nected chapter of the book, fragmentary it is true, we are initiated into the mysteries of Giordano Bruno's philosophy.

The book, as is but natural, abounds in masterly touches, and its fragmentary nature precludes a hostile opinion. We have merely pointed out some defects of limitation which would not have been obviated, but rather exaggerated, by the completion of the story. PELHAM EDGAR.

Johns Hopkins University.

Book Notes.

They are very commonplace matters which Mr. Howells has made the subject of his essays, now gathered into a book under the title of 'Impressions and Experiences' (Harper & Bros.). East End New York, New York streets, itinerant beggars are not at first blush very promising material for observations especially novel or profound. The fact, however, that Mr. Howells has a keen and practiced eye enables him to reveal to the less acute observer a piquancy of humor and a depth of pathos in the lives of the submerged tenth which do not lie on the surface. In these Impressions and Experiences,' we follow the novelist in the preliminary work of his profession; we see the realist jotting down the facts of human wretchedness and folly, which will serve for incorporation in a possible novel. The brighter side of life is shown in The Country Printer,' which both in treatment and style is much pleasanter reading than the studies of pathological vice. The Closing of the Hotel,' infused with an autumn melancholy, is, perhaps, the best of the collection. It is hardly necessary to speak of the charm of Mr. Howells's style; his delightful humor, and his jocular sarcasm at the expense of his literary foes, the idealists, are peculiarly his own.

The American edition of The Expositor, a monthly, theological magazine, which has hitherto been published only in England, has just been brought out by Dodd, Mead, & Co., under the editorship of Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall, D. D. Among the articles in the first number, February, are papers by the Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Principal Fairbourn, Professor T. K. Cheyne, Professor Eduard König, Professor Ramsay, and others. The Book Reviews are signed, and are written by such men as Professors G. B. Stevens and G. P. Fisher, of Yale, Professor R. T. Ely, of Wisconsin, and Professor Adams Brown, of Union. Dr. Hall contributes the minor reviews under the heading of 'General Survey.'

In the new edition of Evangeline, issued for school use by Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., in their Riverside Literature Series, is an interesting sketch, by Miss Alice M. Longfellow, eldest daughter of the poet entitled, 'Longfellow in Home Life.' This edition contains, also, a 40-page sketch of Longfellow, by Mr. Horace E. Scudder, an excellent portrait, pictures of his birthplace at Portland, his dwelling at Cambridge, and his Cambridge study; also a very carefully prepared map showing the places referred to in the poem.

Dr. Henry Sweet, author of the new English Grammar and other works on the history of English Grammar, has prepared a 'Students' Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon,' which will soon be published by the Macmillan Co. The head words are given in their early West-Saxon spellings, the meanings given in concise modern English.

Professor Poulton, of Oxford, contributes the eighth volume of the Twentieth Century Science Series (The Macmillan Company), 'Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection. Rarely does a book appear presenting such a breadth of view, one that is so scientific and, withal, so readable as this. The secret of Darwin's greatness is the first consideration, and this is found to be in the power of speculation he possessed, with which was coupled keen original observation; the latter either verified the speculative hypotheses or led to their rejection. Then follows an account of the forces that were back of Darwin, his hereditary endowments, and the advantages of the period in which he lived. This is succeeded by a consideration of the relations Darwin sustained to contemporary scientists; the influences and counter-influences of Darwin, Lyell, Wallace, Asa Gray, and Huxley upon each other, make an interesting story into which is woven an account of the opposition that arose on its publication to the 'Origin of Species.' The book also contains interesting matter relative to the WeismannSpencer controversy. Professor Poulton's volume gives what we have not had heretofore, a brief and satisfactory biography of Charles Darwin, which is also in some sense a history of the development of scientific thought for the past sixty years.

We have from J. B. Lippincott Company, two new numbers of Historical Tales,' treating respectively of Greece and Rome. Of all nations Greece and Rome lend themselves most easily to the historical story, and probably these are the most notable numbers of the series in which they appear. The author has made use of classical sources, and presents, in somewhat detached essays, interesting facts in the lives of these two ancient peoples. Simplicity and conciseness are the characteristics of the stories and they cannot but leave a vivid impression. The books are well printed and each is furnished with a dozen full-page illustrations.

