in so far as it endeavors to give a true description of the Boer policy and of Boer aspirations, can do no real injustice. There is, however, another view with which the account given in this volume is entirely incompatible. That is the pseudo-Boer' or 'pro-Boer' view - a view begotten mainly of ignorance as to the real character and aims of President Kruger's policy. . . . It is a fictitious case."

Perusal of the book will confirm this sufficiently candid declaration of its intent. It proceeds on the assumption that the Great Trek was an unauthorized secession from British rule, though Sir Henry Cloete, cited as an authority for that period, leaves quite a different impression. It pays no attention to the works of the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, though it does rely on "Mr. Rider Haggard's various writings." The chapter on the years following the Jameson Raid is from an anonymous handan extraordinary failure of authority for the most critical and momentous period discussed in the vol ume. The chapter on the movement which led to Imperial intervention is from the hand of Mr. W. F. Monypenny, at that time the editor of the "Star," a subsidized organ of the mine-owners, and later the correspondent of the "London Times itself. Colonel Frank Rhodes is thanked for many valuable suggestions. Mr. J. F. van Oordt, though styled by Mr. Amery himself "a fanatical partizan," is relied upon to furnish "ample refutation of what I have called the 'pseudo-Boer' case." Truly, the history is poisoned at its sources. The four remaining volumes will deal with hostilities in the field.

Mr. A. G. Hales, whose "Campaign Pictures" never lacks interest, is an Australian, the author of a well-received book of travel, and the special correspondent of the "London Daily News" during a part of the war. Attached to the Australian contingent under General Methuen, he was taken prisoner by the Boers at the battle of Rensburg, released and returned to the British lines as a non-combatant by President Steyn after seeing much of the Boers in field, hospital, and camp, and only recalled to England after the victory at Thaba 'Nchu. His narrative is vivacious and, to a marked degree, impartial. He bears willing testimony to the humanity and disinterested self-sacrifice of the burghers, and he does not consider himself in any way obligated to close his eyes to abuses on the British side. For that bloodthirstiest of all the English, the man who does all his fighting with his mouth, he has a few excoriating paragraphs, the close of one of them worth quoting, in view of what follows.

"The old British pioneer may have whelped a few million good fighting stock in his time, but this class of animal is no lion's whelp; it is a thing all mouth and no manners, a shallow-brained, cowardly creature, always howling about the Boer, but too discreet to go out and fight him, though ready at all times to malign him, to ridicule him as a farmer or a fighter. And it is a perfect bear's feast to this hybrid animal to get hold of a gullible newspaper correspondent to tell him gruesome tales relative to Boer fighting laagers."

It must have been not one, but a dozen, of these cattle which undertook the education of Mr. Julian Ralph, whose book, "An American with Lord Roberts," is most misleadingly named. Mr. Ralph was the special correspondent of the "London Daily Mail," the British equivalent of those American "yellow journals" which bragged about the little war with Spain as 66 our war. Some allowance must doubtless be made for the policy of his paper, which would probably have rejected anything which did not seek the justification of Great Britain by unlimited abuse of the other side, but even with this made it is impossible to understand how Mr. Ralph could style himself "an American" in anything but the purely technical sense of that muchabused word. He has no word of praise for any man who fought for the two Republics, and never a word of dispraise for those on the other side. It would not be difficult, if it were worth while, to pick absolutely contradictory statements out of the pages of Mr. Ralph and Mr. Hales, the former speaking on what he admits to be mere hearsay and the latter from individual experience. Mr. Ralph's book, interestingly written as it is, remains chiefly valuable as showing in an American what many of us have always taken to be the characteristic of the Briton abroad-a willingness to believe anything that can expand the of a book. pages

We much prefer to regard as the work of an "American" in this most disastrous struggle between Imperial Britain and the two Republics the efforts of Mr. Bartlett-Burdett-Coutts as set forth in his pamphlet, "The Sick and Wounded in South Africa." Though a member of Parliament, this American-born English gentleman went at his own expense to the scene of war and distress, and having seen with his own eyes the evidences of the breaking down of the military medical system under the burden of too much red tape and officialism, returned to make known the results of his journey from his seat in the national legislature. What he saw is made clear in his book; but it is no less evident that he incurred the displeasure of that class of devotees who see in the most rational criticism of their fellow-countrymen the voicing of treason — Mr. Hales also incurred the same unreasoning slander. His account is therefore eked out with a re-statement of his position, made necessary by the misrepresentations of his enemies, indignant at his refusal, unlike Mr. Ralph, to be the servile mouthpiece of those who would further destroy the prestige of the English name by as much indifference to human suffering as there had been indifference to the rights of a foreign and weaker people. The book has on its cover the apt quotation "Lest we forget," a reminder to Americans that similar horrors in the Cuban campaign seem not to have bettered the attention given our soldiers in China, during the recent massacres and looting there.

