was

of difference may be noted. Roosevelt insists that Cromwell's revolution the first modern and not the last mediæval movement." Morley says "it is hard to resist the view that Cromwell's revolution was the end of the medieval rather than the beginning of the modern era." And I must agree with Morley. Roosevelt makes Cromwell the author and originator of the successive crises at which he arrives at the summit of his fortune. Morley shows him as a man who possessed the genius which enabled him to seize opportunities created for him by others; as led instead of leading, until the crucial movement. Roosevelt's is more of a panegyric than Morley's and he has few good words for anyone in the opposition. The American is a soldier and a zealous partisan of that in which he believes, Morley is an historian. Roosevelt says that " fundamentally it was the first struggle for religious, political and social freedom, as we understand the terms." And what about William of Orange and the revolt of the Netherlands? In truth, all humanity since the beginning of time. has been struggling consciously or unconsciously for those things, and the history of the world is the story of a long toiling up a mighty slope with truth and freedom at the top a true ascent of man, indeed. top-a

Mr. Arthur Paterson's very admirable book again presents the Protector in a different light from the other two. His ambition and effort have been to write of the personality of Cromwell, to exhibit his personal life and character, show his habits of thought and action, depict his characteristics and methods. His eye has been single to this attempt and he has done his work with grace and skill. In some respects, therefore, his book is the most valuable and interesting of the three. You

OLIVER CROMWELL. His Life and Character. By Arthur Paterson. Illustrated. F. A. Stokes Co., 8vo, $3.00.

are in no doubt as to his purpose or as to its accomplishment. We seem to get a better, truer picture of the man, simply, as he looked, lived and moved among his contemporaries, in his pages than the other books afford. The history of the time is only incidental to the man, yet Paterson brings out the point-it is true that Gardner made it previously, but neither Morley nor Roosevelt has done it so well-that the war at bottom was a war for religion and the struggle for freedom of conscience rather than anything else. There is a welcome place for Paterson's book in Cromwell literature, and that is saying much.

In conclusion all three authors have written well. To describe them in a word not a very safe business, by the wayMorley is parliamentary, Roosevelt military, Paterson personal.

Daniel O'Connell was another apostle of freedom, but freedom of a different character. That was a memorable scene when the greatest Englishman of his and many generations, introduced in the House of Commons, at the close of his brilliant career, the Irish Home Rule bill, and yet without Daniel O'Connell, greathearted, rugged giant that he was, Gladstone's effort that noble but potential failure would have been impossible. When home rule under the Constitution does come to the tortured island that all the world loves, it will be to the lawloving, liberty-seeking Daniel O'Connell, more than any other man, that it will be due. In the brilliant galaxy of names adorning the series of books on the "Heroes of Nations" from Pericles to Bismarck, O'Connell's is the only Celt's. That he may take his place without blushing among the best of them is a sign of his quality, and I do not say this because I am a Celt at heart myself.

DANIEL O'CONNELL. By Evelyn Abbott. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 12mo, $1.50.

Of the three books which close the article, two are biographies of clergymen, and one the story of a philosopher; all were fighters. An older generation will not soon forget the splendid attack of Theodore Parker upon the practice of human slavery, and even those who disagree with the theology of the great and lovable James Martineau, will remember the vigor and force with which he defended the spiritual faith that was in him, as he saw it, against the assaults of modern agnosticism and atheism. Both volumes are well written and should be interesting to those high-class readers to whom they are designed to appeal, but the most popular book of the three, and one which should interest everybody, is the life of Henry George by his son.

It is a question whether a son is the most accurate biographer that could be chosen for a father. Those of us who have read Lord Tennyson's fascinating volumes upon his father, however, and who supplement it with this entirely different but equally interesting book, may feel that the human touch of affection af

THEODORE PARKER, PREACHER AND REFORMER. By James White Chadwick. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 8vo, $2.00.

JAMES MARTINEAU. A Biography and Study, By A. W. Jackson. Little, Brown & Co., 8vo, $3.00.

A LIFE OF HENRY GEORGE. By Henry George, Jr. Illustrated. Doubleday & McClure Co., 8vo, $2.50, net.

ter all lends an interest to a record which might be wanting from an alien effort.

The book is beautifully written, and is a noble tribute not only to the man but the principles for which he contended. Singular how dramatic was the whole life of the subject; though he never set a squadron in the field, he fought great battles in those political and forensic arenas which men mistakenly call peaceful. Whatever else he may have been, and it is not my purpose to enter into a discussion of his philosophy, he was one of the sincerest, most devoted and consecrated of modern men, and he literally died on the field while the foreshadowings of a victory were gleaming about his horizon. The book will well repay time devoted to the reading and study of it.

