Comment on New Books

Fiction. Pan Michael, an Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey, by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Translated by Jeremiah Curtin. (Little, Brown & Co. ) Sienkiewicz’s great epical romance, which began in With Fire and Sword, and was continued in The Deluge, reaches its end in Pan Michael. Few readers of the English version will be able to speak with even a show of authority in the matter, but there is an instinctive feeling that the translation must be an admirable one, reproducing so far as may be the very manner and atmosphere of the original. There can be no question as to the extraordinary power and interest of the work, though in neither respect is the closing volume quite the equal of its predecessors. The governing class of seventeenth-century Poland, — there was but one, the traders being Jews or aliens, the tillers of the soil, serfs, — living again in these pages, often seems as far removed from us as the personages of legend and myth. The heroes have the large simplicity of nature, the immense valor of those of the youth of the world, and also their barbarism. These books, written “ for the strengthening of hearts,” and certainly with patriotic intent, will have the undesigned effect of helping to explain to readers of another race, whose knowledge, or rather ignorance, of Polish history is chiefly sentimental, the decadence and final catastrophe which should come in the next hundred years. — The Raiders, Being Some Passages in the Life of John Faa, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt, by S. R. Crockett. (Macmillan.) Though this story may in some sort owe its existence to the influence of the author of Kidnapped, it has a very distinct and vigorous individuality of its own. Mr. Crockett has proved himself by right the story-teller of Galloway, and the strange and wild adventures of the young Laird of Rathan during the lawless days “ after the Great Killing, when the saints of God had disappeared from the hills ” to give place to murderous gangs of outlaws of every kind, are set forth with unflagging spirit and convincing realism. The aspects of nature, though never unduly insisted on, are most sensitively felt and vividly indicated, giving an impressive background to the action of the tale. Clever and forcible as the book is, some readers will prefer the writer’s short studies of the tamer life of to-day, but even they will find in certain episodes of The Raiders as excellent work as the author has yet done ; as, for instance, in the brief sketch, at once pathetic and powerful, of the child-martyr Willie and his mother. — Katherine Lauderdale (Macmillan) is more in the analytic manner of Henry James, for example, than anything which Mr. Crawford has hitherto attempted. On this account the book is not always altogether readable. For if psychological analysis is to be interesting, it must be both subtle and true, and it must be phrased in an engaging manner. Mr, Crawford’s analysis, however, is crude ; and his style, though clever enough at times, and facile, — dangerously facile, — is diluted and colorless. Now, if analysis did not clog the action, this story of a clandestine marriage in New York would be interesting enough ; and if, in the other related novels of New York society life which Mr. Crawford has promised, he would return to the direct, the almost dramatic manner of Marion Darche, he would give himself a better chance of doing his best. — Ardis Claverden, by Frank R. Stockton (Scribners), comes to us, attractively bound, as one of a new uniform edition of this author’s works. Like the rest of Mr. Stockton’s stories, this tale of Virginia life depends for much of its interest and humor upon its surprises. Here, as elsewhere, the unexpected is given at all costs, even at the sacrifice of literary art. And it is because this sacrifice is greater here than elsewhere that Ardis Claverden falls short let us say, of The Late Mrs, Null. — An Interloper, by Frances Mary Peard. (Harpers.) This novel, like those in which the author first won recognition, is a story of French provincial life. In a tale by Miss Peard we have learned to look for graceful writing, refinement of tone, and delicate discrimination in the studies of character ; and all these good qualities are to be found in An Interloper, as well as the assured skill of an experienced raconteur. The writer is quite unaffected by the eccentricities of taste and temper which have become an essential part of so much contemporary feminine fiction, and the history of the charming and weak Baron de Beaudrillart and his true-hearted and strong bourgeoise wife, whose fortune restores his squandered patrimony, and whose good sense, courage, and devotion save him in a catastrophe which well-nigh wrecks his life, is easily and pleasingly readable. Incidentally, in the sketches of the Demoiselles de Beaudrillart, some interesting glimpses are gi ven of the narrow, dull life of the ordinary French country gentlewoman.