The Churchman. “Anacreontis Carmina.” (Parisiis, 1639.) Seventeenth Cen- tury binding, French, by Le Gascon. Grolier compartments executed by fillet and gouges filled with stampings from Le Gascon’s spirals made of dotted lines. Account of what passed in a Conference concerning the Suc- cession to the Crown, MS. George I. (1791), English. Eigh- teenth Century. English coat-of-arms and “dentelle” bor- rowed from Le Gascon. Bookbinding: Past and Present The Revival of Bookbinding. By Ernest Knaufft, Editor of The Art Student. Landscape on the fore edge of “Flora Domestica” (1825). Painted by James Ed- wards, of Halifax. A MONG the objects which the Librarian of Congress enumerates as not eligible for copyright is the book cover! It is also to be noted that very few histories of art make the slightest mention of bookbinding or bookbinders. Yet the products of the best binders are worthy to be classified with the products of the miniaturist, the silversmith, the medallist, and the keramist. And to-day at auctions the masterpieces of the past bring higher prices than ever before. The revival, especially in England under the influence of Cobden- Sanderson, and on the continent through the less sane, yet still impelling in- fluence of the “Art Nouveau” movement has brought binding to the attention of art lovers the world over. The subject divides itself into three interesting divisions; (1) The technique of the craft; (2) the history of the binding; and (3) the modern practice of the craft. THE TECHNIQUE. It is not difficult to understand the technique of bookbinding. For example, let us suppose that one wishes to bind The Churchman. The different numbers, consisting of twenty-four or thirty-two pages, are called the “sheets,” and ordinary books are delivered to binders in “sheets.” The arranging of the sheets in order is called “collating” and the joining them together is the stitch- ing or “sewing” which is done at “a sewing bench.” After the sheets are sewed together, two pieces of heavy cardboard, called book- binders’, or mill-board, are cut to form the sides of the book and are sewed to the Roger Payne. From the etching by S Harding. Reproduced from The Studio. The Churchman. Sketch for a book cover for James Tissot’s “La Vie de Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ,” to be executed in modelled leather, by Mme. Vallgren. ( nn-nnor f vnP back. These sides and the back of the book are then covered with leather, end papers are pasted in, and the process known as “forwarding" is completed. The forwarder is really the binder, and should be distinguished from the finisher as the French do, by calling the latter the gilder or doreur. In Eng- lish the decorator of a book is known as a binder, and the word is so employed in this article. The book is then turned over to the “finisher,” who decorates it. “Finishing" may be explained as follows: The design may be drawn on paper and traced through on to the cover of the book with a pencil, or pressed through with the actual “tools” that are to stamp the design. The “stamp- usually used) of the words T h e Church- man, insert them in a bradawl handle, heat them, and one by one stamp them in the leather. Or you may put all the types into the pallet (in England called a “typeholder”), like the typeholder used for hand-stamping, and print the two words The and Panel Stamp of the Rouen printer, Jehan Moulin. (From a book in Worcester cathe- dral.) Up till recently it was generally be- lieved that stamped bindings of this kind were executed subsequent to the discovery of printing. Mr. Weale has made an investi- gation of the subject, however, and nas found stamped bindings which he attrib- utes to the twelfth century, when England led the continent in the production of this genre. It is remarkable that covers should have thus been printed and pictures and reading matter printed (we refer to the block books) three centuries before the invention of movable type. In the above specimen the entire panel is printed probablv from one die: but antique stamped bindings were often composed of four, eight, or more dies. or “fillet,” while what in England is called a “pallet” in America is called a “fillet”). If th€ segment of a circle is to be made, you may take a gouge and press it into the leather. This to is also called a “gouge” by the bookbinder. Up to recent times segments of circles hav been mostly made by gouges, but to-day, in England, Miss McColl has produced some very original bindings in which the segments of circles are made with a small roll (or in Eng- lish parlance a “fillet”). To put the lettering on the book you may take the twelve types Binding by Miss E. M. McColl. This binding is executed almost, if not entirely, with a wheel about the size of a copper cent. The design is by Miss McColl’s brother, D. S. McColl. ing” is done by the leather being first dampened and the “tool,” usually of brass or copper, heated, and pressed into the leather. If you wish to make a series of dots on the leather you may take a nail which would correspond to a tool and press it into the leather. If you wish to make a straight line you may take a screw-driver, heat it and press it into the leather, moving it forward to extend your line. Or you may take a copper cent, insert it in a holder in place of the tracing wheel used by the dressmaker to outline patterns, and trace your straight line with this cent. This tool would be known in this country as a “finishing roll” (in England as a wheel "Le Rommant de la Rose.” A modern French Mosaic bind- ing by Cuzin— the elder— in imitation of the Eighteenth Cen- tury Mosaic bindings of Padeloup. The Churchman \ \Wi-h J^HUECHMAN With One impression. The first method is that which was employed by the ,old masters in binding. Now, the home-made tools heretofore men- tioned are almost ex- actly like the profes- sional binders’ tools, except that in the place of the single nail the binder has a number of brass or copper stamps, on the ends of which are engraved all I sorts of devices, as -/-seen in “King Floras” t diagram. In addition he '-'has another instru- ment for making " straight lines, called (in this country) a “fillet” (but in Eng- land “a pallet”). It is a sort of a crescent on a handle and marks on the leather by a cradle motion. If it is a single - line pallet, it makes a single line, if a double-line pallet, a double line. Or it may have a repeat design upon it, which stamps a continuous line of devices. Another in- strument for making a line of repeated devices or patterns is a “roll” or “roulette” like the plain finishing roll, but with a repeat pattern cut upon it. A pattern put on by a roulette is not considered so fine as a design impressed by a single tool only, and repeated by sep- arate “stampings” or “toolings.” After the design is impressed on the leather it is ready to be colored. This is done either by a process called “blind-tooling” or by gilding. Blind-tooling consists of nothing more than going over the impression one or more times with a heated tool which scorches the leather to a rich brown color or almost black. This style is called “antique” or “monastic” finishing. “New Testament,” etc. (London, 1643.) Charles I. English, Seventeenth Century. Red velvet, silver mounts, medallions of King and Queen in repousse. The intelligent student of the bibliopegic art will realize that a binding of this kind is not to be compared with the books of to-day which are intended to be placed upright on the library shelf. Such books were carried in the hand and the finisher’s art is virtually that of the jeweller or silversmith. Such blind tooling is usually executed on calf, while levant or Turkey morocco, which is always supposed to be goat skin, is used to-day for gold tooling. If the book is to have gilt finishing, the de- sign is gone over with a brush charged with a sizing or “glaire,” which is usually noth- ing more than the beaten white of an egg. This having dried, the gold leaf is laid over the design and the warm “stamp,” “fillet” or “pallet” again pressed into the first indentation. The pres- sure of the heat makes the gold stick to the leather; the surround- ing superfluous leaf be- ing dusted off, the gold is afterwards “bur- nished,” to make it ap- pear bright. This is, briefly, the ordinary method of binding. But there are several additional methods. These are as follows: In “mosaic work” more than one colored leather is used. The English and French method is similar to that of “applique” in embroidery; that is, the second leather is pasted on to the cover of the book, the leather being first wetted and pared very thin. In the Viennese method the process is some- what different. Its principle is that of true mosaic, for the cover leather is cut out and removed and the second leather is laid into its place, as in wood-inlay or marquetry. Another method is that of modelling the cover with a metal modelling tool. The design is first traced, the leather wetted, and then the main outline cut with a sharp knife. (More or less paring with a knife may be done in finishing, but to bring out a d e s i g n with as much relief as an ordinary medal nothing more is necessary than to press into the wet 1 e a t ti- er with a tool.) The French design- ers are very expert in modelling in leather, which they call cuir cisele. One of the reasons that the old bookbinders did not use the mosaic method more frequently was that in their method “Passionale,” etc., (MS., circa 1100 a.d.) Henry I. English Twelfth Century. Wooden boards covered, probably, with deer skin, the figure in cast bronze. The remark made in connec- tion with the Charles I. New Testament applies also to this book. Byzantine manuscript missals for centuries prior to the time of printing were bound in covers usually of ivory on which Scriptural scenes were depicted in relief. Enguerrand de Monstrelet in bis library. A mediaeval library. The tomes are on a circular lec- tern and when closed the book shows its sides. The Churchman. “Imitation of Christ.’’ French, Seventeenth Century. Mosaic, probably by Padeloup, perhaps by Derome, perhaps by Monnier. This is probably one of the most famous Mosaic bindings in existence, red, pink, green, gold, black and brown. The ground work is citron, the inlays of working there was a tendency for the leather to part in time at the intersections of the lines. This parting of the leather, Messrs. Schleuning and Adams of this city claim they have overcome, and they predict a revival of the method. An advantage of the mosaic over the veneer is that in the former the two leathers, besides being flush, keep the integrity of their grain. In the veneer method there is just a slight irri- tation in handling the book to know that one leather is higher than the other; and besides, when the binder puts the book in the press the pressure is of course greater on the raised parts than on the original surface and the result is that the original grain is pressed out of the veneer leather. Also, the veneer leather, like tital leather, will in time dry up and curl off. Messrs. Schleuning and Adams have obtained some interest- ing Mosaic results. A volume bound in green has a floral design in which the leaves of a darker green are laid in without any tooling. Another cover is a copy of Matthew Prior's poems bound in dark green with mosaic bands of red and blue and a floral pattern made from but one tool — a second tool making a few dots on the upper corners, the simplicity of the design being commendable. Both books have leather doublures and are bound in levant. In the early days of bookbinding, the leather covers were also stamped in a press from a single stamp on which a device was engraved — very often the printer’s own device. But this method is now used mainly in connection with commercial binding. The object of commercial binding is to repeat the design from a thousand to three hundred thousand times; the cover is printed in the printing press much as the type in the book is printed (though the gold is printed in a stamping press). Colored ink is used, and a separate block is made for each color. The artist makes his design on paper, and from this the dies, up to recently, were always cut by hand on brass, though at the present day, photo-engraved plates are often used. It is need- less to mention that most commercial covers are printed on cloth and not leather. In printing white in former days it was customary to run the cover through the press from two to seven times in order to cover the cloth thoroughly, else the color would look “starved” or weak. To-day, however, a single operation is all that is necessary, since the white is not printed from ink but from a leaf of white, which is worked like gold leaf. r- To resume the consideration of handbins- ing, let us consider other methods of decorat- ing the book. Besides covering the sides and back of the book with ornament, the binder may decoratW the inside of the cover by substituting leathern for the usual end papers and working his orna- mental tooling on that. Such a decorated leatber is called a doublure. Many owners of libraries prefer to have the sides of the books plain, since these are hidden on the shelves, and let the binder put his decoration on the doublure. The specimen we give of Chambolle- Duru’s work is a doublure decoration. In marbling the end papers the bookbinder may also display individual taste and in- genuity, though to-day he usually buys his marbled paper already decorated. In the old days he generally made his own paper. The process of marbling is a fascinating one. A trough is filled with gum water; on this several colors, ground in oil, are thrown; on the prin- ciple that oil and water do not mix, these oily colors float on the top of the gum water (gum tragacanth or gum dragon). A comb is then passed through the colors and, according to the different gyrations given it, patterns are produced in the floating color. A sheet of paper is then laid upon this, the pattern trans- ferred upon it (the paper soaking up the oily colors) and marble paper is the result. The public are perhaps prejudiced against certain conventional patterns of marbling (which not a little resemble oil cloth). These patterns are really the result of using poor colors, and fre- quently plain paper or silk is ordered instead; but as a matter of fact some of the recent French marbled papers, where the stock is Michelet charcoal paper and where light tints are used, are charming in effect. Another adjunct to bookbinding is the orna- mental book edge. The common way is to cover the edge solely with red or gold. Some- times, however, the gold is put on over the ornamentation, or an ornamentation is put over the gold. When edges are tooled they are said to be gauffered. Sometimes the edges are painted with a landscape, or figure subjects which are covered with gold, in which case the land- scape shows when the book is slightly opened. James Ed- wards, of Halifax, was a binder who used this form of orna- mentation extensively. We reproduce one of his ornamented edges. THE HISTORY OF BOOKBINDING. Historically considered, bookbinding begins with the middle “Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.” From the original bind- ing, by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. Exhibited at the Arts and Crafts exhibition. London, 1S93. The Churchman. classic books were nearly always wtounted on rolls. In most cases the bind- ers were the monks, who were likewise caligraphers and illuminators of the con- tents of the book. The books were frequent- ly bound in wood which might or might not be covered with leather. Other materials t were used, as metal and ivory. The Henry I. " “Passionale” represents this kind of bind- ing. A breverie for “'my lady’s” prie Dieu might also -be bound in velvet or satin and embroidered. But for the library book, pigskin, vellum, and morocco soon became the favorite materials. The last two were popular in Italy during the Renaissance when Aldus produced the beautiful volumes from his press. We know that nearly every ornamental “motive” of the Renaissance came from the East, and it is very probable that the book- binders of Italy, when casting about for inspiration, found it in the Eastern book covers with arabesque interlacing. Hence the origin of panels, compartments, guil- loches and spirals, which have dominated the book cover from the time of Grolier (1479-1565) to the present. Grolier was an art patron who possessed a large collection of books, mostly printed by Aldus. Though he lived in France, he imported Italian workmen and had most of his books bound with tooling inside of Moorish interlacing bands which were inlaid or painted. To the design was added his motto, “Io Grolier et amicorum.” (“For Jean Grolier and his friends”). Perhaps he relied upon the superiority of his bindings over those of his friends to identify his books and thus guarantee their return. The Grolier bindings were princi- pally executed with gouges, and fillets, a few stamps filling the space between the panels. Prior to Grolier’s bindings Aldus had done some binding in his own printery, wherein for em- bellishments he had used some of his own typo- graphical ornaments; as the fig leaf, acorn, the anchor, and the Maltese cross. These tools were “solids” and solid tools are usually called “Aldine” tools. Later on the same or similar tools were cut in “outline” only, said to be “hol- low” tools. Later still the tools were made to stamp the device in parallel lines. These are called “azured” tools, because in heraldry the color blue is represented by paral- lel lines. The Eves — Nicholas, Clovis, and Robert — were binders for De Thou (1566-1617) the historian, a friend of Grolier. They use smaller compartments than the Grolier, and filled their panels more lavishly with stamps. Later