Chapter 4 No.4

The professor came early to the seminary that evening, but Rosamond was ready for him, dressed in a gown of some soft white fabric which he had noticed and praised. She had roses in her hair, at her throat, in her belt, but the bright, soft color in her cheeks out-shone them all.

She began, almost as soon as they had exchanged greetings, to talk about her father, asking the professor how long he had known him, and what Dr. May had been like as a young man.

"Very shy and retiring," he replied. "I think that was the first link in our friendship: we both disliked society, and finally made an agreement with each other to decline all invitations and give up visiting. We found that everything of the kind interfered materially with advancement in our studies. But your father had already met your mother several times when we made this agreement. Their tastes were very similar, and her quiet, tranquil manner was extremely pleasant to him,-for, as you know, he was somewhat nervous and excitable,-so he claimed an exception in her favor; and, after two years of most pleasing intellectual companionship, they were married. It was a rarely complete and happy union."

"And I suppose," said Rosamond, with a curious touch of resentment in her voice, "that because he had never been like other young people, had never cared for young friends and pleasant times, it did not occur to him that I ought to have them? Oh, I don't see how he dared to rob me of my rights,-of my youth, which could only come once, of all life and pleasure and sunshine!"

"My dear," said the professor, looking very much startled and shocked, "he had no thought of robbing you: he loved you far too tenderly for that. You always seemed happy and bright, and you were very young when he died. No doubt, had he lived until you were of an age to enter society-"

But here she interrupted him with bitter self-reproaches.

"Oh, what have I said?" she cried. "He was all goodness, all love to me, and I have dared to find fault with him! Oh, what a base, wicked girl I am!"

A choking sob stopped her, but only one. She conquered the rest, and made a forlorn attempt to change the subject.

"I had something to tell you to-night, dear child," said the professor, when she was quiet again: "you seem tired, so I will make it as brief as possible."

A startled look came into her eyes, and she was about to speak, when he continued:

"Let me first say what is upon my mind, and then you shall have your turn. I wished to tell you that I think we-I-have made a mistake. I am too confirmed an old bachelor to fall into home ways and make a good husband. I shall always love you as a dear young daughter, I shall ask you to let me take in every way your father's place, but I think, if you will let me off, that we will not have that wedding on the 30th of June, my little girl."

She raised her eyes in wondering incredulity to his face. He was smiling! He was speaking playfully! He was giving her back her freedom with a light heart and a good will. Plainly, the relief would be as great for him as for her. Laughing and crying in a breath, she clasped her arms about his neck.

"Ah, how good you are! How I love you now!" she said, as soon as she could speak. "All the time we have been engaged,-yes, even before,-from the first I have longed to tell you that I would so much rather be your daughter than your wife; but I thought it would be so ungracious, after all your kindness to me. Now we shall be happy; you will see how happy I shall make you. And, oh, how good, how noble you are to tell me, when, if you had not spoken,-yes, I should have married you, dear father. I shall always call you father now: papa will not mind it, I know."

The professor had nothing more to do or say after that until he rose to go. But when she held up her glowing, sparkling face for his good-night kiss, he once more parted the curls and kissed her on her forehead, whereat she pouted a little, saying, with half-pretended displeasure, "Papa didn't kiss my forehead: he kissed me right."

The professor passed his hand, which trembled a little, over her shining hair, saying, with a paternal smile, "I shall kiss my daughter in the way that best pleases me. I am going to be a very strict and exacting father."

She laughed gleefully, as if it were the best joke in the world, and her merry "Good-night, dear father," followed him as he went out into the darkness.

He held Mr. Symington to his engagement to row Rosamond and himself to the island, but he took with him a large canvas bag and a geological hammer. And how, pray, could any one talk to, or even stand very near, him, when he was pounding off bits of rock for specimens with such energy that fragments flew in all directions? The sound of the hammer ceased as soon as his companions had disappeared among the trees; they were going to look for a spring, but, strangely enough, they did not notice this. No need now for him to school his face, his voice, his trembling hands. They found the spring.

And did my professor die of a broken heart, and leave a lock of Rosamond's hair and a thrilling heart-history, in the shape of a neatly-written journal, to proclaim to the world his sacrifice? No; that was not his idea of a sacrifice. He burnt that very night each token-and there were many-which he had so jealously cherished,-each little, crookedly-written, careless note, and, last, the long bright curl which, before her heart awoke, she had so freely given him.

It is true that there was a gradual but very perceptible change in him. He had been indifferent formerly to the members of his class, excepting from an intellectual stand point. Now he began to take an interest in that part of their lives which lay outside his jurisdiction, to ask them to his rooms of an evening, to walk with them and win their confidence. Not one of them ever regretted that it had been bestowed.

Margaret Vandegrift.

* * *

"WHAT DO I WISH FOR YOU?"

What do I wish for you? Such swift, keen pain

As though all griefs that human hearts have known

Were joined in one to wound and tear your own.

Such joy as though all heaven had come again

Into your earth, and tears that fall like rain,

And all the roses that have ever blown,

The sharpest thorn, the sceptre and the throne,

The truest liberty, the captive's chain.

Cruel, you say? Alas! I've only prayed

Such fate for you as everywhere, above

All others, women wish,-that unafraid

They clasp in eager arms. So, little dove,

I give you to the hawk. Nay, nay, upbraid

Me not. Have you not longed for love?

Carlotta Perry.

* * *

LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES OF CHARLES READE.

I knew Charles Reade in England far back in "the days that are no more," and dined with him at the Garrick Club on the evening before I left London for New York in 1860, when he gave me parting words of good advice and asked me to write to him often. Then he added, "I am very sorry you are going away, my dear boy; but perhaps you are doing a good thing for yourself in getting out of this God-forsaken country. If I were twenty years younger, and enjoyed the sea as you do, I might go with you; but, if travel puts vitality into some men and kills others, I should be one of the killed. What is one man's food is another's poison."

He was my senior by more than twenty years, and no man that I have known well was more calculated to inspire love and respect among his friends. To know him personally, after only knowing him through his writings and his tilts with those with whom he had "a crow to pick," was a revelation. He had the reputation of being always "spoiling for a fight," and the most touchy, crusty, and aggressive author of his time, surpassing in this respect even Walter Savage Landor. But, though his trenchant pen was sometimes made to do almost savage work, it was generally in the chivalric exposure of some abuse or in the effort to redress some grievous wrong. Then indeed he was fired with righteous indignation. The cause had to be a just one, however, before he did battle in its behalf, for no bold champion of the right ever had more sterling honesty and sincerity in his character, or more common sense and less quixotism.

His placid and genial manner and amiable characteristics in his every-day home-life presented a striking contrast to his irritability and indignation under a sense of injury; for whenever he considered himself wronged or insulted his wrath boiled up with the suddenness of a squall at sea. He resented a slight, real or imaginary, with unusual outspokenness and vigor, and said, "I never forgive an injury or an insult." But in this he may have done himself injustice. Generally, he was one of the most sympathetic and even lovable of men, and his pure and resolute manhood appeared in its truest light to those who knew him best.

While genial in disposition, he could not be called either mirthful or jovial, and so could neither easily turn any unpleasant incident off with a joke or be turned off by one. He needed a little more of the easy-going good humor and freedom from anxiety that fat men are popularly supposed to possess to break the force of collisions with the world. Had he been more of an actor and less of a student in the drama of life, he would have been less sensitive.

His conscientiousness and honesty of purpose were really admirable; and rather than break a contract or disappoint any one to whom he had made a promise he would subject himself to any amount of inconvenience. For example, he would, whenever necessary, retire to Oxford and write against time in order to have his manuscript ready for the printer when wanted. Much, too, as he disliked burning the midnight oil or any kind of night-work, and the strain that artificial light imposed upon his eyes, he would write late in his rooms, or read up on subjects he was writing about in the reading-room in the Radcliffe Library building till it closed at ten p.m. He had, it will be seen, a high sense of duty, and "business before pleasure" was a precept he never neglected.

In personal appearance Charles Reade, without being handsome, was strongly built and fine-looking. He was about six feet in height, broad-chested and well proportioned, and without any noticeable physical peculiarity. His head was well set on his shoulders, and, though not unusually small, might have been a trifle larger without marring the symmetry of his figure.

His features were not massive, but prominent, strong, and regular, and his large, keen, grayish-brown eyes were the windows of his mind, through which he looked out upon the world with an expressive, eager, and inquiring gaze, and through which those who conversed with him could almost read his thoughts before he uttered them. He had a good broad forehead, well-arched eyebrows, and straight, dark-brown hair, parted at the side, which, like his entirely unshaven beard, he wore short until late in life. In his dress and manner he was rather négligé than precise, and he bestowed little thought on his personal appearance or what Mrs. Grundy might say. Taking him all in all, the champion of James Lambert looked the lion-hearted hero that he was.

In his personal habits and tastes he was always simple, quiet, regular, and he was strictly temperate. He had no liking for dissipation of any kind. He found his pleasure in his work, as all true workers in the pursuit for which they are best fitted always do. The proper care he took of himself accounted in part for his well-developed muscular system and his good health until within a few years of his death, notwithstanding his studious and sedentary life.

Among literary men he had few intimates, and he was not connected with any clique of authors or journalists. He thought this was one reason why the London reviewers-whom he once styled "those asses the critics"-were so unfriendly toward him. He was not of their set, and some of them regarded him as a sort of literary Ishmael, who had his hand raised against all his contemporaries, a quarrelsome and cantankerous although very able man, and therefore to be ignored or sat down upon whenever possible. He once said, "I don't know a man on the press who would do me a favor. The press is a great engine, of course, but its influence is vastly overrated. It has the credit of leading public opinion, when it only follows it; and look at the rag-tag-and-bobtail that contribute to it. Even the London 'Times' only lives for a day. My books have made their way in spite of the press."

Speaking of publishers, he said, "They want all the fat, and they all lie about their sales. Unless you have somebody in the press-room to watch, it is almost impossible to find out how many copies of a book they print. Then there is a detestable fashion about publishers. I had to fight a very hard battle to get the public to take a novel published by Trübner, simply because he was not known as a novel-publisher; but I was determined not to let Bentley or any of his kidney have all the fat any longer."

Trübner, I may mention, published for him on commission, and under this arrangement he manufactured his own books and assumed all risks.

In the sense of humor and quick perception of the ludicrous he was somewhat deficient, and he was too passionately in earnest and too matter-of-fact about everything ever to attempt a joke, practical or otherwise. Life to him was always a serious drama, calling for tireless vigilance; and he watched all the details of its gradual unfolding with constant anxiety and care, in so far as it concerned himself.

His love for the glamour of the stage led him often to the theatre; but whenever he saw anything "murdered" there, especially one of his own plays, it incensed him, and sometimes almost to fury. He loved music,-not, as he said, the bray of trumpets and the squeak of fiddles, but melody; and occasionally, seated at a piano, he sang, in a voice sweet and low and full of pathos, some tender English ditty.

Charles Reade had a real talent for hard work, not that occasional exclusive devotion to it during the throes of composition to which Balzac gave himself up night and day to an extent that utterly isolated him from the world for the time being, but steady, systematic, willing labor,-a labor, I might say, of love, for he never begrudged it,-which began every morning, when nothing special interfered with it, after a nine-o'clock breakfast and continued until late in the afternoon. He was too practical and methodical to work by fits and starts. Generally he laid down his pen soon after four p.m.; but often he continued writing till it was time to dress for dinner, which he took either at home or at the Garrick Club, as the spirit moved him, except when he dined out, which was not very often,-for, although he was most genial and social in a quiet way among his intimates, he had no fondness for general society or large dinner-parties. Yet his town residence, at No. 6 Bolton Row, was not only at the West End, but in Mayfair, the best part of it; and, although a bachelor to the end of his days, he kept house. He afterwards resided at No. 6 Curzon Street, also in Mayfair, and then took a house at No. 2 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge, but gave it up not long before his death, which occurred in Blomfield Terrace, Shepherd's Bush, a London suburb.

"This capacity, this zest of yours for steady work," I once remarked to him, "almost equals Sir Walter Scott's. With your encyclop?dic, classified, and indexed note-books and scrap-books, you are one of the wonders of literature."

"Well," he replied, "these are the tools of my trade, and the time and labor I spend on them are well invested." Then he went on to say of literary composition, "Genius without labor, we all know, will not keep the pot boiling. But I doubt whether one may not put too much labor into his work as well as too little, and spend too much time in polishing. Rough vigor often hits the nail better than the most studied and polished sentences. It doesn't do to write above the heads or the tastes of the people. I make it a rule to put a little good and a little bad into every page I write, and in that way I am likely to suit the taste of the average reader. The average reader is no fool, neither is he an embodiment of all the knowledge, wit, and wisdom in the world."

He valued success as a dramatic author more highly than as a novelist, and was always yearning for some great triumph on the stage. In this respect he was like Bulwer Lytton, who once said to me, "I think more of my poems and 'The Lady of Lyons' and 'Richelieu' than of all my novels, from 'Pelham' to 'What will he do with it?'" (which was the last he had then written). "A poet's fame is lasting, a novelist's is comparatively ephemeral." Moved by a similar sentiment, Reade once said, "The most famous name in English literature and all literature is a dramatist's; and what pygmies Fielding and Smollett, and all the modern novelists, from Dickens, the head and front of them, down to that milk-and-water specimen of mediocrity, Anthony Trollope, seem beside him!"[1]

He had little taste for poetry, because of his strong preference for prose as a vehicle of thought and expression. He, however, greatly admired Byron, Shelley, and Scott, and paid a passing compliment to Swinburne, except as to the too fiery amatory ardor of his first poems; but he considered Tennyson, with all his polish, little better than a versifier, and said his plays of "Dora" and "The Cup" would have been "nice enough as spectacles without words." For those great masters of prose fiction and dramatic art, Victor Hugo and Dumas père, he had unbounded admiration, and of the former in particular he always spoke with enthusiasm as the literary giant of his age, and to him, notwithstanding his extravagances, assigned the first place among literary Frenchmen. Dumas he ranked second, except as a dramatist; and here he believed him to be without a superior among his contemporaries.

For several years after I came to New York Charles Reade and I kept up a close friendly correspondence, and he sent me proof-sheets of "The Cloister and the Hearth" in advance of its publication in England, so that the American reprint of the work might appear simultaneously therewith, which it did through my arrangements with Rudd & Carleton. He also sent me two of his own plays,-"Nobs and Snobs" and "It is Never Too Late to Mend," drawn from his novel of that name,-in the hope that the managers of some of the American theatres would produce them; but, notwithstanding their author's fame, their own superior merit, and my personal efforts, the expectation was disappointed, owing, as Mr. Reade said, to their preferring to steal rather than to buy plays,-a charge only too well sustained by the facts. Another play, written by a friend of his, that he sent me, met with a like reception.

The first letter I received from Charles Reade after my arrival in New York ran thus:

"6 Bolton Row, Mayfair, July 14 [1860].

"Dear Cornwallis,-I was much pleased to hear from you, and to find you were one of the editors of the 'New York Herald.' A young man of talent like you ought to succeed, when so many muffs roll in one clover-field all their days.

"Not to be behindhand in co-operating with your fortunes, I called on Trübner at once about your Japanese letters....

"If you will be my prime minister and battle the sharps for me over there, I shall be very glad. I am much obliged by your advice and friendly information. Pray continue to keep me au fait.

"My forthcoming work, 'The Eighth Commandment,' is a treatise. It is partly autobiographical. You shall have a copy....

"I should take it very kindly of you if you would buy for me any copies (I don't care if the collection should grow to a bushel of them, or a sack) of any American papers containing characteristic matter,-melodramas, trials, anything spicy and more fully reported than in the 'Weekly Tribune,' which I take in. Don't be afraid to lay out money for me in this way, which I will duly repay; only please write on the margin what the paper contains that is curious. You see I am not very modest in making use of you. You do the same with me. You will find I shall not forget you.

"Yours, very sincerely,

Charles Reade."

In a letter dated February 8, 1861, he wrote me, "Your London publishers sent me a copy of your narrative of your tour with the Prince of Wales" ("Royalty in the New World, or The Prince of Wales in America"), "which I have read with much pleasure....

"I have on hand just now one or two transactions which require so much intelligence, firmness, and friendly feeling to bring them to a successful issue that, as far as I am concerned, I would naturally much rather profit by your kind offer than risk matters so delicate in busy, careless, and uninventive hands. I will, therefore, take you at your word, and make you my plenipotentiary.

"I produced some time ago a short story, called 'A Good Fight,' in 'Once a Week.' I am now building on the basis of that short tale a large and very important medi?val novel in three volumes" ("The Cloister and the Hearth"), "full of incident, character, and research. Naturally, I do not like to take nothing for manuscript for, say, seven hundred pages at least of fresh and good matter. But here pinches the shoe.... Please not to show this to any publisher, but only the enclosed, with which you can take the field as my plenipotentiary. I think this affair will tax your generalship. I shall be grateful in proportion as you can steer my bark safe through the shoals. Shall be glad to have a line from you by return, and will send a part of the sheets out in a fortnight. I think you may speak with confidence of this work as likely to produce some sensation in England."

In July he wrote, "You had better agree with them" (Rudd & Carleton) "for twenty per cent., and let me take care of you, or I foresee you will get nothing for your trouble. I only want fifteen for myself, and a true return of the copies sold. That is where we poor authors are done. Will you look to that? I have placed five pounds to your credit,-this with the double object of enabling you to buy me an American scrap-book or two (no poetry, for God's sake!) of newspaper-cuttings, and also to reimburse a number of little expenses you have been at for me and too liberal to mention."

On September 12, 1861, he wrote, "I send you herewith the first instalment of early sheets of my new novel. The title is 'The Cloister and the Hearth.' I am ashamed to say the work will contain fifteen hundred of these pages. If you are out of it, I will take fifteen per cent.; if you are in it, twelve. But I look to you to secure a genuine return, for that is the difficulty with these publishers. There is considerable competition among publishers here to have the book, and I am only hanging back to get you out the sheets. Now you know the number of pages (for the work is written), it would be advisable to set up type."

On September 26, 1861, he wrote, "As we shall certainly come out next week, I shall be in considerable anxiety until I hear from you that all the instalments sent by me have safely arrived and are in type. To secure despatch, I have sent them all by post, and, owing to the greediness of the United States government, it has cost me five pounds. I do not for a moment suppose the work will sell well during the civil war; but it is none the less important to occupy the shops with it, and then perhaps on the return of peace and the fine arts it will not be pirated away from us. I hope I have been sufficiently explicit to make you master of this book's destiny."

On October 18, 1861, he wrote, "We have now been out a fortnight, and, as it is my greatest success, we are gone coons if you are not out by this time."

A week later his uneasiness had been allayed by a letter from me announcing the publication of the work in New York, and he wrote, "I think you have done very well, considering the complicated difficulties you have had to contend against in this particular transaction. The work is quite the rage here, I assure you. We sold the first edition (a thousand) at one pound eleven shillings and sixpence in one fortnight from date of publication, and have already orders for over two hundred of the second at same price, which we are now printing.

"I will this day place in S. Low's hands for you the manuscript of 'Nobs and Snobs,' a successful play of mine, luckily unpublished. Treat with a New York manager or a Boston manager for this on these terms. Sell them the sole use of it in one city only for ten dollars per night of representation, the play not to be locked up or shelved, but to return to you at the conclusion of the run."

Then follows a "sketch of agreement" to be made with managers; for in all business-matters he was extremely particular, and sometimes needlessly anxious about trifles.

In the same letter he went on to remark, "I say ten dollars as being enough and not a halfpenny too much. It is all I ask. If you can get fifteen dollars on these terms, pocket the balance. But never sell the provincial right to a New York manager. It is worth a great deal more than the New York right, properly worked. It is no use showing it to Laura Keene. I spoke to her in England about it.

"With many thanks for your zeal and intelligence, and hoping that we may contrive, somehow or other, one day or other to make a hit together, I am yours, etc."

On November 19, 1861, he wrote, "Now for your book. Trübner is fair-dealing, but powerless as a publisher. All the pushing is done by me. I have had a long and hard fight to get the public here to buy a novel published by him, and could hardly recommend another to go through it. If done on commission and by Trübner, I could take it under my wing in the advertisements.

"Next week I expect to plead the great case of Reade v. Conquest" (manager of the Grecian Theatre, London) "in the Court of Common Pleas. If I win, I shall bring out my drama 'Never Too Late to Mend' and send it out to you to deal with. Please collect Yankee critiques (on 'The Cloister and the Hearth') for me; the more the better."

On November 1, 1861, he wrote, "I send you 'Saunders & Otley's Monthly,' containing an elaborate review of 'The Cloister,' etc. I don't know the writer, but he seems to be no fool. I do hope, my dear fellow, you will watch the printers closely, and so get me some money, for I am weighed down by law-expenses,-Reade v. Bentley, Reade v. Lacy, Reade v. Conquest,-all in defence of my own. And don't trust the play above twenty-four hours out of your own hand. Theatricals are awful liars and thieves. I co-operate by writing to Ticknors and H-- not to pirate you if they wish to remain on business terms with me. Second edition all but gone; third goes to press Monday. Everybody says it is my best book."

On the next day he wrote, "I am a careful man, and counted every page I sent you, and sealed and posted them with my own hand. I am quite satisfied with the agreement with Rudd & Carleton, if there is to be no false printer's return. The only thing that makes me a little uneasy is your apparent confidence that they could not cheat us out of twenty thousand dollars by this means if extraordinary vigilance were not used. They can, and will, with as little remorse as a Newgate thief would, unless singular precautions are used. If I was there I would have a secret agent in the printing-house to note each order, its date and amount, in writing. The plates being yours, you have, in fact, a legal right to inspect the printer's books. But this is valueless. The printer would cook his books to please the publisher. You can have no conception of the villany done under all these sharing agreements. But forewarned forearmed. Think of some way of baffling this invariable fraud. Ask a knowing printer some way. Do anything but underrate the danger.

"The importance of the work not being the least foreseen, I believe Rudd & Carleton have 'The Cloister' all to themselves.... Every American who has seen Ticknors' returns assures me they are false, and ridiculously so. It goes against my heart to believe it, but everybody is seldom wrong. My opinion is they will all make a false return if they can. Verbum sap. And now, my dear boy, let me thank you for all the trouble you have taken in this complicated affair, and assure you that if I am anxious for a just return it is partly in order that I may be in a position to take care of you. For I am sure if I don't nobody else will.

"'Nobs and Snobs,' a play, has gone out in Low's parcel. If the managers will be quick, you can make this copyright by not calling it 'Honor before Titles'" (the sub-title under which it had been copyrighted in England). "Then, to bind the thing together, I write a different conclusion to the second act, and send it you enclosed. It is hasty, but it will do; and if you can get Jem Wallack to play Pierre, he will do wonders with the change from drunkenness to sobriety and then to incipient madness. The only stage directions required will occur at once to you. Drop should fall on Pierre with a ghastly look, like a man turned to stone, between the two females. I now close, wishing us both success in this attempt to open new veins of ore. I have other plays in manuscript, and one in progress."

On November 9 he wrote under a misapprehension of the terms of an agreement about which I had written to him, and evinced his usual anxiety and impatience when anything seemed to go wrong. If, said he, this and that happens, "Rudd & Carleton can swindle us out of every dollar. I confess this stipulation terrifies me. If you have not done so, for God's sake draw a written agreement in these terms. I shall pass a period of great anxiety until I hear from you. But, for heaven's sake, a written agreement, or you will never get one halfpenny. These fears seem ungracious, after all the trouble you have taken. But it is a most dangerous situation, and not to be remained in a day or an hour. Draw on Rudd & Carleton as soon as ever you can."

On the 9th of December following he had heard from me again, and found he was mistaken. He wrote, "I am in receipt of your last, which is very encouraging. You were quite right to do as you did. Give Rudd & Carleton no loop-hole. They will soon owe us a good round sum, and will writhe like Proteus to escape paying it."

On January 17, 1862, he wrote, "It puts me in some little doubt whether to take your book 'Pilgrims of Fashion' to Trübner or Low. Low will sell more copies if he tries, but he will charge more percentage, and I shall not be able to creep you in among my own advertisements. However, you give me discretion, and I shall look to your advantage as well as I can. To-day I had to argue the great case of Reade v. Conquest. I argued it in person. Judgment is deferred. The court raised no grave objections to my reasoning, but many to the conclusions of defendant's counsel: so it looks pretty well.

"As to 'Nobs and Snobs,' I know the theatrical managers: they will not deal except with thieves, if they can help it. Keep it ten years, if necessary, till some theatre will play it. You will find that all those reasons they have given you will disappear the moment it is played in England, and then the game will be to steal it. Copyright it in your name and mine, if a manuscript can be so protected, and I will enter it here in my name and yours.

"Considering the terrible financial crisis impending over the United States, I feel sad misgivings as to my poor 'Cloister.' It would indeed be a relief if the next mail would bring me a remittance,-not out of your pocket, but by way of discount from the publishers. I am much burdened with lawsuits and the outlay, without immediate return, of publishing four editions" (of "The Cloister and the Hearth"). "Will you think of this, and try them, if not done already? Many thanks for the scrap-book and for making one. Mind and classify yours. You will never regret it. Dickens and Thackeray both offer liberally to me for a serial story." (Dickens then edited "All the Year Bound," and Thackeray "The Cornhill Magazine.")

On January 27, 1862, he wrote, "The theatrical managers are all liars and thieves. The reason they decline my play is, they hope to get it by stealing it. They will play it fast enough the moment it has been brought out here and they can get it without paying a shilling for it. Your only plan is to let them know it shall never come into their hands gratis."

In a letter undated, but written in the same month, he wrote, "My next story" ("Very Hard Cash"). "This is a matter of considerable importance. It is to come out first in 'All the Year Round,' and, foreseeing a difficulty in America, I have protected myself in that country by a stringent clause. The English publishers bind themselves to furnish me very early sheets and not to furnish them to any other person but my agent. This and another clause enable me to offer the consecutive early sheets to a paper or periodical, and the complete work in advance on that to a book-publisher. I am quite content with three hundred pounds for the periodical, but ask five per cent. on the book. It will be a three-volume novel,-a story of the day, with love, money, fighting, manoeuvring, medicine, religion, adventures by sea and land, and some extraordinary revelations of fact clothed in the garb of fiction. In short, unless I deceive myself, it will make a stir. Please to settle this one way or other, and let me know. I wrote to this effect to Messrs. Harper. Will you be kind enough to place this before them? If they consent, you can conclude with them at once."

Messrs. Harper Brothers had always dealt very generously and courteously toward Mr. Reade, and they were offered "The Cloister and the Hearth" in the first instance, but did not feel willing to pay as high a royalty as Messrs. Rudd & Carleton did, in the then depressed condition of the book-trade and in view of their having previously published and paid for "A Good Fight," and hence the agreement made with the latter firm. They evinced a spirit of kind forbearance in refraining from printing a rival edition of the work, and Mr. Reade remained on very friendly terms with them to the end of his days.

On February 13, 1862, he wrote from Magdalen College, Oxford, "I have defeated Conquest, and am just concluding the greatest drama I ever wrote,-viz., my own version of 'Never Too Late to Mend.' I will send you out a copy in manuscript, and hold back for publication. But I fear you will find that no amount of general reputation or particular merit of the composition offered will ever open the door of a Yankee theatre to a dramatic inventor. The managers are 'fences,' or receivers of stolen goods. They would rather steal and lose money than buy and make it. However, we will give the blackguards a trial."

On March 22, 1862, he wrote, "Only yesterday I wrote to you in considerable alarm and anxiety. This anxiety has been happily removed by the arrival of your letter enclosing a draft for the amount and Rudd & Carleton's account up to date. I think you showed great judgment in the middle course you have taken by accepting their figures on account. All that remains now is to suspect them and to watch them and get what evidence is attainable. The printers are better than the binders for that, if accessible. But I know by experience the heads of the printing-house will league with the publisher to hoodwink the author. I have little doubt they have sold more than appear on the account."

On March 7, 1862, he wrote, "Many thanks, my dear fellow, for your zeal; rely on it, I will not be backward in pushing your interests here, and we will have a success or two together on both sides of the Atlantic. I mean soon to have a publishing organ completely devoted to my views, and then, if you will look out sharp for the best American books and serial stories, I think we could put a good deal of money into your hands in return for judgment, expedition, and zeal."

On March 28, 1862, he wrote, "You are advertised with me this week in the 'Saturday' and 'London' Reviews. Next week you will be in the 'Athen?um,' 'Times,' 'Post,' and other dailies. The cross-column advertisements in 'Athen?um' cost thirty shillings, 'Literary Gazette' fifteen shillings, and so on. You will see at once this could not have been done except by junction. I propose to bind in maroon cloth, like 'The Cloister:' it looks very handsome. I congratulate you on being a publicist. Political disturbances are bad for books, but journals thrive on them. Do not give up the search for scrap-books, especially classified ones."

He wrote me on April 2, 1862, "This will probably reach you before my great original drama 'It is Never Too Late to Mend,' which has gone by a slower conveyance. When you receive, please take it to Miss Kean" (Laura Keene), "and with it the enclosed page. You will tell her that, as this is by far the most important drama I have ever written, and entirely original, I wish her to have the refusal, and, if she will not do it herself, I hope she will advise you how to place it. Here in England we are at the dead-lock. The provincial theatres and the second-class theatres are pestering me daily for it. But I will not allow it to be produced except at a first-class theatre. I have wrested it by four actions in law and equity from the hands of pirates, and now they shall smart for pirating me. At the present time, therefore, any American manager who may have the sense and honesty to treat with me will be quite secure from the competition of English copies. I have licked old Conquest, and the lawyers are now fighting tooth and nail over the costs. The judges gave me one hundred and sixty pounds damages, but, as I lost the demurrer with costs, the balance will doubtless be small. But, if the pecuniary result is small, the victory over the pirates and the venal part of the press is great."

He wrote on May 30, 1862, "As for writing a short story on the spur, it is a thing I never could do in my life. My success in literature is owing to my throwing my whole soul into the one thing I am doing. And at present I am over head and ears in the story for Dickens" ("Very Hard Cash"). "Write to me often. The grand mistake of friends at a distance is not corresponding frequently enough. Thus the threads of business are broken, as well as the silken threads of sentiment. Thanks about the drama" ("It is Never Too Late to Mend"). "I have but faint hopes. It is the best thing I ever wrote of any kind, and therefore I fear no manager will ever have brains to take it."

On June 20, 1862, he wrote of his forthcoming story, "Between ourselves, the story" ("Very Hard Cash") "will be worth as many thousands as I have asked hundreds. I suppose they think I am an idiot, or else that I have no idea of the value of my works in the United States. I put 6 Bolton Row" (the usual address on his letters) "because that is the safest address for you to write to; but in reality I have been for the last month, and still am, buried in Oxford, working hard upon the story. My advice to you is to enter into no literary speculations during this frightful war. Upon its conclusion, by working in concert, we might do something considerable together."

On August 5, 1862, he wrote from Magdalen College, where he was to remain until the 1st of October, "I shall be truly thankful if you postpone your venture till peace is re-established. I am quite sure that a new weekly started now would inevitably fail. You could not print the war as Leslie and Harper do, and who cares for the still small voice of literature and fiction amongst the braying of trumpets and the roll of drums? Do the right thing at the right time, my boy: that is how hits are made. If you will postpone till a convenient season, I will work with you and will hold myself free of all engagements in order to do so. I am myself accumulating subjects with a similar view, and we might do something more than a serial story, though a serial story must always be the mainspring of success."

He wrote on September 6, 1862, "I am glad you have varied your project by purchasing an established monthly" ("The Knickerbocker Magazine") "instead of starting a new weekly. I will form no new engagements nor promise early sheets without first consulting you. I will look out for you, and as soon as my large story is completed will try if I cannot do something for you myself."

On the 29th of June, 1863, he wrote, "I am much pleased with your 'Knickerbocker Magazine,' and cannot too much admire your energy and versatility. Take notice, I recommended you Miss Braddon's works while they were to be had for a song. 'Lost and Saved,' by Mrs. Norton, will make you a good deal of money if you venture boldly on it and publish it. It is out-and-out the best new thing, and rather American. If you hear of any scrap-books containing copious extracts from American papers, I am open to purchase at a fair price, especially if the extracts are miscellaneous and dated, and, above all, if classified. I shall, also be grateful if you will tell me whether there is not a journal that reports trials, and send me a specimen. Command me whenever you think I can be of an atom of use to you."

Charles Reade's letters were always highly characteristic of him. In these he mentally photographed himself, for he always wrote with candid unreserve, whether to friend or foe, and he liked to talk with the pen. Both by nature and education he was fitted for a quiet, studious, scholarly life, and with pen and paper and books he was always at home. He liked, too, at intervals the cloister-like life he led at Magdalen College. With nothing to disturb him in his studies and his work, with glimpses of bright green turf and umbrageous recesses and gray old buildings with oriel windows that were there before England saw the Wars of the Roses, his environment was picturesque, and his bursar's cap and gown became him well, yet seemed to remove him still further from the busy world and suggest some ecclesiastical figure of the fifteenth century. He was a D.C.L., and known as Dr. Reade in the college, just as if he had never written a novel or a play and had been untrumpeted by fame.

There, in his rooms on "Staircase No. 2," with "Dr. Reade" over the door, he labored con amore. Indeed, he was amid more congenial surroundings and more truly in his element in the atmosphere of the ancient university than in London or anywhere else. By both nature and habit he was more fitted to enjoy the cloister than the hearth, although he by no means undervalued the pleasures of society and domestic life. The children of his brain-his own works-seemed to be the only ones he cared for; and, loving and feeling proud of his literary family, he was mentally satisfied. Yet no man was a keener observer of home-life, and his portraiture of women and analysis of female character, although unvarying as to types, were singularly true and penetrating. His Fellowship was the principal cause of his never marrying, the next most important one being that he was always wedded to his pen; and literature, like law, is a jealous mistress. He had some idea of this kind when he said, "An author married is an author marred,"-an adaptation from Shakespeare, who was ungallant enough to say, "A young man married is a man that's marred." But a good and suitable wife would have given éclat to his social life.

His splendid courage and the manliness of his character always commanded admiration, and his hatred of injustice and wrong, cant and hypocrisy, was in harmony with the nobility and passionate earnestness of his nature. He was the friend of the workingman, the poor, and the oppressed; and he exposed the abuses of jails and lunatic-asylums and trades-unions, and much besides, in the interest of humanity and as a disinterested philanthropist. He fought, too, the battles of his fellow-authors on the copyright questions with the same tremendous energy that he displayed in his struggles for practical reform in other directions; and as a practical reformer through his novels he, like Dickens, accomplished a great deal of good. When moved by strong impulses in this direction, he seemed indeed to write with a quivering pen, dipped not in ink, but in fire and gall and blood, and to imbue what he wrote with his own vital force and magnetic spirit.

Measuring his literary stature at a glance, it must, however, be admitted that, notwithstanding his high average of excellence, he was a very uneven writer, and hence between his worst and his best work there is a wide distance in point of merit. But the best of his writings as well deserves immortality as anything ever penned in fiction. Although inferior to them in some respects, he was superior in epigrammatic descriptive power to the most famous of his English and French contemporaries, and particularly in his descriptions of what he had never seen or experienced, but only read about. Take, for instance, his Australian scenes in "It is Never Too Late to Mend," where the effect of the song of the English skylark in the gold-diggings is told with touching brevity and pathos. Yet all his information concerning Australia had been gained by reading newspaper correspondence and books on that country. He made no secret of this, and said in substance, as frankly as he spoke of his scrap-books, "I read these to save me from the usual trick of describing a bit of England and calling it the antipodes." He could infuse life into the dry figures of a blue-book; but in the mere portraiture of ordinary conventional society manners, free from the sway of strong passions and emotions, he did not greatly excel writers of far inferior ability. He had the graphic simplicity and realism of De Foe in describing places he had never seen; and as the historian of a country or a period in which he felt interested he would have been unusually brilliant, for he was an adept in picturesque condensation, and knew how to improve upon his originals and use them without copying a word. He was a master of vigorous English.

Kinahan Cornwallis.

* * *

IN A SUPPRESSED TUSCAN MONASTERY.

We have left the golden hills and laughing valleys of Tuscany behind us as we approach that desert part of it where the gray chalk cliffs stretch out into the Maremma in long narrow tongues of rock, not far from Siena. A frightful convulsion of nature in prehistoric times rent the solid rock, seaming it with chasms so wide and deep that the region is almost depopulated, not only because man can with difficulty find room for the sole of his foot, but because the gases which lie over the Maremma in vapors thick enough to destroy life in a single night rise up to the top of these cliffs and reduce the dwellers there to fever-worn shadows. Even the scattered olive-trees that have taken root in the thin layer of soil are of the same hue, and the few clumps of cypresses add to the pallor of the scene with their dark funereal shafts. The only bit of color is where a cluster of low red-washed houses have found room for their scanty foundations on a knot of rock where several chasms converge. Where the sides of the chasms slope gently enough to admit of being terraced, vineyards are planted, which yield famous wines, the red Aleatico and the white Vino Santo, rivalling in quality the Monte Pulciano, which grows only a short distance away. Farther down in the depths thickets of scrub oak and wild vines form oases that are invisible unless one is standing on the brink.

The epithet "God-forsaken," so often applied to regions like this, would, however, be inappropriate here, for in God's name the locality is famous. On a promontory whose sides fall down in sheer precipices all about, except where a narrow neck of rock connects it with the net-work of cliffs, is a vast monastery, the Mother Abbey of the Olivetani. In 1313 a noble of Siena, Bernardo Tolomei, in the midst of a life of literary distinctions and pleasures, received, it is said, the grace of God. He was struck blind, and in his prayers vowed if he recovered his sight to embrace a life of penitence. It was the divine will that his vows should be fulfilled, and his sight was immediately restored. Two friends of the noblest Italian families, the Patrizzi and Piccolomini, joined him in leaving the world to become hermits in the desert. The chalky cliffs overhanging the Maremma on Bernardo's estates were selected as a fitting retreat: here they dug grottoes in the sides of a precipice and lived on roots and water. They were soon followed by so many penitents as to form a community requiring a government, and, the necessity of this being made plain to them through a vision, in which Bernardo saw a silver ladder suspended between heaven and earth, on which white-robed monks were ascending accompanied by angels, he was urged to go to Avignon and obtain an audience of the Pope, who gave to the community the rule of St. Benedict.

For a century the friars labored in building their convent to accommodate the needs of their ever-increasing numbers: the one vast cloister was not enough, and another was added; the primitive chapel was enlarged into a stately church, and the abbey walls were extended until, enclosing the garden, they covered the entire promontory. Then they ceased from their labors, and began to establish other monasteries and send out swarms from the mother-hive to fill them, until the executive and administrative ability to govern a small kingdom had to be supplied from their numbers, and manual work had to give way to mental.

Another century found the abbey governed by men of culture and lovers of the fine arts; and the celebrated painted cloister, the intarsia-work, and the wooden sculptures, which now attract so many visitors, date from that time. Nearly all the movable works of art, the pictures, illuminated missals, and precious manuscripts, were confiscated at the time of the first suppression under Napoleon, in 1810; and whatever else could be carried off went in 1866, when the religious orders were suppressed by the Italian government, to embellish the museums. Still, the empty cloister, with Signorelli's and Sodoma's frescos on the walls, Fra Giovanni of Verona's intarsia-work in the church, and the solitary monastery itself, so silent after centuries of activity, have an inexpressible charm, and travellers who undertake a pilgrimage hither can never forget their impressions.

On a sunny autumn afternoon three ladies left Siena in a light wagon, and drove over the gray upland, which was shrouded in a pale blue mist, through the picturesque hamlet of Buonconvento. Here they changed their horse and left the Roman highway for the road cut in the rocks five centuries ago by the monks of Monte Oliveto. These pious men understood little of engineering, of the art of throwing bridges across ravines. Their road simply followed the course pointed out by nature, winding in serpentine folds through the labyrinth of chasms which begin at Buonconvento.

It was toward evening when the party drove over a narrow bridge across a half-filled moat, and under the arch of a massive crenellated tower whose unguarded gates stood wide open. A hundred years ago they would have found the portcullis drawn, and, being women, if they had attempted to force an entrance would have been excommunicated, for until the suppression no woman's foot was allowed across this threshold. The tower was built as a protection against bandits, and the grated windows which give it a sinister look to-day lighted the cells of refractory brothers, placed here to catch the eye of novices as they entered the outer portal and serve as a silent warning.

The convent was still invisible, and our three visitors were speculating on what they would find at the end of the grass-grown allée bordered with cypresses, when they saw, in a ravine below, a white-robed figure hastening toward them.

"That must be the Padre Abbate," one of them exclaimed. "I hope he has received our padre's letter telling of our coming, for it would be worse than an attack of the bandits of old, our falling upon him at this hour on a Saturday evening without any warning."

They had alighted in front of the church when the padre arrived quite out of breath,-a tall, stately old man, with white hair flowing over the turned-back cowl of his spotless white robe. If they had known nothing of him before, his courtly manner and easy reception would have revealed his noble lineage.

"Be welcome, be welcome, my daughters, to the lonely Thebaid. I have received the padre's letter, and am happy to receive his friends as my honored guests for a month, if you can support the solitude so long," he added, smiling. "And, now, which is the signora, and which the Signorina Giulia and the Signorina Margherita?"

"I am the signora," said one of the three, laughing, the last one would have suspected of being a matron. She had lost her husband at twenty, and her four years of European travel had been a seeking after forgetfulness, until she had grown to be satisfied with the companionship of two gentle women artists, who, absorbed in their vocation, walked in God's ways and were blessed with peace and happiness.

After each had found her place and name in the padre's pure, soft Tuscan accent, he led the way to the convent door, apologizing for the meagre hospitality he could offer them. "Would the signore like some bread and wine before supper?" What could they know of the hours in an abbey, where it was an almost unheard-of distinction to be received as personal guests, tourists in general having their own refectory set apart for them during their stay? and so they declined. They had by this time reached a low, arched side-door, which grated on its hinges after the padre had turned the huge key in the rusty lock and opened it. They entered a wide stone vestibule, and found themselves opposite another arched door set in arabesque stone carvings: the flags echoed under their feet as they turned to the right and traversed a low, vaulted passage that ended in an open cloister. An arched gallery ran round the four sides, held up by slender, dark stone pillars, above which was a row of small arched cell windows. The court was paved with flags, and in the centre was a well, divested of pulley and rope. An impression of melancholy began to weigh upon the guests, when a great shaggy dog came springing toward them, barking. The padre quieted him with, "Down, Piro! down!" adding, "He is very good, though his manner is a little rough: he is not used to ladies. But he will not be so impolite again, I am sure."

"Oh, I hope he will," said Julia: "it is delightful to see him bound about here, where it is so strange and quiet."

They traversed one side of the gallery, another low, vaulted corridor, and came to another cloister, with painted walls, more arches, more columns, lighter and more graceful, above which, around the three sides, were two rows this time of cell windows; a beautiful open vaulted gallery filled the third side, and was carried up through the second story. Here was another well, out of which ivy-branches had grown and twined until the curb was one mass of dark-green, shining vines lying on a bed of moss. Presently they came to a broad stone staircase, at the head of which "Silenzio" was written over an archway that led into a corridor so long and wide as to seem a world of empty space; on either side was an unending row of doors, all of them closed.

On many of the doors were inscriptions in Latin: eight, one after the other, were marked, "Visitator primus, secundus," etc.

"These are our quarters, then," said Julia. "But are only eight visitors allowed at a time?"

The padre laughed at the question. "These rooms were intended for the visitors appointed to attend our general convocations, at which eight hundred of our order met here every three years to elect a new general and discuss our welfare; but the necessity for such visitors has passed away with our existence. I can remember when all these cells were filled; and there are three hundred on this floor, and as many more above. You are surprised, I see, at the number of doors: there are so many because each cell has its anteroom, where we studied and meditated and prayed."

They stopped at length before a door marked "Rev. Pater Vicar. Generalis," which was at the end of the corridor. Unlocking the door, the padre invited them in.

"One of you will be lodged here, and, if you are not too tired, we will look at your other quarters before you sit down to rest."

So saying, he led the way through five rooms, unlocked a door at the farther end, conducted them across another corridor of the same dimensions as the firsthand unlocked another door; when, suddenly recollecting himself, he said, "You will not be afraid to be separated? There is nothing here to disturb you,-nothing but these cats; and I will see that they do not annoy you."

Then the ladies noticed for the first time in the growing darkness four cats, which turned out to be the padre's bodyguard, attending him wherever he went. Of course they were not afraid: they were only sorry to put their kind host to so much trouble. And so they proceeded to inspect a small cell with a bed and praying-stool and tripod with a basin for all the furniture. The anteroom had a table and chair, and an engraving or two on the walls. Next to this cell was another just like it, for which they agreed to draw lots, and then went to the padre's anteroom for a book which he said would tell all about the history of the abbey.

Such masses of keys as were everywhere in this room made it a perfect curiosity,-keys for every one of the cells on this floor and above, for the refectories, church, offices, etc., below, for rooms enough to accommodate the emperor Charles V. and his suite of two thousand men for a night, festooned in bunches around the walls,-so that in the dusk the room seemed lined with curious bas-reliefs in steel. Piles of books were heaped on the table with surgical instruments, medicine-bottles, and bags of dried seeds.

After this inspection in the twilight, they went back to the padre vicar's salon to rest, when their host took leave of them to give orders to Beppo about the rooms and to send a light. Then they sank into what seats they could find, and tried to collect themselves.

Presently a low knock was heard, the door was pushed open, and a tall, dark youth in sandals and white apron came in, with "Buona sera, signore," and left a lucerna-the graceful brass Tuscan lamp, with three branches for oil and wick-on the table. A large room with two windows now became visible, with a sofa, chairs, a table, and white-tiled stove, and many engravings on the white walls.

At nine o'clock the prospect of supper was almost too faint to be entertained, and the signora was just opening her mouth to say, "Of course the padre has forgotten all about us," when they heard in the distance a faint footstep approaching, and the padre appeared with a taper in one hand and a magnificent red silk coverlet in the other. "For the signora's bed," he explained, and went to leave it in the bedroom. Then he came and sat down, apologizing for having left them so long, and commenced what would have been for his listeners a most interesting conversation if it had been after supper. He told how he had been there thirty years,-first as student, then as frate, and finally as abbot. Since 1866 he had been alone with two monks. To-morrow he would show them the cell just above their heads, which he had occupied seventeen years in silence, except when he had permission to speak. Suddenly, looking at his watch, he said, "It is half-past nine o'clock, and no doubt you are now hungry." And, no one gainsaying the supposition, he relighted his taper and led the way to the refectory. The shadows all about were black and mysterious enough, but they were too tired to be troubled about them, and were already half-way down a staircase, when the signora looked back, and, if she had not seized the balustrade, would have fallen; for standing at the head of the staircase was a white figure, holding a taper above a cowled head, out of which a pair of dark eyes was looking at her steadfastly. The padre's voice, calling out, "Signora, you are left in the dark," reassured her and gave her courage to turn and run down to join the others, who were disappearing through a low door. This led into what seemed an immense hall, judging from the echoes. They passed by heavy stone columns supporting a ceiling in round Romanesque arches on their way toward the one spot of light which came from a lucerna that stood on one end of a very long table spread for supper. They were looking around bewildered for their places, when they were not a little startled to hear the padre say, "Signore, this is Fra Lorenzo, my son in the Lord." The signora was of course the least surprised, for she recognized her apparition. They received a silent salutation from a young spiritual-looking monk, with the handsomest face, they afterward agreed, they had ever seen. The four cats, Piro, and another shaggy monster of a dog completed the company and shared the visitors' supper, preferring their soup and chicken to the Saturday-evening fare of the monks of boiled beans and olive oil. The strangely-mixed party found much to interest each other, and, as the signora laughed once or twice merrily over the division of the chicken-bones between the dogs and the cats, she found Fra Lorenzo's eyes fixed upon her with a look of wonder; at other times he kept his eyes on his plate and uttered not a word. The chicken was followed by figs and peaches, cheese and Vino Santo, which the signora drank out of a tall glass with the arms of the order engraved on it.

When they returned to their salon, the padre followed them to say, "You were surprised at Fra Lorenzo's appearance,-I think a little startled, too. He is gentle and good as an angel, and this is the first time he ever inspired fear in any one,-poor boy! He is my nephew, and I have had him with me ever since his infancy, when his parents died. I am his guardian, and have made him a priest and Benedictine as the best thing I could do for him, although his rank and talents would enable him to play a distinguished r?le in the world. But, thanks be to God, he is a devout follower of Christ, and a most useful one. He is now twenty-five years of age; and I do not think we have a better decipherer of manuscripts in the Church than he, since he is conversant with most of the Oriental tongues, although so young. I sometimes fear God will visit me for bestowing too much affection upon the boy. I strive against it, but he remains the light of my eyes. If it be a sin, God forgive me."

As the signora was putting out the light at her bedside, her eyes fell upon the basin of holy water hanging above it. She wondered who had dipped his fingers last in it, and if any one had ever before slept in that bed without first kneeling before the ivory crucifix above the praying-stool. And with these conjectures she fell asleep. It seemed to her that she had been lying there only a short time when she heard a distant door open and shut softly, then another and another, all the way down the corridor, until the sound seemed very near; then a breath of wind struck her cheek, which came through the outer door of her boudoir, which she had forgotten to lock, and which some one had just opened. She was on the point of springing out of bed to try to reach the door of the bedroom before any one could enter, when a monk came through and stopped at the foot of her bed. His cowl was drawn so far down over his eyes that the point of it stood straight up above his head. His hands were crossed over his breast, under his white robe; when, drawing his right one out and pointing his bony finger, he said, "You heretic, what are you doing here?" Without waiting for an answer, he passed on, and another took his place, repeating the question. This was the beginning of a procession of all the monks who had ever been in the monastery. From time to time one particularly old and gaunt left the line and came and sat down by the bedside, until there were eight, four on each side of it. After a while Fra Lorenzo came walking with the others. He looked at her with his melancholy eyes and made a motion to stop, but the friar behind gave him a push and forced him forward. His low voice came to her as he was passing through the door: "I would sprinkle you with the holy water if I could, signora: but you see I must obey my superiors." Then the procession ended, and she was left alone with the eight, one of whom said to her, "Now you must go down to the crypt under the church, to be judged for your presumption." And as they rose to seize her, she found they were skeletons. In her effort to escape from them she awoke, trembling in every fibre. Her waking sensations were scarcely less terrible than her dream, for she shook so that she imagined some one was pulling at the bedclothes. The strain could be borne no longer, and with a spring she sat up, and her hand touched the silk coverlet. It was like the hand of a friend. She thought of the padre, of his angelic goodness. How could she be afraid here, where he was sovereign priest? Still, she must satisfy herself about the door: so, lighting the lamp, she went through all the rooms, and found both the outer doors locked. She was again putting out the light, when a prolonged cry sounded outside the window. It flashed through her mind that she had read somewhere that brigands repeat the cry of wild birds as a signal when making an attack. Perhaps a whole band was preparing to come in upon her through the windows she had forgotten to examine. There is no knowing to what desperate fancies her fevered imagination might have tortured her, if a whole chorus of hoots had not commenced. So, concluding that if they were not real owls, but men with evil intentions so stupid as to make so much noise, they were not worth lying awake for, she resolutely turned over and went to sleep, and only awoke as the convent-bell was ringing for mass.

As she opened the windows and looked across the ravine to the gray rocks beyond, the scene was so peaceful, such a reproachful commentary upon the troubled night, that she concluded to keep silent about it. And then, since neither her friends nor the coffee presented themselves, she set to work to examine the engravings. The first one her eye fell upon made her start, look again, and finally climb up on the bed and lift it off the rusty nail, covering herself with dust in the operation, and carry it to the window. "Yes," she said finally, after having examined it and the text, a mixture of Latin and old Italian, very thoroughly, "it is the same, the very same: this discovery would compensate for a whole series of nights such as I have just been through." And, putting it down, she ran to her travelling-bag and drew from its depths a very small painting on copper, and compared them. Hearing just then her friends at the door, she ran to open it with both pictures in her hands. "What do you think? I have made a discovery. Look! My picture on copper, which Pippo in Siena found in the little dark antiquary-shop after his brother's death and sold to me for sixty cents, is the same as this old engraving of the famous Annunciation picture in the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, which is only unveiled in times of national calamity. You know, the people believe it was painted by angels. Here, you see, the text says it was revered in 1252, the artist being unknown. I knew the original of my picture must be very old, for Mary is saying in this Latin scroll coming out of her mouth, 'Behold, the servant of the Lord,' and only the earliest painters, unable to express their idea by the vivacity of their figures, made their mission apparent by the scrolls coming from their mouths." They were still examining the engraving, when the padre came to take coffee with them and to ask if they would go down to mass, which would commence in a few minutes. There was only time for him to say that he hoped the owls had not disturbed them, adding, as they were on their way to the church, "They are our bane, devouring the chickens and keeping us awake. It is a never-ending, but perhaps needful, discipline."

Fra Lorenzo was officiating at the altar as they entered the large church, before a small number of peasants, the women making a picturesque group in their light flowered bodices and their red petticoats visible from beneath their tucked-up gowns, and their gay cotton handkerchiefs knotted about their heads, since no woman's head may be uncovered in the Catholic Church.

The padre came soon to escort them about the church, and "to show them what little had been left," he said, pointing to the empty chapels. They found enough, however, to fill them with admiration in dear, good Fra Giovanni of Verona's marqueterie-work in the backs of the stalls, which extended the whole length of the long church, as is customary in monasteries where the monks are the sole participants at the holy offices. "While Fra Giovanni was here as one of our order," the padre explained, "he finished the stalls which are now in the cathedral of Siena. They were taken from us in 1813. After we were allowed to come back, we asked to have our stalls replaced by those in a monastery in Siena which was being torn down, and so these stalls were sent us: they are by Fra Giovanni's own hand. He has never been equalled in this kind of work, for which he invented the staining of the woods to produce light and shade, and perfected the perspective which Brunelleschi invented while resting from his labors on the Florentine dome. The different Italian cities on the hill-sides, the vistas down the long streets, with palaces and churches on either side, half-open missals, Biblical musical instruments, rolls of manuscript music, birds in gay plumage, all perfectly represented in minute pieces of wood, excite the wonder of every one whose privilege it is to examine them at leisure."

As on their way to the cloister they passed through the sacristy, once heaped with vessels of gold and silver, embroidered vestures, ivory and ebony sculptures, and splendid illuminated missals, now bare and empty, the padre said sorrowfully, "Only the walls are left to the guardianship of these feeble hands, which must soon give up their trust." When, however, they emerged into the cloister he brightened up, saying, "Here you will have enough to occupy you the whole month;" and the two artists of the party drew a breath of satisfaction at finding themselves at last before the object of their pilgrimage,-the frescos of Signorelli and Sodoma, representing scenes in the life of St. Benedict, which they were going to copy. They walked slowly found the four sides, lingering where Signorelli's deeper sentiment gave them cause for study. He was called to Monte Oliveto first, and painted only one wall. It was only after three years that the young unknown Bazzi was summoned, and in an incredibly short time he completed the other three with his fanciful creations, as graceful and airy as his character was light and frivolous. His beautiful faces and figures came from his heart; his brain had little to do with his work, as, without the evidence of sight of it, the name given to him by the public-Sodoma, meaning arch-fool-would indicate. Signorelli, on the contrary, had his ideal in his brain, and labored to reproduce it; and his efforts are graver and more elevated. It is to be lamented that his mineral paints have changed their colors in many places from white to black, and that his green trees have become blue.

The padre had studied these frescos so thoroughly as to discover that Sodoma had sometimes spent only three days on a fresco, by tracing the joinings where the fresh plaster had been applied, which had to be finished before it dried. This gifted, careless painter had the habit of scratching out his heads, if they did not please him, with the handle of his brush; and thus some of them appear to us in the nineteenth century, four hundred years after.

They spent the rest of the day here. Fra Lorenzo joined them at dinner, and in the evening they walked with the padre beyond the tower to see the spires of the Siena cathedral through the lovely poisonous blue mist. On the way back they stopped in the tangled, overgrown garden at the foot of the tower, which had once been filled with rare medicinal plants, and peeped into the deserted pharmacy in the lower story, where the shelves were still filled with rare old pottery jars with the three mounts and cross and olive-branches upon them. "I am the only physician now," said the padre, "and must have my medicines nearer home." In walking over the rocks the visitors noticed, to their surprise, that, instead of being barren, they were covered with the thick growth of a short plant, which, like the chameleon, had made itself invisible by turning gray like the rock. In answer to their inquiries they learned that it was the absinthe plant, belonging to the same family as the Swiss plant from which the liquor is made that is eating up the brains of the French nation; but here it forms the harmless food of the sheep, and from their milk the famous creta cheese is made,-"called creta from the rock, which means in English chalk, I think," continued the padre. "You have noticed its pungent taste at table, have you not?" The ladies hastened to repair their omission, for it is so celebrated that they ought to have said something about it. After age has hardened and mellowed it, no cheese in Italy is so highly esteemed.

They went, too, to see how the young eucalyptus-trees were flourishing,-the object of the padre's great solicitude. "We cannot sleep with our windows open, on account of the bad air, and I have been corresponding with the Father Trappists in the Roman Campagna about the cultivation of these trees as a purifier, and am most anxious as to the result. If I could reduce the fever among the poor people about here, I should be more content to leave them when my summons comes."

The owls were flying above them in the cypresses as they neared the convent, and came swooping down above their heads as the padre imitated their melancholy hoot. Seeing Beppo in the distance, he called to him to go for the guns. Whether owls merit to be the symbol of wisdom or no, they flew away in ever wider circles as soon as the guns and dogs appeared, and could not be decoyed back. The last rays of light lit up the gun-barrels as the party went in at the heavy door: the clashing sound of the bolt and chains, the yelping of the dogs, the guns glistening in the glimmer of light which came in through the cloister, made a scene which must often have had its counterparts in the feudal keeps of the Middle Ages, when the robber knights returned with their booty.

After supper they went to see a marvel of concealed treasure stored away in one of the upper cells,-priestly robes and altar-cloths shimmering in gold and silver: some of these robes were more beautiful than any they had seen in the treasuries of Rome. Pure gold they were, wrought in emblems of divinity. "These are presents to the monastery from our family," said Fra Lorenzo. "These simpler ones, embroidered with the silk flowers, are Fra Giorgio's work. He is now away from the convent, and I am sorry he cannot hear you admire his robes." It was midnight before the glittering heap was folded away, and the night which followed was one of sound repose.

Next morning the signora was leaning over the brink of the ivy-crowned well, trying to reach a spray twined thick with moss that grew in a crevice of the stones just beyond her reach. "Signora," a low voice said, "you ought not to lean so far: you might fall in, and the water is very deep. What is it you want? Let me get it for you." And Fra Lorenzo, following her direction, drew up the spray sparkling with moisture.

"It is beautiful enough for a crown for a god," said she, twining it together at the ends. "Will you let me turn you into Apollo for a moment?" And, without thinking, she let it fall lightly on his head. "No Apollo was ever so beautiful," she involuntarily exclaimed. "If only you had a lyre!"

The action, not the admiration, was reprehensible. She was a woman of the world, and should have thought; and this she realized as her eyes fell upon his face, where a revelation was unfolding itself. There was something in this life which he had never thought about, never dreamed of; and the light which shone out of his dark eyes was deeper than that of wonder. She would have given the world to take back her thoughtlessness, for she felt she had given an angel to eat of the forbidden fruit.

The signora was a good woman, with all her worldly knowledge, but a subtile charm of expression and manner made her a very beautiful woman at times, and this moment, unfortunately for two good persons, was one of these. She was just reaching for the crown, when the padre came into the cloister and stopped with amazement as his eye fell on the group. "Fra Lorenzo," said he, after a moment, "you are sent for to go to Casale Montalcino: Giuseppe is dying; and you will stay there until the last offices are finished."

The young monk seemed under a spell which he shook off with difficulty. "I go, padre," he said, and started.

As he passed before the padre, the latter reached for the crown and threw it into the well, saying, "This beseemeth little a tonsured head." Then he turned to the signora and asked her if she had examined the fresco just behind them. "It is worth much study," he went on, "for many reasons. The subject enabled Sodoma to throw more expression into it than usual. You see, St. Benedict is resisting the temptation his enemies prepared for him in introducing these beautiful women secretly into the monastery. Being so completely a man of God, he overcame the evil one without an effort; but it is not given to us all to overcome as he did, and a zephyr from the outer world may waft us an evil which must be atoned for by long penitence in our lonely cells. Not that I liken you to a tempter," he added, seeing her confusion and distress: "you have only forgotten that we are servants of God and must think of nothing but our duty in serving him."

"Oh, padre, I would give everything if I had not forgotten it! You must think of me as a good woman, for indeed I deserve it."

"I do think of you as such, and am sure the lesson will not be forgotten," was the crumb of comfort upon which she fed all the rest of the day and for several days following, during which Fra Lorenzo had not reappeared. The fountain-scene had not been mentioned to her friends, so one day at dinner Margaret said, "Do the offices for the dead generally require so much time, that Lorenzo does not return?"

"Fra Lorenzo is here," was the answer. "He was only absent one night. He is very much occupied: that is why you do not see him."

The next day they were to be shown the library, and at the hour set the signora went to the padre's reception-room to see if he were ready. He was just reaching for the key, when a peasant appeared, his hand bleeding from a cut which had nearly dissevered the thumb. This necessitated a delay, and the padre went down with him to the dispensary. "While you are waiting," he said, "perhaps you would like to go up into the pavilion, where you can look over the Maremma to the sea. Go up that stair," and he pointed to the end of a corridor, "to the first landing, then turn to the left."

As she went up the stair her eye was caught by a carved ceiling at the top of it. "I suppose I ought to go that far," she thought, and up she went, until she found herself in a room frescoed with portraits of the distinguished men of the order. In the middle of one wall was a magnificently-carved folding-door, with fruits and flowers and twining foliage with rare birds sitting among the tendrils. She was examining these details, when she discovered that the door was ajar. A slight push, and she was in a large, beautiful hall, where three lofty vaulted aisles were supported by slender marble columns with richly-carved capitals. At the end of the centre aisle a staircase in the form of a horseshoe led to a gallery. The walls up-stairs and down, sparsely filled with books, told her she was in the library.

"It will be all the same to the padre," she thought, "if I wait here instead of in the pavilion," and she was half-way down the hall, her eyes glued to the shelves, when she came suddenly upon Fra Lorenzo sitting before a table covered with manuscripts in the niche of a deep window. He must have been aware of her presence from the first, for his eyes were fixed upon her with a look of intense expectancy.

"I was thinking of you, signora, and you come to me," was his strange salutation.

She felt she must be composed at any cost: so she said, in as easy a tone as she could command, "I should like to know what resemblance there is between me and these dusty old manuscripts, that you think of me as you copy them. You are copying them, are you not?"

"No, signora, I do nothing: you are always between me and my work. Why did you look at me so at the fountain? But no; forgive me: I was thinking of you before that. From the first evening in the refectory your laugh has been ringing in my heart. You seemed to me like a beautiful light in the shadows of our old hall."

She was moving quickly away, when he reached after her and touched her sleeve. "You are not angry?"

"No," she answered. "I would only remind you that you belong to God in body and soul, and when you think of me you commit a deadly sin, for which never-ending penance can scarcely atone."

"Signora, you are right. The penance does so little for me now. All night long I was before the crucifix in the church, and while I prayed I felt better; but when morning came and I thought of the long, lonely years I must spend here sinning against God and finding no rest, with you always in my heart-What can I do? You are good; tell me what I can do."

The pain of this innocent, beautiful life was a weight too heavy for her to bear, and she felt herself giving way under it. "Pray," she stammered,-"pray for us both, for we must never meet again." She reached the door, went down the stair, and, turning mechanically to the right, found herself at last in the pavilion, where she leaned against the parapet and looked into space. She had lost the capacity of thinking.

It was fortunate the padre was so long delayed, for when he came up at last with the signorine she had so far recovered herself as to be standing upright, apparently absorbed in the view.

"I don't wonder this view has made you speechless," her friends called out. "It is simply glorious."

"Yes," said the padre: "on these cliffs we seem on the brink of eternity; down there among the morasses of the Maremma man cannot stay his feet; and beyond is the sea."

"How beautiful the thought," said Julia, "that good men dying here have no longer need to stay their feet! One step from these cliffs, and they must be in heaven."

"Who knows, who knows," sighed the padre, "if any of us have found it so? But now let us go to the library."

The signora followed them, since she could not do otherwise. They stopped before the carved door, which the padre said was undoubtedly Fra Giovanni's own work, and he pointed out the details of the beautiful workmanship. At length he opened the door, which the signora felt sure she had not closed. One glance around the hall showed her it was empty.

The padre was too much occupied with his emotions over the scantily-supplied shelves, and the ladies with their surprise and admiration, to notice her excited condition, which she at length succeeded in quieting enough to hear the padre say, "They have taken our precious manuscripts from us, dating as far back as the eleventh century. Many of our order had spent their lives translating and copying manuscripts, and our greatest loss is here. Fra Lorenzo is just now translating some Latin chronicles of our first history into Italian. You can see by his beautiful handwriting that he is a worthy disciple of his learned predecessors. But how is this?"-as he searched among the rolls of yellow parchment. "I see he has not yet commenced it." The old man looked troubled, and, turning from the table, went on: "These carved depositories for the choral-books, and the frescos at the head of the stairs, are about all you can admire here now, except the architecture of the hall."

The padre was very silent at dinner. He only said, noticing that the signora ate nothing, "This will not do, my daughter. You look ill. You must eat something, or I shall have two patients on my hands."

"Who is the other?" asked Margaret and Julia in a breath.

"Fra Lorenzo."

The signora longed to speak with him in private. She must go away at once, but she must speak with him before she said anything to her friends. All the afternoon she watched for an opportunity, but found none. At length, when it was growing dark, she went to walk in the corridor, hoping to meet him. She had come to the open gallery looking into the cloister. Here she would wait for him; and, leaning against the open-work railing, she looked down. A white figure was walking to and fro. Finally it came to the well and looked into it. Now another white figure emerged from the shadows, and, laying an arm around the first, led it gently away out of sight. Then her overstrained nerves gave way, and she fainted.

When she recovered her senses she found herself in bed. The padre and her friends were talking in whispers in the next room, but the former's voice came to her distinctly. He was saying, "Now you know all. You must take her away as soon as possible."

A year after, in Naples, the ladies received these few lines from the padre: "God in his infinite mercy has taken my son to himself."

Kate Johnston Matson.

* * *

THE SUBSTITUTE.

CHARACTERS.

Mr. Nathaniel Nokes, a Retired Wine-Merchant.

Mr. Charles Nokes, his Nephew.

Mr. Robinson, Mr. Sponge, Mr. Rasper, Friends of Mr. Nokes the Elder.

Waiter.

Susan, Housemaid at the Hotel of the Four Seasons.

Mrs. Charles Nokes.

Landlady.

* * *

SCENE I.-A handsome first-floor apartment in the Hotel of the Four Seasons, Paris. Outside the window, the court-yard, with fountain, and little trees in large pots.

Enter Mr. Nathaniel Nokes, with a small book in his hand, very smartly dressed, but in great haste, and with his shirt-collar much dishevelled. [Rings the bell violently.]

What's the good of these confounded French phrase-books? Who wants to know how to ask for artichoke soup, or how far it is to Dijon? I want a button sewn on my shirt-collar, and there's not one word about that.

Enter Waiter.

Nokes. Hi! what's-your-name! Voulez-vous-avoir-la-bonté-de-[I'm always civil and very distinct, but, somehow, I can never make myself understood.] I am going to be married, my good man; to be married-tout de suite-immediately, and there is no time to change my-my chemise d'homme. [Come, he'll understand that.] I want this button-button, button, button sewn on. Here, here-here. [Points to his throat.] Don't you see, you fool? [He thinks I want him to cut my throat. I shall never be in time at the Legation!] Idiot! Dolt! Send Susan, Susan, à moi, to me-or I'll kick you into the court-yard. [Exit Waiter, with precipitation.]

Nokes [alone]. And this is what they call a highly-civilized country! Talk of "a strong government" at home: what's the use of its being strong, if it can't make foreigners speak our language? What's the good of missionary enterprise, when here's a Christian man, within twelve hours of London, who can't get a shirt-button sewn on for want of the Parisian accent? I said "button, button, button," plain enough, I'm sure; and a button's a button all the world over. If it had not been for that excellent Susan, the English chambermaid, I should have perished in this place, of what the coroner's inquests call "want of the necessaries of life." All depends, as every one knows, on a man's shirt-button: if that goes wrong, everything goes, and one's attire is a wreck. But I suppose after to-day my wife will see to that,-though she is a Montmorenci. Constance de Montmorenci, that's her name: she's descended (she says) from a Constable of France. It's a more English-seeming name than gendarme, and I like her for that; but I am afraid we shan't have much in common-except my property. She don't speak English very fluently: she called me "my dove" the other day, instead of "my duck," which is ridiculous. She is not twenty, and I am over sixty,-which is perhaps also ridiculous.

Well, it's all Charles's fault, not mine. If he chooses to go and marry a beggar-girl without my consent, he must take the consequences,-if there are a dozen of them,-and support them how he can. "If you persist in this wicked and perverse resolve," said I, "I'll marry also, before the year's out." And now I'm going to do it,-if I can only get this shirt-button sewn on. He shall not have a penny of what I have to leave behind me. The little Nokes-Montmorencis shall have it all. She's a most accomplished creature is Constance. Sings, they tell me,-for it's not in English, so I don't understand it,-divinely; plays ditto; draws ditto. Speaks every language (except English) with equal facility and-Thank goodness, here's Susan.

Enter Susan, with housemaid's broom.

Susan. What do you please to want, sir?

Nokes. You, Susan; you, first of all, and then a shirt-button. I have not five minutes to spare. My bride is probably already at the Embassy, expressing her impatience in various continental tongues. Vite,-look sharp, Susan. [Aside.] Admirable woman!-she carries buttons about with her. I wonder whether the Montmorenci will do that.-Take care!-don't run the needle into me!

Susan. You must not talk, sir, or else I can't help it. Please to hold your head up a little higher.

Nokes. I shall do that when I've married the Montmorenci. [She pricks him.] Oh! oh!

Susan. I'm sure I hope as you'll be happy with her, sir; but you seem so fond of old England that I doubt whether you ought not to have chosen your wife from your native land. It seems a pity to be marrying in such haste, just because your poor nephew-pray don't speak, sir, or I shall certainly run the needle into you-just because Mr. Charles has gone and wedded the girl of his choice.

Nokes [passionately]. Hold your tongue, Susan! [She pricks him again.] Oh! oh!

Susan. There, sir, I told you what would happen. All I say is, I hope you may not marry in haste to repent at leisure. A fortnight is such a very short time to have known a lady before making her your bride. There, sir; I think the button will keep on now.

Nokes. Then I'm off, Susan. But, before I go, I must express my thanks to you for looking after me so attentively in this place. Here's a five-pound note for you. [Aside] I could almost find it in my heart to give her a kiss; but perhaps the Montmorenci wouldn't like it.

Susan [gratefully]. Oh, thank you, sir. May all happiness attend you, sir! and when you're married yourself, sir, don't be too hard upon that poor nephew of yours-

Nokes [angrily]. Be quiet. [Exit hastily.]

Susan [alone]. Now, there's as kind-hearted an old gentleman as ever lived,-and as good a one, too, if it was not for pigheadedness and tantrums. The idea of a five-pound note merely for helping him to get his victuals! He's been just like a baby in this 'ere 'otel, and I've been a mother to him. He couldn't 'a' got a drop o' milk if it hadn't been for me. Poor dear old soul! What a pity it is he should have such a temper! He is taking a wife to-day solely to keep a hasty word uttered agen his nephew and heir. Mademoiselle Constance de Montmorenci! ah, I've heard of her before to-day. Nanette, the head-chambermaid here, was once her lady's-maid. She's known her for more than a fortnight. Constance is a fine name, but it ain't quite the same as Constancy. Poor Mr. Nokes! What a mistake it was in him to drive all thoughts of matrimony off to the last, and then to come to Paris-of all places-to do it! What a curious thing is sympathy! He met her in the tidal train, and they were taken ill together on board the steamboat; that's how it came about. Poor old soul! He deserves a better fate. [Takes her broom and leans on it reflectively.] Heigh-ho! His honest English face was pleasant to look upon in this here outlandish spot; and none has been so kind to me since my poor missis died and left me under this roof, without money enough to pay my passage back to England. I was glad enough to take service here; for why should I go back to a country where there is not a soul to welcome me? And yet I should like to see dear old England again, too. [Tumult without. Mr. Nokes is seen rushing madly up the court-yard. Tumult in the passage; French and English voices at high pitch. Nokes without: Idiots! Frog-eaters! What is it I want? Nothing! nothing but to see France sunk in the sea!]

Enter Nokes (dishevelled and purple with passion, with an open letter in his hand; bangs the door behind him).

Susan. What is the matter, sir?

Nokes. Everything is the matter. You see this lily-white waistcoat; you see these matrimonial does [points to his trousers], these polished-leather boots, which are at this moment pinching me most confoundedly, though I don't feel it, because I'm in such a passion: well, they have been put on for nothing. I've been made a fool of by the Montmorenci. But if there's justice in heaven,-that is, in Paris,-if there's law in France, and blighted hopes are compensated in this country as they are at home, the hussy shall smart for it. Directly I'm married myself, I'll bring an action against her for breach of promise.

Susan. Married yourself, sir?

Nokes. Of course I'm going to be married,-at once, immediately,-within the week. There's only a week left to the end of the year. Do you suppose-does my nephew Charles suppose-no, for he knows me better-that I am not going to keep my word? that because the Montmorenci has played me false at the eleventh hour I am going to remain a bachelor for seven days longer? Never, Susan, never! [Walks hastily up and down the room.]

Susan. Lor, sir, do pray be a little quiet, I am sure if any young woman was to see you in this state she must be uncommonly courageous to take charge of such a husband. Do, pray, tell me what has happened.

Nokes. Nothing has happened. That's what I complain of. Just as I drove up to the Legation this letter was handed to me. It is from the brother of the Montmorenci, and is supposed to be written in the English tongue. He regrets that matters between Mademoiselle his sister and myself have been advanced with such precipitation.

Susan. Well, sir, you were rather in a hurry about it, I must say.

Nokes. Hurry! I was in nothing of the sort. We were in the same boat together for hours. We suffered agonies in company. And, besides, I had only three weeks at farthest to waste in making love to anybody. And now I've only one week,-all because this woman did not know her own mind.

Susan. How so, sir?

Nokes. Why, it seems she loves somebody else better. Her brother tells me-confound his impudence!-that this is only natural. At the same time, he allows I have some cause to complain, and therefore offers me the opportunity of a personal combat with what he is pleased to call the peculiar weapon of my countrymen, the pistol. Now, I should have said the peculiar weapon of my country was the umbrella. That is certainly the instrument I should choose if I were compelled to engage in mortal strife. But the idea of being shot in the liver in reparation for one's matrimonial injuries! To be laid up in that way when there is only a week left in which to woo and win another Mrs. Nokes! But what am I to do now? How am I to find a respectable young woman to take me at so short a notice?

Susan. There isn't many of that sort in Paris, sir, even if you gave 'em longer.

Nokes. Just so. Come, you're a sensible, good girl, and have helped me out of several difficulties; now, do you think you can help me out of this one?

Susan [demurely]. Have you got an almanac about you, sir?

Nokes. An almanac? Of course I have. I have given up the wine-trade, but I have not given up the habit so essential to business-men of carrying an almanac in my breast-pocket. Here it is.

Susan [takes almanac and looks through it attentively]. No, sir [sighs], it won't do.

Nokes. What won't do? What did you expect to find that would do-in an almanac-in such a crisis as this?

Susan. Well, sir [casting down her eyes], I was looking to see if it was leap-year; but it isn't.

Nokes. What! You were going to offer to fill the place of the Montmorenci. You impudent little hussy! [Aside] Gad, she's uncommonly pretty, though. Prettier than the other. I noticed that when she was sewing on my shirt-button; only I didn't think it right, under the circumstances, to dwell upon the idea. But there can't be any harm in it now.

Susan [sobbing]. I am afraid I have made you angry with me, Mr. Nokes. I was only in fun, but I see now that it was taking a liberty.

Nokes [very tenderly and chucking her under the chin]. We should never take liberties, Susan. [Kisses her.] Never. But don't cry, or you'll make your eyes red; and I rather like your eyes. [Aside] I didn't like to dwell upon the idea before, but she has got remarkably pretty eyes. It's a dreadful come-down from the Montmorenci, to be sure: still, one must marry somebody-within seven days. But then, again, I've written such flaming accounts of the other one to all my friends. I've asked Sponge and Rasper and Robinson to come down, and see us after the honeymoon at "the Tamarisks," my little place near Dover. And they are all eager to hear her sing and play, and to see her beautiful sketches in oil-Can you sing, and play, and sketch in oil, Susan?

Susan [gravely]. I don't know, sir; I never tried.

Nokes [aside]. Then there's her hands. The Montmorenci's, as I wrote to Rasper, were like the driven snow; and Susan's-though I didn't like to dwell upon the idea-are more like snow on the second day, in London. To be sure she will have nothing to do as Mrs. Nokes except to wash 'em. Then she can speak French like a native, or at least what will seem to Robinson and the others like a native. Upon my life, I think I might do worse. But then, again, she'll have relatives,-awful relatives, whom I shall have to buy off, or, worse, who will not be bought off. It's certainly a dreadful come-down. Susan [hesitatingly], Susan dear, what is your name?

Susan. Montem, sir; Susan Montem.

Nokes [aside]. By Jove! why, that's half-way to Montmorenci. It's not at all a bad name. But then what's the good of that if she's going to change it for Nokes? Oh, Montem, is it, Susan? And is your papa-your father-alive?

Susan [sorrowfully]. No, sir.

Nokes. That's capital!-I mean I'm so sorry. Poor girl! Your father's dead, is he? You're sure he's dead?

Susan [with her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes]. Quite sure, sir.

Nokes. And your mamma,-your excellent mamma,-she's alive, at all events?

Susan. No, sir; I am an orphan.

Nokes [aside]. How delightful! I love orphans. I'm an orphan myself. Ah, but then she's sure to have brothers and sisters,-pipe-smoking, gin-drinking brothers, and sisters who will have married idle mechanics, with executions in their houses every quarter-day. Susan, my dear, how many brothers and sisters have you?

Susan [sorrowfully]. I have none, sir. When my dear missis died I was left quite alone in the world.

Nokes. I'm charmed to hear it [embracing her], adorable young woman! [Bell rings without.] What are they pulling that bell about for? Confound them, it makes me nervous.

Susan [meekly]. I think they're wanting me, sir: you see, sir, I'm neglecting my work.

Nokes [kissing her]. No, you're not, Susan [kisses her again]: quite the contrary. So your name's Montem,-at present,-is it? How came that about?

Susan. Well, sir, I was left a foundling in the parish workhouse, at Salthill, near Eton. Nobody knew anything about me, and as I made my appearance there one Montem day, the board of guardians named me Montem.

Nokes. And how came you to be chambermaid at this hotel?

Susan [seriously]. It was through good Mr. Woodward, the curate at Salthill, that it happened, sir: he was my benefactor through life. Always kind to me at the workhouse, where he was chaplain, he got me a situation, as soon as I was old enough, with a lady. I lived with her first as housemaid, and then as her personal attendant, till she died under this roof.

Nokes [aside]. I don't wonder at that.

Susan. The people of the hotel here wanted an English chambermaid, and offered me the place, which, since my benefactor the clergyman was dead, I accepted thankfully.

Nokes. Poor girl! poor girl! [Pats Susan's head.] There, there! your feelings do you the greatest credit; but don't cry, because it makes your eyes red. Now, look here, Susan; there's only one thing more. You are very soft-hearted, I perceive, and it must be distinctly understood between us that you need never intercede with me in favor of that scoundrel Charles. I won't have it. You wouldn't succeed, of course, but if I ever happen to get fond of you-I mean foolishly fond of you, of course-your importunity might be annoying. When you are once my wife, however, and keeping your own carriage, I confidently expect that you will behave as other people do in that station of life, and show no weakness in favor of your poor relations.

Susan. I will endeavor, sir, in case you are so good as to marry a humble girl like me, to do my dooty and please you in every way.

Nokes. That's well said, Susan. [Kisses her.] You have pleased me in a good many ways already. [Aside] I must say, though I didn't like to dwell upon the idea before-[Tremendous ringing of bells, and sudden appearance of the mistress of the hotel. Tableau.]

Mistress of the hotel [to Nokes]. O vieux polisson! [To Susan] Coquine abominable!

Nokes [to Susan]. What is this lunatic raving about?

Susan. She remarks that I haven't finished my work on the second floor.

Nokes [impatiently]. Tell her to go to-the ground floor. Tell her you are going to be married to me within the week, and order a wedding-breakfast-for two-immediately.

Susan [aside]. I can never tell her that, for she is a Frenchwoman, and wouldn't believe it. I'll tell her something more melodramatic. I'll say that Mr. Nokes is my father, who has suddenly recognized and discovered his long-lost child.-Madame, c'est mon père longtemps absent, qui vous en prie d'accepter ses remerciments pour votre bonté à son enfant.

Mistress of the hotel [all smiles, and with both hands outstretched]. Milor, I do congratulate you. Fortunate Susan! You will nevare forget to recommend de hotel?

Nokes. Thank you, thank you; you're a sensible old woman. [Aside] She evidently sees no absurd disproportion in our years.-Breakfast, breakfast!-déje?ner à la what-do-you-call-it! champagne! [Exit landlady, smiling and bowing.]

Nokes. In the mean time, Susan, put on your bonnet and let's go out to-whatever they call Doctors' Commons here-and order a special license. [Susan goes.] Stop a bit, Susan; you forget something. [Kisses her.] [Aside] I did not like to dwell upon the idea before, but she's got a most uncommon pretty mouth.

* * *

SCENE II.-Drawing-room at the Tamarisks. Garden and Sea in the distance. Grand piano, harp, sketch-book; and huge portfolio.

Nokes [less gayly attired: solus]. Gad, I feel rather nervous. There's Sponge, and Rasper, and Robinson, all coming down by the mid-day train to lunch with me and my new wife,-the Montmorenci, as they imagine. It's impossible that Susan can keep up such a delusion, and especially as she insists on talking English. She says her French is so vulgar. But there! I don't care how she talks or what she talks, bless her. Everything sounds well from those charming lips. She's a kind-hearted, good girl, and worth eight hundred dozen (as I should say if I hadn't left the wine-trade) of the other one. There was something wrong about that Montmorenci vintage, for all her sparkle; corked or something. Now, my Susan's all good,-good the second day, good the third day, good every day. She's like port-all the better for keeping; and she's not like port-because there's no crustiness about her. She's a deuced clever woman. To hear her talk broken English when the squire's wife called here the other day was as good as a play. Everybody hereabouts believes she's a Frenchwoman; but then they're all country-people, and they'll believe anything. Sponge and Rasper and Robinson are all London born,-especially Rasper,-and London people believe nothing. They only give credit.

Enter Susan, in an in-door morning dress, but gloved.

Nokes. Well, my darling, have you screwed your courage up to meet these three gentlemen? Upon my life, I think it would be better if I told them at once that I had been jilted, and instead of the Montmorenci had found The Substitute infinitely preferable to the original; for I'm sure I have, Susan [fondly].

Susan [holding up her finger]. Constance, if you please, my dear. I'm continually correcting that little mistake of yours. How can I possibly keep up my dignity as a Montmorenci while you are always calling me Susan?

Nokes. Then why keep it up at all, my dear? Why not stand at once upon your merits, which I am sure are quite sufficient? Of course it would be a little come-down for me just at first; but that's no matter.

Susan. My good, kind husband! [Kisses his forehead.] No, dear; let me first show your friends that you have no cause to be ashamed of me. It will be much easier to do that if they think I am a born lady. Appearances do such a deal in the world.

Nokes. Yes, my dear, I've noticed that in the wine-trade. If you were to sell cider at eighty shillings a dozen, it would be considered uncommon good tipple by the customer who bought it. Tell them Madeira has been twice to China-twice to China [chuckles to himself]-and how they smack their lips! That reminds me, by the bye [seriously], of another set of appearances, Susan, which we have to guard against,-the pretence and show of poverty. You must learn to steel your heart against that, my dear. There's that nephew of mine been writing one of his persistent and appealing letters again. He adjures me to have pity, if not upon him, at all events upon his innocent Clara. But she ought not to have been his innocent Clara, and so I've told him. She ought not to have been his Clara at all. Now, do you remember your solemn promise to me about that young man?

Susan [sighing]. Yes, sir, I remember.

Nokes [angrily]. Why do you call me "sir," Susan?

Susan. Because when you look so stern and talk so severely you don't seem to be the same good, kind-hearted husband that I know you are. I'll keep my promise, sir, not to hold out my hand to your unfortunate nephew, but please don't let us talk about it. It makes me feel less reverence, less respect, and even less gratitude, sir,-it does, indeed,-since your very generosity toward me has made me the instrument of punishment, and-as I feel-of wrong. I have been poor myself, and what must that young couple think of my never answering their touching letter, put in my hands as I first crossed this threshold?

Nokes [testily]. Touching letter, indeed! Any begging-letter impostor would have written as good a one. It's all humbug, Susan. Mrs. Charles would like to see you whipped, if I know women. And as for my nephew-[Noises of wheels heard, and bell rings.] But there's the front-door bell. Here are our visitors from town. Had you not better leave the room for a minute or two, to wash those tears away? It would never do, you know, to exhibit a Montmorenci with red eyes. [Exit Susan.]

Nokes [solus]. That's the only matter about which my dear Susan and I are ever likely to fall out,-the extending what she calls the hand of forgiveness to Charles and his wife, just because they've got a baby. I'll never do it if they have twelve. I said to myself I wouldn't when he wrote to me about this marriage, and I always keep my word.

Enter Sponge, Rasper, and Robinson.

Nokes [shaking hands with all]. Welcome, my friends, welcome to the Tamarisks.

Robinson. Thank ye, Nokes, thank ye. But how changed we are at the Tamarisks! [Pointing to the piano and portfolio.] I mean how changed we are for the better! ain't we, Sponge? ain't we, Rasper?

Sponge [fawningly]. It was always a charming retreat, but we now see everywhere, in addition to its former beauties, the magical influence of a female hand.

Rasper [vulgarly]. Yes; no doubt of that. Directly I saw the new coach-house, I said, "By Jove, that's Mrs. N--'s doing! She'll spend his money for him, will Mrs. N--."

Nokes [annoyed]. You were very good, I'm sure.

Sponge. But it is here, within-doors, my dear Nokes, that the great transformation-scene has been effected. Pianos, harpsichords, sketch-books,-these all bespeak the presence of lovely and accomplished woman.

Robinson. May we venture to peep into this portfolio, my good fellow?-that is, if the contents have the interest for us that we believe them to have. It holds Mrs. Nokes's sketches, I presume.

Nokes. Yes, yes; they are her sketches and nobody else's. [Aside] Certainly they are, for I bought them for her in Piccadilly.-But here she comes to answer for herself. [Enter Susan.] Sus-I mean Constance, my dear, let me introduce to you three friends of my bachelor days, Mr. Sponge, Mr. Rasper, Mr. Robinson.

Susan [speaking broken English]. Gentlemens, I am mos glad to see you. My husband-hees friends are mai friends.

Rasper [aside]. She's devilish civil. If she had been English I should almost think she was afraid of us.

Sponge [bowing]. You are most kind, madam. The noble are always kind. [Aside to Nokes.] She's all blood, my dear fellow.

Nokes [looking toward her in alarm]. What? Where?

Sponge. No, no; don't misunderstand me. I mean she's all high birth. If I had met your wife anywhere-in an omnibus, for instance-and only heard her speak, I should have exclaimed, "There's a Montmorenci!"

Nokes [pleased]. Should you really, now, my dear Sponge? Well, that shows you are a man of discernment.

Robinson [to Susan]. It is such a real pleasure to us, Mrs. Nokes, that you speak English. We were afraid we should find it difficult to converse with you. Sponge is the only one of us who understands-

Sponge. Yes, madam, we did fear that since no other tongue is spoken in courts and camps-or, at all events, in courts-we should have some difficulty in following your ideas. But you speak English like a native.

Susan [emphatically]. I believe you. [Recollecting and correcting herself] Dat is, I do trai mai best. It please my mari-my what ees it?-my husband. He don't talk French heemself-not mooch.

Nokes. Well, I don't think you should quite say that, my dear. I could always make myself understood abroad, you know, though my accent is perhaps a little anglicized.

Susan [laughing]. Rayther so.

[Guests exchange looks of astonishment.]

Nokes [with precipation]. My dear, what an expression! The fact is, my friends, that madame has a young brother-Count Maximilian de Montmorenci-at school in England, and what she knows of our language she has mainly acquired from him. The consequence is, she occasionally talks-in point of fact-slang.

Susan [in broken English]. Cherk the tinklare, coot your luckies, whos your hattar? [To Rasper] Have your moder sold her mangle?

[Nokes, Sponge, and Robinson roar with laughter.]

Rasper [aside]. Confound that Nokes! He must have told her about my family. [With indignation] Madam, I-[Points by accident to the portfolio.]

Susan. What? you weesh to see mai sketch? Oh, yas! [Opens the portfolio; the three guests crowd round it. Nokes comes down to the front.]

Nokes [aside]. I wish they'd take their lunch and go away. They put me in a profuse perspiration. I know they'll find her out.

Robinson [with a sketch-book in his hand]. Beautiful!

Sponge [looking over his shoulder on tiptoe]. Exquisite! most lovely! it's what I call perfection.

Rasper. First-rate-only I've seen something like it before. [Aside] If I haven't seen that in some print-shop. I'll be hanged. [Blows.]

Susan. Ha! ha! you halve seen eet beefore, Mr.-Gasper? Think of that, my husband,-Mr. Gasper has seen it beefore!

Nokes [laughing uncomfortably]. Ha! ha! What a funny idea!

Rasper [obstinately]. But I have, though; and in a shop-window, too.

Susan [delightedly]. That is superbe, magnifique! I am so happy, so proud! My husband, they have copied this leetle work of mine in London!

[Robinson and Sponge clap their hands applaudingly.]

Rasper [shakes his head; aside]. Dashed if I don't believe it's a chromolithograph! [To Nokes] I say, Nokes, you wrote to us in such raptures about your wife's hands. Why does she keep her gloves on?

Nokes [confused]. Keep her gloves on? You mean why does she wear them in-doors? Well, the fact is, the Montmorencis always do it. It's been a family peculiarity for centuries,-like the Banshee. And, besides, she does it to keep her hands delicate: they're just like roses-I mean white roses,-if you could only see 'em. But then she always wears gloves.

Rasper [grunts disapproval]. Then I suppose it's no use asking her to give us a tune on the piano?

Nokes [hastily]. Not a bit, not a bit; of course not; and, besides, we shall have lunch directly.

Susan [approaching them]. What is dat, Mr. Gasper? Did you not ask for a leetle music? What you like for me to play?

Nokes [aside to Susan]. How can you be such a fool? Why, this is suicide! [To Rasper] My dear fellow, my wife would be delighted, but the fact is the piano is out of order. The tuner is coming to-morrow.

Susan [seats herself at the piano]. My dear husband, it weel do very well. He only said we must note "thomp, thomp" until he had seen it; dat is all. Now, gentlemens, what would you like?

Sponge [with an armful of music-books]. Nay, madam, what will you do us the favor to choose? [Aside] There is nothing I love so much in this world as turning over the leaves of a music-book for a lady of birth!

Susan. Ah, I am so sorry, because I do only play by de ear, here [points to her ear]. But what would you like, gentlemens? Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, it is all exactly de same to me.

Robinson. Oh, then, pray let us have Mendelssohn,-one of those exquisite Songs without Words of his.

Susan. Yas? with plaisir. I like dose songs best myself,-de songs without words.

Nokes [aside, despairingly]. It's impossible she can get out of this. Now we shall have an éclaircissement, an exposure, an explosion.

Susan [strikes piano violently with both hands, and a string breaks with a loud report]. Ah, quel dommage! How stupide, too, when he told me not to "thomp, thomp"! I am so sorry, gentlemens! I did hope to give you a song, but I cannot sing without an accompaniment.

Rasper [maliciously]. There's the harp, ma'am,-unless its strings are in the same unsatisfactory state as those of the piano.

Susan [with affected delight]. What, you play de harp, Mr. Gasper? I am so glad, because I do not play it yet myself: I am only learning. Come, I shall sing, and you shall play upon de harp.

Rasper [angrily]. I play the harp, madam! what rubbish! of course I can't.

Sponge [eagerly]. But I can, just a little,-just enough to accompany one of Mrs. Nokes's charming songs. [Brings the harp down to the front, and sits down to it, trying the strings.]

Nokes [aside]. The nasty little accomplished beast! He'll ruin everything. Susan is at her wits' end. [Aside to Susan] What on earth are we to do now?

Enter Servant.

[In stentorian tones] Luncheon is on the table! [Then, approaching Susan, he adds, in lower but distinct tones] A lady wishes to see you, madam, upon very particular business.

Susan [surprised]. A lady! what lady?

Nokes [to Susan, aside and impatiently]. Never mind what lady; see her at once, whoever she is: it will be an excuse for getting away from these people.-My wife is engaged for the present, my good friends, so we'll sit down to lunch without her.

[All bow and leave the room, receiving in return from Susan a stately courtesy. Nokes, the last to leave, kisses his hand to her.] Adorable Susan, you have conquered, you remain in possession of the field; but you must not risk another engagement. I will see to that. Champagne shall do its work on Rasper-Gasper.

Enter Mrs. Charles Nokes, neatly but cheaply attired. Susan rises, bows, and looks toward her interrogatively.

Mrs. Charles Nokes. I did not send in my name, madam, because I feared it would but prejudice you against your visitor. I am Charles's-that is, your husband's niece by marriage; not a near relation to yourself, you might say, if you wished to be unkind,-which [with earnestness] I do not think you do.

Susan [distressed, but endeavoring to remain firm]. Oh, but I do, ma'am. I wish to be as hard as a stone. [Aside] Only I can't. What a pretty, modest young creature she is!

Mrs. C.N. The poor give you no such severe character, madam; and, taking courage by their report, and being poor myself, and, alas! having been the innocent cause of making others poor, I have ventured hither.

Susan [aside]. Oh, I wish she wouldn't! I can't stand this. There's something in her face, too, that reminds me-but there! have I not promised my husband to be brutal and unfeeling? [Aloud] Madame, I am sorry, but I have noting for you. Mr. Noke, mai husband, he tell me dat hees nephew is very foolish, weeked jeune homme-

Mrs. C.N. [interrupting]. Foolish, madam, he may have been, nay, he was, to fall in love with a poor orphan like myself, who had nothing to give him but my love,-but not wicked. He has a noble heart. His sorrow is not upon his own account, but for his wife and child. He has bent his proud spirit twice to entreat his uncle's forgiveness, but in vain. And now I have come to appeal to you,-though you are not of my own country,-a woman to a woman.

Susan [aside]. Dear heart alive! I'm melting like a tallow candle.

Mrs. C.N. I was a poor Berkshire curate's daughter-

Susan [interrupting hastily]. A what? [Recollecting herself.] A poor curé's daughter-yas, yas-in Berkishire, qu'est-ce que c'est Berkishire?

Mrs. C.N. It is in the south of England, madam. We were poor, I say, and I had been used to straits, even before my poor father died. But my husband has been always accustomed to luxury and comfort, and now that poverty has come suddenly upon us-

Susan [interrupting with emotion, but still speaking broken English.] Were you considaired like your fader?

Mrs. C.N. Yes, madam, very like.

Susan [anxiously and tremblingly]. What was his name?

Mrs. C.N. Woodward, madam. He was curate of Salthill, near Eton.

Susan [throwing herself at her feet and kissing her hands]. Why, you're Miss Clara! and I'm Susan,-Susan Montem, to whom he was so kind and noble [sobbing]. I'm no more a Montmorenci than you are,-nor half as much. I'm a workhouse orphan, and-and-your aunt by marriage. [Aside, and clasping her hands]. Oh, what can I do to help them? what can I do?

Mrs. C.N. [fervently]. I thank heaven. There is genuine gratitude in your kind face. I remember you now, though I am sure I should never have recognized you, Susan.

Susan. I dare say not, Miss Clara [rising and wiping her eyes]. Fine feathers make fine birds. Lor, how I should like to have a talk with you about old times! But there, we've got something else to do first. Where's your good husband?

Mrs. C.N. In the garden, hiding in the laurel-bed, with Chickabiddy. That's our baby, you know.

[Carriage heard departing; they listen. Enter Mr. Nokes, slightly elevated with champagne, and not perceiving Mrs. C.N.]

Nokes. Hurrah, my dear! they're off, all three of them,-all five of them, for each of them sees two of the others; they have no notion that your name is Susan-[sees Mrs. C.N.] I mean Constance. [Aside] Oh, Lor! just as I thought we'd weathered the storm, too, and got into still water!

Susan [gravely]. She knows all about it, husband. That lady is the daughter of my benefactor, Mr. Woodward, to whom I owed everything on earth till I met you.

Nokes [with enthusiasm, and holding out both hands]. The deuce she is! I am most uncommonly glad to see you, ma'am, under this roof. [Aside to Susan] She don't look very prosperous, Susan: if there's anything that money can get for her, I'll see she has it; mind that.

Susan [aloud]. She is poor, sir, and much in need of home and friends.

Nokes [to Mrs. C.N.]. Then you have found them here, ma'am. You're a fixture at "the Tamarisks" for life, if it so pleases you.

Mrs. C.N. You are most kind, sir, but I have a husband and one little child.

Nokes. Never mind that: he'll grow. There's room here for you and your husband and the little child, even if he does grow. Where are they? Show them up.

Mrs. C.N. runs to window and calls, "Charles, Charles."

Nokes [aside]. I think I've had quite as much champagne as is good for me; just enough; the golden mean.

Enter Charles with baby, which he holds at full stretch of his arms.

Nokes [indignantly]. You young scoundrel! How dare you show your face in this house?

Mrs. C.N. [interfering]. You sent for him, sir.

Nokes. I sent for nothing of the sort. I sent for your husband.

Mrs. C.N. That is my husband, sir, and our little child. You promised us an asylum for life under your roof; and I am certain you will keep your word.

Nokes [to Susan, endeavoring to be severe]. Now, this is all your fault; and yet you promised me never to interfere on behalf of these people.

Susan. Nor did I, my dear husband. You have done it all yourself.

Nokes [aside]. It was all that last glass of champagne.

Charles [giving up the baby to his wife, and coming up with outstretched hand to his uncle]. Come, sir, pray forgive me. I could not enjoy your favors without your forgiveness, believe me.

Nokes [holding out his hand unwillingly]. There. [Aside] How could I be such a fool, knowing so well what champagne is made of?-Well, sir, if you have regained your place here, remember it has all happened through your aunt's goodness. Let nobody ever show any of their airs to my Susan.

Charles and his wife [together]. We shall never forget her kindness, sir.

Nokes. Mind you don't, then. For, you see, it's to her own disadvantage, since when I die-and supposing I have forgiven you-the child that has to grow will inherit everything, and Susan only have a life-interest in it.

Charles [hopefully]. I don't see that, sir. Why shouldn't you have children of your own?

Nokes [complacently]. True, true. Why shouldn't we? I didn't like to dwell upon the idea before, but why shouldn't we? At all events, Susan [comes forward with Susan], I am sure I shall never repent having shot at the pigeon-I mean, having wooed the Montmorenci, but won THE SUBSTITUTE.

James Payn.

* * *

NEW YORK LIBRARIES

New York has been accused of being purely commercial in tone, and there was a period in her history when she must have pleaded guilty to the indictment. That day, however, is past: she has now many interests-scientific, artistic, literary, musical-as influential as that mentioned, though not perhaps numerically so important. Of the fine arts the city is the acknowledged New World centre, and it is fast forming a literary circle as noteworthy as that of any other capital. The latter owes its existence in part, no doubt, to the great publishing-houses, but has been attracted chiefly by the facilities for research afforded by those great storehouses of learning, the city libraries. Few old residents are aware of the literary wealth stored in these depositories, or of the extent to which they are consulted by scholars and by writers generally.

There are four large libraries in the city whose interest is almost purely literary,-the Society, the Astor, the Lenox, and the Historical Society's,-one both literary and popular,-the Mercantile,-one interesting as being the outcome of a great trades' guild,-the Apprentices',-and one purely popular,-the Free Circulating Library. There are others, of course, but the above are such as from their character and history seem best calculated for treatment in a magazine paper. The oldest of these is the Society Library, which is located in its own commodious fire-proof building at No. 67 University Place. This library is perhaps the oldest in the United States: its origin dates back to the year 1700, when, Lord Bellamont being governor and New York a police-precinct of five thousand inhabitants, the worthy burghers founded the Public Library. For many years it seems to have flourished in the slow, dignified way peculiar to Knickerbocker institutions. In 1729 it received an accession in the library of the Rev. Dr. Millington, rector of Newington, England, which was bequeathed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and by it transferred to the New York Public Library. The institution remained under the care of the city until 1754, when a company of gentlemen formed an association to enhance its usefulness by bringing it under private control. They collected a number of books, and on application the Public Library was incorporated with these, and the whole placed under the care of trustees chosen by the shareholders. Believing that "a public library would be very useful as well as ornamental to the city," and also advantageous to "our intended college," the shareholders agreed to pay "five pounds each on the first day of May, and ten shillings each on every first of May forever thereafter." Subscribers had the right to take out one book at a time by depositing one-third more than the value of it with the library-keeper. Rights could be alienated or bequeathed "like any other chattel." No person, even if he owned several shares, could have more than one vote, nor could a part of a subscription-right entitle the holder to any privileges. By 1772 the Society had increased to such an extent that it was thought best to incorporate it, and a charter was secured from the crown. In its preamble seven "esquires," two "merchants," two "gentlemen," and one "physician" appear as petitioners, and fifty-six gentlemen, with one lady, Mrs. Anne Waddel, are named members of the corporation. The style of the latter was changed to the "New York Society Library," and the usual corporate privileges were granted, including the right to purchase and hold real estate of the yearly value of one thousand pounds sterling. The Society is practically working under this charter to-day, the legislature of New York having confirmed it in 1789. The earliest printed catalogue known to be in existence was issued about 1758: it gives the titles of nine hundred and twenty-two volumes, with a list of members, one hundred and eighteen in all. A second catalogue followed in 1761. During the Revolution many of the volumes were scattered or destroyed. The first catalogue printed after the war enumerates five thousand volumes; these had increased in 1813 to thirteen thousand, in 1838 to twenty-five thousand, and the present number is estimated at seventy-five thousand. Down to 1795 the library was housed in the City Hall, and during the sessions of Congress was used by that body as a Congressional Library. Its first building was erected in 1795, in Nassau Street, opposite the Middle Dutch Church, and here the library remained until 1836, when, its premises becoming in demand for business purposes, it was sold, and the Society purchased a lot on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street. A building was completed on this lot in 1840, and the library removed thither from the rooms of the Mechanics' Society in Chambers Street, where it had been placed on the sale of its property in 1836. In 1853 a third removal was made, to the Bible House, its property on Broadway being again swallowed up by the advancing tide of business. In the same year its present property on University Place was purchased, on which, two years later, in 1855, the commodious building which it now occupies was erected, the Society taking possession in May, 1856. Many features of the Society Library are unique, to be met with, perhaps, in no other organization of the kind in the world. Many of its members hold shares that have descended to them from father to son from the time of the first founders. The annual dues are placed at such a figure (ten dollars) as practically to debar people with slender purses. The scholar, however, may have the range of its treasures on paying a fee of twenty-five cents, and the stranger may enjoy the use of the library for one month on being introduced by a member. The market value of a share is now one hundred and fifty dollars, with the annual dues of ten dollars commuted, but shares may be purchased for twenty-five dollars, subject to the annual dues. The library proper occupies the whole of the second floor. On the first floor, besides the large hall, is a well-lighted drawing-room, filled with periodicals in all languages, a ladies' parlor, and a conversation-room. The library-room is a large, airy, well-lighted apartment, with a series of artistic alcoves ranged about two of its sides. Here are to be found the Winthrop Collection, comprising some three hundred curious and ancient tomes, chiefly in Latin, which formed a part of the library of John Winthrop, "the founder of Connecticut," the De Peyster Alcove, containing one thousand volumes, very full in special subjects, the Hammond Library, collected by a Newport scholar, comprising some eighteen hundred quaint and curious volumes, and a collection of over six hundred rare and costly works on art contained in the John C. Green Alcove. This last alcove, which was fitted up and presented to the library by Mr. Robert Lenox Kennedy as a memorial of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Green, benefactors of the Society, is an artistic gem. The sides and ceilings are finished in hard woods by Marcotte, after designs by the architect, Sidney Stratton. Opposite the entrance is a memorial window, its centre-pin representing two female figures,-Knowledge and Prudence,-with the four great poets, Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Chaucer, in the corners. On the east wall is a portrait of Mr. Green by Madrazo, and on the west a tablet with an inscription informing the visitor that, the library having received a donation of fifty thousand dollars from the estate of John Cleve Green, the trustees had placed the tablet as a memento of this munificence. There are books in this alcove not to be duplicated in European libraries. A work on Russian antiquities, for instance, containing beautifully-colored lithographs of the Russian crown-jewels, royal robes, ecclesiastical vestments, and the like, cannot be found, it is said, either in Paris or London. The scope of the collection may be seen by a glance at the catalogue, whose departments embrace architecture, art-study, anatomy, biography, book-illustration, cathedrals and churches, costumes, decorative, domestic, and industrial art, heraldry, painting, and picturesque art.

It is a coincidence merely, but nearly all the great libraries of the city are grouped within a block or two of Astor Place, making that short thoroughfare the scholarly centre of the town. In its immediate vicinity, on the corner of Second Avenue and Eleventh Street, stands the fire-proof building of the New York Historical Society, whose library and collection of paintings and relics form one of the features of the city. This Society dates back to the year 1804, when Egbert Benson, De Witt Clinton, Rev. William Linn, Rev. Samuel Miller, Rev. John N. Abeel, Rev. John M. Mason, Dr. David Hosack, Anthony Bleecker, Samuel Bayard, Peter G. Stuyvesant, and John Pintard, met by appointment at the City Hall and agreed to form a society "the principal design of which should be to collect and preserve whatever might relate to the natural, civil, or ecclesiastical history of the United States in general and of the State of New York in particular." Active measures were at once taken for the formation of a library and museum, special committees being appointed for the purpose. The range of the collection embraced books, manuscripts, statistics, newspapers, pictures, antiquities, medals, coins, and specimens in natural history. The Society made the usual number of removals before being finally established as a householder. From 1804 to 1809 it met in the old City Hall, from 1809 to 1816 in the Government House, from 1816 to 1832 in the New York Institution, from 1832 to 1837 in Remsen's Building, Broadway, from 1837 to 1841 in the Stuyvesant Institute, from 1841 to 1857 in the New York University, and at length, after surmounting many pecuniary obstacles, celebrated its fifty-third anniversary by taking possession of its present structure. Meantime, the efforts of the library committees had resulted in a collection of Americana of exceeding interest and value, the nucleus of the present library. In its one specialty this library is believed to be unrivalled. The Society has issued some twenty-four volumes of its own publications, in addition to numerous essays and addresses. Besides these, its library contains some seventy-three thousand volumes of printed works, chiefly Americana, many of them relating to the Indians and obscure early colonial history. Eight hundred and eleven genealogies of American families-the fountain-head of the national history-are a feature of the collection. The library also possesses one of the best sets of Congressional documents extant, also complete sets of State and city documents. There are four thousand volumes of newspapers, beginning with the first journal published in America,-the "Boston News-Letter" of 1704,-and comprising a complete record to the present day. There are also tons of pamphlets and "broadsides," and several hundred copies of the inflammatory hand-bills posted on the trees and fences of New York during the Revolution. The library is also rich in old family letters and documents containing much curious and interesting history. The Society is very conservative in its ways,-more so than most institutions of the kind. Theoretically, its stores of information can be drawn on by members only, but, as a general thing, properly accredited scholars, non-residents, have little difficulty in gaining access to them, provided the material sought is not elsewhere accessible.

Lafayette Place is a wide, quiet thoroughfare, a few blocks in extent, opening into Astor Place on the north. On the left, a few doors from the latter street, stands the Astor Library, in some respects one of the noteworthy libraries of the world. John Jacob Astor died March 29, 1848, leaving a will which contained a codicil in these words: "Desiring to render a public benefit to the city of New York, and to contribute to the advancement of useful knowledge and the general good of society, I do by this codicil appoint four hundred thousand dollars out of my residuary estate to the establishment of a public library in the city of New York." The instrument then proceeded to give specific directions as to how the money was to be applied: first, in the erection of a suitable building; second, in supplying the same with books, maps, charts, models, drawings, paintings, engravings, casts, statues, furniture, and other things appropriate to a library upon the most ample scale and liberal character; and, third, in maintaining and upholding the buildings and other property, and in paying the necessary expenses of the care of the same, and the salaries of the persons connected with the library, said library to be accessible at all reasonable hours and times for general use, free of expense, and subject only to such conditions as the trustees may exact. It was further provided that its affairs should be managed by eleven trustees, "selected from the different liberal professions and employments of life and the classes of educated men." The mayor was also to be a trustee by virtue of his office. The entire fund was vested in this board, with power to expend and invest moneys, and to appoint, direct, control, and remove the superintendent, librarian, and others employed about the library. The first trustees were named in the will, and Washington Irving was chosen president.

Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell, who it is said first suggested the idea of a library to Mr. Astor, was appointed first superintendent and despatched to Europe to purchase books, which he succeeded in doing to the best advantage, the political disturbances of 1848 having thrown many valuable libraries on the market. Meantime, a building had been commenced on the east side of Lafayette Place, on a lot sixty-five feet front by one hundred and twenty deep; but as the books arrived before this was completed they were placed temporarily in a hired house in Bond Street. The new building, which was opened January 9, 1854, was in the Byzantine style, after the design by Alexander Saeltzer, the lower story being of brownstone and the two upper stories of red brick. The main hall or library-room, beginning on the second floor, was carried up through two stories and lighted by a large skylight in the roof. Around the sides of this room were built two tiers of alcoves capable of holding about one hundred thousand books. The library opened on the date mentioned with about eighty thousand volumes, devoted chiefly to science, history, art, and kindred topics, the trustees agreeing with the superintendent that the design of the founder could only be carried out and the "advancement of knowledge" and "general good of society" be best secured by making the new library one of reference only.

In October, 1855, Mr. William B. Astor, son of the founder, conveyed to the trustees the lot, eighty feet front by one hundred and twenty deep, adjoining the library on the north, and proceeded to erect upon it an addition similar in all respects to the existing structure, the library thus enlarged being opened September 1, 1859, with one hundred and ten thousand volumes on its shelves. The addition led to a rearrangement of the material, the old hall being devoted to science and the industrial arts, and the new to history and general literature. In 1866 Mr. Astor further signified his interest in the library by a gift of fifty thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars of it to be expended in the purchase of books, and on his death in 1875 left it a bequest of two hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars. In 1879 Mr. John Jacob Astor, grandson of the founder, added to this enduring monument of his family by building a second addition, seventy-five feet front and one hundred and twenty feet deep, on the lot adjoining on the north, making the entire building two hundred feet front by one hundred deep. At the same time an additional story was placed on the Middle Hall, and a new entrance and stairway constructed. The enlarged building, the present Astor Library, was opened in October, 1881, with two hundred thousand volumes and a shelf-capacity of three hundred thousand. Its present contents are estimated at two hundred and twenty thousand volumes, exclusive of pamphlets. The shelves are ranged in alcoves extending around the sides of the three main halls and subdivided into sections of six shelves each, each section being designated by a numeral. Each shelf is designated by a letter of the alphabet, beginning at the bottom with A. The alcoves have no distinguishing mark, the books being arranged therein by subjects which the distributing librarian is expected to carry in his mind. The first catalogue, in four volumes, was compiled by Dr. Cogswell and printed in 1861. This was followed in 1866 by an index of subjects from the same hand. Recently a catalogue in continuation of Dr. Cogswell's, bringing the work down to the end of 1880, has been prepared, and is being printed at the Riverside Press, Boston. The current card catalogue is arranged on the dictionary plan, giving author and subject under one alphabet. Opposite each title is written the number of the alcove and the letter designating the shelf. By the regulations the reader is required to find the title of the book desired in the catalogue, write it with the number and letter on a slip of paper provided for the purpose, and give it to the distributing librarian, who despatches one of his boy Mercuries to the shelf designated for the work. More often than not, however, the reader asks directly for the book desired, without consulting the catalogue, and it is rarely that the librarian cannot from memory direct his messenger to the section and shelf containing it. In the matter of theft and mutilation of books the library depends largely on the honor of readers, although some safeguards are provided. All readers are required to enter their names and addresses in a book, and the volume on being given out is charged to them, to be checked off on its return: it would be difficult, too, for a thief to purloin books without being detected by the employees or the porter in the vestibule. Yet books are stolen occasionally. In June, 1881, a four-volume work by Bentley on "Medicinal Plants," valued at sixty dollars, was taken from the library. It was soon missed, and search made for it without avail. A few weeks later, however, it was discovered by the principal librarian in a Broadway book-stall and recovered.

Few strangers in the city depart without paying a visit to the Astor Library, and it is one of the few lions of the city that do not disappoint. The main entrance is approached by two flights of stone steps, from the north and south, leading to a brownstone platform enclosed by the same material. From this, broad door-ways give entrance to the vestibule, sixty feet by forty, paved in black and white marble, and wainscoted four feet above the floor with beautifully variegated marble from Vermont. The panelled ceiling is elaborately frescoed, as well as the upper part of the walls. Busts of the sages and heroes of antiquity adorn the hall. From the vestibule a stairway of white marble, with massive newels of variegated marble, leads up to the library proper. The visitor enters this in the centre of Middle Hall. Before him, separated by a balustrade, are the desks and tables of the distributing librarian and his assistants. The ladies' reading-room is in the rear. On the left and right arched passages give access to the North and South Halls, in which the main reading-rooms are situated. The ceiling above is the skylight of the roof, and the alcoves, filled with the wealth of learning of all ages and peoples, rise on either hand quite to the ceiling. At long, green-covered tables, ranged in two parallel lines through the halls, are seated the readers, in themselves an interesting study. Scientists, artists, literary men, special students, inventors, and dilettante loungers make up the company. They come with the opening of the doors at nine in the morning, and remain, some of them, until they close at five in the evening. There are daily desertions from their ranks, but always new-comers enough to fill the gaps. Their wants are as various as their conditions. This well-dressed, self-respectful mechanic wishes to consult the patent-office reports of various countries, in which the library is rich. His long-haired Saxon neighbor is poring over a Chinese manuscript, German scholars being the only ones so far who have attacked the fine collection of Chinese and Japanese works in the library. Next him is a dilettante reader languidly poring over "Lothair:" were the trustees to fill their shelves with trashy fiction, readers of his class would soon crowd out the more earnest workers. Here is a student with the thirty or more volumes of the "New England Historic Genealogical Register" piled before him, flanked on one side by the huge volumes of Burke's "Peerage" and on the other by Walford's "County Families." There are many readers of this class, the library's department of Genealogy and Heraldry being well filled. There is a lady here and there at the tables working with a male companion, but, as a rule, they are to be found at the ladies' tables in the Middle Hall. There seem to be but two classes of readers here,-the lady in silken attire, engaged in looking out some item of family history or question of decorative art, and the brisk business-like literary lady, seeking material for story or sketch. Any student or literary worker who can show to the satisfaction of one of the trustees that he is engaged in work requiring free access to the library receives a card from the superintendent which admits him to the alcoves and places all the treasures of the library at his command. A register is placed near the distributing librarian's desk, in which on entering each visitor to the alcove is required to sign his name, and in this register each year is accumulated a roll of autographs of which any institution might be proud. Famous scholars, scientists, authors, journalists, poets, artists, and divines, both of this country and of Europe, are included in the lists.

Of its treasures of literary and artistic interest it is impossible to give categorical details. Perhaps the library prizes most the magnificent elephant folio edition, in four volumes, of Audubon's "Birds and Quadrupeds of North America," with its colored plates, heavy paper, and general air of sumptuousness. The work is rare as well as magnificent, and, though the library does not set a price upon its books, it is known that three thousand dollars would not replace a missing copy. In an adjoining alcove is an equally sumptuous but more ancient volume, the Antiphonale, or mammoth manuscript of the chants for the Christian year. This volume was used at the coronation of Charles X., King of France. The covers of this huge folio are bound with brass, beautiful illuminations by Le Brun adorn its title-pages, and then follows, in huge black characters, the music of the chants. In its immediate vicinity are many of the treasures of the library,-Zahn's great work on Pompeii, three volumes of very large folios, containing splendidly-colored frescos from the walls of the dead city; Sylvester's elaborate work of "Fac-Similes of the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Middle Ages," in four large folios; and also Count Bastard's great work on the same, seeming more sumptuous in gold, silver, and colors. Another notable work is Count Littar's "Genealogies of Celebrated Italian Families," in ten folio volumes, emblazoned in gold, and illustrated with richly-colored portraits finished like ivory miniatures. There are whole galleries of European art,-Versailles, Florence, Spain, the Vatican, Nash's Portfolio of Colored Pictures of Windsor Castle and Palace, the Royal Pitti Gallery, Munich, Dresden, and others. A work on the "Arch?ology of the Bosphorus," presented by the Emperor of Russia to the library, is in three folio volumes, printed on thick vellum paper, with two folding maps and ninety-four illuminated plates: but two hundred copies of the book were printed, for presentation solely. Other notable gifts are the publications of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, in seventeen volumes, catalogue of antiquities, chiefly British, at Alnwick Castle, and one of Egyptian antiquities at the same, from the Duke of Northumberland, a complete file of the "Liberator," from Mr. Wendell Phillips, numerous works on Oriental art, from the imperial governments of Japan and China, and many thousand folio volumes of Parliamentary papers and British patents, from the British government. Of its Orientalia and its department of Egyptology the library is especially proud. The latter so good an authority as Professor Seyffarth pronounces second only to that of the British Museum.

In addition to the large collection of costly books of art with which this library is enriched, there are some of the rarest manuscripts and earliest printed books to be seen kept in glass cases in the Middle Hall. Among these may be mentioned the superbly illuminated manuscript of the ninth century entitled "Evangelistarium,"-one of the finest existing productions of the revival of learning under Charlemagne; the "Sarum Missal," a richly-emblazoned manuscript of the tenth century; some choice Greek and Latin codices once belonging to the library of Pope Pius VI.; and the Persian manuscripts recently acquired, which formerly were in the library of the Mogul emperors at Delhi, bearing the stamp of Shah Akbar and Shah Jehan. The writing is by the famous calligrapher Sultan Alee Meshedee (896 a.h., or 1518 a.d.).

There is as great a popular misconception of the character and purpose of the Lenox Library as of the Astor. The two are like and yet unlike,-alike in the rich treasures which they contain, but quite unlike in their scope and purposes. In reality the Lenox is a museum of art rather than a library: its books are, with few exceptions, rarities, "first editions," illuminated manuscripts, specimens showing the advance of the typographic art from the beginning, books of artistic interest, and works not to be found in this country, and sometimes not in Europe. Its collection of paintings and sculpture is important as well as its literary treasures. It is not a library of general reference, though many of its works will be sought by scholars for the value of their contents: it is, in short, a private art-gallery and library thrown open at stated times and under certain restrictions to the public. The library owes its existence to the munificence of Mr. James Lenox, a wealthy and educated gentleman of New York, who determined to establish permanently in his native city his fine collection of manuscripts, printed books, engravings and maps, statuary, paintings, drawings, and other works of art, by giving the land and money necessary to provide a building and a permanent fund for the maintenance of the same. In January, 1870, the legislature of New York passed an act "creating a body corporate by the name and style of 'The Trustees of the Lenox Library.'" Nine trustees were named, and these gentlemen organized by electing Mr. Lenox president and Mr. A.B. Belknap secretary. In the succeeding March Mr. Lenox conveyed to the trustees three hundred thousand dollars in stocks of the county of New York and bonds and mortgage securities, and also the ten lots of land fronting on Fifth Avenue on which the library-building now stands. One hundred thousand dollars were set apart for the formation of a permanent fund, and two hundred thousand dollars for a building-fund. Contracts for a library-building were made early In 1872, and work on it was begun in May of the same year,-the structure being finished in 1875. It has a frontage of one hundred and ninety-two feet on Fifth Avenue, overlooking the Park, and a depth of one hundred and fourteen feet on both Seventieth and Seventy-first Streets. The general plan is that of a central structure connecting two turreted wings which enclose a spacious entrance-court. From the court the visitor enters a grand hall or vestibule, from which every part of the building is reached. At either end is a spacious library-room. Stone stairways lead from each end of the vestibule to the mezzanine, or half-story, and the second-story landings. From the latter one enters the principal gallery, ninety-six by twenty-four, devoted to sculpture, and opening on the east into the picture-gallery. At either end of the hall of sculpture are library- and reading-rooms similar to those on the first floor. The stairway on the north continues the ascent to an attic or third-floor gallery. The building throughout is fitted up in a style befitting a shrine of the arts. The first-floor library-rooms are one hundred and eight feet long by thirty feet wide and twenty-four feet high, with level ceilings, beautifully panelled and corniced. The sides of the hall of sculpture are divided by five arcades, resting on piers decorated with niches, pilasters, and other architectural ornaments; the ceiling has deep panels resting on and supported by the pilasters; the walls are wainscoted in oak to the height of the niches. The picture-gallery is forty by fifty-six, well lighted from above by three large skylights. Iron book-cases, with a capacity for eighty thousand volumes, are arranged in two tiers on the sides of the galleries. The whole structure is as nearly fire-proof as it could possibly be made, and its massive walls and stone towers make it one of the prominent architectural features of the avenue. While the building was in progress, several benefactions of interest had accrued to the library. Mr. Lenox had given an additional one hundred thousand dollars, and in 1872 one hundred thousand dollars more, and Mr. Felix Astoin had promised to bestow his fine collection of some five thousand rare French works. On the 15th of January, 1877, the first exhibition of paintings and sculptures was opened to the public, and continued on two days of the week to the end of the year, and on the 1st of the following December an apartment for the exhibition of rare works and manuscripts was also opened to the public. Fifteen thousand people visited the library during this first year, thus indicating the popular appreciation of a collection of this kind. In 1881 nineteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-three admission-tickets were issued,-the largest number of visitors on any one day being eleven hundred, on the anniversary of Washington's birthday.

The scope and objects of this unique institution are so admirably set forth by the trustees in their report to the legislature for 1881 that we append an extract. "The library," they observe, "differs from most public libraries. It is not a great general library intended in its endowment and present equipment for the use of readers in all or most of the departments of human knowledge.... Beyond its special collections it should be regarded as supplementary to others more general and numerous and directly adapted to popular use. It is not like the British Museum, but rather like the Grenville collection in the British Museum, or perhaps still more like the house and museum of Sir John Soane in Lincoln's Inn's Fields, in London, both lasting monuments of the learning and liberality of their honored founders. Thus, while the library does not profess to be a general or universal collection of all the knowledge stored up in the world of books, it is absolutely without a peer or a rival here in the special collections to which the generous taste and liberal scholarship of its founder devoted his best gifts of intellectual ability and ample resources of fortune. It represents the favorite studies of a lifetime consecrated after due offices of religion and charity to the choicest pursuits of literature and art. It would be difficult to estimate the value or importance of these marvellous treasures, whose exhibition hitherto only in part has challenged the admiration of all scholars and given a new impulse to those studies for which they furnish an apparatus before unseen in America.... The countless myriads of volumes produced in the past four centuries of printing with movable types have left in all the libraries of all the nations comparatively few monuments, or even memorials, of so many eager, patient, or weary generations of men whose works have followed them when they have rested from their labors. The Lenox Library was established for the public exhibition and scholarly use of some of the most rare and precious of such monuments and memorials of the typographic art and the historic past as have escaped the wreck and been preserved to this day. That exhibition and use must be governed by regulations which will insure to the fullest extent the security and preservation of the treasures intrusted to our care, in the enforcement of which the trustees anticipate the sympathy and co-operation of all scholars and men of letters, through whose use and labors alone the public at large must chiefly derive real and permanent benefit from this and all similar institutions." The "regulations" adopted by the trustees for the preservation of their treasures do not seem unreasonable. Admission is by ticket, which may be procured of the librarian by addressing him by mail. We have space for but the briefest possible glimpses at these treasures. The chief rarities in typography are found in the north and south libraries on the first floor. In "first editions" it would be difficult to say whether the library prides itself most on its Bibles, its Miltoniana, or its Shakesperiana. In Bibles the whole art of printing with movable types is fully portrayed, the series beginning with the "Mazarin," or Gutenberg, Bible, the first book ever printed with movable types. There are Bibles in all languages. There is the first complete edition of the New Testament in Greek ever published, its title-page dated Basle, 1516. In a glass case in the north library are the four huge "Polyglot" Bibles, marvels of typography, known as the Complutensian, Antwerp, Paris, and English Polyglots. In the same case repose the Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Vaticanus,-three great folios, in the original Greek and Hebrew, sacred to scholars as the works on which all authority for the Scriptures rests. Tyndale's New Testament, the first ever printed on English ground, dated London, 1536, is here, and that rare copy of the King James version known as the "Wicked Bible." In this copy the printer, as a satire on the age, omitted the word "not" from the seventh commandment, and for this piece of waggery was heavily fined, the money going, it is said, to establish the first Greek press ever erected at Oxford. Among its "first editions" the library has that of Homer, 1488, and that of Dante, 1472. The Milton collection deserves special notice: in addition to the first editions of the poet's various works, it contains a folio volume of letters and documents pertaining to Milton and his family, with autograph manuscripts giving exceedingly interesting details of the poet's private life and fortunes. One of these is a long original letter from Milton himself to his friend Carlo Dati, the Florentine, with the latter's reply; there are also three receipts or releases signed by Milton's three daughters, Anne Milton, Mary Milton, and Deborah Clarke, a bond from Elizabeth Milton, his widow, to one Randle Timmis, and several other agreements and assignments, with the autographs of attesting witnesses. In folio editions of Shakespeare, and in commentaries, glossaries, and dissertations, the library is also exceedingly rich. Its collection of Americana is the wonder and delight of scholars. We must mention the first publication of the printed letter of Columbus, one in each of its four editions, giving the first account of his discoveries in the West, with three autograph letters of Diego Columbus, his son; the "Cosmographia Introductio," printed at St. Dié, 1507,-the first book in which a suggestion of the name "America" occurs; and also the first map, printed in 1520, in which the name appears. Here is the first American book printed,-a Mexican work, dated 1543-44; the Bay Psalm-Book, 1640, the first work printed in New England; and the first book printed in New York,-the Laws of the Province, by Bradford, issued in 1691: the Puritan evidently placing the gospel first, and the Knickerbocker the law.

Leaving the typographical treasures of the library, we ascend the broad marble stairway to the floor above, for a brief glance at the paintings and statuary. In the hall devoted to sculpture are many noble and beautiful works of art in marble, the most noticeable perhaps being Powers's "Il Penseroso," the bust of Washington and the "Babes in the Wood" by Crawford, and the statue of Lincoln by Ball. In the picture-gallery on the east are a hundred and fifty subjects. On the south wall hangs a canvas which is at once recognized as the masterpiece. It is Munkácsy's "Blind Milton dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his Daughters." This painting is fitly supported on one side by a portrait of Milton owned for many years by Charles Lamb, and on the other by a copy of Lely's fine portrait of Cromwell.

The Mercantile is the popular library of the city; in no sense a public library, however, for the student or stranger must advance a pretty liberal entrance-fee before he can avail himself of its benefits. This institution is a pleasing example of what can be done by many hands, even though there be little in them: it has reached its present proportions without endowment or State aid, chiefly through the steady, continuous efforts of the merchants' clerks of the city. They have always managed it, one generation succeeding another, and they have in it to-day the largest circulating library in America. Mr. William Wood, a benevolent gentleman who devoted many of his later years to improving the condition of clerks, apprentices, and sailors, is regarded as the founder. Mr. Wood was a native of Boston, and in business there during early life, but later removed to London. After distributing much dole to the poor of that city, he founded a library for clerks in Liverpool, and subsequently one in Boston, the latter being the first of its kind in this country. The various mercantile libraries at Albany, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and other places are said to have been founded on the plan of this. In 1820 Mr. Wood began interesting the merchants' clerks of New York in the project of a library for themselves. The first meeting to consider it was held at the Tontine Coffee-House, in Wall Street, on November 9 of that year; and at an adjourned meeting on the 27th of the same month a constitution was formed and officers elected. The young men contributed a little money for the purchase of books, the merchants more, many books were begged or purchased by Mr. Wood, and on the 12th of February, 1821, the library was formally opened, with seven hundred volumes, in an upper room at No. 49 Fulton Street. The first librarian was Mr. John Thompson, who received, it is remembered, one hundred and fifty dollars a year as salary. It was not long before the library, like its fellows, began its migrations up town, Harpers' Building, on Cliff Street, being its second abode. This removal occurred in 1826, and the association had then become so strong that it was able to open a reading-room in connection with its library. Old readers remember that there were four weekly newspapers and seven magazines in this first reading-room. Its membership at that time numbered twelve hundred, there were four thousand four hundred volumes on its shelves, and its annual income amounted to seventeen hundred and fifty dollars.

In 1828 the library was desirous of building: many of the merchants and substantial men of the city were willing to aid it, but doubted the wisdom of trusting such large property interests to the management of young men. They formed, therefore, the Clinton Hall Association, to hold and control real estate for the benefit of the library, with fund shares of one hundred dollars each. The first year thirty-three thousand five hundred dollars had been subscribed, and the corporation began erecting the first Clinton Hall, at the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets. Here the library remained for nearly a score of years, or until 1853, when a brisk agitation was begun for its removal up-town. A small but determined party favored its removal. The more conservative objected. At length, in January, 1853, the question was put to the vote, and lost by a large majority. But while the excitement was still at its height it was learned that the association had sold Clinton Hall and had purchased the old Italian Opera-House in Astor Place. Here, in May, 1855, the library opened, and here it has since remained, although for several years past the question of a farther removal up-town has been agitated. The constitution of this excellent institution provides that it shall be composed of three classes of members,-active, subscribing, and honorary. Any person engaged on a salary as clerk may become an active member, if approved by the board of directors, on subscribing to the constitution and paying an initiation-fee of one dollar, and two dollars for the first six months, his regular dues thereafter being two dollars semi-annually, in advance. Active members only may vote or hold office. Subscribing members may become such by a payment of five dollars annually or three dollars semi-annually. Persons of distinction may be elected honorary members by a vote of three-fourths of the members of the board of direction. The board of direction is composed of a president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary, and eight directors, the former elected annually, the directors four for one year and four for two years. There is also a book committee, which reports one month previous to each annual meeting. From the last annual report of the board it appears that in April, 1883, there were 198,858 books in the library. The total number of members at the same time was 3136, and the honorary members (71), the editors using the library (54), and the Clinton Hall stockholders (1701) swelled the total number of those availing themselves of its privileges to 4962. The total circulation for the year was 112,375 volumes, of which 27,549 were distributed from the branch office, No. 2 Liberty Place, and 1695 books were delivered by messengers at members' residences. In 1870 the circulation was 234,120, the large falling off-over one-half-being due to the era of cheap books. The department of fiction, of course, suffers most. This in 1870 formed about seventy per cent. of the circulation. In 1883 the number of works of fiction circulated was 53,937,-not quite fifty per cent.

To gain a fair idea of the popularity of the library one should spend a mid-winter Saturday afternoon and evening with the librarian and his busy assistants. Early in the afternoon numbers of young ladies leave the shopping and fashionable thoroughfares up-town and throng the library-room. The attendants, all young men, work with increased animation under the stimulus. Books fly from counter to alcoves and return, messenger-boys dart hither and thither, the fair patrons thumb the catalogues and chatter in sad defiance of the rules. They are long in making their selections, and appeal for aid to the librarians. But the last of this class of visitors departs before the six-o'clock dinner or tea, and the attendants have a respite for an hour. At seven the real rush begins, with the advent of the clerks and other patrons employed in store or office during the day, each intent on supplying himself with reading-matter for the next day. From this hour until the closing at nine the librarians are as busy as bees: there is a continual running from counter to alcove and from gallery to gallery. In some of the reports of the librarian interesting data are given of the tastes of readers and the popularity of books. Fiction, as we have seen, leads; but there is a growing taste for scientific and historical works. Buckle, Mill, and Macaulay are favorites, and Tyndall, Huxley, and Lubbock have many readers. The theft of its books is a serious drain on the library each year, but the destruction of its rare and valuable works of reference is still more provoking. Common gratitude, it might seem, would deter persons admitted to the privileges of its alcoves from injuring its property. What shall we think, then, of the vandals who during the past year twice cut out the article on political economy in "Appletons' Cyclop?dia," so mutilated Thomson's "Cyclop?dia of the Useful Arts" as to render it valueless, and bore off bodily Storer's "Dictionary of the Solubilities," the second volume of the new edition of the "Encyclop?dia Britannica," Andrews's "Latin Dictionary," and several other valuable works?

There is a library in the city, the Apprentices', on Sixteenth Street, whose existence is hardly known even to New-Yorkers, which is exceedingly interesting to the student as an instance of the good a trades' union may accomplish when its energies are rightly directed. Here is a library of about sixty thousand volumes, with a supplementary reference library of forty thousand seven hundred and fifty works, and a well-equipped reading-room, free of debt, and free to its patrons, and all the result of the well-directed efforts of the "Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen." This society first organized for charitable purposes in 1792, receiving its first charter on the 14th of March of that year. In January, 1821, its charter was amended, the society being empowered to support a school for the education of the children of its deceased and indigent members and for the establishment of an "Apprentices' Library for the use of the apprentices of mechanics in the City of New York." A small library had been opened the year before at 12 Chambers Street, and there the library remained, constantly growing in number of volumes and patrons, till 1835, when it was removed to the old High-School Building, at 472 Broadway, which the society about that time purchased. It remained there until 1878, when it followed the march of population up-town, removing to its present spacious and convenient rooms in Mechanics' Hall, in Sixteenth Street. Strange as it may seem, the Apprentices' is the nearest approach to a public library on a large scale that the city can boast. It is absolutely free to males up to the age of eighteen; after that age it is required of the beneficiaries that they be engaged in some mechanical employment. Ladies who are engaged in any legitimate occupation may partake of its benefits. Books are loaned, the applicants, besides meeting the above conditions, being only required to furnish a guarantor. The total circulation of this excellent institution for 1881-82 was 164,100 volumes, and its beneficial influence on the class reached may be imagined. It is nevertheless a class library; and the fact still remains that New York, with her vast wealth and her splendid public and private charities, has yet to endow the great public library which will place within reach of her citizens the literary wealth of the ages. There is scarcely a disease, it is said, but has its richly-endowed hospital in the city, the number of eleemosynary institutions is legion, but the establishment of a public library, which is usually the first care of a free, rich, intelligent community, has been unaccountably neglected. The subject is now receiving the earnest thought of the best people of the city. Considerable difference of opinion exists as to the best method of founding and supporting such an institution. Some argue that this should be done by the city alone, holding that the self-respecting workingman and workingwoman will never patronize a free library instituted solely by private charity. Others urge that such an institution to be successful should be free from city control and entirely the result of private munificence. The latter gentlemen have added to the cogency of their arguments by a practical demonstration. Early in 1880 they organized on a small scale a free circulating library which should exist solely by the benefactions of the public, with the object of furnishing free reading at their homes to the people. The general plan adopted was a central library, with branches in the various wards, by this means bringing the centres of distribution within easy reach of the city's homes. The success of the institution has been such that its development should be carefully followed. It began operations by leasing two rooms of the old mansion, No. 36 Bond Street, and in March, 1880, "moved in," opening with a few hundred volumes donated chiefly from the libraries of its projectors. The first month-March-1044 volumes were circulated. By October this had grown to 4212. The next year-1881-82-the circulation reached 69,280, and it continued to increase until in 1883 it reached 81,233,-an increase of nearly 10,000 over the preceding year. In May, 1883, the library was removed to the comfortable and roomy building, No. 49 Bond Street, which had been purchased and fitted up for it by the trustees. Early in December, 1884, the Ottendorfer Library, at 135 Second Avenue, the first of the projected branch libraries, was opened with 8819 volumes, 4784 of which were in English and 4035 in German, the whole, with the library building, being the gift of Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, of New York. The branch proved equally popular, having circulated during the past year-1885-97,000 volumes, while the circulation of the main library has increased to 104,000 volumes, the combined circulation of both libraries exceeding that of any other in the city. The percentage of loss has been only one book for 31,768 circulated. The report of the treasurer shows that the annual expenses of the library-about twelve thousand dollars-have been met by voluntary contributions, and that it has a permanent fund of about thirty-two thousand dollars besides its books. These figures prove that libraries of this character will be appreciated, and used by the people. The library committee say, in their last report, that after four years' experience they feel competent to begin the establishment of branch libraries, and observe that at least six of these centres of light and intelligence should be opened in various quarters of the city. It is understood that lack of funds alone prevents the institution from entering on this wider field. When one considers the liberal and too often indiscriminate charities of the metropolis, and reflects that the need and utility of this excellent enterprise have been demonstrated, it seems impossible that pecuniary obstacles will long be allowed to stand in the way of its legitimate development.

Charles Burr Todd.

* * *

THE DRAMA IN THE NURSERY.

A Darwinian might find evidence of the pedigree of our species in the inherent taste for mimicry which we share, at all events, with the anthropoid apes. This instinct of mimicry I take to be the humble beginning from which dramatic art has sprung, and it appears in the individual at a very early stage. Perhaps it is even expressed in the first squalls of infancy, though this possibility has been overlooked or obscured by philosophic pedantry. Now anent these squalls. Hegel gravely declares that they indicate a revelation of the baby's exalted nature (oh!), and are meant to inform the public that it feels itself "permeated with the certitude" that it has a right to exact from the external world the satisfaction of its needs. Michelet opines that the squalls reveal the horror felt by the soul at being enslaved to nature. Another writer regards them as an outburst of wrath on the part of the baby at finding itself powerless against environing circumstances. Some early theologians, on the other hand, pronounced squalling to be a proof of innate wickedness; and this view strikes one as being much nearer the mark. But none of these accounts are completely satisfactory. Innate wickedness may supply the conception; it is the dramatic instinct that suggests the means. Here is the real explanation of those yells which embitter the life of a young father and drive the veteran into temporary exile. It happens in this wise. The first aim of a baby-not yours, madam; yours is well known to be an exception, but of other and common babies-is to make itself as widely offensive as possible. The end, indeed, is execrable, but the method is masterly. The baby has an a priori intuition that the note of the domestic cat is repulsive to the ear of the human adult. Consequently, what does your baby do but betake itself to a practical study of the caterwaul! After a few conscientious rehearsals a creditable degree of perfection is usually reached, and a series of excruciating performances are forthwith commenced, which last with unbroken success until the stage arrives when correction becomes possible. This process may check the child's taste for imitating the lower animals in some of their less engaging peculiarities, but his dramatic instincts will be diverted with a refreshing promptness to the congenial subjects of parent or nurse.

No sooner is your son and heir invested with the full dignity of knickerbockers than he begins to celebrate this rise in the social scale by "playing at being papa." The author of "Vice Versa" has drawn an amusing picture of the discomforts to papa which an exchange of environment with his school-boy son might involve. But there is another side to the question; and at Christmas-time, for instance, most papas would probably be glad enough to exchange the joys and responsibilities of paternity for the simple taste which can tackle plum-pudding and the youthful digestion for which this delicacy has no terrors. However, while it is impossible, or at least inexpedient, for papa to play at being his own urchin, the latter is restrained by no considerations, moral or otherwise, from attempting to personate his papa.

It is often said sententiously that the child is the father of the man. In this case most of us should blush for our parentage. It will be conceded at once (subject, of course, to special reservations in favor of individual brats) that the baby is the most detestable of created beings. But its physical impotence to some extent neutralizes its moral baseness. In the child the deviltries of the baby are partially curbed, but this loss is compensated for by superior bodily powers. Now, the virtuous child-if such a conception can be framed-when representing papa would delight to dwell on the better side of the paternal character, the finer feelings, the flashes of genius, the sallies of wit, the little touches of tenderness and romance, and so forth. Very likely; but the actual child does just the reverse of this. Is there a trivial weakness, a venial shortcoming, a microscopic spot of imperfection anywhere? The ruthless little imp has marked it for his own, and will infallibly reproduce it, certainly before your servants, and possibly before your friends.

"Now we'll play at being in church," quoth Master George in lordly wise to his little sisters. "I'm papa." Whereupon he will twist himself into an unseemly tangle of legs and arms which is simply a barbarous travesty of the attitude of studied grace with which you drink in the sermon in the corner of your family pew.

"Master George, you mustn't," interposes the housemaid, in a tone of faint rebuke, adding, however, with a thrill of generous appreciation, "Law, 'ow funny the child is, and as like as like!" Applause is delicious to every actor, and under its stimulus your first-born essays a fresh flight. Above the laughter of the nurses and the admiring shrieks of his sisters there rises a weird sound, as of a sucking pig in extremis. Your son, my unfortunate friend, is attempting, with his childish treble pipes, to formulate a masculine snore. This is a gross calumny. You never-stop!-well, on one occasion perhaps-but then there were extenuating circumstances. Very likely; but the child has grasped the fact without the circumstances, and has framed his conclusion as a universal proposition. It is a most improper induction, I admit; but logic, like some other things, is not to be looked for in children.

Next comes mamma's turn. Perhaps she has weakly yielded on some occasion to young hopeful's entreaties that he might come down to the kitchen with her to order dinner. By the perverse luck that waits on poor mortals, there happened on that very day to be a passage of arms between mistress and cook. Rapidly forgotten by the principals, it has been carefully stored up in the memory of the witness, who will subsequently bestow an immense amount of misguided energy in teaching a young sister to reproduce, with appropriate gesture and intonation, "Cook, I desire that you will not speak to me in that way. I am extremely displeased with you, and I shall acquaint your master with your conduct."

Small sisters, by the way, may be made to serve a variety of useful purposes of a dramatic or semi-dramatic nature. They may safely be cast for the unpleasant or uninteresting characters of the nursery drama. They form convenient targets for the development of their brothers' marksmanship; and they make excellent horses for their brothers to drive, and, it may be added, for their brothers to flog.

When the subjects afforded by its immediate surroundings are exhausted, Theatre Royal Nursery turns to fiction or history for materials. And here, too, the perversity of childhood is displayed. It is not the virtuous, the benevolent, the amiable, that your child delights to imitate, but rather the tyrant and the destroyer, the ogre who subsists in rude plenty on the peasantry of the neighborhood, or the dragon who is restricted by taste or convention to one young lady per diem, till the national stock is exhausted, or the inevitable knight turns up to supply the proper dramatic finale.

The varied incident of the "Pilgrim's Progress," its romance, and the weird fascination of its goblins and monsters, make it a favorite source of dramatic adaptations. And here, if any man doubt the doctrine of original sin, let him note the fierce competition among the youngsters for the part of Apollyon, and put his doubts from him. With a little care a great many scenes may be selected from this inimitable work. Christian's entry into the haven of refuge in the early part of his pilgrimage can be effectively reproduced in the nursery. It will be remembered that the approach was commanded by a castle of Beelzebub's, from which pilgrims were assailed by a shower of arrows. It is this that gives the episode its charm. One child is of course obliged to sacrifice his inclinations and personate Christian. The rest eagerly take service under Beelzebub and become the persecuting garrison. The "properties" required are of the simplest kind. The nursery sofa or settee-a position of great natural strength-is further fortified with chairs and other furniture to represent the stronghold of the enemy. Christian should be equipped with a wide-awake hat, a stick, and a great-coat (papa's will do, or, better still, a visitor's), with a stool wrapped up in a towel and slung over his shoulders to do duty as the bundle of sins. He is then made to totter along to a "practical" gate (two chairs are the right thing) at the far end of the room, while the hosts of darkness hurl boots, balls, and other suitable missiles at him from the sofa. Sometimes the original is faithfully copied, and bows and arrows are employed; but this is, on the whole, a mistake: there is some chance of Christian being really injured, and this, though of course no objection in itself, is apt to provoke a summary interference by the authorities. Christian's passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is another favorite piece. Here, too, there are great opportunities for an enterprising demon. It will be necessary, however, for the success of the performance that Christian should abandon his strictly defensive attitude in the narrative and lay about him with sufficient energy to produce a general scrimmage.

"Robinson Crusoe" is a treasure-house of situations, some of which gain a piquancy from the dash of the diabolical with which Crusoe's terrors invested them. Even where this is wanting there is plenty of bloodshed to take its place, and a happy combination of horrors is supplied by the cannibal feast which Crusoe interrupts. The youngest member of the troupe is, on the whole, the best victim; but, failing this, any pet animal sufficiently lazy or good-tempered to endure the process makes a tolerable substitute. "Masterman Ready," "The Swiss Family Robinson," and other cognate works, together with appropriate selections from sacred and profane history, are adapted with a shamelessness which would make a dramatic author's blood run cold.

Lions, tigers, and wild beasts generally are common objects of nursery imitation, either from a genuine admiration of their qualities or from the mysterious craving for locomotion on all-fours with which children seem possessed. This branch of the art, however, struggles under some difficulties. It has, of course, to contend with the undisguised opposition of authority. This is hardly a matter for marvel, and perhaps not even a matter for regret. A prudential regard for the knees of puerile knickerbockers and the corresponding region of feminine frocks may explain a good deal of parental discouragement in the matter; and there is little public sympathy to counteract this, for it is felt that the total decay of these mimes would not be a serious loss either to dramatic art or to peace and quietness.

In one sense, no doubt, these amusements of childhood are matters of little moment; but, in spite of their seeming triviality, they have a genuine importance which should not be overlooked. The spontaneous exhibitions of children at play often reveal latent tastes, tendencies, or traits of character to one who is able to interpret them aright. If this be so,-and it is no longer open to doubt,-it is clear that even infant acting may furnish hints and assistance of the highest value to an intelligent system of education. It is true, no doubt, that till quite lately any such possibility was steadily ignored; but it is only quite lately that anything like an intelligent system of early education has been attempted. The idiosyncrasies of a child, instead of being carefully observed, were either disregarded as meaningless or repressed as being naughty. No greater mistake could be possible; and this at last is beginning to be understood. The first struggles of a young consciousness to express itself externally are nearly always eccentric, and often seem perverse. But this is nothing more than we ought to expect. The oddities of a child's conduct are in reality nothing else than direct expressions of character, uncurbed by the conventions which regulate the demeanor of adults, or direct revelations of some taste or aptitude, which education may foster, but which neglect will hardly crush. The world contains a woful number of human pegs thrust forcibly into holes which do not fit them, and the world's work suffers proportionately from this misapplication of energy. The mischief is abundantly clear, but the remedy, if we do not shut our eyes to it, is tolerably clear also. Just as this condition of things is largely due to our unscientific neglect of variations in character and the wooden system of education which this neglect has produced, so we may expect to see its evils disappear by an abolition of the one and a reform of the other. If the world be indeed a stage, with all humanity for its corps dramatique it must surely be well for the success of the performance that the cast should take account of individual aptitudes, and that to each player should be allotted the part which he can best support in the great drama of Life.

Norman Pearson.

* * *

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

"The Man who Laughs."

The degree of culture and good breeding which a man possesses may be very correctly determined by the way he laughs. The primeval savage, from whom we trace descent, was distinguished above everything else by his demonstrativeness; and there is much in our present type of social manners and conduct which betrays our barbarous origin. The brute-like sounds that escape from the human throat in the exercise of laughter, the coarse guffaw, the hoarse chuckle, and the high, cackling tones in which many of the feminine half of the world express their sense of amusement, attest very painfully the animal nature within us. It was Emerson, I believe, who expressed a dislike of all loud laughter; and it is difficult to imagine the scene or occasion which could draw from that serene and even-minded philosopher a broader expression of amusement than that conveyed in the "inscrutable smile" which Whipple describes as his most characteristic feature. Yet Emerson was by no means wanting in appreciation of the comic. On the contrary, he had an abiding sense of humor, and it was this-a keen and lively perception of the grotesque, derived as part of his Yankee inheritance-that kept him from uniting in many of the extravagant reform movements of the day. Few of us, however, even under the sanction of an Emerson, would wish to dispense with all sound of laughter.

The memory of a friend's voice, in which certain laughing notes and tones are inextricably mingled with the graver inflections of common speech, is almost as dear as the vision of his countenance or the warm pressure of his hand. Yet among such remembrances we hold others, of those from whom the sound of open laughter is seldom heard, the absence of which, however, denotes no diminished sense of the humorous and amusing. A quick, responsive smile, a flash or glance of the eye, a kindling countenance, serve as substitutes for true laughter, and we do not miss the sound of that which is supplied in a finer and often truer quality.

The freest, purest laughter is that of childhood, which is as spontaneous as the song of birds. It is impossible that the laughter of older people should retain this sound of perfect music. Knowledge of life and the world has entered in to mar the natural harmonics of the human voice, which not all the skill and efforts of the vocal culturists can ever again restore. It is only those who in attaining the years and stature of manhood have retained the nature of the child, its first unconscious truth and simplicity, whose laughter is wholly pleasant to hear. I recall the laugh of a friend which corresponds to this description, a laugh as pure and melodious, as guiltless of premeditated art or intention, as the notes of the rising lark; yet its owner is a man of wide worldly experience. It is natural that I, who know my friend so well, should find in this peculiarly happy laugh of his the sign and test of that type of high, sincere manhood which he represents; but it is a dangerous business, this attempting to define the character and disposition of people by the turn of an eyelid, the curve of a lip, or a particular vocal shade and inflection. Not only has Art learned to imitate Nature very closely, but Nature herself plays many a trick upon our credulity in matters of this kind. Upon a woman who owns no higher motive than low and selfish cunning she bestows the musical tones of a seraph, as she sheathes the sharp claws of all her feline progeny in cases of softest fur. Rosamond Vincy is not the only example which might be furnished, either in or out of print, in proof that a low, soft voice, that excellent thing in woman, may have a wrongly persuasive accent, luring to disappointment and death, like the Lorelei's song, to which the harsh tones of the most strong-minded Xantippe are to be preferred.

Still, it does seem that, however right Shakespeare was when he said a man may smile and smile and be a villain still, no real villain could indulge in hearty, spontaneous laughter. Much smiling is one of the thin disguises in which a certain kind of knavery seeks to hide itself, but it is easy to conjecture that the low ruffian type of villain, like that seen in Bill Sykes and Jonas Chuzzlewit, neither laughs nor smiles, being as destitute of the courage to listen to the sound of its own voice as of the wit that summons artifice to its aid in protection of its guilty devices.

The ghastly effect of guilt laughing with constrained glee to hide suspicion of itself from the eyes of innocence is vividly portrayed in Irving's performance of "The Bells," in the scene where Mathias, by a supreme effort of will, joins in Christian's laugh over the supposition that it might have been his, the respected burgomaster's, limekiln in which the body of the Polish Jew was burned. Genuine laughter must spring from a pure and undefiled source. It may not always be of tuneful quality, but it must at least contain the note of sincerity. I have in mind the outbursts of deep-chested sound with which another friend evinces his appreciation of a humorous remark or incident, a laugh which many fastidious people would pronounce too hard and rough by half, bending their heads and darting from under, as if suddenly assailed by some rude nor'wester. But I like the pleasant shock bestowed in those strong, breezy tones, and the feeling of rejuvenation and new expectancy which it imparts.

Another laugh echoes in memory as I write, a girl's laugh this time, not "idle and foolish and sweet," as such have been described, but clear, and strong, and odd almost to the point of the ludicrous, yet charmingly natural withal. A young woman's laugh is apt to begin at the highest note, and, running down the scale, to end in a sigh of mingled relief and exhaustion an octave or so lower down. This particular girl, however, takes the other way, and, running her chromatic neatly up from about middle C, pauses for a breath, and then astonishes her audience by striking off two perfectly attuned notes several degrees higher up, hitting her mark with the ease and deftness of a prima donna. So odd and surprising a laugh is sure to be quickly infectious, and its owner is never at a loss for company in her merriment, while a cheerful temper, unclouded by a shade of envy or suspicion, is not in the least disturbed by the knowledge that others are laughing at as well as with her.

The question of what we shall laugh at deserves more attention than our manner of laughing. "There is nothing," says Goethe, "in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at," adding, "The man of understanding finds almost everything ridiculous, the man of thought scarcely anything." This last corresponds somewhat to a sentiment found in Horace Walpole: "Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."

With many people laughter seems to be an appetite, which grows by what it feeds on, until all power of discrimination between the finer and the more vulgar forms of wit is lost. Certain it is that the habit of laughter is as easy to fall into as it is dangerous to all social dignity. The muscles of the mouth have a natural upward curve,-a fact which speaks well for the disposition of Mother Nature who made us, and may also be held to signify that there are more things in the world deserving our approval than our condemnation. But the hideous spectacle presented in the contorted visage of Hugo's great character contains a wholesome warning even for us of a later age; for there is a social tyranny, almost as potent as the kingly despotism which ruled the world centuries ago, that would fain shape the features of its victims after one artificial pattern. We laugh too much, from which it necessarily follows that we often laugh at the wrong things, a fault which betrays intellectual weakness as well as moral cupidity. The determining quality in true laughter lies in the degree of innocent mirth it gives expression to; and when jealous satire, envy, or malice add their dissonant note to its sound, its finest effect is destroyed and its opportunity lost.

C.P.W.

Why we Forget Names.

In the last years of his life the venerated Emerson lost his memory of names. In instance of this many will remember the story told about him when returning from the funeral of his friend Longfellow. Walking away from the cemetery with his companion, he said, "That gentleman whose funeral we have just attended was a sweet and beautiful soul, but I cannot recall his name." The little anecdote has something very touching about it,-the old man asking for the name of the life-long friend, "the gentleman whose funeral we have just attended."

When I saw Mr. Emerson a year prior to his own death, this defect of memory was very noticeable, and extended even to the names of common objects, so that in talking he would use quaint, roundabout expressions to supply the place of missing words. He would call a church, for instance, "that building in the town where all the people go on Sunday."

This loss of memory of names is very common with old people, but it is not confined to them. Almost every one has at some time experienced the peculiar, the almost desperate, feeling of trying to recall a name that will not come. It is at our tongue's end; we know just what sort of a name it is; it begins with a B; yet did we try for a year it would not come. One curious fact about the phenomenon is that it seems to be contagious. If one person suddenly finds himself unable to recall a name, the person with whom he is talking will stick at it also. The name almost always gets the best of them, and they have to say, "Yes, I know what you mean," and go on with their talk.

I have never seen an explanation of this name-forgetfulness; but it is not difficult to find a reason for it. What needs explaining is that names are so obstinate, and grow more obstinate the harder we try, while other things we have forgotten and are trying to recall generally yield themselves to our efforts. Moreover, in other cases of forgetfulness we never experience that peculiar and most exasperating feature of name-forgetfulness,-the feeling that we know the word perfectly well all the time. This last fact, indeed, seems to show that we have not forgotten the name at all, but have simply lost the clue to it.

Now, let us inquire why this clue is so hard to find. Scientific men who study the human mind and make a business of explaining thought, emotion, memory, and the like, have an expression which they use frequently, and which sounds difficult, but which really it is very easy as well as interesting to understand. They speak of the association of ideas. The association of ideas means simply the fact which every one has noticed, that one thing tends to call up another in the mind. When you recall a certain sleigh-ride last winter, you remember that you put hot bricks in the sleigh; and this reminds you that you were intending to heat a warming-pan for the bed to-night; and the thought of warming the bed makes you think of poor President Garfield's sickness, during which they tried to cool his room with ice. Each of these thoughts (ideas) has evidently called up another connected-associated-with it in some way. This is the association of ideas: it is a law that governs almost all our thinking, as any one may discover by going back over his own thoughts. Perhaps an easier way to discover it will be to observe the rapid talk of an afternoon caller on the family, and see how the conversation skips from one subject to another which the last suggested, and from that to another suggested by this, and so on.

Just this association of ideas it is which enables us to recall things we have forgotten. Our ideas on any subject-say that sleigh-ride last winter-resemble a lot of balls some distance apart in a room, but all connected by strings. If there is any particular ball we cannot find,-that is, some fact we cannot remember,-then if we pull the neighboring balls it is likely that they by the connecting strings will bring the missing ball into sight. To illustrate this, suppose that you cannot remember the route of that sleigh-ride. You recall carefully all the circumstances associated with the ride, in hopes that some one of them will suggest the route that was taken. You think of your companions, of the moon being full, of having borrowed extra robes, of the hot bricks-Ah, there is a clue! The bricks were reheated somewhere. Where was it? They were placed on a stove,-on a red-hot stove with a loafers' foot-rail about it. That settles it. Such stoves are found only in country grocery-stores; and now it all comes back to you. The ride was by the hill road to Smith's Corners. It is as if there were a string from the hot-bricks idea to the idea that the bricks were reheated, to this necessarily being done on a stove, to the peculiar kind of stove it was done on, to the only place in the neighborhood where such a stove could be, to Smith's Corners; and this string has led you, like a clue, to the fact you desired to remember.

We can now return to the question asked above: In trying to recall names, why is it so difficult to find a clue? After what has been said, the question can be put in a better form: Why does not the association of ideas enable us to recall names as it does other things? The answer is, that names (proper names) have very few associations, very few strings, or clues, leading to them. It is easy to see this; for suppose you moved away from the neighborhood of that sleigh-ride many years before, and in thinking over past times find yourself unable to recall the name of the Corners where the store stood. The place can be remembered perfectly, and a thousand circumstances connected with it, but they furnish no clue to the name: the circumstances might all remain the same and the name be any other as well. The only association the name has is with an indistinct memory of how it sounded. It was of two words: the second was something like Hollow, or Cross roads, or Crossing; the first began with an S. But it is vain to seek for it: no clue leads to it. Were it the ride you sought to remember, many of its details could be recalled, some of which might lead to the desired fact; but a name has no details, and it is only possible to say of it that it sounded so and so, if it is possible to say that.

It may be asked, how, then, is it that we do remember some names, as those in use every day? Just as the multiplication-table is remembered,-by force of familiarity. Constant repetition engraves them in the mind. When in old age the vigor of the mind lessens, the engraving wears out and names are hard to recall, since there is no other clue to them than this engraved record.

There may be mentioned one slight help in recalling names when the case is important or desperate. It consists in going back to the period when the name was known and deliberately writing out a circumstantial account of all the connected incidents, mentioning names of persons and places whenever they can be remembered. If this is done in a casual way, without thinking of the purpose in view,-as if one were sending a gossipy letter of personal history to a friend,-the mind falls into an automatic condition that may result in producing the desired name itself. Every one must have observed that it is this automatic activity of the mind, and not conscious effort, which recovers lost names most successfully. We "think of them afterwards."

Xenos Clark.

A Reminiscence of Harriet Martineau.

It is more than fifty years since I, a mere child, spent a summer with my parents in a sandy young city of Indiana. Eight or nine hundred souls, perhaps more, were already anchored within its borders. Chicago, a lusty infant just over the line, her feet blackened with prairie mud, made faces, called names, and ridiculed its soil and architecture. Nevertheless it was a valiant little city, even though its streets were rivers of shifting sand, through which "prairie-schooners" were toilsomely dragged by heavy oxen or a string of chubby ponies,-these last a gift from the coppery Indian to the country he was fast forsaking. Clouds of clear grit drifted into open casements on every passing breeze, or, if a gale arose, were driven through every crevice. Our little city was cradled amid the shifting sand-hills on Michigan's wave-beaten shore. Indeed, it had received the name of the grand old lake in loving baptism, and was pluckily determined to wear it worthily. Its buildings were wholly of wood, and hastily constructed, some not entirely unpretentious, while others tilted on legs, as if in readiness at shortest notice to take to their heels and skip away. In those early days there was only the round yellow-bodied coach swinging on leathern straps, or the heavy lumber-wagon, to accommodate the tide of travel already setting westward. It was a daily delight to listen to the inspiring toot of the driver's horn and the crack of his long whip, as, with six steaming horses, he swung his dusty passengers in a final grand flourish up to the hospitable door of the inn.

One memorable morning brought to the unique little town a literary lion,-a woman of great heart, clear brain, and powerful pen,-in short, Harriet Martineau. Her travelling companions were a professor, his comely wife, and their eight-year-old son. The last-named was much petted by Miss Martineau, and still flourishes in perennial youth on many pages of her books of American travel. Michigan City felt honored in its transient guest. The whisper that a real live author was among us filled the inn hall with a changing throng eager to obtain a glimpse of the celebrity. Not among the least of these were "the two little girls" she mentions in her "Society in America," page 253. At breakfast the party served their sharpened appetites quite like ordinary folk,-Miss Martineau in thoughtful quiet, broken now and again by a brisk question darted at the professor, who answered in a deliberate learned way that was quite impressive. A shiver of disgust ruffled his plump features at the absence of cream, which the host excused by the statement that, the population having outgrown its flocks and herds, milk was held sacred to the use of babes. Miss Martineau listened to the professor's complaints with a twinkle of mirth in her eyes, while that indignant gentleman vigorously applied himself to the solid edibles at hand. Shortly after breakfast the strangers sallied forth in search of floral treasures, over the low sand-hills stretching toward the lake (a spur of which penetrated the main street), where in the face of the sandy drift nestled a shanty quite like the "dug-out" of the timberless lands in Kansas and New Mexico. The tomb-like structure, half buried in sand, only its front being visible, seemed to afford Miss Martineau no end of surprised amusement as she climbed to its submerged roof on her way to the summit of the hill. A window-garden of tittering young women merrily watched the progress of the quick-stepping Englishwoman, and, really, there was some provocation to mirth, from their stand-point. Anything approaching a blanket, plain, plaided, or striped, had never disported itself before their astonished gaze as a part of feminine apparel, except on the back of a grimy squaw. Of blanket-shawls, soon to become a staple article of trade, the Western women had not then even heard; and here was a civilized and cultivated creature enveloped in what seemed to be a gay trophy wrested from the bed-furniture! Then, too, the "only sweet thing" in bonnets was the demure "cottage," fashioned of fine straw, while the woman in view sported a coarse, pied affair, whose turret-like crown and flaring brim pointed ambitiously skyward. Stout boots completed the costume criticised and laughed over by the merry maidens who yet stood in wholesome awe of the presence of the wearer. With what a wealth of gorgeous wild flowers and plumy ferns the pilgrims came laden on their return! Quoting from "Society in America," page 253, Miss Martineau says, "The scene was like what I had always fancied the Norway coast, but for the wild flowers, which grew among the pines on the slope almost into the tide. I longed to spend an entire day on this flowery and shadowy margin of the inland sea. I plucked handfuls of pea-vine and other trailing flowers, which seemed to run all over the ground."

Miss Martineau piled her treasures on a table and culled the specimens worthy of pressing, and it seemed to pain her to reject the least promising of her perishable plunder. She must have had a passion for flowers, judging from the tenderness with which she handled the lovely fronds and delicate petals under inspection, while her mouth was continually open in admiring exclamation.

And now came what I still fondly remember as the Musicale. A little comrade came in the twilight to sing songs with me. With arms interlaced, we paced the upper hall, vociferously warbling as breath was given us, when a door opened, and the gifted, dark-faced woman, with kindly eyes, beamed out on us. "Come," she called, "come in here, children, and sing your songs for me: I am very fond of music." Very bashfully we signified our willingness to oblige,-indeed, we dared not do otherwise,-and sidled into the room. Closing the door, our hostess curled herself comfortably on a gayly-cushioned lounge, and proceeded to adjust a serpent-like, squirming appendage to her ear. With an encouraging nod, she bade us commence, closing her eyes meanwhile with an air of expectant rapture. But the vibrating trumpet stirred our foolish souls to explosive laughter, partially smothered in a simultaneous strangled cough. Wondering at the double paroxysm and subsequent hush of shame, she unclosed her eyes, softly murmuring, "Don't be bashful nor afraid, my dears. I am very far from home, and you can make me very happy, if you will. Pray begin at once, and then I will also sing for you." Taking courage, we piped as bidden, rendering in a childish way the strains of "Blue-Eyed Mary," "Comin' through the Rye," "I'd be a Butterfly," and "Auld Lang Syne," Our audience, with bright, attentive looks, regarded the performance in pleased approval, softly tapping time on her knee with a slender finger.

"Now it is my turn," said Miss Martineau. Straightening herself and casting aside the trumpet, primly folding her hands and pursing her mouth curiously, she began, in a high, quavering voice, a song whose burden was the fixed objection on the part of a certain damsel to forsaking the pleasures of the world for the seclusion and safety of a convent:

Now, is it not a pity such a pretty girl as I

Should be sent to a nunnery to pine away and die?

But I won't be a nun,-- no, I won't be a nun;

I'm so fond of pleasure that I cannot be a nun.

It is impossible to give an idea of the jerky style of the lady's singing which so tickled our sensitive ears. At every repetition of the refrain, Susy and I squeezed our locked fingers spasmodically in order to suppress the unseemly laughter bubbling to our lips. At every emphatic word she nodded at us merrily, thus adding to our inward disquiet.

I like now, when picturing Harriet Martineau entertaining with noble themes the men and women of letters she drew around her in England and America, to remember, in connection with her strong, plain face and brilliant intellect, the simple kindliness with which she once unbent to a brace of little Hoosier maids in the "Far West."

F.C.M.

* * *

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

"Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence[A]." Edited by Elizabeth Cary Agassiz. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

The northeastern corner of the ancient Pays de Vaud, only part of which is included in the modern canton, is little known to tourists. It lies away from the chief lines of travel, and it has neither the magnificent views that draw the visitor aside to Orbe nor the associations that induce him to stop at Coppet or Clarens. Yet its breezy upland plains and its quiet villages-some of them once populous and prosperous towns-are not devoid of charm, or of the interest connected with historical epochs and famous names. The "lone wall" and "lonelier column" at Avenches date from the period when this was the Roman capital of Helvetia. Morat still shows many a mark and relic of its siege by Charles the Bold and of the overthrow of his forces by the Swiss. Payerne was the birthplace, in 1779, of Jomini, the greatest of all writers on military operations, whose precocious genius, while he was a mere stripling and before he had witnessed any battles or manoeuvres, penetrated the secret of Bonaparte's combinations and victorious campaigns, which veteran commanders were watching with mere wonderment and dismay. At Motiers, a few miles farther north, was born, in 1807, Louis Agassiz, who at an equally early age displayed a like intuitive comprehension of many of the workings of Nature, and who subsequently became the chief exponent of the glacial theory and the highest authority on the structure and classification of fishes. Each of these two men gave his ripest powers and longest labors to a great country far from their common home,-Jomini to Russia, Agassiz to the United States; and, dissimilar as were their objects and pursuits, their intellectual resemblance was fundamental. The pre-eminent quality of each was the power of rapid generalization, of mastering and subordinating details, of grasping and applying principles and laws. Agassiz differed as much from an animal-loving collector like Frank Buckland, whose father was one of his stanchest friends and co-workers, as Jomini differed from a fighting general like Ney, to whom he suggested the movements that resulted in the French victory at Bautzen. Switzerland is equally proud of the great strategist and the great naturalist, but to Americans in general the former is at the most a mere name, while the career of the latter is an object of wide-spread and even national interest.

In the volumes before us the story of that career is clearly and completely, yet concisely, set forth. Readers of biography who delight mainly in social gossip may complain of the absence of everything of the kind; but such matter neither belonged to the subject nor was required for its elucidation. We are prone to draw a distinction between what we call a man's personal life and the larger and more active part of his existence, and to fancy that the clue to his character lies in some minor idiosyncrasies, or in habits and tastes that were perhaps accidentally formed. But every earnest worker reveals in his methods and achievements not alone his intellectual capacities, but all the deep and essential qualities of his nature. With Agassiz this was conspicuously the case. The enthusiasm, the singleness of purpose, and the indefatigable energy that constituted the fond, so to speak, of his character were as open to view as the features of his countenance. Hence the single and strong impression he produced on all with whom he came in contact, the sympathy he so quickly kindled, and the co-operation he so readily enlisted. It was easily perceived that he was no self-seeker, that no thought of personal interest mingled with his devotion to science, and that he was not more intent on absorbing knowledge than desirous of diffusing it. No one has ever more fully and happily blended the qualities of student and teacher, and it was in this double capacity that he became so public and prominent a figure and exerted so wide an influence in the country of his adoption.

Some men overcome obstacles and attain their ends by sheer persistency of will, others by tact and persuasiveness, while there is a third class, before whom the barred doors open as they are successively approached, through what are called either fortunate accidents or Providential interventions, but are seen, on closer inspection, to have been the direct and natural effects of the force unconsciously exerted by an harmonious combination of qualities. Agassiz's career was full of such instances. The insistent desire of his parents, while stinting themselves to secure his education, that he should adopt a bread-winning profession, yielded, not to any urgent appeals or dogged display of resolution, but to the proof given by his labors that he was choosing more wisely for himself. Cuvier, without any request or expectation, resigned to the neophyte who, after following in his footsteps, was outstripping him in certain lines, drawings and notes prepared for his own use. Humboldt, at a critical moment, saved him from the necessity for abandoning his projects by an unsolicited loan, supplemented by many further acts of assistance of a different kind. In England every possible facility and aid was afforded to him as well by private individuals as by public institutions. In America, men like Mr. Nathaniel Thayer and Mr. John Anderson needed only in some chance way to become acquainted with his plans to be ready to provide the means for carrying them out. It was the same on all occasions. The United States government, the Coast Survey, the legislature of Massachusetts, private individuals throughout the country, showed a rare willingness, and even eagerness, to forward his views. The man and the object were identified in people's minds, and, as in all such cases, a feeling was roused and an impulse generated which could have sprung from no other source.

The attractiveness and charm which everybody seems to have found in him had perhaps the same origin. It does not appear that his nature was peculiarly sympathetic, that it was through any unusual flow and warmth of feeling toward others that he so quickly became the object of their attachment or regard. Of course, we do not intend to intimate that he was deficient in strength of affection or in the least degree cold or unresponsive. But his "magnetism," to use the current word, lay in the ardor and singleness of his devotion to science, not as an abstraction, but as a potent agency in civilization, in the union of elevation with enthusiasm, in an openness that seemed to reveal everything, yet nothing that should have been hidden. Hence this biography, little as it deals with purely personal matters, awakens an interest of precisely the same kind as that which the living Agassiz was accustomed to excite. For the student of comparative zoology or of glacial action all that is here told about these subjects can have only an historical value. But no reader can follow the successive steps of a career that was always in the truest sense upward without being touched by that inspiring influence which it constantly diffused, and which Americans, above all others, have reason to hold in grateful remembrance.

Illustrated Books.

"The Sermon on the Mount." Boston: Roberts Brothers.

"Poems of Nature." By John Greenleaf Whittier. Illustrated from Nature by Elbridge Kingsley. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." A Romaunt. By Lord Byron. Boston: Ticknor & Co.

"The Last Leaf." Poem. By Oliver Wendell Holmes. Illustrated by George Wharton Edwards and F. Hopkinson Smith. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

"Pepper and Salt; or, Seasoning for Young Folks." Prepared by Howard Pyle. New York: Harper & Brothers.

"Davy the Goblin; or, What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,'" By Charles E. Carryl. Boston; Ticknor & Co.

"Bric-à-Brac Stories." By Mrs. Burton Harrison. Illustrated by Walter Crane. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

"Rudder Grange." By Frank R. Stockton. Illustrated by A.B. Frost. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

In turning over the pictorial books of the season one experiences a genuine pleasure in coming upon this illustrated edition of "The Sermon on the Mount," which belongs to a high order of merit from its satisfactory interpretation of the subject and the beauty of its general design and careful detail. It is, of course, a modern performance, and nothing is more characteristic of most modern art than that it does consciously, from reminiscence and with a reaching after certain effects, what was once done simply, intuitively, and from the urgency of poetic feeling. A great difference must naturally exist not only in the outward mode but in the spirit of a group of modern artists who set to work to illuminate a sacred text, and that in which the task was undertaken by cloistered monks in whose gray lives a longing for beauty, for color, found expression only here. Thus one realizes that the decorative borders-which one looks at over and over again in this volume, and which actually satisfy the eye-do not represent the artist's own actual dreams, but are founded instead upon the ecstatic visions of Fra Angelico and others as they bent over their work in their silent cells; but they are beautiful nevertheless, far transcend what is merely decorative, and are full of imagination and feeling. In fact, into this frame-work, which might have contained nothing beyond conventional imitation, Mr. Smith has put vivid touches which show that he has the faculty to conceive and the skill to handle which belong to the true artist. It would be easy to instance several of these borders as remarkably good in their way: that which surrounds the "Lord's Prayer" suggests dazzling effects in jewelled glass. The book is made up in a delightful way, with full-page pictures interspersed with vignettes illustrating the text and set round with those richly-designed borders to which we have alluded. Mr. Fenn's pictures of actual places in the Holy Land, besides striking the key-note of veracity which puts us in a mood to see the whole story under fresh lights, are full of beauty and charm. We are inclined to like everything in the book, although in the various ways in which the beatitudes are interpreted we are conscious of some incongruities, and wish that certain illustrations had made way for designs showing more unity of conception among the artists. For instance, Mr. Church's introduction of a New England scene of tomahawking Indians cannot be said to throw a flood of light upon the meaning of "Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake." Mr. St. John Harper's pictures are a trifle obscure; but their obscurity veils their want of pertinence and suggests subtilties that flatter the imagination into fitting the application to suit itself. Any mention of the book which failed to include Mr. Copeland's work on the engrossed text would be altogether inadequate, for it is very perfect, very beautiful, full of surprises and delightful quaintnesses, and helps to make the book what it actually is, a complete whole, which really answers our wishes of what an illustrated book should be.

Mr. Whittier's "Poems of Nature" make the felicitous occasion this year for one of Messrs. Houghton & Mifflin's rich and attractive series of their authors' selected works. An admirable etching of the poet faces the title-page, and the poems, chiefly descriptive of New England scenes, are illustrated by designs from nature, the work of a single artist. That Mr. Kingsley is in sympathy with the poet, and that he is an impassioned lover of nature and the various moods of nature, no one can doubt, and the impression of truthfulness which his work produces on the mind makes his pictures interesting and full of sentiment even when they are not entirely successful. Perhaps he aims in general at rather too large effects to bring them out vividly; for when the scene he chooses is least composite he is at his best. "Deer Island Pines," for example, and "The Merrimac" are excellent, and we find much charm in "A Winter Scene" and in a Boughton-like "November Afternoon."

There is a certain temerity in undertaking to illustrate a work like "Childe Harold," which, if it has been read at all, has aroused its own distinct conceptions of scenery in the mind of its reader which must make any ordinary pictures setting off familiar lines tame and insipid. It is the triumph of art when the artist can bring out meanings and beauties in the text hitherto undreamed of; but we acquit the artists of the present book of any failure in that respect, for their intention seems never to have gone beyond amiable commonplace. The little cuts are all pleasant, trim, and, if not suggestive, at least not sufficiently the reverse to be displeasing. The head-pieces to the cantos are extremely good, and the two scenes "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods" and "There is a rapture on the lonely shore" we like sufficiently well to exempt them from the accusation of insipidity.

Happy the poet who lives to see one of the poems he carelessly flung off in early youth come back to him in his old age in such a setting as is here given to Dr. Holmes's "Last Leaf." "Just when it was written," the author says in his delightful and characteristic "Envoi" to the reader, "I cannot exactly say, nor in what paper or periodical it was first published. It must have been written before April, 1833,"-that is, when he was in the early twenties. The poem has always been a favorite, its sentiment suggesting Lamb's "All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." It must henceforth be ranked as a classic, for it is the happy destiny of the two artists who have worked together to give it this exquisite setting forth to make its actual worth clear to every reader. They have put nothing into the lines which was not there already, but they have shown fine insight in their choice of subjects and in conveying delicate and far-reaching meanings. They have subordinated-as designers do not invariably do-their instinctive methods and capricious inclinations to a careful study of their subject. The result is-instead of a pretty but chaotic decorativeness interspersed with florid and meaningless exaggerations-a complete and beautiful whole marred by no redundancy or incongruity. Their full play of intelligence brought to bear upon the suggestions of the poet has developed a series of pictures which give occasionally a delightful sense of surprise at their grace and unexpectedness. For example, the three which illustrate

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has prest

In their bloom

have absolutely a magical effect. Besides the full-page pictures, etchings, and photo-gravures, the minor details of title-lines, head- and tail-pieces, and the like, are executed in a way so pretty and clever as to leave nothing to be desired. The rich quarto is sumptuously bound, and, altogether, as a holiday gift-book the work has every element of beauty and appropriateness.

"Pepper and Salt" is one of those brilliantly clever books for little people which rouse a wonder as to whether the juvenile mind keeps pace with the highly stimulated imaginative powers of modern artists and finds solid entertainment in the richly-seasoned feast prepared for it. There is plenty of humor and whim in this volume, in which many old apologues appear in new shapes; wit, too, is to be found, and a sprinkling of wisdom. Effective designs, droll, fantastic, and invariably ingenious, set off the least of the poems and stories, and make it as striking and attractive a quarto as will be found among the young people's books this season.

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" gave a new stimulus to children's literature, with its effective magic for youthful minds and its brilliant success among all classes of readers. "Davy the Goblin" is one of the many volumes which have been founded, so to say, on its idea and been carried along by its impulse. Thus little can be said for the actual originality of the book, although it deals in new combinations and abounds in droll situations. It is well printed and illustrated, and most children will be glad to have a new excursion into Wonderland.

Mrs. Burton Harrison's "Bric-à-Brac Stories," illustrated by Walter Crane, make an attractive volume with a good deal of solid reading within its covers. The stories are told with the verve and skill of a genuine story-teller, old themes are reset, and new material dexterously worked in, with characters drawn from fairy- and dream-land, and, set off by Mr. Crane's delightful drawings, the whole book is particularly attractive.

"Rudder Grange" is one of the books which it is essential to have always with us, and we are glad to see the stories so well illustrated, although the subject passes the domain of the artist, Mr. Stockton's humor being of that delicate and elusive order which strikes the inward and not the outward sense. "Pomona reading" in the wrecked canal-boat is a droll contribution, and many of the cuts show that the artist is in full harmony with the spirit of the author.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] On another occasion he remarked of Trollope, "What drivel the man writes! He is the very essence of the commonplace."

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

[A] Original reads 'Corresponddence'