1 M. Gleyre, also in Antwerp and Düsseldorf. He first began as an illustrator in England for Once A Week, afterwards for Cornhill and the Illustrated Magazine. Later he joined the Punch staff. Since that time his weekly draw ings made him one of the best known and most admired of contemporary artists and satirists and won for him the sobriquet of "the Thackeray of the pencil." In 1891 Harper's Magazine printed his first novel, "Peter Ibbet From Trilby." NOTES FROM BOSTON. NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. BOSTON, October 15, 1896. Messrs. Roberts Brothers expect to bring out in about a month the "Autobiography and Memoir of Philip Gilbert Hameiton." The memoir is only a fragment though a long one, and his widow takes up the story and completes it. His reasons for writing an autobiography are rather naïve: "I am the only person in the world who knows enough "The notion of being a dead man, he says in justification of his greater freedom of speaking of the departed, "is not entirely displeasing to me. If the dead are defenceless, they have this compensating advantage that nobody can inflict upon them any sensible injury; and in beginning a book, which is not to see the light until I am lying comfortably in my grave, with six feet of earth above me to deaden the noises of the upper world, I feel quite a new kind of security, and write with a more complete freedom from anxiety about the quality of the work than has been usual at the beginning of other manuscripts. He is very philosophical about his posthumous fame: "It is reasonable to suppose that whatever fate may be in store for us, a greater or less degree of posthumous reputation in two or three nations on this planet can have little effect on our future satisfaction; for if we go to heaven, the beatitude of the life there will be so incomparably superior to the pleasures of earthly fame that we shall never think of such vanity again; and if we go to the place of eternal tortures, they will leave us no time to console ourselves with pleasant memories of any kind; and if death is simply the ending of all sensation, all thought, memory, and consciousness, it will matter nothing to a handful of dust what estimate of the name it once Copyright 1994, by Harper & Brothers. "Wistful and sweet." son," which won the hearts of the public at once. This was followed in the same magazine in 1894 by "Trilby," which, as a phenomenon in literature, ranks with Mrs. Stowe s "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." His latest novel, "The Martian," which began in the October Harper's, was completed, even to the drawings which are to accompany it, some time before he was taken ill. Publishers' Weekly. bore may happen to be current amongst the living." Hamerton was born on the tenth of September, 1834. His mother died prematurely, leaving scarcely even a memory behind; a few letters, only a lock of hair, and a property large enough for her husband to waste in dissipations. The mother's blue eyes, fair complexion and rich, strongly-colored auburn locks were reproduced in her son. The father was as a solicitor a man of some talent, ¡but remarkably lacking in all taste for literature or the fine arts. Thirty glasses of brandy a day, topped off by copious draughts of ale to slake the alcoholic thirst, were not calculated to bring about nervous equilibrium, even though a man has the strength of an athlete. Philip Gilbert went to live with his father when he was in his tenth year. Unfortunately the brandy which the father imbibed made him actually dangerous and he used his whip on the slightest provocation. As is frequently the case the father hated above all things in the son the replication of his own faults and so the poor boy was passed through a discipline thoroughly Spartan. His dreadful life at Shaw, however, was not of long duration; his father died of apoplexy and he was freed, but he was forever changed. His Hamerton, of course, began his literary career by writing verse. He quotes some lines that he composed when he was thirteen. He confesses to find in them the influence of Vergil, Scott and Byron, but yet has no little tenderness for them. On the day that he came of age he published a volume of poems entitled The Isles of Loch Awe." He published it at his own expense "in an edition of two thousand copies, of which exactly eleven were sold in the real literary market." own town of Burnley, took thirty-six copies "from friendly interest in the author." Hamerton says for the benefit of the poetic aspirant that if he had to begin again he would get his poems put into type and a private edition of a hundred copies printed: "A few of these being sent to the leading publishers, should very soon ascertain whether any one of them was inclined to bring out the work. they all declined, my loss would be the smallest possible, and I should possess a few copies of a rare book." But he adds