A RUMOR is at hand, as I write, that d'Annunzio has been wounded. By the time that these lines meet the public gaze, the whole Fiume adventure will surely have had its day; indeed, these very mornings are seeing the last of it. Whatever betide, may the Muses of History and Literature give a generous welcome to the dethroned dictator. More than any man of our time, Gabriele d'Annunzio has worked to destroy that absurd notion of the man of letters which the world inherits from the romantic era, that notion which sees the man of letters as an out-of-the-worldling, brooding amid pale lilies, and nourishing himself on gorgeous dreams. Bravo for old, bald-headed Gabriele - what a first class rumpus - what an adventure he gave to the world! Mr. J. C. Squire writes entertainingly and wisely of him in the last number of the London Mercury. Says Mr. Squire: "The poet rises early, studies plans of defence at his headquarters; confers with his own commanders, or (on occasion) with the Italian commanders; arranges mysteriously for the maintenance of his forces and the civil population; and makes continual speeches which are said, for sheer mass of music and luxuriance of image, to excel anything he has ever done. In the intervals of his daily routine he still, apparently, writes; and he has found time to construct for his little Sparta a constitution embodying all the latest known democratic devices from Nevada and Oregon. His power, we are always told, is waning. But he

has not resigned yet; and we had heard those stories for months when, during a panicky period in Italy, our news papers suddenly began speculating a to whether he might not march o Rome and even make a bid for th throne. One had a sudden vision of descent on Venetia with a few thou sands—a progress during which hal the youth in the Italian army migh flock to his banners an entry int the capital, a triumphant speech, brief dictatorship, and a collapse.

'It was only a dream- a dream c confusion and destruction which on watched as one watches a fire or devastating storm, or any other splen did and undesirable thing. Probabl there was never any chance of i Very likely d'Annunzio himself, wh seems to have shed his cruder Nietz schianism and to have elements c cool if audacious statesmanship i him, is not inclined to precipitate ru for the sake of a display, and has r illusions as to the possibility of permanent success. But the mere fa that other people should have bee tempted to play with the idea shov the impression that they have su consciously received from him. The have realized that he is fearles energetic, and ruthless beyond th normal of mankind. They feel d'Annunzio what Renan saw Napoleon, who was a less comple example-a reversion to the o condottiere type. He has baffled ever body by sticking at nothing; an unlike most men who stick at nothin he is utterly indifferent to the safe

of his own skin. He would be a remarkable phenomenon in contemporary Europe even were he a mere professional soldier of fortune or a common political bandit. His aspect would still, like that of the tiger, attract by its qualities of strength and ferocious grace.

'Had he been no more than an adventurous Italian captain his little Adriatic romance might have secured him the attention of the descriptive historians of the future and dramatists in search of a fiery subject and a picturesque setting. But these exploits in war and politics, coming at the close or, as it may be, in the middle of so eminent and prolific an artistic career as his, make him unique. In his surging and sumptuous Venetian book the hero made a tremendous speech on "the dreams of domination, of pleasure, and of glory that Venice has first nursed and then suffocated in her marble arms"; and the author, analyzing the effects upon the hearers of that panegyric of beauty and power, said that "some one among them already imagined himself crumpling laurel leaves to perfume his fingers, and some already dreamed of discovering at the bottom of a silent canal the ancient sword and the old, lost diadem."

'D'Annunzio was already among the last, but for most dreamers it is one thing to dream and another to act. He attracts with the triple force of character, of genius, and of idea; and no stage manager could have provided him with a more dazzling series of backgrounds. This is not the place in which to discuss the wisdom or folly of his recent acts and the justice of his political aims. As for the man himself, I can only say that I heartily sympathize with Henry James, who compared his search for d'Annunzio's radical defect to that of the plumber

who, with his little lamp, scours a house in the endeavor to locate a mysterious bad smell. His plans may end in smoke; his art may be defective; we may dislike his character and even regret his survival, but it is impossible wholly to laugh at him or to deny him admiration; and we may conjecture that his biography a hundred years hence will be regarded as one of the most astonishing and engrossing chapters in the history of literature.'

