ness that saying of the Greeks which exhorts one to do nothing too much. According to Heber's theory, it was impossible to have too many books. He had a library in his house at Hodnet. His residence in Pimlico, where he died, was filled, like Magliabecchi's at Florence, with books from the top to the bottom; every chair, every table, every passage contained piles of erudition. He had a house in York street, London, filled with books. He had a library at Oxford, one at Antwerp, one at Brussels, and one at Ghent. The most accurate estimate of his collections places the total at 146,827 volumes, which cost him half a million dollars. After his death the catalogue of his accumulations was published in three parts and the sales lasted over three years.

What Bishop Heber was to England, DeWitt Miller is to the United States. The bibliotaph of the "Saints and Sinners' Corner" already has large collections stored in a dozen cities, and it is doubtful whether he knows himself how many books he really owns. American Book-Lore.

*

THE MAKING OF A DICTIONARY. The enormity of the work which the compilation of the New English Dictionary entails was recently explained by Dr. Murray before a meeting of the Philological Society at the University College, Gower street, London, Professor Skeat being Chairman. Dr. Murray told how the constantly accumulating material was being dealt with. The following is a resume of his speech:

He acknowledged the services rendered by various voluntary workers in the department of research, and explained how the constantly accumulating material was being dealt with. Incidentally, he mentioned that the whole of the original manuscripts for Pa. and Pe. was lost for twelve years, and that a remnant only was at last found in a stable in County Cavan. The manu

script had been used as waste paper, but enough

remained to show that the whole of it had at one time been lodged in the stable. The section Hy. was also lost for many years, but that had fortunately been recovered. He was endeavoring to arrange the work so that more than half the dic tionary-up to the middle of the letter L-would be complete before the middle of the present century. It was, however, very difficult to plan out the work in equal sections of a letter. The difference represented a degree as great as the proportion of the 3 to 1.

The words in H, for instance, required much more treatment than the words in I; and, indeed, for sustained difficulty, no letter in the dictionary approached the letter H. The number of words beginning with H, of which the origin was uncertain, was very great. Etymological difficulties might always be expected in words with the short

radical vowel "u," and that maxim had been very fully borne out by the words, such as "huddle" and "hug," beginning in "hu." But though he had been compelled to spend on H more time than he had calculated, he had actually finished and passed for press in the last year as many as 272 pages-the largest tale of work yet accomplished on the dictionary. In connection with this achievement, it was to be remembered that there were only 270 working days in the year, or 2,000 working hours, and what these figures meant was that the dictionary was being produced at the rate of two and a half hours per column, that allowance of time including all work, from the original research to the printing. Several German professors had, indeed, expressed their great astonishment at the rate of progress achieved. He and Mr. Bradley together had produced 456 pages in the year, so that three of the next four quarterly parts would be double parts.

At the conclusion of his review of the year's work Dr. Murray read a paper on the special difficulties encountered in treating the words under the letter H. He pointed out that only in a small proportion of words did the earliest written instance take one back to the beginning of the words in the language which had probably been For the new in spoken use some time before. dictionary five millions of quotations had been collected from the works of all ages-a mass of material never approached before, but the material thus supplied for the history of a word was, as it were, only the torso, the extremities being still to seek. The order of precedence of several uses of the same word, was often extremely difficult to decide, for it might be, as in the case of the words "hunch" and "hump," that the compounds appeared in the written language before the simple words. For example, the word "hunchbacked" was first found in the second quarto of "Richard III.," though there it was probably an accidental corruption of "bunch-backed," appearing in the first quarto, in the folios and in another place in the second quarto.

But the word "hunch-backed" had become quite common at the close of the seventeenth century. Yet the simple substantive "hunch" was not found before 1804. Such cases were extremely baffling. The fact was that as yet we knew very little about etymology and the way in which words had arisen. Words were constantly cropping up in Elizabethan times of which nothing was known and of which nothing cognate could be found in any foreign language. After the discovery of Sanscrit it was fondly supposed that Aryan roots existed (if they could be found) for all words, but that was certainly not true of all English words. There were cases in which the closest and most immediate inquiry could not discover the origin of modern words. For example, the word "dude" suddenly appeared in America, and, though investigation was made within a few weeks of the recognition of the word, no one could say how it originated. It came epidemically, so to speak, and it has remained.

OUR ANCESTORS' LESSON-BOOKS.

