chances now first sees the light, twenty-six years after the event, when France, after two revolutions, a disastrous foreign war, and a dismemberment of her territory, again has been trembling on the verge of intestine tumult. Napoleon is disgraced and dead, his dynasty brought to an end, his family in exile; and Victor Hugo, exiled by him in 1851, denounces him, over his grave, as a traitor to France. Here, one would think, we have materials enough for public interest, and the book itself is certainly not devoid of it. It is written, as the title indicates, more in the manner of a novel than of history; but the style is not inappropriate to the subject, for all the events recounted are to the last degree sensational. It suffers somewhat from the fact that it comes out in parts. The promise held out in the "Guet-apens" and the "Lutte" will no doubt be amply redeemed in the forthcoming " Massacre," "Victoire," and "Chute," which form the subject of the third and fourth days, and the conclusion.

The mind turns back involuntarily, in reading this French account of the doings of the Man of December and his motley crowd of coconspirators, to Kinglake's English description. Both writers treat the events in a highly-picturesque manner, and Kinglake was under disadvantages of a certain kind in being a foreigner. Yet does not Victor Hugo labor under disadvantages of his own in being a Frenchman? There always arises a feeling in the reader's mind, on meeting with French accounts of French political or revolutionary movements, that they have not the good-fortune to know how singularly their performances would look in the eyes of people accustomed to constitutional government. To an Englishman or American they always present the serious spectacle of a conflict between constitutional aspirations and a natural tendency to the most unconstitutional and irregular political behavior. Hence French politics has always to our eyes a little of the spectacular and dramatic about it, and the drama is never to us more than half serious. Thackeray, in his "Next French Revolution," has admirably burlesqued this aspect of French affairs; but to a Frenchman there is, of course, no burlesque about it. He cannot see why it is amusing that a people who do not know what habeas corpus is, should insist on trial by jury; or why, if they do not understand that the responsibility of officers of government for illegal acts and a free election is an unheard-of thing, they should care very much whether the government is called a republic or a constitutional monarchy. For these reasons intelligent Englishmen, or Americans, are often able to discuss French questions better than

the French themselves, and for this reason we are inclined to think that Kinglake's will, as a history, supersede Victor Hugo's. As a story, the "Histoire d'un Crime" will bear comparison with the author's other works in narrative power, while it has besides the advantage of being true.

9.-The House Beautiful. Essays on Beds and Tables, Stools and Candlesticks. By CLARENCE COOK. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1878. 8vo, pp. 336.

A YEAR or two since the English press, and, if we remember right, our own to a slight extent as well, undertook an investigation of the mysterious relations existing between the manufacturers of pianos and the noble army of pianists. The result of the inquiry seemed to establish the fact that piano-manufacturers had succeeded, by means of the control of concert-halls, and by combinations with managers, in reducing the pianist to a condition not far removed from slavery. He is, it appears, not allowed to play on any instrument he pleases, but is bound to use the pianos of the particular maker who has established his sway over the territory the artist selects for his professional tour. If he is not inclined to use this instrument, he finds it impossible to effect an engagement; and thus the artist, longing to "interpret" his favorite composer-it may even be himself-is forced to pound out the praises of the wellknown manufacturer Smith or Jones. At some concerts we have seen Smith's name conspicuously displayed on a placard hanging on the instrument, giving Smith for the time being far more fame than was allowed to Beethoven, Schumann, or Schubert. It was pointed out, at the time these disclosures were made, that the practice of enslaving pianists, and making them advertising agents, was cruel and corrupt, that it had a tendency to debase art, and was an imposition on the public.

We fear very much that Mr. Cook's book will expose him in some quarters to the charge of trying to establish a relation between authors and venders of domestic furniture, similar to that said to exist between pianists and piano-makers. He has in "The House Beautiful" attempted, as he says, to persuade people to abandon fashion, and pursue the paths of true art and taste in furnishing their houses. In this he is doing his duty as an artist and a citizen; and if he could induce New-Yorkers to carry out this reform, not merely singly, but by whole blocks and streets, he would be entitled to much public grati

tude. But, in his zeal he has, unfortunately, it seems to us, refused to confine himself to general criticism of existing fashions, and to general indications of correct principles of construction and decoration in furniture, and insists on telling us to what stores we should go to purchase the things of the sort he describes, and incidentally indulges in a good deal of praise of all the persons (except himself) concerned in getting up the book which contains the information he is kind enough to give. We are told (p. 16) that the excellence of its woodcuts is due "to the long experience and to the patient skill of Mr. A. W. Drake;" that the good luck of having Mr. Drake's services is due to the excellent management of Scribner's Monthly; that the book "must long be dear to the lovers of art," because it contains "the drawing of Francis Lathrop and the engraving of Henry Marsh;" and (p. 17) that the "cover of the book" is due to Mr. Daniel Cottier; while there is also a complimentary notice of his firm, and of Mr. James S. Inglis, its representative here. On page 54 we learn that we had better buy our carpets of the houses of Morris & Co. and Cottier & Co.; that "William Pollock, carpetmanufacturer, 937 Market Street, Philadelphia, second door below Tenth Street," also turns out a carpet that it is well to have; (p. 33) that Venetian chairs of the "finer kinds" are to be found at "such shops as those of "Sypher or Mr. Hawkins." We have not counted the number of recommendations like these scattered through the book, but they are sufficiently numerous to furnish to an enemy of earnestness and truth in furniture, to one of the ungodly, in short, ground for a charge that the work, while ostensibly designed to further art and taste, is really nothing more nor less than an elaborate puff of "William Pollock, carpet-manufacturer, 937 Market Street, Philadelphia," and the other persons who are mentioned with such favor. We fear that this criticism may suggest itself to captious critics, and therefore we take this opportunity of saying that no one who knows Mr. Cook's reputation would for a moment think him capable of lending himself to such an attempt, and that his energetic praises of the persons referred to merely come from a genuine desire to make their merits known. It is a sad thought that the world is so full of deception and corruption that explanations of this sort are necessary, and it is a proof of Mr. Cook's childlike simplicity that this possible criticism should apparently never even have occurred to him.

