Books of the Month

History and Biography. The fourth of Mr. Froude’s Short Studies on Great Subjects (Scribners) closes the series. It is devoted to a half dozen essays, chiefly biographical and historical, including one of special interest on the Oxford Counter-Reformation, in which he goes over the ground of Thomas Mozley’s recent volumes, and treats the subject from a different point of view. Each writer complements the other. Mr. Froude’s spirit in the volume is one of despair tempered by philosophy. —The first volume of Jowett’s Thucydides has been reissued in an American edition (Lothrop) under the care of Professor A. P. Peabody. The accompanying volume of essays and criticisms has not been reprinted, and this work appears as a complete one. It is, in fact, the translation only, with its marginal notes, and for the full worth the reader must still go to the English edition. It will be much, however, if American students are led to read this fine translation of a great work. — Leading Men of Japan, with an historical summary of the empire by Charles Lanman (Lothrop), is a composite work; the former half being devoted to a collection of biographical sketches of Japanese men of affairs, and the latter to a description of the country and its recent development. The work gives in a half-journalistic manner a readable statement of Japan. 7emdash; Life of Lord Lawrence, by R. Bosworth Smith, in two volumes (Scribners), is a full, detailed biography of a man great in character, in opportunity, and achievement; and since Lawrence was identified with the British empire in India during its most critical period, the reader has abundant opportunity for acquainting himself

with the history of administration there. A single chapter only is required to describe the last ten years of Lord Lawrence’s life, spent in England. The work is well furnished with maps.— A new and notable claimant for historical honors comes in the person of John Bach McMaster, a professor, we believe, in Princeton, who has published the first of five volumes, to contain A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War. (Appleton.) The volume before us, a comely octavo, carries the narrative into Jackson’s administration; but the reader will lind that administrations are rather landmarks than stopping-places in this history, and that he is invited to get abreast of a great and growing mass of people, to hear what they were doing in their homes when the great men were imagining that they themselves were governing at Philadelphia and Washington. It must not be supposed, however, that the great subjects of history are overlooked; they are treated, but rather from the illustrative side of manners. We are much mistaken if this work does not spring at once into a deserved popularity. — Mr. Parke Godwin has given to the world the biography of William Cullen Bryant (Appleton), which has been looked for with interest. It is in two octavo volumes, with portraits of the early and the later face. As the first full biography of the greater men of letters in America, after Irving, it will have a special value.— Messrs. Roberts Brothers have begun a series of Famous Women, of which George Efiot, by Mathilde Blind, is the first volume. The sketch is mingled biography of the woman and criticism of her writings. — The Autobiography of James Nasmyth, engineer, edited by Samuel Smiles, is published in the Franklin Square Library. (Harpers.)— The lovers of Shelley will be glad to get in so compact a shape a selection of his letters, with an introduction by Mr. Richard Garnett. (Appleton.) The volume is neatly printed, and very prettily bound in vellum.

Apologetics and Homiletics. Professor Frederic Huidekoper, of Meadville, reissues in two volumes (David G. Francis, New York) his important treatises, Judaism at Rome, B. C. 76 to A. D. 140, Indirect Testimony of History to the Genuineness of the Gospels, Acts of Pilate, and The Belief of the First Three Centuries concerning Christ’s Mission to the Under-World. Professor Huidekoper’s learning is well fortified by copious citation and reference, and his work will have a special value for students whose own libraries are meagre, since they will find here a thesaurus of historical learning. — The Yale Lectures on Preaching, which have already drawn out some admirable books by Drs. Storrs, Brooks, and others, appear this year in the course given by President Robinson, of Brown University. (Holt.) The treatment is interesting to others than preachers, for it covers the relation of the pulpit to modern society.— Principles of Agnosticism Applied to Evidences of Christianity is a volume of nine sermons, to which a tenth is added, on the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, by John Andrews Harris. (Whittaker.) Mr. Harris grapples with his subject manfully, employing, it may be, somewhat old-fashioned methods to meet the latest skepticism, and we are not quite sure that he has measured his antagonist.— Lectures on The Calling of a Christian Woman, and her Training to Fulfill it, by Morgan Dix, Rector of Trinity Church, New York (Appleton), is a little volume which raised a deal of dust about the author, when it was in the form of newspaper reports. Since much of current comment is based on hearsay, the critics of Dr. Dix would do well to read his work as he puts it forth, before they turn their backs on him. Dr. Dix may need to be scolded, but the present aspect of womankind in America does not seem to render pulpit exercises uncalled for. — The Relations of the Church to the Colored Race is a speech delivered by Rev. J. L. Tucker, D.D., of Jackson, Miss., before the Richmond Church Congress (Charles Winkley, Jackson) and is well worth the attention of all who are interested in the question of christianizing the freedmen. Dr. Tucker brings to the discussion an exceptional experience with the colored race, and his earnest appeal has practical direction and force.

