prose, has, according to this manual, become poetry. DeQuincey is said to belong to the Lake School, though it has been heretofore understood that Lake School was the designation of a school of poets, and not of prose writers. In the account of coffeehouses, Dryden is represented as seated in the chair by the fireside, and surrounded by "such men as Wycherley, Gay, Addison and others of the wits of the time." As Dryden died in 1700, and Gay was born in 1688, the latter must have been an exceedingly precocious youth. But errors of this sort, and of all sorts, are so numerous, that the mind is embarrassed in selection by the very abundance.

A happy equilibrium has, however, been preserved between the sins of commission and those of omission. One of the leading, if not the leading author of the Old English Period, Robert of Gloucester, is not mentioned at all. Of later writers there is no account of Shirley, Webster, and Massinger among the dramatists, not to speak of numerous others; nor later still, of Sir Thomas Browne, of Robert Herrick, or Andrew Marvell. It may be said there was no room for all. But, then, why insert accounts of authors inferior to these both in ability and in reputation, especially when the names of some of those omitted appear in other parts of the work? Still, pardoning all this, what are we to think of an account of later English literature, which puts in Poe and leaves out Keats? We echo the question of Matthew Arnold, From what race of Hyrcanian tigers did our author spring?

It is in no spirit of unkindness that we tell the compiler of this manual that it will never do. Text-books, above all, should be accurate, and it would not only be unfair to the public, but it would in the end be no advantage to the author himself to speak of this in any other manner than it deserves. A trustworthy account of English Literature can never be produced except at the price of long years of toilsome research and careful thought; and the smaller the scale the more difficult will it be to execute it well. The time has gone by, if it ever existed, when text-books of this kind could be pitch-forked together, as this has been, at the cost of a few weeks or months of labor. We commend to the author the following extract from his own work, which may be taken as a fair sample of his style, and upon which no comment is needed:

"The march of intelligence in the United States during this period has never been paralleled, and could hardly have been conceived by the wisest of any previous century. This remarkable increase of intelligence has caused a notable increase in the number of readers, and in the average knowledge of the people in France, England, and the United States during the present period. There has also been an increase of the number of thinkers in these lands, but the latter class by no means increases in an equal ratio with the former. It is necessary to bear this fact constantly in mind as we scrutinize the development of our age in literary affairs."

There is included in this manual a bibliography of the "best editions" of English authors. No more need be said of it than that it is a fitting companion-piece to the account of the literature. It will be a very safe guide. however, wherever only one edition of a work has been published.

MANUALS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. A sufficiently copious, accurate, and well-digested history of the great empires of antiquity, anterior to Greece, which shall also include what is known of the Sanscrit-speaking Hindoos, has long been a desideratum of the student. In German, there is the learned work of Duncker, in which are summed up, with clearness and fairness, the results of scholarly investigation in this broad field of oriental reseach. The course of ancient history is distinctly traced by this Author, so that the student has before him the condensed products of modern study in this department, to the different branches of which so many zealous students have been, of late, devoted. In English, we have no work corresponding in merit to Duncker; none to rival it in critical ability or in judgment or erudition; although all of his conclusions are, by no means, to be admitted, especially when he treats of Hebrew history. Smith's Ancient History is a work of considerable value. Rawlinson's "Five Great Monarchies" is one of the more recent fruits of English scholarship; and now we have from Rawlinson a briefer "Manual of Ancient History," extending from the earliest times to the division of the Roman Empire. It is based, as to plan, upon the meritorious work of

A Manual of Ancient History. From the earliest times to the fall of the Western Empire. By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M. M., Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford. Oxford: 1869. 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 568.

A Manual of the Ancient History of the East to the Commencement of the Median Wars. By FRANCOIS L'ENORMANT, sub-librarian of the Imperial Institute of France, and E. CHEVALLIER, member of the Royal Asiatic Society, London. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1870. 2 vols. pp. 395.

Heeren. Its bibliographical information is valuable to the student; but here we notice striking defects. For example, there is no mention of Duncker, so far as we have observed; and from a passage respecting Heeren, in the preface, we should conclude that Duncker is unknown to the Author. The chief defect of the work is the failure to distinguish, in Egyptian and Assyrian history in particular, between what is established and what is disputed or fairly disputable. A writer in the July number of the Edinburgh Review has taken Rawlinson to task for his inaccurac es, but has pushed his charges somewhat beyond the bounds of justice; or, rather, writes from the stand-point of an extreme historical skepticism. At the same time it is to be regretted that Rawlinson does not bring a more accurate criticism to those portions of ancient history which most of all require this treatment. The work of L'Enormant and Chevallier is full, readable, and probably, in the main, trustworthy; yet not free from the fault just pointed out in Rawlinson. In the English translation of L'Enormant, the Arabians are left out, on account of objections to this portion of the work which proceed from the school of Rawlinson. This, we think, was unwise. It leaves the book incomplete. The type in which the American edition of L'Enormant is printed is inconveniently and inexcusably small.

