the Mohawk valley the last Iroquois wigwams-those final vestiges of the intrepid Six Nations. The lucrative results of the fur trade bear comparison with the later products of the California gold mines. Each was the El Dorado of its day, each gave employment direct or indirect to many thousands, and each was the object of intense competition.

As the fur-bearing animals which formerly filled the northern forests-the beaver, racoon, mink, sable, and otter-were diminished and in places wholly exterminated, new streams and undisturbed forests, ever farther westward, were scoured in search of game, until the pursuit spread across the continent from ocean to ocean. It was this enlargement of the fur-trading area which led to the earliest establishments of commerce on the Pacific coast. Of all the schemes of aggrandisement framed by Mr. Astor's various competitors-the North-west fur company, the Missouri company, the Hudson's bay company, the Mackinaw company, and the Russian fur company, several of them being strong and opulent associationsnone approached the magnitude of his project of colonization, which the pen of Washington Irving has preserved in "Astoria." [Mr. Astor here recounts the massacre of the crew of the Tonquin, in 1811, and the surrender of Astoria to the British during the war of 1812. He concludes:] So perished one of the most remarkable ventures of that period of early exploration; and it is worthy of note, as showing the popular ignorance that prevails concerning it in America, that its originator is commonly supposed to have derived his fortune from it, whereas the loss was £800,000, a heavy reverse in those days, and one that nearly ruined him.

With the return of peace and the withdrawal of the British blockading squadron from New York, Mr. Astor's consignments to England and China were resumed, and were continued until his retirement from commercial activity in 1827. At the beginning of this century he commenced buying plots of land on New York island, having an early prescience of the growth of the city by which it is now almost covered. These purchases were made with such judgment in the line of approaching expansion as frequently to be sold again after a few years for double or treble what he had paid for them. With enlarged means these acquisitions of real estate assumed larger proportions, and took in whole farms, which gradually became covered with houses. To show that this species of farming as practised with discrimination was not in vain, it may be mentioned that one of these farms, purchased in 1811 for £900, is now worth, with its improvements, £1,400,000. An amusing notion prevalent in America. is that by some queer rule of his descendants no purchase has ever been or ever can be parted with. As a matter of fact the estate books record the sale of hundreds of plots of land during the entire century, and it should require no extraordinary acumen to perceive that so silly and narrow-minded a rule could only be imagined by very silly and narrow-minded people.

From 1820 to 1822, and from 1829 to 1834, Mr. Astor resided in Europe. Soon after arriving on the continent he visited his native village of Waldorf, where from the first provision had been made for his surviving relatives, and which he afterward endowed with an asylum for its infirm and destitute. After his final return to New York he lived much in the company of a small group of men of letters, of whom the most distinguished was Washington Irving, who spent several years as a guest in Mr. Astor's house. In America my great-grandfather's life and character have been distorted and caricatured until only an odd travesty survives. By the press, in particular, with the exception of a few serious journals, he has been continually derided and reviled with that spirit of pure malignity which pursues the successful man.

H. SCHERREN, F. Z. S., in Cassier's Magazine, London and New York. Condensed for PUBLIC OPINION

We are accustomed to see the hippopotamus floating calmly enough in its tank in the zoological gardens, and probably think of it-if, indeed, we give it more than passing glance-as a sluggish, lethargic beast, with fine tusks, certainly, but content to feed on lettuces, hay, and biscuit. Nevertheless, when wounded or roused, its rage appears to be ungovernable. Sir Samuel Baker shot a good many hippopotami in his time, and often found their hides scored with tusk-marks. When on the White Nile he constantly heard them roaring challenges, and frequently witnessed terrible combats. Once he met with a herd of fifteen to twenty, in a narrow part of the river, and killed some for meat for his small army of followers. There was a good deal of splashing caused by the attempts of the beasts to escape, and two bulls rose to the surface almost at the same moment. The secondcomer seized the other by the neck with his jaws, and held it firmly. There was a terrible struggle, and the fighters worked their way to the bank, where Sir Samuel was standing, and he killed them both with a right and left.

Mr. Henry Bailey, whom the natives of the Congo Free State honored with the title of "Elephant Smasher," once saw a buffalo giving a hippopotamus a taste of its quality, while the herd of wild cattle watched the fray from no great distance. In his opinion, the bull had the advantage, being much more active in attack and retreat than its ponderous adversary. It would charge and deliver a thrust with its horn, and retreat, and be ready to repeat the attack before the hippopotamus could reply effectively. The latter was all over blood, and, apparently getting the worst of the encounter, which seemed to have lasted some time, from the trampled state of the ground and the condition of the hippopotamus.

