Books of the Month

Geography and Travel. The most important recent publication in this department is the new edition of Lippincott’s A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World, which has been thoroughly revised, rewritten, and greatly enlarged. — New Colorado and the Santa Fé Trail, by A. A. Hayes, Jr. (Harpers), is a collection chiefly of illustrated papers published recently in Harper’s Monthly. Mr. Hayes prefixes the word New to his title as a reminder that the Colorado of Taylor and Bowles is already old. The book is a record of personal experience and observation, and professes to be independent of any individual or associated interests. It is provided with a clew map.—Summerland Sketches, by Felix L. Oswald (Lippincotts), is further described by its sub-title, Rambles in the Backwoods of Mexico and Central America. It is an illustrated and picturesque account of extended excursions in the alturas, where vast tracts of woodland still remain. The reader is shown a Mexico which has scarcely known the Spaniard. — The Scribners have issued the second volume of Jules Verne’s The Exploration of the World. It deals with the great navigators of the eighteenth century, and a generation which has grown up in ignorance of Captain Cook’s voyages may here read the tales which once divided interest with Robinson Crusoe.— Mr. Oswald Crawfurd’s Portugal, Old and New (Putnams), is neither an itinerary, a history, dissertation, nor diary, but gives in an agreeable style the impression produced on an intelligent traveler who was already fortified by an acquaintance with the history, language, and literature of the country. —A similar, but more formal work presents Holland and its People (Putnams). The author is Edmondo de Amicis, already known by his Constantinople, and he has given the results of his travel and study, freed from the accidents of his personal adventure. — Current Views and Notes of Forty Days in France and England, by John Swinton (Carleton), is a pamphlet in which the author’s individuality is conspicuous. — Only a liberal construction permits us to class here Ladies and Officers of the United States Army, or American Aristocracy, by Duane Merritt Greene (Chicago: Central Publishing Company): a sketch of the social life and character of the army, which takes the writer especially among the frontier posts.—Dr. J. F. Clarke’s sensible paper On Giving Names to Towns and Streets has been reprinted in a little pamphlet by Lockwood, Brooks & Co.

Poetry and the Drama. Mr. Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia has been followed by a volume of Poems (Roberts), which find their inspiration largely in Oriental and Greek themes. — The Flight into Egypt, a narrative poem, occupies the most of a volume by Thomas E. Van Bebber (A. L. Bancroft & Co., Printers, San Francisco), and is preceded by a small collection of minor poems in the same volume. — The bicycle, besides its journal and various hand-books, has begun to give rise to a literature of its own: Lyra Bicyclica, Forty Poets on the Wheel, by J. G. Dalton (Boston: published for the author), is the clever title of a volume of parodies and imitations. — Raymond, Lord of Ver (London: Provost & Co.), is a drama of mediæval life in Normandy. —Mr. W. J. Rolfe continues his edition of Shakespeare with King Lear. We cannot find it in our heart to relegate these admirable little books to the department of education. They belong here as well as there. — Tbe Dramatic Works of Bayard Taylor (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) have been collected into a single volume, including The Prophet, The Masque of the Gods, and Prince Deukalion, with notes by Mrs. Taylor. — A volume of Songs and Poems from the German, by Ella Heath, has been issued by the Putnams ; the translations are principally from Rückert, Uhland, and Heine. — The lady who writes under the pseudonym of E. Foxton has brought together a volume of her poems under the title of The Chapel and Other Poems (Putnams). Readers of Sir Pavon and St. Pa von will not be slow to look for this volume. — Echos et Reflets, by E. Aubert (Paris : Boulanger; New York: Christern), is a volume of poetry by a Frenchman long resident in America, and drawing many of his themes from American life and history. — Mrs. Annie Fields’ volume, Under the Olive (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), draws its inspiration chiefly from the olive groves of the Ilissus. — Mr. James T. Fields has collected his recent poems into a volume of Ballads and Other Verses (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.).—Miss Lucy Larcom gives the title of Wild Roses of Cape Ann to a volume of verse, which will increase the legendary and poetical fame of that rocky coast (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.).

