THE LITERARY WORLD. VOL. XIII. No. 1. Choice Headings from the Best New Books, and Critical Keviews. E. H. HAMES & CO., Charles Scribner's Sons HAVE JUST PUBLISHED: I. The Memoirs of Prince Met- Vol. V. 1830-35. Edited by his son, Prince RICHARD METTER- This volume of the autobiography of Prince Metternich has features which render it, in some respects, the most interesting for the general reader. In addition to the letters and dispatches of Metternich and others, there is included in it a full and confidential diary of the Princess Melanie Metternich, throwing light on the Prince's private as well as public life, and giving extremely interesting gossip with regard to the leading people of the day. The volume thus has a special character of its own, and while not less important as a contribution to the history of the time, it is lighter and more personal than the preceding volumes. II. Historical Outline of the Eng lish Constitution. By DAVID WATSON RANNIE. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00. Mr. Rannie's book is a marvel of conciseness. It fills a FORTNIGHTLY. BOSTON, JAN. 14, 1882. "As a man is known by his company, so a man's company may be known by his manner of expressing himself."-SWIFT. The Verbalist: A Manual devoted to Brief Discussions of the 18mo, cloth, extra, price, $1.00. The Orthoepist: Studies on its Philosophy, Canses and Preventions. By and doctrines which have had an influence on suicide, and of the laws in regard to it which have been enacted from the THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION As illustrated by THE HISTORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM. By T. W. RHYS DAVIDS, being the Hibbert Lectures for 1881. 8vo, $2.50. place which has never before been satisfactorily occupied A Pronouncing Manual, containing about Three OPIUM SMOKING IN AMERICA AND that of a convenient manual for students of history who desire a brief and trustworthy reference book on the English Constitution. Notwithstanding its brevity, it is as comprehensive as the subject requires, accomplishing this by great conciseness and condensation, without, however, sacrificing, clearness and orderly arrangement. III. A New Volume of the Campaign Series: V. The Antietam and Freder icksburg. By FRANCIS WINTHROP PALFREY, late Colonel 20th Mass. Infantry, Bvt. Brig.-Gen'l, U. S. V., etc. 1 vol., 12mo, with maps. $1.00. Gen. Palfrey's book has all the value as a military study that might be expected from its author's position among the first military critics of the country; the general reader will find it also one of the most vigorously written and absorbing narratives of the series. General Palfrey has the power of telling his story in the most stirring way; he has written the history of one of the sharpest passages of the war in its spirit as well as its details. Already Published in this Series: I. Thousand Five Hundred Words, including a "This little book has been made for the use of those who "The Orthoëpist has passed through ten editions within 18mo, cloth, extra. Uniform with "The Ver- * For sale by all booksellers; or will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. The Outbreak of Rebellion. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, By JOHN G. NICOLAY, Esq., Private Secretary to President is published monthly. It will be sent to Libraries, Reading Clubs, Colleges, and other institutions of learning, without charge. To individual By JOHN C. ROPES. Esq., Member of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Historical subscribers, 50 cents per annum, postage preSociety, etc. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, CHINA. By W. H. KANE, M.D. A careful study of the prevalence SENSATION AND PAIN. An Essay. By C. FAYETTE TAYLOR, M. D. 16mo, cloth, 75 cents. FIRST BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE. By Prof. FREDERICK GUTHRIE, a volume planned to give, in THE COMPREHENSIVE ATLAS OF MODERN, HISTORICAL, CLASSICAL AND PHYSI- "Characterized by fullness of information and excellence LATELY PUBLISHED: AUTHORS AND AUTHORSHIP. By WM. SHEPARD. 16mo, cloth extra, gilt top, $1.25. and pulishers, etc., etc. A curious and interesting volume.-N. Y. Mail and Express. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 27 and 29 West 23d Street, New York, List of latest publications sent on application. Harper & Brothers' THE MENDELSSOHN FAMILY (1729- OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S WORKS. Edited III. MANUAL OF OBJECT TEACHING. With IV. "No work printed in recent years on either side of the Atlantic, or on either side of the English Channel, surpasses this in seriousness of intention, in easy scope and mastery of material, in sustained and spontaneous dignity and grace of style, in wit and epigram, and, on the whole, în clear conception and accurate delineation of character. . . . The book is full of living and breathing characters. In every detail of execution it shows a greater facility, a richer command of resources, than any of its predecessors."