I do not know of any magazine which so truthfully reflects the literary tendency of the age as this extraordinary Philadelphia publication, and I am not surprised to learn, as I have on undisputed authority, that it has a larger circulation than any other journal of its class in this country. It is conducted by that gifted literary exploiter and brilliant romancer, Mr. E. W. Bok, the legitimate successor to Mr. Johnson, and the present crown-prince of American letters. I took the trouble to examine the number which the librarian had removed, and found that it had been pawed perfectly black, while many of its pages were torn and frayed in a way that indicated that they had found a host of eager readers. Here was pawed literature with a vengeance, and so, after leaving the library that afternoon, I purchased a copy of the Christmas number, thrust it under my coat, and skulked home. All that evening until well into the early hours of the new day, I sat with that marvelous literary production before me, eagerly devouring every line of its contents, and honestly admiring the number of high-priced advertisements which met my eye, and the high literary quality of many of them. When I finally pushed the Christmas number away and rose from my table it was with a feeling of enthusiasm tempered with awe for the many-sided genius that controlled and had devised this widely circulated and incomparable journal. I must confess, also, to a feeling of admiration tinged with envy that took possession of my soul as I read the serials to which were affixed the names of some of the most distinguished writers in America. I have spoken in an earlier chapter of the “good bad stuff” produced by my friend the poet, and in which he took such honest pride; and I would like nothing better than to ask him his opinion of the “bad bad stuff” which the acknowledged leaders of our national school of letters had unblushingly contributed, and for which, as I have since learned, they were paid wages that were commensurate with their shame. Now the author who writes a good story is entitled to his just mead of praise, but what shall we say of the author who succeeds in selling for a large sum the serial that he wrote during his sophomore year in college? I say, and I am sure my friend the practical poet will agree with me, that he ought to be the president of an industrial life-insurance company. As for the literary huckster who succeeds in distending the circulation of an almost moribund weekly journal to unheard-of limits by the infusion of this and other equally bad bad stuff, I am at a loss for terms that will do fitting tribute to his ability, and must leave that duty for some more comprehensive reviewer of a future generation who will do full justice to the genius of our great contemporary in an exhaustive treatise on _English Literature from Chaucer to Bok_.