his death. He was earnest and self-sacrificing in the cause of temperance, being a prohibitionist from principle. He entered warmly and earnestly into the work of reforming the fallen women of his city, and endured great reproach, obloquy, and even persecution from those whose vile passions and viler conduct he felt compelled to condemn and oppose. Mr. Tappan could never be charged with being a man of one idea. He was the patron and benefactor of every good cause that commended itself to his conscience and judgment. When prosperous in business he gave liberally to the great objects of Christian benevolence. His brother, Lewis Tappan, Esq., had a delicate task in arranging the ample materials for this interesting book, but he has acquitted himself well; and in no instance has the partialities of the endearing relationship carried him, in what might seem like eulogy, beyond that which facts would abundantly justify. We hope this valuable book will have a wide circulation. It is well printed and bound, and has an admirable steel engraved likeness of its subject.

"THE BIBLE HAND-BOOK "1 is a valuable summary of geographical and archæological facts connected with the sacred Scriptures. It gives a brief history of the Bible, the Geology of Bible Lands, Chronology, Table of Events, Geography, Allotment of the Twelve Tribes, an Account of Patmos and the Seven Churches of Asia, the Biography of Jesus, Paul, Aaron, Abraham, Joseph (son of Jacob), Joseph (husband of Mary), Luke, Mark, Moses, Solomon, and the twelve Apostles, a table of the Money, Weights, and Measures, with Illustrations of Dress. The Geography is arranged alphabetically, and fills 160 pages. The maps and engravings add to the attractiveness as well as value of the work. The author has endeavored to avail himself of the results of the latest research and of the most thorough scholarship. To those who cannot afford to buy Dr. Smith's Bible Dictionary, or could not appreciate it if they did, this smaller compendium will prove of great interest and importance.

INASMUCH as there is no probability that any biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne will ever be published, we are very grateful for the "Passages" from his note-books that have been issued in book-form; and in truth, with the addition of a few dates and bald facts in genealogy and biography, these "passages" give us a better idea of the man in his various moods, of his peculiar characteristics, of the general drift of his mental life, than any conventional memoir. The volumes before us are exactly what they claim to be, and in so far, the reader has no occasion for fault-finding; the contents consist of "passages," and these passages are from every-day "Note Books." There is no careful elaboration of thought and expression, there is no system preconceived and followed out, there is no attempt at rhetorical effect, but we find the precise impressions which men and circumstances, places and events, made upon the mind and heart of one of the

1 The Bible Hand-Book, for Sunday Schools and Bible Readers, with one hundred and fifty Engravings, and twenty-five Maps and Plans. By ALBERT L. RAWSON. Second Edition. New York: R. B. Thompson & Co. 1870. Royal octavo. pp. 256. Sold by subscription for $ 1.50.

2 Passages from the English Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 410, 393. $4.00.

keenest and best observers known to our literature. The volumes have been edited with fidelity, and sometimes we feel that some passages might have been omitted with propriety; but in these days when biographers aim to ignore all but the best things concerning their subjects, it is refreshing to find one, and that one so nearly related by family ties, conscientiously endeavoring to present a true picture. And further, a genuine "note-book" is not to be read or judged like the carefully prepared "works" of an author; for the memoranda thus made are either transcripts of impressions, or data for future reference and examination, — very often for rejection. Thus in our own "note-book" may be found divers heterodox statements, and references to divers sceptical authors; these are for use and not indexes of personal belief! In these volumes the reader should continually bear in mind Mrs. Hawthorne's remarks in the Preface: "Throughout his journals it will be seen that Mr. Hawthorne is entertaining and not asserting opinions and ideas. He questions, doubts, and reflects with his pen, and, as it were, instructs himself. So that these Note-Books should be read, not as definite conclusions of his mind, but merely as passing impressions often. What conclusions he arrived at are condensed in the works given to the world by his own hand, in which will never be found a careless word."

To one of Mr. Hawthorne's tastes, acquirements, and abilities, anything more incongruous than a consul's duties can scarcely be imagined, and yet we find many of the best things in these volumes the direct outgrowth of these duties; and so with his custom-house salt-measuring years of earlier home life, and it will ever be a question in his life, as in that of scores of authors before and since Charles Lamb went late to, and came away early from, the East India House, whether the dull routine of labor was not the needed balance, without which life would have been mainly in vain.

