The Dial/Volume 15/Number 169/Briefer Mention
BRIEFER MENTION.
The second volume has just appeared of Green's "Short History of the English People " (Harper), in the magnificently illustrated edition that we owe to the painstaking scholarship and industry of Mrs. Green and Miss Norgate. This installment carries us through the Reformation period to the death of Elizabeth, two more volumes being necessary to complete the work. The illustrations are very numerous, a mere list of them, with brief descriptive notes, filling nearly thirty pages. It would be superfluous to praise the execution of this work, which is in all respects mechanically satisfactory. It should be found in every library, public or private.
"The Yearbook of Science" for 1892 (Dodd), edited by Professor T. G. Bonney, is the second issue of the series to which it belongs. The departments have been undertaken by the best specialist authorities, and the work offers a manual indispensable to every worker in physics or chemistry, in geology or biology. References are given with unusual precision, and results are so concisely summarized as to permit the inclusion of a vast amount of matter.
Mr. Francis H. Underwood's study of "The Poet and the Man" (Lee & Shepard) gives us both a brief biography of Lowell and a generous tribute to his personal qualities. The author knew Lowell quite intimately for nearly forty years, and, while his book gives us little or nothing that is absolutely new, it has the effect of bringing us very close to the lovable personality of its subject, and to make us realize afresh how worthy were the ideals for which Lowell stood, and how consistent was his devotion to their service. The volume, which is an expansion of an article written for "The Contemporary Review," is prettily printed.
Four pamphlet sermons that come to us from the Rev. James De Normandie, of Boston, are of timely interest. Two of them are memorials, respectively of A. P. Peabody and Bishop Brooks. The others are on "Sunday and the Columbian Fair" and "The Injustice to the Chinese," upon both of which subjects the author discourses with graceful and persuasive eloquence from the humane standpoint. We cordially commend these books to our readers. (Boston: Damrell & Upham.)