Comment on New Books

History and Biography. My Threescore Years and Ten, an Autobiography, by Thomas Ball. (Roberts.) There is that in Mr. Ball’s Autobiography which reminds us a little of Chester Harding’s, — a frank, kindly account of a life which, with untoward beginnings, seemed to blossom into artistic success, keeping all the while a goodnatured self-respect in the midst of a clear recognition of deficiencies. There are many pleasant passages in this rambling narrative, which reads as if it were jotted down at odd moments, in disregard of any very consecutive form. The picture it gives incidentally of Boston in the middle of the century is often one of interest from its betrayal of provincial tones. — Salem Witchcraft in Outline, by Caroline E. Upham. (The Salem Press, Salem.) Mrs. Upham has gone mainly to Mr. Charles W. Upham’s historic work for her material, but has aimed to make a brief narrative which shall present the facts in the case in a fresh, vivid manner. This she has done effectively, and in a compass more convenient than we remember to have found before. If she views this terrible outburst with indignation at the pitiless clergy, and admiration for stout-hearted Rebecca Nourse, she is in accord with most readers of the day. Yet, blind as our ancestors were to their own cruelty, it is to be said that this tornado of superstition which swept away so many souls gathered its irresistible force from many generations of men, and expended it on one.— The Life and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli, by Professor Pasquale Villari. Translated by Madame Linda Villari. In two volumes. (Scribners.) This new edition of a work whose importance was recognized when the original appeared reflects special credit on author, translator, and publishers. It is a thorough English version, unabridged and well equipped, of a history which covers the most genetic period of Italian life. The subject of the biographical treatment offers an excellent starting - point for a consideration of the modern state in its relation to the Renaissance, and Professor Villari, whose mind is scientific in its cast, has perceived with great clearness the movement of the political, religious, and artistic thought of Italy in the time of Machiavelli. He writes with modern Italy for a background to his thought ; that is, his history is meant for people of this day to read, and he has fortified his position with abundant documents. It is the philosophic treatment which will most attract readers. The illustrations, largely portraits, are admirable, and admirably printed. — Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle, by Mrs. Alexander Ireland. (Charles L. Webster & Co., New York.) Mrs. Ireland’s task has been to separate Mrs. Carlyle from her husband ; to collect into one convenient volume the letters and memorials which, for the most part, lie scattered in several publications ; and thus to permit one to see by herself a person who, had she not married Mr. Carlyle, might still have made an impression upon her countrymen and countrywomen. We question the wisdom which thus seeks to dispart this remarkable pair. Mrs. Carlyle was Carlyle’s wife, and Mrs. Ireland does not succeed any more than death did. The amount of new material in the book is inconsiderable. — Journal of Maurice De Guérin, edited by G. S. Trebutien, with a Biographical and Literary Memoir by Sainte-Beuve. Translated by Jessie P. Frothingham. (Dodd, Mead & Co.) A new translation, in good English, of a French classic which has a peculiar interest to-day, since, written sixty years ago, the attitude toward nature and toward society found in it is far more common to educated and sensitive minds than when the journal was penned. The delicacy of sensibility which it discloses has a purity and freedom from mawkishness most agreeable to the reader, who ventures upon the perusal with a little timidity at first, from the fear of encountering a soul too high strung to make a partnership in its experience possible. — Peel, by J. R. Thursfield. (Macmillan.) One of the Twelve English Statesmen Series. The treatment of the subject is of the best order of English political writing. It is a study, acute, discriminating, and resolute, of a character simple in its lines, but set in such complex relations as itself to seem complex. Mr. Thursfield, in the course of his narrative, makes some capital reflections upon other than strictly biographical phases of his subject, as when, for example, he touches in a few sentences upon the characteristics of the eighteenth century. It may be said, in general, of political subjects in English history that they have a