PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Mather Wonders of the Invisible World, to which is added a Further Account of the Tryals of the New England Witches. By Increase Mather. London: John Russell Smith.—Readers of Mrs. Gaskell's interesting little story, "Lois the Witch," will remember the epidemic and belief in witchcraft that caused the deaths of several innocent persons in New England, towards the end of the seventeenth century. The present reprint of two works on the subject, by Cotton and In- crease Mather, two Puritan divines of the time, Is curious evidence how much bloody superstition has been compatible with Christianity, with free institutions, and with the tolerant English nature. The story in which Mr. Hawthorne represents the hangman as looking grimly on at the funeral pyre of all human works and institutions, satisfied that the gallows will never want work while the human heart beats, aptly illustrates the condition of the first American colonists, who left Popery, feudalism, and all miseries of the Old World behind them, except the intolerance and ignorance which had rendered those miseries possible. The stories which induced the two Mathers and their congregations to lay the curse of innocent blood upon their land are not perhaps more monstrous than certain narratives which Mr. Thackemy and Mr. Dickens have thought fit lately to publish in their serials, but, as the work of more vulgar fancies, they are more voracious, less pictorial, and almost more meaningless. "John Louder saw a black thing jump in at the window and come and stand before him. The body was like that of a monkey, the feet like a cock's, but the face much like a man's." John Kembal was troubled with "a little thing like a puppy" that "shot backwards and forwards between his legs." At last as accusations multiplied, it became ne- cessary to invent a theory that the devil might impose on the imagi- nation of persons bewitched, and cause them to believe that an in- nocent, yea, that a pious person doth torment them." At this stage of casuistry, proc,eedings were fortunately stopped by the energy of some in high station who were attacked. One man, Robert Calef, whose name deserves to be historical, had steadily opposed the de- lusion from the first : and before long the people generally looked back with horror and disgust on their panic. Many witnesses con- fessed that they had been frightened into giving false evidence, and the jurors who had condemned, signed a paper expressing their re- pentance. To the scandal and shame of the faith they professed, the two Mathers resisted all conviction. If they were the worse men for this blind bigotry, their books are all the more interesting, as a re- flexion of the times.
alipss on the Sphinx of the Nineteenth Century; or, Politico-Polemical Riddles Interpreted. By an Old-Clothes Philosopher. George Man- waring..—The sphinx of the nineteenth century is sacerdotahsm, and the Wdipus destined in the fulness of time to destroy that monster is Mr. William Brade. Among things not generally known may pro- bably be classed the fact that the serpent of the Garden of Eden was actually a man "in the character of a priest." On such a foundation as this it would be unreasonable to look for a goodly, or very durable structure. Accordingly we are assured that "it is a fact of tremend- ous significance, ominous of disaster for all sacerdotal systems of prreternaturalism (as opposed to the "philosophy of cosmism") that the opening scenes in the Bible are historical of the fall of the first messengers or angels of God upon earth, owing to their being poisoned with the effete system of theological good and evil. And the first story of murder therein recorded, is that between Cain and Abel in a theistic controversy." Without pausing to inquire who was the un- fortunate being whom the brothers murdered between them, we may briefly inform the reader that the earth was peopled with many mil- lions of men at the time when Adam and Eve appeared in the likeness of the Deity. This primary population, if we understand Mr. Brade aright, are "in a fcetal stage of their type of organized existence, and thus are almost all mother's instead of father's children." We retain the present tense because the present generation also belongs to this half-born and wholly unbegotten race. Mankind, it seems, are not "positively or fully born into likeness of, or direct relation to, the eternal Father, until they are, so to speak, 'born again,' that is to say, they must be carried into the omnipresence of their eternal Father, by the parturition throes of vital processes, from their present embryonic condition of existence firthe womb of nature, the universal mother, to this `second birth." In another place we learn that "nature is marsupial to the human race," and further that "a male is a female elevated into a higher manifestation of modes of existence; and that the female appears first as the organic symbol of nature, or the common mother, while the male is the symbol of the common Father." Should the reader fail to catch the exact significance of this definition, it is probably because he does not sufficiently understand that "concept of idea in mind is the reflex action of a gestating pro- cess, and (that) this is not the operation of one but of two eternal entities that have, by their duality, begotten such concept, to be born in the lapse of predestined time." A proper comprehension of "con- cept" is indispensable to all who have the misfortune to encounter tins very silly and pernicious book, the writer of which has photo- graphed himself in the following sentence explanatory of the verse in Ecciesiastes, "Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment, and a babbler is no better." On this Mr. Brade remarks: "A 'babbler' clearly signifies one of those TONGUE-muggers, or book contributors to the theistical Tower of Babblement, or Babel, that was designed to elevate the human soul above the great flooding waters of everlasting oblivion in which they feared to be engulphed with the perishing brutes." The "Old-Clothes Philosopher" evidently sat to himself for his own likeness. Before throwing aside this miserable monument of human folly, we should not omit to mention, for the benefit and encou- ragement of evildoers, that for such there is no existence beyond the grave. The good who have their names inscribed in the book of life will be roused after a certain period of hybemation to a better state of things, but the wicked will sleep on for ever. "Life is a gift, and death as the loss of that gift is the eternal punishment. For if life be made eternal, death as its antithesis must be eternal also." The Burlington Music Album, 1862. Cocks and Co.—The intrinsic merits of music albums, Christmas gift-books, annuals, et hoc genus onine, is generally in inverse proportion to the splendour of their binding, and the publication before us is no exception to the rule. The somewhat sombre exterior—positively neither mauve nor magenta in colour—con- tains a selection of drawing-room music of, on:the whole, considerably eater merit than one would expect to find in a "music album." The dance music, principally by Carl Faust of Breslau, will doubtless prove acceptable at many a Christmas party, and the " pieces," properly so called, are moderately brilliant, without being, as is often the case, so difficult as to tempt both performers and hearers to exclaim, as Dr. Johnson once did at the close of a display of piano "execution," "would they were impossible." The vocal pieces are not so good; that by the Hon. Mrs. Norton being the only one likely to become a favourite.
