reader, are of prime importance to the historical student. This feature, combined with the fullness and precision of the narrative, make his work one of the best for practical reference which we possess in any portion of modern history. Nor is it to be regarded as a mere depository of facts. Sir Archibald has a taste for the legitimate ornaments of historical writing; and although we do not think him a master in that line, we can not deny him a gift of lively description which often approaches the borders of the picturesque. His battle-scenes, especially, have great vigor and vitality. He loves the sight of serried columns and the sound of martial music. He seems to have gained a clear conception of the operations of the field: often, doubt less, from personal observation of the locality; and succeeds, to a charm, in reproducing them before the mind's eye of the reader. His narrative is frequently varied, moreover, with graphic specimens of character-drawing and with literary criticisms. He is more felicitous, we think, in the former than in the latter. The sphere of action is more congenial to his turn of mind than that of literature. He looks with warmer sympathy on the great warrior or the great statesman than on the great author. This is natural enough, as most men are apt to magnify the pursuits which present the greatest contrast with their own. Hence his portraitures of the leading characters in political or military life are usually effective, while his remarks on the productions of literature are characterized neither by aptness of expression nor justness of application. They are often drawn from secondary sources rather than from personal study. Indeed, it would be too much to expect from the industrious statistician and diligent student of events a delicate appreciation of German poetry or a profound comprehension of German philosophy. Yet he comments on both one and the other with the same ease and assurance with which he describes the position of a battalion in the field, or descants on the rise and fall of dynasties.

elementary principles of the science, and a description of the flora of a large portion of the United States. Professor Gray is equally remarkable for his profound attainments in this branch of natural history and for the simplicity and clearness of his methods in imparting his knowledge to his readers. His style is a model of scientific precision. His explanations of the technical terms of the science have never been surpassed for conciseness and point. The descriptive portions of his works are entirely free from repetition or any other form of verbiage, and possess the beauty of appropriate ness and condensation. It is rarely, indeed, that the student is furnished with a text-book combining the popular elements with systematic exactness to the degree exhibited in these standard volumes.

Fred Markham in Russia, by W. H. G. KINGSTON, is a lively sketch of Russian life and manners, especially intended for young readers, in the form of the journal of a family party. It is written from personal observation during a recent visit to the land of the Czars, and, with its familiar style and apt illustrations, is equally rich in entertainment and instruction. (Published by Harper and Brothers.)

Wyoming; its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures, by GEORGE PECK, D.D. (Published by Harper and Brothers.) The Valley of Wyoming, which is no less celebrated in English poetry than in American history, has been made the scene of terrible as well as romantic legends, which are now, for the first time, sifted in the light of critical research. For more than forty years the author has enjoyed special advantages for the study of its local traditions, and has assiduously devoted himself to the collection and exposition of facts. His work consists mainly of a succession of historic scenes, each narrative being complete in itself, and at the same time forming a portion of a general description on a larger scale. The name of Wyoming is a corruption of the old Indian title, Maughwauwami, signifying "The Large Plains," which was successively transformed by the early settlers into Wauwaumie, Wiawumie, Wiomic, and Wyoming. The first white man who ventured into the wild valley was Count Zinzendorf, who came with an interpreter in 1742, and erected his tent near the Indian village. The savages could not comprehend his benevolent design, and supposed that it was his object to gain possession of their lands, instead of bearing to them the message of divine mercy. They accordingly determined to put him to death, and stealthily approaching his tent for that purpose by night, saw a huge rattlesnake crawl over his feet as he sat

