Recent Literature

IN Victorian Poets¹ Mr. Stedman has essayed to define the reach of English poetry during the period within men’s recollection, with the conviction that a distinct phase of literature has been exhibited, and that the latest of England’s poets stands at the dividing of the ways between a completed and a beginning era. His method is to examine in succession the work of the poets who are eminent in the period, Landor as subtending almost the whole arc, Hood, Arnold, Procter, the Brownings, Tennyson, Rossetti, Buchanan, Morris, and Swinburne, with more or less extended notice of the crowd of lesser poets who may as distinctly mark the peculiarities of the period, but do not, by the scope of their individual work, serve as representative poets. In each case, where it is possible, he considers the exclusive influences of temperament, education, or circumstance which have helped to determine the poet’s work, while be keeps before his mind the larger problems of how far the age has determined the character of the poetry produced in it, and how far the poets’ own wills have molded the literature of the period. His references to American poetry are only casual, introduced rather as illustrations of his principal theme than for the sake of carrying over the results of his study from one country to the other.

One hundred and fifty names are entered on his roll of Victorian poets, and by the addition of lists, a copious index, and careful marginal notes which conveniently supply data that would otherwise cumber his pages, he has rendered his volume a serviceable book of reference, especially as regards the minor poets, details concerning whom he has evidently sought with diligence and presented with scholarly exactness. In the multitude of names, dates, and facts, we note only one slight error, and even that may be resolved into a question of terms. He speaks of Browning’s Paracelsus as his first drama, while the term may perhaps be as properly applied to his anonymous venture Pauline, two years earlier. Every one knows how difficult it is to obtain accurate information concerning men and events within one’s own time, not for lack of publication, but because publication is so abundant that it is unavailable except some one take pains to supply indexes. Such a directory to the present English campers-out on Parnassus Mr. Stedman has generously furnished.

But even as regards the lesser poets the book is far from being a mere catalogue raisonné. The author undertakes to characterize in turn each poet passed in review, and the impression upon the reader who lays down the book at its close is of a general fairness of dealing and a fluency of diction which enables the author to sketch the separate writers with an almost fatal facility and dexterity. Let any one attempt to dismiss in succession one hundred and fifty writers of the same period, with a few words that shall describe each in a recognizable portrait, and he will quickly find that certain words will recur to his use with alarming frequency. We are filled with a certain kind of admiration for a man who can write so many book-notices, as it were, of so many poets, with a zeal that seems untiring. He reaches the goal quite as fresh as when he started, and his readers pay him the honest compliment of not being very jaded, themselves. We suspect that the author’s undisguised interest in his own work has much to do with his hold upon his readers’ attention.

The main purpose of the book, however, is not to give a mere disjointed survey of the Victorian poets, but to reach some conclusion as to the note which they have struck and the tone which we may expect the poetry of the succeeding period to take. The results of the author’s study are disclosed both incidentally and formally, and may be stated briefly in the propositions that the period has been marked by technical refinement, scholarship, and a tendency to realism ; that while the school of poetry under consideration may he characterized as composite, the idyl is its finest achievement and its most noticeable departure from the forms prevalent at the beginning of the period, but that the probabilities are strong for a return or advance to more distinctly dramatic forms; that the immense energy of science has paled the fire of poetry, but that the result will be in a new adaptation of poetic expression in agreement with accepted truths of science. This summary does not profess to embrace all the points made by Mr. Stedman, for his subject permits him to range over considerable mental territory, since any free discussion of the poetry of a generation involves the discussion of principles that have a wide bearing.

Criticism of criticism is obviously a somewhat unprofitable task, and it would be idle to follow Mr. Stedman down the several paths which he has chosen to tread; indeed, one who did it would have a lurking sense of justice requiring for his satisfaction that his own steps should be dogged. “ What! follow a man who is following a man ! ” It is fair to ask, however, taking the book as a whole, whether criticism of the broadest kind has been applied, or whether the judgments are simply the average opinions of a well-read and thoughtful student; for the avowed purpose of the book to render a historical view of the period as regards poetry, with special reference to the poetic art, justifies us in inquiring if it has accomplished its purpose. As a book of literary criticism we think it has, and that largely because the material under judgment presents no very formidable question for solution, and because Mr. Stedman brings to the task a lively, practical interest in poetry, wide reading, and sufficient familiarity with standards of comparison. We wish he could have stated his conclusions more compactly, and complimented his readers by supposing them a little more familiar with elementary principles ; there is, besides, a disposition, not to be commended, to institute comparisons between the poets, so that the row of a hundred and fifty whom he is hearing recite are frequently paired off, back to back, to see which stands the highest. But his judgments and his general conclusions are in the main sound and inexpugnable. He does not startle us with heterodox views or whimseys. He has catholic taste and good insight. We have to thank him, moreover, for a very interesting comparison of Tennyson and Theocritus, which may be set down as the freshest chapter in the book.

But there is a criticism which includes literary criticism sis the greater includes the less. Literature in its twofold relation to art and life demands criticism which is historic and ethic as well as æthetic, and especially is this true where the literature of an entire period, as here, is under consideration. In this view Victorian Poets is an unsatisfactory book. Not that Mr. Stedman has totally ignored these aspects, but he has regarded them just enough to show that he takes them into account, while they play so small a part as to proclaim their own insignificance in his plan. In what he does not say, as well as in what he says, is there a betrayal of omission. For instance, his impatient mention of Maud, and assumption that Tennyson sounded insincere notes in it, going “ outside his own nature ” and surrendering “ the joy of art in an effort to produce something that should at once catch the favor of the multitude,” indicate how feebly he has comprehended the overmsastering passion for his country and truth which for a time consumed the laureate and still is the groundswell of his nature. Without a perception of this, one must fail to apprehend not only the more positive elements in Tennyson’s poetry, that point to a sturdy loyalty, but the subtle breath of English life which moves upon the surface of lyric and idyl. The conception of poetry as too exclusively a metrical art is not Tennyson’s, at least, if it be Mr. Stedman’s.

