There can scarcely be a sadder story than that of the loss of the Jeannette and the subsequent search for DeLong and his party. No event of recent years has caused more horror in the public mind and led to more urgent expostulation against further Arctic exploration. We believe, however, that as a better knowledge of the aim and value of these undertakings grows on the public, censure will be removed. Certainly a careful reading of Melville’s “In the Lena Delta”[C] produces this result. The book is perhaps more full of horror than most readers imagine, but after reading there can be but one opinion; terrible as it all is, it has been worth the suffering. It is worth while to have died bravely in carrying out orders. The unflinching resolution of those men places them among the heroes of modern history. You can not help feeling that there is a wonderful amount of unusual heroism in the story. The Jeannette expedition has furnished a much needed lesson on the nobility of endurance. The results to our knowledge of these regions have been considerable, the people of Siberia, the Russian exile, the homes and customs of various tribes are more fully explained to us in Melville’s notes than elsewhere; again, no future exploration will be open to equal dangers.

We have never experienced a greater shock in our book reviewing than that which came to us when, on turning from Melville’s description of the Arctic regions, we were told that Paradise had been found[D]—at the North Pole. It will be a long time before the public mind with its present ideas of the Pole will be willing to consent to this conclusion, even if President Warren is able to advance still more skillful arguments than he yet has in proof of his theory. And the arguments are skillful. He has quoted high authority to prove that Eden conditions once existed on every portion of the earth, and first of all at the Pole; he has done his best to remove our prejudices against a night of six months by showing that not more than “four fortnights” is the probable length of the night there; he shows us that palÆontology teaches that life first began at the polar regions, and quotes the mythical lore of Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Buddhist, Greek, and Roman, to support his theory. The hypothesis is certainly entertaining, and this attempt at demonstrating it contains some very probable arguments.

A book bearing the title “Personal Traits of British Authors”[E] is sufficient of itself to win the attention and awaken the interest of all book lovers, but when, on turning its leaves, it is found that these traits have been noted and given to the world by other authors, the desire to know what they are is doubled. What great men think and say about other great men is a matter of interest to all well informed persons. That pardonable, commendable curiosity to know “what about” earth’s gifted ones, that lurks in human hearts, has a sort of double chance to satisfy itself with such an arrangement as this. The persons of whom this book treats are seven in number: Scott, Hogg, Campbell, Chalmers, Wilson, DeQuincey, and Jeffrey. In a tabulated form all the leading events of their lives are given. Several pages are devoted to sketches of each one, all filled with exquisite little pen pictures, drawn by master hands at widely differing periods, and from widely differing scenes in life, giving the greatest contrasts in attitudes, words, and expression. Indeed, one has hard work sometimes to make himself believe they were intended to represent the same person. It would be difficult to find a finer collection of character studies than Mr. Mason has given in this volume.

There is considerable probability in the suggestion which Mr. Lang makes in his “Custom and Myth.”[F] He has attempted to find the key to myths in customs which have prevailed among early tribes, in opposition to those scholars who find their solutions in the names which they claim were once applied to objects, and of which the original meaning has been lost. The essays are made valuable by a great deal of material gathered evidently by much research in the lore of remote tribes, but they are singularly unsatisfactory. The work is loosely done. The solutions are mere suggestions, although such interesting suggestions that one feels loath to give up the search without more work. In some cases the myths presented simply show that similar tales exist in many nations. Until Mr. Lang does more work on this entertaining theory he must not expect a very wide following.

A good work on English cathedrals has for a long time been in demand. The interest in architecture which recent years has developed, the increase in travel and the large scale on which the English people have carried on the restoration of their cathedrals have made such a work necessary. “The Cathedral Churches of England and Wales”[G] quite fills the demand. A book of superior make up, a very handsome parlor book, indeed, it is yet full of information. Thirty-five cathedrals are described, and so fully illustrated as to give very satisfactory ideas of the leading features of each. The articles, written in an encyclopedic style that seems slightly out of place in the company of such illustrations, paper, and letter press, are historic and architectural, concerning themselves very little with poetic associations and fine descriptions. They are, however, all the more useful for that.

Two little books, helpful to all persons and bearing comfort for stricken hearts, and for those weary with the burdens of life, are to be found in “Meditations on Life, Death and Eternity.”[H] They are like friends to whom one would turn for companionship. The books were translated and compiled from the larger work of a distinguished German writer, and were arranged in their present form at the request of Queen Victoria, who prizes them very highly, as the original was a great favorite of the Prince Consort.

That Mr. Barnes fully accomplished what he set out to do when he produced the “Hand-Book of Bible Biography,”[I] a brief examination of the work will satisfy any one. His aim was to produce a book that would be complete as to names, that should contain all the facts, and that should be within the means of all Bible students. Each biography is a story complete in itself, with many illustrations and maps.