ART.

But, above and beyond all such reflections, there are great national and patriotic considerations which more than justify, yea, demand, the existence of our war charities. Allowing that the outward comfort of the soldier (and who would grant it?) might be accomplished just as well in some other way,—allowing that in a merely sanitary aspect the Government could have done all that voluntary organizations have undertaken, and have done it as well asthey or better than they,—even then we do not allow for a moment that what has been spent has been wasted. What is the Sanitary Commission, and what are kindred associations, but so many bonds of love and kindness to bind the soldier to his home, and to keep him always a loyal citizen in every hope and in every heart-throb? This is the influence which we can least of all afford to lose. He must have been blind who did not see at the outset of the war, that, beyond the immediate danger of the hour, there were other perils. We were trying the most tremendous experiment that was ever tried by any people. Out of the most peaceful of races we were creating a nation of soldiers. In a few months, where there seemed to be scarcely the elements of martial strength, we were organizing an army which was to be at once gigantic and efficient. Who could calculate the effect of such a swift change? The questions many a patriotic heart might have asked were these: When this wicked Rebellion is ended,—when these myriads of our brethren whose lives have been bound up in that wondrous collective life, the life of a great army, shall return to their quiet homes by the hills and streams of New England or on the rolling prairies of the West, will they be able to merge their life again in the simple life of the community out of which they came? Will they find content at the plough, by the loom, in the workshop, in the tranquil labors of civil life? Can they, in short, put off the harness of the soldier, and resume the robe of the citizen? Many a one could have wished to say to every soldier, as he went forth to the war, "Remember, that, if God spares your life, in a few months or a few years you will come back, not officers, not privates, but sons and husbands and brothers, for whom some home is waiting and some human heart throbbing. Never forget that your true home is not in that fort beside those frowning cannon, not on that tented field amid the glory and power of military array, but that it nestles beneath yonder hill, or stands out in sunshine on some fertile plain. Remember that you are a citizen yet, with every instinct, with every sympathy, with every interest, and with every duty of a citizen."

Can we overestimate the influence of these associations, of these Soldiers'-Aid Societies, rising up in every city and village, in producing just such a state of mind, in keeping the soldier one of us, one of the people? Five hundred thousand hearts following with deep interest his fortunes,—twice five hundred thousand hands laboring for his comfort,—millions of dollars freely lavished to relieve his sufferings,—millions more of tokens of kindness and good-will going forth, every one of them a message from the home to the camp: what is all this but weaving a strong network of alliance between civil and military life, between the citizen at home and the citizen soldier? If our army is a remarkable body, more pure, more clement, more patriotic than other armies,—if our soldier is everywhere and always a true-hearted citizen,—it is because the army and soldier have not been cast off from public sympathy, but cherished and bound to every free institution and every peaceful association by golden cords of love. The good our Commissions have done in this respect cannot be exaggerated; it is incalculable.

Nor should we forget the influence they have had on ourselves,—the reflex influence which they have been pouring back into the hearts of our people at home, to quicken their patriotism, We often say that the sons and brothers are what the mothers and sisters make them. Can you estimate the electric force which runs like an irresistible moral contagion from heart to heart in a community all of whose mothers and daughters are sparing that they may spend, and learning the value of liberty and country by laboring for them? It does not seem possible, that, amid the divers interests and selfish schemes of men, we ever could have sustained this war, and carried it to a successful issue, had it not been for the moral cementwhich these wide-spread philanthropic enterprises have supplied. Every man who has given liberally to support the Commission has become a missionary of patriotism; every woman who has cut and made the garments and rolled the bandages and knit the socks has become a missionary. And so the country has been full of missionaries, true-hearted and loyal, pleading, "Be patient, put up with inconveniences, suffer exactions, bear anything, rather than sacrifice the nationality our fathers bequeathed to us!" And if our country is saved, it will be in no small degree because so many have been prompted by their benevolent activity to take a deep personal interest in the struggle and in the men who are carrying on the struggle.

These national and patriotic influences are the crowning blessings which come in the train of the charities of the war; and they constitute one of their highest claims to our affection and respect. The unpatriotic utterances which in these latter days so often pain our ears, the weariness of burdens which tempt so many to be ready to accept anything and to sacrifice anything to be rid of them, admonish us that we need another uprising of the people and another re-birth of patriotism; and they show us that we should cherish more and more everything which fosters noble and national sentiments. And when this war is over, and the land is redeemed, and we come to ask what things have strengthened us to meet and overcome our common peril, may we not prophesy that high among the instrumentalities which have husbanded our strength, and fed our patriotism, and knit more closely the distant parts of our land and its divided interests, will be placed the United States Sanitary Commission?

