Comment on New Books

Fiction. A Cigarette-Maker’s Romance, by F. Marion Crawford. (Macmillan.) Mr. Crawford always has a story to tell, and he has a way of inspiring his readers with the confidence that he knows the end from the beginning, and is not at the mercy of his characters and their vagrant moods. The sureness of his movement was never better seen than in this compact, epical romance. The time covers but a couple of days and the intervening night ; the scene is chiefly in a cigarette-maker’s shop; the characters are a Russian noble in exile, his mind itself also being in exile, and a few Russian, Polish, and German men and women of limited range of thought and experience. Yet the theme of the book is high, and by the simple transmuting power of this theme the whole action is raised from the commonplace into the pathetic and noble, There is one passage, that on pages 145 and 146, which is masterly in its English.— Modern Ghosts, selected and translated from the works of Guy de Maupassant, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, Alexander L. Kielland, Leopold Kompert, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and Giovanni Magherini-Graziani; the Introduction by George William Curtis. (Harpers.) The chief difference between modern ghosts and classic ones is that the modern are invented for literary and psychological purposes, and that they are explainable, not by any of the clumsy devices of former days, but by subtle reference to physiological psychology. The modern ghost-raiser first reads a medical work, then artistically arranges the stage for his ghost, and, all things being in readiness, the ghost comes. An ingenious method of securing vraisemblance is to make the teller of the story repeat what he has heard, and then confirm it by his own experience. But not one of these story-tellers believes in the creature he has invented. — The House by the Medlar-Tree, by Giovanni Verga; translated by Mary A. Craig; with an Introduction by W. D. Howells. (Harpers.) A story of peasant life in an Italian fishing village. Detail enough there is here, and we can understand easily that an Italian reading the pathetic and lifelike tale might enjoy every touch. Unfortunately for purposes of enjoyment, the translator, though using excellent English, has no power to supply the American reader with a translation of all that myriad-threaded network of circumstance and heredity which makes the modern Italian a continent different from the American. However, since our duty as novel-readers appears now to be plain, to bring all our sociological, theological, historical, and geographical wits to bear upon the pleasure we undertake, we must not complain too loudly. Mr. Howells bids us on, and on we go, casting a furtive look backward upon our damaged idols. — Spirite, by Théophile Gautier ; translated by Arthur D. Hall. (Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago.) Curiously antiquated already, and made even remoter from nature and art by being put into English dress. The introduction smells of musk, and the close suggests violet light. — The Canadians of Old, an Historical Romance, by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé; translated by Charles G. D. Roberts. (Appleton.) A lively reproduction of scenes about Quebec during the change by which Canada passed under English control. It is more than an historical picture, for the author had an ambition to preserve in literature the characteristics of a people gradually ceasing to have autonomy. The book has further interest in its English form as an illustration of the eager movement of young Canada in its resolution to conserve its varied and promising national life. — Fra Lippo Lippi, a Romance, by Margaret Vere Farrington. (Putnams.) The love of the painter for the novice who sat to him as a model for the Madonna is the subject of this tale, which is only faintly mediæval in character, the situations and the personages being taken with some care from life, but the emotions and thoughts and general expression being quite contemporaneous and overcharged with sentimentalism. There are fourteen photogravures from famous paintings and views of places.— Sidney, by Margaret Delaud. (Houghton.) In essaying a novel delineating the birth of love in a soul which has been purposely sterilized, Mrs. Deland has saved herself from writing in the air by making her by-characters singularly vivid and of flesh and blood. It.is true that a thick set hedge seems to wall them all in from the actual world, but the remoteness from familiar experience does not vitiate the reality of the men and women. To have imagined these people, and then set them to acting out this somewhat fantastic drama without dissolving into misty forms, is a striking achievement.—The Demagogue, a Political Novel, by David Ross Locke. (Lee & Shepard.) A disagreeable piece of fiction without the redeeming quality of cleverness or special nearness to nature. No doubt the facts can be paralleled in our political life, but that does not make the story either a work of art or interesting. — A Ward of the Golden Gate, by Bret Harte. (Houghton.) There is almost always a point in Mr. Bret Harte’s novels, where it is uncertain whether the heroine is to turn out a good girl or a bad one ; the point is not at all in tlie character of the person, but in the exigencies of the story. There never is any doubt, however, about the seedy reduced gentleman ; he is a fatalist in goodness, and you have only to rid him of his sham gentility to find the genuine article beneath. The present story illustrates well the toss-copper style of Mr. Harte’s art. But how readable his books are, and how cheerfully we allow him all the liberties he takes !