wholly unwedded and unrelated to its surroundings, then a man could become a Turk by going to Constantinople, an Arab by a sojourn in the desert, a Celestial by a visit to Peking. It is, therefore, simply absurd to make the tenacity of one's habits a matter of reproach. It would be rather trying to one's comfort to be under the necessity of training the palate for new flavors at every dinner; or to find it necessary to undergo a distinctly new experience and adjustment every time a new garment is put on; and equally vexatious would it be to find in every new book strange and unknown combinations of letters. It is certain that the letter c is pretty nearly useless in the language, as it bas, except in its connection with h (as in ch), always either the sound of k or of s. But a book printed with this letter omitted, kan always turning up for can, sent for cent, and so on, would seem to everybody greatly disfigured. We are told that we should get used to changes of the kind. Not altogether. For many years now we in America have been printing color, and words of like termination, with u omitted, but so tenacious are early impres sions that to this day we, for our part, never see the word color without feeling that somehow all the color has been taken out of it. And "getting used to it" is no defense of a change in established usages. One might teach himself to become a Turk, or to get used to a Mongolian diet, or to like Carlyle's English, or to undo all his sum of likings and dislikings, and take upon himself a new entity, as it were; but why should he do so? In some things he is compelled into new relationships-there is a gradual change going on in all organisms, in all mundane thingsand these inevitable changes are enough without any forcing processes. If men grow with their years more and more tenacious of accustomed methods, this is only because experience has taught them the advantage of established forms. And if it has sometimes happened that men beyond middle age have too stubbornly resisted a new thought, an investigation into the facts would show, we are convinced, that the wise negative of advanced age has far more often saved society from injudicious novelties than it has checked genuine progress. If we venture upon a word or two in regard to the summer vacations, it is not with the intention of assuming the self-appointed office of instructor and guide. It is always difficult to understand why there must be exhibited so much irritation by those who adopt one kind of recreation against those who have other ideas of enjoyment. Because one likes the seclusion and quiet of a farm-house in his summer rest, why must he look down with such lordly contempt upon those who find pleasure in the bustle and of lasting fête. It is in human nature to weary of unbroken pleasure, just as it does of unbroken labor, while each derives a felicity from its contrast with the other. We may be sure, therefore, that he who succeeds in carrying his pleasures and his rests along parallel, as it were, with his duties who doesn't plunge into a month of holidays at one season, at the expense of excessive labor all the rest of the year -is really deriving from his recreations the best attainable results. This, however, is simply our view of the matter. As we said at the beginning, let each taste have its own course. We are content that men and women shall follow the bent of their minds; but if any of our readers deplore a necessity which excludes them from the watering-places and the long tour to the Adiron dacks or the White Mountains, they may be assured that a vacation broken up into little episodes in the way we have suggested would not be without its ample rewards and its abundant charms. THE English have always been a dining and wining people. Dr. Johnson's hearty "I like to dine, sir," was but the echo of a Now, if we were to follow the example of many of our contemporaries, and flower into advice, admonition, and instruction, in this matter of summer recreation, we should be tempted to apply the too-many-timesquoted advice of Punch on the marriage question, and say-don't! For, after all, are these summer vacations all that poets and newspaper correspondents from the watering-chorus of centuries of burly bons-vivants. Alplaces assert them to be? Do people return from their vacations as refreshed as their hopes had promised and the theories of vacations had held forth? In many instances there is a great strain of exertion previous to a vacation in order to snatch from pressing business the time necessary for the planned expedition; and a corresponding excess of labor after the vacation is over in order to bring up and adjust the business accumulated in the interim of pleasure. And a period of enforced idleness abruptly and sharply thrust into the routine of labor is apt to throw the pleasure-seeker off his balance - he either attempts too much, and returns from his vacation exhausted and fagged, or, in a reaction from excessive application, becomes unnerved in wistful and uncertain idleness. In both of these cases each takes his tonic of rest and pleasure in too strong and condensed a dose. It would be better with each if the vacation had been distributed through the summer-season-a sail of two or three hours one day, a whole or a half day's fishing upon another occasion, an excursion to the sea-shore or to the mountains a third time, and so on. This division of one's pleasures would keep them always fresh and attractive; there would be no excessive fatigue, no weariness, none of the ennui which sometimes overtakes the pleasure-seeker in spite of himself. The recreation would