Books of the Month

History and Biography. In the series The Lives of the Presidents, W. O. Stoddard has reached the third volume, containing the lives of Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. (Stokes.) Like their predecessors, these lives are plain, unvarnished tales, deriving what value they have from their negative virtue of freedom from excessive detail and moralizing. They have no charm of style, but will give young readers a fairly good account of the main incidents in the careers of the men treated. — Madame de Staël, by Bella Duffy, Is the sixteenth volume in the series of Famous Women. (Roberts.) A readable book, written with an English respect for the subject, and with a masculine discernment of its limitations. Recent women writers have been showing a coolness of air about their subjects which threatens to deprive us of our old privilege of smiling at feminine enthusiasm. — Life and Labor, or Characteristics of Men of Industry, Culture, and Genius, by Samuel Smiles. (Harpers.) Mr. Smiles’s method is well known. He has applied it hitherto chiefly to muscleworkmen ; now he takes up brain-workers, and making a few bags, labeled Great Young Men, Town and Country Life, Health and Hobbies, Great Old Men, Single and Married, and the like, he stuffs them with anecdotes, incidents, and quotations. The result is a book which one can dip into at any point and pull out a plum; of hatter there is very little. — The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, by Ethelbert Dudley Warfield. (Putnams.) A careful and apparently impartial study of an important subject. The importance is less noticeable in the North than in the South, and less to be studied, perhaps, in popular consciousness than in the thinking of professional politicians who have transmitted the influence received by them. — Reminiscences of Winfield Scott Hancock, by his wife. (Charles L. Webster & Co., New York.) The title is correct, though the hasty reader might, expect another book. Mrs. Hancock has recorded her recollections of the life which she passed with her husband. She was a true soldier’s wife, and thus is able to set down many incidents strictly connected with Hancock’s military career. Too much must not be asked of the author, who evidently writes out of a full heart, and not from a familiarity with book-making. — Robert Southey, the story of his life written in his letters, edited by John Dennis. (Lothrop.) Southey’s letters are interesting as full records of a busy man of letters, who was greatly overrated by his neighbors and by himself, hut who will always be regarded with respect and a certain affection by men of letters themselves. He was brave, hard-working, pitifully mistaken about his verse, an honest gentleman. — The Genesis of the Civil War, the Story of Sumter, by Samuel Wylie Crawford. (Webster.) Dr. Crawford was one of Major Anderson’s staff, and brings to his task a personal connection with the incidents of the historic attack on Sumter. He has used also the documents in the case, and has not spared to enter upon the political tangle which makes so interesting a preliminary to the actual conflict. The reader will find abundant detail, and will be especially interested in the narrative of events at Charleston in the initiation of the Secession movement. — Matthew Calbraith Perry, a Typical American Naval Officer, by William Elliot Griffis. (Cupples & Hurd.) A biography which has been written with painstaking care, with great diligence in the collection of material, and out of a real affection for the subject. Mr. Griffis is not always simple in his language, and he somewhat lacks clear perspective in his treatment, but his book is a good addition to our stock of naval and patriotic biographies. — A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, by Henry Charles Lea. (Harpers.) This work is planned for three volumes, of which two now appear, covering the period preceding the Reformation. It is a learned work, packed with detailed information, and fortified with foot-notes. It taxes the reader, but it rewards him not only with a history which moves steadily toward definite ends, but with frequent suggestions of the interpretation of the human mind. American scholarship has already been honorably represented by Mr. Lea in his strong essays in the same general field, and this work is likely to receive more respect at a distance than familiar acquaintance by the general reader. — The Scottish Pulpit, from the Reformation to the Present Day, by William M, Taylor. (Harpers. ) In effect, lectures upon Scottish ecclesiastical history, as illustrated by the careers of Knox, Melville, Rutherford, Dickson, Livingstone, Leighton, Chalmers, the Erskines, and others. The Scottish divines had so much to do with history that personal sketches could scarcely be made without a historical background. — Decisive Battles since Waterloo, the most important military events from 1815 to 1887, by Thomas W. Knox. (Putnams.) A volume which undertakes to supplement Creasy.

