-so pronounced after having been " read with pleasure." The author has " sung the praises of home," says our veteran poeteditor, "like one who has experienced its blessings, and felt the sorrows with which it is sure to be visited. But the pathetic parts I think are the finest, and I could not read them without being affected by them." Mr. Longfellow, Pres. Hopkins, Dr. A. P. Peabody, Mr. Beecher, and others have expressed similar judgments, and the religious press has welcomed the volume with commendations of its intent and execution. Such a performance may be regarded by the critics in three aspects,-in its plan, its details, and its final impression. The plan has both unity and completeness. The poem sings of home and of nothing beside, and omits nothing that will generally constitute the ideal Christian home realized. In detail it is finished with Addisonian correctness, smoothness, and care, recalling writers who were once models in English composition, upon the admiring study of whose versification evidently Dr. Palmer's style has been formed. The total and ultimate impression of the whole is pure and happy, such as a Christian poet might desire to leave, an impression not weakened at any point by passages falling below the general level and strain of the performance. For this a critic would watch most sharply, especially in the case of one whose strength has been hitherto expended on short pieces. The whole work is as unambitious as it is chaste and true to a high moral ideal, and the poet therefore ran less risk of an occasional "nod." Both the scope and diction of the work are exemplified in such a description of domestic love as this:

"As in green meadows by some river's side,
Spring 'neath the sun daisy and violet,
With many a peer of many a name and tinge,
And blossom numberless to grace the scene;
So where that sacred current affluent glides
Through the charmed valley of domestic bliss,
Shoot forth all virtues that humanity

Do most adorn and beauty lend to life."-Part II, p. 37.

Or this passage:

"Home, 'tis to heaven's wise law we mortals owe
Thee, and all thine. In the first home was placed
Not Adam sole; with him the gentle Eve,
Woman, man's other self, in whom alone
His complement he finds. God called, 'tis said,
Not his, but their name, Adam, on the day
When He humanity complete had made.
E'er since, in thee, O wedded love, are laid

The deep foundations of domestic bliss;

With thee, through all the cycles, have been hid,

Sweet springs of joy whence, like full streams, have flowed

Earth's pleasures that are likest those to heaven."--Part I, p. 25.

Very different from the modern popular poetry of the "spasmodic" school is the following:

"All pleasing pastimes, innocent delights,

That gladden hearts yet simple and sincere,
Let love parental gather round the home,
And consecrate by sharing; let it watch
With kind, approving smiles each merry game
That quickens youthful blood, and in the joy
That beams from crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes
Its own renew, and live its childhood o'er.

So shall the scenes when life's fleetfooted years
Glide by with noiseless speed at last become
Memory's rich treasure-field, be all o'erspread
As with a radiant flood of golden sheen,
Such as, on cloudless days in eastern climes,
With the still, hazy air seems interfused,
Enrobing with a dreamy loveliness,

All visible things, transfigured in its glow."-Part III, pp. 75, 76. With what graces the author can invest well-worn themes is shown in the descriptive passages on the Home displacing the Wilderness, on New England domestic industries, on Thanksgiving, on the Pilgrims, the passage beginning, "Thou art a mother to eternal years!" and the following-with which we must close our quotations:

"Goodness, to beauty joined, is like the flame

That from the lighthouse on some towering cliff
O'er the wild waters throws its beams afar

At nightfall, welcome to the wanderer's eye.
Its glory streams abroad nor can be hid;
But many an eye beholds it and admires.

Ah! maiden, thou that in thy freshness wear'st

With modesty, and gentleness, and grace

The charms that nature gave and goodness lends,

With power these charms invest thee-power perchance
Beyond thy utmost thought-to scatter wide

Influence that light and guidance both shall be

To many a heart sincere that so inspired

Shall be by thee to nobler virtue won.

The power to bless by charming wondrous gift!

How rich who hath it! How made like to God!

Woman, this most exalts thee and adorns ;

Gives thee a sovereign sway, if so thou wilt,

And makes thee as a spirit of the skies."-Part III, pp. 91, 92.

When such books as this displace those of a sort entirely dif ferent among holiday gifts, it will be evident that a healthful change has passed upon the popular taste.

BAYNE'S "DAYS OF JEZEBEL." *-The author has been favorably known by his earlier works, referred to on this title-page, but here he challenges attention in another department where the same success can be scarcely expected, and the preface shows his modest estimate of his own powers. The work is not without poetical and even dramatic merit, but this is a degree of excellence which leaves the question open whether the same author might not have treated the subject more satisfactorily, at least for the mass of readers, in animated prose, like that of Dean Stanley, to whom the writer acknowledges his indebtedness for "the scenery," as to Ewald for "the outline of historical fact." He claims, however, for his delineation the advantage in truthfulness and interest of giving more prominence than even these writers to Queen Jezebel. His chief merit, and one that is indispensable in such a work, is his thorough acquaintance with the Scripture personages and events described, in the light of the best expositions. This makes the poem readable and instructive. It will repay the attention of a minister preparing a sermon on that part of the sacred history. The poem does not exaggerate the influence or the wickedness of the pagan queen, but we might question the warrant for making so much account of her personal beauty, as also of Ahab's prowess. As to the license taken with the historic facts in some particulars, it is perhaps no more than may be proverbially allowed in a poem, and is mostly pointed out in the preface. It is a disadvantage attending a sacred theme that a departure from the record is the more sensibly felt, and must be justified by some special effect which is not here apparent. The wonderful scene of Elijah's challenge to the prophets of Baal and mocking exultation over their impotence is boldly enough drawn in the Bible, and nothing is gained in Heman's narrative here by making the prophet laugh" until the tears streamed down his face" (p. 95). The exceptions we should take to the poem as a work of art are in a degree forestalled by the modesty we have noted in the author. The chant he has put "into the mouth of Micaiah" stands less in need than some other things of the disclaimer hinted in the pref

*The Days of Jezebel, an Historical Drama. BY PETER BAYNE. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1872. 12mo, pp. 240.

ace.

