Comment on New Books
SCIENCE.
While private publishing establishments are necessarily confined more or less closely to the production of works of a popular character, our national government, fortunately, has the facilities for bringing out expensive technical books which could hardly be expected to pay for themselves in open market ; and it is to be hoped that no exigencies of economy will ever prevent the publication of such works as the exhaustive Treatise on the Deep-Sea and Pelagic Fishes of the World, which, with the title of Oceanic Ichthyology, by George Brown Goode and Tarleton H. Bean, has recently been issued as Special Bulletin No. 2 of the U. S. National Museum. The progress in the study of deep-sea fishes in the last twenty years has been marvelous, and to realize this the reader has only to turn from the preface, in which the number of species known twenty years ago is made twenty at the outside, and glance through the atlas of 123 plates with 417 figures, representing about as many species of such an infinite variety of form that even in the wildest flights of the imagination one could hardly invent a fish which could not find its counterpart in nature. An added interest attaches to this work on account of the recent death of one of its authors, Dr. Goode, the distinguished Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in charge of the National Museum. Of a somewhat more popular though no less scientific character is Special Bulletin No. 3 of the Museum, also recently issued,—a continuation of Major Bendire’s valuable and interesting work on the Life Histories of North American Birds, the first volume of which was published a few years ago. The present volume begins with the parrots, and carries the work along, in the order adopted by the American Ornithologists’ Union, through the grackles. Good biographies of the birds are given, with a notable amount of original matter, almost the only quotations being from the author’s correspondents. We are glad to see that particular attention is paid to some details in the breeding habits which have hitherto been generally overlooked, such as the length of the period of incubation and the time in which the young remain in the nest, and whether or not the male assists in sitting. A curious and rather misleading habit of the author is that of giving each rendering of a bird’s note twice in succession, regardless of the bird’s own habit in this respect, — as if one “ Conk-que-reeh ” of the red-winged blackbird, for instance, were an incomplete song without another to follow it. Seven lithographic plates of eggs with 201 figures complete the book, and are very satisfying iu their beauty and fidelity to nature. — The Biological Problem of To-Day, by Prof. Dr. Oscar Hertwig. Translated by P. Chalmers Mitchell. (Macmillan.) In this volume, which to the student of microscopic anatomy would appear simple, and which to the lay mind is made as intelligible as possible by means of a glossary of technical terms, Professor Hertwig discusses the theory of preformation as advocated by Weismann, and contrasts it with the theory of epigenesis as held by Herbert Spencer, himself, and others. He attacks Weismann’s theory of differentiating division in the germplasm, as well as his theory of determinants, proving by many examples of cell-doubling, and of epigenesis from gravity, position of yolk, and external influences, changes of form that no theory of determinants could account for. The whole work is devoted to this proof that Weismann’s hypothesis of determinants (miniatures of the developed organism in embryo) does not and cannot account for the developed organisms we see in life, thus destroying the theory of hereditary particles in the germplasm. He seems to do this quite conclusively.
FICTION.
