The two friends seem animated with a spirit that has no sympathy with the despondent words of Mariano José Larra: "Lloremos, puez y traduzcamos." The whole book, introduction as well as translations, gives us most encouraging prospects of the intellectual vigor which now animates our near neighbor, the island of Cuba, and which will be better known and recognized when peace and tardy justice shall have banished thence war and political animosities. JOSE FRANCISCO CARRET. DR. SCHLIEMANN'S MYCENE.* R. Schliemann's greatest success has been his capture of the late prime minister of Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone has actually given his vote for Agamemnon, Cassandra and all the royal family of Mycenæ, though he uses a hesitating way in casting it. Undoubtedly Dr. Schliemann has found marvelously interesting treasures, both archæological and fiscal, in the ruins of the old capital of Eurystheus and Atreus, but as Mycena was destroyed by the jealous Argives in B. C. 468, eleven years after the battle of Platææ, there are many centuries between the period of the Trojan war and the limit of Mycenæan history, in which the deposits now discovered by Schliemann may have been made. The attempt to fix them in Agamemnon's day and to determine minutely the identity of the bodies disentombed is a brave one, but will scarcely establish conviction. Mr. Gladstone's preface is good reading, with an order and symmetry that are utterly wanting in the rest of Schliemann's magnificent volume. Mr. Gladstone makes these points of argument for Schliemann's notion; (1) the cow representations illustrating the Hera worship; (2) the Poseidonian (Cyclopean) style of building; (3) the copper lining of the "treasury;" (4) the absence of iron; (5) the style of the chariots; (6) the circular agora and smoothed horizontal slabs bounding the circle on which the elders sat; (7) the ornaments discovered, to wit, copper for large utensils, gold head-dresses, kredemna with lappets, the representation on the signet-ring as compared with the first compartment of the shield of Achilles, the goblet as compared with that of Nestor, and the bosses on the sword-sheath; (8) the tombs in the situation chosen for interments, in the number of the persons simultaneously interred, in the dimensions and character of the graves, in the partial application of fire, in the masks, and in the deposits of characteristic and valuable objects. It would take a volume to answer all these points in detail. It is enough to say that a * Mycena; a Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycena and Tiryns. By Dr. Henry Schliemann. With Preface by Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P. Scribner, Armstrong & Co. careful examination of each only makes for an early date, but by no means carries us back to Agamemnon. The bodies found in the five sepulchers number fifteen; three in the first, three in the second, three in the third, five in the fourth, and one in the fifth. Besides these a number of skeletons were found nearly destroyed by the moisture, that had never been on the funeral pyre. These sepulchers are all in the agora (which forms a circle less than a hundred feet in diameter), and are cut deep in the solid rock. The bodies were evidently burned as they lie, and a vast quantity of ornaments GOLDEN DIADEM. Found on the head of a body in the Third Sepulcher. were buried with them, twenty-five thousand dollars worth of material having been left for Schliemann to discover, notwithstanding clear evidence that some of the tombs had been rifled. Certainly in all this there is a grand field of investigation opened to the archaeologist, SWORD HANDLE. the northeastern boundary of the Argolic plain on the foot hills of the Euboean mountain, whose highest summit rises 2500 feet above the plain. The plain itself is about twelve miles long to the mouth of the Inachus; or, if we measure it as far as Lerna, we may add six miles more to it. At its broadest portion it is about seven miles in width, but at Mycenæ it is contracted, and soon terminates in the pass to Nemea, and so either to Sicyon by Phlius or to Corinth by Cleonæ. Argos is not far from the center of this plain, Lerna is at its southwestern extremity, Tiryns near its southeastern corner, and Mycena not far from its northern extremity. A pre-historic connection of this celebrated district with Egypt is undoubted. The old myths of Inachus, Nilus, Danaus and Egyptus show that intercourse between Argolis and Egypt was intimate and constant. It may have been in the days of Phoenician maritime supremacy, especially as the names of Cadmus, Phoenix and Belus are mingled with Europa and the others in the mythic genealogies. It is very possible that