ness to submit any paper or collection of papers within his possession or power to the examination of the commissioners, they caused an inspection by one of their representatives upon the information derived, from which a private report to the owner was drawn up of the general nature of the papers in his collection, and was subsequently condensed and published in the Blue Book which commemorates the labors of the Commission. Advice has also been freely rendered as to the best means of repairing and preserving any papers or MSS. which may have been in a state of decay, and were of historical or literary value.

By a judicious foresight the commissioners took every means in their power to declare that the object of the Commission was solely the discovery of unknown historical and literary materials, and in all their proceedings directed their attention to that object exclusively.

Title deeds or documents of a private character were scrupulously set apart, without further comment.

The several MSS. were inspected at the residence of their owners, but, in one or two cases, collections were temporarily deposited in the Public Record Office, London, and treated with the same care as if they formed part of the public muniments.

It is not our purpose here, nor have we adequate space, to describe in any detail the operations of the Commission. It has inspected, by its official deputies, more than 300 collections, and some idea of the extent, variety, and choice character of the work accomplished may be gathered from the following list of collections set forth in the second report of the commisioners issued during the past year :— England and Wales.-Duke of Bedford, Countess Cowper and Baroness Lucas, Earl of Dartmouth, Earl Spencer, Earl of Mount Edgcombe, Earl Cathcart, Earl of Bradford, Earl Cawdor, Viscount Dillon, Lord Camoys, Lord Arundell of Wardour, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Calthorpe, Lord Wrottesley, Lord Leigh, the Hon. G. M. Fortescue, Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart., Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., Sir Baldwin Leighton, Bart., Sir George Osborn, Bart., Trustees of the late Sir R. Puleston, Bart., Miss Ainslie, J. C. Antrobus, Esq., W. R. Baker, Esq., C. M. Berington, Esq., Colonel Myddelton-Biddulph, Colonel Carew, Mrs. Collis, Richard Corbet, Esq., W. Bromley-Davenport, Esq., M.P., C. Cottrell Dormer, Esq., J. R. Ormsby Gore, Esq., M. P., John Harvey, Esq., Dr. Hoskins, H. B. Mackeson, Esq., Charter Chests of the family of Neville of Holt, F. Peake, Esq., Mrs. Prescott, J. J. Rogers, Esq., W. J. McCullagh Torrens, Esq., M.P., W. II. Turner, Esq., Mrs. Willes, W. W. E. Wynne, Esq.; St. Lawrence's College, Ampleforth; Clare College, Gonville and Caius College, Jesus College, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; Carlisle Cathedral, St. Mary's College, Oscott; Corpus Christi College, Exeter College, Jesus College, Lincoln College, New College, Oriel College, Queen's College, Trinity College, and Worcester College, Oxford; Stoneyhurst Col

lege; Monastery of the Dominican Friars at Woodchester; Corporation of Abingdon; Petyt MSS. in Inner Temple Library; and Chetham Library, Manchester.

Scotland.-Duke of Montrose, Duke of Suther. land, Marquis of Huntly, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, Earl of Morton, Earl of Strathmore, Earl of Dalhousie, Earl of Airlie, Earl of Stair, Earl of Rosslyn, Earl Cawdor, Lord Forbes, Lord Torphichen, Sir J. H. Burnett, Bart., J. Guthrie, Esq., A. F. Irvine, Esq. and J. F. Leith, Esq.; University of Aberdeen; Catholic College of Blairs; Trinity College, Glenalmond; University of St. Andrews, and Royal Burgh of Montrose.

Ireland.-Marquis of Ormonde, Earl of Granard, Earl of Rosse, Major-General F. P. Dunne, Robert D. Lyons, Esq., M.P. (Archbishop King's collection), The O'Connor Don, M. P., and Rothe's Register of Kilkenny.

While these collections are all replete with documents of the highest archæological value, the literary world can best appreciate the results of these inquiries by glancing at those portions of the inspector's returns which treat of the MSS. of W. R. Baker, Esq., of Bayfordbury, in the County of Herts, and which we present in the exact words of the return.

