good sort of a world, and it is our duty to make the best of it and be thankful." That is a more cheery philosophy than modern men of letters have uniformly possessed, yet it remains to be proved that pessimism is a valuable equipment for the pursuit of literature. We have had plenty of gloomy, stormy geniuses since Franklin's day, but we have had very few men who could write a better page of English prose. BLISS PERRY.