arrangement in the rhyme-sounds -- namely, the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines must rhyme on the same sound, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh on another.

III. Its sestet, or minor system, may be arranged with more freedom, but a rhymed couplet at the close is allowable only when the form is the English, or Shakespearian.

IV. No terminal should also occur in any portion of any other line in the same system; and the rhyme-sounds ( 1 ) of the octave should be harmoniously at variance, and (2) the rhymesounds of the sestet should be entirely distinct in intonation from those of the octave.

V. It must have no slovenliness of diction, no weak or indeterminate terminations, no vagueness of conception, and no obscurity.

VI. It must be absolutely complete in itself —¿. e., it must be the evolution of one thought, or one emotion, or one poetically-apprehended fact.

VII. It should have the characteristic of apparent inevitableness, and in expression be ample, yet reticent. It must not be forgotten that dignity and repose are essential qualities of

a true sonnet.

VIII. The continuity of the thought, idea, or emotion must be unbroken throughout.

JX. Continuous sonority must be maintained from the first phrase to the last.

X. The end must be more impressive than the commencement.

It will be readily seen that if all these rules are followed by the young poet, the practice of sonnet-writing is a valuable one, whether the product be worth little or much. Unity is demanded; there can be no straggling; logical development of thought is called for, leading from the less to the greater, from the symbol to the thing signified. An ample and sonorous vocabulary is required; every word must be picked and chosen, a gem carefully set. A musical ear is also requisite, for the rhymes are few and must be pleasing. Then, too, dignity of motif is an essential feature, for the sonnet does not readily lend its music to anything trivial. Above all, brevity, the soul of wit and of good writing, is an absolute necessity. Add to this a cultivated mind continually refreshed by the "springs that from old Par

nassus flow," and, if possible, refreshed from the fountain-source of the sonnet, the lovepoems of Dante, Petrarch, Michael Angelo, and Tasso, and it is readily seen that sonnet-writing is no mean task.

Besides the books already mentioned, some of which are most likely to be helpful to the lover of this form of verse, are the following:

David M. Main's 66 Treasury of English Sonnets." Extends from Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) to the death of Oliver Madox Brown in 1874. This is the most complete anthology of English sonnets, and its value to the student is very great, both on account of the great number of sonnets contained (more than 500), their careful chronological arrangement, by which the development of the sonnet form can be traced, and their copious notes.

T. Hall Caine's "Sonnets of Three Centuries." Very highly recommended by the Professors of the English Department at Harvard. A careful chronological arrangement, covering about the same period as Main's book. The prefatory essay is especially devoted to the Shakespearian and Miltonic sonnets, and contains a strong plea for the legitimacy of the English sonnet with couplet ending. This sonnet Mr. Caine believes to be indigenous.

Charles Tomlinson's "The Sonnet, its Origin, etc., with Original Translations from the Sonnets of Dante, Petrarch, etc." This work is a careful and delightful treatise on the Italian sonnet, written in scholarly style, and gives the best statement of what the "Petrarchan," or strict Italian, sonnet is. Published in London by John Murray, 1874.

Capel Lofft's "Laura: an Anthology." Five volumes. Published in England in 1813. These volumes are not very carefully edited, but contain many sonnets, both English and translated from the Italian.

Dennis' "English Sonnets" and Dyce's small volume have also some interest.

The most exhaustive book 66 on English Metres," written with the thorough care of a German scholar, is Dr. A. G. Schipper's "Eng lische Metrik." The English sonnet, with numerous illustrative examples, is carefully discussed in the second portion of the last volume. This book has never been translated,

and probably never will be, on account of its technical character, which makes it appeal to a small audience of cultured scholars, but it is well worth careful study in the original. Since the duty is removed on foreign books, it can be imported for $7.50.

Gilbert Conway's "Treatise on Versification," published in London about ten years ago, has a few valuable pages devoted to the sonnet, and Tom Hood's "Rhymester," edited by Arthur Penn and published by the Appletons, has a pleasant, though not very exhaustive, chapter devoted to this form of lyric poetry.

Numerous magazine articles also have been devoted to the sonnet; among them may be mentioned two fine anonymous articles in the Quarterly Review for 1876, another suggestive study, also anonymous, in the Westminster Review for 1871, as well as two able papers on sonnet-literature in the Dublin Review for 1876 and 1877. Ashcroft Noble's article in the Contemporary Review also is noticeable, and the edition of Milton by Mark Pattison and that of Wordsworth by Archbishop French are both prefaced by interesting and helpful essays on the sonnet.

Not so much has been written in America, but a series of scholarly essays, showing wide reading, by "Sarepta," in the Toronto Week, some fourteen in number, which began in the spring of 1890, have attracted considerable attention. The same author has also written for the Queries Magazine.

