already seen as the leading Article in the Number for February of the current year, and from it they will obtain a more correct idea of the style and aim of the work than from any description we can give. The whole subject of education, mental, moral and physical, is viewed from the Christian stand-point. Christianity is to be the great molding force in all its processes-the true measure of its aims. It cannot be read but with profit by teachers and those practically interested in education. We particularly commend to all such the part entitled "The True Christian Teacher," as abounding in principles and practical hints of great importance.

Of course on many specific points treated of in this book there will be differences of opinion, but its general spirit and aim all will heartily approve.

An extended argument of some eighteen pages in the last Essay, against honorary degrees and titles, will furnish suitable reading for members of college corporations between this and the next season of college commencements. The "Semilunar Fardels" receive a hard hit.

MASSON'S BRITISH NOVELISTS.*-Gould & Lincoln send us a capital volume on the British Novelists by the Professor of English Literature, University College, London, who is, also the author of the Life and Times of John Milton. The substance of it was delivered in the form of Lectures to the members of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh. This fact might suggest to Lecturing Committees, or rather to Committees on Lectures in this country, that if they wish that the discharge of their functions should accomplish anything better than the discharge of the indebtedness of the Institute or Lyceum, or what not, for whose finances they seem specially to care, they might imitate their more sensible neighbors over the water, in the kind of lectures and lecturers which they provide. Imagine an American lecture audience to find entertainment from a course of lectures on any topic in the history of literature, even though it should be the history of the modern novel!

But though we cannot hear such lectures in our country, we ought to be thankful that we can read them, and that these of Dr. Masson are so readable and so instructive. His analysis of the essential peculiarities of the modern novel seems to us skillful and just, and his conceptions of

British Novelists and their Styles. Being a critical sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction. By DAVID MASSON, M. A. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 18mo. pp. 312.

the various schools and writers that have risen, and are still rising before us, are distinct, and skillfully formed and presented. We might complain somewhat of his occasionally misty wordiness, but we are quite reconciled to him by his genial and animated estimate of Scott, and his splendid yet graphic portraiture of Edinburgh in the times of Scott. We are greatly mistaken if this did not bring down the house, with the noisiest demonstrations of the characeristic fervor of the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum. We should like to have heard it recited at Edinburgh, and to have listened to the response. We can heartily recommend the book as good to read once and again.

TULLOCH'S LEADERS OF THE REFORMATION.*-The members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution must have grave tastes, and their tastes must be becoming more sober. In 1858 they listened to Masson's Historical Lectures on the Novelists, and this year we find them listening in thronged assemblies to Rev. Dr. Tulloch, on the four leading Reformers of Germany, France, England, and Scotland. There is no accounting for tastes, however, and we must take men as we find them. We are not disposed to quarrel with their tastes or selection, however, when we lay down this volume, which gives us well wrought sketches of the four great men named upon its title page. Dr. Tulloch is a fresh thinker, and his remarks on theology, in the life of Calvin, do not seem to have excited so great an outcry, even in staid and orthodox Edinburgh, as they would be likely to have occasioned in Presbyterian Philadelphia.

MISCELLANY.

WIGHT'S FRENCH CLASSICS. PROVINCIAL LETTERS OF BLAISE PASCAL-Mr. Wight proposes to enrich his valuable series of translations from the French classics with the works of Pascal, that "prodigy of parts" and "miracle of universal genius," and presents to us in the first volume the world-known Provincial Letters. He has preferred the

* 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. 12mo. pp. 309.

The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal, a new translation with Historical introduction and notes. By Rev. THOMAS M'CRIE, preceded by a life of Pascal, a critical Essay and Bibliographical notice. Edited by O. W. WIGHT, A M. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1859.

translation of Dr. M'Crie to all the others for the best of reasons, and has prefixed to the volume, as an appropriate introduction to the works of Pascal, First, a paper from the North British Review on the Life, Genius, and Discourses of Pascal; Second, "Pascal considered as a writer and moralist," by M. Villemain; Third, Historical Introduction to the Provincial Letters by Dr. M'Crie, and Fourth, a copious and apparently complete Bibliographical notice of all the editions and translations of Pascal's works and of the papers written upon him and his writings in France and England. This is furnished by the editor. We think this may be safely recommended as the most valuable edition of the Provincial Letters, in the English language. If any of our readers have never read these letters, we advise them to do so without delay. We shall await with great interest the next volume containing the immortal Thoughts of the gifted and devout Christian Philosopher.

MADAME DE STAEL'S GERMANY.*-Another work embraced in the new series of French Classics, is Madame de Stael's Germany. It is not many years since this was the only work in the English language which contained a general view of the then recent German Literature. It was read and re-read at a time when the study of the German language and literature had not become so common as now, and when the scantiest information was acceptable. It was not alone attractive for the information furnished concerning the principal German writers; but also for its eloquent criticisms of their works, and its just and generous views of German life and the German character.

It would seem at first thought that however interesting and useful this book may have been in its time, it must long since have been superseded by more accurate disquisitions on the life and literature of Germany. But its peculiar eloquence remains, and its vivid pictures; its just and appreciative criticisms still awaken a response even from those who have access to the wide world of literary histories and criticisms, which have been written by Germans themselves. Many will welcome this book for the sake of old associations, and will be glad to see it in an improved translation, accompanied with valuable and appropriate notes from the skillful and painstaking editor. The translation has been carefully corrected after the original French. The abundant extracts have

Germany; by Madame the Baroness DE STAEL, Holstein, with notes and appendices. By O. W. WIGHT, A. M. In two volumes. New York: Derby &

Jackson. 1859.

also been newly translated from the German. Frequent foot notes have been added, in which are given accurate references and dates, as well as many interesting original extracts, from German writers and their English critics. Last of all, but not least, at the end of the second volume we find sketches of the history of Literature, Philosophy, and Theology in Germany, down to the present time, taken from the highest authorities. Mr. Wight has been certainly successful in investing with a new interest and value this always interesting and useful book.

FENELON'S WORKS.* -In this volume, Mr. Wight has given us Hawkesworth's translation of that beautiful Christian-Pagan classic, the Adventures of Telemachus, so celebrated in French literature, and so familiar to tyros in the French tongue. He has also added the spirited and appreciative Life of Fenelon, from the eloquent pen of Lamartine, and the valuable critical essay on his Genius and Character by Villemain, together with brief critical notices, extracted from the writings of Mackintosh, Hallam, Blair, Channing, and others. The collecting of these choice literary morceaux in the volume will make it very attractive.

VOLTAIRE'S CHARLES THE TWELFTH.-The select works of Voltaire are to find a place in the same series. In the volume already published, we have the well known History of Charles XII, King of Sweden, in the translation of Smollet, but revised and corrected with much labor by the present editor. The biographical and critical notices of Voltaire, which fill about two-fifths of the volume, give it a peculiar value. The impartial life by Lord Brougham, and the splendid sketches by Lord Macaulay, here entitled, Voltaire and Frederick the Great, and Voltaire and the Church, with Carlyle's striking picture of his Character and Genius, afford the reader ample and attractive means of forming a just estimate of the French Philosopher and Skeptic. The sketches by Macaulay are extracts from his elaborate articles on Frederick the Great, and on Ranke's History of the Popes.

*Adventures of Telemachus, by Fenelon, translated by Dr. Hawkesworth: with a life of Fenelon by Lamartine, an essay on his Genius and Character by Villemain Critical and Biographical notices, etc., etc. Edited by O. W. WIGHT, A. M._ New York: Derby & Jackson. 1859.

History of Charles XII, by M. de Voltaire; with a Life of Voltaire, by Lord Brougham, and critical notices by Lord Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle. Edited by O. W. WIGHT, A. M. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1859. pp. 452.*

HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY.*-We have spoken before of the series of biographies which Messrs. Sheldon & Co. of New York are publishing under the editorial supervision of Mr. O. W. Wight. They need only to be seen to have their value appreciated. Since our notice, in August, of the first ten volumes, five more have been added. We have space only to mention their contents.

The eleventh and twelfth volumes consist of a Life of Peter the Great, compiled by the editor from the best and most reliable works. It forms one of the most readable accounts of the life of that most strange and wonderful man with which we are acquainted.

The thirteenth volume consists of a Life of Milton, prepared for the Encyclopædia Britannica, by Professor Masson, the author of the more elaborate work on the Life of Milton, the first volume of which has so recently been published in England, and received with such gratifying success. Macaulay's well known essay, "An Estimate of Milton's Genius and Character," is included in the same volume.

The fourteenth volume gives the Life of Thomas à Becket, which Mr. Wight has drawn from Dean Milman's extended History of Latin Christianity. A short biography of the biographer is introduced from the English Cyclopedia.

The fifteenth volume contains a Life of Hannibal, extracted from Dr. Arnold's History of Rome; some gaps being filled up from Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

It will be seen from this bare enumeration of the contents that this series presents unusual attractions, and that it furnishes in fact la crème de la crème of our literature in the department of biography.

THE MINISTER'S WOOING.t-We have at last in book for Mrs. Stowe's already famous novel, which in its successive monthly installments has for so long a time enriched the pages of the Atlantic Monthly. This is not the place for a critical review, and the work is already too widely known and appreciated to need an extended notice. It will be read, however, with far more pleasure and satisfaction in this single, beautiful volume, than when received by piece-meal in the suc

* Household Library. Fifteen volumes. 18mo. Averaging about three hundred pages each. Sheldon & Co., New York. Price of each volume 50 cents-(prepaid by mail.) A deduction made if the entire set is ordered.

The Minister's Wooing. By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1859. pp. 578. For sale at Judd's new bookstore, 146 Chapel

street, New Haven.