tomed to see water drawn with an old fashioned crank-and-rope attachment, when the bucket went banging down the well with a thundering noise after each emptying, and these noises were to her mind so much alike that her theory seemed not at all inconsistent.

S. B. A.

A Nursery Raconteuse. A RECENT criticism of "Nights with Uncle Remus," after tracing back some of that worthy's stories to the myths and legends of the Hottentots and Kaffirs, shows that some of them also grew out of stories peculiar to the white races, which were adopted and "adapted" by the negroes. "The Woman with the Golden Arm," for instance, can probably be shown to have been told in England as much as two centuries ago. This brings to mind a far-away remembrance of my childhood and of a little Irish nurse-maid whose wonderful storytelling gift used to keep our populous nursery in a state of preternatural peace and quietness by the hour together on winter evenings and stormy days.

The child had "come over" from Ireland before she was twelve years old, and had immediately entered service at our house,—a wild little red-haired bogtrotter, as I well remember her, though I was not more than three or four years old at the time. She was utterly illiterate, as was her father before her, her mother had been long dead,-therefore all her stories, of which she had an inexhaustible fund, must have been more or less legendary in County Cork, from some obscure village of which she had She never regarded them as in any degree legendary, however, but believed them as devoutly as we did, always giving them as a veracious narrative of facts that had occurred to the great families in her neighborhood, and it is probable that she had received them as such. This gave them a peculiarly graphic and vivid effect, while the fact of their impossibility in no wise damaged them for us, to whom, as to all imaginative children, the impossible was far more reasonable than the true.

come.

Among others, I very well remember a variant of that same "Woman with the Golden Arm" above referred to. The scene of this in Bride's story was a certain castle on a hill, which she described with such a pictorial power that to this day it does duty in my mind whenever the idea of a castle is required by the reading of history, novel, or myth. Bluebeard, according to Bride's account, was the very lord upon whose estate she was born, an absentee lord, by the way, who seems only to have visited Ireland at those rare intervals when he felt moved to cut off the head of a wife or so. Bride always waxed eloquent when the subject of absenteeism came up she did not call it by this name, but the thing was very clear in her own mind, and she succeeded in inspiring us with her own burning indig nation on the subject, so much so that when we grew old enough to read Miss Edgeworth, who early became one of our nursery classics, we were quite prepared to sympathize most passionately with Ireland's wrongs.

To return to Bluebeard, however. I remember very well when I came upon his story in that first book of fairy-tales which I still have, dated " on her seventh birthday." I flew to read it to Bride, for, in spite of our mother's diligent attempts to teach her, and the guerilla warfare against her ignorance which was for years kept up in the nursery, Bride never made further progress in the liberal arts than to the illustrated words in "the baby's" primer. I remember that she was by no means surprised at the appearance of her favorite story in print. "Oh, yes," she said, everybody knew about that wicked lord: she didn't wonder that they had put it in a book." The book-version, however, proved to be far less satisfactory than Bride's account, and doubtless her vivid imagination had materially contributed to the embellishment of the story.

66

A short account of Bride's later intellectual history may not be uninteresting. Her fondness for books was something extraordinary, and she used to keep us reading to her by the hour to

gether. Perhaps it was her discovery of this royal road to fairy-tales and other lore which made her show so little alacrity in drudging over her a-b-ab's. Although she never succeeded in learning to read, she ultimately became quite a noted mineralogist in a small way. She had married a bright young Irishman who was foreman of a gang of men employed on some engineering works in a region particularly rich in minerals, and Bride became intensely interested in collecting and learning about them. Her collection was large, and sufficiently valuable to attract to her little house learned scientists, who made exchanges with her and helped her in her classifications. She knew the name and nature of every specimen, and could talk as interestingly about them as if she had had the help of books in gaining her information, although never having been able to read a word on the subject. Her knowledge was entirely made up of random bits of information dovetailed together and supplemented by her own close observation. Perhaps she also romanced a little, as she used to do in the old nursery days.

