THE GALAXY. (continued 6)

SCIENTIFIC ORCHESTRATION.

Prof. Mayer has turned his valuable researches in acoustical science to æsthetic uses, and criticises the present mode of arranging orchestras, the defects of which he proves by experiment. He took an old silver watch, beating four times a second, and caused it to gain thirty seconds per hour, so that every two minutes its tick coincided with the tick of an ordinary spring balance American clock, also making four beats the second. The latter was placed several feet, and the watch two feet, from the ear. In this position the ticks of the watch were lost for nine seconds, about the time of coincidence. The tick of the watch disappeared, "with a sharp chirp, like a cricket's, and reappears with a sound like that made by a boy's marble falling upon others in his pocket." This experiment shows most effectively that one sonorous impression may overcome and obliterate another, but to do so it must be more intense and of lower pitch. If of higher pitch, it cannot neutralize the other sound, however much the first may exceed the latter in intensity. This discovery, Prof. Mayer thinks, is, "next after the demonstration of the fact that the ear is capable of analyzing compound musical sounds into their constituent or partial simple tones, the most important addition yet made to our knowledge of hearing." High sounds cannot obliterate low ones, but, on the contrary, the sensation of each partial tone of which compound musical sounds is formed is diminished by all the tones below it in pitch. These discoveries he applies to orchestration as follows: "In a large orchestra I have repeatedly witnessed the complete obliteration of all sounds from violins by the deeper and more intense sounds of the wind instruments, the double basses alone holding their own. I have also observed the sounds of the clarinets lose their peculiar quality of tone, and consequent charm, from the same cause. No doubt the conductor of the orchestra heard all his violins ranged as they always are, close around him, and did not perceive that his clarinets had lost that quality of tone on which the composer had relied for producing a special character of expression. The function of the conductor seems to be threefold: First, to regulate and fix the time. Second, to regulate the intensity of the sounds produced by individual instruments, for the purpose of expression. Third, to give the proper quality of tone or feeling to the whole sound of his orchestra, considered as a single instrument, by regulating the relative intensities of sounds produced by the various classes of instruments employed. Now this third function, the regulation of relative intensities, has hitherto been discharged through the judgment of the ears of a conductor, who is placed in the most disadvantageous position for judging by his ears. Surely he is not conducting for his own personal gratification, but for the gratification of his audience, whose ears stand in very different relations from his own in respect to their distance from the various instruments in action. Is it not time that he should pay more attention to his third function, and place himself in the position occupied by an average hearer? This position would be elevated, and somewhere in the midst of the audience. That the position at present occupied by the conductor of an orchestra has often allowed him to deprive his audience of some of the most delicate and touching qualities of orchestral and concerted vocal music, I have no doubt, and I firmly believe that when he changes his position in the manner now proposed, the audience will have some of that enjoyment which he has too long kept to himself." These views were verified by Prof. Mayer visiting different parts of the house during a public performance, and observing the different effects of the music. It is not to be supposed that a satisfactory change can be made at once. A quantitative analysis of the compound tones of all musical instruments must be made. On this work he is now engaged. One noteworthy result of his researches is the opinion that orchestral instruments should be made on different principles from those used in solos. The reason for this is, that certain over tones should predominate in orchestral instruments in order to give them their due expression in the midst of graver sounds. These exaggerated peculiarities will unfit them to be played alone. If the learned Professor's views are carried out, a theatre or opera manager will be obliged to own the instruments of his orchestra, and perhaps to have different sets for different musical works!

THE NITROGEN OF PLANTS.

The direct source of the nitrogen contained in plants is an unsolved mystery, though the ultimate source of much of it must be the atmosphere. A wheat crop gave on unmanured land from 15.9 to 25.2 pounds of nitrogen, per acre, yearly, but the amount found in the rainwater of the same district was only from 6.23 to 8.58 pounds per acre. Singular to say, the use of a fertilizer, called a "complex mineral manure" in the reports, added only about two pounds of nitrogen per acre. But the case is altered when potassic manure is used, and especially when applied to land bearing beans. Such a crop gains 13½ pounds of nitrogen by the addition of saltpetre, or 28 per cent. A similar result was obtained with clover—a leguminous crop. A potassic fertilizer increased the yield of nitrogen one-third. One of the anomalies observed in the study of plant growth is that a good crop instead of exhausting the soil seems to improve it. The better the crop, and the more nitrogen removed, the better will the succeeding crop be. Thus clover removes a much larger amount of nitrogen than wheat, the quantity being on unmanured land, say 30.5 pounds per acre for clover and 20.7 pounds for wheat, and yet the wheat crop is improved if clover is occasionally interpolated or a fair rotation of crops kept up. In 1874 barley succeeding barley gave 39.1 pounds of nitrogen, while barley following clover gave 69.4 pounds of nitrogen withdrawn from an acre of soil. These amounts take no account of the nitrogen carried off by the drainage of the soil, which analysis of drainwater proves to be considerable. The source of all this nitrogen is undoubtedly the atmosphere, but the mode of conveying it into the soil is unknown.

IMPORTANT PREHISTORIC DISCOVERIES.

Few persons are aware of the wealth of what are called "prehistoric" remains. The finding of an isolated skeleton, in a cave, with stalagmite completely covering it, is accepted as an occurrence that is not very remarkable. However ancient it may be, the preservation of the bones is exceptional. But a late discovery in France, near Hastiére-sur-Meuse, is of much more importance. No less than fifteen burial caverns were found, and from the five that have been explored no less than fifty-five human skeletons have been taken, among which are thirty-five well-preserved skulls.

In addition to these "finds" the plateaux yielded sixteen dwelling places of the old inhabitants from which have been taken a quantity of stone implements. These show the age of the skeletons to be that of the polished, or "new" stone period. The prospect of being able to restore the men who lived before the earliest recorded dates is now very good. Some hundreds of their skeletons, with a valuable series of skulls and enormous collections of their handiworks, are now in the museums of the world.

Some of the more remarkable of these discoveries have been alluded to at different times in this Miscellany. One of the latest and most interesting consists of some pointed sticks, found in a Swiss coal bed, the pointing having been done by hand. It may be thought difficult to establish so remarkable a fact in a mass of coal in which the rods have been pressed flat and perfectly carbonized. But a microscopic examination of one of these pieces shows that the fibres of the wood run in two different directions, the two systems meeting at an angle. One of the sticks has had its end shaved down, the cut surface being then applied to the other, and some substance, probably bark, being wound around the joint. The marks of this wrapping are perfectly distinct, and in one case the wrapping itself remains. As the bark used for this purpose was different from the natural bark of the rods, the microscope is now able to distinguish between the two, though both are turned to coal. Descriptions and illustrations of these interesting relics are published in the "Primeval World of Switzerland," by the celebrated Professor Heer. There is no doubt they formed part of some basket work. Their age is still doubtful, but must be very great.

THE PHYLLOXERA CONQUERED.

The investigation instituted by the French Academy of Sciences into the best means of destroying the phylloxera, or grapevine pest, has ended in the conclusion that the sulpho-carbonates are a complete antidote to these destructive insects. This result has already been announced in this Miscellany, and it only remains to explain the action of these salts. Under the influence of carbonic acid, which is always present in soils containing organic substances, they decompose. A carbonate is formed, and sulphuretted hydrogen and bisulphide of carbon are evolved. Both of these are deadly poisons to the phylloxera as well as to man. To complete the fitness of these salts to agricultural uses, the sulpho-carbonate of potassium has an excellent effect upon the vines, potash being one of the most valued constituents of manures. Success in using the antidote depends upon bringing it in contact with every part of the root-system of the plant. This can be done by dissolving the salt, but it is better to mix it with half its weight of lime and sprinkle it on the ground at the beginning of the rainy season, which in France lasts from October to March. M. Mouillefert, who examined this subject under direction of the Academy, reports that as an antidote the sulpho-carbonates are a proved success, and nothing now remains but to educate the vine growers to their proper use. This subject has peculiar interest to Americans, for the phylloxera is our evil gift to France. It is matter of common observation, both in animal and vegetable physiology, that one race or species may live in comfort with an enemy—be it a disease or a parasite—which is destructive to other species. The American vineyards are by no means free from the phylloxera. On the contrary, they are full of this insect, but the vines do not lose their hardiness in consequence. They flourish in spite of their enemy.

THE SUN'S HEAT.

