A clergyman in Chicago has lately made the thea- | the Puritans, published, we believe, some years since tre the subject of severe denunciation. But in his in the North British Review, will pleasantly correct earnestness he seems to have generalized too boldly any such notion. They were a sweet, gracious, and broadly. The drama and the play-house, the generous class of men, even if they did eschew loveactor and the debauchee, were apparently confounded locks; and if there were zealots and knaves among in his censure. Now the play-house has been often them, it is possible that the church of Cranmer, enough the incentive and the way to dissipation, but Laud, and Titus Oates was not entirely destitute it will not do therefore to denounce Shakespeare as of them. a moral nuisance although he was a playwright, a playactor, and the manager of a play-house. And when in the glow of his rhetoric the good reverend Doctor asked, "Is there a man who is an actor and has a respectable character ?" he spoke without knowledge. He should have reflected that the very intensity of his hostility to the profession debarred him from the means of a proper judgment. Many members of his congregation could doubtless have assured him of the high moral worth of many and many an actor.

So when he continued, "Who is there in this house who would not sooner see his daughter in her grave than married to an actor ?" he was thinking doubtless of the varnished gentlemen who hang around the side-doors of a theatre, and who are certainly as unpromising sons-in-law as those other gentlemen who are not actors, and who devote all their energies to dressing, dining, and driving.

The truth is, that men can not be censured in classes and by the wholesale. It is owing to this kind of censure, the Doctor will remember, that the English Puritans are all popularly supposed to have talked through their noses, to have thrown up their eyes, and in general to have been the dreariest buga-boos with which the sunny old globe was ever afflicted. But the excellent essay of Kingsley's upon

The Doctor's attack naturally produced a "you're another" retort. An actress in Chicago took up the gauntlet, and advancing to the foot-lights read her vindication of the theatre and of actors. It was not very new, but it was very spirited; and it was a palpable hit when she reminded the people of Chicago that they had so different a view of the matter from the Doctor that they had elected a retired actor Mayor of the city.

But it is a thankless contest upon both sides. The drama is a constituent element of civilization. Wholesale denunciation is simply totally ineffective. There will be use; it is the duty of morality to guard against abuse. The treatment which makes actors conscious pariahs, which excludes them, however well-ordered their lives may be, from the common sympathy and esteem, is ungenerous, unwise, and surely unchristian. One of the most ancient and eminent of arts can not be blown out by a whiff of mistaken morality. Against its degradation, against the ill-conduct of its professors, let us all protest with all our hearts. But do not insist that it must needs be a sin and shame so to represent Portia and Imogen and Cordelia that the finest sympathies of human nature are aroused, and the purest affections and purposes created and strengthened.

Literary Latices.

History of Friedrich the Second, called Frederick as the unfortunate Latter-Day Pamphlets, prothe Great. By THOMAS CARLYLE. (Published by duced while the labor upon Frederick was going on. Harper and Brothers.)-The fifth and sixth vol- Those who accepted his "French Revolution" should umes, completing this History, are now published, have known what to expect in the "History of after an interval of eight years from the appearance Frederick." It would be a series of brilliant tabof the first two volumes. This space, however, by leaus rather than one historical picture, in which no means represents the time employed in the prep- each character should appear with its due promaration and composition of the work. It has been inence. Mr. Carlyle has no sense of perspective known for many years that Mr. Carlyle has been and proportion. In the "French Revolution" engaged upon this History, which was to be the Théroigne de Méricourt and the "Insurrection of crowning work of his literary life. As the succes- Women" occupy a larger space than Napoleon Bonasive portions were issued we have in this Magazine parte and the "Whiff of Grapeshot" which brought (December, 1858, September, 1862, and August, the Revolution to its close. So in this History the 1864) given abstracts of the leading points of the petty literary and personal quarrel with Voltaire, first four volumes. Reserving for another time a which might have been fairly told in a score of similar abstract of these two last and most import-pages, fills in all quite two hundred. The work ant volumes, we propose here to indicate the gen-bears traces of having been begun upon one scale, eral scope and tendency of the whole work.

