well have left them untouched. As it is, however, we think that every one who reads a page in the book will learn to honor the faculty that presents them. It is not because Mr. Beecher reproves hatred, false-witness, lust, envy, and covetousness, that he is so successful in his office. We all do this, and dislike sin in our neighbors; but it is his power of directly reproving these evils in each one of us that gives his words so great weight. He of course does this by varying means and with varying effect. Here we have detached passages from many different discourses,—not invariably selected with perfect judgment, but affording for this reason a better idea of his range and capacity. That given is not always of his best; but, for all this, it may have been the best for some of those who heard it. In the changing topics and style of the innumerable extracts in this volume, we find passages of pure sublimity, of solemn and pathetic eloquence, of flower-like grace and sweetness, followed by exhortations apparently modelled upon those of Mr. Chadband, but doubtless comforting and edifying to Mrs. Snagsby in the congregation, and not, we suppose, without use to Mrs. Snagsby in the parlor where she sits down to peruse the volume on Sunday afternoon. For according to the story which Mr. Beecher tells his publishers in a very pleasant prefatory letter, this compilation was made in England, where it attained great popularity among those who never heard the preacher, and who found satisfaction in the first-rate or the second-rate, without being moved by the arts of oratory. Indeed, the book is one that must everywhere be welcome, both for its manner and for its matter. The application of the "Truths" is generally enforced by a felicitous apologue or figure; in some cases the lesson is conveyed in a beautiful metaphor standing alone. The extracts are brief, and the point, never wanting, is moral, not doctrinal.
Margaret Fuller said that everybody liked gossip, and the only difference was in the choice of a subject. A bookful of gossip about flowers—their loves and hates, thoughts and feelings, genealogy and cousinships—is certainly always attractive. Who does not like to hear that Samphire comes from Saint-Pierre, and Tansy from Athanasie, and that Jerusalem Artichokes are a kind of sunflower, whose baptismal name is a corruption of girasole, and simply describes the flower's love for the sun? Does this explain all the Jerusalems which are scattered through our popular flora,—as Jerusalem Beans and Jerusalem Cherries? The common theory has been that the sons of the Puritans, by a slight theological reaction, called everything which was not quite genuine on week-days by that name which sometimes wearied them on Sundays.
It is pleasant also to be reminded that our common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) dates back to Achilles, who used it to cure his wounded friend, and that Mint is simply Menthe, transformed to a plant by the jealous Proserpine. It is refreshing to know that Solomon's Seal was so named by reason of the marks on its root; and that this root, according to the old herbalists, "stamped while it is fresh and greene, and applied, taketh away in one night, or two at the most, any bruse, black or blew spots gotten by falls, or woman's wilfulness in stumbling upon their hasty husband's fists, or such like." It was surely a generous thing in Solomon, who set his seal of approbation upon the rod, to furnish in that same signet a balm for injuries like these.
This pretty gift-book is the first really American contribution to the language of flowers. It has many graceful and some showy illustrations; its floral emblems are not all exotic; and though the editor's appellation may at first seem so, a simple application of the laws of anagram will reveal a name quite familiar, in America, to all lovers of things horticultural.
Several articles in this volume give it an unusual interest and value. The paper on Cholera is not the kind of reading to which one could have turned with cheerfulness last July, from a repast of summer vegetables and hurried fruits; nor can that on Trichinosis be pleasant to the friend of pork; but they are both clearly and succinctly written, and will contribute to the popular understanding of the dangers which they discuss.
The Cyclopædia, however, has its chief