For pictures of English life, for insight into character, for bits of rare gossip and observation, for a genial outflow of heart, coupled with a keen criticism always uppermost, we rank these books best of their kind, and the "kind" very good; only it is rare that man's note-books are worth printing! these are, and we thank the editor for the conscientious fidelity with which she has prepared for the admirers of her lamented husband, and for the public generally, such a literary treat and such a correct self drawn portraiture.

SKETCHES of California life in the days of early mining have been numerous, and sometimes good, but we have read nothing that approaches in genuine ability "The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches,"1 by Francis Bret Harte, editor of that excellent magazine, published at San Francisco, The Overland Monthly. There is a naturalness, a vivacity, a sparkle to his descriptions, a picturesqueness and a verbal strength which impress the reader with the belief that actual scenes are being narrated, that the characters are real, that the writer has seen and experienced that which he describes. Those early days in California history were peculiar, and are not to be judged by conventional standards. The mixed population, the greed for gold, the unnatural excitements, the absence of law and order, the rapid alternations of poverty and riches, — these and a hundred 1 The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches. By FRANCIS BRET HARTE. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1870. 12mo. pp. 256. $1.50.

other causes not elsewhere to be found produced a state of society such as we are not likely to see again. Now that order has come out of the chaos, and California has become more like other and older States, we are forgetting the scenes of a few years ago, and therefore this book has a peculiar interest and a certain kind of value. The roughnesses of camp and mining life, the rude language, with its constant tendency to profanity, shock sensitive nerves, and are repulsive features of the book; but without them the book would not be true to its subject, and if we would know what were every-day scenes in California, we must not shrink from the faithful representation. In such a book much of religion is not to be expected; as the miners emphatically served Mammon, the serving of God was little thought of—and this is according to Scripture; but we regret an occasional fling" by the author at religious matters, as if religious teachers must of necessity be hypocrites or natural fools. Unless he has been singularly unfortunate in his acquaintance, the author must have found even in the wild scenes of California life some exemplifications of Christianity, and why not have given with his marvellously graphic pen such a character, instead of MeSnagley?

WE have received from Messrs. Fields, Osgood & Co. a copy of that fragment of The Mystery of Edwin Drood," which will remain a "mystery" in a sense which the author little imagined, from the unfinished condition in which it was left by his sudden and sad death. A melancholy interest will ever attach to this work as the last from his fascinating pen.

To this publication there are added some uncollected pieces and a copy of Mr. Dickens's will We have no disposition to invade the sanctities of private life, or engage in any unseemly discussion of the destiny of one whom God hath suddenly called to his final account; but we cannot refrain from saying that it will forever remain a foul blot on Mr. Dickens's reputation for morality, that together with this last product of his genius, in which he holds up to obloquy the protessing philanthropists who have a "propensity to pitch into their fellow-creatures,” and whose "fighting code" empowers them to bore their man to the ropes," " to hit him when he is down, hit him anywhere and any how, kick him, stamp upon him, gouge him, and maul him behind his back without mercy," there goes forth to the world bound within the same covers, a copy of his will, evidently written for the public eye, in which he gives his own wife, the mother of his children, to use his own classic expression, a “kick.”

We have testimony that when this will was first made public, the feeling in England was that the attempt to injure his wife's social position by the invidious distinction made between her and her sister, to go out to the world after his death, was an act of extreme meanness. And it is a significant fact that recent English papers represent the members of the family, who were alienated by his life, as now restored to relations of peace and harmony,

PATIENCE is soon exhausted in reading Noethen's History of the Catholic Church. It is a model of assumption and misrepresentation, and how a man of 1 The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and some Uncollected Pieces, By CHARLES DICKENS, with Illustrations. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1870. pp. 210. 50 2 A Compendium of the History of the Catholic Church, from the Commencement of

cents.

education and candor can put his name to it as author is one of the mysteries which Romish policy alone can explain. It is plausible, if one has no other sources of knowledge; it classifies all Catholics as saints, all Protestants as sinners; presents as fact what a tyro knows is fiction or conjecture; it distorts where it cannot by craft conceal; it makes claims in religion, science, and the arts which are simply absurd, and narrates as veritable history the stupendous humbugs on which much of the Catholic Church is based, such as the discovery and preservation of the true cross, the crown of thorns, miracles, etc. The burning and beheading and persecutions of the martyrs it coolly lays at the doors of the civil authorities, just as the Catholic World treats the dark deeds of the Inquisition, as if in those times the civil authorities were not the servants of the Church. It charges the Protestants with civil wars, bloodshed, and all those sanguinary years of terrible conflict with Romanism, and utterly ignores or denies any severity or persecution on the part of the Catholics.

