directed to the life of the present, we are thank- |ing, which we think Mr. Bryant in his address ful that there are scholars who are willing to de- erroneously attributes to middle and later life. vote their energies to digging down beneath the Sensitive and shrinking, he always concealed incrustations of the ages and exhuming the life this deficiency, but it was the result of an acciof the past. To the American reader it will cer-dent occurring in his childhood. Two drunken tainly be a matter of regret that Mr. Baldwin militia-men, passing his father's door, thought has made no endeavor to elucidate the early con- to astonish the boy, then only two years old, as dition of America, or to explain the probable or- he was sitting on the door-step. For this purigin of her Aborigines, or the nature of that civ-pose they discharged their guns close to his head. ilization whose mounds and monuments seem to The concussion ruined the hearing in his left ear have existed before the incursion of the present for life. Indian tribes.

BIOGRAPHY.

His boyhood was spent quietly in his father's home. It was unmarked by a single incident. He was little given to the athletic sports of his companions, but eagerly devoured whatever of poetry and romance he could lay his hands on. His evenings were spent in the kitchen with his books, whither he retired to escape the society of the parlor. His first poems were written by the light of its blazing fire and read to the housemaid, who shared his singular study with him. Some specimens of these verses Mr. Wilson has rescued from oblivion and preserved in his pages. They are in character such as many a youthful poet has written, whose budding promise has never blossomed. They are valuable chiefly as curious illustrations of the young fledgeling's attempted flights. They certainly give little indication of his future.

At twenty-one he went to New York city. There he spent the years of his manhood in the very unpoetic employment of keeping books, first for Jacob Barker, afterward for John Jacob Astor. The same scrupulous care which characterized his dress and manners rendered him invaluable in this post. He was an excellent accountant and penman. Very unlike a poet, he was alike prudent and economical in his own expenditures and methodical in his habits and in his management of his employers' business. In New York he spent forty of the best years of his life-th business hours in his counting-room, the evening with his books, or in the society of congenial friends. Literature was a passion, but never a profession. He studied the Portuguese in order that he might read the "Lusiad" in the original. "I remember," says Mr. Bryant, "hearing him say that he could think of no more fortunate lot in life than the possession of a well-stored library with ample leisure for reading." But he seems never to have endeavored even to add to his income by his pen. He never received any com

THE letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck are those of a poet. His life was that of a clerk. We are not surprised, therefore, to find in his Life and Letters* the contributions of his pen far more important than those of his editor's. In truth, an experience more uneventful than that of his quiet life it would be difficult to imagine. He was born of Puritan parentage, July 8, 1790, in Guilford, Connecticut. The house that constituted so long his country home still stands, though converted now into a tavern. By his mother's side he traced back his pedigree to John Eliot, deservedly honored among all the most honored sons of New England. From his parents he inherited the simple tastes and the courtly manners which characterized the best portion of the old Puritan stock. He mingled but little in society, but society was never weary of entreating the favor of his presence. The melody of his numbers marked also his conversation, and the same wit which sparkled in "The Croakers" gave zest to all he said in common social intercourse. It was rarely the case that any eminent visitor came to New York that Fitz-Greene Halleck was not invited to meet him. Among the friends who accounted themselves honored by his acquaintance were Napoleon's brother Joseph, Lafayette, Miss Mitford, Miss Martineau, Mrs. Jamieson, Thackeray, the Keans, Macready, and the elder Booth. Though never a ladies' man, he always exercised a singular and irresistible fascination over the ladies. "A lady, who by birth and education had few if any superiors in the city, said: 'If I were on my way to church to be married, yes, even if I were walking up the aisle, and Halleck were to offer himself, I'd leave the man I promised to marry and take him!" Yet, not unlike others of a similar character, he lived and died unmarried. The dignified and grace-pensation for the poems he contributed to the ful urbanity which not only characterized all that he did, but which was a part of his very nature, was doubtless very influential in securing for him so great a regard from the female sex. "In passing with the poet through the streets of his native town in August, 1867, a friend, observing that he touched his hat or removed it entirely, in his gracious and graceful manner, to many persons, some of whom gave but a slight nod in return to his polite salutation, remarked: 'Mr. Halleck, your courtesy seems to be thrown away on those boors.' 'Yes, perhaps 'tis so,' he replied, "but yet that's no reason why I should be a boor." His retiring disposition was perhaps intensified by a difficulty in hear

