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[We are sorry to say that Azim was not a moral man.] In love with a girl, he plans to carry her off; when her friends asked the Kazi to interfere. But Azim so wrought on the judge that he required the girl's father to permit her to be married only at full age, and then only on condition that she should be first proposed to Azim.”

Among the Tadjiks the author picks up this amusing story: "The queen, Shini Hatun, a great beauty, had two lovers, one a Tadjik, the other an Usbek. Both were persistent, and as she was at a loss which to choose, an old woman counselled her to give them some difficult work, and to marry the one who succeeded. She therefore commanded a canal through the Famished Steppe. Terbat, a strong stalwart fellow, with a simple and straightforward nature, took his spade and dug away all day, trying to turn the channel of the river; and thus formed the cataracts at Bigavat. The Tadjik, crafty and full of expedients, plaited a wicker of reeds, and laid it on the ground across the steppe. Early in the morning the sun's rays reflected from the shining reeds, and made them appear like a stream of water; and Shini Hatun thereupon called for the Tadjik, and married him. When the Usbek learned of the deception that had been practised upon him, he was in despair, and threw his spade high up in the air, so that as it came down it cut off his head with a single

stroke."

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66

WIT, HUMOR, AND SHAKSPEARE.* FINE humor characterizes Mr. Weiss's Wit, Humor, and Shakspeare," which comprises twelve essays, on The Cause of Laughter; Wit, Irony, Humor; Dogberry, Malvolio, Troilus and Cressida (Ajax), Bottom, Touchstone; Falstaff, His Companions-Americanisms; Hamlet; The Porter in Macbeth, The Clown in Twelfth Night, The Fool in Lear; Women and Men, Maria, Helena, Imogen, Constance; Lord Bacon and The Plays, Shakspeare's Women, Love in Shakspeare ; Portia ; Helena, Ophelia; Macbeth; Blonde Women Lady Macbeth.

The opening essay is very ingenious and mirthful. Of all animals, only man can laugh,

* Wit, Humor, and Shakspeare. In Twelve Essays. By

John Weiss. 12mo, pp. 428. Roberts Bros.

"I have no other but a woman's reason:

I think him so, because I think him so."

We cannot imagine an intellect more apt to treat these fascinating themes than Mr. Weiss's. His apprehension of their characteristics is most delicate and tenacious, and his diction harmonizes exactly with his purpose.

says the author; and proceeds to tell why the instinct of a difference which the husband can-
unfortunates are denied that cheerful privilege. not entirely penetrate. It is not that man
The mutual attitudes of animals are humor- reaches results chiefly by the process of judg-
ously described, as in the following passage: ment, and woman chiefly by a method which is
"What mutual impression do a dog and a
not thinking so much as it is a taste or touch
duck make? He runs around with frolic trans- of the objects she observes. . . . And, if
piring in his tail, and barks to announce a wish you ask her how she reasons upon any subject,
to fraternize; or, perhaps it is a short and she might reply as Julia did, when pressed to
nervous bark, and indicates unsettled views
about ducks. Meantime, the duck waddles off give her reason for thinking Proteus the best
with an inane quack, so remote from a bark man:-
that it must convince any well informed dog of
pleasure to such a doting and toothless pate.
the hopelessness of proposing either business or
He certainly must have overheard the conver-
sation of his betters, when the Shallows, Slen-
ders, and Silences are near. What a prompt
retreat human beings make, and what wari-
ness is expended in steering clear of them for
the future! Yet I never feel quite sure that
the dunces are not amused at the manoeuvre. Is More picturesque and effective language it
there a human being permitted to live without would be difficult to find. He has evidently
wit enough to know when he is avoided? Even made a serious study of all the personages here
this duck has a twinkle in that bead of an eye inspected, and mastered not only them, but
as it rejoins the other ducks, that seems to con- the thoughts and relations which they suggest.
vey to us its sense of the absurdness of a
creature so caninely exuberant. Or was it a The humor in which he dips his
duck which I noticed? I am sure I have rather than obscures, and in the rays of mirth
often seen creatures who are hopelessly posed which emanate from it we descry moral
or scandalized waddle away from some superior lessons of great weight. The exhilaration oc-
extravagance."
casioned by these brilliant papers is wonder-
ful. The most ardent student of Shakspeare
learn something from them.

Mr. Weiss tells this funny story: –

"Gen. Sherman's body-servant was a Ger-will
man, who went with him through the war, but
could never realize the idea that the war at
last was over. One day, the General, having
travelled from the South to Chicago, was on

the point of leaving, and ordered this man to
pack a valise. The one he selected was so
enormous that the General remonstrated, and
examined what could be within. It was filled
with hotel towels, that had been looted from
Atlanta, clear through, in company with table-
spoons of the Milledgeville hotel; the German
plundering on every route, as if we were still
marching through Georgia."