-New York Tribune. "It is in detail the highest expression Mr. James has yet given us of the best qualities of his writing. The style is throughout charming. It is too simple and manly, too free from personal peculiarities to be altogether justly described in the happy phrase Leigh Hunt applied to Lamb's: A story pickled and preserved out of the delicatest rarities of the brain.' Yet with due allowances these words might be used of Mr. James's writings. The most vivid impression they LIFE OF GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI. By J. leave is of the writer's distinctness of vision and mastery THEODORE BENT. Illustrated. 4to, paper, 20 cents. V. CIVIL SERVICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. VI. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. His Family and His lines, with Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture hitherto unpublished. 1585-1723. By LUCY PHILLIMORE. With Two Illustrations. 4to, paper, 20 cents. VII. 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"We can hardly speak too highly of the skill and genius shown in many parts of The Portrait of a Lady.'"-Spectator, London. An immensely clever story."-The Dial, Chicago. **For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt EDINBURGH AND QUARTERLY REVIEWS. MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co. take pleasure in announcing that beginning with January, 1882, they have the exclusive sale in America of these two leading British Quarterlies. These will be published in America by special arrangement with the British Publishers, and printed from the same plates and on the same paper as the British Editions. The price of each is $4.00 a year; the price of single num- The QUARTERLY REVIEW and the EDINBURGH REVIEW $7.00 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 4 Park Street, Boston, Mass. HARPER & BROTHERS, Copies of these Reviews for 1881 can Franklin Square, New York. 7 A FIRST-CLASS FAMILY MAGAZINE Lippincott's Magazine, An Illustrated Monthly of Popular Literature. At the beginning of 1881 LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE entered on a new series, at a reduced price, with the distinctive purpose of presenting such a variety of reading matter-for the most part light and entertaining, yet of real literary merit— as should commend it to the general mass of cultivated persons and ensure it a welcome in many American homes. Devoting a large proportion of its space to fiction, in which short serials are made a noticeable feature, and to sketches illustrative of social life and manners, it has included in its list of subjects curiosities of science, especially natural history, popularly treated; travel and adventure at home and abroad; field sports and angling, and, occasionally, political, historical and educational topics susceptible of fresh and lively discussion. 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There is not a stupid chapter or a dull page from the beginning to the end of the story."-Albany Journal. ** For sale by booksellers generally, or will be sent by mail, prepaid, upon receipt of the price by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., PUBLISHERS, 715 and 717 Market Street, Philade'phia. The Literary World. ESCHYLUS AND THE MENDELSSOHN FAMILY. With a fac-simile of Mendelssohn's music autograph ECCE SPIRITUS THE SHADOWS OF 1881 CHEAP BOOKS EDITORIAL. SOME LITERARY EVENTS OF 1881 MISCELLANEOUS. A FILIAL GREETING. To Paul H. Hayne BROWNING'S PARACELSUS It always been heretofore, too much for the good at that. It covers a page or so. poet. His art has mastered the artist consists of a labor of words repetitiously or perhaps it is artifice that we observe, praising Mary's courage. No. 1. instead of art, proved such by being master instead of servant. MR HENRY JAMES, JR., AND HIS CRITICS. M. L. H. SHAKESPEARIANA. Edited by W. J. Rolfe: The Division of the Plavs into Scenes Dr. Fox's Students' Shakespeare" NOTES AND QUERIES 428-433 NEWS AND NOTES MR. SWINBURNE'S "MARY STUART." BR 3 7 9 10 8 8 9 9 10 12 12 So large of courage, so superb of soul is one of the lines, and perhaps one fairly representative. The words we italicize are words merely the verbal trick of the author in a capital instance of its surfeit to the ear and its denial to the understanding. reader: "I bade write under on the picture on here" (p. 17). "Narower" for "narrower" (p, 25). "Than one of those more fleet than [that] flew before" (p. 48). "To treat with her Sheffield" for " at Sheffield" (p. 65). "To [too] much experience of its bitterness" (p. 