special charm for the student, since no other nation has given such singular opportunity for the practice of statesmanship. The conditions of government have stimulated the development of men who have worked in affairs as an artist works in his material. — Literary Industries, a Memoir, by Hubert Howe Bancroft. (Harpers.) In this moderatesized volume Mr. Bancroft has given an account, of his life and its product in the vast work on the Pacific coast, for which he accumulated materials, and which he organized as it stands. It has been acutely said that biography is sure to be false, autobiography sure to be true : because in writing the life of another man the author inevitably and unconsciously impregnates the work with his own personality ; in writing his own life the author in vain seeks to conceal his personality ; inevitably and unconsciously he discloses it. That remarkable result of business enterprise, organizing power, and scriptorial ambition to be found in the History of the Pacific States well deserved to be recorded in detail, and no one could have done the task so surely as Mr. Bancroft. — In the series of Johns Hopkins University Studies (the Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore), a recent issue is Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic, by Andrew Stephenson. The author’s plan has been to sketch “ the origin and growth of the idea of private property in land, the expansion of the ager publicus by the conquest of neighboring territories, and its absorption by means of sale, by gift to the people, and by the establishment of colonies, until wholly merged in private property.”—Harmony of Ancient History, and Chronology of the Egyptians and Jews, by Malcolm Macdonald. (Lippincott.) The author’s method is first, in a series of chapters, to determine Egyptian chronology and establish certain epochs, then to inquire into the technical chronology of the Jews and ascertain the chronologic epochs from the exodus to the reign of Hezekiah, and finally to trace the synchronous history of the two peoples. He makes use of documents, monuments, astronomical observations, coins, and the like.

Poetry and the Drama. Lyrical Poems, by Alfred Austin. (Macmillan.) There is an affectionate regard for nature in these verses, which is not less genuine that it has a touch of self-consciousness in it. That is to say, Mr. Austin poetizes, though he does not attitudinize. He is in love with nature, and there is nothing shy about his devotion. Indeed, there is often a freshness which half suggests the Dorset Barnes ; but Mr. Austin is always the cultivated poet, to whom nature is a graceful part of a fair life. He turns, when not in face with nature, to the refined England of high breeding, and intimates by his verse that his associations are with the best people. The melody of his verse possibly deludes him into a fluency of expression which sometimes wearies the reader. — A second series of Poems by Emily Dickinson has been issued (Roberts), edited, as was the first, by T. W. Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd. It has an interesting preface by Mrs. Todd, and a fac-simile of Miss Dickinson’s handwriting. A classification of her verse has been attempted under the headings Life, Love, Nature, Time, and Eternity. What strikes one afresh, as he takes up the book, is his interest in reading, independent of his poetic preferences. The quick contact with another nature, and that a singularly aggressive one, makes reading Miss Dickinson an intellectual excitement. We raise our objections, we rule out poem after poem, yet we keep on reading, never sure but irritation will give way to delight. The lawless is sometimes more interesting than the lawful. — The Golden Treasury Series (Macmillan) is enriched by the addition of Biladen und Romanzen, selected and arranged, with notes and literary introduction, by C. A. Bucheim. The title page has a pretty vignette of Uhland. The contents are grouped chronologically under three periods : from Bürger to Chamisso, from Uhland to Heine, and from Freiligrath to the present time. The second period is the fullest, including, besides Uhland and Heine, Rückert, Körner, Platen, Wilhelm, Müller. Mr. Bucheim has shown good judgment in giving the largest number of examples from the acknowledged masters, and in keeping the whole number of names represented small. — Drauss un Delieem, gedichte in Pennsylvänisch Deitsch, bei’m Charles Calvin Ziegler von Brushvalley, Pa. (Hesse & Becker, Leipzig.) A thin book of verse, with an Appendix devoted to the pronunciation of Pennsylvania German. The writer points out the considerable infusion of English words