tion of Yun-nan-Sen is interesting, and in view of the unrest in the south his account of the conduct of the mandarins is only what one would expect. As M. François is the French consul at Lang-Chau, special interest attaches to his account of his squabbles with the local viceroy on the subject of the likin exactions, when he was accused of importing arms contrary to treaty obligations.

FRANCE AND GERMANY.

It seems only the other day that the powerful intellect of Friedrich Nietzsche was extinguished; and now we have, prepared by M. Lichtenberger, an analysis of his judgments on France and Germany. The philosopher was better known and certainly more popular in France than in his native country. This is largely due to the fact that, on the morrow of the Franco-German War, he had the courage to extol the imperishable grandeur of French genius, and at the same time to attack with bitterness that German culture of which his compatriots were so inordinately proud. He passed with the great public as one who despised everything that a good German reveres, as the enemy of religion, morals, and Fatherland; in fact, as a dangerous madman, whose extravagances people did not even discuss. Gradually, however, his influence made itself felt in Germany. But M. Lichtenberger explains that his diatribes against the Germany of to-day must not be taken too literally; and, moreover, it would be well if Frenchmen had no illusions as to the exact nature of the opinion he professed for them. He did not believe at all in the absolute superiority of France over Germany; he predicted that the twentieth century will be an era of gigantic struggles for the leadership among the different European nations. Although he wisely abstained from prophesying which would be the victor, it is nevertheless pretty clear that he did not regard France. as an organized nation, to be very strong; indeed, he observed in modern France the disquieting symptoms of anarchy. He seems to have shared the belief of most of his compatriots in the decadence of the French race, thoughand in this he differs from his compatriots-he did not regard that decadence as necessarily an inferiority. Just as in autumn the leaves of the trees turn yellow and fall, only to grow green again in spring, so the decadence of a people may be a necessary prelude to a transformation leading to a new and higher life. From that point of view, the words "decadence" and "corruption" are unjust.

OTHER ARTICLES.

Among other articles may be mentioned an exceedingly interesting study by General Dragomiroff of the famous Marshal Suvaroff, whose memory was recently honored in Russia. M. de Roussiers contributes some remarkable statistics on the commercial growth of Hamburg-a striking illustration of the enormous strides taken by German commerce. M. Corday has a well-written article on the characteristics of village life in France, which appears to have passed through a process somewhat similar to that which has depopulated the villages in England; while M. Houllevigue writes upon the place which machinery takes in modern society.

THE

NOUVELLE REVUE.

HE Nouvelle Revue is adopting the American sys tem of many short articles, there being twelve contributions in the first October number and nine in the second. With the exception of Captain Gilbert's interesting but highly technical analysis of the Transvaal campaign, the Anglo-Boer War is not touched upon, and international politics are conspicuous by their absence. The place of honor is given to M. SaintSaëns, the famous French composer, who contributes some curious pages on spiritualism and materialism, as explained and set forth by Hirn and Buschner.

NIETZSCHE'S VIEW OF WOMEN.

Foreign thought and foreign science are attracting more and more notice in France, and M. Grappe contrives to give his compatriots a clear account of woman according to Nietzsche. The German philosopher is believed by many people to have been a profound misogynist. According to the French critic, this is quite a mistake; and, far from disliking or despising womanhood, he in one of his works observed: "The perfect woman is a far higher type of humanity than the perfect man; but then the perfect woman is far rarer than is the perfect man." His theory as to the education of girls appears in these days quite old-fashioned. He would wish to see every budding woman educated and trained by her own mother; he dislikes women's colleges and girls' schools. "Whatever you do," he said, "do not masculinize the education of your girls." He considered women gifted with extraordinary intuition. On the other haud, he wished that those who became the apostles, the masters of the world, should remain single.

WHO WAS THE REAL DAUPHIN?

M. d'Orcet once more puts the question, Was the child who died in the Temple Prison really Louis XVII.? He answers this all-important question in the negative, and declares quite positively that the boy whose martyrdom is the most ignoble and horrible incident of the great French Revolution was, to the full knowledge of Marie Antoinette and of Louis XVI., a child who, though he may not have known it himself, was only playing a part-the true dauphin having been confided to a Scotch retainer, who finally took him to Canada, from whence he never returned, but lived and died under the name of Rion.

