Books of the Month

Theology, Religion, and Philosophy. Dr. Samuel Harris, a powerful thinker who has made his mark in teaching rather than in literature, has written a treatise on The Philosophical Basis of Theism (Scribners), which is a distinct addition to American philosophical literature. The work is an examination of the personality of man, to ascertain his capacity to know and serve God, and the validity of the principles underlying the defense of theism. It is critical and historical in its treatment of the subject, and will attract many minds which are repelled by the apparent dogmatism of Dr. Mulford’s Republic of God, with which Dr. Harris is partially in sympathy, though he lacks the poetic temperament which seems to be requisite in an Hegelian. — The Scriptural Idea of Man, by Dr. Mark Hopkins (Scribners), is a volume of six lectures given before the theological students of Princeton. The vigor, the lucidity, and the comprehensiveness of this masterly teacher are shown in a compass so brief that we mayhope for a more positive recognition of Dr. Hopkins’s ability than his previous books have called out. — Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, by Dr. Gerhard Ulhorn, has been translated from the German (Scribners), and is an interesting inquiry upon historical lines into the practical operations of the great law of love in Christianity, carrying the subject from the foundations of charity in the Apostolic age to the time of the Reformation. — The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (New York agents, E. & J. B. Young & Co.) are issuing in paper form The Churchman’s Family Bible, a devout commentary adapted to ordinary intelligence. — In Topics of the Times series, the fifth number is devoted to Questions of Belief, but the writers are pretty much all of one school, those who question belief. — Conflict in Nature and Life is further described on the title-page as a study of antagonism in the constitution of things: for the elucidation of the problem of good and evil, and the reconciliation of optimism and pessimism (Appleton). “Life,” this anonymous author says, “is but the picking of one’s way through the tangled mazes of contradiction.” He appears to enlarge upon the dictum, Whatever is is right, by showing that whatever is wrong is. The book is a thoughtful one, but the notion of an unending conflict as an element in progress is somewhat depressing. — The Foundations of Religious Belief; the Methods of Natural Theology vindicated against Modern Objections is the Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1883. The author is Rev. W. D. Wilson, and he directs his thoughts to readers of Mill, Spencer, and Tyndall (Appleton). — In the Early Christian Literature primers (Appleton) the latest volume is one on the Post-Nicene Greek Fathers, by Rev. George A. Jackson. It is a series of notices rather than a comprehensive study.

History and Biography. History of the Northern Pacific Railroad, by Eugene V. Smalley (Putnams) is a substantial and comely volume, with engravings and map, which gives not only the history of this enterprise but of the general movement into Oregon. It is a straightforward narrative of a most interesting series of transactions, and since the Northern Pacific, like any great railroad, changes the country through which it passes, one has in this work a glimpse of history in making. — A Bird’s Eye View of the Civil War, by Theodore Ayrault Dodge (Osgood), will be welcomed as a quick, well analyzed sketch of the military operations, with some characterization of leading men and a slight account of the political element involved. His furnished with maps and plans, and the dates, set in as marginal notes, help one in keeping the chronology. — In Topics of the Times series (Putnams) the fourth number treats of Village Life in Norfolk Six Hundred Years Ago, Siena, A Few Words about the Eighteenth Century, France and England in 1793, and General Chanzy. The selection is well made. — Irving’s Life of Washington is issued in two double-column parts (Putnams). The printing is clear, the few cuts are indifferent, and the price is low. — A utobiography of Charles Biddle, vice-president of the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, is a work privately printed, but to be had of E. Claxton & Co., Philadelphia. The period covered by the autobiography is from 1745 to 1821. Mr. Biddle was the father of Nicholas Biddle, and his intimate connection with Philadelphia people and affairs renders the book art interesting illustration of social and political life. — The Genealogy and Biography of the Waldos of America from 1650 to 1883, compiled by Joseph D. Hall, Jr. (Schofield & Hamilton, Danielsonvilla. Conn.), is arranged under the heads of the descendants of the Children of Cornelius Waldo, Ipswich, Mass., 1654. — Eugène Fromentin, Painter and Writer, is a translation by Maty Caroline Robbins of a life by Louis Gonse, originally published in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, of which M. Gonse is editor (Osgood), Fromentin was both a painter who wrote and a writer who painted. The work is sketchy, not to say journalistic in its character, but its very contemporaneousness gives it a freshness of interest. — Mrs. Anne Gilchrist has done a womanly and graceful deed in giving Mary Lamb a book to herself. (Roberts.) The character is One which has always drawn readers out of all proportion to the fullness of their knowledge, and many will be grateful to Mrs. Gilchrist for bringing together into a simple, unstrained narrative all that is to be learned of Lamb’s sister. Her diligence has been rewarded also by the discovery of some few facts and dates not before in the possession of the public. — The Early History of Land-Holding among the Germans, by Denman W. Ross (Soule & Bugbee, Boston), is a monograph which represents a careful investigation of original materials; it is incidentally, but not polemically, a criticism of Sir Henry Maine, and it is put forth with a sincerity of purpose and a modesty of claims worthy of all praise. It is a book for historical students rather than for readers, who may miss generalizations which they can easily appropriate. Mr. Ingleby, the author of Shakespeare, The Man and the Book, has published through Trübner & Co., a striking argument in favor of examining Shakespeare’s tomb. Mr. Ingleby holds that the poet’s curse was not pronounced against such recreant admirers as would transport the sacred dust to Westminster Abbey, but against the parish sexton who periodically cleared out the graves in the church. The authenticity of the several portraits of Shakespeare might be settled, Mr. Ingleby thinks, if measurements of the poet’s skull could be taken — providing the skull has not been already been removed. The author’s little book is interesting in view of the fact that the question of opening the grave has recently been revived at Stratford. The authorities have decided against permitting the exhumation of any possible remains.

