Comment on New Books

Travel and Nature. Afloat and Ashore on the Mediterranean, by Lee Meriwether. (Scribners.) Mr. Meriwether has lost none of the liveliness which characterized his first book of travels, and he still interests himself in modes of life and cost of living among laboring people ; but he is now a more experienced traveler, and gets at his work a little more directly. He has not yet overcome a disposition to persiflage ; but on the whole, if one is not a mere carping critic, one can scarcely fail to extract considerable information on the points where Mr. Meriwether is most at home. He will be likely to go elsewhere for his strictly classical reading. — Abroad and At Home, Practical Hints for Tourists, by Morris Phillips. (Brentano.) A new edition of a book which is a cross between a regular guidebook and a book of travel sketches. It relates mainly to London and Paris for the European portion, to Southern and Californian cities and winter and summer resorts for the American portion. In effect, it is the chat and advice of a man who has made himself familiar with all the comforts of home in various parts of the world as known to the Americans. — Our Cycling Tour in England, by Reuben Gold Thwaites. (MeClurg.) A pleasant, plainly written record of a tour through southern England by an American and his wife on their bicycles. Avoiding the railways and beaten tracks, they succeeded in getting many glimpses of rural life and manners impossible to the ordinary traveler, and they seem to have discovered what they went to find out, — “ what the hedgerows say, and how John and Mary live in their wayside cottage.” The book is made more attractive by several charming pictures. — Tropical America, by Isaac N. Ford. (Scribners.) This journey through South America fell to Mr. Ford by “ the lucky twirl of a penny ” which sent him off to get a fuller understanding of the revolution in Brazil. From Brazil he crossed the Argentine Republic and the Andes, visited Chili, and so on to Panama, went to Jamaica and the Bahamas, and took a survey of Cuba. Here his “filibustering ” tendencies are shown, for he sees no hope for that fertile and beautiful island but in annexation to the United States. From Cuba he went to Mexico and Central America, and ended his journey at Panama, He returns entirely convinced of the folly of the United States in allowing the benefit of commerce with these countries to be resigned. The book is well worth reading, and may prove a decided eye-opener to his countrymen.

