Dr. Stiles and his Congregationalist friends had in reference to the beginning of the college, is a controverted question. We have no doubt that the statements of Mr. Guild on this part of the history are candidly made, and from a full conviction of their truth; but we are equally certain that further researches will establish the fact that Dr. Stiles was not employed merely as a clerk to draft a charter, but that he and his friends were one party in consultations preliminary to the establishment of the institution. How it happened that a plan different from that which Dr. Stiles preferred was actually adopted, is a question into which we cannot here enter. It is true, as Mr. Guild states, that Dr. Manning proved to be the leading person in the organization of the college. He thought that Rhode Island was the suitable place for it, on account of the preponderance of his own denomination in that colony. In sailing up and down the broad bay of Narragansett, it has occurred to us that he may have been insensibly influenced by what led John the Baptist to Enon, near Salem-" because there was much water there." There is no need of commending Mr. Guild's entertaining and instructive work to the attention of all persons who are interested in American colleges. EX-PRESIDENT MONROE ON GOVERNMENT.*-President Monroe is generally thought of as belonging to that class of great men, who have greatness "thrust upon them." He was a favorite of Jefferson, and promoted by him, and becoming Madison's Secretary of State, the way was paved for his advancement to the presidency, in the "era of good feeling" which preceded a new organization of political parties. How few even of our professed politicians have ever perused Monroe's book in defense of his conduct as ambassador to France, or Washington's sharp strictures upon the statements contained in it! It may be that the popular judgment underestimates the talents of Monroe; but the present work will scarcely add to his reputation. It is a dry comparison of our system of government with the systems of the ancient * The People the Sovereign; being a Comparison of the Government of the United States with those of the Republics which have existed before, with the Causes of their Decadence and Fall. By JAMES MONROE, Ex-President of the United States, &c. Edited by SAMUEL L. GOUVERNEUR, his grandson and admin. istrator. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1867. states, Athens, Lacedemon, Carthage. It is composed, of course, without the advantage of the light which more recent investigations in ancient history throw upon the subject. The views advanced are not characterized by peculiar originality or force. We extract a brief passage, a favorable specimen of the author's style: "Our system is two-fold, State and National. Each is independent of the other, and sovereign to the extent, and within the limit of specified powers. The preservation of each is necessary to that of the other. Two dangers menace it; disunion and consolidation. Either would be ruinous. It was by our union that we achieved our Independence and liberties, and by it alone can they be maintained. It must, therefore, be preserved. Consolidation would lead to monarchy and to despotism, which would be equally fatal. That danger must be averted. Both governments rest on the same basis, the sovereignty of the people." (p. 22.) BELLES LETTRES. DR. HOLLAND'S NEW POEM.*-This poem is a metrical tale, or novel in verse, somewhat like Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh," or Tennyson's "Princess," in the attempt of the author to unite in one the characteristics of a novel with the higher qualities of poetry. The writer, who makes this attempt, complicates his task and increases the hazard of failure; for his work must be successful as a tale, and also as a poem; and the tale and the poem must naturally and gracefully blend together. That the author has the soul of a true poet as well as his "gift of numerous verse," no candid or generous critic can deny. There are passages in Kathrina which bespeak the highest gifts of inspiration, fired by genuine pathos and the rhythm of which should satisfy a very fastidious ear. These passages are not few, and they are but the promise of higher achievements than any which the author has yet attained. We cannot, however, praise the work as a story, or a tale. The theme is noble, and the author's conceptions of it are as fervent as could be desired. There is no defect of feeling or spirit in him. He writes from the heart and expresses no more than he thinks or feels. But the machinery of the story is scarcely up to the requisities of his theme. The tale is too obviously manufactured for the moral. The incidents are too artificially contrived and awkwardly connected with one another. There is * Kathrina: Her Life and Mine. In a Poem. By J. G. HOLLAND, Author of Bitter Sweet. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1867. too great literalness in the possible facts, and too much awkwardness and unnaturalness in the extraordinary positions of the narrative, as well as too great strain and violence in the expressions of the emotions of the hero. The blasphemous skepticism of Paul is scarcely made to justify itself to the mind of the reader. It rises into an excitement, which is too high for the occasion, and goes off into incoherent utterances to which the responsive sympathies of the looker-on are not readily aroused. His recovery to himself and to God are not sufficiently psychological to satisfy our curiosity or to leave a distinct and glowing impression. However sudden and complete such a conversion might be, and however truthful it may be to assume it to occur at the death-bed of a wife like Kathrina, it is not justified to our thoughts by the exhibition of the processes which led to it. Poetical justice or poetic truth requires that the varied and gradual workings of all these events on the inner life of the subject of them should be depicted at length, till they culminate at last in his complete moral recovery. This leads us to observe that for a poem or tale which has to do preeminently with the affections and the religious feelings, Kathrina is far too objective. Its pictures of the outer world are graphic-but delineations of feeling are scarcely attempted. Hence it is hard, objective, and emotionless, when it ought to be tender, subjective, and emotionful. Dr. Holland has one very great merit for which we cannot commend him too highly. He is a thorough New Englander in his themes and associations. He is content with the scenes with which he has himself been conversant, and the life with which he has sympathized. He has persisted in the purpose to turn this material into higher poetry. That this material is capable of such application, such a Poem as Whittier's "Snow-bound" furnishes decisive evidence. But still it remains true that the New England scenery and the New England life are not as readily glorified and gilded by the imagination as the scenery and life of other countries. The Trosachs and a Covenanter's communion season are more readily translated into poetry than Mount Holyoke and a Puritan prayer meeting in Hadley. That Dr. Holland has not fully succeeded is, however, no reason why his partial success is not eminently commendable, nor why he should not try again. Let him study more of the "grand style" which Matthew Arnold conceives so essential to poetry, and which is the same thing as the ideally elevated and refined. Let him in seeking the grand avoid the stilted and the grandiose. In rendering the simple and the sweet let him avoid the rude and coarse both in language and association, and he will attain the noble aim which he has obviously proposed to himself-to become the faithful exponent of the homely life as well as of the Christian faith of rustic New England. That he seeks to represent the latter will of course expose him to a severe criticism of his weaker points in some quarters. It would not be surprising if certain writers, who find it convenient to shelter their Pagan faith and their Pagan venom under the convenient name of liberal Christianity, should be unjust to the real excellencies of this poem, because it represents what they sometimes patronizingly call Christian or Calvinistic ideas. The intolerance of such a spirit is manifest by the fact, that these very critics sometimes find poetry when there is only pantheism, provided it be put forth as poetry by one whom they are taught to admire as theologian, philosopher, and sage. STORY OF DOOM, AND OTHER POEMS.*-We prefer the "other poems" decidedly to "the Story of Doom," which we have tried to think interesting, but could not succeed; not that it is without many points of striking excellence, but it is hard to fulfill so bold an effort as the writer proposed in writing a poem of the world before the flood. Of the other long poems, "Laurance" seems exquisite in feeling and words, and "Gladys and her Island" is admirable in its moral, though forced in its conception and execution. The shorter poems are like Jean Ingelow, somewhat farfetched and bizarre, and abounding in the choicest and tenderest passages. PROFESSOR CONINGTON'S ENEID.t-We have read Professor Conington's Eneid through from beginning to end with no little pleasure; and we think the Roman poet has reason to thank his translator for this new introduction to the ever growing multitudes who speak English. Perhaps he might even thank him for having adopted a livelier measure than his own, or than that of his earlier translators; for many a reader, we believe, will be beguiled to * A Story of Doom and other Poems. By JEAN INGELOW. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1856. The Eneid of Virgil. Translated into English verse by JOHN CONINGTON, M. A., Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. New York: W. J. Widdleton, Publisher. 1867. read on and on in this sprightly octosyllabic verse, charmingly varied as it often is by the introduction of the verse of six syllables, who might tire of the statelier style of Dryden. Nor is this quicker and more inspiriting measure ill-suited to the substance of the poem itself; for, although it is an epic, it abounds in passages to which even the dignified Latin tongue, thrown into dactylic hexameters, is better fitted than the long iambic verses in which Virgil has usually been presented to us in English. It is to be observed also that Professor Conington has not been led by his familiarity with the language of Virgil to slight the power of his mother tongue. His diction is strikingly idiomatic, -so entirely so that one can hardly believe that he translated from the open book, but rather that he possessed himself completely of the poem with all its imagery, and then reproduced it by a kind of independent activity of his own mind. To illustrate these several points, we cite a passage from the death of Nisus and Euryalus, first in the original, and then from the versions of Dryden, Pitt, and Conington, successively, as follows: Talia dicta dabat: sed viribus ensis adactus Quem, circum glomerati, hostes hinc comminus atque hinc, Condidit adverso, et moriens animam abstulit hosti. Tum super exanimum sese projecit amicum Confo sus, placidaque ibi demum morte quievit. "In vain he spoke, for ah! the sword, addrest |