The period treated of in this volume extends from the close of the war of 1814 to the convulsions of 1848 in Germany; from the extinction of the peerage in 1831 to the treaty regarding the East in 1841 in France; and from the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 to the fall of the Whigs in 1842 in England; together with collateral views of the literature of Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century; the affairs of Turkey, Greece, and Egypt from 1828 to 1841; and of India from 1826 to 1848. Among the topics of special interest to readers in this country, are the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies, the rebellion of 1837 in Canada, and the contest between President Jack-writing on a bundle of weeds. They were struck son and the United States Bank. In the discus- with awe, like the barbarians who saw the Apostle sion of these subjects the author often falls into Paul unharmed by the viper, and regarded the errors of detail, and always exhibits his inveterate stranger as under the immediate protection of the Tory and Conservative predilections; but at the Great Spirit. In 1750 several adventurers from same time evinces a remarkable skill in winding New England were attracted by the beauty and through the mazes of such a complicated historical fertility of the country, and soon after companies labyrinth, and presents a clew to the reader which were formed for its permanent settlement. Durhe may follow with instruction and satisfaction. ing the revolutionary war the peaceful valley was The student of botany will bestow a warm greet-made the scene of bloody strife; but the cruelties ing on the new editions of Professor A. GRAY's Manual of Botany, and Structural and Systematic Botany, recently issued by Ivison and Phinney, especially if he has already had occasion to become acquainted with the admirable expositions of the subject for which the author is distinguished. The two volumes present a comprehensive view of the

of the Indians have been much exaggerated; and many legends of horror are here stripped of their fictitious garb, and reduced to the sober proportions of truth. The author has made the students of local history greatly his debtors, and thrown much light on an interesting portion of the American annals.

TH

ETHICS OF POPULARITY.-The rela- | on the Ethics of Popularity, to consider the tendention between the people and the amusers, cies, and show the impotence for good, of all influteachers, and leaders of the people, is in continual ence exercised on low levels of feeling and characdanger of being withdrawn from the operation of ter. One preliminary observation, which must octhose moral laws which govern the other relations cur to every mind that reflects on the subject, will of life, and perverted from being a source of mu- make our path clear and easy to tread. It is this: tual benefit into a source of mutual corruption. that while every body affects to see the necessity The idea is mischievously prevalent, that the true of "popularizing" truth for somebody, nobody method of reaching the heart and brain of the peo- seems to admit its necessity for himself. Go into ple is ignobly to ignore the best sentiments of the a political meeting in any part of the United States, heart and the best thoughts of the brain; that to and each man, if questioned, will be likely to tell hit hard it is necessary to strike low; and that all you that the slang and bombast of the orator he successful appeals to the masses suppose in the ora- cheers are necessary as a means of influencing the tor a previous elision of the first letter of the word. unintelligent and uneducated portion of the auThis language, in the mouth of the quack and the dience, though he disregards and perhaps despises rogue, is so perfectly in character that it is need-them himself. Each person is troubled at the fatless to waste surprise on its utterance. They do wittedness of his neighbor, and the danger to the after their kind. But there seems to be a growing country if the other party gets his vote; but he is disposition on the part of men reputed wise and serenely conscious of his own intelligence. Mutual honest to adopt this scoundrel ethics; to believe distrust thus begets mutual deception. It is the that the quack and rogue are right in their meth- oid farce over again of Bulwer's ragged corporal, ods, and only wrong in their objects; and that the who, as he chuckles over his own personal skeptitrue way to do good to the people is to adapt every cism, still condescendingly admits that "religion thing good to their supposed mental and moral is a very good thing for the poor!" condition. From the success of quacks and rogues it is hastily inferred that the people are rude, coarse, credulous, prejudiced, illiterate, and sensual; that they are strong in their appetites, weak in their minds, incompetent to feel grand sentiments or receive great ideas, but still capable of being pushed in the right direction, provided the appeal is made in words which they can under-print, what he might utter himself among coarse stand, to motives which they can appreciate. This, being interpreted, means that to advance the noblest cause in popular estimation, it is necessary that a very little reason and conscience should be mixed with a great deal of nonsense, imposture, and slang.

We, of course, concede that this refusal of every person, who feels within him the impatient stir of the least feeling of manliness, to be plunged into the "lower classes," does not prove that he is not really influenced. Pride, vanity, the sense of shame, the sense of his own importance, a certain inward shrinking at hearing in public, or seeing in

