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It is also significant that such stanch Republican papers as the New York Mail and Express (reputed to be Senator Platt's organ) denounce in no measured terms the action of the Philadelphia officials. "Civic honor demands that the socalled Republican 'machine' be ditched." it says. "Republicans everywhere will throw up their hats if Philadelphia will only do it." The Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.), which is championing almost single-handed the course of Senator Quay and Mayor Ashbridge, contains much bitter comment on "Wanamakerism" and the "falsehood and vituperation of the yellow journals." Mr. Rothermel it describes as "Mr. Wanamaker's heretofore private counsel." It continues:

"Because John Wanamaker wants to go to the United States Senate, the newspaper organs of Wanamakerism have been telling the people that they have been robbed.

"They have not been.

"It is a lie.

"The movement for Rothermel is a mistake. It is the cloak that conceals the hidden hands of the political manipulators. The prominent citizens who attended last night's meeting have not been taken behind the curtain. When they penetrate there, when they discover what there really is behind this movement, they will run from it like frightened sheep.

"For behind it all is hypocrisy-nothing else.

"And hypocritical hands are doing the secret manipulating. "Our friends of last night's meeting unwittingly, unknowingly, have become the catspaws of a Personal-Interest movement that is bound in the end to go to smash.

"And when the thing is fully exposed and understood, as it will be in the course of time, there will be a very general stampede from it."

out trying to shut out our products, and sends us thousands of her sons every year to become full citizens and defenders of their new country." As far as the larger states are concerned, they now need no protection against Europe and the Monroe doctrine is "played out." Speaking of the moral effect of America's colonial policy, Señor Gransac declares that an attack has been made "not upon our autonomy, but upon our political beliefs, and an attack delivered by the very people who had impressed them upon us, by both precept and example; we find ourselves bewildered, like a scholar in presence of the apostasy of his teacher. Having lost all faith in the apostle, we are in danger of losing faith in his gospel. The historian will not regard it as the small

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SOUTH AMERICA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

NOT

WOT the least startling and far-reaching result of the "expansion" policy now definitely adopted by the United States Government and ratified by the Supreme Court is found in its influence upon our commerce among the South American states and their attitude toward us. "While we are trying to establish an empire on the other side of the world," declares the New Orleans Picayune (Dem.), "Germany is rapidly establishing her trade in South America, our natural market. While the American people are following a will-o'-the-wisp in the Melanesian archipelago in Asia, they have been giving the European nations the pretexts they wish to interfere in the affairs of the western hemisphere." The activity of Germany in colonizing Brazil is regarded in some quarters as presaging ambitious designs. It is estimated that there are at present in Brazil about 300.000 Germans. Venezuela, too, especially since the present asphalt imbroglio, is reported to have been "flirting with European governments," and Chile is far from friendly to this country. A most significant expression of South American sentiment is contained in an article by Señor Gransac, librarian of the National Library in Buenos Ayres, reported in the New York Evening Post (Ind.). "This writer may be all that is bad," remarks The Post, "prejudiced, blind, suspicious, ungrateful. Yet he undoubtedly speaks for the prevalent sentiment in the states south of the equator."

Señor Gransac, in his article, trenchantly discusses the Monroe doctrine, and dwells upon the serious modification of the attitude of the larger South American nations toward the United States, which must inevitably result from the latter-day "flaming Yankee imperialism." He makes it clear that the great and growing republics of South America-Chile, Argentina, and Brazil-feel themselves to-day much more threatened by the United States than by Europe. "These republics," writes Señor Gransac, "have no fear of civilized and industrial Europe-the only Europe we know. She exchanges her goods for ours with

RIGHT UNDER HIS NOSE.

-The Minneapolis Times. est of the crimes of American imperialism that it gave this profound shock to the souls of us South Americans."

