one side and extravagant depreciation on the other, Mr. Nichol has not only arrived at the proverbial mean of truth which lies between extremes, but he has made a book that is a safer and more instructive popular companion, and more readable also, than if he had carried a brief on either side. His estimates of By

miliar missives which, whether grave or gay, | expression to them. By pursuing this even sober or serene, appeal the most successfully course between extravagant eulogium on the to our sympathies, and compel our interested attention. We miss some admirable letters from the collection, such, for instance, as those of Sir Philip Sidney to his brother, and of Lady Russell to her husband (in which she styles him her "dear man," her "best and only true joy," her" dearest dear,” etc.); but such omissions are almost inseparable from a task cov-ron's character and endowments are able and ering so many writers and so wide an extent of time. There are enough that are curious, instructive, illustrative of the times, and sufficiently agreeable in matter and style to afford a delightful banquet to those who are content to dispense with stimulating intellect-memoirs, narratives, lives, etc., stripped of ual condiments.

dispassionate; his criticisms of his productions are careful, fair, and soundly discriminating; and his outline of the poet's life is a full and graceful narrative, containing in moderate compass the cream of the numerous larger the dregs and impurities.

MESSRS. JANSEN, MCCLURG, AND CO., of Chicago, have added to the series of "Biographies of Musicians," in course of publication by them, a Life of Mozart, which, among its other excellences, is a model of brevity. It is a trans-alytical, and containing little that is new or lation, by Mr. John J. Lalor, from the German of Louis Nohl, a writer who adds to literary tastes the familiarity with music which is especially desirable in the biography of a musical genius like Mozart. The brevity of the biography has not been secured at the expense of its style or of its fullness as a personal record, the former being clear, elegant, and unambitious, and the latter a rounded and sympathetic outline of the incidents of Mozart's brief and checkered life, particularly of those that exerted a formative or modifying influence upon his character as a man, or upon the development of his genius as an artist.

MR. SYMINGTON's biographical sketch of Bryant' is on the same modest plan as his sketches of Lover and Moore. Panegyrical and appreciative rather than critical or anoriginal, it evinces a loving and easily pleased study of so much of Bryant's works and correspondence as sheds light upon his long and symmetrical life, and also of much that has been written by others illustrative of his character and genius. Together with great industry, Mr. Symington has shown much editorial tact and discretion in his collation, arrangement, and condensation of the information derived from these various sources; and although the portrait that he has drawn may not be in the highest and most enduring style of the art biographical, it is yet a pleasing, familiar presentment of the fine features of our first great poet. In this volume, as in his former volIT is easy to foresee that the biographical umes, Mr. Symington has shown himself an sketch of Byron' which has been contributed adept in the sort of biographical mosaic which by Mr. John Nichol to the "English Men of is made up of a combination of the personal, Letters Series" will equally disappoint the incidents in the life of an author with samples blind panegyrists of the poet, and those who of his literary performances, and a collection denounce him as the corypheus of the "Satan- of the opinions of well-known writers as to ic school" of English poetical literature. And the man and his works. Such a treatment, herein, as we conceive, lies one of the chiefest coupled, as it always is in Mr. Symington's merits of his excellent sketch. Too impartial sketches, with great brevity and a plain and to gratify partisans on either side, it gives a popular style, is calculated to win attention, clear and candid view of the poet's career, and and to be specially attractive to youthful thus enables the reader to form a calm judg-readers, and those who have no taste or time ment as to the character of the man and his for closer, more elaborate, or more extended literary and intellectual rank. Eminently studies. fair, it conceals none of the defects and vices that marred Byron's character; neither does it magnify nor dwell microscopically upon them. So, likewise, while it does not commit the error of unduly exaggerating his genius, or of extravagantly extolling the quality of his poetical performances, it avoids the opposite fault of belittling his really great powers, or of decrying the brilliant productions which gave

ONE of the most interesting literary events to be noted this month is a new poem by the author of "The Epic of Hades," entitled The Ode of Life," which is marked by many of the characteristic excellences of that fine work of imaginative art. Unlike its predecessor, however, "The Ode of Life" is not an echo, with

5 William Cullen Bryant. A Biographical Sketch. With Selections from his Poems and other Writings. By ANDREW JAMES SYMINGTON. 16mo, pp. 256. New York: Harper and Brothers.

