DE VALENTINE 292 LANCELOT AND ELAINE 294 LANTENAC AT THE STONE PILLAR G. BRION 296 LEAR (KING) AND THE FOOL GUSTAV SCHAUER 310 LECOUVREUR (ADRIENNE) AS CORNELIA ANTOINE COYPEL 312 LEIGH (SIR AMYAS) C. J. STANILAND 314 LEONORA AND FERDINANDO J. B. DUFFAUD 318 LOHENGRIN (ELSA AND) 336 LOUIS XI M. BAFFIER 342 LOUISE, THE GLEE-MAIDEN ROBERT HERDMAN 344 PREFACE. An American reprint of “_The Reader’s Handbook of allusions, references, plots and stories, by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D., of Trinity Hall, Cambridge_,” has been for several years in the hands of cis-Atlantic students. Too much praise cannot be awarded to the erudition and patient diligence displayed in the compilation of this volume of nearly twelve hundred pages. The breadth of range contemplated by the learned editor is best indicated in his own words: “The object of this _Handbook_ is to supply readers and speakers with a lucid, but very brief account of such names as are used in allusions and references, whether by poets or prose writers;—to furnish those who consult it with the plot of popular dramas, the story of epic poems, and the outline of well-known tales. The number of dramatic plots sketched out is many hundreds. Another striking and interesting feature of the book is the revelation of the source from which dramatists and romancers have derived their stories, and the strange repetitions of historic incidents. It has been borne in mind throughout that it is not enough to state a fact. It must be stated attractively, and the character described must be drawn characteristically if the reader is to appreciate it, and feel an interest in what he reads.” All that Dr. Brewer claims for his book is sustained by examination of it. It is nevertheless true that there is in it a mass of matter comparatively unattractive to the American student and to the general reader. Many of his “allusions” are to localities and neighborhood traditions that, however interesting to English people, seem to us trivial, verbose and inopportune, while he, whose chief object in the purchase of the work is to possess a popular encyclopædia of literature, is rather annoyed than edified by even an erudite author when his “talk is of oxen,” fish, flesh and fowl. Furthermore, the _Handbook_ was prepared so long ago that the popular literature of the last dozen years is unrecorded; writers who now occupy the foremost places in the public eye not being so much as named.