Biography. The Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL. D., Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J., by his son, A. A. Hodge (Scribners), presents a man, chiefly through his autobiography, diaries, and letters, who has held perhaps the most conspicuous place of any theologian in the Presbyterian church in America. — The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leigblin, by W. J. Fitz-Patrick, LL. D. (Dublin: James Duffy and Sons) is a reissue in enlarged form of the work which appeared about twenty years ago, and an important contribution to the history of Catholic emancipation. — Wreeked Lives, or Men who have Failed (London: S. P. C. K.; New York : Pott, Young & Co.), is the title of two Volumes by W. H. Davenport Adams, in which the careers of eminent men, as Rienzi, Wolscy, Swift, Savage, Chatterton, Robespierre, Heine, and others, are treated quite exclusively from the moralist’s view. Poe is the only American who appears to have been found worthy to be classed with them. — Henry Boynton Smith, his Life and Work (Armstrongs), is a welcome record of the career of one of the greatest scholars in theology and history whom America has known.

Fiction. Tamenaga Shunsui was the Dickens of Japan, and like his Western parallel published his novels serially. Out of one which rambled through eighteen volumes, Shiuichiro Saito and Edward Givey have constructed The Loyal Ronins, a Historical Romance (Putnams). It is a direct translation, adapted, however, to the reader who asks to be interested rather than treated to a literal rendering. It professes to be more true to Japanese life than Milford’s Tales. — Auerbach’s two recent stories appear simultaneously: Brigitta, in Holt’s Leisure Hour Series, and the Foresters, in Appleton’s New Handy-Volume Series. — Mother Molly (Putnams), by Frances M. Pcard, author of the Rose Garden, is a historical romance in autobiographic form, the time being the latter part of the last century, and the scene on the west coast of England. — An anonymous novel, published bv Roberts Brothers, bears the title My Marriage. — Magdalen Férat is Zola’s latest story (Petersons). It is only less offensive than his previous books. — The latest novels in Harper’s Franklin Square Library are Just as I Am, by Miss Braddon, who shows poor taste in using a title half sacred in many people’s eyes; A Sailor’s Sweetheart, by W. Clark Russell, author of The Wreck of the Grosvenor, and like that book an argument in Film soll’s hands ; and Three Recruits and The Girls they left Behind Them, by Joseph Hatton. — In Harper’s Half-Hour Series is a pathetic little story, Missing, by Mary Cecil Hay. —A new edition has been published of Mrs. Stowe’s Sam Lawson’s Old Town Fireside Stories, with additions (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.).—A new novel by Henry Gréville, The Princess Oghérof, translated by Mary Neal Sherwood (Petersons), will be welcomed. —The Stranglers of Paris, by Adolphe Belot, is followed by a sequel, La Grande Florine, translated by George D. Cox (Petersons). The Osego Chronicles, or, The Kuylers and their Friends, by Mary B. Sleight (Randolph), is a pleasing domestic tale.—The Danbury Boom, with a full account of Mrs. Cobleigh’s action therein, by James M. Bailey (Lee and Shepard), is the latest of this special brand of American humor.— We wish we could be more sure that Who is Your Wife ? is to be included in fiction. It is a little book, by Waldorf H. Phillips, LL. B. (New York; E. J. Hale and Son), which under the guise of colloquial sketches undertakes to illustrate the incongruities of the several divorce systems in the United States. The author seems more impressed by this than by the immorality involved.

Domestic Economy. A new edition has appeared of Marion Hurland’s Common Sense in the Household (Scribners), a book which has been worn out bv excessive printing, and now reappears with additions and improvements.

