To feel its fragrance like a kiss To love it, long for it, to lean Far and yet farther still, With trembling fingers touch the green And thrilling reach again, and fall This was his life, this was his fate, A hard, long, lonely climb, A failure; but he stood elate Once in the air sublime! To make another short quotation; what can better describe the joyous enchantment which is unconsciously diffused like sunshine on all around by a true and noble woman. "But as the unconscious Breeze blesses and goes, Of the longer pieces, "How Roland blew the Horn," will take rank among the best specimens of ballad poetry. TALKS ABOUT LABOR.*-This book is a contribution to the discussion of the questions involved in the mutual relations of capital and labor. It is in the form of conversations, extending through five evenings, in which an imaginary judge is the principal talker and gives we suppose the author's views. We think this setting does not aid the merit of the essays. The positions taken are that at present capital has the power of dictating terms to labor, and that this is unreasonable in view especially of the way in which capital is frequently, not to say generally, obtained: that it is not right for the capitalist to exact from the laborer all that he has power to exact, and that business is so arranged that it is impossible for a mechanic or artisan or other laborer to extort more than a decent living: that labor has been rendered so enormously productive since the present century * Talks about Labor. By J. N. LARNED. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 549 and 551 Broadway. 1876. 12mo. began by mechanical devices, that the laborer is entitled to a larger share of the profit than he receives. This cannot be accomplished by strikes or trades-unions, but the author advocates the concession, on the part of the employer, to every man in his employ, of some little share of interest in the business in which he is engaged. The author would prohibit every branch and division of government from contracting debts unless the payment of the debt within three or five years should be provided for by taxation. In this way he would prevent the enormous accumulations of wealth in those who cannot or will not use it productively. These "talks " may be instructive to some who would be deterred from a larger work, which should discuss the questions raised with greater fulness. WIT, HUMOR, AND SHAKESPEARE.* This volume having no preface, we are not told whether any of these twelve essays have before appeared in magazines or been delivered as lectures. They are grouped together as being congenial in their themes and the style of treatment. The first is on "The Cause of Laughter," and the second on "Wit, Irony, Humor." The others might be called studies in Shakespeare, all relating to his principal characters, and largely to the women among them, the dramatist's wit and humor coming in naturally for a share of critical attention. The fourth essay is on "Falstaff, his Companions, Americanisms;" and sets him forth as a type of the droll rollicking exaggerations characteristic of what is called American humor, of which some good instances are given, new to us. By the way the critic falls into an English provincialism if not a proper " Americanism" in language, when he used "wilted" for " withered,” p. 273. One of the best chapters (the eighth) handles the theory of Lord Bacon's authorship, which, we need not say, like other lovers of Shakespeare, he strongly rejects, yet with more candor toward its advocates than some have shown. Mr. Weiss has been well known as one of the radical thinkers and preachers of the day, and his critical discussions here have much of the attraction that is looked for in such a quarter,-enthusiasm for his subject, not a few fine observations, and strokes of delicate analysis. Yet his style shows an excess of elaboration. The reader is not always rewarded by the thought when he has found it among epithets *Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare. Twelve Essays. By JOHN WEISS. Roberts Brothers. 1876. 428 pp. Boston: and implications. He is not as clear as one would have him of "the strained rhetoric of later writers" which on p. 263 he happily contrasts with "the pregnant moderation of Shakespeare's style." The mechanical execution of the book is all that can be desired. RECENT PUBLICATIONS. A. S. Barnes & Co., New York City. Battles of the American Revolution, 1775-1781. Historical and Military Criti cism. together with Topographical Illustration. Justitia et Præterea Nil. By Henry B. Carrington, M.A., LL.D., Colonel United States Army, Professor of Military Science and Dynamic Engineering, Wabash College, Indiana. 1876. Large 8vo. pp. 712. D. Appleton & Co., New York City. Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews pertaining to Darwinism. By Asa Gray, Fisher Professor of Natural History (Botany) in Harvard University. 1876. 8vo. pp. 396. History Primer.—History of Europe. By Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L., LL.D. With maps. pp. 150. 1876. 