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beauty of the fabric, often fails to observe the materials of which it is composed. How was this done? scrupulous self-criticism and unremitting toil. Macaulay would sometimes write a sentence over half a dozen times before it would read smoothly to his ear; and Balzac wrote the Peau de Chagrin sixteen times. Thus drudged the great masters of two great languages. No genius, however splendid, can afford to dispense with style. Style is structure, without which a book is not a building, but a quarry, style is voice, without sweetness of which there can be no true eloquence, style is art, which adorns the nakedness of human thought, and composes symmetry of sentiments and of ideas.

I have said much upon this subject because I am convinced that, if Captain Burton chose, he might become an agreeable writer. But I am aware that it is not true criticism to demand neat literary manipulation in the works of men who spend the greater portion of their lives away from their own language, and who are usually forced to write hurriedly, that the book may appear before the discovery has died from the public mind. Sir Samuel Baker is a literary artist, as well as a gallant explorer; but we have no right to expect this double talent in travellers, and

The Twin Records of Creation; or Geology and Genesis: their Perfect Harmony and Wonderful Concord. By GEO. W. VICTOR LE VAUX. London : Lockwood & Co.

IN making the Lion of Geology and the Lamb of Genesis lie down together in the same Procustean bed, Mr. Le Vaux has naturally found it necessary to clip somewhat the claws, mane, and tail of the lion, and to somewhat elongate the lamb. And, after all, there is not so great a family resem

blance between the two, we think, as to suggest the idea of twinship to anybody but Mr. Le Vaux. The process of adaptation itself is not exactly novel, but there is something original in our author's spirit, if not his method, which gives his book a peculiar in. terest. He has always had, he confesses, a passion for geology; and he enters into a description of the different geological periods which correspond in his theory to the days of the Scriptural history of creation with the greatest delight in the marvels of his theme. He revels in the sea of prime

val fire; he floats enchanted on the waves of the shoreless ocean; his fancy feeds fat upon the gigantic grasses and ferns of the era of large vegetables; he is the intimate acquaintance of the Ichthyosaur, the Iguanodon, and the Pterodactyl. With all this, it cannot be said that he develops more than an elementary knowledge of the science he loves, or that he appears to be in any respect a learned or wise man. He writes his book with the aid of profuse quotation from the poets, and when their fancy does not supply him with facts he draws upon his own; and he believes in the sea-serpent. He does not always quote correctly, and he attributes Pope's "Messiah" to Steele. He imagines that "betimes" is identical in meaning with at times; and his immense megalosauric sense becomes occasionally entangled in the mammoth vegetation of his tropical language; as, for example, when he says, in a description of the Oolitic world:

"Far, far below, the base of the hill on which we stand is washed by the swelling billows of the Western main, the whitecrested waves breaking betimes over the rocks and shallows, as they roll to or recede from the shore. Boundless prairies, decked with an ocean of gorgeous verdure, spread out, far as the eye can reach, towards the mid-day sun. The eastern horizon is bounded by forests of gigantic pine and fern, which are woven together by thick luxuriant underwood, and the intervening plains are studded, at intervals, with circular groves of palm and shrubs."

This colossal passage is preliminary to an account of an awful Oolitic mill between the Megalosaur and the Iguanodon, the champions being respectively twenty and twenty-seven yards in length, and of proportionate height and bulk. Mr. Le Vaux, in his character of special reporter, says: "But terrific cries are wafted towards us on the breeze, cries which reverberate through the mountains like the rumblings of thunder on the distant hills, the cries of monsters about to engage in mortal combat, the war-whoop' of the huge Megalosaur and colossal Iguanodon. As the waves of a thousand hurricanes roll to the rock or assault the shore, so the former advances; as a huge rock meets the mighty waves of a thousand tempests, so does the latter meet the former. As a hundred storms of winter, gloomy and dark, pour down from frowning mountains, as a hundred torrents from the hills meet, mix,

and roar in the valley, so dark, so loud, impetuous, and terrible is the deadly encounter of these primeval monsters. Their roaring, their groans, resound through the vales and forests, spread over the hills, and re-echo from rock to rock. Nature seems to be hushed in fear and amazement,-every living creature flies away from the scene of encounter in confusion and terror. But lo! the monsters have rolled over and over on the plain, - Death has raised his voice, — the tumult ceases, one of them (the Igua nodon) has fallen a victim to the ferocious strength and superior activity of the other, and soon is his carcass partially devoured by the voracious victor."

