prints by Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co., of antiquity, history, and civilization could not considered entirely unreasonable, nor New York. In a copious appendix, which hardly have been much inferior to those of the subsidence of a great continent or archioccupies the best third of the book, the Egypt and Assyria,— is a fact scarcely real-pelago in the Pacific. Of course, on subeditor reprints an excellent practical treatise ized as yet outside the circle of a few quiet | jects as yet so thoroughly unsettled as those on "The Art of Engraving, with the Vari- but indefatigable explorers. The numerous pertaining to American antiquities, Mr. ous Modes of Operation," by F. H. Field- publications of the last ten years, chiefly by Short differs at times with one or another ing, originally published in London in 1844. the Smithsonian Institution and scientific of all the leading authorities; yet opposing This conveys all that the collector needs to surveys and societies, have at last begun to views are clearly stated, and the work apan appreciative knowledge of the mechani- attract public attention, and some authorita- pears to have been prosecuted, as the precal processes of the art, and may serve as tive work that should embrace the latest face states (p. xi), in "the spirit of inquiry an admirable instructor to the amateur, for discoveries and conclusions has become a rather than advocacy," and as "the embodithe directions are full and clear. The editor desideratum. Foster's Pre-Historic Races ment of an honest search for the truth." concludes the work, and brings the history and Baldwin's Ancient Races of America The style varies somewhat, and often of the art down to the present day with a have been in many particulars outgrown by becomes a little desultory, especially in the useful sketch of the present condition of the rapid march of investigation. Ban-introductory parts of the various topics. the art, illustrated by notices of the lives croft's Native Races, excellent in its place Occasional careless sentences, or proofand works of Charles Méryon, Charles almost beyond approach, is quite too ex-reader's slips, are met with; as, “it is unFrancis Daubigny, Jean-François Millet, tensive for the general reader. The niche likely. . . that none will ever be found" Charles, Jacque, Corot, Jacquemart, Leys, seemed exactly ready, and seems exactly (p. 285); "Shown in a cut on a future page" and others of the modern French school; filled by the work before us; and The (p. 405); "a Issaquena" (p. 70). The clear, of Seymour Haden and J. M. W. Turner of North Americans of Antiquity is likely to beautiful page, abundance of excellent illusthe English school; of Goya and Fortuny take its place at once as a standard along trations, and good index and table of conof the Spanish school; and of Whistler and with the eminent works above mentioned. tents, are in the best style of book-making. Farrer among the very few American etch

ers.

The accounts of Méryon's prints are especially useful and interesting. There is also appended a complete and laborious chronological table of the etched work of Rembrandt, with the numbers of the prints in five famous catalogues; and a general bibliography of the art, containing about 350 titles, with excellent notes. Oddly enough, however, Maberly's book, which was published in 1844, is not entered in this list.

On the whole, a more serious and creditable work of editing a special book on art has not been attempted in this country. We hope it will do good service in the new revival. The publishers announce, we notice, a special edition of fifty copies on large paper, printed by hand on hand-made paper, and folded in sheets only, not even bound, the design being to furnish the work in the most convenient form for illustrations and extension a purpose to which it is admirably adapted.

A

IT

JAMES E. Vose.

GILBERT STUART.*

On a subject of such extent and interest it is difficult to compress anything satisfactory into a brief review. An outline of the work may be given by saying that it covers T is given to few artists even to have the (1) The Mound-Builders and their Works story of their life and the praise of their (chap. I); (2) The Antiquity of Man on the works recited in a form so artistic as that Western Continent (chap. II); (3) Tradi- which characterizes this sumptuous volume. tional History of the Origin of the Mayas The massive proportions of the quarto, suof Central America (chap. V), and of the preme excellence of paper and typography, Nahuas of Mexico (chap. VI); (4) The An- a pictorial element of remarkable merit, an cient Pueblos and Cliff-Dwellers (chap. VII); ample editorial opportunity, and a faithful and (5) Origin of the Ancient Americans, and effective occupation of it; these are the featPeopling of the Continent (chaps. III, IV, ures which invest Mr. Mason's production XI); (6) Ancient American Civilization with the largest kind of value, and entitle Architecture, Sculpture, and Hieroglyphics him to the gratitude of all lovers of the use(chap. VIII), Chronology and Religions ful and the beautiful in literature. This life (chap. IX), Language (chap. X). In general, of Stuart will do more than preserve a just the author holds somewhat conservative impression of his genius; it will introduce ground. He is not quite ready to admit as fully settled the great antiquity claimed for the Natchez bone, the Calaveras skull, the Louisiana salt-mine fossils, and the like. His conclusions in regard to the age and origin of the race on this continent may best be given in his own words (p. 130):

to generations who knew him not an historical character of no small interest, and will entertain them with a store of that most delightful commodity, personal reminiscence.