The Ode of Life. By the author of "The Epic of Hades" and "Gwen." 16mo, pp. 152. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

tations in the lowest invertebrates up through the vertebrate series, as a preparation for the study of the brain of man. Guided by the most recent researches of others, as well as by his own discoveries, he describes with scientific accuracy and clearness the different parts of man's nervous organization, and especially of his brain; and then discusses their functions in relation to sensation, intellect, emotion, and volition. The chapters on the Origin of Instinct, on Nascent Reason, on the Mental Capacities of the Higher Brutes, and on the size and weight of the human brain, are particularly interesting and instructive. Nor does he fail to treat fairly the old phrenology, while marking out the boundaries of a new system. And just here emerges the distinctive and original part of Dr. Bastian's work. He holds neither with Gall and Spurzheim to the localization of the mental faculties in topographically separate areas of the brain, nor with Flourens to the theory that the cerebral lobes act as a unit in making different mental manifestations, but rather with Dr. BrownSéquard that the mental faculties are associated with distinct cell and fibre mechanisms existing in a more or less diffuse and mutually interblended manner; that is, similar cells of gray matter engaged in producing the same kind of mental activity, instead of being close

variations, of classic mythological fable, but deals with, and robes in the atmosphere of the present, realities that are co-existent with the race of man in every age and clime, and in every class and condition. The poem is an ode on human life; and in order to overcome the objection which lies against a long poem in this form of English verse, the poet has constructed it upon a continuous plan, dividing it into minor odes, each of which is distinct from the other, each mirroring some permanent and universal phase or condition of human life, and each contributing to the consecutive development of the general idea that pervades the poem as a whole. These minor odes have a logical as well as a natural coherence. Beginning with creation, they celebrate life from its first appearance as a germ "when life and time began," and follow it through infancy, through boyhood and girlhood, through early manhood and maidenhood, through the more perfect years of fatherhood and motherhood, through the autumnal days of age, and through the wintry hours of decline, down to the “cold threshold of death," which, however, is no death, "but only change forever." Besides these odes on the regular stages of human life, there are others in the nature of episodes or interludes, which commemorate certain attendant states and conditions which are in a peculiar manner incidental to each successively packed together in one continuous mass, stage, and are their natural complement or fulfillment. For instance, one is on love, the sequence and complement of young manhood and maidenhood; another is on labor, the cheerfully endured and chastening penalty of fatherhood and motherhood; another on rest, the sweet reward of labor; and others on good and evil, the inevitable heritage of all. The odes, in both kinds, are separate poems of various degrees of excellence, the least poetic being the opening one on "Creation." This is merely an ingenious condensation of the scientific theory of the advent of organic life upon the earth, and an equally ingenious investiture of the dry and unpoetical terminology of science in the garments of smoothly flowing rhyme. Those on infancy, on boyhood and girlhood, and on young manhood and maid-ple use of Ferrier's experiments; but instead enhood, are delightful conceptions, full of tenderness, and abounding in subtle touches of gladsome fancy. Those on the later stages of life-fatherhood, motherhood, old age, and decline-are in a vein of calm and lofty Christian philosophy, and convey impressive lessons of contentment and resignation in verse of quiet dignity and exquisite melody.

