5.-Essai sur la langue basque, par François Ribáry, professeur à Puniversité de Pest. Traduit du hongrois, avec des notes com plémentaires et suivi d'une notice bibliographique, par Julien Vinson. Paris, 1877, 8vo, pp. xxv.-158.

THE origin of this little book is somewhat curious. Ribáry is Professor of History, author of a number of historical books, and philologist only in connection with his historical studies. Having read Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte's "Langue Basque et Langues Finnoises" (1862), which establishes analogies between the isolated mountain tongue of the Iberian Peninsula and the branch of languages to which the Hungarian belongs, he studied the Basque in order to verify those conclusions, but arrived at a negative result. He communicated the fruits of his studies in an elaborate essay in two parts, published in 1866, in the leading philological periodical of his country, the Nyelotudományi Közlemények ("Linguistic Reports "). M. Vinson, a scholar devoted to Basque studies, heard of the existence of the Hungarian professor's production, obtained it, and, in order to possess himself of its contents, mastered the entirely unknown language in which it was written; and he now lays it before a wider public in a faithful translation, to which are added a preface, notes, and a large bibliographical index. The original essay embraces a rather brief but interesting introduction, on the relation of the Basque language to others, and a grammar, the bulk of which, owing to the character of the subject, is devoted to the verb. The translator's preface enlarges on the contents of the introduction, and the notes contain both supplementary matter and corrections of statements by the author considered erroneous. Both fully agree in rejecting the Finnic theory, while the translator also speaks dispar agingly of the speculations representing the Basques as the special descendants of the ancient Iberians. Both leave the Basque language in entire isolation, as an idiom sui generis, such as are, according to Ribáry, also the Lesghian, and other tongues of the Caucasus, by some pretended to be of Finnic origin. The latter admits, however, that there are some traits discoverable both in Basque and in the langues of the Caucasians, which point to some early contact with Finnism, the domain of which may have extended in prehistoric times "all over those vast regions bounded by the Finnish Peninsula and the strait of Messina, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Altai Mountains."

6.-The New Republic; or, Culture, Faith, and Philosophy in an English Country-House. New York: Scribner, Armstrong &

IF we were to be told that the first novel of a young Oxford graduate dealt with the deepest social, religious, and political problems; that it had no plot whatever; that its chief characters were Tyndall, Huxley, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, and others under thin disguises; that the action was confined to forty-eight hours in an English country-house by the sea; that the whole aim of the book was to give an accurate reflection of the doubts which serve our generation for beliefs, to exhibit in their nakedness the ideals which we are striving for, and to weigh these in a just balance-if one were to be told these bald facts and no more, the safe inference would he that such a book was an absurdity and its author a madman.

This would be the safe inference of the experienced reader of novels, and it would be based on an almost limitless induction, but like all safe judgments it would except the unusual. The element omitted is the spark of genius.

In Book I. we find a party of friends about to come down to dinner at the country-house of Otho Laurence, a young Englishman of wealth and of high intelligence, who "not being humble enough to despair of himself, was by this time taking to despair of his century." Laurence's old friend Leslie finds him in the library with a pile of menu cards in his hand, on which, indeed, the order of dinner was written, but which held blank spaces to be filled with a menu of the conversation. A company so mixed in its elements required a little judicious guidance to bring out its best points and its personal flavors. "What is the Aim of Life?" was chosen to go with the soup. About what do we know less or talk more? There is a sphinx in each of our souls that is always asking us this riddle; and, when we are lazy or disappointed, we all of us lounge up to her and make languid guesses."

We need a mere glance at the guests who were to enjoy the menu of which the first question was as to the Aim of Life, and on which "The Future" came with the entremets. We have named, already, some of them, disguised here under the name of Mr. Storks (Huxley), Herbert (Ruskin), Luke (Arnold), and others no less well known, who will soon be detected by the ingenious reader. We have types of women most cleverly drawn, in surprisingly few words. These, with Leslie, who is a cynic, which he defines to be "a kind of inverted confessor, perpetually making enemies for the sake of what VOL. CXXVI.-NO. 261.

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he knows to be false," and a disagreeable and talented young materialist who out-Herods Comte and is a chosen Philistine-these, and a few others, make up the tale of the guests. And these incongruous elements suddenly fall a-talking on the Aim of Life.

"The Aim of Life is progress," says the Comtist, and "progress is such improvement as can be verified by statistics, just as education is such knowledge as can be tested by examinations." Could any thing be more delicious than this bit, said, be it remembered, into the ear of Ruskin? Here is another: "Think, too, of that flower of Christian civilization, the innuendo. That is simply the adroit saying under difficulties of what, but for Christianity, every one would have taken for granted." Again, "What is life itself?" . . .

It is hardly necessary to say that no definite conclusions are reached, such as would be of use in a Kindergarten, for example. "The New Republic " is in many ways a modern prose Faust. The same questionings are there, but they are not fierce and wild as with Faust.

"Was man nicht weiss, das eben brauchte man,

Und was man weiss, kann man nicht brauchen."

