dom along with some clever characterdrawing. The shiftless Eph, who "kept three dogs," is particularly well hit off. One of the most fascinating of the "Nugget" series, for which Fords, Howard & Hulbert are to be thanked, is the latest, "Quaint Nuggets," which consists of quotations from Elizabethan sources. The compiler, Eveline Warner Brainerd, has been particularly happy in her choice of selections from Thomas Fuller, and the reader would gladly have a bookful of just such alone. But as Hall, Selden, Herbert and Walton do not need commendation at this day, it suffices to say that the entire volume is delightful. The second volume of Prof. Elisha Gray's much-appreciated popular science series, "Nature's Miracles," proves to be even more interesting than its predecessor. The sub-title, "Energy and Vibration," will not give to the average reader any idea of the wide range of subjects dealt with, from "noise and music" to phosphorescence and shadow, heat rays and "high explosives." The last part of the book, which treats of such warlike matters as "firing a shot" will be found timely and up-to-date. There is a brightness and flexibility in the use of illustrations which gives this series of "familiar talks" an uncommon fitness for the work for which it is designed. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. Little books about great men are seldom SO satisfactory as is Arthur Waugh's study of Robert Browning, in the series of "Westminster Biographies" of which Small, Maynard & Co. are the American publishers. To present in one hundred and fifty small pages an outline of the events of a long life, and at the same time to trace the growth of a poet's powers and reputation was a difficult task, but it has been admirably accomplished. The criticism of Browning's work, especially in its relation to that of his contemporaries, is discriminating and sympathetic, while the portrayal of his personality is unexpectedly vivid. The book is thoroughly readable, and promises well for the popularity of the attractive series of which it is the initial volume. A loyal and daring maiden who dons a trooper's dress in order to warn a prince of his peril, and a lover whom her somewhat untrooper-like actions presently bring into disgrace are the central figures in Roland Macdonald's 1:ovel, "The Sword of the King." The fact that the tale is a first venture of Dr. George Macdonald's son will give it an added interest to many, but there is only a slight recognizable kinship between the works of father and son. This is a romance of adventure, full of incident, exciting, with a kindly and genial touch. It is told in a sprightly fashion by the heroine herself, whose lover is active in the cause of William of Orange, and the escapes and misadventures and complications in which it abounds make it a decidedly lively tale. The Century Co. The spirit of Americanism will be greatly fostered by acquaintance with a record of the "Saving of Oregon," which A. C. McClurg & Co. publish. In "Dr. McLoughlin and Old Oregon," by Eva Emery Dye, a detailed account is given of the faithful and undaunted labors of the pioneers-missionaries, many of them-to whom this country owes the wresting of a great territory from British encroachments. The two heroes of this tale, which is both story and history, are Dr. John McLoughlin, the governor of the Hudson Bay Company west of the Rockies, and Dr. Marcus Whitman, the American mission ary, whom even the warnings of friendly well-wishers, "You can never get the women through," couldn't hold back from the perilous journey across a continent. The dealings with each other of rival or warring races, the diplomatic feats and the superhuman struggles of those early days are here carefully and graphically portrayed. The Berlin papers report the finding of a hitherto unknown Humboldt correspondence. The collection is bound in a thick volume, and contains about two hundred letters, written in A. von Humboldt's "fine crow's-foot handwriting," full of confidential gossip concerning the Court and political and military notabilities, and references to contemporary scholars. They range from 1830 to 1840, some having been written from Berlin and some from Potsdam. As each addition to the series of "Beacon Biographies" makes its welcome appearance, one feels the same lively interest in the sturdy little chronology which ushers in the more pretentious "Life" with such an engaging sense of its own self-sufficiency. The latest subject of biography is Commodore Decatur, and the study, by Cyrus Townsend Brady, does not lack clear appreciation of the vividly dramatic incidents in Decatur's history. As a sketch, also, of national life in the first part of the nineteenth century it is extremely interesting. Small, Maynard & Co. Lively doubts as to the actual identity of that personage who is now figuring as the