—The God of Civilization, a Romance, by Mrs. M. A. Pittock. (Eureka Publishing Co., Chicago.) By a contrast between the false civilization of, say, Chicago and the true nature to be found in the South Sea Islands, each being fictitiously set forth, the author appears to expect that the one will be condemned and the other justified ; but it will take both more-fiction and more reasoning than she seems to possess to convince the reader who has been neither to Chicago nor to Kaahlanai. Money, it may be added, is the God of Civilization. — Her Great Ambition, by Anne Richardson Earle. (Roberts.) It was to be a painter, and thereby hangs the tale, as all the criss-cross of the novel was occasioned by this ambition. It is a pleasantly told story, with a discreet suppression of localities and an agreeable humor. The stiffness seems to be that of one not yet wholly freed from novelettes, but the close study which the book intimates augurs well for possible other novels. A trifle more sprightliness in the deliberate conversations surely is not beyond the power of the writer, if she will accept the freedom of fiction ; and if, after building her story, she would clear away more of the scaffolding, the total effect would be better.—Gilbert Elgar’s Son, by Harriet Riddle Davis. (Putnams.) The writer uses a somewhat new class in fiction, Maryland fox-hunting Quakers. The fox-hunting is only one of the marks of English country-gentleman life which is reflected in the American story, and the English warp is woven with a woof of womanly independence of the latter-day and American sort. The descriptions of outdoor scenes and of minor characters are carefully and often well done. The hero is painfully conventional, and the heroine far too noble; there is not a crease in her robe of dauntless young womanhood. As a piece of storytelling, the book has some good points, but one main defect, — that it ends in the middle. The interest dies away after that ; the reader knows the end, and waits for the author to catch up with him. There is, however, so much that is good in the story, one wishes it better. — At the Dawning, by S. S. Morton. (Keystone Publishing Co., Philadelphia.) A conventional story, in which all the characters are like those curious figures with which children play, —paper dolls, flat and thin reproductions of life. — Grim Truth, by Alexia Agnes Vial. (John Lovell & Son, Montreal.) A somewhat amusingly told story of what befell a village where an epidemic of truthtelling raged for a week. The plan is better than the execution. Gilbert has used the same motive in a nonsensical little play, and others have also entertained themselves with the notion. — Little Venice, and Other Stories, by Grace Denio Litchfield. (Putnams.) Eight stories which have appeared in the leading magazines. They are all bright, and marked by good taste and refinement. They may miss the touch of nature which is beyond art, but they have much that stories of the same order lack. — A Kentucky Colonel, by Opie P. Read. (F. J. Schulte & Co., Chicago.) A novel which has all the outward appearance of liveliness. Full of conversation, it keeps the reader in constant expectation of the story ; and not only the absence of long descriptions, but the quick, summary fashion it has of dealing with situations and people, leads one to think it must be interesting. There are, indeed, occasionally glimpses of life as it is, but one who reads it through for the sake of the best it has to give is like a man who tries to keep warm at a fire made of hemlock boughs. If he stops throwing on the boughs he begins to freeze. — Ardis Claverden, by Frank R. Stockton. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) A tightly built novel of actual life, with Mr. Stockton’s peculiar humor escaping now and then through the cracks. — Thomas Rutherton, by John Henton Carter. (H. C. Nixon, New York.) A story of personal experience, told by the writer in a plain, straightforward way, not without a touch of humor and a gleam of bright characterization. A little more, and one would think this was another Story of a Country Town ; a little less, and he would pronounce it commonplace and flat. As it is, it reads like the record of actual experience, varied and enlivened by some imaginative power. The story is western in longitude, and takes one to New Orleans. — Campaigning with Crook, and Stories of Army Life, by Captain Charles King. (Harpers.) The first and longest sketch relates with considerable spirit the Sioux campaign of 1876. The other stories are loss important. They have animation and a generous tone, but belong to a somewhat conventional order of story literature. — Ascutney Street, a Neighborhood Story, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. (Houghton.) Mrs. Whitney has a little story to tell, the growth of love between two people wide apart socially, and the reader is not long in finding out what the end is to be ; but before he, more probably she, comes to the end, she has the little world which lies between these two travelers approaching each other well described in sentences which have an amusing way of cocking their heads and pursing their mouths. Mrs. Whitney’s mannerisms are well known to her readers, and do not displease them, for they trick out a good many wise observations. — The third number of Lee & Shepard’s Good Company Series of paper-covered novels is Three Millions ! or The Way of the World, by William T. Adams; the fourth is Cudjo’s Cave, by J. T. Trowbridge, which will recall to many the interest which they felt in a writer who threatened to be the American Dickens.

