Chapter III (7)

Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the extent to which the home administration was responsible for the general mismanagement of the war, in its main features and its minute details,--nor the thoroughly English stolidity with which all complaints were received by every member of the Government, from the cabinet minister who dictated pompous and unmeaning despatches, down to the meanest official who measured red tape,--nor the intense and universal popular indignation which, after a year "full of horrors," compelled the resignation of the Aberdeen Ministry. Lord Derby did not, perhaps, overstate the verdict of the nation, when he said in the House of Lords,--"From the very first to the very last, there has been apparent in the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government a want of previous preparation,--a total want of prescience; and they have appeared to live from day to day providing for each successive exigency _after it arose, and not before it arose_. TOO LATE have been the fatal words applicable to the whole conduct of Her Majesty's Government in the course of the war." The change in the Ministry, however, by no means cured all the evils which had existed; for, although the sufferings of the soldiers--thanks in large part to the providential appearance and heroic conduct of Florence Nightingale--were greatly diminished, still, as we have seen, the military blunders continued to the close of the war.

Now, if we do not greatly mistake, the lesson which this country should learn from the mortifying experience of the English army in the Crimea is not one of exultation over its lamentable and unnecessary errors, but rather of indifference to the insulting criticism of a nation which can so ill afford to be critical, and of determination to profit in every possible way by those blunders which might have been avoided. The history of all wars, moreover, should teach us that now and then there comes a time when to hold the olive-branch in one hand and the sword in the other, especially if the olive-branch is kept in the foreground and the sword in the background, involves not only a sad waste of energy, but is mistaken kindness to our enemies.

Those who have read--and who has not?--the charming story of "Rab and his Friends" will remember the incident which, for the sake of brevity, we reluctantly condense. A small, thorough-bred terrier, after being rudely interrupted in his encounter with a large shepherd's-dog, darts off, fatally bent on mischief, to seek a new canine antagonist. He discovers him in the person of a huge mastiff, quietly sauntering along in a peaceful frame of mind, all unsuspicious of danger. The angry terrier makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat. The rest of the story shall be told in the graphic language of the author. "To our astonishment, the great creature does nothing but stand still, hold himself up, and roar,--yes, roar: a long, serious, remonstrative roar. How is this? _He is muzzled_! The bailies had proclaimed a general muzzling, and his master, studying strength and economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, constructed out of the leather of some ancient _breeching_. His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage,--a sort of terrible grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the strap across his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all round, 'Did you ever see the like of this?' He looked a statue of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite. We soon had a crowd; the chicken held on. 'A knife!' cried Bob; and a cobbler gave him his knife: you know the kind of knife, worn away obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense leather; it ran before it; and then!--one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise,--and the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead."

If we draw a useful moral from this homely incident, it will not be the first time that the unerring sagacity of animals has been serviceable to man. A stealthy, cunning, unscrupulous, desperate, devilish foe has seized the nation by the throat and threatens its life. The Government is strong, courageous, determined, abundantly able to make a successful resistance, and even to kill the insolent enemy; but--_it is muzzled_: muzzled here by conservative counsels, and there by radical complaints,--by the over-cautious policy of one general, and the headlong haste of another,--by a too tender regard for slavery in some States, and by a too zealous anxiety for instant emancipation in others,--by fear of provoking opposition in one quarter, and by a blind defiance of all obstacles in another. Now what shall be done? Shall we hesitate, despond, despair? Never! _For Heaven's sake, take off the muzzle._ Use every weapon which the God of Battles has placed in our hands. Put forth all the power of the nation. Encourage and promote all fighting generals; cashier all officers who are determined to make war on peace principles; arm, equip, and discipline negroes, not to burn, plunder, and massacre, but to meet their and our enemies in fair and open fight.[B] Demonstrate to the world that we are terribly in earnest. Waste no time in discussing the chance of foreign intervention. Postpone Pacific railroads, international telegraphs, polygamy in Utah, African colonization, everything, to the engrossing and emergent crisis which now confronts the Government. Make the contest sharp, short, and decisive. Put down the Rebellion, vindicate the majesty of the Law, the sacredness of the Union, and the integrity of the Constitution. There will be time enough, after this is done, to discuss all minor questions and all collateral issues. One paramount duty lies directly before us. Let us perform this duty fearlessly, and leave the future with God.

[Footnote B: The opposition to the employment of negro regiments, if made by traitors North or South, can be easily comprehended,--if made by loyal men, is wholly inexplicable. Your neighbor's house takes fire at night. The flames, long smouldering, make rapid progress, and threaten the comfort, certainly, if not the lives of his household, and the total destruction of his property. The alarm is given. An engine comes promptly to the rescue. It is just in season to save his dwelling. The firemen spring with ready alacrity to their places. But stop! He suddenly discovers the appalling fact that they are negroes! True, there is not a moment to be lost. No other engine is, or can be, within helping distance. The least delay means poverty and a houseless family. And yet he rudely dismisses the dusky firemen, folds his arms with Spartan stoicism, and, looking complacently on the burning building, says, _"Better this than to rely on the assistance of niggers!"_ _Is it_ Spartan stoicism? Is it not rather stark lunacy? And would you not take immediate measures to provide such a man with permanent quarters in a mad-house?]

