English Christian names; quotations from foreign languages; abbreviations and contractions; arbitrary signs; the metric system of weights and measures; and a classified selection of pictorial illustrations. While many of these features have appeared in former editions, several are new, and all are brought down to the latest date. The body of the work is also illustrated by numerous designs. The definitions and the spelling are such as are sanctioned by the best usage. It is no disparagement to other publications to say that, as a monument of learning and accurate industry, this latest unabridged edition stands unparalleled.

CONGREGATIONALISM.

The Congregationalism of the last three hundred years, as seen in its literature, with special reference to certain recondite, neglected, or disputed passages, with a bibliographical appendix. By Henry Martin Dexter. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by Payot, Upham & Co.

This bulky, but elaborately wrought, work its author styles an "episode." Dr. Dexter has for the last fifteen years been recognized as a chief authority in the history of that peculiar form of ecclesiastical polity which came to America in the Mayflower, and which had much to do with shaping the civil polity, first, of New England, and, subsequently, of our whole country. Many years since, Dr. Dexter began to collect material for a thorough history of the Plymouth Colony, and is still working industriously in that direction. Meantime, in this episodic way he issues this tractate of 1082 pages, designed to serve as a sort of thesaurus, or guide-book, to the literature of Congregationalism during the past three hundred years. The main text of the work occupies 716 pages. To this follows an appendix of 286 pages, giving the titles of 7,250 books and pamphlets, together with the date at which each was published. These are all works illustrative of the history and character of Congregationalism. Apart from all questions of purely denominational interest, the volume throws much light upon the early history of New England. It is a work of immense research, and is deserving of praise, at least, as a guide-book to future students and writers of American history. It is a good service rendered not only in its special line, but in the line of general history. There is a wide field open to similar thorough workers in other directions.

AMERICAN ART REVIEW. Devoted to the Practice, Theory, History, and Archæology of Art. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co. 1880.

This monthly publication, which has now reached its ninth number, is devoted to the general development of art, but its special feature is announced to be "a series of original painter-etchings by American artists." One advantage which a magazine that produces etchings has over one that publishes engravings, is that in the former case the plates are the work of the artist himself, without the intervention of a middleman, or engraver. Such etchings are in no sense a reproduction, but are the direct work of the master-hand. The publication before us is certainly one of the most perfect of its kind, and those interested in American art have reason to congratulate themselves upon its success. Among the artists who have contributed, or have promised to contribute, original etched plates are A. F. Bellows, J. Foxcroft Cole, Henry Farrar, J. Appleton Brown, Edwin Forbes,

R. Swain Gifford, Peter Moran, James D. Smillie, J. W. Champney, Wm. M. Chase, F. S. Church, Samuel Colman, F. Dielman, H. F. Farney, J. M. Falconer, George Inness, L. S. Ipsen, John La Farge, Walter F. Lansil, Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt, Charles H. Miller, Thomas Moran, Walter Shirlaw, George H. Smillie, J. R. Tait, and F. P. Vinton. We give these names, which will be recognized as those of leading American etchers, to show the high standard at which the Review aims. Plates are also promised from Unger, Flameng, Rajon, Greux, Leibb, Meyer, Forberg, and other renowned European artists. Although etching is the principal feature, it is not by any means the only one of this charming work. Engravings, heliogravures, wood-cuts, photo-engravings, etc., are given in profusion, and with the most accurate art. In addition, a number of able articles are given each month from the pens of critics of ability and reputation. As we have turned over the pages of the several numbers, we have been particularly struck with Mr. Bellows's exquisite little etching, "Mill Pond at Windsor, Conn.," in No. 7, and with Mr. Wm. Unger's "Wallachian Team," in No. 9. No. 6 contains a fine head of Sir Gilbert Scott, by Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt; also a suggestive plate, "Travellers before an Inn," by Mr. Unger. Karl Hoff's "In the House of Mourning," in No. 8, is a powerful and touching embodiment.

FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by Pay-
ot, Upham & Co.
No. 126-The Duke's Children. A novel. By An-
thony Trollope.

No. 127-The Queen. By Mrs. Oliphant.
No. 128-Miss Bouverie. A novel. By Mrs. Molesworth.

HARPER'S HALF HOUR SERIES. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by Payot, Upham & Co.

No. 141-The National Banks. By H. W. Richard

son.

No. 142-Life Sketches of Macaulay. By Charles Adams.

SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. By John Mortimer Murphy. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by A. L. Bancroft & Co.

AMERICAN MANUAL OF PARLIAMENTARY LAW. By George T. Fish. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by Payot, Upham & Co.

BUNYAN. By James Anthony_Froude. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by Payot, Upham & Co.

CHAUCER. By Adolphus William Ward. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. For sale in San Francisco by Payot, Upham & Co.

ODETTE'S MARRIAGE. A novel from the French of Albert Delpit. Translated by Emily Prescott. 1880. Chicago: Henry A. Sumner & Co.

THE BALLET DANCER'S HUSBAND. Translated from the French of Ernest Feydeau by Mary Neal Sherwood. 1880. Chicago: Henry A. Sumner & Co.

HER BRIGHT FUTURE. A novel. 1880. Chicago: Henry A. Sumner & Co.

WATCHING THE BELLS.

'Tis Sabbath evening, and the hour of worship is at hand; Deep lies the silence, like a kiss of God, upon the land.

I stand within a valley; and, on either side, the towers
Lift up their heads, and listen for the coming of the hours.

On yonder dusky dial now the pointer creeps apace;
It stands upon the minute, like intent upon a face.

See yonder huge, dim shadow rise athwart the shutter bars,
Like the dark brow of a prisoner lifted upward toward the

stars!

It stands aloft upon the dusk, as if to hail the skies;
But silence, like a mighty hand, upon its black throat lies-

A moment only, and its voice in billowy clangor breaks,
And on the drowsy, twilight air a long, deep answer wakes.
Now, in yon open tower, I see the bell begin to move,
The rising of its ponderous rim against the sky above.
It cries out wildly to the night, as 'twere a naked soul,
And through the hollows of the hills its flying echoes roll.

But in that grim and lonesome tower, with windows through the stone,

Why sleeps the great cathedral bell, and keeps the hush alone?

It wakes it stirs; with hollow rush, and parting of the night,

It hurls its huge bulk to the sky, and fills the tower with fright.

It speaks, and all the rest are still; it sinks, but thunders yet

It speaks again, and in the vault the mighty peals have met. PAUL PASTNOR.

WALT WHITMAN AGAIN.

In the July number of THE CALIFORNIAN appeared an article entitled "Satin vs. Sacking." In it the writer pitted the extreme of two distinct styles-Whitman's and Fawcett's-against each other. In one, the writer aimed to clothe his thoughts in cheap, badly fitting garments, full of rags and patches, until an idea looked like "Topsey," with her head thrust through the bottom of a gunny sack. In the other, we find thought-such as it is-arrayed in a masquerading costume, all glittering with tinsel and dazzling with color, but, for the life of one, the character of the thing inside cannot be even so much as guessed at. Either of the two will attract attention anywhere. One is as diffused and elaborate as the other is clumsy and tedious. It is, perhaps, out of place to criticise adversely the writings of a man who gives satisfaction to thousands of people, but hardly more so than to eulogize one whose writings thousands could not be hired to read.

"

remained persistently in the commonest rut he could find. His admirers lay great stress upon the fact that his writings are 'absolutely without art." Now, what would these people think of their upholsterers and crockery men, if they insisted in bringing chairs without finish, or plates unglazed? We are told to abhor art in nature, and who does not? But poetry is not natural, never was, and never can be. It is artificial in all its aims, and stilted and unreal in its construction. We despise art when applied to the mathematically trimmed box - wood trees seen in the gardens of San Francisco, because such art cannot impress us as does a natural landscape in the Sierra; but, at the same time, we want the tiles in the walk regularly laid, and the posts of the porch perpendicular. An elegantly furnished room, beautified by art, is preferable to a log cabin, with a pool of stagnant water just before the door. One is all art, and the other absolutely without it, like Whitman's poetry. Of course, these comparisons indicate extremes, but not more so than Leaves of Grass and Phantasy and Passion.

