on Ribot, illustrated by fac-similes of the powerful work of one
whom M. Veron unhesitatingly ranks among the greatest names in modern
French art. There is both literary and artistic interest in the
engravings after pen-and-ink sketches made by Victor Hugo, showing that
the poet is able to throw his personality and wonderful imagination into
an art which he did not practise till pretty late in life, and then
simply as a recreation and without attempting to master its technique.
Victor Hugo is stamped as plainly upon these drawings--made, not by line
and rule, but by following up the ideas suggested by the direction of a
blot of ink--as on the pages of his most deliberate works. In offering
homage to the poet _L'Art_ does not depart from its line, which embraces
art in its manifold forms. The newest products of the stage are
discussed as well as those of the studios, and contemporary literature
is reflected in more ways than one in its pages.

Mrs. Beauchamp Brown. (Second No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts
Brothers.

Were this story as good as its name or half as good as some of the
undeniably clever things it contains, it might be accepted as a very
fair book of its kind. It was written with the evident intention of
saying brilliant and witty things; but this brilliance and wit sometimes
miss their effect, as, for instance, on the very first page, where Dick
Steele's famous compliment is bestowed upon Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
instead of the Lady Elizabeth Hastings. We might mention other thwarted
attempts, which give much the same jar to our sensibilities as when some
one thinks to afford us pleasure by singing a favorite air out of tune.
The facility with which the characters are transported from the ends of
the earth to meet at a place called Plum Island surpasses any trick in
legerdemain. Unless we had read it here we should never have believed
that life on the coast of Maine could be so exciting, so cosmopolitan in
its scope, so thrilling in its incidents. There is a jumble of
notabilities--leaders of Boston and Washington society, a Jesuit Father,
an English peer, a brilliant diplomatist on the point of setting out on
a foreign mission, a Circe the magic of whose voice and eyes is
responsible for most of the mischief which goes on, Anglican priests, a
college professor, collegiates, at least one raving maniac, beautiful
young girls and representative Yankee men and women. From this company,
most of who