Fiction and Narrative. Barbara Dering, a Sequel to The Quick or the Dead, by Amélie Rives. (Lippincott.) By attaching this book to her previous Exclamation Mrs. Chanler intimates the reality of that work to her, and the reader naturally looks with interest to see what development has taken place in a character which must in a measure illustrate the author’s growth in thought and art. This book Shows an advance in maturity of reflection, but we can hardly say that there has been much gain artistically ; for we have now problems rather than persons, and the part of personality most disagreeable in the first book clings to the subject in the second. If Mrs. Cbanler will settle all the problems in her own mind, then throw away her solutions as abstract statements, we are pretty sure she will write a book of real persons acting a real drama, not psychological puppets going through their parts. — I Married a Soldier, or, Old Days in the Army, by Lydia Spencer Lane. (Lippincott.) A simply written, sensible account of old times in the army, and interesting chiefly to army people, especially as showing them that they have “ fallen in better days,” and that the hardships of frontier life are almost entirely done away with. — A Golden Wedding, and Other Tales, by Ruth McEnery Stuart. (Harpers.) These stories, some of which have appeared in the magazines, are interesting and well told, and have sufficient variety to save them from being monotonous. A Golden Wedding, a tale of parting and reunion, is very touching, and The Widder Johnsiug is full of life and fun. The book presents with great power the loyal, pathetic, and humorous aspects of negro life. — From One Generation to Another, by Henry Seton Merriman. (Harpers.) A story of heredity, in which the author has sacrificed probability, some might say possibility, to the working out of his theories. The villain of the tale, who is possessed by the greed of gain, — gain of any sort, — but has no power of enjoying his successes, is the victim of “ the taint of the blood that ran in his veins. The curse had reached to him, in addition to the long, sad nose and the bandy legs ; ” while the woman he jilts has a bourgeois inheritance, and has “breathed the fatal air of Clapham since her birth.” Weak and shallow as she is, she is supposed to be capable of a hate so passionate that it is transmitted to her feeble, amiable son ; becoming in him, when he is brought in contact with his mother’s old admirer, a blind, unreasoning mania, which reaches a tragic climax in the at once sensational and absurd dénoûment of the story. The author’s style is readable, and occasionally bright and epigrammatic, and one feels that he is capable of better work than is to be found in this volume. — Keith Deramore, by the Author of Miss Molly. ( Longmans.) The clever, selfish, self-indulgent man of the world who is the hero of this book belongs to the order of woman-subduers, and is, despite certain conventionalities, sufficiently well drawn to make the reader understand in some degree the secret of his attractiveness. He has the usual inconsistency of his class on the subject of honor, and while he has small regard for filial duty, and does not scruple to make love to his friend’s fiattcée, he has nothing but angry contempt for the girl to whom he is engaged when she confesses to a lie, though he feels that he must risk his life to hide, so far as may be, her falsehood. This deeeit on the part of an ill-taught child, tacitly persisted in later, has farreaching consequences, and forms one of the principal motives of the tale. It is a wellconstructed, pleasantly-written story, the characters are distinctly individualized, and the author often shows both insight and humor. That in the end the hero should easily obtain his heart’s desire, and be left with the prospect of happiness far beyond his deserts, is only natural. — The Marplot, by Sidney Royse Lysaght. (Macmillan.) Dick Malory, a hot-headed and kind-hearted art student, imbued for the time with various reformatory and socialistic ideas, marries in haste a girl of circus and music-hall training, with the intent to raise her to his own level. But before the wedding-day is over revelations as to her life which are made to him lead to an abrupt and final parting. Dick flies (of course) to America, and, after some years of cowboy experience, returns home, a wiser man. He falls in love with a fair Irish patriot, but his boyish folly has made marriage impossible. The scene shifts to Ireland, where, in an atmosphere fraught with enthusiasm, conspiracy, and unreason, the drama comes to a tragic ending, and we leave the hero, a hopeless wanderer upon the face of the earth. The book shows both cleverness and originality, but also a lack of constructive skill and a fine disregard of the natural and probable.— The Story of John Trevennick, by Walter C. Rhoades. (Macmillan.) The history of a young Oxonian who, struggling with college debts which he is unwilling to ask his father to pay, is persuaded by an assumed friend to assist in a smuggling venture. The tempter proves treacherous, and the heartily ashamed and repentant culprit is east off by his father, and goes to London to seek and find his fortune, while the evil doer, after a brief triumph, is brought to confusion. It is a spirited and entertaining story, told in a manly, straightforward way, and will be likely to prove especially attractive to youthful readers.— Round London, Down East and Up West, by Montagu Williams. (Macmillan.) Mr. Williams is not at his best in this book, which is a disappointing mixture of halftold anecdote and general reflections. One constantly supposes he is to learn something of the interior of life, and always stops not far from the door. Most likely Mr. Williams was a good raconteur, and his wide experience in all grades of society gave him many advantages ; but probably his professional caution embarrassed him when he came to write a book. — Half-Brothers, by Hester Stretton. (Cassell.) As novels go, this is fairly entertaining and readable, but by no means as good as Hester Stretton’s earlier work. It is an average story, calculated to please and amuse the not too critical reader, who, we imagine, will not be disturbed by the entire improbability of the plot. — The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians. Written from his own dictation by T. D. Bonner ; edited by C. G. Leland. (Macmillan.) A volume in the Adventure Series. Mr. Leland appears in the introduction and footnotes, but no mortal man can tell, as be reads, whether it is Beckwourth or Bonner who is alternately adventurous and prosy. It is singular how monotonous Indian narrative is. One adventure is like another, and a fatal tendency to the melodrama seems to atfect them all.

