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EDITOR'S TABLE.

TERESI

ERESINA has been among us taking notes. Teresina is the latest version of Madam Trollope, and in all particulars equals her great exemplar in mendacity. Has the reader forgotten the circumstances that brought Teresina into light-the famous marriage-suit and all the scandals that came to the surface? Perhaps the name of Theresa Yelverton (now Viscountess Avonmore) has passed out of his mind; and we must confess it nearly had out of ours. We could not recall all the facts pertaining to this once muchdiscussed case if we cared to do so. All that at present concerns us is that this notorious woman has been in America, has visited the North, the East, the South, the Far Westtraveling, so she declares, twenty thousand miles through the most important districts of the country-and has written a book about us, which she entitles "Teresina in America." There is not much importance in this fact; books about America are only too abundant; nor have Lady Avonmore's comments and criticisms the slightest value. But they are often very amusing, and for this reason solely we invite the reader to turn with us over a few of the pages of the vol

ume.

Teresina begins with a doleful description of New York and the woful prostration of all New-Yorkers before that Western Juggernaut called Mammon. "What is the frenzy," asks this veracious chronicler, "of the most enthusiastic fanatics to the fever which can whirl thousands upon thousands of men and women day after day through years of anxious toil" ("anxious toil" being unknown elsewhere), "which can make work seem pleasure" (wherefore not ?); "degradation honor; and ruin, both of mind and body, success?-which can thus fix, on a whole city of a million inhabitants, a stamp so indelible and a character so distinct that the cry, worshipers of money!' rises instinctively to the lips of every intelligent stranger?"

Teresina finds every thing about us a magnificent sham. Our buildings of splendid seeming are only veneered to the depth of a few inches, and, if an earthquake should strike us, would come tumbling down like a tower of cards; and the silks and velvets that we see dragged with such indifference through the streets are worn by those who will be penniless in a few years.

Superficiality is declared to be the worst system of American life, morally and socially. We in New York are so passionately devoted to "brown-stone fronts" that we would make any sacrifice to live in one, and no lady is considered to have made a good matrimonial alliance unless a brown-stone front is thrown

into the bargain. But within our brown-
stone fronts every article is painted and var-
nished to look like what it is not. That
which looks like massive oak carving is only
deal;
66 enormous mirrors reflect one fore-
shortened in a most singular way;" all is
false, veneered, and fantastic shams. Our
ladies who go to Europe do so for the sake
of seeing the fashions and to bring home
something other people have not. We cease-
lessly exult over the lavish expenditure of
money. "You will find my wife a smart
woman," said a husband, glorifying himself
and his better-half; "quite an elegant lady.
These sixteen boxes are her equipage. She
spent in Europe thirty thousand dollars in
dress!"

All our wealthy people, it appears, con-
gregate in cities, and very rarely does an
American possess a country-seat. Barnum,
the great showman, however, is an exception,
he having built himself a country - house,
where he retires to enjoy his otium cum dig-
nitate.

Other Americans do not build country-houses, and never enjoy their ease under their own fig-tree. Americans think a great deal more about themselves than about their children, and their motto is, "Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof." They build railroads so poorly that they barely suffice to carry the train along, and it is not an unfrequent thing for passengers to be compelled to turn out in a body to repair the line before they can proceed.

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things pleasant." Unsocial people in every particular, we have no Christmas gatherings nor summer junketings. Our meanness is so intense that if a gentleman takes ladies for a day's outing he will probably ask them to defray expenses some time later, without the slightest idea that he has committed a breach of etiquette and hospitality. In common with many others, we had always supposed that Americans had a foolish tendency to treat, and an absurd disposition "to do the handsome thing" in regard to paying for affairs of the kind; but of course we were wrong. Teresina has seen, and instructs us better.

