l watch which man keeps on the heavens, and the slow, silent
and sure acquisitions of new truths, from age to age. "The sentinel on
the watchtower is relieved from duty, but another takes his place, and
the vigil is unbroken. No--the astronomer never dies. He commences his
investigations on the hill-tops of Eden--he studies the stars through
the long centuries of antedeluvian life. The deluge sweeps from the
earth its inhabitants, their cities and their mountains--but when the
storm is hushed, and the heavens shine forth in beauty, from the
summit of Mount Arrarat the astronomer resumes his endless vigils. In
Babylon he keeps his watch, and among the Egyptian priests he inspires
a thirst for the sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of
Shinar--the temples of India--the pyramids of Egypt, are equally his
watching places. When science fled to Greece, his home was in the
schools of her philosophers: and when darkness covered the earth for a
thousand years, he pursues his never-ending task from amidst the
burning deserts of Arabia. When science dawned on Europe, the
astronomer was there--toiling with Copernicus--watching with
Tycho--suffering with Gallileo--triumphing with Kepler."

We trust that this volume will have an extensive circulation. It will
not only convey a great deal of knowledge to the general reader, but
will also inspire a love for the science of which it treats.

_Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings. By Sir Edward
Bulwer Lytton, Bart. New York: Harper & Brothers._

This is Bulwer's most successful attempt at writing an historical
novel, but with all its merits, it is still rather an attempt than a
performance. Considered as a history of the Norman invasion, it
contains many more facts than can be found in Thierry, at least in
that portion of his work devoted to Harold and William. Bulwer seems
to have obtained his knowledge at the original sources, and the novel
is certainly creditable to his scholarship. But he has not managed
his materials in an imaginative way, and fact and fiction are tied
rather than fused together. The consequence is that the work is not
homogeneous. At times it appears like history, but after the mind of
the reader has settled down to a historical mood, the impression is
broken by a violent intrusion of fable, or an introduction of modern
sentiment and thought. It has therefore neither the interest of
Thierry's exquisite narrative of the same events, nor the interes