looking out of my window while waiting for breakfast. There was some wind, but its effects were only remarkable where the sea met the land in a line of white, a little accentuated at a point where the cliffs fall away at the opening of a channel only navigable at certain states of the tide. It was now high water, and a three-masted schooner was apparently making the channel. As I watched her, some peculiarity of motion, or lack of motion, some novelty in her position, infinitesimal at that distance, caught my attention. Almost before the impression became conscious a streak of light, so pale against the morning gray that if I had not known its meaning I should hardly have seen it, slowly soared up from the schooner and fell in a graceful curve. By stress of weather or mishandling the schooner was on the bar and her crew were firing rockets for assistance. Here, on a bright spring morning, was I in a warm room waiting for breakfast, and out there, 80 near that with a glass I could see their little black figures moving, were men calling for their lives. In an incredibly short time the lifeboat was alongside, bobbing about in the rough white water over the bar in a ridiculously homely manner, and the peril was over. Country Life.

A very pitiful story is told about a man belonging to these parts noted for his courage and skill as a seaman. Unlike most sailors he was a magnificent swimmer. After an adventurous life he was wrecked on this coast not very far from his home. His body was found-in a ploughed field. As the finders said, "his fingers and toes were worn to stumps." He had swum ashore through a terrific sea, climbed an almost perpendicular cliff, to die of exhaustion in a ploughed field within walking distance of his home.

war.

Incidents like these help to keep alive the classical conception of the sea's implacability persisting even beyond its borders. To most women, I fancy, the sea is feminine. They hate and love the sea as they hate and love They hate it because it is their rival in the passions of men, and love it because it is a test of men. Here, at the edge of the Atlantic, on Sundays and holidays, you may see the wives and mothers and lovers of sailors drawn down to the sea by an irresistible fascination. They gaze at it, apparently without pleasure, but never with indifference. There is in their regard a mingling of distrust and sullen defiance. They are keeping an eye on their rival.

Charles Marriott.

Smith. Oh! do sit still, dear. What

are you wriggling about for?

Mrs. S. Of course I do. That's why I wanted Look out, dear, here

white house just below us, you know. Bow, dear, they're quite good people.

Smith. He can't steer straight, anyhow barging us into a beastly patch of chimney smoke like that.

Mrs. S. That would be rather a pity, too-the children like to them about. Still we could keep a few in cages for them to look at, couldn't we? What's it rocking for now?

Smith. That's because you're wriggling again. You're making it rock.

Mrs. S. I'm rigid. There's know there is!

not.

I'm absolutely something wrong-I Oh, what is it?

Smith. Only a bit of a squall. Here comes the breeze. There now she's shifting. That's fine, isn't it?

Mrs. S. Yes, dear; but I shall be awake all night with earache after this. I've forgotten the cotton-wool again. Why, there's a bit just below. Smith. No-that's a sheep; and look at that little car crawling along. Aren't you glad we sold ours for this? Mrs. S. Yes, dear, for most things, but of course one misses not having the road near to fall on. There nowit's beginning to wobble again. Do make it stop-there's no wind now! Smith. Well, I'm trying to-I expect that off-wing wants a little

it's

oil.

Mrs. S. That's made it worse! Oh, we're going-oh-oh!

Smith. For heaven's sake leave go. How can I see to things with you clinging round my neck? There, she's right again now.

Mrs. S. I'm sorry, dear, but when it does like that I always think of the children.

Smith. Well, so do I-but if you are

Punch.

going to lose your head every time we tilt I shan't bring you up with me again.

Mrs. S.

Don't say that-I couldn't bear to let you come alone, darling. Smith. Shall we have the sherry and sandwiches now? You've got them, haven't you?

Mrs. S. I had until we began to wobble, then I put them on the little shelf behind.

Smith. There is no little shelf behind. I took it off before we started to lighten her. You've dropped them overboard, that's what you've done. Mrs. S. I'm so sorry-but I tied them to a gas-bag, so we can soon pick them up.

Smith. One gas-bag won't keep them both up-there they are, drifting over the ground just above the road down there. What's that chap waving for?

Mrs. S. He's not waving, he's leaping up and trying to catch them before they float over the wall. It's a poor old tramp. Look, he's got them. thinks it's a present-he's looking up How and taking his cap off to us. sweet!

He

Smith. Very sweet-to drop things overboard like that. You're always doing it.

Mrs. S. It was quite an accident. If you are hungry let's go home and have lunch.

Smith. I'm not particularly hungry. Mrs. S. Well, personally, I couldn't touch a bit of anything. The oscillation always makes me rather queerand you're looking a little green, dear.

Smith. Green nonsense - I'm all right-it never has any effect on me. Still, of course, if you really want to go home I'll take you at once.

Mrs. S. Thank you, darling-we've had a simply perfect fly, but I should love to lie down a little while on a fixed sofa.

The latest series of reprints bears the title "The Novel-Books." It is handy in form and exclusively devoted to tiction.

Professor Burrows has written a short account of the systematic excavatious which are being carried out in Crete, and of the results which they have yielded up to the present time. The book will shortly be published by Mr. Murray.

