English critic of our time would be likely to write. The breadth of the Atlantic may not be equivalent to posterity, but it certainly removes a writer from the atmosphere in which a thousand present and personal interests float, and are breathed as invisible spores. The references to American literature are perhaps as frequent and significant as Mr. Stedman's plan allowed; yet, in view of an action and reaction which are not yet balanced as they ought to be, we should be glad if the contrast which is merely hinted had been further developed. When Mr. Stedman says: "After a close examination of the minor poets of Britain, during the last fifteen years, I have formed, most unexpectedly, the belief that an anthology could be culled from the miscellaneous poetry of the United States, equally lasting and attractive with any selected from that of Great Britain;" and adds, shortly afterward: "I believe that the day is not far distant when the fine and sensitive lyrical feeling of America will swell into floods of creative song,"-we are tempted to regret his enforced omission of the links which connect the literary development of the two countries.

The leading poets of the Victorian era are treated at satisfactory length, and, in spite of the author's semi-apology, with even less of technical criticism than would be justified by the special qualities which separate them from their predecessors. They are not, however, allowed to stand isolated in their time; they are attached to the past and the probable future, and their art is not removed from its place in the total development of the race. This breadth of view is the secret of Mr. Stedman's impartiality. In the single instance where we have discovered a bit of exaggeration (page 13): "The truth is, that our school-girls and spinsters wander down the lane with Darwin, Huxley and Spencer under their arms; or, if they carry Tennyson, Longfellow and Morris, read them in the light of spectrum analysis, or test them by the economics of Mill and Bain," the fault unconsciously corrects itself, four pages later, where the author says: "In the earlier periods, when poets composed empirically, the rarest minds welcomed and honored their productions in the same spirit. But now, if they work in this way, as many still are fain, it must be for the tender heart of women or the delight of youth, since the fitter audience of thinkers, the most elevated and eager spirits, no longer find sustenance in such empty magician's food." We think, also, that Mr. Stedman somewhat overestimates the power of recent scientific development to benumb the activity of the æsthetic element in man. Huxley's shallow impertinence in regard to poetry has not yet, so far as we know, found an echo; and it is not likely that a taste inherent in the nature of man, and inseparate from his progress, can be even temporarily discouraged. The extent to which imaginative art depends upon, or is modified by, the facts or speculations of science, is still an unsettled question; even Goethe, in whom both elements existed, found it safest to hold them so

Mr.

Meanwhile, we heartily agree with Mr. Stedman that the result, in spite of all transitional struggles, will be "a fresh inspiration, expressing itself in new symbols, new imagery and beauty, suggested by the fuller truth."

Mr. Stedman's views in regard to the intellectual characteristics of our day, and the signs of a coming reaction from the present extreme of technical refinement, are both new and striking, and deserve a careful consideration. Some of these views may have been presented before, but only as scattered hints or speculations; no previous writer has given a clear, compact, and intelligent survey of the whole field. Each single figure is thus projected against the same broad background, and casts a shadow, more or less distinct, beyond its present achievement. This feature distinguishes the "Victorian Poets" from all other essays in contemporary criticism, and places its author in the foremost rank of writers, beside Mr. Lowell and Mr. Matthew Arnold. If he lacks the humor and dazzling affluence of illustration of the former, or the exquisitely molded style of the latter, he possesses qualities of equal value in the serene, judicial temper of his intellect, and the conscientious severity which enables an author to subordinate himself to his theme. serenely joyous spirit which animated antique paganism, is strikingly exemplified where, for instance, he undertakes to discuss from a Gothic point of view the objections to the nude art of the Greeks.

"We Goths," he says, "are, and have for ages been a chaste race. We abhor the loathsome nudity of Greek art. We do not want nude figures, -at least, not unless they embody some very sublime thought."

But it is the very sublimity of ancient art which constitutes its first claim to our attention; for the human form has a grandeur of its own, quite apart from the changeful beauty with which the animating spirit may invest it, and it is this simple perfection and majesty of physical manhood and womanhood which the Greeks have embodied in their sculptured gods and heroes. To judge these, then, according to our modern standard of morality, is about as absurd as it would be to blame the Athenians because they did not wear trowsers and fur-brimmed caps of Northern pattern. How much of the welldraped chastity of the Scandinavian gods may be due to climatic influences, is a question which we do not propose to discuss here, but which we submit to the author's consideration.

