and brute strength; the cattle, having drunk their fill, found their way somehow, singly, then in pairs, dozens, hundreds, up the other bank, and spread out upon the downs.

The book is not wholly excellent; it lapses somewhat from the extraordinary promise of the opening. The title, Fate the Fiddler, is scarcely satisfactory, and the theme partakes of this unsatisfactoriness. The fact is, Mr. MacIlwaine's Fate fiddles too random a tune. The plot lacks unity, precision, and cumulative power. There is no inevitable march of event, but rather a zigzag progress of happenings towards a final justice which is slightly too Somers The character-drawing is uneven. "poetical." is good-a man seen and felt to the inmost; but Colyer is manipulated in such a way as to startle and confuse the reader. There is a good deal of Australian finance in the story, and these scenes with bankers and wirepullers have not the authenticity, the absolute rightness, of the Bush chapters. Lastly, Mr. MacIlwaine's style, though it shows many admirable qualities, and has indeed the essentials of a fine style, is frequently cumbrous and turgid. But make no mistake-this is a book.

BY CARYL DAVIS HASKINS.

This story, by the Chevalier of the Busy Pen, is adorned with a list of "works by the same author," classified as History and Biography, Science, Fiction, and Miscellaneous. This is the fifth excursion into fiction, and it is an attempt to realise what were the conditions of living in this country before its people had become so busy, so well off, and, perhaps, so fond of ease, as they are now." The period chosen is that of the Crusades. (Blackwood. 68.) FOR THE QUEEN IN SOUTH AFRICA. Six stories of British fighting, mostly in South Africa, and mostly in some relation to public schools and sport. When Brooks led his men up a kopje he; houted: "" Play up close to the ball! On the ball!' wit his heart in football, with never a thought of battle, un The reached almost the top of the parapet, and strange faces looked down upon him-faces with deep-set lines, and blue-grey eyes looking along rifle barrels." (Putnams. 5s.) THE SPENDTHRIFT.

BY FRANCIS DODSWORTH.

The title is the book: we follow the fortunes of a spendthrift from his front - view portrait on the front cover to his back-view portrait on the back cover. Some blame is thrown on the spendthrift's parents: "Following out that curiously short-sighted policy which has been the making of our Colonial police, Devan's father and mother had always kept him as short as possible. 'You do not understand the value of money,' they used to tell him, whenever he protested." (Grant Richards. 6s.) PAUL THE OPTIMIST.

By W. P. DOTHIE.

A novel, somewhat of the Dickensian type, laid in that part of the century when people "went on pottering over their tinder and flint in the dark mornings, and snuffing their tallow candles in the dark evenings. . . . To the north of Paternoster-row, very near the Newgate-street end of Bluebell-lane, was the establishment of Twist Brothers, Clothiers. . . . In Twist's house the lad might become errand-boy, knife and window cleaner (a sinecure),

The fangs are the fangs of snakes. The Ryfields-an Anglo-Indian family-are continually being menaced by snakes, and Ryfield père has " a terrible suspicion . . . with regard to an ancestor having been the original cause of our many dangerous experiences with snakes. . . . 'I will certainly look over whatever papers I have that are at all likely to contain anything calculated to throw light upon the subject.'" The story is full of snakes, cobras, fakirs, and coolies, serpent-worshippers, and antidotes; and the mystery is cleared up. (Stock. 6s.)

An adventurer, a true lover, and a woman are found in smart society. We have the inevitable French phrases, "Mille compliments!" régimes, esclandre, distraite, en fête, and matinée. "My dear Farleigh," says the Duke of Elvaston, who stood in front of the fireplace with his hands behind the tails of his evening dress coat, "My dear Farleigh, if I had any wish to make another few hundred thousand pounds, and, mind you, I haven't, I should finance the rubber trade." (Digby, Long. 6s.)

