The Nation 1867-12-19: Vol 5 Iss 129

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The Nation.

VOL. V.—NO. 129. ————————e——

The Suspension of Specie Payments 505 CONTENTS. Tae WEEK....... Oesecocvcccnes cecsies 493 | gins, Mary Elmer, and Other BM oh heds adnmands 44<00ec~ 502—503 | Notes: 4 | EpIToRIaAL ARTICLES: PS Sonccecescsves + dabicedtsés 496 The Nomination of Grant........... 504 | Mr, John Morley on Edmund Burke.. 49 | Testimonials in Art and Literature... 506 Gift Books for Youths ................ 498 mag a The Pat of Egypt..................... 500 PR: Cin ann 5 ions cede dctecctede 507 Tacker’s Mormonism................. 501 | Fine Arts: The Hermitage, and Other Poems.— Pictures on Exhibition in New Our Grammar Schools.—Book of the Cha keh ibaed cadsc ceded xennade 508 Artist.—Cometh up as a Flower.— Lotta Schmidt, and Other Stories.— CORRESPONDENCE: Titan Agonistes.—Widow Sprig- Te ind b0.463 n0008sceancne Xo 509

Five Dollars per annum, in advance ; Six months, Three Dollars ; Forty Dollars to Clubs of Ten ; Clergymen, Four Dollars. Tue Na‘rion és sent till positively ordered discontinued, and all arrears have been paid. Subscribers are particularly requested to note the expiration of their subscriptions, and to forward what is due for the ensuing year, with or without further reminder from this office. GroreE STREET, 30 Cornutt, Lonpon, E. C., AGENT FOR THE RECEIPT OF SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ADVERTISEMENTS. E. L. GODKIN & CO., PUBLISHERS, 130 NASSAU STREET, N. Y. The Week. As a speechmaker, Mr. Johnson, among all his offices, fills none so well as the office of proving that physiological theory which considers the headpiece a piece of the backbone. But his messages have often been not full of obstinacy merely, but have been clever. To whom we owe his latest message, that on the suspension of Mr. Stanton, has not yet transpired. It is a temperate and able document, and would be conclusive enough if it were not that Mr. Stanton is not alleged to have been guilty of misconduct in office, and that the Tenure of Office bill provides that for nothing short of misconduct in office shall a cabinet officer be removed. Of course Mr. Johnson says this bill is unconstitutional, yet it is in obedience to its provisions that he makes this communication to the Senate, and Mr. Stanton’s deposition he speaks of as a suspension and not a removal. His reasons for suspend- ing the secretary are briefly these: That he had for a long time found Mr, Stanton at variance with him in regard to reconstruction; that Mr. Stanton knew that the President was not to blame for the non- prevention of the New Orleans riots, yet did not exculpate him when he was charged with the responsibility for that outrage ; that Mr. Stan- ton kept in his own hands, uncommunicated, an important despatch from General Baird which, had he seen it, would have caused the President to take measures ensuring the peace of the city. ‘“ There may be those,” Mr. Johnson says, “ready to say that I would have ‘given no instructions even if the despatch had reached me in time, but all must admit that I ought to have had the opportunity.” Another reason for the secretary’s suspension Mr, Johnson finds in the ‘defiant way in which he replied to a Presidential request for his peace- able resignation. As regards the New Orleans despatch, Mr. Stanton explains in his evidence before the Reconstruction Committee how it! happened that he did not send it to the President. That he was. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1867.

legally bound to do so, that not to do so amounts to misconduct, seems to be more than doubtful. However, on this head Mr. Stanton | will doubtless himself be heard before the Senate judges the case. As_ ‘to the personal matters of which much of the message treats, they are { Five Dou.ars per ANNUM, U TWELVE CENTS PER Cory. shrewdly put by the President, but do little more than show that, like most of the rest of us, Mr. Stanton did not, at the beginning of reconstruction, fully understand the relative powers of the legislative and executive departments, and that, as these were discussed, he gradually took the Congressional side of the question and not Mr. Johnson's, The National Union Republican Committee have designated Chicago as the city in Wiks\.ihe next national convention of the party is to be held. The competition between Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago is said to have been fierce, and of course there is talk of brib- ery. No one of these cities ever thinks any other one gets any good thing without a previous shameless infraction of all the decalogue to say nothing of the laws of mercantile honesty, The 20th of May next is the appointed time for the meeting of the convention. Thus it would seem to be evident that the Republican leaders expect a laborious campaign and intend to work. The scaffolding put up by the com- mittee pending the erection of the regular platform is a slight strneture and has but one plank over which any Northern Democrat needs to stumble; it “invites the co-operation of all friends of the complete extirpation of the principles and policy of slavery.” Free trade and protection are not referred to, nor inflation, nor repudiation. However, the Fortieth Congress is to make the Republican platform, and the committee had really nothing to do but call the convention, A letter, purporting to be written by a member of General Grant's staff, and to be a semi-official exposition of the general's feelings with regard to his own nomination for the Presidency, was published last week, but, we regret to say, proves to bea forgery. It said, in brief, that he did not want the nomination; that if he got it, he would rather get it from “the people” than from either of the two party organizations ; that he did not want to be bound to any fixed set of opinions before- hand; that the people must declare their will in the election of Con- gress, and that he would obey Congress; and, moreover, that if he were elected, he would make no appointments as a reward of political services, There is not a word of this of which most intelligent men would not heartily approve. We do not hesitate to say that, if General Grant were to say all this, and stick to it, particularly the last dec- laration with regard to appointments, and to assist, by his authority and example, Mr. Jenckes in getting his Civil Service bill through, he would do more for the salvation and perpetuation of this Government than he has yet done in the field. This is strong language ; but it is not half as strong as the facts would warrant. Nobody who gets even a glimpse of the way in which the public service is filled, and the way in which the work is done, believes in his heart that this or any other government can stand it for ever. va The mania for buying territory seems to be growing strom, 7 4 last report on the subject is, that the Spanish Government proy ss to sell Cuba and Porto Rico to the United States for one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and we are told by telegraph from Havana that “the public heart is beating with anxiety at the announcement,” as the extinction of slavery would be one of*.he consequences of the sale. This extinction of slavery is the only thing that makes it seem in the smallest degree desirable that the news should be true. Even with this prospect, we cannot help thinking that the money would be vastly better spent in educating the freedmen we have than in acquir- ing more, It is of vastly more importance to the black race that those who are now free should be elevated and enlightened and turn out

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AA [Dec. 19, 1867 The Nation. | So ; ; well, than that any more should be liberated either this year or next. declaring it to be the duty of the United States to pay all its debts in Moreover, fine as Mr. Seward’s performances in the way of acquiring | paper currency which it had not expressly agreed in acts of Congress territory and making treaties of commerce look, we do not see what to pay otherwise. Of one hundred and thirty-eight members present, they do for the country except to enable it to grow richer faster. But | eighty-three indicated their unwillingness to countenance the swindle poverty, or the difficulty of making money, is not our great trouble. Our great trouble is the abundance and variety of our rascals; and we | do not see that we shall either “confound their politics or frustrate | their knavish tricks” by giving them more territory to operate over, | We do not hesitate to say that every inch of ground added to our | domain over which we cannot enforce law and order is not a blessing | but a curse—not a help to civilization but to barbarism. | by voting against the resolution, Admiral Porter writes a glowing report on St. Thomas, the Danish West India island which Mr. Seward has just purchased. He sets forth the excellence of its harbors, its great defensibleness against attacks from the outside, and divers other advantages as a naval station, Moreover, its inhabitants are “ hospitable to a fault,” which we suppose, if it means anything, means that they entertain more than they can No Republican need be surprised, yet almost every Republican will | afford; and they are particularly hospitable to Americans, Bat what feel lively satisfaction, in reading the famous “letter marked private ” | which General Grant wrote to Mr. Johnson when Stanton and Sheridan | were removed from office, and which only a House resolution has been able to bring to publicity. It was laid befers’thé House on Tuesday. Addrcssing Mr. Johnson “as a friend,” “ desiring peace and quiet, the welfare of the whole cotntry North and Soutb,” and “ feeling that he is right in the matter,’ Grant declares that the removal of Mr. Stanton would be a violation of the spirit of the law concerning the tenure of | offices, and says in effect that his removal and Sheridan’s—whom he | praises warmly both as a soldier and a governor—would justly exasper- ate the loyal people. No more will be heard henceforth of Grant as a Democratic candidate for the Presidency. Some further correspondence between Lord Stanley and Mr. Seward has been published, in which the former once more, and more explicitly than ever, declines to submit the question of the propriety or impropri- ety, timeliness or untimeliness, of the course of Great Britain in recog- nizing the Confederacy as a belligerent to arbitration. He explains, also, that what he asks for is the organization of two commissions, one of arbitration, to which should be submitted the question of England’s moral responsibility with regard to the Alabama damages ; and to the other, the general claims for damages arising out of the war of the citizens of the two countries—in other words, a commission of arbitra- tion and one of simple adjudication. There is not much probability, we fear, of any immediate settlement of the matter, which is the more to be regretted, as General Grant's views on questions of foreign policy are said to be much less sound and sensible than his views on home questions, We are told, for instance, that he is in favor of keeping the Alabama matter open, as a hook on which to hang a quarrel with Eng land whenever the occasion offers. We cannot help thinking that America is now old enough, and big enough, to quarrel without a hook. Mr. Ramsey has introduced into the Senate a resolution looking to a new reciprocity treaty between this country and Canada, providing for an ad valorem duty of five per cent, in lieu of the existing tariff, und community in fishing, navigation, patent rights, copyright, and rates of postage, and for the cession by Canada of certain territory in the Iludson's Bay Company region west of 90° long. The resolutions ure Wise, statesmanlike, and practical—all except that which stipulates that the excise dutics of the two countries should be assimilated by j¥rent legislation.” If Canada were to assimilate her excise » ours, she would be crazy; and the difficulties in the way of gupg ours to those of any nation under heaven are so great m for the present insurmountable. No revision of them is possible, unless the work be done as a whole, and it can only be done as a Whole by a commission of experts, and Congress will not permit a commission of experts to do anything and is not equal to the task itself, so that it really seems as if the case was hopeless. Of course the admission of Canadian goods at a five per cent. duty, without the assimilation of the two excise systems, is out of the question, General Butler, on Monday last, subjected his financial vagaries to the test of a vote in the House of Representatives. The proposition was to suspend the rules so as to enable him to submit a resolution would John C, Calhoun say—what does Mr, James M. Mason, of Niagara Falls, some time Minister Plenipotentiary of the Confederate States at the Court of St. James, say—on reading in the despatch of an American admiral, by way of commendation of a new territorial acquisition, that the inhalitants whose hospitality he has already dwelt on “are mostly colored, and extremely well educated”? Can these things be, and the solar system continue to hold its own? a South Carolinian or Virginian philosopher may well ask, The King of Denmark’s other island, St. Croix, has, however, been conducting itself badly, as if dis- satisfied with being left behind, and had last weck a first-class earth- quake, driving one United States war-vessel, the Monongahela, ashore, aud nearly wrecking anéther, the De Suto. St. Thomas has also had an earthquake The King has taken leave of his islands in a somewhat pathetic proclamation, commending them to the protection of the Almighty with an earnestness not altogether complimentary to this country. . The Alabama Convention, which Southern papers have covered with abuse of the kind common in Southern papers, was inainly com- posed, say trustworthy accounts, of men long resident in Alabama, three-forsiss f the whole number, to say nothing of the sprinkling of blacks, ‘cen old Alabamians of good standing in their several COMM) # 4:5, « »ot Northern adventurers, as the Mobile Zimes was Its friends say that no political body so orderly and sensible, and few so able, have ever been convened in Alabama; and if we judge of it by its works rather than by reports of enemies, we are constrained to say the same thing. The constitution which it formed has just been published, and is such a fundamental law as any American State might be well satisfied to own. It sets apart for the education of all the children of the State between five years old and twenty-one, not only the proceeds of all the lands which the United States has granted or may grant to the State for educational purposes, and of all swamp- lands, and of ali property left by intestates without heirs, but also devotes to the support of schools one-fifth of the total revenue of the State. Furthermore, the General Assembly may permit the school dis- trict authoritiés to levy a poll-tax on the inhabitants of the district in aid of the general school fund, It is made the duty of an incor- porated Board of Education of the State to establish in each school- district one or more schools, Let us hope that hereafter a majority of white citizens of Alabama may know how to write their names, The rest of the constitution—as the clauses relating to imprisonment for debt, to the right of men of any color to bear arms, and so on—are of equally enlightened character. The illiberality of the disfranchising clauses is more in the reports in regard to them than in fact. They forbid registry as voters to all persons who, during the war, maimed or in any way inflicted unusual or cruel punishment on persons in the employ of the United States, and, secondly, to persons whom Congress or the Constitution (Art. XIV.) has disfranchised. But it gives to the General Assembly power to remove the disabilities of the second class, and there is little doubt that it will be, in the truest sense of the word, the fault of the obstinate secessionists if within three years they are not voting. fond oi eaying. . For a long time there has been a heavy importation into the lately seceded States of incendiary negroes, with papers on their per-

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Dec. 19, 1867] . most of our readers that these men are sent out by the Radicals of the Northwest and North for the purpose of organizing revolutionary gov- ernments, and wrapping in flames communities already swept by the pillows of fanatical oppression, But it is good to know that their efforts have hitherto failed of success. When they are arrested, the negroes whom they have misled generally gather round the officers, and savagely demand Shorter—if Shorter is his name—* for summary pun- ishment.” ‘They would undoubtedly have put him to death,” the reporter always says, with an air as if the idea of lynching was shocking to his own feelings, but he was aware of the length to which the negro’s brutal passions carry him, when once they are aroused. The whites always interfere, if we may trust the Associated Press de- spatches, and “persuade the infuriated blacks to let the law take.its -course.” The Montgomery Advertiser, of a late date, contains the last account we have seen of the arrest of one of these Northern emissaries, His name was George Shorter, and he claimed to be an agent of cer- tain Illinois Republicans. A letter was found in his pocket decreeing the death of Jerry, treasurer of the revolutionary government of which Mr. Shorter was the head, and calling upon Jeff McCall to levy irregu- lar bands of troops and kill the accused. Of course, the surrounding negroes who had been misled by the demagogue clamored for his ren- dition, the order-loving whites of Bullock County appeased them, and we fear that the editor of The Advertiser thinks with a pang of the fate of his unhappy country with the heel of negro domination on its neck. Judge Erskine, of Georgia, probably adorns the bench and the judicial ermine about as much, say, as the Honorable Dick Busteed, of Alabama, or Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, Robert Toombs thus de- scribes him: “Sir, twenty years ago, when you were drinking buttermilk out of a swill-tub in the bogs of lreland, I was a practitioner before the court which you now disgrace. Fifieen years age, when I was a senator in Congress, you were selling lager beer from behind the counter of a Charleston grog- gery, and at no period in ten years has any gentleman seen the time when | he could afford to notice you on the streets ; and yet, sir, you, who are per- | jured in accepting the office you now hold, presume to refuse gentlemen the right of practice before you.” Mr. Toombs did not see his way clear to taking the test-oath, we be- lieve, and the judge declined to permit him to practise in his court. It seems good to get a fresh taste of that eloquence which in the great days of a Clay, a Webster, a Benton, a Davis, and a Fillmore “ re- echoed round the halis of Congress,” as The National Intelligencer would say. But seriously, what is going to become of a set of people one of whose “ first men” screeches, body and mind, in the manner above set forth? It is a cheering thought that by the new constitution they have provided for common schools in Alabama, and that by-and-by both Toombs and Erskine will, perhaps, be impossible as judges and senators, Mr. Dickens has fallen among thieves in the sale of his tickets. A large number of the tickets get into the hands of speculators, and are sole for three or four times their value, and, in fact, they are dealt in as regularly, as openly, and as impudently as Erié or Hudson River stock. Moreover, the sales at the ticket-office itself have been conducted in a manner which not only leaves on hundreds a sense vf wrong, but a sense of having been “done” outrageously. Whether this is or is not a reasonable feeling we do not undertake to say, but it ought not to ex- ist. There are two things for Mr. Dickens to do—either read on till he has satisfied people or sell the tickets by auction. The Tribune's proposal, to sell none till the night of the performance, and then follow the rule of “ first come, first served,” is a barbarous suggestion, and ought to be indictable, as, if adopted, it would probably result in from two to six homicides a night. The Prince of Wales, when in this country, had a picture—purchased by subscription from G. L. Brown—presented to him by an organiza- tion of gentlemen, of whom Mr. George Ward Nichols was the most active. The Prince, on receiving the picture, handed Mr. Nichols 9 diamond pin, which the artist believed was intended for him, The Nation. AOS sons and a brutal expression of countenance. It may not be known to ‘ t tor ‘but which Mr. Nichols was equally well satisfied was intende) _ him, and, having nine points of the law in his favor, he keptit. Y Lerrs rolled on; heart-burning increased. General Knollys, the Pri: | . . | equerry, or something of that sort, on being appealed to, solemnly a | Judged the pin to Mr. Brown. Mr. Henry Ward Beecher intervened | behalf of Mr. Nichols as amicus curia, and submitted certain | uu ai J , and statements which caused Geperal Knollys to revise his ck and he now, after nine years’ waiting, has solemnly adjudged it to Mr, Nichols. Secret circulars have been issued about this unh DP] r, and even legal proceedings have been taken about it in the e uris of the State, but we are glad to say that all is now over. But we ar to add that the conclusion has not been either dramatically ry ir or princely, The Prince of Wales ought to have given a second pin to the disappointed claimant, and the two rivals could then mect ant inspect each other's scarfs without a sigh or a tear, The Fenians seem to be copying the incidents of the late war as near as they know how. Their first idea was to avail themselves of the English precedent in the Alabama case, by conquering Canada, and making it a base for maritime operations against British commerce. The conquest of Canada proved, however, an impossibility, and then a rising in Ireland was ventured on, but proved a pitiful failure. They are now copying the Confederates once more, and have taken to incen diarism in the great cities, and detached outrages, such as those with which we were all familiar here in the winter of 1864. Their favorite exploit of late has been the assassination of solitary policemen, They have now attempted to liberate a prisoner by blowing up a jail, ond in the attempt have succeeded in killing and wounding some forty ot the other prisoners and jail officials. Blowing up the building wit! gunpowder is a thoroughly original, and, let us add, thoroughly Fenian mode of getting a man out of prison. The savage atrocity of | these exploits is, however, not their worst feature. They are rapidly | rousing the tigerish spirit of the English, and drowning the voice of j all those who are seeking, by calm and earnest discussion, the settle ment of Irish grievances, The Irish are but a handful in the great towns in England, and if the English mob were let loose on them, we should witness scenes which would bring disgrace on Christianity and civilization, Moreover, if the Irish of all the rest of Ireland are a match for the Orangemen of Ulster and of the eastern coast, the char- acteristics of the two races must have changed more than we believe they have since the last civil war. The Celts are individually as brave as any men in the world, but they want cohesiveness, the power of or- ganization, the grim, dour determination and persistence which for Englishmen and Scotchmen, The English Government has had as much as it could do, for some years past, to keep the Orangemen quict ; it has only to withdraw its hand to produce in Ireland another religious war, as bloody and brutal as any of its predecessors, and ending, we fear, in the same way. In the meantime, Irish reform con- tinues to be the great subject of discussion in England. The Liberals are rapidly coming to the conclusion that neither the abolition of the church establishment nor the grant of what has hitherto been called |“ tenant right”—that is, the payment of the tenant for the value of his ‘improvements—will now be sufficient to lay the devil of Irish discon- 'tent; that something still more radical is needed, namely, thepplica- ‘tion to Ireland of the plan by which Stein reformed Prussia, an inder | which the tenant is made the real owner of the soil, subject ta rent- | charge. There is danger that anything of this kind will be despe* Stely resisted by the English and Scotch landowners, from the fear tut". the change were once made in Ireland, it would not be very long before , attempts would be made to introduce it to other parts of the country. | The week's news from the Continent is unignortant. The conference , on the Roman question has, as was anticipated, proved a failure. There |is some talk of trying Garibaldi, but it is probably only talk. The session of the Italian Parliament was opened with a fierce attack on the Government, and General Menabrea’s reply is eagerly looked for in order to light up the dark places of the recent transactions. The | stay of the Freach troops at Civita Vecchia will probably be prolonged indefinitely, - centuries have made them.an easy prey to one-tenth of their number of

