--In "Captain Mago"[R] we have a kind of book which with proper attention may be made extremely interesting and valuable. It is an attempt to reconstruct the life of three thousand years ago, not merely among the Phoenicians, but in many other countries. Under the guise of an expedition sent by the King of Tyre to Tarshish for the purpose of collecting materials for the Jewish temple which King David was then planning, we are taken to Judæa, Egypt, Crete, Italy, Spain, France, England, and Africa. Such an expedition of course gives the author an opportunity to present a panoramic view of the civilization in those countries thirty centuries ago. We cannot say that he has performed the task well. He dwells too much upon what he imagines to be the language and conversation of the ancients and too little on those material facts in their life which can be proved or plausibly imagined from the remains of it which we have gathered. Ancient habits are but very obscurely exhibited in the rude tools, the fragments of village houses, the necklace of the Man of Mentone, the whistles and other toys of the caves, the funereal fireplaces, and similar objects, but they are much more plainly discernible than are the peculiarities of speech which must have made up the bulk of daily conversation among our ancestors. A reconstruction of ancient life based on a good knowledge of these objects is likely to be more instructive and real than one that depends for its force on a fanciful conception of their _thouing_ and _theeing_, their love-making, and what oaths they swore. In fact, real service could be done to "popular" science by a book that should exhibit our remote forefathers as we really know them, and not attempting to go beyond that point. Difficult as it will necessarily be to make such an undertaking successful, we have no doubt that it will one day be accomplished. "Captain Mago," though falling far short even of excellence in this field, is nevertheless an interesting and peculiar book. [Footnote R: "_The Adventures of Captain Mago_; or, A Phoenician Expedition B.C. 1000." By LEON CAHUN. Translated by Ellen E. Frewer. Illustrated. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.]