Prof. Langley of the Allegheny observatory has made a direct comparison between the heat of the sun and that of the flame in the mouth of a Bessemer steel convertor. Estimates of the sun's temperature probably vary among themselves more than any other attempts at scientific knowledge, ranging from 10,000,000 down to 1,500 deg. We have already published in this Miscellany some late French determinations which place it below 2,000 deg. C. Prof. Langley's choice of a standard is excellent. The flame of the Bessemer convertor results from the burning of carbon, silicon, iron, and manganese within the vessels, the result of using this once novel fuel being a heat so great that the most refractory iron or steel is melted to thin fluidity and so much excess of heat imparted, that the mass will remain fluid, without further heat, a considerable time. The temperature of the flame is not known, though 4,000 or 5,000 deg. Fahr. has been suggested as an approximation. This does not vitiate Prof. Langley's experiment, for he used it merely as one of the most powerful artificial sources of light obtainable. His method was to compare its light with that of the sun by an arrangement that resembled a camera obscura, the light from the sun and the flame being repeatedly superposed upon each other. The arrangement worked admirably, and the observer was able to note the spots on the sun. He found that the intensely hot flame was like a dark spot compared to the sun's light and that the latter must be at least 2,168 times hotter than the flame. This carries the result in favor of the largest estimates. The flame of the convertor is not so hot as the melted steel from which it comes, but it offers better opportunities for observation. The steel itself as it was poured from the convertor was found to be not more than one-sixty-fourth as hot as the sun.

DEAF MUTES IN POLAND.

Mr. George Darwin has brought forward statistics to prove that the intermarriage of near relations does not have the unfavorable effect upon offspring which is commonly supposed. But the director of the Warsaw Institute for Deaf Mutes and the Blind combats this theory, and says that the registers kept at that and similar institutions support the popular opinion. The system of instruction at this asylum is very perfect. Mimic language being almost totally prohibited, the pupils are taught to understand the motion of the lips and to speak more or less distinctly; and after a four years' residence in the Institute, they generally attain in both a high degree of perfection. With great judgment the managers have made the technical instruction at the school of the best kind, so that the pupils readily find situations on leaving, and indeed there are never enough to fill all the situations offered. This appears to be the true method with students who would otherwise find themselves at a disadvantage with more favored competitors.

THE COMPASS PLANT.

The well-known dispute as to the "compass plant" has recently been settled by Mr. Meehan in a manner which recalls the opinions of judicial officers who deal with other than scientific questions. One party of observers say that this plant always points its leaves north and south, the leaf standing edgewise to the earth and the two sides facing to the east and west. This plant is found on the prairies and plains, and is known scientifically as silphium lacinatum, popularly as pilot weed, rosin weed, and turpentine weed. It stands from three to six feet high, and the trappers and Indians are said to find their way in dark nights by feeling its leaves. These assertions of polarity are denied by the other party. Mr. Meehan now says that both are right. When the leaves are young and small the pointing to the north is unmistakable, but when they become larger, are beaten down by rains, and weighted with sand and dew, they are not able to recover their lost bearings.

BALLOONS IN METEOROLOGY.

Balloon ascensions are quietly but frequently used by scientific men for the purpose of studying the upper parts of the atmosphere. Russian savants have lately paid especial attention to this work, but have been prevented from extending their examinations to any great height. Prof. Mendeleef of St. Petersburg now undertakes to accomplish this also, and devotes the profits of two books published by him to the construction of a balloon. This is to have a capacity of two or three thousand cubic yards, and will be filled by means arranged by him. France also pursues this path of investigation with great vigor. Count Bathyani recently took up a radiometer to a height of about a mile. At the earth it made in the shade thirty-five revolutions per minute. At the height of 5,000 feet it made sixty-four revolutions, also in the shade. In the sun, 2,300 feet above the earth, it made fifty-four revolutions. Count Bathyani also took up an ethereal apparatus for the purpose of condensing water vapor at various heights, in order to collect the microscopic particles floating in the air. This line of investigation will be continued by means of an apparatus filled with methylic ether. This will give a temperature of -20 deg. C., or -15 deg. Fahr. The moisture will condense as ice which will be scraped off the vessels. All the solid particles floating in the immediate neighborhood of the apparatus will also be obtained.

THE LEAD PRODUCT.

The mining of lead is a business in which Americans are successfully using the remarkable resources of this country. In 1866 the amount made here was only 14,342 tons, while we imported 23,330 tons. In fact the importation has exceeded the home product ever since 1850 with the exception of one year—1860. This improper "balance of trade" was due to the system and intelligence with which foreign smelting works are conducted, and the ignorance which prevailed in our own country where the mining resources are really superior to those of Europe. But this state of things has changed with the foundation of mining schools and the spread of mining knowledge in this country. In 1873 the "balance" turned the other way. The importations have been since then 22,114, 17,674, 7,305, and 4,685 tons; while the home product shows a rise corresponding closely to this falling off, being for the same years, 37,983, 46,500, 53,250, 57,210 tons. In fact we export as much as we import, for the 4,300 tons of pig lead imported is balanced by the quantity sent back to Europe in the form of bullets. This change in the business is traceable to the fact that refining has been found to pay in America, and our lead is thus in request by the white paint makers. For years our product lay under a stigma, and it was said that it was not suited to the manufacture of the best lead. This evident error has been corrected; the refined virgin lead of Missouri and Illinois makes the best white lead, and the mining of the metal is not likely to suffer from so many causes of depression again. The Territories are now large producers, the five principal sources of supply being in 1876—

Tons.

Importation 4,685

Sales of Government old lead 1,050

Missouri 17,165

Galena district 6,425

Utah, Nevada, California 33,630

62,955

The production of some few selected places was: Palmer mine, 466 tons, Mine LaMotte, 1,657, St. Joseph mines, 1,938, Granby mines, 4,423 tons, these being all Missouri; Omaha smelting works, 11,336 tons, St. Louis and Pennsylvania smelting works, 8,000 tons, New York and Newark works, 7,776 tons, California, Nevada, and Utah works, 6,518. The latter four items amount to 33,630 tons, which is all made from silver-lead ores, mostly by the zinc process of refining.

ARCTIC EXPLORATION.

In fitting out the lately returned Arctic expedition the English government attempted to make it the last one of its kind. That is, it appropriated a million dollars and engaged the coöperation of the best scientific authorities, and sent out its best men, who departed in the full knowledge that their enterprise had aroused a real national enthusiasm, and that the most strenuous effort was expected of them. The purpose of these accumulated advantages was to so fortify the voyagers that their success or failure should satisfy the world upon the subject of polar exploration. They went, struggled so bravely that their loss of life was greater than on any expedition since the fatal one under Franklin—and came back without succeeding. Their commander deliberately declared success to be impossible from the nature of the difficulties which always exist near the pole, and that this goal of nine centuries' effort would never be reached.

But, in spite of Captain Nares's positiveness, the Arctic question is now just where he took it up. Seventy miles has been added to the distance covered, but the world is just as unsatisfied as ever, and polar exploration is just as ardently desired as ever. The spirit is unchanged, but the name is altered. Against the uniform report of the explorers who have been so numerous during the last decade that a mere journey to the pole is not likely to yield much addition to man's knowledge, it is hardly possible for even the most enthusiastic navigators to stand up. But when Lieutenant Payer, on returning from the Austrian expedition north of Spitzbergen, declared that there was but one way to make the icy northern regions yield up their scientific secrets, and that was by colonizing parties within the Arctic circle, to stay there long enough to make a continued study of its meteorology and physics, the scientific world gave him its unqualified support. Several nations have been reported to be on the point of organizing such a colony, but America seems likely to be the first to act energetically on the suggestion. Captain Howgate of the Signal Service Corps has petitioned Congress for $50,000 with which to send out a company of forty men, provided with supplies for three years. They are to be taken by a government vessel to some point between 81 deg. and 83 deg., the route taken to be by Smith's sound. There they will be left, the vessel returning. An annual visit is to be paid the colony, but otherwise they will be left to themselves. To prevent the scandalous quarrels which ruined the Polaris expedition, the whole party will be enlisted in the United States service, and strict discipline will be maintained. The fact that the suggestion for the expedition comes from a Signal Service officer will give the country confidence in the plan, and also ensure proper attention to that science which may hope to reap the greatest benefit from Arctic observations, the science of meteorology and cosmic physics. The scientific members of the party are to include an astronomer, one or more meteorologists, and two or more naturalists. The project is by no means on a sure footing as yet, but it has got so far as to be favorably reported on by the Naval Committee of the House of Representatives. It certainly embodies the plan which scientific men all over the world unite in endorsing, and which seems to offer the most promising rewards to effort. But disguise the fact as we will, it still remains true that it is in exploration and discovery that such schemes find their surest ground for support. The gains to science have uniformly been greater than the satisfaction to curiosity, and this plan is professedly made with especial care to secure the greatest return to science. But the march to the pole is the thing that is inviting, and it entices now just as strongly, after all the failures, as it ever did. Captain Howgate's plan provides for this. During their three years' stay his men will be on the watch for opportunities to advance northward, and if they find none, they intend to make such a study of currents, ice, and seasons as will give the cue to others in after years.

