...

two-thirds of paternal love is pure pride, and the remaining third, not seldom, pure egotism." This is almost too absurd for contradiction; history is crowded with facts which contradict it, and the single instance of Sir Thomas More and his daughter Margaret is sufficient to refute the author's flippant and ignorant assumptions. But the few simple principles which should govern the parent's treatment of the child are set forth with a directness and clearness that must be effective. "To be just is the very first lesson that a parent requires to learn."

66

period of New England history which is authority. The narrative, therefore, properly
treated in this volume, - the period which enough, is confined to her career, the author
lies between the downfall of Andros and the digressing at intervals to view the condition of
transfer of Gov. Belcher from Massachusetts the other colonies. We cannot follow him as
to New Jersey. Hardly any element of he traces with watchful eye and robust judg-
trouble and discomfort was wanting in the ment the progress of events, political, mili-
life of the colonists. Wars with the Indians tary, social, and religious, through a half
and the French, co-operating under the guid-century of colonial life; but we must express
ance of Jesuit ecclesiastics, were almost inces- our hearty admiration for the untiring re-
sant; taxes for the maintenance of military search which is evidenced on every page, for
organizations and the prosecution of usually the generally well-considered opinions which
fruitless military enterprises, exhausted their he gives out, and the wonderful acuteness
meagre resources; local political feuds, and which characterizes his judgment of men. As
the ever-increasing desire of independent civil ladies are said to place the most important
existence, engendered personal and partizan matter in the postscripts of their letters, the
quarrels; so that their state under William author has chosen to enrich his pages with
the Third was even worse than it had been profuse and pertinent notes, which are often
under the despotic Andros.
so agreeable that one wishes for the moment
that there were more of them and less of the
text. Many of the early pages are filled with
accounts of the Indian wars, and of the pom-

The author brings out in such prominence as has never before been given to it, the watchful but malignant jealousy entertained

Of the

One of the most enjoyable of the six sermons is that entitled "Benevolence or Beneficence?" in which the difference between the two words, so often confounded, good intentions with good deeds,—is shrewdly pointed out. In My Brother's Keeper" the reader will find an exposition of the trite saying that "charity begins at home," based on a consideration of the respective needs of by a majority of the people of Massachusetts pous, but often futile, campaigns against the Booriaboola-Gha, and one's own neighbor- of the royal governors that were sent out to French possessions. Despite the tragical conhood. "There is work enough in the world rule over them; and a series of sketches, show-ditions which called them out one can hardly for all," says the author; "innumerable ing the respective attitudes of these two par- help laughing over the formidable details of 'brothers' — and very few who are fit, in any ties through nearly fifty years, would exhibit these expeditions, and the boastful promises sense, to be their 'keepers.' But let not this vividly enough the history of New England of their leaders, in comparison with their interesting black or brown brother far away, for that period. It was the same spirit that almost invariably ignominious events. shut out from our sight the white brother who set the Council and the House in dogged hos- witchcraft delusion, Dr. Palfrey gives the stands at our very door." If there were no tility to almost every measure of the royal best concise history that we have ever seen; other thought but this in the volume, it would governors, and especially to all requests to and his explanation, or perhaps we may say deserve the careful attention of every phil- vote these officials a fixed salary, which, only justification, of it is so admirable that we feel anthropic mind. The heathen to-day, are a few years later, found expression in the bound to quote it: within our own bounds, and the principle of sterner form of actual battle. All prejudice self-preservation, as well as the divine man- apart, one cannot read these records of the date, bids us to care for them. We waste our obduracy of the colonists, without thinking wealth on gorgeous churches, wherein the rich that sometimes it was utterly pig-headed and few may feign devotion; while the cries of unpardonable. Dr. Palfrey traces public the poor and the despairing and the godless at home are drowned to our ears by the jargon of the distant and obdurate savage. In the sermon entitled " Gather up the Fragments" we find this suggestive statement: a large dinner or a false step kills much more easily than a great sorrow."

66

These sermons can hardly be called "orthodox," and, as we have said, they steer clear of dogmas and theology; but they make up a book that the world should be thankful for, that brings great practical truths home to the simplest mind, and lays down the principles of holy and useful living in words that a child can understand and enjoy.

HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND.* ALLAM wrote that no part of English HA history is read with less satisfaction than that of the thirteen years of King William Third's reign; and a similar affirmation may truthfully be made with reference to that

events through the several administrations
of the royal governors with singular patience
and minuteness, characterizing the policy of
each official with great sagacity. From his
representations, it appears that there was little
in Lord Bellomont's conduct that the colonists
could reasonably object to, and that the bitter
animosity against Dudley was due rather to
what he had done in time past than to what
he did in his capacity of governor. In Shute
the colonists found a more manageable gov-
ernor, and the House availed itself of his
weakness to assert its independence by organ-
izing without the governor's consent. Under
Burnet and Belcher the long-vexed question
of provision by the colonies for the support
of the royal governors was finally determined.
These officials brought positive orders from
England requiring the Province to abandon
its claim to hold the governors dependent in
the matter of salaries; but the House stood
firmly in its old attitude, and, feebly sustained
by the Council, carried its point.

Massachusetts is, of course, most conspicu-
ous in this history of New England. She
was the largest and most important of the

of the Seventeenth Century. By John Gorham Palfrey. four colonies, and foremost in resisting what

The History of New England. From the Revolution Vol. IV. 8vo. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

were esteemed the encroachments of royal

-

land in the seventeenth century was deplor"The condition of the people of New Engably unfavorable to that immunity from a superstitious panic and madness of the sort in question, which in the most advantageous state of things would then have been no easy attainment. If any may be specially excused for being led astray by gloomy superstitions, it is they who are surrounded by circumstances, and pressed by griefs and anxieties, such as incline to sad and unhealthy meditation. The experience of the three heroic generations of English exiles in Massachusetts had been hard and sorrowful. Of those who were living when the provincial charter came into effect, the memory of the oldest went back to the middle-aged men had been out in arms in primitive times of want and misery; the the most dreadful of the Indian wars, and the middle-aged women had passed years of mourning for the hu-bands, lovers, and broth

ers

whom it had swept away. The generation just entered upon the stage had been born and reared in melancholy homes. The present was full of troubles and forebodings. Social The venerated charter had been lost. ties had been weakened. Social order was insecure. The paths of enterprise were obstructed. Industry had little impulse. Poverty was already felt. There was danger of destitution. A powerful foreign enemy threatened, and the capacity for defence was crippled by penury. A people in the mood to which such surroundings naturally lead, could scarcely be expected to set the example of a release from gloomy visions which bewildered the rest of mankind. Nor would it be fanciful to ascribe some influence on the spirits and the imagination to the austere environments of the settlers, and the harsh aspects of the

scenery amid which their temper had been and especially its brief sketches of promi- Brunswick. But the great mass of collectors, educated and their daily life was passed. Annent actors in the colonial life of that day. the author evidently thinks, are ignorant preocean divided them from the old seats of civ- Of these sketches one of the noblest is that of tenders. ilized life. Almost in the primitive nakedness The pursuit," he says, "is one of existence, they were waging a contest with Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, Governor of Con- of the least egotistic of tastes," a statethe awful elements. Their little settlements necticut. A fine specimen of the author's ment which, in the face of the evidence of his were isolated and unjoyous. The scene all narrative power will be found in his account own book, we must beg leave to reject. around, — river, rock, covert, mountain, for- of the Roman Catholic mission at Norridgeest, - almost as wild and sombre as creation Major Hall undertakes to conduct his readleft it, invited to stern and melancholy muswock, and its destruction. Dr. Palfrey an-ers to the principal cities of Europe, and to exing. And if evil spirits anywhere had power, nounces that the plan of his work would be hibit their attractions and resources in a bricit might seem to be where savage men had accomplished by the completion of one vol-à-brac point of view; but he tells the same kept their bestial rites, and where Sabbathume more, bringing down the narrative to the story in every place, only changing the scebells, till the strangers brought them, had never knolled to church." opening of the War of Independence."

In the chapters devoted to the other New England Colonies, the reader will find concise historical statements and pictures of their condition at various epochs, together with many of the author's masterly portraits of their principal men. The early history of New Hampshire possesses a peculiarly pathetic interest; its meagre population, harassed by continual Indian raids, and torn by the claims of conflicting proprietors and wrangling rulers, underwent probation of such severity as was equalled, probably, in no other colony. Rhode Island was in very ill repute from Andros's time. Lord Bellomont visited it during his administration, and reported to the Lords of Trade the existence of a desperately bad state of things" in that colony. He specified under more than twenty heads departures by the government and people from the provisions of their charter. Their rulers, he said, were incompetent and ill-conditioned "The generality of the people are shamefully ignorant, and all manner of licentiousness and

persons.

one.