With regard to the book we may now say, without violating the reader's sense of propriety, that it is the handsomest of the season;

so;

that it contains many pleasing cuts, and that most of its suggestions are valuable; that those who follow them will find their lives rendered brighter and happier, though perhaps not cheaper, by doing while those who persist in their present course, and go on buying the wrong kind of candlesticks or beds or tables or stools, will live all their lives and finally die in disgusting darkness and ignorance: and we may add that, by the laws governing the inheritance of personal property, their sins will be visited upon their next of kin to the third and fourth generation.

10.-The Book of Gold, and Other Poems. By JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE. With Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1878. Pp. 81.

THIS Collection of verse consists of five poems, three having a moral tendency-one being apparently intended for a satire on social shams and vanities; and one, called "Tom's come Home," one of those nondescript efforts usually put down in household books of poetry either as "Poems of the Affections," or under the head of "Miscellaneous." Mr. Trowbridge is a very popular poet. Without knowing anything about it, we should be willing to wager that more persons have read his poems than have read those of Lowell, Tennyson, and Bryant, combined; and, if popularity be the test, he is more successful than any one of the three. The secret of his popularity is his ability to express in easy verse the common-not to say trite-morality of every-day life. "The Book of Gold," for instance, recounts the reclamation of the gambler from the paths of vice by means of a book containing moral maxims (emphasized by being written in verse, and printed in italics). The author of this book, one Charles Masters by name, is an opium-eater, and dies in great misery, the redeemed gambler only coming in in time to receive his dying words. The moral of all this is, that we ought not to eat opium, or gamble, or, we may add, commit suicide, as the hero of the tale was just about to do when saved by "The Book of Gold." "The Wreck of the Fishing-Boat " is a sea-side story illustrating the wickedness of boys who neglect their father's orders with regard to fishing-boats, and thus involve maritime families in great perils. "The Ballad of Arabella" is one of those familiar pieces of satire indulged in more frequently by newspaper wags than by gnomic poets like Mr. Trowbridge, directed at the supposed habit of fashionable women of wearing enormous quantities of false hair and

false teeth, which at critical periods of their lives come off or out, thus exposing not merely their nakedness, but the hollowness, insincerity, and wickedness of "society." All these poems, except the last, which we protest against in the name of society and woman as a libel, are unobjectionable in sentiment and smooth in versification. They serve a double purpose, for they not only convey moral lessons in a simple and intelligible form to one class of readers, but to another they may afford a good deal of amusement in the thought that there exists any class of readers so infantile in mind as to read them with interest. Nevertheless it is so.

We may not improperly regard the pabulum furnished by Mr. Trowbridge as bearing a certain relation to that provided by Mr. Tupper. It would not be difficult, after becoming well grounded in Tupper, to find a new and keen pleasure in Trowbridge; but the neophyte should beware of reversing the natural order of progress. It would be impossible (we say it with the kindest of feelings to Mr. Tupper), after familiarizing the mind with the thoughts of Mr. Trowbridge, ever to go back to "Proverbial Philosophy." As the welltaught child begins with pot-hooks, and thence proceeds to letters of the alphabet, so should the child of larger growth begin with Tupper and work up to Trowbridge. Higher levels will still be open to him after he has mastered both.

11.-Upper Egypt: Its People and its Products. A Descriptive Account of the Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Occupations of the People of the Nile Valley, the Desert, and the Red Sea Coast, with Sketches of the Natural History and Geology. By C. B. KLUNZINGER, M. D., with a Prefatory Notice by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1878. 8vo, pp. xv.-408.

DR. KLUNZINGER left Europe in 1863 with the special object of making zoological investigations and collections in Egypt, but determined at the same time to study the country and its inhabitants. From 1863 to 1869, and again from 1872 to 1875, he lived at the Upper Egyptian seaport of Koseir, on the Red Sea, as "sanitary or quarantine doctor," under the Egyptian Government, but was also much occupied both on private and official business in the neighboring portion of the Nile Valley corresponding to the ancient Thebaid. As Dr. Schweinfurth says in his preface, "there could hardly be a better way of studying the people than by living among them in this