ports of his journeyings, will find a good sale. Of these the "Hon" J. T. Headley's book, with its monumental title-page, and its profusion of pictures, is one of the most considerable. Time was when Mr. Headley was regarded by a large class of readers as a very eminent and eloquent writer, and we do not see any signs in this volume that his hand has become enfeebled or that his heart has grown cold. He is still the same ardent, impetuous, devoted historian that he always was. There is some lack of consecutiveness in the arrangement of his materials in this volume; and in the rush of emotion the rhetoric is now and then a little mixed; but the book will find great favor with all those who admire Mr. Headley's writings, and will serve to amuse many others. MR. CALVERT's study of Wordsworth is a piece of careful but sympathetic criticism, and will rank along with the essays of Frederic Rob ertson, Stopford Brooke and Principal Shairp in its appreciative and almost worshipful estimate of Wordsworth's character and work. The influ ence which he has exerted over the best minds of our own time is something noteworthy; no other recent poet has been so great a master. And while the last verdict must be that his simplicity is sometimes overstrained, and that his homilies frequently degenerate into the barest prose, yet criticism can only confirm his right to be ranked among the great seers and teachers of mankind. We commend Mr. Calvert's "Study' " to a race of poets that content themselves with reproducing the outward aspects and forms of Nature, and are not greatly troubled with "A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man." IN their "Recollections of Writers," Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke have preserved for us a delightful bundle of characteristic reminiscences of the later English writers and artists,— Coleridge and Charles and Mary Lamb and Keats and Cruikshanks and Leech and Leigh Hunt and Dickens and Jerrold and a host of others. Many letters of Hunt and Dickens and Jerrold are given, and the gossip about all these famous people is of a good-natured and highly appreciative quality. ONE would not look for much poetry in or about Africa; but Mr. Longfellow has contrived 1 The Achievements of Stanley and other African Explorers. By Hon. J. T. Head'ey. Springfield: Hubbard Brothers. 2 Wordsworth; A Biographic Esthetic Study. By George H. Calvert. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. 3 Recollections of Writers. By Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. to gather for his volume of "Poems of Places" devoted to that continent a goodly array of striking and memorable verse. Carthage, Egypt, Ancient Thebes, the Nile, the Pyramids and the Desert, have furnished themes to many of the best singers; and this collection is a beautiful garland laid by modern art upon the altars of the ancient civilization. TOPLADY'S familiar hymn with illustrations by Miss L. B. Humphrey is one of the gift-books? of the season. The printing and binding are elethe hymn gains nothing of impressiveness as we gant, but the designs are not remarkable, and contemplate them. THE birds of America have been fortunate in their historians, and among them Alexander Wilson and his collaborator, Charles Lucian Bonaparte have long been eminent. The three large volumes of their joint work have now been republished in one volume.3 The plates and engravings of the hundred-dollar edition are used in this edition, though the latter are not colored. This valuable and expensive work is thus sold at the moderate price of seven dollars and a half. Of recent novels, Mr. E. P. Roe's A Face Illumined (New York; Dodd, Mead & Company) is most eagerly bespoken and will have widest sale. The popularity of Mr. Roe's books is something phenomenal, but nothing to be deprecated. The people who buy and read them would find the stories of Mr. Howells rather dull; and while Mr. Roe amuses them vastly more than Mr. Howells could, he does them no harm. The public requires for its literary nutriment a large amount of food that is not highly organized, and for this purpose a pabulum like that of Mr. Roe's stories is not only wholesome, but-if we may be allowed an expressive vulgarism-remarkably "fillin'." Robert Lowell's Stories from an Old Dutch Town (Boston: Roberts Brothers) give us the result of some faithful studies of manners, speech and character among the Dutchmen of the Mohawk valley; but as stories, they are too rambling and confused in action to afford Green makes his first serious venture in fiction much pleasure to the reader. . . . Mr. Mason A. in Bitterwood. (New York: G. W. Carleton & Co.) Mr. Green has a keen sense of humor and some insight into character; many of his descriptions are accurate and vivid, and his moralizings ... 1 Poems of Places. Edited by Henry W. Longfellow. Africa. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. 2 Rock of Ages. By Augustus Montague Toplady. With Illustrations by Miss L. B. Humphrey. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Springfield: Whitney & Adams 3 American Ornithology; or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States. By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates. Springfield: A. Burt. are frequently apt; but he lacks the constructive der is, after all, about the cleverest of our writers faculty. He must study the art of story-telling, and learn to march his materials into action in better order, and with a more intelligible plan of campaign. . . . Miss Virginia F. Townsend's A Woman's Word and How She Kept It (Boston: Lee & Shepard) is a love story of a mildly harrowing type. The moral tone of the story is good enough, but its intellectual quality is not of the highest order. Of children's books for the holidays the supply never fails. Among the best that we have seen is Nelly's Silver Mine by H. H. (Boston: Roberts Brothers.) It is a sketch of child-life in Colorado, full of nature and human nature, instructive, wholesome and stimulating. H. H. knows and loves children, and we trust that her first venture in this field will not be her last. . . A neat box contains the Ainslie Series: Ainslie and His Friends; Grandpa's House; Harry's Winter with the Indians; Four, and What they Did,by Helen Campbell. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.) These are established and worthy favorites with the children, and in this new and popular edition ought to find many readers. So phie May's Little Pitchers (Boston: Lee & Shepard) is bright and laughable, of course, besides being profitable for doctrine, reproof and instruction in righteousness to the little folks. The author keeps studying children faithfully, and always has some new and good things to tell. The boy who thought God spoke to him "under his jag-knife pocket," and who wanted to whip another fellow for pinching his little sister's fingers "with a pair of clams," can be added, not to her creations, but to her series of reports on childhood. . . . The boys will find in Burying the Hatchet, by Elijah Kellogg, (Boston: Lee & Shepard) all the excitement they crave. It is a story of frontier life during the French war; and while the mental health of our boys does not require many additions to this class of books, this book may be regarded as among the best of its class. . . Any American boy who wishes to know what "being a boy" means in England, will be interested in reading My Boyhood, by H. C. Barkley. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.) Mr. Barkley gives the flavor of the English boylife quite as faithfully, no doubt, as Mr. Warner gives that of the American boy in his delightful book; and there is matter of interest, not only for boys, but for students of comparative civilization, in these two recent sketches. A thoroughly healthy story for children is Miss Sleight's ... for children; and his The Bodleys on Wheels (Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co.) is a delightful series of sketches. Mr. Scudder takes the Bodley family upon an excursion along the north shore of Massachusetts, where they see many notable things and discourse about them charmingly. The book holds the interest of very young readers, and contributes to the knowledge as well as the pleasure of those that are not so young. BOOKS RECEIVED. A History of American Literature. By Moses Coit Tyler. Vol. I: 1607-1676. Vol. II: 1676-1765. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Discussions in Church Polity: From Contributions to the "Princeton Review " By Charles Hodge, D. D. Selected and arranged by the Rev. William Durant, with a Preface by Archibald Alexander Hodge, D. D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. Conscience: With Preludes on Current Events. By Joseph Cook. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. Select Notes on the International Sabbath School Lessons for 1879. Explanatory, Illustrative and Practical. By Rev. F. N. and M. A. Peloubet. Boston: Henry Hoyt. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. The Races of European Turkey; Their Condition, History and Prospects. In Three Parts. Part I. -The Byzantine Empire. Part II.-The Modern Greeks and Albanians. Part 111.-The Turkish Slavonians, the Wallachians and the Gypsies. By Edson L. Clark. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. Sermons Preached in the Church of the First Religious Society of Roxbury. By George Putnam, Minister of the Society. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. On the Right Use of Books. A Lecture. By William P. Atkinson. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. The Great Slighted Fortune. By J. D. Bell. New York: T. Y. Crowell. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson. By her Niece, Geraldine Macpherson. With a Portrait. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. Gates into the Psalm Country. By Marvin R. Vincent. D. D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. A Masque of Poets: Including Guy Vernon. a Landseer. (Artist Biographies.) Boston: Houghtor. Select Poems. By Harvey Rice. Boston: Lee & Prairie Days. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.) Meg: A Pastoral, and Other Poems. By Zadel Barnes The free wind of the prairies blows through its pages; its young folks are neither incredibly good nor attractively bad, and its lessons of conduct are sound and sweet. . . . Mr. Horace E. Scud Gustafson. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Mother Play and Nursery Fongs. Illustrated By Fifty Engravings With Notes to Mothers. By Friedrich Froebel. Translated from the German Boston: Lee & Shepard. Springfield: Whitney & Adams. LEE AND SHEPARD'S NEW BOOKS. MEG, A PASTORAL; AND OTHER POEMS. By Mrs. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON, whose poems are familiar to the readers of Harper's Magazine, and many others. "Meg." the leading poem of this volume, is now published for the first time. 16mo, cloth, $1.50. "The opening poem is marked by a sweetness and simplicity of diction which are in excellent keeping with the quiet and tender story which it has to tell-a story of true love triumphant over doubt, and discerning its own in spite of errors and misconceptions. In the second poem, the elegy for Bryant, we see this singer at her best. The poem is charged with deep and genuine feeling, and has many subtle and graceful fancies. In it all the forces and influence of Nature, all the things animate and inanimate-the rivulet, the water-fowl, the west wind, the joy of June, the lilies, the birds, and the children-which the rare old poet read so keenly and loved so deeply, join in the lamentation for his death; and with their voices are blended graver and more solemn strains from the nations-those of Greece, Spain, Italy, and America-with whose struggles toward freedom he had so ardent a sympathy."