may be scattered over wide areas of the cerebral cortex, and their co-operation secured by intercellular processes. This view, though now adopted by Dr. Brown-Séquard, was, nevertheless, Dr. Bastian maintains, his own original discovery. "Simple as the notion may now seem," he says, "that we have a right to look for distinct Perceptive Centres in the cortical substance of the Hemispheres which should be in direct structural relation with their respective sensory and lower ganglia (or nuclei) in or near the Medulla, no mention of this kind of localization was up to that period [1865, when he put it forth] to be found in medical or physiological works." He gives Dr. Broadbent the credit of being the first one to indorse and extend his doctrine, and makes am

of adopting Ferrier's conclusion that they prove the existence of perceptive centres lim│ited in area and topographically distinct from one another, he argues that they support his own theory of perceptive centres which are diffuse in seat and interblended with each other. In another respect, also, Dr. Bastian's views are radical. While agreeing with Bain in the belief that the mind does not use the IN an able work, entitled The Brain as an brain as its "instrument," and has no existOrgan of Mind,' Dr. Bastian, of University Col-ence independent of the body, he proposes to lege, London, traces the gradual development of the nervous system, from its earliest manifes

7 The Brain as an Organ of Mind. By H. CHARLTON BASTIAN, M.D., F.R.S., etc. With One Hundred and Eighty-four Illustrations. 8vo, pp. 706. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

VOL. LXI.-No. 366.-61

identify mind not with the brain alone, but with the entire nervous system. "Let us," he says, "make mind include all unconscious nerve actions as well as those which are attended by consciousness." It need scarcely be said that this is the language of materialism, against

which our consciousness and sense of moral obligation are ever lifting up their living protest. The book abounds with deeply interesting facts in regard to brain and mind, and while designed to be popular in style, is yet thoroughly scientific in matter and reasoning. No advanced student in mental philosophy should fail to examine it.

stances, which invited mutual sympathy and trust, and enabled each to discern the sterling qualities of the other, might, however, have never germinated had they been permanently separated when the occasion passed that threw them together. Fortunately, through the agency of a common friend whose sweetly imperious and loyal character is delineated with admirable grace and spirit, and whom THE republication by the Messrs. Harper of the reader comes to regard with affectionate Miss Austen's Pride and Prejudice recalls an familiarity, although the author leaves her entry made by Sir Walter Scott in his diary strictly impersonal, the twain are brought toin March, 1826, four years before his death, in gether again on the beautiful yacht of their which he gives his impressions concerning it. friend and hostess, and in the course of its "I have read again," he wrote, "and for the pleasant voyagings among the islands of the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely Scottish seas the sunshine of close comradeship, written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That and the genial atmosphere of kindred tastes, young lady had a talent for describing the in-sympathies, and ideals, warm the chance-sown volvements, and feelings, and characters of seed into life, and ripen it into the beautiful ordinary life which is to me the most wonder- | ful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me." Sir Walter's ideas of youngladyhood must have been exceedingly vague, or else he carried his gallantry to a great extreme, since Miss Austen lived to the tolerably mature age of forty-two. His criticism of the novel, however, was as just and discriminating as it certainly was sincere, and not prompted by the mere desire to give pleasure to its author, Miss Austen having been dead nine years at the date of the entry in his diary. This fine old-fashioned tale is less highly spiced, and is perhaps more tedious, than our modern novels, but it is greatly superior to the most of them in purity and delicacy of sentiment, and in simplicity and naturalness of style. Its careful pictures of a vanished state of society and manners give it a peculiar value.

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flower of perfected love. Mr. Black's pictures of sea scenes and happenings, and especially those depicting the varying effects of color produced on sea and sky by atmospheric changes and alternations of light and shade, fully maintain his reputation for descriptive power. Without being in the least sensational, the love story, around which the incidents of the tale revolve, is sufficiently varied, and its mutations are striking enough to engage the interest of the reader without making any great demands upon his sensibilities. The character of one of the actors who figures prominently in the story-that of the Laird of Denny-mains-has been felicitously drawn by Mr. Black. Denny-mains is of the same type as Monkbarns, in Scott's Antiquary; less acid and crusty than his testy old prototype, but equally original, equally prone to exhibitions of dry humor, equally addicted to hobbies which he rides in season and out of season, equally gifted with practical good sense in ordinary affairs, and as lavishly endowed with sterling qualities of mind and heart.

