king, before whom he was admitted to play his trick, hated him at first, and told him that the last conjurer had made him cautious of such people, he having been detected in filching from the royal tiara one of the weightiest jewels." 66 sor. heroes. "Xerxes. I would slay only the armed. The women and children I would in part divide among the bravest of my army, and in part I would settle on the barren localities of iny dominions, whereof there are many. The fact "Alexander. Not only did he swear more frequently and more awfully than any officer in the army, or any priest in the temples, but his sacrifices were more numerous and more costly. 66 Priest. More costly? It must be either to those whose ruin is consummated, or to those whose ruin is commenced; in other words, either to the vanquished, or to those whose ill-fortune is of earlier date, the born subjects of the vanquisher. "Alexander. He exhibited the surest and most manifest proof of his piety when he defeated Enomarchus, general of the Phocians, who had dared to plough a piece of ground belonging to Apollo. "Alexander. He instructed kings by slaying their people before their eyes; surely he would never set so bad an example as striking at the kings themselves. Philip, to demonstrate in the presence of all Greece his regard for Apollo of Delphi, slew six thousand, and threw into the sea three thousand enemies of religion." Xenophanes, my townsman of Samosata, was resolved to buy a new horse: he had tried him, and liked him well enough. I asked him why he wished to dispose of his old one, knowing how sure-footed he was, how easy in his paces, and how quiet in his pasture. Very true, O Lucian,' said he; the horse From a conversation between Xerxes and Artabanus, we quote these scraps: is a clever horse: noble eye, beautiful figure, stately step; rather too fond of neighing and of "Artabanus. Many nations, O Xerxes, have shuffling a little in the vicinity of a mare; but risen higher in power, but no nation rose ever tractable and good-tempered.' 'I would not to the same elevation in glory as the Greek. have parted with him then,' said I. Xerxes. For which reason, were there no is,' replied he, my grandfather, whom I am other, I would destroy it; then all the glory about to visit, likes no horses but what are this troublesome people have acquired will fall Saturnized. To-morrow I begin my journey: unto me in addition to my own. come and see me set out.' I went at the "Artabanus. The territory, yes: the hour appointed. The new purchase looked "Priest. Apollo might have made it as hot glory, no. The solid earth may yield to the quiet and demure; but he also pricked up his work for the Phocians who were ploughing his mighty; one particle of glory is never to ears, and gave sundry other tokens of equip-ground, as he formerly did at Troy to those be detached from the acquirer and posses-ity, when the more interesting part of his unruly Greeks who took away his priest's fellow-creatures came near him. As the morn- daughter. He shot a good many mules to "Xerxes. But if one God can do us good, ing oats began to operate, he grew more and show he was in earnest, and would have gone fifty can do us more, aided by demigods and more unruly, and snapped at one friend of on shooting both cattle and men until he came Xenophanes, and sidled against another, and at last to the offender. gave a kick at a third. All in play! all in play!' said Xenophanes; his nature is more of a lamb's than a horse's.' However, these mute salutations being over, away went Xenophanes. In the evening, when my lamp had 66 Artabanus. Humanely and royally just been replenished for the commencement spoken! But did it never once occur to an of my studies, my friend came in striding as if observer so sagacious, that thousands and tens he still were across the saddle. I am appreof thousands in your innumerable host would hensive, O Xenophanes,' said I, your new gladly occupy and cultivate those desert acquisition has disappointed you.' 'Not in places, in which an Athenian would pine the least,' answered he. I do assure you, away? Immense tracts of your dominions are O Lucian, he is the very horse I was looking scantily inhabited. Two million men are out for. On my requesting him to be seated, taken from agriculture and other works of in- he no more thought of doing so than if it had dustry, of whom probably a third would have been in the presence of the Persian king. I married, another third would have had children then handed my lamp to him, telling him (as born unto them from the wives they left be- was true) it contained all the oil I had in the hind: of these thousands and tens of thousands house, and protesting I should be happier to God only knows how many may return! Not finish my Dialogue in the morning. He took the only losses are certain; but wide fields must lamp into my bedroom, and appeared to be lie uncultivated, much cattle be the prey of much refreshed on his return. Nevertheless, he wild beasts throughout the empire, and more treated his chair with great delicacy and cirof worse depredators who never fear the