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side the Bonnie Brier Bush," Ian Maclaren has sent into the world a second volume of sketches of Drumtochty life—The Days of Auld Lang Syne—a work characterized by the same mingling of humor and pathos, the same skill in portraiture, and the same keen insight into human character—that is, Drumtochty human character—which distinguished his earlier volume. As the title suggests, the pathetic element predominates; but if "the sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought," so often are the sweetest stories. And in these degenerate days, it is a relief to find something simple, wholesome, and genuine.
Stevenson's unfinished tale "Weir of Hermiston" will appear first in three numbers of Cosmopolis, the promising new London Magazine to be edited by M. Fernand Ortmans, Andrew Lang, Henry Norman, Emile Faguet, and Julas Lemaitre.
Dodd, Mead & Co., will publish Miss Beatrice Harridan's new story of California life.
MacMillan & Co. have just issued Mr. Douglas Sladen's "A Japanese Marriage," which has had a run in England almost equal to that of Trilby. Mr. Sladen is reported to be an advocate of Hedonism and the new woman, and the book will doubtless prove to be entertaining if nothing more.
A Parable.—The little cheese mites held debate as to who made the cheese. Some thought that they had no data to go upon, and some that it had come together by a solidification of vapor, or by the centripetal action of atoms. A few surmised that the platter might have something to do with it; but the wisest of them could not deduce the existence of a cow. From Conan Doyle's Stark Munro Letters.
Alfred Austin, poet, novelist, critic, and journalist, has been appointed Poet Laureate by the Queen, an office that has been vacant since the death of Tennyson October 6, 1892. Alfred Austin was born in Headlingly, near Leeds, May 30, 1835.
His father was a merchant and magistrate of the borough of Leeds, and his mother was a
sister of Joseph Locke, the eminent civil engineer. Both his parents being Roman Catholics, he was sent to Stonyhurst College, and afterwards to St. Mary's College, Oscott. He took his degree at the University of London in 1853, and in 1857 he was called to the bar of the Inner Temple.
The publication, although anonymously, of a poem entitled "Randolph," when he was eighteen, showed the bent of his disposition, and it may be said, on the authority of Mr. Austin himself, that he ostensibly embraced the study of law in deference only to the wishes of his parents, and from his earliest years was imbued with the desire and determination to devote his life mainly to literature. Publishers Weekly.
Here are the titles of some of the publications of the last few months:
In glancing over the bulletins issued by the various publishing companies, one cannot fail to be impressed by the predominance of alliterative titles. Even the authors of profound scientific treatises indulge in the frivolity of poetic labels for their books.
In the Hollow of the Hills; Later Lyrics; Courtship by Command; The Christian's Consciousness; Nymphs, Nixies and Naiads; Studies in Structure and Style; Methods of Mind-Training; Earth's Enigmas; Archaeology and Antiquities; A Man of Two Minds; A Pitiless Passion; Mammy Mystic; The Rod, the Root and the Flower; Mind and Motion and Monism; Leaves of the Lotus; Sister Songs.
D. Appleton & Co. are to publish Mme. Sarah Grand's forthcoming volume. The title is not yet announced, but she describes the story as the unfolding of a life. She prefers to have it read without a break, and has declined all offers for serial publication in England and America.
Thos. Y. Crowell & Co. will bring out a carefully revised translation of Scheffel's Ekkehard. The volume has been pronounced a gem of bookmaking. It contains an introductory biographical sketch of Scheffel, and all the annotations of (the 138th German edition).