The work upon which Dr. Eggleston is engaged (“Life in the Thirteen Colonies”) has already occupied him over six years, and he estimates that it will be nearly six years more ere it is completed. Chapters of it have been appearing from time to time, during its composition, in _The Century_ magazine; and the first completed volume is now in the possession of The Century Co. for early publication. It is distinctively a history of the people in their struggle for empire; recording to the minutest details their public and domestic life and affairs, treating exhaustively of their manners, customs, politics, wars, religion, manufactures, and agriculture, showing in what they failed and in what succeeded. All this is wrought out in a vivid style, and possesses the interest and vigor of a romance. This has been his chief work. Otherwise he has contributed to the periodicals a large number of essays, short stories, etc., and has lately (by way of recreation) prepared a youth’s history of the American settlements, for school use. His working-hours are from eight in the morning till two in the afternoon, during which time he sticks to his desk, where he is to be found every day except Sunday, apparently hopelessly entangled in a thicket of notes and references, in manuscript and in print, which besets him on all sides. But to the worker there, each stack is a trusted tool on which he lays his hand unerringly when it is wanted. He has perfected a system of note-making which reduces the labor of reference to a minimum, while a type-writer performs for him the mechanical part of the work. His afternoons are given to socialities and recreation. His four little grandchildren come in for a large share of his leisure time; and it is a good thing to see them all rolling together on the study floor and making the place ring with their merriment. I have seen in one of the older anthologies a poem entitled “The Helper,” of which I remember these words: “There was a man, a prince among his kind, And he was called the Helper.” These verses, ever since I read them, have had a certain fascination for me. There is that in them suggestive of the flavor of rare old wine. There are helpers and helpers, from some types of which we pray evermore to be delivered. But there are the true, the born helpers, whom those in need of effectual advice and furtherance should as heartily pray to fall into the way of. These last do not always appear duly classified, labeled and shelved, to be taken down in answer to all trivial and promiscuous complaints, since, as has been noted, the true helper always proceeds, not by system, but by instinct, which through practice becomes in him unerring, and sufficient to guide him without stumbling. Such a helper is Edward Eggleston. He is a philanthropist who exists chiefly for the sake of doing good to his fellows, and who grows fat in doing it. It is a destiny from which he can not escape, and would not if he could.