The histories of James Anthony Froude are best appreciated by and adapted to those who already have a good knowledge of history. They are like studies in higher mathematics, which always demand a careful preparation in the branches preceding them. All who read Thomas Becket[B] will readily assent to this. Without some knowledge of the “Constitutions of Clarenden,” one could hardly gather from this book what the beginning of the trouble was about, and would lose much of the enjoyment to be had in the fine analysis of the event. The first chapter contains a few incidents illustrative of the spirit of the times; then comes a very brief sketch of the famous archbishop, up to the time of the rupture of friendship between him and the king from that time until his murder in the cathedral of Canterbury, his life and characteristics are very fully drawn. The book lacks entirely that which no good book should ever be without—a full index.

Abridged dictionaries have been among the most unsatisfactory works which we have ever owned. They never cover the ground. A fresh attempt to make a complete, compact work has resulted in a book that no one need hesitate to recommend. It has been revised from Webster’s unabridged dictionary, and the editing has been subject to President Noah Porter. Several plans have been adopted for saving spaces, which neither cheapen the work nor injure the quality. The abridgment has been accomplished, we believe, after carefully comparing the abridged and unabridged works, without sacrificing either pronunciation, definitions or derivations. The aid of examples and synonyms is lost in the smaller work. The invaluable appendix of the larger work is very adequately represented by a pronouncing vocabulary of Biblical, classical, mythological, historical and geographical proper names. The cost of the book places it in the reach of almost every one. We have felt for a long time that there was no really desirable dictionary of low price which we could recommend willingly to our C. L. S. C. readers. This work will fully meet their needs, and we take pleasure in calling attention to it.[C]

A study of frontier life and government is to be found in “Mining Camps.”[D] As one reads the book the old saying “One half of the world does not know how the other half lives,” recurs again and again to the mind. That such great organizations should have been in existence, governed by local laws devised by themselves to suit the necessities of their condition, and carried up to a high state of development, while other parts of the country were almost in ignorance concerning these commonwealths, seems hard to understand. The book is not designed as a technical history of mining. Ancient and mediÆval mining systems are examined, and the development of their institutions carefully traced. The greater part of the book is devoted to the study of camps in the remote West.

The “Historical Reference Book”[E] at once takes its place among those works which cause one to wonder how he ever did without them. It comprises a chronological table of universal history, a chronological dictionary of universal history, a biographical dictionary, and geographical notes. Great care has been taken in the biographical dictionary to select all the names of those men who have a strong claim to distinction, and from the list, which is necessarily limited, those have been omitted whose renown is fleeting. For those who can not provide themselves with cyclopÆdias, large dictionaries, and books of reference, we know of no work better calculated to meet their needs, and those who have these other helps at hand will find this the most convenient for brief notices. It is especially adapted to the use of students.

In “Workday Christianity”[F] the names of tradesmen, as “The Carpenter,” “The Potter,” etc., have been used as the subjects of chapters, and the history of each calling is briefly given, from the earliest Bible times down to the present. They are then used as figures, and around them are draped moral lessons from which may be gathered many useful suggestions. There is, however, a gloomy outlook spread before the Christian; his life is made to seem only as “a life of work, of trial, of tears and fears, of conflicts fierce and long.” In the author’s denunciations of hypocrisy, style, cant and caste in the churches, he inconsistently pays them the high honor of allowing them to overshadow all else. He never sees the true, the beautiful and the good existing there also. Such sentences as the following have a wrong tendency and do harm: “It was not considered a disgrace in those days to ply a trade.” “How many rich young ladies would scorn to associate with the sons and daughters of our workmen.” For some strange cause there is a large class of laboring people who are always debasing themselves by supposing other people feel above them. They are constantly snubbing themselves, in the fear that somebody is going to do so. This feeling should never be fed by a religious book. The author stands on the wrong side of many questions he attempts to handle.

