Forgetting himself in his narrative, never embracing an opportunity to make a special plea for his own beliefs and principles, Dr. Richard very soon impresses his readers with the feeling that in him they have a thoroughly reliable guide to the truth as regards Melancthon's life and work. The numerous and well-selected quotations from the reformer's letters and writings cause the man at times to seem to be telling his own story and thus make the book, in a sense, autobiographical.

All who are familiar with the subject will agree then, we think, that the Melancthon of these pages is the Melancthon of history – a genuine lover of learning and the truth, a sincere and devout Christian, a reformer, who, if his cautiousness sometimes carried him to the verge of timidity, could in the end be counted upon to play the man, and a loyal and warm-hearted friend. Not to know who he was and what part he played in the stormy times in which his lot was cast, is not to be well acquainted with the history of the German Reformation. Dr. Richard's excellent biography should therefore be carefully read, and especially by those to whom the famous companion of Luther is but little more than a name.

Like the first series of the Papers, the second series abounds in curious and sug gestive items of interest. Slaves in Old New York may have been, on the whole, humanely treated; but it is evident that they were quite as jealously watched and restricted as were their fellows in any of the

metropolis appeal more eloquently than ever to the imagination.

CURRENT FICTION.

Florida Alexander.

The Kentucky girl who is the subject of this

colonies. For example, on week-days "no study of character by Eleanor Talbot Kinkead,
slave above fourteen years could appear an would be more interesting if the author's hand
hour after sunset in the streets within the was not so constantly repressing instead of
fortifications or in any other place on the bringing her out. There is a lack of distinct-
south side of the fresh water,' without a lan-ness in the portrayal. The remarkably beauti-
tern and lighted candle, 'so as the light ful and very intellectual Miss Alexander had a
thereof may be plainly seen.'" Again, a little life episode of tragic import to others
slave who, at a funeral, "held a pall or besides herself, but the narrator fails to crystal-
wore gloves or favors was to be publicly ize it, or make it the central attraction.
lover, St. John, is rather vague, although he
whipped."
shows proper spirit at the last. The scheming
Mrs. Jerome is drawn with a firmer hand and
the Major is a type of the Southern gentleman.
The author is capable of excellent work. [A.

A Yankee Volunteer.

Her

Turning to the paper on "New Amster-
dam Family Names," we are told, among
other things, what we suspect is not gener-
ally known, that, "with the names beginning C. McClurg & Co. $1.00.]
with a de, the Dutch for the, we come
mostly to nicknames, pure and simple,
adopted as patronymics. De Backer is the
baker; de Boer, the farmer; de Bruyn, the
bear," etc., etc. The translation of the de
in such instances may not be pleasing to
some New Yorkers, who would prefer to
believe that the word is preposition and
not an article, and thus signifies that a per-
son is of "gentle " descent.

Another story of Revolutionary times and

There can be few of our readers who have not heard of the Negro Riot of 1712, which threw New York into a frenzy of terror, but how many of them know that there was a disturbance in 1788, called the Doctors' Riot? Yet there was such a riot in the year referred to, and it grew out of the discovery that some medical students

The book is copiously illustrated from contemporaneous paintings and prints. An appendix gives Melancthon's Funeral Oration over Luther, and there is a good had been engaged in body snatching. index.

THE

us.

Not only was the New York Hospital entered by a mob and a number of anatomical preparations destroyed, but several HISTORIO NEW YORK.* young physicians were set upon and would HE first series of The Half Moon Pa- have suffered severely, had they not been pers, under the general title of His rescued and lodged in jail for safety. But toric New York, appeared in 1897. The the affair did not end there. The following second series has now appeared, and another day the mob reassembled and attacked the elegantly printed and well-illustrated volume jail, and would probably have forced an enfrom the "Knickerbocker Press" is before trance, had they not been dispersed by a The subjects of the monographs in-party of armed citizens, who fired upon them cluded in this second series are, "Slavery in self-defence, killing three or four of them, in New York, with Special Reference to and wounding a number of others. "Among New York City," "Tammany Hall," "Old Prisons and Punishments," "The New York Press and its Makers in the Eighteenth Century," "Bowling Green," "New Amsterdam Family Names and their Origin," "Old Taverns and Posting Inns," "The Doctor in Old New York," "Early Schools and Schoolmasters of New Amsterdam," "The Battle of Harlem Heights," "Breuckelin,"

and "The Neutral Ground."

