of ourselves, projected so that we can see and study it. Let us study seriously all such reflections; for our country is but an experiment-no astrology of statesmanship or philosophy can properly cast its horoscope. But every effort toward that end, like this, challenges our heartiest sympathy and respect.

-The Englishman in Kansas-by T. H. Gladstone-edited, with a preface, by Fred. Law Olmsted (Miller and Company). Here is another foreigner's view of a domestic matter. But as the matter is one of universal interest, and as the principles involved are simply human and not partisan, an intelligent Englishman is as competent a witness, and as fair a judge, as any man can be. So Mr. Gladstone shows himself. He traveled through the United States last year not as an Exeter Hall philanthropist, but as an Englishman and a man, and he saw with his own eyes part of that dreadful history of Kansas, which is the blackest blot upon the American name. His account of it is very simple, and graphic, and interesting; and, at the present moment, when the question is far from decided, his work has peculiar weight, from its impartial observation. Mr. Olmsted's preface is a clear and forcible statement of what may be called the philosophy of the Kansas outrage, as distinguished from its political intention. It shows the tendency of the whole slave system to imbrute the man who meddles with it, and the consequent careless disregard of human life and fitness for crime so fearfully conspicuous in the framers and executors of the wicked laws of Kansas. The whole matter is treated with the calmness and sense of profound conviction which have already given so marked and peculiar a character to all Mr. Olmsted's writings upon the subject.

-T. B. Peterson, Philadelphia, has is sned Major Jones's Courtship and Travels, by himself; Love after Marriage, and other tales, by Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz. Major Jones is a book of broad farce, broadly illustrated, which may amuse an hour in the cars or steamer. But we have tried in vain to discern the fun. Of Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz's performances, which continue to appear, we can only say what we have said before, that they are as near life as poor stock-acting; but they must evidently please or they would not period

ically appear, being probably collected from the periodicals in which they were originally published. Mrs. Southworth is another of the ladies whose names are conspicuous in book-advertisements, and who writes elaborate novels. They are as good as many other novels, and there is no apparent reason why she should not go on writing novels forever. May she have readers as long! Peterson also publishes two thick volumes of Frank Forester's Sporting Scenes and Characters. These are a classic in the sportsman's library.

--C. S. Francis and Co. have issued a very handsome library-edition of Bacon's Essays, with Annotations by Archbishop Whately. In his preface, the archbishop reminds the reader that in Bacon's time an "essay" did not mean an elaborate treatise, however brief, but was really an essay toward a subject, serving as a suggestion to other minds; and upon this ground he excuses himself for venturing to amplify Bacon. His annotations are, for the most part, valuable and interesting. But, despite his theory of the essay, Bacon's works, in that kind, have a completeness and sympathy which make any addition impertinent. Bacon is good, and Whately may be good; but Bacon and Whately mixed are not necessarily so good as either separate. Whately's annotations are, after all, what we modern men would call essays," and upon the same subjects. With his preface more decided fault may be found. Archbishop Whately is English among the English. There is an intense Britishness, as it were, in his mind and method of observation and thought, which leads him into great blunders, wherever a Catholic taste and acute and independent. rather than traditional, perception are demanded. He thinks that certain modern writers are guilty of obscurity of style, and that, by force of the fog in which they bury their ideas, they make their mole-hills pass for mountains. In illustration of this not very original remark, he quotes, among other extracts, some passages from Emerson's Divinity School Address. The archbishop implies that he does not understand these passages; and that, even if the idea could be discovered, it would prove to be a very small idea. And the course of his argument assumes that everything that is worth saying, can be said in Lord Bacon's style. Whatever is worth saying, on the

contrary, can be said in as many ways as there are sayers. The same sap is elaborated into myriad fruits. The old fable refutes the archbishop; for it would be as sensible for the lily to laugh at the passion-flower, as for one literary style to arrogate an essential superiority to all others. Moreover, in this case, there is a singular resemblance, in the pith and manner of expression, between Bacon and Emerson, as well as Charles Lamb. No three essayists could be more dissimilar in many ways; but their styles have all the same rich idiomatic ring. There is no more exact and exquisite master of English than Emerson. Most of the so-called simple and Addisonian writers are slipshod beside him. That famous sentence of Bacon's, upon which the Archbishop has an annotation, has the precise cadence and thoughtful melody of Emerson: "Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy." The present edition is a rival of the English, and is the handsomest of recent American books.

-G.P. Putnam & Co. issue a convenient and pretty series of Railway Classics, beginning with the "Salmagundi," "Sketchbook," and "Tales of a Traveler." Irving, in every form, is welcome and delightful; and his "Salmagundi" had quite passed out of general circulation before the present edition. It is illustrated with the quaint old wood-cuts of Linkum Fidelius and Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and will carry many a reader back to the happy moment of his first introduction to the genial and beautiful genius whose works, first in order in our proper literature, connect that literature by sympathy and spirit, by tender humor and humane wisdom, with the literature from which it is legitimately descended. The Railway Classics form a delightful series for summer reading.

