lished in California before Stevenson's regiment left New York; of the font of type, bought of the Sandwich Island missionaries, with which the first (or one of the first) California newspaper was printed; of the doubled v's which were made to do duty as w's until such time as "sorts" could be brought to San Francisco from afar; of James King of William, who maintained with his life the right of the press to denounce crime, and whose death by violent hands was the signal for that popular uprising against lawlessness which is known as the Vigilance Committee rule in San Francisco. Journalism cannot afford to leave these events and the story of such men out of its history. We have said enough to indicate the good points and the weak parts of this book. Though slovenly in style, it is seldom dull; prolix in some details, it is crisp and clear in others. Its informing purpose is a capital one; its scope is designed to be broad and generous; if it seems to come short of its aims, the omissions are not fatal to present popularity. But it must be said that a fair examination of its contents forces the conclusion that a trustworthy, judicial, clear, and comprehensive history of journalism in the United States is yet to be written. (Harper & Bros.) "Barriers Burned Away." So much excellence is mingled with the grave faults of Barriers Burned Away (by Rev. E, P. Roe; Dodd and Mead), that the author's next book can be made to improve greatly upon this essay of inexperience. The governing motives of two of the chief characters are analyzed in sustained action, and several of the minor ones individualized with a skill that deserves to be applied to a less commonplace story. And more study should be given to the trouble of fusing the religious element into the work, instead of plastering it over the outside. What the author justly regards as a mysterious power should not be plied as it is for cheap mechanical effects. The hero, in spite of his manly merits, is more undeniably a prig than the circumstances demand, though not more so perhaps than might be expected from the singular defect in taste that attempts to create interest for a personage named Dennis. It is an instance of that want of tone that pervades the novel, betrayed in mistakes of detail as to cultivated life, and a style of conversation alternately ambitious and trivial, which the author needs to correct, if possible, for the sake of bringing into stronger light his lively powers of description and his commendable morality. "Galama." * PERHAPS the brilliant character given by the very nature of his subject to Motley's story, crowded with heroic forms and splendid incidents, has deterred novelists from resorting to a passage in history colored by Galama; or, The Beggars. By J. B. De Liefde. Scribner, Armstrong & Co's "Library of Choice Fiction." the mere recital with a romance beyond the power of their art to heighten. The procession of events attending the rise of the Dutch Republic composes of itself a historical novel. Still it was left for them to depict the fortunes of individuals fluctuating with the mighty struggle, or the control of genius over its changes. Count Egmont furnishes Goethe with the substance for an attractive idealization, after his favorite type, of a character blended from contradictory elements, gallant impulses and generous weaknesses and knightly virtues, yielding to tragical circumstance. A score of personages of the time might be named, each fit to be the center of a romance— dissolute Brederode, and learned St. Aldegonde, and frivolous Leicester, and ferocious De La Marck, with Granvelle, the Flemish Mazarin, and the complete soldier, Parma-even without invoking the grander memories of Alva and Philip and the silent William. The personal story of any of these might be traced in an impressive picture, with the Inquisition for its background and the new ideas of freedom for its atmosphere. But the taste of our day does not approve so bold a touch. We are satisfied with realism in copies from society and prefer to follow the play of motives in everyday situations. It is the novel of inner life that pleases us now, and its analysis may be as effectively applied upon a common subject as upon a high one, and perhaps with more of the sympathy that will gain advantage from seeing others as we should see ourselves. The author of Galama certainly professes no ambitious aim. It is the unpretending story of a Flemish noble of the lower rank, an emissary between William and his chief adherents in the provinces, whose supposed possession of the prince's confidence and of his cipher makes him the object of persistent pursuit and dangerous plots on the part of the Jesuits. The he roine is the daughter of the warden of the bread-market at Brussels, converted into a prison in which Egmont and Van Hoorn are confined just before their execution. The story fills the few years after their tragical death, while the tide of disaster to the prince's arms was running steadily, until its turn upon the capture of the little fortified port of Brill, with which the novel ends. The patriots, proud of the title of Beggars, flung at them first in derision and caught up as a badge, are actors by sea and laud in the various military scenes, which are drawn with spirit. Frisian obstinacy individualizes the character of Galama, as Spanish craft does that of Father Sextus, who pursues his assigned task of gaining and betraying the hero's confidence, until he perishes, with his intrigues all unraveled and defeated, a captive on the vessel he vainly attempts to blow up. The modest plan involves no high personages nor grand events; it avoids the inside of cabinets and the survey of battles, ambuscade, a