Comment on New Books

History and Biography. English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, Lectures delivered at Oxford Easter Terms, 1893—4, by James Anthony Froude. (Scribners.) There is no sign of age nor of failing strength to be discovered in the brilliant lectures which make up the last volume that will come to us from the historian of the Tudors, nor is there any material change in the standpoint from which he again surveys that heroic period of English history which culminates in the defeat of the Armada. It is one of the most thrilling of tales, told with a vividness, picturesqueness, and force worthy of the subject,—a book impossible to leave till its final page is reached ; and we sadly read that the after-story, “ the passing from Spain to England of the sceptre of the seas, must be left to other lectures or to other lecturers, who have more years before them than I.” As usual, the critical reader will be irritated by inaccuracies, not a few, in details, which sometimes, it should be said, are of no very great importance, and, a more serious matter, will continue to recognize in the writer an eloquent special pleader, though one who heartily believes in the truth and justice of his argument, and so has often been accused of perverting facts when he has simply failed to see them in their due proportions. But in whatever order we may be inclined to place the motives governing the great Elizabethan adventurers, Mr. Froude’s presentment of them is full of vigorous life, a realization of the men not always found in more impartial chronicles. — English Seamen, Howard, Clifford, Hawkins, Drake, Cavendish, by Robert Southey. Edited, with an Introduction, by David Hannay. (Methuen & Co., London ; Stone & Kimball, Chicago.) From Southey’s Lives of the Admirals, a naval history of which the plan, modest at first, finally assumed such dimensions that naturally the work remains a fragment, the editor has extracted these biographies, and it is interesting as well as profitable to compare them with Mr. Froude’s Lectures. Both volumes are written by great masters of English, but in manner and method the reader will be impressed by differences rather than by similarities. The later writer had open to him sources of information inaccessible to his predecessor, but nevertheless students of history will feel a confidence in the earlier portraits which the brilliant studies of Mr. Froude do not always inspire. It is noteworthy that the additions which research has made to Southey’s knowledge, as embodied in the appendix to the book, do not necessitate any modification in the estimates he formed of the characters of the great seamen. — Lord John Russell, by Stuart J. Reid. The Queen’s Prime Ministers Series. (Harpers.) Mr. Reid’s monograph is the ninth volume of a series which has proved itself almost always excellent in quality, and we may say the concluding volume as well, for it is not likely that a study of the tenth of Queen Victoria’s Premiers will be undertaken in this stage of his career. The record of Lord John Russell’s public life is the history of English politics for more than half a century, and the biographer relates the not unfamiliar tale in a spirited and readable fashion, and with no more than a pardonable bias in favor of his subject, who, though not a great statesman, was a distinguished, honorable, and enlightened politician, using that word in its best sense. Of contributions made to this memoir by Lord John’s friends, the late Lord Selhorne’s statement regarding the Minister’s conduct in the Alabama affair, and the pleasant personal reminiscences of Mr. Lecky, are specially noticeable. A reproduction, the first made, of Watts’s portrait forms the frontispiece of the volume. — Louis XIV. and the Zenith of the French Monarchy, by Arthur Hassall, M. A. Heroes of the Nations Series. (Putnams.) A book to be heartily praised, when we consider the comparatively brief space into which the writer has had to compress the history of the three quarters of a century covered by the extraordinary reign of the roi soleil. Mr. Hassall does not make the mistake of attempting to touch all sides of his subject ; the social, literary, artistic, and religious aspects of the time are considered only when they directly affect its political and military history, and he has given us an exceedingly well-arranged and lucid narrative which everywhere shows a careful study of the most approved authorities. A full consciousness of his hero’s limitations does not blind the writer to the king’s very real ability in certain directions. He realizes that if it be true to say that Louis’s reign made the Revolution possible and probable, the blame must be shared by the people with the king ; for “ the French nation made Louis, and Louis was the epitome of the French nation.” Even in the worst of his measures, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a great blunder as well as a great crime, of which the evil effects to France were far reaching and incalculable, the majority