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with the money provided by the Act. For example, at Luton instruction under the Act is now being given in the practice of the local straw-plaiting industry, which had got into a moribund condition; the effects so far have been most satisfactory, and are reviving the trade. In other words, the Act attempts to draw a distinction, which would be foolish if it could be put into practice, and though in several towns it is wisely ignored, it is objectionable, and should be got rid of.

Let me make one other suggestion. Why cannot Technical Instruction be commenced in Board Schools? There seems no convincing reason why Elementary Education should be merely literary; while there seems every reason why it should be combined with healthy and interesting training in manual industry and artistic craftmanship. The time-limit blocks the way at present to much reform; and the age at which children of the poorer classes are taken away from school should be raised. But in the meantime many hours might be saved by compressing the less necessary parts of the school curriculum. Learning the names of Canaanitish chiefs and the like gymnastics of the mind might with advantage make room for elementary instruction in some useful or beautiful craft.

Amen! Amen! But, unfortunately, the Party now in power seem to consider that the one thing needful is to increase the premium upon the learning of the names of t'he Canaanites and similar gymnastics of the mind. In this opinion, however, I cannot believe that the Duke of Devonshire really concurs.

REMEDIES FOR PRIVATE ADOPTION.

Mr. Williams then goes on to urge, justly enough, that commercial Consuls and technical colleges will be of no good unless our manufacturers and inerchants bestir themselves in a more energetic and practical fashion than they have been doing lat ly; otherwise, it would not have been necessary for him to make the following suggestions:

They must be more studious to the tastes and wishes of their customers. They must send out travellers, who know the language of the country which they are canvassing. They must cease to scorn the small order. They must pay more heed to the merits of careful packing and the like details of well conducted commerce. They must have an up-to-date equipment in their workshops. They must adopt the metric system of weights and measures for their export business, at any rate, and they must conform to whatever system of money and measures is in vogue in the country in which they propose to trade. They must be more artistic, and attend more to the appearance of their goods; otherwise we shall have many reports such as Messrs. Guttridge sent from Naples in the autumn of 1895, which states that "German cotton hosiery from Chemnitz has taken the place of British-made goods, being smarter looking and more saleable." They must practise the imitative art and learn from their rivals and competitors. They must advertise more boldly. They must avoid labour troubles, and recognise that well-paid workers, other things being equal, are the best workers, and that the shortening of the hours is often a profitable investment. Lastly, Englishmen must be more progressive, more alert, more watchful, more ready to take instant advantage of every opportunity.

Mr. Williams concludes his remarkable book as follows:

Are these counsels of perfection? They are counsels, nevertheless, which are, every one of them, necessary to salvation. Every one of them is followed in Germany, and I decline to believe that England's industrial character has so deteriorated that she is unable, an she will, to pull herself up to the German standard of conduct. Her unique position as unchallenged mistress of the Industrial World is gone, and is not likely to be regained. But some of the departed glory may

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To Ministers, Opposition leaders, and legislators generally I would appeal as to whether the state of things above described does not demand instant attention and immediate action. If the facts are not as stated, then of course we can let things alone. But if they are, is it not criminal and suicidal folly to allow this Session to pass before manfully grappling with this national peril? The Opposition concurring with Ministers could without difficulty pass a real Education Bill restricted to those educational changes which every one agrees to be urgently necessary. Surely we have fooled on long enough about Secondary Educa tion. The time has come for action. Sir W. Harcourt has already intimated a readiness to co-operate ia passing the non-contentious part of Sir John Gorst's Bill. Woe will be to those statesmen who with this Stoffel-like warning before them take no action, but blunder blindly down like the third Napoleon to an irremediable Sedan.

SUMMER HOLIDAYS FOR LONDON CHILDREN.-120,000 people crowded on an area of less than one square mile in this hot summer weather! No park, no open space, no shade of trees or carpet of green grass to give rest or coolness in the arid dusty streets of Walworth. Readers of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS are no doubt planning pleasant holidays by sea or lake or mountain. Will they not ensure the happiness of their own holiday by sending a little to help to carry the poor denizens of that crowded district for a brief holiday by sa or field? Ten shillings will secure for a child a whole fortnight of happiness; fifteen shillings will give an adult the same holiday. Donations for this object will be very gratefully received by the Warden, F. Herbert Stead, Robert Browning Hall, York Street, Walworth.

