they learned so much that was aside from their daily experiences that they soon forgot most which did come within them. At any rate, in point of fact, they hardly know a red squirrel from A SOLDIER OF THE EMPIRE. THE recollections of Captain Coignet, perfectly authenticated, come to us like a voice from those mighty masses who under Napoleon made Europe tremble almost a hundred years ago. It is the 1ecord of the daily doings of a private soldier who fought in many great campaigns. The style is marked by quaint frankness and naïveté, an honest boastfulness thoroughly Gallic and a keen sense of the picturesque value of truth. Nothing like these memoirs has ever been published. They are original, shrewd, clever, and they make the Napoleonic days live again. Captain Coignet begins with his earliest youth, and tells of his unhappy home life and how at last, goaded to desperation, he runs away. His capacity is early shown, and especially his skill in the management of horses. In the days of the Greeks he would have been a chariot driver for Achilles or Agamemnon, and called by Homer by some long and euphonic epithet. His first public work was in selecting and training steeds for the French officers. He quickly became a favorite, and when at last he was made a conscript soldier he would have quickly won rank by his desperate gallantry, could he have been able to read and write. These accomplishments he acquires in time, as is shown by the "The Narrative of Captain Coignet." (Copyright, 1890, by T. Y. Crowell, a chipmunk, a robin from a cat-bird, or a pignut hickory from a mountain ash. We have for a long time felt that no books could meet a warmer public welcome than practical manuals intended to dispel this crass ignorance, by the aid of which fairly observing eyes and fairly apprehending brains might be easily introduced to some better acquaintance with these natural objects which enter so largely into the perception of their daily lives. Mr. Charles S. Newhall seems to have apprehended exactly this call for light, and his The Trees of Northeastern America" has been prepared to meet the existing need in one department, and we are pleased to see that he has in preparation a volume to do the same service in the division of shrubs. Mr. Newhall's method is in the briefest way to describe a given tree in respect to leaves, outline, flowers, fruit and locality, and to accompany such description with figured outlines of leaf and fruit, so that, between the two, it is made easy for the otserver of ordinary intelligence to decide at once what tree is described. Too much praise can hardly be given to the neatness, beauty and fitness of letterpress and illustrations-the latter from original sketches From "The Narrative of Captain Coignet." (Copyright, 1890, by T. Y. Crowell.). by the author. It will be un derstood, of course, that the volume does not include fruit trees properly so called, from the standpoint of the farm and garden. (Putnam. $2.50.)-Congregationalist. page of his cahier or note-book reproduced at the end. The handsome volume is adorned with capital full-page and vignette illustrations by J. Le Blant. (Crowell. $2.50.) THE BIBLIOMANIAC'S PRAYER. KEEP me, I pray, in wisdom's way, That I may truths eternal seek; My purse is light, my flesh is weak; All baleful appetites and hints Of first editions, and of prints. But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee I humbly ask that I may be Most notably beset to-day. Which I shall purchase, hold and keep, They'll wail to know I got it cheap. As in rare copperplates abounds!— O THOU, MY AUSTRIA ! FEW German novelists command the swift easy movement, the humorous touch, or the charm of Ossip Schubin, whose work Mrs. Wister has chosen for her last translation. The book is badly named, the sole object of the title being apparently to indicate the nationality of the characters. The scene of the story is laid in Bohemia, which division belongs, of course, to the Austrian Empire. The native language of the Bohemians, like that of the Poles, is Slavonic, which accounts for the Russian-looking names of the personages, the families and the places in the book. The heroine, Zdena, is a bright, charming little creature who writes down the story of her brief life with a frankness which reminds the reader of Marie Bashkirtseff's early confessions. This autobiography falls under the eyes of Zdena's uncle and guardian, and is made the basis of the story upon which the pretty superstructure of the young lady's latter experiences is reared. If the plot is rather conventional, it is at least treated with freshness and much sprightliness. . . . The talk is often amusing, and shows that Austrians are in touch with Americans, at least on the subject of Wagner, and that the war between Wagnerites and anti-Wagnerites is waged as ardently in Bohemia as in New York. There is more than one humorous scene where the battle rages. The Wagnerites, it must be confessed, know how to silence opposition. They are all ardent musicians, and love to play from morning until night, startling their jaded listeners from time to time with shouts which rise above the din of the instruments-"The Balsam Motif !" "Motif of the Redeemer's Sufferings!""Earthly Enjoyment Motif !"