:

In glancing at the suject of education in the olden time-education before it became the manyheaded, all-engrossing giant it now is-one is inclined to be surprised at two things. First, that our sturdy forefathers knew so little and second, that they knew so much; or, to speak the exact truth, as much as they did. The majority of them were, one must admit, arrant ignoramuses as far as book-lore was concerned. But let no man deride them for this; rather let him consider carefully the books from whose pages former generations were constrained with sorrow and sighing to cull the bitters of knowledge. Afterwards he will possibly marvel how on earth his great-great-grandfather, whose pictured face gazes at him severely from beneath a Georgian wig, ever got learning enough to become a lawyer or a bishop, as the case may be. A liberal application of the rod helped, perhaps, in some measure; but into that branch of the subject we will not at this time wander.

Badly printed and unutterably wearisome were the earliest educational works; there was not the faintest attempt to render them interesting to the "painful" scholar. True, to us modern individuals some of them appear excessively funny; but it is hardly probable that the unfortunate wights for whose edification they were written regarded them in this light-especially as the humor to be found. in them is entirely unintentional. For instance, there is a quaint little grammar tucked away upon a lofty shelf at the Bodleian, which was compiled, to quote its author, for the "happy proceeding" of scholars in the Latin tongue. Note that he does not write it tung, like another learned pedagogue, Richard Mulcaster. The happy proceeding sounds, i' faith, like the direst irony. Lived there in those days a boy with so unnatural a mind that he loved his Latin grammar? I do not believe it; but if one did, his schoolfellows probably put an end to him speedily.

When a child-our ancestral child, of coursehad done with his hornbook, he was presently harassed by some dreadful little spelling-book or another. One of the pioneers in this line was called "A petee schole of spellinge and writinge Englishe." dated 1580. As a later effort came "The Compleat Schoolmaster," which was obligingly composed for the general good-see preface -by John Brooksbank, minister, residing in Jerusalem Court, Fleet Street. This "Compleat Schoolmaster" is a nightmare in two parts, either of them calculated to drive the learner crazy. In the first, he was forced to struggle in mortal combat with such words as spleyngth, sprawygld, and squewagls, which are not Welsh, however much. they may look like it. In the second, he proceeded from comparatively simple sentences, as "Beg

the big buffle bag and let it ly on the bog," to such complicated efforts as "He was dribl'd and drabl'd 'cause he grubl'd where they brabl'd," or "Now he wabls 'cause he was hackl'd with kibls and cobls."

There are four and-twenty pages of this stuff which is all the more aggravating because one feels an intense and unreasoning desire to get to the meaning of it. Why did he, whoever he was, go and grubl where they had a fancy to brabl, and what came of it at last? Also, are those mysterious kibls and cobls chilblains, or are they pebbles?

I picture the Rev. John Brooksbank to myself as a shabby-genteel man with a double chin, and a fat way of rolling out his syllables. He walked Fleet Street before Dr. Johnson's day, otherwise the two who dealt in words might have met and had a tussle royal, adjourning to the "Mitre" or the "Cheshire Cheese" afterwards. On second thoughts, however, I feel sure that the great Cham of literature, as Smollett called him, would have had nought to say to a person who could invent such nonsense as "He kept his birthday at the mirt with a turtlin a kurtl." A second tedious spelling-book compiled by this same Mr. Brooksbank contains no fewer than three separate dedications, one to the Lord Mayor of London, to whom he comprehensively wishes "all Health and Happiness, external, internal, and eternal," one to the Aldermen, and one to the Apprentices. "England's perfect School-Master," 1699, by Nathaniel Strong, is a creation of the same ilk; the grandest thing about it being the title. One cannot help being amused too, at an advertisement in the London Chronicle, in which Mrs. Lownes of the White Lion recommends a grammar for young children.

Ancient illustrated alphabets usually rejoiced in two or three gruesome little pictures, calculated to strike terror to the infant breast. As the punishment of hanging was so much in vogue for even trivial offenses, the letter G almost invariably stood for Gallows. To impress the moral still deeper, R stood for "Robber who died by the Rope," and M for Murder, graphically illustrated by a cut representing one man stabbing another; C started the series with Coffin, so that altogether an old alphabet is a very lively and instructive piece of work. In extenuation it must be said that the publishers did but follow the popular taste, for even kind and well-meaning parents were of the opinion that an occasional dose of horrors was good for their offspring. This we can see from the "Fairchild Family," that delectable little storybook the early editions of which have been literally thumbed out of existence. In this tale, the three children, the oldest of whom is only nine, are solemnly taken by their father to see a criminal hanging in chains. It is hardly necessary to say that they are anxious to get away from this ghastly

spectacle as quickly as possible. But Mr. Fairchild will not let them stir from the spot until he has related the whole history of the crime, and finished up with an appropriate hymn and prayer. These were the days, one must recollect, when London mothers of the poorer classes took their children as a great treat to see an execution at Newgate.

