The Recreations of a Country Parson. 12mo., pp. 442. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861.

There is something soothing and genial in the "country parson." He is a sort of Vicar of Wakefield turned philosopher; his philosophizing being of the diffusive, amplifying, ruminating style, rather than of the deep and sententious. He discourses in no hurry, but takes his time; and if you have not time, you can go and leave room for those that have. His pages are sunny. He writes in periods mellifluous, such as cannot be done with a steel pen. Read and be wiser, be quieter, be happier, be better.

The New American Cyclopedia. A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Volumes X and XI, Jerusalem-Moxa. Pp. 800, 800. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1861.

The American Cyclopedia marches into completed existence with a very stately and inevitable progress. With an able corps of contributors, upon a large and liberal foundation, the work has already passed the ordeal of general criticism, and secured a permanent and commanding position as the completest work of the kind in our language. As a work of reference it will be invaluable to every literary man.

The Romance of Natural History. By PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, F.R.S., Author of "Aquarium," etc., etc., with elegant Illustrations. 12mo., pp. 368. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1861.

In this volume, as in his previous productions, Mr. Gosse has displayed his extraordinary power at exhibiting the picturesque aspects of the natural world, the wonderful romance of reality. A main point of the book is a brave effort to secure for the sea serpent a respectable position in the classifications of science. The work is externally finished in a suitable style.

History, Biography, and Topography.

Memorials of Thomas Hood. Collected, Arranged, and Edited by his Daughter. With a Preface and Notes by his Son. Illustrated with Copies from his own Sketches. Two vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. The name of Thomas Hood stirs the founts of smiles and tears more quickly than that of any other litterateur of this century. For many years he was the leading comic genius in English literature. He may be said to have created the modern type of the ridiculous in literature. Lamb was as great a wit, probably,

and a greater humorist; but Lamb confined his wit to the unpublished form of his tea-table and his correspondence. His Essays of Elia and poems have but little of the sparkle that the letters and jokes, published since his death, disclose. A genial, quiet, rich humorist is all his own revelations of himself revealed. Hood commenced his career as a joker and punster with word and pen, and was without question ahead of all his cotemporaries in these gifts. Jerrold never equaled him in the use of words, nor in that funniest of gifts, the power of punning with the pen, or making little pictures utter the most laughable jests. Cruikshanks has no such gift, rare as his qualities in comic drawing are; nor Hogarth, nor Wilkie. Thackeray alone approaches him in this talent, but Thackeray is more scholarly and finished, and hence not so broad, nor so instantly and universally appreciable as Hood. Punch, with all its varied wealth, is but a feeble successor of Hood's "Comic Annual," Hood's own, and other serials got up almost exclusively by him. Nothing in the line of pictorial wit surpasses many of those tiny sketches. How admirably the geographical passion of his day, the discovery of the pole, is set off in the frightened boy suddenly overtaken by the pole of a coach. The other geographical passion, the discovery of the source of the Niger, is hit off with equal wit in the picture of the black stream issuing from the overturned inkstand. The republication of these funny scraps of poetry and prose without their funnier linear attendants, so common among us, is as absurd as it would be to publish the pieces themselves with every pun carefully picked out.

He did not shine alone in this sphere. In his earlier literary history other qualities showed themselves. Sometimes the comic mask would suddenly drop and reveal features of most tragic power. The Dream of Eugene Aram is one of the most quiet yet most intense tragedies in the English language. The Ancient Mariner and Christabel are not more frightful, while they use a sort of supernaturalism to increase their terror. The dream is one of the plainest and most straightforward stories. Other pieces, like the Haunted House, etc., have a like element of the horrible. He had, also, a vein of quiet, pleasant fancy which shows itself in The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, and many bits of song that gleam among his pages like his Ruth among the reapers. It was not till late in life that he showed how great was his power over the pathetic. In two or three of these later poems his genius seemed to have flowered in verses of rarest sympathy and sweetness. The Song of the Shirt and The Bridge of Sighs are the crowning

efforts of his life, those by which he has won his widest and most enduring fame. He wrote but little after them. Sickness soon after wrought its perfect work, which it had been laboring so many years to accomplish.

These memorials consist chiefly of letters written between the years 1835 and 1844. They are genial, and at times witty; but have not the careful, elaborate wit of his publications. His life was too happy to make his private correspondence peculiarly bril liant. A few of them are carefully prepared, and are, of course, exceedingly rich in fun; but most of them are only the rollicking overflowings of a jovial nature resting in the perfect blessedness of home content.

These letters show him cheerful and brave in his constant battle with sickness and poverty. We wish they showed him pious. He, however, had a great dread of that grace, and the bitterest letter in the volume is a savage retort on a good lady who “labored" with him, because of the irreligious or non-religious tendency of his writings. He had the reputation of being a skeptic, but this his daughter vehemently denies. He was undoubtedly of the school of light scoffers who have not yet quite died out in England, and are just beginning to buzz their brief day in America. His last words show that the early teachings and general influence of the Church finally, though feebly, encompassed and rescued him. In a whisper, he said: "O Lord, say, 'Arise, take up thy cross and follow me!""