The principal difficulties in pushing far northward may be summed up in a few words. The attempt must be made in summer (the Arctic day), when the ice is liable to break up. A boat must therefore be carried, and this makes the sledge train heavy. The ice to be crossed is extremely rough, and explorers have not been able to find smoother spots of any considerable size. By rough we mean that it is covered with deep rifts, blocks and snow drifts from five to twenty feet or more in height, and these impediments cover the surface so closely as to leave no alternative but a slow tugging of the sledges over the most available parts of them. The English expedition found these drifts to lie directly across their course, having been formed by a west wind. The labor of crossing them is performed with the thermometer far below the freezing point. There is no fire, provisions have to be carefully husbanded, sleep is dangerous unless frequently broken, and if one of the party breaks down, the strength of the whole is seriously diminished, while its task is greatly increased. Such has been the history of exploration up to within 400 miles of the pole, and it is at least probable that many of these difficulties will be intensified as that point is reached. The north pole may now be considered to occupy the centre of an area 800 miles in diameter, the condition of things within which it is not possible even to conjecture. We may plausibly suppose (1) that it is not land, for the ice of the Arctic sea is never more than 150 feet thick, and there are no glaciers; (2) that it is a shallow sea; and (3) that the precipitation of moisture in the centre must be considerable, as the ice is moving in all directions from the centre during the summer. The theory of an open sea at the pole is now discarded by most scientific men, and, we believe, by all experienced explorers except Hayes. In the present state of knowledge it rests upon the presumption that the polar sea is very shallow, so that the deep and warm currents which are known to enter the Arctic ocean may be forced to the surface there; and that the ice drift removes the ice as fast as it forms.

EXPLORATION NOTES.

The Portuguese government has decided to spend $100,000 on a scientific expedition to Central Africa.

Every exploring expedition across the continent of Australia has to taste the extreme difficulties of travel in the barren parts of that extraordinary country. Mr. Giles, the last explorer, says: "From the end of the watershed in longitude 120 deg. 20 min., the latitude being near the 24th parallel, to the Rawlinson range of my last horse expedition, in longitude 127 deg., the country was all open spinifex sandhill desert. At starting into the desert most of the camels were continually poisoned, the plant which poisoned them not being allied in any way to the poison plants of the settled districts of Western Australia. I now know it well, and have brought specimens. The longest stretch without water was a ten days' march. One old cow camel died after reaching the water. We had some rain on May 8 before reaching the Ashburton, and some of it must have extended into the desert. It was the only chance water we obtained."

Prof. Nordenskiold, who sailed from Norway to the mouth of the river Jenesei, in Siberia, is now preparing for a voyage from that river along the shore of the Arctic sea to Behrings straits. It may be that the navigation of the Arctic sea, which is impossible away from land, can be accomplished in its neighborhood. The return journey will be made by way of China, India, and the Suez canal, the whole forming the most remarkable voyage ever undertaken by one ship.

Bradford, Pennsylvania, is lighted with gas from a well situated about two miles from town.

In the United States heavy rains are less frequent between 4:35 p.m. and 11 p.m than at any other part of the day. The greatest number are between 7:35 a.m. and 4:35 p.m.

In the Alps the snow line is 8,900 feet high on the northern side and 9,200 feet on the southern. In the Himalayas it is 16,600 feet on the northern side and 16,200 feet on the southern.

The eminent physicist, Prof. J. C. Poggendorff, for many years professor in the Berlin university, and editor of "Poggendorff's Annalen," has died in Berlin, in his eighty-first year.

The magnitude of the prizes which may be drawn by exploring antiquarians in Europe is shown by the recent finding near Verona, Italy, of two large amphoræ containing 50,000 coins of the Emperor Gallienus and his immediate successors. The majority of them are of bronze, but there are some of silver. Nearly all of them are in the finest state of preservation, and are so fresh from the mint as to make it evident that they were never put into circulation.

Prof. Loomis says that in this country great rainfalls do not generally continue over eight hours, and very rarely do they continue for twenty-four hours, either at one place or a number of places considered successively.

According to the Washington "Gazette," the paint makers are grinding up Egyptian mummies for the fine brown color which they make when powdered. This color is due to the asphaltum with which the cloths wrapped around the mummies was impregnated.

The Washington monument is probably doomed. In its present condition it is a grievous eyesore in the Washington landscape, and a board of army engineers now say that its foundations are not strong enough to permit raising the shaft higher, and it is proposed to take it down.

Mr. H. Byasson has produced a kind of petroleum by the mutual action of steam, carbonic acid, and sulphuretted hydrogen in presence of iron at a white heat. All these substances are known to be contained in the rocks of the earth's crust, which also has at various times afforded the necessary heat.

Gold, though the principal standard of value, is not moved about the world much. The entire import of London, the greatest banking city in the world, was only $116,222,350 in 1876, and the export was $81,097,850. Nearly the whole of the difference went into the vaults of the Bank of England, the stock of which increased $34,992,020.

Prof. Hawes has proved the existence of metallic iron in the basalt dykes of New Hampshire. It exists as small specks in the centre of grains of magnetite. This contradicts the theory that the metallic iron of the dykes is the result of carbon acting upon the magnetite in them, and proves that the iron is the primary and the magnetite the secondary product.

Though agricultural professorships are not considered to have produced all the good that was once expected from them, there is one lately established by the French Government which might well be copied in other countries. It is a professorship of comparative agriculture at Vincennes, and its occupant will make a systematic comparison of home and foreign agriculture.

The character of the Yale lectures to mechanics is seen from the following titles to some of the lectures: "Forester and Forest Products," Prof. William H. Brewer; "Mosses," Prof. C. D. Eaton; "Our Red Sandstone," G. W. Hawes; "The Usury Laws," Prof. F. A. Walker; and "Sanitary Engineering," Prof. W. P. Trowbridge. The course contains thirteen lectures, and costs $1.

A French paper says that "an American company proposes to introduce fur seals from Alaska into Lake Superior! The temperature of the lake is considered to be sufficiently cold for the purpose, and the company hopes to obtain from Congress and the Canadian Parliament an act protecting the creatures from slaughter for twenty years, after which time it is supposed that they will be sufficiently acclimatized and numerous to form subjects of sport." As the fur seal is a marine animal and Lake Superior is a body of fresh water, the success of the experiment, and even the authenticity of the story, is at least doubtful!

M. Giffard, inventor of the steam injector which bears his name, has entered upon a line of invention of which Americans have been very fond. He is building a small steamer to ply, during the French Exposition, over the three miles of the Seine between Pont Royal and the Exhibition. The steamer will be thirty metres, or one hundred feet long and three and a half metres, or eleven feet eight inches broad, and is to make forty-five miles an hour! The length is to the beam, therefore, as 8½ to 1. It is singular that marine engineering has gained but little from these attempts to attain excessive speeds. The real advances have been obtained by small successive improvements.

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Mr. Henri Van Laun is known in the world of letters by his admirable translation of Taine's "History of English Literature," and also by his not yet completed translation of Molière's works; the latter being not merely a translation, but a very thoroughly worked English edition of the great French dramatist. He now presents us with the first volume of an original critical work of great importance and interest9—nothing less than a history of French literature. Mr. Van Laun's work is not a mere critical appreciation of French writers, which of itself would be an undertaking of very considerable moment, and which would fill a place hitherto unoccupied in our critical literature. The present work is in fact a history of French thought, and even more; it is a history of the French people as exhibited in the writings of Frenchmen from the very earliest period. The author accepts the theory which has lately come into vogue among the more elaborate, if not the profounder critics, that the literature of an age is a manifestation of its spirit; that a nation, or rather a people, has a soul like an individual man, and that that soul is manifested and is to be read in the pages of its authors; that as it, the people, is developed, intellectually, morally, socially, and politically, from age to age, the changes through which it passes are reflected in its literature, and that there no less, perhaps even more, than in the record of its doings at home, abroad, in the family, in society, in commerce, in manufactures, in art, and on the field of battle, is to be found its true portraiture. Indeed, he begins his book with the assertion that "the history of a literature is the history of a people; if not this, it is worthless."

