450 of themes, in sagacious independent criticisms, and in reminiscences of Oxford and of English culture during sixty years, which will long give it a high place among books of the century. Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb. This modest volame, which was to prove Charles Lamb's first literary success, was written at the desire of William Godwin, as one of a series of children's books published by him. It consists of the plays of Shakespeare transposed into narrative form,the comedies by Mary Lamb, and the tragedies by Charles, and preserving as far as possible the original language of the poet's blank verse. Prepared for children, its entire simplicity proved an added charm for readers, young and old. The scholarship and literary taste of its authors, meanwhile, could but produce not a mere prose version of the plays for juvenile amusement, but a critical introduction to the study of Shakespeare, in the finest sense. Collegians, The, by Gerald Griffin. As a teller of Irish stories, Griffin takes his place with Carleton, Banim, and Miss Edgeworth. Boucicault's famous play The Colleen Bawn' was based on this tale, which was published in 1828. Not many years later the broken-hearted writer entered a convent, where he died at the early age of thirty-seven, under the name of Brother Joseph. The incidents of the book are founded on fact, having occurred near Limerick, Ireland. The story is one of disappointed love, of successful treachery, broken hearts, and "evil fame deserved"; but in the end virtue is rewarded. Like most other novels of its period, it is diffuse and oversentimental; but it is likely to live for its faithful delineation of Irish character at its best-and worst. Lazarillo de Tormes, by Diego Hur tado de Mendoza. This "picaresque" novel was first published in 1553, but was written when the author was a student at Salamanca (1520-23). Mendoza's authorship has been questioned, and it has been attributed to Juan de Ortega, and to certain bishops, who are said to have composed it on their way to the Council of Trent. Still, the probabilities are all in favor of Mendoza, and it is the work upon which his literary fame chiefly rests. The hero is a young rogue who begins his career as guide to a rascally blind beggar. The beggar ill-treats him, and he avenges himself cruelly but comically. He then passes into the service of a priest, a country squire, a "pardoner," a chaplain, and an alguazil. The author leaves him in the position of town-crier of Toledo. The story opened the way for the novela picaresca, i. e., the novel of thieves, to w which we Owe 'Guzman d'Alfarache' and Gil Blas'; and is one of the bes of its kind. The author shows his o ginality by breaking away from the magicians, fairies, knights errant, and all the worn-out material of the Middle Ages, and borrowing his characters from the jovial elements to be found in the shady side of society. All his characters, as well as the hero, are vagabonds, beggars, thievish innkeepers, knavish lawyers, or monks who have become disreputable; and all throb with intense life in his brisk and highly colored narrative. Every episode in Lazarillo's checkered existence is a masterpiece of archness and good-humor. The work, which created an epoch in the history of Spanish prose, is, unfortunately, unfinished: the author, having apparently become a little ashamed of this offspring of his youth, refused to complete it. A second part was added by De Luna, a refugee at Paris, in the following century; but it is far from having the qualities of Mendoza's fragment. Le es Miserables, by Victor Hugo, appeared April 3d, 1862. Before publication it was translated into nine languages; and its simultaneous appearance at Paris, London, Brussels, New York, Madrid, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and Turin, was a literary event. It has since been translated into twelve other languages. Hugo's first novel since his great mediæval romance Notre Dame de Paris, published thirty-one years earlier, Les Misérables' is a story of the nineteenth century. It gives a comprehensive view of Paris, and discloses the author's conception of the present time, and his suggestions for the future. Though a novel with a purpose, it is questionable whether the poet's feeling for the ideal and picturesque does not exceed the reformer's practical sense and science. Les Misérables is often 451 hero is dying. In this complicated history, which involves many characters, chiefly types of the poor, the unfortu nate, and the vicious of Paris, certain passages stand out with dramatic intensity; among them being the famous chapter of the battle of Waterloo; the description of the Paris sewers, through the intricacies of which Jean Valjean flees with wounded Marius; and of the defense of the barricade, where Gavroche, the best existing study of a Paris gamin, gathers bullets and sings defiantly as he meets