acquaintance with a fervid young minister increases her moral intensity. She makes many mistakes, however, and grieves over them with feminine uselessness of emotion. At last she finds her balance-wheel in Dr. Morrell, a healthy-minded man. Annie is an excellent portrait of a certain type of woman. Her environment, the fussy "good society" of a progressing New England village, is drawn with admirable realism; while the disintegrating effect of the new industrial order upon the older and simpler life of narrow ambitions and static energy is skillfully suggested. Griffith Gaunt, by Charles Reade. Griffith Gaunt, a gentleman without fortune, marries Catharine Peyton, a Cumberland heiress, who is a devout Roman Catholic. After living happily together for eight years, the couple each of whom has a violent temper, in the husband combined with insane jealousy are gradually estranged by Catharine's spiritual adviser, Father Leonard, an eloquent young priest. Griffith discovers his wife and Leonard under apparently suspicious circumstances; and after a violent scene he rides away, with the intention of never returning. He reaches an inn in an adjoining county, where he is nursed through a fever by the innkeeper's daughter, Mercy Vint. Assuming the name of his illegitimate brother, Thomas Leicester, to whom he bears a superficial resemblance, he marries Mercy. Returning to his old home to obtain a sum of money belonging to him, he is reconciled to Catharine by her earlier adviser, Father Francis. Under a false pretext he goes back to the inn to break with Mercy; but finding it more difficult than he had anticipated, he defers final action, and returns to Cumberland. Here he is received by Catharine with furious reproaches and threats against his life; his crime having been disclosed to her through the real Leicester, and her maid Caroline Ryder. Griffith disappears; a few days after, a body that is discovered in the mere near the house is indentified as his. Mrs. Gaunt is indicted for his murder, and pleads her own cause. The trial is going against her, when Mercy appears and proves that Griffith is alive, and that the body is that of Leicester. Griffith and Catharine are again reconciled, and Mercy marries Catharine's former lover, Sir George Neville. The scene is laid in the middle of the eighteenth century. The book was harshly criticized, both in England and America, on account of its so-called immoral teachings; but a more sober judgment has given it a high place among Reade's novels. It was dramatized by Daly in 1866, and later under the title of Jealousy,' by the author himself. Grea reat Shadow, The, by A. Conan Doyle. No more thrilling epoch of the world's history could well be chosen as the setting and background of a tale than that here employed by Mr. Doyle. Although this is by no means a narrative of Napoleon, yet such is the connotative force of the author's words that we feel the sinister personality of the Emperor, reflected in one of his powerful officers, darkening even the homes of a little village in the Scottish lowlands; for the Great Shadow is that which the fear of the terrible Frenchman cast over Europe for twenty awful years. How it came about that two unknown Scotch lads assisted at the final lifting of that shadow from off the nations is the theme of Mr. Doyle's tale; for this is a story of Water100. When Jack Calder, of West Inch near Edinburgh, is eighteen years old, his orphan cousin, Edie, comes to make her home with his family. As a child she has been a strange, wild girl with captivating ways. Now, more beautiful, her conquest of the boy is a matter of days only, and they are engaged to be married. At this moment Jack's friend, Jim Horscroft, appears upon the scene, and young Calder finds himself jilted. But now,- shortly after the battle of Leipsic,- while Horscroft is at Edinburgh working for his doctor's degree, a Frenchman who calls himself De Lapp appears. A man of stern and moody manners, he has a fascinating personality, thanks to his mysterious past. Edie spends long hours listening to his tales of war and adventure in foreign lands. In short, Jim comes back to find his fiancée fled with the French officer, who is hastening to join the Emperor, now returned from Elba. In the thick of the fight at Waterloo, Horscroft and his successful rival go down in a mutual death-lock; and Jack, hurrying on with the Allies to Paris, again sees Edie. She talks to him a moment in her old familiar way, and then leaves him. A month after, he learns that she has married a certain Count de Breton. The admirable strength and restraint of this story, its faithful study of character, and its constant suggestion of the terror and apprehension that for a score of years enveloped Europe like a black atmosphere, give 'The Great Shadow' a first place among Conan Doyle's stories. Napoleon Bonaparte, The Life of, by William Milligan Sloane, professor of history in the University of Columbia, appeared serially in the Century Magazine in 1894-96, and in four volumes in 1897. While the author began his task with the consciousness that he hated, for she had never adopted him. He was almost without a profession, for he had neglected that of a soldier, and had failed both as an author and as a politician. He was apparently, too, without a single guiding principle; the world had been a harsh stepmother, at whose knee he had neither