The selection seems judicious, though probably few scholars would agree in making out the same list, and the author has made the decision to affect nationalities which many readers will feel little interest in. Nevertheless, the South American and Belgic contests give the book its specific value, we think, because the subjects are less hackneyed. — The Life and Times of John Jay, Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Confederation, and first Chief Justice of the United States, with a sketch of public events from the opening of the Revolution to the election of Jefferson, by William Whitelock. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) A respectable book. Jay was rather important as an agent in great affairs than personally impressive. He did not make history, but he was on hand when history was made. — A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, by George W. Williams. (Harpers.) A studiously temperate work, in which, after a rapid survey of the use of the negro in earlier military operations, a full narrative is given of the part which he played in the war for union. It would be strange if Mr. Williams, writing of his own race, did not appear somewhat as an historical advocate, but the reader readily pardons this offense, if it be one, in consideration of the good taste and freedom from fustian which characterize the work. The eloquence which sometimes catches the writer flows naturally from the mounting emotion caused by the memory of the war.—Horse, Foot, and Dragoons, by Rufus F. Zogbaum (Harpers), is an entertaining account of the author’s military experience in France, England, Germany, and the United States. Mr. Zogbaum enriches his text with admirable drawings by his own pencil— My Autobiography and Reminiscences, by W. P. Frith, R. A., and What I Remember, by Thomas Adolphus Trollope (Harpers), are two very entertaining books, each having its especial charm. Mr. Frith’s volume abounds in pleasant anecdote, and Mr. Trollope’s is full of shrewd observation of men and manners in the first half of this century. — A Girl’s Life Eighty Years Ago, being selections from the letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne, with an introduction by Clarence Cook (Scribner’s Sons), gives us a delightful picture of certain features of American social life in 1801 and thereabouts. The text is prettily illustrated with reproductions of miniatures by Malbone and others. — An Abridged History of Canada, by William H. Withrow; also an Outline History of Canadian Literature, by G. Mercer Adam, (William Briggs, Toronto.) A modest book, which does not offend by an exaggerated view of the subject, but industriously gathers into compact form such facts of political and literary growth as are worth knowing. There is little attempt at philosophical explanation of the barrenness of the literary field, yet is it not summed up, when we refer the dearth to the same cause as that of a similar dearth in our own colonial period, — the absence of any real self-centred life? — The fifth volume of Kinglake’s The Invasion of the Crimea (Harpers) takes up the narrative after Inkerman, and carries it to the fall of Canrobert. The binding of the volume, which is uniform with the earlier ones, is an indirect evidence of the length of time that has elapsed since the work was launched. — Memoirs of an Arabian Princess; an autobiography, by Emily Ruete. (Appleton.) The princess was born in Zanzibar, became an orphan at fifteen, underwent a revolution, married a German, and removed to Germany. She could not return to her own country owing to an estrangement from her brother, and the book is chiefly a record, from recollection of her early years. There is a plaintive tone throughout, and the life described is rather a cheerless one, but the record may serve as a corrective of a too rosy view of Eastern life. — Memorials of a Southern Planter, by Susan Dabney Smedes. (Cushings & Bailey, Baltimore.) The record of the life of T. S. G. Dabney, a Virginian, who removed to Mississippi, written by his daughter from recollections and letters. Mr. Dabney belonged to the finer strain of Southern life, and the book is a singularly interesting exhibition of the best class of Southern planters. — Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, by his son, Edward Miner Gallaudet. (Holt.) A brief, carefully prepared memoir of an interesting man, who was the pioneer in the movement for teaching the deaf-mutes, wrote a number of books for children, was chaplain of an insane asylum, and in great demand among evangelical circles as secretary of benevolent societies. He must have been a man worth knowing, but his son, while not writing a strictly eulogistic life, has not wholly succeeded in taking his father out of a somewhat limited circle, or in explaining the source of his power and the full meaning of his philanthropic work. — The sixth volume of Winsor’s admirable Narrative and Critical History of America (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) covers the period of the revolt of the New England colonies against the mother country. — The English in the West Indies, or the Bow of Ulysses, by James Anthony Fronde (Harper & Bros.), is an essay of political intent in the disguise of a very delightful record of travel. We have been waiting a great many years for Mr. Fronde to write a dull hook.