Those who procure Collier's sumptuously illustrated volume on the South African War under the impression that it is merely a book of pictures will be pleasantly undeceived by the vivid and brilliant sketch of the war from the standpoint of the military critic which accompanies the illustrations. The name of Captain Mahan, the author of the text, is a sufficient voucher for the accuracy, impartiality and clarity of the recital.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR. By Captain A. T. Mahan, With many illustrations. Peter Fenelon Collier & Sons. folio.

THE HE one volume of poetry which must outrank all others this season, is Mr. Stedman's long anticipated American Anthology. The book bears the same relation to "Poets of America" that "A Victorian Anthology" bears to "Victorian Poets." And, as the author himself remarks in the introduction, it should make "the breviary of our national poetic legacies from the nineteenth century to the twentieth."

One must, first of all, offer sincere congratulations to Mr. Stedman on the completion of his task. That it has been completed with incomparable skill and

AN AMERICAN ANTHOLOGY. By E. C. Stedman. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 8vo, $3.00.

catholicity of taste, goes without saying. It was a heavy undertaking, the two stout volumes of criticism on the English poetry of the century, and the two volumes of illustrative selections, still more voluminous, requiring no common equipment for its successful termination. It demanded patience, industry, the creative insight, the severe critical faculty, the intuition of sympathy, and the unwearied zeal of a devoted enthusiasm. All these qualities Mr. Stedman possesses in happy measure, and nowhere to-day outside of Lawrence Park, could we find this rare combination. Let no one who cares for poetry fail to appreciate the debt of gratitude his country owes Mr. Stedman for

this self-imposed labor carried on with such unflagging ardor, and now brought to so happy an issue.

In a time like the present, when poetry wins but scant regard, an undertaking like this must have been a more or less gratuitous obligation of love. But I have the feeling that those best fitted to appreciate such a monument of generous toil will mingle a breath of relief with their satisfaction on Mr. Stedman's behalf, saying to themselves, "Ah, now he will have leisure for the half discarded muse, for a freer expression of himself in new poems, or perhaps in another book like 'The Nature and Elements of Poetry.""

Meanwhile here is a library in little to be thankful for; an American Anthology, indeed; so thorough, and so much better than anyone else could have made it, that particular criticism is forestalled, and faultfinding is reduced to a mere difference of personal opinion. And that, truly, is hardly criticism at all.

As evidence of Mr. Stedman's thoroughness, you will find here that admirable poem "A Portrait," by Miss Caroline Duer; you will find that excellent sturdy rhyme, "The Coasters," by Mr. Thomas F. Day; you will find Mr. John Henry Boner's lines "On Poe's Cottage at Fordham," one of the most splendid and beautiful threnodies in the English tongue; you will find many a lovely poem which you may have treasured, and which noisy fame has half forgotten, and many another scarcely dry from the press.

If there seem to be omissions, that was inevitable. As the editor himself notes in the introduction, this is an anthology and not a treasury; the conditions of the work have compelled him to select sparingly from the more distinguished writers, that he may have space to represent the great body of their less famous followers. For myself, I miss several of Mr. James Whitcomb Riley's companionable poems;

" I miss

I miss Emerson's "Two Rivers; half a dozen of Miss Guiney's incomparable lyrics, and two or three of Miss Gertrude Hall's. For any one of these I could spare a good many of the poems which I now read for the first time. However, if some of the work, particularly of the younger men and women, seems unillumined, I dare say that is only another compliment to Mr. Stedman's boyish energy and unjaded taste.

Turning to less imposing volumes, the books of Mr. Hardy and Mr. Crowninshield are interesting ventures of a novelist and a painter in a field of art hitherto untried by them. Mr. Hardy's poems are marked by a clear spirituality, and are embodied in a free lyrical form, with a Dantesque severity of emotion. Two selections from the volume are to be found in Mr. Stedman's collection. Mr. Crowninshield's volume is made up of a hundred sonnets and a dozen short poems. If his cadences are not always as felicitous as his thought, it is to be remembered that facility only comes with use. The sincerity and earnestness of the poems are evident.

In his America and Other Poems, Mr. Shadwell shows evidences of a laudable humanitarian sentiment, which, if not always logical, is often touched with force. His lines "There's something in the English after all," have a significance of their own. There is a manliness in his pages often lacking in better poetry.

Mrs. Dorr has already won her own following, both by her volumes of poems. and her constant contributions to the magazines. And her admirers will not be

PICTORIS CARMINA. By Frederic Crowninshield. Dodd, Mead & Co., 8vo, $2.00.

SONGS OF Two. By A. S. Hardy. Charles Scribner's Sons, 12mo, $1.00 net.

AMERICA AND OTHER POEMS. By Bertrand Shadwell. R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 12mo, $1.50.

LYRICS. By Julia C. R. Dorr. Charles Scribner's Sons, 12mo, $1.25.