The volume consists, first, of a series of seven biographical chapters, which tell the ANCIENT AMERICA.* story of Stuart's life, with due attention to detail, and much anecdotal matter, some of MERICANS will not buy their own We have seen that as yet no truly scientific which is very amusing. Then comes a chapproducts unless marked "imported." proof of man's great antiquity in America exists. During the last few years our periodicals authorities. At present we are probably not war- originally printed on a single sheet of paper, This conclusion is concurred in by most eminent ter of "Remarks on Art," by Stuart himself, have teemed with the wonderful discoveries ranted in claiming for him a much longer resi- and delivered in their author's oracular manin Oriental antiquities, and the names of dence on this continent than that assigned him Smith, Schliemann, Di Cesnola, and the Future research may develop the fact that man by Sir John Lubbock, namely, 3,000 years. ner. Following this are brief dissertations rest, have become household words in all is as old here as in Europe, and that he was he painted himself, and on the exhibition of on the portraits of Stuart, several of which educated circles. That there exist in our contemporaneous with the mastodon. As the own land antiquities far surpassing in some furnishes strong presumptive evidence that man orate account of his famous Washington case stands in the present state of knowledge, it his works in 1828. Next is a long and elabrespects anything the East can show, is not autochthonic here, but exotic, having stretching all the way from the Great Lakes originated in the old world perhaps thousands portraits, which, as is well known, were a of years prior to reaching the new. specialty with him; and, following this, and Oregon down through Mexico and comes a similar annotated list of his miscelCentral America as far as Peru- ruins

The writer seems to hold to the peopling numbered by scores of thousands, and indi- of the continent mainly in two ways: via cating by their magnitude and extent an Behring's Straits, and via the Atlantic and empire or empires whose population must the Antilles, with no doubt stragglers across have been counted by millions, and whose the Pacific; the Atlantic immigration giving rise to the Mayas, the northern one to the Mound-Builders, Pueblos, and Nahuas, both Aztec and Toltec. The fabled Atlantis is

*The North Americans of Antiquity. By John T. Short. Harper & Brothers. $3.00.

laneous portraits, taken in alphabetical order, which alone occupies nearly one half of the volume. Stuart painted some six hundred portraits, and this work may be said to be a guide-book to them all.

The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. By George C. Mason. Illus. Charles Scribner's Sons. $10.00.

Stuart was born in Rhode Island in 1755, not 1756, as is sometimes stated. His father was a miller. The child, however, is the true father of the man; and, at the age of thirteen, we find him at work fulfilling orders for portraits, two of which, painted at that early age, are now in the Redwood Library at Newport. He afterwards had an opportunity of study. ing abroad, and indeed established his reputation in London, where he enjoyed the friendship and aid of Benjamin West, and where he spent several years. After 1793, he resided in America, chiefly in Washington and Boston; and he died in the latter city in 1828. He was a man of strong and ready intellect, and of generous affections; ready witted, quick at expedients, and with a keen sense of humor. His life was full of pleasant passages, the relation of which gives a peculiar relish to this volume. Once, for example, when he was traveling in England, the following incident took place :

His fellow passengers were a number of gentlemen who were strangers to him, and who, finding him very amusing, ventured to ask him who he was and what was his calling. Mr. Stuart answered with a grave face and a serious tone that he sometimes dressed gentlemen's and ladies' hair (at that time the high-craped pomatumed hair was all in fashion). “You are a hair-dresser, then?" "What!" said he, "do you take me for