THE interest which Mr. Hall Caine has roused in everything pertaining to the Isle of Man will lead many a reader to turn to the sketch in the July Quiver of Church life in Manxland, of which the Bishop of Sodor and Man is the author. He does not conceal the scandals of the past nor overlook the great good done by Dissenters. This is only one of many taking articles which this number of the Quiver contains.

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THE London Manual and Municipal Year Book," which has made its first appearance, is an excellent book of reference, for which we are indebted to the proprietor of London. No book dealing with the chaos of London government has yet been produced which is so up-to-date, so comprehensive and cheap. It is a shilling in paper covers, and with maps, diagrams, and portraits, and invaluable lists of local officials with their addresses, it is quite the best little manual of the kind.

LAST month we published in our caricature pages, an excellent cartoon of the Cabinet "robbing Johu Bull with violence." Its source was wrongly given: it should have been attributed to Mr. Keir Hardie's paper, the Labour Leader.

THIS month I issue the first number of my "Penny

Torch Lies" It has been well received, and I

hope will achieve a success at least equal to that of the "Penny Poets." The first chapter of "Macaulay's History of England" is in itself a rapid summary of the whole history of the country, from Macaulay's point of view, from the earliest time down to the close of the Commonwealth. It was only after he had written his Introduction that he began the detailed History of the reign of the "Last of the Stuarts" and the Revolution of 1688. In the case of Macaulay I have been able to print the whole chapter without any abridgment, merely cutting down one or two notes. I have taken the liberty of editing the chapter to the extent of cutting it up into sections and giving it crossheads. By this mean, I flatter myself that many, even of those who have read the Introduction to the History, will be surprised to find how comprehensive a compendium to English history Macaulay produced in his first chapter. I would specially commend this series of ProseClassics to teachers, and those who have an opportunity of suggesting reading to young men and young women. I well remember to this day the glow of delight that came over me when first I got hold of Macaulay's Essays. I should think I was then about sixteen or seventeen years of age, and the brilliance of Macaulay's style produced upon me the effect which I suppose is somewhat equivalent to the intoxication produced by champagne. The fortnight in which I devoured his Essays stands out a bright and brilliant, and never-to-be-forgotten period in my youth. Similar to this, although somewhat of a more serious nature, was the effect produced by reading Carlyle's "Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell." It would be impossible by any process of condensation to give the letters and speeches of the Lord Protector in a penny book, but I think I can succeed in giving those passages of Carlyle which burned themselves into my memory thirty years ago, together with such elucidatory matter as will connect his more brilliant extracts together, and so form something approaching to a sketch of Cromwell and the times in which he lived.

THE BOY-PCET AND THE "PENNY POETS."

EDMUND CURTIS.

Curtis's. An anonymous benefactor provided means for giving young Curtis three years' education, and altogether a very friendly and sympathetic interest was taken in the boy-poet. In this connection I was glad to receive the following letter from the sub-editor of London, which speaks for itself:

Office of London,

June 15th, 1896. Dear Mr. Stead.-You will be interested to learn that Edmund Curtis, the boy-poet of the East End, was a most ardent admirer and eager reader of your "Penny Poets."

It is some months ago since I first discovered the youthful bard, since which I have been able to assist him somewhat in his reading, but until I met him his reading of poetry was largely confined to the weekly supplies you placed at his disposal for a penny.

He spoke with enthusiasm of waiting for the appearance of each number, and of taking it off to the factory or the home and reading it with intense delight.

He used to wish they came out more frequently and gave more of each poet's work. They filled him with an ardent longing to read the completed works, and now, since we introduced the boy to the public, and generous friends have given him many volumes of poems, he still cherishes a fond remembrance of the "Penny Poets."