The fate of another champion of the primeval P. R. —the Pterodactyl — is portrayed in strokes quite as bold and massive as these:

"But hark! crashing sounds resound in the brushwood; the dumb noise of ponder. ous footsteps strikes the ear; when, lo! a gigantic animal, far larger than the largest elephant, emerges from the forest and appears on the scene. His snout is narrow and long, but of immense power, and his mouth is furnished with prodigious and terrific teeth, shaped or serrated like the teeth of a saw, those of the lower and upper jaws fitting exactly into each other. His neck is long, and his huge body is as large as the wooden horse of Troy, - as a ship of ancient times; his legs and feet are proportionately massive and thick, — like the trunks of some gigantic oaks which have braved, in triumph, the storms of a thousand years; and, as a whole, his dimensions are enormous beyond all conception. Onward, however, comes the king of the prairies; forward he rushes, and with one stroke of his terrible foot - with one thrust of his powerful claws - the unwieldy teleosaurian crocodile is struck dead on the mud, and immediately devoured.”

Whatever may be thought of the direct result achieved for the reconciliation of science and revelation by Mr. Le Vaux, we imagine all his readers must agree that he has at least effected a negative good by rendering geology much more incredible than Genesis.

Famous Americans of Recent Times. By JAMES PARTON. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

THE favor done to this age and generation by Mr. Parton in taking eminent pub

lic men out of the keeping of panegyric and abuse, and giving them to popular knowledge in some appreciable human quality, is scarcely to be over-estimated, and it has certainly not till now been valued enough. Mr. Parton did not begin by pleasuring the critics, and his recognition was tardy and cool, though he had long been one of our most popular writers. He wrote at once for the people, and, while preserving perfectly his self-respect, made the people his sole judges. He paid them also the highest compliment in his power, by refusing to seek their favor through flattery of their prejudices. His heroes, in spite of his great popularity, are not the popular heroes; he who honors his readers so greatly does not at all honor their idols. It must be said of Mr. Parton that each person of whom he writes is the man at whose character he has arrived by the most diligent study of all his words and acts. It may result sometimes that Mr. Parton is mistaken; but we feel that he has never willingly deceived himself, nor suffered himself to be deceived. We cannot believe that he has ever written carelessly. These delightful stories, which hold us with the charm of romance, are not only the work of a very skilful artist, but of a very honest man, not less conscientious as to why he shall say a thing, than as to how he shall say it. We need scarcely add, that it is the work also of a generous and liberal spirit, having no more sympathy with successful meanness than with mere baseness of purpose.

The biographical studies which make up this volume present the same general characteristics observable in Mr. Parton's more extended works. In respect of style and all points of literary execution, they are the best things he has done; for his artistic growth has been continuous, and these studies are his latest productions. That it has been of use to Mr. Parton to write for the scholars and critics who read the North American Review is evident enough to any one who contrasts the articles taken from that publication with his earlier work. The difference is to be felt in quality of thought, as well as in manner, though there is not much fault to be found with Mr. Parton's way of thinking in any of them, for it is always manly and humane.

As a whole, the present volume has a peculiar merit in its variety. It deals with the kinds of greatness usually achieved by Americans, political, mercantile, inventive, social, and deals with them all in a

very fresh and fearless way, insomuch that we should be willing to wait for Mr. Parton to write of our theological and literary worthies, and our military heroes, before we read much about them. It seems to us that our author writes of inventors with the most heart, and he certainly contrives to interest his reader very deeply in their lives and works. The sketch of Charles Goodyear in this book is as delightful as the story of any adventurous discoverer of the sixteenth century; but in fact the inventors are the discoverers of our time, and it is they who carry forward, in their true spirit, the magnificent enterprises of other days. There is little of their heroism and devotion in the great merchants whose stories our author rehearses, but there is still, in the lives of such men as Girard, Vanderbilt, and Astor, the fascination of that daring which in our country makes business a drama full of strong situations and startling effects. These men rank in their claims upon our remembrance and respect with such politicians as Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Randolph,—all men of marked individuality, and each representing different political theories, — who in Mr. Parton's book are not less interesting than the great traffickers, because, unlike the great traffickers, they were each a failure in his way.