sensation in England. This magnificent pict- though having abundantly proved himself
ure was brought to America and exhibited one of those gloriously good fellows whose
at our Centennial. A copy of the Lansdowne popularity outshines their scholarship, and
is owned by the Philadelphia Academy of whose waywardness in pursuing a curriculum
Fine Arts. There are several other full- is indulgently overlooked by professors, on
lengths, of all of which Mr. Mason gives the score of their general manliness and
abundant particulars.
clear integrity of purpose. On those festive
The illustrations include a number by the occasions which are so dear to the heart of
photogravure process, which are exquisite in the average Yale man, he did shine; and
their softness and delicacy; two steel engrav- | his ready wit, his never-failing good nature,
ings and an etching; and they present three his poetical knack, and his large command
portraits of Washington, one of Mrs. Wash of language, brought him into constant de-
ington, and two of Stuart; with others of mand; but who would then have expected
Eugene Benson, Horace Binney, Mad. Bon- to find in him that broad historical learning,
aparte, John Callender, Generals Gates and that patient assiduity in research, that sober
Knox, John Jay, and Elizabeth Willing. and elevated statesmanship, and that burn-
It is a pity that the work was delayed being passion, by which his after victories on
yond the holiday season; for its value and the platform were won?
exceptional attractions would have com-
mended it strongly to all generous buyers.
As it is, we hope it may not lose its re-
ward.

THE

HENRY ARMITT BROWN.*

HE list of American orators is not a long one. Patrick Henry, Fisher Ames, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Hayne, and Rufus Choate, may be named as chief among the few who principally have contributed to the a barber?" "I beg your pardon, sir; but I in-national fame in this particular; and with ferred it from what you said. If I mistook you, may I take the liberty to ask what you are, then ?" Why, I sometimes brush a gentleman's coat, or hat, and sometimes adjust a cravat.' "Oh, you are a valet, then, to some nobleman?" "A valet! Indeed, sir, I am not. I am not a servant,- to be sure I make coats and waistcoats for gentlemen." "Oh, you are a tailor?" "Tailor? Do I look like a tailor? I assure you I never handled

these, on the showing of the volume before us, may now fairly be included, we think, Henry Armitt Brown. If he had lived long enough for his splendid powers to reach their full maturity, and if that maturity had fulfilled the promise of his earlier years, it a goose other than a roasted one." By this time is probably quite safe to say that no fame they were all in a roar. "What the devil are you, would have been brighter or more enduring then?" said one. "I'll tell you," said Stuart. than his. As it is, his untimely death has "Be assured all I have said is literally true. dress hair, brush hats and coats, adjust a cravat, left him standing well up among the illusand make coats, waistcoats, and breeches, and trious group whose forensic eloquence has likewise boots and shoes, at your service." "Oh, been one of the distinctions and charms of a boot and shoemaker after all?" "Guess again, gentlemen; I never handle boots or shoes but the century. for my own feet and legs, yet all I have told you

I

Mr. Brown's reputation as a powerful orator seems to have dated from a speech made by him at a complimentary dinner given in Philadelphia by the bar of the city to ex-Chief-Justice Thompson, in 1872. The assembly was a large and notable one. Young Brown was called to respond to a toast to "The Juniors of the Bar." The place was an exceedingly difficult one. His extreme youth, in view of those around him, was against him, and there was even some feeling that on such an occasion such a stripling should be called on at all. But he acquitted himself nobly. His first few graceful and ringing sentences disarmed all hostility, and before he had finished he had captivated every listener, and in the end was admitted to have fairly carried away the honors of the evening.

From this time onward, Mr. Brown's services were in constant request. The Centennial season was at hand, and its inspiring themes readily suggested some of his finest, noblest efforts. He entered heartily into local and national politics, taking, however, Mr. Brown was very young when he died always the large and the lofty view, and is true." "We may as well give up guessing." a year ago, having been born only in 1844. always seeking to awaken the highest moAfter checking his laughter, and pumping up a fresh flow of spirits by a large pinch of snuff, he He was a Philadelphian, and his reputation tives by means of the purest considerations. said to them, very gravely: "Now, gentlemen, I will not play the fool with you any longer, but as an orator of really exceptional gifts had Had he lived to fill the place in the council I will tell you, upon my honor as a gentleman, only just begun to spread. His opportuni- halls of the people for which his genius conmy bona fide profession. I get my living by ties were chiefly confined to the celebration spicuously marked him, there can be no making faces." He then screwed his countenance of local themes and historical occasions, question that he would have left a most and twisted the lineaments of his visage in a manner such as Samuel Foote or Charles Mathews which, interesting though they were, could might have envied. When his companions, after hardly have awakened the full fire of his loud peals of laughter, had composed themselves, each took credit to himself for having "all the genius. And yet in his few short years of while suspected that the gentleman belonged to public performance, and within comparthe theatre, and they all knew that he must be a atively narrow limits, he achieved a position The secret of Mr. Brown's eloquence is comedian by profession;" when, to their utter surprise, he assured them that he was never on of which any American might be proud. not hard to expound. the stage, and very rarely saw the inside of a The exquisite phototype portrait which pref- much, but he was indisputably "a born playhouse, or any other similar place of amuseThey all now looked at each other in aces this memoir of him shows a fine head, orator." His style was hardly massive, or blank astonishment. Before parting, Stuart said a graceful carriage, an expressive counte- elaborate, or broadly philosophic, but it to his companions: "Gentlemen, you will find nance, and a keen eye; but withal so youth- never descended to mere declamation, and that all I have said of my various employments ful a presence as to make it hard to realize was always elevated, carefully studied, finis comprised in these words, I am a portrait painter." that he was so marvelously endowed. ished, and pure.

