AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR. Abridged from "Essentials of English Grammar," by Professor W. D. Whitney. By Mrs. Sara E. Lockwood. 253 pp. Cloth, 80 cents. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1892.

Whitney's "Essentials of English Grammar" has long been a standard book. This adaptation of it is intended for the use of students who are not of sufficient maturity to use with advantage the original work. It is simple, plain, straightforward, and practical, and any one who needs to study English grammar will find it to be a very useful and satisfactory work.

W. H. H.

A PRIMER OF English Verse, Chiefly IN ITS ESTHEtic AND ORGANIC CHARACTER. By Hiram Corson, LL.D. 232 pp. Cloth, $1.10. Boston: Ginn & Co. 1892.

The title of Professor Corson's book is misleading. It is not a primer of English verse so much as it is a study of English verse with especial view to its æsthetic and organic nature; and while the student will get many valuable hints and suggestions from the book, the beginner in verse-writing will not find in it the special primary instruction that he needs. It is rather a book for students of literature and for those who have already mastered the primary principles of verse writing, and such readers will find it suggestive, inspiring, and scholarly throughout.

W. H. H.

ESSAYS IN MINIATURE. By Agnes Repplier. 217 pp. Cloth, 75 cents. New York: Charles L. Webster & Co. 1892. Miss Repplier is one of the brightest essayists of the present day and a living refutation of the calumny that no woman is ever the possessor of a complete sense of humor. Her contributions to periodical literature are always timely, entertaining, and full of interest, and this collection of her essays will be welcomed by very many readers. Our Friends, the Books," "Trials of a Publisher," "The Oppression of Notes," "Conyersations in Novels," "A Short Defence of Villains," "Children in Fiction," and "The Novel of Incident" are the titles of some of her papers, and there is not one among all those included in the volume that is not well worth reading.

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of the instructor must be largely the reason for their enthusiasm; for, to be frank about it, the book itself is insufferably dull. In the chapters on "Literary Sentence Length in English Prose" and "The Weight of Styles" are given the results of a great deal of laborious wordcounting by Professor Sherman,― presumably with the assistance of his pupils, and from the figures given we learn that in 500 sentences by Spenser the average number of words in a sentence is 49.82; in 500 sentences by Macaulay the average is 22 45; in 500 by Channing, 25.73; and in 500 by Emerson, 20.58. The average number of words in 2,225 sentences by De Quincey is 33.25. The importance of all this, however, does not seem to be at all commensurate with its undoubted truth.

W. H. H.

BIRD-COM. By Leander S. Keyser. 226 pp. Cloth, $1.00. Boston: D. Lothrop Company.

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"There are many persons whose minds need to be awakened to an appreciation of nature," says Mr. Keyser, in the opening chapter of Bird-dom," and that is one of the purposes of this unpretending volume." That the book will fulfil this purpose, there can be no reasonable doubt. Mr. Keyser is an ardent lover of nature, and his descriptions of his own experience in bird-study are so attractive that they are sure to inspire others to follow his example. His observations have been chiefly in Ohio, but his suggestions regarding methods apply to all localities, and, of course, many of the birds that he describes are found everywhere in the United States. Writers generally might profitably make a special study of bird-dom, training themselves thereby to habits of close observation, and increasing their descriptive powers. How many writers, for example, could hear so much or distinguish what they hear so well as Mr. Keyser, in this description of what he calls "bird song and bird prattle," heard while sitting beneath the trees one April day at the border of a piece of woodland: "The turtle doves jays are trilling in their explosive way, or calling are cooing their soft, far-away lays; the blueplaintively; the robins - how many I cannot tellare carolling in a transport; the tufted titmice are sounding their bugles; the measured roundelays of the wood-sparrows fall sweetly on the ear; the stentorian reveille of the golden-winged woodpeckers is heard, mingling with their affectionate chattering in the trees; a chewink sings in a brush-heap; the sweet quaver of the white throated sparrows runs like a thread of silver through the weft of song: Carolina wrens are having a vocal revel; cardinal grossbeaks and meadow-larks are fluting; the nut-hatches furnish the alto for the anthem; a song sparrow plays several variations on his harp, and a brown thrush breaks forth in so rich a strain that he must be awarded the palm in the winged orchestra." "Bird-dom"

is a welcome addition to the literature to which Bradford Torrey, John Burroughs, Maurice Thompson, Charles C. Abbott, and Olive Thorne Miller have made such fascinating contributions.