Little Don Quixote

WE recently announced that the Phoenix Society had produced The Knight of the Burning Pestle. The following criticism of the first performance is from the pages of the week's Athenæum:

'A nursery charade is an excellent thing, but a whole evening of it provokes yawns. The fact that its authors are Beaumont and Fletcher gives it no additional sanctity to a generation that has read Shaw on the Elizabethans and Mr. Middleton Murry on "Shakespeare Criticism." It must stand or fall to-day on its merits, not the prestige of its writers, and its merits are simply those of a jolly nursery romp, unduly prolonged. Anybody who can find a gleam of real wit or a shred of true poetry in it should at once advertise his discovery. A number of critics have been saying how much they enjoyed it, but why they enjoyed it they were uncommonly chary of disclosing. For our own part, we can only with difficulty think ourselves back into the state of social consciousness for which "cits," and tradesfolk, and 'prentices were in their nature fit subjects for ridicule, nor do we swallow without repugnance the gibes tossed by the puny children of the Renaissance at the decadence of chivalry, an institution they would

have been just as unable to appreciate in its hour of grandeur. It is only a step from The Knight of the Burning Pestle to the dreary inanity of Bombates Furioso, and later crude burlesques of mediævalism. They cannot all take refuge behind the mantle of Don Quixote, and really, we sometimes wished during the performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle (towards the end of the second part especially) that Mr. Chesterton, fresh from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and his crusade on behalf of the crusaders, would rise in grandeur from the stalls and impose peace on the players with a flourish of his falchion.

'Meanwhile we know why so many people thought they were seeing a good play; it was because they were seeing a good company.'

Everyman's Library

At the time when war made progress impossible, Mr. Dent had issued seven hundred and forty volumes out of the thousand which it was originally proposed should be included in Everyman's Library. Mr. Dent now says that the completion of the Library on the old lines is not, for the time being, possible. 'Were we to attempt to issue fresh volumes of Everyman's Library with the average number of pages of the present books (about five hundred) they could not be sold under 4s. or 5s. at the least.

Some of the volumes have already gone out of print and cannot, at present prices, be reprinted, but Mr. Dent says that he is determined to complete

all the sets of works which he has be

gun-such as the new translation of Livy by Carson Roberts- to keep in print all the essential and popular books, and eventually to fulfil his undertaking to produce a thousand volumes. A revised list is now obtainable.

Flowers, Herbs, and Weeds*

HERE is an attractive, well-printed :: book for lovers of old-time quaintness. The author is evidently very well read in old literature; but when she speaks of 'contemporary authorities,' she does not indicate, we gather, the herb-mixer of to-day. She is writing from the point of view of the antiquary, who loves to tell us what Henry VIII and other sound trenchermen of the past chose to tickle their appetite, and what meaner folks, who could not afford doctors, used to cure themselves in the way of decoctions of common plants.

A revival has long been on hand of old-fashioned herbs, though few so far who visit Kew go to the broad and wellordered Herbal Garden hidden behind a tall brick wall. This revival may be assisted by the book; but the author has lapses which make us uncomfortable. She is amateurish in her descriptions, and with all her knowledge she has not taken the trouble to get her lore of the past correct. She is evidently not a classical scholar. Derivations, which would have cleared up or aptly illustrated some points, are seldom supplied. The book, in fact, seems to waver between the practical and sentimental aspects of the subject, and to achieve neither. Borage and r woodruff are both used to flavor 'cups.' Cowslip tea is, or used to be, well known in the country as well as cowslip wine. Saffron and meadow saffron are different things, and the addition of the Latin names would have emphasized the point. In several cases the descriptions of the plants are vague, and no details are given of the methods of preparation desirable for cordials or medicines. We gather that salads were triumphs in old days; but should have

A Garden of Herbs: Being a Practical Handbook to the Making of an Old English Herb-Garden together with numerous Receipts from contemporary Authorities. With fourteen illustrations. By Eleanour Sinclair Rohde. Philip Lee Warner. 12s. 6d. net.

been glad to learn further what would make them triumphs to-day, for in this art foreigners are far beyond us.

With the aid of an expert or two, the volume might have been both charming and practical. As it is, it will excite the enthusiasm of those who make herbs a fashionable cult; but it is likely to disappoint people who pride themselves on country cures. The writing is easy, but a little casual, and could have been improved by a reader of experience.

Many of the old references will delight lovers of English folklore; but we must decline to be interested in what that humbug Ossian invented concerning the legend of the daisy.

