as an ornamental possession of the New York _Herald_.
The great traveler's good-nature to Mr. Bennett, as a voluntary
correspondent and coadjutor by brevet with the journal, disarms and
enchants him: beginning with a prejudice, he ends by saying, "I grant he
is not an angel, but he approaches to that being as near as the nature
of a living man will allow." In every trait Stanley shows himself
whole-souled, ignorant of half measures, unscrupulous, cruel on
occasion, driving, positive, and furnished with a sure instinct of
success. The book, from its hasty construction, admits many
inconsistencies, the worst of which is its long tirade against the
Geographical Society, nullified finally by gracious thanks for their
medal; but it has the energetic virtue of a book written while memory
was fresh, and is often truly dramatic and pictorial. It is the
garrulous appendage of a strange and solid achievement, the feather-end
of the arrow, which advertises the hit of the steel.

The Minnesinger of Germany. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

Mr. Kroeger appears to have an antiquarian's thoroughness in his
subject, and he has made it an interesting one to Western readers. But
he has not succeeded in his translations, partly because he does not
respect the usage and associations of the English words he rivets
incompatibly together, and partly because success, even for a more
poetical translator, is impossible in the premises. The authors of the
Minnelay, in their elaborate rhyme-caprice, must have remained
harmonious and lyrical, which is not the case with a version like this:

I look so Esau-like, perdu,
My hair hangs rough and unkempt. Hu!
Gentle Summer, where are you?
Ah, were the world no more so dhu!
Rather than bide in this purlieu,
Longer to stay I'll say, Adieu!
And go as monk to Toberlu.

Or like this, which Mr. Kroeger, without the fear of _Maud's_ author
before his eyes, compares to Tennyson:

Rosy-colored meadows
To shadows we see vanish everywhere,
Wood-birds' warbling dieth,
Sore-trieth them the snow of wintry year.
Woe, woe! what red mouth's glow
Hovers now o'er the valley?
Ah, ah, the hours of woe!
Lovers it doth rally
No more; yet its caress seems cosy.

These studies of intricate rhymes concealed in and terminating the lines
are at least as hard for the reader as for the writer; yet we hope Mr.
Kroeger will not lose