was surely a personality of the old school which rarely at any time, and still more rarely today, has turned out so representative a scholar. Nothing became him so well as his own best short story in real life-when he gave to England in the day in which she herself broke out face to face with the most perilous crisis in her history the finished work of a long and devoted lifetime, and offered it with a gesture as noble as it was spontaneous. In art, as in life, there is ample room, and some kind of a hospitality, for every conceivable The Westminster Gazette.

gift or talent. What this great writer stood for was that inmost integrity of mind and character which is unmoved by neglect, unweakened by caprice, undeterred by difficulty or disappointment. His living example was of inestimable value to English literature. Not all his fellow craftsmen may have admired his work without question or reserve, but there can hardly be one of this generation who has not profited, and will not continue to profit, by his example, or who would not have worked and dreamed the better for his praise. Walter de la Mare.

"One travels the world over to return to Serbia" is an old Serb saying, and it illustrates the Serb's impassioned love of his native country. We are strongly drawn to a consideration of this country now, by reason of its heroism and its sufferings. Even the part played by Belgium in the present war must not blind us to what Serbia has done and endured; we cannot forget that the land is one huge wound, torn by warfare, racked with disease, stricken with dire poverty and famine, yet it remains undaunted. Such, more or less, has been its condition and its history since the Serbs first appeared in the Balkans somewhere during the seventh century. If we turn to Serbian folk-song, we find that much tragic memory has always been associated with the battle of Kossovo, when the Sultan Murad acquired the right bank of the Danube. Many of the people after this disaster fled to Hungary, taking their Christianity and their folk-traditions with them. There are however literary relics of earlier date than this, such as the twelfth-century rhymed chronicle by a priest of Duklja; but it is the folk-song of the country that has most value. The Serbian

language is not an easy one, and it is given a more remote aspect by being written in the Cyrillic alphabet, like the Russian, to which it is somewhat akin. In differing forms it is spoken by the Croats, Dalmatians, and Slovenes. Every nation begins its literature in ballad and lyric, oral productions of the wandering minstrel or tale-teller, which always precede the more self-conscious literature of culture, and which are generally slighted and neglected when more classic or conventional forms arise. But the time comes when men are drawn again to the early and primitive utterance, attracted by its simple force and passion, so that a classic age has almost always its romantic reaction-most often at a time when the true romantic is beginning to fail in everyday life, and when the old tales, the old ballads are loved because of their growing rarity. It is rather curious that this revival took place in Slav literature a little earlier than it did in England. In 1756 a Dalmatian monk, Kacic-Miosic, produced an anthology of Slav poetry at Venice, and although not distinctly Serbian, the poems that he collected (or partly composed) were of the same family and

embodied the same traditions. He was very much of a Macpherson in his ideas of editing, but his collection was valuable nevertheless, and drew the attention of German and French schol

ars.

This publication was earlier than Macpherson's Ossian, which first appeared in 1762, and than Percy's Reliques, which appeared in 1765. Other collectors followed the steps of this pioneer, but it was not till 1881 that England was truly introduced to this branch of Slavonic literature by Madame Mijatovics. The common rhythm of early Serb verse was that trochaic eight-syllable measure which we also find in the Finnish Kalevala, and which Longfellow happily borrowed for his Hiawatha. It is specially suited for rapid narration, though not perhaps for description or reflection; it allowed freedom for the reciter's own improvisations, and is easily susceptible of alliteration. These folk-songs deal largely with the national heroes and the great historic struggles, with the superstitions of the peasantry, their religious emotions, and their human "mirth and tears." They were particularly abundant in the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which should certainly come into the possession of a newly formed Serbia. Failing the original, it is best to read there in plain prose renderings, which is the best way also with Homer for those who do not read Greek; but it has always to be remembered that prose must necessarily sacrifice much of the charm of poetry, as we may realize if we try to render a favorite lyric of Shelley or Wordsworth in simple English prose. Yet no rhymed versifying in a foreign tongue can take us so near the original: "O beautiful maiden, why dost thou hide thyself from me? Do not hide thine eyes from me: I may know thee by thy sheep. Thy sheep are white, with marks on the white. . . . O beautiful maiden, hide not thine eyes from

me. I know thee by thy tall figure. slender and tall like a green palm. O beautiful maiden hide not thine eyes from me! I know thee by thy white face. Thy face is white, ruddy on the white. I will take away thy kerchief, look at thy black eyes, and kiss thy white face." Given the attraction of its native verse, it is easy to see how lovely a trifle like this may be. In another ballad we read of a girl who goes on the battlefield, long before the days of Red Cross labors and trained nurses, to bring help to the wounded:

The maiden of Kossovo rose early,
She rose early on the Sunday,
On Sunday before the bright sun;
She tucked her white sleeves,
Tucked them to her white elbows.
She carries white loaves on her shoulders
In her hands two golden goblets,
In one cold water,

In the other ruddy wine.

She wanders over the field strewn with dead and maimed; she is specially seeking for three warriors, but for one of the three in particular:

Where she finds any living
She laves him with cold water,
Sacramentally she gives him the red
wine,

And feeds him with the white bread.

But the three have fallen heroically for their country; lances stuck in the ground point out where they fell:

She went to her white house,
And mourned from her fair throat-
Ah, sorrowful one, what a fate has come
to thee!-

"If, hapless woman that I am, I touch the green pine,

Soon will the green tree be withered."