THE LIFE OF ARTHUR TAPPAN.* This is "a round unvarnish'd tale" of the life of " one who feared God and eschewed evil." It does not praise, for in such a life deeds only are eloquent. Arthur Tappan belonged to a class of simple-hearted, selfcentered men, who do not seek reputation but seek to do right at whatever cost. We have entered into the fruits of his labors, who were perhaps not always ready to recognize his worth. The subsoil plough that has ripped open the hard earth and made possible the precious harvest, is too often cast aside and forgot. The story of his life is familiar to all, certainly in this region. Its details are few, but in the view of late events and of truth, truly grand. The sum of his gifts to philanthropic objects is modestly told by one who knew best; and to him belongs the praise, in the words of Gerrit Smith, of being the first man in this country "to make use of money in large sums for benevolent objects." And he was first in many good things. He was president of the Amer

*The Life of Arthur Tappan. New York: Hurd & Houghton. Cambridge: Riverside Press.

1870.

ican Anti-Slavery Society; he helped found the Colonization Society (which he was first to leave when he thought it left first principles), the Bible Society, the Tract Society, the American Education Society, Oberlin College, the N. Y. Journal of Commerce, and other good things, which, though they have not all followed precisely in the direction which he gave them, have been great powers in the country and the world. His gifts during the years of his business prosperity flowed like fructifying streams in all directions, often with a noiseless flow, making glad but concealing their source. The great lesson of his life was courage to do right whatever the consequences. The clear grit of the man was told in the short answer he gave to his business friends who were solicitous to aid him out of his heavy pecuniary difficulties. "You demand that I shall cease my anti-slavery labors, give up my connection with the anti-slavery society, and make some apology and recantation-I will be hung first!" Those who have seen him in his later years as a courteous and gentle old man, reticent and grave it is true, but living tranquilly in the shade of an affectionate home circle, shrinking from notoriety, and evidently dwelling in daily communion with God and higher thoughts, could hardly believe that this was he who was branded and mobbed, who was despised and hated, who sacrificed fortune and had a price set on his head, in the days of anti-slavery agitation.

The narrative of his early days, and of the quaint and rigid manners of old Puritan society, as well as glimpses of later years, through the sketches of his daughter, are highly interesting. Letters of Whittier, Schuyler Colfax, and William Lloyd Garrison, especially the last (on p. 399), are valuable additions, and speak well for the writers.

THE COUP d'ETAT OF NAPOLEON III.* M. Tenot has written what seems a trustworthy narrative of the events attending that usurpation of power on the part Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, which had the effect to stifle freedom in France for the last twenty years, and to inflict an injury upon the intellectual and moral life of the French people, for which no amount of material prosperity can compensate. Now that the career of the successful adventurer

* Paris in December, 1851, or The Coup d'Etat of Napoleon III. By Eugêne Tenot, Editor of the "Siécle," &c. Translated from the 13th French edition, with many original notes, by S. W. ADAMS and A. H. BRANDON. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1870. 8vo. pp. 350.

who has ruled France for almost a generation, has been brought to a stop by the war which he precipitately kindled, a fresh curiosity is awakened in regard to the steps of perfidy and cruelty by which he attained his elevation. M. Tenot writes in a dispassionate tone, and apparently without any attempt to give a party co loring to his recital. Incidentally, as well as directly, he conveys much information respecting the public men who have figured prominently in French politics for the last forty years.

MRS. WILLSON'S "ADVENTURES OF THE 126TH REGIMENT NEW YORK STATE VOLUNTEERS."*-We welcome every instance of seasonable care taken to collect information in a permanent form regarding the late war, and to perpetuate the memory of the men by whose endurance and valor it was carried on to success. Besides those conspicuous facts which will find a place in formal history, numberless incidents of the struggle and personal details which deserve to be recorded, as growing more significant and interesting with time, are now within the reach of compilers, as they cannot be a few years later. The traditions, associations, and partialities of particular regiments furnish motives and facilities for such works relating to their own services and members. The volume before us is an admirable example of what may be done in this direction. We congratulate the 126th Regiment N. Y. S. Volunteers, on having such a memorial of their three years' service, and on the spirit that must have pervaded them as a body, first to make their career worthy of this record, and then to issue a record so worthy of their career.

The first half of the book is a history of the services and fortunes of the Regiment from its organization till it was disbanded at the close of the war. Mrs, Willson's accomplished pen was already known to us in other productions, and here it has been used in a patriotic and loving labor. The narration is clear and lively, and the style graceful. The military movements described are made the more intelligible by pictures and drawings of their localities. Portraits of some of the officers are interspersed, We happen to have been cognizant of the pains the author has conscien

* Disaster, Struggle, Triumph.-The adventures of 1000 Boys in Blue, from August, 1862, to June, 1865. By Mrs. ARABELLA M. WILLSON, author of "Lives of the Mrs. Judsons" &c., &c. Dedicated to the 126th Regiment of New York State Volunteers. With an Appendix containing a Chronological Record of the principal events in the History of the Regiment. Albany: 1870. 8vo., pp. 590.