employed. As a benefactor to others the list of his donations and endowments is almost endless. He has not confined these either to the United States. The Stratford-upon-Avon fountain, the Memorial Window in Westminster Abbey to Cowper and George Herbert, and similar gifts show how little possible it is to confine Mr. Childs's swelling generosity by national or continental bounds.

Among the chapters in this volume of most interest are personal reminiscences of the dead hero, General Grant, of whom Childs was the bosom friend, as he was indeed also of Sherman and Sheridan. But in the case of General Grant the friendship had the closest confidential intimacy. For this reason Mr. Childs has been able to cast a bright light on certain vexed political questions, in revealing what passed between President Grant and himself. There have been few recent chapters of memoirs more illuminating than these. They have been so widely quoted in the newspapers from their original publication in maga zine form, that they are now almost as familiar as copy-book platitudes to the schoolboy.

Mr. Childs has probably known on familiar terms as many or more distinguished people, Americans and Europeans, than any other man in America. It has been his delight to extend a splendid hospitality at his beautiful Philadelphia home or at his country seats, of which he has several. All the great men, celebrities in literature, art, science, and politics, who have visited America have been Mr. Childs's guests, and some of the banquets he has given have been Lucullus like in their perfection. As a collector of books, pictures, bric-à brac, curios, etc., he stands among the most notable Americans. Among his autographs, several of which are the manuscripts of world-famous novels in whole or in part, there are many specimens which are simply beyond all price. Of these and of many other things the book before us chats in a pleasant, gossiping way. The impression left on the mind is that of a shrewd, practical, sensible man, with a heart of gold and sympathies as wide as humanity, who is determined to leave this world as much better than he found it as possible. If at times a certain harmless and joyous vanity bubbles through these reminis. cences, it rather augments than lessens their charm. If now and then a cynic and reviler finds pleasure in ridiculing Mr. Childs, he may rest assured of the public conviction that the death of such a man as himself will leave a much bigger public gap than will the

departure of any of his critics to the majority.

A NEW HUMORIST.

THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. A Book for an Idle Holiday. By Jerome K. Jerome, author of "Three in a Boat," etc. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

Our age is prolific in alleged humor. Funmakers have become as much a sub-class in the profession of journalism and literature as a throat or eye doctor is a specialist in medicine. America is more than usually fertile in her product, and while these are generally racy of the soil, not a few of them lack unction and freshness, and depend on artifices of phrase or method to produce an effect on the public. Many of our humorists are about as spontaneous as a town pump, and the creak of the apparatus is far less exhilarating. Humor manufactured to supply a stipulated news. paper demand is generally pretty dreary stuff.

Mr. Jerome, the new English humorist, one of whose books we have before us, seems to have aroused lively differences of opinions. By some of the more austere critics (with a certain Scotch density of brain-pan so amusingly caricatured in Sydney Smith's story) Mr. Jerome is pooh-poohed as a weak imitation of Mark Twain, Robert Burdette, Bill Nye, and others of our American jesters. Some, again, find in the new man scintillations of a tertium quid, original, fresh, and genuine, something which is neither imitation nor the feeble groping of a man uncertain of his own hand. For our own part, we incline to the latter judg. ment, and utterly fail to discover those marks of imitation which would make Mr. Jerome in any true sense a disciple of our transatlantic school. There is, on the other hand, a distinctive English quality in his humor, a playing with ideas and not with words, a keen but genial sense of the discrepancies and contradictions of things, and a firm hold on the underlying gravity of life about which its follies and absurdities break like foam on a rock. Most of the subjects which nominally lead these brief sketches are trivial, but they lead the humorist by easy steps to many things wise and witty, funny and sometimes again very sad. It was long ago recognized that the best humor lies hard by pathos, just as laughter and grief run close together in real life. Measured by this test, Mr. Jerome's humor is genuine, for its mirth often leads to melancholy, and it is truly April-like in mood. Indeed, his method often takes him from a

