JOHN D. BARRY.

dress if he cared to take the matter into the monogram; has gilt lettering on the back, with
courts and to endure further annoyance. blind lines at top and bottom. It contains no
advertising pages.
Very truly,
JOHN EDMANDS.
Mercantile Library, Philadelphia.
January 15, 1898.

CORRESPONDENCE.

R. L. Stevenson and C. M. Hyde. To the Editor of the Literary World.

May a reader for many years of the LITERARY WORLD be allowed a brief comment on the notice in the last number of the reissue of Robert Louis Stevenson's letter to Dr. C. M. Hyde?

As a masterpiece of vindictive writing that letter

bids fair for a long life, but should be classed as

much among pure fiction as Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde. Dr. Hyde did not publish any attack on

Father Damien. He simply, in a private letter, stated facts that were well known in Honolulu. His correspondent saw fit to print what had not been intended for the public, and thereby brought

down this torrent of abuse, which must be received as any other unjust calumny. Although on the popular side Stevenson's letter appears

to follow the advice given to a young lawyer:
"When your case is weak abuse the opposing
counsel." Dr. Hyde as a man is as superior to

R. L. Stevenson as Stevenson himself as a
writer is to the generality of scribblers. But
"Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone."
A MATTER OF JUSTICE.

MINOR NOTICES.

Catherine Schuyler.

introduces himself as "A member of the Sept," undertakes to do, is to write the family history of the Sept to which he belonged, dedicating it to his children. The family whose generations are related in these pages occupied from the fifth to the seventeenth century a definite territory in the center of what is now County Clare, on the western coast of the Emerald Isle. Successfully in turn they defended their lands and homes against the Norsemen, the Normans, and the English, and were only scattered after twelve hundred years of cohesion by the stern hand This biography of the wife of Major-General and ruthless heel of Oliver Cromwell. Through Philip Schuyler, by Mary Gay Humphreys, closes all this long stretch of time they kept their stock the series of "Women of Colonial and Revolu- almost wholly pure; their life was agricultural, tionary Times." It is less satisfactory as an ac- their surroundings underwent little change, they count of the woman than is the life of Dolly clung to the traditions of the church founded Madison or Eliza Pinckney, but as an attractive in Ireland by St. Patrick. We are quite ready presentation of social events and modes of liv- to agree with the author that the study of an ing among the Dutch at Albany it is interesting. old Irish family, or group of families, under More than any of its forerunners should this these conditions is "an interesting" one, and memoir lead the stirring, peripatetic women of as instructive as it is interesting for the light it today to ponder upon the utility of their outside sheds on the development of the Irish characactivities. Not one of our feminine philanthro- ter and people. It is not to be expected that pists has a busier field of action than had Mrs. that satiated gourmand, the general reader, will Schuyler. But it was confined to home duties, find his appetite tempted by an historical narrraincluding hospitality; her "intense personal tive like this. There is too much solid meat in family life" enabling her husband to put his it for him; but lovers of history will delight in whole strength at the disposal of his country. it, especially such as have gone thoroughly over The affectionate household intercourse of the the great fields and broader outlines, and are Schuyler family, especially with their son-in-now ready for the somewhat closer and more law, Alexander Hamilton, offset the political leisurely examination of those minute details controversies of the day and alleviated the hard- which make up the life and exhibit the moral ships of war. Mrs. Schuyler was as truly a and intellectual traits of a people. Macnamara general in her home as was her husband on the is the family name most prominent in the presbattlefield. Though she had fourteen children, ent investigation, and all who bear that name whom she counted as "cherished gifts from have a special concern with this carefully pre heaven, her prowess as chatelaine of the vast pared volume. Its numerous maps and illustraI think also from those mentioned, but not mi- Saratoga estate and colony was valiant. It is tions add much to its value. [London: J. M. delightful to read that courtesy was then a man- Dent. $4.00.] nutely described by your correspondent, page 9. date which neither hurry nor turmoil could No. I has not the "A vocal . . . medley" and evade. Few women have been more severely the "By" before the last line. The date is tested, even to caring for her husband's prison“'48,” not 1848, as your correspondent states. ers, or fulfilled the behests of cordiality more Has "or better" in two lines instead of "or, gracefully, than did Mrs. Schuyler. The insight better," as in my No. 2. The three lines follow-that the present volume gives into Dutch cusing are "I like . . . contents; " in No. 2 they toms and the slow invasion of freer English are "(I like . . . contents)." The lines" "That manners, into the virtues and peculiarities of is . jokes " are in red, and in No. 2 they the early Knickerbockers, their weddings and are in black. The line "set forth in" is in funerals, their dresses and courtships, is keen black, but in No. 2 they are in red. In the last and discriminating, while the ancestral and local line it has " Broadway," while No. 2 has "10 reminiscences of Albany and its environs will Park Place." It has no name of printer on the delight their descendants. The author has done her work with historic research and fidelity, gathering first whatever she could of the personnel of her subject and then filling out her pages with much relating to the General. It is a worthy close of an eminent series of biographies. Women such as these knew not how