66 The

The chapter on Humor is full of delights.
The author distinguishes it from wit with fine
subtlety, and defines it thus aptly:
quality of humor, depending upon various
moral traits, exists only wherever a broad
imagination is combined with a sweet and tol-
erant moral sense that is devoid of malice and
all uncharitableness, and at peace with all man-
kind. A petulant egotism may exist with wit,
but never with humor." The author's analysis
of Dogberry, as to whose office a general de-
lusion prevails, is very ingenious and acute.
Dogberry's consequence," he says, "affects
inconsequential phrases, and his days on earth
are a series of non-sequiturs." In Hamlet, he
affirms, there appears not the faintest streak of
humor, though Polonius belongs to comedy.

66

NOT

pen

illuminates

DOTTINGS ROUND THE CIRCLE.* OTHING more strikingly illustrates the growth of civilization and the extension of facilities for international communication than the fact that one may start from Boston on a given day, cross the North American Continent in seven days, the Pacific Ocean in twenty more, and land at Yokohama in sixty days from Boston. How old Marco Polo's eyes would have protruded at the statement of

such a fact! The author left Boston June 30,

1875, and pushed on to Salt Lake City, making frequent tarries on the way. He gives interesting descriptions of the country he passed through, and conveys a very clear idea of the vicissitudes of travelling. Of the Chinese quarter of San Francisco, the account is quite dramatic. We quote a few telling passages:

"Leaving the main streets of the city, we arrive before long at the portion entirely occupied by Chinese, and are at once in the midst of a chattering crowd of these foreigners, who are continually entering or leaving their various places of assembly along the way. Now, curious-looking buildings are on all sides, many hung with Chinese lanterns, or bearing large signs, which, with their odd figures, give strange air to every thing about us. guide conducts us up the street, and pausing of stairs, leads the ascent, we following close at the foot of a dark, villanous-looking flight behind. At the top of the stairs, we find a sort of hall, at the end of which are two large folding-doors, the entrance to the joss-house, or temple. The detective enters without cere

a

Our

One of the most attractive of the essays is that entitled "Women and Men." In this, the obstacles which hinder a man striving to apprehend the secrets of her disposition are clearly set forth. "The greatest intimacy of marriage itself, which blends two beings into one fate, and compels them to set up housekeeping on the principle of mutualism, is still evaded by motives and moods which the woman holds in Dottings Round the Circle. By Benj. Robbins Curtis. reserve, not by calculation, but through the 8vo. pp. 329. $250. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

This is one of those books which it is impossible to review. One may criticise Carlyle if he finds pleasure in the task; but to criticise his philosophy is a work of supererogation. One can only select from the bewildering variety of wise words and phrases enough to convey a fair idea of its weight and value. This we have tried to do as well as may be done in our brief limits.

mony, and, shutting the door after us, lights a world. This being done, a grand illumination has drained all territory, and the whole world candle at a small fire burning before a hideous is held in honor of the moon's Joss, who, if has been enriched by his irrigation. No lividol directly opposite the entrance, and pauses the night is fine, looks down benignly, with a ing author, and none who ever lived, save, a moment to let us look about the curious chamber. By the light of the candle, we see full round face. . . Every doorway is bright perhaps, Francis Bacon, has bestowed so we are in a large room hung with various kinds with the light of huge red candles, or red- much wisdom upon humanity; and as a comof gaudy ornaments, round the sides of which, paper lanterns, while gold and silver joss-pendium this collection of knowledge must be in alcoves, are standing idols representing different Chinese deities, each one resting on paper and brown joss-sticks burn slowly near regarded as inferior only to the Bible. a sort of throne, a lamp burning dimly before by, throwing forth thick clouds of smoke, them all. . . . Opposite the entrance are the which the Joss of the moon can hardly congods of fire, air, and earth; near by, sits the sider a complimentary equivalent for the clear god of commerce; while, apart from the rest, shrouded in white garments, stands a melan-rays he is pouring over every thing. Firecholy-looking figure, the deity who disposes crackers snap and fizz on all sides of us; the of the soul after death. Every good China-noise from cymbals, gongs, and drums, is man, on the death of a relative or dear deafening; while every junk in the harbor, friend, feels obliged to make some present to and every joss-house in the neighborhood, is this god, in order to secure good treatment for the soul of his departed brother; and we find hung with red lanterns, the color always some food, consisting of a thin wafer of bread, used when chin-chinning' a god. At an Influences. "We know not what we are, thrown down before the god, who evidently early hour, however, thin, hurrying clouds any more than what we shall be. It is a high, has not been hungry since its arrival.” partially obscure the surface of the moon; invidual man, that his earthly influence, which solemn, almost awful thought for every indiconsequence of which the chin-chinning' is to has had a commencement [beginning], will be continued and finished to-morrow evening." never through all ages, were he the very mean"The distance from Tien-tsin to Pekin est of us, have an end! What is done is done; has already blended itself with the boundless, ever-living, ever-working Universe, and will also work there for good or evil, openly or secretly, throughout all time.”