225). With such exceptions as these, and the number of exceptions to be made is not great, the book is creditable to the mechanical taste and skill of the publisher. But we give Mr. Swinburne all due praise. He has spared himself no pains to give us his best. And he is a man of great gifts, 3 gifts well-nigh as great, though this is sayWe clear our conscience as to the Ameriing much, as they have hitherto for the most part been sadly misemployed. We gravely can publisher's shortcomings by noting fear that Mr. Swinburne has fixed himself, some of the errors of the press that have by long habit, in a style of conceiving fallen under our eye, and with mention of and of writing, that has at last fatally dis- these dismiss Mr. Swinburne's latest proqualified him for doing really worthy work. duction to the forewarned judgment of the This we say with reluctance and with sor8 row, for we prize such power as apparently was once Mr. Swinburne's. There is hardly anything more mournful than to observe the manner in which Mr. Swinburne's genius flags in this poem, as compared with the manner in which it sported and rioted with lust and power in the former parts of the trilogy that the present volume completes. It does not seem simply a decay of strength due to youth exhausted. It does not seem the chance of a mood less fortunate than the poet's best. It seems rather the lothness of a genius less alert, because less pleased, to treat themes not allowing of that lascivious play in which it chiefly delights. Those exquisitely beautiful and evil verses of "Chastelard," joined in a linked sweetness long drawn out of a luscious poison, passages drenched and dripping with entrancing seduction to crime, have no parallels in "Mary Stuart." The blasphemy and the sensuality are in a great degree absent, but not less the poetry too is absent in a degree equally great. There is indeed blasphemy and there is sensuality. But the blasphemy is bald and revolting, and the sensuality, to reverse the famous expression of Burke, and so make it true to the universal fact, the sensuality loses half its evil by losing all its refinement. RILLIANT rhetorician, and arch-artificer of verse, these, more than poet, and far more than dramatist, Mr. Algernon Swinburne, judged merely by the token of this volume, would appear to us to be. Elaborate intensity of expression abounds. But we find no passion and no power. Regularly dramatic in form, the poem is in spirit and essence anything but dramatic. All the time, through whatever changes of person, place, occasion, we still seem to be reading, not a drama, but a carefully studied historical monograph, written without fire, save fire burning cold of pure intellect, in the searching critical temper so rife in these times. Of course, the play was never designed for representation. It is a closet drama. But even so regarded, it is very hard reading. Mr. Swinburne evidently wrote hard, and he meant that his readers should read hard. And read hard every man must that will come at the meaning of the poem. The constructions are often to almost the last degree drawn out and involved. There is hardly one truly dramatic situation in the whole play. The persons of the drama all talk alike. Mr. Swinburne has obviously sought to chastise the natural and habitual, habitual, perhaps we should say, whether or not natural, luxuriance of his taste and genius, into a severity somewhat befitting his work. In this attempt he has unquestionably succeeded to a considerable extent, but by no means perfectly. The old trick of alliteration and assonance, of rhythm for the sake of rhythm, of words for the sake of the sound even to the sacrifice of the sense, these are still, as they have Take the following for a specimen of the Friends, take heed. Pass as a man rechristened, bathed anew In the scene between Paulet and Drury Mary Stuart. A Tragedy. By Algernon Charles on Queen Mary, put into the mouth of Swinburne. R. Worthington. $1.75. EVENINGS WITH THE SKEPTICS.* tury, dissent in the seventeenth cen has hardly ever failed, in every generation since, to have one of his name to represent him in letters or theology. But we doubt if among all who have borne this scholarly name there has been a finer and broader mind than that of the Rector of East Anstey. His prime object is to fill "a gap in the history of philosophy," no full history of skepticism having appeared in any language since Staüdlin's work of 1794. He would divide all philosophers into Dogmatists and Skeptics - going back to Diogenes Laertius, that entertaining biographer of the ancient sages, for the essence of this distinction. Skeptic means for Mr. Owen the indomitable, never-tiring searcher after truth possibly one who believes [in], at least one who affects, search more than he does absolutely definitive attainment. Looking at his theme in this broad philosophic way, Mr. Owen introduces to us a small company of highly intellectual people in Wiltshire, of whom Alfred Trevor, a Dr. retired London doctor, is the center. *Evenings with the Skeptics, by John Owen, Rector of East Anstey, Devon. London: Longmans, Green and Co. New York: J. W. Bouton. 