THE BRIC-A-BRAC HUNTER.*
THE
HE catalogue of hunters is a very long
There are gold-hunters, lion-
hunters, fortune-hunters, tuft-hunters, cap-
hunters, about whom Alphonse Daudet writes
so amusingly in "Tartarin de Tarascon ; " but
the least interesting of them all, if one may
judge by this volume, are the hunters of bric-
à-brac. The title of the book is "taking," and
we began to read it in the hope of finding
stores of curious information about one of the
most absorbing and unaccountable of those
manias which possess some minds, together
with abundant anecdotes and jeux d'esprit il-
lustrating the literature of the specialty. But
we were doomed to disappointment: one gets
little or no knowledge or amusement from
these pages, and is forced to find entertain-
ment in its fresh and original absurdities. Of
the author we know nothing, except that he
has been an officer in the British

army, and

nery and attendant circumstances. We must allow him the credit of imparting some really useful information about the manufacture of porcelain, &c.; but the few facts he furnishes fail to counterbalance the mass of words and platitudes which fills out his book.

--

"Porcelain is an intermediate substance between pottery and glass, more translucent than the one, more opaque than the other, manufacture dating from so early a period as and is presumed to be of Chinese origin, its the Christian era. Be this as it may, there is evidence of its use in the fifteenth century, and in the beginning of the fourteenth [!]. The famous tower of porcelain at Nankin was built three hundred and thirty feet high, and still stands. It consists of nine stories of enamelled bricks or tiles, in five colors, white, red, blue, green, and brown. Japanese china existed at almost as remote a period, and was perhaps in all respects finer than the Chinese; while, in the days of Queen Anne and the first Georges, china vases, dishes, and hideous monsters were to be seen in all the houses of the rich in Old England."

Marseilles, to which city the reader is first introduced, is by no means a paradise of bric-à

profaneness does greatly abound, and is in- proudly claims descent from the unfortunate brac. The author explains this fact by saydulged." Of the agent of the colony in Eng- Admiral Byng; but this opportunity of makland, Lord Bellomont said: "He is one of ing acquaintance with him, and of seeing how their council, yet keeps a little blind rum- a book may be made up of an infinite deal of

house where the Indians are his best customers." Connecticut, on the contrary, says the author, was "the happiest of the colonies of New England."

"Her thirty towns had each its church and educated minister. Her free schools raised all her children above the hardships and the

zens.

nothing, is one not to be neglected.

ing that "The Marseillais taste, among rich or poor, high or low, male or female, does not rank high; in fact, the city is essentially democratic in taste as in politics." The author is evidently a rigid aristocrat, and a laudator acti temporis; democracy he scorns, and the innovations of what he calls "The New Era " de meubles et d'objets d'art. The term "curi-mits that the position of Marseilles is a lovely excite him to clumsy remonstrance. He adosity-hunter," often employed by the un

The opening chapter is "On Bric-à-Brac in General," and is valuable mainly for a definition of bric-a-brac, borrowed from a French writer: a dealer in bric-à-brac is a revendeur

temptations of poverty, and prepared them for learned as a synonyme of bric-a-bracquer, the
the discharge of the duties of virtuous citi author denounces as "a gross and uncour-
The agricultural industry which mostly teous error." He confesses his inability to
employed her people was favorable to health, account for the passion for bric-à-brac; but
frugality, content, and love of freedom. Her
opines that the tens of thousands who spend
prudence, and the less urgent demands upon
her for costly military operations, had saved their lives in collecting old china, old plate,
her from incurring heavy debt, and she had pictures, &c., are, for the most part, governed
little share in the financial embarrassment by not very lofty motives, such, for example,
which weighed so heavily on the more power-
ful colony. Her relations with the mother-
country brought little occasion for conflict or

solicitude."

as the desire to excite the covetousness of
their friends. But some collectors are actu-
ated, he says, by pure love of art, and implies

that he himself should be reckoned in that
number. To prove that the collection of bric-
à-brac is an honorable pursuit, he names sev-
eral eminent persons who have engaged in it,
among them the late notorious Duke of

*The Bric à-Brac Hunter; or, Chapters on China

one; but adds that "it would be far more so if the city were backed with some glorious overshadowed with such woodlands as Old oaks, and the country around and about were England alone can boast of." It seems to us that the idea of intruding English oaks into the tropical climate of Marseilles is hardly artistic; but it is thoroughly English.

