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"POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK."

In the delightful essay on the history of the almanack in general, and of " Poor Richard's Almanack," in particular, with which Mr. Paul Leicester Ford prefaces his edition of Ben Franklin's celebrated literary production, we are struck

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, From "Poor Richard's Almanack." (Putnam.) by the resemblance which exists between the modern newspaper and that popular institution of "ye olden time" of which Poor Richard was such a brilliant exponent. Before the newspaper became the universal medium of information, the almanack was to the masses the source of general knowledge-fact, fancy, and philosophy being furnished by its fertile pages. It has practically passed away now, or rather, its eclectic character has deteriorated, and it possesses at the present day but one notable function, that of giving information about the weather. Nevertheless, though the genius almanack is departed, Poor Richard's Almanac remains, rich in its rare wisdom, its varied information, and in Addisonian charm of expression. It is safe to say that it never will become obsolete. It is one of the most precious relics of our early American literature. Those young readers who have not made its acquaintance-and yet no one can really be said not to know it, for it has enriched our language with many a familiar proverb-could not read it in more agreeable form than that in which it appears as a Knickerbocker Nugget, printed in good type, on good paper, and in that inviting dress with which all the Knickerbockers are clothed. (Putnam. $1.) -Boston Traveller.

JOHN JAY.

THIS is an interesting book, well thought out and well written, in spite of occasional ambigui

ties. The proof-reading, however, has been careless. Thus, we read "Rhode Island" for Long Island (p. 83), " Philadelphia" for Pough. keepsie (p. 257), and we are informed that "le papillon neutre" does not neutralize an enemy's merchandise (p. 310). To do so would be serious work, indeed, for a butterfly.

To American lawyers, John Jay is perhaps best known as the man who was willing to cease to be Chief Justice of the United States in order to become Governor of New York. This conduct is the more inexplicable that Jay was a decided Federalist and a man of quiet and scholarly character. Mr. Pellew has not made the course of his hero comprehensible in this respect. "I left the bench," said Jay, when asked to return to it by President Adams, "perfectly convinced that under a system so defective it would not obtain the energy, weight, and dignity which was essential to its affording due support to the national government, nor acquire the public confidence and respect which, as the last resort of the justice of the nation, it should possess." It would be interesting to know the reason of Jay's dissatisfaction with the position of the Supreme Court under the Constitution. After his refusal the President appointed John Marshall to the ChiefJusticeship, since whose day the office has certainly never been thought deficient in weight or dignity.

It was as a diplomatist that Mr. Jay rendered the most valuable services to his country. Mr. Pellew gives a very clear and interesting account of the negotiations for peace in 1782 and 1783. The history of that transaction cannot be finally written until M. Doniol shall have given us his fourth volume, and until the Stevens manuscripts shall all be published. (Mr. Pellew has had access to an elaborate digest of the latter, with quotations, and has made good use of it.) But there is little doubt that everything essential in the questions between the United States and France concerning the peace is now known. The sus picions of Jay, that Vergennes was consulting the interests of Spain rather than those of the United States, appear to have been well founded. Under those circumstances the course taken by the American Commissioner was bold, wise, and patriotic.

Mr. Pellew does not attribute to John Jay the more showy qualities by which popularity is generally attained. Yet there was evidently something in the silent and reserved man which extorted not only the respect of statesmen, but the admiration of the people. He was not a very great man, but the success of a government, of whatever form, must depend in large measure on its ability to pick out and support such men as he. (Houghton, M. $1.25.)-The Nation.

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THEY MEET AGAIN AT LUCKNOW.

THEN came a sensation in the crowd. Many heads were bowed reverently, and a mingled cry -of adoration from some, and of contempt and defiance from others--broke forth. The excitement was caused by the arrival of the Chief Commissioner, Sir Henry Lawrence, whose carriage, drawn by four handsome little horses, preceded by outriders and followed by a native guard, was coming slowly along the street.

