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Nathan Haskell Dole.

Talcott Williams, LL. D. .

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NOTES FROM BOSTON.

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.

BOSTON, September 15, 1896. Lamson, Wolffe and Company have nearly ready a work on book-plates entitled "Ex Libris: Essays of a Collector," by Charles Dexter Allen, of Hartford. It will contain twenty copper plate prints direct from the coppers, engraved by Thomas Bewick, C. W. Sherborn, E. D. French, and many others three dollar edition is limited to 750 copies. There has been such a demand for the fifty copies numbered and signed by the author that the price has been already advanced to fifteen dollars.

The

The

Mr. Allen's introduction contains many choice bits of curious information: Germany is the homeland of the book-plate; the earliest authentic specimen dated is the Buxheim (appropriately named) of 1423. largest plate thus far unearthed measures fourteen inches by ten; it belonged to Count Breiner, was the work of Giuseppe Petrarca, who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century. The earliest dated Swedish plate is of 1575; Switzerland has one of 1607; Italy one of 1623. The earliest English plate thus far found is in a volume once owned by Cardinal Wolsey; it is in colors and tho' undated

goes back to 1520 or thereabouts. The third other of this century belonged to Sir Nicholas Bacon. Pepys in his diary tells how on the sixteenth of July, 1688, he spent an hour with the plate-maker planning a little plate for his books. He had several book-plates. The first deliberate plate-collector was Miss Jenkins, of Bath, England; her collection has grown since 1820 into the 100,000 specimens owned by Dr. Howard. Lord de Tabley was the pioneer-historian of the art. The earliest dated plate engraved by an American artist was Nathaniel Hurd, of Boston. Paul Revere's are the rarest, there being only four that he signed. Benjamin Franklin's brother John had a plate engraved by Turner, of Boston; there is only one example of it known.

Mr. Allen speaks of modern book-plate engravers. He may not know of Mr. Sidney L. Smith, of 22 Cumberland Street, Boston, who was for some time in the employ of Mr. John LaFarge for whom he did some of the finest glass work that has been accomplished in this country. Some of his etched book-plates, notably those for Mr. Chase the well-known bibliophile, for Mr. Elwanger, for Charles J. Groves and a few others, are of most exquisite workmanship. His work in this line is only just beginning to be known but

is sure to be highly prized. Mr. Frank T. Merrill has recently made a striking plate for the Browning Society.

Mr. Allen's book does not pretend to be a technical treatise, but is meant to interest and to stimulate, and in this respect it will succeed. And an edition so limited will be sure to appreciate in value, as indeed all such books hitherto published have done.

Lamson, Wolffe and Company have in press a book of poems by Edna Procter Clark, who has written for the principal magazines. The title at first chosen was "At the Breath of a Flower," but it has been changed to "Magnolia Bloom." Professor Charles G. D. Roberts, of Fredericton, N. B., has collected all his poems, including his Ballads and Lyrics, into a volume to be called "A Book of the Native." I am sorry to say Mr. Roberts's health has been quite seriously affected this summer. Prince Wolkonsky's lectures on Russian literature are to be published this fall by Lamson, Wolffe and Company, under the title "Pictures of Russian Life. They treat especially of the evolution of Russian culture and the contribution that statesmen and literarians have made toward it. It may interest some readers to know that Pobyedonostsef, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, whose name stands in the minds of men as the very symbol of reaction and conservatism, is a great admirer of our Emerson and has placed on the introductory folio of his "Northern Flowers," or selections from the poems of Aleksandr Pushkin, a quotation from one of Emerson's Essays, in both English and Russian. A year or two ago Mr. Dana, the editor of the Sun, went in company with our late Minister, the Hon. Andrew D. White and Jeremiah Curtin, the translator of Sienkiewicz's novels, to call on Pobyedonostsef, and the Procurator presented Mr. Dana with an autograph copy of the pretty little volume. Mr. Dana, though considerably past seventy, is an enthusiastic student of Russian, and even in the midst of the bustle of the present campaign, may be often found at his office studying into the rules for making borsh, shchi and other delectable soups à la russe.