It has been a pleasure, repeated at intervals the past few years, to have in convenient form collections of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett’s stories, but the pleasure is heightened at this time in the appearance of The Country of the Pointed Firs (Houghton) by the light thread of identity of place and character on which the stories are strung. Miss Jewett has, in effect, made a seacoast of her own, a mirage lifted just above the horizon of actual land, and peopled it with figures that are images of reality, also. She herself moves among them, and her warm sympathy is the breath of life which animates them. Her art has devised no more enchanted country, or given a more man substance to the creatures of her imagination. The book has the freshness of Deephaven with the mellowness of matured power. — Mrs. Wiggin’s Marm Lisa (Houghton) has already found readers in The Atlantic, and we are glad that in the separate publication the story has no intrusion of any draughtsman’s conception of the characters who carry on the tale. For a large part of the secret of Mrs. Wiggin’s power lies in her vivid portraiture, not so much of face and figure as of character itself ; and it is a pity to limit the free imagination of the reader by an individualization which proceeds from a single form of interpretation. The author’s art is clearly taking on a fixedness of design, when she can escape the peril of a merely humanitarian attitude toward her heroine, and can yet intimate, as subtly as she does, the process by which a stunted life flowers forth into something very like beauty. — We are told on the fly-leaf of The Sprightly Romance of Marsac, by Molly Elliot Seawell (Scribners), that the little story now offered to the public in book form took a prize of three thousand dollars given by the New York Herald in 1895. This may or may not be considered in its favor by those who now see it for the first time. We are inclined to think that the lively little sketch has not fulfilled its real destiny till it goes through yet one more transformation and is dramatized as a farce. The absence of descriptive passages and the incessant action and lively dialogue make it seem almost a play as it now stands, and a few changes would convert it into an amusing “ curtainraiser.” The book is creditably free from padding, — perhaps because it was written for a newspaper public, — and we are carried swiftly down the stream of absurdity and impossibility, hardly realizing how preposterous are the situations which are made to seem plausible by Miss Seawell’s lively pen. There is sometimes too much of American colloquialism in parts to make us quite believe in the French blood of the little troop of Parisians among whom we are set down, but as a whole we find the story an amusing and readable one, — neither more nor less than what the author calls it, a “sprightly romance.” — Limitations, a Novel, by E. F. Benson (Harpers), proves a most encouraging exception to the general rule that after an author has written one successful story he has touched the high-water mark of his talent, and that other works from the same pen are as unnecessary as they are inevitable. This story is modern in the best sense of the word, — lull of analysis, but void of unhealthiness, — and there is an underlying seriousness running through the book which keeps the brightness from being too frothy. Two delightful characters are described, Maud Wrexham and Tom Carlingford, who in different ways and by different means come to “acquiesce in their limitations.” She fails to win the love of the man she cares for; he misses the opportunity of developing a genius for sculpture of the ideal Greek style, and prostitutes his talent to the producing of small but salable statuettes. He is hampered by narrow means and a wife whom Maud Wrexham describes as “ a divinely beautiful cow ; ” but he loves his wife faithfully to the last page, and any suggestion of sadness we feel on closing the volume comes, not from any tragic incidents in the plot, but from the pathos of blighted enthusiasms and shattered ideals. Limitations stands high among novels of its class. It is simple, sincere, and subtle, and in no wise written for effect, though much of the dialogue is in the Dodo-ese order of brightness. Mr. Benson is always clever ; he can always write something we like to talk about, and he can sometimes write something we like to think about. — Nephelé, by Francis William Bourdillon (New Amsterdam Book Company), is a romance of the school in which Marie Corelli is high-priestess. The ethereal love-affair — born of an intense love and genius for music — between a dreamy Oxford student and a young lady with “supra-earthly ” and “ worship-worthy ” eyes, runs through one hundred and sixty-five pages, and soon wearies us with its false spirituality and would-be mysticism. We close the book feeling that a draught from the waters of realism, muddy though they be, would be more health-giving than the double-distilled decoction Mr. Bourdillon pours slowly out for us. The story has nothing specially distinctive to separate it from others of its class, and works like Nephelé do not tend to make skeptics believers, but serve rather to make believers skeptical of the good accomplished by authors who try to popularize the occult. — A Rebellious Heroine, a story by John Kendrick Bangs (Harpers), describes in serio-comic vein the trials of a young writer of the realistic school who finds himself unable to control the actions of the unruly heroine of a romance he is writing. She will not fall in love with his hero, she will not be caught in the snares of the villain, and, after causing the author to destroy many half-finished novels because of her rebelliousness, she ends by making him fall in love with her himself. There are clever things in the story, for it is written with Mr. Bangs’s usual facile pen, but much of the working out of the slight scheme is forced, and we must confess to being bored by the too obvious effort to amuse. Mr. Baugs’s humor seems always deliberate rather than spontaneous, and we feel convinced that as his ambition is to entertain and divert his readers, he would be far funnier if “ he never, never dared to write as funny as he can.”
PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY.