Mr. Baker is one of the descendants of the notorious Jacob Tonson, the friend and publisher of the wits and poets of the 17th century, and the founder of the famous Kit-Cat Club, which comprised the ruling oligarchy established by the literary men of the age of Queen Anne, who were wont to meet in a public-house in Gray's Inn Lane, Holborn, London, having the sign of a cat, and the man who kept it being called Kit. The name of the Kit-Cat Club was retained even when the club removed to the Devil or Rose Tavern, Temple Bar.

The MSS. under our notice consist of a collection of letters of the 17th century, and a few of the 18th century, mostly addressed to the elder Tonson; they are in good preservation, and we have made a selection of the most striking of the series, containing, as the inspector phrases it, so many radiations from those who have left "long trails of light descending down."

The first letter is from Addison to Jacob Tonson. "At the Judge's Head, next Temple Bar, in Fleet Street, February 2 (no year) I was yesterday with Dr. Hannes. I told him Dr. Blackman, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Boyle and myself had engaged in it, and that you had gained a kind of promise from Dr. Gibbons. The Doctor seemed particularly solicitous about the company he was to appear in, and would fain hear all the names of the translators." (The reference is to a translation of Herodotus.) "Addison does not like his Polymnia, and will, if Tonson pleases, translate Urania. Was walking this morning with Mr. Yalden, and asked him when he might expect Ovid 'de arte amandi' in English. Told me he thought you had dropt the design since Mr. Dryden's translation of Virgil had been undertaken; but he had done his part almost a year ago, and had it lying by him. Was afraid he has done little of it, but believes a letter from Tonson about it would set him to work."

2. "Addison to Tonson, March 13. (No year). Not being

able to find Dr. Hannes at home has left his part with his servitor. Shall have his Urania by the beginning of the week."

4. Addison to Tonson, May 28.-Mr. Clay tells him to let Tonson know of the misfortune Polymnia met with on the road; the carrier was in fault. Tonson's discourse about translating Ovid made such an impression on him that he ventured on the second book, which he turned at his leisure hours. Ovid has so many silly stories with his good ones that he is more tedious to translate than a better poet would be. 5. 1735 (should be 1705), August 28. "My friend, I intend, God willing, to leave the country on Sunday next, with hopes of London next evening. I suppose by the news I receive per post that you are alive, but a certificate of health under your own hand would have been most acceptable to your old friend, Roger de Coverley."

6. Atterbury (also concerned with Tonson's translations) to Tonson, dated at Oxford, November 15, 1681, asks for the Oxford prologue and for Dryden's Satyr, which he says he will return without transcribing a line. "My Whole Duty of Man waits for yours, and if you think it worth your while to have the first miscellany, the piece of Spencer in 4to, which you know I owe you, sent up along with it, it shall be done."

We cannot but arrest the course of our extracts to point out that the secrets of the bookseller's calling are as graphically displayed as if Smollett himself had catalogued them. Here are the underpaid authors, the authors in fashion, with their airs and assurance, and close at hand is the hard bargain the successful bookseller drives whenever he can. Coleridge's terrible words, which he puts into the mouth of the Devil, in his Devil's Walk, come unforbidden into our mind, "I myself, like a Cormorant, sat hard by the tree of knowledge."

7. Aphra Behn (a collection of her coarse but eccentric plays has just been republished) to Jacob Tonson, August 1st, 1685. Tonson has bound himself for 67. which she owed Mr. Baggs. She empowers Zachary Baggs, in case the debt is not paid before Michaelmas, to stop it out of moneys in his hands "upon the playing her first play."

8. The same to the same. Thanks him for the service he has done her with Dryden, in whose esteem she would rather choose to be than in anybody's else in the world. Angry with Creech; thinks her verse worth 30l.; hopes he will find 'em worth 257. ; asks him to speak to his brother to advance the price 57. more. Cowley's David lost because it was a large book; Mrs. Philips's plays for the same reason. Begs hard for 5. more.

10. Wm. Congreve to Tonson, August 8th, 1723.-His kinsman, Col. Congreve, wishes that Tonson would lend Wm. Congreve's picture to have a copy.

12. The same to the same, August 20th, 1695. Requests him to ask Sir G. Kneller to finish his picture. (It may be remembered that Tonson paid for and possessed portraits of the members of the Kit-Cat Club, and these portraits, or the majority of them, are in the collection owned by Mr. Baker.)

