Assistant Adjutant-General of the Corps, October 9th, 1862-January 12th, 1865. With Portraits and Maps. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

General Walker, whose official position at the headquarters of the Second Corps gave him unusual facilities for acquiring such facts as fit him to be the historian of this gallant section of the Army of the Potomac, has acquitted himself with much skill in executing his task. The history of the Second Corps is an important part of the history of the Army of the Potomac, and to write it is well-nigh to writing the history of that series of bloody battles which extended from the battle of Fair Oaks on the Peninsula, in 1862, to the final fighting around Petersburg and Richmond which ended the bloody war. The corps was commanded successively by Generals Sumner, Sedgwick, Couch, Warren, Hancock, and Humphreys, all of them soldiers of the highest distinction, and the men under them were worthy of the reputation of the commanders. The principal battles in which the Second Corps distinguished itself were Fair Oaks (or Seven Pines), the Seven Days' Fight, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine Run, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Deep Bottom, and Reams Station. General Walker gives an account of the military operations at great detail, and with a clearness which many military histories do not possess. To the general reader descriptions of battles are often highly confused and confusing, but we do not think that the non-professional reader will have this difficulty in the present case. The battles of Gettysburg and of the Wilderness may be specially mentioned as furnishing the occasion for exceedingly lucid delineation, which is almost a model of its kind. The author has consulted all possible authorities, both Union and Confederate, and seems to have spared no pains of research to make his arduous work in every way perfect. The book is embellished with portraits of the leading officers of the corps who in any way distinguished themselves. It is interesting to note that a large number of the most brilliant and successful soldiers of our late war on the Union side were at some time or another connected with this military organization. The clover-leaf has good reason to be considered one of the most splendid symbols of the war, and the survivors of the corps to congratulate themselves on having belonged to such an or. ganization. Among other matters of interest in this history is a full list of all the officers

who were killed or mortally wounded in action, and other similar statistics. The book is a good specimen of book-making, both on the author's and publisher's part, and well worthy of a place on the book-shelves of all those interested in the late war.

STUDIES IN English Literature, IncluDING SELECTIONS FROM THE FIVE GREAT CLASSICS, CHAUCER, SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON, AND A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE DEATH OF DRYDEN IN 1700. By M. W. Smith, A.M., Teacher of English Literature in Hughes's High School, Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati and New York: Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co.

This text-book, as it may perhaps be called, seems to be modelled on an intelligent and desirable plan. It aims to give a brief and comprehensive sketch of English literature up to the death of Dryden, with examples and illustrations of the great classics of the earlier period down to the age of Milton. Within its scope the purpose is well carried out, and it is adapted to serve not only the use of classes in schools, but for the reading of young people for recreation and pleasure. A brief introduction discusses the early Saxon poems of "Beowulf," of Cædmon's biblical periphrase, and the writings of Venerable Bede and of Geoffrey of Monmouth. With Chaucer, of course, first came in English literature proper. The specimen of Chaucer given is the prologue to the Canterbury Tales." The main value of the book is drawn from the rich literature of the Elizabethan age. Several poems of Sir Philip Sydney are given, and brief extracts from Sir Philip Sydney and others. As an example of Edmund Spenser we have the first book of the "Faerie Queene." Extracts are given from John Lilly, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, and Ben Jonson, and as representative of Shakespeare the whole of "The Merchant of Venice." Several of Bacon's essays are quoted in full, lengthy extracts from John Bunyan, and portions of John Dryden's "All for Love." A fitting conclusion is in that most lovely poem of Milton, "Comus,'"' truly one of the most chiselled masterpieces of the language. The editor of the book has added such explanations, suggestions, and questions as make it more valuable for the use of young persons.