To this theory and its general acceptance we owe chiefly the very wide scope and the philosophical profundity of most modern critical writing of the higher kind. Critics are not content nowadays with taking up a poem, novel, essay, or history, and looking at it by itself as an individual and isolated work of art. They must look into the personal life of the writer; they must discover and estimate all the influences by which he was surrounded; and among these they give a very important place to the condition of the society in which he lived, the political and religious forces which were at work while he was studying, thinking, writing. Briefly, they regard him not as an isolated individual force, but as a manifestation, a result of many forces, as doing his work less by personal volition than as the unconscious agent or representative of the times in which he lived. Consequently a critical edition or appreciation of a great writer has come to be not a purely literary task, but an attempt to unfold the mental and moral condition of a people and a period. Compare, for example, Addison's criticism of the "Paradise Lost," to which in a great measure the general appreciation of that poem is due, with David Masson's "Life of Milton." The former can all be included in a thin duodecimo volume, and has been so printed; the latter, still unfinished, fills several ponderous octavo volumes. Addison concerns himself with the poem itself; Masson writes an elaborate history of Puritanism and of the English people during the development and completion of that religious, social, and political revolution which produced the Commonwealth in Old England and the Puritan emigration to America, with the formation of the religious commonwealths of New England. True, Addison did not undertake to do what Masson undertook, and allowance must be made for the avowed difference between the methods of the two writers. But still that very difference is the significant exponent of the critical spirit of the times in which they lived. The very fact that the Victorian critic has undertaken his tremendous task, which Addison or any man of his time would not have thought of, is significant of the change in critical manner to which we have referred.

That the new theory of the proper scope of criticism is well founded, cannot be entirely denied. Literature to a certain degree is a characteristic product of the age and of the people for which, if not by which, it is produced. And if Mr. Van Laun had confined himself to the affirmative part of his proposition, his position would have been less disputable than it became when he added his negative assertion. It is not quite true that the history of a literature is the history of a people; still further from the truth is it that literary history which is not the history of a people is worthless. It might be easily shown that some of the very greatest literary productions known to the world have very slight relations, or none at all, to the condition of the society in which they were written. What, for example, is there in Shakespeare's plays, or in Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels, which is a manifestation of the spirit of their time? Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, and Moore were strictly contemporaries. What could be more unlike than their poems in spirit or in substance? What one trait have they in common? The theory in question is an example of the tendency of men to over generalization of particular facts, and of a like tendency to over subtlety in critical philosophy.

The spirit of a people is, however, undeniably manifest in the writings of its best and most favored authors; and to trace the rise of that spirit and the gradual formation of a national or popular character is a legitimate and a very instructive part of the task of a critic who undertakes to present a full appreciation of a national literature.

Mr. Van Laun certainly begins at the beginning. He shows us what the French people are; how the French nation arose and gradually grew into an individual existence; and he thus imitates and emulates the distinguished French critic whose work he has translated. M. Taine is strong on the manifestation of Anglo-Saxonism in English literature, and even finds the results of English beef and beer, and of the very rain and fog of England, in the books of English writers.

Mr. Van Laun's theory of the origin of the French people is not a very clear one; not even in his own mind, it would seem. He starts with the assertion, in very positive terms, that the Iberians were the vanguard of the invading races who overwhelmed and swept before them the oldest known inhabitants of Western Europe—the Celts; and his language implies that the former were and the latter were not an Indo-European race; that the vanguard of the Indo-European invaders found the Celts in Europe and overcame them. But there is no doubt, we believe, that the Celts themselves were, or are, an Indo-European race, and that they are the oldest representatives of that race in Europe. Their position in the extreme west, even in the Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland, shows this. As to the Iberians, the name itself is rather vague as that of a people or a race; but as far as we know anything of the race which Mr. Van Laun seems to have in view, they were found in the west of Europe by the invading Celts. The Basques are regarded by philologists and ethnologists as the modern representatives of the "Iberians," if that name must be used—at any rate of the prehistoric inhabitants of Western Europe. Of this Mr. Van Laun himself seems to have an inkling, for he says "they were possibly themselves an indigenous European race driven back upon the Celts by the invading tribes which so persistently trod upon their heels." He finds a confirmation of this supposition in a curious etymological coincidence. In the Basque tongue atzean signifies "behind," and atzea "a foreigner." He accounts for this by supposing that the Iberian, pushed hard by the invaders, made common cause with the Celt, and that therefore the ever-encroaching Goth and Frank were "the people behind him." But if his "Iberians" were an indigenous European race, how could they be "driven back" upon the Celts unless the latter had gone through and through them, and so actually got before them, leaving the indigenous people between them—the Celts—and the succeeding Indo-European invaders? The fact is that Mr. Van Laun has begun so very far back that he is in deep water, rather out of his depth—out of any one's depth indeed. For as to the Basques, they are still an ethnological and philological puzzle. The balance of probabilities, however, seems to be in favor of their being the, or an, indigenous European race, not connected with the Aryan or Indo-European races, against whom they, a small remnant, have managed to hold their own, and preserve their individuality in language, law, and customs for more than two thousand years. The first element, the ground, so to speak, of the French nation, is, however, doubtless Celtic; and as to how much of an intermingling there may have been between them and the "Iberians," or the indigenous race represented by the Basques, we do not know. Judging by the very remarkable individuality of that strange people, their boldness, and their disposition to keep themselves to themselves, the probabilities of any very great intermingling between them and their conquerors are very small indeed.

Upon the Celts came the Greeks and the Romans. The former took no such hold of the country as the latter did; but yet there seems to be some reason for Mr. Van Laun's summary of the influence upon Gaul, (not yet France) of the two great nations of antiquity when he says: "Greece, the commercial nation, had charmed and penetrated her hosts by her poetry, her rhetoric, her arts; Rome, the military nation, remodelled her victims by her laws, her administration, her moral vigor." This is somewhat loosely expressed for a work of such literary pretensions as those of the book before us; but it suggests the truth. There was, however, in the end, to use a popular phrase, "no comparison" between the influence of the Greeks and that of the Romans upon Gaul. It was in letters as in society and in politics; the intellectual existence of Gaul, as well as her physical existence, was to be inextricably interwoven with that of her Roman conquerors. Gaul became Romanized; the language of the country, whatever it had been, was driven out, and Latin took its place. The people of the country became one of what are now known as the Latin races, chiefly because of their languages. French is little more than Latin first debased and then by culture reformed into a language having a character and laws of its own. The words which form the bulk of the French language may be traced, have been traced, down step by step from the original Latin forms; and it is found that changes from ancient Latin to modern French took place according to certain phonetic laws so absolute that, given a Latin word, philologists can tell surely under what form it must appear in French.

After the Romans came the Teutonic invaders; and of these the Franks so imposed themselves upon the country that they gave it their name, and Gaul became France. Charlemagne was neither Celtic nor Latin, but simply Karl the Great, a Teutonic monarch under whose sceptre all the Franks were united. The predominance of the Franks in Gaul for many generations had a modifying influence upon the people. The Celtic Gaul was a lively, spirited, vain, bold, but not a very steadily courageous man. The Teutonic was a quieter, steadier, more reserved, and more thoughtful man. He was a bigger man, too, and like big men, he took things more quietly; he had the steady courage which the dashing and gaily caparisoned Celt somewhat lacked. And yet it is remarkable that in the end the Celtic nature reasserted itself in France, although with some modification; and to-day the Frenchman is a Celt, as fond of talk, of fanciful poetry, of fine dress, and show, and dash, as his forefather was fifteen hundred years ago.

It was not until about the year 850 that the language of the people of France assumed a form distinctively French, according to the modern standard; and even then it was so rude and unformed that to a modern uneducated Frenchman it would be quite as strange and incomprehensible as Latin itself. From the very first the great distinction between the language of the north and that of the south seems to have existed. The langue d'oc and the langue d'oil contended for the mastery, which was finally won by the latter. This is remarkable, as the former was the softer and more cultivated tongue. The finest and the most of the very early poetry of France was written in the langue d'oc. To this literature and to the condition of the society in which it was produced Mr. Van Laun gives much attention, as might have been expected. This part of his book is interesting to students of literary history; but we must confess that the songs of the troubadours have to us very rarely any of the charms of poetry, and that we think that much of the admiration of them which has been expressed by literary antiquarians is fictitious. There is occasionally in these poems a touch of natural feeling; but generally they are cold and full of conceits. Form seems to have been more important in the poet's eyes than spirit; and instead of genuine fervor we have deliberate extravagance. The great epic poem of the French language—its greatest if not its only great poem—the "Chanson de Roland"—is written in the langue d'oil. Mr. Van Laun notices this poem of course, and gives a brief summary of its plot, or we might better say of its incidents; but we are surprised that he does not give it more attention. It is far more worthy of critical examination than the fantastic love poems of the troubadours.

