A Child's History of Rome, by JOHN BONNER (published by Harper and Brothers), is designed to present the authentic portions of Roman history in a form adapted to the comprehension of juvenile readers, and, at the same time, suited to interest and instruct the mass of intelligent persons who are not students by profession. The peculiar merits of the work consist in its accurate discrimination, its simple and animated style of narrative, and its pure and generous moral tone. The legends, which have been handed down from remote antiquity as descriptive of historical events, but which are now universally conceded by competent scholars to be of fabulous origin, are not made use of by the writer as legitimate materials for his work; although, on account of their celebrity, and in some cases of their beauty, he has not hesitated to give them a place by themselves in illustration of the fanciful conceptions of an early age. In point of felicitous composition and excellence of tone, we think Mr. Bonner has attained even greater success in these volumes than in his previous work on the same plan, which has received a general welcome from all classes of readers. The Banished Son, and other Stories of the Heart, is the title of a new volume of the complete works of Mrs. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ, now issuing from the press of T. B. Peterson. Mrs. Hentz has gained a cherished place in many hearts by the deep feel writings, which also possess the additional charm of a pure and graceful style. Mr. Peterson's collected edition of her works is recommended by its beauty and convenience. social culture, has always tended toward the West. No great Eastern turnpike, canal, or railway was ever built. No great vessel for navigation to the East was ever launched. Every important enterprise by land or sea has commenced in the East, and received its development in the region of the setting sun. The author treats his subject in four grand historical divisions, namely, the age of Pericles, the age of Augustus, the age of Leo X., and the age of Washington. He traces the elements of our present civilization to their respective sources, points out the antecedents of the national heroes who are conspicuous in all time, and thus defines the relations of the present to the past and future. Mr. Magoon is a firm believer in human progress. Without this faith, history, in his view, would be an insoluble enigma-a huge collection of isolated fragments, and the sublime drama of humanity would remain barren of significant results. In the vast domain of nature absolute death has no place. Every end forms the beginning of something greater than itself. Apparent dissolution is the precursor of a new birth. The decay of every organization is but the development of a fresher type of being. This law is universal, although it applies with more palpable justness to the higher gradations of existence, and is best exemplified in the unceasing progress of humanity toward its predetermined goal. In tracing the development of the law of pro-ing, natural pathos, and descriptive energy of her gress, the writer finds the chief landmarks of his subject in the literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion of the respective ages, which represent the course of universal history. The present age, which has concentrated in its bosom the fruits of all the centuries of the past, is characterized as the age of amelioration, while the previous epochs denote the predominance of artistic beauty, of martial force, and of scientific invention. From the time of Washington, the great forces of society tend toward the establishment of armed freedom. This is the essential condition of progress in intelligence and cultivation. With us, the practical effect of the government is to afford the most salutary protection to each department of productive thought. Our view of liberty, unlike that of the ancients, does not elevate the State over the individual. It does not regard citizenship as the highest phase of humanity, but as affording the means for the highest development of the human faculties. The science of freedom is destined to find its noblest application on the American continent. With the prevalence of popular education the people become incapable of adopting any other than republican institutions. The qualities belonging to high culture, which may be dangerous when confined to a few, are thus diffused among the many, and become of unspeakable advantage. The tendency in our country and age is to derive light from every quarter for the completion of our consistent and comprehensive scheme of thought. Equality and liberty will be realized in more perfect social organizations, and more harmonious systems of philosophy, as the great truths which they imply are more fully affirmed in the reason and conscience of the people. Such are some of the leading ideas which are developed in this volume, with great variety of illustration and with ample and ingenious argument. The hopeful views which it presents of the promise of American society will not commend themselves to every understanding, but they furnish copious materials for philosophical speculation. Harper and Brothers have published a new School History, by JACOB ABBOTT, intended to furnish a complete text-book in this branch of study for the use of classes in the higher seminaries of learning. It is not a mere dry catalogue of names