Holiday Books and Books on Art. Charles Wesley’s Hark, the Herald Angels Sing is issued in a little ribbon-tied book, with photogravures from rather interesting designs by Frederick W. Freer. (Stokes.) — A Short History of Architecture, by Arthur Lyman Tuekerman. (Scribners.) A modest contribution, which appears to rest upon a good historical knowledge and discrimination of styles, but we miss indications of that perception of art which penetrates the underlying thought. The hook is good as far as it goes, but it is not an inspiriting book. — Olden-Time Music, a Compilation from Newspapers and Books, by Henry M, Brooks. (Ticknor.) A scrap-book of advertisements, programmes, reminiscences, and the editor’s own brief digests, relating to music, chiefly in Salem. Readers of The Atlantic who recall Mr. Dwight s article on Our Dark Age in Music, in December, 1882, will find this little book a further illustration of Mr. Dwight’s thesis, hut not nearly so interesting. — The White Ribbon Birthday Book, a selection for each day from the best writers among women : edited by Anna A. Gordon ; illustrated by Mary A. Lathbury. (Woman’s Temp. Pub. Association, Chicago.) This is the first birthday book, we are told, composed, compiled, illustrated, and published solely by women. It is in truth an Adamless paradise sown with milkweed. — The Cross and the Grail, by Lucy Larcom; with selections from the poets Shakespeare, Longfellow, Whittier, and Phæbe and Alice Cary. Illustrated by Dora Wheeler. (Woman’s Temp. Pub. Association, Chicago.) The poems selected are in the interest of temperance. The pictures have the same intention, but we are afraid that the young man in the last picture, who is no St. Anthony, would set up his goblet once more if he thought he should again have so interesting an angel call upon him. — Eudora, a Tale of Love, by M. B. M. Toland ; with drawings by H. Siddons Mowbray and W. H. Gibson, and decorations in the text by L. S. Ipsen. (Lippincott.) Mr. Mowbray, in his desire, apparently, to make his figures natural, has made them uninteresting, but they are no more uninteresting than the same people in the verse. Mr. Gibson had a better chance, since there was no definite description of landscape which he was obliged to reproduce in line, and one or two of his scenes are fresh and effective. — The Standard Cantatas, their stories, their music, and their composers, by George P. Upton. (McClurg.) Mr. Upton has done for the cantatas what he had already done for oratorios and operas. This hook is marked by the same industry, care, and good taste as its companion volumes. It is interesting to see how fair a proportion of American names appears among the list of composers of cantatas.

Government and National Development. The State, the Rudiments of New Zealand Sociology. for the use of beginners, by James H. Pope. (George Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand.) A singular work, which is likely to have an interest centuries hence for the antiquarians of New Zealand. The author set out to instruct the Maoris in the elements of English political and sociological doctrine ; he found this a somewhat incomplete end, and proceeded to help the older Maoris; and then he found that what he was teaching was equally needed by the English boys and young men. The oddity consists in the interesting attempt to impart notions of the most complex subjects of modern civilization to those who are just emerging from savagery, and in the consequent use of illustrations drawn from local life. The author is very much in earnest and somewhat confused, we think, besides being a little of a doctrinaire. He says naively of the United States; “ It is a great country still, but not nearly so great as it might easily be.” —Natural Resources of the United States, by Jacob Harris Patton. (Appleton.) Mr. Patton has previously treated the same subject in brief in a primer, and now covers the same field more fully. He very properly takes up the separate subjects, such as coal, petroleum, iron, building stones, and follows each over the whole surface of the country. The book will be found full of suggestion, but seems to be lacking in scientific precision. It has no diagrams, which would have shown to the eye the distribution of products, though this has been done so well on a large scale in the statistical atlases that it would scarcely have been possible to repeat it here on a small scale to any great advantage : but the book is really unfinished, since it has no index, an unpardonable sin in a work of this character. — From the Government Printing Office at Washington comes a volume of the Geological Survey upon the Mineral Resources of the United States, by David T. Day, which will give the reader of Mr. Patton’s book, who is eager for more facts, all the facts, figures, and tables of which he may stand in