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moved by sympathy for fellow-beings, can never be insensible to an art that appeals to their natural tastes and sentiments. All, therefore, that is open and true in painting can be appreciated by the average mind. But this average taste does not know all the technical deficiencies or the technical excellences of a picture. It may not be able to judge fully of its composition, of its treatment of parts, of its tone, of a hundred things that the expert can point out and descant upon. But this is common to every art, to every handicraft even. It is not to be assumed that men cannot tell good pictures from bad, or are wholly insensible to excellence in the arts, because they are not learned in its academic laws. A man may be a very fair judge of a poem without knowing any thing about the rules of versification; he may have a sound opinion of a drama or a melody, without special training in musical composition or in the art of the playwright. It would seem as if the critics were continually exacting from the public, in regard to painting, an erudition which no other art requires ; and because these critics become enamored of one man's erratic performances, another man's eccentric vagaries, in which there is probably often more or less of genuine talent turned awry into crooked pathsbecause the public does not possess this artificial taste for strangely-flavored dishes, it is assumed that it has no ability to understand art at all. Amateurs and connoisseurs are prone in every art to exalt technical skill above the soul or the sentiment of the performance-to find their pleasure in the skill with which difficulties are overcome rather than in the success of the essential story, with which alone the average taste is concerned. True art is catholic. It deals with large, open truths; it has no mysteries, nor vagaries, nor dillettant notions, nor petty scholacisms, nor pedantic exclusiveness; its function is to reach and charm the great heart of humanity either by some form of beauty or story of human passion; and hence how preposterous it is to assume that this great force is something incomprehensible to all save those who have studied pigments and measured proportions!

IN the article entitled "The Strangest Things in Life," printed in this week's JOURNAL, Mr. Fairfield makes a few fresh contributions to the literature of the mysterious.

The remarkable statements in this paper are not given in support of the doctrine of spiritualism. It is probably known that Mr. Fairfield has recently advanced a theory in explanation of the alleged phenomena of spiritualism. This publication has naturally brought to his hands a good many curious statements from persons interested in the study of the subject, and these narratives are given to the public in the present paper. For our part, we must confess to considera

ble distrust of the accuracy of all the marvelous stories in regard to what are called spiritualism and clairvoyance now so numer

ous.

We are aware how well many of these narratives are supported by the testimony of intelligent people, but it has also been shown how often really capable persons have been deceived. The remarkable fact is, that these marvels fall for the most part solely within the experience of believers, and disappear when confronted with downright skepticism. Mr. Lecky, in his "History of Rationalism," tells us that the phenomena of witchcraft continued just so long as a wide-spre faith in them existed, and ceased when a general skepticism of their truth began to take possession of the popular mind. He asserts that the phenomena never were and have not been to this day disproved; that all the evidence goes to support their authenticity; that the people eventually ceased to believe in them not because any facts were elicited or any revelation made calculated to throw doubt upon them, but simply because a disbelief, based not on evidence but on rationalistic reasoning, gradually took possession of the public mind. It would be well if some philosopher, prompted by the current mysteries, should make a searching study of the natural credulity of man- - of the deeply grounded tendency of many people to rest upon and believe in the marvelous. These persons believe in the mysterious because the whole tenor of their mental organization is in that direction. They either do not know how to investigate phenomena or are indisposed to do so. They like to believe. They have no sympathy with doubters. They are thrilled and captivated by every thing of a mystic character, and eagerly surrender their whole natures to its influence. People of this tendency of mind are simply incapable of analyzing phenomena like those of spiritualism. No man of a thoroughly skeptical mind, we may be assured, would have been deceived by the recent Katie King frauds. He might have been unable to detect the trick, but his inability to discover the cause of the manifestations would never for a moment have led him into the tremendous blunder of accepting them for what they were alleged to be. His rationalism would have asserted the impossibility of their truth, regardless of all the plausible circumstances under which they were exhibited. The skeptical person disbelieves in despite of what he sees, because he feels assured that somewhere, by some means, there is to be found an adequate explanation of the marvel before him; the unskeptical person believes in despite of his reason, or rather seduces his reason from its path by the force of his imagination, and believes because he is quite willing to accept the most superficial testimony as trustworthy. In all ages and with all people the marvelous has abounded when the spirit of credulity has prevailed; and at all times

the marvelous has fled before the spirit of incredulity. For this reason the reader may derive entertainment from the strange narratives in Mr. Fairfield's paper, but it would be wise for him to keep his faith in them in reserve, simply classifying them among the unexplained.

