EDITOR'S TABLE.

WEar

are asked, in view of our recent comments on state interference, whether

we do not believe the education of the people to be a great national advantage, and, this being true, whether it is not incumbent upon the state to exact of every citizen the education of his children.

We hope we have just as high an estimate of the importance of general education as that of the most zealous believer in compulsory attendance at schools. But are we to understand that, because a thing is of indisputable public advantage, therefore it is the business of the state to employ its power and its resources to bring it about? If this is the logic of our questioner, let us look into it a little and see what it means.

There can be no doubt that religious training transcends in importance every thing else. Not only is pious and moral living of the first consideration in regard to the welfare of people here, but also in regard to their welfare in the great unknown beyond this "bank and shoal of time." If because a thing is of universal importance government is entitled to interfere for its promotion, then the state must be permitted to enforce religious faith and pious living. Congress should under this view found churches ven before it establishes schools.

Cleanliness is next to godliness. The Doral and physical welfare of the whole peoole largely depends upon their habits of cleanness and order. Foulness is not only an jury to him who indulges in it, but, inasuch as it breeds sickness, and is the fruitcause of epidemics, whoever is guilty ndangers the life and health of all others. learly, then, as cleanliness intimately conerns the safety of all, the state may interre to enforce it—not merely by punishing Lose who throw filth into the streets, or ompelling those who live in close dens to dergo fumigation—which the state now atmpts-but by dictating how often we shall the, and compelling every one to wear a ean shirt. Under this rule the wretches in r streets, so foul with rags and filth, would appear; but whether we are to submit to general supervisory regulation as to our ess and personal habits, even to serve so cellent a consummation as this, may very ll be questioned.

Temperance in both eating and drinking ndispensable to the general welfare. We ow there are prohibition laws in some ces in regard to the sale of liquor; but if admit the principle that the public or eral nature of a desired end sanctions the Verposition of government, then the state. y take upon itself not only to regulate the

Extravagance is another tremendous evil -an evil to those who indulge in it, and to the whole people as an example of waste and self-indulgence. It is no new notion in the philosophy of government that expenditure in apparel and display in jewels or other ornaments are matters legitimately within the control of the state.

Where shall we stop? It is not easy, indeed, to find a limit to the duties of government, if we concede that, because a consummation is devoutly wished, therefore the power of the state should be stretched forth to enforce it.

As to public education by the state, there are, it is true, a good many reasons to be urged in its defense. But no government can be in advance of its time in this particular. A general system of public education is only possible when the public sentiment is ripe for it; and when this is the case this public sentiment would be tolerably sure in good time to accomplish unaided all that the state would fain perform. Government has done so much to embarrass, restrict, confuse, mislead, arrest, and paralyze, that, even if it be true that it has done good in this one thing of public education, there still remains a formidable indictment against it for the evils of its interference; and so altogether we for our part prefer it should learn to keep its hands off.

THAT puzzling line in "Macbeth" which declares "that nothing is, but what is not," has a certain elucidation in the vagaries of the critical mind. There are always those who are enabled to discover the evil in every good thing; but, fortunately, there are also those who are ever equal to the task of discovering the good in every thing evil. Among the minor manifestations of human perversity, ugly fashions in dress might be supposed to have no defenders-that is, after they have ceased to be fashions. We all know with what eagerness ugly devices for the adornment, so called, of the human frame will be adopted, and with what enthu siasm they for a time are defended; but commonly ugly old fashions are without respect or honor. An English writer, however, has ingeniously found a defense for all fashions, ugly or otherwise. He thinks that a good paper might be written in defense of fashion as an agency of intellectual progress and as a safeguard against error and superstition. He is of the opinion that the wits who have wasted powder and shot on the subject of the changes of fashion are in truth advocates of a moral slavery much more detrimental than the wildest vagaries of change. He is confident that a new fashion is a work of eman

and sometimes is not the case; and he asserts that ten thousand current mistakes about men and things have been exploded by a mere alteration of dress, of form, of ceremouy, of habit-all of which may be true, yet one sees it but vaguely. The main argument of this writer, however, is that women's beauty is altogether superior to the influ ences of adornment or disfigurement-that she, in fact, gives grace to rather than derives it from the arts of the milliner or the dress-maker. "In long skirts or short," we are told, "in spare skirts or hoops, in bonnets mighty or imperceptible in size, mountainous or absolutely flat, the result is al ways the same-the native grace and charm make beautiful the fashion. The satirist is always prophesying that woman has spoilt herself at last, but presently she overmasters the change and is more lovely than before."