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Voltaire.

Work.

"Blessed is he who has found his

eighty miles by land, and one hundred and
twenty-five by water-can be accomplished in
three ways.
The traveller may engage a
house-boat, a long, wide boat, with a cabin,
and be rowed up the Peiho by coolies to
Mug-Chow, where donkeys can be obtained work: let him ask no other blessedness. He
for the remaining fifteen miles of the journey has a work, a life-purpose: he has found it,
stopping over night at the native inns; or one
or one may ride across the country on ponies, and will follow it! How, as a free-flowing
may hire a Chinese cart, — horribile dictu!·
channel, dug and torn by noble force,
and be driven to Pekin, which is sure to be through the mud-swamp of one's existence,
like an ever-deepening river there, it runs
reached, if travelling by this latter method,
Chinese road is only another name for a suc-
with hardly a whole bone in one's body; for a
and flows; draining off the sour, festering
water, gradually from the root of the re-
cession of deep ruts, and a profusion of stones; tilential swamp, a green, fruitful meadow,
motest grass-blade; making, instead of pes-
and while a pony may be made to avoid at
with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed
least some of these obstacles, the carts, built
without springs, are sure to jolt over them all. for the meadow itself, let the stream and its
The pony has an advantage over the boat in value be great or small! Labor is life: from
going from Tien-tsin to Pekin; for, while the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-
four or five days are required to push the boat given force, the sacred celestial life-essence
up stream, and for the traveller to afterwards breathed into him by Almighty God; from his
ride from Mug-Chow to the capital, the
whole distance across country can be accom-
plished on horseback in two days by all who
are accustomed to this method of locomotion."

The master-passion of the Chinese for gam-
ing is illustrated in pleasant sketches of the
games of "white-pigeon paper," and "fan-
fan." In the former each player receives a
square piece of paper, on which are printed
various figures or characters. The banker,
taking a piece similarly marked, puts a red
mark on twenty of these characters, which he
selects privately, the other players, of course,
not being shown the different figures or squares
which he has determined upon. When the
banker has marked the slip, the other players
endeavor to select the same twenty squares
which the banker has chosen, and so accurately
do they calculate that they are required to find
ten squares before receiving any thing for
their pains. If a Chinaman hits upon eleven
of the squares that the banker has marked, he
will receive from the bank the same sum that
he staked upon the play; if he marks twelve
squares correctly, he receives twice his origi-
nal stake, and so on. If they do not mark
twelve squares, at least, their stake is forfeited.
The story of the passage from San Francisco
to Yokohama is very well told, effectively pho-
This narrative is uniformly lively, and, on
tographing scenes of life on shipboard; and the whole, well written. We note one or two
the sketches of Japan are full of information faults: "to afterwards ride" (p. 721) should
and interest. The author thus tells his ex-be "to ride afterwards;" "the Japanese are
perience in a Japanese restaurant. "Here, very particular to render," should be “ very
having partaken of tea served in small cups careful." The author says that "a stranger
by pretty Japanese girls, the master of the should invariably refuse the specimens first
house presents his account written in strange offered in the shops, as the best goods are only
characters on the thinnest paper; and having brought out when the inferior are rejected." a happy animal: his appetite for sweet vic-
paid the bill (which is astonishingly small), Mr. Curtis has written a very creditable tual 18 SO enormous. How, in the wild
and received the stamped receipt (which the book, breezy and bright. It is rich in in- Universe, which storms-in on him, infinite,
Japanese are very particular to render), we are formation, and remarkably free from egotism. vague-menacing, shall poor man find, say
rewarded with hearty ar-ri-ga-tos (thank you) The two Chinese illustrations, one the seal
from father, mother, and daughters, — the of the U. S. Consul-are unique.
whole family falling on their knees and show-
ing their gratitude by humble prostrations."