Historic New York: Being the Second Series of the Half Moon Papers. Edited by Maud Wilder Goodwin, Alice Carrington Royce, Ruth Putnam, and Eva Palmer Brownell. Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50.

the injured on the second day of the rioting,"
we are told, "were old Baron Steuben and
John Jay, who were struck with missiles
while attempting to pacify the rioters."

one pleasant to read, though of no striking originality, is A Yankee Volunteer, by M. Imlay Taylor. The tale begins in Salem, in 1774, just before the meeting of the Continental Con

gress in Philadelphia, and, dwelling only on the earlier periods of the war, closes with the battle of Trenton. Of course there are two lovers, John Allen and dainty Joyce Talbot; but young John Allen and his father, also John, and a judge of the Court of Massachuold Sir Anthony Talbot, hot for the King, bade setts Bay, were for the Colonies, and irascible Joyce withdraw her promise from one whom they both held as a "rebel." Separation did its work, and after brave deeds of soldiering, imprisonment in a British prison, and an escape through the help of one Ephraim Minot, who is a commendable creation, young Captain Allen finds Joyce ready to forgive her lover and his politics; and wedding bells ring the end. [A. C. McClurg & Co. $1.25.]

The Lost City.

This tale of impossibilities by Joseph E. Badger, Jr., narrates the adventures of Professor Featherwit and his nephews Bruno and Waldo, who started out on a voyage of exploration in Washington Territory with a thoroughly docile adventures, which include a prolonged and unair-ship as their vehicle. After many curious comfortable stay in the inside of a tornado and the rescue from drowning of a man who clung to their grapnel (see Jules Verne for the suggestion), and who proved to be an ex-balloonist, long ago shipwrecked and half crazed, the party discovered the lost city of the Aztecs and in it the lost wife and daughter of the balloonist. With the help of an Aztec boy whom the brothers saved from a bear, Bruno penetrates the city; the captives are rescued and the charming daughter smiles upon her deliverer. The book will furnish entertainment to those who enjoy pure flights of fancy. [Dana Estes & Co. $1.50.]

The treatment of the subjects by the several writers is praiseworthy. The sympathetic reader is made to feel that he is breathing the air of Old New York, and for the time being the past almost seems more real than the present. The numerous illustrations from old paintings and engravOmar, the Tentmaker. ings help to heighten the illusion, and when Omar's name is one to conjure by in these the last paper has been read, the historic days of increasing interest in the Persian poet, localities and buildings of the now great and Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole's title will at

once attract; but we find the book itself a disappointment, showing less the poet's charm than the author's store of Oriental learning. Mr. Dole's exquisite edition of the Rubaiyat places him firmly among Omar scholars, and his knowledge we can not doubt, but as a novelist he is not interesting. His story depicts Omar as young, handsome, brilliant, holding as poet laureate an honored and dignified place in the Sultan's court, and composing his love verses for a Greek princess; with the thread of the story are entwined also many of the familiar quatrains of philosophy. To our mind Mr. Dole's effort, sincere and conscientious as it is, adds no picturesqueness to Omar's name and personality; and content in our ignorance we prefer the " magic shadow-shape" that we find behind the wonderful verses. Nevertheless Mr. Dole's book demands respectful attention as a contribution to Omar literature. [L. C. Page & Co. $1.50.]

Alicia.

Meredith as a poet, and Mr. George Meredith
again as a prose writer. For the latter writer
Mr. Dixon expresses a sort of fiery and passion-
ate enthusiasm, and a zeal which does more
credit, as it seems to us, to his heart than to his
head. Arnold and the De Veres he praises
after a gratified fashion. There is almost no
mention of names which to the outside point of
view would seem to rank all that included in the
papers - Browning, to wit, Tennyson, George
Eliot, Thackeray. [Imported by Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons. $1.25.]

Exotics and Retrospectives.

The impulse of heredity and the romance of his life have conspired to make Lafcadio Hearn a poet. And the influence of his Greek mother, and the memory of his boyhood in the Ionian Isles, and the enervating tendency of his long tarrying in Japan, are nowhere more manifest than in Exotics and Retrospectives. There is a Whitmanesque air pervading the book, giving it An old-fashioned flavor is distinguishable in a flavor that might be distasteful if affected, but this "Tale of the American Navy" by " Alexis." being absolutely natural, is most exquisite. Its It sounds like an excerp from some early in the beautifully printed page exhales a dainty percentury Annual. The characters all converse fume, like the bouquet of old wine; a hackneyed they never talk-in rounded periods with simile, we know, but never more truly drawn. We meet with the confession that he was a many syllables, with frequent points of exclamation. The style is exclamatory. "How pantheist at "the tender age of fifteen," and are not surprised, since we suspected it long ago quaint and charming old Annapolis! Capital of beautiful Maryland! From Chesapeake to But it is an unobtrusive pantheism; a mode of And mountain, what varied and enchanting scenery! thought, rather than a tenet of faith. Lord Baltimore selected wisely!" And so it Japan, which is Buddhism personified, opens goes for 257 pages with no incident in partic-heart of hearts only to him who approaches in ular, except an ill starred marriage speedily this appreciating spirit. The text on an old mended by a theatrical death on the part of the unpleasant husband, and talk, talk, talk, to the end. We leave the characters talking, but do we leave the readers reading? [Bonnell, Silver & Co. $1.25.]

