sympathetic understanding of the thing he saw, and he interpreted the level stretches of shore with absolute fidelity. In these pages the melancholy land looks as "long, lank, and brown" as it looks lying under the gray autumn sky. Nor does he spare any prosaic detail. The salt wholesomeness of his sea breeze does not wholly overcome the offensive flotsam and jetsam drifted up on the sand; but on the other hand, with the simplest means, he communicates what he feels so fully, the savage grandeur of the sea, and its evanescent and ever-changing loveliness. In this, as in all his other books, Thoreau rises from the observation of the most familiar and commonplace facts, the comparison of the driest bones of observed data, to the loftiest spiritual speculation, the most poetic interpretation of nature. His accuracy almost convinces the reader that his true field was history or science, until some aërial flight of his fancy seems to show him as a poet lost to the Muse. But whatever his gifts, he was above all, as he shows himself in 'Cape Cod,' Nature's dearest observer, to whom she had given the microscopic eye, the weighing mind, and the interpretative voice.

Our

ur New Alaska; or, The Seward Purchase Vindicated, by Charles Hallock, was published in 1886. In the preface, the author explains that the special object of the book is "to point out the visible resources of that far-off territory, and to assist their laggard development; to indicate to those insufficiently informed the economic value of important industries hitherto almost neglected, which are at once available for immediate profit." In thus considering the industrial and commercial aspects of Alaska, the author does not neglect its natural beauties, nor the peculiarities of the inhabitants and their customs. Because of the variety of his observation, the work is never lacking in interest, and the reader is made to share the pleasure of the traveler in his voyage of discovery.

Eikon Basilike: THE TRUE PORTRAIT

URE OF HIS SACRED MAJESTIE IN HIS SOLITUDES AND SUFFERINGS, by John Gauden, February 9th, 1649. One of the most worthless yet most effective and famous literary forgeries ever attempted. Its author was a Presbyterian divine, bishop of Ex

eter and Worcester under Charles II. "It got Parson Gauden a bishopric.» Carlyle wrote November 26th, 1840. On Thursday, January 4th, 1649, the change of England from a monarchy to a republic, or commonwealth, had been made by the passage in the Commons House of Parliament of three resolutions: (1) That the people are the original of all just power in the State; (2) That the Commons represent that power; and (3) That their enactments needed no consent of king or peers to have the force of law. On Tuesday, January 30th, between two and three P. M., the execution of Charles I. had taken place. Ten days later, February 9th, there was published with great secrecy, and in very mysterious fashion, the small octavo volume of 269 pages, the title of which is given above. The frontispiece to the volume was an elaborate study in symbols and mottoes, in a picture of the king on his knees in his cell looking for a crown of glory. The twentyeight chapters purporting to have been written by Charles, and to tell the spiritual side of the later story of his life, each began with a fragment of narrative, or of meditation on some fact of his life, and then gave a prayer suited to the supposed circumstances. Not only was the whole scheme of the book a grotesque fiction, but the execution was cheap, pointless, "vapid falsity and cant," Carlyle said, and a vulgar imitation of the liturgy; yet fifty editions in a year did not meet the demand for it; and it created almost a worship of the dead king. It remains a singular example of what a literary forgery can accomplish.

Headlong Hall, by Thomas Love Pea

cock. Written in 1815, 'Headlong Hall' is a study of typical English life put into the form of numerous detached conversations, discussions, and descriptions. At first it tells how invitations have been sent to a perfectibilian, a deteriorationist, a statu-quo-ite, and a rev erend doctor who had won the squire's fancy by a learned dissertation on the art of stuffing a turkey. There is a graphic picture of the squire at breakfast. After the arrival of the guests they are taken over the grounds, dined, fêted, taken to walk, introduced to the tower, and given a ball. In the interim one of them discovers the skull of Cadwallader and begs possession of it from the old sexton, and being somewhat of a physiologist, follows his discovery with a learned dissertation on the animal man.

The whole story is bright, witty, humorous, devoid of plot, and elaborate in its phrasing. It is engaging as a relic of old English life. Mr. Peacock was born in 1785, and died in 1866. The present is perhaps a little better known than any of his other seven books, though 'Maid Marian, Crotchet Castle,' and 'Nightmare Abbey' are also to be reckoned among standard, if not classical,

the author's reactionary views on mod. ern inventions, reforms, education, and competitive examinations. The material side of his character is summed up in his own words, "Whatever happens in this world, never let it spoil your dinner.»>> Gryll Grange' was Peacock's last novel, having been published in serial form in

1860.

guished by a display of varied erudition, and is to some extent, like his other books, a satire on well-known characters and fads of the day.

rotchet Castle, by Thomas Love Pea

Crote

cock, was published in 1831. Richard Garnett, in his recent edition of the book, says of it that it "displays Peacock at his zenith. Standing halfway between 'Headlong Hall' and 'Gryll Grange,' it is equally free from the errors of immaturity and the

infirmities of senescence.» Like the author's other works, Crotchet Castle' is less a novel than a cabinet of human curios which may be examined through the glass of Peacock's clear, cool intellect. It is the collection of a dilettante with a taste for the odd. Yet among these curios are one or two flesh-and-blood characters: Dr. Folliott, a delightful Church-of-England clergyman of the old school, and Miss Susannah Touchandgo, who is very much alive. They are all the guests of Mr. Crotchet of Crotchet Castle. Their doings make only the ghost of a plot. Their sayings are for the delight of Epicureans in literature.