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Roba di Roma_. By WILLIAM W. STORY. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 355, 369. London: Chapman & Hall. 1863.

The father of the celebrated Mr. Jonathan Wild was in the habit of saying, that "travelling was travelling in one part of the world as well as another; it consisted in being such a time from home, and in traversing so many leagues; and he appealed to experience whether most of our travellers in France and Italy did not prove at their return that they might have been sent as profitably to Norway and Greenland." Fielding himself, the author of this sarcasm, was a very different kind of traveller, as his Lisbon journal shows; but we think he told no more than the truth in regard to the far greater part of those idle people who powder themselves with dust from the highways and blur their memories with a whirl through the galleries of Europe. They go out empty, to come home unprofitably full. They go abroad to escape themselves, and fail, as Goethe says they always must, in the attempt to jump away from their own shadows. And yet even the dullest man, if he went honestly about it, might bring home something worth having from the dullest place. If Ovid, instead of sentimentalizing in the "Tristia," had left behind him a treatise on the language of the Getae which he learned, we should have thanked him for something more truly valuable than all his poems. Could men only learn how comfortably the world can get along without the various information which they bring home about themselves! Honest observation and report will long continue, we fear, to be one of the rarest of human things, so much more easily are spectacles to be had than eyes, so much cheaper is fine writing than exactness. Let any one who has sincerely endeavored to get anything like facts with regard to the battles of our civil war only consider how much more he has learned concerning the splendid emotions of the reporter than the events of the fight, (unless he has had the good luck of a peep into the correspondence of some pricelessly uncultivated private,) and he will feel that narrative, simple as it seems, can be well done by two kinds of men only,--those of the highest genius and culture, and those wholly without either.

It gradually becomes clear to us that the easiest things can be done with ease only by the very fewest people, and those specially endowed to that end. The English language, for instance, can show but one sincere diarist, Pepys; and yet it would seem a simple matter enough to jot down the events of every day for one's self without thinking of Mrs. Posterity Grundy, who has a perverse way, as if she were a testatrix and not an heir, of forgetting precisely those who pay most assiduous court to her. One would think, too, that to travel and tell what you have seen should be tolerably easy; but in ninety-nine books out of a hundred does not the tourist bore us with the sensations he thinks he ought to have experienced, instead of letting us know what he saw and felt? If authors would only consider that the way to write an enlivening book is not by seeing and saying just what would be expected of them, but precisely the reverse, the public would be gainers. What tortures have we not seen the worthiest people go through in endeavoring to get up the appropriate emotion before some famous work in a foreign gallery, when the only sincere feeling they had was a praiseworthy desire to escape! If one does not like the Venus of Milo, let him not fret about it, for he may be sure she never will.

Montaigne felt obliged to separate himself from travelling-companions whose only notion of their function was that of putting so many leagues a day behind them. His theory was that of Ulysses, who was not content with seeing the cities of many men, but would learn their minds also. And this way of taking time enough, while we think it the best everywhere, is especially excellent in a country so much the reverse of _ fast_ as Italy, where impressions need to steep themselves in the sun and ripen slowly as peaches, and where _carpe diem_ should be translated _take your own time_. But is there any particular reason why everybody should go to Italy, or, having done so, should tell everybody else what he supposes he ought to have seen there? Surely, there must be some adequate cause for so constant an effect.

Boswell, in a letter to Sir Andrew Mitchell, says, that, if he could only _see Rome_, "it would give him talk for a lifetime." The utmost stretch of his longing is to pass "four months on classic ground," after which he will come back to Auchinleck _uti conciva satur_,--a condition in which we fear the poor fellow returned thither only too often, though unhappily in no metaphorical sense. We rather think, that, apart from the pleasure of saying he had been there, Boswell was really drawn to Italy by the fact that it was classic ground, and this not so much by its association with great events as with great men, for whom, with all his weaknesses, he had an invincible predilection. But Italy has a magnetic virtue quite peculiar to her, which compels alike steel and straw, finding something in men of the most diverse temperaments by which to draw them to herself. Like the Siren, she sings to every voyager a different song, that lays hold on the special weakness of his nature. The German goes thither because Winckelmann and Goethe went, and because he can find there a sausage stronger than his own; the Frenchman, that he may flavor his infidelity with a bitter dash of Ultramontanism, or find fresher zest in his chattering boulevard after the sombre loneliness of Rome; the Englishman, because the same Providence that hears the young ravens when they cry is careful to furnish prey to the courier also, and because his money will make him a _Milor in partibus_. But to the American, especially if he be of an imaginative temper, Italy has a deeper charm. She gives him cheaply what gold cannot buy for him at home, a Past at once legendary and authentic, and in which he has an equal claim with every other foreigner. In England he is a poor relation whose right in the entail of home traditions has been docked by revolution; of France his notions are purely English, and he can scarce help feeling something like contempt for a people who habitually conceal their meaning in French; but Rome is the mother-country of every boy who has devoured Plutarch or taken his daily doses of Florus. Italy gives us antiquity with good roads, cheap living, and, above all, a sense of freedom from responsibility. For him who has escaped thither there is no longer any tyranny of public opinion; its fetters drop from his limbs when he touches that consecrated shore, and he rejoices in the recovery of his own individuality. He is no longer met at every turn with "Under which king, bezonian? Speak, or die!" He is not forced to take one side or the other about table-tipping, or the merits of General Blank, or the constitutionality of anarchy. He has found an Eden where he need not hide his natural self in the livery of any opinion, and may be as happy as Adam, if he be wise enough to keep clear of the apple of High Art. This may be very weak, but it is also very agreeable to certain temperaments; and to be weak is to be miserable only where it is a duty to be strong.

