OCTOBER MAGAZINES. The heroine, Rose, is introduced at the age of number of writers quoted, and diminishing better than her long novels. "A Day In eleven, or thereabouts, an orphan, and placed the number of quotations from individuals. Chinatown" is a fresh and forcible presenttemporarily in charge of a nest of aunts. Pres- [J. B. Lippincott & Co.] ment of a somewhat worn topic, - the Chinese ently her uncle and guardian, Dr. Alec, arrives, in San Francisco. Ladies of strong shopping and undertakes her education. He is an Adtendencies will read with special pleasure Mrs. mirable Crichton in the nineteenth century Hooper's description of "The Largest Retail fashion, all-accomplished, flawless, and infalliStore in the World- the Bon Marché." ble. He finds his charge an ignorant, crude little piece of vanity, and sets to work to reform her. The author desires us to believe that this man was permitted to carry out his own ideas in training the girl without interference by the dozen or more of aunts who surrounded her. Of course he fascinates the child, who is instantly transformed into a model of amiability, good sense, and industry, who habitually sacrifices herself for the benefit of the servant-girl, and mortifies her flesh with ostentatious assiduity. At a year's end, she emerges a highly accomplished young lady, who can skate and ride and row and read, and articulate a skeleton, and bake bread; to what remote limit of improvement she afterwards arrives will be told in a sequel, called "The Rose in Bloom" She seems to us an improbable girl, and the educational results claimed for Dr. Alec's system tax our credulity. The action of the story is not very lively, and none of the personages possess notable individuality or interest. Debby, the cook, we notice, changes her name without getting married, and becomes Dolly. Miss Alcott's style has somewhat improved, but is still headlong and marred by slang. She ought not to write "pitching off of a high loft," or "laughing so he spilt his tea." But this new book has the striking characteristics which have given the author's former books a fame of their own, and, if less fascinating than its predecessors, it will doubtless content the thousands of readers who esteem Miss Alcott as one of the most delightful writers of the day. [Roberts Brothers.] 66 on 46 A Pair of "Great wits are sure to madness near allied "? "Sweet Jessamine's pure being when the past, dead." a SCRIBNER'S. As the editor has given the HARPER'S.-A very lovely poem, by Jean place of honor in this number to Geo. P. Ingelow, "At One Again," is one of the Lathrop's poem, "Jessamine," we feel bound chief attractions of this number. Its senti- to give it the earliest attention. It is a pretty ment is sweet and beautiful, and its manner is poem, in conceit - though by no means new the author's daintiest. Several fine illustra- in this particular-and occasionally in executions enforce some of its most impressive situ- tion. But some blemishes overshadow its ations. Mr. Powell furnishes a long and merits to an unfortunate degree. The second readable account of Minnesota, which is pro-line of the second stanza ends with “in," on fusely illustrated. "Parisian Journalists," which little word is thrown a stress that it by Junius Henri Browne, contains some vig- ought not to bear. In the fourth stanza aporous portraits, but is very coarse and slangy pears the utterly commonplace figure of "his in style. Mr. Conway continues his account heart full-fraught with fragrance of her of the South Kensington Museum, describ- being." In the fourth, the lover is described ing some of its treasures spurring" into the world, and "sailing very pleasantly. as " He must have been a "horseGlimpses of Dixie" is the rather misleading from his home. title of a funny and well-told story of the marine," - perhaps Captain Jinks himself. war. Ex-President Woolsey writes, in the Farther on in his career he is made to battle First Century Series, of " The Experiment of with the "beetling years." Just what quality the Union, with its Preparations." Señor of years is indicated by "beetling" we cannot Castelar is still writing of the Religious Ideas say, some vegetable quality, we suppose. of the Germanic Peoples. "The Popular This line is not so mellifluous as it might be: Idol" is a capital Irish story, by William Mackay, a contributor to Punch. Scales" is also a fair story, though the eager- Major Powell distributes his favors among ness of Claude to marry an old man, merely the magazines; here he writes a long and for his money and his title, is repugnant to very readable and well-illustrated account the delicate mind. Hon. S. S. Cox's paper of "An