A NOTEWORTHY social change has been taking place in England within the past quarter of a century. It is illustrated in one way in the region of art. Formerly the patronage of art, not only of painting and sculpture, but of all ornamental and antique objects, was pretty much confined to the nobility, and the indefinite class just below the nobility sweepingly designated in England as "gentlemen." The class of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, men of trade, while rivaling the aristocracy in wealth, did not compete with them to any great degree in the aesthetic elegancies, though no doubt they did in the material luxuries of life. The great manufacturer of Birmingham or Bolton aspired to become a landed proprietor, and was quick to purchase the hoary castles and vast acres of bankrupt lords; he was fain, too, to have his imposing mansion in town, his stud of horses, and his game-preserves. But as yet he rather spent money on downright, palpable luxuries; the refinement of artistic rarity and ornamentation did not appeal to his uncultivated ambition. In these days it is evident that the rich men of trade have learned the value of such things. There is a rage in England for antique articles. Old plate, old clocks, finely-carved old furniture, venerable salvers, beakers, and punch-bowls, historic Sèvres, relics of the elegance of extinct royalty, are eagerly sought for, and bring great prices. It is found that in the competition both for antique articles of vertu, for the most fashionable paintings, and the most conspicuous sculptural works, the class of manufacturers and merchants is eager, and often bears away the choicest specimens. The houses of this class are beginning to be as tastefully and artistically, as well as luxuriously, adorned as are the houses of the Grosvenors and Egertons of old descent. There is a decadence of the somewhat vulgar ostentation of former days; the presence of far more refinement and culture. Thus there has been a leveling up in matters of taste; and herein may be found one of the reasons why art in England is so much more prosperous and flourishing than it was even in the days of Turner and Sir Thomas Lawrence, since the wealth of another great and important class is now seeking its prod

ucts.

WHAT Worn college graduate, world-tired, does not feel something of the old, fresh, youthful spirit come over him, when reminded that "commencement season" has come? How vividly the festival brings to the mind

Nothing could more clearly illustrate the ex-
ceeding ignorance which prevails in some
parts of rural France than this incident.
We once heard of an American being arrest-
ed in Brittany by a too-zealous official, who
refused to believe he was an American, sim-
ply on the ground that he was white; the of-
ficial was very positive that all Americans
were negroes. The ability to read English is
a quite unknown science in many of those
parts, nor could any thing less than a peremp-
tory order from the prefect secure our unfor-
tunate countryman's release.

MR

Literary.

E. C. GARDNER'S very decided literary talent, though it renders his books entertaining, and sugars the pill of instruction which it is his main object to administer, is not altogether an advantage to his work. It constantly leads him off into digressions which are often the merest vaga.

the subject under discussion; it incessantly

of the alumnus, even of ten or twelve years,
how far away he has strayed from the sensa-
tions, influences, ay, and the ambitions of
his college-days! It is given to very few to
shape their own destinies; yet most college
seniors, when they have put aside their last
examination-paper, and made their last "ora-
tion," have already laid out a scheme of life,
and it never occurs to them to doubt that it
is the reflection of a certain future. It is
often said that a college is "a little world in
itself;" and truly enough it has resem-
blances to the greater world, such as its
struggles, its ambitions, its gains and losses,
and its schooling to manliness and self-de-
pendence and self-assertion not a little severe
and stringent. Yet many a student has been
deluded to ruin, or at least to failure, by too
completely mistaking the college-world for a
lesser counterpart and epitome of that where-
in lies his life-work; nor are the effects of such
a delusion always the same or similar. One,
fushed with the ready triumphs of the soci-
ety and the class-room, flattered by conceded.ries, having the slightest possible relevance to
leadership, exalted by praises of professors
and college-mates, rates his future success at
too low a standard of effort; he thinks he
will win as easily at the bar or in commercial
pursuits as in class-meeting and on the exhi-
bition platform; and, when he gets into the
downright, serious hurly-burly, is amazed, and
inconceivably disappointed to find greater
powers rising hopelessly above him. Anoth-
er, working till brain is overtaxed, and ill
health is invited, in order to achieve college
success, goes forth to plunge desperately
into exhausting labors, plodding with shaken
nerves far into the nights, comfortlessly and
anxiously seeking fortune, and preying ruth-
lessly upon the faculties which alone can ren-
der fortune enjoyable when attained. Few
and wise are those who learn to advance with
deliberation, and vigor, and patience upon
the path of life; eschewing neither lusty la-
bor nor manly recreation, each in its proper
time and place; remembering that "every
thing comes in time to him who waits." One
cannot but envy the cheery spirit of those
youths who are having their last college mer-
rymakings in these lovely summer months;
that spirit is an excellent commodity to begin

the world with.