As time went on, spelling-books and "Compleat Schoolmaster" blossomed out into short tales, which generally endeavored to point a moral, although, it must be admitted, it was often rather a dubious one. The good intention, however, was always there, and people were nothing like so critical as they are now. An unpretentious "Reader," to be bought at the "Hand and Pen" in East Smithfield gives a little story which strikes one as being somewhat of a curiosity in this line. It may be briefly rendered as follows:

A certain old man is in the habit of rising early, while his son, on the contrary, is a confirmed sluggard. In the course of one of his matutinal walks, the old gentleman picks up a bag of gold, which, upon his return, he exhibits triumphantly to his boy.

"It had been good for him that lost it to have been in bed as I am," is the characteristic remark of young Hopeful as he lolls upon his pillows. With this sentiment, however, his parent will by no means agree, and he tells his son-this is rather a shock to the honest reader-that he intends to use some of the gold to put him to a trade where he will have to work the best part of the night. Moral (not in the book): Always stick to what you find in your morning walks.

"The patient Sheep" is also singularly artless and inconsequent. "There was once a sheep so charming from its innocent countenance, its fine fleecy coat, and its harmless pranks, that the son of the gentleman whose property it was took it home for his amusement. Having played with it for a length of time, till he was tired, it was again returned to the flock. During its domestic confinement it had endured many sufferings from the wildness of its young master, and now no longer dreaded shearing, or the other hardships incidental to the flock, for its early privations had taught it patience. Moral: In youth be patient under suffering, and learn to bear wrong meekly."

Another primitive reader, for the use of schools, rejoiced in the imposing title of "A Delectable Little History in Metre of a Lord and his three Sons, containing his Latter Will and Legacy to them upon his death-bed; and what befell them after his death." Later on we arrive at "The Ladies' Help to Spelling," 1722, compiled by a Scotch pedagogue, which was in addition a LetterWriter, and ended up with thirty-seven pages of Biblical names, divided into syllables! There was

also the "Polite Tutoress," written more especially for feminine sprigs of nobility, being a "Series of Dialogues between a sensible Governess and several of her pupils of the first Rank."

Mayor's Spelling-book was popular during the first half of the present century, and went through numerous editions. There are plenty of people who can recollect their early struggles with it, and with the simple story therein related of Miss Jane Bond, who had a new doll, and "her kind aunt gave her a fine piece of cloth to make a shift for it. She also gave her a pair of stays and a long lace with a tag to it, some pretty blue gauze to make a frock and a broad white sash." There is to me something fascinating about the idea of that early Victorian doll with stays actually made to lace up! Somehow, Miss Jane Bond is connected in my mind with a certain discreet Miss Betsy Higgins, aged six, who figures--promenading on a common in a square-cut bodice-in one of Dorothy Kilner's antiquated stories. Betsy, we are told, held up her head and turned out her toes, and was so clever and agreeable that everybody was fond of her. She never forgot to say Madam or Sir; so that people used to call her the good Miss Higgins. The book does not mention whether she died young or not.

A new era in educational works was inaugurated by Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Trimmer, and Hannah More, all of whom did good service in their generation. Their writings had, at any rate, something human about them, a quality conspicuously absent in those of their predecessors. It would be hard to say how many thousands of British children were brought up on Mrs. Barbauld's "Easy Lessons" and "Hymns in Prose," and Mrs. Trimmer's spelling-books and "Fabulous Histories." These last were great favorites, particularly one which dealt with the fortunes of a family of Redbreasts, who were dubbed respectively Robin, Dicky, Pecksy, and Flapsy. Mrs. Trimmer, a most kindly, comfortable-looking person from her portrait, had twelve children of her own to bring up, so that she might be supposed to understand what she was talking about. Now that every second woman you meet dabbles in literature, it is interesting to know that worthy Mrs. Trimmer was extremely anxious to get her books placed on the S. P. C. K.'s lists, but that "this honor she was sensible could not easily be attained by a female writer." After considerable delay, however, they passed the standard of orthodoxy required, being approved of by certain dignitaries of the Church and eminent divines. Consequently the creator of Pecksy and Flapsy was made happy.