L. S. H.

Co-operative Housekeeping. UNTIL the time shall come when working-girls shall be taught something of the elementary principles of domestic service as a necessary part of their education, until that millennial time shall arrive which we now dimly see from afar and greet with ardent longing, what shall the dwellers in small towns and country villages do for servants? At present the complications in which this question is involved seem to be almost overwhelming. It is all very well for theorists to say that the housekeeper should be superior to all possible emergencies, should be able to "help" herself when other help fails: the practical workings of this exalted principle are by no means so simple as would appear. For the mother of a family in moderate circumstances to meet all the varied and complicated duties of society and of home is an arduous task at best: when the domestic machinery is brought

VOL. VII. N. 8.-7

to a stand-still by an interregnum belowstairs, the difficulties become simply insuperable. To reduce the disasters of such an interregnum, the most efficient way would be, not for the mistress to be herself capable of playing all the parts, but for the parts to be made as few in number as possible.

For too much work is done in our homes, and with a general result of gratuitous discomfort. A blighting atmosphere of work and weariness steals subtly upward from busy hours and regions, and casts its baleful shadow over times and places which should be sacred to ease and leisure and domestic joy. Why should the family washing and baking, for instance, be done under the home-roof? There is no reason for it in the nature of things, except that thus it may be both better and more cheaply done; and neither of these results is by any means sure to follow.

But, granting that they do, the same results might be achieved at far less cost of care and worry if the housekeeper would but bring to meet the question from another side a tithe of the energy and intelligence which she now expends upon it. Co-operation in this matter, as in so many others, may be the key that fits the lock of this emergency. No prudent mother, certainly, would willingly set before her children the bread and cake and pastry of a country bakery. But why not have a bakery of her own, where food could be prepared in the same manner as in the home-kitchen and at no greater cost? In every family employing a cook or general servant it is fair to estimate that from one-sixth to one-tenth of her time is spent in the various operations involved in baking. Let, then, from six to ten housekeepers combine to hire some competent person to do this work for them in the manner in which it would be done at home. It would not be hard to find, in a village of three thousand inhabitants or more, some poor woman who has seen enough of better days to be at least pervious to enlightened ideas on the making of bread and pastry. Probably two or three of the housekeepers in question would have

already upon their consciences some widow or other poor woman, of more intelligence than strength, who is utterly unequal to the severe drudgery which is all that she can find to do, and would be just the one to undertake a co-operative bakery. A very small tax upon the cooperators would set her up in the necessary implements; the materials could be purchased at wholesale, thereby effecting a saving at the outset, and a small profit upon the baking of eight families would be enough to pay her for her time and trouble, without unduly raising the cost of the articles thus provided.

Still more successful, because attended with less risk, would be a co-operative laundry. Here, again, it would not be difficult to find in a country village or small town poor women of sufficient capacity to be safely intrusted with the care of property and labor,-a widow with growing daughters who could help her out of school-hours, for instance, to whom such an opportunity would be a perfect godsend, and who, with a certain amount of work secured to her as a regular thing the whole year round,

could profitably undertake to do the work at a price which would make the enterprise feasible to her employers. The absence of washing-day in the house would be a boon to other members of the family besides the overtaxed mother.

If washing, ironing, and baking could thus be subtracted from the sum of household labors, many a family now obliged to keep a servant would comfortably manage with none, to the very great improvement of the domestic finances; while one servant at least could be spared from larger households, to the material diminution of the housemother's cares and small annoyances. And by thus reducing the demand for domestic servants the standard of conduct and of proficiency would be correspondingly raised, and servants, being less secure of places, would learn to take more serious views of their duties and obligations than they now have. In the smaller towns, where this class of persons noW "have it all their own way," the change would not be slow in making itself felt.

L. S. H.

"The Riverside Shakespeare.-Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems." The text newly edited, with glossarial, historical, and explanatory notes, by Richard Grant White. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

