Books of the Month

Holiday Books. Red-Letter Days Abroad, by John L. Stoddard (Osgood), is ostensibly a book of travels, occupied with Spain, Obur-Ammergau, St. Petersburg, and Moscow, but the pictorial portion of the book is its excuse for being. There are many pleasing pictures, with text to accompany them. The text is arranged in order and reads straight forward; nevertheless, the writer is a speaker addressing an audience and pointing to his views. The device of assuming a companionship in travel, common enough in books, becomes here an irresistible suggestion of a showman.— Good Night and Good Morning, words by Lord Houghton, illuminations and etchings by Walter Severn (Roberts Bros.), is eight cards temporarily strung on blue silk, in a manner which exasperates the masculine mind, and makes him wish to relegate the thing to the work-basket. — Lead, Kindly Light, is Cardinal Newman’s famous hymn, illustrated by St. John Harper and G. R. Halm (Roberts Bros.) with figures and decorative work, all obviously symbolic. There is, it may be said, no unity about llie book, for the figures do not represent any single personality, but make a diverse and scattered commentary on the hymn. —The Bryant Calendar (Appleton) follows the present, vogue of a large card with a block gummed upon it, the literature of which cannot be known in full till the end of the year. The art part of the calendar is rather commonplace, and the pink of the scroll and the rose introduces an unpleasant accent into what, otherwise might be a somewhat pleasing combination of colors. —Fair Words about Fair Women, gathered from the poets by O. B. Bunco (Appleton), is an anthology made with good judgment, and arranged in a series of hypothetical evenings of a club. Wisely enough, the editor does not force his little fiction upon the reader. The tablets and other decorations, by How, if we read the name correctly, are graceful and in harmony. — Pictorial Architecture of the British Ises, by the Rev. H. H. Bishop, is an oblong book of coarse wood-cuts, arranged to show the changes which have taken place from the earliest days of Britain, with a running commentary of text. It is published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of which the American agents are E. & J. B. Young & Co., New York.—The I-Iynnis of Martin Luther, set to their original melodies, with an English version, edited by Leonard Woolsey Bacon, assisted by Nathan H. Allen (Scribners), is an admirable souvenir of the four hundredth anniversary of Luther’s birth. It contains Luther’s prefaces, and gives the English reader the best results of German scholarship in a clear and agreeable form. — A Little Girl among the Old Masters, with introduction and comment by W. D. Howells (Osgood), is surely one of the most delightful glimpses of a rare childhood. The little girl, sojourning in Italy, found her best friends among the early Florentine painters, and thought their thoughts over again in her sympathetic mind, reproducing them in her own childish dialect. The humorous and quaint commentary of Mr. Howells fits perfectly with the child’s pictures, and the pictures themselves recall William Blake and Kate Greenaway, as well as the Florentines. Fortunate the old masters in finding such an interpreter. — A Year of Sunshine may perhaps be placed here, since it relies in part upon its red lines and general attractiveness. It is a volume of cheerful extracts for every day in the year, selected and arranged by Kate Sanborn. (Osgood.) It has suspicious blankness at the foot of each page_ these empty spaces, however, are not for rainy days, but for autographs. We know some persons who would not have a perfectly cloudless day if they were asked to fill some of those blanks.

