centre of beef and the races."

Here is Charles Sumner:

at the expense of "good fame" or of decent | modern costume. But this figure also seems toppling over living. But it forbears. We do not remember backward, as, with more energy than Everett ever showed that "Flaccus," in his "Passaic: a Group of in his lifetime, he exclaims, "That is the road to Brighton! Musings touching that River," alludes to the pointing with lifted arm and wide-spread fingers to that man whose name, by an odd chance, is more widely known than that of any other man associated with the river. But thousands of travellers in the innumerable railroad trains which daily and nightly pass close to the spot where Sam Patch made his last leap endeavor --and generally in vain—to catch a glimpse of the picturesque gorge into which the Genesee plunges. There is a wicked story told among them, perhaps, as the train rolls into the spacious station, about the famous statesman who, in a paroxysm of after-dinner eloquence at Rochester, declared that Greece and Rome in their palmiest days never had a water-fall ninety-six feet high. But Greece had a fame which rivals that of Sam Patch, as the Rochester Express remarks, in that of

"The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome."

"If this bronze pyramid on Boylston Street be a cask made of staves, why is it set on human legs? And if it is a barrel? Is his broadcloth new felt, too stiff for folds, or really Sumner, why do his chest and shoulders rise out of is he dressed in shoe-leather? That matters little, however. But no angry Southerner would have needed to smite those overfed cheeks, which may have faced many a snow-storm on the locomotive, or many a northeaster of thought and passion ever to anger senates or rouse on our coast, but surely must have been far too innocent nations to war. This heavy-moulded prize-fighter is the marvellous achievement of that wise committee which rejected Miss Whitney's 'matchless model' (as they confessed it to be) of the seated Senator, because no woman could make a statue! No, indeed, I hope not, if this Irish por

ter in his Sunday clothes is the ideal they desired." And here are Webster and Horace Mann:

"Then Webster, that mass of ugly iron at the Statehouse! which cheers us as we climb those endless steps,

MR. WENDELL PHILLIPS has published a cans-robbing the effort of half its weariness by resting us with a laugh, of which a journal said, with undue frankness, tic and brilliant denunciation of most of the that Everett, well knowing how hideous it was, let it be memorial statues of public men in Boston. He raised to revenge himself on the man who overshadowed interprets the old proverb, De mortuis nil nisi and eclipsed him. But they have supplied him too with bonum, to mean, Of the dead say nothing unless a foil, which half redeems its shapelessness. It is Horace you can tell something good of them. His Mann, waked up so suddenly that in his hurry he has criticism was perhaps suggested by a meet-brought half his bedclothes clinging to his legs and arms." ing to form an association in Boston for the And here is Pater Patriæ: erection of commemorative statues, tablets, "But who is this riding master, on a really good horse, and other works of art, and some such asso-staring so heroically up Commonwealth Avenue? Washciation is plainly necessary if the sharp words of Mr. Phillips are true.

Some of these biting comments are worthy of preservation, for nothing is pleasanter than the courage of a brilliant man who says pointedly precisely what he thinks, and in saying it inevitably speaks for thousands of other men. "Boston,” says this terrible critic, "seems hagridden with Thomas Ball, and so groans under the infliction of hideous statues." He proceeds:

"Mayor Quincy was a man of Goethe-like presence, rare manly beauty, and a sedate, dignified bearing. In a different way his figure was as impressive as was the grand repose of Webster. But what stands for him in School Street ?-A dancing master clogged with horseblankets. Not a dancing master taking a position-that might possibly be graceful-but a dancing master assuming an attitude, which is always ridiculous, and wholly unlike Quincy, who never assumed anything, but was nature itself all over. I tender my sincere condolence to those who share the great mayor's blood." Of the statue of Franklin he says:

"His comical companion, a tipsy old gentleman, somewhat weak on his spindle-shanks, swaying feebly to and fro on a jaunty cane, as with villainous leer he ogles the ladies. And this represents the sturdy, self-centred, quiet dignity of Franklin, which at once charmed and awed the court of Louis. Ball's Quincy has one merit-it is better than Franklin; and it is lucky for the artist that his clumsy mayor has the dilapidated roué for a foil." Here is Edward Everett:

“And so we come in our walk to Everett, in trousers too large for him, and a frock-coat which he has slightly outgrown. It requires consummate genius to manage the

ington? Well, then, my worthy George, drop your legs closer to your horse's side; it must fatigue you to hold them off at that painful distance. Rest yourself, general; subside for a moment, as you used to do at Mount Vernon, into the easy pose of a gentleman; don't oblige us to fancy you are exhibiting, and rather caricaturing, a model seat' for the guidance of some slow pupil. Can not you see, right in front of you, Rimmer's Hamilton? Let that teach you the majesty of repose."

This is criticism which "sticks." It will be as impossible hereafter to look at the Everett statue without hearing it say, "That is the road to Brighton," as at the sitting statue of Washington in the capital with its hand extended toward the Patent-office without recalling the popular notion that it is asking, "Where are my clothes?" Ridicule, of course, is not criticism, and may be grossly unjust. But Mr. Phillips praises as warmly as he censures. We have long ago commended the model of a statue to Sumner by Miss Whitney, a copy of which is in the Union League Club in New York, and which is altogether a most satisfactory portraiture of the man. Mr. Phillips speaks of it without reserve in the same strain. He also greatly praises the Soldiers' Monument upon Boston Common, saying that it has one peer, the "Minute-Man," by French, at Concord, "so full of life and movement that one fears he shall not see it again if he passes that way the next week." He objects, however, to the Soldiers' Monument, as to all monuments of the kind that he has observed since the war, that he finds no sign of the broken chain or of the

negro soldier. Let us tell the whole truth, he concludes, or raise no monument.

There are two monuments under consideration which will be probably very satisfactory, For artistic fitness, however, the only way is because of the method pursued in deciding for committees who are charged with the crec- what they shall be, and by whom they shall be tion of memorials to consult acknowledged au- made. These are the memorial at the birththorities, and to be governed by their decision. place of Washington, in Virginia, and upon the That committees, even of intelligent persons, battle-field of Bennington, in Vermont. The may go very wrong, the rejection of Miss Whit- first has been confided to the Secretary of ney's Sumuer proves. But, so far as we can State, who has consulted friends most accomlearn, that result was due to the singular prej- | plished in art. And the other is in charge of udice which even clever and accomplished a committee which will undoubtedly assign men may have against the artistic capacity of the work to some artist of renown. The ridicWomen. It was the more comical in this in- ulous results of jobbery in such matters are stance because the model was there to plead displayed for our national shame in Washingfor itself. To say that a woman could not ton. The consequences of competition submake a fitting statue, when a most fitting stat- ject to prejudice are seen in the substitution ne made by a woman was upon the table be- of an inferior for a superior work in the Sumfore them, was a judgment only to be explain- ner statue. If the Boston Memorial Society ed by the ludicrous supposition that want shall do something to help us in our sore need of physical power was the incapacity meant. of securing the nil nisi bonum in our memorial But a woman who cau design and execute a statues and monuments, it will receive the model has already done the artist's work. gratitude of the country.

A

Editor's Literary Record.

