tan is very reluctant to face : "Russia wants a free passage through the Dardanelles. For a long time she coveted this privilege for herself alone; but there is the best of reasons for believing that she would now gladly consent to the opening of the waterway to all the world. The Sultan would object. But his resistance would be abortive in the face of the pressure of combined Russia and Great Britain. His enforced acceptance of the de

attempt to secure decent and healthy school houses for the five million children in Great Britain who attend elementary schools. The first place in the Review is given to Mr. J. F. Hewitt's defense of his book, The Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times."

THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

this, perhaps, he can hardly be expected to realize. As for objections, it is true that such a policy would involve a considerable addition to the fleet. It would be essential that we should maintain a strong Black Sea squadron." In the opinion of "Diplomatist" England has an opportunity now, which may never come her way again, of settling a difficulty which, if allowed to develop much longer, will prove more fruitful of mischief than any with which she has been confronted for a generation or more."

IBSEN'S NEW PLAY.

Mr. Stevens, writing on the "New Ibsen," says: "In Little Eyolf' Ibsen's psychology is much and good. There could hardly be anything better than the first act, except the second. The first act states the case. Here is a mother and a father, both weak-the mother in intellect, the father in purpose and feeling. With both it is the weakness, the unequipped incapacity for life, of the unbalanced mind. The mother, as it turns out, is the straighter, the more respectable, and the commoner type. Her small heart choked up with an appetent love of Alfred Allmers, she has no room for anything else, and she has an explosive courage that lets her say so. Alfred would have the courage also, but he has not the selfknowledge. In width, not in depth, there is more of him to know; he does not know it. He talks much of his life-work, which is always a bad sign in a man; he should be ready with it when anybody pays to see, but not too garrulous of it to himself. So the wretched Allmers at one minute feels himself capable of a batch of new life-works besides his book; next moment he can on no terms have another life-work than Eyolf; and the next he is quite cheerfully prepared to bisect it and apportion the other half to Rita. Then the crash comes and the remorseless analysis begins. Ibsen digs up the soul by the roots to see how it grows. And if any stronger, truer, and profounder picture was ever made of the bereavement of weak natures and incompetent parents - and they have many points of coincidence with the strong and able -the world seems somehow to have lost count of it. This story of Alfred and Rita would have been better told in a novel. But it is a masterpiece none the less, and it is better to have it in a play than not to have it at all."

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW.

HE Westminster Review opens with an obituary noMrs. Hannah Chapman, will write his biography. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery, close to the grave of George Eliot. The most interesting article in the January number is a plea for a newer Trades Unionism, which is noticed elsewhere. There is also a very interesting paper by Mr. Reeves, entitled " Why New Zealand Women Get the Franchise." It is a very vivid description of the social condition of the colonists. Of the 30,000 wives in New Zealand, at least 90 per cent., says Mr. Reeves, manage their homes without paid help. An article entitled "The Struggle for a Healthy School," although brief, describes what Mr. Acland has been doing in his

ber. We notice elsewhere at length several of the more important articles.

THE ETHICS OF SHOPPING.

Lady Jeune in a pleasantly written article discusses the favorite amusement of many women, and maintains that one reason why they are tempted to spend more money than before is because salesmen have largely been superseded by saleswomen. Lady Jeune says: "Women are much quicker than men, and they understand so much more readily what other women want; they can enter into the little troubles of their customers; they can fathom the agony of despair as to the arrangement of colors, the alternative trimmings, the duration of a fashion, the depths of a woman's purse, and, more important than all, the question as to the becomingness of a dress, or a combination of material to the would-be wearer. No man can understand all these little refineinents; his nature is too gross, too material."

SOME LESSONS OF THE YALU FIGHT.

