Colonel Hamley to whom the authorship is commonly attributed, a Mr. Pullene, and one or two more. The publishers, though saying nothing definite, seem rather to encourage the notion that the article was not written by Colonel Hamley. This, perhaps, is because that gentleman holds an office under Government, and Mr. Gladstone's economical cabinet, already at daggers drawn with the whole military class, which is naturally delighted to see this attack on its enemy, may be thought of as not particularly well pleased over a work which gives popular expression to the opinion that the Liberal policy as regards national armaments is dangerously or meanly inadequate. The Germans, as may be supposed, get considerable pleasure from the spectacle of the fast-anchored isle thus frighted from its propriety," and some one of them has written an article, not the most brilliant in the world in point of wit, but expressing such a contemptuous acceptance of the situation described by the Dorking volunteer as is not calculated to soothe the Heligoland excitement

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-We see, by the bye, that the author of "Dame Europa's School," another specimen of the literature of the panic, but one far inferior to the Blackwood article, has come out with a novel, being moved to do so by the success of his satire. "Tom Pippin's Wedding" is the title of it, and according to all accounts it is extraordinary stuff. The Athenæum quotes among other passages this: "One has heard drunkards blaspheme, and madmen rave, but for downright, cool profanity, for simple prostitution of all that men and angels reverence, give me a couple of evangelical ministers talking Scripture during a six-mile drive." The silliness and vulgarity of other passages, however, more than equal the intolerance if that be the name of it-of this. A set of words is wanting for the expression of the movements of minds and hearts of a certain size. Intolerance which argues a certain amount of deliberation and thoughtfulness, and a certain genuine warmth of feeling in itself respectable, is hardly the term to apply to the state of mind expressed in these words.

"The eminent barrister and historian," as his daughter in her biography of him calls Mr. John Adolphus, will hardly be known to many of our readers either as a historian or a barrister, although he was in good practice as a criminal lawyer, and although, some half-century ago, his very high Tory history of England under George the Third and his memoirs of the French Revolution were in favor among people of oldfashioned principles. But although his books are forgotten, and the eminence which his daughter's affection takes for real was but very factitious, her filial piety will probably secure for him in literature the niche which he failed of securing for himself. Her biography of him is an interesting and very readable book, full of gossip about the London of the beginning of this century, its theatres, literary cliques, taverns, ordinaries, spouting clubs, coffee-rooms, and all the strange fashions and habits of "the town." Among a thousand similar other things that the writer tells us is this dubious piece of philology about a slang term which still holds its own in England, and has some currency in this country. The fashion of the house," says Adolphus, speaking of a tavern called the Queen's Head, in Duke's Court," was to order spirits in a pewter half-quartern measure, which the drinker mixed with water according to his taste. It was frequently the fashion to say, 'Now I'll have another quartern, and go.' In process of time the order was cut down to the last word, Waiter, bring me a go;' and from that house, and from that mode of expression, the word extended probably over the whole kingdom as synonymous with half a quartern of spirits." If Mr. Adolphus's memory does not play him false, he was connected with one of our customs which has always seemed to most people to require explanation, and which he thus explains. When a boy at school, he used to spend his holidays with a great-uncle, residing in Sackville Street, of whom he stood in great awe, and in whose house he had but doleful days of it, his only solace in his dreariness being a print-shop at the corner of the street, and the kindness of a lady "of high fashion and great beauty" who lived near, and occasionally gave him sweetmeats and kisses. On the day on which he wore his first chimney-pot hat, he paid a visit to this leader of fashion, and she in joke put the boy's hat on her own head, and liking the look of herself in the new head-dress, she resolved to wear it into the Park, whither she was about to ride. This she did at once, and from then till now, in spite of attempts at innovation, the fashion has sustained its ground.