on the binder Le Gascon had his stamps cut in the form of dotted outlines. Le Gascon is the favorite of most binders. His frameworks, more or less modifica- tions of the Grolier compartments, hold the design together well, and the spaces be- “Kitig Florus and the Fair Jehane.” Tooled and inlaid in thirteen colors, by J. Anderson, Copen- hagen, from a design by N. Fristrup. By comparing this illustration with the diagram of the tools used in executing it, it is easy to see how the design is built up of tiny fragments. It is probable that the figure in the medallion is mosaic while the lower panel containing the title “Jehane” is for the most part carved. tween tooling. The Pade- loups, a fam- ily of binders founded by Nicholas P a d e 1 o u p, (circa 1700) who worked for more than a cen- tury and a half, are noted for their mosaic covers. Previous- ly, the inter- lacing bands had often been painted, or if in mosaic, there was lit- tle or no other inlay on the cover; but the Padeloups not only inlaid them, but they intro d need actual pictures on the cover in the manner Gil. IIAPEPTA, etc. (Londini, 1632), Charles I. English, Seventeenth Century. Vellum, tooled in gold; semee (a sowing) of ermine. of stained glass. Their bindings are objected to bv the purists. "Common Prayer.” (Cambridge, 1760.) Queen Charlotte. English. Eighteenth Century. Bound by James Edwards, of Halifax. Vellum rendered transparent and the design painted on the under side, thus is preserved fresh in color to-day. The Churchman stamps like the Moulin. An ea^B inter John Reynes. He was a book* frequently working m their own binding, using s English hinder was the pri seller who also bound for Henry III blind tooling. Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxfor library, and many of his books were bound by Elliott and Chapman. Their designs gave rise to the style known as “Harleian,” which, while modelled on continental designs, may be classed as the first indigenous style. In the “Harle- ' AT' A Gospels in Anglo-Saxon and English. (Printed by John Day, London, 1571.) Queen Elizabeth. English, Sixteenth Century. in that the designs are not always related to the shape and size of the book. It is to be remembered that at this period Boule (who died in 1732) had made the art of inlay— of brass and gold, shells and ivory, in wood — a popular form of decoration. The Deromes — there were in all fourteen Nicholas Dennis Derome (became a master workman in 1761) known as The Younger, being the best known, like Le Gascon, used tools which were copies of delicate iron work. A favorite tool of theirs, known as the fer a loiseau, was a gracefully cut bird. In tooling the side of a book, Derome frequently left the centre plain or introduced a single stamp and confined his deli- cate tooling to the edges, the points of the dentelle tool facing inward: the design was then designated as a Van Dyke. In Great Britain the binding was for many years in the hands of the monks and an example of the handicraft of the Irish monk Dagaeus is preserved in the British Museum, and is dated 520 a.d. Queen Elizabeth embroidered book covers, but as in Italy, it was only after printing was introduced that binding became popular. The early printers frequently did sseiisSsP haps burnpd by pyrography, the leather Modern French Binding by Leon Gruel in style of Le Gascon. ian” the geometric interlaced compartments of the “Grolier pattern gave way to a panel known as the cottage-ioof de- sign — a panel with a motive at each end in the shape of the gable of a cottage roof. James Edwards, of Halifax, who flourished in the reign of George III., discovered a new way of treating vellum by tvhich it was rendered transparent. He then painted his designs on the under side of the vellum, afterward binding the book. The freshness of the color is thus preserved. In the reign of Charles I. binding was done at the establishment of Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire. Some of it was the work of amateur hands. A specialty of theiis vas stamped work in velvet. Samuel Mearne, royal bookbinder to Charles II. 1660-1683, is perhaps the best known English binder, next to Roger Payne. His books were not lavishly decorated, and often bore the ‘ cottage roof” device. Roger Payne (1739-1797) the most celebrated English binder, like Elliott and Chapman, pat- terned his designs on the continental styles, but gave them a comely reticence that made them in- dividual. He seldom put much tooling on the sides, but distributed freely on the back. He is said to have cut all his own tools. In judging historical bindings we must take in- to consideration where the book is to be Anally placed. In our illustration representing Enguer- rand de Monstrelet in a mediaeval library may be seen in the foreground luxuriously bound books ly- ing upon a stand, the sides of them being ex- posed; this was often so in the mediaeval library, and also the case when “mv lady’s” breverie lav on her pric Dieu or boudoir table. Under such cir- cumstances, embroidered velvet sides, ivory or metal sides are not an anomaly, because the books do not stand on their ends, as in a modern bookshelf. Also when “my lady” went to church, the servant walked behind her carrying her prayer book. The Churchman. Ruskin’s “Seven Lamps of Architecture.” Bound by Amilia Ars, of Bologna. Full calf with upper and lower panel divided by the name in cuir cisele, etc. The former with inlaid moroc- co, representing seven chimneys with flaming torches project- ing from them, the latter containing design of arbutus blos- soms and leaves. Silk doublure and flie, etc., etc. By Permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. tJlrf / |1 “The Ballad of Beau Brocade,” by Austin Dobson. Bound by Schultze, of Dusseldorf. Full robin’s egg blue, crushed levant morocco with a central panel inlaid; ground in cuir cisele. By Permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. therefore, this velvet embroidery or metal ornament took the place of jewelry, corresponding to her fan or parasol. To-day, however, in considering the decoration of the modern book, it is frequently maintained that it should have simple sides and the ornamentation, if any is needed, be on the back, because of its upright position in the bookshelf. In the middle ages, when books were used for public cere- monies particularly (as, for in- stance, court records, church ser- vice or choral service), they were made much larger than to-day; for in those days books were not held in the hand, but often rested at an angle on a sloping shelf, and were read from as from a lectern. In the study of texts, for example, we find certain capital letters called “uncial” letters from the Latin “uncia,” inch. These letters, es- pecially in the service book or an- tiphonarium, were actually one inch high! As the monks stood in the choir when singing, they were thus able to read the service from the books lying before them, three or four feet from the eyes. Cobden - Sanderson must be ranked first among modern binders. It is not that he is any more expert than half a dozen Frenchmen of to- day, nor that his bindings are more glorious than theirs, for, on the contrary, their colored inlays are far more striking than Cobden- Sanderson’s bindings of simple panels filled with tooling com- posed of a few small floral forms. But in their work there is always a little suggestion of the shop, or their effects are too startling and bizarre, and hint of the tour de force, while Sanderson’s covers carry the ear mark of the artist in every detail. Mr. Sanderson said, in relation to the Rossetti binding which we reproduce: I have very few tools, but each tool is so simple in form as to be capable of taking its place in infinitely varied combinations. For instance, in the Rossetti, the rose is from a single tool, the foliage throughout is worked from three tools— a right, left, Mosaic Doublure (Modern French) by Cham- bolie-Duru. The blackberries and leaves inlaid in their natural color, the leaves outlined in black, the ground (crushed levant) white, the panel bor- ders mauve. By permission of E. F. Bonaven- ture. and central leaf, the tulip-shaped flowers are from another tool; the rest is composed of dots, or lines of various lengths, some straight and some curved. The colored flowers are cut out in thin leather and pasted on, the gold outline of the tool covering the edges. Each tool is heated and impressed separately upon the leather, which, I must remind you, is covered with gold leaf. When the whole pattern has been im- pressed the superfluous gold is rubbed away.” “Do you prepare a sketch de- sign?” “Usually I make a scheme on paper with the tools, and have often to modify the first sketch. In this border, to avoid cutting a new tool,, I have disturbed the symmetry of the repeat and emphasized a por- tion which I had first intended should be uniform with the rest.” “Do you