have rung in the ears of some of us while still wandering idly in the streets of the City of Destruction, stern and shrill as the bugle-blast that rouses the sleeping camp to prepare for the onslaught of the foe. Their melody has haunted the ear amid the murmur of the mart and the roar of the street. In the storm and stress of life's battle the echo of their sweet refrain has renewed our strength and dispelled our fears. They have been, as it were, the voices of the angels of God, and when we have heard them we could hear no other sound, neither the growling of the lions in the path nor the curses and threatenings of the fiends from the pit. Around the hymn and the hymn tune how many associations gather from the earliest days, when, as infants, we were hushed to sleep on our mother's lap by their monotonous chant! At this moment, on the slope of the Rockies, or in the sweltering jungles of India, in crowded Australian city or secluded English hamlet, the sound of some simple hymn tune will, as by mere magic spell, call from the silent grave the shadowy forms of the unforgotten dead, and transport the listener, involuntarily, over land and sea to the scene of his childhood's years, to the village school, to the parish church. In our pilgrimage through life we discover the hymns which help. We come out of trials and temptations with hymns clinging to our memory like burrs. Some of us could almost use the hymn-book as the key to our autobiography. Hymns, like angels and other ministers of grace, often help us and disappear into the void. It is not often that the hymn of our youth is the hymn of our old age. Experience of life is the natural selector of the truly human hymnal.

SELF-EXCLUSION FROM THE SACRAMENTS OF LIFE.

There is a curious and not a very creditable shrinking on the part of many to testify as to their experience in the deeper matters of the soul. It is an inverted egotism-selfishness masquerading in disguise of reluct ance to speak of self. Wanderers across the wilderness of life ought not to be chary of telling their fellowtravellers where they found the green oasis, the healing spring, or the shadow of a great rock in a desert land It is not regarded as egotism when the passing steamer signals across the Atlantic wave news of her escape from perils of iceberg or fog, or welcome news of good cheer. Yet individuals shrink into themselves, repressing rigorously the fraternal instinct which bids them communicate the fruits of their experience to their fellows. Therein they deprive themselves of a share in the communion of saints, and refuse to partake with their brother of the sacramental cup of human sympathy, or to break the sacred bread of the deeper experiences.

alas! are few. But all of us have our moments when we are near to the mood of the hero and the saint, and it is something to know what hymns help most to take us there and keep us at that higher pitch.

A PERSONAL TESTIMONY.

For my own part, I will gladly take my turn with the rest in testifying, conscious though I am that the hymn which helped me most can lay no claim to preeminent merit as poetry. It is Newton's hymn, which begins, "Begone, unbelief." I can remember my mother singing it when I was a tiny boy, barely able to see over the book-ledge in the minister's pew; and to this day, whenever I am in doleful dumps, and the stars in their courses appear to be fighting against me, that one doggerel verse comes back clear as a blackbird's note through the morning mist:

His love in time past
Forbids me to think
He'll leave me at last

In trouble to sink.

Each sweet Ebenezer

I have in review,

Confirms His good pleasure To help me quite through.

The rhyme is atrocious, no doubt, the logic may or may not be rational; but the verse as it is, with all its shortcomings, has been as lifebuoy, keeping my head above the waves when the sea raged and was tempestuous, and when all else failed. What that verse has been to me, other verses have been to other men and other women. And what I want to do in this "Penny Hymnal" is, to collate from the multitudinous record of diversified human experience the hymns which have helped most, in order to present them with some record of how, and where, and when and whom they have helped, as a compendious collection for the use of every one.

AN APPEAL FOR CO-OPERATION.

But for this I need help-the voluntary co-operation of a multitude of willing workers. I want their own experience in the first place, and in the second the wellauthenticated record of how this or that hymn has helped those "whose lives sublime shed undimmed splendour over unmeasured time;" in the third place, brief note of instances in which hymns have altered human lives; and fourthly, reference to circumstances or incidents such as that of the victor psalm at Dunbar, where a hymn has figured conspicuously in some notable episode of human history.

Out of the materials thus accumulated I hope I may get together a Hymnal which, although it may not have any claim to supreme literary merit, will have a unique value as containing none but the hymns which have a well-attested value as having been the channel through which mortal man has heard the voice of God, or which have enabled him to commune with his Maker. Some day, I hope, if I may be spared, to edit a commentary on the Bible on similar principles. But for the present, I content myself with submitting this suggestion for a People's Hymnal to my readers, and soliciting their co-operation.