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inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness,
to all knowledge, self-knowledge, and much
else, as soon as Work fitly begins. Knowl-
edge? The knowledge that will hold good
in working, cleave thou to that; for Nature
herself accredits that, says Yea to that;
Properly, thou hast no other knowledge, but
what thou hast got by working; the rest is yet
argued of in schools, a thing floating in the
all a hypothesis by working; a thing to be
clouds, in endless logic-vortices, till we try
it, and fix it.
Doubt, of whatever kind,
can be ended by Action alone.'”—Past and
Present, III. 11.

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Sentimentalism. Man is not what one calls

not happiness, but existence and footing to stand on, if it be not by girding himself together for continual endeavor and endurance? Woe, if in his heart there dwelt no devout Faith; if the word Duty had lost its meaning for him! For as to this Sentimentalism, so useful for weeping with over romance and on pathetic occasions, it otherwise verily will avail nothing; nay, less [how can there be a less than nothing?]. The healthy heart that said to itself: How healthy am I! The Carlyle Anthology. Selected and arranged by was already fallen into the fatalest sort of Edward Barrett. 12mo. pp. 386. With Index. New disease. Is not Sentimentalism twin-sister to Cant, if not one and the same with it? Is not

THE CARLYLE ANTHOLOGY.*
O fountain could be found in English
literature from which streams more rich
and more perennial could be drawn. Carlyle

He witnessed the ceremony of "chin-chinning the moon.""To-day is the middle of the Chinese month, and this evening the moon is to be chin-chinned, with all the usual illuminations, explosions, and superstitions. To-day all Chinamen must pay their bills, balance their books, and make themselves even with the York: Henry Holt & Co.

Cant the prima materia of the Devil; from not with me, hate me not, my brother [sis-
which all falsehoods, imbecilities, abomina- ter?]. Make what thou canst of thy egg,
tions body themselves; from which no true and welcome. God knows I will not steal it.
thing can come ? For Cant is itself properly I believe it to be addled." — M. Boswell.
a double-distilled lie: the second-power of a An impression prevails among the many
lie."
The Dandy... "And now for all this
who have not read Carlyle, that he is unintel-
perennial martyrdom, and poesy, and even ligible except to the brightest intelligence.
prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in How unwarranted is this impression plainly
return? Solely, we would say, that you appears from the foregoing extracts. In them
would recognize his existence; would admit
him to be a living object; or even, failing this, we find every form of intellectual power,
a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays wisdom, philosophy, scorn, wit, and humor.
of light. Your silver or your gold (beyond No writer is so versatile as Carlyle, at home
what the niggardly law has already secured in eulogy and objurgation, in polished rhetoric
him) he solicits not; simply the glance of and the rudest blackguardism. His resources
your eyes. Understand his mystic signifi-
cance, or altogether miss and misinterpret it: seem inexhaustible, and his hold on his reader
do but look at him, and he is contented. is as tenacious as the clutch of the lobster.
May we not well cry shame on an ungrate-We trust this book will introduce him to many
ful world, which refuses even this poor boon:
which will waste its optic faculty on dried who have not become his friends. They will
crocodiles and Siamese twins; and over the find him a strong support, a wise guide and
domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a adviser, and a most genial and jolly com-
live Dandy, glance with hasty indifference, panion. We have never reviewed a book to
and a scarcely concealed contempt! Him no which we gave praise more unstinted.
zoologist classes among the Mammalia, no
anatomist dissects with care. When did we
see any injected preparation of Dandy in our
museums; any specimen of him preserved in
spirits? Lord Harrington may dress himself
in a snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt
and shoes; it skills not. The undiscerning
public, occupied with grosser wants, passes
by regardless on the other side.".
sartus, III. 10.

Sartor Re

To the average reader, the part of the book entitled "Portraits and Characters" will be most entertaining. This is mainly anecdotical, and is infinitely humorous. We will make a

possess the reader in favor of the compila

HOURS WITH JOHN DARBY.*

ONE may be sure that any thing written by
Dr. Garrettson is richly worth reading.
He is one of the tersest, most epigrammatic,
and sensible writers living. In this book he
has a theme worthy of his strong and acute
intellect, -Woman. His own estimate of its
importance is thus stated:

and man; expect complacency and soft greetings where are encountered only grumblings and hard knocks; expect the pleasure of velvet

like hands when the scarfskin is thickened and made horny with pans and kettles; expect the breath of roses where are fed only onions;

expect a tired, overworked, man-crushed
woman to vie with the beauty that surrounds,

and then to grow into disgust for her because
her face looks weary, and her limbs deny the
faugh! you poor brute
graces of the dance,
of an apology, rather ask yourself if even you
are worthy of the hack into which you have
converted your gazelle."

he was.