Stamboul is the next point visited; but an inspection of its shops adds nothing to the reader's store of bric-a-brac lore. The author makes no discoveries, but guesses that a good many interesting curios might be found in harems. Madrid he compares to a planet lost in space; it shines without lighting you," The Museo is rich in bric-a-brac treasures; the shops are not attractive. The author had an adventure in one of these latter, where

mania. By Major H. Byng Hall. 12mo. Philadel- from he emerged triumphant from personal
phia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
peril, and the happy possessor (at a small

price) of a coveted china dejeuner. He lays rank with Mrs. Somerville's Memoirs, a com-
great stress on low prices, and evidently is pliment that few books deserve. Like that
a sharp bargainer, specifying the bliss of get-delighful record of a life, it is charming in a
ting a prize for a small outlay as the chief literary sense, and especially interesting in its
delight of the bric-à-bracquer. In the chapters records of famous men and women with whom
on St. Petersburg and Berlin there is little of the author enjoyed intimate acquaintance. The
interest, though the latter contains an account spiritual quality is stronger in it than in Mrs.
of Gotzkowski's establishment of a porcelain Somerville's Memoirs; it gives us glimpses
works in 1761. In the chapter on Dresden though modest ones of the author's inner
are given particulars of the discovery by life, and make us listeners to her self-com-
Böttcher of kaolin, or natural paste:
:-
munings. We would not convey the impres-
sion that this peculiarity is a blemish in the
book, as it might be, were it carried to excess;
on the contrary, it is a delight to the refined
reader who is grateful for the guidance of its
gentle wisdom.

"A rich iron-master, named Schnorr, when

self-denial, hers would have been a more attractive character.”

We must fill the space that remains to us mainly with a few of the scores of extracts that we had marked for quotation. From these specimens one can judge of the spirit of the book, but not of its opulence.

Eliza Dawson's (Mrs. Fletcher's maidenname) first love-affair made her unhappy. She was wretched till she mustered courage to tell her father that a young officer had declared his love for her, but more wretched still when her father bade her dismiss the youngster at once.

riding over his estate at Aue, near Erzgebirge, observed that his horse's feet stuck fast in some "Not that I was in love myself, but I never perfectly white earth or clay. Hair-powder doubted that the gallant captain would, as he being at that period a valuable object of comsaid, fortwithdie of grief and distraction if I merce, it immediately occurred to him that this white earth, when dried and carefully preMrs. Fletcher was born at Oxton, in York- did not give a favorable answer to his suit. pared, might be a valuable substitute, while sub- shire, in 1770. Her father was of the yeo-village girl of fifteen, fifty years ago. There I am amused now by the simple credulity of a sequent experiments justified his discernment. man class, who married into a higher rank, is not now a girl of that age, of capacity above This powder soon became an article of general and who must have been a man of strong mind an idiot's, who would not quiz the notion of a use throughout Saxony. The king's guards if that isn't impossi- man's dying of love." were powdered, their pig-tails cheaply whi- and of inborn culture, tened; but at length Böttcher, having powdered ble. Her mother died in giving her birth, and his own wig, found it so heavy that he felt she became the object of the concentrated afconvinced the so-called powder must be earth; fections of her father, her grandmother, and and, having tried it in the fire, to his great A Mrs. Brudenell, a delight and untold joy discovered that it was many other relatives. the very material he had long sought for in vain,

that is, the true kaolin."

The author is not hopeful as to the future of the profession of bric-a-brac, and thus records his opinion:

But, alas! it is only too true, as in china. glass, jewellery, and bric-a-brac generally, say nay who will while science, as regards machinery, electricity, chemistry, and every other istry,' has advanced with rapid strides, taste, beauty, refinement, elegance of form, outline, and color, art itself, in fact, have retrograded."

After all, this volume is rather amusing, by reason not of the author's skill, but of his naif ineptitude. He is as earnest in writing out his platitudes as if he were treating of abstruse science, and mangles the Queen's English with a dignity and self-complacence that are admirable. "Matutinal" seems to be his favorite adjective, and "if so be" his favorite phrase.

