HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. By H. A. Taine. Translated by H. Van Laun, one of the Masters at the Edinburgh Academy. With a preface, prepared expressly for this Translation by the Author. Two volumes. New York:

Holt & Williams. 1871.

Ir might seem, at first thought, strange that a history of English literature, so good and thorough as this is, should have been written by a Frenchman,-one separated by birth, residence, and by education from England and from English ways of thinking; yet a little reflection will enable us to see that a foreigner has advantages, for the successful prosecution of such a work, not always possessed by the native historian. We become gradually indifferent to excellences with which we have been long familiar, and, on the other hand, we are not likely to detect the faults clinging to things of old acquaintance. The members of a household are not the best judges of what have become to them "household words." And so we are very apt to estimate the worth of our own authors by a conventional standard, and to value them according to their reputation among us.

Again, a foreigner enters upon the study of our national literature, fresh and free from those prejudices which would tend to blind him to the comparative merits of different writers. Having no special or inherited fondness for any one age or school, he is all the better fitted to judge them all according to general principles, and

on broad canons of criticism. He stands outside of the nation, and of the national life, and can, therefore, study more calmly the influences that have from the first been working within the one and upon the other.

His teachers are the authors themselves, rather than books about them. He is compelled to read carefully those great works which are accepted as the representative productions of the nation, and to form, instead of accepting, opinions regarding their intrinsic merit.

It is, therefore, fortunate for us of the English-speaking race that the history of our literature has been undertaken by one who was forced to approach and investigate it according to the Cartesian method of philosophy, that is, with a mind free from all previously formed opinions, and especially by one of such scholarly attainments and rare discrimination as M. Taine evidently possesses.

The work has defects,-some of them very serious. Considering merely the object he had in view-namely, to write the history of the English nation from the history of its literature-the attempt cannot be termed a success. We have an imposing array of facts, but the deductions drawn from are oftentimes illogical, and seldom satisfactory to the mind of a close reasoner. But these defects, as a general thing, do not pertain to his history of the literature, as such. They are the cropping out of certain false philosophical views of the author, which would probably appear in any work of a kindred nature which he might write.

Besides this, however, there is a kind of cynical spirit, a selfsatisfied tone, which characterizes the history itself, and frequently detracts from the value of his criticisms. Thus the very advantage resulting from his being an alien, brings with it a disadvantage, in the fact that he cannot fully sympathize with the writers he is judg ing. This lack is especially apparent in his analysis of authors whose spirit is peculiarly English.

The history begins with the Saxon period, and gives not a very favorable picture of the habits and characteristics of our Gothic forefathers. Then it passes on to depict the new elements of civilization introduced by the Norman Conquest, and the revolution which both the language and the literature underwent during the Anglo-Norman period. Chaucer appears as the representative of "the new tongue," belonging both to the middle ages, and to the brighter age which was to follow. The Pagan renaissance, which consisted of a revival of the study and spirit of classical authors, and has its exponents in the Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney, and the greater lights of the Elizabethan era, brings us down to Francis Bacon, in

whom the renaissance ended in the establishment of positive science. The growth of the drama, from its first rude beginning to its culmination in Shakespeare, is sketched with a felicity which we have seldom seen surpassed in a work of the kind.

The Christian renaissance includes that class of writings which came as the flowering of Reformation growth, and is represented by Latimer, Hales, Chillingworth, Hooker, and Jeremy Taylor. The author takes occasion, in this part of his work, to speak some noble and glowing words in praise of the Prayer Book,-"In which the full spirit of the Reformation breathes out; where, beside the moving tenderness of the Gospel, and the manly accents of the Bible, throb the profound emotion, the grave eloquence, the noblemindedness, the restrained enthusiasm of the heroic and poetic souls who rediscovered Christianity, and had passed near the fire of mar.tyrdom."

Next comes the Classic age,-beginning with the Restoration, and extending down to the death of Samuel Johnson. The last division is the "modern life," and includes the principal writers of note from Burns to Tennyson.

This is but the barest outline of this great work, but it will show that the author has had regard to the distinguishing characteristics of the different eras in our literature.

The peculiar merits of the work are, philosophical discrimination, freshness of thought, a wonderful power of expression, an unusual felicity in the use of epithets—a single adjective sometimes serving as the key to the whole character of a man or a book, an astonishing accumulation of digested information, and a superior perfection of analysis. We have never read such just estimates of the comparative excellences and faults of great authors as are to be found in some of the chapters of this work. In fact, its chief value consists in the fact that it gives you the measure of just what the men famous in our literature were. For example, M. Taine is the first man who has made a true and satisfactory analysis of Byron and Milton and Dickens, and a host of other writers, all of whom have their admirers, and also their unfavorable critics. As a general thing, the valuation given here is one which can be accepted as fair and right

eous.