Speaking of cook-books, Mrs. Fannie Merritt Farmer, the principal of the Boston Cooking School, has prepared a new cook-book to be published by Little, Brown and Company. It will contain twenty-five illustrations in halftone. The same publishers have an interesting list of autumn announcements, but most of them have been already spoken of in Book NEWS. Mr. Curtin's new translation is to be "Quo Vadis," a narrative of Rome in the time of Nero. Sienkiewicz introduces Saint Peter and Saint Paul as leading charac

ters.

Mr. Thomas Mosher of Portland, Maine, adds four books to his "Old World Series.' Rossetti's translation of Dante's "Vita Nuova," with the translator's picture of Dante's dream reproduced as a frontispiece; Andrew Lang's "Ballads and Lyrics of Ola France," the first edition of which, dated in 1872, is so rare as to be almost inaccessible, even to wealthy bibliophiles; Captain Sir Richard F. Burton's "Kasidah of Haji Abdu el-Yezdi," couplets purporting to be a translation but in reality being, like Mirza Scheffy, original in the great orientalist's oriental imagination. This "lay of the Higher Law was composed seven years before FitzGerald's version of the Rubaiyat was issued, but it was and is still known to but very few readers. Mr. Mosher's fourth new addition to the same series is a translation by Lucie Page of the erratic Gérard de Nerval's Sylvie or Souvenirs du Valois," which Mr. Lang calls "one of the little masterpieces of the world." The frontispiece is to be an aquarelle by Andhré des Gachons, a rising young artist. To his Bibelot series Mr. Mosher adds the prose translation by Justin Huntley McCarthy, M. P., of Omar Khayyam, which was published in a strictly limited edition wholly printed in small capitals. In the new edition italics replace that abomination and several misprints are corrected. Another bibelot will be The Defense of Guenevere" a book of lyrics selected from the works of William Morris. These delightful little books so reasonable in price are nevertheless limited and are profitable to buy. It is curious to see how quickly anything pretty in the form of a book gains a premium by getting out of type: "Le Carillon Illustré," which costs the subscriber only a postage-stamp, almost invariably bears this enhanced value after a few months, and very high prices have been paid for the early numbers.

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Ginn and Company have ready two plays of Miguel Sanchez, surnamed "El divino," edited by professor Hugo A. Rennert of the University of Pennsylvania. This forms the fifth volume in the series of publication of the University. The sixth will be ready in October, and will have five archæological articles by various hands.

Lee and Shepard have two new books by Oliver Optic who though over seventy-four does not hesitate at a moment's notice to fly off to the other end of the world to collect realistic material. One of them is entitled "On the Staff"; the other is "Four Young Explorers; or, Sight Seeing in the Tropics. Penn Shirley, who is in reality Miss Sarah Clarke and a sister of "Sophie May," has a new story in the Silver Gate series to be entitled "The Merry Five." The Misses Clark,

have been for some time living in California, and the new regions are introduced with brilliant effect. They have just returned to their homestead at Norridgewock on the Kennebec. A selection from the miscellaneous poems of William Wordsworth, including extracts from "The Prelude" and "The Excursion," will soon be published. Professor Edward Dowden, LL. D., of Dublin University is the editor. He contributes not only notes giving the dates and sources of the poems (which are arranged chronologically), but also an admirable sketch of Wordsworth's life and an essay on his genius and development.

a

He corrects many popular errors regarding Wordsworth-for instance that he was mild, gentle, tranquil nature moved by no deep and strong passions." He says:

"He felt ardently and profoundly. But mere passion did not dominate him and carry him away. His emotions were illuminated by thought and were brought into harmony with conscience; they did not whirl him out of his course, but bore him onward with a continuous impulse in his true orbit. No poet attains to clearer altitudes of illuminated joy than Wordsworth, and, because he is borne thither by no unworthy desire, he finds repose upon the heights; yet at the heart of his calm there is a quickening passion. Few poets have more truly represented an arid anguish of the heart; but as his genius and moral nature matured he chose rather to exhibit sorrow in its strengthening and purifying power."