need. — Administrative Reform as an Issue in the Next Presidential Canvass, by General C. C. Andrews, of Minnesota. (Riverside Press, Cambridge.) The subject is limited to reform of the civil service. — The volumes issued by the government upon the operations of the United States Life-Saving Service are always interesting reading, and the latest report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886 (Government Printing Office, Washington), contains, besides the customary statistics and detailed narratives, interesting instructions to mariners in case of shipwreck, and directions for saving drowning persons. The narratives, however, are what make these volumes books of thrilling adventure. —The Handbook of New Zealand Mines. (George Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington.) A stout, volume of five hundred pages or so, issued by the colonial government, giving the history and results of the survey of the gold, silver, copper, antimony, and coal mines of New Zealand, with maps and illustrations, and an appendix devoted to schools of mines, principal forest trees, building materials, mineral waters, mineral leases, etc. The book is something more than a dry statistical compend, and has the fullness of detail and general readableness which belong rather to the seductive pamphlets of mining companies. — Sketch of American Finances, 1789-1835, by John Watts Kearny (Putnams), is a careful study of the subject with a view to an intelligent comprehension of the present financial problems. — What shall We do with It ? is the title of a pamphlet (Harpers) in which taxation and revenue are discussed by President Cleveland in his message, by Blaine, Watterson, and Edmunds in interview and articles. The it of the title is the surplus. Hie question of the surplus is somewhat incidental, in this discussion, to the more comprehensive question, How shall we stop having a surplus ? — The Old South and the New is a series of letters by William D. Kelley, and is Number XLV. of Questions of the Day. (Putnams.) These letters give detailed reports of personal observation in a large number of industrial centres at the South, and contain the author’s hopeful view of the situation.

Poetry and the Drama. Moly, a Book of Poems, by Curtis May. (Putnams.) A volume of more than a hundred short poems. One finds here a good word, there a faint catch at a thought or a passing sentiment, but is obliged finally to say, Some one with sensitiveness, but without creative power, has tried to use an art which he has not learned, to express feelings which he has not determined. — Heart Lyrics, by Jessie F. O’Donnell. (Putnams.) Another book of verse. — Poems, Dramatic and Lyric, by Constance Faunt Le Roy Runcie. (Putnams.) The dramatic poems have ever so much fury, and the lyrics have in some instances been set to music by the author; but fury is not strength, and a lyric must be sung without music to be a lyric at all — Robert Emmet, a Tragedy of Irish History, by Joseph J. C. Clarke. (Putnams.) Mr. Clarke has dramatized Emmet’s short history, but has confined himself to prose. The incidents are in themselves dramatic, but the language of the dramatist is prosaic, and he seems more desirous of realizing the successive situations than of infusing his characters with life. Naturalism in a drama must be something more than narrative turned into dialogue. — The Holy Child, or the Flight into Egypt, by Thomas E. Van Bibber. (Putnams.) A versified and amplified narrative of the incident which is barely mentioned in scripture, and has been so often the subject of pictorial art. The book is illustrated by prints from famous pictures. — Poems and Translations, by Mary Morgan. (J. Theo. Robinson, Montreal.) The translations are from French, German, and Italian. The poems are some of them hymns. The author has merely mechanical facility. — Fifty Years of English Song, edited and arranged by Henry F. Randolph (A. D. F. Randolph & Co.), is an admirable compilation of poems selected from the poets of the Victorian period. The editor, who has done his task with exceptional taste and thoroughness, seems to have got the suggestion of his anthology from Mr. Stedman’s Victorian Poets. At all events, Mr. Randolph’s volumes form a fitting pendant to Mr. Stedman’s critical survey. The numerous notes, biographical and bibliographical, give a special value to the work. — Poems, by “ Josiah Allen’s Wife,” Marietta Holley; illustrated by W. Hamilton Gibson and others. (Funk & Wagnalls.) The thoughts and emotions expressed in this book gain nothing by being given in metrical form. — The Passion of Life, by Jessie Wilson Manning. (Robert Clarke & Go., Cincinnati.) The story of two lives, in their separate attraction and repulsion, told in smooth verse. The reader picks out the story from the poems, and has no great fault to find with it as a study of