Overland Trip to the Grand Cañon." Legislative Humors" is quite good, What he says about the Indians is very inbetter than his first paper. We note one teresting. Mr. Stedman gives us another strange blunder in it. Mr. Cox says: "A pleasant talk about Minor Victorian Poets. friend of mine challenged the idea that great He differs from Coleridge and Wordsworth wit to greatness was always nearly allied." in his estimate of Charles (Tennyson) Turner, This idea is quite new to us. Can it be that and gives Miss Rossetti a higher place in Mr. Cox had in mind Dryden's line, the ranks of poets than Miss Ingelow, judgment of which he probably has a monopoly. Mr. F. G. Fairfield tells us how dif ferent poets affect him, and proceeds to show, by a careful analysis of his writings and other evidence, that Edgar A. Poe was a victim of cerebral epilepsy. His theory is plausible and well argued. The other leading articles in entertainment, are "Recollections of Liszt and Von Bülow; "Some Vegetable EccenLIPPINCOTT'S. This number is a very good tricities," a curious paper; Pierrot, Warone, affording an agreeable variety, and some rior and Statesman," a fanciful extravaganza; Mr. Allibone has completed the trinity really fresh matter. The opening paper, and a good story, by Mrs. E. A. Walker, of his compilations with a Dictionary of " Wanderings with Virgil," is a trifle pedantic, "The Winthrop-Drury Affair." The editorial Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macau- but its classic flavor will be relished by departments are rather jejune. Dr. Holland lay." It is a handsome, well-printed volume, scholars. "The Ocklawaha in May" is an says, very feelingly: "No greater unkindbut its contents look rather heavy. These account of a steamboat journey in Florida, ness can be done to any man than to praise are arranged in alphabetical order under rather too imaginative, and written in a some-him too much;" and further, that "Praise is appropriate heads, from Abridgment to Zeal. what strained style. Judge Wharton con- one of those articles we would like to have The number of authors cited is five hundred tributes a learned and interesting article on distributed a little." In excessive depreciaand forty-four; of subjects, five hundred and Spiritualism and Jurisprudence." "The tion of his own merits and services, he deseventy-one; and of quotations, eight thou- Cornet-à-Piston," a story from the French, clares that all that we do for ourselves, and sand eight hundred and ten. Of course there is moderately good. One of the best papers all that we do for mankind, only feeds hell are Indexes one of Authors and one of Sub- in the number is Robert Wilson's " In the with slanderers." jects. Half a dozen authors occupy nearly Pineland." It is a sketch of life in the vilone-half of the book. The quotations from Addison are 321; from Burke, 256; from Bacon, 205; from Macaulay, 258; from John Locke, 234; from Robert South, 223; from Caleb C. Colton, 150. Colton was the author of Lacon, an admirable collection of apothegms. Colton was a famous and successful gambler. While living in Paris, he is said to have made £25,000 in two years, at the gaming-table. Dread of an impending surgical operation drove him to suicide, and he blew out his brains at Fontainbleau. The work has great value; but this, we think, might have been enhanced by increasing the "The Haven Children," by Emilie Foster, is the story of a family of children, who do not resemble any real children we ever saw; they are exceedingly precocious, and most of them rather stiff. The author's style is too mature for a child's book, and gives a Mrs. Moulton's story, "Bertha's Experi- heaviness to the story which rather forced hu- young ladies to quote Emerson in tender con- the number, which make up a very agreeable mor fails to relieve. The volume is a very pretty one, with some good illustrations. [E. P. Dutton & Co.] LITERARY NEWS. - Chaplain Van Horne, U. S. A., has writ lages which throng the ridges of pine-lands in not only full materials but considerable thinks the skill with which he has contrived to A contributor furnishes a rather sharp article to this number, in which he points out regretfully the inadequate rewards of literary labor as compared with those of mercantile success. A wise and brilliant author, he says, in effect, is but "small potatoes" by the side of a merchant prince. We are sorry to say that this is too true, and we see no reason to hope that it will soon be otherwise. Bostonians though we are, we are a very material people; proud of our literary achievements, we value greenbacks far above books. We like to know and converse with a fine writer, and to read his