cursions of the British incendiaries along the Long Island Sound, and particularly around the town of New London. The Battle of Lexington, the burning of Norwalk, the meeting with Benedict Arnold, and the storming of New London are described with the fidelity and accuracy of an eye-witness. The adventurous voyages on the Will o' the Wisp are among the most exciting and interesting episodes; and Jacob Moon is by all odds the best character in the book. When he falls we feel that he has taken something of us with him. The story begins well, and occasionally reaches heights of dramatic interest as it proceeds; and if it be long in the telling, of few stories can we say, as we can of this one, that it is well worth spending the time over, and will fully repay the reader in the end.

CARMINA MINORA.*

J. M.

Mr. Abbey states in a prefatory note that this, the third edition of his poems, contains "all the poems of mine that I wish to have live.' As the book is one of some 290 pages, it will be seen that Mr. Abbey is making quite a large demand on immortality; for how many poets have ever written as much verse as this that can be said, in any proper sense of the word, to have "lived"? Very few indeed, and those only the very greatest. It is, indeed, much if, at the end of a century from his death, any one has left a score of lines that dwell in the hearts and on the lips of men. But, after all, Mr. Abbey only "wishes, he does not necessarily expect, a poetical immortality, so one need not say anything very severe about his natural ambition. As for the volume before us, it is fairly well described by a Latin

poet:

"Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura."

The critical reader will probably peruse

The Poems of Henry Abbey. Third edition, enlarged. Kingston, N. Y.: Published by the Author. $1.25.

Rhymes of Our Planet. By Will Carleton. New York: Harper & Bros. $1.25.

After Many Years. By Richard Henry Savage. Chicago and New York: F. Tennyson Neely. American War Ballads, 1725-1865. Edited by George Cary Eggleston. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

with most pleasure the least pretentious things that it contains, in which there is often to be found a touch of true poetic feeling and also felicity of expression. But as for the longer poems, they come perilously near to prose. Take this from "Karagwe" :

"O rash wife, South! Thy true husband, the North,

Loveth thee yet, though thou wentest astray.
In Truth's great court, where thy trial was held,
To thee was granted no bill of divorce."

This sounds too much like the morning paper. And this from "Gettysburg":

"On his horse Gates shouldered the colours (lest, haply, it should be lost)

Till he knew the chance of its capture was safely weathered and crossed;

For not far from the Seminary, where a stone and rail fence stood, He again formed line with Biddle, at the edge of a narrow wood.

"There were thirty and five armed thousands, with this savage, warlike will, Slave-holders and proud work-scorners, and for being that, fiercer still."

This would do very well for a paper to read at a reunion of the G. A. R., but we fear that it will not "live."

has been very much overshadowed of Mr. Will Carleton's former reputation late years by the far more artistic and comb Riley; but he has also contributed sympathetic work of Mr. James Whitto his own eclipse by attempting to write in a too pretentious vein. Mr. Carleton is not a poet, not even a minor poet; but some of his earlier rhymes were very cleverly put together, and were redolent of a certain native humour. The present volume from his pen shows that the

original vein is about worked out, though

here and there may still be found bits that are very readable. But as for the seriously intended verses, "why, the

bellman could write better lines!" as old Osbaldistone said.

Mr. Richard Henry Savage, the author of My Official Wife and Delilah of Harlem, appears as a versifier in the handsome volume before us, of which it is perhaps sufficient to say that the literary quality of his verse is fully up to the level of his prose as seen in Delilah of Harlem. The bearing of this remark, in Bunsby's phrase, lies in the application.

Mr. Eggleston's collection of songs and verses relating to our early colonial wars,

the War of the Revolution, the War of 1812-15, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, is, on the whole, a very interesting one, though the title of the book is misleading, inasmuch as not half of the pieces gathered together in it were ever sung, and many of them have no lyrical quality whatever. Yet they possess a certain value of their own, if not always for either historical or literary merit. Mr. Eggleston admits to his collection not only the popular songs of the periods mentioned, but also many of the famous poems that have touched the national heart, such as Paul Revere's Fide," "Old Ironsides,' ""The Bivouac of the Dead," and "Barbara Frietchie," and has opened the door pretty wide for many other compositions that are neither famous nor readable. His lack of discrimination is, indeed, very noticeable, for he has left out the inspiring ballad "The Battle of New Orleans," and Whittier's fine poem, "The Angels of Buena Vista" which is by far the

best thing called forth by the Mexican War, and Thompson's "High Tide at Gettysburg,' and has clogged his pages with such dreary balderdash as Brownell's "Bay Fight," which occupies no less than twenty-two good pages. To include such a production in a collection of 'ballads" is too preposterous. But one can forgive even this in his pleasure at finding at last in permanent and attractive form such splendid bits of lyrical history as are embodied in the " Carmen Bellicosum," Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic,' public," "Stonewall Jackson's Way,"

