still in the luxuriant ignorance from which all superstition springs. Nevertheless the memoirs of courts and royalty, revelations like Hervey's and Miss Burney's, satirical truth-telling-for truth only is satirical-like Thackeray's, and unsparing pages like Greville's and even these of Fitzgerald, have all helped to scatter regal glamour and illusion. Divine right has become an expedient permanent executive. When the expediency may cease is an open question, pending the decision of which the whole pageant of regality proceeds by suffer

ance.

The trivial and gossiping "memoirs to serve" have thus served and are serving the most important and vital of historical purposes, namely, profound political changes. Their gay and sparkling pages detach the popular mind from the sentiment of loyalty by exposing the worthlessness or the commonness of the object. Loyalty is a sentiment that can not long survive total disillusion in the mass of a nation. The memoirs have their part in gently shifting political moorings, as the brilliant mockery and chaff of Voltaire imperceptibly loosened the mind of his time from its old theological an

Oxenstiern's observation of the little wisdom | had been politically abolished, but it lingered with which the world is governed, they show the particular world in question in a singularly vivid light. It is hardly fanciful to say that the England of which Hervey's George the Second was King would be naturally the England of the eighteenth century which Lecky describes. But it would, perhaps, be a violent assertion that the England of the first part of this century was the national expression of the Regency and of that cheap monarch George the Fourth. The penal reforms and political progress of that time were certainly not suggested nor illustrated in anything characteristic of that man, to whom it is singularly difficult to allude without an epithet of contempt. Yet this is true, that nothing could be more consonant with the ignorant and dull spirit of the Regent and King than the long ministries of Perceval and Liverpool. To the memoirs of the Georges, the Life of the fourth George, by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, must be added. It has been recently republished by the Harpers, so that it is universally accessible, and to those who are interested in the distinctively minor morals and manners it will be very entertaining. It is nothing more than a circumstantial detail of his per-chorage. This is the real interest of works sonal career, and has virtually nothing to say of the great events in which during his life England took a great part. The writer has no disposition to make out a case against his hero. He has merely accumulated all the facts and stories he could find in the multitude of books already published, and he suffers them to speak for themselves. It is a book of gossip | in the truest sense, and gossip about one of the most utterly worthless of men. But the fact remains, and that is the most significant thing, that the utterly worthless man was accepted by the most accomplished and civilized people in the world at that time, the foremost race and nation in Europe, as its royal head.

If the English people could have seen the petty private life of Windsor and Kew as we see it in Miss Burney's story, or the plain fact of George the Fourth as it has been long known, would it have made no difference in the course of English history? Something of the last was known-his treatment of his wife and daughter, for instance; and popular indifference was significantly shown in his passages through a silent crowd to and from Parliament. But he was the fourth of such a line, stretching over more than a century; and would it not have gone near to snapping conld all have been familiarly known as the memoirs reveal it to us?

Bagehot, after all, gives the explanation. It is not the national intelligence, but the national ignorance, which is the strength of a man like George the Fourth. The loyalty which was a romantic sentiment with Walter Scott was a real faith with the mass of Englishmen. There was essentially something sacrosanct to them in the King. The doctrine of divine right

apparently so slight as Fitzgerald's George the Fourth. They are not merely the vapid amusement of an hour; they add to slowly growing national perceptions and convictions. They are not only bright and glittering wares that decorate a moment with their flash; they are waves of a rising and resistless tide. "The average radical,” said the London Spectator recently, "regards these elements in the constitution [the throne and the aristocracy] as probably temporary, but still does not regard them as injurious, or dangerous, or objectionable, so long as they do not interfere with the steady progress of measures which he believes to be beneficial to the people."

As you read the Life of the fourth George you wonder how high-spirited and intelligent men of our race could have acquiesced in a system which promised an endless succession of George the Fourths rather than of Alfreds or Cromwells. But it is because such men also read and ponder such lives that without rupture or violence great changes are accomplished. Such books are notoriously among the most fascinating in literature. And is not their fascination justified?