The Perfect Whole, by Horatio W. Dresser. (George H. Ellis, Boston.) The earnestness, sincerity, and purpose of this work make its philosophy well worth considering. From the longing for truth, beauty, a belief in a God or a spirit existing in every human heart, the author argues a deep unfathomed self, a fundamental reality. Fate, love, will power, reason, intuition, illumination, — these are his chief headings, and it is maintained that they are but the God power making itself progressively known to man. Seek the spiritual illumination, the author says : it comes to many from the infinite source ; it will come to all who truthfully seek it, and live in harmony with the laws of nature. All is for the best. One may be somewhat skeptical as to the reality, the possibility, of the spiritual illumination and intuition of which Mr. Dresser so confidently assures us, and ascribe it to the moral enthusiasm of a good man who wants to believe in its existence ; yet in doing so he perhaps acknowledges only his own limitations, and thus proves the author’s point. — History of Philosophy, by Alfred Weber. Translated by Frank Thilly. (Scribners.) The tracing of the development of thought through a period of two thousand years, from earliest Greek philosophy to the present time, and a synopsis of the argument of each philosophy in clear, simple phraseology without unnecessary technicalities, — this, Professor Thilly has given us through the medium of his excellent translation from the fifth French edition of Professor Weber’s work. It is a history of philosophy conceived as an evolution from the simpler to the more complex forms of modern thought, and as such escapes the fault, of being a disjointed mass of theories. The exposition ot Kant, and of the Hegelian doctrine especially, gives a particularly good insight into that system, while the modern theory of evolution, which has done so much to upset that system and to revolutionize the thought of the nineteenth century, receives a precise and satisfactory explanation. From the most primitive philosophy to modern scientific thought in its synthetic building up of sense-experience, the positivism of to-day, we are given an insight into the doctrine of monist and pluralist, spiritualist and materialist, idealist and rationalist, sensationalist and empiricist, dogmatist and skeptic ; or, to sum it all up, we are carried along with the author from a priori reasoning in embryo to modern positivism in its latest development. — The Imperial Christ, by John Patterson Coyle, with a Biographical Introduction by George A. Gates. (Houghton.) Those who have read Dr. Coyle’s posthumous The Spirit in Literature and Life will be eager to read this volume of warm-blooded discourses, and especially to know something of a man who could write with the largeness of vision and the positiveness of faith characterizing his books. President Gates’s memoir does much to explain the rich personality of Dr. Coyle. — The paragraph habit has got into that last stronghold of leisurely speech, the pulpit, and now one can read three-minute sermons in Mornings in the College Chapel, otherwise Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion, by F. G. Peabody. (Houghton.) But the audience has plainly a commanding influence on the preacher. Dr. Peabody has taken his turn in the chapel at Harvard University, year in and year out, since the notable experiment in voluntary religious exercises was begun ten years ago, and now gives a selection from his talks. It is interesting to note how this “ daily theme ” in the pulpit has led to a directness of speech without epigrammatic affectation, and to a simplicity of expression which is not barren. An audience of college students invites the best one can give, but it will not wait for the preacher to find his place. These ninety-one discourses, of three pages each, are singularly varied, earnest, and at the same time winning by their grace.
BOOKS ON THE FINE ARTS.
The History of Modern Painting, by Richard Muther. (Macmillan.) This is the first attempt to set forth in detail the history of modern painting, not as a series of rival technical schools, subdivided into a catalogue of individualities, but as an expression of modern civilization, sharing with literature in all its intellectual developments. If this scheme of study is characteristically German in conception and arrangement, and if it is carried out with true German industry and thoroughness, it is also made consistent with a spirit liberal, cosmopolitan, and unprejudiced. The exposition, though scientific, never becomes dull or perfunctory after the manner of a catalogue, but at all points is animated and interesting, and not without literary power and elegance of statement. Of course it is difficult for any one, from so close a point of view, to apply a philosophical method to the investigation of a subject so many-sided, so complicated and sensitive, so influenced by personal initiative and fashions, as modern painting, without encountering the danger of unconsciously distorting, exaggerating, or even suppressing