New York:

Many books are written from the outside; a few are written from the inside, and it is to this exclusive little company that Aftermath, Mr. James Lane Allen's new novel, belongs. The work appears far apart from the hasty, restless kind that marks the vogue of the moment. Its simplicity, its reticence, its tranquillity, and, most of all, the intellectual satisfaction which it gives, seem to pertain to another time and to a finer and more

enduring form of art. And yet, as a study of the highest inner life, it is as true to-day as it was yesterday, or will be to-morrow, or during all time, so long as there are noble men and women in the world.

The story is the second part of A Kentucky Cardinal, and flows on in unbroken continuity, as though it were not an afterthought, and the two parts had always been one. There is the same deliciously novel love-making as in the beginning, and the same sparkle of fine,

Grad

But this sunny, dainty fun does not detract from the growing earnestness of the story; it only illuminates the depths that are sounded. And these, as revealed in the fulfilment of the destinies of Adam and Georgiana, are the profoundest known to the human heart. ually he is drawn farther and farther away from nature, and closer and closer to his own kind. And as they "approach that mystical revelation of life which must come with marriage," they are filled with "a beautiful wonder at what they are, at what love is, at what it means for a man and a woman to live together." Nor when they are husband and wife does the yearning and the questioning cease. Thus it must always go on, this ceaseless effort of one loving soul to reach another "through the throbbing walls of flesh, across the lone impassable gulfs of individual being. And the greater the love, the lonelier the soul-that is the cruelty of love. Yet the mystery never lessens the sweetness-and that is the mercy of love.

"Georgiana's gaze was very deep in the flames. And how sweet her face was, how inexpressibly at peace! She had folded the wings of her whole life, and sat by the hearth as still as a brooding dove. No past laid its disturbing touch on her shoulder. Instead I could see that if there were any flight of her mind away from the present, it was into the future-a slow, tranquil flight across the years, with all the happiness they must bring."

Then on a spring morning, "at dawn, amid such singing of birds that every tree and yard became a dew hung belfry of chimes," the miracle of maternity deepens the mystery of love; and Adam's heart throbs through his playful

words:

"But I gambol in spirit like a hawk in the air. Let me hood myself with parental cares; for I have been a sire for half a day. I am speechless before the stupendous wisdom of my son, in view of his stupendous ignorance. Already he lectures to the old people about the house on the perfect conduct of life, and the only preparation he requires for his lectures is a few drops of milk. By means of these, and without any knowledge of anatomy, he will show us for instance what it is to be master of the science of vital function.

He has no cares beyond his needs; all space to him is what he can fill, all time his instant of ac

tion. He does not know where he came from, what he is, why here, whither bound; nor does he ask. My heart aches helplessly for him when he shall have become a man and have grown less wise. If I could put forth one protecting prayer that would cover all his years, it would be that through life he continue as wise as the day he was born."

But after this there are no more words, grave or gay, for weeks. Georgiana has passed away, and Adam is silently gathering up the fragments of his shattered life. When he can speak he goes quietly on, saying little about his grief :

To-day for the first time I went back to the

woods. It was pleasant to be surrounded again

by the ever-living earth that feels no loss and has no memory; that was sere yesterday, is green today, will be sere again to-morrow, then green once more; that pauses not for wounds and wrecks nor lingers over death and change; but onward, ever onward along the groove of the law, passes from its red origin in universal flame to its white end in universal snow. And yet, as I approach the edge of the forest, it was as though an invisible company of influences came gently forth to meet me, and sought to draw me back into their old friendship. I found myself stroking the trunks of the trees as I would throw my arm around the shoulders of a tried comrade; I drew down the branches and plunged my face into the new leaves as into a tonic stream.