devoted to an account of the origin and rise of the Prussian kingdom. It is an admirably condensed history in itself, but one which need not have been told at such length in the Life of Frederick. A volume and a half more is given to Frederick's "Apprenticeship." This is rather a Memoir of Frederick William than of Frederick himself. Frederick does not fairly appear as hero until the third volume, when, having become king, he "takes the reins in hand."

and completed upon another. Four volumes were Tried by the ordinary canons of criticism this His-originally proposed. Half of the first volume is tory, like almost every work of the author, is liable to grave censure. The world has long since found it useless to complain of the strange style which Mr. Carlyle has formed for himself; contenting itself with wondering why the man who in early manhood wrote the "Life of Schiller," and thirty years later the "Life of Stirling," should ever have written in any other than the pure and nervous English so fully at his command. But as he has chosen to write the History of Frederick in his other style, we have only to be grateful that its eccentricities are less prominent than in some of his other works

Midway in the third volume the History begins to march. Frederick had seized Silesia, and his first great war had broken out. Still the fourth

volume was closed, and the proposed limits of the History reached, before the Seven Years' War had fairly opened. If Frederick had died then, the world would have known him only as a clever prince, with decided aptitude for governing, but ambitious and unscrupulous; showing, for a king, considerable military capacity, but who had become involved in a war in which his ultimate ruin was inevitable.

The fifth volume narrates the events of the years 1757, 58, 59-the second, third, and fourth of the Seven Years' War, wherein occurred half a score of the great battles of the last century. There was Kolin, where Frederick was fearfully worsted: it has its parallel in our Bull Run ;-Rossbach, won by Frederick, which was to him what Austerlitz was to Napoleon; Leuthen, won by Frederick-his Wagram, and our Gettysburg; Zorndorf, like our Antietam, a victory without result; Hochkirch, our Shiloh; Kunnersdorf, our Fredericksburg; Maxen, our Chancellorsville- so strangely does history repeat itself. Than this volume no better military history has been written. The one who wishes to see how in modern warfare campaigns are carried on and battles are lost and won, can not do better than to study Carlyle's history of these three fearful years.

ing," and so depreciating the currency. The standard of coin was debased, first by adding one-third, then three-fourths of base metal, depreciating its value in those proportions.

To re-establish the Prussia thus industrially and financially shattered was the first work of Frederick. In some respects it was easier, in others harder, than that now before our President. There were, indeed, no opposing sections to be reconciled; but there was no boundless wealth of untilled soil, no practical monopoly of cotton and tobacco, no untouched Northern capital waiting for employment, no emigration from abroad ready to fill the chasm of population and rebuild the waste places. The task was like the one which would have been imposed upon Jefferson Davis and his successor had the Confederacy succeeded in establishing itself. To our mind Frederick was greater during the first seven years of peace than during the seven years of war which preceded. In seven years the task was accomplished, and Prussia was richer, more populous, and more powerful, absolutely and relatively to surrounding nations, than she had been before the war. Pity it is that Mr. Carlyle, with all his industry, has been able to tell us so little of these years. But he tells us all that the stupid. chroniclers of the time thought worthy of record. The first half of the sixth volume describes the For every other period of Frederick's life he comlast three years of the Seven Years' War. Less plains, often whimsically enough, of the chaff-heaps eventful than the preceding four-for both parties which he had to throw away; of this period he comwere nearly exhausted-this portion of the History plains of the small amount of chaff, in which might is full of interest. The last half of this covers the be a few grains of wheat, which had been collected. last three-and-twenty years of the life of Frederick, its "Afternoon and Evening," as Carlyle calls it. The Seven Years' War had left Prussia almost in the condition in which our four years' struggle left the Southern States, only that Prussia was successful, while the Confederacy was overthrown. "Of what is your circle most short ?" asked Frederick of the deputies of one of his provinces. "Of horses for plowing the seed-fields, of rye to sow them, and of bread till the crops come in," was the all-embracing reply. Frederick himself describes the condition of Prussia in 1763: "Countries entirely ravaged; the very traces of the old habitations hardly discoverable; towns, some ruined from top to bottom, others half-destroyed; 13,000 houses of which the very vestiges were gone. No field in seed; no grain for the food of the inhabitants; 60,000 horses needed if there was to be plowing carried on. Half a million of population-one man in nine-less than before the war. Noble and peasant had been pillaged; ransomed, foraged, eaten out by so many different armies; nothing left them but life and miserable rags. No credit by trading people, not even for the necessaries of life. No police in towns; no judges; in many places not even a tax-gatherer. To habits of equity and order had succeeded a vile greed of gain and an anarchic disorder. The silence of the laws had produced in the people a taste for license. Boundless appetite for gain was the main rule of action. The noble, the merchant, the farmer, the laborer, raising emulously each the price of his commodity, seemed to endeavor only for their mutual ruin. Such, when the war ended, was the fatal spectacle over those provinces which had once been so flourishing." One might almost imagine that this was written a century later, and that the country described was the Southern Confederacy.