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496 Notes. LITERARY, Messrs. Lirrie, Brown & Co. have in preparation two new volumes by Mr. Francis Parkman, whose “ Pioneers of France in the New World” and “ Jesuits in America in the Seventeenth Century ” are so well known and highly esteemed as very careful studies of little-known episodes in American history. The forthcoming books, which belong to the same series as the others, are entitled “The Discovery of the Great West” and “The French on the St. Lawrence in the Reign of Louis X[V.”——J. B. Lippincott & Co, have in preparation works with these titles: “Familiar Letters,” by Major-General George A. McCall; Arminius Vambéry’s ‘“ Additional Chap- ters on My Travels and Adventures, and on the Ethnology of Cen- tral Asia;’ “American Masonic Biography and Cyclopedia of Free- Masonry,” by Augustus Row, K.T.;” “Man’s Origin and Destiny Sketched from the Platform of the Sciences,” being Mr. J. P. Lesley’s Lowell Lectures; Professor James G. Watson’s “ Astronomy; or, Treat- ise on the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies revolving around the Sun ;” Dr. Albert Taylor Biedsoe’s “Philosophy of Mathematics ;’ “Our Chil- dren in Heaven,” by W. H. Holcombe, M.D.; “The Farmer's and Planter’s Encyclopedia of Rural Affairs,” written by Cuthbert W. Johnson, and adapted to this country by Gouverneur Emerson; “The American Beaver and his Works,” by L. H. Morgan; and “ The Voice in Singing,” translated by W. H. F. Shortly from the German of Emma Seiler. H. H. Bancroft & Co., of San Francisco and New York, have in press a book, to be sold to subscribers only, which will interest all old Californians at any rate, and if it keeps the promise of its title will be of real value to the pub- lic at large. Its title is “The Natural Wealth of California,” and it will treat not only of the natural wealth of the State, but of its beauties of scenery, the peculiarities of its heterogeneous population, will give bio- graphical sketches of its leading men, statistics of its foreign and domestic trade and commerce, details of its botany, natural history, and what not— in short, it will, without giving much space to the poiitical history of the State, aim to describe, in about six hundred imperial octavo pages, Cali- fornia as it was and is, The authors of the work are H. C. Bennett and Titus F. Cronise. Wynkoop & Sherwood will publish in a few days “Select Historical Costumes,” thirty lithographic plates colored by hand, chiefly from medieval originals. Two pages of text will accompany each plate, and the initial letters and binding have been designed expressly for the work with great care. We have more than once spoken with praise of the Publishers’ Uniform Trade List Directory, compiled by Mr. Howard Challen, of Philadelphia. This work, which comprises complete lists of books published by upwards of two hundred houses, is now undergoing re- vision, and can be stall more highly than ever commended to all literary men, librarians, bookgellers, and book-buyers. Mr. Challen has also in press an Alphabetical Catalugue of all books published from January, 1860, to January, 1868, and solicits from publishers and authors full particulars of works issued by them during that period. —In Lippincott’s Magazine, Philadelphia, long the headquarters of worthless magazines, will\ have a very respectable specimen of periodical literature. The first numbér opens with a continued story, in which is easily discernible the hand of Migs. Harding Davis, and readers who like that author’s works will be pened this novel—* Dallas Galbraith "— which, if it bids fair to be marks by all her faults, possesses, too, all her peculiar merits. Of “ The Alybé Brasseur and His Labors,” an article con- taining some account of a philological explorer of ancient Mexican and Centnyl American rernains, we hope to speak at some length on another eecasiog, We may say of it here that the editor ought not to allow the writer to use such a Philadelphianism as this: ‘‘ Like huge fishes rise in the watr,3« wse the mountains.” The other articles in the body of the maga- zine call for not much comment; one of them is purely Jocal, and tells Phila- delphians of “The Old Slate Roof House” which was built by Samuel Carpenter, and inhabited at one time by William Penn ; another, not more interesting, urges on our attention the truth that in a republic the people must be to some extent educated ; another is a not very lucid discussion of the present condition of business, and more especially of the currency ; an- other is a Christmas story in no important respect different from thousands of Christmas stories ; everybody will know what another is when we say that its title is “ The Cook ia History,” and that most of it is made up of an old (Quarterly article ; and what “ Rays from the Honeymoon ” is everybody can fancy. ‘‘ Pre-Historic Man,” in good part devoted to the famous “ lake. ‘{wellings,” does not compel perusal ; having read it, we may say that it lacks The Nation. [Dec. 19, 1867 = _ ————— methodical arrangement and precision of statement, and so teaches less and less easily than it ought. We wonder, by the way, how the writer knows that “Tubal Cain, one of the sons of the patriarch Lamech, was the first to work in iron and copper.” He will involve himself in unending controversies— taiking in that way in professedly scientific disquisition. “Vox Humana” is to be spoken of with respect, for, if not precisely to be cailed new in con- ception, it is well written; and “Our Ancient City”’—Saint Augustine, namely—is a pleasant little piece. The poetry is not worth mentioning particularly. Of the “ Literature of the Day,” it is to be said that the first book-notice—the one on several catalogues of the books which relate to America—shows knowledge and is valuable, and that the other nine notices are not of importance. Of the ten articles but three relate to works pub- lished by Messrs. Lippincott & Co. “Our Monthly Gossip” is this month rather pleasant reading. It is to be mainly made upof desultory chat on all sorts of matters, and will partly consist of “ Notes and Queri+s.” Just here, among the queries, there is danger before the editor. “ And first for our fair friends,” he cries gallantly. “ Placeaux dames. A correspondent, who signs herself ‘ Leonora,’ writes: ‘I have been trying for months to find out what poet Tennyson means when he says, in ‘ Locksley Hall,’ you know, “ This is trath, the poet sings, That a sorrow’s crown of sorrows is remembering happier things,’ and nobody can tell me. Please you tell me,’” aud so on. The editor, then, with grace and profundity, sets Leonora’s mind at rest by quoting the original Italian and three English translations. It is with a certain happiness that he next says: “Akin to quotations and proverbs are those threadbare anec- dotes and jokes which are styled ‘Joe Miller’s.” Akin to some quotations. We hupe he wrote Leonora’s letter himself, and that genuine “ Leonoras ” are not going to be encouraged. ‘They easily fill a magazine with triviality of a hardly tolerable sort. Most of the “ Monthly Gossip” is fairly good, and, on the whole, while the first number of Lippincott’s is not excellent— first numbers rarely are—we may say of it that it has almost no positive faults, and that it gives promise of a sensible and readable magazine. For the rest, Lippincott’s is of ubout the size of Zhe Atlantic, is printed equally well, and has equally good paper. We do not know why, with the improvement which it is reasonable to expect, the Philadelphia maga- zine should not have a long future. From the publishers’ prospectus we should say that Louis Blanc has been engaged as a regular contributor, and we suppose there is not much doubt that Mr. G. W. Boker is the editor or lends some assistance to the editor. —Mr. Eugene Schuyler sends from Moscow the following statement con- cerning the translation of Turgenef’s “ Fathers and Sons,” which he pub- lished a few months since. The charges made by The Saturday Review have been copied into two or three of our American journals, and so should this reply be: “ The Saturday Review, in a notice of ‘Fathers and Sons,’ argued very plausibly, on the strength of two passages, that it was translated from the excellent French version of the same story. It could, perhaps, have found better arguments, and not been obliged to misquote in order to make the resemblance stronger. It also neglected to state the many obvious differ- ences between this and the French translation, especially in the use of proper names and in the rendering of the points of tue dialogues. The greater part of the book was translated directly from the Russian, though recourse was often had to the French version for a word or a phrase used by Mr. Turgenef which bas not yet found a place in any Russian dictionary— either French or German—for there is no even passably good Russian-Eng- lish dictionary. Some of the latter chapters were, owing to a press of time, translated directly from the French, but were afterward more or less care- fully compared with and corrected by the Russian. The translation was thus substantially from the Russian. “ Further, the most of Mr. Turgenef’s works were translated into French either by the author himself or under his immediate supervision. This book, though Mr. Turgenef's name does not appear on the title-page of the French version, was understood to be so translated, and believed to be of almost equal authority with the original. “ A note statiog these facts was handed to the editors of The Saturday Review immediately after the appearance of the article in question, but no notice was taken of it.” —Those readers of Mr. Dickens’s books who were reading them twenty years ago were familiar with ‘“‘ Master Humphrey's Clock,” and liked it. In the pages of that work—started as a sort of periodical—besides Master Humphrey, his clock, and his frienda, Mr. Pickwick reappeared after ten years’ retirement, Sam Weller attended him as of old, Mr. Weller, senior, came out in great force, and the son and grandsan, little Tony, appeared for

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Dec. 19, 1867] the first time and made the centre of the friendly group. These good peo- ple are not wholly known to those readers who have not met them in their last field of action. The whole story of “ Master Humphrey’s Clock” was a setting or frame for the two novels of “ The Old Curiosity Shop” and “ Barnaby Rudge,” and for several shorter stories. The whole work formed three volumes of a larger page than that of the other novels in their original editions, although they too were in stout octavos, except “ Oliver Twist,” which first appeared in three smaller volumes. The illustrations were nu- merous in “Master Humphbrey’s Clock,” some in the picturesque but mannered style of Cathermole, and the remainder by Hablot K. Browne (called Hablot Brown on the title-page), who was then far from possessing the freedom of | his later work. A copy of this original edition, now Lecome scarce, is to be seen at the store of Scribner, Welford & Co. In all, or nearly all, the recent editions of Mr. Dickens’s works, the novels of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop” and “ Barnaby Rudge” have been printed without their setting. and the} delightful pages of Master Humphrey have been suppressed. This has been done evidently by the English publishers, and at least with the consent of the author, for the two novels are sold, printed from the old plates, with the paging as it was at first. Thus, in “ The Old Curiosity Shop,” the page after the title is page 37; the story stops at page 47; begins again at page 80, and so on until the first page of the old second volume comes along half- way through the book. A publisher's note alludes to this, but gives no adequate reason for the abandonment of the old form. —The article on “The Talmud,” of which a correspondent speaks at length in another place, has been supplemented by M. Hippolyte Rodrigues, | tagne.” written by M. Dupanloup, the bigoted Bishop of Orleans, censuring M. | Duruy for his late reform in establishing free courses of instruction for) = : ne young women, conducted by the professors of the university (enseiynement | secondaire)—a reform which, if we fully understand it, not only robs the | priesthood of one of their most cherished prerogatives, but brings the | Second Empire into favorable contrast with the First, when Napoleon had to be asked whether he thought women ought to learn the alphabet. M. | different schools of politicians. Dupanloup, knowing the immense influence of women and their great use- fulness to the Church in maintaining ite revenues and fostering the super- equal confidence. stition on which it flourishes, attacks the innovation of the Minister of Pub- | modern times, the American and French Revolutions, both eccurring in his lic Instruction as hostile to Christianity, which, as he took pains to observe, had revealed a virtue, charity, and morality unknown to former religions | among men. It is to this point that M. Rodrigues speaks. As for M. Duruy, he is exempt from replying. M. Haussmann, who has hopes of becoming a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, is hurrying through the press a “History of Paris,” in thirty volumes, or thereabouts, to be published at the expense of the city, and illustrated by the heliographic process. Colonel Regis de Trobriand, U.S.A., who is now out among the Rocky Mountains, dealing with Indians and buffaloes, has written a work in two volumes octavo, which will shortly be published on the Continent : “ Quatre ans de campagnes 4 |’armée du Potomac.” —— Louis Ulbach writes to the Indépendance Belge that he has been examining an album of fifty photo- graphs of Americans distinguished in our late civil war. He is struck with admiration at their firm countenances, beautiful sometimes in spite of a manly homeliness, thoughtful, independent, with broad foreheads and large mouths, the lips closed formidably. He reads stubbornness in Andrew Johnson's posture and expression. General Grant, whose uni- form seems like a railway official’s, has a beautiful forehead, and a strong and meditative physiognomy. General Sherman bears a vague resemblance to Henri Martin, the historian, but has more prominent cheek-bones, hol- lower cheeks, and a much more highly developed furehead—the military forehead which all his colleagues possess. Frémont looks asif he never would be President; he does not seem big enough for the part. Between Jefferson Davis and Mr. Lincoin the writer fancies a resemblance in leanness of visage, closed lips, broad forehead, and strength of head. Raphael Semmes closes the gallery of portraits: ‘“‘on dirait corsaire,”’ and so he proves to be. —The Evening Post says of Philoxtne Boyer, who died the other day at Paris : “ He was one of those who talk poetry better than they write it. Con- scious of this, he wrote but little in the later years of his life. His literary remuins consist of a single volume of poems, a lyric drama, some sketches, aud a few fragmentary criticisms. His favorite labor was lecturing on Shakespeare ; but he never succeeded i in bringing his genius into a market- able form, and died a poor man.’ This brief paragraph tells very nearly the whole story of the poet’s life. The Nation. a French Israelite, in a work entitled “ Les Origines du Sermon de la Mon. | 7°*"S before had dropped out of the race. It is in response to a letter (“Lettre & un de mes Collégues”) | 497 of genius. He was poor, and he could not learn the art of money-making ; he was sensitive, and he suffered keenly ; Lis spirit was broken, and be died at the age of forty years a bent and grey-headed old man. Even those literary friends who were most warmly attached to him speak of this death as a late-coming piece of good fortune. Yet poor Boyer's life was not without its compensations. He lavished his modest patrimony on studies and books, but he drew deep, pure, and unfailing enjoyment from these sources in the darkest days, Literature was his life. We can understand with what pain he admitted to his mind the conviction that he could not hope for success in authorship, and so laid down the pen. Bat he never sulked or cried out. His failure and his poverty only made him more tender and, unfortunately, more unpractical. He cherished no grudge against his more successful contemporaries ; he was quite free from that | literary jealousy which has belittled so many otherwise noble and pathetic stories. But he withdrew to the society of his books, cultivating in solitude his literary tastes. These were sometimes charmingly eccentric. He ad mired many writings which the publishers do not regard with enthusiasm, As for his feeling toward Shakespeare, it approached idolatry. Ino the last years of bis life he read no other book. The margins of the volumes which contain the works of his favorite are thickly covered with notes, glosses, | references, and reflections. A friend compares his commentaries on Shakes. | peare to the books of the Rabbins. Beside these consolations, God gave to | Boyer a pure Christian home—a wife of unusual worth, and the prattle of little children. There were also some kindly men who in the hurry and excitement of their own successful careers did not forget the old friend who One of these closes a touching memoir of the poet with this line from “ The Divine Comedy ” *“L’ amico mio e non della ventura,” MR. JOHN MORLEY ON EDMUND BURKE.* Tue history of Burke’s reputation has been a strange and checkered one. He has had the singular fortune of furnishing weapons to two totally His works have for fifty years been an arsenal from which Tories and Liberals have armed themselves with almost Moreover, he played a prominent part in the discussion of the nature and consequences of two of the greatest political changes of own day, and uttered predictions about them which have enjoyed the rare distinction of being carefully remembered half a century after his death. In one set of these predictions —those touching the French Revolution—he proved not wholly right, but near enough to being right to warrant the party of reaction in retaining him as their great champion. With regard to the American Revolution he proved wholly right; but then the effect of much of what was best in his speeches and writings on the American question was long neutralized in the minds of the common run of politicians by his speeches and writings on the French question. Then the course of events both in England snd here, ever since his death, has been such as to cause great changes in the popular estimate of him. From 1793 to 1815, the period during which the party of repression had the upper band in England, Burke was a great Tory prophet. The Revolution of 1832 brought his Liberalism and his constitutional theories into the fore- ground, and made him for a while a Liberal prophet. But then the growing infusion of the business spirit into politics, and the growing distrust of ora- tory which followed the Reform bill, brought on him the discredit of being a mere rhetorician. This imputation, which damaged him in the estima. tion of the middle classes, has somewhat strengthened the reaction against declamations and the love of dry “ practical’ views in political discussion, which The Saturday Review imported into journalism. On the other hand, perhaps one of the most striking phenomena of English politics during the last twenty years has been the growing power of the utilitarians, the “ expediency" men, as distinguished both from the Tory transcendentalists and the “ Manchester School,” who were nearly as great werchippers of general rules as the Tories themselves. This school, of which Bentham may be said to have been the founder, John Austin one of the most brilliant disciples, has been revived and illustrated by John Stuart Mill, and is draw- ‘ing to it nearly all the ablest young men of the present generation. Accord- ing to this school, there are no general rules in parics; there are no prin- ciples capable of general application ; there are no absolute rights which must be asserted under all circumstances; “ politics is not a science of ab- stract ideas, but an empirical art, with morality for its standard.” _Now, there is _very little in Burke's political philosophy which this *“ Edmund rhe 79 A Historical Stuay. By John Morley, B.A., Oxon.”’ Lenges: : Boyer was a man of a type which is not infrequently met among men | Macmillan & te pe 4 > he,

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498 The Nation. [Dec. 19, 1867 school does not eagerly accept. Burke was undoubtedly, if not the something of a sinister interest in solving them in one way rather than earliest, the best known, most eloquent, and most earnest of English utiii- another. If he could find a solution which was in accordance with Whig tactics, or, what was still narrower, but still better for himself, a solution rn ‘ as . that justified the Rockingham section of the Whigs, it was to bis interest creed may be picked out even of his impassioned diatribes against the to go so—not his interest in any sordid sense; tor Burke's character was French Revolution and his impassioned eulogies of the British Constitu- not of a kind to yield to, or even to be conscious of, temptations of that tion. At the hands of the positivists, therefore, Burke’s memory is under- Oder, but to his interest as a keen partisan, whose peace of mind was : seis ; , ; ots sa going a sort of rehabilitation. | staked on the fact of his party being in the right. We sha'l have ocension eh - , ; p further on to discuss Burke’s own views as to the uses and obligations of Mr. Morley, who is the present editor of The Fortnightly Review, enters party. There can be no question that his passion did constantly blind him in the volume before us,a portion of which has already appeared in his to those loftier considerations which should always be present to the mind journal, into an examination of Burke’s career and opinions in relation to of the philosopher, and that in one portion of his career (1788-9) he actually the events of his time, with the view of placing both one and the other | S¥*rendered himself to a systematic factiousness that fell little short of ae eR git: Bg I pe : being downright unscrupulous. At the same time, it is just to remember before the public in a clearer light than that through which they have that the most memorable act of Burke’s public lite was his unhesitating been viewed, showing to what extent his political philosophy was affected | abandonment and violent disruption of party, when what he conceived to by his temperament and by the circumstances by which he was sur. | be the dictates of political wisdom were no longer the guide of their con- rounded, and, in short, analyzing his works with reference to the events duct. He was never so obstinately deaf to the voice of what he took for : Z . PY Sate wisdom, never so utterly given over to intellectual reprobation, as to regard which called them forth—a task which few men of distinction have needed allegiance to his associates as the prime ard most binding of all duties. He more to have done for them by a cool head than Burke, for probably few | frequently voted away from his leaders and friends.” men of equal weight and influence have through natural ardor and im- | Burke's course on the French Revolution—which has long constituted the apt 8 a on erst enacting ee . Mr. | great blot on his political reputation, and which prompts, at the present Ory, Wane mae pane cits ~~ © maintain 12 | day, hundreds of political writers, who probably owe to him nearly every his “ Patriot King,” though on a basis furnished by Locke, in opposition to | jgea of apy value they ever possessed, to sneer at Lim in the latter years of the theory of divine right, that the good of the people is the ultimate and his life as a crazy reactionist—was undoubtedly, as Mr. Morley shows, true end of government, and that the office of a kiog is therefore a trust, | largely the excited and enthusiastic expression of one of the very soundest, and not absolute property, a for Burke the credit of having refuted | most deeply rooted, longest held, and most easily defended, of his political the doctrine that a king was equal to such atrust. Burke’s theory was, | ideas—the value in government, and, above all, in reform, of the feeling of that though the end of government was the good of the people, the true national continuity, of the close connection of each generation with those ayers to = “ was centre by a aren my public-spirited few ;| which have gone before it and which are to follow it, and of the necessity, n other words, by an aristocracy ef some kind. Of government “of the | jn order to make reforms really beneficial, of basing them on the stock of people, by the people, fur the people,” as Mr. Lincoln defined it, he had | ideas, habits, and traditions already accumulated. If we tear off from no conception, and if he had thought of it would doubtless have scouted | Burke’s assaults on the Revolution the excrescences produced by his heated the idea. But then in preaching this doctrine of his at that day in “ The!; er : iali j . i i i Thoughts on the Prevent Discontents,” he relly attacked the el that was |aiie of oratory, we thal eeraily fad a theory of national life of which nearest him. For popular government, in our sense of the word, no nation | the history of eS for the last seventy years abundantly proves the in the world, not even this nation, was then prepared. The government | soundness. Most calm observers are now agreed that the failure of the which Englishmen were seeking to substitute for George the Third’s French to make the “ principles of ’89” the basis of any permanent politi- clumsy despotism was the despotism of the House of Commons, or, in other cal system has been undoubtedly mainly due to the suddenness and com- words, an oligarchy for a tyranny, and the House of Commons was begin- pleteness of the break with the past into which they were unfortunately ning to exercise an authority just as absolute and as selfish and as little led by the literary politicians who precipitated but were unable to control permeated with any thought of trusteeship as that of Louis XIV. What) ine revolution. Napoleon’s coronation in Notre Dame was a triumphant Barke did, while acknowledging the claims of oligarchy to rule, was to vindication of Burke’s passion. Others still more striking have since taken bring home to it the doctrine that it had no right to rule except as trustee | place. While on this subject, Mr. Morley makes the following very acute for the people, which, plain and simple as it seems now, then had the merit | obgervation, which just at present is worth pondering : of neveniy et Sanat, : “ The rights of man would have furnished a scanty and inadequate basis Mr. Morley also claims for Burke the honor of having contributed to | for the constitution of that State which fir-t brought them into practical political philosophy the important idea on which nearly all the great politi. | politics if there had not been men endowed with the knowledge which cal reforms of the world have since been based, “ that in politics we are con. | Hamilton and Madison nes ee, ot the ean a mg . ty ve + Ras : ~The Americans bad all the benefits of the rights of men, but then they ha ce rned not with barren rights, but with duties ; not with abstract truth, | publicists who could construe and embody them in a practical system.” but with practical morality. He denies that he can be set down either as | simply a thinker or simply a rhetorician ; he maintains that he was both ; | We have now again plenty of aposties of “ the rights of man” but not though his heat of temperament led him into heat of language. The follow. | °° ™®®Y publicists. We have plenty of imitators, too, of Burke’s rhetoric, ing is as successful a statement of the case on this point as we remember but very few politicians who have laid hold of his philosophy or mode of to have met with: | thought. v © Sts watens) aohercbuennt led him to clothe hi lost inel We had intended making other extracts from Mr. Morley’s book, illus- 5 dor always impe 1im to clothe his conclusions in glow. : : F : : ing, exaggerated phrases. Nobody would be disposed to deny that Bentham | trative of his way of treating his subject, but find we have reached the was a thinker, and yet he constantly displays a heat, an acrimony, a contemp- | limits of our space. We regret this the more, as the book is full not only tuousness that is only different from the unphilosophical language of Burke | of exceedingly able exposition of other thinkers—such as Mr. John Austin’s monet ane Sietes cana ree eh cont rarer —_ ca a ‘denunciation of the common tendency to deduce from the existence of a rea, and, e 1em Out of the path which leads to truth, is thus, | eo ‘ = . , in the long run, deprived even of a desire to find it. Burke's style unquestion- political right the daty of en pegieNE is withous saguee ered ably partook of that ‘opimum quoddam et tanquam adipatum orationis quences, illustrating it by the action of the English people toward the genus’ which the Roman orator bas described. The framework of what he has | American colonies—but of very striking and acute observations of Mr. heany aecae thos ee tho'ehais Ga = language barne with | Moriey’s own, which are full of instruction peculiarly adapted to the cons y aze fo e whole iffuse that clear, undistarbed light | : : i i which we are accustomed to find in men who have trained eiebee te Present time. We commend it as a very valuable contribution to the balance idyas, to weigh mutually opposed speculations—in short, to argue political literature of the day. ani to reason with no passion stronger than an intense desire to discover on | what side or on what sort of middle way the truth lies. Those who ante acquired a love for political thought amid the almost mathematical closeness GIFT BOOKS FOR YOUTHS.* and precision of Hobbes, the philosophic calm of Locke, or even the ; ill. i i i majestic and solemn fervor of Milton, are in a manner revolted by the uare.| A soy fond of readiog will, in the aheenee of good things, read anything strained passion and the decorated style of Burke. His passion appears | —S8Y, “ Margoliouth on Isaiah LIIL” ; and of this trath the author of ho; e-esly fatal to anything like success in the pursait of truth, who does |“ Thrilling Locidents in American History ” seems to have been very well not reveal herself to tollowers thus inflamed. His ornate style does not aware. Indeed, such is the complete and wonderful dryness of Mr. Barber's appear lesa fatal to that cautious and precise method of statement suitable; = to matter which is not known at all unless Known distinctly. ** Thrilling Incidents in American History. Being a Selection of the Most Im- To understand this more clearly, we must constantly remember that portant and Interesting Events. Compiled from the most approved authorities: By ; J P a g piled get Burke was actively engaged in the thick of the political fight. This wes J. W. Barber. With iliustrations.” New York: James Miller. | 1883. another eoures both of @eakeces ead of strength to him. It weakened bit | ent of Becchwoud. By Mrs. Eiloart. With illustrations.” New York: as a philosopher, because he came to the considerations of his problems with| Routledge’s Every Boy’s Aunual. An Entertaining Miscellany of Original Litera- tarian politicians, and some of the most dearly cherished doctrines of their cn nage orn perenne Fae TERE FEROS RETA T ~~ a ~~ eM oe eee on fatlUihlUCU M/ hlCO ih *> wf >» — A ES FF = * Oe Oe et _ ena Va oe ——y —s s

