"The skies they were ashen and sober,

The leaves they were crisped and sere-
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber
In the misty mid region of Weir-
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
This has all the elaborate skill, the mystic
scenery, the unique melody, indeed all the
distinctive marks of Poe, and it is like a
translation into rhythm of one of Doré's
most characteristic works.

How thoroughly the artist appreciates and enjoys the poet is evident from his illustrations of the " Raven," and it is easy to imagine with what delight the poet would have seen his airy and lurid fancies bodied forth by the sympathetic magic of the artist. Poe is unique among poets, whatever rank the reader may assign him. He had no forerunner, and his many imitators are but obvious and faint echoes. The poet whom he most resembles by intellectual sympathy seems to us to be Shelley. Poe has at least the air of Shelley's consuming melancholy. But it is characteristic of the impression he produces that we say the air.

Editor's Literary Record.

us. It is designed for the use of English and American travellers only, and the three languages are arranged in parallel columns, of which only the first is alphabetised. Each English word, and each different sense of a word, is allowed a separate line; the system of references and, in a word, the literary workmanship of the little book is unexceptionable, and being printed on thin paper and bound in flexible leather it is a marvel of compactness.

N all Continental towns the bewildered Chambers's Handbook Dictionary of the English, clamouring in an unknown tongue for information or assistance, is a familiar object, and if a more aggravating and ludicrous position could be thought of we would rather not be in it. There would be vastly fewer of such cases if people who go abroad would only adopt a very simple expedient suggested long ago by the late Elihu Burritt, popularly known as 66 'the learned blacksmith." Mr. Burritt inastered no less than fifteen languages in the course of a few years, in most of which he could write, as well as speak, accurately and fluently. His rule for the rapid learning of a language was to begin by committing to memory as many words as possible-nouns and the roots of verbs, principally-quite ignoring the grammar, and not troubling about the declensions and inflections. In a surprisingly short time the word-student begins to recognise part, at least, of any sentence that may be addressed to him, and the encouragement he gains in this way at the outset is a great help, later on, when he looks more critically into the written language. In fact, the grammar reveals itself to him almost insensibly, with practice, after he has begun to use his nouns and roots of verbs in conversation.

THE striking contrast between the scholarly volume above mentioned and an extraordinary production entitled English as he is Spoke, a traveller's phrase-book for the Portuguese, only intensifies the ludicrous absurdity of the latter. The compiler of this remarkable work had at the time little idea that he was writing a book destined to become famous, and still less that it was to achieve its success not as a text-book for the Portuguese youth, but as a jest-book in a foreign country. The book itself has been out of print for many years, and will probably not be republished in its original form, but Messrs. Field and Tuer have now reprinted in a pretty parchment-bound volume a collection of extracts from the English portion, which goes to show how amusing a writer may make himself without trying, and, still better, without knowing it. It is in fact the entire seriousness of Senhor Pedro Carolino, as much as the whimsicality and piquancy of his blunders, that makes him so entertaining. From the outset it is evident that he has no knowledge of English, and

But for the purposes of the traveller anything like grammar is quite superfluous. The bare names of places and things, and a few verbs in the Infinitive mood, will smooth his way perfectly well in a foreign country, and he may placidly converse with the natives, horrifying them perhaps, but with a calm certainty of making himself under stood, and leave them to supply the grammar to suit themselves. Tourists on the Continent find phrase-books quite useless in emergency, because the required phrase can never be found at the right moment: a little pocket dictionary is worth a dozen of them.don: John Murray. Of such dictionaries the most perfect we have ever met with is Mr. George F.

1 The Eandbook Dictionary: A Practical and Conversational Dictionary of the English, French, and German Languages, for the use of Travellers and Students. By GEORGE F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S. 18mo. pp. 724. Lon

2 English as She is Spoke: or, A Jest in Sober Earnest. With an Introduction by JAMES MILLINGTON. 18mo pp. 60. London: Field & Tuer.

has developed this book mechanically, by some process of his own. The constant recurrence of the French idiom leads to the conclusion that he built it up with the aid of a French-English dictionary and a Portuguese-French phrase-book, though he declares that it is "clean of gallicisms and despoiled phrases," and takes evident pride in the accuracy of his work, or, as he expresses it, "for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction." After sufficiently instructing the Portuguese youth in the English words and "idiotisms," as he calls them, he winds up with a series of anecdotes, letters, and proverbs; and here he shows off his knowledge of the "idiotisms" with surprising effect.

hammed Ali, and Pacha of one's early springtime.

Mr.

