In the opinion of Carlyle this is the best philosophical history that Germany has produced. The Harpers have reprinted it in the cheap and elegant series of valuable books, entitled their “New Miscellany.” The volume presents a graphic and exceedingly interesting view of one of the most terrible and devastating wars with which Europe was ever cursed. It represents the struggle of the Protestant States against the overgrown power of Austria, and the various motives, religious and devilish, which animated the parties during the contest. The skill and bravery of the commanders engaged in the war, give a personal as well as general interest to the narrative. On the one side we have Gustavus Adolphus, Count Thorn, Mansfield, Bernard of Weimar, Banner, Torstensohn, on the other Wallenstein, Tilly, Piccolimini, Pappenheim, and Hatzfeld. Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein are, of course, the leading objects of interest. In reading this history the mind becomes so accustomed to the devastation of provinces, the murder of peasants, and horrible outrages on all the decencies and sanctities of life,—that fire, famine and slaughter become mere commonplaces and matters of course. We read, at last, the most terrible accounts of wretchedness and cruelty, with hardly a shudder. Schiller, in summing up the various evils of this war, a war which devastated whole provinces, reduced towns and cities to ashes, “smothered the glimmering sparks of civilization in Germany, and threw back the improving manners of the country into their pristine barbarity and wildness,” still finds consolation in the thought that from this fearful war Europe came forth free and independent. “In it she first learned to recognize herself as a community of nations; and this intercommunion of States, which originated in the thirty years’ war, would alone be sufficient to reconcile the philosopher to its horrors.” There is, in truth, some consolation in the idea that a soul of goodness abides in things evil,—that men, mad with passion or drunk with fanaticism, cannot hack each other to pieces, without having their blind fury directed by a higher power to a good result. * * * * * _The History of Civilization from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution. By F. Guizot. Translated by William Hazlitt. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 4 vols. 12mo._