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SS SRR OIE, Pee ae Ae RRS TIN Dec. 19, 1867] work that he must, one supposes, believe himself and Margoliouth the li extant writers of juvenile literature. The omnivorous appetite of boys utterly destitute of reading matter is what he must have been calculating on when he produced his bock. “Thrilling” he calls it too. One has orgies, then, over a Patent Office Report! We give a sample of the sort of writing which, combined with poor paper and ugly wood-cuts, make the book a truly repelling one: “General Clinch was obliged to return to Fort Drane without effecting his object, and his position was rendered critical. General Scott sent troops to his relief. ‘eneral Gaines with a force of about 1,000 men from New Orleans landed at Tampa Bay, February 4, 1836. Four days afterward General Scott arrived at Saint Augustine. General Gaines marched for the Withlacoochee to attack the Seminoles. He was opposed by them at or near this place and suffered some loss.” Nearly all the book is written on the plan which this quotation indicates, and is better fitted to teach a boy that on February 4, 1836, in Tampa Bay, Florida, something happened, than to teach him what it was that happened then and there, and just howimportant it was and is. Scraps of old newspapers and chips out of Common School Histories of the United States are surely sad fare for the youthful mind. Of Mra. Eiloart’s “ Boys of Beechwood” we hardly know what te.say. We found it amusing, by reason of the perfect naturalness of the boys, and it is crammed with stirring incident. But, as a morally responsible being, one cannot urge parents and guardians to purchase a book which describes one of its heroes—a smal] sized copying clerk of a ndon! wyer—as keep- ing in his employer’s office a hedgehog called indifferently ‘‘ Toby ” and “The Rev. C. Galland;” another hero as “hiding” a “low cad” of a National School school-boy who, “like a beastly coward,” throws stones instead of casting himself confidingly on his fists; others of its heroes as painting a cow with the face-markings of a well-known vicious bull, and witb her help terrifying another “low cad”—the uncle of one of the young gentlemen. The boys are small, muscular Christians, however, with a robust scorn of lying and stealing, and if they stop up a cottager’s chimney and send dirty water down into his fire-place, or drench an attorney by means of the garden hose, or pummel two men old enough to be their fathers, or chaff a justice of the peace, or precipitate somebody into a horse. pond, it is all done in the interests of virtue. Their animal spirits are always directed into a channel where they subserve the cause of sound morality. The book is of the “ Verdant Green” class, except that the figures of the dramatis persone are smaller, and that all the horse-play and mischief and impudence is for the relief of the oppressed and the circumvention of vil- lany. In this respect the book is untrue to nature, and we suppose that it will conduce rather to apple-stealing and window-breaking than to youthful piety. “Pluck” and a certain amount of truthfulness are inculcated ; but notwithstanding this, and the fact that the author, at the end, says that “honesty is the best policy,” we suppose more harm than good will come from the reading of it, spirited and amusing as it is. “ Routledge’s Every Boy’s Annual” is a large, thick, gilded octavo which any boys from twelve to sixteen ye irs old would be very glad to get hold of, and which we hope many such may have the pleasure of reading. It contains among%its other treasures a story of echool-boy life, by the author of “ East Lynne,” which, if we consider it as a novel, sets before us pretty well the passions that agitate the school-room and the playground ; and if we consider it as a picture of English school-life, is, we imagine, truthful ; certainly it is vivid. It will interest American boys, as showing them their youthful contemporaries on the other side of the water, and it will benefit them by teaching, as it does with considerable power, the lesson of the eleventh The (Nation. commandment, whether we take that to be “ Love one another” or, as some | say, “ Mind your own business.” The one to a certain extent involves the | other. Besides, we have a Cromwellian novel, entitled “‘ The Boy Cava- | liers.” There is something in it of the Scott sentiment— “Shall we match the base Skippon and Massey and Brown, With the barons of England who fight for the crown?” = With illustrations.” New York: George Rout- ture. Edited by Edmund Routledge. ledge & Sons. } “The Boy’s Own Country Book: Descriptive of the Seasons and Rural Amuse- | —_ — Muller. With 140 illustrations.” New York: George Routiedge | ns. = eos ets or, Hester Powers’s Girlhood. By Mrs. Edwin Sheppard.’ Poston: Lorin Tne Purgatory of Peter the Cruel. By James Greenwood. Illustrated by Ernest | Griset. * New York: George Routledge & Sons. * The Children’s Poetry Book; a Selection of Narrative Poetry for the Young, with | ——- illastrations by Thomas Dalziel.” New York: George Routledge & Suns. “Queer Little Peale By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston : Ticknor & Fields. “ The Story wieneat an End; from the German of Carove. By Sarah Austin. With illustrations printed in Colors after Drawings by E. V. B.”” New York: Scribner, Welford & Co. 1868. With illastrations.” — 499 oe and Cromwell is introduced to us as a youthful gambler, but, in oad sooth, we *marvel the author has held the balance so nearly even. Then there is a good long tale of marine adventure, and the rest of the annual is made up of short stories, puzzles, instruction in sailing, riding, shooting, hare and hounds, football, and other youthful sports, and of instruction as to playing with the mechanic arts and the physical sciences by using the microscope, lathe, and so on, Altogether the book is exceed- ingly well worthy of youthful acceptance, and sure of youthful perusal. We can say the same thing of “The Boy's Own Country Book.” Twenty years ago Mr. Miller published it in four volumes, entitled respectively “The Boys’ Summer Book,” “ Winter Book,” and so on, with perhaps a taste too much of flowery writing here and there. It takes the boys very pleasantly through the months, talks to them of the juvenile rural sports, of the birds of the month, of the animals, small and great, and of the farmer's occupations of the four seasons, and, to lighten this informa- tion, tells many stories concerning incidents, some pathetic and some simply “jolly,” which fell under the author's observation, and all of which address boys’ tastes and most interest them. The tone of the book is that of the kindly, hearty talk of an old man with young feelings conversing with his young friends, and so it isa very agreeable book indeed. As for the flow. ery writing whickase have mentioned, there is but little of it; and most healthy boys being monsters of hardness of heart, it is, on the whole, per. haps desirable that all the sentiment that can be got into them without turning their stomachs shou!d be administered. A weightier objection to the book is this one—that the rural life of America differs so much from the rural life described by Mr. Miller, We wish somebody would do for the American boy, and do it in as manly a way, what Mr. Miller has done for the boys in England. ‘The illustrations in the volaume—some of them after Bewick—are excellently expressive of the sentiment that per vades it, and may be called charming. “« Judge Not; or, Hester Powers’s Girlhood,” is a story for young ladies, and not a very good one. There is a high-born young girl in it, Miss Isa- bella, beautiful, but humble-minded, and pious and peculiar in many things ; but she knows it all, and is given to patting herself on the back. So is Hester, the too good and beautiful village maiden, who dies in jail, we are happy to say. She goes tothe great house as companion to Isabella, Then there is a young artist who falls in love with the beautiful peasant, an envious lady’s maid who hides brooch jewellery in Hester's pocket, and a magpie who steals diamonds. Hester is at once charged with the theft, faints when charged with it, and her previous character for sanctimonious- ness being dreadfully against her, she gets not much mercy, especially from Miss Isabella, who probably had an excellent eye for a canting young per- son. She is prosecuted for grand larceny, and dies of a broken heart. The moral is “ Judge Not.” Mrs. Sheppard is one of several thousand writers for young people who do good service to the cause of immorality. One wonders what they think the faculty of judgment was given to man for. Because charitableness is good, they teach that common sense and the law of evidence are to be disregarded. There was nothing to be done in the case of Miss Hester but to have her arrested ; she had been under suspicion fora long time. It was Mrs, Sheppard's business to make the jadgment obvi- ously unjust or hard. Certainly she ought not to have made it apparently so perfectly fair as it seemsin this story. If Mrs. Sheppard says that we are all naturally too much inclined to hardness in judging others, and that it is well to insist on mildness of judgment, we assent, and say_in turn that when she makes mildness ridiculous and weak, she demoralizes people and postpones the day when the queen of the earth shall be justice. “The Purgatory of Peter the Cruel ” belongs to that class of books which was described in our last number as being intended for grown people }as well as children. In other respects it cannot be classified at all, being a unique performance as well asa clever one. It is the story of a very cruel | boy, who all his life has been the inveterate enemy of every creature of | humble creation. Crawling up the rigging of the Mangowallah to cut a cockroach in two with a pair of shears, he falls and kills himself. From “a chink in a coil of rope’’ Peter looks at his late body, and the captain and sailors surrounding it, trying without avail to bring it to life again. He | wonders what it all means. He has “a sensation of having on a suit of "clothes buttoned well up the throat, and a trifle too small for him.” He | moves his head and is shocked to find that his body" luust move with it. In short, he has become a beetle. In that shape, but retaining the faculty of thought, he passes the life of a beetle in the hold of the ship, and in the _ bosom of the family of that very cockroach which—or whom—in his | human shape he had succeeded in maiming. He learns what thoughts and feelings are entertained by good cockroach and beetle society, and becomes the wiser for it. After a very vivid experience, he is pitched into a poo! of

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500 The Nation. [Dec. 19, 1867 l bilge-water by a belligerent “drummer,” and passes some terrible last we have said in a recent article, a good book for children must contain much moments in reflecting how many beetles he had wantonly drowned when that the children cannot understand. We have enjoyed this book very a boy, and how, if it was so awful to die in cold water, what must it be | much, and expect all wide-awake children and all childlike grown people to when that water is boiling hot. After drownirg, he rises from the pool a | enjoy it too. blue-bottle, and, after living its life, passes through successively the existence| “ The Story without an End” has been very much admired, and, indeed, of a snail, an ant, and a newt. It is impossible in a limited space to give has a great reputation. This is not the first translation of it into English. any but a very general idea of a story whose chief merit is the minute care | It is often mentioned and referred to as a story of great interest and merit. of its working up. Founded on an excellent substratum of natural history, | Its reputation, however, can hardly be founded upon its attractiveness to these little insect-biographies are conceived with the greatest ingenuity, | children. So far as our observation has gone, children cannot be found who and carried out with a spirit and humorousness that are very rare. Boys and | will read it with any avidity. To grown people its fanciful purity and its girls who read must be fascinated by them into positive interest in the lives | very unreality are a kind of charm. If children could be induced to like it, of “small deer,” such as the study of entomology in the abstract would not jit would, perhaps, be well, for its influence could be only wholesome and be apt to give them. They will find their imagination pleasantly and | quiet. As this volume comes to us, however, its principal interest is in the profitably stimulated by the description of the ant town, and the aphis dairy, | pictures. Besides head and tail-pieces, there are fifteen large full-page pic- and the way the little creatures govern themselves. Mr. Greenwood’s style | tures. All are wood-cuts from designs by an English lady, now well-known is remarkably vivid; it is perhaps too vivid for perfect good taste when he | as an illustrator of books; but the full-page cuts are printed in fuil color, describes the barbarisms of Peter’s early life; but under its influence we | and are of quite exceptional merit. E. V. B. as a designer in black and shal! find it hard to forget the horrors of the fly which, turned into a bait, | white has always seemed to us as of secondary rank. Her designs have is dangled by the inconsiderate fisherman just above the nose of a stickie-| been not ungracefal in line and cleverly composed, but very weak in draw- back; or of the ant hall of justice, where a criminal, a gaiting a sentence of | ing,.and deficient in beauty of effect of light and shade. But in these color death with bravado, faints when he is condemned to j 2sxxtual idleness; or | designs, while some of these faults and imperfections remain, there is a Peter teaching the ant soldiers to dance and bet ; or the poor newt cooling | richness of color which redeems all. They are among the best color compo- his pinched tail against the side of the glass aquarium. The young person | sitions of our time. Every one is designed in color, primarily, as if intended who gets this book as a Christmas present is to be congratulated. for stained glass or for decorative painting on walls. In this they resemble The “ Children’s Poetry Book” is a stout, little square volume, and, ex- | the works of two strong and true schools of art, the book illuminations of cept that there is a very well-designed stamp put on the cloth cover, does | the Middle Ages, and the pictures in full color, whether hand-made or not look very tempting. Onexamination, however, it proves to be a very | printed, of the Japanese. E. V. B.’s drawings are almost as shadowless as good collection of poems for young people’s reading; not all “ narrative | the work of either of the schools mentioned above. It would have been poems,” but all of an interesting character. Of other collections of poems | better had they been wholly free from shadow. The slightly better relief for children, probably “The Children’s Garland,” edited by Coventry Pat-| gained by the occasional cast shadows, as in “ The Garden of Ancient more, and published as one of Macmillan’s “Golden Treasury Series,” is | Palms,” adds nothing to the intelligibleness or to the verisimilitude of the the best. That consists uf one hundred and seventy-three poems ; of these | picture, and we cannot help wishing that E. V. B. had faced the matter of perbaps a dozen would have been better omitted—as, for instance, the | color design as boldly as study of illuminated manuscripts might have led worthless ballad called “ The Suffolk Miracle,” which ought to have no| her todo. This apart, we do not know of any book illustrations in color place in any other book than a general collection of old ballads such as that | which are, on the whole, so good. We shall have to refer to them again formed by Professor Child ; “The Dragon of Wantley,” not altogether a | when speaking of other less successful color-printing. pocr ballad, but requiring many changes to make it supportable, and not a very good ballad when all the changes are made ; and Southey’s raw-head- and-bloody-bones story, in verse, ‘Mary, the Maid of the Inn.” It is a THE FAT OF EGYPT.* wonder that a man of true if not very deep poetical feeling, such as we Ir may have been with no little self-restraint, but it was from a very suppose Mr. Patmore to be, should have admitted these poems and other | just artistic feeling, we do not doubt, that Mr. Baker dropped from his such into his collection. But otherwise it is a good collection, having the original narrative of Nile explorations the year devoted to traversing the single additional fault of occasional unwarranted changes from originals. | Soudan and visiting the confines of Abyssinia. The experience of this in- Comparing Messrs. Routledge’s new “ Poetry Book” with “The Garland,” | terval was of the highest value for his subsequent researches, and was, in we find that it contains about the same number of poems, that it is not so | fact, the sine gua non of that success of which Albert N’yanza was the crown. pretty nor so well printed a book, nor so neatly indexed, and that it sins | [, cleared up one mystery of the great river—that of the annual overflow ; more gravely than its rival in the matter of unneeded changes and omissions ; | jt shed new light upon the resources of a country which has begun to be of but that the selection on the whole is better. A number of poems, perhaps | much interest to the commerciai world, especially for the article cotton ; it thirty, are contained in each of the books, and these are about the best part gave time to the explorer to get acclimated, to learn Arabic, to acquire con- of each, for among them are such poems as Wordsworth’s “Lucy Gray,” | trol of the natives, and to gain a clear conception of the self-imposed task “ The Sailor's Mother,” and “ Alice Tell ;” Southey’s “ Inchcape Rock” and | which yet awaited him. Had he broken down in his journey south under “ Battle of Blenheim ;” Scott's “ Lochinvar” and Tennyson's “Charge cf | the jealousy of the slave-traders and the hostilities of the negro tribes, the the Light Brigade.” The Routledge “ Poetry Book ” is adorned with some present volume would not have been delayed; but to describe fitly the poems which it is a wonder Mr. Patmore let slip—such as Campbell’s grandeur of his achievement in reaching the reservoir of the Nile, it was “Hohenlinden” and Wolfe’s “Sir John Moore ;” it is adapted to younger necessary to postpone all that would detract from the unity of the account, children than the “Garland” will suit, and this partly by the admission of | and, with the fewest episodes possible, to move straight from the beginning some capital trifles from a book of unknown authorship, but published by | to the end of the drama. What sustains the full current of the Nile against Routledge, “ Aunt Effie’s Rhymes.” The poems are of every sort, and will evaporation and absorption twelve hundred miles below its latest tributary ? please all tastes; and there are, perhaps, but two pieces we could wish | This was the question which Mr. Baker has already answered. What causes away. On the whole, we like “ The Children’s Poetry Book” very much, | the floods and fertilizing wealth of the river? To this question the present but it is a shame that poems should be cut to pieces and stuck together | yolume renders a conclusive reply ; and if, on the whole, it is not so attract- again, as has been done with some of those in this book. The illustrations ive as the parent work, it is because the discovery which it announces was are of two kinds—full-page colored wood-cuts, not disgracefully designed, | made so early that the remainder of the expedition is, for the reader, an anti- and rough little wood-cuts printed with the text, a few of which are | climax—the pursuit of geography with peculiar facilities and amid rather very expressive, as, notably, that one which illustrates Eliza Cook’s oem, agreeable excitement, and without the hardships which beset the White Nile “The Death of Master Tommy Rook.” voyagers at every step. In this latter respect lies the essential difference of “ Queer Little People and their Friends” is a reprint of papers which | the two explorations. have appeared in Our Young Folks. If it were a new book, it would require Those who read Mr. Baker’s “ Albert N’yanza”—and they should have at our hands a notice long enough to express our hearty enjoyment of it. | been many—will meet in his “ Nile Tributaries” some old friends who are It is a thoroughly delightful and healthy book for children. The childlike chronologically new. Mrs. Baker, of course, is here, constant and intrepid love of beasts and birds and insects is rightly and wisely drawn upon, not | ag ever, with Johann Schmidt, the carpenter, Richarn, the faithful black— by asking children to laugh at beasts in the habits of men, but by translating — the real life of the animals into humanity as literally as children’s intelli- * “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran , be pee ; 1 W. , M.A., F. x : J.B. gence would allow. There are capital bits of satire and funinthem. As a Co.; London Macmillan & Go. 1967. "bp a, 596. a oper area) — — me © PP © 4 Aa news © Sg ME om ll > En ee on, eo dl >> 42a we Ae De o- eae) ae” a ee ee ee ee. ee aie ake hee eee a el a ll es eee, ae ae

