The first essential in a popular work of any kind is clearness. A glance at the contents of Prof. Welsh’s new history of English literature[E] shows that the work is so systematically arranged that one can not fail to understand it. The life of the nation which shaped the literature of each period is graphically and simply described. Each political, national, and social law which helped to form the thoughts and customs of the people, is noticed. The leading writers are discussed under the different heads of biography, writing, style, rank, character, and influence. This tabular method has, by no means, degraded the book into simply a school text-book. It has made it suitable for that and more valuable to the general reader. The style is fresh, never tiresome. The illustrations are so woven into the narrative that an idea of the plan of the book is readily seen, and besides the quotations are admirably chosen. The work has been wrought enthusiastically and conscientiously by a man thoroughly interested in what he was doing. Its reception has been his reward.

The Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle,[F] have completed Mr. Froude’s task of reminiscence editing, and given the curious public ample information about the private life and character of Thomas Carlyle. The task has not been a pleasant one for Mr. Froude, but it has been faithfully and modestly performed. These letters are curiously interesting for many reasons. They are vivacious and sparkling, full of lively character sketches, and reveal the private life of one of the most discussed men of the age. Better than all of these, they introduce us to a woman to whom Arthur Helps once candidly said: “Well, really, you are a model wife,” to whom poor Mazzini could go whenever “in a state of crisis” (as he put it); whom Mills, Jeffrey, Tennyson, and many others, honored for her wit and womanliness. She was a clever woman, and a brave one. None but a clever woman could have written these charming letters, none but a brave one could have endured a husband like Carlyle. She was too loyal to cease loving him, too strong to complain, though many a letter shows her sense of his weakness. Jane Welsh Carlyle will find a permanent place among the famous women of the century for wifely devotion, as well as for being a brilliant letter-writer.

The book is chiefly valuable for its wide range of happily-told anecdotes, and its spicy comments. Here is a picture of Lord Jeffrey and Count D’Orsay, who were calling on her together: “What a difference! The prince of critics and the prince of dandies! How washed out the beautiful dandiacal face looked beside that little clever old man’s! The large blue dandiacal eyes you would say had never contemplated anything more interesting than the reflection of the handsome personage they pertained to in a looking-glass, while the dark penetrating ones of the other had taken notes of most things in God’s universe, even seeing a good way into millstones.” She makes wise and true as well as pointed comments on the wide range of men and society that came under her notice.

Undoubtedly Robert Browning’s “Jocoseria”[G] has been the most read and most thoroughly noticed of any book of poems of the season. It is a simple little volume of but ten poems. The best of them all is the unpretending one beginning:

The most influential book of the present day is undoubtedly the novel. They constitute four-fifths of all the books read. The philosophy of its development has become not only a question of great literary interest, but one of educational and moral interest. Mr. Sydney Lanier, in 1881, delivered a course of twelve lectures before the students of John Hopkins University, on this subject, and they have recently been published in book form,[H] forming a highly interesting and philosophical discussion. His object is to show that the growth in sentiment since the days of the Greeks has been so great that the old forms of literature and art have been inadequate to express our ideas, hence in the last two centuries three things have been developed—Science, Music, and the Novel. He gives most copious illustrations from modern novels to uphold his principles.

Lovers of American poetry and poets will be glad to welcome the recent “Life of William Cullen Bryant.”[I] Soon after Mr. Bryant’s death in 1878 his papers, containing useful materials for a biography of his life, were sent to Mr. Parke Godwin, a gentleman of long connection with the press, in order that he might prepare a memoir of the poet. Mr. Godwin has collected most of Mr. Bryant’s letters, his editorial writings, and the newspaper articles concerning him, until he has been able to lay before his readers a very complete and exact biography. Necessarily the work contains little of intense interest. Bryant’s life was a quiet, laborious one. Fifty years of it were spent in editorial work in which, as the author well says, “the labors consist of a series of incessant blows, of the real influence of which it is hard to judge.” But his career as editor and poet are well treated in a simple, pleasant narrative, which leave one with a profound respect for the upright, just and noble father of American poetry.

In September, 1881, the Presbyterian Church lost one of its most honored ministers by the death of the Rev. Cyrus Dickson, D.D., the Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions. The Presbytery of Baltimore at once arranged to prepare a memorial. The work was committed to the Rev. S. J. M. Eaton, D.D.[J] The biography which Dr. Eaton has produced is a simple story of a devout, self-sacrificing Christian. Such books never fail in their purpose. The story of a life is, after all, the most influential of stories.

One of the best of the many sets of school readers, is the “Globe Readings.”[K] Beginning with the simple primers of two grades there are six readers in which the selections are very carefully graded, followed by a “Book of Golden Deeds,” by Charlotte Yonge; Lamb’s “Tales from Shakspere;” Scott’s “Marmion;” “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and “Lady of the Lake;” Cowper’s “Task,” and Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield.” The series has been carefully edited, and the notes give just the amount of help necessary to young readers.

The “Home College Series”[L] has reached the number of thirty-two. They cover a great range of subjects. History, science, biography, art, house-keeping, penmanship, wise-sayings, political economy and religion, and will be valuable reading for spare moments.

The last issues of the charming “Riverside Literature Series,”[M] are “Biographical Stories” and “True Stories from New England History.”