Comment on New Books

Books of Reference. The fifth and penultimate volume of The Century Dictionary (The Century Co.) covers the language from Q through Stroyl, which last word we leave the reader to look out for himself. He may think he knows Q, but we doubt if he knows its fourth meaning before looking it up here. One good feature of this dictionary is its explanation of abbreviations under the letters themselves. Thus q. s. and q. v. with a number of others are definitely explained. The range of literary illustration is wide, including the chance remark of a North Carolina backwoodsman to a correspondent of the New York Tribune. We are sorry when looking for spectre to be told to go to specter, especially as under that word the derivation is an argument for the form re. One may thus dip into this book here and there and find on every page something to comment on. The dictionary is a great thesaurus, and the wise man will draw from if words new and old. Next to the study of great literature we commend one to the study of the infinite number of forms of which great literature makes use. — A Popular Handbook and Atlas of Astronomy, designed as a Complete Guide to a Knowledge of the Heavenly Bodies, and as an Aid to those possessing Telescopes, by William Peck. (Putnams.) There is a little about everything astronomical in this book, and hence not very much about any one thing ; but the author goes pretty directly to the point, and the abundant illustrations and charts really constitute the special reason of the book, the text being quite subsidiary. It will prove of special interest to amateur astronomers. — A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, Mythology, Religion, Literature, and Art, from the German of Dr. Oskar Seyffert ; revised and edited, with additions, by Henry Nettleship and J. E. Sandys. With more than 450 illustrations. (Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London ; Macmillan & Co., New York.) The scheme of this important work commends itself both to scholars and to the general reader. Besides the brief dictionary entries, there are many encyclopædic articles, such as Judicial Procedure, Marriage, Painting, Houses, Freedmen,

Vases, Temples, Sculpture, and in the mythological portions especially there is a compactness of statement and a freedom from theorizing much to be praised. Biography is not treated except in its connection with literature, art, or mythology. Thus Alexander the Great does not appear, but three small Alexanders of literature are recorded. The illustrations are profuse and admirable ; the latest discoveries are made use of, such as the new work by Aristotle ; and the book ought to be a handy one for scholars, a sufficient one for general readers. — The seventh volume of the new issue of Chambers’s Encyclopædia (Lippincott) covers words from Malte-Brun to Pearson, and is marked by the qualities which have already made it conspicuous among cyclopædias. That is to say, there is a happy mean preserved between the treatise-like character of the Britannica and the dictionary character of Johnson. The proportion is well maintained, and the user of it is tempted just beyond his needs to read the articles. The freedom from partisanship is well preserved, a single word only in the article on Parnell betraying the animus of its author. The United States articles seem unusually free from petty errors, and in all cases information is brought to a very recent date. The writer of the article Parody has overlooked one of the cleverest of examples in Bayard Taylor’s Diversions of the Echo Club.

Nature and Travel. Landscape Gardening ; Notes and Suggestions on Lawns and Lawn Planting ; Laying out and Arrangement of Country Places, large and small Parks, Cemetery Plots,and Railway Station Lawns ; Deciduous and Evergreen Trees and Shrubs ; the Hardy Border ; Bedding Plants ; Rockwork, etc. By Samuel Parsons, Jr. (Putnams.) Mr. Parsons, who is Superintendent of Parks in New York, has collected his papers and added to them in this handsome volume, which is enriched by illustrations which increase the explicitness of the text. Although Mr. Parsons treats rather the larger than the smaller schemes in landscape gardening, his comments and suggestions are pointed, and not merely vague and general. The work, however, is not so much a practical handbook as it is one to stimulate the owner of a country place to make the most artistic use of the possibilities contained in it. Less is said than we should look for about the relation of a country seat to the neighboring landscape. The beauty of a place is often greatly enhanced by a careful study of the part which it plays in a larger whole. Mr. Parsons writes not only from experience, but with a genuine love of his subject.—Gray Days and Gold, by William Winter. (Macmillan.) Under this fanciful title Mr. Winter has collected some of the papers which he has written after pious pilgrimages to literary shrines in England and Scotland. His enthusiasm, his sentiment, his ardent love of poetry in all its forms, whether in verse or life or stone, suffuse his sketches with a glow which is rare in these days of suppressed feeling and pococurantist literature. — A popular edition has been issued of W. S. Webb’s California and Alaska and Over the Canadian Pacific Railway (Putnams), which includes the varied illustrations, large and small, given in the original edition. It is the work of a traveler who loves traveling for its own sake, and to whom all incidents, great and small, are almost equally interesting. — The Canadian Guide-Book : the Tourist’s and Sportsman’s Guide to Eastern Canada and Newfoundland, including full Descriptions of Routes, Cities, Points of Interest, Summer Resorts, Fishing Places, etc., in Eastern Ontario, the Muskoka District, the St. Lawrence Region, the Lake St. John Country, the Maritime Provinces, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland ; with an Appendix, giving Fish and Game Laws, and Official Lists of Trout and Salmon Rivers and their Lessees. By Charles G. D. Roberts. (Appleton.) Such is the tale of the title-page, and the tourist or sportsman who takes it for a guide will find not only all that is written down there, but much more ; for Mr. Roberts, being himself an enthusiastic sportsman and a facile writer, has interspersed a good many pages which will furnish the owner with entertaining reading for rainy days in camp. The absence of an index is criminal. — The Leaf-Collector’s Handbook and Herbarium, an Aid in the Preservation and in the Classification of Specimen Leaves of the Trees of Northeastern America, by

