A young lady, of Liberal opinions, who
heard these lines "went to a table" and
wrote a counter-blast:

"G is the genius that governs the nation,
L is the lords that require education,
A is the animus raised by the great,
D is the donkeys who fear for the State,
S is the standard that Liberals raise;
T is the Tories who howl in dispraise;
O's Opposition wanting a head,
N is the nation, not driven, but led;
E is old England shouting for joy:
Stick to the Government, Gladstone, my
boy!"

It is this last version, puerile and irrelevant
of its own class, that the excellent Liberal
Privy Councillor stamps with his approval
an extremely clever acrostic."

MARC

life. He passed into the Diplomatic service to proselytisation at the hands of opulent
under circumstances peculiarly creditable to fanatics who have not the humour to
himself. He left to become Private Secretary perceive that the spread of Christianity
to Disraeli, who had completely fascinated his
boyish imagination. Later he came into Parlia- among Christians would be the more appro-
ment, and was made secretary to the Poor Law priate object for their missionary activities,
Board. The year after he quarrelled with the Jews are more often brought before the
Disraeli, under circumstances of which I heard notice of the public by painful incidents
an intelligible account this evening for the than by the charm of a Hebrew personality,
first time, and left the Government with Lord or the achievements of a Jewish genius.
Salisbury and Lord Carnarvon. He then took
to Financial Diplomacy, by which he made a
considerable sum of money. He had states-
manlike abilities of a higher order than almost
any man on his side of politics, but he was
born in the wrong century; he ought to have
been the secretary, the confidential agent, and
at length, perhaps, the successful rival of

Of another poet the Diarist makes mention at this time, but in his capacity as a journalist." Among others with us today at Hampden was Edwin Arnold, who told us that the Daily Telegraph is at this moment negotiating to buy Babylon." "What next?" asked the amazed Diarist, needlessly as it now seems. That was twenty-five years ago, and the negotiations

are not yet completed.

Disraeli not only looked a sphinx, but became one to observers of the Diarist's order. Nevertheless, Sir Mountstuart manages to give a good many anecdotes, though mostly old ones, about the Chief." Some of the stories currently told are here further authenticated by the naming of the authorities for them. It was to Lord Aberdare that the new Lord

Alberoni."

The real nature of the quarrel between the
Chief and his former devotee is, oddly,
but characteristically enough, withheld.

"Im

Mr. Zangwill has given us an exception to this rule. In a weekly paper he recently informed us that he was the son of an East End Jew.

Readers of the

Dreamers of the Ghetto will become ac
quainted with a new attraction belonging
to the destitute alien and his descendants.
How many destitute immigrants from War-
saw or Berdicheff may be set off against Mr.
of the reading world, I cannot undertake
Zangwill's latest contribution to the delight

to say.

No one can rise from reading the Dreamers of the Ghetto without perceiving that he has been in the presence of a master.

Sir Mountstuart's Indian reminiscences are not included in these volumes. But he has notes on various Continental tours, inThe majority of Mr. Zangwill's fifteen. cluding a stay in Paris, where Mr. John stories are based on history. He has worked Morley presented him to Gambetta; and he met many Americans and had an apt ear for the mine of Graetz, the historian of the Jews, to good effect. He has sunk shafts into the their good sayings. Lowell, for instance, speaking of English cathedrals at a break: bed rock of that dull and industrious writer; and, without changing the material extracted, fast party, happily said: "Ely is like a has' imparted to it an element peculiar to monster which has crawled out of the fens himself alone. Mr. Zangwill is the prose and is sunning itself on the edge. Lichfield poet of atmosphere. He lifts the air from is like a swan.' It was a Swedish minister, the seventeenth century: he enables us to who, when there was gossip about a marriage breathe it. The blue skies of Smyrna, the between the old Duchess of Sutherland and waters of Venice, the colour and form of Garibaldi, and when someone said: mediæval Rome, the aroma of Poland, of possible, he has a wife already," retorted, Portugal, and of the Hague are reproduced, Beaconsfield said he felt that he was dead, Put up Gladstone to explain her away.' but in the Elysian fields. Once Sir Mount- The Diarist had a large acquaintance, not by a painstaking and conscientious stuart met Sir William Harcourt on his not merely among Parliament men, ut artist, but with the pencil of one touched with the divine afflatus. How he does way to Hughenden, whither Disraeli had among authors, ecclesiastics, and particularly it, and under what rules he produces invited him, desiring, as he said, to have botanists, whose business was his pleasure. his effects, I do not know, but it is there. the countenance of the staunchest Protestant His acquaintance with royalties is as large Still, the genius is Oriental: Semitic, not of his acquaintance at the re-opening of his as Prof. Max Müller's, but is touched upon Aryan. The fires are lambent; they illuchurch with its ritualistic rector. Our more lightly. He should, however, pay the minate, but do not warm. Perhaps one Diarist should have seen Sir William after, Count de Flandre the compliment of spelling reason is an inexplicable prolixity. In one not before, the visit, about which he told his name correctly in a new edition; where of the best of these stories, "A Child of the his friends some most excellent stories, also Schumann's name, instead of Schubert's, some of which we hope may have been should be printed as the composer of music Ghetto," is a paragraph of 252 lines of solid print; but it is a paragraph that the schoolboys of 1898 would do well to learn by

