THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, And Observations on Nature. By GILBERT WHITE. With an Introduction by JOHN BURROUGHS, 80 Illustrations by CLIFTON JOHNSON, and the Text and New Letters of the Buckland Edition. In 2 vols. 12mo, cloth, $4.00.

In order to present a satisfactory and final edition of this classic of Gilbert White's, Mr. Clifton Johnson visited Selborne and secured pictures of the actual scenes amid which White's life was passed. The photographs and the drawings form in themselves a most delightful gallery of pictures of unspoiled English rural life. This new edition can not be neglected by anyone who cares for Nature or for the classics of English literature.

UNCLE REMUS.

His Songs and his Sayings. By JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS. New and revised edition, with 112 Illustrations by A. B. FROST. 12mo, cloth, $2.00.

It is unnecessary to say anything in praise of Mr. A. B. Frost's unfaltering individuality, his instant realization of types, his quaint and unexpected turns of humor, and the constant quality of absolutely true and individual pictorial expression of things American. Of the enthusiasm and perfect comprehension and sympathy shown in his 112 drawings the public can judge, and there can be no doubt that the verdict will stamp these pictures as the artist's crowning work in illustration. This is the final, the definitive edition of Mr. Harris's masterpiece. Also, an édition de luxe of the above, with the full-page cuts mounted on India paper. 8vo, white vellum, gilt, $10.00.

CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY.

By Professor E. FERRI. A new volume in the Criminology Series, edited by W. DOUGLAS MORRISON. 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

In this volume, Professor Ferri, a distinguished member of the Italian Parliament, deals with the conditions which produce the crimnal population, and with the methods by which this anti-social section of the community may be diminished. His view is that the true remedy against crime is to remove individual defects and social disadvantages where it is possible to remove them. He shows that punishment has comparatively little effect in this direction, and is apt to direct attention from the true remedy—the individual and social amelioration of the population as a whole.

ANTHONY HOPE'S NEW ROMANCE.

THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO. By ANTHONY HOPE, author of "The God in the Car," "The Prisoner of Zenda," etc. With colored Frontispiece by S. W. VAN SCHAICK. 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

"The Prisoner of Zenda" proved Mr. Hope's power as the author of a fighting romance, and his pen again becomes a sword in this picturesque and thrilling story of a mediæval Italian paladin, whose character will recall the Chevalier Bayard to the reader who breathlessly follows him through his adventures and dangers.

"Mr. Hope has been rapidly recognized by critics and by the general public as the cleverest and most entertaining of our latest-born novelists."- St. James Gazette.

"All his work impresses with qualities to mark a rarely cultivated mind and art."- Boston Globe.

"Mr. Hope is a master at the work. His construction is in every way admirable. He lays an excellent foundation in the choice of other characters, and then he marshals his incidents with consummate art." -Milwaukee Journal.

"It is a great achievement nowadays to be entertaining, and that Mr. Hope is, in his lively, fantastic, dramatic, impossible little stories."— Chicago Journal.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NUMBER, And its Applications to Methods of Teaching Arithmetic. By JAMES A. MCLELLAN, A.M., LL.D., Principal of the Ontario School of Pedagogy, Toronto, and John Dewey, Ph.D., Head Professor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago. International Education Series, Vol. 33. 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

It is believed that this work will supply a special want. There is no subject taught in the elementary schools that taxes the teacher's resources as to methods and devices to a greater extent than arithmetic, and none that is more dangerous to the pupil in the way of deadening his mind and arresting its development, if bad methods are used. The authors of this book have presented in an admirable manner the paychological view of number, and shown its applications to the correct methods of teaching the several arithmetical processes.

THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE.

A Tale of the Civil War. By STEPHEN CRANE. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.

For an equally searching and graphic analysis of the volunteer in battle, one is tempted to turn to certain pages of Tolstoy. Mr. Crane puts before us the reality of war as it appeared to the soldier, and the interest of his picture is intense and absorbing.

THE STARK MUNRO LETTERS. Being a Series of Twelve Letters written by J. STARK MUNRO, M.B., to his Friend and Fellow-Student, Herbert Swanborough, of Lowell, Mass., 1881-1884. Edited and arranged by A. CONAN DOYLE, author of "Round the Red Lamp," "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," etc. With 8 fullpage Illustrations. Third Edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. "The Stark Munro Letters' is a bit of real literature. . . . Its reading will be an epoch-making event in many a life."- Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.

"Will be as successful, when it becomes known, as any Conan Doyle has written."-New York Times.

"Positively magnetic, and written with that combined force and grace for which the author's style is known." — Boston Budget.

IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.

A Romance of the American Revolution. By CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS. No. 178, Town and Country Library. 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.