facts to meet the necessities of orderly and symmetrical classification. But the monumental and prodigious work of Professor Muther is less open to this objection than any other treatise on art attempting to cover so large a field. These three volumes of more than twenty-four hundred pages, illustrated on nearly every page, appeal both to the mind and to the eye, and possess all the inherent qualities of a standard work not likely soon to be supplanted. The extensive bibliographical basis of the work is admirably set forth in the index of each volume, and confirms its character as an authentic summary or restatement of the best criticism of the century. A general unity of effect is aimed at and fairly well attained. Its literary merit is apparent even through the medium of translations by several different hands. — Modern French Masters, a Series of Biographical and Critical Reviews by American Artists, with thirty-seven Wood-Engravings and twenty-eight Half-Tone Illustrations, edited by John C. Van Dyke. (The Century Co.) This elegant volume, presented with all the luxury of the De Vinne Bress, and with all the fullness and beauty of illustration which we have a right to expect from the Century Company, is in fact a graceful tribute of gratitude from certain American artists to their French masters. It is more than this : it is a critical estimate of the art of these masters by minds more capable of such service and more sympathetic than any others in the world. For the indebtedness of American art to that of France is profound and peculiar. The older country, with all its accumulated resources of art, with its established schools and its vast traditions, has ever been most hospitable to pilgrims from the New World, and has lavished upon them all that it has to give. It is evident that the most fitting response to this unprecedented generosity is fair appreciation and the establishment of an American art worthy of its parentage, — an art, not of imitation, but of new development. Couture, Puvis de Chavannes, Gérôme, Bonnat, Baudry, Carolus-Duran, Laurens, Meissonier, Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Troyon, Daubigny, Monet, Millet, Courbet, Manet, Bastien-Lepage, DagnanBouveret, and De Monvel, — these are the illustrious men here celebrated by their loyal pupils and friends in the New World. There is a personal flavor about these twenty essays and an intimate technical knowledge which are in the highest degree interesting and instructive, and Dr. Van Dyke’s editorial care has succeeded in merging the whole into pleasing and effective symmetry. The illustrations, both the wood - engravings and the half-tones, fully sustain the high reputation of American achievement in this department. It is worthy of note that modern French art is progressive, not retrospective or reminiscent, and that some of these masters have by no means uttered their final inspirations, notably Monet. In such cases a complete analysis of their genius is as yet impossible. — Jean François Millet, his Life and Letters, by Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady), with nine photogravures. (Swan Sonnenschein, London ; Macmillan, New York.) The career of the peasant painter is one of the most tragic life - dramas possible under the conditions of modern civilization. The development of his genius in the midst of every possible discouragement of insistent poverty, his student life in Paris, his rural life at Barbizon, his ineffectual struggles for recognition, the heroic constancy with which he adhered to ideas of art that were in conflict with the academic traditions of his time, his lofty friendships, the purity and simplicity of his life, his immense posthumous success, and the immortal fame that came to him too late for consolation and reward, — these are the elements of this most touching story. It has been the subject of innumerable essays and critical estimates, which this volume now for the first time sets in order and adjusts to a new and large narrative gathered from authoritative sources hitherto inaccessible. Through this narrative the noble figure of the master is confirmed for posterity with all its peasant-like simplicity, but with something of the power and grandeur of the Biblical prophet, uttering inspirations which were rejected with scorn by the Salon, but which a later day recognized as the highest artistic expressions of the century. He celebrated the mean conditions of the peasant life around him and within him as a sublime epic poem. Gleaners and shepherds, sowers and ploughmen, and all the scenes of rural life are given by him to the world in solemn pastorals. He had a distinct mission to the minds and hearts of men through his art. He made visible to them the majesty of toil and the beauty of humility. Mrs. Ady’s work in preserving to us the life and labors of this great master, his letters, his aspirations, and the development of his genius, deserves a cordial acceptance, and the fullpage photogravures are at once an ample justification of the man and an adequate illustration of his art.
BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
Fairy-Tale Plays, and How to Act Them, by Mrs. Hugh Bell. (Longmans.) Mrs. Bell has taken fourteen familiar tales, like Ali Baba, The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and has not only thrown them into dialogue form, but has furnished very complete instructions as to music, dress, stage setting, and even dancing. Moreover, she has gone over the ground in general, in her introduction, with excellent advice. The whole scheme supposes thoroughness of training, and may possibly discourage some amateur actors ; but the results justify real pains, and in children’s dramas work counts. — The figure of a child perpetually getting into scrapes is a familiar one in books for the young, but it is rarely set forth so delightfully as in Cricket at the Sea Shore, by Elizabeth Westyn Timlow. (Estes & Lauriat.) The humor and at the same time the good breeding of this story they are by no means always joined in such books — make it a joy to older readers and a merriment to the young. The relations between old and young in the tale are most wholesome and natural, and there is a spontaneity and rollicking freedom about the group of children distinctively American. They are curiously and refreshingly unlike the English story-book children. — A new child’s story by Mrs. Molesworth hardly needs to be commended to those who are familiar with that now rather long list of tales which have delighted innumerable little readers and appreciative older ones about equally. The Oriel Window (Macmillan) is the history of a boy who on his ninth birthday meets with an accident which cripples him for years, and it tells sympathetically, but with neither sensationalism nor sentimentality, how this weary time was spent, not without pleasure and profit. We wish that the self-assertive youngster who pervades so many more or less popular American juveniles could imitate this small hero and his compeers in simplicity, gentle breeding, and agreeable English. — Mother Molly, by Frances Mary Peard. (Putnams.) Miss Peard follows in a pleasantly readable fashion the fortunes of the motherless children of a naval officer, absent with his ship, who are dwelling in Plymouth in 1779, while the fear of a French invasion is felt all along that coast. The spirit of the time is well reproduced, and of course the story is told with easy skill and unfailing good taste. The liveliest figure in it is a maid of fourteen or fifteen, and girls of like age (and others) will find her experiences interesting. — The Book of Wonder-Voyages, edited by Joseph Jacobs, and illustrated by John D. Batten. (Macmillan.) When we meet the names of this editor and artist in company, we confidently look for a delightful retelling of the folktales of divers lands and peoples, with illustrations reproducing the very spirit of the text, and having a grace and charm all their own. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs has completed his library of fairy-tales, for this year he gives a collection of wonder-voyages from widely different sources, the first and longest being The Argonauts, from Kingsley’s Heroes, the editor declaring that he dared not commit the sacrilege of attempting a rival version ; the Celtic Voyage of Maclduin follows, contributed by Mr. Alfred Nutt ; Hasan of Bassorah is retold by Mr. Jacobs from the Arabian Nights (it does not appear in the ordinary editions) ; while The Journeyings of Thorkill and of Eric the Far-Travelled have been adapted from the Eric Saga and from Saxo Grammaticus. The volume is as attractive in its make-up as any of its predecessors, and altogether as much to be desired. — The Dwarf’s Tailor, and Other Fairy-Tales, collected by Zoe Dana Underhill. (Harpers.) To those who love genuine fairy-tales told in the good old fashion, even to the use of good English, this collection can be heartily commended. The stories come from many lands, but the larger number are of German and Scandinavian origin, and some, we think, will prove new, or as good as new, to small readers versed in this lore. — Tales from Hans Andersen, illustrated by Helen Stratton. (Constable, Westminster ; Macmillan, New York.) Five of the super-excellent among Andersen’s tales — The Wild Swans, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Storks, and The Snow Queen — form this pretty gift-book, an admirably harmonious selection. A word of praise must be given to the stork cover designs, but, despite an occasional felicity, the artist’s work is only moderately successful. — Tommy-Anne and the Three Hearts, by Mabel Osgood Wright. (Macmillan.) The small heroine lives so near to nature that she can talk to bird and beast, tree and flower, and learn all their secrets. Her story is told in an animated, readable style, and with a sufficient touch of realism to make it effective. Children who love the country — and what child does not ? — will find in this pleasant tale answers to scores of questions, and suggestions for asking many more. — Songs of Childhood : Verses by Eugene Field, Music by Reginald de Koven and Others. (Scribners.) Musical settings to twenty of Eugene Field’s charming child-poems are here given. Four of those by Mr. de Koven and one by Hubbard T. Smith are already well known, but the remaining fifteen were written especially for this work. The other composers represented are G. W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, W. W. Gilchrist, Clayton Johns, Gerrit Smith, C. B. Hawley, and Edgar S. Kelly, names which sufficiently show the quality of the music. The editor’s aim, that the setting should express the lyrical quality of the verse as simply and naturally as possible, has been particularly well fulfilled in his own Nightfall in Dordrecht and Dutch Lullaby, in Mr. Johns’ The Doll’s Wooing, and in Mr. Gilchrist’s very pleasing melodies. The Rock-a-byLady is a genuine lullaby, the music and words most happily united. — Nearly a generation has passed since the first publication of Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge’s Hans Brinker, and the story, still fall of vigorous life, has every right to be considered a juvenile classic. It now appears in an exceedingly handsome new edition, profusely illustrated by Mr. Allen B. Doggett, who went to Holland for that express purpose. His work not only embellishes, but, so to speak, illuminates the text ; for not only is the writer followed with rare faithfulness, but Dutch scenes and characters are vividly and truthfully depicted. (Scribners.) — A reprint of a still older friend is The Young Voyageurs, which appears in the Putnams’ Nimrod Edition of certain of the boys’ stories of Captain Mayne Reid. As boys will have tales of adventure, give them by all means those as healthy in tone as are Reid’s at his best. (His worst are trashy enough, and, it is to be hoped, are long past resuscitation.) Indeed, have any later writers of this genre equaled him ? We think his new readers will declare they have not.