taken down; but that is the luck of this

for Heine's

"Beiden Grenadiere

; and

Diarist again and again. Plunket, once
Solicitor-General for Ireland, sat next same volume, should have revision.
Disraeli when Mr. Biggar first rose to
address the House. "What is that
creature?" asked the Chief, and, on being
told, replied: "Oh, I thought it was a
Leprehaun, one of the things that come out
in the moonlight to dance with the fairies."
The old story of Disraeli's early saying that
he meant to be Prime Minister of England

where a French gender, on p. 272 of the

"What's

A NOTABLE BOOK.

Dreamers of the Ghetto. By Israel Zangwill,

(William Heinemann.)

heart.

The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude. The Jew has always borne adversity with distinction. Prosperity, coupled with his passionate desire to shine and the greed and ignorance of Christians, is his curse, and may yet be his ruin. Prosperity to the Hebrew race seems to have a hereditary is given here by Sir Mountstuart on the So long as the engine of international The prosperous Jews of England and the and baleful effect in killing spiritual life. authority of Venables, who had it from Mrs. finance remains under Jewish control; so Continent look down, for the most part, Norton, who herself introduced Disraeli to long as public opinion is medicated' by with contempt upon the yearning of the Lord Melbourne, whose query, Jewish influence exerted over the Press poorer and persecuted members of their your ambition?" called forth the reply of Europe; so long as the Ghetto of race for the fulfilment of the Messianic prophetic. "A political finishing-governess," was Disraeli's first impression of John Stuart Poland and the Pale contain the saddest prophecies and the return to the Holy Land. millions on the earth's surface; so long Mill. On another page we seem to have the will the Jews continue to be the most in- the Jews, the invariable rejoinder is to Whenever prosperity is alleged against shadow of Robert Orange: teresting race among men. A people who point out the extreme poverty of the "Dined at the Athenæum with Butler baffled the Pharaohs, foiled Nebuchadnezzar, majority of the race. Johnstone. We talked much of Ralph Earle; thwarted Rome, defeated feudalism, circum are one eight-hundredth of the population. his joining the Roman Communion upon his vented the Romanoffs, financed Columbus They own one quarter of the wealth of the death-bed, among other things. Ralph Earle, in his discovery of America, baulked the land. In England agricultural decay, immy sail with whom in his caique from Therapia to the Simplegades remains among my most Kaiser, and undermined the third French ported food, industrial inflation, congested among my most Republic, supplies ample reason for curiosity. cities, and a democracy impotent to provide poetical recollections, was Interesting Englishmen I have known in public Exposed to constant social persecution and its own means of subsistence, form the soil

In France the Jews

MARCH 26, 1898.]

upon which the Jews flourish, and constitute an irresistible attraction to the persecuted Hebrews of other lands. The Huguenot immigrants of 1685 were completely absorbed in the population at the end of the second generation. As much cannot be said of the bulk of the English Jews. A few families, as remarkable for public spirit and refinement as for wealth, have given to Englishmen some idea of what the Jew may become when rooted in the country no less by affec tion and patriotism than by interest. Austria-Hungary the Jew, like his brethren all the world over, is an adept in the art of "getting on." An Austrian friend said the other day, "They have certainly all the money and most of the brains."

