among
New England divines, and promises to rank high among the influencing
minds of the day. To deep and scholarly culture, he unites a strong,
independent, and singularly keen and ingenious intellect, and a
beautiful and bountiful spirit of cheerfulness and charity. The
present oration is a fine poem, expressing rather a mood of mind than
a system of philosophy, but grouping together with fine art many facts
of consciousness, and applying them to the phenomena of life. Every
thing, in fact, is surveyed in the light of two ideas, Work and Play,
and though the application is sometimes more fanciful than reasonable,
the result is a series of beautiful representations, original in
conception and finely felicitous in expression. There is room for
considerable difference of opinion in the oration, but none will be
inclined to doubt the author's ability or keenness. As a specimen of
the style we extract a passage relating to war, which he calls an
imposing and plausible counterfeit of play, or inspiration.

"Since," he says, "we cannot stay content in the dull uninspired world
of economy and work, we are as ready to see a hero as he is to be one.
Nay, we must have our heroes, as I just said, and we are ready to
harness ourselves, by the million, to any man who will let us fight
him out the name. Thus we find out occasions for war--wrongs to be
redressed, revenges to be taken, such as we may feign inspiration and
play the great heart under. We collect armies, and dress up leaders in
gold and high colors, meaning by the brave look, to inspire some
notion of a hero beforehand. Then we set the men in phalanxes and
squadrons, where the personality itself is taken away, and a vast
impersonal person called an army, a magnanimous and brave monster, is
all that remains. The masses of fierce color, the glitter of the
steel, the dancing plumes, the waving flags, the deep throb of the
music lifting every foot--under these the living acres of men,
possessed by the one thought of playing brave to-day, are rolled on
to battle. Thunder, fire, dust, blood, groans--what of these?--nobody
thinks of these, for nobody dares to think till the day is over, and
then the world rejoices to behold a new batch of heroes."

_Three Sisters and Three Fortunes; or Rose, Blanche and
Violet. By G. H. Lewes. New York: Harper & Brothers._

Mr. Lewes is an author very little known in this country. This is the
first work of his which has been re