HISTORICAL RECORD.*

November 3.- Elections were held in twelve States of the Union. In Massachusetts, a full list of state officers and a legislature were chosen. Governor Robinson was elected for the third time, and all the other members of the Republican ticket were chosen,-it being a reelection for each one, excepting Alanson W. Beard, who succeeds D. A. Gleason as Treasurer.

The name of the West Roxbury Park, in the city of Boston, has been changed to the Franklin Park, and a fund established by Dr. Franklin applied to its purchase. In 1791 he left to the city £1,000 which was to accumulate for one hundred years, when £100,000 was to be appropriated for some public object, and the balance to accumulate for another century. The amount specified will not be realized, however, in 1891, as the fund will then reach only about $350,000.

December 8.- Elections were held in thirteen Massachusetts cities. The Mayors elected are as follows: Chelsea, Mayor Endicott, re-elected; Somerville, Mayor Burns, re-elected; Cambridge, Mayor Russell, reelected; Brockton, John J. Whipple; Salem, John M. Raymond; Gloucester, Mayor Parsons, re-elected; Haverhill, C. H. Weeks; Lowell, J. C. Abbott; Lawrence, A. B. Bruce; Taunton, R. H. Hall; Fall River, W. S. Greene; Springfield, E. D. Metcalf; Newton, D. H. Kimball.

NECROLOGY.

November 21.-The death occurred of Hon. Elizur Wright, a wellknown Massachusetts man, and a resident of Medford. Mr. Wright was born in South Canaan, Conn., February 12, 1804, and graduated at Yale, in 1826. In his early life he was a teacher, from 1829 to 1833 being Professor of Mathematics in Western Reserve College. He became in 1833 Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York. In 1838 he came to Boston, and for twenty years was actively engaged in editorial work, taking a stand as a most pronounced abolitionist. Since then he has been Insurance Commissioner or Actuary for the State till the time of his death. Mr. Wright has been an earnest advocate of the project for converting the "Middlesex Fells" into a park in later years. He was always an earnest, active man.

• This department hereafter will be made much more complete, and will cover all of the New England States.

LITERATURE AND ART.

For more than twenty-five years the public has been familiar with the products of the skill and genius of John Rogers, in which he has illustrated a variety of social, domestic, literary, and political subjects. During the War of the Rebellion, when the hearts of the people were quickly reached by anything that brought vividly before them the scenes of soldier life or the experiences of the "brave boys in blue," the artist won his way to a wide circle of admirers by his stirring representations of those scenes and experiences. His illustrations of Rip Van Winkle touched another chord in the public heart and increased the number and the enthusiasm of those who acknowledge the charm of his rare and facile power. He has produced three groups illustrative of scenes in Shakespeare, of which the latest, representing the interview between King Lear and Cordelia,* described in Act IV. Scene VII., is one of his best. The king had discarded and banished Cordelia, and divided his kingdom between his other two daughters; but their ingratitude and ill-treatment had driven him crazy. He had been brought in and laid. on a couch by his old friend Kent, who is disguised as a servant, and the doctor. Cordelia, who still loves him truly and tenderly, tries to recall herself to his wandering mind. The whole group is conceived with remarkable power and truthfulness, and in it nothing is more noteworthy than the expression of filial love and sorrow on the face of the daughter. This group will both sustain and increase the artist's wellwon reputation as an interpreter of life and its experiences.

The first two or three books of "Charles Egbert Craddock" secured to their author a most enviable literary reputation, and the writer's latest book † will be regarded with no less interest because it is now known that "Mr. Craddock" is Miss Mary Murfree. As in her other works, the book before us deals with the peculiar characteristics of life in the mountains of Tennessee, and is largely in the dialect of that region. Her rendering of this dialect has been strongly criticised by some, but we do not know who can be better authority than Miss Murfree herself, who has spent years among the people, engaged in careful and intelligent observation and study.

The Prophet is eminently a readable book, and is charming to those who like stories in dialect. The Prophet, which one would expect to be

*King Lear and Cordelia. Roger Groups of Statuary. New York: John Rogers.

+ The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. By Charles Egbert Craddock, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

a very strong character, is not brought out to such a degree as the writer, it would seem, could have easily done; but there are many word pictures which will long remain vivid in the reader's memory. We think Miss Murfree's literary reputation will be still further enhanced by the Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, and the book may be wisely selected for reading, even by those who take time for only a very few stories.

Princes, Authors and Statesmen,* edited by James Parton, is a collection of very entertaining sketches of noted persons, written, for the most part, by relatives, personal friends or others who have known them under favorable circumstances. The habits and demeanors of eminent persons are always matters of curiosity and interest to the general public, and this book contains abundant material which will gratify just this harmless instinct, and yet there is no violation of that privacy which always ought to be observed. The volume contains "Dickens. with his Children," by Miss Mamie Dickens; "Reminiscences of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley," by Canon Farrar; "Victor Hugo at Home," by his secretary, M. Lesclide; and valuable chapters on Emerson, Longfellow, Gladstone, Disraeli, Thackeray, Macaulay and many other authors, besides emperors, kings and princes. The illustrations are numerous, and include many scenes of places and excellent portraits.

In no department of publishing has there been a greater advance than in the production of juvenile literature. Not many years ago there were very few really appropriate books for children published, and hardly anything in the way of periodical literature of a high standard for young folks. To supply a long felt need, Harper & Brothers began a few years ago to publish a weekly magazine for children, employing in its production not only the best writers but the best artists to be found. The year's numbers up to November last, make a bound volume † of more than eight hundred pages of choicest juvenile reading, all crowded with beautiful illustrations, about 700 in number, and many of them gems of art. It would hardly seem possible to praise such a book too much. It is a storehouse of pleasure which may well delight any intelligent boy or girl.

The art of sculpture is commanding the interest of a steadily growing class outside the practical workers with the chisel, or the professional critics. Clara Erskine Clement's new book‡ is on the plan of her "Out

* Some Noted Princes, Authors and Statesmen of Our Time. Edited by James Parton. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.

↑ Harper's Young People, Volume VI. New York: Harper & Brothers. Price $3.50.

↑ An Outline History of Sculpture. By Clara Erskine Clement. New York: White, Stokes & Allen

line History of Painting." For beginners in the sculptor's art, it is an admirable text-book, which must be welcomed by all in that class, while to the amateur, or the mere admirer of the art, it is a very pleasing and instructive book. It presents the salient facts about sculptors and their works from the earliest times, and the reader is given a large amount of help in the illustrations, which represent specimens of the art in every age and of every school.

*

Mr. Hamerton's Paris is a work which is sure to attract attention, to be read, and to be highly prized. The author's long residence in the great French metropolis has given him rare opportunities for this work, and he has given us the result of painstaking research in every quarter of the city. The author has made special reference to changes. in the architecture and topography of Paris, and the book contains a large amount of matter of antiquarian value. The illustrations, of which there are many, are mostly simple outline sketches, or in the etching style, relating to architectural forms, and well serve their purpose.

Lovers of the quaint and curious in art, science, and literature have formed a pleasing acquaintance with Notes and Queries, which has reached its forty-second number. The latest issue (December, 1885), which closes the second volume, contains a full and carefully prepared index to the entire work, which was begun in July, 1882. This magazine abounds in information concerning matters not usually treated of in more formal and pretentious works, and well deserves a cordial support from an inquiring public.

For the best quality of American humor it is pretty well settled that the popular weekly paper Life is not equalled by any of its contemporaries. From the fifty-two numbers of the last twelve months the best of the humorous designs have been selected and bound into a handsome quarto volume.‡ Pen and pencil combine in making its pages laughable, and there are many incisive thrusts at the weak spots in society, but without coarseness or vulgarity.

Paris, in Old and Present Times. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

† Miscellaneous Notes and Queries, with Answers in all Departments of Literature. One Dollar a year. S. C. & L. M. Gould, Manchester, N. H.

The Good Things of Life. Second Series. New York: White, Stokes & Allen.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

ANSWERS.

4. A good account of the "Know-Nothings" is to be found in the "Magazine of American History," Vol. 13, p. 202, in article "Political Americanisms," by Charles Ledyard Norton.

6. That antiquarian scholar, Samuel Gardner Drake, made an exhaustive study of the Massachusetts Indians, which is embodied principally in his "Book of the Indians," the "Old Indian Chronicle" and the "Particular History of the Five Years' French and Indian War." Much Indian history is also given in notes, introductions, and appendices, in his editions of Church's and Mather's "King Philip's War," and Mather's "Early History of New England.”

7.There is no extended biography of Robert Rantoul, Jr., but sketches of him may be found in the "North American Review," Vol. 78, p. 237, and the "Democratic Review," Vol. 27, p. 348; the latter containing a portrait.

3. A lady thoroughly identified with the Anti-Slavery cause, and abundantly able to answer the query "Who was the first American woman to publicly espouse the cause of Anti-Slavery," writes as follows in response to a request for her opinion:

The question is on some accounts rather a difficult question to answer, as I do not quite understand its intent. You doubtless know that until the Anti-Slavery movement and some time after, no woman, except those of the Society of Friends, ever spoke or even prayed in public. If women wished to show their interest on any question, it was in societies and meetings exclusively for women. And this was the case with the Anti-Slavery women. Women's Societies were very early organized, and a great many women were active in them.

But I suppose the question relates to the women who addressed mixed audiences of men and women.

At the convention held in Philadelphia, 1833, to form the National Anti-Slavery Society, all the delegates were men, but a large number of women were present, and Lucretia Mott, who was a minister of the Friends' Society, and consequently was used to speaking to both sexes in Friends' meetings, spoke at the convention, but did not make any formal address. Several other women, also "Friends," spoke; and several years after, Samuel J. May, in speaking about it, said he was ashamed to say that though the convention passed a vote of thanks to the women for their interest, no one thought of asking any of them, not even Lucretia Mott or Mary Grew, to sign the "Declaration of Sentiments." I think the first women, undoubtedly, who addressed a mixed audience of men and women of all denominations were Angelina Grimké, afterwards married to Theodore D. Weld, and her sister Sarah M. Grimké. Being Southerners, and having been slaveholders, being allied to the best families of Charleston, S. C., their knowledge was considered authentic, and a great interest was shown to