16. Copy of some of Congreve's last verses from the Harl. MS. 7318. An epistle to Lord Cobham.

18. Thomas Creech (neither date nor address). About his Juvenal; contains criticisms on the chronology of the Satires. 19. Wm. Davenant (Shakespeare's grandson), at Frankfort, to Tonson, April 20th, 1702. About subscription to the Cæsar. "Send to my father the productions of our English poets, who are all your friends, and never fail to communicate to you their verses. You can't imagine how, at this distance, one hankers after London lampoons. Pray give my service to Mr. Congreve and desire him to let me be remembered in the dressing-room (of the theatre) "at Lincoln's Inn Fields."

The next letter is from Pope's rugged and untiring enemy, who, with all his vague and windy criticism,

certainly saw more into Pope's meanness, duplicity, and conceit, than any other of their contemporaries.

20. J. Dennis to Tonson, June 4th, 1715.-Is concerned at the attempt to lessen the reputation of Dryden by "small poets." Abuses Pope; Pope has always the same dull cadence and a continual bag-pipe drone; contrasts between Dryden and Pope. Five pages and very amusing.

22. Dryden's receipt for 304, for copyright of Cleomenes.

23. Dryden's receipt, March 24, 1698, for 2687. 155. for about 7,500 verses or less, of 10,000.

27. The same to the same (no date).-Three days since he finished the 4th Æneid. The 6th is his greatest favorite. Mentions that money was then very scrupulously received, and that clipped money and 40 brass shillings were in some change sent to his wife.

29. The same to the same. October 29 (no year).-Has done the 7th Æneid in the country; intends in a few days to begin the 8th; when that is finished he expects 50%. in good silver, not such as he had formerly. "I am not obliged to take gold, neither will I; nor stay for it beyond 24 hours after it is due."-(They were evidently then on bad terms.)

30. The same to the same (no date).-An interesting letter. He says that the translation of the History of the League was the best translation that ever was. Mentions Lord Roscommon's essay; mentions his own verses: corrects a line-"let it be, 'That here his conquering ancestors were nurs'd.'" Will lay by the Religio Laici till another time. Will have four odes of Horace and 40 lines from Lucretius. The story of Nisus and Euryalus and 40 lines of Virgil in another place to answer those of Lucretius. "I mean those very lines which Montaigne has compared in those two poets." Has no leisure for an act of the opera. Talks with Betterton about actors and the characters they were to have in the two new plays.

32. The same to the same.-Asks him to say what is the most he will give for his son's play, "and if you have any silver which will go, my wife will be glad of it."

33 and 34. The same to the same.-In the latter he mentions Lady Chudleigh's verses (apparently to the Virgil). These, Wycherly thinks the best of any. . . . Mentions his own translation of Ovid," de Arte amandi." Asks Tonson to get him three pounds of snuff. Let the printer be very careful or he shall print nothing more. . . . his son Charles is ill; the doctor fears a rupture... has great love for his son; ... requests him to ask Mr. Fraunce to enclose a letter, he (Dryden) will pay for double post. The post can't be trusted. Ferrand will do by them as he did by two letters which he sent his son about dedicating to the king, of which they received neither.

35. The same to the same.-About his handwriting failing; so he writes a short letter.

36. The same to the same.-Has broken off his studies for the Conquest of China, to review Virgil and bestow more certain duty on him. Dr. Chetwynd: his promise of the ode on St. Cecilia's day, which he desires Tonson to send him forthwith.

37. The same to the same.-Thanks him for Sherry, the best he ever had. Asks him in the ode on St. Cecilia's day to alter Lais to Thais twice. Wants to send a Virgil to Rome, and to send 20 guineas to Rome to his son.

39. The same to the same." Send my MS. of the Æneid to Sir Robert Howard to read in the country, and bring back when he comes to town."

40. A promise by Tonson to pay Dryden 250 guineas for 10,000 verses, 7,500 already in Tonson's possession. The 250 guineas to be made up to 300l. on a second impression of the 10,000 verses. (This payment reaches the amount of nearly 61⁄4d. per line). Dated, 20th March, 1698, signed and sealed by Tonson. Witnessed by Ben Portlock and W. Congreve.