All festive entertainment is absent, it seems, from our social gatherings; there may be singing, music, and card-playing, but no refreshments. The guests may expend as much time and energy as they like in amusing themselves and their "hostess," but she will expend no money nor provisions on them. Ice-water is the sole beverage that is supplied, and this is served in a pitcher, with invariably two glasses only for the use of the whole company! There is often dancing, but this partakes so much of the Bal Mabile style that few English ladies would join, and no French girls be allowed to do so. There is a great deal of mock modesty among our women, who "would appear overwhelmingly shocked (if they did not faint) at the word 'leg' used in their presence. You must say 'limb' of a fowl, and the word 'breast' must be avoided, if possible; yet the same women have freely displayed their own legs, when skating in crinolines and short petticoats." Really, Teresina ought to be more original-this is stale, and very old. Teresina is enter

Our manners are always peculiar, and generally very bad, Teresina goes on to say. We have no means of putting down bad breeding. If a woman wears a good dress at an hotel-table, she is the equal of everybody present; she may eat with her knife, and stretch it afterward into the butter at arm'staining only so long as she invents-when length without attracting any sort of notice. she borrows she is dull. Refinement and good-breeding are with us the exception, and not the rule. We are very neglectful of obvious social duties. We do not carry letters of introduction when we go abroad, and pay no attention to them when presented to us. "In America you may have fifty letters of introduction, and not one of them bring you a particle of civility, or sometimes even a returning call." Teresina forgot to inquire whether certain scandals and singular facts connected with her history did not have something to do with the unwillingness to respond to her letters of introduction.

It seems, according to this excellent ob-
server, that we never visit at a friend's
house for a week or month or so.
It is rare
to find guests staying at any house; "if you
do, be sure they are paying for their board.
Even when the guest is a member of the
family, and makes no actual payment, a good
deal of barter has to be practised to make

A marriage in America, we learn, is a considerably drier piece of business than a funeral elsewhere. "The ceremony usually takes place early in the morning-at six or seven o'clock-and bride and bridesmaids go shivering to the altar, in the cold semi-twilight, in what they call their 'traveling suits,' and armed with large umbrella, overshoes, water-proofs, and all the disagreeable appurtenances for setting out on a long journey. Their breakfast is a scramble of hot dough, beefsteaks, or some other 'hunting' breakfast fare of the time of Queen Elizabeth. After the ceremony there is no feast, no drinking of the bride's health and groom's happiness, no blushing bridesmaids, no fun or festivity whatever." It has been customary for the marriage ceremony to take place in the house, but it is just becoming fashionable to have it performed in a church with veils, bridesmaids, etc.

Gambling, according to Teresina, is one

of the great vices of Americans. Husbands and wives live very much apart in America, and the reason for this is certainly a very peculiar one. It seems that every married woman in this unhallowed land wants to keep a boarding-house. So the wife, we are gravely told, "goes to her mother, and speculates on her own account in a boarding-house, if she can succeed in inducing any gentleman to lend her the money, for the loan of which he takes out his board." This wonderful and inscrutable custom has of course covered the land with boarding - houses, and willfully corrupted the morals of the people.

Newspapers and newspaper editors do not escape our vivacious critic. "Sensational articles, calculated to provoke shooting or whipping, are written as a mere specu lation to sell the paper. The writer knows that if he can produce an affray hot enough, he will sell so many more editions of his paper. He takes the risk of being shot or flogged himself, and sits in his office with a loaded revolver near his inkstand. The indignant sufferer from the article walks in inquires if he is the writer of the obnoxious article. The editor places his pen in his ear, lays his hand on his revolver, and admits he is."

We have only glanced over a few chapters in Teresina's remarkable production, but the rich bits we have gathered may prompt us to return to it at another time. Let us meanwhile remind Teresina, inasmuch as she has given so frankly her opinion of Americans, that there are people here who have certain recollections of Lady Avonmore. Would she like their opinion of an English adventuress?

This book has just been published in England, and is not reprinted here. An early copy of the work has enabled us to lay these refreshing and entertaining extracts before our readers.

THE name of "Lord Darnley" calls up to the mind a certain weak and irresolute young man of royal blood, who lived several centuries ago, and who, it can now scarcely be doubted, was perfidiously done to death by his fair and faithless wife, Mary Queen of the Scots. Of a very different character, evidently, is the nobleman of the same title who graces the present generation with his exist

ence.

one of their number, to the inspector of cavalry. Before his reply came, Lord Darnley suddenly resigned his own command of the regiment. He retired with a special grudge against Captain Nicholson, the officer who had reported to the inspector. In Captain Nicholson's troop were serving several of Lord Darnley's tenants. All of these but one, instigated by their landlord, left the troop in a body. The one exception, a Mr. Lake, was stubborn enough to refuse to espouse a quarrel of Lord Darnley's, merely because that nobleman rented him a farm; whereupon he was notified that at next quarter-day his lease would not be renewed. In short, Mr. Lake, simply because he would not leave the royal service at the nod of Lord Darnley, was deprived of his farm.