At last comes the aftermath-the pale, late growth that overspreads the har

quiet, cloudless twilight.

THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO By Anthony Hope. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $1.50.

Mr. Anthony Hope is finding out his enviable position. Do what he will, he has the power to please most people. Whatever be his moods, and whatever the quality of his performance, he is never awkward, and elegance of form in any literary matter popularly interesting is so uncommon that gratitude and admiration are widespread and infinding this out, it is not surprising tense in proportion. Now that he is that he should take advantage of it, and give pleasure to his numerous admirers as frequently and with as little trouble to himself as possible. It is impertinent to pry into the state of Mr. Hope's soul to see if it is growing demoralised by easy triumphs, but it is quite justifiable to say that a little more effort than is to be found in his latest book is wanted to keep up the estimate which some sincere but discreet admirers have formed of his powers. The stories here are en

tertaining, and the youth of fourteen who should disapprove of them would do so from mere dulness. But there are features in it that would lead one to believe they were not written for lads in their early teens. Yet it is not exactly a book for men and women, to whom the tales, excellent in imagining as many of them are, must be spoilt by the artificiality of the mechanism, and the conventionality of all the motives, feelings, and expressions, of the human beings concerned. Mr. Hope is a novelist of power, and he gives us an unimpeachable gift-book of a quality equalled by a dozen boys' story writers any Christmas. His Antonio he calls an outlaw; but he is the outlaw of a maiden-aunt's or a schoolmaster's imagination-compounded of demi-god and family pastor. True, he appears to us through the narrative of a holy father, but Mr. Hope chose that medium, and if it was unsuitable for the rough record of the wild men who took to the hills, he is responsible. There is no lack of blows and battling, but all the rough play is carried on in so genteel an atinosphere that it sounds like sham-fighting all the time. The manner of the writing is after this familiar style

We feel sure there were few erasures in the manuscript. Once having caught the easy swing of this style, there is no reason why one should ever stop. From these unkind observations we except some portions of the Chronicles, where Mr. Hope has taken time to be himself; but on the whole his facile grace has here proved itself a snare. Let us genially call this latest story of his a relaxation; yet such relaxations should be anonymous, and they might safely be so, for they have no individuality.

SIR QUIXOTE OF THE MOORS. By John Buchan. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 75

be sure he will suffer by comparison with Stevenson and Crockett, and it may be fair to say that but for these writers the tale had never been written. But it is by no means an imitation. There are traces of their influence in his manner, and there are characteristic touches which remind us of Weyman as well as of the writers already mentioned; but there is an individual quality in his work and a certain bewitchment which be. longs to the higher forms of imagination. Poor Sir Quixote is very human, and is next of kin to most of us; but we are particularly grateful for the heroine, who is so real as to enlist our sympathies from the first, and whose presence in the story becomes a living memory long after the book is closed. We could never have forgiven the Sieur de Rohaine had he deserted her in the end. The story is told with great delicacy and grace of diction, and pervading it is

an air of gentle romance like the fragrant aroma of sweet lavender in an old garden. Whatever defects exist in the story arise from immaturity, but the power of reserve which is evident on every page makes us hope great things of the author. We shall certainly look with eagerness for his next book.

RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES.

From the Skazki

of Polevoi, by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated by C. M. Gere. Chicago: Way & Williams. $2.00. COSSACK FAIRY TALES AND FOLKTALES. SeIllustrated by E. W. Mitchell. lected, edited, and translated by R. Nisbet Bain. New York: F. A. Stokes Co. $2.00.

Mr. Nisbet Bain has added to our knowledge of the folklore of an interesting and little worked field of the Continent, as well as contributing to our ever-increasing delight in the oldworld stories, which find a home in the hearts of all who have not altogether lost the fresh sense of wonder which is the prerogative of the nursery. When Russian Fairy Tales appeared in England the volume met with a generous reception, very gratifying to the editor and translator, for the work was arduous, and, while largely a labour of love, the attempt to bring these exotic stories within the comprehension of Englishthinking minds and to hope for their appreciation was still an experiment. The success of this initial work encouraged Mr. Bain to try his hand at a sister volume of stories, selected from another Slavonic dialect extraordinarily rich in folk-tales-the Ruthenian. We venture to think that Mr. Bain has succeeded even better in this volume, chiefly because he has had a greater variety of folk-tale to drawn upon. There is plenty of fun and fancy in the Russian tales, but in the Cossack stories we have more of the fresh spontaneity and naïve simplicity of the primitive folk-tale. Many old myths and folk-lore data are peculiar to the Cossacks consequent on their comparative isolation and remoteness from other European peoples, but this is a matter of interest which affects the professional student more than the reader. The latter will find in these two volumes abundant sources of enjoyment and delectation, and we hope that the fine manner in which both publishing houses have produced these books will be the least reason for awarding them a successful entrance into this country.

