Books of the Month

History and Biography. Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1830-1835, to which we referred last month, is issued by the Harpers in two forms: in cloth, crown 8vo, as volume three of their edition, and in paper in the Franklin Square Series. — Under the title of Great Movements and those who achieved them, Mr. Henry J. Nicoll gives a series of sketches (Harpers), of a historical and biographical character, relating to changes in society and politics within the memory of living men, such as may be included under prison reform, cheap literature, penny postage, the electric telegraph, and the like. The narrative is confined to England. — James Abram Garfield, by George F. Hoar (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), is a eulogy pronounced by the senator from Massachusetts, admirably outlining the character which made the president’s fame something more than an accident of history.—Picturesque Quebec, a Sequel to Quebec, Past and Present, by J. M. LeMoine (Dawson Brothers, Montreal), is neither a history nor a guide-book, but a collection of notes on Quebec by residents, tourists, and historians, arranged in a mosaic by a local antiquary, who supplies the mortar as well as some of the blocks. He is an enthusiast, and writes for the people of Quebec; outside barbarians will be content to pick out here and there incidents and descriptions which have relation to general history and life. It is curious to find a place like Quebec where literature seems almost wholly antiquarian in its character.— Studies in Mediæval History, by Charles J. Stillé (Lippincott), aims at giving the reader, through a succession of studies, an intimation of the organic growth of Christendom, and an explanation of the relation which the Middle Ages bear to modern civilization. This is the field which is more and more to occupy the thoughts of the student of history. Here lie vast opportunities for investigation in the spirit of scientific study. Mr. Stillé’s work will interest the general reader, and is intended for him. —The St. Clair Papers (Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati) contains in two volumes the Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, Soldier of the Revolutionary War, President of the Continental Congress, and Governor of the Northwestern Territory. With his correspondence and other Papers arranged and annotated by Wm. Henry Smith. —In the American Actor Series, the latest volume is The Elder and the Younger Booth, by Asia Booth Clarke (Osgood), daughter of the elder and sister of the younger, and contains rather material for biographies than carefully planned lives. One will find incidents of the lives of these men and get glimpses of the half-gypsy experience of dramatic people. — The sixth in the Series of Campaigns of the Civil War is Chaneellorsville and Gettysburg, by General Abner Doubleday, who commanded the first corps at Gettysburg. General Doubleday’s personal connection with the events of which he tells both helps and hinders him as a narrator. — Under the title of The Making of England Mr. J. R. Green narrates the history of England down to the union in 829 under Eegberht, as he is pleased to spell the name of an old acquaintance. The same graphic style and seizure of pictorial incident which characterize his Short History will be found here, applied to less pliant material. The Harpers republish the work in dignified octavo, and in the Franklin Square Library. — French History for English Children, by Sarah Brook, revised and edited by Geo. Cary Eggleston (Harpers), is written in a pleasant style, with a directness which will attract children, Just how much Mr, Eggleston has revised the hook does not. appear; we think it is only fair in such cases to inform the buyer wherein the book differs from the usual English copy. —Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, by Ignatius Donnelly (Harpers), is an attempt to fish the fabled Atlantis up from the bottom of the sea, opposite the Mediterranean, and make it account for all the rest of the world. No wonder the author puts a quotation from Festus on his titlepage.— The England of Shakespeare, by E. Goadby (Cassell), is a descriptive sketch, intended to put the reader into possession of Shakespeare’s environment. They won’t get the man that way, however.

Ecclesiastical History and Theology. Professor George T. Ladd, of Yale College, has published the lectures on the Southworth Foundation, which he delivered at Andover in 1879-1881. The title of the work is The Principles of Church Polity, illustrated by an analysis of modern Congregationalism, and applied to certain important practical questions in the government of Christian churches. (Scribners.) The author brings to his work a consistent conception of Congregationalism, which is both historically founded and philosophically evolved. The results which he reaches have the great merit of presenting a practical reform, which is not only incipient in the genius of this church, but in harmony with the modern tendencies of all Christian bodies. He demands a firmer texture in the local organization, but he apparently yields the point of the possible universality of this church order when he contends that it is in the spread of its principles, and not of its form, that Congregationalism Is to have a future. — The World’s Witness to Jesus Christ, by Bishop Williams, of Connecticut (Putnams), is an ungainly shaped book of less than a hundred pages, containing two lectures delivered at Kenyon College, Ohio, upon the Bedell Foundation. The lectures relate to the power of Christianity in developing modern civilization, and the lecturer has aimed to present the line of his thought in the simplest possible form, making the theme: there was a Christ, there is a Christianity; the world before Christ was not the world of to-day, and the world of today owes its being to the historic Christ.—From Trübner & Co., London, comes a curious pamphlet of eighty pages, entitled Thoughts on Theism, with suggestions towards a public religious service in harmony with modern science and philosophy. The pamphlet bears “eighth thousand, revised and enlarged ” on the cover, and if the other seven thousand nine hundred and ninetynine have not been given away by the authors — for we are told that the work is not from the hands of one person — there is indication of a wide interest in this venture, which looks to the erection of a new Catholic church upon the ruins of Christianity. The “ resolve ” is made by somebody “to begin by building in Loudon a handsome Gothic church, to seat not less than one thousand persons, which shall be adorned with stained glass in every window, with suitable paintings and statues, and possessing a choir equal to that of St. Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey;” which strikes us as beginning about where Christianity in the eyes of some hs left off.

