WHO

SCHOOL BOOKS.

Schools (A. S. Barnes and Co.) is a useful guide HO ever forgets his first school reading to this important but neglected branch of study, book? The "First" or "Second Read- and covers a wider ground than any other treatise er" holds its place in the memory of childish of similar size and scope with which we are acdays, whether the impression left by repeated quainted.-Teachers will welcome in FRENCH'S perusals be pleasant or distasteful. Too much Mental Arithmetic (Harper and Brothers) an evicare can not be bestowed upon a book which, dent reaction from the general tendency in such from the necessity of the case, permanently im- works to the use of long and cumbrous methods presses the characters and tastes of so many of solution, in which formulæ, rigid as those of readers. The peculiar feature of the School and the higher mathematics, have been applied to the Family Series of Readers (Harper and Brothers) most elementary problems, and clearness and conis the endeavor, while making the lessons good ciseness disregarded. Perhaps, for most of the exercises in reading, to make them convey as purposes sought in the study of mental arithmuch useful information as possible. The wide metic by children, any correct solution original range of authors and subjects drawn upon insures with the pupil is to be preferred to a memorized abundant variety; excellent taste is displayed in formula. Certainly, if fixed methods are used, the literary character of the selections; and in the forms here given should promote accuracy mechanical execution, especially in the illus- and rapidity in combinations. In other points trations, the series is quite beyond comparison the book compares favorably with similar works. with any other. In the earlier volumes the de- One advantage it shares with the rest of the partments of natural history and science most series, is the arrangement of topics, by which interesting to children are laid under contribu- the same subject can be studied in both written tion; and we speak from actual experience in and mental arithmetics at the same time.-Prothe class-room-children using them take an fessor PECK's Elementary Treatise on Mechanics especial interest both in the exercise of reading (A. S. Barnes and Co.) holds a place intermediate and the subject-matter of the lessons. The latest between the school books on natural philosophy, issue of the series, "Willson's Intermediate Fifth which deal chiefly with phenomena, and the highReader," is devoted to Composition, Rhetoric, er works on mechanical philosophy. It is a sigand Oratory, and constitutes a most useful and nificant indication of the limited extent of the interesting reading-book, setting out in familiar study of mathematics in our colleges and schools style the general principles of the various forms of science, that in such a text-book, prepared exof composition, in prose and poetry, and illus- pressly for their use, it has been thought necestrating them by selections from the wide field sary, or even admissible, to omit the calculus. between Aristophanes and Victor Hugo, the From this and like limitations it results that the Bible and Mark Twain.-The avowed object of work may be read with interest by any one at all the editor of Literary Selections for the Students familiar with algebraic language. The practical of the Normal College for Young Ladies of the scope of the book suggests the utility of a someCity of New York (Harper and Brothers) is to what similar volume suitable for working mechancultivate a taste for a higher class of reading than ics.-In our judgment spelling should be taught "Fee-faw-fum, the Pirate of the Gulf"-an object by sight, not sound, i. e., by writing, not by recitawhich he seeks to attain by a volume made up of tion. Of all the spellers, however, which adhere selections from such English classical writers as to the old method, Willson's New Speller and Shakspeare, Milton, Addison, De Foe, of the past, Analyzer (Harper and Brothers) is certainly the and Tennyson, Carlyle, Macaulay, and Thackeray, most complete. A very simple expedient enof the present era. The object is certainly an ad-ables the author to embrace a much larger nummirable one, and the selection is well adapted to the ber of words than on the old plan could have been purpose.-Dr. JOHN S. HART's Composition and comprehended in the same sized book; and we Rhetoric (Eldredge and Brother, Philadelphia) will do an excellent work if it helps to awaken more interest in the study of such subjects in common schools. All the pupils in them certainly will not be writers of books; but all will be readers, and, after their manner, critics (it is not an essential qualification for a juryman that he should have committed the crime charged against the prisoner); and a better acquaintance with the canons of good writing would help do away with much that is very poor. Most of those whose reading is confined to the lighter class of novels are capable of reading something else with equal avidity. Apart from such indirect advantages, the book contains matter of primary importance to every one in its detailed instructions respecting the form, style of address, subscription, and superscription of letters, and other similar matters. No one truly understands the use of the English language who has not learned to trace words back to their derivatives. SMITH'S Condensed Etymology of the English Language for Common

think, too, in such a way as will assist the pupil to retain them in his memory. The book will for this reason, perhaps, prove useful to the teacher who employs writing as a method of instruction, no less than to him who adheres to the verbal recitation.