Poetry. Lovers of poetry in the making will find exceeding interest in Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by two of her friends, Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson. (Roberts.) The brief prose preface tells in choice phrase of the isolation of the remarkable spirit whose poetic, we do not say literary, labor was interrupted by death. Whether or no Miss Dickinson ever would have struck out a lyric satisfying to soul and ear we have not the temerity to say ; but the impression made upon the reader, who interprets her life by her verse and her verse by her life, is that there could not well be any poetic wholes in her work. Nevertheless, such is the fragmentary richness that one who enters upon the book at any point, and discovers, as he surely will, a phrase which is not to be called felicitous, but rather a shaft of light sunk instantaneously into the dark abysm, will inevitably search the book through eagerly for the perfect poem which seems just beyond his grasp. Words, lines, even stanzas, will reward him, and he will turn the leaf over and over, to make sure he has missed nothing. — Galgano’s Wooing, and Other Poems, by Sarah Bridges Stebbins. (Dillingham.) A collection of verses of very varied subject, but indicating much fertility of thought and feeling. Some of the contrasted poems are suggestive, and there are vigorous single lines, but the book appears to be the work of a lavish hand rather than of one which, knowing its cunning, has learned restraint and directness. — Il mio Poema (Coi tipisuecessori le Monnier, Firenze) is the name Pietro Ridolfi-Bolognesi gives to a volume of two hundred and lifty pages of blank verse. The poem is cut off into lengths called cantos, bearing titles such as “ Illusioni,” “ Alla Donna,” “ Padore,” etc. ; but beyond this arbitrary division the poem shows no evidence of plan, purpose, or structure. It is a rambling monologue of a so-called philosophical type, shows very little poetical talent, and is marred by frequent descriptions of sensuality. The English reader will recognize familiar bits of Shakespeare turned into flabby Italian verse : —

— Verses along the Way, by Mary Elizabeth Blake. (Houghton.) The division At the Children’s Hour contains some merry, musical verses, and hints at the bright color which characterizes the book as a whole. Indeed, the lighter poems, with their simple mirth and playfulness, make the book especially worth note, and one may do as one pleases about the more serious work ; at least one will not find it morbid. — Piero da Castiglione, by Stuart Sterne. (Houghton.) A strong, intense, and, like all this author’s work, somewhat strained and highpitched blank-verse narrative. Piero is betrothed to a beautiful maiden. He comes under Savonarola’s influence, sacrifices his love, and becomes a priest. She gets her to a nunnery. — The Feast of St. Anne, and Other Poems, by Pierce Stevens Hamilton. (John Lovell & Son, Montreal.) The title-poem furnishes a setting for half a dozen tales, which might better have been told in prose — or in better poetry. We only wish the author promised to be sufficiently popular to insist on people saying Niagàra.

Holiday and Fine Arts Books. Christmas in Song, Sketch, and Story ; nearly three hundred Christmas Songs, Hymns, and Carols, with selections from Beecher, Wallace, Auerbach, Abbott, Warren, and Dickens; illustrations by Raphael, Murillo, Bouguereau, Hofmann, Defregger, Story, Shepherd, Darley, Meade, Nast, and others. Selected by J. P. McCaskey. (Harpers.) Here, certainly, is a varied entertainment. It must be said, however, that the effect is of a very miscellaneous collection. The music, which occurs on almost every page, appears to be the main element. The songs are set in the middle of the page, and above and below are columns of reading matter, seven stories and rhapsodies. The pictures are sometimes engraved, sometimes process work, from famous paintings, and also conventional Christmas pictures bearing no relation to the text. There is no collection of great Christmas poems, and the uninformed reader is unable to tell who is the poet and who the composer of the musical contributions. It is a pity that a good scheme should have found its issue in such a hotchpotch. — It is late to he noticing the July number of the Portfolio (Seeley, London ; Macmillan, New York), but art is quite indifferent to monthly dates. The illustrations include a photogravure of Alfred Stevens’s bronze statue of Wellington in St. Paul’s Cathedral ; an etching, The Strand, by Pennell ; and a mezzotint of Caernarvon Castle. We speak under correction ; these are the apparent modes of reproduction, but in this day of skillful process work it is easy for one to fall into traps. There is also a lively sketch, Charing Cross to St. Paul’s, by Justin McCarthy, accompanying a half dozen clever pen-and-ink drawings by Mr. Pennell. Mr. Hamerton, the editor, has an agreeable paper on St. George’s Channel, with interesting copies by process (?) from drawings by David Cox and others. Mr. Moore’s recent work is criticised, and in general the reader gets what one may properly call a specimen of English work at its lightest and best. — The October number has for its chief illustrations In the Dukenès, engraved by Alfred Dawson, after Henry Dawson ; Home Again, by J. C. Hook ; and By the Law Courts, by J. Pennell. The text, which is a very interesting feature of the magazine, continues Mr. McCarthy’s Chaing Cross to St. Paul’s, and Mr. Purves’s The British Seas, and includes a readable paper on Millet’s pastels and drawings. — L’Art for the 15th August (Macmillan) is occupied principally with the serial notes by Paul Leroi on the Salon of 1890, with sketchy reminiscences of paintings exhibited. The main illustration is an etched portrait of Verdi by Paul Lafond, after Boldini, a very vigorous piece of work. — The October number has a special interest for Americans, since it contains a paper on J. G. Low, whose decorative work in tiles at Chelsea is so well known. The writer of the article, Emile Molinier, is delightfully frank in his airy scorn for American art, and has his word, also, for “ Le bill MacKinlay.” He thinks we have been influenced largely by South Kensington, but reminds his readers that Mr. Low owes his artistic skill to a French education under Couture and Troyon. The paper is accompanied by a number of designs, and is a hearty recognition of the value of Mr. Low’s work. — In and Out of Book and Journal, by A. Sydney Roberts. (Lippincott.) Apparently an idler’s notebook shaken out, the leaves being sometimes worth keeping, sometimes mere waste. The pages are sprinkled with clever little drawings, more or less appropriate, by S. W. Van Schaick. The general effect of the book, with its pretty covers, is attractive, barring the super-calendered paper required for the process cuts. — A new number of Knickerbocker Nuggets (Putnams) is Love Poems of Three Centuries, compiled by Jessie F. O’Donnell, and issued in two volumes, divided between English and American writers. There is a patriotic balance struck by giving as much space to American poets from Emerson down as from Spenser down. Even Bryant is credited with a love poem, but our surprise is lessened when it turns out to be The Burial of Love. These pretty little volumes need not be too closely scrutinized. All the world loves a lover, but once one is launched on seven hundred pages, he must get into his tub of philosophy or else into his canoe of youth, if he would enjoy himself thoroughly ; the critical wherry would go to pieces. — The Day’s Message, chosen and arranged by Susan Coolidge.