and dates, nor a lifeless skeleton of the events of antiquity, but a genial and attractive exposition of the progress of the world from the earliest ages to a comparatively recent period. Commencing with the primitive traditions of the human race, it follows the unfolding of history through the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Roman, and British Empires, and terminates with the organization of the American Republic and the establishment of the American Constitution. The comprehensiveness and brevity of this history make it no less suitable for a work of reference than for a manual of study. T. B. Peterson, of Philadelphia, is publishing an illustrated duodecimo edition of the complete works of Charles Dickens, of which six volumes have now appeared. It is never too late for one who has not read them to begin Mr. Dickens's books, and every new edition is a new temptation to read them again. With a clear type, a fair page, and an occasional illustration by way of resting-place, we know no pleasanter way of passing an evening at home, or a day in the rail-cars, than by renewing our acquaintance and cementing our intimacy with Mr. Pickwick and Ralph Nickleby, Fagan the Jew, and Oliver, like whom we constantly ask for more. In none of his later books has the facile pen of Boz sketched a rival to these earlier children of his fancy, and, with the exception of that horrible malformed wretch Quilp, there are none of his elder born that we do not feel a certain attachment to and affection for. Even the Artful Dodger is a favorite, and one can't help a shuddering sympathy for Bill Sykes. ECTURES AND LECTURING.-A few years | works within the compass of small pecuniary LECTURES AND LECTURING. A few years works Such books do not deserve to be stigma into the service of the printing-press, we were tized. If they are "cheap," that does not necesready to conclude that oral instruction would have sarily derogate from their contents, since they to yield the palm, without dispute, to written lit- have been brought within the scope of the poor erature. We really did not see how a fair debate man's purse by the same advances in civilization could be longer maintained. Previously to that which have reduced many of the luxuries of a era, when the steam-engine introduced its revolu- past age to the level of his table. The cheapest tionary agency, we had been wont to believe that thing in the world is the Gospel, if the cost of speech had the strong side of the controversy, and its pulpit and church instrumentalities is tried that the little member, working its lever on an in- by a commercial standard, and yet this cheapsignificant fulcrum, was the most powerful of me- ness is a main element of its power, and fore-orchanical contrivances to fulfill the boast of Archi- dained by Him who declared, in the same breath medes, by lifting the world. But when we saw that asserted the divineness of his miracles, "the steam made to do the bidding of editors, publish- poor have the Gospel preached unto them." Viewed, ers, and the whole host of bookcraft, we began to indeed, in a philosophic light, the cheapness of so think that speaking intellect had seen its best days. much wholesome literature suggests the idea of its Oratory would be doomed either to obsoleteness or incorporation into that new and wonderful system to decay; authors would rise into the ascendant, of providential agency by which economy and and readers would far outnumber hearers. We comfort-minimum cost and maximum advaneven imagined, in the first shock of amazement, tages- -are now in course of reconciliation. In that the ear, so long the great official collector of this same category we place lecturers and lectures, revenues for the brain, would retire on a pension, as expressing a most gratifying and hopeful tendand that the eye, realizing the panegyric of Addi- ency toward an era when poverty, except in its son, would literally become the most perfect of the most oppressive shape, will no longer offer any senses. But we forgot, in our hasty generaliza- impediment in the way of human progress. For tion, how the law of compensation rules every it must not be forgotten that, hitherto, the large where; nor did it occur to us, that just as steam masses of the people have had little or no oppornavigation had quickened the genius of ship-arch-tunity to be cultivated by oral discussions of genitects and led to vast improvements in the struc-eral topics. Science was as much of a luxury as ture of sailing vessels, so the new motor, in the service of newspapers and books, would call out other forms of the talking mind. And yet this has been the practical result. Literature has gone in pursuit of the million, penetrated highways and hedges, pressed its way into cottages, factories, omnibuses, and railroad-cars, and become the most cosmopolitan thing of the century. The working man considers cheap literature as a domestic necessity, and he enters it, like bread and raiment, on the account current with his pocket. It has a free ticket on all lines of public conveyance, and travels more miles, any year, than Bayard Taylor or Madame Ida Pfeiffer. A similar movement has gone on among the speakers of the day. They, too, have entered on a search after the public, and in the capacity of lecturers are laboring in the wide missionary field of human advancement. If "the schoolmaster is abroad," so is the lecturer, and