being that entitled "A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Ile of Divels," which was reinforced by several pamphlets. According to these reports the island of Bermudas had never been "inhabited by any Christian or heathen people;" it was reported "a most prodigious and enchanted place," "stillvexed" with "monstrous thunder-storms and tempests." On the night the ship was wrecked the Admiral himself "had an apparition of a little, round light, like a faint star, trembling and streaming along with a sparkling blaze, half the height above the main-mast, and shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud, tempting to settle as it were upon any of the four shrouds."

The stories of this marvelous voyage were undoubtedly heard by Shakespeare, and he certainly read these narratives before writing of the "still-vexed Bermoothes," of the climate of the Island in "The Tempest," and of the spirits which frequented it. Traces of the reading of other books of travel are found in the play. It is possible also that Shakespeare may have heard from English actors, who had performed at Nuremberg a few years before this time, the plot of a comedy written by Jacob Ayrer, of that city, under the title "Die Schöne Sidea." It is also It is also possible that there may have been an earlier play or novel of a somewhat similar plot, which has entirely disappeared. The famous description of an ideal commonwealth which is put in the mouth of Gonzalo was suggested to Shakespeare by an essay of Montaigne's which he read in Florio's translation; while the Invocation of Prospero may owe something to one of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," with which the poet had long been familiar.

After recognizing his indebtedness for certain details to various earlier and contemporary sources, "The Tempest" remains pre-eminently the creation of Shakespeare's imagination. In certain respects it is his masterpiece. As a drama it falls far below his earlier work; as a poem, cast in a dramatic form, it is one of the most beautiful creations in English poetry. The profound meditativeness and rich intellectual quality of "Hamlet" are fused in it with the lovely fancy of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," while in deep. and sustained play of imagination, fashion

ing the play in its structure, shaping its parts to one high end, touching it everywhere with a kind of ultimate beauty, it stands alone not only in Shakespeare's work but in modern poetry. The nobleness of conception is matched throughout with a kindred nobleness of style; while the songs are full of the deep, spontaneous melody which issues out of the heart of the poet when sound and sense are perfectly mated in his imagination.

The profound seriousness of temper which pervades the play, the clearness with which its ethical bearings are disclosed, the deep philosophy which underlies it, convey an irresistible impression of something personal in the theme and the treatment. It is impossible to read "The Tempest" without a haunting sense of secondary meaning. Caliban, Miranda, and Prospero have been interpreted from many points of view; a final and convincing interpretation will never be made, but the instinct of Shakespeare's readers and lovers that in this last play from his hand the poet was bidding farewell to his art is probably sound. As a rule, critics err rather in diminishing than expanding the significance of great works of art.

"The Tempest" appeared about 1611. Shakespeare was then forty-seven years. of age, and had nearly completed his work. When he set the noble figure of Prospero on the unknown island, and made him master of spirits and of men, with a knowledge of life which was so great that it easily passed on into magical art, he could not have been oblivious of the spiritual significance of the work, nor of its deep and vital symbolism in the development of his own mind and art.

The success of "The Tempest " appears to have been great; it was presented at Court, and was one of the plays performed during the marriage festivities of the Princess Elizabeth in 1613. One source of this popular interest was proba bly the charm of the songs which gave the movement pause and relief. There is good reason to believe that these songs were set to music by Robert Johnson, a popular composer of the day, and that two of them had been preserved in Wilson's "Cheerful Ayres and Ballads set for Three Voices."

Shakespeare completed no more plays after the appearance of "The Tempest,"

but he had a shaping hand in "Henry VIII.," which appeared about 1612 and is included among his works. This very uneven and very spectacular drama is based upon material found in Hull and Holinshed, in a life of Wolsey by George Cavendish, then in manuscript, and in Fox's "Acts and Monuments of the Church." Its performance on June 29, 1613, led to the burning of the Globe Theater an event of which there are several contemporary accounts. The play was presented with unprecedented elaboration in scenery and dress-a first attempt, apparently, in the direction of the splendor of appointments which characterizes the modern stage. "Now King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Woolsey's House," writes Wotton, "and certain Canons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the Thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole House to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrique; wherein yet nothing did perish, but wood and straw and a few forsaken cloaks." And the old chronicler of this first of many similar catastrophes adds with naïve humor: "Only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put out with bottle ale."

