Captain King's new book that we are compelled to cry out upon the author for overcrowding his story with a superabundance of character and incident. Captain King has the facility of a practised story-teller; his style is apt to be florid, but the rapid succession of exciting incident and thrilling situation furnish diversion enough to condone for the faults of style and construction. Fort Frayne, after the Civil War, was a place of stirring action, and until a few years ago, the primitive conditions which made the hardy British-beating stock of the colonists in the East, prevailed within the shadow of the great mountains. King gives us frontier life, or, rather, fort life, with the truth and accuracy of an eye-witness and a soldier. Of course his women are sweet-faced and gentlehearted, and as true as the men are brave. In the hurried flow of events,

composed of Indian battles, financial crises, loves, joys, and disappointments, a bewildering array of fine characters is paraded before the reader with a dexterity whch gives each figure its niche in the gallery of interesting things shown by the writer. The reader, unlike the carping critic, may not find it in his heart to smile at the melodramatic action of the tale. We say melodra matic, for where only the good triumph, where no vice is allowed to flourish, and where all evil is opportunely crushed, one suspects that the author is playing to the gallery. Still if there be no consummate art in the narrative, if the play of motives be not analysed and portrayed with an Eliot-like force and fidelity there is the knack of telling a stirring story in Fort Frayne, and for so much we are grateful to the versatile and voluminous Captain King.

Virginia Woodward Cloud.

ABOUT PARIS. By Richard Harding Davis. New York: Harper & Brothers. $1.25. Whatever else one may say of Mr. Richard Harding Davis, he certainly possesses the great virtue of being readable. His infinitives may be split in two, his shalls and wills hopelessly confounded, and his sentences so askew as to make his meaning at first sight altogether doubtful; yet the root of the matter is in him. He sustains, as few contemporary authors do, the one great test, which is this: that having taken up one of his books, the reader does not willingly lay it down until the last word has been reached.

The present volume is the third of those containing Mr. Davis's impressions of foreign travel; and, like the others, it is bright, observant, and entertaining. Persons who are still in that period of their development when a visit to Europe is a delightful novelty, love to get together and compare notes; and to read Mr. Davis's books gives one the sensation of reminiscence with a very clever and sympathetic friend. In this book Mr. Davis tells of the streets and show-places of Paris-especially by night-describes the demeanour of tout Paris on the occasion of Carnot's tragic death, chats about the scenes attending the Grand Prix, and discusses philosophically and with a good deal of humour the American colony in Paris. Mr. Gibson's illustrations afford a welcome relief from the proverbial "Gibson girl," in that he has temporarily abandoned the puffy, bull-headed type that he usually exploits, and given us some admirably characteristic French faces, drawn with great spirit and fidelity. With his usual fondness for the author of the book, he works him in again, so that in the illustration facing page 36 we are edified by a portrait of Mr. Davis drinking something out of a cup and looking at a girl with apparent disapprobation.

We are inclined to think that About Paris is a little thinner in quality than its two predecessors; and it is also open to a little gentle criticism for another quality not usual in Mr. Davis's work. As a rule, his line is that of a genial comrade who chats over his experiences

with no self-consciousness or pose. In About Paris, however, there is just the slightest savour of polite condescension, as of one who knows it all and is kindly imparting a few crumbs to his less fortunate reader. This we feel called upon to point out as just the least bit amusing, in view of the fact that to one who knows his Paris well there are few chapters in Mr. Davis's book that do not sufficiently indicate the superficial character of its information. A young gentleman who actually thinks that un bock means a glass of bock bier, who imagines that General Dodds was a dangerous Presidential possibility," and who is naïf enough to think that there are no slums in Paris, can hardly be taken seriously as an authority on Parisian life and thought. However, one does not go to his works for instruction, but for amusement; and it is even probable that if Mr. Davis continues travelling and observing, he may at some time in the future acquire quite a fair amount of knowledge concerning the things of which he writes.

64

This volume of verse is interesting wholly apart from its literary quality, as showing the steady growth of the French influence in England. As Mr. George Moore is the English disciple of Zola and Huysmans, so Mr. Symons may now fairly be taken as aspiring to the place of an English Baudelaire. He cultivates sensation and deliberately exalts the sensual; and in his rather ostentatious shamelessness he recalls his Gallic model. His literary art, however, is very unusual, and his best work is worth very serious study, for seldom does one find a poet with a keener perception of the values of words and of the fitting phrase. In quoting him, however, we prefer to turn away from his music-hall experiences, his chance romances of the streets," and the morbid subtlety of his voluptuousness, to the fine verse that gives him at his best in both subject and treatment. Two bits will suffice to win the reader's admiration. The first, on Yvette Guilbert, has already been much copied :

64

That was Yvette. The blithe Ambassadeurs
Glitters this Sunday of the Fête des Fleurs ;
Here are the flowers, too, living flowers that blow
A night or two before the odours go;
And all the flowers of all the city ways
Are laughing with Yvette, this day of days.
Laugh with Yvette? But I must first forget
Before I laugh that I have heard Yvette,

For the flowers fade before her; see, the light
Dies out of that poor cheek and leaves it white,
And a chill shiver takes me as she sings
The pity of unpitied human things;

A woe beyond all weeping, tears that trace
The very wrinkles of the last grimace.

The second is less serious, but very dainty:

A gypsy witch has glided in,

She takes her seat beside my fire;
Her eyes are innocent of sin,

QUAINT KOREA. By Louise Jordan Miln. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.75.

Mrs. Miln gave us last year one of the most amusing books of recent travel, When we were Strolling Players in the East Now she has written another which, in many respects, is quite as good. Perhaps she is no more observant than other travellers, but she knows how to make a very rare use of her observation when her pen is in her hand. She has a quality few of them seem to possess; we might call it wit, but if we were challenged we could not sustain her reputation for it. Very likely she is only vivacious and entirely unaffected, and with an aversion to pomposity. She does not appear at her best when there are weighty subjects to be discussedand poor Korea is so situated that the weighty affairs of several States cannot be ignored in speaking of it. Still, if her views on China and Japan may not satisfy politicians, they are her own, formed in the East, and they are bright

ly, candidly expressed. Whatever is picturesque, whatever appeals to her emotions, she can see and describe admirably. The chapters on Korean women, on the Korean amusements, on some curious Korean customs, are delightful. This "quaint kingdom of the morning calm," as she calls it, fascinated her. You feel that Mrs. Miln has been there, and her way of telling what she remembers is like the conversation of a good talker in a company where there is no need to pose. Globe-trotters for "copy" get wearisome after a while, but we cannot help feeling Mrs. Miln would not soon degenerate, and wishing she may wander still and may let us hear from her frequently. Quaint Korea is a good holiday book.

PONY TRACKS. By Frederick Remington. New York: Harper & Brothers. $3.00.

This is one of the most charming books of the season, not because of any great literary excellence in the short stories which, to the number of fifteen, make up the volume, but because there is about them the freshness and breezy unconventionality of the West, while the vigour and occasional crudeness of the better class of people to be met there. It is in the illustrations that the work especially attracts. Men, horses, and cattle are represented in the spirited manner that has distinguished Remington's work in the magazines, and in the execution of which, with perhaps the exception of Thulstrup, he is unsurpassed.

He has roved

No section of interest in the West has escaped the author's observation, and his strange and adventurous experiences are well worth telling. among the cow-punchers of the Southwest, where the dread Apache ruled in the fastnesses of mountain and desert; on the plains of the Dakotas, where the last conflict with the Indians occurred; at the forts; behind General Miles on long and forced rides-everywhere, in fact, where the American may still revel in the great red-shirted freedom which has been pushed so far to the mountain wall that it threatens soon to expire somewhere near the top. The selection of picturesque subjects for the full-page illus trations gives the best possible idea of this country and its people in the wild and woolly West. The book is handsomely printed on heavy paper and bound in good stout covers.

OUR SQUARE AND CIRCLE; OR, THE ANNALS OF A LITTLE LONDON HOUSE. By Jack Easel." New York: Macmillan & Co.

It

It seems an ungracious task to find any fault with this cheerful author, who so confidingly takes for granted the interest of the public in his most trifling domestic arrangements and his ideas on almost every subject under the sun. must be said, however, that many of these details and ideas are among the things which are only valuable to the owner. But if the reader is not repelled by an extreme discursiveness of style, he will find here many really valuable hints and warnings on the subject of setting up house, and much pleasant gossip on an almost unlimited variety of subjects. It is an open secret, by the way, that the author of these entertaining sketches is Mr. Charles L. Eastlake, Curator of the National Gallery, London. "Jack Easel" will also be identified as Punch's sometime Roving Correspondent."

BOOKMAN BREVITIES.

The Messrs. Macmillan publish an elaborate memoir of Sir Samuel Baker, written by Messrs. T. Douglas Murray and A. Silva White, and dedicated to the Queen. It contains six illustrations and nine maps, all admirably executed, the latter of much interest and value to students of African geography. The memoir is written with much literary skill, and forms a just tribute to the energy and ability of a man whose work has been of immense value to England and to civilisation. (Price, $6.00.) In the English Men of Action Series, Mr. Archibald Forbes tells the story of Sir Colin Campbell's life and military services in his usual nervous, concise, and vivid style. The book gives the reader an excellent opportunity to review once more the story of the Crimean War and of the Indian Mutiny. It is published by the Messrs. Macmillan, the price being 75 cents.

In a compact volume of 295 pages the Rev. William Hayes Ward has made an interesting collection of the most striking tributes to Abraham Lincoln from his associates and others. The vein of reminiscence which runs through them makes the book most interesting read

ing. The publishers are Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, of New York.

The Public Men of To-day Series, published by Messrs. Frederick Warne and Company, which we have already had occasion to mention, has now been augmented by a most excellent and timely volume on Li Hung Chang, from the pen of Professor R. K. Douglas, and by another, even more interesting, on the late M. Stambuloff, by Mr. A. Hulme Beaman. We heartily commend them both to our readers, and shall have occasion to review the second of them at

greater length in a subsequent number

of THE BOOKMAN.