WALLACE RICE.

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.

An anthology of Canadian song.

"A Treasury of Canadian Verse " (Dutton), edited by Dr. Theodore H. Rand, is an acceptable anthology of Canadian song. The editor himself is one of the veteran men of letters of his country, and has performed his task with skill and discrimination. One hundred and thirty-five writers are represented in all, and this number would have been greater by one were it not for the omission (through no editorial fault) of Mr. William Wilfred Campbell. Those who have not kept close watch of Canadian poetry will no doubt be surprised at the number of singers and at the high average quality of their work. It is difficult to fix upon characteristic qualities in the poetical expression of a whole people, and this collection, like similar anthologies of the verse of England and the United States, illustrates nearly all of the moods and intellectual interests of the modern mind. There is one feature of Canadian song, however, which cannot fail to arrest the attention of even the casual reader. It is admirably expressed by the editor in these words: "Here are reflected the singular loveliness of our evanescent spring, the glow and luxuriant life of our hasting summer, the sensuous glory of our autumn, and the tingle of our frosty air and the white winter's cheer. Every form and aspect of natural beauty is, in some degree, caught and expressed sometimes in homely, sometimes in classical phrase; often with striking simplicity, and generally with much purity of thought and an authentic note." The names of the poets here represented include a few of wider than Canadian renown, the names of George J. Romanes, Grant Allen, and Professor Goldwin Smith, for examples. As for Professor Roberts and Mr. Carman we are now beginning to claim them as at least half our own, since they have taken up permanent residence on this side of the border. We regret the absence from this collection of Mr. Carman's "Death in April," the finest of all his poems, and probably the finest poem ever written by a Canadian. miss also "The Palms" of Professor Roberts, although we are consoled by his matchless lyric "The Falling Leaves." There are brief biographical notes upon all the poets included, and we learn from them that Professor Roberts "was one of the literary arbiters at the World's Fair, Chicago," which is a dark saying.

We

peutics. as likewise of the presentation of the topic to a wider public, depends on the tact and acumen, the critical ability and foresight, the avoidance of exaggeration and error, with which it is done. On all these points the present volume, when weighed fairly, is found to be wanting. There is a fair measure of good material; the account of cases treated is particularly interesting and worthy of record; and when compared with such a pernicious volume as the recent one of Quackenbos, this book assumes a comparatively meritorious character. But when judged by what an account of this topic should be, its success is quite overshadowed by its defects. Much of the volume is concerned with exaggerated theories of the influence of the unconscious self, with telepathy which foresees the future, and with rapport which transcends ordinary mental powers. Within the special field of hypnotic education, we have not only cases of nervous weaknesses, bad habits, and mental assymetries successfully treated by hypnotic suggestion; but even bad spelling and incorrect English yield to this persuasive method. But it is not so much the aesthetic judgment of the author that arouses condemnation as his intellectual judgment. The most weakly evidenced occurrences, the most weakly established theories, are considered as of equal importance and credibility as any others; while any refusal to agree with the author in these peregrinations is set down to prejudice and lack of fair-mindedness. Such a democracy of facts and hypotheses in which there shall be freedom and equality to one and all, would be bereft of all logical worth. It is not openmindedness that is wanted in the discussion of these problems so much as it is critical judgment and logical insight. Men do not to-day refuse to look through any telescope that promises to show them anything worth looking at. Stubbornness and dogmatism are not the bugbears that they are generally regarded to be. It is not any conservative clinging to old-fashioned balances that prevents our results from being more reliable than they are; but it is insufficient training in the employment of the new ones. And so long as this state of affairs continues, we shall have writers like Dr. Mason mixing together much that is reliable and suggestive (and still more that is interesting), with much more that is questionable in all respects, serving uncritical resurrections of Reichenbach's sensitives, and theories of psychic intuition, and explanations of heredity by subconscious personalities, and abuses of the significance of "experimental psychology," along with some valid and pertinent considerations of the scope of the mental in the treatment of physical, intellectual, moral, and educational deficiencies.

