guerrilla chieftains, and adventurous Yankees. Such picturesque adjuncts as old haciendas, gloomy convents, and stern mountain defiles are supplied them in abundance. Diabolical murders, dreadful revenges, and assorted passions, gloomy and otherwise, engage the breathless attention of the reader. We cannot say that they engage the interest as well, for they are too unreal even for the semi-tropical skies beneath which they are displayed. The arrangement of the novel is anything but clear, and ordinary patience will not suffice for keeping hold of the thread of the action. Then there is so prodigious an amount of small talk and pointless incident that the narrative is made unbearably lengthy, and its main features become hidden nearly out of sight. Mrs. Heaven writes from minute knowledge of the country in which her scene is laid, and gives us much faithful description, but she is evidently unpractised in the art of the novelist.

"Two Coronets" is the title of the latest romance of America and Italy from the pen of Mary Agnes Tincker. In this novel, even more than in its predecessors, the writer sets all the unities at defiance, rambling through time and space in the most aimless way, and weaving the threads of half a dozen different actions into a pattern which is anything but symmetrical. Her Italian scenes are a trifle better than her American ones, but all are deplorably lacking in finish; and the style of the novel is all the more exasperating in its general crudeness, because of the not infrequent passages which show plainly enough that the writer has it in her power to do better if she chooses. As for the title, we are absolutely in the dark as to its meaning, and cannot even tell whether it is to be taken in a literal or a symbolic sense.

"Alexia" has the volume and the texture of a summer novel, and seems almost out of place among the erudite and didactic works of fiction which it is mainly our function to pass in review upon the present occasion. It certainly affords a pleasant relief to the autumnal and even wintry cast of this too instructive and edifying literature. The plot is of the simplest, but the treatment is fresh and attractive; and the familiar story of the man who becomes engaged to the woman whom he does not love, speedily thereafter to come upon the one whom he does, is still fascinating in Mrs. Abbott's bright pages. That the story is of feminine workmanship would be clear enough without the testimony of the title-page-one would only need to come across the passage which describes

the hero as "cutting off the end of a cheroot to be sure of that. For those who dislike to harrow up their soul in novel-reading, we will hasten to observe that the tale ends happily, albeit a little flippantly, in spite of the tragic complications that for a time seem to presage otherwise.

"Mito Yashiki" is a tale of old Japan, and yet the scene is laid only some thirty years ago. But the Japan that Perry first visited was to all intents and purposes the Japan of earlier ages; and the thirty years that have elapsed since his memorable expedition have probably wrought greater changes in the empire of the Mikado than were witnessed by the thirty centuries preceding. Mr. Maclay's story has for its central feature the revolution which, almost in our own day, made of Japan the Mikado's empire in deed as well as in name, and put an end to the usurped power of the Shogun. It is a faithful study of the physical features of the country and of the characteristics of the inhabitants. The subtlety of the Japanese intellect is distinctly brought out, and the curious feudal life which so lately held possession of the islands. Particularly interesting is the account of the political intrigues between the opposing parties of Mikado and Shogun, the elaborate system of espionage in vogue, and the official courier system. Nor is the story wanting in effective dramatic situations, although its action is at times intolerably slow, and its descriptions often lengthened to a wearisome extent.

The modes of speech of the characters are mainly English with but slight local coloring. This was, perhaps, a necessary course to take in a work which should strongly appeal to English readers.

Since the Tour du Monde en Quatre-vingts Jours is no longer to be considered the tour de force that it was when M. Verne published his fascinating romance, it has been evident for some time that there was an opportunity for some ingenious author to improve upon the work of the imaginative Frenchman. This opportunity has been seized upon by Mr. Charles L. Marsh, and the result appears in the shape of a narrative entitled "Opening the Oyster." The suggestions of this title are obvious. The task which Mr. Marsh has set before his travellers (for there are two of them) is to visit the principal cities of the world (forty in number, including Melbourne, Valparaiso, Pekin, Teheran, and Havana) in the space of five years. This would not be so astonishing a feat were it not for one imposed condition. The travel

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lers are to start out without a cent in their pockets, or any other resources than their own arts and muscular abilities. Since they are Americans, and since their story is, after all, a work of fiction, they are successful in their undertaking, and it is an account of the five years of travel thus entered upon which Mr. Marsh gives us. As may be imagined, the travellers rough it" a great deal, and meet with some very surprising adventures. They are chased by Turcomans in Central Asia, fall in with Mexican highwaymen, cross the Andes in winter, and run the Chilian blockade during the war with Peru. They become, in turn, sailors before the mast, gold-miners, and itinerant musicians. They unmask "a most notorious pirate and cutthroat," rescue a child stolen from its rents, and throw an Englishman off the Great Pyramid. In short, there are very few things which they do not do in these five exciting years. As for the story, it is brimming over with good spirits, is as humorous in places as "The Innocents Abroad," and is told in good and unaffected English. A word should be said of the illustrations, which, although open to criticism as far as their artistic qualities go, form an admirable accompaniment to the narrative.