It is probably often true that the loveliness of woman cannot be extinguished by the unbecoming devices of fashion, but it is a bold thing to say that her native graces and charms do not suffer therefrom. If it were true that they did not, then becoming and unbecoming would be meaningless terms in the vocabulary of fashion; the art of contrast, of adjustment, of harmony of colors, of the relation of tints to the complexion, of form and proportion, would have no existThe fact is, that many fashions are so detestably ugly that only very beautiful women succeed in maintaining their grace and charm under the adverse conditions im. posed upon them. Women sometimes retain their beauty despite the fashion, but it is only a truism to say that every one of them suffers more or less by the senseless decrees of the tyrant to whom each submits.

ence.

There is one noteworthy point to be deduced from the argument we have quoted. Ev. ery one has been surprised in looking back at old portraits, paintings, or engravings, at the many frightful fashions, under the dominion of which beauty seems to disappear altogether. Women with scant skirts, with their waists close under their armpits, and overshadowed by wide-spread sails called bonnets, impress one as fantastic caricatures. And yet these very women were admired, loved, fought for, worshiped, and won. It is not enough to say that their fashions of dress did not look absurd in the eyes of the cavaliers of the time. Why did they not? Because of the insensibility of the observers ? Not in the least; but because the native charms of the wearer, the flashing eye, the rising color of the cheek, the dazzling smile, the fascination of manner and voice-things which disappear from the painted image-all these were there to charm, to captivate, and to partially overcome the great drawback of

a preposterous get-up-to use a phrase of the green-room. It must have been some hideous fashion that prompted the poet to declare that lovely woman unadorned is adorned the most. In all ages men have made their vehement protests against the ugly and fantastic decrees of fashion, but in all ages men, notwithstanding the deformities of mistaken art, have admired all the loveliness of women that survived it. It must not be forgotten that, while some women succeed in proving their superiority to bad style, there are many sacrificed to it who otherwise would be considered charming. High and true art in dress would make all women lovely who are not absolutely deformed.

IN the London Spectator's criticism upon Mr. Henry Irving's personation of Macbeth, which is now provoking so much discussion in London, occur a few utterances that invite a prompt rejoinder from all Shakespearean students. They are as follows:

"The next passage in which Mr. Irving rises to the fullest height of his power is in the scene with Lady Macbeth's physician, where the cynical selfishness and indifference of his manner in speaking of the mind which had given way under the pressure of remorse, and the predominance of his contempt for the medical helplessness of the physician, are very finely given. At the passage

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies
That keep her from rest'-

Macbeth's cold and imperious 'Cure her of that,' is marvelously fine. Mr. Irving there catches the selfish mood of the tyrant, who cares more for the danger to himself in what his wife may say than for any peril it may imply to his helpmate in crime, with a power that thrills the hearer. Equally fine is the cold and bitter remark on hearing of the Queen's death:

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been time for such a word.-
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded Time ;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.""

In this criticism we find Macbeth spoken of as "cynically selfish and indifferent" in regard to Lady Macbeth; his direction to the physician, "Cure her of that," is described as being "cold and imperious;" and his response on hearing of the Queen's death is 60 cold and bitter." If these characterized as terms do justice to the actor's rendition of the part, then we should say that he failed in expressing one of the most striking features of Macbeth's character. Whatever Macbeth was to the rest of the world, to his consort he was tender, truthful, and even devoted. There is nothing really cynical, selfish, cold, or bitter, in the lines cited by the critic. "Cure her of that," may be imperious; it may indicate a selfish fear that the Queen would reveal too much; but the antecedents

of the guilty tyrant's relation to his wife permit neither of these deductions. It is more natural to believe that "the thick-coming fancies" with which the Queen was beset reflected the disease of his own mind, and that she might be cured of these haunting horrors was the impulsive desire of one who knew how sharp such mental anguish is. Indeed, he follows the exclamation, "Cure her of that," with the question

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory many a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart ? "