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Dec. 19, 1867] The Nation. 50 one fruit at least of the Austrian Mission, though he would get drunk—the horse Tétel, and the sponging-bath. Here is Mr. Baker himself, earning his knight's spurs, and shooting always lucky shots, and bagging a bewil- dering variety of game; easy yet firm in discipline; rich in expedients, as when he sends a messenger log in quest of the body of a drowned Arab girl, or lowers a camel, suspended midway from a cliff over which it had fallen, safely to terra firma ; a sufficient physician and surgeon ; a good mechanic ; and a manufacturer from the raw material worthy a gold medal at the Paris Exposition : “ We thus washed with rhinoceros soap [made of lime burnt in an ant-hill for a kiln]; our lamp was trimmed with oil of lions; our butter for cooking purposes was the fat of hippopotami, while our pomade was made from the marrow of buffaloes and antelopes, scented with the blossoms of mimosas.” As a hunter, Mr. Baker yields unfeigned admiration to the Hamran aggageers, whose weapon is the sword only, and whose pet game is the elephant. They approach the monster on horseback, skilfully divide his attention, and then with the greatest boldness run behind him on foot and slash the back sinew of each leg till he falls and bleeds to death. Other game they encounter in the same way, but their “ sport’ is more like torture than is the speedy work of the rifle. A large part of the book is occupied with their achievements and with “sport” in general, and hardly escapes being monotonous in spite of Mr. Baker's ability as a nar- rator. Khartoum reappears in this diary, beautiful as a vision when seen from across the river, but full of filth and stenches, and a natural seat of the slave- tradeand the plague. The new towns are Cassala, which, after Khartoum, is the principal one of the Soudan, a walled fortress, on the banks of the sand- swallowed river Gash ; Sofi, on the Atbara, a delightful asylum durivg the rainy season; Katariff, on the direct road from Cassala to Khartoum, and hence conspicuous for its bazaar; and Gallabat, the capital of the Tokrooris, and the exchange-market of the products of Abyssinia and Egypt. Cassala is brought vi@ Berber and Soukaim on the Red Sea into easy communication with Cairo ; but though commerce avails itself to some extent of this chan- nel, it is chiefly used by the Egyptian Government in transporting troops with which to menace Abyssinia. Mr. Baker shows what enormous fer. tility remains undeveloped in the country between the rivers that are fed from the mountains of Abyssinia, what mineral deposits exist there un- touched, how cheap labor and transportation are, and what a grand opening there is for civilization on the line of travel just mentioned, provided Europe, and England above all, strive to build up the port of Soukaim, and to divert trade thither. His speculations upon this point, upon the feasibility of still further colonizing Soudan with the industrious Tokrooris from Darfur, and his magnificent schemes for damming the Nile and irrigating the desert, to rescue from the Delta the rich deposits of Abyssinian soil which make the Suez Canal a precarious enterprise, seem to us sound and sensible, though it is scarcely to be hoped that they will reach fruition so long as Egypt is ruled by the Turks. The stream whose freshets swell the Lower Nile beyond its limit is the Atbara, with two principal branches, the Settite and Salaam. The general characteristic of all these rivers is, that they flow through a broad table. land of fertile but uncultivated soil, through which they have gullied beds sometimes upwards of two hundred feet in depth, each rain forming an infinite number of petty torrents that crumble away the banks in landslips and charge the water with mud that goes coursing on to the Mediterra- nean. According to the geological formation, these ravines are broad or narrow ; and when hemmed in, as they frequently are, by immense cliffs, the straitened waters foam over the very tops and sweep the surface of the country. “ The magnificent chain of mountains from which they flow is not a simple line of abrupt sides, but the precipitous slopes are the walls of a vast plateau that receives a prodigious rain-fall in June, July, August, until the middle of September, the entire drainage of which is carried away by the above-named channels to inundate Lower Egypt.” We cannot do better than reproduce the graphic passage in which the sudden filling of the empty Atbara, on the night of the 23d June, 1861, is described : “The cool night arrived, and at about half-past eight I was lying half asleep upon my bed, by the margin of the river, when I fancied that I heard a rumbling like distant thunder: I had not heard such a sound for months, but a low uninterrupted roll appeared to increase in volume, although far distant. Hardly had I raised my head to listen more attentively when a confusion of voices arose from the Arabs’ camp, with a sound of mapy feet, and in a few minutes they rushed into my camp, shouting to my men in the darkness, ‘El Bahr! El Bahr!’ (the river! the river!) a “ All was darkness and confusion; everybody was talking and no one listening ; but the great event had occurred, the river had arrived ‘like a thief in the night.’ On the morning of the 24th June, I stood on the banks | | ubwritteo. of the noble Atbara river, at the break of day. The wonder of the desert! | and yesterday there was a barren sheet of glaring sand, with a fringe of withered bush and trees upon its borders, that cut the yellow expanse of desert, For ays we had journeyed along the exhausted bed; all nature, even in nature's poverty, was most poor; no bush could boast a leaf; no tree could throw a shade; crisp gums crackled upon the stems of the mimosas, the sap dried upon the burst bark, sprung with the withering heat of the simoom. In one night there was a mysterious change—wonders of the mighty Nile! —an army of water was hastening to the wasted river; there was no drop of rain, no thundercloud on the horizon to give hope, all had been dry and sultry ; dust and desolation yesterday, today a magnificent stream, some 500 yards in width and from fifteen to twenty feet in depth, flowed through the dreary desert |” TUCKER'S MORMONISM.* We have here a very interesting account of the external life of Mormon. ism during its early years. We are told what sort of people the Smith family were and also much that is instructive about Martha Harris, Sidney Rigdon, and other founders of the Church of Latter-day Saints. Especially we are told what manner of man was Joseph Smith, with whom professedly the movement had its origin. And it will be generally agreed that if the account here given of him is correct, he did not write the Mormon book of prophecy. Who did write it may have been less successfully determined. Mr. Tucker has had excellent opportunities for making the studies of which this book is the result. Himself a resident of Palmyra, the scene of Smith's early operations, he claims to have been acquainted with Smith from his earliest years. “ From twelve to twenty he is remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, prevaricating boy—noted only for his indolent and vagabond. ish character and his habits of exaggeration and untruthfulness.” His fortune-telling and money-digging operations are described at some length, and in these things his imposture made so plain that his subsequent finding of the “Golden Bible” is put, on grounds of antecedent probability, into the same category of deceit. But if Smith did not write the “Mormon Bible,” who did? For his followers would thank Mr. Tucker for showing that Smith did not and could not write it, if there the matter were allowed to rest. Foras it is a great point with the Mohammedan to prove that Mohamimed could not have written the Koran, so it isa great point with the Latter-Day Saint to show that his prophet could not have written the “ Book of Mormon ;” for hence, he immediately concludes, it must have been written by the ancient worthies to whom it is ascribed, and handed down in the mysterious manner to which Joseph Smith bore testimony confirmed byanoath. Perfectly well aware of this state of things, Mr. Tucker has made it the main object of his work to give a rational account of the origin of the “ Mormon Bible.” His account is certainly plausible—at any rate, infinitely more so than the account which the Mormons themselves give of its origin and transmission. The Mormon theory is pretty generally known. It is that when the building of the Tower of Babel was brought to the abrupt conclusion spoken of in Genesis, a part of the people scattered at that time came to America, and lived here and flourished, and dwindled and died out, leaving their history buried somewhere in the earth. This history, which forms a part of the ‘‘ Mormon Bible,” was exhumed by a second Jewish colony which came to this country in the year B.c. 600. This second colony ulti- mately split into two nations, the Nephites and the Famanites. From the Famanites came the American Indians, and from the Nephites came the prophet Mormon, who lived to see his tribe extinguished by the Famanites, and to write its history, including the appearance to them of Jesus afier his resurrection. This history his son Moroni buried in the earth, and there it remained until September 22, 1827, when Joseph Smith discovered it, and with it an enormous pair of spectacles, with whose aid he translated its contents into the vernacular. It had been buried more than one thousand four hundred years. This is the Mormon theory. Mr. Tucker's is a little different. It is that the “ Book of Mormon” was written by the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, a cler- gyman who had graduated from Dartmouth College about the year 1809. Mr. Spaulding was an enthusiastic archwologist. He accepted the theory that America had been peopled by a colony of ancient Israelites. Obliged to give up the active duties of his profession, he employed his leisure in con- structing a fabulous historical account of a long-lost race. The manuscript was completed in 1812 or 1813, and submitted to a printer in Pittsburg, Pa. It was finally returned to the author, who died In 1827. Soon after his death the manuscript was stolen. By whom and for what? In the office at Pittsburg where the manu- script had remained three or four years was Sidney Rigdon, afterward the * “Origin, Rise. and Progress of Mormonism. Biography of its Founders and History of its Church. Personal Remembrances and Historical Collections hitherto i By ee | Tucker, Palmyra, N. Y."” New York: D. Appleton & Co.,, 448 way. 1667.

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The Nation. [Dec. 19, 1867 502 first Mormon prophet. It is Mr. Tucker’s theory, supported by a goodly array of facts, that Rigdon got possession of the manuscript, and used the money-digging proclivities of Joseph for a point of attachment around which to cluster the new revelation. It is very certain that Rigdon had paid Smith several mysterious visits before the Bible was discovered. Mr. Tucker's account of the growth of Mormonism and the introduction of polygamy, which formed no part of the original revelation, but was a brilliant after-thought, is necessarily less full than his account of its origin. But it displays the leading facts in their order, and is a very welcome con- tribution to the literature of the time. But it is only the most external life of Mormonism that is here given—its occasions and excuses, and not its deep causes, There must lave been a great deal of Mormonism in the air when it condensed so rapidly about such men as Smith and Rigdon. The philoso. phy of Mormonism is yet to be written. There are hints in Dixon’s “ New America” as to how this will be done. But it will need a more thorough- going man than Mr. Hepworth Dixon to do it properly. - - — — —— The Hermitage, and Other Poems. By Edward Rowland Sill. (New York : Leopold & Holt. 1868 )—‘* The Fountain” is as favorable a speci- men of Mr. Sill’s poems as we can find in this volume, and we therefore quote it: ** Were it not horrible— After all the dreams we dream, Our yearnings aud our prayers, If this ‘1° were but a stream Of thoughts, seneations, joys, and pains, Which, being clogged, no soul remains? Even as the fountain seems to be A shape of one identity, But only is a stream of drops, And when the swift succession etops, The fountain melts and disappears, Leaving no trace but scattered tears. Yet even here, O foolish heart! ‘Thou wert not cheated of thy part; Were it not better, even here, To keep thy current pure and clear, With pearly drops of dew to wet The amaranth and violet, And round thy crystal feet to shower Blessings and beauty ever hour— Better than in a sullen flow To creep around the ground, and go Wasting and sinking through the sand, Because not always thus to stand ?”’ The moral purpose, discernible in almost all he writes, is plainly to be seen in this little poem; almost too plainly, but we are not in this case, as in the case of most of his poems, made sensible that the moral was made in one piece, and the poem, distinctively so-called, made in another, and the two then, in a more or less workmanlike manner, joined together. The ele- ments are better fused in “ The Fountain.” Of the other way, the one more commonly used by Mr. Sill, “ Faith” is a sample: “ The tree-top, high above the barren field, Ri-ing beyond the night's gray folds of mist, Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed To perfect silence, by the fain moon kiss'd. But the low branches, drooping to the ground, Sway to and fro, as sways fanereal plume, While from their restless depths low whispers sound— * We fear, we fear the darkness and the gloom ; Dim forms beneath us pass and reappear, And mournful tongues are menacing us here.’ * Then from the topmost bough falla calm reply— * Hush, bush! I see the coming of the morn; Sw ftly the silent Night is passing by, And in her bosom roxy Dawn is borne. *Tis but your own dim shadows that ye see, ‘Tis but your own low moans that trouble ye.’ * So Life stands, with a twilight world around; Faith turned serenely to the steadfast sky, Still answering the heart that sweeps the ground, Sobbing in fear, and tossing restlessly— * Hush, hash! the Dawn breaks o'er the Eastern sea, *Tis but thine own dim shadow troubling thee.’” Even had the thought not been so familiar, the last of these three stanzas would have been better away. Weare not quite willing to say that the thought being so familiar, it might have been as well if all the stanzas had been away, the imagery being pretty and, on the whole, successful— adequate to the striking and pleasing expression of the ideas. Scattered through all the book are many pleasing similesand metaphors ; such as this, for example : * Still as the shadow of a brooding bird ; That stirs but with her beart-beats ;” or this: a tel * Long curves of little shallow waves Creep, tremulous with ripples, to the shore, Till the whole bay seems smoothly sliding in With edge of snow that melts againet the sand ;” or this, better yet: ** On the brown, shining beach, all ripple-carved, Gleams now and then a pool; so smooth and clear. That, thongh I cannot eee the plover there Pacing its farther edge (so much he looks The color of the sand), yet I can trace His image hanging in the glaesy brine— Slim legs and rapier-beak—like silver-plate As With such a pictured bird clean-etched upon it. It is needless to say that, among so many scattered single images—and 80 we should describe Mr. Sill’s poems if compzlled to extreme brevity— there are many which are infelicitous. An image-maker “amorous of per- fection” of images, rather than of images, would hardly make this one: : “ The hard ground seems to ache all’ day } Even for a sheet of snow to lay Upon its icy feet and knees, Stretched stiffly there to freeze and freeze.” Of the thoughts in the book we should say that they are such as any man might be glad enough to have had. But we have a decided opinion—one | that meets with more favor from critics and readers than from persons of a poetical turn—tbat unless one has something new to say he should be en- couraged to hold his tongue. In these poems, except the new things above- mentioned, we find nothing new, though almost all is good enough. The tone of the book is unobjectionable, or would be but for a little note of peev- \ishness here and there audible. The bitterness of the hero of “ The Her- mitage” we take to be a dramatic bitterness merely, not properly the author's any more than that of the young man in “ Maud”—the father of our hermit—was properly Mr. Tennyson’s. Perhaps it is not neces- sary to say that these poems are full of passages suggested by other writers. We have space for but one out of a great number of instances. The laureate’s “ Isabel” had ** Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign, The summer calm of goiden charity.” And Mr. Sill’s “ Child Anna”—an odd enough way of speaking about a little girl—has “ the fresh young mouth”—the same fresh young mouth— ** And all the tender looks, which charity And many patient days Leave round the lips.” This “ Child Anna,” by the way, is a pretty little piece. There is nothing to be said against the production of such poems as these are as a means of self-culture, or rather as a means of innocent enjoyment ; at any rate, there is nothing to be said that is of weight enough to be con- clusive against the production of them; but we are bound to say that they are not poems that can live in the open light and wind, and we do not re- joice in their publication. Our Grammar Schools. Why do they not furnish more and better Material to our High Schools? A Lecture read before the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association at Springfield, October 19, 1867. By Henry F. Har- rington, Superintendent of Public Schools, New Bedford, Massachusetts. (Boston : Crosby & Ainsworth.)—This is a bold, and, we do not hesitate to say, a much-needed criticism of the stupid and stultifying routine pursued in New England public grammar schools. It is so outspoken in its criti- cism that it is not perhaps surprising that it was received with little favor by the schoolmasters assembled at Springfield; yet this is only additional evidence to show that such criticism is needed. Men of every profession get fixed in old ways and hate to be disturbed. It is only by pressure from without that much-needed reforms can be accomplished. We do not know why it is that while the American people are so lavish |of expenditure on their schools they are so careless of what goes on within | eee: They will not tolerate old machinery in a cotton-mill an hour if | better has been invented, but they will let the course of study of their | schools fall behind the demands of the age a whole generation, content with seeing that they are well housed in costly and stately buildings. We do not hesitate to say that a reform in the course of study and methods ot teaching ot our ordinary grammar schools is entirely feasible which would increase their efficiency at least a hundred per cent. ; and in this pamphlet the New Bedford superintendent has indicated the general character of the change which ought to be effected. He points out the narrowing effect of the study of the barren abstractions of grammar and arithmetic, begun long before the child is mentally capable of really grasping such subjects, and continued to the almost entire exclusion of those objective studies and that more natural concrete study, language, which should precede them in any course based upon a rational psychology. And he shows how the pedantic standards set up by the examinations required in passing from one grade of schools to another rob the higher schools of half their value. He might well have included in his criticism the entrance exami- nation to our principal colleges ; for nothing can well be conceived more at variance with the whole spirit and tendency of the times than the stupefy- ing cram in Greek and Latin grammars which, to the exclusion of all t % e t é f P. + Orne eaiegs

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me CRO eeanret ne teagegUNINERRR ee = Dec. 19, 1867] The Nation. 503 EE = modern science, is the appointed method of admission to the privileges of Harvard and Yale. We hope that Mr. Harrington's energetic pamphlet will have the effect fresh and unhackneyed in feeling that we have read it with a great deal of drawing attention to these important subjects. The teaching profession of pleasure. is just now ina transition state. Heretofore, almost any other occupation and profession has had greater attractions for men of ability than the school- masters’ calling. The consequence is that the teaching of the young has | the story is told with a directness, and the characters drawn with a free fallea very much into the hands of women. This would be no misfortune | dom and grace, which quite give the book the autobiographical air which if women received a proper training and education for the work. We be-,it assumes. The exception to which we refer is to be found in the person lieve that in the future a large part of the elementary training of chil-| of the heroine, who is also the narrator of the story. dren will remain in female hands ; only women will te far better prepared than now for their difficult task. Yet we think there will be a field for| between which the heroines of most Eaglish novels vibrate, and is at the masculine talent of a much higher order than most of that which is now| widest remove from the metaphysical and strong minded nondescripts engaged in the work when the arrangements and course of the study of our | affected by our own writers. She is merely a very genuine little girl, inno- schoo!s shall be brought more nearly into accordance with the demands of | cent, passionate, and with a genius for loving, the story of whose loves anid the times. There is no reason why the teaching of the young shuld) troubles is told with a simplicity and truth to nature which we think quite be looked upon as a dry and wearing drudgery. It is capable of being exceptional. There is in the book no attempt at any profundity of thought elevated into a liberal profession with even less of mechanical drudgery | or sentiment to which such a girl would not naturally be equal; the inei appertaining to it than belongs to the professions now reckoned liberal. | dents are not strikiog, and the conclusion is much too melancholy, Stull, we amused, one finds the demand on one’s imagination too heavy. In “Cometh up as a Flower” we have, however, a little love story so Its plot is one of the barest and simplest illustrations of the proverbial roughness of the course of true love, and the characters belong, with perhaps one exception, to types perfectly familiar in recent fiction ; but She smells neither of bread and butter nor of the stables, two almost equally odorous extremes Bat it must be undertaken in a very different spirit and with very different aims and by a different class of minds from those which are now attracted toir. It is a far more delicate and difficult task to base a course of study suited to the development of the youthful mind upon a rational psychology than to build the biggest brick school-house and furnish it with the very latest | school furniture. Our progress in the latter task has therefore been far greater than in the former. But this cannot much longer be postponed if our schools are not to fall into discredit and contempt; and we cannot help thinking that the modern spirit of scientific enquiry will penetrate our schools and reorganize the course of study pursued there into a shape more | consonant with the wants of these modern times. When that change has once taken place, it will be safe to predict that the apathy which exists in regard to our public-school system will disappear. The people will take a far greater interest in schools which produce real fruit, and the business of conducting them will begin to be attractive to some of the best minds in the community. Mr. Harrington’s pamphlet deals with some of the subjects which need investigation, and we hope it will fall into the hands of many thoughtful friends of educational progress. Book of the Artist. American Artist Life, etc. By Henry T. Tucker- man. (New York: Putnam. 1867.)—This considerable octavo is a useful book, because containing biographical sketches of the more famous of the artists of the last and passing generations, and briefer notices of the more prominent of the new men. Slight as American attainment in the fine arts has been, it is interesting to Americans to read about it. For instance, students of art will not be found to agree with Mr. Tuckerman’s estimate of the work of Vanderlyn, Benjamin West, Cole, and Chapman ; but American students of art will always like to know something about the earliest American painters, however feeble their art may have been and however slight their influence upon the future of American art. The one great fault of Mr. Tuckerman’s book is its boundless optimism. To assume that our national art is as good as any nation’s art is pleasantly flattering to our national vanity. To discuss the work of our better known painters as if they were, collectively, about equal to the painters of the Renaissance, makes it very easy to put on an appearance of critical discrim- ination in treating of each one. And the difficulty with all of this book that is not purely chronological is, that it assumes, in discussing the works of our artists, that a painter, gu@ painter, is a blessing to his country, and that therefore of all that is said of him a good ninety per cent. must be praise or “appreciative” criticism. There are able painters for whom our society is, and will be, better, happier, and wiser; and there are painters, and popular ones, whose work is unspeakably trivial, and others whose work is wrong and false. But all these—if only their names are known of men—Mr. Tuckerman’s essay treats as individual powers of nearly equal, and certainly correlative, importance. No book of this kind will be really worthy of a permanent place among sound and sober treatises until there is some discrimination shown not only between the good and bad in one pic- ture or one painter, but also between art which is essentially good and art which is essentially bad. Cometh up asa Flower. An Autobiography. (New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1867.)—It is usually as hard to become sympathetic over a novel as to be properly moved by an acted tragedy. The wires are too evident, the have fuund it pleasant readiog and recommend it as such. Lotta Schmidt, and other Storics. By Anthony Trollope. (New York George Routledge & Sons. 1867 )—If it were possible either to add to or subtract from such a reputation as Mr. Trollope’s, we fancy that the latter ungrateful task might be performed by this volume of stories. We do not, however, anticipate any such unfortunate result from its republication, Is might, perhaps, have been as well to confine to the public reached by the English magazines the emphatic assertion implied in these sketches, that their author’s powers of observation are acute only when playing within a very limited English range; and that neither dramatic force, passion, nor imagination is to be expected from him. Yet, since no one ever cred- ited him with the possession of these qualities, there is, after all, no harm done. It is, in fact, rather pleasant than otherwise to see the close resem blances which exist, to Mr. Trollope’s apprehension, between Austrian and Italian lovers, and the Grace Crawleys and Lily Dales, the Major Grantleys and Johnny Eameses, with whom he and his readers were already familiar. Occasionally he essays a bolder flight, and, as in the case of Miss Ophelia Gledd, portrays a creature who, though certainly not English, belongs to no other species with which we are familiar. The story in which she appears is, however, the most amusing in the book, and we commend it to the care- ful consideration of Bostonian readers. Titan Agonistes: the Story of an Outcast. (New York: G. W. Carleton & Co. 1867.)—The dulness of this book is so profound and unbroken, its wit is so witless, its sarcasm so pointless, its virtue so vicious, that the mind of the man who could write it, and the heart of the publisher who could deliberately print it, become curious subjects for speculation. A moet pain- ful and laborious reading, on our part, has neither succeeded in finding any plot which would survive transplanting into a review, nor been rewarded by the discovery of any chance redeeming feature in the shape of a fine idea, sentiment, or expression. The effect of the book is too nightmare-like to allow us even to laugh at the ponderous conceit of its title. Even its in- cessant coarseness, which in another case might call for a word of reprehen- sion, becomes a matter of small moment when compared with the frighiful weight and dulness which effectually neutralize all other objectionable characteristics. Widow Spriggins, Mary Elmer, and Other Sketches. By Mrs. M. F. Whiteher. Edited by Mrs. M. L. Ward Whitcher. (New York: G. W. Carleton; London: Sampson Low, Son & Co.)—As we !earn from a slovenly memoir prefaced to the book, the writer of “ Widow Spriggins” and of “ The Widow Be ‘ott Papers,” was a Mrs. M. F. Whitcher, the wife of a country minister of this State. Her satirical abilities seem to have been sufficient to make her husband's congregation very angry with her and with him, though one would not have thought so beforehand. The in- sufficiency of them might seem a more probable reason, However that may be, “it soon became apparent that Mr. Whitcher’s usefulness asa clergyman would find fewer obstacles in some other parish,” and he moved away from Elmira. Mrs. Whitcher’s book is hopelessly vaigar in tone and matter, and the illustrations that Mr. Carleton bas put into it are a marvel of adap- tation ; possibly they are a shade more vulgar than the text. The credit of designing them belongs to Mr. J. H. Howard. Mrs. Whitcher’s poetry is very bad as poetry, but it is seriously meant, and offends only by its dulness, So, too, of her serious prose, of which there are oav or two pieces in the puppets move too mechanically, and, with the best will in the world to be| volums