CULTIVATED English gentleman once | creasing in this country; and we congratulate remarked to the writer, as we were re- ourselves that its spread will be accelerated, turning from a visit to Westminster Abbey, and our countrymen assisted to a more intellithat Chaucer had more numerous readers and gent appreciation of the poet, by the American admirers in the United States than among his edition of Chaucer's Poetical Works,' now first own countrymen. And upon being questioned published, and worthily edited by Mr. Arthur for the grounds of his opinion, he replied that Gilman. In this fine edition the text of Chanhaving been for many years a habitual visitor cer is presented in a more authentic form than to Westminster Abbey, he had observed that in any of the previous editions, not even exa very large proportion of Americans visited cepting those of the learned and judicious TyrPoets' Corner, evidently with the definite pur- whitt and Sir Harris Nicolas. In editing it Mr. pose, previously formed, of seeing Chaucer's Gilman has taken advantage of the labors of monument, and that, singling it out as a chief | Mr. Furnivall and other members of the Chanobject of interest, they quite invariably linger- cer Society of London, whose researches have ed over it with blended curiosity and rever- made available a number of manuscripts of ence; but that, in marked contrast to this, Eng- Chaucer that were not accessible to Tyrwhitt lishmen rarely singled it out or seemed deeply and other early editors-notably six entire interested by it, but for the most part passed texts of the "Canterbury Tales," one of which it by with haste or indifference. He also re- in especial, namely, that owned by Lord Ellesmarked that he had further tested the matter mere, is justly considered the most authentic through several years by directing the conver- of any yet discovered, and forms the body of sation, when in company with intelligent Eug- the text now presented. In deciding the queslishmen or Americans, so as to arrive at an es- tion of the authenticity of the compositions timate of their comparative familiarity with usually ascribed to Chaucer, Mr. Gilman has Chaucer's writings, and the result had confirm-conformed to the judgment of the Chancer Soed the impressions derived from his observa-ciety, with the result that the titles of Chantions in the Abbey. Our friend's experience will hardly be accepted as a conclusive test of the relative number of Chaucer's readers and admirers in this country and in England, nor is it reported with any such view. It does, however, indirectly illustrate the fact that Chancer has a more numerous body of appreciative readers here than he had a quarter of a century ago, and that familiarity with his poetry is no longer reserved, as it was then, to men of letters or black-letter specialists. Undoubtedly the taste for the productions of the Morning Star" of English poesy is rapidly in

cer's authentic works are diminished to twenty-four, and that several hitherto credited to him are now pronounced either spurious or of doubtful authenticity, and are printed separately in a body after the others. Among these are "The Romaunt of the Rose," "The Court of Love," "The Flower and the Leaf," "The Cuckow and the Nightingale," and six other minor poems, including "Chaucer's Dream."

1 The Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. To which are Edited by ARTHUR GILMAN, M.A. 3 Vols., 12mo, pp. 598, 691, and 708. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, and Co.

appended Poems attributed to Chaucer.

DR. JOYCE'S Blanid' is a legendary romance with a distinct epic flavor. Its narrative is as simple and direct as a nursery tale, but is yet fertile of commanding incident, either tender or passionate, grave or momentous; and it has numerous prolonged descriptive passages, depicting birds and flowers, forest and plain, vale and mountain, castle and stronghold, lover and maid, the alternations of day and night and of the seasons, with singular grace and spirit. Interspersed with these descriptions, and serving as agreeable rests in the pauses of the narrative, are a number of songs, several of which have the true lyrical ring; and its dramatic suggestiveness is heightened by a variety of historical pictures of rites, customs, and practices that had their origin in the legendary period in which the scene of the poem is laid, when druid and minstrel alternately or in concert swayed the minds and directed the actions of men. Several of these historical reproductions are noteworthy specimens of composition and coloring, more especially the picture of the feast of flowers in ancient Mana (or Man), and of the lighting of the Beltane fire at the druidical festival in honor of the Sun-the Ripener, the Reaper, the Lord of Day, the Slayer of Death, the Life-Bestower--when, the highpriest having lighted the pyre, the sacred flame was caught by swift runners, and carried torch in hand throughout the land, "until each extinguished hearth laughed in the gladness of the new fire's birth." The scene of the poem is laid in the Isle of Man and the outlying countries bordering on the neighboring seas. The king of the isle has a daughter, Blanid, or the Blossom-Bright, who is of such peerless beauty, and is so celebrated for her gentleness and purity, that minstrels make her the theme of their lays, kings and nobles are enamored of her, and a thousand knights sacrifice their lives in quests undertaken for carrying her off from her sire. Blanid, however, remains heartwhole until, upon a day in early summer, when she is hunting with her father, her life is imper