42. Mr. Russell's bill for the funeral of Dryden. Among the items are :-Double coffin, 57. Hanging the hall with a border of bays, 57. Six dozen paper escutcheons for the hall, 37. 125. Ten silk escutcheons for the pall, 27. 10s. Three mourning coaches and six horses, al. 55. Silver desk and rosemary, 5s. Eight scarves for musicianers, 27. Seventeen yards of crape to cover their instruments, 1. 145. Achievement for the herse, 37. 10s. The total was 454. 175. (Dryden died in 1701, aged 69.)

50. From Sir G. Kneller (the painter of the portraits of the Kit-Cat Club).-Is sorry he shall not see him that afternoon, but will on Sunday next.

61 (a). Thomas Otway, June 30, 1683. Acknowledges that he owes 11. to Jacob Tonson.

Pope does not appear in a pleasant light to any one who reflects over the contents of our next quotations. Here he is, as usual, with his querulous complaints about other people using his labors, and his greediness about literary enterprises. Who will not remember that he invariably allowed those about him to accredit him as the sole translator of the Odyssey, while his subordinates Brome and Fenton did more than half the work, and corrected his imperfect performance of the remainder? And yet to every hundred pounds paid to Pope, these two unfortunate hacks did not receive twenty pounds! Then again we see Pope's nervous horror about reputation and personal standing with the world, while he incessantly protested that "no man ever cared less for literary reputation."

62. Alexander Pope to Tonson, Nov. 14, 1731.—" Almost ready to be angry with your nephew for being the publisher of Theobald's Shakespear, who according to the laudable custom of commentators first served himself of my pains, and then abused me for 'em." Suggests a scheme (to be talked over) for a Shakespear and other English poets that will "beat all others." In a postscript: "You live not far from Ross; I desire you to get me an exact information of the Man of Ross, what was his Christian and surname, what year he died, and at what age, and to transcribe his epitaph, if he has one; and any particulars you can procure about him. I intend to make him an example in a poem of mine."

63. Copies of two letters from Pope to J. Tonson, Jun., and two from J. Tonson, Jun., in reply, 1731. In the first, Pope expresses a hope that, in Theobald's proposed edition of Shakespear, Tonson will not publish any impertinent remarks on him (Pope). In the second, Tonson says that he will never do anything to forfeit Pope's opinion of him. In the third, Pope says, "All I should be sorry for would be if you were made the publisher of any falsity relating to my personal character." In the fourth, Tonson reassures him.

64, 65 and 66 are from Pope; the first dated in 1732, the second no date, the third in 1735. In the first Pope thanks Tonson for information about the Man of Ross; mentions why he made the Man of Ross better in reality. Has no thought of printing the poem (which is an epistle on the use of riches) this long time. Mentions his portrait by Dahl sent to Tonson's nephew. Asks for a copy of his old friend, Dr. Garth. "As to Dr. Bentley and Milton, I think the one above and the other below criticism."

67. Matthew Prior, Haye, Sept. 23, 113, 1695, to Tonson.Sends some verses, "if worth printing," translated from Boileau. 74, 75 and 76. Letters from the Duke of Somerset to Tonson, two of them being dated in 1703. The first is a long one about Addison's being tutor to his son; his duty and salary. In the second, he says that as Addison seems to consent, but wants to know particulars, he wishes Tonson to come and talk. In the third, he says that Addison has in effect declined. "Our club is dissolved until you revive it; which we are impatient of."

79. Richard Steele (Sept. 26, 1718) to Tonson.-Has heard a good character of Caulfield, the barge-builder, and understands he is the only one now on the river; has been asked to speak in his behalf to the Duke of Newcastle for him to be barge-builder to his Majesty. Asks Tonson to speak for him.

