matic vein seems to have settled the main direction of his future work. Two or three visits to Paris made him familiar with the lighter school of French opera, and in 1871 he was introduced by Frederic Clay at one of the German Reid Entertainments to Mr. Gilbert, then a young barrister. Since that day there have been anthems, carols, hymns, cantatas and songs, and even works for the piano from Sir Arthur's pen, but I think posterity is going to remember him as the music-creator of Savoy opera, the most characteristic output of the playhouse in the Victorian era, an output which, as I have expressed in these pages before, may be the sole remnant of the theatre of our era fifty years hence.

Sir Arthur is probably the greatest mu. sical humorist we have had since the days of Mozart. You need to follow no words at the Savoy, although these are spoken with almost unparalleled clearness, to feel that Sir Arthur's music is gay, that it contains a genuine humorous idea developed in his later work on the principal of the Wagnerian motif. His humor is ingenious to the last degree, and it is very cleverly differentiated in different works. That there should be reminiscences of "H. M. S. Pinafore" in "The Gondoliers" is the outcome of the fact that they are the work of the same brain, but the two operas are quite distinct, and each in turn is absolutely different from "The Yeoman of the Guard."

Mr. Lawrence's book is somewhat a thing of shreds and patches, but for that very reason it is extremely readable and will be of great use to the writer of the future. We see into Sir Arthur's mind in the little scraps of conversation produced in numerous letters and in odds and ends of letters and reminiscences. Sir Arthur is of opinion that "The Yeoman of the Guard" is his best opera. To me it has the best libretto that has ever

been written in England, some of Mr. Gilbert's verses being equal to the lyrics of the Elizabethan song writers. Sir Arthur also has strong affection for "The Gondoliers," which has all the ripple of an Italian and the gaiety of an Italian. sky. It is not surprising to note that while accepting the verdict of the public in regard to some of the non-successful operas, he likes "The Beauty Stone" and even parts of "Ruddygore." The most popular of the whole series, however, has been "The Mikado," which has already become a classic. Mr. Lawrence reproduces the original sketch of "Three Little Maids from School," which shows that Sir Arthur is a very neat writer of music manuscript. There is also a reproduction of the orchestral score of the same song, which demonstrates the extreme care that Sullivan has always devoted to his band, doubtless the result of his father's example. There is a most interesting chapter in the book entitled "American Reminiscences from 1878-80."

Mr. Lawrence, in short, has produced a valuable contribution to the most interesting operatic development of England during the century-Balfe and Wallace notwithstanding. Knowing my Savoy opera backwards, words and music alike, I have read the volume with the keenest zest, and shall file it for future reference. J. M. Bulloch.

admiration as Eleanor herself. This, by the way, is an American girl of a type as markedly flattering to our national sensibilities as Daisy Miller was shocking. Each of these women has her own strong characterization and her own special charm. But the man of the story, who is the only hero in sight, is a man of such curious traits as to exasperate the patient and perplex the honest-minded admirer of Mrs. Ward and all her works.

"End as he did in recreating a church and regenerating a literature," said Eleanor in reply to a comparison instituted by her cousin between his own career and that of Chateaubriand, "and see who will count the shipwrecks."

This is just about the attitude persistently maintained toward Manisty by his admirers, including Mrs. Ward herself, and as such the remark is significant. In fact such faith had they in his power of ultimate achievement that they apparently considered it unnecessary to note the "shipwrecks" even in passing.

Manisty possessed unusual mental and oratorical ability, yet he resigned an important political position after a violent quarrel with his party, traceable to no known cause save a difference of opinion on educational questions, and an undiplomatic tendency on his part to dine with the opposition. In a pet he rushed off to Italy, where he busied himself in the preparation of a book, which under the guise of an arraignment of "Young Italy" and a eulogy of the Church of Rome, was designed as a nobject lesson to the Liberal party.

Mrs. Ward does not neglect here the obvious opportunity to display her marvelous erudition. The knowledge which Manisty reveals on all phases of Italian history, art, literature, and contemporary politics is little short of bewildering. The very ease with which he distorts facts serves but to emphasize his absolute familiarity with the subject.

"You should have come by Perugia and Spolito. Do you know Spello ?" he remarks to the bewildered Lucy during dinner on the evening of her arrival at the villa. "No-pardon me-" as she made a timid allusion to Florence-"there is nothing to be seen at Florence, or nothing that one ought to wish to see, till the destroyers of the town have been hung in their own new Piazza.”

"What people are pleased to call Papal tyranny puts a few people in prison, and tells them what books to read. Well! What matter? Who knows what books they ought to read?"

These are apparently the utterances of a man who takes a humorous, if slightly cynical, view of things in general. As a matter of fact, however, the sang froid was merely an occasional pose. So sensitive was the nature of this maker of epigrams that in place of an every-day stenographer he was obliged to have a sympathetic scribe in the person of the devoted Eleanor to "take down" his brilliant arguments, keen satire, and highlycolored allegory. Adverse criticism threw him at once into a rage, but in the end he was likely to endorse the criticism, and then woe be to the unlucky individual who had previously expressed admiration for the now despised product of his. genius.