Literature. The Epic of Kings is the title which Miss Helen Zimmern gives to her very interesting and valuable rendition of stories from the Persian poet Firdusi Miss Zimmern has done her work, not from the original Persian, but from the French translation by Jules Mohl. This is, however, of little consequence, since Mold’s translation is faithful and her work is reconstructive. It is interesting to see how the great national works are becoming the inheritance and furnishing of other and remote nations. It is through such literature that a true and generous breadth of vision is secured. — Four more volumes of the Riverside Hawthorne (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) have been published, —The Scarlet Letter and the Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, Our Old Home, and English Note-Books. The etchings which front these books are especially to be commended; indeed, all the parts of the volumes as examples of book-making are well studied.

Fiction. Mr. Black’s Shandon Bells (Harpers) employs the figure of the journalist and author to give a peculiarly present tense to the story. Somehow, this character, in a novel, has a painfully self-conscious attitude; the novelist who includes a writer among his dramatis personæ appears to be mixing subject and object in a perplexing fashion.— L’Evangéliste, a Parisian novel, by Alphonse Daudet, is translated by Mary Neal Sherwood (Petersons), and may possibly convey to American readers phases of Parisian life for which they have standards of comparison in their own experience. — The author of Miss Molly appears in a new story, Geraldine Hawthorne, which is published in the Leisure Hour series. (Holt.) It is a curious book. The author has laid the scenes during our war for independence in a nebulous America. It would be impossible, one would think, to be more timid than she has been in her historical romance. The words Boston and Ticonderoga and General Washington come out on the page occasionally in a half-frightened manner, but it is plain that the author does not intend to be caught in any anachronism, if site can help it, and so she studiously avoids dates and places and facts. — The Gentle Savage, by Edward King (Osgood), is a contribution to international literature, and introduces an old friend in the nearly extinct Yankee, and a new one in the Indian of the future. With these and a Nihilist and Europeans of different degrees of civilization, and foot-notes which interpret the foreign phrases, one feels as if he had traveled very much by the time he has finished the novel —An Honorable Surrender, by Mary Adams (Scribners), is a novel of the order which has become somewhat plentiful, wherein a girl of twenty shows the advantages and disadvantages of a sharp intellect, —so sharp as to be forever dividing and whittling — Tontine, by Matilda J. Barnett (F. Pitman, London) is a preposterous novel. We do not remember ever before to have come across a case of a heroine named after an insurance company.—In the No Name series (Roberts) a new volume is A Daughter of the Philistines, which deals with American life in some of its expansive activities.—Angus Graeme, Gamekeeper, is a two-volume novel (Alexander Gardner, London), of Scottish life, in which lowly devotion gets its deserts.— In Harper’s Franklin Square Library, the latest numbers are My Connaught Cousins, Bid me Discourse, by Mary Cecil Hay, and Unspotted from the World, by Mrs. G. W. Godfrey. — The War of the Bachelors is a story of the Crescent City at the period of the Franco-German war. It is by “Orleanian,”and is printed for the author. It can be had of George F. Wharton in New Orleans. We doubt if it be worth sending for.—Mr. Howells’s farce of The Sleeping Car (Osgood), comes very near being the most delightful thing he has written. The humor and ingenuity of this little piece are rare both in kind and degree.

Science and Empirical Philosophy. Physiognomy is further described as a manual of instruction in the knowledge of the human physiognomy and organism, considered chemically, architecturally, and mathematically; embracing the discoveries of located traits, with their relative organs and signs of character, together with the three grand natural divisions of the human face. The author is Mary Olmstead Stanton, who issues the book herself in San Francisco. No one who had not previously seen a human face would be likely to recognize it in the extraordinary collection of faces which illustrate the volume. Indeed, the general analysis of the human being leaves one a little in doubt whether he ever saw a man or woman. — The Gallop, by Edward L. Anderson (David Douglas, Edinburgh), is an interesting piece of criticism, illustrated by photographs and diagrams of Governor Stanford’s book. Mr. Anderson seeks to discriminate the gallop from the fast pace, and to correct what he regards as false impressions created by Mr. Muybridge’s photographs.— Animal Intelligence, by George J. Romanes, is one of the International Scientific series (Appleton), and is concerned chiefly with a collection of pertinent facts in the whole range of the animal kingdom from mollusks to monkeys. The author reserves for another volume the consideration of these facts in their relation to the theory of descent. This work, thus, is not a mere collectanea, hut has a definite intention. The unscientific reader will find it very entertaining; the scientific reader a contribution also to comparative psychology.— Postal Telegraphy, an address before the Hoard of Trade of Scranton, Pa., by J. A. Price, is a plea for governmental occupation of the telegraph system. (M. R. Walter, Scranton.)

