Man will always, in some guise or other, manifest his faith in and dependence on miracles, and will never cease to implore the special interposition of the Deity. It is so much simpler thus to make a daily convenience of his Creator than to consult those dry abstractions, the laws of Nature. Of this deep and tiresome x and y he has not time to solve the equation, granting it to be, in its ultimate terms, soluble. Who shall say in each instance whether the impulse to decline that method and adopt the shorter be superstition or religion?

Whether looked on as a picture or a mirror, a work such as this has lasting value. It enables us at any time to gauge the progress of enlightenment, to ascertain what real gain has been made, what is delusive, and what remains to be done that it is possible to do; for we must not expect the record of human fatuity to be closed in our day.

The Witchery of Archery. By Maurice Thompson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The author of this little volume certainly succeeds in proving the truth of his title to the extent of convincing his readers that archery has its witchery; and we gather from his words that he has made practical converts and imparted to many some portion of his own devotion to the immemorial implement he may be said to have, in this country and among its white inhabitants, reinvented. Seated in our easy-chair, we follow him gayly and untiringly into the depths of the woods, drink in the rich, cool, damp air, and revel in the primeval silence that is only broken by the twang of the bowstring or the call of its destined victim. We enjoy his marvellous shots with some little infusion of envy, and his exemplary patience under ill-success and repeated failure with perhaps more. We end, like his "Cracker" friend, with respecting sincerely the "bow-and-arrers" we were at first disposed to view with amused contempt; and we close the book with an unqualified recognition of the value of the bow as a means of athletic training—a healthful recreation for those who have difficulty in finding such means.

This ancient weapon of war and the chase, which has won so many battles and conquered so many kingdoms, has since the introduction of gunpowder been too readily allowed to sink into a plaything for boys. They retain something of a passion for it. Many can remember when they were wont to select the choicest splits of heart-hickory from the wood-pile, lay them aside to season, and then shape them, or have them shaped by stronger and defter hands, into the four-foot bow, equivalent to the six-foot bow of the man. The arrows were harder to get in any satisfactory quantity, for they were rapidly shot away, and they were hard to properly point and scientifically feather. The processes were altogether too abstruse to come out well from homemade work in boyish hands. So the results were not usually brilliant, being confined to the destruction of a few sparrows, the breaking of some windows and the serious maltreatment of the family cat. Such achievements did not commend themselves to parents, and archery rested under a cloud from which it failed to emerge as the youthful practitioners grew up. It retained its charm for them in books, however. The visit of Peter Parley to Wampum was the most delightful part of that historian's works; and Robin Hood and William Tell earned a yearning and trustful admiration which refuses to yield to the criticisms employed in reducing those characters to myths—triumphs of the "long-bow" in another sense. And here we are reminded that Mr. Thompson's affection is lavished wholly on the long-bow. The cross-bow, a weapon which largely superseded it in the Middle Ages for war and sport, the English gentleman's "birding-piece" before he took to the gun, he will not hear of. The sportsman of tender years often prefers it. It is less troublesome in the matter of ammunition. Any missile will answer for it, from a sixpenny nail to a six-inch pewter-headed bolt—projectiles which travel two hundred yards with force and precision. The draft on the muscular strength is of course the same with either form of the bow, but the long-bow admits of its being more easily graduated, and is therefore preferable for the exercise-ground.

Mr. Thompson, we observe, seems to disregard the spiral arrangement of the feather, and the rotary movement around the axis of flight imparted by it to the arrow. He uses three strips of feather, which is better than two flat ones for the purpose of keeping the missile steady, but still does not prevent its swerving toward the end of its course, as more than one vexatious incident of his hunting record shows. This usage may help to account for the superiority of the old bowmen to the amateurs of to-day in accuracy at long ranges. The best targets reported on the part of the latter, such as "eleven shots in a nine-inch bull's-eye, out of thirteen, at forty yards," and "ten successive shots in a sheet of paper eight inches square at thirty yards," are poor by the side of the exploits of the yeomen and foresters on the archery-grounds of yore. To split a willow-wand at two hundred paces must have required something in the way of practice and system more precise and absolute than the guesswork Mr. Thompson concedes to be unavoidable to-day with the utmost care and experience. It could not have been done with a missile liable, in the calmest atmosphere, the moment it passed the point-blank, to unaccountable aberrations, vertically and horizontally.

The China-Hunters' Club. By the Youngest Member. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The literature of which this is a new specimen would have astonished the reading public of ten years ago, as it probably will that of ten years hence. Library shelves which knew it not at the former period are nearly filled now, and fast becoming crowded. Shall we predict that at the future date named their contents will be nearly invisible for dust? No. Much of what is going through the press on the subject of pottery will have its use as promoting the advancement and clearing up the history of fictile art, and will therefore be preserved, while a larger portion will interest only the few who delve into the records of human caprice and whim. Even these will not particularly care to know or remember what factory-brand was borne by the teapots and saucers of our grandmothers, and what Staffordshire modeller or woodcutter was responsible for the usually atrocious decorations of those utensils. They will smile but once over the pleasant lunacy of a hunt, printed and illustrated, among New England cottages for forgotten and more or less damaged crockery. The Youngest Member herself—by that time promoted probably to the ranks of the matrons whose treasures she delights to ransack—will be slow to recall and understand her enthusiasm of to-day, and marvel at her ever having detected charms in the homely things of clay she deems worthy of the graver. We, her contemporaries, however, living in the midst of the contagion to which she is a conspicuous victim, can follow her flying footsteps in the chase after potsherds with some sympathy, lag though we may far in the rear. We enjoy the lively style in which she depicts her "finds," and the bright web of sentiment and story with which she weaves them into unity. The receptacles of beer, tea, cider and shaving-soap that figure in her woodcuts are old friends we are glad to see again, and none the less so for the somewhat startling duty they are made to perform in the illustration of aesthetic culture. We learn secrets about them we never dreamed of before. We are told where they came from, have explained to us the mystic meaning of their designs, and are pointed to the stamps on their bottoms or some other out-of-the-way part of their anatomy infallibly betraying their age, nativity and parentage. Every reader will be treated to special revelations of this sort, some more, some less, some one and some another. For our individual share we are favored with enlightenment as to three of our private possessions. One of these is the Dog Fo, a little white Chinese monstrosity. We have been familiar from childhood with two of him, seated in unspeakable but complacent hideousness at the opposite ends of the chimney-piece. No. 2 is a gallon pitcher, sacred to the gingerbread of two generations, and ornamented with a ship under full sail on one side and a coat-of-arms on the other, not now remembered, the whole article having recently disappeared in some way or direction unknown and untraceable unless by the most indefatigable of ceramists. The third is a smaller pitcher in mottled unglazed clay, antique in shape and ornamentation, except that a figure in the costume of Queen Bess's time stands cheek-by-jowl with a group resembling that on the Portland Vase. This anachronism caused us to be puzzled by the word Herculaneum impressed on the bottom, not unworthy as the general beauty of the work was of such a source. The mystery stands explained by the book before us. Herculaneum was the name of a manufactory of earthenware near Liverpool, in this case almost as misleading as the inscription of Julius Caesar on a dog-collar too hastily inferred to have been worn by a canine pet of the great dictator.

The author concludes, "as a result of our hunting along the roads of New England, that there is a great deal of money-value in old crockery which lies idle in pantries, and that collectors who have money to spend do a great deal of good in a small way by giving the money for the crockery. And, strange as you may think it, it is very rare to find an owner of old pottery in the country, whatever be the family associations, who would not rather have the money."



Books Received.

Plays for Private Acting. Translated from the French and Italian. By Members of the Bellevue Dramatic Club of Newport. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

A Primer of German Literature. By Helen S. Conant.—A Year of American Travel. By Jessie Benton Fremont.—Hints to Women on the Care of Property. By Alfred Walker. (Harper's Half-Hour Series.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

A Handbook of Politics for 1878: Being a Record of Important Political Action, National and State, from July 15, 1876, to July 1, 1878. By Hon. Edward McPherson, LL.D., of Gettysburg, Pa. Washington: Solomons & Chapman.

Christine Brownlee's Ordeal. By Mary Patrick.—A Beautiful Woman. By Leon Brook. (Nos. 7 and 8 of Franklin Square Library.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Cossacks: A Tale of the Caucasus in 1852. By Count Leo Tolstoy. Translated from the Russian by Eugene Schuyler. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

D'ye Want a Shave? or, Yankee Shavings; or, A New Way to get a Wife: A Three-Act Comedy. By William Bush. St. Louis. William Bush.

Colonel Dunwoddie, Millionaire. (No. 5 Harper's Library of American Fiction.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

Play-Day Poems. Collected and edited by Rossiter Johnson. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Maid Ellice: A Novel. By Theodore Gift. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

Chums: A Satirical Sketch. By Howard MacSherry. Jersey City: Charles S. Clarke, Jr.

The Student's French Grammar. By Charles Heron Wall. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Ring of Amethyst. By Alice Wellington Rollins. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The Crew of the "Sam Weller." By John Habberton. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Saxe Holm's Stories. Second Series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Samuel Johnson. By Leslie Stephen. New York: Harper & Brothers.



Music Received.

The Battle Prayer. By Himmel. Part-songs for Male Voices, No. 4. (Lotus Club Collection.) Composed and arranged by A.H. Rosewig. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Boner & Co.

Weep no More: Song. Words by Mrs. A.B. Benham; Music by Augustus V. Benham, the great Child Pianist. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Boner & Co.

Who is Sylvia? Song for Soprano or Tenor. (English, German and Italian Words.) By Franz Schubert. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Boner & Co.

Whoa, Emma! Written and Composed by John Read. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Boner & Co.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Lord Beaconsfield is not the first to appreciate the strategic value of Cyprus. It was fully valued by the Venetians, as well as by the Knights of St. John, who would fain have made it their island-fortress instead of Rhodes; while Napoleon singled it out as one of the principal points in his projected anti-Turkish campaign in 1798.

THE END