On the Old Frontier.

It is not easy for an American of the present day to form a correct idea of the real life of the men and women, boys and girls of the time chosen for this story. Too plain a presentation of the "old frontier" would probably be found altogether too terrible for use in fiction. Only enough has therefore been pictured to indicate the nature of the materials which ought not to be presented.

Care has been taken to preserve historical accuracies in outline, and to explain the cause and nature of "the last raid of the Iroquois" before their war strength and their remarkable con

BLACK TIDINGS.

The story

federacy itself were broken forever. is a fiction founded on fact, with a hope that it may have a permanent value. The author has wished that his readers may obtain, if possible, somewhat the same perception of frontier life that he did, when in his own bovhood he sat and listened to the traditions of the pioneers, his kinsfolk and neighbors; or when, as boy or man, he inspected old log-houses, old forts, Indian battle-grounds, canoes, implements, weapons for he has himself worn moccasins and carried a rifle. His first weapon was a bow and arrow made for him by an Onondaga Indian, for he was born and brought up within a

few miles of the council house where once burned the sacred brand of the Iroquois. Perhaps this may account in part for the deep interest he has taken in all red men, East or West, and for a desire that they and the settlers who swept them from their hunting-grounds should be better understood.

A great many people have written and printed "Indian stories" in which there were no recognizable Indians, and frontiersmen, of whom he can at least say that he never met them anywhere. While this story is not of the red men, but rather of the white settlers, it has been constructed with conscientious preparation and with an intention of presenting the reality, which is the only worthy aim of fiction. Boys have learned more history and love of country from well-written stories than people clamoring against fiction for young readers are willing to admit. It makes them read - that's everything. From the preface to W. O. Steddard's On the Old Frontier." (Appleton. $1.50.)

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Whether a boy will best enjoy the first, relative to Jack's school-days, or the second, when Jack takes, with his comrades, to the Canadian woods, we cannot say. The adventures into which the American boy can be pitched, or the English, or the French, depend upon the ingenuity of the author. Boys in story-books are invariably heroes, and anxious mothers, who may read such things, must sometimes have palpitation of the heart, when they follow the Billies, or Tommies, through their perilous escapades.

"Jack at School" is just as good as it can be. Utopia is a model school, and if there were only more masters like Dr, Meredith what a fine race of lads we should have! Jack's chum is Haseltine, and Haseltine's time is spent at baseball, at which game he is a debaser. Now it so happens that Haseltine's father, who was very rich, suddenly fails, and when Haseltine leaves school he has no special talents save as a ball-player, and so he is near becoming a professional player on a salary. Let us trust a

better career was his.

Mr. Grant writes of athletics in the proper spirit, and the ball games at Utopia school are capital ones. That superb spirit found alone in Tom Brown is not discoverable in Jack Hall, but Jack and Haseltine are fine types of sturdy, self-relying American boys. The lesson Mr. Grant inculcates is that our lads must be taught to be honest, truthful and courageous, and

David Balfour.

WHEN Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, in taking leave of Alan Breck and David Balfour at the end of "Kidnapped," hinted that he could, if but he would, tell further of their adventures, he made a half-promise for the fulfilment of which the lovers of stirring romance have been clamoring, lo, these seven years. At last their patience is rewarded by "David Balfour." The sub-title is so appetizing that we must give it in

full:

The Second Part: In which are set forth his Misfortunes anent the Appin Murder; his Troubles with Lord Advocate Grant; Captivity on the Bass Reck; Journey into Holland and France; and singular Relations with James More Drummond or MacGregor, a Son of the notorious Rob Roy, and his Daughter Catriona. The story carries out admirably the promises of its predecessor and its title-page. We find Alan Breck as sturdy, egotistic, affectionate and thoroughly Highland-man as before, and only regret that we do not have more of his company. David becomes a man, and his character is stronger and closer-knit. He still has the misfortune constantly to place himself in the greatest danger of life and reputation for affairs which are really none of his, and his load of trouble inherited from the earlier book (in re James Stewart and the Appin murder) keeps him in hot water to nearly the end of

the present story. The best of the story, it seems to us, is the part which deals with the contest of wits and determination between the Lord Advocate Grant, a crafty lawyer and deep politician, and the simple but obstinately honest David. With the end of the trial the story of David Balfour turns from adventure and politics toward love, and we must confess that the last half of the tale does not equal the first in interest. It has often been said that Mr. Stevenson is not happy in depicting women. In this novel he has one clear and clever portrait of femininity-but it is not Davie's sweetheart, the demure and mystifying Catriona, but rather the merry, harum-scarum Barbara Grant, daughter of the Lord Advocate. (Scribner. $1.50.) The Outlook.

