it is quiet and subtle, his feeling toward the world is manifestly a kind and charitable one even when he is lashing its vices at the cart-tail and putting its follies into the pillory, and when his song is not winged for a lofty flight, and has less sweetness and majesty than some other strains that keep the air tremulous, one can readily perceive that it was born in the heart, and it is sure to win both a hearing and sympathy. He has written many beautiful and some really meritorious poems, and the publishers have done an admirable service in putting them all together in this volume, which is rich in appearance without being extravagant in cost, and delicate without daintiness. It will pay for every lover of poetry to buy and read it.

THE NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. With an Introduction, connecting the history of the Old and New Testaments. Edited by Wm. Smith, D.D. With maps and wood-cuts. New York: Harper & Bros. 1868. 12mo. pp. 780.

The series of volumes issued by these publishers under the general title of The Student's Histories," is unsurpassed in its way by anything that has appeared elsewhere, They are for the most part admirable epitomes of larger works, and the condensation and arrangement have uniformly exhibited no ordinary evidences of skill and good judgment. Among them all, nothing can be found better adapted to render a high service, both as a text-book and a volume for reading and frequent reference, than this compilation, intended to afford a view of the substance of what research and criticism have accomplished in one of the most interesting and important departments of modern study. Dr. Smith is well known as one of the most learned and critical scholars in every department of sacred literature, and his various contributions have possessed such a high value that his name attached to any publication is accepted as a reliable guarantee of its worth. He is eminent both as an authority and a critic. He is exhaustive when he elaborates and eminently satisfying when he epitomizes.

The chief merit of this volume is not at all in its absolute originality. It is not a fresh treatise but a well prepared compendium. It embodies the best results of much study, and the works of many eminent scholars have been laid under contribution that it might be full enough for ordinary purposes. It is the quintessence of a considerable library, and the plan and arrangement adopted in its preparation, the numerous tables and ample index render its contents readily available. As a text-book in our higher institutions of learning it would have no rival, and as a hand-book for use in the study it must prove really serviceable. The first 175 pages are devoted to the same general object as the great work of Prideaux. It presents the connection of the Old and New Testament histories, and the secular history of the Jews from the time of rebuilding the temple under Nehemiah to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans under Titus. In an appendix there are essays upon the several branches of the Jewish people, the Jewish Scriptures, the Synagogue,

and the various sects of the Jews. The second book gives us a connected history of Jesus Christ, followed by an essay on the Four Gospels, and a table setting forth their harmony. Book III. is devoted to the history of the Apostles, and the founding of the Christian church, in which we have in a condensed form whatever is known respecting the lives and labors of those men, aside from what is found in the narrative of Luke and the allusions in the epistles. Two Appendixes deal with the books of the New Testament, discuss the canon and present the testimony in support of its fulness and accuracy; and several chronological tables of New Testament history connect the leading events of the sacred record with those of the secular and civil powers that were closely related to the life of the Jews and the early church.

We heartily commend the volume as one of real merit without pretension, pleasant and plain, in a style that never offends good taste, rationally calm but truly reverent, ample in instruction without a tinge of pedantry, and calculated at once to inform the student's understanding and confirm the disciple's faith.

NOTES, CRITICAL, EXPLANATORY AND PRACTICAL, ON THE BOOK OF PSALMS. By Albert Barnes, author of "Notes on the New Testament," etc., etc. In three volumes. Vol. I. New York: Harper & Bros. 1868. 12mo. pp. 374. The general characteristics of Mr. Barnes's Notes on the Scriptures are too well known to require any detailed statement. Though not always thorough, sometimes jumping the real difficulties and spending too many words on what is easily understood, yet he is always manly and wholesome. He may almost be said to have introduced a new era of Scriptural exposition with the preparation of his Notes on the New Testament. He struck a happy medium between the learned, critical and scholarly commentary and the superficial expositions and devotional aids which had previously appeared. For ordinary use in the family and Bible Class, they have proved, on the whole, thoroughly acceptable on both sides of the Atlantic, they have been multiplied in foreign tongues, and have done not the least important part of their work in prompting many other eminent scholars to enter the same field. He announces in the Preface that this is his final effort as an expositor. Increasing age and infirmity, and especially the failure of his vision, will not allow the further prosecution of a work which wonderfully illustrates what may be done in the course of years by an early riser and a laborious student, who uses the ante-breakfast hours according to system, and lays the Christian world under many and great obligations.

