country and his kind, in view of the fearful laxness of sentiment and practice which prevail among us. It deserves a place in every library, for its exhaustiveness and sobriety.

FAIRBAIRN ON THE TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE.* This book has been so well known for several years both in England and in this country, that we only deem it necessary to call attention to the fact that it is now issued in a fifth edition. The fouth edition was published in 1863, and was very carefully revised and re-written, with a view to recent discussions and views upon the subject of Typology. The present edition is only a reprint of the fourth with very slight changes or improvements.

ASPECTS OF HUMANITY t-WINDFALLS.-The anonymous author of Aspects of Humanity" and Windfalls," is at once gentle and profound in his musings upon Science, Theology, and Human Life. His spirit has been largely moulded by Christianity according to William Penn, and consequently is always refined and thoughtful, while it is in a good sense independent and individual in its movements and products.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL.

MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME, VOL. III §-The interest of this remarkable work deepens with each succeeding volume. The one now before us takes up the history of the great republic at the close of the third Macedonian war in 168, and traces the progress of its external growth and its internal decay for nearly a century, closing with the death of the dictator, Sulla, in 78. It rehearses the extinction of Grecian independence, the destruction of Carthage and Numantia, the reforming and revolutionary career of the Gracchi, the first great aggressive movement of Ger

*The Typology of Scripture, viewed in connection with the whole series of the Divine Dispensations. By PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D. D., Principal and Professor of Divinity, Free Church College, Glasgow. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1870. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. 504-550. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

+ Aspects of Humanity, brokenly mirrored in the over-swelling Current of Human Speech. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.

1869.

Windfalls. By the author of " Aspects of Humanity." Philadelphia: 1870 The History of Rome, by THEODOR MOMMSEN. Translated by Rev. WIL LIAM P. DICKSON, D. D. Volume 1II. New York: Charles Scribner & Co1870. 12mo, pp. x, 571.

manic barbarians (the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones), the tremendous convulsion of the Social War, the bitter and bloody party-struggles under Marius and Sulla, and the short-lived organism of the Sullan constitution. In his estimate of the Gracchi, Mommsen differs from most historians, treating Tiberius as a wellmeaning booby, and showing an evident preference for the unscrupulous but clear-headed and capable Caius. The narrative of the Social war is a marvel of historical construction. The interest and importance of this mighty contest have long been recognized, but the materials for tracing its course are so amazingly scanty, that the historians have generally given it up as an insoluble problem. Mommsen alone has worked it out into a continuous and in

telligible story.

The portraitures of character scattered through the volume are singula ly vivid and intense. We are strongly tempted to quote the description of Mithradates, which sets forth with impressive power the combination of boundless activity, ever-wakeful suspicion, and unrelenting cruelty, in that old sultan of the Orient. But the passage is almost too long for quotation, and we must be content with commending it to the attention of our readers.

THE PRIVALE LIFE OF GALILEO.*-The anonymous author of the Private Life of Galileo has compiled from authentic documents a very valuable sketch of this most remarkable philosopher. It is unpretending and seemingly dry, even to repulsiveness at first, but as the narrative proceeds and the reader is taken up by the details of the story, his imagination is kindled, and the inner and outer life of the great discoverer are recreated before him. The letters from his daughter, in the trivial details which they contain, enable him to understand the life of those times. The sad replies of the father reveal the mortifying humiliations to which he was subjected and expose the horrible nature of the machinations by which he was surrounded. The sentence of the inquisition concerning the doctrine of the motion of the earth, in all the grim solemnity of its asseverations, is an excellent travesty of the approaching declaration of infallibility. It was lucky that only seven caardinals signed this sentence, in their official capacity as inquisitors, and that the wily Jesuits who

*The Private Life of Galileo. Compiled principally from his correspondence and that of his eldest daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, now in the Franciscan Convent of St. Matthew, Arcetri. Boston: Nichols & Noyes. 1870.

moved the process, withheld the Pope from any officicial connection with a declaration which the world now jeers at with a division too complete to admit of scorn.

MISCELLANEOUS.