-The French are said to be bad travelers, because, with all their sociability, they see nothing outside of France itself which they deem worthy of praise. They are, in this respect, more insular than the insular English, and, comparing everything with the high artificial standard of Paris, are apt to underrate whatever is of foreign origin. At any rate, Mr. Edmund About's work, La Grèce Contemporaine, which has been translated under the name of Greece and the Greeks, will not relieve them of this reputation. Few men have

enjoyed better opportunities for learning the true character of the Greeks than he; for he resided at Athens a long time, became acquainted with the languages of the country; and his reports on the industry, the domestic manners, the government, the personal characteristics of the nation are unusually full; but they do not seem to us to be always accurate. A disposition to say smart things has unquestionably betrayed him into some impertinences, which have given great offense in Greece, and provoked more than one sharp reply. His English translator, in a brief preface not remarkable for good taste, defends all his criticisms, however, as veritable gospel. That the Greeks are, to a large extent, a fallen race, is true, but at the same time they are a race of some admirable qualities. Mr. About himself says that they are vivacious, lively, sober, intelligent, witty, and proud of these advantages that they love liberty, equality, and their country passionately;" but, then comes in the fearful qualification that they are "undisciplined, selfish, unscrupulous, with a strong dislike to manual labor." Pillage and piracy, he says, are not only tolerated but approved by them, and they are great cheats in all affairs of trade. "The most honest people at Athens," he remarks, "would be people of doubtful reputation in France or England." They must be low, indeed, if they are more dishonest than the Paris shopkeepers. Mr. About doubts their courage also, intimating with a sneer, that the ancient Greeks, even those of Salamis, were but poor and unheroic fighters. But all this is extravagance. The truth is that the Greeks, having been subjected for many generations to grinding despotisms, have some of the vices of slaves; and the European nations of the west, which have done so little towards assisting them, ashamed of their indifference, like to exaggerate those vices. Our countryman, Mr. Baird, in his Modern Greece, is more just to the natives, and shows that, with all their faults, they are in the way of a rapid improvement. But while we think Mr. About's book a little exaggerated, it is proper to add, that it is highly entertaining-the style is in the lively vein of the French, and it presents us many new and animated pictures of life.

· Dramatic Scenes, with other Poems, now first Printed, by Barry Cornwall

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(Ticknor and Fields), is probably the last volume of verse we shall ever have from this sweet singer. Mr. Proctor speaks of poems in the book which were written forty years ago, and declares that "I ought to disburden myself from my armor, and leave to more active and heroic spirits the glory of the struggle and the crown that awaits success." Barry Cornwall's genius is a slight thread on which he strings his beads of song; but there is no lover of poetry, no reader of sensitive feeling, who does not like to tell those beads, and acknowledge the tenderness of the sentiment, and the daintiness of the manner. It is a heresy to say that his songs have hardly the true song-music; but only occasionally is there a lift of feeling and music, as in the "Touch us gently, Time" of the earlier volume, which explains and justifies Barry Cornwall's reputation. Contemporary with all the modern masters of English poetry, he has piped away upon his oaten reed, and the grander symphonies have not drowned his pleasant music. Time will touch his fame as he besought him to touch his home, "gently, gently." The late Henry Reed, of Philadelphia, who was lost in the Arctic, was one of the most amiable of men, and also one of the few purely literary scholars in the country. His quiet, contemplative taste sequestered him from the turmoil of active, public life, and certainly no contemplative poet ever had a more suitable and sympathetic editor, in spirit, than William Wordsworth found in Henry Reed. Mr. Reed was professor of English literature in the University of Pennsylvania, and, since his death, his brother has edited selections from his lectures. The last, and, as the editor tells us, the final issue, is the course upon the English Poets, just published by Parry and Macmillan. These lectures are gentle and pleasant chat about English poets and poetry. They do little toward a history of English literature, and were evidently prepared for an audience of no very general literary cultivation or sympathy. They are written in a singularly unambitious style for these days, and they treat every great name, even in censure, with respect. The key to Mr. Reed's criticisms is to be found in his profound reverence for Wordsworth--the one fanaticism of his life. Pope he does not like; nor, as it seems to us, does he appreciate

his poetry, or do justice to his position. Among modern men he can find room for Rogers and Moore, but not for Shelley and Keats, who, as poets, and literary influences in England, are certainly to be named before them. He speaks with manly condemnation of Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets; and, indeed, in all that he says and thinks, is a gentleman, a man of modest self-respect, respecting others. The volumes will be an agreeable introduction to English poetry for those who are not somewhat familiar with the subject, and their amiable aim only makes us regret anew that there is as yet no comprehensive and philosophical history of English literature.