RUSSIAN PHILANTHROPY.

M. Raffalovich contributes to the second number of the Revue a most interesting and instructive article on that portion of the Russian section at the exhibition dealing with Russian private and political philanthropy. According to this writer, the British workingman might well envy his Russian brother, whose government watches over him with paternal solicitude, and provides him with an excellent lodging at cost price; while his mind is as little neglected as his body, there being many institutions which have for their object the intellectual and moral development of the worker. It may surprise many to learn that in Russia drunkenness has in a great measure decreased, owing to the determined action of the government, which has now for nearly 100 years monopolized the sale of spirits.

I

T is the custom of the publisher to issue some of his finest books at the holiday season; and, to the end that they may be made as attractive as possible, he plans to have them embellished, inside and out, with illustrations, head-bands, endpapers, and decorative covers. Much thought, originality, and technical skill are required in the production of these illustrations and covers, and the problems which confront the artist, and the mechanical processes employed to render his designs are worthy of a little consideration.

Volumes in which the subject-matter is mainly pictorial make admirable Christmas books; such are Gibson's Americans, Wenzell's The Passing Show, and Nicholson's Characters of Romance.

Appleton's have printed an édition de luxe of David Harum on plate paper, the type in black ink, with vignette and full-page illustrations in sepia ink; the figure subjects being by B. West Clinedinst, and the landscape vignettes and the chapter heads by C. D. Farrand. The public recently had the privilege of seeing the Clinedinst drawings at Keppel's, and these drawings proved that the artist was able to place himself in sympathy with the rural characteristics of David and his friends; and that his pen technique is virile in a time when many artists are forsaking the line for the more easily manipulated wash. Free and sketchy, they have the

appearance of spontaneous creations, not of mere studies from models. Mr. Farrand's landscapes are charming. Harper & Brothers have similarly issued the édition de luxe of Eleanor, illustrated by Albert E. Sterner, one of our most graceful draughtsmen. His work is full of sentiment. He possesses that faculty which is both rare in artists and seldom recognized by the public as a desideratum for the illustrator; that is, a sort of reticence-such as, in literature, is found in the writings of Wordsworth, preventing him from entangling his main subject with superfluous words or tangent thoughts. Mr. Sterner will be satisfied to suggest in any one drawing a single trait of femininity, a single characteristic of masculinity, where a more commonplace illustrator would be apt to load his drawing with subject-matter enough for a cyclorama. Those who expect Mr. Sterner's simple outline of the profile of Lucy, his suggestive sketch of an attitude of Eleanor, his study of a single pose of Manisty, to convey to us the analyzation of as many mental conflicts as Mrs. Humphry Ward is able to chronicle in a score of succeeding chapters, would expect to see the Moses of Michael Angelo at once smite the Egyptian, break the tablets of stone, and strike the rock in the wilderness.

If this difficulty exists in depicting a heroine of fiction, what shall we say of the difficulty of portraying heroes of the Bible? The time is past when the public accepted the very superficial drawings of Doré, because of the unqualified praise they received from the clergy. In these days of higher criticism, we expect archæological accuracy in costume and scenery as well as invention in portraying characters. When the artist arrives who combines the invention of Blake with the accuracy of AlmaTadema, his Bible il

End-papers (reduced) for "As You Like It," by Will Low. From a halftone printed in color (Dodd, Mead & Co.).

lustrations will probably take the world by storm. The great Book has always been a favorite of illustrators. Dürer's Apocalypse (which, by the way, R. H. Russell will reproduce this season under the editorship of Fitz Roy Carrington) is one of the early victories of illustrating, in which category we should really include Rembrandt's great etchings, though they were published as separate prints. The Dalziel Bible is a monument to the illustrators of 1860 (see the author's article on "John Gilbert and the Victorian Era of Illustrating" in the REVIEW OF REVIEWS for December, 1897). The Tissot Life of Christ, now published by the S. S. McClure Company, evinces the profound impression which the Scriptures may produce on a modern mind. It is, indeed, worthy of record that one of the most sumptuously illustrated books in the history of the world, which is now in preparation at Amsterdam, is a Bible illustrated by the greatest living artists, including Adolph Menzel, E. A. Abbey, John Sargent, and Alma-Tadema.