law cumspection, and evidently was afraid of but always the battle, and who skulk behind breaking it by too sudden a descent. I did and hide themselves to fall upon what unpro- not revert to the horse; but he went on of his tected property has been left by braver men. own accord. I declare to you, O Lucian, it Unless our victory and our return be speedy, is impossible for me to be mistaken in a palyour providence in collecting stores during frey. My new one is the only one in Samosata three entire years will have been vain. Already that could carry me at one stretch to my the greater part (four-fifths at the lowest com-grandfather's.' But has he?' said I, timputation) hath been consumed. Attica and idly. No, he has not yet,' answered my Sparta could not supply a sufficiency for two friend. To-morrow then, I am afraid, we millions of men additional, and three hundred really must lose you.' 'No,' said he; the thousand horses, two months. Provender will horse does trot hard; but he is the better for soon be wanting for the sustenance of their that: I shall soon get used to him.' In fine, own few cattle; summer heats have com- my worthy friend deferred his visit to his menced; autumn is distant and unpromising." grandfather; his rides were neither long nor frequent; he was ashamed to part with his In the dialogue between Menander and purchase, boasted of him everywhere; and, Epicurus we find this bit of philosophy :- humane as he is by nature, could almost have broken on the cross the quiet, contented owner of old Bucephalus.” "There are two miseries in human life: To live without a friend and with a wife." No doubt, Mr. Landor was thinking of his own wife when he wrote this; for between them were continual dissensions. He married her on sight, having no knowledge whatever of her condition or antecedents. Entering a ball-room, and seeing her, he cried: "The prettiest girl in the ball; I'll marry her!" And he did; and never ceased to regret the step. In a dialogue with Timotheus, Lucian tells a horse story: — Alexander. He was the most religious prince of the age. "Lucian. Such being the case, a pleasant Priest. On what, O Alexander, rests the story will not be thrown away upon you. I support of such an exalted title? The opinions of so learned a man as Diogenes are worth hearing:— "I am weary of this digression on the inequality of punishments; let us come up to the object of them. It is not, O Plato, an absurdity of thine alone, but of all who write and of all who converse on them, to assert that they both are and ought to be inflicted publicly, for the sake of deterring from offence. The only effect of public punishment is to show the rabble how bravely it can be borne, and that every one who hath lost a toe-nail hath suffered worse. The virtuous man, as a reward and a privilege, should be permitted to see how calm and satisfied a virtuous man departs. The criminal should be kept in the dark about the departure of his fellows, which is oftentimes as unreluctant; for to him, if indeed no reward or privilege, it would be a corroborative and a cordial. Such things ought to be taken from him, no less carefully than the instruments of destruction or evasion. Secrecy and mystery should be the attendants of punishment, and the sole persons present should be the injured, or two of his relatives, and a functionary delegated by each tribe, to witness and register the execution of justice. "Trials, on the contrary, should be public in every case. It being presumable that the sense of shame and honor is not hitherto quite extinguished in the defendant, this, if he be guilty, is the worst part of his punishment: if innocent, the best of his release. From the hour of trial until the hour of return to society (or the dust) there should be privacy, there should be solitude. "Lucian. So would I. Magnificent words, and the pomp and procession of stately sentences, may accompany genius, but are not always nor frequently called out by it. The voice ought not to be perpetually nor much elevated in the ethic and didactic, nor to roll sonorously, as if it issued from a mask in the theatre. The horses in the plain under Troy are not always kicking and neighing; nor is the dust always raised in whirlwinds on the banks of Simois and Scamander; nor are the rampires always in a blaze. Hector has lowered his helmet to the infant of Andromache, and Achilles to the embraces of Briseis. I do not blame the prose writer to open his bosom occasionally to a breath of poetry; neither, on the contrary, can I praise the gait of that pedestrian who lifts up his legs as high on a bare heath as in a corn-field. Be authority as old and obstinate as it may, never let it persuade you that a man is the stronger for being unable to keep himself on the ground, or the weaker for breathing quietly and softly on ordinary occasions. Tell me over and over that you find every great quality in Plato: let me only once ask you in return, whether he ever is ardent and energetic, whether he wins the affections, whether he agitates the heart? Finding him deficient in every one of these faculties, I