66

The first poet she met was Mason. She anticipated the meeting with delight:

“I figured him an interesting-looking man, worn with deep affliction, for I had read his beautiful monody on his wife, who died at Bristol of consumption. But when he entered Mrs. Foster's drawing-room, what was my surprise to see a little fat old man of hard-favored table, and give his whole attention to a game countenance squat himself down at a cardat whist!

The next poet she saw was Crabbe, who pleased her better than the disappointing Ma

son. Her father refused her consent to her

marriage with Archibald Fletcher, a Scotch lawyer and reformer; so, after waiting a long time for him to relent, the pair went away and were quietly married. They made their home in Edinburgh, and, during a residence there of ten years, Mrs. Fletcher moved in society that it is a pleasure even to read about. With Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, James Grahame, author of "The Sabbath," and others

less famous, she was on terms of intimacy, and knew Sir Walter Scott very well. Of the state

lady of high rank, who had left her scoundrelly husband, — a clergyman, foul with vices, living near the Fletchers, was drawn to the young girl, and contributed much to her education. She cultivated the child's taste for poetry, and drew instructive, yet exciting, illustrations of life from her own sad experience. "If these dangerous stimulants," says Mrs. Fletcher, “had not been counteracted by the simple habits of a village life, and by the cultivation of the affections, I must have become an intolerable mass of conceit and pretension." The cultivation of the affections," that was the secret of her loveliness, the spring of her own and others' happiness. The unreserved, unquestioning, unselfish devotion that marked the intercourse of Mrs. Fletcher and all the members of her family, is perhaps the most beautiful thing in this treasury of things beautiful. But we cannot follow this young girl through her happy youth up to her unromantic and surprising marriage, which, how-of politics at Edinburgh during the struggle ever, proved to be a fortunate one for both for Burgh Reform, Mrs. Fletcher who was an ardent Reformer, and evidently had a thorcontracting parties. We must say, however, gives AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. FLETCHER.* that no part of the book touched us as did these ough knowledge of political matters UCH books as this refresh one's confidence chronicles of her girlish life, full of poetry and an amusing account. She was charged by the SUCH fine sentiment, and varied occasionally by reopposing party with French Revolutionist symin human nature, cast a new fragrance about youth, and work rosy and alluring colors flections like that which she made on finding pathies, and dreadful stories were circulated into the sunset landscape that confronts us all. her life at boarding-school" artificial, flat, and about her. One was that she had procured a small guillotine, and exercised it in beheading It is the story of a long, beautiful, and useful "One great reason of this, uninteresting." poultry, &c., in order to be expert "when no doubt, was, that whereas at home I was life, of a woman who found her own happiFrench principles and practice in accordance ness in making others happy, who lived the every thing, at school I was nothing,— self-love should prevail in our land." Mrs. Fletcher idol of all who knew her, and died, leaving to was in a perpetual state of subjection and humiliation." Years afterwards, at the age was an ardent friend of the Edinburgh Reof those who mourned for her the precious legacy of a lovely example. A more beautiful char-seventy-nine, she wrote: "I have too much view, and speaks of "the electrical effects of its publication." Mrs. Barbauld she met often, acter we have never known in real life or in self-love, and am not so humble-minded as I and several letters from that gifted lady are fiction. Her Autobiography is well worthy to given here. Allan Cunningham was her intimate friend. Of Americans she speaks cordially : —

-

* Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher, with Letters and other Family Memorials. Edited by the Survivor of Her Family, 12mo. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas,

would desire to be." Often the reader falls
upon thoughts like these which may bear good
fruit in many hearts: "If she had been placed
in circumstances to exercise the smaller sym-
pathies as well as the virtues of charity and

"I think it was that year [1820] we first

became acquainted with George Ticknor, from Boston, U. S., and a friend of his, Mr. Cogswell [the late Jos. E.]. We thought them among the most cultivated and agreeable Americans we had ever known, and have since kept up our friendship by occasional correspondence with Mr. Ticknor. . . . In the autumn of 1846, we had several agreeable visitors; one American lady, Margaret Fuller, and two friends with her, spent some hours here. She struck us as very original, with great powers of expression and genuine enthusiasm for what is good and beautiful, which always at

