Benvenuto, the Life of,

Criticism objected to Mr. Herndon's book that it would go nigh to prevent the process of idealization altogether as to Lincoln. Yet throughout its minute and often trifling details, as throughout its larger generalities and syntheses, it is evident that the biographer loved his hero, and meant to do him full justice; and that whatever shortcomings the history presents are due to the fact that the historian lacked the quality of imagination, without whose aid no object can be seen in its true proportions. The book has had a great sale, and is to the general reader the most interesting of all the Lincoln biographies.

Jefferson, Joseph, The Autobiography

of. (1890.) The story of the third Joseph Jefferson, grandson of the great comedian of that name, runs from February 20th, 1829, through more than sixty years to 1890; and it is little to say that there is not a dull page in it. In clearness and charm of manner, humor, and wealth of anecdote, Mr. Jefferson commands his readers in his story precisely as he has so long commanded his hearers on the stage.

The narrative begins at the beginning, -toddling infancy in Washington, and childhood in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore,- wherever the father, Joseph Jefferson, manager of a theatre, might be. The young actor is in Chicago in 1839, where James Wallack, Sr., the elder Booth, and Macready, came into view; he goes to Mississippi and to Mexico; and returns to Philadelphia and New York. His reminiscences are of Mr. and Mrs. James Wallack, Jr., John E. Owens, William Burton, Charles Burke, Julia Dean, James E. Murdock, and Edwin Forrest. Then the scene shifts to London and Paris. Once more at home, we make acquaintance with Rip Van Winkle, and the climax of the master's creative power. Again he ranges the world as. far as Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand, coming home by way of London. Of so wide a life the scenes were many and varied, and a great number of the chief masters and notable ladies of the stage for half a century come up for mention; and always, in report of scenes or portrayal of character, a refinement both of thought and of style gives the narrative A peculiar charm.

biographies, and itself the Italian Renaissance as expressed in personality,- was written between the years 1558 and 1562. It circulated in MS. and was copied frequently, until its publication in 1730. In his introduction to his English transla tion of the work, published in 1887, John Addington Symonds mentions six Italian editions,- those of Cocchi, Carpaeri, Tassi, Molini, Beauchi, and Camerini. These are of unequal value, since the extant MSS. differ considerably in their readings. The original and authoritative MS. belongs to the Laurentian Collection in Florence. It was written "for the most part by Michele di Goro Vestri, the youth whom Cellini employed as his amanuensis. Perhaps we owe its abrupt and infelicitous conclusion to the fact that Benvenuto disliked the trouble of writing with his own hand. From notes upon the codex it appears that this was the MS. submitted to Benedetto Varchi in 1559. It once belonged to Andrea, the son of Lorenzo Cavalcanti. His son, Lorenzo Cavalcanti, gave it to the poet Redi, who used it as a testo di lingua for the Della Cruscan vocabulary. sequently it passed into the hands of the booksellers, and was bought by L. Poirot, who bequeathed it, on his death in 1825, to the Laurentian Library.»

Sub

Cellini's autobiography has been translated into German by Goethe, into English by Nugent, Roscoe, and Symonds, and into French by Leopold Leclauché. Symonds's translation is pre-eminent for its truthfulness and sympathy. It is fitting that Cellini's record of himself should be translated into the foremost modern tongues, since he stood for a civilization unapproached in cosmopolitan character since the age of Sophocles. Judged by his own presentment, he was an epitome of that world which sprang from the marriage of Faust with Helen. He, like his contemporaries, was a "natural» son of Greece; witnessing to his wayward birth in his adoration of beauty, in his violent passions, in his magnificent bombast, in his turbulent, highly colored life, in his absence of spirituality, in his close clinging to the sure earth. He was most mediæval in that whatever feeling he had, of joy in the tangible or fear of the intangible, was intensely alive. "This is no book: who touches this touches a man."

Napoleon Bonaparte, Memoirs of, by

enne.

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourri(1829-31; New York, 4 vols., 1889.)

An exceptionally entertaining narrative

of the career of Napoleon, from his boyhood and school days in Corsica to his final overthrow in 1815; the work of a schoolfellow of the young Bonaparte, who became in April 1797 the intimate companion and private secretary of the then successful general in Italy, and continued in this close and confidential position until October 1802, but then suffered dismissal under circumstances of a bitterly alienating character, and finally wrote this history of his old friend under the pressure of very mixed motives,pride in accurate knowledge of many things in the earlier story, and in his early companionship with Napoleon; desire, perhaps, to come much nearer to true history than the two extremes of unqualified admiration and excessive detestation had yet done; and no small measure of rankling bitterness towards the old comrade who never relented from that dismissal with discredit in 1802, nor ever again permitted a recurrence of personal intercourse.