Captain S. Eardley-Wilmot writing on the collapse of the Chinese Navy, points out that the fight off the Yalu River, the first battle between squadrons with modern armaments, has many important lessons for the naval powers, and especially for England. It was practically determined by the gun, but the inflammable properties of shell played an important part. It is the internal fittings which will be ignited, if of inflammable materials, by these small, quick-firing shells. Hence wood should be used as little as possible. Cabin bulkheads and fittings should be of iron, and even wooden decks must disappear.

"Clearly, we should take a lesson from this battle in the provision of rapid-fire guns. How do we stand at the present moment? We began well in taking up the system with new ordnance, but did not apply it to the older guns. Though the chief damage was done by small ordnance, the effect of heavy guns at close quarters was very marked. The efficacy of armor in the case of these Chinese ships was fully established. It preserved the vital parts from material damage and the principal armament from disablement, though these vessels were struck more than a hundred times."

THE CHARACTER OF TALLEYRAND.

Mr. Frederick Clarke, writing on Lady Blennerhassett's memoirs of Talleyrand, thinks that she is too favorable to the prince. He says: "By all means let justice be done to him. Let us recognize to the full what Lady Blennerhassett brings out so clearly in her weighty and valuable book-his moderation, his sincere love of peace, his prescience, his clear-sightedness, his consistency in spite of apparent contradictions, above all, his marvelous good sense. But let us be careful that recognition of his merits, and the strange fascination which his personality still exercises, do not lead us to speak of him in terms which can only be properly applied to men of a higher stamp. But she speaks of his 'elevated ideal of patriotism.' Can the author of the apology for the rising of the 10th of August, 1792, the blackmailer of the American

envoys, the unblushing recipient of bribes from all quarters, the silent accomplice of the murder of the Duke of Enghien, be justly called a 'great' patriot? If so, what epithet are we to reserve for statesmen who have

E

rendered equally important services to their country and who were pure of heart and hand? And assuredly there is not much that is elevated, in the sense of noble and high-minded, about Talleyrand."

THE REVUE DE PARIS.

RNEST LAVISSE, the Academician, has succeeded James Darmesteter in the co-editorship of this, the youngest, but most vigorous, of French reviews.

The editors are performing a service to literature in publishing a second series of Balzac's letters to Madame Hanska. As we remarked of those first published, they should take their place among the famous love-letters of the world, not only from their incomparable beauty of style, but because they lay bare to the reader the soul and heart of one of the greatest students of life the world has ever seen. In contrast to the letters written for Madame Hanska's own eye are those which the lady was evidently meant to share with her husband. As is well known, twenty years passed between the novelist's first meeting with the Russian lady to whom he was so long devoted and their marriage.

Gaston Paris pays an eloquent tribute to the late Professor Darmesteter. "A great light has gone out of the world, a noble heart has ceased to beat, past ages are no longer lit up by a great intellect, capable of also summoning up the present and foreseeing the future." So begins. M. Paris's fine article.

The only political article in either December number of the Revue is by Giacometti. It deals with what the writer chooses to call "The Anglo-Prussian-Italian policy from 1859 to 1894;" although his article is in reality a violent attack on and answer to Mr. W. L. Alden's late article in the Nineteenth Century. He qualifies the English writer's work as having been "A bestial appeal to the worst feelings of envy, vanity, and covetousness common to humanity, called into being to set one sister nation (Italy) against another (France)."

The second number of the Revue starts with the last air ever written by Gounod; the words accompanying it are entitled "Repentance." As is well known, the great composer was fond of church music, and devotional words inspired him far more than ordinary verse.

The author of "An Eminent Politician" contributes some delightful pages on his friend and fellow novelist, Anatole France, whose "Thaïs," "Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard," and excellent critical writing, have placed him among the first of French writers. According to M. Rod, Anatole France began writing some twenty years ago, immediately after leaving the engineering college where he had been educated. Two small volumes of verse were his first contribution to literature; then followed some short stories, "Sylvestre Bonnard" and "Thaïs," which last may be said to have made the author's reputation. M. Rod speaks both as an admirer and a critic of his friend's work; he tells us little or nothing about the man, but a great deal of his peculiar kind of talent or genius; M. France can reconstitute not only the pagan, but also the medieval world, in which his last stories and studies of human nature are laid.