This story, by the author of A Second Coming, is a story of the stage, of novelette merit. The heroine breaks down in an important part at the Soho Theatre, and we are treated to wild scenes in front of the curtain and behind it, until there suddenly enters to Ada her own true love, who has been mentioned only once before in the story. He wore a felt hat and cloak, and "his eyes were flaming fires." His only office was to stop the play-and the novel. Of course he "went out with the woman into the night "-she being still "attired in the stage costume of a Rhineland maiden of the olden time." (Long. 6s.) ONE OF MANY.

BY VERA MАСНА.

The heroine describes her " many " love affairs, in which she was invariably unfortunate. Twice she marries under our eyes, her second engagement being entered into just six hours before Frank Corbin declares his passion:

Too late by just six hours! Is love ever thus to curse and mock my heart?" (Digby, Long. 6s.)

As special correspondent he had seen two wars; he had been wrecked; he had written eleven books, two still in MS., and when he died last Wednesday his years did not number thirty. He was the type of the nervous, nimbleminded American, slight in figure, shy and kind in manner, speaking little, with a great power of work, a fine memory, and an imagination of astonishing psychological insight. Latterly his health had been bad, partly constitutional, and partly through malarial fever contracted in the Cuban campaign. The last two years of his life were spent in the old, huge, fascinating house in Sussex, Brede Place, which he made his home. There he lived, many miles from the nearest railway station, a quiet, domesticated life, welcoming his friends, and writing-always writing. He battled bravely against ill-health; but the disease gained ground, and a few weeks ago he was ordered to the Black Forest. It was a forlorn hope, and, although many days were given to the journey, he succumbed at the end to exhaustion.

The Red Badge of Courage was published when he was twenty-five. This study of the psychological side of war, of its effect on a private soldier, justly won for him immediate recognition. Critics of all schools united in praise of that remarkable book, and the more wonderful did the performance when it became known that he had appear never seen a battle, that the whole was evolved from his imagination, fed by a long and minute study of military history. It is said that when he returned from the Græco-Turkish war he remarked to a friend: "The Red Badge is all right." It was all right.

The same swift and unerring characterisation, the same keen vision into the springs of motives, the same vivid phrasing, marked George's Mother. Here, as in most of his other stories, and in all his episodes, the environment grows round the characters. He takes them at some period of emotional or physical stress, and, working from within outwards, with quick, firm touches, vivifies them into life. Nowhere is this more evident than in the short sketches and studies that were, probably, after The Red Badge of Courage, the real expression of his genius. His longer novels, though not wanting in passages that show him at his best, suggest that in time he would have returned to the earlier instinct that prompted him to work upon a small canvas.

As a writer he was very modern. He troubled himself little about style or literary art. But-rare gift he saw for himself, and, like Mr. Steevens, he knew in a flash just what was essential to bring the picture vividly to the reader. His books are full of images and similes that not only fulfil their purpose of the moment, but live in the memory afterwards. A super-refined literary taste might object to some of his phrases-to such a sentence as this, for example: "By the very last star of truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change seats in the dingey," to his colloquialisms, to the slang with which he peppers the talk of his men-but that was the man, who looked at things with his own eyes, and was unafraid of his prepossessions.

His gift of presenting the critical or dramatic moments in the lives of men and women was supreme. We could give a hundred examples, and though the sketch we take the liberty of quoting is not by any means the best of its kind, it is complete in itself, and shows how neat, how to the point, how sympathetic without being sentimental, his work was. It is called "A Detail," and is included in the volume of stories and sketches called The Open Boat (Heinemann), the title of that remarkable account of the escape of himself and three companions from the wreck of the steamer Commodore:

The tiny old lady in the black dress and curious little black bonnet had at first seemed alarmed at the sound made by her feet upon the stone pavements. But later she forgot about it, for she suddenly came into the tempest of the Sixth Avenue shopping district, where from the streams of people and vehicles went up a roar like that from headlong mountain torrents.