think his disciples have extolled him too highly. Where power is absent, we may find the robes of genius, but we miss the throne." - She clergyman, and a Ritualist at that, could ever Raymond takes the fever and dies, and her have yielded to her charms. But they seem father comes and carries off the widow. to love one another dutifully, and the reader Through the fever the Rev. Julius, the musat once sets them down as the happiest couple cular Christian curate, Bowater, and Mesdames of the trio. Years before, Raymond, the Miles and Julius Poynsett, toil with beautiful oldest son, had fallen desperately in love with devotion at the bedsides of the sick, and deCamilla Vivian, and bis passion was evidently feat the arch-enemy death on not a few strickreturned; but Lord Tyrrell, a rich and titled en fields. Two love affairs crawl slowly man, though of very bad reputation, happened along in attendance on the events which have along, and Camilla skipped into his arms with been recited. Frank Poynsett is the slave of a nimbleness worthy of her namesake. It was Eleanora Vivian, sister of Camilla. a hard blow for Raymond; but he bore it loves him with every pulse of her energetic manfully, and in due time poured out his woes young heart; but her father and brother havinto Cecil's sympathizing bosom. ing found ruin on the turf, she has registered The society around Compton, Mrs. Poyn- a vow that she will never marry a man who sett's estate, was very brilliant, Sir Harry risks his greenbacks on the winning horse. Vivian, a wretched, poor, broken-down old Now Frank, in a moment of dejection, roué, who lived with Lady Tyrrel and Elea- - though he and Eleanora had enjoyed a most nora Vivian, both his daughters, at Siren- cordial understanding, and seduced by the THE THREE BRIDES.* view; Mrs. Duncombe, a strong-minded lady decrepit old scoundrel, Sir Harry, had gone to MOST OST novels are blessed with only one who believed in woman's rights; Jenny Horn- a neighboring race-track, overrun himself with bride; but in this we have no less than blower, a general utility girl of sweet temper; what the Scriptures call "a mocker,” and three, all in a heap, if that prosaic descrip- a young fellow named Herbert Bowater, a ventured a few broad pieces on the uncertain tive phrase be permissible; and they are the curate who keeps three huge dogs and is an hazard of a horse-race. Camilla took care to happy companions of three brothers all gath- active member of the cricket club. The ladies put her pining sister in possession of this fact, ered in one house. The arrivals are almost project a bazaar with the purpose of raising and her wrath fell on Frank. But seeing him simultaneous; and the invalid mamma, who funds wherewith to improve the drainage of a down with the fever, and pouring out his love has borne and reared these great boys who certain corner of the town. Hinc illa lachry- for her in delirious strains, she softened; and have just rashly put themselves into other ma. On this event hangs nearly all the in- when he got well, all difficulties were adjusted, women's keeping, finds her head thrilling with terest of the story. The inmates of Compton and marriage ensued. Jenny Bowater is a pleasurable excitement. The brides, of course, House go to work with a will, with charitable pretty nice piece of femininity. She was enare very lovely, and to all seeming as sweet- intent, and vie with one another in the attrac-gaged to Archie Douglass, a cousin of the tempered as little kittens that cuddle round tiveness of their tables. Meantime, arrives a Poynsetts - -a clerk in a bank; but he and a their mother; but, as the events of this story learned Professor from Cambridge, Mass.; considerable sum of money made a simultanewill demonstrate, the rosy nails that terminate a lecturer, with his accomplished wife who is ous disappearance, and the match had never those white and taper fingers are amply fur- going about to enlighten her benighted Eng-been perfected. Miles found him in Africa; nished with the means and appliances for lish sisters as to woman's rights, and the way the evidence in his case was reviewed, and his scratching. Miles's wife comes first; a girl to get them. A real-estate owner in the un- innocence was established. This complicawhom he found in Africa, and who had been savory district consents to have the sanitary tion also ended in a marriage, and Archie reared in the Bush, -a still, shy, nervous measures inaugurated on his estate; and the went into the ostrich-hatching business. There little woman who goes through the formalities improvements are made, the whole vicinage is a peculiarity in this avocation which is of her welcome in evident discomfort. Next drawing water from his well. In consequence, worthy of note. Mr. Ostrich maintains two comes Rosamond, the strong, queenly, Irish a deadly fever speedily breaks out, which wives, and well he may, for Mrs. O. is a heedwife of the Reverend Julius; and, lastly, seizes upon several of the personages in the less and unfeeling mother, deserting her nest Cecil, — “dead perfection, no more," - the story, carrying