-in a way which recalls Mr. Walter Damrosch's air of enjoyment while on the tripod engaged in elucidating the mysteries of his favorite high priest. Mrs. Wister's translations are always so popular that it is hardly necessary to call attention to them, but "O Thou, my Austria!" will be pronounced, we fancy, by most readers to be the freshest and most unhackneyed which she has offered the public since "The Little Moorland Princess." (Lippincott. $1.25.)—The American. ASCUTNEY STREET. A NEW novel by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney is always welcome, and her latest one," Ascutney Street: A Neighborhood Story," will enhance her fame as a painter of every-day life among people who have neither poverty nor riches, but who have some claims to gentility and refinement. The heroine is a seamstress who had been obliged to give up school-teaching on account of delicate health. She meets her fate in a young doctor who had rendered her a slight service on a railroad train, and is eventually elevated to a social position which she is eminently well fitted to adorn. This is an outline of the plot, but the chief interest in the tale centres on the people who live on Ascutney Street, and the devices they employ to keep up an appearance of style while they are, in many cases, doing their own household work without the aid of a servant, They snub a new neighbor who does not fall in with their way of doing things, and are punished for their shortsightedness when they discover that she occupies a far more distinguished place in society than they do themselves. The narrative abounds in happy humorous touches, and the style is graceful and aphoristic, after the author's usual manner. The characters are well individualized, but the two children who figure in the book are a shade too precocious, though they have been undoubtedly studied from nature. Altogether it is a very genial satire on a phase of existence in quiet suburban neighborhoods with which we are all more or less familiar, and will be one of the popular books of the season. (Houghton, M. $1.50.)-Boston Gazette. ZOE. THE literary touch of " Miss Toosey," as in her persistent anonymity the reading world has come to know the author of that exquisite little story, has lost none of its cunning. Every fresh tale from her pen is a charming bit of a genre picture-vivid, defined, complete. The ivied tranquillity, the homely humor, the simple interest of English village life, are interpreted by her with a delicate sympathy which recalls Miss Mitford and Mrs. Ewing, and such choice few of our Its literary well-beloved. Her latest sketch-for it is scarcely more, being but the history of an episode, and not a story of continuing events, like "Lil" or " Pen "-has, with all its delightful simplicity, something more of a dramatic quality than belongs to most of her work. ending, which the shrewdest will only partly guess as the,tale moves on, comes with an agreeable little thrill of surprise. When the surprise is over, and the fact realized, we find that we have been learning, all unconsciously, a very subtle and profound and wise little lesson of something the same sort that Mr. Besant so trenchantly insists upon in "Children of Gibeon." While learning it, we have been continuously and deliciously amused. Hardy himself could hardly surpass the touches of quaint, intensely rustic humor with which the pages abound; the scene of the christening of waif Zoe, for instance, might almost have been transferred bodily from his pages, but for what one may call the femininity of its sympathy. (Roberts. 60 c.)-Boston Transcript. A NEW WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY. NEARLY half a century ago the Merriam brothers (George and Charles), of Springfield, Mass, took up and carried forward the great work of Noah Webster. The son-in-law of Dr. Webster, Professor Chauncey A. Goodrich, who had previously superintended the preparation of an abridged edition of the original two quarto volumes, was entrusted with the work of revising and enlarging the last edition, issued three years before Dr. Webster's death-that is, in 1840-and the result was the publication, in 1847, of the first Unabridged Edition of Webster's Dictionary issued in one quarto volume. The work was the marvel of bookmaking in its day, as well as of cheapness-Webster's Dictionary having before that sold at $15 to $20, while this was issued at $6-and was received with general favor. While every subsequent issue came forth with some improvement, it was not until 1864 that the enterprising firm of G. & C. Merriam & Co. (which in the meantime had grown, as well as their book) put forth a dictionary in which the more scientific principles of modern lexicography were applied, and a large store of additional matter, partly