in his own mail. He then asks whether Scott | interesting, although it will probably be decidand Cooper and Poe, Bret Harte and Dickens ed, so far as concerns immediate results, before and George Eliot, were any less artists because this Magazine is issued. As we write, the conthey have careful and elaborate plots. Why | flict is at its thickest and-dirtiest; for it is this editorial jealousy of plots? Why not the struggle of the citizens to escape the dust, plots? What, so to speak, have plots done mud, and filth, breeding discomfort and disease, that they should be stigmatized by a conspir- which professional politicians insist upon cheracy of editors? ishing for the benefit of their own pockets. The mass-meetings of the citizens, even upon this unsavory subject, have been full of eloquence and enthusiasm. They have recalled the great meetings to break up the Tweed Ring, and it is easy to detect in them the old spirit of the Revolutionary Sons of Liberty. Disease has been rife. Small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhus have been almost epidemic. The death rate has increased, and the physicians have spread the alarm. Meanwhile the streets have been piled and obstructed with filth and reeking with foulness, until a general instinctive consciousness that the whole city machinery for cleanliness, consisting of a gang of the smallest kind of politicians, was absolutely useless, produced a protest and uprising which have been refreshing to those who sometimes half despair of the survival of any public spirit whatever.

At this point the Easy Chair turned the page in some trepidation lest the indignant writer should answer his own question, and hurl foul scorn at editors by saying that the congress of crows long since resolved that nightingales were unmusical. "Plots have done nothing," the Easy Chair feared to read, "but writers whom plots elude-ha! ha! and | again ha! ha!" This conspiracy against plots, however, is so new to us that we are quite at the mercy of our correspondent's wonder. We echo his question, Why should editors be opposed to plots? Would they perhaps decline Scott's and Dickens's and George Eliot's stories, were they now freshly offered, because of this fatal defect of plot? Has the public taste discarded plot, and if so, why? Our observation of editors, indeed, has not persuaded us that they accept or decline contributions because of such extraordinary reasons. Indeed, the Easy Chair ventures to assert, what it certainly believes, that if any writer, known or unknown, will send to any editor of any magazine a story such as Scott, or Dickens, or George Eliot would have written, it will be accepted, even if it were as full of plot as the Woman in White, or any other of Mr. Wilkie Collins's plottiest tales.

There has been the liveliest truth-telling at the meetings, in which party lines have been absolutely ignored, and the city politician has been faithfully and brilliantly portrayed. The city politician is a smart, insolent, vulgar, venal trader in place and politics, who counts upon the good-natured indifference of the public, upon party spirit, and on his own effrontery. His purpose is to get as much of the But a good story may be comparatively free public money as he can, and to use party, both from plot. Thackeray's are the most striking that which is nominally his own and the opillustrations, and among our own writers those position, to enable him to do it. He has an of Henry James, Jun., and Howells. In all of absolute contempt for mankind, and an amused them the main interest is the development of incredulity of all generous motives and public character. Thackeray's are studies of society; spirit. He is "on the make" himself, and he the younger men's, studies of individuals; and thinks everybody a fool who is not. The word the universal pleasure which such stories give "reform" he finds convenient for any peculiarshows that the reader of to-day is satisfied ly daring stroke of unscrupulous knavery. without an elaborate plot. Such works, also, But if he meets a man who is apparently sinare an indication of an involuntary tendency cere, and earnest to throw light into darkness, which affects every writer, and indeed every to straighten crooked ways, and to abolish artist, of every epoch, and which is called the abuses, his contempt becomes rage, and he can spirit of the age. The explanation of the ap-only splutter what the boys call hifalutin parent distaste of editors for plots undoubtedly is that very many excellent tales are now written without that kind of machinery which has been often thought essential in story-telling, while the deliberate and express editorial refusal to tolerate a plot, which our correspondent alleges, is certainly not general; and if it be urged in any particular case, it can be only because the particular plot is unsatisfactory.

The rule for every artist, whether of the pencil or the pen, is always the same-learn to observe, observe closely, and reproduce faithfully what you see.

THERE has been a tremendous contest in the city of New York, which is very significant and

rhetoric. This precious character having received an office, uses it first to help himself, then to help his party, unless he can make more by "selling it out." The old Tweed era was "a deal," "a pool," between politicians of opposite parties. Tweed's "pals" in the other party ran straight party tickets when Tweed could be better helped in that way; and there were the noblest appeals to stand by the grand old party, and to maintain the time-honored principles, and to keep the proud flag of no surrender flying-under which, in the back room, the "swag" was pleasantly divided.

It is this kind of politician which has imposed pestilential streets upon the city, which

the foundation, not only of the republic, but of the hopes of its future, seems often to be so sluggish that it is practically lost. The inces

has struck hands with filth and malaria, and which sneers at honest citizens, in Tweed's old phrase, to know what they mean to do about it. Unless all spirit and honor and self-sant assertion that New York is a foreign city, respect have departed from the citizens, they will do something very effectual about it. The present ring-masters are a pale and puny set compared with Tweed's, but the citizens of New York tried conclusions with him with some success, and if the desire of relief in the city is now baffled, we expect to see the issue made at the polls next autumn as distinctly as it was with Tweed, and the trading politicians politically buried in the mire in which they have kept the city.