Attention was directed in the last century to certain peculiarities of versification in "Henry VIII.," but it was not until the middle of the present century that Mr. Spedding set forth at length the theory that the play was Shakespeare's in part only, and that many passages were in the manner of Fletcher. It is interesting that these differences in style were recognized clearly, not by scholars, but by two men of sensitive literary feeling, Tennyson and Emerson. The English poet first made the suggestion to Mr. Spedding. Emerson's comments on the matter are full of insight:

"In Henry VIII. I think I see plainly the cropping out of the original work on which his own finer stratum was laid.

The first play was written by a superior, thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell, where, instead of the meter of Shakespeare-whose secret is that, the thou ht constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will bring out the rhythm-here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains through all its length unmistakable traits of Shakespeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the coronation, are like autographs."

66

The view, presented with great skill by Mr. Spedding, that Shakespeare intended to make a great historical drama on the subject of Henry VIII., which would have included the divorce of Katharine, the fall of Wolsey, the rise of Cranmer, the coronation of Anne Bullen, and the final separation of the English from the Roman Church;" that he worked out the first two acts, and that, for some unknown reason, the manuscript was passed on to Fletcher, who expanded it into the play as we now have it, has been accepted by many students of the play. The three chief figures-the King, Queen Katharine, and the Cardinal-are unmistakably Shakespeare's in conception; and the trial scene is certainly his.

There are distinct traces of Shakespeare's hand in the "Two Noble Kinsmen," which the title-page declares was written by "Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakespeare, Gentlemen," and the play appears in some editions of the poet's work. poet's work. It is impossible, however, to decide with any certainty the extent of Shakespeare's contribution to a drama which in many parts is clearly the production of another hand. It is not improbable, as has been suggested by some authorities, that when Shakespeare withdrew from active work in his profession he may have left some preliminary sketches for half-finished dramas behind him, and that it fell to the lot of Fletcher or some other contemporary dramatist to work over and complete what the poet had begun. With the writing of "Cymbeline and the " Tempest his work ended.

Adventures of the Pixies and Elaines (The).

By Carrie E. Morrison. Illustrated. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 6×8 in. 125 pages. $1.25.

Mr. Birch's beautiful drawings illustrate charmingly these fairy tales of the Elaines, the rainbow fairies, and the Pixies who live in the wood.

Afterglow. By Julia C. R. Dorr. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 44×7 in. 84 pages. $1.25.

Reserved for notice later.

Alice of Old Vincennes. By Maurice Thompson. Illustrated. The Bowen-Merrill Co., Indianapolis. 434X71⁄2 in. 419 pages.

Notice of this will be included in an article on the novels of the season, in next week's issue of The Outlook.

Among the Great Masters of Music and Among the Great Masters of Literature. By Walter Rowlands. Illustrated. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 5x7 in. 225 and 233 pages. $1.50 each. It must be confessed that Mr. Rowlands's text is hardly as interesting as is the reproduction of peculiarly noteworthy paintings in the illustration to each of these volumes. His illustrations are sixty-four in number, all told, and well merit examination. Mr. Rowlands's range is wide: in the one case from Homer to Goethe; in the other, from St. Cecilia to

Liszt.

Armed Ship America (The). By James Otis.

Illustrated. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 6×8 in. 150 pages. $1.25.

A rousing story, dealing with the privateers of 1812. The author claims to have constructed the story from the private records of Nathan Crowninshield, nephew of Captain George Crowninshield, of Salem, Mass., who owned the ship America. By way of preface the book is adorned with an extract from a speech by Thomas Jefferson in encouragement of privateering at that period.

Art of Writing English (The). By J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M.A. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 5x7 in. 334 pages. $1.50.

This is a thoroughly good book. We know of no better on its subject, and none that covers all important ground as well-an allround book, instructive for men of affairs as well as those intending literary work.

Beckonings from Little Hands. By Patterson

Du Bois. (Fourth Edition.) Dodd. Mead & Co., New York. 4x6 in. 166 pages. 75c. Chatterbox. Edited by J. Erskine Clarke, M.A. Illustrated. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 7×10 in. 412 pages. $1.25.

Chevalier De St. Denis (The). By Alice Ilgenfritz Jones. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. 4×7 in. 7 pages. $1.25.