MINOR NOTICES.

From Chaucer to Arnold.

its

face and startle us with the heat of their poetic
conception and passion. It is in such places as
these that the limitations of the rest seem unex-
plainable. It is just an uneven collection of
poems, a hungry book, a cry-out from a pitiful,
disordered, mysterious life. Here is a sample
of the man's possibilities:

I do believe a grand thought never dies,
I do believe that after-love is best,
When the strange fire that lay within the eyes
And the wild singing of the heart's unrest
Have passed away, and we are calm and wise,
And think upon the love that makes us blest;
I do believe there's more of heaven in this
Than all the eloquence of earlier bliss.

We reel beneath the first as from a blow;
We watch its splendor till our eyes are dim;
We revel in its nectar till we grow

Dizzy and drunken, faint in every limb;
And so we sleep and dream, then wake to know
Our rapturous songs have deepened to a hymn,
Whose sweeter music, like a heavenly psalm,
Freshens our souls with drops of holy balm.
With its sad introduction and variable con-
tents, the volume seems almost too much of a
problem book to be judged as mere poetry.
[Funk & Wagnalls Co.]

Poems.

This modest volume, by Mr. Philip Henry Savage, attracts attention not only because of of its rarely graceful subjective matter. Not a its unpretentious form and binding, but because throughout the fifty odd poems. trace of the glare of modernity does one find The quiet phrases, the simple rhetoric, the genuine sweetness of expression give a pleasure unexpected in a day when the poet revels in making mosaic verse from brazen words—with a freedom which would condemn the prosemonger. The chance verses which Mr. Savage sings for us here are, for the most part, like snatches of morning songs which make glad the days poems born of nat

tombstone, a curious tale from the literature of
a dead and forgotten past, an ancient proverb, a
passing thought, caught with difficulty and held
but lightly- these are the materials from which
our poet-artist-author constructs his dainty fab-ure, filled with the seasons' beauty, but here and
there, as if on a "Seventh Day," appears a poem
ric. And lo, when it is complete, it has the deep
begot of Theology and nurtured by Unrest.
azure coloring of Fuji-san, the sacred mountain;
it utters the chirping note of Suzumushi, the Clever, indeed, are these fragments of an inner
caged insect; it is as melodious as Kajika, the questioning, and one is set to working out the
singing frog; and is altogether lovely. [Little, lines clash with the Wordsworthian spirit, of
problem of the author's personal equation, when
Brown & Co. $1.50.]
which Mr. Savage is a close disciple:
:-

POETRY.

"Believe in me!' Lord, who art thou
That bid'st me to believe in thee?
I have my life to live, and now
Thy yoke would but a burden be.
I would be free."

The verse would nonplus a casual reader, and the meaning is none the more obvious when, refuting his former willfulness, the poet utters lines

Mr. Andrew J. George's compendium of Eng. lish literature is born of practical experience as teacher of English in the High School of Newton, Massachusetts, and shows knowledge of literature, discriminating appreciation, and as Poems by Richard Realf. wise selection of examples as any lover of the With an introduction and memoir comprising great writers could attribute to another. In his interesting introduction Mr. George conceives a third of the volume, are published the Poems literature as an organic whole and explains his by Richard Realf. Richard J. Hinton is the purpose to establish the place and value of compiler and editor. The bulk of introductory each part and to point out the principles which matter claims the first attention of the reader, for the hundred and thirteen biographical pages will guide the young student in his later study and appreciations. In six hundred pages are naturally suggest a life of unusual value and inrepresented fifty authors, of whom some like terest. But on the contrary, Mr. Hinton's syme one nocturnal line between the covers-a natMalory, Clough, Gibbon, Lyly, and Newman pathetic "foreword" is, after all, but a slight uralist at heart, and a student of the masters,

are usually overlooked in collections of the sort. As a whole the book impresses us very favorably and in the hands of a wise teacher should prove inspiring. [The Macmillan Co. $1.00.]

Richard

apology for the weaknesses and misdeeds of
this "Poet, Soldier, Workman."
Realf was born in England in 1834, and died in

California in 1878. There he was born. — Here

as seemingly sincere as this: -
"Yet here apart
Deep in the heart
Kin to the sod

A lover of the

I wait for God."
sunshine- there is scarcely

Mr. Savage has given himself a more assured place among his contemporaries in this his

second volume, than one would have deemed

probable from his former book, First Poems and Fragments, 1895. [Copeland & Day. $1.25.]

he died. The story of the intervening years is
a psychological or medical study rather than a
literary one. It was as a magazine contributor
that he first gained general attention, and his
The death of M. Aimé Marie Edouard
services in the Civil War inspired him to several | Hervé ends the brief period of completeness in
the French Academy. Will M. Zola again step
forward from his temporary retreat in London ?
M. Hervé, who succeeded the Duc de Noailles
in 1886, was perhaps best known as editor of
the Soleil.