Fiction. In Putnam’s series of Trans-Atlantic novels is published The Dingy House at Kensington, in which the reader is turned round three times, and then told to walk forward seven steps and blow out the candle. — Between Times, or Tales, Sketches, and Poems, written in the leisure moments of a busy life, by I. E. Diekenga (J. HEarle, Boston), contains eighteen stories and sketches of generally sentimental and faintly humorous character, a story in verse, and a score or so of short poems. — The Feet of Clay, a novel, by Ellen Martin (Brown & Derby, New York), is a Southern novel which is baked in a very hot fire. One wonders if such novels are really written out of respect to the torrid zone, — Mr. Tourgee’s new book, John Eax and Mamelon, a couple of long stories or short novels (Fords, Howard & Hulbert), has scarcely the interest which A Fool’s Errand and Bricks without Straw had, as a picture of the South in its transition period, and the stories themselves have but moderate claims upon one’s attention as works of fiction. The faults of the previous books, which were overlooked because of the interesting contributions to our knowledge of the carpet-bag era, reappear more distinctly when the moral of the stories is less conspicuous. — Winning the Battle, or One Girl in Ten Thousand, by Mary Von-Erden Thomas (Petersons), is a novel which has a curiously old-fashioned air about it, and will somewhat confound the ordinary novel-reader of the day; he will think he has found a living specimen of the pliocene or some other period.

Philosophy and Morals. The venerable Dr. Laurens P. Hickock has reissued his Empirical Psychology, or the Science of Mind from Experience (Ginn, Heath & Co.), and in the revision which he has given has been assisted by President Seelye, of Amherst, though no indication is given of the extent of this coöperation. It is intended as a first book in psychology, and any one who has read Dr. Hickock’s work will know that his first book is by no means a primer.—Metaphysics, a Study in First Principles, by Borden P. Bowne (Harpers), is an exposition and criticism of our fundamental philosophical concepts. In the author’s words, “Leibnitz furnishes the startingpoint, Herbart supplies the method, and the conclusions reached are essentially those of Lotze.” The book is one which will receive respectful attention.

Social Science. A second edition of Dr. Theodore D. Woolsey’s important work on Divorce and Divorce Legislation, especially in the United States (Scribners), has received the author’s careful attention, and the last part of the volume, which deals especially with the present condition of legislation and with existing tendencies, has been rewritten. Dr. Woolsey writes not as a doctrinaire, but as a wise old man who sees that laws express public sentiment more than they control it and he looks for the recovery of a higher condition of social principle, not so much from lawmakers as from those who have most directly to do with the consciences of men.

Essays and Criticism. Some Ancient Melodies and other Experiments, by N. K. Royse (Clarke, Cincinnati), is a volume containing five essays, which have in general the discursive character of this form of writing, and in particular the browsings in literature of a sympathetic and not overcritical mind. Mr. Royse’s playfulness is perhaps his most serious crime. — To the collected edition of Dr. J. G. Holland’s writings have been added two volumes entitled Every-Day Topics, a Book of Briefs, first and second series (Scribners), and containing the short papers which he was in the habit of contributing to Scribner’s Monthly, under the title of Topics of the Times. In one regard these brief essays have a permanent element, for Dr. Holland viewed all passing subjects in an ethical light; but one may question whether the form will hold these thoughts, anti the temporary character yield to the permanent. — The Tauchnitz volume on English Literature in the Reign of Victoria, by Henry Morley, has been reproduced in a less attractive form by the Putnams.