Lowell's Fable for Critics.

Editor of the Literary World.
Dear Sir: As a contribution to the bibliog
raphy of Lowell's Fable I send you a descrip-
tion of two copies of the second edition in our
possession, which differ from each other, and

...

reverse of the title.

The preface occupies pp. [i] ii, iii. It does not agree, line for line, with No. 2, and the page of the preface and the text are a quarter of an inch longer than in No. 2. The text occupies pp. [5] to 78. Has signatures 2 to 8; and a small vignette on the last page; and has head lines over text. It has cotilion, p. 25, l. 10, and Goliah, p. 41, 1. 21, and censer, p. 52, 1. 18.

No. 2 agrees with this as to the two first of

these words, but in the third it has censor. This copy is rebound.

No. 2 has the line "A vocal... medley," but not the "By." The preface occupies pp. [iii] iv, v. It is followed by "A preliminary which fills six unpaged pages, in larger type than the preface. The text occupies pp. [7] to 80, and has no headlines and no vignette on the last page. The only signature in the text portion is 2* on page 33. This copy is in the original black cloth binding; has blind stamp on sides, and blind shield with Putnam's

remarkable they were nor how necessary to the
life of the Colonies and the Revolution. With
out their aid at home and in camp; without
their clear, calm, steady performance of the
nearest duty, however trivial; without their royal
fortitude and wifely appreciation of their hus-
bands' careers, the men would have lacked both
time and strength for their statesmanship and
campaigns. [Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.25.]

The Habitant.

This is a new

This beautifully printed and charmingly illustrated book of less than one hundred and fifty pages contains between twenty and twenty-five short poems in what may be called the English patois, or the Frenchified dialect, of the natives over the Canadian border. quarter for the issuing forth of dialect poems. Hitherto we have had it streaming from the South, as far as from the Creole lips of Louisiana; now it strikes the other ear with a quite different impression, but with perhaps an equal charm. The author is William Henry Drummond, M.D., who tells us that he has lived practically all his life side by side with the French Canadian people, and has here furnished an opportunity for some of his "habitant" friends to tell their old tales in their own way. These are

all narrative poems, relating the legends, the traditions, and the romances of the streams and forests of inland Canada. There is a curious family resemblance between the text of these rugged but not unpoetical verses and that of the Creole life with which Mr. Cable has made us so pleasantly familiar through the medium of prose; the subjects, of course, being of quite another sort and the atmosphere totally distinct. Mr. F. S. Coburn has illustrated Dr. DrumThe Story of an Irish Sept. mond's pages with a number of really beautiful It is a curious and unfamiliar chapter of Irish drawings, reproduced in photogravure. The history which is unrolled in this rather luxuri- book altogether is one of great freshness and disously made English octavo of upwards of 300 | tinct individuality, and possesses a solid value pages. "Sept" is Irish for clan, and what the as a contribution on the folk-lore and linguistic author of this work, Mr. N. C. Macnamara, who side. A striking portrait of a typical "habi

tant," pipe in mouth, serves as a frontispiece. Academy at Annapolis, whose rickety old build-
Canadian literature, the literature of Northings, they say, are just about tumbling down,
America, the shelf that holds the histories of and later is assigned to duty with Farragut, and
Parkman and such a romance as The Seats of sees active service at sea against the blockade
the Mighty, is enriched by the addition of this runners in the days of the Civil War. Mr.
volume. [G. P. Putnam's Sons.]
Norton is a good teller of sea stories, and Ben-
Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial son's experiences furnish instructive ideas as to

Times.

the naval side of the War of the Rebellion.
[W. A. Wilde & Co. $1.25.]