English History for American Readers. THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON and Edward Channing, in " 'English History for American Readers," present a survey of English life which will enable American readers to use their time of studying this subject to the greatest ad

vantage. They give a clear and succinct review of the incidents and personages of British history from the earliest times to the present day. But they devote special attention to those events of British history that have had the most direct influence on the history and institutions of the United States. The history is written in a most entertaining manner. It is a glowing and attractive narrative for popular yet instructive reading. The maps are excellent, the illustrations are numerous, the type is bold and a long list of works for consultation is given. The book is a good one every way, and worthy of wide circulation and diligent study. (Longmans, Green & Co. $1.20.)- The Observer.

The Faience Violin.

THIS pathetic romance, which is founded on the passion that possesses collectors of bric-àbrac, was written by one who knew the facts on which his imagination drew. Champfleury, Mr. Bishop informs us, was himself a collector, and, what is more, he was for many years curator of the museum at Sèvres, and died assist

ant administrator of that renowned factory of porcelain. Henri Mürger was his intimate friend, and while Mürger was singing of life, Champfleury was studying it. Sainte-Beuve has called the present story "a unique study in moral pathology," and the terms aptly describe it. Mr. Bishop believes Champfleury may have personally gone through many of those experiences with the bric-a-brac mania which he here sets forth. They are experiences which gave to two men hours of exalted happiness and other hours of racking mental torture. We never doubt the essential truth of the pictures presented, and the tragedy with which the volume closes tragedy is the word, although the irreverent might be moved to laughter instead of pity-is only such as has occurred again and again in the lives of the china collectors.

In Paris lived an old man named Gardilaune, who was economical, gaunt, lonely and apparently devoid of

The

all human passions. truth about him was that, though a miser and forlorn, he had all the passions rolled into one, for he was a collector. He had a friend, Dalègre, who came from Nevers and astonished him by owning that he knew not the first thing about Nevers pottery. Gardilaune thereupon determined to instruct and employ his friend to collect in Nevers, convinced as he was that faïence would soon supersede porcelain in public favor, or, as he put it, there was about to burst upon France "an upheaval in ceramic matters comparable only to the revolution of '89."

Dalègre for many months collected faithfully and faithfully forwarded his prizes to his friend in Paris. Then he got the craze himself, and gradually stopped sending treasures, keeping them to fill his own shelves with.

At last the old collector determined to visit Nevers. He arrived when Dalègre had about an hour's notice, but this had been sufficient for Dalègre to get his wares into the cellar. Dalègre had long been in search of a certain violin, made of faïence once upon a time by a fanciful workman. It was believed to exist somewhere in the town, but no one could find it. Gardilaune took up the chase for the fiddle and at last found it on the shelf of an old wardrobe. With all the craft of his profession, he proposed to buy the wardrobe, and came to terms at 40f., suggesting, however, that the violin be thrown in, as his grandchildren would like it. The thing was accomplished, but at the cost of great strain to the friendship between him and Dalègre.

Of the subsequent fate of that fiddle we need not give all the interesting particulars-what tortures Dalègre endured, how Gardilaune came near giving the violin to a public museum, how he really left it to Dalègre in his will, how he died, and then how Dalègre, once he possessed it, screwed up the strings only to see the precious object fall into scores of fragments in his lap.

Here lies a tragedy of the heart, and we see no light in the gloom until Dalègre takes to himself a wife and becomes a model husband and a happy father. (Appleton. 75 c.)-N. Y. Times.

The Cliff-Dwellers.

IT is difficult to conceive of a more complete difference in form and style than exists between "The Cliff-Dwellers" and Mr. Fuller's previous books, "The Chevalier of Pensièri-Vani" and "The Châtelaine of La Trinité." Readers of these earlier books will find it hard to believe that this latest volume is from the same pen that created the Chevalier, Arabella West and the gracious Châtelaine. Mr. Fuller has heretofore been an apostle of æstheticism. "The Chevalier of Pensièri-Vani" and "The Châtelaine of La Trinité" were alike distinguished by delicate satire and graceful evasiveness, alike permeated by a spirit of artistic dilettanteism."The Cliff-Dwellers" is the apotheosis of realism. It is a picture of every-day life in a great city in the year of grace 1893, executed with absolute truthfulness and a surprising degree of success. The apt title gives clue to the story. "The Cliff-Dwellers" are the inmates of a great Chicago office building, one of those many-storied structures that rear their huge bulk in the business districts of all American cities. Perhaps nowhere could there be found a more representative American assemblage than in one of these great hives, and Mr. Fuller has made the best of the opportunity for character-drawing that such a subject offers. All the inmates of the "Clifton," from the engineer in the basement to the janitor's family in their eyrie under the eves, are studied and described with photographic distinctness. Porters, lunch-counter girls, business men, bankers, "promoters," insurance agents, clerks,

