greater part of that bitterness of feeling which, long before the election of Mr. Lincoln, had wholly alienated the Southern people from their confederates, and who had carried their political hostility so far as to send a band of fillibusters to attempt an insurrection in Virginia-he is inevitably disqualified from understanding either the legal or moral strength of the unsuccessful side. Having, moreover, during the whole of the period in which the causes that led to secession were at work beneath the surface of social and public life, been utterly separated in sentiment and purpose from the vast majority of the Northern people, he is equally unable to give a true account of the temper in which they entered upon the war, and of the motives which actuated them. The history of such a quarrel from the point of view of a fanatical Abolitionist is necessarily very inaccurate. But we are bound to admit that in most cases Mr. Greeley has done his best to be courteous and generous if not impartial. In recording the downfall of the Confederacy, and the surrender of Lee, Mr. Greeley's language is more becoming and in better taste than that of many Northern writers of less extreme opinions; and he pays an honourable tibute to the devoted heroism of the Virginian army. But the parts of the volume which possess the most intrinsic value are those few passages which relate to political events and tendencies which the Abolitionist enthusiast, from his very want of sympathy with the common feelings of his countrymen, observed and has remembered more accurately than others. Early in the contest the well-known "Manhattan" asserted to the great indignation of Northern sympathizers, that the Union would in no case be dissolved; that, if the South were victorious, the Northern States would end by seeking admission into the Southern Confederacy. It is curious to find this opinion confirmed by one who could have no sort of sympathy with the feeling which he admits to have been general in the North. In this, as in most respects, Mr. Greeley is perfectly candid in his statements, however biassed in his judgments. Another evidence of his candour appears in a note at the end of the volume, in which he gives the comparative The American Conflict: a History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65; its Causes, Incidents, and Results; intended to exhibit especially its Moral and Political Phases, with the Drift and Progress of American Opinion rcspecting Human Slavery, from 1776 to close of the War for the Union. By Horace Greeley. Hartford: O. D. Case & Co. London: Stephens Brothers. 1867.00 numbers of prisoners held by both parties, and the proportion of deaths. He argues that the South did ill-use her prisoners wantonly, but his figures are against him. The percentage of deaths in the Federal prisons was about twelve; in the Confederate prisons about seventeen, according to the published statistics. Mr. Greeley makes the real figure nearer twenty. Now, considering the extreme difficulty which the Confederates found in providing even their army with necessaries, the barbarous conduct of the Federal Government in declaring medicines contraband of war, the unfavourable climate of great part of the South, and the healthy atmosphere and abundance of food, medicine, and comforts in the North, it may be inferred from these figures that, so far as their power extended, the Southerners must have treated their captives at least as well as the enemy. Here, then, we are indebted to Mr. Greeley for the facts which upset his own accusations; and throughout his work we find the same reason to believe in the perfect honesty of his narrative, however warped by his prejudices. This, the second and concluding part of his history, carries us from the fall of New Orleans to the surrender of Lee, containing four-fifths of the history of the war; but the earlier volume which dealt chiefly with political influences and with the preliminary history of secession, though of course more highly coloured by the writer's peculiar views, contained much more that might be of service to the historian or of interest to the politician. Mr. Greeley has no special qualifications for writing the history of military movements; but his account of a great public crisis in which he was an eager actor cannot fail to throw some light on his own side of the questions at issue. The Mormon Prophet and his Harem* professes to be "the only authentic account of Brigham Young and his polygamous family, and of that complicated and incongruous system of social and political machinery called Mormonism." If Mrs. Waite really believes in her own pretensions, she must be remarkably behindhand in her acquaintance with the literature of her subject. Many much fuller and much more authentic accounts of all that the public of America or of Europe is interested in knowing about the Mormon chief and the peculiar *The Mormon Prophet and his Harem, or an authentic History of Brigham Young, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. Third Edition. Cambridge: Printed at the Riverside Press, and for Sale by Hurd & Houghton, New York. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. community which has attained such a won- to the present day; the Articles of Confedderful cohesion and prosperity under his eration; the Constitution of the Union, with government have been published on both the various amendments passed down to sides of the Atlantic, and are accessible to the date of publication; notes of the Presievery one. We have had very elaborate dential elections, with the names of the descriptions of Mormon life and society electors; the organization of the Executive from the pens of accomplished and thoughtful departments, the right of suffrage in the travellers, who have given themselves some different States, and other useful infortrouble to ascertain as far as possible, not mation not easily accessible to European only the facts for which they vouch, but the readers. It might, however, be made very principles of administration and of doctrine much more useful by considerable enlargewhich have enabled Brigham Young to form ment and additions, without becoming at all in the middle of the nineteenth century a inconveniently cumbrous. Its value would community based on theocratic government, be greatly increased if some of the biograand to maintain among a people of Euro- phies were extended in length, if a short pean origin the polygamic institutions which account of the constitutional system of the have hitherto been confined to Oriental different States were inserted, and if that races. Captain Burton and Mr. Hepworth part which is immediately devoted to ConDixon have, each from his own point of gress- -five-sixths of the whole-contained view, investigated at some length, and with something like philosophical impartiality, the extraordinary problems which the "social and political machinery" of Utah presents; while, on the other hand, we have from the Mormons themselves more than one explanation of their system, and at least one history of its practical development. But it is true that only one work, so far as we know, has yet appeared which deals with Mormonism in the same spirit in which Mrs. Waite regards it a shilling volume entitled, if we remember rightly, Female Life among the Mormons, and bearing a striking analogy, in many respects, to some of those professed revelations of the interior life of Roman Catholic convents in which Protestant fanaticism delights, and which the latitudinarian indifference of the general public confounds with the more ordinary productions of Holywell Street. Mrs. Waite's work has much higher pretensions, but it is quite as unworthy to be classed among authentic histories, or even among works of legitimate controversy. The temper of the writer is so manifest as to deprive her statements of all value. The book is fitly crowned by a chapter entitled "The Endowment," the first two or three pages of which will abundantly satisfy the reader who may be disposed to form his own opinion upon its merits. The Dictionary of Congress is a very convenient volume of reference, containing biographical notices of all the Senators and Representatives of the United States from the meeting of the Colonial Congress down * Dictionary of the United States Congress, Complied as a Manual of Reference for the Legislator and Statesman. By Charles Lanman. Third Edition, revised and brought down to July 28, 1866. Govern. ment Printing Office. London: Trübner & Co. 1866. a clear view of its rules and procedure, of its forms, and the meaning of the terms. employed in the reports, some of which are peculiar to America, while others (as "the previous question!") are used in a sense, or have a practical significance, different from that which attaches to them in our own Parliamentary proceedings. The organization of the House of Representatives, which occupies so considerable a period at the commencement of each Congress, the powers of the Committees, the relations between the two Houses, and between Congress and the Executive, are all topics on which a succinct explanation would be very serviceable to nearly all English, and probably to most American readers of the newspapers, and which we are disappointed to find wholly untouched in this volume. If the next edition should be thus enlarged and completed, so as to form a real and efficient dictionary of reference upon American politics, the additional labour bestowed upon it would be amply repaid. The Criterion is the title given by Mr. Henry Tuckerman to a series of essays of a quality somewhat higher than that of the usual magazine article, and resembling in style and matter those of Hazlitt and his contemporaries, rather than the flimsier productions of their successors. They are well written, and contain some pertinent observations and amusing anecdotes of various professions and phases of social life. Mr. Tuckerman is a master of the English language, and the purity of his style, rather than any affectation of antique mannerisms, *The Criterion; or, the Test of Talk about Familiar Things. A Series of Essays. By Henry T. Tuckerman. New York: Hurd & Houghton. Boston: E. P Dutton & Co. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. 