instead of finding the origin of the name Mycena in the Greek μυχός or μύκης, we are to explain it by reference to an Egyptian root. The only things in the Mycenæ ruins that suggest Egypt are the size of the stones by the Gate of the Lions (one being fifteen feet long and eight feet broad) and the inclined sides of the gateways. There is nothing in the carvings to indicate Egyptian culture. The civilization of the Argolic plain may have been derived from Egypt; and yet when the present structures of Tiryns and Mycenae were erected, but faint traces of the Egyptian origin may have been preserved. If Egypt's close connection with Argolis was at the time of the famous nineteenth dynasty, we may put the date of the buildings now existing at B.C. 900, and still have nearly 400 years between the two epochs. subterranean buildings like the Treasury of Mycena's history is almost all mythic. Homer, and the poets of the 5th century B.C., are those that tell the tale of Agamemnon; and these latter vary the story, often doubt-after Christ, explored the ruins. He notes the less inventively, that they may claim some Gate of Lions, and calls it (by report) the originality in its rendering. According to work of the Cyclopes. He also notes the Homer, Agamemnon, on the capture of Troy, subterranean buildings, and counts them as obtains Cassandra, the prophetess, daughter treasuries of Atreus and his sons. He also of Priam, as his prize. On arriving at My- speaks of a sepulcher of Atreus, a tomb of cenæ, after the war, he was invited by his Agamemnon, and of Eurymedon, and a comcousin Ægisthus to a repast, where he was mon sepulcher of Teledamus and Pelops, slain, Clytemnestra his wife, and now the children of Agamemnon and Cassandra. paramour of Ægisthus, slaying Cassandra He also states that there is a sepulcher of on the same occasion with her own hand. Electra, and that Clytemnestra and Ægisthus Æschylus represents Agamemnon dying in are buried at a little distance from the walls. the bath, entangled in a net, and receiving the His testimony is only good as showing the early date of Schliemann's hypothesis. نسه 10 15 20 FI GATE OF THE LIONS. Whatever may be the truth as to these details, let Dr. Schliemann be crowned with the laurels he has won, and let his success encourage new efforts to dig out the mythic ages from the soil of Greece. His book is a splendid volume, and his publishers have put him before the public in most worthy style. HOWARD CROSBY. HOLIDAY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN. Miss Alcott has written nothing for a long time past which strikes us so agreeably as her bright little Christmas greeting, My Girls, fourth in the Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag Series. There is hardly a chapter in this small collection which does not wake the impulse toward unselfish service for others, and sweet and wholesome kindliness. "Major" will appeal more to the hearts of children than half a hundred reports of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, while no one who knows, even by report, the author, and that united home over which so sad a shadow has lately fallen, will be able to read, without a throb of sympathy, the tender little sketch called “One Happy Birthday." The scene of A York and a Lancaster Rose 3 is laid in England, but its interest goes much farlands where there are homes to be brightened or ther, and its teachings apply equally well to all tempers to conquer. Don't let the word "teachings" frighten you from reading the book, dear boys and girls! "Teachings" in this case does not mean anything dull or disagreeable; only the natural progress and evolution of a very absorbing story, and if after finishing it you find yourselves set to thinking a little more about truth and helpfulness, and the beautiful chances which are in the world for doing good womanly and manly work; a little more about others and a litbeen bored or preached at for one minute, why tle less about yourselves, and all without having then I am sure you will feel like thanking Miss Keary for her book, and me for calling your attention to it! The Cuckoo Clock 4 is a. fresh fairy tale, which has for principal actor that pretty toy, the wooden cuckoo of a Swiss clock. A fairy cuckoo he proves to be, and at night, when all are asleep, he comes from his small house and flies about the world with a girl named Griselda on his back, a little girl, sent from India to live with some stated, but I guess her to be about nine, and there are many girls of that age who will like to read about her journeys with the cuckoo. One Happy Winter 5 is the chronicle of a Florida journey, told in the diary of a young girl. It is brightly told, and there is a good deal of information