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Dale, Robert W.History of English Congregationalism. **$4. Armstrong.
A book by one of England’s most commanding nonconformists which is written for Congregationalists but which will interest “Episcopalians and Presbyterians especially, as well as all Americans to whom the development of religious freedom and the delimitation of the spheres of church and state form an attractive subject.” (Outlook.) “He tells the life-history of a cause which suffered contempt and cruel oppression, and of which he was the latest—and the most eloquent—exponent.... So much only of political history is given as is absolutely necessary for his purpose.” (Ath.)
“By this book the author has erected a worthy monument to his own memory; but it must not be forgotten that without another’s labour it would never have seen the light. The manner in which the work of arrangement, of revision, of completion, and of illustration has been performed by his son demands separate, if brief recognition. In discretion, taste, and literary ability it is altogether admirable.”
“Let us say at once that for thoroughness of treatment and for exactness of detail there is no work known to us on this subject which approaches the volume now produced by Principal Dale out of the materials which his father left.”
“For a historical understanding of the peculiarities of religious life in England this history is eminently instructive.”
“In taking leave of a very able book we cannot but express our thankfulness that Professor Dale has been able to preserve unimpaired for the students of church history a valuable work which might have lost much by the too early death of its author.”
D’Alton, Rev. John A.History of Ireland from the earliest times to the present day. 3v. v. 2, from 1547 to 1782. *$3. Benziger.
Covers the ground from the earliest period down to the present day, and “aims not to contribute anything original in the way of research or criticism, but to produce a popular history by judicious selection of the best materials that his predecessors have furnished.” (Cath. World.)
“Being both a learned and an honest man, he seldom misstates facts, and is ready to face them as he understands them; but one cannot read twenty pages of the book without feeling that he is a Roman Catholic, and takes the standpoint of that church as his own. These flaws do not prevent the book before us from contrasting very favorably with various Irish histories which have come under our notice.”
“He is simple, clear, and at times, picturesque. The temper of the work is fairly critical, though not unfrequently our author does not acquaint his readers with the existence of an opinion at variance with the one he favors.”
“Father D’Alton has few graces of style, but he is workmanlike, and is wise to avoid rhetoric. On the whole, what impresses us most is his impartiality; he desires to get at the truth and tell it plainly. His view would be broader if he had entered more closely into English history.”
Dalton, William.Dalton’s complete bridge. **$1.25. Stokes.
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The most recent and authoritative work on bridge, written by the great British expert.
“We are still waiting for the Cavendish of bridge, but books like this help to pave the way for his arrival.”
“A treatise which leaves nothing to be desired on the score of thoroughness.”
Reviewed by Hildegarde Hawthorne.
Daly, Thomas Augustine.Canzoni. *$1. Catholic standard and times pub. co.
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“Mr. T. A. Daly’s dagoes, his darkies, and his Irishmen all satisfy one’s sense of verity. Of the dialect verses in this volume, those dealing with the humor and sentiment of the humble Italian life in our large cities make up the larger portion.... In his Irish verses there is something of the quality of Samuel Lover, an Old World flavor in the wit and lilt as well.”—N. Y. Times.
“Mr. Daly is happy, likewise, in his poems of love and home, which are always true and sound. What is most admirable throughout the volume is the union of wit, humor, or sprightliness, as the case may be, with a genuine respect for all that is pure, sweet, tender, manly, and noble.”
“Contains some unusually good light verse, mostly dialect, part of it Irish, part Italian. Both are handled skillfully.”
“The pervading wholesome spirit particularly commends this book.”
Dampier, William.Voyages, ed. by John Masefield. 2v. *$7.50. Dutton.
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“A new and attractive edition in two volumes, with portrait, maps, and a brief sketch of Dampier’s life of the editor.”—Outlook.
“The ‘Voyages’ here presented in two handy volumes, at a comparatively low price, are full of popular interest and romance. They are far more stirring reading than many a belauded work of modern fiction.”
“In Mr. Masefield’s reprint the type is clear and the editing generally excellent. The introductory memoir might indeed have been fuller for Admiral Smyth’s standard biographical sketch in the United service journal is now seventy years old, and no longer easy to find. From Mr. Masefield’s index we miss several entries, among them the name of Selkirk.” Lane Cooper.
“A carefully annotated edition.”
Dana, John Cotton, and Kent, Henry W.Literature of libraries in the 17th and 18th centuries. 6v. *$12. McClurg.
v. 3 and 4.These volumes of this series deal respectively with “The life of Sir Thomas Bodley, written by himself, together with the first draft of the statutes of the public library at Oxon,” and “Two tracts on the founding and maintaining of parochial libraries in Scotland,” by James Kirkwood.
v. 5.This is “A brief outline of the history of libraries” by Justus Lipsius, translated from the second edition, the last from the hand of the author, by John Cotton Dana. The library of Osymandyas of Egypt is the first to be mentioned, then follows the brief history of other Egyptian libraries, of Grecian and of Roman collections. Two chapters in closing are devoted to historic library decoration, book cases, shelves, tables and seats.
v. 6.The concluding volume of this series is entitled “News from France,” or “A description of the library of Cardinal Mazarin,” preceded by “The surrender of the library,” two tracts written by Gabriel Naudé.
