LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IN 1873. 



417 



Michigan. By Rev. B. F. Cocker, D. D., Professor 

 of Mental and Moral Philosophy. 



The Old Faith and the New. A Confession. 

 By David Friedrich Strauss. Authorized Transla- 

 tion from the sixth edition, by Mathilde Blind. 

 The translation revised and partly rewritten, and 

 preceded by an American version of the author's 

 : ' Prefatory Postscript." 



The Question of Hell. An Essay in New Ortho- 

 doxy. By a Puritan. 



The Arena and the Throne. By L. T. Townsend. 



Afternoon. Miscellaneous Papers. By T. Stork, 



Thoughts for the Old Tear and the New. By 

 John Hall, D. D. 



The Work of the Spirit ; or Doctrinal and Practi- 

 cal Meditations on the Nature and Work of the Holy 

 Ghost. By Kev. Samuel Cutler. 



FICTION. Next to religions books, works 

 of fiction are the most numerous class. The 

 deepest reality and the mimic life of " airy 

 nothings " are the closest competitors for 

 popular favor. The importation and reprint 

 of English novels furnishes a large part of the 

 supply needed to meet the popular demand ; 

 but, as will be seen, the writers of fiction, of 

 very unequal degrees of merit, to be sure, are 

 not few among Americnn writers. But no 

 work of the highest class can be named among 

 the publications of the year. Some first 

 works, of young writers, such as give promise 

 of good things in the future, deserve mention. 

 " Bressant," by Julian Hawthorne, had on the 

 whole a flattering reception. It was accepted 

 as evidence that the author inherits with the 

 blood a measure of the genius of his father 

 the keen and yet visionary eye, seeing all that 

 is, and with it ninch more that is not visible, 

 except to a shaping imagination, the tendency 

 to weird conceptions, and to indulgence in 

 hovering on the border line of the extra- 

 natural, a predilection to the abnormal in 

 character. It is open to and has encountered 

 severe criticism. The futnro fortune of Mr. 

 Hawthorne as a writer will be looked for with 

 more than ordinary interest. General Lew 

 Wallace has surprised the world by a romance 

 founded on the conquest of Mexico, entitled 

 "The Fair God." It has received very high 

 and almost unanimous praise in England. In 

 tliis country, while it has no lack of readers 

 and admirers, we presume, the leading organs 

 of periodical criticism have been far less 

 unanimous than contemporary English review- 

 ers, and the disparaging estimates of it are 

 very decided in tone. It is either lauded in 

 the highest terms, or treated as of no value. 

 "Brave Hearts," by a writer who assumes 

 the name of "Robertson Gray," if not a first 

 attempt, has unmistakable signs of immaturity 

 in this style of art. But it has also such 

 signs of power as will cause the next produc- 

 tion of the author to be looked for with raised 

 expectations. " A Chance Acquaintance," by 

 W. D. Howells, shows his peculiar genius at its 

 best. His penetrating but not unkindly in- 

 sight into human nature, especially of the 

 American variety and the species Bostonian, 

 and bis power of producing striking effects by 

 VOL. XIH. 27 A 



the most common materials, with his inde- 

 pendence of the conventional types of fiction 

 and their artificial requirements, give a delight- 

 ful freshness to his creations. The Rev. Ed- 

 ward Everett Hale has given the world a 

 novel, " Ups and Downs," and a shorter tale 

 for Christmas, entitled, " In His Name." Both 

 are stories with morals not disguised, yet not 

 obtrusive. In neither is the author at his 

 best, but the last comes the nearest to it than 

 any of the intermediate terms of the series. It 

 is a finely-conceived and well-told story, and 

 the impression it leaves is altogether good. 

 " Love in the Nineteenth Century," by Har- 

 riet W. Preston, does not demonstrate that 

 love in this century differs essentially from 

 love in any preceding century, or even, which 

 is perhaps what was more distinctly in view, 

 that the lover of this century is a new " devel- 

 opment." The lovers in her story are very 

 well drawn, and the book is or should be a 

 success. " Work," by Mrs. L. M. Alcott, 

 made a favorable impression, but its merits, 

 though indisputable, are not such as to raise 

 the author's already high and deserved reputa- 

 tion. " Arthur Bonnicastle," by Dr. J. G. 

 Holland, if it depended for its appreciation on 

 its purely literary merits, would not receive 

 very high praise. But the moral tone and 

 evident purpose of the author count much in 

 his favor with a large portion of the public, 

 among whom he may be said to have already 

 secured an immense number not merely of 

 admirers but of warm friends. " The Wetherel 

 Affair," by J. W. DeForest, indicates larger 

 and more matured power than his previous 

 works. Some volumes of collected short 

 stories deserve higher praise than can be given 

 to many of the more ambitions attempts. Such 

 are " Marjorie Daw, and Other People," by 

 T. B. Aldrich, a unique and brilliant collec- 

 tion ; " Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, and Other 

 Sketches," by BretHarte, in which the author 

 comes back to the scenes and themes of his 

 earliest literary triumphs ; and " Saxe Holm's 

 Stories," productions of marked originality 

 and power. "Oxley," by a writer under the 

 name of "Lyndon," performs with striking 

 success the difficult feat of bringing up her 

 heroine from a childhood with abundant faults 

 requiring correction, to become a representative 

 of noble womanhood, besides playingoffagainst 

 her numerous characters that are also deli- 

 cately discriminated from her and from each 

 other. "The Mystery of Metropolisvillc," by 

 Edward Eggleston, like other works by this 

 popular author, though not very artistic in 

 structure, is very entertaining. " Her Majesty 

 the Queen," by J. Esten Cooke; "The Rose 

 of Disentis," a translation from Zschokke, and 

 the first of a series of his works proposed to be 

 published ; and " A Vagabond Heroine," by 

 Mrs. Annie Edwards, are novels of more than 

 average merit. The following titles represent 

 gradations of merit and demerit, which we 

 will not attempt to measure : 