Metternich said at the time of their publication that Bourrienne's Memoirs, though not brilliant, were both interesting and amusing, and were the only authentic memoirs which had yet appeared. Lucien Bonaparte pronounced them good enough as the story of the young officer of artillery, the great general, and the First Consul, but not as good for the career of the emperor. The extreme Bonapartists attacked the work as a product of malignity and mendacity, and a suspicion in this direction naturally clings to it. But whether Bourrienne did or did not inject convenient and consoling lies into the story of his long-time friend and comrade, whose final greatness he was excluded from all share in, and whether he did or did not himself execute the 'Memoirs from abundance of genuine materials, the book given to the world in his name made a great sensation, and counts, both with readers and with scholars, as a notable source of Napoleon interest and information. «Venal, light-headed, and often untruthful," as Professor Sloane pronounces him, Bourrienne nevertheless remains one of the persons, and the earliest in time, who was in the closest intimacy with Napoleon; and his history

filled with exciting incidents of the stormy times of the French Revolution. The hero, the Vicomte de Saux, is one of the French nobility. His sympathy with the troubles of the French peasants leads him to adopt the Red Cockade, notwithstanding his ties of blood and his engagement to marry a young woman of a prominent Royalist family. He is constantly torn between loyalty to his convictions and to the woman that he loves, and is often placed in situations where he is obliged to save Mademoiselle de St. Alais from the rage of the mob.

As the Vicomte de Saux refuses to join the Aristocrats, the mother and one brother of Mademoiselle de St. Alais denounce him utterly. But Dénise herself, after having been saved by him from her burning château, loves him intensely and is true to him, though her relatives have betrothed her to the leader of the Royalists. The other brother Louis, from his old friendship for the Vicomte, upholds his sister. The book closes with

a

scene in the room where Madame de St. Alais lies dying from wounds received at the hands of the mob. Her elder son has been killed by the revolutionists. With the mother are Dénise and Louis, and also the Vicomte de Saux. In her last moments she gives Dénise to her lover. After their marriage the Vicomte and his bride retire to their country place at Saux. The man to whom Dénise was betrothed out of vengeance to her lover, disappears after the overthrow of his party.

Memoirs of Count Grammont, by An

thony Hamilton. These memoirs were first given to the public in 1713, though the collection was begun as early as 1704. Hamilton was possessed of rare literary ability; and being brother-inlaw to Count Grammont, was chosen by him to introduce him historically to the public. The author asserts that he acts merely as Grammont's secretary, and holds the pen at his dictation; but although this may be partially true, the ease and grace of the text prove it to be Hamilton's own work. The memoirs relate chiefly to the court life at the time of Charles II.. and describe the

intrigues and love affairs of the King and many of the courtiers. Grammont's adventures and experiences in love and war are minutely and graphically set forth, and he is depicted as a brilliant and fascinating gentleman. Hamilton says of him, that he was "the admiration of his age, and the delight of every country wherein he displayed his engaging wit, dispensed his generosity and munificence, or practiced his inconstancy.» Among the many who figure prominently at this period in the profligate court of Charles II., are the Duke of York, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of St. Albans, George Hamilton, Lady Shrewsbury, the Countess of Castlemaine, the Duchess of Richmond, and the various ladies in waiting on the Queen. French critic has observed that if any book were to be selected as affording the truest specimen of perfect French gayety, the 'Memoirs of Grammont' would be chosen in preference to all others. Macaulay speaks of their author as "the artist to whom we owe the most highly finished and vividly colored picture of the English court in the days when the English court was gayest."

A

Reds of the Midi, The, by Félix Gras,

translated into English by Mrs. Thomas A. Janvier, is a strong story of the French Revolution, published in 1896. One Pascal La Patine, in his old age, night after night, in the shoemaker's shop, tells the story of his youth. His father was killed by the gamekeeper of the Marquis; he himself was forced to fly for his life. Longing to be revenged upon the aristocrats, he joins the "Reds of the Midi" (the insurgents of Southern France), goes to Paris, sees all the horrors of the Revolution, rescues the daughter of the Marquis from the guillotine, loves her in silence, enlists in Napoleon's army, and after fighting in Spain, Egypt, and Russia, returns to his native village of Malemort to end his days, firm in the faith that Napoleon has never died. It was in Malemort that Gras was born: the Prologue is pure autobiography, and many of the characters are drawn from life. There

is a vivid picture of the famous Marseilles Battalion, "who knew how to die," and a passing glimpse of Napoleon.

This now famous story is by an author so little known outside of Southern

France, that our readers will be glad to see this sketch of his life and work before the production of this book, by a literary authority of the first rank; and it is properly appended here.