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on. | Dec. 19, 1867 5OL Articles on any of the subjects usually discussed in this journal will be received from | policy of his own, he is less willing to defer to the wishes of his party any quarter. If used, they will be liberally paid for ; if rejected, they will be returned to| than he would have been had he felt under obligations to it for his the writers on the receipt of the requisite amount of postage stamps. |elevation. In these and other respects there is an obvious distinction All Communications which pertain to the literary management of Tus Nation should | between the case of a President elected by the people and that of one be addressed to the Editor. succeeding to the office by accident. In the next place, the three Presidents who disappointed the expec- THE NOMINATION OF GRANT. tations with which they were nominated were all notable politicians, whose past record was well known, and whose speeches had been quite Tue humiliating experience which this country has had on two | as frequent as was desirable, Mr. Tyler had been in the Senate, as well occasions of a President who deserted the party by which he was} gg in other departments of public life, before his nomination as Vice- elected, and strove to create a new party devoted to his personal | president, Mr. Fillmore had been the leader of his party in the House interests, has made all men of decided political convictions justly | of Representatives. Mr. Johnson had, as is now pretty generally cautious of being again caught in the same snare. No honest and | Known, filled every office in the gift of the people, from alderman to intelligent citizen, whether Republican or Democrat, can think with | senator. Nor were they silent men. Mr. Fillmore was not actually complacency of the possibility of repeating in 1870 the disgraceful | joquacious, but was never afraid to speak. It may be remembered that intrigues of 1542 and 1866. Whatever error or wickedness there may | jn 1856 he “swung around the circle” in anticipation of Mr. Johnson ; be in the doctrines of a political party, there is, at any rate, some con- | and, though his manner was that of a gentleman, his success in that solation in the certainty that such doctrines must be honestly believed | suicidal business was fully equal to that of our present Chief Magistrate. by large masses of men before they could receive the sanction of a/ Mr, Tyler was an active debater; and, as to Mr. Johnson, everybody “platform.” The particular men who frame a party platform may be | knows what he is and always was. It may therefore be inferred that utterly insincere; but the people for whose satisfaction it is made | mere readiness to speak is not a material safeguard against the disap- must generally believe in it, or it would not be supported by politi- pointment of a party’s hopes. cians, This is true even of a platform like that of the Whigs in 1852, But again, it must be considered that only Messrs. Tyler and John- which was despised by a majority of the party in the Northern States. | son actually deserted their party; and that these men were both com- It was not made to please that section of the party. It was framed by | mitted by their past record against the measures to which their party Southern politicians, and fairly represented the sentiments of all| was inclined, while they had never recanted their former doctrines. Southern Whigs and of fully one-third of the party at the North. | The breach once made, they undoubtedly went much further than was Even if these did not include the majority of the party (which is| required by mere consistency ; but at the outset they simply wished to doubtful), it cannot be disputed that the platform was heartily | stand against the progress of their party. The Whig party of 1840 was approved by a very large minority, and was adopted in deference to| not committed to the re-establishment of a national bank, while Mr. the wishes of the people, and not in servile submission to the will of| Tyler was committed against it. The Republican party of 1864 was one man. not committed to equal suffrage, while Mr. Johnson was on record Not only is there a strong feeling in opposition to all attempts to| against it. It is true that Mr. Johnson broke with his party before it organize a personal party, but there is a great deal of doubt among | took final action in favor of equal suffrage ; but it is also true that he, earnest members of the Republican party as to the policy of nominat-| and almost every one else, saw that the tendency of the party was ing a candidate not unequivocally identified with its past history. Ain that direction irresistible. Men who have determined to quarrel majority of the party are disposed to nominate General Grant, and| upon a remote issue seldom wait until that issue presents itself for probably have felt disposed to do so ever since April, 1865. But a) decision. large minority, including many of the most worthy, conscientious, and Only two Presidents have been elected without having a decisive zealous Republicans, are dissatisfied with the prospect, and recall the | political record, and these were Washington and Taylor. The politi- names of Tyler and Fillmore as melancholy illustrations of the same | cal history of the former is less familiar to Americans than any other mistake which has proved so disastrous in the nomination of Johason. | part of his life, and it may therefore not be known to all our readers It will not do to override such men without convincing them. And | that he commenced his administration as a very moderate Federalist, as we do not agree with their conclusions, although fully sympa-| striving to hold the balance between the rival parties, and eventually thizing with their ultimate purposes, we shall endeavor to point out | became a decided supporter of Federal doctrines, doing more for the to them the distinctions between the cases which have caused trouble | party than was expected of him at his election. General Taylor, who in the past and the policy to which they now object. defined himself as a “ Whig, but not an ultra Whig,” and from whom, In the first place, it should be borne in mind that it has always/a large slaveholder, no shadow of favor toward free-soil doctrines been a Vice-President, never an elected President, who has betrayed | might have been expected, proved himself as good a Whig as anybody the confidence of his party so far as to show any tendency to go over | wanted, and a more effective advocate of measures which could only to its adversary. Messrs, Pierce and Buchanan betrayed the confidence | result in the exclusion of slavery from the new Territories | than any reposed in them by the people, but did so only out of their extreme | avowed Free-Soiler. Had he lived through his term, it is almost cer- servility to their party managers, Their error was precisely the oppo- | tain that the iffanjous Fugitive Slave bill could never have passed, and site of that which has marked the career of some Vice-Presidents. | that Texas would have received no bribe to induce her to surrender It is scarcely necessary to enquire into the reasons of this difference |New Mexico, while it is not improbable that Southern treason would while the fact of its existence is admitted, The position of a Vice-| have been sternly crushed by a Southern man. A wise though severe President is very unsatisfactory to an ambitious man; and when he | decree ordered it otherwise. A Northern man, formerly in sympathy unexpectedly finds himself promoted to the higher position, it may | with moderate Abolitionists, and universally supposed, before his elec- well happen that his head should be turned by an elevation for which | tion, to be a Free-Soiler, succeeded to the Presidency, and by his influ- he did not look, and was not qualified. He is selected, too, with | ence brought about all the bumiliating events of 1850, thus leading reference only to the lower place, and in many cases is chosen purely | the South into the abyss of 1860. from considerations of locality rather than with any regard to his Applying these lessons of history to the political affairs of the present ability or even to his national popularity, He is never a man who | day, it appears to us that the masses of the Republican party desire a has had any reason to imagine that he could be a successful candidate | guaranty that the work of reconstruction upon the basis of equal suf- for the Presidency, and he knows as well as any one that he is nominated | frage shall be carried on to success, yet in such a spirit of moderation for the Vice-Presidency because he is not deemed worthy, either then or | as shall ensure good government, and prevent the unchecked supremacy ever, to be President. Succeeding to the Presidency by an accident, | of either race at the South over the other. The majority of the party, such a man is not likely to feel any particular gratitude to his party, | in short, want to establish equality at the South—not to give dominion which he knows not merely did not mean to put him where he is, but to either side. A large and important minority would prefer to leave actually meant that he should never be put there. Sure to have a'a qualified and carefully restrained dominion to the white race ex-

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Dec. 19, 1867] clusively ; while there is but a very small minority in favor of giving exclusive dominion, or anything equivalent to it, to the negro race. A Presidential nomination is to be made which shall unite in cordial assent all wings of the Republican party, and secure the control of public affairs to men of Republican sentiments, That General Grant will command the enthusiastic support of all who are called conserva- tive Republicans, there is no doubt. That he is the choice of a great majority of the party, acting spontaneously and quite irrespectively of the manipulations to which a well-known and veteran politician attaches such importance, is certain, But the active interest taken in the gen- eral’s success by a suspicious class of politicians, and his own reticence and non-political character, excite (as we have before said) distrust in the minds of some of the most earnest and faithful Republicans, They want a guaranty against a renewal of the Tyler and Johnson ex- periences, and are unwilling to accept a candidate purely upon trust. Gen. Grant is in a position of great delicacy, and one in which he can better serve his country than he can as a mere candidate for the Presidency. He is in command of the army, subject to the President, and to him only. Would it be decorous or desirable for him to make speeches, or write letters, or enter into conversations, for the purpose of indicating his opposition to the policy of his superior officer? We do not admire the spectacle of a President making speeches in opposi- tion to co-ordinate branches of the government; but still less should The Nation. are all more or less interested. we like to see the General of the Army engaged in arousing public feel- | ing against his own commander. offensive would be the servility which should lead him to go out of the path of duty to flatter his superior. Gen. Grant is at present a purely military man, and the less soldiers, as such, have to do with dictating our civil policy, the better will it be for us as a people. But whenever, in the course of regular duty, Gen. Grant has had occasion to express an opinion, his sentiments have proved satisfactory. His views upon the admission of the Southern States, in 1865, were not entirely in harmony with those of the Republican party in 1866; upon the aspect of affairs, as he then saw them, a majority of the party would probably have agreed with him. The sentiments of his corre- spondence with the President during last summer must have been satis- factory to every Radical who was not determined to object to him. His acts are as unexceptionable as those of any other public man. He has selected and sustained, so far as was in his power, assistants in the work committed to him who were faithful, efficient, and resolved to carry out the will of Congress. He has, therefore, a record ; and it is one entirely consistent with the policy of the Republican party. whom the same objections, or more serious ones, could not be made Yet what radical Republican has had reason to complain of Thomas, Sheridan, or Schofield? There seems to be something in their vocation The only thing that could be more | United States coinage. ; but) | our national debt. 505 It is the fact that a policy is the President's own, or that he thinks so, which makes him so anxious to bribe men into its support, This theory of government has, the of Buchanan and Johnson, almost led to revolution, and has now culmi led to boundless corruption. in times nated in the present discreditable administration of public affairs. We shall be heartily glad to see an end of this mode of government; and we think an opportunity is presented for putting an end to it, by the election of a man sympathizing with, but not dictating, the popular decision, and who will carry it out decause it is the will of the people, and not because it is the will of President Grant. THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. Tus question of returning to specie payments is one in which we It is also a question concerning which every one has, and is entitled to have, his own opinion. It is further- more a question upon which very few people have seriously reflected, and which has become so hidden by the clouds of dusty verbiage raised around it by quacks and nostrum dealers, that few people have the courage to select it as a subject for their reflections. We propose to show that some of these clouds can be blown away, and that the ques- tion itself is neither so profound nor so complicated as is generally sup- posed, When we talk of resuming specie payments, we generally mean re- turning to that financial condition which prevailed before specie pay- ments were suspended—a condition in which, under ordinary circum. stances, the one-dollar note of a responsible, sound bank, not too far removed from New York city, would purchase at par a gold dollar of From that condition we are now so far re- moved that it requires one dollar and thirty-four or thirty-five cents of the best bank-bills now in circulation to purchase the coin in ques- tion. To what is this difference attributable ? will answer, to the war; correct answer. Nine persons out of ten and in a general way this is undoubtedly the But if the difference is attributable to the war, why has it not ceased with peace? The answer to this is, because peace has not yet removed those great results of war, our inflated currency and But if the difference is due to our inflated currency and our national debt, how is it that the difference itself is ten per cent. greater to-day than it was on the first of May, 1866, when the cur- rency was more inflated by one hundred and fifty millions than it is now, and when the debt was larger by two hundred millions than it is /now, and when gold stood at 125—a point which it has never since Again, there is no successful general of the war, still in service, to | . | difficult. reached again? To this question the answer is not easy; indeed, most For, paradoxical as the assertion may appear, neither the war, nor the currency inflation, nor the national debt, had, or has, di- rectly, anything to do with the suspension of those specie payments which makes real soldiers more obedient to the people, and more faith- | which everybody now desires to see restored, ful to the spirit of the nation, than other classes of public men. They | do not travel as rapidly in political affairs as some other men, but they | specie payments, nor did they, in 1860, suspend for the first time. are at least as certain to arrive at a sound conclusion, and they make banks of Eogland and of France, among others, have suspended specie thorough work when they reach it. We have no such absolute faith in General Grant as would lead us } The New York banks are not the only banks that ever suspended The | payments, and have done so in times of peace as well as in times of to favor his nomination independent of party, or without any distinct | enunciation of principles. He must, when the proper time arrives, be put upon a sound political platform, and must stand there. Much will depend upon the men who gather round him, and upon his own opinion of their relative values. But this is true of every servant of the public, and only adds to the reasons why good men should take such a part in his support as will entitle them to his confidence. All the disreputable politicians of the Republican party are flocking around war. The banks of New York suspended specie payments in 1837 and 1857 as well as in 1860. At the two former dates there certainly was no war, no debt, no inflated currency, while even in 1860 the war was only in prospect, and the great debt and the currency inflation were scarcely dreamed of. It is evident not only that in other countries, and in this country at other times, specie payments have been suspended without being due to the causes to which our present suspension bas been attributed, but also that these causes were not even in operation at the time of the present suspension. If, then, suspension was not the Grant flag—not that they care for Grant, but that they may secure | caused by war, by currency inflation, or by the national debt, what the spoils of victory. We believe that a majority of the best men are | was it caused by ? satisfied of the general's integrity, ability, and fidelity to the party; and we hope that they will exert such an influence as shall ensure a worth while to remind our readers that specie payments were no? sus- pended by an actof Congress, Acts of Congress have indeed legalized victory which will require no distribution of plunder. One consideration we must add before closing. excellent thing to have a President without a policy. Were it not that the fact is habitually ignored, it would scarcely be It would be an and intensified and altered the character of this suspension ; but long be- It is the busi- | | fore Congress thought that it would be called upon to legislate on cur- ness of Congress to frame a policy, and the business of the President to | rency, or banking, or any other of the many cognate questions that it executeit. For many years the opposite theory has prevailed, and has/ so little understands, the banks Aad suspended specie payments, for the

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—<ey 506 reason that they had not and could not procure coin enough to meet their indebtedness, The business of a bank consists in receiving money on deposit and lending it out. Money left on deposit with a bank can be withdrawn at a moment's notice. But the money lent by a bank to merchants or others is generally lent for a specified time, and cannot be called in by the bank until that time expires, If, therefore, a bank receives the funds of filty people on deposit to-day, and lends out the whole of them to-morrow, and some or all of the depositors demand back their money the third day, the bank is, of course, unable to furnish it, or, in Now, the experience of many years, and of many banks, has shown that of fifty people who to-day deposit one or two hundred dollars each ina bank, not over one-third will be likely to want If, therefore, other words, fails. their money back within a given time, say sixty days. the bank lends out for sixty days only two-thirds of the amounts re- | ceived on deposit, it is almost certain to have enough funds left on hand to pay all its depositors who may want their money during that time. Or, in other words, if it retains funds enough on hand to pay one-third of the amount which it owes to depositors, it is not likely ever to fail. This one-third rule, derived from years of experience, worked well in New York. In other parts of the country, different proportions were found to be necessary for safe banking, while in other countries still different proportions prevail, and in England the whole financial world is regulated by a rule so absurd, so complicated, and so thoroughly based upon a disregard of common sense, that it would break the whole community if not periodically suspended. But neither Sir Robert Peel's famous Bank act, long venerated as the chef d'wuvre of financial legislation, nor the one-third rule of this country, nor the two-fifths rule of Continental bankers, has prevented the banks of all countries from | failing more or less often, for the simple reason that, although in ordin- ary times only one depositor out of three or four is likely to ask for his money, yet there are constantly recurring extraordinary times, in which five out of six, or perhaps all, of the depositors of a bank ask for When the extraordinary influence is wide-spread, and affects all banks alike, thus preventing them from assisting one another, the consequence is the inevitable failure of all. A bank, like any other corporation, or like a private individual, when it is unable to pay what it owes at the time when it is due, simply fails. If its creditors are willing to give it time, and if the bank is, after this voluntary delay on the part of its creditors, able to pay, it resumes its business, resumes payments, and continues as before. A bank that issues currency practically borrows coin, and gives therefor a printed promise to pay that coin on demand. It receives the coin of its depositors, and promises to return it on demand, and it borrows other coin which it likewise promises to pay on demand. Of the coin so borrowed and received on deposit it lends out two-thirds, knowing that in ordinary times the other third will suffice to meet all Extraordinary times ensue, the one-third of coin on their money at once, demands upon it, hand does not suffice to redeem the claims presented for payment, and | the bank fails, But instead of actually failing, the bank declares that it can pay all it owes, but that it cannot pay in coin; that it can give its well-secured “ promises to pay” to all its creditors, if they will only consent to take the promises instead of the coin. If the inability of the banks to pay in coin is general, and caused by some great calamity or some unforeseen change in the course of trade, and not by misman- agement on the part of individual banks, the public is almost always willing to temporarily accept the promises, the bank-notes, the cur- rency in place of the coin, and this legalized or implied temporary public acceptance of the promises of the banks in place of the coin which is rightly due is called “a suspension of specie payments.” In 1857, the course of the foreign trade of the country required an unexpectedly heavy export of coin. Whoever owed abroad presented to the banks the promises which he held, and demanded the coin. The banks were unable to supply the demand, and suspended specie payments. But they acknowledged their liability to pay coin, and as soon as they had procured a sufficient supply of gold they resumed specie payments, and paid off their indebteduess in coin as it was due. In 1860, the fear of civil war in the United States caused its inhab- itants to draw from the banks and to hoard large amounts of gold coin, no less than eighty millions of dollars in one year. The drain The Nati

on. (Dee. 19, 1867

upon the banks was so great that they were unable to meet it; as in 1857, they were compelled to suspend specie payments; as in 1857, they acknowledged their coin indebtedness, and no doubt at some sarly day proposed to resume—that is, to pay in coin the indebtedness on which their creditors had granted them an unspecified exten- sion of time. But the action of Congress in passing the Legal Tender act entirely destroyed the claim which their creditors had upon the banks, the banks became not only enabled but were morally entitled to buy up at a discount their no longer valid promises to pay coin, and thus actually to cancel all evidence of their indebtedness. Many of the banks did so, some failed entirely and were wound up, others were destroyed by the National Bank act, and the rest surrendered the charters under which they formerly existed and became national | banks, | It must be evident that the present so-called suspension of specie /payments is a very different thing from the actual suspension of 1857, and that there can be no question about resuming specie payments “now in the sense in which we resumed specie payments in 1858. Then the banks which had suspended resumed specie payments by paying off their delayed coin indebtedness. Now the coin indebtedness existing in 1861 has actually been paid off or cancelled, and the debt itself has disappeared with the banks that owed it. The present banks did not suspend. They have never borrowed coin or received coin on de- posit that they have not paid. The present banks have never promised or agreed to pay coin to their depositors or bill-holders, and no greater instance of popular injustice can well be imagined than the prevailing clamor to compel them to resume specie payments when they have never suspended, The people are suffering from the effects, only too well described by the slang term “ demoralizing,” of an irredeemable currency. The experience of the present generation, until 1861, was limited to irre- 'deemable currency due to bank suspension alone, and hence the present irredeemable currency is naturally attributed to the same cause. We _have shown that the popular belief in this respect is unfounded. The ‘true origin of our present irredeemable currency must first be clearly ‘understood before intelligent measures can be taken to substitute | another for it.

TESTIMONIALS IN ART AND LITERATURE. WE had some weeks ago a brief discussion with Mr. Prang as to the artistic value of his chromo-lithography, in which he laid it down that, | whether his chromos were or were not the best reproductions possible of the originals, they were sufficiently good to supply those who could affurd nothing better with the means of arteducation. There is on this point much more to be said on both sides than either Mr. Prang or we have said, but we do not at present propose to revive the discussion of it. The remarks | we are about to make now are upon the custom in which Mr. Prang in- |dulges, and not he only, but a large number of publishers, artists, authors, and even scientific men, of proving the goodness of their wares by the testimony of well-known persons, simply because they are well-known, and without any reference whatever to the nature of their training and capacity. It may seem at first sight as if this was simply the presentation in a new shape of the old controversy between the authors and the critics, in which Mr. Tupper, the “Country Parson,” and others have enjoyed such an easy triumph. In that controversy, however, the author or artist simply says: The excellence of a work is proved by its pleasing the majority ; a dozen or two critics say my novel or my poem or my picture or my moral- izing is bad ; but forty or fifty thousand persons have purchased it and en- joyed it, therefore the eritics were wrong, and it matters nothing to me what they say. But this is not the ground taken by Mr. Prang and the others to whom we now refer. When you say to Mr. Tupper or Dr. Holland that the stuff he has been writing is flat, stale, and unprofitable, and proceed to give reasons for thinking so, drawn from various canons of criticism, he simply goes behind the counter, produces his publisher's book, and floors you by showing accounts. When he sees that twenty thousand people like his philosophy or his poem, he not uunaturally concludes that you are a fool for not liking it, and he will get the greater portion of the public to agree with him. For all practical purposes, right is with the big battalions in literature as well as in war. But,in the case before us, the producer does not rely on the verdict of the majority; he works for the majority, but he does not admit in terms that the majority always knows

