foreign policy-the humiliation of Russia and the unity of Italy, the two good deeds for which the man will be remembered by posterity. The event has also surprisingly evinced the strength of French Imperialism, a majority of the Parisian organs of public opinion boldly eulogizing the ex-Emperor, and men of all rank and classes-from Generals of the army to workingmen-making Chiselhurst a Mecca of pilgrimage. The best security of the Republic against this latent Imperialist strength is the character of the family of adventurers and adventuresses that gathered to the funeral. The only two heads that are worth more than the wigs worn on them, Eugene's and "Plon Plon's," at once became logger-heads as to future plans. NEW BOOKS. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS of John Greenleaf Whittier. Household edition. Pp. 395. Same publishers and booksellers. This book is a marvel of book making, in its compactness, its handiness, and its clearness. The pages are double-columned, yet the book is printed in type of large, clear face. Of its contents we need say nothing to most readers. It contains the entire works-down to the very latest-of our chief lyric singer; poems that are at once poetry and history, that reflect the rise, the course and the triumph of a great struggle for human rights, and also stir the hearts of men to their depths by the vigor of their passion and the force of their clear, pure English. One poem, for instance, "Massachusetts to Virginia" (pp 62-3), is memorable as having won a brilliant Kentuckian student at Harvard into the ranks of the Abolitionists and having thus given the anti-slavery cause a life-long advocate. volumes in one. Two HORNEHURST RECTORY. By Sister Mary Francis Clare. THE LIFE OF FATHER MATTHEW, the People's Soggarth Aroon. The rapid growth of Catholic literature in England and America is a sign of the times that is calculated to strike dismay into those valiant Protestants who tremble for civil and religious freedom whenever they meet a priest or hear of a Jesuit. Much of this growth is due to the "Tractarian Movement" and the subsequent secessions from the English Church. From those venerable institutions that Catholics had founded and endowed, but from which Catholics had been excluded for almost two cen turies, there came forth many of the most cultivated scholars that they ever nurtured, who set themselves to defend the old faith against the new. Newman, Ward, Faber, Oxenham-these are but the more illustrious names of a great company of zealous and scholarly men who fought or are still fighting the battle of the old Church against that in which they were educated. Our authoress in so far resembles these Oxonians that she too is a convert from Protestantism, and exhibits the ripe fruits of English culture. She is a writer of mental fertility and literary aptness, and the wide-spread popularity of her many books shows how well she has adapted them to a wide-spread demand. Her novel is uneven in its merits, but still a very fair piece of literary work. It is of course controversial throughout, and hits off many of the anomalies of the English Church, and the practical inconsistencies of the Anglo-Catholics, very cleverly. It is in temper and spirit a whole world above the corresponding productions on the other side, from the pen of Charlotte Elizabeth, Grace Kennedy and James Grant. But we must say that it illustrates the rule of woman's unfairness in controversy, as every "tendency novel" from their pen must. It would be very easy to supply "companion pictures" from strictly Roman Catholic writers on clerical discipline, to many of the awkward situations into which she puts the English rectors of her story. Only that which is characteristic should be, even in a novel, presented as such. We like her Father Matthew much better. It is a racy, fresh life-like picture of a valiant, devoted, public-spirited man, a man of broad sympathies and full of keen Irish wit. O'Connell's influence is fading away with every year, but the hold that Father Matthew has upon the Irish heart deepens as fast. He saw the great moral weakness of his race to be love of drink, and he struck at it like a man. A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, for the use of Schools and Families, being a comprehensive account of the principal personages of history, with date and place of birth, etc., to which are added complete Chronological Tables, showing the rulers of the principal countries of the world. By Rev. Reuben Parsons, D. D. Pp. 362. Same publishers and booksellers. A manual of biography, with a definite and distinct purpose, both in its selections and its delineations of character. It is intended as a handy book for Catholic schools and families, and while it is not violent, it is decidedly partisan. Of course, it does not aim at very great completeness, but its selection of names and of facts is very fair. Of Carlyle, Dr. Parsons says: "In 1837 he produced his French Revolution, which is much admired by his countrymen, though dashed off like the work of a madman and in a ridiculously bitter vein. During a course of lectures in 1840, in London, he took occasion to manifest his 'hero-worship' tendencies in a fulsome eulogy on Frederick 'the Great,' whose life he published in 1864." SUNDAY HALF-HOURS WITH THE GREAT PREACHERS: With brief Biographical Notices and an Index. By M. Laird Simons. Pp. 846. Philadelphia. Porter & Coates. We must pronounce this volume to be the best selection of ser. mons that we have ever seen. There are of course names omitted that we would have inserted. The great medieval preachers, and those of the Roman Catholic Church since the Reformation, are not represented. The older Protestant divines of England and Scotland, except Latimer, Jeremy Taylor and Bunyan, are omitted. Some modern names are given that will help the book to sell, but do not deserve to stand beside the older preachers. The denominational range is very wide: PatristicAugustine, Chrysostom; Lutheran-Martin Luther, Tholuck, F. W. Krummacher; Episcopalian - Latimer, Jeremy Taylor, John Wesley, George Whitfield, Rowland Hill, J. H. Newman, Henry Melville, Thomas Arnold, Dean Stanley, Bishops McIlvaine and Potter, F. W. Robertson, Charles Kingsley, Goulburn, and Treadwell Walden; Methodists--Dr. McClintock, Bishops Simpson, Thomson and Ames, Morley Punshon, Drs. Fowler and Stockton; Baptists-Bunyan, Dr. Wayland, John Foster, Hall