tracts me much.' 21

bloody handkerchief, he asked what accident had befallen him. The boy simply said, 'It was massa did it.' On questioning him further, Mr. Sharp learned that the poor slave had been sent from a slave-holder in Jamaica as a present to his brother, a merchant in London, and that this London slave-holder had, in a moment of brutal anger, struck the boy a desperate blow on the head with some sharp instrument. The boy ran away, and had been some days begging in the streets, having no one to protect or care for him. Mr. Sharp took him to the nearest hospital, and had his wounds examined and dressed; left him under medical care for some days, and, when all Of Mrs. Gaskell, Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Som-danger from the wounds was over, he took him erville, Wordsworth, Cowper, Southey, Rogers, to his own home, and bade him remain in his Bunsen, Mazzini, Ruffini, and many other dis- service, at the sam time acquainting his fortinguished persons, the reader will find frequent ruffian claimed him as his property. This was mer master where he was to be found. The and interesting mention. Of Wordsworth's exactly what Mr. Sharp wished. He defended family Mrs. Fletcher has much to say. In a the negro's right to freedom before a jury in letter from Mary (Fletcher) Richardson (wife Westminster Hall; and Lord Mansfield had of Sir John Richardson, and daughter of Mrs. which became from that day the law of Engthe honor to record there the immortal verdict Fletcher, and who edited this Autobiography) land." is a reference to Wordsworth, who had recently returned from the Continent (1837): —

Mrs. Fletcher was dining in company with Carlyle when the news came of the French Rev"He confessed himself to have been too old olution of 1848. "Mr. Carlyle was sitting by for a first visit to Italy, and that his visit with Crabb Robinson was too hurried for enjoyme at the time. I looked at him, hoping he ment; that at Rome he had not time to get would speak. He said not a word, but broke over his disappointment at the old and new into a loud laugh, and rose and left the house being jumbled together; and he thought the to devour the journals." Her observations on effect of the Colosseum was lessened by the Sir Walter Scott-whom it is evident that Popish ornaments being obtruded into it. He mentioned the beauty of the flowers and ferns she did not warmly admire—are judicious: that grew on its walls as its best attractions." Sir Walter," she says, was one of those He said he knew too little to make Rome so great men who had an undue estimate of the enjoyable as it might have been. He made the discovery, also, that he had no real taste pride of life.'" With one more brief exfor sculpture, as he fell asleep before the Venus tract we must close this delightful book. It was written January 15, 1848:

de Medici at Florence."

In 1847, Mrs. Fletcher wrote to her daugh

ter:

MINOR BOOK NOTICES.

Mr. Anthony Trollope's last novel, "The Way We Live Now," has claims upon those readers who desire to economize in their literature. It is one of those books that will last all summer, read with such assiduity as its merits deserve. It is inordinately long, and of course tedious; there are no good lessons in it, no exemplary characters. The men are nearly all brainless lordlings, and the women adventurers in practice, if not in name. The chief figure is a swindler of Tweed-like dimensions, who, having made the Continent too hot to hold him, settles in England, and buys social and political success with his money. He has a daughter, whose hand is sought by many penniless scions of nobility; she agrees to run away gets drunk, loses all his money at play, and to New York with Sir Felix Carbury; but he fails to keep his appointment. crash comes; Melmotte, the money-king, is detected in forgery, and quietly kills himself, who seems a fit match for her. Lady Carbury and the daughter marries an American sharper, is a monstrosity, a sham-littérateur, who employs the most discreditable means to win the favor of the critics. If this book presents a true picture of high English society, of the present repositories of that boasted blood that had its fountain in the time of the Conquest, we Americans have reason to be thankful that uries ago. The novel is coarse and dull and shut off the supply" some centdreary. [Harper & Brothers.]

our ancestors "

