Times, Mr. James Godkin, publishes "The Land-War in Ireland; a History of the Times" (Macmillan & Co.), a volume as entertaining as it is useful, and more satisfactory as an explanation of the real condition of Ireland than any that has appeared; not even excepting the life-like sketches of the agent Trench ("Realities of Irish Life"), which were read so widely last summer, and accepted as faithful; but which have been since successfully shown to be exaggerated or distorted, in some particulars of importance.

The Cobden Club publishes a volume of Essays, giving an account of the systems of land-tenure in England, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, France, Russia, the United States, and Ireland, that of each country depicted by an able man, who has made it a special study; and the whole forming a most instructive mass of information on difficult subjects.

Strikes are the topic of the day in Paris, where all trades are either "out" or in a chronic state of threatening "to turn out." M. Charles Robert, of the Council of State, vindicates the coöperative system in a little book full of candor and broad toleration. M. Julien le Rousseau has just published a volume in favor of the same plan ("De l'Association de l' ŒŒuvrier aux bénéfices du Patron," Hachette & Co.), of which we have seen but the title.

The excitement in the great Economical field has called out two new editions of the great fountain of modern political economy, Adam Smith's "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." Messrs. Murray & Son publish simply the text, in one volume; Macmillan gives an edition in two volumes, beautifully printed at the Oxford Clarendon press, and carefully edited with valuable notes, by J. E. Thorold Rogers. The latter, though costly, ought to be in the hands of every student. But that the notes are so rigidly limited to the few points regarded by the editor as indispensable, it might safely be welcomed as the final and standard edition of the most in

fluential book produced by the eighteenth century. The index is by far the best we have seen with "The Wealth of Nations," and makes it convenient for reference.

Professor Rogers is about to publish a new edition of his "Manual of Political Economy," for schools and colleges. We shall notice it when it appears, and hope to find it both thorough and attractive. When such accomplished scholars and broad thinkers devote themselves to the propagation of handbooks of this science in England, it is not surprising that educated young men know more of the subject there than here, nor that their intelligence soon becomes an important element of public opinion. Why can we not put into American schools a simple treatise on political economy to be compared with any of the best recent British or French works of this class?

The family of the late Hugh Miller have collected his "Leading Articles on Various Subjects" (Edinburgh, Nimmo), in a volume which relates chiefly to controversies long past, and is of interest only to his personal admirers.

Moxon announces new editions of Byron, Longfellow, and Wordsworth, to be followed by other popular poets in a series, all" edited, with explanatory notes and memoirs, by William Michael Rossetti," who has just mutilated Shelley in two of the most pretentious and slovenly volumes ever issued, and "whose name," as the announcement with unconscious irony states, "will be a sufficient guaranty for the general accuracy of the various texts." But as Mr. Rossetti's "name" is to appear on the works of three poets a-month, it is evident that putting "his name on as editor is what he undertakes personally to do; so that we may have tolerable books, after all.

Mr. Alfred Austin has struck up some discussion on "The Poetry of the Period," by a volume of essays published by Bently, in which he attacks Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, Morris, and Arnold, as mere voices of a degenerate

age, with no element of great art in it. His attack is weak, however, and if his case be a good one, it has an unfortunate advocate.

Warne issues a cheap and handy edition of Pepys's Diary, edited by Lord Braybrooke, which ought to make this favorite and entertaining account of English life at the time of the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. as familiar as Scott's novels.

Brockaus (Leipsic) has in press a volume of "Essays on Comparative Philology," by Dr. Adolf Bastian, who has risen so rapidly of late to the front rank of anthropologists. He must not be confounded with Dr. H. C. Bastian, of London, who is preparing a book called "The Beginnings of Life," containing a summary of the great controversy on spontaneous generation," which is also looked for with deep interest. It is the former, the German Professor, who wrote two years ago the essay on "The Permanent in the Races of Men, and the Limits of their Variations," which is still the standard authority on the subject.

Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, whose first introduction to the general public as a naturalist of high standing was made when Mr. Darwin, only ten years ago, in his "Origin of Species," generously recognized Mr. Wallace as having independently discovered substantially the same doctrine of natural selection with himself, seems now to be the most indefatigable student of natural history and the allied sciences in the world. We have had scarcely time to become familiar with his great work on "The Malay Archipelago," perhaps the most important book of scientific travels in this generation; and to follow him in the lively and varied criticisms on current topics with which he enlivens some of the journals, when he surprises us by announcing a volume of "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection" (Macmillan). Whatever Mr. Wallace thinks worthy of publication is sure to be valuable.

The discussion of the social and political duties and position of woman,

in which this country took the lead, in time, if not in merit, is extending rapidly over Europe. Mr. J. S. Mill's "Emancipation of Women" has appeared in two German translations; Fanny Lewald defends the same views in fourteen letters, "For and Against the Ladies" (Berlin, Otto Janke); Louise Büchner publishes a "Practical Essay toward the Solution of the Woman Question" (Berlin, Otto Janke), which takes the opposite side on purely practical grounds, especially on that more fully stated in a little work by Dr. F. Runge (Berlin, A. Charisius) on "The Care of the Sick," regarded as a special field of work for women. The subject of the higher education of woman has also been brought into new prominence in Europe of late. A little book by Ulrike Henschke (Berlin, Charisius) is said to treat it, so far as Prussia is concerned, with great intelligence. In France, the report upon "Public Instruction in the United States," just presented to the Minister of Education, by M. C. Hippeau, and an article by the same writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes in September last, upon the education of women in the United States, have attracted special attention. The report of M. Hippeau gives the most intelligent general view of the schools and colleges of this country at the present time to be found in any language; and unless the same work is soon done better by some native American, it might advantageously be translated into English. We have observed a few errors in details, easily corrected, but the spirit of our educational system as a whole is understood and expressed with surprising accuracy by this Frenchman.

Earl Stanhope, who, as Lord Mahon, is well known as the author of a useful "History of England from the Peace of Utrecht," has just published a new volume under the title of "History of England, comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht." It really begins nearly two years before the death of William III., at the point at which Lord Macaulay's work was interrupted by his death, and extends

to the period at which his own former work began. It is unfortunate for the reader's interest that he will take this book up, in the natural order, after that of Macaulay, whose brilliant, epigrammatic style, vivid descriptions, and dramatic narrative contrast so strongly with the quiet, guarded statements, and unrhetorical, even unfinished writing of Earl Stanhope. But the new volume rests on such wide research and unquestioned ability that, as an authority in English history, it is at least equal to the more striking work by which the great essayist won his peerage.

Students of "Method," as the basis of all scientific knowledge, will rejoice to hear that Prof. Alexander Rain, unquestionably the leader of the most influential and progressive school of philosophy in Europe, has completed his long-expected treatise on "Logic," and that it has been published by Longmans & Co. The reader will not expect a review of such a book in this place; enough that it is by far the strongest statement ever yet made of the fundamental laws of thought as understood by those who "cling to experience as the only standard of truth." The treatise on induction, which forms the second part of the work, and is published separately, is by far the most novel and valuable part of it, and appears to be more thorough and less difficult to master than Mr. Mill's chapters on the same subject.

Students of the English language will look with interest for the new edition of Wedgewood's "Dictionary of English Etymology," which the author is now preparing, assisted by Rev. J. A. Atkinson. It is to be greatly enlarged, and will appear early in the summer.

"A Life of the great Lord Fairfax," the Parliamentary Commander-inchief in the war against Charles I., by Mr. C. R. Markham, has just appeared from the press of Macmillan. It is easy reading, and contains much that is new to the general reader; but the style is loose and careless, and some of the chapters seem to us wofully confused.

We have tried in vain to construct even

an intelligible genealogical tree out of his long and tedious notices of the Fairfax family; and Mrs. Somerville, the famous woman of science, and the most able representative of the family in this century, is not mentioned at all. Many British critics praise the work as extravagantly as it praises its subject.

The current taste in art was fairly shown in the recent sale of the famous gallery of Prince Demidoff in Paris. Collectors were present from all parts of Christendom; but English wealth and French pride took nearly all the prizes. "The Broken Eggs," by Greuze, a picture on the merits of which critics are by no means agreed, brought 126,000 francs; and a half-length portrait by the same artist sold for 89,000 francs; by far the highest prices ever obtained for works of this class. Delaroche's "Death of Lady Jane Grey" and Ary Scheffer's "Francesca da Rimini" were the next favorites, and brought more than 100,000 francs each.

