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abounds in quotations from the writers of all periods. The proverbs and maxims quoted here and there are most interesting. The book is exceedingly profitable. J. M. S.

[A History of Chinese Literature. By Herbert A. Giles. $1.50. New York: D. Appleton & Co.]

An excellent "Short History of French Literature" has recently been written by L. E. Kastner and H. G. Atkins. The book, one of 306 pages, is intended to be much more comprehensive than a primer, and much more useful than some of the larger works. The volume is divided into six books, and these books are subdivided into periods and chapters. The writers of first importance are discussed at some length. Those of little importance, when introduced at all, are discussed briefly in smaller type, which " serves the double purpose of indicating their relative position and of economizing considerable space.' Brief biographies

and summaries of the various authors' works are included. This book is well proportioned and of value.

..

McClure, Phillips & Co. have published Richard Mansfield's acting version of Shakespeare's King Henry V." This edition contains Mr. Mansfield's arrangement of the play, an old picture of Henry V., a portrait of Mr. Mansfield as Henry, and an introduction by the actor. The book is valuable to all who are interested in studying the treatment a Shakespearean play must undergo before it is ready for the stage of today. J. M. S.

[The Richard Mansfield Acting Version of King Henry V. .50. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.] For intelligent use of type faces, makeup and bookcovering, the E. H. Sothern Acting Version of "Hamlet," issued by McClure, Phillips & Co. is exceptional. Scenes from the play, as produced by Mr. Sothern this season, are reproduced in half-tone, eight of which show Mr. Sothern and Miss Harned as Hamlet and Ophelia, the rest exhibiting whole scenes in the play. The striking cover design is a representation, in six colors on imitation Japan vellum, of the burial of Ophelia. This volume is a fitting souvenir of a notable Shakespeare revival.

[Hamlet. A Tragedy. By William Shakespeare. The E. H. Sothern Acting Version. .50. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.]

Boswell's "Life of Johnson" has been reprinted in thoroughly useful form by the Macmillan Company in the new series, the " Library of English Classics." This edition, which is in three lumes, is reprinted from that prepared by Mr. Mowbray Morris for the

Messrs. Macmillan's "Globe" set in 1893. Among those in the same series is an edition of Bacon's Essays and Advancement of Learning. J. M. S.

[The Life of Samuel Johnson. By James Boswell. 3 vols. $1.50 a volume. Essays and Advancement of Learning. By Francis Bacon. $1.50. New York: The Macmillan Co.]

The works of Mrs. Browning, as presented in the handsome Cambridge edition, are furnished with a sympathetic biographical sketch and with notes of special aid and value to the student. The appendix, moreover, contains certain prose studies which illustrate the intense and devout quality of her thought. The vignette on the engraved title-page facing the portrait shows the windows of Casa Guidi. A. E. H.

[Complete Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Cambridge Edition. $2.00. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

Charles Scribner's Sons have published a volume containing twelve papers by Brander Matthews. The book is called "The Historical Novel and Other Essays." Several of the papers have been given publicity elsewhere. These essays are full of interest; two entitled "New Trials for Old Favorites" and "Literature as a Profession" are especially attractive. The paper on H. C. Bunner, late editor of Puck, is most interesting and appreciative. Of course Professor Matthews's discussion of "The Historical Novel," of Romance against Romanticism," and of "The Study of Fiction," is of first importance to the student. J. M. S.

[The Historical Novel and Other Essays. By Brander Matthews. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.]

Edmund H. Garrett in "The Pilgrim Shore" has done for the South shore of Massachusetts bay what he did for the North shore in "The Puritan Coast," and the books supplement each other. He has used the

history and traditions of the old Pilgrim towns to make the book thoroughly interesting. At the same time he has shown that the coast is not always bleak and wintry such as we associate with the pilgrims, but that it is far otherwise "when summer clothes it in genial and smiling beauty." The book has a colored frontispiece and is made very attractive with "little picturings drawn from nature, or from fancy by the writer."

S. D. N.

[The Pilgrim Shore. By Edmund H. Garrett. $2.00. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.]

attractively with an interesting description of an old The story of The Archbishop and the Lady" opens French abbey, where a wholesome American is visiting a vain, unscrupulous, husband-hunting widow. As the hero proceeds to fall in love with the widow's irresistible daughter, who is married to a deep-dyed villain; and as the pages offer as a background secret stairways, midnight rappings, a diabolic priest, the manufacture of infernal machines, the blowing up of steamers, suicide, and murder, the interest wanes from overstimulus. The fact that in many instances the language and the events are too lurid and highly colored to tally with the reader's idea of the natural and the inevitable, seriously mars the effect of what promised in the beginM. E. R. ning to be a pleasing story.

[The Archbishop and the Lady. By Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.]

With the calendar's official announcement that spring has returned to the place royal whence she reigns with the happy consent of the governed, literature of the garden becomes a seasonable delight, even to those who do their gardening vicariously from the depths of

easy chairs in libraries or on verandas. Literary probabilities indicate that the garden club will be more the vogue than ever before. Among the volumes contributing to this pleasing lore a place of honor should be reserved for "A Garden of Simples," so named for the first of a score of papers treating of the delights for the seeing eye and the open mind so generously dispensed by garden, field, and country roadside. "Leaves of healing" diffuse aromatic odors between the lines of prose painting and poetry, mingled with perfumes from the flowers linked by tradition with sacred shrines and festival days. Moreover, the flowers held so dear by poets of the elder days, who transplanted them, fadeless, into the courts, groves, and gardens of fancy, have been deftly gathered into garlands that seem to bring the presence of their poetlovers near. The external appointments of the book are in harmony with the rare quality of learning, unusual breadth and depth of research, and the grace of diction that characterize the essays. A. E. H. [A Garden of Simples. By Martha Bockée Flint. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.]

