LITERATURE-AT HOME. POPULAR works on Natural History are no longer the doubtful contributions to knowledge that they were half a century ago; for where our fathers were content with the reported results of empirical science, gathered from a variety of untrustworthy sources, by unscientific compilers, we reject, as we should, these "fairy tales of science," and demand facts-facts of the latest discovery, and beyond the reach of peradventure. And here, as elsewhere, the demand has created the supply, which is so liberal and so excellent that it will be our own fault hereafter if we are not familiar with the leading principles of the sciences. Conjectures on Chemistry, and Guesses at Geology, are as much out of date now as Goldsmith's "Animated Nature," say, in Natural History. For Natural History itself, however, and kindred branches of study, the more accurate our knowledge thereof has become, the more interesting it has grown, the end being that it now possesses a charm which hitherto belonged only to poetry and fiction. The best writers of the time have willingly lent their aid towards popularzing Natural History, and the best artists have been proud to illustrate their works. The French have of late taken the lead in this direction, as witness, among others, the admirable volumes of Figuier, and, more recently, Mysteries of the Ocean, and The Desert World, by Arthur Mangin, of which Messrs. T. Nelson & Sons (Edinburgh and New York) have just published an English version, by the translator of "The Bird" of Michelet. We mention this last fact to remind the happy possessor of that charming work that M. Mangin's volumes match it, and are worthy of being read along with it. To be sure, M. · Mangin is not so original and spirituelle a writer as Michelet; nevertheless, we have found his studies of the ocean and the desert most delightful reading. He divides the former into four books, which treat respectively of "The History of the Ocean," "The Phenomena of Ocean," "The Marine World,” and "Man and the Ocean." Which of the four is the most attractive depends somewhat on the taste of the reader, who, if given to cosmical studies, will probably prefer the first; to natural history, the third; and to sports and adventures, the last. VOL. IV.-96 We have no especial choice ourselves, or if any, it is for the strange growths of the under-worldthe "counterfeit presentments" of which are very admirably rendered by W. Freeman. The highest praise that we can pay his drawings is to say that the best of them are as good as those of Giacomelli in "The Bird;" very spirited, too, are the marine-pieces of Noël. "The Desert World" is more profuse ly illustrated, the best illustrations being by Freeman, who is evidently at home among the "lesser people of nature." Book First is devoted to "The Deserts of Europe and Asia," as the Landes, the Dunes, and the Steppes; Book Second, to "The Deserts of Sand," in the continents just named; Book Third, to "Prairies, Savannas, Pampas and Llanos;" Book Fourth, to "The Forests;" and Book Fifth to "Polar Deserts." There is a world of strange interest here, but not enough, we confess, to make us wish to recall the time "When wild in woods the noble savage ran;" or to sigh with Cowper, "O for a lodge in some vast wilderness!" The translator has done his work well,-in fact a little too well, since he has not merely translated what was before him, but has made very copious additions of his own, in order to adapt the book to a fancied necessity-"the wants of the English reader." He should, we think, have left it as it was; at any rate, he should have distinguished his additions more clearly than he has done, and should have drawn less in the way of quotations from the modern English poets, whose verse has rather a queer look in the prose of M. Mangin. That M. Mangin has by no means exhausted the Ocean,-that he has scarcely touched upon its mysteries, in fact-will soon be perceived by the readers of Prof. Schele De Vere's Wonders of the Deep, which has lately been published by Messrs. G. P. Putnam & Son. If it covers less ground than M. Mangin's volume, it is full and to the point in what it does cover, the object of the one being to present a monograph on the Ocean itself, of the other a series of monographs on sundry oceanic subjects, as "Odd Fish," "Pearls," "Corals," "Mine Oyster," etc. How enjoyable and valuable these papers are, our readers have had an opportunity of judg ing during the past year, when several of them appeared in the pages of MAGA. Our private critical opinion is that they are excellent, and we are glad to possess them in a permanent form. "Two oceans are there; one is of the earth, We are reminded of this by the next book we take up, and which is published by the Appletons as