master of the English language; and his best poems evince a power of diction that is no more rivaled by his contemporaries, than is his poetic insight. But his capital merit is, that he has done more for the sanity of his generation than any other writer. . . But his inspirations are casual and insufficient, and he persists in writing after they are gone. . Leigh Hunt said of him that 'he was a fine lettuce with too many outer leaves."" We might go on quoting. but the introduction is full of the most valuable and thoughtful criticisms, and the reader will regret that there are only nine pages of it.

Mr. Emerson's selections are arranged topically, under such rubrics as "Nature," "Human Life," and the like. They illustrate the limitations as well as the extent of his sympathies. He is evidently no reader of Robert Browning, for he gives us only three of his shorter poems; nor of Matthew Arnold, who is represented only by Thyrsis; while Sir John Davies, John Dyer, John Byrom, Henry Brooke, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Wesley, Allan Ramsay, Charles Lamb, W. M. Praed, Sam Rogers, T. B. Macaulay, the three Proctors, the two Rossetti's, Tom Hood, F. W. Faber, J. H. Newman, Aubrey de Vere, Charles Kingsley, A. G. Swinburne, Fitz Greene Halleck and Ralph Waldo Emerson, are entirely ignored. In some instances this must have been purely by oversight, for several of those who have been omitted are men of whom one might have predicted that they would prove to be favorites with our anthologist, and not one of them but might claim recognition on the generous principles laid down by him. "Some poems," he says, "I have inserted for their historical importance; some, for their weight of sense; some, for single couplets or lines, perhaps even for a word; some for magic of style; and I have admitted verses, which, in their structure, betray a defect of poetic ear, but have a wealth of truth which ought to have created melody."

There are a very few poems in the book which surprise us by their presence, even in view of those generous maxims enunciated by the door-keeper of the temple. They are chiefly in the humorous department. Such are the poem by George H. Derby, on page 491, and the one from Punch, on page 500. Of our new brood of Americanizers, only Mr. Bret Harte is and deserves to be represented. Joaquin Muller, Col. Hay, Walt Whitman, et id genus omne, are conspicuous by their absence.

Mr. Whittier's selection, as the name indicates, is arranged in chronological order, under periods, like "From Shakespeare to Milton." Like Mr. Emerson's, it is furnished with excellent and useful indices. It differs from Mr. Emerson's in containing a much larger proportion of poems by authors who are not illustrious. And this fact gives his book an especial merit; it gives a haven of rest to many a floating waif which deserves remembrance, and stamps a poet's approval upon much that might escape notice to our loss. Indeed we regret that Mr. Whittier has not given us a collection made

on this very principle, and omitted everything that is to be found in standard English literature. Just as manual dictionaries should contain only the hard words, so anthologies should contain only what is inaccessible elsewhere. But all the small dictionaries but one, and nearly all the anthologies, are constructed on exactly the opposite methods.

On a comparison of the two collections we find that ninety-one poems, and those in many cases of considerable length, are common to both. That the coincidences are not more numerous is not owing, we think, to any purposed avoidance on Mr. Whittier's part; for he seems to have worked in entire independence of all his predecessors. It is more probably due to the decided difference in the mental character and the tastes of the two anthologists. And it seems to us that Mr. Whittier is the less catholic of the two; his selections are chiefly of poems that in their essential characteristics correspond to his own taste for the progressive-serious, the liberal-ethical and the historical-picturesque. But to the great mass of those whom his name will draw to the book, this will be a merit and not a defect. They would have been much disappointed, had it been otherwise.

There are few or no marked omissions of authors who have received the sanction of popular approval in Mr. Whittier's book, while he finds room for so many who are less known. But considering who is its editor, we do miss from its pages the poems of John Mason, E. H. Plumptre, F. W. Meyers, T. H. Gill, Francis A. Lyte, the Bronte sisters, and our own Henry Harbaugh, T. C. Upham, Ray Palmer, Carl Spencer, "H. H., "and some others. In the last period, "From Wordsworth to Longfellow," there are poems by one hundred and eighteen American poets, not all of them worthy of their place, we think, but very few unworthy. A small percentage only to apply Goethe's canon-are poetic voices; the rest are echoes of other voices. But even these echoes are often sweet and beautiful, worthy of memory and preservation, though they mark no larger inspiration of our literature. When the next age or century has grown as tired of our poetical fashions and mannerisms as we are of those of the eighteenth century, much that is here gathered will probably be cast away as of conventional merit merely. The modes that are now caught from tongue to tongue, as the Armstrongs, the Roscommons, and the Grangers used to catch the style of Pope, will then have lost their charm. A more manly and Christian tone of thought will repudiate the liberal sentimentalism which now muffles itself in great phrases; and our Mackays, Prescotts, Buchanans, Bayard Taylors, and Arthur O'Shaughnesseys, will be consigned to the lunar limbus which Ariosto once explored.

We flatter ourselves that Mr. Whittier owes one poem-John Byrom's "Careless Content"-to our own pages. In the hope that he may have an opportunity to enlarge his excellent collection, we will offer him another, which he may never have seen, as it never,

we believe, got beyond the newspapers. It is from the pen of one of his American poets-Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn :

THE GATE CALLED BEAUTIFUL.

"And they brought a man, lame from his birth, and laid him daily at the gate of the Temple, which is called Beautiful."