prejudices. His book is, as the sub-title declares, "A Narrative of Adventure and Observation during Imprisonment on the Island of Luzon," and the map showing his itinerary attests the opportunities given him for seeing the workings of Aguinaldo's government during the time he was held prisoner. Interesting as the account is, the chief interest lies in the facts that the author did not know himself to be disclosing. He is not aware, for example, that he is constantly judging his captors by a standard which he does not make the slightest attempt to live up to himself a common fault with us all, perhaps, but more than ordinarily significant when the attitude of the writer is one of inevitable and invincible superiority. Another instance is to be found in the fact that his chief miseries came, not in the least from his darker-skinned guards, but from a fellow-member of the Anglo-Saxon race, an Englishman whom he significantly calls Arnold. Taken just before the American rifles, advanced several miles beyond the environs of Manila, to which they were limited by the terms of the peace protocol, had opened fire upon our recent allies, young Sonnichsen was enabled to escape by Joaquin Alejandrino, and returned safely to Manila by the "Oregon." He bears cheerful witness to the humanity of the Filipinos, and to the huge distress brought upon them by the American occupation. His book is entertaining and instructive, and throws many valuable side-lights on the dark picture in the Philippines.

The irrepressible dramatist.

Like other readers of Mr. Bernard Shaw's earlier plays, we looked forward to 66 Plays for Puritans " (Stone) with pleasurable anticipation. We read them with successive and often mingled feelings. The Prefaces, of course, gratified our love of smartness. "The Devil's Disciple," however, was a great disappointment at the beginning, and we only roused to a sort of conventional interest in the last act. We were amused at the succeeding note on Burgoyne. At the beginning of "Cæsar and Cleopatra" our spirit needed stimulant, and the play provided what was wanted of the best quality. With the Notes our spirit sunk again, and "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" we began with a certain weariness. This was largely caused, however, by the philological difficulties interposed by the dialectic spelling in the first act, for on getting to the real matter we revived and finished in style. So that on the whole the net result was good: it is true that the book is not everywhere of the author's very best, but that is by no means remarkable. These plays are for Puritans because Mr. Shaw desires to harp on some other string than the amatory. He explains himself in one of the Prefaces: in the plays it appears that he appeals rather to a certain common-sense in mankind which is certainly more inspiriting than the common sensuousness, as he might call it himself, which most other plays appeal to. This common-sense - Cæsar and Lady Cicely

have so much of it and are so winning thereby is an excellent article, and Mr. Shaw's recognition of it constitutes his real realism. If only people would not pretend this and that, if only they would be real. In "The Devil's Disciple" we unfortunately (for ourselves) miss this element; we find little more reality in the play than in the locality of the play, which is south of Boston and north of Albany and yet in New Hampshire, and, in addition, a place where there were Presbyterians in 1777. We do not get interested in "Diabolonian ethics" either in theory or practice. But Lady Cicely brings up the balance, leaving "Cæsar and Cleopatra to the good-very decidedly. We cannot think this last a very playlike play, but it is excellent reading. Some things seem a trifle absurd, as when Britannus declares that there should be a matron when Cleopatra visits Cæsar, and much has a contagious levity, as when Cæsar is inspired to leap into the sea and swim to the Rhodian galleys and they toss Cleopatra into the water after him. Still it would be bad to have monotony even in excellence, and such breaks are doubtless useful as a relief from the serious strength and even thought of the piece as a whole.

Theories on Colonial liberty.

The name of Alexander Brown, of Nelson county, Virginia, has long been associated in the field of historical literature with some decided views upon the birth of America's free institutions. He would annihilate the decades of slow political evolution, and have Freedom in present-day garb step forth from the church at Jamestown or the cabin of the "Mayflower." His latest volume," English Politics in Early Virginia" (Houghton), essays to prove that "our founders first settled this country upon proper political charter rights but were wilfully robbed of this distinction by the crown's licensed historians." It is a kind of essence extracted from his "First Republic of the United States " and his "Genesis of the United States," but colored with defiance and reassertion. Like a stag at bay, he turns upon his critics in a kind of preface in the middle of the book, and at the same time discloses the woes of "the first person under the Republic to undertake sincerely the task of correcting this historic wrong." He confesses "the great difficulty. of compiling a book in the best form for correcting the wrong impressions which have resulted from an almost absolute control over the history and all the evidences for nearly one hundred and fifty years, by the crown officials"; the long search for "a publisher liberal enough and patriotic enough to undertake the publication of an article or a book opposing opinions which have grown gray with age and become popular"; and then the difficulty of "selling a sufficient number of advance orders to justify the printing, etc." Yet he is led to rejoice that the press and historians who under former license might have burned his books and imprisoned him can now only "roast" him, as he puts it. Even

those who cannot follow him in reading into the commercial lives of our fathers our high political ideals, nor in thinking a king would employ his time in such trivial matters as planning to suppress evidences of free ideas among his few colonists, must give the author credit for earnestness and a militant spirit, although they look with forbearing pity on his rather unequal combat with the armorclad knights of long-existing conclusions. The search for novel ideas in history need go no further than this recent production of Mr. Brown.