These lines indicate the real motive of his utterance, in which there was anxiety, perhaps, but also keen sympathy. Nor is there aught "cold and bitter" in the response "She should have died hereafter." It is generally uttered on the stage with profound grief. It is the reflection of a man so sore pressed with danger and difficulty that he could not even give himself the privilege of grief. She should have died at a maturer and a better moment, he thinks, when her life had rounded to a greater fullness, and when he might have been by her side. Do not the lines that follow show how far his heart was from cold

privacy, the impudence of the interviewer, and the public disclosure of personal af fairs, people always have liked and always will like to read and hear about the habits, idiosyncrasies, and minutiæ of the daily life of celebrated men. Now and then a celebrated man takes umbrage at finding his nose or his gait described with harrowing detail in the papers; but, as a general thing, celebrated men seem very willing to sit down and be taken in pen and ink by the persistent reporter or the suave correspondent, and, if they find none such to depict them, are very prone to take pen in hand themselves, and achieve a portrait as minute, though a touch more flattering, in the shape of an "autobiography." It is curious to note in what different ways statesmen unbend when their labors are over, and the long vacation leaves them their own servants instead of their country's; and to observe the way in which peculiar national characteristics are followed by them. The American statesman is pretty sure to be found carrying "the shop" into vacation. He makes stumpspeeches; he hurries at the call of party committees to enlighten doubtful States; he holds conferences with his "friends;" "he writes long manifestoes to the papers; his ness or bitterness? To better appreciate correspondence is voluminous; he makes this view of the subject, we may glance for flying trips to Washington in the dog-days to a moment at Macbeth's conduct toward his asget postmasters appointed, or to figure for a sociate in crime from the beginning. Never, second-class mission. Thus he typifies the in any instance, does a word of reproach pass unresting bustle of American life, which from his lips, nor indeed from hers. Never knows few holidays, and has but little love does he charge his wife with leading him on for that pause in money making which to the murder of Duncan. There are no is called vacation. The British statesman criminations, no distrusts, no discords, noth- fully and fairly and thankfully unbends to ing throughout but wedded purpose and the resting season. We hear of Mr. Glad sympathy. "O, full of scorpions is my stone felling trees in his shirt-sleeves at mind, dear wife," he bursts out upon one Hawarden; we learn that Mr. Disraeli is occasion, not to upbraid, but in sympathy. gracefully praising the pumpkins and com"Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest plimenting the rustic lasses at the harvestchuck," he exclaims in the same scene, when home of Hugharden; while Mr. Bright is far hinting to her of other crimes. How strik- off in the Highlands, hunting and fishing as ing, moreover, is the Queen's conduct after the if there were no abuses left in England for a banquet-scene! In the dread of a revelation great tribune to correct. Meanwhile spright she hurries to Macbeth upon seeing him so dis-ly little M. Thiers spends the leisure of intraught by the vision of Banquo, and sharply censures him as being "unmanned in folly," but this is because it is imperatively necessary to arouse him to the danger of his "flaws and starts; "but when the guests have gone no word of reproach escapes her. She tells him simply that he lacks "the season of all natures, sleep," and with a great weight of sadness the guilty couple go off together. Through all the bloody story

this human side shines forth and holds fast our sympathy for the great criminals.

A VERY entertaining book might be written concerning "statesmen out of harness." Despite all the talk about intruding upon

terregnum doing what no eminent French

man can easily keep his hands from-he is writing the memoirs of his time. American statesmen are statesmen all the time and everywhere; English statesmen, the parlamentary adjournment turns into country magnates, sportsmen, and tourists; French statesmen, when they can no longer be polit ical, become literary and autobiographical It is gratifying to observe, however, that i recent years many of our public men have widened the area of their usefulness by a tering literary fields. Political biographie and autobiographies are almost always inte esting, and few men of note nowadays o to make provision for letting the world know

their experiences in public life. The lectureplatform, too, has given an opportunity to statesmen which has been often accepted to the public profit and instruction, enabling them to present matters of national interest in an informal and attractive way.