When we were gathering him a little library, we asked him what books he already possessed. He mentioned two commonplace volumes and nearly all the "Penny Poets."-Yours faithfully, GEORGE HAW, Assistant Editor.

BOOKS FOR THE BAIRNS.

The issue of "Books for the Bairns" continues. The latest number is devoted to the old German satire of "Reynard the Fox," which will be followed by the somewhat similar story that tells the adventures of "Brer Rabbit." The illustrations in the "Books for the Bairns" have attracted much attention.

NEW ISSUES OF THE NOVELS.

Since our last issue I have published the following numbers of our " Penny Popular Novels " :Midshipman Easy." By Captain Marryat. "Robert Falconer." By Geo. Macdonald.

No. 25.

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Last month, our temporary, London, created some literary sensation by discovering a lad of fifteen, Edmund Curtis by name, who was earning his living in an india-rubber factory in Silvertown. London published some of his poems with a portrait, a reduced copy of which I reproduce here. Sir Walter Besant, Mr. Andrew Lang, and of many the daily papers, united in declaring that Curtis was a boy of very fine promise, while Mr. Lang declared that the early school verse of Sir Walter Scott was really not so good as

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"Fantine," from "Les Miserables." By Victor Hugo.

28.-"Handy Andy." By Samuel Lover.

It is hateful to be perpetually crying your own wares, but hardly a month passes in which I do not receive letters to show how much more might be done in the way of promoting a taste for reading by the help of those penny books than what has yet been attempted. In this connection I received a very interesting letter from a teacher last month, who wrote to me as follows:

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The wide success and popularity of your "Penny Popular Novels" and "Books for the Bairns" leads me to believe that the issue in similar form of a Series of "Books for the Boys'. would fill the gap left (or created) by the other two series' The "Penny Novels" are more adapted for the older folk, while "Books for the Bairns are simply what they profess to be-bairnish. What a boy of twelve or thirteen yearns after when he reads anything is plenty of narrative, stirring incident and dramatic situation; something which he can assimilate without overtaxing his powers of mental digestion. He does not even care for much plot, and skips all wordpainting and analysis of character.

Now that "unseen reading" is required in the upper classes of our public elementary schools, the weekly (or monthly)

issue of boys' books in a cheap form would be an inestimable boon to both teacher and scholar. The host of penny weekly publications now issuing are too scrappy and disconnected, and 80 full of colloquial English and slang that they are quite unsuited for this purpose, while the cheap popular monthlies do not cater sufficiently for the juveniles to be of much interest among schoolboys.

The School Library (public money may not be employed for the furnishing of school libraries) is now becoming an important institution in elementary schools. I have introduced the penny novels into my own school library, and have endeavoured to push them among my pupils. The success of the experiment has not been very pronounced however; the books are taken home, but in most cases they are brought back unread.

Your proposed Reading Revival has my most hearty sympathy as a remedial measure. I am of opinion, however, that efforts of this character would have the most far-reaching effect if a campaign could be organised and prosecuted among our elementary scholars. From personal observation and inquiry it does not appear that more than 15 per cent. of the children living in our great industrial centres have any inclination for books out of school. If a cheap supply of wholesome juvenile literature were available a tremendous power for good would be placed in the hands of schoolmasters, who, by virtue of their office, would be able to introduce into the school books which combine literary merit with the other essentials already enumerated as necessary to arrest and sustain interest, and at a rate which would place them within the reach of the poorest child. The most valuable part of a teacher's work, and that which has the most lasting results, is the creation of a love of reading among his pupils; as this desire, once implanted, throws open the gates of all other knowledge. This assertion, although perhaps very trite, loses nothing by iteration.

Our correspondent suggests that it would be well to invite from teachers a list of the fifty best books that they would like to have reproduced for a penny, for the purpose of a school library. I would be extremely glad if teachers would fall in with this suggestion, but may I beg of them to take into consideration the fact that no book is out of copyright whose author is still alive, or has not been dead for more than seven years, and that even then the book is not out of copyright until forty-two years after its publication. It is obvious how much this will limit the range of choice, but of non-copyright books there are surely sufficient to enable teachers to draw up a list of fifty books, which, if produced at a penny, either complete or abridged, would furnish, by no means contemptibly, the shelves of a village library.