In

Mr.

Sidney Whitman says that were it not
for the kindly assistance of Jewish bankers
most of the noble manufacturers could
not carry on their business at all. The
Jews are all powerfully represented in
every walk of life that leads to influence
and fortune. The great business houses,
the banks, such railways as are in private
hands, are all controlled by them. Mr.
Zangwill himself asked the editor of the
Buda-Pesth newspaper, the Pesther Lloyd,
"Have you any Christians on your staff?
"I think we have one," was the editor's
reply.

Russia needed

Jewish question on
Mr. Zangwill, though a chronicler of point that it was a dozen years ago.
statesmanlike lines. contemptible thing from the literary stand-
dreamers, is too much an artist to be
himself the victim of sterile speculation. point out the danger which lies in this modern
But dramatic critics have not been slow to
The Jew hatred of the Russian Government tendency.
is fructifying: its harvest is at hand. That thing is "action," and it is only in so far
In a play, after all, the essential
the ripening process will be assisted by the as it ministers to "action" that dialogue
sunshine of Mr. Zangwill's genius is perhaps is effective on the stage. If its literary
the strongest tribute to the value of his quality is allowed to interfere with this the
Dreamers of the Ghetto..
play fails, and the dialogue, from the
dramatic point of view, fails also.

ARNOLD WHITE.

PLAYS, ACTABLE AND OTHERWISE.
The Princess and the Butterfly. By Arthur
Wing Pinero. (Heinemann.)

To cast all convention whatsoever to the winds, and try to write dialogue and construct situations without reference to the special needs of the stage must fundity or wit of dialogue, or mere fidelity lead to disaster. Mere beauty or proto life, may be effective in a novel. It may be read for its own sake irrespective of its Macaire. precise bearing on the plot. But on the By W. E. Henley and R. L. stage other factors must be taken into Stevenson. (Heinemann.) account which are not present in the writing disregarded. What the writer of modern of a novel, and none of them can be safely comedy, therefore, has to find, if he takes Hernani. By Victor Hugo. Translated his art and the stage seriously, and desires into English Verse by R. Farquharson to be acted as well as to be read, is a style Sharp. (Richards.) which shall produce the illusion of ordinary spoken speech to the audience while, at the same time, it retains a certain literary rarely if ever found. finish which, in actual conversation, is

Godefroi and Yolande. By Laurence Irving.
(Lane.)

THE accidents of the publishing season representing widely different dramatic have brought it about that four plays, methods and schools, have reached us more or less at the same moment. Two of themMr. Pinero's The Princess and the Butterfly, and Mr. Laurence Irving's Godefroi and Yolande are now published for the first time. Of the others, Messrs. Henley and Stevenson's Macaire is already known to those who are interested in what is called "Literary Drama," while Victor Hugo's Hernani, which Mr. R. F. Sharp has attempted to render into English blank verse, is well known alike on the stage and in the study, and must always retain its interest for students of literature, if only as the first-fruits of "1830," and the Romantic movement in French drama.

Very often a kind of dialogue which is delightful in a novel-Mr. Henry James's, for example-is quite lost on the stage. There are some people who, realising this, and realising also how effective mere fustian and declamation often are in the theatre, despair altogether of the drama as a literary form, and declare that literary excellence is incompatible with modern theatrical effectiveness; but it by no means follows, because merely literary dialogue is ineffective on the stage, that the dramatist for stage purposes must throw all literary quality to the winds and fall back upon artificial or conventional rant.

