The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-12-09
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

n Whether it be put in the form of ro-
nance or of history, every person of any
cultivation finds pleasure in the study
of the women of famous courts and
regimes that have passed before his day
ana generation Will some American
Dumas one day give to us : the secret in
trigues of the women of Washington's,
Jefferson's or Jackson's administrations,
and to future generations the. inside his
tory of Harrison's or Cleveland's, of
which we are profoundly ignorant Per-
haps we should be surprised TO know how
much is brought about at the national
capital by the wiles, the graces, the fas-
cinations and the wisdom of ladies, whose
names do not figure in the official re-
ports or the Congressional Record. The
la st to come to our desk of the Women
of Versailles" is The Court of Louis XIV
by Imbert de Saint Armand, translated,
and well translated. by Elizabeth Gilbert
Martin, with portrait of Marie Licziska,
wife Of Louis. The time extends from
1715 to 1868. The gallery ranges from
Madame Louise of France. the Carme-
lite. to Madame ubany, the courtesan,
and the Marquise de Pompadour, the
intriguer, the female minister, the
statesman. There were good and bad
some better, but no worse than the
king himself. The Court of Louis XIV,
by Imbert de Saint-Armand. New
York: Charles Scribners' Sons; Portland:
Loring, Short & Harmony
A Prcatical Introduction to Latin Prose
Composition, by Thomas Kirehner
Arnold, late Head Master of Rugby,
England. Corrected and revised from
the first American edition by G.. E.
MulhoIland, formerly Professor of
Languages in the R. G. High School,
Philadelphia. Such is the title of a
little book of four hundred pages, which
commends itself to the reviewer. 1t
is pleasant to see some symptoms that
Latin is being taught in the schools of
this country There is common i'm
preston that it has been always taught
there, but we know to contrary. 1t is
true that boys in the preparatory schools
and colleges has been set the task which
they have, with more or less fidelity per-
formed of grinding out, with the aid of
grammar and lexicon, certain number
of lines of an grafton, an ode or satire,
and rendering in a class room very good
Latin into very bad English; but how
many of our college graduates have
ever learned: the language i'm this way.
How many of them have ever risen to
the rhetorical splendor of Cicero, firted
and Toasted with Horace. swung the
lash with Juvenal, philosophical with
Lucretius, strayed with Ovid, donned
the sock with Terence and snapped their
fingers with Martial? How many, after
devoting seven or eight years to the
study of it, couldsssit down and write
letter in Latin that would not make
even the dog laugh? Our teachers have
called it a dead language, and have APP
peared to consider it SO stone dead as
to be altogether beyond any hope of
vitalizing.
This elementary book gives the student
some idea of idiomatic Latin, and we
are glad to see it in our schools. (New
York and Cincinnati, Chicago: Ameri-
can Book Company; Portland: Loring,
Short & Harmon.
The name of Wilhelmine Won Hillern
is not unknown in this country, where
the translations of several of her stories
have been well received. The last one
that has come to our notice, On the
Cross, is manual of the Passion Play
at Oberammergau. and is as intense as
the foundation of it would indicate. 1t
is the story Of a young and beautiful
widow, of noble family, of lofty mind
and high intellectual attainments,
whose religious and emotional nature
is deeply stirred by witnessing the cele-
DRAFTED Passion play. She falls desperately
in love with thespeasant who represents
the Christ, and is secretly married to
him. But she seems to have loved him
as the representative of divinity, and
when she discovers the clay in his COM
position, disgust succeeds to the passion
which is curiously mingled with her
sanity devotion, and she neglects him
and their child. The child dies. and
through her harshness her husband ia
led to refuse her further assistance.
and returns, beggar, to his native
village. She learns of his distress. and
that he is again to play the Christ.