She seemed then like a chip that catches, recoils, turns and wheels, a reluctant thing in the clutch of the impetuous river. She hesitated, faltered, debated with herself. Frequently she seemed about to address people; then of a sudden she would evidently lose her courage. Meanwhile the torrent jostled her, swung her this and that way.

At last, however, she saw two young women gazing in at a shop-window. They were well-dressed girls; they wore gowns with enormous sleeves that made them look like full-rigged ships with all sails set. They seemed to have plenty of time; they leisurely scanned the goods iu the window. Other people had made the tiny old woman much afraid because obviously they were speeding to keep such tremendously important engagements. She went close to the girls and peered in at the same window. She watched them furtively for a time. Then finally she said: "Excuse me!"

The girls looked down at this old face with its two large eyes turned towards them.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where I can get any work?"

For an instant the two girls stared. Then they seemed about to exchange a smile, but, at the last moment, they checked it. The tiny old lady's eyes were upon them. She was quaintly serious, silently expectant. She made

one marvel that in that face the wrinkles showed no trace of experience, knowledge; they were simply little, soft, innocent creases. As for her glance, it had the trustfulness of ignorance and the candour of babyhood.

"I want to get something to do, because I need the money," she continued since, in their astonishment, they had not replied to her first question. "Of course I'm not strong and I couldn't do very much, but I can sew wel; and in a house where there was a good many men folks I could do all the mending. Do you know any place where they would like me to come?"

The young women did then exchange a smile, but it was a subtle, tender smile, the edge of personal grief.

Well, no, madame," hesitatingly said one of them at last; "I don't think I know anyone."

A shade passed over the tiny old lady's face, a shadow of the wing of disappointment.

"Don't you?" she said, with a little struggle to be brave in her voice.

Then the girl hastily continued: "But if you will give me your address, I may find someone, and if I do, I will surely let you know of it."

The tiny old lady dictated her address, bending over to watch the girl write on a visiting card with a little silver pencil. Then she said:

"I thank you very much." She bowed to them, smiling, and went on down the avenue.

As for the two girls, they walked to the curb and watched this aged figure, small and frail, in its black gown and curious black bonnet. At last the crowd, the innumerable wagons, intermingling and changing with uproar and riot, suddenly engulfed it.

This youth wandered much over the world in his brief, brilliant life. As we write, his last journey is beginning. He is being taken to his home in America.

Things Seen.

In a Toy-Shop.

I was in a toy-shop in Oxford-street, searching for a clockwork toy. Between the attractions of washerwomen, performing minstrels, and rickashaw men, I was getting rather perplexed and not a little bored when a small boy, with attendant nurse and sisters, came in. The boy knew what he wanted, and so I felt that I at least was his servant. He had half-a-guinea to spend, and he intended to buy one of the large figures dressed in khaki. The choice had been almost made, when he edged up to me and whispered: "Do you know what regiment BadenPowell belongs to?"

"He was in the 13th Hussars, I believe," I answered. "I won't have that Yeomanry man," my small friend said at once to his companions.

"But, Master Lionel, we have chosen it," the nurse remonstrated.

"I want a Hussar."

You

"We haven't got any Hussars left, would you rather have a Highlander?" the shop-lady asked, persuasively. "No, I want a Hussar, Hussars don't wear kilts. are sure he was in the Hussars?" he added to me. "Yes, I think so, and he was at school at Charterhouse," I said by way of general information.

"And I am going to Eton. I sha'n't. I shall go to Charterhouse."

my

The situation was becoming strained; and as I was in some respects responsible for having made small friend so perplexed, I said to him: "Don't you think it would be nice to have a Highlander now and then go to Charterhouse afterwards?"

"You are sure he was at Charterhouse." "Yes, quite sure."

"Nurse, I'll have the Highlander, but I shall go to Charterhouse," he decided promptly.

The nurse beamed an instructive smile upon me. "Don't wrap him up. I'll carry him as he is," the boy said.

He went out of the shop smiling; but after that smile of nurse's I cannot believe that he will go to Charterhouse.

