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author avoids using it, and presents her problem in a direct and matter-of-fact way that can admit of but one solution. When the end is reached, it seems as if a great deal of trouble has been taken to settle a very simple matter, and the sense of disappointment is inevitable.

We will bring this already overgrown article to a close with some mention of the two most important of recent translations of foreign fiction. Herr Drachmann, who is foremost among the living storytellers of Denmark, makes his first appearance before an English public with a pretty idyllic tale dating from his earlier period. "Paul and Virginia of a Northern Zone," put into English by the late T. A. Schovelin, with the aid of Mr. F. F. Browne, is a charming addition to our collection of translations from the fiction of the Scandinavian countries. The story has the freshness, if not naïveté, that gives to so many of the products of Scandinavian fiction their peculiar charm, and is so well exemplified in the writings of Herr Lie. The work dates from the author's earlier period, before he went the way of nearly all the moderns and began to write about problems. Its publication should be followed by other translations from Herr Drachmann, whose

story, and the problem is attacked in the bitterness of spirit that comes from close familiarity with a phase of life quite as characteristic of an Iowa village as of a Spanish town. The universality of the problem makes the book far more than a local study, and gives it a place among the half-dozen best works of modern Spanish fiction.

WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE.

BRIEFS ON NEW Books.

Imaginary portraits

It is art of a peculiarly delicate and of Sir Thomas More sympathetic kind by which a modern and his family. writer is able not only to show us how to understand the past, but also to show us how the past understood itself. Walter Pater and Robert Browning have special gifts for painting these imaginary portraits; but humbler writers, by a fiction of memoir or correspondence or journal, have also succeeded in drawing the great heroes as their contemporaries may be thought to have seen them. "The Household of Sir Thomas More," a work first published about the middle of the present century,

place in contemporary Danish literature is a high belongs among the best things of this kind, although

one, if not the highest.

The transition from romantic idealism to "tendencious" realism, that has marked the career of such Northern writers as Herr Drachmann, Herr Lie, Herr Björnson, and Dr. Ibsen, is equally noticeable in the strongest contemporary writers of Southern Europe. It may be illustrated for this occasion by the "Doña Perfecta" of Señor Galdós, now translated by Mrs. Serrano. Mr. Howells, from whose mintage we cheerfully accept the needed word "tendencious" (tendencioso in Spanish), writes an introduction to the translation, saying, among other things, the following: "Up to a certain time, I believe, Galdós wrote romantic or idealistic novels, and one of these I have read, and it tired me very much. It was called 'Marianela,' and it surprised me the more because I was already acquainted with his later work, which is all realistic." But Mr. Howells does not admit that the author of "Doña Perfecta" has undergone complete conversion, and sorrowfully adds: "I am not saying that the story has no faults; it has several. There are tags of romanticism fluttering about it here and there; and at times the author permits himself certain oldfashioned literary airs and poses and artifices, which you simply wonder at. It is in spite of these, and with all these defects, that it is so great and beautiful a book." We are quite disposed to admit that the book is both great and beautiful, although not exactly for the reasons advanced by our critic with a hobby. We should say rather that the book has these qualities because its author has had the romantic training, and has kept to its essential method while at the same time gaining a firmer grasp upon the actualities of life. The religious bigotry of the provinces is the central theme of this remarkable

the author's name, by her own choice, has remained almost unknown, not appearing on the title-page of any of the numerous editions through which the work has passed, nor even being included in the recent "Dictionary of National Biography." In the Introduction to the new and beautiful edition just issued (imported by Scribner), the Rev. W. H. Hutton, B.D., supplies the very meagre information that the book came from the pen of Miss Manning, and that "almost all that her wishes suffer us to know is that she was sister of Mr. William Oke Manning, to whom she affectionately dedicated the fourth edition of her work; that she was never married; and that she was a genuine student and an indefatigible writer on historical and literary subjects." The style of this book-professing to be the journal of Margaret, the eldest and best beloved of Sir Thomas More's daughters—is in the quaint old English spelling and the prose forms of composition of the sixteenth century; and every detail of the present handsome edition is in keeping with these characteristics. The illustrators - Mr. John Jellicoe and Mr. Herbert Railton-have imbibed the spirit of the text; and the reader, aided by their twenty-five illustrations, feels that he does indeed see the home of him who was called "the best of all the English," with his family, in their habits as they lived.

