and I venture to recommend to you his Sartor Resartus.' I dare say a barrister of your acquaintance has it. His soul is a shrine of the brightest and purest philanthropy, kindled by the live coal of gratitude and devotion to the Author of all things. I should observe that he is not orthodox.'

John Fiske, in his paper in the January Atlantic on the late E. A. Freeman, says that he was very domestic in his habits. 'When not travelling," says Mr. Fiske, "he was to be found in his country home, writing in his own library. When he was in the United States it amused him to see people's surprise when told that he did not live in a city, and did not spend his time deciphering musty manuscripts in public libraries or archives. He used to say that, even in point of economy, he thought it better to dwell among pleasant green fields and consult one's own

books than to take long journeys or be stifled in dirty cities in order to consult other people's books."

Oscar Fay Adams sends to the Boston Evening Transcript a description of a visit to Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, now sixty-seven years old, who lives at Otterbourne, a few miles from Winchester. "In early life," says Mr. Adams,

she must have been rather plain-looking, but now, with her bright, dark eyes and crown of snowy white hair, she is undeniably handsome. She is somewhat stout, but not too much so for her height, which is considerably above the medium, and her appearance indicates abundant life and vigor." She does her work in a combined drawing-room and library on the second floor. At the south end of the room is the fireplace, and near a window looking out upon a stretch of turf surrounded by hedges, with flower

T

HE ninth volume of Professor Henry Morley's English Writers, dealing with Spenser and his contemporaries, is open to the same criticism that some of the earlier volumes have called out, of failing to give coherency and form to the story of the gradual development of English literature. The author is right upon the threshold of the most brilliant period in English letters. The foundations were being laid for the splendid structure which the imagination of Shakespeare was to raise. And yet one can read Professor Morley's book with scarcely an intimation of the tremendous intellectual forces that were at work and that were

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to culminate in King Lear," "As You Like It" and "Julius Cæsar." True, something is said of the adventurous spirit of the age, and of the new light that was breaking upon English scholarship and more especially upon the nonclassical public by the translations from the great poems and prose works of the Greeks and Romans, and by Italian and French influences. But, instead of emphasizing the development of the large lines of his subject, Professor Morley loses himself in a multiplicity of detail regarding the lives and works of the secondary and even lesser personages of the literature of the time. Spenser appears from time to time in the narrative; full abstracts of his poems are given; the ethical motive of his Faerie Queene," with its elaborate and intricate allegorical significance, is fully explained. But a broader view, a firmer grasp of the subject and a larger method of treatment are needed to lift the work to the plane of a history of English literature. [Cassell, 12m0, $1.50.]

In The Campaign of Waterloo, a Military History, by John Codman Ropes, the author brings to his subject not only the authority of a recognized and distinguished critic of military affairs in general, but the special knowledge acquired by many years of enthusiastic study of Napoleon and Napoleonic literature. There have been many volumes written upon the closing campaign of the greatest soldier of modern times, but nearly all of these heretofore published have been marred either by their strongly partisan character or by the necessary inadequacy of judgments founded upon incomplete and unavailable data. The discussions that have already appeared have, however, been fruitful means of bringing out nearly all of the obscure and seemingly inextricably involved facts, and it has been Mr. Ropes's purpose so carefully to analyze and sift the conflicting evidence that the result may

be an impartial and as nearly as possible a scientific and final summary of the many causes, personal and strategical, that led to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Military students will find special value in the judicial and exhaustive notes that follow the chapters of narrative. These discuss the questions of policy involved, compare and digest the opinions of the conflicting authorities and discuss in detail the distinctly military side of the subject. The general reader who does not care for the technical aspects can read the chapters without stopping to go into the formal consideration of the art of war. Mr. Ropes has brought out important new facts upon a number of questions, and some of his conclusions will undoubtedly arouse warm debate. Maps of the theatre of war in Belgium and one of the field of Waterloo are inserted in the book, which has also a full, analytical index, carefully and accurately prepared and excellently arranged. [Scribners, 8vo, $2.50 net.}

For those students who wish to follow the campaign in detail an Atlas has been prepared which contains a general map of the whole theatre of war, eleven maps of Belgium, showing the varying position of the three armies during the campaign, and topographical maps of the field of Waterloo. [Scribners, 4to, $5.00 net.]

Ernest Lavisse, Professor at the Sorbonne, Paris, and recently elected a member of the French Academy, is the author of a book which has just been translated, relating to The Youth of Frederick the Great. M. Lavisse has made a very entertaining volume, giving detailed portraits not only of the Crown Prince, but of his tyrannical father, the king, of his intriguing mother, and of his ambitious, unhappy sister Wilhelmina, whose Memoirs" throw such a flood of light upon this extraordinary family and their relations to each other. M. Lavisse does not approach his subject in the spirit of a heroworshipper. He records young Frederick's vices and faults with the same frankness that he does his virtues, finding in the temperament and character of the son as well as in those of the king ample reasons for the bitter strife between the two. The young Crown Prince's character is searchingly analyzed and portrayed. According to M. Lavisse he was intellectual; religious beliefs made no impression upon his soul; he had no kind of morality; he plotted with his father's enemies; he had no generosity; with the most crafty he played a finer rôle, he was more deceitful than any of them. Not a flattering picture, but one that is well borne out by the evidence that the author adduces. Another volume continuing the inter

From "John Wyclit."

G. P. Putnam's Sons.

clif," says Mr. Sergeant, "stood at the parting of the ways which led from the Middle Ages to the revival of learning and letters. He was himself the main connecting link between the intellectual hardihood of the Schoolmen and the definite revolt of the Teutonic world from Rome." As such, and in view of what he accomplished, he is well worthy of a place in this list of popular biographies of the world's heroes. The volume has numerous portraits of Wyclif and his contemporaries, with views. [Putnams, 8vo, $1.50.]

General O. O. Howard's life of General Zachary Taylor, the second volume in the Great Commanders Series, is primarily a review of his military and political career. It is natural, of course, that his brilliant Mexican campaign should appeal with uncommon force to a soldierbiographer like General Howard, whose appreciation of his strategic ability is keen. The portrait, however, of the man himself is rather shadowy and

John Wyclif (1320-1384), "last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers," is the subject of a new volume by Lewis Sergeant in the Heroes of the Nations Series. After supplying a background in the early chapters by describing the disturbed condition of religious thought in Europe and in England when Wyclif came on the stage as the uncompromising champion of Oxford and of Parliament against the demands of the Papal power, Mr. Sergeant narrates the events of Wyclif's life, glancing only at his scholastic and controversial writings, but dwelling upon his character as a man and his achievements as an evangelist. A doctor and professor of theology, a mas.er of Balliol, a brilliant lecturer and preacher, a King's chaplain and a trusted adviser of Parliament, Wyclif was a man who exerted a great influence upon his age. "Wy

the reader of this account of General Taylor's achievements to make his own inferences as to the character of the man. General Howard's style is simple, terse and clear, as befits the narrative of a soldier, giving an excellent picture of the part which General Taylor played in the history of his country in the first half of the present century, and placing in its true light the value of his services to his country. A portrait and the plans of several battle-fields a found in the volume. [Appleton, 12mo, $1.50.]

are

Twelve handsome full-page photogravures, made by Franz Hanfstaengl, of Munich, are used to illustrate a new edition of Abbeys, Castles and Ancient Halls of England and Wales, by John Timbs and Alexander Gunn. The method of the authors is to give a popular historical sketch, with legendary, biographical and archæological details, of each of these ancient piles. [Warne, 3 vols., 8vo, $7.50.]