While the reasons for attributing the authorship of these poems to others than Chaucer are not conclusive in all cases, and in several instances are met by cogent objections, it is not to be denied that they are sustained by the preponderance of evidence, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the arguments discrediting them have not yet been refuted by any satisfactory opposing evidence. We regret to notice that in the arrangement of the order of | the Canterbury Tales Mr. Gilman has followed that adopted by Mr. Furnivall in the publications of the Chaucer Society. This completely overturns the order of Tyrwhitt's arrangement, also adopted by Nicolas, to which readers of Chaucer have been accustomed for threequarters of a century, and is as unnecessary as it will prove confusing and inconvenient. Mr. Furnivall's arrangement is as purely hypothetical as was Mr. Tyrwhitt's. There is no positive evidence that either represents the exact order in which Chaucer intended the tales to be read, or in which he finally collected them; and there is strong interior evidence, supplied by at least one of the stories whose order has been changed by Mr. Furnivall, against the change and in support of the order assigned | them by Mr. Tyrwhitt. Moreover, as Mr. Gilman frankly admits, the arrangement of the Canterbury Tales has not yet been satisfactorily determined. The numerous orthographical changes in the text of this edition, on the other hand, are not only defensible, but form an extremely valuable feature of it, whether we regard them from a critical, an artistic, or a philological point of view, or merely as a rich addition to our variorum readings. It is true, these changes may at the first glance offend the eye and ear by their novelty, and may seem needlessly to alter the appearance of words without affecting their sense. In most cases, however, they contribute delicate shades of meaning, or sensibly modify the cadence and rhyme. Besides, the true text of Chaucer is a fact of prime importance illustrative of the condition of our tongue in the fourteenth century; and we have a strong solicitude, born of a live-iled by a mighty bull, from which she is resly personal interest in the man, to behold the precise words Chancer used, just as he was wont to frame them. After a careful examination and comparison of Mr. Gilman's text, it is apparent to us that the orthographical changes which are so conspicuous in it are never arbitrary, or conjectural, or made for the sake of displaying his ingenuity or pedantry, but are the result of a minute examination of the best manuscripts, laboriously pursued, line by line, with the honest purpose of reproducing the poet's orthography as nearly as possible in ac-gether in an expedition to wrest Blanid from cordance with that which he deliberately adopted. The work is enriched by four succinct and valuable essays, respectively on the times of the poet, on reading Chaucer, on the astrological terms and divisions of time alluded to in the text, and on the Biblical references that occur in it.

cued by young Cuhullin, a hero as handsome as Apollo and as valorous as Mars. At first sight of each other "love supreme storms their hearts," and several stolen interviews-for Cuhullin is the son of the doughtiest foe of Blanid's father-heighten their passion to rapture. The implacable old king seeks Cuhullin's life, but, forewarned by Blanid, the hero, by his address and intrepidity, escapes the plot for his destruction. Afterward Cuhullin and other amatory princes league to

her father, and he is chosen its chief. They besiege the stout old king's stronghold, but after having beaten down the outer defenses are arrested by a magic wheel which thwarts

Blanid. By ROBERT D. JOYCE, Author of Deirdre. 16mo, pp. 249. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

their further advance. Finally they destroy | effective classification in a volume of selec

tions3 made up of his shorter pieces, representing his most poetical conceptions, in the belief that many who have been repelled from Wordsworth will be compelled by these examples to acknowledge his superior power and worth. The selections comprise most of Wordsworth's ballad, narrative, lyrical, reflective, and elegiac poems, together with sixty of his sonnets, and their choice has been guided by refined and sound poetical taste. They are preluded by a discriminating introductory essay, in which Mr. Arnold recapitulates the elements that promote or retard poetic fame, with a special application to the case of Wordsworth, and in which he also makes an elaborate comparative estimate of his poetry and of the quality of his genius generally. The volume can not fail to popularize this pure and sage master of the poetic art, and increase the number of his appreciative admirers.

