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THE COSMOPOLITAN.

HE November Cosmopolitan publishes some further "Personal Recollections of the Tai-Ping Rebellion," by General Edward Forrester, second in command of the "Ever Victorious" army and the successor of General Frederick E. Ward. General Forrester was captured by the rebels; his hopes that he would be shot in a moment of temper were quickly dashed by the pleasant news that he was to be covered with paper, soaked in oil, and then set on fire to burn until he should be reduced to cinders.

My guards led me to an underground room, lined with concrete, which had been used as a magazine, there to spend the night and await in anticipation of my approaching death. There was not the slightest hope of escape. My legs as well as my arms were securely bound. A crowd of curious rebels hung around the door, staring and jeering. Among them was the fourteen-year-old son of The Protecting King, who was accompanied by his tutor, a dignified and fine-looking old fellow. The boy was smoking a silver pipe, and, puffing it rapidly until the bowl had become almost red hot, he touched it to my unprotected body. The flesh sizzled, and the crowd applauded the cruelty. He did it several times, until, finally, his position bringing him within my reach, I drew back both feet and gave a kick that knocked him down and sent him sliding across the room. The boy lost all control of his temper, and, picking up a gingal, hurled it at me. The iron struck my shoulder and knocked me flat."

Mr. James I. Metcalfe tries to solve "The Stage and the Beauty Problem." He considers loveliness of face and form the very best advertisement that real artistic merit can have. The American actresses that rely on beauty are very far below their European sisters in their application of art to exploit their attractions. Some do not need it-for instance, Mary Anderson-but most do. The famous European stage beauties do not come to America in the heyday of their bloom; but when they do come, their triumphs in the Old World always assure them a generous share of box receipts.

Mr. Zangwill, writing from London, deplores the fact that no successors have been found to Gilbert and Sullivan in the manufacture of the comic opera. The authors that there are perpetrate the "gag" without an intermission. The literary tone of the separate lyrics is even more degenerate in these days than the music.

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MCCLURE'S.

HE November McClure's contains the first chapters of Rudyard Kipling's much-talked-of story, "Cap. tains Courageous." It has been heralded as a tale of the hardy race of New England fishermen who depart for the Grand Banks in the spring and do not see again their Gloucester cottages until the bleak winds of September are setting in. Mr. Kipling introduces us to the life aboard the fishing boats during their lonely stay on the banks by a curious and bold contrast. A pampered millionaire's son of sixteen, with two hundred a month for cigarette money, succumbs to sea-sickness on board a great ocean liner passing through the banks, and in his attempts to get to a portion of the vessel where his amour propre will not suffer, he falls overboard unseen by any one. He is picked up by a "Portugee" in a dory and taken back to a fishing schooner, where he is compelled to spend the whole season helping to salt

down cod. Mr. Kipling seems to be quite as much at home among the Yankee salts as in the cantonments of . India.

Ethel M. McKenna gives a pleasant picture of Laurens Alma-Tadema and his home in St. John's wood, near London. She likens the Alma-Tadema abode to an enchanted palace, and surely no artist ever dwelt in more artistic surroundings than this one has made for himself so near the dust and smoke of the great metropolis. Of the artist and his work she says:

"Mr. Tadema is one of the neatest of men; his studio is always the picture of order; no spot of paint has ever fallen upon the parquet; never does a paint brush lie neglected upon the floor, and his brushes are like new in their absolute cleanliness. So particular is he on this point that even his artist daughter is scarcely to be trusted with the labor of cleaning them. 'Père always says I make the handles greasy,' she laughingly tells you; 'he can't bear any one to wash them but himself.'

