ing of the poet's personal career, the interior history of his literary life, his mode of studying his subjects, the connection of his works with the persons and events of his time, the influences that formed his character and gave him his place in his own age and in the ages of literature. If there is any defect in the author's delineations, it is more from the want of a thorough philosophical training than from the poverty of his literary knowledge and accomplishment. The sketches are very graphic, agreeable, and in the main satisfactory. Some features are quite novel in university lectures, such as the minute accounts of Goethe's loveaffairs and the liberal allowance for his flirtations, in connection with the strong disposition to vindicate his morality, as in the case of the Countess von Stein, who is represented as an exemplary woman, enthusiastic for literary genius.

There are twenty-five lectures in this course, and they consider Goethe's life in two unequal parts, the Frankfort period, 1749-76, and the Weimar period, 1776-1832. The Weimar period is again divided, by the poet's journey into Italy in 1786 and 1787, into two unequal portions, and when he returned from Italy, in 1787, he was in some respects a new man,- no longer a court functionary as before, but a devoted student, thinker, and poet, a votary of science and art for themselves. The lectures follow his career with considerable minuteness until the death of Schiller in 1805, which is reached in the twenty-first lecture, and the space remaining is given to the general characteristics of his life and works, with especial emphasis upon "Faust," the poem which is represented as embodying the poet's own experience, and as being the most original production of our age, if not of any age; Faust himself being a creation before whom the heroes of history hide their diminished heads, and in whose presence fancy is shown to be more true and real than what usually passes for fact.

The most important bearing of this book of Grimm is its influence upon the general estimate of Goethe as a man, and in this respect the result is favorable. He is shown to have been laborious, affectionate, charitable, and self-controlled. Even in his relations with women, where his softness sometimes appeared, he is seen to have been more susceptible than selfish, and in prominent cases more ready to protect weakness than to tempt folly. The story of his connection with the coarse, gifted woman who was his wife, after being his mistress, is frankly told, not without brightening light upon his married life, yet without removing English and American dislike of such laxity. The disquisitions upon Goethe's influence upon the new literature, especially upon romance and the drama, amply reward the reading of the whole book.

15.

Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life. Edited by his Wife. Abridged from the London Edition. New York: ¦ Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. 1877. 12mo. pp. 502.

FEW men within the narrow limits of a country parish were ever more busy than Charles Kingsley, few from such possible obscurity have reached out to a wider present influence, and few have left a similar record of charming home life. The story here modestly told by Mrs. Kingsley with tender affection and excellent taste reminds one of what Coleridge said of Keble's life at Hursley Vicarage, though no men could have been wider asunder in their ways of looking at the same truths than Kingsley and Keble. The one, stepping out into the broad arena of modern thought and life, did what the other accomplished by his authority in the direction of pure ecclesiasticism, and both had that genuine literary faculty by which in the common sphere of the imagination they went beyond the bounds of creed and became religious teachers to the wide world. Mr. Kingsley inherited a passionate intensity of nature, which, unfitting him for the silent studies of a man like Mill, made him the excellent intermediate between the investigating student and the eager public. He was never in matters of thought exactly a self-contained man. Carlyle's "French Revolution" was his book for restful reading, and Carlyle in earlier, and Maurice in later years divided the honor of being his master and leader. And yet, if not himself a leader in the highest sense, he was certainly the leader of the multitude as the exponent of their thoughts. The interest in the story of his life in England is proof of the intense sympathy which all classes have with a man who was at once poet, novelist, preacher, professor, ecclesiastic, and scientist, and who was second-rate in nothing which he did. His career of usefulness in a private station has seldom been surpassed. Great indignation was aroused against him for "Alton Locke," and afterwards for "Yeast," because he had championed the Chartist and socialistic movements which aimed to protect the workingmen, and an Oxford professor could even scent the heresy of immorality in "Hypatia"; but all this he lived down by his own inherent goodness, better known in the lapse of years, and though he died at the early age of fifty-six, he had accomplished as much during these years in each of many departments of activity as most men with a longer life perform

in one.

Mrs. Kingsley has been true to the memory of her husband in these pages, which are rather improved by the abridgment of the American editor, and the story has abundant merits as the full sketch of Charles

Kingsley in his essentially private life, but the memoir and letters have an independent value for the glimpses of the society of the best people in England during the middle of this century. Maurice, Carlyle, Max Müller, Tennyson, Froude, Hughes, Stanley, are a few of the persons who appear in these pages, and Kingsley gradually found himself sought out as the most desirable guest or companion wherever he went; but there are no traces of the morbid man of genius, and dangerous as were his socialistic affiliations at one period of his life, he never quite lost his balance. The qualities which give present value to these memoirs are what contribute to the value of his novels. They are largely photographs of current society and present thought. Kingsley was emphatically the man of his age, and whatever other men felt or believed he felt and believed too. Such a man is seldom consistent in thought, however he may be at heart. "You logical Scotchmen must construct consistent theories," he once said to the "Country Parson," known as A. K. H. B.; "I have intuitions of individual truth. How they are to be reconciled I know not." But his very inconsistencies as the expression of his personal convictions give a certain charm to this memoir, and in a higher sense there was no inconsistency in his way of holding and teaching the highest truths and convictions. His life carries to men a splendid example of untiring, unselfish work, in which the man always rose to his opportunity, and without the egotism and ambition which usually accompany men of genius, responded manfully to the promptings of the spirit within and of duty without. If not as great as his admirers would be inclined to rate him, few in his generation have lived a more useful or a nobler life.