HOLIDAY BOOKS.
Washington Irving’s The Alhambra is a holiday-looking book, with its gilded cover and its air of refined sumptuousness. The Introduction by Mrs. Pennell is excellent, for it puts the book in its place among other books, and, though discriminating, has a true enthusiasm in its lines. Mr. Pennell’s drawings, which are abundant, are exceptionally happy in manner, especially the pen-and-ink ones ; they let in the sunshine, and they suggest both the richness and the ruin. (Macmillan.) — Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (Copeland & Day) appears in the black-letter, large-initial style which is in the printing art of to-day a reminiscence of the emergence of printing from its artistic cradle. The effect is to make the type itself the main thing, so that the text is seen through it. The book becomes thus a monument to the printer, upon which the poet has been permitted to inscribe her lines.
POLITICS.
Mr. A. Lawrence Lowell, in his Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, in two volumes (Houghton), has written practically a natural history of political life. He has proceeded upon the very rational plan of inquiring into the actual condition of parties and the part they play in the conduct of the administration, and then he seeks to find the nearest and some of the remoter causes of the condition of parties. He proceeds upon the correct assumption that he is dealing with organisms of different degrees of development, and liable to constant variations. His very thorough examination becomes particularly valuable since it is really a cross-section of contemporaneous political structure, and as such enables the student of government to have as it were a laboratory in which to watch experiments and products.
BOOKS OF REFERENCE.
The quarterly parts of Murray’s New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Macmillan) continue to give agreeable serial reading ia the alphabet. The numbers for July and October cover Diffluent— Disobservant, and a section of the fourth volume, Fish-Flexuose. This dictionary, by the emphasis which it lays on the development of meanings as disclosed in dated quotations, is peculiarly fitted for the use of students in linguistics. For example, how interesting would be a grouping of the dis words into those where the separative force is applied to familiar words and is in common use, as “discomfort;” where the combination has been individual and has not held place, as “disbench;” and where the dis has become merged in the compound so that the separative force is lost, as “ disdain.” By the way, we miss one word for which we looked. We never could find out exactly what “ dillar ” meant, in the classic line, “ A dillar, a dollar, a teno’clock scholar.” We guess, a “dilly-dallyer,” but Dr. Murray fails to help us. — A Bibliography of the State of Maine from the Earliest Period to 1891, by Joseph Williamson. In two volumes. (The Thurston Print, Portland.) Mr. Williamson, already widely known as an enthusiastic student of Maine history, has done an extraordinary piece of work in collecting these fourteen hundred pages of titles, under names of authors and towns, of books and pamphlets relating to Maine or having their origin in the State. Not only do Jacob Abbott and Henry W. Longfellow appear as the authors of works first written or published in Maine, but titles are given of all their writings. Most valuable is the long list of titles of works under names of towns. Portland, for instance, has thirty-four close pages, and little Saco has more than two. Such minute labor will be of value to a few scholars ; it deserves the recognition of all who honor the noble army of index-makers. — Browning is at once a lapidary and a stone-cutter in words, so that the reader who has a haunting sense of phrases which he cannot quite place, and the student who would fain get at the source of this poet’s wonderful skill, have good reason to thank Miss M. A. Molineux for her Phrase-Book from the Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning (Houghton), which represents an enormous amount of intelligent work on the part of the compiler, and of economy on the part of the user. A very full index, containing significant words not elsewhere noted, completes a handbook which is indispensable to one who would give anything like close attention to Browning’s art.
STANDARD LITERATURE.
