Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-06-02
RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

biography" Edited by Samuel Suiles, LII.
D.. author of Lives of the Engineers,n
"Self Help" etc. Illustrated. New York:
Harper & Brothers. Tee interest in Colonel
Roebling ard the Brooklyn bridge, for the
moment, makes all records Of engineering at
trsctive. Mr.. Smiles has written an excel
lent preface 20 this autobiography, and the
f-onsispiece, picture of Nasnyth, recalls
little tue forward droop Of Sir Walter SCOTS
head as seen 10 some pictures of the poet.
The autobiography proper does not begin till
the fourth chapter, but the writer has tam
lily TO be proud Of, and mis- his DRY of
his ancestors is made very readable. His
the founder of the landscape paint.
ing school in Scotland, and the near
alliance Of science and art is well illustrated
in the records Of this family. The book is
not a dry list of inventions, but the story cf
happy, earnest, useful life, whose bent was
toward mechanical continuance, but which
one feels would have been equally ambitious,
singIe. hearted and successful if the iucina.
ton had been in some other direction. While
he was an enthusiastic student, Nssmyth had
plenty of humor aud an artistic appreciation
of outdoor life. He enjoys the public notice
at the inn that 1.-THE coach will set out from
the Grass Market ilka Tuesday at two o'clock
in the day, God wullin' but ,ohether or no on
Wednesday," and also his fathers shift of
painting his bare legs with black and white
stripes to resemble the long silk stockings
worn by the swells, when he was to take his
sweetheart to RAnelagh, and his last pair of
stockings was singed with being hung too
near the FIRE to dry. Nasmyth speaks most
affectionately of all his family, but with the
greatest admiration for his father, for whom
he has invented the word resourcefulness
to describe his chief mental characteristic,
iva llr,ofr of
Nasmyth Sr.'s device to make the inaccessi-
BILE face Of bluff on the Duke of Atho.'s es-
tate bear trees and plants, to relieve its GRIM
ness. Nasmyth filed number of canisters
with suitable seeds, two small cannon in front
OF the castle, used for firing salutes on great
days, were loaded, and the csnisters fred up
against the high face Of the crag. The seed
was scattered in all directions, and few
years later trees fourished in the recesses of
the cliff. While he duly notes his first in.
terest in tools, his first work in his fathers
shop. his turning his own bedroom into
brass foundry, his studies at the Edinburgh
School of Arts and Edinburgh University,
he also gives quaint sketches of the city life
in his youth, like his picture of the Edin-
burgh fish.market end the thrifty DANES fill
ing their creels, not forgetting the bunch of
flowers for the top; or memorable events,
like the destruction of the Old TolbooSh in
the High street, which had degenerated from
palace to jail and into which was
built the nine foot-squsre iron chest, the
condemned cell of the Tolbooth. with the
sentimental name of "The Heart of Mid
lothian" The dislodgmen5 of this chest, Sir
Walter Scotts presence, and the artist John
Linnell's singular souvenir, G mummyted
rat, are very graphically described. Mas
myths great inventions, those that the world
knows him blythe steam hammer, the
! steam pile-driver, and the powerful tele-
scopes for investigating the moon--are all de-
scTibed by him simply and carefully, and two
appendices are added TO the main body of
the work, one a chronological list of Mr. Mas
myths mechanical Inventions, and the other
digest of his speculations on the sun.ray
origin of the Egyptian pyramids, and the
origin of the arrow-Le lead or cuneiform chsrac-
ter, an Influence from which latter he traces
in later Greek inscriptions. There is an ex-
cellent index. For sale by A. /. Bancroft &
Co., San Francisco.
English Literature in the Eighteenth
Century" By Thomas Sergeant Perry.
New York: Harper / Brothers. MIR. Perry
is an instructor at Harvard, and states in his
preface that the volume contains the sub
stance of a course of lectures delivered in
Cambridge. 1t is one of thofe books about
books which are godsends to busy people with
no time to read the writers OF any century,
or by taking thought finding out the feeling
of any past era about its literature. Mr..
Perry is widely if not deeply read, and refers
frankly to Wards English Poets, " Morley's
"EDsl ish Men of Letters series, and other
current books about books where his own
subject is treated. He quotes much, and
sptly, for little illustration viii often estab-
lish what whole chapters of definition could
not; but his strength is in short, pithy
ox1hi oh tra ,f L. l,
already been dilated upon: a proper un.
derstandipg of the absence of reading pub
lie is necessary for understanding the liter
allure Of the last century," Germany was
going through the motions of having liter
ature." s. This deliberate wooden imitation
of classical models was then. so to speak, the
sober second thought OF the Renaissance the
first was one Of delight and it INSPIRED great
works" The view of Pope is very complete
and tolerant, and Mr.. Perry has very inter
esting subject to treat in the first faint streaks
of the dawn Of the Eoglish novel; He makes
a new classification of the early novel, the
picturesque novel he cAlls it, from the
Spanish word picdro. scamp not necessarily
thief or an 1mposEor, but one that will steal
and Great under the slightest provocation. The
adventures of heroes like Gil Bias are the
subject of the picturesque novel, which oriei.
mated in Spain, but was translated and
eagerly caught up and initiated in Enelapd.
Defoe's less known novels being English ex
amples OF the class. In note MIR. Perry re.
marks that the name of Richardson's heroine
Pamela was frequently pronounced with the
accent on the first syllable, which will proba
bly, be news to many readers. The beginning
Of journalism in Engiau also belongs to this
interesting period, and the political pamphlet
which was dispossessed by the daily paper is
explained. A parallel between the so.called
medieval poems brought forward by
Frencnman. nj. de Snrville, as written by an
ancestress Of his in the fifteenth century, and
proved to be forgeries, and the Rowley manu-
scripts Of Thomas Chstterton. Is mentioned
in note. There is a good deal OF criticism
on current literature, which the subject con.
tinuaily suggests By comparison, which gives
the book living interest. For sale by A. l.
Bancroft & Co.
Landmarks Of English Literature" By
Henry J. Nicoll. New York d. Appleton
& Co. Mr. Nicoll begins his book with a
chronological index of authors end their
works He gives frat, without dater, the
chief names Of the period treated in each |
chapter, aud then adds list of those and |
lesser lights, with the dates Of their birth, Of
the production Of their principal works, and |
Of their death. He begins with thu dawn Of |
English literature Wickliffe and |
Chaucer-and ends with the publication Of |
Tennyson's poems in 1881 In the respect |
that It resolves writer's into groups and labels |
them, il is an excellent work but in n At IL |
Is uncritical. it is nsught. Az q history OF |
literature it iscornprehensive and serviceable |
but Mr.. Nicoll's structures on writers and |
their works are commonplace in the extreme. |
For sale by James T. White & Co., San |
Franciscr.
San Honorable Surrender" By Mary AID. |
sms New York: Charles Scribner's s ms. |
Miss Adams is clearly great reader that's, |
she reads much. and what she reads impresses |
her. The notices and quotations through |
the book are those dsar to a thoughtful per. |
son. she tells the story Of restless, imsg.
NATIVE girl who simply does not know what /
she wants. She finally marries, bat the
ororabls surrender is not TO the General,
VINO could appreciate the sword given into his
hands There are some excellent touchss in
the book, as when the heroine feels hat her
lover wrote Letter in furious passion. be-