It took a long while for artists to understand that the Greek face was the ideal face merely to Greek sculptors. During the baser ages of the sculpturesque art, (how far towards our own day the epicycle inclusive of those ages extended it would be invidious for us to say,) sculpture consisted of the nearest imitation of Greek models which was possible of attainment bytalents, with an occasional intercalatedgenius, hampered by prevailing modes. That the Greek face wasbeautiful, none could doubt. That in the sovereign points ofintellectit was the absolute beau-ideal is open to great doubt. Apart from all such questions, the fact of subservience exists. Even Benjamin Robert Haydon, the man who thought himself called to be the æsthetic saviour of the age, knew no other, no better way of making himself master of solid form than by lying down in the cold with a candle before the Elgin marbles. Let not this be mistaken as a slur upon one of the most devoted men in history,—a man who surely lived, and who, aside from the pangs of poverty, probably died, for the regeneration of Art. We only mean to select an instance preëminent over all that can be mentioned, to show that until a very late date even the most learned men in the Art-world had not cut loose from the fascination of old models, considered not as suggestive, but as dominant. There is nothing in the sculptors of Haydon's period to prove that their view differed essentially from that of the most self-devoted theorist among painters.

We hold that it has been left for America to complete the æsthetic, as well as the social and political emancipation of the world. The fact that pre-Raphaelism began in England (we refer to thenewsaints standing on their toe-nails, not theoldones) proves nothing respecting the origination of Art's highest liberty. In the first place, the manwho was selected by the Elisha to be the Elijah of the school would under no circumstances have chosen a fiery chariot to go up in, but would have taken the Lord Mayor's coach, (if he could have got it without paying,) and, like a true Englishman, been preceded by heralds, and after-run by lackeys. The idea of Turneren martyreis to a calm spectator simply amusing. If "a neglected disciple of Truth" had met him out a-sketching, and asked him for help, or a peep, he would have shut up his book with a slap, and said, like the celebrated laird, "Puir bodie! fin' a penny for yer ain sel'." In the second place, this Elijah never dropped his mantle on thesoi-disantElisha. Search over the whole range of walls where (with their color somewhat the worse for time) Turner's pictures are preserved, and if any critic but Ruskin's self can find the qualities which unite Turner with modern pre-Raphaelism, we will buy the view of Köln and make it a present to him. In the third place, apart from all ancestry or indorsement, we regard modern pre-Raphaelism, as a school full of vital mistakes. It refuses to acknowledge this preëminent, eternal fact of Art,that the entire truth of Nature cannot be copied: in other words and larger, that the artist must select between the major and the minor facts of the outer world; that, before he executes, he must pronounce whether he will embody the essential effect, that which steals on the soul and possesses it without painful analysis, or the separate details which belong to the geometrician and destroy the effect,—still further, whether he will make us feel what Nature says, or examine below her voice into the vibration of thechordæ vocales.

We have not touched on pre-Raphaelism with the idea of attacking it, still less of defending it, and not at all of discussing it. Our view has been simply to excuse the assertion that with America has begun, must necessarily begin and belong, the enfranchisement of Art from subservience to a type,—the opening of its doors into the open air of æsthetic catholicity.

Years ago, the writer in several places presented to the consideration of American Art-lovers the plaster bust of "The Old Trapper," as one of the foremost things which up to that period had been done by any man for such enfranchisement as that referred to above. Palmer, the noble master and teacher of the sculptor who created this bust, had done many things entirely outside of the old ring-fence, had made himself famous by them; but this, on some accounts, seemed to us the chief, because the most audacious of all. What did it represent? Simply an old, worn, peril-tried, battle-scarred man, who had fought grislies and Indians,—walked leagues with his canoe on his back,—camped under snow-peaks,—dined on his rifle's market,—had nothing but his heroic pluck, patience, and American individuality, to fascinate people,—and now, under a rough fur cap of his own making, showed a face without a line that was Greek in it, and said to Launt Thompson, "Make me, if you dare!"

What we then admired in "The Old Trapper" we now admire in Miss Hosmer's "Zenobia."

There now stands on exhibition in this country one of the finest examples of the spirit which animates our best American artists in their selection of ideals, and their execution of them on the catholic principle.

