tions? Instead of the action of Austria

Hungary being used as a soporific, it seems to us that it should be used to enforce the lesson that it is unwise to rely too implicitly upon Conferences, Congresses, Arbitration Treaties, and all The Spectator.

the other paraphernalia of sentimentalism and humanitarianism. Our safety rests alone in our strong right arm, and in our honest determination neither to do wrong to other Powers nor to suffer them to do wrong to us.

It is announced that Mr. John D. Rockefeller's autobiography will be published in twelve languages simultaneously this month. Will it be anything like this?

CHAPTER I. Birth.

I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. One of my earliest toys was a golden calf. I still have it.

CHAPTER II. Parentage.

I am descended on one side from a thrifty and industrious Scotch stock; on the other, from the famous Kilmansegg family.

My instructors never ceased to instil in me the importance of economy and vigilance.

"Many a mickle," they used to say, "makes a muckle."

"Money," they used to say, "begets money."

"Money," they said, "is the only monarch."

"Money," they said, "is welcome, though it comes in a dirty clout."

CHAPTER III. Boyhood.

My boyhood was happy. Most of the technique of business may be learned when at school by an observant lad; and I was observant. I did a successful trade in marbles and sweets. I lent money to other boys at a good rate of interest, and rarely returned home in the evening without having added to my property. In this way by the time that ordinary boys are still doing foolish things I was in possession of a capital of two hundred dollars, and held I. O. U's from most of my schoolfellows.

CHAPTER IV.

Petroleum.

The most eventful moment of my life was that in which I chanced upon rock oil.

I was walking one day in the neighborhood of my home in moody silence. Everything was going wrong with me. My business was yielding only 98 per cent. instead of the 100 on whch I had set my heart, and I was in despair. Ruin stared me in the face. Passing through a field I happened to see a spring bubbling from the ground, but I thought nothing of it (as it was not large enough to drown myself in), until a little later a poor old woman stopped me and begged an alms. I obviously had no money to give her, as I made clear; but wishing to do what I could

UorM

I offered to get her a cup of cold water, it being my steady practice to do what I can for my fellow-creatures. She was very grateful, and I ran to the stream and dipped into it a pocket drinking-cup. Judge of my surprise when I found that instead of water it was oil! In an instant I realized the situation, and returning swiftly to town I found the owner of the property, and, successfully disguising my motives, purchased not only this particular field but all those around it. My fortune was made.

CHAPTER V.

The Standard Oil Trust.

After the discovery of the rock-oil spring, perhaps the most eventful and wonderful moment of my life was that in which I first hit upon the idea of a Trust. It is a beautiful word, Trust, and I have often taken it as a text in my Sunday-school addresses. Trust. We must all trust in something or some one. What could be more desirable in a world of darkness, disappointment and flux than that there should be one man to be relied upon for light? Relied upon. Many men have offered light to their groping fellows and have not given it: this man would be trustworthy.

Coming down to a material plane from these symbolical heights, what does light proceed from? From oil. The man, then, who could so manipulate things that he owned all the oil would automatically be the one person who could give the light.

Do you

see? He would form an Oil Trust, as we say in America, and illuminate the world.

I, I decided, would be that man; not

Punch.

Under the title "Counsels by the Way," Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. have gathered into a single attractive volume five of Dr. Henry Van Dyke's most characteristic essays, hitherto published separately. These are "Ships and Havens," "The Poetry of the Psalms," "Joy and Power," "The Battle of Life," and "The Good Old Way." All contain wise and helpful counsel, and are marked by spiritual insight.

The Rev. Alfred J. Church, who had previously retold the story of the Iliad and the Odyssey for boys and girls, has now rendered the same service by the Eneid, and the Macmillan Co. publishes the book in an attractive volume with twelve colored illustrations. Mr. Church has a rare gift for simplifying the old classic tales in such a way that they hold the attention of even young boys and girls, without departing from the original thread of the narrative. The present book will be read with as keen interest as a story of present-day adventure, at the same time that it familiarizes young readers with a story which will charm them still more, it is to be hoped, when later they read it in Virgil's limpid verse.

Disguise it as ingeniously as they may, conceal it with howsoever much skill, the favored hero of that clever pair, Agnes and Egerton Castle, is the "bad man" of the Wild West, and the more lustrous his satin and velvet, the more splendid his jewels, the greater his badness. When in addition to his imposing clothes, like the hero of "Wroth," the latest Castle story, he has profaned a church wherein to revel with his profligate companions, one knows that fate is going to give him the most virtuous and beautiful wife conceivable, and that he will repent so beautifully in two or three scenes that the procedure will seem highly proper.