of a kind which will be valuable to travel It is doing excellent service to the young to attract their attention, from time to time, to the hon-elderly aunties in England. Griselda's age is not ored foundations on which our English literature is built, and which, in contemplating its lighter fatal blows at the hands of his wife. Pindar superstructure, we are apt to overlook. This service Mr. Mitchell most agreeably renders by his even puts the scene near Sparta. The sub-chronicles of the Old Story Tellers. They are ject is a favorite theme of the poets, affording every variety of incident adapted to the Greek taste. The Oresteia form the appendix to the story, which Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides all use with admirable effect. After the Dorian settlement, Argos becomes the great city, and Mycenæ disappears, except in sending eighty men to Thermopylæ ages afterward, and a number of combatants to the field of Platææ. Eleven written with peculiar finish and refinement, and ers; but the information is skillfully mixed in, and marmalade and pill are so adroitly incorporated each with the other, that no youthful palate will find fault with the result. We like the merry Beginning with a delightful bit about Güten- little Maggie who keeps the diary better than berg and the early printers, Mr. Mitchell proceeds Greta who is the saintly invalid of the party, and to deal with the Arabian Nights, Goldsmith, uses the very finest language in the bosom of her Swift, Defoe, Miss Edgeworth, Bunyan, Madame family; and best of all, we like the old servant Cottin, Bernadin St. Pierre, and the Brothers Hannah, who is a capital hit. This is the way Grimm, making, as it were, a symmetrical though in which she receives the present of a stuffed compact monograph of the author and his times, alligator. "Maggie " is speaking. and giving abstracts of one or more stories from each; so skillfully framed as to whet the appetite of the little reader for the fuller meal awaiting him in the books themselves. Nothing in its way could be better done; and we hope that this charming volume, whose print, binding and illustrations are worthy of their context, may prove a seed of stimulating thought in many and many a years afterward, Argos destroys Mycenæ. know what she would say, and she didn't say. "I knew it wasn't handsome, but I wanted to She just took it to the light, sniffed, turned it over, sniffed, turned it back again, sniffed, held 2 My Girls. By Louisa M. Alcott. Roberts Brothers. 3 A York and a Lancaster Rose, By Annie Keary. Macmillan & Co. Co. The Cuckoo Clock. By Ennis Graham. Macmillan & One Happy Winter. By Mrs. S. S. Robbins. Lockwood, Brooks & Co. it up by its tail, sniffed, held it up by its head, another for Boys, are all pictures, save for a The Quinnebasset Girls 17 is no less entertainand then said 'cur'us!'" brief explanatory paragraph appended to each,ing, and a good deal better written, than Miss and will be particularly enjoyed by the lesser Sophie May's previous fictions of this class. It Lottie's Visit to Grandmama 6 is a simple, lights of the nursery. Narrative Poetry for the is a fresh little book, and its heroine, Emily well-bred English book which tells the tale of a Young 11 I is a well-chosen and illustrated col- Howe, is a really winning and natural creature, small maiden and her innocent small doings. The lection of ballads and lyrics, arranged so as to who does not use more slang than is inevitable illustrations of this little volume are very nice. include a wide range of subject and merit, from at her age and under her circumstances. There Some of them, as for instance, Lottie being car-"Lord Bateman" and "The Blind Beggar's are one or two points at which the story rises ried up to bed, on p. 42, have unusual grace and Daughter of Butenal Green," to "Coo, said the into true pathos, and a great many others little Dove" and "Pussy-cat Sat in the Servant's amusing enough to excite a hearty laugh, as for instance, when the grandmother falls ill, and a distant Dr. Rideout is sent for as cheaper than Dr. Prescott, close at hand, the messenger carrying out this spirit of laudable economy by telegraphing to the amount of a dollar and nine cents, as follows: merit. Another book of the same type, with the Amer-Hall." ican flavor instead of the English, is Real Boys and Girls. These books will be particularly enjoyed by little children, who like plenty of detail and to be led from point to point, with each step of the way clearly explained, and whose imaginations weary of enforced "jumps" even quickly than do their small feet. more Jack O'Lantern 12 is a story about Daisy and Artie and their happy summer in the country, and the goat carriage they saved money