"POEMS TO BE LEARNT BY HEART."

It has been suggested to me by Mr. C. E. Theodosius, of the North London Collegiate School for Boys, that it might be very useful for teachers if one number of the Masterpiece Library were to be specially devoted to a collection of poems which every one ought to know by heart. I am afraid Mr. Theodosius's idea of poems which every one should commit to memory is something like Macaulay's conception of what every schoolboy knows; but the idea of compressing into a penny number the cream of the cream of English poetry, so as to render it more easily accessible for those who wish to commit it to memory, is a good one. So I asked Mr. Theodosius if he would be so kind as to draw me up his list of the poetry that should be learnt by heart, in order that I might submit it to other authorities, scholastic or otherwise. This he has done, and the following list is the result. Mr. Theodosius considered that most of the poems selected should be lyrical, and that the total number of lines should not exceed 2,500. If any one were therefore to commit to memory eight lines a day, excluding Sundays, he would in one year have enriched his mind with the most precious freight our literature can furnish. I shall be glad of suggestions as to the improvement of the list from readers interested in the subject.

46. To Autumn (Keats.)

47. A wet sheet and a flowing sea (Cunningham.) 48. After Blenheim (Southey.) 49. Not a drum was heard (Wolfe.) 50. I remember, I remember (Hood.) 51. Oft in the stilly night (Moore.)

52. Swiftly walk over the western wave (Shelley.) 53. When the lamp is shattered (Shelley.) 54. Rarely, rarely comest thou (Shelley.) 55. To a Skylark (Shelley.)

56. To the West Wind (Shelley.)

57. Music when soft voices die (Shelley.)

No. of lines.

33

24

66

32

32

28

35

32

48

105

70

2,500

THE POPULARITY OF THE "PENNY POETS." I continue to receive most gratifying communications from all parts of the country concerning the "Penny Poets."

The Right Rev. Primus of Scotland writes to me as follows:

I think your scheme of the Masterpiece Library a very admirable one, and have brought it under the notice both of my own Diocesan Synod and of our Education Board for Scotland, by whom it has been very favourably received.

Now I wish to bring it forward at our Representative Church Council in Edinburgh next month, and for this purpose shall be glad to have a few hundred prospectuses to distribute, and one hundred copies of No. 1 to give away.

The Bishop of Wakefield writes not less cordially, He says:

I do not think it is a rash prophecy to say that the next generation will owe you an enormous debt of gratitude for importing into their educational resources a knowledge of poetry, which except for your happy venture they would have found it difficult to acquire, and which is a refining and purifying, as well as a delightful element in all education..

"A Girl Secretary," who does not send her name and address, writes:

I must add one more letter to the number you are sure to have received with regard to the "Penny Poets." I think you are a "brick!" I can't help saying it-I really do. The REVIEW OF REVIEWS alone is enough to make one enthusiastic about you, but now the publication of the " Masterpiece Library" is enough to send one about saying, "Stead for ever -for ever, Stead." To be able, when running for one's daily train, to rush to the bookstall, throw down a penny and snatch up the poet one wants without demur at price or binding is-is grand! And when one lives in a house like I do, where there are books-books, any amount-"up in the library," but inaccessible, staring at one through glass doors, locked! the owner having bought them with the other household fittings, wholesale, the necessity of their appearance being indisputable but to read! is it wicked if one swarms the said house with the little orange-coloured pennyworths and-and glories in it? I don't think there are many of those kind of people left existing here, the species are dying out, but there are a few.. So three cheers for the "Penny Poets," hoping you will never stop until you have published in this way every thing that is worth reading under the sun.

A correspondent at Plumstead sends me a letter which may be commended to the attention of those publishers who imagine that the publication of the "Penny Poets" will ruin the sale of the more expensive editions:

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Thanks heartily for the Penny Poets," which are a "boon and a blessing" to my home. My wife and I have enjoyed them very much, especially that of Mrs. E. B. Browning, whom we feel has a message for us, and who has become a regular member of our home. This particular number has awakened a desire in us to know more of Mrs. Browning; and it is in this particular that I think the "Penny Poets" would have

been of even greater service than they now are if they had contained a few words informing us what are the best books to continue the study, with their price, and publisher. However, they are really grand, and thanks very much.

The suggestion is a good one, and I shall act upon it in future issues.