writings; but we do not hesitate to give him the cold shoulder if a Back Bay parvenu claims our attention. Books and literary fame are fine things; but they lack the tangible, ponderable value that resides in paying stocks and blocks of real estate. No matter how earnestly we theorize about the excellence of mental culture, and its infinite superiority to the gross delights that wealth bestows, if the choice is offered, we take the delights without a glance at the culture. This error of judgment is so general that it can hardly be regarded as culpable: even authors themselves give countenance to it by manifesting an avidity for lucre that it is difficult to reconcile with the spirit of their calling. No business men are sharper or more exacting than are professional literary men in their dealings with publishers; and as for female authors read The Battle of the Books." We must dissent from our contributor's views so far as A volume of miscellaneous verse, by the -The biography of the late Rev. Dr. John - Mr. Whalley, M.P., has written "An - Messrs. Roberts Brothers have in press a beautiful holiday volume, The Shepherd Lady, and Other Poems," by Jean Ingelow. These poems are not included in any collection of Miss Ingelow's writings. The volume will be especially attractive in its illustrations, which are from drawings by Arthur Hughes, Miss M. A. Hallock, Sol Eytinge, and F. O. C. Darley, and engraved by Dalziel, Linton, Anthony, and Andrew. It will be a royal octavo, bound in cloth, gilt, and block-lettered. New York Times, that Mr. Kegan Paul's Life of "William Godwin" will comprise the latter's diary, which covers his entire adult life, together with fragments of his autobiography, begun but never finished. This Life will appear immediately. 1826, that when he recited "Hohenlinden " to Leyden, the latter said, "Dash it, man! tell the fellow that I hate him; but, dash him! he has written the finest verses that have been published these fifty years." Campbell's answer was: "Tell Leyden that I hate him, but I know the value of his critical approbation." His best-known composition is “ Scenes of Infancy, Descriptive of Teviotdale," a new edition of which has just been published. By his death, at the age of thirty-six, the world lost one of whom Lord Minto said: No man, whatever his condition might be, ever possessed a mind so entirely exempt from every sordid passion, so negligent of fortune and all its grovelling pursuits, -in a word, so entirely disinterested, - nor ever owned a spirit more firmly and nobly independent." Baxter: " 66 - The September number of Macmillan's Magazine is fairly crammed with good reading. Among its notable contents are: Richard Baxter, by the Dean of Westminster; Torquato Tasso: his Life and Works, by Catherine M. Phillimore; Notes on Tennyson's Queen Mary; John Knox and his Relations to Women, by Robert Lewis Stevenson: Part I.; The Military Future of Germany, by Col. Charles L. Chesney. The anonymous writer of the article on Tennyson's tragedy says at the end: "It is, perhaps, a fact of more meaning than popular English criticism may recognize, that Mr. Tennyson's 'Queen Mary ' is said to be so much admired by Walt Whitman, — who, more, perhaps, than any one living, is the man of genius acted upon by such forces of national life as might quicken in him something like the Elizabethan instinct for dramatic truth." We quote a paragraph from the article on Again and again, amidst all his own limitations and contradictions, he falls back on the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Decalogue, as the essentials and fundamentals of religion; and maintains that 'no particular words in the world are essential to our religion; otherwise no man could be saved without the language these words belonged to.' And even to the objection, so terrifying in his own age, as in our own, that the breadth of this scheme would admit the Papist and Socinian, he boldly replied, So much the better, and so much the fitter it is to be the matter of our concord.' For myself,' he says, I will take no narrow name; I will be a Christian, a mere Christian, a Catholic Christian.' That of Generals Grant, McClellan, Johnston, and much-abused word 'Catholic" was to him the other officers, both of the Federal and Con- expression of his dearest convictions. federate armies. Also, through President always uses it in its original sense of uniIt runs through Grant's lively interest in the forthcoming his-versal,' comprehensive. tory, the author has enjoyed access to impor- the titles of his treatises, it forms the staple of tant and interesting government documents his arguments. If it ever could have been and records, including