mirers. romantic opening to the story. When, deals most skilfully with her many adin less than a year, the young wife is taken away, leaving a tiny daughter, Lord Stair's grief is almost overwhelming, and he leaves Scotland and spends five years in travel. On his return he makes the acquaintance of his daughter, whom he finds a very winsome, but also a very wilful little maiden. Her intellectual power is wonderful-indeed, almost beyond the power of description or belief. Soon after her father's return he relates this incident: "Entering the hall one morning I met the little creature coming from the stairway, dragging an enormous book behind her as though it had been a go-cart. She had put a stout string through the middle of the volume, and with this passed around her waist, was making her way with it toward the library. 66 "Jock,' she said, backing at sight of me, and sitting down upon the great volume, as though it were a footstool, 'did you ever read a book called Old Testament?' "Not so much as I should,' I answered, realizing with a strange jolt of mind, that it was the Bible she was dragging after her. "I got it in the attic,' she said, as she climbed upon my knee, and I thought at first it was a joke-book, and after I thought it was a fairy-book; but as I go on, there seems more to it." She received a man's education, and her friends and advisers were almost exclusively men; the result of this training was shown in her business ability, knowledge of the affairs of the world, and particularly in her skill in legal questions. Yet she was truly a woman, with a woman's instincts, charity and deep love, and Mrs. Lane's wonderful imagination and power of description are shown most strikingly in Nancy's meeting with Robert Burns. Although she is introduced to him under another name, he recognizes her, and they have a "swap o' rhyming ware." "Take your own gait," says Burns, "I'll follow." So Nancy began rhyming, and Burns was ready with his part. We quote a few lines, which will give every Scotchman a desire to read all. Nancy : "At break o' day, one morn in May, While dew lay silverin' all the lea," Burns: "A lassie fair, wi' golden hair, Came laughing up the glen to me." Nancy: "Her face was like the hawthorn bloom, Her eyes twa violets in a mist," Burns: "Her lips were roses of the June, The sweetest lips that e'er were kissed." D. "Dorothea." A Story of the Pure in Heart. By Maarten Maartens. Appleton & Co., New York, 1904. Price, $1.50. The author has woven into this remarkable story a number of strong and original characters, though too often the strength of some of them is used for wicked and unworthy ends. Dorothea is the daughter of an English officer and a Dutch baroness and heiress. Her mother died at her birth, and the girl is brought up in Holland in simple, happy companionship, by her two maiden aunts. The story opens at her twenty-first birthday, and a letter is received from her father, asking that she join him in Paris at once. Up to this time she had been spared all contact with sin and vice of every kind. "Of course she knew, yet never had she come in contact with any form of the reality; nay, nor with any presentation of the subject, outside the hallowed pages of the Bible, in which all things look pure beneath the pure light from on high." The book is mainly taken up with her experiences of European society during the next year or two. She meets different peopleFrench, Italian, German and Englishand through all preserves her steadfast uprightness of character and purity of life and heart. The marries a young German, whose home life and training have been almost ideally happy, and they are very devoted to each other. But he is not faultless, and yields to unexpected temptation, and the sad estrangement between them is prolonged by the intrigue of his brother and sister-in-law. There are some excellent descriptions given, as a carnival and earthquake at Nice, and the excitement of Monte Carlo. The book is well written, and so exceed na This history of the ancient city of Perth, from the invasion of Agricola to the passing of the Reform Bill, covering a period of nearly eighteen centuries, is a gigantic work, which shows great research and painstaking. The history of Perth is practically the history of Scotland, as the events recorded are tional as well as local, and there is no place more historic than this ancient royal city, for it existed long before Edinburgh. This is the first time an exhaustive history of Perth has been attempted, and its success is due to the fact that for forty years Mr. Cowan has lived in the immediate vicinity, and has made a special study of his subject; his book on "The Gowrie Conspiracy" is an authority. The first volume which, of necessity, is largely legendary and traditional, is intensely interesting. Beginning with the founding of Perth by Agricola in the first century, the history of Scotland to the time of the Reformation may be divided into four periods: the Roman period to the year 420, the Pictish until 843, the Norman Conquest in 1066 ends the third period, and the Reformation in 1560 closes the fourth. The land was divided into petty kingdoms until the ninth century, when they were united and formed the kingdom of Scotland. The people north of the river Forth were called Caledonians or Northern Picts, while those south were Britons, or Southern Picts. Up to the seventh century the people were divided with four races-Picts, Scots, Angles and Britons. The Picts were a warlike, unlettered race, and occupied Scotland 200 years before Christ; they were converted to Christianity in the sixth century by Columba, which resulted. in the abolition of the pagan temple of Perth, and the erection on its site of the "House of the Green," which served as headquarters for the golfers. In 843 the Picts and Scots were united under Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the new monarchy. It Scone, situated about two miles from Perth, was the stronghold of the Pictish kings; it grew from a hamlet to be the place of the coronation of kings, the administration of ecclesiastical