heart and yet was optimistic." He is as vividly accurate and minute in his descriptions as Balzac, with far more grace; less strong than Zola, in his naturalism, but far more delicate. Zola has an architectural grandeur of conception and of execution, too; Daudet gives us his best in the short story. Hence it seems that if a man is to read but one book of Daudet, he will hardly do better than read this. Though, on the other hand, we should be disposed to regard Maupassant a greater master of the short story, the Nouvelle, than he; and we do not know who but he could have written Numa Roumestan, or Sappho. Indeed it is natural that the new school should excel in the short story, for it has become, for various reasons, literary and financial, the form of fiction that brings the speediest return to the writer both in money and in fame. The Gil Blas is said to have been started as a daily vehicle of publication for the story-tellers, and the Echo de Paris makes them its predominant feature. And yet after all it will be long before readers cease to recall with delight La Derniere Classe and Le Siege de Berlin, little cameos that ought to endure as long as the robust yet graceful humor of Tartarin. You shall find them both here and a glimpse of Tartarin's own Tarascon into the bargain.

MINOR NOTICES.

MR. A. C. CHAMPNEYS' "History of English" (New York: Macmillan & Co.) is one of those books which a careful teacher would hardly be willing to recommend until he had tried it in his class room, so numerous are the the manuals, similar in scope and construction, that are already in constant use in our high schools and colleges. The book is one, however, that might well attract the teacher who is dissatisfied with the text-book he has been using, and it might be not uninviting to the general reader who is in search of a handy volume devoted to the history of the development of his native tongue. The most attractive feature of the author's method of presenting his subject is his copious citation of illustrative extracts from writers of all periods and local sections. There are so many of these extracts that the teacher will be enabled to expand his work ad libitum and the general reader to dispense with buying a companion volume of specimens of literature. Another good feature of the book, from the standpoint of the two classes above mentioned, is the author's endeavor to treat his subject as far as possible without dealing too largely with that bête noir of younger students, phonology. It may be noted that Mr. Champneys has relied upon the most recent and best authorities, although his frequent citations from the works of Mr. T. L. Kington Oliphant might not meet with the approbation of "F. H.," the veteran philological protagonist of the New York Nation. We cannot say as much for the grace of Mr. Champneys' style as for the painstaking labor that has gone to compose his volume.

A RECENT volume in Heath's English Classics (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.) is "Select Speeches of Daniel Webster," edited by Mr. A. J. George, who has done a good deal of such

work for the same firm and who is expected to do a good deal more. The art of book-making is certainly one in which Americans are beginning to excel, and we believe that the day will soon come when every school teacher will make his own text-books as a regular part of his business. The method of making such a book, as the one before us ought not to be hard to discover. One step in preparation may be noted. Mr. George applied to two prominent politicians and got their help in selecting the speeches to be studied and then dedicated his book to one of them in the following terms: "To the Hon. George F. Hoar, LL. D., a worthy successor of Daniel Webster in the Senate of the United States." This, we suggest, is a most enterprising method of editing a text-book. What patriotic American school-boy would not feel gratified át studying a school-book in the making of which a United States Senator had had a share? We hope, by the way, that Mr. Hoar had no share in the notes, indeed we feel certain of it, for he must know that the James River flows by Jamestown and that it is an excess of local patriotism to intimate that, by his handling of the Dartmouth College case, Webster founded a new school of constitutional law. But after all, what have these points, or indeed most of the points covered by these notes, to do with literature?

WHILE we are on the subject of English literature, we may commend very heartily the succinct primer on Chaucer which Mr. Alfred W. Pollard has recently written for the Macmillans. He has presented in a brief but thorough way the results of the latest Chaucerian researches, and has thus furthered the study of a poet whose works are an increasing delight to men.

MR. WALTER MALONE'S "Narcissus and Other Poems" (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company), while showing the immature characteristics of youth, does not repel us on account of the classical themes of its two leading poems or by its obvious echoes of Keats. It is a good sign, we think,

when a young poet echoes Keats and when he loves Greece. While we wish to have Southern poets that sing of Southern themes, we are well aware that it is a dangerous procedure to endeavor to check a poet's imagination; and we are not sure that the Southern or American poems, written in answer to repeated popular or critical demands for such productions, will ever be any better reading than the sincere if immature outpouring of a Keats-smitten poet. We do not think, however, that Mr. Malone need necessarily remain Keats-smitten. We fancy that we can detect, especially in his sonnets, the metrical felicity that marks a singer, and if this be so, then sooner or later our poet will develop an authentic note of his own. What this note may be must be left to time and the development of powers that time may be trusted to bring.

THE first volume of Mr. Henry Craik's long promised companion series to Ward's "English Poets" has just appeared under the title "English Prose Selections" (New York and London, Macmillan & Co.) It covers the period from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century inclusive. The plan is naturally that followed by Mr. Ward. Each author selected is treated by a specialist who writes a critical introduction which is preceded by a brief biographical summary. An original feature is seen in the editor's purpose to furnish each period with a separate introduction—a plan which may be commended for future editions of Mr. Ward's volumes, although, of course, the noble general introduction by Matthew Arnold could never be dispensed with. This first instalment of a series which has been variously announced as consisting of four or five volumes, includes fifty-two writers of all degrees of prominence, from Chaucer and Sidney to William Clowes and Timothy Bright. Among the chief contributors, besides the editor, are Mr. Saintsbury, Mr. Ker, Mr. Churton Collins, Professor Hales, and Professor A. W. Ward. A commendable feature of the critical notices is their brevity. It is refreshing to see that even a Tory like Mr. Saintsbury is still sufficiently in fashion to have grave

doubts as to the actual existence of that delightful old traveller Sir John Mandeville. It is not so pleasant to find that, while the anonymous Complaint of Scotland is admitted, The Paston Letters are not drawn upon at all. It is to be regretted, too, that Mr. Reichel, to whom fell the pleasant task of presenting Sir Thomas More, failed to give a single selection from the delightful letters of that great man. But every editor is fallible, and Mr. Craik has done an important and needed work. We desire to commend especially the introductory essay on "The Earlier History of English Prose," furnished by one of the ablest and most prolific contributors to the volume, Mr. W. P. Ker, who, if we mistake not, has recently done service to students of another class, by editing the late Professor Sellar's delightful work on Horace and the Elegiac Poets.

IN re-issuing in a detached and cheap form Mr. Frederic Harrison's admirable essay "The Choice of Books," Messrs. Macmillan & Company have done a real service to the cause of good literature. But like all gifts to the greedy, this gift will be received with cries for more of the same sort. When one thinks of the number of good books that are still practically inaccessible to poor students or to readers who have not been trained to buy books, on account of the high prices still attached to them, one grows despondent, especially when one has just glanced over the stock of a dealer in paper-back novels. Take for example, Arnold's "Essays in Criticism." Could not the two volumes, which are retailed we believe for three dollars, be brought into one, and sold for a dollar, or, in paper, for even less? The reduction in price ought to cause an increase in sales that would repay the publishers, and spread greatly the influence of good literature. But publishers know their own business better than we do, and we make our suggestion modestly. We have, at least, much to be grateful for in this popular re-issue of "The Choice of Books." We have re-read it with pleasure, and found that its interest and charm and value have not