These tales are a good example of a type described by the author's phrase "the romance of reality;" history they are not nor should they be so considered. History has been much discredited and its lessons have been disregarded because the real and the romantic have been so interwoven as to give occasion for questioning the utility of all history. When history comes to be romance it ceases to be history. Mr. Morris's books are valuable in stimulating interest in history, but they should be regarded as stories based on history, not as history in the form of stories.

A most useful little book for beginners in Anglo Saxon is Professor C. Alphonso Smith's 'Old English Grammar,' published by Allyn & Bacon. The distinguishing feature of this text-book is to be found in the exercises on the plan of Latin and Greek composition books. A familiarity with vocabulary and construction is attained by this means which is not readily got in other ways. The facts of Anglo-Saxon grammar, which, before the enlightenment that came with Sievers' Grammar to the American student, were so unintelligible to the beginner, are here reduced to their simplest terms. The author is fully in touch with the most recent scholarship, but he takes care not to intrude technical details. The book can be strongly recommended to those who desire only a mere acquaintance with the structure of our earliest English and have no intention of pursuing the subject further. To those entering upon the serious study of the language no better introduction could be had for the more advanced work of the larger grammars.

The second volume of Bury's Edition of Gibbon (Macmillan) contains chapters xv to xxiv inclusive, of 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' It is significant of our changed point of view that the editor has

removed all the encumbering matter which has been heaped up, in the course of a century, about chapters xv and xvi. He says nothing to counteract Gibbon's views of Christianity, but corrects his errors of fact.

The volume is supplied with two maps and a plan of Constantinople. The editing is most apparent in the appendix which contains twenty-four discussions. These are models of repression and scholarship. The first on "the authorities" carries on the task which Gibbon planned and which Bury has undertaken. It is very insufficient praise to say that the bibliographical notes in these two volumes form the most serviceable guides accessible to English readers. It will be interesting to see how Professor Bury solves the problem in the later volumes, where it will be much more difficult. But with these two volumes before us, it is safe to say that this edition is the one which should be bought and read. Gibbon's immortal history has at length found a competent editor.

At no period in the literary history of the world has there been produced such a mass of essays as in this latter half of the nineteenth century. They are in most part the direct product of the numberless magazines, and never has there been such a disproportion between quantity and quality. The great demand for " copy has given a wonderful vogue to mere cleverness, but it has practically ruled out the cultivation of high artistic seriousness. The capacity for taking infinite pains requires more time than is warranted by the conditions of the market. Consequently anything not frankly ephemeral is rare; but not even the ephemeral is necessarily without merit, and we need not deny to all magazine articles the true literary quality. It does not follow on the other hand, that they are worth collecting into books, unless for purposes of commerce. We think Mr. Charles Dudley Warner has scarcely a sufficient excuse for the collection of his previously published essays in the volume, entitled 'The Relation of Literature to Life' (Harper & Bros.). The subjects of these articles are not conspicuously fresh nor are they treated with originality or vigor. They are all very well for a leisure hour, but they have already served their purpose as magazine papers, and they do not make a book.

It is a very delicate subject that Mr. J. M. Barrie has taken in his latest book, Margaret Ogilvy,' one which puts his literary powers to the finest test. But he has been through a good school and has learned its lessons well He who can invest his native village-the apparent embodiment of the commonplace-with an interest which appeals to every healthy mind has shown that he is prepared to deal with that most sacred theme, the love of a man for his mother. Mr. Barrie, by the naturalness and tenderness of his narrative, has so transformed the merely personal into the universal that he has made his readers sharers in his own beautiful affection. There is no affectation, no apology; it is an exquisite chord from the music of humanity that he has sounded for us in this book. There is delicious, quiet humor in the portrayal of his mother's little prejudices-as her dislike for Robert Louis Stevenson, simply because he wrote better than her son, a dislike conquered at last by the man's fascinating narrative,―her contempt for Glasgow hotels and city clubs, her horror of servants in her house. We have revealed to us the beauty of her great maternal tenderness, seeking in vain to conceal itself, the undying devotion of her daughter, her family's reverence for her, the pathos of her death And, again, we have the fine humanity of her pride in her son, her admiration for other famous sons, and her we might almost say-jealousy of their mothers. All this is told in a charming style, as simple and chaste as the nameless grace of the narrative. Chas. Scribner's Sons are the publishers.