Mr. Barnes shows in this latest of his works, that he has kept himself familiar with the accumulating results of Biblical criticism, and that ability grows by use. His Notes on the Psalms indicate a skill and vigor as an expositor that his comments upon Matthew fail to exhibit. He is broader, deeper, richer, ministering more abundantly to the understanding and more gratefully to the heart. His Introduction is con

cise and plain, but suggestive and valuable; so are the accounts given of each Psalm in order to embody the most of what information has been gathered by the research of scholars and the inquiries of critics. The authorship, dates, and the general character of these compositions are concisely set forth, but the main discussion is devoted to the imprecations found in the Psalms,—a topic which has called out much inquiry and controversy, and which Mr. Barnes has here dealt with in a manner that will not fail to interest inquirers and relieve more or less minds from perplexity. This last of the author's work will be welcomed with general satisfaction and will be sure to meet an extensive demand. The mechanical features of this volume are decidedly superior to those which appeared in the Notes on the New Testament—a fact we are glad to an

nounce.

NEW POEMS: By Owen Meredith. In two volumes. Chronicles and Characters, Orval, and other Poems. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1868. 16mo. pp. 507, 518.

Owen Meredith, as Lord Lytton chooses to call himself, is a laborious, cultivated and artistic litterateur, and a poet of unquestionable genius. Though having neither the fire nor the grace, neither the majesty nor the sweetness, which appear in the verse of some other bards, yet he has neither mistaken nor belittled the function of the poet. No man capable of writing Lucile will be likely to sing feebly, or vex the air with ambitious discord, or prostitute his muse to any ignoble purpose.

In these two beautiful volumes, which embody the exquisite but masculine taste of these well-known publishers, Owen Meredith has given us something unique and noticeable. It is a series of representations, in numerous short and independent poems,—which are nevertheless so many sections in a great panorama,-that set forth the human being and race, as successively seen in history, fable, art, philosophy, religion and science. The salient points of human character are grasped as they come out in their successive and more striking developments, and the poet is afforded an opportunity to scatter his theories and comments among his pictures. Much digested learning, critical thought and genial philosophy appear on these pages. The volumes embody the work of seven busy and laborious years; and while they contain many simple and pleasant things which even a hasty reader will both comprehend and appreciate, yet nothing but time and study and reflection will put one in full possession of what he is here bidden to take as freely as he will and can.

WHERE IS THE CITY? Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868. 12mo. pp. 349.

A title-page to provoke curiosity, a book to win and hold attention, a series of denominational portraits which will probably be more satisfactory abroad than at home, and a conclusion which many will think would have been more properly put into the Preface than on the last page, since

the whole argument of the book was so manifestly shaped with a view of justifying it. A young man, Israel Knight, reads in one of the prophets of a city whose name is, "The Lord is there;"―he infers that this means a church on earth, and so he makes a tour among nine different denominations, whose theology and spirit he sets himself to describe. He is unable to unite with any one of them, though finding good things in them all, and so decides to remain outside, keeping a charitable spirit and promising himself to recognize and commend every true worker among them, and be a brother to all the saints that may be developed in these rather badly regulated religious households. It is only just to say that Israel is rather a nice sort of young man, that he means to be fair even when he exaggerates and fails, that he shows a kind spirit even when he yields to the temptation to be satirical or patronizing; and while the egotism of the book appears on almost every page, it is never allowed to be haughty and offensive, but is genial and juicy even when it is transparent and mischievous. The volume is, however, very readable and interesting; it may perhaps do something to promote charity among different denominations; but it seems to us quite as likely to nurture an easy indifference to the great things which are vital to human welfare.

THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON III. EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. Including a brief narrative of all the most important events which have occurred in Europe since the fall of Napoleon I. until the present time. By John S. C. Abbott, author of "History of Napoleon I.," etc. With Illustrations. Boston: B. B. Russell & Co. 1868. Royal Octavo. pp. 690.

Mr. Abbott is a voluminous writer, always pleasant but never profound, with a style at once easy and picturesque even when the reach after effect is obvious, and the reader is compelled to believe that the pictures are overdrawn. His admiration of the Bonapartes is well known, and so nobody is disappointed to find him challenging the general verdict of the civilized world in his portraiture of the present Emperor of France, and hanging him all over with garlands of panegyric. An American democrat, he sees in Louis Napoleon a champion of the rights of the people. A Protestant clergyman, he kindles over the guardianship which French bayonets have been compelled to yield the Papacy when the Italian people had become weary of its burden and disgusted with its immoralities. A professed hater of ambitious aspirants who seek and perpetuate personal power by intrigue and at the expense of justice, he says the famous Coup d'Etat of December 2d was "a sublime deed, sublimely performed," and predicts that "it will be pronounced by history to be the most brilliant and meritorious act of his life." Indeed the Emperor is held up as a model ruler and almost the ideal man actualized; this so called history would be better termed a eulogy, and what is most thoroughly Napoleonic gets the most extravagant praise. This ought to disappoint nobody, for the antecedents of this book clearly foretold its character. Years since the author became the clerical whitewasher of the whole

Napoleonic dynasty, and his love for his occupation seems to grow upon him with his years.

So much must in justice be said of the author and of his new volume. But there is no need of disguising the fact that he has here given us a book full of interesting information, compiled with labor and care, arranged with real skill, and served up in a way that is eminently entertaining. It is a book that will be read with more than the ordinary interest, and, while many important facts are kept in the background or wholly suppressed, and the reader is treated to panegyric and partisan comment quite too freely, he will find himself in a position to comprehend much of the life of France during the last fifty years that had been difficult to explain. The publisher has done his part of the work very creditably. The book is beautiful to the eye,—the type, paper and illustrations being all that could reasonably be asked for. Sold by subscription.

THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF EDUCATION; demonstrated by an analysis of temperaments and of Phrenological facts, in connection with mental phenomena and the office of the Holy Spirit in the processes of the mind: In a series of Letters to the Department of Public Instruction in the city of New York. Second Edition, By John Hecker. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. 1868. Octavo. pp. 227.

It is a significant title which has been chosen for this volume. It does not simply call attention to the need of a scientific basis for education, nor merely indicate where and how such a basis may be formed; but it brings forward what is termed the scientific basis, as though it were here and nowhere else—this and no other;-as though the alternative were to adopt the theory and method of Mr. Hecker or go on without any rational system at all,-striking at random and meeting more of failure than of success.

But putting aside the assumption which thus meets one at the very threshold of the volume, and looking fairly at the facts and the theory from which the treatise springs, one finds much that deserves attention, Mr. Hecker has carefully studied his subject, he is a man of keen observation, of somewhat logical habit, independent and yet deferential, intensely strong in his convictions yet still waiting for more light, full of enthusiasm and faith, though having a reason for every opinion which he advances. He confesses his great obligations to Gall and Spurzheim, accepts in the main the classification of faculties brought forward by Phrenology and uses much of its nomenclature, pleads for special divine influences as required by the human mind to give a real royalty to the spiritual nature, and makes as much of the doctrine of moral freedom and of the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul as any evangelical Arminian could desire. The chief value of the book is found in the views presented respecting the different temperaments that mark children and pupils, and the need of classifying and training them in our schools in accordance with the temperamental peculiarities and requirements. The information imparted on this point is often very clear, fresh and inter