Coming from a country where everything seems shifting like a quicksand, where men shed their homes as snakes their skins, where you may meet a three-story house, or even a church, on the highway, bitten by the universal gad-fly of bettering its position, where we have known a tree to be cut down merely because "it had got to be so old," the sense of permanence, unchangeableness, and repose which Italy gives us is delightful. The oft-repeated _non è più come era prima_ may be true enough of Rome politically, but it is not true of it in most other respects. To be sure, gas and railroads have got in at last; but one may still read by a _lucerna_ and travel by _vettura_, if he like, using Alberti as a guide-book, and putting up at the Bearas a certain keen-eyed Gascon did three centuries ago.

Mr. Story has taken Italy with due deliberation, having lived there now some fifteen years. He has thus been enabled to let things come to him, instead of running after them; and his sensations have had time to ripen slowly toward the true moment of projection, without being shaken and hurried, or huddled one atop of the other. We doubt if the picturesque can be profitably done by the job, for in aesthetics the proverb that half a loaf is better than no bread does not hold. An Italian _festa_, we suspect, if you make it a matter of business, will turn its business-side to you, and you will go away without having been admitted to the delightful confidence of its innocent gayety and unpremeditated charm. Tourists must often have remarked, in making an excursion to a ruin or bit of picturesque scenery, that what chance threw in to boot was by far the best part of their bargain, for the most beautiful experiences come not by observation. The crumbling temple lured them forth, but it was only to see a sunset or to hear a nightingale.

What between winters in Rome and summers in one or the other mountain-town, with intervals of absence now at Florence and now at Siena, Mr. Story has had such opportunities as fall to the lot of very few foreigners. For, in studying the ways of a people, it is as with wild animals,--you must be long enough among them to get them _wonted_, so that you may catch them at unawares. His book is on the whole a delightful one, and would have been so without qualification, had he confined it to a relation of his own experiences. Where he narrates or describes, he is always lively and interesting; where he disserts or grows learned, he gives up his vantage-ground, and must consent to be dull like everybody else. Anybody can be learned, anybody except Dr. Holmes dull; but not everybody can be a poet and artist. The chapter on the Evil Eye is a marvel of misplaced erudition. The author has hunted all antiquity like a policeman, and arrested high and low on the least suspicion of a squint. Horace and Jodocus Damhouder, (to whose harmless Dam our impatience tempts us to add an _n_,) Tibullus and Johannes Wouwerus, St. Augustine and Turnebus, with a motley mob of Jews, Christians, Greeks, Romans, Arabians, and Lord-knows-whats, are all thrust into the dock cheek by jowl. For ourselves, we would have taken Mr. Story's word for it, without the attestation of these long-winded old monsters, who wrote about charms and enchantments in a style as potent in disenchantment as holy-water, and who bored their own generation too thoroughly to have any claim upon the button of ours. Every age is sure of its own fleas without poking over the rag-bag of the past; and of all things, a superstition has the least need of proving the antiquity of its pedigree, since its very etymology is better than the certificate of all the Heralds' Colleges put together. We are surprised that so clever and lively a man as Mr. Story, should not have seen that in such matters one live fact is better than fifty dead ones, and that even in history it is not so much the facts as what the historian has contrived to see in them that gives life to his work.

But learning makes a small part of Mr. Story's book; only, as the concluding chapter happens to bristle with quotations and references, thickly as the nave of St. Peter's on a festival with bayonets, this is the last taste left in the mouth. The really valuable parts of the book (and they make much the larger part of it) are those in which the author relates his own experiences. After so many volumes stuffed like a _chiffonnier's_ basket with the shreds of ancient Rome, it is really refreshing to come upon a book which makes us feel that Italy is still inhabited by very human beings, and contains something more than the tombs of the Scipios, and inscriptions interesting only to people who think a dead Roman donkey better than a living Italian lion. The chapters on Street-Music in Rome, on Games, on Gaffes and Theatres, on Villeggiatura and the Vintage, on the Ghetto, the Markets, and Summer in the City, are all of them delightful and new. They really teach us something, while the learning, we are sorry to say, does nothing of the kind. Several of these chapters our readers will remember enjoying in the "Atlantic." They are good for those who have been in Italy, for those who are going thither, and, above all, for those who must stay at home. They contain the most cheerful and picturesque descriptions of Italian life and scenery we have ever met with. And we cannot be too thankful to Mr. Story that he leaves a theme so poetical in itself to _be_ poetical, without any officious help from himself, and that, though an artist, he does not enter on any of those disquisitions which would have made Sir Joshua shift his trumpet. On the whole, we are inclined to forgive him the polyglot lumber of his chapter on the Evil Eye in consideration of the scenery and galleries which he has spared us. We think we see symptoms that the Nature-mania which began with Rousseau is on the decline, and that men and their ways are getting into fashion again as worth study. The good time is perhaps coming when some gallant fellow will out with it that he hates mountains, and will be greeted with a shout of delight from his emancipated brethren.