The immediate forerunners of our modern school books were very scrappy affairs. Catechisms, Outlines, and Abridgments were the order of the day when the crinoline swayed supreme, and les

sons were learned to the accompaniment of the blackboard and the stocks. One little insignificant volume was made to do duty for six, being packed with assorted information. A specimen of this kind now lies before me, wanting both back and title-page. It contains a Complete English Grammar, the History of the Kings of England, with a doggerel verse for each, Geography, taking in the whole world, a Chronological Table from the Creation to the year 1776. Arithmetic Tables, a list of foreign coins, and a page or two of mythology: This last is in the form of question and answer. 'Who was the father of Bacchus?" "What can you tell me about Pomona?" and so on. Mythology does not receive much attention in present-day schools; it is not considered a "branch." As a result, the rising generation, if turned into a gallery of old masters, can sometimes find no other name for the gods and goddesses therein depicted but "old duffers."

Lord Byron is said to have liked "something craggy whereon to break his mind." Our mothers and fathers broke their juvenile minds, and so also did some of us, upon "Murray's Grammar," which was craggy enough for anybody, Slater's "Chronology," Keith "On the Globes," Mangnall's "Questions," Ince's "Outlines," and Pinnock's "Catechism;" also upon the "Child's Guide to Knowledge," "Mary's Grammar," (but that had stories in it!), and dear old "Mrs. Markham" of happy and universal memory. Upon many a dusty top shelf can these waifs and strays of bygone educational struggles be found, left stranded by the tide that is now a mighty torrent, the end of whose course no man can by any means foresee. SHEILA E. BRAINE.

TITLES OF BOOKS.

Catalogued by title, these books would come under the following heads:

Agricultural

Ruskin, J. "On the Art of Constructing Sheepfolds."

Edgeworth. "On Irish Bulls."

Sporting

Eliot. "The Mill on the Floss."

"The Game in Wall Street and How to Play It Successfully."

It would seem that in Cromwell's time writers of books were apt in incubating freak titles that would compare favorably with such titular monstrosities of the nineteenth century as "The Monkey That Would Not Kill," etc., etc., etc., etc., indefinitely. Here are some of them:

"A Most Delectable, Sweet-Perfumed Nose-Gay for God's Saints to Smell At."

"A Pair of Bellows to Blow Off the Dust Cast Upon John Fry."

"The Snuffers of Divine Love."

"Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches." "High-Heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness." "A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, Breathed Out of a Hole in the Wall of an Earthen Vessel, Known Among Men by the name of Samuel Fish."

"The Spiritual Mustard Pot to Make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion."

"A Shot Aimed at the Devil's Hind-Quarters Through the Tube of the Cannon of the Covenant."

Apparently red is the favorite color in fiction. Some recent titles include:

"The Red Badge of Courage," Crane.
"The Reds of the Midi," Gras.

"Meg of the Scarlet Foot," Jirebuck.
"Under the Red Robe," Crockett.

"Under the Red Lamp," Doyle.

The taste for the red in romance is not wholly recent, however, as shown by the following titles of older books:

"Crimson Kisses."
"Scarlet Sin."

"Red and White," Holt.
"Red Cloud," Butler.
"Red Court Farm," Wood.
"Red Eric and Lord Delaval,"
"The Red Hall," Wilson.

"The Red Hand of Ulster," Sadlier.
"Red-Letter Days in Applethorpe," Dodge.

"The Red Mantle," Zeller.

"The Red Rose Villa," Aguilar.

"The Red Rover," Cooper.

"Red Shoes," Andersen.

"The Red Silk Handkerchief," Bunner.

"Red Riding Hood," Notley.

"The Red Sky of the Morning," Hall.
"A Red Wall-Flower," Warner.
"Redgauntlet," Scott.

"Redmont Count O'Hanlon," Carleton.
"The Redskins," Cooper.

American Book-Lore.

CYPRESSES.

How stately and how statuesque they stand,
These somber-foliaged trees that one may see
By shrines of death in many a foreign land,
Mute mourners over frail mortality!
And when I muse upon them, tapering, tall,
One scene before my eyes will ever start,-
The solemn group by Rome's embattled wall
Forever grieving over Shelley's heart!

