Fenimore she saw a The Spy,"

in which there were several mistakes, but one of them was such that it was almost incredible that any one could possibly have been guilty of it. The residence of Mr. Wharton, one of the characters who figure in the story, is spoken of by the author as the "The Locusts." Now, the translator had been evidently ignorant of the circumstance of there being any species of trees bearing this name. Having, therefore, looked out the word in his dictionary, and finding the definition to be given as "Les Sauterelles," grasshoppers; thus he rendered it in the text. Presently, however, he came across a paragraph in the novel in which it was stated that a visitor to the house of Mr. Wharton had tied his horse to a locust. Then it might be naturally supposed that the translator would at once have discovered his error. Not a bit of it! His reasoning would appear to have been somewhat on a parity with that of a celebrated countryman of his, when he declared that "If the facts do not agree with the theory, so much the worse for the facts." Nevertheless, the writer seems to have been conscious that some explanation was due of so extraordinary a statement as that a horseman had secured his steed to a grasshopper. So he went on to gravely inform his readers that in America these insects grow to an enormous size, and that in this case, one of these-dead and stuffed--had been stationed at the door of the mansion for the convenience of visitors on horseback!Bookmark.

OUIDA is as grotesque a figure as Mrs. Mackay is a proper and conventional one. I saw the novelist once in London, and I shall never forget the impression which her astounding appearance made on me. I should say that Mademoiselle De La Ramee, as she now calls herself-adding a syllable to her name with each decade-might be described as the worst-dressed woman in Europe. Perhaps the most ridiculous thing about her appearance is her air of assumed juvenility. On the day that I saw her she wore a skirt which showed half an inch of white hose above a pair of funny little congress to pgaiters, such as one occasionally sees in the prints of 1850. The skirt was perfectly round, like a cheese cake. Above the waist was a jacket with two odd little tails behind, and imbued with a wonderful collection of incongruous colors. It looked as though it might have been copied after one of the costumes worn by Ouida's wonderful little vivandières. wore lace mittens, a jaunty little hat, and carried a huge scarlet parasol, when such things were practically unknown. She was going to call on the prime minister, or some similar grandee, it being her custom at that time to look in upon anybody in London whose name chanced to attract her attention. Oddly enough, she was received in any house she chose to honor in London, English exclusiveness giving way before the eccentricities of the extraordinary little novelist. -Blakely Hall in Frank Leslie's Weekly.

She

RELIGION AND DOCTRINE.

He stood before the Sanhedrim ;
The scowling rabbis gazed at him.
He recked not of their praise or blame;
There was no fear, there was no shame,
For one upon whose dazzled eyes
The whole world poured its vast surprise.
The open heaven was far too near,
His first day's light too sweet and clear,
To let him waste his new-gained ken
On the hate-clouded face of men.

But still they questioned, Who art thou?
What hast thou been? What art thou now?
Thou art not he who yesterday
Sat here and begged beside the way;
For he was blind.

-And I am he;
For I was blind, but now I see.
He told the story o'er and o'er;
It was his full heart's only lore:
A prophet on the Sabbath day
Had touched his sightless eyes with clay,
And made him see who had been blind.
Their words passed by him like the wind,
Which raves and howls, but cannot shock
The hundred-fathom rooted rock.
Their threats and fury all went wide;
They could not touch his Hebrew pride.
Their sneers at Jesus and His band,
Nameless and homeless in the land,
Their boasts of Moses and his Lord,
All could not change him by one word.
I know not what this man may be,
Sinner or saint; but as for me,
One thing I know-that I am he
Who once was blind, and now I see.
They were all doctors of renown,
The great men of a famous town,
With deep brows, wrinkled, broad, and wise,
Beneath their wide phylacteries;
The wisdom of the East was theirs,
And honor crowned their silver hairs.
The man they jeered and laughed to scorn
Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born;
But he knew better far than they
What came to him that Sabbath day;
And what the Christ had done for him
He knew, and not the Sanhedrim.

(Houghton, M. $1.25.)-From Hay's “Poems.

JUST PUBLISHED:

Xenia Repnina:

A STORY OF THE RUSSIA OF TO-DAY.
By B. MacGahan.

