THE FOREIGNER IN FAR CARTHAY. EVERY day adds new importance to our relations with the Far East, and books which give us the sort of information about the countries and the people comprised under that designation, which practical men read, are sure of a cordial reception. In the Foreigner in Far Carthay, W. B. MEDHURST, for many years H. B. M. Consul at Shanghae, sums up in a very taking style the results of his long observations and experience in China. With admirable judgment he sinks his own personality and describes things precisely as they are. No mere book of travels ever published begins to give so much solid information as may be found in this attractive volume, and every one at all interested in the Far East should by all means read it. indicates the different ports now open to commerce. A map foreign GALAMA; OR, THE BEGGARS. THERE is hardly any other period of history so thoroughly invested with romance as that of the founding of the Netherlands. The struggles of that brave people for their liberties, their courageous endurance of hardship and persecution, furnish the novelist with the most ample material, and it is made use of in this volume with remarkable skill. Galama, the hero, calls out the warmest sympathies of the reader, and carries them to the close of the narrative. The title which DE LIEFDE, the author, gave this work-The Beggars-has been changed to Galama, since a story under the name of The Beggars has already been published in this country. A NOTABLE POEM BY A NEW POET. "THE BROOK." BY W. B. WRIGHT. MR. WRIGHT's poem, The Brook, has met with a reception, from the highest critical authorities, so spontaneous, cordial, and emphatic, as to make the publication of the volume the most notable event of our recent literary history. The genuine poetic faculty is so rare, and the critics are commonly so cautious in giving any new comer their endorsement, that the simultaneous recognition of Mr. Wright's genius by the New York Tribune, the World, the Mail, the Independent, the Examiner and Chronicle, and the Boston Congregationalist, is a most significant indication. Such a coincidence certainly warrants the hope that a poet has appeared whose future efforts may vindicate his claim to a permanent title to that place which has been so cheerfully and unanimously accorded him upon this which may properly be called his first public appearance. As several gentlemen, of the same name with the author of The Brook, made unnecessary haste to disavow their identity with Mr. W. B. Wright, lest they might be charged whith hav"dallied with the muse," it may be as well to let the public know who the author of The Brook really is. Mr. W. B. Wright is now but thirty-three years of age, a native of Orange County, this State, and the son of a well-to-do country phy sician. He graduated at Princeton, in 1859, with high honor; intending thence to pass into the Theological Seminary and become a Presbyterian clergyman-a career which subsequent development of his mind prevented him from adopting. After graduation, he continued an earnest student-reading deeply in Greek and German philosophy. After a stay in Buffalo, as tutor in preparation for college, he returned to his native place, in 1861, to enter upon the study him into the war, as a private in the New York of medicine; but an ardent patriotism carried Fifth Artillery. He fought with Sheridan, became Judge Advocate on Gen. Crawford's staff, SECOND VOLUME OF THE SPEAKER'S COM- and in May, 1865, was mustered out, Lieutenant MENTARY. and Brevet Major. In the fall of 1866 he enTHE second volume of The Speaker's Commen- tered t. New York Medical College, and, after tary, covering the first section of the Historical graduation, returned to practice in Orange Books of the Old Testament-Joshua, Judges, County. In 1867 he published "Highland RamRuth, Samuel, and First Kings-was announced | bles," a poem (Adams & Co., Boston). In the in our last number, and will be published in a few days. The fact that Prof. George Rawlinson is one of the contributors to this volume, of itself gives it permanent value. fall of 1871 he went to Buffalo as Professor of Ancient Languages in the State Normal School, Buffalo, where he still is. He is a superior Greek and Latin scholar, and profoundly read-espe These facts show that Mr. Wright's Brook is no accidental outburst, but that it is the product of earnest, conscientious, and loving labor; and there is, therefore, the highest reason to hope that the future will more than fulfill the high promise of the present. We append extracts from some of the reviews given by the papers we have named above. That in the Tribune, which is evidently from the pen of the veteran critic, George Ripley, occupied, with extracts from the poem, over three columns. It says: "The purely imaginative power betrayed in the chief poem of this volume, not only gives a rare earnest of future excellence, but at once legitimates the place of the writer among the few genuine singers of the day. It is not the production of reflection or of imitation, but of true creative fancy. The author's name is not familiar to our memory, and we know not the influences which have inspired his heart with so devout a passion for Nature, and molded his rhyme into forms of such subtle delicacy and grace; but no one can mistake the presence of the loving soul, the plastic eye, and the cunning hand, which have woven so beauteous a wreath of poesy from the commonest materials of rural life. He comes before us, not as the rude, brawny Berserkir from the woods, flinging around the trophies of giant barbaric strength, with defiant lavishness of gift, but as the man of gentle and gracious culture, conversant with the great masters of song, informed with the wealth of lettered knowledge, and studious of artistic effect in the choice of expression: but crowning all with the high spontaneous faculty that evokes fresh conceptions from familiar scenes, and interprets the ancient suggestions of Nature by living images, which give them a new voice and a deeper significance. In form and rhythm, Mr. Wright not unfrequently recalls a fragrant reminiscence of Emerson's peculiar art, nor has he failed to appropriate a breath of the exquisite grace of Milton's lesser poems, with an occasional echo, perhaps unconscious, of the sweet melodies of the two chief German masters; but still his poetry bears too deep a stamp of individuality to be traced to any other source than the secret gift of Nature, which inspires the purpose and furnishes 4e power to build the lofty rhyme.' * "It is, however, the instincts of a spiritual consciousness to which the author has given utterance in his verse, rather than the deductions of express reasoning. Like Wordsworth and Emerson, he contemplates Nature with a profoundly thoughtful spirit, but with no attachment to the reflective analysis of principles, or their orderly array in inflexible systems. The Brook' which he celebrates does not wind its verdurous way with more spontaneous freedom than he sings the enchantments which he has received from the heart