Commenting on these remarks, the Baltimore News (Ind.)

says:

"In reckoning up the gains and losses of our expansion policy, a tremendous make-weight must be put into the wrong side of the scales to represent the loss of the unique place we held, up to 1898, among the great Powers of the world, in our supposed freedom from the desire for external dominion to which the others were all subject. He would be a bold computer who should undertake to determine how many guns and how great a tonnage of war-ships it would take to redress the balance."

TOPICS IN BRIEF.

Now Justice Brewer is married he will probably find out what it means to have his decisions reversed.-The Omaha News.

IT should perhaps be explained to the Cubans that the Independence that is so speedy is only a yacht.-The Kansas City Journal.

NOT A PLUM.-One thing the Russians can't say-that is that the Secretary of the Treasury is a green Gage.-The Detroit Journal. GENERAL CAILLES, having read the news from Pennsylvania, may have become disgusted with his own primitive methods.-The Detroit News. ADMIRAL CERVERA may at least congratulate himself on escaping disputes as to whose likeness is to go on any medal.-The Washington Star. A NEWSPAPER headline reads: "Has Emperor Kwang-Hsu been murdered?" He has; fourteen times within our remembrance.-The Detroit News.

SOLOMON had a world-wide reputation for wisdom-but then the old gentleman had no youthful college graduates to compete with. - The Chicago News.

A CONFIDENTIAL EXPLANATION.-"And what do we mean by saying that we do not intend to annex Manchuria?" asked his friend. "We mean," replied the Russian statesman, "that we have annexed it already and it isn't necessary to do it twice."-Puck.

BATS measuring nearly five feet from tip to tip of wings have been discovered in East Africa. Better import some of them into this country. Some of our baseball players need a bat about that width to insure their hitting the ball.- The St. Louis Star.

LETTERS AND ART.

LITERATURE AND THE PROFESSIONS.

WE

E lately quoted some statements of Mr. George H. Warner concerning the nationality of American authors, founded upon Mr. Oscar Fay Adams's "Handbook of American Literature." A new edition of that work has now been published from which it appears that the number of writers in this country since its settlement has reached a total of about 7, 500, instead of 6,500 as given in the preceding edition.

In a second article, Mr. Warner, who was associate editor of Charles Dudley Warner's "Library of the World's Best Literature," gives some facts, founded on the new edition of Adams's "Handbook," concerning literature as a profession. Literature here has not been, as in the older countries, an exclusive caste or profession, he remarks. "What has appeared in print has been mainly the work of men who have produced what their vocations have led them to wish to express; even, as in most cases, -outside the realm of the pure literary intent." He continues (in the New York Times Saturday Review, May 25):

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The profession of letters not being a distinct one, what takes its place is rather a profession of scholarship. There is an everincreasing number of men devoted to intellectual pursuits like the ministry, education, the law, medicine, who are at the same time authors.

"The clerical profession, as one might reason from the ancient meaning and application of the word clerk, contributes by far the greater number of writers, except, of course, writers of newspapers. It has the most leisure from its public duties and is prone to declare its views on any subject with less timidity than any other class of men, except, again, journalists. In the early period religious controversy and assertion were its principal themes; in the last half-century the effort of the writers has been to sweep back the incoming tide of science with a broom, to contradict discoveries in material things on moral grounds, or to defend and sustain some self-destroying dogma of their creed; but there has been a large product of exposition, exegesis, counsel, and spiritual experience, which has had much influence in its time, tho the part of it which is printed by request stands on the book shelves of the dealers longer than any other, and tho sermons are the cheapest literature offered by the dealers in old books.

"But the clergyman has been busy also in the lighter form of literature, and has written prolifically on current and political topics, essays on art, literature, travel, fishing, history, and many have added the novel and the poem to the score. From a careful estimate, it may be confidently stated that fully 25 per cent. out of a list of about 6, 500 authors, from the beginning of the colonies till now, have been clergymen. Of these, the Congregational ministers are the most numerous, being approximately 5.9 per cent. of the whole 25 per cent. The Methodists come next, with 3.6; the Presbyterians, with 3.5; the Episcopalians, 3.4; the Unitarians, 2.8; the Baptists, 2.7; the Universalists, 1.3; the Reformed Dutch, 1: the Roman Catholics, 0.4, with the Quakers, Swedenborgians, Lutherans, Cambellites, and Irvingites making up the total 25 per cent. . . . .