PAUPERISM IN ENGLAND.*

MR. MAINE, in his recent remarkable work on "Village Communities," has made the ingenious observation that pauperism was first pressed

* "Pauperism: Its Causes and Remedies. By Prof. Henry Fawcett." New York: Macmillan & Co. 1871. 12mo, 270 pp.

upon the attention of English statesmen when the old "cultivatinggroups" of England, with their community of lands, began to fall to pieces, and the modern unequal division of landed property to take their place. This process of dissolution is still continuing in Great Britain, making more unequal the holding of land, and accordingly adding to the many difficulties of England's great problem-pauperism. During the last one hundred and fifty years, as Prof. Fawcett shows, nearly 7,500,000 acres have been taken by Acts of Parliament from the common lands, both arable and grazing, of Great Britain—that is, from the use and enjoyment of the poor-and added mainly to larger estates. Early even in the feudal ages, when the “village community" had partly given place to the "manor," population in certain districts of England began to press upon space, and combined with the breaking up of "commons," the ignorance of the laboring class, and the difficulty of communication, to create local problems of pauperism. Throughout the early English history, we find various Acts of Parliament dealing with this question, especially endeavoring to prevent indiscriminate almsgiving, and to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary poverty. Still, owing to increasing inequality of property, to the effect of foreign wars, and to unwise legislation, pauperism steadily increased throughout the kingdom.

The special legislation against this evil, the "Poor Law" of England, dates from the reign of Elizabeth. Under this act, for the first time, every needy person had a legal right to claim relief. To afford funds for this public assistance, rates were laid upon real estate. The able-bodied were compelled to work, or the cost of maintaining them was thrown upon their near relations, if they were able to bear it. Workhouses were established, and overseers of the poor appointed, who were responsible for the administering of relief. This act has been substantially imitated by the most recent legislation of the United Kingdom, and was undoubtedly wise in its provisions. For a hundred and fifty years, it worked comparatively well; vagrancy and mendicancy diminished under it, and the great evil seemed possible to be controlled. Gradually, however, a history of blunders and mistakes in the treatment of this perplexing matter began, from which England has never yet recovered.

That dangerous form of public charity, "outdoor relief," crept in ; the work house test was dropped; allowances were given by the overseers of the poor to make up for deficient wages. "Settlement laws" were passed, which restrained poor workingmen from migrating from a parish where the labor market was overstocked to one where there was a demand. Even illegitimacy was encouraged, by a larger allowance being granted by the parish to a poor woman for an illegitimate than a legitimate child. Under this vicious system, a pauper became better cared for than a hardworking laborer, and that most wretched human condition, where people live by the cunning, deceit, and dependence of beggary-a state often more fatal to character than courses of absolute crime-became a profession, and was transmitted sometimes for several generations. In 1832, Prof. Fawcett states, the evil had reached a gigantic condition. Rates increased so as to threaten the absorption of the whole rent of the land. In one estate near Cambridge, 500 acres rented for about £1 per acre, while the annual poor-rates amounted to £250, the owner also testifying that his loss every year, from being obliged to employ pauper labor, was £100

more.

The discouraging effect upon honest labor of this public support of an army of able-bodied paupers can hardly be imagined. Thus, as Mr. Fawcett well puts it, a laboring man, by dint of much economy, self-control, and hard labor, saves sufficient to purchase a small annuity, and to procure, when he is old and broken-down, an income of five shillings a week. Another spends all his savings at the ale-house, and leads a lazy, dissolute life, leaving his family in misery. At precisely the same age, all he has to do is to apply to the parish for relief, and, without any unpleasant publicity or obligation to reside in the workhouse, he receives the same income-five shillings a week. Even during the years when they were able to labor, it often happened that the pauper received more than the industrious laborer could earn. As Prof. Fawcett remarks (from whose clear sketch this résumé is taken), "England was brought nearer to ruin by the old Poor Law than she ever was by a hostile army." The ghastly and corrupting effects of this blundering legislation are still visible throughout England.

There was one mistake, however, made by the British statesmen in treating this evil which it seems to us Mr. Fawcett does not sufficiently estimate we mean their neglect of any general scheme for popular education. During those same centuries when this evil was reaching such tremendous proportions in England, two other communities, Holland and

New England, had instituted a system of popular education which has done more to check pauperism in their limits than any other one cause. Had England begun with education before alms in assisting the laboring classes, her future would have been very different.*

The new Poor Law of England dates from 1834. Under it the "workhouse test" was revived, and the assistance by "allowances" abolished. The "laws of settlement" were made easier for the laborer, so that he could go where his labor was in demand; illegitimacy was checked by making the father responsible for the support of the child; and the whole administration of pauperism improved by freeing it of many abuses. Under this legislation, the increase of paupers was undoubtedly checked, and the cost of pauperism diminished throughout the kingdom, from an average of eight shillings per caput of the whole population, to five or six shillings. The whole mode of relief was reformed by a more general application through the authorities of the workhouse test; that is, by reStill, quiring every alleged pauper to live and work in the almshouse.

