Barstow's New House," while Christmas poems by Edwin Markham and Ethelwyn Wetherald are offered in "Good Housekeeping," to say nothing of a story, "The Angel of the Christmas Tapers," by Countess Alida von Krockow. In the "Metropolitan" there are repetitions of names already mentioned. Mr. Le Gallienne has contributed a love story, "Once upon a Time," and O. Henry and T. Jenkins Hains each have a tale, as have, Joel Chandler Harris, Alfred Henry Lewis, W. A. Fraser and E. H. Southern. The poets are Charles G. D. Roberts, Clinton Scollard, Gelett Burgess, Oliver Herford and Carolyn Wells. In "Munsey's" Alice MacGowan presents a short story, "The Luck of Gordon-Bligh," and in the "Cosmopolitan" David Graham Phillips cusses "The present upheaval in France." The serial installments shrink to the background this month, but they are still there, "The Princess Passes," by the authors of "The Lightning Conductor," in T dis the "Metropolitan;" "The Abbesse of Vlaye," by Stanley Weyman, in "Munsey's;" "The Rawhide," by Stewart E. White in "McClure's," "The Prospector,' in "Leslie's," and "The Prodigal Son," in "Everybody's." The complete novels are "A Darling Traitor," by Alden March, in "Lippincott's;" "Her Prairie Knight," by B. M. Bower, in "Ainslee's;" "Clavering and His Daughter," by Foxcroft Davis, in the "Smart Set," and "A Modern Swiss Family Robinson," by John Brisben Walker, in the "Cosmopolitan." The "World's Work" contains a Christmas article, entitled "The Christmas Gift," and "Country Life in America" has stories by Joel Chandler Harris and Harry Leon Wilson and two special articles, "How to Decorate for Christmas" and "Raising House Plants for Christmas." The subject of the Christmas "Masters in Art" is Copley, a subject that should interest widely. Best-Selling Books HE big book of the year promises to be "The Masquerader," the English title of which is "John Chilcote M. P." In England, Scotland and the United States this seems to be the bestseller a fact owing, no doubt, to the unique character of the story and the undoubted power for holding the interest that it possesses. The other books on the best-selling list of fiction represent chiefly the new stories by writers whose reputations have long been secure, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Kipling and Anthony Hope for example. In "Miscellany" "The Simple Life" seems to continue in its popular career, and the new Japan book, by Lafcadio Hearn, is, as might be expected, greatly in demand. Beverly of Graustark;-George Barr Mc- Double Harness;-Anthony Hope. MISCELLANEOUS: The Simple Life;-Charles Wagner. Recollections of Robert E. Lee;-Captain "Martyrdom of an Empress." At Wanamaker's, New York. ton. The Masquerader;-Katherine Cecil ThursBeverly of Graustark;-George Barr McCutcheon. Old Gorgon Graham;—George Horace Lori mer. Affair at the Inn;-Kate Douglas Wiggin and others. God's Good Man;-Marie Corelli. A Questionable Advance When playwrights turn moralists and novelists expound the ethical significance of the Ten Commandments we may feel that we have indeed become a seriousminded people, acutely alive to the sinfulness of light-hearted, irresponsible enjoyment. But is this true reasoning? Can one argue that fiction and plays written "with a purpose" prove that the Englishspeaking nations are thoughtful and conscientious, with minds intent on the moral purport of their literature and drama? An honest consideration of facts forces one to emphatically deny this conclusion. Limiting the question to Americans, an analysis of national characteristics discloses business sagacity, intellectual cleverness, adaptability, indomitable spirits, and unexampled inventiveness, as well as courage and perseverance; but that we are sober-minded and morally sensitive no one would dare to maintain. Therefore, the recent vogue of problem novels and plays must be attributed to other causes. Thoughtful comparison between the novels of to-day and of fifty years ago shows for those of the present greatly increased numbers (hardly a matter for congratulation), more ingenuity in plot and a certain facility in style; yet the oldfashioned reader will look in vain for the high standards and single-minded purposes of those less complex days. Then right was right and wrong was wrong, and if the heroines portrayed in the novels of those past generations were less clever and self-dependent, they at least were purehearted, more really womanly, and the men were more honorable, brave and more chivalrous than the characters which crowd the pages of our latter-day problem stories. Advancing civilization brings in its wake. many counterbalancing evils, so may it not be possible that higher mental culture may mean a lowerng of individual and national ideals? It would seem this result is mirrored in the plays and novels of the time!"Literary News." NOTE. It has seemed best to make this month's installment of the "Educational" much smaller than usual in order to gain space for book reviews and notices, of which there are necessarily so many in this particular issue. We shall try to double the installment for the January number and take up Zola in French Literature; Chapman and Ben Jonson in English Literature and the first period of German Literature. The study of English Literature began in the April, 1904, issue of Book The following study owes something to "The Age of Shakespeare," by During the eighteenth century, Shakespeare was studied diligently, but the minor Elizabethan dramatists, those who preceded and succeeded Shakespeare, were left to an inglorious obscurity. Their resurrection was due largely to Lamb's exquisite sense of beauty. Lamb discovered these minor poets, so to speak, and by the force of his authority spread appreciation for them and, romanticism reviving at about this time, with Shelley, Byron and the rest, we find the nineteenth century as extravagantly enthusiastic over the smaller Elizabethans, as the eighteenth century was negligent. As a matter of fact, the post-Shakespearean drama was of little permanent worth, save in patches. The one significant figure is Ben Jonson, the works of the others show flashes of inspiration, snatches of rare decisive beauty, but a general incoherency, gross weakness in characterization and lack of adequate plot. The men most worth studying among the post-Shakespeareans are Beaumont and Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, Chapman and, of course, Ben Jonson. Francis Beaumont belonged to an old Leicestershire family, and was the son of Sir Francis Beaumont. LitBeaumont tle is known of the facts of his 1585?