Book Reviews [pp. 92-96]

BOOK REVIEWS
Shakespeare's "Lucrece," Shelley's "Harriet," and
Tennyson's "Airy Fairy Lilian," and others. As a
practical handbook, however, the volume can appeal
only to the man flirt, who will find it convenient.
4 C/wag,e, VitA the Seaso,ns 1 is commonplace,
vulgar, and deadly dull. The only readable page is
the wofully incomplete list of errata at the end.
FREYTAG'S Die 7onirna/isten2 is regarded by the
Germans as the best representative of their nineteenth century comedy. Its humor and character
drawing are admirable. Its colloquial character particularly adapts it for use by classes studying German.
Ample facility is afforded the student for intelligent
study. Brief references explain allusions likely to
perplex the young reader. The full and careful
vocabulary at the end gives all but the commonest
words, and explains idioms and points of special difficulty met with in the text.
The volume is very attractively bound in boards.
with decorated title printed in red, and large, clear
Roman type, presenting less difficulty to the student
than the ordinary German type. The work forms the
eleventh of the series of'Modern German Texts,"
most of which are printed in the clear and beautiful
S,chwabacher type, now popular in Germany.
MAIRS. RUSSELL'S I' o/a e' t1a's A.r't af
/'eti',t; is sympathetic and readable. It is to be commended to the earnest attention to the poetasters and
aspirants to higher poetical honors who cannot read
the Ars Poetica in the original; for it is good sense
about poetry, which has stood the test of the ages.
Ix- THE' Century Science Series," edited by Sir
Henry E. Roscoe, we have Mr. Edward B. Poulton's
(.'Ac;,' Ta;win. It is an astonishingly condensed
and complete account of the work of the great discoverer in science; for the life of the great man was
so secluded and uneventful that his biographer has much
space to give to the results of his work, the writings in
wNhich they were given to the world, and the discussio)ns they roused. It requires some effort nowadays
to think back four decades in the scientific world, and
realize how strange and subversive a thing the doctrine
of evolution then was, and how entirely new realms,
yes, continents, of scientific ground it opened for research, and how it required a revision in methods of
A ('hange W\ith the Seasons Bv Duncan Cumming.
The Duinsmuir Publishing Co.: Dunsmuir, California:
'Die Journalisten. A Comedy in Four Acts. By Gustav Fr-ytag. Edited for school use by J Norton Johnsoin, Ph. D. American Book Company: New York: 1S97.
35 cents.
:;An English Paraphrase of Horace's A' t of Poetry.
By Abby Osborne Russl11. New York: William R. Jenkins; ls96.
4Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection.
By b dward B. Poulton. The Macmillan Company: New
York: I,96.
thought and experiment, as well as in many fundamental doctrines and creeds. Mr. Poulton has done his
work well and given us an interesting book.
THE lovers of salt sea stories will delight in The
Poat of Aliss inz,'.S'/hps,'by John R. Spears, and that
even though he is rather free with his profanity, as
has been complained of by some Eastern critics.
It is no doubt as wrong for a sailor to swear as for
a landsman, and yet it is hard to make it seem so.
This present reviewer once had the misfortune to occupy a stateroom adjacent to a hatchway on a Pacific
Coast steamship, during a whole night when she was
breaking out cargo at Victoria. The second officer
was in charge and his commands were expressed in
such a marvelous string of oaths that he hardly ceased
to swear during the night, and hardly used any objurgation twice. To give a fair suggestion in type of
such a man's talk, — not to say a reproduction of it,would require many fonts of dashes and exclamation
points.
In the first story which gives its name to the book,
there is quite an element of the ghostly, but that is
endurable in a sailor's yarn, far more so than in the
ghostly and ghastly tales that the imitators of Poe
love to inflict upon us, where no grainzzim sa/is serves
to reconcile us.
MR. ELBERT HUBBARD continues his series of Little
Journei'ys,' which has been running in monthly issues
for two years, by a series for 1897 on visits to the
homes of famous women, English and French. Mrs.
Browning, Madame Guyon, Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Bronte, Christine Rosetti, and Rosa Bonheur,
have been issued, and Madame De Stael, Elizabeth
Fry, Mary Lamb, Jane Austen, the Empress Josephine,
and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, will complete the
year's allotment. Being by Mr. Hubbard, they are
interestingly and acutely written, and published by
the Putnams, they are well gotten up.
The series of the previous years, I ittc 7oi;rnzeys to
tice /Ilomcs!/' Go/ eat A/'n aznd Good, and Litt'le y7ourne),s to /he Iloniez of A4ierican -nt/oa;-s, are to be
had in a pretty cloth binding, which makes them
fittingly into a permanent volume.
SEEMINGLY in imitation of Mr. Hubbard's successful
series, we have Sot/thern iP iters, 7 by William Malone
Baskerville, whose dozen of Southern authors for
1896 begins with Joel Chandler Harris and Maurice
Thompson, and ends with Grace King and Samuel
Minturn Peck. Published monthly.
5The Port of Missing Ships, and Other Stories of the
Sea. By John R. Spears New York: The Macmillan
Company: I897.
6Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women.
By Elbert Hubbard. G. P. Putnam's Sons: New York:
I897.
7Southern Writers. By William Malone Baskerville.
Barbee & Smith: Nashville: I896.
95