carry out every detail of the binding yourself?” “For a long time I did so, now I entrust the manual stages to others. My desire is to institute a workshop in which all the work shall be done by all, and the final outcome be the work, not of this one or the other, but of the whole bindery.” Mr. Sanderson’s bindery is now known as The Dove’s Bind- ery, and is celebrated for having bound a great many of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press Books. In France the modern binders, till recently, more often than not, contented themselves with copying the masterpieces of the past. Note the copies of Le Gascon by Leon Gruel and of Padeloup by Cuzin, which we reproduce. So in many a binding by Lefort, David Ritter, Lortic, Raparlier, Ruban, and Mer- cier, we find the “empire style,” “Grolier genre” or the “Padeloup genre” repeated: and in the Scrib- ner exhibition wa« seen a cottage- Bindery which is presided over by Leon Mailiard. But recently these same binders have given evidence of a willingness to break away from the shackles of the past and essay something roof cover a French by the Club finisher. The Churchman. more personal — as in a pictorial binding by Ritter for “Le Livre d'or de Millet,” where “The Angelus” has been repro- duced on the cover. In America so far the taste of the coun- try has been too free to encourage a master workman who could support himself by really artistic binding. The products of the binderies have been mostly commercial, and the trades- man has been developed at the expense of the artist. Several amateurs have made tenative essays in the art that are not undeserving of praise. Miss Evelyn Nordhoff, whose untimely death in 1898 cut off a promising career, deserves to be men- tioned as a pioneer in the field. Unluckily, there is little opportunity for the American pub- lic to see specimens of fine bookbinding. The Lenox and Astor Libraries own some very fine bindings, but they are not regu- larly exhibited. The book dealers of recent years have ar- ranged special exhibitions of fine bindings, that have done Modern, French, Mosaic Binding by Canape the younger. By permission of E. F. Bonaven- ture. Animal Stories. ( Continued from eighth page preceding.) to his task a ripened scholarship, a gift of humor, sympathy with nature, and a genial fancy. If you are, or would be, more than a fireside naturalist, this book will surely attract and repay the reading. Kipling’s ‘'Kim.” It has not always been possible to greet a new book from the pen of Rudyard Kipling with unmixed pleasure. The disagreeable fact has been forced upon us that, where so much work was forthcoming all could not maintain the level of excellence which made the appearance of his first Indian tales a memorable happening in the world of books. It is then with satisfaction that we find in “Kim” a return to that “early manner” of the man who, with all his too evident faults, has within certain well-defined limits an unrivalled skill. That his range is narrower than his most ardent ad- mirers claim may readily be conceded, but it must also be said that the too hasty critics who prophesied his speedy literary dissolution must now retract. His latest book is vindication of that judgment which the reading world passed on the writer who made to pass before our eyes the throng which peopled the narrow streets of the Eastern city, the dwellers in the lonely hill villages, the priest, the beggar, the ryot, the rajah, the men and women of shame, and the proud dominant race which rules them all, less by its armies than its moral mastery. True, Mr. Kipling has not written a novel, nor will he ever. His collection of cinematographs can never be unified into a panorama of life. A novel must protract itself sufficiently to afford some real test of propor- tion and no mere series of episodes can be deemed worthy of that name. The book before us is the latest volume of the Outward much to educate the public taste. Dodd, Mead & Co. have a small case of bindings on exhibition, wherein may be seen specimens of the standard English binders, like Zaehnsdorf, Cobden-Sanderson, Mr. Chivers of Birmingham, and several New York binders like Leon Maillard, of the Club Bindery. Last month Charles Scribner’s Sons held one of their annual exhibitions, in which they displayed specimens of the binders of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. And Mr. E. F. Bonaventure is holding at pres- ent his annual exhibition of fine French bindings, which in- cludes the example of Canape, Chambolle-Duru and Gruel, which he has kindly allowed us to reproduce for this article. At the Architectural League exhibitions we sometimes see a case or two of American bindings, as well as original designs for cloth covers. Modern, French, Mosaic Binding by Gruel. Brown crushed levant with dark brown bands, central flowers white; leaves green and reddish, border flowers pinkish, leaves variegated. By permission ot E. F. Bonaventure. Bound edition, illustrated by J. Lockwood Kipling (Double- day, Page, $1.50), and bearing in several places the mark of the Swastika. It is the story of a lad, half-native, half- Irish, who has grown up, an orphan, under the care of a half-caste woman. His real education has been in bazaars and shameful purlieus. He finds that he is really a sahib with a curious sense of elation and despair, and flees from the possible restraint of a more conventional life in com- pany with an old llama who is on his holy quest for the great River of the Arrow. This strangely assorted pair go roving — the elder more of a child than the younger — each with his own aim. For the shrewd street waif begins even then to have a part, though dimly understood, in the great game of the Indian Secret Service, whose ramifications bring him into touch with those in authority, who lodge him at school. Of his life here we are told little, for the many voices of the East are calling Kim back to that wandering which he craves and to the old teacher whom he loves, and soon they are afoot together again, this time to breast the hills and know the uplifts which the mountains give. The pursuit of the secret agents of the Russian Government, the success- ful attempt to obtain possession of their papers and surveys, the flight pack to the levels of the plain — all these are told with power and with fewer of those stretches of writing done to show cleverness than appear in the author’s other books. That there are times when the reader is resentful of being treated to more mystery than really belongs to the subject, one must frankly admit; and the book affords fine examples of how far the attempt to De subtle, even to a vanishing point, may lead Mr. Kipling. But when all de- murrers are filed, the judgment must still hold good that all that wondrous charm of that fascinating land where the Orient still persists and the ruts of immemorial customs seam the warp of life; where multitudinous voices sing the mysterious beginnings of our kind under the ward of those snow-crowned hills and by those ancient river floods — that all this lies before us clad in that atmosphere with which m From “Thomas Wolsey” (John Lane). Eut when we have to deal with men who bring to hear upon Mature “a new and independent conception of the world”; look ( '.it things with clearness of insight and depth of feeling, and at I the same time possess the energy and capacity to express them, i we find almost always that th“ ife becomes interpretative of the work, and is worthy of study even in its minute detail. “It is the thoughts and feelings of the great artist, his personal view of life, which form the truest and deepest substance of his work.” Mr. Kristeller, passing in review the fifteenth century of Italian art, with its multitudinal struggle for expression and its gradual attainment of mastery over the human form, dis- cerns from Jacopo della Quercia and Masaccio up to Leonardo, Michael Angelo and Giorgione, hut two artists who confronted nature freely and independently from the higher standpoint of an original conception of the world — these were Donatello the Florentine sculptor and Mantegna the painter from the Veneto. Donatello has not lacked for recognition; Mantegna has suffered under the reproach of pedantry. “To speak frank- ly, he has al- ways been a most uncom- fortable per- sonage for his- torical criti- cism to deal with, and has therefore, t o say the least of it, been very m u c h ne g 1 e cted” — chiefly b e- cause men have not dis- cerned his place in the evolution o f art, and, while they have rec- ognized h i s influence, have failed to see the source from which it sprang. Mr. Kristeller then has, for his chief aim, to set Mantegna in his proper organic place in the main drift and tendency of Italian art, as “the most perfect son of the great early period of humanism; one of the mightiest combatants in the van of that battle for nature which we have now to fight