be interwoven, as it were, with one's occupation—would give to each day or week its relish, and make of summer a sort fred's feasts were doubtless no less lusty, though it is to be hoped they were less scandalous, than those of "Gentleman George," at Carlton House. An English novel without the literary hospitality of a series of dinnerparties scattered through its pages would be a rash venture. Fancy Dickens's or Thackeray's stories without their feasts, solid and substantial, their jovial wine - passing and punch-drinking, their facetious, after-dinner speech - making! Imagine what even the plays of Shakespeare would be without the revels of Timon and Macbeth, of Sir John Falstaff and Sir Toby Belch, the gorgeous banquets of the Plantagenets, the merrymaking of the gay folk of the comedies! Of how many humorous English stories is the dinner-table the central scene! The English idea of hospitality is to hurry the guest to Pall Mall to dinner. If an Englishman dines you, it is because he wishes to do the right and proper thing by you, to honor your social credentials, to compliment at once the introducer and the introduced. If he asks you to breakfast, it is because he personally likes you. The two invitations may be compared to the kiss upon the forehead and the kiss upon the lips: the one means respect, the other affection. So it is that the English of all ranks and conditions, in every highway and by-way of life, smooth their path and speed their way with gastronomic lucubrations. When a joint-stock company seals a large contract; when a father betrothes his daughter; when a son comes of age; when the good-natured uncle or the adventurous brother goes for a journey; when a ship comes home laden with fortune; when statesmen meet for the session, or part for the grouseshooting; when dusky potentates visit the English shore; when "glorious Apollos" inaugurate their president; when a play is to be brought out; when a long-lingering, wealthy aunt dies at last, and leaves Jenkins her fortune-on all such occasions the English hasten to get their legs under the mahogany, and discuss this or that event, leisurely and ruminatingly, over the walnuts and the wine. It is just at this midsummer period that the season of English dining reaches its acme. The lord - mayor, the ideal British host, is feasting the bishops and the ministers, worshipful companies of fishmongers, and the royal Arab from Zanzibar. Ere long Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues will discuss the victories and mishaps of the session, over whitebait and fine old crusted port, at Greenwich. The Star and Garter is the scene of perpetual revel, while in many a quaint old city tavern heavy men of moneyed interests are comparing notes with the aid of barons of beef and choice vintages. The fashionable season thus ends, as it began, with contenting the lusty British palate, and warming cockles of the British heart. AN eminent Englishman of science reports, after careful investigation, that the physical stamina of the children employed in factories is steadily deteriorating. The number of those who are unfit to work on full time is increasing. This is attributed less to the hard labor these poor little creatures have to undergo than to the wretched habits of the factory operatives. Too early marriages, slovenliness, intemperance, want of proper open-air exercise, and the excessive use of tobacco, are noted as main causes of the deterioration. Whatever the causes, the fact is an alarming one. It is a serious question whether children should be allowed to engage in exhausting factory-labor at all-whether the devotion to this hard work from an early period is not itself a prominent cause of the bad habits observed. But, if children are to be so employed, there is no doubt that their hours of labor should be limited; and a further duty is cast on the mill-owners. This is, to so look after the habits of their operatives that the children may have a chance of entering upon their cheerless life-work with tolerably good constitutions. In Germany parents are not allowed to derive any income from the labor of their children until they have had a thoroughly good schooling, and have grown wellnigh to manhood and womanhood; the consequence is, that Germany contains both the healthiest and most efficient race of laboring young men and women in the world. The English law is as yet notoriously deficient in protecting the health and condition of the children of the manufacturing districts; and, unless more vigorous reforms are made, the prospect is that factorylabor will become more weak and more scarce, while the bill for parish relief will become a heavy burden to the tax-payer and a discouragement to the philanthropist. Literary. THE third volume of Mr. Bancroft's "Na tive Races of the Pacific States "* is devoted to myths and languages. It is not so interesting, perhaps, to the general reader as the earlier volumes, but it marks a new stage in Mr. Bancroft's great work, and deals with a higher order of phenomena. In it we pass the frontier, which separates mankind from animal-kind, and enter the domain of the immaterial and supernatural; phenomena which philosophy purely positive cannot explain. We contemplate the Indian, not simply as a wild though intellectual animal, struggling with its environment, but as a human being, possessed of the faculty of speech, and groping after an explanation of the eternal mysteries of life, death, and futurity. This volume shows the same patient industry, the same affluence of materials, and rather more than the literary skill of the two preceding ones. Mr. Bancroft seems