I

N reading the Hamerton autobiography we are at first disappointed that it was not more spontaneously written.

If it had been, however, it would not have so well expressed a man in whose early years spontaneity had been smothered by a father's unfatherly treatment. Only in direct companionship with Nature could the boy give vent to self-expression. His greatest happiness was to get away by himself and read Scott's poems. "Of all the influences that had sway over me in those days and for long afterwards, the influence of Scott was by far the strongest. A boy cannot make a better choice."

If his boyhood and youth had been. different, his maturity would not have been what we find it. Yet what an interesting sturdy manhood it was! There was its modesty, for instance, its reserve, its freedom from garrulity, its inability to "gush," its Saxon dread of Gallic exuberance. Far better, there was its hearty scorn of the superficial. There was its intellectual self-respect, its virile self-poise, its instinctive gentlemanliness.

With his marriage Hamerton's autobiography ceases. This is a pity, for only then did he begin really to live. The far richer material of his career falls to the charming, clever, and more spontaneous pen of Mrs. Hamerton, who displays as astonishing command of English as her husband did of French. At first we regret the change from the direct manner of the first person singular, but, after reading a few chapters of the "Memoir," are completely won over to a true woman's true account of her husband. In every sentence there is sanity, lucidity, truth; but there is also a love-song therein. On every page she responds to what Hamer

ton wrote, not so long ago, in giving a jewel-casket to her:

She will put them here in the casket, the ultramarine and the gold,

And, if such a thing might be, I would give them to her twice over,

Once in my youthful hope, and now again when I'm old,

But alike in youth and in age with the heart and the soul of a lover.

First of all we learn about the Hamerton home-life at Loch Awe, Scotland, and later at Sens, Pré Charmoy, and Boulogne-sur-Seine, France. She gives us a picture of the entire Hamerton-" painted with all his warts on," as a great man once commanded-but she also relegates her own feelings unhesitatingly to the background, generally describing his alone. We have a delicious page on Hamerton's perverseness in posting up the sign "English Visitors to this House are Earnestly Requested Not to Stay after 7 o'clock P. M."

One reason why this "Autobiography and Memoir" will be popular is that readers want to know about the conception and varying success of those somewhat unequal but charming books, "Etchers and Etching," "A Painter's Camp," "Round My House," "Modern Frenchmen," "Wenderholme," "The Life of Turner," "The Intellectual Life," "The Graphic Arts," "Human Intercourse," "Landscape," "The Saône," "French and English," "Painting in France," etc. These were mostly criticisms of art and life. They are generally born in adversity and poverty. Yet, however much the physical nerves might have been unstrung, Hamerton's mental fiber was vigorous enough never to subordinate the intellectual to the emotional. His every book shows that he had not

only the Englishman's cool head; he had also the artist's dry light.

More than most books, this memoir pictures for us a singularly united life, full of struggles nobly borne because of unfailing trust and love. Hamerton once said to Rajon, "If you take other people's opinions about the choice of a wife, you are not yet ripe for matrimony. No man ought to get married unless he feels that he cannot help itthat he cannot live happily without the companionship of a particular woman. This is a grateful change from earlier. sentiments. The love which had triumphed over difficulties presented by differences of country, language, opposition of family and friends, was only strengthened by adversity. For it is when we come to the tragic things-Hamerton's

I

nervous and cerebral disorders, his attempt to jump from a train, the son's suicide, etc.-that the test of Mrs. Hamerton's nature places this book alongside those best ones which recount the lives of devoted and heroic women. And Hamerton's innate nobility becomes broader and better and richer as we go on. The history of this marriage-harmony, with its consequent character-development, makes the volume as choice a contribution as any to recent literature. However delightful to have intimate glimpses of the best people, however instructive the revelations of book-authorship, we must, after all, applaud the fact that these things have not been allowed to interrupt the work's main purpose-a study of character.-Outlook.

N the four volumes of the memorial edition of the writings of Severn Teackle Wallis, who died in Baltimore in 1894, we have the record and expression of a pure and noble life of which all Americans may well be proud, and which should be of special interest to members of the American Bar.