The one great external thing which happened to Prussia during the last years of Frederick's life was the Partition of Poland, whereby, to use his own words, "by dint of negotiating and intriguing, I succeeded in indemnifying our Monarchy for its past losses by incorporating Polish Prussia with my Old Provinces." Of this Partition of Poland we have not here space to speak. We suppose that nobody now is disposed to repeat the old Jeremiad that "Sarmatia died unwept without a crime." Poland died simply because she had shown herself unfit to live. As Mr. Carlyle phrases it: "The partition of Poland was an event inevitable in Polish history; an operation of Almighty Providence and of the Eternal Laws of Nature;" which we take to be quite true. But we can not agree with him in saying that "Frederick had nothing special to do with it, and in the way of originating or causing it nothing whatever." That it was and is better that Poland should be Prussian, Austrian, Russian

any thing, Turkish only excepted-rather than Polish, we may admit. But whether Russia, Austria, and Prussia were therefore justifiable in seizing upon Poland may be at least questionable to us, if not to Mr. Carlyle. There is known to the law such a verdict as "justifiable homicide;" but we know of no verdict of "justifiable theft;" though such a verdict is needed to warrant the claim of Great Britain upon India.

Making all possible allowance for faults in style, construction, and theory; differing widely from Mr. Carlyle's estimate of the character of Frederick himself; recognizing in him a monarch able indeed, but wholly unscrupulous; a good king, not because he was a good but because he was an able man; we must yet consider this History of Frederick as the most notable work of the day. It tells all that need be Moreover, the finances were in a lamentable con- told of the great Prussian monarch; it traces with dition. Paper-money had not then been invented persistent patience the tortuous, involved, and foolin Prussia, but still there were methods of "inflat-ish politics of the time, wherever their petty threads

streets and shops of the few ports which they had inclination or opportunity to visit. Some, like Laurence Oliphant, attached to various diplomatic embassies, have made trips, more or less extended,

became in any way shot into the web of Frederick's history. It abounds in brilliant description of persons, scenes, and events; with grave and weighty reflections and conclusions. If its tone is cynical and contemptuous, it could hardly have been other-into the country; have told fairly what they saw, wise, considering the contemptible character of the great majority of the persons with whom it has mainly to do.

eking out their descriptions from the accounts of the Jesuit missionaries of former ages. But they came into personal contact only with merchants and their The Festival of Song: A Series of Evenings with employés, and with Government officials whose the Poets. Mr. FREDERICK SAUNDERS, of the As- prime function was to exclude them from all intertor Library, whose "Salad for the Solitary" has so course with the people. Even had they been able pleasant a flavor, has, in conjunction with painters, to come into contact with the Chinese people their toengravers, and printers, produced a work which tal ignorance of their language, modes of life, and ranks foremost among American books of its class, habits of thought would have prevented them from and will compare favorably with the best produced going beneath the very surface. Their case is much in Europe. Under the form of six "Evenings" he the same, though far less favorable, than would discourses pleasantly of many of the Poets of our have been an attempt by the Japanese Embassadors language, beginning with Chaucer, and, without to present to their countrymen a fair account of the following a strictly chronological order, coming social, domestic, and religious life of the American down to the poets of our own day. Nearly two people, based upon what they saw in the streets, hundred poets are introduced, with genial and ap- shops, hotels, and railway carriages. Much really preciative criticisms and comments, with quotations valuable information is indeed embodied in the vafrom or citations of their characteristic works. He rious reports and letters of missionaries; but it lies has performed his part with excellent taste and dis- scattered in fragments through so many periodicals cretion. About thirty of our painters have fur- as to be practically inaccessible. Mr. Doolittle ennished designs for these poems, the purpose being tered upon the preparation of this work with rare evidently to give a fair and adequate view of Amer-facilities. For fourteen years a missionary to China, ican Art as represented in our National Academy he had mastered the language, oral and written. of Design. In the department of Landscape, in- He studied, faithfully and diligently, their books; cluding those pictures in which Life is subordinate and having prepared himself for the work, he comto Scenery, this has been satisfactorily accomplish-menced, some five years ago, in the China Mail, a ed. Of the 73 pictures fully half belong here. They newspaper published at Hong Kong, a series of parepresent as nearly as simple black and white can pers upon the various phases of life among the peorepresent the colors at the command of the painter, ple. These papers, regularly continued for four the style and manner of about twenty of our favor years, attracted much attention in China, and among ite artists in this department. Among these are the few readers in other countries who had access not a few exquisite designs. In the "Living" de- to the periodical in which they appeared. At their partment, including "Historical" compositions, earnest request he undertook to revise, arrange, "Still Life," and "Genre" pictures, the result is abridge, and supplement these papers. The result lass satisfactory. Not only do we miss many of the appears in these two volumes. To give an idea of highest names, but few of those which are given the number and importance of the topics exhaustcan be accepted as representations of the best works ively treated, would occupy more space than is at of the artists. The Engravers, who, in printed our disposal, even if we contented ourselves with giv works, stand as mediums between the Painter and ing the bare titles of the separate chapters. We the Public, have executed their part, with hardly can only say, briefly, that there is hardly a point an exception, in a most admirable manner. It connected with agricultural and domestic matters, would be easy to select twenty engravings, mostly with social life and customs; with marriage, and of a small size, any one of which is, in its way, a death; with the training of children and the educagem of art. The "getting up" of the book, includ- tion of youth; with feasts, fasts, and festivals; with ing printing and paper, is excellent. While we the punishments for crime; with the modes and cuscan not help regretting that some Artists, whose toms of trade and industry; with religious rites, pictures we miss have not chosen to be represented ceremonies, and superstitions, which is not thorhere, and others have not furnished pictures char- oughly treated. The extracts given in this Magaacteristic of their best genius, we must still pro- zine for last September from the chapter on "Benounce the "Festival of Song" to be the very best trothal and Marriage" fairly indicate the scope and work of its class produced here, and one which manner of the whole. The value of the work is could not have been exceeded in England, France, greatly enhanced by the illustrations. Of these or Germany if a score and a half of the painters of there are one hundred and fifty. A few of these either of those countries had undertaken in conjunc- represent landscapes and views of important places. tion with any writer to have produced an "Artists' The majority present scenes in social, domestic, and Book of the Poets" of their respective countries. religious life. They are without exception faithful (Published by Bunce and Huntington.) transcripts of photographs and drawings made in China, the drawings mainly by native artists. The whole series presents to the eye a picture of manifold phases of the life and character of the people. Taken all in all this is by far the best work hitherto written, or likely soon to be written upon China and its people.

Social Life of the Chinese. By Rev. JUSTUS DooLITTLE. (Published by Harper and Brothers.) There is no lack of books about China; but if we except the very valuable work of Mr. Wells Williams, there has not hitherto been one produced by any person whose opportunities and acquirements were such as to enable him to set forth fairly and comprehensively the inner life of the people of the most ancient and populous of nations. Travelers and tourists have described at length what they could see in the

This

Richard Cobden, by JOHN M'GILCHRIST. brief sketch is a fitting memorial of one who has been styled "the Apostle of Free Trade." Richard Cobden was in many respects a notable man.

Born in the humbler part of the middle class of wanton cruelties inflicted upon our prisoners who English society, he entered life as clerk in the ware- fell into the hands of the Confederates. Lieutenant house of a London calico-dealer. In time he be- Abbott, of the First New York Dragoons, was capcame "traveler" for the firm—that is, he traversed tured in the Wilderness early in May, 1861, and was the country soliciting orders for goods. Then the liberated by exchange in February, 1865. During business fell into his hands, and that of two others these nine months he was successively confined at of the employés. He enlarged it greatly, and be- Libby, Macon, Charleston, Savannah, and Columcame a prominent manufacturer of printed goods at bia. He was spared from enduring the horrors of Manchester. Meanwhile he had begun to write Andersonville. His narrative, written without bitanonymously upon economical subjects in the Man- terness, and with special mention of acts of conchester papers; and by the time he had reached the sideration, which were exceptions to the rule, is age of thirty was known as one of the ablest oppo- full of interest. To it is appended about a score of nents of the British Corn-Laws. His business pros- narratives furnished by other prisoners at various pered, and at the age of thirty-seven he received points. The brief account by a prisoner at Anderfrom it an income of £10,000 a year. He was then sonville confirms to a great extent-though also elected to Parliament, and soon made his mark as narrating some exceptions, especially on the part an advocate of Reform and Free Trade. He was of the surgeons in charge-the representations elicoffered a place in the Ministry of Lord John Rus-ited at the trial of Wirz. Not the least interesting sell, which he declined. His political career is portion of the book is the narrative of two escaped briefly but clearly sketched in this Memoir. The prisoners, one of whom was sheltered by the nepoint most interesting to us is his firm and unwa-groes, though afterward recaptured, and the other vering advocacy of the Union cause during our late was for five weeks concealed in Charleston by memFor years Richard Cobden and his friend and bers of the "Loyal League." colleague John Bright were the recognized representatives of the middle classes of England, and it may be safely affirmed that his political influence was second to that of no man in the kingdom. This modest volume is a fitting memorial of a noble life. (Published by Harper and Brothers.)

war.

Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects, by J. G. HoLLAND, is a collection of Lectures, delivered at various times and places upon such topics as "SelfHelp," "Work and Play," "Working and Shirking," "Art and Life," concluding with a dissertation on "The Popular Lecture." These topics are treated in the vein of quiet shrewdness and humor characteristic of the author, so favorably known by his nom de plume of Timothy Titcomb. (Published by Charles Scribner.)

From Halifax, Nova Scotia, we have some successive Numbers of the History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, by BEAMISHI MURDOCK, which promises to be a work of great value, filling up a void in the history of North America. One would hardly have anticipated that materials so abundant as have been The most onnivorous reader would vainly at- gathered by the author could exist for the histempt to keep up with all the books-Histories, tory of a small province lying apparently so reBiographies, Personal Adventures, Sketches, and mote from the theatre of great events. But there Novels for which the war has given occasion. is much of deep interest in the history of Acadie: Sherman's triumphant campaign has produced at the adventures and contests of the early French exleast two of decided merit. Of Major NICHOLS's plorers, the conquest by the British, and the exGreat March we have already spoken at some length. pulsion of the French inhabitants, the sieges of Port Since the appearance of the early editions (the Twen- Royal and Louisbourg, which connect the province ty-Second has already been issued) the work has with our own history; and, we doubt not, the acreceived a few important corrections from the Com-count, hitherto unwritten, of British rule. The manding General himself. A number of errors mechanical execution of the work would do credit which had crept into his reports and letters as here- to a printer in any of the great centres of booktofore printed are corrected, and some valuable mat-making. (Published by A. and W. MacKinley.) ter is added.- Sherman and his Campaigns, by Colonel S. M. BOWMAN and Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. IRWIN (published by Charles B. Richardson), takes a wider range, and claims to be a "Military Biography." In preparing the work the authors had access to the Letter-Books and Order-Books of General Sherman and of other officers. The history of military operations seems to us to have been executed with great care and judgment. Its value is much enhanced by careful military maps, furnished by General Poe, the Chief Engineer, of the The Foundations of History, by SAMUEL B. SCHIEFOperations around Resaca, of the Atlanta Campaign, FELIN. The design of this work is to furnish a of the March from Atlanta to the Sea, and of the Manual History of the World on Christian PrinciMarch from Savannah to Goldsboro.- -Sherman's ples; to show that the great purpose of the Creator March through the South, by Captain DAVID P. and Ruler of the Universe, in ordering the events of CONYNGHAM (published by Sheldon and Company), human history, is "the revelation of Himself in the can hardly claim to be more than the residuum of Lord Jesus Christ, and the manifestation of His the note-book of a "War Correspondent"-that be- glory through the Church." The idea is no new ing the precise function of the author. Among one, and in carrying it out the author makes no "War Correspondents" there is more than one who pretension to profound research. The book is in can, and we trust will, write books which will be fact rather a collection of miscellaneous thoughts portions of the History of the War. Mr. Conyng- and opinions than a methodized and ordered history. ham has certainly failed to do this.—Prison-Life It has nevertheless considerable value. (Published at the South, by Lieutenant A. O. ABBOTT (published by Harper and Brothers), is a section of a chapter in the war which we could almost wish might have remained forever unwritten; for, forget if we may, and forgive if we can, it must remain on perpetual record through all time that in the history of civilized nations there is nothing to compare with the

by A. D. F. Randolph.)

The Oil Regions of Pennsylvania, by WILLIAM WRIGHT, tells in a clear and practical way where Petroleum is found, how it is obtained, and at what cost. The statements and statistics, free from the errors of those on the one hand who pronounce the whole thing a failure, and of those on the other

who grossly exaggerate its importance, render the work of great value. The net result is, that this region produced during the last year something more than 3,500,000 barrels of oil, worth at the wells $24,000,000; the cost being for operating expenses, $2,500,000; for replacing works, $5,000,000; Government excise, $3,500,000—in all $11,000,000, leaving for profit $13,000,000, being the interest at 7 per cent. upon a bona fide capital of $185,000,000. These figures show that Petroleum ranks among the great staple products of the country. The work, from its undoubtedly reliable character, will be of great service to those who are asking the question, *Ought I to invest in Petrolia, and how?" (Published by Harper and Brothers.)

SWINBURNE, is a dramatic poem cast in the mould and breathing the spirit of the purest Greek tragedy. The "Prometheus Unbound" of Shelley, which Eschylus might have written, is the only poem in our language, if we except the "Samson Agonistes" of Milton, which can at all be compared with it. The predominant idea of Fate ruling over human destiny and unfailingly working out its decrees broods over the whole. The dialogue has the stern simplicity of the Greek tragedians, and the chorus, which has been wisely cast into English measures, has a flow and melody beyond even those of Shelley and Milton. (Published by Ticknor and Fields.)