Another correspondent, in ordering a Poets' Corner box, says:

Enclosed is 5s. to pay for a bookcase for the "Penny Poets." My little girl has a birthday on the 23rd inst., and as she has of her own accord purchased all your "Penny Poets" up to date, and devoured them, I wish to give her a receptacle for them.

machine, but on consultation with the engineers who make the machines, the idea was abandoned as inpracticable.

I am glad to know that the "Penny Poets" have been received as enthusiastically in Australia as in any part of the old country. The press notices as yet come to hand are very enthusiastic.

It is always interesting to see one's self as others see us, and a writer in the Gasgow Evening News says that I have never been a boy, that I was born an old man, bald and toothless, and therefore cannot possibly have an

card would announce that the "Penny Poets could be had from the station-master. It would entail little or no extra work on the railway officials, and would supply a means of meeting the needs of the travelling public for something to read in a simpler fashion than any that has yet been suggested. I need not say how cordially I welcome the suggestion, and should any station-master on any line where there is at present no existing agency for supplying reading matter to travellers, communicate with me, I shall be delighted to arrange with him for supplying the "Penny Poets." The principle is a sound one, and may be adopted by others besides station-masters. I had hoped that it would have been possible to have secured the distribution of the "Poets" by the method of a penny-in-the-slot

opinion worth having as to boys' literature. As a further proof of my incapacity to form an intelligent judgment upon this subject, the fact that I referred to the success of the "Penny Poets" as indicating a demand for good literature at a cheap price, the writer says:

We have Mr. Stead-very, very old and Atlas-ladendelivering himself of opinions upon Boys' Books! Comically enough, he finds that the sale of two million copies of his "Penny Poets" has a bearing on the situation. Has the intelligent reader observed the butcher's apprentice engrossed in the orange-coloured paper poets as he takes round the day's gigot to the area? Hashe seen the extracts from Milton or Wm. Morris peeping out of the jacket pockets of the tramway trace boys? I haven't. So far as I can discover, the more gorgeously bound penny dreadful stil holds the field unchallenged.

Oddly enough, I had not laid the Glasgow Evening News down for threeminutes before I took up a letter from a correspondent in Liverpool, which runs thus:-

A further record of social service in Liverpool would beinadequate without mention of the progress of the "Penny Poets in our midst. It is cheering to see these beneficent guides to purer tastes in reading in the hands of the artisan and the errand boy-in whose interests you brought them ont-in place of a sporting paper and a flimsy sheet of wretched, socalled boys' tales. As my work takes me a-journeying daily by road, and rail, and river, I have observed that a "Penny Poet" is quite as indispensable a companion on a journey as a penny paper-not for Demos alone, but for all kinds and conditions of travellers. Indeed, something akin to a literary revival-an appreciation of the earlier makers of English-has occurred in the neighbourhood.

I don't for a moment profess to say that the "Penny Poets" have solved the question of boys' literature, but I do venture to think that Scott and Macaulay, to mention no others, do supply reading which the youngest boys can appreciate. The "bald and toothless" conception of

myself comes to me with a pleasant vein of novelty. Most of my friends complain that though I have the misfortune to be forty-six this year, I never have been and never shall be anything but a schoolboy to the core. Mr. Catford, the Assistant Secretary of Bunhill Adult School, writes as follows:

We at Bunhill Adult School are doing our best in connection with the "Penny Poets," to foster a taste for high-class literature amongst our members and in our neighbourhood. Besides having the "Penny Poets" on sale each week, we have this quarter arranged for three Saturday evenings with the Poets. We have asked our friends who are kindly lecturing, to, as far as possible, base their talks upon the "Penny Poets" edition, which will be on sale in the hall. Next Saturday we shall attempt rather to bring out the individual talent of those of our members who are able to recite or read from the Poets. United Social Meeting, October 5th, in Class Room E: "The Poets' Corner. Selections from the Penny Poets,' including Lowell, Whittier, and Longfellow." On October 19th, “An Evening with Longfellow," by Dr. W. E. Darby. This will partly be an experiment. All of us at Bunhill Adult School, and especially our Presidents, are deeply in love with the Penny Poets," and feel very grateful to the originator of the series.

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Up to the present time I am only informed of two prizes which have been won by scholars for essays on subjects suggested by the "Penny Poets." Lord Grey has had much greater success in Northumberland, where the number of essays is considerable. He has now announced a further series of prizes:

COMPETITION No. III.-Scholars should write "a short life of Robert Burns," and in addition write an essay on one of the following topics:-(1) A description of the poem you like best in the volume, and the reasons why you like it. (2) A prose account of "The Cottar's Saturday Night." The result of the competition will be announced in the Children's Corner of the Weekly Chronicle. All communications to be addressed "Master Pieces," Moot Hall, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Essays to be forwarded not later than Saturday, October 26th, 1895.

Lord Grey has had a very neat book-plate engraved, a copy of which is reproduced on the preceding page, which is placed in every prize that is issued in connection with this competition.

CASES FOR THE "PENNY POETS."

After very much experimenting, I think I have at last arrived at the best form of case for the "Penny Poets." This is a pasteboard box measuring 7 inches by 5 inches, with a movable lid, on the back of which is printed in gilt the titles of the poets included in the first quarter's issue of the Masterpiece Library. The box is made to hold twelve numbers, so that four boxes will contain the whole series. Each case will stand in a book-shelf like an ordinary volume. The case with twelve parts is sold complete at eighteenpence. This, unlike the other boxes, will be supplied to the trade at ordinary trade terms. Readers may therefore order it from any newsagent or bookseller, who will supply the case and make it unnecessary to pay postage. For reading on board ship or for those who move about from place to place, these cases will be found to be much more handy than any of those which have been designed to contain the whole set. The first quarterly case contains the following numbers:

No. 1. Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," and other Poems. No. 2. Scott's "Marmion."

No. 3. Byron's "Childe Harold," Cantos I. and II., and other Poems.

No. 4. Lowell's Poems. Selections.

No. 5. Burns's Poems. Selections.

No. 6. Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet."

The twelve numbers contain over seven hundred pages, and for convenience of reference and handiness of carriage there is nothing to rival them in any of the more expensive editions. The following is the list of poets published and in process of publication which will form case number two:

No. 13. Whittier's Poems of Liberty, Progress, and Labour.
No. 14. Tales from Chaucer, in Prose and Verse.
No. 15. Milton's "Paradise Lost." Part II.
No. 16. Tom Moore's Poems.

No. 17. Selections from Wm. Cullen Bryant's Poems.
No. 18. The Story of St. George and the Dragon.
Spenser's "Faerie Queen."

From

Our edition of "Romeo and Juliet" has been sold extensively at the doors of the Lyceum, although the play as played is not the play exactly as Shakespeare wrote it, and a comparison of the original play with the play as acted is interesting and instructive.

The Keats number has been issued in connection with the Keats' Centenary. The following are its contents:

Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. The Eve of St. Agnes. La Belle Dame sans Merci. Lamia. Hyperion. Odes-1. On a Grecian Urn; 2. To Psyche; 3. To Autumn; 4. On Melancholy; 5. To a Nightingale; 6. Sonnets; 7. Endymion: Extracts.

The following are the new portraits issued in connection with the "Poets' Corner Album," which will be completed in six numbers, issued monthly at one shilling: -Tennyson, Browning, Shelley and Wordsworth.

MR. ERNEST B. SMEED has compiled, and Messrs. Stubbs and Baxter, of 112, North Street, Brighton, have published, a pamphlet on "Statistics and Notes on the General Election of 1895." It is only a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, and it is published at five shillings. The compilation, however, is a task which I should certainly not like to undertake for fifty pounds. analyses are very carefully done. The tables show that the Unionists, who have secured sixty-one and one-third per cent. of the members, did not poll more than fortynine and a third per cent. of the votes. Fifty per cent. and two-thirds were given to the various Radical, Nationalist, and Parnellite candidates.

The

Lantern Bureau.-Mr. F. N. Eaton asks me to state that the Lantern Bureau at 29, Queen Anne's Gate,. which he conducted last winter with the friendly co-operation of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS, has been given up. His own ill-health and the death of his brotherhave rendered the closing of the Bureau inevitable, and he has disposed of his stock of slides to Mr. Walter Tyler, of 50, Waterloo Road, London.

I.-LENDING LIBRARIES FOR SCHOOLS.