death. The place of 'Les Misérables is in the front rank of successful romantic fiction. criticized for lack of unity and careless literal obedience to the divine com- Red as a Rose is She, by Rhoda Broughton. This commonplace lovestory is very simply told. The scene is laid in Wales. The heroine, Esther Craven, promises to marry Robert Brandon, "to keep him quiet," though caring much less for him than for her only brother. But on a visit she meets the heaven-appointed lover, and notwithstanding her engagement the two at once fall in love. Interested friends, who do not approve the affair, plot and bear false witness to break it off. Esther confesses to Brandon her change of feeling, and he is man enough to release her. Then ensues a period of loneliness, misunderstanding, and hardship for the heroine, whose character is ripened by adversity. When happiness once more stands waiting for her, she has learned how to use its gifts. The story moves quickly, and is entertaining. The Goldmakers Village, by Johann Heinrich Zschokke. Like the other works of Zschokke, this is renowned for its graphic description of natural scenery, its precise delineation of society and exact portraiture of the class of which it treats, as well as for its moral, philanthropic, and beneficial tendency. Its English equivalent may be found in the charming tales of Mary Howitt. Oswald, the Swiss soldier, "returning from the wars," finds his native village of Goldenthal sunk into the depths of misery and degradation; its inhabitants lazy, shiftless, hampered with debt, frequenters of public houses, lost to all sense of moral responsibility. He devotes himself to the amelioration of their condition; in which, by the help of the lovely Elizabeth, the miller's daugh ter and then his wife, he is successful: so developing the various sources of comfort and improvement; so exemplifying by practical illustration the multiplied methods by which a patriot of philanthropy may serve the best interests of his fellowcitizens and country, that in the end he is rewarded by seeing the home of his youth on a par with the best organized, best conducted, and best credited vil schemers and professional beauties, soldiers and merchants, princes and beggars. Even St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar is painted in all his repulsive hideousness of saintly squalor. A pretty interlude to the development of the story is afforded by several charming interpretations of the old legend of Narcissus and the Echo. lages of the community, and the "Gold-L" enthalers," from being a synonym to their neighbors for all that is worthless, at length known and honored as the "Goldmakers,» for the thrift which changes everything it touches into precious metal. Although the precise locality of the "Goldmakers' Village» cannot be found, yet it is to be feared that many an obscure locality can be discovered where, in many points, the picture can be matched, and where the benevolent enterprise of another Oswald is equally necessary. Last Athenian, The (Sidste Athe naren '), by Viktor Rydberg (1880), translated from the Swedish by W. W. Thomas in 1883. The scene of the novel is laid in Athens in the fourth century of our own era; and deals with the inner dissensions of the Christian church, the struggles and broils of the Homoiousians and Athanasians, and the social and political conditions involved in or affected by these differences. The corruption of the upper classes, the lingering power of the old religion of Greece, the strange ife and Letters of Lord Macaulay, The, edited and arranged by his nephew, Sir George Otto Trevelyan (1876), is recognized as a biography of whose excellence English literature may boast. From the great historian's cor respondence, private memoranda, and original drafts of his essays and speeches, and from the recollections of friends and relatives, the author has produced a model book. Macaulay's untiring patience of preparation, the tireless labor expended in collecting materials, his amazing assiduity in arranging them, his unequaled memory, and his broad popular sympathies, are sympathetically described, and reveal to us the most distinguished, progressive, industrious, able, versatile party leader of the first half of this century. The genuine honesty and worth of his character, and his brilliant scholarship, are as evident as his limitation in the fields of the highest imagination. Throughout the book Trevelyan suppresses himself conscientiously, with the result that this work ranks among the most faithful and absorbing biographies in English. melée of old and new philosophies and phases of Thought and Criticism, by erratic social codes, are presented by the introduction of many types and individuals. But a confusing multiplicity of interests and characters interferes with a clear view. The stage is too crowded. The parts of the plot are woven together about the love-story of