The

southeast to the coast of Tonquin. journey across the Thibetan Plateau to the neighborhood of Lhassa was a severe test of the fortitude and endurance of the party. These enormous table-lands are from fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand feet above the sea level, and the mountain passes are several thousand feet higher. They are practically without vegetation, and they are swept by fearfully cold west winds. At night the mercury descends to many degrees below zero, and snow and sand-storms sweep over the desolate plains. This part of the journey was undertaken in mid-winter, and was attended with a good deal of hardship, due to the cold, to lack of food for the camels and horses, and to weakness arising from the high altitude. When the lower levels were reached in Southern Thibet and the natives were again encountered, the journey becomes easy, and the narrative deals with the people and their curious customs. Much of the ground traversed had never before been trodden by Europeans, and the Chinese authorities tried in many ways to stop the progress of the party. But by showing a determined front and by resorting when necessary to a mild display of force these obstacles disappeared. The book adds materially to the stock of human knowledge about the structure, climate, flora, fauna and inhabitants of this portion of Central Asia. It is written with an engaging simplicity and

Cassell Publishing Co.

directness in the form of a journal of what occurred and of what was observed from day to day. M. Bouvalot, however, is a realist of a scientific rather than a romantic turn of mind, and his story nowhere possesses any great dramatic interest. Indeed, one sometimes has to read between the lines of his simple, matter-of-fact record to detect the danger that overhung the party during December and a part of January. Having convinced the Thibetans that they were neither Russians nor Englishmen, the way through the inhabited portion of the country was comparatively easy. Both tigers and brigands kept out of their way, and diplomacy, a bold front and presents enabled them to proceed without molestation. The picture of the natives and their mode of life is very entertaining. The book is fully and handsomely illustrated, and has a map. [Cassell, 8vo, $3.50.]

Maturin M. Ballou is an indefatigable traveller. Periodically a new book comes from his pen, the last one being Equatorial America, which is descriptive of a journey to St. Thomas, Martinique, Barbadoes, and the principal capitals of South America. Like its predecessors, it is an easily written series of pictures of the life of the places visited, with a bit of history or legend interspersed here and there. It brings to light little or no information that has not been given by other travellers over and

over again, but it has the merit of presenting in a popular manner the scenes and incidents that come under the observation of a tourist of intelligence. [Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 12mo, $1.50.]

Paul Bourget's Impressions of Italy reproduce with the sympathy and delicacy of a poet scenes in the less familiar Italian towns and villages, with reflections on the art treasures that are everywhere to be found and with excursions into local history and legendary lore. It is all very gracefully worded, and is strongly colored by the personality of the author, differing widely from the purely objective comments of the Anglo-Saxon observer. The fine artistic sense of the author is everywhere apparent; but the aim of the book is not obvious. [Cassell, 12m0, $1.50.]

ART AND LITERATURE.

James M. Hoppin, Professor of the History of Art at Yale, has published a collection of papers under the title of The Early Renaissance and Other Essays on Art Subjects. The topics are varied. Four of the essays relate to Greek art; one treats of the Bourges Cathedral, another of Murillo, and a third of French Landscape Painting. The others are general"Principles of Art," " The Tendencies of Modern Art," "Art in Education," and "Art and Religion." Professor Hoppin's analysis of the tendencies of modern art is especially interesting. He quotes at length from an address of Gustave Rodolph Boulanger to the pupils of the Studio Julien and comments upon it, explaining the aims and influences of both the English Preraphaelite school and the French Impressionists. He thinks that there is hope for modern art and American art. "The Grosvenor Gallery," he says, "is the spot where the most vigorous modern English art is found, but the French salon has become, each year of its new departure, more trivial in its themes and sensational in its expressions." Finally the author's conclusion is: The highest idea of art, as I conceive it, is the combination of realism with that spiritual knowledge of a deeply thoughtful mind without which the artist would become a slave of nature." [Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 8vo, $2.00.]

Professor H. H. Boyesen, of Columbia College, in his Essays on German Literature, is upon ground which he has studied carefully, and with the fruit of which he is thoroughly familiar. He takes up, one after another, the interesting phases of modern German literature that are suggested by the lives and works of Goethe and Schiller, and by the evolution of the novel and of the romantic school, writing

of each with sympathy, and a full knowledge, not only of the personal history of the great men of this epoch, which gives a spice of anecdote to his pages, but of the philosophical spirit of the new age of which their works were the full expression. In his essay on "Goethe's Relations to Women," for instance, Professor Boyesen adopts and elaborates the theory that Goethe was guided throughout his life by the wholly pagan or Hellenic principle that he would strive for the fullest and freest harmonious development of mind and body, and would allow no person, relation, or circumstance to interfere with this purpose. This explanation of his love affairs is certainly ingenious; and the argument on which it is based seems certainly to show that, consciously or unconsciously, Goethe was consistent in his refusal to submit to the pressure of a matrimonial yoke with any woman who was his social equal, and a marriage with whom would have made him in some degree, at least, a slave of social duties and family cares. Professor Boyesen finds in his relation with the ill-educated Christine Vulpius still further proof of his contention. For her social station was such as to leave Goethe still free to follow the principle which Professor Boyesen thinks was the guide of his life. [Scribners, 12mo, $1.50.]

