"Histories and Historical Societies" was the subject of an address delivered a year ago by Hon. Charles Francis Adams, at the opening of the Fenway Building of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It now appears in pamphlet form, and, although of a somewhat discursive nature, is replete with timely suggestions and wise reflections.

Part

A monograph which is well worth the serious attention of students of sociology in general and of those interested in Southern conditions in particular comes to us from Atlanta University, and is entitled "The Negro in Business." of its contents has already seen the light, if we are not mistaken, in the form of a contribution to the Reports of the Bureau of Labor; but Dr. Du Bois has appended thereto a very valuable account of the proceedings of the Fourth Conference for the study of the negro problem, held last May at Atlanta. Much light is thrown on the economic and social progress of the colored race by these intelligent studies, and perhaps the most hopeful aspect of this work is furnished by the fact that the negro is approaching selfconsciousness. The fact that negroes are so largely engaged throughout the Southern States in industrial undertakings argues well for their economic freedom in this section, where one rarely finds that prejudice against black workingmen which is characteristic of many Northern communities. In some of the larger cities of the East it is becoming more and more difficult for a negro to find employment save in the most menial walks of life. The Italians are even driving him out of the bootblack business in New York City, and he is often forced to gain a livelihood there by working in saloons, gambling houses, and other resorts that are well calculated to drag him down to the lowest depths of degradation. It is the exception to find a negro waiter in an Eastern club or hotel. With the growth of urban population a similar state of things may soon exist in the South, and, indeed, in the newer commonwealths of this section the barber and the mechanic of the black race are fast being supplemented by their white rivals. Unless the

negro is capable and willing to work he will be driven to the wall. The race is still in its storm and stress period, and is obliged, at its peril, to learn how to adapt itself to a new environment teeming with the seeds of future disaster. In these altered circumstances the negro cannot afford to count on receiving that sentimental consideration which came to him perhaps naturally after the civil war had clothed him with a citizenship for which he was ill prepared. He is now placed on the same legal and economic footing with the white race, and must cultivate those moral and intellectual faculties that form the basis of every manly and independent character. His interests are identical with those of his white neighbors. The problems of both races are the same, and the greatest of those problems is not how one race may supplant the other, but how both may unite in the work of building up the waste places of a common country, and rendering all parts of it safe for men and women to live in—to live, too, under the best conditions possible.

There are two sources of amusement for negroes mentioned in this brochure against which every friend of the black race should set his face. We refer to the saloon and the minstrel show. It is difficult to say which influence is the more debasing, but, all things considered, we are inclined to yield the palm to the vaudeville with its "coon" songs and survival of immoral savage serpent worship in the form of the so-called "cake walk." The negro saloon is too often the rendezvous of the most depraved and vicious of both sexes, where drunken brawls, and even murders, frequently occur. As for the minstrel shows, with a few well-known exceptions, the sooner the public realizes their baleful influences the better. They are not only a burlesque of negro life, with songs the negroes have neither composed nor sung, but they are frequently exhibitions of a vulgarity and filth that contaminate all classes of the community that tolerates them. Amusements the negroes should have, but they ought to be—even if of a histrionic type-of a healthy, elevating character rather than the reverse.

Attention is called to the fact that that admirable series of historical studies known as "American Statesmen," which Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. have been publishing for many years, under the editorship of Mr. John T. Morse, Jr. has practically come to a close with the issue of Prof. A. B. Hart's Chase," Mr. Charles Francis Adams's life of his distinguished father, and Mr. Moorfield Story's "Sumner." It is almost needless to say that the volumes prepared by these competent hands rank high in the series and that they will be invaluable to students of American history. The only fault to be found with the series, to our mind, is the fact that, after Calhoun, it finds no room for any Southern statesman and indeed for few Northern Democrats. Is there still a delusion in Boston to the effect that only the men who helped to preserve the Union are to be counted as American statesmen? On this principle an adherent of monarchy would omit Cromwell from a series of English statesmen, with rather absurd results.

We are pleased to notice that Mr. John Lane is advertising the tenth thousand of Mr. Stephen Phillips's play, "Paola and Francesca." Part of this demand is undoubtedly due to much the same popular desire for the new thing that has made Mr. Markham's "Man with the Hoe" such a financial success, but we trust that a goodly number of readers have been attracted to Mr. Phillips's play because it came from the accomplished pen of the author of "Christ in Hades" and "Marpessa." Those who were attracted to the drama because of the beauty of the "Poems" have surely not been disappointed. No other recent poet has scored such a success; and if the play succeeds on the stage as well as it does in the closet, Mr. Phillips's fame would seem to be

secure.

That very useful book, "A Dictionary of English Synonyms and Synonymous or Parallel Expressions," by Richard Soule, has just been issued by Little, Brown & Co. in a new and revised edition under the supervision of Prof. George

H. Howison, LL.D., of the University of California. The first edition was copyrighted in 1871, so that the work has a standing of nearly thirty years. Prof. Howison acknowledges the thoroughness of the original compiler's work by stating that he found little more to do than to carry out to greater completeness the lines of Mr. Soule's original design." We believe that the new edition will be welcomed by a very large public and that both the editor and the publishers are to be congratulated on the success of their labors.

Mr. Ellery

The Beacon Biographies" go bravely on. Sedgwick's" Thomas Paine " forms the tenth volume of what has become a really notable series. Among volumes promised we note that "Sam Houston" will be undertaken by Miss Sarah Barnwell Elliott, and "Benjamin Franklin" by Mr. Lindsay Swift. Poe was assigned to the late Richard Hovey, but we do not know yet whether he had completed it at the time of his lamented death.

We have on our table from the Macmillan Company Volume X. of the Temple edition of Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's "Lives," completing the work; "The Nature and Work of Plants," by Daniel Trembly Macdougal; and "The World and the Individual," Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Aberdeen by Prof. Josiah Royce. We have from Henry Holt & Co. "Folly Corner," by Mrs. Dudeney, which we shall notice later, and "The Memoirs of the Baroness Cecile de Courtot."

THE

SEWANEE REVIEW.

VOL. VIII.]

JULY, 1900.

[No. 3.

COWARD AND PATRIOT.1

THE 3d of January, 1895, was, according to the traditional chronology, the two thousandth anniversary of Marcus Tullius Cicero's birth. Surely it will be generally agreed that such a day should not pass unmarked. There are few men throughout all history who have played so many parts, and in so interesting a manner, upon the stage of life. A portion of his supreme importance is, indeed, an accident of survival. His copious philosophical dialogues, in particular, are in the main transcripts from Greek originals, and only the loss of the Epicurean and other sources makes these books indispensable. Even his works on the history and theory of Roman rhetoric are doubly precious because no rival or preceding orator survives, even in a single speech. His correspondence, again, is in many directions our only resource for light on political events, upon the one hand; or upon the other, for the idioms of colloquial Latin. This, too, is what we call, perhaps irreverently, an accident.

But in political and legal oratory, at least, his leadership among Romans would hardly be questioned, even if some miracle had preserved all of the masterpieces of Latin eloquence. As a stylist, also, the imperial adjective Ciceronian

This paper was read, nearly in its present form, as a lecture, at Swarthmore College, on the anniversary referred to, January 3, 1895. A few old Bryn Mawr students may also recognize in it a sort of "specimen brick" from the courses of lectures on Greek and Latin literature given there during 1892-94. The article on Cicero in the "Library of the World's Best Literature" sets forth the same general views, but is entirely distinct, it is believed, in phrasing, as well as on a much briefer scale. W. C. L.