Professor Knox has spent many years in the East and in his beautifully illustrated work on the manners and customs of that part of the world he has given us a valuable and interesting picture of the awakening of the spirit of progress there. This has been especially noticeable since the Russo-Japanese War; and the rapid increase of our own holdings in the Far East intensifies the profound import of this problem. The author defines sharply the difference between the Eastern and the Western character in the following paragraph: “Man ... seems overpowered by nature in the East, but he attempts to conquer it in the West.” PLANTATION SKETCHES. By Margaret Devereux. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. This collection of delicate sketches of antebellum Southern life gives the experiences of a Southern gentlewoman who loves the old South and who has the power to make others know and love it. The reminiscences possess the blended humor and pathos which characterize the best descriptions of plantation life, and bring clearly before us the scenes of those times. The manner of their telling is finished and most readable, apart from the interest attaching to the incidents narrated. COZY CORNER CONFIDENCES. By Walter Pulitzer. New York: Dodge Publishing Co. Price, 75 cents. Mr. Pulitzer’s sparkling cynicisms are so well-known that readers pick up his work with the certainty of enjoyment. In these little “confidences” we have a varied assortment of neatly-turned maxims, perverted mottoes, and sage, though sarcastic, advice. The publishers have given the text a most inviting cover and the marginal decorations are especially attractive. BOOK TREASURES OF MAECENAS. By John Paul Bocock. New York: The Knickerbocker Press. In the richest of morocco bindings this memorial volume attracts the eye at once. The forty poems are representative specimens of the work of the gifted author, who died recently. A Virginian and a graduate of Washington and Lee University, Mr. Bocock first practiced law, but having from his earliest youth had a passion for the pen, he definitely entered journalism in 1883. His newspaper work covered a wide range but his best-known work shows his love for the classics, which the present little volume also clearly reveals. The little quatrain on “Oblivion” will show the delicate charm of his poesy: Sweet lotos-orbed, velvet-footed maid, That slippest o’er the wrinkled ocean’s brim, Garlanded with blue flowers of distance dim— Is death the passport to thine Isles of Shade? AUGUSTINE THE MAN. By Amélie Rives. (Princess Troubetzkoy). New York: John Lane Company. Price, $1.25.