The list of the books which the writer of the above letter sends is made up almost entirely of copyright works, the owners of which are not willing to promote the publication of abridgments for the value of the lads and lasses in our elementary schools. A glance over the list of books already issued in penny form will prove that there is already in existence a very good collection of books for young people at a price which brings them within the range of everybody. I shall be very glad, on hearing from any teacher who wishes to introduce these books to his scholars, to send a sample parcel at a

nominal price, if he will communicate with me as to the kind of books he thinks would be most likely to interest them.

I am glad to notice the publication by Mr. Bryce, of Glasgow, of penny booklets of a distinctly religious nature. The first, "Blessed be Drudgery," is prefaced by the Countess of Aberdeen; the last issued is "Selections from Thomas à Kempis," edited by Professor Lindsay. I am glad to think that the success of the "Penny Poets" has encouraged the publication of this series, and I cordially wish Mr. Bryce every success.

THE BAIRNS' PAINTING COMPETITION. Twenty-two copies of "Esop's Fables," coloured by juvenile artists, have been sent in for the competition announced in the June REVIEW OF REVIEWS. I append a complete list of the competitors, with their ages. We had considerable difficulty in deciding which was the best. Some excelled in the neatness with which they have laid on the pigments, others by the brilliance of their colouring; while some, which have been very well done in other respects, have been marred by the incongruity of the colours employed.

After much consideration I have placed the four first as follows:

A. E. Olley, aged 11, County School, Llangollen.
Eira C. Haise, 47, Revidge Road, Blackburn.
Phyllis Ashby (9), Downing, Loughton, Essex.
Frances Bomford, Northville, Mildenhall, Suffolk.

The names of the other competitors, which I will not mention in order of merit, but in order of alphabet, are as follows:

Harry Ball, 5, Palmerston Rd., Dublin

Millicent W. Ball, 5, Palmerston Rd., Dublin.
Gladys Barrington, 46, Palmerston Rd., Dublin.
May Crosbie, 10, Belgrave Sq., Rathmines, Dublin.
Gertrude Crosland, Bay View, Arnside, viâ Carnforth.
Arthur Jules Dash (9), 37, St. Paul's Sq., York.
Kathleen Downham (6), Cintra, Oakfield, Liverpool.
Evelyn L. Downham (8), Cintra, Oakfield, Liverpool.
Elsie Fleet (11), Sunset View, Alkington Rd., Whitchurch,
Salop.

Henry P. Henley, 7, Church Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin.
John W. Henry (8), 132, Upper Rathmines, Dublin.
Richard N. Holmes (7), Ellel House, Oakfield, Liverpool.
Marian S. Liddle (10), Cornwall House, Newbury, Berks.
Monica S. Liddle (64), Cornwall House, Newbury, Berks.
Arthur Howard Page (10), 7, Ivy Gardens, Crouch End, N.
Grace Banfield Page (11), 7, Ivy Gardens, Crouch End, N.
E. S. Richmond (10), 4, Telbury Place, Brighton.
Maud M. Robinson (9), 208, Barnsley Road, Sheffield.

I have to thank my juvenile friends for the pains they have taken in colouring the pictures in " Æsop's Fables." It is impossible for every one to win a prize, and I have no doubt that if I knew all the circumstances under which some of the competitors did their work, I might think they are more worthy of a prize than those to whom it has actually been awarded. I hope, therefore, that none of them will be disappointed because they have not succeeded.

DEAR

EAR MR. SMURTHWAYT,-If fiction has been at all dispossessed of place in the strenuous days of the early year, it generally comes to its own again with the return of summer and the heyday of the season. See here, for instance, in the following list of what people have most been buying: more than half the books are novels, and one of the two that remain is the outcome of as sensational an episode as modern history has to record, while the other is made up of the sermons of a writer who, whatever he may first count himself, bulks more in the public mind as a writer of fiction than as a clergyman. But here is the list:

Boer and Uitlander: the True History of the late Events in South Africa. By W. F. Regan. 3s. 6d.