gleaned from old authorities and partly afforded by the world's advance, was included. Since that time supplements of new words and other material of substantial value have been added, greatly increasing the usefulness of the work. This is now about to be superseded by a work which will embody substantially the amplification and enrichment of the language during the past quarter of a century, as it has been noted by a wide and close scrutiny, and registered by scientific methods, with scholarly conscientiousness and vast labor. This new work is entitled "Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language." It was considered pertinent in making the modification of the original title by omitting the old form, An American Dictionary," to recognize the fact that the language of the mother country now encircles the globe; that the literature of all of its branches is the common possession of all, and that any complete dictionary of this language must be so comprehensive in its scope, and at the same time so true to those canons of the best usage which are everywhere acknowledged, that it shall be serviceable to the inhabitants of Great Britain, of the United States, of Canada, of Australia and to the English-speaking population of India and of Africa. Though retaining in general the features of the former issues, "Webster's International Dictionary' " is essentially a new book. For ten years tion with a large corps of experts and scholars, Prof. Noah Porter, of Yale College, in collaborahas been busy in compiling and preparing the material for this book. A close comparison has been made with a whole library of the most recent authoritative works (aggregating two thousand authors) in philology and in all branches of knowledge that include new usages of speech. Upon technical subjects eminent specialists have been employed, and their contributions have been carefully harmonized in form with the general principles of the revision. Great care has been devoted to the pictorial illustrations; the number has been increased from three thousand to nearly four thousand, and about two-thirds of them are entirely new. There have been eliminations of many errors, large amplification and enriching by new material, and a judicious conservatism toward those excellent definitions of standard words which were Dr. Webster's especial merit. Some increase of the amount of matter in the book was inevitable; it is partly represented by the slightly enlarged page and the greater number of pages. But increase of size, the publishers assert, has not been sought; and the difference in bulk between the forthcoming volume and its predecessor hardly begins to measure the difference in value. A comparison of the two in any part, page by page, will reveal how frequent are the changes and how great is the improvement, better than can be done by an article of so restricted scope as the present. As a comprehensive popular dictionary we are confident that "Webster's International" is worthy to retain that pre-eminence which has so long been held by Webster's Unabridged." It retains that excellence in definitions which has made Webster's one of the popular and familiar authorities for refererce. In etymology, pronunciation, citation, pictorial illustrations, it carries to greater perfection the merits of its predecessor. It adequately represents the vast and various advances in all the departments of thought and knowledge in recent years. With what liberal expenditure of time and toil and money this duty to scholarship and to the public has been performed, partly appears in the following statements made by the publishers: "Work having direct specific reference to the publication of this Dictionary has been in progress for over ten years. "Not less than one hundred paid editorial laborers have been engaged upon it. Besides these, a large number of interested scholars have freely contributed in important ways to its completeness and value. "Within the ten years that the work has been in progress, and before the first copy was printed, more than three hundred thousand dollars was expended in editing, illustrating, typesetting, and electrotyping." Curiously enough, this figure represents about the sum the Merriams have paid up to the present time to the heirs of the founder of this magnificent work. (Merriam. $10.) The Literary News. EDITED BY A. H. LEYPOLDT. NOVEMBER, 1890. READING AT HOME. THE cold winds of November drive us to the snug fireside. The central table, with its books and student's lamp, is invested with a new and special interest which it lacked during the summer heats. Nature no longer wooes us to mental laziness, and many plans and schemes of pleasant intellectual activity for the long winter evenings are in order. One of the most popular plans at present is to join a reading-class or a reading-circle in one's church or Sunday-school or among one's friends. That reading-circles have their uses we do not deny. Even to know that Shakespeare once lived is a great step in