At the Door.

HEDGEROW and field were on one side of the road only. The opposite footpath was flanked by a brick wall, and its long perspective was broken by a somewhat architectural doorway, with a pair of iron studded doors, and a mediaval bell-pull. It was the door of the county workhouse. Two men and two women approached from opposite directions. The men were ragged, unshaved, and frowsy, wearing boots that might have been found on an ash-heap. Each had buttoned up his coat collar to hide his lack of a shirt. The women showed as much tidiness as is possible when drink and the pawn-shop have done their worst. The shawls and gowns were of the dark neutral tint of poverty. Their tattered bonnets had evidently passed through a long succession of reverses of fortune. As these persons came along, it was evident that they had made up their minds to " go into the house." Their faces were gloomy, but this chance meeting brightened the gloom with something like a smile, although there was no sign of previous acquaintance between the couples. The women gave a feminine pat to their hair. One of the men pulled off his slouched hat, brushed it with his arm, and tried to give it a more becoming shape. The other man stepped forward and pulled the bell, which gave out a loud jangling, and when the porter opened the door he would have gone in at once, but his comrade held him back, saying, "Ladies first!" And so the women passed in before the men, acknowledging the courtesy graciously, coquettishly picking up their dingy skirts, and walking with an air.

Paris Letter.

(From our French Correspondent.)

M. MARCEL PREVOST has stepped into serious literature at last; he has condescended to place his remarkable talent at the service of good womanhood, and in his Strong Virgins has made noble amends for a book many of us have found it difficult to forgive him. But the author of Demi-Vierges is forgotten in the large-minded and generous apostle of Femininism who has just given us Frédérique. This powerful and original novel will greatly interest English readers because of the vigour, the surprising accuracy and sympathy with which English life and scenery are depicted. If nothing is more amusing than the inaccurate and atrabilious descriptions of our ways and cities by the pens of unsympathetic foreigners, who seemingly leave their own country to hold a "review of their Maker's mistakes" elsewhere, on the other hand nothing can be more instructive and interesting than the impressions and observations the intelligent and liberalminded foreigner carries away from our midst. M. Prévost detects the good and bad in England with a just and sensible discernment. If he can admire the pure and independent English girl, he is as quick to recognise her repugnant antithesis, the Anglo-Saxon flirt. With a fine impartiality he sees where the English stand above French civilisation and where they fall below it. He retorts to the cry of the admiring Englishman "they manage those things better in France" with a no less ready admission that many things are far better managed in England. Before his conversion M. Paul Bourget had a kind of sneaking preference for England, but this admiration was hardly of a quality to flatter the best of the nation; it was the sentiment of the foreign snob in love with English tailoring, the flavour of exterior correction well-bred English people carry into all their relations, the vast pretentiousness of English society, the luxurious town mansions and country houses, the prestige of the British aristocracy. These were the things that dazzled M. Bourget. But M. Prévost, who is nothing of a snob, has brought away from England far higher impressions, and in Frédérique and its sequel, Lea, which has already appeared in the Revue de Paris, he has given us two books which will surely open for him the doors of the Academy.

I have said that M. Prévost has constituted himself, in a way, the apostle of Femininism. Let it at once be understood that this implies no affinity with the late outburst of femininist literature in England. There is nothing here of the hill-top novel, nothing of the African Farm, and far less still of the unclean divagations of Keynotes and its successors. This is a femininism of a claustral austerity. M. Prévost's strong virgins ask of men and society nothing but the right to work for themselves and live chaste and noble lives. Uncloistered nuns is really what they aspire and strive to be. Lea and Fré lérique, the two enthusiastic Parisians, who leave their lovely Paris to come to London to live by their work in the delightfully free atmosphere of Free College, are beautiful young girls. Their voluntary renunciation of marriage and the love of man is the result of their mother's lamentable frailty. Seeing what a miserable thing the love of man, without pride or dignity, made of her weak and sensual mother's existence, Frédérique, resentful of her birth, haughtily resolved to keep herself clean of such influences. Her contempt of man is intense and passionate, and, considering her proud nature and her sad experience of men, quite justifiable. Her brother, a brilliant young lawyer, had seduced the light and shallow Christiane, a pretty creature with the instincts of a grisette; on paternal orders had gone abroad, leaving Christiane enciente. A subordinate of the house was found who, for an indemnity, consented to marry the seduced girl and give his name to her child. The stepfather of Frédérique is a consumptive brute, and in very childhood the family

