The Presidents of the United States. years, for of these they were a part. A few instances of apparent partisan inaccuracy occur to us, but usually a disposition to weigh evidence carefully and to set down conclusions fairly is obvious. The biographers of General Harrison and Mr. Cleveland-well as they have done their work-are unavoidably weighed down by the consciousness that they are writing of men who are still with us. It seems to be-it must of necessity be-that no biography of a living person can have proper weight, for there is a certain degree of dispassion which is is on familiar terms with him of whom he supposed to be unattainable by the author if he writes, an over-estimation is usually apparent in the result of his labors. On the other hand; if it be the work of one who has no personal acquaintance with the subject of his story, he commonly errs through lack of proper material. From what we have said as to the necessary exercise of the art of compression, it may be inferred that the book is a mere mass of dates, figures and facts put together as compactly as possible. On the contrary, it makes most in WE have Macaulay's authority for the presumption that a biographer is usually a literary vassal, bound by the immemorial law of his tenure to render homage and to allow the customary services to his lord, but while the estimates made by the different biographers in the book before us may in some instances be open to criticism as being founded on excessive admiration of the subject to the exclusion of carefully exercised judgment, as a rule there is a gratifying absence of undiscriminating panegyric. Such writers as Bancroft, Fiske, Schurz, Gilman, and Winthrop so well equipped by nature and education for their tasksare unlikely to commit gross errors in this direction. The purpose for which much of the teresting reading, not to the historical student alone, but to the intelligent non-specialist reader also, and if narrative is sometimes manipulated into conformity with a purely partisan matter was prepared-for Appleton's Cyclo- point of view, these are but spots upon the sun. pædia of American Biography-necessarily imposed economy of space, condensation of details of action and entire absence of anecdote. Consequently that sort of interest which is aroused by minute personal description and If the worse is sometimes made to appear the better cause, we must place it to the account of poor, weak human nature and be grateful that we at least are above the passions and weaknesses that flesh and spirit are heir to. little that is novel to-day. If, however, you incline too much to the romantic incidents in a novel of 1900 years ago you lose the classical feeling; or if, on the contrary, you go in too strongly for Roman or Greek antiquities, you are not in touch with human passion. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, "Iola" is a well-written book, replete with erudition and of decided interest. (Putnam. $1.25.)-N. Y. Times. The volume is a handsome one of 526 pages, picturesque elaboration will not be excited by neatly printed and bound tastefully. The il a perusal of this volume lustrations are numerous and good-the twenty pleton. $3.50.)-Public Opinion. But the instruction to be derived from twenty-three steel portraits are unexceptionable. (Apthree papers, the work of nineteeen writers, whose names are familiar from connection with historical researches, is invaluable. If no history can give us the whole truth, surely the lives of the twenty-three Presidents of the United States by so many hands, approaches very nearly to an accurate, connected and complete narrative of the events of the past hundred From "The Presidents of the United States." Copyright, 1894, by D. Appleton & Co. LINCOLN'S FIRST HOME. The Flower of Gala Water. 'THE Flower of Gala Water" is one of Mrs. Barr's most delightful novels of Scottish life and scenery. In her portrayal of Scotch character and manners she has no superior among contemporary writers. Her heroines are vital with love and feminine qualities, and possess an individuality which is charming. They have the freshness of youth and health, and impart to her pages their own attractiveness. Mrs. Barr's fine sentiment and vigor of conviction have ample expression in her latest novel. No one can read it without having every noble feeling vitalized and exalted. It is this moral quality which renders "The Flower of Gala Water" a book to be placed in the hands of every boy and every girl. (Bonner. $1.25; pap., 50 c.) 44 Love in Idleness. MR. MARION CRAWFORD is one of the most versatile of living novelists. One is never sure what to expect from him, and that alone conduces to his wide popularity. The American in him is becoming more pronounced than the Roman-American; and there are fewer excursions to lonely English parishes, Munich byways, and mysterious Bohemian castles. 'Love in Idleness" is a pretty little love-story: pretty in its setting, in its sentiment, in its style, and, I From "The Flower of Gala Water." may add, in its " get-up." Its format, indeed, is delightful in size, shape, flexibility, as well as in its type and binding, no better pocket volume is on the market. The scene of the story is a much-frequented seaside resort, not far from New York; the chief dramatis personæ are Fanny Trehearne and Louis Lawrence. There is also a dangerous but unsuccessful rival; and three ladies rather relentlessly depicted as ludicrous old maids, whereas they are simply thwarted in their true vocation. The narrative is occupied with the peculiar form of flirtatiousness affected by the heroine. Those who think "A Cigarette Maker's Romance" one of his best books, will rank "Love in Idleness" even higher than do those who, like the present writer, finds his highest achievement in "To Leeward" and "A Roman Singer." (Macmillan. $2.) The Beacon. IN THE CONSERVATORY. The Colonial Cavalier. A DELIGHTFUL sketch of the