"Next in number to the clergy stand those who, for want of a better term, are classed as educators, presidents of colleges, universities, and other schools, professors, instructors, and teachers-a body of men who stand sponsors for learning and culture and who have among them some 11 per cent. of the authors of the United States. Their works are more closely related to scholarship than any other. . . . .

"Next in order the legal profession has the most authors to its credit, some 8 per cent. The books produced by the legal profession are not solely, tho they are mainly, upon legal subjects, the wilderness of statutes in our States and the Federal Government and the multitude of decisions, which really constitute the law, rendering it profitable to publish guides and expositions of law. in great numbers. It was stated recently that in the last year more works have appeared on law than on any other topic except fiction. Journalism, with its coordinate divisions of editor and publisher, has about the same rate as the law. It is to be re

marked, however, that in literature journalism has been a stepping-stone to a successful literary occupation aside from the newspaper. The next prominent class is that of the physician and surgeon, with some 5 per cent. The doctor has shown a decided tendency to become a naturalist, perhaps to produce, or at least understand, his own simples, and a novelist perhaps to medicine the souls of his patients; at any rate, we owe him many a literary incantation."

CHURCHILL'S "THE CRISIS" AND THE CRITICS.

MR.

R. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S popular success in American Iristorical romance does not seem likely to be lessened by his latest work, "The Crisis." It is not a sequel to "Richard Carvel," and yet it is a sequence, several of the descendants of that already famous revolutionary hero figuring in this new story. There are numerous signs that Mr. Churchill's popularity (the publishers of "The Crisis" announced a first edition of 100,000) is awakening the resentment of the critics, and several of them feel called upon to treat the book with mixed severity and levity. On the whole, however, the book is recognized as a result of conscientious study and of more than average literary skill. The London Spectator describes the plot of the story as follows:

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WINSTON CHURCHILL

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"The true hero of the story is Lincoln, and we have to thank Mr. Churchill for a very honest portrait of that great man, and a most graphic account of the manner in which he conquered the admiration of the fastidious. The scene of the story is laid in St. Louis, mainly in the ante-bellum years. Thither come Mrs. Brice and her son from Boston to make a fresh start in life, thither also Eliphalet Hopper, the shrewd, sanctimonious Yankee adventurer and villain of the plot. Stephen Brice studies law with Judge Whipple, a fiery Abolitionist, but a great personal friend of Colonel Carvel, a typical. Southern cavalier and father of the lovely Virginia Carvel. With her Stephen, of course, falls in love, but Virginia, tho magnetized by his strong personality, loses no chance of expressing her disdain for his politics. tween the Judge and the Colonel, representing the extreme views on either side, we have exponents of various shades of opinion on the burning question of the day in the little group of families who compose the dramatis persona. As the war grows imminent, the relations become more and more strained. But Mr. Churchill's tact in treading on the ignes suppositos cineri doloso never deserts him. He holds the personal balance wonderfully even between the rival camps. In the end Brice, after rescuing Virginia's betrothed, is rewarded by the avowal of her love, while, to balance this Northern conquest, the rôle of villain is filled to detestation by the money-grubbing Yankee traitor, Eliphalet Hopper. We may note as a special and most interesting feature in the book the account of the German colony in St. Louis, and the notable part played by them on the side of the North."

The critic of The Spectator considers Mr. Churchill's popularity (for in Great Britain also "Richard Carvel" has had a great sale, due in part, it is said, to the fact that the author's name is

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The Speaker (London) is also quite laudatory, tho its admiration is by no means unrestrained. It says:

"Mr. Winston Churchill has written a book that seems to sum up the tendency of much recent American fiction. Intense patriotism and fearless sentimentality seem to be the leading traits of the school, and they are both expressed at their best in Mr. Churchill's excellent new novel. The Crisis' is a living, stirring story of the great Secession War. . .

