strength. Richly are we rewarded in the precision
and power with which he performs our tasks, in the comfort with which he
enriches, the beauty with which he adorns, and the knowledge with which
he ennobles our daily life.

_The Life and Times of John Huss; or, The Bohemian Reformation of the
Fifteenth Century_. By E.H. GILLETT. 2 vols. Second Edition. Boston:
Gould & Lincoln.

The style of Mr. Gillett is clear, manly, and discriminating. If, in
respect of show, sparkle, nervous energy, verbal felicity, and
picturesqueness, it is not equal to that of our chief American
historians, yet it is not deficient in ease, grace, or vigor. He is
almost always careful, always unambitious, always in good taste. To
complain that the style is not equal to Mr. Motley's, simply on the
ground that the book is large and the subject historical, is grossly
unfair. Mr. Gillett has not been eager for a place as a writer; his
story has more merit in the thing told than in the telling. Even with
his want of German he has been thorough in the investigation of
authorities; and if he writes without enthusiasm, his judgment carries
the greater weight. As a scholar and an historian, as a man of candor
and resources, his name is an ornament to the Presbyterian ministry, of
which he is a member.

And yet the life of Huss is not adapted to produce popular effect, to
show to striking advantage the charm of elaborate style, or to lift the
hero himself into that upper light where his commonest deeds are
dazzling and fascinating. He had not the acumen, the weight, the
learning, the logical irresistibleness of Calvin; nor had he the great
human sympathies, the touch of earthiness, yet not grossness, which made
Luther so dear to his countrymen, and which have imprinted a cordial
geniality on the whole Lutheran Church. John Huss, though a man of
learning, the Rector of a great and powerful University, though a true
friend, though a man of wide sympathies, though an eloquent preacher,
and a most formidable enemy to the corruptions of the Romish Church, was
yet a colorless character in comparison with some men who have become
the objects of hero-worship. There are few of those grand bursts which
will always justify Luther's reputation, nothing of that rich poetical
vein of Luther's, finding its twofold course in music and in poetry:
Huss was comparatively dry, and unenriched by those overflowings of a
deep inner nature. He is, therefore, rather the expone