but the graver in a heedless hand or the manipulation of an
injudicious pressman left little except the broad, indestructible
characteristics in the impression which was eventually made public.

At last, let us be thankful, a new era has dawned, and we have here
woodcuts which may confidently invite comparison with any as examples of
the highest excellence which has yet been reached in this department.
The thorough and intelligent workmanship of the University Press has
preserved to us every line and shade which was intrusted to its care,
and the prints are free alike from _fade_ indistinctness and from
ruinous weight of color. The engraving which is so admirably represented
is thoroughly good, and, to our thinking, it is of a better school than
that which largely obtains in England at this time, and the degeneracy
and slovenliness of which have been of late so much criticised and
deplored by the best judges. The most of the designs have been engraved
by Mr. A.V.S. Anthony, who ranks probably at the head of American
engravers, and whose delicacy of feeling and touch, beautifully
exemplified in the eighth and twelfth pictures of "Maud Muller," entitle
much of his work to an estimation not far below that accorded to Linton
or Thompson. The few remaining blocks were cut by Mr. J.P. Davis and Mr.
Henry Marsh, who emulate most praiseworthily the excellence, skill, and
fidelity of Mr. Anthony.

_An American Family in Germany._ By J. ROSS BROWNE. New York:
Harper & Brothers.

If the author of this amusing book had been less devoted to his purpose
of making fun, we think he could have made us a picture of German life
which we should have been very glad to have in the absence of much
honest information on the subject and the presence of a great deal of
flimsy idealizing. As it is, we fear that his work, for the most part a
truthful portraiture, will present itself only as a caricature to those
unacquainted with the original, and that, for all Mr. Browne says to the
contrary, many worthy people must go on thinking German life a romantic,
Christmas-tree affair, full of pretty amenity, and tender ballads, and
bon-bons. But some day, the truth will avenge itself, and without the
least air of burlesque show us that often narrow and sordid existence,
abounding in sensual appetites, coarse or childish pleasures, and paltry
aims, and varnished with a weak and extravagant sentimentality,--that
social order still so feudally aristocra