We do not envy the doctor his experience. We say his experience; for no man could make a portraiture so faithful of domestic discomfort unless all of it he saw, and part of it His knowledge in this matter is not to be thirsted for: "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." Are there no unjust and cruel husbands in the world? Can he not answer this question out of the abundance of his own knowledge? There are two sides to every question; and, learned as he is in the weaknesses and miseries of the wife, he must know something of the aggressions and oppressions of the husband. Very few women are aggressive: in nearly all cases of connubial quarrel, the man strikes the first blow. So ample and perspicuous is the learned Doctor's diagnosis of the feminine element in the complication, that we really hunger to see him

"Of all matters concerning which experience may speak to the edifying of inexperience; of few quotations, which we are sure will pre-things which pertain most to comfort or dis-render a like service to the masculine element. comfort; of relations which affiliate or which Your country's eyes are on you, Doctor: you antagonize; of joys which expand or which have blackguarded woman; now do as much earth is there, which may comprise so much sadden nothing of all the associations of for man.

tion :

66

grown

'

Under the evidence set out as above, the good Doctor invites the reader to an Herculean task, when he bids him, if he would have an angel, make one for himself. In our humble judgment, the materials, enumerated as above, are exceedingly unpromising; and he himself - despairing, no doubt, of putting his precept into practice — solemnly exhibits to his pupil —

Coleridge was not without what talkers call wit, and there were touches of prickly sarcasm in him, contemptuous enough of the or contain so little, as is embraced in the meanworld and its idols, and popular dignitaries. ing of that one word, Wife." He has parts even of poetic humor; but in The author summarily divides wives into general he seemed deficient in laughter, or, two classes: some "who are such fools and indeed, in sympathy for concrete human idiots, that by some unwonted blunder on the things, either on the sunny or on the stormy side. One right peal of concrete laughter at part of Nature they would seem to have some convicted flesh-and-blood absurdity, one into life naught else than animated blocks; burst of noble indignation at some injustice others, a multitude, so exquisite, so finely ator depravity, rubbing elbows on the solid tuned, so over-full of the delicious, so enticing, earth, how strange would it have been in that Kantian haze-world, and how infinitely cheer- so alluring, so all-satisfying, that kings and ing amid its vacant air-castles and dim-melting philosophers who bow down to them, who give ghosts and shadows! None such ever came. crowns and brains to them, who forget in their His life had been an abstract thinking and praise all other worship, who build altars to ghosts of defunct bodies and of unborn them, who live all of life in their presence, such a monstrosity! Let her be driven to a

the

ones. The moaning sing-song of that theo- and who die all of death in their absence,
sophic-metaphysical monotony left on you ah! my scholar, he alone who
at last a very dreary feeling." - Life of John villa blames Cæsar."
Sterling, I. 8.

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knew not SerThat the husband is the house-band, the author states as a natural fact: woman is the handsome bow to the band. He, the man, is supported by the weak vine, the woman: witness her bruises as evidence of her struggles. Man, strong, supported by woman, weak, is one of the strangest anomalies in nature.

The Love of Fame. Many authors speak of their Fame' as if it were a quite priceless matter; the grand ultimatum, and heavenly Constantine's Banner they had to follow, and conquer under. Thy Fame!' unhappy mortal! Where will it and thou be in some fifty years? Shakespeare himself hath lasted but some two hundred. Homer (partly by accident), three thousand; and does not already an Eternity Here the author becomes satirical: "Exencircle every Me, and every Thee? Cease, then, to sit feverishly hatching on that Fame pect a woman to play the parts both of wife of thine, and flapping and shrieking with

Hours with John Darby. By the author of "Thinkers fierce hisses, like brood-goose on her last egg, and Thinking," &c. 16mo. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippinif man shall or dare approach it. Quarrel cott & Co.

a wife:

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Like unto rings found in the ears of women, see these I show thee, Lycidas; outside, paraded to the world, — jewels; inside, hollowness, emptiness, nothingness. But the vixen, thou sayest, the born vixen, incurable, unimpressible. Pitiable owner of nunnery, my scholar; and let it be a strong place, built of heavy stone; or, still better, speed her to the devil, that thus the more quickly she may get with her kind, for strongly does it come to me to believe that a vixen is not a real woman, -body and soul, — but a wandering fiend, who, going up and down in the earth, has dispossessed of its tabernacle some beauteous one, and thus plays her part of a she-Mephistopheles. I would also add the whisper in thy [thine] ear that a wise man gets clear of a devil as best he may, and as quickly as he can."