The articles on Henry Ward Beecher and Theodosia Burr are to be esteemed as studies of our social life at two widely distant and widely different epochs. Mr. Beecher represents no new ideas in religion. He is the leading thought and speech of the strong, earnest, self-reliant element- -not refined to intellectual subtilty or morbid doubt — which is perhaps the most hopeful element in New York, and which is the beginning of a social rather than a religious regeneration. It is American and good; it has sound sense and wholesome impulses; if it errs, it is not too perfect and great to repent and amend. Mrs. Alston preserves the memory of an America long past away, — of a vanished reflection of philosophical France, — of a polite and well-bred coloniality. We are afraid that Mr. James Gordon Bennett is as representative in his way as either of these others, and we must class the article devoted to his career with those on Mr. Beecher and Theodosia Burr. Such a man and such ideas could exist nowhere but in America, and it appears to us that the New York Herald is published because there is an unpublished New York Herald in the

hearts of a vast number of Americans. As a tranquil, dispassionate, unpitying study of character, we know of nothing in modern English literature surpassing this paper of Mr. Parton on James Gordon Bennett.

Philip II. of Spain. By CHARLES GAYARRE, Author of "The History of Louisiana under the French, Spanish, and American Domination," etc., etc. With an Introductory Letter, by GEORGE BANCROFT., New York: W. J. Widdleton.

FOR no reason that we can very satisfactorily explain, we have read this odd book quite through; and at the end we are in doubt whether Mr. Gayarré, who is of Spanish extraction, wrote the work in the extravagant and curious English it now wears, or whether he produced it in Spanish, and has been too literally translated. It is certainly as individual in expression as in conception, and is scarcely to be compared with other histories in any way. Indeed, the author himself declares that it is rather a biography of Philip than a chronicle of his reign, and deals with events chiefly as they concern the development of his character.

The work opens with a picture of the hideous corporeal decay into which Philip fell before death, and dwells with revolting fidelity upon the facts of his loathsome and terrible malady. The author thereafter proceeds to study his subject in the acts of his private and public life, confining himself mainly to the consideration of demeanor and policy immediately affecting Spaniards. The persecution of the Protestants in the Netherlands is scarcely more than collaterally mentioned, and the cruel war for the destruction of the Moriscos does not receive much greater attention. But the violent subversion of the Aragonese liberties and the no less insolent and deliberate though tacit reduction of the Castilian Cortes to legislative nonentity, occupy the author in four out of the ten chapters of his book, and interest his reader more than all the rest. In fact, the whole story of Philip's minister, Antonio Percz, is a fascinating episode, though we follow the brilliant, unprincipled, and unhappy adventurer with much the same sort of interest that we feel in the fortunes of Lazarillo de Tormes, or any other picaresque hero. Mr. Gayarré has done well to give so much space to this episode; for it seems to us that nothing else could have so well illustrated the character of

Philip and of Philip's Spain as such an absurd and gloomy tragedy. Aragon actually enjoyed a degree of liberty till the favorite of the morose king intrigued with Philip's reputed mistress, and, after incurring his displeasure, and suffering his dilatory but not the less unrelenting persecution, escaped from Madrid to Aragon, where, as a native of that kingdom, he claimed the protection of her privileges, stirred up the people to revolt against Philip's assumptions, successfully defied his government and the Inquisition, and at last fled to France, leaving the Aragonese and their ancient rights to the annihilating resentment of the king. The trial of Perez lasted near half a score of years, moving or halting as it seemed possible or not to destroy him together with the secrets of Philip which he held. To Mr. Gayarré's volume we must refer the reader for the extraordinary events of the trial. An unworthier rogue than Perez seems never to have precipitated the disasters of a generous people; and at no time in history does any people seem to have lost its liberty more entirely from want of patriotic and courageous leadership.

