change, if equivalent services and morality requires that in every exchange each party be as careful that the service which he renders be equivalent to the service which he receives, as he is that the service received be equivalent to the service rendered It brands as fraudulent every transaction in which one party aims to take out of the other, value or service for which he has rendered no equivalent. We are sure that the conflict between employer and employed will never be terminated without the recognition and emphasizing of moral obligation in the exchanges of business. This great social problem can never be solved by any science falsely so-called, which is developed solely from the principles of selfishness. On this point, as well as on some others, some of the author's minor positions seem to us to be questionable. But he writes with great candor and fairness and with an evident desire to find the truth; and we cordially commend the book as a valuable contribution to the literature of this momentous question. PRONOUNCING HAND-BOOK.*-This little book, that might be carried in the pocket, has a clear title, also on the outside of each cover:-"3,000 words," &c., which will remind most readers that it is just what they want. We take it for granted, they are not either wholly indifferent to their pronunciation of their own language, or quite beyond all need of ever consulting an authority, not always ready to open a ponderous volume. Compiled by professional teachers, with the use of Webster, Worcester and other competent sources of information, giving two or more pronunciations where as many are allowed by good usage, pointedly excluding valgarisms, and dealing with nothing but questionable or divergent instances, in a small compass, this volume will sufficiently recommend itself at sight. MISCELLANIES, OLD AND NEW.-While this dainty volume attracts the reader's eye its contents will reward his attention, as both externally and inwardly a book for summer-reading though by no means superficial either in its subjects or their treatment. * Pronouncing Hand-Book of Words often Mispronounced, and of Words as to which a Choice of Pronunciation is allowed. By RICHARD SOULE and LOOMIS J. CAMPBoston: Lee & Shepard. pp. 99. BELL. + Miscellanies Old and New. By JOHN COTTON SMITH, D.D. New York: T. Meittaker. 1876. pp. 258. The author, whose name we are pleased to see always printed in full, as reminding us of a most accomplished Governor of Connecticut in former times-is a prominent Episcopal divine, usually associated with the low church part of his denomination though of late we have seen him classified with the "broad." The "miscellanies" here brought together are, as the preface tells us, "lectures and reviews," "published at different times during the last seventeen years, and their purpose has been to show the bearing of certain literary, social, scientific, and religious questions, which from time to time have interested the public mind, upon great principles which underlie all history and life, and find their fullest expression and embodiment in Christianity." The subjects are "Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric age;" "the Suspense and Restoration of Faith;" "the Oxford Essays and Baden Powell on Miracles;" "the United States a Nation;" "Evolution and a Personal Creator;" and "Dante." They are at once seen to be the fruits of scholarly culture; the style is perspicuous and manly; the spirit is that of loyalty to revealed truth, along with wide sympathies; the discussion of questions now agitated is clear and conscientious. Our attention has been drawn particularly to the essay on Evolution," which, with obvious merits, seems to us however to have attempted too much within the limits; and to that on the "Suspense and Restoration of Faith," occasioned by two addresses from Dr. Bellows. The latter is an able argument for the Restoration of Faith rather than its Suspense, as marking our times in comparison with the last century. The author gracefully avails himself of an admission of Dr. Bellows in behalf of the Episcopal Church, maintaining its position as "favorable to unity," but while he treats of the matter liberally we do not see that he fairly disposes of "distinctive peculiarities" which he claims are not "essential" and might be "dispensed with altogether," but which do in fact repel other bodies from union and still are not "dispensed with in fact. It remains true that there are 'canons' in the way, and, as somebody has said, 'they may as well be spiked."" 66 THR FORTUNES OF MISS FOLLEN.*-This delightful story opens with a description of Baden and its curious market. The heroine makes her appearance as a young and delicate market-girl, pre *The Fortunes of Miss Follen. By Mrs. GOODWIN-TALCOTT. New York: D. Appleton & Co. siding over a table of dainty laces or needle work, the fruit of her own toil. She is the daughter of a frugal couple who cultivate a small dairy farm on the hill-side, and so the chances are somewhat more in her favor at the outset than if she belonged to the more ignorant peasantry. She has a brotherly friend in the schoolmaster also, who later on would be nearer if he could, and who meanwhile with his books and talk feeds her growing culture with music and knowledge of art and of the great world outside the valley. She is an apt scholar. An early and happy love fades into a consuming grief; but an American gentleman and his wife become interested in her sweet face and pure character, and her elevation begins. They teach her English, and then employ her to teach their little Bessie German. Presently Colonel Ranney appears, a retired English army officer who wants a governess for his two little daughters, and Christine has got far enough along to prove just the one. The story of her blossoming out in beauty both of person and character as these changes successively come to her, is told very deftly and vividly, and in a style remarkable for its purity and its artistic use of the imagination. She is a sort of Undine, born not indeed of the waves, but of the vine-clad soil, and carrying with her everywhere the freshness and innocence of nature. None of these uplifting stages seem to be at all foreign to her, and after seeing her graceful