In his account of feudal society and of the effect which its conditions had upon such literature as there was in that day, Mr. Van Laun could hardly pass over those tribunals so characteristic and so foreign to our modes of thought and feeling nowadays—the courts of love, of which the troubadours were, in a sort, the advocates. These courts were governed by a Code of Love, which had thirty-one statutes or ruling maxims. Of these maxims the most significant, and some of the most remarkable, are the following:

The plea of wedlock is not a sufficient excuse from love.

None can be bound by a double love.

It is undoubted that love is always diminishing or increasing.

A two years' widowhood is enjoined for a deceased lover.

It is shameful to love those with whom marriage would be shameful.

A true lover does not desire the embrace of any one save his companion in love.

Love rarely endures when made public.

Easy acceptance renders love contemptible; a slow acceptance causes it to be held dear.

A man full of love is ever full of fear.

Love can deny nothing to a lover.

There is nothing to prevent one woman from being loved by two men, nor one man by two women.

In the last quoted of these remarkable laws (which were the work of women and of a few men who wished to please women), it will be observed that no authority or countenance is given to the loving of two women by one man. Our author regards the effect of these courts and their code as on the whole beneficial. His judgment may be sound, monstrous as the code seems to us, recognizing and even sanctioning as it did relations of the sexes not formed according to civil laws; for, as he says, "it refined the inevitable evil, substituted an easy for an almost impracticable moral code, and being compelled to draw a new line between venial offences and coarse licentiousness, exacted a rigid obedience to those laws." There is also some force in his plea that the courts of love "rescued woman from what would have become a condition of intolerable degradation, elevated affection rather than passion into the place of honor, and encouraged devotion in the stronger sex, grace and propriety in the weaker." It is undoubtedly true that when society became more rigid in sexual morality, and the mediæval code of love disappeared, there remained the tenderness and courtesy for the fairer and weaker sex which that code had done so much to develop.

Mr. Van Laun's first volume brings us down only to the Renaissance. But at that period the characteristic trait of French literature developed itself strongly. That trait is satire; not the bloody scourge of Juvenal, but a light, caustic, reserved, and almost pleasant although malicious satire—malicious in the French sense of malice, which is not so strong a word as its English counterpart. The difference between the French spirit and the English is shown by the fact that with free thought in the English race came stubborn dissent; in the French, light-hearted satire. "Satire," as Mr. Van Laun justly says, "is at the root of the French character, an instinct among the descendants of the ancient Gauls, who loved to fight and to talk well." This satire broke out in the sixteenth century with a brightness and causticity which has ever since distinguished French literature. The leader was Marguerite, sister to Francis I., the well-known Queen of Navarre. Her "Heptameron" is a strange book for a woman, and not a bad woman, a lady, and a queen, to have written. In it "she vents her contemptuous scorn upon husbands, although [perhaps because] she was married; against monks, though she was an ardent devotee of religion; against lawyers and doctors, though she was a queen." But it is most happily added that "her shrewdest satire of all is unconsciously pointed against herself; for she stands revealed to us a very woman, the rivals for whose favor are God and the devil, and who affords to neither of these more than a short coquettish glance."

It was at this period that the present school of French literature had its beginning; the spirit then so strongly manifested, the tendency to clearness, brightness, and high finish of style which then appeared among French writers, have since that time been the signs and tokens of the French mind and hand in literature. All that goes before is rude or fantastic or pedantic; then French literature rises in its splendor; we can hardly say its grandeur. Mr. Van Laun's first volume is full of interest which, however, is rather historical than literary; in the succeeding part of his work we may look for criticism more acceptable to the general reader.

—We pass easily from this history of the earliest days of French literature to its very latest, and we may add, one of its most characteristic productions. Alphonse Daudet's novel, "Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainé," has suddenly attained one of those rare and brilliant successes which seem possible only in France. Within an incredibly short time sixty thousand copies of it were sold, and it was "crowned" by the French Academy; whatever that may mean, whether an actual crowning of either book or author, it certainly does imply the awarding of the highest honors by the most eminent literary tribunal in France. It has now been reproduced here in a translation which leaves nothing to be desired, whether as a transfusion of the French spirit of the book, or as an example of a fine English narrative style.10 Indeed, it unites these two most important requisites of a good translation in a rare and remarkable manner. As to the book itself, although it is a very good novel, and carries upon its face the evidence that it is a careful study of a certain phase of French life, we are at a loss to account for its phenomenal success. It is all about Sidonie, who may be called its heroine, as Becky Sharp is the heroine of "Vanity Fair." Now Sidonie is a pretty, vulgar, vile-souled shop girl who uses her beauty to make her way to a certain sort of bourgeois fashionable life, but who is really a far more infamous creature than many a common harlot. For she is not wanton; she is not merely venal; she is pitilessly selfish and fiendishly malicious. She has no honesty of any kind—of mind, heart, soul, or body. A baser, viler creature in female, and therefore in human form, it would be impossible to conceive. For to all grovelling, debasing vice she adds a monstrous, cold-hearted cruelty. With all this she is not remarkable for anything except a pretty, blooming face and a low cunning. What need to familiarize us with the life of such a creature? She ruins the happiness of two men, one of a noble soul and the other a weak-minded creature; she breaks up a family; she brings her principal victim to suicide; and all this not even for a grand passion, but that she may have fine dresses, diamonds, and a social success. This is very barren business. We do not care to have such a life as this laid before us with all the particularity of treatment which belongs to the realistic school. But granted that we did desire it, we must confess that we could not wish for it better done. The life-portraiture, inner as well as outer, is perfect and minute to admiration. The end is brought about in fine melodramatic style. Around Sidonie are grouped several personages lovable and unlovable, admirable and unadmirable, but all painted with perfect, clear conception and firm, minute touch. The distinctive Frenchness of the author is manifest in every page. It is shown particularly in the absence of any touch of humor in the portraiture of Sidonie. Unlike Becky Sharp, she hems no little shirt in public until a little Rawdon has long outgrown it. The hard portrait of her hard soul has no such softening touch as that. The book is of a bad sort; but of its sort most admirable.

The Lenten season is peculiarly the time for religious books, and the publishers have not failed to take advantage of it this year. Among the most interesting and valuable of the new works is Dr. Gregory's examination into the reason for having Four Gospels.11 Why there should be two, three, or any number more than one, or less than eleven, is a question that has been considered significant for many centuries. Why out of eleven faithful disciples, precisely four should be inspired to write the history of the founder of the Church is certainly a problem that must be worth examining. The first idea, and it is one that has not died out yet, was that the four Gospels were so many incomplete but supplementary narratives, and in the second century efforts were made to improve upon the Biblical record by the Harmonists, who tried to compile what they considered a consistent and progressive account of the acts of Christ's ministry. They were followed by the Allegorists, who took the vision of Ezekiel, with its likeness of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, and applied it to the writers of the Gospels as an exemplification of the meaning each of the narratives was intended to have. Though they, and their modern followers also, have not been able to agree upon this symbolical purport, the four Evangelists have retained in art those symbolical figures. The lion and St. Mark, the eagle and St. John are indissolubly connected in ecclesiastical art and story. The other schools of interpretation are, according to Dr. Gregory, the rationalists and "the common-sense critics." His own answer to the question, Why Four Gospels? is, that Christ had a mission to the Jews, and Matthew presented that argument for his divinity which was best calculated to impress that people; and to the Romans, to whom Mark was an interpreter; and to the Greeks, to whom Luke spoke; and to the Church at large, for whom John wrote his gospel of gentleness and love. The Jew, the Roman, and the Greek then composed the world of civilization—the existing society of that day—and in the Bible we find one writer for each of these nations, and one for the whole Church. This is certainly a rational and unembarrassed explanation. Dr. Gregory enforces it with great force and learning.