Evening Post, National Advocate, and other journals and magazines during the twenty years which constituted the chief portion of his literary life. A proposition to become the editor of a magazine was at once rejected, and the announcement that he had accepted the offer was denied with some indignation. He seems to have been almost equally indifferent to fame. Up to the year 1839 his poems were published anonymously, with few, if any, exceptions. He sang as birds sing, not for a purpose, but because it was his nature to do so, and he could never bring himself to cage his muse and require her services at appointed times and for pecuniary reward. This quiet life was varied by a trip to Europe in 1822, and by several short journeys in his own country. At length the death of Astor, in 1848, and a bequest from the millionaire of an annuity of two hundred dollars per year, increased by the

gift of ten thousand dollars in cash by his son, with a taste that of right belongs to such a topic. William B. Astor, enabled Mr. Halleck to retire We call it a book of sixty-four pages, for the fiftyfrom his clerkship to his native village, where he eight pages of "Notices of the Press," nearly onetook up his residence, and where, in the same half of the entire volume, are really no part of the quiet that had characterized his metropolitan book, and have no business between its covers. life, he spent the remainder of his days. He The story is a remarkable one in many points of now had ample leisure for literary pursuits, but view. seems never to have availed himself of it. We believe his pen produced nothing after he left New York-nothing certainly of note.

It is possible that some of our readers may have wandered a few months ago into Schaus's pic-him to take the brush from the mouth, wet, and ture store on Broadway, and there observed a very beautiful and exquisitely delicate drawing entitled "The Rat-catcher and his Dogs." They could hardly fail to have been impressed by the fineness of the touch, even if they did not stop to read the very brief story of the artist who, deprived of the use of his hands, had executed this piece of workmanship with his mouth. That story Mr. Mills* has expanded into a little book of sixty-four pages, which is printed and issued

RELIGIOUS.

and practically applying it. And it is a good sign that many of the more popular divines in America are succeeding in redeeming the public reading of Scripture from a listless formality, and clothing it with a new life, by brief and pertinent comments. Dr. Lillie's Lectures on the Epistles of Peter* are very fair, though not very remarkable, specimens of Biblical exposition. They are not sufficiently condensed to serve the scholar as a commentary, and not sufficiently practical to serve the people as devotional reading. But they are nevertheless useful both for the scholar and the general reader, and will be cordially welcomed by those who desire to see the sermon become once more, occasionally if not regularly, what it was in the days of Knox, of Luther, of Augustine, of the Apostles, and of Christ himself-an exposition of the Word of God.

Christian as a singular illustration of the methods miah, where we are told that at the time of the which God sometimes employs to bring wander-restoration Ezra the Scribe, accompanied by asing ones back to Him, in calm faith on whom John sistants, and occupying a pulpit erected for the Carter lived and died. "It is," says an eloquent purpose, "read in the book in the law of God writer, "a hymn to poverty, a hymn to affliction distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them and calamity. Riches and health and prosperity to understand the reading." In Scotland this shut the doors of heaven and blind us to our best method of preaching still prevails. The people selves." The cross often opens the closed door-is bring their Bibles, and follow the preacher as he the voice of the Master saying, Receive thy sight. reads and expounds. In our conception this exposition is by far the most attractive and profitable part of Mr. Spurgeon's service, who sucLITERARY partnerships are rarely very success-ceeds in a wonderful measure in giving the sense ful ventures. The book which is written by two minds lacks the unity of thought and feeling which is demanded for the highest measure of success. Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul* is an exception to this rule. It has long been regarded, and rightly, by all Biblical students, as the authority on the subject of which it treats. It is a thesaurus of information on geographical and archæological subjects connected with that portion of the New Testament which it undertakes to illustrate. For an understanding, not of particular passages, but of the general scope and teaching of him who, next to the divine founder of Christianity, has done more than any one to mould the religious thought of the world, it is better than any commentary, and is the student's necessary companion to the more strictly exegetical works of Alford, Wordsworth, Ellicott, and Lange. The particular method of its composition may have tended to give it its success. The Epistles were translated by Mr. Conybeare. In what is almost a paraphrase he succeeds in clearing away many of those obscurities of style and expression which, in the more literal rendering of the English version, make the writings of the great Apostle the most difficult portion of the New Testament to understand. Mr. Howson, adding the results of travel in the East to the results of a broad and generous scholarship, contributes a large proportion of the life of the Apostle and of the archaological and geographical information which illuminates it. But the work has heretofore been confined to the libraries of scholars. Its notes assumed that the reader was familiar with the Greck Testament, and they frequently required for their comprehension a knowledge of the German. At the same time the size and price prevented it from having a popular sale. The publishers have therefore rendered a good service to the cause of Biblical knowledge in presenting to the American public this People's Edition, prepared by Mr. Howson himself, in which the notes are rendered in English, and the very concise foot-notes which accompany the new translation of the Epistles are based on the English, not on the Greek text. The whole is printed in a single compact volume, in good clear type, and is very respectably illustrated. The text is unaltered, with the exception of some slight verbal changes, and the reader has really, though in a cheaper and more comprehensible form, all that the original and more costly edition afforded him.