MR. ALDRICH'S Stillwater Tragedy11 is a cleverly told story, whose chief ingredients are a mysterious murder and a factory strike. The incidents and actors are such as are common in such cases, but are made very attractive by the skill with which they are made to enter into new combinations. In point of taste the

As the sub-title of Mr. Black's new novel White Wings 10 suggests, it is the story of a love affair whose growth and culmination were assisted by the opportunities and incitements attending a yachting cruise. It is true that the love whose career is traced by Mr. Black did not originate on yacht-board, the ground having been first prepared and the seed sown on terra firma, at Edinburgh, where the light-story is faultless. It is absolutely free from hearted and vivacious as well as brave-spirited and self-denying heroine attracted the notice of the hero-a young and largely endowed physician and man of science-by her affectionate attendance upon and skillful nursing of an old family friend and servant. The seed that was sown under these propitious circum

• Pride and Prejudice. A Novel. By JANE AUSTEN. "Franklin Square Library." 4to, pp. 59. New York: Harper and Brothers. By WILLIAM New York:

9 White Wings. A Yachting Romance. BLACK. Library Edition. 12mo, pp. 362. Harper and Brothers.

sensational clap-trap, it is sweet and pure in its tone, and its descriptions of still-life and of rural sights and sounds are such only as could proceed from the pen of a poet who has listened to the language of Nature, and held intimate communion with her visible forms.

A CERTAIN interest attaches to anything Written by Charles Dickens, independent of its intrinsic merit, and simply as a literary curiosity, or as a means of tracing the stages of

10 The Same. "Franklin Square Library." 4to, pp. 67. New York: Harper and Brothers.

his literary development. These latter considerations are the sole excuse for the republication of a series of sketches, entitled The Mudfog Papers, 12 13 contributed by Dickens, very early in his career, to Bentley's Miscellany, and from which they have now been exhumed by Mr. George Bentley. Under much wearisome verbiage and tedious extravagance we have in these early sketches occasional glimpses of Dickens's ingenuity as a word or phrase monger, some suggestions of his odd, genial, half-sportive, half-satirical humor, some hints of the activity of his perceptive powers, and of his faculty for description. But, after all is said, it must be confessed that they are very poor performances, and if written by an unknown author would hardly be thought worth reading.

14

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details of the art, and gives clear instructions as to materials, accessories, and methods. These instructions are followed by practical lessons, in application of them, on landscape studies after Allongé.

