have sailed for Africa. This has the desired effect of drawing all the fighting men of Orles into the fleet in pursuit. Guido, distracted by the loss of Lita, takes command. Under cover of the night the Saracen lands his prisoners and returns to the harbor, and reinforces El Sirad in a terrible assault upon Orles. El Sirad, enamored of Lita, sends her to one of his own tents, and a very stilted verse describes her exhausted slumber.

"Time slowly passed; another evening came,
And still she lay, o'ercome by him they name
Restorer."

p. 61, 19-22.

"Nature's sweet restorer," we presume, "balmy sleep."

By the assistance of one of the Turk's wives, she escapes to Orles in the darkness and advises the Knight of the intended attack. The old man, with every human being in the castle rallied to his aid, makes a splendid defence, and is struck down just as Guido and his fleet return to make the victory complete. The rest is as usual.

The moral of the poem is the turning of an irresolute, foppish man, by his love for a fisherman's daughter, into a famous warrior. We cannot help thinking of the author as we read his poem, and hoping that his muse will develop into bolder and stronger flights. What he has done shows ambition, courage, industry and cultivation, though it lacks life and vigor.

HEALTH AND EDUCATION. By the Rev. Charles Kinsgley. Pp. 411, 12 mo. New York: Appletons, 1874

LECTURES DELIVERED IN AMERICA, in 1874, by Charles Kingsley, Pp. 149. 12mo. Philadelphia: Jos. H. Coates & Co.

These two volumes have all the freshness of treatment and variety of matter, which characterize earlier collections of their author's miscellaneous writings. As the title of the first indicates, the papers which it contains are occupied partly with his favorite topic of an ideal physical culture of the race, partly with the still larger interest of intellectual training, for which he, as usual, advocates the study of natural history as wholesome, useful and edifying. The book closes with three biographical sketches-Buchanan, Rondelet and Vesalius-of which the first is the most interesting and the last the most curious. Dr. Draper might find in it a chapter of the "Conflict between Science and Religion," not in the least like those which he recently collected for his party pamphlet.

To most American readers the second volume is already known either in part or as a whole. There is therefore little to be said here about these Lectures; the bare mention of their names-Westminster Abbey, The Stage as it Once Was, The First Discovery of America, The Servant of the Lord, and Ancient Civilization-will

awaken pleasing memories in all who heard them. We cannot read a page of "Westminster Abbey" without hearing once more the tones in which it was spoken the rough west-country burr, the accent of Devonshire, mingling with the slightly drawling utterance common to the cultivated classes of England. Nor shall we ever forget the evidence of disappointment with which this representative of the least oratorical of nations was heard by audiences who were accustomed to a far more effective and natural, as well as more polished delivery of speeches by our very politicians. But if we look from the manner of the orator to the matter and the spirit of these spoken words, all unfavorable comparisons are hushed. Here was a man who, like Milton, combined a passionate love of liberty with a passionate love of beauty, and interfused through both the highest and noblest Christian principles of right and truth. He had the conservative affection for the past; he had the boldest hopes for the future -and neither was a mere idle sentiment that ended in bare aspirations and feeling, for both were springs of life-long, energetic activity for the promotion of every good cause. He had his faults; he made great mistakes. But he was every inch a man, and in these few pages of his utterances to the American people there is the breath of the life that burned in the heart of "Parson Lot."

We notice a few errors in printing. On page 104 Zarathustra, instead of being given as the true form of Zoroaster, is turned into "the spirit of evil." On page 114, Persians should be Medes. Otherwise, the book is well got up.

THE NATURE OF LIGHT, with a General Account of Physical Optics. By Dr. Eugene Lommel, Professor of Physics in the University of Erlangen. International Scientific Series. Vol. XVIII. Price $2.00. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.

The Preface to Dr. Lommel's work is so brief and pertinent, that - we give it nearly in full.

"The object is to give an answer to the question, What is the Nature of Light?

"In the first fourteen chapters the Laws of Reflexion, Refraction, Dispersion and Absorption of Light are demonstrated by experiment without reference to any theory of the Nature of Light. This comes forward prominently in the fifteenth chapter, and the conclusion arrived at being in favor of the undulatory theory, it is shown that this theory is not only in accordance with all the facts hitherto known, but also affords the most satisfactory explanation of the phenomena of double Refraction and Polarization, both of which receive subsequent consideration.

"Mathematical reasonings are wholly omitted in the text; where these are required or appear to be desirable for the more thorough and complete knowledge of the phenomena described, they are

given in the most elementary form, and are added as an appendix to the chapters.

"Numerous wood-cuts are introduced, many of which are taken from the Atlas of Physics of Johann Müller; the majority, however, are new, as is also a chromo-lithographic plate of spectra."

The object is satisfactorily accomplished, the illustrations and typography are admirable, and the growing interest in modern optical investigations will doubtless give the work a wide circulation.