more ardently than ever.” In the scope which a work of this size affords, the author has been able to bring before the reader, well ordered and ar- ranged, all the materials needed for the study. He has entered little into controversy, though he has given the reader the op- portunity, through bibliographies, to do so. It may be worth while to note in passing that this English edition precedes the original German in publication. It is accompanied with a complete list of Mantegna’s works, supplemented by another of lost or missing works, and a third of works attributed, as it seems, wrongly to him. There is also an appendix, giving a list of all publications in which documents on Mantegna have appeared, and eighty-four of such documents in their full text. Art and Architecture. Among the season’s contributions to architecture it is natural that we should accord a prominent place to Ralph Adams Cram’s “Church Building,” because this excellent group of essays appeared for the greater part serially in our own columns. The interest that it aroused at that time among our readers was ample justification for its appearance in more permanent form, in which we are sure many of our readers will be glad to have it at hand for consultation. The whole has been carefully re- vised, somewhat enlarged, and furnished with additional illustrations. The printing of these, however, seems to us somewhat less successful than the product of our own presses. (Small, Maynard.) A valuable contribution to the critical study of art is Professor Hoppin’s “Great Epochs in Art History.” (Houghton, Mifflin, $1.50.) The epochs are four: that of Italian religious paint- ing, of Greek sculpture after Phidias, of French Gothic architecture, and of the English Pre- Raphaelites. Nearly half the volume is accord- ed to the first of these which, like the rest, is treated, not systematically but in a group of little studies on such varied subjects as may have hap- pened to at- tract the au- thor. It pre- supposes, therefore, a certain amount of general Knowl edge a n d thought- ful interest, and to those who have such a background of information it ought to be very inspir- ing, for it ap- proaches artistic crea- tions “as if they were liv- ing, in the spirit of love in which they were created, and that is the joyful and in- spiring source of art.” Few Italian ; 4 ■r .VHf - m From “Andrea Mantegna” Co.). (Longmans, Green & artists tease us more in the scanty pages of Vasari than does the builder of the glorious dome of St. Mary of the Flower at Florence, Filippi Di Ser Brunellesco, the subject of a recent volume in the series of “Great Masters in Painting and Sculp- ture,” by Leader Scott. (Macmillan, $1.75.) Such work as his lends itself peculiarly well to illustration, and that part of the work is entirely satisfactory. The task of the critic, though more difficult, has been judiciously performed, with due recognition of the changes in his designs, so vast as to be left incomplete at his death, which make, as Mr. Scott observes, the works which should best illustrate his nobility of concep tion more mis- vincing in their inevitable that tion of the evi- should be much Mr. Scott has set- ters by his in- has brought to- tered discoveries this volume, like of the Series, advance in our it clears away which proves to at all. triots of Brunel- larger part of L. beautiful volume, ture of the Re- naissance.” (Mac- leading than con- evidence. It is with the condi- dence there groping still, but tied some mat- vestigations, and gether the scat- of others, so that so many others marks a distinct knowledge, while much tradition be no knowledge The compa- lesco occupy the A. Freeman’s “Italian Sculp- A z v/.. From “Church Building” (Small, Maynard & Co.). The Churchman. minan, $ 0 .) After a very sympa- thetic intro- duction on the enjoyment o f s c u 1 p t u re, a n attentive reading of which will really c o n - tribute very much not merely to the compre- hension of what follows but to the ap- preciation of that beautiful art, he gives a chapter to the P i s a n i, an- other to Della Quercia, and then reaches the heart of his subject with Ghiberti Donatello and Luca della Robbia. The minor sculptors of the early Renaissance are not forgotten and in a second part the characteristics of the late Renaissance are illustrated in the Sansovini, Giovanni da Bologna, Benvenuto Cellini and Michael Angelo. The thought here seems somewhat less fresh than in the earlier pages, but the interest is well sustained, though we think the author errs sometimes by excess of im- agination in the daring use of metaphor, as when, for instance, he speaks at the close of the equestrian statue of Colleoni and Donatello’s Gattamelata as pro- ducing a sum of beauty “so great that it makes, as it were, an individual line of color in that spectrum of aesthetic values which is characteristic of the Italian sculpture of the Renaissance.” From Balfour's * ”* - ‘Stevenson’ Sons). (Chas. Scribner’s tions. the memorabilia of Stevenson’s boyhood has been gathered with peculiar diligence, such as seems no unfit tribute to the singer and interpreter of childhood, and the recollec- tions of others, as well as his own account of his early years, are not only intrinsically interesting but of considerable psychologic value, as well as material aids to interpretation. This was perhaps more true of Stevenson than it would be of many. He never quite put off the boy for the man; something of the glory of youth was with him to the very end, of its en- thusiasms, its high-souled impulses, its power of devotion, and of ideals. All that was most precious in boyhood and adoles- cence he seems to have kept, and purified it with the exper- ience of age. So it may be said that in manhood his genius emerged out of a being in which it can be recognized entire by the discerning, even in its earliest immaturity. His failings, too, were those of boyhood, and did not make him the less lovable. “To be the writer that he was,” says this biographer, “amounted to a great exploit and service to humanity; to be- come the man that in the end he became, seems to me an achievement equally great, an example no less eloquent." More than half the first volume is taken up with an account of Stevenson’s ancestry, his infancy, childhood, boyhood and student days; then we come to the critical year, 1873, cardinal for Stevenson on the religious side, and with the first promise of literary success in those notes of travel and essays that were for a long time his chief, and to some are still his most characteristic, literary achievement. That year, too, first brought him powerful friends in the critical world, and if it witnessed no change in his literary taste it did change in a very marked degree the confidence with which he sought liter- ary expression. So it is natural that Mr. Balfour should give a chapter to “Life at Five and Twenty,” and another to the transition years from ’76 to ’79 that brought Stevenson to Cali- fornia, and to the most trying experiences of his life. But the clouds lifted on his marriage to Fanny Vandegrift, and the next years at Davos and in the Highlands were among the most fruitful of his life. A large part of “Treasure Island” was Robert Louis Stevenson Few books of the early holiday season are likely to attract more attention than Mr. Graham Balfour’s two volumes on “The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson.” (Scribners, $4.) Their beautiful typography and general ex- cellence of manufacture commend them ex- ternally to all lovers of that genial novelist and fine character, while the work itself is done with a painstaking accuracy and a sympathetic knowledge that gratifies every just curiosity, and materially assists in the comprehension of the story-teller’s genius. That indeed was revealed to those gifted with a little literary second sight in his cor- respondence, to which these volumes are, as it were, a supplement, and a sort of running commentary. We learn from the preface that it was intended that the biography should appear simultaneously with the let- ters, and that it was to have been written by Mr. Colvin, the editor of the correspondence, but as he could not undertake the task, through failing health, Mrs. Stevenson turned, not unnaturally, to Mr. Balfour, who had made Vailima, Stevenson’s Samoan es- tate, his home, for the last two years and a half of the novelist’s life, and, except for his immediate family, was “the only one of his intimate friends in contact with every side of his life.” Mr. Balfour approaches his subject in the right way, saying that all biography would be autobiography if it could, and let- ting his cousin tell his own story as far as may be; not merely by letters and through memoranda but by gathering passing allu- sions to himself in literary work where we might not naturally look for it. He has, how- ever, avoided needless repetition, and his longer quotations are almost always either from material unpublished or accessible only to the chosen few who gather limited edi- Copyright, 1901, by Fleming H. Revell Co. From ’’China in Convulsion. The Six “Fighting Parsons” and Sergeant Murphy at Fort Cockburn. The Churchman j written then, and many first sketches of work to he elaborated later. The years from 1884 to 1887 were the flood-tide of his production; then followed a second visit to the United States, and then those six brave years in the eastern and central Pacific, where isolation seemed only to add to the charm which bound him to an ever-widening circle of admirers. This spell, as Mr. Balfour says, defies analysis. It is not enough to say that Stevenson was brilliant, romantic, fiery, tender, brave, kind, nor to say that he was sympathetic to the thoughts and moods of whoever might be his companions. There was in him, beside all this, a stimulus of youth, so that, as Mr. Bal- four observes, he raises, in the hearts of his readers, not mere- ly admiration and hope, but a personal feeling for himself, that is close akin to love. China in Convulsion.