Again, his covert comparison of Browning and Swinburne, and equally his insistence upon the lack of melody in the former and the wealth of it in the latter, serves to emphasize his failure to apprehend that ethic strength in Browning which makes his verse, more than that of any other Victorian poet, the embodiment not of the questions which have agitated the minds of Englishmen but of the solution of the questions. There never has been a time when great poets have not reflected the spiritual countenance of the age above which they were lifted, and we do not hesitate to say that with all his ruggedness and willful disdain of melody, Browning stands forth mightily as that bass voice in the choir of modern singers, which moves us as laid in the foundation of human nature. Mr. Stedman thinks “ a main lesson of Browning’s emotional poetry is that the unpardonable sin is ‘ to dare something against nature.’ ” Curiously enough, Browning has undertaken in his preface to the suppressed spurious Letters of Shelley to interpret the unpardonable sin, which he does by the terms “ a general deliberate preference of perceived evil to perceived good.” The formal expression of a man’s belief counts nothing when contradicted by his action, or, if an artist, by his evident preference for the false and evil over the true and good, but it is incredible to us that one should road Browning intelligently and not find himself braced by a northeast wind of wholcsome, manly faith and rough loyalty to spiritual verities.

We single Mr. Stedman’s treatment of these two poets as indicative of the serious defect in his survey of the Victorian poets, in that he neglects or is not prepared to grasp the wider and larger relations of poetry to life and history. His criticisms upon the side of art are interesting and suggestive, but our criticism of literature will never rise to the height demanded of it until it concerns itself with the forces that lie back of literature, and these, as we have said, are historic and ethic as well as æsthetic; the proportion which we discover in these will spring from our own habits of perception, but only that can he called rounded and noble criticism which assigns to each force the place which it holds in a noble life.

— The class of sterling holiday books for the present season is vastly enriched by the superb edition of Rousselet’s India ² with which Messrs. Scribner & Co. have followed their Doré’s Spain. The splendid taste in which the mechanical work of the book is executed is unapproached by anything of the sort; and there is a value in it otherwise winch if not exactly commensurate is in some respects unique. Probably it contains more information concerning the India of the present time than is elsewhere accessible, and this information is relieved upon a ground of thorough acquaintance with Indian history, tradition, and literature, and interwoven with many stories of personal adventure. M. Rousselet traveled in the grand style which hardly princes now assume in Europe, and passed from court to court throughout the vast empire with letters that opened all doors to him. His opportunities for observation were extraordinary, of course, and he is a good observer. Moreover, he seems to have been an amateur of photography, and to his fondness for this art we are indebted for a multitude of pictures illustrative chiefly of the fascinating architecture, Hindoo and Moslem, but largely, also, of the life of India. To tell the truth, the charm of the work is rather in these exquisite illustrations than in the literature; the author, though a Frenchman, is not apparently anxious to be amusing, and he sometimes does not forget to be a little dull. Yet an absence of lightness may in his case, if ever, be forgiven, for he is full of solid good qualities, and at least he never fatigues, as the modern traveler is apt to do, with a humorous purpose in the account of what he sees. Neither is M. Rousselet metaphysical, nor a headlong generalizer of his facts; he has a keen eye and an honest mind, and is simple, direct, and clear, as well as extremely well-informed. The book is to be heartily commended.

— General Boynton’s reply to Sherman’s Memoirs³ (to which it is designed as a companion volume) is the most considerable of the many criticisms which that fascinating narrative has brought forth; it does not aim to be an impartial review, but is in the form of an indictment, and is supported by all the special pleading of the self-appointed advocate of Thomas, McPherson, and others, to whom it is claimed that great injustice has been done. The only word of praise for Sherman appears in the preface, where it is said, “ While by this method of review his mistakes only are presented, there has been no intention to underrate the great and brilliant services which he performed.”

It is well that the books are companion volumes, for on the one hand, if it be admitted that the Memoirs ought not to be read without seeing the corrections contained in the volume before us, on the other hand, the uninformed reader, perusing Boynton’s criticisms without the Memoirs, would wonder how such a one as Sherman is described dared look his countrymen in the face, much less publish an account of his deeds.

It should be borne steadily in mind that the book is of a partisan character, and that, whatever else it contains, it omits no fault or mistake that Sherman made ; this animus accounts for the exceedingly bad taste shown in selecting for a title the phrase, “ Sherman’s Historical Raid.” Such an attempt to belittle Sherman’s achievements, military or literary, at once prejudices the reader against the critic, and deprives his criticisms of much of their force.

None the less has General Boynton made a very valuable contribution to the literature of the war, a contribution which not only the much-talked-of and long-expected “ future historian ” will do well to consult, but also the average intelligent American; for the opinions here given are not those of the author as colonel of the 35th Ohio, and subsequently war correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, but the opinions of the chief actors of the great contest, as expressed in their own dispatches and statements of facts made at the time.

It is well known that the War Department is preparing the records and dispatches of the war for publication, in several ponderous volumes, whose very ponderousness will prevent any but specialists from ever investigating their contents. Now, with the aid of the Memoirs and the companion volume, we have all the official dispatches of any consequence bearing on the campaigns in which Sherman took part — and they form a large part of the war.

