as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, and makes a synthesis of the best that has recently been written on such questions as truth in politics and the relation of the party system to practical ideals of democracy. A great deal of important literature is well digested. Pipkin has further edited, in a stout pamphlet of nearly 200 pages, the Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on Foreign Affairs and American Diplomacy, February 3-5, 1927, published as a bulletin of Louisiana State University. An address by him on American Business and Internationalism, delivered at the Louisian Restaurant, New Orleans, April 21, has since been printed in a separate form. Martial and the Modern Epigram. By Paul Nixon, Dean of Bowdoin College. Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1927. (Our Debt to Greece and Rome, no. 18.) The Dean of Bowdoin (Connecticut and Balliol '04) has written a rather undeanly-that is, a very witty and humane-book on that eminent scapegrace Martial, whom he shows in his important relations to modern poetry. The range is very wide, for Martial's best things were too good to be left unborrowed by many of the English, German, French, Spanish, or Italian satirists who thought they might require wit and wisdom during the succeeding centuries. To define the epigram is impossible. Nixon makes this clear in his first chapter, which explains how many different kinds of verse may be included in the category and how even the tenderer varieties are found in Martial. Of Martial hardly anything is known: the twenty pages of chapter ii exhaust the poet's history and personality. The third chapter follows his influence through the ages. The fourth, which makes up nearly half the volume, deals with Martial's "Perennials" one by one and shows to what manifold purposes they have been appropriated. The fifth pronounces upon "The Antiquity of Modern Wit." There is much clever writing and a great deal of information in this small book. It may be recommended to after-dinner speakers: two pages before each meal will ensure post-prandial success. Nixon's own verse renderings of some of the epigrams are admirable. They will remind the reader of the collection which he published in 1911. REPORT OF BUSINESS MANAGER OF AMERICAN OXONIAN FOR YEAR 1926. Balance on hand, January 1, 1926 (including life subscrip tions, $200.00) $1,242.95 Balance on hand, December 31, 1926 (including life subscrip tions, $500.00) $1,038.72 Laurel and Straw By JAMES SAXON CHILDER Into the strangely unfamiliar and thoroughly delightful world of Oxford, is precipitated a product of an American Mid-Western College who has won a Rhodes scholarship. There at Oxford he feels called upon to readjust ideas and ideals, to orient himself to new environments and standards. He faces the dangers of snobbishness and "Anglo-mania". And there are two girls, each typical of a phase of modern youth and each exerting a tremendous power over the young man. above all else "Laurel and Straw" tells an absorbing story-a story that holds one breathless from the first page to the last-not with the breathlessness of melodrama but rather with that intense interest which develops from a struggle that is real and deep and human. But Octavus Roy Cohen says; "I consider 'Laurel and Straw' one of the finest novels I have read in the past five years. The story is a vivid and absorbing study of intellectual and social contact between America and England. The characters are real and clear-cut, the atmosphere excellent and the technique deft. If this first novel may be accepted as a criterion, then I look for great things from James Saxon Childers." $2.00 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 35 WEST 32nd STREET NEW YORK of Medieval England By ROBERT L. HENRY, J.D. (Chicago), D.C.L. (Oxon) Judge in the Mixed Courts, Alexandria, Egypt; Formerly Professor of Law at the Universities of Louisiana, Illinois, North Dakota and Iowa. This book is a study based upon a selection of original material from the county, seignoral, borough and merchant courts of the 12th to 15th centuries with correlative passage from the Anglo-Saxon laws, intended to show the essential elements of the contract with commercial law and procedure as developed locally over a period of some nine hundred years. The work serves as a reminder that the supplanting of the local by the king's courts in the middle of the 18th century and the suppression of the former in the early 19th century, should not be allowed to obscure the relative importance of the two sets of jurisdictions during their concurrent service for some seven centuries, and commercial cases were disposed of locally; and more especially should not warrant the neglect of the early history of contract law in England, which can only be found in the medieval local records. 8vo. $6.00 LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. A DICTIONARY OF BY H. W. FOWLER Cloth, $3.00; Oxford India Paper, $4.00 Most extremely useful things are uninteresting. Not so this book on English Usage. Like its author, it has a sense of humor; its little paragraphs sparkle like the sunlight on the sea. Its pages compose a collection of familiar essays, discriminating and often provocative, on the genius of the English language. It is the easiest, cleverest and safest manual of correctness in speech and writing. The most excellent book of the sort we've ever browsed in."-The Saturday Review OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS American Branch New York City LEONARD W. CRONKHITE (Inc.) IMPORTERS, EXPORTERS AND AGENTS AGENTS: Procter & Gamble Dis. Co., Drackett Chemical Co., Mathieson Alkali Wor American Smelting & Refining Co., Pfaltz & Bauer, General Smelting Company American Agricultural Chemical Company, Presto Color Company Indigo, Soaps, Chemicals and Supplies for the Textile, Paper, Tanning and ot Industries |