No better instance of the feudal notions of some great English proprietors could be given than this. Lord Darnley evidently looks upon his tenants as still his vassals; and he carries his baronial instincts to the extent of rendering himself amenable to a certain awkward law, which forbids "the seducing of any person serving under her majesty's colors from his duty and obedience." Should he be brought to book for his exercise of feudal authority in a court of justice, he will undoubtedly look upon himself as a martyr to the "leveling tendencies of the times." Nor, if we can believe the utterances of English journals, can this instance of lordly despotism be regarded as exceptional.

The Spectator confesses that "thousands of great landlords agree with Lord Darnley." A man who hires a farm of one of these magnates, according to their creed, not only is expected to keep it in good order, to pay a certain rent, and to render it up in the same condition as he found it, but to vote for the landlord's candidates, to resent the landlord's quarrels, to attend the landlord's church, and generally to conform to the landlord's wishes in his political, religious, and social conduct. As a provincial paper says: "The earl really does not go far enough to do justice to his own pretensions. He ought to issue a code of regulations, telling his tenants whom they might visit, what they might eat and drink, what recreations they might pursue, and what animosities and friendships they might cultivate." Yet, after the pitiable spectacle pre

There is, at least, nothing weak-minded or vacillating in the present Earl of Darnley. He has just emerged from patri-sented in the present case by Lord Darnley's cian obscurity into a rather uncomfortable light of notoriety. It would appear that the noble lord was not long ago the colonel of the West Kent Yeomanry, a body of mounted militia. In consequence of a quarrel with some of his subordinate officers, he peremptorily requested them to resign. Instead of doing so, they referred the matter, through

tenants, he cannot perhaps be very severely blamed. They so eagerly and gratefully accept their serfdom that they certainly deserve nothing better than to be buffeted about by a lord who believes in his divine right to keep their consciences and dictate their rules of conduct. They address a letter to him, in which they humbly thank him for deigning

to explain his reasons for leaving the regi ment, avow themselves only too glad to show their loyalty by following him, express their shocked amazement at the audacious obstinacy of the tenant who dared to remain in service after Lord Darnley had left it, and hasten to disavow any sympathy with that rebellious person. Truly, this picture betrays a state of things in the English rural districts which glib writers will find it difficult to gloss over or apologize for; and herein we discern some reason for that discontent at the condition of the land-laws which is fast growing to formidable proportions.

His holiness the pope has recently given utterance in favor of "hard money." In an interview accorded to some devout French pilgrims, he uttered a few sage reflections upon the material prosperity of France; and took occasion to remark approvingly upon the fact that "sounding money circulates in that country," and to contrast this state of things favorably with that of other countries, where "sounding money disappears, to give place to another currency, which gives no sound save that produced by a great mass of paper thrown violently on to a hard table or on to the pavement." Whether this was spoken ex cathedra and is therefore to be taken as infallible, we cannot tell, as the Ecumenical Fathers have not yet definitely decided what ex cathedra really means; but it would appear that hard money in France, and her consequent prosperity, have some curi ous connection with pilgrimages to miraculous shrines, the bountiful outpouring of Peter's pence, and the busy establishing of religious schools. The argument seems to be that the road to specie payments is that bordered by shrines and dotted with the monuments of pious deeds. Pilgrimages are processions not alone toward the heavenly gates, but toward worldly wealth. Then it is not alone the Christian faith, but that special branch of it of which Pio Nono is the infal lible interpreter, which carries material prosperity as its attributes and gifts. Unfortu nately, however, for the acceptance of the pope as a financial authority, it happens that those nations which are financially the sound. est are incorrigibly Protestant or Greek; while those which are most deeply sunk in "the great mass of paper" currency are either Catholic or Mohammedan. We leave our own case out of sight, as, though finance is just now with us a sorely perplexing prob lem, we cannot suppose ourselves in a permanent condition of "soft-money" currency. But England, Russia, and Germany, are the three soundest and most solvent nations in Europe; next after them come Holland and Denmark. On the other hand, Spain, Italy, and Austria, are in the paper-money state, and

likely to remain so; Turkey is downright bankrupt; while the credit of the South American Catholic countries is at a provokingly low ebb. Religion undoubtedly has a very important though an indirect influence upon human business affairs. It promotes commercial as well as social morality where its influence makes itself vigorously felt; and even the practical economist will not refuse to admit that commercial morality is the soundest basis of commercial prosperity. The pope is shrewd enough to avail himself of an appeal to self-interest to induce schismatics to return to the true fold and the faithful to cleave to their faith; but the French pilgrims, were they not the soberest and most unreasoning of devotees, must have laughed gently to themselves when told that the reason why gold napoleons are plenty in France may be found in the penny contributions to the Holy Father, and the journeys made by the devout to the shrines of Paray and Lourdes.