Czar of all the Russias will be likely to beset an imaginative reader of "The Black Terror," by John K. Leys. It is an ingenious and diverting tale, whose plot turns upon the spiriting away of a Russian government official, one Prince Kropenski, by the "Com mittee of Public Safety," and his attempted rescue by the hero, who is, of course, in love with his daughter, the Princess. The hero's sympathies-he is a young English architect-are, however, with the Nihilists, and he becomes curiously involved in one of their most audacious schemes against the Czar. The story is an exciting one, rapid in its action and reaching a conclusion quite "too good to be true." L. C. Page & Co. A reaction against the Omar Khayyam cult seems to have set in. Mr. A. H. Miller, in an English journal, puts this perplexing question: What can one make of a poem (or set of verses) whose supposed author may have died either in 1090 or 1126, whose poetical writings were absolutely unknown in the East-in his native Persia as well as in India-until the present century; whose text is so indefinite that it varies from 632 lines to 2064 lines, and the oldest copy of whose verses was confessedly written nearly four centuries after his death? The most devoted professor of Higher Criticism would give up such a problem in absolute despair. Apropos of the question whether Dickens is still read, the "Bookworm" of The Academy says: I find among the conventionally "educated" members of the new generation a large ignorance of Dickens. I find, moreover, among the educated members of the elder generation a marked disinclination to read Dickens over again. On the other hand, you have this undoubted demand for Dickens among the class which "takes out" books from public libraries. The conclusion is obvious. Dickens is "read," but mainly by "the people." Your "cultured" person prefers Thackeray. do myself. But I can quite believe that Dickens, if he is conscious of his present vogue in England, is quite satisfied with the direction it has taken. I BOOKS OF THE MONTH. Abraham Kuyper, D. D., L. L. D. Translated by Rev. Henri de Vries, and authorized and approved by the Author. Funk & Wagnalls Company. Price, $3.00. Images of Good and Evil. By Arthur Symons. Wm. Heinemann. Lexicography, English, The Evolution of. The Romanes Lecture. By James A. H. Murray, M. A. Henry Frowde. Mafeking: A Diary of the Siege. By Maj. F. D. Baillie. Archibald Constable & Co. Nature's Miracles. Familiar Talks on By G. B. Person in the House, The. Burgin. Hurst & Blackett. Quaint Nuggets. From Fuller, Hall, Selden, Herbert, Walton. Gathered by Eveline Warner Brainerd. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. Price $0.45. River of Pearls, The. A Chinese Romance. By René de Pont-Jest. John Macqueen. Robert Orange. By John Oliver mann. Son of the State, A. By W. Pett Ridge. Methuen & Co. Spendthrift, The. By Francis Dodsworth. Grant Richards. Sword of the King, The. By Ronald Macdonald. The Century Co. Price, $1.50. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, The Early Poems of. Edited with critical introduction by John Churton Collins.. Methuen & Co. Things Seen. By G. W. Steevens. Selected and edited by G. S. Street. With a Memoir by W. E. Henley. Wm. Blackwood & Sons. Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse. By Holman F. Day. Small, Maynard & Co. Price, $1.00. Village Notes. By Pamela Tennant.. Wm. Heinemann. Voices in the Night. By Flora Annie Steel. Wm. Heinemann. War and Labor. By Michael Anitchkow. Archibald Constable & Co. Yangste Valley and Beyond, The. By Mrs. J. F. Bishop. (Isabella L. Bird.) John Murray. On the 10th of April, 1898, Tokio celebrated the anniversary of its elevation to the rank of a capital. Thirty years had elapsed since the Emperor, under persuasion of his Ministers, but amid tears of his subjects, had quitted his ancient residence at Kioto, and after a provisional sojourn at Osaka, which by no means answered the expectations of his advisers, had installed himself definitely in the city of the vanquished shoguns. Yeddo, as it had been called aforetime;-the haughty city where, for two centuries and a half, the Japanese mayors of the palace had respectfully dictated their inflexible orders to the fallen but still venerated monarch, then assumed the name of Tokio, and became the Saint Petersburg of Japan; while Kioto, dismantled and disaffected, but enchanting still, amid its garland of gardens, forests, hills and Buddhist temples, relapsed into the silence of a lethargic city; and, of all the wonders of the past, retained only the polish of beautiful manners, the love of loving and the joy of dancing, empty palaces, deities embowered in foliage, and that fragrance of departed souls which always lingers about deserted sanctuaries. It had been resolved to commemorate by famous doings the thirtieth anniver •Translated for The Living Age. sary of the new era. A committee was organized, with the approbation of the Court; the Emperor and Empress consented to show themselves, and for a full fortnight the city in all its quarters had been busy as a bee-hive. The Japanese, great lovers of masques and merry-makings, excel in the organization of those high festivals which, at one time, afforded the only opportunity for a display of their talent. But this was an occasion not merely to gratify their love of pleasure, but keenly to stimulate their national pride. The journals and reviews prepared extra numbers, in which politicians, economists, writers and teachers undertook to strike the balance of the last thirty years. The Japanese people paused for a moment in its onward course, and turned back to measure the distance already traversed. And by way of emphasizing as strongly as possible the incredible advance which the nation had made-or the appalling distance which it had drifted!-it was resolved to represent in the streets of the city one of those long processions of chariots and horsemen, wherein the daimios of the olden time used to make public display of their extravagant pomp. This resurrection of the past created an immense sensation among the masses in Japan. The geishas had their hair cut in order to assume the beautiful old-fashioned head-dress of their class, and their lovers presented them with purple robes, which they tried on for the first time, under the awnings in the narrow streets where they abide. During the week which preceded the fête-when it rained in torrents most of the time-old Japan picked its way singly, or in groups, about the marsh into which the city had been transformed. And since it was impossible to reconstruct recent history, without introducing the European element, there trotted along beside fantastic warriors with iron fans, little fellows in white breeches and red jackets, who had borrowed from us this groom's costume as appropriate to the guild of tailors! The great day of all began with rain, but about eight o'clock the sun blazed forth in an orange-colored sky. At the base of the invisible palace of the emperors, a temporary erection covered with thatch, adorned with verdant boughs and flanked by two long galleries, arose with a sort of rustic, oldfashioned elegance. Two arm-chairs covered with white velvet were set before a screen of gold lacquer, for the accommodation of the Emperor and Empress. Facing them were the school-children in a compact mass, protected by awnings, and the populace of Tokio filled all the vast remaining space of the ancient Court of the Shoguns. At 10 o'clock the cannon boomed, and, preceded by an escort of horsemen waving the Japanese flag, the riages of the Emperor and Empress and their chamberlains emerged from the mysterious park that surrounds the palace, and drew up before the thatched pavilion. The sovereigns mounted its steps in silence, he wearing a general's uniform, and she a robe of dull rosecolor shot with gold, and feathers in her hair. The Empress has aged, but car if time has faded her complexion and slightly sharpened the features once so charmingly indefinite, she has kept her delicate grace, and her oblique eyes wear a look of soft and sweet astonishment, which contrasts curiously with the almost rigid gravity of her bearing. Standing upright before their armchairs, the Emperor, and the Empress, whose topmost plume barely came up to his shoulder, listened to the panegyrics read them by the Governor of Tokio, and the President of the Committee, made their acknowledgments by three slight inclinations of the head and bust, and then returned to their carriages. The Empress, who seemed rather incommoded by her magnificent robe, came down more slowly than her husband, and her slender person vibrated slightly with every step she took. The august equipage disappeared amid the cheers of the school-children; -happy children, whose parents had never known the delight of giving noisy utterance to their love for their sovereign! They had fallen flat on their faces at the passage of a mere daimio, or turned away as though unworthy to look him in the face. It was only after the Chinese war that the monarch heard for the first time his subjects clap their hands. But he who applauds also passes judgment, and if he does not take to hissing some fine day, he will, at least know how to make his silence eloquent. The young men who were encouraged by their leaders to lavish such marks of favor on the Grandson of the Sun, can hardly have realized that they thus set the seal on the most antecedently improbable victory ever won by any Asiatic nation over its absolutist rulers. "Do not cheer me, young people," the Emperor might have said, "for 'tis my divinity that is crumbling to the accompaniment of your applause!" When the sovereigns had once more |