-Boston Journal "The volume contains, among the other fresh work from Mrs. Gustafson, a graceful dramatic poem entitled Meg, which, if we are not greatly mistaken, will attract much attention. Her memorial poem on William Cullen Bryant is one of the worthiest tributes yet paid America's great poet of nature. All nature is represented as saluting him. The opening of the poem is in a most stately elegiac style; but this presently changes to a more joyous, triumphal strain as full as Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream' music of revelling faries, flowers and insects chanting or preparing to ehant a fit threnondy to welcome to his repose among them him who had loved them best.""-Boston Transcript. "The first half of this volume is composed of three poems which have not before appeared in print. The opening one, which gives name to the book, is a country love story in dramatic form, told with studied simplicity. The second is a fine memorial poem on William Cullen Bryant, in which the sympathy of nature and man with the departed poet is expressed in eloquent and melodious measures. The frame of the poem suggests a symphony; a delicate pastoral prelude, gracious allegro, modulating to a sweet andante, and a finale of sustained diguity."-Springfield Republican. YOUNG FOLKS' OPERA. NURSERY RHYMES, AND MELODIES OF MOTHER GOOSE. With LITTLE PITCHERS. ZLE. 2. DOCTOR PAPA. 3. LITTLE PITCHERS. LAKE BREEZES; OR, THE CRUISE OF THE SYLVANIA. 16mo, cloth, illustrated. $1.50. Being the third volum of the GREAT WESTERN SERIES: 1. GOING WEST. 2. OUT WEST. 3. LAKE BREEzes. DONALD'S SCHOOL DAYS. By GEN. 0.0. HOWARD, U. S. A. 16mo, cloth, illustrated, $1.25. The Annual Illustrated Sacred Poem will this year be ROCK OF AGES. Rightly By AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY. ART AND ARTISTS OF CONNECTICUT. MOTHER-PLAY. BY FREDERICK FROBEL (the father of Kindergarten). Translated from the original by Miss JOSEPHINE JARVIS and Miss F. E. DWIGHT. With fifty full-page illustrations, and a great number of original German Kindergarten songs with English words. It is a novel and complete assistant to the mother, and an endless source of amusement to the child. Royal 4to, price $2.00. ENGLAND FROM A BACK WINDOW. By JAMES M. BAILEY, author of "Life in Dan- AND HOW SHE KEPT IT. By VIRGINIA F. A Biographic and Esthetic Study, by GEORGE A PAPER CITY. A novel. By D. R. LOCKE (Petroleum V. Nasby). 12mo, cloth, $1.50. Sold by all Booksellers and Newsdealers, and sent by Mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. Catalogues Mailed Free. LEE & SHEPARD, Publishers, Boston, Mass. A Note from JOHN G. WHITTIER, the Poet. Oak Knoll, Danvers, 1 Mo. 29, 1878. My Dear Friend:--I have received the first two numbers of the "Sunday Afternoon," and have read them with hearty satisfaction. It seems to me a complete success; it does all that it claims or aims to do: and I have no doubt that it will find a wide circulation. I am glad to see that the author of "Deephaven," one of the most charming books which has been published for the last decade, has a place in it. The quaint, tender and beautiful simplicity of Marian Douglas's "Dorcas" is most refreshing after reading more pretentious and stilted verse writers. I need not wish thee success, it is thine already. Thy readers, like Tennyson's wanderers, cannot fail to rejoice that they have reached the place "Where it is always Afternoon." Thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER. The Boston Advertiser says it is "Able and very interesting ** Crowded with matter which is good and bright in a literary sense and useful in every sense." The Sunday School Times says:-"Continues to hold its place in the very front of American magazines, few of which equal it in ability and none of which have greater originality and freshness." The Boston Transcript says:-"In these days, when there is so much that is milk and water in our periodical literature, Sunday Afternoon acts upon the reader like a tonic. The editorial department is especially strong." The Hartford Courant says:-"Is edited with extreme cleverness, and presents a great variety of bright, entertaining and suggestive matter." Sunday Afternoon A MONTHLY MAGAZINE FOR THE HOUSEHOLD, Presenting only original matter, equals in literary merit the leading secular monthlies, and sustains to the religious press a relation similar to theirs to the secular press. It aims to have in all its essays, serials, stories, poems, etc., a moral purpose, while in its Editor's Table are vigorous discussions of live religious themes, and of current secular topics from the religious stand-point. It is pre-eminently readable, and fills a place occupied by no other publication. FICTION, both SERIAL and SHORT STORIES, and BOOK REVIEWS, have liberal space in its pages. ITS CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE PROF. GEO. P. FISHER, D. D. REBECCA HARDING DAVIS, ROSE TERRY COOKE, JAMES T. MCKAY, ELLEN W. OLNEY, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, REV. E. A. WASHBURN, D. D. J. B. T. MARSH, JOHN ESTEN COOKE, SARAH O. JEWETT, author of Deephaven JULIA C. R. DORR, And other popular writers. $3.00 a Year, postage paid. Send 15c. for specimen copy. SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Springfield, Mass. COLVIN THE SINNER, a serial by the author of Tom's HEATHEN, which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe commended so highly, begins in the January number. It is a story of decided interest and ability. The Clark W. Bryan Company, Printers, Springfield, Mass. |