84 to 95. Twelve amusing letters from Sir John Vanbrugh to Tonson, dated from Paris, Amsterdam and Herefordshire, in 1703, 1714, 1722, and 1725, containing anecdotes and gossip of the club and friends, town news, and a little on politics. In the fourth, to Tonson at Paris, June 5, 1719, he congratulates Tonson

on his luck in South Sea Stock (the gambling mania for which was the severest ever known in England). In the fifth, Feb. 18, 1719-20, he says that stock is rising, but he is only a looker-on. Sir R. Steele is grown such a malcontent, that he now takes the ministry directly for his mark, and treats them in the House for some days past in so very frank a manner that they grow quite angry, and 'tis talked as if it would not be impossible to see him very soon after expelled the House. He has quarreled with the Lord Chamberlain, that a new license has been granted to Wilks, Cibber, and Booth, which they accepting of and acting under, have left him with his patent, but not one player. And so the Lord Chamberlain's authority over the play-house is restored, and the patent ends in a joke. A notice of the opera; 20,000!. subscribed; the King gives 1,000l. a year. He (Vanbrugh) is going to Heidegger's masquerade that night. (Heidegger was manager of the Italian Opera in London at that period.) In one dated July 1, 1719, he mentions his own recent marriage. In the next, a few lines in the middle are written and signed by Harriet V. (his wife). Vanbrugh abuses the Duchess of Marlborough, mentioning the money that was owing to him for Blenheim (the Duke's palace voted by Parliament for the French victories). Old Madam Sarah was mean or munificent as the fit took her. In one dated Oct. 25, 1725, he is very uncomplimentary to the Duchess of Marlborough, by reason of her getting an injunction against him by her friend, the late good Chancellor, who declared that Vanbrugh never was employed by the Duke of M., and therefore had no demand on his estate for services at Blenheim. But he got his debt by Sir R. Walpole's help out of a sum she expected to receive. In one of Jan., 1722, he mentions the Duke of Marlborough's disposition of his property. The opera is supported: half a guinea for pit and boxes.

96. E. Waller (Jan. 22, 1679) to Jacob Tonson, at Mrs. Tonson's shop at Gray's Inn Gate, by Gray's Inn (the site of the house and part of the house was occupied by the Gray's Inn Coffee House, a tavern celebrated for its choice port wine).-A short letter. Has the gout. Asks for any of Cambray's (Fénélon) works, if new.

99. Autograph draft of J. Tonson's will, March 19, 1731, 2 pp.

4to.

Then follow three volumes of letters by Tonson; hints for verses on Dr. Hobbs, surgeon, cousin to J. Hobbs, of Malmesbury. Wycherley and he were of the same age, and born in the same town. Drafts of verses, several.

Tonson's will in his own handwriting, 27 Jan., 1734.

Bill for Tonson's funeral, March 31, 1735- The amount is 1247. 5s. 9d.

Comment about the interest, information, and reality of the details, small and personal as they are occasionally, is superfluous. The student of the times of Queen Anne, and her brilliant men of letters, can but be thankful that the manuscripts are in the possession of such a liberal trustee of Jacob Tonson's reminiscences as Mr. W. R. Baker, of Bayfordbury. And for ourselves, we do but echo, in cordial sincerity, the confident hope that the labors of the Royal Commission of Historical Manuscripts will tend greatly to the advancement of historical literature, by bring ing to the notice of the world important papers and manuscripts, the existence of which might possibly be unknown to the majority of those who may be interested in the inquiry. The commissioners, with much reason, are inclined to think that a continuation of their efforts may be the means of preventing those casualties to which valuable collections of MSS. are liable from various causes,-casualties arising not unfrequently from changes in families, from removal of MSS., and ignorance of the localities to which they have been tranferred. It may also be of importance

to the possessors of valuable documents to know where papers allied with, or relating to, those in their possession are to be found, and into what direction the lines of correspondence consequent on family alliances or intermarriage may have diverged; while to those who are engaged in biographical, historical or political researches, no greater boon can be offered than wellauthenticated information, where materials which are indispensable for the due prosecution of their inquiries are preserved.