The most pleasing observations of nature at present being contributed to our literature are those by John Burroughs. Most writers in their descriptions of the outside world are one-sided. They see the landscape but forget the sounds. Burroughs never does this. He catches everything: the dew, the color, the sound, the accent of the country-folk, the lay of the land, the build of the plow. In his “Fresh Fields”[G] the effect is exactly what the walk through the fields would have been. A vivid, fresh, constantly changing panorama is spread before you. The style suits the shifting scenes. It is not “fine writing,” but it is clear, plain and appropriate; like the corduroy trousers, short coat, and top boots which form the outfit for tramps like those of Mr. Burroughs, it is not elegant, but exactly “the thing.” While the observations of flower and bird and sky are so exact and pleasing, there is much “humanization of nature.” He is not so enamored with the fields that he can not take a genuine interest in men. The most delicious story we have read for a long time is his “Hunt for the Nightingale.” No knight in fiction ever followed his lady-love more eagerly than does this ardent wooer his Philomel, and it has been a long time since we have been more eager to have a story turn out well.

In “Letters to Guy”[H] boys will find an interesting book. These letters are written from Australia, by a mother to her son left at home in England. They tell of the voyages from one place to another, of the places visited, of the people, and of the natural history of the country. They are written in a bright, racy style, and are so homelike that any boy could easily forget they were penned by a titled lady, and imagine they might be his own mother’s letters to himself.

In “How to Get On in the World”[I] will be found a full account of the life and literary works of William Cobbett. In his preface the author says: “It is thought that an account of the life and writings of one of England’s most powerful writers and most remarkable characters, with some of the best productions of his pen, can not fail to be useful.” And a very useful and entertaining book he has succeeded in giving to the public. The making it serve the double purpose of biography and autobiography affords, as is always the case, a pleasing variety. His early history, his experience in the British army, in the United States, and as an editor, his trial and imprisonment for the libels he placed on government and individuals, and all of the leading events in the stirring life of this great political writer are clearly set forth. There is also a full account of his works, which are very numerous. Better than any theoretical treatise on this subject is the history of this self-made man, conquering difficulties and winning successes along the lines in which he sought it.

A story of the times of Wyckliffe is given under the title “Dearer than Life.”[J] One of the best means of doing good now in use is that of teaching the young people useful lessons in the form of these attractive historical novels. In this one, the fortunes of a family who were for a long time divided in their opinions concerning the doctrines of the great reformer are narrated, and are so closely interwoven with the real history of the times that there can be no skipping of the facts for the sake of the fancy.

Of the recent text-books published for use in schools, on physiology and hygiene, none deserves higher commendation than “Our Bodies, and How we Live.”[K] The lessons are all so arranged and expressed as to awaken and hold the attention of the scholar, and can not fail, especially in the hands of a skillful teacher, to make this important study an exceedingly interesting one. The effects of strong drink on different parts of the system are carefully shown. The numerous illustrations are very clear, and so well labeled that they perfectly supplement the lessons and leave no chance for misunderstanding or mistake. The book contains a glossary and an index.

Two little books by Charles Kingsley,[L] put into the hands of children who have been taught to love good reading—and indeed the books of themselves would teach any child to do this—would prove a treasure-house to them. The prefaces alone, with their cordial, sympathetic greeting, their natural, straightforward statements, and their spirit of love and reverence, are worth the price of the books.

Any one who has had experience in arranging tableaux knows how true it is that there is a false and a true way of producing effects. Not knowing how to drape, to select colors, to arrange a group, to copy this or that, spoils many tableaux and discourages managers. We are glad to find a suggestive book on this difficult art.[M] Without any theorizing the authors teach us how to do by plunging in medias res and producing the tableaux before our eyes. The book describes twenty-four tableaux, but the variety of subjects is such that study of them furnishes a very complete drill for producing any desired effect.

A good game will occasionally fill a niche in an evening, in a way entirely its own. We believe we have found two such in Miss Alice M. Guernsey’s Shakspere Game,[N] and Elements and Compounds.[O] The games are pleasing variations of the well known game of “Authors.” The latter is particularly novel in its arrangement, and local circles who want to fix in mind the troublesome “compounds” will find it very useful.