advance. The young girl or young man who learns this only and nothing more has certainly progressed beyond the young girl or young man who never heard of Shakespeare-and this curiosity does exist, much as our cultured readers may doubt it. But it is not this cramming of facts for a certain evening-facts that are forgotten as readily as they are committed to memory-which creates a real or a deep love for books or literature. The trouble is, with the larger number of these reading-classes, that they try to do too much in a limited time. Think of getting through Browning or Edgar Poe or Charles Lamb at a single sitting, as we knew of a church circle doing last winter! If the entire winter had been devoted to the complexities and beauties of one of the three of these great writers much would still have remained unexplored and unexplained. Necessarily, too, the interest in many of the members must be artificial, for tastes vary, in reading, according to character. We would suggest in cases where reading-circles have not proved all that was hoped for them, that lines of reading be marked out to be pursued at home during the winter months. Do not be afraid of your individuality or your preferences. Do not let the superior young woman who has read everything, and who is devoting her leisure moments to dissecting Ibsen and Tolstoi, crush your modest aims and aspirations. In the first place select a book you want to read; not one that a friend thinks will improve you, or thinks that you ought to read. Live out yourself. Mankind is made up of all shades of intelligence, and it is not possible for us to be alike, no matter how hard we may try. To struggle continually to be something or to seem something you are not is deteriorating and discouraging. It is not etc. only wearisome but unprofitable to forever feel obliged to join at all times in the chorus of adoration for Browning, when it is not only a task to read a page from him, but you would much rather be reading Rudyard Kipling's last story. If your taste inclines to novel-reading, there should be no hesitancy in indulging it. It is full of profit when judiciously pursued. One small volume from Rudyard Kipling will leave with you a most graphic picture of AngloIndian life and customs. Few novels from our best novelists but give information of other peoples and other countries. Begin with some one book to which you specially lean. Read it leisurely, and discuss it in the home circle. You will be surprised, in a little while, what a strong interest will spring up around the epoch of which the author treats. You will be led to consult other books – biographies, histories, poems, - in pursuit of many thoughts or suggestions springing from your talks or your reading. Thus you will gradually and unconsciously advance to better literature. The best of this plan is, that you will remember all you have read, because it has been acquired as a pleasure, not as a task. The classified catalogue noticed under "Reading for the Young" will materially help any inexperienced reader. One need not be so very young, either, to enjoy its good things. Eighteen, even with a decade added, will find much that can be read with profit and amusement. Its sub classifications under countries and epochs make it especially helpful in courses of reading at home. In addition to this, we would strongly recommend a catalogue recently compiled on a new plan by W. H. Griswold, entitled "A Descriptive List of Novels and Tales Dealing with American Country Life." (W. M. Griswold, pap. 50 c.) It gives the names of many American novels of sterling merit, published within a few years and now almost forgotten in the avalanche of light literature projected upon us every day, but which are well worth buying and reading and remembering. From any one of them a valuable knowledge may be obtained of our country or its history, or its social life at different periods. It is a richly annotated catalogue; excerpts from leading critical papers giving the plot and motive. Mr. Griswold promises other lists describing fiction dealing with American city life, and lists of “international" and "romantic" novels. This is a line of work in a field so useful and attractive that we hope to see it fully appreciated. "A Synopsis of English and American Literature," by G. J. Smith (Ginn, $1.20), though prepared for teachers and students, is so rich in information condensed into narrow limits, that we make space here to mention it. It is an excellent starting-point from which even to read novels. READING FOR THE YOUNG. THERE is nothing more important in the early training of the minds and hearts of our young people than the kind and quality of the literature they read. Few things require more attention and few receive less. In a majority of homes, even of careful, religious people, the children read almost anything they find at hand or choose to select from the public library. Little restraint is placed upon their liberty in this respect at any age. The fact that they are absorbed in a