This want could scarcely have occurred through indifference of the former governing classes to the interests of the country, but rather through a blind and unreasoning devotion to the king. Philip could ruin Aragon and ruin Spain, not because the Spaniards had lost their manhood, but because their loyalty had outgrown their manhood. It is pathetic to read in Mr. Gayarré's book how faithfully the Cortes strove in vain for the passage of laws favoring industry and equity and at least material progress, and how unfailingly and remorselessly Philip snubbed them into inaction and despair. The story would have been more impressive if it had been told with more succinctness; but the reader is nevertheless made to understand the situation and the fact that no one but Philip, who was Spanish in everything that was bad, and Spanish in nothing that was good, could have annulled Spain. He came, like George III., a native prince succeeding a foreign-born ruler, and sympathizing with all that was stupid and arbitrary and mean in his countrymen; and he was only more destructive to Spain than George was to England, because Spain was Catholic and England was Protestant.

We cannot say that Mr. Gayarré has placed Philip's character in a new light, or

developed it with very powerful effect; but he has made an interesting book, and in some respects a valuable one. It is all the more interesting in its enthusiastic hatred of Philip and the Inquisition, from the fact of the author's Spanish race and ancestral religion.

The work was written, we are told, during the late war of the Rebellion, to beguile the anxieties of the time; and we could wish that a greater number of persons in the seceding States had employed their painful leisure so harmlessly to themselves, and so usefully to others. As it is, this is the only book produced south of Mason and Dixon's line, within the last six years, which deserves notice. It deserves more than this, perhaps, as the first contribution from the South to those historical studies in which American scholars have distinguished themselves.

Greece, Ancient and Modern. Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute. By C. C. FELTON, LL. D., late President of Harvard University. In two volumes. Boston Ticknor and Fields..

It is not easy to describe the affectionate and yet candid spirit in which the author of this work treats all the aspects of the wonderful Hellenic civilization, and makes us acquainted with Greek literature, art, and life, from Homer's time to our own. It is as if the vast tract of time intervening between the epochs were some region of the world, and our author had travelled there, sojourning in every part of it, and dwelling whole years in its famous cities and amid its storied scenes. He knows it thoroughly, and loves it, with due reservations and exceptions; and we are all the wiser because he remains to the end an observer of Greeks, and does not himself become Greek. With all his erudition and his enthusiasm, he never forgets that he is relating his large experiences to a popular audience at the Lowell Institute, and that his hearers will be as quick to judge as they are willing to learn. His is very clear and honest discourse; and if in what is always so pleasant the reader finds little that is absolutely new in thought or very subtile în feeling, he cannot deny that the opinions are usually just, and the sentiment invariably generous. The work is essentially a popular one: there is necessarily some repetition of matters already known to the student; but the book takes a place empty before, and has a power of

entertaining and delighting which attracts the reader again and again to its pages. There is nothing in it which a sincere regard for the author's memory could make us wish absent, except its occasional jocosities.

The idea of Greece which he presents is a very complete one. The first course of Lectures deals with Greek literature from the earliest times, and notices the less familiar phases of this literature in the Alexandrian and Byzantine periods, and the all but unknown contemporary Greek poetry, as well as the classic works. The life of the Greeks in city and country, in-doors and out-doors, their dress, their manners, their education, their beliefs, and their amusements, affords material for the second course. In the third course is given a general and particular view of the different Greek polities, and of the famous statesmen, lawgivers, and orators identified or connected with them; while the fourth series of Lectures form an historical and social study of Grecian life from the time of the Macedonian ascendency till the promulgation of the Constitution of 1844.

At this day, when the terrible tragedy of the Greek War of Independence is reenacting in Crete, and the whole world looks on with the guilty apathy that characterized the attitude of Christendom during the earlier part of the former struggle, everything relating to that heroic revolu tion possesses a new interest. With this part of Greek history, as with every other period of it, the acquaintance of President Felton was very thorough, and all that he has to say of contemporary Greece has a peculiar value from the fact that he had seen and known the civilization of which he writes. In some things he shows that the modern Greeks are still the Greeks of classic days, as their speech is in great degree the language of old; but they have found it more difficult to restore the aorist in their civilization than in their grammar; and our sympathy must rather be given to them as a brave Christian people, akin to us in time and in faith, struggling against Mohammedan tyranny and barbarism, than as the Spartans and Athenians battling for the fine old abstraction, classic liberty.

As we turn to that part of President Felton's work which treats of the classics, we are conscious of a quite different, yet more familiar atmosphere; for these are the Greeks who have been at our doors from childhood. It is very pleasant to follow