a respectable crowd is at his heels, anxious to follow him up that memorable mount, called the Mount of Knowledge, which once flashed its summit on us in the original pictorial splendors of our early school-books. Side by side, then, these two popular movements have progressed, growing out of the same general state of society, governed by similar circumstances, and tending alike to the elevation of the masses. But lest the reader should attach a wrong meaning to the phrase "cheap literature," as here used, let us caution him against supposing that we have any reference to the vulgar trash which is so often included under this designation. Cheap," it may be, but “literature" it is not, any more than chattering apes are men, or virulent poison is food. We speak of "cheap literature" as applied to numerous works in every department of thought, that are prepared, printed, and circulated for the benefit of the many; works that, without abating the true dignity of science and art, are so written as to reach the popular mind; wine, or "purple and fine linen." Eloquence and oratory were rare treats-too rare to form an appetite. Apart from the pulpit, the popular mind had not, until recently, any appropriate and effective institution that could speak to its instincts and arouse its sentiments. It was virtually dead to the gifts of language. But the times have changed. Heaven has always cared for the souls of the poor, and, in painful contrast, society has neglected their intellects. How much goodness has thus been lost by the want of awakened mind none can tell. Happily for mankind we now begin to feel that Christian virtue and intelligence are in partnership for the interests of the world. Wealth is considerate of artisans and their mental necessities; and benevolence is stirred to make every one a recipient of whatever it can confer. By the prevalence of this earnest feeling in behalf of the diffusion of knowledge, the lecturer has been brought into the public arena, and he now holds a prominent position among those agents who work in the present and herald the future. But it is not in this light only that lecturers are to be contemplated. They are valuable auxiliaries in the philanthropic scheme of educating the masses, but they are much more. They are acting on an immense surface of prepared mind-men and women who are more or less trained to think and appreciate, who are always in waiting for the best ideas of the day, and glad to give them a genial welcome, come from what source they may. What now is their intellectual condition? Much that they have learned needs revivifying. they have managed, in the wear and tear of life, to preserve their tastes and aspirations, they have had a good deal of their knowledge hidden under the accumulating rubbish of secular experience or thrown into the background of earlier years. No plan of study, no redemption of time from pressing business, can altogether prevent this result. It takes place in the history of all who become part If and parcel of this toiling, struggling, boisterous world. What, now, can be a more signal benefit to this large and increasing class of persons than the opportunity, afforded by lectures, of reviewing their former acquirements and recovering their grasp of them? The old furniture-never out of fashion, thank fortune-is handsomely dressed; a good, glossy varnish is applied, stains and scratches disappear, and you can see your face again in the polished walnut and mahogany. A thousand associations, forgotten long ago, gather around the topic; the hereditary anecdotes of the college-the dry humor of some old professor-the fun of classmates, or pleasant images of other kinds-touching reminiscences-tones never remembered but to bring back youth and hope; all enter into the delight of the hour. Often we have experienced this in listening to a lecture, and we know from the testimony of others what a fruitful source of happiness it is thus to have the pictures, which line the walls of our brains, retouched by the magical art of an elegant and instructive lecturer. Nor does the advantage end here. One who has not tried it can scarcely estimate the strength and animation which the mind receives by this occasional return to its former channels of reflection. Like the geologist, studying the sea-marks of other ages and tracing the recession of the waters and the gain of the land, he reads the boundary lines of his earlier manhood, and notes the strides forward. Did our popular lecturers confer no other good, the mere fact that they are such a review-system to a large number of cultivated people, would entitle them to honorable recognition among the intellectual stimulants of the age. You can this the spirit of the age; but it is the spirit of The idea of a lecturer, then, in this country, is that of a popular educator occupying the broad field, where American mind is finding its excitement and its reward. Whatever enters into social and national thought ought to have a clear, vigorous, earnest exponent in him. The topics of the day, as already well-defined to the eye, and as re But these lectures are valuable on another account. Literature and science are not equal to the demands of the times; they are not able to do the whole work of inward training. No; far from it. We need to know many things that talent hardly cares to write a book about, or, if put in a volume, would not answer the purpose half so