Tregelles, Ellicott; and while the traditional learning of her universities has always been respectable and in some periods masterly, she is now doing for elementary as well as advanced education, what she has never done before, by the publication of the Arnold Series in London, the Clarendon Series at Oxford, which, being resolved to preclude the opposition and clamor of physical scholars, embraces the material sciences as well as letters and modern languages along with the classic tongues, the Catena Classicorum by Cambridge and Oxford scholars conjointly, and the Grammar School Classics, all of which are intended for younger students; while, for higher culture, some of the volumes of the Bibliotheca Classica, Plato by Mr. Riddell and by Dr. Campbell, Lucretius by Mr. Munro, Plautus by Mr. Wagner, Juvenal by Mr. Mayor, and Catullus by Mr. Ellis, are specimens of the most learned and subtile scholarship of modern times. And the recent production among us of such philological works as Professor Whitney's Lectures on Language and his German Grammar; Professor March's Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon; the translation and adaptation of Dr. Freund's Latin Lexicon, which has been republished in England by Dr. William Smith, and again by White and Riddle, and so constitutes the best Latin lexicon for the British universities; our other grammatical and lexicographical works mentioned above, the critical and generous manner in which the new generation of our scholars are doing their work, the frequency with which they superadd the advantages of the English and especially of the German universities to their advantages of education at home, - all this goes to show that our Republic is not falling behind in these great, ennobling, spiritual studies as we may well style them, but is now advancing to a position she never reached before. And we confidently believe, from what has been already accomplished in these studies here and abroad of late years, amid discussions in regard to higher education and amid violent and determined opposition to the classics, that the Greek and Latin languages and their literatures and all connected studies are destined to be pursued, not so exclusively indeed, we ourselves deprecate that, but along with physical science, and so more wisely, but no less thoroughly and extensively than hitherto, and from the advantage already gained, with richer and better fruit than ever. Our relation to, and dependence on, the most perfect civilizations that have preceded us, those of Greece and Rome, are coming to be understood better and better; the study of Greek and Latin, so far from being superseded after whatever trials have been made, still proves, as it has proved for ages, the best means for gaining a mastery of the principles of language, and the best guide towards perfection in the forms of literature; the nomenclature of all science, whether physical or metaphysical, in all living languages, is borrowed from these tongues; in one of them is embodied the last and highest revelation to mankind, and the other contains the most venerable translation and interpretation of the earlier revelation, while the sacred original of that earlier revelation has been most adequately studied and illustrated by Greek and Latin scholars; and finally, to show the utility of these studies even to the student of material things, what is put by way of assumption in one of the papers of this volume, that, namely, if two students of equal capacity were put on a course of study for some years, one pursuing modern languages and physical science exclusively, the other in addition thereto studying the classics, the classical student would at the end of the course be the better proficient also in the modern tongues and in science, this has proved true in the actual experience of many teachers, as is well shown us by Dr. Taylor in his interesting and valuable Introduction. Holding, as we do, that most of the great masters of antiquity are as admirable for their matter as their manner, we regard the study of them, when properly pursued, as tending to make good men as well as elegant scholars; and we here enter our solemn protest against any view of education that does not aim to make the pupil both learned and virtuous. We ask, amid the great dangers that have encompassed and are still encompassing our Republic, that our notion of knowledge, like Plato's eorun and Cicero's scientia, may include the honest practice of the same. And in asking this, we are only urging a view well set forth in one of the discourses of this volume, Professor Campbell's Address at the opening of the United College in the University of St. Andrews in 1868. His wise and timely words are: "There can be no sound theory of education in which any element of humanity is lost sight of. And university education is only a stage in that larger scheme of progress which for the individual extends over the whole of life, and for the community embraces the welfare of every class. In that scheme it has an appropriate place and work; but this separate function is vitally related to the whole, from which no part can be isolated without losing use and meaning; and therefore, although the object of our meeting here is chiefly and directly an intellectual one, whether this be regarded as the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge, or the promotion of mental culture, yet this purely intellectual aim, noble in itself, cannot have free course unless it is animated by a still greater purpose, the formation and growth of character, the knowledge of self, the diffusion of right principles of action in private and in public." 3.- Poems. By BRET HARTE. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1871. 