companions-all these prevent him from confessing that he approves what may secretly give him pleasure and satisfaction. But the fact of his denying that he is moved shows that there is no need of striking so low in order to hit his taste; that he has in him something which would thrill at a nobler Now we will not, just now, consider the question appeal, and take in a more connected logic; that, whether those who talk and think in this way are in short, he is being corrupted in the very process not impelled more by the desire of the people's ap- by which his teacher aims to meet the demands of plause than the desire of the people's good. We his presumed corruption. This last is the point we will not even pause to stigmatize the atheism in desire especially to emphasize. The question reregard to the power of high principles, the disbe-lates to the vehicle which should be employed in lief equally in man and God, which is implied in a proposition to vulgarize and debase patriotism, art, science, letters, manners, morals, and religion, for the purpose of giving them a force and effectiveness which it seems they sadly lack in themselves. It is sufficient to say, at the outset, that the whole scheme proceeds on the principle of libeling the democracy it would lift. Contempt and insult are in the premises, even if such a non sequitur as philanthropy can be found in the conclusions. The theory degrades humanity; the practice degrades taste, intellect, and morals. Among the virtues that such a method of influence will develop in the people, is it not the very madness of impudence to suppose that gratitude will be one? And, to clench the argument, what right has any man who is systematically and on principle a trickster, a deceiver, or a buffoon-even if he is so for the glory of God and the good of mankind-what right has he to assume a complacent superiority over the common people in intellect and morals?

conveying thoughts, principles, and purposes, mental and moral life, from a superior into an inferior mind. The vehicle should be homely even to vulgarity, is the opinion of many men of not dishonest intentions. But if the things to be conveyed are vulgarized in the process, do they not part with their nature, and become something else? Even admitting that the end sanctifies the means, the question still comes up, Do the means really lead to the end that is proposed in the means? Now, by the law of association, the feelings and thoughts which are called up are those suggested by the words, and not those which were contemplated by the speaker. The result is that the person influenced is injuriously influenced. Morals and intelligence are in his mind lowered to the plane, and mixed with the baser matter, of sensations and appetites. But the man of superior mind is also insensibly corrupted, for in materializing his conceptions and sensualizing his sentiments, in order to make them coarsely obvious, he gradually becomes possessed by the imp he only intended to use; and he is in danger of descending by degrees to the level of those shallow, conceited, desperately "knowing" pretenders to practical wisdom, who, on the strength of a little education and a not disreputa

Disbelieving, therefore, equally in the policy and honesty of the falsehood that tricks for benevolence and the falsehood that tricks for gain, we think that all men are entitled to the best that any men have to give; and we fear, in the last analysis, it will generally be found that those who have faith in falsehood come, in the end, to look upon the commonalty more as weak brethren to be preyed upon than as weak brethren to be lifted up. Sanctity itself is to be suspected when it winks. With one hand in the people's pockets, and the other lifted to heaven to attest the purity of its purpose that is the attitude in which the imagination delights to contemplate the tricky friend of man.

ble social position, think themselves the natural | early taught to believe that the people can not unmanagers and leaders of "the populace;" who derstand; he is by no means certain that he could wheedle and flatter the multitude they despise; use them if they did; but he feels swelling within who are sycophants, with the hope that servility him an eloquence of the soul which he thinks must will enable them to feed fat their vanity and greed; do the business if he obtains an occasion for its who mistake the superficial passions which occa- utterance. As his speech is a caricature of elosionally agitate the public mind for the great ele- quence, nothing but caricature can suggest a noments of popular power; and who, profoundly ig- tion of its power. The popular imagination, supnorant of the real character of the people, believe posed to be gravely influenced by his rhodomontade them to be as stupid as they know themselves to has, on the contrary, been singularly fertile in inbe knavish. ventions which hold it up to mirthful contempt. Two examples will suffice. Sometimes it is a great idea which, like Irving's Dutch burgomaster, the orator has caught by the tail. His mind is filled with its sound, and he aims to sound it into the mental ear of the audience with a most sonorous indifference to the sense. "There is not," he shouts, "a man, woman, or child, in this house, of fifty years old or upward, through whose brains this idea has not been thundering for centuries!" Sometimes it is a great principle which, though on the occasion of his pressing it into service applies merely to the election of town-clerk, he labors to trace historically and geographically from "the fall of Adam to that of Niagara." Kindling as he rushes on, he informs his auditors, "that by this principle the pyramids of Egypt were builded; and it was this principle which enabled Washington with his whole army to march through a life devoted to the best interests of his country!" By degrees he finds that this naïve and innocent nonsense fails of its purpose. His shallow enthusiasm oozes out. He slips gradually into the clutches of thorough-paced politicians, who teach him mischief and the use of "the wires." The confused resources of his little brain are imperceptibly harmonized and condensed into low cunning and brazen effrontery; and before many years he can congratulate himself on his shrewd escape from all illusions, and on his success in reaching that perfect profligacy of mind and character which marks the finished demagogue.