Ir must be admitted that the duties of that august functionary, the Lord-Chamberlain of England, are invidious, and scarcely proper to be exercised in a free country. To have a great state official perpetually cutting and slashing dramatic manuscripts, or, what is but little better, casting them into his waste-paper basket, and peremptorily forbidding their production; to have him dictating the length of the ballet-dresses and the color of the ballet bottines; to have him shutting up this theatre and taking away the license from that, seems to be a state of things more proper to the age of Elizabeth than to that of Victoria. Besides being invidious, the office must be a vexatious one to the lordchamberlain himself. The penny press is always nagging him; the humorous papers ure forever making fun of him; the managers are perpetually besieging him; and the public is usually grumbling and growling at im. It must be confessed, however, that he lord-chamberlain's latest act of tyranny as its merits. The public might forgive im many things when he interposes for the afety and comfort of the audiences of the heatres. He has made a regulation forbiding the filling up of the aisles and enances of the theatres with chairs and stools, hen the ordinary seats do not suffice for Be multitude; and he not unreasonably ges that this crowding of exits and enances would become a very serious matter are a fire to break out, or even if an alarm fire were to be given. Seeing that theatres more liable to conflagrations than any er buildings, the plea seems a sensible e, and the measure wise and prudent. In erica, the good sense of managers reces, as an ordinary thing, the ukases of lord-chamberlain; and they might in this y properly consider whether they cannot, h due regard to the safety of their pa as, take as advice what he issues to his thecal subjects as a command.

ern civilization. After what he has so repeatedly said, and so constantly emphasized with each repetition, it was rash in Harvard to tempt another explosion, and the dignitaries of that institution have only themselves to blame for the coarse and unmannerly insults with which their proffered compliment has been received. It is true enough that the insults chiefly hurt their utterer, but if American civilities continue to be offered in the same quarter much longer, the odium will be largely ours. It is well to understand that Mr. Carlyle is an incorrigible hater, and that to attempt to propitiate him only inspires him to draw upon a larger vocabulary of epithets.

No

Literary.

O problem of geology, or indeed of physical science, has attracted more attention, or awakened more general interest, than that presented by the Glacial period. For a long time it was the received opinion among geologists that, during the Cambrian, Silurian, and other early geological periods, the climate of our globe was much hotter than now, and that ever since it has been gradually becoming cooler. But the great discovery of the Glacial epoch, and more lately that of a mild and temperate condition of climate extending during the Miocene and other periods to North Greenland, have produced a complete revolution of ideas in reference to geological climate. These discoveries showed that our globe has not only undergone changes of climate, but changes of the most extraordinary character. They showed that at one time not only did an arctic condition of climate prevail over Northern Europe, but that the greater part of the temperate zone down to comparatively low latitudes was buried under ice, while at other periods Greenland and the arctic regions, probably up to the North-Pole, were not only free from ice, but covered with a rich and luxuriant vegetation. To account for these extraordinary variations of climate, and especially for the Glacial period, nearly every leading physicist has had a theory of his own to propound, though as yet none of them has received the assent of the general body of scientific men. Mr. James Croll's "Climate and Time in their Geological Relations" is an attempt to explain them on a new basis, which, whether it be finally accepted or not, is certain to secure the serious consideration of geologists, meteorologists, and astronomers. Mr. Croll's theory is that the Glacial period, the InterGlacial periods, and all other variations in the climate of our globe, were caused by changes in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. This cause does not operate directly.

* Climate and Time in their Geological Relations: A Theory of Secular Changes of the Earth's Climate. By James Croll. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

ago that a much greater increase of eccentricity than can possibly be predicated of the earth would not alter in any appreciable manner its mean thermometrical state; but the argument of Mr. Croll is that, while an increase of eccentricity could not produce the Glacial epoch directly, it might—and in fact did-do so indirectly, by bringing into operation a host of physical agencies, the

combined effect of which is to lower to a very great extent the temperature of the hemisphere whose winters occur in aphelion, and to raise to nearly as great an extent the temperature of the opposite hemisphere whose winters, of course, occur in perihelion.

By far the most important of these physi cal agencies, and the one which mainly brought about the Glacial epoch, is the deflection of ocean-currents; and, as there is great diversity of opinion among scientific men on this subject, Mr. Croll devotes a considerable portion of his book to a discussion of the cause of oceanic circulation. His first thirteen chapters furnish what is probably the most complete existing exposition of the questions involved in the origin of ocean currents; and he certainly seems to prove conclusively that both classes of the gravitation theory (one represented by Lieutenant Maury and the other by Dr. Carpenter) are erroneous.