Charles S. Newhall. (Putnams.) Mr. Newhall’s The Trees of Northeastern America we have already referred to, and this work is even more serviceable, because leaves being more readily identified, the outline figures with which the book is filled will enable one to place his leaves, and therefore his trees, with accuracy. The fruit is in many cases also figured, and information is always given whether the figure is of natural size or reduced. The book does not call for botanical knowledge in the one who uses it. — The Stream of Pleasure, a Narrative of a Journey on the Thames from Oxford to London, by Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell, together with a Practical Chapter, by J. G. Legge. (Macmillan.) As may be guessed from the conjunction of names, this narrative is by pen and pencil, and the pencil with its skill and its touch of beauty is most happily married to a pen which is growing flexible with use in work of this sort. The voyage is a brief one, but the voyagers were blissfully ignorant of the art of boating, and thus added adventures to the scene ; and between picture and slight incident and personal comment and light-hearted talk, a graceful and winning book results. — I Go A-Fishing, which Mr. William C. Prime put forth a score of years or so ago, is reissued in paper covers to please a new generation of readers. (Harpers.) Many will find almost an antiquarian interest in it, so much more sophisticated have the ways of fishers become since Mr. Prime fished and told his tale by the St. Regis waters. Besides his journal and narrative, the fisherman, like others of his craft before him, makes his fishing but an excuse for much pleasant moralizing, and for the talk which the brookside and the camp seem bound to keep alive, if the business and hurry of workaday life have stifled it in other places. — Jinrikisha Days in Japan, by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore. (Harpers.) The experience of this writer has been a safeguard against hasty deductions. She lived in Japan long enough to discriminate, not long enough to lose the vividness of early impressions, and behind this experience there are a shrewd observation and a clear, sympathetic mind. No one can read a few chapters without feeling that he may safely entrust himself to his guide, who has produced one of the most readable, most satisfactory books on this country which is so apt to take the stranger’s judgment captive and hold it long after he has escaped the magic land. — Under the Trees and Elsewhere, by Hamilton Wright Mabie. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) When Beethoven heard the comments of people on his Pastoral Symphony, that they were delighted with what they supposed to be the reproductions of sounds of nature, he waxed indignant, and for the benefit of fools wrote above the score Reflections of One going into the Country. Thus those who go to Mr. Mabin’s book for such pictures of outdoor life as they may find in the writings of more than one good observer of nature will discover that the author went into the fields and woods to enjoy his own speculations as these were quickened by nature, and thus the book is a record of the spirit. There is about the writing much of that leisure and quiet movement which belong to the long summer day, and Mr. Mabie brings to his pleasant task recollections and impressions which have resulted from wide reading and generous sympathy. — The Other Side of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, by H. R. Fox Bourne. (Chatto & Windus, London.) A review of the expedition based upon the published literature which has grown up about it, especially Stanley’s own contribution. Mr. Fox Bourne analyzes the plans of the expedition with skill, and points out how largely the disasters which fell were due to the choice of routes, and how Stanley’s devotion to the Congo Free State impaired his judgment as to the directest course to be pursued in the relief of Emin. But the criticism extends further, to the character of Stanley himself and to the nature of Emin’s relations to Egypt and England. One would have rather more confidence in Mr. Fox Bourne’s criticisms if they did not partake somewhat of the spirit of a special pleader.