to buy, and the little boy who was made happy by the gift of it in the end. It is freshly and pleasantly written, and keeps, honestly and thoroughlyas, it is worth observing, do most of the children's books of this year-to the safe and legitimate sphere of a juvenile book, without resorting to sensation or love-making to produce an unwholesome interest. One occasionally sees a gingham-clad child, noble-looking enough to be a princess, and now and then we hear of a princess whose appearance befits grogram rather than royal ermine; the singular good-fortune is to find the royal mien and A very admirable tale for older boys and girls the royal robes combined. It is therefore with a is Moore's Forge, 13 which turns on the expepleasure enhanced by surprise, that we descry riences of a young husband and wife who begin our old favorite Hans Brinker, 8 best and most their married life in a rough mining village hidcharming of all juvenile stories which have ap- den away in the Adirondack region. It is a spirpeared on this side of the sea, glittering in the ited story, full of a hearty Christian teaching, brave garb with which the Messrs. Scribner have and so interesting that one can venture to prelately provided it, and in which it stands con- dict that the winter at hand will hear numerous fessed, a real prince of holiday volumes, properly petitions for leave to "just sit up and finish this dressed at last, but no more bewitching (how chapter," — petitions to which papas and mamcould it be?) than when it shone in plain ging-mas who have peeped into the pages themselves ham, and only deserved the royal robes at last will listen indulgently. accorded it. We wish all little people possessed just such a nice grandfather as old General Weitzel in the pretty story called Worth a Threepenny Bit.9 For, whenever Dolly, or Jenny, or Rob, or Dick, misconduct and get into trouble, which it must be confessed they do often and drolly, he stands their friend, and begs them off from the reminescent naggings of Bounce the housekeeper and the afflicting tendency to retrospect evinced by gentler grandmama. On the one occasion when he is forced to scold them himself, this is the way he does it, and it must be confessed an effective one: "You are not to get into a boat alone, that is fixed," the General said; "and don't get into any more such scrapes for the rest of the time we are here. You have made your grandmama and me very anxious. I am sure you are sorry for it, and so you ought. Mind, I shall trust you that this shall not happen again. I could have you looked after, but I don't think anything of people who have to be looked after, and can't be trusted; mind that, I don't think anything of them. Now go, and wish your grandmama goodnight, and off with you." The Picture Story Albums, 10 one for Girls and Lottie's Visit to Grandmama. By Brenda. E. P. Dutton & Co. Real Boys and Girls. By Mary C. Bartlett. Lockwood, Brooks & Co. 8 Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. By Mary Mapes Dodge. With 60 original illustrations. Scribner, Armstrong & Co. "Worth a Threepenny Bit. E. P. Dutton & Co. 10 Picture Story Album for Girls. By Mrs. Sala Barker. Picture Story Album for Boys. By Henry Frith. George Routledge & Sons. The Jimmy Johns 14 are a pair of very amusing little twins, so like one another that no outsider can discriminate Jimmy from Johnny, and they themselves might be at loss were it not for their mother's wholesome precaution of sewing blue and red "peppermints" on their respective underclothing, as a clue to identification; a plan which would answer admirably unless the twins happened to be changed at wash! The book which their history opens is full of the quaint humor and comprehension of the ways of little folks for which Mrs. Diaz is distinguished. It is droll to find two stories so nearly alike in subject, and yet so different, as Robert and Frederick 15 and Jack Granger's Cousin.16 Both are stories of school life, and of the influence of one boy over another, and in both cases the boys are relations; but one pair of cousins are English, the other American, and while Robert and Frederick has an old fashioned quaintness which reminds one of the days prior to Miss Edgeworth, Jack Granger is eminently a book of our own period. A hearty, sweet-natured book it is, and full of good lessons, and as the same can be said for its English pendant, either is recommendable as pleasant and wholesome reading for boys. 11 Narrative Poetry for the Young. George Routledge & Sons. 12 Jack O' Lantern. Robert Carter & Brothers. 