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forbids the banns. Des Grieux and Synnelet fight, and the latter is wounded. The lovers try to make their way to the English settlements, but Manon dies, and Des Grieux buries her in the woods and lies down on her grave to die. He is found, accused of her murder, but acquitted, and returns to France to find his father dead.

It is difficult to give any idea of the charm with which the author has enveloped these characters, and the censors of the book allege that in this very charm lies its insidiousness. It is a classic, and has served as model for many other books; some writers claiming that the authors of Paul and Virginia, Atala,' and 'Carmen,' have but clothed Des Grieux and Manon in other garments.

Retur

eturn of the Native, The, by Thomas Hardy, was published in 1878, being his sixth novel. The scene is laid in Southern England, in the author's "Wessex country," the district of which he has made an ideal map for the latest edition of his works. The hero of the book, the "Native," is Clym Yeobright, formerly a jeweler in Paris, but now returned to the village of his birth, on Egdon Heath. The giving up of his

trade is due to his desire to lead a broader, more unselfish life. He plans to open a school in the village, and to educate and uplift the rustics about him. His Quixotic schemes of helpfulness are upset, however, by his falling in love with Eustacia Vye, a beautiful, passionate, discontented woman, "the raw material of a divinity." His marriage with her is the beginning of a troubled life, severed far enough from his ideals. Her self-sought death by drowning leaves him free to begin again his cherished career of usefulness. As an open-air preacher he seeks an outlet for his philanthropic spirit. The story of Yeobright and Eustacia is not the exclusive interest of the book. Many rustic characters, drawn as only Hardy can draw them, lend to it a delightful rural flavor which relieves the gloom of its tragic incidents.

Rambles and Studies in Greece, by

J. P. Mahaffy. A record of what was seen, felt, and thought in two journeys to Greece, by a man trained in classic knowledge and feeling. By many critics it has been preferred to the author's Social Life in Greece. The titles

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of some of the chapters, First Impressions of the Coast,' 'Athens and Attica, 'Excursions in Attica, (From Athens to Thebes, Chæronea,' 'Delphi, Olympia and its Games,' Arcadia,' 'Corinth,' 'Mycenæ,' 'Greek Music and Painting,' etc., show something of the scope of the volume. From his study of the ancient Greek literature, Professor Mahaffy had reached the conclusion that it greatly idealized the old Greeks. In his 'Social Life in Greece' he described them as he thought they actually were; and this description very nearly agrees, he says, with what he found in modern Greece. He judges that the modern Greekslike the ancients as he sees them - are not a passionate race, and have great reasonableness, needing but the opportunity to outstrip many of their contemporaries in politics and science. The volume reveals the acute observer whose reasoning is based on special knowledge.

Malay Archipelago, The, by Alfred

Russell Wallace, (1869,) is divided into five sections, each of which treats of a naturalist's travels and observations in one of the groups of the Malay Archipelago. The sections are named: "The Indo-Malay Islands,' (The Timor Group,' 'Celebes,' The Moluccan Group,' and "The Papuan Group.' The author traveled more than fourteen thousand miles within the Archipelago, making sixty or seventy separate journeys, and collecting over 125,000 specimens of natural history, covering about eight thousand species.

The records of these journeys, which are arranged with reference to material collected, instead of to chronology, are delightful. Besides the valuable scientific notes, there are most interesting accounts of the islanders and the dwellers on the neighboring mainland, their manners and customs. The style is felicitous, making a scientific treatise as fascinating to read as a story.

Prince Henry of Portugal, SURNAMED

THE NAVIGATOR, The Life of, and its Results; Comprising the Discovery, within One Century, of Half the World. From Authentic Contemporary Documents. By Richard Henry Major. (1868.) The remarkable story of a halfEnglish son of "the greatest king that ever sat on the throne of Portugal⟫ by his mother, Queen Philippa; a grandson of "old John of Gaunt, time-honored

Lancaster»; nephew of Henry IV. of England; and great-grandson of Edward III. His father, King João or John, who formed a close English connection by marrying Philippa of Lancaster, was the first king of the house of Aviz, under which Portugal, for two hundred years, rose to its highest prosperity and power. The career of Portugal in exploration and discovery, due to the genius and devotion of Prince Henry, Mr. Major characterizes as "a phenomenon without example in the world's history, resulting from the thought and perseverance of one man." We see, he says, "the small population of a narrow strip of the Spanish peninsula [Portugal], limited both in means and men, become, in an incredibly short space of time, a mighty maritime nation, not only conquering the islands and western coasts of Africa, and rounding its southern cape, but creating empires and founding capitol cities at a distance of two thousand leagues from their own homesteads"; and such results "were the effects of the patience, wisdom, intellectual labor, and example of one man, backed by the pluck of a race of sailors, who, when we consider the means at their disposal, have been unsurpassed as adventurers in any country or in any age.» It was these brave men, many years before Columbus, who "first penetrated the Sea of Darkness, as the Arabs called the Atlantic beyond the Canaries"; and they lid this in the employment and under the inspiration of Prince Henry, whose "courageous conception and unflinching zeal during forty long years of limited success >>> prepared the way for complete success after his death.