The reading world is just now in Miss Blanche Amory's frame of mind and like that interesting young lady sighs to all the winds of earth, "Il me faut des émotions." Accordingly the novelists of the hour hasten to provide emotions of one sort and another and as all tastes are not alike it is fortunate that side by side with the muddy current of morbid analysis and introspection runs a brighter and more healthful stream of romance and adventure.

In The Prisoner of Zenda,' Anthony Hope gave conclusive proof that his is the gift above all gifts for a scribbler-that of story-telling-and the spirit, the vigor with which that stirring narrative moved along assured him of eager listeners to any tale he might choose to unfold in the future.

( Phroso' had the misfortune to make its first appearance as a serial in a magazine; in the long wait from mouth to month the force of many of its strongest situations was weakened, and those who only know the book in that form have lost much of its charm. After Mr. Hope's manner, no time is wasted on preliminary or introduction: the reader plunges at once into the tanglings and untanglings of the plot, which is original and amusing. The adventures of the hero, an ornament of the British peerage, on the island of Neopalia-which he has purchased from its lord with the consent of the Turkish government-are related with the greatest gusto. Occasional crisp bits of conversation remind one irresistibly of the brilliant point and parry of 'The Dolly Dialogue,' and now and then an epigram tucked in provokes a smile. "A man is never so tenacious of his rights as when he hasn't any,"-for instance.

Altogether 'Phroso,' smartly bound in red buckram and lavishly illustrated, is a very agreeable addition to the literature of to-day, and it would not be surprising if its dramatic possibilities appeal effectively to the playwright. Lord Wheatley may, like Gil de Bérault, strut and fret his little hour upon the stage, and one must own that the kilted petticoats of the Neopalian men would have a very pretty effect in a chorus. F. A. Stokes Co. are the publishers.

the poems chronologically, except where Browning himself made later changes. He has wisely refrained from extensive annotations; his editorial work has been, in fact, limited to short notes as prefaces to the more difficult poems, and to brief explanations of obscure words. Browning, like every other great poet, is his own best interpreter. The first volume is furnished with a frontispiece portrait of the poet in 1835, the second with one in 1881. There are a chronological list of poems and plays, an index to first lines of the shorter pieces, and a general index. The paper, type, and binding are good; the only blemish is a most unsatisfactory portrait of the poet, stamped in gilt on the cover.

D. C. Heath & Co. have added to their English Classics, an edition of Tennyson's 'The Princess,' by Andrew J. George, M. A. A rather thin introduction, elaborate notes making nearly one hundred pages, a list of dates, and biographical and critical references are the editor's contributions. The parallel quotations from other poems and the explanation of the biographical and other references in the text constitute the chief value of the notes. The excessive citation of critical opinions has a very doubtful place in a book of this nature.

From The Publishers' Weekly we note that "Charles Scribner's Sons will be the American publishers of the Gads Hill Edition of the works of Charles Dickens, which will consist of thirty-two volumes. Andrew Lang will edit it, and will also contribute a literary and biographical introduction, a preface to each separate work, and critical notes. The original illustrations by Cruikshank, Hablot K. Brown, and Seymour will be printed from unused duplicate plates in the possession of the publishers. The size of the volume and typographical appearance will be somewhat like the new edition of Carlyle, which is also brought out here by the Scribners."

Further issues of Longman's English Classics are Scott's 'Marmion,' edited by Robert M. Lovett, A. B.; De Quincey's 'Revolt of the Tartars,' edited by Charles S. Baldwin, Ph. D.; Pope's 'The Iliad of Homer,' Books i, vi, xxii, xxiv, edited by William H. Maxwell, M. A., and Percival Chubb; Tennyson's 'The Princess,' edited by George E. Woodberry, A. B.; and Shakespeare's 'Macbeth,' edited by J. M. Manly, Ph. D. The books are furnished with introductions and notes, and are admirably adapted for the class-room.