Education. Mr. John Swett, principal of the San Francisco Girls’ High School and Normal Class, has prepared Methods of Teaching (Harpers), a hand-book intended for those who propose or are engaged in common-school teaching, and dealing practically with their work. Methods in the whole range of teaching are described in detail. — Mrs. Farrar’s The Young Lady’s Friend, a book well known to our mothers before they were mothers, has been brought out anew by Porter and Oates of Philadelphia, with an Introduction bv Mrs. H. O. Ward. The punctuation of the titlepage, the scrupulous omission of Mrs. Farrar’s name, and the ingenious composition of the introduction give the reader before unacquainted with the book an impression that the whole work is Mrs. M ard s. That lady is mentioned on the title-page as compiler of Sensible Etiquette. We know no sensible etiquette which justifies such a treatment of Mrs. Farrar. —liev. Henry N. Hudson, the wellknown Shakespeare scholar, has begun the reissue of his School Shakespeare, but as an entirely new work. Three volumes have been published. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Much Ado about Nothing, and As You Like It (Ginn and Heath), the first containing a general preface on English in schools, the second one on Shakespeare as a text-book, and the third one of suggestions on teaching Shakespeare. This last indicates well the editor’s temper and his views as to Shakespeare for the young. It is strongly commended to those whom it concerns, and the general reader will profit by an attentive consideration. A curious likeness to Mr. Buskin’s mind is discoverable in this expression of Mr. Hudson’s. The volumes are very attractive in appearance. — A New School Physiology, illustrated and furnished with questions, by Richard J. Dunglisun, A. M., M. D., has been published by Porter and Coates.—A useful book for teachers rather than for the class room is School and Industrial Hygiene, by D. F. Lincoln, M. D. (Blakiston, Philadelphia), one of the little series of American Health Primers, issued under supervision of Dr. W. W. Keen.

History. Old Paris, its Court and Literary Salons, by Catherine Charlotte, Lady Jackson (Holt), is a sketch of the Paris of the Seventeenth Century, that brilliant and classic period of French literature and society.—Rev. Joseph Henry Allen, lecturer on ecclesiastical history in Harvard University, has followed his Hebrew Men and Times with a somewhat similar book treating of the genesis of Christianity, under the title Fragments of Christian History to the Foundation of the Holy Roman Empire (Roberts). A chronological order is maintained in the papers, but they treat the general subject topically. — The second and final volume has appeared of Justin McCarthy’s A History of our own Times (Harpers). It begins with a narrative of the Chinese troubles just before the Sepoy rebellion, and ends with a survey of the literature of the day—Mr. Geo. H. Ellis, Boston, has brought into a neat octavo volume a report of the Proceedings of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Gathering in England, Departure for America, and Final Settlement in New England of the First Church and Parish of Dorchester, Mass., coincident with the settlement of the town. The anniversary was observed in the spring of 1880. — The Early History of Charles James Fox, by G. O. Trevelyan, Macaulay’s nephew and biographer (Harpers), belongs rather to history than to biography. The subject has peculiar interest for Americans, and possibly some may even take a shame-faced comfort in a graphic picture of English political society when most brilliant and most venal.—Mr. Melville M. Bigelow’s History of Procedure in England (Little, Brown & Co.) is a lawyer’s examination of courts and (be conduct of causes in Norman times, and as such presents ciftrtain phases of general constitutional history — The American edition of Epochs of Ancient History (Scribners) is enlarged by a volume on Troy, its Legend, History, and Literature, by S. G. W. Benjamin, who makes special use also of Dr. Sehliemann’s investigations. The literature includes a digest of the controversy respecting the unity and authorship of the Homeric poems. It is furnished with a map. — The materials for American history have been enriched by the Recollections and Opinions of an Old Settler, Peter H. Burnett, the first governor of the State of California (Appletons).