Books for Young People. The Chronicle of the Cid (Dodd, Mead & Co.) belongs to the very commendable class of books, which we heartily welcome, of world’s literature made accessible to the yoting. This is mainly from Southey’s version, by Richard Markham. The illustrations, by H. W. McViclear and Alfred Brennan, have little left of what excellence they may have had before being rendered by whatever process was adopted. — Our Boys in China is described on the title-page, apparently by the author, Harry W. French, as the thrilling story of two young Americans, Scott and Paul Clayton, wrecked in the China Sea, on their return from India, with their strange adventures in China. (Lee & Shepard.) The book is a sequel to the author’s previous Our Boys in India, and is an attempt at a reconstruction of erroneous conceptions of China upon a basis of improbable fact. — Mr. Charles Nordhoff’s Man-of-War Life, a boy’s experience in the United States navy during a voyage around the world in a ship of the line (Dodd, Mead & Co.), is a reissue of a book originally published in 1854, but too good to go out of print, and now dressed in the book-clothes of the period. Mr. Nordhoff has a manly way about him in his narrative, which recommends the book to every honest boy. — Oliver Optic is writing a series called the Boat-Builder series, of which the second number, Snug Harbor, or the Champlain Mechanics, is before us. (Lee & Shepard.) Mr. Adams has changed his tactics somewhat, and now makes his books less adventurous and more educational. In this volume he advocates, by the agency of a story, the introduction of industrial training into a common-school education; and one is quite ready to let him ride so excellent a hobby, although his horse would get to the end of the road quicker if his rider did not think it necessary to make a war hobby-horse of him, and attack the riders who prefer other roads to the educational goal. We are thankful lor the change, however, even though the youngsters of Mr. Optic’s invention still wear heads out of all proportion to their shoulders.—The series of Minor Wars of the United States (Dodd, Mead & Co.) may he taken as appealing to young readers, A recent volume is A Narrative History of King Philip’s War and the Indian Troubles in New England, by Richard Markham. The author has used freely such accounts as those of Gardener and Mrs. Rowlandson. It was a pity to follow the archaic spelling in copying the older chronicles; such fidelity is useful only in strictly antiquarian work. The whole story is a painful one, and ought never to be told by itself, but as a part of the fuller life of the communities; as it is here given, the young reader will be quite likely to misunderstand the whole business. —Another volume in the same series is History of the War with Mexico, by Horatio O. Ladd. Mr. Ladd recognizes the moral obliquity which brought on the war, but he glories in the valor of the American soldier, and is enthusiastic over the results of the war in the increase of the Union and its wealth. The book gives, what is not easily had elsewhere, a brief sketch of the war, not too technical for the ordinary reader, and not too burdened either with philosophy or rhetoric.