SERRE ERRPERANNRE eRe REE won

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ene pee ne ape mea oe ar Dec. 19, 1867] The Nation. 5O7 what is good for it. He accordingly, when he prepares a dish of art or literature for it, has it tasted by a sort of committee of “emi- nent citizens,” selected, however, not on account of their special know- ledge of the matter in hand, but of what is called their “ prominence in thecommunity.” Distinguished clergymen or philanthropists or bankers or merchants or lawyers are called upon to say whether or no a picture or poem or novel is a good one—that is, whether the public ought to like it and will profit by it—and their opinion is put forward, not simply as their opinion, but as proof of goodness, although they may be as poor judges of poetry or painting as of horses or tobacco. We remember when “ Cudjo’s Cave” first made its appearance the publisher long relied in his advertise- ments on the written testimony of ChiefJustice Chase that the book had amused and entertained him a good deal. Yet ChiefJustice Chase's satis- faction with it was in itself, and, in the absence of any specific knowledge as to his taste or cultivation, no more reason for thinking it a good novel and for buying it than the testimony of any obscure man in the community. Lawyers are not often good judges of works of fiction, and it may be that in the matter of romance Mr. Chase’s critical faculty is so feeble that he would be entertained, for instance, by “St. Elmo.” Lord Eldon used to go frequently to the opera during the London season, but not knowing one tune from another found it a bore, and, as he used to call it, “ opera at- que labores,” and was in the habit of taking napsin the back of the box during the performance. Probably, however, there was some one opera— perhaps a noisy and very scenic one—which amused him; but if the com- poser or manager had hawked about a note from him to this effect, as proof of the goodness of the piece, he would have been guilty of a fraud—a mild one, we admit, but still a fraud on the community, although it would no doubt have helped him to fill the house. When a composer or artist says, “ See what So-and-So, the great orator or the great philanthropist or the great lawyer, says about my concert or my picture,” he gives you to understand by the very display of his satisfaction that So-and-So knows something about pictures and music, and that his testimony may therefore be of some use to you in forming your own opin- ion. If he were to tell you what is perhaps the real truth, that So-and-So knows only enough music to distinguish “ Yankee Doodle” from “ God Save the Queen,” or that he had never knowingly looked on a good picture in his life, that he had never given any attention to drawing or color or perspective, was deficient in physical perception, and simply thought well of music and pictures because he had read that their influence was human- izing and because he saw other people enjoying them, you would at once conclude either that the composer or artist was a very silly person, or that he thought you were one when he adduced So-and-So’s testimony. A phil- anthropist may, for instance, believe on general principles and on the authority of others that popular concerts exercise a civilizing influence, and may therefore very properly employ all his influence in promoting popular concerts. In doing this he is in his proper sphere. But if without special knowledge he undertakes to certify that Musard or Jullien or Christy or Dan Bryant furnishes just the kind of music which is best fitted to improve the popular taste, he consciously or unconsciously lends himself to the pro- pagation of a mild but still mischievous kind of humbug. We draw our illustration from music, because in it the absurdity of the testimonial business is apparent at a glance to nearly everybody, inasmuch as nesrly everybody hears more or less music. Those who cannot tell the ciTerence between good and bad music know at least enough to be conscious of their own ignorance, and to feel ashamed of writing “testimonials” for singing-masters, or violinists, or the conductors of orchestras. But the absurdity, though less obvious, is just as great in the matter of painting or imitation of painting. There are in it, as in music, different degrees of excellence, and the degrees are apparent only to the cultivated eye, just as in music they are only apparent to the cultivated ear. A man who is not familiar with good pictures, and has not studied them with greater or less | care, whose powers of observation have not undergone some training, and who has not had his taste and imagination chastened, more or less, by men- tal culture, may be ever so anxious that poor people should have good pic. tures on their walls, but whether any particular chromo or wood-cut is the best kind of chromo or wood-cut for the poor man’s walls he cannot tell for the life of him ; and let his humanitarian zeal be what it may, he ought not to pretend that he knows. The matter is, from a merely artistic point of view, becoming of some importance, as the chromo trade is springing up all over the country, and each manufacturer is pushing his business by get- ting letters from distinguished humanitarians aud philosophers testifying that the people ought to have plenty of chromos, and that the particular chromos before them are just the ones the people ought to have, and that in their eyes they are fully as good as the paintings of which they profess to be copies. Now this, whatever else it may be, is not the way to improve art. It is not the way to adorn poor men’s walls with good reminders of beautiful things. As long as chromo-dealers can sell their wares by the aid of such agencies as this, they will naturally devote their energies rather to increasing the number of their testimonials than to the improvement of their work. But the matter is to us of still greater importance on other grounds, on which we have once or twice touched in treating a different class of ques tions. There has been but one other democracy in the world which reached the highest excellence in art and literature, and which was content with nothing less than excellence, and that, unfortunately, was an ancient one. In modern times the term “ democratic,” in all that relates to quality, is a synonym for what, in slang phrase, is called “cheap and nasty.” We have cultivated, and are cultivating, the humanitarian feeling to such a degree that our attention is mainly given to diffusion, little or none to quality. We are so eager to have all men have pianos and carpets and p tures that we care little, and are every day caring less, as to what kiud of pianos or carpets or pictures they are. This is in reality what lies at the bottom of most of the denunciations we hear of the gimerack furniture, the shoddy cloth, the sham jewellery, and sham everything for which our aye beyond all other ages is famous. Now, diffusion is an excellent work, We would not say a word against it. We believe the more equal distribution of all the good things of life to be in an especial manner the characteristic and aim of modern civilization. We would not take from anybody on whom “the enthusiasm of humanity ” has settled one jot or tittle of the credit to which he is entitled. As long as the world stands, to him who loves mueh much must be given. Bat we run much risk through thisdevotion to dita sion of having our civilization dwarfed and degraded by indifference to quality, of having not only excellence but the love of excellence perish out of the world through very excess of good nature. In St. Peter's enumer ation of Christian virtues knowledge stands very high in the list, high above even brotherly kindness and charity. We, in our work of social and political reform, have placed it almost below everythiag else. La the work of charity proper—that is, the relief of the very poor, the reformation of the vicious, and the education of the young—it has, it is true, asserted its sway, Our philanthropists and teachers now do their work on scientific priacip'es. The medieval philanthropist went out on the high-road and gave indis- criminately to everybody who came in his way. Tie philanthropist of our time gives nothing without thinking of the remote as well as of the imme- diate consequences of his giving ; of the effect on the community at large of his treatment of each individual case. He has learnt that to be truly kind one must have the courage to seem to be cruel. But this feeling of the value of knowledge has not as yet made its way into other fields of reform. A man is listened to with the profoundest respect on any subject he pleases to discourse upon, and really thinks him- self, with the encouragement of the public, an authority upon it if only he have distinguished himself as a humanitarian. The result is that we are treated every day to the singular spectacle of gentiemen delivering discourses on the currency and taxation, and sitting on finance committees of Congress, and pronouncing themselves with the utmost confidence on the knottiest questions of jurisprudence, simply in virtue of the fact that for many years they have devoted themselves to the anti-slavery cause cr have been greatly interested in common schools. We see, too, clergymen getting up in the pulpit and laying down plans of legisiation in support of good morals, witli- out having given or without professing to have given any attention what- ever to the principles or history or conditions of legislation. They tell you that they are friends of temperance or friends of chastity, and then expect you to listen open-mouthed. We see, too, the critical spirit getting more and more to be considered simply an indication of an acrid or unkind tem- per, just as street-beggars consider the man who refuses to give alms indis- criminately a heartless aristocrat. Criticism, however, is not carping; it is not a sign of indifference to the welfare of the human race. To criticise means to note real distinctions, to take facts into account, to look to remote consequences, to recall past experience, to think of general as well as of individual good. It is of itself useless. Without the enthusiasm of humanity at its back it is simply an intellectual diversion; but with hu- manity it is an essential condition of sound and healthy progress. PARIS GOSSIP. Panis, November 29, 1887. THE return of winter is heralded not only by the sudden frosts which have so greatly elated the enthusiasts of the skating club, but by the reenr- rence of St. Cecilia’s Day, with the grand musical celebration in honor of the patroness of music and in aid of the society for the relief of indigent

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508 The Nation. votaries of the divinest of the arts, which takes place every year on that The festival has been celebrated this year with even more than the usual imposing array of genius and talent, the work selected for performance being Beethoven's wonderfal mass in D minor; that colossal creation which has come to be regarded not only as the culminating example of “the third style” of the immortal maestro, but as constituting the most sublime expression of his genius. This great work, seldom heard out of Germany, and never before performed anniversary in the noble old church of St. Eustache. in France, and which, with its complicated difficulties of intonation and of execution, is at once the puzzle of musicians and the terror of singers, was, | on the day referred to, most superbly rendered by the entire force of the unrivalled orchestra of the Conservatoire and a choir composed of the hun- | dred pupils of that establishment and three hundred of the best pupils of | self which recently appeared in the paper in question. “ It is not the Princess the communal schools of Paris—in all, four hundred voices—the whole being | von Metternich-Winebourg, it is not the Austrian ambassadress at the court under the leadership of that prince of wielders of the béton, M. Pasdeloup. | of France, who brings this suit against the editors of the Corsaire,” says the The vast edifice was crammed to its utmost capacity, all lovers of music in | angry lady, in speaking of this affair, “it is simply Madame de Metternich, this city on that particular day having made ita point of honor to be present. [Dec. 19, 1867 The Chess Club of this city, under the presidency of Prince Murat, which corresponds with kindred organizations all the world over, and which got up, while the Exhibition was going on, an “ International Chess Tourna- ment,” in which M. Kalisch, of Hamburg, was the victor, is just now much excited by the approaching trial of skill between its members and M. Ka- lisch, who, elated by his recent triumph, has challenged twenty of its mem- bers, engaging to play the twenty games simultaneously. This curigus affair comes off on Monday next at the rooms of the Club. The gay world is looking forward with equal interest to the approaching trial of the heads of one of the calumnious little daily papers which have be- come so popular here during the last two years, the said editors being sued by the Princess von Metternich for certain disparaging insinuations against her- whose dignity as a wife and a mother is outraged by the calumnious asper- The early opening of the legislative session has compelled the court to) sions of that journal.” The sympathy of the public is altogether on the side forego its usual autumnal sojourn at Compiégne, and will bring the master | of the witty and brilliant princess, who is so great a favorite here that we and mistress of the Tuileries back to that residence as soon as the repairs now going on in the Imperial apartments are completed. Itis said that the Empress, desirous to ensure employment for the artificers of luxury that constitute so important a fraction of the population of Paris, has deter- mined that the coming “season” shall be an exceedingly gay one. The series of official gayeties has just been inaugurated by a splendid reception at the residence of the “talking minister,” M. Rouher, and the grandees of the senate, legislature, and finance will shortly be outrivalling one another in brilliant and costly entertainments. The opera has just announced that the first of the eight famous masked balls that take place on Saturdays, at midnight, previous to Lent, will be given on the 20th of the coming montb, and the sommités of the demi.monde are already busy in devising the ex- travagant costumes which figure so prominently at those renowned but unedifying gatherings. The usual display of costly trifles, destined to make havoc in the purses of the givers of New Year's gifts, has not yet taken possession of the shop-windows of the capital, but the victims of cus- tom and vanity know that their doom is rapidly approaching, and are pre- paring, more or less resignedly, to meet it. The operas and theatres have had an unusually successful year, thanks to the crowds drawn hither by the now defunct Exhibition ; and the clerical journals are comparing, with undisguised bitterness, the monthly returns of the organization for the collecting throughout the entire Catholic world of “ Peter's Pence” with the receipts of the Parisian theatres; and show- ing that, while the month of October contributed only 100,000f. to the Papal exchequer, “ Robert le Diable,” “ Duke Job,” “ La Dame Blanche,” “ La Cagnotte,” “La Biche au Bois,” “ Peau d’Ane,” “The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein,” “Les Faux Bonshommes,” and “ L’G&il Crevé” (the lat- ter, with its charming songs, the rage of the moment), have netted, during the same period, close upon three millions. The operatic and theatrical world, encouraged by the continuous suc- cesses of the last six months, are in a fever of preparation for the coming season. La Nilsson, who has exchanged her position at the Lyric Theatre for an engagement at the Grand Opera, is achieving a fresh triumph in “ Guillaume Tell ;” La Patti is basking in the full sunshine of public favor at the Italiens; Mme. Miolan-Carvalho, in Gounod’s charming opera of “ Romeo and Juliet,” is drawing crowded houses at the Théatre Lyrique ; the latest creation of the prolific muse of Offenbach, “ Robinson Crusoe” (which the Parisians persist in writing “ Crusoé,” and making three sylla- bles of, as they invariably do of “ Defoé” and “ Edgar Poé”), brought out a few nights ago with magnificent decorations, at the Opéra Comique, promises to be as popular as “La Belle Héléne,” “Orphée,” and “La Grande Dachesse,” by the same inexhaustible composer of merry and sparkling melodies ; while “ Géneviéve de Brabant,” by the same author, now in course of rehearsal at the Menus-Plaisirs, is said to be destined to throw all its predecessors into the shade. The revival of “ Les Faux Bons- hommee” at the Variétés, and of George Sand’s “ Beaux Messieurs de Bois Doré” at the Odéon, must aleo be numbered among the successes of the moment. The Hall of the Athénée, in the Rue Scribe, after trying to get itself filled with the aid of lectures, concerts, etc., has just turned itself into a teatre and will open its doors to the public in the course of a few days. It has just given its first full-dress rehearsal, when the administration cele- brated the event by a distribution of punch to all concerned, the latter, of course, drinking the same with an enthusiastic toast to the success of the undertaking. are to have this winter, besides the fashionable new “ Metternich green,” “the Metternich fan,” “ the Metternich sash,” “the Metternich toque,” and “the Metternich boot.” A pretty innovation has also been made on the monotony of the bills of fare always laid beside the plate of each guest at fashionable dinner-parties, and consisting of a card with a little water-color drawing surmounting the list of dishes to be offered to the company. These drawings may be land- scapes, bunches of flowers, or groups of figures, but in all cases exquisitely executed, and intended to be kept by each guest as a souvenir of an agree- able meeting. The new fashion has been originated by the Duchess do Mouchy, who painted with her own hands a series of these cards for the guests at one of her recent dinners. The innovation was voted “charm- ing ;’ and no dinner party of any pretension to fashion will be, for some time to come, considered “ perfect’ without these ornamented “menus.” Susse and Giroux will presently deal a first blow at the new fashion by bringing out cards with designs in chromo-lithograph, accessible to a lower range of purses, and the inferior stationers will then extinguish it altogether by printing off a host of squibs and caricatures ata few sous the dozen, and thus drive the amphytrions of the Olympian Aratum back to the primitive costliness of gold-lettered white satin. The movement for giving a better secondary education to girls, lately inaugurated by the decision of M. Duruy, and against which the fiery new pamphlet of the Bishop of Orleans is fulminating so violently, has led, in the town of Orleans, to the formation, for carrying out the liberal views of the Minister of Public Instruction, of an association which opened its classes a few days ago at the Mairie of Orleans, with the aid of the professors of the college, and in the presence of the prefect, mayor, and deputies. Thirty-nine pupils, belonging to respectable families of the town, had entered their names, and all came to the opening, accompanied by their mothers or other female relatives, who made up an interested auditory of about eighty respectable women. The bishop will doubtless publish a second pamphlet, still more violent than the first, against the “ demoraliz- ing tendency ” of all intellectual culture beyond reading, writing, and arith- metic when imparted to the unwhiskered half of humanity. A rumor now prevalent among the American colony in this city—unusu- ally numerous this year—attributes to the United States Minister here, General Dix, the intention of resigning his post, According to one version of the rumor, the general, foreseeing the possibility of a change in the. home policy of his government, prefers to resign his’ position rather than risk finding himself superseded. According io another version, the general is indisposed to continue in a position which, however brilliant, compels him to spend $10,000 a year beyond the amount of his official salary ; while, ac- cording to the third version, the general, as president of the Pacific Railway Company, finds a residence here incompatible with his duties as head of that important and magniicent undertaking. Fine Arts. PICTURES ON EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK. As we in New York have for the present no public or otherwise permanent collections of works of art for the use of the people, we must make the most we can of the ever-changing exhibition which the enterprise of the great dealers provides for us. There is to be no Gambart collection exhibited this year. Be the reasons what they may, Mr. Pilgeram and his a Ot CRN oT

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f z . i § . : Dec. 19, 1867] French, English, and Belgian canvases will not be visible at the Tenth Street gallery or elsewhere ; and the regular picture-dealers have not been showing us many pictures of importance this past autumn, until now there is an interesting lot of pictures to be seen at Mr. Knoedler’s gallery. A few of these are the property of a New York gentleman who has brought them recently from Europe ; the rest are sent out by Goupil & Co. to take | their chances for sale. And first we name two pictures by our old acquaint- ance, Florent Willems, each of a single figure. One of these pictures is called “Le Printemps,” and has to do with a lady in a white dress and huge straw hat, in the fashion of no matter what particular year—perbaps of none—a young lady and a rosy, who comes in through a curtained door- way, her apron full of flowers, and meets us face to face. And in the other picture another young lady, quite like the former—she also in white satin and a broad-flapped straw hat, with “ hands half-gloved,” as Mr. Page has it in his jocose catalogue to an important exhibition of his pictures—is tak- ing a last glance at herself in a little hand-mirror before going out. A splendid shaggy-legged greyhound is waiting for and watching this second | lady, and his presence makes this the better picture of the two. Apart from him, the pictures are too strong in drapery and accessories, and too weak in human interest, to be pictures of sentiment, while they do not reach great excellence in color nor in harmonies of line. They are painted with great skill, they are wonderfully smooth and high-wrought, but this smooth. ness and high finish is of absolutely no importance. No great artist, no | man who is truly an artist, would aim at this glossy surface to his com- pleted work. As an end, roughness is nothing, smoothness is nothing, but harmonies of color are everything ; and as a means it is probable that this smoothness is not compatible with the handling of a colorist, nor to be found in the work of any painter to whom color is the great thing. The pictures of Jean Leon Gérome are a further proof of this. It has been well said of this famous and truly able painter that his execution is masterly, because he executes each part and passage of his picture once for all, needing no alteration, but that “it is because he does not see color that he is able to leave each passage when it is done.” And the same writer says —perbaps too sharply, but still with a sharp truth—that Gérome “ paints generally in mud and ink, which he tries to redeem by isolated imitations of bright colors, but he is incapable of color synthesis. He does his bits of bright color very cleverly, but his best works are those which look most like stu- dies in sepia.” Now, M. Gérome’s picture which is before us—the Louis XIV. and Moliére, painted in 1862—marks fairly enough the change in his style which brought him to his present peculiarly uniform handling; and it was about two years afterward that a clever French critic spoke of Gérome, “who is detestable, because his execution imitates the bellies of frogs.” This Louis XLV. is not one of his best half-dozen pictures, but it is a fair enough sample of his style and tone, and an examination of it will show the defects which are visible in all bis work. Here isa blue dress; here is a lighter blue coat; here is a red coat laced with gold ; here is every color The Nation. 509 | pictures are unelaborated and incomplete in comparison with the consum |mate work of either Willems or Gérome, but they hold their own with either by their purely artistic properties. Less of a student, probably a less ‘thorough observer of character and of form, than either, Plassan can see color and they cannot. The celebrated name of Meissonier is represented here by a thoroughly | characteristic work, a little picture of booted and buff-coated soldiers smoking and playing cards—perfection in its own way ; admirable boots and | buff-coats, sword-hilts and corslets; admirably well drawn men; perfectly | well understood wrinkles in dress and in face ; browns and greys not inhar- monious ; fine composition in chiaro-oscuro injured by sparkling lights on nose and forehead ; a picture without tenderness or sympathy, with no | unusual or elevated thoughts in it, but unsurpassably clever, And there | are small pictures by other men who paint worse in the same way, Fichel }and Lobrichan. Spain, seldom represented in America by a picture, gave | birth and name to Zamacois, whose very able and interesting picture, |“ Contribution Indirecte,” has come directly from the se/on of this year | There is a large picture by Bouguereau ; there are sma!l ones by Preyer, |the Diisseldorf fruit-painter, and Toulmouche, the elaborator of sehool. | patterns and fashionable costume; there are three by Baugniet, who is a | more graceful and less mechanical Toulmouche, and two by De Jongha, a painter who is esteemed here fully as much as he deserves, But the names | of these painters, and our expression of gratitude for the occasional glimpses | of the highly trained art of France, must close our notice for this week. | On Friday next the American Society of Painters in Water-Colors will | open their first annual exhibition at the Academy of Design building. We | are told that the collection numbers some three hundred drawings by native and foreign artists, and that great pains bave been taken to get together the best specimens of the art which could be procured. Correspondence. THE TALMUD. | To THE EpIToR oF THE Nation: Str: It is a highly gratifying feature of Tuk Natron that it gives a review of the reviews and other periodicals, and certainly more than | one reader will feel obliged to Taz Nation for having twice (Nov. 14 and | 28) called the attention of the public to the article ia the Londen Quarterly | Review about the Talmud. Now, we have a proverb in German, “ Ailer | guten Dinge sind drei "—would you allow mea few remarks about the same subject, wherein I will confine myself to what is said in your articles ? | It would be presuming on my part to add anything to the praise given | to the article in Ze London Quarterly Review. The whole structure of it shows that it is from the same author who has written the valuable articles of the rainbow, end yet a sufficiency of subdued tones as well. But the | about Samaritans, Targum, etc., in “ Smith's Biblical Dictionary.” But if result is harsh, it is patchy; a photograph of one of his pictures is always | the critics in England point out that article as if the Talmud, like another more pleasing than the picture itself—but of this picture there is a large | Pompeii, had just been discovered, and as if nothing like that had ever been engraving, and that is much more beautiful than its original. done before, they may be right concerning Eogland, but not in reference to M. Gérome’s drawing is nearly always fine; his figures are generally | other countries, especially Germany. Original, striking, and vivid as the well rounded, without excessive darkness or other exaggeration of shadow ; article is, and although many of its parallels are new and interesting even his gradations of tone well managed ; his conception of a subject, though hardly imaginative, is complete, rational, scholarly ; his passionless record- ing of Oriental scenes, and his studious reproduction of scenes of classical antiquity, can hardly fail to be a lasting benefit to true historical art. The photographs published by Goupil & Co. of his many pictures are exceed- ingly interesting and worthy of study; we have said above that his pic- tures take well, as indeed they must. At Mr. Knoedler’s store not long since there was a magnificent collection of these photographs, taken with especial care for the great Paris Exhibition of this year, and this fine port- folio could be bought for less than one of the originals. A student can hardly understand one important side of modern art until he knows “ The Gladiators” well, nor another side well until he knows “ The Almée.” But it has been necessary to insist less upon his best recognized merit, and to speak of his not so well known deficiencies. M. Emile Plassan can color ; few French painters can color so well. Itis a great pleasure to see so fine a picture of his as the little family scene near the Gérome. And there are three other pictures by him in these galleries, al- though not so large or so masterly as the one we have named. M. Plassan does not always draw nor always compose with the calmness shown in this picture of the “ Morning at Home ”—as it might be called—and in this one are_ seen his habitual fault of slighting detail, as in folds of drapery and the like, and of too great dependence upon an excessive rosiness of complexion. His ‘to those acquainted with that branch of literature, the materials and even partly the characterizing strokes have been brought to market (if I may use | the expression) in thearticles of the Eacyclopediw of Ersch and Gruber (Sec. IL, Part 27)—the second of which exists in an English translation made by the author himself—in the works of Zanz, Jost, Greetz, Geiger (partly translated into Engigsh lately), Delitzsch, to which may be added one book in Italian, viz, “ll Giudaismo illustrato,” by 8S. D. Luzzato (late professor at the Collegio Rabbinico in Padua). The proverbs, the ethical maxims, as well as the practical common-sense rules (a distinction made by the Talmud itself, which calls the latter vulgar sayings), have been partly collected by Dukes, Fiirst, ete., while the old Florilegium Hebraicum of J. Buxtorf fil. contains another valuable collection. The translations of the Mischnah and parts of the Gemarah, made by Surenhusius, Ewald, Dachs, Koch, Wagenseil, ‘and others, I will only mention per .aposiopesin, as those fragmentary pieces—although partly accompanied ‘with good notes—give only a faint reflex of the original in its whole, the more so as the casuistic part (called the Halacha) is written in a highly concise style, short-handed like mathe- matical formulas, and, besides, so abounding in syllogistic expressions that a translation is only a diffuse paraphrase in comparison with the origi- nal; the poetical and legendary part (called the Haggadah) loses by trane- lation in so far as a characteristic feature of it consists in a kind of playing | upon (biblical) words, especially with proper names. The parallels between