(Roberts.) A neat little volume of selections, each page headed in succession by the day of the month. Twice only, we think, are birthdays noted, — in the case of Lincoln and of Washington. A brief passage from the Bible stands first, and frequently gives the keynote of the selections for the day, which are in prose and verse from ancient and modern writers, but pretty uniformly religious or of high ethical import. Good taste has been shown, and the book is one to encourage and strengthen. — Our New England ; her Nature described by Hamilton Wright Mabie, and some of her Familiar Scenes illustrated. (Roberts.) An oblong book, containing a dozen photogravures from photographs of characteristic New England scenes, touched with what the publisher calls Remarks by Frank T. Merrill, really footnotes in pen and ink, each picture prefaced by a motto from Whittier, Longfellow, Lucy Larcom, and others, the whole going along with an agreeable piece of contemplative writing by Mr. Mabie. We are not very confident that nature illustrates literature, or properly accompanies it. Somehow the photographs, interesting as they sometimes are, do not always make pictures. — A group of Literary Gems (Putnams) consists of small books, usually of seventy or eighty pages, half of them sometimes blank, rough-cut edges, and flexible leatherette (?) covers, with frontispieces of portraits or otherwise. The books thus set forth are Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sheridan’s School for Scandal, Ruskin’s King of the Golden River, Froude’s Science of History, Butler’s Nothing to Wear, Carlyle’s Niebelungen Lied. The type is good, and the giver of the book — for we take it the books are made to give, and not to keep — has the satisfaction of knowing that no one can possibly object to the matter. — All Around the Year (Lee & Shepard) is a card calendar for 1891, formed of a dozen cards prettily ornamented with quaint figures by Pauline Sunter, the whole with rings, chain, and tassels. The fortunate receiver can snip off the tassels and cord. — Summerland, illustrated from the original designs of Margaret MacDonald Pullman. (Lee & Shepard.) An oblong volume, containing a score or so of landscapes and as many little vignettes. The refinement of feeling in the drawing is very evident, and so sometimes is what refinement now and then lapses into, — indefiniteness. The engraver has kept the same treatment throughout, so that the effect is even ; but the evenness after a while wearies one, when an occasional sharper accent would have quickened the pleasure of the eye. — From an Old Love Letter. (Lee & Shepard.) Miss Irene K. Jerome, who has won a success in previous seasons in landscape work, here turns her hand to a piece of decorative work, illuminating some of the tender passages from the Epistles of S. John the Divine. Some of the color strikes one as a little crude, but the effect, on the whole, is agreeable, and the text, in missal manner, is good, save for an occasional effort at novelty. The millinery of the book is the poorest part of it.—Mr. Lowell’s A Fable for Critics, first published forty-two years ago, and ever since included in his poetical works, is reissued now as a separate volume, accompanied by thumbnail sketches of the authors skewered in it. (Houghton.) These portraits aim at the faces as they were when Mr. Lowell saw them with his mind’s eye, but it seems a pity they could not have been a little larger, a little more characteristic. As for the verse itself, how clever it is, and what a sigh one heaves as he thinks of the unlikelihood that we shall have, this year, anything so capital in its way of the men who will be old or dead forty-two years from now !—Thoreau’s Thoughts : Selections from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Edited by H. G. O. Blake. (Houghton.) Thoreau is good to mince, for his thought is fragmentary and his expression epigrammatic. There is loss violence done to him, therefore, than to some others by separating these passages from their context, and the reader gets more wholes. We suspect that all but the most studious readers of Thoreau will be surprised at the wealth of idealism which is here presented in these gleaming nuggets. To live the ideal life, — that alone is worth while, is the sum of these thoughts, and we commend the book for its pungent, aromatic salts. It will quicken the breath of life. The careful bibliography at the end of the volume indicates how much of a hold Thoreau has on the writing public. — Dreams of the Sea is the title, read with considerable difficulty owing to the foamy and washy style of the lettering, of an oblong, lithographically illustrated book, profanely dedicated to the Almighty, faintly discernible apparently in the clouds. The text is a series of poetical extracts from various authors ; the decorations and illustrations are from the sea and sea-objects, expressed mainly in an artistic splutter and splatter. The use of the religious element is offensively histrionic.