some of them to the silent to gossip with a neighbor; but the just though proud spouse of Raymond Poynsett. Charles stern husband drives her back, and compels and Frank, the unmarried brothers, complete Meantime, the three brides had exhibited her to endure her share of the session. The the family party, which, for a day or two, at themselves in their true characters, under- young curate remarked, rather wickedly, on least, is a very jolly one. going "a sea change" into something not this, that the ostrich-policy would have to be imexactly "rich and strange," but something itated, if the rights of women were asserted. very surprising. Rosamond, the seeming The author is not quite kind to Mrs. Prof. hoyden, proves to be a noble, tender, effi- Tallboys, the American champion of woman's cient woman; Anne, the demure, shows her- rights, though she credits her with elegance self thoroughly kind-hearted and devoted, and a thorough knowledge of culinary secrets. though she encounters fierce censure from her We quote from a conversation at the Vivian worldly (though, alas! Ritualistic) associates House, as freely as our limits will permit:by reason of her practical and outspoken "I know,' says Mrs. Tallboys, who had piety. Raymond and Cecil have learned evidently been waiting impatiently to declaim, habitually to interchange the courtesies customthat men, even ministers of religion, from ary among inimical cats and dogs, but sustain ing enough to exalt woman, so long as they Paul, if you like, downwards, have been willa semblance of tender conjugal attachment. claim to sit above her. The higher the opShe fancies that her husband does not love pressed, so much higher the self-exaltation of her, and finds out something fragmentary the oppressor. Paul and Peter exalt their about his early flame; and that virtuous woman, but only as their own appendevery member of the household takes pains to thwart and with religious ministers at the head of it, call age, adorning themselves; and while society, But presently the novelty wears off, and the ladies begin gracefully to subside into their respective rôles. Cecil, the wife of the oldest son, assumes the place of mistress, which she fills with impressive dignity; ignoring, so far as she may, without palpable rudeness, the claims of the real mistress of the mansion. Her husband scowls at this assumption, and gives her a gentle chiding, which makes her pout. Anne, Miles's wife, is voted a nobody, and sits alone all day, reading Miles's letters, and pining for the Bush. Rosamond is a fine specimen of the unfettered Irish girl, so free and volatile that we wonder how a staid The Three Brides. By Charlotte M. Yonge. pp. 554. $1.75. New York: Macmillan & Co. Nichols & Hall. grave. 12 no. Boston: worry her. on a woman to submit, and degrade the sex, There, I think Lady Rosamond has at once demonstrated the higher nature of the woman,' said Mrs. Tallboys. would be capable of such generosity?' What man "No one denies,' said Julius, that erous forbearance, patience, fortitude, and self-renunciation belong almost naturally to the true wife and mother, and are her great glory; but would she not be stripped of them by self-assertion as the peer in power? 664 ment,' said Mrs. Duncombe. 'Because "Not so!' returned Julius. they are really the higher virtues.' "Patience!' at once exclaimed the American and English emancipators with some FILTH-DISEASES.* THE endorsement of this work by so high annual excesses of disease and death on causes which in the most moderate sense may be called removable." The doleful effects of the over-crowding of is a sufficient guarantee of its value. It deals population are forcibly set forth by the au- 66 Turning our flank again with a compli- population goes about the streets pining, sal-duced, have in innumerable instances been the These fine low, and decadent. The wisdom of these apparent causes of outbreaks of typhoid fever, qualities are very convenient to yourselves, lectures is derived directly from practical exand so you praise them up.' perience and observation in the world of London, - the finest field in the world, no doubt, for sanitary speculation. One-eighth of the annual deaths in England are said to be due not quite ten have reached the standard to epidemics. Of each hundred deaths there, old age of seventy-five years; and of each one hundred children born hardly seventy-four complete five years of life. "We next see scorn. ***Yes,' said Julius, in a low tone of thorough earnestness. The patience of strength and love is the culmination of virtue.' 