ism is the great characteristic of modern times; that it embraces ever more and more the legacies of all the nations of the past as well as the teachings of all the nations of the present; that it must mean the growth of eclecticism in thought and action; and that breaking down barriers of place and time, weakening the integrity of national and local types, and increasing the materials for exact self-expression - it must also mean the accentuation of personality. Architecture now truthfully expresses this great characteristic and all its consequences, just as, in earlier times, it expressed the consequences of localization, limitation, intense nationalism, and community in aims and ideas. Should we not look forward to a day when it may develop beauty and power from its present kind of truth, rather than dream of a day when it may become powerful and beautiful by striving for a kind of truth which changed conditions have turned into falsehood? Even if we think modern English literature inferior to that of Elizabeth's time or of Anne's, we do not lay the blame to the fact that it is less insular in spirit; nor do we say that it ought to concentrate itself upon one or two literary forms, as Elizabethan writers concentrated themselves upon the drama, eighteenth-century writers upon the essay and the heroic couplet. We recognize that new and wider times demand a new scope, a new eclecticism, and a new degree of personal independence in literature; and, as Mr. Van Brunt shows, we ought to recognize the same thing with regard to architecture.

To-day our architecture is in a transition state; it has lost the old simplicity, the old homogeneity, and it is as yet unable to digest that enormous wealth of material, to utilize rightly that new chance for personality in expression, which the development of the human mind and the enlargement of the artistic horizon have inevitably forced upon

this must be read in a wiser employment of its riches, not in their willful, and therefore untruthful limitation; in a clearer, more sensible, sensitive, and exact, and consequently more artistic rendering of personal feeling, not in its oppression and suppression under an anachronistic yoke of general conformity. Instead of anticipating the establishment of " a new style," Mr. Van Brunt declares, and, we believe, with entire veracity, we ought to anticipate a time when, various and eclectic as they may be, our buildings will each and all possess "style" in the sense of unity, harmony, clarity, logically conceived and logically completed force and charm.

We should like to see some wellequipped student of poetry discuss in how far Mr. Van Brunt is right to blame the poets of the world as he does in his final chapter- because they have never described architectural forms, and definitely interpreted their historical, æsthetic, and emotional significance; because they have merely noted the emotions aroused in the casual beholder, or at most have sketched them in an "im

pressionistic" manner. It would need, however, to be a long discussion, for it would involve the whole question in how far an art which appeals to the mind through words may try to portray artistic creations which speak primarily to the eye.

Mr. Van Brunt's own essay in descriptive verse is singularly charming; but we think its best passages are not those which describe the church portal which he takes as his theme, but those which characterize the intentions and emotions of its builders.

It is, of course, through mere slips of the pen that, on page 138, Mr. Van Brunt dates the palace of Diocletian at Spalatro from the end of the second instead of the third century, and, on page 104, speaks of "the strong Gothic of the early Cistercian abbeys." The first churches in which the austere tenets of

the Cistercian order were embodied belong to the beginning of the twelfth century; and it was the florid Romanesque, fostered by Clunisian builders, which provoked St. Bernard, standing in the typical Clunisian church at Vézelay, to the passionate declaration that its "bizarre and monstrous figures," carried even into the sanctuary itself, had nothing Christian about them. Mr. Van Brunt is much too well trained in the history of his art not to know this; and therefore we may likewise see but a momentary forgetfulness in his assertion, on page 216, that the modern revival of Gothic in England "is the only instance in history of a moral revolution in art." More purely moral than this, less complicated with sentimental and patriotic ideas, was the Cistercian revolt against luxury in art. Of course it was not a revolution in the sense that it established a new structural system, introduced a new style, in the usually accepted meaning of the term. But if one compares Cistercian Romanesque with other contemporary forms, if, for instance, one compares the heavy, severe, and bald interior of St. Trophimus at Arles with the portal or with the cloister of the same church, ― the difference between them, as expressions of the history of human thought and feeling, seems greater than that between Victorian Gothic and Victorian Renaissance, despite the fact that the round arch is used in both. The luxuriant native Romanesque of Provence was, indeed, practically killed by the Cistercian "reform;" and without our knowledge of the intense moral passion which inspired this reform, it would be impossible to understand how the same communities, in the same half-century, could have practiced two forms of art so radically unlike.