His

own theory is that ocean-currents are due, not to the impulse of trade-winds alone but to that of the prevailing winds of the globe regarded as a general system; and his conclusions are greatly strengthened by the fact that, wherever charts have been made, both of ocean-currents and of prevailing winds, they are found to coincide exactly. The relations which theories of ocean-circulation bear to Mr. Croll's theory of secular changes of climate are stated at great length, but may be summarized as follows: When the eccentricity of the earth's orbit attains a high value, the hemisphere whose winter occurs in aphelion has its temperature lowered, while that of the opposite hemisphere is raised. Let us suppose the Northern Hemisphere to be the cold one, and the Southern the warm

one.

The difference of temperature between the equator and the north-pole will then be greater than between the equator and the south-pole; according, therefore, to the wind theory, the trade winds of the Northern Hemisphere will be stronger than those of the Southern, and will consequently blow across the equator to some distance on the Southern Hemisphere. This state of things will tend to deflect equatorial currents southward, impelling the warm water of the equatorial regions more into the Southern or warm hemisphere than into the Northern or cold hemisphere. The tendency of all this will be to exaggerate the difference of temperature already existing between the two hemispheres. If, on the other hand, the great ocean-currents which convey the warm equatorial waters to temperate and polar regions be not produced by the impulse of the winds, but by difference of temperature (as Maury and Carpenter maintain), then in the case above supposed the equatorial waters would be deflected more into the Northern or cold

hemisphere than into the Southern or warm hemisphere, because the difference of temperature between the equator and the poles would be greater on the cold than on the warm hemisphere. It will thus be seen that Mr. Croll's theory of climatic changes is really involved in the theory of oceanic circulation; and the apparently disproportionate attention which he gives to the latter is warranted by the part which it plays in his general scheme.

Of course, if the Glacial period resulted from the cause assigned by Mr. Croll, there must have been during the geological history of the globe not one but a succession of glacial epochs corresponding to the periodical variations in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit; and of this Mr. Croll presents strong evidence in his chapters on the "Warm Inter-Glacial Periods." The argument of these chapters, as well as of those which follow, is a fine example of inductive and cumulative reasoning; and in the course of it much new light is thrown not only upon the problem in hand but upon other moot questions in physical science, such as the date of the Glacial epoch, the rate of sub-aërial denudation, the probable age and origin of the sun, the age of the earth, the mean thickness of the earth's crust, and the cause of the motion of glaciers.

Mr. Croll desires particular attention to be given to the fact that, in his book, he has studiously avoided introducing into the theories propounded any thing of an hypothetical

- nature.

The conclusions are, in every case, derived either from facts or from what are believed to be admitted principles; and he has "aimed to prove that the theory of secular changes of climate follows, as a necessary consequence, from the admitted principles of physical science."

The volume contains eight colored maps or charts, which explain many points that without their aid would remain more or less obscure.

THE material which Mrs. Edwardes has to work with in her "Leah: A Woman of Fash

ion" (New York: Sheldon & Co.), is indicated very well in her description of the heroine in the opening chapter:

"A fair, low forehead, suggestive of kisses rather than intellect, with subtile-colored hair, loose coiled; lips rich at present in youth's first sweetness, yet with lines about them that age may render sensual, or crafty, or both; a cheek that goes from bright to pale, from pale to bright too rapidly, and eyes that are at once the perfection and the mystery of the faceeyes of the curious opal-yellow that Titian has once or twice painted for us-deep, sunken, passionate, more fitted perhaps for hiding emotion than for betraying it, and curtained by lashes black as night. A nose not strictly handsome, by reason of the downward curve, indicative of race, toward the tip, and still admirably characteristic, finely cut, expressive, and with the most transparent, delicately-sen

sitive nostrils in the world.

"Such is Leah Pascal at twenty, roughhewn from Nature's hand, unshaped by milliner's devices and the applauding voice of fools into a woman of fashion as yet. Her figure inclines to plumpness, but in bone and structure the girl is slight, almost frail-a weight

that any arms of average strength might carry easily. Her walk is supple; her voice mesmeric; her mind well furnished through extensive novel-reading, French and English; her heart inclined toward good, if good happen to comprise diamonds, liveries, excitement, woman's envy, man's love; and if evil comprise the same-why, then, toward evil."