Hermione, daughter of the philosopher Chrysanteus, and a young Athenian of the degenerate type, who from a promising youth Brother Azarias, of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Patrick Francis Mullany). A book of search for the ideal in thought, with special reference to the cultivation of religious sentiment on the basis of the Catholic faith. The writer states the principles for which he contends, and what may be called the logic of spiritual discernment, and then makes an application of them in very carefully executed studies of the 'Imitation of À Kempis, "The Divina Commedia of Dante, and the 'In Memoriam of Tennyson. These three studies show the author at his best, as an ardent traveler on "the road that leads to the Life and the Light.» The last of the three is the most elaborate; and in it the zealous expounder of spiritual method "watches a great modern poet wrestling with the problem of bridging the chasm which yawns between agnosticism and Christianity." My Schools and Schoolmasters, by Hugh Miller (1854), is one of the most delightful of autobiographies as far as it goes. (It stops with Miller's assumption of the editorship of the Edinburgh Witness in 1840-after which he was teacher rather than pupil.) The author desired it to be regarded as "a sort of educational treatise, thrown into the narrative form, and addressed more especially to workingmen »; but men and women of all classes find it good reading. For seventeen years covered by this volume, he worked at the trade of stone-mason,- though he had been carefully educated by his two uncles, and possessed an extensive knowledge of English language, history, and literature,- spending his spare time in geological research and in reading. His remarkable powers of observation he must have developed early: he speaks of remembering in later life things that only a sharp eye would have noted, as far back as the end of his third year. Having disposed of his parents' biography in the first chapter, the work narrates his earliest recollections of his own life, his school days, his youthful adventures, the awakening of his taste by one of his uncles for the study of nature, his first attempts at authorship, visits to the Highlands, choice of a Open Letter to the Moon,' 'A Bitter Complaint of an Ungentle Reader,' are some of the fantastic and alluring titles. The essayist owns the artistic soul, and finds 'A Pleasing Encounter with a Pickpocket' pleasing, not because the pickpocket was marched off by a policeman, as would be satisfactory to the ordinary victim of his cleverness, but because he displays such ability in eluding that fate that the despoiled one applauds him as a fellow-artist. The Great Playground' is a charming paper on out-of-doors; full of the gipsy love of freedom, which is almost greater with the author than her love of books, of dogs, or of old things. 'An Inquirendo into the Wit and Other Good Parts of his Late Majesty King Charles the Second' attempts for the Merry Monarch what Froude attempted for Henry VIII. The piece is in the form of a dialogue between a holder of the generally accepted view of the Second Charles's character, and a devoted admirer of that sovereign, who wears a sprig of green in his hat on the anniversary of the Restoration, and feeds the swans in St. James's Park, because his Majesty once loved to do so. This apologist considers Charles II. as the last sovereign with a mind; and for that merit, he can find it in his heart to forgive much to that cynical and humorous gentleman. trade, moving to Edinburgh, religious Nelson, The Life of, by Captain A. T. views, illness, receiving an accountantship in a branch bank at Cromarty, 'marriage, the death of his infant daughter, etc. It abounds in stories, interesting experiences, keen observation of natural objects, and anecdotes of prominent men,-all in an admirable style. Patrins, by Louise Imogen Guiney, is a collection of twenty short essays on things of the day, with one disquisition on King Charles II. The little papers are called Patrins,' from the Romany word signifying the handfuls of scattered leaves by which the gipsies mark the way they have passed; Miss Guiney's road through the thought-country being marked by these printed leaves. The essays are distinctly literary in form and feeling; the style is grace itself; the matter airy yet subtle, whimsical and quite out of the common. 