The Innocence of New York Through

British Eyes

FOR many English readers this delightful novel* will be a revelation of the depths which can be sounded by .international ignorance. Gentlemen of unbounded leisure and a taste for commercial probity which amounts to a disease, ladies combining the angel and the bore in a measure beyond the dreams even of a Thackeray, troops of obsequious and efficient white domestics! Not such are the inhabitants whom most of us have mentally assigned to New York at any stage of that city's existence. But Mrs. Wharton abundantly demonstrates that this state of things obtained only in a very limited circle, to a degree inconceivable by older and more corrupt civilizations. A happy circle it cannot well be called,

The Age of Innocence. By Edith Wharton Appleton. 8s. 6d. net.

since to assert that happiness may be compatible with dullness is to state a contradiction in terms; by rights it should not be attractive any more than happy, but the author contrives to make it so, partly no doubt through the easy laughter called forth by its patently ludicrous standards, but partly also from admiration for the finer element contained in them.

The heroine, a daughter of this secluded aristocracy, ventures in defiance of its conventions on an exogamic alliance with a wealthy Polish nobleman, who transports her to a cosmopolitan atmosphere, where art, literature, and brilliant conversation are among the commonplaces of life. On the other hand, she is unfortunate in her husband, and the sympathy consequently bestowed upon her is of a different quality from that which under like conditions would have fallen to her share in New York. Returning, rather under a cloud, to the old home, she is received by her relations with a splendid loyalty, which she genuinely appreciates. But naturally she finds the former things insipid, and — with no evil intentions-drifts into hazardous intimacy with a young man yearning for 'European culture,' and for the society of women competent to discuss it. His wedded peace is gravely endangered, and only the traditional ideas intervene to hinder a tragedy from reaching its climax.

From a literary point of view, this story is on a level with Mrs. Wharton's best work. As a retrospect of the early 'seventies, it is less satisfactory, being marred by numerous historical lapses.

An old French proverb said: 'France is the fairest realm that exists, except Heaven.' The monk, or minstrel, who first made that statement was a cautious man, a man of moderate speech. He did not know what inexpressible beauties might be awaiting us in the groves of Paradise, but he was quite sure to be safe when he asserted that, outside Heaven, France had no rival. We may suppose that the maker of the old proverb had certain definite ideas in his mind ideas which to us to-day would seem arrogant and local. But, with the years, the horizon of humanity has extended. When we praise, as we do with full voices and grateful hearts, the consummate beauty of France, we mean many things and embrace a whole system of qualities. We think not only of the grace and variety of the physical character of France, nor only of its amenities and social charm, but we think of that chivalry which has exhibited itself in the French nation since the days of Charlemagne, and of that intelligence and moral courage and high resource which have made the name of France like a torch waved above the world. This is what we are thinking about when we celebrate the splendor of France. It is of a mixture of physical, moral, and intellectual beauty such as is to be discovered nowhere to-day, in so full a blossom of civilization, as it is in our sister and most dear Ally.

Although our relations with our nearest neighbor are so close, it cannot be said that France is well enough

known in England. There is infinite room for us to increase our practical familiarity with it. Everybody, in years of peace, goes over to Paris at least once in a lifetime, and it is possible that, as he glances now and then out of the carriage window, he fails to perceive the charm which we proclaim in the variety of French landscape. If he starts from Calais or Boulogne, there is nothing very striking to be seen. He passes near those glorious churches-Abbeville, Amiens, Beauvais- but they are out of sight, and he is not conscious of their neighborhood. On either side of Creil the railway line, it must be confessed, picks out as ugly a piece of country as the most perverse of engineers would wish to cross. If, on the other hand, the traveler starts from Dieppe or Le Havre, he winds through the Pays de Caux and up the valley of the Seine, country which has a great beauty of its own, but of a nature best revealed to the pedestrian.

At best, the railway journey from London to Paris reveals but little, not merely of the character, but of the surface of France. We do not realize generally enough that Paris stands in the north, and not, as we vaguely think, in the centre of the country. It takes five times the distance from Paris to the English Channel, as the crow flies, to reach the Spanish frontier on the west, and more than five to touch Italy on the Mediterranean. A line drawn east and west through the centre of the country runs farther south