Poetry and the Drama. Dorothy, a Country Story in Elegiac Verses (Roberts Bros.), is an anonymous English poem inscribed to R. D. Blackmore; the authorship has not, however, been kept a secret, although to many the name of Arthur J. Munby will he little more than a name. It must be pleasant to a man, after being diligent and obscure, to get behind a really good and successful piece of work and suddenly find himself called for. — Golden Poems, by British and American authors, edited by Francis F. Browne (Jansen, M’Clurg & Co., Chicago), is a substantial collection of popular poems by a great number of authors. The editor has apparently had more regard for what was popular than for what would best represent the several authors, and he has unnecessarily cut some poems. A poem belonging in such a collection can no more lose a stanza without suffering injury than a statue could be shaved at top or bottom to make it fit a niche. —Poems and Essays, by Charles W. Hubner, is published by Brown and Derby, New York. — The issue of a new edition of Bret Harte’s Poetical Works, of which the first volume has appeared (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), will give an opportunity which many will accept fora fresh reading of an author who, though young, lives in the enjoyment of a great reputation made years ago. The publication is an honorable challenge to the reading public.

Books for Young People. The Four Macnicols, by William Black (Harpers), is none the worse book for boys that it gives a quick-moving tale out of Scottish life, without any thought whether boys are listening to it or not. If Mr. Black knew that a boy was overhearing him, he gave no signs of knowing it.—Real Boys and Girls, by Mary C. Bartlett (Lockwood, Brooks & Co.), is a little book in which a family of vigorous children is portrayed in some of the adventures of young life. There is a great deal of liveliness in the book, and honest fun, and childish nonsense; there is something too of pure home feeling, and if the book had been pruned a little of some of the childish inflammation about God it would give greater pleasure. Like many of its class it is really more entertaining to those who have children than to those who have parents. —We place here William Everett’s School Sermons, preached to the boys at Adams Academy, Quincy, Mass. (Roberts), because we should be glad if by any words of ours we could direct the book into the hands of the young. Here may be found honest, straightforward, and reverent talk upon profound themes of life and duty. The sermons are by the master of the academy, and they spring from two sources, a faith in Christianity and a knowledge of boys.

Education and Text-Books. Longfellow is the title of the first of a series of American Classics for Schools, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The volume aims at giving within the limits of less than a hundred pages the poems which one would naturally take up first in reading to young people. Notes are added where difficulties occur. — In the Education Library (Harpers) is published a little book on old Greek Education, by J. P. Mahaffy, which gives in compact and agreeable form much that one would search for through many books. — Two more volumes have been published of Rolfe’s Shakespeare (Harpers), the Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for Measure; printed on better paper and bound in fewer volumes, this series would make an excellent household Shakespeare. — The Harpers issue Oscar Browning’s An Introduction to the History of Educational Theories, a small book, in which the writer traces the principal theories historically. There is an omission of any reference, apparently, to theories in America ; we could show the Englishman a sturdy crop, and since the measure of the importance of a theory is in the extent to which it has been embodied in practice, he would find it worth his while to study some of the results of American pedagogy. — The Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College have appeared in a substantial pamphlet. President Eliot continues his excellent practice of discussing questions of administration which bear directly upon the institution over which he is placed, but also are of interest and importance to all concerned in collegiate and university education.

Hygiene. Dr. H. H. Kane, who has a retreat for the cure of the opium habit, issues through the Putnams a little work on Opium-Smoking in America and China, which is a study of its prevalence and effects, immediate and remote, on the individual and the nation. Dr. Kane understands the seriousness of the subject, and his brief hook will possibly excite alarm rather than allay curiosity, — the better use of the two. — In Van Nostrand’s Science Series has been published Sewer Gases, their Nature and Origin, and how to Protect our Dwellings, by Adolfo de Varona. Dr. Varona, after he gets through his preliminary philosophy, comes to a practical and concise statement of causes and remedies. — The Art of VoiceProduction, with special reference to the methods of correct breathing, by A. A. Patton (Putnams), is a little work intended not for scientists, but for singers and teachers of singing, and aims to give a clear account of the physiological requirements of correct vocal mechanism. It is not unduly technical, and is conceived in a practical spirit.

Literary Furnishing. Familiar Allusions is the title of a book which is further explained as a Hand-Book of Miscellaneous Information, including the names of celebrated statues, paintings, palaces, country-seats, ruins, churches, ships, streets, clubs, natural curiosities, and the like. It was begun, but left unfinished, by the late William

A. Wheeler, so well known by his dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction, and completed and edited by Charles G. Wheeler. (Osgood.) With this and Familiar Quotations and one or two other books that might be named, life is no longer a burden, and even the editor of an evening newspaper may answer the questions which he prints. — The Wit and Wisdom of the Bench and Bar, by Hon. F. C. Moncrieff (Cassell) is not so scrappy as such books are apt to be, but aims at a little literary form, the jokes being worked with the text.

