452 



LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IN 1876. 



Field, in his letters describing his tour " From 

 the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn " 

 (Scribner), has gone over beaten ground, but 

 is never trite in his observations, partly be- 

 cause it is to himself beaten ground. He is 

 spared the temptation which besets an inex- 

 perienced traveler to regard whatever is new 

 to himself as information equally striking to 

 the public. One of the charms of the volume 

 is found in the necessary comparison between 

 recent and earlier views. Mr. Charles Dudley 

 Warner's two books, "My Winter on the Nile, 

 among the Mummies and Moslems" (Ameri- 

 can Publishing Co.), and " In the Levant " (Os- 

 good), narrate his Oriental experiences with 

 his usual keen-sightedness and his peculiar hu- 

 mor. Perhaps, as is apt to be the case with 

 most reputed " humorists," he is sometimes 

 unnecessarily haunted with the consciousness 

 that he is expected to be funny, and is accord- 

 ingly tempted to be unseasonably so. But in 

 general he does not offend in this way, mak- 

 ing his company, when visiting scenes hal- 

 lowed by the veneration of all Christian ages, 

 less of a trial to one's sensibilities than that 

 of some of his mirthful predecessors. " Sights 

 and Insights," by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney (Os- 

 good), is a new " sentimental journey " over 

 the familiar scenes of a European tour. The 

 "insights" tend to the visionary, and give to 

 the book a character difficult to describe ex- 

 cept by its effects. The mystic element in 

 Mrs. Whitney's fictitious writings neither of- 

 fends nor perplexes the reader, because the 

 characters are the creatures of her imagina- 

 tion, and the supposed events that occur are 

 by her plastic skill harmonized with the in- 

 woven sentiment. It is all of a piece. But 

 the same sort of visionary suggestion, when 

 connected with the material facts and distinct 

 outlines of every-day travel, affects one with 

 a feeling of incongruity. In spite of this draw- 

 back, however, it is a book that will be read 

 with more than ordinary pleasure. " Star- 

 board and Port," by the Rev. George H. Hep- 

 worth (Harpers), is an entertaining account 

 of a yacht-voyage along the coast from New 

 York to Nova Scotia. As yachting is only a 

 form of recreation, a book about a yacht-voy- 

 age is nothing if not entertaining, and Mr. 

 Hepworth's book fulfills this primary condition, 

 at the same time that the author's smile is at 

 times a thoughtful smile, and the silences of 

 the sea invite to occasional meditation. " Sea- 

 shore and Prairie," by Mary P. Thacher (Os- 

 good), is a series of detached sketches of sce- 

 nery and of life of considerable literary merit. 



North-Pole Voyages : Embracing Sketches of the 

 Important Facts and Incidents in the Latest Efforts 

 to reach the North Pole. By the Rev. Z. A. Mudge. 

 (Nelson and Phillips.) 



A Summer in Europe. By Mary H. Wills. (Lip- 

 pincott, Philadelphia.) 



A Nile Journey. By T. G. Appleton. (Roberts 

 Brothers, Boston.) 



The North Star and the Southern Cross : Being 

 the Personal Experiences, Impressions, and Obser- 



vations of Margaretha Weppner in a Two Years' 

 Journey around the World. 2 volumes. (Published 

 by the author.) 



Two Years in California. By Mary Cone. 

 (Griggs.) 



The Marvellous Country ; or, Three Years in Ari- 

 zona and New Mexico. By Samuel Woodworth Coz- 

 zens. (Lee & Shepard.) 



Papers on Florida, giving a General Yiew of Every 

 Portion of the State, its Climate, Resources, So- 

 ciety, etc. By T. C. Rigby, M.D. (Mendenhall, 

 Cincinnati.) 



The Falls of Niagara and Scenes around them. 

 By J. W. Ferre"e, A. M. (Barnes.) 



The Lord's Land. By Henry B. Ridgaway. (Nel- 

 son and Phillips.) 



The Australian Hand-Book. Full Details concern- 

 ing Immigration to the Australian Colonies, etc., a 

 History and Descriptive Account of Australia, etc. 

 (N. Y.'News Co.) 



The Orient and its People. By Mrs. I. L. Hauser, 

 Seven Years a Missionary in Northern India. (I. L. 

 Hauser & Co., Milwaukee, Wis.) 



Some Observations on the Civilization of the 

 Western Barbarians, particularly of the English, 

 made during a Residence of Some Years in those 

 Parts. By Ah-Chin-Le, Mandarin of the First Class, 

 Member of the Enlightened and Exalted Callao. 

 Translated from the Chinese into English by John 

 Yester Smythe, Esq., of Shanghai, and now first 

 published out of China and in other than Chinese. 

 (Lee & Shepard.) 



Dottings round the Circle. By Benjamin Robbins 

 Curtis. (Osgood.) 



The Golden State and its Resource?. By John J. 

 Powell. Nevada, the Land of Silver. By John J. 

 Powell. (Bacon, Snn Francisco.) 



Six Weeks in Norway. By Edward L. Anderson. 

 (R. Clarke & Co., Cincinnati.) 



POETRY. The Muses have not favored us of 

 late with any considerable amount of verse 

 that betrays " the vision and the faculty di- 

 vine." Mr. Lowell's " Three Memorial Po- 

 ems " (Osgood) are indeed a noble contribu- 

 tion to the literature of our country, with 

 whose annals they are associated is it too 

 much to expect? imperishably. With these 

 is linked Mr. Bayard Taylor's " National Ode," 

 of which an illustrated (Gill) and a fac-simile 

 (Osgood) edition have been issued. Mr. Tay- 

 lor has shown the versatility of his gifts by 

 the republication in a collected edition of the 

 " Diversions of the Echo Club " (Osgood), in 

 which the styles of various poets are skillfully 

 imitated after the precedent of " The Rejected 

 Addresses." A sad interest attaches to the 

 " Twenty Poems" of Robert K. Weeks (Holt), 

 who died while his volume was in the press, 

 disappointing the promise discernible in his 

 work. "A Book of Poems," by John W. 

 Chadwick, collects pieces which, in more fugi- 

 tive forms of publication, have won the regard 

 of readers some of them " spiritual songs " of 

 no little power. "The Poems of George D. 

 Prentice," now first collected and edited, with 

 a biographical sketch, by John James Piatt 

 (Clarke, Cincinnati), revives the public inter- 

 est in a writer whose fame was becoming a 

 faint tradition. Mr. Prentice was chiefly 

 known by his facility in a species of newspa- 

 per pleasantry now become, if not obsolete, at 

 least of less estimation than it was a genera- 