THE book-reviewer of the London Spectator, in noticing Mr. Southworth's "Four Thousand Miles of African Travel," is perplexed at the oddly-compounded name of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, Jr., of New York, apparently thinking that Gouverneur has some sort of gubernatorial significance. Mr. Julian Hawthorne writes to the Spectator to set the reviewer right: explaining that Gouverneur is a frequently-recurring family name in New York. But Mr. Hawthorne might have gone a little farther, and reminded the Spectator reviewer that the name of a man so well known in American history as Gouverneur Morris —who figured in our Continental Congress, who was our agent in England during the Revolution, who was afterward our embassador to France, and later a United States Senator, who was actively concerned in many political movements-ought to be known to an educated Englishman. It is true that educated and other Englishmen are prone to disdain all knowledge of what they call our local celebrities; but limitations in these matters quite as often arise from the stubbornness and ignorance of the outside world as from any necessary boundary to the individual's fame.

WHO invented the piano forte? The Florentines, having caught the centennial infection, propose to commemorate, next year, the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of a certain Cristofori, for whom they demand the honor of having given to the world the most elaborate and perfect of musical instruments. But Cristofori's claim is not of the clearest, and is very earnestly disputed. The fact probably is, that to no single inventor do we owe the piano. It gradually

tent, and for the most part "caviare to the general." The purpose of the present work

was to extract from this mass of literature

just such facts as seemed likely to prove useful in enabling the public to reach some conclusion upon the many currency questions which press for solution, or at least to understand their principles; and Professor Jevons may have the satisfaction of feeling that, if he has not closed the debate on the Bank Charter Act, or on "intrinsic" and "representative" value, he has made it easier than ever before for the wayfaring man to comprehend the real function of money, and the conditions with which it must comply. And, after all, money is like monogamy its explanation is to be sought not in metaphysics but in history. Gold and silver have come to be universally accepted as the best circulating medium, not by a process of reasoning or an evolution of consciousness, but by the long experience of the race, extending over thousands of years, and embracing a trial of skins, corn, oxen, leather, wampum, cowries, copper, bronze, iron, and lead, that they most nearly meet the essential requisites of money.

grew out of a number of successive improve- | private individuals, is quite appalling in ex-
ments on the ancient stringed instruments.
The old lute, and spinnet, and harpsichord,
were played upon with the fingers; the pian
is also stringed, and the main difference be-
tween it and the harp in mechanical principle
is the substitution of the "jacks," or ham-
mers, which strike upon the strings instead
of twanging them. Who thought of this
idea of the jack and the keys by which the
hand communicates with it? He, perhaps,
has the best right to the credit of the inven-
tion; but, whether it was the Bohemian
Schroeter, or the French Marius, or the Vene-
tian Cristofori, it seems impossible now to
determine. A disputed invention a century
old is hard to settle; even the discovery of
ether as an anesthetic agent, made within
thirty years, is involved in a maze of con-
tradictory evidence. But, even if Cristo-
fori were the inventor of the piano - forte,
Florence can scarcely claim the reflect-
ed honor; for he was of scholastic Pa-
dua. It is interesting to think that the piano
is but little over a century old, and that,
while Mozart only lived to see it coming into
vogue, Beethoven was almost the first great
composer who made use of it for purposes
of composition. What an incalculable bene-
fit the piano has been to the later maestri !

MOS

Literary.