Gryll Grange, by Thomas Love Pea

cock. The plot of this, as of all of Peacock's novels, is very simple. The heroine is Morgana Gryll, niece and heiress of Squire Gryll, who has persistently refused all offers of marriage, of which she has had many. The hero, Algernon Falconer, is a youth of fortune, who lives in a lonely tower in New Forest, attended by seven foster sisters, and with every intention of continuing his singular mode of life. Morgana and Algernon are brought together by the familiar device of an accident to the lady which compels her to spend several days at the tower. A sub-plot of equal simplicity is given in the love-affairs of Lord Curryfin and Alice Niphet. The most interesting character in the book is the Rev. Doctor Opimian, a lover of Greek and madeira, who serves as a mouthpiece for

in

The "House of Ravenshoe» Stonington, Ireland, is the scene of this novel; and the principal actors are the members of the noble family of Ravenshoe. The plot, remarkable for its complexity, has three stages. Denzel Ravenshoe, a Catholic, marries a Protestant wife. They have two sons, Cuthbert and Charles. Cuthbert is brought up as a Catholic and Charles as a Protestant. This is the cause of

enmity on the

worth, a dark,

part of Father Macksullen man, the priest of the family, who has friendly relations with Cuthbert alone. James Norton, Denzel's groom, is on intimate terms with his master. He marries Norah, the maid of Lady Ravenshoe. Charles becomes a sunny, lovable man, Cuthbert a reticent bookworm. They have for playmates William and Ellen, the children of Norah. Two women play an important part in the life of the hero, Charles,-Adelaide, very beautiful in form and figure, with little depth, and lovely Mary Corby, who, cast up by shipwreck, is adopted by Norah. Charles becomes engaged to Adelaide. The plot deepens. Father Mackworth proves that Charles is the true son of Norah and James Norton, the illegitimate brother of Denzel; and William, the groom foster-brother, is real heir of Ravenshoe. To add to the grief of Charles, Adelaide elopes with his cousin Lord Welter. Charles flees to London, tries grooming, and then joins the Hussars. Finally he is found in London by a college friend, Marston, with a raving fever upon him. After recovery, Charles returns to Ravenshoe. Father Mackworth again produces evidence that not James Norton, but Denzel is the illegitimate son, and Charles, after all, is true heir to Ravenshoe. The union of Charles and Mary then takes place. The book is written in a flashy manner, and contains many bits of piquant humor.

.

Fair Barbarian, A, by Frances Hodg

son Burnett, appeared in 1881. Like James's 'Daisy Miller,' it is a study of the American girl in foreign surroundings. Miss Octavia Bassett, of Nevada, aged nineteen, arrives with six trunks full of finery, to visit her aunt, Miss Belinda Bassett, in the English village of Slowbridge. The beautiful American soon sets tongues wagging. All the village young ladies wear gowns of one pattern obsolete elsewhere, and chill propriety reigns. Octavia's diamonds and Paris gowns, her self-possession and frank independence, are frowned upon by the horrified mammas, especially when all the young men gather eagerly about her. Octavia, serenely indifferent to the impression she creates at the tea-drinkings and croquet parties, refuses to be awed even by the autocrat of the place, Lady Theobald. Her ladyship's meek granddaughter is spurred by admiration of the American to unprecedented independence. She has been selected to be Captain Barold's wife, but as he does not care for her, she ventures to accept Mr. Burmistone, upon whom her grandmother frowns. Barold meantime is enslaved by the charming Octavia.

But he

disapproves of her unconventional ways, and considering it a condescension on his part to ally himself with so obscure a family, he proposes with great reluctance, and is astonished to meet a point-blank refusal. In due time, Octavia's father and her handsome Western lover join her; and after a wedding the like of which had never been witnessed at Slowbridge, she says good-by to her English friends. The story is slight, but the character-sketches are amusing, the contrast of national traits striking, and the whole book very entertaining.

Fingal, by James Macpherson, is an

Ancient Epic Poem, in Six Books,' which appeared in 1762. The poet being a favorite, 'Fingal' had an immense sale. The sources of the poem are the Ossianic materials founded upon the claim that in the third or fourth century chere existed, among the remote mountains and islands of Scotland, a people exhibiting all the high and chivalrous feelings of refined valor, generosity, magnanimity, and virtue. That there should exist among them

handed down through centuries, was cal culated to excite national ardor and interest. The subject of the epic is the invasion of Ireland by Swaran, king of Lochlin, Denmark, during the reign of Cormac II., and its deliverance by the aid of the father of Ossian, King Fingal of Morven, on the northwest coast of Scotland. The poem opens with the overthrow of Cuthullin, general of the Irish forces, and concludes with the return of Swaran to his own land. It is cast in imitation of primitive manners, and is written in a rugged yet artistic style, which comports with its theme. While manifesting sympathy with the gloomy Scottish landscape, the author has presented a warmly colored variety of scenes, at times almost Homeric in their vigorous tones.