Whitman apparently labors to acquire as much pure and simple clumsiness as possible in his versification. He describes the visit of a runaway slave to his house as follows:

"The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside.

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile. Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him,

limpsy and weak,

And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,

And brought water, and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,

And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some coarse, clean clothes;

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awk

wardness,

And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and

ankles.

He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated, and

passed North.

I had him sit next me at table. My firelock leaned in the corner."

The above gives the details of a very touching picture. Nothing can be more beautiful or poetical than the melting of human sympathy for the alleviation of distress. The meter employed is that in which Longfellow has written much, and is something which the ear soon tires of. It is simply prose, cut up into certain lengths, and the reading of it, with its monotonous pauses, and regularly recurring accents toward the close of the line, after a time sounds like a boy hammering endlessly upon a drum. It has justly been compared to an auctioneer reading off the inventory of a grocery store. If in such versification a line is reached which is too short or long, or the accent is in an unfamiliar

Walt Whitman has gained great notoriety "because he got out of the common rut." On the contrary, he

that they like such poetry would choose a rough charcoal sketch in preference to a finished painting. Let us look for a moment at Whitman's opposite, Poe.

Here is a fair refrain of his studied art, taken from the " Haunted Palace :"

"Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow

(This-all this-was in the olden Time long ago);

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts, plumed and pallid,

A winged odor went away."

It is not hard for one to imagine Whitman rendering the above something like this:

On the roof of the castle yellow banners floated, and glorious and golden bannners

It was a very long time ago that all this happened

And the airs that came over the white ramparts at that time

Had wings to them, which took away a very sweet smell.

Speaking of animals, Whitman merely remarks that he would like to live with them, and enjoys looking at at them:

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained;

I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long."

Lytton paints a finished picture from the same scene, where he writes:

"From the warm upland comes a gust, made fragrant with the brown hay there.

The meek cows, with their white horns thrust above the hedge, stand still and stare.

The steaming horses from the wains droop o'er the tank their plated manes.'

Here are some strange passages from Whitman in which strange mixtures occur:

"A child said, What is the grass?-fetching it to me with full hands.

How could I answer the child? I do not know
What it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven;

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name some way in the corners,
That we may see and remark, and say, Whose?"

The idea that it is the "flag of his disposition, out of the hopeful green stuff woven," makes a peculiar combination of the raw and the manufactured article in one metaphor. If the child had brought him a tuft of sheep's wool, he might, with the same propriety, have designated it as his shirt. He next thinks it must be the handkerchief of the Lord," as if Divinity sometimes had a bad cold, and needed to use a handkerchief. If such poetical license is to be allowed, the ownership of cravats, paper collars, towels, and blue neckties will next be attributed. Such lines only lower the plummet of bathos to the lowest depths. The idea of the Lord's name being worked in the corner, that the finder, seeing, may vociferate, "Whose?" is still more absurd. If the name were there, why in the name of all that is good should the finder say "Whose?" He goes on to say:

"Tenderly will I use you, curling grass;

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men; It may be if I had known them I would have loved them; It may be you are from old people, and from women,

And from offspring taken soon out of the mothers' lapsAnd here you are the mothers' laps.

"The grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. Oh, I percieve after all so many uttering tongues,

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing."

Now, if one should take the last stanza of the above, and read it to a crowd of a dozen people, the reader would wait a long time before the listeners agreed as to what it means. What is meant by the remark that the grass did not come from under the roofs of mouths for nothing? Grass does not, as a rule, "transpire from the breasts of young men," or the "white heads of old mothers."

The author himself is utterly at a loss to render his meaning intelligible, for he writes:

"I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps."

