had been politically abolished, but it lingered 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 sufferance.

Oxenstiern's observation of the little wisdom 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 The trivial and gossiping "memoirs to serve" singularly difficult to allude without an epithet have thus served and are serving the most imof contempt. Yet this is true, that nothing portant and vital of historical purposes, namecould be more consonant with the ignorant ly, profound political changes. Their gay and and dull spirit of the Regent and King than sparkling pages detach the popular mind from the long ministries of Perceval and Liverpool. the sentiment of loyalty by exposing the worthTo the memoirs of the Georges, the Life of lessness or the commonness of the object. Loythe fourth George, by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, alty is a sentiment that can not long survive must be added. It has been recently repub- total disillusion in the mass of a nation. The lished by the Harpers, so that it is universally memoirs have their part in gently shifting poaccessible, and to those who are interested in | litical moorings, as the brilliant mockery and the distinctively minor morals and manners chaff of Voltaire imperceptibly loosened the it will be very entertaining. It is nothing mind of his time from its old theological anmore 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 could 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?

THE Easy Chair was not aware, until a correspondent asserted it, that "in the present day stories with plots are unanimously condemned by first-class American periodicals." This correspondent alleges further that such remarks as the following "often occur" in the friendly notes of editors inclosing unavailable offerings: "Your style is good, your subject well handled, but we do not desire stories with so decided a plot," and the writer avers that such notes have come more than once"

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 mag- | azine 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 public money as he can, and to use party, both that which is nominally his own and the opposition, to enable him to do it. He has an absolute contempt for mankind, and an amused incredulity of all generous motives and public spirit. He is "on the make" himself, and he thinks everybody a fool who is not. The word "reform" he finds convenient for any peculiarly daring stroke of unscrupulous knavery. But if he meets a man who is apparently sincere, and earnest to throw light into darkness, to straighten crooked ways, and to abolish abuses, his contempt becomes rage, and he can

But a good story may be comparatively free from plot. Thackeray's are the most striking illustrations, and among our own writers those of Henry James, Jun., and Howells. In all of them the main interest is the development of character. Thackeray's are studies of society; the younger men's, studies of individuals; and the universal pleasure which such stories give shows that the reader of to-day is satisfied without an elaborate plot. Such works, also, are an indication of an involuntary tendency which affects every writer, and indeed every artist, of every epɔch, and which is called the 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.

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

Editor's Literary Record.

those modern objectors who assume to represent the advanced thought and the destructive religious criticism of the day. The topics discussed in them with abundant learning and persuasive logic are the nature, the possibility, and the credibility of miracles, the testimony

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 of substantial value to theological students and young ministers as suggestions toward the structure and preparation of their sermons. Twenty-three sermons, by Principal Caird, Rev. Dr. John Cunningham, Rev. D. J. Ferguson, 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.

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.,

Christ and His Religion is a series of pro-and Studies in the Mountain Instruction, by Rev. foundly 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.

1 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.

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

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 MR. HENRY CABOT LODGE has rendered az eyes, as if seeing God in everything. The lec-acceptable service in an interesting and too turer first considers woman in respect to her much neglected historical field by a comprecapability for various occupations, with special | hensive and judicious digest of our colonial reference to young women who depend upon history, in a volume entitled A Short History of their work for a livelihood, and he then dwells, the English Colonies in America." As the hisseverally, on woman's work as the housekeeper tory of the colonies involved thirteen distinct and home-maker, as the lady or loaf-ward rul- histories, he has wisely chosen to deal with ing the household, as the wife, the mother, the each colony by itself, instead of attempting to modiste, and the fashioner of manners, morals, group them under a general arrangement. By and society, and concludes with an eloquent the plan that he has adopted, without flitting and suggestive essay on the education of our from one colony to the other as the progress daughters. of time and events might require under a gen

ively outline the history of each from its first 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 products, and the stages of their material, social, 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 concep

The clergy and laity of the Protestant Epis-eral arrangement, he is enabled to distinctcopal Church in this country will be deeply interested in Dean Stanley's new work on Christian Institutions.10 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 anthority 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 Evangelical 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 illus-tion of the communities that constituted the tration 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

9 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.

"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. 8vo, pp. 560. New York: Harper and Brothers.