THE woes of travelers on the Continent are not all imaginary, as an English party can testify who were recently arrested as "Prussian spies," far down in the depths of Brittany. The mayor of the village demanded their passports; and, on being told that passports were long ago abolished, doggedly refused to believe it, and had them taken off in a cart to the capital of the department. The wonder is that this worthy mayor, who, by-the-way, wore a blue blouse, and was fresh from the field, had ever heard of Prussian spies, such personages being much more modern than the abolition of passports.

distracts his own and the reader's attention
from the matter properly before them; and
the somewhat truculent vivacity, which is its
chief characteristic, becomes a trifle tedious
when indulged too liberally. His latest book,
"Illustrated Homes," is an example of all
this. Its plan is excellent, and it contains
much that is really instructive and useful;
but it has been almost spoiled by the ex-
tent to which the literary feature of the work
is permitted to dominate and overshadow
every thing else. Mr. Gardner's intention,
as explained in a sort of prefatory post-
script, was to take a dozen or more actual
houses which he had helped to build, each
one typical of a certain class or condition,
and by giving the plans and a brief account
of each one, and using it as the text of such
architectural discussion as seemed appro-
priate, to make the book helpful to all who
propose to build themselves homes. The
plans were to be accompanied with specifi-
cations and estimates, general certainly, but
sufficiently minute to indicate the finish and
approximate cost of each house. The bring-
ing in of the people for whom the houses
were built was, of course, a subordinate part
of the plan, and could only be done legiti-
mately in order to give reality and, so to say,

individuality to the different homes; yet,
from the very beginning, these people (about
whom the reader cares nothing) receive more
attention than the houses (about which the
reader probably cares a great deal); while
toward the latter part of the book the plans
are relegated to an entirely insignificant
place, and specifications and estimates are
entirely omitted. No mention is made even
of the material of which several of the most

attractive houses were built or of their cost-
the very points which, to us at least, seem
of most importance. Now, Mr. Gardner is a
keen observer and a humorist withal, and his

*Illustrated Homes: A Series of Papers describing Real Houses and Real People. By E. C. Gardner. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

sketches of character furnish very amusing reading; our criticism is directed simply to the fact that he has greatly injured by his manner of executing it a plan which, in its original conception, was admirable.

One other point, and we will have done with fault-finding. Mr. Gardner's main dogma, if we may apply such a term to teaching which is singularly free from dogmatism, is that a house is designed primarily for use, and that every house, therefore, should, in its arrangement, size, finish, etc., represent the needs of the particular person or family for whom it is built. The one customer that he cannot endure is the person whose notions of what he wants are based on an ideal conception of beauty, on what is "stylish," or on what somebody else has. In season and out of season he urges the principle that a house should be the expression of individual wants and individual tastes. Now, this is wholesome doctrine, doubtless, but it is somewhat odd that Mr. Gardner should be so evidently disposed to limit its application to details of interior arrangement. He is so afraid that the primary idea of use will be subordinated to a desire for show, that he persistently discourages all discussion of the exterior appearance of the house, and finally says, plumply, that if a man "is wise he will leave questions of outside effect to the architect." No doubt it would be better for the average man, when he comes to build, if he should simply show a competent architect his plot of ground, tell him the size of his family and the extent of his means, and leave all questions, both of outside effect and of inside arrangement, to the architect's own jndg ment. But, if he is to be taught that it is scarcely less than degrading to leave the number, size, and arrangement of the rooms to any one else, even an architect, why is his obligation to consult his individual preferences not coextensive with the house itself, in all its parts? In point of fact, a house is not built merely for use. Its outside, especially, is more conspicuous and more looked at than any thing in its owner's possession, and if it be known that it was built for or under the direction of the owner, it is inevitably regarded as a more or less accurate expression of his ideas of architectural beauty; his taste is judged by it. Moreover, Mr. Gardner's own plans show that by slight fect in the remotest degree the convenience of changes and transpositions, which do not afthe inner arrangements, the whole appearance of the exterior can be changed, and that rendered picturesque and pleasing which otherwise would have been utterly without expression. We think, indeed, that it would be very easy to maintain the exact converse of Mr. Gardner's proposition, and to give plausible reasons why a man should select the general style and effects which he desired in his house, and (with certain reservations, of course, as to number and size of rooms) leave the details of the interior entirely to his architect.