Prominent in the folk-lore that comes into these songs we naturally find the "vila," that strange malicious sprite which is so peculiarly Slavic-quite unlike the capricious, but generally

kindly, fairies or pixies of our own folkstories. In one Serb ballad the hero has broken his arm, and the doctor who comes to cure it is really a "vila" in disguise. Before accomplishing the cure he demands his fee-the mother must give her right hand, the sister must give her ribboned hair, the wife her pearl necklace. Mother and sister cheerfully do what is required, but the wife refuses, and the sufferer dies. The three women bewail him-one with continuous groaning, the other at every dusk and dawn, the other occasionally when she remembers to. This moaning, which is the Irish keening, in Serbia, is known as "cuckoo-ing," for the cuckoo's cry is supposed to be that of a sister for her lost brother; and the sister's love in these countries is imagined to be deeper than the wife's. It is obviously impossible in a few words to The Outlook.

give any idea of the true wealth and beauty of Serb folk-songs. Ancient though many of them may be, they still speak for the people, and are near to the people's hearts; they have not been driven out by the cheap educations and veneers of modern civilization. They are entirely Slavic, though of course lacking the curiously psychologic tendencies of recent Slavic prose; yet they have an undoubted kinship to all other folk-poetries, especially those of the East. When peace has come to this much-suffering land when her strifes and wounds are healed, when conscious literature has again a chance to emerge, we may hope that what is best in these traditional treasures will never be forgotten, and that Serbian writers will ever be as human, as sincere, as emotional, and as imaginative.

Arthur L. Salmon.

"Master Skylark," Mr. Edgar White Burrill's small five-act play "based upon Mr. John Bennett's book of the same title," might almost be called an epitome of the spacious time of great Elizabeth. In its 175 pages it introduces Gloriana herself, wonderfully ruffed and jeweled, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Gaston, Carew, Master Player of the Lord High Admiral's Company and his fair daughter Cicely. For its background, it has Greenwich Palace, Newgate. Shakespeare's rose garden at New Place, and a tavernroom in Coventry, and well-individualized mechanics and servants of the species perennial in Britain for its chorus. The story has been so widely read since its first publication that the play will be generally enjoyed without much preliminary study of the program thoughtfully furnished by managers, and the plot is simple, although it

provides a sufficient number of situations in which the fate of the most interesting persons is as doubtful as was the fate of gentle and simple in the good old Tudor times. One excellent singer is needed for Master Skylark, but the part fits either boy or girl, and the elder personages may be equally well presented by children. Mr. Burrill's stage directions are full and good, and two versions of the fifth act are provided, the second somewhat abbreviated, and therefore more useful when the performers are amateurs. The costumes of the day are correctly shown in eight of Reginald B. Birch's excellent pictures. The Century Co.

Fleming Stone, the detective of Carolyn Wells's creation, reappears in "The Curved Blades," to solve the mystery surrounding the death of a rich, ugly and eccentric spinster whose

breakfast-tray finds her sitting stiff and cold before her mirror, wearing two hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewels, with a green paper snake about her neck. Her niece, companion, and private secretary, as well as a French count who has been paying court to her, are all objects of suspicion. One false clue after another is followed to a futile end, and we travel from the Long Island country-house to the desert around Cairo before the secret is disclosed. Fleming Stone's method is seen at its best in the interview with the maid which leads to the tracking down of Bates the burglar. J. B. Lippincott Co.

Swift, compact and illuminating, Mr. W. O. Pitt's volume on “Italy and the Unholy Alliance" (E. P. Dutton & Co.) compresses into about two hundred pages of moderate size a review of the so-called Holy Alliance, originating in the quaint paper framed by the Czar Alexander, and the part which it played in European politics a hundred years ago; and traces the relations of European Powers since that time, their attitude toward the aspirations of Italy, the means by which Italy was virtually forced into the Triple Alliance, her just reasons for breaking with her partners, and the motives and hopes which inspired her entrance into the present war. The narrative is rapid, but graphic and well-proportioned.

"Count your many blessings” is the watchword of Mary Settler, the heroine of Sumner Locke's "Samaritan Mary," and with it the story begins and ends, for she offers it with equal generosity to the cat, to the victims of a motor-car accident, and to a sufferer from pneumonia. But she gives more than good advice, bestowing charity and hospitality when opportunity comes, and even giving alms to the needy although her purse is slender and shallow and her creditors are unmerciful. Her reward comes late in life but it satisfies her, and its very tardiness is an artistic touch,

setting the little story above the level of simple comedy. The hero, Q. L. P., is landed in certain lilac bushes, accompanied by his motor car, a frightened horse, a young woman whom he does not see, a wagon-load of vegetables, and a bag, and is found to be entirely oblivious as to his reason for being in that place, or in that companionship. When enlightenment comes, he behaves with spirit and gallantry and is ably assisted by Samaritan Mary, who so arranges matters that he is made permanently happy, in spite of a second accident, the result of Q. L. P.'s own wilfulness. The author's strong point is in the conversations which he makes idiomatic, and witty, humorous and pathetic by turns, without exaggeration. The farcical characters whose mouths are always open either in conversation, greediness or astonishment are as innocent as Hannah Ellen, the cat, or her uncounted kittens. "Samaritan Mary" is excellent diversion for days in which the captains and the kings are over-active. Henry Holt & Co.

Out of the intimacy of personal acquaintance, and with the enthusiasm of an ardent admirer, Dr. C. Kerofilas has written a sketch of the life and work of Eleftherios Venizelos, which is published in this country by E. P. Dutton & Co. It is of moderate size and graphically written; and it throws light upon the character and career of the brave Greek statesman who, though for the moment in retirement, represents the real wishes and aspirations of the Greek people more than any other