It is with no little satisfaction that we are able to announce that the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society appears inclined to perform the very same offices for the citizens of the United States, that the British Government has so laudably instituted for the subjects of Her Majesty Queen Victoria,

"Love in the Nineteenth Century."*

IF Henri Beyle could have read this novelette while writing his description of the ways of love and lovers in different nations, he would have paused before dismissing America with the epigram that a people so rational and regulated can know nothing of its mysteries. It is only to such a race indeed that its title properly applies. The 19th century has not yet freed youths and maidens in continental Europe from parental control over their future interests, nor enlarged their chances for discussing the reasonable grounds of personal choice. Perhaps it is too broad even if its meaning be restricted to this hemisphere. The persons presented are both a little apart from the representative American of either sex. The girl leads rather too secluded a life of mature thought to be a fair example

of her countrywomen outside the borders of Massachusetts. The lover himself insists that the training of the class he belongs to is quite special and one-sided. If we are to judge of journalists by his description and personality, it would seem that until a woman's influence transforms them, they do not gain in breadth and liberality by dealing with a rapid rush of facts and events, any more than a banker's clerk grows rich from the constant flow of money through his hands.

In truth, cultivation does not depend on close contact with the changing activities of the world, and is very likely to suffer by it. The variety of material for forming the intellectual character derived from such contact is very great, but not of the choicest kind, nor presented in the best proportions. Individual force and taste, as in the case of all other pursuits, must determine its selection and assimilation. Still, these are the most convenient figures the authoress could have chosen through which to express her views on certain subjects likely to continue much discussed through the rest of the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth we may hope all women will be more like her heroine, and all men as ready as the hero to accept much needed improvement from her. For, as is natural, she has sharper in

Love in the 19th Century. A Fragment. By Harriet W. Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

sight than her admirer, and more prudent hesitation in surrendering her calm life while the result of the change remains uncertain.

Yet the whole purpose of this little volume is not expressed by its title. Its object is to show how lovers in a democratic society, which means all the lovers of the future, may come to an understanding with each other, for they must hereafter reason out the whole subject, without brushing off all the bloom of romance in the process. And so long as man is man, and woman is woman, and youth is youth, sovereign nature will maintain her rights, and not permit the union of two souls to sink into a mere matter of business. Through such discussions the meaning and conditions of such a union will be clearly determined. If we have laughed away the illusion that woman is a goddess and man a hero, it will yet be replaced in time by the sober certainty for all, of what is now a vision of Paradise for the few, revealing in the humanity of both something divine that commands reverence. To reach that height the world is slowly struggling in its rough and clumsy and selfish way, through the same debate pursued by the young people of this story with refined thoughtfulness. What the true relations of the sexes to each other are how social pleasures and repute may be enjoyed, while social shams are frankly rejected—what is the essence of religion which must remain, though its dissolving forms become a thing of the past,— these questions gain intense personal interest and demand individual answers, whenever one life is absorbed in another, Miss Preston has succeeded better than we should have thought it possible to do, in combining sentiment naturally with the flow of this discussion, and proving that love in the nineteenth and the coming centuries need not be passionless because it is reasonable, and that open-eyed intelligence is a surer guide to happiness than the blind god of fable.

ter.

Johannes Olaf.

THIS is a strange book, written with a great deal of irregular power, pitched in too high a key, and grasping vaguely at questions never to be solved-at least It has no other construction than the by novels. plan of grouping about a colossal figure, vigorously drawn, a variety of half-sketched persons who guide the circumstances of his life without affecting its charac Its moral is indefinite, and its influence might be bad or good, according to the receiver. With much outcry about fate and the gods, after Carlyle's fashion, it mingles precepts of religion and worldlywise maxims that seem to inspire the diverse lives of those who utter them with scarcely any wholeness or satisfaction. Certain strong touches of landscape and customs show the author to be most at home in the fringe of islands upon the north Holland coast, where the story begins; any description of scenery or conditions beyond these wearing the unreal air of repetition

*Johannes Olaf. A novel, by Elizabeth de Wille. Translated from the German by F. E. Bunnett. Roberts Brothers.

from books or drafts on fancy. It has a quarrel with society which does not go quite so far as to say that its laws are wrong for all in the present state of humanity, and a discontent with Providence just short of denying its oversight and substituting some impersonal necessity deduced from the guesses of science. In a word, its hero talks much as Schiller's Carl Moor might have done, if he had been born a century later and had read Darwin.

ance.