self-restraint. It is when he comes to inquire into the poetry of the thing that he begins at once to doubt. — Poems and Translations, by Lewis Frederick Starrett. (Rand Avery Co., Boston.) The larger part of the book is occupied with translations from Rückert, Uhland, Freiligrath, Bürger, Lenau, Heine, and other German lyrists. Mr. Starrett versifies freely, and he seems to keep pretty closely to the original, but there is a lack of that finish in form which is indispensable to successful translation. —Beyond the Shadow, and Other Poems, by Stuart Sterne. (Houghton.) The earnestness and intensity of this poet elicit a respectful attention when she sings, but one is likely to turn aside to blither songs. It requires a very sympathetic mood, if one would be in tune with this voice. In other words, she does not attract the ear, though one in just the same mood with the singer might respond. — From Heart and Nature, by Sarah Knowles Bolton and Charles Knowles Bolton. (Crowell.) Poems, we think, by mother and son. — Lotus and Jewel, containing In an Indian Temple, A Casket of Gems, A Queen’s Revenge, with other poems, by Edwin Arnold. (Roberts.) It seems odd to see an acrostic of gems making out the name of the poet’s sweetheart. It Strikes one as Brummagem orientalism. Mr. Arnold uses Indian legend and myth freely, but there is such a thing as an abundance of orientalism producing the effect of an untranslated poem in a foreign tongue. — Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real, by Coates Kinney. (From Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati) A good deal of vigor has gone to the making of this book, and the effect is often narrowly near good poetry, as in the final poem of Ships Coming In. But a good deal of the vigor is noise and confusion.

Literature and Criticism. Wit, Wisdom, and Beauties of Shakespeare, edited by Clarence Stuart Ward. (Houghton.) A handy little volume, which attracts by its reserve. Most readers will look for their favorite passages in a play ; and whether or not they find all they want, they are not likely to find any indifferent ones. But it is a little doubtful if the demand for such books is as great as it was when literature was the accompaniment of elegant leisure. — Books Which Have Influenced Me. (Pott.) The authors of this brochure are Gladstone, Stevenson, Besant, Stead, Ruskin, Hamerton, Haggard, Blackie, Farrar, Smith, Dods (the Rev, Marcus Dods, D. D., if you want to know who Dods is), and Parker (the Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D.). Bits of autobiography, written thus to order, have an interest, but only occasionally throw any real light. If each one wrote about the books which no one else had read, there would be more point to the revelation, but necessarily the mental food of one man is largely that of all men in his general circumstance. — The third series of The Best Reading, edited by Lynd E. Jones, has been issued. (Putnams.) It is a priced and classified bibliography, for easy reference, of the more important English and American publications for the five years ending December 1, 1886. The classification is by subjects, and the brevity of reference enables the editor to make his list very full. By means of abundant cross-references, he helps the dullest reader to track the book he is after. — A History of Elizabethan Literature, by George Saintsbury. (Macmillan.) The issue of Ward’s English Poets may have suggested the series of four volumes upon the history of English literature of which this is the second in order, though the first to appear. It will be preceded in the final order by one on the Earliest Period of English Literature, by Stopford Brooke, and followed by the Literature of the Eighteenth Century, by Edmund Gosse, and Modern Literature, by Edward Dowden. Mr. Saintsbury’s volume covers the period, substantially, from 1560 to 1660. He writes out of large learning, and holds his pen in a firm hand. Within the space at his command he manages to crowd a remarkable number of illustrations of his theme, without losing sight of the more general prospect, and there is a personal note often struck which indicates, we think, the influence upon a writer of so steadfastly connecting his own name with criticism. — Slips of Tongue and Pen, by J. H. Long. (Appleton.) A don’t book, or, more correctly, a do not book. There is a collection of offenses against grammar and good taste, and the reader becomes somewhat bewildered by the succession of petty and grave errors. We notice the omission of one objectionable phrase, the use of “ up ” in unnecessary connection with verbs, as ate up, or, worse still, cured up.