The Harvard Monthly.

The advanced sheets of the Harvard Monthly for June prove that, excellent as was the Monthly for May, the best work of the students is coming to the light but slowly. The present issue, while less attractive than the last to the general reader, is without doubt the best exponent of Harvard undergraduate thought yet published. The leading article by Mr. C. P. Parker, entitled "Reminiscences of Oxford," relates concisely and sympathetically the writer's memories of Oxford undergraduate life. "A Ballad of a Windy Day" is not in Mr. Houghton's most successful vein. But many of the lines are particularly pleasing, as for example,

"Hither and thither across the sky

The thin clouds flit; and the sun is low.

And the grass is new, and the red buds show

Their sweet faint blush to the winds that stray."

And the blossoms white fill the air like snow, -

Sing bey! heigh! for a windy day.

Mr. Santayana, in a review of Spinoza, states clearly the philosophy of the great pantheist of Cartesianism. The article while differing materially from ordinary undergraduate work, shows that real thought is among us, and that such thought can be clearly stated. But Mr. Santayana's sonnet, again, is not equal to his usual work. Many of the lines are strong, but the strength is hardly carried to the end. "A Study in Catullus," by Mr. H. G. Bruce, is probably, from an artistic point of view, the best piece of student literary work which has been published at Harvard for years. While there is evident a tendency to pedantic allusion and a fondness for a Macaulay-like form of statement, the work on the whole is firm and eminently scholarly. There is a sound, timely editorial upon special work in advanced courses in history, political economy, and natural history.