PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

A Memoir of Abraham Lincoln.—A short memoir of a very-remark- able man, disfigured by bad taste like most American biographies. Abraham Lincoln was born on the 12th of February, 1809, the son of a small farmer, "who owned no negroes," in Kentucky. In 1816, he emigrated to Indiana, where the future President passed fourteen years of his life in farm labour. During all this time, he had but one year of regular education, and that apparently of the most imperfect kind. The father, who seems to have been somewhat of what the biographer calls a pilgrim, and Englishmen call a vagabond, emigrated twice more, dying at last in Illinois. His son, after an expedition as boatman down the Mississippi, took to surveying, and in 1834 was elected to the Legisla- ture of his State, where he found himself the rival of Mr. Douglas, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency. In 1836, finding surveying, we presume, unprofitable, he was "licensed to practice" at the bar, and settled in his present residence, Springfield, Illinois. A suoceesful de- fence of a lad charged with murder brought him business, though not fortune, and he seems always to have been popular in his immediate neighbourhood. In 1847, he was elected to Congress, where he distin- guished himself as an opponent of the Mexican war, and the extension of slavery. On the.dissolution of the Whig party in 1864, he joined the Republicans, and in 1858, was defeated by Mr. Douglas. It was while organizing the Republican party to defend the territory of Nebraska from becoming a Slave State, that he uttered the speech which has since been the text book of his party. It is worthy, considering the consequences which must speedily flow from Mr. Lincoln's decisions, to be quoted en- tire.

" When! Southern people tell us they are no mere responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the feet. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very diffieult to get rid of it in any satis- factory way, I can understand and appreciatethe saying. I surely will not blame, them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia—to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that what ever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days, and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten days. What then ? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings ? Is it quite certain that this betters their condi- tion ? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate ; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next ? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals ? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with jus- tice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; but, for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South. When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly ; and I would give them legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not in its stringency be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent man. But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbidden the taking of them into Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible ex- cuses as that of the latter."

At the election of 1860, Mr. Lincoln was chosen by the Republicans President of the United States, every Southern State voting against him. He has not yet taken office, but it is understood that his policy will be such as his speech world indicate—moderate, but with a atong drift against slavery.

The Life of the _Right _Reverend Daniel Wilson, D.D., Late Lord Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan in India. By Reverend Josiah Bateman, M.A. Second edition, revised and condensed.—The second edition of this biography has very rapidly followed the first, which we reviewed on its appearance a few months ago. It is more convenient in form than its predecessor, and is improved by the omission of many minute details, and the abridgment of many topics which were deemed important as matters of record in the first instance, but which were wanting in interest for the public at large. The result is, that a stronger light is thrown upon the subject of the memoir, and attention is more concentrated Upon his character.

Young Ben Ihttalin. A Boy's Book. By Henry Mayhew.—Boys may, and probably will, benefit by this book ; but to grown men, it seems a curious specimen of misapplied power. It is an attempt, by a practised writer, to give lads principles through the medium of a story, to teach the new generation "the means of worldly welfare, the laws of worldly happiness, and the rules of ,worldly duty." Of course, the inci- dents, the few there are, are thoroughly well done. Of course, also, there is one chapter, a description of the infant wards in a London prison, which deserves a much higher commendation than that phrase. But not even the unquestionable ability of the writing can preserve the remain- der of the book from the reproach of dulness. The thoughts are half spoilt by the necessity of rendering them intelligible to minds without experience, and the style cramped by that indescribable tone of the sch41- master which infests all purely didactic teaching. Any man might read with pleasure Henry Mayhew's thoughts on wit and laughter, worked out for men ; but we fear, half-worked out as they are here, boys and men will find them singularly tiresome. The author says in his preface, that the admirable chapter on prisons describes scenes he witnessed only a few months since. Is it really true that, in the present day, and in London, children of five are imprisoned for stealing, or that lads" are pPiially convicted for spinning tops ? If it is, the fact should be brought forward far more prominently than it is likely to be in the pages of this book for boys. One letter in the Times from Mr. Mayhew, giving facts, names, and dates, would stop that one iniquity for ever.