Guarding the Border.

BOOKS FOR GIRLS.

Sue Orcutt.

We cannot at the present writing name any richer treat in store for that somewhat fastidious individual, the general reader, than the perusal The "border" of this historical story by Everof the two beautifully printed volumes of con- ett T. Tomlinson is the Canadian, and the venient size in which Mr. Sydney George Fisher "guarding" was in the course of the War of has stored up the results of his researches into 1812, when the Great Lakes were the scene of the life of our Colonial Times. In these eight naval battles and brilliant victories, and General hundred delicate pages the search-light is turned Scott, the hero of Lundy's Lane, first appears back two hundred years, and sweeps the whole upon the active stage. Mr. Tomlinson writes domain of early American society from the with moderation, though dealing with thrilling slopes of the Green Mountains to the swampsncidents on land and sea, and will convey to his of the South. In a series of studies, carefully young readers a good deal of historical fact wrought, the author presents a vivid picture of before they know it. [Lee & Shepard. $1.50.] the social organism, the domestic habits, the personal characteristics, the ways and means, the lighter and soberer occupations of the people, the complexion of the towns, the colorings of the country in the times before the Revolution. The work is not exactly history, This, Miss Charlotte M. Vaile's sequel to The yet it is not description merely; it partakes of Orcutt Girls, strikes us as a more than comboth; it is the background to the stage of ac-monly well written story for girls; sensible, digtion, the local scenery and color, the architecture, the furnishings, the costumes and customs, the sectional traits and peculiarities, the conditions under which the Colonies developed into a republic, the cradle in which the infant nation lay. The first volume is devoted to Virginia and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, New Jersey and Philadelphia; the second to New York, to the contact and contrast of Roman Catholic and Protestant in Maryland, and to the regions further to the south. The interest of the work is much enhanced by the charming views given in photogravure of a number of the old historic mansions remaining in various parts of the country, with their suggestions of the taste and dignity of colonial architecture. Mr. Fisher has made effective use in these chapters of the vast amount of material collected by him in the course of the important historical writings with which his name is creditably connected, and has gathered up the fragments in a way to allow of nothing being lost. He has furnished a stock of instructive reading of an attractive kind. B. Lippincott Co. $3.00.]

BOOKS FOR BOYS.

The Signal Boys of '75.

nified, interesting, wholesome, and holding to
the end the attention which it captures at the
beginning. The pleasant sentiments excited by
the Thanksgiving dinner are speedily succeeded
by emotions of a graver sort when Mrs. Orcutt
comes in half dead from the effects of a runaway.
Sue carries our best wishes with her when she
gets to the academy and into the library, and we
leave her contentedly with her husband and at
the threshold of a literary career, when her
story ends. Mr. Frank T. Merrill furnishes a
number of illustrations. [W. A. Wilde & Co.
$1.50.]

Phronsie Pepper.

or worthy of being introduced into a novel. The book is written in short, disjointed sentences and is without literary merit, though signed with the distinguished name of Audley. [Roxburghe Press. 2s. 6d.]

Mademoiselle de Berney.

Valley Forge and its neighborhood furnish the background for this historical romance by Pauline Bradford Mackie. A lovely young French girl goes alone to the camp of Washington to seek her blind brother, and-hardly acknowledged to herself - to learn the fate of her lover, Heyward, whom she has taunted with being a spy. The exigencies of war require that she shall be detained, and there she remains for weeks, being thrown into the society of Mrs. Washington, involved in some of the plans of the hostile forces, and a witness of painful scenes. The splendid young brother proves a spy, and the sisterly devotion and daring come near ending in tragedy. It is a genuine romance, well planned and well carried out, with adventures and environment quite to the fancy of a reader who neither knows nor cares about the basis of fact, or whether Washington and Lafayette are faithfully portrayed. It is an engaging story, with an atmosphere of refinement and thorough breeding that is pleasing. The make-up of the book is all that could be desired, and the illustrations by Frank T. Merrill are fine. [Lamson, Wolffe & Co. $1.50.]