Mr. Van Brunt does but follow the example of all other historians when he says that the new principle of construction from which all the forms of mediæval art were to develop the principle involved in "the starting of the arch directly from the capitals of columns without the interposition of the horizontal entablature". was learned by early Christian builders from Diocletian's palace. But one wishes that he could have been prompted to inaugurate a more accurate manner of speech with regard to this important building. Of course it is the one great landmark, the one known and dated building in certain parts of which columns and arches were used with no trace of an entablature between them. But it is hard to believe that it taught or influenced, directly or indirectly, all the early Christian builders who worked in a similar way. It was a famous building, but was not in a prominent, accessible situation; between the fourth and eighth centuries the age was one of artistic disintegration, and also, almost everywhere in the West, of dire artistic necessity. Many builders must have experimented, without knowledge of what their brethren were doing or recently had done; and a new use of column and arch is just the experiment that would most naturally be forced upon them. Using, as we know they did, ready-made columns. taken from ruined Roman works, and being, as we know they were, deficient in skill, and often in good materials, many of them must have sprung their arches of small stones directly from their borrowed capitals, with no more thought of principles or precedents than of the weighty consequences which were to result from the general adoption of the new device.

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Literature and Literary History. No intimation is given of the number of volumes to be devoted to George William Curtis's Orations and Addresses, but the three dignified octavos already published, each with its index, divide well the bulk of his oratorical labor; for the first is on the Principles and Character of American Institutions and the Duties of American Citizens, the second contains Addresses and Reports of the Reform of the Civil Service of the United States, and the third consists of Historical and Memorial Addresses. The buoyancy of Mr. Curtis's nature, and the loyalty to high ideals which he displayed in public life, more particularly, will render these addresses inspiriting and fruitful long after the immediate occasion for their delivery has passed. We wish especially that the volumes may be read and re-read by college students. (Harpers.)-The English Religious Drama, by Katharine Lee Bates. (Macmillan.) The larger part of this excellent book is devoted to the Miracle Plays of old England, and the writer's sympathetic study has served to show very clearly what they were and what they signified, both in their time and in preparing the way for the development of the later drama. The author has been very happy in her descriptions of these early plays, for she has selected and commented upon just enough of the right passages to satisfy the curiosity of a reader who cannot make the selections for himself. Nor does one quite forget that the writer is a woman. Who else would have spoken of Adam as "overcome by his masculine curiosity"? Authors and their Public in Ancient Times, by George Haven Putnam. (Putnams.) The author's services in behalf of international copyright have already given evidence of his interest in the question of literary property. Nor is this the first book that he has put forth upon the subject. It is by no means intended as the last, for Mr. Putnam announces his purpose of bringing the history of the relations of author, publisher, and public up to the present day. This book, dealing cursorily with various Eastern countries, and more specifically with Greece and Rome, is but a preface to a study of the period beginning with the

invention of printing, - the only period, indeed, in the world's history in which the ownership of ideas has been established upon a firm basis. Much that is curious and interesting in the centuries that went before is related in this preliminary volume. — The Book-Hunter in Paris, Studies among the Bookstalls and the Quays, by Octave Uzanne, with a Preface by Augustine Birrell. (MeClurg.) The writer seems to have enjoyed himself thoroughly in his browsings along the parapets of the left bank of the Seine, and he has succeeded in putting the spirit of his pleasure into this book. It is a most leisurely work, with an appropriate touch of bookishness in its manner. Without a suspicion of haste, and with a delightful lack of formality, it brings together a considerable array of anecdote, tradition, and unpretentious biography. Most agreeable of all its records is that of M. Xavier Marmier, and of the dinner which, in accordance with his will and in memory of the pleasure the stalls had afforded him, was given soon after his death to ninety-five booksellers of the left bank. The Builders of American Literature, Biographical Sketches of American Authors born Previous to 1826, by Francis H. Underwood. (Lee & Shepard.) More than twenty years ago Mr. Underwood published his two Hand-Books of English Literature. Now, instead of merely revising the volume that dealt with American writers, he has found the necessary changes so many and the additions so considerable as to render advisable the preparation of two new volumes, of which this is the first. After an Historical Introduction, he provides the reader with sketches and estimates of more than a hundred writers of the generations passed and passing. There is, indeed, no dearth of pathetic suggestion in the array of names which, though they could not have been omitted from such a book as this, are in reality names, and nothing more. - The Annual Literary Index for 1893, edited, with the Coöperation of Members of the American Library Association and of the Library Journal Staff, by W. I. Fletcher and R. R. Bowker. (Publishers' Weekly, New York.) The editors, of this useful book have taken a comprehensive view of their

