poet nevertheless chooses to restrict himself to a prearranged number. More over, as we saw a week or two ago, even the uneducated peasantry of Italy systematically keep to a recognized form in their simple rispetti and stornelli. Until, therefore, a more convenient form than the sonnet shall be invented for brief reflective poetry, or for the po LITERARY BACHELOR BLUFF HIS OPINIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DISPUTATIONS. By Oliver Bell Bunce. New York: D. Appleton & Co. This is one of those books which one takes up from a curiosity aroused by the title, reads straight through because of the entertainment afforded by the contents, and lays down at the end with a more than half-formed suspicion that there are things in it which will often recur to the memory in serious and meditative moments. In other words, it is a book which, while professedly aiming to amuse, and affording in fact a very rare and delightful kind of amusement, insinuates into the crevices of the receptive mind thoughts and sentiments that are sure to fructify and perpetuate themselves. Before describing the contents of the book, it may be well to explain that its author, Mr. O. B. Bunce, has been for several years past editor of Appletons' Journal; and that in the well-known Editor's Table," which has long been a distinctive feature of that periodical, many of the sentiments and opinions now ascribed to Bachelor Bluff" have found expression in one or another form. Pointing this out in a brief prefatory note, Mr. Bunce observes truly that, while “there are indisputably numerous old pieces, in the patchwork, the fresh combinations make the patterns almost new," and that with a very few exceptions etry of passion when passion has passed into the non-lyrical stage, there can be no doubt that the English sonnet will grow more and more into favor among poets themselves. But the difficulty is to make the sonnet a popular form; and to this end we cannot do better than recommend poets to study the sonnets of Miss Rossetti.-The Athenæum. NOTICES. expose sophistries, put shams to rout, and establish everything on a level basis of sane reason." Unfortunately, as his creator admits, he is a little deficient in humor; but his greatest fault is a determination always to do the greater part of the talking. "He is the worst listener at his club, or in any circle where he chances to be; but fortunately his listeners are generally good-natured, and gracefully permit him to ramble on, contenting themselves with stimulating his utterances by throwing in remarks whenever there is indication that the conversation will flag." This latter sentence defines with exactness the plan and structure of the book, which is for the most part a series of dialogues in which Bachelor Bluff does most of the talking, while his interlocutors only interpose sufficiently to "draw him out," or to start him off afresh on a new vein of argument and illustration. The dialogues cover a wide range of topics, and are conducted with a strict regard to the proprieties of time and place. Thus, in his bachelor apartments, Mr. Bluff discusses Domestic Bliss with Mr. Carriway (“ who had a weakness for sentiment") and Mr. Auger ("a grave doctor of laws"); in the library, he discusses with a Poet (Mr. Edgar Fawcett) the Theory of Poetry; at the club, he and a Dreamer define their respective Ideals of a House; in the drawing-room, he lectures Miranda on Feminine Tact and Intuitions; on the lawn, of a summer afternoon, he discusses Realism in Art with an Artist; in a country lane, to an impersonal Listener, he discourses of the Country and kindred themes; on the prome nade, with a lady, he utters a series of monologues on the Privileges of Women; in the library again, with a Critic, he discusses Modern Fiction; on the train, he exchanges Political Notions with an itinerant Politician; in the laboratory, he displays his quality as an Arithmetician by showing what is involved in the homoeopathic theory of Infinitesimal Doses; on a yacht, on a moonlit evening, he denounces Melancholy to Miranda and Oscar ; over wine and walnuts, he holds forth on Morals in Literature and Nudity in Art to Mr. Quiver (poet, novelist, essayist, translator of Baudelaire, and disciple of Swinburne); on the veranda, he discloses to Miranda his views on Dress; at the club, upon a summer evening, lingering over a claret-cup, he discusses Sundry Topics; and finally he reveals to the Chronicler his somewhat contradictory Experiences of Holidays. Which of these several chapters will be liked best will depend a good deal upon the individual reader's taste and predilections; but they all exhibit in a remarkable degree keenness of insight, breadth of observation, independence of mind, and a style which is at once vivacious and forcible. To our mind, however, their most distinctive characteristic is their dramatic power the author is always at his best in direct and rapid dialogue. For example, "Meditations in an Art Gallery" are not meditationshave no single attribute or quality of meditations—but take