A Round Table.

This book is decidedly a novelty, both in the nature of its contents and in the style of their presentation. The body of it consists of a series of twelve short stories by as many Irish and English novelists, both men and women, belonging to and representative of the Roman Catholic Church, and assembled as such, among them "Theodore Gift," Katharine Tynan Hinkson, Clara Mulholland, and Sophie Maude. Each story is prefaced with a short biographThis is the last of the "Pepper Books," opens ical and bibliographical note upon its author with a fight between two five-year-olds, goes printed in tinted ink, and headed with a vignette through the excitements of a narrow escape half-tone portrait. A frontispiece assembles the from fire at sea, and ends joyously with mar- autographs of the twelve writers. The women's riage bells, a studio, and a good fat check for faces are interesting as types of Irish beauty, the founding of a village library. To the order and some of them are well worth looking at. of family stories it belongs; its interior is do- The same may be said of some of the stories, mestic; its experiences are such as fall to the which all have their decided tinge, but then if lot of every-day life in the New England and the you know what to expect you are prepared for [J.| Old. And its success is such as to lead us to it. [Benziger Brothers. $1.50.] ask of the industrious author, Margaret Sidney: After the Peppers, what? And when? [Lothrop Publishing Co. $1.50.]

The Signal Boys of '75 is a spirited little story by James Otis, of the three brave boys who swung out the lantern from the West Meeting House and of their capture of two British soldiers. The moral of the Hardy boy's cowardice and treachery is well enforced by the action of the tale.

[Estes & Lauriat. 75c.]
Midshipman Jack.

Mr. Charles Ledyard Norton's story of Midshipman Jack adds another volume to his "Fighting for the Flag Series," and continues the adventures of Jack Benson, whose acquaintance as a "first-class boy" we made in previous volumes. Now Master Jack becomes by deserved promotion Midshipman Jack, goes up to the Naval

CURRENT FICTION.

Mademoiselle Bayard.

There is absolutely no reason for calling the extremely modern young women who figures as the heroine of this story after the famous chevalier, "Sans peur et sans reproche." She was not a heroine in any sense of the word, and her attempt to wheedle diamonds out of her lovers, for the sake of replacing the diamonds in a necklace she had lost, cannot be said to have been heroic conduct. She was a silly, frivolous little creature, who turned the heads of all the men she met. And neither the French count, nor the English clergyman, nor the misguided husband is a character drawn with any skill,

Tales of the Real Gypsy.

A welcome contribution to the literature about gypsies appears in this volume by Paul Kester. The half-a-dozen tales, in a most appropriate setting of picturesquely decorated green covers, are attractive. The genuine Romany, rover, horse dealer, fortune teller, petty thief on occasion, is portrayed here to the life, with some honorable traits, in spite of his lawlessness and knavish tricks; here is this Ishmaelite with his following of women and children as he wanders over the face of the earth. Evidently the author fraternized with them, traveled with them, and lived their life while learning their ways and listening to their stories. He seems to have a strain of Bohemian blood and be of kin in spirit with these irresponsible associates, and so has got at their inmost experiences, or he could never have entered into the pathos, the tragedies set forth in such a tense and dramatic

way. It is an out-of-door book, with the free-series, but it reminds us-not unpleasantly
dom of the wide world in it, and an atmosphere of them all. [Edward Arnold. $1.50.]
fresh and invigorating. The make-up is in ex-
cellent taste and it is in every way a credit to
the new publishing firm. [Doubleday & Mc-
Clure Co. $1.00.]

The Latimers.

