FREEMAN'S OUTLINES OF HISTORY.*-Here is Universal History in a duodecimo volume of 366 pages! The thirty years' war is narrated in less than two pages; the American Revolution in one! Yet it is a quite successful work of its kind. It is written in plain words. It is generally correct. It is well arranged. This is high praise. A conspectus of this sort has its value. However, we think that for beginners, compends-dry abstracts, skeletons of history, without the flesh-are generally to be avoided. Such works are much more useful to advanced students, who can read a great deal between the lines.

DR. RAY PALMER'S NEW POEM.t-This attractive little volume of one hundred and thirty pages contains some of the longest poetical productions of this popular author. Two other volumes of poems have preceded this-" Hymns and Poems" (1865), pp. 195, and "Hymns of my Holy Hours" (1867), pp. 103, the contents of which have chiefly been songs, hymns, sonnets, and brief sacred and descriptive pieces. Of hymns, "for the service of song in the House of the Lord," Dr. Palmer has published from fifty to seventy five, most of which are in constant use in some of the collections adopted by the different religious denominations. The "Sabbath Hymn and Tune Book" has fourteen,-four of them translations," Songs for the Sanctuary," eighteen, and "Songs for the New Life" and the new Connecticut Hymn Book contain others which these do not. His best known and oldest hymn,

"My faith looks up to thee,"

long since became the common property of the Church, and has passed into half a dozen foreign languages. It is the only American hymn, we believe, in the choice collection of the new Lord High Chancellor of England, Sir Roundell Palmer. But it has successors of equal merit, such as those beginning with the lines, "Lord, my weak thought in vain would climb." "Jesus, these eyes have never seen."

"Before thy throne with tearful eyes."

"We praise thee, Saviour, for the grace."

Away from earth my spirit turns."

And a number of others. It is safe to pronounce the author of these sacred lyrics,-full of sweetness, truth, and devotion, which

*Outlines of History. By EDWARD A. FREEMAN, D.C.L., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. New York: Holt & Williams, 1872.

Home, or the Unlost Paradise. By RAY PALMER, D.D. New York: A. D. F. Randolph.

are more and more on the lips and hearts of Christian persons throughout his own and other communions, our first, and best, and most accepted American hymn writer.

But this is only a part of what Dr. Palmer has done for Christian literature. While making the vocation of preacher and pastor in two important churches his life-work for thirty years, and now with ripe experience administering one of our chief Congregational charities, he has been an industrious and well-esteemed writer of good prose. These productions have been choice rather than multitudinous, yet more in amount than those in verse. Years ago a small volume of unexceptionable and elevated Christian sentiment-a treatise in which instruction and experience blended-under the name of "Spiritual Improvement," gave great satisfaction and help to many in the churches. It has been republished as "Closet Hours," and is yet highly esteemed, though entirely out of print. A larger work, "Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions" (1860), pp. 324, was well fitted to guide young persons especially into a well-settled and intelligent faith. It was republished at once in London and Edinburgh. It contains fifteen discourses for the pulpit, excellent examples of the author's best style. We have some recollection, also, of a beautiful devotional volume of sacramental meditations, entitled "Remember Me." Besides these some fifteen or twenty special discourses from the same source have been published, the best of which traces the highest civilization to Christianity and Christian learning,—an anniversary sermon before the Western College Society in 1865. In all his prose the same characteristics are evident, just and scholarly thought, the purest sentiments, fervent and devout Christian emotion, an easy and finished style, great moderation of statement, and a certain moral power over the reader which is in about equal parts the power of goodness and that of truth. In all matters of opinion an impression is made of fairness, candor, and charity, without overstrain or overstatement. They are such books as parents and instructors can place in the hands of those they love as "safe," not because,-like many so pronounced, they affirm little and only what all accept, but because they affirm convincingly and persuasively what most needs acceptance, shedding over the truth the mild and winning fervor of a sound, ripe, wise mind, touched everywhere with culture and spirituality.

"HOME, OR THE UNLOST PARADISE," has been pronounced by no less an authority than Wm. Cullen Bryant a "beautiful poem"

The

-so pronounced after having been" read with pleasure."
author has "sung the praises of home," says our veteran poet-
editor, "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 judg-
ments, 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 correct-
ness, smoothness, and care, recalling writers who were once models
in English composition, upon the admiring study of whose versi-
fication 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. VOL. XXXII.

13

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.