Books of the Month

History. The series of The Navy in the Civil War (Scribners) is continued by The Atlantic Coast, by Rear-Admiral Daniel Ammen, and The Gulf and Inland Waters, by Commander A. T. Mahan. The former naturally treats of the two great centres on the Atlantic, Port Royal and the North Carolina coast ; and Admiral Ammen had the advantage of commanding a vessel in the battle of Port Royal, and also of being present in the two bombardments of Fort Fisher. Commander Mahan’s volume treats of the Mississippi Valley, the battles of New Orleans, Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, and Mobile, and also of operations on the Texas shore and on the Red River. — From Gettysburg to the Rapidan, by Brigadier-General Andrew A. Humphreys (Scribners), was intended originally to form a portion of the author’s volume in the Campaigns of the Civil War, but was omitted because of the bulk of that volume. It is a compact narrative, with almost no comment. — English Towns and Districts is the title which Mr. E. A. Freeman gives to a volume in which he has collected about thirty papers. contributed originally to the Saturday Review and other journals and magazines. (Macmillan.) They are special studies illustrative of early English and Welsh history, and are of archæological interest chiefly. There are several illustrations from Mr. Freeman’s own drawings and from photographs. — Mr. George Meade issues through Porter and Coates a pamphlet upon the question, Did General Meade desire to retreat at the Battle of Gettysburg ? which is a vigorous reply to the assertions which have their latest presentation in General Doubleday’s volume, in the Campaign series. —The Brooklyn Bridge is a reprint, in Harper’s Franklin Square Library, of historical and descriptive papers previously published in Harper’s periodicals. — The Puritan Conspiracy against the Pilgrim Fathers and the Congregationalist Church in 1624 is a pamphlet, by John A. Goodwin (Cupples, Upham & Co., Boston), which treats of Lyford and Oldham, and their underhand attempts to capture the Plymouth Colony.

Poetry. An Idyl of the War, The German Exiles and other Poems, by Ell wood L. Kemp (Potter, Philadelphia), draws chief inspiration from the Pennsylvania Germans. We should like the author to try the effect of printing his Idyl of the War as prose, and see what minute changes only would be required. It could be read aloud without creating any suspicion that it was blank verse. — Pedantic Versicles, by Isaac Flagg (Ginn, Heath & Co.), is a little volume of verse by a student in the ancient classics, who has sometimes amused himself, sometimes touched his lyre with more serious intent. We doubt if he sets a high value on his jeux d' esprit, but he would have a right to linger a little, as we have done, over his first song of Eros. — Poems Antique and Modern. by Charles Leonard Moore (John E Potter, & Co., Philadelphia), has all the attractiveness of print and binding which an author can well desire. It is made agreeable to the eye and hand, and the smoothness of the verse agrees with the externals. Even, the taste gets its satisfaction, as in the line,

— Poems, Songs, and Ballads, by X. Y. Z., is a quarto pamphlet, printed by Frank N. Pettit at Jarvis, somewhere in Canada, apparently. While looking for the poetry we came across some good adyioe to parents as to their treatment of chil-

dren:-

— Catiline, an historical play in three acts, and The Rival Runners, a farce in one act, by Arthur J. O’Hara, are published in a little pamphlet, by Stephen Mearns, New York. —Poems of History (M. W . Ellsworth &Co., Detroit) is an anthology, chosen and annotated by Henry A. Ford, in which arc collected poems by the most famous poets of all age, relating to most notable nations, eras, events, and characters of the past, from the time of Adam to the year 1883. So reads the title-page. The design is a good one, but in trying to cover all the period from Adam to Peter Cooper the compiler has sometimes sacrificed his idea of securing the most famous poets.

Biography. In the series of English Philosophers (Putnams) the latest volume is Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, by Thomas Fowler. The close relation of the writings of the two men is the reason for treating them in a composite volume. The author recognizes the secondary place which they occupy in a history of philosophy, but justly contends that secondary men have played too important a part in the development of special phases of philosophy to be left in neglect.– Twelve Americans, their lives and times, is a volume of biographical sketches, by Howard Carroll (Harpers), of men eminent in various professions, when the biographies first appeared in the columns of the New York Times. Mr. Carroll appears to have followed his own taste in collecting sketches of Seymour, C. F. Adams, Cooper, Hamlin, Gilbert, Schenck (not the Bitters Schenck), Douglass Allen, Thurman, Jefferson, E. B. Washburne,’ and Stephens. From the nature of the work it is necessarily somewhat eulogistic in tone, as well as limited by the fact that the subjects were living when their lives were written; but the style is animated, and Mr. Carroll supplies the reader with many suggestive facts. — In the serial Topics of the Time (Putnams), the second number is devoted to Studies in Biography, and contains seven papers from English reviews, upon Gambetta, Swift, Miss Berney, Wilberforce, George Sand, and other topics. The editor might do good service by making up his numbers from obscure journals, special pamphlets, and small books, more commonly found in England than here. – George Sand, by Bertha Thomas, is the third in the series of Famous Women. (Roberts.) There is added also a paper by Justin M'Carthy, reprinted from The Galaxy. Miss Thomas does not trouble herself to use much discrimination fn her eulogy.