W. H. H. -ONE HUNDRED LESSONS IN BUSINESS. By Seymour Eaton. 100 pp. Cloth, $1.00.

Mr. Eaton's book is divided into three parts, the first entitled 66 One Hundred Lessons in Business"; the second, "Short Cuts in Figures"; and the third, "How to Write a Good Business Letter." It is full of practical suggestions, and more than one among the rules given is worth the whole price of the book. Until further notice the publishers of the Bookkeeper, Detroit, will give a year's subscription to the Bookkeeper and a copy of "One Hundred Lessons in Business," both for only seventyfive cents. HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

W. H. H.

Government Scrap-books. It was not until after I had been engaged in literary work for several years that I discovered what excellent scrap-books the United States government makes for writers' use. They are not marked "Scrap-book" upon the back, or in gilt letters, with a graceful scroll, upon the side. Some of them bear ponderous titles, such as "Report of the Commissioner of Labor," "Report of the Director of the Mint," etc., but I think they must be really designed for scrap-books, since very many of them are so excellently adapted for scrap-book purposes and so manifestly without value for any other use. A paternal government kindly prints these books on good, strong paper, and issues them, firmly bound in plain black cloth, in large editions. They may be had for the asking; sometimes well-meaning congressmen even force them upon their con. stituents, and the government pays all the freight. They are of just the right size usually to take two columns in width of newspaper printed matter on each page; and when every other page has been neatly torn out with the tin strip which all writers use in dissecting their check-books, the result is a scrap-book excellent and admirable in all respects. I usually adorn the back of each volume that I use with a white-paper label, covering all the government's gilt, and marked with the name of the topic to which the clippings in the book all relate. The different volumes of my set are of

nearly uniform size, and look well in orderly array upon my shelves. When the clippings have been pasted in, the dismal array of tedious statistical tables is mercifully buried out of sight, excepting in the case of clippings from which I am likely to want to cut sections for use in copy some day, and which are accordingly pasted on only one side of the leaf. In that case, I make it a point never to compare critically the interesting printed matter which 1 paste on the right-hand pages with the uninteresting details with which the government has soiled the left-hand pages. In this way I avoid hurting the feelings of the government and save myself from pain. Of course, there are some public documents which it would be desecration to use in such a way, but they are very few. Some documents, too, are of inconvenient size. In the main, however, the government scrap-books are deserving of the heartiest approval, especially because they are so cheap. They cost the government a few million dollars annually, I believe, but those of them that I have used have cost me seldom even so much as a postal card, and never a regretful pang.

LOWELL, Mass.

J. W.

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

[The publisher of THE WRITER will send to any address a copy of any magazine mentioned in the following reference list on receipt of the price given in parenthesis following the name. Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies containing the articles mentioned in the list will confer a favor if they will mention THE WRITER when they write.] How GLADSTONE WORKS. Mrs. Mary Drew. Youth's Companion (10 c.) for August 17.

A GIRL'S RECOLLECTIONS OF DICKENS. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer. Lippincott's (25 c. ) for September.

DON'T. TO YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS. F. M. B. Lippin cott's (25 c.) for September.

PLAY-WRITING FROM AN ACTOR'S POINT OF VIEW. W. H. Crane. North American Review (50 c. ) for September. A THACKERAY MANUSCRIPT IN HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY. T. R. Sullivan. With a fac-simile. Scribner's (25 c.) for September.

NOTES ABOUT IBSEN. C. M. Waage. Californian ('25 c. ) for September.

PACIFIC COAST WOMAN'S PRESS ASSOCIATION. E. T. Y. Parkhurst. Californian ( 25 c.) for September.

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CASE. Rev. M. J. Savage, General Marcus J. Wright, L. L. Lawrence, William E. Sheldon, George Makepeace Towle, and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. Arena (50 c.) for September.

MORAL AND IMMORAL LITERATURE. Queary. Arena ( 50 c. ) for September.

Rev. Howard Mac

FORREST MORGAN (editor of the Travelers' Record). E. H. M. Weekly Journalist ( 10 c.) for August 31. HINTS TO PROOF-READERS. American Bookmaker ( 25 c.) for August.

THE COLOR PRESS FOR NEWSPAPER PRINTING. J. Kelly Inland Printer for September.

