moral responsibility and the man who is just and upright. It shows the development of a girl, reared in close proximity with these three and amid the environment inevitably created. Jane is a personality

from begininng to end, alive, sensitive and very real. It is an artistic piece of work and very human. It is tenderly done rather than forcefully, and it makes an appeal that is irresistible.

A

MINOR poet will sometimes

achieve perfection in his special field, so that we come to think of him as standing for a very definite doctrine and beauty, even though his muse has restricted herself to a few forms only. Lord De Tabley was such a poet, and the elegiac, pensive note he cultivated with flawless art. There sounds through his pages the melancholy charm of verses like these:

"There we can hear the flute of Pan Bewailing down the reedy vales; There see the tempest-beaten swan

Sail broken down the moaning gales;"

or the clear-cut diction of quatrains like this:

"The ages in an endless tide

Advance their still encroaching feet: The present, like a golden bride,

Is faultless for an hour and sweet."

Not until our would-be singers nourish. their tastes upon the eternal masters of Greek and Roman poetry, now so unwisely neglected for the pursuit of mere fact studies, will such classic poetry be written. again.

De Tabley is too little known. A friend of choice appreciation, to whom I showed the beautiful volume of his collected poems, had not heard of him; yet anyone once knowing his verse must love it for its philosophy, sweet and pathetic as of Emerson or Walter Pater, its music, as of Doric flutes.

Edmund Gosse has told of his dead friend-how he was the intimate of some of the best English scholars and thinkers. of the last generation; how Tennyson called him "Faunus, a woodland creature:" how he excelled in minute observation of

*Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley.

nature, being a botanist of European reputation and the chief authority of his time. on the Brambles; how his perfect graciousness and fine sympathy made him the beloved guide of a group of younger poets, and how with his majestic simplicity and his leonine head he seemed in his later age like "one of the fallen brethren of Hyperion."

Besides his Horace and the Greek elegiac poets, Lord De Tabley cherished the English classics of song, gaining from his favorites added power for his own writing -from Milton his stateliness, from Herrick and Lovelace pensive grace, from Swinburne neo-Hellenic fire.

His allegiance to Keats and Tennyson may be illustrated by lines from his poem, "Anticipation."

"I set my heart to sing of leaves

Ere buds had felt the March winds blow:

I laid my head and dreamt of sheaves

Ere seedsmen had the heart to sow.

I fancied swallows at the eves,

And found old nests in pendent snow.

"I dreamt a scent of daffodils,

When frosty shone the village tiles: Of flowery perfume from the hills,

When ice had bound the mere for miles."

From the brief examples given I trust I have made some converts to Lord De Tabley's poetry. The new London volume in its comely red and gold cover must win the affection of any who make themselves its possessors. It will especially appeal to those who care for the pure scholarship of the elder day, enlightened by high fancy and fugitive grace.

"Who shall explain this lovely thing
To generations yet to be?
Will evanescent beauty wing
Her flight to dim futurity?"

JOHN RUSSELL Hayes.

An at

"Vergilius" is not the deep study of the pregnant age prior to the nativity of Christ that one might reasonably suppose it to be. If anything, it is the most superficial of the novels that we have had on the subject,-"Ben Hur," "Quo Vadis," "From Darkness to Dawn," etc. tempt has been made, it is true, to picture the preparedness of the Roman world for Christ, and in large measure the atmosphere of that need and preparedness is created, but in actual study of life the book is meagre, scarce in event and scarce in episode, with little that is new in phase or original in situation. Herod and his treacherous son, Antipater, have prominent places in the story and the fraud of the councils to consider the new king, is something different, but the romantic interest is lacking in strength and power, and the narrative of the coming of Christ is in no way an improvement, is rather, in many ways inferior, to General Wallace's graphic description of the shepherds in the field and the angels' song. The book is daintily decorated and will make an excellent gift-book during the holiday season.

ESS AND CO.," with the same simplicity and humor that has won the popular heart for "Wee Macgreegor," is without its exaggerations; and is a story that may be true anywhere. Kinlochan, near Glasgow, with its curiosity and gossip, and the thriftless David. Houston seem unlike our conceptions of the canny Scotch.

We find, however, in spite of the happygo-lucky dreamer, that a new shop takes the place of the decrepit old one; and that the business is made to pay through thrift and Jess, the loving wife.

The village characters are amusing, but the story is far-reaching in its lesson. It is primarily a message. In these simple. Scotch lives we catch sight of the foot

*JESS AND CO. By J. J. Bell, author of "Wee Macgreegor." Harper Bros.

prints that run through all lives. In the noblest and the poorest homes, the law of love, applied to correct faults, must bear fruit, and here Jess covers the faults of her shiftless husband with a tenderness that wins admiration and creates for him a sympathy that he does not deserve. The processes are disheartening and the efforts. are useless, but she never loses heart, and never fails in patience; and finally succeeds in making a man of him through comprehension and devotion.

