needed for house dresses is added in the straight breadths. It is not pleasant to note that the tendency toward trailing skirts for out-door uses is greater than ever. Is no appeal against this untidy and unladylike practice strong enough to induce sensible and refined people to abandon it? They would consider the wearing of soiled lingerie a sin against their nature; yet they will, day after day, put on dresses encrusted, for inches above the edge, with the sweepings of miry sidewalks. It does not depend upon modistes whether this shall be so; it depends solely upon women, who should forswear any fashion which forces them to be untrue to their instinct of cleanliness. Trimmings. WHY were we so deluded as to predict a lasting austerity of decoration from a momentary spasm of simplicity? Autumn gave vague promises which Winter failed to fulfill, and Spring utterly belies. Sigh with us, wretched reader; for, if we create it not for ourselves, there is no plainness to be found. There are not only flounces, but flounces on flounces. In truth, the latest design of skirt trimming is a very deep, straight flounce, from twenty inches to three-quarters of a yard wide, covered half way up from its hem, with narrow ruffles, puffs, piped bands, and everything that can be crowded upon it. Sometimes the wide, straight flounce,—which is necessarily very scant,—is set up a quarter of a yard from the dress hem, and another flounce, either of the same or a contrasting material, is put upon the edge. The over-loaded look of this style prevents it from being really elegant, though it may be what the modistes call "dressy." Where this flounce is used, a puff in the back of the skirt and a sash of some sort across the front complete the ornamentation, as a simple basque completes the suit. The garniture for over-dresses and basques is as plain as that on skirts is elaborate. Large cords, double and single, pipings, revers, buttons and fringe are appropriate for this purpose. The ugly fashion of trimming the tablier differently from the rest of the skirt yet prevails, though in a somewhat mitigated form. The whole breadth is now covered with perpendicular or horizontal puffings, or folds from hem to belt, and the joining with it of the rest of the trimming is concealed by bows or revers. Wide revers, reaching from the edge to the waist, and following the seams of the front breadth, are very becoming to most figures, aud serve, where the tablier is unlike the remainder of the garniture, to break the ugly meeting. Shirring-old-fashioned shirring—has returned, | and for the heads of flounces, edges of puffs, &c. nothing is so much used. The gathering threads are from half an inch to an inch apart. This makes the flounces hang very prettily, since it is possible to lay the fullness with great exactness. Gimp goes out, and lace comes in, with the milder months. Would we could say that beads were going also! But no, they are simply transferred from gimp to lace, and remain as sparklingly incongruous as ever. New Goods. THE variety of fabrics is less this season than last. With fewer purely ephemeral and fanciful goods, there is nevertheless a goodly number to choose from, and such as are very pretty. Most of the stuffs are of silk and wool, so beguiling to the eye, as to cause the mind to forget that materials of mixed threads are never a safe purchase, on account of their disposition to shrink and cockle. There is the usual choice of silken pongees, soft, clinging reps and cashmeres, alpacas and brilliantines, serges, plain and with diagonal stripes, the numberless stuffs bearing the name of poplins, foulards,-delicate of texture, and useful from April to October, and the ever-new, yet ever-old, summer silks. There is a noticeable lack of polonaise goods, which indicates, if straws show anything, that that valuable garment is no longer the highest style. Rough-surfaced fabrics have given place to those of finer finish, even the camel's hair cloths being less hairy than of old. And camel's hair cloth, by the way, is much lower than last year, a good quality being purchasable for $1.25 per yard, double fold, because it is not adapted to whole suits, and because few polonaises, barring those matching skirts, will be worn. There is always some tangible reason for any great reduction in the price of anything, if we are only careful to look for it. The average rate of nice and seasonable dress materials is from fifty cents to $1 a yard, though, of course, a certain class of cotton, and mixed cotton and wool fabrics, ranges as low as thirty cents. These do not pay for making, either in appearance or wear. A sound rule for purchasing is to select as nearly the best of its kind as can be afforded. One good gown will outlast two poor ones, and prove the wiser economy in the end. The prices of silks seem somewhat lower than last season, to be in keeping with our assumption of poverty. Sufficiently nice summer qualities may be had for $1.50 a yard; and now and then a bargain may be made for less. They are in the usual fine, colored and white stripes; brighter lines than heretofore,—such as blue and purple and green, being devoted to street costumes. The lower grades of gros grains and failles, in solid colors, have dropped a little in price (two dollars and two dollars and fifty cents obtaining a really serviceable article); and for that reason, they will be more employed than usual for summer suits, a plain silk being always more available than a stripe. Two shades, even two colors, continue to be mingled in all kinds