Mr. Frank Graham Moorehead is the author of a small book published by the Nixon-Jones Printing Company, of St. Louis. It is entitled Unknown Facts about Well-known People. After perusing some of the facts we are inclined to inquire, Unknown to whom?" That Grover Cleveland, for instance, was once Mayor of Buffalo; that he was twice elected President; and that Mr. George Du Maurier is the author of a novel called Trilby are facts that might be regarded as known to persons even less erudite than Macaulay's schoolboy; but this is a criticism upon the title only, for the book itself is really a judicious condensation of a good deal of useful information about contemporary persons, many of whom are as yet to be found in only one of the existing encyclopædias. Foreign personages are very fairly represented, though we notice a few omissions. The biographies are arranged in alphabetical order.

The Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field writes very entertainingly of a visit to the provinces dominated by the Canadian Pacific Railway in a book which, with the title Our Western Archipelago, is published by the Messrs. Harper and Brothers. Those persons who are contemplating the same very delightful journey, with an extension to Alaska, should certainly take Dr. Field's volume with them or read it before going. Twelve excellent illustrations supplement the text.—The Robert Clarke Company, of Cincinnati, send us a most complete guide to the Chickamauga National Military Park, written by the competent pen of General H. V. Boynton. It is prepared with great care, and gives the most minute details relating to the great battles

fought in the vicinity of the Park. (Price, $1.50.)

Messrs. Macmillan and Company go on prosperously with their Illustrated Novels Series. The last volume we have received contains Thomas Love Peacock's Maid Marian and Crotchet Castle ($1.25). Mr. Saintsbury is quite at home in criticising such a writer as Peacock, and if we are to have a standard edition of his work, no better writer could be found to stand by him. Nothing will ever make Peacock popular, but he is use. ful to unscrupulous journalists, as his clever phrases can be borrowed without the smallest risk of detection. The Macmillans are making a fine series of these books, and its popularity should be enduring. We have also to note two further additions to the edition of Balzac published by the same firm, namely, The Chouans and At the Sign of the Cat and Racket (per volume, $1.50), and the ninth volume of the dainty edition of Defoe, which contains the famous Journal of the Plague.

Two more volumes of Mr. Hardy's novels have been added by the Messrs. Harper to their new edition of this author's work. They are A Pair of Blue Eyes and Two on a Tower (per volume, $1.50). The latter is a story of a loving woman, terribly tried, doing wrong because the force of circumstances is too strong for her, but who is pure and good in spite of her fall. It will be seen at a glance that the subject has close affinities with Tess; indeed, we find that when this novel was published some thirteen years ago it did not escape the opprobrious epithet of "improper," from Mrs. Grundy, as affecting morals. Messrs. R. F. Fenno and Company have made a collection of stories redolent of mystery, ghosts, and strange secrets, one of which, The Secret of Goresthorpe Grange," is by Conan Doyle. The volume bears the appropriate title Strange Secrets, and its contents are readable and entertaining. The Making of Mary, by Jean Forsyth, published in Cassell's Unknown Library, is an amusing story steeped in theosophy. Poor Mary made a bad thing of her previous incarnations, and she is still a very unfinished piece of work when we take leave of her. Readers of that vivacious novel The Grasshoppers, published a few months ago, will be glad to read Mrs. Dean's A Splendid Cousin, which also appears in the Un

known Library. In the Antonym Library-a similar series of booklets issued. by the Putnams—a new volume has just been published which contains "The Honour of the Flag" and seven other short stories by the popular chronicler of the sea, Mr. W. Clark Russell.

Messrs. Crowell and Company have sent us the first volume of their Offhand Series, which is daintily yet substantially bound. Old Man Savarin and other Stories contains for the most part a collection of French-Canadian tales by the Canadian writer Mr. Edward William Thomson. Mr. Thomson has a picturesque style, and he shows much versatility, as well as dramatic_power, in the narration of his stories. Some of them are very touching and all of them are entertaining. They have a fresh and delightful flavour, which wins the attention of the reader. The same firm have just published a delicious little juvenile by James Otis, not unknown to readers of St. Nicholas, in which magazine a serial of his is now appearing. How Tommy Saved the Barn (50 cents) tells a story of three little city waifs who spend a holiday at a Maine farm and celebrate themselves in a heroic fashion, not, however, untrue to life, amid the novelty of their experiences. The little volume will especially appeal to those who take an interest in the beneficent work being accomplished by the Fresh Air Fund.

Katharine Pyle has issued through Messrs. E. P. Dutton and Company a collection of rhymes of the Slovenly Peter order, with effective drawings, which are calculated by the lessons of thrift, cleanliness, and obedience drawn from her 'orrible tales to quicken the moral sense of her young readers. The Rabbit Witch, and other Tales ($1.50) contains a round dozen of those amusing caricatures, and is well printed and encased in a substantial binding. What I Told Dorcas ($1.25), by Mary E. Ireland, is published by the same firm. It is a story for mission workers, and was suggested to the author by seeing during her long association with missionary societies the need of a book for reading aloud at their meetings-a lively, suggestive, continued story, constructed so as to be read in monthly instalments.Messrs. D. Appleton and Company have published a collection of stories by Hezekiah Butterworth in their Town and Country