12mo. pp. 152. OUR first acquaintance with Mr. Harte was through the "Idyll of Red Gulch," which was floated to us one morning among the driftweeds of the newspaper. We found a new and singular interest in it, a power and pathos (and those worked up from the simplest material), that moved us deeply, and above all we were conscious of that most delightful of all literary sensations, a new flavor. Here was our Theocritus at last, and from California, whence we least expected him. Our experiment in this instance had been so satisfactory, that we at once proceeded to read Mr. Harte's volume of prose. We found it unequal, it is true, but there were in it unmistakable evidences of original power. Mr. Harte had divined the poem that lay hidden in that wonderful border life, Homeric in its simple savagery, in its emphasis of the manlier qualities. It was plain, too, that here was a humorist of no mean quality, perhaps the first who had pushed to its utmost allowable limits that contempt for all received conventions which is the leading characteristic (as it is also the danger) of the purely American type of the humorous. In the volume before us we meet Mr. Harte as a professed poet, and it amply justifies his title to the name. There is hardly a page where we do not find some new evidence of his sensibility to what is picturesque in character or scenery. "For seven months had the wasted plain Known no moisture of dew or rain, The wells were empty and choked with sand; Only the sea-fogs, to and fro, Slipped like ghosts of the streams below. Even amid his humor there is a gleam of the poetic eye now and then : "Ai! for the fleecy flocks, the meek-nosed, the passionless faces." But what we value even more highly is the power of suggesting a whole character through its own unconscious self-revelation, as in the striking bit of moral and physical scenery, "Dow's Flat." "Cicely," in its quaint way, is full of poetry, and might be taken as typical of the author, who seems to have found his poetry by accident, as it were, in the motley life around him, and to have hardly known how to save it from his own relentless humor. We could wish indeed that Mr. Harte had sometimes shown more respect for a gift so eminent in many ways as his. Some of the pieces here collected are of a flimsy texture when compared with his best work, and we find ourselves a little impatient, now and then, with the Mrs. Gampian ambages. But we do not care to haggle with one who so often unexpectedly touches us with something more abiding than any superficial emotion. Mr. Harte has a feeling for what is noble in character, and a faith in the final perseverance of humanity under the most adverse circumstances, which endear him to us, and which we should like to call essentially American, the best outcome of democracy. Not less noteworthy is his admirable good sense, shown in such pieces as "Plain Language from Truthful James," which, with a deadly thrust of humor, gave the coup de grace to the barbarian cant on the Chinese question. 4. The Commercial Laws of the States. New York: Office of the Bankers' Magazine. 1870. "Or making many books, saith Solomon, there is no end; which is to be understood of such books as are written without an end." We are reminded of this saying of Lord Coke by the increasing mass of quasi-legal literature to which this work is the latest addition. Why such a book is produced is a mystery; why it is bought passes all understanding; yet still it comes. “The Commercial Law of the States" is a large subject to be treated so briefly; especially as the compiler includes under this head divers excellent points of learning as to dower, probate, competency of witnesses, practice of courts, and other things indispensable to every commercial man. Space is gained for these, however, by leaving out most of the subjects which belong strictly to commercial law. We look in vain for any information as to ships, carriers, bills of lading, etc., and the laws of the United States are ignored utterly. As a specimen of the accuracy of the work, we will take the six pages devoted to Massachusetts. An account is given of the State insolvent laws, which are all superseded by the United States Bankrupt Act of 1867. There is a summary of the usury laws. On turning the page, the reader finds that they are repealed. The damages on foreign bills are stated as they were seven years ago, not as they are now. It is said that one witness is necessary to a deed. In fact none are needed. It is said that an affidavit of merits is required in civil actions. This is done away with by a late statute. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is wrongly stated. Of its terms two totally different accounts are given. The Court of Common Pleas is abolished, and the long account of its terms is therefore useless. The Police Court of Suffolk is not merged in the Superior Court. We will now take a few instances at random from other States. It seems that polygamy is lawful in California. "On the death of the husband, one half of the common property shall go to the surviving wife." How if two or more survive? In Georgia, "the remedy by ca. sa. is abolished as an incident of St." Whether this abbreviation denote Saint, Street, or Statute, the sentence is equally obscure. In Texas we have "STAY LAWS. There is no stay law in force in Texas now." We should admire this terse and epigrammatic statement of the law, were the idea not stolen from the Natural History of Pontoppidan, whose famous chapter on the snakes of Norway runs thus: "There are no snakes in Norway." If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, this book is most dangerous, not to say incendiary. But when that little is, as here, mixed up past distinction with a vast amount of ignorance, we know not what epithet to apply to the compound. Our advice to lawyers, merchants, and booksellers is, if this be commercial law, make the most of it. 5. - Suburban Sketches. By WILLIAM D. HOWELLS. New York: Hurd and Houghton. 1871. 12mo. pp. 234. MR. IIOWELLS's new volume will confirm and extend the fame he had already acquired by the singular delicacy of his genius, and the respect which he shows for it in the fastidious purity of his style. It is wonderfully easy reading, because it is graded with such consummate skill. But there is profound feeling here, and humor so subtile, so evanescent, that it suggests itself by indirections, as it were, and dominates all our associations like a faint perfume that is and is not, and yet possesses us wholly with its indefinable charm. These are poems, we say to ourselves, and wonder where the rhyme is which yet we do not miss. Yes, truly, these are poems, if the supreme gift of the poet be to rim the trivial things of our ordinary and prosaic experience with an ideal light. Here is something of that gracious ease of Chaucer, which cost him so much pains. In "Mrs. Johnson " and "My Doorstep Acquaintance" we have studies of character that remind us of those etchings of the old masters that seem so careless, but which, the more we study them the more they persuade us of patient observation and training, and tease the imagination with those hints of power "where more is meant than meets the eye." There is |