sketches are, Charles Martel; Pepin-le-Bref; Charlemagne; Hildebrand; The Cid; Godfrey de Bouillon; St. Bernard; Frederick Barbarossa; Frederick the Second, of Germany; St. Louis; Rudolph of Hapsburg; William Tell; James and Philip Van Artevelde; Cosmo dei Medici; Francesco Sforza; Christopher Columbus; Niccolo Machiavelli; The Chevalier Bayard; Martin Luther; Hernando Cortes; Gustavus Vasa; Ignatius Loyala; William the First of Orange; Henry the Fourth of France; Wallenstein; Cardinal Richelieu ; Condé the Great. By means of well prepared though brief biographies of these representative men the author has succeeded in furnishing for young people and for those who are not students, a very good outline of the most prominent events in European history during the middle ages. The book has a number of spirited illustrations.

TRUE STORIES OF THE DAYS OF WASHINGTON.-This is the attractive title of a very attractive book which has come to us from the press of Messrs. PHINNEY, BLAKEMAN & MASON. Nothing is more fascinating to the young than the traditions and legends of the deeds of personal daring and prowess with which the partisan warfare of the Revolution abounded. We are confident that this collection of "true" stories will be very popular. Such a book cannot but teach valuable lessons at this time. It is well for the rising generation to know what sufferings their fathers were willing to undergo in order to maintain a principle; to see how the men are now looked upon who were then willing to betray the interests of liberty in order to "keep things quiet;" and how the humblest individual who then contributed in any way to the cause of his country's freedom is now remembered with a nation's gratitude. 18mo. pp. 312, with illustrations.

We have also received from the same publishers, Bob and Walter, with the story of Breakneck Ledge. 18mo. pp. 138. [For sale in New Haven by E. P. and R. J. Judd.]

BRUIN.* This book, as the title indicates, is all about bears

• Bruin: The Grand Bear-Hunt. By Captain MAYNE REID, Author of the "Boy Hunters," "The Young Voyageurs," "Odd People," etc., etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861. pp. 371.

full of stories and stirring incidents-full of instruction and rational amusement. For under the comprehensive story of a Grand Bear-Hunt, extending into all corners of the world where bears are found, it introduces the reader to all known species of bears, interests him in their natural history, habits, and manners, thrills him with startling adventures and hair-breadth escapes in their pursuits, and incidentally fills his mind with a vast fund of geographical, historical, and miscellaneous knowledge, presented in the most available and fascinating form;-in a word, it is just such a book as boys will eagerly devour almost at a sitting, and then feel half angry with the graceful story-telling author, that he has not made it longer.

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY'S PUBLICATIONS.-We have seen nothing more beautiful among the gift books of the past season, for young people, than one of the publications of the American Tract Society, in New York:-Flowers of Spring Time, or stories from the Child's Paper, by Mrs. Helen C. Knight and others. It appears in quarto, and contains a selection from the best of the stories of one who is deservedly very popular as a writer for children. The paper on which it is printed, the typography, the illustrations, are unsurpassed by anything which has been issued from the American press. Price $2.

We have, also, on our table, some other of the publications of this Society, whose titles we give. The Child's History of the Apostle Paul. Small 4to. pp. 132. Sketches from the History of Jericho, in illustration of the power of faith. Small 4to. pp. 106. The Young Hop-Pickers. By the late Sarah Maria Fry. 24mo. pp. 85. The Rocket. 24mo. pp. 118. The Jail Bird, and other books for children and youth. 24mo. pp. 128. The Ore-Bank. 24mo. pp. 112. [For sale in New Haven by F. T. Jarman.]

THE SILVER-PENNY SERIES.-These six little books of the Silver-Penny Series will prove to be exceedingly attractive, we doubt not, to the class of little folks, for whom they are designed. Their titles are, Patty Williams' Voyage; Nobody's Child; Child Life in India; Sunny Eyed Tim; Theda and the Mountain; and The Princess Narina. Messrs. Walker, Wise & Co., of Boston, are the publishers, and the price is a silver penny (twen

ty-five cents) each. [For sale in New Haven by Peck, White & Peck.]

ABBOTT'S SERIES OF AMERICAN HISTORIES.-Messrs. Sheldon & Co. have published a new volume, which Mr. Jacob Abbott has added to his admirable series of American Histories, for young people. It gives the story of the first attempts at settlement in the southern colonies. The maps with which these books are provided, though very simple, will furnish very valuable assistance to young readers, and the publishers of our more grave and learned histories might follow the example with profit.

Messrs. Sheldon & Co. have, also, sent us another of Mr. Jacob Abbott's Florence Stories; An Excursion to the Orkney Islands. 18mo. pp. 252; and another of the "Oakland Stories;" Claiborne, by George B. Taylor. 18mo. pp. 180. [For sale in New Haven by F. T. Jarman.]