FÉLIX GRAS

BY THOMAS A. JANVIER

FELIX GRAS, the son of a Provençal farmer, was born May 3d, 1844, in the little town of Malemort, five-and-twenty miles to the eastward of Avignon, among the foothills of the French Alps. His schooling, stopping short of the university, ended when he was seventeen years old. Then he came back to his father's farm; and there he might have lived his life out had not his outrageous neglect of his farm duties, that he might range the mountains with his dog and gun, led to his disciplinary dispatch to Avignon, three years later, to be bound 'prentice to the law. In his case the ways of law led directly into the ways of literature. The notary to whom he was articled, Maitre Jules Giéra, was himself a writer of merit, and was the brother of Paul Giéra, one of the seven founders of the Félibrige, the society of Provençal men of letters, having for its leaders Joseph Roumanille and Frédéric Mistral, which has developed in the past thirty years so noble a literary and moral renascence, not only in Provence, but throughout the whole of Southern France. With one of these leaders, Roumanille, his sister's husband, he was already intimate. And so his coming to Avignon and entry into the lawyer's office was his entry into the most inspiring literary society that has existed in modern times, - that has had, indeed, no modern parallel in its vigor and hopes and enthusiasms, save perhaps in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; and that has had no modern parallel whatever in its far-reaching results. His association with such companions, with whose aspirations he was in close sympathy, quickly produced its natural consequences: he accepted law as his profession, but he made literature his career.

He has justified his choice. His first important work, an epic poem in twelve cantos, Li Carbounié) (1876), treating of the mountain life for which his affection was so strong, placed him at the head of the younger generation of Félibres; and his succeeding epic, Toloza'

(1882), with his shorter poems collected under the title Lou Roumancero Prouvençall' (1887), placed him second only to the master of all Provençal poetry, Mistral. The theme of Toloza' is the crusade of Simon de Montfort against the Albigenses, treated with a fervent earnestness that is in keeping with the author's own fervent love of liberty in person and in conscience, and with the beauty that comes of a poetic temperament equipped with an easy command of poetic form. These same qualities are found in his shorter poems, which have also the dramatic intensity and the thrilling fervor of a born ballad-singer whose tongue is tipped with fire. Not less excellent is his collection of stories in prose the prose of a poet, yet racy and strong-Li Papalino' (1891), which have the ring of the novella of Boccaccio's time. In these his delicate firmness of touch is combined with a brilliancy of style that presents his dramatic subjects with all the vivacity of the early Italian tale-tellers, but always with a

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ton of Le Temps, has achieved only a moderate success. But if a critic was right in affirming (what needs modifying to-day) that the verdict of a foreign nation is the verdict of posterity, Félix Gras-having won the approval of two foreign nations at a single blow-is sure in time to hold among French writers a commanding place. Probably the recognition of his right to this place will be hastened by the publication of the work upon which he is now engaged: a sequel to Li Rouge dóu Miejour,› treating of the White Terror, the Royalist reaction in the Midi which followed upon the excesses of the Reds. But even now, in his own southern country, his position is secure. Since August 1891-in succession to Roumanille, who succeeded Mistral - he has been the Capoulié, the official head of the Félibrige. In his election to this office he received the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a poet by his brother poets of the South of France.

court of Avignon is alive again before our eyes, with its gallantries, its tragedies, its gay loves and deadly hates, its curious veneering of religious forms upon mediæval sensuality and ferocity.

Yet his greatest popular success, 'Li Rouge dóu Miejour (1896), has been achieved on lines differing widely from all his earlier work, and has come to him from outside of his own country. This is a story of the French Revolution, told autobiographically from the standpoint of a South of France peasant, a departure in historical romance which has curiously modified the popular estimate of that political agony by presenting it from a totally new point of view. Being translated into English,

The Reds of the Midi' was published in America, and subsequently in England, before it was published in France in either Provençal or French; and it has been so warmly received in both countries that it has passed through six editions in America and through four in England, where it has won a strong indorsement from Mr. Gladstone, within a year. In France, on the other hand, the Provençal edition has made but little stir; and the author's own version in French, Les Rouges du Midi,' although stamped with the hall-mark of literary excellence by publication as the feuille

Loti), by Louis Marie Julien Viaud ("Pierre Loti"), was first published in 1880 under the title 'Rarahu,' the name of its heroine. While not one of Loti's strongest books, it shows his power of re-creating the peculiar atmosphere of a remote island visited during his long connection with the French navy. There is a curious mingling of fact and fiction, difficult to disentangle, in this glowing study of Tahiti in the declining years of its Queen, Pomaré IV. A photograph of the South Sea maiden of fourteen, whose passion for Loti neutralized his love for Princess Ariitea, and finally captured him, is still in existence; and Rarahu's whole mournful history is traceable in the wistful features and flowing hair. It is not so clear whether the large single blossom worn over one ear is the hibiscus flower she had on when she first met the young officer, or the white gardenia that became her favorite ornament. A victim of the extraordinary blending of primitive with conventional conditions that prevailed in the Society Islands in 1872, this child of nature, strikingly beautiful, but still more remarkable for her poetic imagination and profound love for Loti, is placed for a while on a better social footing than the usual so-called Tahitian marriage could give. Loti's sincere love for the half