things as personal and animated, which believes in ghosts and magic, while men also behave in accordance with customs now obsolete and forgotten in civilization. These common facts are the threads (as we have said) in the cloth of myth and märchen. They were supplied by the universal early conditions of the prescientific human intellect. Thus the stuff of märchen is everywhere the same. But why are the patterns -the situations and the arrangements, and the sequence of incidents—also remarkably similar in the contes of unrelated and unconnected tribes and races everywhere?

Here the difficulty begins in earnest.

It is clearly not enough to force the analogy, and reply that the patterns of early fabrics and the decorations of early weapons, of pottery, tattooing marks, etc., are also things universally human. The close resemblances of undeveloped Greek and Mexican and other early artistic work are interesting, but may be accounted for by similarity of materials, of instruments, of suggestions from natural objects and of inexperience in design. The selection of similiar situations and of similar patterns into which these are interwoven by Greeks, Huarochiris of Peru, and Samoans or Eskimo, is much more puzzling to account for.

Grimm gives some examples, in which he thinks that the ideas and their collocations in the story, can only have originally occurred to one mind, once for all. How is the wide distribution of such a story to be accounted for? Grimm first admits, as rare exceptions, "the probability or a story's passing from one people to another, and firmly rooting itself in foreign soil." But such cases, he says, are " one or two solitary exceptions," whereas the diffusion of stories which, in his opinion, could only have been invented once for all, is an extensive phenomenon. He goes on to say, "We shall be asked where the outermost lines of common property in stories begin, and how the lines of affinity are graduated?" His answer was not satisfactory, even to himself, and the additions to our knowledge have deprived it of any value. "The outermost lines are coterminous with those of the great race which is called Indo-Germanic." Outside of the Indo-Germanic, or "Aryan" race, that is to say, are found none of the märchen which are discovered within the borders of that race.

But Grimm knew very well himself that this was an erroneous belief. "We see with amazement in such of the stories of the Negroes of Bornu and the Bechuanas (a wandering tribe in South Africa) as we have become acquainted with an undeniable connection with the German ones, while at the same time their peculiar com

position distinguishes them from these." So Grimm, though he found "no decided resemblance" in North American stories, admitted that the boundaries of common property in märchen did include more than the "Indo-Germanic" race. Bechuanas, and Negroes, and Finns, as he adds, and as Sir George Dasent saw, are certainly within the fold. There William Grimm left the question in 1856.-ANDREW LANG in Myth, Ritual, and Religion.

MUSIC.

In the steadiness and equanimity of music lies its divinity. It is the only assured tone. When men attain to speak with as settled a faith and as firm assurance, their voices will ring and their feet march as do the feet of a soldier. The very dogs howl if time is disregarded. Because of the perfect time of this music-box, its harmony with itself, is its greater dignity and stateliness. This music is more nobly related for its more exact measure. So simple a difference as this more even pace raises it to the higher dignity. What are ears, what is time that this particular series of sounds called a strain of music can be wafted down through the centuries from Homer to me, and Homer have been conversant with that same wandering and mysterious charm which never had a local habitation in space. I feel a sad cheer when I hear these lofty strains, because there must be something in me as lofty that hears. Ah, I hear them but rarely. They tell me the secrets of futurity. Where are its secrets wound up but in this box? So much hope had slumbered. There are in music such strains as far surpass any faith which man ever had in the loftiness of his destiny. He must be very sad before he can comprehend them. The clear liquid notes from the morning fields beyond seem to come through a vale of sadness to man which gives to music a plaintive air. The sadness is in the echo which our lives make and which alone we hear. Music hath caught a higher pace than any virtue that I know. It is the arch-reformer. It hastens the sun to its setting. It invites him to his rising. It is the sweetest reproach, a measured satire. I know there is somewhere a people where this heroism has place. Things are to be learned which it will be sweet to learn. This cannot be all rumor. When I hear this, I think of that everlasting something which is not mere sound, but is to be a thrilling reality, and I can consent to go about the meanest work for as many years of time as it pleases the Hindoo penance, for a year of the gods were as nothing to that which shall come after.-HENRY D. THOREAU in Winter.

Tolstoi's latest appears in French as Pour les Enfants.

Geo. Macdonald has written a new novel, called Home Again.

Wm. F. Gill is said to be working on a new edition of his life of Poe.

The only book of the year upon whose merits the critics agree is Thackeray's Letters.

Dr. McCosh's latest work, Psychology, has been introduced as a text-book in colleges of Japan and Ceylon and the State University of Calcutta.

William Black has written a new novel, which, under the title In Far Lochaber, will commence its serial appearance in Harper's Magazine for January.

Rev. E. J. Hardy, author of the guide to happiness in spite of the obstacle of matrimony, has written The Love Affairs of Some Famous Men for serial publication.

The death is announced of Pastor Valdemar Thisted, the author of the popular Letters from Hell, which originally appeared in Danish in 1866, under the pseudonym of M. Rowel.

H. de K., who provides the embellishments for Richard Watson Gilder's collected poems, is said to be Mrs. Helen de Kay Gilder, wife of the poet, and sister of Charles de Kay, the art critic.

George Augustus Sala will write for Myra's Journal a series of articles on Curiosities of Fashion, to be illustrated with designs taken from the author's valuable library on this subject.

D. Christie Murray has written a new novel, entitled The Weaker Vessel, for the new volume of Good Words.

The most successful of recent attempts to make little of Shakespeare is Ward, Lock & Co's latest edition of the works credited to him. It comprises the plays complete with some of the longer poems and a glossary; the whole minified to one small volume of eight hundred and thirty one pages in solid pearl type, to be sold for sixpence.

The first statue of Longfellow erected in this country, a bronze, will be unveiled next spring at the poet's birthplace, Portland, Me. It was made in Italy by Franklin Simmons, of Maine. The poet is shown seated in a carved chair with one arm resting on the back of it while the other, holding manuscripts, rests on his lap. The figure is draped in a cloak.

con.

After all, the only safe, lasting, unanimous and unprejudiced literary reputation is that which finds its guardianship in the hands of the children, thousands of these bright young critics yearly passing natural, simple and unbiassed judgment on their classics, while their fathers jangle and split hairs over Shakespeare and BaThis thought is suggested by the new illustrated edition of Robinson Crusoe, and the superb treatment of so many of the juvenile books many decades old. He, whom the children thus select as their master, is susceptible to no tide, no alternate ebb and flow of popularity and fashion, as that upon which the reputation of standard novelists is and must be borne.

In a happy moment of inspiration in 1883, Palmer Cox sent Brownies' Ride to St. Nicholas The children over the country caught the idea at once, in enthusiastic letters admired the pictures, and like Oliver Twist clamored for "more." The series now reaches twenty six in number, the original characters being retained and appearing in each issue while new ones with strong individuality are frequently added. Though there. are now seventy-four different characters, Mr. Cox prepares each drawing without reference to any other. To the children they have become wonderfully real and each is looked for as the new pictures appear. Inadvertently in one issue the King failed to appear and Mr. Cox received an anxious query from a little Massachussets girl asking had the Brownies killed the king. In reply Mr. Cox wrote in jesting seriousness, the Brownies would never do such a wicked thing, that in secret he would tell her the Brownies were Republicans with no King, and that he must have obtained the crown by raiding a Palace or have bought it second hand.

Austin Dobson's Life of Goldsmith will appear soon in the "Great Writers" series.

Mrs. Molesworth's new book, to be ready shortly, is to be called Little Miss Peggy.

For the Right, a new volume by the author of Letters from Hell, is announced for early issue.

The first volume of the reissue of the Encyclopædia Britannica in monthly volumes is ready.

Jean Richepin's new volume, a continuation of Les Blasphemes, will be called La Paradis du Diable.

As You Like It, illustrated by Emile Bayard, will be the next volume in Cassell's "International Shakespeare."

A new work, entitled William Wordsworth the Story of his Life, by Mr. J. M. Sutherland, is announced by Elliot Stock.

A collection of the Euvres littéraires de Napoléon Bonaparte is about to be published at Paris in three octavo volumes.

A biographical and historical sketch of William I. and the German Empire, by G. Barnett Smith, is in preparation in London.

Hugo's Notre Dame is to be published in a superb illustrated edition uniform with Routledge's édition de luxe of Les Miserables.

George Moore's Confessions of a Young Man, which have been running through Time, will be published in book form at an early date.

The Animal Lore of Shakespeare's Time, including quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fish and insects, by Emma Phipson, is now in press.

A dollar edition of Bayard Taylor's admirable translation of the first part of Goethe's Faust, is announced by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

A new collection of poems by Owen Meredith, is ready for publication under the title After Paradise; or, Legends of Exile, with other poems.

Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship, has just been translated into French under the title Les Héros Le Culte des Héros et l'Heroïque dans l'Histoire.

Spenser's Faerie Queene has been dusted, washed and re-dressed in a suit of modern English prose for popular reading. The prose is said to be very prosy.

Pilgrims and Puritans, a book of easy reading for children about to begin the study of United States history, has been prepared by Miss N. Moore for early issue by Ginn & Co.

Little, Brown & Co., it is announced will shortly publish Five Hundred Dollars and Other Stories of New England Life, some of which have heretofore appeared in the Century.

Crowell & Co., announce two new volumes of Russian stories, The Vagrant and Other Tales by Vladimir Karaléenko, and A Russian Proprietor and Other Stories by Count Tolstoi.

Asher & Co. promise an elaborate volume in German on tattooing, by M. W. Joest, illustrated with original drawings, and endeavoring to explain "warum tätowiren sich die Menschen."

An edition of Robenson Crusoe from entirely new plates and profusely illustrated by Gordon Browne, will be published this week by Thomas Whittaker. It is a reprint of the author's edition of 1719.

A volume on Peru, containing information about its resources, including its gold and silver mines, useful to merchants' and emigrants, is in preparation by H. Guillaume, Consul-General for Peru, at Southampton.

A new edition of the complete works of Chas. Lamb, in five volumes, is promised for the early part of the new year. It will be edited, with introduction and notes, by Alfred Ainger, and will include two steel portraits, one of which has never before been published.

Henry Bouchot, author of the admirable essay on La Livre, recently published in English under the title The Printed Book, is now preparing Les Reliures d'Art de la Bibliothèque Nationale, which will contain a hundred reproductions to be published by Edward Rouveyre.

Merrill & Co. have in press and will publish this month First Steps in Electricity, by Chas. Barnard, describing a great variety of simple experiments with electricity, the laws that govern it, and their application to the telegraph, telephone, electric light and cable railways.

A valuable work on numismatics, in preparation for publication, in three quarto volumes, is The Coinage of Scotland, from David I. to James VIII., illustrated from the cabinet of Thomas Coats, of Fergushi, and other collections. The third volume will be devoted solely to plates.

The correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor, soon to be published in London, is in the hands of Prof. Dowden. It covers a period of 60 years. Among the letters are some from Carlyle, Southey, Stephen, Macaulay, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Jeffrey, Mrs. Norton, and Glad

stone.

John Fisk has carefully read over Irving's Washington, abribged it as seemed judicious, and by adding an introduction covering events in American history preceding Washington's time and a continuation since then, thus practically giving the history of the nation outlined and based on Washington.

John R. Howard, of Fords, Howard & Hulbert, has been associated with nearly all of Henry Ward Beecher's literary and publishing ventures, has prepared a volume of that eloquent orator's Patriotic Addresses, ranging over all the intensest activities of the country. in politics, war and peace, during his vital connection with them.

Ion Perdicaris, an American resident of Tangiers, whe has been brought prominently before the public by his bold and honest defense of the Moors against the Consulate machinery of extortion, has published Mohammed Benani, a novel striking fearlessly and earnestly at the evils and injustice hid behind the shield of ⚫ official jurisdiction.

Among the announcements of Christmas stories for holiday reading, is R, E. Francillon's Seal of the Snake: A Secret in Seven Coils, in which it is claimed deals with materials never hitherto used in fiction. Let us hope for Mr. Francillon's sake that no one will steal the alliterative title of this story of the uncoiling serpent sealing his secret.

Scenes from the "George Eliot" Country, by Stepen Parkinson, now in the press, deals more especially with the early life of George Eliot, and identifies characters in her novels with persons of whom she had knowledge in actual life, and places and scenery with portions of the Midland counties amid which she spent her youth and young-womanhood.

Of the new and strange books announced for early issue is Dreamland and Ghostland, an original collection of tales and warnings from the borderland of substance and shadow; embracing remarkable dreams, presentiments, and coincidences; records of singular personal experience by various writers; startling stories from individual and family history; mysterious incidents from the lips of living narrators; and some psychological studies, grave and gay.

64 Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."-LORD BACON.

Marryatt's Poor Jack has been issued in an attractive edition for the holidays, with forty-six illustrations by Clarkson Stanfield.

Walter Armstrong's serial articles on Scottish Painters in the Portfolio have been issued in book-form, with copper-plates and vignettes.

The seventh edition of Rollo's Journey to Cambridge, issued in toy-book style, as a satire on the Rollo books of good Mr. Abbott, is ready.

The popular Wide, Wide World has been issued in a beautiful octavo volume, printed on laid paper, with etching by Frederick Dielman.

Chesterfield's Letters, Sentences and Maxims has been published in Putnam's tasteful "Nugget" series, with a critical essay by C. A. SainteBeuve.

Ten new unpublished etchings by A. H. Bicknell have been collected by Dodd, Mead & Co., in Original Etchings, with text by Wm. Howe Downes.

A collection of etchings of charming bits of Dutch scenery by Louis K. Harlow, is announced by S. D. Cassino for publication under the title Bits of Dutch Land.

White & Allen have ready a new edition of the Waverley novels in twenty-five handy size volumes, printed in clear large type. It is called the Rosslyn edition.

Wild Animals in Captivity, by J. Fortune Nott, contains forty plates from life, reproduced from photographs and pen-and-ink sketches, printed in quarto size.

Oxford, with descriptive text by A. Lang, and ten etchings by A. Brunet-Debaines, A. Toussaint and R. Kent Thomas, and vignettes from other hands, is now ready.

A holiday edition of Echo and the Ferry, by Jean Ingelow, has been published by Nims and Knight, in small quarto size, with illustrations on nearly every other page.

The popular jingles and verses for the little ones collected with pictures that seem to set the words to music will delight many in Young England's Nursery Rhymes.

The Man who Would Like to Marry is a series of clever society sketches, showing the faults of the nobler sex that do not please his highness in full-dress and critical eye-glass.

Josiah Allen's Wife's Book of Poems is now ready, bound as a companion volume to Sweet Cicely. It contains sixty-four poems illustrated by W. Hamilton Gibson and others.

Benjamin & Bell have issued a pretty volume, A Selection from the Poetry of Leigh Hunt, giving a reproduction of a portrait in water-colors by Sir David Wilkie, and a prefatory biographical sketch.

My Garden, an original poem by Simeon Tucker, is tastefully bound and well illustrated with sketches of flowers and stray corners of landscape by Lena S. Ringueberg and F. Schuyler Matthews.

The J. B. Lippincott Co. have combined three of their successful art books of last year, Gray's Elegy, Goldsmith's Hermit, and T. Buchanan Read's Closing Scene, in one volume under the title, Three Poems.

Thomas Ingoldsby's Misadventures at Margate has been issued as a Christmas book with twenty full-page pictures, with vignettes and portraits interspersed through the text, by Ernest M. Jessup.

Chas. Lamb's Beauty and the Beast, illustrated with eight steel plates engraved in facsimile from the original edition and prefaced by an introduction by Andrew Lang, is an attractive and interesting book.

Rev. Edward Everett Hale's famous In His Name, has been issued in a fine presentation volume printed in large type, on heavy paper, with one hundred and twenty-nine illustrations, by G. P. Jacomb-Hood.

Among the fine holiday books issued in London is My Hundred Swiss Flowers, by Mary A. Pratten, illustrated by four chromo-lithographs and one hundred full-page plates, accompanied by a short account of Swiss ferns.

An English edition of Sylvia: Recollections of Valois, by Gérard de Nerval, has been issued by Geo. Routledge and Son. It is illustrated with forty-two etchings by Ed. Rudaux, in general size and form similar to Merimée's Carmen.

An attractive book for lovers of birds is Birds and Blossoms, illustrated by Fidelia Bridges, with colored plates to a degree resembling watercolors. Prose and poetical selections and quotations from well-known writers are included.

Field & Tuer of London have nearly ready Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, with six unpublished ilustrations in aquatint, printed direct from the original copper-plates, engraved in 1820, with an introductory note by John Oldcastle.

The large paper edition of the Victorian Poets contains portraits of eleven British authors, including Tennyson, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Barry Cornwall, Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, Austin Dobson, Rosetti, William Morris, Hood and Landor.

The Fine-Art Portfolio, issued for the holiday season in London, consists of charming pictures in monochrome reproductions of water-color drawings by Mary L. Gow, A. Wilde Parsons, Lizzie Mack, F. Hines, Percy Tarrant and Margaret Dicksee.

Les Hommes de Cheval, just ready in an édition de luxe, contains a descriptive text by Baron de Vaux, on great horsemen, circus-riders, cavaliers and steeplechase-riders, with one hundred and sixty portraits and illustrations in colors and in black and white.

Enault's Ville et Village, has been issued in a beautiful volume, illustrated with one hundred and twenty-four engravings, some of them taking up the entire page, and the text being printed in red and black. The edition is limited to one thousand copies.

Goldsmith's Deserted Village appears in attractive quarto, illustrated by delicate monotints in brown, by Charles Gregory, Frederick Hints and Earnest Wilson. The scenes, mostly fullpage sketches of country views, are printed on heavy cream paper, with decorative initials and tail pieces.

The Count of Monte Cristo is now ready as a companion set to the superbly illustrated Les Miserables of last year. Beauce, Staal, and other eminent French artists are represented by their best work, and the number of the illustrations, five hundred, attest to the generosity with which the edition has been prepared.

Miss Jerome having created a demand for simple artistic sketches of bird, tree and flower, in her One Year's Sketch Book, has not hesitated as a new Christmas draws nigh to present a new volume. This year's Sketch Book is A Bunch of Violets, dainty artistic jottings of her ramblings, that impress the eye at once as something more than mere realistic pictures, for there is about them atmosphere and suggestiveness like the thought of a poet.