Colonial Cavalier in his home, church, state, and social relations. We are made acquainted with the whole man; we go with him through his love-story and we see him as a husband; his trade, his friends, 66 Copyright, 1894, by Robert Bonner's Sons. his foes, his amusements, his dress, are vividly brought into view. This little book of three hundred pages has condensed into most charming and interesting form a whole library of historical information. The reader feels that he is looking at a picture whose values are preserved, and into which nothing has been worked to produce effects, nor omitted for the sake of prettiness. The historical student will perhaps object that Mrs. Goodwin has not by some method identified her authorities, but the general reader will thank her for giving him a book which reveals in all his charm, with his vices and his virtues that too little known gentleman, The Colonial Cavalier." (Lovell, Coryell & Co. $1.)-The Outlook. Talk at a Country House. SIR EDWARD S. STRACHEY, Bart., who dedicates this book to his children, is represented in the frontispiece, taken from a painting by one Henry Strachey, as a benignant-looking old gentleman, with a pointed white beard, standing in a wainscoted hall. Portraits of his ancestors, by Lely, perhaps, look down upon him, and a sagacious cat watches him from a respectful distance. He wears spectacles, and leans on a stout walking-stick; on his head is a soft felt hat with a narrow brim and high crown, and his black frock-coat is loose and ancient. He holds in one hand a copy of a periodical, which we take to be the London Athenæum, as its page is too large for Notes and Queries. Sir Edward's talks in a country house consist of conversations in Somersetshire between a country squire and one Foster, whose vague personality, the reader at first infers, thinly veils the identity of Sir Edward, until he presently discerns that the venerable author is also the squire. Both halves of Sir Edward's ego are great readers and prodigious talkers, and their range of subjects is large and varied. Ancient England and the literary quality of "Love's Labour's Lost ;" the comparative merit of the two forms of Berowne and Biron; Ben Jonson and Persian poetry; the Strachey family, and its old portraits; English politics, love, and marriage; Tennyson's poetry and his friendship with Maurice; Camelot and the Copyright, 1895, by R. F. Fenno & Co. Round Table, and the arrowheaded inscriptions are only a few of the main topics, the discussion of which suggests many others. It seems that one of the chapters, the first, appeared as a magazine article in Fraser's about half a century ago; and Sir Edward has been a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly in recent His little book belongs to the same years. order of literature as the pleasant ramblings on beaten tracks and in the by-ways of Isaac Disraeli. Such books are hardly in fashion nowadays, but they are more congenial companions for the leisure moments of cultivated folks than many that are popular. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.25.)-N. Y. Times. Dawn of Civilization. IN a quarto volume of nearly 800 pages appears an English version of the great work by Prof. G. Maspero, entitled "The Dawn of Civilization; Egypt and Chaldea." The book has been translated by Mr. M. L. McClure, a member of the committee of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, and is edited by Mr. A. H. Sayce, the well-known Professor of Assyriology at Oxford. The reader scarcely needs to be reminded that Prof. Maspero's intimate acquaintance with Egypt and its literature, and the opportunities of discovery afforded him by his position for several years as the director of the Bulak Museum, give him a unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the Nile T Valley. In the case of Babylonia and Assyria, on the other hand, he no longer speaks at first hand, but he has thoroughly studied the latest and best authorities on the subject, and has weighed their statements with the judgment which comes from an exhaustive acquaintance with a similar department of knowledge. Mr. Sayce, however, dissents from his views regarding two points, which are of considerable importance. These are the geographical situation of the land of Magan, which most Assyriologists concur in placing in the immediate vicinity of Egypt, and the historical character of the annals of Sargon of Accad, which Prof. Maspero seems inclined to regard as legendary. (Appleton. $7 50.)- The Sun. History of Art in Primitive Greece-Mycenæan Art. WE find on our table a very delightful work, entitled "History of Art in Primitive GreeceMycenæan Art." It is from the French of Georges Parrot and Charles Chipiez, and is profusely illustrated. Although we have here two volumes of more than five hundred pages each, or a work of more than one thousand pages in all, the book is still an abridgment, as the translator says in his preface. The expense of publication was certainly very great, but we cannot help regretting, from the point of view which a student naturally takes, that any eliminations of the original text were found necessary. It is explained, however, in these words: "The conditions of the book market are not the same in Paris as they are in this country. Generally the expenses of publication of educational and scientific works are in part, if not wholly, defrayed by government. Here they fall entirely on private enterprise, so that it has been deemed advisable to slightly abridge the text in those portion s that are somewhat tumid with 'padding." We hardly see the opportunity for using the words tumid" and " padding" in a work which is remarkably lucid and thoroughly interesting in all its details, and in which the authors have for their sole object the ambition to make their book complete in all its parts. 