–the Life of Schiller, by Heinrich Düntzer, translated by Percy E. Pinkerton (Macmillan), is a full and orderly biography, abundantly illustrated by wood-cuts, and is every way acceptable ; for English readers as well as German have lacked the completeness of knowledge about Schiller which they have had about Goethe.

Literature and Criticism. Studies in Literature is the title of a number of the serial Topics of the Time (Putnams), which contains half a dozen papers drawn from English reviews upon American Literature in England, — The Bollandists, The

Humorous in Literature, and other subjects.–_A

second editition has been published of W. Y. Sellar' s work on Virgil (Macmillan), which was designed originally as one of a series of the Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, but has never been followed by a Horace, although, as our readers know, the author has published a most acceptable work on the Roman Poetsof the Republic. This volume is a critical and biographical work on Virgil, the critical element greatly predominating, and occasion is taken to discuss freely other aspects of Latin literature. — Two volumes of Essays, by F,

W . H. Myers, have been published (Macmillan): one devoted to classic subjects, and treating of Greek oracles, Virgil, and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; the other to modern subjects, which are chiefly literary, although theology and history are incidentally treated in a paper on Ecce Homo and Mazzini. Mr. Myers is always a thoughtful and earnest writer, and the reader of these essays will be made to perceive the character of the best contemporary criticism in England. — The Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Obelisk-Crab in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, is a monograph in scholarship by Augustus C. Merriam, adjunct professor of Greek in Columbia College. ( Harpers.) It is in the form of a report to President Barnard.

Travel. From the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules is a volume of observations on Spain, its history and people, by Henry Day (Putnams), who carries to Spain no special equipment for bringing back the best which Spain offers. There is a commonplaceness about, the work which seems unnecessary in these days of really good travel-writing.

Theology, Philosophy, and Morals. The Lamb in the Midst of the Throne, or the History of the Cross, is an octavo volume of five hundred pages, by James M. Sherwood. (Funk & Wagnalls, New York.) It is the work of an old clergyman, no longer in pastoral service, who was once editor of Hours at Home, and undertakes to pass in review the philosophy of redemption. Mr. Sherwood sees everything in literature and art around him going wrong.; he believes in a future redemption of the world, but somehow fails to discover any of the redemptive process now going on, simply because his own traditional conception of the redemptive power is not so generally accepted as he could wish. But a theology which has the remoteness of Mr. Sherwood’s interpretation does not seem a ground of immediate hope.

Social Economy. Handbook for Hospitals, (Putnams) is* an issue by the State Charities Aid Association, and is intended to give in compact form the latest and most sensible hints regarding the structure and care of hospitals, with special reference to the needs of small towns and villages. The book will do good, and we hope it may help to establish a preference for small hospitals in the place of great caravansaries.—The Engineering News Publishing Co. of New York has issued Statistical Tables from the history and statistics of American water-works, compiled by J. J. R. Cross, consisting of an alphabetical list of towns which have a public water supply, with the number of population, date of construction of works, by whom owned, source and mode of supply, cost of works, bonded debt, rate of interest, and officers of works. — The Control of Defective Sight on Land and Sea, with especial reference to the subject of. color-blindness, is a résumé of what has been done in this country and abroad toward arriving at proper legislative action. It is a pamphlet issued from the office of The Railway Review, Chicago, and containing the editorial articles which have appeared in that journal upon the subject. The editor urges legislative action, and insists that the railways are powerless without it.

Text-Books and Education. Mr. Rolfe has accompanied his school Shakespeare with two volumes upon the same plan, devoted, one to the Sonnets, the other to the Poems. It can hardly be .said, however, that they belong to a school edition, for he has published Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece without change. — Two Shakespeare Examinations, with some remarks on the class-room study of Shakespeare, by William Taylor Thom (Ginn, Heath & Co.), is a most interesting volume, illustrative of work done by young women in a Southern college, and full of suggestion to teachers and students. The book has also apathetic interest, delicately hinted at by the author and editor. — A Robinson Crusoe for schools has been edited by W. H. Lambert. (Ginn, Heath & Co.) The editing has been in the omission of some parts and condensation of others, as well as in the expurgation of gross terms and allusions. These last, however, are exceedingly few. We should treat with more suspicion the editor’s statement that ‘‘the long and involved sentences which characterize the writers of the age of Defoe have been cast into a simpler form, while the diction of the author has been carefully preserved ; ” but we welcome so good an addition to school-books as a cheap Robinson Crusoe.

Fiction. In the No Name series (Roberts), the latest volume is Princess Amelie, which is in the form of an autobiography; the scene being laid in the French Revolution. — In the Round Robin series (Osgood), llis Second Campaign is a story of North and South: the first campaign having been of war, the second of love. — Those Pretty St. George Girls (Peterson) is a silly story of so-called English society. — In the Transatlantic series (Putnams), Her Sailor Love, by Katharine S. Macquoid, may be commended on the score of the author’s name. —X. Y. Z. is a detective story, by Anna Katharine Green (Putnams), wherein a mystery is propounded, deepened, and solved in less than a hundred pages.