I have seen these lines somewhere, but cannot now positively state that they came from Whitman's pen. They are certainly in Whitman's style:

"There are times when at midnight I feel a great stillness, And I like to feel it, too, because it helps me brood easier." Contrast this with the master tones of Prentice:

""Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now is brooding like a gentle spirit

O'er the still and pulseless world."

Perhaps many who find beauties in Whitman will charge others with overlooking them. Jewels have before now been found in ash-heaps, but all people are not expected to be possessed of the patience necessary to insure finding them. SAM DAVIS.

THE FOUR BULLWHACKERS OF BITTER CREEK.

Perhaps every person who is somewhat advanced in life can remember some incident of his early years which he would really like to forget, something that resulted from the freshness and vast inexperience of youth. I remember one which I have spent a good deal of time trying to forget. Just before the Union Pacific Railroad reached the Bitter Creek country, I made my first overland trip to the Pacific Coast. I staged it from the then terminus of the Union Pacific to the Central Pacific, which was pushing east. The stage broke down on Bitter Creek, and the passengers had to walk to the next station. I grew tired of walking before I reached the station, and coming, late in the afternoon, to where some teamsters were camped, I concluded to stop with them for the night. On asking their permission to do so, they assented so heartily that I felt at home at once. Life in the West was something new to me. I was young and buoyant, and just out of college. I was fond of talking. I thought it would be novel and delightful to sleep out with these half-savage ox-drivers, with no shelter but the vaulted, star-gemmed heavens. There were four teamsters, and as many wagons, while thirty-two oxen grazed around in the vicinity. Of the

teamsters, one was a giant in stature, and wore a bushy black beard; another was shorter, but powerfully built, and one-eyed; the third was tall, lank, and hamejawed; while the fourth was a wiry, red-headed man. In my thoughts I pitied them, on account of the hard life they led, and spoke to them in a kind tone, and endeavored to make my conversation instructive. I plucked a flower, and, pulling it to pieces, mentioned the names of the parts-pistil, stamens, calyx, and so on-and remarked that it must be indigenous to the locality, and spoke of the plant being endogenous, in contradistinction to exogenous, and that they could see that it was not cryptogamous. In looking at some fragments of rock, my thoughts wandered off into geology, and, among other things, I spoke of the tertiary and carboniferous periods, and of the pterodactyl, ichthyosaurus, and dinotherium. The teamsters looked at me, then at each other, but made no response. squatted down around the frying-pan to take supper, and as the big fellow, with his right hand, slapped, or sort of larruped, a long piece of fried bacon, over a piece of bread in his left hand, sending a drop of hot grease into my left eye, he said to the one-eyed man : "Bill, is my copy of Shakspere in yo' wagon? I missed it to-day."

We

"No. My Tennerson and volum' of the Italian poets is in thar-no Shakspere."

The lank looking teamster, biting off a piece of bread about the size of a saucer, said to the big man, in a voice which came huskily through the bread, "Jake, did yer ever read that volum' of po'ms that I writ?" "No, but hev often hearn tell on 'em." "Yer mean 'Musin's of an Idle Man,'" spoke up the red-headed man, addressing the poet.

"Yes."

"Hev read every line in it a dozen times," said the teamster with the red hair; and as he sopped a four-inch swath, with a piece of bread, across a frying-pan, he repeated some lines.

"Them's they," nodded the poet. "The Emp'ror of Austry writ me a letter highly complimentin' them po'ms."

"They're very techin'," added the wiry man.

I took no part in these remarks. Somehow I did not feel like joining in.

The wiry man, having somewhat satisfied his appetite, rolled up a piece of bacon rind into a sort of single-barreled opera-glass, and began to squint through it toward the northern horizon.

"What yer doin', Dave?" asked the stout man. "Takin' observations on the North Star. Want to make some astronomical calkilations when I git inter Sackrymenter."

"Well, yer needn't ter made that tel'scope. I could er tuk yo' observations for yer, bein' as I haint but one eye."