of costumes; only the contrasts are rarely so violent as was their wont. Practice has made nearly perfect the art of blending tints. The modish hues are grays of every shade, and blues, which have been the favorites for a year. Bonnets and Hats. IN their original bareness, the new styles resemble nothing but themselves. They turn up on one side, on both sides, before and behind, and down all around. The variety is endless and baffles description. It would seem impossible not to suit every taste, since the forms are so diverse. Chip is the choicest as well as the most expensive straw; but many delicate and far less costly braids are, to our taste, equally pretty. Leghorn, once more desired than any other, is bought only by the wise, who know its great durability and general becomingness. Chip and Leghorn represent the extremes of mode and use. The former bears the highest market price, is almost as frail as paper, and can never be re-pressed; while the latter is comparatively cheap, endures rough treatment well, and may, if desirable, be re-dressed a dozen times. It can hardly be said that the decoration of hats is massed at any particular point, though the tendency is towards the back and the top of the broadened crowns. A certain studied simplicity of design prevails among the best models; and where two different shades of trimming are employed, the second is frequently introduced in the flowers alone. Folded scarfs of soft repped silk,-the edges either hidden in the folds, or finished by a blind-stitched hem, are the basis of nearly all hat trimmings. They usually pass round the crown, terminating behind in a bunch of loops, without ends; in, under, and about which, cluster the flowers that form so large a portion of the garniture. Trailing vines and sprays no longer depend from the back; the fancy being for a snug, “close-reefed " air, incompatible with streamlets. The up-turned rims give abundant opportunity for face trimmings, which is eagerly availed of to display pretty puffings of silk and lace, with exquisite wreaths of blossoms, that have never been equalled in artificial flowers. The oddity of the face trimmings is that they extend all round the hat, and really belong as much to the back as the front. Feathers are placed on the hat, to be worn between the leaving-off of velvet and the dawning of midsummer head coverings. But, upon the latter they will be-and very properly— seldom seen. As to strings, they are perfectly optional, having no apparent relation to the hat, and put on only where some accidental vacancy exists. To suppose they bear any part in securing the bonnet on the head is a fallacy of a by-gone period. The new flowers are very beautiful, and of fine types. Heliotrope, heath, clethra, arbutus, wild roses, primroses, violets, small roses, ferns, delicate grasses, are all found, as well as the cabbage roses poppies, tulips and lilies, bequeathed by former sea sons. Outside Garments. THE dolman proper,—having large wings in place of sleeves,—is the favorite, and is, perhaps, mor universally becoming than the sacque. On the other hand, it takes nearly twice as much material to make it, and it is difficult for amateurs to fit. Among sacques, the half-fitting, English walking jacket is still most sought. However, the old-fashioned loose sacques, anciently known as sailor-jackets in light gray and brown spring cloths, with plain hems, big buttons, and breast, as well as side, pockets, are frequently seen. Last year, scarcely any garments except those of black cashmere, drap d'ètè and kindred stuffs, were visible; but, this season, various light-tinted and light-woven cloakings are in vogue. Even the dolmans, that require the softest of materials to make them hang well, are, not seldom, cut from heavy cloths. Many of them, as well as the cashmere sacques, are brave in beads and braiding; giving them a regimental air, as much affected by some women as disliked by others. The run of beads is generally short-lived; and, as the latest one is not yet a year old, we must be patient with it, for a space. Yak and guipure laces promise to yield a trifle their hold upon popular fancy; while turquoise silk, for trimming outer garments, retires (because of its bad wearing) in favor of heavy, corded gros grains. Buttons are less pretentious and eye-distracting than for a long time and metal and jet buttons are scarcely used at all, except to match bead trimmings of the same nature. Nevertheless, buttons of modest proportions, in conjunction with large cord, pipings and folds of silk, form the chief ornament for outer garments. There is little novelty in shawls save some pretty, soft, square ones, coming in solid colors, bright blues, scarlets, dove, leaf, and café au lait browns, Quaker, blue and steel grays, together with the mixed tint that black and white threads make. They are just suitable for warm weather wraps, and range from $3.50 to $5. CULTURE AND PROGRESS. The Difficulty to Americans of the Study of European Politics. THE most boasted and pictorial of the great mechanical feats of this age has been, we suppose, the Atlantic Cable. We presume the improvement has not been without its advantages, though most of our readers who may ask themselves the question will be a little puzzled to say what they are. We are not now speaking of the private and financial benefits of the work, which may have been considerable, but of its public benefits. We do, no doubt, feel a sense of nearer neighborhood to Europe, and it seems to be an axiom with us that it is better to hear of any