—Elsie’s New Relations, what they did and how they fared at Ion, a sequel to Grandmother Elsie, by Martha Finley (Dodd, Mead & Co.), may be classed among juveniles, though the principal characters are all young married people. They are married, but they are very, very young, and one feels a little compunction at being allowed to intrude on some of their very private interviews. — Stories from Livy, by the Rev. Alfred J. Church (Dodd, Mead & Co.), will be found a good book to put beside the author’s previous renderings of Virgil and others. Do the publishers really think that they treat Flaxman handsomely in their versions of his designs’! — Part Fifth of the Boy Travellers in the tar East, by Thomas W. Knox, is the Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through Africa. (Harpers.) Like the previous volumes, it is an ornate, liberally illustrated work, chock full of useful information, which the hoys reel off bv the yard, but there is no indication that two boys ever did cross Africa. The whole journey has the air of having been made in a library. —The Ball of the Vegetables, and other stories, in prose and verse, by MargaretEytiugc (Harpers), is a lively book, but the liveliness is that of a jumping-jack rather than of a cricket. — The Bear-Worshippers of Yezo, or the adventures of the Jewett Family and their friend Oto Nambo, by Edward Greey (Lee & Shepard), is a continuation of a series, and is evidently based on extensive acquaintance with Japan: but could not the information all have been reduced in quantity and made more rememberable ? — Kittyleen, by Sophie May (Lee & Shepard), is one of the series of Flaxie Wiggle Stories, and, like the rest, is taken up with the joys and sorrows of very young children, whose language is less perfectly developed than their ingenuity. — Phil and his Friends, by J. T. Trowbridge (Lee & Shepard), is the story of a boy who was left in pawn with a landlord by a graceless father in debt for his board. Starting with this improbability, the rest of the book is credible and of no special value. — Mrs. Celia Thaxter’s Poems for Children (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is an agreeable little volume to read with a child, the incidents are so simple and so musically related. It ought to be a favorite, with its soft printing in brown ink and its general attractiveness. The illustrations, by Miss Plympton, give a decorative look to the book, but are not clearly defined, like Mrs. Thaxter’s poetry. — The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch is parts of Plutarch’s Lives, edited for young people, with an introduction by John S. White, head-master of Berkeley School. (Putnams.) The text is Clough’s Dryden. There are good maps and some interesting engravings. Perhaps the introduction, to a full reading of Plutarch might have been more attractive if it had been briefer; the bulk is against it, but we have only welcome for an honest and serviceable book like this. — Speech and Manners for Home and School, by Miss E. S. Kirkland (Jansen, McClurg &Co.), is a little story embodying some of the elementary principles of grammar and conduct. It is a photographic reproduction, the author says, of certain parts of school-teaching. There is a good deal of quiet humor, and much ingenious working in of errors of speech and manners. It is a good book to place in the hands of a hopelessly ungrammatical and ill-mannered child.—The bound volume of Harper’s Young People for 1883 makes an annual which it would seem impossible, from its size, to read through in a year, yet its fifty-two parts have probably been no severe tax upon those who have taken this watermelon in weekly slices. — Heroes of Literature is the title of a volume for young people, in which John Dennis has endeavored to excite an interest in English poetry by giving running comments upon the persons of poets from the earliest times to the present. (S. P. C. K., Young, New York.) — The small reader will find nothing among the Christmas books of the year more delightful than the Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Written and Illustrated by Howard Pyle. (Scribner’s Sons.) The old Sherwood Forest legends never had a prettier setting than Mr. Pyle’s pen and pencil have given them.