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Stevenson found, or nearly found, the peace of soul he so long had sought, these poems reveal to us his ripest thought upon the vast themes of human life and destiny. Their brave undaunted temper is nothing new to us, nor their frank acceptance of whatever life might have in store. Reading these last poems, it becomes more difficult than ever to realize that the bright spirit that found expression in them has left us forever. Here is a noble and pathetic quatrain that would have been worthy of Lander:

"I have trod the upward and the downward slope;
I have endured and done in days before;

I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope;
And I have lived and loved, and closed the door."

A strain more characteristic of the author is found in the following song:

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A new Life of the

German Emperor.

That most interesting and important personage, the German Emperor, is the subject of the last number of the series of "Public Men of To-day" (F. Warne & Co.). The author, Mr. Charles Lowe, has already written biographies of Bismarck and Alexander III., and has shown in them excellent judgment and great familiarity with European politics. In the present volume we see these qualities to even better advantage, for the critical balance is held more evenly; the book shows full appreciation of the Emperor's good qualities without the warping effect of the enthusiastic admiration that marred the life of Bismarck. The author shows his journalistic training by the vividness with which he presents the many sides of William's character, but his style suffers from the constant effort to be vivid, as well as from too great a familiarity with German idiom and mode of expression. His figures are sometimes almost grotesque, and his choice of words extends from current slang to the recondite treasures of the unabridged dictionary. But these are minor blem

ishes on an excellent presentation of the early life, training, and first seven years' rule of an extraordinary man. As the author says, the life of a monarch so near the beginning of his reign must necessarily be a torso. For this reason he has chosen the descriptive rather than the critical method, and has presented the Emperor's ideas and motives in the words of his own speeches. The picture shows William's self-confidence, amounting to an assumption of infallibility on all subjects; his extreme selfconsciousness, his pride, restlessness, despotic tendencies, his almost insane fondness for his army and navy, his incessant speech-making and journeyings by land and sea. But it shows also his extraordinary energy, his versatility, his unceasing effort to keep the peace of Europe; it leaves on us the impression that beneath the froth of youthful vanity there are many solid qualities, though it persuade us to share the author's conviction that William is "gifted with such a striking combination of both mind and will as has distinguished no occupant of the Prussian throne since it was vacated by Frederick the Great."

Idyllists of the country-side.

may

not

The subjects of Mr. George H. Ellwanger's six brief sketches, entitled collectively "Idyllists of the Country Side" (Dodd, Mead & Co.), are Izaak Walton and White of Selborne, Thomas Hardy and Richard Jefferies, our own Thoreau and Burroughs. Mr. Ellwanger, like many other writers, is most enjoyable when his language is simplest; for he has a large vocabulary of odd and unusual words, and in reading a book of this sort one does not care to keep an etymological dictionary at hand. This love of words for their own sake has led to the fault of spreading his language, of needless repetition. Moreover, he does not always make himself quite clear, and his grammar is not immaculate. Notwithstanding these blemishes, however, the book is an entertaining one; and although, as the author asserts, "an unbounded love for nature and a poet's eye.. are alone the gifts of the gods," yet we believe that the first, at least, which often lies dormant in those who are city born and bred, may be developed by much reading of the true naturewriters. If Mr. Ellwanger shall have succeeded in drawing attention to some of these, his book has

not been written in vain.

Some literary portraits by D. G. Mitchell.