Boynton’s charge, in his own words, is this: “He [Sherman] detracts from what rightfully belongs to Grant; misrepresents and belittles Thomas; withholds justice from Buell; repeatedly loads failures for which he was responsible, now upon Thomas, now upon Schofield, now upon McPherson, and again upon the three jointly; is unjust in the extreme to Rosecrans ; sneers at Logan and Blair; insults Hooker, and slanders Stanton.”

Nor is this all, for “ the reader turns naturally for explanations of the surprise and attending disgrace at Shiloh; the ill-judged and fatal assault at Chickasaw Bayou ; the protest against the move by which Vicksburg was captured; his failure to carry the point assigned to him at the battle of Chattanooga ; the escape of Johnston from Dalton and Resaca; the terrible mistake of the assault on Kenesaw; the plunging of his army, marching by the flank, into Hood’s line of battle, under the supposition that Atlanta was evacuated; the escape of the rebel army from Savannah; the careless and inexcusable periling and narrow escape of his own army at Bentonsville ; and lastly, the political surrender to Johnston at Raleigh : these are points upon which every reader desires light. But instead of gaining it, he finds that for most, the chief aim of the author seems to be to make the darkness more impenetrable.”

And straightway the critic proceeds to bring forth enough of the archives of the War Department to shed light upon this darkness, and to rescue Grant, Thomas, and others from their misfortunes. It is a formidable indictment, surely, and is argued through two hundred and ninety-six octavo pages; to discuss it in detail would require a still larger space, and hence while the impartial judge— the future historian — reserves his decision, a contemporary critic can only touch upon a few of the more important counts and give a general opinion of the whole. It will be noticed that the faults claimed are of two kinds ; first, great personal injustice against several officers of high rank, and secondly, various military mistakes.

The principal personal grievance is the manner in which General George H. Thomas is spoken of in the Memoirs; and certainly that manner was very unfortunate. No one ought to doubt that Sherman has the highest opinion of Thomas; he has openly expressed it on many occasions before and since the Memoirs were published; but he writes in such a business-like, rapid manner — just as h might converse before the camp-fire—that he has not time to bestow great praise on any one ; now and then there is a jocose anecdote and occasionally a few short words of censure, but nothing to indicate harsh feeling or deep distrust of General Thomas. But it is well known that just before the battle of Nashville both Grant and Sherman were very anxious about the apparent delay in Thomas’s movements. Grant made a most manly acknowledgment of it in his report of July, 1865, concluding with the sentence, “ But his final defeat of Hood was so complete that it will he accepted as a vindication of that distinguished officer’s judgment.” Sherman, however, apparently forgets the immense audience he is addressing and seems to write as he thought in those December days about Savannah, when he wondered if Hood might possibly beat Thomas, his march “ be adjudged the wild adventure of a crazy fool,” and himself go down to history in the great band of failures headed by McClellan and Pope. All this would probably have happened had Thomas failed, and one can easily imagine the feverish anxiety with which Sherman thought over it, and waited for Thomas to move out. But on the other hand, Thomas’s victory was so decisive — he beat Hood so completely that out of that army which Sherman could not bring to battle but had turned over to Thomas’s care, only five thousand men ever again came into action — that Sherman might have made some fuller acknowledgment of the overwhelming debt he owed Thomas, on whom the only lighting resulting from the march had fallen. But he says merely that “ Thomas nobly fulfilled his promise to beat Hood.” The minds of the two men were so differently constituted — the one quick, nervous, and brilliant, the other slow, methodical, and sure —that possibly they could not fully appreciate each other’s merits, and Sherman perhaps fails to give Thomas the full measure of thanks and credit for his great services, and lays too much stress on his caution. Of this the dispatches and Memoirs may convict him, but of nothing more, and certainly not of harsh injustice. He has freely and openly given his opinion; had he spoken otherwise the Memoirs would have lost that frankness which is their great charm.

The injustice claimed to have been done to Grant is a small matter, and, in view of the hearty and loyal manner in which Sherman always speaks of him, is almost ridiculous. As for the origin of the march to the sea, Grant undoubtedly thought of it, as did many others, according to Boynton’s statement, notably Pope and McDowell in 1862. Grant also spoke of it in 1864, and the dispatches clearly prove that his hesitation at the final moment was due only to a desire that Hood should first be provided for. But Sherman thought of it too, probably as soon as any of the others, and it was he that thought out all its details and actually made it; and the credit of it belongs to him.

It had a much greater popular fame than its merits warrant, as Sherman himself has shown; it was merely the dividing of his army into two parts, leaving the smaller part to fight the immediate enemy, and transferring the rest without opposition to another base for other operations. Possibly that portion which was left to do the fighting has not yet received its due share of popular credit, and these dispatches will aid in giving it to them. But as for who first conceived the idea of the march to the sea, it is an idle dispute; every one familiar with the facts knows that from the time Grant was made lieutenant-general he laid out the general plan of operations for all the forces of the United States, and left the details to the immediate commanders; the march to the sea was one of many movements so planned and executed ; Sherman is entitled to the credit of it as much as to the credit of his Atlanta campaign. Of a similar nature is the dispute as to who conceived the plan of the campaign resulting in the capture of Ports Henry and Donelson; Halleck thought of it, but Grant worked up the details and executed it, and the credit is his.

As for McPherson, the unprejudiced reader, after studying both sides of the question, mast acknowledge that he lost a fine opportunity at Resaca; his orders covered the falling back to Snake Creek Gap, but they also contemplated that he should make a lodgment on the railroad ; he failed to do this and failed to make a bold effort for it, and in so doing he lost, as Sherman says, “ an opportunity which does not occur twice in a life.”

