There occurs just after this, in “Back-Log Studies,” a sentence which has long since found its way to the universal heart, and which is worth citing, as an example of the delicate rhetorical art of under-statement. To construct a climax is within the reach of every one; there is not a Fourth-of-July orator who can not erect for himself a heaven-scaling ladder of that description, climb its successive steps, and then tumble from the top. But to let your climax swell beneath you like a wave of the sea, and then let it subside under you so gently that your hearer shall find himself more stirred by your moderation than by your impulse; this is a triumph of style. Thus our author paints a day of winter storm; for instance, the wild snow-drifts beating against the cottage window, and the boy in the chimney-corner reading about General Burgoyne and the Indian wars. “I should like to know what heroism a boy in an old New England farm-house, rough-nursed by nature, and fed on the traditions of the old wars, did not aspire to—‘John,’ says the mother, ‘you’ll burn your head to a crisp in that heat.’ But John does not hear; he is storming the Plains of Abraham just now. ‘Johnny, dear, bring in a stick of wood.’ How can Johnny bring in wood when he is in that defile with Braddock, and the Indians are popping at him from behind every tree? There is something about a boy that I like, after all.” I defy any one who has a heart for children to resist that last sentence. Considered critically, it is the very triumph of under-statement—of delicious, provoking, perfectly unexpected, moderation. It is a refreshing dash of cool water just as we were beginning to grow heated. Like that, it calls our latent heat to the surface by a kindly reaction; the writer surprises us by claiming so little that we concede everything; we at once compensate by our own enthusiasm for this inexplicable lowering of the demand. Like him! of course we like him—that curly-pated, rosy-cheeked boy, with his story books and his Indians! But if we had been called upon to adore him, it is very doubtful whether we should have liked him at all. And this preference for effects secured by quiet methods—for producing emphasis without the use of italics, and arresting attention without resorting to exclamation points—is the crowning merit of the later style of Mr. Warner. HENRY JAMES, Jr. Mr. Henry James, Jr., inherits from his father a diction so rich and pure, so fluent and copious, so finely shaded, yet capable of such varied service, that it is, in itself, a form of genius. Few men have ever been so brilliantly equipped for literary performance. Carefully trained taste, large acquirements of knowledge, experience of lands and races, and association with the best minds have combined to supply him with all the purely intellectual requisites which an author could desire.—_Bayard Taylor._