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moved by sympathy for fellow-beings, can never be insensible to an art that appeals to their natural tastes and sentiments. All, therefore, that is open and true in painting can be appreciated by the average mind. But this average taste does not know all the technical deficiencies or the technical excellences of a picture. It may not be able to judge fully of its composition, of its treatment of parts, of its tone, of a hundred things that the expert can point out and descant upon. But this is common to every art, to every handicraft even. It is not to be assumed that men cannot tell good pictures from bad, or are wholly insensible to excellence in the arts, because they are not learned in its academic laws. A man may be a very fair judge of a poem without knowing any thing about the rules of versification; he may have a sound opinion of a drama or a melody, without special training in musical composition or in the art of the playwright. It would seem as if the critics were continually exacting from the public, in regard to painting, an erudition which no other art requires; and because these critics become enamored of one man's erratic performances, another man's eccentric vagaries, in which there is probably often more or less of genuine talent turned awry into crooked pathsbecause the public does not possess this artificial taste for strangely-flavored dishes, it is assumed that it has no ability to understand art at all. Amateurs and connoisseurs are prone in every art to exalt technical skill above the soul or the sentiment of the performance to find their pleasure in the skill with which difficulties are overcome rather than in the success of the essential story, with which alone the average taste is concerned. True art is catholic. It deals with large, open truths; it has no mysteries, nor vagaries, nor dillettant notions, nor petty scholacisms, nor pedantic exclusiveness; its function is to reach and charm the great heart of humanity either by some form of

the marvelous has fled before the spirit of incredulity. For this reason the reader may derive entertainment from the strange narratives in Mr. Fairfield's paper, but it would be wise for him to keep his faith in them in reserve, simply classifying them among the unexplained.

ble distrust of the accuracy of all the mar-
velous stories in regard to what are called
spiritualism and clairvoyance now so numer-
ous. We are aware how well many of these
narratives are supported by the testimony of
intelligent people, but it has also been shown
how often really capable persons have been
deceived. The remarkable fact is, that these
marvels fall for the most part solely within
the experience of believers, and disappear
when confronted with downright skepticism.
Mr. Lecky, in his "History of Rationalism,"
tells us that the phenomena of witchcraft
continued just so long as a wide-spre faith
in them existed, and ceased when a geveral
skepticism of their truth began to take pos-
session of the popular mind. He asserts that
the phenomena never were and have not
been to this day disproved; that all the evi-
dence goes to support their authenticity;
that the people eventually ceased to believe
in them not because any facts were elicited
or any revelation made calculated to throw
doubt upon them, but simply because a dis-
belief, based not on evidence but on ration-
alistic reasoning, gradually took possession
of the public mind. It would be well if some
philosopher, prompted by the current mys-
teries, should make a searching study of the
natural credulity of man-of the deeply-
grounded tendency of many people to rest
upon and believe in the marvelous. These
persons believe in the mysterious because
the whole tenor of their mental organization
is in that direction. They either do not
know how to investigate phenomena or are
indisposed to do so. They like to believe.
They have no sympathy with doubters. They
are thrilled and captivated by every thing of | historic Sèvres, relics of the elegance of ex-

a mystic character, and eagerly surrender
their whole natures to its influence. People
of this tendency of mind are simply incapa-
ble of analyzing phenomena like those of
spiritualism. No man of a thoroughly skep-
tical mind, we may be assured, would have
been deceived by the recent Katie King

A NOTEWORTHY social change has been taking place in England within the past quarter of a century. It is illustrated in one way in the region of art. Formerly the patronage of art, not only of painting and sculpture, but of all ornamental and antique objects, was pretty much confined to the nobility, and the indefinite class just below the nobility sweepingly designated in England as "gentlemen." The class of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, men of trade, while rivaling the aristocracy in wealth, did not compete with them to any great degree in the æsthetic elegancies, though no doubt they did in the material luxuries of life. The great manufacturer of Birmingham or Bolton aspired to become a landed proprietor, and was quick to purchase the hoary castles and vast acres of bankrupt lords; he was fain, too, to have his imposing mansion in town, his stud of horses, and his game-preserves. But as yet he rather spent money on downright, palpable luxuries; the refinement of artistic rarity and ornamentation did not appeal to his uncultivated ambition. In these days it is evident that the rich men of trade have learned the value of such things. There is a rage in England for antique articles. Old plate, old clocks, finely-carved old furniture, venerable salvers, beakers, and punch-bowls,

tinct royalty, are eagerly sought for, and bring great prices. It is found that in the competition both for antique articles of vertu, for the most fashionable paintings, and the most conspicuous sculptural works, the class of manufacturers and merchants is eager, and often bears away the choicest

beauty or story of human passion; and hence | frauds. He might have been unable to detect | specimens. The houses of this class are be

how preposterous it is to assume that this great force is something incomprehensible to all save those who have studied pigments and measured proportions!