prison escape, or a sea-chase. to carry us among open-air scenes, enlivened by an A true local coloring is borrowed from such peculiar features of Dutch landscape as the maze of dull canals creep ing past every man's door, the quaking bush-covered morasses bordering the high-roads and the tall dikes barring or undermined by the rush of inundation. There are few glimpses permitted into the luxurious interior life of the Netherlands or the sudden misery of war that overwhelmed it; and the great religious interest of the time is feebly dealt with in diluted controversies between women. Yet it hangs over the whole story like a shadow, and the dumb sense of oppression pervading the great towns is well conveyed. The dissolution of society under steady persecution of free thought and belief, and its rescue and reconstruction through energy and faith, are as distinctly read in the toils and fortunes of the hero and heroine as if they had been more largely and directly described. And the spirit of the time is so successfully evoked as to impress us with a feeling of wonder that the evil in human nature should have flourished so rankly and audaciously only three centuries ago, and to suggest the doubt whether in our own day it is really subdued, or only changed and diffused in its manifestation. WERE it not announced as a translation, there would be very little about this romance to indicate a French origin. It differs in kind, not in degree, from the standard wicked Gallic novel-it contains no character of mere brilliant selfishness or successful clevernessand the spring of action for the heroine, and for him who fills the place of hero at the end which he does not hold at first, is self-sacrificing duty. In both, this sense of duty is a little too tensely strained for reality, none of those occasional lapses being allowed which must occur with the best of human beings. They are rather too perfect-at least the heroine is so drawnto be quite genuine, and this excessive excellence, of course, requires for its due triumph an excess of cruel ingenuity in trial, which real life seldom offers. Making this slight deduction from her superhuman attractions, Fleurange, or the flower of angels,-for that is the synonym of Gabriel, from whom as her patron saint she takes her other name of Gabrielle, being called indifferently by either,-is a very charming personage, candid, strong, and tender. Born in Italy, and educated in a convent by Madre Madelina, who sits for another admirable but overdrawn portrait of impossible excellence, she is left at Paris, the orphan child of an improvident artist. His picture of Cordelia, painted from her face, inspires a Russian noble, Count George von Walden, with a romantic passion. Adopted by her mother's kindred in Germany, she grows up in their accomplished family, meeting there two cousins, Felix and Clement, for both of whom she becomes a destiny. The author soon finds the atmosphere of father-land too prosaic for romance, and changes the scene. Felix, managing the fortunes of the family, involves them in ruin by gaming. A Fleurange; a novel: from the French of Mme. Augustus Craven Holt & Williams. Frenchman would have solved the difficulty by suicide -the practical German only flies the country. Fleurange, unwilling to remain a burden to their poverty, goes again to Italy as a companion for the princess, the mother of Von Walden. The Count, still worshiping his Cordelia, finds the original even more adorable, and the contest between attachment to him and duty to her patroness is delicately and strongly described. She escapes from the intolerable situation to her convent and Madre Madelina again. Her lover meanwhile seeks the excitement of political conspiracies, led into their toils by the crafty Felix, who plots to destroy his rival. The good sense of Madre Madelina refuses to see in Fleurange's grief a "vocation" to the life of a recluse, and she returns to her family, now prospering again, in seeming hopeless separation from her lover. Before long the conspiracy on the accession of the Emperor Nicholas breaks out; Von Walden, involved with Felix in it, is sentenced to death or Siberia. Fleurange, attended by Clement, still devoted and still self-denying, hastens to St. Petersburg, after gaining the princess's consent to a marriage which will exile her for life as a companion and consolation to her husband. Her petition is sent to the Emperor through Vera, a maid of honor, whose marriage with the Count had once been arranged, and who, still passionately in love with him, is yet unwilling to share his banishment. Discovering Fleurange's history, Vera suppresses the petition, and extorts from her the sacrifice of her purpose, by the promise of obtaining the Count's pardon on condition of exile for four years to his own estates, and marriage with Vera. The Count is basely willing, and Fleurange, though ignorant of his ready faithlessness to her, resigns her hope and love for his sake, and returns to Germany, to become, after a due interval of illness and change and growth, the wife of Clement. The story is not so skillfully constructed as to prevent a feeling of disappointment at this dénoûment The exalted nature of Fleurange, while attracting so many passions, seems to place them all in unworthiness at distance from her. She absorbs indeed too completely the interest of the romance, and the care and finish bestowed on her leave the personages about her comparatively weak and sketchy. There is no effort at analysis of motives; every one, in a plain, straightforward fashion, either does his or her duty or does not do it, and the situations are too simple to give any room for hesitation as to what that duty is, or for self-deception in trying to evade it. Where such a doubt might arise, religion is summarily called in to solve it by mere authority, after the Roman Catholic method. Any effects of description either of scenery or manners are rarely tried, and no movement of humor is attempted. The work is very clever closetnovel writing, and it is singular that a story which combines so few of the elements and rejects so many of the usual arts for exciting interest, should yet succeed in gaining the reader's admiring attention to the simple figure of a candid, resolute girl pursuing no other object than that of doing what is right. "Songs from the Old Dramatists."