"Mr. Tadema's work is always fraught with sadness to his friends, for each of his pictures is the grave of many others. He never makes sketches, and could we but peel the paint in layers off each completed painting, we should find many a change of scene. The procession of spring-time, in one of his later works, once moved under a wonderful domed ceiling. But it did not satisfy the artist, who had a feeling for the blue sky, and the ceiling was painted out, to the bitter chagrin of many friends. Nor would they cease their lamentations at the destruction of this exquisite piece of work till Mr. Tadema promised that they should see it again, and it was to this promise that the painting Unconscious Rivals' owes its origin. The ceiling was painted once more and the two girls were inserted as a subject."

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LIPPINCOTT'S.

N the October Lippincott's Mr. R. G. Robinson deals with a subject of pleasant interest to the thousands of Northern people of leisure who are about to make their plans for a journey to Florida. Mr. Robinson tells us about three kinds of venomous snakes in the peninsula and their respective peculiarities. The rattler, the moccasin and the coral snake are the harmful ones, and contrary to general belief the moccasin comes first in the catalogue that ought to be avoided. And yet the coral snake is the most deadly, and differs from other poisonous reptiles in being remarkably slender and graceful. It is scarcely larger than a lady's finger, indeed, whereas the poisonous snakes are almost always characterized by thick, short bodies and blunt tails. The coral snake is marked in a very gaudy fashion. They are rare and do not strike except to defend themselves. The large rattlers and moccasins are much prone to try the effect of their fangs. The moccasin grows to a length of four feet and is perhaps three inches in diameter. It is a dirty brown color, and frequents swamps and lowlands. It is a slow snake, but never makes way for intruders, and has a standing rule to strike anything living that comes within its reach. An unpleasant feature of its bite is that, even though it does not prove fatal, it may only heal up to break out fresh at intervals. The rattlesnakes grow to a length of six or seven feet and a diameter of three to five inches. If their fangs strike an important artery it is difficult to deal with the poison. All this sounds rather discouraging to intending Florida visitors, but Mr. Robinson goes on to tell us that really Florida has fewer snakes than other districts where so little civilization exists, and

that the chance of being bitten by a venomous snake is scarcely more than that of being struck by lightning. For the cure he sticks to the old prescription of a quart of whisky. Really the only contingency which it is worth while to provide against comes in hunting, especially hunting quail in the palmetto bushes in Florida. There the snakes are extremely liable to lie under the palmettos, and the dogs have an excellent opportunity of meeting with lusty rattlers. If tall, heavy boots are worn by the men they have little to fear, but the setters are in imminent danger of their lives.

Allan Hendricks writes on "The Land of the Five Tribes," by which he means the Indian Territory and its five Indian nations who have the right of self-government. He thinks the territory is an anomaly and an anachronism. He favors allotment of the land to those entitled to it, coupling the allotment with a prohibition of alienation for a period of years. This will stop the unlawful land-grabbing by the whites and would give the Indian even more land than he could utilize. He would be stimulated, Mr. Hendricks thinks, to selfimprovement. He thinks that in the present state of affairs the needy members of the five tribes are sinking lower and lower in the scale of humanity because of certain old agreements now long out of date.

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THE FORUM.

LSEWHERE we have quoted from Professor Hibben's article on "Princeton College and Patriotism," and from the Hon. Hugh H. Lusk's comparison of American with Australian ballot laws.

The October Forum presents four articles intended to show "What Free Coinage Means." Ex-President Harrison says it means "Compulsory Dishonesty," since debtors will not merely be permitted, but compelled to pay in the debased dollar. John A. McCall, president of the New York Life Insurance Company, discusses “Free Coinage and the Life Insurance Companies;" Edward King, president of the Union Trust Company of New York City, considers "Free Coinage and Trust Companies," and John M. Stahl of the Farmers' National Congress deals with "Free Coinage and Farmers."

Professor Thomas Davidson, writing on "The Creed of the Sultan," declares that there is no more reason for despairing of the reformation of Islâm now than there was for despairing of that of Christianity in the days of Luther and Knox, “or of its further, sadly needed, reformation to-day." Only, he says, we must bear in mind that no reformation can come to Islâm through any attempt to impose upon it the doctrines of Christianity.

