on the surprise of plot as a means of holding his reader's attention. Perhaps, too, he is hampered by having to put around his imagination the strait lines of the story which is already prepared for him. The task is difficult. The author hardly meets it in a satisfactory way. His Moses lacks the heroic and smacks strongly of the young man who is about to enter the ministry. The piece shows an academic Moses and a placid but commonplace Princess whom we have all seen coming home from the missionary society. There are some distressingly stiff and wooden lines and some rather poetic ones. The following quotations may be taken respectively as illustrations of this fact:

"Pipings, pipings, sweetly sounding

Over the wild and lonely wold.

The silly sheep hear from the fold,
And after the shepherd they go bounding;
Bounding, bounding, o'er rock and scaur,
Led onward by the pipe's sweet power,
He guides them ever yonder, yonder;
Out into the desert wild and drear,

Where the hungry wolves are prowling near;
But they hear the pipe's sweet notes with wonder,
And around like clouds although they lower,

To injure the sheep they have no power.
The desert witch with tones deceiving,

Astray allures him, and the charm,

That did of their wrath the wolves disarm,
Forgotten he has; for her sake leaving

The pathway to follow o'er brake and scaur;
And his scattered sheep the wolves devour."

The following is in the poet's better manner:

"God, the raging

Billows heed Thy
Voice assuaging.

Thou dost lead Thy
People through them,
Bent to slaughter
Will the water
Flow back over.

Will the surges
Sing their dirges,

Whom they cover."

LITERARY NOTES.

No similar paper in a long time has created so much interest in the public mind as the Phi Beta Kappa oration of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, delivered at the University of Chicago, June 17, 1902. The title, "Shall Cromwell Have a Statue?" contains an allusion to General Robert E. Lee. The argument is something like this: The South believed honestly in States Rights. They had held this from the early days of the republic and had taken no note of the growth of the feeling of nationality. Virginia shared fully in these views. Lee was out and out a Virginian, and when the time came for his State to act he must by his very convictions act with her. The action of Virginia, whatever we may think of that of the far southern States who seceded because an anti-slavery President had been elected, was not due to an unworthy motive. It was because she believed in State sovereignty, and because the attack of the seceding States by the Union was in violation of this doctrine. In responding to the call of Virginia, Lee, therefore, acted from a high sense of duty. The world will come to see this as the years go by, and it may chance that in the end there will be erected in the national capital a monument to Lee, the leader of the Confederate armies, just as there has been erected in recent times a monument to Cromwell, whom most Englishmen at one time called traitor.

Mr. Adams's essay is an ample tribute to the admirable character of Lee. As a piece of political reasoning and prophecy it will doubtless awaken much opposition. Indeed, the Grand Army of the Republic, which has just held its annual meeting, has taken offence at the suggestion that Lee should have a statue in Washington. Apart from the prophecy in it, it contains nothing new to the country. Whatever he has said about the honesty of those who seceded and about the motives of Lee has been said in the South many times since 1865; but it has not always been said there with the same temperate and scholarly spirit that appears in Mr. Adams's essay. The unexpected, and to Southerners gratifying, thing about it is that it should have been said by a New Englander. Mr. Adams's father was one of the leading

abolitionists of Massachusetts, and he associated his son with him in an important phase of the history of the North during, and just before, the civil war. The son, as he confesses, was once bitterly against Lee. He has seen the time when he would gladly have learned of his death, just as he was glad when he heard of the death of Stonewall Jackson. But time has brought a calmer judgment. He has come to appreciate the significance of the surroundings of the men who seceded. In coming to this conclusion he has shown himself, what every student and seeker after truth must desire to be, a true man of thought and a citizen of the world, in the best sense of the term. It is highly desirable that he should be met in the same spirit by Southerners; for we have something of a similar progress to make before we will admit the essentially moral nature of the abolition movement in the North.

