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The favorable reception which eight editions of this work Origin, Progress and Destiny

has had in the United States, Great Britain, and Brazil, indicates a growing interest in the largest, most prosperous, and most stable country of South America. The historical portions, and the accurate descriptions of nature in the tropics, have given the work a permanent interest, which makes it a desideratum in every library.

of

the English Language and Lit

erature.

But recent events, such as the tour of the Emperor Dom By JOHN A. WEISSE, M. D.

Pedro II through the United States and Europe, the prominent part taken by the Empire in the Expositions in Philadelphia and in Paris, and the general development of education. internal improvement, exploration, and the commerce of the country, have all drawn more than usual attention to Brazil.

In order, then, to meet the demand for the latest informa

tion, the authors have added many pages of new material,

have introduced the most recent statistics of commerce, and have thoroughly revised the entire work. In addition to the many illustrations of the former editions, a new steel porlatest photograph taken of his Majesty.

trait of the Emperor has been engraved on steel from the

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World. the Universities of Wisconsin and of Califor-serious. Mr. Gay's volumes are cumbrous

The Literary World.

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THE COLLEGE BOOK.*

THE design of this unique volume is “to

nia had been substituted for the two United in form, and their weight in pounds avoir-
States' Academies, a higher degree of unity dupois is a serious obstacle to the reader's
had been attained. The authorship of the enjoyment. The whole history, moreover, is
several chapters is, in general, sufficient elaborate, and carried out with minute detail,
evidence of their historic accuracy; and while the great and simple forces upon which
each contributor has, in a spirit deserving a truly popular history should chiefly insist
of hearty commendation, avoided any special are obscured and confused. Then, too, Mr.
laudation of the college of which he writes. Gay has not remedied in the least the great
The history, the distinguished officers, grad-defect of our colonial history. The chief
uates, and benefactors, the religious charac- difficulty in dealing with the subject, arises
ter and course of study are the points most from the fact that it is in its very nature
commonly discussed; and the unique fea- fragmentary. The interest is necessarily
tures of any institution are, of course, broken, and nothing is so injurious to his-
touched
upon. Among the twenty-four tory or so lessens its effect as lack of con
chapters those relating to Harvard, Yale, tinuity. This difficulty is inevitable, and
Williams, Bowdoin, Oberlin, and Michigan cannot be wholly removed, but it can un-
are preeminent for their completeness and doubtedly be modified by judicious arrange-
interest. The sixty full-paged heliotypes ment. But it is in this very important par-
represent the buildings of each of the insti- ticular Mr. Gay has failed most conspicu-
tutions described. The Naval Academy ously. He seems to have had no general
alone is without illustration. The only plan, or rather to have tried every system in

marked defect of the volume is the lack of
an index; and, considered as a whole, it is
of peculiar value to those interested in the
history, present work, or promise of Ameri-
can colleges.

CHARLES F. THWING.

BRYANT AND GAY'S HISTORY OF

THE

turn. The arrangement of subjects according to political groups has not occurred to Mr. Gay, except in the case of New England, where it is unavoidable. Elsewhere he pursues a plan which seems to be a mixture of the chronological method and that of cognate subjects. The result is a great deal of confusion, and the interest of the narrative is continually and unnecessarily broken. Mr. Gay rushes from one colony to another apparently without reason, and so suddenly that it is extremely difficult to maintain any connection between the different portions of his narrative.

If we take the work for what it really is, an elaborate and full compendium of Amer. ican history, there is much to praise. Mr. Gay seems to have been diligent and careful, and to have consulted the latest authorities. His style is clear and simple, and often en

livened with a very pleasant vein of satire. His criticisms are usually fair and his reflections just with one very marked exception. He devotes a great deal of space to the “persecutions" carried on by the Massachusetts Puritans, and censures their authors as nar