It is a work which no scholar can well afford to let pass unread. And yet it is overflowing with badness, and redolent with that subtle odor of French infidelity, which is as poisonous to unsuspecting minds as French confectionery is to innocent children. Those who are well grounded in the principles of faith and of a Christian phi

losophy can afford to smile at M. Taine's attempt to write a history of England backward, and at his cool assumption, which he nevertheless imagines to be a deduction, that all forms of religion are equally artificial productions.

LECTURES ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THOUGHT AND ACTION, COMPARATIVE AND HUMAN. By W. D. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., L.H.D., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. Andrus, McChain & Lyons. 1871. THE first part of this work is given to an examination of the structure of the body, and what relation the body has to mental phenomena. While maintaining the existence of mind as distinct and different from the body, the author anticipates that many will think he has reduced its influence too much, and made it too small a factor. He declares his position to be midway between those who make of mind and will everything, and those who make them to be nothing. What we call "metaphysics" he affirms to be "a disease of language," abstractions being first objectified, and then treated as concrete realities. All "ideas," "conceits," "notions," have no real existence, and yet metaphysicians, even the most accurate, as Sir W. Hamilton, cannot free themselves from such an error and delusion. Thus, when he speaks of "retention" as a fact of memory, he implies that something is retained, and "unconsciously assumes the reality of that which is retained." But if nothing is retained, there is no such act as retention.

Dr. Wilson, putting aside all old theories of memory, gives a physiological explanation: "Every state of mind, and every act of thought, has a state of the nervous tissues peculiarly its own, so that when one occurs, the other will occur also. It is according to the analogy of well-established facts, and in itself highly probable, that the nerve-cells, after having been in any one particular condition, will, with greater ease and rapidity, be put into that condition again." In the same way he explains the association of ideas.

This volume is published, as the author tells us in his preface, chiefly for the use of the students attending his lectures, and is to be followed by one or two volumes more.

THE HISTORY OF ASSUR-BANI-PAL. Translated from the Cuneiform Inscriptions. By G. Smith. London: Williams & Norgate. 1871.

EVERY year the so-called "dead past" is yielding up living treasures, and proving the great value of antiquarian studies in con

nection with the Bible. In the present instance it is the cuneiform inscriptions that furnish valuable information. It is true that the cuneiform letter does not possess that peculiar linguistic interest which belongs to the Moabite stone, and yet its historical connections are more extensive than that of King Mesha's triumphal pillar found at Diban. The above work is one of very great value, since it affords accurate points of contact between Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, and Lydian history, and throws light upon the chronology of the four nations. And yet, not even the substance of these discoveries can be given in a brief form; and we may only say, as regards this Assur-bani-pal, that he was none other than TiglathPileser, son of Esarhaddon, and grandson of Sennacherib. This volume contains a transcript of the history in the cuneiform character, with an interlinear translation, which, with the notes and introductions, puts this deeply interesting document fully in the possession of the English reader.

SONGS OF THE SPIRIT: Hymns of Praise and Prayer to God the Holy Ghost. Edited by the Right Reverend William Henry Odenheimer, D.D., and the Rev. Frederic M. Bird. New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co.

AT Pentecost the performance dwarfed the promise, recreated the disciples, and gave the world a living Church. But though the Holy Spirit thus powerfully moved the Christian heart, and though, in addition, the early Church well understood the high uses of poetry in connection with religion, the literary culture of the leaders did not qualify them for the production of a hymnody capable of surviving the lapse of time. Therefore the story of Pentecost was not told in enduring song. The information supplied by Pliny shows that it was the earliest custom to sing "hymns to Christ as God." Still the Divinity of the Holy Ghost was at least fully recognized by implication, while the clear, unhesitating faith of the Church may not, at that period, have required a dogmatic form. At all events, the exalted theme did not receive any sufficient treatment in verse, until more than three hundred Pentecostal seasons had passed away. Perhaps this sufficiently explains why the earliest hymn contained in "Songs of the Spirit" is that ascribed to St. Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers, A.D. 355. Next follows the Jam Christus, attributed to Ambrose, who died in 397. The dogmatic statement which, however, may be drawn from it, seems to refer the composition to a later date. Passing on to the year 760, we have an ode of Cosmas, the melodist and monk of St. Sabas. Twenty xcii.-11.