in this odd naturalization of German. His own poetical work embraces several translations from Longfellow, Bryant, and Emerson, and his serious poems inevitably set one to recalling Hans Breitmann. — Homer in Chios, an Epopee, by Denton J. Snider. (Sigma Publishing Co., St. Louis.) An ingenious piece of work. Mr. Snider weaves a hexametrical web about the meeting and marriage of Hesperion from the northland and Praxilla, daughter of Homer. Homer and David and Hesiod all take part in the story, which is, if we are not too daring or blundering in our guesses, a sort of apologue of the blending of Greek and Hebrew influences in the life of the modern world. The hexameters trip along in an amusing dance which might make the author of Evangeline smile, but would surely make the author of Empedocles on Ætna frown. — Modern Love, by George Meredith. (Thomas B. Mosher, Portland, Me.) A choicely printed and bound edition of this sequence of sonnets. The book is introduced by an admirable essay by Mrs. Elizabeth Cavazza, in which, with interpretative skill and good taste, she points out the underlying argument of this splendid achievement. However impatient one may be, in these days of swift directness, at the involutions of Meredith’s art, here is a work which, subtle and elusive, is yet so impressive by its dignity of speech and its restrained power as to take possession of the mind and give one a sense of the wonderful possibilities of poetry. The form of a sonnet sequence has much to do with the success of the work ; for it enables Mr. Meredith to concentrate his verse upon each moment of the tragedy, and yet to expand that moment into a rich poetic statement. Lovers of poetry owe a debt to editor and publisher for offering them this book in so convenient, beautiful, and intelligible a form.— Days and Dreams, by Madison Cawein. (Putnams.) When Mr. Cawein is not feverish, when he has some simple theme which calls for simple expression, his poetic nature betrays itself. But it must be said that his verse too often reads as if It were written late at night, not early in the morning ; under the gaslight, and not in the cool shade. Mere lavishness is not splendor, and his words sometimes rush along in a stream too much knocked about by the storms to carry safely any very costly freight of thought or passion. — If one wishes to see what a melodramatist bitten by realism can do, let him read the entertaining Chihuahua, a New and Original Social Drama in Four Acts, by Chester Gore Miller. (Kehm, Fietsch & Wilson Co., Chicago.) As one of the characters says : “ Some people complain of having a skeleton in their lives ; I feel at times as though I owned a graveyard. I am too weak ; but then these mental strokes are frightfully realistic.” The returned dead man in this drama hypnotizes the rascal, and with a little bottle — for hypnotism appears to the writer to be a sort of drug — rearranges the world in which he finds himself. — An Idyl of the Sun, and Other Poems, by Orrin Cedesman Stevens. (Griffith, Axtell & Cady Co., Holyoke, Mass.) The title poem, which is in blank verse, has a lofty design, and contains at least, one striking passage. A certain splendid apparition named Vivero, formed in spirit like the ancient Titans, challenged Heaven, The on-lookers saw him spread his glorious wings,

There is much exalted imagination and spiritual insight in the work, and if the author always thought clearly and married his imaginations to artistic form, he would unquestionably make a strong impression on his readers. As it is, they find it worth their while to surmount the obstacles which the author raises. — Sunshine in Life, Poems for the King’s Daughters, selected and arranged by Florence Pohlman Lee, with an Introduction by Margaret Bottome. (Putnams.) A collection of hymns and poems having a religious spirit. An inexact chronological order has been followed, and in the last part of the volume a good many poems by writers unknown to the compiler, and by persons whose names are not yet known to fame, are included. As the title intimates, the collection is intended to be cheerful rather than consolatory. — Odes, Lyrics, and Sonnets, from the Poetic Works of James Russell Lowell. (Houghton.) A little volume in the White and Gold Series. The difficulty with such a selection is that, however well pleased the reader may be with what he finds in it, he always wants at least one other poem. It is a convenience, however, to have in a handy volume the Commemoration Ode, The Courtin’, Aladdin, Villa Franca, The Dancing Bear, Endymion, Under the Old Elm, Without and Within, and other verses illustrative of the range of Lowell’s power.