In 1693, while war was raging over the continent of Europe, William Penn published a remarkable Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe.' He proposed a general union of the nations of Europe, with a federal diet or parliament, as the only sure means of attaining and preserving peace; and he worked out his scheme in careful detail. It was the first plan known in history for international federation, save only Henry the Fourth's 'Great Design,' and it anticipated Kant's 'Eternal Peace' by a hundred years. The essay attracted much attention at the time, but it has become almost entirely forgotten. Now, when there is a deeper interest in international arbitration and federation than ever before, the directors of the Old South Work, in Boston, have added this tractate to their series of Old South leaflets. It is No. 75 in the Old South series, and completes a third volume, the leaflets being now gathered into volumes each containing twenty-five.

The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal began its Nineteenth Volume in January, 1897. The volume contains, among other things, a series of articles on the 'Ancient Cities of Central America,' by Dr. Maler, the distinguished archæologist of Germany; also a series of

articles on the 'Cliff Dwellings of Arizona and New Mexico;' both are fully illustrated. Dr. Cyrus Thomas continues his articles on Indian Migrations.' There are notes on 'Recent Discoveries in Egypt,' by Dr. Wm. C. Winslow, D. D., of Boston; on the Holy Land,' by Prof. T. F. Wright, of Cambridge; and on 'European Archæology,' by Dr. D. G. Brinton.

It has been demonstrated in late years that the prototypes of most of the forms found in Greek decorative art and architecture are to be looked for in Egypt. The egg and dart moulding, the fret, the Anthemion and the Ionic volute spring from the conventionalization of the lotus. The Doric column finds an ancestor at Beni Hassan, and the Greek peripteral temple has an analogous form in the small temple at Elepantine built by Amenophis III.

The refinements and curves in Greek architecture have, however, been considered, up to the issuance of Professor Goodyear's paper, indigenous to Greece. These curves were noticed by Pennethorn in 1837 and measured by Penrose in 1846 and 1847. "Up to that time the Greek Temple was supposed to be what to the superficial observer it appears to be." Its horizontal lines were considered to be level and its vertical ones perpendicular. Corresponding spaces and distances were thought to be commensurate. The measurements of Penrose showed that none of the apparently vertical lines are perpendicular, and the main horizontal lines of the building are constructed in curves which rise in vertical planes to the centre of each side. These curves are inconspicuous to the eye unless sighted for from the angle of the building.

Three years previous to his discovery of these curves in the Parthenon, Pennethorn made a journey to Egypt and was astounded to find in the Theban temple of Medinet Habou a series of curves in the architraves of the second court. These curves are in horizontal planes -curves of plan, not of elevation, as in the Parthenon. These discoveries of Pennethorn were published in 1878.

The use of refinement in the architecture of Egypt was not confined to the horizontal curves but also found expression in the entasis of obelisks.

In the Temple of Neptune at Pæstum, erected by Greek colonists, are found not only curves in vertical planes, but also convex curves on its flanks in horizontal planes. It seems perfectly plausible, therefore, to assume that the Greek builders were influenced by the practice of the Egyptians.

Professor Goodyear after confirming in 1891 the observations of Pennethorn, discovered the use of this horizontal refinement in the Roman "Maison Carrée" at Nimes. Here he found that the curves 63 were not applied to the pediment at all, but exclusively to the sides." This discovery seems to overthrow the presumption of scholars that the Greek curves were unknown at the time of the Roman Empire and carries the history of these refinements from the time of the Fifth Century before Christ down to the Second Century after Christ. It also re-opens the question as to the purpose of the

curves.

The German scholars have adopted the theory that they were used to accentuate and exaggerate the effects of curvilinear perspective, and thus give increased dimensions to the building when viewed from the centre of either side. The views of Penrose have been generHis ally accepted by English and American readers. explanation is based on the accepted fact that there is a tendency to optical downward deflection in the straight line of an entablature below the angle of a gable or pediment. It is his theory that these lines of the entablature were accordingly curved upward to counteract this deflection.

Which of these theories is the real explanation of the curves Professor Goodyear does not discuss.