The third volume of Mr. Donald G. Mitchell's "English Lands, Letters, and Kings" (Scribner) is not less readable than its two predecessors. Covering the period of Queen Anne and the two Georges, it includes, of course, some of the most interesting figures in England's literary history: the novelists, Richardson, Fielding, Miss Burney, Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth; the famous group of "The Literary Club," consisting of Dr. Johnson and his worshippers; the poets Crabbe, Cowper, and Burns, and the illustrious company known as "The Lake

Poets," with Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Lamb as its central figures. One is again struck with Mr. Mitchell's happy art of characterization, in noting how he succeeds in giving in a few lines a more vivid impression than the whole of some big biography furnishes. Take, for example, Miss Edgeworth: the entire two volumes of her recently published "Life and Letters" contain no such clever analysis of her life and work as the five pages devoted to her in this little book.

Life and influence of John Knox.

In Miss Florence A. Maccunn's brief "Life of John Knox" (Houghton) we have an admirable sketch of the work of the great Scottish reformer, of the Reformation in Scotland, and of the miserable failure of the brilliant Mary Stuart as both and woman. queen The narrative moves straight on, with little of praise or denunciation, yet is so presented as to make the leading characters live before us, with their good and bad traits, their mistakes and their successes, and with their motives so far as their words or their acts have disclosed them. The grand and heroic qualities of Knox are appreciatively set forth, but the other side is not hidden, -the side that shows his arrogance, pride, ambition, harsh cruelty, and personal hatreds. But with all his faults, we are shown his wonderful influence for good upon the character of the people of Scotland, perhaps a greater shaping influence than any other man has ever exercised over a whole nation.

BRIEFER MENTION.

The historical text-books of Professor Philip Van Ness Myers have been favorably known to American teachers for many years. They certainly have no superiors for high school and college use, and it is doubtful if they are equalled by any of their competitors. Professor Myers has now issued a "History of Greece (Ginn), upon the general lines of his earlier treatment of the subject, but expanded to more than double the length. The work is compact, up to date, and abundantly illustrated with well-chosen maps, diagrams, and

cuts.

"A Short History of Greece" (Macmillan), by Mr. W. S. Robinson, is a work of perhaps half the compass of the preceding, sparingly illustrated, but trustworthy and straightforward as to text.

A number of the lesser known writings of Defoe are collected in volumes fifteen and sixteen of the charming Dent-Macmillan edition of that author, and complete the publication. Our gratitude for this entirely satisfactory set of books should be shared about equally by the publishers, the learned editor, Mr. George Aitken, and the skilful illustrator, Mr. J. B. Yeats. The books form as pretty a series as has been seen for many a day. The publication of Parts 23, 24, and 25 of "The Book of the Fair" (Bancroft Company) brings to its close that valuable and handsome work. These instalments discuss the special buildings of the foreign governments, with their contents, and the work of the World's Congress Auxiliary. A chapter follows on "Results, Awards, and Incidents," and then comes a final chapter on the

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Professor C. F. Bastable's work on "Public Finance" is so well known to students of the subject that little need be said of the new edition recently published (Macmillan) beyond remarking that the author's revision has brought the work fully up to date, adding many new facts and figures, new chapters on "The Maxims of Taxation" and "Death Duties," and a new subjectindex. Even so recent a matter as the abortive incometax law enacted by our last Congress is brought into the discussion, and offers only one among many illustrations of the timeliness of the new publication.

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The "Arden" Shakespeare, published by Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., is a new series of texts for school use. It is aimed in this edition "to present the greater plays of the dramatist in their literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study of philology or grammar.' This is the best of theories upon which to prepare a set of the plays, and the names of the editors inspire confidence. The volumes thus far published include "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," both edited by Mr. E. K. Chambers; "Richard II.," edited by Mr. C. H. Herford; "Twelfth Night," edited by Mr. Arthur D. Innis; "Julius Cæsar," edited by Mr. Arthur D. Innes (can this be the same gentleman ?), and "As You Like It," edited by Mr. J. C. Smith. We may note at the same time the admirable edition of "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," edited by Miss Katharine Lee Bates, and published by Messrs. Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn.

Dr. Charles Waldstein's inaugural lecture as Slade Professor of Fine Art in Cambridge University is published in a neat volume of 130 odd pages, by Messrs. Harper & Brothers. Dr. Waldstein, treating his theme from the three standpoints of the production, the enjoyment, and the understanding of art, sketches what may be considered an ideal scheme of organization for university art study. The book is a most useful and suggestive one; and its point of view is timely.