"Any such attempt can only provoke resistance and hatred. Islâm has sunk, not because its Bible is the Koran, and its Paternoster the Fâtihah, but because it has rejected philosophy and science and sought truth by commenting on the Koran. What it needs, what it may well demand, in return for its ancient services to us, is rational enlightenment-instruction in the principles of civilized life-not dogma to replace dogma. For this it is, in some degree, ready now, and will become more so as its demands are met. Our duty is plain. As Islâm once rescued us from the blight of Christian supernaturalism and spiritual slavery, so ought we now, in gratitude, to rescue it from the Muslim curse of sensuality, fatalism and ignorance, by making it acquainted with the great thinkers of its own past, and the best thought of the present. Religion and civilization are larger than either Christianity or Islâm."

Professor Harald Hjärne furnishes an entertaining account of King Oscar of Sweden and Norway, one of the few truly cultured representatives of European royalty. The king, among his many accomplishments, possesses the gift of oratory.

"His strong, sonorous, musically-trained voice sends every word he utters penetrating into the farthest recesses of spacious assembly halls and is also heard at a great distance in the open air. His speeches, several volumes of which have been published, have been declaimed on the most varied occasions: from the throne to the representatives of the people, at great national and local solemnities, in academies and other public societies, at royal or private banquets. They are distin. guished by a lofty diction, by many happy turns of phrase, profound thoughts, and solid insight into the subject he is treating of. He speaks both the Swedish and the Norwegian languages equally fluently, a so much the more difficult feat as they are, properly speaking, but two dialects of the same tongue, exceedingly wont to be confused in conversation. He expresses himself with almost the same facility in French, German, English and Italian, and is not devoid of some notions of Russian and Spanish. By wide travels from his youth upward-he was educated as a naval officer-within and beyond the bounds of Europe he has trained his linguistic talents and acquired a discerning understanding of historical antiquities and the requirements of modern life. His reading embraces the literatures to a large extent of all the languages that he speaks. He is very well versed, too, in Latin classical literature.”

Professor W. G. Sumner discusses "Banks of Issue in the United States," and their history, with his accustomed force and lucidity. His philosophy to account for the strength of sentiments favoring currency inflation in a new country has a bearing on recent developments in our own West. The first settlers, he says, are men without capital, though they have the land and are ready to apply their own labor to it.

"Their economic weakness is in the want of capital. The confusion of capital and money is radical and persistent. It may appear at any moment in the thinking of any man, if it is not guarded against by well-trained scrutiny. It is favored by current forms of expression which cannot be altered and by popular and customary ways of looking at phenomena. It is further strengthened by the lamentable fact that the terms have no fixed and universally accepted definitions. It is inevitable that, in the absence of special training to the contrary, a man will think that he wants the medium of exchange when he wants the goods which are exchanged."

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

N our department of "Leading Articles" will be found quotations from Bishop Merrill's article on "Our Electoral System," from Sir John E. Gorst's survey of the condition of education in England, and from Justice Walter Clark's prediction of constitutional changes in the event of a victory for silver at the polls. "The Safe Pathway of Experience" is the title of the opening article by Speaker Reed. He says:

"If we could lift silver to twice its height and keep it there, we would be glad to do it, because the good of any part of the country is the good of all. But all experience shows we cannot do it. If buying nearly the whole American product seemed but to stimulate the

fall, will taking the balance raise it? It will not do to reply that we believe' so and so. That may do for theology, but not for business. Things in this world go on irrespective of our beliefs. 'We believe' was as freely uttered about the purchase clause of the Sherman act as it is about free coinage; and yet silver did not go to par; but, on the contrary, went steadily and ruthlessly down. The laws of nature have no mercy on theories. The very purchase so stimulated production as to help cause the fall."