motions and hearing her sing at her spinning wheel on her mother's porch, we feel that she has a soul within her, however she came by it, that is capable of everything which is attributed to her afterwards. We are certain that the author has produced no incongruity here. The story flows gently on, with a plot so transparent that few readers can be long in doubt whether Christine will finally share the fortunes of Conrad Kleist the schoolmaster, or of Colonel Ranney himself; and even the happy escape of little Alice, half thrilling and wholly natural as it is, could be hardly necessary in order to draw the meshes of love closer around the Colonel's heart. He is in deep enough already. The Colonel too is an admirable character himself; a good, honest, sensible Englishman, with no special ambitions, but with a thorough-going disposition to do the right thing when he knows it. And after he is happily located on the ancestral acres with Christine for the central light of his home, we can imagine his and her plans for the benefit of the tenantry around them. That is what they are about now, doubtless; for this picture is too realistic not to have its counterpart in the home of many an English country gentleman of the better class. There are a few flaws in this graceful story. But they are all on the surface and easily detected. For one thing, we do not quite fancy the title; but never having written a story, we may not understand the difficulties which doubtless beset the selection of a title that shall be both appropriate and taking. There are one or two typographical errors we notice in the misspelling of a name or two. The affixing of the title Herr to Mr. Vassar strikes us as inconsistent with the fact that that gentleman is not a German, but a plain American. And we could also point out, if it were necessary, some cases in which the good Herr uses words in his narrative which seem to us rather too much like the elevated diction of Pope to be natural in even highly cultivated conversation. But the general style of the book is notable for its crystal purity and its closeness of detail. The writer, who is the wife of a learned professor in one of our theological seminaries, has evidently watched the scenes she describes, whether of home life in Germany, or mountain views in Saxony, or the Passion Play at Oberammergau, or works of art in the galleries. She is a good observer; knows what features to describe and how to group them; and then puts them into an artistic setting of pure English that is always elegant and often rises to the poetic. As will be seen therefore the book is quite as valuable for its information as it is interesting for its story of Christine. In this, as in some other respects, it far surpasses her previous works. The art criticisms are modest and unpretentious, but discriminating; the author manifestly has no fear of Rubens before her eyes. The chapter describing the Passion Play at Oberammergau is exceedingly interesting and valuable. The author witnessed the play, if we remember rightly, in the autumn of 1871, and her descriptions of it then in the columns of one of our religious weeklies were much admired and enjoyed by a wide circle of readers. The book is pervaded throughout by the most genial and genuine Christian sentiment; and it seems to us that no young mind can read it without being trained by it to a deeper and more affectionate insight into the beauties of the natural world, and stimulated also to a higher and purer life. THE AENEIDS OF VIRGIL.*-To those who have known and admired Mr. Morris's poems, there seems to be a fitness in his trans * The Aeneids of Virgil. Done into English verse by WILLIAM MORRIS, author of The Earthly Paradise." Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876. lating Virgil. The power of sustained narrative, the enthusiasm for the classical mythology, the control of a clear yet quaint style, which "Jason" and "The Earthly Paradise," revealed in him, seem to place him near the Mantuan bard and to mark him as qualified to interpret his strains. So we welcome this new version of the Aeneid and are prepared to find in it the most satisfactory reproduction of the great Latin Epic. And in many respects it is such. It is singularly faithful in close adherence to the very phrase of the original; it presents often happy renderings, especially of the conventional links between speech and narrative and of the heroic epithets; it bears the story along, giving generally line for line with not very unlike effect of metre and with very little hampering of the sense by the rhyme. Yet with all these merits it cannot be called a successful translation of the poet for the general reader. One reason for this failure is the constant archaism of the style, in which it seems to outdo Mr. Morris's earlier poems. At least in those, where the writer was uttering his own thought in shape as it formed itself in his mind, this archaic language rarely became obscure. But here either the love of antiquated phrase, or the effort after literalness, or the influence of the distinct Latin phrase upon his mind, making an ambiguous expression seem clear to him, has produced frequent obscurities, which have often compelled us to resort to the original to understand a line. One example recurs to memory, where "obscuris vera involvens" is translated "as sooth amid the mirk she winds." Then, too, Mr. Morris has contrived to give to Virgil too much of the peculiar tone which characterized his own poems, a sort of mellow, Indian summer coloring, such as befits his own description of himself as "the idle singer of an empty day." These qualities will prevent this translation from making its way as the accepted English version of the Aeneid, though it will be of use to scholars in suggesting happy turns of rendering. As an illustration of such success, the following occurs to us: "Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” - APPALACHIA. This is a new magazine, which has just appeared, which we have only space to announce. It is to be conducted by the "Appalachian Mountain Club," which was organized early in 1876; and is to be devoted to the illustration of whatever may be found of interest in any point of view in the mountains of New England. |