the first of a series to be called the Library of Wonders. It is entitled Meteors, Aerolites, Storms, and Atmospheric Phenomena, and is a translation by William Lackland, whoever he may be, from the French of MM. Zürcher and Margollé. What M. Mangin and Prof. De Vere have done for the deep below, these gentlemen and their translator have done, though much more briefly, for the greater deep above. They tell us many things that we knew, and more that we did not know, in relation to clouds, fogs, rain, hail, snow, thunder-storms, whirlwinds, auroral lights, shooting-stars, dust in the atmosphere, (but we knew enough about that before,) how the ancients foretold the weather, and a good deal that is of interest in regard to practical meteorology. There are some twenty illustrations on wood, and they are considerably above the average of drawings in works of this kind. Messrs. Charles Scribner & Co. publish an Illustrated Library of Wonders, the last two issues of which come more strictly under the head of Natural History than the works we have already spoken of. They are entitled The Intelligence of Animals, from the French of Ernest Menault, and Adventures on the Great Hunting Grounds of the World, from the French of Victor Meunier. They belong, as we have observed, in a series, which is intended for popular reading, in the largest sense of the word, and they thoroughly fulfil the intention, since they are sure to interest any reader, no matter what his, or her, age. Of the two volumes before us, that on the intelligence of the animal world is much the best, its matter being the most curious and scholarly, and its designs really excellent. The name of the artist is not given, but we are certain that he is a Frenchman, his studies of animal-life are so careful, and his touch so graceful and sure. M. Meunier's book will delight boys hugely, since it is not only crammed with adventures of famous hunters, among whom Mr. Du Chaillu must not be forgotten, but is coarsely illustrated with hunting-scenes, most of which nothing would tempt us to share,-not even our love of Natural History. How much or how little of their own experience writers are apt to put into works of fiction, is what few except themselves and their small circle of personal friends are able to decide. We fancy, in some instances, that we can separate the thread of personal narrative that runs through a novel from the strand of imaginary adventures with which it is intertwined; but in others we are completely baffled. We feel that Thackeray, for instance, was more or less the "leading young gentleman" of his human comediesas Clive and Philip; and we believe that Dickens intended to paint something of himself in David Copperfield; but when we come to novelists of less genius, we are like Lord Eldon in the song, "And the Chancellor said, 'I doubt.'" Here, now, is Mr. JOSEPH HATTON, whose novel of Christopher Kenrick has been published by Messrs. G. P. Putnam & Son-we are at a loss whether to regard his work as one made up of facts drawn from his own life, or as one in which there is no basis of truth whatever. It is the story of an English lad, who, running away from home and a hard father, drifted for awhile in the quiet anchorage of a country newspaper office, whence he took to the stage, and, later, to art, and still later to literature, which he finally found remunerate enough to live by. His talents and his good humor make him a favorite wherever he is thrown, while his manliness and self-reliance bring him through many trials into the haven of good fortune. We know this last fact before we are told of it, for Christopher does not begin to tell his story until he has a family growing up around him, and is that unromantic personage—“ a prosperous gentleman." If he had any thing remarkable to relate we should hardly credit it; at any rate it would not move us much, since we could not but remember that he had already lived it down, and left it behind him. As he has nothing remarkable to tell, however, we are not called upon to be moved -except pleasantly, as by the freshness of his story, and the air of verisimilitude which he casts over his characters. Every thing is done in a sketchy way, but there are sketches which are somehow preferable to finished pictures, and these of Mr. Hatton's are among the number. Dickens would have made more of Christopher Kenrick's theatrical adventures than Mr. Hatton has done, but he would not have made them more life-like, nor could he have painted Miss Belmont in more engaging colors. Tom Folgate and Mrs. Mitching are well conceived, and the painful episode in which they figure, is not unworthy of Dickens in his youth. There is an air of freshness about "Christopher Kenrick," as we have said, while as a picture of