present, in a compact yet readable form, material for a sufficiently full knowlTHE UNITED STATES.* edge of the history, resources, and aims of HE title of this work is not the least the several institutions described, as underimportant part of it, for it necessitates stood by their officers and friends." These a wholly new definition of authorship. Mr. institutions number twenty-four; and are, Bryant, according to the frank statement of together with the authors of the chapters the preface, revised and corrected the proof descriptive of them, as follows: Harvard of the first and second volumes, and it is on University, Professor James Barr Ames; this ground that the work bears his name. Yale College, William L. Kingsley; College This seems a slender and very novel foundaof New Jersey, Frederick Vinton; Univer- tion upon which to claim the authorship of sity of Pennsylvania, Provost C. J. Stillé; a history. To announce it to the public as Brown University, Rheuben A. Guild; Rut- Mr. Bryant's history seems therefore, hardly gers College, Professor T. S. Doolittle; fair, and the work of Mr. Gay, who is the Williams College, the Rev. Washington real author in the ordinary acceptation of Gladden; Union College, Professor William the term, is certainly good enough to stand Wells; Bowdoin College, the Rev. G. T. upon its own merits. Packard; Hamilton College, Professor Ed- To call this history "popular" is also a ward North; Trinity College, William C. misuse of language. It professes to fill the Brocklesby; Wesleyan University, Profes-need which neither Mr. Bancroft nor Mr. sor C. T. Winchester; Lafayette College, Hildreth has supplied, and that such a need row and tyrannical bigots. This view is a safe and generally accepted one, and together Professor F. A. March; Oberlin College, exists in our colonial history, at least, no with the Salem witchcraft and the Hartford President James H. Fairchild; Universi- one who has studied the subject would deny. convention, has done good service in literaty of Michigan, Professor Charles K. Mr. Bancroft is too voluminous for the Adams; Vassar College, Professor Truman largest public, and Mr. Hildreth is unsatis-ture and oratory for many years. But while it J. Backus. The chapters devoted to Wil-factory, though we should hardly object to is very proper for Mr. Gay to hold such opinliam and Mary College, Columbia, Dart- the latter that he stopped at 1820. There is ions, there is serious objection to his making mouth, Amherst, the University of Virginia, unquestionably a vacant place in our histor- persecution" the great feature of early New and Cornell, the Military Academy at West ical literature, but Mr. Gay has not filled it. England history, and then telling only one Point, and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, It is difficult to see in what respect his work side of the story. It is not right to devote have been prepared by the editors. a whole chapter to the harsh treatment of Gorton, a comparatively insignificant matter, and pass over almost entirely the contemporaneous development of a political system, and of methods of government, which have left an impress on the whole country. It is

Such, in brief, are the contents of this octavo of nearly four hundred pages. The wisdom of the editors in the selection of the colleges for description is obvious; but if

is more popular in the best and truest sense
than those of his predecessors, except that
it is better printed and lavishly illustrated.
The mere mechanical objections even are

A Popular History of the United States. By William

66

*The College Book. Edited by Charles F. Richardson Cullen Bryant and Sidney Howard Gay. Charles Scrib-wrong to describe the severe policy pursued

and Henry A. Clark. Houghton, Osgood & Co.

ner's Sons.

toward Rhode Island, without showing that

government and society in that State were factious, turbulent, and unsettled. It is unjust to relate fully the persecutions of Quakers, and slur the dealings of Massachusetts with the Commissioners of Charles II. And it conveys a false impression to say that in New England alone Quakers were hung, when three hundred and sixty perished from the effects of persecution in Old England, although not upon the gallows. This is sticking to the letter and

violating the spirit of history.

Mr. Gay wisely makes the most of all

of Philip," is atrocious, and ought to be re- much like an annalist; and gives promise moved from the volume.