One of the best planned books which have recently come before the American public is "The Literature of American History," edited by J. N. Larned, who has already recommended himself to the reader by his useful "History for Ready Reference." This second work is the outgrowth of an agitation begun some years ago by Mr. Henry Iles to have prepared for the use of librarians and others lists of books on various subjects which shall give, besides a mere summary of titles, some reliable general idea of the value of each enumerated work. The work has been undertaken under the patronage of the American Library Association. Mr. Larned has been assisted by a number of specialists in American history, and he has not hesitated to use the literary opinions in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History." Four thousand one hundred titles are mentioned. The prime object has been to serve the general reader, but it would be impossible to do this without doing a great service to many who are more or less specialists. It would be impossible, also, to finish such a task as this in a manner to elicit the approval of all persons. Even capable specialists will differ in regard to some books. Few books are mentioned which have appeared since 1899, but we are promised that the list will be continued at regular intervals by Mr. Wells, librarian of the Yale Law School.

The most considerable announcement ever made in American history is that of the twenty-six volumes, with still a twentyseventh for a general index, which are to be issued by the Harpers under the editorial supervision of Professor Hart, of Harvard. The title is to be "The American Nation: A History from Original Material by Associated Scholars." Each volume is to have about 300 pages and there will be some illustrations. The period will be the whole range of American history, from the European background to the present day, the last volume of all being a summing up of American ideals by Professor Hart himself. The subject is to be divided into five groups as follows: 1. Foundations of the Nation; 2. Transformation into a Nation; 3. Development of the Nation; 4. Trial of Nationality; 5. National Expansion. The associates in the enterprise comprise some of the best known scholars of the country, among them being such names as Professors Bourne, Andrews, McLaughlin, Howard, Channing, Turner, MacDonald, Dunning, and Latané, and Messrs. Thwaites, Hosmer, and W. C. Ford. The public will await the completion of the enterprise with interest.

Since the preparation of Mr. Boyd's article on "Southern History in American Universities," which appeared in the July number of the QUARTERLY, the University of Wisconsin has announced a course on "The History of the South." The course will be given by Dr. Ulrich B. Phillips, and this is guaranty that it will be a valuable and sane presentation of this neglected field of history. It is designed to show "the economic and social forces that have affected the political history" of the South.

Mr. Edward McCrady's "South Carolina during the Revolution, 1780-1783," is just from the press. It completes the fourth volume which this earnest and persevering investigator has wrought out in the history of his native State, and makes the largest and best treatment which has been given to the subject.

Several Calhoun letters have come to light recently which were not included in what seemed at the time the complete collection which was published in 1900 by the American Historical Association under the editorial oversight of Professor Jameson. This is not a reflection on the work of this gentleman; for his researches

were careful. It was not to be expected that he should have got into his book all the extant letters of his subject. On the other hand it is not unnatural that Professor Jameson's work should stimulate others to search for Calhoun letters, and that a number of letters which were hitherto unknown or forgotten should come to light. Among such documents are several letters to Judge Tait, then of Georgia, which are published in the Gulf States Historical Magazine, October, 1902, and a letter taken from the Congressional Globe and republished in the Publications of the Southern History Association, September, 1902. The former were written while Calhoun was secretary of war and deal with Jackson's Seminole campaign and with Spanish relations; the latter deals with the general movement for secession in 1850. It was written, however, in the preceding July and was directed to Judge C. S. Tarpley, of Mississippi. In it Calhoun urged that Mississippi take steps at once to organize her people for secession. This letter was influential in bringing to maturity the attempt to commit the State to disunion in 1849.

Among the articles in the October, 1902, issue of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography those most interesting to the public are the series of John Brown letters, which were found in Richmond in 1901. These letters were written to Brown, it seems, while he was about to make his raid or just after he had brought it a failure. They came from all kinds of people, most of them from well-wishers, but they contain little that throws new light on this strange figure and episode.

The fourth number of "State Documents on Federal Relations," which is being issued by the department of history in the University of Pennsylvania, is just out. It deals with "The Tariff and Nullification," and is edited by Herman V. Ames. Former numbers have dealt with "The Interpretation of the Constitution during the first Two Decades of its History;" "States Rights and the War of 1812," and "The Reserved Rights of the States and the Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts."

Mr. Clarence H. Poe, editor of The Progressive Farmer, Raleigh, N. C., contributes an article to The North American Review, October, 1902, on "Suffrage Restrictions in the South." He is in