No book, however, is perfect, and this little volume might be improved by a better recognition of the work of American students, and by a fuller index. It is hardly to be expected that the recent identification of the velocity of light with the limiting velocity between gravitating association and dissociation in the solar system, should yet have attracted much attention abroad, but there seems no good reason for overlooking the earlier similar identification, by Weber, Kohlrausch, and Maxwell, of the velocity of light as the connecting link between the Electrostatic and the Electro-magnetic units. Alter's description of metallic spectra, in Silliman's Journal for 1854, and the investigations of Draper, Rood, Rutherfurd, and Morton, should also have been noticed.

Prof. C. A. Young is the only American investigator mentioned, and even his name is omitted in the Index. Others, who are quoted in the text, but without index reference, are Arago, Bertholinus, Brewster, Cauchy, Crookes, Fraunhofer, Hittorf, Janssen, Ketteler, Kirchoff, Lockyer, Plücker, Reich, Richter, Snellius, Thalen, H. Vogel, Wollaston, and Wüllner.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The American State and American Statesmen. By William Giles Dix. 16m0., pp. 171, price $2.00. Boston: Messrs. Estes & Lauriat, 1876. The Christ of Paul; or, the Enigmas of Christianity. By George Reber. 12mo., pp. 397, price $2.00. New York: Charles P. Somerby, 139 Eighth Street, 1876. [Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.]

Angola and The River Congo. By Joachim John Monteiro. With map and illustrations. 16mo., cloth, pp. 354, price $2.50. New York: Messrs. Macmillan & Co., 1876. [Porter & Coates.]

16mo., pp. 120. $1.00.

A Paying Investment. By Anna E. Dickinson. Boston: Jas. R. Osgood & Co. [Porter & Coates.] The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By Charles Darwin, M. A., F. R. S., etc. Second edition, revised. Cloth, 12mo., pp. 206, price $1.25. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1876.

The Nature of Light, with a general account of Physical Optics. By Dr. Eugene Lommel. International Scientific Series. No. XVIII. Pp. 356. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1876.

The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875. By Charles Nordhoff. Pp. 112. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1876.

THE

PENN MONTHLY.

APRIL, 1876.

THE MONTH.

F Mr. Disraeli carries his point, as he is so much in the habit of doing, the excellent middle-aged lady known to this generation so long as "Victoria, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith," will become, also by the skill of Mr. Disraeli, "Empress of India." It is not easy for us to understand exactly why this addition to the title was necessary, or what the effect of the change will be. Indeed the spectacle of the House of Commons expending several evenings in the discussion of the matter, with men like Disraeli, Gladstone and Lowe giving their whole minds to it—Mr. Foster taking a part, and even Mr. Bright expressing his views in robust earnest is one which Americans cannot perfectly appreciate. Of course had the question been one of conferring new political powers its importance would have been apparent. The Queen of Great Britain and Ireland has now little or no political power. She cannot name her own ministers nor appoint a tide-waiter in the Custom House; and why, we naturally inquire, should men debate for several evenings over three words more or less in her title? Perhaps, however, these three words have a significance all their own in Mr. Disraeli's eyes. Did not B. Disraeli, M. P., writing in 1845, put these words into the mouth of the Emir, seeking to stir the imagination of young Tancred: "Let the Queen of the English collect a great fleet; let her stow away all her treasures, bullion, gold-plate and precious arms;

be accompanied by all her Court and chief people, and transfer the seat of her Empire from London to Delhi. There she will find an immense empire ready-made, a first-rate army and a large revenue. In the meantime I will arrange with Mehemet Ali. He shall have Bagdad and Mesopotamia and pour the Bedouin Cavalry into Persia. We will acknowledge the Empress of India as our suzerain, and secure for her the Levantine Coast. If she like, she shall have Alexandria as she now has Malta: it could be arranged." And has not B. Disraeli, M. P., in 1876, agreed to the Andrassy note, and made important arrangements with the grandson of Mehemet Ali? And is not this recent step the next one in his gorgeous scheme? Of course it is all a joke, for B. Disraeli, M. P., is never more than half in earnest; and he is now, no doubt, laughing heartily in his capacious sleeve. But the very gorgeousness of the joke must be pleasant to him whose good fortune it has been that he is so little of an Englishman and is so much of an Oriental. "I am an Arab," said Fakredeen, "It is something." "I am a Jew," might say Disraeli, "It has been everything."

VON ARNIM'S last bit of straw has broken the back of the impatient and ill-natured German camel. His recent pamphlet "Pro nihilo" has, it is said, brought upon him an accusation embracing the charge of high treason, and a summons to appear before the High Court of State in Berlin was served upon him at Florence in February. He disregarded it, and the Emperor accordingly has refused his application for a safe conduct to visit his son, who is sick in the Prussian capital. The success of the Count's attempt to fight the Emperor and Bismarck is certainly not encouraging to others of their enemies who may have been willing to follow his example. He is a completely ruined man; and while Bismarck may have been merciless when once aroused, Von Arnim has really his own vanity and arrogance to blame for the result.

MISERY loves company, and one would hardly be human did he not feel a sort of satisfaction at the assurance that all the rascality in the world is not indigenous to this country nor confined within the limits of this government. The Belknap business is a paltry matter compared with the recent performances of the Marchese Mantegazza. It seems that that virtuous nobleman—a man of previous high char