The Hon. Albion W. Tourgée contributes a rather academic discussion of "The Best Currency." His article contains much of the "we believe" element tabooed by Speaker Reed. His main proposition, which is certainly deserving of attention, is to supply the demand for currency by the issue of treasury notes.

Mr. Louis Windmüller writes a conservative article on the probable shrinkage of wages in the event of free coinage. He concedes that three classes in the community would gain by that policy :

"(1) Owners and miners of silver who can get it converted into fifty-cent dollars and pass these for almost their face value before they depreciate.

"(2) Brokers would make money for themselves and their speculative customers, as they did during the war, by fluctuations in the premiums on gold, foreign exchanges and certain commodities.

"(3) Exporters of manufactures could pay their help in depreciated money, and sell the goods in foreign countries for gold. Wages paid in Japan, the most powerful of the few nations who yet cling to silver, average forty cents a day for skilled labor, enabling Japanese manu facturers to compete with the English in their own colonies."

The laborer and the professional man, as well as the farmer, could only be losers, in Mr. Windmüller's opinion.

Hon. Thomas R. Jernigan, the United States ConsulGeneral at Shanghai, writes frankly concerning certain defects in our consular system, particularly the frequent offical changes, the comparatively small salaries paid and the failure of the United States to purchase buildings for the service, or even to pay full rent of suitable consular residences. These evils, taken together, constitute in Mr. Jernigan's opinion a real hindrance to our foreign trade, in which sentiment it would seem that all Americans of sense should fully concur.

Secretary Herbert and Andrew Carnegie contribute articles of quite similar tenor on the present industrial situation. Mr. Carnegie's article "The Ship of State Adrift "-is a sequel to his article in the June North American, under the same title, from which we quoted at the time of its appearance. Mr. Carnegie's present views seen more hopeful, and he has full confidence that the ship. though drifting, will not be given up.

The

Dr. R. Osgood Mason has a suggestive article on Educational Uses of Hypnotism." Many people who have been interested in hypnotism have still been skeptical as to its practical uses. Dr. Mason, however, affirms that we may look forward with confidence to important developments in thedirection of a pedagogical application of hypnotic suggestion. One of Dr. Mason's illustrations will show what he thinks possible on these lines :

"Suppose the patient to be a boy with the cigarette habit, and the physician had suggested as follows: When you awake you will no longer desire to smoke. On the contrary, the very thought of it will be disagree

able to you, and you will avoid it altogether.' He awakes, he knows nothing of what has transpired, but he finds he has no longer the desire to smoke, and consequently he ceases the practice."

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THE ARENA.

E have quoted from Professor Parsons' article on the silver question in our department of "Leading Articles."

Senators Morgan of Alabama and Jones of Nevada also contribute articles on the issue of the hour, Senator Morgan stating the theoretical reasons for giving silver equal rank with gold as a money metal, and Senator Jones presenting a more direct and practical argument for the proposition of free coinage as an immediate national policy.

Dr. William Howe Tolman offers several valuable suggestions to citizens interested in municipal reform.

"The primary method for bringing about a municipal reform is self-knowledge, not of the city as a whole, or of a great department like that of finance, or of a great problem like that of the saloon or of the tenement house, but the facts as they exist in your particular house, in your street, in your election district, in your assembly district, and in your ward. If you grasp the facts relative to these areas you can then deal with more complicated problems of your city. However, if you are averse to undertake such A B C work, you can test your ability and your present knowledge by the answers you can give to these questions: Who is your alderman? In case the flagging of your sidewalk is defective, to what department would you go for redress? Where is the station-house and what are the boundaries of the precinct? Who represents you in the Assembly? These are the facts of common every-day citizenship, and your ability to answer these questions will show if you can be promoted into the next higher class or if you even know enough to be in the primary class. The practical politician succeeds because he knows his city, and he deserves to."

THE

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

HE Nineteenth Century for October contains no fewer than six separate articles on the Eastern Question, which are noticed elsewhere.