Reviewed by Laurence Burnham.
“The contents of the last volumes easily sustain the high standard of the previous books in the series and indeed are of even greater interest to the layman as well as the librarian.” Laurence Burnham.
“As a whole, this series promises to be a delight to the bibliophile as well as to the librarian.” Percy F. Bicknell.
“Both volumes will have antiquarian value for those engaged in library pursuits to-day. And the dignified sketch of Bodley’s life has also a general human interest.”
Dane, John Colin.Champion: the story of a motor-car; il. by W. E. Webster. †$1.50. Dillingham.
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The autobiography of a motor-car, which is full of the love, adventure, and treachery of its several possessors. “The difference between this and the well-known autobiography of a horse, ‘Black Beauty,’ is in some respects typical of the changes in our own time since the mid-Victorian era.” (Ath.)
“It is crude and sensational, but the story moves forward with spirit, and certain exciting scenes in it are well realized; for instance, that in the great motor-car race in France.”
Daniels, Frank T.A text-book of topographical drawing. (Technical drawing ser.) *$1.50. Heath.
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“The first chapter deals briefly and concisely with the instruments and materials required in topographic drafting. The next two chapters take up the subject of paper and of plotting. The remaining chapters take up the subjects of drafting and the symbols used in drafting topographic maps, in ink and in colors, and the methods of representing surface form. This is followed by a brief treatise on earthwork and earthwork computation.”—Engin. N.
“Here is a book that makes a field of its own, and for which there is a place on shelves of all engineers and surveyors who have to do with topographic drafting. The book is concisely and clearly written. In reviewing so well written a text-book it seems ungracious to be critical over trifles.”
Danneel, Heinrich.Electrochemistry; v. 1, Theoretical electrochemistry and its physico-chemical foundations; tr. from the Sammlung Göschen by Edmund S. Merriam. *$1.25. Wiley.
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v 1.Treats of the modern theories of electrochemistry, as well as their physicochemical foundations. Explains the terms work, current, and voltage, and discusses gas laws, osmotic pressure, theory of electrolytic dissociation and conductivity, ionic theory, electromotive force, the galvanic current, polarization, electrolysis and the electron theory.
“The average student who is called upon to study the ionic theory will obtain, we venture to think, a better grip of the subject by a study of Danneel’s book than from that of Abegg. The latter book treats the subject more fully but Danneel’s style is more interesting, and he leaves none of the salient facts out.”
“This volume ... contains a surprising amount of fact and information within a very small compass. The translation is vigorous and clear.” Arthur B. Lamb.
Dante Alighieri.Divine comedyand The new life; ed. with introd. and notes by Oscar Kuhns, lea. $1.25. Crowell.
An edition uniform with the “Thin paper poets,” which with its introduction, bibliography and notes will serve to give a new impulse to the study of Dante.
Dargan, Olive Tilford.Lords and lovers and other dramas.**$1.50. Scribner.
“‘Lords and lovers’ is a romantic play in two parts of the time of Henry III. of England. It is as readable ... as a good novel, while it has the added charm of workmanlike and impressive blank verse and of dramatic situations, possibly not actable, yet conceived with a fine theatrical unction.... The second play, ‘The Shepherd,’ is in prose. It is a powerful presentation of contemporary Russian life, conceived with real force and imagination, though weakened as a work of art—as is also the concluding play, ‘The Siege,’—by an obvious concession to the desire of the sentimental reader for a measurably happy consummation.”—Nation.
“Such verse as this leaves no room for criticism. It bears the visible mark of the divine gift, and there is no poet of our time who might not be proud to claim it for his own.” Wm. M. Payne.
Reviewed by Jessie B. Rittenhouse.
“Mrs. Dargan is a poet, not a great one, because not original, though she is decidedly individual.” James Huneker.
“If one were asked to say wherein the chief weakness lay, one would feel that one had acquired no new or individual point of view from the reading, and that there was no serious comment upon life.” Louise Collier Willcox.
“There are abundant signs of immaturity in the first book of plays, and only a very young writer would have attempted the dramatization of such a character and experience as Poe’s; but there are also indisputable marks of original force of mind and imagination; the quality of promise which comes from strength and vitality rather than from facility and sensibility.”
“[The reader] cannot be unconscious of certain defects of plot. Mrs. Dargan’s great strength lies in the personality with which she invests her characters and in her remarkable command of blank verse.” Jessie B. Rittenhouse.