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510 The Nation. the Talmud and the New Testament have been drawn by Lightfoot, Schétt- gen, Nork, and Otho (in whose Lexicon Rabb. it is, for instance, shown that every part of the Lord’s Prayer is a current Ta!mudical expression). But as the language in which the above-mentioned books are written forms a kind of wall for the publie at large, it mast be new and surprising that Repentance, Faith, Salvation, ete., are words not peculiar to Christian thonght. ‘lo what is said in Tae NaTIon I would only add that those and | other words are translations of Hebrew or Aramaic words. The words existed before in Greek and Latin, but they received a new stamp. Just as the} Arabic was, through Mohammed, enriched with Hebrew words (which could be done, both being of the same family), so the Latin and Greek were enlarged not with new words but with new significations. All those words originated in the soil of Babylon and Palestine. There they have their roots, even in the grammatical sense. Repentance, for instance, is expressed by a word which signifies “returning” (to God, sci/). Sin means literally “ trangres- sion.” To express sin, sinner (offender), forgive, ete., by the words debt, debtor, remit, ete., is derived from the Aramaic idiom. The word for faith has quite a different meaning in the old Greek “‘ pistis” and the Latin “ fides ;” it has its deeper sense in the Hebrew, while the “ oligopistos” of the N. T. (of little faith, “ kleingliubig” in German) does not occur at all in the classic | Greek, and is a literal translation of a current Talmndical expression. The devil—* diabolus,” in our sense of the word —is a noun. The original Greek word is an adjective. Diabolus is the translation of the Hebrew Satan or of an Aramaic word (occuring also in Daniel iii. 8) which has exactly the same meaning as the English “ buckbiter.” The old Greek word for God, “ Theos,” is used in the N. T. sometimes without the article, which shows the differ- ence between the two significations. Bat even words which have apparent- ly nothing to do with religion have undergone a change. The old Greek Kosmos means “ornament,” and in this sense it is used in the Greek trans- lation of the O. T., the Septuagint. A secondary signification is the Universe, op account of its wonderfal harmony (the Latin “‘ mundus” is the transla- tion of it); but in the N. T. it is—in imitation of a post-biblical Hebrew word—ured in the sense of our “ world.” (It has the same meaning in modern Greek.) Consequently there are two Kosmoi—this kosmos wherein we live, and another kosmos to come—an expression which would have been quite uninte ligible to an inhabitant of old Hellas. In short, the style of the N. T. is, with some exceptions, so thoroughly Semitic that in reading the Syriac version one wou!d think he had the original before him. For the same reason it is astonishing that the recent Hebrew translation—made for missionary purposes—is so full of blunders of s'yle and has no feature of the Hebrew of the O. T. that it ought to have. Besides the Biblical criticism, there are other reasons why the Talmud | ought to become a field of study, as is observed in Toe Nation. The history of the church, Christian manners, and customs would occasionally get some illustration from there. As an example, allow me to recur to THE Nation of May 2, 1867, page 353, where mention is made of an article in The Atlantic about the preference of the East. The Christians of old used, in saying their prayers, to turn the face toward the east (Selden, De Diis Syr. | Synt. IL, cap 10, p. 325. Ascoli, Studii Critici Il. 239). So it is prescribed | New Epitions Just PuBLIsneD Now Reapy: [Dec. 19, 1867 in the Talmud that those living in the west must turn their faces toward the east in saying their prayers ; Jerusalem being then at the east, the east is to be considered as Kiblah (as the Arabians call it), the region to which /to turn the face. But there is another passage in the Talmud (B. Bathra | 25), that one R. Scheschet, who was blind, said to his servant, “‘ When it is | time for prayer let my face be turned toward north, south, or west, but not to the east, because it is the east which the Minim declare to be the holy /region.” The word Minim (plural of Min) is a general term for dissenters, and is applied in the Talmud to different sects; but it can be proved by ‘other passages that this R. Scheschet, the same as his contemporary, R. _| Abbahu (who lived in Cvesarea), had manifold controversies and polemical disputations with Christians. It is therefore highly probable that the quoted passage contains an allusion to the Christian custom of turning the | face toward the east. | It seems that Renan, through his quotations in the “ Vie de Jésus,” and | by what he says about the Talmud in his introduction, has awakened an | interest (or shall I say curiosity ?) in this book. However that may be, it isa signatura temporis, and the pages in which the Talmud is spoken of in such high terms are historical pages, and glorious pages, too. No book in the world was ever so much persecuted as this poor Talmud. Hatred and narrow-minded ignorance made an alliance against it, and the same sancta simplicitas which helped to burn Huss ordered auto-da-fés for the Talmud. What is the Talmud? The answer will nowadays be quite different from what it was some time ago. Covarruvias (in his “Tesoro de la lengua Castellana,” s. v. Talmud) says the Talmud is a perverse and ridicu- lous book, full of fables (libro perverso y ridiculo, todo fabuloso). He does not say much more about it, for the obvious reason that he does not know much more. But that reminds me of what I myself heard some years ago in this city of New York. It was at a meeting of the American Orien- tal Society that one member, a clergyman, used, in speaking on some subject, the expression, “rabbinical fables.” Rabbinical fables! That is an old traditional expression, but that soon will be out of fashion. Rabbi- nical fables! There is no literature on earth which has not its fables—only people call them not fables, but legends, Sagas, etc. Is not the whole medizval science, history, as well as natural history, interwoven with 'fables? And it is partly from the Talmud that these fables emanated, as _we find them in the Gesta Romanorum, in the Arabian and Byzantine wri- ters; but if people find them in Tabari or in Syncellus, they don’t call them fables. A theologian at least ought not to speak about rabbinical fables ; he ought to know that those rabbinical fables found their way into the Apocalypsis, into the letters of Paulus, into the writings of Origenes, | Hieronymus, Tertullian, and other fathers of the Church. But never mind! The walls of prejudice are crumbling down. The 'auto-da-fés which did not light, but only burn, are no more. Instead of them we see the light of true science and investigation. That light was hidden through centuries, but there have always been some torch-bearers who carried it through the dark ages, and who left it to others to keep it after them, like those of Lucretius: *“ Et quasi Cursores vitai lampada tradunt.” M. G—wn. Yorxkvitiz, N. Y., December, 1867. 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; & ¥ i Dec. 19, 1867] The Nation. j lj . “The Death of St. Francis,’ by Ghirlandajo. $11. Catholic Books and Pictures «te rsrice Gace, es FOR CHRISTMAS. ae | ** The Corporal Acts of Mercy,” in seta. $5. | **the Angelic Serenade” (Minthrop). $12. “Regina ¢ eli.” #13. “Annunciation.” gil. Catholic Publication Society, «za Gou—adiew go. 126 NASSAU STREET: “4 he Visitation” (Minthrop). $3 50. “The Child of Bethlehem.” $9. THE LIFE AND SERMONS OF THE REV. | “Coronation of the Virgin” (French Chromo). $6. FRANCIS A_ BAKER, Priest of the Congregation of Several other Prints and **Chromos,” large and small, in | St. Paul. Edited by Rev. F. A. Hewit. 1 vol. crown | great varicty. 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Giese 4to, bound in extra cloth, $4. SCHNICK SCHNACK: Trifles for the Little Ones. With 32 full-page plates, beautifully printed in colors by Leighton Brothers. Square 8vo, bound in extra cloth, gilt, $1 75. THE CHILD'S COUNTRY STORY BOOK. By Tuomas Mitter. With 8 full-page illustrations, printed in colors by Leighton Brothers. Square 8vo, bound in extra cloth, $1 75. THE CHILDREN’S POETRY BOOK: A Selec- tion of Narrative Poetry for the Young. With 16 il- Justrations in colors and 60 vignette wood-cuts, $1 75. re) ee For eale by all Booksellers, or mailed free on receipt of price by the publishers, GEORCE ROUTLEDCE & SONS, 416 Broome Street, New York.

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Dec. 19, 1867] The Nation. 513

THE POPULAR EDITION OF DICKENS. D. APPLETON & CO., 443 anv 445 Broapway, New York, Will publish immediately A CHEAP EDITION OF THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS, FOR THE MILLION. Clear Type, Handsomely Printed, and of Convenient Size, comprising the following Volumes, at the annexed prices, varying in price according to the num- ber of Pages: Oliver Twist (now ready) ........... 72 pages... 25 cta. American Notes ..........+.e0e0seee eee Siva Dombey & Son..............ee eee ee m2. 1.48 * Martin Chuzzlewit.................. sy ake ae Our Mutual Friend.................. ee” ne? Christm.s Stories (now ready)...... 160 * s.* Tale of Two Cities.................. 144 ** sa Ot EE bs SAK ha vnciidcs dessteenes 180 “ ee Nicholas Nickleby (now ready) ..... ms * 2... & Bleak House................ 225 340 * aa pe | er 330 ** Pee Wed Pickwick Papers................0008 326 ** . & * David Copperfield...............+... ma 4.44. B Barnaby Rudge ................0.06 27 = «<<? Old Curiosity Shop ................. 220 * aa Great Expectations................. 184 * We Sketches and Pictures from Italy... 170 “ i. a *

On receipt of $4 50 we will mail to any address, as publiehed, post-paid, the entire works of Charles Dickens. Either of the above sent FREE BY MAIL on receipt of the price. EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY For the Million to secure a Library. CLUB RATES: A discount of 25 per cent. will be made for 30 copies of one volume or 3) complete sets, sent to one address; a discount of 20 per cent. on 20 copies, 15 per cent. on 10 copies, CANVASSERS Have the opportunity of procuring more subscribers for this series than for any other, as every apprentice, me- chanic, and journeyman will certainly buy Dickens at this Jow price. Send to the Publishers for special rates.

NEARLY READY, The Waverley Novels, In the same cheap style.

“THE NEW ENGLANDER.” EDITORS: Georce P. Fisuer, Towotay Dwieut, W. L. Krnesiey.

NOW Is THE TIME TO SUBSCRIBE FOR is6s. “THE NEW ENGLANDER,” Published quarterly in New Haven, Conn., is a recognized exponent and defender of those views respecting poli- tics, public adairs, education, social improvement, reli- ious docirine and life, waich have given Character to New England. In addition to the active co-operation of President Woolsey, Rev. Drs. Bacon, Noah rter, and , Professors Hadley and Gilman, Rev. Drs. J. P. Thompson and Buddington, the assistance of new contri- butors, expecially in the literary department, has been secured fur 1568. Terms per year, $4 in advance. The complete vet of 26 volumes, $50. * Copies of the October number can still be supplied, for which there has been a special demand for each of these articles. viz, President Woolaey’s Commemoration of Pre-ident Day, Professor Gilman's Article on “ New Phases of the Schou! Question,” aad ** Coufessions of a High Churchman. or a Keview, by Rev. L. W. Bacon, of the Episcopal Novel, * Bryan Maurice.’ " Address W. L. KINGSLEY, New Haven, Conn, Single number, $1.

WYNKOOP & SHERWOOD. Faye Mar of Storm Cliff. This is an American tale, fresh, lively, and full of inei- dent. Itis beyond question one of the most interesting and powerfully written works of fiction which have of late appeared, 12mo, pp. 353, price §1 75; bevelled boards, red edges, $2; gilt, $2 50. PEPYS’ DIARY. ALLEN GRANT. “A charming book, which a gentleman should be aehamed not to have read.".-—WasuinoTon IRVING. 12mo, red edges, cloth, gilt, $1 25; paper, 75 cents. A BEAUTIFUL HOLIDAY SHAKSPEARE. Handy Volume Edition. 13 vols. in case, muslin, $10; o., morocco, $15. “The handiest, prettiest, and most unique thing that we have seen in the book line is the Handy Edition of ‘Shakespeare,’ published by Wynkoop & Sherwood, 18 Beekman Street. it makes an exquisite little library all in itvelf."—Hvening Mail. Reapy December 18, 1867: SELECT HISTORICAL COSTUMES. Thirty Lithographic Plates, highly colored, cloth, gilt, $10; mor, extra, $15. WYNKOOP & SHERWOOD, 18 Beekman Street. GIFT.

Popular and Elegant Juvenile Books. DREAM CHILDREN. By H. E. Scupper, Editor of The Riverside Magazine. Beautifully illus- trated. 16wo, vellum, $1 25. A BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS. _ By the nw of “The Heir of Redclyffe.”” 16mo, cloth, THE CHILDREN’S GARLAND. From the best Poets. By Coventry Patyonre. 16mo, cloth, $1 75. THE SUNDAY BOOK OF POETRY. By C, F. ALEXANDER. 16mo, vellum, $1 75.

For sale by all Booksellers, and sent by mail on receipt of the price by the Publishers, SEVER & FRANCIS, Cambridge, Mass. A UNIQUE AND DESIRABLE PRESENT. FAC-SIMILE OF THE FIRST FOLIO (1623) SHAKESPEARE,

SHAKESPEARE. The first collected edition of the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare. A reproduction in exact fac-simile of the famous first edition of 1623. By the newly-discovered process of photo-lithography, executed by express per- mission of Lord Ellesmere and the trustees of the British Museum, from the matchless copies in Bridgewater House and in the National Library, under the superin- tendence of H. Staunton. Folio, boards, uncut, $25; or morocco antique, bevelled boards, $40. *,*The most perfect and beautiful production that modern science has attained to. This extraordinary volume was produced at an expense of £7,000, and cost the original subscribers in this coun- | try upwards of $100, unbound. To the lovers of the original text of Shakespeare, pure | and undefiled by modern commentators and improvera, this will prove an inestimable treasure, the cost of the original edition placing it beyond the reach of all those of ordinary means. Imported and for sale by J. W. BOUTON, 416 Broome Street, New York. THE NATION.—"I bave never taken a weekly newspaper which, in all its departments, is so satisfac- tery to me as Tue Natyon.”—/on. J. D. Cor, Gov. of THE GALAXY FOR JANUARY, 1868, CONTAINS: 1. THE STORY OF A MASTERPIECE. James, Jr. 2. AMERICAN AND Oxive Lo@an, By Henney FOREIGN THEATRES By 3. A CHRISTMAS GIFT, By T. W. Parsons. 4. THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK. By a well-known Political Writer. 5. A WEDDING SONG, By Evear Fawcerrr. 6. MY SPIRITUALISTIC EXPERIENCES. By Ricuarp FROTHINGHAM. 7. THE SAME CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW. By Epvwarp E. Hae. 8. BURGOYNE IN A NEW LIGHT. By Wicsiam L, STONE. 9. APHORISTIC CYNICISM. By Junivs Henn Browne. 10. ELIZABELLA’S CHRISTMAS, By Hannisr Pree cCoTT SPorrory. 11. STEVEN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN, By Mra. Ep- WARDS, 12. NEBULA. By the Eprror. READING FOR THE WINTER. Arrangements have been made for Clubbing THE GALAXY with other periodicals, which offer decided ad. vantages to those who are now selecting their readi: for the Winter. By these arrangements a saving to the subscriber of from twenty per cent. upwards is effected. oa Especial attention is invited to the following terme. The subscriptions will be commenced at any time de sired. Terms of Clubbing. Regular The Galaxy and Harper's Bazar sent one soe OR orcad hekande <xdasan .....$6 O0O-—-$7 50 The Galaxy and Harper's Weekly 600 780 The Galaxy and Harper's Monthly 6 00 7 50 The Galaxy and Our Young Folks 4650 58 50 The Galaxy and The Riverside Maga- ia sain hak shag dic catlhncdis caucus 450 600 The Galaxy and The American Agrical- AS See 400 550 The Galaxy and Every Saturday.... 700 850 The Galaxy and The Round Table 800 950 The Galaxy and The Army and Navy Journal 800 950

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Civs Terus.—Two copies, $6; five copies $14; ten copies, $25; twenty copies, $50; and one free copy to the person who sends the club. Subscriptions should be addressed to w. Cc. & F. P. CHURCH, 39 Park Row, New York. MITCHELL’S PHYSICAL CEOCRAPHY.

| | The undersigned publish to-day ELEMENTS OF | PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, to which is added the Physi- | cal Phenomena of the United States, By Joun Brock- i tespy, AM., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Pailosophy in Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. 1 vol. | large quarto, illustrated by one bundred and fifty En | gravings and thirteen copper-plate Maps, executed in the first s'yle of the art. This work, forming the fifth and concluding book of Mitchell's New Geographical Series, is believed to be most thorough and complete, and to bring the subject | fully up to the present state of the science. Retail price, $1 80. For sale by Booksellers generally. E. H. BUTLER & CO., 137 S. Fourth Street, Pniladelphia, LIBRARY ACENCY. G. P. PUTNAM & SON, 661 BROADWAY, N. Y., Are Commisrion Agents to purchase books by the thou- sand or single—English or American—for public libraries or individuals, ou the most favorable terms, accordixg tg phe quantity ordered, } j } j