English provincial life, it is, we are sure, entitled to the praise of fidelity. Mr. Hatton is set down on his title-page as the author of "The Tallants of Barton," "Pippins and Cheese," etc.; if we are to look upon "Christopher Kenrick" in the light of an autobiography, he is also the author of "More Worlds than One." Mr. George Mac Donald is a man of genius, but, like many another man of genius, much of his work is ill-considered and imperfect. He writes poetry, and he writes prose; his poetry is mostly of a mystic and devotional character, and his prose, with the exception of a volume of sermons, has taken the form of fiction. What he knows best is the common life of Scotland, and he is nev er so much at home as when engaged in delineating it, as in " Alec Forbes of Howglen," and in David Elginbrod, an earlier work, which is reprinted by Loring, of Boston. There are grave faults in “David Elginbrod," as, first, that the character from whom the book takes its name is by no means a leading one; and, second, that he dies before the story is half finished-a solid reason why it should have borne another title. A third fault, and one quite as grave, artistically, is the whole episode of Count Halkar and his mesmeric deviltries, on which a considerable portion of the plot turns, and which are not only absurd in themselves, but out of keeping with the rest of the tale. Mr. Mac Donald is too simple and natural a writer to deal with mysteries such as he has attempted, and had he listened to his good genius, it would have warned him off the ground, as belonging, of old, to Mrs. Radcliffe, and now, by right of conquest, to Wilkie Collins. The hero of "David Elginbrod" is Hugh Sutherland, a young Scotch student, whose business is to be the tutor of an English lad, and to fall in love with Euphra, a strange young person, in whose blood there is a strong mixture of the gypsy element. The heroine is Margaret Elginbrod, "of that ilk," whom Hugh teaches as a child, and who, as a woman, teaches him-what many a hero of romance is in need of learning-Love. With all its defects, "David Elginbrod" could only have been written by a man of genius, like Mr. Mac Donald-sincere, earnest, and with a deep religious feeling in his nature. Mr. Mac Donald has not done his best yet, and will not until he has learned to separate the novel from the sermon. - Mr. Epes Sargent has written what he doubtless considers a poem, but what we must perforce consider a novel, since its interest, such as it is, does not depend upon its poetic qualities, but upon its plot, its character, and its intention. It is called The Woman who Dared, (Roberts Brothers,) a title which would have signified nothing in the last century, but which nowadays, when women generally dare so much, gives us at least a hint of what we are to expect. It is another of the many attempts to solve the WomanQuestion, and while it is not the best, it is by no means the worst. The heroine, Linda Percival, is the daughter of an American gentleman of the present time, and an English woman, who is his wife in every thing but the name, which she cannot bear, since a fraudulent divorce obtained by his first wife will not allow Mr. Percival to marry the second time. They bring Linda up as befits her station, but, with prevision of what might be in store for her, she is taught the useful as well as the ornamental branches of women's studies. And fortunate it is for her; for one day when she is accompanying her parents on a pleasure tour, they are killed by a railroad accident, and she is thrown upon her own resources. The first thing that Linda dares to do is to work. Her early education having lain in the direction of art, she commences life anew as an artist, and, after the usual amount of poverty and struggle, is successful enough to justify the dealer, who buys her pictures in having copies of them multiplied by chromos, a fact of which she is ignorant at first, but which she afterwards uses as a trap in which to catch the unscrupulous dealer in question. The second thing that Linda dares is to love, and the occasion seeming to demand it, to make her love known to the man of her choice—or, in other words, since she would not have disdained them, to pop the question! She is not refused, in spite of her boldness, and she should not have been, being a strong, brave, high-hearted little woman, worth a dozen of her lord and master. This is about all that is important in "The Woman who Dared," and if we have had to regard her as a heroine of fiction, rather than of poetry, it is not so much her fault as Mr. Sargent's. He has written five thousand lines, or thereabouts, of fluent blank verse, not a line of which lingers in the memory, while but few detain the attention a moment in reading. There can