"The habits of all classes were open, free, and liberal. There are two expressions, corresponding one to the other, which we frequently meet with in old writings, and which are used as a kind of index, marking whether the condition of things was or was not what it ought to be. We read of 'merry England';—when England was not merry, things were not going well with it. We hear of the 'glory of hospitality,' England's pre-eminent boast,—by the rules of which all tables, from the table of the twenty-shilling freeholder to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at the dinner hour to all comers, without stint or reserve, or question asked: to every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it, there was free fare and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his lodging, perhaps, only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with a billet of wood for a pillow, but freely offered and freely taken, the guest probably faring much as his host fared, neither worse nor better. There was little fear of an abuse of such licence, for suspicious characters had no leave to wander at pleasure; and for any man found at large, and unable to give a sufficient account of himself, there were the ever-ready parish stocks or town gaol. The 'glory of hospitality' lasted far down into Elizabeth's time; and then, as Camden says, 'came in great bravery of building, to the great beautifying of the realm, but to the decay' of what he valued more.
"In such frank style the people lived, hating three things with all their hearts: idleness, want, and cowardice; and for the rest, carrying their hearts high, and having their hands full. The hour of rising, winter and summer, was four o'clock, with breakfast at five, after which the laborers went to work, and the gentlemen to business, of which they had no little. In the country every unknown face was challenged and examined,—if the account given was insufficient, he was brought before the justice; if the village shopkeeper sold bad wares, if the village cobbler made 'unhonest' shoes, if servants and masters quarrelled, all was to be looked to by the justice; there was no fear lest time should hang heavy with him. At twelve he dined; after dinner he went hunting, or to his farm, or to do what be pleased. It was a life unrefined, perhaps, but colored with a broad, rosy English health."
THE AMERICAN ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA AND REGISTER OF IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1864.
8vo., pp. 838. New York: D. Appleton & Company.
The Annual Cyclopedia grows more and more valuable and interesting every year. The present volume is a great improvement upon all that have gone before it. The course of events has been unusually varied and startling, and the topics suggested by it appear to have been for the most part selected with good judgment and treated by competent writers. We have under the head of "Army Operations" an admirable history of Sherman's great march and of Grant's campaign in the wilderness, both illustrated with maps. The article on the "Army of the United States" abounds in information respecting the number of troops, organization, supplies, department and corps commanders, etc., such as everybody wants to have, but nobody knows where to look for. Under the titles of "Confederate" and "United States Congress" we have a complete political history of our country during the last year, while the condition and progress of the several foreign states are treated in their proper places. A great deal of interesting matter is given in the articles on the "Anglican" and "Greek" Churches, "Commerce" and "Commercial Intercourse," "Diplomatic Correspondence and Foreign Relations," "Finances of the United States," "Freedmen," "Freedom of the Press," "Geographical Explorations and Discoveries," "Literature and Literary Progress," "Military Surgery and Medicine" (profusely illustrated), "Navy," "Ordnance," "Petroleum," etc., etc. [{719}] Under the head of "Public Documents" is the most correct translation of the Pope's Encyclical and syllabus of errors condemned that has yet appeared in this country. Biographical sketches are also given of the most distinguished men who died during the course of the year.
SONGS FOR ALL SEASONS. By Alfred Tennyson. With illustrations by D. Maclise, T. Creswick, S. Eytinge, C. A. Barry, H. Fenn, and G. Perkins. 16mo., pp. 84. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
HOUSEHOLD POEMS. By Henry W. Longfellow. With illustrations by John Gilbert, Birket Foster, and John Absolon. 16mo., pp. 96. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
The series of "Companion Poets for the People," of which these two volumes are the first issues, deserves special commendation as an example of the way in which cheapness and elegance may be combined. For half a dollar Messrs. Ticknor & Fields offer us a neat little book, printed in the best style of typography, on rich tinted paper, with a clean broad margin, and some twelve or fifteen wood-cuts by reputable artists. The selections appear to have been made with good judgment, and include some late pieces of both Tennyson and Longfellow which are not to be found in previous editions of their works.
THE HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND, AND IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE, AND NORTHERN EUROPE.
IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS, REVIEWING D'AUBIGNÉ, MENZEL, HALLAM, BISHOP SHORT, PRESCOTT, RANKE, FRYXELL, AND OTHERS.
By M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop Baltimore. Fourth revised edition, Two volumes in one. 8vo., pp. 494 and 509. Baltimore: John Murphy & Company.
We welcome this new and improved edition of the best antidote that has yet been prepared for English readers to the common misrepresentations of Protestant historians of the reformation. Archbishop Spalding's book has been so long before the public, and has been received with such general favor, that it would be superfluous at this late day to enter upon a general examination of its merits. It will prove a valuable guide to the student of English and continental history; he will find here the chief points made against the Church, by the long list of writers named in the title-page, taken up and answered by a prelate of high reputation for sound and thorough scholarship. Dr. Spalding of course does not deny that there were abuses in the 16th century which ought to have been abolished; but he contends that the gravity and extent of these disorders have been greatly exaggerated; that they generally originated in the world and its princes, not in the Church; most of them being due to the fact that bad men were thrust into high ecclesiastical places by worldly-minded and avaricious sovereigns; that there was a lawful and efficacious remedy for all such evils, which consisted in giving to the popes their due power and influence in the nomination of bishops and in the deliberations of general councils; in a word, that "reformation within the Church, and not revolution outside of it, was the only proper, lawful, and efficacious remedy for existing evils;" and finally, "that the fact of Christians having at length felt prepared to resort to the desperate and totally wrong remedy of revolution was owing to a train of circumstances which had caused faith to wane and grow cold, and which now appealed more to the passions than to reason, more to human considerations than to the principles of divine faith and the interests of eternity."
THE YEAR OF MARY; OR, THE TRUE SERVANT OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.
Translated from the French of Rev. M. d'Arville, Apostolic Prothonotary. Edited, and in part translated, by Mrs. J. Sadlier. 12mo. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.
This is a work intended for the use either of private persons or of confraternities, sodalities, and similar associations formed in honor of the Blessed Virgin. The matter is distributed into exercises, the number of which is fixed at seventy-two, because our Lady is supposed to have lived seventy-two years on earth. One exercise is appropriated to each of the Sundays and principal festivals of the year.