descent. There is a decadence of the somewhat vulgar ostentation of former days; the presence of far more refinement and culture. Thus there has been a leveling up in matters of taste; and herein may be found one of the reasons why art in England is so much more prosperous and flourishing than it was even in the days of Turner and Sir Thomas Lawrence, since the wealth of another great and important class is now seeking its prod.

the trick, but his inability to discover the ginning to be as tastefully and artistically, cause of the manifestations would never for as well as luxuriously, adorned as are the a moment have led him into the tremendous | houses of the Grosvenors and Egertons of old blunder of accepting them for what they were alleged to be. His rationalism would have In the article entitled "The Strangest asserted the impossibility of their truth, reThings in Life," printed in this week's gardless of all the plausible circumstances JOURNAL, Mr. Fairfield makes a few fresh under which they were exhibited. The skep contributions to the literature of the myste- tical person disbelieves in despite of what rious. The remarkable statements in this he sees, because he feels assured that somepaper are not given in support of the doc- where, by some means, there is to be found an trine of spiritualism. It is probably known adequate explanation of the marvel before that Mr. Fairfield has recently advanced a him; the unskeptical person believes in detheory in explanation of the alleged phenomspite of his reason, or rather seduces his reaena of spiritualism. This publication has son from its path by the force of his imaginanaturally brought to his hands a good many tion, and believes because he is quite willing WHAT worn college graduate, world-tired, curious statements from persons interested in to accept the most superficial testimony as does not feel something of the old, fresh, the study of the subject, and these narratives trustworthy. In all ages and with all people youthful spirit come over him, when remind. are given to the public in the present paper. the marvelous has abounded when the spirit ❘ed that "commencement season" has come! For our part, we must confess to considera- ❘ of credulity has prevailed; and at all times | How vividly the festival brings to the mind

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were negroes. The ability to read English is a quite unknown science in many of those parts, nor could any thing less than a peremptory order from the prefect secure our unfortunate countryman's release.

Viterary.

tion," have already laid out a scheme of life, | ficial was very positive that all Americans and it never occurs to them to doubt that it is the reflection of a certain future. It is often said that a college is "a little world in itself;" and truly enough it has resemblances to the greater world, such as its struggles, its ambitions, its gains and losses, and its schooling to manliness and self-dependence and self-assertion not a little severe and stringent. Yet many a student has been - deluded to ruin, or at least to failure, by too completely mistaking the college-world for a ☐ lesser counterpart and epitome of that wherein lies his life-work; nor are the effects of such a delusion always the same or similar. One, flushed with the ready triumphs of the society and the class-room, flattered by conceded

MR

R. E. C. GARDNER'S very decided literary talent, though it renders his books entertaining, and sugars the pill of instruction which it is his main object to administer, is not altogether an advantage to his work. It constantly leads him off into digressions which are often the merest vagaries, having the slightest possible relevance to

sketches of character furnish very amusing reading; our criticism is directed simply to the fact that he has greatly injured by his manner of executing it a plan which, in its original conception, was admirable.

One other point, and we will have done with fault-finding. Mr. Gardner's main dogma, if we may apply such a term to teaching which is singularly free from dogmatism, is that a house is designed primarily for use, and that every house, therefore, should, in its arrangement, size, finish, etc., represent the needs of the particular person or family for whom it is built. The one customer that he cannot endure is the person whose notions of what he wants are based on an ideal conception of beauty, on what is "stylish," or on what somebody else has. In season and out of season he urges the principle that a house should be the expression of individual wants and individual tastes. Now, this is wholesome doctrine, doubtless, but it is somewhat odd that Mr. Gardner should be so evidently disposed to limit its application to details of interior arrangement. He is so afraid that the primary idea of use will be subordinated to a desire for show, that he

leadership, exalted by praises of professors the subject under discussion; it incessantly persistently discourages all discussion of the