even with this reformed legislation, this terrible disease and national evil of Great Britain reached such a point as to inspire all thoughtful English men with anxiety and alarm. Though the increase of national wealth is estimated at $50,000,000 per annum, the increase of poverty seems to keep pace with it. Every winter in London, it is estimated, there are 170,000 paupers within the limits, and the pauper children of the kingdom are said to number the vast multitude of half a million. The relation, too, of outdoor and indoor pauperism is not satisfactory. Throughout England,

only one-eighth of the paupers are inmates of the workhouse, while in Ireland the reverse is the fact, the indoor paupers being to the outdoor as five to one-a much more sound, economic condition.

In fact, we may say, in summary, that Prof. Fawcett's history of the condition of England in this matter is exceedingly discouraging. We think, perhaps unreasonably so, he takes the "hard," economic, and despairing view of the question, while the remedies which he proposes are some of them as hopeless as the disease. We have a little query here in our own mind as to his statistics. The English custom is to class all as "paupers" who receive any assistance, however small, from the public authorities. But manifestly a hard-working, industrious, independent laborer, who fell into a temporary misfortune and was helped out of it by a small assistance from the overseers of the poor, should not be ranked with the degraded class of " paupers." So that when we hear of 170,000 paupers in London, we need to know how far those were dependent on the public before we make up our minds as to the extent of the evil.

In this city, for instance, there are some 22,000 persons aided each winter, to a very small extent, by the Commissioners of Charities. They are notoriously not " paupers," and support themselves the rest of the year, bringing up, many of them, honest and industrious families. So when we hear from Mr. Fawcett of the terrible increase of pauperism in Australia and the United States, and of "110,000 persons receiving outdoor relief in Philadelphia," and of "9,000 being inmates of the almshouse" in a single season, we know that his constitutional tendency, or his contact with this gloomy subject, has thrown a cloud over all his views, and obscured even his examination of statistics. We have not the Almshouse Reports of Philadelphia at hand, but such statistics as the above are utterly incredible. So far from pauperism increasing in our cities, the Report of the New York Commissioners of Charities for 1871 shows that, while the number of inmates of the almshouses of this city on January 1, 1850, was 1,313, or 1 in 423 of the population of the city, on January 1, 1870, it was only 1,114, or 1 in 808. The number assisted by outdoor relief seems to remain about the same, year by year, being 23,034 in 1865, and 22,782 in 1870. The expense of the relief of the outdoor poor averaged ten cents per caput of our population in 1865, and was eight cents in 1870. That for hospitals for the poor was eighty-seven cents per caput in 1865, and eighty-seven cents in 1870. And yet it must be remembered that New York is the centre of the foreign pauperism of the country, about twelve per cent. of our city paupers only being native-born.

The main remedy for this vast evil which presents itself to Mr. Fawcett's mind seems to us utterly futile-that is, the diffusion through the laboring classes of a sense of their duty to check population. Mr. Mill's admirers must have often felt that his chapters on this subject-" the voluntary checks" of population-are the least satisfactory of his well-known treatise. Mr. Fawcett follows in his footsteps. Their positions are unassailable, economically, but they are such as a laboring class can never be induced to recognize; and the notion that pauperism can ever be

In London, $25,000,000 per annum are spent on organized charitles, while, till the present year, no general scheme of popular education was ever inaugurated.

checked by proper views of the workingman's duty in this matter seems to us as wild as the favorite theorem of the female reformers-that men and women can work together in public life, and forget the relations of

sex.

Mr. Fawcett's least satisfactory chapter is on what is generally held as the most "advanced" of the recent methods of dealing with pauper children-the "placing-out system." The great objection to it, in the mind of this English economist, is that this charity offers a reward to pauperism, as the pauper's child is thus treated better than the self-supporting workingman's, and so the laborer is induced to increase his family, because he is sure of their being well cared for. Here, again, the philosopher of the study has lost sight of the nature of the laboring man in real life. No consideration as to the future support of his family ever affects a workingman in such matters. Furthermore, if anything would make him devoutly desire never to be the father of a family, it would be the prospect of his children being "placed out." In this city, the only thing often which prevents the lowest poor from sending their children to the almshouse, is the fear that they will be placed out or sent West, not through dread of any abuse to them, but from the blind force of the paternal instinct. Mr. Fawcett, too, forgets, under his scientific prepossessions, that the pauper's children, though, economically considered, they ought not to have been born, are not responsible for the fact; and society is responsible for giving them a fair chance in the world. Moreover, society, in Mr. Fawcett's own view, can do nothing more economical than in "placing out" these children. The great expense and danger to society are in "breeds ' of paupers and vagrants. The almshouse tends to make pauperism

inherited.

