_Francis Marion Crawford._--“The most versatile and various of modern novelists,” if Mr. Andrew Lang’s opinion is to be accepted, is Mr. F. Marion Crawford. Not only has he been prolific in a high degree, having written over thirty novels, but his scenes and characters have a wide range both in time and in place. He was born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy, in 1854, the son of Thomas Crawford the sculptor (who was of Scotch-Irish parentage) and Louisa Ward Crawford, a sister of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Prepared for college at St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, he entered Harvard, but remained there only a short time. He spent the years 1870-74 mainly at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1874-76 at Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, and 1877-78 at the University of Rome, where he studied Sanskrit. In 1879 he went to India and for two years was connected with the Allahabad _Indian Herald_. Returning to America, he spent two years in New York and Boston, continuing his Sanskrit and Zend studies under Professor Lanman of Harvard. No other American novelist save Mr. James has had so cosmopolitan a training. Relating a story of a Persian jewel merchant’s adventure in India to his uncle, Samuel Ward, he was advised to make a novel of it; the result was the fascinating “Mr. Isaacs” (1882). Soon afterward Mr. Crawford returned to Italy, where, near Sorrento, he has since lived. Mr. Crawford has a gift of rapid composition, sometimes completing a novel in less than a month; but his work as a whole is markedly free from slovenliness or signs of undue haste. His stories can be only briefly described: “Dr. Claudius” (1883), a highly romantic old-fashioned love-story of a learned Heidelberg Ph.D.; “To Leeward” (1883), a clever story of a wife’s infidelity and of Roman society; “A Roman Singer” (1884), the story of an Italian peasant boy who became a great tenor and married a German countess; “An American Politician” (1885), which deals, in the style of Henry James, and with indifferent success, with the corruption in American politics; “Zoroaster” (1885), a strong romance written also in French, and brilliantly treating of the court of King Darius and the prophet Daniel; “A Tale of a Lonely Parish” (1886), a quiet and charming story of English rural life; “Paul Patoff” (1887), “a tale and nothing else,” the scene of which is laid in modern Constantinople; “Marzio’s Crucifix” (1887, written also in French), which is exceptional among his works in that it portrays Italian lower- and middle-class life, and which is considered by many his best work; “Saracinesca” (1887), “Sant’ Ilario” (1889), “Don Orsino” (1892), and “Corleone” (1898), four novels forming a sequence and presenting on a broad canvas a remarkable picture of Roman society in the last third of the nineteenth century; “Greifenstein” (1889), a tragedy of the Black Forest, “a true story,” containing accurate descriptions of German student life; “A Cigarette-Maker’s