*and college-mates, rates his future success at too low a standard of effort; he thinks he will win as easily at the bar or in commercial pursuits as in class-meeting and on the exhibition platform; and, when he gets into the downright, serious hurly-burly, is amazed, and inconceivably disappointed to find greater powers rising hopelessly above him. Another, working till brain is overtaxed, and ill health is invited, in order to achieve college success, goes forth to plunge desperately into exhausting labors, plodding with shaken nerves far into the nights, comfortlessly and fanxiously seeking fortune, and preying ruthlessly upon the faculties which alone can render fortune enjoyable when attained. Few and wise are those who learn to advance with deliberation, and vigor, and patience upon the path of life; eschewing neither lusty labor nor manly recreation, each in its proper Do time and place; remembering that "every thing comes in time to him who waits." One ich cannot but envy the cheery spirit of those youths who are having their last college merfrymakings in these lovely summer months; so that spirit is an excellent commodity to begin

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the world with.

THE woes of travelers on the Continent or are not all imaginary, as an English party can testify who were recently arrested as nit "Prussian spies," far down in the depths of The Brittany. The mayor of the village demandered their passports; and, on being told that

15 passports were long ago abolished, doggedly refused to believe it, and had them taken off in a cart to the capital of the department. The wonder is that this worthy mayor, who, dby-the-way, wore a blue blouse, and was red fresh from the field, had ever heard of Prus

sian spies, such personages being much more he modern than the abolition of passports.

distracts his own and the reader's attention from the matter properly before them; and the somewhat truculent vivacity, which is its chief characteristic, becomes a trifle tedious when indulged too liberally. His latest book, "Illustrated Homes," * is an example of all this. Its plan is excellent, and it contains much that is really instructive and useful; but it has been almost spoiled by the extent to which the literary feature of the work is permitted to dominate and overshadow every thing else. Mr. Gardner's intention, as explained in a sort of prefatory postscript, was to take a dozen or more actual houses which he had helped to build, each one typical of a certain class or condition, and by giving the plans and a brief account of each one, and using it as the text of such architectural discussion as seemed appropriate, to make the book helpful to all who propose to build themselves homes. The plans were to be accompanied with specifications and estimates, general certainly, but sufficiently minute to indicate the finish and approximate cost of each house. The bringing in of the people for whom the houses were built was, of course, a subordinate part of the plan, and could only be done legitimately in order to give reality and, so to say, individuality to the different homes; yet, from the very beginning, these people (about whom the reader cares nothing) receive more attention than the houses (about which the reader probably cares a great deal); while toward the latter part of the book the plans are relegated to an entirely insignificant place, and specifications and estimates are entirely omitted. No mention is made even of the material of which several of the most

attractive houses were built or of their costthe very points which, to us at least, seem of most importance. Now, Mr. Gardner is a keen observer and a humorist withal, and his

* Illustrated Homes: A Series of Papers describing Real Houses and Real People. By E. C. Gardner. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

exterior appearance of the house, and finally says, plumply, that if a man "is wise he will leave questions of outside effect to the architect." No doubt it would be better for the average man, when he comes to build, if he should simply show a competent architect his plot of ground, tell him the size of his family and the extent of his means, and leave all questions, both of outside effect and of inside arrangement, to the architect's own jndgment. But, if he is to be taught that it is

scarcely less than degrading to leave the number, size, and arrangement of the rooms

to any one else, even an architect, why is his obligation to consult his individual preferences not coextensive with the house itself, in all its parts? In point of fact, a house is not built merely for use. Its outside, especially, is more conspicuous and more looked at than any thing in its owner's possession, and if it be known that it was built for or under the direction of the owner, it is inevitably regarded as a more or less accurate expression of his ideas of architectural beauty; his taste is judged by it. Moreover, Mr. Gardner's own plans show that by slight changes and transpositions, which do not affect in the remotest degree the convenience.of the inner arrangements, the whole appearance of the exterior can be changed, and that rendered picturesque and pleasing which otherwise would have been utterly without expression. We think, indeed, that it would be very easy to maintain the exact converse of Mr. Gardner's proposition, and to give plausible reasons why a man should select the general style and effects which he desired in his house, and (with certain reservations, of course, as to number and size of rooms) leave the details of the interior entirely to his architect.