2 vols. 8vo. $9.00. Dr. Trevor reads at the first meeting a solid paper on the General Cause of Skepticism, which he conceives to be "the infinite extent and variety of the laws and operation of the universe," "the correspondingly measureless activities of the world within," the uncertainties of language, the innate love of freedom in all original minds, the justifiable desire of novelty, and the highest intellectual conscientiousness. This paper, like its successors, is preceded by a discussion of the general theme, and followed by a critical conversation on the essay. These conversations present the subject from several diverse points of view, and are most entertaining and stimulating reading. The central essay of each meeting gives us, probably, the thought of Mr. Owen himself, but broad and undogmatic as this is, the conversation allows an opportunity for still freer discussion which he has fully improved. verse he has no living equal either in thought is great in our country, within whose boror expression. In this quality the present ders the poet had spent barely a year, but as volume fully equals any previous. The Ger- a very careful, critical, yet warm-hearted obman originals are untranslatable without server. A touch of emotion and affection damage, but include such gems as is seen in his little poem "Milwaukee,” of which here is a translation: great Ob, wo die Liebe brennt, The first two thirds of the book contain, besides the prologue and the epigrams, a number of ballads; some beautiful lyrics; and poems written for special occasions; of which the one for the commemoration in Milwaukee, the star on Lake Michigan's shore 'Twas early in March and a wintery night, Ah, bright were the streets and the hearts and the eyes, Thus impressed on my heart is this beautiful place, Milwaukee, the star on Lake Michigan's shore Spain of the 200th anniversary of the death Faith and Unbelief. What the quarrels of priesthood o'er sentence or word! To Thee what is faith, what is unbelief, Lord! And what from Thee comes, ever back to Thee flows! The earth and the heaven, and water and land! And nothing is small to Thee, nothing is great! Disappear before Thee e'en as chaff in the wind! The first volume, devoted to pre-Christian times, contains, besides the opening paper, others on Greek Skepticism before, in, and after Socrates, on Hebrew Skepticism (as shown in Job and Ecclesiastes chiefly), and on Hindu doubt and search, the most thor-Thou art of the spirit, of life, the first cause! Whom yet our soul's vision may readily see! ough-going of all. The second volume treats of Twofold Truth (Faith and Reason); the Relation of Christianity to Free Thought (making Jesus Christ to be, as he really was, a friend of the human mind, and showing that where his spirit is, there is liberty); the Skepticism of St. Augustine (apparently a strange name in such a history, but Augustine was, as he himself said, a skeptic nearly half his life, and he carried some of the habits of free thought into his later dogmatism); of the Semi-Skepticism of the School. men - Erigena, Abelard, Aquinas; of Will- In the last third of the volume Bodenstedt iam of Ockam, Raymond of Sabiende, and appears in an entirely new character, that Cornelius Agrippa. This list may seem to namely of an enthusiastic admirer and wordgive to the Schoolmen an undue emphasis, painter of what is grand in American scenery. but Mr. Owen's plan is comprehensive, and Here are touches of Indian life, and even a he hopes to publish other volumes treating story of the border, "Curly Bill of Arisuch famous writers as Giordano Bruno, zona." A translation of a few lines of the Montaigne, and Pascal. We hope that he prologue of the volume, contemplating Amerwill be able to carry out his plan to the utter-ica, will be of interest: most. For breadth and depth of view, for freshness and strength of thought, for animation of style, and for the right kind of "popularization," these volumes have no equals in the English language. No student of philosophy and no one desirous, as so many are in these days, to know what philosophy has to say about the great problems of life, will do well to pass them by. Av BODENSTEDT'S NEW VOLUME.* US Morgenland und Abendland: "From Orient and Occident." Under this title appears Bodenstedt's new volume. All who know Bodenstedt's previous works are aware that as a writer of epigrammatic In the far West I saw a country MR. HIGGINSON ABOUT WOMEN.