A new book which will soon be published by Mr. Murray is a daring glimpse into the future of England, when Socialistic government has had full sway for a year or two. It is in the form of a sensational novel, and it concludes that the rule of the "masses" by the "masses" for the "masses" must bring its own downfall. The publisher himself has no idea of the identity of the author.

A movement has been started to erect a memorial to the Irish writer, Gerald Griffin, in his native city of Limerick. The memorial will take the ⚫ form of a new school for boys, under the management of the Christian Brothers, with a statue of Griffin in a niche facing the Cathedral. Griffin entered the Order of the Christian Brothers after he had won literary fame by the publication of "The Collegians."

Maxim Gorki is beginning the pubHeation at St. Petersburg of his impressions of America. No one will be surprised to learn that they were not agreeable. The first bears the title of “The City of the Yellow Devil.” Succeeding sketches are to be entitled "The Kingdom of Boredom," "The

"The Book of the V. C.," by A. L Haydon (E. P. Dutton & Co.) is a record of the deeds of heroism for which the Victoria Cross has been bestowed from its institution in 1857 to the present time. It is not, of course, a record of all the deeds thus rewarded: but it is a story of the most notable of them. Here are tales of gallantry from all the fields on which England's "far-flung battle line" has faced the foe: from the Crimea, from India, from the rocky passes of Afghanistan, from Zululand, Egypt, the Soudan and South Africa, and from far Tibet, where the last trophy was won in 1904. The stories are graphically yet simply told and are fully illustrated. Readers, young or old, who have a love of adventure, will find these true stories as thrilling as the inventions of romancers. Appendixes give complete lists of all recipients of the Cross.

There is room for at least two opinions as to whether it was worth while to explore the letters, diaries and newspapers of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century for material for the history of the most prominent actresses of that time: but if the work were to be done, it could scarcely have been more shrewdly and humorously done than in John Fyvie's "Comedy Queens of the Georgian Era” (E. P. Dutton & Co.). Mr. Fyvie chooses twelve subjects for his sketches, among them Lavinia Fenton, Charlotte Charke, Margaret or "Peg” Woffington, Elizabeth Farren, Mary

Robinson or "Perdita," Dora Jordan and Harriot Mellon. Of eight of the twelve he is able to give portraits. Incidentally these biographies throw a good deal of light not only on the drama but the social life of the period, and not a few exalted personages fig. ure in the narratives.

Mr. W. Basil Worsfold has constituted himself the historian of "Lord Milner's Work in South Africa" from its commencement in 1897, when Lord Milner went out to succeed Lord Rosmead, the year after the ill-starred Jameson raid, to the signing of the peace of Vereenburg in 1902. This closes the first period of Lord Milner's administration, a period of storm and stress, of conspiracy and war, of suspicion and misrepresentation. Mr. Worsfold has had access to all published documents and to some information hitherto unpublished, and his narrative has the vividness of personal impression resulting from two considerable periods of residence in South Africa. Whether the time has yet come for writing the history of this period may perhaps be doubted. The events treated have not yet receded far enough into the past to be seen in their proper perspective. But Mr. Worsfold writes with the calmness and deliberation of an historian, though he is at no pains to disguise his sympathy with that man of invincible purpose of whom Lord Goschen said that "difficulties could not conquer, disasters could not cow, and obloquy could never move." Mr. Worsfold's volume, recording the events of this period of South African history, finds publication happily, just as another period is closing with the magnanimous grant by England both to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony of the rights of a self-governing colony under manhood suffrage without any discrimination against the Dutch. Mr. Worsfold's

book, which is illustrated with portraits and a map, is published by E. P. Dutton & Co.

There is no lack of material relating to the life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. His own note-books are full of autobiographical details, written with the charming candor of a man communing with his journal: and the compendious "Life" written by his son Julian, the briefer "Study" by his son-in-law, Mr. Lathrop, and the reminiscences of his friends Horatio Bridge and Elizabeth Peabody, not to mention Moncure D. Conway's biography, abound in interesting particulars. But Hawthorne's shy and elusive personality, the richness of his imagination, the rare delicacy and beauty of his style, and his relations to other writers of his period, especially those of the "transcendental" group, make his life and career a fascinating subject of study, and there may well be a welcome for the new "Life of Hawthorne," by Mr. Frank Preston Stearns, which the J. B. Lippincott Co. publishes. Mr. Stearns enters more fully into a critical analysis and study of Hawthorne's works than either of the earlier biographers: but he does not neglect personal details and some of the facts which he has grouped, espe cially in his earlier chapters, throw a good deal of light upon the conditions which shaped Hawthorne's career and influenced his mind. Mr. Stearns has the advantage derived from personal impressions, for he was a contemporary and college friend of Julian Hawthorne, and had seen both Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne in their home at Concord. Among the illustrations there are two portraits of Hawthorne and one of his friend Bridge, and views of his birthplace, and of the Old Manse and the Wayside. There is no view of the red cottage at Lenox which was for a time his home, but as it was some years ago destroyed by fire this is not surprising