Miss Hosmer has not thought it necessary to color her statue, because she knew that the utmost capability of sculpture is the expression of form,—that, had she colored it, she would have brought it into competition with a Nature entirely beyond her in mere details, and made it a doll instead of a statue. Neither has she made it a travel-stained woman with a carpet-bag, because in history all mean details melt away, and we see its actors at great distances like the Athené, and because our whole idea of Zenobia is this:—

A Queen led in Chains.

Neither has she made her Zenobia a Greek woman, because she was a Palmyrene. What she has made her is this:—

Our idea of Zenobia won from Romance and History.

This Zenobia is a queen. She is proud as she was when she sat in pillared state, under gorgeous canopies, with a hundred slaves at her beck, and a devoted people within reach of her couriers. She does not tremble or swerve, though she has her head down. That head is bowed only because she is a woman, and she will not give the look of love to the man who has forced her after him. Her lip has no weakness in it. She is alady, and knows that there is something higher than joy or pain. Miss Hosmer has evidently believed nothing of the legends to the effect that she did swerve afterward, else she could not have put thatnoble soul in her heroine's mouth. Or did she believe the swerving, she must have felt that Aurelian had the right, after all pain and wrong, to come and claim the queen,—to say,—

"I did all this wrongforyou, and you were worth it."

The face (perhaps, with the present necessities of a catholicized Art, its most important excellence) is not a Greek face, but a much farther Oriental.

The bas-reliefs of Layard's Nineveh are not more characteristic, national, faithful to the probable facts in that best aspect of facts with which Art has to do.

As for the figure, none of those who from Roman studios have hitherto sent us their work have ever given a juster idea of their advancement in the understanding of the human anatomy. The bones of the right metatarsus show as they would under the flesh of a queenly foot. The right foot is the one flexed in Zenobia's walking, and that foot has never been used to support the weight of burdens; it has gone bare without being soiled. The shoulders perfectly carry the head, and no anatomist could suggest a place where they might be bent or erected in truer relative proportion to either of the feet. The dejection of the right arm is a wonderful compromise between the valor of a queen who has fought her last and best, and the grief of a woman who has no further resource left to her womanliness.

Both arms, in their anatomy, in their truthfulness to the queenly circumstances, may equally delight and challenge criticism. The chains which the queen carries are smaller than we suspect aRomanconqueror put even upon a woman and a queen; but let that pass,—for they do not hurt the harmony of the idea, and are simply a matter of detail, which womanly sympathy might well have erred in since chivalric days, though their adherence to actual truth would not have blemished the idea. At all events, Zenobia holds them like a queen, so as not to hurt her. Shewillremember her glory.

The drapery of the statue is a subordinate matter; but that has been attended to as true artists attend to even the least things which wait on a great idea. The tassels of the robe have been chiselled by Miss Hosmer's marble-cutter with a care which shows that the last as well as the first part of the work went on under her womanly supervision. Every fold of the robe, which must have been copied from the cast, falls and swings before our eyes as the position demands. Grace and truth lie in the least wrinkle of a garment which needs no after-cast of the anatomist's cloak of charity to hide a sin.

In many respects, we regard Miss Hosmer's "Zenobia" as one of the very highest honors paid by American Art to our earliest assertions of its dominant destiny.

Patriotism in Poetry and Prose.Being Selected Passages from Lectures and Patriotic Readings. ByJames E. Murdoch. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo.

This volume, published in aid of the funds of the Sanitary Commission, is one of the indications of the patriotism of the time. Mr. Murdoch, an eminent and estimable actor and elocutionist, has been engaged, ever since the war began, in doing his part towards rousing and sustaining the enthusiasm of the people, by scattering the burning words of patriotic poets in our Western camps and towns. The volume contains specimens of lyric poetry which have stood the test of actual delivery before soldiers who were facing the grim realities of war. Sometimes the elocutionist has been so near the enemy as to have a shell come into whizzing or screaming competition with the clear and ringing tones of his voice; at other times, he has cheered with "The American Flag," "Old Ironsides," or "The Union," audiences shivering with cold and famishing on a short allowance of hard-tack. He has seen the American soldier under all circumstances, and practically understands all the avenues to his heart and brain. Many of the poems in the volume which have obtained a national popularity were originally written at his suggestion. This is especially true of the sounding lyrics ofBoker, Read, and Janvier. His own hearty and well-considered words, so full of manly feeling and genuine patriotism, are none the worse for catching a little of that inflation which the sights of the hospital and the battle-field, and a sympathy with the average sentiment of sensitive crowds, are so sure to provoke in an earnest and ardent mind. The poets who are represented in this volume have cause for gratification in the assurance that they have been more generally read than any of their American contemporaries. It is estimated that Mr. Murdoch has recited their pieces to a quarter of million of people during the last four years. In the hospital, in the camp, before the lyceum audience, they have been made to do their good work of comforting, rousing, or inflaming their auditors. They have sent many a volunteer to the front, and nerved him afterwards at the moment of danger. And certainly the friends of the soldiers will desire to read what soldiers have so heartily applauded, especially as the money they give for the book goes to sustain the most popular and beneficent of all charities.