strain of sparkling gayety or airy cynicism (cynicism, however, which is never coarsened into a sneer) at once into reflections full of the salt of human tears, and sombre with a sense of the wretchedness and misery which may come to any man or woman like a thief in the night. No one can read this man's words without feeling, even in his liveliest fooling, that he knows the taste of the Dead Sea fruit. Yet there is but little of the pessimistic mood in his thoughts, and life, with all its burdens, yields so much that is piquant that it yields to his vision abundant harvest of light and pleasantness. We are glad to welcome Mr. Jerome to the ranks of those who cheer and illuminate, even if it be with a sort of fire-fly light.

The only substantial cause for classing this English writer as a disciple of American humor is his occasional use of something like American slang; but as this offshoot of the Anglo-Saxon tongue has become so freely imbedded of late years in the habits of our English cousins, the charge is scarcely broad enough to build on After all, generalization can give no one any notion of an author's quality, so we make free to quote a bit in the more serious mood under the caption "On Babies."

"The world, the small, round world! What a vast, mysterious place it must seem to baby eyes! What a trackless continent the back garden appears! What marvellous explorations they make in the cellar under the stairs! With what awe they gaze down the long street, wondering, like us bigger babies, when we gaze up at the stars, where it all ends!

"And down that longest street of all-that long, dim street of life that stretches out before them-what grave, old-fashioned looks they seem to cast! What pitiful, frightened looks sometimes! I saw a little mite sitting on a step in a Soho slum one night, and I shall never forget the look which the gas-lamp showed on its wizen face-a look of dull despair, as if from the squalid court a vista of its own squalid life had risen, ghost-like, and struck its heart dead with horror.

"Poor little feet just commencing the stony journey! We old travellers, far down the road, can only pause to wave a hand to you. You come out of the dark mist, and we, looking back, see you so tiny in the distance, standing on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched out toward us. God speed you! We would stay and take your little hands in

ours, but the murmur of the great sea is in our ears, and we may not linger. We must hasten down, for the shadowy sails are waiting to spread their sable wings."

A STUDY OF ANCIENT DRAMA. THE ANCIENT CLASSICAL DRAMA. A Study in Literary Evolution. By Richard G. Moulton, A.M. London and New York: Macmillan & Company.

Mr. Moulton has approached his interesting subject with great fulness of knowledge and a perfect understanding of his own purpose. Many writers in treating abstruse and complicated subjects, even when properly equipped with all the fruits of the latest research, show that they have not fully mastered their own methods. Mr. Moulton betrays none of this structural weakness in his interesting work. The book is a study in literary evolution.

The author is a Cambridge lecturer, and tells us that his experience has found the ancient tragedy of the greatest interest to student audiences. The great reason for being for this bock and his method of treating his subject is that a knowledge of the ancient drama is essential to an understanding of the modern stage, so close is the connection. As a conclusion to the study of the ancient tragedy we have a most striking arrangement of "Macbeth" on the principles of the classical method. No better illustration of the differences of the Greek and the Romantic modern school could be possibly found. Greek and Roman comedy are brilliantly treated, and, on the whole, no student in or out of college could have a sounder guide or a more illuminating teacher than this scholarly and interesting book,

A NEW "APPLETON" NOVEL. THE CRAZE OF CHRISTIAN ENGELHART. By Henry Faulkner Darnell, author of "Philip Hazelbrook," Flossy," etc. (Appleton's Town and Country Library). New York: D. Appleton & Company.