In the Republic of Letters. The republic of letters, so styled in this small volume by W. Macneille Dixon, Professor of Literature in Mason College, Birmingham, would seem to lie within the royal domain of Great war poems which greet us here like dimly faBritain, the few authors considered being ex-miliar faces. We can not, by any means, call clusively English. They are Matthew Arnold, the De Veres, the authors included in what is termed "The Romantic Revival," Mr. George

Richard Realf a great poet; much of his work is
ordinary and commonplace, but here and there, a
word, an expression, a few lines, blaze up in the

The Literary World

BOSTON 4 FEBRUARY 1899

Entered at the Post Office at Boston, Mass., as second class mail matter

EDITORS:

EDWARD ABBOTT,

MADELINE VAUGHAN ABBOTT.

All communications relating to subscriptions, advertising, or other business matters of the LITERARY WORLD should be addressed to the publishers, E. H. HAMES & CO., 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

All communications for the editorial department may be addressed as above, or to the Editors of the LITERARY WORLD, II Dana Street, Cambridge, Mass.

"There is a literature of power and a literature congressman to his beloved constituents belongs to the literature of knowledge. The parable of the Prodigal Son belongs to the literature of power. One puffs up; the other warms, kindles. I try the literature of knowledge on a boy. I impress upon him the chemistry of Sedlitz powders.

of knowledge. A Patent Office report sent by a

If an alkali meets an acid there will be a sizzle; that is an important fact. But one night I read to him the speech of Judah to Joseph, that he might remain hostage in Egypt and that Benjamin might go back to his father. If the lad go not back my

smoothed over. The books - the Smith Admin- business, everything, in short, but trained li-
istration, Letters of Marque, and the City of brarian. For his successor several suggestions
Dreadful Night-contain Mr. Kipling's contri- have been made, and, from all we hear, com-
butions to the Pioneer and the Civil and Mili-parative wisdom is shown in the mention of
tary Gazette when he was drawing a regular Mr. S. J. Barrows, who is practically familiar
salary, and it is an interesting decision in copy- with the work of great libraries in this country
right law that a salaried contributor has no and in Europe.
interest in his copyright. The story goes that A generous gift, and one to be emulated,
between Mr. Kipling and his superiors some is that of Mr. Paul Leicester Ford and his
disagreement developed, and that in revenge brother, Mr. Worthington C. Ford, who have
they swore that they would never give their presented to the New York library their private
Consent to republication. The tale has been library, comprising over one hundred thousand
revived through the sale by Messrs. Sotheby volumes. The nucleus of the collection was
of a Smith Administration for the startling the general library inherited from their father,
sum of £26. Only three copies of the book
are supposed to be in existence, two in the
Pioneer office in London, and one in the
Allahabad office, and as the latter is re
ported missing, the question of where the
Sotheby copy originated has been of sufficient
matter to interest the service of a firm of
solicitors.

Although several of our big department stores have for some time made a practice of advertising for sale at very low prices the behandled residuum of their Christmas book-counters, a rather novel departure for publishers is found in the formal, circulated announcements of Messrs. Damrell & Upham, of Boston, and Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co., of New York, that "Read the best that has been thought and said. they would hold clearance sales. We have all One face we inherit, the other we make. The face had our fling at the women who crowded bargain we make and die with is made out of thoughts."-counters in their own particular stores, but the MYRON W. REED in Temple Talks.

father will die.' I noticed his chin quivered. That is the literature of power.

and to this the brothers have added a large number of works on political history and economics, and early American history. The gift includes also paintings, maps, charts, engrav ings, and many important autograph documents; and the personal sacrifice suggested seems to add to the gift's great value.

A melancholy interest is connected with our text this week, in that it is a posthumous message, although the book from which it is taken is reviewed in our present issue as a contemporary publication. The death of the Reverend Myron W. Reed occurred in Denver on January 31st after a protracted illness, and Tem ple Talks contains his last message. Mr. Reed was born in Brookfield, Vt., in 1836, but his active ministerial duty was for the most part performed in the Middle States and the West; he was for a time pastor of the Olivet Congregational Church in Milwaukee, and of the First Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, and at the time of his death was pastor of the Broadway Temple in Denver, where his last powerful words were uttered.

capital is probably the least debatable place for their erection, but in these beginnings of what may some day be a notable collection, let us urge discretion and wise delay.