H.

Our Excellent Women of the Methodist Church, in England and America. Illustrated with fourteen engravings on steel. 8vo., pp. 286. New York: J. C. Buttre.

This superb volume was projected by G. P. Disosway, Esq.; the articles are contributed by a variety of hands, and the engravings are executed by Buttre. Among the writers are Dr. Stevens, Dr. Peck, Mrs. Olin, Mrs. Freeborn Garrettson, Dr. M'Clintock, and Dr. D. W. Clark. The list of characters is appropriately headed by the mother of the Wesley brothers. It is a noble memorial volume; being one of the sparkling gems of the season, and a suitable souvenir for any season.

We are not sure whether the selection of American ladies could have been improved. Certain it is we could count up a goodly number of living Methodist ladies whose names would grace a handsome volume. Our Ladies' Repository is indeed conducted with great success by a masculine hand; but there are several ladies we could name, amply qualified to conduct it, we do not

say as ably, but ably. We have feminine talent in and about New York enough both to edit and to fill with taste and ability the pages of a spirited monthly. This we say, not to provoke the enterprise; but to suggest attention to the amount of feminine talent extant among us at the present time. Mrs. Olin, Mrs. Holdich, Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Phebe Palmer, Miss Imogen Mercein, with other kindred names, are clustered over a narrow area of our country. We name but one who has not appeared either as contributor or author in our Quarterly.

Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor, and the Russian Acquisitions on the Confines of India and China. With Adventures among the Mountain Kirghis, and the Manjours, Manyargs, Toungous, Towzemts, Goldi, and Gelyaks; the Hunting and Pastoral Tribes. By THOMAS WITLAM ATKINSON, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Author of “Oriental and Western Siberia." With a Map and numerous Illustrations. pp. 448. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1860.

8vo.,

Mr. Atkinson possesses rare qualifications for his "mission" as an explorer and recorder. The northern half of Asia is like Africa, though in a different way, a land of the future; and his records are hardly less interesting than those of Livingstone himself. His graphic descriptions are well illustrated by drawings done by his own hand fresh from nature, presenting the strange sceneries and objects of that land of rocks and frosts.

History of the United Netherlands, from the Death of William the Silent to the Synod of Dort; with a full view of the English-Dutch Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin and Destruction of the Spanish Armada. By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, LL.D., D.C.L., Corresponding Member of the Institute of France; Author of "The Rise of the Dutch Republic." 2 volumes 8vo., pp. 532, 563.

The concurrent voice of contemporary criticism pronounces that the present volumes will confirm the reputation of its author as a standard historian. We hope to furnish our readers a full review of the work.

Odd People. Being a Popular Description of Singular Races of Man. By Captain MAYNE REID, Author of "The Desert Home," etc. With Illustrations. 12mo., pp. 461. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. We have many "odd" neighbors in the world. There are people who indulge in habits decidedly uncleanly; others whose persons have very peculiar formations and features; and others still who actually cultivate the foible of eating human flesh. Their acquaintance is much less pleasant in real life than in Mr. Reid's book.

Plants of the Holy Land, with their Fruits and Flowers. Beautifully Illustrated by Original Drawings, colored from nature. By Rev. HENRY S. OSBORN, Author of "Palestine, Past and Present." Small 4to., pale green and gilt, pp. 174. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1861. Mr. Osborn's "Palestine," which was noticed in a former number of our Quarterly, introduced him to the acquaintance of the public as an accomplished scholar, an acute observer, and a pleasant writer. The present volume, suggested by the topics treated in that, is the result of valuable and competent personal investigation, with the best living aids. A thorough use of the older works of Bochart and others, corrected by the light of the latest investigations, renders the work authoritative in its department. All this erudition is presented in a graceful style of language, and with an exterior finish of the volume appropriate to the beautiful subject, rendering it one of the most pleasing, as well as most useful books of the season. The illustrations are done with much brilliancy of coloring, and their perfectly authentic character renders them objects of special interest.

The Life of Trust. Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings with GEORGE MÜLLER, written by himself. Edited and Condensed by Rev. H. LINCOLN WAYLAND, Pastor of the Third Baptist Church, Worcester, Mass. With an Introduction by FRANCIS WAYLAND. 12mo., pp. 475. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. New York: Sheldon & Co. Cincinnati: George S. Blanchard. 1861.

Of this work we are expecting a full review.

Politics, Law, and General Morals.

Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789-1856. From GALES & SEATON'S Annals of Congress, from their Register of Debates, and from the Official Reported Debates by JOHN C. RIVES. By the Author of the Thirty Years' View. Vols. xv, xvi. 8vo., pp. 631, 631. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1861.

The present volumes of this great work bring our Congressional History down to September 1850. They present the details of the celebrated compromise of that year.

Educational.

Education; Intellectual, Moral, and Physical. By HERBERT SPENCER. Author of "Social Statistics," etc., etc. 12mo., pp. 283. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1861.

Mr. Herbert Spencer is a leading writer in the British Reviews, especially the Westminster, and is an able exponent of principles