Philosophy as Absolute Science, founded in the Universal Laws of Being, and including Ontology, Theology, and Psychology made one, as Spirit, Soul, and Body.By E. L. and A. L.Frothingham. Volume I. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co.

We must go back to the time when a certain father and son of Crete stretched their waxen wings and soared boldly into space, to discover any "external representation" of the sublime attempt of the authors of this volume. Yet it may reasonably be objected that in the Dædalian legend we can detect but a partial and deceptive correspondence; for, whereas we read that one of the ancient voyagers, having ventured too near the sun, met his end by a distressing casualty, it is certain, that, when the reader loses sight of this modern family-excursion in the metaphysical ether, both parties are pushing vigorously on, wings in capital condition, wind never better, and the grand tour of the universe in process of most happy accomplishment. And let it here be mentioned that the senior of the gentlemen whose names are given upon the title-page is understood to resemble the classical artificer in being inventor and manufacturer of pinions for the two. Mr. E. L. Frothingham is to be regarded as substantially the author of the volume before us.

And so Philosophy is not dead, after all! Mr. Lewes's rather handsome resolutions, of which copies have been forwarded to the friends of the supposed deceased, turn out to be premature; Dr. Mansel's pious obituary is an impertinence; Comte and Buckle, Mill and Spencer, are not the spendthrift heirs of her homestead estate in Dreamland. The Positive Mrs. Gamp may continue to assure us that the bantling "never breathed to speak on in this wale," but the perennial showman persists in depicting it "quite contrairy in a livin' state, and performing beautiful upon the 'arp." We play with metaphors, hesitating to characterize this latest Minerva-birth. For it is either that "new sensation" demanded by the Sir Charles Coldstream who has used up all religions and all philosophies, or, being areductio ad absurdumof speculative pretension, it fulfils the promise of a recent quack advertisement, and is in very truth "The Metaphysical Cure."

Perhaps it were better to cancel the preceding paragraphs. Is not any savor of banter out of place in the reception we are bound to accord to an alleged solution of the unthinkable problem which underlies creation and man's position therein? If the impulse which first controlled us is not denied expression, it is because it implies at once the worst that can be said of a very extraordinary performance. Let this worst be written roughly, and in a single sentence. To the vast majority of upright and thoughtful men who are at present living and laboring in the world, Mr. Frothingham's "Philosophy as Absolute Science" can be saved from being infinitely repulsive only by being infinitely ridiculous. But to stop with this assertion would give no adequate impression of an earnest and most conscientious work. A remarkable mind, even if a misdirected one, has mounted upon the battlements of its system, and proclaimed victory over all things. Of all tellers of marvels, Swedenborg alone is so absolutely free from a vulgar fanaticism, and so innocent of any appeal to passion, prejudice, or taste. With an equipoise of disposition which is almost provoking, Mr. Frothingham announces as dogmas speculations from whose sweep and immensity the human mind recoils. Having posited his principles, he confidently proceeds to deduce a system which shall include everyspiritual and material fact of which man can take cognizance. And he is too genuine a philosopher to be troubled at the practical application of his discoveries. He repudiates with contempt whatever expression has been found for the energy of the purest and noblest leaders of modern society. Esculapius is not accommodated with the sacrifice of so much as a February chicken. The manly works of Wilberforce and Garrison, the gracious influence of Channing, the stalwart conviction of Parker, the deep perception of Emerson,—all these must be beaten down under our feet as the incarnate Satan of the Litany. But if this is rather rough treatment for the advance-guard of civilization, the brethren in the rear rank are prevented from taking the comfort to which they seem to be justly entitled. For we are utterly unable to understand what a recent reviewer means in commending this work to conservatives as a noble text-book and grand summary of arguments in favor of their positions. The truth is, that no conservative can possibly accept the system. For it is constantly shown that what may be called a progressivebouleversementis to every individual a necessary advance, securing to him experiences which are essential to the realization of that spiritual consciousness which is alone capable of receiving the Absolute Philosophy. The editor of the "Richmond Examiner" must become as he of the "Liberator," and the Bishop of Vermont must meditate a John Brown raid, before either of them can receive the ultimate redemption now published to the world.