to acquire self-confidence as he advances; facility has come by practice; and a certain crudeness of expression, which was noticeable in the opening volume, has now entirely vanished. Indeed, some of the chapters in the present volume are models of what compilation should be: the expositions are clear, the narrative animated, and the style picturesque and pleasing. The first and larger part of the volume is assigned to "Myths "-under which general term Mr. Bancroft includes the various religions or cults of the Pacific tribes, their moral and political maxims, and their historical traditions and legends. All these are classified under "Creation Myths," or such as deal with the origin and end of things; "Physical Myths; "Animal Mythology," "Gods, Supernatural Beings, and Worship;" and myths of the "Future State." The creation myths, like those of all barbarous or semi-barbarous peoples, are strangely grotesque and puerile an ani mal being represented as the creator in most of them. Some of them, however, indicate a dim perception of physical laws; and a few hint at the idea of a supernatural god operating through natural agencies. Mr. Bancroft has not attempted to classify these myths, and any description would be inadequate; so we will content ourselves with a single favorable specimen, taken from the traditions of the Southern California nations: "Two great beings made the world, filled it with grass and trees, and gave form, life, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. By Hubert Howe Bancroft. Volume III. Myths and Languages. New York: D. Appleton & Co. and motion to the various animals that people land and sea. When this work was done, the elder Creator went up to heaven and left his brother alone upon the earth. The solitary god left below made to himself men-children, that he should not be utterly companionless, Fortunately, also, about this time, the moon came to that neighborhood; she was very fair in her delicate beauty, very kind-hearted, and she filled the place of a mother to the men-children that the god had created. She watched over them, and guarded them from all evil things of the night, standing at the door of their lodge. The children grew up very happily, laying great store by the love with which their guardians regarded them; but there came a day when their heart saddened, in which they began to notice that neither their god-creator nor their moon foster-mother gave them any longer undivided affection and care, but that instead the two great ones seemed to waste much precious love upon each other. The tall god began to steal out of their lodge at dusk, and spend the night-watches in the company of the whitehaired moon, who, on the other hand, did not seem on these occasions to pay such absorbing attention to her sentinel-duty as at other times. The children grew sad at this, and bitter at the heart with a boyish jealousy. But worse was yet to come: one night they were awakened by a querulous wailing in their lodge, and the earliest dawn showed them a strange thing, which they afterward came to know was a new-born infant, lying in the doorway. The god and the moon had eloped together; their Great One had returned to his place beyond the ether, and, that he might not be separated from his paramour, he had appointed her at the same time a lodge in the great firmament, where she may yet be seen, with her gauzy robe and shining, silver hair, treading celestial paths. The child left on the earth was a girl. She grew up very soft, very bright, very beautiful, like her mother; but, like her mother also, oh, so fickle and frail! She was the first of womankind, from her all other women descended, and from the moon, and as the moon changes so they all change, say the philosophers of Los Angeles." It will be seen from this that, however defective they may be as cosmogonies, the myths of these native races are not destitute of poetry. In fact, a striking poetic undertone pervades nearly all the myths which attempt an explanation of physical phenomena; in illustration of which we quote the following pretty story of the Yosemite nations, as to the origin of the names and present appearance of certain peaks and other natural features of their valley : "A certain Totokónula was once chief of the people here; a mighty hunter and a good husbandman, his tribe never wanted food while he attended to their welfare. But a change came: while out hunting one day the young man met a spirit-maid, the guardian angel of the valley, the beautiful Tisayac. She was not as the dusky beauties of his tribe, but white and fair, with rolling, yellow tresses, that fell over her shoulders like sunshine, and blue eyes, with a light in them like the sky when the sun goes down. White, cloud-like wings were folded behind her shoulders, and her voice was sweeter than the song of birds; no wonder the strong chief loved her with a mad and instant love. He reached toward her, but the snowy wings lifted her above his sight, and he stood again alone upon the dome, where she had been. "No more Totokónula led in the chase or heeded the crops in the valley; he wandered here and there like a man distraught, ever seeking that wonderful, shining vision that had made all else on earth stale and unprofitable in his sight. The land began to languish, missing the industrious, directing hand that had tended it so long; the pleasant garden became a wilderness where the drought laid waste, and the wild beast spoiled what was left, and taught his cubs to divide the prey. When the fair spirit returned at last to visit her valley, she wept to see the desolation, and she knelt upon the dome, praying