A STUDY OF MEXICO. By David A. Wells, LL.D., D.C.L. New York: D. Appleton & Co. These chapters, originally published in the

Popular Science Monthly, and now collected in book form, form one of the most valuable of recent contributions to the understanding of the political, economical, and social status of our sister republic. The recent extension of railway enterprise in this until recently most conservative of countries, and the large investment of European and American capital in the development of its resources, have made the world more deeply interested than formerly in Mexico, and the book of Mr. Wells will serve an important purpose. He tells us that in the early months of 1885 he went for purposes of health and recreation to this interesting country, and traversed it in a private car over the whole length of the Mexican Central, over most of the Vera Cruz and City of Mexico Railway, and over a part of the Mexican National. The aggregate distance passed over was more than three thousand miles, and as the train had its own provision for eating and sleeping, the party stopped at every point of interest, city, town, hacienda, mine, or desert, sufficiently long to satiate all curiosity and desire of information. The value of such a record of experience is indicated by the two points made by Mr. Wells in his preface: firstly, that Mexico, bordering the United States for two thousand miles, is as foreign to us in race, climate, government, customs, laws, and manners, as though belonging to another planet; and secondly, that the people of this country know about as much of Mexico as they do of China. Mr. Wells claims, and not too boldly, that the main facts and deductions presented by him comprise all that is essential to a fair understanding of the physical conformation and history of Mexico; of its present political, industrial, and social condition; and also for an intelligent discussion of its future possible or desirable political and commercial relations to the United States.

That Mr. Wells does not see things couleur de rose in Mexico need hardly be wondered at. He looks at life in all its varied interests from the standpoint of the thinker and the economist, not from the attitude of the mere traveller and the lover of the picturesque. He does not hesitate to speak the exact impression of his mind without any sugar-coating, except that which is incidental to gentlemanly courtesy. It is not much to be marvelled at that the book is bitterly criticised in Mexico, and that the author's motives have been sharply assailed. That Mr. Wells is right in his studies of the industrial and economical side of Mexican life is probably true. And, after all, this is the

to

main value of a work emanating from one of his personality and training. We should hardly expect any very acute perception of the romantic and genial side of our Mexican neighbors. After all, as he himself says, “it is not genius carve crucifixes, embroider huipillas, or compose and execute music that her people need; but rather the ability to make and maintain good roads, invent and use machinery, and reform a system of laws that would neutralize all her natural advantages, even though they were many times greater than the most patriotic citizen of the country could claim for it."

Mr. Wells professes to prick some bubbles about Mexico, among them the notion that this is the great silver-producing country of the world in the richness of its native deposits. He claims that it is so far inferior to the United States as not worthy to be named in the same breath. He proceeds to point out the barbaric mediævalism of many of the laws which come nearest to the hearts and homes of the people, and the utter lack of respect for law and order which exists among the great mass of Mexicans. Mr. Wells is a severe critic, and puts his finger on many weak and frail points. Such a book ought to be valuable to Mexicans, as it teaches them what the impression made on intelligent and thinking foreigners is; for probably the majority of open-eyed tourists, even if they watch as keenly as did Mr. Wells, do not express their views with the same frankness.

THE BUCKHOLZ FAMILY. SKETCHES OF BERLIN LIFE. By Julius Stinde. Translated from the Forty-ninth Edition of the German Original by L. Dora Schmitz. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The unprecedented popularity which this book attained in Germany is shown by the fact that within two years of the date of its publication it passed through fifty editions. As a picture of middle-class German life it was hailed as a most faithful and subtile study, as realistic as a story of Zola, with far more delicacy and fineness in the art handiwork. To fully appreciate the humor and veracity of Herr Stinde's work one probably needs to be somewhat acquainted with German life; but most people will find enough to enjoy in its keen analysis and knowledge of the average human character.

Although the sketches embodied in the chap. ters are practically independent of each other, they relate to the experiences of a single fam

ily. They are interesting, whether taken singly or in their serial connection. The different social vicissitudes which would naturally overtake the members of a family in middle-class life, with all their joys and sorrows, their virtues, their aberrations, and the thousand daily accidents which, trivial to the beholder, may be important factors in determining happiness and shaping character, are depicted with the keenest sense of truth and humor. Such a writer must of necessity be a humorist, even in his pathos, if, indeed, humor and pathos can ever be radically divorced.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

PROF. THORold Rogers is about to make a contribution to the early history of the Bank of England. His work, which will deal with the first nine years of the history of that great institution, will contain much interesting information drawn from original sources.