Mr. Story is a person of very remarkable endowments. An accomplished musician and poet, (we ought to have said before how remarkably good the translations in these volumes are,) a skilful draughtsman, the author of reputable law-books, he would seem to have been in danger of verifying the old saw, had he not proved himself so eminently a master in sculpture. We think the country is deeply indebted to Mr. Story for having won so complete a triumph at the London World's Fair with his Cleopatra and Libyan Sibyl, at a time when English statesmen and newspapers were assuring the world that America was relapsing into barbarism. Those statues, if we may trust the unvarying witness of judicious persons, are conceived and executed in a style altogether above the stone-cutting level of the day, and give proof of real imaginative power. Mr. Story's genius and culture, with the fresh spur of so marked a success, will, we are sure, produce other works to his own honor and that of his country. For we feel that we have a country still,--feel it the more deeply for our suffering, and our hope deferred,--and out of the darkness of to-day we have still faith to see a fairer America rising, a higher ideal of freedom, to warm the soul of the artist and nerve the arm of the soldier.

_Hand-Book of Universal Literature._ From the Latest and Best Authorities. By MRS. ANNE C.L. BOTTA. A New Edition. 12mo. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1862.

A thing once done assumes a magical simplicity. No matter what may have been the previous difficulty, or how much work may be involved in the result, yet, when the work is done, the problem solved, all the difficulty and labor promptly disappear from view, as if in dread of being led captive in triumphal procession after the Caesar who has mastered them. Thus, it does not seem at all strange that we should have a book professing to guide us through all the intricacies of general literature; indeed, now that the work is put into our hands, it seems so easy of accomplishment that the only marvel would appear to be that we have had none hitherto. Yet the conditions necessary to such a work are of the rarest to be found; not so rare, indeed, when each is considered separately, but rarely to be met with in combination.

In order even to attempt a work of this nature, its utility must first be fully appreciated; but, unfortunately, those whose need is the greatest, as being immediately present, would on that very account be incompetent to supply the need, while those who by dint of patient study have brought themselves up to the point of competency for the task no longer realize the want,--just as men who have become rich by industry forget the necessities of poverty, which were the earliest spurs upon their energy.

The great majority of readers, therefore, have good reason to thank Mrs. Botta, that, after having met a great educational need in her own experience, she has benevolently set about supplying the same need in the experience of others. The same motive which has led her to do this has also made her work, from the peculiar manner in which it is conducted, an important contribution toward a more perfect educational system than generally prevails; though we would not do her the injustice to imply that what she has done claims merit on this account alone or chiefly. It _does_ claim merit in this way, and of a very high order, because it avoids a prominent fault that vitiates most works intended to promote the general diffusion of knowledge. The fault referred to is the same which De Quincey, in a note to his "Political Economy," has called the greatest vice of teaching,--namely, that the teacher does not readily enter into, as an inheritance, the difficulties of the pupil. Merely to have corrected this fault, to have met the popular mind half-way and upon its own ground, was to furnish an important condition hitherto lacking in the field chosen.

The extent of the work--embracing, as it does, the whole field of literature--imposes other and more difficult conditions. Originality, in any primary sense, was of course an impossibility; a single lifetime would not suffice even for the most cursory examination of original materials on so grand a scale. It was necessary, therefore, to select and make use of the best authorities, critical and historical, those whose researches have been most valuable and comprehensive, in each particular department of the field. These authorities were to be found, not in a single language, but in several; and even after they were found, and the various results of their investigations put at their just estimate, the important work of selection had then only just commenced. Here were the master-critics and antiquaries,--the Müllers, Champollions, and all. Some use must be made of each; but the compass, no less than the design, of the work demanded the exclusion of all secondary and unimportant matter, yet in such a manner that the ideal unity should not be at all disturbed. Here was required, not merely tact and discrimination, but a high degree of philosophical analysis; and since this was valueless except as it was followed by comprehensive synthesis, the power of artistic combination was no less requisite to the complete result.

From the foregoing remarks it must not be supposed that there has been throughout a remodelling of all the material used. On the contrary, it is one of the most important of the features which give value and interest to the work, that in frequent instances the material has been presented precisely as it came to hand; a felicitous or humorous turn of a sentence, a pointed antithesis, a happy grouping of historic incidents, or a vigorous clinching of manifold thoughts in a single expression, has been happily preserved where by others it might have been ejected, or marred in the changing, for the sake of giving to the work a factitious claim to an originality which, in such a field, is plainly the least desirable characteristic. Our most hearty thanks are due to Mrs. Botta that she has been willing to sacrifice what at the best would have been a spurious claim to the purely legitimate one, of having conquered almost insuperable difficulties, and, by the most conscientious fidelity, elaborated a really valuable treatise, where before there existed none at all.