Books for the Young. Pards, a Story of Two Homeless Boys, byEffie W.Merriman. (Lee & Shepard.) The author has tried to make her little ragamuffins true to nature by going down into the depths of what she plainly regards as the newsboy dialect ; and she has, in her soft heart, not been willing to invest them with any very evil propensities, so she has made what on the face of it is a realistic tale into a pretty palpable romance. — Wonderful Deeds and Doings of Little Giant Boab and his Talking Raven Tabib, by Ingersoll Lockwood. (Lee & Shepard.) The reader is likely to look first at the illustrations by Clifton Johnson which are scattered abundantly over the pages. Occasionally they have a humorous touch, but for the most part they are mere nonsense with the humor evaporating. The text is of much the same character. The author labors through three hundred pages of fantastic and grotesque narrative, now and then striking a spark of wit; but the sparks emit little light and no warmth, and one has to fumble for the story. — Elsie Yachting with the Raymonds, by Martha Finley. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) One is at first a little puzzled, as he enters the book, at receiving no introduction to the persons whom he finds in it, but discovers soon that he is, as it were, reading the nine hundredth chapter of some work which began once and shows no signs of ending; also, that it is of no particular consequence, as the characters exist only for the sake of conversing about battlefields, West Point and other places connected with American history. The yacht plays a very small part in the performance. — The Boy Travellers in Great Britain and Ireland, by Thomas W. Knox. (Harpers.) The sub-title, Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England, with Visits to the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, indicates the scope of the book, and those who are familiar with the other volumes in the series will understand what is the treatment. If one does not ask too much in the way of characterization of young people, and is indifferent to graces of style, he can pick up a good deal of information, as he could have done if the main matter of the book had been used baldly as material for a scrapbook. The author sometimes takes one also out of the beaten track, as when he treats of mock parliaments and house boats. There is a profusion of good pictures. — The Knockabout Club in North Africa, by Fred A. Ober. (Estes & Lauriat.) Of very much the same general character as the last named, though the pictures are poorer, the fictitious machinery is less formal, and the author helps himself to long quotations without indicating the source. The book is a good deal of a jumble, and in falling upon a greater abandon of style we get more slang also. Mr. Knox’s puppets spoke schoolmaster’s English, but Mr. Ober’s are not above the use of newspaper English. — Three Vassar Girls in Switzerland, by Elizabeth W. Champney. (Estes & Lauriat.) Mrs. Champney cares more for her story than do the writers of the other books with which this naturally is classed, and the scenery and history hold a more subordinate position. She makes her story improbable enough so far as the plot is concerned, but there is a rattling sort of good nature in the book which almost takes the place of humor. — Chatterbox, edited by J. Erskine Clarke. (Estes & Lauriat.) The bound volume of an English weekly which has secured a large yearly sale. It is not difficult to see why. The pictures are not as a rule too good ; the poems are generally of a domestic character; there are anecdotes of canine sagacity, short papers upon natural history, little moral tales, — even Boccaccio is called into service, — riddles, and bits of advice, the whole very cheap. It is the old principle of Chambers’ Miscellany applied to a stratum of intelligence a little lower, but a stratum occupied by vast hordes of persons, young and old, who know how to read and take a serious view of that accomplishment. — Little One’s Annual ; Stories and Poems for Little People. With 405 original illustrations. (Estes & Lauriat.) An annual made up of weekly issues, but less of a scrapbook than Chatterbox. It is of a higher order of juvenile art and literature. There is a brightness of appearance in the fair type and sketchy pictures which counts for a good deal in the attraction of the book. — Crowded out o’ Crofield, or The Boy who Made his Way, by William O. Stoddard. (Appleton.) The boy is one of those chaps (in books) who are always on hand when there is a runaway horse, or a fire, or any emergency calling for presence of mind and pluck ; by dint of using with great promptness all these skillfully arranged circumstances he comes to success. There is a spasmodic, bangbang sort of style in the telling which gives a certain movement to the story, so that we can easily imagine a boy marching straight through the handsome pages. — Among the Moths and Butterflies, by Julia P. Ballard. (Putnams.) A revised edition of an agreeable little book published a few years ago. We think the writer is at her best when she is describing simply and naturally what she has observed, not when she is dramatizing her subject and aiming at a seductive liveliness. — On the Blockade, by Oliver Optic. (Lee & Shepard.) A story for boys, in which the scenes are laid during the war for the Union. The characters have the destiny which always awaits them in this writer’s books, and the incidents are selected for their interesting nature and their helpfulness to the story, as all incidents should be. — The Kelp-Gatherers, a Story of the Maine Coast, by J. T. Trowbridge. (Lee & Shepard.) Mr. Trowbridge always has a story to tell. That is the secret of his success. It may not be an important story, but it is regularly laid out, and all the parts fit. It goes without any tinkering on the part of the reader.—Think and Thank, by Samuel W. Cooper. (Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia.) As the name of Moses Montefiore is used for the young hero of this story, and the last chapter shows the old man in reverie, we suppose the tale is intended to set forth the youth of the famous Jew. It shows the odds against which the Jews have had to contend in England, and in general, with good taste, but with no singular power, permits us to see ourselves as the best Jews see us.

