Springfield Weekly Republican

BOOKS, AUTHORS AND ART.

THE CYCLOPEDIA FOR 1864.

A. Burt of this city has now ready for delivery the American Annual Cyclopædia for the last year, a volume so rich in interest and so thoroughly prepared that those having the previous numbers will at once add it to their invaluable set. This number gives more than a hundred pages to army affairs in this country, and even larger space to a careful résumé of the proceedings of Congress for the year. Besides maps and pictures, the military spirit has shown itself in good portraits of our four leading generals, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and Thomas. Eighteen pages are given to the history of petroleum, and adequate space and attention to other discoveries and enterprises of the time. The literary record for 1864 is a very cheering one. Notwithstanding the high prices of all articles concerned in the production of books, the number issued is nearly equal to that of any former year, with a decided improvement in the character of the works. We have had comparatively few reprints, mostly fictions, while history, biography and essays, often of a high order, have been in great and growing demand. The publication by the Messrs. Merriam of this place of their new and magnificent edition of Webster's Dictionary is justly commended as "in many respects the greatest addition to the philology of the present age that has appeared within half a century." Within the year forty new poets have attained for their productions the dignity of covers, in which, if they die, they may at least secure decent burial. The dime press of Beadle & Co. has issued more than six millions of their cheap and popular works, about two-thirds of them novels, mostly by American authors, and all of blameless moral tone. Their sales of single novels range from 80,000 to 300,000 copies, while of the National Tax Law they have sold 200,000, and of the Dime Song Book 300,000. The volume gives obituaries of many distinguished persons who have died during the past year. Among those connected with letters we notice Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dr. Hitchcock and Miss Fisk (of Shelburne) in this state, Prof. Silliman of Connecticut, and Henry R. Schoolcraft, Park Benjamin, George P. Morris and Mrs. C. M. Kirkland of New York. There is also a brief biographical notice of Hon. Justice Willard of this city.

BOOKS OF NATIONAL INTEREST.

A Boston firm has issued a beautiful edition of the Speeches of John Bright, the noble English statesman who, though himself largely interested in the cotton trade, saw clearly from the first the main facts in regard to the American question, and labored hard to enlighten his friends. The speeches which the volume gives us, wholly or in part, are ten in number, and are throughout the vigorous utterance of generous and manly thoughts,—as when he said to the Lancashire working-men early in '63: "I advise you not to believe in the destruction of the American nation; if facts should by any chance happen to force you to believe it, don't commit the crime of wishing it." The book has a capital likeness of the gallant M. P., and contains not a sentiment that does not do him honor.

Before the close of the war a collection of Soldiers' Letters was prepared for publication in behalf of the sanitary commission, the profits from its sale being devoted to that incomparable enterprise of love. The war is now over but the labors of the commission have not ceased. There are yet sick and wounded soldiers to be aided to their homes, and numbers of our gallant defenders for whom its agents are procuring the long deferred pay. We pity the individual who has lived through this four years' struggle without sharing in the kindly labors of the sanitary commission. One opportunity to aid it yet remains. Buy this book, a work replete with patriotism in frank, unstudied and entertaining forms; the purchaser will thus feel that he has taken part in a system of beneficence which the world will never cease to admire.

J. T. Headley, the pungent and prolific, has a work in press with the title Grant and Sherman, their Campaigns and Generals, written in his usual spirited and effective style. It is well printed, in fine large type, and illustrated by numerous steel engravings. We have received advance sheets, from which we give a brief extract, as evidence of the writer's skill in word-painting; the period referred to is April of last year:

Grant had determined that when he gave the word for the mighty host stretching from the Mississippi to the Atlantic to move, it should be a fair test between the power of the North and South—that the coming struggle should be conclusive and final. All through the early spring the countless railroads of the North groaned under the weight of troops, either new levies or old soldiers returning to their respective regiments. Transports loaded with ordnance and supplies darkened all our water courses. . . . Neither was the navy idle, for six hundred vessels of war hung like full-charged thunder-clouds around the rebel fortifications. . . . When everything was ready, the two armies arose from their long inaction and moved forward. The great bell of destiny hung in the blue dome of heaven began to toll the knell of the confederacy, and the solemn sound never ceased till its hideous form was laid in its deep, dark grave forever."

A full report of the trial of the conspirators for the murder of the president has been prepared by Ben: Perley Poore, designed for preservation in a permanent form. A portion of it has appeared in a large and handsome volume of more than four hundred pages, and it is hoped a second volume may complete the work. As this is in some respects the most important state trial in our national existence, as it will hold a prominent place in history and will long be discussed and referred to both at home and abroad, and as no human memory can possibly retain all the facts therein stated, many persons will be glad to secure it in the form now offered. We understand it to be a verbally accurate report of the entire testimony in court, with appropriate introductory and connecting remarks. The book is in every way very well got up.

FICTIONS, MATURE AND JUVENILE.

Alexander Smith, the Scotch poet, lecturer and essayist, has tried his hand at novel writing. His first effort in that line, Alfred Hagart's Wife, is a simple story of Scottish provincial life, its leading characters being a tasteful but thriftless artist, who subsists by pattern-drawing, his high-born mate, with her wifely gentleness and womanly tact, the two children and their wealthy and eccentric maiden aunt. All the characters are quietly but effectively drawn; we drop a tear over the grave of Katy and smile at Jack's ambition, a little fearful how he may get on with the hard-featured patroness in whose care we leave him. The story closes abruptly, leaving the impression that it is to be continued. We hope it may be.

We have before us three religious narratives adapted to Sunday schools. Forty Acres and Other Stories is a reprint from the English; it is well printed and well written, the tales are full of interest, and the religious lessons, though earnest, are not sectarian. Clara Dwight, and its successor, The Young Teacher, are stories published originally by the Massachusetts Sabbath school society, and, though very good books of their kind, are Calvinistic in their teachings. To many persons this fact will recommend them, while those professedly liberal will find books elsewhere better adapted to their tastes.

PERIODICALS.

The Atlantic for August opens with an essay on bees and their habits, by Harriet Prescott, followed by a seven-page love-poem by George H. Boker. Epes Sargent's tale of home strategy is as spicy as love and war can make it. Miss Cummins completes her "twelve hours' sail round Mull," and G. W. Towle offers a sketch of our English friend John Bright, a pen picture fitly lit with his noble words just published by his intimate Brown. "Needle and Garden" progresses with beth C. Akewillow" is a pretty poem by Enza- ing story by a Vd "My Second Capture" a thrill- "Doctor Johns eless hand. Mitchell's serial of writes a few fine b. coutinued, Mrs. Whitney Stowe from her "Chin upon "Peace," and Mis diguant sorrow over iIn Corner" weeps in in- southern prisons. This isanhood ourraged in number, full of bloom and rigood midsummer