TAINE'S FRENCH REVOLUTION.*
HE readers of Prof. Taine are hardly
THE

of larger material for the second, which, we predict, will be two instead of one. The evil geniuses have not yet towered above their associates; and we admire the selfrestraint which has given us a whole volume

without a hero.

accustomed to think of him as an historian. Yet his first publication was an As to the style, it is Taine's subdued, and essay on Livy, and all his works on literature therefore improved. As ever, he does not and art have been historical. Three years entertain, he captivates. We make but one ago he entered the field of general French criticism. The present tense is overused. history by the publication of the Ancien Not only, like Livy, does he use it to porRégime. We have now the first volume of tray scenes which might be combined in one

the picturesque traditions, but he is not suf. the connected work on The French Revolu view, but facts with their causes and even

ficiently careful about their authenticity. He tells, for instance, the famous story of the seizure and concealment of the Connecticut Charter, but he does not even hint that there are grave doubts as to its truth. In

tion. The opening is quietly dramatic, just
enough to enlist the imagination, and then
the story of the Spontaneous Anarchy, the
Constituent Assembly, and the Application
of its Constitution which are the three

future results are incessantly painted as the vivid present. This is too much. An his torical picture cannot be all foreground.

Of the translator's work we can say that one may read almost every page without

this is no slight praise.

the same connection he makes a serious grand divisions of this volume- goes on in being reminded that it is a translation; and blunder in affirming “that Connecticut, like a series of vivid pictures, at every point Massachusetts, was deprived by a quo war- thoroughly loyal to facts. Take a single example of this last feature-the "Storming ranto of its charter." Two writs of quo of the Bastille;" what was it? In the light of Carlyle's lurid extravagance, one could hardly overpaint it; but the imagina- into verses as well as paragraphs. On one

warranto were issued against Connecticut, but neither came to trial, and the charter was not annulled. The different results of

the different policies and conditions of the two colonies are thus lost sight of if these facts are misstated.

tive Taine is content to say:

"Eight or nine hundred men only were concerned in the attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers, and wine dealers, mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille, however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded with the curious who came to witness the sight."

Mr. Gay makes another lapse from his usual accuracy in connection with Berkeley's restoration in Virginia. He speaks of Berkeley's letter to Charles II, acknowledging his commission and the address voted It is his devotion to fact, even to the exby the assembly to the same monarch, as if tent of diluting the author's style, on almost they had been published at the time of the every page, by quotations from eye-witnesses, Puritan assembly which elected Berkeley, that most impresses us. M. Taine has not after the fall of Richard Cromwell and the given us a new theory of the French Revodeath of Governor Matthews. As a mat-lution, but he has painted a new picture of ter of fact they did not appear until the it, and one completely his own in spirit and new assembly, which met in the spring of details. 1661 and which was composed of royalists His discussion of the causes of the Revoand not of commonwealth's men, had come lution cannot be fully judged apart from the together. This mistake gives an erroneous preceding work, but enough is here given to idea of the position and motives of the Puri- furnish the outline. He does not, we think, tan leaders in Virginia. They accepted give its full importance to that portentous these measures because they were powerless fact of previous French history - irreligion; against the royalist reaction, and not because yet he recognizes the influence of Rousseau some of their number remained in the council at the accession of Berkeley. At the same place (p. 225) there is a gross typographical error which should be corrected in subsequent editions. The phrase pars sequitur ventrem ought, of course, to be partus sequitur ventrem.

The last four chapters, relating to Spanish and French exploration and settlement in the southwest, are by the Rev. E. E. Hale, and are full and comprehensive, but the style is loose and careless, and some of the sentences are ungrammatical.

The illustrations as in the previous volume are excellent, and reflect credit on both designers and engravers. The average is so good that those which fall below it are very noticeable. One in particular, "the death

and his co-workers, and, as a side point,
eloquently sketches the folly and loss of
France in the expulsion of the Huguenots.
His candor allows Gouverneur Morris, after-
ward American Minister, to say:

The publishers may be responsible for one feature which mars the otherwise handsome style of the volume; we mean the constant use of dashes, as if to divide the reading

page (19) there are, between sentences, nine of these, all as useless as so many ink-blots. We hope no whims of French printers, or of anybody else, will impose this style upon American pages.

We are glad that this admirable book has come out just now. The French Revolution is healthful reading in these days of tramps and Communism.