In a week's time this fair vessel is to be married to a brainless fool whom she does not absolutely dislike, but whom she does not even pretend to be marrying for any thing but his money. During the interval she meets a young surgeon, poor in pocket but piquant in character, and, apparently in mere wantonness of vanity, begins a flirtation with him which speedily develops into passionate love on both sides. Notwithstanding a mutual confession of this love, Leab, false to her instincts, but true to the social code in which she has been trained, marries her moneyed suitor at the appointed time; and the rest of the story tells how violated Nature wrought its bitter revenge upon her through the very instrumentalities to which she had looked for compensation.

tracts from another novel, the manuscript of which lay convenient to his hand. At that stage of his work our author rejected the friendly suggestion with scorn, but has evi dently thought better of it, and "The Lacy Diamonds" is even an expansion of the plan as originally proposed. Its first five chapters are taken, ex hypothesi, from Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.; chapters eight, nine, ten, and eleven, from G. W. M. Reynolds; two-thirds of the remainder from some third-rate "high-society" novel of the period; and the rest from one or more Sunday-school stories of the conventional type. The peculiarities of the book do not end here, however, for the latter part of the story is told first, and about fifty chapters out of the fifty-six of which it is composed are devoted to the elaborate weaving of a plot the culmination of which is given at the very be ginning! This culmination is told in a way that leads the reader to suppose that he is entering upon a thrilling, breath-catching narrative of hair-brendth 'scapes and roman. tic adventures; but the story speedily drops to the dullest, prosiest level of commonplace love-making.

Mrs. Edwardes is a vivid and vigorous In the preface to the present work the writer, and keeps a strong hold upon the author expresses the hope that "his effort to springs of sympathy and of pathos; and produce a series of novels which, at least, "Leah" is a deeply-interesting, powerful, and should not be hurtful in tone or teaching even impressive story. But, somehow, it has been successful." If this means any strikes us as being on a lower level than her thing more than the general self-complacen previous works. For one thing, it is a satire, cy of an author whose books have achieved and satire is not Mrs. Edwardes's forte. She a certain vogue, it must mean that in his feels too deeply, and sympathizes too entireopinion the "Odd Trump Novels " are free ly with the experiences of her characters, to from the sensationalism which is doubtless write genuine satire, and, instead of the se- the worst accusation that can be brought rene and even good-natured contempt which, against current fiction. If this be its meanfor example, is the pervading tone of Trol-ing, however, it shows a singular incapacity lope's "The Way We Live Now," "Leah" reads very much like a description of the peine forte et dure by one who had been subjected to it. Civilized society, as she depicts it, is no doubt a very wicked and contemptible thing, but it is little less than amusing to see one go into a prolonged passion over it. Besides this, the tone of the story is depressed and depressing. The author seems to fret under her self-imposed task, and to participate heartily in the reader's wish that there was at least one promi. nent character to whom, in the general strain upon his feelings, he could turn for relief. M. Danton is intended to supply this, but somehow he lacks "magnetism," as the politicians call it, and, in the nature of things, he could only play the art of a foil to "a woman of fashion."

IN "The Lacy Diamonds" the author of "Harwood "has succeeded in making a novel of rather more than the usual size without resorting to professed padding of any kind. All the same, in order to understand its somewhat perplexing construction, it will be necessary to go back to those preliminary chapters of "Harwood" in which its prepublication history was narrated. The render will recollect, perhaps, that "Harwood" was considered too short to make a book by itself, and that an ingenious friend of the author's suggested, as a remedy, that he should interpolate into its text copious ex

on the part of the author to take the measure of his own work. For sensationalism is his one strong point as a writer, and it is the liberality with which he indulges the facul ty in all three of his stories that alone re deems them from absolute vapidity. If, on the other hand, it refers to the effusively pious conversation with which "The Lacy Diamonds" abounds, then the author priding himself upon the one painful and eve repulsive feature of the book. Of all the heroes with which modern novelists have persecuted us, the canting hero is withou doubt the most detestable; and he has sel dom appeared in less pleasing guise than i the Lacy Barston of the present narrative For a man to pray to God to help him in hi love affairs is well enough, perhaps, if does it in private; but for him to talk abou it, boast of it, and even see an indirect swer to his prayers in the accidental dea of his best friend, whose wife he was in lo with, is simply revolting.