Davenport, Charles Benedict.Inheritance in poultry. pa. $1. Carnegie inst.
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Mr. Davenport has made an application of Mendelian principles to inheritance similar to that carried out by Saunders, Hurst and Bateson in England. “In part, however, he has studied different characters and races, and has been able to add many new and important facts to those already known. The present work is, however, to be looked upon rather as a preliminary—a first installment of the extensive experiments under way at Cold Spring Harbor.” (Science.)
“This is a valuable addition to the rapidly-increasing literature dealing with the subject of inheritance. There are a few marks of carelessness in the text.” F. A. D.
“The facts are presented with admirable clearness and conciseness, and despite the largenumber of details that the subject demands the matter is handled in a very attractive way.” T. H. Morgan.
Davenport, Frances Gardiner.Economic development of a Norfolk manor, 1086–1565. *$3. Putnam.
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The subject of Miss Davenport’s study has been the court rolls of the manor of Forncett, near Norwich, which formed a part of the estate of the Earls of Norfolk. She carries it thru five centuries, and affords her readers an opportunity to follow in Forncett’s complex history the agricultural history of a great part of England.
“With no theory to establish and no prejudice to maintain, she gathered all the information that could be procured relating to a single Norfolk manor, arranged it logically, and thus furnished a contribution to our knowledge of medieval economic conditions that is thoroughly trustworthy.” Thomas Walker Page.
“This is an extremely unpretentious, but none the less very remarkable piece of work. We commend specially to the attention of students the map of Forncett which accompanies this book.”
“The care with which the author has done her work is worthy of all praise. Her calculations and tables are correct to a fraction. This accuracy of inquiry bears fruit in a series of results with which every student of economic history will have to reckon. The writer is not so safe a guide in regard to the social and legal side of the inquiry, and this is due partly to her insufficient use of the help to be obtained from comparison with kindred cases.” P. Vinogradoff.
“This essay publishes the results of painstaking and scholarly original research.”
“In the certainty and precision of statement that comes from an unusual knowledge of the minute detail of her subject lies the value of Miss Davenport’s study of Forncett.”
“Valuable as an analysis of a typical community.”
“Though it leaves many questions unanswered, and though in some respects the picture is not as clear as we might wish—the sokeman still remaining something of a puzzle—we can but feel content with a work that is in the highest degree painstaking and scholarly.” Charles M. Andrews.
“The full value of it will appear only as other studies of a similar kind are published with which comparisons may be made. Meanwhile it remains a model of the way in which such work should be done. The material has been collected and examined with painstaking thoroughness, and has been written up with admirable discrimination.” C. D.
Davey, Richard Patrick Boyle.Pageant of London; with 40 il. in color by John Fulleylove. 2v. *$5. Pott.
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Descriptive note in Annual, 1906.
“The whole book is inaccurate and slipshod. Mr. Fulleylove’s charming illustrations deserved a better surrounding.” C. L. K.
Davidson, Gladys.Stories from the operas.2d ser. *$1.25. Lippincott.
Here “Wagner is represented by only two of his operas—‘Parsifal’ and ‘Die Meistersinger.’ Of the other operas whose stories are told by her, four—Gounod’s ‘Philemon and Baucis,’ Meyerbeer’s ‘Star of the north,’ Halévy’s ‘The Jewess,’ and Bellini’s ‘La sonnambula’—have practically disappeared from the stage, while a fifth, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Eugene Onegin,’ has never become acclimated outside of Russia. The others in the list are popular favorites of today and likely to remain so for some time. Their plots are told by the author in the form of short stories without reference to the stage or the music.”—Nation.
“The value of the book might have been materially increased had the author boiled down each plot-story and given us all the standard operas instead of merely a selected number.”
Davidson, John.Holiday and other poems. *$1. Dutton.
The technical experiments which the form of Mr. Davidson’s poetry abounds in, are fully in keeping with the venturesomeness of his themes and ideas. “He has nothing to do with civilization, except to denounce and defy it; his self-chosen part is that of the upsetter of all equanimities, the denier of all commonly accepted creeds, conventions, and traditions.” (Lond. Times.) “The very title of the book is manifold in its meaning. Life is a holiday, and the holiday of holidays is the final liberty torn by the spirit out of its material servitudes.” (Ath.)
“It is evident that what he lacks mostly is discipline and that austerity and economy of language which go with it. The fault looks straight out of the verse, and it is equally noticeable in his essay, which rambles over the whole universe of thought, touching on many things of which Mr. Davidson speaks with no authority and yet containing many interesting and suggestive things. Here we have extravagance both of thought and expression. It is the outpouring of an uncurbed, undisciplined, and vain mind.”
“This volume ought to win for Mr. Davidson the wider audience that he deserves. But his anarchic violence and metaphysical eccentricity are still rocks of offence, and he is not the sort of man who is easily taught or tamed.”