The allusions to Logan, Blair, and Stanton are, at this late day, most unfortunate in their expression; but a great many persons think that, under the circumstances, Sherman’s action was perfectly justifiable. Here again he writes as if in the heat of the war and not ten years after it.

Many of the charges of failure in action seem to be sustained by the dispatches, which prove that Sherman won no great battle throughout the war; he was surprised at Shiloh, he failed at Chickasaw Bayou and in the assaults at Vicksburg, he gained little or nothing at Chattanooga and in the actions about Atlanta, and he was defeated in the unjustifiable assault on Kenesaw; and it is noticeable that in the Memoirs no mention is made of the reason so frequently given during the war for this latter assault, namely, to prove that his army could assault as well as make flanking movements.

Besides the indecisive nature of his battles, Sherman failed to bring Johnston or Hood to action and crush him with his immense preponderance of force ; he allowed Hardee to escape from him at Jonesboro, and again at Savannah; at the latter place he acknowledges himself to have been disappointed and chagrined.

These dispatches will aid to fix Sherman’s place in history as a general, but they are valuable simply for themselves, for the decided animus which is noticeable on every page of the context renders that almost worthless.

The Atlanta campaign will ever remain in military text-books as the most complete example of dislodging an army by operating against its rear; the popular enthusiasm for the march to the sea will be proof against all arguments as to its exact military value and as to who first conceived it; it will always be remembered that Sherman compelled and received the surrender of one of the two remaining armies of the Confederacy. On these things Sherman’s great fame rests, and they firmly establish his position as the second in the list of successful generals of the United States in the war of the Rebellion.

— We have always been troubled, in reading Miss Ingelow’s poetry, — even the best of it, —by a fear that Pegasus was about to fold his wings and let us down too swiftly to the ground. There is an exquisite murmuring in her verses, a pure, sweet melody that works on the mind like a charm and lets us forget to look for solid substance; but the moment we seek intellectual gratification, we discover how slight is the substructure of this melody. Her poetry is as light as air ; hence the dizzying apprehension already mentioned, that we are about to be dropped from the ether to which her song at first lifts us. Her most recent offerings⁴ with one exception, fully exemplify these observations. The sonnet Failure is an admirable piece of thought embodied in a concise and firm-textured form. Several of the songs in the book appear to be addressed only to children. Of the shorter pieces, we prefer Feathers and Moss ; but the concluding poem, At One Again, is a pretty little conventional romance. The soft breeze of Miss Ingelow’s imagination blows as sweetly here as ever. The poems are accompanied by some rather miscellaneous illustrations from Arthur Hughes, Mary Hallock, G. Perkins, Mitchell, Darley, Sheppard, and Eytinge. None of them strike us as in the best style of the artists, though one of Mr. Hughes’s is very beautiful, and Mr. Mitchell shows a dainty, German - silvered and only semi-original fancy. Mr. Eytinge’s pieces are cheap, illdrawn, and feeble.

— There can be two sorts of meritorious stories: those which give one an impetus beyond what has been written by the author, and those which, though to a certain extent satisfying, are stationary. The first are products of the finest culture, and impart something of that culture. The second kind is exemplified in Dr. Holland’s Sevenoaks,⁵ a novel of much excellence in some ways, but falling very far short as a

work of art. The book is a satire on the life of a coarse man who becomes wealthy and enters into successive deliberate frauds for the increasing of has riches, until he overreaches himself and falls utterly from his boastful prominence in New York. Yet it is not so much a satire as a rebuke ; for Dr. Holland has hardly the patience with wrong-doing which is requisite to satire, and would perhaps feel himself to be taking the part of accomplice if he stooped to invest his subject with ridicule. But the rebuke is strong in itself, the only drawback being that it is addressed rather to minds which are already prepared for giving similar rebukes, and that no reader will ever see in the brutish Mr. Belcher, who is painted so black, anything resembling himself. It is the prerogative of more delicate art than Dr. Holland’s to unveil to a wide variety of persons their unsuspected possibilities both for good and for ill. The story of Sevenoaks is put together with ingenuity ; the folly of a career like Mr. Belcher’s is plainly demonstrated, and it is shown how such a man inevitably alienates even those whom he wishes to have serve him, and so contributes to his own ruin. There is fairly good sketching in the characters of the lawyer Cavendish and the adventurous Mrs. Dillingham ; the subservient condition of society in Sevenoaks to the magnate Belcher is indicated ; and as a foil to the machinations of this villain we have the movements of Jim Fenton, who acts as a sort of providence and dispenses a great deal of laughable talk. All this is to a certain extent interesting and entertaining, yet we feel persuaded that the subject is not used according to its capabilities. Dr. Holland is entirely willing to insert a blank, when something better does not offer; the characters of Balfour, the gooe lawyer, and Mrs. Belcher, the rogue’s wife, have hardly more individuality than a pair of whistcounters. This, doubtless, proceeds from the author’s inability to discriminate, to make selections, which is illustrated by his permitting a simile like the following to stand : “ Was she aware that as she moved side by side with Mrs. Belcher, through the grand rooms, she was displaying herself to the best advantage to her admirer, and that, yoked with the wifehood and motherhood of the house, she was dragging, while he held the plow that was tilling the deep carpets for tares that might be reaped in harvests of unhappiness ? ” Such errors do not merely show defective taste, but they also affect the quality of the book throughout. It is easy to see where, in the recent annals of New York, Dr. Holland found the model for his Colonel Belcher; and he has told us very little about him that we have not already heard. We very much doubt, however, whether the real Colonel Belcher would have gone into forgery while there remained a chance to run his rifle-mills at even half their former profit; and it is quite certain that in the trial he would have bought a judge and mined the ground under the feet of Justice, until his escape had been assured. Jim Fenton and Miss Butterworth are also drawn, we suppose, from life ; but they are much better wrought out, and are well worth having. The novel is readable, has the advantage of being based on sound morality, and contains considerable humor. But it is very far from being a true work of the imagination.

