is not good among Anglo-Saxons, is displayed in the passionate love which Rosamund declares for her father, mentioning the kisses, much after the manner of a lover speaking of his mistress. The epithet "rosebright," as applied to anguish (p. 36,) seems distinctly bad. The best portions of the tragedy are Hildegard's speeches, declaring her splendid love for Almachildes, and certain ones of Rosamund's, particularly where she disposes of Albovine's repentance.

The poet, in giving up the claim to a very high place for his tragedy, by making it neither a play nor a poem, has effectually provided a defense against criticism. It cannot be attacked on the ground that it is a bad play, for it was never meant for a play; nor on the ground of lack of unity as a poem, because forsooth it is a tragedy. If it is a drama at all, it is distinctly a closet one, and not a great one of that class.

THE MADONNA IN LEGEND.

THE MADONNA IN LEGEND: A HISTORY. By Elizabeth C. Vincent, with an Introduction by Rt. Rev. Boyd Vincent. New York: Thomas Whittaker. 1899. pp. 104.

To have a brief, unaffected, gracious account of the doings and sufferings, the humiliations and glories of Holy Mary as the mediæval mythopoeic genius, born of the general misery of chaotic times slowly fashioned her, as the painters of the Renaissance loved to present her, and as to many millions of devout Christians she has since been an object of tender regard and worship; to have such a narrative, simple, direct, unembarrassed by theological considerations, in sympathy with what was truest, sweetest, most human in that old ideal of godly womanhood, has doubtless been a very general desire. Whatever our views, our temperamental bias, we want to put such a story into the hands of our girls, for its loveliness's sake, for its subtle spiritual power. And when we realize that it is the yearnings of the purest in man making unto itself unconsciously through the centuries an image of motherhood, sisterhood, wifehood, daughterhood, who of us can remain content not to behold it,

adults though we be, and personally perhaps incapable of being appreciably changed into its likeness by contemplation?

Now in this book, so chastely and attractively printed and bound, Mrs. Vincent has given us this narrative. What needs to be said in its praise? It is just what it meant to be, and it meant to be the very thing we want: sufficient to make Protestants understand the Madonnas of the painters; sufficient to make us sympathize though we cannot agree with the Romanists; no display of learning, no effort at eloquence, but a winsome, persuasive, delicately worded account, with the charm of a fairy tale and the devotion of sacred story and psalm.

Many things have happened for an allegory; they are not worse allegory because they happened. On the other hand, legends and myths, true in their intent, are not less productive of character and conduct because wholly unhistoric. It is time that Protestants entered into their heritage, and ceased to deprive themselves and their children of the fragrance of Holy Mary's violet, lily, and rose; and Mrs. Vincent's book will remove whatever fears they have, and make them desire more from her pen. W. N. G.

NOTES.

CERTAINLY one of the most notable of recent scholarly undertakings lies before us in the first volume of the "Encyclopedia Biblica, A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political, and Religious History, the Archæology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible," edited by Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D., Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford; and J. Sutherland Black, M.A., LL.D., formerly assistant editor of the "Encyclopedia Britannica." This comprehensive work is published in Great Britain by Adam and Charles Black, and in America by the Macmillan Company. It is to be in four volumes, sold by subscription at the price of five dollars per volume. The editors and publishers hope to have it completed within two years.

It is obvious that such an undertaking, if accomplished with the success which the reputation of its editors warrants us in assuming, demands more extended treatment than can be given it in this department of "Notes." Such treatment we hope to give it later, if not to the separate volumes, at least to the completed work. Such a review, however, can only be executed with success by a trained scholar, and will take time for its preparation. Meantime we should be doing injustice to our readers did we not lay stress upon what appears to us to be the immense value of the work to general readers.

There are doubtless thousands of intelligent men and women who are interested in biblical criticism, yet are entirely without a clew to its mysteries, have no access even to the leading books on the subject, and have no time to read them even when they own them. For such persons the full and scholarly articles in this Encyclopedia will prove a perfect boon. They will do well, of course, not to pin their faith to everything they find broached, but they will at least be able to give their minds a play hitherto impossible. Again, the more technical reference features of this work

will be indispensable to all readers not merely of the Bible but of general literature, while the student of history and literature will find his profit in reading with great care the longer articles, such as those on Assyria and apocalyptic literature in the present volume. Some of these articles are, as we can vouch, as thorough as monographs and as interesting as many a paper contributed to the magazines. We conclude that he must be a most superficial reader to whom this great work will not appeal-that it belongs in every private library alongside of the dictionary, the atlas, and the general encyclopedia.

Further comment is perhaps useless at the present time, but we cannot forbear pointing out the fact that the preface derives great interest from the loving and just tribute it pays to the late Prof. Robertson Smith, to whose memory the work is dedicated. We must also lay stress on the admirable thoroughness of the cross references, and indeed of all the editorial apparatus. Finally, we must notice the fact that the contributors seem to have been chosen with great care. Many of them are what are known as "advanced men," and they have produced an "advanced" book, but one fully worthy of the close of this remarkable century. Of the fifty-three contributors to Vol. I. (which covers A to D), we count fifteen continental scholars and six American.

Mr. Henry James's latest novel, "The Awkward Age" (Harpers), is a striking illustration of the danger a brilliant writer runs in giving himself up too exclusively to a particular method of composition. Mr. James's fortes are psychological analysis of character and brilliant management of conversation. These are two of the prime requisites of successful modern fiction, but even modern fiction requires fair narrative ability at the hands of its writers, and Mr. James in the overcultivation of his own special gifts seems to have lost whatever gift of narrative he may have once possessed. "The Awkward Age" is divided into ten parts, named after the leading characters; each part moves the story forward a little, but leaves the reader more and more bewil

dered in a maze of clever conversations. One learns that one is in the midst of a small section of fin de siècle London society, in fact, of a group of decadents who hover around an extremely clever woman, Mrs. Brookenham by name. Their brilliant circle is broken up, however, by the fact that her daughter Nanda can no longer be kept in the nursery, and yet is hardly sophisticated enough to make an unembarrassed inmate of her mother's drawing room. The part of rescuing her from her environment is undertaken by a rejected lover of her grandmother, Mr. Longdon, a delightful representative of bygone days, who is as much puzzled by the oversubtlety of the conversations he hears as we are. He finally succeeds in his philanthropic attempt, and we feel that the attenuated story has at length come to its destined end; but after all we are much more certain that Mr. James is an obscurely brilliant writer than that we have been reading a story at all. We frankly confess that the Brookenham set is too clever for us. If, to be a really fine art, conversation has to be unintelligible to an ordinary mind, and if psychological analysis has to be carried to a point of subtlety considerably beyond any attempted by Shakspere or Balzac, and if conversations and character analysis are the two poles around which the ellipse of modern fiction is to be drawn-we are willing to commend the novels of to-day to the careful attention of students of advanced mathematics, and shall content ourselves hereafter with the simple old novelists who were unsophisticated enough to write straightforward stories.

Mr. Charles F. Dole's "The Theology of Civilization' (T. Y. Crowell & Co.) would probably not be accepted by our readers as a treatise on systematic divinity, nor was it meant to be such by its thoughtful author. It contains some things, however, that we may all ponder, no matter what our creeds. The closing pages which touch upon present "missionary" operations in the Philippines meet with our heartiest approval. "It takes," says Mr. Dole, "arrogance, pride, selfishness, contempt, to make war.