* Of all those gallant men who witnessed and partici- pated in the heroic defence of the Legations at Pekin, there is none whose account of this splendid exhibition of endurance, fortitude, and resourcefulness could have been awaited more hopefully than that of Arthur H. Smith, who for twenty-nine years has been a missionary of the American Board in China, and who has already shown himself an observer of exceptional keenness, a student of exceptional breadth and depth of in- sight, and a writer of great graphic power, as well as one who, by the dedication of his life to mission work in China, has won a sympathetic insight into the national life of that empire, that is, so far as we know, unrivalled among living representa- tives of Western culture. His “Chinese Characteristics” and “Village Life in China” have been pronounced by the general voice the very best books on the subject of our generation, and among the best in their kind of any time on any country. The present volumes yield something in sociologic value to the preceding, for they are records of a convulsion, not of normal life. But as a story of the siege they are unrivalled, and the study of the events which led up to the Boxer revolt * “China in Convulsion.’’ By Arthur H. Smith. With numerous illus- trations and maps. 2 vols. [Fleming H. Reveil Co., from advance sheets.] From “Imperial London’’ (E. P. Dutton & Co.). From “Lives of the English Saints” (J. B. Lippincott & Co.e comes to us with greater weight of authority than any other, as do the pages on the outlook, at the close. It is these to which we wish to direct especial attention. Dr. Smith begins by detailing the remoter sources of antipathy between China and foreigners. The Chinese, he says, have never wished to fight. The appeal to arms is distasteful to them as a people; nor did they desire raffia foreign trade, though they are by instinct highly skilled in commerce. Yet this might have been borne, had it not been for certain special reasons of distrust in the case of Christianity, partly due to indiscre- tion, partly to the very nature of Chris- tianity itself, which, as Dr. Smith says, “has been in China a disturber, as it always is and always has been everywhere.” But leaving this ferment of the Gospel, which in regenerating a nation with its new wine cannot hut change the old forms of na- tional life in China as it has done every- where, Dr. Smith proceeds to consider the responsibility successively of the Protestant and of the Roman Catholics for the out- break — that responsibility for which they may justly be blamed. Ill-judged sympathy with the Tai-Ping Rebellion, and the fact that this had its origin in a perversion of Protestant Christianity, counts for some- thing. The disorganized activities of mis- sionaries lacking “an external and a visible unity,” coming no Chinaman knows whence or why, settling at frequent intervals, selling books, dispensing medicines and preaching, keep the multitude, he says, in a sort of fer- ment as to what it is all about, and the scholarly caste use this irritation to excite anti-missionary riots, in which they are aided by offensive acts of the imprudent and the inexperienced, especially as this affects the cult of ancestors. Dr. Smith seems to hope that some middle course may be dis- covered that will enable the missionary to combine reverence to man and worship to God, so that neither shall infringe upon the other; but he makes it clear that the pres- ent attitude of the Christian Church in this matter is “a great bar to the spread of the Gospel in China, and perhaps the most potent single cause of Chinese hostility.” There has been indiscretion, in Dr. Smith’s opinion, in the circulation of tracts and other Chris- tian literature, and even the medical mis- sions have not been an unmixed benefit in their immediate effect, though ultimately From "By the Waters of Sicily" (James Pott & Co.). “It is well that the dilemma should be recognized and squarely faced. Unless China is essentially altered she will continue to ‘imperil the world’s future.’ Other forces have been to some extent experimented with, and have been shown to be hopelessly inadequate. Christianity has been tried upon a small scale only, and has already brought forth fruits after its kind. When it shall have been thoroughly tested, and have had opportunity to develop its potentialities, it will give to China, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, the Elixir of a New Life.’’ Old Friends in New Dress. Fifty-seven years ago there began to appear at Ox- ford “The Lives of the English Saints,” prepared by various hands at the suggestion of John Henry New- man, then priest of the Anglican Church, and after- ward cardinal in the Church of Rome. These lives were in their day much more than attempts at religious biography, or studies in saintliness, they were, though they were not intended to be, the manifesto of a party, the enunciation of a point of view, the expression of a spirit in the English Church long dormant but struggling into new life, and finding utterance here in most varied form, now deeply eloquent, now almost puerile. These lives are now gathered, for the first time, in their entirety, into six well-printed volumes with an introduction by Arthur Hutton, and are pub- lished in America by the Lippincott Company. Those of us who have had occasion to read or consult them in their original form will be grateful to editor and pub- lisher, who have given them a new lease of life in this more convenient form. Historically many of them are of little value, but they form a very significant episode in the history of the English Church, and some of them, more especially the longest, “The Life of Abbot Stephen,” rank still among the best of religious biographies in English. The introduction contains a good account of the inception and conduct of the en- terprise, and excellent portraits of the chief collabora- tors in it add value to the volume. It is certainly a remarkable witness to the perennial popularity of the Brontes that close upon the fine they may prove so. Altogether, Dr. Smith’s conclusion is that “for the precipitation of the tremendous crisis which has occurred, the proportion of responsibility of Protestant missions is undoubtedly real, but it is a small and relatively insignificant factor.” Not so with the Roman Catholics, who are generally believed to have political aims, or even to be political agents. Dr. Smith endeavors to hold the balance fairly, and to set down nothing in malice, but says that he hears everywhere in Chili and Shan-tung that Roman Catholic proceedings at law are unfair and tyrannous. He pays a warm tribute to the great work that the Roman Church has done for the Chinese, to its noble, self-denying and devout missionaries, who were working here for cen- turies before the Protestant churches had touched the task; “yet for all that— *ay, because of all that— it is the more imperative to call attention, in the most emphatic manner possible, to the fact that the present semi-politi- cal administration of the Roman Catholic Church in China is bad and . . . sowing a harvest of evil.” There is not one of the countries which have treaties with China, says Dr. Smith, in which such causes would not have produced worse results than have been seen in China until the late rising. This was indeed tolerated, fostered, and finally directed, by the Chinese Govern- ment. It had its primary sources in race hatred and political aggression, but the claims and practices of the Roman Church added fury and bitterness to the attack, and contribute seriously to the difficulty of permanent settlement. In a concluding chapter on the outlook. Dr. Smith de- plores the loss of the unique opportunity of Western civilization to aid in the rehabilitation of