FROM the beginning of the new year Blackwood's Magazine has been permanently enlarged to 144 double-columned pages. The publishers say that the accession of new contributors, in addition to the well-known writers whose names are most identified with Maga, as well as the extended range of topics which now fall within the province of magazine literature, have rendered this step expedient. It is satisfactory to note that, in spite of the prevailing mania for signed articles, Blackwood has only adopted the fashion to a limited extent, and yet offers a field where the untried writer may win his spurs by the merit of his endeavors.

a

M. GÉDÉON HUET has published a catalogue of the Dutch MSS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale, 109 in number. Among them are : translation of Boethius, with illuminations; two fragmentary versions of the Old Testament; and the original of Grotius's "Defence of Religion."

VIENNA now has a paper issued for the benefit of English and American visitors. It is entitled the Vienna Weekly News, and is published every Tuesday morning. Dr. Griez is the editor, and Mr. W. N. Brown the London correspondent.

SWITZERLAND has lost one of her most characteristic dialect story-tellers by the death of Pfarrer J. B. Egli, the parish priest of Oldberg in Canton Aarau. Many who did not know his name were familiar with his popular tales

under the pseudonym so characteristic of the man, "Hans Graduus" ("Jack Straightforward"). Many of his stories appeared under another pseudonym, "Waldbruder Makkari." Pfarrer Egli was one of the small band of Swiss Catholic priests who refused to accept the Vatican decrees of 1870.

A HISTORY of the United States, in two volumes, is announced by Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., of London. The work covers the whole period from the foundation of Virginia and Plymouth down to the close of the War of Secession and the re-establishment of self-government in the Southern States. The author, Mr. Percy Greg, has been known from the publication of his first volume of verse-Interleaves, in 1875-as a strong sympathizer with the Southern cause; and this work is, perhaps, the first historical account of the Civil War and its causes from that standpoint by one who was not an actor on the stage.

IN Prof. Madvig, of Copenhagen, Denmark, the world has lost one of the two or three classical scholars to whom their contemporaries would unhesitatingly assign a place in the first rank, who can be classed along with Casaubon, Bentley, Ruhnken, Hermann, and Lachmann. Beyond all dispute he was the greatest Latin scholar of the age. Since the death of Ritschl the Germans have ceased to contest the fact, and to other nations it was evident at an earlier

period. His contributions to the criticism of Cicero and Livy can never be forgotten, for he was one of those who do not merely do work useful to their generation, but leave permanent traces of their influence on scholarship.

A LINK between the last century and the present recently passed away in the person of Herr Jakob Zipffler, at the small South German town of Forst. Zipffler, who died at the age of ninety-nine, used to act as an errand boy to Schiller. One of his most pleasant recollections was the fact that in 1802, when taking home to Schiller at Jena a new pair of trousers from the tailor with whom he was apprenticed, the poet gave him a liberal gratuity, with the words: This is to refresh our acquaintance."

MR. GEORGE BADEN-POWELL, M.P., has in a forward state of preparation a history of the colonies and dependencies of the British empire, with special reference to the great growth of the last fifty years. His personal experiences in all our greater colonies and in India enable Mr. Baden-Powell to write with adequate personal knowledge of the places, people, and affairs dealt with.

MR. CHARLES ZACHARY MACAULAY, the historian's youngest brother, who died not long ago, was the author of a book entitled "Authority and Conscience: a Free Debate, edited by Conway Morel." Messrs. Longman published this book in 1871. Mr. C. Z. Macaulay was a member of the Bar, and for a time he was Attorney-General of Mauritius. Afterward he held an office in the Civil Service. His later years were devoted to philosophical speculation. He was the only one of the historian's

brothers who manifested a taste and an aptitude for literary pursuits. He had a great dislike, however, to appearing before the public as an author in his own person. His only son, Mr. Charles Trevelyan Macaulay, is a frequent contributor to the current literature of the day.