"We know exactly what to expect from this mise en scène and this period in history. We know what those impossibly thoroughbred-looking young men that we see in the illustrations to it will do in their impossibly restrained manner. We have heard it all before. But, on the whole, we think, it has never been quite so well done as Mr. Churchill does it, and his frank heroworship gives the book something of the glamour of a national epic. For his hero is Abraham Lincoln.”

The Academy (London) also thinks that Mr. Churchill's popu larity is to be permanent, not transient; but that as an original artist he does not count. We quote from its review of "The Crisis":

"Richard Carvel' was admirably constructed-hard, formal, and brilliant. The Crisis' is the same. Mr. Winston Churchill has not gone back. He will not be among those authors who achieve fame in a month only to lose it again in a few years. He will always be a dignified and impressive figure in American letters, and his books will always have an immense sale. So much it is fairly safe to prophesy. As an artist of original force and vision he counts not at all. Save that 'Richard Carvel' dealt with the Revolution and 'The Crisis' deals with the Civil War there is no real difference between the two novels. The characters are the same puppets in each; the spirit of every episode is the same. . . . Nothing could be more hackneyed, essentially, than 'The Crisis.' Yet it is a quite readable book—such is Mr. Churchill's virtuosity. It has the advantage of being the very best work of an industrious and highly ingenious man. The historical portraits-of Lincoln, Sherman, Grant-are put in with minute detail: they are perfectly faithful-and lifeless. The whole book is a wonderful imitation of the real thing. In saying that it could not be better and it could not be worse than it is we have no wish to utter a paradox."

The critic of Literature (London) is less sparing of praise. He pronounces the book to be "as well executed a novel as we have come across for many a long day," and thinks Mr. Churchill "probably the best writer of fiction now living" on this side of the Atlantic. The characters of Grant, Sherman, and especially Lincoln are considered "lifelike enough," but they are not the most important of Mr. Churchill's creations:

"The handful of St. Louis citizens that he sets before usColonel Carvel and his daughter, Judge Whipple, and the Colfaxes-step at once (as only the characters of a master in fiction can) into the ranks of our chosen friends. Mr. Churchill's popu larity, both in England and America, is something to marvel at, but The Crisis' shows that it is not undeserved. He has the gift of sympathy-the most valuable of all gifts in an author's equipment. There is a touch of Thackeray about him, and not only in the manner of writing, but in the essentials."

The verdict of the American critics, so far as they have yet expressed themselves, is similar to that reached by the British reviewers-that Mr. Churchill shows marked literary talent, but not, as yet, literary genius. Hamilton W. Mabie, reviewing "The Crisis" in the New York Times Saturday Review, writes: "It is distinctly the most carefully studied and the most convincing novel which has yet been written on the Civil War; no other story brings the reader so close to some of the great figures in the struggle; no other brings before the imagination so distinctly the terrible experiences which befell those who stood in the center of the storm. 'The Crisis' is a footnote to American history, as well as a stirring and moving novel."

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The Bookman (New York) thinks that "The Crisis" in earnest and serious bit of work," and, in a minor way, a very important addition to contemporary American literature"; but that it is "without the slightest touch of genius," and "utterly uninspired." The Independent similarly finds "but the least spark of vitality in the book," and thinks that the story, tho carefully elaborated, “contains neither plot nor movement"; the characters are "commonplace and unconvincing," the language "correct but heavy"; and yet that "there is nowhere any meretricious or vulgar appeal," "the sentiment throughout is good, even noble," and it is apparent that "the author held before him the highest ideals of writing." William Marion Reedy, writing in The Mirror (St. Louis), says that the one triumph of the book is the character of Jinny Carvel (granddaughter of Richard Carvel and Dorothy). Mr. Reedy writes:

"She is Mr. Winston Churchill's triumph. She is greater than his hero or heroes, than Lincoln, Grant, or Sherman. She's a girl of girls, and the wonder is, that it is so, for the outlines of her character are to be found in a thousand stories of girls who love young men they think they hate. She is well done even tho blocked out on conventional lines. She asserts herself in defiance of the stock situations in which she is placed. She has carried Mr. Winston Churchill out of and beyond himself, and I suspect, from the tenor of the book, that he did not know that this was happening while he was writing it. But that's the way with our triumphs."