T is to be hoped that this winter will not pass without some effectual step being taken to carry out the proposal made by Mr. Greenwood, the Secretary of the Library Committee of the National Social Union, for improving and developing the existing libraries in public elementary schools. The discussion on the literature for boys and girls, which went on in the Daily Chronicle last month, called attention to the need of getting something done. There is no doubt at all that, in this respect, London is distinctly behind Plymouth, and that not even Plymouth is as far advanced as Milwaukee. The aim and object of every good citizén is that he should see to it that the foremost city of the world should be first in everything that promotes the well-being and the education of the citizens of the future. At the present moment, although Mr. Acland, when Minister of Education, declared that every board school and public elementary school should have its own lending library, this is very far from being the case. Sir John Gorst, Mr. Acland's successor, is, I believe, making inquiries into how far it is possible to obtain, by the machinery of the department, a census or return of the books now really in circulation in our elementary schools. He will not have to thrust his probe very deep in order to find that a very great deal remains to be done. Take London, for instance: we have 800,000 children in our elementary schools, and not 100,000 books in all the libraries available for all the scholars. Within the last six months alone a small group of fortunate speculators have literally netted millions of pounds sterling as the reward for gambling in the Kaffir Circus. Is it not disreputable to the last degree that the schools are left stinted and starved, without sufficient books to go half round even the elder scholars? Why should not such a man as Mr. Barnato, for instance, who has made a million in a single coup, fling down a tithe of his million to establish a first-class lending library for girls and boys in every public school in London? He would never miss the £100,000, and yet who can estimate the incalculable benefits which would result to the next generation from such a wise and judicious expenditure of wealth? Then there is Mr. Waldorf Astor. His family is honourably distinguished in New York by the Astor Library, which they founded. Why should we not have an Astor library in London, or on even more extended and popular scale? I make no apologies for throwing out these suggestions. Men of enormous wealth should regard those who make good suggestions for the utilisation of the shreds of their fortunes as their greatest benefactors. It is about time that we had some public-spirited citizen who would show, by a princely benefaction, such as the founding of a National School Library, that the accumulation of great wealth has not atrophied the heart and crushed out the soul of those to whom it has been given.

September was rather an unfortunate month for moving in the matter, as most of the persons whose co-operation it was necessary to secure were out of town. I hope, however, before the next number of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS is published to be able to report that some definite action has been taken towards realising this great need. I am glad to be assured by Sir John forst of his heartiest sympathy with every effort that is

made to bring up our educational appliance in this respect to the level of the best managed American cities. In municipal matters we are ahead of the Americans, but in this question of cultivating a taste for reading among scholars, the Americans in many of their cities leave us far behind. This ought not to be.

In this connection, I am glad to call attention to the admirable Sixpenny Pamphlet on "School Libraries," how they may be formed, and books they should contain, The which has been reprinted from the Schoolmaster. list of suitable books, with the discount price, will be very useful to all those who are forming libraries.

II. TEMPERANCE REFORM.

THE publican having now triumphed all along the line and all chance of passing Local Option having vanished into thin air, the question arises whether the time has not come for an attempt to arrive at some common denominator among all those who desire to do something to stem the ravages of intemperance. The two planks in the common denominator agreed upon by the provisional committee of the National Social Union relating to the drink question run as follows:

DRUNKENNESS.-Agreement as to legislative remedies has not yet been arrived at, but no difference of opinion exists as to the evils of drunkenness and the duty of all good citizens individually and collectively to enforce the laws which exist for the prevention of intemperance, and to resist any and every attempt to place the administrative, judicial, or legislative authority under the control of the purveyors of intoxicants.

TEMPERANCE.That ample opportunity should be afforded for supplying the needs of the community for recreation and refreshment, apart from premises licensed for the sale of alcoholic drinks.

As abstract truths these resolutions are excellent. The question is, What is to be done to carry them into effect? I merely throw out the suggestion tentatively in the hope that some who have devoted their serious attention to the question may be able to come forward with a practical suggestion.

In the meantime it is interesting to note what is being done in other countries--where the curse of intemperance is felt almost as keenly as it is here.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FROM FRANCE.

In the Annals of the American Academy for September I find an interesting summary of the conclusions which have been arrived at by the Superior Council of Public Charity in France, which has been giving special consideration to a report, prepared by MM. les docteurs Magnan and Legrain, on the question of creating special asylums for inebriates. The committee, to which this question was referred, adopted the following resolutions, to be submitted to the whole Council:

First, inebriate paupers ought to be treated in special establishments. Until such establishments are created in the various departments, such persons should be isolated in other institutions, and placed in special quarters.

Second, certain changes are necessary in the law on drunkenness, and the Poor Law of June 30th, 1838, which authorised the arrest of delinquent drunkards and inebriate paupers, and their maintenance during such time as would be necessary to cure them. Every delinquent drunkard should be made the object of a critical report, in consequence of which the authorities should have power to place him in a special asylum for inebriates.