So great as has been the need of this work, so great will be the appreciation of it at the hands of the reading public. A whole has been given where hitherto only parts had existed, and those for the most part inaccessible to the general reader.

We have no space to enlarge upon the many particular excellences of the book. It is vivacious in style, having none of the tedium belonging to most works of this description. There is very much concerning ancient religion, and concerning the classification of languages, as well as respecting the peculiarities of each, that has never before been presented in a popular form. We have rarely, indeed, seen so much that was valuable, and so well digested, compressed within such limited bounds.

_The New American Cyclopaedia_; a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. 16 vols. royal 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The sixteenth and concluding volume of the "New American Cyclopaedia" brings Messrs. Ripley and Dana to the end of one of the most laborious and important literary works ever undertaken in this country; and the voice of the public, we are sure, will be all but unanimous in congratulating them upon the generally satisfactory manner in which they have performed their task. The cost of the work, according to a New-York journal, has been over four hundred thousand dollars. Six years have been spent in its execution, and nearly five hundred writers have been employed to contribute to it. Naturally, the articles are of very unequal merit; but it is fair to remark that a high standard of scholarship and literary polish has evidently been aimed at, from the first volume to the last, and there is scarcely any point upon which the "New American Cyclopaedia" may not safely challenge comparison with any work of similar pretensions in the English language.

Practically, none of the cyclopaedia previously accessible in our language has now much value. Such works as "Rees's," the "Edinburgh," the "London," and the "Penny" Cyclopaedias, the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana," and the excellent, though rather brief, "Encyclopedia Americana" of Dr. Francis Lieber, the only one, except the "New American," ever written in this country, however good in their day, have long been entirely out of date. The "English Cyclopaedia" of Charles Knight, and the eighth edition of the famous "Encyclopaedia Britannica," were completed while the work of Messrs. Ripley and Dana was yet in progress; but they are so different from the latter in their scope and execution, and so much more costly, that they can hardly be said to rival it. The first-named is a revised issue of the old "Penny Cyclopaedia" of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and retains some of the best features of that excellent work. Its arrangement seems to us peculiarly inconvenient; but its most glaring defect is the lack of American subjects, and the slipshod, unsatisfactory, and inaccurate manner in which the few that are found in it have been treated. The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" is open to the same objection. The first edition of this great work appeared over ninety years ago. It contained neither historical, biographical, nor geographical articles, and was rather a collection of treatises on the principal arts and sciences than a cyclopaedia in the common acceptation of the term. It has since been five times almost remodelled, arranged alphabetically, and greatly enlarged; but it still preserves its old distinguishing feature of treating great scientific and historical subjects exhaustively under a single head: for instance, there are two elaborate historical articles on "Britain" and "England," but none on Charles I. or Charles II.; long articles on "Animal Kingdom" and "Mammalia,"--so long, in fact, that it is almost impossible to find anything in them without an index,--but none on the separate animals. For the scholar, this plan, perhaps, has its advantages; but, for the unlearned reader, who turns to his cyclopaedia to find an intelligible account of the habits of some particular creature, without caring greatly what its precise place may be in the zoölogical kingdom, or looks for a name without knowing whether it belongs to a fish or a river, no book that professes to be a manual of reference could well be arranged on a more inconvenient principle. One of the chief duties of a cyclopaedia is to save trouble,--to put one on the high-road to knowledge, without unnecessary delay in finding the guide-boards. But send a half-educated man to look for a scrap of learning in an article of a hundred pages, and one might as well at once turn him loose into a library. And what is worse, the unwieldy dimensions of these great articles are out of all proportion to the information they contain. We venture to assert that the ponderous "Encyclopaedia Britannica," with its twenty-two quarto volumes, will tell less, for instance, about the Horse, or about Louis XIV., than the much smaller work of Messrs. Ripley and Dana. In the "New American Cyclopaedia" there are few articles over twenty pages long. The leading subjects in the sciences, such as "Anatomy," "Botany," "Physiology," etc., have from three to ten pages each,--enough to give an outline of the principles and history of the science. The great geographical and political divisions of the globe are treated at somewhat greater length. Every important plant, beast, bird, and fish, every large town, river, lake, province, and mountain, every notable monarch, and every great battle, (not forgetting "Bull Run" and the "Chickahominy Campaign,") is the subject of a separate article.

Next to this very convenient subdivision of topics, the most striking merit of the new cyclopaedia is, perhaps, comprehensiveness. Among its faults, very few faults of omission can fairly be charged; and, indeed, it seems to us rather to err in giving too many articles, especially on American second-rate preachers, politicians, and literary men, all of whom are no doubt ticketed for immortality by a select circle of friends and admirers, but in whom the public at large take the faintest possible interest. On the other hand, the space given to such heroes is small; and so long as they do not exclude more valuable matter, but only add a little to the bulk of the volumes, they do no great harm, and may chance to be useful. In the department of natural history this work is much fuller than any other general dictionary. It is also especially complete in technology and law, (the latter department having been under the care of Professor Theophilus Parsons,) and sufficiently so in medicine, theology, and other branches of science.