68.

The Courtship of Morrice Buckler. By A. E. W. Mason. 68.
The Mind of, the Master. By John Watson, D.D.
Rome. By Emile Zola. 3s. 6d.
Briseis. By William Black. 6s.

The Sowers. By Henry Seton Merriman. 6s.

Mr. W. F. Regan's "Boer and Uitlander" (Digby, 3s. 6d.) I sent you a couple of months ago. Philo-Boer though it is, anything that protested so much that it is a "true history was sure to get readers. And Mr. Regan is by no means so prejudiced a guide as altogether to vitiate the value of his book. I know I ought to have sent you "The Courtship of Morrice Buckler" (Macmillan, 6s.) earlier. I cry guilty for once to the charge of having, not neglected, but overlooked, your interests. Mr. Mason, as a rival to Mr. Weyman and Dr. Doyle, is perhaps the discovery of the spring. He can describe a fight with the best, can invent an exciting incident, and call up the dead past of courtly graces and sword flashings. But he cannot-at present-tell a story with complete success; nor can he create a character as have the other writers I have named. His characters are quite ludicrously superficial, the puppets of the plot. But still, this serious disability notwithstanding, his "record of the growth of an English gentleman during the years 1685-1687, under strange and difficult circumstances," is very well worth reading. The name of John Watson, D.D., hides the pseudonym of "Ian Maclaren." His "The Mind of the Master" (Hodder. 6s.) is made up of fifteen short papers on religious subjects—“Jesus our Supreme Teacher"; "Sin an Act of Self-Will"; "Fatherhood the Final Idea of God," and others. M. Zola's "Rome" (Chatto, 3s. 6d.) you know all about; Mr. William Black's new novel "Briseis" (Low, 6s.) you will have read; and Mr. Seton Merriman's "The Sowers (Smith and Elder, 6s.) you had from me in April, when I suggested that its author deserved more attention from lovers of a good stirring tale than he had been getting.

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The first of the other novels I have to send you-Mr. Gilbert Parker's "The Seats of the Mighty" (Methuen, 65.)-is good enough to have surprised even those readers who have been enthusiastic about this author's promise ever since the old National Observer days, and the publication of "Pierre and his People." There was a fear once that Mr. Parker would allow his somewhat strenuous style to run away with him; that fear can now be dismissed. The style in which this book is written is individual, certainly, but individual with real distinction, not with eccentricity. "The Seats of the Mighty" is a tale of the English investment of Quebec, and of the half-dozen years of war that went before it.

It has gallant episodes as exciting as any in the best work of Dr. Doyle and Mr. Weyman, but its interest does not lie in incident alone. The characters--Captain Moray, "Monsieur Devil" Doltaire, Gabord--are drawn with admirable, inimitable care. Mr. Parker has been likened to many writers-Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter was once the REVIEW's choice!-but here he is himself most, with a touch perhaps of Dumas. Tho escapes from the Citadel and from the Château Saint Louis are excellent, and so too is the suggestion of the fighting after Moray has led Wolfe up the heights before the town. It is not every one who likes the romantic novel, but those who do are hardly likely to find a better specimen of the kind in a score of moons. And I have another romance to send you. "The Prisoner of Zenda" has had so much success in America that the Yankees have raised an Anthony Hope of their own in the person of Mr. Robert W. Chambers, a writer whose previous books, "The King in Yellow," "In the Quarter," and "The Red Republic," I sent you with warm commendation. He is versatile, this Mr. Chambers, and this new novel of his," A King and a Few Dukes" (Putnam, 6s.), is almost as interesting and as exciting as its prototype. Its scene is the Balkans, and Mr. Chambers does not hesitate to mix up the geography of that seething cauldron of intrigue in any manner that suits his narrative. Russian plots, a beautiful princess, a gallant young American, and "the world well lost for love" of the old-fashioned romances: such are the ingredients of "A King and a Few Dukes," and I am much mistaken if they do not give it a considerable popularity. Bismarck himself is the deus ex machina who comes to the aid, in the last few pages, of the hero and heroine!