And this last image naturally brings us to that portion of the subject which treats of the equivocal methods of obtaining popularity in politics. The most obvious example here is the demagogue; horror and hatred of him have been stereotyped in the commonplaces of fifty generations; so that, at last, he has himself been compelled to join in the general cry of disgust, and is commonly recognized from his giving the loudest hiss when his craft is named. But political writers continue to make the mistake of classing him among democrats. Never was classification more absurd and inaccurate. It is true that, as a monarchy implies not merely the loyalist but the courtier, so a democracy implies not merely the citizen but the demagogue. The demagogue is the courtier, accommodating himself to a change of position.

He is not a democrat who goes too far, but he is a democrat emancipated from democracy. He is not a democrat perverted but a democrat inverted. He has a profound distrust of the people bred from his success in deluding the people; and is at heart and from reflection a believer in despotism. In the company of select friends, over the nuts and wine, he does not hesitate to complain of the injustice he receives from the pens of conservative writers on the science of government; and as John Wilkes privately vindicated himself from the disgrace of being a Wilkesite, so he scorns in his confidential hours the imputation of being a democrat. It is bad enough, he says, for a reduced gentleman to be compelled to get his living by such a trade as his; why insult his intelligence by imputing fanaticism to his motives? He is willing to be Captain Rook; but why discredit his firmness of mind by insinuating that he has any feelings of tenderness for the pigeon he plucks?

But the significant fact in the biography of the demagogue is, that he commonly commences public life as a simpleton, and the process by which he is developed into the rogue is one which will well repay investigation. In his youth, his pinched brain and shallow sensibilities are filled with the notion that he must "popularize" political knowledge in order that he may reach "the great heart of the people." He begins with bombast if he ends with blarney. Sense, information, logic, he is

But there are many persons who would be shocked if they were called demagogues, who yet in politics pursue a line of conduct which they admit would prove them to be rogues if followed out in any other part of the business of life. There are men, irreproachable as merchants and lawyers, and whose word in all ordinary matters is as good as their bond, who have convinced themselves that public lying is very different from private lying; that the domain of politics is a neutral ground into which ethics only penetrate to intrude; that nothing there is properly moral or immoral, but simply un-moral; that expediency and management are there the proper substitutes for principle; that to act on rigid notions in partisan disputes would be simply to deliver over the country into the hands of political hacks and knaves; and that, provided the object to be gained is just and patriotic, it is little matter how base may be the means. In their complacent consciousness of superior wisdom they seem to look upon the people as they would look upon a wild beast, who must be coaxed because too strong to be caged or chained. They are false, hypocritical, constrained by no scruples, because, if they may be believed, they are compelled to submit to the necessities which give popularity, and the power and influence which accompany popularity, to loud professions which pander to popular prejudice. They despise what they profess; they despise those who believe their

professions; and yet they escape despising themselves for making such professions. They elude self-contempt by self-deception, for they flatter themselves it is not interest or ambition but patriotism which makes them deceivers; and they never dream of supposing that interest and ambition may obscure their perceptions of the public good, as much as an assumed passion, prejudice, and ignorance may obscure the perceptions of the people.

the right of conscience and the right of reason on their side.

