surprised that her hard experience never seemed to school her into charity and restraint. To the last she was as fierce, as uncontrolled, as bitter as ever when her temper was touched. Mrs. Oliphant did not disguise her great contempt for the popular Scotch writers of the day. There was one exception. She was an ardent admirer from the very first of Mr. Barrie, and rejoiced greatly in her last days over "Margaret Ogilvy," a book which she put where we think it will be put at last, as perhaps the most enduring product of recent English literature. For Mr. Kipling, also, she had a warm admiration. But beyond these two, we do not think she really cared for any of the younger writers, while it is not too much to say that she positively detested many of them. Of Stevenson even after his death she spoke with extraordinary malignity. Much of her critical writing has been collected in books, the best of these being undoubtedly "Historical Sketches of the Reign of George III." In this occurs, perhaps, the finest thing she ever wrote the noble panegyric of "Clarissa Harlowe."

inspiring than the pessimist. In one case, we have the impression of one good man in a totally depraved world; in the other case, we have a totally depraved man in what but for him would be a very good world. I know of nothing that gives one a more genial appreciation of average human nature, or a greater tolerance for the foibles of one's acquaintances, than the contrast with an unmitigated pirate.

My copy of "The Pirate's Own Book" belongs to the edition of 1837. On the fly-leaf it bore in prinı handwriting the name of a lady who for many years must have treasured it. I like to think of this unknown lady in connection with the book. I know that she must have been an excellent soul, and I have no doubt that her New England conscience pointed to the moral law as the needle to the pole; but she was a wise woman, and knew that if she was to keep her conscience in good repair she must give it some reasonable relaxation. I am sure that she was a woman of versatile philanthropy, and that every moment she had the a~ility to make two duties grow where only one had grown before. After, however, at

From The Atlantic Monthly. PIRATES, PESSIMISTS AND PHILAN

THROPISTS.

I am inclined to think that a pirate may be a better person to read about than some persons who stand higner in the moral scale. Compare, if you will, a pirate and a pessimist. As a citizen and neighbor I should prefer the pessimist. A pessimist is an excellent and highly educated gentleman, who has been so unfortunate as to be born into a world which is inadequate to his ex'pectations. Naturally he feels that he has a grievance, and in airing his griev. ance he makes himself unpopular; but it is certainly not his fault that the universe is no be..er than it is. On the other hand, a pirate is a bad character;

ures to improve her mind, and considering in committees plans to improve other people's minds forcibly, and going to meetings to lament over the condition of those who had no minds to improve, this good lady would feel that she had earned a right to a few minutes' respite. So she would take up "The Pirate's Own Book," and feel a creepy sensation that would be an efectual counter irritant to all her anxie'ties for the welfare of the race. Things might be going slowly, and there were not half as many societies as there ought to be, and the world might be in a bad way; but then it was not so bad as it was in the days of Black Beard; and the poor people who did not have any societies to belong to were, after all, not so badly off as the sailors whom the atrocious Nicola left on a desert island, with nothing but a blunderbuss and Mr. Brooks's Family Prayer Book.

In fact, it is expressly stated that the pirates refused to give them a cake of soap. To be on a desert island destitute of soap made the common evils of life appear trifling. She had been worried about the wicked people who would not do their duty, however faithfully they had been prodded up to it, who would not be life members on payment of fifty dollars, and who would not be annual members on payment of a dollar and signing the constitution, and who in their hard and impenitent hearts would not even sit on the platform at the annual meeting; but somehow their guilt seemed less extreme after she had studied again the picture of Captain Kidd burying his Bible in the sands near Plymouth. A man who would bury his Bible, using a spade several times too large for him, and who would strike such a world-defying attitude while doing it, made the sin of not joining the society appear .almost venial. In this manner she gained a certain moral perspective; even after days when the public was unusually dilatory about reforms, and the wheels of progress had begun to squeak, she would get a good night's sleep. Contrasting the public with the black background of absolute piracy, she grew tolerant of its shortcomings, and learned the truth of George Herbert's saying, that "pleasantness of disposition is a great key to do good."

Not only is a pirate a more comfortable person to read about than a pessimist, but in many respects he is a more comfortable person to read about than a philanthropist. The minute the phllanthropist is introduced, the author begins to show his own cleverness by discovering flaws in his motives. You begin to see that the poor man has his limitations. Perhaps his philanthropies are of a different kind from yours, and that irritates you. Musical people, whom I have heard criticise other musical people, seem more offended when some one flats just a little than when he makes a big ear-splitting discord; and moralists are apt to have the same fastidiousness. The philanthropist is made the victim of the most

cruel kind of vivisection;-a characterstudy.