Art. The latest volume of L’Art (J. W. Bouton & Co.) holds to the high precedents which it has established for itself in its literary and artistic departments. The letter-press presents the usual variety of carefully prepared matter. If this quarterly issue differs from the best of its immediate predecessors, it is in the number and excellence of the etchings here given. The reader will find the critical papers on the Salon of 1883 particularly interesting: these articles are admirably illustrated. — The fourteenth part of Racinet’s Le Costume Historique (J. W. Bouton & Co.) contains numerous colored illustrations of eighteenth century costumes in England, Scotland, France, Poland, Switzerland, etc. The ancient costumes represented are those of India and Egypt.

Literature and Criticism. The new edition of Emerson’s complete works has been begun by the issue of Nature, Addresses, and Lectures, and Essays, first series. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) The page is a pretty one, the binding is neat, and the whole effect is to make this author look exceedingly classic. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan, by Mrs. Oliphant, is the latest volume in the English Men of Letters series (Harpers). Mrs. Oliphant throws a veil of womanly charity over Sheridan, and misses some of the piquancy which the character suggests. The work is evenly done, but such a subject calls for a crisper treatment. — A Dictionary of Quotations from English and American Poets (Crowell) is based upon Bohn’s Dictionary. Mr. R. H. Stoddard furnishes a complimentary introduction. The book is alphabetically arranged by subjects, not by authors, for it is a collection of apt, not of familiar quotations. The authors referred to are in general the popular poets, but some persons have gotten into the company apparently by virtue of having said something pat. — Verbal Pitfalls, by C. W. Bardeen (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.), is a manual of 1500 words commonly misused, arranged alphabetically. Mr. Bardeen has reached his results by culling industriously from the authors like Dean Alford and others who have acted as special police in language. — In Appleton’s Home Books, there is a sensible volume on The Home Library by Arthur Penn, which treats both of the books and the structure and furnishing of a library. — Mr. James’s comedy of Daisy Miller has been published as a book (Osgood) and one may now see more distinctly the missing link between a story and a play.

Poetry. Mano, by Richard Watson Dixon (Routledge), is, as the title-page declares, a poetical history: of the time of the close of the tenth century: concerning the adventures of a Norman knight: which fell part in Normandy, part in Italy. The stop-watch punctuation of the titlepage is curiously reflective of the triple rime ” which the poet has employed in his work. The measure suits the theme, - that may be said; and yet the quaintness of the style raises some suspicion whether the poem is not in the main a restoration rather than a good piece of original architecture. — The Blind Canary, by Hugh Farrar McDermott (Putnams), is the second and revised edition of a volume of poems, the first of which gives the title. There is a poem inspired by phrenology, which is the first gift, so far as we remember, from the muse of any degree to that latest of sciences. — The Old Swimmin-Hole and ’Leven more Poems, by James W. Riley (George C. Hitt & Co.), is a collection of dialect verse so full of amiability and good sense that one condones its lack of poetry. Several of these little Hoosier lyrics have a naturalness and a pathos quite their own. — Sibyl is a poem by George H. Calvert. (Lee & Shepard.) — Wild Flowers is the title given by Joseph Daly to a volume of poems (Stanley & Usher, Boston), written by him while in his teens, and thus forestalling criticism, except that by wise friends. — Phantoms of Life, by Luther Dana Waterman. (Putnams.) It is hard to read farther in a book of which the tirst line is, —

Until the fibre has been unclasped, one is disposed to wait tranquilly. — My Ain Countree, and Other Verses, by Mary Lee Demarest (Randolph), is a collection of poems, mainly inspired by religion. — The Love Poems of Louis Barnaval, edited with an introduction by Charles DeKay (Appleton), seems to lessen Mr. DeKay’s monopoly of verse of the character which has hitherto appeared in his volumes. Had Mr. Barnaval lived and published his own poetry, Mr. DeKay might have been embarrassed, and been undone by a double.

