ophically thought, tenderly
and purely felt, and musically rhythmed poems. No roughness disfigures,
no sensualism blights, no straining for effect chills, no meretricious
ornament destroys them. The ideas are grave and tender, the diction
scholarly, and if the fire and passion of genius flame not through them,
they seem to have been the natural growth of a heart

'Hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity.'

THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL RELIGION. Being a Treatise on the
Christian Life, in its two Chief Elements, Devotion and Practice.
By EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D. D., Prebendary of St.
Paul's, Chaplain to the Bishop of Oxford, and one of her Majesty's
Chaplains in Ordinary. First American, from the fifth London
edition. With a Prefatory Note, by George H. Houghton, D.D., Rector
of the Church of the Transfiguration, in the City of New York. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway. 1864.

This is, in the main, an excellent work on practical religion. From its
fervent spirit and sound common sense, it came very near being such a
one as we could have recommended for the perusal and attentive study of
the great body of Christians in our country. Unfortunately, the author,
by sundry flings at other Christian communities, and by the use of
nicknames, as Quaker, Romanist, Dissenter, etc., in speaking of them,
has restricted its usefulness chiefly to the members of his own
communion, the Protestant Episcopal Church. To such, it will doubtless
prove highly satisfactory and beneficial. A very few omissions would
have procured for it the wide range of acceptance and power of working
good to which its intrinsic excellence would then have entitled it. When
will our religious writers learn that the great battle now is not among
the various sections of the Christian camp, but with an outside enemy,
indefatigable, learned, plausible, and every day gaining ground? Who can
tell but that a careful examination of, and more accurate acquaintance
with the principles and practice of divisions serving under the same
great Captain, might dissipate many a prejudice, and reconcile many a
difficulty? One of the first requisites is, that all learn _to know_ and
_to speak_ the truth about one another.

THE SPIRIT OF THE FAIR. 1864. 'None but the brave deserve
the Fair.' Editorial Committee: Augustus R. Macdonough, _Chairman_;
Mrs. Charles E. Butler, Mrs. Edward Coo