in a foot-note for the encouragement of the million who could not afford to get their verses printed at all, "a single copy type-written would be almost as good for the purpose as a small privately printed volume. He afterwards sold the whole edition for the modest sum of six-pense a copy, but they ultimately became scarce and commanded a premium. dreaded it "not at all from any aversion to feminine society or from any insensibility to love." But he had two reasons: mental independence and pecuniary independence. "So far as I could observe married men in England," he says, "they enjoyed very little mental independence, being obliged, on the most important questions, to succumb to the opinions of their wives, because what is called 'the opinion of society' is essentially feminine opinion. In our class the ladies were all strong church-women and Tories, and the men I most admired for the combination of splendid talents with high principle were to them (so far as they knew anything about such men) objects of reprobation and abhorrence." Hamerton, however, made the regulation offer of marriage and was refused. It did not break his heart; he says: "I never could understand why men make themselves wretched after a refusal. It only proves that the young lady does not care very much for one, and it is infinitely better that she should let him know that before marriage than after." He left on record in his autobiography his acquiescence in her wisdom: "Most likely," he says, "she will survive me and read this. If she does, let the page convey a complete acknowledgement of her good sense." In the case of another young lady, a very rich heiress, he had the chance but did nc*. improve it: "Some time afterwards, her uncle said to a friend of mine, I can not understand Hamerton; I wanted him to marry my niece, and he has gone and married a Frenchwoman.' 'Oh!' said the other, 'that was only to improve his French.'"' I might quote a great many more of the multitude of entertaining passages which this book contains; the advance proofs all lie before me, but I have given enough to fill the reader with keen anticipation; they will not be disappointed. Miss H. K. Gatty compiled a biography of her sister Mrs. Juliana Horatia Ewing, entitled "Juliana H. Ewing and Her Books," but she scarcely alluded to the fact that she spent two years in Fredericton, New Brunswick, If where Major Ewing was stationed. Miss Elizabeth S. Tucker of New York, has made this Canadian sojourn the subject of a rather desultory but quite fascinating book, entitled "Leaves from Juliana Horatia Ewing's Canada Home." It is illustrated with forty-four pictures, many of which are in colors. Eight of them are fac-similes of Mrs. Ewing's own work. The chapters tell about her quaint humor, her amusing unpractical ways, her love for flowers and dogs, her eager piety, her delight in the preaching of the liberal Bishop of Fredericton and in her husband's music. The latter part of the book contains a number Mr. Hamerton's confessions concerning marriage are very amusing. He says he of Mrs. Ewing's letters to various members of her family in England, describing her strange experiences in the land of snow shoes. The volume will be brought out early in November by Roberts Brothers. Mr. Eben J. Loomis's "Eclipse Party in Africa," is a stout octavo volume containing no less than eighty-four illustrations, for the most part full-page reproductions of photographs. The "U. S. S. Pensacola "in the fall I began tossing pennies overboard; for each one a dozen boys accoutered as they were, which was not at all, plunged in, and the coin was invariably brought up. Disappointed in my expectation of drowning them, I still clung to the hope that something might happen, and if they were too amphibious to drown, I was willing to accept a shark instead." After all their elaborate preparations the day of the eclipse proved to be partially cloudy. This is his description of it: "Looked at as a mere spectacle, the clouds enhanced the impressiveness of the eclipse. At first came a slight dimming of the light, so slight that it was difficult to determine whether it was real or only fancied. The next half minute resolved the doubt. Darker and more weird grew the scene. A vessel eight or ten miles away, whose sails had shone glittering white against the horizon suddenly vanished. flock of carrion crows hurrying from seaward as if bewildered, flew over the hill seeking for a place to perch. Some wydah birds which had been incessantly calling each other ceased their cries. Then on the horizon a little south of west appeared a frightful darkness, and at fifty-five minutes past two, as the light suddenly grew less, over the sea rushed this blue-black shadow of the moon. All that I had ever heard or read of dark days, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions of ashes, or other violent disturbances of the ordinary course of