il Dreeme" and "Edwin Brothertoft" are quite other books than these
we have spoken of. Here Winthrop tried a different vein,--two different
veins, perhaps. Both are stories of suffering and crime, stories of the
world and society. In one it is a woman, in the other a man, who is
wronged. One deals with New York city-life of the very present day; the
other is a story of the Revolutionary War, and of Tories and Patriots.
The popular verdict has declared him successful, even here. "Cecil
Dreeme" has run through no less than fifteen editions.

In this story we are shown New York "society" as doubtless Winthrop knew
it to be. Yet the book has a curious air of the Old-World; it might be a
story of Venice, almost. It tells us of Old-World vices and crimes, and
the fittings and furnishings are of a piece. The localities, indeed, are
sketched so faithfully, that a stranger to the city, coming suddenly, in
his wanderings, upon Chrysalis College Buildings, could not fail to
recognize them at once,--as indeed happened to a country friend of mine
recently, to his great delight. But the men are Americans, bred and
formed--and for the most part spoiled--in Europe; Americans who have
gone to Paris before their time, if it be true, what a witty Bostonian
said, that good Americans go to Paris when they die. With all this, the
book has a strange charm, so that it takes possession of you in spite of
yourself. It is as though it drew away the curtain, for one slight
moment, from the mysteries which "society" decorously hides,--as though
he who drew the curtain stood beside it, pointing with solemn finger and
silent indignation to the baseness of which he gives you a glimpse. Yet
even here the good carries the day, and that in no maudlin way, but
because the true men are the better men.

These, then, are Winthrop's writings,--the literary works of a young man
who died at thirty-two, and who had spent a goodly part of his mature
life in the saddle and the canoe, exploring his own country, and in
foreign travel. As we look at the volumes, we wonder how he found time
for so much; but when we have read, we wonder yet more at the excellence
of all he wrote. In all and through all shines his own noble spirit; and
thus these books of his, whose printed pages he never saw, will keep his
memory green amongst us; for, through them, all who read may know that
there wrote a true gentleman.

Once he wrote,--

"Let me not waste in skirmishes my pow