which should read "Down slides a silver cascade" etc., and "Th' Errors nursed in Ignorance's dominions," p. 49,

which requires an ictus on the last syllable of "Ignorance," and "There Love folds on his bloodless breast," p. 64,

where the little word "on" has far to much laid upon it (compare "Where she saw," p. 101) and " Each cloud," p. 63, and the two lines,

"Runs to a field of luminous em'rald,

Broidered with more 'long fringe of crimson fire," p. 68.

There are some obvious typographical errors, as on p. 42, “with sweet nectar," p. 70 "the musings sweet," and p. 94 "It is" (for Is it?). We ought not to notice the blemishes of a book of so much merit, without an instance or two of its beauties:

"From one great oak a mighty vine

Leaps to yon ledge of frosted ferns;

Below, beside a whispering pine,

A maple's scarlet turret burns." p. 115, "Autumn Picture."

“Like silvered raven-down, the dark

Kept floating through the hawthorn lane,

And still the fire-fly's lustrous spark

Fell on the dusk like amber rain." p. 92, "In the Lane."

The pure and reverent religious feeling throughout the book, cropping out in exquisite passages of description, is beyond all praise. There are allusions which indicate that the author has resided in the West as well as at the East. He has been a rector of Episcopal churches at Davenport, Iowa, and Chicago, and is now in the ministry of his denomination at Bridgeport, Conn.

THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES.*-Although profounder students of Greek tragedy recognize in the dramas of Æschylus and Sophocles, a grander, loftier character than can be claimed by those which bear the name of Euripides, so that the latter is always mentioned the last, et magno intervallo, in the great trio; yet there are respects in which the younger poet far surpasses his great rivals. The pathetic quality which distinguishes Euripides is wholly wanting in Eschylus and Sophocles, and it is this very pathos, so familiar a motive in all modern literature, which has always made Euripides a favorite. This quality brings him near to our modern

* The Medea of Euripides, with Notes and an Introduction; by FREDERIC D. ALLEN, Ph.D., Professor in the University of Cincinnati. Boston: Ginn & Heath. Printed at the Riverside Press. 1877.

world-indeed, you hardly feel at times, in reading Euripides, that you have in your hands an ancient writer-while the simplicity of his style makes his tragedies especially suitable to serve as the introduction for the young student to the study of Greek tragedy in general. Heretofore the only play of Euripides specially prepared for our students has been President Woolsey's Alcestis; hence the appearance, at this time, of the Medea, by general consent Euripides' masterpiece, is most timely. Professor Allen, the editor, is recognized by all who know him as one of the most competent Greek scholars in the country. His Introduction, Notes, and Appendices supply everything which is needed for the thorough study of this great tragedy, and the conciseness and pointedness of his work is as commendable as its learning and exactness. Nowhere is there any evading of difficult passages, but the difficulties are clearly stated, and receive, where explanation is possible, a masterly explanation. The mechanical execution of the book calls for special mention. There has been manifest in our country during the last few years a great improvement in the get-up of classical text-books, and this volume will bear comparison with the best specimens of books of a similar class sent forth from the Clarendon Press. We have never seen, in a Greek text-book, a more beautiful printed page.

· VAN LAUN'S HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE.*-We have not space at command to give any adequate account of this brilliant work of Mr. Van Laun. We hope to do so at some future time. For the present, we can only transfer to our pages a single paragraph, as an illustration of the graphic and forcible style which characterizes his generalizations on the different epochs of French literature. He thus introduces the period of the "Renaissance."

"Imagine that you exist upon a platform in space, supported you know not how, limited you know not where; that round about you in the firmament of heaven are whirled the sun and moon, the innumerable stars; that somewhere beneath your feet burns the malebolge of the wicked, and somewhere above your head stands the paradise of the saints.

You have taken all this for granted upon the faith of your father's words; you have had it confirmed from the pulpit, and in the lecture room; you have found its sanction in the Bible. You no more think of questioning it than of doubting

* History of French Literature. By HENRI VAN LAUN. Vol. I. From its origin to the Renaissance. Vol. II. From the Classical Renaissance until the end of the New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1877. 8vo. pp. 392.

reign of Louis XIV.

those other irrefragable facts, that the blood rests in your veins like the wine in a bottle, that the winds blow 'where they list,' without law or explanation, that every weight falls 'downward,' and that to question any of these unquestionable facts would be a grevious offense against the God who made you. And now suppose that you are suddenly made aware, by incontestable proofs and confirmations, that the belief of your life has been false; that from your youth upwards you have been living in gross darkness, and accepting 'a vain thing fondly imagined.' Suppose that a new teacher-a dozen new teachers-arise, who convince you by an altogether novel process of argument, by an appeal to faculties which you had scarcely yet ventured to exercise, and which you now exercise almost against your will, that the world whereon you live is not flat but round; not fixed but moving, and moving with a double motion round an axis, and round a point; moving at a pace which makes you giddy to contemplate it, and which can never be appreciated or illustrated by any process within our mental grasp. Suppose yourself forced to admit that the unquestionableness of these new and stupendous facts is of an entirely different kind from the unquestionableness of your previous faith, no more absolute in its degree, but beyond the reach of uncertainty in its character. Suppose, again, that you are informed of other worlds of men existing on the earth which you had imagined to be parcelled out between yourself and your neighbors; that you speak with travellers who have been there, and who describe to you these new discovered races-their manners, their appearance, their civilizations-and that, in short, you begin to realize how different are the maps of heaven and earth from those which you had been wont to keep before your eyes. And finally, suppose that, contemplating all these, and a score of facts besides, foremost amongst them the discovery of a process by which the copies of a book may be multiplied indefinitely, thus assuring at once the preservation and wider dissemination of sacred and profane knowledge-you are astounded at the grandeur, the richness, the promise of the vista opened before you; you perceive your duty to God, to the Church, to humanity in a new light; you rebel against your former ignorance, and against those to whom you conceive it to have been due. A vast change comes over you, for which you are at a loss to account; but presently the explanation is discovered, you have ceased to be content with deductions from the mind to the senses, but require your mind to interpret your senses. You are no longer before all things a votary of faith, but admit yourself to be a convert of reason.