Nature and Travel. Land of the Lingering Snow, Chronicles of a Stroller in New England from January to June, by Frank Bolles. (Houghton.) Mr. Bolles is an eccentric stroller ; we hasten to say that we are using the word in its proper sense, and mean only to point out that even the footpath is too much trodden for him. He goes off at a tangent, and this habit intimates a certain individuality of observation which has its own charm. The precision of his chronicle as to hours and days and places is the sign, on the other hand, of his perpendicularity of mind, and one tendency constantly corrects the other. If he were only precise, he would be tiresome, he would be set like a clock ; if he were only vagrant, his desultoriness would weary one by its aimlessness. As it is, the reader who follows him in his strolls always comes back and is refreshed as by a breezy companion ; and now and then there is a phrase, a passage struck out on the moment, which is like a staff plunged into a snow bank, revealing color and depth not to be seen by one merely brushing the surface of the bank.— A Year in Portugal, 1889—1890, by George B. Loring. (Putnams.) Dr. Luring has printed the journal which he kept during his brief career as United States minister to Portugal. His own interest in agriculture led him to be somewhat more specific in his study of this industry, but his observations generally are those of a traveler with a wide range of tastes, and a readiness to hear and see whatever came in his way, whether of historical or of contemporaneous consequence. — The Business of Travel, a Fifty Years’ Record of Progress, by W. Fraser Rae. (Thos. Cook & Son, New York and London.) A jubilee volume, in which the note of exultation over the fifty years of Cook’s Tours is sounded, not with a trumpet, but with a whole orchestra. The record is really a very interesting one to any who would see an illustration of organization applied to one of the most difficult branches of human pleasure. It is safe to say that Thos. Cook and Son have been the means of moving a larger number of persons to a larger number of historical shrines than ever Peter the Hermit incited to go to the Holy Land, and Mr. Thomas Cook may well content himself with the thought “ that, on the whole, he will leave the world a pleasanter place to travel as well as to live in.”

Fiction. Ursula is the latest in the series of Balzac’s novels, translated by Miss Wormeley. (Roberts Bros.) Ursule Mironët bears marks of the author’s studies in clairvoyance. It was written in 1811, not long before its author put forth his programme of the Comédie Humaine, and when thus he was bringing into a systematic whole the separate studies in human life which to the readers had been so far quite independent of any connection with one another. It is quite possible that in writing it Balzac had in mind its constituent part in his scheme ; it is certain that he pleased himself with the reflection that he was portraying the contact of a young woman with life without loss of her virtue. — Brunhilde, or The Last Act of Norma, by Pedro A. De Alarcón. Translated from the Spanish by Mrs. Francis J. A. Darr. (Lovell.) Between the Spanish and the English, this tale belongs to the fizz, pop, bang! school of literature. There is a Catharine wheel constantly whirling before the reader’s eyes, and the result is much dazzle, little light, and total darkness after the show is over.

— Master William Mitten, or A Youth of Brilliant Talents who was Ruined by Bad Luck, by Rev. Augustus B. Longstreet, D.D., LL. D. (J. W. Burke & Co., Macon, Georgia.) The unsuspecting reader who takes up this book fancies, very likely, that he has come upon a burlesque of the oldfashioned moral tale. But the reader who remembers Georgia Scenes, that delicious bit of old-fashioned humor, and discovers that this book is by the same author, will prefer to think it a curious survival, with its italicized words and phrases, its highdicky style, its genuine love of fun, and its reflection of a bygone period of Southern society. The book is a most interesting document for the sociologist, and a surprise to the hardened novel-reader. — From Timber to Town, down in Egypt, by an Early Settler. (MeClurg.) “ One day, arter me an’ mother was a livin’ by ourselves agin, our chillern all marri’d an’ gon’, one o’ them ar scribblin’ fellers step’d in wi’ a paper he wanted me ter sine, a settin’ forth thet he was a gittin’ the names o’ the leedin’ c’aracters o’ the kounty wi’ the intenshun o’ ritin’ a passel uv ’em up es representatives o’ the balence, an’ bring ’em out in a big book tergether wi’ ther rale steal plate picturs,” and so on for nearly three hundred pages. This is realism gone to seed. We wonder if the residents of southern Illinois, a hundred years from now, will be using this book with annotations as a textbook in reading, with incidental use as a picture of manners in this antediluvian period ? — St. Katherine’s by the Tower, by Walter Besant. (Harpers.) A spirited tale of English life as affected by the French Revolution. Mr. Besant gives his historical novels a just realism by the power which he has of vivifying persons and scenes, materials for which are derived alike from books and from human nature.

— Rabbi and Priest, by Milton Goldsmith. (Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia.) Mr. Goldsmith states that he is indebted for some of the more personal material out of which he has woven his story to an exiled Russian Jew, whose acquaintance he made shortly after the exile landed in America. He has gone also to published records of Russian treatment of Jews, and has endeavored to make his tale a consistent narrative of the fortunes of a Jew in Russia from boyhood to manhood. He shows skill in the handling of his material, and, though moved by the incidents which he narrates, does not lose his selfcontrol as a writer. — Ivan the Fool, A Lost Opportunity, and Polikushka, by Count Leo Tolstóy. (Webster.) A small volume of three tales ; the first setting forth the author’s communistic ideas, the second a picture of peasant life, the third the story of the servant of a nobleman. — The Man from Nowhere, by Flora Haines Loughead. (C. A. Murdock & Co., San Francisco.) Mrs. Loughead is trying an interesting experiment in publishing single-number stories, which one would naturally expect to find in magazines, separately in a monthly series which she entitles The Gold Dust Series. This little tale would not be overlooked if it appeared in a magazine. — Holiday Stories, by Stephen Fiskc. (B. R. Tucker, Boston.) Nine short stories in a paper cover. They are lively trifles. — Thaïs, by Anatole France. Translated by A. D. Hall. (Nile C. Smith Publishing Co., Chicago.) We have already noticed this book in its original dress. We cannot say that the English adds any charm to the work. — Tales of Three Centuries, by Michael Zagoskin. Translated from the Russian by Jeremiah Curtin. (Little, Brown & Co.) Mr. Curtin in his interesting and helpful Introduction, which the reader may take up at the end as well as at the beginning with profit, relates with fine power some of his own Russian experiences. The tales impress one by the skill with which the English language has been employed in rendering what is so foreign in form as the Russian. There is a singular chatter, which falls on the ear like an imperfectly understood speech, very common in Russian tales, and seen at its extreme in this book. The stories, if one can penetrate the foreign skin, will be found interesting, though hardly absorbing. — Ryle’s Open Gate, by Susan Teackle Moore. (Houghton.) A lightly connected series of sketches portraying life and characteristics in an obscure Long Island village, where native and exotic life go on side by side. The author has both a fine sense of humor and, what often goes with this, a generous sympathy, so that in the very informal pictures of what she sees there is something more than cleverness at work ; there is a genuine humanism. One readily accepts the temper in which the book is written, and recognizes the good humor with which these little studies in life are dashed off. The demands made by the reader when he drops into the book are easily met, and he is rather satisfied with what he gets than made to pursue the writer with restless importunity for something greater, more ambitious. — A sketch in the Ideal, a Romance. (Lippincott.) The sketch is so faint that the reader has some difficulty in making out the outline, and when he has found the story he has lost his interest. The materials for a tragedy are used in making a sentimental reverie, — Recent books in paper are : The Anarchists, a Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century, by John Henry Mackay, with a Portrait of the Author and a Study of his Works, by Gabriele Reuter, — translated from the German by George Schumm (B. R. Tucker, Boston) ; Morphine, a Tale of the Present Day, by Dubut De Laforest (the Waverly Co., New York) ; Evelyn’s Career, by the Author of My Wife’s Niece (Harpers).