Here is a fragment of conversation from a study of character: ""That was really heroic,' said Felix. "That was what he wanted to do,' Gertrude went on. 'He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral pleasure; he made up his mind to do his duty; he felt sublime,-that's how he likes to feel.'"

This leaves the mind in а painful state of suspense. The first instinct of the unsophisticated reader is that if the person has done a good deed, we ought not to begrudge him a little innocent pleasure in it. If he is magnanimous, why not let him feel magnanimous? But after Gertrude has made these subtle suggestions we begin to experience something like antipathy for a man who is capable of having a fine moral pleasure; who not only does his duty, but really likes to do it. There is something wrong about him, and it is all the more aggravating because we are not sure just what it is. There is no trouble of that kind in reading about pirates. You cannot make a characterstudy out of a pirate, he has no character. You know just where to place him. You do not expect anything good of him, and when you find a sporadic virtue you are correspondingly elated.

For example, I am pleased to read of the pirate Gibbs that he was "affable and communicative, and when he smiled he exhibited a mild and gentle countenance. His conversation was concise and pertinent, and his style of illustration quite original." If Gibbs had been a philanthropist, it is doubtful whether these social and literary graces would have been so highly appreciated.

From "The Confession of a Lover of Romance."

From Lippincott's Magazine. BIRD ARTISTS.

That there is a consciousness of beauty on the part of birds is plainly shown by the manner in which many of them decorate their nests and sur

roundings, and, in some instances, themselves. Perhaps it may not be too much to claim that all birds are moved by an artistic sentiment, and that, while most of them are artistic in effect, many are artistic in both intention and effect. The appreciation of what is beautiful is a distinctly marked characteristic of most members of the feathered family, and it is only natural that the desire and ability to create beauty are found in various degrees of development among them. It is only a step from desire of beauty to an effort to produce it; but the effort and accomplishment occasionally bring about strange results, in birds as well as in

man.

Striking examples of this bizarre form of decoration are found in the motmot, which disfigures its long tailfeathers in an effort at improvement, and in the hammer-head and gardenerbird, which delight in surrounding their homes with all sorts of bright-colored shells, pebbles, and feathers.

Sometimes the exhibition of artistic feeling is carried so far as to confound belief. Were it not for the corroborative testimony of scientific travellers, we might well doubt the tales that come to us of the baya of Farther India, of the gardener-bird, the collarbird, and the half-dozen other birds whose strangely developed decorative instincts command our admiration and wonder.

The baya is one of the weaver-birds, whose peculiarity is that they build their nests by skilfully weaving into the desired shapes long strips of grass or other material. The nest is a beautiful and ingenious piece of work, and is as compact as felt, with a long ropelike neck which is attached to the limb by a skilful knot, and with entrance and exit by two holes in the bottom. The bird is very sociable, and in Burmah delights to build under the eaves of human habitations, where it is rarely disturbed. Often as many as thirty or forty of the curious, bottle-shaped nests may be seen hanging about one house and swaying gently to and fro in the breeze.

These nests are ingeniously planned, the upper portion being divided into two chambers, one for Mother Baya while she is sitting, and the other for Father Baya when he finds time for rest, while below is a large general living-room for the whole family as soon as the young Bayas grow strong enough to leave the upper chamber.

But the baya does not stop here. Now that creature comforts are provided, there is leisure to gratify his sense of the beautiful. Hardly has Mother Baya settled down when her husband, having put the finishing touches to the nest, hurries away in search of fresh lumps of clay, which he affixes to the inner walls of the nest. Then off again, before the clay has time to harden, to capture one of the fireflies of which there are myriads in the tropics. The living lamp is secured to the lump of clay, and lights up the little chamber with its phosphorescent glow. Then another and another are captured and fastened to the walls, until the patient little mother has light enough to cheer her during the long, dark night. After that more of the animated diamonds are fastened to the exterior, there to glitter and flash for the delectation of the outside world.

What a picture it is for the imagination, the quaint little hut with overhanging eaves nestling in the gloom of a tangled tropical forest, and with the gayly illuminated bird-nest lanterns shedding their soft phosphorescent light through the semi-darkness! However wretched and poor the little cottage may be, for the time being it loses its squalidness and is transformed into a fairy palace.

But even more wonderful are the miniature house and grounds of the gardener-bird, hidden away in the depths of some forest in far-away Papua. In this case the architectural and artistic genius of the bird is not expended upon the nest itself, which is a very commonplace affair, but finds scope elsewhere. One traveller, who had discredited the stories of the natives regarding the bird, gave the mat