16.

A Ride to Khiva. By FRED BURNABY. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1877.

Or the many books on Central Asia printed during the last twelvemonth, Captain Burnaby's narrative of his journey on horseback through the Aral desert to Khiva is the most spirited and readable. He does not give us so much information regarding the resources of the country visited or the social condition of its people as other travellers have collected in other parts of Turkistan, but he is endowed with the literary faculty, which cannot be said of all the workers in this field. Nevertheless, this volume, like the works of Schuyler and Arnold, is not free from the suspicion of bookmaking, because like them it wastes much space on the preliminary jaunt through European Russia, a theme which by this time is somewhat trite. When, however, he reaches

Khivan territory, after successfully traversing the most impracticable and ill-watered waste of Asia, with no escort except two or three fainthearted and stupid servants, he has much to tell us that is novel and interesting. It will be remembered that Schuyler was unable to visit this, the most flourishing and latest conquered of the three Khanates, and it is evident from Captain Burnaby's experience that the Russian officials are still unwilling to allow the state of things in that quarter to be scrutinized by Europeans, since, although our author's journey was nominally countenanced, his guide was secretly directed to conduct him, not to the Khan's capital, but to Fort Alexandrovsk on the east bank of the Oxus. When this order was evaded, and the presence of the Englishman in Khiva became known, he was at once summoned to the post named, but meanwhile he had contrived to crowd a good deal of sight-seeing into a few days, and had convinced himself that the Russian hold upon this Khanate is precarious, while England is regarded as the natural ally of the Mohammedans in Turkistan. Our traveller had an interview, for instance, with the Khan's treasurer, who was extremely anxious to learn his business, and to know if he had been sent to Khiva by the English government. The man expressed much surprise that the Russians had not stopped Captain Burnaby on the route, but when he learned that the latter had not yet been at Fort Alexandrovsk, "Ah, that accounts for it," he said, with a sarcastic laugh. "They do not much love you English people, though by all accounts you are now on speaking terms and not at war." "Do you think this state of things will last long?" the Englishman asked. The man grinned, and stretching out his arm pointed eastward. "They are pushing onward," he replied, "you will have an opportunity of shaking hands with your friends, before long. Four years ago we were quite as far from Russia as you are at the present time; and you have not many white men in India." To the same purport was a conversation which the writer of this book had with the sovereign himself. This Asiatic ruler, he tells us, is taller than the average of his subjects, being quite five feet ten in height, and is strongly built; his face is of a broad massive type, he has a low square forehead, large dark eyes, a short straight nose with dilated nostrils, and a coal-black beard and mustache, while " an enormous mouth with irregular but white teeth, and a chin somewhat concealed by his beard, and not at all in character with the otherwise determined appearance of his face," completes the picture. One of the first questions the Khan asked of the English stranger was whether it were true that the son of the latter's queen had lately married the daughter of the Czar, and he was also very anxious to know whether Englishmen loved the Russians as much as the latter said they

did; "for if I am to believe what I hear from other sources," he continued, "and particularly through the Bokharans, there is not much love lost between the two countries, and the people in India are not at all eager to have their dear friends as such near neighbors." And then followed an amusing speech: "You had a war with Russia some years ago, and were the allies of the Sultan. There was another Khan, however, who helped you at that time, and from all accounts you took some Russian territory. Now," pursued the speaker, "I want to know if it is true that the Khan who was then your friend has been since defeated by another power, and that thereupon the Russians laughed at you, and said you were weak and could not fight without your friend, after which they retook all the territory they had previously lost." Of course Captain Burnaby repudiates this view of contemporary history, but the Khan after a pause goes on, "We Mohammedans used to think that England was our friend because she helped the Sultan, but you have let the Russians take Taschkent, conquer me, and make her way into Khokand." The Khivan sovereign winds up with an inquiry which in the light of recent telegrams from Eastern Turkistan we can see was singularly pertinent, "What shall you do about Kashgar? Shall you defend Kashgar or not?" On the whole, the impression left on his visitor's mind was that the Khan was the most intelligent and least bigoted Mussulman in his dominions. Of the Khivans generally, indeed, Captain Burnaby conceived a high opinion. He rates their civilization much higher than that of the rural provinces even in European Russia, and states that, owing to the custom of surrounding every farm or garden with high and strong stone-walls, the country is admirably adapted for defence. He is confident that with the help of a few English engineers and some modern artillery the Khivan territory might easily have been secured against the Russians, and he intimates that it might be as easily recovered. The writer of this book makes no secret of his conviction that the collision between the governments of Taschkent and Calcutta cannot be long delayed, and in that event it is to be hoped that England may have the services of many officers as accomplished as himself, who unites to the qualities of the soldier an intimate acquaintance with Mohammedan usages and prejudices, and a mastery of the Arabic and its derivative languages which few Europeans possess.