* HERBERT'S verse should be the motto for these selections" a box where sweets compacted lie." Many of these songs are the only things their authors are known by to general readers. And those most familiar with the writings of a period singular in the richness of a dramatic literature which then flowered and ripened once and for all, find renewed delight in these fragments from their favorites, so grouped as to be brought into comparison. It is a pleasure mingled with pity for our own degenerate time. Not more surely are their contemporaries of the South masters in painting than these are the masters, for our language, in song. One asks the question with wonder, Whither have the freshness and pliancy of the English tongue gone? All the labored brilliancy and strained variety of the newest verse is tame beside the aptness and sweetness of this nervous speech. Its thought runs over with vigor, if sometimes coarse,-though full of conceits, they are no riddles of introspection,—and its blunt freedom is manlier than veiled sensuousness that grazes indecency. nice finish of their expression; and though his verses are of rather too delicate a kind to win sudden popularity, they would have been more generally read and liked, had not interest in the stirring events of the time banished literature from the minds of all but its professors. His later passionate war-songs, of course, did not improve his chances of recognition among a people who knew him only as the Tyrtæus of the South, nor had he any reason to complain of this neglect. Judges of poetry could admire their lyric fire and large execution apart from their motive, just as they distinguished between the divine afflatus and the Hebraic savageness blending in Whittier's inspiration. But ordinary readers could not be expected to care just then to hear themselves called, however melodiously, despots and hirelings. Even among his own people his fame proved very barren. Though he was applauded for reversing Cassandra's story, and chanting to believing ears prophecies that never were fulfilled, he reaped only the poet's reward of praise and poverty. The pressure of war in a ruined state accounts for so hard a fortune, with which the common cant about the fate of genius has nothing to do, for Timrod was neither a weakling like Keats, nor a vaurien like Poe. His life, as reflected in these poems and described in the sketch that introduces them, was a wholly pure and manly one. The "Vision of Poesy," the longest work in this volume and the one most resembling a personal record, discloses the limitations of his powers and experience. He kept too much alone in crowds, and, to quote his own confession of the contrast between his endeavor and the poet's true aim, instead of living in Leaving the later age to its changed tastes and ways, it is interesting to trace in their lighter work the distinctive characters of the early great authors. The very limited conditions of song-writing to which they all submit have not effaced individuality. The peculiar traits of each genius still shine in this narrow range. To name only those most easily recognized, Shakespeare's lithe ethereal fancy does not droop when so confined, nor Jonson with all his fullness of strength forget to be a little cramped and pedantic, nor Milton lose in trifles his pure serenity. So the rollicking li cense of Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger's it could be said of him— stateliness, are here in little. The latter unbent less readily than his compeers. In the eighteen plays of his which are preserved, scarcely half a dozen songs occur, and one of these has been fairly likened to Swift's nonsense-stanzas. The song here given is not only the best, but it is the only good one. But to trace the characteristics of each dramatist, as here drawn in miniature, would lead us too far. The book, coming from the Riverside press, is of course a luxury of typography. We only regret that the accomplished illustrator did not shape a clearer finish out of the intentional haziness in which he veils his fine fancies. "The Poems of Henry Timrod." + THE publication of a small volume of Henry Timrod's poems at Boston, about twelve years ago, occasioned no difference of opinion among the critics as to the vigor and purity of his poetic conceptions, or the Songs from the Old Dramatists: Collected and arranged by A. S. Richardson. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1873. + E. J. Hale & Sons, Publishers. "A sympathy that folds all characters, "It was thy own peculiar difference That thou didst seek: nor didst thou care to find So narrow a range of purpose excluded the hope of fame as a great poet, and there were other reasons sufficient to prevent his becoming a well-known one. He wrote nothing to catch the ear of the groundlings. He was completely classic and old-fashioned, in the sense of having studied the best masters, chosen simple themes, and written upon them with severe taste, in unaffected style. He dissects no morbid morals, and apes no mental paroxysms by corresponding verbal contortions. Whatever is subjective in his verse, and there is very little that is so, touches on tender and natural feeling. The poem that strives to be pecu. liarly classical in its narrower sense, "the Arctic Voy. ager," catches something of the tone of Tennyson's Ulysses, but fails in transporting us to the sphere of clear heroism, with all accidents of thought, ancient or modern, falling away. The author is happiest in the careful elaboration of some delicate fancy, linked with pathos, as in "The Mother's Wail," or rising into fainter connections, still firmly held, with wide human interests, as in "The Cotton Boll." Within the limits of its powers, Timrod's genius was so complete and sincere that his usual seriousness does not exclude sportive sentiment and a tender grace of humor. "Baby's Age" and many touches in "Katie" leave the lightest effect of playful delicacy and aptness. His characteristic purity of conception and finish of manner are well illustrated by the sonnets, showing the miniature perfection of a cameo. Timrod was one of the very few Americans who understand the laws that govern both the form and substance of the sonnet, prescribing a rigid rhythmical frame of setting for a single precise idea. Though he was called the poet of the South, the literature of the country has lost in Timrod an artist in verse who wanted only more fortunate circumstances and a longer life to do it honor by the fulfillment of very noble promise. Another Volume of the Bible Commentary. THE second volume of the Bible Commentary, which Messrs. Scribner, Armstrong & Co. have just published, illustrates, even more perfectly than did the first volume, the general plan and scope of the work. Here we have, in the compass of six hundred pages of most readable type, introductions to, and notes upon, the six books of Scripture which immediately follow the Pentateuch. It is evident that for such condensed space the notes must be brief and concise and preeminently practical. There is no room for long discussions of mere speculative criticism. Such discussions, even if there were room for them, would be foreign to the purpose of the work, which is, to give the results of scholarship rather than to show the processes of it. In the names of the learned authors into whose hands the separate books have been committed, there is sufficient assurance that these results will be fairly and ably stated. To give to the readers for whom this Commentary is especially designed the details of exegesis and of argument by which results have been reached, would be like darkening counsel by words without wisdom. The ordinary Bible student, who is to find in his commentary the assistance which he needs to make his Bible intelligible as he uses it in private and domestic worship, or in the Sunday-school or Bible-class or church, has neither the time to spend in wading through the foggy obscurities of German criticism, nor the learning which shall help to make such criticism luminous. A word or two of honest and sensible suggestion, to correct some error of translation, or to explain some point of oriental custom or of ancient history, or to reveal the spirit of the word beneath the letter of it, is far more helpful to such an one. And it is for such an one that this work is especially designed. The historical books with which the present volume of the Commentary is occupied are among the most difficult and obscure of all the books of Holy Scripture. As a natural consequence, they have been some what neglected by the present generation of Bible readers,-partly from an uneasy suspicion that they would not bear a very close scrutiny in matters of chronology, for instance, or of statistics, or even of ethics, and partly for the lack of critical apparatus for such study. This volume will help devout and thoughtful readers of the Bible to see how groundless are their suspicions, and how full of picturesque historic interest and of practical religious suggestion and counsel are even those parts of Scripture which seem comparatively unimportant. "The Foreigner in Far Cathay." MR. W. H. MEDHURST, the consul for the English Government at Shanghai, has given, in a little volume of two hundred pages, his impressions of China and of the Chinese, especially in their relations with the outside world. These impressions are the result of many years' experience and observation, by a most skillful and competent observer. Mr. Medhurst's thorough knowledge of the Chinese language, his fair-mindedness and willingness to recognize what is good in the Chinaman as well as what is evil in the foreigner, his appreciation of the enormous difficulties which attend the work of the merchant, the diplomatist, the missionary, in a country where the habits of thought and the ways of conduct and the very spirit of life are so different from our own, all fit him to speak with authority in the matters whereof he treats. How he has managed to compress his statement of fact and of opinion into so small a space, and to tell so much and to tell it so well in so few words, is really a marvel. His book should be a hand-book for all who for any reason need to inform themselves concerning the relations of the West with the far East. It gives just the kind of practical and varied information which an hour or two of familiar conversation with a good talker would elicit. By a kind of instinct, Mr. Medhurst divines what we desire to know and tells us in a word. Testing the volume by direct personal knowledge, in many points, we have found it singularly accurate. And, testing it by the rapidity and delight with which we have read it, we may pronounce it highly entertaining. The publishers (Scribner, Armstrong & Co.) have done