HOW MUSIC IS PRINTED. Frank S. Freeman. Companion (10C.) for August 24.

William

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SOME POPULAR PRESENT-DAY AUTHORS. With portraits of Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, I. Zangwill, Alphonse Daudet, and T W. Higginson. Review of Reviews (25 c.) for August.

A PLEA FOR VERTICAL WRITING. With illustrative examples. A. F. Newlands. Penman's Art Journal (10 c.) for September.

THE NEW ERA IN LETTERS. Arthur Waugh. Reprinted from National Review in Eclectic (45 c.) for August. SOCIAL MORALITY AND HYPOCRISY IN FICTION. Young E. Allison. Fetter's Southern Magazine (25 c.) for August. UNCHASTITY IN FICTION. Joshua W. Caldwell. Fetter's Southern Magazine (25 c.) for August

One of the literary features of Scribner's for September is T. R. Sullivan's account of the original manuscript of Thackeray's "Roundabout Papers," which is now in the Harvard college library. A number of new and interesting paragraphs have been found in this orig nal manuscript which are not in the published works of Thackeray.

in which money

As an illustration of the way is paid to writers as soon as they acquire a reputation, it is asserted that the September Cosmopolitan contains less than 8,000 words, for which $1,666 was paid. Ex-President Harrison, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells are the three contributors whose work commands such a price. The publishers explain how it is possible to sell the Cosmopolitan at twelve and a half cents a copy by their announcement that the Christmas edition will exceed 200,000 copies, and that, in consequence of these large editions, they are enabled to raise the advertising rates from $200 to $300 a page- fifty dollars a page more than has ever been charged by any of the leading magazines in this country.

"The Bronte Family," by Dr. William Wright, to be published with illustrations by D. Appleton & Co., contributes absolutely fresh information to the history of the Brontë family, and presents certain romances of family history almost as strange and thrilling as anything in the novels of the gifted sisters.

One of the compositors of THE WRITER has added to the list of typographical curiosities by setting up the sentence, "Ingenuousness, thy name is man," in Mr. Melcher's article in the present number of THE WRITER, in an amended form, as follows: "Ingenious mess, thy name is man."

Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant, in her article on Daniel Defoe in the September Century, says that Defoe was fifty-eight years old when "Robinson Crusoe" was written, and that he was then a man who had fallen and failed, and had made but little of his life.

The Boston Globe published August 27 the first full-page zinc etching picture ever made in one piece and put through a fast newspaper press. It was an advertising cut, and the idea was originated by Frank B. Stevens, of Boston

So many young writers feel that they are illustrations of abused genius that I want to tell them the experience of one woman in literary ways. It may help them to see themselves and editors as they are.

My preparatory education for writing was unconscious. My father was an editor of a country weekly. He was and is a man of strong intellectual bent, and at home I heard the questions of the day and the leading books discussed. Books, papers, and the best magazines were my friends from my childhood. I cannot remember when I learned to read, nor can I remember when I did not find reading a comfort. From my twelfth year to my twentieth I

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kept a diary, and in this way gained a facility in writing. These influences were a blessing to me. In all other ways my lot has been that of most women.

I was twenty-five before I ever wrote a word for publication. I was led to it by the advice of a friend, himself a writer of some note, who said I could make a success of it if I were willing to learn. I have never asked the help of any friend in placing my manuscripts. To the influential friends who are mine, as my father's, I have never spoken of my writings unless I was asked about them. I have never inflicted upon my neighbors or family the reading of a line I have written. I have always acted upon the knowledge that my work, if it was good, would find a place; if it was bad, I did not want it printed. I have read and "minded" all the helpful hints to beginners that came in my way. I have no more skill or education than any girl can have, but I have energy, ambition, and persistency.

Speaking for the average beginner, who has talent, maybe, but not genius, I will now speak for myself. The first thing in a market sense is to have a market value. No beginner has this. Her name will not sell one copy of the paper or magazine that publishes her work. Get a market value by writing what is worth reading and getting it printed without payment, if you are not able to command payment for it. There are crudities in first works which drop off after a time, and the beginner may be grateful to the editor who prints them for nothing. She will see that they look different in print, and if she is wise, she will "view them with a critic's eye."

For a year I wrote and printed where I could, feeling that to be my apprenticeship. I earned