and Spurgeon. Presbyterians-Calvin, Knox, Saurin, De Pressense, D'Aubigne, Chalmers, Ed. Irving, Drs. Mason, Hanna, Guthrie, and Hodge, Archibald Alexander and Albert Barnes; Congregationalists-Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, Robert Phillips, Newman Hall; Liberals-Dr. Channing and Dr. Chapin. Several of the preachers are represented by steel engravings, which are not badly done; although in one or two the features are smoothed down from their native strength and roughness-notably so with Martin Luther. D'Aubigne's is very fine; Bishop M'Ilvaine's flatters him grossly. Such a range of selection from the great masterpieces gives a reader some idea of the immense outlay of mental power that has secured for the pulpit a place of respect and influence without parallel in the history of mankind. No other form of literature has ever reached so large a portion of our race, not even the newspaper. No other has shared so greatly in the vast revolutions that have shaken society. In an age when the pulpit is tempted to fall back on its prestige and do slovenly and careless work, such books will help to raise the standard of the popular demand for pulpit excellence. It were unfair to expect a Barrow or a Tauler in every country pulpit, but the people have a right to expect the result of the most thoughtful and earnest work that the preacher is capable of. New THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA; A Novel. By Hesba Stretton. York: D. Appleton & Co. For sale by Porter & Coates. Price 75 cents. The Doctor's Dilemma is the title of a very pleasantly written tale by Hesba Stretton, an authoress already known to some of our readers, through her Christmas stories, published a few years ago, together with short tales, by Dickens and other writers of less note. It is refreshing to find a novel so pure and unaffected both in idea and expression in the midst of the stilted and often ungrammatical trash with which the market is deluged. The plot is sufficiently complicated and excited without overstepping the bounds of probability, and one's interest in the fate of the hero and heroine is sustained to the end, as much, perhaps, by the agreeable simplicity of the style, as by anything very remarkable in the characters of the young people. Tardiff is an admirable conception, but we must admit that he is a most exceptional fisherman. The doctor himself is the embodiment of a woman's idea of tenderness and honor, though his treatment of Julia seems at first a little selfish and inconsiderate, while Julia, in spite of her trials, is the least interesting and agreeable person in the whole book, and one can scarcely forgive her for her too great willingness to marry the doctor, notwithstanding his lack of love for her. The book is well worth reading by any one who is capable of. appreciating something better than the highly seasoned romances of Miss Broughton and writers of her stamp. CALIFORNIA FOR HEALTH, PLEASURE AND RESIDENCE. Nordhoff. 1872. New York: Harper & Brothers. by J. B. Lippincott & Co. By Chas. For sale This writer has collected together a number of useful notes on all sorts of subjects connected with the subjective and objective of a trip to California. The publishers have presented it with fiftyseven illustrations on very good, slightly tinted paper. The object of the book may be gathered from the device and motto on the title-page, which provoke a smile at their present application from those who remember the edition of Whewell's Elements of Morality, from the same house, adorned in a similar manner. "Lampadia echontes diadosothoin allalois," or, as some of those who have visited the same scenes, would translate it, "Having lost your own tail, advise others to cut theirs off." On the whole, an agreeable, chatty book like this is always. pleasant to read when one has no more urgent work, and its pic tures and statistics seem to furnish internal proof that it is not exaggerated or tinted. Still, we must say, that as a picture of life as it is, these and a host of other "Across the Continent” sketches are inaccurate. One interweaves an accidental meeting, or a pleasant incident, so easily into a narrative that the careless reader has a vague idea that Brigham Young is in perepetual waiting to board the cars and pleasantly entertain anybody who happens to be "not a too unhappy traveler." The wood-cuts are exceedingly well done, and the letter-press is lively and entertaining, but both are pictures rather than photographs. As an example of the habit of writing for effect, we may mention, among scores of other instances, the very elysium of car-riding on page 23. Whoever met such servants? Whoever went comfortably in a car going at twenty-two miles an hour? On page 30 Mr. Nordhoff says: "From the hour you leave Omaha you will find everything new, curious and wonderful-the plains with their buffalo, antelope and prairie dogs, the mountains which, as you leave Cheyenne, rear thin snow-clad summits." Now, this is all very beautiful; but we would like to ask Mr. Nordhoff, if he should open his eyes suddenly almost anywhere on the five hundred miles between Cheyenne and Omaha, if he would see anything wonderful or curious or essentially different from the same sort of prairie land in Iowa or Indiana? Did he ever hear of any one who saw a buffalo on this railroad route? How many antelopes did he observe between the two oceans from the cars? Let no one suppose these little floridisms invalidate the accuracy of the whole book. The latter part, which is chiefly concerned with scenes and descriptions of southern California, is very instructive, contains undoubtedly much true information agreeably put together, and agrees very well with what we have heard from the lips of Mr. Nordhoff's host-Gen. Beale, of Chester. THE EARTH A GREAT MAGNET: A Lecture delivered before the This little pamphlet is No. 9 of the "University Series," a publication which comprises monographs on scientific subjects, treated in a popular way by hands that are all of them masters in their several departments of scientific research. Professor Mayer's brochure is by no means the least interesting member of the series thus far published. Starting with the text-"Magnus magnes ipse est globus terrestris," the professor has succeeded not only in clearly demonstrating the proposition it states, but also in collecting in the limited space of 76 small octavo pages, most, if not all, |