In this American historical romance, by a new writer of rare promise, there is unfolded a stirring tale of patriotic adventure ranging from Lexington, the burning of Norwalk, the British occupation of Long Island, and thrilling experiences on Long Island Sound, to Benedict Arnold's descent on New London and the Massacre at Fort Griswold. It is a book to appeal to Americans as a vivid picture of Revolutionary scenes, while the love story which is interwoven will be found a singularly charming idyl.

A BID FOR FORTUNE.

By GUY BOOTHBY, author of "The Marriage of Esther," etc. No. 179, Town and Country Library. 12mo, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00.

The unexpected incidents and strange adventures which follow thick and fast in Mr. Boothby's stirring story maintain the interest of the reader at the highest point throughout. It would be unfair to sketch the plot of his thrilling tale, which will be welcomed as a relief from the novel of analysis and the discussions of marital infelicity.

and Coleridge, to the no less glorious period of Tennyson, Browning, and Mr. Swinburne. Yet the signs of a closing epoch are, on the whole, clearer in 1895 than they were twenty years ago, and Mr. Stedman's prognostication has not been flouted by the emergence of any new and distinctive poetical force. It was made at a time when six great poets of English speech wore the laurel upon living brows; since it was made, four of the six have gone "where Orpheus and where Homer are," and no new altar-fires have sprung up to dim the light of the two singers who still happily remain with us. We cannot, in the nature of things, hope for an extension of the Victorian name far over the years to come, and no twentieth century compiler of a Victorian anthology will be likely much to exceed the scope of Mr. Stedman's collection.

The octogenarian of to-day whose years have run parallel with those of England's Queen, and who has been all his life a lover of poetry, has had many things for which to be thankful, many sensations of the rarer and more exquisite sort. To such a person, coming to manhood, let us say, in the very year of the Queen's accession, the deaths of Shelley and Keats were but childish memories, while the deaths of Scott and Coleridge doubtless seemed to ring the knell of creative poetry. Yet he may have been old enough to be captivated by the first poems of Tennyson, and to detect in them the new note which even then set the key in which the swelling harmonies of the coming age were destined to be scored. Possibly, also, he may have strayed, at the verge of manhood, upon "Pauline" and "Paracelsus," and wondered at their strange cadences and virile strength. His first genuine sensation, however, must have been delayed until 1842, when the possibilities of Tennyson's genius were first fully revealed. The middle of the century found our lover of song in possession of "The Princess" and "In Memoriam," and of a series of Browning volumes numerous and distinctive enough to put beyond question the fact that this poet also must be reckoned with. If, moreover, he had lent an attentive ear to the new voices about him, he could not have failed to be impressed by the quality of a thin volume, published in 1848, and entitled "The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems." At least, the appearance of "Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems," in 1853, must have made it clear that a third great poet had arisen in Victorian England. The year 1855, when the subject of our imaginary

biography had just turned the forties, must still be remembered by him as an annus mirabilis, for it brought the "Poems" of Arnold, Tennyson's "Maud," and the "Men and Women" of Browning.

Some ten years were to elapse before another sensation of the first class was possible. The first series of Mr. Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads" appeared in 1866, and even our hypothetical octogenarian, who then had a half century to his credit, would probably subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Saintsbury (a much younger man), when he says: "I do not suppose that anybody now alive (I speak of lovers of poetry) who was not alive in 1832 and old enough then to enjoy the first perfect work of Tennyson, has had such a sensation as that which was experienced in the autumn of 1866 by readers of Mr. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads.' And I am sure that no one in England has had any such sensation since." Our reader may, however, have been in a measure prepared for the experience by getting hold of the " Atalanta " in 1864, of the "Chastelard" in 1865, and even of "The Queen Mother and "Rosamond " in 1861. He may also have recognized the possibilities of still another poet, who put forth "The Defence of Guenevere " as early as 1858. At all events, he can have had no doubt of the appearance of a fifth great Victorian poet when the year 1867 brought "The Life and Death of Jason," and the following year the beginnings of "The Earthly Paradise." England might now proudly boast of five great poets among the living; would there be a sixth? The question was soon answered. It was in 1870 that the friends of Rossetti persuaded him to exhume the manuscript collection of verse that had, in a passion of unassuageable grief, been consigned to the grave with the body of his wife, and to give it to the world. The publication of this volume gave to our lover of poetry the last distinctive sensation that he was to know. The quarter-century that has elapsed since 1870 has brought him no experience comparable with this, and his pleasures have been limited to the retrospective enjoyment of a rich past, and delight in the later productions of the six great poets whose fame was so long ago so surely established.