The African buffalo is probably a match for the lion, unless the great beast of prey makes matters sure at its first spring, which does not always happen. Indeed, the skeletons of both have been discovered lying side by side in trampled ground that told the tale of a desperate fight. Mr. Oswell and Major Vardon once saw a Homeric contest such as falls to the lot of few to witness. They had wounded a bull and were following up the bloodspoor, when they heard the loud roaring of lions. The huge trunk of a fallen tree hid them, and from behind it they watched the conflict-three lions trying to bear down the wounded bull. Charging, the buffalo sent one flying into the brushwood, and, knocking a second over, pounded it with its massive head, and strove to beat the life out of it with knees and hoofs. The third clung to the buffalo's withers, holding on with tooth and claw. Suddenly, with blood pouring from mouth and nostrils, the mighty bull reeled and fell; the hunter's bullet had done its work.

The gemsbok and its allies are characterized by their long, straight, bayonet-like horns. Tales are told of these beasts beating off and even killing the lion, and Dr. Donaldson Smith records stories, related to him by his Somalis, of the oryx transfixing both horse and rider. It

is beyond dispute that the much shorter horn of a rhinoceros has ripped up a horse and pierced the rider's thigh. No one seems to have witnessed an actual contest between a gemsbok and a lion; but, according to Mr. Lydekker, F. R. S., several instances are on record where the skeletons of the two animals have been found together, the body of the lion having been transfixed by the horns of the antelope, which remained too firmly fixed in the flesh to admit of their withdrawal.

Fights in sheer devilment sometimes take place between animals in confinement. A sharp, short battle took place in Edmonds's menagerie, between a lion and a tiger, just about forty years ago. The tiger was the same which had escaped from Jamrach's yard in what was then Ratcliff highway, and bitten a boy. Of course, the beast was a great draw, but, after a few days in its new quarters, the tiger managed to draw forward the sliding shutter, and squeeze itself into the adjoining den, where a lion was confined. The lion resented the intrusion, but was immediately seized by the throat, and, though there were tremendous struggles, the fight was practically over as soon as it commenced. The tiger never loosed its hold, and in a few minutes the lion was dead.

Among marine fighters the fur-seals take a high place. Elliott in his official report on the Prybiloff islands, says that most of the bulls show wonderful strength and courage. He marked one veteran, who was among the first to take up his position, "when the great man-seal haul out of the sea." At least, fifty or sixty battles were fought victoriously by him with nearly as many different seals who coveted his position; and when the fighting season was over, and the cows had mostly hauled up, Elliott saw him lording it over his harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddling together on the spot he had first chosen.

Mining a Mile Under the Sea

R. H. SHERARD, in the June McClure's Magazine, New York Excerpt

Of all the mines which ten or fifteen years ago were working in the St. Just district, which is a few miles northeast of the extreme point of England, Land's End, the Levant mine is to-day the only one left active. To reach it from St. Just church town, one walks for two miles and a half past ruined mine after ruined mine. Upon the faces of the miners whom one meets, returning homewards, there is a look which, no doubt, is but the effect of their extreme exertion, but which to some may seem the result of an ever-haunting fear.

For my part,

The entrance to the shaft is in the side of the cliff, and by the time three perpendicular ladders have been "walked down," one is on a level with the sea. Then each step downwards takes one lower beneath the ocean. It is said by some, and by others denied, that at the fortyfathom level in St. Just mine one can hear the boulders rolling overhead and the roar of the waters. after spending hours in the mine, I must say that, though I hearkened eagerly, I could detect no sound of the ocean overhead. In Botallack mine, hard by, which is now abandoned, the noise, they say, was most perceptible, and the roaring, when the Atlantic was in one of its wilder moods, was the horror of the workers. There is a point in Levant mine, a point reached after climbing down 2,000 feet and walking for an hour down winding galleries, where one is a mile out from the shore, under the Atlantic. But between you and the bottom of the sea, which is here many hundred feet deep, is a roof many hundred feet in depth of solid granite.

What will perhaps fill the mind of one who stands here, is the thought that England does not end there where the map denotes, because, a mile west, beneath the sea, there are Englishmen in yellow rags, advancing west

ward inch by inch, cutting their way, by the flickering light of green tallow-dips, through solid and hardest granite, fighting, straining, streaming with sweat, who, in their brief moments of rest, sing hymns to God's praise out there under the sea in the night.

