veriey,

eray to a popular novelist of ed by Mr. Herman Merivale "I do not think nights unhaunted by visions, M. Paul Arène,

that it becomes either you or me to speak of
Sir Walter Scott as if we were his equals.
Such men as you or I should take off our hats
at the very mention of his name!"

66 was
Perhaps Mr. Hannigan, as Mr. Robert J.
Burdette said once of William Penn,
born with his hat on"!

ON the 14th of November, 1889, Miss Eliza-
beth Bisland, at a few hours' notice, started
from the city of New York upon what she
truly calls A Flying Trip Around the World."
Seventy-six days later she landed in the same
city upon the return voyage, having beaten
the hero of Jules Verne's famous romance
by more than half a week. It was a very
brave and a very remarkable undertaking
for a young and by no means an uncomely
woman, absolutely unattended as she was by
man or maid; and for its successful accom-
plishment she deserves no little praise. What
she saw, and how rapidly she saw it and un-
derstood it, she has set down for the amuse-

A Flying Trip Around the World. By ELIZABETH
BISLAND. With Portrait. pp. 206. 16mo, Cloth, Or-
namental, $1 25. New York: Harper and Brothers.

broad awake, has been having lately the most marvellous of dreams about The Golden Goat.3 travelled parts of the globe; it was not at all Puget-Maure, it is true, is not in one of the in Miss Bisland's way; it is not to be found in any of the gazetteers, and perhaps it exists only in those wide-awake visions which poetIt is a sort of inland St. Miic dreamers see. chel, transported from the coast of the British Channel to the neighborhood of Nice, on the a clear day, and, occasionally it is said, that Mediterranean. It is visible from the sea on one can get a glimpse of it from Monte Carlo. which there is no road but a ravine, the bed It is a hamlet perched upon a lofty rock, to of a torrent, fordable when it is dry. The inhabitants of the village are a race with gypsy faces, who, as a rule, marry only among themworld below them; the men poach, the women selves, and who mingle but little with the cheese and mountain plants, sometimes, in the practise witchcraft, and on market-days sell

2

3 The Golden Goat. (La Chèvre d'Or.) By PAUL
ARENE. Translated by MARY J. SAFFORD. Illustrated.
8vo. Paper, 50 cents. [Harper's Franklin Square Li-
brary.] New York: Harper and Brothers.

LITERARY NOTES.

man where he was once the wealthy, the honored. He is grateful to Providence because his children are not without a provision. He even thinks about his dogs, but in a purely self-regarding fashion"[!]. "Curiously enough, his embarrassments did not interfere muchscarcely at all-with Scott's somewhat luxurious mode of living." "He saw nothing high or sacred in the vocation of an author. The measure of his works was the price paid for them." "There is something pitiful in the idea of an author manufacturing books with no more enthusiasm than a bricklayer exhibits in doing his daily work for a day's pay." He was in no sense an idealist. His ambitions were worldly, and even his religion was devoid of spirituality. While professing himself a Christian, he could say nothing better in defence of Christianity than that it improved society by abolishing slavery and polygamy "[!]. "By writing merely with a mercenary object, he, to some extent, degraded literature, and threw a shadow on his own reputation." "His work is unequal; some of it excellent, some of it wretchedly poor.... 'The Journal' shows him as he was, with all his solid virtues and paltry weaknesses.... His code was a narrow one; his prejudices were intense, and modern progress seemed to him an absurdity. The school of which he was the founder in English literature has by this time passed away. If historical novels are to be written in the future they will not be modelled on 'Waverley' or on 'Ivanhoe'"!

Thus Mr. Hannigan! Let us read now what the author of "Esmond" and "The Virginians" thought of the author of "Ivanhoe" and "Wa

m

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ment of those who could hardly put the same
girdle roundabout the earth in forty months,
and very entertaining reading it will prove to
be, containing as it does a series of flash-light
pictures of peoples and places, from steamers'
decks, from railway carriages, from 'rickshaws,
and from hansom-cabs; and all amateur pho-
tographers know what excellent work can be
done in that way by the quick-eyed, ready-
handed, wise-headed owner of a literary pock-
et-camera, who can develop, and print, and
mount, and glaze artistically, as well as press
the button.

One of the most interesting features of this
unusual journey, as Miss Bisland points out,
is the fact that although she was doing a some-
what conspicuous and eccentric thing, she nev-
er met with other than the most unfailing and
thoughtful courtesy and consideration. The
army of martyrs to curiosity certainly afflict-
ed her sorely in the course of her two days
upon the Pacific coast, sending their cards to
her in her hotel with urgent messages, and con-
fessing on admission, with placid impudence,
that their sole excuse for intrusion was their
desire to look upon her, or, as she expresses it,
"to gape"; but she adds: "If I had been a
princess with a suite of half a hundred people
I could have felt no safer or happier. It seems
to me that this speaks very highly for the civ-
ilization existing in all travelled parts of the
globe, when a woman's strongest protection
is the fact that she is unprotected."

THERE is upon the continent of Europe one delightful spot which Miss Bisland missed; to wit, Puget-Maure, situated in a land called

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*וו... ז!