joke has become earnest now that it has passed into literary circles. In the sale at the Old M. Edouard Rod, of whose expected lec- Corner Book Store, which is in progress this tures in this country we have already spoken, week, are included new as well as shop-worn was born at Nyon near Geneva in 1857. His volumes of both standard and miscellaneous education was received in Switzerland and in literature. The Dutton sale is of theological The executive committee of the LongfelGermany, and after working for some time in works only, and the list accompanying the an- low National Memorial Association has issued classical philology, he made in 1879 his first nouncement comprises over five hundred books, an appeal for subscriptions for the erection in appearance in literature with a pamphlet, entitled many of them at less than half price. Behind Washington of a statue of the poet. The sum A propos de l'Assomoir, in which he warmly these announcements seems to lie the valiant desired is $35,000, and the President, Chief Jusdefended M. Zola. Several novels followed intention of legitimate booksellers to compete tice Fuller, and Mr. Hay, with other men of this; soon after the publication of La Course with their enemy on his own ground. prominence, have lent their names to the interà la Mort in 1885, M. Rod was appointed Mr. Arthur Mac Donald's study of Emile ests of the association. The subject of national Professor of Foreign Literature in the Univer- Zola's personality recalls the newspaper ex-memorials is an interesting one, and the national sity of Geneva, and later was given charge of citements over the scientific examination of M. the instruction in French. His literary work Zola, mind and body, by a number of specialists shows great activity and versatility, for he has some little time ago. Upon the exhaustive expublished novels, critical and literary essays, aminations of these scientists, Mr. MacDonald, biographies, and translations. Besides the who is government specialist in education as books already mentioned and Le Sens de la related to abnormality, has based his present Vie, which was crowned by the French Acad pamphlet, which gives practically in English emy and won for its author the Cross of the form the result of a most extraordinary socio Legion of Honor, his works include; Les Alle-logical investigation. To the experiments in mands à Paris, Palmyra Veulard, La Chute de Miss Topsy, Les Protestants: côte a côte, L'Autopsie du Docteur, La Femme d'Henri Van eau, Etudes sur le XIX Siècle De la litterature comparée, Les Idées Morales du temps present, Titiana Leilof, Stendhal, Lamartine, Nou velles études au les XIX Siècle, La Sacrifiée, Essais sur Goethe, Les Malavoglia, de Verga, The three Academy prizes for 1898 of Les Trois Cœurs, Scènes de la Vie Cosmopolite, The death of Mr. John R. Young, librarian fifty guineas each have been awarded to Mr. La Vie privée de Michel Tessier, La Seconde Vie of Congress, leaves vacant one of the most im-Sidney Lee for his Life of William Shakespeare, de Michel Tessier, le Silence, Les Roches portant library posts in the country; his appoint Mr. Maurice Hewlett for his Forest Lovers, and Blanches, Dernier Refuge, La Haut, Le Ménagement to the position in July, 1897, is still too Mr. Joseph Conrad for his Tales of Unrest. du Pasteur Naudie, L'Innocente, Scénes de la Last year two prizes only were given,- one vie Suisse. It is said that M. Bourget is to be hundred guineas going to Mr. Stephen Phillips the next lecturer before the Cercle Française. for his volume of poems, and fifty to Mr. Henley for his essay on Burns - but this year the Academy decided to make three awards of equal value.

volved M. Zola lent himself with alacrity and
absolute unreserve, and gives us the privilege
of regarding him under a microscope as it were.
The study of personality is absorbing, but per-
sonality absolutely naked, as in this presentation,
seems to repel even more than it attracts. The
solution of the riddle after all means less than
the solving.

recent for us to have forgotten the discussion at that time of the advisability of intrusting so important a work to a man who had been a sucThree volumes of Mr. Kipling's can cessful newspaper correspondent and editor, never be included in a collected edition of his Grant's traveling companion in his trip round works unless an existent quarrel is miraculously the world, minister to China, writer and man of

With the month of January came a notable change in Literature whose career we have all been watching with interest. A year ago Messrs. Harper & Brothers arranged with the London Times to issue a certain number of copies weekly, but now the Harpers have decided to set up Literature in this country, to print it themselves, and while taking advantage of the paper's European matter, to make the journa! American by using more American material. A new cover is the most conspicuous of the promised changes.

Mr. Henry Savage Landor has recovered sufficiently from his terrible experiences in Tibet to engage actively in public lecturing. From a sojourn in Florence he has returned to London to read three papers at the Royal Institution, and next month he is to give a course of lectures in St. James's Hall. It is said that his recent exhibition of Tibetan curios attracted much interest and many visitors.

The following letter in the Dial is amusing in the pictures it suggests:

Your editorial of January 1 on the "Distribution of Books" reminds me of a letter which I had in my hands a year or two ago, in which Mr. Caleb Atwater gave a contemporaneous account of his method of disposing of his His tory of Ohio. He simply loaded the edition into a wagon, took the lines into his own hands, and drove up and down the settled portions of the state disposing of copies wherever he could find a buyer, as any honest farmer might dispose

