done," he reflects glory on B, to whom, like a liberal gentleman, he gives the credit (B would have told it so if he had the wit) and he amuses C.

The fact is that a story well told is nearer the truth, the absolute truth, than a shambling statement of what a man has seen. If not exactly as it was, that is how it ought to have been. It used to be narrated of a late bishop that in the schools at Oxford the examiners fell foul of a word he used as "Not Greek." He replied that "If not, it ought to be." The examiners considered the plea, admitted it, and he The Saturday Review.

emerged triumphant. That story is rather suspect to some. Compliance of that kind sounds more like a tutor than the schools examiners. So the story descended however. Would it be any better if the precisian by "poring” discovered the exact facts?

And there is another point the precisian forgets. No sane person takes opinions, gossip or stories without pecks of salt. So pickled they are quite innocuous, and give pleasure to many. Either let us all turn Trappists or leave us our little infidelities.

People who are merely vaguely aware that there is a great deal of disturbance,-political, social, industrial and moral-in the air, and who do not know what it is all about will find Walter Lippmann's "A Preface to Politics" enlightening, even if more or less alarming. The author's views are radical and extremely disturbing to the mood of easy complacency; and he has a very pungent way of expressing them. It may not be necessary to accept his conclusions; but few alert readers can fail to be interested in the facts on which he bases them and the processes by which he reaches them. Mitchell Kennerley, New York.

Miss Sarah Hammond Palfrey, who in her "Katharine Morne" gave that perfect definition of a gentlewoman, one who "never forgets herself and never remembers herself" and appended two very good portraits, by way of description, is now, at the age of ninety years, publishing a pretty little volume entitled "Harvest Home," and containing some fifty pieces grave, gay, patriotic and satirical.

It will be remembered that Miss Palfrey is the daughter of the abolitionist and historian, John Gorham Palfrey, and that his actual life furnished her the central action and idea of her "Herman, or Young Knighthood," but her book deserves reading for its own sake, and should have a cordial reception from young and old, from those who like wit, patriotism or pathos couched in vivacious rhyme. W. B. Clarke Company.

In Miss Kate F. Kimball's "An English Cathedral Journey" (Thomas Y. Crowell Company) visitors to England will find a pocket companion at once comprehensive, authoritative and fascinating. The author writes with enthusiasm and from a fulness of information gained by wide study and close observation. She is not content with mere description, but she treats her subject from the historical point of view as well as the architectural, and she leaves upon the reader's mind a vivid impression of all that the noble structures which she describes stand for and the influence they have

had in shaping the thought and guiding the aspirations of the English people. The eight largest and most famous cathedrals,-Canterbury, Roch ester, Lincoln, Durham, Ely, Salisbury, Litchfield and York,-together with Westminster Abbey, are described in detail, and seventy or eighty illustrations enhance both the value and attractiveness of the book, and give it a strong appeal to stayat-home readers as well as to travellers.

Those to whom Manhattanese is an offence should avoid Mr. Louis Joseph Vance's "The Day of Days," for, although the author is perfectly competent to write the President's American and the King's English he prefers the tongue best understood in Manhattan. It must be owned that he makes it more diverting than the pure vernacular, as the clipped and tortured French of the Boulevards is more diverting than the exquisitely accented French of a cloistered nun, but in the end, it masters him. But Mr. Vance's story is excellent fooling and its plain, unvarnished tale of some ugly blots on the face of Manhattan civilization is very effective, and may have salutary effect in educating public opinion. His hero should be compared with the London clerk exhibited by Miss May Sinclair in her "The Combined Maze," for the two are kindred souls although of different races, and entirely unlike in body. The American story is briefer and less serious than the English but it loses nothing by the comparison. Little, Brown & Co.

Miss Mary E. Stone Bassett is one of those enthusiastic flower-lovers who cannot dwell upon the beauty of a garden and the delightful incidents in its history without impelling her readers to go forth and plant something, or, if time and place make that im

possible, at least to buy roots, seeds, bulbs, and young plants, and bear them home in triumph. Her heroine, in "The Midsummer Wooing," the fair gardener, Judith Greenslip, has a pleasant way of making any unprotected man whom she may meet do the bearing, and discovers that the American rustic is accustomed to put such services in his bill. A gently edifying old invalid; a genial minister enjoying a vacation among the fruit and flowers with which he has transformed an abandoned farm; an invaluable rich aunt, capable of sending fat checks in garden emergencies; and a pair of lovers not too loving to have eyes for leaves and flowers are among the company with which Judith surrounds herself. Floral borders, initials, tail-pieces and a florally illuminated title-page with four colored pictures by Mr. John Goss beautify the volume. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

That the woman who marries for the sake of a million or any number of millions makes a mistake destructive to her happiness may be taken as proved, but Miss Kate Jordan in her "The Creeping Tides" has created a novel couple to demonstrate the process. That the woman who marries a handsome scoundrel ensures herself a certain period of misery may also be taken as proved, but, side by side with her first couple, she sets a scoundrel and his wife and her sincere, honorable, soldier-lover, and when one bas permitted himself to contemplate them for a few pages, one does not leave the remainder of the story unread. The book carries a small moral to the effect that acts apparently cowardly should be very carefully examined before they are condemned; and readers, both military and civilian. will find themselves asking whether a real history may not be concealed beneath the apparent fiction. The

theatre of the story, a Greenwich Village, New York, shabby lodginghouse, still showing signs of former sober splendor, is presented with much detail, and no exaggeration of any kind. The reader may find it pleasant, when he comes to the end of the story, to make a calculation determining the name of the President who plays the god from the car at the decisive instant. Little, Brown & Co.

The latest volume of "A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare" "The Tragedie of Julius Cæsar," is inscribed "In Memoriam" by its editor, Horace Howard Furness, Jr., with the proud but melancholy line from "Henry VI," "Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son." Dedication more felicitous is unimaginable, but the closing paragraph of the preface heightens its effect, and must be quoted: "My most just and severealbeit, my most tender-critic has passed beyond my inadequate words of gratitude. He to whom I owe the deepest obligations, the inspiration of all my work, is no longer by my side with ever-ready help and never-failing and invaluable counsel. The rest is silence." The contents of this imposing new volume of 480 pages include not only the "tragedie," which, with its array of footnotes, occupies 278 pages, but also "The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar," by Sir William Alexander, Earl of Sterline, published in 1607, and here reprinted from its final and authorized version of 1637. This gives the reader so disposed an opportunity to divert himself with the odious comparison, both of methods and of matter, for the Earl was not content with basing his drama on North's Plutarch, but incorporated with it part of the substance of a tragedy of Jules Grévin, whose play was founded on the Latin of Muret, and further enriched his text with

occasional phrases from Virgil, a venial offence in Tudor and in Stuart days. The appendix gives the probable date of printing the text as the Folio of 1623, and adds the list of emendations adopted by the Cambridge editors, and their suggestion that the Folio may have been printed from the author's original manuscript. About twelve pages, giving citations from some thirty authorities, are given to the date of composition, twice as many as to the source of the plot: and about thirty to passages taken from various writers who have summed up the characters of Cæsar and of Brutus. Under the head of "criticisms" may be found French, English, and German opinion, and among them Voltaire's judgment, unrivalled as a piece of misunderstanding. The English division of the "Stage History of the Play" begins with Betterton, at the Theatre Royal, in 1684; the American division, with the record of a performance at Charleston, S. C., in 1774, and gives little space to any but those in which actors of especial eminence have taken part. In the section treating of "dramatic versions" of Cæsar's career, are a full account of Chapman's "Cæsar and Pompey," and brief descriptions of Muret's "Julius Cæsar" and Grévin's "Cæsar." Daniel's work and that of the Cowden-Clarkes are summarized under the head of "Time Analysis," and with this ends the book. Sixty-eight editions by various hands are cited in the textual notes, and so closely has space been economized that by ingenious devices the necessity of naming single books every time that they are quoted is obviated and arbitrary signs indicate the attitude of critics towards one another. To put it briefly, this single volume gives its owner all the advantages which he could derive from a great library. J. B. Lippincott Company.