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It is full summer and you have asked for plenty of fiction, and I think I shall have satisfied you. There are two new novels by authors very well established: Mr. Marion Crawford's " Adam Johnstone's Son" (Macmillan, 6s.); and Miss Charlotte M. Yonge's "The Release;. or, Caroline's French Kindred" (Macmillan, 68.); Mr. Maurice Hervey's "Dartmoor (Arrowsmith, 3s. 6d.), which does not belie the promise of its title (there is an escape from Dartmoor in the book and a really wicked villain and all the usual ingredients of the old-fashioned sensation story); a tale of Russia ("this is the first time," says the preface, "that the grand mode of Russia has ever been dealt with in English fiction," and there is an escape-from Siberia-in this book, too); "The Limb: an Episode of Adventure" (Innes, 6s.), by the writer who gave us "Aut Diabolus aut Nihil," and still prefers to be known as "X. L."; a novel, very modern and psychological, by Mr. Francis Gribble, with the excellent title of "The Things that Matter" (Innes, 6s.), dealing with the better Bohemian society and the artistic life; and an excellent tale in the vein of the older writers who used to aim specially at the "young person"-Miss Norma Lorimer's "A Sweet Disorder (Innes, 6s.). This last is all about two girls who come up to London to earn their own living, is thoroughly virginibus, and contains one really beautiful episode-the death of the old maid-as sweetly told as anything of its kind in Miss Wilkins's best work.-Mr. Fisher Unwin has started a series of Little Novels, each volume of which is issued at the modest price of sixpence. I send

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you one-Mr. H. Barton Baker's "Margaret Gray: an Episode in a Life"-that you may see how convenient a size they are for carrying about. This particular story deals with a repentant Magdalen who is unable to tear herself entirely away from the fascination of the life which has enthralled her, although in the intervals between these outbreaks, she works as a missionary in the East End. The plot has memories of "Johanna Traill, Spinster" about it, but that would not matter if Mr. Baker had not treated it so superficially, with so much sentiment and melodramatic emphasis. Although I cannot honestly say that I like the story, or even think it clever, I send you also Mrs. Egerton Castle's "My Little Lady Anne " (Lane, 2s. net), the new volume of Pierrot's Library. In truth, if this dark tale of the last century can be taken as an index of Pierrot's taste in literature, he cannot be envied. There are many points in common between " My Little Lady Anne" and Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's "A Lady of Quality," so it may get a certain vogue, but I cannot think it either healthy or pleasant; and I only send it to you now because it forms one of a series of books whose format is as attractive and tasteful as anything that the Bodley Head has produced.

I send you some good volumes of short stories too. "Embarrassments" (Heinemann, 63.), by Mr. Henry James, acknowledged master in England of this kind of art, you should read first. It has all his qualitiesperhaps at their best: reticence, the adumbration of character, the expression of the most delicate moods. The literary calling has hardly been more deftly and cleverly presented, on one of its sides, than in the first story, "The Figure in the Carpet." Then Mr. John Davidson has collected some of the best of his essays in the short story in "Miss Armstrong's and Other Circumstances" (Methuen, 6s.), and shows that, although by no manner of means as good a writer of fiction as he is a poet, he can produce work of this kind worth reading and individual. In "Miss Martin's Company and Other Stories" (Dent, 2s. 6d. net), a volume of the pretty Iris series, Miss Jane Barlow gives another collection of sketches of Irish life; while Miss Hannah Lynch's “ Dr. Vermont's Fantasy" (Dent, 3s. 6d. net) can be commended to any of your friends who put as much store by the manner as the matter of a short story. Each of her tales has a fine literary finish.

Miss Violet Hunt's "The Maiden's Progress; or the Adventures of a Girl" (Chapman), has appeared in a new edition "with considerable modifications, accessories and additions," and as you liked its freshness and smartness so well when it first came out, I send it you again. One doubts whether any book expresses better the new spirit that has caught so many young girls in London society to-day-certainly no book expresses it with such brightness and continual interest. Then I send with it a still older favourite, "Ouida's " "Under Two Flags" (Chatto, 63.) in a very cheap but serviceable new edition.