Page 22

i 514 [Deec. 19, 1867 —_—-- Pian and execution commended by Justice Story, Chan- cellor Kent, President Adams ; Historians Sparks, Pres- cott, Bancroft. and Ticknor; Rev. H. W. Beecher, and many others. It has been published for more than twenty years, and is now enlarged. It is issued EVERY SATURDAY, giving fifty-two numbers and over THREE THOUSAND double-column octav» pages of reading matter, yearly. It is a work which commends itself to every one who has a taste forthe best iiterature of the Magazines and Reviews, or who cares to keep up with the events of the time. It contains the best Reviews, Criticisms, Stories, Poetry, Literary, Scientific, Biographical, Historical, and Political Essays—from the whole body of English Period- ical Literature—making 4 vols. a year of immediate tn- terest and solid, permanent value. EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES, From the late President of the United States, Juhn Quincy Advms,—* Of ail the periodical journals cevored to literature and science, which abound in Europe aud thi- country, Tue Livine Ags has appeared to me the most useful.” From Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, May, 1867.—“* Were I, in view of all the competitors now tn the fleid, to choose, I should undoubtedly choose Tue Living Age. There is not, in any library that I know of, so much instructive and entertaining reading in the same number of vol- umes.”’ From the New York Times.—* The taste, judgment, and wise tact displayed in the selection of articles are above all praise, because they have never been equalled.” From the Springfleld (Mass.) Republican.-—** We can do those among our readers who love sound and pure litera- ture no better service than by referring them to this sterling weekly. It is decidedly the best magazine of its class published in the United States, if not in the world.” From'the Boston Post.—‘* We venture to say that in no other form can «a work of similar character found of equal merit or at so moderate a price.” From the Church Union, New York, August 10, 1867.— “Its editorial discrimination is such as ever to afford its readers an entertaining résumé of the best curreat Euro- pean magazine literature, and so complete as to satisfy them of their having no need to resort to its original sources. In this regard, we deem it the best issue of its kind extant.” From the New York Independent.--“* No one can read, from week to week, the selections brought before him in Tue Livine Aes, without becoming conecions of a quick- ening of his own faculties, and an enlargement of his mental horizon. Few private libraries, of course, can now secure the back volumes, sets of which are limited and costly. But public libraries in towns and villages ought, if possible, to be farnished with such a treasury of good reading; and individua's may begin as subscribers for the new series, and thus keep pace in future with the age in which they live.” From the Richmond Whig, June 1, 1867.—“‘If a man were to read Liiteli’s magazine regularly, and read noth- ing else, he would be well informed on all prominent eub- jects in the general field of human knowledge.” From the Illinois State Journal, August 3, 1867.—“ It has more real solid worth, more useful information, than any similar publication we know of. The ablest essays, the most entertaining stories, the finest poetry of the Eoglish language, are here gathered together.” From the New York Home Journal, June 12, 1867.—“ Lit- TeLi's Livine AGE, long distinguisted as a pioneer in the republication of the choicest foreivn periodical literature, still holds the foremost rank among works of its class, Its standard of selections is a high one; and its contents are not only of interest at the present moment, but pos- sess an enduring value. Its representation of the for- eign field of periodical literature is ample aud comprehen- sive, and it combines the t»s#teful and erudite, the romantic and practical, the social and scholarly, the grave and gy. with a skill which is nowhere surpassed, and which is admirably suited to please the cultivated reader.” From The Protestant Churchman, June 2%, 1°67.—“* Age and life are alike its characteristics. It is linked with our memories of the old library at home, and it seems to grow fresher and better in matter as it grows older in yeara. Once introduced into the family circle, it cannot well be dispensed with; and the bound volumes on the library ehelves will supply a constant feast in years to come, From a Clergyman in Massachusetts, of much literary celebrity.—** In the formation of my mind and character, | owe as much to Tue Livine AGE as to all other means of education put together.” Published WEEKLY, at $8 a year, FREE OF POSTAGE. An extra copy sent gratis to any one getting up a club of seven new subscribers. Address LITTELL & CGAY, 90 Bromfield Street, Boston. The Nation. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF Psychological Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence, Epitep sy WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M.D., Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, etc. A new volume of this valuable Journal will be com- menced with the January number. The two numbers already published, constituting the first volume, have re- ceived the uniform commendations of the press, and the circulation is now so extensive that the publishers are enabled to still further enlarge it, and to bring it out with increased typographical, scientific, and literary ex- cellence. From the notices by medical and other journals we select the following: ‘** Both original aad selected articles are of a high order of merit, and the well-known ability of the editor, W. A. Hammond, M.D., is a sufficient guarantee that it will ever be, while under his management, a first-class jour- nal.”"—Leavenwor:h Medical Herald. “The first number of the above-mentioned quarterly journal, under the able supervision of Dr. W. A. Ham- mond, has been placed upon our table. It contains origi- nal articles on the Physiology and Pathology of the Mind and Nervous System, and Medical Jurisprudence, Selec- tions, and Reviews, The want of a medical journal upon these subjects has been keenly felt by the profession.” — Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal. “We have jast received the first number of this new Quarterly. It is published in excellent style, and is de- voted to a most important field of medical study and lit- erature. We earnestly hope it will meet with an abun- dant patronsge.’’—Chicayo Medical Examiner. “ To those teachers who have to deal with children ofa low order of mental development, it ha- especial value, and there are none who cannot draw valuable instruction from its pages.”’—AMichigan Teacher. “We ehonld eay that this quarterly would be enthusi- astically welcomed by the profession, as it certainly gives every indication of deserving such a reception.”—ound Table. “Full of instruction to the members of the other learned professions, and to those who desire to study human uature under various aspects.’’-- Philadelphia Ledger. “We welcome in the first number of The Quarterly Journal of Paycholojical Medicine, edited by Dr. William A. Hammond, the advent of a magazine which has Jong been needed. and whose coming was we may gay inevi- table, considering the advanced state in this country of the branch of science to which it is devoted. The re- views and book notices, and chronicle of events con- nected with psychological medicine, are indicative of a high standard of intelligence. and promiee that an en- lightened and genial spirit will pervade the editing of this admirable publication.’’"—Philadelphia Press. “Is conducted with marked ability.""— Philadelphia Age. “ This journal is always valuable.”"—Evening Mail, New A. SIMPSON & CO., PUBLISHERS, 60 Duahe Street, New York. UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY or Weights and Measures, * ANCIENT AND MODERN, REDUCED TO THE STANDARDS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. By J. H. ALEXANDER. 1 vol. 8vo, cloth, $3 ‘oe This day pub- D. VAN NOSTRAND, 192 Broapway. *,* Copies sent free by mail on receipt of price. PARIS EXPOSITION, 1867. PRIZE MEDAL AWARDED. EYRE & SPOTTISWOODE Have just received an extensive variety of their well- known standard editions of The Bible, American Episcopal Prayer- Books, and Church Services, In all sizes of type and of entirely new patterns, for the fall trade, which they now offer for sale at the lowest im- porting prices. LONDON BIBLE WAREHOUSE, 626 Broadway, N. Y, WIDDLETON, Publisher, 17 MERCER STREET, NEW YORK. A New Girt Book For 1867-68. BURNS’S TAM O’SHANTER. Illustrated-with eight original drawings by Miller—in photograph by Gardner. A royal quarto, handsomely printed aud elegantly bound in cloth, fall gilt sides = edges, price $6; turkey morocco extra, or an- que, $s. WIDDLETON’S EDITIONS OF CHOICE STANDARD WORKS, In Bindings suitable for Presents or the Library, in crown 8vo volumes. Each set of books in a box, Price $2 25 per vol. in cloth; #4 in jalf calf. HALLAM’S COMPLETE WORKS? om the last Lon- don edition, revised and corrected by the author; the most accurate and reliable extant, comprising: “Middle Ages,” 3 vols.; ‘Literature of Europe,’ 4 vols.; ** Constitutional History of Enyzland,” 3 vols. Uniform sets, 10 vols.; or any of the works sepa- rately. MAY’S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 2 vols. A continuation of Hallam. HALLAM’S AND MAY'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISs- TORY OF ENGLAND. There two works, in 5 vols., form the complete History, from the Accession of Henry VIT. to 1860 NAPIER’S PENINSULAR WAR. 55 maps and plans or battles, 5 portraits on steel, and a complete index. 5 vols. 8vo, .. DISRAELL. * osities of Literature.” 4 vols. DISRAELI. “ Amenities of Literature.” 2 vole. DR. DORAN’S WORKS. 9 vole, CHARLES LAMB’s COMPLETE WORKS. With por- trait. The most elegant edition published. 5 vols. BURTON, “ Anatomy of Melancholy.” 3 vols. PROF. WILSON’S NUCTES AMBROSIANZ. Por- traits. 6 vols., including * Life of Prof. Wilson,” by Mrs. Gordon. SYDNEY SMITH'S WIT AND WISDOM. Passages of his Letters and Table-Talk. With steel portrait and memoir. 1 vol. PRAED’S POEMS. Memoir and steel portrait. 2 vols. THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS OF MIRTH AND MAR- VEL. 16 llustrations by Cruikshank and Leech. 2 vols. —. GAULTIERS BOOK OF BALLADS. By W. E. YTOUN. LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS. By Witi1AM E. AYToun. DEAN MILMAN’S HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. A handsome edition in large type 3 vols. MILMAN’S HISTORY OF !1HE JEWS. 3 vols. Uni- torm with Christianity. STANLEY'S SINAI AND PALESTINE. A new edition, with many colored maps and plates. 8vo, price $4. CONINGTON’S TRANSLATION OF THE AZNEID OF VIRGIL, Rendered iato English octosyliabic verse. 1 vol., $2 50. And many other choice works, which may be found on our Catalogue. Mailed to any address upon application, TACTICAL USE OF THE THREE ARMS, Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry. By FRANCIS J. LIPPITT, Brevet Brigadier-General U. S. Volunteers, 12mo, pp. 133, price $1. This is the only work on the subject in the English language. The U. 8S. Service Magazine recommends it “for use as a simple, accurate, and brief manual in military institu- tions, and for instruction in military organizations.” The Army and Navy Journal calls it ‘*a well-written, terse, clear, intelligible, and very interesting treatise.” The Duke of Cambridge mentions it as “an interesting and useful book on a subject in which he takes great in- terest.” ° General A, E. Burnside regards it ‘‘as a most usefu work, and one destined to take a high stand in military literature.” Copies sent by mail on receipt of price. SIDNEY S. RIDER & BRO., Providence, R. I. A TREATISE ON INTRENCHMENTS. BY FRANCIS J. LIPPITT, Brevet Brigadier-General of Volunteers, Auther of “‘ Tactical Use of the Three Arms.” One vol. 12mo, pp. 146, illustrated with 41 engravings, price $1 25. * This l ttle book is such an excellent one that our only regret in welcoming it is, that it was not published in 1861 instead of 1866 It is as a hand-book and aide-me- moire that it has substantial value. It is so simple that any intelligent man of fair education can master it, and yet seems to contain all that an officer, who has no oflicer of engineers on his staff, would be likely to want to know.'"’—Nation. Copies sent by mail on receipt of price. SIDNEY S. RIDER & BRO., : Providence, R. I. ~_-

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m= ‘St ~~ aeok, eee Dec. 19, 1867] The Nation. 515 HARPER & BROTHERS, New York, HAVE JUST PUBLISHED : I. SMILES’S HUGUENOTS. The Huguenots: Their Settlements, Churches, and Industries in Eng- land and Ireland. By SamMvEL Smives, avthor of * Self-Help,” etc. Crown 8ye, cloth, bevelled edges, 15. Il. BARNES'S EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIAN- ITY. Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century. Delivered in the Mercer Street Church, New York, January 21 to February 21, 1867. On the * Ely Foundation” of the Union Theological Seminary. By ALsEKT BaRNEs, author of * Notes on the New Testament,” etc. 12mo, morocco cloth, bev- elled edges, $1 75. m THE LOVERS’ DICTIONARY: A Poetical Treasury of Lovers’ Thoughts, Fancies, Addresses, and Dilemmas, indexed with nearly Ten Thousand References a8 a Dictionary of Com »liments, and Guide to the Study of the Tender Science. Post 8vo, cloth, $3 50; gilt edges, $4 25. IV. MACE’S FAIRY BOOK, (Contes du Petit-Chdteau). By Jean Mace, author of * The Servants of the Siomach,” ete. Translated by Mary L. Boor, transiator of * Martin's History of France,” * Laboulaye’s Fairy Book,” etc. With en- gravipgs. 12mo, cloth, $175; gilt edges, $2 25. V. THREE ENGLISH STATESMEN: Pym, Cromwell, and Pitt. A Course of Lectures on the Political History of England. By Go_pwin SmirH, author of * Lectures on the Study of History,” etc. 12mo, clotb, $1 50. VI AGNES STRICKLAND’S QUEENS OF ENG- LAND. Lives of the Queens of England. From the Norman Conquest. By AGNES STRICKLAND, author of * Lives of the Queens of Scotland.” Abridged by the author. Revised and Edited by Caro.inE G. PARKER. Large 12mo, cloth, $2. (Uniform with the Student's Jlistories.) vi HASWELL’S ENGINEERS’ AND MECHAN- ICS’ POCKET-BOOK, ‘i wenty-first edition, revised and enlarged. By Caas. H. Hasweryt, Civil and Marine Engineer. 663 pages 12mo, leather, pocket- book form, $3. Just adopted by the United States Navy and Treasury Dey; arimeuts. vit TIL. ~ WOOD'S PHYSICAL EXERCISES. Manual of Phyerical Exercises ; comprising Gymnastics, Row- ing, Skating, Fencing, Cricket, Culisthenics, Sailing, Swimming, Sparring, and Base Bail together with Rales for Training and Sanitary Suggestions. By Wiit1am Woop, Ivsiructor in Physical Education. With 125 Lilustrations. 12mo, cioth, $1 50. Home Fairy Tales HARPER & BROTHERS’ LIST OF NEW NOVELS. GUILD COURT. By Gro. MacDonap. 8yo, paper, 50 centa. THE BROTHERS’ BET. By Miss Caren. 8vo, paper, 25 cents. MABEL’S PROGRESS. By the author of ** Aunt Margaret's Trouble.”’ S8vo, paper, 50 cents. THE WATERDALE NEIGHBORS. By the author of * Paul Massie."’ 8vo, paper, 50 cents. CARLYON'S YEAR. * Lost Sir Massingberd.” STONE EDGE: A Tale. 8vo, paper, 25 cents. CIRCE; or, THREE ACTS IN THE LIFE OF gd aaeere By BaBincTon WHITE. 8vo, paper, cents. THE TENANTS OF MALORY.,. By J. 5. Le Fanv. 8vo, paper, 50 cents. BIRDS OF PREY. By M. E, Brappon. II- lustrations. Svo, paper, 75 cents. THE CURATE'S DISCIPLINE. Emoart. 8vo, paper, 50 cents. Ly the author of Svo, paper, 25 cents. By Mrs. Harper & Brotuers will send the above Works by $2 50 A YEAR For Tut Weekty Evenrne Post and Tue | AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. $3 A YEAR For Tut WEEKLY Evenine Post and Tue RIveRsipE MaGaZIng, $4 A YEAR For Tot WEEKLY Eventnea Post, AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, and RIVERSIDE MaGazing, | | $4 A YEAR | For Tue Semi-Weekiy Evenine Post and either THe AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST OF RIVERSIDE MaGAZINE. Send for free specimen copy to THE EVENING POST, New York. THE EVENING POST ENGLISH AND CONTINENTAL ILLUSTRATED BOOKS. CHOICE EDITIONS IN FINE BINDINGS. JUST IMPORTED BY ALLEN EBBS, 183 Broadway, Up-stairs. gee ee Cara ipeeadiicieiacmnrstieia BRADLEY’S CAMES. Instead of spending your money for toys that amuse for | a day, buy for your children games that are always new, Buy any of P BRADLEY'S GAMES, and you will be sure of something interesting and gener- ally instructive. All the dealers have them. Send stamp for catalogue MILTON BRADLEY & CO., Pus.isHers, Springfield, Mass. THE MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEW YORK. ona co F. S. WINSTON, PReEsmpEent. CASH ASSETS (Invested in Bonds and Mortgages and United States Stocks), $20,406,665 48. FOR THE USE OF TRAVELLERS, AVAILABLE IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD, ISSUED BY DUNCAN, SHERMAN & CO., New Yors. Russel] Sturgis, Jr., ARCHITECT, 98 Broadway, New York. Vaux, Withers & Co., ARCHITECTS, 110 Broadway. insurance Scrip. WILLIAM C. CILMANRN, 46 Pine Street, New Yors, BUYS AND SELLS TNSURANCE SCRIP, Olmsted, Vaux & Co., LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, The undersigned have associated under the above titie for the business of advising on all matters of location and of furnishing Desigus and Superintendence for Build inge and Grounds and other Architectural and Engineering Works, including the Laying-out of Towns, Villages, Parks, Cemeteries, and Gardens. FRED. LAW OLMSTED, CALVERT VAUX, 110 Broadway, FRED'K C. WITHERS. New York, January 1, 1566. BROWN BROTHERS & CO., 59 Wax Sr., ISSUE COMMERCIAL AND TRAVELLERS’ CREDITS FOR USE IN THIS COUNTRY AND ABROAD. Ss. Gc. & C. C. WARD, AGENTS FOR BARING BROTHERS & COMPANY, 56 Wall Street, New York, 28 State Street, Boston. ROBERT MORRIS COPELAND, Issues every approved description of Life and Endow- ment Policies on selected lives at moderate rates, return- ing all surplus annually to the policy-holders, to be used either in payment of premiums or to purchase additional Insurance, at the option of the assured. RICHARD A. McCURDY, Vice-President. SHEPPARD HOMANS, Actuary. ISAAC ABBATT, JOHN M. STUART, NIAGARA t Secretaries, Losses equitably adjusted and promptly paid. CHARTERED 1950, Cash Dividends paid in fourteen years, 248 per cent. JONATHAN D. STEELE, President. mail, epaid, to an of the United Sta amnaos re P. NOTMAN, Secretary. FIRE INSURANCE CO. OFFICE, 12 WALL STREET. CasH CAPITAL INCREASED TO . $1,000,000. SuRPLUvs, JULY 1, 1866, ae 300,000 LANDSCAPE GARDENER, | Author of * Country Life,” furnishes plans and advice for | laying out public and private grounds, Refers to John M. Forbes, Nathaniel Thayer, Boston, Mass.; Rufus Waterman, Providence, R. 1.; Francis G, Shaw, Staten Island; R. 8. Fields, Princeton, N. J, 41 Barristers’ Hall, Boston, Mass. CHECARAY INSTITUTE, FRENCH AND ENGLISH FOR YOUNG LADIES, BOARDING AND DAY PUPILS, 1527 AND 1529 SprucE STREET, PHILADELPHIA, Will reopen on THURSDAY, + eptember 19. French is the language of the family, and is constantly spoken in the Institute. MADAME D’RERVILLY, Principal. DAVID c. FRANCIS (FormMERLY C. 8. Francis & Co.), DEALER IN NEW AND OLD BOOKS, 506 BROADWAY (up statrs). Priced catalogues of books in stock issued from time to time, and will be forwarded /ree to any address. Orders for any obtainable books promptly filled. Binding executed in any style.

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, : / i 516 The Nation. [Dec. 19, 1867 New Books! New Books! PUBLISHED THIS DAY. I. NEW BOOK, BY THE AUTHOR OF “IN TRUST.” CLAUDIA. By Miss DovuG.Las, Author of “In Trust,” and “Stephen Dane.” 12mo, $1 50. This book will be heartily welcomed by the thousands of readers of the authoress's former works. Miss Doug- las has been before the public but a short time, but is already a great favorite. “ We never read a work of fiction which more thorough- ly enlisted the sympathies, or which made a stronger ap- peal to all that is noble and eood in man or woman than *In Trust.’ "’—Northampton Press. **Miss Douglas is at once interesting and instructive. She is a vigorous thinker, with sound notions of the wants and follies of society..”"— Albany Evening Post. "Hm A BEAUTIFUL RELIGIOUS GIFT BOOK. COLDEN TRUTHS. ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” The authoress, in her prefatory note, says: ‘‘ May these ‘words fitly spoken’ strengthen the inner life in your soul; and, notwithstanding the trials by the way, may the Christian's joy and peace abide with you. May you love to work for Christ, and find the unfailing Friend ever near to support and guide; then safe you shall rest in the heavenly home at last, every longing satisfied. ** Dorchester, Mass. Cc. H. M.” Small 4to, morocco, cloth, $2. III, BY THE AUTHOR OF “JACK OF ALL TRADES.” TOMMY HICKUP; Or, A Pair of Black Eyes. By Rosa ABpsnorrt. 16mo, ill., $1. Iv. ROSA ABBOTT STORIES. In neat box, 3 vols. illustrated, $1 per vol. COMPRISING JACK OF ALL TRADES, ALEXIS THE RUNAWAY, TOMMY HICKUP. **Rosa Abbott’ has plainly genius for story writing. She is avtgine), crisp, and spicy in her style, talks to her audience in a way that geis their attention at once.”— Norfolk County Journal, “If the first is a sample of those which are to follow, they will bear hearty recommendation.’’— Syracuse Jour- nal. * The best and most amusing little book (* Jack of All Trades *) we have seen in a great while.""—Zroy Whig. ~. SEEK AND FIND; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A SMART BOY, By OLIVER OPTIC, 16mo, illustrated, $1 25. ———— STARRY FLAG SERIES. By OLIVER OPTIC, 3 vols. illustrated, $1 25 each. COMTRI2=NG THE STARRY FLAG, BREAKING AWAY, SEEK AND FIND. For sale by all Booksellers and News-dealers. 7 LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, 149 Washington Street, Boston. BAKER'S CHOCOLATE AND COCOA. PARIS EXPOSITION, 1867. W. BAKER & CO.’S ~, American, a, Homeopathic VANILLA CHOCOLATE, PREPARED COCOA, BROMA, Cocoa Paste, Mi “TS iaanane’ Cocoa, Cocoa Shells, pod opened. Cra ocoa, §e. VHESE Manufactures, to which FIRST PREMIUMS have been awarded by the chief Institutes and Fairs of the Union, and at the PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1867, ave an excellent dict for children, invalids and persons in health, allay rather than induce the nervous excitement attendant upon the use of tea or coffee, and are recommended by the most eminent physicians. For sale by the principal Grocers in the United States. WALTER BAKER & CO., Dorchester, . . . »« Mass. “SILVER TONGUE.” IF YOU WOULD MAKE YOUR HOME MORE CHEER- FUL, IF YOU WOULD MAKE YOUR HOME MORE AT- TRACTIVR, IF YOU WANT A HANDSOME PIECE OF FURNI- TURE, IF YOU WANT A USEFUL PIECE OF FURNITURE, IF YOU WLULD MAKE A BEAUTIFUL HOLIDAY PRESENT, IF YOU WOULD MAKE A SPLENDID WEDDING PRESENT, Purchase the cele>rated “SILVER TONGUE” Parlor Organ of CARHART & NEEDHAM. THEY MAKE THE BEST. THEY MAKE THE LARGEST. THEY ARE THE ORIGINAL INVENTORS. THEY ARE THE PATENTEES OF ESSENTIAL IM- PKOVEMENTS. THEY HAVE HAD AN EXPERIENCE OF OVER TWENTY YEARS. THEIR INSTRUMENTS CONTAIN THE COMBINA- TION SWELL. THEIR INSTRUMENTS CONTAIN NEW AND INDIS- PENSABLE IMPROVEMENTS not to be found in the instruments of any other manufactory. They manufacture ; CHURCH ORGANS, PARLOR ORGANS, LIBRARY ORGANS, SCHOOL ORGANS, DRAWING-ROOM ORGANS, BOUDOIR ORGANS, LODGE ORGANS, HALL ORGANS, and CONCERT ORGANS, The Public are respectfully invited to call and inspect their large assortment of new and beautiful styles. Cata- logues, etc., sent by mail. CARHART & NEEDHAM, 143, 145, and 147 East Twenty-third Street, New York. THE EMPIRE SEWING MACHINE Surpasses ail others in simplicity, durability, beautiful stitch, and easy working. It cre- ates no noise when in operation, and all per- eons fond of an excellent Sewing Machine should call and examine it. A liberal dis- count uffered to the trade. Salesrooms, 616 + BROADWAY. N. Y.; 103 Avenue A, corner of Seventh Street; 685 Sixth Avenue; 233 G Street, Williamsburgh. TIFFANY & CO. INVITE ATTENTION TO THEIR COLLECTION OF Holiday Goods, Fine Cems, Fashionable Jewelry, Watches, Silver Goods, r Bronzes, And a great variety of original objects of art and fancy for presents. , No pains is spared to present the best quality in ma- terial and workmanship. 550 & 552 BROADWAY, (House in Paris: Tiffany, Reed & Co.) MARVIN & CO.’S ALUM AND“ DRY PLASTER FIRE AND BURGLAR NaS Are the most desirabie for quality, finish, and price. Principal Warehouses : { = ware hy Philadelphia. Please send for a Circular. VOSE’'S PIANOS. THE PIANO OF AMERICA. The increasing demand for these Pianos is a eure test of their cmperlnsey, and they are acknowledged, by com- petent judges, ~- EQUAL TO THE BEST PIANO MADE. References can be given to thousands of residents throughout the country ; also to many schools and semi- nariee, where they have stood the hard use and practise of yeare, and HAV GIVEN ENTIRE SATISFACTION to those usifg them. They are the CugaPest First- CLass PIANOS IN THE MARKET. WARRANTED FIVE YEARS. WakeErooms: 701 Broapway, New York. J. H. ANCIER, Agent. OFFICIAL PROOF FROM PARIS. STEINWAY & SONS TRIUMPHANT. STEINWAY & SONS Are enabled positively to announce that they-have been awarded THE FIRST GRAND GOLD MEDAL FOR AMERICAN PIANOS, this medal being distinctly classified first over all other American exhibitors. In proof of which the following OFFICIAL CERTIFICATE of the President and members of the International Jury on Musical Instruments is annexed : Panis, July 20, 1867. I certify that the First Gold Medal for American Pianos has been unanimously awarded to Messrs. Steinway by the Jury of the International Exposition. First on the list in Class X. MELINET, President of International Jury. Grorers Kastner, } AMBROISE THOMAS, Members Ep. HANSLICK, of the F. A. Gevaert, International Jury. J. ScHIEDMAYER, The original certificate, together with “ the official catalogue of awards,” in which the name of STEINWAY & SONS ie recorded first on the list, can be seen at theif WAREROOMS, FIRST FLOOR OF 8 WAY HALL, new numbers 109 and 111 East Fourteenth Street, New York.

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