bookbe it what it may-seems to be taken as sufficient evidence that their time is not being passed unprofitably. And yet how often it is just the reverse! We have seen a bright, clever boy, whose scientific father had never read a novel, peruse one of the worst specimens of the modern school of fiction under the parental eye. The father, glad to see his boy under the spell of a book, failed to look within the covers. If he had had time to peep over his son's shoulder he would have been appalled at the vista of vice and passion that was being opened up to his innocent mind. And we knew a precocious little girl of twelve years who had read "Vanity Fair" through twice, to the great admiration of her busy mother, a most admirable housekeeper, who had heard of Thackeray but had never had time to make his acquaintance, though his works had rested for years upon her handsome book-shelves. Think of the unsullied page of that little girl's heart being stamped with the image of "Becky Sharp"! It is true in many homes the buying and select ing of books for the young folks is a labor of love-both the pleasure and profit of the reader being equally considered in the task. But it is also true that in many homes even of cultured people, the reading of the young people is not only undirected but it is so unrestrained that the mischief it works in minds and morals and characters can scarcely be estimated. 44 To parents and guardians too busy to do all they would like to do in this respect, we have a most excellent helper to suggest in an admirably selected list of books called Reading for the Young," compiled by John F. Sargent, and prepared for publication by his daughters, Mary E. and Abby L. Sargent, and issued by the American Library Assoc. ($1.; pap., 75 c.). It is a most careful and attractive guide. The natural tastes of readers from eighteen years down, have been thoroughly studied. And while a wide field has been covered in serious reading as well as in light reading, all is fresh and delightful. No didactic works, or dry-as-dust scientific treatises or sectarian or denominational books repel the young seeker after entertainment. Even information is offered him in the most attractive guise. The books are first classified under general headings, such as Manners and Morals, Religious subjects, Social and Political, Language, Natural Sciences, Useful arts, Fine and Recreative arts, Literature, Historical Fiction, History, Travel and Biography. Under these are specific headings by subjects, countries, periods, etc. A most valuable and useful feature is the annotations found under almost all the titles, explaining clearly though briefly the aim and object of the book. Following, or rather closing, each classification are lists of papers on kindred topics for young people who are writing compositions and seeking new material, with directions for finding them in the various journals published for young readers. A ready key to the classifications is a full author's index. The letters a, b, c, in parentheses have been attached to most of the titles, to show in a general way to what class of young readers they are best adapted—(a) designating works suitable for youth from twelve to eighteen, (b), those for children from eight to twelve, and (c), those for the youngest readers. The books in that excellent manual of Miss Hewins' " Books for the Young "-now out of print, but first published from the office of the PUBLISHER's Weekly-have been included by permission. The catalogue is one not only for parents to use, but for the children themselves. They will readily learn to consult it, and may use it in connection with any library of which they are a member. There is not a book in it that they may not safely read. In this same line is the "Catalogue of Books for Sunday-school Libraries," recommended by the Ladies' Committee on Sunday-school Books of the Unitarian Association. The catalogue includes books for young people published from 1885 down to and inclusive of 1890. Prices and publishers are given, and brief notes of the character of the book. The selection is free from religious bias, and embraces the best — both from a moral and literary standpoint of recent juvenile literature. All grades of young readers have been considered, and there are biographies, histories, natural and physical science books, as well as stories. To illustrate the care with which the books are selected, we mention the fact that out of 247 books examined during the present year only 65 were approved. The greater a book is, the more familiar it is. We do not stop to weigh its affirmations and conclusions; we have always known them to be true. A chapter of scientific investigation, a page in a mere book of information will challenge our criticism and arouse our antagonism, but a book of power-a book which records the dropping of the lead into some fathomless pool of consciousness-commands our assent at once; it simply expresses what we have always known.From "My Study Fire," by Hamilton Wright Mabie. |