present engaged on a new story entitled Uncle Christopher's Treasure, which deals with the tribulations of a literary man under the most exceptional circumstances. The scene is laid in the former English province of Aquitaine, and bound up with the plot is a romantic love-story. The author hopes to demonstrate with this novel, as with his Rogues and By Right, Not Law, that analysis is not incompatible with popular interest. The book will be published in the au

tumn.

In his new volume of reminiscences, reviewed on another page, the Rev. Harry Jones says that he observed that in his prison ministrations the book which was the favourite with the prisoners was Buchan's Domestic Medicine. It appears that its description of symptoms was prized as a scientific guide in the shamming of sickness which led to a relaxation of discipline. One day he was present at the convict choir rehearsal when the warden gave out the hymn,

Come let us join our cheerful songs
With angels round the throne."

And, he adds, they joined in them with pathetic readiness. On the same day he was passing through the school of religious instruction, and as he listened to the adult scholars reading verse by verse a chapter from the Bible, he found, to his amazement, that it was that which describes the escape of Rahab the harlot from Jericho.

FILBY. 'S TAYLOR & DRAPER

Mr. George Smith (of Smith, Elder and Company), "the Prince of Publishers,' as Charles Reade is said to have described him, has in his possession many curious and valuable mementoes of distinguished authors. The entire manuscript of Browning's Ring and the Book was presented by the poet to his friend, Mrs. George Smith, and there is also the complete manuscript of Jane Eyre, which Mr. Smith brought home. with him one memorable Saturday night, and became so fascinated with the story that he was unable to drop it until he had got to the end. The sketches by Thackeray and the page of manuscript of Shirley herewith reproduced are from the originals belonging to Mr. Smith.

Apropos of Mr. Oxley Macdonald's article on Rejected Addresses' in the present number, the following translation from the Chinese of a Celestial editor's rejection of a would-be contributor's manuscript may be of some interest: "Illustrious brother of the sun and moon: Behold thy servant prostrate before thy feet. I kowtow to thee and beg that of thy graciousness thou mayst grant that I may speak and live. Thy honoured manuscript has deigned to cast the light of its august countenance upon us. With raptures we have perused it. By the bones of my ancestors, never have I encountered such wit, such pathos, such lofty thought. With fear and trembling I return the writing. Were I to publish the treasure you sent me, the Emperor would order that it should be made the standard, and that none be published except such as equaled

CAPTAIN STEELE

An aggrieved correspondent makes this query in a com. plaint to the London Literary World respecting a returned manuscript: "Whether it is not the last indignity a poor rejected' can suffer, whether it is not the mockery and outrage of autocratic power, a very impudent fillip of the nose from the Herod-seat of judgment, to return with printed slip a rejected address,

and to include in the

century;

me are

going back

that

anything

like a romance

Fiona Macleod, the author of The Mountain Lovers, the latest Keynotes volume, is a genuine name, and not a pseudonym, as has been conjectured in some quarters. Fiona is the diminutive of Fionnaghal, the Gaelic equivalent of Flora.

Miss Macleod is a native of the South Hebrides, where she passed her early years. She still spends part of the year in the Highlands of her native place and of Argyleshire, where the scenes of The Mountain Lovers are laid, and for the rest of the time she lives near Edinburgh. She is still quite young. Pharais, by the same author, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Messrs. Stone and Kimball's Green Tree Library.

With the July number of the Windsor Magazine there begins a rambling causerie, by Anthony Hope, under the cap

One

naturally thinks of "Without Prejudice" in the Pall Mall, and of "The Book Hunter" in the Idler, but there is something in the vivacity and sparkle of Mr. Hawkins's style, as well as in the substance of his chatter, which differentiates him from either Zangwill or Alden. It is the author of The Dolly Dialogues we have here, catching up the flotsam and jetsam on the gay surface of society's stream, and making merry with its As an quips and cranks and foibles. example we give this fantasy of "Cupid and the Census Man."

Cupid had tried hard to escape, for, hates having to give an account of himabove all things in heaven and earth, he self.

But the Census man was very determined, and ran him to earth in Lalage's drawing-room, a place which he knew very well, and where he had always been most kindly received. The Census man came straight at him with

The same publishers will issue soon The Child in the House, by Walter Pater, which was originally printed privately in England at the Daniel Press, Oxford. There were 350 copies of the English edition, which were sold at two guineas each. The same quantity has been printed by Messrs. Copeland and Day on specially manufactured paper, and the price is only $1.50. The American edition, it seems to us, is superior in the finish of its general form and style to the English edition. We are pleased to hear that Miss Alice Brown's volume of New England stories, entitled Meadow-Grass, published recently by this firm, is meeting with a wide apprecia

tion.

M. Alphonse Daudet has little sympathy with the "New Woman" and her

aspirations. "I do not see," he said to Mr. Sherard recently, "what woman will gain by this enfranchisement. Zut! if a woman wishes to imitate man! A woman, to my thinking, can never be womanly enough. Let her have all the qualities of a woman, and I for my part will pardon her for having all a woman's faults. A11 the women that I have loved and admired have

been womanly women. This movement," he continued, "is one of the bad things which have come to us from America. The 'New Wo. man' is, however, unlikely, Dieu

merci! to find many disciples in France. France would else have to be radically transformed. Some attempts were made in that direction. Some schools were opened where male education, even male dress, was given to girls. But it was all a failure. Et Dieu merci!"

The much-discussed" Victoria Cross" of The Yellow Book is a Miss Vivien Cory. She lives in the country near London, and spends so much time in writing that she has no leisure left to read anything but a little Latin, chiefly Ovid,

from which she draws her inspiration. She was led to adopt her nom de plume because her initials are V. C., and also by the fact that she is the descendant of a V. C. Roberts Brothers will publish shortly a novel by her, entitled A Woman Who Did Not, in the Keynotes Series.

Some of the characterisations of certain popular authors who were present at the Besant Banquet a few weeks ago, as reported in the London Literary World, are rather sprightly and sugges

sense.

64

tive. Madame Sarah Grand is described as "sphinx-like and handsome, the champion of women;" while her domestic antithesis, Miss Annie S. Swan (Mrs. Burnett Smith), is presented as a picture of health, goodness, and commonWe have "Mr. Austin Dobson, with his kindly, good-humoured face and meditative grey eyes;" Mr. Israel Zangwill, sardonic and unfathomable;" and Mr. W. H. Rideing, of the North American Review and The Youth's Companion (who was then in London), with "healthy, fresh-coloured face, full of a strange mixture of alertness and reserve strength." Mr. Hall Caine "uniquely interesting, with his striking appearance has a fine, old-fashioned courtesy," we learn, "towards all who ask to be introduced to him;" while Mr. Barrie "has a shy dislike to being introduced to strangers, and is apt to run away almost immediately after an introduction has been effected.

passed the ivy-clad church where Kate and Pete were married, the house where Philip stayed with his aunt, the mill of Cæsar Cregeen, the deserted tholthans, the inns, the cottages, where hosts of characters dwelt and had their being. No one said, 'The imaginary characters in The Manxman do this, that, and the other.' It was: Here is Kate's glen, where she sang; this is where Cæsar's Melliah supper was held; this is Pete's house.' Mr. Hall Caine, our host (he wore a rough tweed knickerbocker suit, and broad-brimmed, picturesque hat), strode on with untiring steps, or bareheaded, beneath the trees of Ballaglass, watched the darting trout in the pools, the sunbeams playing on the rocks, the white sheen of the water as it fell and sparkled and flashed and sang upon its way. His eyes, full of genial mirth or haunting melancholy, held one; his rich, deep, musical voice mingled with the sound of the flowing waters, and interpreted their song, or, as we drove through the quiet twilight, told us old tales of the ancient Manx kings, their feudal powers and privileges."

Lovers of that delightful book, White's Natural History of Selborne, must have often felt the need of a final edition, and this, we may venture to say, promises to be attained by the handsome, illustrated work, in two volumes, which Messrs. D. Appleton and Company are preparing for publication in the autumn. Mr. John Burroughs has written a pleasant introduction (and no better man could be found to write con amore with the subject), and the numerous illustrations, full page and vignette, have been beautifully reproduced from photographs of the local scenery described in the Natural History taken by Clifton Johnson, who visited the places expressly for that purpose.