have found inspiration in them. Scarcely less helpful will they prove to any who may read them.

To one short passage from the first of these discourses we desire to call the attention of all Christian teachers as containing a truth that they are bound to heed. The gravity, the momentousness of these words no man can overstate, and the people who stand in the high places of the church to-day will incur a fearful responsibility if they do not cease to take council of cowardice and speak out the truth upon these matters which they very well know:

"If the church-going multitude will not read and will not place in the hands of their young men the best conclusions of the greatest Christian scholars as to the foundations of our faith, and the essential Christian creed, they need not wonder if an eloquent public orator shall come along, and with his "Mistakes of Moses" make infidels of thousands who only a few years ago were full of the common Christian belief."

SEVERAL of Mr. Gladstone's contributions to

various reviews and magazines have been brought together in two handy volumes, which might have given us greater pleasure if the proof-reading had been more carefully done. The punctuation is wild and the spelling is not always above suspicion. The first of these volumes is devoted to essays upon "The Throne, the Prince Consort, the Cabinet and the Constitution." The essay lately printed in the North American Review, and entitled "Kin Beyond Sea," concludes this volume. One can gain from it much valuable information concerning the English Court and the English Government. The second volume is devoted to biographical and literary essays, among which those devoted to Blanco White, Tennyson, Macaulay, and Norman McLeod are especially readable. Mr. Gladstone's style is somewhat ponderous for an essayist, and one is a little distrustful, now and then, of the judgment of so pronounced a partisan; but it is his honest purpose always to be fair, and he holds no opinions for which he cannot give many and strong reasons. The breadth and refinement of his scholarship must fill every reader with admiration, and suggest the application to him of Artemus Ward's left-handed witticism about General Washington, that it is his forte not to be resembled by any of our public men at the present day to any alarming extent.

It has been a puzzling question what the star of empire would do when it reached the Pacific coast and could go no further westward without traveling in the East. This question Mr. Clark has solved for us. It has turned back in its path, and henceforth the course of empire is to be

1 Gleanings of Past Years,-1843-1878. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P. Two Volumes. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons.

Eastward. Germany has succeeded the Western Powers in the leadership of Europe; Russia is looming up as a mighty political force in the future, and the peoples of European Turkey and Greece that have so long been enslaved and degraded are rising into independent and vigorous national life. The historical sketches which he has given us in this comely volume help greatly toward an understanding of the Eastern Question, and will throw light not only upon the history that has already been recorded but upon that which is likely to be written in the newspapers within the next fifty years. The three parts of this volume treat respectively of the Byzantine Empire, the Modern Greeks and the Albanians, and the Turkish Slavonians the Wallachians and the Gypsies. Mr. Clark has expended upon the work a great deal of welldirected industry; his reading has been wide and judicious, his perception of the historical forces is clear and his style is perspicuous.

THE admirable "Epochs of Ancient History" series is continued by a volume upon "The Age of the Antonines." The period is one of the greatest interest, and some of the best characters of history appear in it. The Emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines are discussed with discriminating fidelity, the largest space being given, as is just, to Marcus Aurelius; the relations of the Christians to the Empire is considered; the governmental methods and policies are sketched, and the currents of literature and learning are traced. Mr. Capes is a historian of intelligence and fairness, and this book is

one of the best of a valuable series.

MR. HAMERTON is a much less devout wor

shiper than Mr. Ruskin, and a much more trustworthy critic; and the estimate of Turner3 that he has given us will help to save that great genius from the disparagement which Mr. Ruskin's extravagant praise would have been likely to beget. Mr. Hamerton finds Turner to be "one of the most poetical, the most learned, and the least material" of artists; but he finds

in him also limitations and faults. One curious defect either of his organization or of his training, was exhibited in his literary efforts. Turner thought himself a poet as well as a painter, and the specimens of his verse that he has left us are simply astonishing. In grammar and spelling they almost rival the productions of the

The Races of European Turkey: Their History Condition and Prospects. By Edson S. Clark. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.

2 The Roman Empire of the Second Century, or the Age of the Antonines. By W. W. Capes, M. A. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

3 The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R. A. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Springfield: Whitney & Adams.

Sweet Singer of Michigan; in their ideas they do not however resemble hers because it can hardly be said of them that they "are more truth than poetry." Of none of Turner's work indeed can this be said. "He is always and above all things the artist," says Mr. Hamerton. "With all his study of objects and effects, he was never a naturalist. The real motive of every one of his compositions is to realize some purely artistic conception, not to copy what he saw; consequently he lived in a state of mental activity and feeling which cannot be in the least understood until we know what the artistic intelligence is, and what are its necessities, its purposes, and its aspirations." This seems to mean that art is not for common folk; that none but the initiated can know anything about it. And this furnishes the reason, no doubt, why common folk often fail to be pleased or impressed with Mr. Turner's pictures. They have never been instructed in the professional secrets; they do not know how certain effects are produced, and therefore they are not capable of admiring them. This is undoubtedly true, so far as Turner is concerned; but the kind of art which cannot be appreciated without a professional training in its technique is not, after all, the highest kind of art. The greatest painter, like the greatest poet, will escape from professionalisms and conventionalities and express himself in a language that will be perfectly intelligible to the common people.

