BOOK NOTICES.

"SLY BALLADES IN HARVARD CHINA. By E. S. M. Boston: A. Williams & Co., Old Corner Bookstore." "Sly Ballades in Harvard China" is a volume belonging to the school of Harvard writers which has produced "The Little Tin Gods on Wheels" and "Rollo's Tour to Cambridge." Nevertheless, these verses have a character of their own; their humor is aptly termed "sly." The subjects chosen are always unpretending, the metres used are appropriate and handled with a pleasant facility, and the execution of nearly every piece is felicitous and successful. The book throughout is pervaded with the genuine college spirit of our day in treating of all social subjects - a mild Horatian cynicism of a modern tinge. And yet the chief praise we can give to the volume is to say that it is thoroughly readable; it is not dull as so many of the attempts of college writers at social satire are apt to be. The following is headed "A Practical Question:"

"Darkly the humorist

Muses on fate;

Ghastly experiment

Life seems to him,

Subject for merriment

Sombre and grim.

Is it his doom, or is't

Something be ate?"

"Et Tu, Berghe!" is very wittily put:

"And art thou, Berghe, so firmly set

Against domestic strife

As to correct with stripes the man

Who disciplines his wife?

Such action does not of thy creed

Appear the normal fruit:

Thou shouldst befriend a being who

Behaves so like a brute!

The volume is very tastily gotten up, and is a credit to both author and publisher. It will be found pleasant reading, and an interesting souvenir of college life by all college men, at Harvard or elsewhere.

The publishers announce that "Rollo's Journey to Cambridge" will endure as long as Harvard College maintains its influence on surrounding social life, and humor continues to be an American characteristic.

"The History of the Religion of Israel; an Old Testament Primer," by Crawford H. Toy, professor of Hebrew language and literature at Harvard University, has been recently published.

Mr. Longfellow's tragedy of "Michael Angelo" will be published shortly by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

The "Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song" is announced by Crowell & Co., New York.