se, and is exquisitely gotten up.

W. H. H.

BRUNHILDE; OR, THE LAST ACT OF NORMA. By Pedro A. De Alarcon.
Translated by Mrs. Francis J. A. Darr. With Portrait of the Author.
311 pp. Cloth, $1.00. New York: A. Lovell & Company. 1891.

Mrs. Darr has translated this work of the Spanish novelist with fidelity
and skill. It is an interesting story, with an unusual plot and a
dramatic climax, and it is told in a peculiar style, which gives to it a
distinctive charm. A good portrait of the author is given as a
frontispiece.

W. H. H.

TRIFET'S HARMONIZED MELODIES. Arranged by Charles D. Blake. 256 pp.
Paper, 60 cents. Boston: F. Trifet. 1892.

Four hundred songs, sacred and secular, comic and sentimental, pathetic
and humorous, are given in this collection, so harmonized and arranged
that they may be played upon the piano or organ or sung with or without
accompaniment. Every variety of song is given, and every one will find
in the book something suited to his taste. The arranger has done his
work well, and the music printer has made the book an attractive one.
The selections range from "Old Folks at Home" and the "Sweet By and By"
to "Comrades" and "Annie Rooney," and the price of the book, considering
the quantity of music it contains, is remarkably low. It will
undoubtedly have an extensive sale.

W. H. H.

A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA. By Bret Harte. 301 pp. Cloth, $1.25.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1892.

The charm of Bret Harte's stories lies in their originality of
conception, their well-defined local color, and the chaste richness of
their literary style. The power to pique one's interest to the last page
belongs to Mr. Harte above all other writers of stories of American
life. His latest book has all the good qualities of its predecessors. It
tells a perfectly natural story of life in California. The hero is a
newspaper man; the other characters are a man who makes a big "strike"
in land, and becomes suddenly rich, his two daughters, a newspaper
proprietor with an axe to grind and a secret love, a beautiful and rich
Boston widow, and a civil engineer. The denouement is startling, being
none other than the wiping out by a flood of the town which made the
rich man's fortune, and the lesson of the story is the suddenness with
which in the West riches have been made, and also lost.

L. F.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

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