Mead & Company) will be of interest to his personal friends, and to those who were immediately concerned with the religious movement of which he was the leader. There was, however, nothing especially striking about the mental or moral qualities of the man, and his biography can hardly be called an inspiring story. Our Methodist brethren will find in it one 'significant fact." Bishop Cummins began his ministry as a Methodist and his change to the Episcopal church was largely due to his dislike of the itinerancy. "The thought of never having a 'local habitation' and a home" he writes" has ever been sad to me, and throws a deep shade over life." He wanted to belong to "a church which did not require her clergy to travel from place to place." Accordingly he took Episcopal orders, and as a presbyter in that church, ministered to six different parishes within a little less than nineteen years. . . . . . The Book of Job (D. Appleton & Co.,) is the subject of a thoughtful critical essay by Professor R. W. Raymond. The essay is the fruit of a careful study of the book in connection with a Bible class taught by the author. The literature of the subject has been well examined, but the investigation has been conducted with much independence and intelligence. Professor Raymond thinks that the book was probably written in the seventh or eighth Century before Christ, by a Hebrew; "who having placed the scene and characters of his drama before the dawn of the Jewish national history, avoided, in obedience to the rules of his art, the anachronism of introducing allusions to that history." He concludes that the drama is based upon history; that Job is not an imaginary but a real person. His summing up of the doctrinal purpose of the book is given in the following well-chosen words: "The current notion that calamity is always the punishment of crime, and prosperity always the record of piety is not true. Neither is it true that the distress of a righteous man is an indication of God's anger. There are other purposes in the divine mind of which we know nothing. For instance, a good man may be afflicted, by permission of God, and through the agency of Satan, to prove the genuine character of his goodness. But whether this or some other reason, involved in the administration of the universe, underlies the dispensation of temporal blessings and afflictions, one thing is certain: the plans of God are not, will not be, cannot be revealed; and the resignation of faith, not of fatalism, is the only wisdom of man." The chapter of the Essay which discusses the Book of Job as a historical picture is an admirable specimen of inductive criticism. The essay is accompanied with a metrical paraphrase, which exhibits considerable skill in versification, and by which many passages of this sublime composition are happily rendered. SOME unknown but not unskilled translator has given us an admirable rendering of the most interesting and valuable portions of the writings of Plato in which he discourses of his great master, Socrates. The excellence of the translation may be safely inferred from the fact that Professor Goodwin of Harvard University stands sponsor for it in a judicious and appreciative introduction. The sketch of the life of Socrates which the translator furnishes in the preface is distinctly drawn, and the notes which accompany the translation are serviceable. The three works comprised in this volume are the Apology, or Plato's report of the Defence made by Socrates before his judges; the Crito, a conversation with a friend in prison after his sentence, in which he refuses to avail himself of the opportunity to escape, and the Phædo, a description of his last days in prison and a discourse of immortality, which last is, no doubt, the word of the disciple rather than of the master. The translation gives us the flavor of the Greek, but it is good English, and the thought shines through it with great vividness. The reader is brought into immediate contact with the mind of this marvelous man, and finds in this communion a mental and moral invigoration in the strength of which he may go for many a day through deserts of modern materialism. This book is calculated not chiefly for scholars; any reader of average intelligence who purchases it will be likely to rank it among the most precious volumes that he possesses. PROFESSOR BOYESEN's book about Goethe and Schiller shows him to be an industrious and enthusiastic student of the German classics, and gives an intelligent, though a somewhat rose colored estimate of the characters of the two great persons under discussion. It is the fashion just now to worship Goethe, and his intellectual eminence no one can dispute; but the terms in which Professor Boyesen speaks of him are extravagant. Hear him: "Summing up all the Varied phases of Goethe's existence, his errors, as well as his virtues, it is safe to assert that he was the most complete type of man in modern history." Of course, it is safe to make this assertion, for this is a free country; but we humbly trust that it is not true. Professor Boyesen is not willing to accept Goethe's own declaration that Wilhelm Meister is his own poetic counterpart. But Goethe was a knowing man; probably he knew himself better than Professor Boyesen knows him; and there is scarcely an event in his life or a trait of his