With these qualifications, "Illustrated Homes" can be heartily recommended. It inculcates sound principles of architecture and taste; proves, by examples, that picturesque, convenient, and durable houses can be built with very moderate sums of money, and

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for General Putnam, too."

THE interest in the Bunker Hill centennial | received all the glory, there is enough left finds appropriate expression in literature as well as in orations, pageants, fireworks, and the like, and we find several pamphlets bearIr is difficult to find a term exactly deing upon the famous event on our table. Osscriptive of Miss Lucy Larcoin's "Idyl of good's "Bunker Hill Memorial" is the best Work" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.). To of these. Its leading feature is a poem of call it a "novel in verse" would be more acthirty-seven stanzas, by Dr. Oliver Wendell curate than its present title, and a "tract in Holmes, "written expressly for this memoverse" would be truer still; but it is too rial," and giving a grandmother's story of the slight for a novel, even though its lack of battle as she saw it from the belfry. The plot and incident is disguised under the poem is written in the swinging rhythm of forms of poetry, and it is too good (or perthe old ballad measure, is spirited and vigor- haps we should say not "goody" enough) for ous, and illustrates very forcibly the patriotic a tract. An idyl of work it certainly is not, enthusiasm of the colonists, which was shared for, with a most idealistic definition of work, even by the women and children, and the | Miss Larcom finds herself compelled, in order trepidation of the citizens who, for the first time, looked upon the bloody scenes of war. The poem is accompanied throughout with marginal illustrations, and is followed by an account of the battle in prose, by James M. Bugbee. This latter is also illustrated, and ❘ would be to laborers in a coal-mine. Thirty is the best brief narrative of the battle with which we are acquainted.

to secure even the semblance of the idyllic, to ignore entirely the routine of daily labor, and carry her characters off to scenes and circumstances about as foreign to the experience of factory-girls as a jaunt up the Nile

years ago the work in the Lowell mills was done almost entirely by young girls from various parts of New England, many of whom had comfortable homes, yet chose this method of winning for themselves a degree of pecuniary independence; and it is no wonder that Miss Larcom, recalling the memory of those days when magazines, of some literary merit, in which she herself made her first attempts at authorship, were both written and edited by the mill-girls, should throw over them the glamour of romance, and fancy that she sees in them ideal conditions of work. But all the same, as she confesses in her preface, the routine of such a life is essentially prosaic; and, though workers may find idyllic experiences during a summer-vacation among the mountains, work itself catches nothing of

Another and rather curious memorial is "Bunker Hill: The Story told in Letters from the Battle-field by British Officers engaged; with an Introduction and Sketch of the Battle by Samuel Adams Drake" (Boston: Nichols & Hall). The materials of which the book is composed have, as Mr. Drake explains, "hitherto slumbered in the archives of British regiments engaged on the field of Bunker Hill," having escaped heretofore the research of historians of the battle. Inasmuch as the British officers, without exception, claim a brilliant victory over "the provincials," their letters are hardly calculated to add to the enthusiasm of centennial time, but the patriotic fire of Mr. Drake's description of the battle readjusts the bal- ❘ poetry therefrom.

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Putnam, the Commander at Bunker Hill." This is not a biography of General Putnam, as its title would seem to imply, but a controversial pamphlet on the quæstio vexata as to who commanded in chief at Bunker Hill. It is an able and exhaustive analysis of all the known facts bearing upon the matter, and Mr. Drake evidently convinces himself fully; but of actual evidence there is very little, and the argument is scarcely more than an elaboration of the proposition that, because Putnam was a general and Prescott only a colonel, the former must have com

of national decay:

"Like the sea Must the work-populations ebb and flow, So only fresh with healthful New-World life. If high rewards no longer stimulate toil, And mill-folk settle to a stagnant class, As in old civilizations, then farewell To the Republic's hope! What differ we From other feudalisms? Like ocean-waves, Work-populations change. No rich, no poor, No learned, and no ignorant class or caste The true republic tolerates; interfused, Like the sea's salt, the life of each through all."

Of course the story in such a book is en

except as a thread to hang the didactic por-
tions on; and no one of the characters has
more than the faintest shadow of personality.
It is the descriptive parts, together with the
lyrics with which the narrative is frequently
interspersed, that redeem the work, and ren-
der it enjoyable to the reader. Miss Larcom
has written no poems more graceful, tender,
and finished, than three or four of those scat-
tered through the present volume, and her en-
thusiasm for natural scenery, and her skill in
painting it, throw a genuine charm around
the entire episode of the summer-vacation.
The following song of the mill-children at
their play would compensate the reader for
whole pages of duller didactic poetry than
Miss Larcom inflicts upon us in her most se-
rious mood:

"Will the fairy-folk come back,
Such as haunt old stories,
Sliding down the moonbeam's track
Hid in morning-glories?
Air is warp, and sun is weft;
Is a rainbow-spinner left?