Eugene Aram, by Sir Edward Bulwer,

1832, was founded on the career of an English scholar, Eugene Aram, born 1704, executed for the murder of one Clark in 1759. The character of the

murderer and the circumstances of his life made the case one of the most interesting from a psychological point of view, in the criminal annals of England. Aram was a scholar of unusual ability, who, self-taught, had acquired a considerable knowledge of languages, and was even credited with certain original discoveries in the domain of philology.

Of

a mild and refined disposition, his act of murder seemed a complete contradiction of all his habits and ideals of life.

At the suggestion of Godwin, Bulwer made this singular case the basis of his novel Eugene Aram.' He so idealized the character as to make of the murderer a romantic hero, whose accomplice in the crime, Houseman, is the actual criminal. He represents Aram as forced, by extreme poverty, into consenting to the deed, but not performing it. From that hour he suffers horrible mental torture. He leaves the scene of the murder and settles in Grassdale, a beautiful pastoral village, where he meets and loves a noble woman, Madeline Lester. She returns his love. Their marriage approaches, when the reappearance of Houseman shatters Aram's hopes forever. By the treachery of this wretch, he is imprisoned, tried, and condemned to death.

same time the philosophy, of contemporary French literature. It is without doubt the best history of French achievement in letters during the last hundred years. The list of authors, sixty in number, whose works are used as examples of the literary movement, begins with Rousseau and Diderot, and embraces all the names that are of greatest interest for their relation to developments subsequent to the Revolution. The chief conceptions which have held sway in France, creating schools of literature, are carefully studied; and the examples in writers of various types are pictured with felicitous insight. After the classic period had lasted from the middle of the sixteenth century nearly two hundred and fifty years, Rousseau and Diderot became the precursors of the nineteenth century, its initiators in fact.

Then Madame de Staël and Châteaubriand preside at its opening. The founders of Romanticism, modern French literature begins with them. There still lingered a school of pseudo-classicists, and then Victor Hugo brings in the full power of Romanticism. There is a renovation of language and of versification, and a wide development of lyric poetry. The culmination of Romanticism is in the new drama, and again it renews history and criticism, and creates the novel. But half a century brought the decadence of Romanticism; and Realism, essentially prosaic, a fruit of the scientific spirit, succeeded. Its evolution, its effect on poetry and criticism, and its illustration in the novel and the theatre, are carefully traced. M. Pellissier thinks the inevitable return of Idealism already evident, but no sign that this will arrive before the end of the century.

Laokoon. Lessing's 'Laokoon,' written

in 1766, marked an epoch in German art-criticism. It derives its title from the celebrated piece of sculpture by the Greek artists Polydor, Agesander, and Athenodor, which is taken as the starting-point for a discussion on the difference between poetry and the plastic arts. The group represents the well-known episode during the siege of Troy, when the Trojan priest, Laokoon, and his two sons, are devoured by snakes as a punishment for having advised against admitting the decoy horse of the Greeks into the town. In this group Laokoon apparently does not scream, but only

sighs painfully. Virgil, who recounted the same episode in his Æneid, makes the priest cry out in his agony. Lessing asks why this divergence in treatment between the artist and poet? and answers because they worked with different materials. The poet could present his hero as screaming, because the heroes of classical antiquity were not above such shows of human weakness But the artist, in presenting human suffering, was limited by the laws of his art, the highest object of which is beauty; hence he must avoid all those extremes of passion, that, being in their nature transitory, mar the beauty of the features. He can reproduce only one moment, whereas the poet has the whole gamut of expression at command. This constitutes the radical difference between

poetry and the plastic arts, related though they be in many ways. The plastic arts deal with space, and have for their proper objects bodies with their visible attributes; they may, however, suggest these bodies as being in action. Poetry deals with time, and has for its proper objects a succession of events or actions; at the same time it may suggest the description of bodies. Homer already knew this principle, for in describing the shield of Achilles he invites us to be present at its making. In like manner we know what Agamemnon wore by watching him dress. All descriptive poetry and allegorical painting is hereby ruled out of court. There is yet another difference. The plastic arts in their highest development treat only of beauty. Poetry, not being confined to the passing moment, has at its disposal the whole of nature. It treats not only of what is beautiful or agreeable, but also of what is ugly and terrible.

These principles, developed by Lessing in his small treatise, came like a revelation to the German mind. Goethe thus described the effect: "We heartily welcomed the light which that fine thinker brought down to us out of dark clouds. Illumined as by lightning we saw all the consequences of that glorious thought which made clear the difference between the plastic and the poetic arts. All the current criticism was thrown aside as a worn-out coat.»