— Dr. Blasius begins the third chapter of his treatise on Storms ⁶ with the inquiry, “What is a storm ? ” and be defines it to be a “ movement of the air caused by its tendency to reëstablish an equilibrium which has in some manner been disturbed.” We see then at the outset that this term is to be used in an unusual way, as this definition covers all atmospheric motions, be they gentle or violent, accompanied by cloud and rain or not. It is also explained from the outset that the usual terminology of meteorology is not adopted, as the common terms seem to Dr. Blasius to imply an admission of certain theories which he believes to be erroneous. It will, perhaps, be convenient to give a brief abstract of the contents of the book before proceeding to note the differences of opinion and theory which distinguish it from others of like scope.

Chapter I. is introductory, and gives a brief account of the West Cambridge tornado of August 22, 1851, the observation of the effects of which determined the author to the study of meteorology in general, and gave to him the clew by which he was led to his own theory of storms, and by which he was led further to disbelieve in the rival theories of Redfield and Espy. He states that the excellent detailed study of this tornado which he made (which is

given in full in an appendix), when considered as a whole, is conclusive as to his own views : i. e., that if certain limited parts of it be alone studied, the conclusions of either Redfield or Espy may be verified according to the portion selected.

Five weeks were spent by Dr. Blasius in a complete survey and examination of the track, and it is safe to say that very few more complete accounts of phenomena of this class have been published. His results were presented to the American Academy in 1851, and were condensed into a letter to the New York Times, dated November 18, 1852, which is printed as Appendix I. to this volume; and since that time he has made no public exposition of his views until the appearance of the present book. In the course of this chapter, Dr. Blasius claims for himself and forex-President Hill, of Harvard College, the credit of originating the present Signal Service storm-warnings, which we notice simply to say that these gentlemen were anticipated by Redfield, Henry, and others.

Chapter II. deals with the present situation of the science of meteorology, and is a very readable résumé of the opinions of the best authorities on the subject. Chapter III. refers to aerial currents, their causal connection with the various cloud-formations, and the classification of storms. It is here that a storm is first defined and made to cover all atmospheric disturbances, even slight ones, unaccompanied by rain or cloud. The opinion (for it is no more than an opinion) is here advanced that there is an atmospheric lunar tide; this is not shown in the discussion of masses of meteorological data, and it is negatived by the theoretical researches of Laplace, Ferrel, and others. A bit of remarkable translation from the French occurs here, which we transcribe as a warning to all authors to do their own translation. The original French is, “J’ai vu beaucoup de malades qui éprouvent de fortes migraines precisement à la nouvelle lune ; et d’autres qui deviennent toujours malades par le vent d’est;” the equally original English is, “I have seen many sick persons who improved of acute megrims at the time of the new moon, and others who always grew sick with a west wind ! ”

In this chapter we meet with the first germs of the author’s theory ; as we understand it, it is based on the fact that between two places of different temperatures an exchange of air goes on ; warm air flows toward the cold place and the cold air flows underneath in an opposite direction.

“ When a cool current moves into wanner air which is saturated with moisture, clouds are formed. But when a cool current moves to a warmer region where the air has just discharged its moisture in rain or snow, that part of its condensed moisture which still floats as clouds in the air will dissolve as the cool current advances, and the clouds will disappear. . . . Thus the clouds will tell us by their appearance or disappearance whether the air is moving, and in what condition the air is as to moisture.”

The author recognizes two kinds of clouds: cumulus, “characteristic of a vertically upward warm current,” and stratus (the cirro-stratus of Howard; for some reason this name has been changed throughout the book), “characteristic of a horizontally moving warm current.” Probably meteorologists would not agree with the author as to the state of things which the stratus characterizes. On page 53, storms are divided into three classes and their characteristic cloud-forms stated. They are : " 1. Local or vertical storms—cumulus. 2. Progressive or lateral storms of two classes: (a) equatorial, which are winter storms, produced by a warm current displacing a cool one to supply a deficiency towards the poles — stratus; (b) polar, summer storms produced by a cool current displacing a warm one to supply a deficiency towards the equator ; cumulo-stratus. 3. Tornadoes, hailstorms, etc.”

In these definitions, which we have slightly abridged, the author’s theory of storms is embodied. Nearly all storms are according to him either polar or equatorial, and most of the remaining portion of the book is devoted to applications of these definitions and principles to various cases.

Chapters IV. —VIII. deal with these storms in detail, Chapter IX. is devoted to a review of evidence supposed to be corroborative of the new theory, while Chapters X., XI. give suggestions as to weather prognostics and as to the proper conduct of meteorological observations.

We have been thus full in describing the contents of the book because it is by no means an ordinary one and because it deals with a difficult and perplexed subject. The question as to whether the theories advanced are or are not true, it is not at all necessary to discuss: if they are true, they will be adopted in future; if untrue they will be utterly forgotten in a dozen years. The test of their truth is their power to account for present facts and to predict future conditions. It is not for a moment to be doubted that the author fully believes in them, and it may be that this thorough faith has in a way injured the efficiency of the book as an exponent of the new theories, for the author is in the habit of citing results which, according to all meteorologists, confirm their own views, and of adding the remark that any one who has comprehended his theory will at once see how these particular facts confirm it. It is possible to understand his theory and yet to doubt.