The First Suspension Bridge

H. B. HULBERT, in the June Harper's Magazine, New York Excerpt

The Koreans invented the first suspension bridge, if we may except the rope bridges of the Andes, which can hardly be called bridges. The first suspension-bridge that can properly be dignified by that name was thrown across the Im-jin river in Korea in the year 1592. Dire necessity dictated the terms. The Japanese in P'yengyang, learning of the defeat of the army of reënforcements, determined to withdraw. China had begun to bestir herself in favor of Korea, and the Japanese, driven from P'yeng yang by the combined Chinese and Korean armies, hastened southward toward Seoul. When the pursuers arrived at the Im-jin river, the Chinese general refused to cross and continue the pursuit unless the Koreans would build a bridge sufficiently strong to insure the passage of his 120,000 men in safety. The Koreans were famishing for revenge upon the Japanese, and would be stopped by no obstacle that human ingenuity could surmount. Sending parties of men in all directions, they collected enormous quantities of chik, a tough, fibrous vine that often attains a length of one hundred yards. From this eight huge hawsers were woven. Attaching them to trees or heavy timbers let into the ground, the bridge builders carried the other ends across the stream by boats, and anchored them there in the same way. Of course the hawsers dragged in the water in mid stream, but the Koreans were equal to the occasion. Stout oaken bars were inserted between the strands in mid-stream, and then the hawsers were twisted until the torsion brought them a good ten feet above the surface. Brushwood was then piled on the eight parallel hawsers, and upon the brushwood clay and gravel were laid. When the road-bed had been packed down firmly and the bridge had been tested, the Chinese could no longer refuse to advance; and so upon this first suspension-bridge, one hundred and fifty yards long, that army of 120,000 Chinamen, with all their Korean allies, camp equipage, and impediments, crossed in safety. This bridge, like the tortoise-boat, having served its purpose, was left to fall of its own weight.

Various Topics

The Indian Medical Record does not believe in the acclimatization of the white race in the tropics. It holds that the lowered death rate in hot countries is not an evidence to the contrary, but rather, that it shows it is only after elaborate precautions have been learned, that it exists. It is rather a proof of the inability of the white race to colonize, that is to labor and undergo constant exposure in the tropics. It is absurd to say, it claims, that a reduced death-rate directly due to the careful avoidance of every possible exposure is an evidence that such exposure can be endured.

Three hundred invitations to prominent geologists and palæontologists throughout the country were sent out from Omaha last week to join an excursion of sixty days to study the fossils in Wyoming. The professors of the large colleges were especially invited. The excursionists are expected to assemble at Laramie, Wyo., on July 19, and begin their research under the direction of Professor Knight of the Wyoming university. The principal object of the trip will be to give the professors a chance to see and study the great fossil unearthed by Professor Reed, which weighs forty thousand pounds and is one hundred and thirty feet long.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Rough Riders

The Rough Riders. BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT. Cloth, pp. 298, $2.00. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

IN less than sixty days, the Rough Riders were raised, organized, armed, equipped, drilled, mounted, dismounted, kept for a fortnight on transports, and put through two victorious aggressive fights in very difficult country, with a loss in killed and wounded amounting to a quarter of those engaged. Colonel Roosevelt says, it is a record that is not easy to match, but he was

As

soliloquy: Don't want to wear my hair long like a wild Indian when I'm in civilized warfare.'"

Most of the men, we imagine, looked upon the service as sport on a huge scale. Of course, with Colonel Roosevelt and General Wood, and doubtless with many other of the men, the principle for which they were fighting was important, but the impression all the way through is that the colonel and his men were fighting because they liked to fight. In most cases the men who composed the regiment were by no means fighting for the first time, and these

the most important operations of the siege. In an appendix the colonel criticises Mr. Bonsal's account in many particulars, and some of his criticisms are justified beyond all question, but on the other hand, General Young himself, and many of the line officers, have stated that Mr. Bonsal's account is correct. The probability is that the officers who stated that Mr. Bonsal is correct know nothing of the details of the movement from personal knowledge, while Colonel Roosevelt was on the ground and in the front ranks, and it must be admitted that he is the best authority as to the hap

