Literary Notes

LITERARY NOTES.

It is a curious fact that the Magazine of American History has been obliged to print a third edition of its July number to meet the extraordinary demand for its eight introductory "War Studies." The articles on the Seventh regiment of New York have created no little comment.

Geo. Manville Fenn has written an old-time story called "Sweet Mace," which Messrs. Cassell & Company have nearly ready. The scene is laid in England two hundred and fifty years ago when men and women were pretty much as they are today though they did not have telephones and Atlantic cables. "Sweet Mace" has been pronounced by those who have read the Ms. to be the best book Mr. Fenn has written. He describes the Sussex of James I., as it has never been described in fiction. His narration belongs to the past, his description to the present. He has a real story to tell and the reader be he English or American will be charmed by the life and picturesqueness Mr. Fenn has crowded into every page.

The first arrow shot from the Quiver this month, is an account of the winner of the Quiver's first silver medal offered for heroic conduct. The theological papers of this number are "How Joseph's Dreams Were Fulfilled," by the Rev. A. Boyd Carpenter; "What is Proper Spirit," by J. Huie; "The Mount of the Lord," by Rev. Mark Guy Pearse; "Servant, and yet Lord," by Rev. T.M. Morris, and the second and concluding paper on the "Revised Version of the Old Testament," by the Dean of Canterbury. Among other interesting papers we find one on "The Poetry of Old Ruins," "In the Shadow of the Alps Two Centuries Ago," by Lady Laura Hamilton. The Quiver has come to be a most welcome visitor--Cassell & Company, Limited, New York. Price $1.50 a year in advance.

The American Nation has a double birthright -- liberty and land. Its liberty it has guarded jealously, but until very recent years it seems to have been indifferent to the loss of landed estate and ignorant of the methods by which it has been diminished. A veteran legislator, the Hon, George W. Julian, who has given special attention to the acts disposing of our public lands, tells the story in brief in a contribution to the North American review for August. In the same number five medical authorities discuss the question, "Can Cholera be Averted?" Felix L. Oswald contributes a suggestive article on "The Animal Soul"; and the Rev. M.J. Savage, in "A Profane View of the Sanctum," brings an indictment against the daily press. The other articles are one on "Temperance Reform Statistics," by Prof. J W. Beecher, and the chapter of "Comments," by various writers, on articles in previous numbers.

harper's Magazine for August is a brilliant mid-summer number. It opens (***) A. Abbey, illustrated a quaint poem by Austin Robinson, entitled "A Love Song." Very bright and seasonable is Mrs. Sandham's article, "A Trip on the Ottawa," which is beautifully illustrated by her husband. Mr. J. C. Beard's "Decorative Sentiment in Birds" is not only a handsomely illustrated article -- containing seven pictures in Mr. Beard's best style -- but full of novel and curious information. edwin A Curley contributes a timely article on the "Social Democrats in the Reichstag," which shows the recent remarkable development of socialism in Germany, and is illustrated with portraits of the most prominent parliamentary leaders of the movement -- Bebel, Liebknect, Vollmar, Auer, Hasenclever, and Viereck. The article on English and American railways is very entertaining, affording characteristic subjects for some very effective pictures by Reinhardt, McCutcheon, and Alfred Parsons.