"No; not one. They never will!
Streams they loved are busy
Turning spindles in the mill ;
Turning mill-folk dizzy.
Toil is warp, and money weft;
Not a fairy-loom is left.

"Noise has frightened them away
From their greenwood places;
Never would they spend a day
Among care-worn faces.
Gather up the warp and weft:
See if any thing is left !

"Merry days go dancing by;

Hard work comes, and tarries.
Why, for that, wind sigh through sigh?
Children, we'll be fairies!
Life is warp, and love is weft;
Children's hearts and hands are left."

In justification of what we have said in R praise of the descriptive poetry, we quote the following sonnet:

"CHOCORUA.

"The pioneer of a great company

That wait behind him, gazing toward the

east

Mighty ones all, down to the nameless leastThough after him none dares to press, where he With bent head listens to the minstrelsy

Of far waves chanting to the moon, their priest.

What phantom rises up from winds deceased! What whiteness of the unapproachable sea? Hoary Chocorua guards his mystery well: He pushes back his fellows, lest they hear

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Ir we may venture such a suggestion con cerning one who is possessed of so genuine literary faculty, we should say that Mr. Hjal mar Hjorth Boyesen's new story, "A Norse man's Pilgrimage" (New York: Sheldon Co.), was written mainly to prove how thor oughly Americanized the author has become and how completely he has mastered the de tails of American habits and character. The hero of the story is a Norseman, it is true but a Norseman so Americanized that he feels like a stranger when he returns to hi own people. The heroine is evidently in

tirely subordinate, being of no use, in fact, I tended to be a typical American woman; and

though the scene is laid chiefly in Germany and Norway, most of the leading characters are Americans. Last, but not least, if we have correctly divined the author's purpose, the conversation partakes largely of that picturesque vigor, not to call it slang, which is supposed to be characteristic of our national dialect; and it is only fair to say that Mr. Boyesen has mastered this dialect perfectly, using certain local peculiarities of speech with the dexterity and precision of a native.

Viewing the book from this point, and keeping in mind the fact that the author is not only writing in a foreign tongue, but dealing with phases of character the very antipodes of what he was familiar with in his own country, it may be pronounced a decided success. Compare Ruth with Eva in Mr. Howells's "A Foregone Conclusion," and her deficiency in those finer distinctive traits which typify American womanhood at its best is apparent; but nevertheless she is a very pleasing person, and American women at least will overlook all the minor defects of an author who writes of one of them with an enthusiasm like the following:

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"By some chance Thora Haraldson (a Norwegian girl between whom and Olaf a marriage had long been projected by their respective families) had come to occupy the seat next to Ruth in the stern of one of the boats. Olaf sat upon a cross-bench opposite, dividing his attention between the landscape and the company. As his eyes fell upon the fair group before him, the picturesque contrast between the two struck his artistic fancy, and presently he found himself critically comparing them and trying to account for their points of difference. How frail and almost insignificant looked this slender, blue-eyed Alpine maiden by the side of that tall, brilliant, and magnificent beauty. And somehow she seemed to be conscious of her own insignificance, for she looked with large, innocent eyes up into Ruth's face, and an expression of childlike wonder was visible in her features. 'Ah,' philosophized Olaf, 'it is the problem of my life which stands embodied before me. The one is the peaceful, simple life of the north, with its small aims and cares, its domestic virtues, and its calm, idyllic beauty. Love to her means duty, a gentle submissiveness, and the attachment held by habit and mutual esteem. But in the other's bosom lives a world of slumbering tumult, a host of glorious possibilities, which, though still shrunken in the bud, will one day, when touched by the wakening warmth of love, develop all the emotional wealth and grandeur of perfect womanhood. She is the flower of a larger and intenser civilization, and all the burning pulses of life which animate this great century, unknown to herself, throb in her being. And it is my own future which I love in her. I too shall become a larger and a more perfect man for what I give and what I receive in the mystery of such a love.'"