learned the truth nor experienced kindness. He appears consistent in nothing but in making the best of events as they occurred. . He was quite as unscrupulous as those about him, but he was far greater than they in perspicacity, adroitness, adaptability, and persistence." bbé Constantin, The, by Ludovic Ha "Napoleon's career was a historic force, Ab and not a meteoric flash in the darkness of revolution," he has not attempted to enter into the labyrinth of a general history of the times, except as a necessary background for his portraiture. He carries the reader in narrative over the now well-trodden path from Corsica to St. Helena, with a scholar's precision as well as a lively interest, and in a way to dissolve the illusions and establish the facts of the Napoleonic period. In accomplishing this purpose, Professor Sloane has had the great advantage of adding to his abilities as a historian the invaluable factor of an impartial mind. He has drawn the most prominent figure of the French revolutionary times with an American perspective, entirely free from the prejudices and passions that still survive in Europe. For English readers this is the most important book yet written about Napoleon. The author spent many years in preparation for it, in the libraries of this country, of Paris, and of London, and visited the scenes of the hero's military activity. The most original portion of this monumental work is the study of Napoleon in his Corsican home, and the demonstration that the man was already prefigured in the unruly boy. This careful study of the youth of this military genius does more to illuminate his subsequent career than any other investigation that has been made. The boy was literally the father of the man. The author gives a striking summary of his character as he was at the age of twenty-three: "Finally there was a citizen of the world, a man without a country: his birthright was gone, for Corsica repelled him; France lévy. The great estate of Longueval, consisting of the castle and its dependencies, two splendid farms and a forest, is advertised for sale by auction. The Abbé Constantin, a generous, genial, selfsacrificing priest, who has been thirty years the curé of the little village, is disconsolate at the thought that all his associations must be broken up. His distress is increased when he learns that the whole property has been bought by an American millionaire. He is about to sit down to his frugal dinner in company with his godson Lieutenant Jean Renaud, the orphaned son of the good village doctor, when his vicarage is invaded by two ladies who have just arrived by train from Paris. On their arrival the plot hinges; simple as it is, it has a great charm, and the style is delightful. It sparkles with light and graceful epigrams: "The Frenchman has only one real luxury-his revolutions." "In order to make money the first thing is to have no need of it." "It is only the kings of France who no longer live in France.» "The heart is very little, but it is also very large. "Love and tranquillity seldom dwell at peace in the same heart." First published in 1882, it has had more than one hundred and fifty editions and still enjoys uninterrupted popularity both in France and in English-speaking countries. Abb bbé Daniel, The, by André Theuriet. The chief characters of this novel are but four. The priest himself, having graduated from the Seminary, returns to his little domain of Les Bruasseries with the hope of marrying the beautiful Denise, his cousin, the heiress of Les Templiers. He is disappointed in his hope, but lives to see his adopted son and namesake marry the daughter of Denise. The story is an idyl of French labor and love, written in a graceful and charming way, and containing delightful pictures of rustic life. Abbé Tigrane, The, a story of dissension in the Catholic priesthood of France, appeared in 1873; its author, Ferdinand Fabre, having studied for the ministry. The scene is laid in the neighborhood of the Cathedral and Diocesan Grand Semi does not lie in its historical accuracy, nor in its scholarship; but rather in the fervent spirit which inspired its composition. He writes, in conclusion, of the unknown martyrs: "Ah, ye unknown band, your tears, your sighs, your faith, your agonies, your blood, your deaths, have helped to consecrate this sinful earth, and to add to its solemn originality as the battle-field of good and evil of Christ and Belial,» nary of Lormières, about 1865. The Abbé Coverdale's Bible. (1535.) Capdepont, nicknamed "Tigrane» (tigerish), for his ferocity, is an ambitious priest of peasant birth, whose primitive passions are continually breaking through the crust of education and discipline. He has risen to the place of Father Superior, and aspiring to the bishopric, cannot forgive Monseigneur de Roquebrun who receives it. The bishop, good and sincere, but of a fiery temper, tries in vain to conciliate Tigrane. This story, extremely dramatic, well wrought out, and dealing with obvious passions and interests, was very popular, and won Fabre the sobriquet of the "Balzac of the clergy." Book of Martyrs, The, by John Foxe, sometimes known as the History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church,' was first published in Latin in 1554, when the author was in exile in Holland. The first English edition appeared in 1563. The first complete English Bible, being the earliest translation