UNDER the title of Arabian Society in the Middle Ages,1 Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole has collected together in a separate volume the copious notes of his great-uncle, the late Edward William Lane, upon the Thousand-and-One Nights, to which we have referred above. To these he has added a complete index, and many valuable notes and explanations of his own. The result is a book of great interest and value, whether we read it in connection with the Arabian Nights, or by itself. Lane possessed a wonderful insight into Eastern character and thought; moreover, these studies were made during his residence at Cairo, in the early part of the century, before that now modernised city had thrown off its medieval character. In his notes he has touched upon every phase of social life; upon the ceremonies attending births, marriages and deaths, education, feasting, religion, laws and penalties, literature and superstitions-to mention only a few of his many topics.

The Thousand-and-One Nights1 is a book of such inexhaustible entertainment that one might expect new editions of it to be in demand as regularly, though not so often, as the morning's milk. To young people, in fact, it may be considered a necessity, and to their seniors it has a charm that never fades. There are two ways of reading this famous book; first, the child's way, for the story SPAIN is a country so picturesque, so novel, only, which has endeared it to one genera- and so rarely visited or described, compared tion after another, time out of mind; with the rest of Europe, that one has grown secondly, the scholar's way, in which the accustomed to expect whatever is written glowing pages fairly teem with wonderful about it to be well worth reading. In point meaning and suggestion. To the latter of fact, until recently, the books that have class of readers the translation made half-a-been written about Spain have been almost century ago by Mr. Edward William Lane uniformly good, even down to the guidealways commends itself as the most scholarly books, which by the way are models of their that has ever appeared, and a new edition, kind. No traveller's handbook that was now before us, brings the work to even ever written can compare with the Murray's greater perfection. The work as now printed Spain compiled by the late Professor Ford, is based upon the original translation, anno- one of the most brilliant scholars and tated by the translator. This has been delightful writers of his time, and the handedited by his nephew, Mr. Edward Stanley- book by O'Shea, judged by the usual standard, Poole, the well-known Orientalist, and to the is also a marvel of condensed information and whole has been prefixed a very interesting literary excellence. Both these books are introduction by his grand-nephew, Mr. Stan- worthy of a place in the library, quite apart ley Lane-Poole. The fine illustrations of from their value as guide-books, and when Harvey are retained in the new edition, and we look at their graphic descriptions, their we can find, in fact, but one feature in the pictures of Spanish life and character, and beautiful volumes to which we may take their scholarly review of the wonderful art exception, and that is the spelling. No and architecture of Spain, we are at a loss to doubt Mr. Lane, his nephew and grand- understand the raison d'être of such books nephew, have all the best native authorities as Rambla-Spain,2 now before us. on their side when they write " Wezeer," 'Memlook,” ," "Mohammad 'Alee," "Bashaw," etc., but so should we have if we wrote Livorno, for Leghorn, Anvers, for Antwerp, Aachen, for Aix la Chapelle, and München, for Munich, yet most people refrain from doing so out of respect for ancient tradition-or perhaps because they don't know any better, At all events it is difficult to transfer one's affections from the Vizier, Mameluke, Mo

1 The One-Thousand-and-One Nights: Commonly called in England the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. A new translation from the Arabic, by EDWARD WILLIAM LANE. New Edition. 3 vols. 8vo. London: Chatto and Windus.

To explain his peculiar title, the author, in his preface, asks himself the question, "Why Rambla?" He might have gone further and asked, Why Rambla-Spain at all? His book would be valuable if Spain had but just been discovered, and if Irving and Prescott and Borrow and Ticknor and Stirling Maxwell and Ford and O'Shea and a good many other observant travellers had not preceded him;

1 Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, Studies from the Thousand-and-One Nights. By EDWARD WILLIAM LANE. Edited by his grand-nephew, STANLEY LANEPOOLE. 8vo. pp. 280. London: Chatto & Windus.

2 Rambla-Spain. By the Author of other Countries. From Irun to Cerbere. 8vo. pp. 233. London: Sampson Low & Co.

but in literature there is only one chance for those who glean after the reapers, and that is to improve upon them. The route followed in Rambla-Spain is the usual one: from Paris to Madrid, then to Toledo and the South, crossing to the East, and returning rid Barcelona to France.

to be true, than to reconcile ourselves to the saintly character given to Hugh Crow, the slave-ship captain.