THE

THREE NEW TEXT-BOOKS. HE newest book is not always the best; but in science, so rapid is the march of discovery, a text-book six years old is out of

date. Prof. Avery's work' is probably the first school-book containing a description of the telephone and the phonograph, but even here we miss the tasimeter and the microphone. On the whole, however, a more attractive book of its kind we do not remember to have seen. All the ground usually gone over in our high schools is thoroughly covered, and in plainness of language, number of illustrations, and typographical accuracy, author and publishers have combined to add new interest to an always fascinating study. The chapters on "They want an American Constitution, with light and on sound are especially well done; the exception of a King instead of a President, all the more important optical and musical without reflecting that they have not American instruments are explained; and the laws of citizens to support that Constitution.... This unhappy country, bewildered in the pursuit of light are illustrated by more than seventy metaphysical whims, presents to our moral view figures. The book contains also an unusual a mighty ruin." number of problems, in which the student is practiced both with the English and with the international units of measure. A possible fault with the book is that it may be too plain, a danger which school-book makers

He refers to Burke's "Reflections" as "a prophecy as well as a masterpiece."

The volume ends at the autumn of 1792 - although the author handles his dates not

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PUBLICATIONS.

would do well to consider. The recapitula- THE ENGLISH DIALECT SOCIETY'S
tions, for example, at the ends of the sections,
might better perhaps have been left to the
ingenuity of the

young

student.

the author of a rhetoric must exercise his in

THE

check, I should have given a stronger color to the dialogue in 'Adam Bede,' which is modeled in the talk of N. Staffordshire and the neighboring part of Derbyshire. The spelling, being determined by my own ear alone, was necessarily a matter of anxiety, for it would be as possible to quarrel about it as about the spelling of Oriental

names.