be no great excellence without even and finished writing, but there can be even and finished writing without great excellence. If Mr. Sargent had sufficiently appreciated this fact in writing "The Woman who Dared," we should have had a better poem or none at all. He should have dared more or less. If the vagaries of the human intellect have ever taken a more absurd, not to say disgusting form, than in the phenomena which at first was hastily christened Spiritualism, we have not met with it in the course of our reading. The credulity of the Spiritualists, so called, is as astounding as the credulity of Materialists, so called, the extremes on both sides meeting in an illimitable limbo of non sense. The latest specimen of Spiritual credulity that we have seen is a volume entitled The Davenport Brothers, (Boston, William White & Co.) and purporting to be the biography of a couple of young gentlemen who are claimed to have the singular faculty of unloosing themselves from fathoms of rope, and the equally singular faculty of causing trumpets, banjos, and the like, "To split the ears of melody And break the legs of time." That they do this feat appears to be authenticated; but how they do it is the vextata questio. They themselves declare that it is by the means of spirits, or, more strictly speaking, of one spirit, who rejoices in the name of King, and who asserts that he is the ghost of one Henry Morgan, known in the early annals of New-World adventure as a gallant buccanier; but skeptics say that it is by such means as jugglers usually employ in their tricks. We shall not undertake to decide, as we have never seen the Davenport Brothers, and never expect to. They are be lieved by the biographer to have a mission, but the mission which underlies the untying of ropes, and the blowing of trumpets, can hardly be worth the serious attention of intelligent human beings. Perhaps it is to make money if so, we suggest a couplet of Cowper's, which exactly suits the case: "And Katterfelto with his hair on end At his own wonders, wondering for his bread." Another spiritual publication is Death and the After-Life: Eight Evening Lectures on the Summer-Land, by Andrew Jackson Davis, of which Messrs. William White & Co. are the publishers. It is quite as absurd as the memoir of the Davenport Brothers, and a great deal more pitiable as an exhibition of unsound mentality. The question which it undertakes to answer is one of the profound est interest to all; one which has always troubled the wisest and best of mankind; and one which cannot be answered, from any knowledge we possess. Whatever our opinions, and we suppose most men have opinions of some sort or another, in regard to the future life, as well as the present, it is not too much to say that we ought to be modest in setting them forth. Not so, however, thinks Mr. Davis, who is as certain that he knows what death is, as we are that he does not, and who makes no more of mapping out the "Summer-Land" than we would the flowerbeds in our back-yard. The "Summer-Land" is somewhere on a line with the Galaxy, and consists of numerous islands, the names of which are given in numerous unknown tongues. One of these islands, which Mr. Davis says he saw, while in a clairvoyant state in Buffalo, twelve years since, is called "Akropanamede." There is a spring in it named "Porilleum," (why not Petroleum?) there is a "Hospitalia," (which we have no doubt is needed;) and a number of teacher-physicians, who are named " Apogea." Elsewhere we find the island of "Rosalia," near which is a group called "Batellos," whereon, says Mr. Davis, are a band of Greeks, who met there soon after their arrival in the Spirit-Land to celebrate the advent on earth of Plato's doctrine of the Deity, including his theory of "Ideas." Other islands are 66 Poleski," "Alium," and "Lonalia." Enough, however, of Mr. Davis' geography of the "Summer-Land." For the employments of its inhabitants-they are as numerous as were their employments while in the flesh, and, mostly, in the same directions, the poet singing there, as here; the painter daubing away with shadowy colors; and the sculptor moulding his images out of imaginary clay. Their religion is the same, the heathen clinging to his idols, the philosopher to his abstractions, while the Turk dallies as aforetime with his Houri. Also, there is a world of music, cosmical operas, to which the longest of Wagner's would hardly serve for an overture. If this appears irreverent, the irreverence is not ours, but Mr. Davis'; if it appear nonsensical, the nonsense is his, and not ours. For ourselves, we say, "And if, as holiest men have deemed, there be And sophists madly vain with dubious lore," it cannot be the "Summer-Land" of Mr. Davis and his following of Spiritualists. It