From what Mr. Frothingham calls "an internal-natural point of observation," which we understand to be that of a great majority of the most intelligent and gifted people at present on the earth, the results of this scheme appear so false and contradictory as to furnish its very adequate refutation. Nevertheless, there doubtless exists a class of spiritually minded, cultivated, unsatisfied men and women who will feel that the sober sincerity of this voice crying in the commercial wilderness must challenge a respectful hearing. Such persons will find no difficulty in accepting the statement, that a system of Absolute Truth must be "contrary to the natural conceptions of the mind, to the facts of the natural consciousness, and to the inclinations of the natural heart." Their past experiences have told them that no precision of human speech can reveal a spiritual condition, or even render intelligible the highest mental operations. Instead of the "this-will-never-do" dictum of superficial and carnal criticism, they will offer patient study, and be content that much shall appear foolish and meaningless until a change in the interior being can interpret it aright. It is just to mention that a very few persons of the character described have already received Mr. Frothingham's philosophy, and profess to find it full of instruction and delight. And let it not be concealed that no one who did not possess the very abundant leisure necessary for investigation and meditation, and had not passed through mental states represented by Romanism, Protestantism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism, could be accepted by the veriest neophyte as a competent reviewer. We attempt nothing more than a very humble notice which may bring the existence of this latest salvation before some of the scattered fellowship who are ready for it. We despair of making any statement concerning it which believers would not consider ludicrously inadequate or absolutely false. All and singular are accordingly warned that what is here printed comes from a mental point of view totally opposed to the alleged Truth, as well as from that limited amount of application which a regular calling in the week and customary church-going on Sunday has left at our disposal.

Mr. Frothingham claims to have obtained cognizance of certain laws which govern the relations of the Universe. He maintains that the natural understanding of man is led through various educative processes to that vague and variously interpreted condition known as Transcendentalism. This final manifestation, although no other than Antichrist and the Man of Sin in person, is a necessary forerunner of our possible redemption through acceptance of the ultimate Gospel. For external philosophy has here reached its lowest form, which is necessarily self-destructive; and so ends what may be called the natural development of the human consciousness. The personal principle has achieved its utmost might of self-assertion against that which is universal. Selfishness now appears in its most destructive form, demanding the liberty instead of the subjection of men. Sympathy usurps the seat of Justice, the individual is cruel under pretence of being kind, and fanaticism and mischief are baptized as Duty. The divinely ordained institutions of society are sacrificed, and ruin and chaosinevitably result. Having shown that Philosophy, developed in its natural form, can produce nothing better than Pantheism, Atheism, Anthropomorphism, and Skepticism, there arises an inquiry for the causes which have produced these seemingly unhappy results. And now it appears "that the Consciousness must be developed in its natural form from a natural point of view before its spiritual form can be developed; and therefore that Philosophy must be developed as a natural production in three spheres before it can be realized as a Universal Spiritual Science." Again, the Cause of All has hitherto been conceived from a pagan, Unitarian, and naturalistic point of view. For, if we understand Mr. Frothingham, the Pope is not a whit sounder than M. Renan,—the Head of the Church being unable to "consciously appropriate" his own theological formularies, until, governed by a Unitarian and naturalistic law, they are contradicted in being incarnated. Philosophy, then, hitherto demanding that everything should be realized from one Universal Cause or Substance, "has failed to explain the nature of God and the nature of man from any rational point of view." It has been obliged to "recognize necessity as the universal law of life, and to conceive the production of the phenomenal from the absolute,—therefore of man from God; and also the production of the finite from the infinite,—therefore of diversity from unity, of evil from good, and of death from life; which is the greatest violation of rationality that can possibly be supposed." But it is now time to state, or rather faintly to adumbrate, the grand assumption of this singular work. There are held to be two Spiritual Causes, whose union is the condition of all existence. Each of these Causes, represented under the terms of Infinite and Finite Law, are conceived to be threefold principles which act and operate together as Death and Life. Neither the Infinite nor the Finite Principle can obtain definite manifestation without the aid of the other; but there is a capacity in the latter for becoming receptive and productive from the former. And from this august union come all the works of creation, where death is still made productive from life, evil from good, the natural from the spiritual,—this last happy productiveness never taking place by any development of the natural, but only by means of a spiritual conception and birth. Every individual must commence his existence as a dualistic substance necessarily discordant and unreal. Through various appearances, representing an experience of opposing spiritual laws, he reaches a position where true spiritual life becomes possible through presentation to the consciousness of the opposing Spiritual Laws already noticed. The solemn moment of choice, when for the first and only time man can be said to be a free agent, has now arrived. Affinities for the Laws of Death and Life are felt within him. He may become productive from the Infinite for universal ends, or from the Finite for those which are personal. He is saved or lost at his own election.