With these qualifications, "Illustrated Homes can be heartily recommended. It inculcates sound principles of architecture and taste; proves, by examples, that picturesque, convenient, and durable houses can be built with very moderate sums of money, and

that cheapness and ugliness do not necessarily go hand in hand; and points out with great distinctness the difference between a "house" and a "home." There are very few Americans who would not build more intelligently after giving it a perusal.

THE interest in the Bunker Hill centennial finds appropriate expression in literature as well as in orations, pageants, fireworks, and the like, and we find several pamphlets bearing upon the famous event on our table. Osgood's "Bunker Hill Memorial" is the best of these. Its leading feature is a poem of thirty-seven stanzas, by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, "written expressly for this memorial," and giving a grandmother's story of the battle as she saw it from the belfry. The poem is written in the swinging rhythm of the old ballad measure, is spirited and vigorous, and illustrates very forcibly the patriotic enthusiasm of the colonists, which was shared even by the women and children, and the trepidation of the citizens who, for the first time, looked upon the bloody scenes of war. The poem is accompanied throughout with marginal illustrations, and is followed by an account of the battle in prose, by James M. Bugbee. This latter is also illustrated, and is the best brief narrative of the battle with which we are acquainted.

"the

Another and rather curious memorial is "Bunker Hill: The Story told in Letters from the Battle-field by British Officers engaged; with an Introduction and Sketch of the Battle by Samuel Adams Drake" (Boston: Nichols & Hall). The materials of which the book is composed have, as Mr. Drake explains, "hitherto slumbered in the archives of British regiments engaged on the field of Bunker Hill," having escaped heretofore the research of historians of the battle. Inasmuch as the British officers, without exception, claim a brilliant victory over provincials," their letters are hardly calculated to add to the enthusiasm of centennial time, but the patriotic fire of Mr. Drake's description of the battle readjusts the balance, and enables us to accept them with good grace as additional materials for the historian. The volume is embellished with a heliotype reproduction of a very rare English print, published in London in 1781, and giving a spirited view of the actual battle.-The description of the battle to be found in Mr. Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston" (Little, Brown & Co.) remains the most complete yet written.

After the preceding was written, we received another contribution to the literature of the subject, by Mr. Drake, "General Israel Putnam, the Commander at Bunker Hill." This is not a biography of General Putnam, as its title would seem to imply, but a controversial pamphlet on the quæstio vexata as to who commanded in chief at Bunker Hill. It is an able and exhaustive analysis of all the known facts bearing upon the matter, and Mr. Drake evidently convinces himself fully; but of actual evidence there is very little, and the argument is scarcely more than an elaboration of the proposition that, because Putnam was a general and Prescott only a colonel, the former must have com

manded when the two were present on the same field. The question has always seemed to us of the slightest importance, since it was the fighting of the men and not the generalship of the leaders that rendered the battle famous; and, as General Sherman said in his speech at the centennial, "after Prescott has received all the glory, there is enough left for General Putnam, too."

66

Ir is difficult to find a term exactly descriptive of Miss Lucy Larcom's "Idyl of Work" (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.). To call it a "novel in verse" would be more accurate than its present title, and a tract in verse" would be truer still; but it is too slight for a novel, even though its lack of plot and incident is disguised under the forms of poetry, and it is too good (or perhaps we should say not "goody" enough) for a tract. An idyl of work it certainly is not, for, with a most idealistic definition of work, Miss Larcom finds herself compelled, in order to secure even the semblance of the idyllic, to ignore entirely the routine of daily labor, and carry her characters off to scenes and circumstances about as foreign to the experience of factory-girls as a jaunt up the Nile would be to laborers in a coal-mine. Thirty years ago the work in the Lowell mills was done almost entirely by young girls from various parts of New England, many of whom had comfortable homes, yet chose this method of winning for themselves a degree of pecuniary independence; and it is no wonder that Miss Larcom, recalling the memory of those days when magazines, of some literary merit, in which she herself made her first attempts at authorship, were both written and edited by the mill-girls, should throw over them the glamour of romance, and fancy that she sees in them ideal conditions of work. But all the same, as she confesses in her preface, the routine of such a life is essentially prosaic; and, though workers may find idyllic experiences during a summer-vacation among the mountains, work itself catches nothing of poetry therefrom.