M. Ernest Daudet, the son of the well-known novelist, and himself a thoughtful critic and writer, contributes a curious account of the kidnapping of a bishop-Monseigneur de Pancemont-in the year 1806 by the militant Royalists of that day, who were anxious to install in his place his pre-Revolution predecessor Monseigneur Amelot.

The Royalists were headed by a remarkable individual named La Haye St. Hilaire, a famous Chouan. They kidnapped the bishop during one of his parochial visitations, and made him pay an enormous ransom, giving him a shock from which he was long in recovering; and yet, perchance unknowingly, M. Daudet's readers cannot but feel sorry for the Chouan bandit and his little band of faithful followers, who were one by one tracked remorselessly by Bonaparte and his agents. La Haye St. Hilaire was himself caught by the treachery of a spy, and defended himself desperately, only to be finally taken and court martialed, and shot the same night, on account of his awful wounds, fastened in an arm chair. He was only thirty, and his group of friends scarcely older, yet for years these lovers of the old régime defied from their Breton fastnesses, Bonaparte, first as Consul and after as Emperor, carrying with them the secret sympathies of the whole population.

THE NOUVELLE REVUE.

HE December numbers of the Nouvelle Revue are

decidedly strong in fiction and biography, Pierre

Loti concludes his travels in the Desert and begins his Jerusalem, which promises to give a marvelously striking picture of the Holy Land as seen through French eyes today. Maeterlinck (the Belgian Shakespeare) tells the life story of Von Hardenberg, a German eighteenth-century Foet better known as Novalis." The first act of Ibsen's new drama," Little Eyolf," is excellently translated, and with the exception of an article by M. Rimler entitled "The Reconciliation of the Magyars and the Slavs," Russia and things Russian are conspicuous by their absence.

Full of interest to students of the French Revolution will be found the fragmentary memoirs of Victor de Tracy, written it seems in 1851, and embodying the writer's childish recollections of '93. His family were intimate with the future wife of Napoleon I, and apropos of her marriage to Bonaparte is told the following little story: "It was in 1785 an old friend of my mother's came in to dinner. Well,' said she, 'have you any news?' 'No, there's nothing fresh that I know of,' he answered; 'but, by the bye, were you not at one time intimate with a charming creole widow, Madame Beauharnais? Well, she is about to marry an insignificant little Corsican officer, lacking both fortune and personal distinction. He is small, ugly, and yellow, and is many years younger than herself. All her friends have moved heaven and earth to prevent her committing such a folly, but their efforts have been thrown away, thanks to Barras who has made the match !'"

M. Joly discusses the various Parisian institutions which are the French fellows of the English and American societies for the protection of children. The most powerful of these is entitled "Sauvetage de l'Enfance," and is fortunate in having Jules Simon as president. This society was really only founded to deal with the wants of the destitute or abandoned young children; but during the last four years an association has been founded having for a special object that of assisting homeless and friendless young people from the ages of thirteen to eighteen,

and has been doing excellent work. This society has just opened a new shelter, where work is given out and temporary assistance afforded to youthful applicants. An idea of how much such a society was needed may be gained by the statement that in the course of January, 1894, 170 boys and 9 girls applied for admission to the first shelter; of this number 40 were total orphans, 84 had lost one parent by death or divorce, 57 acknowledged a father and mother, but only 4 admitted to being on friendly terms with their parents. M. Joly declares that in many cases the young people were very literally waifs and strays, and had not come from the criminal classes, for not more than 2 or 3 per cent. of those who make use of the shelter had been in prison.

