have outgrown his swaddling clothes, must have rounded out his good half-century. This may be one of Bunner’s skits. Even if it were not, there is more than one precedent to follow. Hazlitt, in his delightful chat on the “Reading of Old Books,” begins his essay, “I hate to read new books.” This author has the courage of his convictions; you do not grope in the dark to know why. Here is the reason, and it is easier to assent to it than to deny it. “Contemporary writers may generally be divided into two classes—one’s friends or one’s foes. Of the first we are compelled to think too well, and of the last we are disposed to think too ill, to receive much genuine pleasure from the perusal, or to judge fairly of the merits of either. One candidate for literary fame, who happens to be of our acquaintance writes finely, and like a man of genius; but unfortunately has a foolish fad, which spoils a delicate passage;—another inspires us with the highest respect for his personal talents and character, but does not come quite up to our expectation in print.” All these contradictions and petty details interrupt the calm current of our reflections. These are sound reasons; as if to clinch them he adds, “but the dust, smoke, and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality.” Miss Repplier, an admirer of Hazlitt, and if one may hazard a guess, her master in style, would not go so far. She believes in keeping up with a decent portion of current literature, and “this means perpetual labor and speed,” whereas idleness and leisure are requisite for the true enjoyment of books. To read all the frothings of the press for the sake of being called a contemporary critic were madness. She concurs with another critic that reading is not a duty, and that no man is under any obligation to read what another man wrote. When Miss Repplier stumbles across an unknown volume, picking it up dubiously, and finds in it an hour of placid but genuine enjoyment, although it is a modern book, wanting in sanctifying dust, she will use all her art to make in other hearts a loving welcome for the little stranger. “A By-Way in Fiction” tells in her own way, of a recent book born of Italian soil and sunshine, “The Chevalier of Pensieri Vani.” It is the essayist’s right to read those books, ancient or modern, that are to her taste, and it is a bit of impertinence in any writer to particularly recommend to Miss Repplier a list of books, which she is naturally indisposed to consider with much kindness, thrust upon her as they are, like paregoric or porous plaster. “If there be people who can take their pleasures medicinally, let them read by prescription and grow fat.” Our authoress can do her own quarrying. One of the darts thrown at this charming writer is, that she would have children pore through books at their own sweet, wild will, unoppressed by that modern infliction—foot-notes. That, when a child would meet the word