her Trust. A Novel. — The King of No-Land.

By B. L. Farjeon. Illustrated. — Wild Animals. The Life and Habits of Wild Animals. Illustrated from Designs by Joseph Wolf. Engraved by J. W. and Edward Whymper. With Descriptive Letter-press, by Daniel Giraud Elliot, F. L. S., F. Z. 8.—Nursery Noonings. By Gail Hamilton. — The Little Lame Prince. By the Author of John Halifax, Gentleman, Illustrated. — Politics for Young Americans. By Charles Nordhoff.—Aileen Ferrers. A Novel. By Susan Morley. — The Love that Lived. A Novel. By Mrs. Eiloart.—In Honor Bound. A Novel. By Charles Gibbon. — Jessie Trim. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon. — A Hero and a Martyr. A True Narrative. By Charles Beade.

James R. Osgood & Co., Boston : Ten Days in Spain, By Kate Field. Illustrated. — The Circassian Boys. Translated through the German, from the Russian of Michael Lermontoff. By S. S. Conant. — Broken Chains. Translated by Frances A, Shaw. From the German of E. Werner, Author of Good Luck, etc.

G. P, Putnam’s Sons, New York : Geometry and Faith. A Fragmentary Supplement to the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. By Thomas Hill. Revised and Enlarged Edition. — Winter Homes for Invalids. An Account of the Various Localities in Europe and America suitable for Consumptives and Other Invalids during the Winter Months, with Special Reference to the Climatic Variations at each Place and their Influence on Disease. By Joseph W Howe, M. D.

Dodd and Mead, New York: Grace for Grace. Letters of Rev. William James. — The Life and Adventures of Rear Admiral Johu Paul Jones. By John S. C. Abbott. Illustrated.

Albert Mason, New York : Critical and Historical Essays. Contributed to the Edinburgh Review. By Lord Macaulay. Authorized Edition.

W. J. Widdleton, New York : Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Complete. With an Original Memoir, by R. H. Stoddard, and Illustrations,

Roberts Brothers, Boston : Dress-Reform : A Series of Lectures, delivered in Boston, on Dress as it affects the Health of Woman. Edited by Abba Goold Woolson. With Illustrations. — F. Grant & Co. : or, Partnerships. A Story for the Boys who

“ Mean Business.” By George L. Chaney. — Stories for Children. By Eleven Sophomores. — Speaking Likenesses. By Christina Rossetti. With Pictures thereof by Arthur Hughes. — The Fletcher Prize Essay : The Christian in the World. By Rev. D. W. Faunce. — The Poetical Works of William Blake. Lyrical and Miscellaneous. Edited with a Prefatory Memoir by William Michael Rossetti.

Henry Holt & Co., New York : Far from the Madding Crowd. Leisure Hour Series. By Thomas llardy.

Little, Brown, & Co., Boston : Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Junior, of Massachusetts ; 1744-1775. By his son, Josiah Quincy. Second Edition. — Speeches of Josiah Quincy, Speeches delivered in the Congress of the United States. By Josiah Quincy, Member of the House of Represent atives for the Suffolk District of Massa chusetts, 1805-1813. Edited by his sou, Edmund Quincy.

By Authority : John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne : Geological Survey of Victoria. Prodromus of the Palaeontology of Victoria; or, Figures and Descriptions of Victorian Organic Remains. Decade I. By Frederick McCoy, F. G. S., Hon. F. C. P. S., etc., etc., etc.

Macmillan & Co., London and New York : Polarization of Light. (Nature Series.) By William Spottiswoode, M. A., LL. I)., F. R. S., etc.

Cassell, Fetter, and Galpin, Now York : The Four Gospels. With One Hundred and Thirty-two Etchings on Steel. By the most Eminent French Engravers, after the Original Designs of M. Bida. Part I.

E. L. Freeman & Co., New York : Treasure Trove.

Lockwood & Co., London : A Synoptical History of England. With the Contemporaneous Sovereigns and Events of General History, from the Earliest Records to the Present Time. By Llewelyn C. Burt, Barrister-at-Law. Second Edition.

FRENCH AND GERMAN.²

Goethe, in complaining of the inferiority of German fiction, a subject to which he was often recurring, said once of Sir Walter Scott that his charm was due to the superiority of the three kingdoms of Great Britain, and the inexhaustible variety of their history; whereas, in Germany there was no fertile field for the romancer between the Thuriugiau Forest and the sand plains of Mecklenburg, so that he himself in his Wilhelm Meister was obliged to make use of the most worthless material imaginable,— such as strolling actors and wretched country nobility,—simply to breathe lile into his pictures. This seems a singular remark when we consider that part of Scott s great merit consisted in the excellent way lie drew just such wretched country-people, and that Goethe lived in the Germany not unknown to history. But to this explanation he frequently returns. That good novels are rare in Germany, however, would seem to be much more due to the lack, of good novelists than to that of either society or history. In fact, no country is less well provided with both of these than our own ; but yet if their absence forbade positively all fiction, our literature would be noticeably poorer than it is even at present. Hociety in Germany is a much more complex matter than it is with us. The presence of a nobility not without scorn for the plebeians, of pushing plebeians, of struggling tradespeople, gives at once a set of characters which those who write American novels in vain try to imitate by introducing accomplished graduates of West Point or ol the Naval Academy,— unfailingly noble specimens of valor, — or students of Harvard College, for instance, brilliant with easilyborne erudition. For European castles our novelists substitute farms cleared by the heroine’s grandfather, or manor-houses on the banks of the romantic Hudson. At other times we have the hoary antiquity of Chicago and Boston before their fires. A purely society-novel is almost impossible in America, so shifting and uncertain are tho social lines ; we are always as much in doubt of the standing of the people as we are of our fellow-passengers in the railway car. Yet we have American novels that are read, and Germany, with all its advantages, lias very few. The real reason of its inferiority, however, has not yet been found, unless it he what is suggested above.