THE VEXED PROBLEM OF PRISON LABOR. Sir Edmund Du Cane, in an article entitled "The Unavoidable Uselessness of Prison Labor," describes the difficulties which he has in vain attempted to overcome in order to attain the ideal of finding prisoners profita. ble work. His conclusion of the whole matter is:

"The only solution of all the difficulties, as I believe, is that prisons should be looked on as workshops for articles required for the government service, considered as a whole-that is, they should be made sources of supply of articles required by other government departments;

and that it should be clearly established as a general principle that it is the duty of the officers of those departments to find employment for prisoners in making some of the numerous articles they require in such large quantities. Prisoners are in fact workmen maintained at government cost, and as government requires plenty of work to be done, it is perfectly natural that the workmen it maintains should be employed for its benefit."

A GREAT MASTER BUT A RASCAL.

The late Sir Joseph D. Crowe tells the story of the disreputable life of the great artist Fra Filippo Lippi. He says: "He became, in fact, one of the great masters of his age, and, although beneath the level of Angelico Masaccio and other equally eminent men, is still entitled to rank high in the hierarchy of his profession. Morally he deserved the pillory, yet Lorenzo de' Medici caused a monument to be erected to his memory on a model furnished by Filippino, and we still enjoy the lovely productions of the artist, while we are taught to abhor the actions which debased the character of the individual man."

A PLEA FOR HORSE AMBULANCES IN LONDON.

The Honorable Dudley Leigh has an article, full of facts and figures, which ought to lead to the introduction of horse ambulances in English cities. Every year in London one hundred and fifty people are killed in the streets, and five thousand people are injured; but although this army of wounded men must be dealt with, they are removed to the hospital either on a police stretcher or a four-wheeler. M Leigh quotes the experience of New York and New Orleans, Vienna and other cities. He thinks that an ambulance costs about £90 and could be maintained in England for £150 a year. There are twelve ambulance wagons in Pittsburgh, thirty-one in New York City, twenty in Vienna. Mr. Leigh suggests that the London County Council should take up the matter, either by subsidizing the hospitals according to the number of ambulances employed by each, which is the way things are arranged in Brooklyn, or by working them by means of their own employees in conjunction with the hospitals.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Mr. E. H. Hankin, an Anglo-Indian official, who has been engaged in conducting a sanitary campaign among the natives against cholera, writes an article on his experiences which is full of interesting and out-of-the way information. Mr. J. T. Bent describes his excursions around the frontier of the territory ruled by the Dervishes, and Mr. J. H. Round describes, with much detail, the unsuccessful effort made by an emissary of the Archduke Charles to induce Queen Elizabeth to marry.

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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW.

HE Contemporary Review for October is bright and varied. The articles on the Constantinople massacres and American women are noticed elsewhere. THE INVENTOR OF DIABOLISM.

A great deal of fuss has been made of late concerning the alleged practice of the worst kind of black magic by Freemasons in France and elsewhere. Mr. F. Legge, in an article entitled "Devil Worship and Freemasonry," tells the whole story, and sums up very strongly in favor of the belief that it is a deliberate invention due to the perverse ingenuity and money-making passion of Leo Taxil :

"That M. Taxil is really M. Ricoux, Diana Vaughan and Dr. Bataille,' 'all rolled in one,' can hardly be proved at present. Certain tricks of style, corruptions of words, and obvious misstatements of fact are common to the writings of all four, and, if they were historical documents, would convince an expert that they were all by the same hand. But let it not be said that M. Taxil's literary career gives the lie to either of these theories. In 'Les Confessions d'un ex-Librepenseur,' published by him in Paris in 1887, he narrates, not without glee, that when engaged upon 'Les Amours Secrètes de Pie IX.,' he and his collaborators created 'an imaginary privy chamberlain of the Pope, to whom was given the name of Carlo Sebastiano Volpi, and the romance appeared with this apocryphal signature. I even wrote a letter from the pretended chevalier, which was published in the shape of a preface, and contributed to further deceive the public.' Later, he confesses that he willfully mistranslated cases of conscience, forged a bull of Excommunication against himself, and took in the ultra-Socialist journal, La Bataille, by writing for it a series of revelations of clerical iniquity in the name of a non-existent secretary of the Archbishop of Paris. This was, of course, in his unconverted days, but-qui a bu, boira!"

