To their attractive and convenient pocket series of American and English classics for school use, the Macmillan Co. adds a volume of selections from the poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes, edited by J. H. Castleman, with an introduction and notes.

The division of Poetry in Everyman's Library is enriched by the addition of Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in two volumes, and the Shorter Poems of William Wordsworth in one volume. This last is edited by Earnest Rhys, the general editor of the series. In the classical group of the same series we have Sir George Young's rendering in English verse of the Dramas of Sophocles, which was first published in 1888.

The dozen or more essays which make up Katharine Burrill's "Loose Beads" (E. P. Dutton & Co.) are piquant rather than profound. They are not concerned much with literature or philosophy, but with life and conduct, with simple and even homely themes,as may be guessed from some of their titles, Innocence and Ink, Chloe in the Kitchen, School Books Old and New, People who have Nothing to Do, etc. But they are sprightly, sensible and suggestive.

"Privately published" is not a commendatory introduction for poetry, although as all the world knows, there is "no money in it" for publisher or poet, even in the comparatively rare cases in which the world consents to regard it as published and does not leave it unpurchased and unread. "Surely," thinks the world, "no one would take upon himself the publish

er's drudgery without calling the attention of the elders of the guild to his wares, and surely they, the keen-eyed and wise, would discern any spark of merit lurking in his work and be eager to fan it to a flame to reflect lustre upon themselves. If they see naught meritorious, naught is there." And yet, "privately published" although Mr. Edward Gilchrist's "Tiles from the Porcelain Tower" may be, it requires very little courage to say that any publisher who refused it possibly erred even as to its market value, for it is a little book of genuine poems and sooner or later must be so acknowledged. They are not many, no more than one may read in an hour or two, and all are serious, for their author has no humor, not even enough to foresee that the trivial may misread him here and there, and all are ingenious. Having discerned a thought, he pursues it through all its possible windings, and notes all the graces along the way. Limitations he has, for he places Omar higher than St. Paul among the tellers of truth, but he is clear-eyed as far as he has been taught, is undeceived by popular clamor and renders true judgment in his verse on current questions; the world of nature finds in him one whom her marvels fill with strong delight, and he can sound a true note of patriotism although with flute and soft recorder, rather than with trumpet or bugle. The translations forming the last third of the book are excellent, and show rare power of adaptation. Here is one who might transfer the charm of Heine to English; some day, not perhaps so many years hence, he may find himself thought worthy of translation into German. The Book Room, No. 4, Park St.

Tumbles? What does a tumble matter? Down she goes with a crash and clat ter;

She has scraped her hand; she has barked her shin;

She has lost a lot of her precious skin; But she's up in a moment and off again,

With something more than a hint of

rain

In the dark eyes brimming to ease her pain.

There's a touch of the South
In her laughing mouth,

And the rich, deep flush of her rounded cheek,

And her hair with its tresses fine and sleek

That she flings about, with her tossing head

Set off and bound with the ribbon's red.

Books, books, books, and the longer the better,

She swallows them steadily letter by letter,

Line by line and chapter by chapter: Never was reader more solid or apter To win your praise for her scholarly

merit,

Or to learn a piece and to say it well With a voice that sounds like a silver

bell;

But her sums are woe, for she doesn't inherit

A taste for the multiplication table, And hasn't acquired it, and doesn't seem able

To face a collision
With long division:

Figures are things you'll fail to fix In the busy brain of this girl of six. And when you stow her away in bed She often stands on her impish head, Or slides to the floor till you send her back

With a great pretence at a sounding smack.

Out with the light!
Good-night, good-night!

One last hug-and she holds you
tight-

Good-night, Mollie, good-night, good

Before this note is published, not a little that is now obscure as to the probable outcome of The Hague Conference will be clear; perhaps what is here said will be in some degree obsolete. The Conference has met, notwithstanding much secret or indirect opposition and unfriendly predictions of failure; and that is much. Whatever comes of its deliberations, the assembling of some 200 representatives of more than forty nations, delegates of the whole civilized world, to discuss matters which have often brought about war, and which have hitherto been left to each State to determine as it thought fit, is a memorable event. No Congress in the past is comparable to it. If there is an exception, it is that of the Congress of Munster, at which were settled the tangled questions left by the Thirty Years' War. It made or ratified great dynastic and territorial changes. The Treaty of Westphalia, its work, was the foundation of the system of the balance of power. But it formulated no principles of public law. Of greatly more consequence than the present Conference from a political point of view was the Congress of Vienna. It did little, however, to develop international law. ΤΟ say nothing of the fact that that gathering of States was in the main a clearing-house of conflicting territorial claims, au exchange and mart of rival ambitions and covetousness, an effort to restore the irrevocable old order in Europe, this is an attempt, and among the first to be made, at constructive statesmanship on a large scale in regions in which wisdom has hitherto had small influence, and to give to the civilized world the expression of a sense of unity of which the Metter