In Russia and Poland the condition of the Jewish race presents a vivid contrast to the plethoric prosperity they have attained in freer lands. Within the last few days a deputation of Russian Jews have submitted to the Minister of the Interior a memorandum in which it is demonstrated that the present situation cannot be allowed to last much longer. Over five millions of Jews, who are increasing at four times the rate of the Russians—themselves the most prolific of civilised nations-are submerged in hopeless misery from the sheer pressure of existence. Seven years ago the conduct of Russia was arraigned before the public opinion of Europe in terms since applied to Turkey for her treatment of the Armenians. Russia has not altered her ways by a hair's Mr. Pinero has realised this, and in many All who are interested in the revival of his plays, most of all, perhaps, in The breadth, but there is a conspiracy to suppress of dramatic art in England must rejoice Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, his dialogue, the actual state of misery suffered by the at the modern fashion the modern fashion of publishing while unquestionably effective on the stage, Jewish millions imprisoned in the big Ghetto plays which is now in vogue among has also a real literary quality. And in of Central Europe, perhaps because when our leading playwrights. For almost any The Princess and the Butterfly, though money she obtained it dramatist would hesitate to publish a con- it is neither the most dramatic nor the from the Jews-£16,000,000 sterling were fessedly ill-written play. Time was when most literary of his dramas, there is still to guaranteed by Jewish firms. Excellent very slipshod writing was held to be be found a good deal of writing which excuses are advanced why the Jews supply good enough for the English stage. A combines these qualities. Mr. Pinero, in subsidies to the Russian persecutor; but harrowing situation or two, or a certain fact, has hit upon the secret of that via the fact remains that the Jews in Eastern amount of spirited horse-play, were supposed media between purely literary and purely Europe are in a calamitous state of destitu- to be all that was required to hold a London theatrical dialogue which satisfies at once tion and misery, that their agony attracts audience, and all the more delicate qualities the audience in the theatre and the reader no attention, and that they are degenerating of dramatic work were neglected. In the in the study. In other respects his most morally, physically, and intellectually. Pros- last few years there has been an undeniable recently published play is hardly so satisperous Jews make no sign. improvement in this respect. Plays are written factory. The plot, as he works it out, is Under these circumstances the appearance with greater care, if not always with greater not in itself dramatic, and there is next to of such a book as the Dreamers of the skill. Characters are studied from the life, no action. The construction, for so practised Ghetto is of service, not only to English and delineated with some approach to dramatist, is curiously weak. Moreover, if literature, but also majority of a race destined to become pre-ditional lines, and serving simply as pegs on to the suffering fidelity, instead of merely following tra- it be true that the first duty of a comedy is to dominant in the counsels of the world. which to hang well-worn situations. excite emotion, The Princess and the ButterIn fly must be held to fail, for it calls forth Anything that attracts attention to the Jews dialogue a certain literary quality is at neither laughter nor tears. Its interest is is, indirectly a benefit to the suffering least aimed at, though no doubt seldom purely intellectual, while it is not sufficiently The silent tragedy completely attained; and in general the fantastic to amuse by the mere humour of its end, and it cannot be long before Russia similar matters als certainly risen. Even Pinero's playe, The Amazons, succeeded in is approaching standard of play-writing in these and character and situation, as another of Mr. herself will be compelled to deal with the the modern farce is not always the wholly doing.

millions of the Pale.

that continues

year after

a

Of the Henley-Stevenson Macaire it may be said that it has more dramatic possibilities in it than any other play which these two men of letters produced. Indeed, it has more than one scene which even the most practised playwright could not improve upon. But, unhappily, for theatrical purposes, only certain classes of play can be produced with any hope of success, and a "melodramatic farce is not one of these. Laughter and blood do not combine happily on the stage, and at the theatre death at least must be always serious. The death of Macaire at the end of the third act is a very effective stage climax; but it is lead up to by extravaganza as farcical as even Mr. Gilbert could conceive, and is out of tune with the rest of the play. Much of the dialogue is admirably written, and the character of Macaire is conceived in so masterly a fashion that we believe a melodrama might yet be written round him if the surviving author would consent to eliminate the farcical element in his drama.

iambic foot was merely an unconscious echo
of Shakespeare's verse structure. But Mr.
Irving's prose has other and more serious
faults than this tendency to become verse. Its
grammar and syntax are not always faultless
and its mannerism is apt to lead to very
serious obscurity of diction. But the play
shows a grasp of dramatic method and a
knowledge of how to work up to an effective
situation.