WHO PAINTED THE REMBRANDT PICTURES?

T is not impossible that this question may yet become the theme of a discussion as impassioned as that that arose over the question, Who wrote the plays of Shakespeare? In 1891, Max Lautner raised the former question, asserting that Rembrandt was a very humble character, who could not have painted the pictures showing deep spiritual life usually credited to him unless he had "two souls." The artist who really created these great works of art, Lautner declared, was Ferdinand Vol. Lautner was assailed with a storm of ridicule, became a jest for connoisseurs, and even his friends deserted him. "And yet," now writes Prof. August Rineklake in the Deutsche Revue, “Lautner is right." Professor Rineklake, who is an architect of Munster, proceeds as follows:

"If one permits oneself to point out to the defenders of Rembrandt the signature [of Vol], which, after it has once been discovered, can be seen on all the paintings of Rembrandt with the naked eye, they will simply characterize this by the word 'nonsense.' They declare the letters to have arisen by accident, so that a ready imagination could easily fancy this signature on the pictures made from cracks and tears, as there are always many such places on the pictures. They even go so far as to point to the possibility of the canvas-maker having put his name on the canvas, and that this shows through the oil paint. So that Vol, it seems, must also have supplied Rembrandt with canvas. "Rembrandt's defenders point to the irrefragable proof' as found in the etchings which undoubtedly belong to him,' and their connection with the paintings; but this testimony is very slight.

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"I have before me 'L'ŒŒuvres de Rembrandt' by Mr. Charles Blanc (Paris, 1880). By examining the leaves of this magnificent work, I found on No. 230, Rembrandt en buste,' the reflected signature of Rembrandt. Here his name is also written in the ordinary way (that is, not as a mirror reflection). This caused me to examine the other leaves of the work by means of a mirror also, and there, to my astonishment, I found on almost all of the etchings (just as Lautner had done before me), clear and distinct in every place, the name 'F. Vol.' There was no longer any room for doubt. This fact could not be disputed.

"It appears to me as if Vol, after finishing a plate, had taken some blunt object, a piece of wood with a very fine point, or even a brush, with which, after dipping it into the acid, he had traced his name wherever he could do so without injuring the plate. He had evidently even followed an impulse leading him to write

it across the face, probably out of mere sport, for in both large and small characters the name 'Vol' is to be found in nearly all of the etchings.

"Now it will be easy to examine into the genuineness of the pictures and etchings of Rembrandt (so-called). It is now the duty of connoisseurs to search, particularly in the Holland archives, for information as to Vol and his work, as well as to his position with regard to Rembrandt. It is particularly important to find out the exact period of Vol's absence in Italy-which I place at 1642-1648-and to examine his work of this period. In this way it can be determined how far he was influenced by Italian art.

"By thorough study of this sort entirely new light may be thrown on the much too obscure history of Dutch art.”— Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

DRAMATIC CENSORSHIP AND ANTISEMITIC

ΤΗ

PLAYS.

HE theater as a means of propaganda has been attempted by the Russian and French Antisemites. At St. Petersburg and certain provincial cities of Russia a drama called "The Sons of Israel" has been produced, with riots and disorder as the consequence. The Russian censor had sanctioned the productions, and the demonstrations have not led to a revocation of the permission. The impartial critics have pronounced the play to be without literary or dramatic value--nothing but an appeal to fanaticism and race prejudice, while the antisemitic press declares it to be a genuine work of art and an assault not on Judaism generally, but only on ultra-orthodox, unprogressive, and anti-national elements among the Jews.