Poor Eleanor, whose very soul had been wrought into those glowing chapters on Italy-it was her fate to see the unfinished. book tossed contemptuously aside at a word from an old tutor of the author's and to find herself utterly ignored while Manisty awoke to the consciousness that the American girl, whom for week he had treated with absolute rudeness, was not without possibilities.

In a man of steadfast ambition and reasonable honesty such colossal selfishness might be condoned. But when Manisty tells Eleanor in the morning that she

would much better stay away from mass and help him praise the Holy Roman Church at a safe distance, and in the afternoon works himself into a frenzy over the government appropriation of ecclesiastical property, he lays himself open to the charge, either of hyprocisy or of unpardonable flippancy.

These glaring deficiencies were not hidden from Eleanor's penetrating eyes, but her faith was quickened by love. She was constantly watching for the manifestation in her hero of some hitherto latent coordinating principle that shall blend those brilliant but hopelessly divergent moods into a noble and unswerving purpose. But well as she understood him, she had not fathomed his vanity. He wrote, talked, thought, and even felt, with the gallery in view. If the applause was not forthcoming, he found little consolation in the intrinsic merit of his performance; and like a fretful child who kicks the naughty door that has bumped its head, he is ready to turn upon those who have encouraged him in a worthless undertaking.

And it is this man who made "shipwreck" of at least one woman's life, whom Mrs. Ward allows to marry Lucy, in some respects the finest of all her heroines, and for aught that is said to the contrary, to live happily forever after.

One is tempted to speculate as to what disposition Mr. Barrie would have made of the magnificent egoist. Would he have married him to his cousin at Torre Amiata, and then forced him to listen patiently while one of her friends, Reggie Brooklyn, for instance, explained how dreadful it would be for Eleanor if she eventually recovered her health, to find herself irretrievably bound to the man whose selfishness had brought her to the verge of the grave? Or, would he perchance have compelled him to walk abstractedly over the edge of a precipice while musing on the inexplicable coldness of Lucy?

Had Mrs. Ward given the faintest suggestion that her point of view regarding Manisty was humorous, scornful, or even that of righteous indignation, he would undoubtedly stand forth as one of the finest specimens of character delineation in recent fiction. But as a hero he is not convincing.

One thing at least, however, can be said on his behalf. He was not, in Matthew Arnold's sense of the term, a Philistine, and this, doubtless, is why Mrs. Ward likes him. But he will seem to many to be one of the most objectionable Bunthornes ever hatched.

E. J. Hulbert.

FOUR NEW NOVELS

W

THEN Mr. Eden Phillpotts decided. upon the motive and plot for Sons of the Morning he probably realized that he would offer great temptations to his reviewers. A seriously intended and charmingly written story, with a fresh and not untrue idea at the base of it, Sons of the Morning, unfortunately, provokes ridicule. Honor Endicott, the heroine, loves two men at the same time, and so refuses to marry; this is possible, provided she is not thoroughly in love with either; what seems far more unlikely is that the two men-Christopher Yeoland and Myles Stapleton-both deeply in love with her, should each try to simplify matters by leaving the field to the other. In this remarkable contest, Christopher beats by long odds. He goes to Australia and sends back word that he is dead. Everyone is deceived except the readers of the story, who know on the instant that so important a character would not be whisked out of the reckoning so unceremoniously if he were not to return; the

SONS OF THE MORNING. By Eden Phillpotts. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 8vo, $1.50.

effect would have been better if Mr. Phillpotts had frankly admitted that Christopher was lying low to give his lady-love a chance to marry the other man. This performance is no more impossible than Honor's frame of mind, but it is still more unconvincing. It works like a charm, however. Almost at once Honor marries Myles, and things go tolerably well until Christopher, finding even an imaginary grave a lonely place, gets tired of it and comes home. Such is the device by which Mr. Phillpotts reaches the real business of his story, the situation of a woman married to a man whom she loves, but finding as much if not more pleasure in the society of another man. Neither Honor nor Christopher dreams that Myles can object to their comradeship, until Myles accuses and taunts his wife insultingly. Strangely enough she feels no resentment, and finally husband and wife decide that the other man must be counted out of their lives. At this point, however, the husband falls from a cliff and is killed, after which, promptly again, and true to her impartiality, Honor marries the other man. The usual number of field laborers with quaint dialect and shrewd wits form the side characters of this unusual story. Near the beginning, Christopher, the young squire, kisses a pretty haymaker, suggesting to the spectators outside the book that there is but one formula for a novel of English country life; but just when it is time for Honor to "find out" and for the complications to begin, it is the reader who finds out, finds that he has an absolutely new story in his hands. If it were only convincing, what a sensation it might

cause.