1866. gives to his essays a flavour which reminds us of a past generation of writers. Several theological works, some of them certainly worthy of remark, are among the last batch of American publications. Sermons preached at the Church of St. Paul * are superior in literary merit to the average of published pulpit discourses, as has been the case with many of the Roman Catholic works of this sort which have fallen into Mr. Barry Gray's Out of Town *tw a lively history of the migration of whas e should call a cockney family from New York to a country village, and of the various adventures and experiences of rural life, regarded in their humourous aspect. Under the title of First Years in Europe tour hands; perhaps because, preaching not Mr. Calvert relates the impressions of a young American who visited the Old World for the first time some five-and-forty years ago. The book is somewhat too full of reflections and criticisms showing no very profound wisdom, and marked by a good deal of the prejudice and presumption natural to youth. Mr. Alger's Solitudes of Nature and of Man is a volume whose general conception and form may probably have been suggested by the Anatomy of Melancholy, but it is in no sense an imitation of that unrivalled work. It displays much original thought, as well as a large amount of varied reading; contains many sensible and suggestive reflections, many well-chosen and apposite quotations, and some interesting facts and reminiscences, historical and biographical, which serve as apt and far from trite illustrations of thoughts which are often striking and generally judicious. It is not exactly light; but it is agreeable and instructive reading, and may possibly obtain a more than ephemeral repute and popularity. The Elements of Art Criticism § is a treatise of more than elementary scope on a subject in which most of us are more or less interested, and on which many are consciously ignorant or imperfectly informed. Some portions at least of the present volume relate to the rudiments of drawing and painting, and may repay the reader for his trouble even if he fail fully to comprehend its more ambitious teachings. *Out of Town. A Rural Episode. By Barry Gray. With Illustrations. New York: Hurd & Houghton. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Mars ton. 1867. First Years in Europe. By George H. Calvert, Author of "Scenes and Thoughts in Europe," "The Gentleman," &c. Boston: William V. Spen cer. London: Trübner & Co. 1866. The Solitudes of Nature and of Man; or, the Loneliness of Human Life. By William Rounseville Alger. Boston: Roberts Brothers. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. Elements of Art Criticism, comprising a Treatise on the Principles of Man's Nature, as addressed by Art; together with a Historic Survey of the Methods of Art Execution in the Departments of Drawing, Sculpture, Architecture, Painting, LandscapeGardening, and the Decorative Arts. Designed as a Text-book for Schools and Colleges, and as a Handbook for Amateurs and Artists. By G. W. Samson, D. D., President of Columbian College, Washington, D. C. Philadelphia: T. B. Lippincott & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. forming an essential part of the every-day services of the Church, the task of composing sermons is not imposed upon every priest in virtue of his orders, but is regulated to those who have some human qualifications for the pulpit-such as eloquence, learning, or literary power. The Silence of Scripture is a small and sensible book, aptly described by its title. Its connecting idea is an attempt to enforce, by an argument drawn from the absolute or partial silence of the Bible, and particularly of the New Testament, on many topics on which human curiosity is strong, and on which false religions have been very explicit, the divine origin and authority of the Christian revelation. Rehabitation, and the reversal of the received judgments of history, has now become the favourite office of historical critics. We have seen not only Henry VIII., Nero, and Philip of Spain, but even Cataline and Clodius, cleansed of the evil repute of ages, and enshrined among the benefactors or the unsuccessful martyrs of humanity. The same tendency has not been wanting in Biblical criticism, and attempts have been made to show that even the crime of Pilate and the treason of Judas were less atrocious than the Christian world has believed. It has been argued that Iscariot really intended only to force his Master into the assertion of his royal title by miraculous power, and his penitence has been cited in proof that the consequen one ces of his act were not what he had contemshould undertake to do by appeals to our plated. It only remained that some reason what Milton and Byron have almost done as regards our sympathies, and plead some plausible excuse for the Arch-Enemy of mankind. The author of the Rise and the Fall appears to intend this, in a volume Sermons preached at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, ew York, during the Years 1865 and 1866. New York: Lawrence Kelioe. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. †The Silence of Scripture. By the Rev. Francis Wharton, D. D., L. LD., Rector of St. Paul's Church, Brookline, Mass. Boston: E. P. Dutton & Co.,Church Publishers. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. The Rise and the Fall; or, the Origin of Moral Evil, 3 Parts. Part I. The Suggestions of Reason; II. The Disclosures of Revelation; III. The Confirmations of Theology. New York: Hurd & Houghton. London: Trübner & Co. 1866. devoted to prove that Adam and Eve were | Mr. Kneeland, deserve notice. The latter guilty of no sin in eating the forbidden ap- is a yearly account of all that has been done ple, and that the sentence denounced upon to forward the progress of science during their disobedience was no punishment. the year; of mechanical inventions and It would seem that the Serpent must equally improvements, of the achievements and disbe acquitted of offence would seem, we coveries in all the different branches of natsay, for the author's argument is entirely ural science, of the books published on beyond our comprehension. these and kindred subjects, and of the lives Mind in Nature is an elaborate treatise of eminent scientific men who have died on the organization of animal life, devoted during the last twelve months. The volume principally to microscopic researches, in is a small one, and the type close, though which the writer has occupied many years, tolerably clear; and in order to bring withand from which he appears to have derived in the requisite compass so large a mass of some important conclusions. It contains, matter, it is necessary that each invention besides, an interesting account of certain or discovery, especially the less important experiments on what is called "spontaneous or less interesting, should be succinctly generation." The object of the volume is treated; but nevertheless the amount of professedly of a theologico-scientific charac-information concentrated in so small a space ter, to prove the existence of a Creative is truly wonderful, and renders the Annual Mind perpetually at work from the plan of exceedingly valuable to all who are interestthe animal creation. The exact drift of the ed in science. argument is somewhat obscure, but the value of the physiological inquiries which form the substance of the work is not thereby affected. It is painful to find that the author has against Professor Agassiz one of those personal quarrels which do so much to discredit men of science with the outer world, both from the nature of the mutual accusations and from the acrimony with which they are preferred. It would have been wiser if the note which refers to this dispute, without clearly explaining it, had been omitted; it has no bearing on the sub-er's life and genius. ject in hand, and those for whom the work is intended are incapable of deciding upon the merits of the case. Among scientific works the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1865 t and the Annual of Scientific Discovery ‡ edited by Mind in Nature; or the Origin of Life, and the Mode of Development of Animals. By Henry James Clark, A. B., B. S., Adjunct Professor of Zoology in Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, Mass., of the Boston Society of Natural History, Corresponding Member of the American Microscopical Society of New York, &c. &c. With over 200 Illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1865. * Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, showing the Operations, Expenditures, and Condition of the Institution for the Year 1865. Washington: Government Printing Ofice. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. 1863. Annual of Scientific Discovery; or, Year-book of Facts in Science and Art for 1866 and 1867, exhibiting the most important Discoveries and Improvements in Mechanics, useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Meteorolgy, Geography, Antiquities, &c, together with Notes on the Progress of Science during the Years 1865 and 1866; a List of Recent Scientific Publications; Obituaries of Scientific Men, &c. Edited by Samuel Kneeland, A. M., M D., &c. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. Messrs. Judd and Co. publish a volume on the Mysteries of Beekeeping with special application to American circumstances, and a New Book of Flowers † intended for the use of amateur gardeners. Among recent translations we find one of The Jobsiad +, by Charles T. Brooks; Joubert's Thoughts, § by Mr. Calvert; the Life and Works of Lessing, from the German of Adolf Stahr; and the Journal of Maurice de Guérin ¶, to which is prefixed a reprint of Mr. M. Arnold's essay on the writ Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained, containing the Result of Thirty-five Years Experience, and Directions for Using the Movable Comb and BoxHive, together with the most Approved Methods of Propagating the Italian Bee. By M. Quinlay, PracEdition. New York: Orange Judd & Co. London: tical Beekeeper. New Stereotyped and Illustrated Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. 1866. †New Book of Flowers. By Joseph Breck. Newly Electrotyped and Illustrated. New York: Orange Judd & Co. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. The Jobsind: a Grotesco-Comico-Heroic Poem from the German of Dr. Carl Arnold Kortum. By Charles T. Brooks, translator of "Faust," "Titian," &c. &c. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston. 1867. Joubert: Some of the Thoughts of Joseph Joubert. Translated by George H. Calvert, Author of "First Years in Europe," "The Gentleman," &c. Preceded by a Notice of Joubert by the Translator. Boston: William V. Spencer. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. The Life amd Works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, from the German of Adolf Stahr. By E. P. Evans, Ph. D., Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in the University of Michigan. Boston: William V. Spencer. London: Trübner & Co. 1866. The Journal of Maurice de Guerin, with an Essay by Matthew Arnold, and a Memoir by Sainte Beuve, edited by G. T. Trebutien. Translated by Edward Thornton Fisher, Professor of English Law and Literature at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institution. New York: Leyboldt & Holt. London: Trübner & Co. 1867. A small work on the Ecclesiastical Law of Massachusetts, by Mr. Buck, of the Suffolk Bar, will have interest for others than ecclesiastical lawyers, as exemplifying the administration of justice in a State where all sects are on an equal footing before the law, and all equally appeal to it to define the temporal rights of the Church and of its members, lay and clerical. The Bench and Bar of Massachusetts have always enjoyed a well-deserved respect, not only for learning, but for character and digdity, which the monstrous practice of elect ing the judges has not allowed those of other States to sustain; and their decisions on questions of ecclesiastical law may be taken as the best example of the manner in which, in the only country which has as yet established "a free Church in a free State," the State deals with the questions which the Church submits to her. From the Spectator. THE FEMININE ELEMENT IN "THE MODERN SPIRIT." sight one would scarcely have supposed that this thirst for large beliefs without evidence, and it is an essential feature of this element in "the modern spirit" that there should be no show of the trammels of direct argument, for all the passion in this kind of belief exhales if you attempt to justify it by the aid of the reason, would have had so undermining an effect upon those beliefs which had hitherto been held upon evidence. Yet we sincerely believe that a great deal more of modern doubt has been created by this absorption of vague elemental faiths from "the Eternities and Immensities," at least by the habit of mind which chafes against logical grooves and yet craves after mystical inspirations, than by the solvent of modern criticism. The latter has, indeed, often worked in the service of the former. You can trace many an acute conclusion of modern criticism less to the state of the special evidence, than to the rebellion of the critic's mind against being asked to surrender at discretion to the force of evidence which he feels to be inadequate in grandeur to the greatness of the spiritual issues connected with it. Paley's evidences, both of Natural Theology and of Christianity, for example, have revolted as many IN an admirable article in the May num- minds as they have convinced. As regards ber of Fraser's Magazine on "The Modern Natural Theology, persons craving for the Spirit," the writer points out the double cur-mystic clasp of the Immensities were naturent of thought which has been undermin- rally angered by Paley's modest but exigeant ing the old dogmatic authority of the Church-"watch." As regards Christianity, persons es, -on the one hand, the spirit of logic, craving for the Word made flesh were reweighing evidences and finding a succes- volted by being compelled to found so much sion of verdicts of "not proven," on the on the discovery that St. Paul's Epistles other hand, the spirit of mysticism, grasping contained several minute coincidences as to at large, vague, vital beliefs, without much his times and modes of travelling with the evidence or much value for evidence, indeed book called the Acts of the Apostles.' The accepting them only because they seem to modern spirit, on its thirsty pantheistic side, satisfy a want of the soul, and quite ready has done more to dissolve the power of dogto modify or dismiss them as soon as any matic definitions and orthodox apologies, other more importunate claimant demands than even the careful toil of critical inadmittance and recognition from our spirit- vestigation. ual sentiments. It is to the latter element only in this modern spirit," by no means the least important element, that we want to ask attention just now. Nothing is more curious, as the writer of the article in Fraser points out, than the undermining effect which this positive element of our faith, or at least our desire for faith, has produced on "modern thought." The just and legitimate effect of a careful weighing of evidence, is to show where we have been credulous, and where we must give up what we had formerly accepted as true. But at first Massachusetts Ecclesiastical Law. By Ed ward Buck, of the Suffolk Bar. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. London: Trübner & Co. 1866. It is a true account, we believe, of the origin of this mystical element in "the modern spirit," to say that men of imaginative and speculative power have borrowed a method from women, and applied it with much greater boldness and revolutionary audacity than women themselves have usually displayed. The so-called " "intuitions which have made so much stir of late years, are to a great extent tastes and sentiments which women have always used more liberally than men in support of their favourite dogmatic authority, but which men are now wringing out of their hands and setting up above all dogmatic authority. Take the vague apothegms by which Emerson has |