"O, no, you were talking quite vivaciously; but my brain was droning and everything blended together. I believe I was nearly asleep. Halloa look there!" And up and off is Adonis to meet one of his kind coming down the stream with a string of flashing trout in his hand. There are many hearty ejaculations and expressions of admiration, and I, feeling almost jealous of the fishing young man, rise to steal off. But I hear Adonis say, "O come down here and be introduced to Daphne - Phyllis --Chloris Chloe. Come along, you murderous boy!" Which ponderous rhyme is intended for me, but I'm out of sight going as fast as I can. AndI hope Adonis feels disappointed!

In lonely ranch house, or in huts of tule,
By fair-haired women bought

Of darker sister, who the value truly
Knew not, of what was sought.

But in her poverty the money proffered Too sure temptation proved,

Her treasures gravely gave for what was offered, Though feelings deep were moved.

For bridal favors once were in that basket,
And babies' tiny store,

She wonders vaguely how they dared to ask it,
Yet now 't is hers no more,

But carries with it in the present, ever
A fragrance of the past.

When dusky weavers sighed, mayhap, to sever
The bonds that held them fast.

While patient padres labored in uplifting
Into a higher life

Their wilful charges; from their natures sifting
The seeds of crime and strife;

Of long ago fiestas, where soft glances
From 'neath rebosos shone,

On favored partners in the stately dances,
And Cupid's dart sped home.

Now all is passed away, the basket only
And mournful mission chimes,
Are left to breathe upon our life a lonely
Refrain from vanished times.

Helen Elliott Bandini.

Lang's Letters on Literature.1

One does not take Andrew Lang quite seriously as a literary critic ; indeed he does n't take himself quite seriously: he says, for instance, regarding a former book, "that nobody would write so frankly to a correspondent about his own work," as he wrote to his dead authors; and he chooses the epistolary form because it gives room for "freedom and personal bias." The consequence is that there is always a feeling in reading Mr. Lang that there is a touch of affectation about him, and so great a yielding to "personal

1 Letters on Literature. By Andrew Lang. London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 1889.

bias," not to say whim, that he is not held to be quite responsible. Barring this feeling, he is pleasant reading, and chats in an inconsequential and agreeable manner about things new and old, hackneyed and recondite. His correspondents in the present volume are no more substantial, though not so ghostly, as in the Letters to Dead Authors, being purely imaginary or taken from fiction. He writes about modern English poetry, Fielding, Longfellow, Reynolds, Virgil, Aucassin and Nicolette, Plotinus, Lucretius, Bookhunting, Rochefoucauld, Vers de Société, Gérard de Nerval, and Books about Red Men. An essay on Richardson by Mrs. Lang shows that he has a congenial partner in his literary labors, for the

reader would not have suspected a change of author but for the signature.

Possibly we have put too much stress on the lightness of Mr. Lang's work. Often the reader agrees with him perfectly, and thanks him for a clear and bright expression of a long-held opinion; often too when he shows a neglected corner in the literary garden we walk in the blossom-grown path with sweet content; it is only now and then that a phrase or sentiment makes us doubt the critical trustworthiness of our guide.

Two "Knickerbocker Nuggets."1

IN the "Knickerbocker Nuggets" series, which continues its way praised of public and critics for its beauty and for the intelligence with which it is edited, comes The Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith. The wit has been so much quoted that the flavor of age hangs about most of it, and the wisdom oftentimes reads queerly in the light of seventy years or so since it was written. The strictures on America are amusing, now that we can afford to laugh at them, though at the time they must have cut deep. Slavery is the chief gravamen of his charge, and he predicted then a war about the question, failing however to foresee the result, which he declared would be disruption. Repudiation also calls forth his ire justly enough, but Americans will not like to think that all his charges of dishonesty, of ignorance, and of general barbarism were true even then. The context of his oft quoted question "Who reads an American book?" is of interest :

"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of America? What have they done in the mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow creatures may buy, sell, and torture?"

Appropriate to the constitutional centennial season is The Ideals of the Republic. The volume contains, without comment, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Washington's first and second inaugurals and farewell address, Lincoln's first and second inaugurals and Gettysburg oration, and an index to the Constitution. Nowhere else are these docu

Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith. Knickerbocker Nuggets Series. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Pierson & Robertson and Carson & Co.

The Ideals of the Republic. Ibid.

ments to be found in so compact and so dainty a shape.

Briefer Notice.

IT is a good sign that the American people are beginning to think about the quantity and quality of what they eat. Most people eat too much, and almost no one has a clear idea of the relation of what he eats to the work he has to do. In Eating for Strength2, Dr. Holbrook has gathered much practical information about the relative values of foods and their relation to health and work; together with analytical tables showing the amount of nourishment in specific articles of diet. The vegetarian will re joice to read, for the doctor has evident leanings in that direction. The general summation is that we eat blindly and too much. Simpler diet, varied only as we change work, is the result to be looked for as we come to eat according to the new scientific economy.- -Cassell & Co. have issued in the very convenient form of their National Library, the Plutarch's Lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Aristides, and Cato the Censor, and Macaulay's Warren Hastings, the first in cloth, the last in paper covers.

Progressive Housekeeping 5 differs materially from some previous books by Catherine Owen, in that there is no attempt to weave a story in with the instruction. Neither is it a book of recipes. It tells how to do various things, from lighting a fire to the proper method of dividing the work in a house where there are several servants. The advice is

plain and most of it useful. True, a girl should learn these things from her mother, but in cases where she, from any reason, has not done so, this book would be a good one to put among her wedding presents. -The design of Quick Cooking' is to give the busy housewife a collection of recipes that will enable her to make her table attractive and satisfying with the least possible outlay of time: "The greatest waste is the waste of the housekeeper's time," is its principle. The object is a good one, and the book will no doubt be a help in that direction. There is, however, so much difference in the power of rapid motion in different people, that many cooks would require a half hour to do what this author says can be done in fifteen minutes. There are in some cases omissions in the recipes which, no doubt, will be corrected in the next edition.

2 Eating for Strength: By M. L. Holbrook, M.D. M. L. Holbrook & Co.: New York. 1889.

3 Plutarch's Lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, ArisTranslated by J. and W. tides, and Cato the Censor. Langthorne & Co. Cassell & Co.: New York. 1889.

4 Warren Hastings. By Macaulay. Ibid. 5 Progressive Housekeeping. By Catherine Owen. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

6 Quick Cooking. A Book of Culinary Heresies for the Busy Wives and Mothers of the Land. By one of the Heretics. G. P. Putnam's Sons. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.