working with material that is just as difficult to duplicate. In a chapter on The Raising of the Regiment a very full account of the personnel is given. Here were recruits from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, from the Somerset club of Boston, and the Knickerbocker club of New York, as well as policemen, cowboys, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Pawnee Indians, and yet Colonel Roosevelt had not the least difficulty so far as discipline was concerned. The Pawnee, Pollock, "was a silent, solitary fellow-an excellent penman, much given to drawing pictures. When we got down to Santiago he developed into the regimental clerk. I never suspected him of having a sense of humor until one day, at the end of our stay in Cuba, as he was sitting in the adjutant's tent, working over the returns, there turned up a trooper of the first who had been acting as barber. Eying him with immovable face, Pollock asked in a guttural voice: Do you cut hair? The man answered: Yes'; and Pollock continued: Then you'd better cut mine,' muttering, in an explanatory

pages are filled with incidents of bravery and heroism that it would be almost impossible to equal. A typical instance is that of the trooper Rowland, a New Mexican cow-puncher, who, after being shot in the side at Guasimas, continued fighting as though nothing had happened. Colonel Roosevelt saw that he had a broken rib and sent him to the rear, but he was on the fighting line within fifteen minutes, declaring that he "could not find the hospital." When this trooper was finally placed in the hospital at Siboney he heard the surgeon say that he would have to be sent back to the States, and watching his opportunity he climbed out of the window, his wound causing him great suffering, and dragged himself back to camp. In the charge on San Juan hill he was among the first! This is by no means an isolated or unusual case. The Guasimas battle is described in detail, Colonel Roosevelt modestly calling it General Young's fight.

This story of the cavalry at Santiago ought be final, but it seems to be impossible to secure an undisputed account of

penings in his immediate vicinity, although he admits that one's range of vision in a battle is remarkably limited. In the successive charges on the trenches at San Juan, Colonel Roosevelt was far in the lead. At one time he struck ahead and found himself followed by only three or four men, the rest of the troopers not having heard his order to follow him, and he mentions shooting a Spaniard with a revolver at ten yards.

One of many inexplicable incidents happened just before the charge. As I rode down the line," the colonel says, "calling to the troopers to go forward and rasping brief directions to the captains and lieutenants, I came upon a man lying behind a little bush, and I ordered him to jump up. I do not think he understood that we were making a forward move, and he looked up at me for a moment with hesitation, and I again bade him rise, jeering him and saying: Are you afraid to stand up when I am on horseback?' As I spoke, he suddenly fell forward on his face, a bullet having struck him and gone through him lengthwise. I, who was on horseback

in the open, was unhurt, and the man lying flat on the ground in the cover beside me was killed."

The best of the scores of illustrations

is a reproduction of Frederick Remington's Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan hill, showing the colonel mounted on his pony several paces ahead of his men. His mount, however, was very soon lost.

As to the withdrawal of the troops at one time proposed, Colonel Roosevelt says that to General Wheeler "more than to any other one man was due the prompt abandonment of the proposition to fall back- a proposition which, if adopted, would have meant shame and disaster."

After a chapter on The Work of the Rough Riders in the Trenches, there is an account of the return home and the muster out at Montauk point. It is, indeed, no wonder that Colonel Roosevelt loved his regiment and that it was the most picturesque feature of the war. As for the colonel himself, he is the most interesting figure in public life in America. He sometimes offends more peaceful men of less vigor and virility, but what is a belligerent spirit when compared with a consistent record as legislator, civil service commissioner, police commissioner, in the navy department,on the field of battle, as governor of the greatest state in the union, and as a citizen, of "doing things?" In every one of these positions he has shown the highest courage and the highest sense of duty. He fought spoilsmen in Washington and blackguards in New York with the same courage that he fought Spaniards at Guasimas and San Juan hill-" Scipio in pace, in bello fulmen."

The Daudet Memoir, introductory to Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.'s excellent edition of Daudet's works, was noticed somewhat fully in PUBLIC OPINION of March 2. We now have "Fromont and Risler" ("Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainé "), translated by George Burnham Ives. Charles de Kay in a brief introduction indicates some of Daudet's obligations to the school of English realists, who, in turn, probably owed something to Balzac. Mr. De Kay compares Delobelle with Mantalini and Chèbe with Micawber, with some reason, too, but why not look further and find a sister for Sidonie?-a French Becky Sharp at every point! On the other hand we are inclined to disagree with Mr. DeKay when he says that Daudet has invested Désirée with far greater charm than that surrounding similar characters of Dickens. Fromont and Risler" appeals to very wide audience, its merits are those that any one may realize. Like all French writers, Daudet deals often with le drame passionel, but here we see that it is not the "essence" of his books, as it is of so much French fiction; the novelist's individuality is strongly illustrated in his manner of handling this theme. Robert Helmont," a journal of comparatively slight merit, is bound. with the title novel. (Cloth, pp. 489, $1.50.)

