itself most naturally in the foreign idiom. Such phrases as "Figure to yourself"-"But yes" " My very dear" are not English :-the humor, the transparent refinement of the story, the cool, moderate tints with which it is drawn, are unmistakably so, as well as a certain quiet pathos here and there, which differs as widely from the thing recognized as "sentiment on the un-English side of the channel as daylight from gas. It is the picture of a French landscape from a British paint-brush, and cleverly and justly given. This is the story. Renée Dalabarde, a willful little rose with many prickles, spoiled, impetuous, capricious as Undine, marries Jean de Savigny, lord of the Château of Lestourdes in the Pyrenees. Jean adores his wife, and she likes being adored, and likes being rich and being a countess, and might have been fairly happy and no subject for history had it not been for the machinations of a dreadful uncle named Armand Dufavre. This uncle, having committed sundry forgeries and other misdemeanors, has changed his name, and bullies Renée, who discovers the truth before her marriage, into conniving at the deception, and even at his being made Intendant over her husband's estates. Of course the secret hangs like the sword of Damocles over her head-and equally of course is at last discovered. Jean, half ruined by his Intendant, hardens his heart against Renée, who, suspecting but not daring to assure herself of the truth, goes on desperately in her career of gayety. Finally, at a fête given in the rose garden, from which the novel is named, the whole disgraceful story is made public. Renée has a fever afterward and nearly dies. But in the end we leave her happy and forgiven. The charm of the story lies in the simple yet subtle methods by which the characters are made to unfold themselves without visible interference from the author, in the delicate sentiment which pervades | like perfume, and the picturesque setting of the whole. There is some admirable drawing in the portraits of M. de Méhun, Renée's dull, ponderous, loyal lover; of Gabrielle, who loves Jean; of Jacqueline, the fractious old servant. A touch here and there suggests Miss Thackeray, to whom at first people were disposed to attribute the book, but the likeness is a surface one. The Rose Garden has a flavor all its own. We remember no novel to which it seems so much akin as A Lost Love, by Ashford Owen, and to those who know that pretty story we can scarcely offer a higher recommendation. A New Book on Birds. WHAT has been hitherto a great want in American Natural History, namely, a compact and inexpensive synopsis of the birds of North America, will be met in a work shortly to appear from the press of the American Naturalist Publishing Company at Salem, Massachusetts. The author, Dr. Elliott Coues, Assistant Surgeon, U.S.A., has long been known as one of our most accomplished and reliable ornithologists, a devotion of many years to this study, both in our public museums and in the field, having given him unusual qualifications for such labor. His accounts of the history and habits of our birds, as published in The American Naturalist, in the London Ibis, and elsewhere, are among the most sparkling and entertaining of the writings of that class, fully equal in vivacity to the charming biographies of Audubon. This new work, which Dr. Coues is now pushing rapidly through the press, does not include any notices of habits of the species, this being incompatible with the plan of a compact hand-book. Its object is to give, in the least possible space, a plain, concise, and intelligible description of the genera and species of our birds, with special reference to use by those who are entirely ignorant of the ordinary technicalities of ornithological science, For this purpose the doctor has devised a very ingenious artificial key to the families and genera of birds, by which a child, even, can determine with astonishing precision whether a given specimen before him belongs to one or other of these groups. The search being thus narrowed down to a small number of species, it becomes a very easy matter to go through the descriptions of the latter and fix upon the true name. The work is accompanied by numbers of outline wood-cuts, representing the characteristic features of the families and genera, and to some extent of the species, so as greatly to facilitate the labor of determination. It also contains an excellent account of the anatomy of birds in general, and their embryology, the development of particular tissues, as the feathers, and many other points of general interest. Taking it all in all, we feel safe in predicting for the work a cordial reception and a great success. It is especially adapted as a text-book for instruction; and to the sportsman or naturalist, who wishes to carry with him in his travels the means of determining the birds he may meet with, the work will be invaluable. "Music and Morals." ON a matter of such universal and vital interest to cultivated people as music, one good talker the more is always welcome. Mr. Haweis's book on Music and Morals, published by Messrs. Harper & Bros., is a collection of genial and thoughtful though discursive papers, apparently first published in magazineserial form, and embracing a wide range of themes, all more or less nearly connected with his main subject-music. The first