NOVELS.

Estelle Russell (Harper and Brothers) has qualities which take it out of the category of common novels. We do not remember to have met the author before in the fields of romance, and her "Private Life of Galileo," though in some respects a remarkable book, did not display the same capability for historical that "Estelle Russell" does for novel writing. The tale is one of two nations, and vibrates between France and England. Some important incidents in it turn upon the peculiar marriage laws and customs of the former country. The somewhat intricate plot is exceedingly well managed. The authoress, in converting the marriage of convenience

into a marriage of love, and rendering Estelle | for old novel-readers to say that it is by the aufinally happy with Raymond, violates all the con- thor of "Raymond's Heroine." It is a most ventional usage of novel-writers, and is pleasant- cogent sermon on the text, "The love of monly audacious. The conversation is sprightly and ey is the root of all evil;" powerful, dramatic, vivacious, without being forced, and the charac- well sustained, morally healthful.-It is imposters well drawn, without being powerful crea-sible coldly to criticise The Mystery of Edwin tions. It is not so much these qualities as a cer- Drood (Harper and Brothers). We read it as tain nameless something behind them which in- the memento of a departed friend, whose power duces our statement that the story is taken out was never more apparent than in this last product of the category of common novels; not so much of his pen. Of all his novels it promised to be the novel itself as certain hints and suggestions the most dramatic; of them all it flows with the it affords of power, as yet imperfectly developed, fiercest torrent; with a certain impetuosity of in the writer. It is a curious feature of her passion that is characteristically unlike his earlier book that, while a certain religious coloring per- novels; with a definiteness of characterization and vades it throughout, the reader is left in curia power of description that not even "Oliver ous uncertainty at the close whether the author be a Protestant, a Roman Catholic, or a Rationalist; whether her religious sympathies are with the devoted and indefatigable Henrietta, the scientifically skeptical Vivian, the scoffingly skeptical Raymond, or the superstitiously pious Abbé D'Eyrieu. Its most original, if not its greatest power, is in the incidental portrayal of the different phases and forms of religious life as they appear not only in these personages, but in Mrs. Vivian and Madame De Montaigu, who respectively represent the extremes of Protestant and Roman Catholic bigotry, as well as in other less important characters. Yet this power, of which at the beginning we expected a good deal, is employed to no purpose. The religious types of character are artistically etched, but no religious conviction is strengthened, and no religious les- OVER half a century ago a wealthy currier of son taught. The most serious defect in the book England, by the name of Talbot, spent the leisis a timid evasion of difficulties by the substitu-ure of many years in arranging the verses of tion of asterisks for description in passages that apparently overtax the author's power. It is as if an artist, afraid of his subject, should leave the most important head in his piece a blank. But, despite these disappointments, having once opened the novel, we were cajoled into reading it, without the intermission of a chapter, steadily to the end-a compliment which few novel-writers extort from us. We hope to meet the author of "Estelle Russell" again.

OF all GEORGE SAND's novels Monsieur Sylvestre (Roberts Brothers) is the most wonderful as a specimen of incomparable art, though not the most popular nor the most fascinating. Composed entirely of a series of letters, the continuity and interest of the narrative are nevertheless not once lost. Philosophically-for all George Sand's novels are written with a philosophical purpose-it is an exposition of religion outside the church, yes, outside Christianity; its moral being summed up in the final sentence: "Be an unbeliever again rather than selfish. God does not love cowards." It might, perhaps, serve a useful purpose in France. It is not needed in America.-If it were not for the title-page we should never imagine that the Choice of Paris (Hurd and Houghton) was a romance; if it were not for the preface we should not dream that Mr. S. G. W. BENJAMIN imagined that "the men and women of that day" (the age of the siege of Troy) were like the men and women of our time." As a school history it would be just tolerable, but as a romance its barrenness of imagination and want of dramatic power render it a positive curiosity in literature.-Of the Heir Expectant (Harper and Brothers) it is enough

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Twist" or "David Copperfield" excelled; but with little of that sparkling humor which made his first works the cheeriest of modern novels, but which culminated in his Christmas stories, and has been fading ever since. These opening chapters do but sketch the mystery hinted at in the title; not a word, not a line, not a note is found to hint what in the novelist's mind was to be the final solution of it.-Harpers publish in three volumes, in good, clear type, well illustrated, and at the marvelous low price of $6 50 for the set, the novels of Thackeray; and in the same form and for the same price those of Charles Reade. They constitute the cheapest and the best editions of the works of these two popular novelists. RELIGIOUS.