those of the late South- redeemed from its perverted use, it would ern Confederacy. have been by the persistent accuracy with which he was determined to employ it. In the last resort, sin and moral evil were, in to affirm that, on the whole, authors have no The first volume of the English transla- On the 8th ult., the one hundredth anniversary of Dr. John Leyden's birth was celebrated at his native village. Denholm, The letters of the late Charles Kingsley Scotland. He was of humble origin, but early are being collected for publication. -E. S. Nadal's book, "Impressions of London Social Life," just published here, has 66 his judgment, the only grounds of division in Christendom, holiness and moral goodness the only grounds of union here or hereafter." manifested scholarly tastes and marked capacity. He spent five or six years at the Notable among Messrs. Osgood & Co.'s University of Edinburgh, where he became holiday publications, this autumn, will be Mr.. famous as a linguist. He lived eight years in Whittier's poem, Mabel Martin." Readers had a very warm reception in London. India, and wrote several standard books on of his Home Ballads," published several The Examiner says it is crammed with inaccu- Oriental subjects. Lord Minto said of him: years ago, will remember a poem called "The racies, and there is in it little trace of that If he had been at Babel, he would infallibly Witch's Daughter." This poem, enlarged, peculiar humor which so often makes even an have learned all the languages there." He and to a considerable extent rewritten, and inferior American book pleasant reading for was one of Sir Walter Scott's dearest friends. adorned with a whole gallery of beautiful an idle hour. The book is largely padded With Campbell the poet he was once on pictures, makes its rentrée under the title with essays on other subjects, and is hardly terms of intimacy, but a quarrel arose be- of Mabel Martin." In style and general worth the buying. The Pall Mall Gazette tween the two. Scott wrote in his Diary for external appearance, the volume will strongly resemble The Hanging of the Crane." It will contain fifty-eight engravings, which constitute one of the finest collections we have ever seen in an American book. The artists who have contributed most largely to this treasury of beauty are Mr. Thos. Moran, who furnishes many of his delicious landscapes, and Miss Mary A. Hallock, whose figures are hardly surpassed in modern American art. The vignettes were drawn by Messrs. Harley and A. R. Waud, and the engraving evidences the fine taste and skill of Mr. Anthony. The paper, typography, and binding of the volume are sumptuous, though tasteful, and it will surely take rank among the handsomest and most desirable books that will lure the buyer during the approaching holiday season. - Joaquin Miller's new poem, "The Ship in the Desert," soon to be published by Roberts Brothers, contains a preface addressed to the poet's parents. In it he refers to a journey across the continent, taken by him with them nearly twenty-five years ago. We quote from this poetical prose. "All the time as I tread this strange land, I re-live those scenes, and you are with me. How dark and deep, how sullen, strong, and lion-like the mighty Missouri rolled between his walls of untracked wood, and cleft the unknown domain of the middle world before us. Then the frail and buffeted rafts on the river, the women and children huddled together, the shouts of a thousand men, as they swam with the bellowing cattle; the cows in the stormy stream, eddying, whirling, spinning about, calling to their young, their bright horns shining in the - A common error, of which very reputable sun. . . . The wild men waiting on the other writers are guilty, is the misuse of any," as side, - painted savages leaning silent on their in sentences like this: "She was the loveliest bows, despising our weakness, opening a girl of any in the room." The meaning, is that way, letting us pass on to the unknown disof all in the room she was the loveliest. The tance, where they said the sun and moon lay colloquial use of any" is hardly defensible. down together, and brought forth the stars... If you ask a man, Have you any money to The long and winding lines of wagons, the lend?" he is very sure to answer (especially graves by the wayside, and women weeping in these times), Not any." It would be together as they passed on. Then hills, then easier to use the monosyllable "none." plains, parched lands like Syria, dust and Many persons say and write" off of" instead ashes and alkali, cool streams with woods, of "off." "At one and the same time" is a camps by night, great wood-fires in circles, common phrase, and may be found in Ban- tents in the centre, like Cæsar's battle-camps, croft's History. It always seemed to us tauto- painted men that passed like shadows, showers logical. One" expresses everything that of arrows, the wild beasts howling from the "same" is supposed to imply: if there is only hill." one time, it must be the same. 66 66 66 66 - Prof. Tayler Lewis's biography of the late President Nott, of Union College, announced, two or three years ago, by the late firm of Gould & Lincoln, will shortly be published by Sheldon & Co. -Prof. Joseph Haven, late of Chicago University, has written 66 a History of Ancient and Modern Philosophy." - William Smith Williams, for many years reader for the publishing house of Smith, Elder, & Co., died recently, at the age of seventy-five years. He is frequently referred to in grateful terms in Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronté, and is said to have been the first critic who recognized the genius of the latter lady. Indeed, she said of him that he was "my first critic." Messrs. Osgood & Co. announce a "New Miniature Series " of books, to be known as "Osgood's Vest-Pocket Edition," a pendant to "Little Classics." Next, probably, will come the "Button-Hole Series," and by and by the public will be invited to purchase volumes of the "Needle-Book Series." But we -If Stedman's "Victorian Poets" does not have a large sale, the professional puffers cannot justly be blamed, for they are slavering the book and the author ad nauseam. doubt whether this fulsome laudation is really helpful to a book. "Damning with faint praise" is a literary practice of long standing; and damning with excessive and undiscriminating praise is likely to become far more popular. These professional puffers are usually correspondents, who strive to make their words earn double wages, money from the periodical which prints them, and favor and books from the publishers whose wares they glorify. From the poem itself we quote some stan Another boat with other crew Not that I deem'd she loved me. Nay, Sit down and dream of seas withdrawn, thank our correspondent for his expressions of sympathy, which we know is shared by all who are cognizant of the circumstances attending our little difference with the publishers of the Atlantic. As to our correspondent's belief that a different course on our part would shame its publishers, &c., we must deThe value of books exported from Eng-cline to accept it: we doubt if they are susland, this year, was £488,678,- an increase ceptible to any such treatment. Finally, if of £36,000 over the exports of last year. the Atlantic had continued to come to us, as - we have cheerfully given; but there is no need - Julian Hawthorne's "Saxon Studies," which have appeared in an English periodical, and occasioned remark by their hard, unsympathetic spirit, will be published in book-form by Osgood & Co. HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. Tracts: The Vatican Decrees, Vaticanism, Speeches of Rome and The Newest Fashions in Religion. Three edition, with a Preface. 8vo. $1.75. The Calderwood Secret. By Virginia W. Johnson. Paper. 50c. J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PHILADELPHIA. The History of Co-operation in England. Its Literature and its Advocates. By George Jacob Holyoake. 12mo. $2.00. The Railroad Scenery of Pennsylvania. A HandBook for Tourists. With 79 illus. Paper. 75 cents. Clayton's Rangers; or, the Quaker Partisans. A Story of the American Revolution. Illd. 12mo. $1.50. The prospect of the publication of Mr. Emerson's new volume of essays, that has been promised again and again within the last five years, is really brightening. December is now fixed for its issue; but we shall hardly venture to expect it till we see it. The proposed title, "Poetry and Criticism," has been abandoned, and a new one adopted. The volume will include old essays and new. A History of England, for the Use of Schools. By Professor Lowell's new volume-which will M E. Thalheimer, author of "A Manual of Ancient not include his recent poetical jibes against History," &c. 12mo. $1.50. his country — is promised for November. SEPTEMBER PUBLICATIONS. D. APPLETON & CO., NEW YORK. BAKER, PRATT, & CO., NEW YORK. "Now, may I take a subscriber's privilege, and express my regret that you allow a personal prejudice to banish the Atlantic from your page of magazines reviewed, and even to take frequent opportunity to belittle it and Illd. 12mo. $1.25. injure it. I sympathize with you fully in your dent. 12mo. $2.00. feelings toward the present publishers, and consider their course toward the Literary World contemptible; but the absence of a review of the Atlantic from your pages is, I think, a more serious damage to your paper than to the magazine, and it seems to me that a different course toward it on your part would soon shame its publishers into a recognition of the Literary World as a power in the world of literature." Four Thousand Miles of African Travel. A Personal Record of a Journey up the Nile, through the Soudan, to the confines of Central Africa, embracing an Exam ination of the Slave Trade, and a discussion of the Problem of the Sources of the Nile. By Alvan S. Southworth, Secretary of the American Geographical Society. With maps and illustrations. 