But we wonder he should have imported into the minstrelsy of the court at Jezreel so poor a specimen of modern sentimentalism as, "Meet me, my love, in the moonlight" (p. 46). The 5th scene in the 3d act, of only two lines, is either too little or too much. The discourse of Elijah, in the 1st scene of act 4th, is long and diffuse. Not that it is amiss to make him anticipate the Christ, but that what the Bible tells of the prophet's vision in the cave is too much and unwarrantably amplified in his own recital here, and too large a field is brought into view, comprising all the ages and the nations, even to our own, "the youngest, freest of the nations," (p. 202). The concluding scene, the interview between Elijah and Jezebel, does not properly wind up the drama. In the way of verbal criticism we protest against a word so utterly obsolete as "foison," for abundance, in the fairly written preface; and such terms as "flawlessness" and "perdurable" in the verse (pp. 97, 194) savor more of affectation than strength or elegance, while the Mediterranean ought to fare better at a prophet's hands than to suffer the ludicrous alliteration "salt and sad" (p. 175). But we will not dismiss a work on which so much literary effort has been expended and not in vain, without recurring to the merit of the historical delineation, and that in one particular which has most impressed us :-the setting forth of the exclusiveness and intolerance of the Hebrew faith as felt and resented by Jezebel. The great prophet is fitly represented as not denying but rather confirming and vindicating the fact complained of. This was indeed a distinction of Judaism as compared with the religions of heathendom, or in general of sincere and earnest monotheism contrasted with idolatry. By inheritance and lineage it belonged as plainly to Christianity, which thus incurred like reproach. The worshipers of the "gods many" could fraternize in the Pantheon and out of it, but believers in the true God and in his Son were in "irrepressible conflict" with them all. If among other religionists Mohammedans have seemed to be an exception, yet their faith in its chief article, the unity and spirituality of God, was an offshoot from the Hebrew and the Christian. We accept the charge, not of uncharitable persecution but of antagonism to other religions, as characteristic of whatever has deserved to be called Christianity. We say with the Psalmist, "Why do the heathen rage?" Any religionism that now claims this name, yet cries out against all exclusiveness, and glories in fraternizing with all religions as only so many developments of the same religious sentiment bears this mark of baptised paganism.

MR. BRISTED'S "FIVE YEARS IN AN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY”* has passed, we are glad to see, to a third edition. Since it was first published in 1851, much has been written about the English universities on both sides the Atlantic, but this work with its "gaities and gravities" is still the best authority, and the most instructive and suggestive treatise. We do not accept all the author's reasoning, nor do we by any means assent to all his obiter dicta; but his testimony concerning what he has observed and experienced is of the highest authority, and his most oddly suggested remarks have a pith and point which make them interesting at least. Much of what he has written will not be relished by the advocates of the New Education, and many of his criticisms on the American colleges as he knew them have been fairly outgrown by the improvements in preparation, instruction, and examination. But the book is, in all matters of principle, as much needed and as valuable now as it was 21 years ago, when it was first given to the public.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

The Psalms. By Carl Bernhard Moll, D.D., General Superintendent in Königsberg, Prussia. Translated from the German, with additions. By Rev. Charles A. Briggs, Rev. John Forsyth, D.D., Rev. James B. Hammond, Rev. J. Fred McCurdy; together with a new version of the Psalms and Philological notes, by Rev. Thomas J. Conant, D.D. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1872. 8vo, pp. 816.

The Works of Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne. Complete in one volume. New edition. New York, 1873. Robert Carter & Brothers. Large 8vo, pp. 1078. Price $3. Sermons and Discourses. By Robert Chalmers, D.D., LL.D. Now completed by the introduction of his posthumous sermons. Two volumes in one. New edition. New York: 1873. Robert Carter & Brothers. Large 8vo, 1105 double column pages. Price $3.00.

Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God. B.D., Fellow of New College, Oxford. Symington, D.D. Two volumes in one. 1873. Large 8vo, pp. 1149. Price $3. The Psalms; with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical. Designed for both pastors and people. By Rev. Henry Cowles, D.D. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1872. 12mo, pp. 554.

By Stephen Charnock, With his life and character, by William New edition. Robert Carter & Brothers.

Lectures to Young Men, on various important subjects. By Henry Ward Beecher. New edition, with additional lectures. J. B. Ford & Co., New York, 1873. 12mo, pp. 280.

*Five Years in an English University. By CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED, Late Foundation Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third Edition. Revised by the author. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1873.