There are several points in this volume which it will be well to notice, as the impression conveyed is often erroneous. This is always unintentional on the part of the author, who is carefully fair and moderate in his statements. For example, it is tacitly assumed throughout the volume that the Signal Service pays no attention to the clouds. The fact is that tri-daily maps of the clouds are, and for four years have been, regularly made, consulted, and employed in the weather predictions.

The author seems to complain of the Signal Service tri-daily observations that they give only a “ system of averages,” and that continuous observations are needed to test his theories. These are easily accessible in the quarterly reports of the meteorological office of England, in which the continuous records for seven stations in England are printed.

The West Cambridge tornado, which first decided the direction of our author’s meteorological studies, seems to have had a too powerful influence upon his judgment of the “ cyclonists,” the upholders of Redfield’s theory. Where a cyclonist sees a large storm five hundred miles in diameter, on the borders of which the winds are blowing in every direction, Dr. Blasius sees many small storms. each modeled in a greater or less degree like the West Cambridge tornado. A very striking proof that a storm may be constituted as the cyclones are supposed to be is afforded by the singular case of the ship Charles Heddle which was caught in the borders of one of these cyclones and sailed five times completely around its border, meeting winds blowing exactly in the directions demanded by the cyclone, theory. The experience of Dr. Blasius has been limited to local storms, and he has apparently never been able to realize the existence of a storm of any magnitude.

This is particularly evident in his discussion of Professor Abbe’s report on the Nova Scotia storm of August 23, 1873. Professor Abbe is speaking of a storm at least five hundred miles in diameter, but Dr. Blasius discusses it as if it were an assemblage of tornadoes each twelve hundred feet wide. Some of the results of Professor Loomis’s discussion of the Signal Service maps are examined, and the statement is made (p. 176) that as the Signal Service notes only northeast storms (by which the author means storms tending toward the northeast) Professor Loomis’s results are partial. As a matter of fact, the Signal Service notes all storms within the limits of the Atlantic coast and the Rocky Mountains, and as its object is to obtain the laws of these as they exist, and not as they would be if they were something other than what they are, Professor Loomis is satisfied to discuss them in this way, irrespective of the fact that his conclusions do not agree with the theories of this book.

To the meteorologist, Dr. Blasius’s studies of the characteristics of storms are excellent as local studies, and some of his descriptions of the typical signs of various kinds of storms are most admirable ; but it is not too much to say that if Dr. Blasius’s book were not dated from the Atlantic coast, the meteorologist could yet determine quite accurately his latitude and longitude from the types of storms which he gives. In a general way, we may say that this book is a valuable one; its study of local tornadoes and storms would alone make it so, and its collection of the results of the work of such men as Buys-Ballot, Mohn, and others renders it of much interest. We cannot, however, think that it is likely to produce that change in the face of science which its author contemplates. If it leads to the general study of cloud-forms and to any principles of interpreting these other than those now known, it will have amply justified itself.

— The aim of Mr. Leland’s book Fusang⁷ is to show the likelihood of the discovery of America by a Buddhist priest in his missionary travels in the fifth century of the Christian era. For this purpose he has translated into English a pamphlet on the subject by the late Professor Neumann, of Munich, with notes and comments of his own, and such quotations from other writers as bear on this hypothesis. The result is a volume slender in size and even slenderer in solid basis for so important a theory. The argument for believing that America was so discovered rests mainly on two points: first, the possibility of a Chinese ship’s crossing the Pacific, which may readily be granted, and secondly, a few words of the Buddhist priest in question who makes incidental notice of a country lying far east of China, where there grows a plant similar to the Agave Americana, or the Mexican maguey. A good part of the remainder of his description can in no way apply to Mexico. He describes a country where there were no wars, whereas that country was constantly at war, as the reader of Bancroft’s Native Races of the Pacific Coast well knows, and as to the other customs he describes they carry no weight.

With all respect for Mr. Leland and for the learned men whose views he supports, it is impossible to feel as if any great contribution had been made to human knowledge by this interpretation of the priest’s report. Our objections to the inaccuracy of a good part of it are met by the mention of the mistakes of Herodotus, but if Herodotus had mentioned only one thing right in his history his name would not carry the weight it does. What is to be considered is the unlikelihood of this man’s finding an unknown country, already far advanced in civilization, of which he can mention nothing accurate except the description of a plant. That its architecture, military pomp, social laws, and customs should be forgotten, and this one plant he remembered, is improbable. Then, too, his false statement that the people were converted to Buddhism shows his absolute untrustworthiness. There is no more proof that the early inhabitants of Mexico were Buddhists than that they were Seventh Day Baptists. Mr. Leland acknowledges this, and urges that the Mound-Builders were converted, but of this there is no shred of proof. The whole hypothesis rests on the flimsiest basis. Since Hiouen-thsang and others “brought the religion of Buddha to distant places in Siberia, . . . nothing is more probable than that such zealous propagandists should have gone a step beyond, and have arrived in a part of the North American continent, when reports of Aztec or other civilizations must have lured them still farther on.” If this is so certain as Mr. Leland declares, why is the maguey plant lugged in ? The case is proved already. And this he calls “perhaps the strongest link in the chain of circumstantial evidence which can be adduced to prove that Hoci-Shin and others penetrated to California and Mexico.”

A more convincing part of the volume is that which undertakes to show the probable connection between the native inhabitants of America and the Asiatics. This hypothesis is still far from being established,, but all the evidence that can be accumulated — and there is yet but little to show — is of interest and importance. It has this result, however, of transferring the credit of all the points of resemblance between Asiatics and Americans to their common origin, and taking it from the influence of Buddhist priests.