Poetry and Anthologies. The Lowell Birthday Book (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is upon the plan of the previous Longfellow, Emerson, and Whittier birthday books of the same house, and is happy in its selections from a writer who is eminently quotable. — Poems and Essays is the title of a volume by Gideon Dickinson (A. Williams), and the title-page obligingly informs us, further, that the book includes The Fallen Chief, The Minstrel’s Curse, Kenilworth, Tributes to Holmes and Longfellow, Booth as Hamlet, The Wizard’s Grave; also, early and juvenile poems, and translation, from the German, with some account of minstrels and minstrelsy of the Middle Ages, and early ballad-poetry of different nations. Mr. Dickinson is certainly liberal in his bill of fare. He thinks, in his prefatory poem, that scorn and hatred will be hurled at the book. — Songs of Humanity and Progress, by .John T. Markley (H. Holloway, Eastbourne, Eng.), is a collection by the author of his rather violent and beefy lyrics. — Angeline, by George II. Calvert, is a poem of forty-six nineline stanzas.— Songs and Song-Legends of Dahkotah Land, by Edward L. Fales (The Highland Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minn.), is a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, having partly to do with Dakota, but chiefly with, the author’s own sentiments. Theology and Philosophy. Dorner on the Future State (Scribners) is a translation of so much of that author’s system of Christian doctrine as relates to the doctrine of the last things. It is introduced and annotated by Newman Smyth, who offers it as his contribution to the discussion which is raging, and will some day be noted as one sign of the current renaissance of theology. — The Religions of the Ancient World, by George Rawlinson (Scribners), is a small volume by an historical student, who could not well treat of Oriental monarchies without some special reference to their religious systems, and in this work has given a sketch of the religions of Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Persia, India, PhŒnicia, Etruria, Greece, and Rome. — Final Causes, by Paul Janet (Scribners), is a reprint of an English translation from the French by William Affleck, with a preface by Robert Flint, Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Flint regards it as the most comprehensive work which has been written on the subject, although it confessedly omits the treatment of final causes in the regions of intellect and emotion, morality and history. — The Relations of Christianity to Civil Society (Whittaker) is a volume of Bohlen Lectures of uncommon vigor. Bishop Harris, of Michigan, the author of the work, has treated his subject in a broad, positive manner; and even if one should question some of his premises and assumptions, as, for example, the identification of the Church and Christianity, he cannot fail to admire the virility of the treatment and the frankness with which Bishop Harris has made his applications. There is one conclusion which he does not state, and yet seems to us unavoidable, and that is that all the churches in Bishop Harris’s diocese ought to be taxed.

Politics and Economy. The Science of Politics is the forty-third volume in the International Scientific series (Appleton), and is by Sheldon Amos, well known by his former work on the science of law. The subject of politics was once before treated in this series in the volume of Physics and Politics by Mr. Bagehot; Mr. Amos has had a somewhat different task in his effort to apply scientific methods to politics, and he has certainly succeeded in producing a most interesting work, and one which fully recognizes the ethical properties of politics as predominating over the merely conventional. —The Works of James Abram Garfield, in two octavo volumes, edited by B. A. Hinsdale (Osgood), comprise the record of President Garfield’s public life from the time of his entrance into Congress until his death, as contained in his speeches and addresses. Mr. Hinsdale has prefaced the volumes with a vigorous and clear analysis and statement of President Garfield’s intellectual nature, and by the thoroughness of his work has justified his selection as editor. So far as these speeches required introduction and comment, Mr. Hinsdale has given them, and the volumes will prove a storehouse for students of our history during the period of the war and reconstruction. The versatility, the energy, and the unflagging industry of the President are well shown, and both the native power and the power of circumstance render him an admirable expositor of the great historic problems which have vexed the country for the past quarter century. — The Rev. Richard Hibbs sends us a vigorous brochure, entitled Prussia and the Poor, or observations upon the systematized relief of the poor at Elberfeld in contrast with that of England. (Frederic Morgate, London). The book is founded upon a visit and personal inquiry, but chiefly upon an acquaintance with the depths of English misery, and a fiery indignation at his countrymen’s cant. We recommend the author to read Bishop Harris’s Bohlen Lectures, to which we refer elsewhere. They will give direction to his thought.—Wealth Creation, by Augustus Mongredien, with an introduction by Simon Sterne (Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.), is the work of a merchant, who carries into his studies of political economy the experience of practical management of affairs. Mr. Sterne thinks that “ it is unrivaled in demonstrating that all trade is barter, and that the intervention of money is a mere lubricant to facilitate barter.” — The eighth of the Economic Tracts, published by the Society for Political Education in New York, is the Caucus System, by Frederic W. Whitridge, which is a historical review and criticism.