Travel and Nature, The Tsar and his People, or Social Life in Russia. (Harpers.) A collection of papers on Russian topics, originally printed in Harper’s Monthly, and not quite enough relieved of the magazine element when brought together into a volume. The authors are the Vicomte Eugène Melchior de Vogüé, Theodore Child, Clarence Cook, and Vassili Verestchagin, the first two occupying most of the volume. The cities, the country, court life, and art are all treated in a fresh, interesting manner, and the pictures are not only abundant, hut of a high order of execution, looking even better than they did in the magazine. It was worth while to save such good matter in book form.— Outings at Odd Times, by Charles C. Abbott. (Appleton.) Mr. Abbott is a capital observer. He likes especially the odd ways of nature, and those aspects of human life which are most closely connected with the secrets of the world in which lie lives. The quaint, the picturesque, the outlandish, are attractive to him; and he prefers to note the scenes which lie just about him to going far afield. It is a pity that, with this faculty for minute observation, he should be so angular in his English; yet often when he forgets that he is making literature, he drops into a simple, unaffected style which is very agreeable. This book is more fragmentary and more readable, we think, than some of his sketches of outdoor life. — Wild Beasts and their Ways, Reminiscences of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, by Sir Samuel W. Baker. (Macmillan.) This veteran huntsman has a scorn for mere “ pig-sticking” and a boasted game-list, He hunts from the love of a noble sport, and with a constant care to study the nature and habits of wild beasts. His book, thus, while it treats of the elephant, tiger, leopard, lion, bear, hippopotamus, crocodile, buffalo, rhinoceros, boar, hyena, giraffe, antelope, deer, and similar game, is at once a record of personal experience and a summary of observation. Sir Samuel enters the menagerie of the globe with the safely conducted reader, and proceeds to show off the creatures in the open air. The excitement of the reader is a healthy one, and is stimulated both by the animated narrative of his guide and by the capital pictures which accompany the book. In these engravings the animals seem almost life-size.'— Aztec Land, by Maturin M. Ballou. (Houghton.) Mr. Ballou made a journey through Mexico in a Pullman car, under the management of an excursion agent. This means that he enjoyed his trip in the most comfortable way imaginable, that he kept pretty close to the railway lines of communication, and looked upon the scenes which engage the ordinary traveler. He gives the customary information, modified by personal observation and reflection. His long and varied experience as a traveler has made him an adept at the business of description and narrative. — A Russian Journey, by Edna Dean Proctor. (Houghton.) A score of years ago Miss Proctor visited Russia, and wrote this book in the glow of enthusiasm and with an eye for color and effect. Today she reissues it with a Prelude, in which she gathers some of her impressions of the Russian nature, and takes a fresh outlook upon the scene. Her picture of scenery and life can hardly call for much modification, we fancy, and she writes with a poetic touch which preserves descriptions as scientific precision could not. — Stratford-onAvon, from the Earliest Times to the Death of Shakespeare, by Sidney Lee ; with forty-five illustrations by Edward Hull. (Seeley, London ; Macmillan, New York.) The scheme of this book removes it from the class of ordinary guidebooks or local antiquarian gossip. Stratford is taken as a characteristic English midland town, and, after its history has been narrated briefly, the life which flowed through it in Shakespeare’s time has been reconstructed carefully. Shakespeare’s own probable experience runs as a thread through the book, and the entire effect is very pleasing. — The White Mountains, a Guide to their Interpretation, by Julius H. Ward. (Appleton.) Mr. Ward’s intention is to base upon a description of characteristic passages in the mountain region the reflections which a contemplative mind, already enlightened by the prophetic voice of poetry and religion, naturally makes. The blending of narrative and comment relieves the book of the strain of mere rhapsody; and though ready-made reflections for mountaineers are liable not to fit, there is no doubt that some minds will be led to more thoughtful account of the localities when their attention has been called to what may be termed the spiritual landscape, — Old Wine in New Bottles, for Old and New Friends, by Brinton W. Woodward. (Journal Publishing Company, Lawrence, Kansas.) A collection of rambling papers and verses, first published, many of them, in the Lawrence Journal. A good part of the book consists of travelsketches. The style is careless, though the matter sometimes is fresh. — Mungo Park and the Niger, by Joseph Thomson. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) A volume in the series The World’s Great Explorers. Although the main part of this book is devoted to a résumé of Park’s explorations, Mr. Thomson’s scheme includes both the early movements for the discovery of the sources and course of the Niger, and the history of explorations since Park’s time down to the formation of the Royal Niger Company. There is thus a unity about the book which adds to its value. Mr. Thomson knows his subject well, and his narrative is clear, though his style is somewhat diffuse and occasionally a little turgid. — The Trees of Northeastern America, Illustrations from Original Sketches, by Charles S. Newhall; with an Introductory Note by N. L. Britton. (Putnams.) A curiously constructed book; for while it gives the technical names of trees, it describes them with freedom from purely scientific terms, and, moreover, now and then introduces anecdotes, poetical quotations, and the like. The illustrations are simple, and the purpose of the work is accomplished if it enables the user to determine the various trees he sees and quickens his interest in tree life.

