Indeed I do not see how it would be possible to do it better. The book is like one of these exquisite drawings by the old Florentine painters, in which you see, first, the figure clothed, and then, underneath, the figure naked.

Tommy, drawn at full length and after he has grown up, is the poseur flayed alive. But was there ever such a poseur, so natural, so charming (with Elspeth) so ridiculous (with Lady Pippinworth when she accuses him of the crime of obesity), so pathetic (with Grizel when he is trying to win her back to life after he has

wounded her)? And is there not, after all, behind the poseur a real man, imprisoned, waiting to be set free, reaching out his hand now and then to do something which even his worst enemy must admit is fine? And might he not have escaped from the prison and become a real person if Mr. Barrie had not hated him so, and killed him? Was not that splendid Grizel strong enough to breathe a soul into him? Who knows? At all events, the book which makes us ask such questions is alive.

Henry van Dyke.

THE

HERE passed away the other day in a hospital at Montreal, a really great American scholar who might have easily laid claim to having been, at the time of his death, one of the dozen most learned men on this planet. Living a quiet, retired life in a mountain farm in the Adirondacks, the most unworldly of men, caring absolutely nothing for money or fame, the late Thomas Davidson, whose very name is probably unknown to most of our readers, was one of the most gifted and remarkable men of the latter half of this century. To enumerate his writings, learned and important though they are, is to convey no idea of a spiritual personality to whom some (and among them the present writer) owe not a little. It was not the opinions of this "scholar-gypsy which influenced his friends, for he was the most inconsistent of men, passing through phase after phase of philosophic thought, and contesting in the afternoon the very doctrines he had urged in the morning. Whimsical, vehement, impatient, his satire and argument flowing like

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a torrent, and his dogmatic spirit sometimes carrying him to lengths he had never intended, yet to know Thomas Davidson was to love him, and not a few are the young men now coming to the front in American philosophy and scholarship who owe a quickening stimulus to that bright and eager, albeit angular, personality.

Mr. Davidson was American by adoption, not by birth. He came from that nursery of strong men where in his time they did literally cultivate literature on oatmeal-Aberdeen; and he was at the University at a specially brilliant erathat of Robertson Smith, Minto, and W. A. Hunter-all, alas! gone prematurely over to the majority. Davidson had the blood of the wanderer in his veins; he could not rest at home, and so went over to Canada, but soon crossed the border into the United States, where he took up a position as high-school teacher in St. Louis. People who think of the Western American cities as given over to trade and materialism would have been surprised had they found themselves in the St.

of the great centres of philosophy. The eminent man who is now at the head of the Federal Education Bureau in Washington was then editing at St. Louis the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, then the only metaphysical organ in the English language (to our shame, be it said). The reason why this remarkable movement of pure thought centred in St. Louis was because of the imigration of German students and thinkers who had fled after the suppression of the 1848 rising, and many of whom settled down on the banks of the Mississippi. St. Louis ever after has been noted for Germans, philosophy, and the best beer in America. In this society Thomas Davidson found congenial souls, and to literature with oatmeal there succeeded the cultivation of philosophy with beer. They might have been at Leipzig or Heidelberg save for the absence of duelling and other German formalities. Life was simplified and heightened by excursions into the forests and participation in the wild life then possible, but which the railway and the progress of industry have almost destroyed. The whole episode is indeed a delightful little bit of idealism in a rather prosaic century-plain living and high thinking, a finely-strung intellectual life hand-in-hand with simplicity and industry.

Thomas Davidson would have delighted Goethe; the Wanderjahre of Wilhelm Meister was Davidson's own life. He, too, held that" to give room for wandering the world was made so wide." As thorough an American as though he had been born within the shadow of Bunker Hill, he was nevertheless so classic in feeling that he yearned for the "palms and temples of the South," and he had his wish gratified. Attached, largely through Longfellow's generous influence, to the

University, he soon had the opportunity of repairing to Athens, where he studied Greek archæology. And here it may be said that perhaps Davidson was one of the greatest linguists of his age. Well grounded in Greek and Latin (able after the good old medieval plan, to speak as well as read Latin), he obtained complete mastery of modern Greek within a few months of reaching Athens. He could make a speech in that language as easily as did Mr. Gladstone in the Ionian Islands. He spoke and read French, German, Italian, Spanish, Norse with absolute ease. He did his philosophic thinking in German rather than in his own tongue. He acquired later on complete proficiency in Hebrew and Arabic, and was fairly well versed in Czech, Russian, and Magyar. He never forgot a single word he had. ever learned. His admiring friends tested him on one occasion in Greek. He never missed once, giving not only the ordinary but exceptional meanings, and stating in what authors they were to be found. He could repeat most of the Aristotle's "Ethics" from end to end in the original. He knew word for word that difficult second part of "Faust" which at times baffles even German professors, but his supreme love was Dante. He knew the whole of the "Divina Commedia " and students who have read his introduction to Scartazzini's hand book to the great Tuscan know how Davidson entered into the very soul of Dante. Thus did this simple, hearty, big-brained ScottishAmerican wander over the globe. . .

