the head of the second division of McDowell's corps, had borne more to the right, and was to strike the turnpike north of Groveton" [sic]; that McDowell "sought to deploy " King's division to the right of Porter "in order to assist Ricketts, and thus form a continuous front of attack;" but "the impenetrable thickets which covered the ground on that side rendered such deployment impossible, and McDowell . . . determined to bring King back to the rear, in order to overtake Ricketts and operate with his whole corps in a less eccentric fashion against Jackson's right wing." We are sorry to say that this explanation of McDowell's course

is incorrect, inasmuch as Ricketts's division, which had on the morning of the 29th arrived at Bristoe at the same time that King's division had reached Manassas Junction, remained in rear of it throughout the day. King's division led in the march up the Sudley Springs road in the afternoon of the 29th, and this division only was engaged on that day. General McDowell expressly states in his report that "Ricketts's division, coming on in the rear of King's, was taken up the Sudley Springs road," - that is, was not turned into the Warrenton turnpike, as King's had been, "north of the Warrenton pike, and held as a reserve for the time, in front."

Or the first fifteen chapters of Mr. Clemens's book, twelve are reprinted from The Atlantic; but they are so full of entertaining and instructive matter that they will repay a second reading. In the three introductory ones which precede these, the physical character of the river is sketched, and brief reference is made to the early travelers and explorers of the stream, De Soto, Marquette, and La Salle; these latter belonging to the epoch of what Mr. Clemens quaintly calls "historical history," as distinguished from that other unconventional history, which he does not define, but certainly embodies in the most graphic form. There are some good touches in this opening portion; as where the author refers to "Louis XIV., of inflated memory," and, speaking of the indifference which attended the discovery of the Mississippi, remarks, "Apparently, nobody happened to want such a river, nobody needed it, nobody

1 Life on the Mississippi. By MARK TWAIN, author of The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, etc.

was curious about it; so, for a century and a half, the Mississippi remained out of the market and undisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and had no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it, or even take any particular notice of it." We are also presented with a chapter from an unpublished work by the writer, detailing the adventures of a Southwestern boy a quarter of a century ago, which places before us in vivid colors the rough, hilarious, swaggering, fighting, superstitious ways of the bygone raftsmen. Rude, sturdy, unflinching, and raw though the picture is, it is likely to stand a long while as a wonderful transcript from nature, and as a memorial of the phase of existence which it describes that will not easily be surpassed in the future. The chapter on Racing Days is perhaps a little disappointing, although suggestive. Then there comes a short autobiographic summary of Mr.

With more than three hundred Illustrations. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1883.

Clemens's life after he had ceased to be a pilot and several other things, and until he became a New Englander; followed by an account of the trip which he made down and up the Mississippi, twenty-one years from the time when he last sailed upon it in charge of a steamer's course. At St. Louis he found a steamer which was to stop at the old French settlements sixty miles below St. Louis. "She was a venerable rackheap, and a fraud to boot; for she was playing herself for personal property, whereas the good honest dirt was SO thickly caked over her that she was righteously taxable as real estate. There are places in New England where her hurricane deck would be worth a hundred and fifty dollars an acre. The soil on her forecastle was quite good; the new crop of wheat was already springing from the cracks in protected places. The companion-way was of a dry, sandy character, and would have been well suited for grapes, with a southern exposure and a little subsoiling. The soil of the boiler-deck was thin and rocky, but good enough for grazing purposes." He finally concluded not to take this boat, but another, called the Gold Dust, upon which he was subsequently anxious to make the return trip from New Orleans; but luckily he was prevented by circumstances from doing so, for the Gold Dust was blown up on her way back to St. Louis, during the voyage he had intended making with her. The material offered by observations on the journey is various beyond enumeration, and much of it is extremely amusing. Hoaxes and exaggerations palmed off by pilots and other natives along the way upon supposed ignorant strangers; stories of gamblers and obsolete robbers; glimpses of character and manners; descriptions of scenery and places; statistics of trade; Indian legends; extracts from the comments of foreign travelers, all these occur, interspersed with two or three stories of either hu