ment.

Stuart's first portrait of Washington was Mr. Brown was graduated at Yale College painted in 1795. He made a number of in 1865, without having there betrayed the copies of the work in answer to the orders secret with which nature had gifted him, which poured in upon him. The first full* Memoir of Henry Armitt Brown, together with four length of Washington was executed for the Historical Orations. Edited by Professor J. M. Hoppin. Marquis of Lansdowne, and created a great | J. B. Lippincott & Co. $2.50.

marked impression upon the public mind and heart. As it is, his sentiments and his way of expressing them will not soon be forgotten.

He had acquired

His delivery [says Prof. Hoppin] was a constant charm. His voice was one of great flexibility and compass, and his articulation was singularly distinct, rounded, and musical. He had not particularly trained his voice by elocutionary methods (that was something he was always going to do), but it was a natural gift with which he could, as upon a lute, sound all the

notes and stops of passion. . . . Everything was spontaneous. He had in him the hidden resources of oratorical genius. He was, above all, a political speaker. He delighted in those broad themes which concerned the welfare of the State and the administration of the laws. He had a manly intellect. . . . He did not speak for momentary impression, but as a means to a higher end. He sought to raise the political spirit of the nation. Thus, with grit and manhood to back him, exceptional purity of spirit, self-possession, vivid imagination, fine and ready popular humor, an expressive countenance and a noble gesture, and an exquisitely modulated voice when filled with the subject he was speaking upon, he was transformed far beyond what his slight frame and quiet manner would ever have given the expectation of his being, his words vibrated into men's souls, and they recognized in him the divine gift of the orator.

Mr. Brown always wrote his important orations in full, and committed them to memory; for which latter item of preparation a single day would usually suffice.

beach strewn with broken marble. That sacred

RECENT WORKS OF TRAVEL.

The World's Paradises. By S. G. W. Benjamin. [D. Appleton & Co. 30 cents.] [D. Appleton & Co. 30 cents.] The Alpenstock. Edited by W. H. Rideing.

Camps in the Caribbees. By Frederick A. Ober. [Lee & Shepard. $2.50.]

Brazil.

Scribner's Sons. $5.00.]
By Herbert H. Smith. [Charles

We Four. By Miss L. L. Rees. [J. B. Lippincott & Co. $1.25.]

Four of his historical orations are Icluded with this memoir; one on the 100th turies, was half hidden with heaps of rubbish it takes us, in part at least, into scenes which

anniversary of the meeting of the Congress of 1774, one on the settlement of Burlington, N. J., one at Valley Forge, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the departure of Washington's army from its headquarters there, and one on the 100th anniversary of the battle of Monmouth. From the first of these we select the following passage as illustrating the best qualities of Mr. Brown's

powers:

threaten our future; these are the enemies we
have to fear; these are the traitors which infest
the camp; and the danger was far less when
Catiline knocked with his army at the gates of
Rome than when he sat smiling in the senate
house. We see them daily face to face in the
walk of virtue, in the road to wealth, in the path
to honor, on the way to happiness. There is no
peace between them and our safety. Nor can
we avoid them and turn back. It is not enough
to rest upon the past. No man or nation can
stand still. We must mount upward, or go down.
We must grow worse, or better. It is the
Eternal Law -we cannot change it. Nor are
we only concerned in what we do. This govern-
ment, which our ancestors have built, has been
Mr. S. G. W. Benjamin is a genuine trav-
a refuge for the oppressed of every clime," eler, not without readiness for adventure,
where they have gathered for a century. The
fugitive of earlier times knew no such shelter and even for excitement, but with more of a
aniong the homes of men. Cold, naked, bleed- fancy for the picturesque, and with an eye
ing, there was no safety for him save at the that skillfully takes in the salient points of
altars of imagined gods. I have seen one of
the most famous of those ancient sanctuaries. a striking landscape, and a hand that pleas-
of ruin. Beside me the blue sea plashed upon a observation into artistic effects. His latest
On a bright day in spring I looked out over acres antly combines the impressions of extended
book can hardly be called a fresh one, since
we have previously visited under his guid-
best, dealing as it does with Damascus, the
ance. The first third of it is the newest and
Bosphorus, Smyrna, and Scio; but the re-
those regions of Europe and those islands
mainder of the book is occupied with
of the sea of which Mr. Benjamin has al-
ready had something to say in other forms.
With the Channel Islands, the Azores, the
Bermudas, Madeira, and so on, Mr. Ben-
jamin seems as familiar as if every spot
severally had been his home. Toward the
first-named localities the average reader will
feel more of a stranger, and it is at these
that the book will be found the more valua-
ble and interesting. It is not a large one,
being one of the "Handy Volumes," and
may serve to while away a half hour pleas-
antly and instructively.

in-floor, polished with the penitential knees of cen-
and giant weeds. The fox had his den among
the stones, and the fowl of the air her nest upon
solitude, save sometimes the tread of an adven-
the capitals. No sound disturbed them in their
turous stranger, or the stealthy footfall of the
wild beasts and wilder men that crept down out
The god had vanished, his seat was desolate, the
of the surrounding hills under cover of the night.
oracle was dumb. Far different was the temple
which our fathers builded, and "builded better
than they knew." The blood of martyrs was
spilled on its foundations, and a suffering people
raised its walls with prayer. Temple and fortress,
it still stands secure, and the smile of providence
gilds plinth, architrave, and column. Greed is
alone the Tarpeia that can betray it, and vice the
only Samson that can pull it down. It is the
home of liberty, as boundless as a continent, as
"broad and general as the casing air;" "a tem-
ple not made with hands;" a sanctuary that shall
not fall, but stand on forever, founded in eternal
truth!

The conditions of life are always changing, and the experience of the fathers is rarely the experience of the sons. The temptations which are trying us are not the temptations which beset their footsteps, nor the dangers which threaten our pathway the dangers which surrounded them. These men were few in number; we are many. They were poor, but we are rich. They were weak, but we are strong. What is it, country- The preparation of this memoir has evimen, that we need to-day? Wealth? Behold it dently been a labor of love with Professor in your hands. Power? God hath given it to you. Liberty? It is your birthright. Peace? Hoppin, whose admiration and regard for It dwells among you. You have a government his lamented young friend and former pupil founded in the hearts of men, built by the people are reverent and sincere. He has done his for the common good. You have a land flowing with milk and honey; your homes are happy, part with a firm and discriminating hand, your workshops busy, your barns are full. The sketching a portrait of the orator that is school, the railway, the telegraph, the printing strong and refined, and conveying in a press, have welded you together into one. scend those mines that honeycomb the hills! marked degree a sense of his personality behold that commerce whitening every sea! stand and peculiar power. We are surprised, by your gates and see that multitude pour through them from the corners of the earth, grafting the however, to find a Yale College professor qualities of older stocks upon one stem, mingling making such a grammatical slip as this the blood of many races in a common stream, sentence, p. 43, betrays: "Mr. Brown's conand swelling the rich volume of our English duct of the case, as well as that of his tives than those of the daring- shall we not speech with varied music from an hundred tongues. You have a long and glorious history, a past glittering with heroic deeds, an ancestry full of lofty and imperishable examples. You have passed through danger, endured privation, been acquainted with sorrow, been tried by suffering, You have journeyed in safety through the red