The French Academy again attracts attention by filling some of its vacancies. It was formed in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu; and the constitution given by his charter, which has never been changed, defined its object as the establishment of a standard of the French language, both by rules and examples. There can be but forty members, and vacancies are filled for life by election, exclusively on the ground of merit as men of letters. Each new member delivers a eulogy on his predecessor. It is commonly said that members live longer than any other men; vacancies are extremely rare, and hundreds of authors, each "among the first of the age," are always waiting at the doors. There were lately five vacancies; the place of Lamartine has just been filled by the choice of Emile Ollivier, the Prime-Minister; and Napoleon III. and George Sand are both talked of for other seats, although emperors and women have not heretofore been regarded as candidates.

The most credulous books of this century are unquestionably "The Mystical Phenomena of Human Nature,"

written many years ago, and "Glimpses of the Hidden Life of the Human Spirit," which appeared last year, both by Maximilian Perty, to whom the world is brimful of ghosts, resurrections, and miracles and the "Lives of the Saints" would contain nothing hard to believe. Unfortunately, his style is as tedious and heavy as his judgment is weak, and it is surprising that his new book, "Nature in the Light of Philosophic Contemplation" (Die Natur im Lichte Philosophischer Anschauung, Heidelberg, C. F. Winter), should be seriously reviewed by important journals. Herr Perty writes, he says, "for philosophers and people of scientific education; " but the long introduction to his Mystical Phenomena " proves him to be utterly incapable of understanding what either philosophy or science is. Andrew Jackson Davis is worthy to be his master.

Ludwig Büchner's "Position of Man in Nature" (Die Stellung des Menschen in der Natur, in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart, und Zukunft, Leipsic, Theodore Thomas) undertakes to answer, on scientific evidence, the three great questions, "Whence do we come? who are we? whither do we go?" and that in three little pamphlets or parts, which will together make but a pocket-volume. We have received but the first two of these, and do not find them equal to the earlier works of the author. Surely the man who wrote "Kraft and Stoff" and the famous "Six Lectures on Darwin's Theory," ought to write more originally and impressively on this great theme. Mr. Büchner, however, is always lively, clear and forcible; and there is much accurate and valuable truth in the book, though its tone is often overbearing toward opponents, and offensive to all who are not atheists or skeptics.

The art of "puffing" has recently been carried to a degree of perfection which would have astonished a former generation. The Yankees have lost the ascendancy they long enjoyed

in it, and England now takes the lead. For example: a series of works of a high scientific character have just been published by Longmans, London, upon the economy of fuel in dwelling-houses, under the titles, "Our Domestic Fireplaces," ," "The Extravagant Use of Fuel in Cooking," "The Ventilation of Dwelling-Houses," "Smoky Chimneys;" discussing these subjects with more intelligence than most standard works on such subjects, yet in language intelligible to the general reader; and yet so ingeniously contrived, that each of them is an advertisement of a particular stove. The books, we repeat, are really good; they sell readily and at full prices; they are noticed favorably by the best journals, and admitted everywhere to be the best contributions ever made to the popular knowledge of the subjects treated; yet each of them is a systematic and telling "puff," and if the stovemakers whose wares are recommended, have not paid Mr. Frederick Edwards, Jr., the author, more than his copyright, they are cheaply served. But of what infinite applications this plan of connecting real science and saleable information with "puffs " may yet prove susceptible, we cannot predict.

Susanna Winkworth's excellent translation of Bunsen's "God in History" is just completed, forming three volumes, and Dean Stanley has written a preface. Bunsen's great name will set the book on the shelves of many libraries, but will not avail to get it read. As a theological event, the recent appearance of the Hindoo philosopher, the Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen, in the liberal pulpits of London, as a sort of missionary of Buddhist ethics, is of more importance. Trübner & Co. take advantage of it to publish a translation of a work by Chao Phya Praklang, late Foreign Minister of Siam, called "the Modern Buddhist," giving his criticisms upon the principal religions of the world.