A unique character, built on a solid Scotch foundation, polished by travel and by thought, and with the bright and eager tone of the American, he was the best example in our time of the mediaval wandering scholar.

Do not remember when we have had a duller summer in London than that which we have now left behind us. In point of weather, we have had nothing but the calendar to remind us that there was a summer. The South African war dragged on its weary length. Even China raised no more than a passing sensation, for Peking is as remote from the imagination of the mass of people as the Punjaub or the paradises of the Pacific. But, as I write, we have wakened up over the excitements of a general election. True, it lacks the dramatic qualities of many other elections, for the Salisbury Government, with its many failures, has antagonists so heterogeneous as to take away from the tussle the attributes of real sport. The most interesting feature of the election is the appearance of many writers in the field. Among them I may note Sir George Scott Robertson, the historian of Chitral; Mr. Anthony Hope, on the full tide of another moneyed success, "English Nell"; Mr. Gilbert Parker, who has contested a division in Silly Suffolk, and many lesser lights. The inability of Mr. John Morley to address the electors of Montrose, on account of a persistent hoarseness, has naturally robbed the contest of a literary flavor, for his speeches always read well, although they are not particularly stirring to listen to. But compensation comes for the bookman in the publication of his " Cromwell," which forms a sort of preliminary canter to his life of Mr. Gladstone. Indeed, his supporters see in his devotion to the study a great hindrance to his place on the rostrum; but then Mr. Morley finds it difficult to become a Parliamentarian. Greater dubiety fills the mind of his Aberdeen colleague, Mr. Bryce, whose academic fairmindedness results in charges of sitting

on the fence. But it will be long before literary men cease to hanker after the House of Commons.

Biographies will be the most interesting item in the autumn output of books, which began to flow at a rapid rate, quite disregarding the political situation, which more or less paralyzes business here—if not as much as it does with yourselves. Mr. Leonard Huxley, who has written his father's life for the Macmillans, has had the work in hand for a long time. Mr. Basil Champney's life of Coventry Patmore, issued by the Bells, has had the help of Dr. Garnett, Mr. Sidney Colvin and others. and others. A good deal of spiteful gossip used to be in vogue among certain literary coteries at the expense of Patmore, but the crowd seems to love his work, if the popularity of the "Angel in the House" be any test. An important chapter of London's theatrical life is told in Sir Theodore Martin's life of his wife, Helen Faucit. Sir Theodore is now eighty-four. But the real test of his age is the fact that Aytoun, with whom he wrote the "Bon Gaultier Ballads " in 1855, is almost forgotten. He was devoted to his wife, who is still reckoned supreme as a Shakespearean actress, though she left the stage in 1851, more than forty years before her death. Another bit of Brontë biography appears in the provinces, in the shape of "Mrs. Gaskell and Knutsford," by the Rev. A. G. Payne. The life of Lord Monboddo, which Professor Knight of St. Andrew's has written for Mr. Murray, takes us back to an exceedingly brilliant period of Scott's literary life. Monboddo was a "character," but his elaborate "Origin and Progress of Language," with its theory of man's affinity with the monkey, enunciated, as it was, over a century ago, does not seem the grotesque thing it

once did. Among his correspondents and friends were Sir William Jones, David Hume and Adam Smith.

Although the public has very little interest in China, the publishers are still issuing books on the Flowery Land, apparently on the principle of being thoroughly in touch with public questions. No author, perhaps, has done so well financially out of China as Mr. Alexis Krausse, whose "Far East: its History and its Question" has been written for Mr. Grant Richards. The curious thing is that Mr. Krausse, who is of German or Polish descent, has never been to China. On the other hand, Mr. A. B. FreemanMitford, whose new book, "The Attaché at Peking," has been issued by the Macmillans, has known the East since 1865, when he went to our Embassy at Peking. He is one of the trustees of the Wallace collection. His family, originally of Mitford Castle, Northumberland, have been variously connected with the work of the empire, and four or five of his younger kinsmen have been fighting in South Africa, which another of his relativesMr. Bertram Mitford-has exploited in fiction of the Rider Haggard type.

Mr. John Murray's new venture, The Monthly Review, edited by Mr. Henry Newbolt, is a handsome half-crown's worth, and is made of good stuff. It will be very interesting to see whether it will "catch on," for its predecessor, Murray's Magazine, also contained excellent material and yet failed to find a permanent place among our magazines. I think one of the great causes for the disappearance of the good magazine is due less to the much discussed deterioration of the intelligent public, than to the fact that the type of articles they went in for are now turned into books. This has been very apparent at least with war books, which have been reprinted as books almost as soon as they appeared as newspaper letters.