Religion and Morals. The Tongue of Fire, or, The True Power of Christianity, by William Arthur. (Harpers.) The reissue of a little book which has become quite famous as a fervent, persuasive work on practical Christianity through the power of the Holy Spirit. — Manual of Natural Theology, by George Park Fisher. (Scribners.) Less than a hundred pages, in which this author, who is master of the art of putting things clearly, in order, and briefly, passes iu review the nature and origin of religion, the cosmological argument for the being of God, the argument of design, the moral argument, the intuition of the infinite and absolute, anti-theistic theories, and the future life of the soul. — Where Is My Dog? or, Is Man Alone Immortal ? by Rev. Charles Josiah Adams. (Fowler & Wells Co.) A somewhat disjointed, discursive, anecdotical inquiry into man’s relationship with other animals. It is not always easy to see what the writer is driving at, but he drives quite hard, and cracks his whip by the way. — Mothers and Sons, or, Problems in the Home Training of Boys, by Rev. the Hon. E. Lyttleton. (Macmillan.) A small book intended, not for boys to read, but for the parents of hoys. The author is a schoolmaster who has been made conversant with the defective moral and religious outfit of English boys, aud sets himself to making suggestions anent thereto. It must be said that his rambling and rather pointless talk is more clear in pointing out mistakes than in recommending positive means of bettering matters. — Bible Studies, Readings in the Early Books of the Old Testament, with Familiar Comment, Given in 1878-79, by Henry Ward Beecher ; edited from Stenographic Notes of T. J. Ellinwood by John R. Howard. (Fords, Howard & Hullbert.) Mr. Beecher was a poet, not a man of science ; but the insight of the poet and the patient investigation of the man of science often coincide. In these lectures upon the persons and events of the Old Testament, Mr. Beecher’s vivid imagination and freedom from conventionalism lead him into a certain homely reconstruction of life which is itself an interpretation, and his roughand-ready encounter of difficulties sometimes is effective in brushing away subtleties of commentators. There is an element of haphazard, to be sure, but one uses one’s discrimination in reading this writer. — Short History of the Christian Church, by John Fletcher Hurst. (Harpers.) In this encyclopædic work the author has condensed the results of his previous labors as shown in a series of histories of special periods. As a book of reference it has its uses, but Dr. Hurst has scarcely succeeded in imparting to his readers any notion of the interior continuity of the Christian church, or any satisfactory explanation of its multiform character. It is almost entirely an arrangement of external facts.

Literature and Criticism. Reveries of a Bachelor, and Dream Life, the two sentimental journeys which made Ik Marvel’s name known to readers who were later in learning of Donald G. Mitchell, have been reproduced in a pretty little new Edgewood edition. (Scribners.) Was there a period of youthfulness in our literature, when these books, and Hyperion, and Prue and I were possible, which has gone forever ? However it may be as regards production, — and it is possible that we are now too sophisticated for this sort of thing, — it is clear that the response of musing youth continues; if there are not writers, there still are readers. — The Real and Ideal in Literature, by Frank Preston Stearns. (J. G. Cupples Co., Boston.) Studies in criticism by a writer who has read somewhat widely, and has strong likes and dislikes. There are many shrewd judgments, and some that seem to lack a sense of proportion. It is not easy to discover the standards of the writer, but in general he aims at a worship of what he regards as the ideal. His notion of the real and the ideal seems, however, somewhat Confused. — Excursions in Criticism, by William Watson. (Elkin Mathews & John Lane, London.) If the putting forth of a book of no really uncommon merit is justified by the fact that its author has done better work in other directions, then these Prose Recreations of a Rhymer have ample reason for being. As the work of a band all unknown, they would naturally lead one to the opinion that their author, probably not an old man, would lose nothing by waiting for something more distinctive to say. Everything he says here is well enough said, some of it indeed very well, but the larger part is reasonably familiar iu substance and manner. In the first paper, Some Literary Idolatries, Mr. Watson makes an earnest attempt, as in the preface to his anthology, Lyric Love, to sift Elizabethan chaff from the wheat. In Some of the other little articles, he protests with energy against the violation of the posthumous privacy to which even genius is entitled, speaks a strong word for Mr. Hardy’s Tess, shows how less a thing is style than a style, and reports a talk between an interviewer and the shade of Dr. Johnson on modern poetry. From this last paper, less successful as a whole than Mr. Lang’s Letters to Dead Authors, one bit may be taken. Browning, for the moment, is the subject of discussion, and, with Boswell at his elbow, more clearly than at any other point in the conversation, the sage remarks, “ I have his works. The terrors of his style were great, but he that valiantly faced and overcame them had his reward. Yes, sir, Browning could read men. The pity is men cannot read Browning.” It must be said that in these Excursions one feels one’s self personally conducted by a man of something more than average sobriety of judgment and fullness of equipment. Yet many of the best book reviewers, on both sides of the sea, could collect from the daily and weekly journals as notable a showing for their work, if they should think it thoroughly worth while to save their utterances from the limbo of periodical literature.— Familiar Talks on English Literature, a Manual embracing the Great Epochs of English Literature from the English Conquest of Britain to the Death of Walter Scott, by Abby Sage Richardson. (McClurg.) This is a new and revised edition of a book which has deservedly become popular, for its entire unpretentiousness, together with the good taste which marks the selections, commends it to the reader. It is in effect a series of readings from the masters of English prose and verse strung on a line of comment which is natural, gives the slight setting one desires in such a case, and is wholly free from wearisome philosophizing.—Professor W. H. Appleton’s Greek Poets in English Verse (Houghton) is an admirable book. In the compass of a single duodecimo volume the editor brings together a large number of the best passages not only of Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Sappho, and the great dramatists, but also of some forty lesser poets. He adds to the variety and value of the book by making use of the poetical versions of not. less than sixty translators, English and American, That he is not merely a scholar is evident from the four excellent specimens of his own work, renderings from Sappho and Sophocles. The Introduction is an interesting critical essay on the growth of Greek literature, and at the end of the volume there are twenty pages of serviceable notes. — In the series International Humor (imported by Scribners) three volumes are devoted respectively to French, German, and Italian Humor : the first selected and translated by Elizabeth Lee, the second by Hans MüllerCasenov, and the third by A. Werner. All are well illustrated and furnished with bibliographical notes, and altogether humor in literature and newspapers and popular sayings has thus its serious setting forth. It is singular how, when the plums are taken out of the pudding, there is no plum pudding, and even the plums have lost much of their taste. — The Crusaders, an Original Comedy of Modern London Life, by Henry Arthur Jones. (Macmillan.) A satire on social reform, in which realism struggles ineffectively with burlesque. The reader is bidden laugh at the hero as a fantastic idealist, and then to accept him as the type of noble, self-sacrificing heroes. What the actor, moreover, might do with such a figure as Jawle wo do not pretend to say ; viewed from the reader’s point, not all the stage business with which he is surrounded can vitalize him into anything but a puppet designed to typify a class easily satirized.