The first effort of this society is to try and find the parents of their protégés, the second to find work for them either in Paris or the country, and in this last they are often exceptionally successful. It is interesting to note that not a word is said in the article as to emigration being a possible outlet for the vagrant Parisian.

THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDES.

LEROY BEAULIEU attempts to analyze the

M. part that should be and is played by luxury in

modern life. He has scarcely made as much of the subject as he might have done; but his researches on the subject bring to light many curious facts about these far from modern factors in human existence. From time to time ineffectual attempts have been made to restrain luxury in Greece. Lycurgus made a determined attempt to surpress what were then considered the superfluities of life. At Athens, Solon appointed a number of inspectors to see to the simplicity of weddings and funerals. The French potentates of the Middle Ages were even more severe, and some of these laws lingered and were in force, more or less, to the end of the last century. M. Leroy Beaulieu points out that in England citizens choosing to make use of armorial bearings are taxed, that these sumptuary laws still bring in over a million and a half to France, but it is only fair to say that no country in the world exports so many objects of luxury as does that country. The writer evidently envies the immense English and American fortunes which enable their owners to become splendid benefactors to humanity. He speaks of them as intelligent steward-like millionaires, and insists on the value of what he somewhat quaintly styles "remunerative philanthropy," this being, if we understand him rightly, the erection by the wealthy of buildings such as workmen's dwellings, self-supporting institutions, and so on.

Vicomte de Vogüé discusses in his usual efficient manner the important question of Madagascar considered with reference to French colonization. He is far from sharing the general idea that the Frenchman is not a colonizing animal. During the French Revolution, he says proudly, France may be said to have colonized all Europe-with ideas, and he quotes the conquest of Algiers as a proof that the French nation can, when put to it, make herself at home in Africa. The Vicomte de Vogüé is a firm believer in private enterprise and longs to see established in Madagascar a local John Company, capable of taking care not only of their own financial interests, but of the European population gathered round.

In the second number of the Revue des Deux Mondes the first place is given to the newest Academician, M. Henry Houssaye, who sums up in clear and sober language the history of the last army commanded by Napoleon the First.

The conversion of private enterprises into state proper

ties has always been a favorite dream of French politicians. This, in view of war or internal difficulties, specially applies to the great railways. M. R. G. Levy discusses the subject from the point of view of one who approves of the actual state of things being at least continued for the present. He points out that the concessions granted to the six principal companies, those controlling the North, the West, the East and the Riviera, will not expire till the middle of the next century. He would like to see a better spirit of mutual forbearance between the state and the companies, and an absolute control of the latter by the former-especially as regards the cost of merchandise transport.

M. Jules Lemaitre, the well-known critic and play wright, who may be said to have been one of the very first to introduce Ibsen to the non-Scandinavian reader, contributes a thoughtful article on the influence recently exercised by Northern writers on European literature. Curiously enough, he begins by analyzing the power and strength of George Eliot, and compares the two GeorgesMadame Sand and Marian Evans-paying homage to both. He then passes on to Ibsen, whose dramas he declares to be in each case the story of a spiritual revolt, and a straining after moral and physical freedom. According to the French writer, Ibsen preaches above all the love of truth and the hatred of lying; and again he draws an extraordinary parallel between the author of the "Doll's House" and a number of modern French writers, notably Dumas fils. In fact, M. Lemaitre seems anxious to prove that for every great literary master come out of the North, whether it be Ibsen, Dostoiewsky or Tolstoi, they all have or have had French counterparts, who dealt with life and its problems as they choose to do. Still he is singularly just, and in no way attempts to prove that the influence of France has played any part in the genius of those whose work he here attempts to analyze and explain.

THE

THE ITALIAN REVIEWS.