morous or tragic import, or of both together. One of the tales thus interpolated Ritter's Narrative—is not only complicated and ingenious in plot, but bears witness also to its author's startling power of weird imagination; and a perhaps still more remarkable thing about it is the manner in which at last it is given a sudden turn, which carries the reader away from one of the most ghastly situations imaginable with a sensation of amusement and of humorous surprise. At the same time, the story, with consummate skill, is made tributary to the main current of the book, and of the river with which it deals. Mr. Clemens is never tired of noting the extraordinary changes which take place in the course of the Mississippi and the conformation of its banks; the appearance and disappearance of islands; the sudden action of the mighty flood in making new "cut-offs," which play havoc with state boundary-lines, and playfully transfer towns from one riverbank to the other. The general reader stands in some peril of finding these observations wearisome; but just as he is on the brink of fatigue, Mr. Clemens enlivens him with a dry remark like this: "We dashed along without anxiety; for the hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream a long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone into the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has made down,' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly. The Mississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man's farm overboard without building another farm just like it for that man's neighbor. This keeps down hard feelings." The peculiarities of local speech occasionally draw down severe condemnation from the author, who appears to be sharply on the lookout for offenses against grammar, something that savors of ingratitude in one who has profited so well by the collo

quial crudities upon which he now turns. In considering the cemetery at New Orleans, which is kept in very fine order, "If those people down there," at the levee or in the business streets, says Mr. Clemens, "would live as neatly while they are alive as they do after they are dead, they would find many advantages in it." Of the memorial wreaths: "The immortelle requires no attention; you just hang it up, and there you are. Just leave it alone; it will take care of your grief for you, and keep it in mind better than you can." He declares himself in favor of cremation, and considers unjustifiable the old form of burial, which preserves disease germs to such an extent that even 66 a dead saint enters upon a century-long career of assassination the moment the earth closes over his corpse." All this is in keeping with that grimness which is a constituent of the author's humor. There is a good deal of grimness and soberness in the

book, underlying the surface of fun and incident and panoramic diversity of scene. There is also a good deal of solid sense and of information. What the future investigation if people of the twentieth century have any time left for investigating the past — will conclude concerning the life depicted in these pages we can conjecture only from our own impression; which is that the Mississippi has developed prosperity and misery in about even measure, and that the type of character most frequent along the line of its flow has combined with great hardiness and practical dexterity a Greek love of skillful lying and a peculiarly American recklessness of personal safety. Meanwhile we are very sure that Mr. Clemens has given us the most thorough and racy report of the whole phenomenon which has yet been forthcoming, and that much more significance is contained in it than we are able to concentrate in these few words.

THERE are signs of a rediscovery of Spain by Americans. We are so greatly indebted to that peninsula for our own continent that there has always been a disposition to make some return. In spite of the antagonism between English and Spanish history, perhaps because of the picturesque contrasts, American men of letters have been drawn to Spain for subjects, and have done much toward familiarizing readers with aspects of the life there. Irving and Prescott led the way, both in historical and descriptive literature. Hay followed with a book of singular felicity, which reproduced the atmosphere of Spain as Howells's Venetian Life did that of Venice; and now that the tide of travel sets in that direction, we may look for

many reports of the country, varying in their character according to the taste and interest of the reporter.

For certainly one must be very limited in the range of his nature who failed to find in Spain a field for the exercise of his favorite hobby. The lover of the picturesque, the student in art, the historical student, the philologist, might each claim the country as a museum arranged for his special delectation; and the restless traveler, in search of novelty, is not likely to be driven out of Europe for a long time to come if he will but haunt this corner of it.

As an instance of the variety of occupation which a traveler may find, we have only to take up two recent books

of travel, which have little in common except a general field of observation. Dr. Vincent, to be sure, does not spend all his time in Spain; he flits back and forth across the Pyrenees, remaining most of the time by the Biscayan coast, but shooting off also nearly to the Gulf of Lyons. Yet his book connects itself in the reader's mind with Spain, and by its treatment, as well as by the region which it covers, serves very well as an introduction to travel in Spain proper. Indeed, one might learn a lesson in travel in any region, from this agreeable little book. The leisurely manner in which the author hovers about the entrance to the country which he proposes to explore, the genuine interest which he takes in the historic apparatus of his work, and the good-natured indifference which he shows to the petty discomforts of travel all mark him as a sensible companion; while the simplicity of his descriptions and the absence of any obtrusive rhetoric or profound philosophic speculations give one a confidence in his honesty as a reporter. He is not conspicuously a humorist in his narrative, but he is always good-tempered, and often has a playful touch which makes the reader attached to him; as where, in describing the bathing at San Sébastian, he remarks how "some small boys, who know well that they are on forbidden ground, surreptitiously strip under the shadow of the balcony, and scamper, like frightened snipe, to hide themselves in the water."