Within the limits to which we are restricted, it is impossible to give any account of the multiplex and abstruse details into which the system is carried. The present volume contains an ontology constructed upon the new basis. It shows varied study, and abounds in ponderous quotations and laborious analyses. It will be profoundly interesting to the few who are able to accept as axioms the teacher's assumptions, and to trace a vigorous deduction in the changes which are rung upon a small set of words. By a legitimate course of reasoning from his primal conception, Mr. Frothingham claims to have demonstrated the fact of Tripersonality in the Deity. He finds the universal law of spiritual life through Marriage or the union of opposites through voluntary sacrifice. It is likewise maintained that all the important statements of Absolute Science are represented in Philosophy, the Scriptures, and the Church,—each abounding in poetic symbols of absolute facts now for the first time revealed. The Bible is held to be of supernatural origin and universal application,—though of course its real significance has hitherto been hidden from men. An exgesis of the Book of Job is given in the appendix as a specimen of what may be disclosed in the sacred records from this ultimate position of belief.

Mr. Frothingham's claims are in some measure those of a seer. His immense show of philosophical apparatus, his prodigality of logical balance-wheels and escapements, resemble the superfluous clock-work of the "automaton" which plays its game as the gentleman concealed inside shall judge expedient. It is of course impossible to probe the Two Absolutes, or the wonderful marriage which takes place between them. Mr. Frothinghamseesthat so it is. Men of aspirations as high, and ofintellect as cultivated, will think that they have no difficulty in seeing quite as distinctly that so it is not. Others, lovers of Truth, zealous for human welfare, may look up a moment from their patient study of phenomena in their coexistences and successions, and humbly confess their inability to see into the matter at all. But it is to be observed that the most distinguished representatives of the two classes of the world's instructors have at present come to nearly identical conclusions as to what should be the aims of human society. Mr. Henry James and Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Emerson and Dr. Draper, would find little difficulty in working together in a state cabinet or on a legislative committee. Without discussing the breadth or character of their several knowledges or intuitions, they would probably approve the same measures, and agree in the routine which, under existing circumstances, it was best to pursue. But unless Mr. Frothingham should be wrecked upon a desolate island, and there be visited by picnics of Transcendentalists from whom he might occasionally reclaim a Caucasian Man Friday, we cannot see what practical parturition can come of his mighty labor. He offers nothing which is capable of becoming incorporated with the existing intelligence of the age. He furnishes no acceptable basis for the caution of maturity or the generous vision of youth. Charles Lamb's recipe for witnessing with any quietude of conscience the artificial comedy of the last century was, to regard the whole as a passing pageant, and to accept with cheerful unconcern its issues for life and death. Some such state of mind must be commended to the student of this Philosophy. Let him be indifferent to that great act of political justice which Abraham Lincoln was constrained to do. Let him have no glow of satisfaction in the improved condition of woman, allowed to own herself and to hold the property which her labor accumulates. Let him not remember how she has repaid every effort made in her behalf by marking the gauge upon the thermometer of civilization, and by raising man as he raises her. In short, let him provisionally stand upon such a platform as might be constructed by a committee of which Legree was chairman and Bluebeard the rest of it, and if he does not accept "Absolute Science," he will at least be patient in reading what may be said in its behalf. But if, in justice to ourselves, we present the obvious objections of the general reader, in justice to Mr. Frothingham, we are bound to confess that they shrivel in the blaze of special illumination with which he has been favored. He grants the value of effort as it appears in the accepted channels of the day, but contends that its value is confined to the development and growth of the individual who exercises it. It furnishes a groundwork which at the right time shall provide the material suggestive of supernatural thought. It prepares the sacrifice that will be necessary in view of the new order of spiritual experiences now presented for the first time to the consciousness of man.