HE Civiltà Cattolica (December 15) has an article protesting energetically against the expression "Catholic Socialism," as being an illogical misnomer, and making a special attack on M. E. de Laveleye, and on Signor F. Nitti, the distinguished Italian writer on social subjects. In an article entitled "The Mass in Secret Sects," which goes to prove that Freemasonry is regarded by its votaries as a practical religion, some curious details are given concerning the ceremonies of the Italian masonic lodges, many of which are travesties of Catholic ceremonies. It would appear that the worship of Lucifer is carried to extraordinary lengths in some of these lodges, and it is in connection with these rites that the constant sacrilegious attempts are made by the "Luciferians" to become possessed of the Consecrated Hosts reserved in Catholic churches. The Rassegna Nazionale contains an admirable article explaining the attitude of Archbishop Ireland toward social questions, and giving copious extracts from his published addresses. The Riforma Sociale, under Signor Nitti's editorship, continues its supply of learned and academic articles on the social and economic problems of the day, the one possessed of the most actuality in the current numbers is an article by Professor E. Vandervelde, a well-known Belgian deputy, giving many details concerning the recent growth of Socialism in Belgium resulting in the surprising parliamentary victory at the recent election. The Belgian labor party was only founded at Brussels in 1885; nevertheless, twenty-eight labor representatives occupy seats to-day in the Belgian Parliament.

M

Y bookseller tells me, and his list will show, that the books which have been selling best are either distinctively Christmas books, or are volumes which have been out for some little time. The "Baron Munchausen " mentioned is that pleasant reissue which we owe to the enterprise of Messrs. Lawrence & Bullen, a comparatively recent firm, whose new editions are earning them an excellent reputation; and Mr. Henty's "When London Burned" is only another of the historical stories which he evolves-two or three every season-for the delectation of his "dear lads," as he chooses to call the boys for whom he writes. Then the "Life and Letters of Erasmus" is a cheap edition of the last book, alas! of Mr. Froude's to appear during his lifetime, and owes much of its popularity, no doubt, to that fact. In the same way I learn that Mr. Stevenson's sudden death has doubled and trebled the demand for all his works. Especially is the Edinburgh edition sought after; but as the whole edition was, I believe, subscribed for before the first volume appeared, the people who put off ordering sets have been disappointed. The second volume was published within a few hours of the sad news reaching England, and contains what most critics consider his best work, judged from the literary point of view-"An Inland Voyage and "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes" (this last prefaced by the dedication in which it is odd that Mr. Stevenson, the most careful of craftsmen, should allow himself unintentionally to liken an estimable friend to the beast of burden whose name is enshrined in his title). The success of "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush" is gratifying, for of its sort it is a sterling book. But it is rather unusual that the fashion which Mr. Barrie created with "A Window in Thrums " should have continued for so long a period. What with Mr. Barrie, Mr. Crockett and Mr. Maclaren, this particular kind of Scotch fiction is in danger of being overdone,-to say nothing of the writers who have used the same method on English and Irish material. But here is the list of "volumes most in demand":

"The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen." "More Memories: Being Thoughts About England Spoken in America." By Dean Hole.

"When London Burned: a Story of Restoration Times and the Great Fire." By G. A. Henty.

"The Use of Life." By Sir John Lubbock.

"Life and Letters of Erasmus." By James Anthony Froude.

"Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush." By Ian Maclaren. Robert Louis Stevenson's Works: the Edinburgh Edition.

"Life and Letters of Dean Church." Edited by Mary C. Church.

"Odes and Other Poems." By William Watson.

In the field of sociology, a most significant book of the day is Mr. Robert Blatchford's "Merrie England." It is a complex curiosity. It first strikes the eye as something anique in the way of cheap publication. It is a crown octavo volume, comprising over two hundred closely printed pages. It is produced, as its cover is careful to inform us, "by trade union labor on English-made

paper;" it contains only two pages of other than the publishers' own advertisements, and it is offered to the public at the price of one penny. It has, moreover, secured a circulation as phenomenal as its price. Since its issue in October it has gone through five editions, each a hundred thousand copies strong, and all sold before they were printed. The sixth and seventh hundred thousand are now in the press, they, too, being in great part ordered beforehand. It is confidently anticipated that before the spring arrives the total of copies published will reach one million. A book which can in six months command a million purchasers must be accounted something of a prodigy. If we take the very moderate estimate that for every person who buys a book there are three who read it, we shall set down the readers of "Merrie England" as moving on toward three millions.

