ivilized country except
Russia and the United States. "There were periods in his career during
which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons,
upon works requiring L 17,000,000 of capital for their completion."
Yet a large part of his time and of the time of his agents was
spent in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to
undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully. It was necessary at
times to transport materials, a large staff of employes and an army
of laborers from one country to another. In some cases works were
prosecuted in regions occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in
others under all the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial
revulsion. In countries where commercial transactions were usually
very limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment
of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of labor
failing through the enticements of superabundant capital or the more
dazzling temptations of gold-digging. It is needless to mention the
usual accidents and impediments to which all such undertakings are
liable, and which the skill and ingenuity of the modern engineer never
fail to overcome; but it is certainly not a little remarkable, when
the multiplicity of Mr. Brassey's contracts is remembered, as well
as the early period from which they date, to find that they were
invariably completed within the specified time.

Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. (Bric-a-Brac
Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) New York: Scribner,
Armstrong & Co.

Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary celebrity,
a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb's, a new impertinence
of Sheridan's, may be not hard to understand, but it is rather hard to
defend, any regard being paid to our dignity. The best stories about
that particular line of authors who have possessed _bonhomie_ and
become classic for it are long since told. What remains is the dregs.
Yet the other day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over
a new "bit" of Cowper. It was merely that his barber, being late with
the poet's wig, said, "Twill soon be here, it is upon the road;" and
that Cowper had smiled, with a "Very well, William," or a "Very fair,
Thomas." The _mot_, like most of the stories that crop up now, was not
good; it did not exhibit the author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant
light; it was not even uttered by the poet--h