Of Mr. Sharp's Hernani one can only
say that it is a straightforward, fairly com-
petent piece of work. The difficulty of
translating Hugo's lines into English blank
verse can hardly be exaggerated, and the result
cannot be called poetry. When this is said
it can be easily understood that the beauty
of the original has mainly disappeared in
the translation.

Mr. Laurence Irving is an interesting figure among the younger dramatists, and his "Mediaeval Drama in One Act," Godefroi and Yolande, though it is by no means a finished work of art, is worth reading. The plot is founded on a story which must be familiar to all English lovers of poetry, from Mr. Swinburne's poem "The Leper." The play is written after the manner of M. Maeterlinck, and is more in the nature of a literary exercise than an original dramatic effort. Mr. Irving has evidently felt the fascination of M. Maeterlinck's dialogue, and he has studied with some success the methods-we may even say the tricks-by which he produces his effects; but that, after all, is not very difficult to do, and though imitation is the sincerest flattery, it is by no means the highest form of art. From a literary point of view, his style is distinctly curious. It is printed as prose, and apparently Mr. Irving means it to be considered as prose, but a considerable part of it might just as well have been printed as blank verse. Here is one passage of many which might be so treated without the alteration of a single word:

"GODEFROI:

WAR CORRESPONDENCE.

that

charge of incapacity which has been brought
against the officers of the Tirah field force.
"Inefficient transport," he asserts, was the
cause of the weakness, and the blame-the
Indian Government's. We cannot say
he proves this; but he demonstrates the
enormous difficulties which beset any trans-
port arrangements on the frontier.
At one
time General Lockhart had a train of no
fewer than 71,800 animals under his control!
Mr. James elsewhere remarks that in this
class of warfare

"it is the wounded who are the cause of

disaster. A wounded man at once means six
men out of the fighting line, four to carry the
casualty, and one to carry the rifles of the
carrying party. Five casualties at once reduce
a company to so small a number that they
become insufficient to keep the enemy's fire
down, and then follows one of these deplorable
incidents in which our frontier fighting is so
prolific."

By the way, Mr. James's use of the word
"casualty in the above passage indicates
the rather frozen style in which his book is
written. It is Reuter between covers.

The Indian Frontier War: being an Account of
the Mohmund and Tirah Expeditions, 1897.
By Lionel James. (Heinemann.)
MR. JAMES was Reuter's special war corre-
spondent in the recent Mohmund and Tirah
expeditions, and apparently the contents of
this book are founded on, if they are not verbal
repetitions of, the despatches he sent home
in that capacity. We have here, therefore,
a very matter-of-fact account of the recent
frontier fighting. Mr. James tells the story
without subjecting it to any literary process
that might enhance its effect. We do not
complain of this; the book admirably fulfils
its purpose, that of recording in daily detail
the events and movements of these expedi-
tions to quell the revolt. But the technical
ities which the ordinary man is content to
swallow in the newspaper are apt to tire
him in a book; and we think that Mr.
James's work will be fully appreciated only
by soldiers and men with Indian experience.
The public wearied of the war while it was
yet in progress. In truth, the thrilling
story of Dargai was the one event that
relieved a daily dribble of small actions and
short disheartening death-lists. Instinc-
tively one turns to Mr. James's account of
that red rush up hill. Here is part of it:

What am I here?

I am Sir Dolorous! Sir Long-visage! MEGARDE: Thy father poor he was, but he was proud!

GODEFROI: Sad am I here; sadder were I elsewhere.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: an
Episode of Frontier War. By Winston
L. Spencer Churchill, Lieut. 4th Queen's
Own Hussars. (Longmans.)
THERE is but one fault to find with Lieut.
THERE is but one fault to find with Lieut.
Spencer Churchill's book, and since that is
both small and singular it shall be kept till
the end. It will be remembered that last
July, when the news was flashed abroad
that Malakand and Chakdara were invested
by the fanatical tribesmen of the Swat Valley,

the Indian Government ordered the prepara

tion of a Field Force, under the command of

Sir Bindon Blood, for the relief of these posts. Lieut. Churchill was attached to that force-as a non-combatant, it is to be supposed-and wrote letters home to the Daily Telegraph, descriptive of the marching shuffled, redacted, and added to, and the and the fighting. These letters have been result is before us, and a very admirable