Among the articles upon which its success and reputation will chiefly rest are those relating to technology. With scarcely an exception, they are plain, practical, and full of common sense. Those on "Cotton" and "Wool" and their manufactures, the various metals and the ways of working them, (the article on "Zinc" is the best we have ever seen on that subject,) "Gas," "Ship," "Railroad," "Telegraph," "Sewing-Machine," "Steam," and "Sugar," are compact summaries of valuable knowledge, and will go far to commend the work to a class of persons who, except in our own country, are not much given to reading or book-buying. They vindicate the claims of the Cyclopaedia to be a popular dictionary, not intended solely for the scholar's library, but directed to the wants of the artisan and man of business. It is not too much to say of many of them,--of "Ship," for instance, and "Telegraph,"--that, apart from their value as records of industrial progress and invention, they are interesting enough to furnish a very pleasant hour's occupation to the desultory reader.

The other scientific articles are mostly written in a clear, unpretending style, with a sparing use of technical expressions; and so far as we have discovered, they do ample justice to all recent discoveries. The articles by Professor Bache on the "Tides," Professor Dalton on "Embryology," Professor J.D. Dana on "Crystallography," Dr. W.H. Draper on the "Nervous System," Professor James Hall on "Palaeontology," Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, on "Magnetism" and "Meteorology," James T. Hodge on "Earth" and "Electricity," Frank H. Storer on "Chemistry" and kindred subjects, Dr. Reuben on "Heat," "Light," "Vision," "Winds," etc., and the philological contributions of Dr. Kraitsir and Professor Whitney, do the highest credit to the work in which they appear. The forbidding appearance of Dr. Kraitsir's articles will get more notice than their deep learning. We cannot but regret that such valuable papers as those on "Hieroglyphics," "Cuneiform Inscriptions," "Indian Languages," and we may add, though belonging to another class of subjects, "Brahma" and "Buddha," by the same author, should not have been dressed with a little more taste, and the naked deformity of barbarous paradigms covered with some of the ornaments of a readable style. It is the more a pity, because the articles are well worth any care that could be spent upon them.

The biographical articles are sufficiently numerous, and, though rigidly condensed, are full enough for all ordinary purposes. There are few such elaborate biographies as those contributed by Macaulay, De Quincey, and others, to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"; but Mr. Bancroft's "Jonathan Edwards," Mr. Everett's "Hallam," "Washington," and "Daniel Webster," President Felton's "Agassiz," Professor Lowell's "Dante," Professor Schaff's "Luther" and "Melancthon," Mr. Seward's "DeWitt Clinton," A. W. Thayer's "Beethoven," "Handel," "Haydn," and "Mozart," Richard Grant White's "Shakespeare," and the articles on "Patrick Henry," "Washington Irving," "Milton," "Southey," "Schiller," "Swift," and many others we might name, are admirable specimens of literary composition. Among miscellaneous articles that deserve particular praise are a well-written and elaborate history of the Jewish people and literature under the title "Hebrews"; a picturesque account of "London"; a summary of all that is known about "Japan"; excellent histories of "Newspapers" and "Periodical Literature"; a brilliant article on "Athens" by the late President Felton; a review of "Arctic Discovery"; valuable and exceedingly interesting papers on "Army," "Artillery," "Infantry," and "Cavalry," with one on "Gunnery" by Commodore Charles Henry Davis; "Painting"; "Sculpture"; "Serfs"; "Slavery"; "Hungary"; and the best published account of the "Mormons." The article on the "United States" fills one hundred and twenty pages, including thirty-three pages of fresh statistical tables, and gives an admirable summary of our history down to last September; it closes with a comprehensive survey of American literature. The supplement gives a biography of nearly every general in the Union and Rebel armies.

The promises of the editors on the score of impartiality have been well kept. It would be too much to expect them to satisfy everybody, or never to be caught tripping; but in the great questions of religion and politics, they seem to have preserved a happy mean between the outspoken freedom of the partisan and the halting timidity of the man who never commits himself because he never has an opinion. Their contributors represent nearly every Christian creed, every shade of politics, and every part of the English-speaking world, from Salt Lake City to London, and from Mobile to Montreal.

We have only to add that the Cyclopaedia does fuller justice to our own country than she has ever received from such a book before; that the historical and statistical articles present the latest accessible information; and that, so far as our opportunities of examination permit us to judge, the book, though of course not free from errors, is accurate to a more than ordinary degree. The labor of the editors has been careful and conscientious; and they have produced a work which must long endure as a valuable contribution to American literature and a credit to American scholarship.

_Manual of Geology:_ treating of the Principles of the Science with Special Reference to American Geological History, etc. By JAMES D. DANA. 8vo. Philadelphia: Theodore Bliss & Co. London: Trabner & Co.

No work on any science has yet been published in our language more exhaustive of facts, more clear in statement, or more philosophical in general character and arrangement, than Dana's "Mineralogy," as presented in its last and revised edition.