As to Buddhism among the Mound-Builders, why not among the Lilliputians ? Mr. Leland says if “the mild and highly-refined religion of Buddha ever took root among the early Americans, it must have been with such people as the Mound-Builders who practiced some vast and dreamy nature-worship, which would render them peculiarly susceptible to the teachings of the monks.” One cannot help asking what sort of proof this is ? He says, by the way, a few lines lower, Buddhism “even blended with the vigorous Greek element in Northern India.” What was this vigorous Greek element?

On the whole we find it impossible to give praise to this little volume. It seems to us to coutain false reasoning on very uncertain data. Mr. Leland may be right in his theories, but certainly he has failed to establish them. We had hoped that a stronger case than this might be made out; as it stands, it is hardly worthy of consideration. There is no lack of untrustworthy theories of ethnology, and no need of bringing more into public notice.

— From some present appearances it would seem as if civilization would owe other debts to certain newspapers than those which can be canceled by one’s yearly subscription. The New York Herald’s sending of Stanley to discover Livingstone seems to have inspired its contemporary, the London Daily Telegraph, with the plan of sending Mr. George Smith, a student of

Assyrian antiquities, to Nineveh to carry on some researches which might possibly enable him “to write up the flood.” Under these auspices Mr. Smith made his first journey to the East; by some misunderstanding he was obliged to return without completing his designs as thoroughly as he desired. The next year, however, he was commissioned to return thither to bring his work nearer completion. The results of his investigations make the greater part of this book ;⁸ the remainder is taken up with an account of ids journeys, and of his frequent annoyance at the hands of Turkish officials, etc. Mr. Smith’s discoveries were very interesting. He found some valuable fragments of the tablets containing the Chaldean account of the deluge. On these tablets are recorded the adventures of a hero named Izdubar, whom Mr. Smith identifies with the Nimrod of the Old Testament. The legends have for the most part no similarity to biblical history; the record of the flood, however, bears remarkable likeness to that with which we are familiar.

Among other things found was an inscription dating as far back as B. C. 1320, and some pottery which is assigned to the nineteenth century B. C. Many of the texts go to show that the Assyrian monarchy was more powerful in even very remote times than had been supposed. One of the inscriptions fixes the date of the rise of the Parthian empire, namely, B. C. 248.

On the whole, Mr. Smith’s book is a valuable contribution to Oriental study. Its merit is much augmented by the literal translations given of the inscriptions, and by the photographs of the tablets. Exactness like this is much to be preferred to smooth-sounding, vague statements of results.

FRENCH AND German.⁹

The letters which M. de Morey has lately edited and published:¹⁰ are of importance, coming as they do to interest the student of political as well as of social history ; but to neither will they give unalloyed satisfaction. Sainte-Bouve has given us an admirable portrait of Madame Geoffrin in his Causeries du Lundi, in which we see her a tactful, kindly, wise lady, the mistress of a very delightful salon, which she manages with great cleverness, making it really the headquarters of the literary and artistic men of her time. Tradition had handed down some amusing anecdotes of her husband’s foolishness and of her intelligence, which Sainte-Beuve records, and after a charming description of her social life he closes his essay by calling her the Madame Réeamier of her day. The publication of these letters, while it does but little towards adding to her reputation for brilliancy, by no means destroys the soundness of this comparison; for what after all are Madame Récamier’s letters, for which her lovers used to languish until they received them, and then to express what a cold posterity considers disproportionate gratitude ? For a long time her letters were kept from the public, and it was the custom to mourn their absence as one does the loss of the Sibylline books ; meanwhile the testimony was rapidly accumulating about their value, as the correspondence of different literary critics, one after another, came to light, and it was found that they all agreed in admiring her letters and in ascribing to them a wonderful charm. When, however, they were given to the public, it became evident that the charm lay in great measure between the lines, and was comparatively imperceptible to our duller eyes. In the same way these letters of Madame Geoffrin will not be found wildly exciting, although they are full of kindliness and, indeed, affection.

Their origin is this. In the year 1753 the Count Poniatowski brought one of his sons, a young man hardly twenty, to Paris and introduced him to Madame Geoffrin, whose salon brought together all the leading literary men and artists, as well as men of society, of the day. She introduced him to them all, and took such a fancy to him that she called him her son and allowed him to call her mother; she, be it said by the way, was then over fifty. Her care, however, could not save him from committing various youthful follies, which were the cause of his removal from that dangerous city after a stay of only five months. But during that brief visit, in spite of his youth and inexperience, possibly in some measure on account of them, he seems to have made upon almost every one who saw him a favorable impression. He was hardly more than twenty-five when he was sent to St. Petersburg as ambassador from Poland, and while there he fell in love with the grand duchess who afterward became famous under the name of Catharine II.; she seems to have fancied him for a time, but not even then was she constant in love, and he was but one of her many adorers. For years, however, he retained a warm and painful impression of that remarkable woman ; it was only her heartless treatment of Poland when he became king of that unhappy country, which finally cured him of his feeling for her by showing her wholly relentless, ambitious nature. It was in 1764 that he was chosen king of Poland, and at this point the correspondence begins. He was the candidate of the Russian court, and in a great measure a popular man among the Poles, and his reign opened with every prospect of success. The first letter of the series contains an account of the ceremonies connected with his election. He addresses his old friend still as Ma chère maman, and writes his whole letter in the same affectionate strain. She was by no means insensible to his flattering attentions; she was now between sixty and seventy years old, and for her to have this young king of half her age writing to her, asking her advice, detailing his difficulties, admitting her into all his plans, was indeed a great delight. Her first letters show how elated she was at this honor.