The Study Class: A Guide for the Student in English Literature, by Anna Benneson McMahan, has grown out of a series of outlines in recognition of two notable though nearly new features of modern life—viz., “The great zeal and impetus for study among wom en, and the vast amount of such zeal going to waste through misdirected efforts. The author has evidently been a careful reader over a very wide range, and her outlines of study are judicious and well selected. There are four introductory essays: "Concerning the Choice of Subject," Method in Study,' pretation of Literature," and the Art of Composition," containing a good deal of sound advice. The little book will serve a useful purpose in directing those clubs or individuals that wish to pursue intelligently special courses of reading. The outlines include chapters on such popular club subjects as Browning and Shakespeare. [A. C. McClurg & Co., 16m0, $1.00.]

The Inter

Few men are better qualified than Dr. A. S. Murray, the Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, to write a scholarly and yet popular Handbook of Greek Archeology. The book deals in a clear, concise style with vases, bronzes, gems, sculpture, terra-cottas, mural paintings, architecture, etc., embodying all the information that has come to light through new discoveries in the past fifty years. The author first discusses the

primitive condition of the artistic industries of Greece down to the time when the various arts begin to assume distinct and independent positions. Thence the growth and development of each art are followed through the period of its highest expression and its decline. The author's aim throughout is to emphasize the broad, general truths in relation to each art rather than to discuss details, and he gives special prominence to a neglected branch of the subject, Greek painting. The book acquires a large share of its value and interest from the fact that it is based on the unrivalled collections of Greek vases, sculptures, and other art objects in the British Museum, many of which are beautifully reproduced in colored plates, while the scores of text illustrations are a further aid to the understanding of the text. [Scribners, Importers, cr. 8vo, $6.00.]

SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL.

Two new volumes have just appeared in the Social Science Series dealing with different aspects of the questions that are agitating the laboring classes in Europe. One of these is The Destitute Alien in Great Britain (Scribners, cr. 8vo, $1.00), consisting of a series of articles by different authorities treating of "The Huguenot and Flemish Invasion," "Should Government Interfere?" "The Moral Aspect," "The Imperial Aspect," "The Italian Aspect," "Foreign Pauper Immigration," etc. In his introduction the editor, Arnold White, admits that the growing hostility in the United States toward unrestricted immigration, and the persecution and want which are driving the hordes of Jews from Russia, are the phenomena which make a careful examination of this question in its relation to England indispensable.

In the other volume, The Impossibility of Social Democracy (Scribners, 8vo, $1.25), translated from the German of Dr. A. Schaffle, the purpose of the author is to prove in the first place that Social Democracy, as the positive, practical programme of a new order of society, is once for all impossible, and next, that everything must be done, and that the necessary can really be done, in the way of progressive Social Reform, in order to make it all the more impossible as a revolutionary force. The author deals largely with German problems and institutions, but his book in its discussion of principles and of the ruling motives in human conduct has a value for English and American readers.

It is apparent to even the most casual observer of life in our large cities that the problem of bettering the condition of the poor has

grown to be one demanding immediate and earnest effort. Philanthropy apart, the increase of poverty and the overcrowding of tenements have assumed the proportion of a menace to the public welfare and a disgrace to our civilization. The publication in England a few years ago of Mr. George R. Simms's little book, "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," shocked the world with its revelation of almost incredible misery and suffering, and lately in Mr. Charles Booth's great work on "The Labor and Life of the People," we find a systematic and scientific study of the conditions of life among the poor in London that is even more significant, on account of the evident avoidance of any attempt at sensationalism. The poor in New York have been studied and written about by Mr. Jacob A. Riis in "How the Other Half Lives;" and in White Slaves; or, The Oppression of the Worthy Poor, by the Rev. Louis Albert Banks, D.D., the author gives the results of his investigations in Boston. He deals with "The Plague of the Sweat Shop,” “The Relations of Wages to Morals," Social Microbes in Boston Tenements," and other subjects of pertinent value. There are a number of illustrations of typical scenes taken by flashlight. [Lee & Shepard, 12m0, $1.50.]

A book on the silver question certainly ought to find a place in a series of "Questions of the Day," and J. Howard Cowperthwait in Money, Silver and Finance attempts to answer the question in a large and fundamental way by going to the very foundations of the subject. He begins with the "Evolution of Money, Trade and Finance," and while many themes are touched upon that might appear foreign to the main question, he never loses sight of it, and brings to bear a volume of statistics, argument and testimony to establish the iniquity of the free coinage theories and to show the disasters that impend in the success of such legislation. While not possessing the gift of an attractive and lucid style, Mr. Cowperthwait makes himself understood, and his book is of special value just at this time in the discussion of the bearing and import of silver legislation in this country. [Putnams, 12m0, $1.25.]