With an introduction by VASSILI VERESTCHAGIN. 12mo, paper, 50 cents.

A brilliant and varied series of pictures of modern life in the great Slavonic empire, written by the widow of J. A. MCGAHAN, the famous war correspondent, whose notable work in the last Eastern conflict is still fresh in the memory of American readers: the introduction by the Russian artist whose paintings attracted so much attention when recently exhibited in New York and the West.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,

27 and 29 West 23d St., N. Y.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS: Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England. By W. CLARK RUSSELL, author of The Wreck of the Grosvenor," The Life of William Dampier, etc., with the collaboration of Wm. H. Jaques, late U. S. N. 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth extra, $1.50; half mor., uncut edges, gilt top, $1.75; large paper (only 250 numbered copies printed, with extra illustrations), $3.50. The "Nelson" forms the initial volume of the new series," Heroes of the Nations," which is under the editorial supervision of Evelyn Abbott, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.

Curiously enough, no one of the previous biographers of Nelson had any personal knowledge of the sea, and Southey, whose memoir has shown the most enduring popularity of all, was probably entirely ignorant of nautical matters.

Mr. Russell's narrative, on the other hand, while carefully studied as to the facts and the history, is as breezy and as briny and as full of stirring incidents and dramatic situations as any of the best of his stories.

"No romance could possess a deeper interest, and certainly none could reveal a more thorough mastery of material, or an imagination more entirely coöperating with the purpose and knowledge of the writer. The story is told with a spirit and an impulse which carry the reader along from page to page without pause or break to the very end."-Christian Union.

STORY Of the NATIONS. XXVIII.-The Story of Russia. By W. R. MORFILL, of Oriel College, Oxford. Very fully illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.

"Mr. Morfill has some eminent qualifications for the task he has undertaken-a thorough knowledge of Slavonic languages and literatures, a sufficient training in critical methods, and an interest in current European politics which is active and yet not biassed by party parcredit to his industry and care, for it evidently represents He has produced a book which does tisanship. a minute and intelligent study of the most recent native writers, as well as considerable acquaintance with the old chronicles."-Speaker, London.

XXVII.-The Story of the Barbary Corsairs. By STANLEY-LANE POOLE, author of "The Story of Turkey," "The Moors in Spain," etc. With the collaboration of Lieut. J. D. Jerrold Kelley, U. S. Navy. 12mo, illustrated, $1.50.

"He has produced a volume at once creditable to his literary sense and his historical knowledge, and at the same time of absorbing interest and value to any reader who will take it up."-N. Y. Times.

The Garden as Considered in Literature by Certain Polite Writers. With a critical essay by WALTER HOWE. With portrait of William Kent. (No. XXVI. in the Knickerbocker Nugget Series.) $1.00. "A book that will especially delight all who are fond of gardens and gardening, and who take a certain pleasure in enjoying nature when treated by man as a work of art."-Boston Home Journal.

Liberty and a Living. How to get Bread and Butter, Sunshine and Health, Leisure and Books, without Slaving Away One's Life. By P. G. HUBERT, JR. 16mo, cloth, with frontispiece, $1.00.

"It well presents the attractions and compensations of unconventional living, the unsatisfactoriness of many imagined social necessities, and furnishes a picture of living on next to nothing a year which cannot fail to attract lovers of nature and liberty."—Christian Intelligencer. Modern Horsemanship. A New Method of Teaching Riding and Training, by Means of Pictures from Life. By EDWARD L. ANDERSON. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged, with forty photogravure plates, $5.50.

The rules and directions are so plainly stated and are so admirably illustrated by photographs from life that an intelligent reader will have no difficulty in putting them into practice."-N. Y. Tribune.

A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees. By EDWIN ASA DIX, M. A., ex-Fellow in History of the College of New Jersey. 12mo, cloth extra, illustrated, gilt top, rough edges, $1.75.

"Seldom does a book of travel come to our table which is so much like a trip itself as this one is. Upon closing the last leaf we feel as if we had been with the writer."Public Opinion.