"A Norseman's Pilgrimage" is very lively and pleasant reading, and will provide its author with the most conclusive of naturalization papers; but somehow it lacks the flavor and the charm of "Gunnar."

not merely the gratification of a taste for antiquities," says Mr. William Cullen Bryant, to whom the book is dedicated, and who writes a brief introductory note, "that is consulted in this work; it is scarcely less than an act of filial piety to preserve in this manner as much as we may of the early aspect of a spot inhabited by those who have left us the inheritance of this fair town, so nobly situated and prepared for our abode, together with the inestimable legacy of our public liberties and the many useful institutions organized for the general benefit." Mrs. Greatorex has been occupied for the greater part of six years in the preparation of her draw ings, and so rapid and so ruthless is the advance of "modern improvement," that many of the originals from which they were taken have already disappeared, rendering it certain that no later memento will ever be secured.

York: D. Appleton & Co.). The character
and the merits of this annual are too well
understood to call for any extended notice,
and it is enough, perhaps, to say that the
present volume presents the usual features
and rather more than the usual amount of
information, covering all the important events
of the year 1874, and the additions which
were made during the same period to the va-
rious departments of knowledge. The larger
portion of the space, of course, is assigned
to American affairs and American interests,
and besides the President's messages, de-
bates in Congress, and sundry public docu-
ments, the reader will find here a succinct
but comprehensive account of the exciting
events which occurred in the Southern
States during the year. "The details of
affairs in the United States," to quote from
the Preface, "embrace the finances of the
Federal Government; the operation and re-
sults of its system of revenue and taxation;
Mrs. Greatorex is already favorably
the banking system; the financial and in- | known as an etcher by her Colorado sketches.
dustrial experience of the country; its com-
merce, manufactures, and general prosper-
ity; the finances of the States; their debts
and resources; the various political conven-
tions assembled during the year-with their
nominations and platforms; the results of
elections; the movements to secure cheap
transportation from West to East; the action
of Congress on the subject, and the debates
and action on civil rights and national

The pictures in "Old New York" are of a similar character; they are marked by a free and touchy style rather better calculated to please the art-student than the general pub lic, perhaps, but a certain picturesqe effect is secured which will give them a great charm to many persons. The subjects of the drawings are, "The Battery from No. 1 Broadway," containing a view of Castle Garden through the trees, and of the harbor be

finances, specie payments, and other impor-yond; "The Carey-Ludlow House," as seen

tant public questions; the proceedings of State Legislatures; the progress of educational, reformatory, and charitable institutions; the extension of railroads and telegraphs, and all those matters which are involved in the rapid improvement of the country." Every other country of the civilized world is noticed, so far at least as to record whatever of public interest has transpired in it; and the international relations between our own and other governments are illustrated by quotations from diplomatic correspondence. A record of the advance made during the year in the various branches of science, a narrative of geographical discoveries in different parts of the world, a critical and analytical sketch of literature and literary progress in the United States, and in each of the countries of Europe, religious statistics, and numerous biographical sketches of living and dead celebrities, make up the remaining contents of the volume.

A number of excellent woodcuts and maps take the place of the steel portraits which have illustrated previous issues.

WHATEVER America can show in the way of antiquities is likely to attract a peculiar degree of interest during the next few years, and Mrs. Eliza Greatorex will doubtless secure an unusually warm and appreciative reception for her "Old New York from the Battery to Bloomingdale," the first part of which has just been published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. The work when complete will contain fifty etchings of "the buildings of New York made venerable by historic and THE "American Annual Cyclopædia," for romantic associations," and ten reproduc1874, is now ready in a portly volume of tions, one in each part, of old and rare etcheight hundred and thirty-one pages (New | ings of scenes in the city and vicinity. "It is

from the Battery; "No. 1 Broadway," a famous old house, now the oldest in New York, which served as the headquarters of Sir Henry Clinton in the Revolutionary days, and which has other claims to attention; "Saint Paul's Church," too well known to require further mention; and "The Old Jersey Ferry-House," at the corner of Greenwich and Cedar Streets, which was torn down last spring. The reproduction is from an etching entitled "New York from Hobuck (Hoboken)," by the old painter Archibald Robertson, who made the sketch in 1796.

The descriptive text by M. Despard is not first rate, but it contains all that is needed in the way of information, and plenty of personal gossip and social reminiscence besides. The printing, paper, etc., are excellent.