In Paris the theatrical censor has prohibited two plays recently, and the minister has upheld him. A motion of censure against the ministry for this interference with the freedom of the drama was defeated by the Chamber of Deputies by an overwhelming majority. One of these plays is extreme in its antisemitism, and was suppressed in "the interest of public order and civil peace." The author is Albert Guinon, two of whose plays have attracted attention and given him some reputation as a serious dramatist. The name of the prohibited drama is “Décadence," and the theme is the decadence of the old French nobility and its absolute subjection to Jewish money-lenders, schemers, and Shylocks. The law in France does not prevent authors of prohibited plays from publishing them in book form. Guinon has accordingly published his "Décadence," and the press has printed summaries and reviews of it of unusual length. From Le Journal we get the following account of the plot and tendency of this antisemitic drama:

The old Duke de Barfleur, a rake and spendthrift, has dissipated his entire fortune and mortgaged all his estates. He is at his wit's end, and he announces his ruin to his daughter Jeannine. Habituated to luxury and extravagance, she scarcely comprehends. The Duke hints at lending his name to certain enterprising firms and recommending their goods to the public; the daughter reproaches him for so undignified a suggestion.

Abraham Strohmann, a dishonest Jew who has made millions in war contracts, the supply of girl-slaves to Asiatic rulers, and later in more "legitimate" financial enterprises, has purchased all the notes of the Duke and thus become his single creditor. He has a son, Nathan, who is educated, polished, and a good Frenchman, not having had to resort to his father's criminal methods and having had the advantages of wealth and influence. Nathan is in love with Jeannine, and his father, with his knowledge, asks the Duke for his daughter's hand in the son's name. The Duke revolts and refuses, and the merciless creditor threatens him with legal proceedings and disgrace. The matter is submitted to Jeannine. She scorns Nathan and detests Jews generally, but to save her father she agrees to marry Nathan. The young girl loves, and is loved by, a nobleman named Chérancé. They part in anguish and intense hatred for the Strohmanns. But the marriage takes place, and the young couple establish themselves in a magnificent residence. Jean

nine's friends visit her, and to all appearances Nathan is admitted into the most exclusive, aristocratic circles on a footing of equality. But in reality he is detested and despised by most, tolerated by the rest, and only one gentleman admits a liking for him. In his own house, behind his back, but in the presence of his wife, he is ridiculed, denounced, and spoken of, together with his race, in terms of loathing and contempt.

Jeannine and her former lover awaken Nathan's jealousy, and he forbids Chérancé to continue his visits. The wife defiantly tells him that he never had a trace of her affection or respect, and that her love is all given to Chérancé. At first, however, she remains true to her marriage vows, but later she leaves Nathan and becomes the mistress of Chérancé.

Even this illicit love is overcome by the "harsh law of money." Chérancé, too, is ruined, and starvation confronts him and Jeannine. Nathan presents himself, suffering from jealousy, humiliation, and wounded pride, and succeeds in inducing Jeannine to return to him-a sad, but not repentant, woman.

Le Journal asserts that since the play is an exposure of "the false nobility as well as of the real Jewry," and the blame is distributed right and left with an impartial hand, the suppression ordered by the censor and approved by the ministry was without justification. It also points out that the play will be read by more people than could possibly have seen it on the stage, and that the intervention of the Government is futile in so far as the effect on public opinion is concerned.-Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

MOST POPULAR BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

OF

F the most popular books for the month of May, according to The World's Work (July), "Eben Holden,” “Alice of Old Vincennes,” and “Richard Yea-and-Nay" were in the lead. They appear among the first twelve in the book-dealers' and in the librarians' reports, as given below, compiled from many lists sent from various parts of the country. In comment, The World's Work says: "The same five books that led the list last month are at the head this month, with slightly changed relative positions."

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DEBT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO

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KING ALFRED.