Mr. Carnegie's offer of a public library literary skill shown by Mr. Hobson in his building for Washington seems to have stirred articles. This is natural enough, for when a up more confusion than satisfaction. According man succeeds conspicuously in one branch of to the newspapers, every owner of unsuitable enterprise it is somewhat astonishing to find land has vociferously urged his particular site, him successful in another, particularly if the and Mr. Carnegie's name is quite drowned in the other be the art of writing, which, for most general clamor. It is said that the site most people, requires years of training. But, as I loudly urged is that of the old Ford's Theater, happen to have learned in recent years, Mr. just opposite the public market, a location that Hobson has done a good deal of writing; so seems to have nothing in its favor. his Century articles by no means represent his first literary efforts. In connection with this subject it is worth noting that the Scribners are soon to bring out a volume which is said to represent, in a sense, a defense of General Shafter, who certainly needs to be defended. It is by General Shafter's chief-of-staff, Colonel J. D. Miley, who will be able to write with the force of first-hand knowledge. Every writer on the war will be eager to read what Colonel

Mr. August Brentano's insanity is a tragic
end to a busy life, and the public's genuine
grief at the news is doubled by the fact that
the old house of Brentano, for many years the
popular bookstore of New York, is in the hands
of a receiver who hopes to pay thirty cents on
the dollar.

The annual report of the Free Library
Board states that in Massachusetts there are

of his surplus cabbages. There was no furnish- only seven towns which are not entitled under
ing of innumerable copies to hungry reviewers, the law to free public libraries, and that three
no tribute to the newspapers for advertising, no
division of income with the middle-man in any of these towns are supporting paying library

shape or form.

Now here is a bonanza for some literary celebrity who is bold enough to embrace it. Imagine Mr. Marion Crawford drawing up to your door in a Roman chariot with a supply of Ave Roma Immortalis, or Mr. Hamlin Garland in an ox-cart with his newest illustration of Western freshness and unconventionality in literature, or Mr. Lafcadio Hearn in a jinrikisha with a lap full of his latest Japanese studies, or Colonel Roosevelt dashing up on a mustang with a knapsack full of his forthcoming Rough Riders and a commissary wagon with the rest of the edition following behind! Who could resist the temptation to buy, especially when the distinguished author could without any charge put his autograph on the fly-leaf while you were fumbling in your pockets for the money? We have been told again and again that the production of literature is a business and should be conducted on business principles, and we have seen a growing tendency to adopt any method of securing a market which has proved successful in other lines of business: now here is something which will be an attractive novelty to a novelty-loving generation, - let us see who will be the first to start.

extra

W. H. JOHNSON.

associations.

NEW YORK LETTER. COMEONE raised the question the other day whether the books on the Spanish-American war, now appearing with somewhat astonishing rapidity, could have any real value, written as they have been, so soon after the conflict. It is easy enough to assume that many of them have no real value, particularly those that consist of mere compilations gathered from sources more or less unreliable, and pieced together with a haste that makes sound judgment impossible. Nevertheless, even books of this kind have a passing interest, and do some service in enabling readers to glance lightly over the development of the difficulties. On the other hand, all of the work done by men who saw the fighting themselves or had a hand in it, has an immense value, not altogether as history perhaps, but as material from which history will be drawn. Mr. R. H. Davis, for example, did not try to write history when he prepared for Scribner's Magazine the papers now collected in the volume, entitled The Porto-Rican Campaign; and yet it stands as a vivid record that future historians are not likely to ignore. Colonel By the election of M. Lavedan to occupy the Roosevelt is at present making in his articles fauteuil left vacant by the death of Meilhac, in Scritner's a record of the highest importance, the French Academy has now a complete membership of forty, a phenomenon that has not and I can only say that if all the articles are as occurred within a quarter of a century. The brilliant as the two that have already appeared, members are classified by Le Figaro as follows, they will form a volume which will live, not although some of them might choose a differ- only as history, but as one of the most fascinat ent category than the one allotted to them; Hommes politiques, orateurs - MM. Emile ing narratives of fighting ever penned by an Ollivier, Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier, Duc de Brog-American. Colonel Roosevelt - his life has so lie, Comte de Mun de Freycinet. many swift and brilliant advancements that I forget to call him Governor - has actually infused his own vitality into the articles. They read as if you were hearing them told to you by a man full of enthusiasm and of delight in his tale.

Granville, Ohio, Jan. 12, 1899.

We quote from the New York Times the following characterization of a body of men whose personal acquaintance we seem in some measure to have made through the visits of MM. Brunetière and Bourget :

Poètes

- MM. Sully- Prudhomme, de Heredia, François Coppée, de Bornier. Professeurs MM. Mézières, Gréard, Lavisse, Gaston Paris, Boissier.

Historiens MM. Sorel, Albert Vandal, Thureau-Dangin, Comte d'Haussonville, Melchoir de Vogue, Marquis Costa de Beauregard, Hano-I am not surprised to hear that, like all the taux, Henry Houssaye.

Auteurs Dramatiques - Victorien Sardou, Pa-
illeron, Legouvé, Ludovic Halévy, Lavedan.
Romanciers - Paul Bourget, Loti, Cherbuliez,
Anatole France, André Theuriet.
Critiques Brunetière, Jules Lemaître.
Journalistes - Edouard Hervé, Jules Claretie.