A historic romance the scenes of which are laid in France and America, at the opening of

the eighteenth century. The story has charm. St. Denis is a brave, courtly, and striking figure, of whom authentic history has said period to deal with, and such personages as many good things. With a brilliant historic King Louis, Madame de Maintenon, the Duke de Lanzan, La Mothe Cadillac, Governor of New Orleans and founder of Detroit, to handle, the author presents a novel of unusual interest and very well written. Church of the Fathers (The). By John Henry Newman (afterwards Cardinal). John Lane, New York. 54X7 in. 313 pages. $1.25.

Some of the earliest writings of the Oxford Tractarian school are here reprinted from the edition of 1842, with trivial alterations. They were intended to illustrate for an anti-Protestant purpose the thought, habits, and manners of the early centuries of the Church, subsequent to the sub-apostolic age.

Colonial Days and Ways: As Gathered from Family Papers. By Helen Evertson Smith. Decorations by T. Guernsey Moore. The Century Co., New York. 512x8 in. 376 pages.

This well-made and handsomely illustrated volume will hold a very prominent place in the growing literature which illustrates the life and habits of the founders of civilization on this continent. Miss Smith has attempted a more comprehensive work than any of her predecessors. She includes in her study of the beginnings of social life the five different stocks-Puritan, Dutch, Huguenot, Cavalier, and Palatine-and presents the results of a careful comparative study of these different different parts of the country during different types and of the evolution of social life in periods of the colonial epoch. The story is one of very great interest, and is told in an entertaining fashion, with the illustration, not only from architecture, but also from the minutiæ of furniture and of social habit. The book betrays careful study and ample knowledge of the whole period."

Cruise of the Pretty Polly (The). By W. Clark Russell. Illustrated. The J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 5x8 in. 324 pages. $1.50.

A good sea-story. Mr. Russell again shuffles the possible adventures at sea into a new combination. The result is a hearty, wholesome, entertaining tale.

Darlingtons (The). By Elmore Elliott Peake. McClure, Phillips & Co., New York. 5x7 in. 416 pages. $1.50.

A railroading daughter of a railroading father is the heroine of this sprightly book. The father is president, the daughter traffic-manager, of a small railroad, and both are strong and entertaining characters, much more so than the manly clergyman whose somewhat

theatrical virtue and ability are supposed, together with a most unlovely drunkard, to afford the "problem" character to the book. Much of the dialogue is amusing, some of the. incidents arouse attention, but the plot is. rather "ramshackle" in its construction and development. In short, while this is an American novel, it is not the American novel. Eagle's Heart (The). By Hamlin Garland.

D. Appleton & Co., New York. 5x7 in. 369 pages. $1.50.

Reserved for notice later.

Eleanor. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. 2 vols.

Illustrated. Harper & Bros., New York. 5x8in. $3. This well-printed two-volume edition of Mrs. Ward's novel has fourteen of Mr. Steiner's charming pictures printed with the story in its serial appearance. The edition is in good form for holiday purposes.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer. Illustrated Edition. The Macmillan Co., New York. 512x814 in. $2.50 each. One of the most charming holiday appearances is that of an illustrated edition of those

delightful and deservedly popular books, "Elizabeth and Her German Garden," and "A Solitary Summer." The illustrations consist of photogravures taken from photographs of the author's country house, garden, and children.

Friend or Foe? By Frank Samuel Child.

Illustrated. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 5x7 in. 328 pages. $1.50. Reserved for notice later.

Golden Gate of Prayer (The). By J. R. Mil

ler, D.D. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 4x68 in. 218 pages. 75c.

The publishers have given a beautiful form to this richly devotional bock by a well-known

author.

Golf Don'ts. By H. L. Fitzpatrick. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. 4x6 in. 114 pages. $1. This is an amusing book to the mere reader as well as a helpful book to the serious golfer. Following its hints, even a frivolous golfer

should be able to reduce his score.

Golliwogg's Polar Adventures (The). Verses

by Bertha Upton. Pictures by Florence K. Upton. Longmans, Green & Co., . ew York. 11x8 in. 63 pages. $2.

A further installment of the Golliwogg family, who move this time from the dangers of war to those of the Polar regions without losing their peculiarities of aspect or their genius for getting into trouble.