To set him so much at odds with both the visible and invisible world he needs early experience of the cruelest hardships and darkest problems of life, gained by an instinct for questioning and defying its common ways, stronger than his will, and springing, according to the modern solution, from the mystery of inheritOn the pure sturdy Frisian stock his mother was grafted as a wilding slip by a wandering Icelander. Utter misery and fierce struggle for life among the sands and waves harden him, until his grandfather comes by chance to his rescue. Thorson, the old man, is extremely well drawn. He is the ideal scholar of that Ultima Thule where learning found so strange a refuge. A physician and antiquarian, an enthusiast for free nature and bold inquiry, he lives the widest intellectual life in the narrowest outward one, and dies, after doubting of everything but beauty and action, a convert to a sort of pietistic Romanism, in the monastery of Iona. But while still an old heathen, he shapes his grandson and thrusts him out into the world. No wonder that Johannes Jakob finds it expedient to disguise his name as Olaf, after committing an early murder through jealousy, escaping from Hamburgh jail in the great conflagration, falling into close relations with a monster of an expirate, and eluding him by saving from wreck the yacht of an English nobleman, who is thenceforward his friend and patron. In such a field for his battle of life he must necessarily be beaten at all points by society, and it is a very high reach of skill that enables the author to command our respect and interest for this outlaw of human government who naturally grows half a rebel to the divine. It is done, and barely done, by endowing him with extraordinary mental strength, perfect sincerity, and a fixed will to do what seems to him independently right. All this would not suffice to make him anything more than a dangerous savage, but that he has also good-will to his fellowmen, and a respect for something either within or without him that forbids selfishness, which yet he refuses to call conscience.

Such a hero, of course, finds no paths through the smooth places of the world. If he is to offend all laws and justify the offense, the combinations that bring about his actions need to be most unusual, and they are made so, far beyond the limit of likelihood. It is a poor explanation of the wild improbability involved in the existence and appearances of the woman who impels him to crime, to call her his fate and his mystery. Some of the secondary characters, whose quiet movement along the grooves of habit

serves for a contrast to his eccentric course, are well conceived, but left quite incomplete. The novel is crowded with them to confusion. It displeases, too, with its straggling episodes, its level passages of every. day description, and its wearisome monologues. From the mass of material so inartistically managed the au. thor might have chosen several separate subjects for the display of her unquestionable talent by their more fin. ished treatment in a more natural tone.

Bryant's Orations,*

THE production in a collected shape of Mr. Bryant's public addresses reminds us in a very striking manner how, of our many countrymen distinguished for devotion to literature or art; that one of them has outlived who is perhaps best fitted to judge wisely and speak eloquently of genius in those who have gone before him. Not only because his assiduous cultivation of the special art that gives him fame has quickened his perception and strengthened his admiration of whatever is high and noble, but also because his calm temperament aids discrimination, and his mental view has been widened by life-long consideration of large public questions. Only the poet and the publicist could render so impartial and generous a tribute to the painter, the novelist, and the critic.

The oration delivered in commemoration of Cole gives a natural occasion for slightly sketching the early history of painting and painters in this city. This is done so simply and effectively as to leave a regret that it could not have been extended into such an essay on the rise and progress of art in America as yet needs to be written. The speech touches lightly on Cole's technical merits, judging him from the depths of his nature, with due regard to his peculiar surroundings. It treats frankly, yet without any of the sham independence that pleases the half-educated, of the effects of foreign examples upon a genius almost self-trained. And it avoids entering into any of the vexed questions about the true range of landscapepainting, taking it for granted in a rather quiet way that Cole's success in imparting a moral interest to his work justifies the methods and aims of allegorical The discourse on the life and genius of Fenimore Cooper comprises a brief criticism of almost all his writings, dwelling on the occasions of their appearance, and the reasons for their success or want of popularity. It was almost by accident that Cooper became a novelist, and quite without any careful literary study that he continued one. Bryant does him more exact and ample justice, both as to his merits as an author and as to his personal character, than he often received while living, giving him deserved credit for patriotism too warm and honest to care if it offended his countrymen while reproving their faults. address relates fairly and temperately that passage in his life by which he is most widely and unfavorably

art.

The

*Orations and Addresses. By William Cullen Bryant. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York.