There was abundance of light from lanterns swung on poles above the road and flaming torches carried by footmen. Tom looked out and saw a picture which he will never forget. The chiefhis lean, soldierly figure wasted with anxiety for the people whom, as he fervently believed, God Himself had committed to his charge; his face, that face which to see was to love, strong, yet curiously tender, deeply seared with lines that told of such spiritual conflicts as shake the soul to its depths; with mobile lips, round which a smile, half humorous and half melancholy, was hovering; and deep-set eyes that looked out steadily from under massive brows-was before him, and instinctively he bowed his head; he knew that he was in the presence of a hero. So far he had seen no one else in the carriage, he had eyes only for the chief; but as it swung round to enter the gates of the courtyard he became suddenly aware of another presence-"Grace Elton !" Wildly his heart throbbed as, in the disguise which it would have been the height of imprudence to throw off, he saw close in front of him the woman he loved. She was sitting back in the carriage, her eyes, pensive as ever, fixed meditatively on Sir Henry. She seemed to have been speaking, for her lips were half parted, and it appeared to him as if a shadow rested on the face which, with its divine expression of seraphic purity, was so infinitely dear to him.

A moment, and the vision was gone, and he saw Hoosanee at his elbow, looking grave and disconcerted. He told him that he was being noticed, and implored him by all that was sacred to come

on.

"Have I a European dress with me?" said Tom, as they moved away.

"Not one," answered Hoosanee. "My lord will remember that the baggage-wagons were left behind us."

"But you might have kept out one. I would give all I possess to be able to go into that ballroom to-night."

Hoosanee hesitated. "My master might go in native dress," he said, "if he would not betray himself."

"Would it be possible?"

"It would be easy, my lord. Other Indians of rank have gone in. If my lord gives in his name

as the Rajah of Gumilcund, and presents a largesse to the door-keeper he will certainly be admitted."

The result was as Hoosanee had predicted. When, an hour later, Tom was borne in a palanquin to the gates of the palace, his embroidered robe and gorgeous turban, with the magnificent fee he presented to the door-keeper, gained him immediate respect. No little to his embarrassment, he was taken straight to the dais on which sat the Commissioner, surrounded by English officers and grandees of Oude. After the first shock, however, he played his part correctly. Sir Henry, supposing him to be an accredited guest, received him graciously, and conversed with him for a few moments. Then, feeling glad the ordeal was over, he stepped down and set himself to watch the dancers. (Lippincott. pap., 50 c.)— From "The Rajah's Heir."

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XENIA REPNINA. XENIA REPNINA" does not challenge comparison with any of the several Russian novels which have recently attracted special attention, but in several respects it will interest American readers more than the novels of prominent Russian romancers. Despite her name, Mrs. MacGahan is a Russian by birth, and resided in her native country until some time after her marriage to the famous correspondent whose name she bears. Not only does she know Russian society well, but in regarding it at the present time for literary purposes she is able to take the point of view of an intelligent American curious about a people of whose social life little has been known until recently. Necessarily politics, or rather the policy of the Russian Government and in its effects upon the social life of the nation, enters into the story, yet "Xenia Repnina" is not a political novel. It narrates the doings of a number of spirited, educated, wellto-do men and women not far from the Russian capital. They appear as good and happy as the average civilized human being eleswhere, but as the story goes on the reader is compelled to see that the range of their energies is painfully limited, and that those who are not in business or one of the professions have to expend all of their surplus vitality in mere amusement, and that, as it is customary with lazy people eleswhere, they do a great deal of make-believe love-making, sometimes with tragical results. The heroine of the story is an illustration to the point. She is a superb creature, mentally and physically; but for lack of something to do and of ability to find sufficient congenial society she allows a married man to fall in love with her, and to learn that she is fonder of him than she had imagined she ever could be with a man whose heart legally belonged to another. The discovery mortifies her greatly, for there is nothing coarse or dishonorable in her nature. To banish the man from her presence and thoughts she promises to marry an Englishman, with whom she never could be happy. Just before her wedding-day she unexpectedly meets her old lover, and finding that her passion for him has not been abated she abruptly goes to a convent and becomes one of the sisterhood. Xenia, however, is but one of several interesting feminine characters in the story. There is a young man of high family who longs to go to America to find elbow-room, and he marries a young woman of advanced ideas but high character who accompanies him.

There is also a rollicking young woman, whose aged husband has been banished to Siberia, and who studies and practises medicine for the sake of having something to do, yet who finds the Tartar so strong in her blood that she

makes violent love to an old friend of her husband, a man of more honor than is usually found-in novels-when such offers are made by pretty women.