If we pass from politics to literature, we find that it, too, has its professors of popularity, who aim to acquire influence on low levels, from the same seeming mistrust that the masses who read are gifted with brains to understand and taste to discriminate. Literature, with most of these writers, is not so much an art or a profession as it is a mechanical employment. They are artisans engaged in the manufacture of books, not artists en

The conceit of these earthly providences would doubtless be mortified, if the fact could be insin-gaged in the creation of works. They are anxious uated into their dull perceptions that they are rather below than above the great majority of the people, of whom they assume the contemptuous guardianship. Their notion of the common mind and heart is the result of no exercise of wide sympathies or sagacious insight, but is the product of pharisaic superciliousness acting on mental isolation. By adopting, to some degree, the arts of the demagogue, they acquire a certain kind of popularity; but this popularity rather disgraces them than the people; for the people, when undeceived, can justly say that they had no reason to suppose that respectable men, conventionally honest and religious, would stoop in their public capacity to act the part of cheats and liars. And we really believe if these politicians had the courage and the faith to be more candid they would be more popular. If they really knew those they address, they would discover that their influence was as superficial as their management was mean and their eloquence was ridiculous. There are doubtless knaves and fools among the people, and such politicians as we are considering are doing all they can to add to the number; but the knaves and fools are still in a minority so lean that no politician who aims at high positions can be shrewdly advised who builds his hopes on them. In spite of the clash and conflict of interests and passions in politics, there is still enough clear perception left in the most excited masses to recognize and respect great qualities of mind and character; and these would bear more sway than they do if demagogues scampish, and demagogues conceited, were not so incessantly engaged in perverting the people they pretend to teach, and in turning, as far as they are able, the noblest and most important branch of public education, the education of a democracy in the art and science of government, into a school of vulgarity, falsehood, scurrility, and faction-a school in which government is taught as a trick. That the people desire something better is proved by the success of those who give them something better; and were it not for the trickery used in primary meetings, the men who seek to deprave them would rarely represent them. Tell the truth to the people; give them fair statements, consecutive reasoning, honest advice, give them wit that is not personality, humor that is not buffoonery, eloquence that is not rhodomontade, before you assert that they can appreciate nothing in logic but fallacies, and nothing in language but balderdash. It can hardly be said that our people disregard refinement, when the most popular orator of the country, the man who draws the greatest crowds, is Mr. Everett, who is almost prudish in his elaborated elegance and studied grace. It can hardly be said that any people lack the instincts of conscience and the intuitions of reason, while history proves that, in every controversy with their oppressors, they have had

to supply the market with whatever it needs, and especially with the latest styles of "gent's clothing" for the mind. Some, like Dumas in France, are master-manufacturers, who put their own names to the productions of many hands. A few of these writers have genius, a considerable number have talent, and a larger number still have an effrontery of mediocrity which more than compensates for the lack of either. All aim to exercise the privileges of popularity but are indifferent to its responsibilities. They vex themselves little with curious speculations in regard to the kind of effect they produce on the minds of their readers, provided the effect is such as to elicit money from their pockets. If any critical exceptions are taken either to the form or substance of their productions, they excuse themselves with the plea that they do not write to exhibit their talents, or to add to the classics of literature, but to hit the public taste; that the public taste is coarse and uncultivated, and demands the flaring, stunning, thunder-andlightning patterns in books as in gowns and pantaloons. It never seems to have occurred to these modest penmen that, like great poets, they have "created the taste by which they are enjoyed."

The usual appellation given to this kind of jobwriting is "popular literature." As for the popularity we will not now dispute it, but we contend that it is no literature at all. The real literature of a people is the best and highest literature they have produced as a race or a nation. Chaucer, Shakspeare, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, and Byron; Hooker, Bacon, Taylor, South, Barrow, Johnson, and Warburton; Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Fanny Burney, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Reade, and Kingsley-not to mention scores of others in all departments of English letters-are as much the product of the English people, as much form a portion of their common inheritance of glory, as their laws, institutions, manners, or any other organic outgrowth of their national mind and character. It was wittily said of Voltaire, that if France had not existed he would have created it. In fact France created him, and without France there could have been no such combination of talents and dispositions as made up the individuality we call Voltaire. Especially is this principle true of our Saxon or semi-Saxon race. Its literature contains the finest spirit and essence of its character; is something to which all the pecple have contributed; and is the mode by which the real history of the people's life, the history which no annals can recount, is mentally transmitted from age to age. If we could conceive of England as sunk beneath the sea she has ruled, and that no vestige or record of her was left except passages of her literature, embodying her reason, imagination, and the true English personality of her various authors, we could still infer from these the exist│ence of a mighty and peculiar people, whose genius