The love-letters of eminent people The love-letters are just now to the fore with the of Victor Hugo. publishers, and the way in which these tender missives are being exploited as an asset by their thrifty custodians should be a caution to celebrities now living. The latter, it seems, if they dread this form of post-mortem publicity, will do well either to follow the example of Mr. Barkis when they go a-wooing, or else to see to it personally that their epistolary billings and cooings are consigned to the flames before their heirs and the public get a chance at them. We have now before us a very pretty volume of nearly three hundred pages containing "The Love Letters of Victor Hugo" (Harper), to Mlle. Adèle Foucher, many or all of which have already been published in the magazines, where they naturally and deservedly attracted much attention, both on account of the great name of their author, and of their singular charm and interest as characteristic compositions of their kind. In his Introduction to the volume, the helpful, if somewhat rapturous, editor, M. Paul Meurice, assures us, by way of whetting our appetite for the banquet to follow, that, "They evidently were not written to be seen by other eyes than those of the girl he loved; he constantly entreats her to burn them; they are all the more valuable on that account." The above view will hardly commend itself to a delicate sense of propriety, and seems rather at odds with a well-known convention long prevalent among gentlemen. But there is no doubt that the unrestrictedly frank and self-revealing character of the letters, and their consequent value as records of the inner life of the writer, are in a way guaranteed by the fact that he wanted them kept secret; and this is perhaps what M. Meurice means to imply. The letters cover a period of two years, from 1820 to 1822. They are love-letters pure and simple, the rapturous outpourings of a youth of genius who has nothing to conceal from his mistress, and whose pen paints with delicate fidelity the fluctuating emotions of the lover's heart. The volume is a tasteful one outwardly, and contains some interesting portraits.

the times of which Parkman treats, and of her development, than he knows of any important country of Europe or Asia. Yet the history of Canada is related to our own at many points, and is full of interest for this reason as well as interesting in itself. Hence the latest addition to the excellent "Cambridge Historical Series" (Macmillan) commands attention for its theme, “Canada, 17601900," as well as for its excellence. The author is Sir John G. Bourinot, a scholar and writer of reputation, and probably the highest authority on Canadian history. He first gives a sketch of the French Régime, then takes up the settlement of the several parts of the country, then the development of representative institutions. This last forms a most interesting story, complicated as it was with the race jealousies of French and English, religious differences, provincial rivalries, and the ideas and prejudices inherited on the one side from fugitive Loyalists from the Thirteen Colonies, and on the other from the French absolutism of the Old Régime. The author gives another side of the history of the American Revolution and of the War of 1812 from that presented by our own writers. He gives the Canadian view of Samuel Adams as agitator and conspirator, and of the insufficiency and pettiness of the causes alleged for our separation from England; of the puerility of our management of the War of 1812; and, in the last chapter, of Canada's relations with the United States, in orderly survey from 1783 to 1900, boundaries, fisheries, trade, including the questions now in dispute between the countries. We give our hearty commendation of the book as an interesting story of political development, as casting side-lights on our own history, and as a valuable reference book.

The cult of the book-plate.

The collecting of book-plates (qua book-plates) is said to have begun in 1820 with a Miss Jenkins of Bath, England. Her collection, seventeen years later, furnished the nucleus of what has since become one of the largest in England. The literature of the subject began in France in 1874, and in England six years later; and has been increased since then in England, France, Germany, and America, by numerous volumes and a flood of periodical contributions. At the present time, the interest taken in these sometimes artistic bits of paper is undoubtedly widespread and steadily increasing. To the periodical literature of the subject, Mr. W. G. Bowdoin has been a frequent, persistent, and prolific contributor. He is therefore well qualified to inform the public about book-plates, but his "Rise of the Book-Plate (Wessels) does not give us as much historical knowledge of the subject as we might be led to expect, though it is precisely the kind of book the collector of ex libris will find indispensable. It contains an Introduction and a paper on "The Study and Arrangement of BookPlates" by Mr. Henry Blackwell, a veteran collector; two essays by Mr. Bowdoin, in defense of

collecting and in "exemplification of the art"; a page of names of American book-plate designers; a bibliography and lists of contributors to American and English book-plate literature; and a list of book-plate inscriptions - not nearly as full as it might be made without risk of becoming tiresome. The remaining pages are devoted to fac-similes of more than two hundred German, Austrian, Belgian, Italian, Arabic, Welsh, French, English, Canadian, and American book-plates, showing the extent of Mr. Bowdoin's collection and the immense diversity of styles employed in the production of a bookplate. Unfortunately, a great number of Mr. Bowdoin's examples suffer by being reproduced in miniature.