Of course all the foregoing criticism is the assumption that the author is serio but he has shown on more than one occas that he is not without a sense of humor, it is hard to believe that he is not laugh in his sleeve at the fancied gullibility of reading-public. At any rate, even if probable, the author knows nothing per ally of English society, he must have enough about it to know that his book i mere travesty of the life which it profe to depict.

To those who are already familiar (as who is not?) with the Erckmann-Chatriun warstories, it will be enough to say that "Brigadier Frederick" (New York: D. Appleton & Co.) is the latest addition to the list. It deals with the German invasion of France in 1870, and, besides being eminently interesting as a story, gives an exceedingly vivid picture of -the privations and indignities suffered by the unfortunate inhabitants of the annexed provinces. Though briefer than most of the Erckmann-Chatrian novels, "Brigadier Frederick" is yet an excellent example of the authors' peculiar literary method. First we are introduced to an almost idyllic picture

of the home of an old forester on the borders of the Vosges; listen to the "short and simple annals" of his family; watch the pretty love-making between the brigadier's pretty daughter and a handsome young forester who hopes to succeed him on his retirement; share their bright hopes and anticipations of the future; hear with incredulity the first vague rumors of war; and then the guns of Woerth and Phalsbourg, the tramp of invading armies, the fierce rapacity of the soldiery, and the pains of exile, ending in death, and in desolation which is worse than death. All is told in such wonderfully simple, easy, and unpretentious style that the eader is apt to think slightingly of the Achievement; and it is only when he conrasts it with the attempts of other writers in this field that he perceives that the apparnt nataralness is simply the perfection of rt. The translation is by Miss Hooper, and n the main is good.

en;"

99 66

"Or whatever else," says the Athenæum, a man with average intelligence and education may think himself incapable, he will not confess his inability to write a play. We do not speak of such men as the first Lord sell, to both of whom nothing was impossible, Brougham and Vaux or the present Earl Rusbut of the ordinary run of mortals, who would hesitate to take command of the Channel Fleet or who would sign a contract for making a railway over the Himalayas. The great majority content themselves with the belief that they could if they would. They have but to put themselves in competition with the successful playwrights to excel them all. Only there is the bother of putting pen to paper, and having to find a manager with sufficient sense to appreciate their production when ready for public approval. They decline the trouble, and go through the world happy in the consciousness of their untried ability. But there are others not satisfied with an instinctive belief in their own genius." The last number of the British Quarterly Review has a fine example of "constructive" criticism. In an article on 66 Shakespeare's Character and Early Career," an anonymous writer gives an entirely new version of the great poet's life, proving, to his own satisfaction at least, that Shakespeare's father was not poor, that Shakespeare himself was not uneducated, that his ante-nuptial relations with Anne Hathaway were not immoral, that he was not punished by Sir Thomas Lucy for deer-stealing, that he did not desert his wife and children when he went to London, that his first connection with the stage was not "menial," that his "Sonnets" are not autobiographical, and that his plays were not written in the order usually assigned to them. The article is ingenious and even valuable, but is written in a curiously crude and pretentious style. . . . Mr. Blanchard Jerrold's authorized "Life of Napoleon III." has reached its third volume. A new way of teaching music to the young is by means of a fairy-tale, recently published in London, " forming an allegorical and pictorial exposition of the elements of music."

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M.

MESSRS. HARPER & BROTHERS have added 0 their well-known Classical Library a volme of "Select Dialogues of Plato; a New nd Literal Version by Henry Cary, M. A." he dialogues selected are: "The Apology of Socrates; ""Crito; or, The Duty of a Citi-Guichard, a French painter, is preparing a great ;" "Phædo; or, The Immortality of the oul;""Gorgias; or, On Rhetoric; "Proogoras; or, The Sophists; " "Phædrus; or, In the Beautiful; ""Theætetus; or, On Scince;""Euthyphron; or, On Holiness;" and Lysis; or, On Friendship." The translaon is mainly after the text of Stallbaum; nd Mr. Cary says he has "endeavored to eep as closely to the original as the idioms f the two languages would allow." To each ialogue an introduction is prefixed, giving a rief outline of the argument, and of the ain of Plato's reasoning, which, without Ich aid, it is not always easy to follow.