and civil law and a most historic town. The earliest mention of this city is in 710; from 843 to 1066 there were nineteen kings under one monarchy; the Pictish dynasty became extinct in Malcolm II. Kenneth MacAlpin decreed that the Scottish kings in the future be crowned at Scone, in the chair which he brought from Dunstaffnage, and which he ordered never to be removed from Scone. was understood that no king had a right to reign in Scotland unless he had first, on receiving the royal name, sat on that chair. The most ancient council on record in Scotland was held at the Moothill of Scone in 906. The Moothill or "Mount of Belief," had a flat area 60 by 100 yards at the top, but this seat for the administration of justice must not be confounded with the stone, which was used only at the coronation, and was kept in the Abbey; unfortunately this stone was carried by Edward I with the Scottish crown and sceptor to Westminster Abbey, London, before Robert Bruce, in 1306, was crowned; his coronation therefore took place on the Moothill. The greatest relic of antiquity in Perth is the Church of St. John, and it embodies the ecclesiastical history of the city. For thirteen centuries it has been the center of the religious and social life; it was a Columban and Catholic church before the Reformation, and has been a Reformed and Presbyterian church ever since. It had forty altars, four bells and four communion cups of great value, all of historic interest. The other ancient buildings of Perth, the the castle, "Gilten Arbor," Castle of Kinnoull, Mercat Cross, Parliament House, Gowrie House and the Spy Tower are of great interest. Mr. Cowan's interesting biographical sketches of the ancient families associated with Perth, Scone and vicinity are exceedingly fascinating, such as the families of Ruthven, Murray, Viscounts of Stormouth, Erskine, Crichton, Oliphant, Hay, Kinnoull, Gray, Charteris, and Eviott of Belhousie, and these are adorned with several portraits of their heads. MacBeth of Iverness and King Duncan were grandsons of Malcolm II, between whom there was deadly rivalry. MacBeth murdered the King and ascended the throne, and was in due course crowned at Scone. His nobles eventually got tired of him, and fears for his life made him build a castle at Dunsinane Hill as a place of defense. All the Thanes in the kingdom were required to assist with material for the building. MacDuff, Thane of Fife, quarreled with MacBeth and fled to his castle in Kennoway, in Fife. MacBeth pursued him, but MacDuff was too far ahead to be caught. He ordered his wife to shut the gates of the castle, draw up the drawbridge and refuse to allow the king or his soldiers to enter. The king, when he arrived, demanded of Lady MacDuff to surrender the castle and deliver up her husband. Lady MacDuff, who was a woman of great courage, planted herself on the balcony of the castle and looked haughtily and contemptuously at the king, who was standing before the gate, and said in a loud voice: "Do you see yon white sail upon the sea? Yonder goes MacDuff to the court of England. You will never see him again till he comes back with Prince Malcolm to put you down from the throne and put you to death. You will never put your yoke on the Thane of Fife!" MacBeth made no reply, but returned to his own castle and shut himself in. In the meantime Malcolm and MacDuff returned from England and encamped at Birnam with their forces. MacDuff advised that every man should cut a bow of a tree and carry it in his hand that the enemy might not see how many were coming against them. MacBeth's sentinels, who were stationed on the castle wall, told the king that the wood of Birnam was moving toward Dunsinane. His followers began to leave him, but depending upon his own bravery and with a few devoted friends went out to meet the enemy, and was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with MacDuff. Malcolm Canmore then ascended the throne. He rewarded MacDuff by declaring that his descendant would head the vanguard of the Scottish army in battle, and place the crown on the king's head at the coronation, Mr. Cowan's description of the battle of Dupplin, 1332, fought between the troops of Edward Baliol and the Scottish forces under the Earl of Mar, regent under David II, is very graphic. The Mercer family is recorded as the most. ancient, most noted and influential noted and influential family connected with the city of Perth. The battle of the clans, which took place in 1396, in the presence of Robert III, is well told. The assassination of James I in the Black Friars' Monastery at Perth is one of the outstanding events in Scottish history. The second volume takes up the more recent history of Scotland and is full of valuable information. The numerous illustrations in both volumes add greatly to the interest of the book. Mr. Cowan, the author, has done an immense service to his country, yea, to the whole AngloSaxon race, in giving us this most excellent history of Perth. The large type, fine paper and general appearance make these two volumes very attractive, and a credit to the publishers. "Methods of Industrial Peace." By Prof. Nicholas Paine Gilman. Published April, 1904, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. Price, $1.60. This is a timely book, discussing the burning question of the day, and dedicated to President Roosevelt, doubtless in recognition of his strenuous efforts in suppressing the great Pennsylvania coal strike of 1902. It is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive works of the gigantic question of Capital and Labor. Professor Gilman has ac quired his knowledge of this great problem between the employer and employee, which many have taken in hand to solve, not only from books and government and trade-union reports, but he also appears to have gained a practical understanding of the situation. The book is divided into sixteen chapters, covering 431 pages, and each phase of the question is historically outlined and logically discussed. It deals with the labor question in Great Britain and its colonies, as well as in the United States. |