SOME years ago Sir Samuel W. Baker, the celebrated African traveller and explorer, wrote a story combining fiction with facts, which he dedicated as a Christmas offering to boys. In the form in which it was originally published it was out of the reach of young readers with very slender purses, and we are glad to see that it has now been reprinted by the Messrs. Harper in their popular "Franklin Square Library," so as to be accessible to boys and girls of the humblest means. The title of the story, Cast Up by the Sea," is suggested by a shipwreck on the coast of Cornwall, EngTHREE manuals, highly deserving of com- land, by which the hero is washed ashore when mendation for the modesty of their pretensions an infant, and is saved by a fisherman, who was and the thoroughness of their performance, also a daring smuggler, and in whose family have been published by Messrs. Clarke and he was reared. After the lad has grown nearCo., of Cincinnati, intended for the instruc- ly to manhood he is pressed into the British tion and assistance of students and amateurs navy, where his intelligence and courage win in as many branches of art, namely, Pottery recognition, and afterward he is shipwrecked Decoration, Modelling in Clay, and Charcoal with a faithful negro companion whose life he Drawing. The one on the subject first named had saved at an earlier day, and they undergo is a practical manual of under-glaze paint- many harsh experiences, their adventures caring, by Miss M. Louise McLaughlin, who rying them into various unexplored parts of claims to have discovered the method of paint-Africa, and subjecting them to many extremiing the celebrated Limoges faience, and in a convenient little volume gives the details of the process, together with instructions in modelling upon pottery, in incising and carving in clay, in painting upon the biscuit, in the colors needed in the art, and in such elementary matters as are necessary for an understanding of the subject. The work is THE agreeable chronicler of the doings and noteworthy for the clearness, preciseness, and sayings of the Bodley family has added anothsimplicity of its directions.-The second is a er capital volume to his excellent series, entimanual of Instructions in the Art of Modelling in tled Mr. Bodley Abroad, which will give unClay, by A. L. Vago, relating principally to mixed pleasure to the intelligent boys and the modelling of the human figure, and pre-girls who are sure to become its readers, in all scribing simple directions for every step in save the announcement that it is the final the work. Mr. Vago's lessons are supplement- volume of the series. Like the former voled by a practical elementary treatise on mod- umes, it is a record of home chat, home diverelling foliage for plaques and vases, and for sions and occupations, diversified with sparkarchitectural decorations, by Mr. Benn Pit- | ling records of travel, and the instructive reman, of the Cincinnati School of Design.-The flections and observations suggested by them. third of these useful manuals is a treatise on While the Bodley family remain at home, and Charcoal Drawing," by Karl Robert, in which interest themselves with home pleasures or the author enters minutely into the simplest with visiting historic places in New England, the father of this wide-awake household goes to Europe, and from there writes letters home describing his visits to interesting or remarkable places-letters telling about Scotland and Abbotsford, the Low Countries and its ancient and modern celebrities, Switzerland and the Alps, Geneva and Bonnivard-which are the occasion of great delight and many suggestive

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12 The Mudfog Papers. By CHARLES DICKENS. "Leisure Hour Series." 16mo, pp. 249. New York: Henry

Holt and Co.

15 The Same. "Franklin Square Library." 4to, pp. 16. New York: Harper and Brothers.

14 Pottery Decoration Under the Glaze. By M. LOUISE MOLAUGHLIN. Sq. 8vo, pp. 95. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke

and Co.

15 Instructions in the Art of Modelling in Clay. By A. L. VAGO. With an Appendix on Modelling Foliage. By BENN PITMAN. Sq. 8vo, pp. 72. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co.

16 Charcoal Drawing Without a Master. A Complete Practical Treatise on Landscape Drawing in Charcoal. With Lessons and Studies after Allongé. By KAEL ROB ERT. 8vo, pp. 112. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co.

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ties, which are related with great spirit. Other actors in the story are involved in stirring incidents by sea and land, and the tale abounds in matter admirably calculated to conciliate the taste of young readers, while it adds to their stock of information.

17 Cast Up by the Sea. By Sir SAMUEL W. BAKER. "Franklin Square Library." 4to, pp. 61. New York: Harper and Brothers. Sq. 8vo, p.

18 Mr. Bodley Abroad. With Illustrations. 210. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co.

talks to his family. Mr. Bodley returns home | tures; and in this way both Europe and Amerfor Thanksgiving-day, and enhances the plea- | ica appear in equal proportions. The book is sures of that joyous season by further stories finely illustrated, and, like its predecessors, is of Europe. The children also contribute their luxuriously printed on a broad tinted page, in share to the general fund of enjoyment by re- large clear type suitable for either very young hearsing their own journeyings and adven- or very old eyes.

Ο

Editor's Bistorical Record.

POLITICAL.

The British Parliament was prorogued September 7 until November 24.-The Hares and Rabbits Bill passed both Houses; the Irish Constabulary Bill passed the House of Commons; the Employers' Liability Bill passed the House of Lords September 3, as recommended by the House of Commons; the Burials Bill passed the House of Lords the same day, and the bill for the registration of voters in Ireland was negatived by the House of Lords September 1.