of nature. "Of the remaining poems in this volume, we have no space for a single specimen, nor are they perhaps of a character to be generally enjoyed without a previous initia tion into the manner of the author. The fault which many will find in them is the too elaborate texture of their composition, which frequently resembles a cloth of gold, both in the splendor and the stiffness of its embroidery. The occasional employment of unusual words, and sometimes those of excessive length, would give an air of pedantry to productions less natural in grain and essence, and, as it is, they impede the flow of the verse, which is often no less alluring by the sweetness of its melody than by its wealth of fancy." The New York Independent says: "Very quietly, without proclamation or prelude, slips on to our table the most remarkable book of new poetry that we have seen for many a long day. The Brook and other Poems, by William B. Wright, is the work of a hand that is yet new in literature, but that gives, we were about to say, the greatest of promise. But we remember how stern a law besets young poets-how, if they are born in the wrong place, they must wither like the seed planted in too shallow soil, and break the budding promise. Mr. Wright made in 1868, if we mistake not, his first appearance as a poet with a little book entitled The Highland Ramble; a book that was full of fine fancies-of fancies and thoughts too fine, indeed, for a popular success. In the present volume we find real poetical feeling in abundance; we find creative and imaginative power to a degree unequalled in merit, we had almost said, in all American poetry; we find those faults of excess which are promising, and which would convince us that in Mr. Wright we had a coming great poet, were only the conditions of American life and culture favorable to the maturing of the poetical natures which are born and grow a while so strongly among us. We have produced, as yet, no great poet. Though great poets have been born among us, they have failed to reach their development: and such an one, we believe, is Mr. Wright." And then, after making some extracts, it adds: The book is full of things as beautiful as these. It shows more distinctly than any other recent poem the presence of exquisite original faculty among us. That Mr. Wright will go on from height to height we dare not say. The chances are that he will fail by the way, as so many good poets and true have failed before him; not by his own fault, but by the fault of his era. We can only hope. against hope, that he will not find that he has fallen upon evil times, and give him the rare and hearty welcome that is deserved by an undoubted poet." The Boston Congregationalist says: "The Brook and other Poems, by William B. Wright, is a small volume of very unusual promise. The soul of poetry is in it, and the form also to a rare extent. The notion of personifying a brook and describing its life and movements from its spring, far up the mountain side, till it passes into the sea, is not very novel. The skill is in executing the plan, which is deftly done. The descriptions of forest and meadow scenery are admirably exact and are marvels of picturesqueness. The measure chosen is as elastic and bright as Milton's L'Allegro, after which it is modeled; while the changes of movement to represent now the frolicksomeness of the mountain torrent, and now the placid flow of the broad river on which stately galleys with oars are floating, is as felicitous in its kind as the changes in Schiller's Song of the Bell, or Longfellow's Building of the Ship. Readers of poetry will detect evidences of familiarity with some of our most popular poets, and unconscious imitation of them. There is a sameness in the meter THE HOUSEHOLD." of the poems, and to some extent in the images. But there MARION HARLAND'S "COMMON SENSE IN is a wealth of beautiful imagery, rare grace, and expressiveness of language, and the thought and feeling of a genuine poet. We are favored in English poetry with many delicious morning landscapes. But this from the Brook deserves to stand, and we think will stand hereafter, among the choicest of them." THE accompanying paragraph, from the Evening Journal, of Muscatine, Iowa, puts very pithily an opinion which thousands hold regarding Marion Harland's Common Sense in the House And then, after quoting the passage alluded hold. The paper named says: to, it adds: "The author of these exquisite poems is known to us only by name; but will certainly be well-known before long. The Boston Journal has this paragraph about him: 'It is but justice to say that the author of the book, The Brook and other Poems, is not the Rev. Wm. B. Wright, the able and popular pastor of the Berkely St. Church in this city. He does not write poetry of that stamp.' Few do." "This is the title of a new book, which has lately found its way into our household, and though we have grown suspicious of cook-books in general, as being in most cases an added perplexity and despair, instead of help, to young housekeepers, yet we do wish we could put in every house this sensible, kind book of Mrs. Harland's. To the young housewife it is like having a talk with 'mother' to look into it. Such nice, simple receipts of obtainable things; such pleasant suggestions for table and house; such sympathetic words for a failure, and encouragement to try The New York World gives more than a column to the review of the book, and, in quot- again, we have never before found in any work of the ing one of the minor poems on "Law," says: "From The Brook and other Poems, by William B. Wright, a new and very remarkable American volume, justifying almost any high expectation of the author's literary future, the following picturesque idealization may be selected as a fine example of combined delicacy and power in thought and diction." Such a concurrence as this, among the leading critical authorities, is certainly remarkable, and indicates that Mr. Wright is to be a worthy successor to those whose names are now venerated as the representatives of American poetry. RECENT EXEMPLIFICATIONS OF FALSE Mr. Fitzedward HALL, from his home in Eng land, has projected a philological bombshell into the camp of sundry criticasters on this side the Atlantic. Although a pamphlet, it is weighted down with learning enough for a stout octavo. Recent Exemplifications of False Philology is the title of the work. To those interested in the subject it will be found exceedingly instructive and interesting. WITHIN AND WITHOUT. MACDONALD'S dramatic poem, Within and Without, was written when the poet was only twentyfour years of age. It immediately attracted wide attention, but some of the finest portions of the poem, as it now stands in the edition of SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & Co., were subsequently added, and the whole has received the author's careful revision. The sonnets and songs in this remarkable poem are among the finest that have appeared in our day. [Continued from page 11.] ADOLPHUS. 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