the American public a good service by giving to the volume such prompt and elegant republication. Our own relations with China are increasingly intimate, and such a volume surely concerns us on this side of the Atlantic hardly less than it concerns Mr. Medhurst's own countrymen. A Year's Gleanings in Science. "THAT's worth remembering," we say to ourselves perhaps a dozen times a day, when some suggestive fact in natural history, some important discovery in science, some hint of a handy device or useful direction for one of the ever-recurring needs of daily life, turns up in our daily reading. But memory takes slight hold of these fugitive gleams and waymarks of advancing civilization; it is seldom convenient to make on the spot a note of what we want to keep; and we think no more of the matter until, some day when it is needed, there flashes across the mind the tantalizing recollection that somewhere we have seen the very thing we want-but where? For all such vagrant cattle Dr. J. C. Draper has per. formed the part of impounder (Year-Book of Nature and Popular Science: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.), gathering up the more important discoveries, observations, opinions, and suggestions of general interest set adrift during the past year, and preserving them for reference in a handy volume, carefully classified and indexed. In this last much-neglected virtue, indispensable in good book-making, Dr. Draper's work is a model. The analysis of the contents and their tabular arrangement suffice in themselves to make the book a positive contribution to applied science. The editor disclaims any responsibility for opinions not expressly acknowledged as his own: still the fact that each article has been deliberately chosen on its merits by a competent man of science, naturally gives them, individually and collectively, a trustworthiness far surpassing similar selections by less critical collectors. To the readers of our monthly record of Nature and Science we need only say that the Year-Book embraces the notes which Dr. Draper has already laid before them, with much additional matter of a similar quality. Early Photography. UNIVERSITY NEW YORK, MARCH 6, 1873. To the Editor of SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY :- thor, Mr. Lossing, states, that "the first photograph ever taken in America was that of the tower of the Church of the Messiah, on Broadway," by Professor Morse; and further, that, experimenting with me, he succeeded in obtaining likenesses of the human face; my part of the invention "was that of shortening the process, and being the first to take portraits with the eyes open." Will you oblige me by permitting me to say, that the view of the church here referred to was taken by myself, from the window of my lecture-room, which is now the small chapel in the University? The building of the New York Hotel subsequently obstructed this view. It was by no means the first photograph that had been made in America, for I had made others previously. As to the photographic portrait from the life, it was I who took the first, and that not merely in America. At that time photographic portraiture was considered in Europe to be an impracticable thing, and when the difficulties were overcome, the credit of the success was given to me (See Edinburgh Review, Jan., 1843, p. 339). Professor Morse never made a photograph until he had learned the art in my laboratory, in which at that time he spent every evening. I had been publishing papers in the scientific journals on the chemical action of light for many years. Professor Morse never made any pretension to a knowledge of chemistry or optics. His life had been spent in the study of art, not in the severe discipline of science. I think it is to be deeply regretted, that any well-meaning but indiscreet friends should put forth claims on his behalf that can never be sustained. He was not the inventor of photographic portraiture. Yours truly, JOHN W. DRAper. 1 Elevation of River Beds. NATURE AND SCIENCE. IN a report on the supply of water to Yonkers, Professor Newberry says: Before any plan is adopted for supplying the city of Yonkers with water, I would strongly recommend that a thorough exploration be made of the materials which occupy the bottom of the rocky valley of the Nepperhan, and underlie, perhaps, very deeply the present stream. It is probably known to you that most of the draining streams of all the region between the Mississippi and the Atlantic are now running far above their ancient beds. This fact was first revealed to me by the borings made for oil in the valleys of the tributaries of the Ohio. All these streams were found to be flowing in valleys, once deeply excavated, but now partially filled and in some instances almost obliterated. Further investigation showed that the same was true of the draining streams of New York and the Atlantic slope. For example, the valley of the Mohawk for a large part of its course is filled with sand and gravel to the depth of over two hundred feet. In the Hudson the water surface stands now probably five hundred feet above its ancient level-the old mouth of the Hudson and the channel which leads to it being distinctly traceable on the bottom nearly eighty miles south and east of New York. The excavation of these deep channels could only have been effected when the continent was much higher than now. Subsequently it was depressed so far that the ocean waters stood on the Atlantic coast from one hundred to five hundred feet higher than they now do. During this period of submergence the blue clays in the valley of the Hudson-the "Champlain clays' '—were deposited, and the valleys of all the streams were more or less filled. |