Brander Matthews has been described as "perhaps the last of the gentlemanly school of critics and essayists that distinguished American literature in the last half of the nineteenth century." The description is reasonably accurate, though to it should be added that he was also a writer of drama and fiction. Most assuredly he was a gentleman by birth. Born in New Orleans to Edward and Virginia Brander Matthews, on his father's side he was descended from William Brewster of Plymouth and on his mother's side from a first family of Virginia. The Matthews family did not remain long in New Orleans; but, as the father's business demanded, they resided in various cities in America, traveled abroad, and eventually settled in New York, where Matthews spent much of his boyhood. In 1868, after another sojourn in Europe, he entered Columbia College, graduated three years later, and was admitted to Columbia...