44 64 Perhaps the sale will be confined to the literary class, but it is a book which every man of leisure and every thoughtful business man can read with int rest and profit. There are thousands of college graduates who are engaged in what the English despise as trade," and who have not lost their taste for just such matters as these, and there are other thousands of men who have never been to college, but, nevertheless, love art in all its forms, and would be glad to know something of its origin. These, if they have the money to spare, will invest a few dollars in this work, and find plenty of food for thought in its pages during the long winter evenings that are upon us. Take such prolific subjects as these, for example: the stone age in Greece, the characteristics of Mycenæan architecture, gates, mouldings, decorations, religious architecture, civil architecture, the architecture of house and palace, painting, pottery, glass, wood, ivory, and stone, all so well illustrated that the author's meaning is caught at a glance. What better reading can any one find than is here afforded, and about a period which seems to be almost miraculous? It is a noble work, and great credit is due to the publishers for their costly undertaking. (Armstrong. $15; $22; $50.)-N. Y. Herald. The Great God Pan. MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS have lately published here, in conjunction with Mr. John Lane, London, "The Great God Pan," and "The Inmost Light," two comparatively short tales by Mr. Arthur Machen, whose name is new to us, though he figures on his title page as the author of "The Chronicle of Clemendy," and the translator of "The Heptameron" and "Le Mozen de Parvenir." It is not easy to say what these tales are, for though they deal, or profess to deal, with men and women of our own day, and with events of real life, it is in such a fantastic way, and with such extraordinary results, that the impression they leave on the mind is rather that of troubled dreams than of actual or possible occurrences in any country, or condition of society, of which we have knowledge. The scenes of both are apparently laid in London, but they are really laid in a populous terra incognita similar to that which Poe imagined as the home of his Waldemars and Lenores, and the haunt of his Conqueror Worms. The intellectual quality which the production of such things demands is imagination, the activity of which should not be regulated, but encouraged, without regard to consequences, and their most potent motive should be the elucidation of some scientific or psychological problem, no matter what one, provided it be sufficiently profound and recondite. The transference of the soul of one person to the body of another by hypnotism is not a bad subject, when properly and plausibly handled; and the creation of a new soul from the ashes of an old body affords a large scope for the ingenuities of pseudo chemistry and mysticism. His heroine is a beautiful woman, who ruins the souls and bodies of those over whom she casts her spells, being as good as a Suicide Club, if we may say so, to those who love her; and to whom she is Death. Something like this is, we take it, the interpretation of Mr. Machen's uncanny parable, which is too morbid to be the production of a healthy mind. (Rob$1.)-Mail and Express. erts. The Use of Life. WHEN Sir John Lubbock writes on science he writes for students; when he writes on other things he has a special but a wider audience in view. It might be difficult to define for whom exactly "The Pleasure of Life" and "The Beauties of Nature" were intended, but there is no such doubt about the present volume. It is a gift-book, and a good one too, for the very young, for those to whom the difficulties and problems of life are mere names. Sir John Lubbock speaks of life in the most cheerful tones, and inculcates the thrifty, prudent virtues in a wholesome fashion. It is very proper that youth should be so addressed, and that they should read from an elementary text-book first, till life puts such questions to them that no such text-book will answer. To those who have had such questions put to them the complacent sententiousness of this guide will sound a little flippant and irreverent, but it cannot be meant for them. Sir John quotes from surely all the authors dead and living in support of his downright cocksure maxims, but it is mostly by the vague generalities of his authorities he is reinforced, by such sentiments as may delight the literary service to a thinking mind. It is only the record or the symmetrical sense but could never be of of special individual experiences that can help where help is needed, and biographies of sinners contain better counsel than books of the most faultless maxims. (Macmillan. $1.25.)- The Bookman. The History of the United States. THE excuse needed for adding to the long list another history of the United States is given by the author, E. Benjamin Andrews, in his claim to utilize recent researches, to make the narrative continuous, to note both the political evolution of the country and its social life, to observe due proportion in the space given to the different phases of the nation's career, to present the matter in natural periods, to separate the fore-history from the history proper, and to secure such accuracy as will make these volumes a work of reference. These are large claims, but an examination of President Andrews' work shows that the claims are well founded, if they be confined to the general outlines of the whole history; and even then the marvel is that there is so much of detail in the narrative and so much of color in the style, when it is considered that the whole story is confined to seven hundred pages, though it begins with America before Columbus and comes down to 1888; indeed, to 1894 on some themes. On the whole it is heartily to be commended as sure to find and to keep a place in the world of readers, and sure also to delight and instruct them. (Scribner. 2 v., $4.)-N. Y. Observer. |