At last the

ities did not dream of an encounter with the

Mr. Francis J. Parker has felt moved to contribute his mite to the already opulent literature of Bunker Hill, and in a small pamphlet, which he calls a monograph, supports the claim of Col. Prescott to the honor of holding the command in that memorable battle. He adopts the ingenious plan of rejecting all contemporary evidence, except such as favors his theory. "I bless God for having permitted me to He takes the ground that the Provincial authorsee this seventy-eighth birthday in the posses- British when they sent troops to fortify Bunker sion of all my mental faculties, and in bodily "We went, this evening, to take tea at health less infirm than is common to persons Hill; but does not explain what was the real Rydal Mount, and found the dear old couple of my age. I have through this long life ex-object of this apparently serious demonstratête-à-tete. Mr. Wordsworth was more like perienced so many mercies that my heart is himself than I had seen him since his daugh- full, but not full enough, of thankfulness and ter's death. He showed us two letters he had love toward the Being who redeemed me. had this week from ladies he had never seen or Blessed be His name. From infancy I have heard of, -one in prose, the other in verse. been an object of tender love to all my family The former said she was the wife of a hard- and relations that watched over me. worked London solicitor, with five children. the kindest and tenderest of husbands; and She found the greatest solace for all her cares now, in my seventy-ninth year, I am blessed and troubles in his Excursion.'... The with most dutiful and affectionate children other letter was from a solitary single woman and grandchildren, and many most attached who describes herself as one who has survived friends." all her kindred and the friends of her youth, and, seated on the sandy beach at Newport, she can forget all her sorrows when she has a volume of Wordsworth in her hand. . . . He said it [his poem of Lycoris'] was suggested to him at Ullswater, in the year 1817, by seeing two white sunny clouds reflected in the lake. They looked' (he said) like two white swans.'

I had

The last entry in Mrs. Fletcher's journal was dated October 6, 1857, and she passed away February 6, 1858, aged eighty-eight years.

tion. One of his conclusions is, that "the cause of the action was in the deviation from Ward's order to Prescott;" and in another place he declares that Prescott, "but for officious interference, would have built his redoubt on Bunker Hill." In a note he implies that Putnam was the "officious" officer who interfered. Then Prescott's glory must be dimmed by the reflection that he weakly yielded officious" advisers, who lured him from the path of duty. Mr. Parker produces no new evidence whatever, and handles the old very feebly. If the claim of Prescott had no better support than this pamphlet, it could not last long. [A. Williams & Co.]

to

We have purposely avoided any attempt to Messrs. Estes & Lauriat have added to criticise this noble book, being unwilling to their series of popular novels "Counterqualify in the slightest degree the satisfaction parts," by the author of "Rumor," "Charles He read the poem twice over in his most beau- of those who may read it. It is, perhaps, in its day; "Woman's Love," by J. F. Smith; Auchester," &c., a story that had a great run tiful and impressive manner. It describes a open to criticism, for its minute detail of and " Maud or Nina," by J. G. Whyte-Melfeeling quite familiar to me, the preference family and every-day matters; but all things ville, author of "Katerfelto," &c. the young have for autumn and the old for that concerned a woman whom Dean Stanley spring."

In 1807, Mrs. Fletcher met the sister of Granville Sharp, who told this story of her brother: :

said he used to "regard as a personification beyond any other I had ever seen of Christian hope," will have an interest for the appreciative reader. The volume contains memoirs In one of his early morning walks in the of Mrs. Fletcher's husband and her oldest suburbs of London he met a poor negro boy; daughter, Grace, of which we have not space and observing that his head was bound with a|to speak.

66

- Vol. I. of Rev. Lyman Abbott's Commentary on the New Testament justifies the opinion that the work will be a welcome and useful one. The editor's expositions of obscure passages are singularly clear, and his candor in the presence of conflicting interpretations deserves high praise. For use in Sunday schools the book must be found very valuable. [A. S. Barnes & Co.]

Heaven's aid in behalf of one section of a and therefore we call it a "juvenile." That divided nation. Our comments in no respect it appeals to parents does not detract from its concern the beauty, value, and appropriate-juvenile character, which is fundamental. ness of these poems; we desire only, by pointing out their specific character, to sustain our EDITOR. assertion that American poets have neglected patriotic themes.

ROM the Twenty-third Annual Report of We regret to be obliged to add that, not the Trustees of the Boston Public Library, content with ignoring the patriotic uses and we learn that during the year 1874 prose ficsweets of poetry, some of our singers have tion and juveniles constituted 81 per cent of the employed their art for the direct discredit of circulation from the Roxbury Branch Library; their country, — turning the shafts of their sar-79 per cent from the East Boston Branch, and casm and their scorn upon it while it is strug-78 per cent from the South Boston Branch. gling out of the old into the new life. Their A recent abstract of this report, published super-sensitiveness is injured by the rude in one of the daily papers, concealed these processes of its transformation, and, forgetting facts, and gave prominence to the alleged what it has been, and failing to see what it decrease in the demand for fiction at the Cenmay be, they vent their dissatisfaction in jibes tral Library. The kind of fiction which is and jeers. demanded by 81 per cent of Roxbury readers is thus rhetorically described in the Report: