classification of which a young American in Paris was guilty not long ago.

To the ignorant and affected misuse of French or quasi-French, there is another kind of snobbishness closely akin and deserving castigation as severe. It is the use of the native name of a place, or worse yet, of the French name, instead of the English. What sort of figure would be cut by a returned traveler who described his journeys and his sojournings in Italia and Deutschland? Is it not as bad to speak of Mainz? and worse still, of May.

"Avez-vous de mal, m'sieur ?"

"No, moa pas de malle, moa only a portmanteau."

The second kind of French which is spoken by those who do not speak French, consists of those words and phrases which pass current at the conversational exchange as French coins, although they bear no French mint mark. They are of varying degrees of reprehensibility. Sometimes it is a lingual slip, the dropping in bouquet of a necessary u for which compensation is sought by the injection of an unnecessary u into sobriquet. This is more the result of carelessness than anything else, and it needs but to be pointed out to correct itself at sight. Somewhat akin to this is the use of matinée, to indicate an entertainment in the afternoon,—a matinée musicale is a musical forenoon really, but I doubt if you would ever think of attending one before midday. And yet this is perhaps rather Irish than French, -one, may be, of those Irish bulls, which, as the professor said, were calves in Greece. But what a thể dansante might be,—and I am assured the mystic words have been seen upon many an invitation card,— no Frenchman could haply guess. He would doubtless understand the use of the phrase crême de la crême, to designate those whom N. P. Willis happily nicknamed the upper ten thousand; but, if he were a well-bred and well-educated Frenchman, it is not a term he would ever employ, preferring no doubt the phrase brought into fashion by Mme. de Sévigné, the dessus du panier-the top of the basket.

But the one expression, which above all others deserves to be pilloried for fraudulently and with intent to deceive giving itself out to be French, is double entendre. It is a phrase of which the theatrical reporter of an Oshkosh or Sheboygan newspaper is certain to be fond, but which he fondly believes to be French. Nor is he so very far out of the way. The Frenchman's phrase for words with two meanings is double entente, and with double entendre he is wholly unfamiliar,-as unfamiliar, Indeed, as he is with gendre pictures, an artistic

Mentz, inscribed in a hundred lusty chronicles of illustrious wars? And how often do we hear ladies talk of Malines lace, meaning the while the lace made at Mechlin,-for the town is Dutch, although the French have chosen to give it a name of their own fashioning, as they have also to Mentz and many another town. In the very slip-shod catalogue of the recent loan collection at the Acad. emy of Design for the Society of Decorative Art, there was an absurd wavering and confusion between the French and English words; lace was sometimes from Mechlin and sometimes from Malines, and I doubt not that many a stranger did not discover the identity of the places.

If the English language is not good enough for us, let us follow the suggestion of Mr. Marcy and the Russian Czar, and write and talk American. French, I fear me, fails us when we keep it, like our front parlors, merely for show.

Horticultural Suggestions.

J. B. M.

PRUNING. To produce the best forms of trees, shrubs, or vines, as well as the best results in either fruits or flowers, the accepted horticultural authorities recommend the use of the pruning-hook. This instrument, in the hands of unskilled persons is often made to do great damage, but when guided by trained hands and common sense, it is a necessity that no one can dispense with, no matter how limited the spot planted. The time for doing this sort of work will depend, of course, on the locality. In the North and West, the last days of March, and all through the month of April is the season usually selected for trimming and cutting. Grape-vines that should always have a large portion of the previous year's growth of wood cut off, are usually pruned earlier; say from January to March, so that the wounds may have time to heal over before the sap starts with the approach of warm weather, and by this timely precaution check what is commonly known as "bleeding" of the vines, which is supposed to weaken and otherwise injure them. There is no objection to pruning the grape-vine in either January, February, or March; it may be cut any time during the winter; still there is not the slightest foundation for the popular prejudice of “bleeding," and vines not pruned in the months named may be cut back in April without fear of injury.

For vines, trees, or shrubs, the instrument used should have a sharp, keen edge, so as to make a clean, smooth surface to the cut.

Common shrubs, such as the Althea wiegela, purple-leaved berberry, sweet-scented shrub (Calycanthus floridus), and others of this class should be cut back freely, and this kind of treatment will be productive of good results, both in the growth of new wood and in more profuse blooming, while they may be shaped to suit the fancy of the owner. Rosebushes may be gone over with profit, cutting back very freely the Tea, China and Bourbon, and thinning out more and cutting back less the Baltimore Belle and Prairie Queen, and roses of this class. Every bush, tree, and vine has peculiar characteristics, and when the owner is familiar with these, the pruninghook is an indispensable implement to promote vigorous habits and aid in making shapely forms, besides increasing the blooming capacities.

In pruning young pear-trees, encourage an upward and outward growth. Cut back from one-half to two-thirds of the young wood. With older trees, of both apples and pears, the heads ought to be kept open, although it may call for the removing of large branches. These, when necessary, can be taken off without injury. Peaches need thinning out of the young wood, but, after the first year, shortening in will do more harm than good. This plan is followed now by the most successful peachgrowers. Raspberries and blackberries in bearing should have the dead wood taken away and the ends of the larger twigs cut back, before the canes are fastened to the stakes or wires.

GRAFTING.-The spring is the best time to graft, and the process is simple, rapid, and when once understood, failure becomes the exception. Cleftgrafting is the method in most common practice among modern gardeners when "working over" fruit and ornamental trees. The branch should be sawed off at the point where the scion is to be inserted. The stock is then split in the center and kept apart by a wooden wedge. The scions should be taken from young healthy trees and of last year's growth. The lower end of the scion-about three inches long-should be cut wedge-shape, and when pressed into place, the inner bark of both stock and scion must be in line. When the stock is large, a scion can be set on either side. When these are in place, by removing the wooden wedge, the scions will be held firmly if the stock is over two inches in diameter. But when less in size, it is better to tie with a strip of bass matting around the stock, and cover over the end and sides of the same with grafting-wax. This prevents decay until the union takes place. Grafting small fruit stock, shrubs and vines is a pleasant and interesting amusement that may be practiced by ladies who are fond of horticultural pursuits.

The cherry is one of the most difficult, and is the first that should be grafted in the spring. The other fruits, shrubs and vines can be gone over any time in April. I have frequently set pear-scions the first week in May, when the trees were in full leaf, and with entire success. In changing the variety of fruit by grafting, it is not safe to cut off more than one-third of the head each year, taking three years to accomplish the work. This rule need not be observed with small trees or shrubs, although it is always better to leave a branch or two to elaborate the excess of sap.

SHADE-TREES.-There is a great satisfaction in knowing what selection of shade-trees those who are competent to judge would make for road or lawn planting. Just such information is now before the public, and it will prove of very great value to those who intend to beautify their road-sides or private grounds. The Park Commission of Washington, D. C., composed of three men of high standing in horticultural circles, have planted miles of street-trees, numbering about forty thousand. The bulk of these are made up of twelve varieties, and are named herewith in the order in which the commission valued them for the purpose: White maple (Acer dasycarpum), American linden (Tilia Americana), American elm (Ulmus Americana), scarlet maple (Acer rubrum), box elder (Negundo aceroides), sugar maple (Acer saccharinum), American white ash (Fraxinus Americana), English sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), button-ball (Platanus orientalis), tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), honey locust (Gleditschia triacanthos), Norway maple (Acer platanoides.)

This is an excellent assortment to select from for

road-side planting. Each variety here named when full grown assumes handsome proportions, and most of them have brilliant and attractive foliage in the fall. In planting shade-trees along the road-side, especially in a clay country, they should be set at least fifty feet apart, for if closer there will be too much shade, and bad, wet roads in the spring are sure to follow. This close planting should also be strenuously avoided in decorating private grounds. Any system that excludes the free access of sun and air from the dwelling-house is pernicious. wherever one may he will find this faulty system of close planting in vogue, and in eight cases out of ten there are two trees or shrubs on a space where one would have been enough. a desire for immediate effect. down in time every other tree. if ever, carried out.

Go

The plea for this is The remedy is to cut This last is seldom,

P. T. Q.

The most noticeable feature in the volume entitled "Orthodoxy" is Mr. Cook's attempt to defend his own orthodoxy in this same theory of the Trinity. He is successful only so far as he corrects his careless and incongruous definitions, and abandons all that was peculiar in his own vaunted illustrations and arguments. Perhaps this is the reason why the third volume was entitled "Orthodoxy." No other reason is very obvious. So far as the topics are concerned it is but the continuation of the volume entitled "Transcendentalism;" the first lecture being on God as an object of fear, the two following on the Trinity, the fourth on Theodore Parker's contradictions, the fifth on the atonement, the sixth on the harmonization of the soul with its environment, the seventh on true and false optimism, the eighth a consideration of the Reverend Messrs. Clarke and Hale, the ninth on skepticism in New England, the tenth on Theodore Parker as an anti-slavery reformer, and the eleventh on Theodore Parker's errors.