We

nichs and Talleyrands knew little. Such a gathering cannot be dismissed as "fumisterie grave" or a mere exhibition of insincerity and hypocrisy. seem nearer to realizing the dreams of those who in times of darkness and tumult believed that the reign of law would one day govern the relations of nations. The speculations of Emeric Cruce, Leibnitz, William Penn, Kant and Bentham do not seem quite so visionary as they did.

That is not the only ground for satisfaction. The attitude of Germany proves to be not, as was predicted, one of irreconcilable hostility or obtrusive indifference. Her representatives are ready to take their full share of the work of the Conference and to do their best to make it fruitful. It is but right for Englishmen frankly to acknowledge this; so much is due as atonement for much unjust suspicion. With the proposal for disarmament Germany will have nothing to do; and unfortunately the policy pursued by England in regard to one vital matter justifies or excuses this decision. As to other matters, not unimportant, Germany is not to be obstructive but helpful. She has submitted an admirable proposal as to the constitution of Prize Courts; a proposal which agrees in some respects with that supported by England, and which, if accompanied by much needed changes in the procedure of such Courts, will have far-reaching effects. In regard to the subject of the capture of private property at sea, she might perhaps be induced to take a course which, unfortunately, England, it is to be feared, is not prepared to follow. As to what this country means to do there has been a strange silence. The Government have declined to answer

questions on the subject put to them in the House of Commons. The rumor runs-it may now be taken to be certain that our representatives are instructed not to agree to the exemption of private property from capture. The United States are in favor of it. Italy is pledged to it. England blocks the way. This is deplorable for many reasons. Even if the fate of her proposal as to disarmament had been doubtful, her decision as to private property must have sealed its fate. Naval disarmament and exemption of such property from capture hang together. The most plausible justification of the increase of the fleet of Germany is the necessity of protecting her marine commerce, upon the expansion of which her people have set their hearts. For England to propose the one without acceding to the other is to give color to a charge of insincerity or want of coherence in the English programme.

Two things make the decision particularly regrettable. I do not doubt that the matter was carefully considered by the Inter-departmental Committee which prepared the English programme. But it is questionable whether it was viewed with an eye to all contingencies, including that of war with France or the United States, as well as with Germany. Germany has been too much and too exclusively thought of. The desire to "smash" her mercantile marine has counted for too much. The second cause for regret is that the opportunity which now exists of settling this question in a rational manner may not return. Opinion on the Continent is moving, and not, it must be owned, altogether in the direction which the true friends of England would desire. In other countries the party which thinks that she would be the chief gainer by the change and would become less vulnerable than at present is increasing. France is not to

be relied upon to take the course which her best jurists have advocated. Even in Washington the traditional American policy is not quite safe. A great opportunity has been lost. England has not risen to the height of the occasion.

The question of the right of capture of private property at sea has been of late much discussed. Has the controversy revealed any new reasons for abiding by the old policy? I do not think so. I note contemptuous references to those who question it as simpletons, superficial inquirers, ignorant of the history of war and commerce; the true knowledge of critics generally proving on close inspection to be acquaintance with Admiral Mahan's volumes or with some passages in Macpherson's "History of Commerce." There is the usual assumption that impatience at all restrictions on force implies strength and penetration of judgment. There is, too, the familiar refutation of arguments rarely advanced by rational advocates of exemption with the same evasion of those actually put forward. There are the usual contradictory assertions-for example, that the present practice is much the same as to property on land as on sea, and that there are good reasons for the existence of differences. There is the erroneous assumption, made even by writers of weight, such as Admiral Mahan, that only the property of the subjects of belligerents is confiscated by the belligerent; such is the system which is defended; it is a controversial fiction; that which exists and is attacked is one under which property and rights of subjects of neutrals (contraband altogether apart) in ships and cargoes are also to a large extent exposed to capture. In recent literature there is, too, the assumption that maritime commerce carried on by belligerents is to their profit only, and that its stoppage or interruption does not injure