In an

address to the lawyers of Maryland he said, "I rejoice that we can still welcome you to a profession which, stripped of all false pretences and exaggerations, is worthy of your best faculties, your highest qualities, your complete and earnest self-dedication and devotion. Its influences are as wide as society. Its duties are arduous, elevated, delicate and responsible. Its honors and rewards, when fairly sought and earned, may fill the measure of a great ambition. You can make all knowledge tributary to it, and yet not transcend its compass. You cannot be too wise, too learned, or too virtuous for it."

A successful lawyer, noted for wisdom.

and eloquence, he found time for occasional excursions in the field of literature. Intensely patriotic, and always taking an active interest in politics, "he never sought political preferment, and never held political office except when its acceptance involved personal risk and suffering, and proved the passport to a prison."

The first volume of this edition is a collection of reviews, addresses, lectures and poems; the second volume contains. selections from Mr. Wallis' political writings; the third and fourth volumes. are a reprint of his two books on Spain, which were for many years almost out of print. Glimpses of Spain was published in 1849, and Spain, her institutions, politics and public men, a sketch, in 1853. The latter book was written after a second visit to Spain, which he made as Commissioner sent by the Secretary of the Interior to examine and report upon the title to public lands in Florida, as affected by Spanish grants made during the ne

Al

gotiations with America in 1819. though he calls it "a sketch," it contained in a small compass the best account of Spanish politics at that time, and of the then existing constitution of the monarchy within the reach of English readers. The Blessed Hand, which we quote, is a specimen of his simple, unaffected, musical verse:

For you and me, who love the light
Of God's uncloistered day,
It were, indeed, a dreary lot,
To shut ourselves away
From every glad and sunny thing
And pleasant sight and sound,
And pass, from out a silent cell,
Into the silent ground.

Not so the good monk, Anselm, thought,
For, in his cloister's shade,

The cheerful faith that lit his heart

Its own sweet sunshine made;
And in its glow he prayed and wrote,
From matin-song till even,

And trusted, in the Book of Life,
To read his name in Heaven.

What holy books his gentle art
Filled full of saintly lore!
What pages, brightened by his hand,
The splendid missals bore!
What blossoms, almost fragrant, twined
Around each blessed name,

And how his Saviour's cross and crown
Shone out from cloud and flame!

But, unto clerk as unto clown,

One summons comes, al way,
And Brother Anselm heard the call,
At vesper-chime, one day.
His busy pen was in his hand,
His parchment by his side-

He bent him o'er the half-writ prayer,
Kissed Jesus' name, and died!

They laid him where a window's blaze
Flashed o'er the graven stone,
And seemed to touch his simple name
With pencil like his own;

And there he slept, and, one by one,
His brethren died the while,
And trooping years went by and trod
His name from off the aisle.

And lifting up the pavement, then,
An Abbot's couch to spread,
They let the jeweled sunshine in
Where once lay Anselm's head.
No crumbling bone was there, no trace
Of human dust that told,
But, all alone, a warm right hand
Lay, fresh, upon the mould.

It was not stiff, as dead men's are,
But, with a tender clasp,

It seemed to hold an unseen hand
Within its living grasp;

And ere the trembling monks could turn
To hide their dazzled eyes,

It rose, as with a sound of wings,
Right up into the skies!

Oh loving, open hands, that give;
Soft hands, the tear that dry;
Oh patient hands, that toil to bless;
How can ye ever die!

Ten thousand vows from yearning hearts
To Heaven's own gates shall soar,
And bear you up, as Anselm's hand
Those unseen angels bore!

Kind hands! oh never near to you

May come the woes ye heal! Oh never may the hearts ye guard The griefs ye comfort, feel! May He, in whose sweet name ye build, So crown the work ye rear, That ye may never clasped be, In one unanswered prayer!

4a

MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

Bigelow, J. Mystery of sleep.

Binet, A. Alterations of personality.

4a

Maudsley, H. Body and mind.

4b

ETHICS.

