pect all these fanciful arrangements
were only worn by the gilded youth of a lower class, because I noticed
that the chieftains and _indunas_, or headmen of the villages, never
wore such frivolities. They wore indeed numerous slender rings
of brass or silver wire on their straight, shapely legs, and also
necklaces of lions' or tigers' claws and teeth round their throats,
but these were trophies of the chase as well as personal ornaments.

THE LIFE OF GEORGE TICKNOR.[5]

[Footnote 5: _Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor._ Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co.]

It is a long time since a more interesting biography has been
published than this of Mr. Ticknor. No American book of the same kind
can be compared with it, and very few have appeared in England that
give the reader as varied glimpses of society and as many details in
regard to interesting people as may be found in these two entertaining
volumes. Its fullness in this respect is what makes the charm of the
book. Mr. Ticknor's life was a long one: from his youth he saw a great
deal of the best society both of this country and of Europe, and he
always had the custom of recording the impressions made upon him by
the people he met. Hence this _Life_, which is for the most part
made up of extracts from his letters and journals, is almost an
autobiography, but an autobiography, one might almost say, without a
hero, in which the writer keeps himself in the background and gives
his main attention to other people. The editors have, however, given a
full account of those parts of his life of which his own record is but
brief.

He was born in Boston in 1791. His father, to judge from his letters,
which are full of sensible advice, was a man of more than common
ability, and he very carefully trained his son to put his talents to
their best use. He had no stubborn material for his hands, for even in
his youth Mr. Ticknor showed many of those traits which most clearly
marked him in after life; among others, an intelligent, unimaginative,
but also unmalicious observation of his kind for his relaxation, and
for his work in life warm devotion to the study of letters. How scanty
were the opportunities in this way at that period may be seen from his
difficulties in getting any knowledge of German after his graduation
from Dartmouth College, and when he had just given up his brief
practice of the law. His teacher was an Alsatian, who knew his own
pronunciation was bad; h