THE first account of preaching of which we have any history is given in the Book of Nehe

The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. By Rev. W. J. CONYBBARE, M.A., and Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D. With a Preliminary Dissertation by Rev. LEONARD BACON, D.D. Hartford, Connecticut: S. S. Scranton and Co.

PROFESSOR COWLES's Commentary on Isaiah (D. Appleton and Co.), following one on the Minor Prophets by the same author, is less scholastic than Dr. Henderson's work on the same book, and is less voluminous than that of Dr. Barnes. Designed, as we are told, for both pastors and people, we think it will have its largest circulation among the latter, and that, though pastors may welcome it as an addition to their libraries, it will not take the place of their more erudite works upon the original text.

PRESIDENT DODGE'S Evidences of Christianity (Gould and Lincoln) is a useful and compact statement of those evidences which are generally accepted and taught in the schools. Indeed, he expressly avows it to be his aim to present Christianity as accepted by the representatives of the Protestant faith." As an original contribution to the religious thought of the day it can not rank with the works of Dr. M'Cosh or Dr. Bushnell's "Nature and the Supernatural." As a reply to critical and skeptical objections it does not compare with Dr. Barnes's "Evidences of Christianity." As a compend of the evidences "as accepted by the representatives of the Protestant faith" it is superior to either.

SCIENCE.

THE title-page of Ecce Calum† is the poorest page in the book. We took it up expecting to find one of the score of imitations which "Ecce Homo" has produced. We were agreeably disappointed to find that the author had imitated

By the Rev. JouN LILLIE, D.D. With an Introduction

Lectures on the First and Second Epistles of Peter.

by PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D. New York: Charles Scribner and Co. 1869.

+ Ecce Cœlum, or Parish Astronomy. In Six Lectures. By a Connecticut Pastor. Boston: Nichols and Noyes. 1869.

only the name, and had really produced an original and a remarkable little treatise on Astronomy. We have seen nothing since the days of Dr. Chalmers's Astronomical Discourses equal in their kind to these six simple lectures. The theme is sublime. The style is generally worthy of the theme; occasionally perhaps a little overwrought, but the grandeur of the subject excuses something of the enthusiasm of the writer. By an imagination which is truly contagious he lifts us above the earth and causes us to wander for a time among the stars. The most abstruse truths he succeeds in translating into popular forms. Science is with him less a study than a poem, less a poem than a form of devotion. The writer who can convert the Calculus into a fairy story, as Dr. Burr has done, may fairly hope that no theme can thwart the solving power of his imagination. An enthusiast in science, he is also an earnest Christian at heart. He makes no attempt to reconcile science and religion, but writes as with a charming ignorance that any one had ever been so absurdly irrational as to imagine that they were ever at variance.

tions of the several parts, will acquire a very thorough knowledge of the plant in question, and probably at the same time a great desire to take a second specimen. They thus begin the study of botany, as it ought to be begun, by making themselves acquainted with the plants which grow around their own homes. The examination of each plant will bring up various points in respect to the structure and the physiology of plants, and the structure and functions of the several organs, which will awaken a curiosity that they will find abundant means of gratifying in this work. The arrangement of it is excellent for this purpose, as well as for class instruction in schools.