them as rejoinders to an imaginary and possibly dissentient interlocutor, and they are admirable. Judging his faculty by "Bachelor Bluff," we are inclined to suggest that Mr. Bunce should proceed at once to supply us with those bright comedies of character and society for which American literature and the American stage have been waiting so long. One of the opinions which Bachelor Bluff reiterates most frequently is that art and literature have no possible mission but to increase the pleasures and enhance the joyousness of life that they should redress the balance of sorrow and sadness that actual life may bring: and certainly, in his own work, the creator of Bachelor Bluff complies with this requirement. To read it gives one a more buoyant feeling, and a greater willingness to fix the attention upon the genial and attractive aspects of human life. OUR FAMILIAR SONGS AND THOSE WHO MADE THEM. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 44 46 66 44 9944 39 66 Into this generous and handsomely printed volume, Mrs. Johnson has gathered upward of three hundred of the standard songs of the English-speaking race, classifying them under such heads as Songs of Reminiscence," "Songs of Home, Songs of Exile," Songs of the Sea," Songs of Nature," Songs of Sentiment," Songs of Hopeless Love," Songs of Happy Love," "Songs of Pleasantry, Convivial Songs,' Political Songs," "Martial and Patriotic Songs," and " Moral and Religious Songs." In her strikingly graceful preface she says of these songs: They need no introduction; they come with the latch - string assurance of old and valued friends, whose separate welcomes have encouraged them to drop in all together. They are not popular songs merely, nor old songs exclusively, but well-known songs, of various times, on almost every theme of human interest. They are the songs we have all sung, or wished we could sing; the songs our mother crooned over our cradles, and our fathers hummed at their daily toil; the songs our sisters sang when they were the prima donnas of our juvenile world the songs of our sweethearts and our boon companions; the songs that have swayed popular opinion, inspirited armies, sustained revolutions, honored the king, made presidents, and marked historical epochs." Each song is arranged with piano accompaniment, and preceded by a sketch of the writer and a history of the song itself. The sketches are pleasantly written, embodying much fresh and useful information that could not be easily gotten from the ordinary dictionaries and cyclopædias; and, quite properly, they are more detailed in the cases of the less known authors. In fact too much praise could hardly be bestowed upon either the taste displayed in selecting the songs or upon the discrimination with which they have been arranged and edited. The volume is a large quarto, comprising 663 pages, and in its mechanical features exhibits the customary good taste of its publishers. A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE. By Edgar Fawcett. Boston Houghton, Mifflin & Co. A notice of this story in a recent number of the London Academy contains some acute and discriminating observations, which it may be worth while to reproduce: "A Gentleman of Leisure' is a sketch of New York society, written by an American for Americans. . It is intended to describe the habits and customs of the wealthiest, most fashionable, and most exclusive set in New York, especially such members of it as import and imitate English ways. It is very like a book which appeared many years ago, named 'The Upper Ten Thousand,' but gives us details of a much later day. The writer is apparently a sincere nationalist, who deprecates mere exotic fashions, but desires to emphasize a truth, much ignored or doubted in this country, that distinctions of rank and of society are just as prevalent in the United States as in England, if not so sharply defined by any formal or official tables of precedence. There are, of course, many ignorant Englishmen of position who cannot realize this fact, nor understand how such distinctions can exist apart from nobiliary titles and in a commercial society; never remembering that the proudest aristocracy of Europe, apart from the few Roman families which claim consular descent, was that of the untitled and trading Venetian magnificoes; while Berne, Florence, and Genoa point a similar moral; and that, in fact, there is no such enemy of an aristocracy of birth as a peerage is, which can and does give to men of obscure origin precedence over untitled patricians of the most illustrious descent-such. for example, as the late Charles Waterton, who was of royal lineage by several distinct chains. But when Mr. Fawcett wishes to impress on his readers the great superiority of American women in tone, training, and wit over their British sisters, he would do well not to make his heroine tell a young gentleman at their very first interview how ill her married sister uses her, and how misunderstood she is by inferior surroundings; nor yet give us, as the leading specimen of her 'lightsome