We are not surprised, therefore, that Mr. Louis Rhead, who has heretofore illustrated Pilgrim's Progress and Mr. Badman by Bunyan, should have derived his inspiration this year from the Psalms. The Rheads (they are three brothers-Louis, Frederick, and George) select well-known classics and build their edition detail

"And Oloffe bethought him and climbed up to the top of one of the tallest trees, and saw that the smoke spread over a great extent of country; and, as he considered it more attentively, he fancied that the great volume of smoke assumed a variety of marvelous forms, where in dim obscurity he saw shadowed out palaces and domes and lofty spires."Illustration (reduced) to "Knickerbocker's History of New York." From a pen stipple drawing by Maxfield Parrish (R. H. Russell).

Looking at Mr. Parrish's work, it will be seen that in the illustrator's field there is an opportunity to augment the statements of the text with graphic addenda. We indulgently overlook any failure to illustrate rigorously the text, in view of Mr. Parrish's ability to make a design out of a motive the words may suggest. Who, for example, would object to the skyscraper buildings in Mr. Parrish's frontispiece on the score that they are such as Washington Irving never saw.

by detail, designing the cover, initial letters, and the illustrations. They take a keen interest in their work not always to be found among illustrators. For instance, having clearly proven that the Island of Tobago, and not Juan Fernandez, was the scene of Robinson Crusoe, they made a special trip to it before they began to illustrate the edition of De Foe's masterpiece which R. H. Russell publishes.

It was not an easy task for Mr. Low to execute the illustrating of As You Like It. Abbey already had made the field his own. He had, besides, executed his illustrations in so consummate a technique that little was left to be desired when they were reproduced in the pages of the book. We seem to own the originals. In the case of Mr. Low's illustrations, we cannot but feel that we have only a substitute for the originals, -a blurred miniature of the paintings,-for

it was in monochrome oil that he executed his pictures. And it seems as though the very process of painting had divested the compositions of their spontaneity. The artist, too, has so obviously painted his figures from models that we are aware of the shoes being unsoiled by the dust of travel, the garments but recently purchased at the costumer's. There is not a worn shoe on the twenty-six figures. On the other hand, this is not necessarily an organic blemish. We

"Mr. Vanslyperkin," from "Characters of Romance." From a lithograph (reduced) after a pastel drawing by William Nicholson (R. H. Russell).

We miss in these lithographs the sureness of form obtained by the triple tracery of a line in Mr. Nicholson's woodcuts-first, its drawing on the block; and, second and third, its following on one side and then on the other with the graver. We trust that Mr. Nicholson will return to his woodengraving, or else interest himself in auto-lithography and draw directly on the stone.

his humor to Irving's in an edition published in 1893, and the Grolier Club had

Cover design (reduced) by Thomas Watson Ball (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.).

"David Tending His Sheep." - Illustration to the "Psalms of David." From a pen-drawing by Louis Rhead (Fleming H. Revell Company).

The Rhead Brothers work in what is called the old woodcut style, a revival of the manner of seventeenth-century illustrations.

Joseph Pennell is an illustrator who has not only had a vast experience, illustrating from one to three books a year for a quarter of a century, but he is an authority in literature on the subject of illustration, having written Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen and Modern Illustration. When, therefore, he makes the drawings for a book, he takes into consideration to what size they are to be reduced and on what paper they are to be printed, so that there is no smearing or blurring when the pictures appear. New Yorkers recently had an opportunity to see his original drawings illustrating Percy Dearmer's Highways and Byways in Normandy; and it is interesting to note with what simple means Mr. Pennell gets his effects-a few free outlines, a few solid blacks, united by a few parallel lines, and the design seems to complete the rendition of some phase of nature. This book was published by

"Steady," growled Kenton, "wait till they come nigh enough."-Illustration (reduced) to "Alice of Old Vincennes." Half-tone from a wash drawing by F. C. Yohn (The BowenMerrill Co.).

