This volume treats, under distinct heads, of forty-six persons—including a majority of the poets, novelists, historians, linguistic scholars, and essayists of Scotland at the beginning of this century, with a sprinkling of English and German savants, including Goethe—in a little over three hundred small duodecimo pages. That is to say, it gives an average of seven pages to each author. These seven pages are devoted almost exclusively in each instance to trivial personal anecdotes. From this simple inventory, therefore, it will be easy to form an accurate notion of what the young lady gains mentally as an equivalent for the loss of her new hat.
Considerable space is given, however, to one or two worthies. Of these, William Godwin, the revolutionary propagandist, holds the first place, and with him incidentally his first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This precious pair are handled with great tenderness and unction.
The rest of the volume is made up chiefly of reminiscences of the small literary stars who twinkled round Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh at the beginning of the century, and stole something from the reflection of his brightness, but who are now for the most part forgotten.
In Doors and Out; or, Views from the Chimney Corner. By Oliver Optic. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1876.
Excellent stories, all of which might have been drawn from actual life, are to be found in this volume. Like all of Oliver Optic’s books, it may be safely placed in the hands of young people. Some of the sketches, such as “Good-for-Nothings,” might be read with as much profit as amusement by grown-up persons, especially those who are continually complaining about servant-girls.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXII., No. 132.—MARCH, 1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.