nature, flashed through my mind, and all seemed to be concentrated in that terrible approaching gloom. I involuntarily bent myself to the ground to avoid the first rush of the storm, knowing all the time that the air was still and the apparent hurricane a shadow. When full daylight had returned, we found a mantis religiosa mounted on the objective of the duplex photometer. We have no record of his observations, for we did not supply him with pencil and paper; but I have no doubt that his opinion of the eclipse, if it had been recorded, would have been original, if not valuable.” E. H. SOTHERN IN "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA." Thomas Y. Crowell and Company. From" Famous American Actors of To-Day." of 1889, took the expedition which was under the direction of Professor Todd of Amherst, to Cape Ledo, where the observation camp was located after disembarking the twelve tons of valuable apparatus through the surf. Mr. Loomis is fond of a joke. He enlivens his pages with many a sportive observation. At Freetown harbor, where they anchored, he was annoyed by the intolerable noise of the young Ashantis round the vessel. "In the hope to thin them out by drowning (he says), Mr. Loomis could hardly reconcile himself to the real failure of the expedition. expedition is fitted out," he says, "under the authority of a great nation, supplied with instruments of precision, which are the outgrowth of the accumulated intelligence, skill and scientific knowledge of all ages and every people; the time and path of the phenomenon are calculated within a fraction of a second of time and a fraction of a mile of space; the instruments are mounted and all is ready. At the critical moment a wreath of silvery vapor, beautiful as the robe of Aurora, floats gracefully along, hiding the face of the sun and. rendering nugatory the elaborate preparations. All in vain have been months of weary thought and discussion of the form and contruction of various special instruments; vain the laborious arrangements of countless details; useless the long, fatiguing, and, it may be, dangerous journey. A bit of vapor, light as a lady's gossamer veil, white and cool as a fleck of sea foam, has drifted airily across the disk of the sun, and all the knowledge we have of nature's laws-all we learned of steam, electricity, magnetism, barometric pressure, and atmospheric currents-will not help in the least to sweep away that unfriendly cloud, so slight in substance and coherence that could the hand be thrust into its very center, the sense of touch would not make one aware of its existence. Only the sense of sight, alas! tells the astronomer that he has met his enemy and been defeated." One of the most interesting chapter's in the book is the description of a visit to the diamond mines at Kimberley and another is that relating the story of their stay at St. Helena. Houghton, Mifflin and Company will publish early next month "The Mycenaean Age," by Dr. Crestos Tsountas and Prof. J. Irving Manatt. Prof. Manatt has not only translated the Greek text, but has also added so much fresh material, embodying the most recent discoveries, that he is entitled to share the credit of the sumptuous volume. Copeland and Day have in press "Gold Stories of '49" by a Californian. I am not at liberty to divulge the name of the author, his pilgrimages. Mrs. Benj. Calef of Marlboro Street (Boston not Bagdad) gave him a reception. Apropos of the rejection of the MacMonnies' Bacchante by the Trustees of the Public Library, some wag declared that Boston would not suffer for lack of art since the Library would always have plenty of Barry-leaves! -Miss Ruth Putnam's "Life of William of Orange" has been translated into Dutch by JOSEPH JEFFERSON AS RIP VAN WINKLE. Copyright, 1894, by B. J. Falk, New York. Thomas Y. Crowell and Company but she is a Bostonian by adoption if a Californian by birth, and her stories will undoubtedly attract attention if for nothing else but the grace and alluring promise of the title. Mr. Day is having catalogues made of his extensive collections of Keatsiana, Balzaciana and other interesting books, MSS., and pictures. Mr. J. M. Barrie has been spending a few days in Boston and vicinity. Harvard College, Salem, and Miss Wilkins alike shared in From "Famous American Actors of To-Day." Dr. D. C. Nijhoff, of The Hague, and is published in that city by Loman and Funk. Miss Putnam has recently received the honor of an election to the Society of Literature of the Netherlands (De Maatschappy der Nederlandsche Letterkunde te Leiden), the headquarters of which are in Leyden. The society dates from 1778. Miss Putnam is the first foreign woman who has been so honored. Publishers' Weekly. WITH THE NEW BOOKS. BY TALCOTT WILLIAMS, LL. D. A Dominican labor of love has been discharged by Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole in his variorum edition in two volumes