MR. LOWELL'S "AMONG MY BOOKS." 110 To attain to high eminence both as a poet and a critic, presupposes a rare combination of powers, and has, therefore, seldom been achieved. Johnson is not an instance, since neither as a poet nor as a critic does he maintain the rank accorded to him by his over-admiring contemporaries. Lessing, in Germany, and Coleridge, in England, are the most prominent examples that occur to us, of this double success and felicity. There is now to be added to them the name of our own countryman, the mention of which carries with it pleasant associations to the ear of all cultivated readers of the English tongue. Even beyond the circle of those who read the best poems and the best essays, the name of Mr. Lowell is familiar; for who has not read with delight the Biglow Papers, both those of the earlier and the later series? The volume of Essays before us contains articles on "Dryden," "Witchcraft," "Shakespeare once more," New England two centuries ago," "Lessing," and "Rousseau and the Sentimentalists,"-each of which is a masterpiece in its way. We fancy that most persons who take up the book, without a previous acquaintance with the prose writings of the author, will be first struck with the wide range of his reading, which covers not only the classical works in the literature of the European languages, ancient and modern, but embraces a vast catalogue of works "rare and curious," which would attract the notice of none but an insatiable lover of books. That Mr. Lowell should bring poetic insight and an inexhaustible fund of playful humor to the discussion of literary themes, was to be expected. There is not a page which does not sparkle with bright thoughts and images. What, however, is most worthy of attention in this assemblage of excellent qualities, is the power of philosophical observation, the keen and profound perception of human nature, in its most occult and subtle workings. The Papers on Shakespeare and on Rousseau, are fine illustrations of this most delicate psychological analysis. We are inclined to judge that nothing has been written on Hamlet to equal certain passages in the for

Among my Books. By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, A. M., Professor of BellesLettres in Harvard College. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co., 1870.

mer of these Essays. The type of character which Hamlet represents is unfolded and depicted with admirable acuteness and aptness of phraseology. "Of deliberate energy, he [Hamlet] is not capable; for then the impulse must come from within, and the blade of his analysis is so subtle that it can divide the finest hair of motive 'twixt north and northwest side, leaving him desperate to choose between them." "A critical insight so insatiable that it must turn upon himself, for lack of something else to hew and hack, becomes incapable at last of originating anything except indecision." "Like a musician distrustful of himself, he is forever tuning his instrument, first overstraining this cord a little, and then that, but unable to bring them into unison, or to profit by it if he could." "He is unconscious of his own peculiar qualities, as men of decision commonly are, or they would not be men of decision. When there is a thing to be done, they go straight at it, and for the time there is nothing in the whole universe but themselves and their object. Hamlet, on the other hand, is always studying himself. This world, and the other too, are always present to his mind, and there in the corner is the little blaak kobold of a doubt making mouths at him. He breaks down the bridges before him, not behind him, as a man of action would do."

Mr. Lowell would do an excellent service to all young students (and old ones too), if he would write critical lectures upon the various plays of Shakespeare. His knowledge of the Greek tragedies would qualify him to bring out the Christian elements in the Poet, while his taste, erudition, humor, and exquisite feeling, would disclose riches of meaning in these greatest of modern dramas, such as, but for this aid, would remain concealed from the ordinary reader.

ANTONIA, is the second of the series of George Sand's Select Novels which are now in course of publication by Roberts Brothers. We infer that the publication will include in the series no tales which are not fit to be circulated and read, from the fact that they have appended to Antonia two able critiques upon her writings, in one of which we find all the concessions wh ch should be asked for in respect to those of her works which are neither suitable virginibus puerisque, nor for any person who has not some special calling to collect and examine offensive specimens of morbid anatomy.

* Antonia. A novel. By GEORGE SAND. Translated from the French by Virginia Vaughan. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

"THE NATION."*.-This treatise on the nature and foundations of civil society, is the work of an educated and reflecting man who has devoted a number of years to the conscientious study of the subject. He has called to his aid the best authors in the field, and has carefully pondered their opinions and arguments. It may be that his intercourse with German philosophers has affected unfavorably, in some degree, the sharpness and perspicuity of his style; but it is satisfactory that he has not passed by difficult writers who so well deserve attention. Mr. Mulford discusses the question of the origin of society, in a spirit of opposition to all the empirical and superficial theories which refer social life and organization to causes more or less accidental. He adopts the profounder view that the individual does not exist for himself and that by himself he is incomplete, and that society has thus a necessary and rational ground of existence. A quasi realistic mode of thought pervades the entire work, imparting a certain charm as well as depth to passages, the exact purport of which it might not be always easy to convey in the terms of another philosophy. Mr. Mulford does not confine himself to the region of abstract thought, but he takes up the American political system, and he enters into the subject of the relation of each State to the government of the Union. It will not be practicable for us here to present a full analysis of the author's doctrines, or an account of the arguments on which they rest. We commend the work as the product of an able and thoughtful scholar, and as well worthy to be studied by students of the science of politics. The broad, underlying principles of politcal society are examined by him, in themselves and in their bearing on the problems of American statesmanship. It is not the work of a partisan, but of a scholar and philosopher.

AMERICAN COLLEGES AND THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.-Professor Noah Porter has presented to the public, in this volume, an interesting discussion of many of the questions connected with our colleges which are now largely occupying the American mind. A thorough examination and review of the work-such as it deserves-would require an extended Article. But, though it has

*The Nation: The foundations of civil order and political life in the United States. By E. MULFORD. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1870.

The American Colleges and the American Public. By NOAH PORTER, D. D., Professor in Yale College. New Haven: Charles E. Chatfield & Co. 1870. pp. 235.