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Washington a Model in his Library and Life" (Young & Co.) is the outcome of a lecture by Dr. Eliphalet Nott Potter, now extended and arranged in four parts. Dr. Potter has not the gift of clear and systematic presentation, but he has gathered together some good material concerning Washington's books and his way of regarding them and using them. Several times the author touches on an attractive topic — the present whereabouts of Washington's books; and it is to be hoped that he will be able to carry out his plan for treating this subject fully and in detail.

We have frequently had occasion to commend the "University" series of manuals, designed for the uses of the general reader and university extension student, and their excellence has often suggested the painful contrast that exists between these books and most of the books written for a similar purpose by an American scholar. Their aim is to educate rather than to inform "this is the keynote of their success, and the index of the contrast that we have suggested. Mr. J. W. Mackail's "Latin Literature" (Scribner), just added to the series, is one of the best of them all. a really

intelligent and delicately critical account of the whole subject within moderate compass. It is the work of a pupil of the late William Sellar, reflects much of the inspiration of his method, and may be unreservedly commended.

A trip to the Mediterranean offers an American the happiest means of escaping from the severity of a Northern winter, and the number of persons taking such a trip grows yearly. Under the title of "The Mediterranean Trip" (Scribner), Mr. Noah Brooks has prepared brief guide-book for the use of travellers, including the Azores and Madeira in the itinerary. The book is useful as far as it goes, but it has the fault of most American guide-books in failing to give the exact and detailed information that one is so sure to find in his Baedeker. Again, illustrations in such a book are an impertinence where maps are lacking, and with maps this book is most pitifully supplied. To give the traveller a photograph of Athens when he wants a diagram of the streets is like giving stones for bread- —a fact that cannot be too strongly impressed upon the consciousness of most guide-book makers.

It is safe to say that no prettier book for children has been published this season than "The Arabella and Araminta Stories," just issued by Messrs. Copeland & Day. The stories are by Miss Gertrude Smith, and they are embellished by fifteen illustrative designs, the work of Miss Ethel Reed. A charming introductory poem by Miss Mary E. Wilkins gives the book the happiest kind of a send-off. The title-page describes the book as belonging to the "Yellow Hair Library," which indicates, we trust, that it is the forerunner of others of like design.

"Brown Heath and Blue Bells" (Macmillan), a dainty booklet of Scottish travel-sketches from the pen of Mr. William Winter, forms a welcome addition to that graceful writer's familiar series "Shakespeare's England," "Gray Days and Gold," and "Old Shrines and Ivy." The new volume contains, in addition to the twelve Scottish sketches, a half-dozen fugitive papers on various themes, besides several personal tributes (to Doctor Holmes, George Arnold, Fitz-James O'Brien, Jefferson, etc.), added, the author says, "with the feeling that admiration for fine spirits may fitly consort with remembrance of beautiful scenes." The merits of Mr. Winter's delicate and lucid prose are familiar to our readers; and we need only say of the present volume that it fulfils the fair promise of its predecessors.

A book of "French Folly in Maxims" (Brentano) is a collection of seven hundred sayings, more or less epigrammatic, gathered from the literature which is most happy in such utterances, and translated and edited by Henri Pène du Bois. The names of Jules Janin, Coquelin, Paul Bourget, Alexandre Dumas fils, Francisque Sarcey, Jules Lemaître, Joubert, Chateaubriand, Pierre Loti, Sainte-Beuve, Ferdinand Brunetière, Victor Hugo are an evidence that there is something beside" Folly" in these pages; neither is the sub-title "Of the Stage" strictly descriptive.

The Rev. S. Humphreys Gurteen's volume on "The Arthurian Epic" (Putnam) is a somewhat unscholarly attempt to trace the development of the Arthurian stories from their inception to the "Idylls of the King." The writer is quite unfamiliar with modern investigations on his subject, and the historical part of his book is therefore not to be treated seriously. The extended comparison between Tennyson and that poet's predeces

sors in Arthurian fields resolves itself into this: when Tennyson follows Walter Map's lead, he is right; when he strikes out for himself, he is inartistic. The criticism of "Merlin and Vivien" is a fair sample of Mr. Gurteen's critical range. The poem is roundly scored on Christian grounds because Tennyson did not make Vivien the "female Galahad" that Walter Map intended her to be. Then follows several pages of proof that "Vivien of the Idylls no longer retains this character"! Further comment is unnecessary.