Mr. Buchanan's "Shadow of the Sword"12 has so many faults that it is a wonder he could have written it to the end without arousing his own disgust. It revives the long-neglected horrors of the time of the first Napoleon, and deals with them in a way that is brutal, not artistic. Its hero is a deserter, and he is so sharply followed by the gendarmes that for a year or more he lives the life of a burrowing animal, until reason itself is unseated. The only relief to a picture which the author strives vigorously to make revolting is the love of the hero's betrothed; but that too is so mingled with terror that it only throws a more lurid light upon the sufferings her lover undergoes. The style is as close an imitation of the French as the author can produce, occasionally varied, however, most ludicrously by an unguarded exhibition of English slang. The heroine has those eyes so rarely seen outside of novels, of "that mystic color which can be soft as heaven with joy and love, but dark as death with jealousy and wrath." For those who get near enough to gaze long into them, they reveal "strange depths of passion, and self-control, and pride." The individual who did this gazing is a tall, lusty fellow, and healthy as the average of fisherman's boys, but for all that he has the soul of romance within him. When his comrades are lounging on the beach, he is "walking in some vast cathedral not made with hands," or performing daring feats of strength. Unluckily forsaking his cathedral, to lounge on the beach with his true love, like common mortals, they are caught by the tide, and have to wade through the water to escape. She bares her legs for the bath without hesitation or blush, for "she knew that they were pretty, of course, and she felt no shame." But there is one thing this young lady would not for worlds reveal, and that is her hair, which is invariably concealed beneath a coif. But as the waters deepen, Rohan throws the pretty-limbed creature over his shoulder and wades thigh deep. As he lands her he looks up, "and lo! he saw a sight which brought the bright blood to his own cheeks and made him tremble like a tree beneath his load." Her hair had fallen down, and the cheeks and neck that bore unmoved the exposure of her knees, were now "crimson with a delicious shame." This incident "bared each to each in all the nudity of passion," and it certainly bares the nudity of the author's invention. He is nowhere prurient, and nowhere delicate. He describes the revolting details of the story with as much unction as if they were the important things, and he leaves his hero at the end a complete failure in life and love, wasted in strength, and ruined in mind.

We are glad to see Dr. McClellan persist in his study of the cholera question.13 We know of no publications which are better fitted than his to awaken the people to a proper sense of the duty, and also of the efficiency, of personal providence against disease. He is an advocate of the Indian origin theory of the disease and its spread by personal infection only, and in this pamphlet maintains two propositions: 1st, that Asiatic cholera has never yet originated on the American continent, but in every instance has spread from a first case which reached its shores from some countries beyond the ocean; and 2d, that it is diffused by the migrations of individuals who are infected by the disease, a specific poison existing in their dejecta, which reproduces the disease in any person to whom it gains access. This is a theory of epidemic cholera which is rational, consistent with the constantly developing facts of scientific research, and which happily includes a remedy that is every way practicable and thorough. But it is a theory that is not yet acknowledged by all authorities. Telluric conditions, malaria, and other local influences are frequently pointed to as the cause of the disease, and the doctrine of specific cholera poison still demands strong partisan advocacy.

—An anonymous pamphlet on vivisection, which takes ground against that mode of obtaining knowledge, is not worth serious notice except for the odd argument that crime is likely to increase if the vivisectionists are allowed to experiment on cats and dogs, as the new English law proposes! Criminals, says the authoress, rarely have had pets, and therefore if we kill all the pets, and thus deprive ourselves of the refining influences of kitty and the ennobling example of doggy, we shall the more readily turn to criminal ways. Another powerful argument is that "the countries where vivisection has prevailed seem to have secured no lasting blessing, but to have been the subjects of peculiarly calamitous afflictions, direful disasters, unnatural internal tribulations, and other multiplied evils." This is theocracy with a vengeance.

For some years past the "North American Review" has been enriched by papers from the late Mr. Chauncey Wright on various subjects in the wide field of modern philosophy, but especially in the much disputed theories of biology. They exhibited such proofs of independent judgment and critical acumen as to give their author immediate standing among European as well as home savants. These critiques have been collected and published under the name "Philosophical Discussions."14 Much as we admired these articles when they first appeared, we do not see that a republication of them is needed unless as a graceful monument to an enthusiastic student. In their permanent form they lose the immediate fitness to questions under universal discussion, which is the true raison d'être of such papers. The extreme wordiness which was Mr. Wright's principal literary fault is disagreeably manifest when his book is laid by those of other masters in positive philosophy. This is especially noticeable in the only strictly original discussion in the book, the one on the arrangement of leaves in plants. In this paper the editor has left out the "strictly inductive investigation" which contains the kernel of the essay! He has omitted the soul and given the "limbs and outward flourishes" of the author's discussion, and much to the latter's discredit. Aside from this tendency to sentences and words of philosophical length, Mr. Wright's style is extremely agreeable, clear, and strong. It frequently shines with unexpected felicities of expression, just as the author's argument frequently awakens the perception with its unusual keenness and depth of thought.

"The Convicts,"15 by Auerbach, will not increase that author's reputation in America. It belongs to the distinctively romantic school of German fiction. The story is that two convicts, reformed through the agency of a charitable society, marry and bring up a large family of children. These suffer pangs of sorrow when they learn of the stain on their parents' name, but otherwise they do not appear to be inconvenienced by their unfortunate origin. They marry into stations very much above them, though in addition to the embarrassing criminal history of their parents, they suffer what in Germany is the hardly less disaster, of being the children of a railway signal man! We suppose the object of this plot, and of much special social sentiment which is introduced in the story, is to represent the increased importance which the industrial classes have in Germany, as elsewhere in the world. Here in America the improvement in the condition of the working-man does not excite attention except from professed students of political economy. But in Germany it is contrasted with a previous state of almost complete vassalage, and the poets there seem to think it indicates an approaching brotherhood of man. Wealth and worth are to embrace each other, and the sins of the father are not to descend even to the first generation of children. We cannot but sympathize with the Councillor of State (whose granddaughter wants to, and does, marry one of the convict flagman's sons, an artisan) when he says:

See! see! This then is the latest ideal? Formerly the ideals were painters, musicians, hussar riding masters, and players. Now love also is practical. So then an artisan? All the enthusiasm runs to tunnels and viaducts.

The book is marred by unnecessary exactitude in translation. Thouing and theeing make no impression of intimacy and confidence on the American understanding as they do on the German, and should be omitted. Nor has the author the strength of his youth, and the beauty of his fancy no longer atones for the weakness of the story. Nothing in the whole of the book proper is so good as the following from the preface:

A generation has passed away since I began to present in a framework of fiction the interior life of my countrymen and neighbors. If after another generation a poet shall again undertake to express the village life of my home, what will he perhaps find? Flowers bloom in all times out of the German soil, and Beauty will in all times bloom out of the German soul.

Of late years there has been a tendency to abandon the exhaustive "manuals" which once formed the only style of school and hand-books known, and to use in their place books which contain only so much of a science as is taught in some one well-proportioned school. The change is based on the rational supposition that whatever suffices for the thorough instruction of students should also satisfy the wants of an ordinary practical worker. Mr. Ricketts's "Notes on Assaying"16 belong to this modern kind of text-book. They contain what the students in the School of Mines in New York learn, and as a thorough knowledge of assaying is obviously necessary to a mining engineer, the author considers that the same course if honestly worked through should suffice for practice outside the school. The book covers both dry and wet assaying, and gold parting, and there are chapters in which the apparatus and chemical reagents are described. A few condensed notes on blowpiping finish an extremely concise and useful book, always available for reference, and in which the self-taught workman may find his way without confusion.

—Under the pressure of incessant examinations for admission to and promotion in many fields of human activity, from the Government service to apprentices' workshops, English literature is receiving important accessions to its facilities for teaching science. All kinds of positive knowledge are condensed into class books, sometimes by the very master minds of scientific research, sometimes by experienced teachers. Of the latter kind is Mr. Lee's "Acoustics, Light and Heat,"17 which he has written to meet the wants of students for the Advanced Stage Examination of the British Department of Science and Art. Excellence in such a work requires that the main principles of the science should be sufficiently covered, explanations be clear, illustrations sufficient, and language as simple as possible. Mr. Lee's book appears to us somewhat over-condensed, but otherwise conforms to these requirements.

Lord Dufferin's "Letters from High Latitudes," describing the yacht voyage he made in 1856 to Iceland, Jan Mayen, and Spitzbergen, are so well known that it is only necessary to say they are republished by Lovell, Adam, Wesson & Co., a Canadian firm that has lately established itself in New York. In reading these familiar and gossipy letters, one is painfully impressed with a sense of the dreariness of the Northern regions. Whatever there is of interest is carried there by the traveller. The country itself, even including Iceland, adds little to the narrative, and sea life, whether stormy or calm, is not provocative of incident. But in spite of these inherent discouragements, the author maintains his cheerfulness throughout with such uniformity that we cannot resist a suspicion of its genuineness. He comes up to the inditing of each epistle with the determined smile of a much battered pugilist, when a new round is called—and we are very much in his debt for his pluck.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

"Sir Roger de Coverley." J. Hadberton. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.00.