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Look on this picture and then on that, and note the author's cunning faculty of contrast:

"An angel wife is a possession so sweet, so rapturous, so full of all wealth, so overflowing

with all good, that he is utterly void of wis- as lord of Wenderholme, his stout and strong- the dramatic poetry, and sketches of the earlier dom who searches not the world over but that minded mother living with him. Philip Stan- philosophers and historians. We say comhe find such treasure. Is a man ugly? in the burne, cousin of the colonel, a Roman Catholic, pleted by Müller, for so far as he went he left reflection he sees himself beautified. [Does this process operate in reverse for the beauti- loves and would marry Edith Stedman, but the work in the form in which he desired and fication of the wife?] Is he an unfortunate? she fades and dies. Jacob, Jr., is taken by expected it would be given to the world. her consolations enrich him. Is he a castaway? his uncle, and put into his own business, with Although the book before us was published in in her passion he finds himself lifted up. the promise of making him his heir. The boy 1858, its contents are as fresh and interesting Ah, my scholar, who but the husband may know of a thousand nameless charms, charms is a good scholar, and well-bred, and is in as when first issued. They cannot become so potent that all atmospheres save that which love with Edith Stanburne, the Colonel's stale. Like the evergreens of the forest, or surrounds the beloved one, are as dreary fogs daughter. She loves him in return, but family the works they so beautifully commemorate, and depressing vapors, -are as emptiness prejudices estrange them. Jacob, Sr., desires they live with perennial verdure. when compared with fulness?" his nephew to marry one Sally Smethurst, a great heiress, but low-bred. Stedman, Edith's father, dies abroad, leaving £35,000 to Col. Stanburne. Jacob marries Edith, after unpleasant complications.

Members of the fair sex who oppose the nuptial rite, and either favor celibacy or sustain Platonic love, à la George Eliot, will find comfort in the fact that, according to our author, "Juno, with a view to the deception of men who are too selfish to make good husbands, is said to be for ever whispering in their ears stories of care begotten of marriage: this intimidates them, and by such reason she saves women from falling into their power."

In view of the foregoing specimens of the author's style, we can confidently commend him as a bright and entrancing writer. His opinions are hardly consistent; but they are undeniably original, and sharp and impressive in expression. One may get his full money's worth by the purchase of this volume.

WENDERHOLME.*

MR.
R. HAMERTON must be an all-accom-
plished man: there seems to be nothing
in literature or art that he cannot do, and do

The episode of the beating of the boy is almost too horrible to hold a place in the narrative. Nothing more dreadful than this scene has a place in our memory. The author's diagnosis of the older Jacob's psychological paroxysms is peculiarly een: the effect of a given amount of spirits upon him is gauged to a fraction.

LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE.*

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IT is now many years since Müller's untimely and lamented death. Having contributed more than any other German, perhaps it should be said, more than any other scholar of his time, to the right appreciation of Greek literature, especially the dramatic, and of Grecian art, without ever seeing the land of his idolatry, he at length was enabled it well too. to gratify his life-long desire of visiting the He has here given us one of the most inter-scenes and the monuments of ancient achieve esting stories we ever read. It is curiously illustrative of remarkable sections of England, reporting the dialect, habits, and peculiarities of the people. Its plot is original and engrossing. Jacob and Isaac Ogden are brothers, but diverse as night and day. Jacob is an enormously rich manufacturer, while the latter's income is moderate. Isaac has a son, Jacob, who lives much with his uncle. Isaac has a habit of getting drunk, and in one of

his excesses almost beats the boy to death. The latter runs away, and is missing several days. The uncle is torn by remorse, and hunts incessantly for his victim. Col. Stanburne finds the boy on his land and treats him kindly. Jacob returns home and renews his

ment.

There, in August, 1840, he fell, a victim to his enthusiasm. His funeral oration was pronounced in modern Greek by a professor of the University at Athens; and his body found its resting-place not far from the spot where the plays of Euripides, which he had done so much to elucidate, were originally

enacted.

The great excellency of Müller's work consists in this, that, while it is sufficiently ample in regard to those minor writers, whose names and fragments of whose works have come down to us, showing that they must have been not undistinguished in their time, though they made no great mark in literature,- it deals with those great names and works which are in the mind of everybody when the classic Greece is mentioned, in a manner so lucid and satisfactory; he is so full of his theme, discusses it so thoroughly, and pours out his learning so abundantly, giving the full force and substance of each drama, and each poem, which he specially describes, and reflecting too all the delicate tints and shades of meaning, that we rise from the reading of some of his chapters with something of the feeling which we may suppose might have pervaded, not indeed the assembled Athenians who witnessed the dramatic contest in which Eschylus yielded the prize to the youthful Sophocles, but of those perhaps who were detained at home, if any could be kept at home, and heard from the lips of their more fortunate neighbors who were present the fresh recital of the representations of the play of human passions, the anger and the justice of the gods, with sketches of the plot, and snatches no doubt of the choral songs.