In one chapter is a queer though unintentional illustration of the silly weakness of the infallibility dogma. This dogma, as expounded by the best authorities, means that on religious matters, doctrine, and practice, Popes never have and never can make mistakes. But this history is compelled to admit that Clement XIV. did suppress the Jesuits; but as they were afterward restored, which Pope was right and which wrong, when both are, by the new dogma, infallible? In the chapter pertaining to Catholicity in the United States there is an ignoring of all influences save that of the Catholic Church that would be amusing were it not so boldly dishonest. In regard to the colored race here, the candid author asserts that "our holy Mother the Church has raised the African race from a condition of unbelief and ignorance, and brought them to a knowledge and practice of the saving truths of Christianity."

The only reasonable supposition in regard to this book is that it is written for Catholics only, for those who are not likely to see other books.

Sir James Mackintosh says of Henry VIII. in substance, that he was the ideal of perfection in wickedness, so far as the infirmities of human nature would permit; so of this history, it is the ideal of perfection of misrepresentation, so far as the infirmities of human nature will allow.

"COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE” is just the book, and therefore good, that we should expect from Arthur Helps, the author of "Friends in Council," etc. His "Companions" are his thoughts, and with such he must generally have been in very good company. Instead of allowing his quiet musings to run to waste, as is too customary, he has carefully written out the best, and introduces them to us, as showing how in solitude he is not alone, and how his private hours are for profit to himself and his readers. Let us see how his companions talk, for thus we can judge best of their character. Says one: -

"As regards charity, a man might extend to others the ineffable tenderness which he has for some of his own sins and errors, because he knows the whole

the Christian Era to the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, etc. By Rev. THEODORE NOETHEN. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1870. 12mo. pp. 587.

1 Companions of my Solitude. By ARTHUR HELPS. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870. 16mo. pp. 276. $1.50.

history of them and though. taken at a particular point, they appear very large and very black, he knew them in their early days when they were playfellows instead of tyrant demons.”

Another: The virtuous, carefully tended and carefully brought up, ought to bethink themselves how little they may owe to their own merit that they are virtuous, for it is in the evil concurrence of bad disposition and masterless opportunity that crime comes."

Another: Where a man's business is, there is the ground for his religion to manifest itself.”

Tus for the advocates of "woman's rights ": " Government, to be sure, is not a fit thing for women, their fond prejudices coming often in the way of justice. Discretion also they would want (need?), not having the same power, I think, of imagination that men have, nor the same method. . . . . Why is it that a man cook is always better than a woman cook? Simply because a man is more mettedical in his arrangements, and relies more upon his weights and meas

And so we might multiply quotations; but these will give a fair representation of the book, and perhaps induce our readers to cnitivate a closer acquaintance. Occasionally there is an opinion from which we dissent, as when he falls into the careles error-for we do not think Heips to be untair by intention,- far from it — of including under the word Puritanism" all the disagreeable traits of human nature. When one is belaboring a "Puritan" with verbal cudgels we we feel like saying to him, first. Put yourself in his place,' and then express your honest views. In brief, we say of this volume that it is full of practical thoughts on important topics admirably expressed, and cannot be read either as a whole or in parts without both pleasure and profit.

THE new and cheap edition of Froude's History of England, issued by Messrs. C. Scribner & Co., is now completed. This interesting and valuable work covers the period from the Fall of Wolsey to the defeat of the Spanish Armada. No less than six volumes are devoted to the reign of Elizabeth. The series of tweive volumes contains all that is to be found in the library edition, and is furnished at the low price of $1.25 a volume. The paper is good and the type clear, and the public may well be congratulated on having so important a work brought within the reach of a large proportion of appreciative readers. The last volume contains an Index to the entire work, filling about seventy pages, which adds greatly to the value of the series,

"THE STRUGGLE IN FERRARA," is a well-told story of the Reformation in Italy, adhering, we judge, closely to historic facts and data, and presenting a vivid picture of Romish intrigue and persecution, of the workings of that most horrible of all horrible institutions, the Inquisition, - - and detailing the gradual extinction of Protestantism in that duchy. The Italian Inquisitors had a 1 History of England By JAMES Anthony Froud, M. A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Vols. XI. and AII New York. Charles Scribner & Co. 1870. * The Struggle in Ferrara. A Story of the Reformation in Italy By WILLIAM GILBERT. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1871 8vo pp. 145. SECOND SERIES. — VOL. II. NO. 4.

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