Here they are such as one may hear from one's next neighbor at dinner, if one chooses to ask. The fierceness of Faust's questions was a hopeful sign, but the apathy of these justifies the melancholy pessimism of our generation.

"The New Republic" is an extraordinary first attempt, and shows nothing of the tyro, except a marvelous freshness and vigor. It seems that few things are too much to expect from the same hand.

7.-Gerrit Smith: a Biography. By OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1878. 12mo, pp. 381.

We have read this book with some amusement; not that there was anything very entertaining in the life and opinions of the antislavery protagonist to whom it is devoted, but because of the extraor dinary difficulty which the author seems to have experienced in making a eulogistic life out of the materials at his hands. Between the lines we can see that Mr. Frothingham is always conscious that to the great mass of readers the traits of character which he recalls and describes will be given quite different names from those which he applies, and he is continually engaged in a struggle with the English language and his own conscience in consequence. There

does not to us seem to be any great difficulty in understanding what sort of a man Gerrit Smith was. A rich landed proprietor, belonging to a family of much local consequence, but of little real prominence except from its wealth; possessed of a good deal of natural ability (the feat of arguing and winning a fugitive-slave case, performed by any one not a lawyer, must be regarded as strong evidence of this), and a great desire to benefit his kind, he, early in life, was placed in a position of such superiority to all his associates and acquaintances, that he developed an unbounded conceit, by means of which he rapidly persuaded himself that, without further preparation, he was qualified to instruct the world on any subject that it was worth while to discuss. This he accordingly proceeded to do during the remainder of his life; and as he was really sincere, and identified himself with a great cause, he ended by persuading a large number of people that he was really a Heaven-sent counselor. But whenever he actually descended to the ordinary fields. of human activity (outside of business affairs, for which he inherited an aptitude), he invariably made confusion worse confounded. Witness his scheme of negro colonization; his career in Congress; his proposal for a national "police," to be composed of the best and most enlightened citizens, as a substitute for the army. Looking over his various professions of faith, there is hardly any conceivable plan for the improvement of the human race, that experience shows to be wildly visionary and impracticable, that did not at one time or other meet his cordial approval. He was in favor of agrarianism, opposed to the whole system of property recognized in Anglo-Saxon countries; he longed for woman-suffrage, believed in the abolition of dram-drinking by law; he maintained that slavery was not recognized by the Constitution of the United States; he insisted on the abolition of custom-houses; his social and political faiths were a bundle of flagrant absurdities. We should have expected a friendly biographer to pass lightly over the eccentricity which induced Mr. Smith to believe himself to be right on all these points, and all the rest of the world wrong; but no, Mr. Frothingham reproduces all his most crazy schemes at length, and even appears to gloat over them, although we do not understand that he considers them to have been practical. A biographer must be filled, of course, with an interest in his subject, but it surely ought not to lead him to the point of making his subject ridiculous.

8.-Creed and Deed. A Series of Discourses. By FELIX ADLER, Ph. D. New York: Published for the Society for Ethical Culture, by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1877. 12mo, pp. iv.-243.

THE lectures contained in this volume have been published at the request of the society before which they were delivered. They treat of a great variety of topics, religious and ethical, and as a whole make up the religious "platform" of the author and the society. This may be summed up in a few words. Dr. Adler is a liberal thinker of great learning and enlightenment, and endowed with a good deal of the fervor which marks the foreordained priest. Liberality, freedom from prejudice, and learning, have all combined in his case, as in so many others, to drive him beyond the fold of recognized religious faiths, and to substitute in his mind, for the commonly professed dogmas, a negative or skeptical attitude as to what are usually considered the most essential and cardinal of religious points. Immortality he can more easily discredit than believe; the efficacy of prayer as commonly understood he cannot admit; the existence of another world of any kind he finds no actual evidence for-we are not attempting to indicate in any more than the most general way his position-and, thus cut off from all sympathy with existing forms of religion, he endeavors to find some new field in which the spirit of man, freed from the superstitions and errors of the past, can evolve a new and true faith. This he finds in morality; in deed as opposed to creed. Morality has, he says, in the past furnished all the solid basis for religion. The rest was mere form, and observance, and rite. Now the time has come to throw these aside, and devote ourselves to the essence, to abandon religion, and cling in the future to morality. There is, it will be seen, a close resemblance if not absolute identity between this view and that taken by Matthew Arnold; and it is expounded with much zeal, and in a very interesting manner, in the present vol

The difficulty with it, of course, is that it substitutes for religion something that to most persons is no substitute at all, because it does not appeal to the same feelings. The suggestion that morality may take the place of religion is founded upon the assumption that the longing for another life, the desire to worship Omnipotent Power, and to obtain remission of sins (to take some of the most elementary religious feelings), has died out in most human minds. But in any minds, so devoided of their religious sentiments, it is clear that morality, whether egotistic morality, founded on the desire for selfimprovement, or philanthropic morality, founded on the desire to benefit our fellow-creatures, cannot take the place of them. The