The movement of the story is active, and the reader is allowed many peeps at home life among the better classes. Regarding the author's ability to handle her subject the artist, Verestchagin, says: "Her types of Russians are positively original and interesting; the aspirations of educated young people in Russia are soberly conceived, while occurrences of public life have been taken from nature. There is much truth artistically reproduced in this book." (Routledge. pap., 50 c.)—N. Y. Herald.

MISS BROOKS.

"MISS BROOKS" is the kind of a story which inevitably suggests "" Miss Brooks of Boston." The author, though a Bostonian, has dared to raise her sacrilegious pen in scarcely veiled satire against some of the foibles of the modern Athenians. Her heroine is a particularly unlovable, thoroughly selfish, and unpleasantly strong-minded young woman, whose beauty, though striking, does not at all compensate for flagrant defects; of which the worst and most fatal is a total inability to love anything less abstract than her personal ideal of Boston. When she is engaged, and her betrothed tells her that his business may compel him to reside in New York, she almost breaks the engagement, in her profound disgust; but the man yields to her and abandons his own plan, and when Miss Brooks is gently rallied by her sister upon what looks rather like selfishness, she observes, in a definitive way: "My dear, John must like Boston a great deal better than New York as soon as he gets used to it; it is so infinitely superior. It can never be a sacrifice to live in Boston." This is very good fooling, and the story is lightened throughout by similar bits of satiric humor. The hero, as is not uncommonly the case in women's novels, is weaker in general effect than he was intended to be, but he is much too good to be offered up at the shrine of Miss Brooks, and every properly constituted reader must rejoice at his deliverance from the gorgon of Boston propriety. Her sister and foil, Janet, is as nice and lovable a girl as her senior is the reverse. The story is brightly written, and reflects credit upon the author. (Roberts. $1.) -N. Y. Tribune.

TWO WOMEN OR ONE?

MR. HARLAND has naturally been led into seductive regions of hypnotic and psychological research, and in his ingenious little story." Two Women or One?" he has written variations

upon Professor Ribot's theories of the mutabili- itself, and we will not save any one the slight ties of the human personality. In a matter of trouble of doing so. The problem suggested by this kind it is but the first step which counts, and the known facts of changed personality are, it is whoever is able to accept the possibility of unnecessary to point out, of the gravest character, such an operation as Dr. Leonard Benary per- and upon their solution may depend exceedingly forms upon Louise Messate will find it easy weighty issues. All suggestions therefore in enough to adopt all the consequences of that this relation are, if earnest and sincere, weloperation. In brief this medical thaumaturgist come, and Mr. Harland treats his subject withsucceeds in extinguishing, or, to be more exact, out flippancy and in a manner which is sufficientparalyzing and placing in abeyance the whole ly sober to show that he recognizes its sigoriginal personality of his parent, and in pro- nificance. (Cassell. pap., 50 c.)-N. Y. Tribducing a young woman whose memory is a com- une.

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PERSONALLY CONDUCTED.

From Stockton's "Personally Conducted." (Copyright, 1889, by Chas. Scribner's Sons.) plete blank, and who is therefore mentally in a condition of a new-born child. Though possessing an adult physique and brain, her capacity for absorbing information is of course much greater than that of a child. All this results from depression of the inner surface of the skull, so that the organs of memory are paralyzed. Precisely how, these organs once virtually deadened, a new memory is built up, it may be well not to inquire too curiously. Of course there is a danger in this process, for if at any time the bony pressure upon the brain should be removed, the original personality will return, and the new one disappear utterly. We have said enough to indicate the line taken by Mr. Harland, but the story is well worth reading for

MR. STOCKTON imagines himself personally conducting a party of young people through the older cities of Europe and pointing out to them their most salient sights. The first visit is to Avignon, the second to Genoa; from here the reader is taken successively to Pisa, Rome, Naples, Venice, Paris, London, and to the banks of the Rhine. The most famous points of these places, with the various historical and legendary stories attached to them, are described in a simple, interesting way, that cannot fail to impress young readers. Though Mr. Stockton cannot help at times being amusing, this is a serious attempt. The illustrations are many, and serve to elucidate the text. (Scribner. $2.)

THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. "THE Shadow of a Dream," though it filled but three numbers of Harper's Monthly, yet makes a volume of 218 pages as a whole. Most readers are already familiar with this rather peculiar development of a peculiar subject, and the tragic ending which is so much more pronounced than any other of the real facts of Howells' novels on which one can decisively lay a finger, as to give the reader an actual shock of horror. This bit of "the stuff that dreams are made of" but gives us an instance of the strange power of dream phantasies over our waking life-a power that more than one of us has felt, and sets us wondering likewise if there is, after all, any definite boundary between sanity and insanity, and whether it is really only a question of majority decision. The story is, of course, handled with all the delicate finish and fidelity of which Howells is along acknowledged master. The only question is at times whether the author is not himself rather a monomaniac on the subject of ultra-analysis of petty superficialities that seem to have but the purpose of astonishing an admiring public by their truth. (Harper. pap., 35 c.) — Providence Sunday Journal.

ADVENTURES OF A YOUNGER SON. EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNEY'S "Adventures of a Younger Son " is issued in a new edition by T. Fisher Unwin, of London, in his famous Adventure Series, and its sale in this country is controlled by Macmillan & Co., of New York. It comes in excellent shape after revision, containing portraits and a fac-simile of a letter of the author. This romantically elaborated autobiographical narrative of the erratic and adventurous man who was intimately associated with Shelley and Byron in the political and intellectual movements in which they were engaged, who gave to the world its best insight into the character of the great poet of liberalism, who buried Shelley, and dying asked to be laid beside him in the little cemetery outside the walls of Rome, is too precious a thing for the student of one of the most significant movements of English literature to let drop out of sight for a moment. As a tale of adventure it has its value, but its worth is as showing the atmosphere in which Shelley and his kindred spirits lived. Trelawney lived a little too late to become the hero he might have been fifty or even twenty-five years before; and his book was given to the public after the commercial spirit had almost stamped out the romanticism which prevailed at the most active period of his life, so that the book occupies now the place in literature it did always-that of an interesting side-light upon

a bygone time. Pretence to excellence of literary style in the "Adventures" there is none. Trelawney merely wished to pose as a man of action and a hero, and he did so in the frankest of ways, leaving the world, what he did not intend to leave, an invaluable picture of an enthusiast of the time of those whom he numbered among his friends-Landor, Byron, and Shelley. (Macmillan. $1.50.)—Boston Traveller.

THE ART OF AUTHORSHIP.

UNDER this name Mr. George Bainton has published a book of literary reminiscences, descriptions of method in literary work, and advice to young writers, which have been personally contributed by some hundreds of the leading English and American authors of the present time. The story of the book is this: Mr. Bainton was asked to deliver a lecture to some young men on literary composition and public speaking, and wrote to a number of authors and orators for some account of their methods. The result proved at once so interesting and valuable that Mr. Bainton pursued this course still further; and the present compilation is the outcome.

The book is divided into six chapters, but the nature of the matter precludes any strict classifi cation of the subjects the different writers treat of, save in the most general way. The words of the various writers are introduced in every case by a few discriminating remarks by the compiler, giving some information as to the work and standing of each. This does much to give the book the charm of an orginal work, relieving it of the more objectionable features of a compilation and rendering it an easy book for the reader to go through with.

Like the "Best One Hundred Books" investigation of two or three years ago, this book gives a view of the personality of each writer that can be obtained in no other way. Among the contributors may be mentioned: William Black, the Duke of Argyll, Prof. Boyesen, John Bright, Stopford A. Brooke, Robert Browning, G. W. Caler, Edward Dowden, Amelia B. Edwards, E. A. Freeman, Froude, Gosse, Haeckel, Haggard, Harte, Holmes, Howells, Huxley, Lecky, Liddon, McCarthy, Meredith, Lewis and William Morris, John Boyle O'Reilly, Mrs. (Phelps) Ward, Rénan, Roe, Spurgeon, Stockton, Stoddard, Symonds, Taine, Tyndall, Vambery, Warner and Yates.

This book is one that will prove of great value to the young writer, for whom it was compiled, and is one that is of unusual interest to the student of contemporary literature. The Messrs. Appleton publish the volume. (Appleton. $1.25.)Boston Traveller.

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