to literature itself; but even in this border province of letters there are various grades of merit, and Mr. Taylor may be fairly said to exhibit a nearly if not quite unprecedented degree of excellence. We have seen better imitations of individual poets-neither of Mr. Taylor's travesties of Browning, for instance, being equal in quality to that in Mr. Calverley's Fly-Leaves "—but Mr. Taylor addresses himself in turn to each of his more noted contemporaries, and in no single case is his burlesque otherwise than successful. It should be said, moreover, that these burlesques are not mere parodies upon particular poems, but genuine reproductions of an author's manner and diction, the theme only being turned In many cases, indeed, it would require but a few slight changes to render it difficult to believe that the verses are not the serious productions of the several authors whose "voice" they are supposed to imitate-a feat, as we need hardly remark, very different in kind from the ordinary paraphrastic parody, and much more difficult.

awry.

Mr. Taylor takes what seems to us a good deal of unnecessary trouble to make it plain that his travesties imply no disparagement of the noble choir of singers whose notes he ventures to jangle, and certainly no personal unfriendliness. We say unnecessary trouble, because nothing could be more patent, even to the most careless reader, than that the burlesques were conceived in a pure spirit of drollery, while the accompanying dialogues, though devoted largely to critical exegesis and commentary, are markedly bland and conciliatory in tone. Taylor is too cultivated a man not to be aware that American literary criticism is wofully deficient in what Matthew Arnold calls "vigor and rigor;" but he has also too much tact, and perhaps too much kindliness of feeling, to bear very hardly upon contemporaries, in whose august company he aspires to appear at the poetic judgment-seat.

Mr.

A WELL-KNOWN critic is said to have declared that parts of Mr. R. D. Blackmore's "Cripps, the Carrier," 1 are as good as anything in Shakespeare; and, whether or not the reader will be disposed to go quite to this length, he will at least agree that portions of the story are exceedingly fine. He will be still more willing, we venture to think, to acquiesce in the assertion that not only are parts of it not up to Shakespeare's standard, but that, as a whole, the work is inferior to at least three out of Mr.

Blackmore's four preceding novels. It possesses the full flavor of the author's subtly - penetrative humor; it abounds in those semi-cynical but suggestive observations on men, women, and society, which have constituted one of the most marked features of all his books; it exhibits in a favorable light his power of dramatic characterization; and the quaintly-realistic effects secured by his mastery of the local dialects of rural England have never been more enjoyably manifested; but, notwithstanding all this, the story is so constructed and managed as to be undeniably tedious, and the most loyal reader is often tempted to skip, in spite of the consciousness that to omit a single paragraph is to incur the risk of overlooking some "bit" which he would be extremely sorry to lose. The plot, for example, is not only strained and improbable, but inspires rather the interest aroused by an ingenious puzzle than by what we can accept as a fairly accurate representation of real human life. It deals with the treacherous abduction of a young heiress, in order to get possession of her fortune, and with the various steps 1 Cripps, the Carrier: A Woodland Tale. By Richard Doddridge Blackmore. With Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers.

by which she was rescued and restored to her father and friends; but the story is told alternately from the side of the young lady and of those who are searching for her, and progresses at about the rate of Cripps's old cart on the highway. The manner in which Mr. Blackmore gradually weaves together the various and diverse threads of his narrative is certainly very adroit, but, when for fifty pages or more the reader is led ostentatiously down a succession of alleys which turn out to be "no thoroughfares," the experience is likely to become monotonous, if not irritating. So also is the habitual substitution of zigzag dialogue for direct narration at all the critical points of the story. This has always been Mr. Blackmore's distinctive method, but it has never been pushed to quite such an extreme as in "Cripps, the Carrier." On the strength of the evidence furnished by this one book, Mr. Blackmore might apply with confidence for a position in the Circumlocution-Office.

We have been from the start one of Mr. Blackmore's warmest and most outspoken admirers, and therefore feel the less hesitation in saying candidly that, while the portrait of Cripps himself is an excellent piece of minute and faithful realism, and while there are paragraphs, and sentences, and phrases, and epithets, as good as anything he has hitherto given us, yet, as a whole, "Cripps, the Carrier," is a marked declension from the standard of "Alice Lorraine" and "The Maid of Sker." We should be sorry to regard this declension as final, and prefer to think that the difficulty is that the production of a first-rate novel every six months is beyond even Mr. Blackmore's powers, great as they undeniably are.