THE growing popularity of Hawthorne's orks has induced the publishers (J. R. Osod & Co., Boston) to issue a new edition them in the tasteful, convenient, and inpensive style of the "Little Classics." e series opens with "The Scarlet Letter," id will be completed in twenty-one volumes. ese will make a handsome display on the rary-shelf, and the whole will cost so little at it cannot be doubted that many new aders will hasten to embrace the opportuty thus offered of becoming acquainted ith the great prose masterpieces of Ameriin literature.

practical and historical work on Decoration. He has obtained permission from the administration of the Beaux-Arts to install his studio at the Garde-Meuble, in the very midst of the wealth of all kinds-furniture, tapestry, vases, etc.-belonging to that great national establishment. . The son of Hugh Miller is treading in his father's steps, both as a geologist and a writer. He has written a biography of his father's life-long friend, Sir Roderick Murchison, and he is engaged on the geological survey of England. By a curious coincidence, he made his debut as a writer in the Inverness Courier, the same paper as that in which his father did, and under the same editor, Dr. Carruthers. The late M. Athanase Coquerel, pasteur of the Socinian church in Paris, had been engaged for upward of four years on a "History of Comparative Religion," with a rationalistic aim in view. The work, though not complete, will be published by his admirers and friends. . . . Taine has nearly completed his "History of the French Revolution." The American edition of the Count de Paris's "History of the Civil War ". will be edited and annotated by Professor Henry Coppée, L.L. D.... Dr. Austin Flint, Jr., will soon issue, through the press of D. Physiology, designed for the Use of PractiAppleton & Co., "A Text-Book of Human

tioners and Students of Medicine," which will be illustrated by three lithographic plates and three hundred and thirteen woodcuts.

The Arts.

HE paintings of Fortuny, whose recent death in Rome stirred so profoundly the whole art-world, are little known in America, and hence our readers will be interested in the subjoined description of two of his pictures now in the collection of Mr. Alexander T. Stewart, of this city, by whose courtesy we were enabled to see and study them.

What little we know in this country of the works of Fortuny is derived from etchings, but these, coupled with the interest excited by foreign criticism, have created a great deal of curiosity as to his real standing in art. Delicate and subtile in line, the engravings of his works have the intangible charm of cobwebs; and, to compare them with the effect of music, the sentiment they express seems to resemble the half-morbid, half-passionate fancy of Chopin rather than the robust humanity of Beethoven. Queer, picturesque men, with big thin noses and sharp forms, make love to girls fragile enough for our own nervous Americans, but they are as graceful withal as cats and lithe as serpents. In another mood his thin-shouldered, sharpelbowed youths and children have a happy, Arcadian gleefulness and tranquillity nearly akin to the antique; and his boys, with bare shoulders and long arms, piping to their goats or sheep on a Roman Campagna or African plain, have a strange and delightful charm. Of the two pictures at Mr. Stewart's, the finer is "The Serpent - Charmer," which is possessed of all Fortuny's peculiarity of conception. A long, lank Moor, or East-Indian, lies prone, stretched on a high-colored mat, and beside him at a little distance a skinny-armed, skeleton - handed old man is watching him. The Moor has a lithe wand in his hand, and with it he makes passes and slow motions, which exasperate, at the same moment they subdue, an immense adder, which is reared before him with flaming eyes and his thin tongue twisting like a flame. We have spoken before of the adaptedness of our own negroes for pictorial delineation, and of the superstitious, half-animal instinct of religion that belongs to them. Many of the Spanish and French artists, such as Regnaud and Fortuny, seem to have caught this aspect of tropical life and of character, and to have translated it into their work. "The Serpent-Charmer" has it in an eminent degree, and, lying on his belly with his long, muscular arms writhing slowly about, his grace and his cunning scarcely raise him above the slimy level of the reptile his enchantment subdues. A few other queer fig. ures beside the old man, gaunt and uncanny, watch the serpent-charmer. A long-legged crane or stork, with tall, scaly legs, and eyes half-closed, contemplates the scene much in the manner of Barnaby Rudge's raven, and one or two dirty, ragged paupers linger on the outskirts of the picture; but so vague and shapeless are these latter that the spectator scarcely knows whether to recognize them as men or as beasts.

The other painting, unfinished, and representing a sea-coast, upon which a multitude of persons are bathing, with two or three