Manuals of English Literature, or of the benefit that is to be derived from them. But in regard to this particular study, it seems to us that the public mind is passing through what for want of a better name may be called the Early English period, during which men will talk and act as if a knowledge of our literature could be gained by reading histories of it, and not by reading the literature itself. As the study of such histories is the quickest way of dispelling this delusion, we are disposed to welcome any addition to their number; and we accordingly hoped to find this work, though not of a good kind, yet so good in its kind as to prepare the way for better methods. But after a somewhat extensive acquaintance with manuals of English Literature, we are reluctantly compelled to say that this is the most thoroughly worthless one that has ever fallen under our observation. The student who uses it will take some steps in English Literature, it is true, but they will be steps backward and not forward.

This is harsh criticism, but it is unfortunately just. The book, as regards its contents, is nothing but a compilation of the ideas and facts contained in other manuals, the facts, in addition, being ill-arranged, and the ideas ill-expressed. The blunders of previous text-books are, in all cases where the space admits of it, carefully retained, and a legion of new ones inserted. There can not be found on a single page the least evidence of original investigation. Not only are the facts picked up at second-hand, but the criticisms are also, and generally they are taken from men. whose critical opinions are in themselves worthless. Indeed, if there is anywhere anything peculiarly absurd that anybody has ever uttered, it is wonderful to see how successful the compiler of this manual has been in ferreting it out, and how careful he has been to incorporate it in his text.

The division of the language is probably original; the titles. given to the subdivisions. and, to some extent, the subdivisions themselves, must certainly be so; for it required more ignorance than ordinarily can be brought to bear upon this subject to produce the ones here given. The language is divided into two great periods. "Immature English," extending from an indefinite time in the past to the year 1558, and "Mature English" extending from that year to the present day. The names given to the subdivisions of the former period are worth preserving as a curiosity. What most men are content to call Anglo-Saxon, our author, following a few late writers in Great Britain, calls Original

English; though the same style of reasoning would lead us to call Latin and Italian by the same name. Semi-Saxon appears here as Broken English, Old English as Dead English, and Middle English as Reviving English. The subdivisions of the second period are in the main as misleading and incorrect as the titles applied to the first are absurd.

worse.

But vicious as is the plan of the work, the execution of it is far The writer has no idea whatever of perspective, and in the confused jumble here presented no student could form an idea of the relative literary importance of any author, or of any period. Tried by a mathematical measurement, the account of Donne takes up more space than that of Shakespeare, and Isaac Watts has three times as much room as is assigned to Pope, though the latter here gives his name to a separate age. The book, moreover, swarms with the grossest errors; hardly a page is free from them. Confining ourselves mainly to the more celebrated authors, the story of Chaucer's imprisonment and flight, always suspicious and now exploded, is here set down as a fact, and we have the additional information, not hitherto known to the world, that in religious matters the poet was much influenced by Wycliffe, and promoted his doctrines. In Spenser, it is stated that in the first book of his great poem we are introduced to the court of the Fairy Queen, though it would probably puzzle the author to mention the canto or verse where an account of this introduction is given. In Shakespeare, a fanciful idea of the Rev. Charles Wordsworth, that the Bible exerted the greatest formative and guiding influence upon the mind of the dramatist, is here laid down as an undoubted fact. In Milton, his two sonnets entitled, The Nightingale and On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, are spoken of as odes, while his noblest prose work, Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, is represented as being two separate works, and in addition, Areopagitica appears, as Areopagita. In Dryden, The Conques of Grenada is classed among his prose works, though there is not a single line of prose in both parts of the play, which are not only written in verse but in rhyme. In a similar manner his Spanish Friar and Marriage a-la-Mode are spoken of as prose, though they are prose in the same sense that the Merchant of Venice is that is, poetry with prose conversations occasionally introduced. On the other hand, it may be well to state that the Pericles and Aspasia of Walter Savage Landor, which used to be

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.

This is 66 a round unvar

THE LIFE OF ARTHUR TAPPAN.* nish'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.