THE TRIUMPH OF THE ANTI-VACCINATIONISTS.

Mr. Picton, writing on the report of the Royal Commission of Vaccination, exults not a little over the signal discomfiture of the insolent vaccinationists. He says:

"Jenner, say the commission, believed that one operation' secured absolute immunity for the future.' 'It is certain in this he was mistaken.' They, in correction of Jenner, put the period, not very confidently, at ten years, though Dr. Gayton, who has had more experience of the small-pox than any member of the commission, would not guarantee the protection for six months. But even for this period of ten years they think that the influence amounts only to a diminution of the liability to attack of a modification of the character of the disease. To what insignificant dimensions do these admissions reduce the germ of the Jennerian myth!"

It is not surprising, seeing that vaccination is now declared even by its advocates not to do one-half what its early champions were prepared to swear it would accomplish, that only two members of the Royal Commission ventured to say a word in favor of compulsory revaccination, although, without revaccination, the whole population above the age of ten is left exposed to the unchecked ravages of small-pox. Mr. Picton naturally regards this as an admission that the game is up, and he proceeds to discuss what will come after vaccination has been relegated to the limbo of exploded superstitions :

"The poor must awake to their duties as municipal electors and vote for local councilors, not on political or personal grounds, but on grounds of social welfare. Telephones and ambulances should facilitate the quick removal of infectious patients, and suitable hospital accommodation should always be ready for those who cannot be isolated at home. All infected bedding and clothing should be burned, compensation being made by the town or district. Local authorities should be enpowered to compensate for loss of working time the poor who may have been exposed to infection, and to offer them comfortable quarantine. On evidence of initial small-pox in a school child or teacher, the school should be peremptorily closed for a fortnight, and the scholars be prohibited from attending any other. Tramps should

be more carefully watched, and power given to guardians for detention in hospital of any certified to show symptoms of small-pox. Such means of salvation as these would be far more effectual than blind confidence in an exploded theory. And if they are adopted, as they cer tainly will be, the generation living at the end of the twentieth century will find in the pathetic belief in vaccination one of the most interesting and instructive of the delusions of the nineteenth."

THE ORIGIN OF BUNYAN'S PILGRIM,

Mr. R. Heath has a highly ingenious article in which he argues that the origin, or, as he calls it, the archetype of the Pilgrim's Progress was no book, but the adventures of the Anabaptists, with whose sufferings Bunyan was familiar from childhood. Mr. Heath says: "The framework and mode of thought of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' come from Anabaptist sources and originate in the actual history of hundreds of martyr. lives in the century previous to that in which Bunyan lived. We shall find at every step in the progress of Bunyan's pilgrim an analogy to that of the Anabaptist who had determined to quit a society doomed to destruction for a Divine community modeled on that which the Apostles gathered on the Day of Pentecost." His article is very ingenious and well worth reading.

THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

HE Fortnightly Review for October is distinctly a have ideas in them expressed by people who know how to write. We notice elsewhere Mr. H. G. Wells' remarkable article on "Human Evolution an Artificial Process," with two articles on the Eastern Question.

A PLEA FOR A MISSIONARY JUDAISM.