A voluminous, historical novel is this tale of the Western, or Whiskey Insurrection of 1794, by Henry Christopher McCook. The ScotchIrish peculiarities and their dialects are admirably given, with plenty of incident, heroism in the characters, and dramatic movement. There are too many and too lengthy conversations. The men who were concerned in these riots

have often been misrepresented, for they felt themselves to be as wrongfully taxed as were the Massachusetts colonists, and resisted the excise men. The plot, aside from the truth of history, is well conceived, and its dénouement interesting, while the topography, local coloring, etc., of the region make the book instructive as well as entertaining. [George W. Jacobs & Co. $1.50.]

A Browning Courtship and Other Stories. Miss Eliza Orne White's volume of short stories is exceptionally bright and amusing. The first story in the collection, "A Browning Court ship," is entertaining, although there is better character drawing in some of the other sketches. "Two Authors" and "A Faithful Failure"

Lorraine.

and drags heavily often. Yet, throughout, the author evinces a power of searching analysis of character, and in the closing chapters a capital appreciation and grasp of dramatic situations. The book will repay a careful reading. [G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.00.]

Peter the Priest.

A father who is fiendish in cruelty, a woman who is a devil, a fascinating young priest with whom she is madly in love, and a gentle girl beloved by him but lost to him on account of their vows, are the principal actors in this intense tragedy by Maurus Jokai. The place is Hungary, where the scene shifts from one castle is nothing diabolic that they are not capable of. to another. The owners are mortal foes. There Love, hate, suspicion, jealousy, low cunning, and revenge are acted out in this brief drama of a few lives with all the intensity of which human nature is capable. The whole is treated in a masterly way, for the author holds his control over the creatures he has evoked, and the story has a weird, compelling interest from beginning to end. [R. F. Fenno & Co. $1.25.]

Robert W. Chambers, author of The King in Yellow, and The Red Republic, is a dramatic story teller, and this last book from his pen, called Lorraine, is a thrilling romance of the French and Prussian War. It is written with great power, and some of the scenes are exceedingly vivid. The reader follows the fortunes of both the French and Prussian armies with almost breathless excitement. The heroine of the story is supposed to be the daughter of a French Marquis, but turns out to be the daughter of character, and her lover is the war corresponNapoleon the Little. She is a daring, generous dent of the New York Herald! Their lovemaking is conducted under the most perilous circumstances, and they go through the most frightful experiences on the battlefield and in the hospital together, escaping more than once only with their lives. The self-absorbed, fanatical, balloon-flying Marquis is a fascinating character, and his interview with Napoleon is a striking scene. As for his death and bnrial, these incidents are almost too tragic to read, This tale of a "Ladies' Maid" who develops but the book ends in sunshine, and the reader's heart is gladdened by a happy marriage-not into a "Peeress" is after Mrs. Alexander's faan invariable event in nineteenth century fic-miliar model. Barbara is not the heroine of the tion. We commend the book to all who love story; that role belongs to her young mistress, one thrilling stories of adventure. [Harper & Broth- of the fair, slender, appealing girls whom Mrs. ers. $1.25.] Alexander delights to draw, having two lovers to her string; one handsome, unscrupulous, daring, the other reserved, sinewy, true-hearted. The balance shifts between the two, now lower, now higher, but finally inclines, as it always does and should, in favor of the honest wooer; and Barbara, being made into a Baroness with an ancestral estate, endows her ex-mistress handsomely and launches her into happiness and matrimony with éclat. It is a highly improbable but not a bad little tale. [J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.25.]

A Lonely Little Lady.
This story by Dolf Wyllarde occupies the bor-

seem to us to contain the best and most care-
ful work Miss White has yet given us. "The
Queen of Clubs" will, however, probably be the
most popular. Miss White has a fresh touch,
and, although she has a slight tendency unluck-der-land which divides juvenile from grown-up
ily at times to be what schoolboys call "smart,"
we think she has in her the making of a
popular short-story teller. [Houghton, Mifflin
& Co. $1.25.]

The History of the Lady Betty Stair. Molly Elliot Seawell's History of the Lady Betty Stair is slender as to plot, and not decidedly original, but it is carefully worked out in detail, and pleasing in its delineation of the stanch Scotch heroine. The earlier portion of the story deals with Betty's life at Holyrood, and unfolds the causes of the great change in her future when the battlefield and an army hospital should be her home. The latter part constitutes the real importance of the History, for the career of Lady Betty as an army sister demonstrates the principle and moral of her life. It is a touching little romance, and neatly told. [Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.25.]