66

The professional hero of this novel, who shares the honors with Christian Engelhart, is a typical German professor, who, however, is only of German descent and a New York scientist, profoundly interested in the phenomena of biology, spiritism, etc. The professor is visited in his study late one night by a romantic young man who makes a most romantic confession, which at once comes home with intense interest to one of the doctor's most recondite theories. This statement on

the part of the said Christian Engelhart is that he has the gift of second sight, by which at certain times and under certain moods he is able to foresee his own future, or what his future would be if he yields to certain guiding impulses. He asks the professor's advice, if he would recommend that he should put the matter to a most dangerous test. The enthusiastic Wilderhaft urges at once that he should, if necessary, immolate himself on the altar of science, and experiment regardless of results. Such a golden opportunity should not be missed. So Engelhart departs at once for his gold mine in the far West and is summarily

blown up by his superintendent, who has dis covered an immense pay streak and wishes to rob his employer.

When the professor learns all he is struck with remorseful horror at the thought that he had helped the young Engelhart straight to his doom, and so he proceeds at once to give up the futile and gloomy gropings of science, and devotes his millions (for he is that favorite American hero, a millionaire) to the precious uses of philanthropy. The end is somewhat inconsequential, and the latter part of the novel dull. The reader is interested in the "second-sight" business and its test. Beyond this there is but little to attract either the intelligent general reader or the habitual novel devourer.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

"DIE KRIEGE FRIEDRICHS DES GROSSEN" is the title of an important and voluminous publication which will be issued by the Generalstab of Berlin. The work will be based on all the available sources, and contain a number of hitherto unknown materials and documents. Each military period in the life of the great king will be treated separately. Part I., consisting of two volumes, will embrace the events of the first Silesian War (1740-42), while Part II. will be devoted to the second Silesian War (1744-45). The first volume of Part I., which is expected to be issued shortly, will furnish a general military, political, and geographical introduction to the

whole work, together with an account of the military events down to the battle of Mollwitz (April 10th, 1741), in which Frederick was victorious in spite of himself.

EIGHT posthumous poems by the famous Hungarian poet Alexander Petöfi, dating from the year 1848, are said to have been discov

ered at the museum of Buda-Pesth. They are expected to be published shortly.

MANY are aware that in Constantinople ancient literary processes come in contact with the modern forms of the West, and this is exemplified by the following: Vebhi Effendi is a Turkish journalist, editor of a leading daily paper and of a marine journal. Five war vessels having lately been launched from the Admiralty, Vebhi Effendi celebrated the occasion with a poem. It is a chronogram, the verses of which are composed of the names of the five ships, and so arranged as to be a panegyric on the Sultan, at the same time that the numeral letters give the present year of the Hejira 1307. Sometimes a minister of state is invited to compose a chronogram to decorate a new public building. It is fortunate that no such feat is demanded of a meinber of the Cabinet in England.

Ir is expected that the Riga'sche Zeitung, which can boast of an existence of 112 years, will shortly cease to appear. The cessation will be brought about by the Russian Government's persistent refusal to sanction the appointment of any editor proposed for the post. The publication of the Nordische Rundschau has already been stopped.

THE Committee of the Beatrice Celebration in Florence during May and June have carried out a happy idea in inviting the poets of Europe to contribute a sonnet of homage to Beatrice, the autographs of which will be framed and hung in perpetuity in the new Sala Dantesca now being added to the Biblioteca Nazionale for the purpose of commemorating the festival and enshrining all that is best in the Beatrice Exhibition. Miss R. H. Busk-who undertook to canvass the poets of England-has already received contributions from Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Lewis Morris, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Theodore Watts, showing that Beatrice has not ceased to be an "ispiratrice.' Lord Tennyson's state of health, unfortunately, precludes him from leading this poetic chorus; but it is hoped he will at least be able to send an auto

graph line to be hang with these poems expressing the very valid reason of his “gran'

rifinto.' Miss Busk has also received for transmission to Florence photographs from Miss Rossetti of her brother's paintings and drawings of Beatrice; and from Mr. John Addington Symonds the promise of a copy of the forthcoming new edition of his work on the study of Dante.