History. In the important series of Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, published for the State by Weed, Parsons & Company, Albany, the latest volume is Documents relating to the History of the Early Colonial Settlements, principally on Long Island, with a map of its western part, made in 1666, translated, compiled, and edited from llie original records in the office of the secretary of state and the state library, by B. Fernow, keeper of the historical records. The volume comprises Indian deeds, patents, letters, court, records, and the like, a mine of curious material for the student. All the old quarrels are here fought over, and village scandal becomes subject for historical societies.— A new edition of Still’s Underground Railroad Records (William Still. Philadelphia) has a life of the author added. Here is a book which contains an inexhaustible fund of anecdote and suggestion for the future novelist who wishes to use, as he will be sure to, incidents Of the struggle between freedom and slavery. There is no more human appeal in literature than these annals make. — Of a different sort is the historical work in two volumes, by James D. Bulloch, naval representative of the Confederate States in Europe during the civil war, entitled The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or How the Confederate Cruisers were Equipped. (Putnams.) The author is probably the only person who could give so full a history of this service, and the reader will be

grateful that he is not long detained over the questions of the conflict, but carried directly into the history of the secret service, which necessarily includes a pretty full study of the relations held to the Confederacy by the government of Great Britain.— Historical Sketches of New Mexico, from the Earliest Records to the American Occupation, by L. Bradford Prince (Leggett Bros., New York), should not be slighted because in external appearance it is a little unprepossessing. Judge Prince has collected in a convenient form a great deal of curious and interesting material, arranged in chronological order, relating to New Mexico, and has made his book a useful brief for the historical student. — Oregon, the Struggle for Possession, by William Barrows, is the second volume in the series of American Commonwealths (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), and makes an excellent antithesis to Cooke’s Virginia. Mr. Barrows goes carefully over the story of the contest for Oregon, and brings out in piquant fashion the various forces at work in settling the Oregon question. His narrative of Whitman’s Ride will bring to many readers a new and striking piece of American romance. and his study of Webster’s connection with the question throws light upon a confused subject. — Newfoundland, its history, its present condition, and its prospects in the future, is the joint production of Joseph Hatton and the Rev. M. Harvey. (Doyle & Whittle, Boston.) The book has a curious little history. The original work was written mainly by Mr. Harvey, who had free access to materials in Newfoundland and the advantage of residence in the country. He was assisted by Mr, Hatton, an accomplished journalist, with access to material in London; the book was published in England, and now is republished here under the editorial revision of its principal author. The book thus has “growed.” It is an interesting work, by a painstaking student, who sets about a thorough representation of the country, and if the reader will add Mr. Lowell’s New Priest in Conception Bay he will supply the only apparent deficiency, for the authors have left ope to infer the social characteristics of the people.—The Nature of Positive Law, by John M. Liglitwood (Macmillan), may perhaps be included in this section because of its direct relation to historic study. Mr. Lightwood has undertaken to supplement and correct Austin’s work by a use of such labors as those of Sir Henry Maine and Von Ihering, and his general results may be Summed up in his statement, “ Law is a collection of rules regulating either human actions or human relations, which spring from and explain the current rules of morality, and which therefore depend for their support upon the general assent of the people,”and not upon Force, which is only occasionally summoned in aid.— Mosaics of Grecian History, by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson (Harpers). is an attempt to give within a moderate compass a History of Greece, of which the skeleton is the construction of the editors of the work, and the flesh is composed of patches from a great variety of authors. It makes a narrative history, but it fails to explain by its own contents why any one should read history. — The Course of Empire, outlines of the chief political changes in the history of the world (arranged by centuries), with variorum illustrations by Charles Gardner Wheeler. (Osgood.) This is a historical handbook. Beginning with the fifth century before Christ, a map of Europe is given in colored outline, and then follows text, containing a brief statement of the political complexion. The variorum illustrations are short passages from a variety of authors. The plan excludes America from the map, and gives no conception of the real historic course of such an empire as that of England. We cannot highly praise the scheme of the book.— Louis XIV. et Strasbourg, essai sur la politique de la France en Alsace, d’après des documents officiels et inédits, par A. Legrclle (Hachette, Paris), is a third edition, revised and enlarged. It traces the history from the Celtic beginnings down to the end of the First Empire, but the bulk of the work of course is concerned with the period of Louis XIV.