Scripture according to a certain classification of topics, partly for his own study, and partly for the purpose of forming a book convenient for reference. As he was unacquainted with the original tongues, this was purely a classification of the English texts. This was the first attempt to make what the lawyers would call a digest of the Bible. It has been stolen by Whowell, improved on by West, and has now been made the basis of what is fairly entitled to its name, A New and Complete Analysis of the Holy Bible, by Professor R. D. HITCHCOCK. (A. J. Johnson, New York city.) It is really new; for though the previous work of Talbot suggested the idea, and the previous labors of West facilitated its execution, it is really a new arrangement, not merely a new edition of an old arrangement. It is complete, not merely because it contains, under appropriate classification, every one of the 31,173 verses of the Bible, nor yet alone because the classification is exhaustive, but also because the indices and appendices, including Dr. Eadie's edition of "Cruden's Concordance,' which make up almost half the volume, render it a very full and valuable apparatus for Biblical study. The illustrations, which are very good, have no more place in it than in a Greek Lexicon; but probably a subscription-book without illustrations would be an anomaly in the trade greater than an analysis with illustrations is to the scholar. The volume is an honor to American scholarship and a valuable contribution to the instruments of Scripture study.

Women of Israel (D. Appleton and Co.) is the only one of GRACE AGUILAR'S works which is strictly historical in its character, and the only

one in which the Jewish faith of the authoress is openly avowed, or even clearly discernible. Her strong prejudice of race induces her to extol the virtues and extenuate the vices of the heroes and heroines of Hebrew history, so that her volume is not an altogether impartial portraiture of character, but it is nevertheless valuable as a Biblical study, and admirably fulfills its avowed purpose, which is to remove that prejudice against women which is so purely an excrescence upon Judaism. The laws of Moses opened the highest offices in the state to woman, and no history contains more illustrious examples of feminine courage, devotion, wisdom, and piety than that which is resplendent with the stories of Deborah, of Esther, of Huldah, and of Hannah. Yet even in the time of Christ (so greatly had the Jewish nation suffered from contact with other nations) the rabbis declared that it was not allowable to teach the law to a woman, and Christ's disciples were astonished that their Master talked with a woman by the well-side in Samaria. To interpret woman's nature and to do honor to her work was the one object of Grace Aguilar's life, and "Women of Israel" may, therefore, be regarded not only in a religious, but in a literary and social point of view, her most characteristic work.

siastic, just at the time when the Ecumenical Council declares that science is to be accepted as it has been always taught in the Roman Catholic Church. Dr. MOLLOY maintains the geological theory of creation, and undertakes to show that it does not contradict the Mosaic cosmogony. His discussion of the meaning of the words" day," and "evening and morning," in the first chapters of Genesis, is the best we have met, though brief, and though it conducts him to no better conclusion than the frank confession, "We can offer no explanation that seems to us, in any system of interpretation, altogether satisfactory."- Lange's Commentary (Scribner) is continued by the publication of a volume containing Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. Seven independent scholars, German and American, have contributed in the construction of this volume. Its only fault is that it contains too much, and that the scholar is in danger of being bewildered and lost in the very amplitude of the material furnished him.Robert Carter and Brothers issue a new edition of Dr. HANNA's Life of Christ, which we have heretofore noticed, printed evidently from the same plates, but bound in three volumes instead of six, and sold for half the price of the former edition.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

change the vigorous narrative of Livy for modern historical criticism. Niebuhr's example of profuse skepticism and bold reconstruction has had an unhappy influence upon the method of his successors: Schwegler abounds in an excess of research upon unimportant legends; Arnold is often led away by the brilliant theories of Niebuhr; and Mommsen has given us a series of learned essays, rather than a sustained and striking story. We almost forget the theme in the abundance of his illustration.