It is plain, however, that the book was written with the object of proving by illustration that even the most exhaustive and monotonous labor cannot of itself deprive one of all opportunity for high mental culture and noble living, and also to protest against the tendency of the change which has come over the conditions and character of milllabor since the period indicated. The increasing degradation of certain forms of labor, the rapidly-widening rift between the interests of employer and employed, fill her with alarm, and she sees in them forerunners of national decay:

"Like the sea Must the work-populations ebb and flow, So only fresh with healthful New-World life. If high rewards no longer stimulate toil, And mill-folk settle to a stagnant class, As in old civilizations, then farewell To the Republic's hope! What differ we From other feudalisms? Like ocean-waves, Work-populations change. No rich, no poor, No learned, and no ignorant class or caste The true republic tolerates; interfused, Like the sea's salt, the life of each through all."

Of course the story in such a book is entirely subordinate, being of no use, in fact,

except as a thread to hang the didactic portions on; and no one of the characters has more than the faintest shadow of personality. It is the descriptive parts, together with the lyrics with which the narrative is frequently interspersed, that redeem the work, and render it enjoyable to the reader. Miss Larcom has written no poems more graceful, tender, and finished, than three or four of those scattered through the present volume, and her enthusiasm for natural scenery, and her skill in painting it, throw a genuine charm around the entire episode of the summer-vacation. The following song of the mill-children at their play would compensate the reader for whole pages of duller didactic poetry than Miss Larcom inflicts upon us in her most serious mood:

"Will the fairy-folk come back,
Such as haunt old stories,

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Sliding down the moonbeam's track
Hid in morning-glories?

Air is warp, and sun is weft;
Is a rainbow-spinner left?

No; not one. They never will!
Streams they loved are busy
Turning spindles in the mill;

Turning mill-folk dizzy.
Toil is warp, and money weft;
Not a fairy-loom is left.
"Noise has frightened them away

From their greenwood places;
Never would they spend a day
Among care-worn faces.
Gather up the warp and weft:
See if any thing is left!
"Merry days go dancing by;

Hard work comes, and tarries.
Why, for that, wind sigh through sigh?
Children, we'll be fairies!

Life is warp, and love is weft;

Children's hearts and hands are left."

In justification of what we have said in praise of the descriptive poetry, we quote the following sonnet:

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Ir we may venture such a suggestion concerning one who is possessed of so genuine a literary faculty, we should say that Mr. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen's new story, "A Norseman's Pilgrimage" (New York: Sheldon & Co.), was written mainly to prove how thoroughly Americanized the author has become, and how completely he has mastered the details of American habits and character. The hero of the story is a Norseman, it is true, but a Norseman so Americanized that he feels like a stranger when he returns to his own people. The heroine is evidently intended to be a typical American woman; and,

though the scene is laid chiefly in Germany and Norway, most of the leading characters are Americans. Last, but not least, if we Lave correctly divined the author's purpose, the conversation partakes largely of that picturesque vigor, not to call it slang, which is supposed to be characteristic of our national dialect; and it is only fair to say that Mr. Boyesen has mastered this dialect perfectly, using certain local peculiarities of speech with the dexterity and precision of a native.

Viewing the book from this point, and keeping in mind the fact that the author is Lot only writing in a foreign tongue, but dealing with phases of character the very antipodes of what he was familiar with in his own country, it may be pronounced a decided success. Compare Ruth with Eva in Mr. Howells's "A Foregone Conclusion," and her deficiency in those finer distinctive traits which typify American womanhood at its best s apparent; but nevertheless she is a very pleasing person, and American women at least will overlook all the minor defects of an author who writes of one of them with an enthusiasm like the following:

"By some chance Thora Haraldson (a Norwegian girl between whom and Olaf a marrage had long been projected by their respective families) had come to occupy the seat next Bath in the stern of one of the boats. Olaf at upon a cross-bench opposite, dividing his attention between the landscape and the company. As his eyes fell upon the fair group hafore him, the picturesque contrast between the two struck his artistic fancy, and presenty he found himself critically comparing them and trying to account for their points of difference. How frail and almost insignificant oked this slender, blue-eyed Alpine maiden by the side of that tall, brilliant, and magnifiSent beauty. And somehow she seemed to be conscious of her own insignificance, for she looked with large, innocent eyes up into Ruth's face, and an expression of childlike wonder was visible in her features. 'Ab,' philosophized Olaf, 'it is the problem of my ite which stands embodied before me. The one is the peaceful, simple life of the north, with its small aims and cares, its domestic virtues, and its calm, idyllic beauty. Love to her means duty, a gentle submissiveness, and the attachment held by habit and mutual esteem. But in the other's bosom lives a world of slumbering tumult, a host of glorious possibilities, which, though still shrunken in the bad, will one day, when touched by the waketing warmth of love, develop all the emotional wealth and grandeur of perfect womanGood. She is the flower of a larger and intenser civilization, and all the burning pulses of life which animate this great century, unknown to herself, throb in her being. And it is my own future which I love in her. I too shall become a larger and a more perfect man for what I give and what I receive in the Eystery of such a love.""

"A Norseman's Pilgrimage" is very live. ly and pleasant reading, and will provide its athor with the most conclusive of naturalzation papers; but somehow it lacks the flavor and the charm of "Gunnar."

THE "American Annual Cyclopædia," for 1974, is now ready in a portly volume of eight hundred and thirty-one pages (New

York: D. Appleton & Co.). The character
and the merits of this annual are too well
understood to call for any extended notice,
and it is enough, perhaps, to say that the
present volume presents the usual features
and rather more than the usual amount of
information, covering all the important events
of the year 1874, and the additions which
were made during the same period to the va-
rious departments of knowledge. The larger
portion of the space, of course, is assigned
to American affairs and American interests,
and besides the President's messages, de-
bates in Congress, and sundry public docu-
ments, the reader will find here a succinct
but comprehensive account of the exciting
events which occurred in the Southern

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not merely the gratification of a taste for antiquities,” says Mr. William Cullen Bryant, to whom the book is dedicated, and who writes a brief introductory note, "that is consulted in this work; it is scarcely less than an act of filial piety to preserve in this manner as much as we may of the early aspect of a spot inhabited by those who have left us the inheritance of this fair town, so nobly situated and prepared for our abode, together with the inestimable legacy of our public liberties and the many useful institutions organized for the general benefit." Mrs. Greatorex has been occupied for the greater part of six years in the preparation of her draw ings, and so rapid and so ruthless is the advance of "modern improvement," that many of the originals from which they were taken have already disappeared, rendering it certain that no later memento will ever be secured.

Mrs. Greatorex is already favorably known as an etcher by her Colorado sketches. The pictures in "Old New York" are of a similar character; they are marked by a free and touchy style rather better calculated to please the art-student than the general pub lic, perhaps, but a certain picturesqe effect is secured which will give them a great charm to many persons. The subjects of the drawings are, "The Battery from No. 1 Broadway," containing a view of Castle Garden through the trees, and of the harbor be

States during the year. "The details of
affairs in the United States," to quote from
the Preface, "embrace the finances of the
Federal Government; the operation and re-
sults of its system of revenue and taxation;
the banking system; the financial and in-
dustrial experience of the country; its com-
merce, manufactures, and general prosper-
ity; the finances of the States; their debts
and resources; the various political conven-
tions assembled during the year—with their
nominations and platforms; the results of
elections; the movements to secure cheap
transportation from West to East; the action
of Congress on the subject, and the debates
and action on civil rights and national
finances, specie payments, and other impor-yond; "The Carey-Ludlow House," as seen
tant public questions; the proceedings of
State Legislatures; the progress of educa-
tional, reformatory, and charitable institu-
tions; the extension of railroads and tele-
graphs, and all those matters which are in-
volved in the rapid improvement of the coun-
try." Every other country of the civilized
world is noticed, so far at least as to record
whatever of public interest has transpired
in it; and the international relations be-
tween our own and other governments are
illustrated by quotations from diplomatic
correspondence. A record of the advance
made during the year in the various branches
of science, a narrative of geographical dis-
coveries in different parts of the world, a
critical and analytical sketch of literature
and literary progress in the United States,
and in each of the countries of Europe, re-
ligious statistics, and numerous biographical
sketches of living and dead celebrities, make
up the remaining contents of the volume.

A number of excellent woodcuts and maps take the place of the steel portraits which have illustrated previous issues.