function; for not only do they provide an Index to Periodicals, but they give the contents of a considerable body of literature, some sixscore books, which are made up of collections, like volumes of essays, studies in literature and biography, and the like, an author-index to both lists, a list of bibliographies published either separately or in connection with treatises, and, finally, a necrology of writers deceased in 1893. - The Boundaries of Music and Poetry, a Study in Musical Esthetics, by Wilhelm August Ambros. Translated from the German by J. H. Cornell. (G. Schirmer, New York.) If easy reading is hard writing, it would be natural to infer, by contraries, that this treatise was easily written. Yet the inference would reckon without the author's evident breadth of musical knowledge, and his hardihood in grappling such themes as the subtle interrelations of music and literature. The book is professedly for "musicians and cultivated amateurs;" especially, it appears, composers, actual or potential. — Under the title The Temple Shakespeare, J. M. Dent & Co., London, have begun the issue of the separate plays in separate small volumes, very prettily made and at a low price. The text is that of the Cambridge Shakespeare, and a glossary at the end of the volume takes the place of footnotes. The Tempest is the first play given. - The Ariel edition of Shakespeare, little volumes of single plays, clearly printed from fair type, making about a hundred and fifty pages each, without notes and with rather ineffective outline illustrations, has been carried forward by a group of seven comedies. (Putnams.) The uniform edition of William Black's works (Harpers) now includes all but his current novels, so to speak; the most recent additions being Donald Ross of Heimra, with one exception the strongest and most interesting of the author's later Highland stories, and a tale which incidentally conveys some sound information on the crofter question as well; and Stand Fast, CraigRoyston chiefly noticeable for the character study of the highly imaginative, deluding, and self-deluded Bethune of Balloray.

History and Biography. The Private Life of Napoleon, by Arthur Lévy. Translated by Stephen Louis Simeon. (Imported by Scribners.) A translation of Napoléon Intime, one of the more notable of last year's contributions to the literature of what may

be called the Napoleonic revival. In this voluminous work, M. Lévy undertakes to prove that his hero was "the personification of all the virtues of the middle class;" his bourgeois Napoleon being alike exemplary and admirable as son, husband, father, friend, and master, -a man only too trusting, generous, long-suffering, and kindhearted. "If," says the author, "the human heart may be compared to a lyre, of which each cord represents a virtue or a defect, we may affirm that in Napoleon it was the cord of humanity that vibrated most loudly." M. Lévy is a diligent compiler from the whole body of Napoleonic histories and memoirs, naturally using only such excerpts as he thinks will serve to strengthen his position; and he shows considerable skill as a collector, with little critical insight in the use of the material thus collected. It should be said that his idea of the virtuous bourgeois is essentially Gallic, and, quite unconsciously as it would seem, he makes almost obtrusively apparent some of the pettiest and most unlovely traits in his hero's character; and it is, after all, the ingrained vulgarity of the great man which impresses the reader most strongly. Such value as the book possesses is seriously impaired by the absence of an index. — Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots in France, by P. F. Willert, M. A. Heroes of the Nations Series. (Putnams.) The plan of this work compels the author not only to tell the story of the great Béarnais, but also to trace the history of French Protestantism prior to the time when he became its leader in the field; and despite the necessarily severe condensation, the narrative is neither dry nor colorless, but steadily readable. The writer has his material well in hand, and has formed a clear conception of the king, a hero of a nation, if there ever was one, though so unheroic in certain aspects, and of the men and women surrounding him; and his characterizations are often acute, and always interesting. Especially does he do full justice to the moral elevation and nobility of nature of the elect men among the Huguenots, those French Puritans beside whom "the Eliots, Hampdens, and Hutchinsons of our own civil wars appear narrow and incomplete." That the author should follow certain distinguished historians in carefully Anglicizing French Christian