Another story with a fresh idea is Hard Pan, by Geraldine Bonner, a first book. It is an unpretentious account of a California "Bonanza King" whose golden

HARD PAN. By Geraldine Bonner. The Century Co., 12mo, $1.50.

kingdom has slipped through his pockets, leaving him nothing of value except an old house, a young daughter and a magnificent unscrupulousness in borrowing money. While of a different type from Colonel Mulberry Sellers or Colonel Carter of Cartersville, he belongs to the same fraternity, and is also a colonel. Is there no process by which that title could be handed back to Mr. Micawber? It might be done-in American editions. As Hard Pan is a love story, Colonel Ramsay Reed, while far the best and most important character in it, is not "starred" through it; and yet, folding his ragged dressinggown around him and telling stories of the great California millionaires whom he had "made," he is not an unworthy addition to the brotherhood mentioned above. The story hangs upon the fact that, for love of Viola, his daughter, he takes advantage of John Gault's interest in her and borrows money from Gault, living for some time on the young man's bounty, and explaining the money at home as dividends on some old mining stock which has suddenly become valuable. Of course Viola finds out in time; sorrows and estrangements follow-quite inevitably, for John Gault's large-mindedness would go into a thimble and leave room for my lady's finger; but the book ends with reunion and happiness, although the old Colonel dies.

John Oliver Hobbes deals so thoroughly with the individuality of her characters that she would be modern in spirit if she were to write a tale of ancient Egypt. Robert Orange tells of a group of Londoners in 1869; it follows "The School for Saints," and its characters refer so constantly to the previous book that anyone unfamiliar with "The School" feels like an outsider among old acquaintances. The gist of the story is that Robert Or

ROBERT ORANGE. By John Oliver Hobbes. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 12mo, $1.50.

ange, an ascetic by temperament, marries Mrs. Parclete, in spite of the fact that he half distrusts his own right to human love. Mrs. Parclete is beautiful and young, in fact, almost childish, in spite of many painful experiences and an unfortunate first marriage. Parclete is supposed to have committed suicide; but on the day of her second wedding it is discovered that the report of suicide was false. She decides to become an actress, and, although Parclete veritably dies in time, Orange becomes a Jesuit. All this the author tells in her odd and characteristic way, with a glimpse now at one group of her people, now at another, giving an impression of an alert, often sarcastic observer, smothering sympathy when she feels it into a tone of impartial comprehension. In spite of many bits of analysis and philosophy, the story moves jerkily forward by various small dramatic scenes; yet its effects are not as cumulative as they should be where the dramatic method is used, and the hero's final acts and decisions are communicated by letter. Having been oddly told, the tale is oddly finished. Disraeli, who appears as a side character, is asked for a summary of Orange's life, and his answer, like the answer to a problem in arithmetic, serves as a test for the reader's own interpretation of the book.

We have already seen two husbands dying to make way for their rivals-both violent deaths, by the way-and in The House of Egremont a third is similarly disposed of, and most advantageously. The story is of England and France in the days when James II lived in exile at St. Germains; the pictures of his povertystricken little court and his jolly, homesick men-at-arms are vivid and ring true, coming in without digression or stiffness,

THE HOUSE OF EGREMONT. By Molly Elliot Seawell. Charles Scribner's Sons, 12mo, $1.50.

as part of a whole-souled narrative. A reader takes his cue of sympathy from a writer's style, just as a child takes it from the tones of a narrator's voice, and Miss Seawell's style in this book has an easy, swinging joyousness. The story is of adventure and love; the good people in it are life-like and heartily likeable; the villains are heartily dislikeable, and not uncomfortably tinctured with virtue. Roger Egremont, after throwing a platter of beans in the face of "Dutch William " and engaging in other enterprises against the comfort and security of that longheaded prince, finds himself in Newgate prison, and incidentally, in the society of the gaoler's extremely self-reliant niece, Bess Lukens. After a few years spent in getting the education he had neglected when he was younger, he is stolen and set free, for William's own good reasons, and finds himself set down at Egremont, his old home, then in the hands of his unscrupulous half-brother, Hugo Stein. Unwilling to ask favors of Hugo, Roger makes his way to St. Germains. There he meets and loves the Princess Michelle. Bess Lukens also comes upon the scene again, and becomes an opera singer. Each of the two girls is in her own way as beautiful and proud as the other, and both love Roger, but one is too low in rank, the other too high, and the princess is destined for a political marriage. The plot, developing as it does through many daring incidents, is too long to be outlined in full, and it is enough to say that the end is happy, and that most of the scenes are well sustained; the story is pleasingly illustrated by C. M. Relyea; it has not only an abundance of action, but a delightful out-of-doors flavor, moving through the king's hay-fields and along wooded mountain roads, where lovers forget the difference between princess and penniless man-at-arms. Mary Tracy Earle.