A novel that has recently appeared, Die letzte Ileckenbiirgerin, deserves warmer praise. It is not the familiar Tendenz Homan, which discusses fanciful characters in impossible situations; it is, rather, a study of very vividly drawn characters in very possible and well described circumstances.

In construction the book is somewhat faulty. We have first several pages of narration, and then for the explanation of the puzzle to which the reader is brought, it is necessary to go back and read the history of the same time, which throws light on the obscurity. This is, however, a fault which can be readily pardoned. The author’s style is not brilliant, but it is strong and impressive.

The autobiography of the last Baroness of Reckenburg, which forms the greater part of the book, carries us back to the cud of the last century, to the time of the. French Revolution, when Freiherr and Freifrau von Reckenburg were living on a paltry income in a little tsaxon town, rigidly keeping up their meagre state. Their daughter, Eberhardme, is a plain, sensible girl, of a strong character and almost entirely without charm or attraction. She is the exact opposite of Dorothee Muller, a very impulsive, clinging, affectionate creature, who is warmly devoted to Hardine, and very much under her influence. When the two girls are hardly fifteen, Dorothee becomes engaged to Eaber, a young surgeon, for whom she feels very little affection, and who is about to leave her to join the army for many years. Hardine goes away to spend the winter with her aunt, the Countess of Reckenburg, a miserly old lady, who had been the wife, by a left-handed marriage, of a prince who had squandered her fortune and deserted her finally. This grim countess is admirably described; she lives at Reckenburg, hoarding her money for the son of this prince by another marriage, whom she intends in her innermost heart for llardiue’s husband. Meanwhile, however, Hardine has to show her fitness for this promotion by very zealous attendance upon ber aunt.

This sou of the prince finally makes his appearance at Hardine’s home. He is a young, reckless scapegrace, exceedingly indifferent to the fulsome attentions of his flatterers, not over attached to Hardine, but, on Lhe other hand, very much attracted bv Dorothee. Then the tragedy begins, lie wins her love, but he is called away to join the army and leaves her to become the mother of his child without being his wife. He is killed in battle. Just before he leaves home, Hardine meets him, and she is persuaded to promise him that she will provide for Dorothee. This promise she keeps faithfully. The child’s mother is a foolish, irresponsible creature, incapable of any feeling except timidity, and very ready to neglect all motherly duties. Hardine, however, provides for the child until it is lost sight of for many years. When a man, and one who has suffered a great deal in life, he makes his appearance at Hardine’s castle just as she is celebrating her betrothal, at the age of fifty, to a neighboring friend, and calls her mother. The scandal of this affair she never tries to dispel by proof. She is too proud for that; she watches by the deathbed of Dorothée’s son, makes his daughter her heir, and, before she dies, sees her happily married. In that way the last Reckenbürgerin dies after a life of rigid obedience to duty and stern self-sacrifice. However distasteful some of the incidents may appear, the reader can feel easy; the dignity of the author keeps her from treating them in an offensive way.

The merit of the writer lies in her keenness of observation and admirable power of describing. She is not a humorist; there is too much tragedy in the book, and too moral a tone in the way the facts are set before us, to admit of such alleviation; the tone of the whole story is very serious. It contains some very striking passages, however. The whole life of the little Saxon village is well told: there is the same observation of detail which makes half the force of a humorous writer, but it is part of the grmnness and conscientiousness of the writer of the imaginary autobiography that she looks on everything not as a means of amusement, but with regard to its moral value. There are, too, several very dramatic scenes in tiie book. The reappearance of the mysterious soldier at the castle of Reckenburg; the listlessness of the young prince at the ball in his honor at Hardine shome; and his sudden interest in Dorothée, are all well told. Indeed, the seeming paradox is true that the unrelieved merit of the story makes it a rather severe strain upon the reader. The writer is so full of her subject that she crowds incident alter incident on the reader’s attention, without regard to his being accustomed only to the feebler dilution of most novels, and it is not without a certain feeling of duty that one reads this severe, unflinching record of Suffering lives. It is as free from morbidness, however, as from sentimentality, but one cannot help wishing that it might have had some relief from the prevailing sombreness. I he way to read the book is to take it a few pages at a time. This will give one opportunity to reflect upon the rich material it offers for thought, and to admire the strenuous purpose of the author.

The letzte Reckenbürgerin differs from almost any German novel we know. It has moral value, and it describes real people ; and this is a combination not always to be found in the fiction of any country. We call the attention of our readers to it, not so much for their idle entertainment as for their study and admiration.