It scarcely need be said that Mr. Frothingham does not expect to make many proselytes. He is well aware that his stupendous gift of a supreme and ultimate Philosophy will produce no perceptible effect upon the public. A complaint of taxes and a gossip of stocks continue audible; but no neighbor drops in to tell us that the Mystery of Mysteries has received elucidation, and that a man may know even as he is known. It is fortunate that the lofty aim of a sincere and earnest thinker is its own sufficient recompense. The quality of mind which struggles out of the easy-going electicism which at present contents the majority of cultivated men, and achieves a position where our poor half-truths combine in a grand organic whole, is beyond the reach of human congratulation. And the results of such conscientious and arduous striving we are bound to receive with respect. To the disciples of Mr. Frothingham we shall doubtless seem to have uttered some superficial commonplaces about his creed, and have displayed our total inability to penetrate to its true profundities. They will probably say that his theory can tolerate no partial statement, and that the attempts of the uninitiated can compass nothing but caricature and burlesque. We cordially give them the advantage of this supposed stricture, and as cordially refer all earnest inquirers to this first instalment of the heroic work. We sayheroic, and would abate the adjective of no jot of meaning. It requires the stuff of which heroes are made to promulgate a religious idea so unadapted to the conscious demands of any order or condition of men. A few persons of redundant leisure, touched with the restlessness in belief which is characteristic of the time, may thread the mazes of "Absolute Science" until they awaken the desirable perception of it coherency and strength. Weknow that there is somewhere a flock awaiting the leadership of any vigorous mind which does not doubt its mission, and mocks at all question and compromise. Especially is it the duty of those who feel that they have attained the necessary condition of "transcendental imbecility" to test the enormous pretension of a doctrine of whose reception they alone are capable. Whether Mr. Frothingham's book is wise and satisfying, they only can tell us. It is our humbler duty to declare that we have found it decidedly interesting, and perfectly harmless. The old charge of corrupting youth cannot be preferred against this newest of philosophers. For as error is dangerous only in proportion to its plausibility, the risk encountered by the reader is infinitesimal.

Looking toward Sunset.By L.Maria Child. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

For forty years it has been the good fortune of Mrs. Child to achieve a series of separate literary successes, whose accumulated value justly gives her a high claim to gratitude. Every one of her chief works has been a separate venture in some new field, always daring, always successful, always valuable. Her "Juvenile Miscellany" was the delight of all American childhood, when childish books were few. Her "Hobomok" was one of the very first attempts to make this country the scene of historical fiction. In the freshness of literary success, she did not hesitate to sacrifice all her newly won popularity, for years, by the publication of her remarkable "Appeal for the Class of Americans called Africans," a book unsurpassed in ability and comprehensiveness by any of the innumerable later works on the same subject,—works which would not even now supersede it, except that its facts and statistics have become obsolete. Time and the progress of the community at length did her justice once more, and her charming "Letters from New York" brought all her popularity back. Turning away, however, from fame won by such light labors, she devoted years of her life to the compilation of her great work on the "Progress of Religious Ideas," a book unequalled in the English language as a magazine of the religious aspirations of the race. And now, still longing to look in some new direction, she finds that direction in "Sunset,"—the only region towards which her name and her nature have alike excused her from turning her gaze before.

This volume is a collection of essays and poems, old and new, original and selected, but all bearing on the theme of old age. Her authors range from Cicero to Dickens, from Mrs. Barbauld to Theodore Parker. The book includes that unequalled essay by Jean Paul, "Recollections of the Best Hours of Life for the Hour of Death"; and then makes easily the transition to that delicious scene of humor and pathos from "Cranford," where dear Miss Matty meets again the lover of her youth. Some trifling errors might be noticed here and there, such as occur even in books looking this side of "Sunset": as when Burns's line, "But now your brow is beld, John," is needlessly translated into "But now your head's turned bald, John,"—where the version is balder than the head. It is singular, too, how long it takes to convince the community that Milton did not write the verses, "I am old and blind," and that Mrs. Howell of Philadelphia did. Mrs. Child discreetly cites for them no author at all, and thus escapes better than the editor of the new series of "Hymns for the Ages," who boldly appends to the poem, "Milton, 1608-1674." Yet Mrs. Child's early ventures in the way of writing speeches for James Otis and sermons for Whitefield should have made her a sharper detective of the ingenuity of others. Those successful imitations, published originally in her novel of "The Rebels," have hardly yet ceased to pass current in the school elocution-books.