He

MR. HOWELLS' last novel is his best. would be an unreasonable and crusty customer indeed who should ask for anything more delightful than this story. In its realistic representation of New England character and its reproduction of the New England dialect, in its exquisite delineation of two typical Bostonians, in the sprightliness of its dialogue, in the delicacy of its humor, in the simple effectiveness of its plot, in the wholesomeness of its morality, and above all in the intelligent and hearty respect with which America and the Americans are treated in it, "The Lady of the Aroostook" is worthy of the highest praise. Mr. Howells is a cultivated and traveled American; he knows a great deal more about the true inwardness of European social life than many of those Americans know who have written books about it; he has also the advantage of some of them in knowing his own countrymen and countrywomen; and it has fallen to him to institute what seems to be a fair comparison between American and European manners in which the superiority of the former does not very clearly appear. It is made evident that delicacy of feeling and dig

1 The Lady of the Aroostook. By W. D. Howells. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. Springfield : Whitney & Adams.

nity and scrupulous honor and the most genuine modesty are at least sometimes developed under the forms of our American social life, and that certain qualities quite opposite to these are quite frequently developed in that social life whose forms some Americans are desirous of reproducing in this country. And if we must admit that it was "a genuine bit of American civilization" that brought the passengers of the Aroostook together in a relation so apparently awkward and questionable, it was also " a genuine bit of American civilization" that they behaved as they did; that the young men conducted themselves with such delicate courtesy and such scrupulous honor, and that the young woman bore herself with such stainless modesty. We beg the European critics of our free social customs to read these words of Lydia Blood, the only lady on board the Aroostook, to her aunt in Venice:

"From the time the ship sailed till I reached this wicked place, there wasn't a word said nor a look looked to make me think I wasn't just as right and safe there as if I had been in my own room at home. They were never anything but kind and good to me. They never let me think that they could be my enemies, or that I must suspect them, and be on my watch against them. They were Americans!"

No American will have any difficulty in believing that the words of Miss Lydia Blood are strictly true, and that they describe a state of things which is by no means exceptional, but which is the normal result in the best society of American social customs. And we must be allowed to think that such a result is far better than anything that can be hoped for under the system of suspicion and surveillance by which European society is regulated. The American plan has its defects and its dangers no doubt, but it does develop a purity and a strength of character, both in men and in women, which the Etropean plan does not seem to produce. This is the fact that Mr. Howells suggests; and we trust that it will be duly weighed by all those Europeans who are in the habit of decorating America with their contempt, and not less by those Americans who like Dunham are fond of view

ing their native world from a foreign standpoint.

THE satire is but slight, and the wit is but thin in the versified essay entitled " At the Back of the Moon." The effectiveness of the performance largely consists in spelling proper names backward, as "Notsob" for Boston, and “Wen Kroy' clumsy and the criticism is done with a blunt

tool.

"for New York.

The versification is

1 At the Back of the Moon, or Observations of Lunar Phases. By A. Lunar Wray. Doston: Lee & Shepard.

Of the People and for the People. LIFE OF GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.

By T. AUGUSTUS BLAND, M. D. Handsomely bound

BOOKS OF TRAVEL.

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CURTIS GUILD, editor of "Boston Commercial Bulletin." Crown 8vo, cloth, $2.50.

This is certainly a collection of some of the most lands we have ever seen.-Albion. perfect pen pictures of sights and scenes in foreign

Easter Lilies, for Easter Holy-Days.
RESURGIT:

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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.

REV. CHARLES BEECHER ON SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS. 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

It is a book which the reader of any type of preconceived opinions or prejudices will not fail to read with absorbing interest.-Chicago Interior.

Likely to receive much attention, not only from those who believe, but from the skeptical as well.Boston Advertiser.

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.

SAYING THE CATECHISM, Seventy-five years ago, and the Historical Results. By REV. DORUS CLARKE, D. D. Paper, 15 cents;

cloth, 50 cents.

AT THE BACK OF THE MOON.

A Poetical Satire. By A. LUNAR WRAY. Bound in cloth, price 50 cents.

ABROAD AGAIN;

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AN AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD. By MISS ADELINE TRAFTON, author of "His Inheritance," "Katherine Earle," etc. 16mo, illustrated, $1.50.

"The American Girl" is a bright, good, merryhearted girl, off for a good time, and her readers are of the opinion that the journey was a decided success.-Liberal Christian.

BEATEN PATHS;

Or, A WOMAN'S VACATION. BY ELLA W. THOMPSON. 16mo, cloth, $1.50.

The author seems to have hit on just the most charming things to see, and talks of them in a charming manner.-Tribune.

VOYAGE OF THE PAPER CANOE. A Geographical Journey of 2.500 miles, from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, during the year 1874-5. By NATHANIEL H. BISHOP, author of "A ThousandMile Walk across South America" Embellished with spirited illustrations and ten maps of the coast. Crown 8vo, cloth, $2.50.

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The sketches are not mere humorous exaggerations, but contain a great deal of very sensible observation and graphic description.-Baltimore Gazette.

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GETTING TO PARIS.

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By WILLIAM WINTER. An unique and dainty volTHE TRIP TO ENGLAND.

ume. 12mo. 75 cents.

A delightful experience of ten weeks in England and France. A memorial of lovely scenes and happy moments. Dedicated to Whitelaw Reid, of the New York Tribune.