is related of Isaiah Thomas, the getter-up of the old Farmers' Almanac, that on one occasion he was waited upon by the printer's boy to know what kind of weather should be set up for the Fourth of July of the ensuing year, which somehow was left a blank in the "copy." "Rain! hail! snow!" exclaimed the irate almanac-maker, whose mighty mind was busy just then with matters nearer at hand. "Rain! hail! snow!" was forthwith set up for the next Independence Day, and, strange to say, that triple form of dirty weather really occurred at that time, greatly to the reputation of the astonished weatherprophet, and the circulation of his Almanac in future years. We have never heard that any similar prediction of his came true, but if he were living now, and the printer's boy were to ask him what to set up for any day in November, or December, he might safely say, "Children's books! Look out for children's books!" It will be Christmas, or thereabouts, before the storm will have exhausted itself, though the earliest juveniles of the present year have already been published, dropping in on us now and then like the earliest flakes of the wintry snow. Let us see what some of them are. First comes The Mystic Bell, by E. J. Kuntze (G. P. Putnam & Son), a contribution to the literature of Fairy-Land, and such an one as is not every day brought to the light. We hardly know how to classify it, for while it as much in common with the fairy lore of Germany and France, it is distinct from both, as it is from that of England and America. Not to puzzle our heads, however, about its genealogy, let us say that it is an original story of a little fairy princess, whose heart was a mystic bell, the tinklings whereof were audible even to mortal ears. It rang when she was merry, which was most of the time, and it tolled when she was sad, which was but seldom; for she was beloved and caressed by the dwellers of the world in which she lived, the birds, the bees, and all the tiny people of nature. She was likewise beloved by a beautiful prince,-not a fairy prince, but the son of an earthly king,-and also by the dwarfish son of a wicked magician, who swooped down upon her one day in a dragon-chariot, and bore her away, no one knew whither. How they sought her far and near,-Prince Amurath and Noblefalcon, Sir Chattering, the magpie, Owly, the owl, and Dory, the mouse, and how, after many wonderful adventures, they found her in an enchanted Goldeu Garden, and rescued her and brought her home again—this is what Mr. Kuntze has to tell, and tells so much better than we can hope to that we shall not attempt it after him. We are not precisely children ourselves, or only "children of a large growth," but when we lay down "The Mystic Bell" we recall a stanza of Wordsworth's poem "To the Cuckoo," which expresses what we wish to say, at any rate, what we feel, better than any words of our own: "And I can listen to thee yet, Can lie upon the plain That golden time again." A charming book is Nidworth and his Three Magic Wands, by E. Prentiss, of which Messrs. Roberts Brothers are the publishers. It has a fairy, or rather supernatural, element in it, so far as the three wands are concerned, but, with that exception, it is a tale of human, though we can scarcely say of real, life. Nidworth is the son of a poor couple, who having the power of wishing good luck for him, wish, first, that he may be able to turn any thing he touches with his wand into gold; but that failing to make either him or them happier, they wish again that he may become suddenly learned; but that failing in turn to make them happier, they wish once more, or Nidworth does, who accepts what follows the possession of the third wand, whereupon is inscribed the simple word "LOVE." What befalls Nidworth in boyhood and manhood-his three experiences is the substance of the story, which is delightfully told. The moral, that it is better to love and be loved, than to be rich, or wise, is not a new one, but it has seldom been so well put before. A good many writers have attempted to make children relate their own lives, but few with such success as JULIE GOURAUD, whose Little Boy's Story has been translated by Howard Glyndon, and published by Messrs. Hurd & Houghton. It is a French boy who is supposed to hold the pen, and he writes what hundreds of children would write--if they only knew how-the record of his everyday life for a few years, and that of his sister, Margoton, with what happened in their own family and the little town where they lived, and afterwards at Paris and London. There is not much more in it than in the play of a child, but somehow it possesses a charm which the life-labors of men and women often lack,--a charm which carries us through three hundred sprightly pages, and almost |