But to any Easy Chair to which history recalls sometimes the old city of a century ago, the pleasant aspect of this movement, as we have hinted, is that of impatience of a sordid and shiftless rule, and a proud assertion of popular rights and the popular instinct. When the young Hamilton spoke in the city fields, it was to the Sons of Liberty, and the orators of to-day at Cooper Institute and at Steinway Hall speak in the same spirit to children of those Sons of Liberty. The reserve force of intelligence, courage, and conscience, which is

MA

that its population is so varied and so largely alien to American traditions that exertion is hopeless, and that nothing is to be done but to submit to self-constituted task-masters with the best grace possible, is refuted by the unanimity and vigor with which this contest has been waged-a contest in which every element of the citizenship of the city has united upon the right side. The meetings have had the clearness, the decision and force, of an old-fashioned town-meeting. It was reported that at one of them one of the chief delinquents was seen idly sauntering in the lobby, smoking a cigar, and contemptuously peering into the crowded and cheering hall. It was typical of the contest. On one side one man, careless, defiant, scornful, relying upon a mercenary machine to thwart the popular will; on the other, the throng of citizens, deliberating upon the situation, eloquently exposing the evils, and demanding redress, representing the character, the substantiality, the public spirit, the | courageous purpose, of the city.

Editor's Literary Record.

metaphysical treatise, the scientific study, the historical inquiry, the aesthetic monograph, the commentary, the critical and doctrinal disquisition, the emotional appeal, and finally the Word itself, with its transcendent power and piercing sharpness, are all pressed into the service of the faith once delivered to the saints, so that "he may run that readeth." These reflections have been invited by the religious works that have rapidly accumulated upon our table, in such unusual numbers as to preclude as full reference to them as we could wish. Some of these are notable for their learning and scholarship, others for the lucidity of their exposition, and others for the powerfulness of their appeals to the conscience, the intellect, the sensibilities, and the emotions; and all of them are instinct with an earnestness, a courage, and a zeal that neither know nor see any cause for discouragement.

ANY excellent people worry themselves into a state of chronic disquietude, and even of despondency, by dwelling upon the thought that our day and generation is conspicuous above all others not only for its indifference to sacred things, but for its positive unbelief and skepticism. To them, not the truth, but error, seems in the ascendency, and the future is full of gloom. If all Christians were as easily disconcerted as these fainthearted whimperers, or stood by their convic- | tions with as little spirit, or rather with as weak faith, as languid hope, and as spiritless endeavor, as they, there would soon be an end of Christianity in the world. Indeed, if Christians had always been as easily discouraged as these religious pessimists, if their zeal, instead of being diminished, had not been stimulated into redoubled activity by their consciousness that a world steeped in wickedness and unbelief waited to be lifted through them to faith For persuasive eloquence, for fervid devoand holiness, Christianity would have died with tion, for contagious zeal and love, for counsel, its Divine Author. Fortunately all Christians for reproof, and for encouragement in all the are not of this limp and nerveless character, as godly virtues, the fifth and last volume of Seris evinced by the remarkable activity and en-mons,' by the late F. W. Robertson, can not be ergy with which the religious thought of our day is pushing its lines into every branch of inquiry and investigation, so that at length even science, which the skeptic had insolently usurped for his special domain, is made tributary to revealed religion. The forms in which the soldiers of the Cross have delivered their attack or stand on the defense are almost countless. The sermon, the lecture, the essay, the

too highly prized by devout and contemplative Christians. As a means for reaching the hearts of those who have not yet become experimental Christians, they are invaluable. A number of these sermons are printed from the auto

1 The Human Race, and Other Sermons. Preached at Cheltenham, Oxford, and Brighton. By the late FRED ERICK W. ROBERTSON, M.A. 12mo, pp. 236. New York: Harper and Brothers.