Education and Textbooks. History of English, a Sketch of the Origin and Development of the English Language, with Examples, down to the Present Day, by A. C. Champneys. (Macmillan.) An agreeably written book, in which the writer, confessedly drawing from acknowledged masters, seeks to introduce the student into some sort of understanding of the living organism as traceable in its historic changes. It is almost too exclusively English, since the author deals largely with petty local variations which do not greatly affect the instrument which is wielded in Australia as well as in the United States. Indeed, the assumption appears to be that English is a sort of exclusive property of a few persons living on a little island. — Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845, with Preface, Introduction, and Notes by A. J. George. (Heath.) Nine speeches, including the Dartmouth College Case, the Bunker Hill Address, the Reply to Hayne, the Plymouth Address, and the White Murder Case. The selection is good ; the introduction is a group of testimonials ; the preface is unnecessarily weak, consisting in part of a defense of the 7th of March speech, which is not included in the book ; the notes are few and of no great importance. The student might have been helped by a good legal review of the principles involved in the Dartmouth College case in application to current problems. — The Song Budget Series, binding together The Song Budget, The Song Century, The Song Patriot. (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse.) A reissue in one volume of three popular collections.

History and Biography. The Earl of Aberdeen, by the Hon. Sir Arthur Gordon. The Queen’s Prime Ministers Series. (Harpers.) No one of the statesmen commemorated in this series will be so unfamiliar a personage to the readers of to-day as the subject of this biography, who is chiefly remembered as the minister under whose administration England drifted into the only European war in which she has been involved during the last seventy-five years. Sir Arthur Gordon has done his work admirably, overcoming in a remarkable degree the difficulties of the task of giving, within the limits here imposed, a clear, intelligent, and well-proportioned record of a long public life. It is done, too, we may add, with excellent judgment and unfailing good taste. Lord Aberdeen’s shyness and reserve, which were probably intensified by the early sorrows which overshadowed his life, made him a man little understood save by those who were brought into very intimate relations with him, and it was well that his biography should have been entrusted to the son, who was acquainted not only with the father’s acts, but with the motives from which they sprung. Lord Aberdeen’s diplomatic and Foreign Office experiences, including a view of the question of the Spanish Marriages differing from the one usually accepted ; his connection with matters relating to the disruption of the Scottish Church ; and last, and most important, his unfortunate experiences as the head of the Coalition Cabinet, are all well considered. Fitting mention is made of his wide and ripe scholarship, and glimpses of his private life are given, which win the reader’s respect and sympathy for a singularly upright, high-minded, and accomplished man. The book has a distinct historic value, and will probably lead to a truer appreciation of Lord Aberdeen’s character and powers than has heretofore prevailed. — John Wyclif, Last of the Schoolmen and First of the English Reformers, by Lewis Sergeant. Heroes of the Nations Series. (Putnams.) There was no need that the author should apologize for adding one more to the considerable number of recent works on Wyclif. A popular biography was a thing to be desired, and in many respects Mr. Sergeant’s book deserves honorable mention. It is well arranged, and in the main well written. To be sure, the writer has not attained to that state of mind commended by Mr. Freeman, when an historian by long study shall become so imbued with the spirit of the age he treats that he shall, as it were, live in it and instinctively interpret it aright, — a counsel of perfection not to be looked for in the preparation of a volume like the present. Misapprehensions, however, are usually in details rather than in the general outlines. Still, we wish that Ingulfus, Abbot of Croyland, had not been resuscitated as an eleventh-century authority, as it has a disquieting effect upon the careful reader. One observes again how little is really known of Wyclif’s life, and how much must be inferred from his writings and from contemporaneous history. Whatever may be thought of Mr. Sergeant’s theory, maintained with much ingenuity, as to the identity of the reformer aud the lord of the manor of Wycliffe, he has without doubt told the story of Wyclif’s life in an interesting and readable manner. The