The autumn catalogues contain the usual quota of books on art. The most prominent of these is the sumptuous catalogue of the pictures in the Duke of Wellington's town residence, the gaunt, deserted structure at Hyde Park gate, known as Apsley House. It is written by the Dowager Duchess, who has had much advice from Major Martin Hume, the historian. By a curious irony the pictures have been reproduced in Paris. Lady Dilke has continued her studies on French art in the eighteenth century with a book on "French Architects and Sculptors " during that stirring period. Few English writers have a better knowledge of the subject than Lady Dilke; her "Renaissance of Art in France" appeared twentyone years ago. Mr. George Williamson, the biographer of Cosway & Russell, has written a volume on George John Pinwell. (1842-75), the water-color painter. His brother, Mr. David Williamson, is an industrious non-conformist journalist, who has written several painstaking biographies of our public men.

There has been a curious lack lately of good verse, although war is supposed to set the muse going. We have, of course, had war ballads galore, but none of distinctive quality. Even reprints have been scarce, though the Constables are still assured of Mr. Meredith's audience. The Swinburne collected edition, to be published by Chatto & Windus, is still a thing of the distant future.

We shall probably not have so many children's books this year as we have been favored with recently, for this type of literature has been very much overdone, despite the cheapness and efficiency of the new color-printing processes. The author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden," who turns out, as I fully expected, not to be Princess Henry of Pless, as written "An April Baby's Book of Tunes" to pictures by Miss Kate Green

away, who is less prominent than she used to be. If visitors to the Cheshire Cheese, by the way, would turn up an adjoining court, they would see the queer old house where Miss Greenaway's father plied the vanishing art of the wood-engraver for a great many years. Mrs. Percy Dearmer is also to the front again with "A Noah's Ark Geography," illustrated by herself. Her "Book of Penny Toys" of last year has had a rival recently in Mr. Gordon Craig's "Book of Penny Toys," of which a printed edition has been issued by him, "At the Sign of the Rose, Hackbridge." Mr. Craig, by the way, is going back to the stage, which he has left for wood-cutting and eccentric art. Mrs. Dearmer is the wife of a West End parson who also writes. Some years ago she gave recitals from Ibsen and her book-plate for Mr. Le Gallienne is prized by collectors of ex libris.

A very pretty controversy over Miss Corelli's "Master Christian," and Mr. Hall Caine's "Christian" has given a great impetus to the former work. I have already stated in these columns the impression that Miss Corelli (whose books I cannot read) has been attacked very unfairly in comparison with other hunters. after notoriety; and, from one cause and another, I see signs of a feeling that the ridiculing of the lady has gone too far. Her fault has been that she has been less adroit in working booms that some of her male rivals. Miss Corelli has been far from well recently, and is to winter in Egypt, far from the ill-concealed dislike of paragraphists. Meanwhile Mr. Caine, whose play "The Christian" has been relegated to the provinces, is pondering over his novel on the Holy City. Lucas Malet's new novel, "The History of Sir Richard Calmerdy," which the Methuens have in hand, is rumored in advance, of course, to be excellent-the best she has done since "The Wages of Sin."

And, by the way, I am told that a lot of pictures have just been issued by Horace Marshall & Son, who, until recent years, devoted themselves almost exclusively to the work of news agents.

By the time Americans return to us next year the face of west central London, with its many literary associations, will have undergone another series of obliterations. The Strand side of Holywell Street, which is fast being deserted by the fourpenny box, is already an accomplished fact and whole areas of houses in the neighborhood are gaunt and shuttered, prior to their removal for the great thoroughfare between the Strand and Holborn. An ingenious proposal has been made to call the new street "Dickens Avenue," for it will run rough-shod through the haunts of Mr. Pickwick, Jo, Mrs. Gamp, Mrs. Lirriper, and many another of Boz's merry immortals. Bloomsbury is also undergoing enormous changes at the hands of its great land owner, His Grace of Bedford. For instance, Alfred Place, in Tottenham Court Road, is threatened. It was here that Campbell had lodgings after resigning the editorship of the New Monthly Magazine, which reminds us that Mr. Newbolt, the editor of the new Monthly Review, has also made. his mark (in "Admirals All) in patriotic verse, like the author of the "Battle of the Baltic." Sheridan Knowles, whose theatrical stucco-Virginius, for instance, --still gratifies country audiences, also lived in this byway, which has in recent years almost entirely changed its old-time character. There has been some rude iconoclasm displayed in a discussion which seems to prove conclusively that the author of "The Deserted Village" does not lie under the rain-washed monument of the Temple, marked "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith."

The opening of the dramatic season came as a pleasant relief in an unusually