names can hardly be objected to, but still we would mildly protest against the needless substitution of Lewis for Louis. This is so contrary to general usage the best guide where a fixed rule is impracticable - that it displeases the eye and seems an affectation. The Story of Louis XVII. of France, by Elizabeth E. Evans. (Swan Sonnenschein & Co.) Few "claimants" have appeared who have not had a following of devout and often fanatical believers, and the many alleged Dauphins are no exceptions to the rule. Of these, Mrs. Evans is convinced, and with excellent reason, that Hervagault, Bruneau, Richemont, and the more noteworthy pretender, Naundorff were shameless impostors, and she devotes a large part of her volume to demolishing their claims; but she also entirely believes that the Rev. Eleazar Williams was the hapless son of Louis XVI. Her story of "the lost prince" is substantially the same as that Mr. Hanson gave to the world forty years ago, and time seems to have made only more apparent its excessive flimsiness, so that it is sometimes difficult to treat it with becoming seriousness. The author, however, takes it very seriously indeed, her faith seeming to wax stronger in the more improbable and inconsequent portions of the narrative. But in regard to the most important evidence offered, we fear that many readers will not need the Prince de Joinville's assurances to that effect to find much of his supposed interview with Mr. Williams "entirely imaginary." And yet the missionary is the only one of the pseudoDauphins for whom a special plea having a semblance of plausibility can be made. Indeed, in respect to the foundation upon which all such assumptions rest, the rescue of the child, whose pitiful story is the most intolerably painful of the recorded atrocities of the Terror, no proof worthy the name has ever yet been given. — Brave Little Holland, and What She Taught Us, by W. E. Griffis. (Houghton.) It would be hard to pack into the space of this little book more varied information, historical, geographical, and social, about Holland and its relation to England and America. The author is chock-full of his subject, and writes with enthusiasm. Phillips Brooks in Boston, Five Years' Editorial Estimates, by M. C. Ayres. (George H. Ellis, Boston.) These clippings from a daily paper

have the interest and value of preserving contemporary opinion, and as the work of one hand have a quality of unity which is not common in newspaper extracts.

The

In Foreign Lands. The Rulers of the Mediterranean, by Richard Harding Davis. (Harpers.) A series of light sketches of travel from Gibraltar to Constantinople. Mr. Davis has a keen eye and a sure touch; there is some persiflage in his talk, but on the whole he is a very agreeable traveling companion, and his snap shots at persons and things are by no means miscellaneous, but follow a good sense of art. Art of Living in Australia (Together with Three Hundred Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information, by Mrs. H. Wicken), by Philip E. Muskett. (Eyre & Spottiswoode.) The principal object of this work is to bring about some improvement in the food habits of the Australians, who, it appears, still follow English ways in this respect; living, the author declares, in direct opposition to their semitropical environment. He urges the immense advantages which would result from a development of the deep-sea fisheries, market gardening, and vine culture, and writes sensibly and forcibly. It seems curious that such advice should be needed, and that, living in a climate practically the same as that of the south of Europe, the Australians should still be satisfied with the limited menu of their English kin.

Poetry and the Drama. The Humours of the Court, a Comedy and Other Poems, by Robert Bridges. (Macmillan.) Mr. Bridges acknowledges his debt to Calderon and Lope for the substance of his play, into which, be it said, he has not infused enough of the spirit of humor to make it truly amusing reading. What he has brought to it is one of the gifts that make his poems just what they are, - the gift of deftness and care, leaving nothing at loose ends, and creating an artistic unit. In the short poems to which the last pages of the book are given Mr. Bridges is more really himself. His power of saying within austere limits many things that are well worth saying has often been shown before, and no loss of it appears in such lines as "Weep not today." - The Lower Slopes, Reminiscences of Excursions round the Base of Helicon, undertaken for the most part in Early Manhood, by Grant Allen. (Elkin Mathews