Katherine and her Sisters. By Lady E. Ponsonby.—Since it became the fashion for our first-class novelists to dole out their charming stories to a hungry public in a few chapters once a month, in the Cornhill, Mac- millan, or Blackwood, to give us now a peep at Tom, and then a glimpse at Mark, and anon a word or two about that sweet Alicia, it has been a task merely to retain four or five plots of four or five stories in the me- mory until the next 28th of the month should add once more to the diffi- culty. Since they began to make novel reading a work of patience rather than enjoyment, it has been a relief to come across an old- fashioned three-volume story, and an author courageous enough to trust his heroes and heroines all at once to the discerning public. Katherine and her Sisters is just one of the old-fashioned stories which interest and amuse without compelling us to criticise style, or to mark this failure in art, or that repetition of an old pose. The ale is one of domestic life, the heroine, Katherine Dame, being left at sixteen with two little sisters to bring up, to govern the house of a father moody, weak, and a miser, she herself being almost uneducated, and by no means of the strong- minded class. Her sisters are carefully-drawn portraits, the elder a cha- racter we often see, thoroughly loveable and popular, but fettered by a weakness not unfrequently, associated with those qualities. So is J. Grey, with an innate love of mischief-making and keen eye for oppor- tunities of annoyance. This character, like moody Mr. Dacre, however, only helps to form the background of pleasanter characters, whose ac- quaintance the novel reader may make without weariness or disgust.

The Squire. A Biographical Sketch.—The author, instead of writing a series of short essays upon all kinds of subjects, and recollections of London fifty years ago, places them in the mouth of his uncle, the Squire. His remarks are often sound, and the recollections occasionally interesting, but the general effect is wearisome to a degree. What can the author imagine to be the value of pages like this ?—

" People," said my uncle, " give this comet all the credit for this fine summer. Now, I don't see how the comet can have anything to do with it, seeing that it comes from the very extremity of the solar system, from whence it could have brought us no more heat than an iceberg from the Polar regions, if as much. It may, perhaps, acquire heat from the sun on its near approach to that focus of heat, if it be a body of such density as to absorb heat, and as it approaches our earth may give it out to us. just possible that comets may have something to do with our temperature. We are much in the dark on the subject of these strangers that shed light upon us, but impart little into us. Are they messengers despatched by Saturn, Neptune, and the further planets of our system, to borrow heat from the sun, with which they return post-haste to those planets ? However the matter may be, let us rejoice in this fine summer, and this fine harvest, after the preceding bad ones. Bravely have our people borne them, and the 10 per cent Income-tax and other burthens. And then that they should be taunted with an ignorant impatience of a relaxation of taxation!' "

Letters on Associated Homes, between Colonel H. Clinton and E. V. .2crettle• —The press teems with schemes for improving the condition of the working class, from Dr. Guthrie's practical essays on dreamy Utopias like the one before us. Colonel Clintont Schools to apparently been struck by the amount of work performed by servants, which in his view is contrary to Christianity ! "The principal evil which afflicts Society is the enormous quantity of repulsive work which might be dispensed with, if Society would set itself in proper order. " Menial service must be classed under the head of repulsive work. " The command of universal beneficence (justice and mercy included)— Do unto others as thou wouldst others should do unto thee—will not allow us to look calmly on while any individual, needlessly and wantonly (but under the flimsy pretence of mere inadvertency), is compelled to pass under the yoke of avoidable repulsive employment. " No one willingly sees his own Mother, or his own Sister, his own Father, or his own Brother, undertake menial service ; no one himself

volunteers to undertake menial service." • ••

" Many persons will probably assent to the assertion, that the actual condition of menial service, with regard to its relations in every class of life, is as bad for itself as for the rest of the world it is intolerable.

" In Christendom—Serfdom has been abolished- " In Christendom—Menial-Servicedom must be minimised."

