The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1885-10-10
LITERATURE.
Books.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY or HENRY TAYLOR, looo I
1878. In two volumes Ilarper.& Broth
ers. New York; Jansen, McClurg Co.
Chicago liapeman & Graham, Ottawa
$500.
A well written autobiography, free iron
the too common faults of such composition
of trivialty and self.laudation, Is the mos
reliable of all histories, for its statement
are based on what the law recognizes Il
the highest evidence-that OF an eye VII
ness The volumes Of Sir Henry 1aylo
possess all the qualities to render Such
work interesting and valuable. Eminen
as man of letters himself and occupying
ahigh place in private and social life at The
same time that he is almost continuously
employed in important positions IN th'
public service, he was necessarily brougH
into close contact with most of the leading
lninds-political as well as literary-oi III
active days covering a period OF over haIi
. century when the annals Of England are
exceptionally crowded with great names
He is thus enabled to bring Us face to face
in the intimacy Of social as well as the con
fidence of political intercourse, with such
men AS Sir Robert Peel Lord John Rus
sell, the Duke Of Wellington, Lord Mel
bourne, Palmerston, Gladstone, Stanley
Macaulay and many others among the
great political leaders of his day, and also
in pleasant and familiar contact with such
literary celebrities as Southey, Tennyson
Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott Byron, sgd
ney Smith, Coleridge, Moore, Rogers, Car.
lyle, &c, &c. The volumes are largely oc-
cupied with studies In character drawn
from such men, intermingled with the sto
ry of the authors own busy, useful and in
teresting life, told with simplicity, sin
cerity and cnndor that are singularly attrac-
tive. 1t is model biography and alto,
gether an exceptional book of its class.
SERMONS BY Blsnor MATHEW SIMPSON, Of
the Methodist Episcopal Church. Edited
from short hand reports by George H.
Crooks, ID. Harper & Brothers, New
York Jansen, McClurg Co., Chicago;
Hapeman & Graham, Ottawa. 500.
1t Is said of the great Whitfield, that
though few men that ever lived could so
stir an audience, his power lay entirely in
his personal magnetism, his sermons in
print atiording scarcely a clue to their Won
derful effect in the delivery Persons who
ever heard Bishop Simpson Gas the writer
had the good fortune on several occasions)
with the remark in regard to Whitfield in
mind could not we'll help specializing, amid
the glamour of eloquence that spell bound
them, on how such words would really
affect one in cold print. His incisiye tenor
voice I'VE take the liberty to draw some
what on the preface Of DR. Crooks had a
sympathetic quality to find its way 10 the
sources of emotion The hand and arm
sway in gesture tremendously with his
thought and feeling. Evidently the invisi.
bic world is more real 10 the preacher than
the world visible, and he is aiming TO make
il real to the multitude before him, There
is conugion of sympathy eiacula
tons, sObs. The clear, penetrating voice
preserves its firmness; it never breaks up;
never for an instant faiters. Never until
the close is the nearer released from the
spell that is upon him.
A peru,al however, Of the volume before
US, which is made up, not of closet Ser-
mons, but OF stenographic reports OF few
notable extemporaneous discourses on unu.
sual occasions. will show that they are full
of solid meat-example OF clear and strong
thought expressed in most effective Ian
euage anu that, whatever may have been
their loss in the transmission from the voice
TO paper, they are what sermons seldom
are still beautifully adapted to reading
The ADVENTURES or JIMMY BuowN. Written
by Himself and edited by W. l.. Alden.
illustrated Harper Il Brothers, New.
York Jansen, McClurg & Co., Chicago :.
Hapeman x Graham, Ottawa. Slu0.
The Adventures" here embodied in
such neat volume of 23G pages, have APP
peared during the past year in successive
numbers of Harper's Young People, and
must therefore be more or less familiar 10
many Of our readers. 1t is sufficient to say
that Jimmy is boy somewhat after the
order of "Peck's Bad Boy" but of an inti-
nitely more refAed type. The scrapes he
gets into are such as might easily befall
any unusually smart but oyer-coniident boy,
and are always within the range at least OF
Yet they are often ludicrous
In the extreme, and Jimmy's way of rela
ting them is overwhelmingly funny. Older
people will read the book with an audible
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