"The district imagined as the scene of Silas

HE English Dialect Society is a good example of the numerous and highly The publication within six months of three respectable family of English specialist new rhetorics, by three distinguished schol-associations, and the publications before us ars, should be encouraging to lovers of pure bearing its imprint are interesting specimens Marner' is in N. Warwickshire. But here, and English. The last of the three, by Prof. of its work. The Dialect Society seems to in all my other presentations of English life, David J. Hill of the University of Lewisburg, have been in operation about six years. Its except 'Adam Bede,' it has been my intention to give the general physiognomy rather than a close is more elementary than Prof. DeMille's, object is to associate students of Provincial portraiture of the provincial speech as I have and less distinctly a compilation than Prof. English for the easier prosecution of their heard it in the Midland or Mercian region.” A. S. Hill's, but, at the same time, lacking labor and the fuller utilization of results. Mr. Dickinson's Glossary of Cumberland somewhat the vigorous style of the latter. Its publications are of uniform size, corre- Words and Phrases, No. VIII in a Series Being introductory to the author's more ad-sponding with those of the Early English of Glossaries, is a second edition, revised vanced work, The Science of Rhetoric, it is Text Society, the Chaucer Society, and the and extended, of a work published nearly less a philosophy of rhetoric than a comPhilological Society. The subscription is twenty years ago, and long since out of pendium of rhetorical rules. Originality in but a pound a year (1 2s. for subscribers in print. Cumberland is a small county, but its subject-matter is not to be expected; to-day America, to include postage), and every pay- shades of dialect are various and very ing subscriber is entitled to one copy of marked. Most of the compiler's 140 pages vention in the discovery of new ways of each publication of the Society for the year. are occupied with the Glossary proper, but presenting old truths. Prof. Hill has chosen The Society has its present head-quarters at by way of preface he gives a table of prowhat may be called the natural method. The Manchester, and there are about two hun- nunciation of current words, and lists of wants of the young writer are met in the or-dred and fifty subscribers on its list. One words applied to beating or striking, as also der in which they naturally occur; first the of its immediate projects is the founding of a of places in the county whose pronunciation choice of a subject, then the accumulation Dialect Library. Its work is done upon a care- differs from the spelling. Thus Keswick is and arrangement of materials, the use of fully systematized plan, with a local editor pronounced Kezzick; Blennerhasset, Blinwords, the composition of paragraphs; and for each county. The general administra-rayset; Derwent, Däaren; Egremont, Egfinally the correction of the manuscript. Al- tion is in the hands of an Honorary Secre-germoth; Torpenhood, Trapenna; Whitethough this plan brings in matter properly tary, a Treasurer, and a Committee. The haven, Whitten, and so on. There is also a outside the province of rhetoric, in an eleSociety's Financial Statement for 1877 curious list of Cumberland names of British mentary treatise the method is to be commight well nerve some of our American plants. mended; for it is better that these wants be specialists to organize after a similar plan. The bulkiest, and, to the general reader, supplied by competent hands rather than be The Society's publications for the six the most interesting of these publications, left to the doubtful judgment of the teacher. years of its existence, including 1878, num- is Thomas Tusser's Fiue Hundred Pointes Many helpful suggestions, besides the mat ber some twenty-five, and those now before of Good Husbandrie,3 here edited from the ter mentioned, are given on such special us are from among those bearing date of the edition of 1580, collated with those of 1573 forms of composition as letters, orations, present year. The three Parts of the Bibli- and 1577; together with a reprint of a and poems, and to the whole is added an apographical List run through two hundred unique version of the poem in the British pendix, containing, together with numerous pages. This was one of the first works Museum, of 1557. Tusser belonged to the practical exercises, a complete glossary. undertaken for the Society, and has been in | 16th century, and this poem is remarkable Mr. Palmer's treatise on double entry has hand for several years, its preparation in- for its pictures of the English domestic life long been used in the Normal College and volving great labor, and the growth being of its period, and for its sagacious and ethithe other public schools of New York city, slow. First in it comes a list of English cal precepts. The author was a strictly and this, his more elementary work, prom-dictionaries and of other works illustrative religious man, but of a genial temper, and ises to be as popular. Practical, best de- of the general subject; then a list of works while much cannot be said of him as a poet, scribes it in a word. School-taught book- relating to the dialects of the North of Ire- his verse possesses a singular antiquarian keepers are often baffled by the varied trans-land; then the counties are considered sepa- value, while its peculiarities of style and actions of actual business; when their text-rately in alphabetical order; and, last of all, expression are a delight to the student of book affords no proper directions, their chart Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. A list of old English literature. To "agricultural is gone, and they are at sea. Mr. Palmer works explanatory of slang and cant is editors" and almanac-makers it might be seeks to avoid this difficulty by first analyz-added. The titles are frequently annotated. commended as an inexhaustible fund of ing the different kinds of accounts separate- This subject of dialect has a closer con- information and advice which a little maniply, the cash, personal, and the profit and loss, nection with current literature than might ulation might adapt to modern prose use. and establishing each on a reasonable basis, at first be supposed, as will appear from this Take the following stanzas from "Nouemand then combining them so as to show their passage in a note from George Eliot, printed ber's husbandrie: " relations. Thus the student is required to in his introduction by Mr. Skeat, who had do less mechanical copying, but more thinkwritten to the author of Middlemarch asking ing. On almost every page he is taught what dialects were more particularly represome business maxim, and throughout much attention is given to the names, qualities, and prices of articles bought and sold, and the conditions effecting changes of prices.

sented in her various works:

"My inclination to be as close as I could to
the rendering of dialect, both in words and
spelling, was constantly checked by the artistic
duty of being generally intelligible. But for that

The Elements of Rhetoric and Composition. By David
J. Hill. Sheldon & Co.
1 A Bibliographical List of Works Illustrative of the
Elements of rook-keeping. By J. H. Palmer, Shel-Various Dialects of English. Parts I and II. Edited by
Rev. W. W. Skeat. Part III. By J. H. Nodal.

don & Co.

Now plough vp thy hedland, or delue it with spade,
where otherwise profit but little is made:
And cast it vp high, vpon hillocks to stand,
that winter may rot it, to compas thy land.
If garden requier it, now touch it ye may,
one trench not a yard from another go lay:
Which being well-filled with muck by and by,
go couer with mold for a season to ly.

2 A Glossary of Words and Phrases Pertaining to the Dialect of Cumberland. By William Dickinson.

3 Fiue Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. By Thom,

as Tusser. Edited by W. Payne and S. J. Herrtage. London: Trübner & Co, for the English Dialect Society.

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