The emigration plan breaks up the line of descent, and converts the little pauper into a self-supporting producer. Besides, the annual cost of placing out or boarding out a pauper child is far less than his support in an almshouse. The experience of a very extended private charity in this city-the Children's Aid Society-is instructive in this regard, as this association have placed out some 25,000 poor and vagrant children in towns in the West at an average expense of only $15 per caput, the chil. dren growing up to a very large degree honest, self-supporting, and industrious persons, some even having acquired large properties.

Mr. Fawcett's other remedies for this great disease of England are more wisely considered. His remarks on education, emigration, co-operation, the improvement in land-tenure, and against the enclosure of common lands, are deserving of careful study.

The Fall of England; The Battle of Dorking. Reminiscences of a Volunteer. By a Contributor to Blackwood. (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1871.)-There are few odder phenomena in modern politics than the feelings of the English people with regard to their national defences. They have deliberately, for over two centuries, chosen to rely on their fleet for protection against invasion, and have found their confidence in the advantages of this means of protection fully justified by experience. With the exception of the civil war of 1640, and the little raid of the Pretender in 1745, they have enjoyed for four hundred years complete freedom from hostile military operations on their soil, the beneficial influence of which on trade and industry, and on the growth and firm establishment of legal habits among the people, it is almost impossible to overestimate; and, indeed, nobody can form anything like an adequate idea of its value who does not consider what frightful evils the Continental nations have during the same period suffered from the movements of contending forces. It is, of course, impossible to say with certainty what cause has most contributed to any political results, but it seems safe to ascribe a very large proportion of the growth of English constitutional freedom to the absence of the military general, as a person of special weight or influence, from English politics. The growth, too, of that almost unique character, the Anglo-Saxon judge, who has played so important a part both in English and American political progress, is due to the total want of familiarity both of the governors and governed with the arbitrary processes of military rule. Moreover, the smallness and insignificance of the English army has undoubtedly had much to do with the subordination of the military to the civil power which is so marked and, to Continental Europeans, so striking a feature of English society. And yet, small as the army has been, it has sufficed not only for the preservation of order at home, but for operations of sufficient magnitude and brilliancy in Continental wars to acquire for the country a military reputation of the first order. The fleet, too, has not only proved a sufficient protection against invasion, but for

"

conse

more than a century gave Great Britain all but complete maritime supremacy. Nevertheless, the national mind has been haunted, probably ever since the Norman Conquest, with the fear that an invader might in some way give the fleet the slip, and that if he did he would surely succeed in subjugating the country. Invasion panics' quently form a regularly recurring incident of all periods of peace. Few Englishmen are, in fact, ever entirely free from the dread of invasion except when English armies are invading some other country. Nothing ever comes of these panics, because the fear is never strong enough to overcome the dislike of compulsory military service which an enlargement of the effective military force would make necessary, or to overwhelm the traditional suspicion of large standing armies. Consequently, after a few months' talk, the matter drops out of the public mind, till some imposing display of force on the part of some Continental power brings it back again. All panics, except the last one, were inspired by France. It was always a French army which was to land at Dover and take London, which city was sure to be given up to pillage-its wealth furnishing a temptation such as no French general was supposed to be able to resist. Indeed, one of the saddest evidences of French decline is to be found in the fact that Frenchmen no longer figure in the imaginary invasions of England conjured up by the British imagination. The Germans have succeeded to this as to so many other places of honor long held by their unhappy enemy, and it is a curious compliment to their discipline, and systematic method of spoiling their foes, that they are not expected to pillage London, but to levy heavy contributions on it.