THE third edition of Professor James Orton's "The Andes and the Amazon "1 has been made nearly double the size of the first by the addition of notes of a second journey across the Continent of South America, from Para to Lima and Lake Titicaca. This journey was performed in 1873, the route taking in reverse that of the expedition of 1867, and following a more southerly course. Its main objects were scientific, and, besides adding many new species to science, it has thrown much light upon the distribution of tropical forms, and enabled Professor Orton to prepare a chart of the Upper Amazons region which will unquestionably be regarded as a valuable contribution to our geographical knowledge. The narrative of the journey, however, is neither burdened with scientific details nor lightened with records of personal adventure. It is a plain, methodical, and practical description of the topographical features of the country traversed; of its climate, productions, and industries; of its vast commercial resources and possibilities; of its natural history, marketable woods, fruits, drugs, dyes, gums, game, etc. A few interesting chapters are devoted to an account of the railways of Peru, of its silver-mines and guano-islands, of the "Heart of the Andes " and Lake Titicaca, of Lima and other Peruvian cities, of the first ascent of Cotopaxi, and of the aborigines of the Andes and the Amazons; but, on the whole, the needs and interests of the "practical man" are kept in view rather than the curiosity of casual readers, and the desire to amuse merely has had but slight influence upon either the contents or style of the "Notes." Professor Orton is profoundly impressed with the vast importance of the Amazon and its tributaries to the future commerce of the world, and believes that the United States have a special and peculiar interest in their devel

1 The Andes and the Amazons; or, Across the Continent of South America. By James Orton, A. M. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. With two Maps and numerous Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1876.

opment; and, if his book can be said to have a purpose paramount to the scientific investigations with which it deals, it is to awaken in his countrymen an intelligent appreciation of these facts. He brushes aside Professor Agassiz's theory of the glacial origin of the Amazons valley with a contemptuously brief exposition of its absurdity, but upon the vast natural wealth and commercial capabilities of that valley he enlarges with all the enthusiasm of a pioneer.

The foregoing remarks will probably have made it evident that "The Andes and the Amazons" is not a book to which the reader may go to amuse an idle moment or to feed an appetite for hair-breadth 'scapes and daring adventures, but it is by far the most complete and satisfactory work on South America that has appeared in late years. In its present enlarged form it furnishes about all the information required by the student, the settler, or the tourist; and what the text lacks in picturesqueness is compensated by a profusion of admirable illustrations.

JUDGED by its literature, there is no other human pursuit which inspires so much enthusiasm in its votaries as-fishing. From the appearance of dear old Izaak Walton's "Compleat Angler" down to our own day, there has at no time been any lack of writers to set forth in the usual glowing language the superior charms, healthfulness, nobility, and beneficence of fishing over every occupation, pastime, or recreation, to which man can devote himself; and a liberal drop of the contagion filled the pen with which Mr. George Dawson wrote his recently - collected papers on "The Pleasures of Angling." Most of these papers appeared originally in the Albany Evening Journal, and the book is somewhat deficient in coherence; but, in so far as its plan is systematic at all, it may be said to treat of the pleasures of angling under two heads: first, the general-in its relation to health, morals, religion, love of Nature, serenity of spirit, and the like; and second, the particular-in relation to the author's reminiscences of certain achievements in the waters of the Adirondacks and other regions dear to the hearts of fishermen. Mr. Dawson writes with a fervor of enthusiasm which causes our own cold skepticism to shame us almost like "a conviction of sin; " but we must confess that even salmon-fishing on the "fair Cascapedia" impresses us (in Mr. Dawson's description) as a monotonous and cruel sport, and we are by no means surprised to learn that one of the party fairly ached to get a shot at a bear, and was ready at any moment to abandon rod and reel for the barest chance of a glimpse of Bruin. Mr. Dawson would doubtless retort that this impression of ours is no proof that angling is not all that he claims for it, but simply proves that we are not such stuff as true anglers are made of; and we accept the verdict with the meekness of one who has never experienced the "delicious thrill" of killing a thirtypound salmon.

