La

American readers, one of the most quaint, humorous, and fascinating books that ever came from the genius of man. Fontaine is worthy of study, as giving an example of art to hide the appearance of art-of excessive labor to reach that state of naturalness in which there seems an absence of labor. We are glad that the work has fallen into the hands of publishers whose enterprise will secure for it a sale proportionate to its merit.

10. Sketches of New England Divines. By Rev. D. Sherman. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

Biographical sketches of twenty-one New England divines, of whom six-John Cotton, Richard Mather, Roger Williams, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, Eleazer Mather, and Jonathan Edwards-belong to the Puritan history of the country. A large proportion of the ministers belonging to the later period of our history, are Methodists. The sketches are graphic, abound with anecdotes, and are not sparing in the number of jokes and repartees recorded of their several heroes. We do not complain, that the author makes his sketches the occasion of divers inuendoes intended to be at the expense of Universalism and Universalists. Thus, for example, on page 329, in the sketch of Timothy Merritt, we are assured that a controversy between this person and Mr. Page, the Universalist minister of Springfield, Mass., " proved a perfect quietus to the Universalist love of debate in that section of the country. In all such statements, however, it would be some satisfaction had we an opportunity to cross question the witness. The account of a 66 quietus" put upon Hosea Ballou by Lemuel Haynes, as described on page 283, is more satisfactory, inasmuch as the writer tells, under five heads and numerous subdivisions, what it was coming from Mr. Haynes, that "laughed Mr. Ballou out of town." The account will make any one "laugh," who has a recollection of the way in which Mr. Ballou was usually affected by such criticisms on his preaching.

11. The Word of the Spirit to the Church. Boston: Walker, Wise & Company. 1859. pp. 89,

This neat little volume contains a sermon on a large scale from the Rev. C. A. Bartol. It was called out by the discourse of Rev. Dr. Bellows, on the "Suspense of Faith," and is the opposite view from the one urged by the New York divine. Mr. Bartol does not feel, with Mr. Bellows, a need of more form and ceremony in Christian worship. He is not chilled by the lack of popular sympathy and enthusiasm in the Unitarian congrega,

tion. He is not eager for the crowd of hearers-or at least will not abate the simplicity of worship for the sake of a crowd. He does not believe that a congregation does not work because it only hears. Hearing is work. "Many a mute listener," he tells us, "is more active with God than sometimes is the loud, swaying, perspiring figure in the desk." The discourse will bear re-reading, for it contains more of thought and suggestion than will be likely to appear at the first perusal. It will operate as a check upon the ritualistic tendency of the day. And knowing the temptation to extremes, we welcome a reasonable restraint upon this tendency, notwithstanding our personal views rather accord with the movement which Mr. Bartol indirectly attacks.

12. Jesus, the Interpreter of Nature; and Other Sermons. By Thomas Hill. Boston: Walker, Wise & Company. 1860.

This neatly printed volume contains eighteen sermons. The themes are peculiarly Christian;—such, for example, as "Salvation by Grace," "The Bread of Life," ," "The True Vine," "Practice, The True Foundation of Theory," and "The Communion of Saints." The style is uniformly clear, natural and strong. The sentences are packed with thought. Comparisons are numerous in the volume, and are to the point. We regard the book as an intellectual gem, not meaning by this to hint any lack of the fervor which must always accompany a proper treatment of Christian topics. The notion that sermons, however edifying to hear, must be dull to readers, is practically refuted by this collection. We notice that the author is pointed and unqualified in his repudiation of rationalistic interpretations of the New Testament. He deems the fact that nearly all the learned agree in conceding the claims of Christianity as a special revelation from God, as in itself a presumption in favor of such claims; and persons who turn from Christianity to other sources for truth, seem to him " very like the scientific theorists whom we occasionally find battling against Newton's philosophy, approved, as it has been, by the great majority of learned men for two hundred years."

13. Highways of Travel, or A Summer in Europe. By Margaret J. M. Sweat. Boston: Walker, Wise & Company. 1859.

We trust that the hackneyed nature of the general subject will not operate to prejudice readers against this book. The authoress appropriately apologizes for adding another to the numerous books of European travel. "A prospect varies with the angle from which it is regarded and the light beneath which it is viewed. No two persons will describe it in precisely the same

terms, or bring away from it the same impressions. Only from the accumulation of several descriptions can one who has not beheld it obtain à just conception of it as a whole." This statement is profound, and must satisfy every candid thinker. Millions of sermons a year do not exhaust the New Testament: and this not because there are so many distinct topics to be preached,-in point of fact there are but few, and these very simple, but because they strike every mind somewhat differently, are seen by each from a peculiar point of view. The same principle applies to every thing having an intrinsic worth to the human mind and heart. It will not be denied that Europe, so multiform in scenery, history, art, sciences, politics, faith, and manners, has this kind of worth as the object of sight, speculation and suggestion. We only ask that travellers shall know how to see and how to relate. Mrs. Sweat has this faculty in a high degree, and has produced a volume which needs no apology. It is handsomely gotten up, blending a beautiful tint with a clear type.

14. The Roman Question. Translated from the French of Edmond About. By Mrs. Annie T. Wood. Edited, with an Introduction, by Rev. E. N. Kirk, D. D. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Company. 1859.