THERE is no religious writer, in the stricter sense of the term, whom we read with greater interest than Dr. GUTHRIE. Dr. BLAIKIE is doubt- Mommsen's History of Rome, translated by less equally sound and equally able, but he is not the Rev. WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D. (Charles so interesting. Saving Knowledge (Carters), a Scribner and Co.), will always seem valuable and series of discourses addressed to young men, is interesting to the scholar and the man of thought. the product of their joint pen, and, in literary But it can scarcely become popular. Few care merit, is very far above the average of popular to read long disquisitions upon the arts and scireligious literature.-Despite Mr. W. C. Bry-ences of barbarous ages, or would willingly exant's indorsement, in an introductory note, of the style of Work-day Christianity (Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger), as "clear and wellsuited to the subject," we think it not infrequently falls into the "sophomoric. Mr. CLARK would write better if he would labor less to produce fine writing. Nevertheless, it is an ingenious, good-spirited, and useful book, despite such absurd statements as that "one of the greatest things that Abraham Lincoln did while President was to black his own boots!" and such laborious rhetoric as that of the paragraph comparing Christ as creator of the world and Christ working at his father's bench as a common carpenter. - Heroes of Hebrew History (Carters) is a series of sketches by Dr. WILBERFORCE, Bishop of Winchester, reprinted from Good Words. They are something in the vein of Dean Stanley's writings, though with much less of fresh and useful information, and much more of pious moralizing. -Dr. SCHMUCKER's treatise on the True Unity of Christ's Church (A. D. F. Randolph) is more valuable as a witness of the increasing catholicity of the spirit of the age than as a specific plan for an organic union of Protestant Christianity.-We prefer our novels and our theology in separate packages. Such a nondescript as the Open Door, by J. HYATT SMITH, is too dull for a story, and too diffuse for a treatise. The doctrine inculcated is open communion, and is addressed by a Baptist minister to his Baptist brethren.-It is somewhat remarkable that so liberal and progressive a treatise as Geology and Revelation (Putnam) should be published by a Roman Catholic eccle

The first volume, embracing a period of nearly five centuries, has scarcely any narrative. It is made up of highly instructive inquiries into the condition and manners of ancient Italy and Rome. The chapter "On the original Constitution of Rome," for example, condenses almost every thing that is known upon the subject. We are supplied with minute particulars of the habits of a Roman family during the regal period; we are assured that the father was the master of his household, and the king of the state. But, with the usual inconsistency of the skeptical school of historians, we are told nothing of the kings themselves. The same authorities that are held sufficiently trust-worthy to define the regal institutions are rejected as fabulous when they relate the lives of Tullius or Tarquin. They are looked upon as accurate when they assert that the king sat in judgment in all private and all criminal processes; they are altogether worthless when they profess to describe his conquests in Etruria or Latium. Such partial skepticism can not fail to appear illogical.

The second and third volumes grow in inter

est, and throw a vivid light upon various difficult passages in Roman history. Nowhere can be found a clearer account of the eminent reformers, the Gracchi, Scipio, and Marius, or a more accurate picture of the decline of the national vigor. Slavery, warfare, and aristocracy destroyed Roman virtue; luxury followed in their track. Yet Mommsen, writing under European influences, can scarcely be said to have done full justice to the leaders of the people. He doubts the virtue of the Gracchi, and applauds the conservative rancor of their defamers. It is a grave error, for from their unselfish lives and mournful fate modern freedom has received one of its strongest impulses. Both taught the dig. nity of labor, and strove to increase the numbers of the working-classes; both gave their lives to the cause of popular improvement, and have indicated political truths that later ages have never forgotten. Tiberius-pure, accomplished, gentle, eloquent-strove to make Rome once more a nation of farmers, to divide the public lands among the people, and spread a general industry and content. He was set upon by the rich contractors and corrupt nobles, and basely murdered. His brother's fate was not dissimilar. Yet we are asked to believe that these men were tyrants and demagogues because they disturbed the fatal ascendency of a caste! It is not likely that such an opinion will gain the assent of modern scholars.

man scholars our close acquaintance with the politics and manners of republican Rome. They have enabled us to join in the contests of the forum, and feast at the banquets of Gallus; to catch the allusions of the poets; to supply the defects of Livy; and Mommsen has at length given us a work that unites in its novelty and its vigor many of the highest excellences of historical composition.

