A NEW BOOK.

The Harpers have just brought out "English Literature in the Eighteenth Century," by Thomas Sergeant Perry. This book is an attempt - the first made by a writer of English - to apply to the history and criticism of literature what has been termed the "scientific method" - the method that accepts as of universal applicability the laws of growth. It attempts to trace the source of the various impulses and reactions that mark English literature in the last century, and to show that they were only manifestations of a general development common to all European nations. Critics hitherto have been satisfied to point out wherein they deemed a book good or bad. It is now hardly too much to hope that they may find it work profitable to show why a writer is what he is. Mr. Perry's book, although of deep value to the reflective student, will be found - especially in its examination into the origin of the English novel, and into the growth of realism, - of fresh interest to the general reader. The work is a credit to Harvard scholarship.

O.