This, however, was long before the time of the theatrical history and biography, which have now become so popular and many volumes of which have appeared even in the life-time of their subjects. Although these works may do the actors themselves no especial good, yet they are tributes that naturally please and help to dispel the established notion that the actor is the least appreciated of the artists. Perhaps it was to some degree, for this reason, that Mr. Pemberton has penned this story of Ellen Terry and her career, and from Miss Terry's letter published in the front of the volume, we can see that, albeit she is one of the most modest and retiring of women, she is nevertheless delighted by this mark of sympathetic appreciation and is most grateful for its advent. She in her turn pays Mr. Pemberton a compliment in these words, "Your intimate knowledge of all that concerns the stage will at least keep you right as to the facts of your pages." But even without this statement from Miss Terry, the fact is patent that Mr. Pemberton has a wide knowledge of the stage and of stage-life. Few writers on the subject have brought us so closely in touch with all those innermost springs of the actor's heart. The fascination that from beginning to end holds the histrionic artist in its spell, is here revealed in all its frequent pathos, while the tremendous toil and hardships of a life lived behind the footlights are set forth. Ali this of course is incident. The character of Miss Terry from both its private and public aspects, is the central interest in the work, but naturally, in order to interpret it correctly, one must understand all the surrounding conditions, etc., the influence of which had a part in molding and shaping it. Mr. Pemberton's book is one that all should read. Miss Terry has been for many years the greatest living Shakesperian actress and a study of her in the various roles that she has assumed would be of value and interest to any interested in the theatre while her striking and distinctive personality makes an admirable study in character, not only for stage people but for general readers as well. The revelations as to the domestic lives of many of our important actresses as shown in recent books, is doing much to overcome the old-time stage prejudice, and Miss Terry's life and that of her sisters and family should have. a marked influence in this direction. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. ward the troublesome problems of his time. The noble, single-minded purpose to increase human knowledge, in the natural branches and to advance the cause of science is clearly shown while with it mingles, aside from the scientists and the reformer, the man himself, genial, sympathetic, generous and kindly-hearted. It is one of those much needed popular biographies, the coming of which means an advancement in general education and In preparing his biography of Huxley, Mr. Edward Clodd has drawn largely upon the information contained in "The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley," by his son, Leonard Huxley. To put this information into as concise yet as interesting a form as possible, has been Mr. Clodd's endeavor. And he has succeeded. The small book just issued contains all the salient features in the magnificent character of its subject; it gives a deep glimpse into his personality and defines the attitude that he assumed to- cultivation. Scottish Men of Letters in the Eighteenth Century 697 SCOTTISH MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Mr. Graham, in the preface to his book, tells us that he does not aim so much at giving a history of the literature of the eighteenth century, as at giving an account of the men who made it. Many of the Scots writers of that period possessed, in their speech, manners and ways of living, all the characteristics and individualities of their native land, peculiarities that render them all the more interesting, but which, in their countrymen of later years, have been suppressed by modern restriction and convention. To revive these older types in all their antique charm and quaintness, has been Mr. Graham's earnest endeavor. Of material he had little. The Scots were not given to diaries; and correspondence, if it existed to any extent, has not been preserved. Biographies. too, are few, so that the larger portion of whatever matter can be gathered together, consists of oral traditions. that have been handed down from generation to generation. But of that which he had at hand, Mr. Graham has chosen the most significant and attractive, and has embodied it in a work which, though its faults are numerous, is, notwithsanding, entertaining and abounding in information worth possessing. The pictures given of such men as David Hume, John Home, Hugh Blair, James Boswell, Tobias Smollett, etc., are indeed vivid and full of grateful reality. These great personages walk before us across their little stage and by their tricks of manner, and their idiosyncrasies of speech. afford us infinite amusement and anon awaken in us tenderer emotions and heartfelt sympathies. In detail of personal features, as oddities in dress, gait, speech and physical distinctions, Mr. Graham omits no jot. Indeed, in this respect, he is something of an extremest, frequently trying the patience of his readers by long, useless and petty descriptions that, while they may have existed, yet need not to be dwelt upon at such great length, their recital adding no value to the general picture, and in many cases largely detracting from the final effect. That Mr. Graham is a disciple of Macaulay, one need not read