This extraordinary vogue might cause less surprise if "Merrie England" were some thrilling tale of adventure, love or crime. But it is no romance. It has no thickening plot of personal passion to hold the reader's tancy captive to the end. Its chapters originally appeared as separate articles in the weekly Clarion. And, under the stern difficulties which this manner of issue imposes, it discusses matter-of-fact questions of rent and profit and wages. It is in fact, a treatise on the "dismal science;" but it never stoops to assume that disguise of fiction in which Mr. Bellamy thinly veils his lectures on economics. Leaving alien aids aside, it expounds and enforces with frank directness what it conceives to be the national phase of Socialism.

The book so produced and so received is undoubtedly a sign of the times. But it is a sign not less pointed of the man who has shown himself able to speak to the times and to make himself widely heard. Yet it is a curious proof of the sectionalism of English society that Robert Blatchford is to the average member of the middle and upper classes a name almost entirely unknown. With his retinue of three million readers he might be supposed to pass for a personage fairly conspicuous in the nation's eye. But it is a question whether, to the ordinary middle class mind, the fictitious Harry Wharton, editor of the Clarion in Mrs. Humphry Ward's "Marcella," is not a less shadowy entity than the real editor of the actual Clarion. The audience of the latter, like his following, is well nigh exclusively composed of the working classes. It is this fact which establishes his significance.

The end of the year produced two very remarkable volumes of verse-Mr. Davidson's "Ballads and Songs," and Mr. William Watson's "Odes and Other Poems." Most of the numbers this last contains originally appeared in the Spectator, the Yellow Book and the Daily Chronicle. But they have that quality of endurable verse which allows a rereading and again a rereading only to add to our appreciation. There is hardly a serious piece in the volume but has the true, authentic, the great note. And to the clearness, the sanity of conception which is one of the strongest characteristics of Mr. Watson's verse is wedded an unusual perfection of form; never an epithet but is rightly fitted; and each line rings true, the product of a scrupulous ear. What, for instance, could be finer

Powerless from terror of her own vast power,
'Neath novel stars, beside a brink unknown;
And round her the sad Kings, with sleepless hands,
Piling the faggots, hour by doomful hour.

Mr. Watson's volume has not the novelty which one found in Mr. Davidson's. He is no poet of revolt, but the lineal descendant of Tennyson, of Wordsworth, and of Milton. His work is dignified and thoughtful rather than passionate. "He has carried on a great tradition almost faultlessly" some one has said in a review which, although enthusiastic, denied to him the highest praise in that he has set no new fashion, has inaugurated no new poetic era. But, as Mr. Watson says in his beautiful ode to Mr. A. C. Benson :

'Tis that we deem 'twill prove to-morrow's mode as well;" and he may well afford to disregard those to whom the old forms, the old traditions prove unsatisfying, when he can boast so large a mastery of the great modes which he has inherited.

Biography figures somewhat largely in the current market. Richard Owen, Charles Bradlaugh, Mrs. Craven, Whittier: each have their two volumes; while Mr. Charles Lowe compresses his "Alexander III of Russia" into a single volume. Of Charles Bradlaugh I need not speak. A doughty fighting man, whose like we shall not soon see again, has received loving canonization by a daughter's pen. He was one of the makers of the new England, whose works do follow him. The two volumes are closely printed, but how much they leave untold! Mrs. Craven was a fighter of another sort. Mrs. Bishop tells the life story of the cleverest Catholic woman Europe has produced this century with enthusiastic homage. The author of Le Récit d'une Sœur unites to faith, hope and charity, wit, tact and good sense. She was a modern saint in a world of drawing rooms and boudoirs. She was a woman of letters and of devotion. Uniting French lucidity with English common sense and Irish devotion, Mrs. Bishop had a congenial subject, and in her pleasant and fluent narrative Mrs. Craven's letters are imbedded like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As for The Life of Professor Owen," it is based on his correspondence, his own diaries and those of his wife, by his grandson, the Rev. Richard Owen, who is able to add to his own work a chapter by Professor Huxley. The volumes are illustrated. Mr. Charles Lowe's thick volume tells the story of the reign of the great Emperor of Peace. It is journalism rather than history, but good of its kind and smart withal.