13 Moore's Forge. Robert Carter & Brothers. "Dr. Rideout is dead and cannot come! He died suddenly, but has been suffering for some time with a nervous debilitary derangement of a functional character, accompanied by a cough. He leaves a wife and three children. I advise you to call in Dr. Prescott. Susan Giddings can go for him when she fetches this. DOZEM PAGE." one, and the book itself, which is the record of The idea of Six Little Cooks 18 is a capital intendence of an aunt, contains a good deal of a class of girls learning to cook under the supervaluable instruction. We should have preferred less sweet and more solid in the way of recipes: forty-seven kinds of cake seems a good many, and meringues might with advantage be replaced even for an American family; and lemon pies by rules for soup, savory-made dishes and nice preparations of plain food for every day consumption. The authoress is wise in insisting on extreme and dainty care in all processes of cookery, and it is satisfactory to notice an ample list of articles for sick-room diet. The appropriate motto for Miss Andrews's book about The Seven Little Sisters 19 would seem to be "God hath made of one blood all nations on earth." This seven-fold sisterhood is composed of children of different countries, a little Esquimau girl, a little Arabian, a little Chinese, and the threads which bind them into indirect relationship are very cleverly and prettily indicated and twisted together. One of the most diverting tales of the year is Betty and Her Cousin Harry,20 whose only fault is that some strict people may consider it too diverting for its destined use in a Sunday School Library. We predict that a good deal of secu lar giggling will take place over the chapter entitled "Betty's Seven Secrets." Another diverting story is Child Marian Abroad, 21-the record of a tiny American maiden in Europe, whose experiences are droll enough, from parlor-skating on the floors of the Quirinal to stuffing a pink-parasolled doll into a frigate's cannon, and presently seeing her fly into space like a rebellious Sepoy on the wings of a "salute." "SUSAN COOLIDGE." 17 The Quinnebasset Girls. By Sophie May. Lee & Shepard. 18 Six Little Cooks. Jansen, McClurg & Co. 19 Each and All; or, How the Seven Little Sisters who 14 The Jimmy-Johns. By Mrs. A. M. Diaz. James R. live on the Round Ball that floats in the air form their Sis- 15 Robert and Frederick. By Mrs. Sherwood. George Routledge & Sons. 16 Jack Granger's Cousin. By Julia A. Mathews. Roberts Brothers. 20 Betty and her Cousin Harry. American Tract Society. By Miss S. E. Chester. 21 Child Marian Abroad. By Mrs. M. F. Round. Lee & Shepard. THE LITERARY WORLD. BOSTON, JANUARY 1, 1878. Communications for the editorial department of the paper should be addressed to THE EDITOR OF THE LITERARY WORLD; for the business department to THE PUBLISHER OF THE LITERARY WORLD; P. O. Box 1183, Boston, Mass. Communications, to secure attention, must be accompanied by the name and address of the writer in full. For terms of subscription and advertising rates see the publishers' card upon the last page of reading matter. We are glad to send a specimen copy of the LITERARY WORLD free to any address. Our subscribers will confer a favor by furnish ing us with the names of such of their friends and acquaintances as would be likely to be interested in the paper, and whose attention we may properly call to it by this means. RESPONSE. Beside that milestone where the level sun, Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun, I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise, Half doubtful if myself or otherwise, Like him who, in the old Arabian joke, J. G. W. I THE DIDACTIC NOVEL. last year's list, not to go further back, novels WOULD like to see the relative character representing each of the three classes sugand standing of the "artistic" and "didactic" gested by these remarks; namely, those that story more clearly defined. It is now a practical are artistic without being didactic, those that fact that when a critic says of a book : This story is not artistic but didactic in its character," the are didactic without being artistic, and those great.majority of those who read his criticism that are both artistic and didactic in the best think that he means to say virtually that since this book is didactic it therefore belongs to a sense. The latter are decidedly in the mivery much lower class of literary work. I have nority, but we are happy to believe that their not the slightest objection to the term "didactic number is increasing. The field is one which fiction," but I have yet to learn why a story with a good or a noble purpose is inferior per se to the highest talent should not disdain to oca story that has no purpose at all. I have the cupy. The artistic sense is universal, and utmost respect for a story that is told for the sake in proportion as it is cultivated it