graph manuscript of their eloquent author, and | under the title The Gospel Miracles in their Rea goodly proportion are in the form of skeleton lation to Christ and Christianity." They satisnotes for sermons. Aside from the fine spirit-factorily meet all the difficulties proposed by ual lessons which they enforce, these last are those modern objectors who assume to repreof substantial value to theological students sent the advanced thought and the destructive and young ministers as suggestions toward the religious criticism of the day. The topics disstructure and preparation of their sermons. cussed in them with abundant learning and Twenty-three sermons, by Principal Caird, persuasive logic are the nature, the possibility, Rev. Dr. John Cunningham, Rev. D. J. Fergu- and the credibility of miracles, the testimony son, Professor William Knight, Rev. Dr. Mack- in their behalf, their evidential value, their intosh, Rev. William L. McFarlan, Rev. Allan spiritual significance, and incidentally the suMenzies, Rev. James Nicoll, Rev. Thomas Raine, pernatural nature of Christ, and the inconsistRev. Adam Semple, and several other repre- encies and incongruities of the mythical or sentative Scottish preachers, have been col- legendary theory of the miracles advanced by lected, under the title of Scotch Sermons, with Strauss, Renan, Kuenen, Oort, and the critics the purpose of giving specimens of the meth- generally of the Tübingen school. ods and style of teaching which prevail among the clergy of the Scottish Church, and also of showing the direction which religious thought is taking among them, especially with reference to its bearing upon the essential truths of Christianity.

2

Christ and His Religion3 is a series of profoundly impressive essays by Rev. John Reid. The author first contemplates the Saviour in His human and in His divine nature; he then considers the beginning of Christ's religion in the soul, the morality and the religion of Christ as distinguished from each other and from every form of morality and religion, and the ethics of Christ as they characterize His religion; and finally, he severally discusses worship as a central feature in the religion of Christ; the causes of the decay of His religion in the heart, and the means for arresting it; the laws of progress that must be observed in order to the advance of the religion of Christ; and the blessedness that flows from it.

The Creation and the Early Developments of Society is a clear, terse, and popular elementary statement of the processes through which and by which the world was made to assume the form and nature it now has, of the accepted theories of the origin of plant and animal life, of the geological record as revealed by science, of the antiquity of man and the diversity of tongues, and of the problems of society and civilization. The work is conceived in a philosophic but reverent and Christian spirit. The author does not attempt to reconcile Science and Religion, as he does not believe there is any necessary conflict between them, but is of the opinion that each has a realm of its own, and that, clearly interpreted, each may contribute something to the other, without invalidating its own premises or subverting its own conclusions.

Seven eloquent and cogent lectures, delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary by Rev. William M. Taylor, D.D., have been published

Scotch Sermons. 1880. 12mo, pp. 345. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

Christ and His Religion. By Rev. JOHN REID. 12mo, pp. 331. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers.

The Creation and the Early Developments of Society. By JAMES H. CHAPIN, Ph.D. 12mo, pp. 276. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

6

Two volumes, combining instructive exposition and interpretation of Scripture with suggestive helps to personal piety drawn from the example and teachings of the Saviour and His apostles, respectively entitled Studies in the New Testament, by Rev. Charles S. Robinson, D.D., and Studies in the Mountain Instruction,' by Rev. George D. Boardman, D.D., are peculiarly suited, by their simple and familiar treatment of important themes, and their wise lessons for the practical conduct of the religious life, for the guidance of young Christians, and the assistance of those who are teachers of the young.

The Rev. Dr. Cowles has completed another volume of his series of critical, explanatory, and practical notes on the Old and New Testaments, designed for the use of pastors and people. The present volume is devoted to the Longer Epistles of Paul, namely, Romans and First and Second Corinthians. Each epistle is supplied with an introductory essay, showing the circumstances under which it was written, the objects St. Paul had in view while writing it, and, in general, all the points essential to be held in mind in order to a full understanding of the subjects treated upon in it. Each chapter is also prefaced by a running synoptical outline of its argument, and is accompanied by clear, condensed, and thoroughly evangelical notes.

In one of the numerous poems, which we are wont to think of as so many stones, various in hue and form and texture, and resonant with strains of holy music, that form the frame-work of George Herbert's unique masterpiece, "The Temple," he tells us that the most commonplace household services, even the lowly office of sweeping a room, may be ennobled if done as if for Christ, and in obedience to His laws; and further, that a servant who is animated by such a spirit and purpose "makes drudgery

5 The Gospel Miracles in their Relation to Christ and Christianity. By WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D. 12mo, pp. 249. New York: A. D. F. Randolph and Co.