to the Great Spirit for succor. God heard, and, stooping from his place, he clove the dome upon which she stood, and the granite was riven beneath her feet, and the melted snows of the Nevada rushed through the gorge, bearing fertility upon their cool bosom. A beautiful lake was formed between the cloven walls of the mountain, and a river issued from it to feed the valley forever. Then sang the birds as of old, laving their bodies in the water, and the odor of flowers rose like a pleasant incense, and the trees put forth their buds, and the corn shot up to meet the sun and rustled when the breeze crept through the tall stalks. Tisayac moved away as she had come, and none knew whither she went; but the people called the dome by her name, as it is indeed known to this day. After her departure, the chief returned from his weary quest, and, as he heard that the winged one had visited the valley, the old madness crept up into his eyes and entered, seven times worse than at the first, into his empty soul; he turned his back on the lodges of his people. His last act was to cut with his hunting-knife the outline of his face upon a lofty rock, so that if he never returned his memorial at least should remain with them forever. He never did return from that hopeless search, but the graven rock was called Totokónula, after his name, and it may still be seen, three thousand feet high, guarding the entrance of the beautiful valley." Poetry, however, is by no means the only element in Indian mythology. Thick, black clouds, portentous of evil, hang threateningly over the savage during his entire life. Genii murmur in the flowing river, in the rustling branches of trees are heard the breathings of the gods, goblins dance in the vapory twilight, and demons howl in the darkness. All these beings are hostile to man, and must be propitiated by gifts, and prayers, and sacrifices; and the religious worship of some of the tribes includes practices which are frightful in their atrocity. Here, for example, is a rite of sorcery as practised among the Haidahs, one of the northern nations: "When the salmon-season is over, and the provisions of winter have been stored away, feasting and conjuring begin. The chiefwho seems to be principal sorcerer, and indeed to possess little authority save for his connection with the preterhuman powers-goes off to the loneliest and wildest retreat he knows of or can discover in the mountains or forest, and half starves himself there for some weeks, till he is worked up to a frenzy of religious insanity, and the nawloks-fearful beings of some kind not human consent to communicate with him by voices or otherwise. During all this observance the chief is called taamish, and woe to the unlucky Haidah who happens by chance so much as to look on him during its continuance! Even if the tramish do not in stantly slay the intruder, his neighbors are of its scars." ing in the great temple of Mexico alone. The most acceptable offering, however, to the Aztec divinities was human life, and without this no festival of any importance was complete. The number of human victims sacrificed annually in Mexico is not exactly known, but Zumarraga states that twenty thousand were sacrificed every year in the capital alone! That the number was very great we can readily believe when we read that from seventy to eighty thousand human beings were slaughtered at the inauguration of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, and a proportionately large number at other celebrations of the kind. "The multiplicity of tongues, even within comparatively narrow areas, rendered the adoption of some sort of universal language absolutely necessary. This international language in America is for the most part confined to gestures, and nowhere has gesture-language attained a higher degree of perfection than here; and, what is most remarkable, the same representations are employed from Alaska to Mexico, and even in South America. Thus each tribe has a certain gesture to indicate its name, which is understood by all others. A Flathead will make his tribe known by placing his hand upon his head; a Crow by imitating the flapping of the wings of a bird; a Nez Percé by pointing with his finger through his nose; and so on. Fire is generally indicated by blowing followed by a pretended warming of the hands; water, by a pretended scooping up and drinking; trade or exchange, by crossing the five fingers, a certain gestur● being fixed for every thing necessary to carry on a conversation. Besides this natural gesture-language, there is found in various parts an intertribal jargon composed of words chosen to fit emergencies, from the speech of the several neighboring nations; the words being altered, if necessary, in construction or pronunciation to suit all." The section devoted to language, though more valuable to the anthropologist, perhaps, than any that has gone before it, is rather dry reading, consisting for the most part of vocabularies and grammatical analyses. Mr. Bancroft maintains that the American languages, while analogous in some few particulars to othAmong the most interesting chapters in er families, constitute an entirely independent the volume are those in which Mr. Bancroft group, deserving to rank in importance with gives a detailed account of the old Mexican the Aryan and Semitic groups. While suffireligion-one of the most elaborate and com- ciently related, however, to be classed in one plex ecclesiastical systems that the records of family, there is an astonishing variety of difmankind have to show. Religion, indeed, was ferent languages and dialects; and this has the very