"Childhood of the English Nation." Ella S. Armitage. The same. $1.25.

"Modern Materialism." James Martineau. The same. $1.25.

"Acoustics, Light and Heat." W. Lees, M.A. The same. $1.50.

"Letters from High Latitudes." Lord Dufferin. Lovell, Adam, Wesson & Co.

"Shadow of the Sword." Robert Buchanan. The same.

"The Splendid Advantage of being a Woman." Chas. J. Dunphie. The same.

"King Saul." A Tragedy. Byron A. Brooks. Nelson & Phillips.

"U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories." F. V. Hayden. Vols. IX. and X., and Annual Report for 1875.

"The Jukes. A Study in Crime and Pauperism." E Harris, M.D. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

"Waverley Novels," Riverside Edition. Hurd & Houghton. "The Abbot." $1.50. "Kenilworth." $1.50. "Fortunes of Nigel." $1.50. "The Pirate." $1.50.

"Heritage of Langdaler." Mrs. Alexander. Henry Holt & Co. $1.25.

"The New Church." B. F. Barrett. Claxton, Remsen & Halffelfinger.

"List of Merchant Vessels of the United States." Government Printing Office.

"Smithsonian Report 1875." Government Printing Office.

"Six Weeks in Norway." E. L. Anderson. Robert Clarke & Co.

"Alexander Hamilton." Hon. George Shea. Hurd & Houghton. $1.00.

"Harriet Martineau's Autobiography." Two volumes. M. W. Chapman. J. R. Osgood & Co. $6.00

NEBULÆ.

—We have not yet entered into rivalry with Mexico; and although to those who looked upon our politics during the last two months from the outside only, we have doubtless seemed to be tending toward anarchy, revolution, and pronunciamentos, we were really in no such danger. Teutonic blood and the English language (Anglo-Saxons and Germans are both Teutonic) seem to carry with them a certain steadiness and capacity of common-sense perception which are preventives of great political folly; and although it is not the habit of our politicians to speak very respectfully of each other from the opposite sides of a political canvass, and the conduct of our Representatives at Washington is not always quite so admirable and exemplary as it might be, we do not, in French phrase, "descend into the streets," or raise barricades, or fly at each other's throats unless we mean real revolutionary business. Even then we are apt to go decorously, if not solemnly, about our work, and talk about "the course of human events" and "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind"; we at least did so once, and notwithstanding the great changes that have taken place in our political and social condition, it may be safely assumed that we should do so again. Frothy talk at Washington gives occasion for leading articles which are not always less frothy, and for sensation headings that gladden the eyes of newsboys. The desperate political game played at Washington for the Presidency has had a very bad effect upon our reputation, and has increased the very political demoralization of which it was an outward sign; but it is safe to say that when the most furious politicians there talked revolution they did not "mean business." Both parties stood before the world in a not very admirable light. On the one hand, the Democrats digged a pit and fell into it themselves. The Electoral Commission was their own contrivance; and when they were moved to wrath and denunciation by the decisions against their case, they only showed that they formed the Commission in the supposed certainty that it would decide in their favor. They did not want a tribunal of arbitration, but a decision under the forms of arbitration. On the other hand, the Republicans appeared with changed front on the subject of State sovereignty. No assertion of the purely federative constitution of the Union could equal in force the decision that, fraud or no fraud, Congress should not go behind the electoral certificates of the Governors of the various States. Partisanship was equally binding on both sides. If then all the Republicans on the Commission always voted one way, with like "solidarity" all the Democrats always voted the other. To adopt a phrase attributed to the ex-Confederate General Jubal Early, the seven-spot couldn't take the eight. One result of the struggle, and of the revelations which it brought about, was the remarkable one of the destruction of the prestige of the candidate who came within one electoral vote of the Presidency. It is safe to say that if a new election had been brought about, the Democrats would not have ventured to go into it with Mr. Tilden in nomination.

—The struggle is over, and the uncertainty is past; and now, according to very general anticipations, business ought to revive and prosperity to return. We would gladly believe that such will be the result, but we doubt it. Business will revive, prosperity will return; for the country is rich, never more so, and is daily becoming richer. It is impossible to stop the onward course of a people who have our advantages; but the causes of our present depression lie too deep to be touched by the settlement of a mere party contest. We are suffering from the effects of a political, social, and moral revolution which has been in progress for nearly twenty years, and which the rest of the world has felt hardly less than ourselves. We have suffered the most because on the one hand our financial position is at any time less stable than that of other people, and on the other because we of all have undergone the greatest moral deterioration. We have been brought to that sad condition in which we are afraid to trust each other. So many of us have been playing the part of adventurers, so many have been playing a "confidence game," that confidence is gone in another sense than that in which it is so often said to be wanting. Prosperity will return to our business circles slowly and surely as our moral tone rises, and as business is conducted upon stable principles and upon an honorable basis. We must cease to "swap jackknives" in the shape of railway bonds and unimproved land; we must do more productive work and keep better faith. Hard work and honesty will do more for us than the settlement of the Presidential question, although that will probably do something.

—Thirty-five years ago Charles Dickens, having visited the legislative capital of a great nation, wrote thus about the men that he found there: "I saw in them the wheels that move the meanest perversion of virtuous political machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. Despicable trickery at elections, underhanded tamperings with public officers, cowardly attacks upon opponents with scurrilous newspapers for shields, and hired pens for daggers, shameful trucklings to mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered is that every day and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal types, which are like dragons' teeth of yore in everything but sharpness; aiding and abetting of every bad inclination in the popular mind, and artful suppressions of all its good influences—such things as these, and in a word, Dishonest Faction, in its most depraved and unblushing form, stared at me from every corner of the crowded hall." Of what country could he have thus written? Manifestly some "effete monarchy" in the most degraded stage of its decadence.

—The effort to establish carnivals in America is not a very encouraging sign of a healthy moral tone in the public mind. Surely there was never an attempt more superfluous, untimely, or out of place. Not only New York, but the whole country is swarming with thousands of people who are in need of money to buy shelter, food, and clothing; banks of discount, savings banks, trust companies, the very charitable institutions, are brought to ruin and disgrace by fraudulent bankruptcy; and this is the time that is chosen to entice people to playing the fool publicly in the open streets. If ever a Lent should have been kept in the sackcloth of humiliation and the ashes of despair, it is that which has just passed. People who would take part in a carnival now would dance upon the borders of their own open graves. And what do we want of a carnival, even if we were prosperous? Carnivals are not suited to our national traits. They suit the Latin races of the south of Europe; and even among them they are fading away before the light of diffused intelligence and the thoughtfulness that comes of knowledge. To us they are entirely foreign. They do not suit our sober, practical habits of life and thought; and if we attempted them, we should only make ourselves ridiculous by our awkwardness. Festivals of that kind require a volatile people, who at least can practise folly gracefully. We should unite folly with dulness and stupidity. Moreover, such festivals cannot be got up to order anywhere. They are results; they are the growth of centuries. Italians and Frenchmen do not say, Go to! we will have a carnival. The thing belongs to them by inheritance; the memories of it mingle with their earliest recollections. As for us, we might go through a carnival dolefully, as a penance fitting to Lent; but as to enjoying one, except as spectators, to us that is quite impossible. All such festivities are foreign to our nature. We cannot even keep up an interest in "Decoration Day." We revere the memories of our dead; but a ceremonial exhibition of our reverence sits ill upon us. We do not take kindly to public spectacles, and ourselves never appear well in them. As to the sober procession for which the municipal laws in New York compelled the projected masquerade to be changed, it will be, if it is at all, only a means of advertising. That sort of display we take to hugely. It was with difficulty that President Lincoln's obsequies were preserved against the projects of advertisers. We turn the mountains into posters and the hills into sign-posts. If we must do that, let us do it openly and plainly; but a carnival! Fudge!

