We may mention together three volumes of biography, each highly
instructive in its way. Truth for its Own Sake : the Story of Charles Darwin. By W. Mawer, F.G.S. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)—It strikes us that Mr. Mawer is not quits fair to the old training. Of course, the opportunity for sneering at the classical education was almost irresistible ; but the fact is that the mathe- matical studies of Cambridge did not attract Darwin more than the classical studies of Shrewsbury. Darwin was born a little before his time ; but, happily, only so little that he could be a leader. With the Life in general we have no fault to find, except as regards the language used about the review in the Quarterly. "Vituperative, shallow, insolent, and uneonscientious " are words which do not help forward a good cause.—Among the "Biographies of Great Composers " we have Mendelssohn. By J. Cuthbert Redden. (W. H. Allen and Co.)—The biography compresses much into a small space; but there are very curious facts about quite early performances of Mendelssohn for which room might have been found.—An Ameri- can Hero, by Frances E. Cook (Swan Sonnenschein and Co.), is "the story of William Lloyd Garrison, written for young people." Garrison was born at Newburyport, in Massachusetts. He was by parentage a Nova Scotian. Nothing could have been well harder than his early life, for when he was less than four years old his mother was deserted by her husband. His first employment was to sell firewood. At nine years old he began to learn shoemaking ; at fourteen he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, but broke his indentures, and came back to Newburyport. Then he found his vocation, for he went into the printing office of the local news- paper. Before long an article of his writing, sent anonymously, was accepted. At twenty-one he founded a paper of his own. Thus he was fairly started in the life which he led with unfailing courage till, in his seventy-fourth year, the end came. He had lived to see the work to which he gave all his powers, and for which he suffered so much, fully accomplished, for there was not a slave in the United States.
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