Courtesy of Henry Holt & Co. MRS. VOYNICH, AUTHOR OF THE GADFLY."

Old Cambridge.

SOMEWHERE we ran across an Oriental saying: "Blow not thy trumpet in the city of thy home, lest the sound thereof disturb thy neighbors." Happily Colonel Higginson's horn is so mellow of tone and so rich in sweetness that his neighbors, instead of being disturbed by its strains, all prick their ears and listen with delight whenever he begins to blow. It is of Old Cambridge, the city of his home," that he writes, and what he has to tell will be interesting to every person who honors New England and sets store by her literature. The book is steeped in the Attic dew of which the Cambridge cicadas were fond; it has a smack of ambrosia-American ambrosia-and its leaves rustle with the unmistakable Parnassian suggestion-a Puritan Parnassus to be sure. We could fill a column with a mere outline of what this book is; but why do it? Readers of The Independent know what delightful writing they may always be sure of from Colonel Higginson. He is in his own field here, describing what he has been familiar with and loved all his lifetime. The Cambridge he dwells upon is the Cambridge of the Boston circle of poets, philosophers, politicians, reformers, scholars, statesmen, preachers, and divine cranks. He sketches everything and everybody freely, swiftly, lightly, giving just the impression that a sketch should give, leaving in the reader's mind a sense of having spent some moments

with good and great company in a spot where every object has its memorable associations. It is a good book by a genial, gifted, and lovable man. (Macmillan. $1.25.)-The Independent.

The New Editor of the Old Atlantic. WALTER HINES PAGE has resigned from the editorship of The Atlantic Monthly to accept the position of literary adviser to the allied houses of Harper & Brothers and The Doubleday & McClure Co. After ten years of unremitting editorial work the change naturally offers welcome prospects.

Mr. Page leaves Houghton, Mifflin & Co. much to their regret, naturally, for since going to this house in 1895 the relations existing between Mr. Page and all with whom he has been brought into contact have been of the pleas

antest.

He is succeeded as editor of the Atlantic Monthly by Professor Bliss Perry, of Princeton University. Professor Perry is the son of Arthur Latham Perry, of New Hampshire, who, in the early fifties, became professor of history and political economy at Williams College. He was prominently known a'so as an advocate of free trade, and wrote much regarding this subject. Professor Bliss Perry was born in Williamstown on Nov. 25, 1860, while his father was professor at the college there. The young man was graduated from the college in 1881, and in 1886 became professor of English at the same place, remaining there until 1893, since which time he has filled the chair of the Holmes pro

fessorship of English literature at Princeton University.

His literary work has been varied. He has edited Selections from Burke," as well as Scott's "Woodstock" and "Ivanhoe." The Little Masterpieces also has been a part of his editorial work. His first novel, "The Boughton House," was published in 1890 by the Scribners, who have brought out all his stories. The volume was followed in 1894 by another book, "Salem Kittredge and Other Stories," and a year following, still another story, called "The Plated City," was brought forth. From year to year Professor Perry has accomplished much other work in the literary field which he entered as a young man.

From "The Treasure of Mushroom Rock."

Rosalba.

THE appearance of "The Typewriter Girl" in September, 1897, gave us the welcome assurance that the witty feminine novel was a long way from dead, and in "Rosalba" its author caps the assurance. and incontestably proves herself to be a writer of great vivacity and charm. "Rosalba" is a really clever and spirited bit of pseudo-autobiography, and one as daring and original as it is clever. The "I" of "The Typewriter Girl" is the Rosalba of the story, and both are Olive Pratt Rayner in her normal moods. Rosalba introduces herself to us along with her sister at a very early age indeed. She is the daughter of mixed parentage-an Italian father and an Irish mother, as she believes, and is

living in the Italian hills, near to a celebrated church which tourists visit to see, and to have (though they know it not) Rosalba mimic their ways and speech and to make scornful fun of them generally. We do not propose to go into the details of the story. Nothing would be gained thereby, and much would be lost to the reader.