chapter Wyelif the Evangelist is especially well done. In defining the reformer’s religious belief, and in giving the history of his time, the biographer is far less successful ; but it should be thankfully noted that his sense of relative values keeps the book from ever degenerating, like some of its class, into a mere catalogue of facts. The volume is very fully illustrated, and contains reproductions of six of the reputed portraits of Wyclif, here brought together for the first time. If not authentic, they are of great interest as representing a tradition. — Venice, an Historical Sketch of the Republic, by Horatio F. Brown. (Putnams.) This is the story of the Venetian Republic from its rise till its fall in 1796. The style is lively and forcible, and condenses the history of Venice in such a way as to awaken interest in the subject, and induce the reader to pursue it for himself, or, if time or inclination fail him, to give him a clear and sufficiently full knowledge of the period without further investigation. The writer is evidently fully equipped for his work, and has performed it con amore. The book contains an admirable and exhaustive bibliography of Venice and an excellent index. — Some Jewish Women, by Henry Zirndorf. (Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.) Sketches of a score of Jewish women from the Apocrypha, the Græco-Roman period, and the Talmudic age. The Christian reader will find a few of his old acquaintances, whom he will look at from a slightly different point of view ; but for the most part the characters, historical aud legendary, will be new to him. They serve as illustrations of Jewish ways of looking at life, and occasionally are interesting as exhibitions of common human nature. It is a little odd to find a Jewish writer speaking of the Apocrypha and the canonical books. We notice that the term C. E. (Christian era) takes the place of A. D. — Nullification, Secession, Webster’s Argument, and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, considered in Reference to the Constitution and Historically, by Caleb William Loring. (Putnams.) An interesting study of a hundred and fifty pages, drawn out, apparently, by Mr. H. C. Lodge’s statement, in his Daniel Webster, that in the argument with Hayne Webster was on untenable ground.

Sociology and Hygiene Public Health Problems, by John F. J. Sykes. (Imported by Scribners.) A volume of the Contemporary Science Series. Mr. Sykes belongs to that elass of scientists that requires first to establish the universal laws derivative from certain fundamental hypotheses, like natural selection and heredity, and then proceeds to make application to the disorders under consideration. After a full consideration, through botanical investigations for example, of the length of time required by light or its absence to produce marked effects on life, one is prepared to understand how much better it is to build houses so that the sun can get full entrance. However, anything, of course, is better than being empiric. — Criminology, by Arthur MacDonald ; with an Introduction by Dr. Cesarc Lombroso. (Funk & Wagnalls.) Lombroso’s name appears to give weight to the book, but, beyond a miscellaneous collection of not very well assorted facts and a tolerably full bibliography, there is not much to be gained from the work. — The Well - Dressed Woman, a Study in the Practical Application to Dress of the Laws of Health, Art, and Morals, by Helen Gilbert Ecob. (Fowler & Wells Co.) A complete demolition of the corset and the artificial shoe, with a disposition toward the divided skirt. After all, the kingdom of heaven is within you, and the emancipation of woman will scarcely be accomplished by sumptuary laws or the ten commandments of dress reform. — How Nature Cures, comprising a New System of Hygiene ; also the Natural Food of Man. A Statement of the Principal Arguments agaiust the Use of Bread, Cereals, Pulses, Potatoes, and all other Starch Foods. By Emmet Densmore. (Stillman & Co., New York.) The author of this work, together with Dr. Helen Densmore, has been preaching the doctrines contained in it quite persistently for a long time and in many quarters. This volume is a more systematic and comprehensive presentation of the subject. There is much that is the common property of all writers on hygiene, and it might be added of sensible people generally, but the author has his special theories besides. — The Social Horizon. (Imported by Scribners.) An anonymous volume of the Social Science Series. The author, professedly a journalist, undertakes to show how the great business enterprises of the day — in England, at any rate — gravitate toward a condition where government must take them over ; and then, criticising the current state of affairs, he proceeds with suggestions looking toward very much such socialism as the Fabian society advocates.