PHILANTHROPY finds a novel expression in Mr. M. F. Sweetser's little guide-book, "Europe for $2.00 a Day," written without hope of profit and published at rather less than the cost of paper and printing, with the simple desire, as the author says, to "lend a hand" to young Americans who wish to make the European tour, but whose pecuniary resources are limited. The book is the result, and to some extent the record, of personal experience; for Mr. Sweetser himself made a tour, including the greater part of Europe, Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land, and lasting twenty months, for fifteen hundred dollars, of which three hundred dollars were spent for pictures and other souvenirs. The suggestions which it contains are comprehensive and eminently practical; and we judge that Mr. Sweetser has really shown "how a gentleman can make the European

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tour very economically, yet without encountering absolute hardship, or demeaning himself by assuming the garb and customs of the peasant." Whether any one less enthusiastic and determined than himself can apply the knowledge, is another question. (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.)

Or the late John Stuart Mill the Academy says: "History affords scarcely another example of a philosopher so ready to review his positions, to abandon them if untenable, and to take lessons from his own disciples, as the discussion, for instance, of Mr. Thornton's book on 'Labor' shows Mr. Mill to have been." Professor Max Müller recommends young men before all things to study the original documents of the great literatures. "It is better," he says, "to read Homer than to read a dozen commentaries upon him."

...

..

The

acquainted. The more ambitious novelists | which might be worn away, and takes the

who aim at something far higher than this,
and who would describe the great world of
which they know next to nothing, are like
those artists who take a great width of canvas
and some heroic subject, and produce a work
vast indeed, but as uninteresting as it is un-
natural." Mrs. Lynn Lynton is writing
a new novel, entitled "The Atonement of
Leam Dundas," for the Cornhill Magazine.

WH

The Arts.

real brunt off the low walls, overlapped as
they are by deep eaves. The large windows
with granite facings, where the stone might
otherwise be much exposed, prevent too
much surface of this charmingly-colored ma-
terial from coming into contact with the
weather. This church is not of better shape
than is often seen in buildings erected within
a few years; but in this, and in several other
new structures, that variety of material we
have so much advocated in the pages of the
JOURNAL has been employed, and with even
better effect than our imagination had pict-
ured; for, though the general aspect is some-
what sombre, the gray granite which is so
disagreeable in combination with brick im-
parts to this bluish building a cool and per.
fectly harmonious appearance, which the
woodbine and ivy that are already quite well
grown serve to enhance.

HILE the public is kept pretty well in-
formed through the press of the erec-
tion of fine edifices in the large cities, com-
paratively little attention is given to the
gradual change for the better in the archi-
tecture of the smaller places. Within the
last ten years, probably nowhere, in propor-
tion to its size, have there been so many
interesting new edifices built as in the little
city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As we
have before had occasion to remark in the
JOURNAL, the peculiarities of fashion in build-
ings lend them a charm when the ideas that
led to these peculiarities have passed by,
and Elizabethan roofs, with their scalloped
and pointed gable-ends, the gambrel roofs so
frequently met with in the old towns of this
country, and even the square farm-houses,
with their big "stoops" overhung by elm-
trees-each has a real charm and picturesque
interest of its own, apart from any reference
to the rules of pure taste; and these crystal-of it is full of the finest colors.
lized forms of old thought and old necessities

Spectator, after remarking that "justice must
be done all the more rigorously on favorites,"
says "the truth is that Mr. Black has made a
sad step backward" in his "Three Feath-
ers." Messrs. Cassell, the London pub-
lishers, have arranged with M. Gustave Doré
to illustrate a complete edition of Shake-
speare's works. Doré is to be paid fifty thou-
sand dollars for his work.... Mr. Alling-
ham, the successor of Mr. Froude in the edi-
torship of Fraser, is said to be engaged in the
work undertaken by that gentleman of putting
Mr. Carlyle's manuscripts in order.
The
correspondence of Mr. John Stuart Mill, which,
as we stated in our last issue, will shortly be
published, contains many letters more theo-
logical in tone than philosophical. It is gen-
erally rumored that the book will contain pas-
sages, especially on religious topics, which are
far more uncompromising than the boldest in | appeal to us in a way different from any thing

