empts to help herself. Indeed, Mrs. Dall's strength is mainly in her
facts concerning woman's general condition, and not in her researches to
prove the exceptional success of women in the arts and sciences.

_The Land of Thor._ By J. ROSS BROWNE. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Mr. Browne's stories of what he saw in Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
and Iceland have that variety ascribed by Mr. Tennyson to the imitations
of his poetry,--

"And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed."

It is this traveller's aim to keep his reader constantly amused, and to
produce broad grins and other broad effects at any cost. Naturally the
peoples whom he visits, his readers, and the author himself, all suffer
a good deal together, and do not so often combine in hearty, unforced
laughter as could be wished. This is the more a pity because Mr. Browne
is a genuine humorist, and must be very sorry to fatigue anybody. In his
less boisterous moments he is really charming, and, in spite of all his
liveliness, he does give some clear ideas of the lands he sees. It
appears to us that the travels through Iceland are the best in his book,
as the account of Russia is decidedly the dullest,--the Scandinavian
countries of the main-land lying midway between these extremes, as they
do on the map. Of solid information, such as the old-fashioned
travellers used to give us in honest figures and statistics, there is
very little in this book, which is the less to be regretted because we
already know everything now-a-days. The work is said to be "illustrated
by the author"; but as most of the illustrations bear the initials of
Mr. Stephens, we suppose this statement is also a joke. We confess that
we like such of Mr. Browne's sketches as are given the best: there at
least all animate life is not rendered with such a sentiment that cats
and dogs, and men and women, might well turn with mutual displeasure
from the idea of a common origin of their species.

_Half-Tints. Table d'Hote and Drawing-Room._ New York; D. Appleton & Co.

Here is the side which our polygonous human nature presents to the
observer in a great New York hotel. Throngs of coming and going
strangers, snubbingly accommodated by the master of the caravansary, who
seeks to make it rather the home of the undomestic rich than the
sojourning-place of travel; the hard faces of the ladies in the
drawing-room; the business talk of the men of the gentlemen's parlor;
the