Art and Archæology. Lectures on Architecture and Painting, by John Ruskin ; with an Introduction by Charles Eliot Norton. (Charles E. Merrill & Co., New York.) The public has been put on its guard respecting Mr. Ruskin’s vagaries so frequently that it can be trusted to read this little book with caution. What is more to be desired is that readers should catch something of the author’s spirit of penetration, which enables him to go on as in a place of light when others are still darkly fumbling about for superficial truths. The book is one of the most inspiring that can be put into the hands of a susceptible reader. — Cameos from Ruskin, selected and arranged by Mary E. Cardwill, (Merrill.) A thin volume of brief, pointed passages, grouped under a variety of heads, but all tending to illustrate the ethical spirit of Ruskin’s criticisms in art. — Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition, by Charles Godfrey Leland. (Imported bv Scribners.) Scholars have recognized the deep substructure of paganism in Etruria, and the persistency with which even a pre-Latin society has been perpetuated. Mr. Leland, with a lifelong experience in delving among the ruins of language, has set about collecting the folk lore which bears witness to this archaic survival. He has written a lively, rambling book which is a museum of sorcery and magic bric-a-brac, He makes shrewd guesses in many directions, and writes out of a head crammed with the odds and ends of occultism. We turn the book over to the laborious sifter of evidence, but not before we have extracted great enjoyment out of it. — The nineteenth year of L’Art (Macmillan) opened with 1893, and the seven numbers since received illustrate the range and the richness of the resources from which the magazine draws. English painters are represented, Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Simplicity being one of the large etchings ; a paper on Meissonier offers some striking studies, notably one of a dragoon ; the sale of the Spitzer collection gives an opportunity for the copying of interesting articles of vertu since dispersed ; there are some admirable examples of fine binding ; one of Rubens’s well-fed dames has a proud presentation, and the editor draws generously from current high-class illustrated books. Separate from the magazine issue is a large engraving by Marie Louveau-Rouveyre of Toulmonche’s painting Envoi de Fleurs.

Poetry. King Poppy, by the Earl of Lytton. (Longmans.) Lord Lytton’s love of fancy and speculation, his ingenuity, and his well-tuned ear find scope in this mock-heroic poem for a good deal of banter and earnest protest against prosaic misrule. The palace of dreams, enduring when the structures of sense dissolve, is here decorated, as with sculptured ornament, with the fairy tales and fancies which have become imbedded in the human affections. An odd conceit of marginal comment adds to the fantastic structure of the poem ; and after one has extracted the entertainment afforded, one is disposed to regard the whole performance as a somewhat overwrought fabric of fancy rather than a piece of high imagination.

Philosophy. A Review of the Systems of Ethics, founded on the Theory of Evolution, by C. M. Williams. (Macmillan.) The author’s method is first, in not quite half the book, to pass in review the results reached by Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, Spencer, Fiske, Rolph, and others, and then, in a series of chapters, to analyze the contents of ethics under the light thus thrown ; taking up in succession Intelligence and End, the Will, the Mutual Relations of Thought, Feeling, and will in Evolution, Egoism and Altruism, Conscience, the Moral Progress of the Human Species, and finally, after summing up the Results of Ethical .Enquiry on an Evolutional Basis, to consider the Ideal and the Way of its Attainment,

Sport. Whist Nuggets, being Certain Whistographs, Historical, Critical, and Humorons, selected and arranged by William G. McGuckiu. (Putnams.) A volume in the always attractive Knickerbocker Nuggets Series. A miscellany of anecdotes, papers, cuttings from larger books, formal essays, all devoted to the general subject of whist.