of the whole Bible into English. The Psalms of this translation are still used in the Book of Common Prayer, and much of the rare quality of our most familiar version is due to Coverdale. Born in Yorkshire in 1488, and educated at Cambridge, Miles Coverdale was able to contribute to English popular literature a version of the Bible "translated out of Dutch and Latin," before a translation from the original tongues had been attempted. He superintended also the bringing out in 1539 of the first 'Great Bible'; and the next year edited the second (Great Bible,' known also as Cranmer's Bible.' He is supposed to have assisted in the preparation of the (Geneva Bible,' (1560), which was the favorite Puritan Bible, both in England and in New England. By order of the Anglican Convocation AT meeting in 1571, the book was placed in the hall of every episcopal palace in England. Before Foxe's death in 1587 it had gone through four editions. This strange work kept its popularity for many years. The children of succeeding generations found it a fascinating story-book. Older persons read it for its noble English, and its quaint and interesting narrative. The scope of the Book of Martyrs' is tremendous. The author calls the roll of the noble army from St. Stephen to John Rogers. From the persecutions of the early Church, he passes to those of the Waldenses and Albigenses, from these to the Inquisition, and from the Inquisition to the persecutions under English Mary. Foxe, as a low-churchman, was strongly prejudiced against everything that savored of Catholicism. His accounts are at times overdrawn and false. The value of the work, however, merican Sacred Song, The Treasury of, by W. Garret Horder (1897). An Oxford University Press publication, to accompany Palgrave's Treasury of Song. It is a classic in the choice character of the religious verse gathered into its pages, and in the full and careful presentation which it makes of American work in this interesting field. Conventional Lies of Our Civiliza tion, by Max Nordau. Max Nordau was twenty-nine years old, when in 1878 he began to publish the results of his extensive travels and his observations of life. (Conventional Lies,' his first real study of social pathology, was issued in 1883, and in ten years passed through fifteen editions, in spite of the fact that by imperial mandate it was suppressed in Austria on its first appearance, and later in Prussia. The author, in his preface to the sixth edition, warns people not to buy his book in the belief that from its suppression it contains scandalous things. "I do not attack persons, either high or low, but ideas." The book, he had asserted in an earlier edition, is a faithful presentation of the views of the majority of educated, cultivated people of the present day. Cowardice, he thinks, prevents them from bringing their outward lives into harmony with their inward convictions, and they believe it to be worldly policy to cling to relics of former ages when at heart they are completely severed from them. The Lie of Religion, of Monarchy and Aristocracy, the Political, Economic, and Matrimonial Lies, are those which Nordau chiefly attacks. It is form, however, not substance, which he usually criticizes; as in the case of religion, where he says that by religion he does not mean the belief in supernatural abstract powers, which is usually sincere, but the slavery to forms, which is a physical relic of the childhood of the human race. "Very seldom," he says, in discussing monarchy, "do we find a prince who is what would be called in every-day life a capable man; and only once in centuries does a dynasty produce a man of commandit, genius." In the case of matrimony his plea is directed not against the institution, but in favor of love in marriage, as distinguished from the marriage of convenience. Nordau's judgments are often based on insufficient foundation; and he is inclined to be too dogmatic. Yet he is not wholly an iconoclast; and he believes that out of the existing egotism and insincerity, humanity will develop an altruism built on perpetual good-fellowship. Light that Failed, The, by Rudyard Kipling, appeared in 1890, and was his first novel. It is a story of the love of Dick Heldar, a young artist, for Maisie, a pretty, piquant, but shallow girl, brought up with him as an orphan. Dick goes to the Soudan during the Gordon relief expedition, does illustrations for the English papers, gains a true friend in Torpenhow, a war correspondent; and winning success, returns to London to enjoy it. But a sword-cut on his head, received in the East, gradually brings on blindness; and he tries heroically to finish his masterpiece, a figure of Melancolia, before the darkness shuts down,- the scene in which he thus works against the physical disability which means ruin, being very effective. When blindness comes, he is too proud to let Maisie know; but Torpenhow fetches her, and she shows the essential weakness of her nature by not standing by him when he is down in the world. Heart-broken, he returns to the British army in the East, and is killed as he sits on a camel fully exposed to the enemy's fire, as he desired to be. The sketch of the early friendship and love of Dick and Maisie, the vivid scenes in the Soudan, the bohemian studio life in London, and the pathetic incidents of Heldar's misfortune, are portrayed with swift movement, sympathetic