Mr. Evesdon, alias Mr. Menton Pleydell, by which name he is known as the author of a work on horticulture, is suddenly called home from the Continent on legal business, and on the way from Dover to London he impersonates the part of a hero in a melodrama which his friend Clubbe is bringing out, and narrates his pretended adventures in cold blood to an intelligent, refined, and sensitive lady, whom he had met en route from Calais to Dover for the first time. The dénouement is rather startling for the experimenter, who is hypnotised by the steady stare of his fair listener. He arrives in London and ascertains from his lawyer that an eccentric old lady has just died, leaving her property to the author of The Jacobean Garden, which he may utilise by laying out the plans fondly idealised in his book. But there is a contestant in the case in the shape of an unknown lady, who it turns out is unwilling to interfere, but whose father is more than willing. Mr. Evesdon is invited to Dene Farm to visit Lady Bonville for the purpose of assisting her to set up a modern Forest of Arden or Court of Love, as the author conceives it. He finds that Lady Bonnie is identical with the lady who listened to his harrowing tale in the railway carriage, and he falls in love-Lady Bonnie has a husbandwith her secretary, who it appears is the niece of the eccentric testatrix, and whose claim stands in the way of the settlement of the will on Mr. Evesdon, the author of The Jacobean Garden. The plot thickens with this interesting contretemps, but the reader will guess the rest. The story is written in a lively, spirited vein, and does not tax the reader's attention too severely. It must not be taken au serieux, or its illusion will be dispelled; but those who want light entertainment will find Lady Bonnie's Experiment very amusing.

AT TUXTER'S. By G. B. Burgin. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.00.

This is a story to be thankful for. The characters bear no burdens, nor do they trouble themselves with problems; they are happy-go-lucky, light-hearted creations raised up for the reader's entertainment. Mrs. Tuxter's grocery

44

store was located on one corner, and on the opposite corner stood "The Stoat and Hammer," which provided the means of slaking the phenomenal aridity presumably caused by the food and condiments sold at the provision shop. Tuxter, it appears, was not above frequenting The Stoat and Hammer" to drink confusion to Mrs. Tuxter, whenever an opportunity offered, and to imperil his "immortual" soul by glancing at the buxom barmaid. Little Drusilla, the infant daughter of Tuxter's niece of that name, winds her childish way into his heart, and gets adopted; Mrs. Tuxter, to get even with her spouse, rescues Thomas Henry from the Foundling Hospital with a fivepound note. He comes well recommended: "the boy is some sort of comfort during the cold nights, if only to keep one's feet warm. Besides, he is useful to throw things at." And so the story starts on this basis with its amusing Cockney characters, in the vicinity of Holborn, and the fun is kept up to the end, although one must admit that there is more humour than human nature in the book, barring the Tuxters and their domestic entourage, with whom the reader will be genuinely entertained.

TALES OF AN ENGINEER. By Cy Warman. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.25. As Robert Louis Stevenson felt adventure in the sting of the salt, so this engineer thrills to romantic daring on the iron-road.

"He loves the locomotive

As the flowers love the lea, As the song-birds love the sunlight, And the sailor loves the sea.' Indeed, until one has read the Tales of an Engineer, it would be impossible to imagine how full of picturesque allurement the track is, or how companionable and sympathetic a being is the black steam-engine. Cy Warman is like a good sailor, he loves the personality of his engine; and he has nowhere more prettily expressed this than in his account of a journey on a French engine:

"I missed the sleepy panting of the air-pump and the click of the latch on the reverse lever. There was no bell to relieve the monotony of the rasping phthisicy whistle. I wondered if we could ever understand each other, if she would respond to my touch."

He has also a poetic faculty of setting