—The Two-Legged Wolf, by Karazin (Rand, McNally & Co.), is nothing more formidable than the romance of a Sister of Mercy attached to a Russian military expedition against the Khan of Khiva. It begins, however, as if it were going to be the tale of a picturesque warrior ; and it is a pity that it does not turn out to be a story of this two-legged wolf. The book does not keep the promise of its first chapter ; the romance of the gentle Sister is commonplace, old, and worn, — not one of those new, surprising products of the half-barbaric, half - civilized Strength of Russia. Nevertheless, it does show something of the strong Russian sense for realistic detail, combined with rather more than the ordinary Russian disregard for unity and proportion. — On the Offensive, an Army Story, by George I. Putnam. (Scribners.) Some of the military experiences of a young officer, who, after much debate with himself, finally decides to resign from the army, and devote himself to literature. In a clear, straightforward, and unaffected style, Mr. Putnam sketches the life of the frontier post, its isolation and monotony, the years of weary waiting for promotion, and the natural results, — fitful or ineffective industry for the few, unprofitable killing of time for the many. But the other side is also shown, — the danger always imminent, and so bravely and manfully met, and usually, alas, so slightly regarded and rewarded. By far the best thing in the volume is the vivid but unexaggerated account of an Indian uprising. The weakness of the book is that the characters are too often used merely as the mouthpieces of the author ; there is much discussion and little action, producing the effect of a series of studies of army life connected by a thin thread of story. — The Shen’s Pigtail, and Other Cues of AngloChina Life, by Mr. M—. (Putnams.) This first volume of the Incognito Library contains half a dozen fragmentary sketches, the longest and most important being a not very skillfully told Chinese detective story. This, and the desultory character studies to which the rest of the book is largely devoted, impress the reader as being excerpts from some larger work. They are written in an easy-going, colloquial style, and doubtless show a familiar knowledge of certain aspects of foreign life in China, but are almost without any real literary quality.— Cadet Days, by Captain Charles King (Harpers), is an interesting and valuable piece of advice for new men at West Point ; but, as a story, it is artistically crude. Like most of Captain King’s work, however, it is wholesome in tone. It particularly commends those manly traits which army life often develops. — Out of Bohemia, by Gertrade C. Fosdick (George H. Richmond & Co.), is surely not worth the reader’s while as a story of student life in Paris ; and as a novel of any sort, it is so extremely weak that its two or three well-conceived situations cannot save it. — Recent books in paper covers are : The Red House, by “The Duchess” (Rand, McNally & Co.); The Husband of One Wife, by Mrs. Venn (Harpers) ; For My Own Sake, by Marie Bernhard (International News Co.) ; and A Alodern Love Story, by Harriet E. Orcutt (Charles H. Kerr & Co.). Among other paper-bound books, we should mention Goethe’s The Sorrows of Werther, because of its large type and well-proportioned page. (The Mascot Publishing Co., New York.) The Women’s Conquest of New York (Harpers) is yet another, and satirizes the popular movement looking to woman suffrage. It is a paper wad, not a bullet that will dent anything.

Textbooks and Education. A History of the Roman Empire from its Foundation to the Death of Marcus Aurelius, by J. B. Bury, M. A. The Student’s Series, (Harpers.) This volume fills the gap in the series to which it belongs between Liddell’s Roman Republic and The Student’s Gibbon; and as there has been no handbook of the kind in English, dealing with the first two centuries of the Empire, it is a welcome and valuable addition to the higher class of historical textbooks. Allowing for the limitations in treatment and space imposed by the plan of the book, this summary of the history of a most important epoch is admirably done. It is clear and concise in style, temperate and judicial in tone, well proportioned, excellent in arrangement, and comprehensive in scope. The author can use wisely both ancient and modern authorities ; his work throughout shows a careful study of the results of the elaborate investigations of recent years, and is instinct with the spirit of the latest and most enlightened scholarship. — Analytics of Literature, a Manual for the Objective Study of English Prose and Poetry, by L. A. Sherman. (Ginn.) Say rather the Objectionable Study of English Prose and Poetry, for here is another of the books which insist upon treating literature like therapeutics or geodetic surveys. It is the author’s contention that by means of his method students without a native perception of literary art can be “ spiritually quickened” to a marvelons degree. This end, apparently, is to be gained in part by mastering tables of percentages in “ Literary Sentence-Length in English Prose,” and the “ Decrease of Predication from Chaucer to Bartel.” Much joy may they have of such learning ! Let them rejoice, too, in Mr. Sherman’s improvement upon Sir John Denham’s famous lines, written, lie modestly says, “ as a Tennyson or a Browning would have phrased it . . . somewhat perhaps as thus :—

