expect; but they will never do this by repression, either by the State or the individual. Our author partly answers herself here, too, by calling for the establishment of "cheap catering places" which "will rival the public-house in brilliancy, decorative work and general attractiveness." This we heartily commend for its good sense, and great applicability. ASOLANDO. ROBERT BROWNING. Smith, Elder & Co. A pathetic interest must belong to this little volume of poems by Mr. Browning, because it engaged his last days, before death touched him and took him away. There will be found in it many of the characteristics of thought and expression familiar to the readers of his poems already published. There is in it the old indomitable belief in God; in the value and permanence of soul; in the value of knowledge and the power of love. And there is the same abruptness in transition, oracular brevity of expression and obscurity of suggestion, that have proved such stumbling-blocks in the way of many really wishful to recognise Browning's merit. No candid mind, however, can fail to feel the wonderful virility of the poems here collected. To this there must also be added a hopefulness of tone which puts to shame the pessimism so fashionable in some quarters. Take one passage :— "Then life is to wake, not sleep; Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level, where blindly creep To the heaven's height, far and steep; "Where, amid what strifes and storms Sought the soul's world, spurned the worm's. "I have faith such end shall be: From the first, Power was-I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see. "When see? When there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away. Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes in full play." No lover of Browning should be without this volume, which Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. have "got up" with the care the intrinsic merit of its contents and the circumstances of its appearance undoubtedly deserve. Translated by IMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA. By DR. GEORG BRANDES. SAMUEL C. EASTMAN. London: Walter Scott. This volume of "impressions " of Russia and of Russian literature is the work of a shrewd observer and acute literary critic. In a series of rapid and brilliant sketches the author puts us in possession of a considerable amount of observation, at first hand, concerning the country and its people; and in the impressions of Russian literature, after a brief survey of its beginnings, gives us a discriminating review of the modern literature, commencing with Lomonósof, its founder, and ending with Tolstoï. The work, though written primarily for Danish readers, is worthy of a wider public, and Mr. Scott has done well to issue it as a companion volume to his Tolstoï Series. As an introduction to Russian life and literature no better book can be named. WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE, AND OTHER POEMS. BY WILLIAM WATSON. (Cameo Series.) London: T. Fisher Unwin.. To the exquisite Cameo Series has been added a volume under the above title. The author is a strong Wordsworthian, and the tributes to his "master" throughout the whole volume show a fine appreciation of what is best in Wordsworth. The poetic quality of the volume is high, and felicitous turns of expression abound. It might have been well had there been less of the political element in the volume, which in some cases suffers detriment poetically on this account. Exception might also be taken to the lines to "John of Brantwood"; but the volume, despite these blemishes, is one of considerable merit. SPENCE'S ANECDOTES. Edited, with Notes, by JOHN UNDERHILL. London: Walter Scott. This is a useful edition of a work that deserves to be better known. Mr. Underhill has done his part well. The introduction is interestingly written. The book is divided into four sections: (1) General Literary Anecdotes; (2) Miscellaneous Anecdotes; (3) Biographical Anecdotes relating to Pope; and (4) Critical Opinions, Table-talk, etc. To all interested in eighteenth-century literature the book is invaluable. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN. THOMAS J. WISE. Parts II. and III. Edited by The second and third parts of this exhaustive bibliography display the same patient research and scrupulous care that the first part exhibited. These parts contain the bibliography of "The King of the Golden River," "Notes on Sheepfolds," Pre-Raphaelitism," "Notes on Academy Pictures," "The Harbours of England," "The Turner Notes and Catalogue,' 'The Elements of Drawing," "The Political Economy of Art," ("A Joy for Ever"), etc. The compiler and editor deserve great praise for the thoroughly satisfactory way in which they are performing a difficult and laborious task. HANDBOOK TO ROBERT BROWNING'S WORKS. BY MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. Fourth Edition. London: George Bell & Sons. This excellent handbook has just reached a fourth edition. It is simply a reprint of the third edition, which was issued in 1887, and therefore needs no detailed notice. Its worth has been acknowledged by all students of Browning. Among the rapidly growing number of students of the poet, this new edition is sure of a wide circulation. STORIES FROM BROWNING. By FRED. M. HOLLAND. With an Introduction by MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. London: George Bell & Sons. This volume, issued several years ago, consists of six stories taken from the dramas and three from the narrative poems. The object of the volume was to secure for Browning a more thorough study, and it was published in the firm conviction that the time would come when the complete recognition of Browning would cease to be a prophecy. The volume may thus be said to have accomplished its purpose; but it has intrinsic merits of its own, and will be read with unflagging interest by those who have not time to read the poems for themselves. Mrs. Sutherland Orr supplies a carefully written critical introduction. Amid the crowd of Browning literature, this volume should not be overlooked, and will be found specially valuable to beginners. Life of GEORGE ELIOT. By OSCAR BROWNING. Scott. London: Walter This little volume, the author tells us, "in its short compass, aims at being both a biography and a criticism." Much has already been written of George Eliot, and Mr. Browning does not claim to have related any unknown facts in her life; but in a few graphic touches he describes her early life at Griff, then at Foleshill, and the struggles, despondency, and successful achievement of her later years. A great part of the book is devoted to a criticism of her works for which the writer shows an admiring appreciation. To the question, "Which of her novels do we rank the highest?" the different verdicts of various classes of readers are given, but in spite of "the high authority that could be quoted for the superiority of 'Middlemarch,' Mr. Browning himself prefers her last novel, "Daniel Deronda," considering it but another step upwards in the career of one whose powers were not declining, but who, if longer life had been granted, might have reached still nobler heights of attainment. Among the "Lives of Great Writers," we welcome this sympathetic account of one who so well deserves a place in their ranks. Received with Thanks :-MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co.--"The Works of Tennyson," and "Demeter and other Poems." Kingsley's "Yeast." Crawford's "Zoroaster," and "Marzio's Crucifix." Cunningham's "The Cæruleans." Murray's "Aunt Rachel." Messrs. RoutleDGE-Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered." "With all my Worldly Goods I thee endow," a novel, by G. Washington Moon. RUSKIN BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Mr. J. P. Smart, jun., 5, Mount View Road, London, W., will be much obliged if any readers of IGDRASIL can give him the exact date on which the following lectures were delivered by Mr. Ruskin :-"The Two Paths," Lecture II., and "The Crown of Wild Olive," Lectures II. and III. Societies. THE RUSKIN READING GUILD, LONDON BRANCH. In connection with the formation of the above branch, Mr. W. G. Collingwood, M.A., will lecture at the London Institution, Finsbury Circus, E.C., on "Ruskin and Reynolds: their Theories of Art." The date of the lecture will be March 21st, 7.30 or 8 p.m., and admission will be by ticket, price 25. and is. Early application for tickets should be made. IGDRASIL. VOL. I. APRIL, 1890. No. 4. TH Ruskiniana. HIS month we continue our Ruskiniana with some letters to geologist. We have to thank some of our readers for contributions to these pages, and again ask all who may be able to do so to forward any material at their disposal to Mr. Marwick. In the case of letters, etc., already printed elsewhere, the reference to the original place of publication should be given.—ED. [From "The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford, as recorded in Letters from her Literary Correspondents." Edited by the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange. In 2 vols. (Hurst & Blackett). 