basis of the Aztec state. The high-produced one of the distinctive peculiarities priest stood next in authority and honor to of the group: the king, and the king himself took no important step without first consulting the high-priests to learn whether the gods were favorable to the project. Some idea of the hold which their religion had gotten upon the life of the people may be gathered from the fact that the city of Mexico alone contained two thousand sacred edifices, and that the whole number throughout the empire was estimated at eighty thousand. Each temple had its complement of ministers to conduct and take part in the daily services, and of servants to attend to the cleansing, firing, and other menial offices. In the great temple at Mexico there were five thousand priests and attendants; the total number of the ecclesiastical host must therefore have been enormous. Clavigero places it at a million. The vast revenues needed for the support and repair of the temples, and for the maintenance of the immense army of priests that officiated in them, were derived from various sources. The greatest part was supplied from large tracts of land which were the property of the church, and were held by vassals under certain conditions, or worked by slaves. Besides this, taxes of wine and grain, especially first-fruits, were levied upon communities, and stored in granaries attached to the temples. The voluntary contributions, from a cake, feather, or robe, to slaves or priceless gems, given in performance of a vow, or at the numerous festivals, formed no unimportant item. Quantities of food were provided by the parents of the children attending the schools, and there were never wanting devout women eager to prepare it. In the kingdom of Tezcuco, thirty towns were required to provide firewood for the temples and palaces; in Meztitlan, every man gave four pieces of wood every five days. It is easy to believe that the supply of fuel must have been immense, when we consider that six hundred fires were kept continually blaz Another peculiarity of the American languages is the frequent occurrence of long words. The native of the New World expresses in a single word, accompanied perhaps by a grunt or a gesture, what a European would employ a whole sentence to elucidate. He crowds the greatest possible number of ideas into the most compact form possible-taking the ideas by their monosyllabic equivalents, and joining them in a single expression. An illustration of this peculiarity is found in the Aztec word for letter-postage, amatlacuilolitquitcatlaxtlahuilli, which, interpreted, literally signifies "The payment received for carrying a paper on which something is written." The Cherokees go yet further, and express a whole sentence in a single word,winitawtigeginaliskawlungtanawnelitisesti, which translated forms the sentence, "They will by that time have nearly finished granting favors from a distance to thee and me." Our notice, inadequate as it is, has already overrun the space which we had intended to occupy, and we may appropriately conclude it here with a quotation of the paragraph with which Mr. Bancroft concludes his book: "He who carefully examines the myths and languages of the aboriginal nations inhabiting the Pacific States, cannot fail to be impressed with the similarity between them and the beliefs and tongues of mankind elsewhere. Here is the same insatiate thirst to know the unknowable, here are the same audacious attempts to tear as under the veil, the same fashioning and peopling of worlds, laying out and circumscribing of celestial regions, and manufacturing and setting up, spiritually and materially, of creators, man and animal makers and rulers, everywhere manifest. Here is apparent what would seem to be the same inherent necessity for worship, for propitiation, for purification, or a cleansing from sin, for atonement and sacrifice, with all the symbols and paraphernalia of natural and artificial religion. In their speech the same grammatical constructions are seen with the usual variations in form and scope, in poverty and richness, which are found in nations, rude or uncultivated, everywhere. Little as we know of the beginning or end of things, we can but feel, as fresh facts are brought to light, and new comparisons made between the races and ages of the earth, that humanity, of whatsoever origin it may be or howsoever circumstanced, is formed on one model, and unfolds under the influence of one inspiration." MR. JOHN B. BACHELDER disclaims for his "Popular Resorts and how to reach Them" that it is a guide-book, preferring to have it called a "gazetteer of pleasure-travel;" and though the distinction is rather obscure, we are quite willing to give him the benefit of it. If we were criticising the work as a guidebook, we should say that it was incomplete and badly arranged, and that it gave indications of a decided bias on the part of its author in favor of certain localities and particular lines of travel; but perhaps such criticism does not apply to what is only a "gazetteer of pleasure-travel." The book contains a fairly good map, is profusely illustrated, and will very probably prove useful to any summer traveler in the New England or Middle States the popular resorts in other parts of the country receive but little attention. Before purchasing it, however, we would advise the reader to turn to the places which he proposes to visit and see what treatment is accorded them; for it is one of the peculiarities of the work that while some resorts are described fully and in detail, others, of apparently equal importance from the tourist's point of view, receive little more than a mention of their names. (John B. Bachelder, publisher, Boston.) 