It may, perhaps, be unfair to censure a man like Prof. Anderson, who has undertaken an imortant work, and whose love for his subject is visible in every line he writes, because he has allowed his enthusiasm to carry him somewhat further than a cool-headed reader can comfortably follow him. It is this very enthusiasm to which we owe the book, which fills it like an invigorating, all-pervading atmosphere. In itself, enthusiasm is a most delightful literary quality, and, even with the disadvantages which, in the present case, it entails, we should be sorry to say anything to dampen or suppress it. Nevertheless, we cannot rid ourselves of the impression that the author, prompted by his laudable zeal, has claimed too much for his beloved Norse Mythology. It would in no way have detracted from its value, if, for instance, he had refrained from stating that the Odinic myths are entirely pure, and that there is no single incident to be found in them which could shock the sense of propriety of refined readers. Two or three incidents occur to us which would effectually contradict this broad

assertion.

In justice to the author, it must be added that the criticisms we have so far made, only apply to the first 115 pages of his book. As soon as he enters upon his specific task of recounting the exploits of the gods, his aggressive tone changes into one of fresh and spirited narration, and he seldom fails to fulfill the requirements of the most exacting critic. He is thoroughly versed in the Norse Saga literature, as well as in the writings of Munch, Keyser, Vigfusson, and all the modern authorities on Norse subjects, and he selects judiciously his proofs and quotations from the vast abundance of material which the researches of his Norwegian, Icelandic, and German predecessors have supplied. The importance of this labor can hardly be overestimated;

for a complete Northern Mythology has, to our knowledge, never before been published in the English language, a circumstance which must always remain a matter of wonder, when we consider the nearness of our kinship to those Norse marauders, who, after the Danish and the Norman invasion, mingled their blood with that of Anglo-Saxon England. English and French travelers, like Beamish and Xavier Marmier, few of whom have been scholars, have, from time to time, published hasty and superficial compilations of Northern myths and history; and William and Mary Howitt have, with their usual dilettanteism, concocted their miscellaneous knowledge, gathered from desultory reading of Northern authors, into a two-volume book, which has the sole merit of being written with a good intention, but is equally innocent of scholarship and literary excellence. Of course, Prof. Anderson's work is incomparably superior to the already existing books of this order, and supplies, as the saying is, an unexpressed, but nevertheless long-felt need. His analysis of the myths of the elder and younger Eddas is clear and comprehensible, and quite on a level with the similar researches of the latest interpreters. He has certainly an enviable advantage in being a successor instead of a predecessor of the eminent Sophus Bugge, whose keen, critical sagacity has opened a broad pathway for the daylight to break in upon the dim chaotic wonder-world which has long lain slumbering under the misty similes and metaphors of the Eddas; but Prof. Anderson is himself ever ready to recognize this advantage, and gives due credit to Bugge whenever he has occasion to quote him, or to profit by his scholarly insight.

We have said that the principal charm of this remarkable book consists in a certain hot-headed zeal and earnestness, an invincible literary prowess which brooks no delay and carries all hinderances before it. It is a book of thoroughly masculine fiber, and as much of a Saga as we could possibly hope for in these unepic and hypercritical times. The chapters on the Eddaic Cosmogony, and on "Norse Mythology as Material for the Use of Poets, Painters, and Sculptors," are fine specimens of vivid and entertaining narration, while showing with equal force the blind ardor of the author's partisanship. To our mind, it involves a great error to suppose that any really strong and healthy art can blossom out from a mythology which is no longer an organic part of any nation's consciousness, which, except for its historical and ethnological value, is and must be irrevocably dead.

The incorporation of Greek myths into our poetic literature was no mere artifice of poets in want of material for their song, but the inevitable result of four centuries absorbed in humanistic studies. Modern Germanic and Anglo-Saxon culture stands no longer on a national basis, although we fully agree with Prof. Anderson that it is very desirable that it should; but the plan he proposes-that poets, painters, and sculptors should substitute Gothic for Greek myths-would show on the very face of it, its artificial character, and accordingly fail to accomplish any lasting good. A poet is not a reformer and the instructor of his age; he merely utters in melodious words the voiceless sensation which trembles through the nation's nerves. He must therefore choose his similes, his meter, and, in fact, the whole material of his song from that life which is, at least, sufficiently familiar to appeal to his reader's heart, and to awaken a responsive vibration in his bosom. No one who has watched the progress of modern lyrical song (and all our modern poetry is in the deepest sense lyrical) can have failed to notice the gradual disappearance of the mythical element; and we should do mischief instead of good if we were to interfere forcibly with this healthy development. As long, however, as enlightened readers derive their earliest culture from classical sources, Jupiter and Venus and Cupid will maintain their places in our song, and no hasty attempt to dethrone them is likely to succeed. As poetic symbols, they have a definite meaning to the present generation, while Odin, Freya, and Balder are now little more than sounds, which it would take at least a century to domesticate in our language.