becomes of its own beauty or interest. I delight in the flower that simply blooms and fulfills its mission a ready medium by which to reach the moral in blooming. But am I to despise a fruit tree be- nature. There can be no loftier aim than to cause its beautiful blossoms and exquisite fra- address and influence that nature, lifting it grance are to result in a useful fruit, and have that purpose? As a matter of fact are not the to higher ranges of activity and helping it plays, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, didactic on to nobler attainments. To do that clumin their character? In some aristocratic and fashionable circles you can scarcely say a worse sily and imperfectly, with crudeness of outthing against a man than that he works. It seems line and rawness of color, is better than not to me that just such a slur is often suggested to do it at all. But to do it skillfully and against a story by stating that it aims to be useful. powerfully, in outlines the truth of which all recognize, and in colors the harmony of which all feel, is better still. The writer of the above is the well-known author of some of the most popular "didactic novels" of the day, and his views are enWe therefore beg our correspondent and titled to great respect. But we think he en- others who read these words with him, not tirely misses the point which has lately been to misunderstand us. When we say of a raised in these columns, and elsewhere, re-story that "it is not artistic but didactic," specting the artistic quality in didactic fiction. we do not mean that it is unartistic simply beThe Literary World certainly has no slurs to cause it is didactic; or that simply because it cast against stories simply because they aim is didactic "it belongs to a lower class of to be useful. On the contrary we are pre-literary work." We have not "the slightest pared to maintain that, high as that art may objection to the term 'didactic fiction,'” but be which ends self-satisfied in its own per- we "have yet to learn why a story with a fection, that art is still higher which offers itself as an instrument of moral intentions, and seeks to do good while it strives to be true. If our readers have not learned already, they will learn sooner or later, that we have no tender words for novels that debase a fine literary method in the delineation of vice. But on the other hand we cannot heap praise upon novels that in the recommendation of virtue do not rise above a literary method that is poor. We must estimate a work of fiction on all its sides, as a whole, and not be blinded by any merits of its motive to the defects of its form. We do not think there is one reputable good and roble purpose" is on that account to be accorded the first rank, when it has missed some of the first principles of fiction, and is lacking in the essentials of a really artistic product. To point out what these principles and essentials are would be. easy, but we must leave that till another time. SPELING REFAURM. too bee maid moer simpl and moer neerly foenetic, but it iz bie noe meenz eequali eezi to sai hou it aut too bee chaingd. Faur mie part le am It is eezi eenuf to assurt that our speling aut shuer that a refaurm wil bee efektid, but hou it wil bee dun le am bie noe meenz preepaird to THE "Whittier Dinner," given in Boston by critic, scarcely even an intelligent reader, profesie. Aftur egzamining ai numbur of proe the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly to its con tributors, upon the poet's seventieth birthday, and in honor of it, was the literary event of the present season. The full account of it which we had hoped to publish in this number is unavoidably crowded out. The illustrious company, headed by Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, and Mr Whittier himself, numbering in all some sixty persons; the poems and speeches of congratulation, which followed the repast, by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. R. H. Stoddard, Hon. H. O. Hough ton, Mr. Howells, Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, and others; and the letters of affectionate tribute to the honored guest of the evening from Mr. Bryant, Mr. Stedman, Mr. Aldrich and many more of like distinction, who were unable to be present, combined to give peculiar dignity and beauty to the occasion. We reprint elsewhere some of the poems. poezd alfabetz Ie hav thaut best of the wun eezili comprehended. The vouelz aar reprezented hwich le am nou yoozing, az thee moest simpl and thus: a 0 as in on foe as in 66 66 aa at father 66 66 ое who believes, as our correspondent intimates ee c, ch, and g, always hard. It wil bee seen that in this skeem the vouelz and diegrafs aar aul yoozed with thee sound that