The

skeleton is paraded before the unhappy little girl. And so through girlhood she cherishes an affectionate and indulgent contempt of her mother, and a dark hate of her father and stepfather. Being exceptionally intelligent, as well as beautiful, she obtains a good situation in a factory, where Lea soon joins her as a designer. Lea is a soft and charming creature, in every way the contrast of her strong and haughty sister, whom she adores and looks up to. relations of these sisters are drawn for us with a captivating sincerity and charm. It is not for nothing M. Prévost has made womanhood his study. It would be difficult to name a book in which the fraternity of two girls, so fond and so widely different, is portrayed with a nobler precision and a more touching grace. Its singular force lies in the fact that this distinguished picture of sisterhood, with its reserved tenderness, its invincible purity of form and colouring, has not a trace of sentimentality.

In London the fortunes of these girls are enviable in every way. There is the gallant briskness of the Free College, where young girls are brought up with the freedom of boys on a new Femininist plan, with delightful results. There is the charming intimacy in Apple Treeyard with an ideal brother and sister, natives of Finland, and the delicate love idyll of Georg Ortsen and Lea, which grows slowly out of this intimacy- an idyll which, if it lacks the poetry, lacks none of the grace and fragrance of Loti's exquisite idyll in Ramunchto. The flaw in the book, and indeed the flaw in Frédérique's inexorable femininism, is the compulsory sacrifice of this love. Lea and Georg, guided by the stronger and more spiritual natures of their sisters, whom both idolise, share the opinion of these that love should be ideal, should lead us to the ether of Platonism instead of into the muddy regions of matrimony. And so both, with breaking hearts, after a single kiss of avowal, part. True, Georg afterwards revolts and comes to Paris to claim his bride. This scene, which is powerful by its extraordinary cruelty and brevity, ends Frédérique. Georg in Italy, whither he went in search of forgetfulness, has learnt that love has a deeper and more ineffaceable significance than the sentimental dalliance of Platonism, and Frédérique ungenerously uses this knowledge in the duel between him and her for the possession of Lea. Pirnitz, the teacher and guide of the girls, is called upon to decide between them, and is quite as remorseless as Frédérique in the presence of two young breaking hearts. I own I like neither the admirable Pirnitz nor the implacable Frédérique in this scene. Some pity is due to erring love, and the error of Georg was of so slight a nature, considering the circumstances, as to claim silence and not chastisement. These pure women uncandidly exaggerate it to work upon Lea's pride, and when the penitent and tortured lover advances and cries to her: "I swear to you, Lea, that you have been my one and only love "—an oath in this case simple truth- the poor girl flings out her arms and cries: "Don't touch me." In vain he adjures her not to break two lives for a trifle, not to be guided by women who would imprison her heart. She sends him away with all the reader's sympathy, and Frédérique salutes her triumph over love as a moral grandeur. The novel is a pure and lofty work of imagination; but herein lies the initial error of its doctrine: Frédérique is revoltingly harsh and proud.

H. L.

For the Bookplate of a Married Couple.
A BOOK our eyes have glanced on
Together,

A wind that ev'ry feather

And windlestraw hath danced on,

A path our feet have trodden

Together

In still or windy weather,
On springy turf or sodden.

From "Poems for Pictures" by Ford M. Hueffer.

Correspondence.

The Title to a Title.

SIR,-You have proved yourself a friend so constant and generous to those who have not yet abandoned the pen for the sword that I am tempted to ask you to lend me the ear of your readers for a moment's space. Quite lately a letter appeared in your columns drawing attention to several recent cases of plagiarism in the matter of book titles, wherein my name was cited as being one of the sufferers. My case, briefly stated, is as follows: In December of last year I published a book called Sidelights on South Africa, now in its third edition. A few weeks ago Lady Sykes brought out a volume on the same subject, which she calls Sidelights on the War in South Africa. On the appearance of her book my publishers, Messrs. Sampson Low & Marston, wrote to Mr. Fisher Unwin protesting against this flagrant assumption of my title, and I myself wrote to Lady Sykes pointing out two cases in which friends who had ordered my book at the libraries had received hers instead. But, although Mr. Unwin expressed his willingness to change it, Lady Sykes has refused to discontinue the use of my title for her book on the ground that she considers the two names "as dissimilar as are their contents." I am quite prepared to admit that the contents are dissimilar, but the titles are, I contend, practically identical, and likely to confuse the public. In this opinion I am fortified by such experienced booksellers as Mr. Humphrey, of Hatchard's, and Mr. Bumpus. I may, at the same time, point out that neither Lady Sykes nor Mr. Fisher Unwin have alleged ignorance of my work as an explanation of their choice of title.

The legal aspect of this matter is interesting, and, I think, not generally understood. Although, as your correspondent writes, there is no copyright in the title of a book, there most certainly is property in it. Copinger in his standard work, The Law of Copyright, is most distinct about this point. He says: "There can be no doubt that there is in a title a right capable of protection, and in the case of Bell's Life this right was asserted by Vice-Chancellor Stuart to be a right of property." The case of Weldon v. Dicks still further bears out this view. In 1873 the Rev. Henry Palmer published a novel called Trial and Triumph, a title "adopted by the defendant in entire ignorance that it had ever been used by any other person or applied to any other work. The defendant's work was entirely distinct in its plot and subject-matter from the plaintiff's book. It also appeared that both before and after the date of the first publication by the plaintiff of his books, more. than one book was published by other persons under the same title, or one substantially the same. Vice-Chancellor Malins held that the plaintiff was entitled to an injunction." It will, therefore, easily be seen that, regarding a title as literary property, it is-to quote Copinger once more "usually considered that, as the injury caused by the infringement is an injury to property, the fraudulent intent is not necessary to prove." In other words, the law gives protection to the title of a book not so much for the sake of the author as to prevent the public being deceived into buying a book under the impression that it is buying one previously published with the same or "substantially the same " title. Various attempts have, of course, been made to secure a copyright for the titles as well as for the contents of books, but this is a matter of extreme difficulty. In the report of the Select Committee appointed in 1898 to consider Lord Herschell's Copyright Amendment Bill, this point was brought forward by Mr. Daldy, who gave evidence in his capacity as Secretary to the Copyright Association. The question had been previously raised in the Trade Marks Act and not satisfactorily disposed of. On this occasion it was again shelved, at the suggestion of Lord Thring. It is believed by many authors that if some scheme could be devised by which the names of books

could be registered the duplication of titles through ignorance would be obviated. This remedy was also discussed by the Commission of 1898, Mr. G. H. Thring giving evidence on behalf of the Society of Authors. But here again nothing was done. The most natural places where such registration might be effected are the British Museum or Stationers' Hall; but both these institutions have brought forward innumerable and to some extent incontrovertible reasons why neither of them should be troubled with the organisation of a system whereby the names of the multitudinous army of volumes produced year by year might be inscribed and thus protected from piracy.

But, as I have already stated, legal machinery is not really lacking by which those who use the name of a book already in circulation may be compelled to surrender it. It remains with the original proprietor of such title to set that machinery in motion, for the safeguard of literary property in general no less than for the protection of individual interest. ROY DEVEREUX.

59, Cadogan-square, S. W.: June 7, 1900.

SIR,-It is not pleasant to find that one has used a title already adopted by another author, if only on account of one's ignorance appearing hardly a compliment to the writer aggrieved. In the case, however, which your correspondent last week brings home to me, I hope the grievance is reduced to a minimum by the insignificance of the story of mine to which she refers. The letter is headed "Book Titles," and it might from that be inferred that my story was a book, as is the work of Mr. Bennett's, against whose title I have trespassed. May I point out that this is fortunately not so? The fact of my "slender performance" being but an ephemeral story of some four thousand words may, I trust, remove the worst of the mishap and form something of an apology to the author and publisher whose rights I unwittingly infringed.—I am, &c., ALGERNON GISSING. Willersey, Broadway, Worcestershire : May 31, 1900.

Novels and Logic.

SIR, The Ignoratio Elenchi still persists. My fair adversary not only attacks a position which I never held, but officially announces that I have evacuated the post, and come over to her side. I never said anything against great works of fiction, from the Odyssey to Vanity Fair. What I did say was that we now produce little that commands a sale except novels. What I said, or did not say, is of infinitesimal importance. But it is important that logicians of either sex should know what the thesis of their adversary is; should not attribute to him a thesis which he never held, and then assault that.

I still think, pace Miss Forbes-Robertson, that "all the works of Thucydides" are likely to outlive those even of Mr. Meredith and Mr. James. But this is a mere opinion; perhaps, in A.D. 2000, What Maisie Knew or The Amazing Marriage will be eagerly asked for, while the historian of the Sicilian Expedition, or the philosopher who describes the death of Socrates, will be entirely forgotten. The Platonic Dialogues and the Muses of Herodotus are but glorified school - books" in Miss Forbes - Robertson's opinion, as I understand her. I dare that many ladies are of her mind.-I am, &c., A. LANG.

1, Marloes-road: June 3, 1900.

say

New Books Received.

[These notes on some of the New Books of the week are preliminary to Reviews that may follow.]

GRANT ALLEN: A MEMOIR.

BY EDWARD CLODD. We refer elsewhere to this biography, which is comprised in little more than 200 pages. Mr. Clodd closes his narrative with the fine and familiar lament:

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead; They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed;

I wept as I remembered how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the
sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, laid long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake; For Death, he taketh all away, but these he cannot take. (Grant Richards.)

VILLAGE NOTES, AND SOME OTHER PAPERS.

BY PAMELA TENNANT.

Mrs. Tennant, who is one of the three ladies in Mr. Sargent's great picture in this year's Academy Exhibition, has gathered into this volume some sketches of country life which she contributed to the Outlook. Charmingly made up into a book, and illustrated with photogravures, these sketches look inviting. "There is a village I know of in South Wilts," Mrs. Tennant begins, "in whose cottages I have heard many things said worth recording-of humour, intentional, or otherwise, and of pathos, real and deep." (Heinemann.) RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE.

BY SIR JOSEPH FAYRER, BART.

Sir Joseph Fayrer is one of the most celebrated of army doctors. He entered the Bengal Medical Service in 1850, and served in the first Burmese War, and through the Indian Mutiny. He was in Lucknow during its beleaguerment. His writings have hitherto been purely medical; but his long and varied life and its recreations, which have included big-game shooting in India, have furnished material for a bulky volume of reminiscences in which there is an abundance of exciting incidents. (Blackwood.) SOCIAL LIFE IN THE BRITISH ARMY.

BY A BRITISH OFFICER.

A very interesting subject is treated of in this book. We are given many particulars about the inner life of a British regiment, its guest nights, its polo matches, the cost of chargers and outfits, points of etiquette, and what not. When the social life of the officers' mess has been described, we are introduced to the rank and file, to the married quarters, the canteen, the cricket match, the Sergeants' Ball, &c, &c. The author says: "In the army it is fully recognised that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'" The book is dedicated, by permission, to Lord Wolseley, and is admirably illustrated by Mr. R. Caton Woodville. (John Long. 6s.)