PROFESSOR ABEL, of Berlin, who is at present living at Wiesbaden, proposes to lecture at the forthcoming Oriental Congress in London on the affinity of the Indo-European and Egyptian languages and its etymological uses. Professor Abel has, as our readers are aware, endeavored to prove, in a series of monographs, that Egyptian and Indo-European roots are mainly identical, and subject to the same phonetic, conceptual, and formative changes. If the laws governing these changes and increments are more easily recognized in Egyptian, this, he thinks, is solely owing to the difference inevitably prevailing between a primitive and a highly developed stage of the same linguistic type. In Egyptian words have many phonetic variants with the same mean. ing equally attaching to all, while every one of them may include a separate cognate meaning as well-in the former case a comprehensive phonetic variability, in the latter a wide phonetic and conceptual fluctuation is freely displayed to the observer. In Indo-European, on the contrary, phonetic differentiation is, as a rule, employed to express conceptual variety, the words created in this wise being accordingly kept asunder by signification as well as sound, and admitting apparently of no reunion until subjected to the tests of Egyp. tian cognate etymology. On these general principles, amplified by copious special traits, Egyptian and Indo-European etymologies are shown to be mainly identical, the exploration of the younger branch being rendered dependent upon the comparative study of the older and more primitive idiom.

A MONUMENT in honor of Fritz Reuter is to be erected at his native place, Neubranden. burg.

THE Berlin Academy has now ready for pub. lication another volume of the new 'Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum," which will continue, besides the inscriptions of Italy and Sicily, the Greek inscriptions found in Gaul, Germany, and Britain.

THE Italian Government has resolved to celebrate the fourth centenary of Columbus's discoveries by the publication of as complete a collection as possible of all documents and papers bearing upon the early history of America and its discoverer. A royal commission has been formed to carry out the scheme, and the Minister of Public Instruction is making inquiries of the custodians of the various public archives and libraries in Europe

in order to ascertain what materials exist for such a work.

MR. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS is writing an historical work on Russia, "The Romanoffs : Tsars of Moscow and Emperors of Russia." Mrs. Sutherland Edwards has finished a novel entitled The Secret of the Princess," in which she has endeavored to make use of her

knowledge of Russian society, and to supply a truthful and not unfavorable picture of town and country life in Russia in the period immediately preceding the emancipation of the serfs. Mr. Joseph Hatton is also going to bring out a novel dealing with Russia called "By Order of the Czar." Its particular theme is the persecution of the Jews; but Nihilistic conspiracies play a considerable part in the book.

THE next volume of the “ Dictionary of National Biography" will bear upon its titlepage the words "edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee." It is probably not known outside a narrow circle that Mr. Lee has for some years most ably exercised the office of assistant editor to Mr. Stephen. His share in the work has long been so important that it is a mere act of justice that he should now be placed in the higher position of co-editor.

It is rumored that Messrs. Longman will be the English, and Messrs. Scribner the American, publishers of Mr. William O'Brien's novel, which, in spite of the reputation of the author, is said to be unpolitical. The scene, however, is laid in the Bantry district, and the hero is an Irishman, so it is not improbable that English readers will find a stronger political view expressed than the writer is at all aware of. Except for an unlucky accident the book would now be in the press; but after the manuscript was completed Mr. O'Brien had the misfortune to lose or mislay ǹve chapters. He is now busily engaged in making good his loss, and still hopes to have the book ready for the spring publishing

season.

In addition to the Yasna мs, presented to the Bodleian, Destoor Jamaspji Minocheherji, Hon. D.C.L. Oxon., has sent to Dr. Mills for collation a very ancient Yasna Ms. with Sanskrit translation, written soon after the death of the celebrated Parsi commentator Neryosangh (probably in the fourteenth century). This мs, is in a most fragile condition, and parts of it are to be photographed, the Librarian of the Bodleian having made a grant

for that purpose. A later Yasna мs., with Sanskrit translation, made by one of the Destoor's ancestors in the seventeenth century, has also been sent, together with a Ms. of the "Vendîdâd" with Pahlavi translation. The learned Destoor Darab Peshotan Sanjana has sent a valuable, but not particularly ancient Ms. of the Yasna with Pahlavi translation.