The Market Place

The Market Place. By HAROLD FREDERIC. Cloth, $1.50. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co THE first impulse is to compare Mr. Frederic's posthumous work with the one just preceding it, and the conclusion from such comparison is that " The Market Place" is a better book than "Gloria Mundi" because it contains fewer faults. The virtues about balance, but the interest of the reader is held much more

closely by the later novel.

The larger part of the book is the story of a disreputable stock-jobbing operation, through which Thorpe becomes immensely wealthy, and wins, largely on this account, a bride who

Frontispiece" The Market Place

LADY CRESSAGE MISS MADDEN, AND THORPE comes to love him only in the last chapter. The financial machinations of Thorpe are an illuminating study in the flotation of bogus stock companies. So far as his activities in this direction are concerned he was, possibly, no worse than the general run of promoters, but from the diversely illustrated character of the man the only reasonable conclusion is that of Miss Madden, that his true vocation was crime-on a large scale. The only admirable character in the book is Thorpe's clear-headed sister who continues to keep the old family bookstall, and is not at all impressed with the achievements of her brother. Thorpe finally finds exercise for his restless energy and his wealth in a large scheme of philanthropy, which he explains to the duke of Gloria Mundi" and his typewriter bride, who are rather roughly are rather roughly dragged into the last chapter. Lady Cressage is now married, and the only one of Mr. Frederic's familiar characters that is unprovided for is Miss Madden, the red-headed downfall of Theron Ware. She, however, has proved that she is able to take care of herself.

As we intimated in the review of "Gloria Mundi," our belief is that Har

Chandler Harris have gained theirs is no mean distinction, and this Mr. Chesnutt has accomplished. The tales told by Uncle Julius of the wondrous doings of the "cunjure 'oman" have a charm of their own, and Uncle Julius bids fair to rival Uncle Remus in our affections, with his transparent craftiness and childlike faith in his own stories, arguing convincingly that "Dey's so many things a body knows is lies, dat dey ain't no use gwine roun' findin' fault wid tales dat mought dez ez well be so ez not." There is a deep vein of unconscious pathos underlying the wonder and humor of the old man's narratives, the services of the conjure woman being called in when the sale of sweetheart, wife or child threatens the dusky lover's happiness, as in "Po' Sandy" and "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny," or to mitigate the horrors of the reign of an unprincipled master, as in "Mars Jeems's Nightmare." The potency of the "conjure" in affairs of the heart is the theme of "The Conjurer's Revenge," "The Gray Wolf's Ha'nt," and "Hotfoot Hannibal," while the irresistible humor of "The Goophered Grape Vine," the initial story, is without a

Tent of the Plains. By SHANNON BIRCH. Cloth, pp. 47. New York: E. R. Herrick & Co. From Dreamland Sent. By LILIAN WHITING, Cloth, pp. 167. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. My Lady's Slipper and Other Verses. By DORA SIGERSON (Mrs. Clement Shorter). Boards, pp. 157- New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. Some Verses. By HELEN HAY. Boards, pp. 72. Chicago: Herbert S. Stone & Co.

A QUATRAIN, a couplet, or even a single line, each with its picture of some phase of nature deftly sketched, is the scheme of the "Tent of the Plains." The glimpse thus afforded often adds a happy thought to our memory of fami liar things, as,

When morning pours her dandelions
In coffers of the wind,

And softly tells them o'er and o'er,

or, when we see

Dim autumn's gold in leafy crucibles.

We pass from the realm of nature to that of the spirit in speaking of Miss Whiting's "From Dreamland Sent"Verses of the Life to Come, dedicated to the author's friend, Kate Field, and containing many poems in memory of those who have "gone away." Frances Willard and Bishop Brooks are lovingly remembered. The religious and spiritual element, always present in Miss Whiting's writings, whether in prose or verse, precludes the possibility of any morbidness, or even unbroken sorrow, even though her theme be sad.