public event the day after its occurrence than the week following. We think ourselves happier to know of Thiers' overthrow the hour of its announcement in Paris than a fortnight subsequent. There is, indeed, a certain gentleman in Manitoba who finds he can get on very well on old news, providing it is news to him. There the mail comes but twice a year, and he gets a six months' issue of the London Times in a lump. He reads but one a day, however, and thus secures himself the sensation of a morning paper. of writing which is eager, conscientious and tolerably thorough. The London Spectator has had of late a number of exceedingly live and interesting articles upon France and Spain. The effect of such criticisms, and of many others in the better weeklies and dailies, is certainly to stimulate curiosity. Many of the opinions expressed, no doubt, are wrong, but if the opinions are eager and honest, the reader cannot help being awakened and inspired with a desire to know what is going on in the world. Unfortunately the London and Paris papers do not reach here until they are almost worthless. It looks, therefore, as if the cable is to be the death of all interest in contemporary politics in Europe. Should the day come when our press will have able and thoroughly competent writers upon these questions, we may not need the criticisms of the trained observers of London and Paris. But we can look for no such thing in the immediate future. In the meanwhile it is not well for us to fall into the notion that Europe is entirely "played out." Could not the morning papers dovote a column to giving us the gist of the most important articles in the European journals? It would be necessary to have an exceedingly able and intelligent man on the other side to choose the things best worth transmitting. In the midst of the great flood of wind and words pouring from the trans-Atlantic press there are always some articles which have gist and meaning, which afford nutriment to an inquisitive and studious mind. It would not be best to take the leader in the Times, or to transmit the articles which have the most important places in the most important papers. But wherever an idea is expressed, let that be put into as few words as will retain it, and telegraphed for the perusal of Americans. The ob But there can be no question that the cable has been a misfortune to persons in this country who wish to study and keep the run of European politics. The reason is that we do not get the first information along with the European comment. A little pellet of news, which may or may not be true, is shot at us from Madrid or from the insurgents at Cartagena, or from amid a group of wild Carlists set down before Logrono. We care not how thoroughly any critic on Spanish affairs may have studied the country, he needs the sympathy and the converse of others who are interested in the same questions.jection will be that the need of space in a great Now in this country, there are not enough people who care for European politics and are informed upon it to quicken his mind by sympathetic contact and a common curiosity. Only the other day we asked a gentleman who has made foreign politics a specialty, and who has excellent facilities for getting at the people in New York best worth knowing, how many persons there were to whom he could go for an intelligent opinion on current matters in France and Spain. He said, "Not one." The editorial articles in the papers are certainly the reverse of luminous. They are evidently written by people who know very little more of such questions than their readers. In Europe it is different. London is near to Paris and Madrid. The clubs are full of men who run over Andalusia for an August trip. The press has at its command many able writers, conversant with the history of these countries and their present condition, and really interested in their future. Of course, there is a great deal of uncertain, rash and unintelligent writing, but there is also a great deal daily is such that a column cannot be spared. But The History of the Norman Conquest of England.* THE great writers who have treated the history of the English nation agree in regarding the Norman Conquest as its main turning-point. When Milton, two hundred years ago, gave to the world his compendious "History of Britain (that part especially now called England)," he brought the work down only to a date six centuries before his own day. Within the narrow limits of a hundred and fifty pages he finds room for little else than a The History of the Norman Conquest of England. By Edward A. Freeman. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. For Macmillan & Co., New York. in the fusing of the Teutonic and Roman, the imperial and ecclesiastical elements into the later system of feudal, Papal Europe. Without connect meager record of dates and facts. But his genius could not touch even barren places like these without adorning them. The story abounds in brief, quaint reflections and descriptions, epigrammaticing it with such a general movement, its effects on turns, stern censures of corrupt clergy and bad kings, and curious legends, some not over-nice, as that of the luckless baby, Prince Ethelred, "bewraying the font and water while the bishop was baptizing him." As a history, in the later meaning of the word, it is neither instructive nor conclusive. Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, which was composed at the beginning of this century, and had the benefit of thirty-six years of revision, is quite as deficient as his greater predecessor's in the characteristics required of a work by . modern judgment before it can be accepted as a history. Its antiquarian research, philological learning, and pictures of customs and manners among our Saxon ancestors, make it a valuable record.. It strings together the successions of events without tracing their connections, leaving no impression of living national growth, avoiding critical judgment among conflicting authorities, and delivering platitudes of reflection in a tame, bald style. That idea of the life of a nation which the poet must have felt, but would not labor to express, and the antiquarian did not even conceive, is grasped by our author in its fullness. In English character he points out certain ineradicable native traits; in English polity he shows the persistence of principles which shaped its beginning. The religious feeling of England underwent its special development, and her laws and customs grew up in ways peculiar to herself. But his proof is ample that she was insular in position only; far from being disconnected with the rest of the European world, she at all times, though in different degrees, acted upon and was acted upon by it. The life of the English nation is conceived and treated as part of the progress of the world. Viewed from this point, its history ceases to be obscure, because its main facts are generalized, and is no longer dull, since it shows steady though slow evolution. England itself, the main subject of his study, cannot be intelligently set forth. For England, far more than a mere political conquest, and less than an enslaving or expelling force, it was a maturing and transforming ascendancy. Its thorough treatment involves the growth and history of the races that took part in it, both originally of the same stock, and issuing from the same Scandinavian hive. On the one hand, the Northmen became Normans by settlement in Gaul, gaining military skill, religious fervor, and refinement; losing, it may be, in sturdiness and endurance. Of that stock came, in later days, he whom our author eloquently describes as "the gay, the brave, the wise, the relentless and the godless Frederick." On the other hand, the English, blending, by conquest or immigration, the blood of Celts, Jutes, Angles, Saxons and Danes, consolidated by frequent invasions and internal wars, remote from the ecclesiastical influence of the continent, preserved more of its stubborn original character. It retained, too, more of the features of a primitive Teutonic community, under a constitution of democratic nature. It knew nothing of nobles as a caste, though orders existed in the state of earls and ceorls, or esquires and yeomen, with a king more than their equal, yet elected or deposed by the Witan, among whom every freeman had an abstract right to be present. The history of Normandy from its settlement, something incidentally of that of Scandinavia, and every point in English history, needs to be considered, if we would gain a clear view of the meaning and results of the Norman Conquest. 66 The author lays little stress on the shaping power of climate and configuration of country, which is now so favorite a topic with theorizers on the progress of mankind. He does not even hint what Milton plainly said,-" to speak a truth not often spoken," in his time at least,—that the sun which we want ripens wits as well as fruits." It is in moral and political causes, rather, that he finds an explanation of the diverging courses of development taken in the different homes of the same race by their civil policy, their religious establishments, their laws and language. The chapter on the English constitution follows back to the earliest times and through striking analogies, its persistent democratic element. It concedes to the Wittenagemot, the primitive assembly of all freemen, powers surpassing beyond measure those vested by written law in a modern parliament. Representation being unknown, this assembly gradually shrank, by the ne From the time of the Norman Conquest, the streams of human thought and action which had flowed parallel in Northern and Southern Europe for many centuries without intimately mingling, were brought into one current. Thenceforward the northern insular kingdom became part of one political and religious system; and its laws, its language, polity and faith underwent profound modifications from contact with the southern nations. Not that the change either began with or was completed by the Conquest-but the Conquest was its manifest sign and irresistible impulse. Our author traces the long-silent preparation among the mingled Saxons and Danes in Britain leading to that sub-cessity of the case, as the kingdom enlarged, into a jection to the Norman rule, out of which a nobler nationality grew. He regards the process of their passing under alien domination as a marked movement in the world's development, an important step council of the king's nobles. The progressive changes in the kingly office, and the two-fold character of its holder, as the ruler of his home people and the emperor of other subject kingdoms, afford material for interesting discussion. The original public ownership of land, from which portions were granted to private individuals by the kings, with the consent of the Witan, forms another important subject of examination. It is briefly shown, as it has been shown more at large in special treatises called forth by the attention which the subject commands through its political bearings at the present day, that State ownership of the