For our own part, we prefer Denham’s way of putting it.—Mental Life and Culture, Essays and Sketches, Educational and Literary, by Julia Duhring. (Lippincott.) The papers in this book have been collected and arranged, since the writer’s death, by her brother. For teachers they have many suggestions for the development of the minds and characters of pupils ; and for individual men and women, concerned mainly with their own mental and spiritual growth, there are many earnestly intended words. Throughout the book, moral good is held before the reader as the true end of all thought and work. — In Magill’s Modern French Series, the second and third numbers are, Sur la Pente, by Mme, de Witt, the daughter of Guizot, and La Fille de Clémentine, by Anatole France. Dr. Magill, the accomplished editor, has prefixed brief biographical sketches and added a body of notes. (Christopher Sower Co., Philadelphia.) — Longfellow’s Evangeline, with biography of author, critical opinions, and explanatory notes, has been published by Maynard, Merrill & Co. Among the critical opinions is one by E. P. “ Wipple.” — Professor John F. Genung’s Outlines of Rhetoric (Ginn), like its author’s other work, is eminently practical. In one hundred and twenty-five concise and specific rules, amply illustrated by concrete examples, it gives at least enough rhetorical theory ; and in a course of practical exercises of new and sterling merit, the book aims to develop a young writer’s constructive faculty rather than merely his critical sense. These rules and exercises, taken one by one, are altogether admirable, but taken together they do not seem to rest upon a well-subordinated system of principle. They do not follow one another in the order that seems to us most naturally and effectively progressive. Even if thus fundamentally defective, the book must still be regarded as a notable contribution to the literature of practical rhetoric ; for, above all, it is positive in tone ; it is pitched in the key of Do, and not of Don’t. — Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1890-01. In two volumes. (Government Printing Office, Washington.) A vast tract of statistics, relieved by occasional green oases of special studies, like an interesting though perhaps superabundant paper on Education in Southwestern Virginia, by Rev. A. D. Mayo.

Literature and Art. The Complete Plays of Richard Steele, edited by G. A. Aitken. (Imported by Scribners.) This volume differs from all but two of the seventeen that have preceded it, in the Mermaid Series, in being the complete instead of the best plays of the writer to whom it is devoted, as Steele’s dramatic works include but four comedies and the fragments of two left unfinished at his death. The plays serve to mark the revolt from the sway of the unspeakable drama of the Restoration ; and though they are more distinguished for a humorous perception of character than for dramatic power, three of them had sufficient theatric vitality to keep a place in the acting drama for a hundred years. They had the good fortune to be first presented by a group of comedians never excelled in the history of the English stage, and whom the dramatist, in his greater rôle of essayist, was to do so much to immortalize. The influence of the plays on later great writers of the century is shown by the fact that we find in a single one of them the direct prototypes of Tony Lumpkin and Lydia Languish, besides suggestions of Squire Western. The editorial work is of course admirably done, Mr. Aitken furnishes a brief biography, which, with the appendix, gives a reasonably full account of Steele’s connection with the theatre, and the book is throughout carefully annotated. — Nearly at the same time with Mr. Hamlin Garland’s Crumbling Idols (Stone & Kimball), and dedicated “ To the Men and Women of America who have the Courage to be Artists,” we receive a less aggressive work, Art for America, by William Ordway Partridge (Roberts). Though written with less cleverness, the basis of its hope for American art seems to us firmer than Mr. Garland’s. Both books recognize the elements of life in America which must and should make its art a different thing from that of other lands. Out of these elements Mr. Partridge would select the things of nobility and beauty. Mr. Garland, on the other hand, chooses the things of propinquity. Whatever is within reach, he virtually says, is the artist’s truest material, be it hideous or lovely. Indeed, beauty