LITERARY NOTES.

Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons have reissued Mr. Conway's edition of Paine's "Rights of Man" in a separate volume.

"Yeast" and "The Water Babies" are the latest additions to the Macmillan "Pocket Edition" of Charles Kingsley's novels.

The memoirs of Mr. Locker-Lampson, edited by his son-in-law, Mr. Augustine Birrell, will shortly appear under the title of "My Confidences."

Volume X. of the Gibbings-Lippincott edition of Smollett's novels, containing «The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves," has just been published.

Messrs. Macmillan & Co. send us a new edition of Mr. Arthur Waugh's "Alfred, Lord Tennyson," the most satisfactory life of the poet yet published.

"Ursole Mirouët,” translated by Mrs. Hamilton Bell, has just been added to the Dent-Macmillan edition of Balzac. "Old Goriot" will be the next volume.

The United States Book Co. reprints in two papercovered volumes its well-known editions of "The Prose Dramas of Henrik Ibsen," including eight of the modern plays, translated by various hands.

The long-promised Life of Agassiz, by his pupil and associate Jules Marcou, is about ready for publication by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. They will also issue immediately "England's Darling, and Other Poems," by the new laureate.

Lord Beaconsfield's "Sybil," and Captain Marryatt's "Peter Simple" are the latest works to be reprinted in the Macmillan edition of standard English fiction. Mr. H. D. Traill and Mr. David Hannay write introductions for the respective volumes.

A chapter on "The Mercantile System," translated from Professor Schmoller's "Wirthschaftliche Politik Friedrichs des Grossen," is the latest addition to Professor Ashley's series of "Economic Classics,” published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co.

That clever politico-military brochure, "The Battle of Dorking," is reprinted in pamphlet form by Messrs. Way & Williams. Older readers will recall its remarkable vogue in England and America on its first appearance twenty-five years ago, and the drift of current events seems to make its reappearance hardly less timely and pertinent.

The Rev. J. L. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria, has published through Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co. a volume of "Songs Chiefly from the German." The work of translation is gracefully done, reproducing much of the feeling and beauty of the originals. An index of authors is lacking to the volume, for which defect we find it difficult to account.

A second volume of the selection of "Lyrical Poetry

from the Bible," made by Mr. Ernest Rhys, has just appeared with the Dent-Macmillan imprint. Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Prophetic Books, and the Gospel of St. Luke are drawn upon for the contents of this volume, which thus supplements the earlier selection from the Psalter and Job.

A new edition of Professor A. E. Dolbear's "Matter, Ether, and Motion" (Lee & Shepard) contains three chapters hitherto unpublished, and embodies several corrections of the former text. The note of mysticism, apparent in the earlier edition, is still more pronounced in this revision, and puts the book, in part, into the category of metaphysical publications.

The progress of specialization in physical science has a striking illustration in the newest periodical publication of the University of Chicago. It is a quarterly devoted to "Terrestrial Magnetism," and the subject gives it a title. It is published under the auspices of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory, with much learned American and European collaboration.

The "Journal of Pedagogy," published quarterly at Binghamton, New York, is in appearance an unpretentious periodical, but it takes high rank among our educational reviews. Its contents are varied and dignified, while its editorial comment is serious in tone, advocating, as it does, progressive and praiseworthy ideals. No teacher who adds this excellent paper to his list will regret having done so.

"The National Review" has never been as well known in this country as the other three great English monthlies, partly because no effort has been made to distribute it, and partly because it has not had quite the power of its older contemporaries to secure the services of the greatest writers. But for all that, it is an excellent and readable periodical, and we note with pleasure that it is now supplied to American subscribers by the publisher, Mr. Edward Arnold, who has recently established a branch office on this side of the Atlantic.