China. “A more impressive object lesson than the failure of diplomacy to achieve constructive results, when unham- pered by external conditions and operating on a large scale, has seldom been seen.” China has never been pro- foundly moved by other than moral forces, and Chris- tianity alone will be a constructive disintegrator of this mediaeval civilization. Its development says Dr. Smith, Will be, and must be, marked bv conflict, perhaps not more so than elsewhere, but surely not less. vaults and Daughters of Colonial Days” (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.). The Churchman From "Wild Life Near Home’’ (Century Co.). octavo Haworth Edition of their novels, which might have promised to suffice for a decade, comes another in twelve of the dainty little Temple Classic (Macmillan) volumes, each with a finely executed frontispiece, and with all the varied ex- cellencies of book-making that have made these Temple Classics proverbial. Each of the chief novels fills two volumes, “The Professor” and a volume of verses make up the total. The Brontes’ work has never been given us in a form so at- tractive, so likely to win new readers and to keep old ones, as in these light, olive-bound and limp- covered volumes. Another writer whose memory is ever green, and shows not the least sign of decay, is Alexandre Dumas, whose “Works” come to us from the Crowells in ten volumes. It is the selected works of course with which we have to do here. There has been a translation, published by subscription, embracing a very much larger group of the great romancer’s creations, though even that is not complete, nor indeed is any modern edition likely to be, for the task of distinguishing the work of that prodigal of genius from that of his apprentice collaborators may be given up as not impossible, perhaps, but hardly worth while, for the world has judged, and has separated unerring- ly the wheat from the chaff. We have here, on the whole, all of that for which Dumas stands, to any but those of very special literary education. Here is of course “The Three Musketeers,” “Twenty Years After” and the “Vicomte of Brage- lonne,” with other volumes of the prolific chron- icles of France, “The Forty-five,” “Marguerite of Valois” and the “Lady of Monsoreau.” These to- gether make up eight volumes of the ten, the others are given to the incomparable “Monte Cristo,” probably the greatest romance ever written. The translations are good, though some- what pedestrian, and we understand were made especially for this edition. Compared here and there with their predecessors, especially in the case of Monte Cristo,’ they show a decided gain, where indeed there was much room for it. Each story has an introduction and a cast of charac- ters which will be found very helpful for refer- From "Kim" (Doubleday, Page & Co.). ence. A critical study of the novelist by Professor Cohn, of Columbia, is pre- fixed to “M o n t e Cristo.” That task could have fallen to no more competent hand. Well-executed illustrations add to the attractiveness of the volumes. The work appears in several forms at prices varying from $10 to $25. Kingsley’s “Hy- patia,” too, comes to us as an old friend with a new face in the Century Classics (Century Co., $1.25 a vol.), in which it fills two olive green and beautifully printed volumes. There is an appreciative introduction by Edmund Gosse, who knows, as we all do, that there are anachronisms, trivalities and weary spots in “Hypatia”; that the wear and tear of a half cen- tury has not left it quite intact, but yet feels that it is still “a splendid and an invigorating tale.” The charm of it, as he goes on to say, “consists in the fact that Kingsley, Anglican priest as be was, with all the prejudice and ignorance and formalism of the age pressing around him, contrived to color it with a drop of that divine intoxication of youth, which draws us all back from the dulness of modern existence, and which constitutes the dangerous and perennial charm of antiquity.” Latest of the editions of Thackeray that recur with refreshing frequency is one that comes to us from The Macmillan Co., edited by Walter Jerrold, with illustrations by Charles E. Brock, which Captain Mahan. From “Types of Naval Officers” (Little, Brown & Co.). The Churchman paper Row. The whole volume is made attractive, indeed to many purchasers will be chiefly attractive, because of the il- lustrations by Hanslip Fletcher, some of them pen-and-ink drawings, others apparently reproductions of sepia or wash sketches, but all artistic and well executed. The protean character of London, as indeed of every great metropolis, is suggested by the kaleidoscopic character of the index, which, like misery, makes strange bedfellows, but seldom stranger than here, where Christie’s elbows the Church Army and Bird Life in London is cheek by jowl with Bermondsey's University Settlement, while Starlings accompany the Stock Exchange. Similar in design, and beautiful in illustration, are Claude de la Roche Francis’s two volumes on “London, Historic and Social” (Coates), an author otherwise un- known to us, but who has evidently made a very careful study alike of present conditions and of the monuments of the past. His work, though of necessity somewhat unsys- tematic, differs from the preceding volume in the strictly chronological arrangement. It is a history of the city, similar in scope, though very different in treatment, to Gregorovius’s monumental history of Rome. The period be- fore the Plantagenets is dismissed briefly; that stock, with the Tudors and Stuarts, occupy the first volume and a quarter of the second; the rest is given to the Georges and Victoria, with a chapter describing the ceremonial attend- ing the change of succession at the close. There are useful chronological tables and a full index. Picturesque Pilgrimages. From “D'ri and I” (Lothrop & Co.). may occasionally make us regret Thackeray’s own, but yet have a great deal of artistic merit. “Vanity Fair” in this edi- tion fills three small octavo volumes ($1 each), agreeable alike to hand and eye. The edition promises to be a popular one. Geraldine Brooks’s “Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days” is an old friend commended to our readers last November. These ladies are presented to us this year, however, in more beautiful attire and with them come their chil- dren in a companion volume, “Dames and Daughters of the Young Republic.” (Crowell, $4; half-calf, $7.50 the set.) The latter vol- ume, with which we are alone concerned here, gives us brilliant sketches of Dorothy Madi- son, Sarah Jay, Theodosia Burr, Elizabeth Patterson (Madame Bonaparte), Martha Jeffer- son, Rachael Jackson, Dorothy Hancock, and Emily Marshall. Madam Hancock might have found a place as appropriately in the former volume. The others are distinctly of the young republic, and these sketches of them bear in- teresting and often amusing witness to chang- ing manners, and the developing national in- dividuality. They were stately and conserva- tive still, but much less formal and increas- ingly democratic as time passed on. Dorothy Hancock would hardly have felt comfortable in the society of Rachael Jackson. The daughters of Colonial Days were not wont to write to their fathers as Theodosia did to Aaron Burr, that she didn’t know whether to be sorry or mad at his silence; nor can we imagine our pre-Revolutionary worthies beseeching their children not to scold and pout at their conduct, as did this indulgent father. London with Pen and Pencil. “Imperial London,” by Arthur H. Beavan (Dutton, $4), is full of antiquarian lore, loving- ly gathered, and of pictures of the modern life of the great metropolis, its merchants, its criminals, its literary and scientific circles, its law courts, transportation service, and the rest, the whole ending with what to us was one of the most interesting chapters, journalistic London, revealing a state of things quite different from our own, and seeming just a little humdrum to one who emerges on it from the bustle of News- Among the volumes that with pen or camera try to bring before us foreign life, none has more exotic charm, more individuality, than Lafcadio Hearn’s “Japanese Miscellany.” (Little, Brown, $1.60.) Like those shadowings to which he treated us last year, this volume begins with a group of six “strange stories,” translated from the Japanese, especially remarkable because of a certain weird vividness of local color in them. Some folk-lore gleanings follow, in which we are told of the songs of Japanese children, of dragon-flies, and the poetry that they evoke, and of the name-lore of the Japanese. Then there are studies here and there — beside the sea it may be, or in a hospital, and, most ghastly of all, yet worth pondering, perhaps, by our missionaries, “The Case of O-Dai,” a poor little woman cast out, flung into the furnace as it were, “only perhaps to furnish one example