aithfully performed the ever-thankless task of
translation; and, in preparing Madame Lenormant's work for the American
public, has somewhat restrained the author's tendency to confusion and
diffusion. Here and there, as editor, she has added slight but useful
notes, and has accompanied the Memoirs with a very pleasantly written
introduction, giving a skilful and independent analysis of Madame
Recamier's character.

_Old England: its Scenery, Art, and People._ By JAMES M. HOPPIN,
Professor in Yale College. New York; Hurd and Houghton.

"The 'Pavilion,' with its puerile domes and minarets, recalls the false
and flimsy epoch of that semi-Oriental monarch, George IV. His statue by
Chantrey stands upon a promenade called the 'Old Steine.' The house of
Mrs. Thrale, where Doctor Johnson visited, is still standing. The
atmosphere of Brighton is considered to be favorable for invalids in the
winter-time, as well as the summer."

In this haphazard way many of the various objects of interest in Old
England are introduced to his reader by a New England writer, who
possibly mistakes the disorder of a note-book for literary ease, or who
possibly has little of the method of picturesqueness in him. In either
case his reader returns from Old England with the impression that his
travelling-companion is a sensible, honest observer, who, in forming a
book out of very good material, has often builded, not better, but
worse, than he knew. There is no want of graphic touches; there is
enough of fine and poetic feeling; but there is no perspective, no
atmosphere: much of Old England through this book affects one somewhat
as a faithful Chinese drawing of the moon might.

At other times Mr. Hoppin's treatment of his subject is sufficiently
artistic, and he has seen some places and persons not worn quite
threadbare by travel. He did not pay the national visit to Mr. Tennyson,
although he had a letter of introduction; and of those people whose
hospitality he did enjoy, he writes with great discretion and good
taste. His sketch of the High Church clergyman at Land's End is a case
in point, and it has an interest to Americans for the light it throws
upon the present conflict of religious thought in England.

Mr. Hoppin writes best of the less frequented parts of England,--of
Land's End, and of Cornwall and Penzance; but he writes no more
particularly of them than of the suburbs of London. The chapter on
London art and the London pulpit is a c