the "Autobiography," and that they will in any case throw considerable light on various developments of the beliefs entertained at successive periods by Mr. Mill. . Messrs. H. S. King & Co., the London publishers, are about to publish a series of "Introductory Hand-books," to study which may be, at the same time, useful to those who desire to have a general outline of the subjects treated therein. They will not be, in any sense, " cram" books, and are intended to be strictly what their name implies. The series will comprise introductions to the study of philosophy, music, art, English, classical, and foreign literature, history, aneient and modern, etc. "Clever people," says the Academy, "seldom write novels, they know the difficulties too well. People of genius, whose works deserve the most careful criticism, and people with a notion that they are great observers, and can tell a story well, have the field of fiction to themselves. With the works of the former class, which ranges from George Eliot to Mr. Black, the reviewer seldom meets; the productions of the latter are before him every week, the crude endeavors of young and old ladies, of

gentlemen of leisure, these he gives his daily

dreadful line to."

The Athenœum thinks "Ouida's" new novel dull.... The same paper speaks of Low's "English Catalogue of Books for 1874" as a work indispensable to reviewers, but an awful proof of the amount of misdirected energy that finds a vent in print. The Saturday Review makes the following suggestion, which we recommend to novel-writers: "Our story-writers seldom do better than when they take some out-ofthe-way spot as the scene of their tale, and with the fortunes of their hero and heroine

work up the every-day incidents of a life with which their readers are likely to be but little

that is new, however fine the new thing may
be.

In Cambridge, specimens of nearly every
kind of building may be observed. The old
college-buildings of red brick, plain and an-
gular as the bricks themselves, without an
external adornment, had, till a few years ago,
when thrift destroyed the picturesque, tender
tones of their old weather-beaten red walls, a
great charm of color. The bricks were worn,
and the sunshine flecked their unequal surfaces
into broken lights and shadows. The natural
color, which paint can seldom equal, had
been broken down and streaked and faded

Beyond the college-grounds and near the old Washington elm, another church occupies a pretty corner, and in this case also there is a pleasantness in the material which makes the person who has seen it once desire to see it again. This building, like the other, is a Gothic church, and more elaborate in form. Two or three cloistered passages break the surface of its walls. The stone of which it is constructed is one of the commonest sorts of conglomerate, popularly called pudding-stone, and is found in great quantities close at hand in Roxbury. Each block Buffs

of every shade, to the deepest dyes of ironore that stain the rocky coast of Massachusetts, are variegated by pink and flesh color, and they marble with their complicated network an under-color of purple-gray. Examining the blocks of stone piece by piece it seemed impossible for us to decide which of them might be the more beautiful.

A few rods farther on, off at another corner of the same steet, are the Memorial Church and two other college-buildings of the Episcopal Theological School. This institution, which has been founded within a dozen years, has purchased a plot of ground of about a couple of acres around the lately. built St. John's Church. It would be diffi

by rain and weather till these old lodging-cult to find anywhere a group of three or

houses of the students were nearly as pleas-
ant to look at, and of as varied a hue, as the
red and yellow and purple rocks that abound
along the sea-coast of New England. But a
few years ago a general renovation did away
with all this, and solid Indian-red, called
brick-color, replaced these slight pleasant
tintings. But Nature is again doing its
work, and "Old Massachusetts" and "Hold-
en Chapel" are beginning to "tone" with
the trees and the sky.

As you come into Cambridge by the
horse-cars, the first new building which
meets the eye is a Gothic church, built of
blocks of blue-and-yellow mottled slate-stone.
This church covers a large area, and its nu-
merous porches and gables are edged by
granite, this latter stone also being built in
horizontal lines to the top of the tall stone
spire. The chief material used is rather
soft, but the granite guards all portions that
are exposed to the weather or the corners

four edifices more pleasant to look upon than these. Sitting low to the ground and sur rounded by fine greensward, the church, which stands on the corner, is a small, low roofed, many-gabled building, full of pictu resque niches and corners, a many-sided apsis filled with stained glass, and with its facing and trimmings of Nova-Scotia stone, witl

here and there bits of dark color and fin carvings. The irregular-sized blocks of th Roxbury pudding-stone make a sunshine in shady place with their warm tones; old Eng lish stained-glass windows with pointed top break the surfaces of the light walls int sombre tones almost as deep as shadow.

A little on one side of the church, and sur rounded by heavy, close-cropped turf tha fills the entire inclosure, another gable-roofed building of the same material varies from the church in effect of color by being bande and ornamented with red, rich lines and decorations, while the oblique lines that sup

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