Netherdike.

fiction, and it does not rightfully belong to either.
One cannot well give a child a book whose plot
turns on the gradual seduction of the beautiful
young mother of a little girl of eight, and her
final abandonment of her home; and, at the
same time, the real pathos and charm of the
tale is the little girl herself, with her lovely
shyness, her childish puzzles over men and
things, her deep, deep innocence of all evil.
There is something very subtile and sweet in
the portraiture, which grown people will read
with half a smile and half a sigh; and the touch-
ing way in which the tiny thing makes herself
dear and important to her elderly father is
charmingly indicated; but as we say, it is
scarcely a book-more's the pity-to give to
a child. [Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.50.]

Barbara.

The Vice of Fools.

"Pride, the never-failing vice of fools," is the quotation from Pope which is supposed to give the keynote to H. C. Chatfield-Taylor's novel of Washington social life. Had we not read the quotation we should never have dreamed that "The Vice of Fools" as depicted in Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's novel was pride; rather should we have considered it to be garrulousness and a fearless rushing into print. We feel almost sure that some one must have cursed him with sorry for Mr. Chatfield-Taylor; we are all but Job's curse, "That mine adversary had written

a book." We will leave the enemy whose curse

led Mr. Chatfield-Taylor to commit the error of writing The Vice of Fools, to pillory the book as it deserves, simply remarking that it is the most

snobbish, futile, cheap and unnatural book it has been our painful pleasure to review in many a long day. [Herbert S. Stone & Co. $1.50.]

The Fall of the Sparrow. There is much that is rather fine and much that is rather dull in M. C. Balfour's The Fall of the Sparrow. The author's favorite charac"Following the gleam" cast by that shining ter is evidently Philippa Dale, a wild, impulsive raconteur, Stanley Weyman, R. J. Charleton girl who strives half sullenly with a taint of gives us in this novel the experiences of Gilbert selfishness, but it is quite another figure that Falconer, a Scotch lad of good old family, in comes finally to hold one's chief interest - - a weak the Jacobite enterprise and final collapse of and sorry figure of a man who finds his true "Bonnie Prince Charlie" in 1745. The lines self, a spark of divinity, only at the far end of of the story run pretty closely after those made a series of bitter degradations and abasements. familiar to us by Weyman. There is the kind, | This is a wonderfully true study, and we think testy, mistaken, country-squire uncle, the treach- Mrs. Balfour's story would have been decidedly Miss F. F. Montrésor has already made a erous brother playing on his relations' humors more successful if she had gripped this thread | favorable impression by her Into the Highways to betray and spoil them of their goods, the girl from the beginning. There is much that is and Hedges and earlier novels, but she has whom both cousins love, the self-sacrifice of charming, to be sure, in the opening account showed no such signs of power and skill as the one who tells the tale, etc.; - all familiar of childish life at the old rectory, much that is are displayed in her latest book, At the Crossfigures, but all fairly interesting to read about. good in the development of the children as they Roads. This is an unusually powerful novel, full Netherdike is perhaps more like The Story of grow and change; but it all lacks binding and of incident, and yet beyond the incident of that Francis Cludde than any other of the Weyman motive. The story is much too long drawn out, | deeper interest which makes the events of the

At the Cross-Roads.

inner life so much fuller of importance in the life of the individual than any outer accidents can possibly be. Miss Montrésor preaches a sermon in her novel, and yet never obtrudes the moral lesson, but it lies in her novel as in life for him who seeketh to find. To us the character of Gillian, with all its interest, is less living than that of Jack; we will not, however, betray the author's secrets, but leave the reader to discover them for himself. [D. Appleton & Co. $1.50.]

RECENT POETRY.

Good, Bad, and Indifferent.

beautiful old house with feeling and enthusiasm,
and the accompanying photographs of the rooms
are beautifully reproduced. From the house she
wanders into the garden, and there she finds her
happiest expression. "Beneath the Trees" we
like so well that we quote two verses:

Beneath the trees at even-glow

I wander meditative, slow,

Where courtiers have with gold and lace,
Befitting well the stately place,
Once gayly sauntered to and fro.
On velvet turf by green hedge-row
I picture statesman, scholar, beau,
And dainty damsel fair of face,
Beneath the trees.