The

To comprise the whole eventful and romantic history of the United States within the limited compass of four hundred pages requires absolute genius for condensation. It is a task which Mr. DAVID B. SCOTT has accomplished with remarkable success in his School History of the United States (Harper and Brothers). School histories are proverbially dull and uninteresting. This appears to result, ordinarily, partly from the necessity which compels such condensation, partly from the erroneous supposition that it is only the bald facts of history which children can understand or need to learn. To describe in such detail as renders graphic and entertaining the marvelous episodes which make history more sensational than romance requires room and time which the school historian can not afford. most dramatic of all historians, Froude, devotes twelve volumes to the illustration of half a century. To omit much that is important, if not essential, for the sake of amplifying what is inOf Dr. Mommsen's survey of the corruption teresting makes a popular book, but not a comof the commonwealth in the seventh century it plete one. Mr. Scott has discovered the secret is impossible to speak too highly. He describes of making an interesting narrative by the very with singular accuracy the national decay. War brevity of his treatment. His story moves with had produced its necessary fruits. A limited a rapidity which possesses a certain fascination body of wealthy capitalists gained the control of of its own, though his style is severely simple, the nation, engrossed every productive contract, and almost absolutely devoid of ornament. But and usurped the public domain. The free citi- there are no wasted sentences on his pages; no zens were driven from their farms; the lands useless words in his sentences; and in his dewere tilled by hordes of slaves; roads, aqueducts, scriptions, though he gives but an outline, he and bridges were built by servile labor; and even knows how to draw those lines which make the the trade and industry of the city fell into the sketch perfect as a sketch. His history of the hands of the rich. Artisans were usually owned civil war, for example, gives a bird's-eye view by capitalists, and skillful mechanics were bought of the whole complicated series of campaigns as and sold. As peace and intelligent labor tend a whole; so that, in a comparatively small numto produce equality and general ease, so long- ber of lessons, an intelligent scholar may obtain continued warfare must divide nations into pau- a correct idea of that great movement, its causes pers and millionaires. A coarse and repulsive and its effects, while he is of necessity referred extravagance succeeded this process at Rome. to larger and more elaborate histories for detailThe eminent men of the early ages had proved ed accounts of particular campaigns and battles. their honesty and their patriotism by dying poor; The book is rendered remarkably attractive to the contemporaries of Crassus and Cæsar wasted children by the very large number of illustrations their ill-gotten gains in idle show and fatal self-which it contains, and its real usefulness is greatindulgence.

The chapters on literature and art are also exceedingly well done. They are concise, clear, sufficient. The caustic, acute, and careful Lucilius, the polished Terence, stand out distinctly in a judicious criticism. Dr. Mommsen has paid a just tribute to the historian Polybius, whose passion for truthfulness above all artistic eloquence he has imitated as well as praised; yet it is possible that the careful Greek has suffered with posterity by his bold scorn of all literary art.

While we differ from many of his conclusions, and can not altogether approve of his method, we must admit that Dr. Mommsen has produced a work of great value, learned, vigorous, original, and well fitted to take its place beside the immortal labors of his countrymen Niebuhr and Schwegler. We owe to the limitless toil of Ger

ly enhanced by a number of maps, without which history is always blind. In that portion of the history which is devoted to an account of the civil war we count no less than seventeen of these maps, illustrating in one form or another almost every phase of the war.

G. P. PUTNAM AND SON issue, in a single medium-sized volume, a condensation of Irving's Life of Washington. We have not compared the volume with the original work from which it is taken, but have judged it in a fairer way by reading it, and forming our judgment upon it as an independent history. We do not see that it has lost any of the charm of Mr. IRVING'S incomparable style in the condensation, nor that it has omitted any thing which it is essential for the reader of the history of the