Of course, the announcement of a "Manual of Geology" by the same author could not fail to excite hopes that a long-felt want on the part of the American public was to be met, a void in our scientific literature to be filled. Nor are we disappointed in our expectations, now that the work has appeared and time has been given for its careful perusal. On the contrary, we feel a degree of satisfaction that might perhaps express itself too strongly in praise, if we were not withheld by the supposition that a proper notice of the contents of the volume would do more for its appreciation by the reader than any language of eulogy.

What, then, is the distinctive character of the work, and wherein do the contents so differ from previous publications as to claim our especial notice?

In the first place, we would state, that, while it is a manual of general geological knowledge concerning the history of the earth and of life on its surface, and full of information concerning the strata and geological phenomena of all parts of our globe, it is yet peculiar, inasmuch as it treats of the principles of the science with special reference to American Geological History. In this will be found its great value to American students; for who of them has not had his patience tried, and his enthusiasm often chilled, in vain attempts to solve the questions which have sometimes arisen in his mind concerning American geology, and has not sought their solution in the only way open to him,--a consultation of innumerable State Reports, and other publications, not half of which were accessible when required?

Another distinctive feature of the work is the prominence given to Historical Geology, or that portion which treats of the successive formation of the strata of the different periods, and of the development and characteristics of the life upon the surface. The whole treatment of this exhibits in a marked degree the extended research and philosophical ability of the author.

GENERAL CONTEXTS AND DIVISIONS OF THE WORK.

_Physiographic Geology_.--This embraces a general survey of the earth's features: its continents, oceans, lakes, river-systems, oceanic and atmospheric currents, climates, distribution of forest-regions, deserts, etc.

_Lithological Geology_.--This treats of the rocks, and of their arrangement: the first embracing an account of all the important chemical elements that enter into their constitution, the minerals and organic materials that occur in their composition, and the kinds and distinguishing characteristics of those that make up the earth's surface; the second presenting the arrangement of rocks, stratified and unstratified,--the structure due to deposition and other agencies,--the dislocations of strata, and the consequent faults and distortions of fossils contained in them,--together with considerations upon the age and chronological division of all the strata of the earth's surface.

_Historical Geology_.--This third part of the volume, and that which peculiarly characterizes the work, opens with some general remarks upon the divisions in Geological History, and the announcement of certain important principles to be kept in view while considering the subject. The progress of life is then described as the basis of subdivision into Geological Ages; and the subdivisions of geological time are presented as follows:--

I. Azoic Time or Age.

II. Palaeozoic Time.
1. The Age of Mollusks, or Silurian.
2. The Age of Fishes, or Devonian.
3. The Age of Coal Plants, or Carboniferous.

III. Mesozoic Time.
4. The Age of Reptiles.

IV. Cenozoic Time.
5. The Age of Mammals.

V. Era of Mind.
6. The Age of Man.

And in connection with this is given a table of the further subdivision of this history into Geological Periods, and a map showing the distribution of the rocks of each of these periods over the surface of the United States.

The great divisions above given are, as stated, essentially the same as proposed by Professor Agassiz, who, however, made the era of Fishes to embrace the first and second ages of Palaeozoic Time, the Silurian and the Devonian, instead of restricting it, as now done, to the latter, and calling the former the Age of Mollusks.

Following these general considerations, each great division of geologic time is successively taken up, commencing with the Azoic. Each period of the several divisions is treated of in order; and the rocks of each epoch and their distribution described, first, as they exhibit themselves in America,--then, more briefly, as they appear in Europe. A full account of the life that manifested itself in each epoch, both vegetable and animal, is likewise given in the same order. The igneous and other disturbing agencies are then considered, and general remarks added upon the geography, the character of the surface, and various phenomena of the period.

The whole of this portion of the work is abundantly illustrated with well-executed figures of all the characteristic species that distinguish the several periods, mostly drawn from American examples.

_Dynamical Geology_.--This particular branch of the subject is made less prominent than usual in geological works, but it will not be found lacking in any point.

The subject is presented in the following order:--

1. Life as an agent in protecting, destroying, and making rocks.

2. Cohesive Attraction.

3. The Atmosphere as a mechanical agent.

4. Water as a mechanical agent.

5. Heat as an agent in volcanic phenomena, igneous eruptions, metamorphism, veins, etc.

6. Movements of the earth's crust, plication of strata, origin of mountains, earthquakes, etc.

7. Chemistry of Rocks.

Under the first head, we have much interesting matter concerning peat and coral formations, coral reefs and their origin, illustrated with figures.

Under the head of Water as an Agent, some plates are given, new to the general reader, of the remarkable _cañons_ of the Colorado, which so well illustrate the powerful agency of this element in wearing away for itself deep channels in the strata. Under the same head is an interesting essay upon Glaciers, with figures, one of which is a reduced copy of a sketch in Agassiz's great work, representing the Glacier of Zermatt, in the Monte-Rosa region.

Under the head of Heat as an Agent, we have, as might be expected, interesting and valuable matter upon volcanic phenomena, and those of metamorphism.

We have thus briefly passed in review the contents of the work, and without criticism, too, for we would scarcely have a sentence in the book altered or omitted. Yet we do not always concur in all the views expressed or implied by the author. For instance, we consider the evidence of the Jurassic age of the Ichnolitic strata of the sandstone of the Connecticut River too strong to allow of their being any longer classed among the Triassic. We certainly differ from him in much that is said upon the subject of Man, as of one species. Yet we do not care to dwell upon these points, especially the latter. Our author will not expect to find all readers agreeing with him upon such mooted questions.