-CLINTON SCollard.

LAMB AND KEATS.

BY FREDERIC HARRISON.

[An address on the unveiling of the Portraits of Lamb and Keats at the Passmore Edwards Free Library at Edmonton, England:]

In offering to the fine library and literary institution in which we meet to-day the medallion portraits in bronze of Charles Lamb and of John Keats the founder has still further enlarged his noble gift and has added to the people of Edmonton a new claim on their grateful acknowledge ments. This handsome foundation is but one of many scores of others which will long record to our descendants the name of Passmore Edwards.

These nurseries of thought and culture which will bear his name (as churches in Rome are so proudly and vainly inscribed--ex munificentia Sexti, or Pauli) are the munificent gifts to his fellow-citizens of one who is himself a member of the literary order and the founder of a new era in journalism. It is an example of public spirit which is far more common in the United States than in Europe. In England our magnates of high rank and vast possessions think that they can best gratify their fellow-citizens by exhibiting their own magnificence, and can best advance the public taste by occasionally admitting them to view their galleries or their racehorses. The wealthy citizens of America are more wont to devote their abundance to the public, and have given a large part of the universities, libraries, museums and observatories in the States. I remember writing for an American review a little essay on "The Uses of Rich Men in the Commonwealth," and I described the public gifts common at Athens and at Rome. The Athenians called them Leiturgies, and most of the immortal dramas of Athens and many of the exquisite remains of architecture that we see to day were the free gifts to their fellow citizens of rich and patriotic patrons, such as was Herodes Atticus in the time of the empire. The example is too rare in England—almost unknown in London-where men of wealth are often willing to subscribe to a hospital or an institution, but where we seldom find any man willing to devote a large fortune to some truly munificent institution. Let us hope that in course of time the south of England and its capital may receive such benefactions as are common in America and not unknown in our northern counties, and that London, too, may count its Passmore Edwardses to follow the Herodes Attici of old.

We are about to unveil the bronze images of Lamb and Keats, whose memory is kept green in this place. Charles Lamb passed the close of his life and died in a cottage hard by this spot--a cottage happily still untouched in its primitive simplicity. He is buried in the parish churchyard

within a few minutes' walk, and a gravestone over his coffin and a marble monument in the church record his life in the parish. John Keats, born in London, and living his short life in the northern suburbs, passed some time in a house still standing unaltered within a few yards of the cottage of Lamb, and then went to live at Hampstead, within a short walk of this spot. He is buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, beneath the shadow of her ancient walls, where lies the heart of Shelley-cor cordium.

Both Lamb and Keats toiled and dreamed, knew intense joy and acute sorrow, in the early years of this nineteenth century, in the reign of George III. Three and even four generations have come and gone since their time. Keats died at twentyfive, before the birth of most of us here to day. Charles Lamb died at fifty-nine, within my own lifetime, and is still remembered by old men yet alive. Nearly a century has passed since the early work of Lamb and some eighty years since that of Keats. Yet to-day the fame of both stands higher than it stood in their lifetime or at any time since their deaths. It will be for the twentieth century to judge, at the centenaries of their death in 1934 and 1921 respectively, what will be their ultimate rank in English prose and poetry. It is too soon perhaps for us to dogmatize with confidence. For in general it is a good rule to observe that when a hundred years have come and gone since a writer inscribed Finis in the book of his earthly life the time has come when he can be judged fairly and finally in the roll of English letters- all his own friends and his own enemies removed, the novelty of his own gifts faded away, the fashions and prejudices of the day, long changed, and a strong presumption established that, if he be still lively in the memory of a fourth and a fifth generation after his own, it must be due to some real originality and power. We will not attempt to anticipate the verdict of posterity, and to-day let us avoid all hyperboles and eulogiums. Two men of genius have been associated with the traditions of this district. Living men have known them here. And we testify to-day that those who dwell here and who love letters have not forgotten them nor the thought they left to the ages to come.

Both Lamb and Keats will be remembered (amidst all the differences which separate the humorist from the morbid poet) each for his peculiar, fascinating gift-Lamb for an inimitable genius of light and airy criticism, Keats for an inexhaustible spring of melodious and perfumed song. There is no second Lamb in prose, no second Keats in verse. Each has a hallmark of his own on every product of his mint-unmistakable, incomparable, native-which no man can imitate, none can parody, no man can pirate, yet which