of facts that every foreign missionary ought to try to understand.” From Japan Mrs. Lee Bacon will carry us to Egypt in “Our Houseboat on the Nile” (Houghton. Mifflin, $1.75), interestingly illustrated with water-colors and wash drawings by her husband, Henry Bacon. The account of the journey which carried the party two hun- dred miles from Assuan to t h e Second Cataract and well into Nubia is graphic, and told with no little humor. The illustrations are more than usual- ly attractive. We lay down the book with the impression that Mrs. Bacon must have been a most admirable travelling c o m- panion, and the hope that we may have the pleasure of her company on another jour- ney. The service that Mrs. Bacon has done for Egypt is done for Southern Italy by Norma Lorimer in “By the Waters of Sicily” (Pott, $1.75), a very charmingly illustrated and well-written volume, cast in the form of letters to a girl friend at home, with all the zest of travel, yet with an eye for the beautiful in nature and art, and a rare power of sympathetic appreciation. No letters from From “The Tory Lover” (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). The Churchman. and a personal point of view. Six photogravures and a generous selection of other illustrations enhance the at- traction of the volume. But perhaps many of our fireside travellers will prefer a patriotic journey nearer home. To these we commend heartily “The Mohawk Valley: Its Legends and its His- tory, ”by W. Max Reid (Putnams, $3), with many attractive illustrations from photographs by Arthur Maney. The annals of this Mohawk valley are, as our romancers since Cooper have not failed to remember, filled with deeds of heroism, tragic sacrifice and brilliant success. Every From “Tlie Right of Way” (Harper & Brothers). Copyright, 1900-1901, by Gilbert Parker. Sicily, not even the German Platen's, have given us greater pleasure than these. Most artistic in illustration of all these volumes is Mr. Charles W. Wood’s “Glories of Spain" (Macmillan, $3.50), for he has depended not alone or chiefly upon the camera, but on pen and pencil and etching point, and some of the illustra- tions are mechanically as successful as any that we recall. This is especially the case with those inserted in the text, of which the Cloisters of St. Pablo, Barcelona, on page 209, is per- haps the most successful among many examples. In the full- page illustrations we expect the best, and we are not disap- pointed. Here, too, the text is lively, full of personal ex- periences and touches of local color that make it very at- tractive. His success in catching impressions of this most romantic of European countries is hardly less than Gautier’s. It is evident that Mr. Wood knows his subject, and no less evident that he loves it. From Spain it is natural to cross the Pyrenees and beyond them Mrs. Elizabeth W. Champney greets us with the “Romance of the Renais- s a n c e Cha- teaux” (P u t- nam, $3), in which she treats, in the fashion made familiar by her book on “French Feudal Ch a t e a ux,” many famous and some il- 1 u s t r i o u s monuments of French aris- tocratic a r c h i t e c- ture, all of which are memo r a ble. The exposi- tion is given c o n t i n u- ity by a thread of narrative, From “Lazarre” (Bowen-Merrill Co.). town has its historic romance, every glen its prehistoric legend. It was worth while to gather this material, and it has been done here most attractively. Captain Mahan’s Naval Studies. Naval literature in our generation owes no greater debt to any writer of any nation than to the author of the “Life of Nelson” and of “The Influence of Sea Power upon History,” a study which, as is well known, did much to influence the policy and legislation not alone of America but of other nations also. It is natural, therefore, in these days of expanding commerce, and the accompanying growth of our navy that this increase necessitates, that public as well as professional attention should be directed to this distinguished strategist’s “Types of Naval Officers” (Little, Brown, $2.50) ; and it is natural, too, that these types should be drawn from the history of the British Navy, to which in past generations the world has looked for its ex- emplars and guides in the conduct of war upon the sea. For the better comprehension of the contribution of each of the six officers, whom he has selected for study, it was necessary that there should be also some account of the conditions of naval warfare during the period covered by these studies — that is from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the advent of the navy under steam. It was not until the eighteenth century, indeed, not until well the middle of it, that what we know as world-politics began to interest the statesman, and that the navy began to have the great national importance that it has since attained. Not until then should we find that for a Euro- pean quarrel black men, in Macaulay's picturesque phrase, “fought on the coasts of Coromandel and red men scalped each From “Munchausen” (Noyes, Platt & Co.). The Churchman material facts of his story are true, though what befell several may be here attributed to one. The mountain ram occupies the largest place in his narration, and seems to him to typify majesty; then the cock sparrow claims attention as the symbol of grace. The coyote is a canny child of wisdom gathered from ad- versity, and in the bear, the teal, the chink, and even the kangaroo rat, he finds traits strangely human. Sometimes, as it seems to us, his imagination leads him too far, and sentiment verges on sentimentality; but he writes with such fascinating sympathy, and his work is so delightfully and uniquely il- lustrated, as well by the thumb-nail sketches as by the larger pictures; that this new volume is sure to find a fresh welcome and an eager public. Animal stories of a more conventional type are gathered by Hermon Lee Ensign under the title of the first of them, “Lady Lee.” (Mc- Clurg, $2.) These are stories of horses, dogs, cats; or of those animals that change their nature as the petted companions of man, the elephant, the monkey, or some bird. The stories are very genially told, with a sympathy that is hardly ever morbid, and the illustra- tions add much to the attractiveness of the volume. It, too, should stimulate generosity at this holiday season. In “Wild Life Near Home” (Century Co., $2), Dallas Sharp has exploited what we may all see on a summer outing within not too many miles of New York, or wherever our home may be, in this Eastern United States. Considerable parts of this book have appeared in various magazines, in recent years, but it was well worth while to collect in a sightly volume this witness to what a patient and trained observer may see near home. The birds are his special favorites, and he finds that they are even more abundant along our high roads than in the heart of the forest, but he tells us of fishes, too, of squirrels, rab- bits, muskrats, and other living things that are much closer, even to our metropolitan civilization, than we realize. He has brought ( Continued on Ihe eighth page following.) From “Warwick of the Knobs” (Dodd, Mead & Co.). other by the Great Lakes of North America.” Con- tinuity is given to Captain Mahan’s studies by the fact that all the naval heroes here mentioned fought, at one time or another, in the conflict that began in 1739 in defence of the rights of English ships to frequent the seas bordering the American dominion of Spain. In this contest all Europe was ultimately engaged with Asia and the Islands of the Pacific; in it the independ- ence of the United States was involved. Hawke, Rod- ney, Howe and Jervis, witnessed the entire struggle, Saumarez and Pellew its close. In the glory of the former America might claim a share; the latter fought against our then new flag. Yet, though thus aLied in blood and in service these men were sharply differen- tiated. Each is the exponent of a class, the individual- ity of each contributed to the efficiency of all, and the types for which they stand are permanent in the naval service, so that the lessons to be drawn from them are applicable also to to-day. Four of these studies ap- peared some years ago in the Atlantic Monthly, but as presented here they show the results of mature revision, and material elaboration. Animal Stories. A book by Mr. Seton-Thompson is always some- thing of an event for nature lovers, and “Lives of The Hunted” (Scribners, $1.75) takes its place, as of natural right, first among the animal stories that have come to us this season. It is curious to contrast Mr. Seton’s idealization and personification of nature with that of the old animal fables of which Reynard the Fox is the chief illustration. They, as a rule, were cynical. This finds in animal life the prototypes of what is best in human nature, and the author assures us that the From “The Snow Baby” (Frederick A. Stokes Co.).