Another book of "manners."

If the annual output of works on etiquette" were any criterion, the American carries the national quality of common-sense into his personal behavior to a very slight extent. In another aspect, such a work as Miss Emily Holt's "Encyclopædia of Etiquette" (McClure, Phillips & Co.) is an indication of the national longing for the best, and its sub-titles, "What to Write, What to Wear, What to Do, What to Say," and "A Book of Manners for Everyday Use," are only expressions of that democracy which believes itself to be as good as anybody or anything, and needs nothing more than the telling to put it into demonstration. Yet it is manifest that any person certain of his breeding can not possibly require such a volume; and no less certain that a person without breeding cannot be given it by a library full of similar works. It must, therefore, be intended for that large class, like Mahomet's coffin in respect of heaven and earth, which is neither in nor out of good society—or at least is not in bad society. Every social plane has its own conventions, and these are the birthright of all born within its domain. What Miss Holt has undertaken to do is to show what those people in Europe who believe themselves to be better than the common herd do when they have money enough, and, by a parity of reasoning, what Americans should do when they come into a fortune sufficient to warrant their breaking into a class of equal wealth previously acquired. If they trust to her book they will not go very far wrong, and if they do not none will discover it unless they happen to read the same book.

South Carolina in the Revolution.

The reputation already established by Mr. Edward McCrady, a member of the Charleston, South Carolina, bar, in his two volumes on the early history of his State, is not likely to be diminished in his new "History of South Carolina in the Revolution " (Macmillan). The first part of the book is an excellent description of the rise and growth of the civil revolution in the Palmetto State. It does justice to Drayton, Gadsden, Laurens, the Rutledges, and many others, whose work in the good cause has long been overshadowed by that of pa

triots in the northern colonies where chroniclers and newspapers more abounded. The author makes no attempt to shield or explain away the early unpopularity of the patriot cause, and the frequent dissensions of its constituents. As the later years of the war proper approach, and the tide of battle turns toward South Carolina, the author finds himself encumbered with a mass of tactical detail and campaign minutia which makes three-fourths of his book a military history. At last, after almost nine hundred pages, he stops abruptly at the close of the year 1780 with the statement that another volume will be necessary to complete the subject. This might better have been stated clearly upon the title page. There is no attempt to laud unduly the achievements of South Carolina, or detract from those of the other States. The facts are presented with the directness of the lawyer. The references are not voluminous but are well chosen. The subject matter is illustrated by a number of plans of battles.

Pleasures of ballooning.

If the Rev. John M. Bacon had written his book " By Land and Sky" (Lippincott) with a view to converting his fellow-men to ballooning, he could not have manifested more enthusiasm, nor set forth the joys he has experienced high above the earth more eloquently. It is a book which can be read for pure pleasure, uncontaminated by any selfish and few mundane considerations. It contains many accounts of the fearless author's voyages in the clouds, in times of sun and moon, of calm and storm, and all of them made thrilling by the certainty that coming to earth is a vastly more complicated and exciting business than sailing away from it. There are four excellent pictures, and a general avoidance of technicalities and statistics such as might weary the general reader. At the same time there is an abundance of well-distributed information and pertinent observation. If any one is hesitating between staying on the ground or ascending to the skies, Mr. Bacon's book can be relied upon to decide him in favor of ascent.

If interest in an author and the The latest study probable permanence of that interest of Stevenson. may in a measure be understood from the number of books written about him, we may safely conclude that Robert Louis Stevenson is fairly secure in the present and prospective regard of the lovers of books. Within less than a twelve-month two volumes dealing with his life and work have come to our table, besides another somewhat ambitious volume giving considerable space to the discussion of his art. The latest study of Stevenson, by Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, is the work of an old schoolmate of Stevenson's, and therefore displays a delightfully intimate acquaintance with the man in his relation to the product of his pen. The book does not make pretense

to the dignity of a well-rounded biography, but it traces the development of the delicate sensitive