The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1877-06-02
Recent Publications.

ican tourists, and recommends that some one
should start banking house in London which
will take pains to accommodate Americans.
He gives seventy pages to description of Lon
don and vicinity, and then devotes 14O pages to
loving delineation of Rome and its antiqu-
ties, endeavoring to detail matters of interest
which cannot be found in the guide books.
Next he takes the reader to Venice and Verona
AT the latter city he visited the mansion of the
Capulets and found it looking like third. d.class
inn, with flannel shirt hanging out from JUL.
cts balcony. Thence he travelled through the
Tyrol, where he met Hans Christian Anderson,
across Switzerland, Munich, Vienna, Prague,
Dresden, Berlin Hanover, Amsterdam, Rotter-
dam. Antwerp, Brussels, and to Paris, where
the journey ends. His description of the
Dresden Gallery is very interesting, The fam
GUS Linden Avenue in Berlin he thinks inferior
to the Elms of Boston Common or the streets
of Portland. The reader who cannot make the
trip himself will find this book very pleasant
substitute
A Brief History of Turkey, translated from
the German of DR.. Johannes Blochwitz by Mrs.
M. Wesselhoeft Boston: j. r. Osgood & Co.,
Portland, Loring, Short & Harmony is un-
questionably the best of the series of handbooks
on the Eastern Question which the enterprsing
Boston book house is issuing. Indeed one
could desire no better brief history of the Otto
man Empire than this. 1t is thorough, accu.
rate, entertaining in style, and the author has
nice sense of historical perspective so that the
relative proportion of events is admirably main.
tanned The treatment of the subject is philo.
sophical, and the history is more than chroni-
Gle, for it acquaints the reader with the causes
of the rapid growth and fast-progressing decay
of the last great Mohammedan Caliphate
Good maps and full index of Turkish terms
in war, theology, and state administration add
considerably to the value of the book.
Mr.. John Burroughs, in his volumeof Birds
and Poets, (New York: Hurd & Houghton;
Portland: Loring, Short & Harmony has struck
notes in harmony with the sweet, new, inde-
terminate SEASON that precedes the full heat
and color of the Northern summer. "Sumer is
i-cumer i'm, sang the oldtime Saxon-and this
might have been the keynote of the whole book
Mr.. Burroughs is born idyltist, not of the
condescendng observers of Nature, who, pos
ing as Arcadians, credit themselves with the
appreciation which they accord to her-but Of
those who look aud listen to her, learn of her
and are fresh and frank in praise of her be-
cause they know her. The richness, minuteness
and sympathetic quality of Mr.. Burroughs's
descriptions mark him as poet, though wheth-
er he would choose verse as means of express
sion is doubtful, and perhaps it were not adyis-
able that he should. 1t is as an observer, a
translator of the voice of windy woods, or the
unsyllabled chat and the pulsating songs of
birds, even of such homely sounds as the cow
calling to her calf, or the self-gratulatory cluck
of the hen, that Mr. Burroughs finest traits are
displayed rather than as a philosopher. As a
naturalist-wth all the poetic appreciation that
close and assiduous study of nature implies
and supples-he is admirable; as a critic of
men and of literature, his talent, always forci-
BILE, direct, and with fine manly swing in its
expression, seems to feel the Influence of the
Concord thinkers, and to become less sponta-
neous, less reliable, less tuneful. In his very
interesting chapter upon Mr.. Emerson, in his
singularly laudatory essay upon Mr. Walt Whit
man, the reader will hardly fail to be impressed
with the oftentimes tense and brilliant manner,
the generous and frank thought of Mr. Bur-
iOusuo, uOW0fOL hO uudy OiuCI ltOul luo dubuOt
in opinion. Mr.. Burroughs does not of right
belong to the circle of philosophers; there is
occasionally flavor somewhat acrid, coarse
and unattractive in his critical thought, like
the fruit of some wild tree set in tended gar
den. Mr.. Burrougas's style is at present under
influences which, in degree akin to its essen
tial quality, are not wholly beneficial to it.
His talent needs the polishing and artistic linn.
itation that the study of Mr.. Tennyson's works
would give it, rather than the mob-democraey
in which all ideas are born free and equal ac-
cording to Mr.. Walt Whitman. The sound,
ruddy and clear quality of Mr.. Burroughss
talent seems more like that of the old idyllists
than that of the modern philosophers, and his
best notes are those where birds and the voices
of leaves and of waters join to bear part.
Camp, Court and Siege, by Wickham Hoff-
man, New York: Harper & Brothers. Port
land: Loring, Short & Harmony is interesting
and fairly well written. 1t avows itself mar
rative of personal adventure; and indeed turns
upon the pivotal point of the pronoan 1 with
great assiduity. But with Mr.. Hoffman as a
centre of their solar SYSTEM the stars Of our VIC
torious flag shine very well, and the French
times when the fact of mans personal identi-
ty being prominent fact to himself, renders
his delineation of events very clear and full fn
detail, because he regards them as they pass
with personal interest as affecting himself, in
stead of looking upon them as part of the great
generalization of history Mr.. Hoffmans style
of writing IS usually unexaggerated. sufficient
ly easy, and very agreeable and readable. Ex-
periences of our civil war have not lost their
interest-although the present era of painstak.
ing amity may not be precisely suitable time
for such recital; and the lurid drama of the
days of the French commune, reported by
spectator In SO favorable position for seeing
(Mr. Hoffman was in the American diplomatic
corps at Paris) is full of lively and extraordin-
ary DETAIL One is led to wonder where Mr..
Hoffman acquired the impression that it is
suitable to read letters not to his address, and
to write so sportively to the authorlof such let
ters, lady with whom he was unacquainted.
But he plumes himself, evidently, upon his
epistolary talent; and includes several letters of
his own to persons of quality and title-written
in French, of which language one infers from
the sample, Mr.. Hoffman has an elaborate ease
Three more volumes of the dainty and de-
lightful Vest Pocket Series (Boston: j. r. Os-
good & Co. Portland: Loring, Short & Har-
mon) contain Aytoun's Lays of Scottish Cava-
liers, stirring as the cry of the bagpipes; Grays
Elegy, and other of his poems; and Mr.. Low.
ellis poetic, rich aud humorous Garden Ac-
quaintance.
The Half-Hour Series of Messrs. Harper,
New York, portland, Loiing, Short s. Har-
mon) receive valuable addition in the narra-
tive Of three epochs of English History, the
Rise of the People and Growth of Parliament,
1215-1405) by James Rowey, NJ. A; The Iu-
dors and the Reformation, Q4S5-1603) by Mr..
Creighton, M. A.; and sthe Struggle against
Absolute Monarchy, by Mrs. Bertha Merton
Cordery. These are illustrated by maps. An
other volume of curious and scholarly interest
is by W. W. Capes, NJ. A, upon University
Life in Ancient Athens, and is written in a
pleasing style. Hazing, it appears, has the
sanction of ancient precedent; and Libauius,
professor at Antioch, remarks upon the unwlll-
ingness OF students to attend lectures; their