Science. The twelfth of the little scries of Guides for Science Teaching (Ginn & Heath, Boston), published under the auspices of the Boston Society of Natural History, is devoted to Common Minerals and Rocks, by William O. Crosby. The series itself is well described by its title, for it does not offer short cuts to the student, but careful notes for the teacher. — Sensation and Pain, by Dr. Charles Fayette Taylor (Putnams), is a lecture delivered before the New York Academy of Sciences, and, within brief limits, undertakes to give an outline of some of the main and primary facts of nerve-structure and nervous action,— The First Book of Knowledge, by Frederick Guthrie, F. R. S. (Putnams) is an attempt by a clever man to give to boys and girls a clear idea of many things which come within the range of familiar observation, such as things and stuff used for house-building, the elements of matter, materials used in cleaning, in clothes, food, heating and lighting, and the like. It is of English origin, but there is enough in the matter which is common to both England and America to make this little book a capital hand-book for teachers in our public schools to use as suggestion for talks with their pupils. — The latest volume of the International Scientific Series (Appletons) is J.

B. Stallo’s The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, in which the writer undertakes to determine the proper attitude of scientific inquiry toward its objects. — The Universe, or the Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Little, by F. A. Pouchet (Putnams), has passed to a sixth edition, and is full of marvels, for the conception of the universe is of a gigantic show.

Fine Arts and Illustrated Books. Mr. Bouton, New York, is the agent for an important series of popular works announced by A. Quantin, of Paris, of which four volumes have thus far appeared. The series is entitled Bibliothéque de l’Enseignement des Beaux-Arts, and the subjects of the first four volumes are La Peinture Hollandaise by H. Havard, La Mosaïque by Gerspach, L’Anatomie Artistique by Mathias Duval, L’Archéologie Grecque by Collignon. The authors are authorities, and the hand-books are so business-like that they are almost contemptuous of elegance in their illustrations, evidently regarding these as chartographic, and not pictorial. — If all the people who buy Mr. William Morris’s wall papers, and hang the wrong pictures on them, would read his little work on Hopes and Fears for Art (Roberts), and ponder as they read, they might come to some juster sense of what household art is. Despite the somewhat languishing tone, occasionally, of Mr. Morris’s rhetoric, here is a book with wisdom in it. The people who have been perplexed about Mr. Oscar Wilde will find in these pages the real thing which the traveling apostle of the day-before-yesterdav Renaissance jumbled with the sham likeness.—The fourth volume of L’ Art is not so rich in illustration as previous volumes have been, but its special articles, which treat of a great variety of subjects pertaining to art, are more valuable than usual. The character of the publication has been slightly changed of late, and greatly improved, as the interesting critical articles upon music and the drama testify. In the latter part of the volume the Chronicle will be missed. However, its place is filled with more important subject matter. The subscribers do not lose the newsy Chronicle, but are decidedly the gainers by the change, since it is now published as a separate part, and, while properly belonging to the regular weekly, it may be taken single, and is omitted in the bound volumes. It will be noticed in the present volume that women have been called upon many times both as authors and illustrators. This seems to be a most successful new departure. An etching by Mademoiselle Niel is certainly one of the best in the volume. The series of articles on Brussels tapestries and their marks deserves a careful reading. The five pieces in silk and gold (which are considered the most beautiful pieces in existence) have been reproduced by engraving, to serve as illustrations to the article describing them. There are several papers on Fouquet, by Bonaffé, and on Courbet, the first French, realistic painter, which are full of desirable information. The article on Adrien Doubouché, who founded the Society of Friends of the Arts of Limoges, and also the Musée Ceramique, is one of the most prominent of all. It was through the exertions of Doubouché that the Musée Ceramique possessed the most important collection of ceramics in France. Among other essays of especial interest appears one on Mademoiselle Kraus, the actress, accompanied by her portraits ; one on the use of the electric light in galleries, in which the writer mentions but two inventions, both of which are American ; one on Alfred Faucon, artist in inlaying with metal (damasquine), which describes his process in full. It should be mentioned separately that Mr. F. S. Church, of New York, is the only American artist whose life and works are spoken of at length in this volume. The praise bestowed upon him is generous and discreet. Some of his most popular etchings illustrate this article. From articles which appear in various parts of this volume, it would seem that the editor of L’Art is especially anxious to have the ministry of fine arts in other hands than those of the under secretary of state.