MR. WILLIAM SLOANE KENNEDY, an American, has sent to England for publication a work on Walt Whitman, entitled Walt Whitman, the Poet of Humanity," in the main a critical commentary and exposition of '" Leaves of Grass," especially the moral and literary aspects of the book. The work includes some personal reminiscences of the good gray poet" and his friends, and a bibliography and history of "Leaves of Grass."

of the Chinese description of that country which was first made known through Klaproth's rendering; but he has added to it not only extracts from such other Chinese books on the subject as are available at Peking, but also a great amount of information supplied to him by Chinese and Tibetan travellers, besides a number of photographic and other illustrations. The work is likely to prove an important contribution to our knowledge of Tibet.

Daniel Szilagyi, lately of Constantinople, bequeathed to the Hungarian Academy his collections, and they have been only now fully examined and reported upon to the Academy by that competent authority, Mr. Vambéry. The late Mr. Szilagyi was one of the Hungarian exiles, and established himself in Constantinople as a bookseller. He was well known to Europeans and Turks, and much liked, but his real value was only known to a few of his fellow Magyars. Having made himself a thorough master of Turkish, he devoted his opportunities to the acquirement of the MSS. and books in question, in search of which he em

ployed many years. His first object appears

to have been to collect MSS. illustrative of the Turkish rule in Hungary. These form one section of the series, but it is rich also in rare MSS. throwing light on Turkish history, some unknown to Von Hammer. It includes early printed books, and among them nearly all that came from the first press of Ibrahim Effendi, who is of interest to Hungary as having been a Magyar. There are many rarities, and Mr. Vambéry naturally prizes some Jagatai MSS. It is proposed to place a bust of Szilagyi in the Academy.

DR. HARKAVY, of the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, has discovered on his recent visit to the East, among other rabbinical MSS., a detailed narrative of the expulsion of the Jews of Spain and Portugal by an eye-witness, with the unknown name of Abraham, son of R. Solomon, of 1, who settled with many other exiles in Fez. The treatise forms a supplement to Abraham ben David's chronicle called Book of Tradition," which goes up to the year 4921 A.M.=1161 A.D. The supplement continues up to 5270 A.M.=1510. The author gives also an account of the Spanish kings up to Ferdinand, with details about his wars against the kingdom of Granada. Jewish historical works being so few, we hope that Dr. Harkavy will try, in spite of his numerous engagements, not to keep back for any length of time such a precious document.

'[THE following narrative forms a necessary part of the Little Pilgrim's experiences in the spiritual world. though it is not her personal story, but is drawn from the Archives of which, in their bearing upon the universal history of mankind, she was informed.]

I FOUND myself standing on my feet, with the tingling sensation of having come down rapidly upon the ground from a height. There was a similar feeling in my head, as of the whirling and sickening sensation of passing downward through the air, like the description Dante gives of his descent upon Geryon. My mind, curiously enough, was sufficiently disengaged to think of that, or at least to allow swift passage for the recollection through my thoughts. All the aching of wonder, doubt, and fear which I had been conscious of a little while before was gone. There was no distinct interval between the one condition and the other, nor in NEW SERIES.-VOL. XLV., No. 3

my fall (as I supposed it must have been) had I any consciousness of change. There was the whirling of the air, resisting my passage, yet giving way under me in giddy circles, and then the sharp shock of once more feeling under my feet something solid, which struck yet sustained. After a little while the giddiness above and the tingling below passed away, and I felt able to look about me and discern where I was. But not all at once: the things immediately about me impressed me first-then the general aspect of the new place.

First of all the light, which was lurid, as if a thunderstorm were coming on.. I looked up involuntarily to see if it had begun to rain; but there was nothing of the kind, though what I saw above me was a lowering canopy of cloud, dark, threatening, with a faint reddish tint diffused upon the vaporous darkness. It was, however, quite sufficiently clear to see everything, and there was a good deal to see. I was in a street of what

19