He does not claim, however, that Wordsworth is a poet for all readers.

"What is characteristic of him" he says "is the synthesis between external things and his own mind and his own mood. He draws things towards himself and meets them half way; what he writes is never purely objective. And hence he selects his audience; to enter into his work we must have something of the Wordsworthian mind and temper. We could hardly say of any one whom Shakespeare or Homer left untouched that he had a true feeling for poetry. But many genuine lovers of the poetry of Shakespeare and Homer are unmoved by that of Wordsworth; they cannot remain at the Wordsworthian standpoint, or they cannot advance towards things along the line by which he advances, and fail to reach that midway resting-place where the Wordsworthian synthesis is effected. They speak of him as an egoist; and if it be egoism never wholly to escape from one's own personality and one's own peculiar manner of regarding objects, they are right."

It will be seen from these extracts from the advance sheets of Professor Dowden's essay that he is eminently fair, as well as enthusiastic in his estimate of Wordsworth. The enthusiasm is a good quality but the fairness makes his enthusiasm sane and delightful.

Miss Mary J. Safford of Washington, the translator of Johanna Ambrosius's poems, has been paying a short visit to Boston. She is a

woman of gracious presence and of unaffected simplicity combined with a good gift of humor and ripe conversational powers. At the end of her new volume she places in an appendix an interesting appreciation of the peasant poet of Germany by Herman Grimm. What he says of the influence of newspapers is curious.

WITH THE NEW BOOKS.

BY TALCOTT WILLIAMS, LL. D.

The Chautauqua subjects this year are Greece and France, with astronomy as the science. The five books which fill the Chautauqua box for 1896-7 are most admirably selected. In a "circle" or not no teader can go astray with

subject. Greek life has a brilliant, suggestive and stimulating summary Prof. J. P. Mahaffy's "Greek Civilization It gives the beginnings of Greece-not easy to find else

these books, each its class and

where-and carries the thread of Grecian development through the Roman period. Prof. F. B. Tarbell, of Chicago, has written a clear, condensed account of "Greek Art." Statuary chiefly it describes, and from the archæologist's rather than the artist's position, but well done. And here, too, you will hunt long before you get more for 90 cents. Both these books have small faults, but no other books like them have so few. France is as skilfully covered by Prof. George Burton Adams' "Growth of the French Nation" and Dr. William Crary Brownell's "French Traits." The first is a clear, succinct statement of how a succession of strong Capetian Kings turned a Duchy, which lay on the water-shed between the Seine and Loire, with a castle apiece at Paris and Orleans, into the French monarchy by a consistent development only interrupted when one of them, in 1789, was too weak to rule a revolution which was too violent to do its best work, though its work is modern France. What France really is, Dr. Brownell tells better than any man has before, going with keen skill to the very spring and source of national impulse. Lastly, "Astronomy" is sketched by Dr. Herbert A. Howe, in a volume popular yet accurate, and full of suggestions which will send people out to watch the sky for themselves.

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Mr. Laurence Hutton has made travel sweeter to all who read books and love them by the "Literary Landmarks of London" and of other cities. He has now added Venice. Mr. Hutton does this sort of thing perfectly, and the result is a book full of the charm of recollection. But why has Mr. Hutton left out the naughty Chevalier of the Piombi, or omitted Aretino, with thirty-one years at Venice. The host of Erasmus, Asulanus, deserved a word, and why let the types, surely not Mr. Hutton, misname the work which Erasmus passed through the press of Aldus, "Adages"? Erpennius, whose Arabic grammar is still used after nigh 300 years. I would be glad to follow at Venice and to know when its first book, Cicero's "Epistolæ at Familiares” was printed, but how big Mr. Hutton's book Iwould be if he had followed all who have loved and lingered in Venice?