Enter into the spirit of this contrast between your first and your last condition, perceive the full nature and extent of your advance, and then tell us the result. Is it not a revolution, a reconception, a renaissance? In the sixteenth century men found themselves in this predicament."

DANIEL DERONDA.*-The great work which, after the publication of Middlemarch it was predicted George Eliot would give to the world within a few years and for which the reading public of two countries waited with a keenness of anticipation second only to the interest excited by the famous " Waverly " novels in their

2 volumes, 12mo. Cloth, $3.00.

*Daniel Deronda; by GEORGE ELIOT. Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, New York.

day, has, it must be confessed, fallen considerably short of the hopes entertained, and defeated the expectations of those who looked to see in it a work of the highest genius.

We cannot but feel that even the most partial critic, and one who judged the novel from what is perhaps the author's own standpoint, would be forced to acknowledge it a disappointment, at least, if not a failure.

Of what consists the design of the work; the animus, so to speak, of the whole plot? There is an evident attempt to paint a halo of romance round the prosaic head of the modernized Jew, and clothe him with attributes supposed to be the outgrowth of institutions and influences peculiar to the Israelitish race. Characteristics which are presented for our study in the person of an idealized watch-maker, with a hacking cough, much given to didactic forms of discourse.

So far as our limited experience enables us to judge, the Jew of to-day encounters at the hands of his fellow members of society pretty much the same sort of treatment as that which meets the ordinary Christian. In the best Gentile circles, at least, the good old custom of dipping in molten lead the recalcitrant Hebrew, or pulling out his nails by the roots, no longer obtains; while even the prejudice of regarding him as one of the forever to-be-damned, is, we are inclined to believe, obsolescent if not obsolete. It is, indeed, no uncommon thing for him to marry and give in marriage with his Christian friends; so that an attempt to arouse in his behalf sympathy for an imaginary social ostracism runs a risk of ending in flatness.

As regards our novel, where finally does all our interest and sympathy centre? With Deronda in his projected plan for the reorganization of Jewry on a new basis; or with poor neglected Gwendolen, so childlike in her submissiveness to awakening conscience, so charming for the very faults which at first incline us to detest? As for Deronda-out upon him!—he approaches perilously near to the prig, and when he sets sail with his Mirah the reader's interest in his prospects grows lukewarm and turns back to linger fondly with the once willful but now neglected beauty, caring but little whether Daniel turns prophet or peddler, startles Jewry or starts a junk-shop.

Gwendolen's selfishness, the feature in her disposition at first so prominently displayed, carries with it all the excuse accorded to a petted child's naïve egotism and quite charms one by its inno

cent naturalness. The portrayal of this ascendant trait of our heroine's youth is simply delicious. We know of one man, who, reading that passage in which the lazy beauty is described as declining to stir from her warm bed to get the medicine for her sick mother, grew enthusiastic over the naturalness of Gwendolen's refusal and fairly exulted in what he termed her "glorious selfishness."

We recollect a book notice, which appeared in the Nation a few weeks after the story began to be published in this country, likening the heroine to Rosamond Vincy, one of the famous Middlemarch characters. But as the plot was carried out Gwendolen's nature bore far more resemblance to the innocent egotism of Esther, in "Felix Holt," than to the heartless obstinacy of Rosamond. Indeed, between these two the likeness was much more striking, and even under the influences which are made to effect radical changes in their characters the two follow out parallel lines of development. Both Esther and Gwendolen display at first a sort of selfishness coming from no inherent meanness of disposition, but arising more from force of circumstances. Always yielded to and provided for, they have become used to thinking for none but themselves, and the world of their maiden thoughts and aspirations grows more and more warped and self-centering till the mighty love for a stronger, nobler, but perhaps not potentially better nature than theirs, has shattered this wall of selfishness and given rise to motives and aspirations the very existence of which they never dreamed of while yet the nobler instincts lay dormant.

Of these two Gwendolen appears at the last the more charming, perhaps for the very reason that at first we see this egotism to predominate to such a degree that the change, when the spirit of thoughtfulness for others comes over her, is the more captivating and complete. Nor, indeed, is she wholly to blame for having fallen into this habit of thinking solely for herself. The attendant circumstances of her position as the only brilliant and attractive one of a family of unattractive daughters has naturally induced this result. "Always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have her breakfast-roll made of the finest bolted flour from the seven thin ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver fork kept out of the baggage." And this active though thoughtless selfishness is apparently what our heroine most prides herself on. If people are miserable it is she who ought to complain of the sombre reflections which their