Certainly Rosalba is the most genuine flesh-andblood heroine we have encountered for a long while. She is attractive, moreover, and has a pretty vivacity and shrewdness that hurry us at a breathless pace after her in her wild journeys when she runs away from her Italian home, from the mother who drinks and curses and ill-uses her, from the father whom she has been wont to credit with the single-handed expulsion of the Austrians, out into the romantic unknown world, and her adventures on the long tramp across the Continent with gypsy wanderers. Rosalba has an artistic value and knows it, and this same value brings her a testimonial from Renan, who, after seeing her perform in a

French town with her precious marionettes, inscribes a copy of Shakespeare and presents it to her. And so she comes to England, es capes from the coarse crew she has been travelling with, and gets adopted by a maiden lady with leanings towards art, who uses her as a model and companion indiscriminately. Here is a sample of Rosalba's brilliance: "Oh, I don't care for the Paradiso.' It is all too vague. I should want a heaven more like this earth-a heaven where things are warm and more human; a heaven, don't you know, with grouse and trifle in it." That, flung by a young Italian girl, a model, into a staid and elderly group of diners of the middle-class English type, has about the effect that Miss Rayner's book is likely to have, flung as it is into the midst of a mass of dreary purpose and problem fiction. It is amusing and full of interest from beginning to end. (Putnam. $1.) -London Literary World.

The Nuggets Series.

It was at the opening of his famous "Reply to Hayne" that Daniel Webster recalled the mariner's custom at the first pause in stormy weather to take his latitude; and he proposed to "imitate this prudence" and "refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are." If ever the American people needed to refer to their past, in order to know their present and estimate a wise course for the future, it is at this juncture, when the rapid movement of events has certainly thrown them out of their regular course, and bids fair to change its entire direction.

To this end many will welcome a little book entitled Patriotic Nuggets," containing, as its title-page sets forth, "bits of ore from rich mines"-namely, extracts from the writings of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Lincoln, and Beecher, six prophets whose wisdom the logic of facts has amply confirmed. The authors cited have been taken in their chronological order, as have also the quotations from each one, the principle of selection evidently being their views concerning America-its earlier wrongs and rights, its revolutionary struggles, its constitution-making, its unprecedented advantages for popular thrift and development in material, moral and physical forces, its threatened dangers of discord and of dishonest financial heresies, the great maelstrom of secession and rebellion and its escape therefrom, and its later perils in political and financial reconstruction. And, considering the necessary limitations of so brief a compilation, it is remarkable how complete an outline view may be had of American history in these gathered utterances of the great men named. Events come in by reference and illustration; the main purpose is the setting forth of sound principles. Many of them are familiar, but their collocation in this way gives them a peculiar strength, while their pertinency to the right growth of American ideas is striking.

The editor, Mr. John R. Howard, in his short preface calls attention to a seemingly paradoxical fact. "The notable thing about these men-revolutionary prophets all, except Webster-is their conservatism, both in thought and in expression. Even their most strenuous appeals to sentiment are based on a rational

setting forth of facts, compelling confidence in their conclusions. Their utterances of patriotic fervor are at the opposite pole from the demagogy of partisanship." And an attentive read ing of these excerpts justifies that statement, even as to Jefferson, the pupil of Rousseau and the French Jacobins, and Beecher, whom we are apt to think of chiefly as the impassioned

orator.

This little book, with some others of similar character to follow, was suggested, the publishers tell us, by the popular success last fall of "Don't Worry Nuggets," containing extracts from Epictetus, Emerson, George Eliot, and Browning, by Miss Jeanne G. Pennington. If the others to be entitled Educational Nuggets and Philosophic Nuggets-are as well selected and full of pith and moment as these, the little series will deserve success. Certainly the Patriotic Nuggets offers a peculiarly suggestive, readable, and useful compend of great historic thoughts from the greatest Americans, who won their fame in making the history which their words record. (Fords, Howard & Hulbert. ea., 40 c.)

What Women Can Earn.