of the people were with him. A word should be said about the illustrations to the volume, which are so unusually well selected as to subjects that it is a pity they could not in some cases have been reproduced from better engravings. — The Revolution of 1848, by Imbert de SaintAmand. Translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. (Scribners.) The English versions of the series known as Famous Women of the French Court have not always appeared in chronological order, so we may have later the volumes relating to perhaps the noblest and best of these women, Queen Marie Amélie and her daughter-in-law the Duchess of Orleans, whose last days in France are those of which this book is a record. Had the high spirit, courage, and constancy of these ladies been emulated by more of the men around them, the Paris mob would not so easily have overturned what was at least the most respectable and liberal government the country had had since the first Revolution. But a constitutional and pacific king, who hated bloodshed, and, naturally, also feared the odium attached thereto, represented a power little likely to be prompt and energetic in dealing with the disorderly elements of the capital. An impersonal republic could be ruthless, as the men of the barricades were very soon to discover. — The venerable Mr. W. J. Linton, the distinguished wood-engraver, has in Three Score and Ten Years (Scribners) written his recollections of the notable men and women in literature and art whom he has known in England and in the United States, and of the several liberal movements, especially English and Italian, with which he has had a strong sympathy, Mazzini being his especial hero. The book gives pleasant brief glimpses of many notable people during the whole Victorian era, but hardly judgments of value. — The Story of Vedic India as Embodied Principally in the Rig-Veda, by Zénaïde A. Ragozin. The Story of the Nations Series. (Putnams.) As the Rig-Veda does not contain history in the direct epic or narrative form, but only imparts it in a very fragmentary and inferential manner, this interesting volume is rather a study of the religion of Vedic India, the myths, rituals, and customs connected therewith, than the story of the nation as the word would be generally understood. This view of the belief and life of the first Aryan inhabitants of Hindustân is prefaced by a description of the country and an account of the sources of our knowledge of its early history, in which full justice is done to the great work of those Anglo-Indian pioneer students who opened the vast field of Sanskrit literature to the scholars of Europe.

Literature. The sixth volume of Pepys’s Diary in its complete form (Bell, London ; Macmillan, New York) begins in October, 1666, in the London lately devastated by Plague and Fire, and extends to the end of June, 1667, the days of anxiety and humiliation, when the Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames. During these nine months the diarist is diligent both in business and in pleasure, to a degree imperfectly set forth in the former abridged records, and so increases his substance that his strong boxes are a fruitful source of worriment in troubled times. “ Musique ” is as always a chief delight, and his affectionate outbursts on the rare occasions when Mrs. Pepys does not sing false make one feel that the lady might have been generally mistress of the situation had she happily been gifted with a truer ear. The remnant of Mr. Pepys’s Puritan conscience is now seldom greatly aroused in his own case save when discovery of some moral lapse seems imminent, but he is too excellent a man of affairs, and too patriotic withal, not to deplore heartily the unspeakable corruption and sloth in high places which have brought such dire shame on the country. The volume contains a portrait of the writer from Le Marchand’s medallion, and one of Lady Castlemaine after Lely. — The latest numbers of the Temple Shakespeare (Dent, London ; Macmillan, New York) are Hamlet and Henry VIII. The former has for a frontispiece the death-mask, the latter the old palace at Whitehall. — The tenth and eleventh volumes of the admirable sixteenvolume Defoe (Dent, London ; Macmillan, New York) are taken up with The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, commonly called Colonel Jack. The book has a special interest for Americans, since it contains a graphic picture of plantation life in Virginia in the early part of the eighteenth century. — Izaak Walton’s Lives forms one of the volumes of the attractive series, English Classics, edited by W. E. Henley. (Methuen & Co., London ; Stone & Kimball, Chicago.) The introduction is by Vernon Blackburn, who strives to analyze the charm of Walton’s style as exemplified in these five delightful miniature biographies ; reaching the conclusion that it was his fortune to possess an inimitable manner by which to express his own winning personality. A good reprint of this book is always a thing to be grateful for. — The Return of the Native has been issued in the uniform edition of Hardy’s works. (Harpers.) In an interesting but too brief preface, the author gives a little welcome information as to Budmouth and Egdon Heath, and indulges in the pleasant fancy that some spot in the extensive tract of which the sombre scene of the story forms a part may be the heath of that traditionary king of Wessex, Lear. — Two more volumes have been added to Macmillan’s admirable series of Standard Novels : Miss Edgeworth’s Ormond, illustrated by Carl Schloesser, and Marryat’s Jacob Faithful, illustrated by Henry M. Brock. The former is pleasantly introduced by Mrs. Ritchie, the latter by David Hannay ; and in this agreeable form readers of to-day can make or renew acquaintance with one of the brightest and most spontaneous of Miss Edgeworth’s novels, and with that entertaining history which Thackeray bracketed with Vingt Ans Après and The Woman in White as a book which in illness had given him amusement from morning till sunset. — Messrs. Putnam have brought out the Sketch-Book in their handsome Student’s Edition of Irving. The work is excellently edited by William Lyon Phelps, whose annotations are commendably brief and to the point. As usual, a life of the author is prefixed, and in this case a discussion of some defects of his style, its merits having been considered in the two earlier volumes. — Messrs. Macmillan have reissued William Winter’s Old Shrines and Ivy in their paper-covered Miniature Series, and have also brought out in a like inexpensive form a little volume containing Matthew Arnold’s The Function of Criticism and Walter Pater’s essay on Style.

Books for the Young. Always amongst the earliest of holiday arrivals is the usual trio of volumes from the indefatigable Mr. G. A. Henty (Scribners), in which we are glad to meet his modest, manly, brave, truth-telling young hero in his new incarnations. As Sir Gervaise Tresham, in A Knight of the White Cross, a Tale of the Siege of Rhodes, he bears himself so gallantly in the Hospitallers’ great contest with the Turk that he becomes a Knight while still in his teens, and holds no mean position in the order when he is absolved from his vows, arid so is enabled to marry and live happily and as peaceably as the times permit ever after; as Dick Holland, in The Tiger of Mysore, a Story of the War with Tippoo Saib, he sets himself the tremendous task of discovering and rescuing his father, a prisoner in the hands of the ruthless Sultan, and, it is needless to say, succeeds ; as Frank Wyatt, in Through Russian Snows, a Story of Napoleon’s Retreat from Moscow, he is in the service of the English commissioner with the Russian army during the terrible campaign of 1812, and meets his brother, who is in the army of the invaders, having enlisted to escape from a French prison. Like their predecessors, these tales are thoroughly wholesome in tone, are adventurous rather than sensational, never dwell unduly on scenes of carnage or horrors of any kind, and, it may be said, always respect the truth of history ; so that young readers, along with a good deal of entertainment, will almost insensibly make no inconsiderable additions to their stock of historic lore. — Mr. Kirk Munroe’s large clientèle can also always be sure of at least two new tales as the year wanes. SnowShoes and Sledges (Harpers) is a sequel to last year’s The Fur-Seal’s Tooth, and in it the heedless Phil continues his devious search for his father ; meeting, of course, with many moving accidents during his winter wanderings in Alaska. At War with Pontiac, or, The Totem of the Bear, a Tale of Redcoat and Redskin (Scribners), a story well described by its title, is a narrative of the adventures of a daring youth who is saved in many perilous straits because of a totem tattooed upon his arm in infancy by a grateful Indian. We would suggest (it is often done), in the interest of historic truth, that Indian tortures can hardly be palliated by comparisons with New England witchburnings, such burnings being purely imaginary. — Afloat with the Flag, by W. J. Henderson. (Harpers.) A spirited and readable sea-tale, which follows the fortunes of three cadets fresh from Annapolis, two of whom serve under Admiral Benham in Rio Harbor during the late insurrection, while the third is aboard one of the ships of the Brazilian insurgents. The author writes from an abundant knowledge of things naval, and the routine of life on a man-ofwar is vividly as well as accurately depicted. — Hero Tales from American History, by Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt. (Century Co.) A healthy love of country permits the repetition, even without novelty, of heroic tales as often and in as many forms as possible. Welcome, therefore, is the recital of the achievements of a group of American statesmen, soldiers, sailors, explorers, and pioneers, with Parkman as a representative man of letters. These brief narratives are not set biographies, but descriptions of particular deeds of heroism, and the style is charged with a wholesome patriotism.