6 Studies in the New Testament. By CHARLES S. ROBINSON, D.D. 12mo, pp. 316. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

7 Studies in the Mountain Instruction. By GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D. 12mo, pp. 360. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

8 The Longer Epistles of Paul, viz., Romane, I. Corinthians, II. Corinthians. By Rev. HENRY COWLES, D.D. 12mo, pp. 395. New York: D. Appleton and Co.

origin; and especially to trace their history, and to ascertain their present relations to the Church and to Christianity on the score of their expediency, their utility, or their indispensability. This treatment is applied successively to the sacraments, incidentally involving an interesting exposition of the eucharistic sacrifice, the real presence, absolution, and regeneration, and to the clergy, ecclesiastical vestments, the papacy, the litany, the creeds, etc. The various essays on these institutions are written in a style of great plainness and simplicity, and they are enriched with abundant historical references and illustrations.

divine." The same idea is the motive and ar- | spiritual significance, and their claims to divine gument of seven lectures to women delivered a few months ago by Rev. R. Heber Newton in the Anthon Memorial Church, and now gathered into a volume with the appropriate title, Womanhood. In these lectures the author considers woman's work in the world, as it is and as it ought to be; and he aims to awaken and to guide her aspirations for a larger and worthier field of work by ennobling the ideals of the vocations which lie open to her distinctive powers-not calling her away from every-day duties, or inciting a spirit of discontent in their performance, but seeking to imbue the "common round" and "trivial task” of her ordinary relations in society with the spirit of the life which walks with uplifted head and radiant eyes, as if seeing God in everything. The lec- | turer first considers woman in respect to her capability for various occupations, with special reference to young women who depend upon their work for a livelihood, and he then dwells, severally, on woman's work as the housekeeper and home-maker, as the lady or loaf-ward ruling the household, as the wife, the mother, the modiste, and the fashioner of manners, morals, | and society, and concludes with an eloquent and suggestive essay on the education of our daughters.

settlement until 1765, and to clearly define its own internal affairs and the relations it bore to the others. Mr. Lodge does not perplex his readers with theories, but confines himself with commendable directness to a relation of historical facts, describing the settlement of the colonies, the nature of their governments, the scope and special peculiarities of their charters, the character of their legislation, the disposition, temper, habits, and social condition of their people, their resources and prod

MR. HENRY CABOT LODGE has rendered an acceptable service in an interesting and too much neglected historical field by a comprehensive and judicious digest of our colonial history, in a volume entitled A Short History of the English Colonies in America." As the history of the colonies involved thirteen distinct histories, he has wisely chosen to deal with each colony by itself, instead of attempting to group them under a general arrangement. By the plan that he has adopted, without flitting from one colony to the other as the progress of time and events might require under a genThe clergy and laity of the Protestant Epis-eral arrangement, he is enabled to distinctcopal Church in this country will be deeply | ively outline the history of each from its first interested in Dean Stanley's new work on Christian Institutions.1o It is well known that he holds the latitudinarian, or, as some say, the rationalizing, views of the Broad-Church branch of the Church of England as to the interpretation and authority of the sacred canon, and with relation to the ministry, the sacraments, the liturgy, and Church ordinances generally. These views are in many particulars antagonistic to those which are held on the one hand by the High-Church branch, and on the other by the Low-Church or Evangel-ucts, and the stages of their material, social, ical branch, and hence whatever he may advance will be closely scanned, and accepted with reserve by those who adopt the opinions of the two divisions of the Church last named. In the volume under notice, while the Dean does not enter upon a deliberate dogmatic or controversial enforcement of his special views, he states them with sufficient explicitness to make them clearly apparent, and supports them with a calmness and a wealth of scholarly illustration that are very impressive. His chief aim, however, is not so much to obtrude his opinions in these respects, as to describe the origin of Church institutions; the primitive practice that characterized them; the causes that led to their adoption, and to the changes and transformations that have occurred in them; their

Womanhood. Lectures on Woman's Work in the World. By Rev. R. HEBER NEWTON. 12mo, pp. 315. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

10 Christian Institutions. Essays on Ecclesiastical Subjects. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D., Dean of Westminster, etc. 12mo, pp. 326. New York: Harper and Brothers.

intellectual, and political development, until the period arrived when they were kneaded by external pressure and common grievances into a historical unit, whose homogeneousness, becoming more and more perfect with each passing year, fitted them for the conflict of argument that ushered in the Revolution, and for the concert of action that made it successful. Mr. Lodge gives us a very clear conception of the communities that constituted the "Old Thirteen," and of the character of their people; and he commands respect by the accuracy and reliability of his statements of historical facts and events.

THERE is no episode in history that appeals more powerfully to the imagination, or that more warmly enlists the feelings, than the Crusades; and there are few that are more worthy of or will more amply reward the careful study

11 A Short History of the English Colonies in America. By HENRY CABOT LODGE. SVO, pp. 560. New York: Harper and Brothers.