"WHAT WOMEN CAN EARN" is a series of essays by leading writers on the occupations of women and their compensation. One of the notable changes of the last quarter of the nineteenth century has been the advent of women into the so-called professions and into the money-making occupations of the world. This has followed naturally the wide-open college doors of many of the best institutions of the land, where young women have shown themselves as surely proficient in higher education as have the young men. Upon the stage, in music and art, women have long held an honored place, but the older generations did not give women any encouragement to bother her mind with chemistry, philosophy, mathematics, or the classics, and when she offered to enter the money-making fields she was told to attend to her knitting, crocheting, and the children. But she is now in the colleges many thousand strong, and many thousand of the other sex find it necessary to devote time taken from athletic games to their books to keep from moving to the foot of the class. She comes from the college with her degree and the honors of her classes, and nothing is more natural than that she should seek profitable employment along such lines as may suit her taste. It is thus that women are scattered broadcast all over the land with D.D., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., attached to their names, and, what is better, with honors won in a hard battle of years, and won honestly. Their names are in books, in

art, and in science. While these changes have quietly been going on and increasing from year to year, in the higher ranks of scholarship, throngs of women of another class have won places in business. They are marked as expert bookkeepers, safe cashiers, confidential clerks, and good at the sales counter. Thus from year to year the sphere of woman's work has been widening out, until she now has an entry into all occupations she may choose to enter. That there are many occupations unsuited to women, none know better than women themselves, and it is entirely safe to leave it to her to decide what these are. More than that, she has come into the money-making arena to stay, whether grumblers like it or not. The volume, as a whole, is one both interesting and profitable. It is boundless in suggestions and encouragements. It will give courage to many an honest struggling woman to strike out into some of the many fields, hopeful of success therein. The several essayists confine themselves, as a rule, to terse statements; they lose no time in theories or fine writing, but write practically and to the point, and show "what women can earn," and how it can be done most successfully. (Stokes. $1.)-Chicago Evening Post.

The King's Mirror.

D. APPLETON & Co. have been wonderfully successful in choosing fiction for several years past, and have in hand for the fall several books sure of popularity. It can hardly be expected that they will have anything as popular as "David Harum," but among the authors are names to conjure with, and we cannot believe that the pen of the author of "Dodo" and of the author of "The Cruise of the Cachelot" have lost their coming.

Mr. Hope's new romance pictures the life of a prince and king under conditions modern, and yet shared by representatives of royalty almost throughout history. The interactions of the people and royalty, the aspirations of the prince, the intrigues surrounding him, the cares of state, and the craving for love, are some of the motives developed, with the accompaniments of incident and adventure, wherein the author proves his mastery of suspended interest and dramatic effect. In the subtle development of character nothing that this brilliant author has written is shrewder than this vivid picture of a king's inner life. It is a romance which will not only absorb the attention of readers, but impress them with a new admiration for the author's power.

Mr. Hope's new novel is accompanied by a series of apt and effective illustrations by Mr. Frank T. Merrill. ($1.50.)

An American "Who's Who." WONDER has often been expressed that there was no dictionary of American names similar to the English publication known as "Who's Who." The much-longed-for, convenient book is at last before us. In "Who's Who in America" the general plan of the London book has been followed. Although some of the namessuch as those of members of Congress, Governors of States, Judges of the United States courts and State courts, heads of the larger universities, and members of certain societies-have been chosen along arbitrary lines, the bulk of the volume is made up of men concerning whom anybody may care to know something. This "something" is usually confined

simply to a statement of chronology-the date and place of birth, dates and places of education, profession, work actually achieved, marriage, and present address.

One important feature of the first edition of this book is the "Necrology," which is a list of the names of prominent men and women who have died since January 1, 1895, giving in each case the profession or business, and the dates of birth and death of the deceased person. The volume is made up of 872 pages, and contains 8602 personal sketches. Who's Who in America" should have its place at the side of a dictionary of the English language on the writing-table of every intelligent American. (Marquis. $2.75.)-N. Y. Times.