The system of classification which is mainly followed is that of Natural Orders, though the Linnæan system is given. The work embodies the latest discoveries in the science of vegetable physiology, and the character and reputation of the author make a work of the highest authority.

IN China it is said the physician is engaged not to cure his patients, but to keep his employ

HALL'S Alphabet of Geology (Gould and Lin-ers from becoming sick. He is paid a yearly coln) is well entitled. It is so primary as to be salary. Whenever one of the family sickens, and truly alphabetic. But it is so bald in style, so his services are required, the salary is stopped. barren of pictorial statement, so wholly lacking Whenever the doctor is needed no longer the salin the elements which characterize the work on ary is resumed. The Chinaman shows by this astronomy we have mentioned above, so ex- arrangement a degree of shrewdness which does clusively, in short, a compend of mere dry facts him very great credit. It is ordinarily in Amerthat we should despair of ever interesting the ica, however, very difficult to get a physician who young, for whom it is especially written, in its will tell you how to keep well. He accounts it his pages. Despite Mr. Gradgrind's eulogy of business to cure disease, not to prevent it; and "facts," children rarely understand and still measures his skill by the seriousness of the sickmore rarely heed "facts" that are not present-ness which he succeeds in overcoming. We have ed in pleasing forms, and, in some measure, through the medium of the imagination.

PROFESSOR GRAY'S School and Field Book of Botany* is admirably adapted to serve as an introduction to the study of botany, whether theoretically by class instruction in schools, or practically and personally by individuals. There is a way of making this study a source of great recreation and amusement in a family, that is, by making it practical from the beginning. Let a mother, or an older brother or sister, no matter whether they have any knowledge of botany or not, go into the garden or field with the children the field is better, as the flowers there have not been modified by cultivation-and select any flower of which the common name is known. They look out this common name in the index of this volume; there they learn the botanical name, and the page in the volume where its botanical characteristics are described, and its place in the general system of classification shown. Every technical term is explained in a copious glossary. The pupils in examining and analyzing the flower, in pressing and preserving specimens, not only of the flower but of the leaves, and also of all the parts of the flower, separately, and arranging them systematically and gumming them, thus arranged, upon a sheet, for preservation, inscribing in connection with them the names and characteristic specifica

Gray's School and Field Book of Botany; consisting of First Lessons in Botany," and Field, Forest, and Garden Botany, bound in one volume. New York: Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman, and Co. 1869.

66

very little faith in any books of the "every man his own doctor" order. It is a proverb in the law that he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client," which might safely be applied in the case of the other profession. But we welcome very cordially such a book as that of Dr. Bellows,* because we are glad to have a physician indicate that he thinks it worth his while to teach us how to prevent the sickness which physicians generally only attempt to cure. The recipes which Dr. Bellows prescribes will be commended by those of the homeopathic school, and sharply criticised by their opponents. We confess ourselves unable to agree with him in tracing all the ills to which flesh is heir to carbonaceous food. If one is too fat it is because he eats too much fine flour, butter, and sugar. If one is too lean it is because he eats too much fine flour, butter, and sugar. If one's teeth are bad it is because he eats too much fine flour, butter, and sugar. In short, fine flour, butter, and sugar seem to constitute the Doctor's conception of original sin; and we are inclined to think that in his opinion they entered in some mysterious way into the composition of the apple that Eve ate. We can hardly commend his treatise as an absolute and unquestioned authority, but it is full of valuable and useful practical suggestions.

MISCELLANEOUS.

