that of Irving as well will depend largely upon the affirmation or the reversal of their views of life and their judgments of character. I think the calm work of Irving will stand when much of the more startling and perhaps more brilliant intellectual achievement of this age has passed away.

This

And this leads me to speak of Irving's moral quality, which I cannot bring myself to exclude from a literary estimate, even in the face of the current gospel of art for art's sake. There is something that made Scott and Irving personally loved by the millions of their readers, who had only the dimmest ideas of their personality. was some quality perceived in what they wrote. Each one can define it for himself; there it is, and I do not see why it is not as integral a part of the authors an element in the estimate of their future position as what we term their intellect, their knowledge, their skill, or their art. However you rate it, you cannot account for Irving's influence in the world without it. In his tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody the place of mere literary art in the sum

total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott to Lockhart," Be a good man, my dear." We know well enough that the great author of "The Newcomes" and the great author of "The Heart of Midlothian" recognized the abiding value in literature of integrity, sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are beneficences; and Irving's literature, walk round it and measure it by whatever critical instruments you will, is a beneficent literature. The author loved good women and little children and a pure life; he had faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy with the lowest, without any subservience to the highest; he retained a belief in the possibility of chivalrous actions, and did not care to envelop them in a cynical suspi cion; he was an author still capable of an enthusiam. His books are wholesome, full of sweetness and charm, of humor without any sting, of amusement without any stain; and their more solid qualities are marred by neither pedantry nor pretension.

Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a lovely day of that Indian Summer which is no

where more full of a melancholy charm than on the banks of the lower Hudson, and which was in perfect accord with the ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow and the river he loved, amidst the scenes which his magic pen has made classic and his sepulchre hallows.

American Statesmen.

A Series of Biographies of Men conspicuous in the Political History of the United States.

EDITED BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

The object of this series is not merely to give a number of unconnected narratives of men in American political life, but to produce books which shall, when taken together, indicate the lines of political thought and development in American history, books embodying in compact form the result of extensive study of the many and diverse influences which have combined to shape the political history of our country.

The series is under the editorship of Mr. JOHN T. MORSE, JR., whose historical and biographical writings give ample assurance of his special fitness for this task. The volumes now ready are as follows:

:

John Quincy Adams. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Alexander Hamilton. By HENRY CABOT Lodge.
John C. Calhoun. By DR. H. von Holst.
Andrew Jackson. By PROF. W. G. SUMNER.
John Randolph. By HENRY ADAMS.

James Monroe. By PRES. DANIEL C. GILMAN.
Thomas Jefferson. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Daniel Webster. By HENRY CABOT LODGE.
Albert Gallatin. By JOHN Austin Stevens.

IN PREPARATION.

John Adams. By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Fames Madison. By SIDNEY HOWARD GAY.
Henry Clay. By HON. CARL SCHURZ.

Samuel Adams. By JOHN FISKE.

Martin Van Buren. By HON. WILLIAM DORSHEIMER.

Others to be announced hereafter. Each biography occupies a single volume, 16mo, gilt top. Price $1.25.

ESTIMATES OF THE PRESS.

"JOHN QUINCY ADAMS."

That Mr. Morse's conclusions will in the main be those of posterity we have very little doubt, and he has set an admirable example to his coadjutors in respect of interesting narrative, just proportion, and judicial candor. - New York Evening Post.

The work is done in a vigorous and every way admirable manner, which it is not too much to say touches the high mark of impartial but appreciative history. Independent (New York).

Mr. Morse has written closely, compactly, intelligently, fearlessly, honestly. - New York Times.

"ALEXANDER HAMILTON."

The biography of Mr. Lodge is calm and dignified throughHe has the virtue rare indeed among biographers

out.

of impartiality. He has done his work with conscientious care, and the biography of Hamilton is a book which cannot have too many readers. It is more than a biography; it is a study in the science of government. - St. Paul Pioneer-Press.

Mr. Lodge's portrait of Hamilton is carefully, impartially, and skilfully painted, and his study of the epoch in which Hamilton was dominant is luminous and comprehensive. — Philadel phia North American.

"JOHN C. CALHOUN."

Dr. von Holst's volume is certainly not the least valuable of the three that constitute the series, so far as it has at present progressed; and of the series, as a whole, it may be said that if the succeeding volumes are of the same high order of excellence as those that have already appeared they will serve a valuable purpose, not only as exemplifying American statesmen, but as a means of training in statesmanship. — Boston Journal.

Nothing can exceed the skill with which the political career of the great South Carolinian is portrayed in these pages. The work is superior to any other number of the series thus far, and we do not think it can be surpassed by any of those that are to The whole discussion in relation to Calhoun's position is eminently philosophical and just. The Dial (Chicago).

come.