HE millennial commemoration of the death of King Alfred calls to mind forcibly the fact that, almost more than any king in history, he was one of the main forces from which the chief movements of a great nation's subsequent career in language, literature, and the arts of civilized life took their first inspiration and direction. Part of the debt which the English language owes to Alfred is pointed out by Prof. Brander Matthews in a late article (Harper's Monthly, June). He writes:

"The historian of the English people asserts that what made Alfred great, small as was his sphere of action, was the moral grandeur of his life. He lived solely for the good of his people.' He laid the foundations for a uniform system of law, and he started schools, wishing that every free-born youth who had the means should ‘abide at his book till he can understand English writing. He invited scholars from other lands to settle in England; but what most told on English culture was done not by them but by the king himself. He resolved to throw open to his people in their own tongue the knowledge which till then had been limited to the clergy,' and he 'took his books as he found them,' the popular manuals of the day, Bede and Boethius and Orosius. These he translated with his own hand, editing freely, and expanding and contracting as he saw fit. 'Do not blame me if any know Latin better than I,' he explained with modest dignity; 'for every man must say what he says and must do what he does according to his ability.' And Green, from whom this quotation is borrowed, insists that‘simple as was his aim, Alfred created English literature'—the English literature which is still alive and sturdy after a thousand years, and which is to-day flourishing not only in Great Britain, where Alfred founded it, but here in the United States, in a larger land, the existence of which the good king had no reason ever to surmise."

Professor Matthews draws an interesting comparison between the Elizabethan English and the modern Americans. Not a few race-characteristics revealed in Elizabethan drama have been better preserved here than in the United Kingdom, and many a locution now dropped out of use there has survived here. Our spoken speech has more of the Elizabethan vigor and freedom than are present in the speech of England. He continues:

"More than half those who speak English now dwell in the United States, and less than a third dwell within the British Isles. To some it may seem merely fanciful, no doubt, but still the question may be put, whether the British or the American is to-day really closer to the Elizabethan? It has recently been remarked that the typical John Bull was invisible in England while Shakespeare was alive, and that he has become possible in Great Britain only since the day when these United States declared their independence. Walter Bagehot, the shrewdest of critics of his fellow countrymen, maintained that the saving virtue of the British people of the middle of the nineteenth century was a stolidity closely akin to stupidity. But surely the Elizabethans were not stolid; and the Americans (who have been accused of many things) have never been accused of stupidity. Mr. Bernard Bosanquet has just been insisting that the two dominant notes of the British character at the beginning of the twentieth century are insularity and inarticulateness. The Elizabethan was braggart and self-pleased and arrogant, but he was not fairly open to the reproach of insularity, nor was he in the least inarticulate. Perhaps insularity and inarticulateness are inseparable; and it may be that it is the immense variety of the United States that has preserved the American from the one, as the practise of the town-meeting has preserved him from the other.

"Throughout the land [United States] there is one language, a development of the language of King Alfred, and one law, a development of the law of King Alfred; and throughout the land there are schools such as the good king wished for. American ideals are not quite the same as British ideals, but they differ only a little, and they have both flowered from the English root, as the earlier English ideals had flowered from a Teutonic root."

A French Discovery of Thoreau.-Taking as a text the remark of a Sorbonne professor who referred to Thoreau as

"that American philosopher whom we ought to know better," a French writer, M. Maurice Muret, writes (in the Journal des Débats, April 27):

"Ruskin and Tolstoy have enthusiastic admirers among us, as is just. How unjust, therefore, is our neglect of Thoreau, who, long before them, advocated a 'return to nature' and formulated, amid many chimerical theories, a few immortal truths?"

M. Muret then quotes from "Walden," Thoreau's diatribe against the railway and the sacrilegious tapping of his beloved lake to furnish water to the village. This, by way of comparison with Ruskin. The resemblance to Tolstoy is shown by the passage in whieh Thoreau opposes punishment for crime, and says that if great men are virtuous, the virtue of the common people will follow, as the grass bends to the breeze.

The French reviewer then gives a detailed account of Thoreau's life, and asks, “Where is the poet who will translate 'Walden' into French?"-Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

NOTES.