The last panic has been created by the spectacle of German prowess in France, and, as usual, has called forth a good deal of writing, and amongst other things the brochure before us, a jeu d'esprit which first appeared in Blackwood, and has been since issued in a separate form, and enjoyed a great success. Its main object, apart from the general one of creating alarm about the state of the military defences of the country, is to show the uselessness of the volunteers, who go out every Easter Monday, and manoeuvre in helpless ignorance and inefficiency on open spaces near London, under the command of elected officers, who know no more of soldiering than the men. The writer, an old man, describes in the year 1925 a battle in which he as a volunteer took part, fifty years previously, in which the volunteer force was totally defeated, and the regular army sacrificed in the vain attempt to stay the march of a German army of invasion, which had effected a landing owing to the destruction of the iron-clad fleet by a newly invented torpedo, and to the absence of a large portion of the regular force defending Canada against the United States, and Ireland against the Fenians. The author is evidently either a soldier or a man very familiar with military operations, and he uses his knowledge sufficiently to make a picture of extraordinary vividness, and yet without ever laying aside the dimness of vision with which a civilian volunteer might be supposed to watch the operations of a campaign. Nothing, too, can be more skilful, in a literary way, than the incidental portrayal, in the course of the narrative, of the disorganization and want of preparation of the volunteers, and of the misery and humiliation wrought by foreign conquest. The tale has consequently been devoured not less for its opportuneness as regards the state of the public mind, than for its artistic merit, which is, indeed, so high that only one man, Colonel Hamley-the author of "Lady Lee's Widowhood"-has been guessed at as likely to combine the needful military experience with the needful literary dexterity.

Who is Responsible for the War? By Scrutator. With an Appendix containing Four Letters reprinted (by permission) from the Times. (Lon. don Rivingtons. 1871.)-The pseudonymous author of this little volume began the arguing of the question which forms its title in the columns of the London Times in October and November last. It was done in a controversy with Professor Max Müller, which was ably and rather politely conducted on both parts. At that time, the question was still of considerable practical interest and importance, as the victor was but claiming a part of the territory of the vanquished, chiefly on the ground of the latter having begun an unprovoked struggle. When the writer, having enlarged his ar guments, published it in book-form, the war was over, and the preliminaries of peace about being concluded, but he seems still to have flattered himself that his appeal to the English public in favor of France might yet, through mediating voices, exercise some influence upon the final settlement. Now that the victor has safely carried off the spoils he demanded, the argument can have but a historical interest, and even that is somewhat nar

rowed down by the way " Scrutator" endeavors to prove his paradoxical

theses. For he puts all the blame upon Bismarck alone; represents King William and Germany as having been drawn into the war by the "diabolical" manœuvres of that man of "blood and iron;" "excepts the Crown Prince of Prussia from all the strictures expressed or implied" in his pages; admits that the French, before the war, betrayed as much longing for the Rhine as the Germans for Alsace and Lorraine, and that the Emperor Napoleon and his ministers were "reckless and criminal" in opening the contest. His impeachment of Prussia, however-that is, as its development shows it, of Bismarck-is broad enough. He "has endeavored to establish," among other minor points, the following: "That the Hohenzollern candidature was a legitimate grievance to France."

"That the French Government really desired a pacific solution of the question." "That Count Bismarck got up the Hohenzollern intrigue with his eyes wide open to all the consequences that have followed."

"That Prussia never withdrew, directly or indirectly, the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, and that the eventual retirement of the Prince took place in such a way as to leave the grievance of France precisely where it was at the commencement of the quarrel."

That, nevertheless, France still sought a pacific solution."

"That Count Bismarck . . . precipitated the war by the gratuitous invention and publication of a fictitious affront offered by the King of Prussia to the French Ambassador at Ems."

"That Count Bismarck requires French territory, not as a security against French aggressiveness, but as a means of keeping up the military system of Prussia and keeping down German liberalism."

To prove all this, "Scrutator" quotes sundry diplomatic notes, despatches, and articles, none of which, if we remember right, contains anything new to the journal-reading public. It is in their juxtaposition and the dexterous drawing of inferences that he displays his skill in defending assertions which, in their entirety, hardly deserve a serious refutation. Strictly speaking, he convinces the reader of none of his points; and all he makes plausible is that Bismarck was not at all unpleasantly surprised by the eagerness with which Napoleon grasped the pretext of the Hohenzollern candidature for plunging France, unprepared as she was, into a war which the Prussian statesman-and, in fact, the whole world-had foreseen, or by the mad fury with which sincere and hired chauvinism answered to the Duc de Gramont's warlike announcements; that, knowing that war must come, he used all the means in his hand-means fair and unfair-to put France in the wrong before the world, and to inflame the German mind, north and south of the Main; and perhaps also that, after seeing with what enthusiasm Germany, the whole of Germany, was ready to take up the gauntlet flung into her face by her infatuated neighbor, he was not inclined to let slip the opportunity of fighting the battle, which had to be fought one day, at a moment ill-selected by the foe, and of uniting the two sections of Germany by victories won in a common defence.