Grey Fairy Book (The). Edited by Andrew

Lang. Illustrated. Longmans, Green & Co., New York. 5x7 in. 87 pages. Lovers of fairy tales have come to look for a new collection, edited by the skillful and discriminating hand of Mr. Andrew Lang, every year. They have not been disappointed in the Blue, the Red, the Green, the Yellow, or the Pink Fairy Books, and they are not likely to be in the publication of this year. The Grey Fairy Book contains tales derived largely from out-of-the-way countries like Lithuania, various sections of Africa, Greece, with a few stories from France and Germany. The book, like its predecessors, is very attractively bound and illustrated.

Heart of the Ancient Wood (The). By Charles
G. D. Roberts. Illustrated. Silver, Burdett & Co.,
New York. 5x734 in. 276 pages. $1.50.
Reserved for notice later.

Histoire de France. By O. B. Super. Henry
Holt & Co., New York. 42x6 in. 214 pages.
Historic Towns of the Southern States (The).
Edited by Lyman P. Powell. Illustrated. G. P.
Putnam's Sons, New York. 6x8 in. 604 pages.
$3.50.

The third volume in a very interesting series, written in a pleasantly descriptive manner, but with good sense of historical perspective, and furnishing a series of sketches of historic towns in New England and the Middle States. Among the cities described in this volume are Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington, Richmond, Williamsburg, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, St. Louis, and the cities of the Central Southwest, and among the contributors to the volume are Miss Grace King, Mr. Tyler, President of the College of William and Mary, Mr. William Worth Henry, and Miss Sara A. Shafer. Like its predecessor, the volume is illustrated, and is a very interesting foot-note to the larger and more formal histories of the country,

History of Modern Italian Art. By Ashton Rollins Willard. Illustrated. (Second Edition) Longmans, Green & Co., New York. 534×9 in. $5. Reserved for later notice.

House Behind the Cedars (The). By Charles W. Chesnutt. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 5x734 in. 294 pages. $1.50.

Reserved for notice later.

In Aelfred's Days: A Story of Saga the Dane. By Paul Creswick. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. 54x8 in. 304 pages. $1.50.

Saga, a little Danish child, is captured by Alfred in one of his encounters with the Danes, and is taken home to the palace at Wantage and grows up with the king's family. Later he requites this care by his rescue of the king's son. Eadward, and the story of his youth and adventures is interwoven with the raids of the Northmen and their savage attacks, as was the reign of Alfred and the life of England in those old wild days. The book is beautifully illustrated and bound; it is a pity it is so heavy.

In and Out of the Nursery. By Eva Eickemeyer Rowland. Illustrated by Rudolf Eickemeyer. Jr. R. H. Russell, New York. 15x9 in. 56 pages. $1.50.

In the Hands of the Cave-Dwellers. By G. A. Henty. Harper & Bros., New York 4

205 pages. $1.

in

In this story of adventure Mr. Henty takes his young readers into untrodden paths introducing them to lands and scenes of cavedwellers and aborigines. The characters who talk and act before the reader are, however, all modern, Americans of English or Spanish descent, and with their doings and achieve ments much to enchain the attention is woven in.

Introduction to the New Testament An. By Benjamin Wisner Bacon. D.D. The Macmillan Co, New York. 5x7 in. 265 pages 7. In close relation to Professor Nash's volume on "The History of the Higher Criticism of the New Testament," the present volume sets

forth the results of that criticism as they appear to the author. We note first that Dr. Bacon regards a certain part of the miraculous narratives, apparently including that of the birth of Jesus, as "apocryphal and legendary" (page 198); next, that he is rather more conservative than leading critics in discussing the writings which name their authors, e. g., holding to the Pauline authorship of Ephesians and Colossians; and, again, that he almost closes the chasm between the parties in dispute about the Fourth Gospel by approaching very nearly to the negative side. He has written as lucidly as the general reader requires, and in the fullness of scholarly freedom, with remarkable skill in the condensation of voluminous material. He has aimed not merely at stating the now accepted results, but at indicating the probable results toward which sober criticism seems to him to be now tending. Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and

Heredity. By A. E. Winship, Litt. D. R. L. Myers & Co., Harrisburg, Pa. 4×7 in. 88 pages. Jumping Kangaroo and the Apple-Butter Cat (The). By John W. Harrington. Illustrated by 1. W. Condé. McClure, Phillips & Co., New York. 7x9 in. 130 pages. $1.