Biblical Criticism and Ecclesiastical History. The fourth volume of Dr. Schaff’s Popular Commentary on the New Testament (Scribners) includes the Catholic Epistles and Revelation, and thus completes the work. It is very minute, and to our minds wordy. Hints surely are worth more than full explanations in such works.—The second volume of a new edition of Dr. Sehaff’s History of the Christian Church (Scribners) has appeared. It is devoted to antcniceue Christianity, A. D, 100-325. In the revision the author has undertaken to press into service the many investigations of scholars which have appeared since the publication of tho first edition. — In the series of the Fathers for English Readers, published by the S. P. C. K. (Young, New York), the latest volume consists of biographies of St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours, by J. G. Cazenove. — Perhaps ice may place here Arius the Libyan, an idyl of the primitive church (Appleton) in the time of Constantine and Athanasius. It is an attempt to reconstruct in fictitious form the life of that time.

Literature and Literary History and Criticism. Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayist? (Putnams) is a tidy series of three volumes, containing essays by masters of English style. The editor confines his selection to English and American literature of this century. Irving, Hunt. Lamb, and De Quincey are the earliest, and Leslie Stephen is the latest. It is a delightful collection in attractive form.— Classic Heroic Ballads, selected by the editor of Quiet Hours (Roberts Bros.), does not in the main go back of Walter Scott. The selection is certainly good for what it contains, and the editor has kept in mind the two qualities of such ballads, a story and a song. —The English Grammar of William Cobbett, carefully revised and annotated by Alfred Ayres (Appleton), comes upon the heels of a recent edition of the same book, which gave more notice of Cobbett himself. Cobbett’s grammar has the merit of being exceedingly practical and direct. The editor has annotated the work very closely. — Mr. F. H. Underwood has followed his biographies of Longfellow and Lowell with one of Whittier (Osgood), which will serve as an accompaniment to his poems. —Mr. George Willis Cooke, who prepared a study of Emerson, has now produced George Eliot, a critical study of her life, writings, and philosophy. (Osgood.) Where a writer like George Eliot has written abundantly on a great range of ethical, social, and religious subjects, the task of a critic is largely that of one who should make a concordance of ideas, and this Mr. Cooke appears to have done. He has the patience and charity of a critic, but hardly the penetration which seizes upon a central thought and turns it into an epigram.— Slavonic Literature, by W. R. Morfill, is a compilation from original authorities for the use of general readers of the facts relating to the dawn of European literature among the Slavs. (S. P. C. K. Young, New York.)—Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson has edited a translation of the letters of Heloise to Abelard, given in Beritigton’s Lives of Abelard and Heloise, and furnished a graceful introduction. The book is a dainty little volume, as befits the subject. (Osgood.)— In Topics of the Time (Putnams), the sixth number bears the title Art and Literature, and Contains half a dozen papers from the leading English reviews. — Golden Thoughts from The Spiritual Guide of Miguel Molinos the Quietest, with preface by J. Henry Shorthouse (Scribners), may fairly be brought into literature, — as fairly as the Imitation of Christ. It is more mystical than that work, but, like it, appeals to a fine consciousness. — The Valley of Unrest, edited by Douglas Sherley (J. P. Morton & Co., Louisville, Ly.), is a specimen of bookmaking so unusual that it is difficult to decide on its literary merit, which seems not striking, compared with the brick-red paper upon which the text is printed in black ink. The anonymous writer (obviously the editor), who poses as a schoolmate of Edgar A. Poe, relates a picturesque episode in the boy-life of the poet. Whether or not the story is invented, it has an oddity about it that would charm even without typographical eccentricities. — The Macmillans have issued a neat edition of Matthew Arnold’s prose works in seven volumes. We shall find occasion later to speak at length of Mr. Arnold’s writings, and especially of his poems, which ought to have been included in the present collection.— The Sonnets of Milton, edited by Mark Pattison (D. Appleton & Co.), is among the latest of the Parchment scries, — a charming set of little books. The writers of poems of fourteen lines would do well to give night and day to the study of the first ten or twelve pages of Mr. Pattison’s Introduction to the Sonnets. This introductory essav is admirable, as are also the editor’s notes and comments on the Sonnets.

Fiction. Hand and Ring, by Anna Katharine Green (Putnam), is a story which relies on the author’s ingenuity in tying a hard knot, and then untying it. — Who’s to blame ? by Henry Fauntleroy (Southern Methodist Publishing House, Nashville), is an attack, in the form of a story of Western life, upon the alleged rottenness of the judiciary.— Nights with Uncle Remus, myths and legends of the old plantation, by Joel Chandler Harris (Osgood), is a successor to the jovial Uncle Remus, and enriched by the author’s new confidence in his powers. One may be a general reader and be delighted, or a comparative anthropologist, or whatever it is, and be edified. It is curious to see how Æsop reappears, and the Greek slave finds an avatar in the African slave. —Judith, a chronicle of old Virginia, by Marian Harlan (Our Continent Publishing Co., Philadelphia), is a taleof the Nat Turner insurrection, and still more a picture of Virginian life, which it represents with firm touches.—Belinda is Rhoda Broughton’s latest novel (Appleton),, in which intrigue is carried to the last step but one. It is a feverish, unwholesome book, with a smirking bow to propriety. — Vagabondia. by Mrs. Burnett (Osgood), is her Dorothe;i-l>olly novel corrected, and, since it must live, given a respectable home and dress. —A Castle in Spain, by James De Mille (Harpers), enjoys some very clever illustrations by E. A. Abbey. — The latest numbers in Harper’s Franklin Square Library are A Struggle for Fame, by Mrs. J. H. Riddell, and Hearts, by David Christie Murrav. — Round about Rio, by Frank D. Y. Carpenter (Jansen, McClurg N Co.), is a lively touristnovel, in which a party of Americans visit Rio, and a wedding takes place on the last fly-leaf.