Philosophy, Theology, and Religion. Professor J. P. Cooke’s Religion and Chemistry appears in a new edition, revised (Scribners), and the author after a lapse of twenty years finds no occasion to alter the substantial argument of the book. —Another contribution to the discussion of science and religion is The Creation and the Early Developments of Society, by James H. Chapin, professor of geology and mineralogy, St. Lawrence University (Putnams). It includes an examination of the biblical account of the creation and first appearance of human society, and a statement of the results of recent anthropological investigation.— The Eden Tableau, or Bible Object Teaching, is called a study by its author, the Rev. Charles Beecher (Lee and Shepard). “ He proposes,” he says in his preface, ” to attempt a more thorough and consistent application of the laws of analogic interpretation to one of the most, interesting and vital portions of the Bible.”— The Rev. Dr. F. C. Ewer, whose vigorous tract on the failure of Protestantism excited attention a few years ago, has put out a volume containing Four Conferences touching the Operation of the Holy Spirit, delivered at Newark, N. J. (Putnams). The author fortifies himself on the title-page behind the sanction of his bishop, the request of nine clergymen and an indefinite number of laymen in Newark, and the repetition by request in Boston, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn. All this caution leads the reader to look for Miching Mallecho.—Scientific Transcendentalism, by D. M., conies to us from Williams and Norgate, London. It is an inquiry into a knowledge of the mind as regards its highest manifestation. — The Englishman’s Brief on behalf of his National Church (London: S. P. C. K. New York: Pott, Young & Co.,) is a manual intended to cover the various questions in controversy.— A writer calling himself John B. T. sends a pamphlet entitled Can the Air be at Rest while it is in Motion ? (New York: Livesey Brothers), explaining that if certain conclusions which he reaches are correct, the Copernican system, so far as regards the earth’s rotation, is demonstrated to be false. — Dr. Schaff’s A Popular Commentary of the New Testament (Scribners) has reached the second volume, containing the Gospel of John, by Professor William Milligan, of Aberdeen, and Professor William F. Moulton, of Cambridge, and the Acts of the Apostles, by Dean Howson and Canon Spence. The popular element is increased by the judicious use of illustrations and maps. The work avoids controversy, and is designed for those who ask to have the Bible explained, not defended. — From the Congregational Publishing Society, Boston, we have A Pastor’s Counsels to Young Christians in a series of Familiar Addresses following a Revival of Religion, by Rev. A. C. Baldwin.

Literature. The Harpers have issued in uniform style with the works of Motley, Hume, Hildreth and others, an admirable and complete edition of Macaulay’s Miscellaneous Works, in five volumes, edited by Lady Trevelyan. The set contains all of his writings except the History, and is furnished with an analytical index. — Four Centuries of English Letters, edited and arranged by W. Baptiste Scoones (Harpers), is a reprint of an English book containing selections from the correspondence of one hundred and fifty writers from the period of the Paston Letters to the present day, and the letters are drawn from a great variety of sources: Cowper, for example, being represented by only seven and Nelson and Wellington by about the same number ; there are but four from Dickens. The great number of writers makes thus a wide range of illustration. — Hints for Home Reading (Putnams) is a collection of papers by several writers upon books and their uses. They were originally published in The Christian Union, and intended to stimulate a love of good books and wisdom in the choice of books. Rev. Lyman Abbott, one of the editors of that journal, edits the book.—The series of English Men of Letters has been reinforced by Mr. Fowler’s Locke (Harpers). — Mr. George H. Calvert has added to his Goethe, Wordsworth, and similar studies a volume entitled Coleridge, Shelley, Goethe; Biographic Æsthetic Studies (Lee and Shepard).

Art. Mrs. Fanny Raymond Ritter has translated, edited, and annotated a second series of Robert Schumann’s essays and criticisms under the title of Music and Musicians (New York: Schuberth & Co.). The papers in this series are largely educational in their tendency, and comprehend Schumann’s judgment upon a range of musical composition which extends from the opera to piano-forte music. — For fifty years Mr. James E. Murdoch has been on the stage in this country and in England; he has gathered his recollections of Actors and Acting during that time into a series of Dramatic Sketches, entitled The Stage (Philadelphia: Stoddart). The book has a portrait and also a biographical sketch of the author by another hand.—Mrs. Susan N. Carter has undertaken to collect into portable and inexpensive volumes the most pregnant and useful hints upon art which have been given by artists and scholars. Her first series of Art Suggestions from the Masters (Putnams) draws from Reynolds, Bell, Hazlitt, and Haydon,

Illustrated Books. The Putnams have issued an edition here of a pretty volume containing Washington Irving’s Little Britain, Spectre Bridegroom, and Legend of Sleepy Hollow, illustrated by Charles O. Murray. The English interpretation of the last story is closer in the figures than in the architecture. — A new edition of American Poems (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) appears on larger paper, with a red-line border and with illustrations, taking it still further out of the range of mere text-books. Other illustrated books are reviewed elsewhere in these pages.