Born March 4, 1394, Prince Henry had become one of the first soldiers of his age when, in 1420, he refused offers of military command, and undertook to direct, at Sagres (the extreme point of land of Europe looking southwest into the Atlantic Sea of Darkness), plans of exploration of the unknown seas of the world lying to the west and south. His idea was to overcome the difficulties of the worst part of that immense world of storms, that lying west of Africa, and thereby get round Africa to the south and sail to India, and China, and the isles beyond India. Every year he sent out two or three caravels; but his great thought and indomitable perseverance

had yielded only "twelve years of costly failure and disheartening ridicule,» when, in 1434, the first great success was achieved by Gil Eannes, that of sailing beyond Cape Boyador. Prince Henry made his seat at Sagres, one of the most desolate spots in the world, a school of navigation, a resort for explorers and navigators. His contemporary Azurara says of him: "Stout of heart and keen of intellect, he was extraordinarily ambitious of achieving great deeds. His self-discipline was unsurpassed: all his days were spent in hard work, and often he passed the night without sleep; so that by dint of unflagging industry he conquered what seemed to be impossibilities to other men. His household formed a trainingschool for the young nobility of the country. Foreigners of renown found a welcome in his house, and none left it without proof of his generosity." To more perfectly devote himself to his great task, he never married, but took for his bride "Knowledge of the Earth." Mr. Major says of what he accomplished, although death suspended his immediate labors, Nov. 13th, 1460:

"Within the small compass of a single century from the rounding of Cape Boyador, more than one-half of the world was opened up to man's knowledge, and brought within his reach, by an unbroken chain of discovery which originated in the genius and efforts of one man, whose name is all but unknown. The coasts of Africa visited; the Cape of Good Hope rounded; the sea way to India, China, and the Moluccas, laid open; the globe circumnavigated, and Australia discovered: such were the stupendous results of a great thought and of indomitable perseverance, in spite of twelve years of costly failure and disheartening ridicule.» How Prince Henry has not been known; how also his work led to an independent discovery of America, and gave Brazil to Portugal; how also it led to the discovery of Australia, Mr. Major fully explains. The story of the honors belonging to him is of fascinating interest. Mr. Major sums up the matter in these words:

"It must be borne in mind that the ardor not only of his own sailors, but of surrounding nations, owed its impulse to this pertinacity of purpose in him. True it is that the great majority of

these vast results were effected after his death; yet is it true that if, from the pinnacle of our present knowledge, we mark on the world of waters those bright tracks which have led to the discovery of mighty continents, we shall find them all lead back to that same inhospitable point of Sagres, and to the motive which gave it a royal inhabitant."

Masterman Ready; OR, THE WRECK OF

THE PACIFIC, by Captain Marryat. This book was written with a double motive: to amuse the author's children, and to correct various errors which he found in a work of a similar nature, The Swiss Family Robinson.'

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Mr. Seagrave and his family, returning to their Australian home after visit to England, are shipwrecked on an uninhabited island with their black servant Juno, and Masterman Ready, an old sailor. As they see no signs of immediate relief, they build a house and make themselves comfortable. They cultivate and explore the island, finding many animals of which they make use, and build a strong stockade around the house in order to be fortified in case of attack. It is not long before they are glad to avail themselves of its protection against a band of cannibals from a neighboring island. They beat off the savages again and again, but are kept in a close state of siege until their water gives out. Ready, attempting to procure some from an unprotected part of the inclosure, is severely wounded by a savage who has managed to steal upon him unawares. Another and more determined attack is made, which seems certain of success, when the booming of cannon is heard and round shot come plowing through the ranks of the terrified savages, who now think of nothing but safety. The shots come from a schooner commanded by Captain Osborn, the former master of the Pacific, who has come to rescue the Seagraves. Ready dies of his wounds and is buried on the island, and the survivors are carried in safety to Australia. The story is told in an interesting and entertaining manner, and is enlivened throughout by the many amusing experiences of Tommy Seagrave, the scapegrace of the family.

The descriptions of the ingenious contrivances of the castaways are accurately given and form an interesting feature of the book. (1842.)

