Mr. Henry James, in "The Death of the Lion," shows his usual elegance of style, and a kind of humour which, though light enough on the surface, has its profound pathos. It is absolutely essential, in a short story, to be able to characterise people and things in a very few words. Mr. James has this talent, as for example in his description of the ducal seat at Bigwood: "very grand and frigid, all marble and precedence." We know Bigwood, after that, as if we had been there and have no desire to go. So of the Princess: "She has been told everything in the world and has never perceived anything, and the _echoes of her education_," etc., p. 42. The moral of the story is the vanity and shallowness of the world's professed admiration for men of letters, and the evil, to them, or going out of their way to suck the sugar-plums of praise. The next story, "Irremediable," shows the consequences of marrying a vulgar and ignorant girl in the hope of improving her, the difficulty being that she declines to be improved. The situation is powerfully described, especially the last scene in the repulsive, disorderly little home. The most effective touch reveals Willoughby's constant vexation because his vulgar wife "never did any one mortal thing efficiently or well," just the opposite of the constant pleasure that clever active women give us by their neat and rapid skill. "The Dedication," by Mr. Fred Simpson, is a dramatic representation of the conflict between ambition and love--not that the love on the man's side is very earnest, or the conflict in his mind very painful, as ambition wins the day only too easily when Lucy is thrown over. "The Fool's Hour," by Mr. Hobbes and Mr. George Moore, is a slight little drama founded on the idea that youth must amuse itself in its own way, and cannot be always tied to its mamma's apron-strings. It is rather French than English in the assumption that youth must of necessity resort to theatres and actresses. Of the two sketches by Mr. Harland, that on white mice is clever as a supposed reminiscence of early boyhood, but rather long for its subject, the other, "A Broken Looking-Glass," is a powerful little picture of the dismal end of an old bachelor who confesses to himself that his life has been a failure, equally on the sides of ambition and enjoyment. One of my friends tells me that it is impossible for a bachelor to be happy, yet he may invest money in the Funds! In Mr. Crackanthorpe's "Modern Melodrama," he describes for us the first sensations of a girl when she sees death in the near future. It is pathetic, tragical, life-like in language, with the defects of character and style that belong to a close representation of nature. "A Lost Masterpiece," by George Egerton, is not so interesting as the author's "Keynotes," though it shows the same qualities of style. The subject is too unfruitful, merely a literary disappointment, because a bright idea has been chased away. "A Sentimental Cellar," by Mr. George