It is impossible not to sympathize with Mr. O. J. Simon, who in his article on "The Mission of Judaism" once more raises his despairing voice in favor of a propaganda of Judaism. Unfortunately, as Mr. Simon has found out to his cost, the religion in which the modern Jew believes is the religion of material comfort; and he listens with a disdainful shrug to Mr. Simon's eloquent exposition of his religious mission. Mr. Simon would constitute the Church of Israel, which would hold services on Sunday, and endeavor to convert Christendom from its Trinitarianism to Monotheism :

"In England and America, and perhaps in another generation in France and in Germany, we might hold out the hand of religions brotherhood to our non Jewish neighbors, and proclaim to them the simple and sublime faith which has borne the test of the most varied as well as the most enduring of all racial histories."

In the Church of Israel in the way organized, according to Mr. Simon's ideas: "the religion of the Jews should be presented in a form that would render it immediately intelligible to ordinary Englishmen. Such a synagogue or church as would be deliberately intended to welcome Englishmen who are not Jews would be free from the restraint of that Orientalism which, in the ordinary Jewish place of worship, is justifiably preserved. The right of circumcision would not be incumbent. Indeed I should strongly repudiate any form of ritual initiation, on the ground that faith alone should be the passport to the Universal Jewish Theistic Church. The public worship would obviously be conducted in the vernacular and not in Hebrew. The prayer-book would be compiled upon the

existing Jewish liturgies, with such modifications as would be indispensable to make it appropriate for a nonJewish congregation. I would wish that the ministers of such a church should continue to be conforming members of the synagogue. The necessity for using Sunday as the chief day of public worship would enable the ministers to continue their seventh-day observance in accordance with Jewish tradition. The religious festivals of the synagogue would be to some extent adaptable to non-Jews. Those of Biblical institution are for the most part singularly catholic in their tendency, and are only incidentally particularized in their present application."

HOME ARTS IN CUMBERLAND.

Mr. A. M. Wakefield has a very pleasant and hopeful little article describing a visit paid to the Art Industrial School at Keswick, where Mr. and Mrs. Rawnsley have succeeded in carrying into practical operation many of the ideals of Mr. Ruskin. Mr. Wakefield says:

"It may be noted that the little town of Keswick annually produces and sells some £700 worth of this art work. Among the workers are men of all trades. Pencil makers are numerous, as it is a special trade of Keswick, a trade that should be a very flourishing industry did not our government get all their pencils in Germany, as one of the men indiguantly remarked. But laborers, boatmen, gardeners, shepherds, tailors and many another craft are all here banded together in pursuit of the beautiful, and in devotion to their work; and there is among them, by reason of their teaching, something of the spirit of the Nuremberg wood-carvers of old, something of the attention to a tendril or a flower which in its highest degree gave fame to such a man as Benvenuto Cellini."

WHITEWASHING PHILIP II.

Major Martin A. S. Hume, in a paper on "Philip II. and His Domestic Relations," draws a charming picture of the Spanish despot, for whom history has hitherto had hardly a civil word. In his pages Philip appears the devoted husband of three wives in succession, all of whom loved him, and as a most affectionate father. Major Hume says:

"Truly the human heart is a hard book to decipher. The man who could gaze upon human creatures undergoing the tortures of the damned by his orders because they difered from him, has been handed down to eternal infamy-and perhaps rightly so-on the strength of his public acts. It is unreasonable to ask that his tyranny and cruelty should be forgotten because there was a soft spot even in his stony heart for those who were nearest him, that the sickening fumes of scorching human flesh should be overpowered by the scent of flowers which Philip loved, or that the shrieks of the myriad martyrs should be drowned by the song of his nightingales; but, at least, the facts I have adduced prove that he was a human creature and not a fiend, and go far to support my contention that he was conscientiously and devoutly convinced that he was acting for the best in ruthlessly crushing those whom he looked upon as the enemies of God and society."

FRENCH LITERATURE OF TO-DAY.

In an article on M. Paul Hervieu," Hannah Lynch deals with this master of the latest school of French fiction. She says:

"In France to-day for romance we have the acrid piquancy of sin, for passion morose sensation. The conventional term "love" is still used, but the condition is