soil of the country was the rule among all primitive nations. In this country we have been fortunate in beginning with individual ownership, instead of passing through that process which seems imminent in England, of resumption by the State for the sake of equitable redistribution. The growth of the Church in England is less elaborately set forth than that of the constitution, as being a branch of the main subject of less importance, and not so easily reduced to principles. Yet, the introduction and fostering of Christianity in Britain, and its gradual triumph over the invading Danes, are clearly indicated. The piety of many of her kings, the liberality of her nobles, the patriotism and wisdom of her bishops, gain due praise. The ecclesiastical settlement of the country by William, after the Conquest was confirmed, is dwelt on at greater length. Accounts of the English sees and of the foundation of various monastic houses find their proper place, and the relation of the controversy over the primacy between Canterbury and York leads to an eulogy on the character of Lanfranc, one of the best-famed among the many churchmen famous in many ways, of early England. Rising to wider considerations, the author eloquently points out how the independence of the church was compromised, and a vast accession to Papal power yielded when William invoked the decision upon his claim to the crown of England, of the Pope-the near predecessor of that Hildebrand, the carpenter's son, who rose to be the mighty Gregory the Seventh. If the author is acute in demonstrating the events he relates to have been co-ordinated under a grand movement of the world, he is fortunate in selecting two heroic central figures about whom the conflict gathers towards its culmination. All else is preliminary to the last meeting between Harold and William. They represent the opposing systems of civilization and religion, and the story grows more minute, yet more clear and spirited, as it approaches the decisive struggle. His sympathies plainly follow the English prince, while his admiration is higher for William. Both are depicted as marked by high qualities, judgment and foresight fitted for kingly rule, patient ambition, and the skill of great captains; but stained with craft and cruelty. Harold is drawn as the more generous and impetuous; William as the more politic. Those chapters present a subtle study of character which display William's persevering schemes for compassing the English crown, his sagacity in appealing to the preva | lent feudal and religious prejudices of Europe, and the dexterity that wove a plausible claim out of separate false pretenses. And the story of the marvelous year in which the English king marched nearly the length of his realm to repel the Norwegian invasion gloriously, in September, hastening back to meet, within a month, another invasion in the South, and to fall as gloriously as he had just conquered, is told with all the spirit and color of a romance. Though of secondary interest, the description of the rout of Harold of Norway at Stamfordbridge, near York, is only less vivid and picturesque than that of the stubborn first and last fight with the Norman enemy, at Senlac, better known in history as the battle of Hastings, and in poetry and painting as the battle of the Standard-battles, those of bows and axes, of main personal force, more chivalric than Waterloos won under the smoke of artillery by the disciplined cavalry charge. Those subordinate figures of princes, warriors, and priests that crowd the pages are touched with force and distinctness. The elaborate parallel between Alfred and the heroes of other modern races may be instructively compared with the compressed sketch that Milton completes by calling him the mirror of princes. Canute's remarkable reign, and the career of grand Earl Godwin, are carefully cleared of the superficial notion that cover them in common story and the pictures of natural scenes and venerable buildings attest the eye of an artist. Such are the descriptions of Battle Abbey, of Westminster, of the town of Dol, of Lincoln, and the field of Val-ès-Dunes, although they are sometimes crowded with allusions that confuse in the attempt to bring within our view too much of both past and future. It would require greater details than our limits permit to do justice to the extraordinary research and critical acumen of our author. An introductory note to each chapter gives the sources from which its materials are drawn, with a careful statement of their relative trustworthiness, and an impartial warning as to their probable bias. This perception of the worth of testimony reaches the keenest dividing edge of acuteness in that part of the work which balances the presumptions and dissects the assertions regarding Harold's famous oath given to William. And we admire the ingenuity that cites and cross-examines that curious historical witness, the tapestry of Bayeux-that work of the needle which may truly or falsely affirm, but cannot insinuate. No other record has come down to us so convincing in its pictured mute exactness-none of so real personal an interest, not even the mummycasings from the pyramids, nor the ashy molds that restore the living figure for Pompeian explorers. An immense variety of curious lore and thorough discussion is thrown into the form of long appendices to each volume. Many convenient maps and plans illustrate the work, and the only want that mars its completeness is that of an index, furnishing a plainer guide to the particular threads of the his |