—We cannot successfully imitate Europeans in their graceful follies; but in their soberer and more practical habits we might well follow their example. A step has been just taken in Germany which is more needed here, and which yet there is hardly any hope that we shall profit by. The union of German apothecaries has addressed a petition to the Federal Council demanding that the secret medicines concocted and advertised by quacks shall be officially tested before they are permitted to be sold. A more creditable and needful step was never taken, or one which was more indicative of enlightenment and high civilization. Quack medicines are on the whole a curse to mankind. They are generally imposed upon the ignorant and credulous by men who care not what harm they do so long as they profit by their business. Many of these medicines—so called—are very injurious, and a still greater proportion of them are entirely useless. The very fact that their composition is kept secret is against them. It is a law absolute among all honorable physicians that no remedial agent shall be kept secret. Such physicians, if in their practice they discover a remedy for any disease, at once make it known to the whole profession. To keep such a discovery secret would be to lose caste, if not to be entirely excluded from honorable professional association and recognition. If such an examination as that proposed in Germany is needed there, here it is required by a tenfold greater necessity. America is the great field of operation for the patent medicine vender. Here he thrives. Here he accumulates huge fortunes if he will only advertise persistently and with sufficient disregard of truth. And his chief victims are women and children. He is one of the pests of our society. We cannot exclude him, or extinguish him entirely; that would interfere with the individual liberty of the citizen; not only of the seller, but of the buyer. If people choose to poison themselves gradually, they insist upon their right to do so unhindered by government action. But at least we might do what the German apothecaries ask to have done, and require as a condition of the granting of a patent for a medicine that it should be tested and its contents officially declared. The effect of such a measure upon the general health would be in the highest degree beneficial; and at least the public would be protected against the fraudulent representations of the majority of patent medicine makers and venders.

—In another matter, church chimes, we have imitated Europe, and not discreetly, and we have had our first check. A certain chime of church bells in Philadelphia became annoying to the people in the neighborhood, who complained to the courts, and obtained an injunction restricting the use of the chimes to certain times of day. Even were this often bell-jangling not the annoyance that it is, the whole American public would owe something to these good Philadelphians simply for the good example of their action in this matter. They were annoyed by some one, the agent of a corporation, who, although he did not commit murder, burglary, or arson, interfered with their comfort and marred their enjoyment of life; and they, like sensible men, instead of putting up with the annoyance after the American fashion, and saying, "Oh, no matter! What can we do to stop it? Let it go!" set themselves to work to see if they couldn't stop it. They tested the question whether a certain number of men might please their taste or their religious fancy at the risk of disturbing and annoying others; and they succeeded. It is to be hoped that the lesson will not be lost in regard not only to the specific annoyance which was the cause of complaint, but all other selfish indulgences by which some men interfere with the rights of others. The law of common sense and justice in such matters is that every man may enjoy himself as he pleases so long as he does not interfere with the enjoyment of their natural rights by others. A man may give his days and nights to ringing chimes so long as they are not heard outside of his own house; but if they are so heard, and they deprive a single person of rest, or even of a quiet enjoyment of life, he has passed the limit of right. A dozen men may like a strong perfume; but they have no right to load the common air with it to the annoyance even of a thirteenth. This matter of ringing church chimes has become somewhat of a religious and sentimental affectation. Chimes have a very pretty effect in literature; and at a distance in the country they are charming. But when they clang daily in the tower of a city church within a few hundred yards of you, they become a great nuisance. Nor is the annoyance they give diminished when the chimer, instead of ringing such changes as are suited to bells, will insist upon playing affettuoso. In fact, all church bells are an annoyance in cities, and a needless one. They were first used to call people to church when there were no clocks, and before watches were heard of. Now, when the humblest apartment has a clock that strikes the hour, "the church-going bell" is entirely superfluous for the object for which it is rung, and is really a great annoyance not only to the sick, but to those who are in health. It is a noisy anachronism which clamors with iron tongue and brazen throat for its own suppression.

—And so at last the marriage of Adelina Patti to the Marquis of Caux has come to its natural end. What could the Marquis or the lady expect? He married her for the money that she earned, and that he might own so charming a celebrity; she accepted him as a husband for his title. Years have passed, and nothing has occurred to bind them more closely. The lady has no children, or any prospect of one; and so there is nothing in the way of a judicial separation on account of incompatibility. It is not necessary to suppose that the distinguished prima donna has actually run away from her husband with a lover; but it would only be natural if there were a man in the distance more to her taste. It is remarkable, by the way, that so great an interest should be taken by Americans in the fortunes of this lady, who, since she has developed her extraordinary talent, has turned her back entirely on this country. She is spoken of here often as an American prima donna. This can only be the result of a very great and an absurd misapprehension. Adelina Patti is an Italian. Her father and mother were both Italians, who could speak hardly a word of English. Her education and habits of life have been entirely Italian. Even if she had been born here by the chance of a professional residence here by her mother, that would not have made her anything else than Italian, more than a like chance residence in Russia or in Turkey would have made her a Russian or a Turk, or than the Irishman's being born in a stable would have made him a horse. When a family emigrates and resides permanently in another country, assuming the life and the habits of that country, and intermarrying there, it changes its nationality, but not otherwise. The eagerness which many Americans show to claim as American everything meritorious in art over whose supposed origin the Stars and Stripes may have been thrown, is a witness to our real native poverty in that respect, which we reveal by the very means by which we would conceal it. And besides all this, Adelina Patti was not even born in this country. She came here from Europe a little girl, with her mother, Katarina Barili-Patti, a prima donna, who, although she had not her daughter's facility of execution and range of voice, sang in the grand style, and who, as a dramatic vocalist, was far beyond la diva, as Adelina is absurdly called. As to her parting company with M. Caux, nothing is more probable than that the restraint—at least external—which belongs to the life of a marquise became too intolerable to her inborn Bohemianism, and that she seeks deliverance not only from an unloved and unloving husband, but from the galling restraints of dull respectability.

—There is a club in London, the Albemarle, which admits both men and women as members, and which the wags have therefore nicknamed the Middlesex club. An English gentleman being urged to join this club on the ground that he could take his wife there, plumply refused on that very ground, saying that the chief good in a club consisted in its being a refuge for married men. Whereupon the average woman exclaims, "The brute! What did he marry for if he wanted to be rid of his wife?" A view of the case not unnatural perhaps in a woman, but most unwise. Passing by the not very remote possibility that there are women (as there are men) who in the matrimonial lottery could not be regarded as prizes, there are strong reasons for the exclusion of women, even the most charming, from clubs. For women a man may see at home daily or in society. It is in those places that he expects to find them; there they naturally belong; there they are attractive. But when he sets up a club it is for the very purpose of enjoying man companionship and indulging his mannish tastes. He wishes there to be entirely at his ease, and not to be called on for "little attentions." He wears his hat in the club-house if he likes, and he does not wish to be called upon to take it off unless he likes. In short, he wishes there to be free, for a time, from the restraints which the presence of ladies puts upon the conduct and conversation of men, even of those who neither in act nor in speech pass the bounds of reasonable decorum. Women in clubs are pretty annoyances, fine things very much out of place. Moreover, it is true, although by most women, particularly married women, it will not be believed, that clubs, by their exclusion of women, make the society of the sex more pleasant to the average man, and tend to keep warm the marital love of the average husband. Woman, whether to her credit or not we shall not undertake to decide, can bear the continued companionship of a favored man much better than man can bear that of a woman, no matter how beautiful, how charming, or how much beloved. But even women are happier for the inevitable separation from them of their husbands every day and during a greater part of the day. As to men, unfortunately many of them would begin to weary of a woman, and at last to dislike her, if they were compelled to pass every evening in her company. Here the club steps in (we are not speaking of the mere "club man"), and interposes its conservative influence. Many a man's love is kept fresh by his having his club for a refuge; and many a love which has cooled almost to indifference has been prevented from turning into aversion by the soothing influences of that refuge. For the leisurely classes of men clubs are a benign invention; and women should in their own interests avoid giving them anything of a "middlesex" character.

—While we write a new grand scandal is impending of the Beecher-Tilton kind, which will attract less attention than that did because the parties to it are less widely known. But as the principal person is a late minister of Trinity Church in New York, and now the head, of the far-famed charitable association known as "St. John's Guild," and as the principal witness and complainant is this gentleman's wife, who is the daughter of a late rector of Trinity, and as she has already, before the investigation is begun, shown an inclination to have no connubial reserves with the public, the affair promises to be what the journalists call a rich case. It certainly is a very deplorable one, however it may result to the persons principally interested. It is much to be regretted that the investigation has been announced with such a flourish of trumpets, calling in the wife, who declares herself so much injured, inviting the press, and announcing that the investigation will be held with open doors; and this after a publication almost in minute detail of all the charges brought against the Reverend defendant—at whose own request, by the way, the investigation is set on foot. Investigations like these must needs sometimes take place; but everything should be done to confine a knowledge of them to those who are called upon to take part in them, either as parties, as referees, or as advocates. On the contrary, everything is done to make them as public and as injurious and offensive as possible. In this the press is chiefly culpable. Nothing is gained for justice by such public exhibitions, and much is lost to decency.

Footnotes