The recital of these topics is sufficient to show that the two volumes are a continuous discussion of kindred themes, all having a more or less close relation to the teachings of Theodore Parker. The logic and the eloquence of several chapters are more satisfactory than in the volume preceding. We find the following remarkable sentence, however: "Let a man surrender to God; let him hew himself into a religious prism, which has reason, conscience, and self-surrender to God, as revealed in his word and works, for its three sides,-and the instant that posture of total, affectionate, irreversible self-surrender is reached, God will flash through the human faculties; the seven colors will fall on your face, on your families, on public life, on all the great fraud of American civilization, and give you as a people that coat of many colors which shall prove you to be the beloved son of the Father as a nation." This sentence reminds us of the sonorous utterances of Daniel Pratt, the great American traveler. It is more than a pity that a man of Mr. Cook's gifts and resources should utter such extravagances, or, having uttered them, should allow them to be printed with "applause" at the end.

Perhaps the most interesting of these lectures is the fifth, upon the atonement. It certainly has occasioned a somewhat active discussion which may in some form or other be maintained for a long time; the topic being none other than whether any moral governor can assume suffering upon himself in place of the punishment which an offender merits. This will lead to the wider and deeper question whether any analogies of this sort can adequately or even tolerably illustrate such truths as the atonement and redemption of man. The lecture itself is one of the most original contributions of Mr. Cook to our stock of theological theories, and whether tenable or not, will not soon be forgotten.

The lecture on skepticism in New England is in some points original with him,-at least so far as the proportioning of the causes is concerned, to which he assigns the new infidelity of Parker and his adherents. The chief of these causes he finds

in the admission of unspiritual or unconverted persons to the communion and covenants of the visible church. Upon this practice he lays the utmost stress, and expends not a little eloquence in setting forth its operation till it finally terminated in the slow but certain consequence of the anti-supernatural theories of Theodore Parker. It is most unfortunate for the force of the argument that the practice in question has, with few exceptions, prevailed in every part of Protestant Christendom. Even in Scotland, with its severe theology and its earnestly spiritual and evangelical dialect, conversion as a technical or actual experience has not been insisted on as a qualification for the communion. The Wesleyans and the Congregationalists have been prominently exceptional in endeavoring to apply this view in practice. The history of infidelity in the colleges of New England, and of the influence of Dr. Dwight in repressing it at Yale, is very eloquently told; but we question very much whether Mr. Cook is not unjust to Harvard in attaching so great importance to the absence of such a passage in her annals in those critical years. The story of the anti-slavery movement and the attitude toward it of the evangelical churches compelled Mr. Cook to walk through embers of fires scarcely yet extinguished. But Mr. Cook never minds embers of any kind, but stalks through them with a sturdy tread. We do not propose to follow him over these hot ashes, although we thank him for having at this point spoken some generous words for Parker. Perhaps we may seem to be hypercritical in dwelling upon these excesses and blemishes; we are not unmindful of the important services which the author has rendered to the cause of earnest and spiritual Christianity, nor of the genius and learning and courage which he has displayed in rendering them. We have none but the kindest wishes for Mr. Cook and his work. He has rare opportunities for usefulness. Would he learn simplicity and moderation in his thinking and utterances, he might attain to a most enviable position in defending and enforcing the Christian faith. But in these two characteristic fruits of true genius and essentials to permanent success, he evidently has had but little faith, and seems likely, amid the plaudits of his uncritical admirers, to retain still less.

Dr. Klunzinger's "Upper Egypt.'

DR. KLUNZINGER'S "Upper Egypt" is a valuable book, a record of original study and observation. The author is an Arabic scholar, an accomplished physician and naturalist, and he has spent several years in Egypt in intimate association with the common people. His qualifications for writing of the people and the country are uncommon, and his work takes rank among the books most serviceable to the traveler. But it has been commended more for what it is not than for what it is. The reviewers, misled by a paragraph in the introduction of Dr. Schweinfurth, have indorsed it as an excellent guide.

* Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

book. It has not, except in the second part, a single characteristic of a guide-book. It is in no sense a hand-book for the tourist, a guide to the sights of the country, nor in its routes of travel; it has nothing about its antiquities or its monuments. Consequently it does not touch upon the province of Wilkinson's work; nor, on the other hand, does it supersede Lane's. The first part is in some sort a supplement to Lane's great work, but to one familiar with Lane's, Dr. Klunzinger's contains little that is new. Lane's "Modern Egyptians" is

the most exhaustive book ever written of the habits and customs of any people; and, in his own field, gleaning after him is rather unremunerative. Dr. Klunzinger made his observations in a country town; they are original, and exceedingly entertaining. His accounts of the Coptic Christians are fuller than Lane's, and in one other respect he surpasses his predecessor. The traveler on the Nile has heretofore felt the want of information concerning the fauna and flora; this want Dr. Klunzinger supplies most satisfactorily, and for this reason his book is indispensable.

The traveler in the Nile valley must have certain books. These are either Baedeker's or Murray's Guide-book, Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," and Lane's "Modern Egyptians." He will need also Mariette Bey's "Itinéraire" of the Nile, his "Aperçu de l'Histoire d'Egypte," and his catalogue of the Boulak Museum; and he will find very useful Dr. Birch's little book on Ancient Egypt, and his lecture on its Monumental History, delivered at the University of Cambridge in 1876.

We speak of these books as almost indispensable to the common tourist. To these may profitably be added Klunzinger's; and if the traveler is going out of the Nile valley into the country between the river and the Red Sea, this volume is the only one he can procure that will be of service to him. It describes the old caravan route from Keneh to Kosier. This was formerly a great highway of the English to and from India; stations were established in the desert; ladies made the journey of four or five days on camels or in palanquins. But the opening of the Suez Canal diverted the trade and travel from Kosier, and the desert route has resumed its ancient aspect. It is still traversed by a few trade caravans yearly, and by a few pilgrims to Mecca. Dr. Klunzinger passed over this route, and was for several years a resident physician at Kosier. During this time he explored the desert of this part of Upper Egypt in all directions. He lived with the nomad tribes; he searched the country for its plants and minerals. He has reproduced for us the desert life, and sketched with freedom and fidelity one of the most interesting of all the tribesthe Ababdeh. This portion of the volume is illustrated with the pencil as well as the pen, and we do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the most important contributions ever made to our knowledge of aboriginal tribes and desert-life. Since Burckhardt's travels, which it somewhat resembles, we have had nothing to compare with it. The whole region west of the Red Sea, its natural products, geograph

ical and climatic features, and its inhabitants, are described with marvelous particularity and interest.

Harvey's "Reminiscences of Webster."*

ONE measure of a man's greatness-not infallible, for what rule can be laid down that will always prove true in this matter?-is the length of time that it takes for him to receive due appreciation after his death. When a noted man's earthly career closes, if he has been a secondary magnitude, opinions are quickly made up, and his "case" is finished; if he has been molded on a very large plan, either there is an immediate and active discussion carried on for years as to what verdict should be entered in history concerning him, or else a silence of suspense-possibly of indifference-sets in, broken only after a considerable time. Of the first class, we may instance at sight, John Stuart Mill; of the second, Goethe; of the third, the pre-eminent example is Shakspere. Talleyrand, who was a master in the mere artifices of securing fame, acknowledged the advantage of a postponement when he directed that his memoir" should not be published till half a century after his death. In the case of Daniel Webster, however, fortunate accident and pressing public events seem to have caused the delay. The fact that eighteen years passed after his death before the production of a complete and authorized biography is not without significance; and now, after a quarter of a century, comes the volume of recollections by Peter Harvey, a most intimate friend of the great leader. We have scarcely read it, when the journals announce a projected society for the collection of further material relating to Webster, for the continued study of his mind and character, and the commemoration of his patriotic services. Our readers do not need to be reminded of Mr. Wilkinson's essay on "Webster and the Compromise Measures of 1850" in SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY for July, 1876, which probably gave voice to a reactionary sentiment in the minds of many besides the writer. These publications, we think, show that the time has come—a quarter of a century after Webster's departure from the scenes of his fame-when people are disposed thoroughly to review his career. Mr. Harvey's reminiscences, though doubtless partial in their unvaried exaltation of the man, will prove useful in this review; and apart from this, they are full of interest in themselves. Instructive, pathetic and humorous anec dotes follow each other without interruption, and form a mass of gossipy, yet useful reading of a kind which is always in favor, and not too common, in this country.

Field's "From Egypt to Japan."t DR. HENRY M. FIELD has now completed the circuit of the globe in his two published volumes of travel. The previous volume took the reader into the author's company at the lakes of Killarney and

* Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Daniel Webster. By Peter Harvey. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

From Egypt to Japan. By Henry M. Field, D. D. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.