* HE title fairly describes the book. In THE one hundred and five short chapters, often with very clever or witty headings, Mr. Higginson gives us a very readable, though slightly spasmodic, brochure of his opinions concerning woman's rights and wrongs. The book is informal, intense, and to the point; pedantic sometimes, and a trifle arrogant in spots; with a spice of spite, too, against that human stupidity and indifference which leave his fair clients bereft of what he holds their inalienable rights; with an exaggeration here and there of their wrongs, and some lack of perspective; all of which tends to create a frightful picture of female misery for heretofore contented husbands and lovers who have been wont to think that American women are for the most part petted and protected almost beyond rhyme or reason. Of course reform cannot wear gloves, but must shock attention before it can persuade it; and Mr. Higginson lifts up a loud, keen voice to deplore and to indict woman's present legal and political status. Yet the book is comparatively free from the unreason and absurdity which sometimes disfigure such discussions, and sterling common sense does run through it. It is especially worth reading by conservatives. The woman question is one that, sooner or later, will force itself to settlement, and the sooner that all good citizens recognize this fact the better. The anti-slavery question did, and so will this, because there are things in the position of women before the law which ought to be settled. Nor will a laugh or a sneer from any quarter answer; the downright study of the best minds, male and female, must be had. Of course it was never known that any reform lived long, or indeed was ever attempted, unless there were need. It is also true that every reform has its fanatics; but that man must be either Among the descriptive poems are "Niag- Aus Morgenland und Abendland, neue Gedichte und Common Sense About Women. By Thomas Went ignorant, or worse, who does not see that woman's position, honorable as it often is, needs grave modifications in this republic. The laws concerning the property of married women need overhauling. Chivalry a novel like My Lord and My Lady is plain that nobody can detest her detestwithout justice is mockery and insult. That can leave any other impression on the mind ables more heartily than she does herself. a single woman with property should be And that there is real life such as she portaxed but not allowed to vote is the old trays nobody can deny. We believe that wrong of taxation without representation. she means well in the portrayal. NevertheAs things are, voting may be a blessing or less her books are for grown-up readers, not a curse; but this republic goes upon the for the young. theory that it is a blessing. Why then deny it to a woman? We give a vote to foreigners and enfranchised slaves. Is the American woman less trustworthy? nobleness; and where her books fall into oughly. As a writer she attracts no attenthe right hands they can do good, by illus- tion to mere style, but sets her characters trating the wretchedness which is sure to before you with perfect distinctness, and follow wrong-doing. Nor do we see how moves them about with entire mastery. It Mr. Higginson is of course a great stickler for woman's equality with man. In the sense that she is entitled to be his equal in opportunity, so far as human society can make her so, he is quite right. But in fact there is no more equality between man and woman than there is between the sun and the earth. They are complements but not similars. For ourselves we are about ready to hold that by the standards of Christianity woman is man's undoubted superior. If little children, as Jean Paul says, are nearest God, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun, woman is nearest God. That maternity, to go no further, which shapes and colors posterity outmatches all constitutions and civilizations in the mastery of its mighty reach. We notice that the advocates of woman's rights seldom appeal to Christianity for arguments. But that is a strange omission, which fails to push against the conscience of those who profess that religion, the undoubted Christian verity that womanhood, since the Virgin's Maternity, has received, at least in the eyes of the faithful, its most splendid dower of reverence and homage. MY LORD AND MY LADY.