scrubwomen, stenographers, lawyers, each have their part in this picture of contemporary life. The daughters, wives and sweethearts who invade the offices of their fathers, husbands and lovers afford an element of outside interest and give opportunity for a glance at the social side of Chicago life. Notwithstanding minutiæ of detail, The Cliff-Dwellers" is not a series of loosely connected character sketches, but a wellcompacted story. The plot is definite and carefully executed, and if at times the full significance of a central situation is obscured by a too minute devotion to detail, the action does not flag, nor does the interest of the reader abate before the last page is turned. Whether Mr. Fuller has done well in so wholly cutting loose from his former standards is a question which romanticists and realists must fight out by themselves; those who belong to no "school" of fiction, but enjoy a good novel in a fresh field, will undoubtedly extend to Mr. Fuller assurances of their appreciative consideration. (Harper. $1.50.)

The Rebel Queen.

her family back to those Jews who followed the Moors into Spain. She is the queen. She drapes herself in scarlet velvet, and is a trifle barbaric. Why she married Emanuel Elveda, a dreamer of dreams, is hard to say. He had nothing. He despised money. She would have made her husband follow her dictates and be the humblest of her subjects. He refuses to be her slave. She is his wife and he has the law on his side. The two separate, agreeing never to live more together. Isabelle settles on her husband a large annual amount of money, which he disdains. He is above being bought. Emanuel does not know that after he left his wife a daughter was born to him-Francesca.

Mr. Besant has taken great pains to study Jewish life in London, and he presents many excellent descriptions. Both the happier and sadder aspects of the Jews are cleverly written. The author of "All Sorts and Conditions of Men" has a wonderful constructive power, but he throws out so many wings to his edifice that sometimes the effect of the tout ensemble is lost.

The Jew who reads Mr. Besant's comments on his race must needs feel flattered with the author's ideal treatment of the subject. Per

He shows that they have an elasticity of temperament peculiar to themselves. Though ground under foot, to extinguish them is impossible. To-morrow or the day after they forget apparently their past agony. Maybe it is the world which loses sight of the narrow interval between the Jew's humility and his pride.

If Mr. Besant's principal characters are Jews in widely different conditions of life, his main idea is to show the futility of that endeavor which assumes that woman is in all respects the equal of man. The author takes the man and woman who are born Jews, and shows that to love, honor and obey in their marriage service is not a mere empty formula. If there be any one thing in which Jewish family life is to be respected, it is in the devotion of the wife for the husband, the husband for the wife, and their love for their children. Filial duty is as strongly accentuated among the Jews as among the Chinese. The entire happiness of the household, as Mr. Besant shows, is centred around the mother and wife, and she not ostensibly, but actually, follows the will of her husband. Carried to an extreme, it may be Orientalism, but the man is master.

Mr. Besant's heroine is Isabelle. She was heiress to millions. The fortune came from a grandfather, who had been a settler and then a contractor during the French Revolution. Isabelle has all the pride of race. She traces

of the Ghetto," with its hard realism, and Mr. Besant's " The Rebel Queen," with its poetical conceptions, the right mean can be struck. (Harper. $1.50.)-N. Y. Times.

Nowadays and Other Stories.

GEORGE A. HIBBARD showed in his volume of short stories published under the title of "Iduna, and Other Stories," that he works with a free hand on broad lines, that he keeps close in touch with the life of the present day, that he has a fine sense of art, a vigorous imagination, and that his skill as a literary artisan is admirable. He again offers six stories. "Nowadays" is a story of New York City, of which the hero loses his money in a Wall Street panic and discovers that the fashionable girl to whom he is engaged is possessed of a warm heart and great self-reliance. The story from which the little picture of cosey afternoon tea is taken is about a New York flirt, who, after having romped her way through fashionable hotels from her earliest infancy, has travelled half over the world, been engaged several times and is quite unconscious of doing any wrong to herself or anybody else. She also at the las: proves herself a woman.

There are many bright sentences scattered through the tales, of which the remaining four bear the titles: "There's Nothing Half Se Sweet in Life," "A Mad World, My Masters," * Guilty Sir Guy” and “In the Midst of Life.”