does not enter into the question ; truth is the only consideration ; for, in the new terminology, they are not, as Keats misguidedly thought, one and the same thing ; and truth, moreover, is the higher quality of the two. For ourselves, we cannot help thinking that Mr. Garland’s advocacy of “ freedom ” has something slavish—God save the mark ! —about it, or something which does not leave him free to see the excellence of anything with a suspicion of precedent in its foundation. Why must the love of Ibsen exclude all allegiance to Shakespeare ? Perhaps it is just as well that the whole future of American art is not to be left in any one pair of hands ; hut the hands of Partridge, it seems to us, would be surer guides, if necessity called for them, than the hands of Garland. — Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life, by Stopford Brooke. (Putnams.) As a critic, Stopford Brooke follows Matthew Arnold. That is, he is first of all neither the scholar nor the mere lover of literary art ; he is the serious man, with a serious interest in the influence of literature upon life. Such a man would naturally find, if he could, something more than the mere artist in Tennyson, something little short of the prophet. And this is what Mr. Brooke, despite his frank recognition of Tennyson’s limitations, has found in the poet. If his criticism be prevailingly moralistic, and the treatment, as in the discussion of Tennyson’s relations to Christianity and Social Politics, be large and outreaching, the criticism is none the less also æsthetic, and the treatment minutely specific. Indeed, the book strikes us, from any point of view, as the most adequate consideration of Tennyson which has yet been published. — Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, selected from the Spectator by Richard Holt Hutton. (Macmillan.) Two volumes of Mr. Hutton’s contributions, extending over the past twenty years, and passing in review Carlyle, Emerson, Longfellow, Dickens, Leslie Stephen, Matthew Arnold, Comte, Mozley, Martineau, Stanley, Tennyson, Church, Newman, Sir John Lubbock, and others. It is curious to see how by changing we to I one does not yet perceive a strong personal flavor of Mr. Hutton in these criticisms. They remain subtle, a little overfine, but grave, thoughtful, and, within their limits, suggestive comments. Though one misses sometimes the really penetrative criticism, they are not hasty or commonplace. — Art in Theory, by Professor G. L. Raymond (Putnams), is a rather severe introduction to the study of comparative æsthetics. As such, it undertakes, of course, to define beauty. In carrying out this undertaking, the book is most comprehensive, systematic, and thoroughgoing. And yet it seems to us to fail at the last, not because its author is not profound, or at least learned enough, but because beauty is, we believe, in its very nature elemental, and therefore indefinable. As a discussion, however, of the essential nature of art, of the art impulse, and of beauty, the book will prove interesting to the purely scientific taste, — the only taste, be it said with emphasis, to which it is addressed ; but it must seem futile to those who believe, with Walter Pater, that “ to define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, to find not a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of æsthetics.” — My Farm of Edgewood, and Wet Days at Edgewood, by Donald G. Mitchell (Scribners), do not appear, in their new bindings, so companionable as they really are. If the reader have a real liking for country life and the poetry of it, the unfitting covers should not keep him from the pages within. There he will find a man after his own heart,—a man, perhaps, of rather more literary taste than talent, but one, at all events, who is first and last a man of sentiment. — Two more numbers of the Temple Shakespeare (Dent, London ; Macmillan, New York) continue the even excellence of the edition : they are Measure for Measure and Comedy of Errors. Pretty little etchings of the Stratford Bust and the Stratford Guild Chapel and Grammar School are used as frontispieces. Mr. Gollancz’s editorial apparatus is reserved and intelligent, and the only ohjection one feels disposed to press is the mechanical one of not sufficiently opaque paper.