-1616 life, save that he probably abandoned law to write plays, that he worked with Fletcher in a kind of partnership which began about 1607, and that he died at the early age of thirty, in 1616, the same year that Shakespeare died. John Fletcher, the younger son of Richard Fletcher, chaplain of Mary Stuart during her last days, John Fletcher and later Bishop of London, 1579-1625 was born at Rye, in Sussex, in 1579. He attended Benedict College, Cambridge, and began his literary career in London in 1607. He did some writing, it is supposed, prior to his collaboration with Beaumont, for "The Woman's Prize" is assigned to the year 1604, and after Beaumont's death he continued writing, both alone and in collaboration with various dramatists, especially Massinger. It is said that Fletcher had a share in some fifty dramas, but the haste with which he must have performed his work is shown in the carelessness that everywhere mars his writing. Much of his sonamed verse is more prose than poetry, his respect for the laws of poetic form having been gauged by his mood or convenience, and his intrinsic thought being not sufficiently poetic to make the substance unmistakable in character. Nevertheless, Fletcher was versatile and wonderfully clever. His touch is light, graceful; he had a penchant for frivolity and a lack of moral seriousness which made his comedy, according to some of the best critics, the funniest thing in Elizabethan drama outside Shakespeare. His tragedy is revolting, but his comedy is full of inventiveness and ingenuity and has many brilliant touches, as for instance, "The Little French Lawyer." His best plays are all farcical, except "The Faithful Shepherdess," which is marked by lyric beauty of a high quality and the prettiness of quaint conceits. In his collaborations he gained something in moral strength; with Beaumont came especially the sentimental "Philaster," "The Maid's Tragedy," and "A King and No King" are more sentimental than real, but when Massinger contributed to the Fletcherian cleverness he gave new power and more secure characterization. Concerning Beaumont's Beaumont's work, Seccombe and Allen have this to say: His tendency was towards themes of a sentimentally romantic or semi-tragic character. He wrote a fine, nobly lucid verse, remarkably free from mannerism and often beautifully cadenced. He has great rhetorical power and felicity of phrase and touches of high imagination. Of all Elizabethan dramatic poets, putting aside Shakespeare and Jonson, he is, perhaps, the most consistently fine stylist. Thomas 1570 ?-1640? Very few facts facts are known about Thomas Dekker. He seems to have been acquainted with the lowest strata of London life, and seems to have been familiar with the Debtors' Prison from frequent sojourns there. In his literary career he was something of a hack, trying his hand at everything and collaborating with any and everybody. His prose is humorous and satirical; his plays, fantastic and witty, with much of the lyrical quality. Contrary to most Elizabethans, he founded his plays on real life, of which he evidently saw much, and in which he apparently had the intensest interest. His characterization is one of his strongest properties, and his realistic touches compensate for some of his lack of rhetorical fineness. He is generally accredited with the authorship of "The Shoemaker's Holiday," "Old Fortunatus," "The Honest Whore," "Match Me in London," and "The Witch of Edmonton," besides many Thomas Heywood 1575?-1650 220 Thomas Heywood was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and began writing for the stage in 1596. He confessed to having "had a finger" in as many as plays, only 24 of which are extant. Lamb called him a "prose Shakespeare," but this seems to overrate his powers. He wrote chiefly of domestic life among the English middle-class and the qualities that single him out are a certain pleasing realism and a touch of pathetic beauty. His best-known play is "A Woman Killed with Kindness," written in 1603. Selection From "The Witch of Edmonton," by Thomas Dekker. ACT V. SCENE I. The Witch's Cottage. Enter Mother Sawyer. MOTHER SAWYER. Still wronged by every slave, and not a dog Bark in his dame's defense? I am called witch, Yet am myself bewitched from doing harm. Have I given myself to thy black lust Thus to be scorned? Not see me in three days! I'm lost without my Tomalin; prithee come, Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings If in the air thou hover'st, fall upon me Muster-up all the monsters from the deep, And break from hell, I care not! Could I run Not yet come! the worrying of wolves, biting DOG. He has the back of a sheep, but the belly of an otter; devours by sea and land. "Why am I in white?" didst thou not pray to me? M. SAW. Yes, thou dissembling hell-hound! Why now in white more than at other times? DOG. Be blasted with the news! whiteness is day's footboy, a forerunner to light, which shows thy old rivelled face: villanies are stripped naked; the witch must be beaten out of her cockpit. M. SAW. Must she? she shall not: thou'rt a lying spirit: Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? Are far more hot than they which flame outright. If thou my old dog art, go and bite such As I shall set thee on. DOG. I will not. M. SAW. I'll sell myself to twenty thousand fiends To have thee torn in pieces, then, DOG. Thou canst not; thou art so ripe to fall into hell, that no more of my kennel will so much as bark at him that hangs thee. M. SAW. I shall run mad. DOG. Do so, thy time is come to curse, and rave, and die; the glass of thy sins is full, and it must run out at gallows. M. SAW. It cannot, ugly cur; I'll confess nothing; And not confessing, who dare come and swear I have bewitched them? I'll not confess one mouthful. DOG. Choose, and be hanged or burned. M. SAW. Spite of the devil and thee, I'll muzzle up my tongue from telling tales, DOG. Spite of thee and the devil, thou'lt be condemned. M. SAW. Yes! when? DOG. And ere the executioner catch thee full in's claws, thou'lt confess all. M. SAW. Out, dog! DOG. Out, witch! thy trial is at hand: Our prey being had, the devil does laughing stand. (Run aside. |