A good deal of what is best in Continental fiction finds its way into English nowadays, aud I send you the most interesting of the recent volumes. To Professor Saintsbury's edition of Balzac "A Bachelor's Establishment"-"Un Menage de Garçon" (Dent, 3s. 6d. net) has been added; M. Paul Bourget's "Mensonges" has appeared under the title of "A Living Lie" (Chatto, 3s. 6d.); Mr. J. K. Huysman's "En Route (Paul, 6s.) has been translated by Mr. C. Kegan Paul; and Flaubert's "The Temptation of St. Antony" (Nichols, 6s. net) appears in an illustrated form. A reissue of M.

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Alphonse Daudet's novels has been undertaken, too, by Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. "Kings in Exile" and "Artists' Wives" (2s. 6d. each, net), with the original illustrations, by MM. Myrbach, Rossi and the rest, are the last volumes to appear, looking very attractive. Count Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina" (Scott, 3s. 61.) also makes fresh appeal. Other novels one can afford to leave unread, but "Anna Karenina" never; it stands eternally one of the peaks of all fiction.

Only two or three books of pure history I send this month. Mr. C. Edmund Maurice's "Bohemia" (Unwin, 5s.) is a volume of the Story of the Nations series, dealing with its history "from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620, with a short summary of later events." It is illustrated and contains maps. Then there is the Rev. Montague Fowler's "Church History in Queen Victoria's Reign" (S.P.C.K. 3s.), and Mrs. Basil Holmes's "The London Burial Grounds: Notes on their History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day" (Unwin, 10s. 6d.), a book as interesting, both in its text and its illustrations, to the general reader as to the antiquarian. The translation of Bernard Ten Brink's "History of English Literature," in Bohn's Standard Library, has reached its third volume (B.11, 3s. 6d.), dealing with the period between the fourteenth century and the death of Surrey. Historical biography is represented by Mr. W. H. Hutton's "Philip Augustus" (Macmillan, 2s. 6d.), a volume of the Foreign Statesmen Series; and to the Heroes of the Nations Series has been added, you will be glad to see for Jeanne is the only woman in all the publisher's list of eighteen herces-" Jeanne d'Arc: Her Life and Death," by Mrs. Oliphant (Putnam, 5s.). The cult of the Maid is gaining ground. What with Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Andrew Lang, Mark Twain, Lord Ronald Gower and others she promises soon to be as much honoured in this country as she is in France. Mr. Robert B. Douglas's "The Life and Times of Madame du Barry" (Smithers) has a livelier interest, and makes in truth very entertaining reading for those to whom the gossip and scandal, the intrigues, of a corrupt court have attraction. Mr. Douglas has attempted to show that Louis XV.'s last mistress, whom he likens to Nell Gwyn, was by no means as black in character as French historians would have us believe. The book has something of the same kind of value as attaches to Pepys' Diary, of Mr. Wheatly's edition of which, by the way, the final volume-the eighth (Bell, 10s. 6.1.)-has just appeared. The editor here has done a real service to history and to literature in giving us the "diary" as Pepys really wrote it, and almost in its full entirety. The notes with which the volumes are furnished are excellent. They make the edition, and none who read Pepys at all should read him in any other. "The history of John Porter for the past twenty-five years is the history of the British Turf," said someone in speaking of the Master of Kingsclere, and Mr. Byron Webber quotes the saying with approval in his preface to "Kingsclere" (Chatto, 163.) in which he has recorded-put into literary shape, so to speak-the chief events of Mr. Porter's career, and his opinion on all matters pertaining to the rearing, training, and racing of horses. Mr. Porter trained for the Prince of Wales, and trains now for the Duke of Westminster, and his establishment is perhaps the most famous of its kind; so that in this chronicle we have rather a good picture, and certainly an interesting one, of that "noble British Institution which was so thoroughly treated in the REVIEW OF REVIEWS When Lord Rosebery won his first Derby. The

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