author speaks of "vingt" as having the plural when not followed by another number, whereas it is only when "vingt" is multiplied by a number (as quatre-vingt), and not followed by another numeral, that it takes the plural. Also, in giving a table of the position of words in a sentence, had the author given two or three tables instead of one, and illustrated each, his meaning would have been clearer and the tables much more useful to the learner. The French letters at the end of the book are an excellent feature, and it seems as though the work might find favor with all who use it, the points particularly worthy of praise being the combination of the rules of grammar, the notes on special words in the vocabulary, and the forms of irregular verbs with the play which is to be translated. (The GALAMA; OR THE BEGGARS. Founders of the Dutch Republic.) By J. B. Deliefde Published by Scribner, Armstrong & Co., N. Y. This thrilling story on a background of veritable history, we have read with great interest. We can hardly look upon it as fiction; many of the names and most of the events are historical. It covers the period from 1567, when Alva treacherously imprisoned Egmont and Howe, who were afterward executed,- to the first considerable success of the "Beggars," in the capture of Brill; and undoubtedly presents us with a more vivid and truthful picture of the times than most of us get in reading the history of the period. If the personal adventures, trials, and sufferings here narrated did not occur to the persons named, we feel sure that they are but illustrative of what may have happened to hundreds, and that they really contain much more of truth than fiction. The characters, too, such as are fictitious, are strongly marked, and the scenes afford evidence of a keen insight into human nature in its most varied and trying experiences. The deeds of daring and "hair-breadth 'scapes would be almost too painful but for the reckless humor which always accompa nies desperation. The story bears the same relation to the founding of the Dutch Republic that Dickens' Tale of Two Cities does to the French Revolution; and we think this is equally true to the spirit of the times, and not inferior to that in interest. LARS. A PASTORAL OF NORWAY. By Bayard Taylor. Published by J. R. Osgood & Co. This book contains much to justify the title, and much of which its title, to us at least, gave no intimation. It begins with an exquisite description of primitive country life which seems almost a paradise. But even here the tempter is not excluded. Love begets jealousy, jealousy begets hate, and terminates in a bloody scene, the particulars of which we could have well spared. It was the old story of Palamon and Arcite, still further complicated by the indecision of the fair one, till it was too late; and Lars, an outcast and wanderer, crossed the ocean, moved only by the unrest of a troubled spirit. Here, however, his good angel met him in the guise of a simple quakeress, and after infinite struggles he obtained the rest which only a Christian spirit can give. Again crossing the ocean, with his quaker wife he made all the amends in his power, and they took under their mutual protection poor Brita, who had been the unfortunate cause of the terrible tragedy. This is the story, full of interest and instruction. Of the poetic spirit and diction of the work, we can, perhaps, give the best idea, by a brief quotation. "The world goes round; the sun sets in despair, PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK. By B. P. Shillaber. Published by Lee & Shepard, Boston. "There's not a string attuned to mirth, But has its chord of melancholy." So sang Tom Hood, and surely his works show the most striking illustration of the fact. Is it true that most of our works of pathos and humor are but the secondary chord which answers to the direct vibration? What was Hood's sanitary condition when he wrote the Song of the Shirt and the Bridge of Sighs? We suspect he was then in his best health and spirits; and that when racked with pain he threw off those answering chords of humor which made him half unmindful of the pangs of his throbbing nerves. We were led to this train of thought upon hearing at the same time that our genial friend Shillaber had been sick with the gno, rheumatism, and was coming out with a volume of "Partingtonian Patchwork." The question instantly occurred to us, "Is one the complement of the other?" and we set ourselves to thinking whether this was a common coincidence. If such is the philosophy of these mirth-producing books, certainly the author of "Patchwork" must have had his "harp of a thousand strings" thrummed by a most ungentle hand, when the secondary vibrations gives pain to so many aching sides. Or, perhaps, it may find a solution in the correlation and conservation of forces; and science may yet be able to tell by the aid of a twinge-ometer exactly what amount of fun a rheumatic twinge of a given power may produce. Perhaps, after all, there may be a spice of malignity in the very mirth, and who knows but what they take an unamiable pleasure in splitting the sides of their friends because they feel as if their own were splitting, on the principle that "misery loves company." The theory seems plausible enough, as a theory, but in the present case we are sure it must fail, for the gentle dame is too "full of the milk of human kindness" to leave room for s much as a drop of malignity. THE PARENT AND THE STATE. ONE of the most startling features of our reconstructed American society is the appearance of questions we supposed forever disposed of by our republican form of government. It was easy enough for a little community of intelligent and liberal English emigrants to establish a Commonwealth like Massachusetts on the basis of civil and religious liberty, with the practical Christian religion for its sanction, and the common school for its buttress. But even Massachusetts is no longer Puritan ; and it is not uncommon here to meet upon the streets, in broad daylight, one of these old ghosts of European civil and ecclesiastical despotism. And already the communism, which is the awful shadow of European despotism, is darkening over great masses of our people; while theories of society, education, and government, fresh from the slums of Paris, are enthusiastically put on the course, amid the cheers of a new "liberalism" whose end is anarchy. The time is certainly coming when all the foundations of social authority, including the right of the people to the common school, must come under a searching discussion in our older States. And already the quiet, conservative school-committee-men of New England would stand aghast at the kind of questions fiercely debated in the boards of education and the press of many of the great cities, especially of the Central West and the southwestern reconstructed States. The American Common School will finally become what it can be made in the vast region beyond the Alleghanies and south of Washington; and if our New-England edu cationists do not wish to find themselves erelong on the defensive in regard to principles vital to the very existence of that institution, they may well inform themselves in regard to what is transpiring in these distant quarters. One of the questions that is perpetually coming to the surface in these discussions, is that implied in our title. The formidable party of ecclesiastics of différent sects, who demand a division of the school funds in the name of conscience; the considerable body of the educated and wealthy leaders of society, who insist on the smallest minimum of education to the masses at public expense; and the furious crowd of emigrant communists, who rave against the least attempt of government to enforce morality by law, unite in opposing the authority of the parent to the right of the State. A sudden revival of reverence for the sanctity of the Family seems to have seized on these three classes of enemies to the American Common School; and no patriarch of the olden time, with flowing beard and awful presence, seated in the door of his tent, surveying his happy family, could discourse more eloquently than these patriots, outraged at the pretensions of Uncle Sam to invade the sacred circle of the home, and attempt the scandalous mission of making its turbulent youngsters good citizens of the United States. All these aggrieved parties are obliged to confess that every human civilized government has assumed, as its corner-stone, the right to enforce the national ideal of social order and civilization on all its people. It would seem that this is the very key-stone of human society itself. Somewhere must be located, on earth, a final and decisive authority to establish and administer the best attainable civilization; and the nation, acting as government, is the repository of that dread power. Of course, the government itself is responsible to Almighty God, whose creature it is; and to the people and the human race, whose highest interest, social order, it conserves. And sooner or later, all things done against the Divine law and the natural rights of man, will be undone. But through all the changes of history abides this one element of permanence: the right of the government, as against every earthly rival, to sustain and enforce the highest available nationa] ideal of civilization. These parties cannot deny that human government has always thus dealt with the family. If the family is the ordinance of God, so is the State; and the parent has no divine right to array his household in opposition to social order as represented by the State. Even the right of revolution is exceptional, only valid in the last extremity, and lies in abeyance in times of peace. Every human government has rightly assumed authority in the organization of the family itself; has declared what sorts of people may become parents, and under what conditions and with what pledges to society they may enter the marriage relation. It has established the rights of property and person on which the existence and support of the family depend. It has declared what children are legitimate, and protects the child in various ways against parental incompetency, caprice, and selfishness. It decides when the child shall be released from all parental control. In public emergency it takes the husband from the wife and the son from the mother, sending them to war, and leaving the family unprotected. It takes the child from the home for even petty offences, and places it under the parental control of the State. And every human government has exercised the right, with or without the co-operation of the parent, to instruct the children of the nation. in those elements of knowledge and virtue essential to good citizenship; and justly bases this claim on the right of every civilized state to self-protection. Under this right, every civilized nation outside this Republic, in every age, has established a system of public education; not always including the whole people, but the best attainable system; and the cost of it has been the national charge. In the exercise of this right every civilized government has encountered these three rivals: first, the Ecclesiastics, who locate supreme power in the church; second, an Aristocracy of wealth and society, who would suck up all national opportunities into its own clique, and repudiate its share of the national burdens; third, Communism, or the assumed right of the individual to be the final judge in all relations of himself to any government, human or divine. So, here we have in these newest cities and states of America the old, everlasting battle between human government and its |