Lame from his birth: and who is not as much,
Though in his body he be stout and strong;
And in his mind an athlete for the truth;
In conscience, too, a giant against wrong?
For who that guesses what a man may be,
In all his powers and graces how divine,
And then bethinks him of the thing he is-

So far below that glory, God, of thine

Though he were greatest of the sons of men,
"Why callest thou Me good?" he still would say;
And all the heights already won would point
To higher peaks along the heavenly way.

Lame from our birth: and daily we are brought,
And at the gate called Beautiful are laid :
Sometimes its wonders make us free and glad;
Sometimes its grandeur makes us half afraid.

The gate called Beautiful; and yet, methinks,
No word can name it that begins to tell
How soar its pillars to the highest heavens,

And how their roots take hold on lowest hell.

With what designs its panels are inwrought!

O'ertraced with flowers and hills and shining seas,

And glorified by rise and set of suns,

And Junes of blossom and October trees.

So beautiful, yet never quite the same!

The pictures change with every changing hour;

Or sweeter things come stealing into view

Which stronger things had hidden by their power.

There all the stars and systems go their way;
There shines the moon, so tender in her grace;
And there, than moon, or star, or sun more fair,
The blessed wonder of the human face.

Faces and faces! some of children sweet;

And some of maidens, fresh and pure and true;

And some that lovelier are at even-time

Than any can be while their years are few.

This is the gate called Beautiful; it swings

To music sweeter than was heard that day
When Saint Cecilia, rapt in ecstasy,

Heard through her trance the angelic roundelay :—

Music of little children at their play;

Of mothers hushing them to sleep and dreams;
Of all the birds that sing in all the trees,

And all the murmurming of all the streams.

And at this gate, not at wide intervals,

Are we, lame from our birth, laid tenderly,
But daily; and not one day passes by

And we look not upon this mystery.

Gate of the temple! surely it is that!
It opens not into vacuity;

For all its beauty, it is not so fair

But that a greater beauty there can be..

Thy beauty, O my Father! All is thine;
But there is beauty in Thyself, from whence
The beauty Thou hast made doth ever flow
In streams of never failing affluence.

Thou art the temple! and though I am lame-
Lame from my birth, and shall be till I die---
I enter through the gate called Beautiful,

And am alone with Thee, O Thou Most High!

Mr. F. T. Palgrave, editor of the "The Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics," a briefer anthology for general readers, has supplemented it by a very tasteful little volume, "The Children's Treasury of English Song." The range of a child's intellectual appreciation, as Mr. Palgrave construes it, has of course determined the selection of pieces. We think that his choice has generally been very wise, even in its boldest ventures. There are poems, for instance, that, like the Lord's Prayer, are not fully intelligible to grown people, and yet a child will read them with relish. Such are many of William Blake's strange "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience," and such is Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." Merely reflective, subjective and conventional poetry, even when its form is narrative or descriptive, does not suit such a collection. A child is imaginative, but with a matter-of-fact sort of imaginativeness. He can conceive very vividly any picture of which you can supply details enough. Mr. Palgrave seems to be very happy in his choice of poems and ballads for young readers, and the brief notes he has added are excellent, but would have served their purpose better if they had been printed at the foot of the page. We regret that, Emerson-like, he seems to have an unjust prejudice against the poetry of Mr. F. T. Palgrave, and therefore excludes from this collection the beautiful and most touching poem-story, which begins

Four children at their little play
Across the iron-furrowed way;
May flowers upon the last of May;

and the hymn by the same author, beginning

Thou that once at mother's knee

Wert a little child like me.

But, even with these omissions, we have in this pretty book and its twice seven dozen of poems, as good a collection of its size and "sort as could be formed from the treasures of English poetry.

J. D.

CARTOONS, by Margaret J. Preston, Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1875, is the last volume of poems by a lady who has long since established her right to the title of poet. There is a marked increase in the claims to recognition by reason of the force and strength of her newer verses, and of the larger field over which her subjects range, by so much taking them out of local or personal allusions and putting them into the true vantage ground of poetry. The subjects that give the title to this volume, are stories taken from the life (should it not rather be lives?) of the old masters, and legends of Michael Angelo, Andrea del Castagno, Raphael, Dominichino, Albrecht Dürer, Murillo and Tintoretto, are told in fitting verses; a second series of Cartoons is suggested by legends of the Saints, Gregory, Ambrose, Bede, Martin, Cuthbert, Lambert, Elizabeth, and with this are some stories of German tradition very well turned indeed. "Lady Riberta's Harvest" is most to our liking of all. "From the Life of To-day" is the sub-title of the concluding portion of the volume, in which Sonnets and occasional verses, Memorials of Agassiz and Kingsley, with some stirring rhymes of French war subjects, are all brought together. The contrast of the several portions of the book is extremely well managed, and it is likely to attract the attention and excite the interest of readers of very different tastes and temperaments. We are very glad to see added to the poetry of the day, a volume which has so much merit of its own, so much in its subjects, so much in its treatment, and is withal sound and clear in sense and sentiment, wholesome to read and pleasant to remember.

THE MOVEMENTS AND HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS, by Charles Darwin, 2d Edition, revised, with illustrations, New York, Appleton's, 1876, is marked by all the merit and all the modesty that make part of the charm of the confessedly greatest living naturalist. There is something of a local interest in learning that the suggestion of the subject came from a paper by Professor Asa Gray, our first American botanist, but this was carried on by observations made by Darwin and his son, aided by the principal English botanists, by Hooker with his staff at Kew, and by all who could give any help. The main purpose of the book is, of course, to add another to the