WHATEVER America can show in the way of antiquities is likely to attract a peculiar degree of interest during the next few years, and Mrs. Eliza Greatorex will doubtless secure an unusually warm and appreciative reception for her "Old New York from the Battery to Bloomingdale," the first part of which has just been published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. The work when complete will contain fifty etchings of "the buildings of New York made venerable by historic and romantic associations," and ten reproductions, one in each part, of old and rare etchings of scenes in the city and vicinity. "It is

from the Battery; "No. 1 Broadway," a famous old house, now the oldest in New York, which served as the headquarters of Sir Henry Clinton in the Revolutionary days, and which has other claims to attention; "Saint Paul's Church," too well known to require further mention; and “The Old Jersey Ferry-House," at the corner of Greenwich and Cedar Streets, which was torn down last spring. The reproduction is from an etching entitled "New York from Hobuck (Hoboken)," by the old painter Archibald Robertson, who made the sketch in 1796.

The descriptive text by M. Despard is not first rate, but it contains all that is needed in the way of information, and plenty of personal gossip and social reminiscence besides. The printing, paper, etc., are excellent.

PHILANTHROPY finds a novel expression in Mr. M. F. Sweetser's little guide-book, "Europe for $2.00 a Day," written without hope of profit and published at rather less than the cost of paper and printing, with the simple desire, as the author says, to "lend a hand" to young Americans who wish to make the European tour, but whose pecuniary resources are limited. The book is the result, and to some extent the record, of personal experience; for Mr. Sweetser himself made a tour, including the greater part of Europe, Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land, and lasting twenty months, for fifteen hundred dollars, of which three hundred dollars were spent for pictures and other souvenirs. The suggestions which it contains are comprehensive and eminently practical; and we judge that Mr. Sweetser has really shown "how a gentleman can make the European

tour very economically, yet without encountering absolute hardship, or demeaning himself by assuming the garb and customs of the peasant." Whether any one less enthusiastic and determined than himself can apply the knowledge, is another question. (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.)

Or the late John Stuart Mill the Academy says: "History affords scarcely another example of a philosopher so ready to review his positions, to abandon them if untenable, and to take lessons from his own disciples, as the discussion, for instance, of Mr. Thornton's

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book on 'Labor' shows Mr. Mill to have been." WHIL

The Arts.

gradual change for the better in the architecture of the smaller places. Within the last ten years, probably nowhere, in proportion to its size, have there been so many interesting new edifices built as in the little city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As we have before had occasion to remark in the JOURNAL, the peculiarities of fashion in buildings lend them a charm when the ideas that led to these peculiarities have passed by, and Elizabethan roofs, with their scalloped and pointed gable-ends, the gambrel roofs so frequently met with in the old towns of this country, and even the square farm-houses, with their big "stoops" overhung by elmtrees-each has a real charm and picturesque interest of its own, apart from any reference to the rules of pure taste; and these crystallized forms of old thought and old necessities appeal to us in a way different from any thing that is new, however fine the new thing may be.

HILE the public is kept pretty well informed through the press of the erec... Professor Max Müller recommends young tion of fine edifices in the large cities, commen before all things to study the original documents of the great literatures. "It is bet-paratively little attention is given to the ter," he says, "to read Homer than to read a dozen commentaries upon him." . . . The Spectator, after remarking that "justice must be done all the more rigorously on favorites," says "the truth is that Mr. Black has made a sad step backward" in his "Three Feathers."... Messrs. Cassell, the London publishers, have arranged with M. Gustave Doré to illustrate a complete edition of Shakespeare's works. Doré is to be paid fifty thousand dollars for his work. . . . Mr. Allingham, the successor of Mr. Froude in the editorship of Fraser, is said to be engaged in the work undertaken by that gentleman of putting Mr. Carlyle's manuscripts in order. . . . The correspondence of Mr. John Stuart Mill, which, as we stated in our last issue, will shortly be published, contains many letters more theological in tone than philosophical. It is generally rumored that the book will contain passages, especially on religious topics, which are far more uncompromising than the boldest in the "Autobiography," and that they will in any case throw considerable light on various developments of the beliefs entertained at successive periods by Mr. Mill. . . . Messrs. H. S. King & Co., the London publishers, are about to publish a series of "Introductory Hand-books," to study which may be, at the same time, useful to those who desire to have a general outline of the subjects treated therein. They will not be, in any sense, "cram" books, and are intended to be strictly what their name implies. The series will comprise introductions to the study of philosophy, music, art, English, classical, and foreign literature, history, ancient and modern, etc.