Again, whether the heroes of the Northern myths are adapted as subjects for plastic art, is a subject worthy of serious consideration. That they are eminently picturesque, and therefore excellent themes for the painter, no one will question; but that serene repose, and that physical equilibrium, which are the primary conditions of sculpture, are almost directly opposed to the spirit of the Gothic civilization.

We hope that we have already expressed with sufficient emphasis our appreciation of the great amount of solid and valuable labor which is to be found in the present volume; and, if we have dwelt upon what we conceived to be its deficiencies rather than its excellences, we do not wish thereby to indicate that the former predominate over the latter. Prof. Anderson, we understand, is yet a young man, and has but recently made his début in literature. Even his errors are of a warm-blooded, masculine kind, and show a startling fertility of mind, which will make them, in the eyes of the great majority of readers, far preferable to cool and timid correctness.

Flagg's "Birds and Seasons of New England."

ONE of the most appreciative, unaffected, and, we might say, "old-fashioned" writers upon natural and rural themes that New England has produced is Wilson Flagg, whose second book is now before us (J. R. Osgood & Co.). Some hasty readers might be more than half disposed to add the epithets slow and commonplace, but, on further examination, they would see that these words do not apply. True, our author's pages are in a low key; and, if they are not uniformly fresh and graphic, on the other hand, they have few of the current literary vices of flippancy, smartness, and headiness; while there is throughout his book a sweet dignity, a bloom of simple, unsophisticated manhood and a healthful objectiveness, that are truly refreshing. Mr. Flagg does not belong to the Thoreau school of writers

and observers of nature. Undoubtedly a little of their alertness and penetration would heighten and improve his flavor; but then we have not to lament in him their asceticisms, their intellectual somersaults, and their interminable preaching. He is a careful and loving observer of the birds and seasons, and neither seeks in his discourses about them to startle by the novelty of his facts or the antithesis of his style. Indeed, he is quite old-fashioned, as we have intimated. Many of his dissertations upon the beauties of Nature-upon flowers, morning, the seasons, the songs of birds, etc., read not a little like the pieces in the school Readers of thirty years ago; yet there is a quiet charm and truthfulness about them that is undeniable. He reminds us of St. Pierre and White of Selborne, more than of any modern author.

His book is a large one, containing nearly 500 pages, but the chapters are all short and on a great variety of subjects. Some of his titles are most suggestive, and set the fancy playing without further words, as "Rocks,” “Water Scenery," "The Haunts of Flowers," " Picturesque Animals,” “Old Roads," "Simples and Simplers," "The Music of Birds," "Angling," " Birds of the Garden and Orchard," "Birds of the Night," "Clouds," " Ruins," etc., etc. In some of his essays, notably those upon the seasons, March, April, May, etc., he does not get quite as close to his subject as we like; there are not enough characteristic touches to keep up the interest. Indeed, to write upon the many phases of our brilliant and many-colored year, and know what to say and what to leave unsaid, is the most difficult of tasks. Each month has its own physiognomy; and to bring that out in a few bold strokes, to seize upon and disentangle the master forms and impressions, is what Mr. Flagg has not done so well as he has done certain other things. His July, August, September, etc., pieces are a little vague and ineffectual; but his chapters upon "The Field and Garden," "Simples and Simplers," "The Flight of the Wood-Nymphs,” “Old Houses," "Old Roads," and kindred themes, are most excellent. Especially felicitous is that part of the first-named piece in which he describes his visit to the garden of an old lady who had invited him to see her flowers. With the most thoughtful courtesy, and the most ready and cheerful botany, he found something to praise even in the weeds which the old lady apologized for, and which her duties as housekeeper had left her no time to keep down-the burdock, rag-weed, the gill, the sandwort, the euphobia, etc.-and pointed out so many beauties of form and color in these interlopers that his hostess felt prouder of her garden than

ever.

Mr. Flagg has been long known as a writer upon our birds, and has done much to popularize the science of ornithology in this country. He has something to say about nearly all our birds, with some good-tempered allusions to the hair-splitting, or rather feather-splitting of recent classifiers. Of the Meadow-Lark he says: "This bird is no longer, as formerly, a Lark. Originally an Alanda, he has since been an Oriolus, an Icterus, a Cacicus, and a tities, and is now a Sturnella magna." Speaking of the introduction into this country of the English House Sparrow, he finds consolation in the thought that, "since our people are resolutely bent on the destruction of our native birds, it may be fortunate that there exists a foreign species of such a character that, like the white-weed and the witch-grass, after being once introduced, they cannot by any possible human efforts be extirpated. When all our native species are gone, we may be happy to hear the unmusical chatter of the House Sparrow, and gladly watch them and protect them, as we should, if all the human race had perished but our single self, welcome the society of orang-outangs."