66 VOLUME XIV. of "Little Classics" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.) consists of Lyrical Poems, and the contents are: Tennyson's "Locksley Hall," Lotos-Eaters," and "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Welling. ton; " Bulwer-Lytton's "Good-Night in the | ity, are traits in many natures obviously in- In its notice of Tennyson's "Queen Mary," the Nation strikes upon one thought that we have not seen advanced elsewhere, and one that seems to us well worthy of attention: "It is plain that Tennyson has chosen his subject not merely because of its fitness for dramatic presentation, but because he felt that the lessons to be drawn from Queen Mary's reign needed to be pressed home upon the England of to-day. The subordination of English interests to the behests of Rome, the temper of the Roman Church, the quality of character fostered and developed by its teaching, the logical consequence of this teaching in the destruction of liberties and in fostering intolerance and persecution, were shown in Mary's brief reign of five years as in no other period of English history. In reading the signs of our times, it would not be surprising if Tennyson read with alarm signs of a renewal of Roman influence in English affairs, and of a revival of the authority of the Roman Church among the higher as well as the lower classes of the people. The conditions of culture and of opinion throughout Europe are such that the claims of the Roman Church, asserted as they have lately been with astonishing audacity, and pushed far enough to test the most elastic credulity, are admitted, with more or less intellectual reserve, by increasing numbers of men of weight in opinion and affairs. The Roman Church represents with a consistency to which no other church can lay claim the principle of authority in matters not merely of faith but of policy. The red-shirts of Paris, the skeptical philosophers of Germany, the modern school of scientific thinkers in Protestantism, are allies in driving a large set England, the feeble and confused sects of of men toward the gates if not within the walls and defenses of Rome. The love of mental repose and support, the desire to rest with absolute reliance upon a definite author In the last number of Fors Clavigera Ruskin favors his readers with another installment of his autobiographical confidences. He evidently does not recall his childhood with much pleasure, nor his parents, who " were good and careful, but adhered too rigidly to the strict line of duty." Of his early training he says: 66 My mother never gave me more to learn than she knew I could easily get learned, if I set myself honestly to work, by twelve o'clock. She never allowed any thing to disturb me when my task was set; if it was not said rightly by twelve o'clock, I was kept in till I knew it, and in general, even when Latin grammar came to supplement the Psalms, I was my own master for at least an hour before dinner at half-past one, and for the rest of the afternoon. My mother, herself finding her chief personal pleasure in her flowers, was often planting or pruning beside me—at least, if I chose to stay beside her. I never thought of doing any thing behind her back which I would not have done before her face; and her presence was therefore no restraint to me; but also no particular pleasure; for, from having always been left so much alone, I had generally my own little affairs to see after; and, on the whole, by the time I was seven years old, was already getting too independent, mentally, even of my father and mother; and, having nobody else to be dependent upon, began to lead a very small, perky, contented, conceited, Cock-Robinson-Crusoe sort of life, in the central point which it appeared to me (as it must naturally appear to geometrical animals) that I occupied in the universe." FEW books of recent times have received such hearty and universal praise as Green's "Short History of the English People." Even Blackwood surrenders to it, and says that it is reduced to "the humiliation of being obliged to confess that we don't know how to express ourselves about this history in ordinary words. It is simply the ideal history which we have been looking for since ever we knew what history was-the simple, straightforward, rapid narrative, clear and strong and uninterrupted as a vigorous river, carrying you on with it in an interest too genuine and real to leave you any time to think of style-yet with a style which is perfectly adapted to the purpose, neither florid nor rigid, neither ornamental nor austere, but, far better than either, unconscious, like the voice of a man who has so much to say that he entirely forgets how he is saying it a grand condition of natural elo quence. To quote the book, unless we could quote it all, and cram it in still smaller print than the original, into the apron of Maga, would be futile; and, indeed, we are afraid even to open it, lest the same disastrous result should ensue as before, and nothing be heard of us till to-morrow." . . . It is said that Edmund Clarence Stedman has so enlarged the scope of his forthcoming work on the "Victorian Poets," that it will be a complete guidebook to the entire range of British poetry during the present reign. . . . Another contribution to the history of the war by actors in it is announced. This time it is General Hood, who intends to give an accurate and circumstantial account of his operations around Atlanta and his subsequent campaign in Tennessee.... Dr. Bessels has nearly finished the official report of