Rampoli.

These translations, "chiefly from the GerThe large output of poetry is one of the most discouraging man," by George Macdonald [Longmans, Green features of a reviewer's outlook. If the poetry were good it & Co. $1.75], comprise a few of the strange, would be welcome; if it were hopelessly bad there would be some chance of its eventually ceasing; when it is merely mediocre, then indeed is the situation dismal. Scattered among the recent volumes of poetry, embracing all varieties of poetic form, there is much that is almost good and little these volumes we have examples of epic, lyric, dramatic, and narrative verse, to say nothing of occasional sonnets and

or nothing that really attains to excellence; yet among all

lighter measures.

powers, so far as communicating the charm of
the original French to the English version. As
is the case with nearly all exact renderings, the
grace and melody of the original has somehow
exhaled in the process. We cite from page 118
a single specimen, “To the Founder of a City:"
Weary with seeking Ophir's shadowy strand,
Thou foundest, where the waves each sense enchant,
And where thou didst the royal standard plant,
A modern Carthage for the fabled land.

Thou wouldst not have thy name fore'er unscanned,

And thought'st to have it evermore all blent
With thy dear city's blood-inmixed cement;
But thy hope, soldier, rested on the sand.

For Cartagena, choked with torrid breath,
And robed in gloom, beholds thy wall meet death
In ocean's shore-devouring, feverous stream;
And on thy crest but shines, O Conqueror bold,
As proof heraldic of thy splendid dream,
A silver city under palm of gold.

The Voice of the Valley. ardent, "Spiritual Songs" of Novalis, specimens of Schiller, Goethe, Heine, Claudius, PeYone Noguchi, the author of this book [Wiltrarch, Milton's Italian sonnets, and the whole liam Doxey. 75c.], has been adduced as a specof Luther's Song Book. In his preface Mr. imen of the Poet of the Future. If so, we can Macdonald tells us that "Translation is but a only say that the reading of poetry is going to continuous effort after the impossible," and it be one of the hard tasks of the "new" men is but too perceptible to the reader that in the and women; a task demanding special training doing of this task he has realized both the and education; not to be undertaken lightly, A pretentious volume by Prof. W. C. Wilkin-effort and the impossibility. With many happy unadvisedly, or with the remotest hope of pleas ure. Noguchi is a sort of Japanese Whitman son of the University of Chicago is a sequel to turns of phrase and rhyme, the translations as a his Epic of Saul, which was well spoken of by whole lack charm, and charm is what Mr. Mac- without the little touch of genius which makes the religious press and the clergy. The "doc donald's own verse never lacks. The difference Whitman pardonable. He is a wielder of epitrine" in the present long and opulent tome of between his labored effort to work in the frame-thets and exclamation points, a builder up of work of another man's ideas and the joyful ease inflammatory adjectives. We quote the open721 pages, The Epic of Paul [Funk & Wagnalls with which he sings in his own person is marked ing lines of the "Song of Night in the Yosemite

The Epic of Paul.

Co. $2.00], is unexceptionable; but when we
come to look for the poetry, "the light that
never was on sea or land," it is not there. We
quote as an example a few lines from Paul's
description of his "Praise of Love."

Hymn I may call my eulogy of love,
Then written, for indeed it seemed to sing
Within me, as I mused it, and the tune
Still to the hearing of my heart is sweet.
I felt and feel a kind of awe of it,
Myself that made it, for I did not make
It wholly, I, myself, I know quite well.
A breath divine breathed in me, purified
My will to will it and my soul to sing.

Brother and Lover.