8vo. $3.50. G. W. CARLETON & CO., NEW YORK. We make answer to our correspondent: First, that J. R. OSGOOD & CO., BOSTON. H. A. YOUNG & CO, BOSTON. WILSON, HINKLE, & CO., CINCINNATI. E. P. DUTTON & CO., NEW YORK. Hymns. By Frederick William Faber, D.D. With a Sketch of his Life. 18mo. $2.00. The Haven Children; or, Frolics in the Funny Old House on Funny St. By Emilie Foster. 16mo. Illd. $150. Frisk and His Flock. By Mrs. D. P. Sanford. Illd. Small 4to. $2.25. HENRY HOLT & CO., NEW YORK. Lectures on Jurisprudence. The Philosophy of Positive Law. By the late John Austin. Abridged for the Use of Students, by Robert Campbell. Large 12mo. $3.00. Prince Bismarck. A Biographical Sketch. By Wilhelm Görlach. Translated from the German by Miss M. E. Von Glehn. With Portrait. 16mo. $1.25. MACMILLAN & CO., NEW YORK. The Age of Pericles. A History of the Arts and Politics of Greece, from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War. By W. W. Lloyd. 2 vols. 8vo. $8.00. A. S. BARNES & CO., NEW YORK. Practical Ethics for Schools and Families. By Matilda Fletcher. 8vo. $1.00. ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. Madame Récamier and Her Friends. From the ter has been unexceptionably courteous. We The Soldier's Offering. By W. H. Clark. 16mo. 75c. Récamier's Memoirs. 16mo. $1.50. Current Literature. MIGHT AND MIRTH OF LITERATURE.* 66 ment." He gives an embarrassing multitude thony Trollope's novels “ excellent;" he also of illustrations of each variety of these figures, commends that writer's "female characters, occupying pages with quotations, too many of and his English style, admirably accurate "!! which are as trifling as the following: Here is another bit of his criticism, which would be really delicious, if it were not so the use of a noun that expresses the cause for absurd. He quotes these lines to exemplify a noun that expresses the effect: 66 My poor pol -my poor pol- my poor polluted heart." he says. 66 46 "There was a time, ere England's grief began, When every rood of ground maintained its man." “ produce of the ground. Nobody uses the 'Ground," he says, the cause, is put for the ground for food." Ignoring the clay-eaters, whose practice disproves the latter statement, let us inquire if the learned author never heard of a farm "maintaining" its tenant; of a country "maintaining a certain population. Some of his explanations might have song, 66 6 The object of this volume is to create and fully equip a new branch of study; to discuss figures of speech far more thoroughly than ever has been done; to urge upon pleaders, preachers, and all who write or speak English, many very important practical advices; to com-lent poem, Prince Adeb,' this from George ment specially on Shakespeare, Milton, De- Henry Boker, where he uses summer," &c. ; been written by a moderately bright child of mosthenes, and the Bible; to present a wide and when he says: "Having presented you ten. To illustrate the figure of metonymy, review of American and English literature; with the epitaph on Butler, to Butler himself where the thing worn is spoken of instead of and to make the whole subject as amusing and laughter-exciting as it is instructive. Also, be introduced." In this sentence the subject the wearer, he quotes a line from an old we have availed ourselves of our familiarity of presented is in the first person; that of inwith Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and with troduced, in the second. End-cuts are among four of the modern languages, — French, Ger- his favorite figures; let the student, he says, "Good morning to your Night-cap," man, Italian, and Spanish.' and adds, with exquisite simplicity: see "how, by end-cuts, that consummate 'NightThis last sentence furnishes the first mani-writer [Shakespeare] adds not a little to the cap' means him whose pate it covers." festation of one of the author's most prominent masterly compactness and elasticity which commendation of authors is almost indiscrimcharacteristics, -a genial self-conceit that characterize his 'wondrous style, which is so inate; several