American sonnets have come to the front of late in the two volumes published last December by Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. The smaller and more carefully edited one, "American Sonnets," compiled by T. W. Higginson and Mrs. E. H. Bigelow, contains but a brief introduction, but the collection is choice. The larger book, " Representative Sonnets by American Poets," contains an eighty-nine-page essay on the sonnet, illustrated by many examples from Italian and English literature. Both these compilations are alphabetically arranged, and a brief biographical appendix adds value to that of Mr. Crandall.

Of sonnets themselves, of course Shakespeare's merit careful study. A neat little edition

is published in the Canterbury Poets Series for forty cents.

Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella" series merits careful attention, as these were really the first pure Italian sonnets produced in England. Spenser's "Amoretti" are usually bound up with his works. Drummond's sonnets are very Italian in character and pleasing in sentiment, and Thomas Lodge in his "Diana" wrote a few very musical sonnets, well worth studying for their beauty of form, as is Drayton's celebrated sonnet,

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part. This latter sonnet is Shakespearian in rhyme, but Italian in the thought division.

The age of Pope and Dryden, the classical Augustan age, had no sonneteers, but with the beginning of the nineteenth century the sonnet seemed to take a new lease of life. Wordsworth's sonnets, though numerous, are well worthy careful study. Mrs. Browning's burning sonnets "From the Portuguese," cast in the Italian form, are masterpieces of power and concentration. Hartley Coleridge and Tennyson Turner's sonnets are picturesque and beautiful. The most wonderful series of contemporary sonnets, remarkable not less for beauty of sound than for deep thought, are contained in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "House of Life." His sister's sonnets are scarcely less remarkable for their self-abnegation, and a living writer, Mrs. Alice Maynell, was pronounced by Rossetti to have written in "Renouncement" the most touching sonnet by a living woman writer. This, together with many other fine sonnets, may be found in the volume, "Women Poets of Victorian Era," just edited and brought out by Mrs. William Sharp in the "Canterbury Poets Series," price forty cents. Matthew Arnold's sonnets, contained in his complete works, are also well worth reading for their lofty ethical import; they have a Miltonic atmosphere.

Among the most striking among recent American sonnets are Arlo Bates' "Sonnets in Shadow." Some delightful translations from Petrarch and Dante have been made by Colonel Higginson, closely following the rhyme-scheme of the original. Aldrich and Gilder are masters of the Italian sonnet form, but the Amer

The questions which many young literary aspirants have sent to THE WRITER for reply, asking aid and advice, have led me thoughtfully to consider how much and what I have gained, in an experience of twenty years of scribbling, from what may be termed technical reading. I find so much of good as to theories, and so many lessons of patience and hopefulness, that I am tempted to ask THE WRITER to give a place to my record of "hints that have helped me." Until within a few years these were rarely to be had except in some cases where a veteran author or journalist took a young aspirant under his wing, but of late, as the time became ripe for them, books and articles upon technical subjects with regard to authors' work have increased, and are helpful to many. There were three which first claimed my attention an article by Mrs. Craik (Miss Mulock), and a little book containing two lectures, one by Walter Besant and the other by Henry James, called "The Art of Fiction." These are encouraging and helpful guides to short-story and fiction writing generally. Besant's article particularly treats of the three essentials — the art of description, the art of observation, and the study of character; and the reader is truly convinced how necessary are all three to graphic fiction writing. It is to Besant's article I owe the practice of what he calls reading backward — that is, forgetting the

absorption of the story and studying the way a novel is built. Among the books to be so studied he suggests Holmes' "Elsie Venner," Black's "Daughter of Heth," and several others.

"How to Climb the Ladder of Journalism," a book which first appeared as a serial in the Journalist, is an aid to those who desire to be good newspaper writers. It shows clearly that there is no "royal road." It is steady climb all the way, but less crowded as an advance is made. The way to begin is clearly shown, and that is often half the battle. It teaches a lesson of patience when a three-column article, at so much a thousand words, is cut down half, and the rest thrown into the waste basket; but it is good discipline. The next attempt will be the better for it. It is the faint heart that kills. "Writing for the Press," by Robert Luce, is a book no writer, experienced or inexperienced, should be without.

"The Trade of Authorship," which has had so large and well-deserved a sale, is a full and clear guide as to ways and means, both to write and to publish. Many details, which have been learned by some of us through bitter experience, are there made plain, and even a novice need make no mistakes.

There is no occupation so self-deceptive as literature as applied to writing for the press. One is so apt to think that the thought put into

print is the one the world has waited for, and that no other pen has told the same tale.

Remember, the world mental is like the world natural, and the wave theory works in one as in the other. Your thought is but the reflex action of a surge of thought, and your discovery belongs to some one else equally with you. The one who succeeds in reaching the ear of the world is received, the rest are rejected, and "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong."