Mirror for Magistrates, The. This

once popular work, the first part of which was published in 1555, and the last in 1620, was the result of the labors of at least sixteen persons, the youngest of whom was not born when the oldest died. It probably owed its inception to George Ferrers, who was Master of the King's Revels at the close of the reign of Henry the Eighth; and he associated with himself William Baldwin. Richard Niccols is responsible for the book in its final state; and in the interim, it was contributed to by Thomas Newton, John Higgins, Thomas Blennerhasset, Thomas Chaloner, Thomas Sackville, Master Cavyll, Thomas Phaer, John Skelton, John Dolman, Francis Segar, Francis Wingley, Thomas Churchyard, and Michael Drayton. It is a "true Chronicle Historie of the untimely falles of such unfortunate princes and men of note, as have happened since the first entrance of Brute into this Iland, until this our latter age." It was patterned after Lydgate's Fall of Princes,' a version of Boccaccio's poems on the calamities of illustrious men, which had been very popular in England. The stories are told in rhyme, each author taking upon himself the character of the "miserable person represented, and speaking in the first person. The first one told by Ferrers is that of Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice of England, "and of other which suffered with him, therby to warne all of his autority and profession to take heede of wrong judgments, and misconstruing of laws, which rightfully brought them to a miserable ende." This book is of little value to-day except to collectors; but it was the intention of its authors to make of it a great national epic, the work of many hands.

English Language, History of the,

T. R. Lounsbury, 1879. This brief manual is a model of what a manual should be. It states in a broad and clear manner the important facts in the growth of the language, as considered apart from literature, and explains its history with delightful, easy-going common-sense. It dwells upon the allimportant truth that language is the natural, inevitable expression of a nation's life, and not a brightly dyed shuttlecock for the battledores of gram marians to knock hither and yon. And it shows that the growth of any tongue

can be explained only by the voice of Philosophy as well as that of History, since this growth incarnates one broad phase of evolution. "No speech can do more," says Prof. Lounsbury, than express the ideas of those who employ it at the time. It cannot live upon its past meanings, or upon the past conceptions of great men which have been recorded in it, any more than the race which uses it can live upon its past glory, or its past achievements. Proud therefore as we may now well be of our tongue, we may rest assured that if it ever attains to universal sovereignty, it will do so only because the ideas of the

you speak in earnest, how magical, how rare, how lonely in our literature is the beauty of your sentences! » And to Dumas: "Than yours there has been no greater nor more kindly and beneficent force in modern letters.» Each letter gives the serene compliments of the author to the author on what was really best in his work. Each letter is gay and unassuming, but under the nonchalance is the fine essence of criticism. An odor as of delicate wine pervades the volume, the fragrance of an oblation to the great Dead, by a lover of their work.

men who speak it are fit to become the Mæviad, The, and The Baviad, by

ruling ideas of the world, and the men themselves are strong enough to carry them over the world; and that, in the

last analysis, depends, like everything else, upon the development of the individual,- depends not upon the territory we buy or steal, not upon the gold we mine or the grain we grow, but upon the men we produce. If we fail there, no national greatness, however splendid to outward view, can be anything but temporary and illusory; and when once national greatness disappears, no past achievements in literature, however glorious, will perpetuate our language as a living speech, though they may help for a time to retard its decay." This extract will to show Professor Lounsbury's point of view, and the healthfulness of his treatment of an ever-delightful subject.

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etters to Dead Authors, by Andrew Lang (1886), are little essays in criticism, addressed in a spirit of gentle humor to the "dear, dead women" and men of whom they treat. The ninth, to Master Isaak Walton, begins: "Father Isaak-When I would be quiet and go angling, it is my custom to carry in my wallet thy pretty book, The Compleat Angler. Here, methinks, if I find not trout I shall find content." The letter to Theocritus is heavy with the scent of roses and dew-drenched violets. The author's pagan sympathies lead him to

William Gifford. It was through these two satires that the author, who later was the first editor of the Quarterly Review, first became known. The Baviad,' which first appeared in 1792, is an attack on a band of English writers living in Florence, Italy, among them being Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Greathead, Mr. Murray, Mr. Parsons, and others, who had formed themselves into a kind of mutual admiration society. It is an imitation of the first satire of Perseus, and in it the author not only attacks the "Della Cruscans» but all who sympa. thize with them: "Boswell, of a song and supper vain," "Colman's flippant trash,» «Morton's catch-word," and "Holcroft's Shug-lane cant," receive his attention; while the satire ends with the line, "the hoarse croak of Kemble's foggy throat." The Mæviad,' which appeared in 1795, is an imitation of the tenth satire of Horace, and was called forth, the author says, "by the appearance of some of the scattered enemy." He also avails himself of the opportunity briefly to notice "the present wretched state of dramatic poetry." It was generally considered that the author was engaged in a task of breaking butterflies on wheels, but he says, "There was a time (when The Baviad' first appeared) that these butterflies were eagles and their obscure and desultory flights the object of universal envy and admiration.»