Berquin [Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.00], by Elizabeth G. Crane, is a five-act drama not without interest. The scene is laid in the court of Marguerite of Navarre during the reign of Francis I, and among the dramatis persona are the famous poet Clement Marot, the King of France, and the Queen of Navarre. Some of the lyrics scattered through the tragedy are charming, and have a decided touch of the singing quality. One hunting song is especially attractive. The drama is well and carefully constructed, but is not very interesting.

when we turn to "The Diary of an Old Soul,"
with which the volume concludes, and which is
presumably an original work. Here, with a cer-
tain quaintness of phrase which seems to link it
to the rest of the book, we have the poet voice
clear and unhindered, uttering the deep and
subtle thoughts of the Christian mind, rich with
experience and feeling. Its twelve parts corre-
spond to the twelve months of the year, and
with some occasional rudeness of phrase it is
full of reverence and beauty. We allow our-
selves room to quote but two verses from the
division called "May:

Thy great deliverance is a greater thing
Than purest imagination can foregrasp;
A thing beyond all conscious hungering,
Beyond all hope that makes the poet sing.
It takes the clinging world, undoes its clasp,
Floats it afar upon a mighty sea,

And leaves us quiet with love and liberty and thee.
Through all the fog, through all earth's wintry sighs,
I scent thy spring, I feel the eternal air,
Warm, soft, and dewy, filled with flowery eyes,
And gentle murmuring motions everywhere
Of life in heart and tree and brook and moss;
Thy breath wakes beauty, love, and bliss, and prayer,
And strength to hang with nails upon thy cross.

Born in

The Sonnets of Jose-Maria de Heredia. Heredia, the author of these sonnets [William Doxey. $2.50], is still a young man. 1842 of a French mother, and a Spanish father in whose veins runs the blood of that Pedro de Heredia who came to America with Diego Columbus and founded the city of Cartagena, already a member of the French Academy, he may be said to stand at the outset of a career which is full of brilliant promise. The plan of his book seems to be to make, as it were, a rapid descent of the ages from the Age of Miss Ruth Lawrence's volume of Colonial Fable to the Renaissance, etching upon each Verses [Brentano. $1.25] is so charmingly got- epoch a single striking example like a small, ten up that it is a pity the matter is quite so vivid picture. Mr. Edward Robeson Taylor, the light and airy. Her subject is Mount Vernon, translator of the sonnets, has been at pains to and she has an illustration to each poem; her follow with precision the order of their rhyme verses describe each room in Washington's arrangement. It has proved a task beyond his

Colonial Verses.

:"

Valley:'

Hark! The prophecy-inating windquake of the unfathom

able concave of darkest Hell!

O the God-scorning demon's shout against the truth-locked gate of mighty Heaven!

Heaven and Hell joining their palace and dungeon, removed

the sinful universe to an ethereal paradise

from the surface of the world to its center!

O, the sphere is shaken by the Master Mechanic working
This may be pretty—but, in the language of
the "Bab Ballads,'
99 66 we don't know what it

means."

The Earth Breath.

"A. E." are the initials prefixed to this ex-
tremely odd and extremely small volume [John
Lane. $1.25], gray-bound, wide-margined, with
a single quatrain sometimes at top of an other-
wise empty page, and on the cover a mysterious
device of a harping figure whose head is lost in a
thicket of orange trees, from which depends an
enormous horn of plenty. For the quality of the
verse, it differs, some of it being enigmatical and
queer, some thin and prosaic, some quite charm-
ing in touch and grace. Perhaps the little dedi-
cation is as fair a specimen as can be selected.
I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
A gift of quietness, and ease, and peace,
Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew
Dropping from twilight trees.

Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:
From the first fount the stream of quiet flows
Through other hearts than mine.

Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of all its pains.

The Coming of Love.
Mr. Theodore Watts Dunton informs us in
the preface to this book [John Lane. $2.00]
that except for untoward circumstance it would
have been printed by William Morris at the
Kelmscott Press, and that any pleasure he may
feel at its appearance is dismissed by the thought
of what might have been. The loss to him seems
to us, sooth to say, greater than to Morris. With

Rhymes, by Edith Leverett Dalton [Damrell & Upham], are full of reasonably pretty senti-annotated. ment expressed in unreasonably careless verse; - First India editions of Mr. Kipling's sto-Crowell & Co., "contains the real solution of for instance, in "Folded Wings," otherwise an unobjectionable poem, the first and fourth lines of the second stanzas are very halting, though a little work would have remedied the trouble: