f generous admiration, the facts of our civilization as they
present themselves in nearly all the States of the North and West; and
while he does not pretend to see polished society everywhere, but very
often an elemental ferment, he finds also that the material of national
goodness and greatness is sound and of unquestionable strength. He falls
into marvellously few errors, and even his figures have not that bad
habit of lying to which the figures of travellers so often fall victims.

The books of M. Laugel and Mr. Goldwin Smith come to us, as we hinted,
after infinite stupid and dishonest censure from their countrymen; but
the intelligent friendship of such writers is not the less welcome to us
because we have ceased to care for the misrepresentations of the French
and English tourists.

_Hospital Life in the Army of the Potomac._ By WILLIAM HOWELL REED.
Boston; William V. Spencer.

The advice of friends, so often mistaken, and so productive of mischief
in goading reluctant authorship to the publication of unwise, immature,
or feeble literature, prevailed upon Mr. Reed to give the world the
present book; and we have a real pleasure in saying that for once this
affectionate counsel has done the world a favor and a service. We have
read the volume through with great interest, and with a lively
impression of the author's good sense and modesty. In great part it is a
personal narrative; but Mr. Reed, in recounting the story of the
unwearied vigilance and tenderness and dauntless courage with which the
corps of the Sanitary Commission discharged their high duties, contrives
to present his individual acts as representative of those of the whole
body, and to withdraw himself from the reader's notice. With the same
spirit, in describing scenes of misery and suffering, he has more
directly celebrated the patience and heroism of the soldiers who bore
the pain than the indefatigable goodness that ministered to them,
though he does full justice to this also. The book is a record of every
variety of wretchedness; yet one comes from its perusal strengthened and
elevated rather than depressed, and with new feelings of honor for the
humanity that could do and endure so much. Mr. Reed does not fail to
draw from the scenes and experiences of hospital life their religious
lesson, and throughout his work are scattered pictures of anguish
heroically borne, and of Christian resignation to death, which are all
the more touching because