5

Maurice, J. F. D. Social morality. Complete bachelor; manners for men. 5b

This book is by a well-known New York club-man, an acknowledged authority on all questions of etiquette. There are chapters on the etiquette of club life, the etiquette of various pastimes, such as golf, wheeling, driving, riding and yachting, and chapters on men's dress and on clothes, the care and cost of replenishing a wardrobe, as well as others giving suggestions for all kinds of bachelor entertainments and stag parties, the rules of conduct to be observed by men at dinners, theatre parties, dances, balls, weddings, funerals, receptions, and all other functions.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES.

Barnard, J. H. History and civil government of Missouri.

26

An attempt at a systematic presentation of the principles of local government. Follett, M. P. The Speaker of the House 26 of Representatives.

Miss M. P. Follett has made a really notable contribution to the study of the growth of American government institutions with a thoroughness and philosophic grasp of her subject that will make her book indispensable to every future student of Congressional government. She has collected her facts with indefatigable industry, and grouped them with an admirable sense of proportion and of historic perspective; she has shown the reason and necessity for the growth of the power of the speaker with singular clearsightedness and skill.-Theodore Roosevelt in the Amer. Hist. Review.

Keasbey, L. M. Nicaragua canal and the Monroe doctrine. 26a Introduction to Amer. law. 19b

Walker, T.

15

Fr. crocodiles, etc.

29d

6p

Lyman Beecher lectures on preaching at Yale University, 1896.

Page, W. M. New light from old eclipses; or. Chronology corrected and the four Gospels harmonized.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

8

Class 291.

Socialism.

SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM.

Blissard, W. Ethics of usury and interest.

Mill, J. S.

Morris, W. William Morris, poet, artist, socialist; a sel. fr. his writings.

Froude, J. A. Lectures on the Council of

Trent.

Y. M. C. A. Handbook.

THEOSOPHY.

12a

Ref. 12c

Class 30.

Local taxation and

Clare, G. A B C of the foreign exchanges. Fonda, A. I. Honest money.

"I have deduced the requirements for an honest money, shown the faults of our present system in the light of these requirements, and have outlined a system that seems to meet the requirements and to correct existing faults."

History of banking in all the leading nations. 4v. Ref.

The second volume of this great work contains three treatises. The first, on the History of banking in Great Britain, is by H. D. Macleod, and the comparative importance of the subject makes it not unreasonable that it should occupy two-thirds of the volume. So far as the facts of English banking history are concerned, perhaps no more competent narrator than Mr. Macleod could have been employed.

The most charming book of its kind since "Graham's Golden Age."-Literary World. Compayre, G. Intellectual and moral

Her host of readers may rest assured both of the attractiveness and the saving common sense of these letters, and a multitude of girls and their mothers will be deeply grateful for their practical helpfulness, wise advice, useful suggestions, tonic spirit and energizing air. They treat topics on which most girls need judicious counsel, and their noble, friendly, motherly tone is most delightful and inspiring.

METHODS AND PRACTICE.
Class 31d2.

Aiken, C. Methods of mind-training, concentrated attention and memory. Howe, E. G. Systematic science teaching. McMurry, C. A. Elements of general method.

A simple explanation of Herbart's leading principles.

-Special method in geography for 3d and 4th grades.

Designed to outline and illustrate a plan for the study of geography.

-Special method in the reading of
Eng. classics in the common school.

"If all our teachers in the common schools should read with thoughtful appreciation ten or a dozen of the best books in this series it would surely improve our schools by twenty-five per cent."

FRENCH READERS.

Class 33d1.

1st

Dumas, A. D. L'évasion du Duc de
Beaufort.
Fontaine, C., ed.
Short stories.

ed. Fleurs de France.

NATURAL SCIENCES AND USEFUL ARTS.

Bowie, A. J., jr. Practical treatise on hydraulic mining in Cal.

63a

Description of the use and construction of ditches, flumes, wrought-iron pipes and dams, flow of water on heavy grades, and its applicability under high pressure to mining.

Collet, N. Water softening and purification. 4of

The softening and clarification of hard and dirty waters.

Gifford, J. B. Elementary lessons in physics.

4I