1882. Vol. ii., pp. 108-11, 119, 122.] MY DEAR MISS MITFORD, Keswick, CUMBERLAND, Good Friday, 1853. The pain of deep self-reproach was mixed with the delight which your letter gave me yesterday. Two months back I was each day on the point of writing to you to ask you for your sympathy-the kindest and keenest sympathy that, I think, ever filled the breadth and depth of an unselfish heart. But my purpose was variously stayed, chiefly, as I remember, by the events on the Continent, fraught to me with very deep disappointment, and casting me into a depression and fever of spirit which, joined with some other circumstances nearer home, have, until now that I am resting. . . among these quiet hills, denied me the heart to write cheerfully to those very dear friends to whom I would fain never write sadly. And now your letter comes, with all its sweetness and all its sting. My very dear lady, believe me, I am deeply gratified for your goodness, in a state of wonderment at its continuance to me-cold and unthankful as I have seemed,-and I earnestly hope that in future it may not so frequently have to take the form of forgiveness, nor my sense of it that of remorse. Nor did I shrink more from the silent blame than from the painful news of your letter, though I conjecture that your escape, though narrow, was complete-you say nothing of any hurt received.* I hate ponies and everything four-legged, except an ass colt and an arm-chair. But you are better and the spring is come. . . . I should be very, very happy just now but for these wild storm-clouds bursting on my dear Italy and my fair France, my occupation gone, and all my earthly treasures (except . . . the everlasting Alps) periled [sic] amidst "the tumult of the people," the *Miss Mitford had had a fall from her pony-chaise. VOL. I. ΙΟ "imagining of vain things." Ah, my dear Miss Mitford, see what your favourite " Berangers" and "Gerald Griffins" do! But these are thoughts as selfish as they are narrow. I begin to feel that all the work I have been doing, and all the loves I have been cherishing, are ineffective and frivolous-that these are not times for watching clouds or dreaming over quiet waters, that more serious work is to be done, and that the time for endurance has come rather than for meditation, and for hope rather than for happiness. Happy those whose hope, without this severe and tearful rending away of all the props and stability of earthly enjoyments, has been fixed where the wicked cease from troubling." Mine was not; it was based on "those pillars of the earth" which are "astonished at His reproof." I have, however, passed this week very happily here. We have a good clergyman, Mr. Myers, and I am recovering trust and tranquillity, though I had been wiser to have come to your fair English pastures and flowering meadows, rather than to these moorlands, for they make me feel too painfully the splendour, not to be in any wise resembled or replaced, of those mighty scenes, which I can reach no more-at least for a time. I am thinking, however, of a tour among our English abbeys—a feature which our country possesses of peculiar loveliness. As for our mountains or lakes, it is in vain that they are defended for their finish or their prettiness. The people who admire them after Switzerland do not understand Switzerland-even Wordsworth does not. Our mountains are mere bogs and lumps of spongey moorland, and our lakes are little swampy fishponds. It is curious I can take more pleasure in the chalk downs of Sussex, which pretend to nothing, than in these would-be hills, and I believe I shall have more pleasure in your pretty lowland scenery and richly-painted gardens than in all the pseudo sublime of the barren Highlands except Killiecrankie. I went and knelt beside the stone that marks the spot of Claver's [sic] death-wound, and prayed for more such spirits-we need them now. Ever, my dear Miss Mitford, believe me, [Vol. ii., p. 119.] SATURDAY EVENING, April 22, 1854. DEAR MISS MITFORD, I have just finished "Atherton," to my great regret, thinking it one of the sweetest things you have ever written, and receiving from it the same kind of refreshment which I do from lying on the grass in spring. My father and mother, and an old friend and I, were talking it over to-day at dinner, and we were agreed that there was an indescribable character about it, in common with all your works-an indescribable perfume and sweetness, as of lily of the valley and honey, utterly unattainable by any other writer, be it who he or she may. I perhaps feel it the more from having read very little lately, except of old books, hardly any poetry even among them, but much of dry history. I do not mean dull by dry, but dry in the sense of faded leaves, the scent and taste of it being as of frankincense instead of the fresh honey. I am sure that your writings will remain the type of this peculiar character of thought. They have the playfulness and purity of "The Vicar of Wakefield," without the naughtiness of its occasional wit, or the dust of |