'On the Delights of an Incognito,' 'On Dying as a Dramatic Situation,' 'An Mahan. This monumental biography is a sort of supplement to the author's 'Influence of Sea-Power.' He considers Lord Nelson as "the one man who in himself summed up and embodied the greatness of the possibilities which Sea Power comprehends, - the man for whom genius and opportunity worked together, to make the personification of the navy of Great Britain the dominant factor in the periods hitherto treated.» Earl Nelson arose, and in him "all the promises of the past found their finished realization, their perfect fulfillment." Making use of the materials of the many who have written biographies of this fascinating personality, and even richer materials that came into his possession, it was Captain Mahan's object "to disengage the figure of the hero from the glory that cloaks it." His method is to make Nelson "describe himself, tell the story of his own inner life as well as of his external actions.» He therefore extracts 454 from the voluminous correspondence extant passages that enable him "to detect the leading features of temperament, traits of thought and motives of action, and thence to conceive within himself, by gradual familiarity even more than by formal effort, the character therein revealed." In the same way as he thus reproduces his individuality, so he treats of his military actions; showing not merely what he did, but also the principles that dominated him throughout his life. The author's logical faculty stood him in good stead in thus concentrating documentary evidence to bear on mooted points, and he most skillfully unravels tangled threads. At the same time his vivid and richly embroidered style, combined with just the right degree of dignity, makes his presentation of mingled biography and history as interesting as a romance and as satisfying as history. The two stately volumes are adorned with numerous portraits and engravings, and with maps and plans explanatory of the battles and engagements described. merican Conflict, The, by Horace Απ Greeley. This history is not restricted to the period of armed conflict between the North and South in the sixties; but purports to give, in two large volumes, an account of the drift of public opinion in the United States regarding human slavery from 1776 to the close of the year 1865. The most valuable feature of this history is the incorporation into it of letters, speeches, political platforms, and other documents, which show authentically and beyond controversy the opinions and dogmas accepted by political parties and their chiefs, and approved by public opinion North and South; as the author justly remarks, nothing could so clearly show the influences of slavery in molding the opinions of the people and in shaping the destinies of the country. Thus the work is a great magazine of materials for the political history of the United States with regard to slavery; and whatever judgment may be passed on its author's philosophy of the great conflict, the trustworthiness of his volumes, simply as a record of facts and authentic declarations of sectional and partisan opinion, is unquestionable. by Frederic Seebohm. (1867, 1887.) A work not designed to offer biographies of the persons named, but to carefully study their joint work at Oxford. John Colet, a son of Sir Henry Colet, a wealthy merchant who had been more than once Lord Mayor of London, and was in favor at the court of Henry VII., had come home from study in Italy to Oxford in 1496; and, although he was not a Doctor, nor even a deacon preparing for full clerical dignity, he startled the conservatism of the church and the university by announcing a course of public free lectures on the epistles of Paul. It was a strikingly new-departure proceeding, not only in the boldness of a layman giving lectures on religion, but in new views to be brought out. What was called the New Learning, starting from study of Greek, or the world's best literature, was taking root at Oxford. Two men of note, Grocyn and Linacre, who had learned Greek, were working hard to awaken at Oxford interest in the study of Greek. And among the young students Colet found one, not yet of age, who showed the finest type of English genius. He was called "Young Master More.» The fine quality of his intelligence was even surpassed by the sweetness of his spirit and the charm of his character. He was destined to be known as Sir Thomas More, one of the great historic examples of what Swift, and after him Matthew Arnold, called "sweetness and light.» Colet was thirteen years older than More, but the two held close converse in matters of learning and humanity. They were Humanists, as the men of interest in all things human were called. Colet and More had been together at Oxford a year when a third Humanist appeared upon the scene in 1497, the year in which John Cabot discovered North America. This was Erasmus, who was already a scholar, after the manner of the time, in Latin. He came to Oxford to become a scholar in Greek. was scarcely turned thirty,-just Colet's age, and had not yet begun to make a great name. The story of the three men runs on to 1519, into the early dawn of the Lutheran Reformation. Colet becomes a Doctor and the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London (1499), and on his father's death (1510), uses his inherited fortune to found. St. Paul's School, in which 153 boys of any nation He |