it through the instrumentality of an enchanted sword, wielded by Curoi, a valiant Celtic prince, who demands and is awarded Blanid as the guerdon of his prowess. He bears her off, an unwilling prisoner, to his distant home, whither he is followed by Cuhullin, who engages him in combat, and is vanquished by him. Faithful to her love, despite the shame of his defeat, Blanid cherishes his image and longs for his presence. At length he recovers from his wounds, and the lovers meet by stealth, when Blanid's foster-mother, moved by the distress of her child, devises a stratagem by which Cuhullin and his followers are enabled to overpower and slay Curoi, and carry off Blanid. The lovers live together in great happiness for a season in Cuhullin's land; but on the return of the Beltane festival, which is celebrated on a high cliff overlooking the sea, their fate comes in the form of Curoi's faithful minstrel, who has been seeking an opportunity to revenge his dead lord. As Blauid, in a pause of In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers is the title the revelry, is leaning against an aged thorn of a chastely pretty holiday volume of poetry, on the verge of the cliff, and is gazing pen- consisting of thirty brief poems by the youthsively upon the changing ocean waves, the ful Goodale sisters, descriptive of or embodying minstrel first touches the strings of his harp sentiments, fancies, moralizings, and reflections with low love music, then changes its tones to suggested by the wild flowers of their native the strains of a war trumpet, then makes it hills and valleys. The poems are as gracefully sink in dying sobs, closing with a wild wail of delicate as the sweet and fragile children of woe, and at last, suddenly ending the mighty nature whose beautiful colors and modest strain, he hurls his harp to the ground, bounds forms they embalm in their gentle verse. Sevtoward Blanid, and seizing her before help eral of them are couched in a spirit of tendercould interpose, springs with her from the cliff ness that is allied to the pathetic, others are into the sea, and they are buried in its resist- tremulous with a shy gladness that might easless waves. Although occasionally marred by ily be turned to tears, others are buoyant with archaisms and a tendency to bombast, the pro-happiness and radiant with hope, and in all of duction is of a high order of poetical merit, and will assure its author an honorable place among contemporaneous poets.

ALTHOUGH Mr. Matthew Arnold is a great admirer of Wordsworth's poetry, he is far from "being as promiscuous in his admiration of it as those wholesale Wordsworthians "who praise him for the wrong things, and lay too much stress upon his philosophy." Taking the roll of our English poets, he places Wordsworth after Shakspeare and Milton, but before Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Campbell, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Still, while making this high claim for Wordsworth, Mr. Arnold conceives that there are obstacles of Wordsworth's own creation which hinder or delay his due recognition. Among these are the bulk, prosaic flatness, dullness, and real inferiority of much of his work. To be recognized far and wide, Mr. Arnold declares Wordsworth must be relieved of "a great deal of the poetical baggage which now encumbers him," and his poems should be less arbitrarily classified. Mr. Arnold has undertaken the task of disengaging Wordsworth's best poems from the inferior ones under which they are buried, and of grouping and arranging them under a more

them there are visions of natural sights and echoes of natural sounds that evince a close companionship with and pious love of nature. The illustrations, which materially enhance the value of the volume, are exquisite portraits of flowers that are universal favorites for their beauties of form and color, and for the happy associations they revive.

LOVERS of devotional poetry have been catered for, with more taste and discrimination than are usually visible in collections of relig ious song, in three elegant little volumes of verse,' selected chiefly from the religious newspapers and magazines. The selections are suited to nearly every phase of Christian sentiment, and are responsive to nearly every attitude of the devout believer's mind. As might have been expected from collections so promiscuous, they contain much verse that, however

3 Poems of Wordsworth. Chosen and Edited by MAT"Franklin Square Library." 4to, pp. 60. THEW ARNOLD. New York: Harper and Brothers.

4 In Berkshire with the Wild Flowers. By ELAINE and DORA READ GOODALE. Illustrated by W. HAMILTON GIBSON. 4to, pp. 91. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

5 At the Beautiful Gate, and Other Religious Poems, 18mo, pp. 176. Unto the Desired Haven, and Other Religious Poems. 18mo, pp. 174. The Palace of the King, and Other Religious Poems. 18mo, pp. 174. Compiled by the Editor of The Changed Cross. New York: A. D. F. Randolph and Co.

pious and well-intentioned, must take a low | ganization and consolidation of the reformed seat as poetry. Many of the selections, how- communities into a zealous and orderly Church, ever, are impassioned and imaginative, and of the failure of the bloody legislation of four have a legitimate claim to recognition as fair successive monarchs to crush the spirit or supminor poetry. press the religious beliefs of the Huguenots, of the events of four sanguinary wars, and the opening scenes of a fifth war, in which the reformers exhibited the noblest valor and constancy, and of their arrival, at the death of Charles IX., at a condition of strength and coherence which entitled them to the consideration and respect of the world. The history of the Huguenots during this trying and eventful

As we are closing the Literary Record of the month, a household edition of The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor is laid upon our table, of which we are merely able to say that it contains all of Taylor's poetical productions, with the exception of the drama of the "Prophet," | the dramatic poems of the "Masque of the Gods” and “Prince Deukalion," and the poet-period opens with the reign of the brilliant ical translation of Goethe's "Faust." Several of the poems in the volume are now first published.