*** List of spring publications and prospectus of the Heroes Series sent on application.

wholly irresponsible and usually in league with the poachers. The French Canadian guides and fishermen have often been described, but there is an attractiveness about their picturesque out-door existence which always appeals to the artistic wanderer. Mr. Samuels' anecdotes about his guides show such a sympathetic insight into the character of these simple folk that his book would be worth reading on that account if for nothing else.

There is a fund of information in the book relative to the different kinds of bait that will be useful to those beginning to take an interest in the sport. Many old fishermen do not think it is possible to catch salmon with a rod and line by moonlight, but Mr. Samuels says that he once caught three fair-sized salmon on a very clear night in a pool along the Miramichi. The French Canadian guides after a bad day's sport often manage to secure by moonlight a few large salmon trout and sea trout for breakfast. They do not use a fly, but generally bait the hook with a piece of white rag, which they say is the most deadly kind of bait in salmon fishing.

The book is illustrated from photographs taken by the author and would be a handy vade mecum for a fishing excursion. (Forest and Stream Pub. Co. $5.)-N. Y. Tribune.

MEN AND DOGS IN VENICE. AND meantime the Queen of the Adriatic, that "pleasant place of all festivity, the revel of the earth, the masque of Italy," as Byron sang, is beyond all comparison the poorest of the great historical cities of Italy. But its population is very far from being the most discontented, or to all outward seeming the least happy. We have heard much of the misery of large masses of the population at Naples. And I suppose that depths and cesspools of physical and moral destitution may be found at Naples, which have no parallel at Venice. But the whole scale of living in the latter city seems to me to indicate a greater degree of universal poverty. The Neapolitan eats macaroni and grows fat. One never sees a fat Venetian! It is extraordinary on how small a quantity of nutriment a Venetian will live, and work. You see huge pumpkins, some eighteen inches in diameter, cut in half and baked, and offered for sale in slices at the street corners. A poorer description of food for human beings it would be difficult to imagine. I should think not an ounce of wholesome nutriment could be extracted from a hundredweight of it. But how often have I seen a hard-working gondolier making his midday meal off a lump of this worthless stuff and a piteously small modicum of bread!

And they are withal perhaps the most placidly cheerful populace in Italy. I have spent many an hour strolling on the broad pavement of the

Riva degli Schiavoni, finding endless amusement in observing the groups collected at the piers and landing-places, the half-naked children at play on the sun-baked flags, the crowds collected round some itinerant mountebank, or singer chanting some well-known stave before the entrance of a café, very humbly awaiting the chance of a halfpenny.

Dogs, too, were abundant. How do they live. where food for human beings is so far from being sufficient? Certainly they were invariably as thin as the human population, and seemed as well inclined to be peaceful and in charity with all men

and dogs. I remember the absolute refusal of a poor, thin, but dignified Pantaloon sort of dog to engage in any hostilities with another evidently inferior to him in strength, despite all the endeavors of a knot of urchins to bring about the delightful excitement of a battle. It was of no

GORILLAS AND DWARFS.

STANLEY'S rediscovery of the dwarfs of Central Africa has kindled anew the interest in that subject, so that Paul du Chaillu's book, " Adventures in the Great Forest of Equatorial Africa and the Country of the Dwarfs," just reissued by the Harpers, comes out at a particularly opportune time. Du Chaillu's works on Central Africa were originally published in eight volumes, and the present small one gives the substance of these in the view of the explorations made since those of M. du Chaillu. The present work is lavishly illustrated and is provided with the necessary maps. Du Chaillu made two voyages to Africa for the purpose of exploration, the first expedition covering the years 1855-1859, and the second 1863-1865. He was the first European to penetrate into that remarkable forest district of the African interior lying to the north and south of the equator, which is broken here and there by prairie tracts. M. du Chaillu's tales of the dwarfs were more than doubted at the time of the publication of his books, and now that Stanley has met with a race of African pigmies, there will be much interest in a comparison of the accounts given of them by both travellers. Equatorial Africa" devotes especial attention to M. du Chaillu's investigation into the habits of the gorilla and the curious species of apes, and many of the illustrations of the book are from the specimens he brought home. M. du Chaillu has the faculty of making all he says interesting and his works have a charm that reminds the reader of the thrill with which "Robinson Crusoe" was first read in boyhood's days. (Harper. $1.75.)-Boston Traveller.