far to learn. The grandiloquent, patronizing air, with its polite sneer and its half perceptible smile of contempt so characteristic of the master, is exactly reproduced in the nupil. There is also a straining after effect that at times seems to evince a lack of proper sincerity and surely betrays a lack of sympathetic appreciation for the subject. But this is not true throughout the entire work. Some of the portrayals, notably those of Smollett and Thomson are ably, even cleverly done, showing a true penetration on the part of the author enabling him to gain an insight into the personality and character of the subject. There is nothing absolutely new in the book, little that we did not already know, nevertheless the skill and discrimination with which the author has selected, arranged, revised and condensed the best in the material attainable is truly worthy of admiration, and one must concede to the entertaining and interesting qualities of the volume. THE DISEASE OF THE IMPERIAL CAESARS. Shakespeare, as we all remember, makes Brutus say of Caesar, "He hath the falling sickness." The reference is made no doubt, to epilepsy, a disease to which, history tells us, the great Julius was a victim and there is some authority for believing that the affliction was to an extent prevalent throughout the entire family of the Caesars. But Mr. Van Santvoord, in his new volume, the title to which reads, "The House of Caesar and the Imperial Disease," alludes not to any physical infirmity that may have at times rendered the royal Caesars impotent, but to the mental depravity, as it were, that beginning in Livia, the wife of Augustus Caesar, descended on down through the various generations and with few exceptions, filled the members of the royal house with a mania. for domestic murder or made them the victims of domestic violence. There is a valuable psychological study in this viciousness which, nurtured by the influence of unbounded. luxury and voluptuousness grew in force until its mighty undercurrent wore away the once soundly constructed foundations of virtue and morality and accomplished a final and complete destruction, Mr. Van Santvoord's book is a history of this hereditary viciousness. It comprises a broad survey of the house of the Caesars, taking up from a purely domestic point of view, the individual Emperors and their families, beginning with Julius and Augustus and ranging on down to Nero, when the empire was in its most magnificent state, thence through the decline, back to the partial restoration of imperial splendor, and finally to the decline and subsequent fall. It is the author's belief, founded upon long study and contemplation, that the violent death which awaited so large a proportion of the Roman Emperors is to be attributed not alone to the license of the times but in no small degree to the ex istence of a veritable disease having its origin in the house of Caesar itself. It is not to Mr. Van Santvoord's taste to introduce any sensational or hair-brained theories, nor, on the other hand, is it his purpose, in thus narrating the series of uninterrupted crime, to point out a moral, nevertheless he does think, as do many more, that there is an impressive lesson to be derived from a study of the retribution that overtook, in de Quincey's words, "the long evolution of insane atrocities perpetrated by the Caesars." The book is not technical in any sense of the word, nor is it dry. It recounts clearly and in simple, direct and finely polished English, the history of the domestic murders that occurred in the royal Roman house. There is strength in the author's penstrokes, there is the force of vividness in the scenes that he reconstructs, we are brought face to face with the human demons that so irresponsibly yielded themselves to the most foulsome murders in the chronicles of time; for the nonce, we are in the very midst of the horror of those scenes that ran with blood and the cause for which was not the righteous cause of war or self-protection but the meanminded ambition, commingled with the beast-like, vengeful spirit of men no longer proud in the pride of a glorious manhood, glorious manhood, but weak and miserably effeminate, steeped in vice and the unlimited laxity of morals. And like a Nemesis invisible, an untoward but inevitable destiny overshadowed and finally crushed them. To the student of ancient history. to the lover of the classics, and to the delver in psychological problems, the work will present a store of valuable to the information and open up vast foungeneral reader it will afford an enjoy able and attractively written history that cannot fail to be appreciated by Quentin MacDonald all. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN. France sent many noble son to America in the early days of colonization, but there is none nobler than that Samuel Champlain, whose life Mr. Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Jr., has just written for the Riverside Biographical Series, but aside from its subject the little volume has uncommon claims to notice in its author's gift of striking expression, and his practice of crowding his text with reference and allusion in a manner which recalls the methods of the late Mr. James Parton. Thanks to this, both New France and the mother country of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and New Spain also are vividly sketched, instead of being faintly indicated as accessories of a heroic portrait. He draws upon Champlain's own narrative for his description of Mexico and the West Indies, "where were a great quantity of little flies, like midges of gnats, biting in a strange way, and for his account of the Spanish method of wooing the natives to Christianity by cudgeling those not present at mass; and repeatedly he turns to him for the vivid phrase of the discoverer, so different in quality from the colder words of the forewarned observer. The portrait prefixed to the story shows a face that might pass for one He of Elizabeth's men rather than for one who knew the great Henry and served Richelieu, a long oval with the large orbited steady eye of a ruler of men, and a mouth telling of humor fitted to bear hardship and contrary chance, and it seems as if the face had been imaged before the author as he wrote forbidding him for an instant to forget that there was a "Frenchman" with those qualities "which wayward English tradition denies to the French, patience, sobriety, calm self-control, and a complete absence of vanity." And thus it is that he appears, whether sojourning in Spain and noting men and matters interesting to his King; keeping up the courage of his fellowexplorer by devices for amusement; forgiving the impostor who injures his reputation and robs him of a precious year by leading him into the impenetrable wilderness on pretense of having explored it, or at last. his life work done, his strength exhausted. turning his mind to making a good end and dying "with sentiments of piety so great that we all marveled." This is not the first excellent book in the series, but it is hardly possible that it will be surpassed. -N. Y. Times Saturday Review. A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMANY. Mr. Henderson would seen quite justified in feeling the need of a condensed, easily comprehensible history of Germany. As he says in his preface, Germany is the central country of Europe and on its soil have been fought most of the greater international struggles-the Thirty Years' War, the early part of the Spanish Succession War, the Seven Years' War and the wars against Napoleon. Mr. Henderson asks if, under these circumstances a study of the history of France, rather than of that of Ger many, should be recommended as a custom with most modern education? accomplished, in the Thirty Years' War greater interests were at stake than in the Huguenot struggles while the German peace of Westphalia necessitated a complete recasting of the map of Europe. Also, if we look for striking personalities and events, surely the reigns of Frederick the Great and of William I were of supreme importance to Europe, so that a knowledge of German history would seem essential to a sound, general education. But few histories of Germany in a form sufficiently simple and short to warrant a not too difficult reading and a not too prolonged study exist in our language wherefore Mr. Ernest Henderson has put forth his best efforts, and after collecting all available facts, has selected, condensed and arranged all those that are essential together with as many minor points as could be conveniently included within an alloted space. It is somewhat amusing to see two large thick 8 vo. volumes bearing the title, "A Short History of Germany," but of course, when we pause to realize how vast is the mass of material and how great must have been the task of reducing it to even these proportions, the title seems not incongruous. But despite the bulk one need not fear that the reading will be a hardship. Mr. Henderson expresses himself easily and smoothly in moderately long sentences that present few difficulties in the matter of complication or ambiguity. Nor does he stop to theorize. Every sentence contains fact, fact valuable and desirable; and the careful, retentive reader will, after perusal, find himself possessed of a goodly stock of important information as well as of a pleasant memory of enjoyable hours passed in the reading of the work. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE CONSTITUTION. Though the work of a Northern man, this volume is aggressively Southern in its view of the essential feature of the reconstruction policythe establishment of manhood suffrage as the means of securing to the emancipated race the civil rights won for them by the war. Professor Burgess Professor Burgess treats as baseless the view that the future freedom of the negro was imperiled by the "vagrant acts" of the Virginia Legislature of 1866, requiring propertyless men to hire themselves out at the usual wages in their locality, under penalty of being required to work with ball and chain if they refused or left their jobs. To whatever extent the civil rights of negroes needed protection against the arbitrary power of their recent owners, the end should have been secured, he savs, by placing civil liberty throughout the Nation under the protection of the Federal courts. The people of the loyal commonwealths were at that time, he urges, ready for the adoption of such a policy, and the Southern commonwealths might have been held under territorial civil government until the white race therein had "sufficiently recovered from its temporary disloyalty to be intrusted again with the powers of commonwealth local government." Such, in brief, is the alternative policy which Professor Burgess believes should have been adopted in place of negro enfranchisement. The most valuable portion of his volume is his masterly defense of President Johnson and criticism of the measures carried by the radical Republicans at Washington. The events of this period at the South receive relatively little treatment, and the treatment they do receive is relatively unsatisfactory. Professor Burgess's attitude toward this whole subject is revealed in his own |