Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/849

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Minor Notices 839 fitting an author who was at home in many lands and cultivated in many literatures. They throw side-lights on several historical events, and are specially rich in literary gossip and allusion. Mr. Schuyler delighted to go to some out-of-the-way place and there read up at his leisure whatever of interest he could find about it. Thus at Albenga Madame de Genlis is his subject, at Savona he describes the captivity of Pope Pius VII., at San Benedetto he searches for news of some of the mountain lords of Dante's time. His paper on Prince Jem, son of Sultan Mohammed, and conspicuous in Italy as well as in the East at the end of the fifteenth century, contains, perhaps, more historical matter than any of the others. In the main, literary themes predominate. Thus, for instance, one paper is devoted to Landor on Italy, another to George Sand, a third to Dickens in Genoa, a fourth to Shelley with Byron. The story of Mil- ton's Leonora, daughter of the " Siren " AdrianaBasile, introduces us to the court life of the Gonzagas at Mantua, to the papal court under Clement IX., and to Paris in Mazarin's time. Madame de Stael and " Corinne," Desiree, wife of Bernadotte, Samuel Rogers, Hawthorne, Mrs. Browning, and Canova are discussed in other essays. There is an account of Europe and its saints, and of St. Simon of Trent, about whose martyrdom Mr. Schuyler unearths much quaint information. Purely de- scriptive is the essay on Castrocaro, a remote bath not far from Forli ; but even here Mr. Schuyler delves into the chronicles for the medieval history of the place, and he also speaks in passing of Passatore, famous as a bandit during the middle of the nineteenth century, and believed by the peasantry to be the son of Pius IX. and some duchess. Mr. Schuyler's description of the celebration of the University of Bologna in 1888 is vivid and vigorous, and contains a striking picture of Carducci delivering the great address of the festival. Papers on Bologna in the eighteenth century, on Carducci's Dante lectures, on Smollett in search of health, and on Canova, complete the contents of this very interesting volume, no mere summary of which can do justice to its interest. Mr. Schuyler's writing resembles the conversation of a cultivated gentleman, who tells a story, or criticizes a book, or communicates a bit of strange lore, not primarily to instruct but to entertain ; and he succeeds. Essayists of this temper are always rare, particularly at a time when specialism tends to turn out men who are too emphatic to be genial, and too cautious to be enthusiastic. Mr. Schuyler's book ought to be indispensable to any one who travels intelligently in Italy. An excel- lent index puts its miscellaneous information within reach of everybody. W. R. T. Eugene Schuyler; Selected Essays. With a memoir by Evelyn Schuyler Schaeffer (Scribner, 1901, pp. 364). Though this volume scarcely touches on historical themes, it gives us a vivacious and pleasing sketch of the life of one whose well-known works on Peter the Great, Turkestan and American Diplomacy justly entitle him to recognition in this magazine. The Memoir, gracefully written with the affectionate