The Portland daily press., 1880-04-24

Gilman's admirable edition has lately placed
them within the reach of every reader. Mr.
Ward observes very finely their quality, en-
tirely medieval in its want of perspective and
its defances of time, place and circumstance.
He also comments admirably upon the vivacity
partly due to the tone of his time, but in far
greater degree to his own warmth of heart and
fancy--with which Chaucer sides with or
against the persons of his stories. His mirth,
his satire, his tenderness are brilliant and un-
failing. His voice was like the first bird of the
dawn, a cry of happy awakening, and unfor-
gotten in the clamor and splendor Of the later
noon.
Masterpieces of English Literature. By
William Swinton. CNew York: Harpers;
Portland: Loring, Short & Harmony. This is
a large and attractive volume of readings for
the use of schools, selected from the works of
the masters of English letters, from Shaks-
peare to our own time. With equal judgment
and modesty, Professor Swinton has chosen to
take the critiques VIII ich form the preludes to
the various ,selectons from such authors as
Scott, Macaulay, Taine, Thackeray, Hazlitt,
Bayard Taylor, Whittier and others. These
comments have of course great authority and
value. Prof. Swinton explains words which
might puzzle the student, and suggests fire.
quent literary analysis. This last trait appears
less useful for the truest and most natural way
to understand literary beauty is by almost un-
conscious sympathy, unattainable by picking
the verse to pieces-as one destroys a rose,
petal by petal till its golden heart is left bare.
AS aYamplQ Vlapaa ot no
notes, like birdlime spread to hinder the
flight of Shelley's skylark. If the student can
not feel the watt of the weightless wings, and
delight in the swift, keen motion of the song
glad as Ariel set free-it is no use for Profess
sor Swinton to inquire ''What are the princi-
pal characteristics of this lyric?'' an en-
thusiastic reply appended lest the scholar
make mistake. and say ''didactic propriety and
epic grandeur" or "quite too awfully sweet
Hail to thee. blithe spirit,
Bird thou never vert!
cries Shelley. And Professor Swinton-who
never was bird and apparently doesn't know
how it feels-asks his class "What kind Of
sentence, grammatically considered, is the
first stanza?" 1t is with no disrespect to Pro-
fessor Swinton. who is gentleman of literary
taste and attalnments and thorough scholar
that the PRESS submits its belief that youth
who could be made to consider Shelley's Sky
lark dramatically, would better take Watts
on the Mind as a more congenial parsing ex-
ercise, where he would not be perplexed with
flights of Imagination which lead to such men,
dacity as the statement that a lark never was
a bird. And when we listen, unbreathing, to
catch the far-off notes as they fall like stars
from the immessurable heights of air, what
shall it profit us to know that "this sentence is
an example of that form of antithesis to which
the name antimeta6ole is sometimes given"
And again, the scholar is politely requested to
enumerate the particular objects suggested as
the possible sources of the "birds happy
strain" He will have some difficulty to re-
count the delicate joys of the lark if he be the
unimaginative youth provided for in these
suggestive foot notes. But anon sounds a
warning note, apropos of line 122 of the De-
serted Village:
Observe the true touch in this line but does
it mean that e0ery cloud laugh" indicates ''a
vacant mind"
No! a thousand times, no, Professor Swim
ton. If the PRESS has been left to laugh at
your ingenious comments, it is not all to make
sport for its readers, for the lack Of consider
ate appreciation of an exceedingly well Sc
lected volume of standard reading-but to en-
force with jestng the truth that love Of litera-
ry beauty is not thing of rhetoric OR analysis
it grows with all natural things, slowly, un-
forced, under all sweet influences.
Capt Fracasse. By Theophile Gautier.
Translated from the French by Ellen Murray
Bean. (New York: G.. P. Putnam's Sons;
Portland: Loring, Short & Harmony This is
a brilliant and eventful story OF France under
Louis Kill, an example of the genuine ro-
nance, full of knightly adventures and thrill
ing episodes such as is not often found in the
languid, analytical novel which is the fashion
of this century. The hero, Comte de Sigognac,
is French Edgar of Ravenswood, and his
mouldering castle and faithful Pierre recall
vividly the decayed splendor of the Scottish
tower, and the ingenious fidelity of the old
Caleb Balderstone. A troop of strolling play
ers take refuge from a sudden storm in the cas-
te and for love of one of the actresses Isabelle,
the Count leaves his desolate home, and un-
der the name of Captain Fracasse, becomes a
but it contains some very disagreeable episodes
and is by no means fully to be commended.
The translation is admirable conveying the
grace of the original into natural and elegant
English 1t is fairly comic to see Mr.. Henry
James's praise of this novel printed conspicu-
ously upon its covers-the active and decidedly
sensational quality of the story is so directly
opposed to his own theories of novel writing as
expressed in practice.
Health and Health Resorts. (Philadelphia a:
Porter & Coates) is volume written by DR..
John Wilson, late Medical Inspector of Camps
aud Hospitals in the U. S. Army. 1t is made
up of descriptions of the various mineral
springs and other health resorts of Europe and
| their various efficacy for invalids.
| Messrs. d. Appleton of New York publish a
very handsome and convenient edition in one
| volume of Nine. de Remusat's Memoirs. 1t is
| easily understood that these memoirs, throw.
ing so novel and brilliant a light upon the So
cial and political events of the Court of Napo
| leon, should have proved one of the literary
successes of the year; and that the public de-
1
mand for it has necessitated many editions o.
various styles, of which this is one of the best
Mrs. Francis Hodgson Burnett's Louisiani
New York: Scribners; Portland Loring, Shor
& Harmony which has appeared in Scribner'
Magazine during the past year-is in some re
spects the best of the authors stories. 1t ha
not the commanding power of her Lass o
Lowrie; but she has drawn no character with 81
firm and tender touch as that of Louisiana's
father: and the action of the novel, which il
quite limited, is direct simple and original
Few episodes in fiction are moro touching thai
the scenes where Louisiana's father tries te
rearrange his household to conform to th'
more cultivated tastes of his daughter; and he
contrtion for her discomfort is full of pathos
The ending of the story is rather weak; thu
reader has not learned to care enough for thu
hero to feel that his return is consolation fol