— Women and Men, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. (Harpers.) A collection of sixty brief essays upon subjects which suggest themselves to a cultivated man of letters when addressing weekly an audience composed more of women than of men. The grace with which Colonel Higginson touches large subjects does not desert him when he takes up these minor and occasional themes; indeed, his lightness of touch does him special service here, and enables him to hold readers to some bit of ethics or good manners which might otherwise miss its mark. We would give more for the style of a person who read attentively this little book than for that of one who committed to memory the whole of such books as Slips of Tongue and Pen. — Harvard Reminiscences, by Andrew P. Peabody. (Ticknor.) Dr. Peabody’s direct connection with the university has extended not much over a quarter of a century, we believe, but he has never been outside of its penumbra since he graduated from it, a mere boy, sixty years or so ago. Accordingly, he is able to speak at first hand of Kirkland, the Wares, Popkin, Quincy, Story, Willard, Farrar, Norton, and others, some seventy in all, whose names are still within the memory of living men, though, unlike stars, their light is receding as they retire in time. His sketches are not wholly matters of reminiscence, but are in effect brief biographies, and are marked by that charity of judgment and generous sympathy which have made him the welcome companion of three generations of men. — Essays chiefly on Poetry, by Aubrey de Vere (Macmillan & Co.), is a work of which we shall speak in detail in a future number.

Text-Books and Education. Animal Life in the Sea and on the Land, a zoölogy for young people, by Sarah Cooper. (Harpers.) The writer begins with sponges, and ends with man. The chapter about man, however, is only fifteen lines long, and there is a discreet absence of connection with the previous chapter on monkeys. There is a good deal attempted in the hook, and teachers would probably find it most useful as a skeleton to work from.— Elocution for Advanced Pupils, a practical treatise, by John Murray. (Putnams.) Different from the ordinary treatises on this subject in that it deals little with technicalities, and aims at applying directly such rules as would occur to a person well at home in the meaning of what is to be read or spoken, and gifted with delicacy of discrimination. — Classic German Course in English, by William Cleaver Wilkinson. (Chautauqua Press, New York.) A convenient hand-book for those who do not read German, and wish to get as close and rapid a knowledge as they can of the body of classic German literature. The plan of the book is to give a sketch of German literature as marked by the great writers, illustrated by translations of verse and prose, sometimes the author’s, sometimes borrowed from recognized sources. — Platform Voices, choice temperance recitations for old and young, edited by Julia A. Ames. (Woman’s Temperance Publication Association.) What should we do without specialists in morals, and what can we do with them ? Here is a collection of poems and prose extracts which appear to be absolutely free from all intoxicating qualities, yet just as devoid of any literary merit. We should as soon expect a patient to eat his mustard plaster as that the inebriate, or the ebriate either, would be goaded into temperance principles by having this doggerel recited to him. — Hand-Book of Volapük, by Charles E. Sprague. (The Office Company, New York.) If the ordinary English-speaking person can really master Volapük by attentively studying this small book, the enthusiasts who are advocating the use of this international language ought not to despair of seeing a race of clerks who can correspond in it. —Volapük, a Guide for Learning the Universal Language, by Samuel Huebsch. (435 East 86th St., New York.) A still smaller book, hut we should say one that made a teacher somewhat more necessary. — Higher Ground, Hints toward settling the Labor Troubles, by Augustus Jacobson. (McClurg.) A neatly printed book, by a strong advocate of industrial education. We can hardly imagine a more demoralizing policy than that suggested by the writer, who would have the State keep the children of the poor longer at school by paying a sum of money to the parents, the amount being equivalent to what the child might he expected to earn during the same period if set at work. If we go on eliminating the element of sacrifice in education, we shall find ourselves at last with selfishness at the top and bottom of our whole civil order. — Industrial Instruction, a pedagogic and social necessity, together with a critique upon objections advanced, by Robert Seidel; translated by Margaret K. Smith. (Heath.) This little book deals with the subject largely in its relation to prevalent social questions, — an important consideration; yet will not the permanence of industrial education as a component part of a public-school system depend upon its essential relation to education psychologically considered ?