The two handsome volumes in which Miss Belloc and Miss Shedlock have Englished and edited the letters and journals of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt have attracted much notice, not without cause. To be admitted to the confidences of the cleverest, wittiest, most audacious men of letters in the modern world, to see them in

their undress, yet to hear them at their best, to catch vivid realistic glimpses of the great whirling world of Paris-that is what is afforded to all those who read these volumes, and to that they will owe their success. The compilers being as much French as English, have here and there left more than the necessary French idiom to survive translation; but that adds to the piquancy of the work. The Goncourts were not men of heroic dimensions, except in each other's eyes; bat they gossiped well, knew everybody, and kept a journal in which there is much gay humor, mingled with many profound and subtle observations. Hence the popularity of their diaries and the favor with which this English version has been received. A volume to be read at the same time is Mr. Sherard's bright "Alphonse Daudet: a Biographical and Critical Study," a work similar in scope and intention to his study of Emile Zola. For those who care for the literary life and for literary gossip, and who have any knowledge at all of modern French literature, a more fascinating book could not be. Mr. Sherard has been admitted to M. Daudet's intimacy, and he has written a book of the liveliest kind and interesting and valuable to all those to whom literature is a cherished future. The account of Daudet's early struggles, his Bohemian days, before he gained the affluence and the ill health which have been with him in these later years, is particularly entertaining.

In the domain of fiction Mr. George Gissing's latest contribution, in three volumes, to his study of lower and middle class life in London is well worth reading. This time his scene is mainly in the villas of Camberwell, and most of his story and his characters are sordid and depressing. But there is salvation at the end; and, after all, Mr. Gissing is always interesting. And he is as realistic as he can be. He seems to work from "documents." day the reading public will wake up to find they have an English Zola in Mr. Gissing. At present he appears neglected.

Some

There are a few other volumes of fiction, one of which. at least, Mr. Frederick Wedmore's "English Episodes," has a literary importance. It is the shortest of books, containing but five very brief stories, but all written conscientiously, and in a style which, labored though it some times is, makes it pleasant reading. Of the short story of quiet character, as contrasted with that of character and lively incident, perhaps Mr. Wedmore is the most successful writer we have. And he improves. This collection is better than "Renunciations," its forerunner. There is a charm and peaceful simplicity about the book very refreshing in these days when fiction is divided into the hostile camps of somewhat morbid psychology and adventurous romance. For the rest, if one cares for the weird, the horrible, one will like "Aut Diabolus aut Nihil," a collection of short stories in which the supernatural plays the chief part. In the title story, for instance, Satan himself appears in modern Paris to a company of his worshipers. Of the other tales, "A Kiss of Judas " is the most impressive. But the truth is, neither here nor elsewhere does "X. L." know how to tell a story. He doesn't make the best use of his materials. Among other volumes is a pretty little pocket collection-published at a shilling-of "Weird Tales by American Writers "-Poe, Hawthorne, Irving and others. An etched portrait of Washington Irving serves as frontispiece. Volumes in the same series are "Love Tales from the German ;" "English Jests and Anecdotes," and a reprint of Hawkesworth's stories as they appeared in Leigh Hunt's well-known collection of "Classic Tales, Serious and Lively."