Education and Text-Books. Mr. W. J. Rolfe, who is so well known by his edition of Shakespeare, has prepared an edition of Scott’s Lady of the Lake upon the same general plan and uniform in external style. (Osgood.) He shows that we have suffered from an imperfect text of the poem, and supplies the work with a profuse array of notes. A little too much annotated, it seems to us. By the way, his note on favor, line 686, could receive an addition from a good many boys and girls who have danced the German. It is a pity that the cuts which were used in the pretty illustrated edition should here lose the beauty which good paper and press work gave them before. Is it possible that it was not the engraver, but the printer and paper maker, who deserved credit for the good impression which the gift-book made ? — A First Latin Book, designed as a manual of progressive exercises and systematic drill in the elements of Latin, and introductory to Cæsar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War (Allyn, Boston), is a school-book prepared by a master in one of our secondary schools, D. Y. Comstock, of Phillips Academy, Andover. It is a compact, carefully planned book, and in the hands of a competent teacher may he made an admirable drill manual. — A College Fetich is the Phi Beta Kappa address given at Harvard in the summer by Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (Lee & Shepard.) — Modern Spanish Readings, embracing text, notes, and an etymological vocabulary, by William I. Knapp (Ginn, Heath & Co.), is a reader drawn, as the title indicates, not from classic authors but from contemporaneous literature, which would seem to make the work of use especially to those who have commercial needs of Spanish. — The eighteenth edition of A. L. Perry’s Political Economy (Scribners), has given the author an opportunity to perfect his work in the direction of simplification. Professor Perry acknowledges gracefully the service which he has received from his own class-room experience. — Longfellow’s Courtship of Miles Standish (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), has been cleverly arranged in seven scenes for school exhibitions and private theatricals. Nothing has been added, and the poem is made ingeniously to furnish stage directions. — The Meisterschaft System has been applied to the Spanish language, and the method presented in fifteen parts. (Estes & Lauriat.) — In the series of History Primers (Appleton), Mediaeval Civilization is the subject treated by Professor George Burton Adams, of Drury College, Missouri. Why are all professors of history named Adams ? — Handbook of the Earth (Lee & Shepard), is a little manual by Louisa Parsons Hopkins, in which live natural method in teaching geography is insisted on, and the teacher furnished with hints. It is a suggestive book.

Political and Social Economy. Congested Prices is the title of a little book by M. L. Scudder, Jr. (Jansen, McChirg & Co., Chicago), in which the author aims to describe the cause and cure of the prices which are made in certain unhealthy conditions of trade. He believes that we are in a period of declining prices, and he asks the commercial world to accept the fact calmly. Those who are getting ready to buy will be quite calm. The book is worth reading. — French and German Socialism in Modern Times is the title of a little volume by Richard T. Ely (Harpers), in which he aims “to give a perfectly fair, impartial presentation of modern communism and socialism in their two strongholds, France and Germany.” The book is based on lectures given at Johns Hopkins and Cornell. — What Social Classes Owe to Each Other is a series of papers published by W. G. Sumner in Harper’s Weekly, and now issued in a small volume. (Harpers). — Dr. W. G. Thompson has prepared a little volume mainly descriptive on Training Schools for Nurses, with notes on twenty-two schools. (Putnams.) — Mrs. Fields’s little book How to Help the Poor (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), is full of admirable suggestions, especially for those who with leisure and good will give much thought and time to the most effective service.

Science. Esoteric Buddhism, by A. P. Sinnett (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), makes such claims to the solution of oriental problems of the universe that one can only declare that it is important, if true; and the source from which the work comes, since Mr. Sinnett is president of the Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society, requires one to treat the work with respect. — Evolution, a summary of evidence, is a lecture delivered in Montreal by Robert C. Adams (Putnams), and is intended as a convenient statement of a subject of which the last volume has not been written. It is impossible for any but a master to teach anything of evolution within such confines, and one easily distrusts a popular lecture. — The Society for Psychical Research issues its proceedings through Trübner & Co., London, and the number for April, 1883, has reached us, with interesting papers, in which ghosts are cross-examined in a manner which must convince them how useless it is to try to vanish. — Government has issued the Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service. It contains accounts of apparatus which has been invented, and it furnishes excellent material for novelists who wish to introduce shipwrecks. It is just the volume that Lieutenant Fenton ought to have had in his cocoa-nut grove. Mr. Giffen would have found a companion in it.

Fiction. A Righteous Apostate, by Clara Lanza (Putnams), is a novel which depends for its interest upon an involved plot.— The Diothas, or a Far Look Ahead, by Ismar Thiusen (Putnams), is an elaborate, and somewhat unreadable piece of prophetic fiction. The unreality of this class of literature has a blighting effect upon the story. — Among the Lakes, by William O. Stoddard (Scribners), is a lively picture of Western life as led by young people mainly. — Thicker than Water, by James Payn, has been published in neat sixteenmo form by Harpers. The Harpers issue their Franklin Square Library in duodecimo form also; Altiora Peto, by Lawrence Oliphant, and By the Gate of the Sea, by D. C. Murray, lead off the series with fairly readable type ou thin paper, paper covers. In the older form appear Robert Reid, Cotton Spinner, by Alice O’Hanlon, and Disarmed, by Miss Betham-Edwards. — Up from the Cape (Estes & Lauriat) is a plea for republican simplicity, in the form of criticism upon city life by a countrywoman, but the criticism is neither very useful nor very well put.