His plan for abolishing work is to create a joint-stock company to build associated homes, in which some class, not specified, shall live in extreme comfort, and perform all necessary service for one another. As we hold that labour is honourable, and individuality the first necessity of healthy life, we have no sympathy with the project, which in itself is neither well defended nor clearly described.

Tales from Blackwood. Volume XII.—Contains that most perfect of dog stories, " Tickler among the Thieves."

The First Book of Paradise Lost. By the Reverend T. Hunter, M.A. —The first book of the Paradise Lost, with a prose gloss, and notes on its grammatical structure. Both seem carefully done.

.4 Manual of Wills. By George Booth.—Avery clear and short sketch of the existing law of wills, with forms for drawing them without pro- fessional aid.

Pilate's Wife's Dream, and other Poems. By Horace Smith.—Pilate's Wife's Dream is an effort to tell the story of the Crucifixion, partly in rhyme and partly in blank verse. Mr. Smith is not without poetic feel: ing, but the execution is sadly inferior to the design.

The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland. By Captain R. P. Dod.—This, the handiest of Peerages, contains this year a new feature, the rank of every titled individual in the kingdom in the Volunteers. The number is as extraordinary as it is creditable. The only addition now really required, is an alphabetical list of the Peers and their family names.

The Dramatic and Poetical Works of .Robert Greene and George Peek. With Memoirs of the Authors and Notes by the Reverend Alexander Dyce.—It is needless to dilate on the well known merits of these editions. One of them was first published in 1828, the other in 1831, and the subsequent lapse of time, which has been fatal to other critical reputations, has but consolidated that which Mr. Dyce acquired at the outset by his learned, able, and conscientious labours' as an illus- trator of our early dramatic literature, and a restorer of its genuine text. The present volume is handsomely printed in a convenient forM, and contains all the matter of Mr. Dyce's previous editions of Peele and Greene, with important alterations, corrections, and additions.

Social Aspects of the Italian Revolution ; in a series of letters from Florence, reprinted from the Athenaeum; with a sketch of subsequent events up to the present time. By Theodosia Trollope.—Those who re- member with what eagerness they tore open the Atheneum week after week, to fasten on these admirable letters, will be glad to read them again in their collected form. As for those to whom they are still unknown, we beg to assure them that it would be a great mistake to neglect this volume, as if its contents were stale, like those of an old newspaper. Its interest is fresh and vivid to this day.

BOOKS.

Admiralty Administration ; its Faults and its Defaults.

Halcyon; or, Rod Fishing with Fly, Minnow, and Worm. To which is added a short and easy method of dressing flies, with a description of the materials used. By Henry Wade. Illustrated.

Wild Thyme ; Verses. By Elizabeth Harcourt Mitchell.

Education: in Oxford; its Method, its Aids, and its Rewards. By James E. Thorold Rogers, M.A.

The Life and Travel* of St. Paul. With Description of the Cities and Towns visited by the Apostle. By Walter M`Leod, F.R.0.8.

The Nature and Treatment of Gout and Rheumatic Gout. By Alfred Baring Garrod, M.D.

The Wild Huntress. By Captain Mayne Reid. Three volumes.

The Constitutional History of England, since the Accession of George the Third, 1760-1860. By Thomas Erskine May, C.B. Volume I.

The Contrasts of Christianity with Heathen and Jewish Systems; or nine Sermons preached before the University of Oxford on various occasions. By George Rawlingson, M.A.

The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland, for 1861, including all the Titled Classes. By Robert P. Dod, Esq, _Essay on the Beautiful, 4c; or Elements of tEsthetic Philosophy. By Vincenzo Gioberti, Court Chaplain to the King and Prime Minister of Sardinia ; and Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Brussels. Translated from the Italian, by Edward Thomas, Pupil of the Author at Brussels. Second edition."

On Translating Homer. Three Lectures given at Oxford, by Matthew Arnold, M.A., The Fall of Rome, and the Rise of the New Nationalities. A Series of Lectures on the connexion between Ancient and Modern History. By John G. Snap- , D.C.L.

Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art: exhibiting the most important discoveries and improvements of the past year in Mechanics and the Useful Arts, &c. By John Timbs, F.S.A.