OST readers, probably, unless warned beforehand, will take up Professor Jevons's "Money and the Mechanism of Exchange "with the expectation of finding another treatise on currency-perhaps the most bewildering subject in the entire range of the "dismal science." To such the book will bring an agreeable disappointment; for it touches scarcely at all upon abstract or theoretical questions, and is simply, as the author defines it, "a descriptive essay on the past and present monetary systems of the world, the materials employed to make money, the regulations under which coins are struck and issued, the natural laws which govern their circulation, the several modes in which they may be replaced by the use of paper documents, and finally the method in which the use of money is immensely economized by the check and clearing sys

tem

now being extended and perfected." The subject of money as a whole is a very extensive one, and the literature of it would alone form a great library. Many changes are taking place in the currencies of the world, and important inquiries have been lately instituted concerning the best mode of constituting the circulating medium. The information on the subject stored up in government Blue-books, in the reports of international committees, and in the writings of

*Money and the Mechanism of Exchange. By W. Stanley Jevons, M. A., F. R. S. International Scientific Series. Vol. xviii. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Professor Jevons begins with an amusing story of a French singer who gave a concert in the Society Islands with the understanding that she was to receive a third part of the receipts. When counted, her share was found to consist of three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, forty-four chickens, five thousand cocoa-nuts, besides considerable quantities of bananas, lemons, and oranges, which would have been a very fair return if it could have been converted into cash. Unfortunately, pieces of money were scarce in the Society Islands, and as mademoiselle could not consume any considerable portion of the receipts herself, it became necessary in the mean time to feed the pigs and poultry with the fruit. Homely as this anecdote is, there could hardly be a better illustration at once of the conditions of barter (the primary form of exchange), and of the usefulness of a standard currency; and from this initial point we are led step by step through the early history of money, the substitution of the metals for other materials, the various systems of metallic money, the "battle of the standards," and the growing development of representative money, such as under- weight coins, promissory-notes, bank-notes, checks, bills of exchange, and the various other "credit documents" by which, in modern commerce, the use of actual money is dispensed with. Much attention is given to technical matters relating to coinage, such as alloys, the size and wear of coins, the methods of counting them, and the best plan to prevent counterfeiting. In treating of the materials of coins the professor cites the tradition that Lycurgus obliged the Lacedæmonians to use iron money, in order that its weight might be a check upon overmuch trading, and remarks that, if this rule were adopted at the present day, a penny (English money) would weigh about a pound, and a ton of iron would represent a five-pound note. On the other hand, gold and silver are very awkward for small currency. A silver penny weighs seven and

a half grains, and a gold one would weigh only half a grain. The octagonal quarterdollar tokens, circulated in California, weigh less than four grains each, and are so thin that they can almost be blown away. The suitability of gold and silver for the higher values has, however, been recognized everywhere; and the only open question in coinage is as to the best material for fractional Bronze is better than copper, and currency. the alloy of one part of nickel with three of copper that has been adopted for the onecent pieces of the United States, the smaller coins of Belgium, and the ten and five pfennig pieces of the new German coinage, would be excellent but for the variableness of the price of nickel. If steel could be prevented from rusting, it would be one of the best possible materials; but Professor Jevons thinks it likely that some new and entirely satisfactory material for fractional money will shortly be found-perhaps an alloy of manganese.

Naturally, the largest space is devoted to the English monetary system and to English experience, but the facts marshaled are of universal application. A good deal of attention, moreover, is given to the problem of international coinage-the adoption of which, the author thinks, would be the most important step in the path of progress that the race could take, except the adoption of an international language. Professor Jevons thinks that the decimal system will, in the end, prevail, if only from the hold which it has taken on the world; but he candidly admits its defects, and shows that the duodecimal system is in various ways more simple and convenient. As to the steps necessary to secure an international money, he thinks the most important that could be taken now would be the assimilation of the American dollar to the French five-franc piece-a change which would involve a reduction of less than two grains in the amount of gold which the dollar contains. "There is little doubt," he says, "that the adhesion of the American Government to the proposals of the Congress of 1863 would give the holding turn to the metric system of weights, measures, and moneys. It is quite likely that it might render the dollar the future universal unit. The fact that the dollar is already the monetary unit of many parts of the world, gives it large odds. In becoming assimilated to the French écu, American gold would be capable of circulation in Europe, or wherever the French napoleon has hitherto been accepted."

In studying a language we begin with the grammar before we attempt to write or read; and there is much to be learned about money before entering upon those abstruse questions which barely admit of decided answers. Professor Jevons's work furnishes an elementary grammar of the subject; and if it could have a circulation proportionate to its merits, that murky atmosphere of ignorance in which visionary financial schemes are enabled to flourish would soon be cleared.

Ir is plain, from the "Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics " (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.), that Mr. Bayard. Taylor, as a poet, considers himself at issue with his fellows;

and the tone of most of the poems is alternately one of remonstrance and defiance. Like the singer of the "Earthly Paradise," he was "born out of his due time; " but he is not, as Morris is, content to dwell apart in a world created and peopled by his own art, but frets under the restraints and limitations of unsympathetic and uncongenial surroundings. The "burden of the day" is heavy upon him because he will not shape himself after the patterns that are wrought "in our common mills of thought;" and his only consolation comes from the hope that, if he wins in his attempt to throw off the burden, those who imposed the restrictions will awaken and thank him because he defied. Now, in a case of this kind, there is always a question whether it is the time or the poet that is out of joint; and it is certainly odd to encounter such a complaint coming from Mr. Taylor. We had always supposed that his poetry took much of its interest, as it certainly takes much of its popularity, from its falling in with the time-from its drawing its inspiration, its subjects, and its sentiments, from the prevailing tastes and feelings of his audience. How else account for the considerable measure of success which he has achieved? And surely Mr. Taylor has no reason to be dissat isfied with the reception accorded his work both by the critics and the public. It seems to us, in truth, that the time has been peculiarly propitious to Mr. Taylor's muse. In a period of lofty dramatic or intensely lyrical poetry a period favorable to spontaneous, natural singing—he could hardly have hoped to gain a hearing; whereas, now, few American poets are more certain of a wide and admiring audience.

The present collection contains most of the miscellaneous poetry which Mr. Taylor has written since 1864. The first group is entitled "Home Pastorals," and contains five pieces: a proem, an epilogue, and three longer poems entitled, respectively, "May - Time," "August," and " November." These are for the most part descriptive, as pastoral poetry should be, and are written in flowing, leisurely hexameters, a difficult measure, which Mr. Taylor manages extremely well. The tone

is pitched very low, and there is little attempt at pictorial embellishment; occasionally, however, we come upon a felicitous bit like the following, descriptive of November's advent:

"Silent are now the flute of spring and the clarion of summer,

As they had never been blown: the wail of a dull Miserere

Heavily sweeps the woods, and, stifled, dies in the valleys."

The second group, entitled "Ballads," comprises six pieces, all of which are good— interesting in subject and spirited in style. "John Reed" is a peculiarly impressive picture of a life unblessed by love, and slowly withering to the root; and "The Old Pennsylvania Farmer" is a striking and lifelike portrait. The instinctive conservatism of old age has seldom been more accurately and amusingly depicted. Napoleon at Gotha" is a spirited rendering of a well-known historic incident.

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Of the "Lyrics," several are deformed by

97 66

the fretfulness of which we spoke at the beginning of our notice, and in others the topic is too subtile to find truly lyrical expression. The skill in versification is, perhaps, their most noticeable feature; though "The Two Homes," The Sleeper," and "Run Wild," are both pleasing and musical. All of these are too long to quote; so we select, instead, the following stanza from "Summer Night" -a good example of the author's easy command of rhythm and rhyme:

66 ADAGIO.

"Something came with the falling dusk,
Came, and quickened to soft unrest:
Something floats in the linden's musk,
And throbs in the brook on the meadow's
breast.

Shy Spirit of Love, awake, awake!
All things feel thee,

And all reveal thee:

The night was given for thy sweet sake.
Toil slinks aside, and leaves to thee the land;
The heart beats warmer for the idle hand:

The timid tongue unlearns its wrong,
And speech is turned to song;
The shaded eyes are braver;

And every life, like flowers whose scent is dumb
Till dew and darkness come,

Gives forth a tender savor.

Oh, each so lost in all, who may resist
The plea of lips unkissed,

Or, hearing such a strain,
Though kissed a thousand times, kiss not again!"

Mr. Taylor's muse seems to need the spur of a great occasion, and the "Odes" undoubtedly present the finest poetry in the volume. "The Gettysburg Ode," in particular, is a very noble poem, and will take a place but little below Lowell's "Commemoration Ode," in the patriotic song of the nation. The fine "Ode to Goethe," read at the memorial dinner, was reproduced at the time in the columns of the JOURNAL, and the echo of its exalted straius can hardly have faded as yet from the minds of our readers.

It was a happy thought on the part of Miss Johnson to adopt the Catskill Mountains as the locale of her fairy stories; for the necromancy of Washington Irving has already rendered them enchanted ground, and nothing is too marvelous for belief concerning the region which Rip Van Winkle has consecrated to mythology. Her fairies, it is true, are not of the familiar goblin brood, and their ancestry could easily be traced back to Robin Goodfellow and his merry elfs; but we can readily believe that previous writers have overlooked part of the population of our wonder-land, and Nip, and Puff, and Rapp, and Laurel Queen, and the rest, will find a cheerful welcome to the Catskill Valhalla.

The plan of Miss Johnson's book is like that of the Arabian Nights-a cluster of stories within a story, the wildest flights of the imagination being linked to the homely incidents of every-day life and facts familiar to us all. A little boy, named Job, left alone in a cottage on the mountains while his grandfather went to the village for provisions, is snowed in on Christmas-eve by an unexpected snow-storm; and, as he hovered close to the fire in his solitude, the great clock in the

The Catskill Fairies. By Virginia W. Johnson. Illustrated by Alfred Fredericks. New York: Harper & Brothers.

corner, and the murmuring shell on the mantel - piece, and the Angora cat on the hearth, told him strange stories of adventure by land and sea, while the winter fairies and the summer fairies, the fairies of the water-fall and glen, of oak-tree, laurel, and fir, disclosed their mysteries for his entertainment. On Christmas-day Job was rescued; and, on his hinting to his grandfather the sights he had seen and the stories he had heard, that practical person told him he had been dreaming. Job, however, would not accept this explanation; and no more will the little folks, whom these "Catskill Fairies" are sure to delight.

The book is beautifully printed and bound, and Mr. Fredericks's illustrations are fully as pleasing as the text. If the modern taste for art has extended to fairy - land, Queen Puff will surely appoint him courtartist.

THE combination of sound scientific instruction with an exciting and plausible story is not an easy one, and we cannot say that Mr. Trowbridge has been entirely successful in his attempt to make it in "The Young Surveyor" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.). There is plenty of instruction in it, no doubt, lucidly and ingeniously put, and the story is highly interesting; but the two are mingled without being mixed, and we are afraid most boys will skip the explanations of Jack's surveying achievements in their eagerness to reach his encounters with old Peakslow, his adventures with Radcliff, and his gradual reformation of the Betterson boys. They cannot read even these portions of the story, however, without acquiring at least a modicum of useful knowledge; and the tone of the book, which, after all, is the most important point, is thoroughly wholesome and invigorating. Sensible boys will have little reason to complain as long as they have the opportunity, now and then, to add such a book to their collection of wellthumbed literary treasures.

There are many illustrations in the volnme, and most of them are good, but the artist's vignette of "Lord Betterson" is an absurdly inappropriate travesty of Mr. Trowbridge's portrait of that backwoods "aristocrat."

MR. JOHNSON concludes his "Little Classics" with a volume of "Authors," containing biographical sketches of all the authors represented in the series. As there are more than a hundred and fifty of these, the sketches are necessarily very brief, and little is attempted in the way of criticism. Addison observes in the opening paper of the Spectator that "a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author;" and it is to the furnishing of such particulars, with others of a chronological and bibliographical character, that Mr. Johnson chiefly addresses himself. The sketches are fairly good of their kind, and will prove serviceable to such

as have no cyclopædia or biographical dictionary at hand. A valuable feature of the volume is the general index to the entire series.

THE second volume of the new edition of Hawthorne's works (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.) contains "The House of the Seven Gables," one of the most fascinating romances ever written. We have already spoken of the exquisite style in which this edition is published, but each additional volume affords a new pleasure to the eye. Nothing could exceed its neatness, daintiness, and convenience.

THE witty Charles Monselet-one of the men who know best how to say nothing quite agreeably-has just brought out in Paris his "Années de Gaîté," a book certified to be full of fun and of good spirits. It is a collection of fanciful stories, in which, notwithstanding all that is fanciful, Parisian existence is sketched from the life; not serious Parisian life, indeed, but such as we see on the Boulevard and in the Bois. Certain of the morsels which compose it contain ideas which would do well on the stage. The Debats cites onea little story, "The Sorrows of a Borrower"— in which one gentleman constitutes himself guardian of another, who on the morrow is to lend him a few hundred pounds, and the wouldbe borrower goes so far as to fight a duel with some one who had cause of quarrel with the lender, lest the lender himself should, by death, be incapacitated from lending.