Books for Young People. Left to Themselves, being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald, by Edward Irenæus Stevenson. (Hunt & Eaton, New York.) Mr. Stevenson, in a brief preface, pleads for a closer attention to character in books for the young. The preface reads a little oddly when taken in connection with a story which appeals almost wholly to love of excitement. A boat race, an attempt at kidnapping, a steamboat explosion, a shipwreck, life on an apparently deserted island, the discovery of a forger, — these and incidents like these do not preclude appeals to the reason and to students of character, but we are bound to say that we do not believe the young readers of this book will be set to thinking because of it. It will stir them, as an involved story of adventure easily may stir them, but the hero will appear as the stuff of which heroes in such adventures usually are made. — The Chase of the Meteor, and Other Stories, by Edwin Lassetter Bynner. (Little, Brown & Co.) A collection of eleven lively stories. The author tries direct narrative, nonsense, and fancy by turn. He is possibly a little too afraid of being dull. — Mr. Richard Harding Davis in his Stories for Boys (Scribners) displays much the same spirit as in his stories for older readers ; the difference lies in the choice of subjects, which for the most part have to do with boy life, and in a looser structure, as if he felt that too much art might weaken the force of his narrative. There is a burly good nature in the feeling, a vim, an almost headlong eagerness, which ought to endear these stories to the hearts of youngsters. Nor does the author mistake mere muscular energy for manliness, but shows in many delicate ways how closely allied are bravery and tenderness. — A New Mexico David, and Other Stories and Sketches of the Southwest, by Charles F. Lummis. (Scribners.) Nearly a score of short sketches of character and adventure, in which Pueblo Indians, throwing the lasso, rounding up, New Mexican games, and other lively frontier subjects are treated in an offhand, friendly, and attractive manner by one who draws upon his own experience and observation, not upon a chance visit, but in several years of residence. — American Football, by Walter Camp. (Harpers.) Mr. Camp has written, and is still writing, a good deal on this subject. Perhaps this may explain why the little book halts between the two courses of a book for experts and a book for on-lookers. Yet each class will find something of interest in it, and the portraits of thirty-one heroes of the field will be scanned attentively by young America. It will be noticed that these portraits are sometimes of the head, never of the toe exclusively, and more often of the whole figure ; this proportion seems to be correct. —The volume of St. Nicholas for 1891 is broken into two bound parts. (The Century Co.) It may be said of this magazine in general that it aims at breaking down the distinction between literature for the young and literature for maturer readers by its appeal to a literary and artistic sense. — Harper’s Young People for 1891 (Harpers) suggests the difference between weekly and monthly publication in a greater number of short papers. The size of the page also permit?a greater breadth of illustration. This weekly has a sturdy, matterof-fact character about it which commends itself to one who believes that books for the young should be temporary affairs, used up in youth.

Literature and Criticism. Dr. Henry Van Dyke has brought out a second edition of The Poetry of Tennyson (Scribners), in which, besides other revision, he includes two new chapters : Fruit from an Old Tree, in which he treats of Tennyson’s latest poems, and On the Study of Tennyson. — Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co., of Chicago, have been making some noticeably attractive editions of books which have stood the test of time. Among them are Scott’s The Lady of the Lake and Byron’s Childe Harold. The editor has sought to reproduce the author’s work without intruding his own notes or criticism. Thus he does a service to students by giving Byron’s preface to the first and second cantos, and his dedicatory letter. Another work of great interest to readers who remember the furore produced by it forty years ago is Charles Auchester, by Elizabeth Sheppard. This has been reproduced in two neat volumes, with an introduction and notes by that competent musical critic, Mr. George P. Upton. For it is as a musical novel that the book had such vogue, and the slight knowledge which people had of the author intensified the interest ; for Miss Sheppard was in her sixteenth year when sho completed this romance. She died young, having written but one other novel, Counterparts. Two contributions from her pen also appeared in The Atlantic. The book should he read by the young, though we sometimes fear that the young of this day have been so inoculated with the spirit of criticism that they are not quite as receptive of enthusiastic crudities as their parents and grandparents were. — The publication of the Latest Literary Essays and Addresses of James Russell Lowell (Houghton) deepens one’s sense of the loss which American letters has sustained in Mr. Lowell’s death ; for in these papers, written for the most part after the author’s release from diplomatic duties, there is such mellowness of expression, such ripeness of thought, and so genuine a sympathy with current movements that there is no hint of decadence of power, and one can scarcely help thinking, All this and more we might have enjoyed for half a score of years longer. — The third volume of Mr. Crump’s edition of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations (Macmillan) has the additional attraction of an engraving of Bewick’s portrait of Landor, which gives with extraordinary force the viciousness of Landor’s temper. The dialogues of Sovereigns and Statesmen are completed, and

the series of dialogues of Literary Men is begun. As this portion includes Southey and Person and Johnson and Horne Tooke, the reader has a good opportunity of noting Landor’s caprices and his sudden keen literary perceptions.