Intuitions of the Mind, by JAMES M'COSH. As was to be expected the Professor of Logic and MetaThe Bible Hand-Book, by JOSEPH ANGUS. This physics in Queen's College, Belfast, puts himself in is an attempt to condense within the compass of a sturdy opposition to the whole materialistic school, single volume of moderate size the results arrived embracing under that wide term authors as different at in such voluminous works as Horne's Introduc- as Comte, Herbert Spencer, Buckle, and Mill. It tion, and to present them in such a form as to be does not come within the compass of a brief notice available by all classes of intelligent readers. In to attempt any analysis of the views of such a work, successive chapters are discussed the topics of the and to develop the arguments by which they are genuineness, authenticity, and authority of the Bi- supported, much less to pass judgment upon their ble; the laws of its interpretation, and the modes validity. Those who have leisure and inclination of its study; closing with a succinct statement of to grapple with the high and abstruse themes disthe history, peculiarities, and purport of each of the cussed in this volume will, whether they agree with several books of the Old and New Testaments. the author or not, accord to him the merit of careWhile we discover (which we judge a positive ful thought and clear statement. We regard this merit) no striking new features in the work, we work as the best development of the so-called consider it, for the special purpose for which it is "Scotch school" of philosophy, of which Reid has designed, an excellent compendium of the facts and heretofore been the ablest exponent. (Published principles which are generally received in the Chris- by Robert Carter and Brothers.) tian community. (Published by James S. Claxton.)

66

We have at various times spoken of the excellent series of" Readers" prepared by Mr. MARCIUS Matrimonial Infelicities, by BARRY GRAY. Un- WILLSON. The distinctive feature of these is that der this somewhat alarming title one of our most Fact takes precedence of Fancy, Science of Imaginagenial humorists gives a series of episodes in every- tion. This follows the natural order of the develday domestic life, commencing with a slight skirm-opment of the faculties. The child's first question ish at breakfast over an unsatisfactory cup of in regard to any thing is simply, "Is it true?" coffee and a tough beef-steak, and in twenty-odd Long after comes in the consideration as to the form chapters of "Infelicities," touching upon button-in which the truth is conveyed. Children care less shirts, ill-ironed collars, house-cleaning, "wife little for "Elegant Extracts." But though the obwants money," management of children, headaches, servant faculty should in all schemes of education wants country air," "waiting for wife to go to take precedence of the reflective, there are not unchurch," ," "Fourth of July," and so on, ending with frequently good reasons for cultivating the latter as "peace at last." All these topics are touched upon well. Mr. Willson has therefore done good service with a quiet and genial humor infinitely refreshing to the cause of education by intercalating into his in these days of "storm and stress" writing. The regular series of Readers an Intermediate Series, degood husband, who relates these Infelicities, is in-signed to supplement, not to supersede, the regular variably in the wrong, and generally atones for it by cash or kisses. Any wife who is blessed with a well-intentioned but irritable husband will find it for her comfort to treat him for a month with a nightly chapter of these Infelicities. (Published by Hurd and Houghton.)

Atlanta in Calydon, by ALGERNON CHARLES

OUR

course. The "Third Reader" of the "Intermediate Series" consists of short extracts in prose and verse, in which the moral conveyed takes precedence over the fact related. As an adjunct to, not as a substitute for, the "Regular Series," this Intermediate Reader deserves to find a place in our schools. Published by Harper and Brothers.)

Monthly Record of Current Events.

UNITED STATES.

UR Record closes on the 4th of December. Congress met at noon on this day, and was immediately organized. The names of none of the persons claiming seats from the Seceding States were placed on the roll. In the House 175 members answered to their names. After a brief discussion as to the claim of the members presenting themselves from Tennessee, whose claim was disallowed, the House proceeded to the election of Speaker:

Mr. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, the Speaker of the last House, was elected, receiving 139 votes; 35 being given for Mr. James Brooks, of New York. The proceedings were for a moment interrupted by a dispatch from Mr. Parsons, the Provisional Governor of Alabama, announcing that the Legislature of this State had, by an overwhelming majority, adopted the amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery. A joint resolution was offered by Mr. Stevens to the effect that a joint Committee