part is devoted to a theoretical examination of the essential nature of musical expression. It takes strong grounds against the modern Wagnerian school, which aims at definite expression, by melodies and harmonies, of events, scenes, situations, or distinct thoughts-in short, of the descriptive school in general. His doctrine is, that music merely awakens in us emotions like those which may be roused in our souls by a multifariety of outer or inner impulsions, and hence can never be reduced to exact or logical interpretation, but is all the grander and more imaginative for that. An immediate and perhaps over-drawn conclusion from his premises is to infer the aesthetic worthlessness of the opera, since music, as he has claimed, can rouse or suggest emotion, but never describe action or event. His brief sketches of the lives of great composers, in which he dwells with especial affection on Handel and Gluck, are of course biographically incomplete, but suggestive, and will offer welcome hints to the many who love music, but have no time for research in the literate or history of the art. Very curious, too, and tinged with all the peculiar flavor of an intelligent connoisseurship, are his chapters on violins and violin-makers, on bells, and on the Belgian and other carillons or chimes. We can state, in summing up, that Mr. Haweis writes like a gentleman and a scholar, not to mention that his every statement carries with it the impression that he knows his subject thoroughly, from a technical and artistic no less than from a literary point of view. The Princess and the Goblin. lin story; and the distinction is a real one, and at first sight quite a dreadful one, were it not that Mr. Macdonald's goblins are kept well in check, and never allowed to scare one unduly. Their function, indeed, becomes one of edification rather than of terror. It is sufficiently evident from Mr. Macdonald's other writings that he does not regard as a means of grace that kind of blood-curdling, flesh-creeping horror for which some children, and some grown people too, have such a morbid appetite. Those who have read At the Back of the North Wind will be able to guess what kind of a book is waiting for them in The Princess and the Goblin. And when we add that the illustrations of the present volume are from the same pencil that wrought so airily and so lovingly for the "North Wind," we have said all that is needful. Such admirable goblins as Mr. Dalgrill gives us-not too fearful, but quite disagreeable and dreadful enough for one to have nothing to do with them-are the very images of what Mr. Macdonald had in his fancy as he wrote. Especially felicitous are some of the parenthetic comments, sometimes given in italics, with which the author hints the moral (if one must use that obnoxious word) as he proceeds. It is worth any one's while to notice why it is that a princess is the heroine of the story. And when the little Princess Irene has lost herself (page 12), there is a whole volume of religious suggestion in the sentence, "It doesn't follow that she was lost, because she had lost herself, though." It is the persistent hopefulness, and patient faith, and Christ-like sweetness of sympathy suggested by this sentence, which, more perhaps than anything else, gives to the most fanciful, and even to the most whimsical of Mr. Macdonald's writings such singular THE readers of SCRIBNER'S need no introduction to Mr. George Macdonald, and will be glad enough to read his books without any urgency of exhortation in these pages. But we may call especial attention, from time to time, to some of his works which are less widely known than the stories which have made his name so pleasantly familiar. A Philadelphia house has republished one of those charming, dreamy, halfrevealing, half-concealing poems in prose, such as no man except Macdonald among living authors could write. (The Princess and the Goblin. By George Macdonald. With many illustrations. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.) It is not, as the author is at pains to explain at the outset, a fairy story, but a gob-religious power and popularity. ETCHINGS. RHYME AND REASON. I'VE brought my heroine through the thick Of troubles out-and in-do', Nor thought at last to let her stick Beside an open window! She's waited while I chased a rhyme From Turkestan to Hindo It's quite too bad so long a time Why can't my muse make some curvet, A fine catarrh she's like to get The couplet will not come, 'tis clear, "Hark! hark! the dogs do bark!" THE great yellow Schlank with a cold in her throat, Coach-dogs spotted, and wolf-dogs gaunt; Mastiffs, boarhounds, Eskemo, Every dog of every kind, Of every temper and every mind, "The beggars have come to town"— Some in a manner to make you shiver The style of a foot-pad-"Stand and deliver!" Some with subtle flattery coax you; Hats with broad brims, hats with small rims, High hats, flat hats, hats with low crowns, Easy coats, greasy coats, great-coats, show-coats, "And some in velvet gowns." Those are the fellows who beg the first, And beg the hardest and beg the worst :Brokers who beg your cash for a "margin," With profit at naught and a very huge charge in; Mining fellows with melting-pots; Speculators in water-lots; Smooth-faced gentleman, high in station, Seedy writers who have an infernal For place in a race that can't be won; |