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American Revolution to know. -Dr. BONAR | ated in the brain of Ephraim Chambers that in tells us in his preface to his Life of Rev. John England and America alone there were to be Milne, of Perth (Robert Carter and Brothers), counted twenty-three cyclopedias of universal that he wished "not to execute a piece of sculp- knowledge, comprising four hundred and fiftyture." If by this he means that he intended not four volumes, and this besides a goodly number to be artistic, he has certainly succeeded. His of cyclopedias on special subjects. The brothvolume is not a biography, but a compilation of ers Chambers thought, however, that there was selections from letters and Mr. Milne's journal, room for another which should realize the conput together in the careless method of most re- ception of the original "Chambers's Cyclopeligious memoirs. A true biography is the most dia." An attempted translation of the "Coninteresting form of literature. Such a memoir versations-Lexikon," a German cyclopedia, deas this has very little healthful interest to any signed for the use of those who might desire except the personal friends of the subject.-The to take part in the society and conversation Life of Arthur Tappan, by LEWIS TAPPAN of well-informed persons, was wisely abandon(Hurd and Houghton) is more than a biog- ed for the present original work, which, as raphy. It is necessarily a history of the origin, dictionary of universal knowledge for the peogrowth, and work of the Anti-Slavery Society, ple," has but one rival, the "New American and of the contemporaneous movements with Cyclopedia" of the Messrs. Appleton. It is which it was more or less identified. Some- considerably smaller; is comprised in ten volthing of the heat of the old controversies reap-umes, while Appleton's fills sixteen, besides the pears in these pages. But one can not rake in annual supplements since 1861. In style it is ashes without disturbing the coals. In the main more popular. There are no long treatises. the language is temperate, and the history hon-"The various masses of systematic knowledge est, though not impartial. No one can read it have been broken down, as it were, to as great without honoring the Christian principle and a degree as is consistent with the separate excourage of Arthur Tappan, who deserves to be planation of the several fragments." The conenrolled among the great benefactors of his age, densation, effected with rare judgment and skill, though he was neither wise as a serpent nor harm-renders the articles more clear and interesting less as a dove.

CYCLOPEDIAS.

a

to the non-professional reader, though less exhaustive, and perhaps less satisfactory to the scholar. In metaphysics the work is much briefer than Appleton's; debated points are hard

ration; in science it is more popular, but less erudite and elaborate; in religion and theology it is much more satisfactory-topics with which the American work deals timidly, as though its editors were either unfamiliar with them, or from theological considerations afraid of them. The evangelical sympathies of the Messrs. Chambers are unmistakable; but the views of all sects are stated with rare candor and impartiality, as witness, for example, a remarkably catholic article on the atonement. The same candor char

Chambers's Encyclopedia (J. B. Lippincott and Co.) is the product of two confluent ly opened, much less discussed with any elabostreams. A century and a half ago Ephraim Chambers, then an apprentice to a globe-maker in London, formed the conception of a popular dictionary of universal knowledge, and wrote some articles for it while he tended his master's counter. In 1728 he realized his idea by the publication of the first comprehensive cyclopedia in the English language, for the "Lexicum Technicum" of John Harris, which had appeared twenty years before, was neither popular nor complete. Mr. Chambers, though a man of limited scholarship, possessed unlimited energy.acterizes other articles; that on André, for exHis work sprang at once into a popularity then ample, which justifies his execution as "a spy unexampled. Five successive editions were pub- of the worst sort." The illustrations add conlished in eighteen years; it was translated into siderably to the value of the work, though not so French and Italian; and it was the basis of Dr. much as they might. The full-page plates, of Rees's "New Cyclopedia," in forty-five volumes, which there are eight or ten in each of three volpublished in 1803-19, at that time the most com- umes now published, add rather to their attractplete and comprehensive work of its kind in the iveness than their usefulness. All but one are English tongue. A century after the work of pictures of animals. Among the smaller illustraEphraim Chambers was first given to the public, tions there is a great overstock of meaningless two brothers, WILLIAM and ROBERT CHAMBERS, pictures of plants and animals, and a great dearth commenced the publication in Scotland of a of illustrations of modern science and art. In class of books the object of which was to give "Cotton" we have a cotton plant, but nothing to general information to the people on various illustrate cotton cultivation or cotton manufacpractical and historical subjects. They soon ture; in agriculture no picture save one of an joined in partnership, and the success of Egyptian irrigating-machine, and in architect"Chambers's Information for the People," ure none at all. The maps, on the other hand, "Chambers's Miscellany,' ," "Chambers's Cyclo- printed in colors, are admirable, as beautiful specpedia of English Literature," and other similar imens of drawing and printing as one could ask, works, gave them a fame which extended be- and render the Cyclopedia better than a really yond the bounds of their own country. Mean-first-class atlas. The one serious defect in the while the famous French "Encyclopédie," whose work for the American reader is its English charpolished style, no less than its irreligious philos-acter. He will rarely have occasion to consult ophy, made it at once popular and powerful, and the less famed but more useful "Conversations-Lexikon" of Brockhaus, gave a new impetus to this form of literature, which had grown to such proportions since the idea first germinVOL. XLII.-No. 247.-10

such articles as "Abjuration," "Act of Parliament," etc.; while he will be disappointed to find under the title of "Abolitionists" only a parapraph instead of a history of the abolition movement in this country; under the article “Communism"