he read on (old anglers are proverbially persevering), and presently reached "An Angler's Notes on the Beaver Kill," by Benjamin Kent, and found things he could understand. They were the honest notes of a judicious and observant angler who loves his own river. Such are always interesting to other "anglers and very honest men," and keep their value. Mr. Annin's "Winged Enemies of Trout" is also good and unpretentious, and useful are both the late Mr. Cheney's "Trout Propagation" and Mr. Rhead's "Cooking Brook Trout." "Along a Trout Stream" gives the benediction to the whole book. Mr. L. F. Brown is one of those who have learned what fishing is for, who sees clearly "because the spirit is truth."

Just what the young angler would wish in a trout-book the writer has forgotten-more's the pity. But the old angler keeps thinking what an acceptable little duodecimo Mr. Russell might have made of the matter from page 105 on, without the pictures. L. M. Y.

A NEW EDITION OF "HISTORIC WATERWAYS"

"TW

WO hundred miles by river," says Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, "are more full of the essence of life than 2,000 by rail," and the people who read his Historic Waterways on its first appearance twelve years ago were convinced that he was right, and will be glad to see the little book in a new and illustrated edition.

There is no pretention about this narrative of three river voyages. It is a simple account of what was seen, what happened, and who were met by two people travelling on the Wisconsin and Illinois rivers by canoe. On two of the journeys Mr. Thwaites's wife was his companion,

DOWN HISTORIC WATERWAYS. Reuben Gold Thwaites. A C. McClurg & Co., 12mo, $1.20 net.

THE

NAN'S PERFORMANCES

HE contents of Mr. Long's eighty-six chapters are indicated in the same manner used by Max O'Rell in his books of observation concerning men and things, i.e., sensationally: "My Savage Aunt Izzy," "The Pink Tip of Nan's Finger," "Damn Those Wasp-waisted Counts!" Suppose Nan had to be Saved by Telegraph?" "If Porphory Were to Shoot Himself, He'd be DeadMaybe," "Yere's an Attractive Little Filly," "Nan Always Kissed Me before. -but-" "If I Were an Archangel I Could not put that Ring Back," "And My Arms Opened-and Closed upon Nan."

Nan was the narrator's cousin, whose Aunt Izzy wished her to be "saved" from her train of adorers for the English clergyman to whom she was apportioned when a child. "Remember Cawdor" is the refrain running through the book when Nan does anything of which her husband-to-be would not approve. Many of the conversations take place in front of a curtain-represented in the colored frontispiece-behind which Nan and her aunt in turn play eavesdropper. The end is foreordained, but it is a long time coming. Four hundred pages of such material are by far too many.

NAUGHTY NAN. By John Luther Long. The Century Co., 12mo, $1.50.

644.-(1) I should be glad to know whence comes this line:

"The tenth transmitter of a foolish face."

(2) And also the author of these lines:

"Some die, yet never are believed;

Others we trust too soon,

Helping ourselves to be deceived,
And proud to be undone."

(3) I remember reading that Dr. Johnson pronounced a certain passage from some poem or play to be superior to anything in Shakespeare. Can you or any reader tell me what passage it was?

D. C.

(1) The line is from a poem written by Richard Savage (1697-1743) and addressed to the Countess of Macclesfield, whom he claimed as his mothér.

(2) This stanza is from a song by Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701).

(3) It was from the play of "The Mourning Bride," by William Congreve (1670-1729). Almeria meets in a cathedral her husband Alphonso, whom she had supposed to be dead, and the passage in question is a part of what she says to him. This is it:

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads
To bear aloft its arched and ponderons roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe

And terror on my aching sight. The tombs

And monumental caves of death look cold,

And shoot a chillness to my aching heart.

Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear

Thy voice-my own affrights me with its echoes,"

645.-Will you please inform me concerning the literary standing of James Fenimore Cooper? Is he a classic author, and what place is given to his works by the men of letters to-day?

G. E. N.

It does not lie in the power of the literary men of to-day either to give a place to Cooper or to withhold it. His best works have made their own place and are not likely to lose it so long as there are novel-readers. Much fault may be found with his literary technique; but the wide and persistent popularity of his Leather-Stocking tales and Sea tales makes them classic in spite of every defect.

646. I should like to know how to write with exactness the title of Smollett's last novel. Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," the "Britannica," "Chambers," and "American" cyclopædias, and the "Dictionary of National Biography" all have it uniformly "Humphrey Clinker.' Í have seen three editions of the book (all English, but none the first edition) in which it is uniformly

648.-Can you tell me who wrote this, or in what book it may be found: "When the literary character shall discover himself to be like a stranger in a new world, where all that he loved has not life, and all that lives had no love for old age, when his ear has ceased to listen, and Nature has locked up the man within himself, he may still expire amidst his busied thoughts. Such aged votaries, like the old bees, have been found dying in their honeycombs."

C. F.