* O this English novelist who calls herT self "Mrs. Forrester" the world con of anybody than that for husbands and "My lord" in the present story is Lord "I have ordered my coach to meet me at Kingston. Will you drive up to town from there with me?" "I shall be delighted," she an swered. Belhaven heard the whisper and her reply. "You shall not go. I forbid you!" he uttered fiercely. She turned toward him, looked calmly in his face, and said, with cool determination, "I shall go!" There was a movement on the platform. "Stand back for the express!" cried a porter. And then came the catastrophe which made Lady Belhaven a widow. And Grandston, almost the best match in England, did not marry her after all, much as she invited him to do so, but made up to her sister Cilla. Cilla is much the superior woman of the two, but a girl as yet rather than a woman, and with plenty of faults which give every body who has anything to do with her a good deal of trouble. Cilla will have nothing to do with Grandston. Her heart is set on a fascinating but disreputable Cis Deersists mainly of weak women and selfish men, brook, who has already married the fortune of female flirts and male coquettes; and life of a loud and vulgar Miss Lane, but remains is largely made up of fortune hunting, un-heart free, ready for any promising flirtation happy marriages, and the domestic disasters that may turn up. Cilla's proper lover is which follow domestic disorders. One's the manly and worthy Duke Vereker, but she prayer on finishing such a book as My Lord gives Duke a hard race to win her. and My Lady might be: "From all inordinate and sinful affections, good Lord deliver us." And yet there is nothing very bad in the book; and if Mr. Hubbard should have his way with it and its class, and shut it out of our public libraries, a good many real people, we suspect, would lose a profitable opportunity of seeing themselves in the glass. Mrs. Forrester is no enemy to virtue, as we read her; she has undisguised contempt and disgust for hollowness and insincerity, for marrying for money, for ladies without loveliness and lords without Duke THE EDGAR QUINET.* 'HE defects of the great literatures of the world differ as strikingly as characters in a community. Perhaps there is no literature whose defects are more prominent than the French; but its better qualities — how fine they are! How charmingly the felicities of that literature cover, like charity, whatever multitude of shortcomings. There are ways, indeed, in which our noble English literature is far its superior; but the other remains in certain traits unapproachable. a Edgar Quinet, as a man devoted with singleness of purpose to literature through a long life, was a striking illustration of the national characteristics - albeit, Heine once humorously called him, on ground of some superficial traits, a German. He was poet-philosopher, or, with greater truth of expression, a philosopher-poet; for he was first and last a poet preeminently, without detriment to the depth of his vision as a philosopher. All great poets possess of necessity great philosophical insight. Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Coleridge need only be named; and very often, as with the two latter, the fascination of philosophy, technically treated, is irresistible. Quinet was born in Bourg, 1803, and his personal history, with that of his immediate family, has many interesting points circumstances of peculiar significance in their bearing upon the life of a soul so peculiarly susceptible to every influence. It will be impossible within our narrow limits to describe that incredible grandmother, who had her three children whipped each week by a garde de ville, whether naughty or not; the stern and unsympathetic father, a man of unusual talents; or the mother, a woman of again has an ardent friendship with a Mrs. extraordinary beauty and shrewd originality Beauclerc, one that is perfectly innocent in of mind, whose wealth of love compensated fact, but of a sort that gives rise to a good for all other adverse conditions. Edgar was deal of talk, to which her impecunious husa precocious youth - his Tablettes du Juif and band, glad to live on Duke's generous Errant, a quite successful jeu d'esprit, was unthinking bounty, conveniently shuts his published when he was about 18. The law, ears. They are a bad lot, all of them, saving banking, and the army were successively Lord Belhaven, Duke Vereker, and Angie abandoned after much opposition. All the Beauclerc; not wicked in any criminal while this exquisite genius felt undefined sense, but heartless and selfish; and but for within him unappeasable promptings toward Mrs. Beauclerc's spotless ways and tender his true vocation-his calling, indeed, a temper, for Duke's prodigality and patience, voice as imperative as ever seer or prophet and for Lord Belhaven's forbearance under great provocations, it would be a painful *My Lord and My Lady. By Mrs. Forrester. J. B. story Mrs. Forrester has to tell of them. Mrs. Forrester knows human nature thor Lippincott & Co. $1.25. of old followed. * Edgar Quinet: His Early Life and Writings. Richard Heath. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $2.50, By |