to

in the local or special novel is by no means abating. New fields are being ransacked—the Bowery, the tenement house, the club, the college, the corporation. Gold-hunters in the Klondike are bringing back strange and thrilling stories, and we may soon look hear from the Philippines and China. Another notable direction, too, fiction is now taking, in the revival of the romantic "historical novel." There promises to be no longer the dearth of tales of the colonial and revolutionary days that there once was, and some writers are even seeking far-away foreign and mediæval themes, often with little historical or antiquarian knowledge upon which to base their fancies. This is perhaps a natural outcome of the revived taste, largely fostered by Robert Louis Stevenson, for the story of incident and adventure. Whether it will lead to a full revolt against realism and bring in once more a domination of romance, remains to be seen; but certain it is that some of the writers just now riding on the highest wave of popularity are workers in the field of more or less legitimate historical fiction.

Lastly, there is the essay-critical, social, religious, discursive, perhaps the highest literary outcome of journalism. The frequency with which volumes of collected essays make their appearance would seem to indicate a peculiarly flourishing condition of the type. Certainly the type is popular, and many essayists may be readily named-Mr. Stedman, Mr. Woodberry, Mr. Mabie, Mr. Robert Grant, Dr. van Dyke, several of whom have already been discussed. But distinctive work in this kind is rare; scarcely one essayist in a century attains greatness, and scarcely two in a generation are read into the next. The work of a hundred present day essayists is likely to be summed up and surpassed by some great social philosopher of the future. Meanwhile, one aspect of the contemporaneous essay deserves attention. Since the day of

Emerson and Thoreau the charm of out-door life-the lure of nature, tame or wild-has never quite lost its hold upon us. To-day we have, for strong witness to this fact, the writings of John Burroughs, Maurice Thompson, Ernest SetonThompson, and a large body of less known votaries. And we

are bound to feel that this wide and healthy outlook of our present literature upon nature and humanity alike, is in reassuring contrast to the narrow, sombre, and introspective character of so much of the literature of two hundred years ago.

APPENDIX

A CLASSIFIED LIST OF LATE AND CONTEMPORARY

WRITERS *

POETS

THE EAST

See text for STODDARD, STEDMAN, and ALDRICH.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER, b. Bordentown, N..J., 1844. Journalist and reformer. Associate editor and later editor-in-chief of Scribner's Monthly, now The Century. "The New Day," 1875; "Lyrics, and Other Poems," 1885; "Two Worlds," 1891; "The Great Remembrance," 1893; etc.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, b. Ireland, 1844; d. Hull, Mass., 1890. An Irish revolutionist, transported to Australia, whence he escaped to the United States, 1869. Edited the Boston Pilot. Published Songs of the Southern Seas," 1873, and other poems and sketches. LLOYD MIFFLIN, b. Columbia, Pa., 1846. Painter and poet. A studious cultivator of the sonnet. "The Hills," 1895; "At the Gates of Song," 1897; "The Slopes of Helicon," 1898; 'Echoes of Greek Idyls," 1899; "The Fields of Dawn," 1900.

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GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY, b. Beverly, Mass., 1855. Professor of English Literature at Columbia University. "The North Shore Watch (a threnody, 1883), and Other Poems," 1890; "Wild Eden," 1899. Essays: "Studies in Letters and Life," 1890; "Heart of Man," 1899; "Makers of Literature," 1900.

The principle of classification adopted here is for the most part apparent. Poets and novelists are subdivided geographically, the miscellaneous writers are not. Further, the men are separated from the women. Lastly, in each small group the order is chronological, except that in the case of the novelists, because of the rapid changes in the character of fiction, the writers born before 1860, both men and women, are separated from those born since. A few slight departures from exact chronology, made to secure better classification, may be noted, especially among the miscellaneous writers.