The Psalms. The Common Version revised for the American Bible Union, with an Introduction and Occasional Notes. By Thomas J. Conant. (New York: American Bible Union; London: Trübner & Co.)-Long before the revision of the English Bible was seriously undertaken in England, the American Bible Union had entered upon the same project, and had published several books of both the Old and the New Testaments. These revisions, being the work of individual translators, are of different degrees of merit, and lack that general consent of scholars which is counted upon to give favor to the work of the English revisers. Moreover, though scholars of other communions have been employed upon the work, the fact that it was begun in the interest of the Baptists must always prejudice it somewhat in the view of the church universal. Nevertheless, the Bible Union has made some improved readings, which might be adopted with advantage by the English Commission sitting in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. Dr. Conant is a good Hebraist, and his part of the revision is performed with conscientious thoroughness, yet with a wise regard for the hold of the standard version upon the popular mind. He has not attempted an independent translation of the Psalms, but a revision of the common English version with a more exact conformity to the Hebrew. This principle is correct; for, in preparing anew the Bible for the people, regard must be had to the purity and integrity of the English tongue as well as to the more advanced state of sacred philology. The scholars meeting in the Jerusalem Chamber may know Hebrew and Greek better than King James's translators, but it may well be questioned whether they know English better; and a revision of the English version, adhering

Frossard, with the 7th Corps" (p. 158), is an obvious misprint for Frossard with the 2d Corps. At Ognon" (p. 218), is a mistake for on the Ognon, Von Werder having defeated the French on the river, and not at a place of that name. The revision of the foreign names is, in general, somewhat defective. We find "Pinard" for Picard (p. 135), "L'Amirault" and "L'Admiraut" for Ladmirault, or L'Admirault; "Hassner" for Hasner, "Borez" for Baez. The writer on "Austro-Hungary" speaks of " Czechs and Gallicians, Poles, Slovenes" [sic], etc., with evidently very little knowledge of Slavic affairs. The " English History" is very exhaustive. Some of the literary pieces betray a decidedly able hand.

The Historical Reader, embracing Selections from Standard Writers of Ancient and Modern History, interspersed with illustrative Passages from British and American Poets; with Explanatory Observations, Notes, etc. to which are added a Vocabulary of Difficult Words and Biographical and Geographical Indexes. By John J. Anderson, A.M. (New York: Clark & Maynard. 1871.)-This is a rather long title, but its length is justified by the contents of the volume, every part of which is carefully compiled or elaborated. "As its name indicates, it is intended to be used, not as a book of lessons to be committed to memory and recited, but as a Reading Book, to be used independently, or to accompany any of the ordinary school manuals of history, and to be read in connection with the study of them." The selections-which are chronologically arranged within the three divisions of " American History," "English, Scottish, and French History," and "Miscellaneous . . . History" of other nations, ancient and modern-are well adapted to make the youthful reader familiar not only with the details of a multitude of important events and with the characters of many historical personages, but also with the best productions of English and American historical literature, and a number of writers belonging to other fields and nations. Both as to names and contents, the extracts are well selected, but chiefly as regards the former. Not only such English or American historians proper are represented as Clarendon, Burnet, Hume, Robertson, Ferguson, Gibbon, Mitford, Lingard, Milman, Macaulay, Grote, Merivale, Freeman, Froude, Irving, Bancroft, Prescott, Hildreth, and Motley, but also Milton, Berkeley, Chatham, Goldsmith, Burke, Scott, Southey, Bulwer, De Quincey, Thackeray, Dickens, Everett, Story, Greeley; as well as several writers of antiquityHerodotus, Xenophon, Plato, Josephus, Tacitus; and some FrenchRollin, Thiers, Lamartine, Michelet. German literature has, however, only one representative-Niebuhr, and Italian literature none.