It is a very convenient thing for a reader of history to have at hand a chart which gives in brief the synchronological events of nations. So many charts of this kind, however, are cumbersome, that the trouble of using is almost as time-taking as that of consulting books. A chart without this drawback is the “Concentric Chart of History”[P] which Dr. Ludlow has recently published. It can be held in the hand when in use, and folds up into small compass. It contains all the facts which readers ought to go to a chart for, and some interesting items on the useful arts, on sculptors, artists, and literary characters. Altogether it makes a very convenient reference table for a reader of history.

The “Common School Compendium”[Q] is a little volume, intended, the author says, “to serve several purposes—to provide graduates of high schools and colleges a quick means of reviewing the work of early school days; to give to teachers a reliable hand-book of knowledge they are expected always to have at command, and above all to provide that large class of young people who are striving in the privacy of home to master the difficulties of a systematic course of study, a work that should do away with the necessity for large numbers of text-books.” It outlines, and gives brief lessons in, geography, arithmetic, grammar, natural history and history. It will be found by all to be a valuable reference book.

Gordon in the Soudan.—“I have certainly got into a slough with the Soudan; but looking at my banker, my commander-in-chief, and my administrator, it will be wonderful if I do not get out of it. If I had not got this Almighty Power to back me in His in finite wisdom, I do not know how I could ever think of what is to be done. With terrific exertions I may in two or three years’ time, with God’s administration, make a good province, with a good army and a fair revenue and peace and an increased trade, and also have suppressed slave raids, and then I will come home and go to bed and never get up again till noon every day, and never walk more than a mile.”[R]

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Evolution and Christianity, or an Answer to the Development of Infidelity of Modern Times. By Benjamin F. Tefft, D.D., LL.D. Boston: Lee and Shepard. New York: Charles T. Dillingham. 1885.

How to Do It. By Edward Everett Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1884.

Weird Tales. By E. T. W. Hoffmann. A new translation from the German. By J. P. Bealby, B.A. In two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1885.

Words and Ways; or, What They Said, and What Came of It. By Sarah J. Jones. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe. 1885. Price, $1.00.

Edward Arnold as Poetizer and Paganizer, Containing an Examination of the Light of Asia for its Literature and for its Buddhism. By William Cleaver Wilkinson. Funk & Wagnalls. New York: 1884.

The Clerk’s Manual of Rules, Forms, and Laws for the Regulation of Business in the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York. Including Croswel’s Manual. Albany: Weed, Parsons & Co. 1885.

Consolation. A Special Collection of Standard Hymns, Tunes, and Chants for Funeral and Memorial Services, together with suitable “Gospel Songs,” New and Old, designed to Comfort those Who Mourn. Edited by James R. Murray. Cincinnati: Published by John Church & Co.

Serapis. A Romance. By George Ebers. New York: William S. Gottsberger, Publisher. 11 Murray Street. 1885. Price, paper cover, 50 cents.

A Railroad Waif. By Mrs. C. B. Sargent. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe. New York: Phillips & Hunt. 1885. Price, 75 cents.

Mind-Reading and Beyond. By William A. Hovey. Boston: Lee and Shepard. 1885.

The Three Pronunciations of Latin. By M. M. Fisher, D.D. LL.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1885.

The Story of the Resurrection By William H. Furness, D.D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1885.

Composition and Rhetoric. By G. P. Quackenbos, LL.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1885.

Organic Chemistry. By Ira Remsen. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co.

Continuity of Christian Thought. By A. V. G. Allen. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. Price, $2.00.

The Hallam Succession. A Tale of Methodist Life in Two Countries. By Amelia E. Barr. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe. 1885. Price, $1.00.

The LenÂpÈ and their Legends. Library of Aboriginal American Literature. By D. G. Brinton, M.D. Philadelphia. 1885.

The Open Door. The Portrait. Two Stories. By the author of A Little Pilgrim, and Old Lady Mary. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1885. Price, 75 cents.

Tales from Shakspere. By Charles and Mary Lamb. Edited for the use of Schools. Boston: Ginn, Heath & Co. 1885.

[B] Thomas Becket. By James Anthony Froude. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1885. Price, 50 cents.