De

colleague, were complimented highly," etc.
The volume is printed with a chaste and
quiet elegance befitting its subject, and is in
all respects a valuable accession to memorial
literature, and especially to the biography of

sea of civil strife, and the foot of Him who led
you hath not faltered nor the light of His counte- notable Americans.
nance been turned away! It is a question for us
now, not of the founding of a new government,
but of the preservation of one already old; not Among the various trades with which wo-
of the formation of an independent power, but of men now-a-days occupy themselves, there are
the purification of a nation's life; not of the con- few they carry on so largely as that of novel-
quest of a foreign foe, but of the subjection of writing. They have been addicted to it from
ourselves. The capacity of man to rule himself the days of the Heptameron, or earlier, and no
is to be proven in the days to come-not by the doubt will be so to the end of time; but if the
greatness of his wealth, not by his valor in the number of female novelists, as compared with
field, not by the extent of his dominion, not by that of men occupied in the same way, goes on
the splendor of his genius. The dangers of to- increasing as it has done for the last twenty
day come from within. The worship of self, years, it is evident that they must soon have com-
the love of power, the lust of gold, the weaken-pletely annexed this department of literature,
ing of faith, the decay of public virtue, the lack and driven their rivals altogether out of the field.
of private worth-these are the perils which-Spectator.

Mr. Rideing, with whose peculiar literary gifts our readers have already been made familiar, has made up his book, The Alpenstock, out of a variety of narratives of Alpine travel, with an eye always to the dangers and excitements of mountain climbing, in this its boldest and most thrilling form. The essence of many and costly volumes is here compressed into a 16mo of two hundred pages. There are few more thrilling narra

say reckless-men who have scaled Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn, and the Aguille Verte, and it is impossible to read some of the transcribed passages even of this volume without a shudder. With Mr. Rideing, we see now, and never can forget the heroic pertinacity of Whymper, and his associates forcing their way against every obstacle; we hear the last cry of the unfortunate Croz, as he flies over the precipice with Lord Douglas and the others; we again share with Tyndal that marvelous sunset seen under the lee of the Weisshorn; we hear brave Bennen's voice, and are thrilled with pity as his apparition flings its arms out to meet the ill-timed end.

We do not recommend this modest little volume to people of weak nerves, or to those who think there is a point where courage and resolution border closely on

MINOR NOTICES.

It is very delicate work indeed to translate a French play into any other language without dissipating in the process all the bouquet, the subtle aroma, which gives to the original its charm and its distinctive value. When the play is not merely translated, but absolutely de-localized, all its situations, dialect, and allusions being transferred to a different

foolhardiness and spendthriftness of human the first place embellished the magazine, and fresher or more entertaining on the subject life. are now transferred to this volume. Mr. of Egypt has appeared for a long time back Exciting as such narratives as the forego- Smith is something more than a mere de- than this lightly touched but well-considered ing are, we confess to a heartier relish for a scriptive traveler, good as he is in laying volume. Mr. Loftie gives us much that is book like Mr. Ober's Camps in the Caribbees, before us the great features and more curious as well as entertaining with regard which is the straightforward and intelligent minute details of the landscape; for his to antiquities, history, and the humors of the story, told by a young New England natu- mind is interested in the scientific aspect of road; and makes a little gentle fun of the ralist, of a winter excursion to the Caribbee things, and particularly in the social, politi- school, headed by Mr. Piazzi Smith, which Islands in the interests of the Smithsonian cal, and economic questions which are inevit- professes to have discovered so much of the Institution, in 1876. Mr. Ober, we should ably started by an intelligent inspection of secret of the great Pyramid; and he desay, was own brother, at least true mate, to such a country as Brazil. The land of the serves special credit for his forcible and Mr. Nathaniel H. Bishop; directed, however, Amazons has too often been painted in manly exposure of the misdoings and misin his adventures by a little more manly rose-color, and we are glad to find that this government of the Khedive, who was at that purpose, with less of a mere love of novelty author has not "lost his head" in the midst time still the shielded pet of English stockand romance, and with a scientist's definite of the luxuriance of the Southern Continent. holders, and of the terrible results of his and serious aim behind all his efforts. Mr. He does full justice to the wonderful rich mal-administration as evidenced by the FelOber's special object was the exploration of ness of the country, but he speaks very lah famine. the Antilles with reference to their ornitho- temperately of it as a field for North Amerlogical treasures, few of which have ever ican enterprise. It is evident, we think, been brought to light. ́Avoiding the beaten from the general tenor of Mr. Smith's obpaths of travel, he plunged into the forests servations and report, that there is a greater with the appetite of a true son of nature, and grander opening in Brazil for the capital carrying his camera with him, and probably and enterprise of the United States, than penetrating depths which have never been has yet been fully realized; but it is an opreached before for a similar purpose. In portunity that is to be improved with the his descriptions Mr. Ober reminds us of utmost prudence, and with a strict regard to Mr. Wallace, and they are full of interest the inflexible laws which regulate the profor the student of a virgin nature. The duction and interchange of commodities. features of camp-life in the tropics, the pe- We are sorry we have not the space to enter culiarities of the islands, and of the people, more fully into the contents of this volume, the mysteries of the trackless woods, and which we regard as not inferior in interest above all the mass and variety of bird-life, and value to Mr. Fletcher's, heretofore the visits to a great sugar estate and to the acknowledged authority on the subject. A birthplace of the Empress Josephine, these map, an index, and careful studies of the are the topics which give character to the majestic water system of Brazil, with much volume. It has illustrations, but they are strictly scientific information, add to the not commensurate in quality with the text, solid and enduring qualities of the work. though taken from photographs or drawings The "we four," whose adventures on a made on the spot. We wish we had room | European trip form the staple of the remainto give some extracts, but we cannot print a thirty-two page paper every time; no, nor one of twenty, as we should have to do if we did actual justice to every good book before us. It must suffice to say that while the work is not without interest as a journal of adventure, its chief importance consists in its careful study, from the naturalist's point of view, of a remote and infrequently visited region.