We have read this book with an unbroken interest. We have not found a paragraph from which the attention wandered. Leaving the veracity of facts and conclusiveness of its reasonings out of the account, and enough remains to reward any reader for the time the book requires. We cannot name the book that excels it for cutting irony. Never have we seen pope, cardinals and priests so mercilessly portrayed. Irony is the author's forte-backed by truth, a terrible weapon truly. With such a faculty in such a degree the partisan will never be disturbed by the "opposition" He would be as safe from assault as a torpedo from the touch. Second only to his irony, are the author s portraits of the heads of the church. Pius IX. and especially Antonelli are drawn to the life. The at first well-meaning, but now discouraged, frightened, almost imbecile old man in the papal chair, the crafty, unscrupulous, rapacious secretary-the priest engrafted in the mountaineer -will always seem real personages to the reader of this work. As to the argumentative point, the only question can be about the facts. Admit these and no doubt will rest upon the inference. And admit them, it would seem we must. They admit of verification, if true-of refutation, if false. We have, as yet, seen no attempt to refute them. The most palpable argument bears upon the temporal power of the pope-the gross outrage of compelling three million temporal subjects to support a government for the

spiritual benefit of one hundred and thirty million spiritual subjects. We have at present, ample proof, that the temporal subjects of the pope are willing that others shall take his care off their hands. Some country districts board their school teachers "round," as it is called. The pope's spiritual district should do as much. At least, the victims of his temporal sovereignty so think. We invite readers to try a few pages of The Roman Question. They will not willingly lay the book down till they have read it through.

15. New Miscellanies. By Charles Kingsley. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.

We need not say to the readers of "Alton Locke” and “Hypatia," that Mr. Kingsley is an original writer. He is indeed one of the small number who reflect the wisdom of others far less than they shine by their own inherent brilliancy. Mr. Kingsley, in this new re-publication-the contents of the volume are taken for the most part from reviews and magazines—gives fresh evidence of his comparative isolation from tradition and from existing habits and forms of thought. Nothing can be more charming to an æsthetic taste than the paper on "ChalkStream Studies," in which the now popular reverence for mountain scenery and mountaineering is put to an argumentative test. His paper on Brooke's "Fool of Quality"-originally a preface to that unique book-is one of the finest specimens of analysis we have any where seen. His "Thoughts on Shelley and By-. ron," and on "Alexander Pope and Alexander Smith," will be fresh and novel to every reader. His titles do not always give a clue to his topics, as for example: "A Mad World, my Masters," and "Thoughts in a Gravel-Pit." But topics he always has. The volume is printed in the usual style of the publications of Ticknor & Fields.

16. The Fool of Quality: or, the History of Henry, Earl of Moreland. By Henry Brooke, Esq. A New and Revised Edition, with an Introduction by the Rev. W. P. Strickland, D. D., and a Biographical Preface by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, M. A. In two volumes. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1860.

The earlier history of Henry Brooke has in it something of mystery, shading off indeed into myth. He was born in 1708, was the pupil of Swift, the friend and extravagant admirer of Pope, was on intimate terms with Pitt, and was the favorite of the Prince of Wales. He was a wit, a courtier, a dancer, and a swordsman,-in every particular accomplished. He was at first the favorite of fortune, yet, in the words of Pope, "unspoilt by

all her caresses. For with all he was a man-independent, rigidly conscientious, and profoundly religious in feeling and thought. He offended Garrick by refusing to sell his genius at the rate of a shilling for each dramatic line-his popularity as a play-writer made him worth even this to the manager. He offended Johnson because he would not bow down and acknowledge his intellectual supremacy. It is worth adding that he was a most devoted husband-his reason could hardly survive the loss of his wife. The Rev. Mr. Strickland assures us that "The Fool of Quality" gives evidence unmistakable of its author's belief in the doctrine of the final restoration of man to the favor of God, Mr. Kingsley speaks of the book in a way not pleasing to Orthodox interpreters of Christianity. "If theology, properly so called, is to be henceforth an extinct science-if nothing can be known of God's character, even from the person of Jesus Christ, save that he will doom to endless torture the vast majority of the human race-if the divine morality be utterly different from the ideas of human morality-if generosity, magnanimity, chivalry, all which seem most divine in man is to have no likeness in God-if the motives of religion are to be confined henceforth to the most selfish of human hopes and the basest of human fears-if, in a word, Spurgeonism, whether Protestant or Catholic, is the only fit creed for mankind, then indeed, all the seemingly noble teaching of this book is superfluous, and its diatribes may be passed over as impertinent interferences with the dramatic unity of the plot."

We have only to remind the reader that "The Fool of Quality" is not to be classed with the modern novel. It is a different species of fiction,-one in which plot and dramatic effect are subordinate to Christian thought and sentiment. Its theology in many respects is an anticipation of the present Unitarian and Universalist views of God, man, morality and destiny. It is one of those works of genius which the world will never let die.

17. Leaders of the Reformation: Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Knox, the Representative men of Germany, France, England and Scotland. By John Tulloch, D. D. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1860.

The Protestant Reformation had its immediate (though not its remote) origin in Germany, where it appeared as a grand insurrectionary movement a hearty, earnest, often violent reaction against the papal despotism. France gave to the movement something of a definite purpose, reduced it to method, affixed to it a theology, and subjected it to constitutional regulations. In England, (leaving out of the account the preliminary work of Wickliffe and the Lollards), the political element led on, often