16mo. The Universal Metric System: prepared especially for Candidates for Schools of Science, Engineers, and others. By Alfred Colin, M.E., Principal of a Preparatory Scientific School. 1876. 12mo. pp. 49. The International Scientific Series.-The Theory of Sound in its relation to Music. By Professor Pietro Blaserna, of the Royal University of Rome. With numerous woodcuts. 1876. 12mo. pp. 187. S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago. Viking Tales of the North. The Sagas of Thorstein, Viking's Son, and Fridthjof the Bold. Translated from the Icelandic by Rasmus B. Anderson, A.M., Professor of the Scandinavian Languages in the University of Wisconsin, and Jón Bjarnason. Also, Tegnér's Fridthjof's Saga, translated into English by George Stephens. 1877. 12mo. pp. 370. Fridthjof's Saga; a Norse Romance, by Esaias Tegnér, Bishop of Wexiö. Translated from the Swedish by Thomas A. E. Holcomb and Martha A. Lyon Holcomb. 1877. 12mo. pp. 213. A Book of Poems. By John W. Chadwick. 1876. 16mo. pp. 209. Price $1.00. Wisdom Series.—Selections from the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 1876. 16mo. pp. 90. Selections from the Imitation of Christ. By Thomas à Kempis. 1876. pp. 97. 16mo. Troubadours and Trouvères. New and Old. By Harriet W. Preston. 1876. 8vo. pp. 290. Reason, Faith, and Duty. Sermons preached chiefly in the College Chapel.. By James Walker, D.D., LL.D., late President of Harvard College. 1877. 12mo. pp. 454. American Unitarian Association, Boston. Endeavors after the Christian Life. Discourses by James Martineau. Reprinted from the sixth English edition. 1876. 12mo. pp. 449. Lockwood, Brooks & Co., Boston. Is "Eternal" Punishment Endless? Answered by a Restatement of the original Scriptural Doctrine, by an Orthodox Minister of the Gospel. 1876. 12mo. pp. 106. Charles P. Somerby, New York City. The Case against the Church. A summary of the Arguments against Christianity. 12mo. pp. 92. A. Williams & Co., Boston. The Poetical and Prose Writings of Charles Sprague. New Edition. With portrait and a Biographical Sketch. 1876. 12mo. pp. 207. Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York City. Sermons for the New Life. By Horace Bushnell. Revised edition. 1876. 12mo. pp. 456. Sermons on Christ and his Salvation. By Horace Bushnell. 1877. 12mo. pp. 456. Epochs of Modern History.-The early Plantagenets. By William Stubbs, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. With two maps. 12mo. pp. 300. Epochs of Ancient History.-Roman History. The Early Empire, from the assassination of Julius Caesar to that of Domitian. By W. W. Capes, M.A. With two maps. 12mo. pp. 240. The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Theologically and Homiletically expounded by Fr. Wilhelm Julius Schröder, B.D., late Pastor of the Reformed Church at Elberfeld, Prussia. Translated, enlarged, and edited by Patrick Faubairn, D.D., late Principal of the Free Church College, Glasgow, and Rev. William Findlay, M.A., Larkhall, Scotland; aided by Rev. Thomas Crerar, M.A., and Rev. Sinclair Manson, M.A. Robert Carter & Brothers, New York City. Oliver of the Mill. A tale by Maria Louise Charlesworth, author of "Minis tering Children." 12mo. pp. 380. Rays from the Sun of Righteousness. By the Rev. Richard Newton, D.D. 16mo. pp. 341. Synoptical Lectures on the Holy Scripture. Third Series. Romans-Revelation. By the Rev. Donald Frazer, D.D., New York. 12mo. pp. 206. The True Man, and other Practical Sermons. By Rev. Samuel S. Mitchell, D.D. 12mo. pp. 236. Forty Year's Mission Work in Polynesia and New Guinea, from 1835 to 1875. By the Rev. A. Murray, of the London Missionary Society. 1876. 8vo. pp. 509. History of the Reformation in Europe in the time of Calvin. By the Rev. J. H. Merle D'Aubigné, D.D. Translated by William L. R. Cates. Vol. VII. Geneva. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia. The Netherlands. 1877. 12mo. pp. 576. THE NEW ENGLANDER. No. CXXXIX. APRIL, 1877. ARTICLE I-DEAN STANLEY. IN 1864, Richard Chevenix Trench became Archbishop of Dublin, and Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was appointed to succeed him as Dean of Westminster. The appointment caused great dissatisfaction in the Church, and a loud outcry. "The ques tion is," said Dr. Wordsworth, then Canon in Residence of Westminster, who formally undertook the office of expostulation, "whether a person who has caused much grief and trouble of conscience to many faithful members of the Church, ought to be admitted to one of the highest places of trust and dignity in it?" "We owe to our Rulers," he pursued, "the word of warning and admonition, that whosoever offends one of Christ's little ones, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.' . . . . If we, who ought to speak, remain silent on such critical occasions as these, . . . we shall shake the confidence of the people in the moral courage and honesty of the clergy, and shall render it impossible for them to love and revere the Church of their Country, as a faithful Witness of the truth. The Church itself will then become like 'salt that has lost his |