well. We want them, moreover, in a talking style. A little more of elegant dishabille; a free, bold, Anglo-Saxon hittingness; a flavoring spice that tone and manner only can give; all that great something in original speech which rhetoric can not teach, and yet is often the finest, richest, strong-lated to past and future, ought to pass through his est essence of an individual mind: these are qual- crucible, refined from their dross. Our instincts, ities that may most aptly and effectively charac- traditions, hopes, pursuits, and aims ought to speak terize the Lecture as distinct from the Essay, Nar- forth in him. The people should have their inrative, Disquisition, and Review. Furthermore, distinct conceptions and anticipations made audiwe may remark that much of our well-informed ble in his utterance, and their own heart-throbs intellect is now in a sort of transition state between should come back to them in his inspiriting elobooks and observation, between literature and out- quence. What every-day mind is in its grapplings ward life. It is not tied down to rigid methods. with the urgent questions of the age; what comIt is a student of the world, fresh, hearty, and im-mercial mind is in its most liberal scope; what pulsive. Not yet expert in the most difficult of philosophic mind is in the speculations of the closarts-observation, but longing to have another et; what scientific mind is in its wide research; wisdom than that contained in libraries; feeling what political mind is in statesmanship as sepathat trade, commerce, travel, and other world-rate from all party entanglements; what moral uniting agencies, are multiplying its external relations, and conscious, at the same time, that it must wait for wealth and leisure to provide this schooling, it naturally seeks such aids as will promote its object. It is an age of intense activity and commercial grandeur. Men have a conviction of power over winds and waves never before possessed. A strange impulse, deeper far than a mere love of money, is working in the vitals of their being and urging them outward and onward to conquer this long-rebellious earth. We call mind is in its interpretations of the laws of Providence, as now revealing themselves in the spirit and structure of society; all these should have, as far as possible, their adequate expression in him. How are these subjects treated now? The limited attention which they receive is confined chiefly to newspapers and magazines. We need the counterpart of these publications, organized in flesh and blood relations to the people. We need a much more general and direct contact of our best intellect with the judgment, taste, and feelings of something to please his palate, and from which he retires with an appetite for more nutriment. the masses. There is a grand moral in every | are a banquet at which every one is sure to find thing; a wisdom underlying every profession and business; a "cosmos" in the social world as well as in the material universe; and what we want is to see these truths and sentiments, so fraught with inspiring influences, brought to bear on the popular mind. We have the sacred office of the Ministry for our pulpits-a divine institution to preach the Gospel and save the world. Turning from the sanctuary and treading over a wide field, we come to the politicians, who, at periodical seasons, thunder their batteries on the public ear. Here is a vast space of territory in which we might give exercise to speaking talent, and this is the ground for lecturers to occupy. Nor can the educational machinery of our country be considered complete until this is accomplished. Losing sight of the pulpit for a moment, as specially related to the recovery of man as a fallen moral being, and taking it simply as an agent acting on thought, feeling, and volition, it obviously illustrates the great law of intellectual sympathy, and indicates the method of Providence that mind should adopt in its efforts to influence society. It establishes the vocation of speech as the surest and strongest means to cultivate the world. Hence we argue that society should attach a peculiar importance to this office, and give it full play in the work of human improvement. Viewing the lecture in the light of a means for the intellectual and social improvement of the people, we may very properly insist that it should be strictly adapted to its own legitimate end. Subjects should be chosen because of their suitableness. A man of practical sense will not select a topic because it is a mine of wealth in itself, and still less because it may afford an opportunity for rhetorical display. One motive only ought to control him; viz., utility-not as understood in the cant of the day, but utility in reference to all that constitutes genuine popular culture. Private tastes and personal accomplishments ought not to be obtruded. A man should not show what he has read nor what have been his pursuits, but what his audience should read and pursue. Many themes connected with scholarly life and coming within the province of written literature are not appropriate to lectures. Without being liable to the charge of "abstractions," they may, nevertheless, be foreign to the spirit of the occasion. A leading aim of the lecturer ought to be to avail himself of pre-existing sympathies so far as practicable, and to speak (if the expression may be allowed) to an opening in the hearts of those before