and inspiriting result it is. It is plain that Lieut. Churchill has inherited much of the do and intellectual quality of his father,

the late Lord Randolph Churchill. He may not be a speaker, as his father was, but he is a writer of more than promise-in fact, of excellent performance. He has maniThe signal was given, the guns boomed out festly a clear eye in his head, which can their salvoes, and the cliff was crowned with a observe very swiftly and closely, and a great I am one made to suffer and eat out semi-circle of bursting shrapnel; then the final gift of language with which to express what My heart in hopeless hope. order came a momentary pause and the he sees. From the very first paragraph MEGARDE Come hence, come hence! officers of the Gordons rushed over the nullah. GODEFROI: No; leave me, mother, here! one is delighted with the exercise of his The pipes rolled out the slogan, and with tight- faculty: MEGARDE: Son, leave thee here? clenched teeth the Highlanders burst into the Thou wouldst not stay here. Thenopen. It was an awful two minutes. The "All along the north and north-west GODEFROI: I cannot hence. length of the exposed zone was swept with a frontiers of India lie the Himalayas, the MEGARDE: What can thus keep you here? leaden stream, and the dust of the striking greatest disturbance of the earth's surface bullets half hid the advancing men. The head that the convulsions of chaotic periods have of the upper column melted away, but a few produced. The Himalayas are not a line, struggled on, and there were more to take the but a great country of mountains. Standing places of the fallen. Out over the cover came on some lofty pass or commanding point in the kilted soldiers, the Sikhs, Dorsets, Derbys, Dir, Swat, or Bajaur, range after range is een Gurkhas, in spasmodic rushes as the Hre as the long surges of an Atlantic swell, and in slackened, and the cover halfway was won. moment for breath, and the men were up again. white-crested roller yet higher than the A the distance some glittering snow-peak suggests Another terrible rush, another medley of strug- rest. gling men and writhing figures, and the three companies of Gurkhas were reached."

You love this life?

GODEFROI: Not I-I hate this life!

What is it then?

MEGARDE:
GODEFROI: Oh, leave me, ask me not!
MEGARDE:
My son, I am thy mother."

I charge thee speak. One can with difficulty suppose that this is accidental, though it is of course possible that Mr. Irving did not realise how closely his prose followed the rhythm of blank verse,

and that his marked preference for the

Mr. James warmly protests against the

And so on.
That is as good an impres
for of one who is not a professional scribe
sionistic picture in words as need be asked

and it renders the effect of the Himalayas come and batter down the church towers to
better than any description we can remember. build himself a palace?
It is little to the point to say (as a querulous pass us with a banner of Bonfigli, and women
Will no procession
purist may) that, in the last sentence quoted, wailing that the plague should be removed ?"
standing" ought to have another subject Never, save in the dreams of those who are
than ((
range to agree with. Lieut. dreamers born.
Churchill is a soldier, not a schoolmaster, soon again to cross the Piazza of Saint
But for ourselves, we hope
and we know what he means; if the present Lorenzo, and drink from that fountain that
participle "standing" ventures to demand was
another subject of the sentence than the one to the people of Perugia."
ever dear as the apple of their eye
given it, then all the worse for the present
participle. But it is not over participles
and subjects that Lieut. Churchill is so
frequently coming to grief, but-of all
small things in writing over the use of
Why is he so madly generous in
bestowing them? Here is a short sentence,
which will serve as well as a long one to

Trialogues. By William Griffiths. (Kansas:

Hudson-Kimberley Publishing Co.)

NOTHING that can give distinction to a book
has been omitted by the publishers of this
little work. The edition is limited to 250
copies, of which ours is 100; there are more
blank end-papers than any volume ought to
have; the covers are of warehouse paper;
the design thereon has no relation to the
contents; and the prefatory note is an
exercise in fantastic printing. In it the
author speaks of his work as an attempt to
introduce the old form of Elizabethan
dialogue into America. He might probably
more accurately have
Davidsonian for Elizabethan, because Tria-
substituted John
logues instantly strikes one as an American
adaptation of the Fleet-street Eclogues. Mr.
Griffiths, however, has thoughts of his own,
and considerable rhyming skill, and his is a
pleasant little book, with now and then a
really invigorating line. Here is a brisk
little snatch:

"The city holds for some, mayhap,
A jolly life, but O,

As early Spring forefeels the sap
Awaken through the snow,
Give me the sturdy roving foot,
Then with a shouldered load,
When Hope brings in an easy boot,
I sing the open road."

in The Encyclopædia of Sport. Three authors Historic New York. Edited by Maud Wilder

overbearing Dutch governor-Peter Stuy- educational-possessed him. He began rooms, but was exhibited in ways of almost
vesant. Very excellent, too, is Mr. Durand's his geographical surveys in Southern incredible pettiness. The station authorities
narrative of the contest for the supremacy Konkan in 1823, and the results of his
over city finance between Stuyvesant and labours met with unstinted praise from
the burgomasters, in his paper on "The his superior officers. In addition to the
City Chest of New Amsterdam." Other accounts of the geographic and litho-
notable contributions are those by Miss Ruth graphic undertakings, which constituted his
Putnam on "Annetje Jan's Farm," and by life work, extracts are given from his
Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt on "The Bowery.
"The Bowery." speeches at Bible Society meetings, and at
This savoury quarter was originally the site Exeter Hall gatherings, together with a
of a number of Dutch " bouweries," or voluminous correspondence, addressed to
arms, whence the name. The volume is Government officials, private friends, and
adorned with a number of particularly members of his own family. Eminent as
well reproduced illustrations, most of them Lieutenant-Colonel Jervis was in ability and
showing quaint specimens of Dutch archi- sterling piety, he was singularly lacking in
tecture, with fascinating "crow-step" gables humour and sense of proportion, as witnessed
A second series of the "Half-Moon Papers," by his letters to his children. They are
is promised by the editors, and we shall indeed didactic! The only humour in
await it with interest.
the book is unintentional.

Goldfields and Chrysanthemums. By Catherine
Bond. (Simpkin, Marshall & Co.)
THESE notes of travel in Australia and

at Retford refused to supply water there to
the Great Northern engines, so as to hamper
the through service between Peterborough
and Leeds; and at Grimsby blocks were
placed across the rails to prevent the Great
Northern using the running powers to which
it was entitled. On one occasion the Great
Northern passengers reached the Humber
ferry only to find that the last boat had
been purposely sent away without them, and
had to spend the night in the railway
carriages or on sofas at the station; on
another a Great Northern engine which
had dared to show its buffers in Notting-
ham was hunted by a posse of Midland
engines, as if it had been a wild elephant,
and after a desperate struggle captured, and
interned in a disused shed, whence it was
not released for seven months. At Man-
chester the North-Western and Sheffield
companies had a station in common.
Nevertheless,

The Fern World. (New Edition.) By
Francis George Heath. (The Imperial
Press, Ltd.)

Japan are the outcome of a diary, the wish
of friends for its publication, and a con-
sciousness on the part of the writer that an
unprinted journal is a violation of the laws
of nature. The book is in no sense litera-
ture, but its descriptions of journeyings in
Western Australia, and its pictures of life
in Japan will serve "to while away an hour
or so," and thus fulfil the modest ambition
of the writer. It is attractively bound,
beautifully printed, and well illustrated.
The reader is gently led through the
monotonous scenery of Western Australia;
camps in the Bush; introduced to Cool-
gardie and the goldfields; meets trains of
camels on the march; and suffers the shock
of encountering a man
a bicycle in
regions sacred to desolation and lack of
water. The authoress has an extraordinary
partiality for the word "so." It is worked
from the beginning to the end of the book
with inexorable pertinacity. Thus :

the North-Western authorities began to take people into custody for coming by the Sheffield trains into the Manchester station; they frightened an old lady out of her wits and distracted several feeble people; but at last they got hold of a lawyer, who showed them they had 'caught a tartar'; and so after that no more passengers were apprehended.”