-Every scholar knows what an important part of the intellectual life of the most intellectual of the nations the German University is, and every scholar is, therefore, eager to read whatever relates to the German University that is authentic. Dr. Schaff, of the Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, has performed an acceptable service in a recent work called Germany—its Universities, Theology, and Religion. (Lindsey & Blakiston). Regularly educated in a German uni. versity himself, having been for some time a teacher in one, and an American resident sufficiently long to enable him to understand the relations of German and AngloAmerican habits of thought, Dr. Schaff is peculiarly fitted to act as interpreter between his former and his present countrymen. His plan embraces an account of the history and actual organization of the universities-the condition of German theological science and religion, and sketches of the personal characters of the most eminent German professors, such as Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, Nitsch, Dorner, etc., etc. Of course, he must write briefly where he has undertaken to write about so much; yet, though concise, he is not unintelligible nor uninteresting. His thorough familiarity with his subject enables him to say much in little; while the general correctness of his principles furnishes him the means of a classification, which, in itself, throws great light upon the intricate schools of German thought. Dr. Schaff writes from the orthodox point of view; but he is not so orthodox as to deny the piety of all those who differ from him in their dogmatics. For instance, he says of Neander, that he did not admit the binding au

thority of the symbolical books; that his views on the Trinity in the inspiration of the Scripture, or the sanctification of the Sabbath, were loose; and yet he admires Neander's "unfeigned and deep-rooted piety." Again, speaking of Schleiermacher, whose immense services to Christianity he gratefully confesses, he says: "It seems to be incredible that a man, who removed from the New Testament the pedestal of the Old, who numbered the miraculous conception, the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and his return to judgment, among the things comparatively indifferent to saving faith, who denied the existence of the devil, and taught the final salvation of all creatures, should have been a blessing to the Church, and lead the rising generation to the fountains of life. And yet such is the fact, and his lasting merit," etc. Dr. Schaff appears to have adopted Neander's favorite maxim, Pectus est quod theologum facit it is the heart which makes the theologian-for he applies it in nearly all his judgments of the distinguished men of the various schools.

-The household edition of the "Waverley Novels" (Ticknor & Fields) is continued by the publication of Guy Mannering and the Antiquary. To this last, Darley contributes a most characteristic drawing of Jonathan Oldbuck, standing in slippers, long hose, and dressing-gown, cap on head, and spectacles thrown up on the forehead, holding a black-letter volume open in his hand, and another tightly closed under his arm; old armor lies around him, and the cheerful, sweet, shrewd aspect of the old humorist is charmingly presented. Of all Scott's novels, none is more permanently interesting than the "Antiquary;" as no character of his creation is more perfect than the hero. For the young reader, the romance of Lovel and Isabella Wardour is sufficiently absorbing; but the mature mind finds, in the genial and exquisite delineation of the Antiquary, Edie Ochiltrec, and the fisher's family, a charm and satisfaction that are not surpassed by the excellences of any other of his series. It is clear to see that Scott will pass into the same unquestioned fame in which Shakespeare is for

ever enthroned. Like all great authors who become great moral forces in the world, he is already beyond merely literary criticism. The reader may prefer Ivanhoe to Red Gauntlet, as he may prefer Hermione to Portia; but the claims of both to the same immortality are fully recognized. With all the pleasure we experience on hearing of the success of the present beautiful edition, there is no more agreeable reflection than that, over these fair pages, thousands and thousands of boys and girls are laughing the laughs, and shedding the tears, that all their parents remember when they, too, were boys and girls. So wide is the magic circle, so profound and universal is the touch of genius.

-Harper & Brothers publish the sixth volume of the Lives of the Queens of Scotland, by Agnes Strickland. It contains upwards of three hundred and fifty pages, but does not conclude the life of Queen Mary. In all Miss Strickland's writings there is a simple sincerity which wins and secures the approval of the discreet and wise. Her long habits of careful historical investigations assure the reader in advance that he will find neither prejudice nor passion, but an interesting and sympathetic account of the times and the persons discussed in the work. The present edition is of good size and style.

-Biographical and Historical Sketches, by T. Babington Macaulay (Appletons), is a work which is valuable, as containing the historian's papers upon Johnson, and Bunyan, and Goldsmith; but the bulk of the book is made up of scissorings from his "History of England." His touches are always graphic and good, but this volume, upon the whole, has rather a book-making air. It is, however, interesting, as showing how much Macaulay says about a person, in a very few lines, which might be overlooked in taking the sketch as a part of the portrait. In this work, for instance. there are but about eighteen lines devoted to Elizabeth Villiers; and yet, the eighteen lines give a fair idea of her character. The book is an agreeable one for summer reading.