he thinks it necessary to eulonever deserts him. References to "your au- light and so massive, like a war-mace of gize in half a dozen places. "Fisher Ames," thor," "the writer," &c., extracts from his gold swung lightly by a seraph"!! he says" (every thing from him let be studied The own apparently unpublished compositions, and other figures of etymology, ― prosthesis, or with great care), speaks of," &c. Classical passages like this are found on almost every prefixing (like "ypowdered "); epenthesis, scholars and admirers of Horace will be surpage: "Grant to us now one other indul- or insertion (like "princerple" in the “ prised to learn that, Big"after many perusals, gence, — of availing ourselves of our famil-low [not Bigelow, Mr. Macbeth] Papers "); we cannot find in Horace one strictly original iarity with the noble and melodious Spanish annexation, or paragoge (like "withouten ");ites. He often refers to that orator's works, thought "! Demosthenes is one of his favorliterature." A more serenely self-confident diæresis (like "aërial"); tmesis (like "to author it has never been our fortune to meet. us ward" for "toward us"); metathesis, or Yet there is much merit in his book, proofs of industry, a considerable familiarity with literature, and of good critical inventions. It has the rare charm of freshness; and, if it does not entertain the general reader, it will amuse and possibly instruct the student of language and literature. In a long Introduction, the author discourses with enthusiasm on figures, which he pronounces "most ornamental and a growth of Nature,” “ pre-eminently natural and decorative, as are the dew-drops on the grass, or the frost-work on the window." Christ, he says, used figures more abundantly than any other speaker. freshly translated by the author;" and again, "of Demosthenes, a study that charac twisting. We cannot dwell upon his expo- terizes this volume." There is a strong religsition of the figures of syntax and rhetoric, ious element in the book, with ample evidence which he treats in the manner indicated above, of the author's orthodoxy, and of his hatred quoting innumerable examples, not all of which are pertinent, and wrapping them with of priestcraft. The Bible, he thinks, is the wavering and often ambiguous comments. crushed. There is too much of this theologionly weapon with which the latter can be His extracts from famous writers are very cal matter in the volume to consist with its readable, and constitute the most interesting professed purely literary character; the aupart of the book. He imparts a vast amount thor's tirades are out of place and impertiof information as to his own attainments and nent. Setting aside as of little worth, beyond opinions; and the reader breathes a sigh of their capacity to amuse, the author's comments relief when he learns that Mr. Macbeth has and criticism, the reader will find this book retracted his " 'contemptuous verdict on the 'Faerie Queene,' passed in the first forty years from the best writers. There is much to be really entertaining by reason of its quotations Mr. Macbeth divides figures into three of our life." Very rarely he gives counsel in learned, too, from the grammatical and philoclasses: Figures of spelling, or etymology, brief and forcible form: alterations of the original spelling of words; for powerful short sentences, Ruskin for pow-portant contribution to the knowledge of Study Macaulay logical matter, which constitutes a really imfigures of syntax, alterations of the original | erful long ones." On page 146, he quotes, to construction of words; figures of rhetoric, illustrate the use of a preposition as an adjeclanguage, and may be read with profit by all deviations from the original application of tive, these lines from Coriolanus: young writers. words. Figures of etymology are subject. to apheresis, or front-cut, as "'ghast" for "I will fight 66 Against my canker'd country, with the spleen aghast," "'mazed for " amazed;" syncope, or mid-cut, as "e'er " for " ever;" and A man of the author's literary pretensions apocope, or end-cut, as amaze " for " amazeought to know that there is an adjective 'under,” as well as a preposition. The word • The Might and Mirth of Literature. A Treatise on Fig- is often used by Tennyson in its adjectival urative Language. By John Walker Vilant Macbeth. 8vo. pp. 542. New York: Harper & Brothers. VICTORIAN POETS.* THIS is an ambitious, but not unsuccessful, attempt to analyze the productions and assign the rank of English poets who have * Victorian Poets. By Edmund Clarence Stedman. 8vo. sense. Mr. Macbeth pronounces all of An- pp. 441. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. |