If it is no longer true, as was said by Mr. Ticknor, in a letter of sixty years ago, given in his recently published life, that "we do not yet know what a Greek scholar is; we do not know even the process by which he is made one;' yet the number of those who can read Greek with the ease and facility with which thousands can read and enjoy the Odes of Horace is extremely limited.

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During the period following his death up to about 1858, no one was found competent and willing to attempt the continuation of his most useful and valuable but incomplete work on the literature of Greece. Indeed, all continu- We are not all scholars. In this country, at ations of history of whatever kind, by another least, the law of labor is the law of our existmind than that which originally projected the ence. The exceptions are so few that they work and laid out the plan, have in general are not worth considering. Most of us, if we been failures. Whether the continuation be- have acquired in early life some slight taste old life. Col. Stanburne, a prominent per-fore us is an exception to the general rule may for learning, and have desired to drink at its sonage in the story, is proprietor of Wenderbe a subject for consideration hereafter. For fountains, have been obliged to repress and holme, a fine old estate. His wife, Lady the present we have to do with the part com- subdue all such longings, and give our days

Helena, and himself are not quite harmonious, but reasonably happy. He indulges his own tastes for military occupations and horses. He puts his money in a new bank, and loses all. Isaac Ogden buys his place and sets up

pleted by Müller, which brings the history
down to the age of Aristophanes, about 400
B. C., and includes the epic, the lyric, and

* A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece. By K. A. Müller, late Professor in the University of Göttingen. A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire. By Philip Gil- Continued after the author's death by John William Donalpp. 433. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

bert Hamerton, author of "The Intellectual Life." 12mo. son, D.D., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Lon

don: J. W. Parker & Son.

and nights, and all our best thoughts and
faculties, to the hard but inevitable task of
earning our daily bread.
And if at length,
perchance, in rare instances a competency is
earned in some professional or commercial
pursuit, by that time the faculties have become
indurated; wedded to their routine, the deli-
cate and appreciative taste for classic litera-

ture, if not gone, is deadened; we are not what we were; we are farther still, yes, separated by an infinite gulf, from what we would have been, from what we intended to be.

THE SPLENDID ADVANTAGES OF
BEING A WOMAN.*

What we want, then, what the great body of THE author has well described his essays: they are indeed erratic, and on occasion wander beyond the bounds of reasonableness. He treats woman as a puppet, to be taken apart, analyzed, and put together again, without regard sometimes to the connections of

educated men need, for pleasure, for recreation, for recalling the enjoyments and reviving the taste for the study of the great models of classic learning, is just such a work as Müller's, which makes us seem to hear again the songs of Sappho, the recitals of Herodotus, or the plays of Sophocles and Euripides.

But men were only made [the 'only' should follow 'made'] to do homage to woman, Everywhere and always the same golden rule obtains. For whom are the tid

bits reserved at every feast? Who gets sugar and spice, and all things nice? Who is served

Who comes

first, and has the best seat at breakfast, dinner, and supper? Who polishes off the Neapolitan ices at opera and play? Woman, woman, lovely woman! Who pays for them? the original adjustment. The author says Man, the wretch! Who stands by patiently the essays were written on the Horatian prin- while they are being consumed? Man, holOn the question of the identity of Homer, ciple. (This recalls to us the paraphrase low-eyed, famine-stricken man. and the authenticity of the Iliad and Odyssey, Exeter Academy. Some students having who for all her kicks? Man, man, ugly man, of Mr. Soule, lately Principal of Phillips in for all the kisses of Fortune? Woman. And Müller's theory - differing from that of Wolf or of Grote is one that will be accepted raised a tumult in the hall of the academy, the most unfortunate of created beings.. by most who do not aspire to the refinements he addressed them with his wonted classicism, of scholarly criticism, and who are willing to saying, "Dulce est desipere in loco, sed not in enjoy, without too much of scrutiny, the the hall.") The Latin quotation may fill the His chapter-headnoblest creations of genius; to wit, that both gap in the author's words. poems were the production on the whole of ings may suggest the general character of the one and the same transcendent mind; but that book: The Advantages of Being Ugly (which in both there are considerable interpolations, will no doubt prove to be of almost universal more in the latter than in the former; someinterest); The Dignity and Delight of Ignotimes, it may be, the songs of other poets or rance; The Delights of Deception; The Pleasand most fanciful fashion. Silks, satins, velrhapsodists on the same subjects being incor- ure of Lying in Bed; The Pleasures of vets, the most curious fabrics of the loom; Silence; The Miseries of Being Respectable; feathers, furs, laces, whatsoever things are porated, sometimes the amendments of subsequent versifiers introduced. It is much easier/"Cheek; " The Pleasures of Being Mad; beauteous, whatsoever are rare and splendid,

to conceive how very great alterations and interpolations might have been introduced,

The Art of Talking; Whistling; Saucy
Doubts and Fears; An Island of Tranquil

Poetry of Sleep.

than to comprehend how such works, master-Delights; Weddings; Cock-a-doodle-doo; The
pieces and models of art and of genius to all
ages, could have been preserved and trans-
mitted, through several centuries, without
the use of writing, by tradition and memory
alone.