666 Stay!' broke in Jenny, evidently not to the lady's satisfaction. That does not state the question. Nobody denies that woman is often of a higher and finer essence, as you say, than man, and has some noble qualities in a higher degree than any but the most perfect men; but that is not the question. It is whether she has more force and capacity than man; is, in fact, actually able to be on an equality.' but, further, that they have seemed capable of doing this mischief in a doubly distinctive way; first, as though by some aptitude which other nuisances of organic decomposition, though perhaps equally offensive, have not and secondly, as though this specific property, seemed equally, or nearly equally, to possess; so often attaching to them in addition to their common septic unwholesomeness, were not, even in them, a fixed property." "Jenny knew what was in his mind; but Mrs. Tallboys, with a curious tone, half pique, half triumph, said: You acknowledge this what appears to be a widely different expectawhich you call the higher nature in woman, Due stress is laid on the fact that filth does that is to say, all the passive qualities, and tion of life in different districts of the coun- not only infect where it stands, but can transyou are willing to allow her a finer spiritual try that while, for instance, in a consider-mit its infective power afar by certain approessence; and yet you do not agree to her able proportion (about a seventh of the priate channels of conveyance; that, for equal rights. This is the injustice of the number) of the districts into which England is instance, houses which have unguarded drainprejudice which has depressed her all these centuries.' divided for registration purposes, the death- age,- communication with cesspools or sewers, rate of infants in the first year of life ranges may receive through such communication from eight to twelve per cent, there is a still the same filth-infections as if excrements stood larger proportion of districts in which it ranges rotting within their walls; and that public or even from nineteen to thirty; and that, under private water-reservoirs, or water conduits, the influence of these Herodian districts, the giving accidental admission to filth, will carry infant death-rate of England, as a whole, the infection of the filth whithersoever their stands at the high average of eighteen. Simi- outflow reaches. “ Thus it has again and again larly, taking the death-rate of the population happened that an individual house, with every at all ages living, we find that the present gen- apparent cleanliness and luxury, has received eral English death-rate of about twenty-two the contagium of enteric fever through some and one-half per one thousand per annum unguarded inlet; and that numbers of such covers, on the one hand, local death-rates ranging from thirteen to seventeen; and on the other hand, local death-rates which range it would seem that influences hostile to life even to far above thirty. Prima facie, then, must be operating in parts of England far more vehemently than in other parts; and we turn to the registered learn from them, if we can, under what pecucauses of death' to liarities of local assessment life is so differently taxed or mulcted in the different parts of this one country. . . . Evidence has become more and more complete with regard to the vast And I say,' returned Mrs. Tallboys, that man has used brute force to cramp woman's intellect and energy so long, that she has learnt to acquiesce in her position, and to abstain from exerting herself; so that it is only where she is partially emancipated, as in my own country, that any idea of her powers can be gained.' I am afraid,' said Julius, that more may be lost to the world than is gained! No; I am not speaking from the tyrant point of view. I am thinking whether free friction with the world may not lessen that sweetness and tender innocence and purity that make a man's home an ideal and a sanctuary, - his best earthly influence.' This is only sentiment. Innocence is worthless, if it cannot stand alone and protect itself,' said Mrs. Tallboys." This book must be censured for its prolixity, and commended for its freedom from the ritualistic twaddle which has burdened some of the author's books. Her characters are lively and individual, but the action is halting and uninteresting. houses have simultaneously received the infection, as an epidemic, in places where the drain-inlets in general have been subject to And thus equally on the other hand, it has undue air-pressure from within the sewer. again and again happened that households,— while themselves without sanitary reproach,— through some nastiness affecting (perhaps at have received the contagium of enteric fever a considerable distance) the common watersupply of the district in which they are.” There is a vast amount of information and much practical wisdom in this volume. The author has evidently mastered his subject, drawing knowledge from all available sources, and digesting it with conspicuous skill. The book will be found essential to the professional student, and to every thoughtful housekeeper. THE LITERARY WORLD. BOSTON, OCTOBER 1, 1876. S. R. CROCKER. EDITOR. can taste than regular books: it offers new manner he suggests. We appreciate his things in a nut-shell; it is handy to manipu- grievance, we have suffered it ourselves; late, and — perhaps most important consid- but after long denunciation and resistance of eration of all—it is very cheap. Between paper-books, we must confess that they are the giving of two dollars for a book and irresistible, like a mountain stream. Moretwenty-five