THIS bounteous volume is a storehouse of in-
formation on the habits and habitats of each
member of the British fern family. It does
not come before the reader seeking recog-
nition. It has already "been sold in every
English-speaking country in the world."
For some time out of print, it is now re-
issued in an eighth edition at " a popular
price." The volume is divided into five
parts: "The Fern World"; "Fern Culture,"
under which head suggestions and practical
instruction are given; "Fern Hunting"
"Some Rambles through Fern Land"; and
"British Ferns: their Description, Distribu-
tion, and Culture." This last division, which
comprises the greater part of the book, is
illustrated by delicately coloured plates, and
the fern collector and would-be cultivator
will find herein every assistance. Under the
heading of "Rambles through Fern Land,"
the reader is led through the coombes and
over the downs of Devon, the home of so
many beautiful specimens of fern life. For
the casual student, as well as for the
specialist, the book will be found in-

"Our pace is so slow, and the sun so near the horizon, that when we arrive at the Gardens we decide only to take a hurried look round, not staying to see the curator; so we soon turn to jog back again, feeling very disappointed. ... They are so erect . It does not signify so much, 80 we dismiss the machine."

These extracts are culled from one page.
Thomas Best Jervis. By W. P. Jervis.
Thomas Best Jervis. By W. P. Jervis.
(Eliot Stock.)

THIS book is "A Centenary Tribute," edited
by a son of the subject of the memoir.

“Thomas Best Jervis's estimate of the vital importance of geography to mankind in every possible walk of human activity was one which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to surpass. He viewed geology, botany, ethnography, statistics, and numerous other sciences, as transformed into adjective forms subservient to geography, so as to become geological, botanical,

ethnographical, statistical geography."

valuable.

The History of the Great Northern Railway,
1845-1895. By Charles H. Grinling.
(Methuen & Co.)

It is difficult to realise that these in

cidents, which might have come out of one
of Mr. Gilbert's comic operas, should have
taken
prosaic business as railway-management
place in connexion with such a
seems to us nowadays. Fortunately for the
Great Northern, it had in these troublous
times an exceptionally strong chairman in
Mr. Edmund Denison, who, like his son
after him (the present Lord Grimthorpe),
was a "bonny fighter." The biggest storm
he ever weathered was at the half yearly
meeting in August, 1857, after the dis-
covery that Leopold Redpath, the registrar
of the company, had robbed it of over
£200,000 by creating fictitious stock.

After that the most noteworthy occurrences bad accidents in the life of the Company have been a few notably that at Abbot's Ripton in 1876, when three trains collided and thirteen people were killed, and that at MR. GRINLING'S book tells us in almost too Canonbury in 1881, when no fewer than minute detail of the early struggles of the four trains were in collision in a tunnel and London and York Railway (the nucleus of the six people were killed; and the races to Great Northern) before Parliamentary Com- Edinburgh and Aberdeen, in 1888 and 1895 mittees. The broad fact is, that owing to the respectively, which are still fresh in the attempts of "King" Hudson and his fellow- public memory. The Great Northern has monarchs to strangle the infant at its birth, not of late years been the most financially and the seventy days' fight in "one of the prosperous of railway companies, but it has smallest of the wooden sheds in which, remained one of the most enterprising. Its pending the completion of the new Houses history deserved to be written, and it has of Parliament, Private Bill Committees were lost nothing in Mr. Grinling's able hands. condemned to meet," nearly half a million Everyone who is interested in railways of money was sunk in preliminary expenses. should read his book. Fortunately, most of the original share-An Eton Bibliography. By L. V. Harcourt. holders were substantial people, and not mere stags,' ," like a certain "poor brother (Swan Sonnenschien.) of the Charterhouse," who, though his THIS has few claims to be considered a yearly income, derived from pensions, was scientific bibliography. It is rather a handunder £100 a year, had contracted for (and list of Etoniana, mainly drawn from the disposed of at a premium) a large quantity author's own collection. The majority of stock. of the items directly concern the college; The obstructiveness of rival companies a few are works of general literature of did not end in the Parliamentary Committee- Eton masters, and should have been omitted.

To a reader consumed by a like passion this book will possess elements of interest. Having passed a brilliant examination at Addiscombe Military College, young Jervis was enrolled as ensign in the Bombay Engineer Corps on June 1, 1813, and from that time to his death, in 1857, the interests of India-geographical, spiritual, moral, and