Sociology. The Jewish Question and the Mission of the Jews. (Harpers.) The anonymous writer of this book appeals to history to support him in his thesis that there is no Jewish question, that there can be no classification of the Jews as a unit, and that the contribution which the Judaic race makes to humanity should be the ground of our respect, and the reason for putting away blind prejudice. His book is a temperate and interesting one, but we question if he takes sufficiently into account the force of religion. The Jew had and has a genius for religion, as the Greek for art and the Homan for law. — The Conquest of Death, by Abbot Kinney. (The Author, New York.) Under this somewhat obscure title, Mr. Kinney takes up the fact of a decline in the birthrate of the native-born Americans, and sounds the alarm of a submergence of this element under the more productive foreign constituent. He addresses himself to the task of so presenting the physiological laws of reproduction as to enforce the associated laws of health and morality. There is a good deal that is beside the mark, but the effect of brooding over this theme always seems to be that the writer loses his sense of proportion.— Man and Woman, a Study of Human Secondary Sexual Characters, by Havelock Ellis. (Imported by Scribners.) Mr. Ellis’s researches, for this volume of the Coutemporary Science Series, have carried him far into the study of differences between men and women, and the conclusion of the whole matter is that science is not yet far enough advanced to justify the generalizations the scientist would like to make. One that Mr. Ellis ventures to state is that, through civilization, woman, in her physical attributes, is approaching more nearly to the child, and man more nearly to the woman. The women and men of modern fiction do not seem in all respects to be pursuing this course, and to the contemporary novelist we commend this work, which will put him upon the true scientific scent. — The Dawn of a New Era in America, by Buslirod W . James. (Porter & Coates.) A somewhat magniloquent eonsideimtion of the political, commercial, and international questions at issue in the United States, with scarcely a word concerning the serious problems involved in the manifold labor question; but it is of little consequence, since what is said on the other subjects is hardly more than loose generalization. — Social Evolution, by Benjamin Kidd. (Macmillan.) Mr. Kidd’s contention is that in the evolution of society in what he calls western civilization the new force is ethical. In his apparent wish to avoid calling it Christianity, he resorts to various terms, — humanitarianism, the religious spirit, sympathy; and in his desire to be scientific, he confuses the Christian life with natural religion. Nevertheless, the book has much that is suggestive, and there is an independence of thought in the working out of the author’s thesis which is quite refreshing. One of the most striking passages is that in which he shows how, in the conflict going on between the Haves and the Have-nots, the positions gained by the Have-nots are largely due to the sympathy which the Haves possess with them.— The Labour Movement, by L. T. Hobhouse, M. A., with a Preface by R. B. Haldane, M. P. (T. Fisher Unwin, London.) The volume is one of a series going under the name of The Reformer’s Book-Shelf. The author discusses the achievements and hopes of Trade Unionism and Coöperation, and urges beside these the better distribution of wealth through the public holding of property. The writing and the ideas are those of a Socialist who is also a thoughtful scholar, and the result is a book which shows the strength of its position more than usually well.

Travel and Nature. On Sunny Shores, by Clinton Scollard (Webster), is a reminiscence of wanderings that began upon the English Wye, and ended in a garden of Damascus. Especially, in the first part, it suggests, by its rather bare and abrupt style, a traveler’s wayside notebook, yet the book is by no means without literary quality. It reflects its author’s mood, his literary self-consciousness, — not altogether unpleasing despite some palpable affectation, —_and his delight in historical and sentimental association ; in a way, it has an atmosphere,— an atmosphere of quiet and increasing charm. — Travels in a Treetop, by Charles Conrad Abbott. (Lippincott.) The initial paper, which gives the title to this volume of essays, shows Dr. Abbott at his best. His observation is keen, he interests himself in a great variety of minute aspects of nature, and when he is telling a straightforward tale he writes simply and intelligibly. This book strikes us as the best he has given us. — Our Home Pets, how to Keep Them Well and Happy, by Olive Thorne Miller. (Harpers.) A series of twenty-six brief chapters on birds, dogs, cats, monkeys, and, as they say in election returns, “ scattered ” pets. Mrs. Miller is not only humane, she is a thoroughly wellinformed writer, and all that she says about the care and treatment of pets should be heeded, for she knows these humble friends of man by long and affectionate acquaintance.— Mineral Resources of the United States, Calendar Year 1893, by David T. Day. (Government Printing Office, Washington.) This volume of the United States Geological Survey fills us with amazement. What! covering 1893, and published in 1894! To what is such promptness due ? Here you may learn where to find coal, manganese, petroleum, various kinds of stone, copper, asphaltum, etc.; and though the United States is the general field for these useful things, there are indirect references to the sources in other countries.