Half-hours with Some Famous Ambassadors1 is a somewhat misleading title, for we find that the half-hours referred to have not been spent in conversation with living celebrities, but in reading about historical ones. There are eight chapters in the book dealing respectively with Sir R. M. Keith and Queen Carolina Matilda of Denmark; Talleyrand; Gondomar and the Spanish Marriage; the Story of the Chevalier D'Eon; Metternich, Napoleon, and Maria Louisa; Harley and the Court of Queen Anne; Alberoni, Cardinal and Adventurer; Lord Malmesbury and Queen Caroline. The sketches are of course only outlines, for the book is a small one, but they give a fair notion of what the various people were and what they accomplished.

Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain, is a characteristic book of the type that made the author's reputation. It is full of extravagancies, exaggerations, whimsicalities, and not altogether free from the roughness that seems too often associated with the Western humour. It is a rambling narrative, based upon the author's actual experience as a Mississippi pilot, and the odd characters and scenes he met with under those circumstances and later when revisiting the famous river and renewing his early impressions. After his usual fashion, he never misses an opportunity to branch off from his main subject and introduce a story or a disquisiMy Watch Below; or, Yarns Spun when tion that has no connection with the Missis-off Duty, is not only one of the most fascinsippi. In one case he brings in a very clever ating of Mr. Clark Russell's many stories of and forcible plea for cremation, in the form the sea, but it serves a higher purpose. In of a story about a hopeless bankrupt who simple, straightforward words he has porleaps into sudden prosperity by becoming an trayed certain grievous abuses which have undertaker. He has curious stories to tell been permitted to exist on shipboard for about steamboats and gamblers and raftsmen years, unchecked, and of which the public at and river characters of many peculiar types, large have little suspicion, though from time and he describes the picturesque old city of to time a melancholy shipwreck or mutiny New Orleans, with its various anomalies of brings on an investigation which for the race and climate and architecture, its famous moment calls attention to perils and hardcarnival, and some of his entertaining ex- ships sailors are often needlessly subjected periences there. But the opening chapters, to. Such a picture, for example, as is drawn in which he gives a description of the river in his sketch of "A trip in a Collier," is and some account of its history and wanalmost past belief; yet one has only to sail derings, are the most interesting of all, and down the Thames to find evidence enough of his quaint humour is never so effective as the reckless overloading that is still practised when dealing with grave history and roin sea-going vessels, in spite of all the mance and legend. "Plimsoll's Mark" legislation of a few years back. Old tubs of one hundred and fifty tons burden that are loaded with two hundred and fifty tons are by no means rare, and of course they are so low in the water that, as Mr. Russell says, " sitting on the covering board would have put my feet in the water." In another chapter he draws a vivid sketch of the overcrowded steerage of an emigrant ship, where in case of rough weather the summit of human misery apparently would have been reached, and where at any time the total lack of privacy would be shocking to all modest minds. In a chapter, entitled "The Middy's Yarn," he shows up the egregious swindle sometimes practised on lads, whose parents have paid handsome sums to apprentice them on board merchant ships. The instruction in seamanship and navigation the middies are given consists in

Footlights 2 is not an inappropriate title for a book which throws light on various phases of life, and shows a new scene in every chapter; especially when the author happens to be a theatrical manager. Mr. Hollingshead possesses a versatile as well as prolific pen, and his book is made up of stories, sketches, and prose satires, brought together from his contributions to a dozen periodicals, whose titles are given. There are many clever bits from Punch, whose authorship it is interesting to find established, there are love stories, and pathetic studies of life-belowstairs, and comic stories, and descriptive sketches. One of these last, which is told with apparent seriousness, is as remarkable a narrative as we have ever read in fact, we find it far easier to believe in the reality of some of the love stories, that do not profess

1 Life on the Mississippi. By MARK TWAIN. over 300 illustrations. Cr. 8vo. pp. 561. Chatto & Windus.

2 Fotlights. By JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. pp 335. London: Chapman & Hall.

With
London:

Cr. 8vo.

Kings and Queens of an Hour. By Percy from official sources, includes the most im-Fitzgerald. (Biographies.) 2 vols. 30s.

Par Ernest Daudet. N. E. 3s. 6d.

Par Ernest Daudet. N. E. 3s. 6d.

Le Jardinier des Dames. Par C. Fleuriot. (On the cultivation of house-plants, management of aquariums, etc., with illustrations.) 18 jésus, pp. 216. 5s.

L'Encre de Chine. (Its history, etc., translated from the Chinese, with 27 illustrations from original Chinese drawings.) 18 jésus, PP. XXX. 95. 5s.

A Travers la Littérature Anglaise. (Extracts from 309 English authors.) Par L. Juillard. By 8vo. pp. xxii-379. 10s.