Un Prélat - Le Cardinal Perraud.
Un Savant-Joseph Bertrand.

Un Avocat - Rousse.

Un Statuaire - Guillaume.

Miley has to offer, and I shall be curious to

learn what the newspaper men who went down to Cuba will say about it. Every one of those

whose opinion I have heard, or heard quoted, has spoken of Shafter with contempt and bit

terness.

I am reminded here of the remark a wellknown man of affairs made to me the other day while the conduct of the war was under discus. sion. "No matter what the circumstances might be," he exclaimed vehemently, "nothing in the world would induce me to act as a newspaper correspondent during any war in which the United States was involved." When I asked for his reasons he replied: "Because the performance of my duty to my newspaper might involve the sacrifice of my duty to my country and to my fellowmen. If I were a commanding general in time of war, I wouldn't allow a newspaper man to come within the lines of the army. To conduct a campaign properly, secrecy is absolutely necessary. The betrayal of information means the putting of the enemy on their guard. At a crucial time during the recent war, a newspaper correspondent—you know who he is -sent a despatch to his paper revealing a cause of great weakness on our side. What was the result? His article was at once wired to Canada, and from Canada it was cabled to Spain, and the Spanish government was so encouraged that the particular engagement then in operation was prolonged several days and many lives were uselessly sacrificed." I tried to point out the reverse side to his picture, by showing the vast amount of good the newspaper correspondents did in pointing out the true condition of affairs in Cuba, notably in regard to the sufferings of our men, but the only response I could get was: “If we must have war, we must finish it up quickly, and the less interference of our newspapers with the army, the more quickly will the army do its work."

In this connection I cannot refrain from repeating a story which a friend informs me was going the rounds in London during his last visit there, with regard to an English journalist who writing done by this author, they were dictated is pretty well-known in this country. If true, it while he was walking up and down the room. shows how much power a newspaper man may Of immense importance, too, is the work done acquire and how serious the consequences may in the Century Magazine by such men as Hob- be if he uses it unwisely. According to the son and Sigsbee. In securing these writers, the story, the journalist was sent by his paper, an Century has maintained the prestige acquired by influential London daily, down to Greece a its splendid series of papers on the Civil War, few weeks before the Greco-Turkish war. Bepublished several years ago. Some astonishing ambitious and rather hot-headed, he threw ment, by the way, has been expressed at the himself into the thick of affairs and succeeded

in making the acquaintance, and finally winning the confidence, of the King. He informed the King that if Greece would take a firm stand with Turkey and would even go so far as to declare war, England would back her up. The King acted on this "information" with the disastrous results that everyone knows. And yet this very man, misled as he had probably been by the utterances of Mr. Gladstone, whose party was out of power, and by other sympathizers with Greece, is said still to enjoy the confidence of Lord Salisbury.

Forest, Corleone in the brigand-haunted retreats should receive on board, at the hands of the of Sicily, Casa Bracchio under the walls of government, a manifolded copy of all the acRoman palaces or on the vine-clad slopes of the cumulated "Reuter's Telegrams," written in a Sabine Hills. How somber the colorings of the very large, round, legible hand, the twenty German story! how picturesque and stirring the sheets or so knotted at the corner. This was Sicilian tale! how dire the succession of tragedies our morning paper, passed from hand to hand. which darken the pages of Casa Bracchio! In The Captain had it first, then the passengers his fidelity to facts, in his minute study of de- one by one or in groups, by turn, until it had tails, in his intellectual force and acuteness, in gone through the ship. Every passing passenger the philosophical temper that shapes the under- steamer at Aden and similar ports of call in the current of his writing, Mr. Crawford seems to East is thus served, Reuter's, as all my travme to come nearer to George Eliot than any eled readers will know, being the Old World other novelist in English whose pen still runs. counterpart of the Associated Press of the New. A Steamer's Library. True, at best, such a publication as the "Aden a topic of discussion in England. Its Eng-Lloyd steamer, the "Königin Luise," of 10,500 Here we are on a magnificent North German Telegrams" does not contain a great deal; it is a cream pitcher and not a milk pan; but perlish success is a forecast of its vogue here, for, tons, 2,000 horse power, and twin screws, plow better than nothing to the thirsty wanderers. haps it answers the purpose. It is certainly though its morbidness will be condemned, its ing across the Gulf of Aden, into and over the fidelity to nature and its power cannot fail to be Arabian Sea to Ceylon and Australia. There recognized. I hear that Miss Robins is very are perhaps a hundred and fifty passengers all indignant at the disclosure of the secret connecttold in the first and second cabins - English, ing her name with the book, and has expressed German, American, Italian, Russian, Swiss, and her feelings at length in the columns of the Lon- Austrian. There is, of course, the usual library don Chronicle. This is rather amusing, as she has on board, in the Ladies' Parlor of the first class,

