As I am writing for an American audience, it may not be irrelevant to say, before concluding, that while Goldwin Smith is an ardent believer in, and friend of, the American people, he has at the same time but a tepid esteem for the chief part of American literature. He rather decries all but the great humorists, for whom, indeed, his admiration is unbounded. He has a full and generous appreciation for the genius of Poe. But he misses entirely the greatness of Emerson, allows to Lowell no eminence save as a satirist, and is continually asking, privately, that America shall produce a book. As he has not, however, made this exorbitant demand as yet in printer’s ink, and over his sign and seal, perhaps we may be permitted to regard it as no more than a mild British joke. CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS. FREDERICTON, N. B. EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN EDMUND C. STEDMAN IN NEW YORK AND AT “KELP ROCK” New York is an ugly city, with only here and there a picturesque feature. Still the picturesque exists, if it be sought for in remote corners. When about to choose a permanent home, Mr. Stedman did not exile himself to the distance at which alone such advantages are to be obtained. For he may be said to be the typical literary man of his day, in that he is the man of his epoch, of his moment--of the very latest moment. There is that in his personality which gives him the air of constantly pressing the electric button which puts him in relation with the civilized activities of the world. He was born man of the world as well as poet, with a sensitive response to his age and surroundings which has enabled him to touch the life of the day at many divergent points of contact. He owes to an equally rare endowment, to his talent for leading two entirely separate lives, his success in maintaining his social life free from the influences of his career as an active business man. The broker is a separate and distinct person from the writer and poet. The two, it is true, meet as one, on friendly terms, on the street or at the club. But the man of Wall Street is entertained with scant courtesy within the four walls of the poet’s house.