insight, and dramatic force. The relation between Dick and Torpenhow runs through the tale like a golden strand. The dénouement here described is that of the first version, and preferred by Kipling; in another version Maisie remains true to Dick, and the novel ends happily. Emilia Wyndham, by Mrs. Marsh, 1846, is a story of fashionable London life, about 1820. Colonel Lennox, a brilliant young officer, loves Emilia Wyndham, a country gentleman's daughter; but neither of them having money, he goes on a campaign without offering his hand. The father becomes a bankrupt, and for his sake she consents to marry his solicitor, Matthew Danby, a cold man, much her senior, who does not express to her the affection he really feels. Colonel Lennox, coming into money, returns to England, and hearing of Emilia's marriage, marries a beautiful young girl, her friend, and sets up a large establishment in London. Mrs. Lennox finds her old friend Emilia living in great retirement with her middle-aged husband, and drags her into the gay world. Danby becomes so wildly jealous of his young wife, that he is on the brink of suicide; but explanations ensue, and the story ends happily. The book is chiefly interesting as a study of manners when the century was young, and for the evidence it affords of the changed ideals of woman, her ambitions, and her opportunities. To the reader of to-day, the story is tediously sentimental; to the reader of 1840 it was full of emotional interest. Lenox frustrates her design to assassinate the Emperor; after which Hélène escapes by the aid of a Russian officer whom she has beguiled. Meantime the real wife has come on from Paris, and ive, straightforward Western girl, unsophisticated and unspoiled; the hero is a lazy, cynical, clever man of thirty-five, convinced that he is incapable of the foolishness of falling in love. The minor personages are all amusing enough: English squire, Irish captain, American archæologist, etc., all talking exactly alike with point and fluency, on any subject that may be started. Though there is a good deal of "scenery," it is never obtrusive, and never interferes with the flow of the narrative, which tells the course of a simple love-affair. The story is very readable, and at times even witty; and is fairly to be reckoned among the best specimens of American minor fiction. endless complications with the police Mr. Midshipman Easy, by Captain ensue. The Colonel secures his wife's release by threatening the chief of police that otherwise he will inform the Tsar of the inefficiency of the police department, in not unearthing the scheme for his assassination. rust and the Cake, The, by "Ed Crust ward Garrett" (Mrs. Isabella Mayo). The Crust and the Cake' is a story with no distinctive plot, dealing with every-day lives and every-day fortunes. John Torres, who has bravely met poverty, hard work, the humiliation of his convict father's return, and the grief of his mother's sudden death, is made a member of the great firm of Slack & Pitt, and marries Amy, his first and only love. The Crust and the Cake' is an exemplification of the belief that virtue will be rewarded and vice punished, in obedience to natural laws from which there is no appeal; and that the crust and cake of life are wisely divided. In the words of one of the characters, "If one has the crust in one's youth, it keeps up one's appetite for the cake when one gets it at last." The book is highly moral in tone; the benefit of church-going, of self-sacrifice, early training, honor to parents, etc., being strongly emphasized. Its scene is laid in London; and its interest is purely domestic. Kismet, by "George Fleming (Julia Fletcher), is a tale which describes the fortunes of a party of traveling Americans and English who loiter up the Nile in dahabeahs, and make excursions to the tombs of the Pharaohs. The heroine, Bell Hamlyn, is an impuls James Marryat, is one of the many rollicking tales by this author, who so well knows the ocean, and the seaports with their eccentric characters, and is only at home in dealing with low life and the lower middle class. In this case we have the adventures of a spoiled lad Jack, the son of a so-called philosopher, who cruises about the world, falls in love, has misfortunes and at last good luck and a happy life. The incidents themselves are nothing, but the book is entertaining for its "character» talk, and because the author has the gift of spinning a yarn. Jacob Faithful; or, THE ADVENTURES OF A WATERMAN, a novel, by Captain Marryat, describes the career of a young man who is born on a Thames "lighter," and up to the age of eleven has never set foot on land. The "lighter"> is manned by his father, his mother, and himself. His father is a round-bellied, phlegmatic little man, addicted to his pipe, and indulging in but few words: three apothegms, "It's no use crying; what's done can't be helped»; «Take it coolly"; "Better luck next time," serving him on every occasion. These Jacob inherits, and makes frequent use of in after life. His mother indulges in strong drink, and comes to a terrible end. One of his first acts on beginning a life on shore is to sell his mother's asses for twenty pounds,- the earliest bargain he ever made. After spending several years at school, where his adventures are interesting, and some of them laughable, he is bound apprentice, at the age of fourteen, to a waterman. Now fairly |