American readers are at last having a chance to read The Open Question, the novel by Miss Elizabeth Robins, the actress, which is still

for some time been known to many Americans,

made up chiefly of German books, but with a as well as to many Londoners familiar with the sprinkling of American and English authors in current literary and artistic doings, as the "Tauchnitz Editions." I have been interested in author of several novels. Since living in Lon-looking over the list to see what would be the don Miss Robins has been associated with many of the more prominent English writers, and it is not surprising that with her abilities as critic and as an interpreter of manners, she should herself, in the long intervals of her acting, have turned to authorship. Now that Miss Robins is identified with Ibsen's plays, she is supposed to be unwilling to play in any but realistic pieces. Whether this be true, the fact remains that she has in recent years been seen only occasionally on the stage.

R

THE WASTE BASKET.

Mr. Crawford's Novels. EFERENCE has been made more than once before under this head to the novels of Mr. F. Marion Crawford, good opportunity for the reading or re-reading of which has been enjoyed by the Waste Basket on its present trip. And I want to say again, and emphatically, how good they are, how full of varied and impressive power, how true to the life that they depict. Especially does this seem the just thing to say as one reads them for the first or second time amidst the scenes and the types of character to which they relate; Greifenstein, for example, amidst the solitudes and shades of the Swabian

selection which German judgment would make
from English and American literature for a
steamer like this, plying part of the year between
Bremen and New York, the other part between
Bremen and Sydney. It is as follows:
Looking Backward. Briseis.
The Bondman.
Called Back.
The Hired Baby. Roman Gossip.
France of Today. People I Have Met.
Helen's Babies.
Heart of the World.
Novel Notes.
The Use of Life.
Trilby.
My Official Wife.
The Anarchist. Trollope's Autobiography.
Ben Hur.
The Stolen Bacillus.
Teuton Studies.
Holidays in Tyrol.
Under the Red Robe. Tom Sawyer Abroad.
A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa.
Beyond the Dreams of Avarice.
Sunshine and Storms in the East.
The Greatest Thing in the World.
Diary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople.
Diary of an Idle Woman in Italy.
Ships that Pass in the Night.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.
The Professor at the Breakfast Table.
The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.
Diary of a Pilgrimage.

Stopford Brooke.

We have not that brilliant English literary clergyman on board among our passengers, but as a circumstance next interesting thereto we have his brother, a retired officer of the British army, now on his way to Australia. General

Brooke has visited America, and in particular Boston, where his nephew, the author's son, has been settled in the Unitarian ministry for some years; and he bears about with him in his journeys over the world pleasant recollections of his American cousins. He tells the Waste Basket that his brother, Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, now a disestablished minister of Unitarian connections, has relinquished his proprietary chapel in London, and preaches at large throughout the kingdom, as his services are called for, meantime keeping his skillful pen at work in the interests of English literature. His famous Primer has been enlarged into a new edition, and has a steady and lucrative circulation year by year. His later and ampler work, Early English Literature up to the Days of Alfred, excellent as it is, has proved rather too bulky and too costly in its two volumes for the school use for which it was intended. Mr. Brooke has therefore recast it and condensed it into a single volume, which bears the new title of English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, leaving out much correlative matter that accompanied the larger work, shortening the history up to Alfred's time, and rewriting the whole. The illustrative quotations This collection, small as it is, might be worse, have also been cut down. The new book has but surely it might be better. It is too bad to just been published by Macmillan & Co. of Lontake up limited space with some of the ephem-don, and the copy which lies open before me eral publications mentioned above when there is as I write this paragraph on the deck of the so much that would be of real value and equally "Königin Luise" has the personal interest of entertaining to the ocean reader. this autograph inscription in a fine hand upon the fly leaf:

News at Aden.

Though traveling on one of the great commercial highways of the world, one feels his isolation from the ordinary centers and sources and channels of information on a voyage like this. We embarked at Naples on the 30th of November. Our latest London papers and Paris edition of the New York Herald were then some three or four days old. Three days to Port Said, one day in the Suez Canal, and four days down the Red Sea, brought us yesterday at daybreak to Aden, that British stronghold, a second Gibraltar, on our way to the East. Practically we had had no news of the world for a fortnight. It was one of the welcome features then of our four hours' call at Aden that we

EDWARD T. BROOKE, from his loving Brother, S. A. B. Mr. Stopford A. Brooke is now at work upon a Browning, a companion to his Tennyson, which is sure to place the studious readers of that poet under great obligations, for there is today no more accomplished and helpful interpreter of what is best in English letters than Mr. Brooke.

The Englishman as an Israelite. One of our passengers, whose name is and is Hebraic, but about whom everything else is distinctively, if not conspicuously not to say brilliantly-European, has put into my hands with which to while away an afternoon on this