In such passages our author shows more sprightliness than is habitual with him.

The most valuable part of Mr. Flagg's contribution to ornithology is in his treatment of the songs 'of our common birds, and his success in transcribing them upon the gamut. Evidently a musician himself, he brings a skilled ear to the task of reporting the music of field and grove. Certain species of songsters, he says, have a theme, and the song of every individual of that species is a fantasia constructed upon this theme. The Song-Sparrow and Robin are good examples of this class. The Bobolink, on the other hand, has no theme. "Birds," he says, "do not dwell steadily upon one note at any time. They are constantly sliding and quavering, and their songs are full of pointed notes."

Our author contents himself with the bird in the bush, and uses neither gun nor glass. It is owing to this fact, we think, that he mistakes the Woodthrush for the Hermit-thrush. At least, the song which he describes and then ascribes to the Hermit,

answers to that of the Wood-thrush very accurately. The song of the Hermit, has not the long pauses which he notes; neither is it liquid and sonorous, but wild and ethereal.

The Wood-thrush also has the habit of singing at noonday, which Mr. Flagg ascribes to the Hermit, while the latter sings at twilight with the Veery. It is not an easy matter to correct Nuttall in his descriptions and identifications of the songs of our birds, and Mr. Flagg errs in supposing Nuttall means the Hermit when he speaks of the Songthrush, and of its note as the " sound of ai-ro-ee, peculiarly liquid and followed by a trill."

We have not Nuttall before us, but we feel sure he ❘ means the Wood-thrush. It looks also as if our author had credited the Veery with more than his due; and as if he were really listening to the Hermit, when he thinks he is hearing the mere simple flutings of this bird.

Our author does injustice to the Cow-bunting in saying it has no song. Can it be that so good an observer has never remarked in spring this bird perched on the top of a tree with two or more females in rusty faded black beside him, pouring out at short intervals his peculiar liquid, glassy notes with a motion and effort like that of a hen when she lets the wind off her crop?

Mr. Flagg speaks disparagingly also of the note

sharp and unmusical, and like the words chip-churee. Though usually happy in rendering bird notes into syllables, he misses it in this instance. It has been reserved, not for an ornithologist, but for a poet to put the peculiar and musical note of this bird of the meadows and marshes into a word. In Emerson's "May Day" occurs this line:

"The Redwing flutes his o-ka-lee,"

which, as is usual with him, is precisely the 'right word."

Mr. Flagg advances a new theory in regard to the drumming of the partridge or grouse, averring unqualifiedly that the sound is produced, not by the bird beating the air and the log or rock with its wings, but "by striking the shoulders of his wings together, over his back, as the common Cock frequently does before he crows, and as the male Pigeon does when, after dalliance with his mate, he flies out exultingly a short distance from his perch."

This is contrary to the universal belief, and, we believe, contrary to the fact. The present writer has frequently had a good view of the grouse when in the act of drumming, and has never seen the bird elevate its wings sufficiently to strike them together over its back. On the contrary, it beats its own sides and breast after fully inflating itself. The sound produced by the Cock or Pigeon striking its wings together is a sharp snap, while the drumming of the Grouse is a soft, muffled, hollow sound, much resembling the whirr it makes in taking flight.

Since we are picking flaws in these pleasant pages, we will remind Mr. Flagg that the Cicada or har

vest-fly is not a nocturnal insect as he states on page 322, but rather a midday one, whose sharp, brassy, whirring sound is very characteristic of the heats of midsummer; and that the nocturnal "piper" he refers to and aptly styles "the nightingale of insects," is a delicate, pale-green creature, closely allied to the "Katydids." Its lulling, soothing, monotonous refrain is a characteristic of late summer and early fall, as is the multitudinous piping of the small frogs characteristic of the spring.

"God's Word Through Preaching."

THE foundation of the Lyman Beecher lectureship on preaching, at the Yale Theological Seminary, has already resulted in three volumes by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, which are of unequaled value and practical usefulness. To these there is now added a fourth, by the Rev. John Hall, D. D., of this city. Dr. Hall's training and temper of mind and spirit are in many ways completely unlike those of his predecessor. He approaches his subject from a different point of view. Mr. Beecher's preacher is first, last, and all the time a man, and nothing but a man, among men,-in no way different from his fellow-men, except as his position gives him other opportunities, and, therefore, other duties and privileges, than theirs. With Dr. Hall, the thought of the ministry as a divinely appointed office in the