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The mediæval mind and some modern minds found much comfort in tracing instruction parable, resemblance and "correspondence, between the lower animals and man, and between legends and events and the needs of the human soul. A vast literature accumulated on this subject, in books which are called bestiaries. It was diffused by sermons, both spoken and in cathedral stone, so that it is perpetually cropping up in folk-lore. Mr. Edward Payson Evans, for some time residing in Germany and once in Michigan University, who published not long since an entertaining book on the mediaval trials of animals, has now issued "Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture." It collects a wide array of reference to the symbolic use of animals as recorded by monks who chronicled the vague impressions and explanations of the natural world current in mediæval schools. These are illustrated from cathedral carvings. Discursive as a dictionary, an index adds to the value of the work. The bibliography as to a large part of the titles is too vague; but Mr. Evans has fairly covered the special literature. The book lacks in relative knowledge.

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There is a curious New England idea that it is a fine thing to have queer thoughts, whereas in life and in letters the simple is the profound. Of this New England idea, Miss Emily Dickinson is the final flower which never quite fruits in anything worth having. The third series of her poems has just appeared, and as the preface frankly says, "is put forth in response to the repeated wish of the admirers of her peculiar genius." Loved, read, and admired by many, it is still true that this is suspiration and not inspiration.

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Shakespeare the Boy" is none of those hopeless and hapless shifts to tell a life happily hid from us, so that no noble line is marred by thought that the man was more ill than his craft-work; but Dr. William J. Rolfe has in place set down in all shrewd care the folk-life of Shakespeare's day in his shrine, town, school and home, so that in a mosaic those hours of boy age are once more quick and stir in our sight and hearing. The page is thick with citing of his lines, and there be notes and limned prospects, but the rathe days of the great man are here told by what is known and not by what men guess. Boys may con the book. Their elders will profit by it.

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In sheer intellectual force, Pope Leo XIII. has no equal among men of affairs in this century. Greater men of action there have been, greater men of thought there have not. Mr. Justin McCarthy has written a neat sum

mary of his life, policy and encyclicals, full of praise and appreciation. It is useful. It is clear. It is consecutive. It is deficient in comprehending the two or three great principles on which this great Pope has acted. The Papacy is a complex of many policies. For centuries, Popes have been content with the lesser principles. Leo has gone to those few fundamental principles on which rests the church and the Papacy together, the solidarity of humanity, the organization of the church, the spiritual assurance of existence, the power of moral forces. To these Mr. McCarthy is blind.

James Ashcroft Noble has been for many years one of the stated critics of the London Academy, equipped, painstaking; but taking his own critical emotion seriously. Sixteen years ago he began his more considerable work by a careful informed paper in the Contemporary Review, on the "Sonnet in England,' written on Main's "Essay of English Sonnets," the first of many such collections. This with essays on Leigh Hunt, Robert Buchanan, Rossetti, Pope and Hawker of Morwenstow, he published in a volume three years ago in London. It reappears now with a Chicago imprint and brings to American readers sound criticism.

The 'Prose Fancies" of Richard Le Gallienne-this is the second series-belong to the bric-a-brac school. Like Tanagra figures, they are beautiful to see and to go on a shelf. But there is bric-a-brac and bric-a-brac and a Tanagrine is art of the first. Whether these fancies will set and fruit in fame or not, who can tell of these fresh flowers. To-day there is no pleasanter reading nor of keener charm than these naive studies of the impression the moving world of living men makes on a clearwitted soul, whose emotions chime clear and ring without restraint on every air, whether of the market noon or those shadowed hours dear to love.