WHOEVER Visits London visits of course the Tower of London. He is, perhaps, surprised to

How not to be Sick. By ALBERT J. BELLOWS, M.D. New York: Hurd and Houghton. 1868.

find it not a tower at all, but a pile of buildings | preoccupied, but possesses some characteristics covering many acres, and now affording accom- which distinguish it from its predecessors.* The modations for a battalion of infantry, with plen- author's aim is less to afford, by arbitrary selecty of room for their daily drill. Whoever has tions, specimens of the growth of the language, "done" the Tower with the other sights of the than to illustrate that growth by certain characgreat city will not readily forget the ridiculous teristic authors of different eras. He avoids the Warder in his theatrical costume, supposed by a error of similar books which too often present vivid imagination to represent something antique mere paragraphs that can never truly represent because it has no possible resemblance to any a writer, any more than a square inch of a paintthing modern; or the awe with which he looked ing can be taken to illustrate truly the method on Bloody Tower and rehearsed the story of the of the artist. But in so doing he necessarily falls murder of the two young princes by their cruel into the other error of representing an age by a uncle; and the Traitor's Gate, through which so single author. Thus Longfellow is the only repmany noble men and true have entered the Tow-resentative of American literature; and from his er, to find their "only exit through the gate of works" Hiawatha" is selected-a poem which is, death; and Beauchamp Tower, the most com- perhaps, the least characteristic of any thing that mon place for the confinement of state prisoners, has issued from his pen. As a natural conseand the rude inscriptions carved by their knives on quence he occupies an absurdly prominent posithe cold, undraped, stone walls—inscriptions some tion in the collection. Of a little over four hunof which tell in a few sentences the story of a dred pages of selections nearly fifty are given to sad, sad life. Neither will they readily forget the him, who thus represents something like oneset speech of the Warder, who probably rehearses ninth of the English literature of about five cenfifty times a day the same story, and who looks turies. In truth, any attempt to indicate the aghast at an American because he will interrupt growth of English literature within the compass the flow of words with interminable questions. of five hundred pages affords a volume which is And we are sure that they will agree with us that necessarily only a compendium. But however they came away but little wiser than they went, unsatisfactory such a treatise may be to the real save as in future reading references in romance student of English literature it is a valuable inand in history received new significance from troduction; one which no pupil can master withthe memory of that visit. Mr. Dixon* under-out making great progress in a knowledge of our takes to play the part of Warder to thousands of visitors who never will see the Tower of London except as they see it in his pages, and to carry again through its complicated rooms and turrets and passages those that have already traversed them. We need not tell those who are already familiar with his writings that he makes an admirable Warder. We have revisited this ancient ALL those who appreciate genuine wit will repile in his companionship with pleasure. We ceive with pleasure Messrs. Callaghan and Cockcan guarantee to any one who will read his pages croft's edition of the Comic Blackstone. The with care that he shall know more of the Tow- disquisitions of the famous jurist are most amuser and its history than he would learn by any ingly travestied, and the inconsistencies and ecordinary visit under the auspices of any of its centricities of the law are very humorously set ordinary guardians; and to those who have al- forth in this volume, which proves to be enterready traversed its circuit with the unseemly but taining reading not only for those who are learnunavoidable haste of a tourist, that this book willed in the law, but for all who have an appreciagive them, by its carefully collated information, the pleasure of a second visit. The history of the Tower of London is the history of England. Whoever means to pay it a visit will find it worth his while to prepare for doing so by a perusal of these pages.

PROFESSOR DAY's Introduction to the Study of English Literature occupies a field already

Her Majesty's Tower. By WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1869.

language and literature. The second part of Professor Day's work consists of a philosophical analysis of the elements and construction of language, and is a concise and interesting exhibition of the main features of orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody.

tion of the humor of social affairs, and who can enjoy a running fire of wit on subjects which are usually sacred to dullness. No one who was accustomed to read Punch twenty years ago can have forgotten these papers; and they are presented now in a form in which, if we mistake not, they will be quite as popular with law-students as "Coke upon Lyttleton" or the "YearBooks."

Introduction to the Study of English Literature. By HENEY N. DAY. Charles Scribner and Co. 1869.

Monthly Record of Current Events.

UNITED STATES.

UR Record closes on the 26th of February. ing the electoral vote for President and VicePresident took place, both Houses of Congress assembling for that purpose in the Hall of the Representatives, Mr. Wade, President of the Sen

ate, occupying the chair. When Louisiana was called, objection was made to the reception of that State no valid election of electors. The Senate withdrew for consultation, and the House proceeded to vote upon the question of counting the vote of that State, and it was decided in the