THERE is always room for a new edition of Shakespeare, whether "at the top" or on any of the lower levels, and America now competes with England in occupying the vacant posts. The "New Variorum" will be, when completed, one of those monumental works which rank among national achievements; Mr. Rolfe's excellent school edition has met with universal acceptance as supplying an admitted want; and among innumerable editions for general use the "Riverside" combines the advantages of a convenient

form, clear handsome type, and moderate cost. Shakespeare is one of those authors of whom there can be no new edition without an editor. Somebody must be responsible for the text, and must furnish such aid as is necessary and possible for the full understanding of it. No man, perhaps, is better qualified for this office than Mr. Grant White. He has the requisite scholarship, while he is free from the besetting sin of commentators, who by vain conjectures and over-subtile interpretations too often obstruct the reader in the exercise of his own intelligence, besides diverting his attention from what is essential and inspiring. Mr. White's tendency in this edition is toward the opposite fault, that of too scanty explanations. In determining to

woman.

what extent these were needed, he has, he tells us, taken advice of his washerOne can understand that Mr. White's washerwoman would be a remarkable person; but if she required no help from him to understand the word "orgulous," for example, she would seem to be well entitled to promotion to a still higher place.

In the "Life" prefixed to the volume containing the Comedies, Mr. White has been much less chary of interpretations. He speaks of it, indeed, as nothing more than a "bare recital of facts in chronological order." But the real and unquestionable facts could have been told in a tithe of the space which this biography, short as it is, occupies. In addition to these, we have a mass of so-called traditions," - stories, that is to say, current a century or more after Shakespeare's death. With the help of these and of a large number of documents of little value or interest, Mr. HalliwellPhillipps has contrived to fill a volume of about a thousand pages, without, however, attempting what Mr. White has accomplished within the limits of twenty. For we have here not only the facts and traditions, but a portraiture of Shakespeare's character differing from all others that have been attempted, and not the less striking and complete that it is composed more of suggestions and implications than of direct statements. The general impression which it leaves is that Shakespeare was one of the most detestable beings that have ever lived, uniting the opposite and almost equally repulsive vices of the sensualist and the screw, without, so far as appears, a single redeeming virtue. He was a drunkard, and his last illness was brought on by his lying all night on the ground in a state of intoxication. He was a man of loose life, and the hero of a vulgar and disgusting "amorous adventure," omitted by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps but narrated by Mr. White, who considers the story too accordant with "the habits and customs of the time and the personality of those who figure in it to be rejected as made out of whole cloth." But the great poet's ruling passion was for getting money. The

motive of his Sonnets "must ever remain a mystery;" but, "from what we know of Shakespeare relative to his work, and to work in general, . . . it is probable that, with all his facility of pen, he did not write so many verses without a gainful purpose in regard at least to some of them." When his father was in dis

tressed circumstances, "there is no record of any endeavor to relieve him on the part of his prosperous son." On the death of Queen Elizabeth, "his most illustrious admirer," he alone among the poets of the time offered no tribute to her memory. "Nothing was to be gained by such an exercise of his craft, and Shakespeare seems to have worked only for profit." Absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, he had no sympathy for the class from which he sprung. When a landlord at Stratford undertook to enclose the common-fields, "among the rich people who supported the rich squire was William Shakespeare." On one occasion, when a person who owed him a couple of pounds had "been able to pay only six shillings of the debt, Shakespeare sued him for the remainder." On another occasion, a debtor named Addenbroke, against whom he had recovered a judgment for six pounds, with one pound four shillings costs, having fled,

the author of The Merchant of Venice," in strict accordance with the precedent of his own Shylock, "proceeded against one Horneby, who had given bail for Addenbroke." It has generally been considered a matter for regret that we should know so little about Shakespeare's life; but if Mr. White's account of him be correct it seems a pity that we should know so much. It would appear, at all events, that, while his evil has lived so long after him, his good, if he possessed any, was interred with his bones. have, to be sure, his works; but Mr. Grant White evidently agrees with Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps in considering that no light whatever can be derived from this source, the writings of a poet having as little relation with his personality as the prophetic utterances of a sibyl with her ordinary state of mind. This view, we

We

are told, has the authority of" the greatest of modern bards." Byron, who is, we suppose, the poet thus designated, probably invented the theory to suit his own case; but his theories in regard to poetry, like the sibylline prophecies themselves, were ingenious and paradoxical rather than trustworthy.

"Life of Luther." By Julius Köstlin. With Illustrations from Authentic Sources. Translated from the German. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

THE merit of this biography, apart from the ample research on which it is based, lies in the directness with which the story of Luther's life is unfolded, the terseness