thai nou moest aurdinairily hav. Ie thingk that noe wun wil egzpeerienz eni dificulti in reeding AARTHUR GILMAN. J' THE INDEX SOCIETY. UST after the close of the international Conference of Librarians in October, Mr. Robert Harrison, the librarian of the London Library for nearly one hundred and fifty years the store- spire the confidence that will encourage its labors house of so much that is curious and recondite in for many years. Nothing but mismanagement, it almost every department of knowledge. The next would seem, could make it fail of success. The kind would be indexes of subjects or of classes of people engaged in its organization, from their asliterature, like miscellaneous essays, ballads, po-sociations with libraries and acquaintance with which is the working library of the London liter-litical poems, etc. After such a book as Poole's the habits of investigators possess a knowledge ati, the use of the British Museum, whose books Index, there is probably no similar work so much of the general want, and the methods with which are not removed from the premises, being sup-needed now as a record of clues to the great va- that want can be met, to a degree that is necessary plemented in this lesser institution by the privi- riety of miscellaneous essays, which at present lie in the conductors of such an enterprise; and these lege of using the books at home-in considering almost unfindable in single volumes of composite circumstances give ground for the belief that the in the London Athenæum the work which the character, and in the collected works of authors. project will not stop with the inception. American Library Association, and its new-born Almost equally important is the marked treat- There is something fitting in the close connecaffiliated society for the United Kingdom, were ment of special subjects, component parts of tion of libraries with methods of publication for contemplating in a continuation of Poole's Index greater themes, which exist in separate chapters certain kinds of books; for those which are keys to periodical literature, threw out the idea of an of extended works, and which are so often lost to knowledge, and those which appeal to certain Index Society. The thought found a variety of sight of, as for instance, the chapter on Myths in classes of specialists. The publications of the responses. It seemed something like the endow Grote's History of Greece, and certain chapters in British Museum and the Bodleian get an imprimment of research. It seemed as if many a short Buckle. The more extensive labor to be done in this atur that creates confidence. The library of Harcut was made clear, and a sort of royal road to way admits, of course, of selections and abridg-vard College is about to make the press of the a great deal of learning, which was lying lost, was ments into hand-lists for this, that, or the other University something more than the producer of opened. Everybody knew of some book he was subject, which may become useful in the further- administration blanks and examination papers. constantly resorting to under necessity, but with ing of popular education. Then, again—and this recurring dissatisfaction at its want of an index. is by no means to be lost sight of- every item Everybody knew of some minor monograph he gathered for any one of these purposes will natuhad long searched for in vain. Everybody knew of some scientific paper he hoped to find, but the Royal Society's list with its arrangement by authors failed to guide him. Everybody knew of some items of use to him, buried somewhere in Allibone's padded volumes, whose indexes were only an aggravation, and were capital examples of what indexes should not be. To no one did the thought come home as to rally find its way into the grand consolidated cat- It is apparent that so broad a scheme cannot ticable, what they may have a right to expect Within the present century, a large part of that A few representatives of the principal libraries of Boston and Cambridge instituted a plan, a year or two since, of forming a combined list of serial scientific publications, whether journals or the memoirs and transactions of learned societies, which could be found in the chief libraries of this neighborhood—the Boston Public, the Athenæum, the American Academy, the Natural History, the College Library at Cambridge, and the several departmental libraries of the University-arranged in such a way that the consulter could see at a glance to which library he should resort for the paper of this or the other serial, which he might need to examine. The scheme broadened as the work of gathering the items went on; and it was finally remitted to the sole charge of Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, to