NEW EDITIONS OF STANDARD WORKS.

DEAN MILMAN'S HISTORY OF LATIN CHRISTIANITY. Eight volumes. Sheldon & Co., New York.

HALLAM'S VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE, DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. Three volumes. Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co., Boston. THE WORKS OF FRANCIS BACON. Fifteen volumes. Brown & Taggard, Boston.

IRVING'S WORKS. National edition. Sixteen volumnes. G. P. Putnam, New York.

MILMAN'S LATIN CHRISTIANITY.-Since the announcement, in our last number, of the appearance of the first volume of the American reprint of Dean Milman's History of Latin Christianity, three additional volumes have been issued by Messrs. Sheldon & Co., from the "Riverside Press," with commendable punctuality. The first volume was, in its character, rather introductory to the great work which is now unfolding slowly before us. The second volume commences with Gregory I.-Gregory the Great,-the father of the Mediæval Papacy, and the first of the bishops of Rome who were altogether Christian. He it was who laid the foundations in the Eternal City of a Christian dominion, which took the place of that older power which had only associated Chris

tian influence with Rome's ancient title of sovereignty. We indicate, briefly, the leading events which succeed one another in the volume. First, we have the rise of Mohammedanism in the East. Then the story is told of the successors of the false prophet,— the conquest of Syria, the fall of Damascus and of Jerusalem, the conquest of Persia, of Egypt, and of Africa. Then while Christianity was losing the greater part of its dominion in two continents, the reader is transferred to the West, where it is exhibited to us as making new acquisitions. Here we have the conversion of England, and of the Teutonic races beyond the Roman empire. Again, the march of events takes us, once more, to the East, where Leo, the Isaurian, about the beginning of the eighth century, commences his furious crusade against image-worship, and Iconoclastic emperors attempt to revolutionize the existing Christianity. The details of the new political complications which ensue, and of the successful resistance of the papacy, are followed by the severance of the Greek from the Latin Christianity. Then comes the long series of Lombard aggressions, which were terminated only by the interference of that new power which had slowly grown up in Gaul and Germany. Henceforward we see the Popes striving to link the fortunes of Rome with those of the family of Pepin; and in the union of these two powers, cemented by so many mutual benefits, we have the key to the rapid aggrandizement of the Western emperors and of the popes, which went on, so long, side by side.

In the third and fourth volumes we behold the jurisdiction of the emperors extending on every side, at first, with giant strides, while the popes are modestly content to acknowledge a subordinate position, as their subjects. But soon the progress of imperial sway is checked; the empire is attacked on the North and on the South, on the East and on the West, by Pagans and Mohammedans; the troubles of intestine strife are added; the imperial councils are distracted, and then commence those encroachments of the spiritual power on the temporal power, which only terminate when the successors of St. Peter assert and maintain the claim to be the vicegerents of God on earth.

No nobler theme, in the annals of the world, offers itself to the historian, than the tracing of the steps by which the humble bishops of Rome at length attained to universal temporal and spiritual dominion. This work of Dean Milman is the only one, in the English language, which does justice to the important subjects.

of which it treats. We trust that the publishers, Messrs. Sheldon & Co., of New York, will find in the prompt appreciation which the American public give to this History of Latin Christianity, ample remuneration for their enterprise in offering so beautiful an edition, which is in no wise inferior to the original volumes, as they come from the English press.

HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES.-We cannot but esteem it a very fortunate circumstance that, just at this time, Messrs. Crosby, Nichols, Lee & Co., of Boston, have undertaken the publication of an American edition of the works of Mr. Hallam, which are to come from the "Riverside Press," and, in outward appearance, are to correspond in every way with the beautiful edition of Milman's History of Latin Christianity, of which we have just spoken. Already the first of Mr. Hallam's great works,- View of the State of Europe, during the Middle Ages,-has appeared, in three volumes. It is soon to be followed by The Constitutional History of England, from the beginning of the reign of Henry the Seventh, to the close of the reign of George the Second, in three volumes; and his Introduction to the Literature of Europe, for the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, in four volumes.

The "View of the State of Europe, during the Middle Ages,' was originally published in 1818, and was the first great historical work of the nineteenth century, in England, which was recognized as worthy to be classed with the productions of the three great English historians of the eighteenth century,-Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. The work has now been so long a time before the world, that it is generally known that the author does not profess to give in it any such "circumstantial delineation of events and characters" as is usually expected in a regular history. He says himself, in his exceedingly modest preface to the first edition, "Nothing can be farther from my wishes than that the following pages should be judged according to the critical laws of historical composition. Tried in such a balance, they would be eminently defective." The work is rather a series of dissertations on those matters pertaining to the period of the middle ages, which are likely to be of greatest interest to the well read student. To all such, as is well known, the book is of inestimable value.

LORD BACON'S WORKS.-The Father of the Inductive Philosophy, in his last Will, as it will be remembered, put on record