ver done an hour's work. The public mind
is thoroughly debauched, and the general conscience is lifeless as the
grave. I met hundreds of hale and vigorous young men who unblushingly
owned to me that they had not earned a penny since the war closed. Nine
tenths of the people must be taught that labor is even not debasing. It
was pitiful enough to find so much idleness, but it was more pitiful to
observe that it was likely to continue indefinitely. The war will not
have borne proper fruit, if our peace does not speedily bring respect
for labor, as well as respect for man. When we have secured one of these
things, we shall have gone far toward securing the other; and when we
have secured both, then indeed shall we have noble cause for glorying in
our country,--true warrant for exulting that our flag floats over no
slave.

Meantime, while we patiently and helpfully wait for the day in which

"All men's good shall
Be each man's rule, and Universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,"

there are at least five things for the nation to do; make haste slowly
in the work of reconstruction; temper justice with mercy, but see to it
that justice is not overborne; keep military control of these lately
rebellious States, till they guaranty a republican form of government;
scrutinize carefully the personal fitness of the men chosen therefrom as
representatives in the Congress of the United States; and sustain
therein some agency that shall stand between the whites and the blacks,
and aid each class in coming to a proper understanding of its privileges
and responsibilities.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Herman; or, Young Knighthood._ By E. FOXTON. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

We are entirely uncertain whether this work will be recognized for what
it is by our young country-folk; but we are very certain, if it is not,
it will be our young country-folk's loss. It is, we suppose, a novel.
Its author admits that it is a story; but it is not at all the kind of
banquet to which novel-readers are usually invited. We can fancy the
consternation which awaits the devourers of story-books,--those persons,
we mean, whose reading is confined to novels, who lie in wait for Mrs.
Wood and Miss Braddon, and stretch their sales into the double-figured
thousands, through whose passive brains plot after plot travels in quick
succession and leaves no sign, and whose name, we fear, is Legion. They
will ea