demands for extra compensation when his contracts proved unprofitable, though it was customary with him to make good the losses of his sub-contractors.  He amassed a colossal fortune, not through excessive gains, but by a small profit—­“as nearly as possible three per cent.”—­which accrued to him from all his enterprises taken as a whole, and the accumulations consequent on an inexpensive mode of life.

The railways constructed by Mr. Brassey, generally in partnership with some other contractor, between the years 1834 and 1870, comprised between six and seven thousand miles in all parts of the globe, including Australia and in almost every civilized country except Russia and the United States.  “There were periods in his career during which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons, upon works requiring L 17,000,000 of capital for their completion.”  Yet a large part of his time and of the time of his agents was spent in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully.  It was necessary at times to transport materials, a large staff of employes and an army of laborers from one country to another.  In some cases works were prosecuted in regions occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in others under all the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial revulsion.  In countries where commercial transactions were usually very limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of labor failing through the enticements of superabundant capital or the more dazzling temptations of gold-digging.  It is needless to mention the usual accidents and impediments to which all such undertakings are liable, and which the skill and ingenuity of the modern engineer never fail to overcome; but it is certainly not a little remarkable, when the multiplicity of Mr. Brassey’s contracts is remembered, as well as the early period from which they date, to find that they were invariably completed within the specified time.

Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. (Bric-a-Brac Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) New York:  Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary celebrity, a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb’s, a new impertinence of Sheridan’s, may be not hard to understand, but it is rather hard to defend, any regard being paid to our dignity.  The best stories about that particular line of authors who have possessed bonhomie and become classic for it are long since told.  What remains is the dregs.  Yet the other day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over a new “bit” of Cowper.  It was merely that his barber, being late with the poet’s wig, said, “Twill soon be here, it is upon the road;” and that Cowper had smiled, with a “Very well, William,” or a “Very fair, Thomas.”  The mot, like most of the stories that crop up now, was not