re

inquire-"In the House of Hades, The Records of a Girlhood, by Frances

ocritus, doth there dwell aught that is fair? and can the low light on the fields of Asphodel make thee forget thy Sicily? Does the poet remember Nycheia with her April eyes?» To Thackeray he says: "And whenever

Anne Kemble. (1879.) This work gives the history of the life of a great actress, member of a family of genius, from her birth up to the time of her marriage (1809-34). Her incorrigible childhood, her school-days in France.

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her first visit to the theatre, her early efforts at authorship, her distaste for the stage, her first appearance on it, her successes there, the books she has been reading, her first visit to America, her comments on American life, which, to her, is so primitive as to seem barbarous, all this is duly set forth. Among those of whom she relates memorable recollections or anecdotes are Lord Melbourne, Rossini, Weber, Fanny Elssler, Sir Walter Scott, Talma, Miss Mitford, Theodore Hook, Arthur Hallam, John Sterling, Malibran, Queen Victoria, George Stephenson, Lord John Russell, Edmund Kean, Chancellor Kent, Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, and a

hundred other personages of equal fame. She knew everybody who was worth knowing, was petted and spoiled by the highest society, and reigned as an uncrowned queen in whatever circle she delighted by her presence. She declares it to be her belief that her natural vocation was for opera-dancing; and says that she ought to have been handsome, and should have been so, had she not been disfigured by an attack of small-pox at the age of sixteen, whose effects never wholly disappeared.

The book is brightly written, is full of well-bred gossip, and always entertaining. Mrs. Kemble's recollections of the long vanished America of the thirties are as piquant as those of Mrs. Trollope, and perhaps not more goodnatured. But she offers a wholesome if bitter medicine to a too swelling national self-conceit.

Records of Later Life, by Frances

Anne Kemble. (1882.) This volume resumes its author's history at the point where 'Records of a Girlhood' leaves it-namely, at her marriage with Mr. Pierce Butler in 1834; and ends with her return to America in 1848, and her success in earning by public readings a home at Lenox, Massachusetts. With the exception of two visits to Europe, the first two-thirds of the book are given to her life in America; the last third, to her stay in Europe (184548). The record begins by describing some of the points at which her English ideas disagree with American ones. It is full of amusing comments on our Life, its crudeness, unhealthiness, lack of leisure, and extravagance, and the discomforts of travel. She speaks with

evident pleasure of her American friends, sets down many observations and plans for the abolition of slavery, as she studies it on her husband's plantation in Georgia, and makes, in short, a vivid picture of American social life in the first half of the century. She gives specific studies of Philadelphia, Niagara Falls, Rockaway Beach, Newport, Boston, Lenox, Baltimore, and Charleston. Though she has faith in American institutions, she is not without intelligent misgivings: "The predominance of spirit over matter indicates itself strikingly across the Atlantic, where, in the lowest strata of society, the native American rowdy, with a face as pure in outline as an ancient Greek coin, and hands and feet as fine as those of a Norman noble, strikes one dumb with the aspect of a countenance whose vile, ignoble hardness can triumph over such refinement of line and delicacy of proportion. A human soul has a wonderful supremacy over the matter which it informs. The American is a whole nation, with well-made, regular noses; from which circumstance (and a few others), I believe in their future superiority over all other nations. But the lowness their faces are capable of 'flogs Europe.» Her strictures on the English aristocracy, and middle and lower classes, are equally severe. In the last third of the book are described her return to the stage and her appearance as a public reader in England, in 1847. In 1841 she was on the Continent, and in 1846 in Italy. Most of this history is told in the form of letters written at the time, wherein her literary opinions and speculations on life and philosophy are freely expressed. Her anecdotes of Dr. Channing, Grisi, Lord and Lady Lansdowne, Sydney Smith, Lady Holland, Rogers, Wordsworth, Mrs. Somerville, Follen, Taglioni, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Fanny Elssler, Mrs. Grote, Jenny Lind, Moore, Macaulay, Dickens, Dr. Arnold, Bunsen, Thackeray, etc., are always entertaining and often most illuminating.

Philistines, The, by Arlo Bates, a

story of fashionable Boston society, takes its title from Matthew Arnold's name for the rich and self-satisfied classes of the community, to whom money, and the good of life expressible in money, are all. Arthur Fenton,

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