Mr. Stedman's "Victorian Anthology" fills six hundred and seventy-six compact doublecolumned pages, eighty-seven of which are devoted to the six Victorian master singers. No other poets are illustrated at similar length, with the exception of Landor, who stands in

the forefront of the epoch, and, more than any other poet, serves to link it with the age of Shelley. Examples are given us of no less than three hundred and forty-three poets, thirty-six of whom belong to Australasia and Canada. The three hundred and seven English (as distinguished from Colonial) poets are grouped in three great divisions, corresponding to the beginning, the middle, and the close of the reign. In each of these divisions, subdivisions are formed, and the fine critical sense of the editor is displayed in the felicitous names that he has given to these lesser groups. Nothing could be happier, for example, than to classify Barham, Maginn, and Mahony as "The Roisterers"; Barnes, Waugh, and Laycock under the style of "The Oaten Flute," or Locker-Lampson, Calverley, and Sir Frederick Pollock as writers of "Elegantiæ." This carefully-considered classification is in itself a great help to the student, and often suggests affinities that would otherwise be likely to escape his notice. Nothing is lacking to make this great anthology all that could be desired. Besides the features of the work that have already been mentioned, there is such an introductory essay as Mr. Stedman alone could write, a section devoted to biographical notes, and indexes of first lines, titles, and poets. By way of adornment, to say nothing of such unfailingly tasteful mechanical features as we have learned to expect from Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Company, the book has two appropriate illustrations in photogravure-the "Poet's Corner" in the Abbey where so many of England's poets lie buried, and the Queen whose name will always be as firmly associated with that of Tennyson as the name of Elizabeth is associated with that of Shakespeare. No less noticeable than the fine critical taste displayed by Mr. Stedman in making his selections is the conscientiousness which has gone into every detail of his work. It would be difficult to imagine better-made anthology, or one more likely to take a permanent place among standard works of reference. It belongs to the small class which includes Mr. Humphry Ward's "English Poets" and Professor Palgrave's "Golden Treasury," and hardly any other collections of English verse. We may well be proud as a nation that such a work for English poetry should have been left for an American to perform. The book is one that will prove simply indispensable to students of poetry and cultivated readers alike.

THE REAL AND THE IDEAL.

A HINT FROM NATURE.

To Walter Pater's question, "Is poetry, the literary beauty, the poetical ideal, always but a borrowed light upon man's actual life?" I think an affirmative answer must be given. The poetry is from within; it is the light that never was upon sea or land; and this light is upon the past more than upon the present. The present moment is always prosy and commonplace. The grandeur and significance of our own day are very apt to be hidden from us. Hence to wed poetry and modernity is always a difficult task. It is easier to charm us with the imaginary than with the real. I think undoubtedly Hawthorne had an easier task than has Mr. Howells, Balzac than Zola. The latter is sometimes overpowered and hampered by the realityas in "Lourdes."

All true art is interpretative. The great realist, like Tolstoi, interprets life. If he were merely to copy it, we should tire even of him. To interpret it is not to improve upon it; it is to draw it out, set and as a whole. The true historian interprets hisit off, and make us see it through a new medium tory, shows us what probably the actors themselves did not know. The value of any writer's or artist's interpretation of life is in proportion as it is vivid and large and true. Did not Carlyle interpret Cromwell to his countrymen? In art, facts are to

be digested, made fluid, and informed with life. In science, they are to be left as facts. If I go out and name every bird I see, and describe its color and ways—give a lot of facts about the bird-my reader is not interested. But if I relate the bird

in some way to human life, to my own life, show what it is to me and what it is in the landscape or the season, speak of it in terms of general human experience, then is the reader interested. Only so do I give him a live bird. To cast an air of romance, of adventure, of the new and untried, over common facts and common life-to infuse the ideal into the real-that is the secret.

The best analogy I know of in Nature of the relation of the artist to his environment is furnished by the honey-bee. The bee is both realist and idealist. Her product reflects her environment, and it reflects that which her environment knows not of. Most persons think the bee gets her honey from the flowers. But she does not; honey is the product of the bee—it is the nectar of the flower with the bee added. What the bee gets from the flower is sweet water; this she brings home in her honey bag: she meditates upon it as it were; she puts it through a process of her own; she reduces the waby her own body. It is this minute drop which ter and adds a minute drop of formic acid, secreted gives honey its delicious sting, like the works of genius, and makes it differ from all other sweets in

the world.

Nothing is better, nothing is more indispensable

in a novel or other imaginative work, than local color, local flavor, the atmosphere of the time and place; but these things must all have been supplemented, and in a measure changed, by the genius of the artist. We shall detect New York, or New England, or California, or the South, in his work, only as we detect the local flora in the product of the bee. The honey of Hymettus is not like that of Pentelicon; the honey of California is not like that of Michigan or Florida, yet all kinds agree in being honey and not merely nectar. You can taste the flowers in each one of them-the clover, the orange blossom, the thyme, the linden, the sumac; but to the nectar of each the bee has imparted her own peculiar and transforming quality.