A new and handsome edition of Carlyle’s works in thirty volumes is projected (imported by Scribners), and the first volume, Sartor Resartus, gives agreeable promise. This Centenary edition is edited by H. D. Traill, who contents himself with a brief general introduction, in which he points out particularly the autobiographic hints in the book. The introduction is a good piece of direct, sane criticism, and we hope Mr. Traill will be better than his words, and furnish the edition with a clear and concise biographic sketch. The paper, page, and type of the book, though English, are as good as the best American work. The binding is of course not so good. English cloth binding rarely is as good as the best American. The old tradition still holds that cloth is a temporary expedient. — In the series The Muses’ Library appears a collection of the Poems of Henry Vaughan. (Imported by Scribners.) Two stout dwarfish volumes hold the productions of a writer who surely would be better known if some skillful editor were to winnow the few really beautiful poems from the wheelbarrow load of chaff. Mr. Beeching has provided a somewhat formal but intelligent introduction, and the general editor of the series, Mr. Chambers, has furnished biographical and bibliographical material, together with useful notes and indexes. — In the new, full edition of Mrs. Stowe’s writings (Houghton), two of the volumes are given up to Old Town Folks and Sam Lawson’s Fireside Stories, and one to Poganue People and Pink and White Tyranny. Those who wish to catch a glimpse of the racy New England in which Mrs. Stowe grew up will have their wish most amusingly gratified : there is the humor of the soil in Sam Lawson, and the editor of the series has enabled the reader to find between the lines of Poganuc People something of the story of Mrs. Stowe’s own girlhood. — A new and very attractive edition of Thackeray’s Henry Esmond comes to us from England (George Allen, London ; Macmillan, New York), with a preface by Joseph Jacobs, and pen-and-ink illustrations by T. H. Robinson. Mr. Jacobs’s preface, despite a little unpleasantness in the opening paragraph, is a discriminating and readable study of the book, and Mr. Robinson’s pictures, except occasionally when ideas and ink both seem to fail, are graphic and have a good deal of character. — A similar book, quite as pretty in general effect, though with illustrations of less artistic value, is Sheridan’s The School for Scandal and The Rivals, with an introduction by Augustine Birrell and illustrations by Edmund J. Sullivan. (Macmillan.) Mr. Birrell saunters through his preface with his hands in his pockets, throwing out good things in a careless fashion. — The thirtyninth volume of Roberts’ edition of Balzac contains nine of his shorter stories : Juana (Les Marana), Adieu, A Drama on the Seashore, The Red Inn, The Recruit (Le Réquisitionnaire), El Verdugo, The Elixir of Life, The Hated Son, and Maître Cornelius, — all belonging to Philosophical Studies ; while the fortieth volume gives us The Deputy of Arcis (Scenes from Political Life), of which only the first part was written by Balzac. From Charles Rabou’s completion of the work the translator has judiciously omitted, so far as is possible, his painfully feeble reincarnation of Vautrin. — The latest issues of the English edition of the Comédie Humaine, edited by George Saintsbury, are The Country Parson (Le Curé de Village), translated by Ellen Marriage, and Béatrix, translated by James Waring. (Dent, London ; Macmillan, New York.) These translations, though by no means so excellent as Miss Wormeley’s, are on the whole good, and Mr. Saintsbury’s introductions furnish precisely the information regarding the writing and first publication of each novel which readers are likely to desire, The volumes are very attractive in their make-up, agreeable to read and light in the hand, and each contains three etched illustrations.