of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." Here at last is gathered together with endless and patient toil, felicitous taste and loving appreciation, the apparatus entire and complete for the study of Omar by the English reader. An introduction weaving in one the manifold criticism of the poet with extract and illuminating comment. Fitzgerald's incomparable translation in which the dead Persian poet arose to a blessed immortality under happier skies. How much and how little the original body which labored and sinned in Persia makes up the glorified body of the English poet let us not too curiously enquire, but thank God for both Omar and Fitzgerald. Collected here are all translations in succession, quatrain by quatrain, the variants of Fitzgerald, the too accurate Nicolas, the youthful McCarthy, the equipped Whinfield, the poetic Garner, the mystic Bodenstedt, and the illuminating Van Schaak. Here are notes innumerable, allusions from all sources and an ordered history of Western knowledge of this Eastern poet. The bibliography, bibliographers will admire and its labor appreciate. I love to think how, in many silent and sequestered places, men of few books and much love for the few will welcome these volumes, use them and envy the faithful scholar and schooled critic, who has linked his name with the imperishable fame of the poet and modestly omitted his own name from the lines in which he has caught Farsi cadence and rhyme with surprising and successful skill. * ** Mr. Edward P. Usher in "Protestantism' has written a book certain, as it comes to be known, to attract a wide attention and arouse a keen discussion. To that large number of persons who find dogmatic Christianity seriously in the way of their desire to believe in Christ, Mr. Usher's work is likely to prove a message of abundant peace, an open path to faith. Mr. Usher is a lawyer, and he has collated this book from many authorities as he might a brief when he sought to define the law. Applying this method to Protestantism, in its essence an appeal to living truth from dead organization, he has drawn from a wide range of liberal theologians and thinkers utterances which constitute a body of rational Christian theology. They seek to tell not what the truth was but what it is and there is no impiety greater than to imagine that God and His Spirit are to-day farther from His people or less likely to lead them into truth than Child study has been placed upon an entirely new basis by the use of instruments of precision and exact records. The change is akin to that from that from alchemy to chemistry. "The Intellectual and Moral Developments of the Child," by M. Gabriel Compayré, is a book of the old order. It has been well translated by Miss Mary E. Wilson. Dr. William T. Harris contributes a stimulating preface. This work gives Part I. of M. Compayré's "L Evolution Intellectuelle et Morale de l'Enfant." Part II. is to follow. The present volume has little which Perez has not given. In fact there is little here which could not have been written fifteen years ago, and to some most important experiments-as the simian capacity of the new-born child to support its weight-no reference is made. The book is suggestive, but it does not reflect the present state of knowledge. * ** The old-fashioned natural history, dear to the omnivorous reader, has gone never to return. We have instead the biologist who devotes so much time to slicing up animals when dead that he can scarcely recognize them when alive and generally knows little of their habit. Yet the only possible solid foundation for the knowledge of life in all its parts must come from the biologist. The natural history of today is like the monumental "Cambridge Natural History" of which the fifth volume has just appeared. It embraces Peripatus, myriapoda, (centipedes, nullipedes and the like) and insects, aptera, orthoptera, neuroptera and hymenoptera. There are about 80,000 species covered in this range of insects and in a general natural history, the utmost which can be done is to describe leading genera. Even this is done with reference chiefly to external characteristics, with a brief sketch of habits. The universe of life involved in insects is as yet only labelled as to about a tenth of it or 270,000 species out of 2,500,000 and the life history of so familiar an object as a cockroach remains to be studied. In all these matters, our English friends are still in the systematic and descriptive stage. A work like this with the dozen volumes it will fill before it is completed is, after all, but supplemental. It is a pity, however, more school libraries are not provided with such works to aid teachers in the effort to be vivid. For Americans, Prof. and Mrs. Comstock's "Manual" is the most important work; ranking with it is Dr. Packard's "Guide to the Study of Insects." A mother or teacher who wishes to use the insects of daily life in stimu |