"Clever

people," says the Academy, "seldom write novels, they know the difficulties too well. People of genius, whose works deserve the most careful criticism, and people with a notion that they are great observers, and can tell a story well, have the field of fiction to themselves. With the works of the former class, which ranges from George Eliot to Mr. Black, the reviewer seldom meets; the productions of the latter are before him every week, the crude endeavors of young and old ladies, of gentlemen of leisure, these he gives his daily dreadful line to."" The Athenæum thinks

Ouida's" new novel dull. . . . The same paper speaks of Low's "English Catalogue of Books for 1874" as a work indispensable to reviewers, but an awful proof of the amount of misdirected energy that finds a vent in print. . . . The Saturday Review makes the following suggestion, which we recommend to novel-writers: "Our story-writers seldom do better than when they take some out-ofthe-way spot as the scene of their tale, and with the fortunes of their hero and heroine work up the every-day incidents of a life with which their readers are likely to be but little

which might be worn away, and takes the real brunt off the low walls, overlapped as they are by deep eaves. The large windows with granite facings, where the stone might otherwise be much exposed, prevent too much surface of this charmingly-colored material from coming into contact with the weather. This church is not of better shape than is often seen in buildings erected within a few years; but in this, and in several other new structures, that variety of material we have so much advocated in the pages of the JOURNAL has been employed, and with even better effect than our imagination had pictured; for, though the general aspect is somewhat sombre, the gray granite which is so disagreeable in combination with brick imparts to this bluish building a cool and perfectly harmonious appearance, which the woodbine and ivy that are already quite well grown serve to enhance.

Beyond the college-grounds and near the old Washington elm, another church occupies a pretty corner, and in this case also there is a pleasantness in the material which makes the person who has seen it once desire to see it again. This building, like the other, is a Gothic church, and more elaborate in form. Two or three cloistered passages break the surface of its walls. The stone of which it is constructed is one of the commonest sorts of conglomerate, popularly called pudding-stone, and is found in great quantities close at hand in Roxbury. Each block

of it is full of the finest colors. Buff's of every shade, to the deepest dyes of ironore that stain the rocky coast of Massachusetts, are variegated by pink and flesh color, and they marble with their complicated network an under-color of purple-gray. Examining the blocks of stone piece by piece it seemed impossible for us to decide which of them might be the more beautiful.

A few rods farther on, off at another corner of the same steet, are the Memorial Church and two other college-buildings of the Episcopal Theological School. This institution, which has been founded within a dozen years, has purchased a plot of ground of about a couple of acres around the latelybuilt St. John's Church. It would be diffi

In Cambridge, specimens of nearly every kind of building may be observed. The old college-buildings of red brick, plain and angular as the bricks themselves, without an external adornment, had, till a few years ago, when thrift destroyed the picturesque, tender tones of their old weather-beaten red walls, a great charm of color. The bricks were worn, and the sunshine flecked their unequal surfaces into broken lights and shadows. The natural color, which paint can seldom equal, had been broken down and streaked and faded by rain and weather till these old lodging-cult to find anywhere a group of three or houses of the students were nearly as pleasant to look at, and of as varied a hue, as the red and yellow and purple rocks that abound along the sea-coast of New England. But a few years ago a general renovation did away with all this, and solid Indian-red, called brick-color, replaced these slight pleasant tintings. But Nature is again doing its work, and "Old Massachusetts" and "Holden Chapel" are beginning to tone with the trees and the sky.

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As you come into Cambridge by the horse-cars, the first new building which meets the eye is a Gothic church, built of blocks of blue-and-yellow mottled slate-stone. This church covers a large area, and its numerous porches and gables are edged by granite, this latter stone also being built in horizontal lines to the top of the tall stone spire. The chief material used is rather soft, but the granite guards all portions that are exposed to the weather or the corners

four edifices more pleasant to look upon than these. Sitting low to the ground and surrounded by fine greens ward, the church, which stands on the corner, is a small, lowroofed, many-gabled building, full of picturesque niches and corners, a many-sided apsis, filled with stained glass, and with its facings and trimmings of Nova-Scotia stone, with here and there bits of dark color and fine carvings. The irregular-sized blocks of the Roxbury pudding-stone make a sunshine in a shady place with their warm tones; old English stained-glass windows with pointed tops break the surfaces of the light walls into sombre tones almost as deep as shadow.

A little on one side of the church, and surrounded by heavy, close-cropped turf that fills the entire inclosure, another gable-roofed building of the same material varies from the church in effect of color by being banded and ornamented with red, rich lines and decorations, while the oblique lines that sup

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