MR. W. H. SMITH has ordered a grant of £200 to be made from the Royal Bounty Fund to Sir George Duckett, in recognition of his literary labors. Sir George has been before the public as an author for nearly fifty years, his first appearance in print being made in 1841. Among his chief works have been his Technological Military Dictionary, German, English, and French," dedicated by permis. sion to the Prince Consort, which took the author sixteen years to compile, and obtained for him gold medals from France, Prussia, and Austria; his two volumes on the "Penal Laws and Test Act: Questions touching their Repeal propounded by James II. to the Deputy Lords Lieutenant and Magistrates of the several Counties of England and Wales ;" and his

Monasticon Cluniaciense Anglican

um Charters and Records of the several Cluniac Foundations in England and Scotland," for which the French Government awarded him the Palmes d'Or.

GERMAN papers report that Tolstoi's work, "The Kreutzer Sonata," which has been forbidden in Russia, will shortly appear at Berlin in the original language, as well as in German, English, and French translations,

THE late Count Andrassy is said to have left ready for the press a collection of his speeches. The expectation of finding his memoirs among his papers has not been fulfilled.

SIGNOR SAKKELION is about to publish in Athens his catalogue of the Mss. of the library of the celebrated monastery of Patmos, containing a list of 730 codices, and enriched with lithographic plates of fac-similes of the writing of different centuries.

MR. EDWARD ARNOLD has retired from the editorship of Murray's Magazine. Mr. Arnold was most reluctantly compelled to sever his connection with the magazine (of which he has been editor from its foundation) in order to devote himself entirely to the work of the new publishing business he has recently started in Warwick Square.

A RELATIVE of Wordsworth, Mrs. Dorothy (Wordsworth) Harrison, died recently at Am

Words

bleside, in her eighty-ninth year. worth lost his mother when he was eight years old, and his father when he was about fourteen; and then his paternal uncle, Richard Wordsworth, and his maternal uncle, Christopher Crackanthorp, became his guardians, and sent him to Cambridge. This Richard Wordsworth was the grandfather of the old lady just dead.

PROFESSOR PIAZZI SMYTH, late astronomer royal for Scotland, has, since his retirement, been engaged at Ripon in revising his remarkable work, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid." The new edition-the fifth

which is to appear next week, has been largely rewritten, and one third of it is new, containing some important facts bearing on this interesting controversy. The publishers are Messrs. C. Burnet & Company.

PROFESSOR JAGIC' of Vienna has just edited, with a preface, a document interesting to all students of Slavonic history and philology. It is a chrysobull of King Stephen Urosh II., given in the year 1318 to a church dedicated to St. Stephen the Martyr, and was found by Professor Vambéry in the old Seraglio at Constantinople. Professor Jagic' tells us that great pains have been taken to make the copy exact, since this edition must supply the place of the мs. to Slavonic students, as the original will shortly be sent back to Constantinople.

MR. W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE has finished his winter's work in the Fayum, and is now staying at Jerusalem, preparing for his excavations on a Canaanite and Israelite town near Gaza, on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

THE Austrian Government having imposed, since the beginning of the present year, a stamp duty on the weekly papers published in Germany, several publishers have made arrangements for issuing special editions of their periodicals, edited and printed in Austria, in order to evade the additional burden. These Austro-German editions are expected to be adapted to the taste and the wants of the Germans in Austria.

THE first volume of the collection of documents relating to Prince Bismarck's economic policy will shortly be issued. The publication will thus serve as a supplement to the work "Fürst Bismarck als Volkswirth."

AT a meeting of the Goethe Gesellschaft recently held at Weimar, Dr. Bellermann, of Berlin, read some remarkable fragments of an