That is to say, although this story did turn out right, although Pompilia was vindicated and the truth did prevail, it was a lucky accident, by which we are not to be betrayed into a credulous and specious optimism. Not such a dizzy height of idealistic rapture, after all.

And so I beg to reiterate the appreciation due to Judge Gest for the new light he has thrown on this dark situation, by his thorough investigation and sane analysis.

F. T. R.

EDITOR'S NOTE.-"So absolutely good is truth" that the editor must point out that Mrs. Russell, in an article "Gold and Alloy" published in July, 1924, in Studies in Philology, pointed out the remarkable discrepancy between the story of Browning's poem and the story in The Old Yellow Book upon which it is based, In fairness to Mrs. Russell, this previous work should be noted. ;

Konrad Wallenrod and Other Writings of Mickiewicz. Translated from the Polish by JEWELL PARISH, DOROTHEA PRALL RADIN, GEORGE RAPALL NOYES, and others. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.

The outstanding feature of Professor Noyes' numerous translations is their academic character. They are not merely translations from a foreign language. They are scholarly contributions to Slavonic studies which open a new era in the history of Slavonic research among the English-speaking scholars. For they not merely introduce the American public to a wealth of literary creations hitherto with the exception of Russian literaturealmost entirely unknown in this country; but they also build a solid and highly reliable foundation for the future history of Slavonic literatures yet to be written in the English tongue. It has been repeatedly complained in the past that the chief difficulty in presenting a fairly complete history of Slavonic literatures-be it in the form of a lecture course or a book-lies in the absence of well translated and philologically reliable examples. For it is seldom that a person combines a thorough knowledge of various Slavonic dialects with a mastery of English sufficient to enable him to render fragments of foreign poetry into good English verse. Professor Noyes has successfully overcome this difficulty by his method of producing faithful English prose versions and allowing his co-workers to turn them into verse.

To the long list of Professor Noyes' translations has been recently added perhaps the most successful of all-a selection from the works of the greatest Polish poet, Adam Mickiewicz. This titan of verse, whose bewitching charm consists largely in the

magic of words, affords a needed antidote to the present generation of prosaic businessmen and rather cynical young poets. Mickiewicz's volcanic power of expression, his ardent patriotism, and genuine religious instincts may stir some new or long forgotten strings in the devastated hearts of post-war humanity. One thing he indubitably shares with our generation, that is, a highly complex personality. The elements of his mentality are very different from ours, yet the very fact of his complexity makes him near to us. Psychologically he represents a strange combination of French revolutionist, Catholic monk, and Polish patriot. He .thinks as a French revolutionist, feels as a medieval crusader, and lives as a typical representative of the Polish émigrés who invaded European .capitals after the unfortunate year of 1831. These three aspects of the man find expression in the three principal fields in which his written work was done.

To the first category belongs the "Forefathers' Eve" translated by Mrs. D. P. Radin. It is a fantastic play, or rather a dramatic poem, partly autobiographical in nature. It relates the poet's own unfortunate attachment to a girl of a wealthier family who was forced to marry another man because the latter was considered by her parents a more suitable party for her. This situation gives the poet an opportunity to pour forth his sorrowing heart in laments over the unjust social order. The fantastic second part of the play, which standing by itself forms a fairly complete artistic work, is translated by Mrs. Radin. It contains in its best passages a sharp criticism of aristocratic vices. In the category of religious songs fall the following: "The Master of Masters" translated by Professor Noyes and very successfully versified by Miss J. C. Brown, "The Sages," versified by Miss Dorothy Todd, and to a large extent "The Books of the Polish Nation," translated by Mrs. Radin. The third category, preeminently patriotic poems, is represented by "Konrad Wallenrod," and "To a Polish Mother," versified by Miss Jewel Parish, and others.

On the whole, the volume deserves all praise as an amazingly successful experiment in coöperative translations. The original meaning—as far as I could verify—is everywhere rendered in competent and adequate form, and the versification displays. occasional coincidences in consonance and inner rimes which are quite surprising for languages so distant from each other as English and Polish.

HENRY LANZ.

The Way to Sketch. By VERNON BLAKE. Oxford, The Clarendon Press.

The Way to Sketch seems to be a very limited title for what would seem to be anything but a finite subject. Mr. Vernon Blake in a neatly designed little handbook presents a modern technical analysis of an artist's methods of arriving at a conclusion before he actually begins his sketch. In this alone lies the value of the book. To the artist it is reminiscent of his own struggles to comprehend nature and to interpret some of her simple truths. To the art student it is a series of valuable lessons; and it may help the Philistine to understand why a work of art need not tell a story, record an event, or present a scene in photographic focus of detail.

In illustration of principles involved in landscape sketching, the author has selected examples from Turner, Rembrandt, Corot, Renoir, Cézanne, Claude Lorrain, and the Japanese Sesshū.

The book concludes with the following advice:

Never forget that a sketch is first and foremost the transcription of a mood, of an emotion of the artist, and that, "ceteris paribus," the value of his work will be in direct proportion to the completeness, to the genuineness, to the intensity of his emotion. Sketching consists, first, in analysing the cause of the emotion into its component elements; then in determining their relative importance among themselves, with a view to stating them in that order. A sketch is a statement of emotion. If you have no emotion to state, your sketch has no reason for its existence. P. W. N.

T'ai Shan. By DWIGHT CONDO BAKER, M.A. Commercial Press, Limited. Shanghai, China. xx and 225, PP.

In all ages and in all lands the high places of the earth have been sacred places. The mountains lift their heads among the clouds. To primitive man they seemed to touch the heavens. From their hidden summits the flashing lightning seemed to be the sword of divine justice and the rolling thunder the awful voice of deity. For the Greek, Olympus was the abode of the gods. The Buddhist has his mythical Sumeru. The Hebrews received the commands of Jehovah from Sinai. For the Chinese there is no holier place than Mount T'ai.

Shantung is the holy land of China and T'ai Shan, which is by interpretation "Exalted Mountain," is the loftiest peak in the promontory, overlooking the birthplaces of Confucius and Mencius and keeping watch throughout the ages above their graves. Anciently there were four sacred mountains in China, one in each quarter. The expression, "Four Mountains," was a synonym for China and the Prime Minister was called "The Chief of the Four

Mountains." Even then, in the twenty-fourth century B. C., T'ai Shan was the Eastern Peak, the guardian of the eastern quarter of the kingdom. In later ages a fifth peak was selected to be the Mountain of the Center. These five peaks are all still regarded with reverence, but T'ai Shan is the most sacred. In the third category of beings worshiped in the state religion of the Manchus, the spirit of Mount T'ai was included. That spirit is still regarded by millions as the Rhadamanthus before whose judgment seat they must stand, and outside the East Gate of Peking in the temple erected to that Spirit of the Eastern Peak one may see the ten wards of hell with representations of the awful punishments inflicted there.

From the earliest ages of which Chinese history knows anything, pilgrims have come from all parts of the land to visit Mount T'ai and to worship there. All three of the recognized religions of China have their shrines upon its slopes.

No matter [says the author] whether the pilgrim be an ardent old Buddhist dame from the villages, a superstitious Taoist fulfilling his vows, or a worthy Confucian scholar intent on studying the weather-worn tablets of history, the desires of the heart may be fulfilled on the slopes of T'ai Shan, for here are 'the abodes of ten thousand immortals,' as the poetic words on the rocks tell us. Of the pilgrim path he says that it is that historic stairway which was consecrated by the feet of Confucius and a host of the emperors and statesmen of the Chinese Empire.

Mr. Baker has done us good service in gathering together in one volume so much of the history and folklore of this celebrated mountain. It is not only a guide for those who visit the mountain, describing for them the places of interest; it is of value to us also, who may never hope to climb the slopes of Mount T'ai, for it brings to us translations of the verses of famous poets and the sayings of the sages who have used the sacred peak to illustrate their teachings.

The work under review was begun by Mr. Henry S. Leitzel, of Taian, and was interrupted by his untimely death on Christmas Day, 1923. He had begun the translation of a twelve-volume history of the Mountain and had taken many photographs of historic spots on its slopes. This material was placed in Mr. Baker's hands, who added to it from various sources, Chinese and European, and who has given us a book very much worth while.

An ornamental gateway opens into the Great Stone Road that leads to the summit, and each shrine along the way receives due attention from the author. There we visit the Spring of White

Cranes and, near by, the Grotto in which is shown the mummy of a Taoist monk of the seventeenth century. Farther on is the Hall of the Northern Peck Measure, as the constellation of the Great Bear is called. Another hall is dedicated to Lao Tzu. The Taoist wizard, Lu Tung-pin, has a cave assigned to him, in which he is supposed to have brewed the elixir of immortality. Kuan Ti, the God of War, is not forgotten, and the visit of Confucius is commemorated by an arch that marks the place from which he viewed the country round. It was from Mount T'ai that Confucius was said to have seen a white horse outside the gate of Soochow, some three hundred miles away. That would prove him to have been a remarkable seer. The Buddhist monks on the mountain have their headquarters at the Red Gate Palace, in the Peach Orchard Glen. There is a shrine to the Goddess of Mercy and beyond it the tomb of the White Mule, an animal that carried the T'ang Emperor, Hsuan Tsung, to the summit in A. D. 726 and then fell dead. Posthumous honors were conferred upon the animal, which perhaps enjoyed them as much as others, not mules, have enjoyed such belated homage.

But the shrines are many and each has its legend. The illustrations, many of them wood cuts of unusual beauty, add much to the charm of the volume, which is further enhanced by the translation of poems by Li T'ai-po, Tu Fu, and other Chinese poets who visited the mountain. These translations are by Cranmer-Byng, Florence Ayscough collaborating with Amy Lowell, Arthur Waley, Charles Budd, and the great sinologue, Dr. Legge.

E. T. W.

The Novels of Fielding. By AURELIEN DIGEON. George Routledge & Sons, London; E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1925. Price, $4.50.

To support his singular thesis regarding English literature, H. A. Taine chose to depict the author of Tom Jones as a thickskinned brawler, "bespattered but always jolly," roaring through his books "with a broken head and a bellyful." What a simpleminded fellow that spiritual kinsman of Swift and Molière and Cervantes must have been! Misrepresentation could go no farther though it is fair to say that certain English writers who supplied the colors for Taine's portrait have been equally culpable. Since Dobson, in Lowell's phrase, rescued the novelist from the "swinish hoofs" of detractors, however, Fielding has gradually become, as Henley always insisted he should, an author who demands and repays intensive study-such study, for example, as