MRS. MARY MAPES DODGE is always sprightly and entertaining, but her vocation is evidently the production of young folks' literature, and even grown-up readers will be more likely to be pleased with her juveniles than with such specimens of her work as are contained in "Theophilus and Others." 2 Under this title she has grouped together the various stories, essays, and sketches, which

1 Pleasures of Angling with Rod and Reel for Trout and Salmon. By George Dawson. With Illustrations. New York: Sheldon & Co.

2 Theophilus and Others. By Mary Mapes Dodge. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

she has contributed to the magazines during the past dozen years or so-Theophilus being an easy-going husband and paterfamilias who figures in two or three amusing stories, and the "Others" comprising the clever satires entitled "The Insanity of Cain" and "Miss Malony on the Chinese Question." The contents of the volume are too diversified to admit of detailed comment, and general remarks are apt to have but a limited application to any particular piece; but we may say of Mrs. Dodge's work as a whole that it is more amusing than profitable, and is not always amusing. Mrs. Dodge is humorous, witty, quick and keen of observation, and equally vivacious in dialogue and description; but she spoils all by an exaggerated attempt to be always "smart." Every phrase must tickle, and every sentence go off with a snap, and the complacency with which the hoariest commonplaces of the hardiest punsters are served up anew is something which the reader hardly knows whether to take as a joke or resent as an insult. The accustomed audience of young people seems always to be before her mind's eye, and the methods of treatment thereby generated are so strong upon her that even when she addresses herself specifically to us, as it were, we have an uncomfortable suspicion that we are being fed upon pap. It seems hypercritical, of course, to apply any very high standard to merely fugitive productions such as these; but the author fairly invites it when she collects them in a book, and duty compels us to say that we have found "Theophilus and Others" rather fatiguing company when obliged thus to interview them all together.

THE Completion of the new and revised edition of Bancroft's "History of the United States "1 affords us an opportunity for saying that our notice of the first volume conveyed but an inadequate impression of the amount of labor bestowed upon the revision, and of the extent and importance of the changes introduced. Even of the first volume, as we find by a closer comparison with the original edition, a large part has been entirely rewritten and the whole rearranged and remodeled; and the same thing may be said of all the succeeding volumes except the very latest, which was originally written in the light of the most recent authorities. It is easy to believe that the revision cost Mr. Bancroft "two years of solid and unremitting work," and its results are so important that the first edition will henceforth possess little more than a bibliographical value. A prominent feature of the new edition is an elaborate topical and analytical index which fills one hundred and fifty closely-printed pages. This index is a real recensus of the History, and we should hardly exaggerate if we said that it doubles the value of the work to the student.

As some misunderstanding appears to have gotten abroad concerning the scope of the work in its present form, we may add that it covers precisely the same field as the original ten volumes-concluding with the signature of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States in 1782.

IT is difficult to say for what class of readers Miss Susan Coolidge's "For Summer Afternoons " is designed, the stories being addressed apparently to the 'golden youth" of both sexes, while the poetry implies

1 History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the Continent. By George Bancroft. Thoroughly revised (Centenary) Edition. In Six Volumes. Vol. VI. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

2 For Summer Afternoons. By Susan Coolidge. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

a wider range of interests and greater maturity of taste. There are thirteen of the stories, clustered in twos and threes, with poetic interludes between; and both stories and poems are pitched in a variety of keys, from grave to gay, from lively to severe. They are very short, and suggest the deeper elements of human life rather than insist upon them; but they are exceptionally well written, and are wholesome and invigorating in tone, while as far removed as possible from commonplace sentiment and morality. We read the book on a summer afternoon, looking out at intervals upon a mountain-inclosed landscape and listening to the soft murmur of the breeze through the trees, and we can testify that it falls in harmoniously with the mood which such circumstances are likely to engender.

WHEN the reader finds Mr. Gladden declaring, with reiterated emphasis, in the first chapter of his "Working-People and their Employers," that voluntary abstention from work, whether there is any need for work or not, is a "sin," he might be excused if he closed the book with the conviction that the writer who could seriously put forth such a proposition could have nothing to say on economical questions which it would be worth while to listen to; yet a little further examination would satisfy him that such an inference was erroneous. Aside from the difficulties inherent in the attempt to clothe political economy in the habiliments of orthodox theology-for the book is not a treatise, but a collection of sermons-Mr. Gladden's presentation of the elementary principles of the science is unexceptionable, and in its adaptation to the special audience of workingpeople to which it was primarily addressed could hardly be surpassed. Whether or not "some readers may pronounce discussions such as these quite too secular for Sunday and the Church," it would certainly be a great public gain if the laboring and uneducated classes generally could have such sound instruction on vitally important matters imparted to them through the only agency which can secure their attention, and which is not open to the paralyzing suspicion of interested motives. Both working-people and employers who have either heard or read these addresses will not only have received a beneficial moral stimulus, but will have had considerations suggested to their minds which, so long as man's actions are dominated by his reason, must exercise an influence upon the conduct of life.