Literary Criticism and History. English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, by Thomas Sergeant Perry (Harpers), is in substance a course of lectures upon the subject, and has the mode of direct address; for this reason, also, in part, the book is not a history of the literature of that century, but an essay upon the laws governing it, with illustrations drawn from well-known examples. These illustrations are abundant and give a halfanecdotal character to the work. —Landmarks of English Literature, by Henry J. Nicoll (Appleton), undertakes to deal solely with the very greatest names in the several departments of English literature. Mr. Nicoll takes a sensible and somewhat rough-and-ready survey of literature, but he is rather a descriptive than philosophic guide, He deals chiefly with the plainer, more obvious aspects of his subject. — Emerson as a Poet, by Joel Benton (M. L. Holbrook & Co., New York), is an interesting and thoughtful little essay, very attractively and modestly printed, which collectors of Emersoniana ought not to overlook. The book, besides, has Mr. Kennedy’s useful brief concordance. It is a pleasure to find this independent contribution to literary criticism. The frontispiece is especially desirable as one of the best likenesses of Emerson.

Fine Arts. The third volume of Audsley’s Popular Dictionary of Architecture and the Allied Arts (Putnams) carries the work through the letter B. Like the previous volumes, it is rather an encyclopædia than a dictionary; for while some of the terms are briefly described, others are treated as articles,— the title Basilica, for example, covering more than sixty of the large octavo pages. The illustrations are strictly descriptive and definitive, and are judiciously employed.— Messrs. Firmin-Didot & Co., of Paris, send the fifteenth part of A. Racinet’s Le Costume Historique, this part consisting wholly of very delicate lithographs of costume. — Gatherings from an Artist’s Portfolio in Rome, by James E. Freeman (Roberts Bros.), follows a previous volume with the same title, and like that is an agreeable series of notes and recollections by a kind and companionable artist, who has long lived amongst the scenes which he depicts. It is the artist quality of the sketches which leads us to place the book in this division.— Notes on the Principal Pictures in the Louvre Gallery at Paris and in the Brera Gallery at Milan, by Charles

L. Eastlake (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), serves the traveler well by selecting for him out of a great number of paintings those on which he would most wish to spend his time. The notes are brief, but pointed, and free from critical rubbish. There are many diagrams, also, which will serve to identify the pictures; but we commiserate the student of the fine arts who innocently attempts to build an idea of the paintings upon them.

Travel and Chorography. On the Desert, with a brief review of recent events in Egypt, by Henry

M. Field (Scribners), is a volume formed upon notes of travel through the Sinai peninsula. It is the work of a journalist and experienced traveler rather than of a man of artistic sense and literary power. It should be added that Dr. Field’s tone is throughout one of Christian interest in the great historic scenes enacted in the desert.—On the Wing is the title of a volume of rambling notes of a trip to the Pacific by Mary E. Blake. (Lee & Shepard.) Mrs. Blake is an agreeable companion on the trip, and one comes to accept, cordially all the good words which she has for the business company which managed her traveling affairs.

Health and Medicine. Hygiene for Girls, by Irenæs P. Davis, M. D. (Appleton), is frank and plain spoken. It is in the main sensible, yet it strikes us as rather a book to be read by those who have the care of girls than by girls themselves. — Early Aid in Injuries and Accidents, by Dr. Friedrich Esmarch (H. C. Lea’s Son & Co., Philadelphia), is translated from the German by H. R. H. Princess Christian, who was very wisely occupied when she was placing these simple and intelligible instructions within the reach of her countrywomen. The book, both in its original form and as translated, is part of a very general movement to render people less helpless in emergencies.

Books for Young People. Old Ocean, by Ernest Ingersoll (Lothrop), is a collection of papers devoted to the surface of the ocean and somewhat also to its depths. It tells of the commerce which is carried on across the waters, of pirates and explorers, and it tells also of sea animals, of lighthouses, of ship and sea-weed. It is an entertaining medley, and may be commended as a readable book, which will both stimulate and satisfy a healthy curiosity.—Tim and Tip, or the Adventures of a Boy and a Dog, by James Otis (Harpers), is a lively narrative of the experience of a little runaway, who was quite justified in his successive escapes. There is, however, too much brutality in the book.