"

Git out thar, yer durned ole carboniferous pterodactyl," yelled the hame-jawed driver to an ox that was licking a piece of bacon.

"I give a good deal of my time to 'stronomy when I was in Yoorup," remarked the tall man.

"Over thar long?" asked one.

"Good while. Was Minister to Rooshy. Then I spent some time down ter Rome."

Rome!" exclaimed the lank individual. "Was born thar. My father was a sculptor."

"Good sculptor?"

"Yes."

man.

"Well, one wouldn't er thought it, to look at yer." "I never was in Yoorup," remarked the one-eyed "When I ocypied the cheer of ancient languages in Harvard College my health failed, and the fellers that had me hired wanted me ter go ter Yoorup for an out, but I concluded ter come West ter look- -Hold up thar, yer infernal ole flea-bitten ichthy'saurus," he bawled to an ox that was chewing a wagon cover.

I felt hot and feverish, and a long way from home. "I got ready once ter go ter Rome-wanted to complete my studies thar-but give it up," said the one called Dave.

THE CALIFORNIAN has now been running threequarters of a year. From the issuance of the January number to the present time, it has been met with words of encouragement and approval alone. Personal interviews, private letters, and the expressions of the public press have all bid us God-speed. The reception which the magazine has met proves that a field is open for it on this coast, and a glance at the pages of the various numbers reveals the existence of a local talent which, to many, was unsuspected. But it has been evident for some time past to those interested in the enterprise, that, in disregarding the experience of all other publications, by fixing the price so far below that of other monthlies, a mistake had been made, which, sooner or later, would have to be corrected. The large sums which have to be expended for paper, composition, press - work, and the innumerable expenses of printing, issuing, and circulating a monthly magazine, which have, of late, been higher than for many years before, prevent the possibility of placing the publication on that high plane of literary and typographical excellence which its proprietors desire, without a change in the present price. The only alternative was one which the owners would not for a moment consider, that of deteriorating the quality and diminishing the quantity supplied at the existing rates. For some time, therefore, the only question has been, when shall this change be effected, and it has been decided, after consultation, that the sooner it is done the better. Commencing, therefore, with the first day of October, the price of the magazine will be advanced to thirty-five cents for a single number, and to $4.00 for the yearly subscription, the usual price for first-class monthlies. In order that there may be no dissatisfaction among those of our patrons who have not, as yet, subscribed by the year, THE CALIFORNIAN will receive yearly subscriptions at the old rates ($3.00) until the date fixed for the change in the price (October 1, 1880). No one, therefore, needs be affected by the change for the present year. With this change, we expect to redouble our efforts to make the magazine worthy of the high favor with which it has been received, and are able already to promise new features which will make it more attractive than ever before. [Reprinted from last month.]

A LITERAL MEXICAN.

One of our Eastern exchanges tells this story: Wickedly anxious to obey orders to the letter was a Mexican taking the stand, in a New York police court, as a witness in an assault case. Having informed the Judge that he spoke English, he was told to state what he knew of the affair in question. Thereupon the prosecuting attorney, an Irishman by birth, quite unnecessarily intervened with:

"Ye onderstand, sor, that ye are to go on and state to the coort what ye know about the case in your own language."

"You want me to tell the story in my own language?" asked the witness.

"Yes, sor, I do," replied the lawyer.

The Mexican began: "Este mujur quenia a mi

"I can try, sir," said the Mexican; and he went on with his story thus: "Well, thin, yer Honor, this man and this woman kem to my house, and says the man to the woman, says he, 'I want to spake wid ye,' says he-"

Here the indignant examiner broke in with: "What do ye mane by spaking in that way?"

"Shure, sor," responded the witness, "ye axed me to spake in the language ye use yourself, and shure I'm thryin' to oblige ye."

Then the Judge thought it time to interfere, and bade the Mexican talk English.

"With pleasure, your Honor," said he. "I should have done so at first, but the learned gentleman seemed rather particular in regard to the language in which he wished me to give my evidence."