Their letters were very frequent, and the greater number of them have been preserved, and while they are too full of the politics of the time to suit the mere literary idler, there is much to repay the slight exertion of energy the book demands. If the condition of Poland had not been so desperate we may be sure that this volume would have been much more entertaining. Even as it is, the main incident in the book is not so much the fall of Poland as the journey to Warsaw which Madame Geoffrin made in the year 1766. The only similar event in the world’s history is the journey of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, and she made that very comparison in her first letter proposing the expedition. Various difficulties occurred occasionally and interfered with the good understanding between the king and his attached but rather jealous friend. She made but slight pretensions to any political influence, but at times she expressed with much rancor her dislike for those persons who came to Paris and plumed themselves over their intimacy with the king. Indeed, nothing but the king’s tact and great good humor prevented the proposed journey from falling through. The tone of her letters became for a time amusingly haughty, but she found it impossible to withstand his sincere lamentations and complete explanations. Peace having been made, she started, towards the end of June, 1766, on the eventful journey. It was considered at the time to be a very important matter, and it created a great deal of excitement. She stayed in Warsaw until the 13th of September, having rooms at the palace and being treated with the utmost consideration. Still, in spite of everything, she felt less gratified by it all than she had hoped ; she had looked forward to the visit too long and too ardently to escape some disillusions, and in her letters after her return there occur vague references to her disappointment. But while with the king she received several gratifying proofs of the estimation in which her influence over him was held. Voltaire wrote to her to interest her and thereby the king in the fate of the Sirvens, and Marmontel sent her a most flattering letter with the news of the day. With one of Voltaire’s letters she was but little pleased; she calls it stupid and commonplace, and says, “ When he has once got a notion in his head, he is beside himself.” The letters after her return are very full of the troubles of Poland, which were increasing daily. She died in October, 1777, and with a brief note dictated by her the volume closes

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger, Philadelphia: The Golden Tress. Translated from the French of Fortune Du Boisgobey, author of Les Collets Noirs, etc. —Opium Elating. An Autobiographical Sketch. By an Habituate. — Two Thousand Years After; or, A Talk in a Cemetery. By John Darby, author of Thinkers and Thinking, etc.

T. H. Davis & Co., Philadelphia : The Battle of Gettysburg. By Samuel P. Bates.

Dodd and Mead, New York: Christopher Columbus. By John S. C. Abbott. Illustrated. — Daily Thoughts. By Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D. Edited by Rev. J. V. D. Shurtz. — Elsie’s Womanhood. By Martha Farquharson.—Eusenore, and other Poems, By P. Hamilton Myers.

William F. Gill & Co., Boston : The Handy Home Book of Medical Recipes and Family Receipts. By William M. Cornell, M. D. — The Treasure Trove Series. Travesty. (The Choicest Humor by the Great Writers.)—The Wages of Sin. By Edmund Yates.

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Jansen, McClurg, & Co. The Primer of Political Economy ; in Sixteen Definitions and Forty Propositions. By Alfred B. Mason and John J. Lalor. — A Summer in Norway ; with Notes on the Industries, Habits, Customs, and Peculiarities of the People, the History and Institutions of the Country, its Climate, Topography, and Productions. By John Dean Caton, LL. D., ex-Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois.

J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia: Memoirs of John Quincy Adams. Comprising Portions of his

Diary from 1795 to 1848 Edited by Chas. Francis Adams. Vol. VII. — Dramas and Miscellaneous Poems. By Dr. J. R. Monroe - A Statement of Affairs at Red Cloud Agency. Made to the President of the United States. By Professor O. C Marsh. — Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. By S. Austin Allibone. With Indexes.

Lockwood, Brooks, & Co., Boston : Toward the Strait Gate ; or, Parish Christianity for the Unconverted. By Rev. E. F. Burr, D. D. — Correspondences of the Bible. The Animals. By John Worcester.

J. R. Osgood & Co., Boston: Little Classics. Fifteenth volume. Minor Poems. Edited by Rossiter Johnson.— Buffets. By Charles H. Doe. — Annals of a Fortress. By E. Viollet-le-Duc. Translated by Benjamin Bucknall. — The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. — Tales of the Argonauts, and other Sketches. By Bret Harte. — Discourses on Architecture. By Èugène Emmanuel Violiet - leDuc, Architect, author of The Dictionary of Architecture, etc. Translated, with an Introductory Essay, by Henry Van Brunt, Fellow American Institute of Architects. Illustrated with Plates and Wood-Cuts.

F. B. Patterson, New York : Views and Interviews on Journalism. Edited by Charles F. Wingate.

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York: The BorderLands of Insanity, and other Allied Papers. By Andrew Wynter, M. D. — The Abode of Snow. Observations on a Tour from Chinese Thibet to the Indian Caucasus. By Andrew Wilson. — A Manual of Metallurgy. Vol. II. By Wm. Henry Greenwood, F. C. S. Copper, Lead, etc. Illustrated by sixty-seven Engravings.

Roberts Bros., Boston : Madame Récamier and her Friends. By the translator of Madame Récamier’s Memoirs. — Eight Cousins ; or, The Aunt-Hill. By Louisa M. Alcott. With Illustrations.

Scribner, Armstrong, & Co., New York; The Holy Bible. With an Explanatory and Critical Commentary. Vol. V. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations. By F. A. Cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter.— Bric-a-Brac Series. Personal Recollections of Lamb, Hazlitt, and others. Edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.