make a complete list of all the scientific serials in whatever language, which have ever been published, or are now in course of issue. Such a list it was thought at first Mr. Henry B. Wheatley, who, as assistant libra-may judge from tangible results as early as pracrian of the Royal Society, lived in daily cognizance of the want of just the clues as such a society could furnish. Accordingly, when at the call of Mr. Harrison, a score or more of people interested in the project assembled in St. James Square, the secretaryship of the new organization naturally fell to Mr. Wheatley. This took place while the American delegation to the library con-able material of little popular interest, has been approximately existed in the preliminary cataference were on their way home, otherwise the done by societies, and they have done it well, be-logue, given in the Royal Society's Index ; but preliminaries of a similar society here might have cause they could command a chosen constituency Mr. Scudder, in his study of all attainable catabeen under consideration at the same time. The much better than the ordinary publishing houses. logues, and in his own work in the libraries not English Society has got the start, and it seems Halliwell-now Phillipps-the Shakespearian only of this vicinity, but in New York, Philadelbest to let it get fairly into operation, so as to commentator, who has printed a large number of phia and Washington, soon discovered how inadprofit by its experience, before a like organization tracts and books privately, has explained that this equate that list was, even for the serials of Great is attempted in this country; and in the mean- process of publication is not followed because of Britain; and his labors have resulted in a catawhile, it behooves all friends of varied learning to any exclusiveness of feeling; but because the cus-logue considerably greater in extent than any offer all the encouragement in their power to the tom of small editions and a definite patronage has transatlantic society, which finds in the Dunciad, enabled him, at the least risk and trouble, to seits amusing and suggestive motto: cure permanence for the material which he wished "How index-learning turns no student pale, to have preserved. It is doubtless true that but Yet holds the eel of science by the tail." for this select system, a very few of the valuable The work seems to be in good hands with such publications would have appeared, which we now names on the list as Professor Jevons, of Owen's owe to such clubs in Great Britain, as the RoxCollege, Mayor and Newton, of Cambridge, burghe, the Bannatyne, the Maitland; to the oriAshbee, the fac-similist, Francis Galton, Samuel ental Translation Fund; to such societies as the Timmins, the Birmingham Shakespearian, and | Hakluyt — whose material would be greater, if various others equally well known. The work competent editors could be found; the Surtees, they contemplate doing divides itself naturally into the Camden, the Parker, the Percy, the Caxton, classes. In the first place there is the making of the Arundel, and the rest. In this country we indexes to well-known books, which, at present, know how our historical annals have been beneeither lack or have incomplete keys of this kind; fited from the varied publications of the Massaas for example, many of the English County his-chusetts and other historical societies, and from tories, which also need a consolidated index of the entire series; the volumes of the Annual Register since 1818, that repository of contemporary historical data; the Gentlemen's Magazine from 1819, when its old index ceases, to the time of its changing its character, in 1872, after having been such clubs as the Narragansett and the Bradford, The Index Society will appeal to a clientage heretofore made. This list the Library of Harvard College now proposes to print. It will make an octavo volume of three hundred pages, and a portion of the edition will be printed on one side of the leaf only, so that the entries can be cut apart for insertion in the catalogues of libraries and learned societies. The project is one akin to those which the new Index Society, and the allied library associations on each side of the Atlantic, are now entertaining. They are all indications that the increase of the registry of knowledge in printed form demands new methods of treatment to prevent that waste of human application which comes from a neglect of existing resources, quite impossible to avoid in the present scattered and overlaid condition of accumulated knowledge. JUSTIN WINSOR. Errata, December number: p. 128, notes and queries, No. 40, for “Olive” read Clive ; p. 128, 3d column, for “Announcements" read Publications Received. |