The author starts off smiling, and with a tender sentiment, like a flower, in his mouth: he purposes to prove that "the next dearest blessing that can befall a human being, after not having been born at all, is to have been born a woman." He adds, what is very good news, that women are on the increase, and

Falling an easy victim to her enchantments, man indulges in a little innocent flirtation. He loves, and rides away. Woman brings her action for breach of promise, and gets swingeing damages. Woman loves, and she rides away. Man brings his action for breach of promise. He is hooted out of court. Woman is privileged to dress in the costliest

are at her disposal to equip herself withal, and make her irresistible. Even the innocent little dicky-birds are pressed into her service,

and surrender their lives that woman's hat may look a little sprucer for their plumage. In her cause, the robin-redbreast lays down his melodious life, and justly so, since 'a bird in her hat is worth two in the bush.'”

And what would he say about the seventyfive per cent of women to whom these luxuries are as distant as are the Himalayas. Why

The Greek drama is treated by our author with a completeness and charm, arising evidently from an appreciative and familiar knowledge of the subject, which inspires in women and loveliness, are convertible terms." does he not take into account the poor seam

the reader a kindred desire to re-traverse those beautiful fields, to re-read and study anew those delightful works. The origin and

---

stress, and the makers of slop-work, and the the day. All your talk is ex parte, Mr. Dunweary shop-girl, not permitted to sit through phie, and no more fairly represents the condi

They have an instinctive love of the beautiful, the beautiful than men. They are far safer and, says a lady, "have a much nicer sense of history of the drama, from its simple and umpires in the matters of propriety and grace. rude beginnings at the festivals of Bacchus A mere school-girl will be thinking and writtion of your country women, than your feeble and the Eleusinian mysteries, when it coning about the beauty of birds and flowers, strain represents the voice of the American sisted merely of the choral while her brother is robbing the nests." songs and the people. Go to, Mr. Dunphie, go to; and, adventures of the gods, the dramatis perPshaw! the bright youth is only studying repairing to London, peer at the pedestriennes sonæ being pre-supposed, or only symbolically ornithology. Ladies have great advantages and equestriennes in Hyde Park, and regenerindicated, and the chorus representing their over men in the details of travel. ate them with your shallow philosophy. They feelings, — until it reached its perfect devel- gentleman oblige a lady?" asks the omnibusare fit subjects for your transcendent pen, fit conductor in his blandest [of] tones. Out opment in the inimitable masterpieces of game for your diminutive pea-shooter. Eschylus and Sophocles and Euripides, are rushes a gentleman in soaking rains and cut_ ting blasts to oblige a lady; that is, to save traced in a concise and comprehensive manner. The exhibition in the Knights of Arisher the expense of a sixpenny cab [the scene tophanes of impudence and rascality, which of this speculative analysis must be in Lonhe regarded as constituting the chief requidon], whom he had never seen before, and

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66

Will any

gentleman? The notion is monstrous. The

man who would suggest such a thing would
deserve to be hanged on the nearest lamp-

Some of the author's jokes are fair. "My dear, said a bridegroom once to his charmer, this is Poplar; and when you (u) are there it will be popular; and if we both reside there long, it will be populous.”

sites of a demagogue in his time, and will probably never see again. Who ever probably Athens 2300 years ago was not yet heard of a lady getting out to oblige a vaults of this treasury of flippancies and frauds, greatly different from America at this day in this respect, this exhibition as applied to the character of Cleon, the leather-dresser, the most consummate of ancient demagogues, will never cease to interest and amuse while charlatanry exists and satire is appreciated. G. M. B.

post.

The Splendid Advantages of Being a Woman, and other Essays, by Charles J. Dunphie. 12mo. pp. 362. New York: Lovell, Adam, Wesson, & Co.

We have gone only a short distance into the but have extracted therefrom curiosities enough to whet the attention of the intelligent reader. To him we say, Buy the book, and laugh and jeer by turns at its humor and its folly; and then make up your mind, as we have done, that, with all this mockery, the author is more than half right.

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