The British forces in Afghanistan, under command of General Roberts, attacked and completely routed the army of Ayoob Khan near Candahar, September 1, and entered the city the same day.

DISASTERS.

August 18.-Hurricane in the island of Jamaica, wrecking forty vessels in the harbor of Kingston, and destroying many houses.

August 29.-Steamer Marine City burned on Lake Huron, two miles off Alcona. Ten lives lost, probably more.

August 29.-Steam-ship City of Vera Cruz, of the Mexican Line, foundered in a cyclone off the Florida coast. Sixty-eight lives lost.

UR Record is closed on the 24th of September.-State elections were held as follows: Arkansas, September 6, Democratic majority of 60,000; repudiation amendment defeated. Vermont, September 7, Republican majority of 25,000. Maine, September 13; returns appear to show a small plurality for the Fusion candidate. State Conventions were held and nominations were made during the month as follows: Texas Republican, Galveston, August 25, E. J. Davis for Governor and A. Siemering for Lieutenant-Governor; Iowa Republican, Des Moines, August 25, J. A. T. Hall for Secretary of State; Colorado Republican, Leadville, August 26, Governor Pitkin renominated, and George B. Robinson nominated for LieutenantGovernor; New Jersey Democratic, Trenton, September 1, George C. Ludlow for Governor; Massachusetts Democratic, Worcester, September 1, Charles P. Thompson for Governor and Alpha E. Thompson for Lieutenant-Governor; New Jersey Prohibitionist, Trenton, September 1, S. B. Ransom for Governor; Iowa Democratic, Des Moines, September 2, A. B. Keith for Secretary of State; Nebraska Republican, Lincoln, September 2, leading officers renominated; Delaware Republican, Dover, September 2, John W. Houston for Congressman; Kansas Republican, Topeka, September 2, Governor St. John renominated, and S. W. Finney nominated for Lieutenant-Governor; Georgia Republican, Atlanta, September 7, declaring inexpedient to nominate State officers; Massachusetts Prohibition, Worcester, September 8, Charles Almy for Governor and T. K. Earle for Lieutenant-Governor; Massachusetts Republican, Worcester, September 15, Governor Long and Lieutenant-Governor Weston re- | nominated; New Hampshire Democratic, Con- August 30.-At Orange Mountain, New Jercord, September 15, Frank Jones for Governor; sey, Rev. Dr. William Adams, President of the Missouri Republican, St. Lonis, September 15, Union Theological Seminary, and for many Colonel D. P. Dyer for Governor and Milo years pastor of the Madison Square PresbyteBlair for Lieutenant-Governor; New Hamp-rian Church in this city, aged seventy-three shire Prohibition, Concord, September 16, George D. Dodge for Governor; Massachusetts Greenback, Worcester, September 22, General H. B. Sargent for Governor and George Dutton for Lieutenant-Governor.

A divergence of views between the French Premier and his colleagues relative to the application of the religious decrees led to the resignation of M. De Freycinet, September 19. Three days later a new cabinet was announced, under the leadership of M. Jules Ferry.

September 3.--Explosion of a floating tank containing 1000 tons of kerosene at Tsaritsin, on the Volga. Thirty persons killed.

September 8.-Explosion at the Seaham Colliery, ten miles from Durham, England. One hundred and sixty-four lives lost.

September 19.-News of steamer Aurora, bound from Oporto for Southampton, foundering at sea. Fifty persons drowned.

OBITUARY.

August 29.—In New York city, Sanford R. Gifford, artist, aged fifty-seven years.

years.

September 11.-At Saratoga, New York, Marshall O. Roberts, aged sixty-eight years.

September 18.-In England, Right Hon. Sir Fitzroy Edward Kelly, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, aged eighty-four years.

September 19.-At Norwich, Connecticut, exSenator Lafayette S. Foster, LL.D., President pro tem. of the Senate and acting Vice-President of the United States in 1865-67, aged seventy-four years.