"The Auk," which is the official organ of the American Ornithologists' Union, enters upon the thirteenth volume of its new series with the January number. It is one of the most creditable scientific periodicals that we have, and is of interest to more than ornithologists, unless we may give that name to all interested in birds. Publication is quarterly, and each issue contains a highly-attractive colored plate. Mr. L. S. Foster, 35 Pine street, New York, is the publisher, as well as the agent of the Union for all its other publications.

The July-September number of the " American Journal of Archæology," just published, contains three papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, an account of "Some Sculptures from Koptos in Philadelphia," an article, by the Rev. John P. Peters, on "Excavations at Nippur," and a rich miscellany of "Archæological News." Two of the American School papers are by Mr. Edward Capps, of the University of Chicago, and treat, respectively, of the chorus in the later Greek drama, and of recent excavations at Eretria. The "Journal" is published quarterly by the Princeton University Press.

On the 25th of January, news was received in this country of the death of Alexander Macmillan, the younger of the two brothers who founded the great publishing house that bears their name. He was seventy years of age at the time of his death, and had retired ten years previously from active participation in the business. He made two visits to this country, the sec

ond, in 1869, leading to the establishment of the American branch of the house. The business is now left in the hands of his two sons, Frederick and Maurice, of George, his nephew, of Mr. George L. Craik, and of Mr. George P. Brett, the latter of these gentlemen representing the firm in the United States. An American observer cannot help marking the close coincidence of this death with that of the senior member of the house of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Mr. Morley Roberts, whom some of our readers may possibly know as the writer of a few fairly clever short stories, has voiced in "The Saturday Review "his indignant protest against what he calls the "whining appeal to the authors of the United States " framed by Mr. Hall Caine on behalf of the London Society of Authors. He is kind enough to put aside the point, "which could be strongly urged, that there are no authors to appeal to on the other side of the Western Ocean," but cannot rest under the imputation of having been in any way concerned in such a demonstration of friendliness and good-will. "Those who sign this precious paper go on to say that we are proud of the United States. Sir, we might be proud of them; but to say that we are proud of them is to speak most disingenuously. Who can be proud of our connection with a politically corrupt and financially rotten country, with no more than a poor minority vainly striving for health? . . . If our literature is the only bond between us and this most illmannered country, it may be time for us to repudiate American copyright before the Americans repudiate it. But literature is no real bond, because not one American in a thousand, no, not one in ten thousand, has had his manners made less brutal by the most casual acquaintance with it." Bravo, Mr. Roberts! If we have not heard of you before, we have heard of you now, and are not likely to forget the lesson in international amenity conveyed by the courteous phrases of your disclaimer.

The first number of "Cosmopolis" has reached us, and amply fulfils our expectations. It is a monthly review in the three culture-languages, English, French, and German, published by Mr. Fisher Unwin. Each number is to contain 320 pages, so that the purchaser really gets a good-sized English magazine, a good-sized French one, and a good-sized German one, all within the same covers. Among the contents of this January issue are the beginnings of serials by Robert Louis Stevenson and Mr. Henry James; an acute critical study of "Othello," by Dr. Brandes; a piece of pure literature in the shape of "Le Chanteur de Kymé," by M. Anatole France; an essay on the Roman death-penalty, by Professor Mommsen, and papers by Herr Spielhagen, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Edmund Gosse, M. Edouard Rod, M. Francisque Sarcey, and several others. Besides these leading articles, there are series of "chronicles" which constitute perhaps the most noticeable feature of the publication. The political chronicles will appear monthly, one for each country; the three dramatic chronicles are to be written tri-monthly; while the literary chronicles will be bi-monthly for England and Germany, monthly for France. Mr. Andrew Lang and M. Jules Lemaître are the literary chroniclers for France and England. We understand that occasional chronicles from other countries will appear, thus giving the subscribers to this periodical a fair conspectus of what is going on throughout the world of politics, literature, and art. We have long wished that someone would undertake such a publication as Cosmopolis," and we heartily welcome the enterprise.

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