cents for a magazine, there is little over, they are not all bad: in Harper's room for doubt in the mind of the hurried Select Library of Fiction our correspondent American. Is there any thing in the shape of may find a knock-down for his argument and reading that the magazine does not furnish, a beneficent balm for his grief. ready to your hand? Seek you science? there is a magazine whose specialty it is. Is fiction your desire? The magazines teem The expiration of every subscription is indicated in with it; not only of domestic, but also of foreign growth, for the novels of the most emiuntil payment of all arrearages is made as required by nent English writers appear here and there Our rates for advertising in this paper are fifteen cents per line for the second, third, and fourth pages of the cover, and seventeen cents per line for the first page. TO SUBSCRIBERS. the printed address on the wrapper. Papers are forwarded until an explicit order is received by the publisher for their discontinuance, and law. THE ANONYMOUS IN FICTION. OMNE of “Helen's Babies" has been greatly stimu- seclusion. THE simultaneously. Is poetry the object of your 66 LITERARY TRANSPLANTATION. T is a significant fact that locality exerts a powerful influence on the literary character. The latter proves too often so delicate a plant that it will not endure transplantation. Bret Harte has fallen from his Pacific standard, having, since his emigration to the Eastern States, done nothing worthy of his early reputation. The change from the atmosphere and society of San Francisco, with which his nature seems to have been assimilated, was too severe for his genius, which has withered and pined. The same is true, in a less degree perhaps, of Mark Twain; and even more true of Joaquin Miller. Not one of these writers has, in recent days, approached the level he occupied at the start. This curious fact, we think, is easy of explanation, if we consider how powerfully the intellectual, as well as the physical, man is affected by physical influ ences. To pass from the heated, material atmosphere of California to the cool, austere temperature of Boston and the East, is to sever one's self from all the inspirations of youth, and to cope with ungenial relations in an effort to accomplish under adverse conditions the same tasks that one has done under favorable conditions. Literary inspiration is local. Wordsworth drew his from the lakes; Byron his from the Grecian Archipelago. Put the one in the other's place, and he would have been voiceless. THE FUTURE OF BOOKS. A SUBSCRIBER desires us to "blow up HERE is good reason to fear that the the paper-covered books. We would advise business of publishing new books will him to employ General Newton, whose grand become a barren field in this country. What success at Hell Gate, the other day, is a full with the rage for reprinting old volumes which guarantee of his engineering ability. We seems to possess some of our leading houses, and the marvellous multiplicity of periodicals, where will be room for the fresh products of the American brain? The periodical has come to be far more congenial to the Amer keep no explosive agents about these prem- We give in another column brief extracts "Night dropped her dewy curtain down, And pinned it with a star." "L. M.," Jamestown, N. C., wishes to her subsequent books are very good, does not many failures in reaching comparative perfecknow who is the author of the lines, your critique lead the reader to believe that tion. Having to do with many books that are Miss Hay is deteriorating? If the fact of the not themselves systematic, there can be noth'first effort' had been mentioned in the re- ing absolute arrived at; but that should only It was probably written by one of the Clarks, view, there would not have been any in- spur the ambition of those competent for the Louis or Willis. justice."" task to produce the best attainable guide. We did not know that the book was Miss With a Table of Contents which should at the By shrinking over-eagerness of heart, That should have stood unbent 'neath fourscore years, All gone to speechless dust; And he our passing guest, Shy nature, too, and stung with life's unrest, Not by still Isis or historic Thames, of violets that to-day I scattered over him." The reference is to the late Arthur Hugh Clough, a poet of rare powers, who spent some time in this country, making many friends. "Ella," New York, inquires: "Can you inform me through your columns whether there is any ballad besides that of Miss Muloch beginning, "Douglas, Douglas, tender and true,' Hay's first effort; we did not know that it CORRESPONDENCE. LIBRARY LITERATURE. To the Editor of The Literary World: same time constitute a synopsis of the work, the student could scarcely fail to discover the resources of a library on any given theme of investigation, and also to find in the same group other subjects to which his particular topic would be most nearly related. The position of all the subjects in such a scheme would reflect light on each, and explain their relation. The alphabetical plan scatters