Textbooks and Educational Helps. In Heath’s Modern Language Series, a recent number is Selections from Heine’s Poems, edited, with notes, by Horatio Stevens White. The selection intends the best and most varied expression of Heine’s masterly lyric power, and is accompanied by an admirable bibliographical note and collection of annotations. Another number is A Compendious French Grammar, by A. Hjalmar Edgren, which is divided into two independent parts. The first is a Practical Survey of French Grammar, calculated for half a term or less, and occupies less than seventy pages ; the second is a Methodical Presentation of the same subject, with Historical Introductions, Versification and Sketch of the Relation of French and Anglo-French words. This part is calculated for two terms or less, and is three hundred pages long. — A Brief History of the Empire State, for Schools and Families, by Welland Hendrick. (Bardeen.) The reader must not be prejudiced against this book by its ungainly dress and appearance. It is a capital textbook, if one once admits the desirability of teaching state history. Concise without being dry, vigorous and thoughtful, it is a worthy addition to the small number of reasonable American histories. — Sir Philip Sidney’s The Defense of Poesy has been edited by Professor Albert S. Cook (Ginn) with excellent judgment. His Introduction, besides giving a brief outline of Sidney’s life in its external phases, contains a study of the date of the composition and publication of the treatise, and an inquiry into Sidney’s style and philosophical theory. The notes are possibly a little too exhaustive, and tend to make lazy scholars, but they furnish often suggestive comparisons. — Recent numbers of the useful little texts issued as Old South Leaflets (Heath) are Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, The Bill of Rights of 1689, Coronado’s Letter to Mendoza, Eliot’s Brief Narrative, 1671, and Wheelock’s Narrative, 1762. — Shakespeare’s Poems, edited, with notes, by W. J. Rolfe. (Harpers.) Mr. Rolfe has here gathered his previous work on the poems and sonnets into one comely volume, carefully revising his matter. His method is well known. He relies mainly upon others for general observations, and draws also from the abundant commentary of other editors, but he edits the text with scrupulous care, and leaves no expression unnoticed. For the careful text all thanks ; for the abundant comment, we can only say that it should be the last, and not the first, resource of the student. — The Theory of Music, as Applied to the Teaching and Practice of Voice and Instruments, by Louis C. Elson. (New England Conservatory of Music, Boston.) Mr. Elson, noting the tendency of musicians to become specialists, has prepared this book with a view to supplying a convenient course of study which shall familiarize students with those underlying principles, such as the laws of acoustics, the succession of tones, musical rhythms, and the like, which apply both in the construction and diversity of musical instruments, and in the orchestral grouping, as well as in the use both of instruments and the voice. There are a good many curious and interesting bits of musical lore tucked in by the way, and the book will be especially serviceable to teachers.— Tabular Views of Universal History ; a Series of Chronological Tables, presenting in Parallel Columns a Record of the more Noteworthy Events in the History of the World from the Earliest Times down to 1890. Compiled by G. P. Putnam, and continued to date by Lynds E. Jones. (Putnams.) This is from the old The World’s Progress improved and continued. It is a moderately convenient chart, but is too brief to be of very great service. The selection of topics does not always show a good sense of proportion. It is as if the compiler had regard in each year to what the people of that time thought of consequence. As a result, it is a sort of newspaper system which he follows, rather than one justly historical. — Latin Pronunciation, a Short Exposition of the Roman Method, by H. T. Peck. (Holt.) A clear, concise account of what was once known as the Continental pronunciation, from the fact that the obstinate English had refused to accede to the system worked out by the Germans. The gradual accession of scholars is now so nearly complete that this handbook seems designed chiefly for those who, brought up under the Anglican system, have perforce adopted the Roman method empirically, and yet would gladly know the reason of their new faith. — Elementary Composition Exercises, by Irène Hardy. (Holt.) This, with the preceding, belongs in the series of Teacher’s Handbooks. It is designed to stimulate teachers who are commonplace or weary, and in despair what subjects to suggest to children for composition writing. It grew out of school-room practice. Much of it is very useful, but we think the custom of picking to pieces good literature in order to make poorer out of it not to be commended. — Our Mother Tongue, by Theodore H. Mead. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) This is a book designed for Americans, and especially for American women, who dress well, act well, talk well, but have a fatal defect of style in the tone of their voices and the enunciation of their words. A few sensibly written chapters on Tone, Articulation, Pronunciation, the Vowels, the Letter R, Pause, Inflection, and kindred topics are followed by a Pronouncing Vocabulary, which indicates the incorrect style to be avoided as well as the correct style to be followed. Let us humbly hope we have made some little progress since our first school-masters took us in hand. Webster, in one of his early lists of a similar character, taught young America not to say “ rozum ” for “ rosin ; ” Mr. Mead warns against “rah’zn.” But why should we be told to say “ pay-triot,” and may n’t we say “ mat-rass’,”and must we not say “ cem’ent ” when the word is a noun ? We recommend this book as one adapted to set the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law. — Our Dictionaries, and other English Language Topics, by R. O. Williams. (Holt.) A collection of somewhat desultory papers, other topics being the origin of the word “ metropolis,” some Peculiarities Real and Supposed in American English, Good English for Americans, Cases of Disputed Propriety and of Unsettled Usage. The first topic of all is so good that one is disappointed at finding it treated in a sketchy fashion. Mr. Williams seems to have regarded it chiefly as offering tidbits. He gives chapter and verse for his illustrations of the use of language, and points out one interesting result of his observation, namely, that the irregularities of Cardinal Newman are the irregularities also of Hawthorne. A caution should be given in these nice matters, observed no doubt by Mr. Williams, against an indiscriminate use of editions. Reprinters, having perhaps parted with their consciences in reprinting without leave, sometimes commit the greater crime of improving their author’s English.— A Pocket Hand-Book of Biography, Containing more than Ten Thousand Names of Celebrities, in every Sphere of Human Action, Showing their Nationality, Rank or Condition, Profession or Occupation, the Dates of their Birth and Death, and effectually answering the frequent query Who was He ? Compiled by Henry Frederic Reddall. (Bardeen.) One might demur at the notion that this query would be effectually answered respecting, say, Robert Burns by the information that he was a Scottish poet, who was born in 1759 and died in 1796. In truth, the handbook is only a collection of headstones. It follows in plan and style the excellent Hole’s Brief Biographical Dictionary, published a score of years or so ago. It serves the purpose of those who do not like to lift from the shelf their big Webster, which has, one may say, almost exactly the same list, with the addition of pronunciation. Upon comparing a page of Mr. Reddall’s book with the corresponding titles in Webster we find the two exactly alike, except that Mr. Reddall adds three new names. — A Guide to the Literature of Æsthetics, by C. M. Gayley and F. N. Scott (University of California), has its chief value as directing the attention of students to such material as is easily accessible, and indicating something of the scope of the subject. Work in this field is so desultory, for the most part, that any attempt at philosophic systematizing, if it goes no further than this pamphlet, is a good sign of progress. — Haverford College, Pennsylvania, has fallen into line with other colleges in printing Studies, two parts of which have reached us. We have no sympathy with the criticism which deprecates separate collegiate publication, and demands that the several colleges shall contribute to the support of some central journal. The latter course may be more convenient for the student, but the former is infinitely more likely to bring out scholastic enterprise, and that is the main consideration. The chief strength of the two parts before us is in the work of J. Rendel Harris and his as ociates in the direction of New Testament textual criticism, Number 5 being devoted to the Diatessaron of Tatian. The numbers are very handsomely printed. The Secretary of Haverford College is the agent for distribution.

History and Politics. The Veto Power, its Origin, Development, and Function in the Government of the United States, by Edward Campbell Mason. (Ginn.) The first of a series of Harvard Historical Monographs, edited by Professor A. B. Hart. The historical introduction, connecting the veto as known in our Constitution with its germ in Teutonic government, is brief and to the point, and is followed by an interesting analysis in a series of chapters of the practical working of the veto. An appendix gives as full a list as could be made of presidential vetoes. A bibliography and index complete a work which augurs well for the thoroughness of the series which it opens. — The Unwritten Constitution of the United States, by C. G. Tiedeman, (Putnams.) It is interesting to observe how historical studies are affecting the study of constitutional law, and how, also, the comparative study of constitutional government is modifying the old-fashioned, merely legal and doctrinaire view of the American Constitution. Professor Tiedeman, himself a lawyer, takes up some of the topics which are fundamental, such as citizenship, natural rights, electoral processes, and discusses them in the light of actual facts to show liow impossible it is to base a living organism upon pragmatic documents. As some one has said, the Constitution of the United States is a sort of false bottom for political thinkers. His book, which is brief, is suggestive rather than exhaustive. — The Story of Scotland from the Earliest Times to the Present Century, by John Mackintosh. (Putnams.) A business-like but rather dry chronicle, with somewhat juiceless judgments of men.