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
Naval Actions of the War of 1812, by James Barnes. (Harpers.) This does not rival the work of Mr. Roosevelt upon the same subject. It is not a history of the naval war, but a series of disconnected narratives describing those thrilling combats in which our Yankee seamen so damaged the prestige of the Mistress of the Seas. Mr. Barnes writes in a clear, straightforward style, and addresses himself particularly to American youth. His enthusiasm is unbounded, and he does full justice to American valor. We think he goes too far in asserting that England’s navy suffered “ as great an overthrow ” in this war as did her arms on land in 1775, and we find no mention of the inglorious fight between the Argus and the Pelican, with its legends of bad gunpowder and Oporto wine. The hitherto unpublished letter of Mrs. Latrobe, given on page 67, is interesting reading. It affords a glimpse of the Washington of Madison’s day, and introduces us to social festivities in which Hull, Stewart, and the captured colors of the Macedonian play prominent parts. It is safe to say that the story of the sea-fights of 1812 has never been placed before the public in so attractive a garb as in this handsome volume. — The Memoirs of Baron Thiébault, Late Lieutenant-General in the French Army, translated and condensed by Arthur John Butler. (Macmillan.) The successful translator and condenser of Marbot’s Memoirs here undertakes the same task with Thiébault’s five large volumes, the English version being, we should judge, considerably less than half the length of the original. The necessity of this severe condensation must be admitted, even if it be deplored, and the work has, on the whole, been done with judgment and skill. It could be wished, however, in view of these liberal omissions, that Mr. Butler’s preface and notes could have been a little fuller and more explicit in dealing with biographical facts. At least, the reader should have been introduced to the general’s father, till three years ago a man better remembered by historical students than his son, and so have understood why the latter’s childhood and boyhood were spent in Berlin. There is no doubt whatever as to the interest and value of these reminiscences, or as to the honesty of the narrator. His antipathies and prejudices are so naïvely evident that they will not be likely to mislead the non-French reader. In his antecedents and culture he differed widely from most of Napoleon’s higher officers, and his Spanish recollections, in especial, give vivid pictures of the vulgarity as well as the coarseness and brutality of some of those personages. The Memoirs are the work of a bitterly disappointed man, whose rewards had never been commensurate with either his abilities or his services. — The Second Madame, a Memoir of Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orléans, by M. Louise McLaughlin. (Putnams.) An agreeably written sketch of the life of the Princess Palatine, illustrated by some wellselected extracts from the voluminous and racy correspondence of this most indefatigable of letter-writers, the terribly plainspoken, but brave, loyal, and honest German, who, despite the vehemence of her dislikes and prejudices, looked with marvelously clear eyes upon the alien world around her. It is scarcely to be expected that a slight study like this should go out of the beaten track, but still it is to be regretted that the author should so readily accept Saint-Simon’s sensational and (to speak mildly) highly improbable tale regarding the death of the first Madame, about, which our better instructed and (perhaps) less credulous generation need find nothing other than natural. And we can hardly account for the surprising statement that the Electress Sophia lived to inherit the throne of England, and saw her son become ruler of that country in her place. — Colonial Days in New York, by Alice Morse Earle. (Scribners.) Mrs. Earle’s books are beginning to form a sort of popular encyclopædia of the manners and customs, in things both small and great, of the colonial American. In this volume she does for New York what she has already done for New England, and follows the career of the transplanted Dutch from the cradle to the grave. After all, the impression given by these records is curiously like that produced by those of Diedrich Knickerbocker. Mrs. Earle is an unwearied and successful collector of facts of all sorts bearing on her chosen theme, though the thoughtful reader may not invariably accept her inferences drawn therefrom. — Another book from the same hand is Curious Punishments of Bygone Days (H. S. Stone & Co., Chicago), dealing with old-time pains and penalties, from the ducking-stool, stocks, and pillory, to military punishments and branding and maiming. The volume, in its make-up and illustrations, — the latter by Frank Hazenplug, — admirably simulates the work of the early eighteenth century. The reader inquisitive as to the matters of which it treats should remember, in justice to our forbears, that the examination and punishment of criminals by the English of those days, on both sides of the Atlantic, were distinctly less severe or cruel than those legally prevailing in the great nations of the Continent. On closing the book, we wonder how many misleading ideas the investigator of some future century, or even the foreigner of to-day, will gather from its concluding paragraph. Sweeping statements often require explanatory comment. — Reminiscences of an Octogenarian of the City of New York (1816 to 1860), by Charles H. Haswell. (Harpers.) It is by Haswell’s Tables that the author of this volume is mainly known, and it is to be doubted whether the knowledge extends far beyond the circle of those who in engineering and building are applying the formulæ of science to their daily work. It is for quite another audience that he has written this book. Its appeal is to New Yorkers who would not forget that their city has a past as well as a present and a future. Mr. Haswell has been a close observer and a taker of notes, and an infinite deal of lore concerning churches, streets, theatres, and persons is crowded into the well-indexed pages of this book. It will take its place and do its work in company with such reminiscences as those of Philip Hone and J. W. Francis.