In sharp contrast are the poems of passion and unhappy love, often stained by treachery, written by Dora Sigerson. Many of the poems are touched with the weird sadness of Ireland. We grant to Mrs. Shorter a dramatic force in her verse and a pleasing melody as well, though a plea might be entered for an occasional note of pure happiness and a thought of love without deceit. My Lady's Slipper, the first poem, gives the title to the collection.

Under the unpretentious title of "Some Verses," Miss Hay has given us sonnets and poems that hold a rare delight by thought and expression. A tender sadness, untainted by rebellion or morbidness, broods over the whole, and we quietly step close to love and nature under her guidance, the mist that lies between adding its aeon charm. The sonnets bear a likeness to those of Mrs. Browning that can not fail to be remarked. The vision of My Brook will not soon fade away from eyes that have once beheld it

Earth holds no sweeter secret anywhere Than this my brook that lisps along the green

Of mossy channels, where slim birch trees

"Evening in Washington" and its tribute to the great monument that Flanked by dim ramparts, when the tide dreams by,

High from the city's heart, a lifted spear, In its straight splendor makes the heavens

seem near,

Symbol of man-made force that shall not die.

The volume is dedicated to Miss Hay's father, the secretary of state.

f

Edwin Markham's Poems

The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems. By EDWIN MARKHAM. Cloth, pp 134, $1. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.

MR. MARKHAM'S now famous poem, the most famous, indeed, since the Recessional, will secure a wide reading of the volume of poems and verse to

THE MAN WITH THE HOE

(From Millet's Painting, 1863

which it gives the title. The note struck in The Man with the Hoe

Through this dread shape the suffering

ages look ;

Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop; Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,

Plundered, profaned and disinherited.
Cries protest to the judges of the world,
A protest that is also prophecy-

is repeated more than once. Thus, in The Toilers (to the measure of Hiawatha):

The leaves shower down and are sport for the winds that come after; And so are the Toilers in all lands the jest and the laughter

Of nobles-the Toilers scourged on in the furrow as cattle,

Or flung as a meat to the cannon that hunger in battle.

The formal virtues of the poems, most of them, are by no means inconsiderable, and this might easily have been otherwise in the case of a writer, who, plainly, is deeply concerned with his theme, and only after that with the form of its expression. There are many lines that are simply infelicitous, but very few that are open to actual criticism. Touching again the spirit of the poet, in his best efforts, it is plain that

the anarchists, at least, can not claim Mr. Markham for their bard, for in the verses to that stormy soul, Louise Michel, he says:

I cannot take your road, Louise Michel, Priestess of Pity and of Vengeance-no, Down that amorphous gulf I cannot goThat gulf of Anarchy whose pit is Hell. Yet, sister, though my first word is farewell,

Remember that I know your hidden

woe:

Have felt that grief that rends you blow on blow;

Have knelt beside you in the murky cell.

A Lyric of the Dawn is by far the best poem in the collection. The Man with the Hoe has the elements of greater general popularity, perhaps, but as poetry it can not compare with the lyric ending:

Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the

way;

Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray; From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors

run,

With sudden apprehension of the sun;

A light wind stirs

The filmy tops of delicate firs,

And on the river border blows, Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose. Sing out, O throstle, sing:

I follow on, my King;

Lead me forever through the crimson dawn

Till the world ends, lead me on!

Ho there! he shouts again-he swaysand now,

Upspringing from the bough, Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground,. Without a sound

He drops into a valley and is gone!

If Mr. Markham can write more verse of this quality, he is entitled to a place among the first of minor poets. We hope that Mr. Markham will be only pleased and encouraged, but not misled by the reception of The Man with the Hoe. It is in the nature of an accident, comparable with the novel, "David Harum," now outselling the works of all the writers who were supposed to have cornered the fiction market. As a rule, timeliness" in poetry is a thing of doubtful desirability. And this is said in full realization of the fact that the most notable poems of the day are the work of "the timeliest pote in the business"-as Martin Dooley says.

When an actress and a priest, a Salvation army lass, and a man and woman of the English nobility are brought together in Calcutta, and proceed to entangle their affections, apparently with a view to making as many combinations as are mathematically possible, and with the least regard to suitability, we have sufficient material to fill three hundred and seventeen pages with unusual situations. This Mrs. Cotes (Sarah Jeanette Duncan) has done in her novel of "Hilda," the name of the actress furnishing the title. The characters are rather overdrawn, and the substance and wit of their conversation hardly bear out the attributes accorded them by the author. A very satisfactory denouement is finally evolved, however, for which Mrs. Cotes deserves credit. (Cloth. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York.)