character as here pictured, which does not corroborate Goethe's judgment of himself. "Meister," says this critic, "with all his amiability and half-instinctive generosity, is essentially a eudemonist; the motive force of his life is the most refined intellectual selfishness .. . . . He continues his life of picturesque vagabondism, flirts with actresses, and troubles himself very little about the effect of his own actions upon anybody but himself. . . . . He regards the world with all its laws, those of morality included, from a purely aesthetic point of view, and with due allowance for national likes and dislikes, values his fellow men merely as accessories to himself, as half-impersonal elements entering more or less perceptibly into the sum total of his being." This is the character of Wilhelm Meister, according to Professor Boyesen, and the character of Goethe, as Professor Boyesen has described him, is not unfairly summed up in these very words. To say that the man of whom all these things are true is "the most complete type of man in modern history," is to place a very low estimate upon morality. We should say that the man whose moral standards are as low and whose moral forces are as sluggish as Goethe's are here shown to be is a wretchedly incomplete type of man, no matter how magnificent may be his intellectual power. Although the estimate placed by this biographer upon the life of Goethe is an extravagant and misleading one, the judgment of his works is that of a sympathetic but clear-sighted critic. The long and careful Commentary upon Faust will be found especially instructive. The portion of the book devoted to Schiller is of equal value. The infirmities of this great man are frankly set before us as are those of Goethe; and the biographer's judgment is less warped by his enthusiasm. The two essays are good specimens of literary criticism, and show us that Professor Boyesen is something more than a story-teller. DR. HOLMES'S Memoir of Motley is a spirited and graphic sketch of a noble life. The career of Motley is one of the most illustrious in our late history; he was one of our American noblemen ;-a man to whom high birth and ample fortune were incentives to splendid work rather than excuses for frivolous idleness. The work that he did is not likely to be forgotten, and it is 1 John Lothrop Motley: A Memoir. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. unnecessary to say that the story of his life and labors is told in an entertaining way. Dr. Holmes is not capable of dullness. One reads, however, with a burning cheek, the record of the indignities suffered by this high-spirited and patriotic gentleman at the hands of meaner men in higher places. It is not for Mr. Motley that the future explorer of our state archives will blush, but for the nation that could find no better depositories of its dignity than the men who used their little brief authority in such a coarse and truculent way. MR. PIATT'S Poems are delicate expressions of a refined sentiment. One feels in reading them that they were written not because the writer deemed it incumbent on him to say something, but rather because he felt that he had something to say. Some clear or happy vision, some quickening thought came to him, and he gave it form and utterance. Many of his verses have a certain impromptu air about them. We presume that it is not, however, to any lack of carefulness that the fault of these verses-an occasional lack of clearness-must be attributed. The fancy of the writer is sometimes so subtle, and the thread of its suggestions so slight, that the reader does not quickly follow his thought. There is nothing like the elaborate obscurity of Browning, and the meaning of the verse reveals itself without long search. Still there is some times a want of transparency in the style; and we are old-fashioned enough to think that poetry as well as prose ought to be intelligible without an effort of the reader. Especially should 'poems of house and home" possess this qual ity, and most of these do. The delight in home scenes and home pleasures which is here so ten derly expressed is itself an evangel. It is good to meet with one for whom these things have so genuine a relish; and we will trust that Mr. Piatt's gentle verse may lead many of his readers into the same pure and quiet pleasures. THE portrait of Mr. Lowell, which has been added to the series of "Atlantic Portraits," is a beautiful work of art and is said by friends of the poet to be an excellent likeness. American literature has reason to be proud of four such names as those of Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier and Lowell, and their portraits, in this popular form, will be welcome everywhere in the homes of the people. 1 Poems of House and Home. By John James Piatt. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co, Easter Lilies, for Easter Holy-days. RESURGIT: Hymns and Songs of the Resurrection. Collected and edited with notes by FRANK FOXCROFT of the editorial staff of the Boston Journal, with an introduction by Rev. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D. D. Nearly 400 pages, 16mo, Cloth, Gilt Top. The most comprehensive work of the kind ever published, covering fifteen centuries of Sacred Song and embracing not only the more prominent of American and English Resurrection Hymns, but translations from the Greek, Latin, Swedish, Dan. ish, German and Russian, as well, with Historical Notes concerning the Hymns, and Biographical Sketches of the authors, with exhaustive indexes of the Latin Hymns, First Lines, Authors and Trans lators. ZOPHIEL. AND OTHER POEMS. By "MARIA DEL OCCIDENTE" (Mrs. Maria Brooks), an American poetess, who died in 1845. Edited with notes and an introduction by Mrs. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON, author of "Meg: a Pastoral, and Other Poems" (lately published). At the time this poem made its appearance, Robert Southey, Charles Lamb, and other celebrated Englishmen of letters, read it with astonishment and admiration, and Southey claimed for it the first place among works of feminine genius. Mrs. Gustafson's researches and efforts to obtain the fullest information of the character, life and literary labors of this gifted woman, have covered a period of nearly seven years. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN. For the use of Parents and Teachers. By Dr. WILLIAM RIMMER. With 48 full pages of Illustrations. 8vo, cloth, $2.00 net. If sent by mail, $2.25. What the author offers is not a new set of patterns to be copied, nor a short cut to the drawing of the human figure, but a method of teaching that shall apply to Drawing, the same fundamental principle universally adopted in the teaching of elementary science, that shall make clear the essential principles at the outset, and hold them fast to the end. What he aims at is a Drawing-Primer that shall find its way, with the Reading-Primer, and the first lessons in Arithmetic, into the hands of school-teachers, and of mothers, for daily use as a regular part of elementary instruction. SAYING THE CATECHISM, Seventy-five years ago, and the Historical Results. By Rev. DORUS CLARKE, D. D. Paper, 15 cents, Cloth, 50 cents. An address delivered before the "New England Historic-Genealogical Society" last December, describing in a most amusing and interesting manner how our forefathers studied and recited the Catechism seventy-five years ago, when it was taught everywhere-in the family, in the school and in the church. Dr. Clarke says: "We had it for breakfast, we had it for dinner, and we had it for supper." MIDNIGHT MARCHES THROUGH PERSIA. By HENRY BALLANTINE, A. M., with an introduction by President Seelye of Amherst College. Crown 8vo, cloth. Fully illustrated. $2.50. So little is known of Persia to-day, though once the pride of the world, that great value will be attached to this volume, giving a clear, vivid and entertaining account of the wonderful march of a thousand miles made by the author's little caravan through the interior of Persia to St. Petersburg. The journey was made during the Summer of 1875, and Mr. Ballantine accomplished the task with success, though not without some perilous adventures. REV. CHARLES BEECHER -ON Spiritual Manifestations. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. Spiritualists constitute a new religion or denomination. As in every great popular movement, there are different classes of minds represented. There are radicals and conservatives here, as every. where else. A large section of the body desire to be known as Christian Spiritualists, and claim that the movement is a revival of pure primitive Christianity. There are others, perhaps a majority, who, repelled by the corruptions of Christianity, and by the denunciatory treatment they receive from sectarians, are thrown into an apparently anti-Christian attitude. One design of the present work is to state some of the principles on which all schools and sections agree, and develop the results to which consistent Spiritualists ought to come. The motto of the work might well be, Consistent Spiritualism is Christianity. "To Christians, who found their faith on the Scriptures, but at the same time are afraid of Spiritualism, his book will read like a new revelation. He shows that men have nothing to fear from knowledge, but everything from ignorance. His book is unquestionably one of the best ever pubin the subject ought to read it.”—Boston Traveller. lished on Spiritualism; and all who are interested "The tone of the book throughout is that of sober, earnest inquiry, as far from flippancy and irreverence as is possible. He seems to be striving to recommend to all who believe in the Bible a belief that the manifestations of modern Spiritualism are not incompatible with its teachings, but, on the contrary, the key to its deepest significance."Boston Advertiser. Sold by all Booksellers, and sent by mail, post-paid on receipt of price. Catalogues mailed free. LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston. 2,000 Varieties Rare and Beautiful Flower Seeds. 500 Varieties Choice Vegetable Seeds. 500 Varieties Seed Potatoes. SELECTED SEEDS of all the leading and improved varieties of Root and Forage Crops for Field Culture, consisting of Carrots, Mangel-wurzel, and Sugar Beets, Corn, Turnips, Ruta-Baga, Grass Seeds, etc. Fertilizers, Garden Tools, Small Fruits, Flowering Plants, and other Requisites for the Farm and Garden. A complete descriptive and priced list of the above, with directions for culture, will be found in the following Catalogues now in press, and will be ready for distribution in January. 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