The books and articles I have mentioned have been of great assistance to me, but when —and, alas! it is often - I am utterly discouraged and cast down in mind and spirit I take a

bound volume of THE WRITER or THE AUTHOR, a bound one is such an accumulation of sympathy, and read, as the children say, "right straight ahead," and I soon begin to wonder at the infinite patience and enduring perseverance of many, known more to fame than I ever hope to be, and who, it seems to me, have been willing to record their struggles, disappointments, and successes especially for my benefit. I return to my desk, scourging myself for daring to despair, and I gather one great thought which has seemed to throb through the whole volume. If your heart is in your work, you will cling to it in spite of everything. BROOKLYN, N. Y. Mrs. A. M. Payne.

In the January number of THE WRITER (page 9) appears an editorial paragraph deploring the yearly waste of the public money by the United States Government in printing "valueless documents," and citing the case of a certain state senator of Massachusetts who illumined his backyard with a bonfire of "300 or 400 volumes which a paternal government had forced upon him." THE WRITER expresses the opinion that the money thus wasted on public documents would be better expended in aiding struggling authors of merit to get their thoughts before the literary world.

It is not stated what reports made up the senator's bonfire, but it is quite likely that he destroyed some which were by no means valueless. For, to speak first of the monetary consideration, it is a fact that many of the government's publications have an actual market value, and buying and selling them is a regular branch of the book trade in Washington. Back numbers of the Official Gazette of the Patent Office bear a price which would be considered fair for any second-hand books. This publication, by the way, is not distributed gratuitously; its subscription price is five dollars per annum, and its interest and value to the noble army of inventors throughout the country can scarcely

be overestimated. It is a handsome weekly, containing the specifications of all the patents issued during the week, with reduced drawings; decisions of the commissioner of patents; and certain decisions of the courts in patent cases. These last, of course, render it indispensable to to the patent attorneys throughout the United States, whose name is legion.

The consular reports, issued periodically by the Department of State, are also of great interest and value. Like the Official Gazette of the Patent Office, they have a market value in certain cases, some of the older volumes being worth, I am credibly informed by those who have attempted to purchase them, one dollar a volume. As the name indicates, they contain the observations of our consular representatives abroad on a great variety of economic questions; and while it is not contended that all are of equal value, many, if not most of them, embody facts and figures of much interest to the political economist, not accessible in any other form. The titles of a few, selected at random, will show the range taken by these reports. "Public Libraries in Great Britain," "Tobacco in Egypt," "Organized Labor in New Zealand," "Irish Agriculture," and "The Australasian Wool Trade," though not to be classed as liter

ature, perhaps, are of great value to many students in economic subjects, and frequently to merchants and importers as well.

A type of the government's scientific publications is the monthly bulletin published by the Division of Entomology in the Agricultural Department. This is a tastefully gotten up periodical, often illustrated, and its monthly edition of five thousand copies is scattered, literally, over the face of the earth. It goes regularly to India, Australia, South Africa, and all the more important European countries, and the avidity with which its articles on the economic side of the science of entomology are copied into the agricultural journals of this country and England shows the estimation in which it is held by the editors of such journals, who, of course, like other editors, are trying to supply what their readers want. Certain back numbers of this publication also have been long out of print, and cannot be supplied, though the demand for them has never ceased.

A significant fact in this connection is that

now, when a citizen writes for a copy of any particular report or document, he will, in most cases, be asked to show what interest he has in the subject. If he can show why he wants it, and it is not out of print, he will generally get it, but nearly all bureaus publishing reports now discourage the indiscriminate distribution of their documents to every idle inquirer. This is as it should be, for experience has shown that nearly always there are enough real students interested to absorb all the copies that can be spared.

But their money value is, after all, the weightiest evidence in favor of the contention that all government reports are not worthless, and the additional fact that in Washington two large dealers in second-hand books make a specialty of their sale proves conclusively that at least some portion of our departmental literature should be saved from the fate of the Massachusetts senator's library of "Pub. Docs." Robert M. Reese.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

to say.

One of the first newspaper lessons that the editor gave me was: "You are not obliged to tell all you know." Much of the skill of an accomplished writer lies in knowing what not In the most trifling item a trained reporter furnishes a good illustration of what every literary worker must do. His first task is to select from among a score of facts the exact point of interest. He aims for the bull'seye, and, having sighted it, thenceforth sees nothing else. If the rings on the target are still present, it is merely as they surround the point to which his shot goes.

A horse runs away and just misses running over a child. The horse belongs to a naturalized alderman, the child to a Protestant clergyman. Next morning the Democratic newspaper will have an item about the alderman's horse,

the Republican paper, one about the minister's child.

Both reporters are right, for each has focussed on his own readers' interest and curiosity. Neither will give much space to the vehicle, unless it is badly damaged, or pay much attention to the course of the run. Surely neither will tell the age of the horse, or who owned him before, or what school the child attended, or whether his mother knew he was out.

If, however, the reporter of either paper is a fresh recruit just come to reinforce the ranks of journalism, he will write a couple of stickfuls of stuff like the above, and learn something when he looks for it next morning and finds the five lines into which the city editor has mercifully boiled it down.

Now, an item is a short story. What else is