the ill-fated Polaris Expedition. It will fill three large volumes of about four hundred pages each, and the first is already in the printer's hands. . . . Tennyson's "Queen Mary" is said to be selling poorly in England, lying on the book-stalls uncut and unsought for by buyers; in this country, however, the sale has been and is very active, it having been several times out of print since the day of its publication. . . . The late Lord Lytton left a large quantity of MSS. which will serve as notes for a biographical memoir. The present Lord Lytton is editing and preparing them for the press. . . A collection of poems, bearing the title of "Dolores; and Other Rhymes of the South," and a novel from the pen of Annie Chambers Ketchum, of Dunrobin, Tennessee, anthoress of "Nelly Bracken" and the translation of "Marcella: a Russian Idyl" (published in this JOURNAL a few months since), will be published shortly, in London and Boston simultaneously. The Arts. the new architecture of this section of the United States, no feature is more interesting than that of towers and spires. The New York churches built within the past twenty years have exhibited very great improvements in this particular. The old Gothic form-square, with battlemented top, and the spire simple in its sharp point- has always been a prominent feature of our churches in towns and cities, as well as in the white villages where the meeting-house formed the central figure in the group of buildings on the hill-side or along the wooded stream. But time, which has introduced a knowledge and practice of Italian, French, and Oriental architecture, has brought numerous changes; and now, besides these simple and primitive forms, our public buildings and churches are furnished with many varieties of towers, some of which are of great elaboration. On Fifth Avenue beyond Fourteenth Street, at several intersections of the streets with the avenue, the eye is caught by the number of domes, spires, and towers, that cluster within short spaces. One of the finest of these is the brown spire of St. Thomas's Church, very lofty, and built in a succession of compartments, each smaller than the one below it—a series of lessening towers that end finally in a spire, and surrounded by flying buttresses and lesser projections much more elaborate than appear on the smaller churches of England, and nearly as fine as any except class of architectural forms by themselves, and appropriate to the service they will render, but a new kind of shape and of decoration is fit for secular purposes, and those our architects seem to appreciate and to be hastening to improve. those of the cathedrals. The same glance | Brussels. Spires and bell-towers constitute a While these and many similar changes of the waters on the right. And above these Until recently high spires and towers OWING to a recent resolution of the council of the National Academy of Design, which postpones the fall opening of their Free Schools of Design from October until December, and dispenses with the services of an art professor as head-master, the students of the institution have formed an association under the name of "The Art-Students' League," and have secured rooms at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Sixteenth Street for meeting and class purposes. They have secured the services of Professor Wilmarth, who has been several years in charge of the Academy schools, and raised them to a high state of efficiency, and will organize classes for the study of the nude and draped model, of composition and perspective, on the 15th of September. The members of the League, in their circular letter, say: "It is intended to place the advantages of this society within the reach of all who are thoroughly earnest in their work, both ladies and gentlemen; the question of dues will, therefore, be managed as economically as is possible under the circumstances. "All art-students whose characters are approved of are eligible for membership, and as it is considered desirable to strengthen the socicty as much as possible at present, all persons' receiving this circular are cordially invited to correspond with the secretary of the society with the view of becoming members." This action on the part of the students indicates that the council of the Academy have resolved to return to the old system of teaching under their own supervision, and that the reform movement which culminated in the election of Mr. Page as president of the institution, some three years ago, and had for its main purpose the higher development of the Academy schools, has been overthrown. The Academy made an appeal to the cultured classes in New York last winter for aid to extend the usefulness of its schools, but, if we may judge from the recent resolution of the council, the appeal was a failure, or, in any event, this action will tend to render it so. MR. SARONY, who combines the genius and education of an artist with his chosen profession of photographer, has recently finished a large-sized crayon-drawing of the courtship scenes in Shakespeare's play of "Henry V.," between Harry of England, as he was popularly called, and the Princess Katberine of France. The couple are represented standing in a mediæval apartment, with the light from a richly-ornamented window falling upon their persons. The figures are cleverly grouped, and their grace of attitude is very striking. The prince has thrown his arm around the princess, and she, in turn, rests her head upon his breast. The draperies, particularly the long, flowing robe of the princess, are drawn with much taste, and, although done in black and white, have all |