Books of the Month

Theology and Philosophy. The Unity of Nature, by the Duke of Argyll (Putnams), is apparently intended to bridge the logical gulf between the author’s Reign of Law and his as yet unwritten work on Law in Christian Theology, He has sought to find a standing place from which to consider the relations of man to God, and thinks he has found it in the unity of nature. Once having demonstrated that, he is prepared to consider the question of man as the Great Exception. His whole system of thought is constructive, and has thus, at the outset, the sympathy of all those who are unwilling to base their philosophy on the non-existence of whatever has been consciously most elemental.— Creation, or Biblical Cosmogony in the light of modern science, by Arnold Guyot (Scribners), is a work prepared by the eminent author just before his death. It comes as a bequest to his many admirers, and is the more welcome that it presents in compact form views which he has been offering, in one form or another, for the past forty years. It is in effect a scientific exposition of the order of creation as laid down in Genesis, rather than an attempt to press the terms of that order into scientific use.—In President McCosh’s Philosophic Series (Scribners), the fifth part is devoted to Locke’s Theory of Knowledge, with a notice of Berkeley. It is rather historical than critical in treatment.—The Revelations of Common Sense, by Antipodes (E. W. Allen, London), is in form a dialogue of four hundred and fifty pages, between a semi-idiotic vicar of the Church of England and a self-sufficient being who calls himself Common Sense. As Common Sense created the vicar and his feebleness of intellect, it may be judged how much there was left for the creator. The subject of the book is religion and morals, and the world will still have both when these two disputers have gone their way.

History and Biography. The Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, by Edward J. Lowell (Harpers), is a historical study, more exhaustive than Professor Greene’s The German Element in the War for Independence. Mr. Lowell has incorporated a good part of the Baroness Riedesel’s Memoirs, and has aimed to make his book a narrative as well as a critical study. It is not too severe a book for general reading. — Mr. Justin McCarthy, whose History of Our Own Times has been so serviceable, has now abridged the work, and published it under the title A Short History of Our Own Times (Harpers), which has the readable qualities of the larger work. —The new and portable edition of Dean Stanley’s works (Scribners) is continued by his History of the Jewish Church, of which the first volume has reached us. An admirable portrait of the author is prefixed.—Life and Times of the Right Hon. John Bright, by William Robertson (Cassell), is a newspaper article of nearly six hundred octavo pages. — The Creators of the Age of Steel, by W. T. Jeans (Scribners), is a collection of biographical chapters, devoted to Bessemer, Siemens, Whitworth, Sir John Brown, Thomas, and Snelus, and the inventions which have had so extraordinary an influence on material civilization. —The Appletons have issued the fourth volume of their new edition of Bancroft’s History of the United States of America. The work, which is to be comprised in twelve volumes, has been carefully revised by the author. — The Conquest of England, by John Richard Green (Harpers), is a valuable work, in spite of the fact that the author did not live to give it the final revision. Nothing could be more pathetic than Mrs. Green’s account of the manner in which this book and the companion history, The Making of England, were written. After reading that simply told story of heroism, one cannot look without emotion on the refined, heaven-lighted face which forms the frontispiece of the volume.

Fiction. The Miz Maze, or The Winkworth Puzzle, a story in letters by nine authors. (Macmillan.) Miss Yonge, Miss Peard, and Florence Wilford are the best known names of the nine authors, all of whom are ladies. The distribution of parts to the nine is not indicated. The reader is left to guess that. Whatever may be gained by such a device, we doubt if the difficulty of securing individuality in letters, when written by one person in the name of several, is so very great as the projectors of the volume seem to have imagined. We suspect the book afforded more entertainment to the writers than it will to the reader. — Her Washington Season, by Jcanie Gould Lincoln (Osgood), is also in the form of letters, but the form is all. The story is told by this means ; but surely the most infatuated women do not pour out their love secrets in this way, observing all the rules of conversation and quotation. In an autobiographical story much may be forgiven, but when letters are made the vehicle of a story a closer approach to reality seems necessary. As to Washington society, Mrs. Lincoln hints more or less vaguely at public characters, but apparenlly says nothing that is not born of charity. — Called Back, by Hugh Conway, is a recent volume of the Leisure Hour Series (Holt), in which an ingenious incident is made to furnish a mystery with no key to the lock. The finding of the key carries the story-teller on long journeyings to Italy and Russia, and the reader goes with him contentedly.— Cecil’s Summer, by E. B. Hollis (T. Y. Crowell, New York), is a pleasantly told religious tale, in which the summer boarder figures in a different style from what we have chiefly been accustomed to in literature.—•Pilgrim Sorrow, a Cycle of Tales, by Carmen Sylva (Holt), is a translation by Helen Zimmern of a work by Queen Elizabeth of Roumania. The Queen was a German princess, who was at home in a tiny principality. Her early life was one of family trouble, and her married life was broken by the death of a child. She has thrown her experience into the form of a halfallegorical tale. The sentiment is pure and misty. A certain beauty of form may be discovered, but one needs to have had a long course of training in German mysticism to care greatly for the book.— The Register (Osgood) is a witty little farce, in which Mr. Howells has made the register of our modern civilization as useful as a nun’s grating once was to mediæval romancers. — In Harper’s Franklin Square Library, the latest numbers are The New Abelard, by Robert Buchanan ; Pretty Miss Neville, by B. M. Croker; and Red Riding Hood, by Fanny E. Millet Notley. — The Vicar of Wakefield, edited by Austin Dobson, and English Comic Dramatists, With introduction and notes by Oswald Crawford, are the two latest additions to the Parchment Series. (D. Appleton &Co.) In point of variety, choiceness of selection, and intelligent editing, this series of beautifully printed little books is quite without a rival.

Literary Criticism, English Poetesses, by Eric S. Robertson (Cassell), is a series of critical biographies, with illustrative extracts. Mr. Robertson reaches the conclusion that the best poetesses are inferior to the best poets, but he keeps his conclusion chiefly to his introduction, and is not devoid of sympathy as he proceeds to sketch the career of the various ladies who have climbed Parnassus with skirts in their hands. —French Poets and Novelists (Macmillan & Co.) is a new edition of Mr. Henry James’s delightful volume published in 1878. The text has been reset, but not very carefully revised; De Musset being inaccurately quoted on pages 23 and 25, as in the original edition. It is to be regretted that Air. James has not added to his paper on the Théâtre Français the long-promised chapter on Sarah Bernhardt.