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The character of Nero would hardly seem to offer an attractive subject to the novelist, and only a German would have made the attempt to enlist our sympathies in behalf of the most utterly vile and profligate of the Cæsars. But the Germans have already been fairly successful in whitewashing his almost equally depraved predecessor Tiberius, and now Herr Eckstein applies the same process to Nero, and presents him to our view not, indeed, as wholly blameless, but as more sinned against than sinning. The trouble with all these German historical novels dealing with the life of the ancients is that they are so painfully artificial and unreal. Even the best of them the Egyptian novels of Ebers―suffer in this way, and never quite succeed in creating the illusion that we have the right to expect in historical fiction. Even their display of erudition is more artificial than real, and the model once set, their multiplication becomes little more than a mechanical art. Of course we have in the present example all the familiar stories-the murder of Agrippina, the burning of Rome to the Emperor's musical accompaniment, the revenge taken upon the Christians, and the ignominious flight and death of Nero. The story is drawn out to at least twice the length that it should have.

The short stories which Mr. George H. Jessop has collected under the title of "Gerald Ffrench's Friends" are linked together by the common possession of the personality of Gerald Ffrench himself, various episodes of whose journalistic career they describe. Gerald Ffrench was a young Irishman who, having spent his own modest inheritance like a gentleman, found himself penniless in San Francisco, and set about the novel task of earning his own living. Having fallen in with a "thryumvirate" of five Irish patriots, bent upon compassing the overthrow of the "Saxon opprissor," he became the editor of their newspaper. After this enterprise had collapsed, he practised journalism in other forms, and had many curious experiences, out of which Mr. Jessop has constructed his highly entertaining volume. The book is essentially a study of Irish character under Pacific coast conditions, trenching a little upon Mr. Harte's ground, but having a decided manner of its own. It is both humorous and pathetic; the former, and richly so, in the story of "The Irish Aigle "; the latter, in Under the Redwood Tree." "The Last of the Costelloes is as romantic a tale as one could wish for. Mr. Jessop's types are vital; of their genuineness the reader cannot remain in doubt.

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Few volumes afford better evidence of the marked ability of American writers of short stories than Mr. Harry Stillwell Edwards's Two Runaways, and Other Stories." There are nine of these stories in all, and they have previously been published in "Harper's Magazine" and "The Century." They are richly humorous, full of incident, and abound in faithful character studies of both negro and white man in the South. "Two Runaways,' "Elder Brown's Backslide," "Sister Todhunter's Heart," and "A Born Inventor seem to us the best of the collection. Mr. E. W. Kemble's illustrations add greatly to the attractiveness of the volume.

Mr. Bret Harte's new volume includes four short stories of the sort that he alone can write. The old familiar types appear, but the combinations are new, and the infinite variety of the chess-board is once more suggested as the most appropriate analogue of Mr. Harte's imagination. It is difficult to choose among things so nearly equal in their excellence as these stories, but we should probably decide for "Captain Jim's Friend," if forced to a choice. The flashy, selfish adventurer, and the simple, warmhearted miner who champions him against the

world, are finely contrasted figures, and their story is presented with that quiet pathos of which the author has so complete a mastery.

With the exception of "A Family Tree, Mr. Brander Matthews's volume of short stories thus entitled is made up of the veriest odds and ends. That they are amusing odds and ends goes without saying, and the assertion is notably true of the "Notes of an Uneventful Voyage," and the modern Chesterfield's post-cards addressed to his hopeful son. "A A Family Tree" is a masterpiece of imaginative and skilfully-constructed narrative. It is a study almost in the sombre manner of Hawthorne, and it holds the interest breathless from first to last.

The French are our only rivals in the writing of short stories, and theirs are more often studies and genre sketches than stories. No one is better known in this field at the present day than M. Guy de Maupassant, thirteen of whose shorter pieces have just been translated by Mr. Jonathan Sturges. The translation is, unfortunately, unexact and wooden. (Tu es assez bien liée avec elle-You're quite thick enough with her.) The volume is entitled "The Odd Number," and supplied with a readable introduction by Mr. Henry James.

WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE.

HOLIDAY PUBLICATIONS.

THE critic cannot help feeling the embarrassment of limited time and space in contemplating the numerous decorative volumes that come to his table during the holiday season. Each is freighted with the hope of author and publisher, and is a precious thing, considering the thought and labor and time it has cost. The critic feels this sensibly, and eyes them all with a certain reverence. They are almost like human souls, and should be treated tenderly, even when meriting censure or words of faint praise. But the hand once extended to these gift-books for Christmas, 1889, the heart goes with it in a full tide of satisfaction. There is so much genuine worth in the collection that the trouble of dealing with them as the critic must, carefully, scrupulously, one by one, is amply repaid. Looking back upon them after the work is done, he is happy with the memories they have left in his mind. They have taken him to many of the most famous and interesting spots on the globe; they have pictured to him the masterpieces of nature and of man; they have brought before him portions of the choicest literature, new and old, in prose and verse, illuminated by the finest conceits of the artists' genius. He has had a foretaste of holiday joys in his inspection of the treasures which have been lavishly provided for the cultivated readers of America, and cultivated

readers abound of every age; even the inmates of the nursery are taught nowadays to appreciate the arts which unite in the production of a book of refined quality. The supply is abundant this year. and adapted to every taste. Seldom have holiday books been more varied in attractions, or calculated to reflect greater credit upon the brains and hands of those who fashioned them.

The folio treating of the "Cathedrals and Abbeys in Great Britain and Ireland" (Harper & Brothers) is a work of substantial merit, appealing alike to the lover of history and of the arts. contains excellent wood engravings with few exceptions, double-page of forty-three of the great

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church edifices which adorn the isles of the British Kingdom, with many minor cuts of interiors and special features. They are of extreme interest, giving, as they do, a clear idea of the stately and sublime character of the ecclesiastical structures of the mediæval ages. England is rich in these monuments of a grand architectural period, richer indeed, than one suspects who has not made a special study of the subject. The descriptive text to which the engravings are tributary, is furnished by the Rev. Richard Wheatly, D.D., and comprises an introductory essay on the cathedral system, and a particular account of each building in the collection. His portion of the work is carefully done, combining fullness of detail with conciseness and precision. The mechanical aspects of the volume are in harmony with the rest, the print being especially noteworthy for its large size.

An author could not desire to have the children of her thought better attired for presentation to the public, than are the half dozen sketches of Margaret Deland which Messrs. Little, Brown, & Co. issue under the title of Florida Days." Their outer wrap of lemon and brown cloth is tastefully ornamented, and their inner vestments are rich and fair as art can make them. Thickly scattered among the heavy white pages are illustrations of various types-colored plates, etchings, and engravings. Nothing has been omitted that could lend the book a grace in the eyes of the holiday book-buyer. The sketches are descriptive of the life and scenery in and around St. Augustine and the St. John's river. The writer has an artist's keen faculty for noting the subtle shifting changes on the face of nature, and a poet's command of fluent and figurative language in which to communicate her observations. She discloses a cultivated and reflective mind, which seeks in a gentle way to penetrate below the surface of things and find their inner significance.

The collection of "Fac-similes of Aquarelles by American Artists" (F. A. Stokes & Brother), shows the progress attained in the art of chromo-lithography at the present date among our countrymen. The examples of pure tone and delicate shading, of relief in form, and of exquisite finish, given in the several pictures included in the volume, afford as much satisfaction in their promise for the future as

in their present fulfillment. We have no right to expect that the successes achieved in the use of color by the painter, employing whatever medium he may, can be perfectly reproduced by any mechanical pro

cess.

The essence, the soul of a picture, can no more be translated into an alien domain of art, than the spirit, the genius, of a poem can be translated into a foreign tongue. And yet, these reproductions of the water-color drawings of Percy and Paul Moran, of Gibson, of Symington, Ferris, McVickar, Bainsley, and Maud Humphrey, come so near being fac-similes in very truth, that our wonder and admiration are excited. The face of "Dorothy," for instance, in the first aquarelle, recalls a miniature on ivory, so exquisitely are the tints and texture rendered. It is needless to go through the list, but there are beauties in each drawing that catch the eye at a glance. Portraits, in black and white, of the different artists, with an additional example of their workmanship and a brief biographical sketch, bring us still closer to the life and art of each. The text accompanying the aquarelles is from the pen of Ripley Hitchcock, and appropriately introduces them with a history of water-color painting in America.