It is reported that the condition of Ibsen's health is grave. The London Academy says: "The complaint from which he is suffering is in the nature of paralysis, by which the distinguished dramatist's organs of speech are so seriously affected that he almost lost the use of his voice. Dr. Ibsen can walk only with difficulty with the aid of a stick, and can not speak more than a few words at a time. In other respects his condition is said to be improving, but he requires complete rest."

The Manuscript is the title of a new magazine in miniature published in New York and devoted to the interest of "book-builders and bookbuyers." It contains hints on the disposition of manuscripts, the choice of publishers, the "literary agent," and other theories relating to the book making. The editor, Mr. Marion Mills Miller, was formerly a member of the Princeton faculty. Among its contributors are a number of young American authors such as Mr. Booth Tarkington, Mr. Post Wheeler, and Mr. Jesse Lynch Williams.

CATANIA, according to the Nuova Antologia, is preparing a solemn commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Vincenzo Bellini to be held on the 3d of November next. On this occasion a volume of Bellinian reminiscences will be published under the title Omaggia a Bellini, and the seventh musical assembly will be held, at which twelve prizes will be distributed, a diploma of honor, a gold medal, and two silver medals for each of the following: an original instrumental quartet, a vocal chamber piece with piano accompaniment, and an instrumental piano solo for two or four hands-a caprice, nocturne, fantasie. There will also be several honorable .nentions.

IN comparison with the sales attained by our popular American novels of the past two or three years, the figures of Mr. Kipling's sales, recently given by his English publishers, pale into insignificance. Here is the list as printed in Literature (London):

"The Day's Work," 56,000; “The Jungle Book," 55,000; "A Fleet in Being," 55,000; "Plain Tales from the Hills," 48,000; "The Light that Failed," 44,000; "Life's Handicap," 39,000; "The Second Jungle Book," 38,000; "Many Inventions," 36,000; "Stalky and Co.," 33,000; "Captains Courageous," 27,000; "Soldiers' Three, and other Stories," 20,000; "Wee Willie Winkie, and other Stories," 17,000; "From Sea to Sea," 14,000; "Soldier Tales," 10,000.

THE Bach festivals, which took place in Bethlehem, Pa., last month, are among the most unique musical events of the country. The Moravian community, which maintains these annual festivals, settled at Bethlehem in 1741, and its traditional love of music in the service of the church has led to these yearly meetings. Say The Music Trade Review: "The works performed embraced the Christmas Oratorio entire, the Passion according to St. Matthew, and the Mass in B-Minor. There was a chorus of 110 voices and a boys' choir of a hundred. The organ was supported with a full orchestra with all the instruments called for by the score, such as are obsolete being represented by modern substitutes. One of the cus

toms of these religious people is the blowing of trombones for holy convocations and proclamations. The four trombone players who have officiated for nearly twenty years announced the beginning of the concerts of the festival from the belfry of the old Moravian church.”

AN English writer thinks he has discovered a food particularly adapted to the literary man. He asserts that apples, and raw apples at that, are the best diet on which to feed genius. In the London Spectator he tells of the penchant of his father, a man of letters who lived to the age of nearly ninety, for apple pudding, which he ate almost daily, and for raw apples, which he ate morning, noon, and night. He adds: "It is surprising how many persons fancy that raw apples are indigestible, and only endurable in the early morning. Doubtless the old adage that fruit is gold in the morning, silver in the middle of the day, and lead at night is to some extent answerable for this, to my thinking, erroneous impression. I find that after working late at night, say till 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning, one gets hungry, and that then five or six apples or more, according to their size, with a draft of good cider, constitute a most agreeable and wholesome supper, and one that conduces to a sound and refreshing night's rest. But apples, to be really beneficial, should be eaten as children eat them, rind and all, and in sufficient quantities to be satisfying. The man who, first paring off the skin, and with it the best part of the flesh, dallies with the residue of an apple after dinner, is no true apple-lover."

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