drollery, actual wit, and playful felicity,' her following reply to the hero, who asks her to give him only one lump of sugar in his tea: Yes, I like a great deal of sugar, so my excess will counteract your deficiency.' FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES. MR. J. MEADOWS COWPER has undertaken to compile a Concordance to the Revised New Testament. The book will be published as soon as possible. IT is stated that Tourgenieff, the great Russian novelist, has tried his hand at writing some children's stories, which may be expected to appear by Christmas. THE Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund have asked Lieut. Conder to get a cast of the Siloam inscription, in plaster of paris, made and sent to England as quickly as possible. A MEMBER of the Browning Society estimates the total number of lines written by Mr. Browning at about 97,000, something like a fourth less than Shakespeare is calculated to have written. MESSRS. CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & Co are about to issue an Illustrated Universal History, which has been in preparation for some years past. It will be published in serial form, and the first part will very shortly appear. MR. R. H. SHEPHERD has in the press an entirely new edition (being the fifth), revised and enlarged throughout, of his Bibliography of Ruskin. Only 250 copies of this edition will be printed, and each copy will be numbered. THE diocesan synod of New South Wales have passed a resolution that the Revised Ver sion of the New Testament be not used until sanctioned by the bishop; but several of the clergy have already adopted its use on their own responsibility. THE translation by M. Golenischeff of a most interesting Egyptian hieratic papyrus, relating romantic adventures in Punt or Somali, probably in the thirteenth dynasty, will appear shortly. They are as curious as those known as the Adventures of Saneha and the Predestined Prince." THERE has recently been sold in Manchester, for the sum of 67. 15s., a copy of "Three Ways of spending Sunday, by Timothy Sparks," which is one of the earliest and rarest of Dickens's writings. It was purchased by the bookseller who sold it for threepence! It has been resold for 81. 8s. MR. FURNIVALL proposes to follow up his Bibliography of Robert Browning for the Browning Society with a Subject Index to Browning's Works, showing the range of subjects treated, and the opinions expressed on them, in the poet's words. After this will probably be put forth a short Statement of the Story and Purpose of each of Browning's Drainas and Poems. A FINE example of Spanish patriotism has reached us from a private source. Señor Fernandez Guerra, whose important work on the Ancient Geography of Spain we have already announced as in the press, received from the German Government an offer to purchase it; but, though he is very far from being a rich man, he preferred to present the result of the labor of his life to his own Government, at whose expense the work is now being printed. PERSIA, it is said, is making considerable progress in the direction of education. Hitherto education in that country has been mostly confined to religious learning; now, however, the nucleus of a university is being formed at Ispahan, colleges being in the course of erection there for the teaching of languages, European as well as Asiatic, and the arts and sciences, mostly under European Supervision. Miss MISS JANE LEE, the learned daughter of the Archdeacon of Dublin, was charged by her old teacher, Prof. Benfey, before his death, to English the whole of the great Sanskrit epic, the "Mâhabhârata, 80,000 lines, as only fragments of it had been translated before. Lee has begun her task. She is also to help Prof. Atkinson in his Old-Irish Dictionary for the Royal Irish Academy; and she will probably contribute papers to the New Shakespeare and the Browning Societies during the ensuing session. FOR the benefit of autograph collectors, we extract the following prices from a catalogue just issued by the art-publishing firm of Otto August Schultz, of Leipzig. The sums are in marks, of which twenty approximately equal one pound sterling. Martin Luther (600), Lessing (500), Schiller (350), Goethe (250). Melanchthon (225), Oliver Cromwell (220), Goethe's mother and Friedrich August der Starke (200), Kant and Count Egmont (175), Klopstock and Walienstein (150), Kepler (145) Byron, Fichte, Poniatowsky, and the Earl of Essex (100), Voltaire (90), Peter the Great and Körner (75), Blücher and Kosciusko (60), Bürger (50). A LETTER from the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, which has been recently published in a Christiania paper, is exciting much attention in Norway. It suggests that the early "stipendium" allotted by the Government to Ibsen and his brother poet Björnson should be increased, on the ground that they both lose greatly by the absence of a copyright convention between Norway and the other European countries, especially Germany. Their plays can be translated and published or represented by any one who chooses, to their evident pecuniary disadvantage. A copyright convention, he says, is not to be thought of, because, Norway being a poor country, it would simply exclude foreign literature altogether, and so put a sad check upon popular enlightenment. But it is only fair, he argues, that he and his brother dramatist, who thus suffer for their country's good, should be in a measure compensated by the said grateful country. Their present subsidy is 400 dollars a year, which certainly does not seem princely. ་་ SCIENCE AND ART. THE SPEED OF THOUGHT.