ng from a few years before the
French War of 1745 to the death of Johnson in 1774. In accordance with
its title, it is largely occupied with the "times" as well as with the
"life" of its subject. In fact, it is a history of the period, relating
with considerable detail contemporary events with which Johnson was
connected only indirectly. This detracts from its character as a work of
purely original research, to which, as far as regards the personal
history of its subject, it is preeminently entitled.

Johnson's vast correspondence relates chiefly to matters of public
interest, and supplies comparatively few of those details of private
life which give liveliness to pictures of scenes and character. The
book, in respect to execution, is perhaps necessarily unequal. The first
seven chapters were written by the father of Mr. Stone, who endeavored
to continue the work on its original plan. The attempt, always
difficult, to carry out a design conceived in the mind of another, seems
at the outset to have somewhat hampered the author; but as he proceeds
with his work, his excellent qualification for it becomes more and more
apparent. He is thorough and faithful in the use of his great store of
material, and clear, vigorous, and often picturesque in his narrative.
The period with which he deals is one of the most interesting and most
important in American history, and the treatment is worthy of the theme.
The hackneyed phrase, so often meaningless, is in the case of this book
emphatically true,--that no library of American history can be said to
be complete without it.

1. _The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living._ By JEREMY
TAYLOR, D. D. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

2. _The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying._ By JEREMY TAYLOR,
D. D. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

The beautiful meditations of Jeremy Taylor, written in the intervals of
the great English civil war, seem appropriate enough amidst these
closing days of our own contest. While the English language remains, his
delicious sentences will find readers and lovers; and the endless
variety of choice learning with which his pages are gemmed would make
them always delightful, were his own part valueless.

This copiousness of allusion makes no small work for his American
editor, since even the latest English editions leave much to be
supplied. It is an enormous undertaking to verify and complete all these
manifold citations, and yet the present editor has