A recent London writer argues against realism in fiction, because, he says, "In human life there are no facts. ... Life is in the eye of the observer. The humor or the pity of it belongs entirely to the spectator, and depends upon the gift of vision he brings." Still there are facts in life-facts of race, of country, of time, of conditions; and the work of the true realist reflects them. New England life, old England life, life in Texas or Iowa or Massachusetts, here are facts that must modify the work of the novelist who finds the materials of his story in any of these countries.

One might as well say there are no facts in Nature no facts anywhere. True, all depends upon the eye that sees, upon its interpretative power; but the facts—the types, the conditions must be there to start with. We do not want a barren realism, as I suspect we sometimes get in Zola; we do not want merely the raw sweet water of the facts: we want soul and personality added; we want the amber liquid with the delicious sting in which the nectar of fact has been transmuted into something higher and finer. I suspect that all Mr. Garland really demands in that suggestive little volume of his called "Crumbling Idols" is that Western bees shall make honey from Western flowers-though he may err a little in thinking this honey will be better than any ever made before. JOHN BURROUGHS.

MONA LISA.

What had this woman felt and seen and known,
Ere, Lionardo, she was snatch't by thee
From our gross precincts of mortality

To that serene and untranscended zone
Where the fair arts abide! Lo, years have flown,
And new lands have been born beyond the sea;
But she remains from perturbation free,
This woman that hath made all life her own!

O glorious face! triumphant over time
And chance and change and ignorance and woe,
What was the secret talisman sublime
That bore thee up against the common foe,
That let thee smile at Death, and, in thy prime,
Look back on youth as on a toy let go?

W. P. TRENT.

COMMUNICATIONS.

THE DECADENT "THOMSON."

(To the Editor of THE DIAL.)

Since reading THE DIAL of October 1, I have been racking my brains for a satisfactory estimate of "Thomson," the decadent scholar; but with no adequate results. One feels a slight uncertainty whether his biographer really intends him to be taken seriously. There is an indescribable air about the story which is not inconsistent with the theory that the writer holds a "retainer" from that commanding portion of the American public which is represented as in deadly hostility to the "unbias" (here my dictionary is left behind) of the German university.

But granted that he wishes "Thomson" to be taken seriously: is the fate of the latter, after all, of such a nature as to claim any large amount of our sympathy, at a time when the Cubans and Armenians and Venezuelans have so nearly exhausted that emotion in the American breast? One might easily lash himself into indignation, like Homer's lion, at the thought of such a genius as "Thomson," compelled, in a college "narrow and closely sectarian," to teach Presbyterian Physics, or the Baptist theory of Taxation, or Methodist Chemistry, or any of the other well-known requirements of our sectarian schools; but the troublesome question will come to the front, Did not Thomson fall too easily? Since when has it been absolutely necessary to the integrity of a great man's devotion to Truth that he be furnished with a good professorship, a regular salary, and an ample supply of "elbow-room"? Why should a few years of unappreciated endeavor have made the descent into the Avernian regions of learned decadence so easy? Why was the brain of this all too faithless devotee to truth fired by no prophetic vision of

"Seven cities claiming Thomson dead,

Through which the living Thomson begged his bread?" No, men of "Thomson's" fibre will not do. In making up the army of reformers which is to bring light where "ignorance and all uncharitableness" have been, all such as he must be firmly rejected if the recruiting officers are to do their duty. We want no one in the ranks who is liable to desert when supplies run short.

But, as I said at the start, I am not clear in my own conceptions as to "Thomson," and I do not want to go so far as to accuse him of personal moral turpitude. I surrender him to the psychiatrist, who may detect some lesion of the brain; or to the student of heredity, who may find that the seeds of his decadence were born in him. In taking leave of him, my mind is inclined to settle down into an attitude of thankfulness that he was not elevated to any really important educational position before his inevitable tendency to decadence was made manifest. W. H. JOHNSON.

A CARD FROM "THOMSON'S" BIOGRAPHER. (To the Editor of THE DIAL.)

I beg leave seriously to assure W. R. K. and "a considerable class of your readers and contributors " that the alarming inferences in W. R. K.'s letter (DIAL, Oct. 16) are not, I am relieved to say, based upon a sound deduction, or upon data which could warrant an induction. The feverishness of Thomson's ambition and the low tone of his opportunity were purposely exaggerated to bring out the conflict necessary to such a bit of fiction. W. P. REEVES.