Nature and Travel. “ The Flower of England’s Face,” by Julia C. R. Dorr. (Macmillan.) This little volume, charming without and within, contains sketches of English and Scottish travel, with some of which the readers of The Atlantic are already familiar. The author has that keen and sympathetic appreciation of the beauty of the old land which is never stronger than in those pilgrims from the new, who, like her, had in childhood the happy fortune to be turned loose to roam at will through the wide enchanted fields of English literature. She shares her pleasure with the reader in a fashion so entertaining and agreeable that it gives freshness and vivacity to the oft-told tale, and her book is surely predestined to be a favorite pocket companion, arid an occasional guide as well, to not a few summer wanderers. — Pearls and Pebbles, or, Notes of an Old Naturalist, by Catharine Parr Traill. With Biographical Sketch by Mary Agnes Fitz Gibbon. (William Briggs, Toronto.) This is a collection of pleasant papers on birds, flowers, and other out-of-door things, together with reminiscences of child life in England and early pioneer days in Ontario. Mrs. Traill, it will be remembered, was one of the Strickland sisters. She emigrated to Canada with her husband immediately after their marriage in 1832, and has published a number of books about backwoods life, besides a few stories for children and Studies of Plant Life. Mrs. Fitz Gibbon’s sketch of her is appreciative and interesting. The reader need have no fear of encountering dry technicalities in this book, for it is only by a somewhat elastic use of the word that Mrs. Traill can be called a naturalist. — Observed and Noted, by Robert B. Risk. (The Examiner Printing House, Lancaster, Pa.) Five hundred pages of “ paragraphs ” reprinted from a daily newspaper, very miscellaneous as to subject, but mostly relating to the every-day happenings of country life.

Books of Reference and Handbooks. D and F are continued in the parts of Murray’s New English Dictionary for October 1, Development and Field having been reached. (The Clarendon Press, Oxford ; Macmillan, New York.) — Handbook of the New Public Library in Boston, compiled by Herbert Small. (Curtis & Co., Boston.) An admirably planned handbook of seventyeight pages, liberally illustrated, and of service both as a guide to the treasures of the building regarded as a work of art, and as a souvenir. Its condensation has been well studied, and there is a refreshing freedom from rhetorical phrase, and an absence of padding. — The Chess Pocket Manual, a Pocket-Guide for Beginners and Advanced Players, by G. H. D. Gossip. (Scribners.) An excellent and convenient little handbook, beginning with an introductory chapter pointing out the differences between the modern game and that of the old school, which is followed by chapters on the moves and relative value of the men, technical terms, laws of the game, openings, and endings.

Home and Society. Democracy and Caste, by Ethel Davis. (Home Science Publishing Co., Boston.) Beginning, so to speak, with the cellar, and rising to the sky parlor, Miss Davis treats of home-keeping wits. HouseFurnishing, Entertaining, Domestic Service, Housekeeping and Home-Making, Education and Religion, are the titles of half a dozen chapters in which honesty and the ideals of life are sought in the common activities. There is much sound and truly discriminating sense in this little book, and the note struck is clear and far sounding. — A sixth edition of The Social-Official Etiquette of the United States, by Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren (John Murphy & Co., Baltimore), has been issued, and we are assured in the preface that the views therein given are considered correct and logical, and are accepted as authority. (The italics are the author’s, who has a ladylike fondness for them.) A comic element in an otherwise most serious handbook is furnished by the insertion of a musical prelude, a setting of the commonplace and entirely unrhythmic prose of the opening paragraphs by, we are told, Herr von Bülow. We are not informed, however, at what high social function this remarkable production is appointed to be sung.