David Houston, standing with the lazy, loving eyes, gazing on his flowers, forgets the practical side of her life, but never loses hold on its love. In spite of all rules, he clothes this wayside life with a poetry that defies analysis. Through its atmosphere we are sharers in the movement, we become a part of the failure, we battle with the brave wife for the strength that is to crown the well-meaning husband, whose heart is in nature but whose work is in the shop. The square peg in the round hole is despairing. But it all ends well and we learn anew with Ruskin that here and everywhere, "all one's life is music if one touches the notes rightly and in time."

E

KATE BLACKISTON STILLE.

FERGY THE GUIDE *

VIDENTLY a parody on some of the popular nature stories of the

day, "Fergy, the Guide," by H. S. Canfield, promises to be read among sportsmen, especially those who have a sense of humor. The familiar fisherman's yarn is that "the biggest fish that he ever caught was the one that got away," but Fergy tells of the big fish that he caught. Even one who knows but little of the woods and streams is able to appreciate the fact that Fergy's stories are due to great stretches of his imagination or possibly to a "cup of Naturalist Boggs' persarv'tiv." The talkative guide has a keen wit and the insight into character of both man and beast which he displays is little. less than marvelous.

The stories seem unlimited in number and variety; tales of fishermen and sportsmen, tales of Fergy's own wonderful ex

*FERGY THE GUIDE. By H. S. Canfield. Henry Holt & Co.

so many conflicting details which tend to throw suspicion on first one character and then another that the reader becomes altogether confused, and it would take a mind almost as acute as that of the detective depicted, to grasp the true course of events. But such is not the case with "The Green Diamond." The author has given us a book that is written in a clear, vigorous style, and interesting from first to last. The story opens in Delhi, just at

*THE GREEN DIAMOND. By Arthur Morrison, author of "The Red Triangle," etc. Illustrated. L. C. Page & Co.

the close of the Great Durbar, whereat the accession of the first English emperor of India was proclaimed. During this event the tent of the Rajah of Goona was entered and a large green diamond commonly known as the Eye of Goona, was stolen. The hero of the tale, by a peculiar circumstance, unknowingly carries the stolen property to England. On discovering this later he determines to recover it and return it to its owner. In so doing he meets with a number of exciting experiences, and incidentaly falls in love. The ground work of the plot is, of course, far from new, but the details are extremely novel. R. C.

IF

F Mr. Read would write less crudely his books would be more widely appreciated. As it is he gets together a number of odd people, sets them on a stage and takes them through numerous incidents and situations with a skill that insures the impression of reality but all in a way that keeps one continually aware of a certain lack in artistic disposition and a most obvious lack in literary smoothness and finish. Veteran that Mr. Read is in novel-making, he is invariably the amateur in writing. He has versatility, he has a kind of creative force; he always presents unique people and attracts by his unusualness.

In the present story he pictures Kentucky in ante-bellum and Civil War days, his hero is "Turk," a freckle-faced boundboy. Turk falls in love with two girls, goes to war, comes home with education and fortune acquired and marries one of the girls. The style of the story is all Read. It may make another drama, as most of Mr. Read's stories do.

.

Herbert; but when he paints her asleep the picture makes him famous.

Rufus Nichols married a pretty woman and they had a son, Horace. Rufus was a tenor of some fame, and in his stage career he met Century Payne. Century was a singer, too, and sorrow followed. It ended in a divorce and a marriage between Century Payne and Rufus Nichols. Century, the heroine of Mrs. Kintzel's novel, was the offspring of this marriage. But the mother fell into bad ways and when Rufus died he had the little girl sent back to be brought up by his first wife.

Century, the girl, and Horace, the boy, her half brother, inherited their father's voice and in time they go on the stage. In the end Century is found to be heiress. to a title, but she marries the man she loves notwithstanding; he whom she had called "Uncle Herbert" since those first days when "nobody loved her" save only him.

There are many incidents in the story. Domestic life in Maryland and the negroes, various courtships and marriages and the usual ferment of love and hate and desire for revenge, are pictured. The pathetic note is strong at all times:-Mrs. Nichols, with her heart-break and her memories, Century with the mystery of her father and mother, Florence with her bereavement and Horace with the cloud that for a time enshrouds him. But Poky provokes many a laugh to offset the sorrow, and events move in a way that challenges monotony.

The interest aroused in the early chapters by Herbert's love for Century is sustained throughout, and makes a love-story both winning and pretty. The moral of the tale is strong, teaching the old lesson of the sins of the parents as visited upon the heads of the children, and more especially the cruelties of divorce, engendering evils and sadness and bringing about complications that threaten and oftentimes effect disaster.