him. Tact is necessary here, as in every thing Public opinion, therefore, ought to take up this else connected with public speaking. It is an upmatter, and establish the Lecture as an institution. hill business to create, first of all, an interest in Whether lecturers shall be technically considered your topic, and then make it tell on an audience. as constituting a profession matters little; but it Better build on a foundation already laid, than concerns us seriously to attach a proper dignity excavate as preparatory to your edifice. If you to their position, and set a high estimate on their take a subject on which the average cultivated services. Let them have a place, an honorable mind of the community has bestowed some reflecplace, among the intellectual sovereigns of the tion, you will have a greater probability of success. land, and let them be well paid for their labor. Hobbies are to be locked up at home. Save them The motives of distinction and reward, combined for the boredom of friends, who can laugh and sufwith a love of usefulness, will be sufficient to se- fer. If you have any little crotchet-any private cure the best sort of ability. No doubt any such fondling-caress it in your library, but intellectual effort to develop lecturing into a thorough and poodles are abominable in public. Beware of general system will be regarded by some as vis- Greece and Rome, Crusades, Dark Ages, Feudal ionary. There is no reason, however, to suspect System, and the French Revolution, unless you its final success. Social instincts may be depend- have remarkable disclosures to offer on these hacked on as well as mechanical laws. All that we neyed matters. They are but one remove from need is adaptation. Taste is inherently diffusive. "My name is Norval." You may illustrate, now It spreads from one to another. It is real leaven, and then, from such things, but side-pictures, in working through the whole masses. If we have the shape of small wood-cuts, are quite sufficient. seen great ideas again and again penetrating the Let all the "isms" go by the board. They are a body social and the body politic, we may safely family in which insanity is a hereditary disease. conclude that other sentiments will win their way Avoid even the rising extravagancies of fashioninto the hearts of the people. Every man knows able intellect, and keep your enthusiasm as one of what an advance there has been, within twenty the sacred gifts-not to be profaned by common years, in the habit of reading; every man knows use. Use statistics sparingly; most persons diswhat a decline has taken place in certain amuse-like figures outside of the ledgers. Shun all such ments. Intelligence, taste, and refinement have outgrown them. Better things have been substituted for them. Religion and education have sowed the seed of that harvest which we are now reaping. But we must continue the movement. We must introduce other agencies if they are demanded, and especially must we solve the problem-How to employ the intellect we have been forming? Lectures, it seems to us, are eminently suitod to promote the ultimate objects of popular education. They are in harmony with the dispositions and habits of our people. They are slight taxes on our time and money. They gratify social feelings, afford entertainment, quicken curiosity, arouse prompt and energetic thought, diversify study, and stimulate the entire nature. They subjects as inhabit out-of-the-way places, infesting garrets and rooms having a musty smell; and seize the foremost truths of the day, that live out beneath the great firmament, and breathe mountain air. One fact should never be forgotten, viz., whatever topic is discussed, the people like to see the image of humanity in it. Despite of warsdespite of selfishness and sin-man was never as near to man as now. The most popular literature, the most welcome science, the most acceptable reforms, are those which embody the cardinal sentiment of philanthropy. A human heart is getting its seat-ay, and its throne-in every thing. Who would have thought, when Hannah More and Legh Richmond began the work of writing the short and simple annals of the poor-when Cowper made the strings of his lyre pulsate with the throbs | for the mind is not often moved except by such as of his own tenderness-or, at a later period, when cast their thoughts in moulds similar to its own. Burns, and afterward Wordsworth, pleaded the Connectives-such as and, but, hence, yet—reworth of man and the sanctity of human brother-quire no small dexterity. They are the joints of hood, that in so short a time Parliaments would thought in expression, and you will need art in have their solicitude awakened in behalf of factory- using them. If your ideas grow, as they should, children? And who would have imagined, fifty out of each other, you will clearly indicate it in years since, that the heroines of this age would be the judicious position of these little words. Mrs. Fry, Miss Dix, and Miss Nightingale? The fruits of this spirit are every where appearing; and, indeed, the characteristic of the age is not so much its learning, its science, its genius, as the moral temper infused into these things. What finer field can a lecturer have than to trace the manifold bearings, as exemplified before our own eyes, of the mechanical and tasteful arts; of chemistry, astronomy, and navigation; of all literature, philosophy, and laws, on the