This is exactly what happens, and jeer and shrug as one may, one does not lay down the book until the two are happily united in spite of the machinations of enemies and the mischievous devices of officious friends. The Macmillan Co.

It is idle to expend superlatives upon Mr. James Morgan's "Abraham Lincoln, the Boy and the Man," but for a simple and direct life-story, graphically and dramatically told, it holds a unique place among the numerous Lincoln biographies. It is encumbered with no superfluous details; it quotes from Lincoln's own utterances and from contemporary narratives and opinions only enough to illuminate the life and character of the good, great and patient man who bore the nation's burdens so uncomplainingly. It may

be commended without reserve to readers young or old. The author explains that the book is "not a critical study but a simple story." It is so much the better on that account. There is no lack of critical studies of Lincoln and his times, no dearth of voluminous biographies and histories of the man and the period. It is well that this year of the centenary of Lincoln's birth should witness the publication of this vivid life story, told in a book of moderate compass and of engaging interest from cover to cover. There are twenty or more illustrations. The Macmillan Co.

Whether or not it is wise, commendable or expedient, to present a boy too lazy to read Sir Walter with an abridged version of a Waverley novel is a question which was thoroughly discussed when Mr. S. R. Crockett published the first series of his "Red Cap Adventures," and it shall not be revived now that the second has come for Christmas. Tales from Ivanhoe, The

Fortunes of Nigel, Quentin Durward, The Pirate and The Legend of Montrose are these, and last of all a wee tale of Maid Margaret's own device, very sweetly describing her dream of Sir Walter, and making him so attractive that no well-bred child could possibly do otherwise than resolve to read him at first hand. The children who are supposed to tell the stories for good red gold offered by their father, the author, are most pleasant and profitable acquaintances, showing by example how to extract gallant plays and exciting games from stories, and the pictures exhibit the story folk in their habit as they lived, even to poor King James. The child who does not devote himself to reading the Waverley novels as soon as he finishes "Red Cap Adventures" is a craven caitiff, to say the least.

The Macmillan Co.

Fortunate posterity! Not only is it to enjoy all the wonderful inventions to be developed by itself, but it is to be enabled to study the past more thoroughly than has been within the power of its ancestors! The nineteenth century unearthed fragments of half a hundred ancient civilizations, made many a meaningless name a reality, sharpened the powers of conjecture, revolutionized philology, advanced from the period in which the Rosetta stone was a marvel to the time when the customs and manners of prehistoric folk were familiar in men's mouths, but posterity may walk the streets of Herculaneum. The prospect would wake enthusiasm in a mind with no more knowledge of antiquity than may be gained from "The Last Days of Pompeii," but it arouses Dr. Charles Waldstein, explorer and scholar, to such heights of joyous expectation that parts of his great volume "Herculaneum, Past, Present, and Future," are positively poetic, and well they may be. As swiftly and almost as gently as the pal

ace of the Sleeping Beauty sank into unmoving silence, Herculaneum was whelmed in the torrents of mud and water beneath which it now lies, so little changed that Professor Waldstein can fearlessly ask, "Who can be certain that no lazy young woman may have left her pocket Sappho on some library shelf"; and rejoice in the possibility of reading the long unknown verses. The thousand significant trifles of daily living appear in due order to show precisely how Pliny's contemporaries filled the hours from dawn to dusk and thence to dawn again. All this has long been known, but for various reasons excavation on a large scale has never been undertaken, but, thanks in a great measure to Professor Waldstein, the Italian government is preparing for serious work in exploration, and it may be that the half-abandoned scheme of international excavation will be pursued. Meantime, Professor Waldstein and his coadjutor, Mr. Leonard Shoobridge, M.A., put forward this book giving the history of past efforts and stating future prospects. Eleven heliogravures and color prints present wall paintings still glowing in their original hues; statues on which the patina is unbroken; and marble busts of the best Greek period, and forty-eight halftone plates set forth more and more treasures. Paris and Florence have aided in bringing together this collection, and the very existence of this book is almost evidence that the international plan will in the end be adopted. Surely no nation will care to stand outside such a project for enlarging human knowledge, and even more surely the generosity of Italy will not refuse sister nations an opportunity to join in a work so wonderful and so exhilarating. Every copy of this book will become a centre of effort to speed the day when Herculaneum will be freed from its entombment. Lucky posterity! The Macmillan Co.