We do not think that we overestimate the value of this work, when we express our belief that its publication will mark an era in our geological progress. By this we do not mean to imply that its character is such as to be of great service to those among us who are already learned in the geology and palaeontology of our continent; but we do mean to affirm, that, by the efficient aid which this work will be to them, thousands and tens of thousands who have sought hitherto for information on its great subjects, when seeking was literally "groping in darkness," will be helped forward to a degree of knowledge respecting the history and life of our globe which they could not otherwise have attained.

_Elements of Military Art and History_: comprising the History and Tactics of the Separate Arms, the Combination of the Arms, and the Minor Operations of War. By EDWARD DE LA BARRE DUPARCQ, Captain of Engineers in the Army of France, and Professor of the Military Art in the School of Saint-Cyr. Translated and edited by BRIGADIER-GENERAL GEORGE W. CULLUM, Chief of Staff of the General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States. 8vo. New York: D. Van Nostrand.

War has its science and its art. There is a domain of general _principles_, which have their application in all the active operations of war; and military _science_ is but the sum of these principles in their theory and practice. The _art_ of war deals more directly with the details and practical direction of military affairs, and abounds in _rules_ of action, organization, and administration. Military science and art are equally the results of experience in war. Principles of strategy have grown out of the exercise of the highest military mind in weighing the general features of campaigns, and from the perceptive and logical recognition of those elements essential to success. The art of war has grown up as a body of practices, traditions, and rules, naturally resulting from the immense sum of experience in military life and action among all nations. It is, indeed, so inwoven with military history that the two should be studied in connection. Military art is more mature than military science; and in war, as in the practice of other professions and trades, definite and empirical rules for daily guidance, based mainly on practice, serve almost to exclude science and to keep it unprogressive. When, however, a Napoleonic mind becomes truly imbued with vital military principles, its most successful strokes may result from a bold disregard of rules under the lead of higher intelligence. But as military science is very imperfect, and as Hannibals, Fredericks, and Napoleons are not every-day products, it behooves lesser lights to study the art of war most conscientiously, in the hope of at least escaping the fatal category of blunders which crude officers are forever repeating.

The publication of a really good book on Military Art and History is, just now, a fortunate event, and its appearance two years since might have saved us much costly and mortifying experience. Enlightened men of all nations concede to the French school of soldiers and military authors a certain preeminence, due partly to the genius of the people and partly to the immense vital growth of war-craft under Napoleon. Barre Duparcq is one of the most favorably known among recent military writers in France. As an engineer officer and Professor of Military Art in the famous school of Saint-Cyr, he has been led to study fortification, military history, army-organization, and the art of war with a methodical thoroughness, which, besides other highly valued works, has given us its ripe fruit in the volume before us. If not the very best, this is certainly among the best of the numerous volumes devoted to this topic; and General Cullum's judgment in selecting this work for translation is fully justified by the admirable system, clear and learned, but brief exposition, and entirely trustworthy quality, which even hasty readers must recognize. Could this book be put into the hands and heads of our numerous intelligent, but untrained officers, it would work a transformation supremely needed. It is lamentable to think how many precious lives and how much national honor have been thrown away from the lack of just that portion of military instruction which is here offered in a single volume. Though no one book can make an accomplished officer, we may say that no officer can read Duparcq's Elements without positive advantage and real progress as a soldier. The topics treated, with constant illustration from history, are, the organization and functions of the four arms, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers; organization of active armies; marches and battles; outposts; detachments; armed reconnoissances; passage of rivers; convoys; partisans; redoubts; barricades; heights; roads; farms or houses; forages; defiles; villages; and field hygiene.

General Cullum is well known as one of the most proficient students of military science and art in our service, and is amply qualified to prepare an original textbook on this subject. That he should have found time to translate Duparcq's work, amid his arduous and important services as General Halleck's chief of staff and chief engineer during the remarkable Western campaign, shows an industry only to be explained by his intense realization of the need of a book like this, as an antidote to that deficient military instruction which has been so replete with bad results. The translation is a faithful and lucid rendering of the original, and the technical words and expressions are generally satisfactory equivalents of the French terms.

We venture to express the hope that this painful war will lead to a fresh and successful study of military science and art in relation to American campaign-elements, so that future contingencies can be more creditably met than was that which Secession suddenly precipitated on us.

_Rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe's Reply to the Address of the Women of England_.

Emily Faithfull, "printer and publisher in ordinary to Her Majesty," has issued from the "Victoria Press," in London, a small pamphlet with the above title, written at the request of a committee of British women by Miss Frances Power Cobbe, author of "Intuitive Morals." As Mrs. Stowe's "Reply" was first printed in this magazine, we here give the whole "Rejoinder."

"The following Address has been written with the belief that it embodies the general sentiments of English women on the subject of Slavery. It has been decided to seek no signatures on the present occasion, rather than repeat the vast undertaking of obtaining any number which should adequately correspond with the half-million names appended to the former Address.