cognate subjects all through the catalogue. classified. I WAS pleased to see, by the last number of Of course the librarians having charge of The Literary World, that the authorities of the largest collections would be best fitted for the Boston Public Library have their eyes such work, from their ability to produce repreopen to the poison which pervades much of sentatives of the various divisions and subdithe imaginative literature of the day. Read- visions involved in an exhaustive scheme of ers, I fear, have sometimes taken for granted, knowledge. The smaller libraries would only - from the high-sounding names given to se- need the more generic heads in a graduated ries of stories, and from the almost matter-of-scale, according to the variety of works to be course commendation bestowed by the press on the publications of successful houses, that these works receive competent editorial supervision. It is to be hoped that this revelation will awaken parents to a sense of their responsibility, in permitting not only an undue quantity, but an indiscriminate choice, of works of fiction. Let me say, however, that I have not singled out books belonging to series for especial reprobation, except for the implied guarantee they hold out. I commend this subject to the attention of the Convention of Librarians to be holden this month (October), in Philadelphia. as in I have just finished reading Prof. Fiske's His admirable paper in the October Atlantic. readers will be saved asking at least one question in future. MINOR BOOK NOTICES. - Mr. E. A. Freeman, the historian, has improved on Charles Dickens, and beaten the feat of writing the Lord's Prayer on a threecent piece. He has produced in a little 18mo. of one hundred and fifty pages, a really satisfactory history of Europe. It is clear, succinct, yet sufficiently comprehensive, touching intelligently upon every most salient point in European progress from the influx of the Aryans to the present time. The author errs in States have had was the one with Mexico." saying that the only external war the United Sundry old veterans are still living who sailed in the Constitution, and sundry others who fought at Lundy's Lane. Beginners in history will find this a very useful and suggestive little manual. [D. Appleton & Co.] 66 Apropos to this convention: I trust it will not fail to cooperate with the National Bureau of Education in perfecting a system of cataloguing for libraries. Prof. Jewett's was good so far as it went; but, if my memory serves, it did not discuss classification. I would like to see a system whereby the transposition of titles, and the insertion of parentheses to make and whether I can find such a one in any them mean what they do not express, collection this side of the water?" an alphabetical arrangement of titles and auMiss Muloch's is the only poem, we think, thors, and the use of an indefinite number -The poet says in a pleasant preface to the which answers to the above description. of cross-references, as in a classification pretty volume, "Poems of Places," which has just appeared in the "Little Classic" edition, which retains the alphabetical form, would that this collection of Poems of Places has be avoided. To my thinking, the latter, how-been made partly for the pleasure of making it, ever good, does not serve all the purposes of a classification; and I argue those who use it admit as much when they resort to sub-heads A. E.," New Orleans, writes in his in the more important departments. The stukindly way: "You are always the most wel- dent often desires as much to know to what come reviewer that comes to my table, and I general department a minor category belongs enjoy and profit by your monthly visits. If I as to which of those minor heads to refer an could induce 500 or a 1000 men and women individual work. You would not send him to in this city to think as I do, L. W.' would be an alphabetized gazeteer to learn geography. comparatively happier. You say you do not Nothing else can dispense with system; and see the ‘injustice,' in your criticism of Hid- how can that which is intended to unlock all den Perils,' to the author. The book in ques- human knowledge do without it? As biblition is undoubtedly a first effort; and, as allography is yet in its infancy, there may be We have ascertained that 66 Curfew must not ring to-night" was written by Rosa A. and partly for the pleasure I hope it may give to those who may read its pages." Among the drawn upon in his collection are Shakspeare, authors whose treasures Mr. Longfellow has James Montgomery, Byron, Goldsmith, Cowper, Shenstone, Crabbe, Lord Houghton, Halleck, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and many delectation of our local readers, who may like others, English and American. For the to know something about our ancient English namesake, we quote the poem, "St. Botolph's Town," with the descriptive note: " Boston, in Lincolnshire, takes its name from its founder, St. Botolph, who flourished about the middle of the seventh century. At present, the chief glory of the town [as the Old South is of new |