Mr. Harrington tells grotesque little animal tales; Mr. Condé makes amusing pictures of frogs and elephants, cats and rabbits.

Life and Works of Jesus According to St. Mark (The). By William D. Murray. The International Committee of Young Men's Christian Association, New York. 6x81⁄2 in. 183 pages. This is a course arranged for twenty-six weeks of daily study with a purpose both devotional and historical. Illustrative notes in prose and verse are interspersed, together with occasional prayers.

Little American Girl in India (A). By Harriet A. Cheever. Illustrated. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 5x7% in. 281 pages. $1.50.

A mischievous little American girl who has lived all her life in India prevails on her devoted Indian attendant to take her into strange and forbidden places, and sees some of the wonders of that wonderful land.

Littlest One of the Browns (The). By Sophie

Swett. Illustrated. Dana Estes & Co., Boston. 4x64 in. 102 pages. 50c.

That is what she calls herself, since, if one lisps, "Beatrice Brown" is not easy to say; and this little brown book tells how she took care of the baby.

More Famous Homes of Great Britain, and Their Stories. Edited by A. H. Malan. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 74x11' in. 337 pages. Reserved for later notice.

Napoleon The Last Phase. By Lord Rose

bery. Harper & Bros., New York. 512x512 in. 283 pages. $3.

Why is it that American statesmen can never be found to write such a volume as this? We have from Disraeli novels which put him in the second rank of English novelists, from Gladstone essays on literature and theology which would be creditable to an Oxford professor, and here a history of Napoleon at St. Helena which will easily take a place of importance in the Napoleonic library. Except Governor Roosevelt's "Cromwell," we recall nothing analogous from any American statesman; and

Roosevelt's biography is not the work of a specialist, as is Lord Rosebery's. It abounds with evidences of that sort of familiarity with his theme which characterizes the best of Macaulay's historical essays, and has something of Macaulay's brilliance of style coupled with a much soberer judgment. Its interpretation of character would be impossible except to one who was not only familiar with the facts, but had meditated on them and on their psychological significance. The book is, indeed, a portrait gallery of singular value of Napoleon's companions at St. Helena-Las Cases, Gourgaud, Sir Hudson Lowe, and others-and pre-eminently of Napoleon himself. We have some familiarity with the analyses of Napoleon's character which have been attempted, and we recall among them all none which seems to us more truly to recognize the enigma, its conditions, and its solution than the portrait here given by Lord Rosebery. Napoleon was neither a demigod nor a demon. He was neither as black as Lanfrey painted him, nor as devoted a patriot and friend of humanity as John S. C. Abbott painted him. One of his valets can see nothing good in him, the other nothing evil, for familiar acquaintance with him did not clear up the mystery of his character. We do not say that Lord Rosebery has done so, but he has recognized and presented the antitheses in Napoleon's character more clearly than we remember ever to have seen them presented elsewhere. Napoleon was a bundle of contradictions; as he was built on a gigantic scale, his contradictions were gigantic. On one.day he is a devout defender of the divinity of Christ, on another a materialist pure and simple; to-day an admirer of the people, to-morrow a rank cynic; at once a revolutionist and a hater of revolution, a despot and a destroyer of despotisms; at times an actor posing for effect, at others the frankest of public men in his self-revelations. His genius is not only akin to insanity, but at times, especially in his later years, he passes ⚫ wholly over into the insanity of a passionate egotism. Lord Rosebery's volume makes us wish that he would write the life of Napoleon. He is liberal enough to understand the best elements in the French Revolution, catholic enough to understand the best elements in the French character, and critical enough not to be blind to the faults and follies of English political life during the Napoleonic régime. Newest England. By Henry Demarest Lloyd. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, 6x9 in. 387 pages. $2.50.

Brilliant in style and wonderfully suggestive in subject-matter. We reserve Mr. Lloyd's volume for future notice.

Observations of Jay (A Dog) and Other Stories.

By Morgan Shepard. D. P. Elder & Morgan Shepard, San Francisco. 6x8 in. 142 pages. $1. These confidences of a dog upon the wags and the smells and the ways of dog life will please all who have four-footed friends. Jay, the Dog, has fought his enemies, loved the Boy, played with Goats and Roosters, and lived as as honorable dog should, and it is good to hear him tell of it. Besides what the dog has to say, there is a story a little girl tells about