When an author whose style includes with other gifts and graces a sound of music and a glow of color in its literary quality, is so happily circumstanced as to evade the winter in his year by annual visits to the Gulf shore, we need no assurance before beginning to read the dozen or more papers gathered up in token of flower and fruit from his "Winter Garden that we shall find therein a sunny charm against winter at northern exposures, and a harmony for the out-door gladness that summer carries everywhere. But this "naturelover under southern skies" also provides for us archery in company with Roger Ascham, the Doric flutenotes of Theocritus overflow to us from a hammock swaying amid vernal tangles, and Montaigne gossips cheerfully under the tent-roof of a dogwood-tree in bloom, so that old-world thought comes to us in a newworld version whose tone is expressive of the vacation mood and a balmy climate. A. E. H. [My Winter Garden. By Maurice Thompson. $1.50. New York: The Century Co.]

66

"Wonders of

Following the general plan of two former popular works edited by Miss Singleton and presented with the same external attractiveness, the Nature" contains descriptions of the grand, the curious, and the awe-inspiring in nature, compiled from the records of famous writers, some of whom did their writing with the standard of æsthetic appreciation continually in mind, some with the gaiety of the care-free holiday spirit, and some chiefly in terms of the palette. The book contains forty-three sketches, each illustrated, descriptive of natural beauty or sublimity in all parts of the world. A. E. H. [Wonders of Nature. As Seen and Described by Famous Writers. Edited and Translated by Esther Singleton. $2.00. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.] There is a quaintness in the title "The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts" that takes the attention pleasantly. The inscription, "In loving memory of a friendly beast," and the explanatory quotation from an oldtime lover of our little brothers" in field and wood increase our faith that the book will be found of interest and helpfulness to the youthful readers for whom it is chiefly intended. Its twenty sketches repeat pretty or touching legends, the reading of which can but strengthen the bond of affectionate comradeship between the little folk in fur and fin and

feather" and their human friends.

A. E. H.

[The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. By Abbie Farwell Brown. $1.25. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

If it be indeed true, as we are told by an honored authority, that "many American children—and grown people, too-who are fairly intimate with lions and elephants could not tell a woodchuck from a chipmunk," then Mr. John Burroughs should be chided for not having sent forth long ago the papers included in his recent little volume, "Squirrels and Other FurBearers,” papers written with his accustomed charm of style, and relating his friendly observations on certain shy, clever, bright-eyed little neighbors of those of us fortunate enough to live in the country. The fifteen chapters treat of nearly as many of the smaller mammals, and are accompanied by fifteen reproductions of colored plates by Audubon. A red fox done from life appeals to our regard in the frontispiece. A.E. H. [Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers. By John Burroughs. $1.00. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

The little lady who in Miss Shinn's "Biography" unconsciously contributes to phylogenic knowledge by being the subject of her aunt's ontogenic study, was doubtless just as winsome and lovable under scientific observation as she would have been without it, and the book is a distinct contribution to the records of infant psychology, and is of both practical and suggestive value. It is a study of the growth of consciousness during the first year of a child's life, tracing the development of sight and hearing, of talking and voluntary motion, along with the awakening to sensation, emotion, and intelligence. Miss Shinn has unusual qualifications for this line of work and previous studies by her in this province of knowledge have received high commendation from foreign scientists. A. E. H.

[The Biography of a Baby. By Milicent W. Shinn. $1.50. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

Of that which has been written on the subject of child study, the greater part refers to the period of infancy, rather than school age. An addition to the books on this subject has been made by Margaret McMillan, in her book, " Early Childhood," which deals largely with the primary education of the child. Among the special points dealt with are: "Impressions, movements, arm and manual training, moral training, literature for children, the feeble-minded child, and the The work recommended is such cost of mental effort.' as would serve to correlate the child with life, by such expression both physical and mental, and the doctrine means as bodily activity free and directed, freedom of

of interest.

movements, correct breathing and the injurious effects Especial emphasis is placed upon large of mouth-breathing, voluntary and involuntary attention. The book has many suggestions for those who have to do with small children. R. E. D. [Early Childhood. By Margaret McMillan. $1.50. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen.]

Books on etiquette are of value to a great many people in so far as they enter into the details of good social usage. Emily Holt's "Encyclopædia of Etiquette" bears the test of this standard, covering social requirements of almost every conceivable kind. The practical character of the work is shown, for instance, by explicit instructions regarding the proper dress for both men and women for all the various social occasions; the arrangement of parlors, drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, and cloak-room for all kinds of social gatherings; the decorations, refreshments, and forms of entertainment suitable for each of such gatherings, and the proper duty and bearing of servants in the reception and care of guests. Nine illustrations and an index are included in the volume. F. C. B. [Encyclopædia of Etiquette. By Emily Holt. $2.00. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.]