Nothing occurs to us as being omitted from this collection, which justly belongs there, unless she could have rescued from the manuscript that charming essay, read by President Quincy at a certain Cambridge dinner, wherein that beloved veteran—Roscius sua arte—taught his academic children to grow old.

The Autobiography of a New England Farm-House.A Book. By N. H.Chamberlain. New York: Carleton.

We have read this little book with some tenderness, and have been interested in its calm, homelike pictures. The author appears to have been drawn by a sincere affinity towards the poet to whom he does himself the honor to dedicate his story in words of simple and sincere appreciation.

There is a pellucid stillness, like that ofa summer lake, over the pages wherein the story lies reflected. And this perhaps we may consider to be the charm and value of the book. But the author does not remember that only those things are read whichmust be said; therefore the simple incidents of his narrative are forced into a growth of many instead of few chapters, and the long-drawn cord becomes weak, and will not easily lead us to the end. He also betrays his lack of art by printing verses which stick like deep sea-shells far below the high-water mark of poetry. Nevertheless, there is a fine New England color and flavor in the book which attract us, and a gentle, high-minded peace reigns throughout the volume.

Is the author young? we are tempted to ask. Then let him turn priest straightway, and enter the temple of Art, and let him weave his pictures sacredly of the pure gold fibres of inspiration and thought.

Lowell Lectures. The Problem of Human Destiny; or, The End of Providence in the World and Man.ByOrville Dewey, D.D. New York: James Miller.

The publication of a second edition of this thoughtful, genial, and eloquent volume enables us to correct the omission of not noticing it on its first appearance a few months ago. Originally prepared as a course of lectures for the Lowell Institute, and repeated with marked success in various cities of the Union, the mode of treatment is of course popular rather than scientific. The subject is necessarily complicated with the problem of evil; but the design is not so much to attempt a new solution of the problem as to present, in a vivid and impressive form, certain invigorating and consoling truths which relieve the weight of its burden. The most comprehensive definition of evil, to all minds which are forced, by the contradiction involved in the affirmation of two Infinites, to deny its essential existence, is that which declares it to be imperfect good. But as this definition implies that evil characterizes all grades of created being, and includes the saint singing in heaven as well as the savage prowling in the woods, it carries with it little help or satisfaction to the practical will and conscience. Dr. Dewey takes up the problem at one or two removes from its purely abstract essence, and fastens on its concrete manifestations, and the compensations for its existence in the system of the world. The leading ideas he aims to inculcate are these: that the system of the moral world is a system of spontaneous development, having for its object human culture; that man, being free, must do, within the sphere of his permitted activity, what he will, and therefore is free to do what is wrong; that, in order that his growth may be free and rational, the system of treatment under which he lives must be one of general laws, and not of capricious expedients; and that there are two restraints on his wild or pernicious activity,—one inward, from his moral nature, the other outward, from material Nature. After illustrating these at considerable, though by no means tedious length, Dr. Dewey proceeds to exhibit the adaptation of the material world to human culture,—the physical and moral constitution of man, and the complexity of his being,—the mental and moral activity elicited by his connection with Nature and life,—the problems of pain, hereditary evil, and death, which affect his individual existence,—the problems of bad or defective institutions and usages, religious, political, and warlike, which affect his social existence,—and the testimony of history to human progress, and to the principles of human spontaneity and divine control which underlie it.

But this bare enumeration conveys no impression of the richness of the author's matter or the fineness of his spirit. The volume is full of interesting facts, gathered from a wide range of thoughtful reading, literary, historical, theological, and scientific, and of facts, too, which are associated with thoughts and related to a plan. The judgments expressed on all the vital questions which come up in the discussion of the theme bear the impress of genuine convictions. They are not merely the assent of the understanding to propositions, but of the soul to truths; and many must have been subjected to the test of personal experience as well as mental scrutiny. The first requisite of a work on the problem of human destiny is, that it should kindle the reader into sympathy with human nature, and lodge in his mind an abiding conviction of the reality of human progress; and this requisite Dr. Dewey's volume satisfies better than many treatises of more scientific exactness and more ambitious pretensions.

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