The com

piler's introductory or explanatory notes and biographical notices are to the point, brief and well-worded, though not entirely free from mistakes, some of which may, however, be but typographical errors. James Fenimore Cooper died in 1851, not, as given, "in 1859;" the battle of Arbela was not fought in "330," but in 331; Halicarnassus was not "a city of Ionia," but a Dorian city of Caria; Thiers was not " a member of the Provisional Government that succeeded the Revolution of 1848." Nor do we agree with Mr. Anderson when he states that the “Consulate and Empire" of the writer just named is "considered one of the greatest historical works of modern times;" when he ranks the "History of Turkey" among "the most noted" of Lamartine's works; or when he calls Froude's style "strong and brilliant." In the notice of Niebuhr, there is no mention of his death. Nor ought the "History of the United Netherlands" to go unmentioned under "Motley," or the "History of the Jews" under Milman," while many less important titles are given in other notices. The pronunciation of French names is often rather strangely marked, as the following specimens may show: "Do-maul" (D'Aumale), "shawng de mar" (Champ de Mars), "vareduḥng" (Verdun), “sang ahn-twahn" (St. Antoine). These defects are, however, very slight compared to the merits and usefulness of the "Reader."

Musings over the Christian Year and Lyra Innocentium. By Charlotte Mary Yonge. A Concordance to the Christian Year. (New York: Pott & Amery.)-To make an index or a concordance is in itself so thankless an office, so utterly unselfish and unprofitable a labor for the doer, but so serviceable to the reading public, that one who takes the pains should have the praise, and not be permitted to veil himself behind an anonymous publication. All admirers of Keble will be grateful for the "Concordance to the Christian Year;" but none more so than the hardpressed clergyman, who, at the last moment, thinks to embellish his sermon with an apt poetic phrasing of his text or theme. The work is very thoroughly and satisfactorily done.

As an introduction to her "Musings," Miss Yonge has put together her own recollections of Keble with those of several friends, thus giving, in an easy, inartificial way, a picture of the everyday life of Hursley vicarage and an insight into the character and habits of the Christian poet. There was little in the outside life of such a man to attract the notice of the world; but it is pleasant to observe his kindness to the poor, his gentle fidelity in his work, his devout zeal for his church-though in the latter Miss Yonge sometimes causes Keble to appear less lovable in the reflection of her own intenser churchism. Her "Musings," too, sometimes rob a poem of its charm by translating it into the rugged baldness of a doctrine which it had deftly covered with the web of verse. A passionate admirer, a grateful protégé, a very devotee at the shrine of Keble, she gives an excess of attention to minor incidents and secondary qualities. These "Musings," however, are not without value in interpreting some of the obscurer poems by the incidents or frames of feeling which gave them birth; and they will take their place in Christian literature among the elegiac tributes of piety to genius, of love to goodness, and of faith and hope to the ideal life.

The Daughter of an Egyptian King. Translated from the German of George Ebers. By Henry Reed. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1871.) The historical novel which hovers about the dubious border between fact and fiction is always in danger of being too fictitious for the confidence of fact, or too matter-of-fact for the illusion of fiction. And when its avowed purpose is the restoration of the manners and customs of a remote antiquity, it is likely to be too dry for a story or too fanciful for a picture of actual life. The legend of Nitetis, which Herodotus has preserved under three distinct forms in his "Thalia," is wrought by Dr. Ebers into a highly dramatic story, through the skilful combination of various versions. The daughter of Amasis of Egypt having been demanded by Cambyses in marriage, he palmed off as his own Nitetis, the daughter of his predecessor, whose throne he had usurped. The fair princess won the heart of the stern and fitful Persian, but just as he was about to consummate the marriage his jealousy was excited against his brother, and in a rage he sentenced Nitetis to be dragged through the streets of Babylon and buried alive. Before the sentence was executed, Cambyses became aware of his mistake-but too late, for Nitetis had already swallowed a deadly cosmetic. After her death the king learned of the trick that had been played upon him, and turned his grief to revenge upon the faithless Egyptian king. But the story is only a screen upon which to paint the manners and customs of the Egyptians and the Persians. Dr. Ebers is a learned Egyptologist, Director of the Museum at Jena, and author of 'Aegypten und die Bücher Mose's" (reviewed in Vol. VII. of the Nation, No. 175). He has successfully reproduced the Egypt of the Persian invasion; his work is remarkably free from anachronisms, and will be valuable for consultation; but the story drags with the weight of the speeches ; for the doctor has made every character as learned and technical as himself.

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