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The simple elegance of the edition of The Marble Faun" which issues from the Cambridge press of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., elicits a verdict of approval from every refined taste. Each feature of the book is exquisite in itself, and, like a note in a perfect chord, blends with the others, an essential part of an indivisable harmony. Scarlet, the most daring color to apply in decoration, used here en masse in the binding, looks soft and chaste combined with white and a touch of gold. The print on the handsome page is large and open, and the paperas it should be. Then the pictures are genuine illustrations of the letter-press such as every reader covets. They are photogravures of the places and objects of world-wide renown, which Hawthorne has given additional value, by associating them in the way of description or criticism with this creation of his genius. There are fifty-two of the photogravures, comprising first, a portrait of the author, and thereafter noted buildings, ruins, statues, and paintings in Rome, Florence, and points adjacent, where the scene of the story rests in the course of its developments. It is a noble edition of a noble book. Hawthorne regarded "The Marble Faun' as his best production. Into it he had put the results of long and loving study of the mighty remains of a past life and art which had stirred his feelings to powerful activity.

In their search for a literary gem that could sustain the adornments of art without being overshadowed, Messrs. White & Allen have been fortunate in hitting upon the witty play of "The Rivals,” by Sheridan. It is one of the sparkling comedies of this author, which have held their place on the stage for a century, more or less, and will bear reading in the closet as well as representation before the

footlights. "The Rivals" was Sheridan's maiden comedy, and was produced in 1775. A failure at first, owing to the incapacity of the actors to whom it was entrusted, it grew, with a better opportunity, in the favor of the public, and to-day is one of the most popular pieces in the repertory of the best light comedians. It is published in its present ornate form in connection with a series of aquarelles, and drawings in black and white, by Mr. Frank M. Gregory. The aquarelles are spirited expositions of the motive chosen, and are excellently reproduced by the imitative process. The remaining sketches are the product of a fertile and disciplined fancy. The book is an imperial quarto, handsomely bound in cloth.

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If the eye happen to be caught by the letter-press, on first opening the volume made to hold the glowing bunches of Wild Flowers of the Pacific Coast," prepared by Emma Homan Thayer, and published by Cassell & Co., it will be held by as magnetic a charm as any which the pictures can possess. sketches are written with skill and ease, and, narrating incidents befalling the author in her travels through the Pacific states, are uncommonly entertaining. Each is intended as an adjunct merely to a specimen of the blossoms delineated; yet it interests us not only in the flower itself but in the personality of the writer, who reveals unconsciously winning traits of character. The plates, twenty-four in number, are from original water-color sketches, and retain much of the grace and beauty of nature.

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A holiday book which, in artistic charm, challenges comparison with the best of 1889, is the novelette of Ludovic Halevy, entitled, The Abbé Constantin," illustrated by Madame Madeleine Lemaire, and published by Dodd, Mead & Co. The story is sprightly and clever, describing a family of rich Americans who spend their money and their lives, as too many rich Americans are prone to do, in beautiful Paris or its immediate neighborhood. But the story, amusing as it may be, is of less interest than the illustrations, which are the product of striking talent on the part of both artist and engraver. There is a delicacy of finish in every detail of the drawings, in their conception and execution, which is worthy of the highest praise. It is less comforting to confess that it is not native art. But we may take ample satisfaction in the remaining adjuncts of the work, which are in keeping with its pictorial attractions.

The strength in the illustrations is what draws us most to the English translation of Pierre et Jean, the Two Brothers," by Guy de Maupassant, which is issued in holiday form by the J. B. Lippincott Company. The story is said to surpass all other works yet produced by its author. It exhibits power in certain passages, but fails to reach the climax it leads the reader to look forward to. Moreover, the characters are severally as disappointing as the action. None of them can be regarded with favor. But the faults of the text are more than

remedied by the merits of the illustrations. The series of eighteen figure-pieces by Albert Lynch are remarkable for the naturalness and vigor exhibited in their composition. They embody the sentiment of the text with unusual force and completeness, and are so admirably reproduced by photogravure that they have the vivid effect, in some cases, of etchings. The minor illustrations-head and tailpieces display the skill of Ernest Duez in marine painting and still-life. The volume, in all outward respects, is a beautiful one.