NOTWITHSTANDING the crude and unattractive style in which it is written-as of a foreigner who had only partially mastered the intricacies of the English tongue -Professor Rau's "Early Man in Europe" 2 affords to the non-scientific reader the easiest means of becoming acquainted with that branch of modern archæology which deals with the age and primitive condition of man. More comprehensive and authoritative works have been written on the subject, and Lyell's and Tylor's at least are not less readable; but Professor Rau's is the only one which, while addressed to a strictly popular audience, is sufficiently adequate and trustworthy to be accepted with confidence. In the space of half a dozen chapters, each about as long as the ordinary magazinepaper, he presents such a plain and methodical summary of existing knowledge on the subject as will enable any fairly intelligent reader to comprehend the precise 1 Working-People and their Employers. By Rev. Washington Gladden. Boston: Lockwood, Brooks & Co.

2 Early Man in Europe. By Charles Rau, Illustrated. New York: Harper & Brothers.

nature, locality, and character of the various discoveries which have induced scientific men to extend, by many thousand years, the period of the occupancy of the earth by our race, and to “ draw the important conclusion that the earliest known condition of man in Europe, as indicated by the tokens left by him, must have been one of utter barbarism, from which he elevated himself slowly but steadily, during the lapse of ages, to his present superior position." The book is copiously and admirably illustrated, and, if not so amusing as some others on our list, is instructive enough to repay the most careful perusal.

In the preface to his "Life of Benjamin Franklin,” 1 Mr. John S. C. Abbott, one of the veterans of American literature, bids a final adieu to his circle of readers, favoring them, at the same time, with a bit of autobiography and an estimate of his literary work. He began the career of an author, he says, at the age of twenty-four, and has now attained the age of threescore years and ten. In the mean time he has written fifty-four volumes of history or biography, in every one of which it has been his endeavor to make the inhabitants of this sad world more brotherly-better and happier. Now that the battle has been fought and, as he hopes, the victory won, he finds unspeakable comfort in the reflection that, in all these fifty-four volumes, there is not one line which, dying, he would wish to blot. If this were the time and place to survey Mr. Abbott's work as a whole, we might cite from his lives of the Bonapartes, and especially from his fulsome eulogy of Louis Napoleon, theories of political morality and standards of personal conduct of which it might be said that we have cause for hearty congratulation in the fact that they have taken such slight hold upon the American mind; but our business here is not so much with his self-complacent reminiscences as with his "Life of Franklin," and this we have no hesitancy in according a place in his category of harmless works. For those, indeed, who like to have biography interspersed with preaching, and sermons diluted with history, we can even imagine that it would prove an enjoyable addition to their stores of "seasonable reading; " though, but for the transparently good intentions of the author, an unsympathetic and brutal critic might object to his lauding Franklin to the skies in one breath, and with the next using him to point the moral of his denunciation of impiety. It is a pity that Mr. Abbott could not perceive that, in a work of this character, addressed exclusively to the young, incessant references to Franklin's religious views were out of place; yet this is the key-note and burden of his book. The objection to it is not merely on grounds of taste, but is of a much more practical character. Mr. Abbott is obliged to confess that, in spite of his "unbelief," Franklin was, in all respects, a far better and worthier man than the vast majority of the so-called Christians of his time; and the keen young minds which Mr. Abbott's book is likely to attract will be the first to draw the inference thus, as it were, thrust upon their attention. It is waste of time, however, to urge particular objections to a book which affords very little ground for commendation. Such readers as desire to know more of Franklin than they can learn from his delightful autobiography should possess themselves of Mr. Parton's "Life," of which Mr. Abbott's is a weak and ineffective abstract.

1 American Pioneers and Patriots. Benjamin Franklin. A Picture of the Struggles of our Infant Nation, One Hundred Years Ago. By John S. C. Abbott. Illustrated. New York: Dodd & Mead.