“In the closing passage of this ‘Note,’ Mr. Davidson, after a tribute to Poe, enlarges upon America in general, and makes it evident that he has been ‘seeing things.’” Wm. M. Payne.
“His essay is a most stimulating and interesting piece of work. With all its eccentricities, it does the most useful thing criticism can do: it increases our sense of the greatness of poetry.”
“In his prose, however, as in his verse, Mr. Davidson betrays a touch of rodomontade, a want of balance, and the vice of self-consciousness. He disappoints by a certain want of grip. His hands seem ever to be sliding over a hard surface. This criticism, none the less, must not be taken as disparagement. If not the poet of the future, he is a forerunner—one of the minor prophets.”
“Mr. Davidson’s fault is that he is inclined at times to torture his fancy into conceits. He can draw wonderful little vignettes of landscape; but he can also describe nature in a way so painfully ‘literary’ that our teeth are set on edge. Colour, imagination, and fire are rarely absent from his lines, and above all he has the singer’s supreme gift of the infallible ear.”
Davidson, Thomas.Philosophy of Goethe’s Faust; ed. by Charles M. Bakewell. *60c. Ginn.
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Mr. Davidson tells in these six lectures what the poem has come to mean to him, and has sought to lay bare its “philosophical or ethical skeleton.” Speaking of the poem, he says: “Its content, I believe, is the entire spiritual movement toward individual emancipation, composed of the Teutonic reformation and the Italian Renaissance in all their history, scope, and consequences.”
“The merit of the book is that it presents an individual point of view, and is not merely a gathering from the opinions of previous critics and commentators; while its defects arise, to some extent at least, from this very quality of independence. However, many of Mr. Davidson’s ideas are interesting, and some of his remarks on single passages are really thoughtful and illuminating, although his work, taken in its entirety, is, we think more acceptable as an exposition of his own philosophy than of Goethe’s.”
“The book is too slight to deal thoroughly with ‘Faust’ or its philosophy, and many a reader will be more interested in what Mr. Davidson betrays of his own opinions than in what he says about Goethe’s.” G. Santayana.
“It would almost seem that Mr. Davidson has done his work as guide too thoroughly. He overloads his interpretations with meanings, he scents symbolism everywhere, and constructs a philosophy of ‘Faust’ which, though interesting and instructive in itself, can hardly be proved to have been in the poet’s mind. It holds the reader’s interest from beginning to end, and arouses in him a keen desire to take up his ‘Faust’ again, which is, after all, the most important function of a book of this kind.” Frank Thilly.
Davidson, William L.Stoic creed. *$1.75. Scribner.
“The book is divided into three main ‘sections,’ followed by an appendix on ‘Pragmatism and humanism.’ The first section deals with ‘Moulding influences and leaders of the school,’ and shows how stoicism is mainly derived, on its ethical side, from the impulse of Socrates and the sophists. The second section, on ‘Stoic science and speculation,’ contains chapters dealing with the conception of philosophy, the logic and epistemology, the physics and cosmology, of the school, concluding with a chapter on the atomic theory of Epicurus in its relation to stoicism. The third section has for its title ‘Morality and religion,’ and occupies about half the book. It contains, in addition to a detailed exposition of the ethical system and its relation to cynicism, some useful pages of criticism, in which the defects of the system are indicated; and an interesting chapter entitled ‘Present-day value of stoicism,’ in which the dicta of eminent moderns, such as M. Arnold and Renan, concerning the stoic moralists are examined and appreciated.”—Ath.
“On the present-day value of stoicism and on its aspects as the precursor of much modern theory, Professor Davidson writes admirably in his excellent volume. It is no dry-as-dust treatise compact of dates and uncompromising facts. It is a sympathetic study of the history and development of the stoic philosophy which no student can afford to neglect.”
“The book shows a competent knowledge of the subject and a gift of clear exposition. Occasionally, however, the writing is rather loose.”
“A most important chapter in the history of thought on the great problems of the world is embodied in this discriminating and interesting volume.”
Davies, A. C. Fox-.Dangerville, inheritance. †$1.50. Lane.
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“This differs from most other detective tales in being the story of a mystery rather than the glorification of a detective. It also differs from them in keeping the solution from even the reader until the last page. Lord and Lady Dangerville seem to have been magnetised to attract mysteries, and mysteries of no mean radius.”—Acad.
“For the lovers of Sherlock Holmes ‘The Dangerville inheritance’ will be a fine detective story; but as an unusual drama of human life, and as an excellently told history it will have a more discriminating audience.”
“The whole story is too preposterous to be taken seriously.” Frederic Taber Cooper.
“The final outcome is slightly irritating from its shock to one’s sense of probability.”
Davies, A. C. Fox-.Mauleverer murders. †$1.50. Lane.