Philosophy and Religion. Secularism, its Progress and its Morals, by John M. Bonham. (Putnams.) The author maintains that science imposes an obligation on its votaries to break down sacred authority and theological ideals. “ The sentiment of reverence, ” he calls the signal infirmity of the human mind. He condemns the “advanced ” or “liberal ” clergy because they do not go far enough, but are still influenced by ideals which science does not warrant. He finds fault with Mr. Leslie Stephen and Mr. Herbert Spencer because they still leave a place for religion in admitting the sentiment of reverence for the Unknowable. All ethics inspired by the religious principle are doomed to disappear, while secularism or industrialism will construct its own code by the light of scientific observation of life. In a word, Mr. Bonham pursues the “policy of thorough.” He has a great horror of inconsistency or contradiction, the escape from which is presented as the ruling idea of science. His commonplace appeals to history do not conceal his ignorance of the content and significance of the real life of humanity as revealed in its records, whose scientific study would justly lead to other conclusions. — Survivals in Christianity, Studies in the Theology of Divine Immanence, by Charles James Wood. (Macmillan.) The writer is concerned largely with exposing the manner in which pagan beliefs were grafted upon the tenets of Christianity, and now have made it a less beautiful thing than it might have been. With a wide searching and citing of authorities, he fortifies himself in this position with regard to several important points of belief. The lay mind will find it hard to realize the extent of the harm that has been done by natural development in the human knowledge of eternal things. The book, none the less, has historical and speculative interest, and must have served well its original purpose in the form of lectures to students of theology at Cambridge. — The Historic Episcopate, an Essay on the Four Articles of Church Unity Proposed by the American House of Bishops and the Lambeth Conference, by Charles Woodruff Shields. (Scribners.) Excellent in purpose and substance is this discussion, by a Presbyterian scholar, of the propositions of the Anglican Church looking towards a new union of Christendom. The first step could not have been easy to decide upon, but still more difficult must be the course of other communions in interpreting and responding to the message of the bishops. Dr. Shields shows what may and may not be expected of the Protestant denominations, and throughout his essay reveals a spirit of liberality and concession which Anglicans will do well to emulate. — Studies in Oriental Social Life, and Gleams from the East on the Sacred Page, by H. Clay Trumbull. (John D. Wattles & Co., Philadelphia.) Mr. Trumbull carried to the East not only a familiarity with the Bible, but also a very clear knowledge of what incidents and scenes in the Bible especially interest the intelligent reader. Hence, in bringing back the results of his observation and experience, he has been singularly successful in telling readers what they want to know. It is a pity that, in aiming at a handsome book, his publishers should have succeeded in producing an unhandy one; for it is both readable and illuminating, and will prove of genuine service to Sunday-school teachers and scholars. — Introduction to the Talmud, by M. Mielziner. (The Bloch Printing Co., Cincinnati.) This introduction treats of both the historical and literary import of the Talmud; it discusses legal hermeneutics, Talmudic terminology and methodology, and offers outlines of Talmudic ethics. It appeals chiefly to those conversant with the Hebrew language, but the general student can pick up from it some little notion of the scope and character of the Talmud.

History and Biography. History of Modern Times, from the Fall of Constantinople to the French Revolution, by Victor Duruy. Translated and revised, with Notes, by Edwin A.Grosvenor. (Holt.) This book would be serviceable, if for no other reason, as a corrective of a too insular habit of treating modern history. It is interesting to read of England, for instance, from a Frenchman’s point of view, and to see England and France changing places in relative significance. Even a Frenchman, however, was bound to see something of the significance of England’s colonial empire, just beginning to expand as the work comes to a close. Naturally, M. Duruy gives the French aid in American independence its highest importance. The value of the book rests largely in its clearness, good proportions, and animated manner. — The third volume of Professor H. Graetz’s History of the Jews (Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia) extends from the Revolt against the Zendik in 511 to the Capture of St. Jean d’Acre by the Mahometans in 1291. These dates are C. E., for the scrupulous Jew can scarcely be expected to say A. D. It is interesting to see the attitude taken by an educated Jew toward Mahomet, and there is a good presentation of Maimonides. In general, the moderation and clear, judicial temper of this excellent history make it, a desirable addition to the historical shelf.—Hendrick Paunebecker, Surveyor of Lands for the Penns, 1074-1754, by Samuel W. Pennypacker. (The Author, 209 South Sixth St., Philadelphia.) Judge Pennypacker has, in this handsome volume, not only traced the history of the first of his family in America, but given the historic setting and thrown light upon Pennsylvania origins. The book, by its thoroughness and its diligent use of private and public documents and records, takes an honorable place in the small group of family memorials which are the foundation stones of the republic’s history.—Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1888-1889, by J. W. Powell. (Government Printing Office.) Surely, if government turns its attention at all to archæology, there is a fitness in giving its best effort to elucidate the problem of the history of the American Indian ; and the Picture Writing of the American Indians, which forms the substance of this portly volume, is by the highest authority on the subject, Colonel Garrick Mallery. The abundant illustrations add greatly to the value and attractiveness of the work.

Books of Reference. Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources. Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, especially in the Modern Aspects of them. Selected and compiled by the Rev. James Wood. (Frederick Warne & Co.) A conveniently arranged book, since the quotations, which rarely exceed two or three lines, are entered under a strict alphabetical order, even to those beginning with the articles “ a ” and “ the,” and a copious index of a topical character enables one to hunt down quotations appropriate to this or that subject. The authority for the quotation is almost always given. Such an arrangement as that of the body of the book is not perhaps so generally serviceable as a topical one, yet there are so many possible variations in a topical collection that the student is not much disposed to object to the alphabetical order.