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The non-scientific observer has been for some time aware of a hot fight among scientific men akin to that as to the priority of the egg and the hen in more vulgar fields. Weisman has held that the germ determined all that came later, having in small all that the adult is in large. Dr. Oscar Hertwig, with others has urged that germs began alike and developed differently under conditions from without. In either case, the controversy just at present has reached the limit of observation and there are those who deem this limit permanent. The larger books which deal with this problem I long since despaired of reading, though I read much. I welcome, therefore,

Toussaint L'Overture stands a mere name to American readers and owes more to a single apostrophe of Wendell Phillips than to any historical knowledge. Little has been written on Hayti, and that little has not been of an historical character. His life is told for the first time in a converted narrative by an American author in "Toussaint L'Overture" by Rev. Charles W. Morsell. Written after a long residence in Hayti as a missionary, and with access to unpublished documents, the work presents the career of one of the few men of decided military ability produced by the African race in our day. His martyrdom in France is given from his son's narrative, and the closing chapters contain the history of Hayti. The work is a most important addition to the study of the Afro-American problem, and while it might have been written with more critical discrimination the large number of original documents it contains lend it exceptional value.

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I suppose most authors," says Mr. John Byan, of Ohio, in "Fables and Essays," publish their books for about the same reason a hen lays eggs-for relief to themselves." If Mr. Byan's book were all as good as this, it would be the book of the year. But its author is too anxious to be wise with the rustic wisdom of the man who knows all. Many of the fables are dull and some are vulgar; but many, too, have the true spirit of the fable. The book at all events, is original above the average; but then the average is so low.

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Nearly forty years ago, Dr. Andrew D. White wrote for his college classes a lecture on French assignats or paper money. Twenty years ago, at the height of the greenback craze, he delivered the address again. A third craze for cheap money in the shape of free silver coinage leads to its reissue. Depressing as it is to require this repeated exposure of the evils of inflation, let us not forget that thirty years ago, the President and Congress favored paper money; that twenty-five years ago Congress favored and the President vetoed, and that today both President and the House oppose inflation, the Senate favoring. There is here progress, if one will see it. No better account than Mr. White's is accessible.

Why do some stories seem good in a magazine and trivial in a book, and some but light things in a magazine and in a book strong? Mrs. Elia W. Peattie in "A Mountain Woman has brought together a group of her stories, all of Western life. The first," A Mountain Woman" is sentimental. The others are life as it is, the life which grinds on and in which we are all pulp, fed into the fathomless rollers which turn and make no sign. Disaster and prison and evil-the three shadows of life are on these tales. Yet in the mere writing of them, there is not much.

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There are things of which men dare not speak. Of them, the new Italian, Gabriele d'Annunzio, has made a book "Episcopo & Co." It will not help you. There is no good thing in it. It will tell you nothing. No pathological detail moral or physical is spared. When you have read the book you will have looked in the pit, the pit which has about it now myrtle and all Cyprian bloom and again slime and filth inconceivable, as here. A weak man. A woman formed for evil from her mother's womb. A brute who bullies both. Ignoble life. The swinish babble of clerks at their daily trough in a cheap boarding-house.

Paul Bourget's "Mensonges" has not been translated until the issue of John de Villier's version, although "Cosmopolis," "Cruelle Enigme," "Andre Cornelis" and "Maurice Olivier have. "A Living Lie' is the minute analysis of excessive sensuality in a woman of beauty and social breeding, a phenomenon not unknown; but infrequent. As this brings ruin in the story, not less than in life, M. Bourget, in a preface, defends his work as moral. It is true that the study of morbid pathology is useful to the physician who cures others, not to the man who must cure himself, which is the position of the reader.

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"Your Little Brother James tells the way and the only way to save the waifs of the street-by placing them in Christian country homes. It will touch every heart that reads it and do infinitely more good than the reports of societies engaged in charitable work, which usually, not always, display a singular ignorance of the principle and practice of charity. In the simplest language, with accurate detail and with infinite love, "Your Little Brother James" describes the street-life and home redemption of a boy of the streets. is written by Miss Caroline H. Pemberton, better fitted by heart, by ability, by experience and by supreme consecration to write this moving story than anyone who could be named, however wide one's acquaintance might be in the ranks of charitable workers.

It