Francis, at first fitfully illumined by his splendid but deceptive military successes, but afterward darkened by humiliation, and closes with the close of the reign of Charles IX., amid the still overhanging gloom of St. Bartholomew's Day. Professor Baird writes with fullness and dignity. It is everywhere apparent that he has spared no pains to verify every important fact that he states. His inferences and deductions are natural and reasonable; he presents all sides of a debated point with frankness, not even concealing a reasonable doubt, and having marshalled the evidence without reserve, he sums it up with candor, and records a judgment which is impressive because of its moderation and fairness. His style is chaste, terse, and masculine; his arrangement of events is clear and orderly; his narrative, though generally calm almost to coldness, occasionally becomes spirited, and is always graphic; mairy of his groupings are fine historical pictures, and some of his descriptions are very brilliant. Especially distinguished for the merits we have emphasized is his extended review of the events

MR. MOTLEY'S histories have made American readers more or less familiar with all the principal actors in the struggle that was waged for and against religious liberty in Europe in the sixteenth century, and with the critical events and movements in which they participated. An opportunity is now afforded, by Professor Baird's History of the Rise of the Huguenots in France,' for a contemplation of these men and events from a new stand-point, and in relation to a changed centre of interest. The scene is shifted from the states of the Dutch Republic to France, and many of those who were leading figures on either side in Mr. Motley's drama-such as William of Orange, Louis of Nassau, Barneveld, and Maurice, or Alva, Grandval, Viglius, Titelmann, and Alexander of Parma-now appear as secondary characters, and the foreground is occupied instead by French heroes, patriots, and martyrs to liberty, on the one side, and French perse-leading to and following the massacre of St. entors, assassins of freedom, and tyrants, on the other. So also the procession of events is transferred from the Hague and the Scheldt, from Antwerp, Amsterdam, Leyden, Bruges, and Ghent, to the Somme, the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne, to Meaux, Nevers, Lyons, Toulouse, Rochelle, and Paris. After a preliminary chapter appropriated to a retrospect of French history, and an outline of the geographical, political, social, and ecclesiastical condition of France prior to and at the accession of Francis I., Pro- MR. WALTER BESANT has chosen for his confessor Baird enters upon an elaborate account tribution to the series of "Foreign Classics for of the interesting interval from 1515 till 1574, English Readers," edited by Mrs. Oliphant, a comprising the events of the reigns of the suc- sketch of the life and writings of Rabelais, in cessive monarchs who ruled France from Fran- many respects one of the most unique and brilleis I. to Charles IX.-a period which may be iant of modern authors, and in as many more regarded as the formative age of the Hugne- the most irredeemably faulty and disgusting. nots of France. His relation includes the nar- His writings are riotous with animal spirits, rative of the first planting of the reformed are fairly contagious with merriment, and spardoctrines, of the steady growth of the Refor-kle with audacious originality; they display mation from small beginnings and in the face | an astonishing fertility of language and invenof obloquy and armed power, of the regular or

The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor. 12mo, pp. 341. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, and Co.

History of the Rise of the Huguenots in France. By HENRY M. BAIRD. 2 Vols., 8vo, pp. 577 and 681. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Bartholomew's Day. In his admirable account of that appalling crime, which covers nearly a fourth of his entire work, he laboriously collates all the testimony bearing upon it, and after a close and able investigation decides upon the question of the responsibility for it with a degree of impartiality that may disappoint partisans, but will meet the approval of those who love the truth for its own sake.

tion, and an extraordinary measure of astute practical wisdom, and they exhibit unusual powers of ridicule justly directed, together

8 Rabelais. By WALTER BESANT, M. A. 16mo, pp. 194. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co.