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The Quiet Life" (Harper & Brothers) consists, as the title-page tells us, of "certain verses by various hands the motive set forth in a prologue and epilogue by Austin Dobson; the whole adorned with numerous drawings by Edwin A. Abbey and Alfred Parsons." The "verses are selected from the writings of Manell, Cowley, Praed, Pope, and Thomas Randolph, and refer to the calm enjoyments of rural and domestic life, to the advantages for serene content of the country over the town, and of simple solitary pursuits above the noise and strife and pushing ambition of men who contend among the " madding crowd." The illustrations mingle, in due proportion, views of animate and inanimate nature, adding also the crowning dignity of the human figure. Designer and engraver have aimed at suggestion rather than definiteness in their delineations, asking the imagination of the spectator to assist their own in the work of interpretation.

Those who love to have the lines of a favorite poet associated with the conceits of an artist of kindred sympathy have been remembered by the Lippincott's in their publication of "The Miller's Daughter," by Tennyson. On the thread of the text, as on a wreath of eglantine, have been hung lovely flowers of "artistry," pencilled by the skilful hands of Pierce, Fenn, Garrett, Brown, and Woodward. Their names attest their ability. There is much honest and excellent work in their designs and drawings, which will reward close scrutiny. We love no art better than that of our best woodengraving, and many specimens in this volume rank high in their simple sincerity of feeling and manipulation.

He who turns over the pages of the large quarto volume entitled Venice" (F. A. Stokes & Brother) will be transported with the swiftness of thought into the heart of the Queen City of the Adriatic, and will have his senses steeped in the delights of her marvellous pageantry. The vivid pen-sketches, from the text of Charles Yriarte, with the richlycolored plates, reproduced from photographs, and the half-tone engravings of drawings by Frank M. Gregory, present the fairy-like scenes of the enchanted city with wonderful effect. It is next to a veritable visit to this most romantic of towns.

Another publishing house (Messrs. Cassell & Co.) have given one of Tennyson's poems a holiday dress. "The Song of the Brook" is familiar as household words. Everybody knows the music of

its flow, which moves along with starts and stops and sudden outbursts of babble and silence, like the silvery torrent that foams between narrow rocky ledges from some hidden pool in the mountains. The text, as it runs over the leaves of this pretty volume, is mingled with bits of rustic landscape in a tangle of unrepressed wildness. A few of the illustrations are more ambitious in size, and occupy a full page.

To those who love the sea, with its wild life, infinite in mood and in diversity of aspect, the drawings by Elizabeth N. Little, named appropriately "Off the Weather-Bow" (White & Allen), will make a pleasant appeal. The artist has chosen her subjects with discrimination, and treated them with skill. They embrace scenes along the shore and in mid-ocean, with smaller bits, perhaps of a ship's rigging, or a lobster-man's outfit, which are full of rugged and bold nautical character. The text accompanying the drawings is from Longfellow, Lucy Larcom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry Cooke, and others. The book is printed in ornamental type, and the pictures are in blue monochrome.

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The fluency with which the numbers flow in the metrical writings of Owen Meredith, together with the romantic sentiment to which they are ever allied, secures the perennial popularity which Lucile " enjoys. It has been published in a great variety of elegant and enticing forms, and their extended success prompts still other new and successive editions. The latest is presented by F. A. Stokes & Brother, and is a comely example of the book-maker's art. Print, paper, and binding are in scrupulous taste. The illustrations, exhibiting versatility of composition, are the work of Frank M. Gregory. Inserted in the text as flowers are set on a branch, a free and irregular growth, they enhance the charm. of one of the world's favorite poems.

A holiday edition of another of Owen Meredith's poems, "The Earl's Return," is brought out in attractive style by Estes & Lauriat. This poem is less widely known than "Lucile," but has the likeness to the latter of a younger sister. It is a much shorter poem, but with picturesque qualities which the illustrator, W. L. Taylor, has seized as material for the exercise of his imagination. The chief pictures of the unhappy Earl's wife are strong in pathos and beauty.

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The Legend Laymone," a poem by M. B. M. Toland, has been issued by the Lippincott Company in a most dainty form. The illustrations are soft in effect as shadow-pictures, some in black and white, and some in monotone. They are from the hand of such artists as H. Bolton Jones, F. S. Church, Maud Humphrey, Gibson, and Denman. The poem rehearses an Indian myth in which a dusky maiden wins her lover from pagan superstitions to the Christian faith.

Samuel Lover's ballad of "The Low-Back'd Car" has furnished abundant suggestion for the illustrative talents of the artist, William Magrath. He