-It is not unusual to hear the expressions, "quick as thought " and quick as lightning," used as if they were synonymous; but there is a vast difference, comparatively speaking, between them. The electric impulse is practically instantaneous over, say, a mile of wire; but, if we may trust the experiments of Helmholtz and others, the wave of thought requires about a minute to traverse a mile of nerve. An electric shock is felt simultaneously in every part of the body. but the sensations of touch and of pain occupy an appreciable time in making their impressions on the sensorium. The interval between the reception of an impression by the brain, and its perception by that organ, is doubtless, inexpressibly short; but as we can only test the speed of thought by noting the time elapsing between the application of the cause of the thought and the exhibition of some indication of its reception, we find that the time occupied can be measured. Thus Hirsch, by means of a suitable apparatus, found that a touch upon the face was recognized and responded to by a predetermined signal operated by hand in one seventh of a second. There is no doubt some loss in the purely mechanical operation of making the signal; but when the different senses are tested in this manner, and a mean taken of all the experiments, we find not only that the act of thinking is not so rapid as was imagined, but that the speed varies with different senses. Thus the sense of touch was found to respond in one seventh of a second, that of hearing required one sixth of a second to respond, and when the eye was tested, one fifth of a second was occupied in recognizing the signal. The distances travelled by the nervous impulses in each of these cases, was as nearly as possible the same, and it follows therefore that the recognition of them required more time in some cases than in others. Sim ple as it may seem, a number of operations must be performed by the brain in receiving and recording the reception of the impression. There is the transmission of the sensation to the brain, its recognition, and then the determining to make the signal, the transmission of the determination to the muscles, and the movement of those muscles. Hirsch showed, as explained above, that less time was required to recognize a touch than a sound, and that it took more time to see than to hear, but the question still remained as to what part of the time occupied was consumed in the act of recognition. Donders, by means of some very ingeniously constructed apparatus, solved the question. He found that the double act of recognizing a sound and giving the response, occupied seventy-five thousandths of a second, of which forty thousandths were occupied in simple recognition, leaving thirty-five thousandths for the act of volition. One twenty-fifth of a second was occupied in judging which was first of two irritants acting upon the same sense; but a slightly longer time was necessary to determine the priority of signals sent by different senses, as those of hearing and seeing. results were obtained from a man of middle age, the young were slightly quicker; but the average of many experiments showed that the time required for a simple thought was never less than the fortieth of a second. From these These experiments we learn that the mind cannot perform more than twenty-four hundred simple acts in a minute, and that the stories we have heard from persons rescued from drowning are simply exaggerations. SPIDERS OBSTRUCTING THE TELEGRAPH.One of the chief hindrances to telegraphing in Japan is the grounding of the current by spider lines. The trees bordering the highways swarm with spiders, which spin their webs everywhere between the earth, wires, posts, insulators, and trees. When the spider webs are covered with heavy dews they become good conductors, and run the messages to earth. The only way to remove the difficulty is by employing men to sweep the wires with brushes of bamboo; but as the spiders are more numerous and persistent than the brush users the difficulty remains always a serious one. SOME EFFECTS OF HEAT AND LIGHT ON VEGETATION.