Art. Historical Handbook of Italian Sculpture, by Charles C. Perkins (Scribners), is an octavo volume, abundantly illustrated, in which the sculpture before Niccola Pisano is treated as a separate essay, after which, in greater detail, follow three books, The Revival and Gothic Period, The Early Renaissance, and The Later Renaissance. It is a pity that a handbook so convenient and so full should not have enjoyed better printing.—The new volume of L’Art (J. W. Bouton & Co.) does more than sustain its claim to the first place among art publications. The critical and descriptive letterpress is unusually valuable. M. Octave Lacroix continues his charming account of Un Voyage Artistique au Pays Basque. The various papers on the Salon of 1883 will reward the reader. In the critical department is an appreciative estimate of Mr, C. B. Curtis’s unique catalogue of the works of Velasquez and Murillo. The excellence of the literature of the present issue is handsomely supplemented by artist and engraver. Several of the full-page reproductions of old masters are exceedingly fine, and there are two etchings,— La Nouvelle Cathédrale, and Le Quai de RiveNeuv at Marseilles, — which the possessor will at once desire to frame. —The Catalogue of the Art Department of the New England Manufacturers’ and Mechanics’ Institute (Cupples, Upham & Co., is an ideal catalogue. The volume contains an alphabetical list of 731 paintings, drawings, engravings, etc., and is illustrated by 57 full-page pictures reproduced front the original works by etching, photo-engraving, and tin; albertype process. In almost every instance the work thus reproduced is worthy of the careful pains bestowed upon it by the editor, who has placed us under further obligations to him by supplementing the collection with a series of well-written papers on various art-topics. Among the contributors to this section of the catalogue are Arlo Bates, E. H. Clement, J. J. Jarves, Charles De Kay, E. A. Silsbee, and Mrs. M. G. Van Renssalaer. The typography and printing of the book do credit to the press of Mr, Arthur Tufnure. In mechanical execution the Paris Salon has issued no catalogue comparable with this.

Biography. Life of Wagner, by Louis Nohl, translated from the German by George P. Upton (Jansen, McClurg & Co.), furnishes one with a somewhat inflated account of the musician’s career. It is written by an enthusiastic admirer.— Francis Bacon, a Critical Review of his Life and Character, with selections from his writings, by B. G. Lovejoy. (Estes & Lauriat.) Mr Lovejoy adds on his title-page that it is adapted for colleges and high schools. Perhaps the justification of this is in the author’s statement r “ The aim of this sketch has been to point out with particularity the frailty of the man, in order to avoid confusing his intellectual excellence with his moral weakness.” Will it be believed that this editor, enumerating the editions of Bacon, stops short at Basil Montagu’s, which he describes as a nearly perfect collection ! — In the New Plutarch series a recent number is Marie Antoinette, by Sarah Tytler (Putnams), which aims to be more personal than historical in its treatment. The queen has her votaries, though they are not as passionate as those of Mary Queen of Scots.

Poetry. Legends, Lyrics, and Sonnets, by Frances L. Mace (Cupples, Upham & Co.), is marked by much true poetic feeling, expending itself largely upon subjects which do not immediately win the reader. —Stray Chords, by Julia R. Ananglios (Cupples, Upham & Co.), is largely lyrical in its character, with an occasional almost oklfashioned air,— as old-fashioned, that is, as Moore. — Poems in Prose, by I van TourgueneU (Cupples, Upliam & Co.), may fairly be placed here, since the motif is always a poetical one, and the form is often rhapsodical. Little prose bursts, a page or two long, give one no ill-conception of Tourgucneff’s sighs and breathings. — In Nazareth Town, a Christinas Fantasy, and other poems, by John W. Chadwick (Roberts Bros.), the prevailing sentiment is that of personal friendship and sympathy.— Mr. Edwin Arnold has published Indian Idylls from the Sanskrit of the Mahâbhârata (Roberts Bros.), a translation for the first time into English of some of the stories, and inferentially an introduction to the great fountain of Hindu poetry.

Text Books and Education. American Colleges, their Students and Work, by Charles F. Thwing (Putnams), is a revised and enlarged edition of a useful little book by a recent graduate, who has taken pains to collect trustworthy information from a number of representative colleges of their internal economy and the social life.— Modern French Readings, edited by William J. Knapp (Ginn, Heath & Co.), has for its leading object “to furnish the student with progressive materials for becoming acquainted with the current language of France, under the influences that are giving it a new phase of development.” Thus the earliest author cited is Berquin, and the latest is Victor Hugo. There is a good collection of notes, — Miss Josephine E. Hodgdon, who has before compiled leaflets from standard authors, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and others, has taken up Motley on the same plan, intending the work for the convenience of classes. (Harpers.)