fortunes, character, and welfare of the human race! The instructions of the intellect may thus be made to minister to the sentiments, and the ancient union of intelligence and love once more be seen. speaker in you victory is sure; if you have not, try another vocation. Be not tedious. Said an old preacher: "There is no religion after the hour is out;" and Whitfield justly remarked, that if a minister could preach like an angel for more than an hour, the people ought to be angels to hear him. We shall prove our appreciation of this good sense by closing our lecture on Lectures and Lecturers. Dr. Channing, in his admirable lectures on the Speak, do not read. Prepare your subject well by writing fully; and recollect that you can not exaggerate the value of writing as a mental discipline. It marshals a man's faculties, trains, perfects them far better than any other method. But it belongs to your private habits. The manuscript has no more business on the platform before the public than your study-wrapper and embroidered slippers. Readers can not be orators. A certain kind of eloquence they may present, but eloquence is not oratory. Do not recite from memory, for this is most stiffening to the brain and enfeebling to the manner. Nor will you at all need it, if you get your mind completely pervaded-" saturated" Style also merits close attention. If it is always with your topic. At first you may be embar a matter of importance how your thoughts are com- rassed, but fail rather than read. Go at it again municated, it is emphatically so in speaking; for—again-again, if need be, and if you have a your hearer has not the leisurely privilege of a reader to go back and question the context, or to analyze the equivocal thought. Style is, therefore, a grave consideration; not a thing to be tried by the rules of the toilet, but one involving a positive exercise of sound sense. Remember what a speaking style is; viz., mind every moment forging a connecting link with other minds; mind in earnest motion and close contact; mind touching eyes and ears every instant, and receiving, as well as awakening emotions with inconceivable rapid-"Elevation of the Laboring Classes," observes: ity. Anglo-Saxon is the style. The sharp, cleancut words-the words that ring and echo-the words that, instead of cumbering, heighten the elasticity of the idea, are your true vocabulary. For effect-straightforward, rifle-shot effect-nothing compares with it. You may look at the sweep of the wind over a ripe harvest-field, or watch the long roll of the billowy sea, if you are writing a fine essay; but if you are determined to be a real speaker, alive all through to subject and audience, you must master the language of the dogmatic will, the resolute purpose, the imperial soul-the noble, glorious, old Anglo-Saxon. Men that came forth from northern forests; hard and sturdy men, with granite and iron in them; such men have given us words full of their vigorous nature; and if you want to stir and shake the dull souls of the day, they, and they only, are your implements. But beware of the intense. Volcanoes are rare, and intense occasions rarer. Short sentences are good, if you do not have too many of them. Like an eagle, describe a small or a great circle according to the height at which you fly. Style is very much a matter of temperament; one's blood and nerves have a close connection with it. Your mood, too, has its influence. By studying yourself in body and mind you will have some idea of what you are, and how you should express thought and emotion. Logic and rhetoric are great auxiliaries, but they are entirely subordinate to the individualism of one's own organization. Go into your mind's chamber and form style there. You may gain no slight aid from authors. Notice particularly what writers affect your intellect most directly and promptly; you will probably derive advantage from a careful analysis of their style, VOL. XIV.-No. 79-I. "We hear much of the improvements of our age. The wonders achieved by machinery are the common talk of every circle; but I confess that, to me, this gathering of mechanics' apprentices, whose chief bond of union is a library, and who come together weekly to refresh and improve themselves by the best instruction which the state of society places within their reach, is more encouraging than all the miracles of the machinist. . . . . The present meeting indicates a far more radical, more important change in the world than the steam-engine or the navigation of the Atlantic in a fortnight. . . . . On this account, I take more pleasure in speaking here than I should feel in being summoned to pronounce a show-oration before all the kings and nobles on earth." These are noble sentiments. Every liberal mind feels their truthfulness-their calm but earnest force. A psalm of praise for winter! It has come again, and brought with it the privileges of the lectureseason. Thanks for both! W Editor's Easy Chair. HILE the impassioned political orators have been appealing to the fathers of the country, the liberality of citizens has been erecting statues to show the appearance of the fathers as they lived. Jonathan has not been as anxious as John to build monuments. The street statues of the great foreign cities are so generally the portraits of kings, that, in abolishing kings, we seemed also to have abolished the desire of commemorating any body in the way that kings were commemorated. Since |