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.

The edition for the current year of the New York Charities Directory is at hand. [Charity Organization Society, 12m0, $1.00.]

Cassell's Pocket Guide to Europe, revised, is issued in an edition for the use of tourists this spring and summer. [Cassell, 16m0, $1.00.]

Agriculture in Some of its Relations with

Chemistry, by Professor F. H. Storer, of Harvard, has just passed into a third edition. [Scribners, 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00.]

A new edition, printed from new plates, appears of Sir Edward Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo, a book that has been before the public for forty years, and that still retains its value and interest. [Harpers, 12mo, $1.00.]

Enchei

There has been added recently to the Knickerbocker Nuggets a selection from The Discourses of Epictetus, with the ridion," translated by George Long. The dainty little volume is prefaced by a biographical note. [Putnams, 32m0, $1.00.]

Very simple, sweet and tender are the children's stories which Clyde Fitch has grouped under the title of The Knighting of the Twins, and Ten Other Tales. The idea of the title story is very pretty. The book is illustrated by drawings by Virginia Gerson. [Roberts, sq. 12mo, $1.25.]

In Methods of Instruction and Organization in the German Schools, John T. Prince, of the Massachusetts Board of Education, gives the result of his observations with regard to the constitution, State control, and inner workings of the schools of all classes in Germany. It is extremely practical, and full of instances from the class-room taken down at the time. [Lee & Shepard, 12m0, $1.00.]

There has been added to Baedeker's standard guide-books Upper Egypt, with Nubia as far as the Second Cataract and the Western Oases-a book that every student of and visitor to Egypt will find indispensable. It has eleven maps and twenty-six plans, and the usual mass of varied and well-arranged information for which these guide-books are noted. [Scribners, Importers, 12m0, $3.00 net.]

Rand, McNally & Co. are publishing a series of Pocket Maps and Shippers' Guides, one for each State or Territory, showing the entire railroad system, the territory covered by each express company, the cities, towns, post-offices, railway stations, villages, counties, etc. [Each, paper, 25 cents. The same firm is also issuing a series of pocket maps of the South, Central American and European countries. [Each, cloth, 50 cents.]

Among the recent importations of the Scribners which have been received are Seven Years in the Soudan, by Romolo Gessi Pasha, with portraits and illustrations (8vo, $4.50); Among Typhoons and Pirate Craft, a story of ad

venture in Chinese and Japanese waters, by Captain Lindsay Anderson (crown 8vo, $1.75); and The Tarot of the Bohemians, supplying the absolute key to the occult science of the gypsies. (Crown 8vo, $3.00 net.)

There seems to be no end to the number of books published, the purpose of which is to teach women how to become and remain beautiful of face and form. The last of these is My Lady's Dressing-Room, adapted from the French of the Baronne Staffe, with an introduction and additions by Harriet Hubbard Ayer, whose portrait is the frontispiece. The advice on all sorts of subjects is abundant, the recipes are numerous. [Cassell, 12mo, $1.50.]

NOTE AND COMMENT.

HAMLIN GARLAND'S WESTERN STORIES.

Whoever fares with Mr. Garland along his Main-Travelled Roads is still no farther from the South than the Mississippi Valley, but the environment is unmistakably the West. The color, the light, the life, the movement, the readiness to turn from melancholy feeling to humorous perception-all these are gone, together with the ameliorating negro; and in their places. produced by a massive, crude force which will have to be reckoned with in our literature, is one overwhelming impression of grinding, unremunerated toil. The remembrance of Mr. Garland's people, after the book is laid aside, is, strangely enough, that of a class, and not of individuals,-of a vast company, with worn, stolid faces, toiling in the fields all day without remission. Even the Angelus is denied them; and if they heard it, our fellowcountrymen would know too much to bow their heads before a superstition. They go home from work to grim cleanliness or grim squalor, as the case may be, and the dreariness of the farmer is exceeded, as ever, by the dreariness of the farmer's wife. One reads and is convinced, and then cries out that it is impossible; that this writer, so terribly in earnest, must be mistaken; that in his enthusiasm for Mr. Howells he has married Russian despair and French realism. Certain echoes, however, from the Mississippi Valley and from other tracts in the West hint that Mr. Garland may be telling the mere truth. If he is, the sum of human grief and suffering is still greater than we had supposed. The Atlantic Monthly.

MAETERLINCK'S LAST PLAY.

Theodore Child sends from Paris to the New York Sun this description of "Les Aveugles," the new play of the mystic, Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet :

The characters are twelve blind persons, six