THE London Athenæum is pleased to commend Miss Alcott's "Eight Cousins" highly. It says that Miss Alcott's stories are thoroughly healthy and full of racy fun and humor, and ends its criticism as follows: " Although there are seven boy cousins, one or two of whom are quite men in their own eyes, and although there is a lovely, fascinating little girl, who grows up to be a charming young lady, there is not one breath of precocious sentiment, and the frank, healthy, cousinly element is not disturbed by a single hint of love or lovers to come hereafter, and this we take to be an example which might be followed with great advantage in many of our own stories for the young, which are neither more nor less than diminutive and diluted novels."

A WRITER in Temple Bar assails the poetry of the present era in a very truculent if not discriminating fashion. He says: "If we rid ourselves of a certain glamour which its usually high coloring sheds around its performances, and of a certain amount of unhealthy sympathy with it which a contemporary can hardly resist, we shall find that, substantially, the poetry of the Romantic School, the poetry which essentially breathes the air and expresses the feelings of the nineteenth century, is thin, hazy, unsubstantial, deficient in good sense as well as in definiteness, wanting in sobriety and measured judgment, too fine by half in its dress, morbid, unsatisfactory, and inadequate. It does not satisfy. It excites; at least it excites us. But whether it will excite a future generation is another question. It is ornate, excessive in adornment, outrageous in expres-. sion, forced, odd, quaint, spasmodic, and sometimes positively epileptic. It is wanting in backbone, or rather indulges in those painful explosions and contortions which accompany certain forms of spinal disease. It is very glowing, but it gives no light. It dazzles, but does not illuminate. It cannot be said of it, as Cicero says of the true orator,

'Clarescit urendo.' It does not brighten as it burns. It seeks to run through the gamut of the universe, but it has not yet discovered a concord. It is a perfect Chinese concert of sounds. Shelley is its most pronounced type, and by far its greatest ornament; and ninetenths of Shelley's poetry is a diseased wail and a shapeless cry that does not reach the gods, and does not benefit man."

THE Saturday Review characterizes the literature of spiritualism very plainly and pointedly. It says: "The chief thing that must strike any rational mind on taking up the literature of what is called spiritism' is its intense and irredeemable dreariness. Weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable as the courses of this world may have been pronounced, none but the veriest lunatic would think to better himself by flying to one the course of which is likely to be such as the mediums have to tell us of. Any thing more stupid than the doings, more vapid than the talk, more pointless than the whole life which goes on in the so-called world of spirits, it is not in the power of man to conceive. No wonder that the heroes in the Elysian Fields had rather, as they told Telemachus, serve as the veriest bondsmen in the world of daylight and the earth than reign over the shades, if the unearthly abode of the blessed corresponded in the slightest degree with the melancholy blank which seems to make up 'mediumistic' existence at its best. Universal and unmitigated imbecility certainly seems to be the state to which what are put forward as the higher class of spirits' are one and all reduced. As for the lower orders, the wickedness of their old Adam finds vent in pranks and mystifications too childishly inane to be accused of serious mischief. We never heard, at least, of any thing worse than pulling unbelievers' beards in the dark, or hitting them over the head with a banjo."

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A NEW drama in London, by Messrs. Palgrave Simpson and Herman Merivale, entitled "All for Her," must be of a rather composite order, according to the Athenæum. The central figure, it tells us, is taken, by permission and with acknowledgment, from Dickens; the sacrifice, which forms the main interest, recalls the "Esmond" of Thackeray; the treatment of the subject is in the manner of the elder Dumas; and the hero, remade, or at least redressed, seems at the outset compounded of equal portions of Don Cæsar de Bazan and Le Neveu du Rameau. These approximations, however, which can scarcely, except in one instance, be called resemblances, scarcely detract from the originality of a work which is nobly planned and fairly executed. There is freshness of motive enough to set against any amount of unconscious imitation, and the interest begotten during the progress of the story is equally novel and powerful.

DR. ELZE, in his new book on Shakespeare, may be said to have added something to the probability of Shakespeare's having visited Italy. It is indeed difficult to believe that the poet never himself saw those fair blue skies, beneath which so many of his creations move as beneath their native and proper canopy. The very air of Italy seems blowing through many of his scenes. And does any non-Italian work transport us into the bright, starclear South like the last act of" The Merchant of Venice?"

"M. C.," in the London Pictorial Worldasserted to be Mortimer Collins-declares Jo

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