Macmillan & Co., but for the winter season Houghton, Mifflin & Co. have put forth Henry James' Little Tour in France, illustrated by Mr. Penneli in the same masterly shorthand.

Mr. Gibson's publisher, R. H. Russell, now regularly issues a volume of sketches by this favorite American draughtsman; and although these contain no text beyond the legends that explain the drawings, they are as anxiously awaited by the public as were, in England, Mr. Punch's Pocketbook and Almanac when Leach embellished their pages back in the sixties.

Mr. Gibson's draw

ings are true portraits of American society people; his men and women are never "impossible," no matter how exaggerated the caricature. His drawings are marvels of pen-work. In The Americans we do not find that Balzac-like comedy sequence that we found in last year's Education of Mr. Pipp; but the Ameri can girl and her admirers,-American and foreign,her weary father and her scheming mother, are depicted in all sorts of humorous situations.

Mr. Wenzell, though we believe him German by birth, has so long been identified with America that he ranks easily next to Gibson as a delineator of society people. This year, however, his collection of drawings, The Passing Show, deals mainly with the social life of England and France, where he has been traveling. Mr. Nicholson is an English artist, but Mr. R. H. Rus

sell has so thoroughly introduced him to the American public that he claims a place in our pantheon. Even though his Characters of Romance form a set of prints, and are not adjuncts to a book, here, as in much of his previous work, he has proved himself eminently the picture-book maker; and, besides, these characters of Don Quixote, Madge Wildfire, John Silver and Mulvaney are creations inspired by books. Heretofore, the major part of Mr. Nicholson's work has been engraved on wood by his own hand. The Characters of Romance are lithographic reproductions of his pastel drawings.

Cover design (reduced) by A. Kay Womrath (John Lane).

Dickens' Christmas Carol and Cricket on the Hearth have been admirably illustrated by Frederick Simpson Coburn, a Canadian artist, who draws in pen and ink with a technique as free as A. B. Frost's, while his drawings in body color reproduce admirably.

Mr. Coburn is not the only Canadian who excels as an illustrator. Ernest Seton-Thompson (he came to us via Canada, though born in England) has of recent years taken the publishers by storm, and Scribners and Doubleday, Page & Company seem to issue a book by him every six months-so that he has almost monopolized the animal field. And now comes Mr. Arthur Heming, another Canadian. Without any introduction, he swoops down upon New York, and his drawings are not only acceptable to the publisher, but when put in the latter's window are immediately bought by the public. His illustrations to Mooswa, and Other of the Boundaries are dramatic in the extreme. It seems as though Mr. Heming had obtained the maximum of animal expression in the drawing we publish.

Ernest Seton-Thompson is an example of the authorartists. Mr. Seton (for that is his name, the Thompson being a pseudonym), indeed, avows that he is not an artist, but a scientist, who has used his illustrations to convey information. Be this as it may, his little black

Cover design (reduced) by Emery Leverett Williams, the illustrator of the book (R. H. Russell).

The text of "An Alphabet of Indians" has been written by Mrs. Williams with a naïveté that makes it as direct in conveying information as the children's histories of Oliver Goldsmith.

and-white drawings, made with a brush, and not with a pen, are as decorative as the similar brush drawings of the Japanese. He has made, for this season, some of the drawings illustrating A Woman Tenderfoot, by his wife, Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson.

If Mr. Seton-Thompson is cited as a prolific illustrator, what shall we say of Oliver Herford? One would fancy that every publisher in the city is issuing one of his books. Charles Scribner's Sons publish Overheard in a Garden, and The Century Company issue his Artful Anticks. He is an author-artist, illustrating his own verses. His style is inimitable, thoroughly spontaneous, delicate and refined. His most absurd creations seem as real as some careful studies from models by the serious illustrators. Mr. Williams writes, in the succeeding article, of the success of the romantic-historical novel - the story "of hairbreadth escapes by field and flood." These tales have given the illustrators an opportunity to do some of their most spirited work.

Mr. Howard Pyle, who designed the dramatic poster of two men fencing for To Have and to Hold, has this year illustrated Hugh Wynne (The Century Co.). He is thoroughly at home with his Revolutionary subjects.