The Progress of Economic Science during the last Thirty rears: an Opening Address. By William Nevnnarch, F.R.S.—As 'President of the Section (F) of Economic Science and Statistics at the 31st annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Manchester in the course of last autumn, it became Mr. Newmarch's duty to deliver an inaugural address, which is now reprinted as a separate pamphlet from the Journal qf the Statistical Society of London. The end proposed to himself by the learned chairman was to show that, however wide and rapid, may of late years have been the progress achieved in Physical Science, not less satis- factory results have been attained in the domains of Economic Science and Statistical Inquiry. There are still, however, three fields of investigation to be explored and cultivated, namely, currency, the value of labour and division of employments, and interference by the State. It is the last question, he thinks, that presents the greatest diffi-
culties, though he is inclined to believe that in i the present complicated condition of society, there a large class of cases in which indivichial agency wholly fails to protect the plainest individual rights." It is almost superfluous to remark that Mr. Newmarch's address is eminently suggestive, and will amply repay the slight trouble of perusal.
Some Points of the Education Question, practically considered with reference to the Report of the Commissioners and Me New Minutes. With a brief Outline of the Rise and Progress of Popular Education in England. By Arthur Garin, M.A., Sc. (Longman and Co.) Ursula. A Tale of Country Life. By the Author of "Amy Herbert." (Long- man and Co.) Notes on the Chase of the Wild Red Deer in the Counties of Devon and Somerset. By Charles Palk Collyna. (Longmanand Co.) Title Deeds of the Church of England to her Parochial Endowments. By Edward Mita (Longman and Co.) Gloucester Fragments. L—Facsimile of some leaves in Saxon Handwriting on Saint Swidhun, copied by Photography at the Ordnance Survey Office, South- ampton; and published with Elucidations and an Essay. By John Earle, M.A, Sc,. (Longman and Co.) Seven Answers to the Seven Essays and Reviews. By John Nash Griffin, M.A., Sc. With an Introduction by the Right Honourable Joseph Napier, late Lord Chancellor of Ireland. (Longman and Co.)
The Iliad of Homer, in English Hexameter Verse, By J. Henry Dart, M.A., Sc. Part I, Books 1.—XII. (Longman and Co.)
A Book of Family Prayer, compiled chiefly from the Devotions of Jeremy Taylor and other Divines of the Seventeenth Century. (Longman and Co.) Regeneration, By William Anderson, LL.D. Second Edition. (Adam and Charles Black.) History of the Opera, from its Origin in Italy to the Present Time; with Anecdotes • of the most celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe. By Sutherland Ed.- • wards. (W. H. Allen and Co.) Words of Comfort for Parents bereaved of Little Children. Edited by William Logan. With an Introduction by the Rev. William Anderson, LL.D., Glasgow. (James Nisbet.) Poems and Sketches. By the Rev. Alexander Wallace. (Hamilton, Adams, and Co.) Ancient Colkcts and other Prayers, selectedfor Devotional Use from various Ritual,; with an Appendix on the Collects in the Prayer Book. By William Bright, M.A., Sc. Second Edition, enlarged. (J. H. and J. Parker.) The London Diocesan Calendar and Clergy List, 1862. IL and J. Parker.) A Present Heaven. Addressed to a Friend. By the Author of " The Patience of Hope." Second Edition. (Alexander Strahan ) Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic; or, Contributions to the Modern History of Hungary and Transylvania, Dalmatia and Croatia, Servia, and Bulgaria. By A. A. Paton, PROS. (Tritbner and Co.) The History of Shorthand Writing ; to which is prefixed the System used by the Author. By Mathias Levy. grainier and Ca)
The Proverbs of tycotland, collected and arranged, with Notes, explanatory and illus-
trative, and a Glossary. By Alexander Hislop. (Porteous and Hittlop.) Beaten Path:, and Those who Trod Them. By Thomas Colley Grattan. In two volumes. (Chapman and Hall.) The Annals of the English Bible. By Christopher Anderson. A New and Revised Edition. (Jackson, Watford, and Hodder.)
Shakespeare. A Reprint of his Collected Works, as put forth in 1623. Part L, containing the Comedies. (Lionel Booth.)
Snow-Bound in Gleeberrie Grange. A Christmas Story, By George E. Roberts. (Joseph Masters.)
Sylvester Enderby, the Poet. A Tale. By Louis Sand. (Joseph Masters.)
SERIALS.
The Medical Critic and Psychological Journal. (J. W. Davies.) A Popular History of England. Part LV1. (Bradbury and Evans.) Once a Week. Part ILX.X. (Bradbury and Evans.) PAMPHLETS.
The Education of the Middle Classes. By A. B. (J. H. and J. Parker.) Prints for Cottage Walls. (J. H. and J. Parker.)
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