-A curious modification of the normal structure of plant stems has been observed by M. Prillieux on making the temperature of the ground about the plant higher than that of the air above. Beans and pumpkins gave the best results. The seeds were placed in earth in a large dish, in which was inserted part of a brass rod bent at a right angle and having a gas flame applied to its horizontal end. The chamber was moist and cold. The seeds germinated well; but on coming above ground the plants acquired a peculiar shape, they grew but little in length and became unusually thick, the latter growth involving much tension in the surface layers, so that deep rifts before long appeared (mostly transverse) and made further growth impossible. M. Prillieux found the enlargement traceable mainly to an increase, not of the number, but of the volume of cells in the interior (cells of the cortical tissue and the pith). The excessive growth of these cells occurred not only in the cell wall, but in the nucleus, which was often multiplied. The excess of temperature of the ground over the air was about 10 deg. Again, the view adopted by the older botanists that light is either without effect on germination, or has an adverse effect, fails to harmonize with some results lately arrived at by Herr Stebler, in the case of many seeds of agricultural importance, such as varieties of meadow grass (poa), the germination of which he finds to be favored considerably more by light than by heat. Thus, with two groups of 400 seeds each of Poa memoralis, in one experiment, there germinated in light 62 per cent., and in darkness 3 per cent. Similarly with Poa pratensis—in light 59 per cent., in darkness 7 per cent., so on. Sunlight being a very variable force difficult of determination, experiments were further made with gaslight, and with the same result that light favors the germination of certain seeds, especially grasses, and that these germinate either not at all, or very scantily in darkness. The fact was verified by Herr Stebler in quite a series of seeds, Festuca, Cynosurus, Alopecurus, etc. In the case of seeds that germinate quickly and easily, such as clover, beans, or peas, he thinks light is probably not advantageous. and THE INVERTED RETINAL IMAGE.-Any image formed by light-rays focussed by a single convex lens is necessarily inverted, whether in the eye of an animal or in any artificial optical instrument; that this is so in the former case may be proved by the examination of the eye of an albino or pink-eyed animal, through the choroid of which, from the absence of pigmentcells, light can freely travel. If the eye be fixed in the path of a beam of light, and ex amined with a lens from behind (the cellular tissue having been stripped from the choroid), the image of external objects will be seen in- " verted on the retina. To explain the reinversion of the retinal picture by which we are enabled to see things as they really are, is a matter of some difficulty. Some physiologists have attempted to find a solution in the decussation (crossing) of the nerve fibres of the optic commissure, so that the lower part of the image is communicated to the brain as though it were the uppermost, and vice versa. Others, more reasonably perhaps, assume that the inverted picture is set right by some unconscious effort at adjustment derived from associated ideas. But, as a matter of fact, it remains to be proved that any process of the kind is necessary-that the inverted image will not do perfectly well for correct vision without any reinversion. For the facts of the case are not that we look at an inverted picture of upright objects; it is true that a real image is formed on the retina, but in no sense of the word can we be said to see this. It simply excites or stimulates in some way the optic nerve, with the result of setting up molecular disturbance in some parts of the brain, of which molecular disturbance we are conscious, the consciousnes taking the form of a mental image of the real retinal one. Regarded in this light the difficulty of inverted images very nearly vanishes. At any rate there can be little doubt that its explanation must be sought in some such hypothesis, and not in any special anatomical arrangement of nerve fibres.- The Oracle. RETROGRADE MOVEMENT OF GLACIERS.MM. Koch and Klocke, who have continued during the summer of 1880 their interesting observations on the motion of the Morteratsch glacier, publish their results in the eighth volume of the Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Freiburg. They have measured each half-hour during a fortnight the motion of a point on the glacier, and this year, as well as during the foregoing year, their results are almost negative, i.e., the motion was so slow, and the advance of their signal-stick was so small and often even negative, that nothing can be inferred until now as to the motion of this glacier. Thus observing, for instance, the advance of their signal each half-hour, on September 11th, from midday to six o'clock in the evening, they find the following figures, in millimètres o 5. -0.5, -0.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.2, -0.2, 0.2, -1.0, 1.3, -1.5, -1.5, the negative figures showing a back movement of the signal. Therefore MM. Koch and Klocke have undertaken a thorough verification of their instruments, and they have arrived at the conclusion that the motion observed cannot be attributed to errors of observation. Besides they |