The thorough enjoyment which this writer takes in his little excursion, and the absence of all hurry and the business of travel, have an influence upon the book greater, we suspect, than the author himself knows. It is impossible for a reader not to be strongly affected by the mood of his traveling companion, and he quickly learns whether his guide is of an anxious or of a genial

1 In the Shadow of the Pyrenees from BasqueLand to Carcassonne. By MARVIN R. VINCENT,

turn of mind. Dr. Vincent's enjoyment of his journey is that of an educated man, who likes all the by-play of travel, but gives his serious thought to that which demands thought. He does not weary the reader with his speculations regarding the Basques, nor with his reflections upon Lourdes or Loyola, but he recognizes the kind of interest which all intelligent readers will take in such subjects, and does not belittle them by flippancy. How well he can succeed in giving his impressions may be seen by his words after describing the monastery of Ignatius Loyola : —

"With all the stony splendors of the church, and the elaborate and costly adornments of this chapel, the effect was more than tawdry and vulgar. It went deeper than that to one who knew the history of the remarkable order which it represented. It carried with it the sense of a strong, pitiless hand laid upon the breast. To a man fresh from the robust contact of men and the healthful clash of opinion; to one with the free breath of the glorious mountains yet in his nostrils and the salt of the ocean spray scarce gone from his lips, this place was like a prison and a baby-house combined. The subtle, passionless, inexorable policy of the order seemed to have infused itself into the atmosphere. Though no warden appeared, and no attendant followed the visitor through the desolate halls, one might well feel as though a wary eye saw every movement from some secret spying-place, and that the very walls. conveyed each word to a practiced ear." The last chapter in the book is an agreeable account of Carcassonne, that precious bit of medievalism, which ought to be put under a glass cover and preserved for our unhappy descendants to turn to when they are discontented with modern civilization. The etchings by Smillie, Gifford, and Yale add much D. D. With etchings and maps. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1883.

to the pleasure one gets from this little book, and the maps and plans interspersed give one the satisfied feeling that he has been treated with respect and liberality.

The trigness of Dr. Vincent's volume and the modesty of its aim find an interesting antithesis in Mr. Lathrop's and Mr. Reinhart's book of travel in Spain proper.1 From Dr. Vincent's sketches we get the impression that he was on a vacation jaunt; Spanish Vistas suggests a more deliberate, picturesque tour, undertaken for the purpose of working up a good subject, and making a special literary and pictorial report. The result, though of a different sort, leaves an equally agreeable impression of truthfulness and thoroughness. Whatever other use Mr. Lathrop or Mr. Reinhart might have made of their studies in Spain, they have given the reader in this handsome volume no merely desultory notes, but a succession of clearly defined pictures of Spanish life. They entered Spain at Burgos; went thence to Madrid, and then to Toledo; from Toledo to Cordova, and thence to Seville, Granada, and the Alhambra; they struck down to Malaga on the sea-coast, and there taking to the sea, cruised along the southern and eastern shores of the peninsula to Barcelona, where they bade good-by to Spain.

The effect of a succession of pictures is enhanced by the absence of detail in traveling from one point to another, and by the contrasts which Spain herself presents, as one shoots from city to city, leaving a place at dark, and waking at a new and strangely different place. The conglomerate character of the kingdom is well shown in the change from Castile to Andalusia, to Granada, and to Aragon, when each stride in the journey brings to light some new and strange grouping.

1 Spanish Vistas. By GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. Illustrated by CHARLES S. REINHART. New York: Harper & Bros. 1883.

Mr. Lathrop's strength is in his artistic sense of what is essential to a complete picture, and he employs words to reproduce the scenes in so decorative a manner that one is affected by the richness and suggestiveness of the phraseology. When, for example, in speaking of the people of Burgos, he says, "The splendidly blooming peasant women showed their perfect teeth at us, and the men, in broad-brimmed pointed caps and embroidered jackets, whose feet were brown and earthy as tree-roots, laughed outright," the grotesque suggestion gives a distinct touch to the picture over and above the clear description. There is indeed a constant exuberance of fancy, which serves to heighten the artistic quality of the work. The sights which are depicted are less likely to call out Mr. Lathrcp's ethical reflections than his purely fanciful constructions. "As I looked," he says, when approaching the Alhambra hill, "at the rusty red walls and abraded towers palisading the hill, the surroundings became like some miraculous web, and these ruins, concentring the threads, were the shattered cocoon from which it had been spun."

It is primarily as an artist that Mr. Lathrop views Spain; yet he has the interest also of a student in history and society, and very possibly, if he were to go again and stay longer, he would more frequently ask and answer questions. He gives, as he is bound, a faithful description of a bull-fight; but with a just sense of effect, he uses low tones in his picture, and trusts to the severity of his lines. Part of this is due, doubtless, to resolution, and part to the impression which such scenes make upon a self-possessed man of slight sympathy with mere animal excitement. The cold blood of the thing, he says, impresses him,—the business-like manner in which the brutality is carried to its conclusion; and he turns away from the spectacle with this curious bit of information : "The