ing volume on our present list, are four
Philadelphia ladies, who, languishing for
something to do, after the exhibition of 1876

had exhausted its power to entertain them,
set out for England and the continent by
themselves, on an independent expedition.
They visited England, Scotland, and Ireland,
France, Switzerland, and Germany, and one
of them now tells the story of their adven-
tures and observations in a measurably en-
tertaining way, but without any great depart-
ure from the method and quality of the
traditional book of travels.

part of the world from that for which they were originally meant, the risk of failure is. of course immeasurably increased — increased, in fact, to the point of certainty. This is what Mr. J. Brander Matthews has

done, or attempted to do, in his Comedies for Private Acting. [D. Appleton & Co. 30 cents.] The collection includes five one-act plays, of which one was written expressly for the purpose, the other five being "adapted"— a phrase of wide meaning that — from sundry of the younger theatrical writers of the modern French school. Whatever good

qualities the so-called originals of these comedies may possess, they have in great measure disappeared during the process of transmutation to which Mr. Matthews has subjected them. What possible fun or na

ture can there be in putting the light and fanciful extravagances of Paris into the mouths of solid Anglo-Saxon brokers and bankers? or, as in the vulgar little extrava

ganza called "Heredity," making a German

burgomaster talk like a California miner, and
say, "A row here in my diggins! What the dig-
gins does it mean?" "Courtship with Vari-
ations"
" and "A Teacher Taught" are less
hopelessly spoiled than their companions,
humor of the originals; but they merit very
and retain some faint trace of the grace and

moderate commendation, and we recommend

Mr. Smith's work on Brazil is large, authoritative, and important, being wrought out of materials gathered during a series of visits to the country, directed by a specific A Ride in Egypt. By W. J. Loftie. [Macpurpose of investigation. The articles by millan & Co. $2.50.] Mr. Loftie's very Mr. Smith which have been appearing the pleasant book relates, strictly speaking, to past year in Scribner's Monthly form the an excursion from Sioot to Luxor, underbasis of the volume, but these have been taken by the author and three friends in the much amplified for their present and final January of last year, but it includes as well use, and a large amount of additional matter some entertaining notes en route from Enghas been added, making the book practically land to the East, and a number of instruct-sentation to try "Plays for Private Acting,” new and fresh. Mr. Smith first went to ive chapters on Cairo and its environs. Brazil in 1870, as a student with Prof. Hartt, The "Ride" proper, which was taken mostly vue Dramatic Club, in preference to this. published under the auspices of the Bellereturning in 1874; he spent two years or on donkey-back, conducted the party a little more in scientific exploration. Then followed further visits, at the instance of the Messrs. Scribner, in one of which he was accompanied by the artist Champney, who made the very beautiful drawings which in

amateurs in search of short pieces for repre

Mr. F. C. Burnand, better known as "Happy Thought Burnand," is to be the new editor of the London Punch. He has been for some time the author of its amusing and really able dramatic

aside from the hackneyed track, and to some
of the less well-known points of archæolog-
ical interest, notably to the ruins of This, or
Thinis, claimed by modern Egyptologists as
the cradle of ancient monarchy. Nothing criticisms.